(NB: I open to engaging you (or any member) in a formal debate defending my oft-stated theism is not true position.) — 180 Proof

:up:

Alright, let me see if I understand your position (correct me if I’m wrong) : there are many (an infinite number of) universes, each containing all that exists at one moment in time. So Dead Grandma exists in the universes in which she was alive, just not in the current universe, where she is dead. Universes are stacked up like pancakes.

I can kind of get on board with this, it’s a version of the multi-verse idea. A few questions, though : — Real Gone Cat

OK, I'll go with that description. The first thing to come to grips with, is that there is no such thing as "the universe", "our universe", or "my universe". As you'll see from the description, each living being, living at the present, does not occupy a line of division between a past universe and a future universe. A person has one foot in the past and one foot in the future (so to speak), and therefore exists as a bridge between a multitude of universes. This is important, the present, which we know as our lived experience, is not itself a single universe, but it is a conglomeration of universes. In other words, by the terms of your description, my lived experience of the present, is not a single moment in time, but a number of moments, united together as my presence.

How do we access the past? I mean, you claim I have a relationship with Dead Grandma. How? Through memory? Not only is memory faulty, but the memory of a thing is not the thing being remembered. Is it? — Real Gone Cat

I agree, memory is faulty. This is one reason why we apply logic, to confirm our memories, and help to determine which are faulty. Consider memory as the part of you which is in a past universe. We only have true access to past universes which are very close at hand. But at the same time, anticipation and prediction represent a part of us which is in a future universe (or universes), like memories represent a part of us in a past universe (or universes).

Now, you'll see how a person's being at the present occupies a time period in which future universes (anticipations) are becoming past universes (memories), so there is a process which is occurring, which constitutes the lived experience. This process is the manifestation of the relationship between universes. By understanding this relationship between universes, which is actually occurring in our lived present, we can extrapolate and apply this to the distant past, as in memory, and to the distant future, as in prediction, thus extending the range of our understanding into universes within which we are not actually present. Fundamental to this idea is that there are a number of universes (or moments in time) which are present at any given time. This extrapolation process is not without its problems hence our memories and predictions are not infallible.

And where is God in all this? Even if I can access past universes through memory, that would not seem to be possible with God. — Real Gone Cat

I would say that God is needed to substantiate the relationship between universes, providing for an actual truth. We could say that God is the cause of temporal order. Suppose it appears to you like there is an infinite number of moments in time. However, we still want to say that there is a real, determined order: a moment yesterday must be prior to a moment today. Therefore, as time passes in our lived experience we cannot change the order of universes, though through freedom of will we might alter what comes to be, or is and is not, within particular universes (through our presence spanning multiple universes). So the order of universes itself is the fundamentally determined thing which limits our freedom of will. But any order must be based on a principle, higher or lower, prior or posterior, or something like that. So the decision as to what kind of order that order is, is attributed to the will of God.

A somewhat unrelated question : How do you know that an effect is due to an outside cause? That’s a unique skill. — Real Gone Cat

Isn't this just a version of Cartesian skepticism? We have sensations which appear to be caused by an external world, but how do we know that it's really an external world? The knowledge that it really is an external world is not a unique skill, but a fundamental assumption based on an apprehended necessity. It is necessary that we assume an external world so that we avoid deception. That is why I said above, "God is needed to substantiate the relationship between universes". If there is no objective relationship between moments in time, an objective order, then we might put a moment of time from far in the future beside one from far in the past, or establish any random order to moments in time, making absolutely anything possible. But this idea would be self-deception.

Provide one! — Agent Smith

Okay, but this is a process, not banter.. And it gets a little involved.

It begins with the concept 'god'. I should add, obviously. The trouble with metaphysics is basic terms are never clearly defined. Philosophical arguments are apriori arguments, and definitions are everything.

So first, things begin with house cleaning. God has to be divested of its trivial assailable properties. Omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence are mere anthropomorphic extensions. Greatest possible being (Anselm) the same. Rejected here is the Augustinian Platonism, Aquinas arguments and notions of first cause and teleological arguments. In short, we reject bad metaphysics. And really to the point, God is not a metaphysical concept, indeed, metaphysical concepts are really not metaphysical at all, fashioned out the very accessible conditions of their conception. Their "is" no metaphysics, just errant imaginative notions. We can say (remember Thomas Kuhn, the Kantian) science is problematic in the same way, can we not? Hundreds of years hence, will we still be entertaining the same paradigms? Not likely. How about a thousand years? Note how long the Christian ideas have been playing out. Metaphysics is just bad theory, not known to be bad at the time. Before Einstein, light was considered to travel through an ether and space was Euclidean. Bad theories, but not metaphysical because they were grounded in observations and theories about those observations. Is religious metaphysics any different?

You may be inclined to say they are very different, but this is because the metaphysics of science is about empirical matters and these are presented, solidly and mathematically, if you will, before us. But science moves with very different thematic purposes than those of religion.Religion is, essentially, a metaethical enterprise. It is essentially about redemption, addressing suffering and the open endedness of our ethical and valuative lives. Science can never go here, for, as Hume and Wittgenstein and others have made clear, value is not observable.

To be continued pending your approval, etc.

(NB: I'm open to engaging you (or any member) in a formal debate defending my oft-stated theism is not true position. We can arrange this with the Mods on the dedicated subforum – just say when.) — 180 Proof

thank you for that. But I do not hold orthodox views. See, if you have a mind to, the way this is handled in my discussion with Agent Smith. Comment as you please.

The trouble with metaphysics is basic terms are never clearly defined. — Astrophel

And you still follow this statement up with 4 paragraphs. Shouldn't you have called it quits?

So first, things begin with house cleaning. God has to be divested of its trivial assailable properties. Omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence are mere anthropomorphic extensions. Greatest possible being (Anselm) the same. Rejected here is the Augustinian Platonism, Aquinas arguments and notions of first cause and teleological arguments. In short, we reject bad metaphysics. And really to the point, God is not a metaphysical concept, indeed, metaphysical concepts are really not metaphysical at all, fashioned out the very accessible conditions of their conception. Their "is" no metaphysics, just errant imaginative notions. We can say (remember Thomas Kuhn, the Kantian) science is problematic in the same way, can we not? Hundreds of years hence, will we still be entertaining the same paradigms? Not likely. How about a thousand years? Note how long the Christian ideas have been playing out. Metaphysics is just bad theory, not known to be bad at the time. Before Einstein, light was considered to travel through an ether and space was Euclidean. Bad theories, but not metaphysical because they were grounded in observations and theories about those observations. Is religious metaphysics any different? — Astrophel

So all this ($\uparrow$) was just you practising essay writing.

Religion is, essentially, a metaethical enterprise — Astrophel

Ok, I get that, but when people say "God" they usually mean a being, like you and me, only greater, much, much greater!

Ok, I get that, but when people say "God" they usually mean a being, like you and me, only greater, much, much greater! — Agent Smith

But it is an argument with details. Do you think religion is reducible to a metaethical issue? You have to follow the reasoning. This is a beginning. If you don't have the patience for this kind of thing, just say so. If, having read this "essay" all the springs to mind "just practicing essay writing" then we'll just call it a day.

How do I know that I can't comprehend God? — Zebeden

Because "God", the word, hasn't been defined in a consistent and objective way. Many people use the scribble, "God", to point to many different things. When the way one comprehends "God" is dependent primarily upon how and where you were raised, then asking others that were raised differently to comprehend "God" the way you do would be a futile endeavor. You might as well just keep it to yourself or join a group (religion) that comprehends "God" the way you do (preach to the choir).

The first thing to come to grips with, is that there is no such thing as "the universe", "our universe", or "my universe". As you'll see from the description, each living being, living at the present, does not occupy a line of division between a past universe and a future universe. A person has one foot in the past and one foot in the future (so to speak), and therefore exists as a bridge between a multitude of universes. This is important, the present, which we know as our lived experience, is not itself a single universe, but it is a conglomeration of universes.

Forgive me, but I'm not a philosophy major : Is this your idea or someone else's? Is there a source you can cite? I must admit I find it needlessly complicated.

...at the same time, anticipation and prediction represent a part of us which is in a future universe (or universes), like memories represent a part of us in a past universe (or universes).

You acknowledge a distinction between past universes, future universes, and (presumably) the present. So you do recognize time as a dividing line between universes. Like temporal universe-pancakes.

And God as temporal organizer seems like an explanation that has gone looking for a problem. Why do you assume that God, and only God, provides an objective relationship between moments in time? Does something suggest to you that a world absent of God would suddenly go haywire? Water flowing uphill? Cats living with dogs? I think you need to show that God is necessary for temporal order.

And finally, when I asked how do you know that certain effects have an outside cause, I meant, what is it about them that reveals this? (Of course, other than your speculation that God is needed to provide temporal order.) What can you point to about them that will convince skeptics?

I must admit I find it needlessly complicated. — Real Gone Cat

That's the way I find reality, complicated. If you think my description of reality is needlessly complicated then you probably do not share my opinion that reality is complicated.

And God as temporal organizer seems like an explanation that has gone looking for a problem. Why do you assume that God, and only God, provides an objective relationship between moments in time? Does something suggest to you that a world absent of God would suddenly go haywire? Water flowing uphill? Cats living with dogs? I think you need to show that God is necessary for temporal order. — Real Gone Cat

Not that a world without God would suddenly go haywire, but that it wouldn't have any order in the first place. The existence of order implies something which has caused that order, because order means that things have been put into the right place. That's what order is, things being in their correct place, and things do not just get up and go to the right place on their own. So we might conclude that there is a cause of temporal order, no?

And finally, when I asked how do you know that certain effects have an outside cause, I meant, what is it about them that reveals this? (Of course, other than your speculation that God is needed to provide temporal order.) What can you point to about them that will convince skeptics? — Real Gone Cat

I guess I don't understand your question. A cause is distinct from its effect, the two are not the same thing. The cause is temporally prior to the effect. So wouldn't you agree that a cause is "outside" its effect, as distinct from it? If we say that the cause is inside the effect, then it is a part of the effect, as internal to it, an internal part of it, and we no longer have a separation between cause and effect.

If there was a necessary being then the world would be like a shadow to it and would not exist, a Plato admits. But the world exists, so it's necessary.

"All consciousness is propositional in that it transcends in order to reach an object, and it exhausts itself in this same positing."

God is often understood as something human mind can't comprehend. — Zebeden

That's weird to say, when such a claim is clearly an objective statement about God. With such a claim I have, objectively, been relegated to not understanding, which is the extent of my understanding now. How about this: I reject the claim and assert that humans clearly understand gods, as we have been creating them for thousands of years. No one better in the known universe.

Someone may notice, that we can't even say that "God is incomprehensible" because we couldn't say anything about God himself ("can't say anything about things-in-themselves"). But aren't we then admiting that "God is something we can't say anything about". That's still something said if not about God himself then about our conception of God, isn't it? But by saying "X is incomprehensible", "X is something we can't say anything about" etc., I'm already using and/or creating a conception of X and if that's the case, then how I was able to use/create a conception of something I can't understand?

How do I know that I can't comprehend God? — Zebeden

All this talk about ineffability and things in themselves creates a problematic division that leads away from the substantive issue. One has to first deliver the matter from metaphysics, and think of metaphysical themes to be something that something grounded in things before our very eyes, simply ignored. Ask, the question about God, what is it material basis? By material I mean in the world available to experience. Of course, the answer is joy and suffering. these drive our ethics as well as our religion as well as our pragmatic lives...let's face, value-in-the-world is what gives meaning to everything, especially God. We fall in love, get scorched by fire...well, heaven and hell!

But then all of this grand human drama is played out against eternity, and I mean this is our reality: we do not have a foundational generative account of all we experience. It is simply given, the presentation and its depths unseen. Our world IS eternal--what else? finite? Where does finitude begins and infinity end? But this mystery is immanent, not remote and metaphysical.

Our finitude is the illusion, if such a concept has meaning here, for no event can ever be divided from eternity, no imagined possibility can conceive of this. It is an apodictic truth. Talking about Kant's noumena? Where can noumena possibly have its epistemic prohibitive border laid? Does the concept at all allow for that-which-is-not-noumena? Ask, what is the thing in itself? and I add: what is the appearance/representation in itself? Noumena follows ontologies everywhere.

This means out affairs ARE eternal. The implications of this are what God is all about.

... things do not just get up and go to the right place on their own. So we might conclude that there is a cause of temporal order, no?

Not sure why you think this true. Again, it seems like theology. And you realize that its impossible to refute because its untestable, yes?

I might add this though. Of course the universe appears ordered to us. Because we are in this universe, we believe it to have order. Humans see order because our evolution occurred in this universe. We evolved to survive and understand this universe. If we came from somewhere else, then this universe might not appear ordered.

The cause is temporally prior to the effect. So wouldn't you agree that a cause is "outside" its effect, as distinct from it?

Of course a cause is outside its effect. The question was : How do you know the cause came from outside the universe? Your initial response was that causes and effects do not share the same universe. Which was why I suggested you see temporally separate universe-pancakes. (I happen to disagree, by the way.) By your view, every cause is outside the universe that contains its effect. But since causes were once effects themselves, they must have been inside some earlier universe.

The suggestion that God must be outside because God is the creator implies that God is outside all universes - the universe of the cause and the universe of the effect. That's the nut you must crack.

I might add this though. Of course the universe appears ordered to us. Because we are in this universe, we believe it to have order. Humans see order because our evolution occurred in this universe. We evolved to survive and understand this universe. If we came from somewhere else, then this universe might not appear ordered. — Real Gone Cat

You've lost track of the premise. There is a succession of universes, one every moment, stacked like pancakes. The "order" is the relation between these universes, not within "the universe". Each one of us human beings has a being which spans a number of universes. It is necessary that there is order between the universes or else none of us could have a being. The "order" is not simply an appearance of order, it is necessarily the case, because without that order we could not exist.

If you really believe that an order could come into existence without being created, I'd like to hear your explanation. You'd have to start with a description of what a pure, absolute, lack of order would be like, then explain how an order could spontaneously occur.

The suggestion that God must be outside because God is the creator implies that God is outside all universes - the universe of the cause and the universe of the effect. That's the nut you must crack. — Real Gone Cat

Yes, I don't see why you think that this is a problem. God is necessarily outside all the universes, as that which puts them in order. Where's the problem? Each cause is in a universe outside the universe of its effect, being at a different moment in time. But something must validate the relationship between cause and effect, i.e. the relation between one universe and another. That's God, like the hand that deals the cards, puts one universe after the other. How is this a problem?

I disagree with the premise that there is a succession of universes, one every moment, stacked like pancakes. This leads to Zeno's Paradox of the Arrow. The only way out is to make the boundaries between adjacent universes vanishingly small - which essentially collapses the distinct universes into one temporally continuous universe.

To me the universe is everything that has ever existed, from the Big Bang to the Big Fade-Out. All causes and all effects exist in one universe. To continue our pancake analogy, you see infinite universes stacked like pancakes, I see one universe consisting of the entire stack.

It all comes down to our conception of time - you see time linking the multiple universes in a particular order, I see time as a component of the one universe.

If you really believe that an order could come into existence without being created, I'd like to hear your explanation. You'd have to start with a description of what a pure, absolute, lack of order would be like, then explain how an order could spontaneously occur.

First, I repeat that "order" is a human interpretation of the universe. Second, assuming order to exist, why do I have to start with absolute lack of order? If cause-and-effect is true of the universe then it provides a mechanism for instances to follow one after another. There is no need to insert God.

In fact, requiring God to provide temporal order seems to me to endanger free will. If God is directing the action, then what is my role?

To me the universe is everything that has ever existed, from the Big Bang to the Big Fade-Out. — Real Gone Cat

You should have said this right away, when I said things in the past are not in the universe. That would have saved some time, and unnecessary back and forth.

How do you differentiate between future and past then? Surely you'll agree with me that the past is radically different from the future. What has already happened cannot be undone, but when looking toward the future, we can act to cause things which we like, and also prevent things we do not like. If all future and past are together as one big universe, how do you account for this substantial difference between things of the past and things of the future?

It all comes down to our conception of time - you see time linking the multiple universes in a particular order, I see time as a component of the one universe. — Real Gone Cat

I don't see how there could be time, if all future and past are one universe. Time is that changing boundary between future and past. If all is one, then there is no such boundary and no time.

If cause-and-effect is true of the universe then it provides a mechanism for instances to follow one after another. There is no need to insert God. — Real Gone Cat

Mechanisms, machines, are artificial. They are created. There is no sense to the idea of an uncreated mechanism.

In fact, requiring God to provide temporal order seems to me to endanger free will. If God is directing the action, then what is my role? — Real Gone Cat

Well I explained this. God just orders the universes themselves, which one comes after the last, that is the necessity of time. But God does not necessitate everything which will be within any particular universe. And since your existence spans a number of universes, you can act as a cause in one universe to get what you want in a later universe. But now you reject the multiple universe scenario anyway so that was rather pointless.

You should have said this right away, when I said things in the past are not in the universe. — Metaphysician Undercover

You're correct. I apologize. I should have been upfront from the beginning.

How do you differentiate between future and past then? Surely you'll agree with me that the past is radically different from the future. What has already happened cannot be undone... — Metaphysician Undercover

Same as you do. Given your view, how do you avoid Zeno's Paradox of the Arrow? Even if instances butt up against each other, they are still disjoint.

And, also by your view, what holds an instance together? If smacking a pool ball creates a new universe what happens to the dart that has been thrown on the opposite end of the bar? We don't experience instances as separate universes, so (trying not to offend) it seems like speculation.

We've gotten far from my original question though. Let me try it this way : Presumably there are effects that are generated by mundane causes (the hot pan burns my hand). But the premise was that there are effects that are caused by God. How can we tell the difference? Is there something about the effect that gives it away?

Would you say claiming that past and future do not exists is related to the parts of an object not existing on their own? I say that parts and past and future exist as one

Given your view, how do you avoid Zeno's Paradox of the Arrow? Even if instances butt up against each other, they are still disjoint. — Real Gone Cat

As far as I know, no one has demonstrated an acceptable resolution to the arrow paradox. What it demonstrates is that a moment in time is incoherent in relation to the way that we understand the motion of an object as continuous. So we might just say that there is no such thing as a moment in time, and keep on claiming that motion is continuous. But that would render the measurement of a period of time as impossible, a measured period requiring a start and end moment. So as much as people might say there is no such thing as a moment in time, they act as if there is, by measuring time periods. What quantum mechanics seems to indicate is that the other alternative, that motion of an object is not really continuous, is the true solution. So that's how I avoid the paradox, by saying that the idea that the motion of an object is continuous, is a faulty idea.

And, also by your view, what holds an instance together? If smacking a pool ball creates a new universe what happens to the dart that has been thrown on the opposite end of the bar? — Real Gone Cat

A new universe is created at every moment as time passes, regardless of any pool balls or darts. If you take seriously the nature of free will, you'll come to see that it is necessary that the entire physical universe is created anew at each passing moment. If the will has the power to change anything, at any moment of time, then anything can be annihilated at any moment, so we cannot say that there is anything on the other side of the present (in the future). What will be, at the next moment in time, is created at that moment. This is the only way to account for the reality of free will, because the will must be free to decide at one moment, what will be at the next moment. This means that there cannot be anything there already, at the next moment. Of course then we need something like God to account for the observed continuity from one moment to the next.

We don't experience instances as separate universes, so (trying not to offend) it seems like speculation. — Real Gone Cat

We do not experience things as molecules, atoms, photons, or anything like that either, so that point is really irrelevant.

We've gotten far from my original question though. Let me try it this way : Presumably there are effects that are generated by mundane causes (the hot pan burns my hand). But the premise was that there are effects that are caused by God. How can we tell the difference? Is there something about the effect that gives it away? — Real Gone Cat

What you call "mundane causes" is just a very primitive understanding of temporality, what we might more accurately call a misunderstanding. The real scenario, is much more complicated than "the hot pan burns my hand". Sciences such as biology, chemistry, and physics show show that this is just a primitive description of what is really happening in that situation. Likewise, when you start to get a true understanding of the way that temporality must be, to account for the way that we experience things, you will begin to see that science has a very primitive understanding (misunderstanding) of temporality and causation.

Would you say claiming that past and future do not exists is related to the parts of an object not existing on their own? I say that parts and past and future exist as one — Gregory

Do you mean that if you divide the parts of an object, the object no longer exists, and if you separate past and future, time as the whole no longer exists?

I visualize the y axis as time and the x as space. Motion is a bit of both and they all cover the same territory. The singularity is space, time, and motion as something discrete while it seems to me reality is continuous after the Big Bang

I say that parts and past and future exist as one. — Gregory

Yeah, like one's present-self IS a future-self of one's past-self (re: temporal mereology) ...

I say that parts and past and future exist as one.
— Gregory
Yeah, like one's present-self IS a future-self of one's past-self (re: temporal mereology) ... ↪180 Proof — 180 Proof

Was Albert Einstein a determinist?

God does not play dice. — A. Einstein

IIRC, with respect to physics, yes.

IIRC, with respect to physics, yes. — 180 Proof

Great answer!

I visualize the y axis as time and the x as space. Motion is a bit of both and they all cover the same territory. The singularity is space, time, and motion as something discrete while it seems to me reality is continuous after the Big Bang — Gregory

I believe this is the mistaken simplicity which modern conceptions of space and time have fallen into. This is the result of placing pragmatic convenience as a higher principle than truth.

In reality, space and time cannot be modeled as two facets of the same thing. Space, as we understand it, is a feature of the past, it is not a feature of the future. What the reality of free will demonstrates to us is that there is no determinate spatial existence on that other side of the present (the future). The determinateness which we know as spatial position is produced only at the moment of the present. Evidence of this is manifest in quantum physics. Since one part of time, the past consists of determinate spatial existence, and the other part of time, the future, consists of indeterminate non-spatial existence, time must be modeled as the division between spatial and non-spatial, or two radically different conceptions of "space".

Einstein did not believe in free will either so he was a super determinist

I agree free will is real yet I think time and space act together through motion. In the sense that God is said to know the future, time knows the future and that includes all our choices. You feel, or rather think, that a divine person must be behind the mechanics of the world, but most physicists believe time started at the big bang with motion and everything else.
If it makes sense with regard to physics to speak of causality inbedded in and coming from the singularity, it seems to me to be hand wavy to say divine causality is still needed in the background. The continuous part has to do with reality having a unity of causality and the singularity itself will have its own causality in it as it goes from pointsize to infinite points. The universe is one unified whole (Einstein's block universe)

Please forgive this primitive naif. I have been enjoying our exchange, but now I see that it has been an annoyance to you. Still, I cannot help myself : I feel that I must continue to put my prattle before the public. So please deign to consider this poor bumpkin's thoughts.

As far as I know, no one has demonstrated an acceptable resolution to the arrow paradox. — Metaphysician Undercover

If time is taken as continuous, the Arrow Paradox is resolved. Calculus helps. From the IEP :

The Standard Solution to the Arrow Paradox requires the reasoning to use our contemporary theory of speed from calculus. This theory defines instantaneous motion, that is, motion at an instant, without defining motion during an instant. This new treatment of motion originated with Newton and Leibniz in the sixteenth century, and it employs what is called the “at-at” theory of motion, which says motion is being at different places at different times. Motion isn’t some feature that reveals itself only within a moment. The modern difference between rest and motion, as opposed to the difference in antiquity, has to do with what is happening at nearby moments and—contra Zeno—has nothing to do with what is happening during a moment.

Now a few questions to help me better understand :

1. Is your theory of time-instants-being-distinct-universes widely held in philosophy? Can you cite sources that I might peruse? (Full disclosure : I do know of one somewhat prominent thinker who shares a similar outlook, but I'll hold off until you tell me who you read.)

2. Do you think time is continuous or discrete? I.e., do instants have duration?

3. Are all, some, or no causes do to God? In the burnt hand example, what is the causal chain? Does God play a role?

Looking forward to your insights. I have follow up ideas to questions 2 and 3 based on your answers.

I'd like to add that continous means infinitely divisible while discrete are the points themselves (indivisible). At least that is my definition. I think we should all agree on a definition. Atoms were once considered discrete. Now it seems discreteness is the limit of infinite extension of points

How do I know that I can't comprehend God? — Zebeden

How do you know you can't comprehend? Try to, and see what happens.