steve_bank
Diabetic retinopathy and poor eyesight. Typos ...
Its sounding like this "B-Theory" is just modern physics.
So where's the controversy?
It is yet another weak attempt to justify or prove Creationism. Like Intelligent Design.
Its sounding like this "B-Theory" is just modern physics.
So where's the controversy?
The universe changes. Time is ticks in a clock used to meare change.
Outside of religion there are a limited number of possibilities.
1. The universe sprang from nothing without a cause.
2. The universe always was and always will be.
Causality is always true or it is not, there are no other options unless you invoke deities and the like. You then have to explain origins of the gods.
So that should be good news to you that you share this with religious people that you all want to insist that the number of possibilities is finite, and as it happens conveniently really small, and that you are all so smart that you and only you can figure out what these are.
So, I'm not sure you're all that much "outside of religion" here.
EB
The universe changes. Time is ticks in a clock used to meare change.
That's a manifestly awful definition of 'time'; unless you assert that time didn't exist until humans invented clocks that ticked.
The universe changes. Time is ticks in a clock used to meare change.
Outside of religion there are a limited number of possibilities.
1. The universe sprang from nothing without a cause.
2. The universe always was and always will be.
Causality is always true or it is not, there are no other options unless you invoke deities and the like. You then have to explain origins of the gods.
So that should be good news to you that you share this with religious people that you all want to insist that the number of possibilities is finite, and as it happens conveniently really small, and that you are all so smart that you and only you can figure out what these are.
So, I'm not sure you're all that much "outside of religion" here.
EB
The claim science is as much faith as religion is another old tactic of the Creationists. Sciennce and Creationism are bioth faith based therefore Creationism is as valid as cosmology and evolution. Hardly.
To quote the late Carver Meade, I do not know if an electron exists, bur I know I can do useful things with the theory'.
That sums it all up for me.
Reality as we are able to measure it quantitatively, not qualirartively, is discrete or quantized. Atoms and particles.
I put forward two basic choices. The universe came from nothing, or the universe always was and will be.
I go with the latter and believe causality must always hold. I base that on the well tested Laws Of Thermodynamics for which to date no exceptions have been found. In the totality of the universe total mass and energy can not change. Only forms change.
As a someone who ascribes to free thinking, if what we call the supernatural or deities can impact our reality, then there is a causal connection. If you see a ghost and it is real then there is a causal relation between your brain and the ghost.
Whether the number of possibilities are finite or infinite becomes a philosophical debate.
There is nothing on which to derive probabilities for the entire universe.
By out of religion I refer to the Abrahamic form of god, who can wink things into existence. Causality not required.
There are no known exceptions to causality.
There are a number of theories in quantum physcs that are misinterpreted.
Math itself is an expression of conservation.
You can not have a demostratable theory that violates causality.
Can you feel a pain in the but before I kick it?
Probabilistic and statiscal events do not violate causality.
If you hit a walnut with a sledge hammer, it will smash 100% of the time.
Its sounding like this "B-Theory" is just modern physics.
So where's the controversy?
Again, no known exceptions to causality.
To us when a radioctive material emits a particle is only predictable statistically. That does not mean without a causal link.
In stsremsmthe top level category is chaotic. In a chaotic system like weather aand climate the variables are such that a ling term prediction beco,es unptredictable. A chaotic system is unpredictable but causal.
Under chotic comes deterministic and probabil;istic.
Calculating the spped of a car is deterministic. Given time and distance velocity is deterministically calculated.
Sit in a restaurant. When somweone enters or leaves can not be dterministically calculated. A probabiity model can be contructed to predict the probabilty of somebody entering the retaurant versus time of day. It is called queing theory. Why a random person enters is not knowable apriori.
The argument in the OP fails
for the same reason as Intelligent Design. ID says humans were designed by an unspecied designer, but in the thinking it is god who itself exists fotrever or somehow came into existence.
If the unmverse has a beginning and a first cause then where did the first cause came from? The Big Bang Theory postualtes a hypothetical initial condition, but not what led to the initial condition.
My understanding is that most, or nearly all, of the people qualified to have an opinion think that some things are uncaused.
Its sounding like this "B-Theory" is just modern physics.
So where's the controversy?
Its sounding like this "B-Theory" is just modern physics.
So where's the controversy?
B time is a modern label (philosopher Richard Gale) for an ancient debate on the nature of God and time. Going back to Augustine and Boethius. It is at the base, a theological and metaphysical argument.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-theory_of_time
Its sounding like this "B-Theory" is just modern physics.
So where's the controversy?
B time is a modern label (philosopher Richard Gale) for an ancient debate on the nature of God and time. Going back to Augustine and Boethius. It is at the base, a theological and metaphysical argument.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-theory_of_time
In my understanding, B Theory is saying that reality is eviternal, always-existing, and the apparent flow of time is only the way it looks to us conscious observers. Each of us is like the laser beam reading the dots on a CD or DVD, or a needle tracing the grooves of a phonograph record. The entire record exists all at once, but we evoke meaning at the human level by traversing it moment by moment.