Well put, Carx. The claim that God is outside time is another example of theists making up baseless, meaningless concepts in order to provide themselves with "outs" from impossible logical quandaries.

FYI I deleted a double posting of this thread. 

Define 'time'.

Note time always moves forward by definition if we define the default movement of a timeline as foreword  for instance if you hypothesizing a timeline that is moving in a opposite direction then ours however from the perspective of the other timeline we are moving backwards and they are moving foreword so every timeline is moving forward from its own point of view.

if there are more dimensions of time I hypothesize they are alternative timelines by deducting what happens if we expand a 1D space in a 2D space we get a lot of 1D lines on the Y access. However god is out side of time all time by the definition of the religious I didn’t make  this argument I’m showing
the application of it

I don’t know I’m not a expert nor a scientist I’m deducting some religious hypothesis here. Its like making the ” who created the creator”  argument I’m just playing along with this game.

Hmm and the point is ???

Well I’m not all knowing , however I bet some Christians love to play the god is out side of time card like a synonymy for god can do super magic (I define magic as bending the lows of physic/logic and super magic as completely breaking them and burning down.).

The point is (if you don’t belong to this group the try to understand this  )  if a Christian clams to know that the answer is putting god out side of time he supposed do know the consequences are and every Christian (who quoted this phrase ) supposed do try to redefine or start the discussion by showing his own definitions of being out side of time.

Besides the funny thing is that actually the phrase god is out side of time resolves all god problems by simply leading to the conclusion that such a being can’t exist (well at leas cant interact with us) and all religions are pure phantasis they by explaining every thing assuming the atheists explanations for the god dilemma.

But this is question begging since the argument presupposes the very issue under consideration:

The Paradox of the Cosmological Argument Version 2.0

Now, pertaining to what time is, this is a different matter. According to the Lorentz Matrices, time, strictly speaking, is invariant, it has no direction and there is no reason it should. This is demonstrated by the light-cone experiments, which can be causal-chronological or chronological-causal. Time is not a thing unto itself, being relative to the observer, but absolute space-time is. The concept of time as we understand it is quite simple to begin with. In a 2D Euclidean manifold, with two vectors, the square of the displacement of a body will be equal to the squares of the sum of the vectors. This is Pythagoras' theorom: x^2+y^2=h^2. This can be extended to incorporate a Z axis: x^2+y^2+z^2=h^2.

Minkowski realized that if a 3D body displaced a 3D Euclidean manifold, than (and this fit perfectly into the contradiction Einstein found between Maxwell's equations and the Galilean Transformations), time could be included as being displaced as well, along a 4D manifold called Minkowski space. In this scenario, time simply becomes another unit of measurment, the same of length, width and breadth, which can be displaced. THe equation derived for this simply follows the same rule of transformation: x^2+y^2+z^2+(ict)^2=h^2. This works tidily since c is constant in all frames of reference, although it needs some righting since it is unhelpful to vector something to an imaginary number, i which is formally r(-1), and since squared, becomes: x&2+y^2+z^2-(ct)^2=h^2. In this scenario, time has no direction, although it still has causality (since it is a part of a topological structure instead of an abstraction), that causality, described by the causal manifold, an extensive topic in Relativity, can go, as the experiment demonstrated, both ways. Nonetheless, it is gibberish to speak of causality without the manifold (no values can be inserted into the equations).

For Christians, saying God is outside the causal structure of time would certainly be a death knell since their God is a mind-like entity, ie it has a mind, a mind entails thoughts and thoughts entail subsequence and causal structure and stimulus. We speak of such a being in Anthropomorphic terms, as if it were just a bigger version of us without a body. Barking mad. No causal structure entails nothing can be acted upon nor can the being without causal structure act upon anything else, for such a concept would presuppose the causal structure. (There are many other ways to phrase this argument, such as that the existence of God presupposes the mind being distinct from the body, which presupposes dualism, which presupposes epiphenominalism, which presupposes that mental events are causal dead ends, which means that no being can simply will the universe into being, as Christians would have believe). THis problem is superseded by the bigger problem of that even a dualistic mind (which has been refuted) still entails a causal structure in which and upon which it acts, otherwise it can do and is nothing:

On the Nature of Causal Structure and Its Implications for the Existence of the Theistic God

Then you would be concurring with me that their doctrine is absurd since it explicitly makes such claims. 

Theres a good deal of evidence that it's not.

EDIT: ahh yeah... redundant point since DG posted.. LOL

 I didn't get that far in my physics and math courses. I took topology, and I learned special relativity at college. I also tried to learn general relativity on my own, but only got so far as learning a little beyond tensor calculus. Anyway, if you want (and if you can, seeing as you are busy with your biology essay), tell me more about this topology of spacetime stuff... sounds interesting (maybe in another thread?)!

Er, not quite. Quanization is assigning discrete to classical field functions in order to derive their quantum states. An example is the Electromagnetic field, whose quanta is the individual photon.

Ofcourse, any claim that there was a structure outside of our own would be subject to the razor unless there was evidence. As it happens, I think that such evidence is theoretically possible but doesn't actually exist.

I think the best way to understand transcendence is to look at the people who are using the word and how they are using it. To 'transcend' something usually means to 'rise above' it. Two kids might get caught in a slanging match, each one hurling the insults back but getting angry with each return, when they could 'rise above' it. To do that would be to no longer find the insults relevent or insulting, so all the insults and arguments that used to matter to them is no longer relevent.
I think that this is was people tend to mean by transcendence.
A good example is numbers.
Numbers have sometimes been seen as transcendent entities as their truth doesn't depend on physical facts and conditions, so they transcend the material world in that respect - the material world isn't relevent to them.

Where this could relate to theism is as follows:
My view on religion is that although sometimes it involves claims about the world, it is first a foremost a practice. In early stages of faith the thinking is very simplistic and the claims about the world are taken seriously. However, as the faith grows these claims become less important until they find that their 'relationship' with God transcends all the literal attributes they used to try and give 'him'.

We are so used to mathematical concepts that we can think in terms of them in themselves. Compare this to when we first learnt them - we were perhaps shown physical examples, like a picture of two coconuts to learn what 'two' meant. You could say that once you get to our level of mathematics, we've grasped the abstract concepts well enough to transcend the need for physical examples.
Religion would be a practice/game equivalent to maths. In early stages the practitioner/believer has to relate it to the physical world to make sense it, but as they get used to applying these concepts in practice they gradually get used to taking the concepts as they are, and in doing so they transcend the physical examples that they were based on.

What does this mean? It sounds like you are commiting a moving the goalpost fallacy, unless you want to rework the term"thought" such that it has no relation to what we mean when we speak of it. Not only that, but the theistic God has very much Anthropomorphic thought, that iti, it is described in very much human terms, like a human mind. Theists speak of this virtually intuitively, God hearing prayers and acting upon them with human-like empathy and so on.

But entropy depends on causal structure, that is upon structure, temporality. Entropy is time invariant. Furtheremore thoughts are a result of information entropy, at least at a physical information level, neurobiological constructs are higher-tiered structures which are specific class of computational systems. All such systems will fall under the laws of information entropy.

But that's what I just said. Time is just another displaced dimension in the Relativistic Causal structure. See above. My explanation of the causal-chronological structure still entails the causal nature I described.

But you are relying on confusing and incoherent terms juxtaposed against very vague statements to cover very vague ideas. "Information entropy" has an exact meaning, a meaning you are not applying correctly. "Time-displacement" also has an exact meaning, a meaning I described above. The principle concern is that whatever you are describing is

(a) not thought

and (b) could not be process

and (c) still requires a temporal causal structure. Its nonsense to speak of one without it. You yourself referenced a temporal structure. In fact, you referenced the Relativistic causal structure, which is still a causal structure, and in fact, far from supporting this very vague mind-like idea without causal structure, eviscerates it, because those same mathematics dictate that space and time are two sides of the same coin, and hence such beings existing within their manifold must be phyiscal.

"Information entropy" is not a vague, ad hoc term that can be used to cover for vague, confusing propositions. Information entropy is the entropy associated discrete random variables in an encoded message. All encoding functions have information entropy associated with them. The simplest example of this is the uncertainty associated with a coin toss, which dictates a two-variable outcome system, that can be graphed as a measure of uncertainty hence disorder, like this:

That is to say, the probability associated with any random variable will be a function of the number of variables. This underlies a great deal of systems (including DNA replication, which depends on the correct base-pairing between four nucleotides, in which there are, 4^2 possibilities hence the graph will be a lot sharper (except that DNA replication is not random).

I'm not sure what any of that has to do with some sort of thinking entity without causal structure... 

Understood. But I must defend my thesis and so I shall repudiate objections in the same manner as if I was talking to one.

Clarify. You said outside our spacetime. What does this mean? I presume you are referring to the causal manifold of the observable universe. If this is the case, you are commiting a strawman fallacy. I was pointing out that the theistic Anthropomorphic God had no structure of causality, it does not matter whether this structure exists in our universe or in another. However, what is quite certain as that unless such a being is part of this causal structure, it cannot have causal efficiacy on this universe, and so that would eviscerate a central tenet of theism, that God does have omnimax control over this universe by its causal structure. The theistic God described in this sense is very much anthropomorphic and very much requires a causal structure in which to act.

Then you would be commiting a moving the goalpost fallacy. You have not left any definition in its place. Your attribution is a linguistic negation, an ad hoc. In order to rescue it from an internal contradiction, you’ve rededfined “thought” and “mind” using negation operators, ie it is “not like ours” and “it would not experience thoughts as we understand them”. This is incoherent.

This is gibberish.

Time does not have an arrow. Not only that, but no causal manifold can exist without chrono-causal structure, regardless of how one twists it. Information by nature, in physics, requires entropy, and entropy, by definition, requires the above chrono-causal structure. This is axiomatic. You are trying to twist thermodynamics to allude to meaningless metaphors. But physics does not base itself on metaphors, it bases itself on equations.

Unless we define useless argument as “does not express any coherent propositions”. That would probably be a useless argument.

Of course. At least you see that classical theism cannot sustain itself in this regard.

Such allusions are useless as they add nothing to analytical or empirical knowledge.

In physics, invariance means it is the same in both directions. Electromagnetism is invariant, for example. It is meaningless to speak of “anti-electromagnetism”. Gravity is not invariant. It only has one direction, a force of attraction. Entropy is time invariant since time is invariant, and so entropy can go in both directions, since time can go in both directions. It’s an irrelevant point since entropy a priori presupposes a temporal causal structure.

That’s because I just told you that.

Because order and disorder are probability states that depend on heat flow in systems. Any equation in thermodynamics describing either (a) information and (b) entropy progression or disordering. Information entails something called Shannon entropy, as just described, regarding the transmission of data in any form (across neurons, through wires, whatever). Any concept in entropy mechanics will entail a causal manifold a priori. It is gibberish without it. The mathematical operators employed in this regard are affixed with delta, or “change of”. That is what thermodynamics is, in essence, a set of statistical functions describing  probability states, and such equations only work within the function of progression. No causal structure, no entropy mechanics, no information, no ordered system. The concept of creation of an “ordered system” entails that for S=klogW, or, more informally worded S=Rlog Pb/Pa, then PB will have a lower probability than PA. The most central concept of the second law is that change in entropy is heat flow over absolute temperature (K). Such requires time a priori.

Because information entails that which distinguishes one functional system from another, and such requires time and space a priori. You are speaking in meaningless metaphors to allude to vague and incoherent concepts. Your propositions are useless without mathematics.

But this is meaningless because information processing depends on temporality. Information entropy works upon the same principles of thermodynamics as does every single other equation in this system of physics: The transfer of heat between systems and the influence hence on the probability of ordered and disordered systems. That’s “transferred” in the sense that requires sequentiality of events. Without time, it is utter gibberish to speak of entropy or information, because there is no way for anything whatsoever to occur. The concepts of information presupposes entropy, and such concepts presuppose the existence of matter since they depend on the transfer of heat which is a measure of particle kinetics which requires particles which requires space which requires time. Verstehen sie mich? You are trying to use metaphors and confusing language to express propositions that mean nothing whatsoever.

Hm. But the connection of the math concept the original two coconuts is still there, and could be reduced back down to that level. All that has happened is that we have created a kind of mental shorthand that allows us to do calculations with the number two without actually having to visualize two objects. I would liken this to a computer algorithm that compresses data by representing strings of similar data with one symbol. The data is still there, its just that the computer doesn't have to think about all of it in order to work. Stereotyping would be the communications jargon for it.

These are tricks with the representation of a concept. They do not affect the content of the concept or its fundamental connection to a valid object.

This is my problem with transcendence. There doesn't seem to be a connection to anything, rather it is used as an escape when simpler versions of the concept are ruled out. It's as if you said OK, here's a coconut and here's another coconut and that makes two coconuts. And I said, um, there's actually fourteen coconuts there that you are calling two. And you said look, you are way too focused on the coconuts, don't you see that the twoness of this group of coconuts is a transcendent property? So I'm left trying to figure out how fourteen coconuts can be two coconuts.  

Yeah. I guess you can't get to a gradient without change and a gradient can't appear fully formed. I'll shut up now.

That is because such a point would have nothing to do with my original point. The theistic God is supernatural and has no causal structure to speak of. Once we start discussing causal structures, any causal structures, in this universe or in another, we are discussing something wholly different, and you are changing the parameters of the argument.

This means nothing. In any multidimensional structure, which is any structure, the number of spatial dimensions D can vary, but the number of temporal dimensions T is one and always one, never anything else, nor can one exist without the other.

Incorrect. Deism still entails a supernatural mind hence one without any sort of causally interacting substance under such a definition it would be naturalistic. Any mind that is within a causal structure such that it has thoughts is a natural mind a priori. To say otherwise is to change the parameters of the debate. Theism claims that an entity can have a mind despite existing outside any (not necessarily our) temporal and causal/structural/spatial manifold. This is gibberish.

The second you begin speaking of dimensions you begin to speak of structure and you are hence speaking of naturalism, and so you are changing the paramaters of the debate. The theistic God is supernatural. No structure, substance, or anything.

One cannot apply the concept of “order” to such a thing. Order is a thermodynamics function that measures the ability of any system to extract usable work from thermal flow, or rather (partial)dS/T=S, such that S=kLogW in any system where –dS must be less than T(d)S.

Once those terms are employed it follows a priori we are referring to physical substance and the associated structure, and hence we cannot be speaking of the theistic, supernatuarla God. The concepts are thermodynamics concepts and they directly and logically follow from the existence of said structure. If it cannot be described mathematically, it is not thermodynamics! You are using phrases like “order” “disorder” and “multidimensional landscape”. Your use of the latter is especially vague. This is physics. Speak in equations, or not at all. We live in a multidimensional landscape, with three spatial and one temporal, and so we are beings with structured physical existence and chrono-causal structure provided by said manifold and hence we are able to have coherent thoughts.

It is very debatable that would work. Universes are connected via white holes. It does not appear information cannot be directly transmitted across white holes. It gets destroyed inside. This is paradoxical, admittadly, but it appears to be true.

Not that it matters, because this has nothing to do with our debate. Remember? The theistic claim is that the theistic God is able to be a mind with no causal structure, no manifold of existence, whatsoever, it is not temporal. You are veering into a completely different topic- theoretical physics. My propositions is not theoretical, it is true a priori! The concept of a mind with thoughts presupposes some sort of causal manifold. Without such, it would be no more sensible to speak of coherent thoughts than it would be to speak of electromagnetism without magnetism. Nor can you appeal to the vague allusion to “different sort of mind”. A mind by analytical virtue of definition entails a being which receives stimulus from an external world and so can act upon it based on a mental framework which is determined by sensory input. Such structure a priori requires causal structure, and the theistic God is supposedly existing without any time and space at all, a nothing being in the void, with no body or substance, in which case, in what coherent sense whatsoever is it to speak of it as a defined being with a mind? Such a problem is not merely a glitch, it is insurmountable.

You are now describing information, and information is simply a fiunctional measure, in physics, of states, where information entropy is the uncertainty associated with transmission of messages, and applies more to communications theory, but the point is that, information in physics has a precisely defined relationship to ordered states (that is microstates which are ordered), because order is simply a measure of functional ability to do useful work, where ordered states represent, therefore, conjugate variable differences in pressure, tempreature, entropy and volume (these are the conjugate variables of thermodynamics). Once you even start using the word "information" you are essentially speaking about an exact concept in thermodynamics physics, and so, whatever you are talking about (I honestly have no idea, I need the math.) it is not the theistic, supernatural God. Such thermodynamics functions entail a priori both spatial and temporal dimensions since it is a measure of change which kinda requires time and is a measure of physical systems which requires space. I cannot make this any simpler, but if you wish I can make it a great deal more complicated.

You did no such thing. You redefined time as our temporal structure within our visible universe, in which case you labored under the delusion that if there were a Multiverse, I would not recognize temporal structure within that universe as temporal structure. Temporal structure is temporal structure. Once you say things like “God exists in a different universe” you are suggesting the entity has physical composition, a body, substance, and so you are changing the parameters of the debate and shooting yourself in the foot.

That is false. IN a multiverse, the different universes connected by white holes may have different physical constants. That is what differs them. The six constants which are the most fundamental which determine the others are D the number of spatial dimensions, Lambda, the Vacuum energy, Epsilon, the fusion ratio, N, the field ratio between gravity and electromagnetic field strength, Omega, the critical density and Q, the

These constants, being different in different universes, will affect the laws of physics (in a universe with more spatial dimensions, there would be more exponents in the Inverse field Laws, for example). However, the laws of thermodynamics will always hold in any system, regardless of the physical constants, because they are a logical consequence of any system with any physical matter in it with any number of spatial dimensions D and Time dimensions T (T is not free to vary. Always 1). The laws of thermodynamics will always follow from the existence of physical systems. Without them, physical csystems could not exist. It is gibberish to speak of physical systems without thermodynamics.

Which is useless. No math, no physics, no nothing.

This undoubtedly has something to do with the point that your ideas are

A) Nothing to do with my point about the theistic God

B) Incomprehensible. Seriously. I have no idea what you are talking about. And it is not a training problem, either. I need the math. You are trying to disucss theoretical and information physics. Such ideas are useless in metaphor and prose. No math, no nothing. This discussion has now veered away from the theistic God, but the terms you are using are equally vague and confusing. If you wish to express them, come to me with the math, or don’t come back at all. I will not be able to understand you unless you put it in equations.

EDIT: Lastly, I think I should clarify my use of time invariance for entropy. Time invariance is normally associated with control systems theory. In physics, however, invariance is typically used to mean "the same in both directions", like electromagnetism. Time is invariant, but entropy is unusual because unlike most physical qualities, which would look exactly the same run backwards and forwards, entropy only goes in one direction, from low to high probability states, however, since time can go in both directions, so can entropy, strictly speaking.  

False dichotomy. Furthermore, nothing in modern physics supports the idea that matter and energy were created. Nothing. In fact, conservation is the most established law in physics. The proposition of ex nihilo creation, whether this creation sprung forth from God or from something else, is absurd. 

Incorrect again. The laws of general relativity break down at the Big Bang, but the BB itself was a transition event fro low to high entropy, not a creation event.

As I said, nothing whatsoever supports ex nihilo. The BB does not describe the creation of the universe. You are simply ignorant and projecting this ignorance.

This claim is simply a non sequitur. In any multiverse setting, all universes are described by a causal structure. This is true by virtue of its meaning, for space-time is the construct by which we define the boundaries of a universe, provided, at least in Multiverse theory that they are connected by white holes.

It's true a priori:

(A) God is causal agent (causing the universe)

(B) Cause a priori requires time

(C) A Causal agent cannot exist outside time

QED

Nonsense. Descartes ontological division has long since been split asunder by modern neuroscience. Furtheremore, the concept of the mind existing outside time is incoherent nonsense, since mental events depend on a causal structure being that they are described by temporal sequentiality.

This has since gone out of popularity with philosophers. The concept of the third realm is no longer considered a proper philosophical hypothesis. It is now more accepted that abstracts entail the functional set.

You obviously haven't kept up this, and are simply ignorant.

This claim is nonsense.

(a) Nothing in modern physics supports the conclusion that anything was created! The Big Bang does not describe it

(b) You are shooting yourself in the foot. Mental events entail causal structure. You are appealing to old, naive views that are no longer taken seriously. You are then appealing to

(a) the concept of a mind creating

and (b) the concept of an infinte being

These stand in internal contradiction. By virtue of the meaning of what is under discussion, the concept of an entity with a mind entails by nature an entity, and such that it cannot be described as infinite, for then in no sense would be it be an ontological thing. Finally, your dualistic view, which has been shot to pieces, still entails a causal structure. Even Descartes would admit that! That is why it was commonly defended by epiphenominalism, yet such causal structure explictly dictates that mental events are causal dead ends. If they weren't, there would not be any ontological distinction between the mind and the brain, your absurdity would collapse! But if that were the case, then such an entity could not cause anything.

Need I remind you your argument still entails a contradiction again, for you are still describing a causal agent, which a priori requires time! Your proposition is nonsense. You may as well just admit that your argument is based on the false premise that the universe was created and admit you were too ignorant of physics to know any better.

Then it cannot be a causal agent by definition, or cannot have a mind, since a mind entails thoughts and thoughts entail mental causality and change, which in turn requires temporality. You've refuted yourself. Well done.

You've

(A) postulated an incoherency. The concept of an actual infinite being is meaningless. A being by virtue of its meaning entails an entity, describable as a seperate thing, and so cannot be an actual infinite. It's meaningless being that a seperate thing describes something such that it cannot be an actual infinite, for if it were, any distinction between this actual infinite and the world would be meaningless, and so the suggestion of God being "outside time" would be meaningless, being that such operators indicate God is a "discrete entity" so that it can be spoken of it being seperate from other things. If it were an actual infinite, such a distinction would be no more meaningful than speaking of an infinitely large piece of fruit. 

(B) Contradicted yourself. You've suggested the thing was a mind. THe concept of a mind being an actual infinity does not carry any meaning behind the syntax. You are postulating a vague, ad hoc incoherency.

and

(C) Special pleading.

This is simply a repeat of the same incoherency.

Special pleading does not fix an argument. Nor does using incoherent propositions.