andrel wrote:
> why? For many people God is part of this universe, yet not part of the 
> observable universe. (I know you did not mean that).

Because "universe" means "everything there is". Define "is" in a way 
that includes things that do not and never will have any chance of 
affecting any sort of causality in your observations.

>> (2) "moment in time" is a meaningless term, even for things fairly 
>> close together, let alone separated in a spacelike way.
> 
> yes. I am aware of that. Here informally meant to mean every point in 
> space time that has the same value for the time component. So rather 
> undefined indeed.

It's the informality that kills you, tho. There's no such thing as "the 
same time component". The same point in spacetime has many values for 
the time component. You can have two things that happen "at the same 
time", and I experience A happening before B, and you experience B 
happening before A, and Andrew experiences them both happening at the 
same time. There isn't any universal clock you can use to determine the 
"time component" for a place in space, any more than there's any 
universal clock you can use to determine the Y component of a parabola.

>> In other words, define "universe" first. This gets you into Clinton 
>> areas, of trying to define what "is" is.
> 
> Hmm, I did not know he once tried to define the universe. I know that 
> his definition of sex was peculiar, so I assume you refer to that.

No, I was referring to his arguing over what "is" is. Does something 
completely outside your causality exist? Is there an actual definition 
you could come up with that would make "the universe" bigger than "the 
observable universe"?

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

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