NewStenographer said:Forgive me for not reading the first 98 pages of the thread, but the original post merely asks for my opinion, so I shall now give it.
First, I shall summarize my points, because I know that many will be unwilling to read all of this.
1. The understanding of time that we get from physics falsifies the claim that the future is not real.
2. Relativity accurately states that there is no absolute time, just as there is no absolute length, no "origin" in the universe (Notice that I said "in" and not "of." I use the term in the sense of a coordinate system).
3. Quantum mechanics demonstrates that the future can, through the non-locality of spacetime, influence or "clarify" the past.
Note: You should not expect for these claims to conform to the "common sense" you have formed from daily life. They do not, but they are true nonetheless.
To claim that the future is nonexistent is to reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of time. I regret that I missed out on the absolute time discussion, as my remarks are pertinent to that thread as well.
Einstein's special relativity tells us that the speed of light is invariant in all inertial reference frames -- in all "laboratories" or places that are moving with constant velocity with respect to one another. As a result, we discover that many of the things we once thought were invariant. For instance, SR implies the relativity of simultaneity -- two events that take place simultaneously in one reference frame do not necessarily take place simultaneously in a different frame. Allow me to provide a particularly fun example.
Imagine a train traveling in a certain direction at a certain speed. To amplify the effect, let the speed be a significant fraction of c, the speed of light (say, 0.866c). Now, imagine that there is a light bulb precisely in the center of the train. On each end of the train is a set of photoreactive explosives. The light bulb releases a single pulse of light, which travels outward in both (and all other) directions at c. Alice, who is standing on the train, would see the light pulse hit both sets of explosives at the same time, and she would see both ends of the train explode at the same time. You see, to Alice, the train is not moving, because it is not moving relative to her own motion. Bob, however, is standing on the ground near the tracks, and in his reference frame, the train is moving. Therefore, he sees the front of the train "running away" from the light pulse and the back end getting closer to it. Therefore, he would argue that the back end explodes first, because the speed of light is invariant. Because there are no special or correct inertial frames, both people are right. One cannot categorically state that two things separated by space happen at the same moment in time.
I say all of that to say this: time cannot be absolute. The problems that Mr. Enyart and others have with relativity seem to me to stem from his refusal to abandon absolute time. Let's examine time dilation without clocks, to avoid undue confusion. Muons are a kind of subatomic particle with a certain, very short half-life. That is, it does not take very long at all for them to decay into other, more stable particles. In experiments, scientists have measured this half-life when the particle was at rest in the lab frame. They have also measured the half-life when the particle was moving at very high speeds in the lab frame. They found in all cases that the muons "lived" longer when they were going faster. If you still don't believe me, believe this: the GPS system, which can determine your position within a few meters, takes General and Special Relativity into account in the calculations that govern its operation.
This may all seem to be beside the point, but now we have established, I hope, that we cannot speak of such things as absolute time, and thus what I see as the future is the past to some observer. For further and more lucid discussion of this and more exciting relativistic consequences on a technical level, see any entry-level physics text that includes modern topics. For a lay approach, see The Fabric of the Cosmos, The Elegant Universe, or A Brief History of Time, to name a few.
Even more bizarre is what we learn from quantum mechanics. Let's consider what is widely known as the double-slit experiment. Set up an opaque screen in which two small slits have been cut very close together. Shine light (preferably a laser) at the slits, and you will get an interference pattern -- there will be light and dark regions. Cover one of the slits, and the interference pattern goes away and you get a normal distribution of photon impacts on the sensor. Now, turn down the intensity of the laser so that it is only emitting one photon at a time. When you leave both slits open, you still get the interference pattern. That's right, the photon doesn't just go through one slit or the other, there is interference. Now, add a sensor that does not interfere with the path of the photon but does record whether it travels through one or the other. The interference vanishes. Turn off the sensor, and it reappears. Finally, create an experiment in which sometimes the sensor is on and sometimes it is off. Make sure that the sensor decides this after the light has supposedly passed. If the sensor is on, there will be no interference. If it is off, there will be. Scientists expect that this will hold true, even if the "decision" to go through one slit or the other is made many years prior to the action of the sensor.
The preceding is not intended to be an argument; I am reporting results from actual experiments, as described in FotC. What can we infer from these experiments? The future shapes the present and the past.
Finally, there is the simple fact that time is no more than one of the dimensions of the universe, just like length or width. Therefore, time is a part of the universe. I doubt that anyone here would argue that God is bound by location in space. He is omnipresent. Why, then, should we believe that God experiences time in the same way that we do? He is not a physical part of this universe. He created the universe and time with it (however He chose to do so).
As a final note, many (particularly those who don't really believe in God) claim that things like quantum uncertainty (the fact that it is impossible to know certain related quantities with complete accuracy) suggest that determinism is completely fictitious, that even God cannot know with complete certainty what will happen, although he could know the exact probabilities involved. I do not have a satisfactory answer to this challenge, but I believe there is one, and my belief is not unfounded. There are some scientists who are beginning to wonder whether or not quantum mechanics can be made deterministic again through certain esoteric methods.
Is Time Absolute or Relative: Bob Enyart argues it's absolute...
If you think you're qualified and would like to debate Bob on this issue, PM Knight and see about doing so via a one on one. Bob was trying to set up a one on one with someone else but they chickened out. :Zimster: