| Subject: Can we just agree that I'm right? |
Author:
Ben
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Date Posted: 06/11/05 7:34pm
In reply to:
Wade A. Tisthammer
's message, "Atemporal timelessness is on mine." on 06/ 9/05 3:16pm
>>I don't think so. We see stuff. We know that stuff
>>can't come from non-stuff, so the only other option is
>>that stuff in some form or other has always been
>>around.
>
>It's not the only other option, and I gave a
>counterexample to prove it.
Well, in your counterexample, you're saying that some "stuff" (in this case, a deity) has always been around. If you don't like the phrase "has always," I understand, but it's difficult to use time-oriented language once we enter this type of conversation.
>>Fine. Then maybe there was some matter that existed
>>"outside time,"
>
>Not plausible, for a number of reasons. One is that
>outside of time there is no change (only being and
>non-being) yet the very nature of matter requires
>change (e.g. electrons orbiting the nucleus). For
>similar reasons, we have to rule out event-causation
>entirely. Why? Agent-causation involves creating
>effects without being determined by prior causes;
>event-causation (almost by definition) doesn't and
>can't do that.
I agree that it's not plausible, but mainly for the reason that I have never seen any evidence for this "existence outside time" except in philosophical arguments. Again, it seems like a convenient way to both explain a philosophical problem and create the logical need for a deity at the same time.
>>Sure, everything has to have a
>>beginning... except God. It's awfully convenient, and
>>since there is no empirical evidence for it
>
>We do have good empirical evidence to think
>that the known physical universe began to exist some
>10 to 20 billion years ago, and we have good
>philosophical reason for thinking that past is finite.
> Given ex nihilo nihil fit, some atemporally
>timeless agency had to create the universe. It's the
>only alternative to an infinite past.
Maybe that's true, but I haven't ruled out an infinite past just because it's beyond my logical understanding of cause-and-effect. The reason I'm willing to think beyond what seems logical in this case is that the subject under discussion is so far into the unknown that there may be many things of which I'm not aware (e.g., the past can be infinite), and I don't want to assume that my current understanding of the universe is comprehensive. Also, scientists working in the quantum universe often find things to be counterintuitive, but still true. I'm not sure that we can logically sort this out.
In my original article, I did try to make a logical argument for it as best I could, but I am aware that logic at some point fails us here.
>>Actually, a universe that cycles through itself in a
>>circle makes more sense to me than some entity
>>existing "outside time." It's at least logical to
>>think of a universe that starts over again and again,
>>each time making a circle back to its original point.
>
>Except that an infinite past is metaphysically
>impossible, so we have to discard that possibility.
I agree that it seems impossible using our current scheme of the universe. But an electron existing in multiple places at the same time violates what we think is possible too. Yet it's true. There may simply be things about the universe that we don't know when we speak on this level.
>>The problem you're having with envisioning infinity is
>>simple: you're thinking of it as a line. Think of it
>>as a circle, and your problem is solved.
>
>Not quite, since we still have the same basic problem
>of an infinite past (e.g. the universe began and ended
>infinite number of times, going through an infinite
>number of iterations, thus traversing an infinite
>number of years etc.) not to mention the problems that
>known physics suggests....
Well, then I have to ask you to please point out the beginning of a circle.
>>To play my own devil's advocate, the most recent
>>research on the expansion of the universe says that
>>the universe will never collapse into itself again...
>>it will continue expanding and getting colder and
>>darker forever... kind of a bleak picture. But
>>anyway, that would seem to violate the idea of a
>>universe that collapses into itself and begins again
>>in a circular fashion.
>
>Well, yes.
I think the point I brought up is the best argument against a circular universe, but it does not make it impossible for it to exist. Just a little more unlikely.
Let's go to the issue you have brought up several times... we need an agent that exists outside of time to create. You define time basically as a progression of events, if I'm not mistaken.
Well, the obvious question is, you have this deity sitting around existing outside of time, which means he/she/it is not experiencing a progression of events. Nevertheless, at some point in that non-time, this deity chose to create. That is an action. That is an event. That involves time. So unless this deity can sit there with no thoughts and no actions and no anything that involves a progression, it is not existing outside time. And since we have a universe that you say this deity created, we have a deity who is not outside time.
Ben
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