@grod

The total amount of energy -- a single real number -- does not change per the law of conservation

Well, at least you managed to make a true statement.

(which as I pointed out is completely meaningless in GR, but never mind)

Ha Ha Ha.  Now our resident "mathematical physicist" has GR violating conservation.  Hilarious.

but the *distribution* changes. When two electrons exchange a photon, the energy distribution across the universe has changed and so real change has happened.

Wow, another true statement.  2 in 1 post?  That is quite an improvement for you!

And since real changed happened, an unchanged changer is needed to account for it.

ROTFLMAO
Please cite the peer reviewed publications that support this (wild ass) claim.

If we translate one electron from one end of the galaxy to the other, the total amount of energy does not change

Very good!

but many other things do, including the distribution of charge, the distribution of energy, etc. In other words, the universe is in different states. Which counts as change by every sane person.

How long does it take for an electron to "translate" from "one end of the galaxy to the other"?
How does this "translation" somehow call for a hierarchical first changer acting in the present moment?  WTF?

@Stardusty Psyche:

"Ha Ha Ha.  Now our resident "mathematical physicist" has GR violating conservation. Hilarious."

So the resident chimpanzee grunted once more. What I said is pretty well-known to anyone who has studied GR: talk about conservation of energy is largely meaningless. This is standard textbook stuff, but since the chimpanzee can barely read much less comprehend GR and the required pseudo-Riemmanian differential geometry, here is Sean Carroll in a post titled "Energy is not conserved" (what a coincidence, right) at http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2010/02/22/energy-is-not-conserved/ which says, among other things and I quote:

"The point is pretty simple: back when you thought energy was conserved, there was a reason why you thought that, namely time-translation invariance. A fancy way of saying “the background on which particles and forces evolve, as well as the dynamical rules governing their motions, are fixed, not changing with time.” But in general relativity that’s simply no longer true. Einstein tells us that space and time are dynamical, and in particular that they can evolve with time. When the space through which particles move is changing, the total energy of those particles is not conserved."

The last sentence is emphasized in the original.

And a little bit latter:

"This bothers some people, but it’s nothing newfangled that has been pushed in our face by the idea of dark energy. It’s just as true for “radiation” — particles like photons that move at or near the speed of light. The thing about photons is that they redshift, losing energy as space expands. If we keep track of a certain fixed number of photons, the number stays constant while the energy per photon decreases, so the total energy decreases. A decrease in energy is just as much a “violation of energy conservation” as an increase in energy, but it doesn’t seem to bother people as much. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter how bothersome it is, of course — it’s a crystal-clear prediction of general relativity."

Now I could expand on the point why it is actually meaningless to speak about conservation of energy in the global context of GR, but I will let the chimpanzee choke on his own laughter.

@Agnostic #362

Feser has addressed this objection in his blog many times.

No, Feser never addresses this problem.  He just mentions it, provides either no argument at all or a shallow hackneyed statement, or a strawman argument.

Later folks will claim Feser addressed the problem when in fact he never does because he can't because he is wrong.

Here's a quote taken from his post "science dorks" (as this is only my second post, I wasn't allowed to post the link):

For example, years ago I had an atheist reader who was obsessed with the idea that there is a slight time lag between the motion of the stick that moves the stone, and the motion of the stone itself, as if this had devastating implications for Aquinas’ First Way.

Which is entirely vacuous.  Feser says nothing of substance in that quote or anyplace else.

By allowing for a time lag, and by allowing the the member of a so-called "essential" causal series designated the title of "first" is not really first the First Way is destroyed as an argument for the *necessity* of a hierarchical first mover acting in the present moment to account for motion and more generally change.

The reason is that allowing for time delay and allowing for prior members means every regression analysis of a real material causal series is an "accidental" series, extending back temporally, not hierarchically, extending back into the deep past, perhaps to a past eternal universe.

Feser provides no thorough causal regression analysis.  He will simply talk about a hand-stick-rock, blurt out that this cannot go on to infinity, and declare the First Way is therefore valid.  Feser has no demonstrated capacity to perform a thorough real material causal regression analysis.

 

@Calhoun #340

Does asserting your claims over and over again ... give you some sense that your arguments are sound?

Yes.

Because I repeatedly present much the same arguments but using various wordings.  In every case I am met with no sound counter arguments.  The insults and the disjointed replies indicate that sound responses to my arguments are not available from any author, or else they would have been cited, copied, and posted here by now.

Once again for the record You simply repeat yourself. Everything wrong with above has explained in details to you ,

No, not by you, Feser, or anybody on this blog.  Not at all.  The only words coming from you lot are insults and a few disjointed mentions of a couple of the terms.

Nobody has used orderly, rational, thorough counter arguments on the merits.  It's  all smoke by you all.
 

Miguel #356

People here have literally been trying to explain and re-explain the same things for more than 20 pages and SP refuses to interact with what is being said. SP refuses to think metaphysically, he repeats the *same* scientistic bull every single time to the point where it seems like he's not even reading what we're writing. I've tried explaining how hierarchical series of causes do not strictly require temporal simultaneity and we can even forget temporal simultaneity if so he pleases;

Your attempts at explanation are simply erroneous.  You just do not realize your errors.

If a real material causal series propagates temporally and it is recognized that there is no specifically identifiable first member then every real material causal series regress analysis leads to a regression into deep time and space, at least as far back as the big bang, perhaps to a past eternal universe.

Such a series is clearly "accidental".  Every apparently "essential" real material causal series is therefore merely an arbitrarily specified subset of an "accidental" series.