Is this “A” and “B” common nomenclature? I tend towards “B” myself, but I’ve never heard it called so (‘B’ for Barbour, perhaps?)
And yes, time does not ‘create’ anything. Indeed, there is no such thing as ‘creation’ in modern physics, or modern science for that matter. There is only ‘something’ becoming ‘something else’.
Care to explain what these A and B theories are? I’m a bit lost here.
I’d say it is fairly common nomenclature - for philosophers. I haven’t read Barbour’s book, but I believe he discusses these ideas and he’s a B-Theorist, which are also known as Statists (versus dynamics), I believe.
Physics can be reconciled with either the A or B theory, however, in order to reconcile with A, some new physics needs to be created (IIRC) and most physicists do not accept them. Supposedly William Lane Craig has ‘interpreted’ the theory of relativity to accommodate the A Theory, but I’m not going to spend $140 to figure out if he did.
Um…No, I won’t - it’s hard for me to describe and I feel as though I’m just getting the hang of it, so I think I would only confuse the issue.
Here’s some links though:
Lee Smolin penned a nice article in Physics World about whether the universe is unique and whether time is ‘flowing’ or ‘static’. Unfotunately it requires registration/membeship, so here is a briefer summary.
Barbour’s work explores what the Wheeler-DeWitt equation really means. It is effectively a quantum mechanical desciption of spacetime in which the t variable has no ‘special status’: the universe is merely a four-dimensional object which simply exists. Figure that out!
I wouldn’t bother spending 140 seconds, for free, working out what that guy says if this bollocks is him at his most transparent. See here for a brief response on my part to some of his ‘arguments’.
Same guy and yes, I find a lot of what he says…unsatisfactory…The trouble is, he’s probably the only philosophical contender for the A Theory. At least that I know of, so if you want to read the arguments for the A Theorists, you are going to be reading him…
Well, I’m not sure I understood all that, but thanks for the links.
No problem - I would also recommend reading a few books on it, which is just slightly past the point where I am in my understanding. Real Time II, Time, and you should also check out this blog post by Richard Carrier.
This is what I got on it:
It is more like God transcends time, instead of being time.
There is an all pervasive force within the universe.
We have never ever seen,felt,heard or detected it in anyway directly.
But we KNOW for sure that its there.
We KNOW that the universe wouldn’t exist but for its existence.
We KNOW that nothing can ever happen,change,evolve,live,die without its existence.
I’m talking of course about the laws of physics and other sciences.
But it does sound a hell of a lot like some sort of god doesn’t it?
Well, except for that whole ‘making testable predictions’ thing, of course.
Thanks for the suggestions, but I don’t think I’m continue on in this direction. It looks like it’s headed towards some heavy philosophy, and philosophy has never been my thing.
Exactly like it to me. I say, fuck it, let’s call it god.
But the christians, and other religions, have already claimed god and attributed to their god those attributes mentioned plus a lot more, and made them inseparable. It’s a package. No fair picking out just the easy ones and calling them proof.
No ark, no god.
Gods are things that people worship, pray to, and perhaps make sacrifices to. People behave towards their gods in these ways because they hope it will induce the gods to look upon them (the worshipers) more favorably, and make their lives (or afterlives) better in some way. I do not think that anybody believes that worshiping, praying to, or sacrificing to time or the laws of physics will affect time or those laws in any way whatsoever. There is no point in worshiping** them, so consequently, it is nothing but empty verbiage to call either of them gods.
* Or the Aristotelian Prime Mover, come to that, unless you tack some of the characteristics of the Judaeo-Christian-Muslim god onto it, as some followers of those religions try to do.
** Unless, I suppose, you really, really enjoy worshiping things, even though you know perfectly well you are not going to get anything out of it. Maybe some people are like that, but it is, at most, only a tiny fraction of what motivates actual religions.Is that what a ‘god’ is? I thought god was just all and everything, simultaneously beautiful and terrible in that he just is. But, yeah, we gotta define him to discuss him. Makes it so hard to discuss it at all.
I like the idea of math and science and the beauty of the entire universe and beyond being called ‘god’. It is just such a lovely shorthand for it all.
So does “pup”. And puppies are all warm and fuzzy, unlike the vengeful god. Would god pee all over himself if you rubbed his tummy? 
No, thats a strawman argument,just because certain religions or even individuals say any hypothetical god is like this or that it doesn’t mean that we have to restrict our definition to what, in an infinite universe is a physical possibility.
Its like a bacterium defining an aeroplane and no one else being able to gainsay it.
Personally I believe that the multiverse has existed in one form or other for ever.
That if there is a physical super being its an “IT” not a he or she,that its totally alien in outlook and thinking,is not concerned with the Human race particulary .
Though being presumably omniscient it knows all about us and transcends our concepts of good,evil,love etc.
I’m not saying that as a cold hard fact cast in concrete but its one possibility if a god exists at all.
God is the big bang. That was the state of minimum entropy and the universe has been going downhill ever since. Therefore that was the state of perfection.
It is my opinion that we are looking at time wrong, that time is logarithmic and the big bang took place at time minus infinity.
My very first strawman, I think. I’m not sure how it is, but I’m proud of it anyway.
Peace,
mangeorge