(September 10, 2013 at 8:10 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: Nothing could be temporally prior to creation, since time is part of creation. The first cause could only be logically prior to traditional cause-effect relationships.
I would only ask why you speak of creation in such a way as to imply "the creation" rather than "a creation". Are we in any position to rule out the possibility that whatever it is which causes nothing to manifest as everything hasn't done so before? Whether or not there exists a cosmic stick on which anyone has made a notch for each and every big bang, still does not rule out the possibility.
We likewise are in no position to rule out the simultaneous emergence of existence as a natural state of nothing in more than one location at a time. Space within our local/current big bang event is expanding and may well do so infinitely. If other big bang events were to do the same, it may be that there would exist someway to observe it. But it might also be the case that neighboring emergence phenomena some how repulse one another.
Now all that I've said is wild speculation with no evidence to support it. But I would argue that to assume there is nothing going on beyond our powers of observation is likewise an ungrounded assumption. To be honest we should admit our actual epistemic position sucks when it comes to getting the really big picture. Speculation is fun but no one really knows shit about the really big picture. We should celebrate the gradual expansion of the speculation which is supportable by evidence without imagining for a moment that we now know it all. We don't and we never will. Get used to it, fellow puny humans.
