Or we spatialize some great distance when there really isn't any. — PoeticUniverse
Could be. Distance is very malleable in SR for example.
The 'IS' would be the one and only permanent thing, it necessarily being in a continuous transition, and thus never existing as anything particular, even for an instant, as befitting its necessary nature as eternal in that there is thence no point for it to have been designed, leaving it to be not anything in particular, as if it were everything, even. — PoeticUniverse
That's a point that is hard to tie down. It seems we need at least one permanent thing else there would be logically nothing in the universe. Ruling out
more than one permanent thing would be quite a trick, although I think one permanent thing is the natural/likely option - if there is some form of cause effect going on then it leads to a pyramid shape - with a unitary 'IS' at the tip.
The fine tuning argument also appears breaks down: our environment appears fine tuned implies a fine tuner. The fine tuner's environment must be fine tuned, implies another fine tuner. An infinite regress pursues until we get to the 'IS' (first cause) - who cannot have a fine tuned environment because there is nothing to do the fine tuning. Yet the 'IS' is... I hate to have to appeal to the anthropic argument but that seems the only explanation in the end. However, it is remarkable that there is something rather than nothing at all so perhaps that remarkable question
has to have a remarkable answer.
Its transitions are the 'happenings' and they are all temporary. It may be such that we can say that the 'IS', being permanent, cannot be co-substantial with the temporary happenings, but would be more like co-terminal with them. — PoeticUniverse
I guess I'm still torn between the 'timeless' environment being something like growing block universe or being more like eternalism (or maybe something completely different). Focusing on the first option:
Maybe the 'IS' creates something time-like with its first action? So it has existed permanently in a static, timeless state and then another dimension is added to it's universe with its first action? In this model, it seems that there must have been a first, uncaused action - actions/happenings cannot stretch back 'forever' (forgive the tense) - that leads to an impossible infinite regress. Likewise, there must have been a first thought. Both an uncaused first action and uncaused first thought seem like strange ideas but there do not seem to be any alternatives (for a non-eternalist model) - no first though/action leads to no universe.
Returning to eternalist option, it is not the case that there would be a first thought / action - all actions would be in some sense concurrent for the 'IS' - it would exist in the 'eternal now'. It would presumably be the case that all the following hold true simultaneously (in some weird non-temporal sense):
1. The 'IS' is existing on its own
2. The 'IS' is creating the universe
3. The 'IS' is finished creating the universe
Maybe it's like a stack of cards - there is an eternal 'card' that represents [1], then an action is performed that leads to another card [2]. So like an eternal stack (from computing). The first eternal stack frame is [1], an action leads to the addition of another stack frame [2]. The stack would not ever be 'popped' though.
Does this maybe suggest that eternal is not a boolean state? Somethings can be 'more' eternal that others?
How do we square eternalism with the Big Bang - what looks like a creative, dynamic process and all the other creative, seemingly dynamic processes in the universe (evolution for example)? If eternalism holds then
something has to be eternal and it could be argued that the most natural/optimal thing to be eternal is what we have (Big Bang / evolution).
Something must stitch together all continuous transitions to account for the 'IS' as a unitary existent. The 'IS' must somehow remain the same even as it transitions. — PoeticUniverse
But then performing an action (in our experience) changes that which performs the action. Maybe performing an action causes 'IS' to grow rather than change somehow, that might fit better with eternalism. Or maybe it leaves an old version of it behind and change results in a new version.
This condition of the 'IS' would roughly be analogous to a topological space that allows for an infinite number of forms as subject to the limitation that any form must be returnable to some original form. — PoeticUniverse
The 'IS' may well be something very alien to us. I've mentioned non-material - that might be seen as a get out of jail card and also as something of a cop out - its hardly scientific.