(December 6, 2018 at 4:36 am)Gae Bolga Wrote: If a is the cause of b, then in what sense would it be reasonable to imply that b existed prior to a? How could a have caused b in a span of time that b was existent and a was not? If b relies on a, then how could b exist prior to a? How could b have existed in a span of time prior to a if b's existence relies on a?
The argument you're discussing is explicitly temporal. It's okay to insist that something in the future is the cause of some other thing in the past....but lets make sure that we understand that this is what were doing.
First of all, no idea if this is a response to me or not.
Second of all, if it is, then I could argue that causality is not necessarily a fundamental feature of reality. Under some metaphysical views (supportable by modern cosmology), just as a -> b, then b -> a because time objectively may be symmetric.