I am the Zapata of temporal theory

Remember this image, a giant room with nothing in it save for a man holding a beach ball. The room is the void beyond time, man is God, and the beach ball is space-time.

I claim no expertise in the area of temporal theory. I have studied temporal theory, When I first went into doctoral work everyone in the program was talking about a book called Time's Arrow[1], and it;s implications for theory of Time.In a class we discussed time and red Frazier's Time the familiar Stranger [2] that further gave me some grounding in temporal theory, in light of big bang, quantum physicists and so on, But two books does not an expert make I don't claim to be one.But  in an  attempt to be clear I will try and say something coherent about the lattes stage in my attempt to come  to grips with it. People seem to choose the temporal theories that would spell to the kind of world they want to live in, It has been suggested that art and social science  barrow from physical sciences for their major metaphors but I am not so sure it doesn't go the other way around.

The major division in modern temporal theory has come to be known as A theory and B theory of time. Many think it is a division between Newton and Einstein.[3] In  that dichotomy the conventional concept or time based appearances: past, present, and future. Bit there's another way of looking at it, more relative and more localized. In that view time is exoticism all at once, divisions of time are illuisary and relative, This is called the B theory; the notion of two types of temporal theory, A, and B, actually goes back to a philosopher named JME McTarrart.

McTaggart begins his argument by distinguishing two ways in which positions in time can be ordered. First, he says, positions in time can be ordered according to their possession of properties like being two days future, being one day future, being present, being one day past, etc. (These properties are often referred to now as “A properties.”) McTaggart calls the series of times ordered by these properties “the A series.” But he says that positions in time can also be ordered by two-place relations like two days earlier than, one day earlier than, simultaneous with, etc. (These relations are now often called “B relations.”) McTaggart calls the series of times ordered by these relations “the B series.”[4]

Despite the B approach being more concerned with relative aspects it still produces a naturalism that reduces to  deterministic preconceived condition separate from mind and transcendent of our understanding. All relative aspects of time are illusory:

According to B-theorists, B-relations (‘earlier than’ and ‘later than’, see, e.g. Oaklander 2004: 24–25) constitute the reality of time. The B-relations are what distinguish our world from a timeless one. Yet our only awareness of the reality of time comes via our phenomenology of temporal passage. Why is this noteworthy? Our temporal phenomenology is mind-dependent and reflects no feature of reality. Epistemic access to the reality of time is, in fact, simply epistemic access to our own inner phenomenology. It doesn’t reflect the way reality is. Hence, we have no understanding of what ‘B-time’ is.[5]

Tallant names three aspects of mid dependent becoming that relativize time: the sensation that each each moment is now, the passage of each moment into the next the next, and  the inability to perceive past and future.[6] Contemporary do considered these ideas sacrosanct, there's a new revolution underway, The Zapata of temporal theory these days is physicist Lee Smolin. He proposes adoption of a new paradigm that embraces the reactivity of B theory but without eschewing mind-dependent aspects. The new paradigm would regard everything beyond the illusion a black box we don;t talk about it, We assume the flow of time is real. As opposed to B theory as it is that sees flow as illusion.[7] 

Thinkers on the video supporting Smolin are talking as through economists and philosophers and other liberal arts and social sciences thinkers are borrowing from science,.But Smolin's  new paradigm  seems based upon a scientific  realism that assumes the flow of as real because it is perceived as such. This kind of realism, that seems to be the new trend in temporal theory.[8] They are basing this idea not upon some amazing data that physicists have discovered through new technology but based upon philosophical considerations of the insufficiency of the previous paradigm,

I said all that to say this:It's obvious to me that no one really knows how it is. My views are not in line with any of the conventional, they are old fashioned but they have an update but it's in light of the realization that no one knows. I really don't care, the one thing that comes through in all of this is the realization that it's all up for grabs. Smolin is actually trying to just overturn the paradigm on time in order to be more friendly to social concerns and ideology, They are blatantly seeking ideological accommodation and willing to have a revolution in temporal theory to pull it off. No one knows the truth, Temporal theory is not holy it's not sacrosanct. It does not have to be limited to A or B.

My view is along the ones of C.S. Lewis's view but I've realized something about his view that changes the whole conception. Lewis seems to resort to  the timelessness of God's existence to explain answered prayer, So God has time to consider each request because he's doing so from beyond time, That implies a huge contradiction not only because it'[s beyond time there could be no change but also because God would view events in time as physical objects and  he would have to change them, There's no logic or fact to prove the impossibility of this view so if God can keep straight the possible worlds from the actual,  there's nothing to stop it,My only concern is that God is real and what that implies, not how to go around God's reality, as i think Smolin and other;s seek to do.

Lewis uses a analogy of a novelist moving from the time frame of his novel to real world, I had seen this as contradiction until I relied it's a metaphor,I think all that Lewis says about God and time is metaphor.

The way in which my illustration breaks down is this. In it the author gets out of one Time-series (that of the novel) only by going into another Time-series (the real one). But God, I believe, does not live in a Time-series at all. His life is not dribbled out moment by moment like ours: with Him it is, so to speak, still 1920 and already 1960. For His life is Himself. If you picture Time as a straight line along which we have to travel, then you must picture God as the whole page on which the line is drawn. We come to the parts of the line one by one: we have to leave A behind before we get to B, and cannot reach C until we leave B behind. God, from above or outside or all round, contains the whole line, and sees it all.[9] 

For Lewis this does not limit God to being impersonal. The standard conceptualization of A or B might so limit God but believers are into transcending limits. I did not make this up Neither did Lewis, it goes all the way back to St. Augustine. The thing is I don't like using the term "personal" because that has connotations that would not pertain to God  as a personality (personalities have hangups--God cannot have hangups). God is possessed of a level of consciousness such that "he" transcends anything we can imagine.

That's the thing with all of these ideas, They all have to be understood eventually as metaphors. This leads to the last great concept I will part with, I discuss this in the final chapter of the Trace of God. It is not literal nature of an utterance  that enables meaning but metaphor. The play and the "wiggle room" are what allow for meaning,the ability to extrapolate give the proper bit of play and flexibility needed to shift meanings and move from one concept to another. Lewis uses the image of the line on the page,our lives are the line and God is the page. Remember the guy with the beach ball? This is at the top of this post, That is the conventional view of God and time, This is my view, no man  the room is God, The room itself is God, the beach ball is space/time, but the room is God, That means God is not limited to temporal access. Yet this analogy is limited too because a room is impersonal and I think God has will, volition, and knows my name. I'll take up this paradox on Wednesday.

Sources

[1] Michael C. Mackey, Time's Arrow: The Origimn of Thermodynamic Behavior. New York: 
Springer-Verlag New York, 1992, no page indicated.

[2] J.T. Fraser, Time The Familiar Stranger. Cambrodge, Mass.:University of Massachusetts Press; First edition (November 12, 1987)

[3]Brian Greene on The B-Theory of Time,Zehadi Alam

Published on May 3, 2014 film on you tube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1WfFkp4puw&t=675s
(accessed 3/2/18)

[4]  Ned Markosian,  "Time", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2016/entries/time/>.

see also internet cyclopedia of philosophy
https://www.iep.utm.edu/time/#H7

[5]Jonathan Tallant, "What is 'B Time,'?"Analysis, Volume 67, Issue 2, 1 April 2007, Pages 147–156,https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/67.2.147
(3/3/18)

Jstor
https://www.jstor.org/stable/25597792?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

[6] Ibid

[7] "A New Theory of Time - Lee Smolin," Video, You Tube, The RSA (Published on Jul 24, 2013)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Hi4VbERDyI
(accessed 3/3/18)

[8]Shawn Radcliff, "The Flow of Time in a Timeless Universe. Latest Dialogues, stationary webwite, no dateidicated
https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/the-flow-of-time-in-a-timeless-universe/
(accessed 3/3/18)

Here I must enter the caveat that they are using quantum theory and I'm not sure if that means it's B theory or a new third thing. I don't really care.

[9] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, PDF version, no page indicated, section "book IV part 3." from new material in the revised edition by HarperCollins "Beyond Personality" 1980, original copyright 1952.Lewis pic ltd.
https://www.dacc.edu/assets/pdfs/PCM/merechristianitylewis.pdf
(accessed 3/5/18)