(November 9, 2013 at 10:30 pm)Jesus is Lord Wrote: "...how things behave under certain conditions" is not the same thing as "how things behaved under a given condition."
...Huh? Those are effectively stating the same thing. o.o
Quote:The kind of science we practice is fundamentally predictive in nature. "how things behave under certain conditions" is predictive generalization. It reflects inherent order in the universe.
A predictive generalization is just that: a generalization, an approximation of what happened, or will happen. It doesn't perfectly encapsulate the goings on, and much of quantum theory would indicate it isn't even possible to do so. Further, you tacitly admit that our 'laws of physics' are just descriptions of what happens. That things behave the way they do is a brute fact in all possible worlds. This would be true, even of God.
But all that is beside the point. I haven't contested that the universe is largely ordered, because that wasn't my criticism of your original post. You're making bare assertions and special pleading. If something that is ordered requires a higher power to imbue it with said order (which was your argument), then God cannot have order because by definition God is the Maximally Excellent Being; there can be no higher power than He.
Quote:You were one of the only people who actually tried to answer my original question - thank you for bringing up your answer again, and I apologize for skimming.
Eh, it's okay. Somtimes the conversations here go south in a way that seems dishonest to me at times.
Quote:How does subscribing to the B-theory allow the universe to exist any more than A-theory? Since you choose an a-temporal stance, the question must be rephrased for you:
"Why is there a universe, rather than nothing?"
Firstly, under the B-theory there can be no account of the origin of existence. In fact, I'm willing to affirm that talking about existence "beginning" is entirely nonsensical. It's not even possible to coherently talk about "nothingness", because you aren't talking about ANYTHING. It can't even be spoken of or referred to in, because it's either a contradictory concept or it resides at a linguistic limit. To paraphrase Wittgenstein: "The limits of my language are the limits of my world." I see no reason to think nothingness makes any sense at all, so it isn't really a question that can be meaningfully asked.
Quote:If we ascribe temporal dimensions to objects as though they were physical dimensions inherent to the object, then your view of the universe would require all things to have infinite temporal dimensions. How would you avoid this? It must be avoided, as all the finite elements of the universe that we can actually study do not have unlimited temporal dimensions.
Er, the B-theory does not ascribe infinite temporal dimensions to anything. Under the B-theory, there are at least 4 dimensions: [at least] 3 spatial dimensions and [at least] 1 temporal dimension. Objects are extended temporally, they don't have infinite temporal dimensions, anymore than they do spatial ones. All that the B-theory says is that objects pervade time as well, so that it can be said that both the past and the future exist as well (in contrast to the A-theory and presentism).