Actual Infinity in Reality?

[GrandizerII]

And in fact, Einstein himself was a B-theorist with regards to time, calling time (or rather, the flow of it) an illusion.

I'm not so sure. Perhaps he was, but relativity/time dilation is not B Theory.

He may not have called himself explicitly a B-theorist, but the things he did say about time clearly indicate that he was. The B-theory of time, by the way, is consistent with relativity and time dilation and such (see the video). It doesn't contradict it, as it doesn't strictly assert that every observer must observe the same moment in time, or anything like that.

From your same article:

According to Einstein, then, time is relative to the observer, and more specifically to the motion of that observer. This is not to say that time is in some way capricious or random in nature – it is still governed by the laws of physics and entirely predictable in its manifestations, it is just not absolute and universal as Newton thought (see the section on Absolute Time), and things are not quite as simple and straightforward as he had believed.

Yes, and? The B-theory of time goes a bit beyond the science, but it is the one philosophy of time that is consistent with modern science (unlike the A-theory of time, with which you would have to come up with heaps of unwarranted assumptions to get it to even remotely account for relativity and such).

Again, see the video that links relativity and time dilation and length contraction to the B-theory of time (and eternalism, which is virtually equivalent to the B-theory of time).

I understand B Theory of Time just fine. I have actually seen the video and read at least a dozen articles on it. My problem with you is that you think that the theory does away with causation. It does not. Even if you believe that all time slices (past, present, future) are equally real, they are all ordered by a causal connections in one direction. Fruit rots in one direction. Baby horses always preceded adult horses. These connections can be drawn with exact precision--that is literally what science does. There is nothing in B Theory that gets around this. You are adding a layer on top and calling it B Theory.

Not adding any layer on top of what is clearly an implication of the B-theory of time. Maybe it's the word "illusion" that puts you off, but if you want "causality" to still be implied by the B-theory of time, you do have to redefine the word to mean something that doesn't indicate the flow of time or actual change or actual motion. Fresh fruit does not cause rotten fruit in the sense that it morphs into it; the "antecedent" fresh fruit is still there and the "consequent" rotten fruit is there as well (just in different time moments). Baby horses do not actually eventually morph into adult horses; the baby horse still exists along with the adult version of it. And the key reason we have this one perceived direction happening in this one particular local universe is because of the increase of entropy from one state of this universe to the next, with entropy being at its lowest in the moment closest to the supposed "Big Bang singularity". But otherwise, as far as the laws of physics themselves are concerned, there is no direction of time. And even then, direction does not mean temporal causation anyway; both "cause" and "effect" simultaneously and eternally exist.

I see one of your problems. You said "causality is an illusion". You will not find that phrase anywhere in an article of B Theory. The typical description is the "flow of time is an illusion".

You can say "illusion" or you can say "derived/emergent", same thing, different words. Let's not get into an argument over semantics. Physicists don't geenrally agree with you that causality is a fundamental part of reality.

That is a metaphysical claim with very thin reasoning. We only know about the laws of physics in our universe. Extrapolating what appears to be a finite universe into a spacetime manifold for all universes ever is a stretch.

Then why are you acting like you know what would happen if there were multiple universes as opposed to just this universe? The view I hold to is nothing more but a logical extension of what is very well-accepted in both scientific and philosophical fields. Rather than denigrate me for having a "bold" view that, AFAIK, isn't contradicted by modern cosmology, why not just stick to challenging my view? After all, you're one to talk, considering your insistence that God exists against all odds.

HOWEVER, that doesn't really answer the question. Regardless of your insistence, there would still be measurable causal connections all the way back through the time slices and you are back up against my point above.

Except they have always been there (under the view I hold to), so no successive addition occurring at all. Successive implies a flow of time. There is no flow of time at all happening, whether in this local universe or beyond.

Not so at all. If the universe had a beginning, the spacetime manifold had an absolute beginning. Has nothing to do with observer position. The fact that all timeslices were created at once does not mean there was a first time slice in the sequence.

It's clear you don't get it. Let's go with the mathematical analogy again. The infinite set of all positive integers has what we may consider to be a "starting number" (namely, the number '1'), but it doesn't mean that '1' causes or leads to '2', that '2' causes or leads to '3', and so on. If they are already there in the set, then they don't need to begin to exist in order to exist.

And the timeslices weren't created. They're there, and that's that.

Your example is a potential infinite set -- not an actual infinite. Two very different things. This distinction is important for this whole discussion.

No, it isn't. The elements have always been in such a set. How many times do you need to be told this?