The idea of an infinite past

[Juma]

Space-time is a dimension.

Even a physical dimension like length is not itself something that's physical. This is similar in form to a rolling ball example I've given before. Take away the rolling, you're left with a ball, something that's physical. If instead, you take away the ball, you're not left with anything--anything at all. A box can have a length. Take away the box, you're not left with anything that's physical.

At any rate, using a dimension (or even worse, space-time) as an instantiation of something physical is a highly problematic.

Read up on theory of relativity.
Length-contraction is not a thing that happens to an object but to space itself.

 

[fast]

Space-time is a dimension.

Even a physical dimension like length is not itself something that's physical. This is similar in form to a rolling ball example I've given before. Take away the rolling, you're left with a ball, something that's physical. If instead, you take away the ball, you're not left with anything--anything at all. A box can have a length. Take away the box, you're not left with anything that's physical.

At any rate, using a dimension (or even worse, space-time) as an instantiation of something physical is a highly problematic.

Read up on theory of relativity.
Length-contraction is not a thing that happens to an object but to space itself.

Well damn (again).

 

[untermensche]

Space-time is a dimension.

Even a physical dimension like length is not itself something that's physical. This is similar in form to a rolling ball example I've given before. Take away the rolling, you're left with a ball, something that's physical. If instead, you take away the ball, you're not left with anything--anything at all. A box can have a length. Take away the box, you're not left with anything that's physical.

At any rate, using a dimension (or even worse, space-time) as an instantiation of something physical is a highly problematic.

Space is not a dimension.

Space has structure and can be bent.

Length is a dimension like time.

Neither actually exist as a thing that could be examined but to have something with length or to have change you need these dimensions, these freedoms.

So if something accelerates the rate of change may slow but time does not change. Time is not a thing that changes. It is that which allows all change.

 

[Speakpigeon]

The idea of infinity and completion are in conflict.

I can keep saying this over and over because it is true and cannot be shown to not be true.

No infinite series completes.

The idea of a completed infinity of time having already happened is just stupidity. Severe stupidity.

I'd rather not take your word for it, thank you.

Well, since you're here, can you explain in a rational way and normal English what you mean when you say that a "series does not complete"?
EB

The ideas stand unless you have some reasonable objection.

All I see from you is nonsense.

You call an infinite series a set and think it is by magic completed. That is the kind of delusional thinking I am opposed to.

Hey, you're not even trying!

So, I take it this means you really can't explain in a rational way and normal English what you mean when you say that a "series does not complete"?

That's that, then.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

It is something that does not exist.

Prove it, then.

There can be no highest, no greatest integer. Any integer you can give me I can give you one that is greater. This process will never change.

That's a positive claim.

Sorry, I'm not minded to take your word for it.

It's a positive claim you couldn't prove either.

To prove it, you'd need to be able to travel into the future all the way to the end of time.

I take it you won't try to do that any time soon.

Although, in a way, we may think of ourselves as doing just that. But not fast enough so likely we won't make it to the end of time.

It is positive claims like an infinity can complete and has completed in the past that needs proof.

Well, I still don't know what you mean exactly here.

Me, I'm certainly not making that particular claim myself. I wouldn't want to be claiming something I don't understand what it means. And you still haven't explained (see my previous post, in case you've already forgotten).

Otherwise nothing is needed.

The idea is dismissed with the wave of a hand.

Not so much a wave of hand as a tsunami of bad English.

Pure nonsense.

Really meaning you don't get it. I thought so.
EB

 

[steve_bank]

Consider the infinite number line of rational numbers. As being infinite the plus and minus endpoints are not quantifiable. Pick a point, say 2.7. There are an infinite number of points before and after the point.

Infinite is a word for not quantifiable. Whatever conundrum that may exist is not in reality, it is in the way our brains are wired.

You say quantifiable I say complete. Same idea.

An infinite series is a series that does not end, has no end, continues to grow and grow and never can complete.

It is an imaginary thing that has no connection whatsoever to reality.

No problem with our minds understanding that.

You miss my point.

Anyway.

1+2+3.... is an infinite series which can mot be resolved to a quantified number. Infinite means not numerically quantifiable. The number of terms in an infinite series is not quantifiable.

My point is as in the number line, infinity applied to the universe means for one thing an expanse that can not be numerically quantified. It is a simple concept. Like the number line, at any point in space the universe is infinite any direction.

 

[steve_bank]

Try substituting the word change for time. The universe appears to be in constant change down to the atomic scale.

Time is a measure of change. To say time runs backwards means a physical process can be made to reverse, like an orbiting planet. 'Time Travel' is a fiction.

Time running backwards makes no sense at all.

 

[Underseer]

Time dilates relative to what?

For the guy who is there, on location so to speak, does it mean he can do more work than us within the same amount of time? Or less? Or exactly the same amount?

Me, I would expect that the same number of events would take place in the same amount of time, meaning that people at the time would feel no difference. They would live the same number of years as us and wait in queues for the same amount of time. The difference would be from the point of view of an outside observer. Yet, there's no outside observer possible. Only us, but we don't get to observe from outside. We observe from inside, only now. I'm not sure what the result of that could be.

Let's say that you and I start an arbitrary distance from a black hole and you fall in to it.

As you approach the event horizon, from my point of view, your time slows down until it reaches zero at the moment you reach the event horizon itself. From my point of view, your time stops when you reach the event horizon. From your point of view, you keep falling into the black hole at a normal rate of time. From your point of view you fall right through the event horizon.

If I stay here and you travel back in time towards the infinite density of the beginning of the universe, the same thing happens. Does that help?

If from our point of view, i.e. us, now, the origin of the universe was infinitely away from us in the past, as you claim, why is it scientists say the universe is 13.7 billion years old?

Answered above, hopefully.

If space-time was more dense closer to the origine than it is now, I would rather say that space-time contracts, not dilates, but again it won't mean anything until you specify relative to what.

No, if you move backwards in time, the universe would become more dense as you move closer to the beginning of spacetime. From our point of view moving forwards through time, the universe (spacetime) has been expanding.

Wait, if you admit in Relativity different observers each with their own local time, then we can think of our universe having its own "local" time, or rather its own time dimension, and then the same universe somehow appearing at some point within another time dimension, completely different and unrelated to the local time of our universe. That sounds at least logically possible. In which case, the "before" could refer to a before existing within this other time dimension, not within ours.

Yes, time moves differently for different observers. Yes, the consequences of this are shocking (e.g. events that are simultaneous for observer A are not necessarily simultaneous for observer B). General Relativity was proposed in 1915. Are you only just now starting to grapple with the consequences of it? What took you so long? Relativity has a direct impact on matters of philosophy, such as the A theory of time vs the B theory of time (those terms were coined in the 1960s half a century after General Relativity, showing that science takes a long time to filter into philosophy).

Lastly, even if there was such a thing as "before time," then what do you mean by "nothing"? The more physics learns about "nothing," the more we find out that the kind of "nothing" that philosophers and theologians have been talking about all these centuries might be impossible. It turns out that nothing isn't really nothing and nothing is inherently unstable.

That's bad epistemology. You can't assume that whatever you've learnt about our universe ipso facto applies to anything that might have existed outside our universe. What we know about our universe can't possibly invalidate any option as to what might exist or have existed outside.

It doesn't matter.

To say that something caused the universe or otherwise happened before the universe, you have to posit that time existed before time existed.

To say that something is outside the universe, you have to say that space exists outside of space.

There are lots of hypotheses that propose other spacetime continuums beyond our own, but thus far none of them have more than a smattering of circumstantial evidence supporting them (obviously the reason they are still called hypotheses). For the moment we have no means of verifying spacetime beyond our own spacetime, thus it does not make sense to speak of anything "before the universe," thus you have no basis for saying that there was nothing before there was something because you can't possibly prove the "before" part.

You can't say there was nothing before there was something if you can't say there is such a thing as "before" in this context.

Further, it seems to me that what science really says is that there's no real or perfect vacuum in space. We're not talking about nothingness. A perfect vacuum in space is something, not nothing. Vacuum is at least basic space (and possibly time). Nothingness isn't supposed to include anything, not even space or time.

And, further, we may also want to think in terms of a different dimension of time, and possibly no dimension of space (for example).

There's lots of different ways of looking at it, but the bottom line is that the kind of nothing philosophers and theologians have been discussing all this time may be impossible. Physics is starting to encroach on your claims about what "nothing" is and what they have found doesn't match what you've been saying. It doesn't matter if you find any of this reasonable, as their concept of "nothing" is backed up by empirical evidence and yours isn't.

To sum up: if you insist that there was nothing before there was something, the words "before" and "nothing" in that sentence are probably without meaning.

That's a bit too harsh.

A word has the meaning the speaker gives to it. It's basically the idea or thought he readily associates with the word. So, usually, words mean something to the speaker. They may not mean anything to other people, though.

Yes, I get that philosophy often involves arbitrary redefinition of common terms, but how can you possibly redefine "before" that makes any of this reasonable?

If we say A was before B, and time exists at B but not A, then what definition of "before" can you come up with that makes that statement remotely sensible? Our minds and our language do a very bad job of dealing with the lack of space or the lack of time, and this should not surprise anyone.

Then the word may or may not refer to something real out there.

In other words, to simply utter the phrase "before time" is meaningless if the best you can do is to posit something that isn't real.

Yet, how is that supposed to work in the case of nothingness?

Even if you remove all the matter and energy from a region of space, you still have virtual particles popping in and out of existence willy-nilly. If you could somehow remove that, then your space would still weigh something. Even with no matter and no energy, space itself weighs something. It has mass (or energy if you prefer). Nothing is actually something. We don't yet fully understand what that something is, but nothing isn't really nothing.

It seems to me an extraordinary feat of the human mind that it should be able to conceive even of that which not only doesn't exist at all, but sort of wouldn't even exist if it existed!

The fact that I can conceive of a skull-juggling telepathic purple were-walrus who lives below the surface of Pluto is fun, but ultimately not very meaningful unless I can use that idea to generate other testable claims, or test the idea itself directly.

Something we should celebrate, I think.
EB

Fun is worth celebrating, but is not necessarily meaningful.

 

[Underseer]

An example of the above-mentioned hypotheses is the  Holographic principle, which claims that our universe is a 4-dimensional projection of a 2-dimensional event horizon around a black hole in another universe.

Let's pretend for the moment that the holographic principle is true. From the point of view of someone in that other universe, our universe has a beginning and a cause. Our universe came into being when that black hole in that other universe formed, so from their point of view it makes sense to say "before the (our) universe." However, from our perspective, that other spacetime is completely inaccessible, so from our point of view, our universe is uncaused. From our point of view the statement "before the universe" is meaningless.

 

[Speakpigeon]

I guess we should be clear by now that we don't understand each other much. Though, perhaps for different reasons.
EB

 

[DBT]

No lie. You don't want to face what what was said by numerous posters, including me. The link and quote I provided being an example of an alternative to your claim.

I'll be back in a couple of days.

You have not talked about real completed infinities.

You have not addressed my points.

We do not have to know anything beyond when there is time as we experience time there are changes as we observe change.

Infinite time just means infinite change.

And a completed infinity of change is not possible.

If infinity exists it is, by self definition, complete. There is no reason why infinity cannot exist. That it appears unlikely is not a reason. Saying infinity cannot be 'completed' is not a reason, it is only your claim. A claim you cannot support.

 

[untermensche]

Hey, you're not even trying!

There is nothing to argue against but sheer nonsense.

Magical claims that infinite series somehow complete when we call them a set.

It is a complete waste of my time.

That's a positive claim.

It is a truism. It is not in need of defense.

Any positive integer you can produce I can add any other positive integer to it and create a larger positive integer.

What exactly would stop me?

Which integer do you think it couldn't be done with?

 

[untermensche]

No lie. You don't want to face what what was said by numerous posters, including me. The link and quote I provided being an example of an alternative to your claim.

I'll be back in a couple of days.

You have not talked about real completed infinities.

You have not addressed my points.

We do not have to know anything beyond when there is time as we experience time there are changes as we observe change.

Infinite time just means infinite change.

And a completed infinity of change is not possible.

If infinity exists it is, by self definition, complete. There is no reason why infinity cannot exist. That it appears unlikely is not a reason. Saying infinity cannot be 'completed' is not a reason, it is only your claim. A claim you cannot support.

The question is whether a completed real infinity is possible. Those that claim it is possible have work to do.

Simply claiming a real completed infinity could possibly exist is not a rational claim. It is a totally worthless irrational claim.

Show me how a real completed infinity could possibly exist.

 

[untermensche]

Consider the infinite number line of rational numbers. As being infinite the plus and minus endpoints are not quantifiable. Pick a point, say 2.7. There are an infinite number of points before and after the point.

Infinite is a word for not quantifiable. Whatever conundrum that may exist is not in reality, it is in the way our brains are wired.

You say quantifiable I say complete. Same idea.

An infinite series is a series that does not end, has no end, continues to grow and grow and never can complete.

It is an imaginary thing that has no connection whatsoever to reality.

No problem with our minds understanding that.

You miss my point.

Anyway.

1+2+3.... is an infinite series which can mot be resolved to a quantified number. Infinite means not numerically quantifiable. The number of terms in an infinite series is not quantifiable.

My point is as in the number line, infinity applied to the universe means for one thing an expanse that can not be numerically quantified. It is a simple concept. Like the number line, at any point in space the universe is infinite any direction.

Delusional.

You can't just willy nilly apply totally imaginary concepts to reality.

Infinity is a mathematical construction. A totally imaginary construction.

It is not a discovery or a real possibility.

 

[DBT]

If infinity exists it is, by self definition, complete. There is no reason why infinity cannot exist. That it appears unlikely is not a reason. Saying infinity cannot be 'completed' is not a reason, it is only your claim. A claim you cannot support.

The question is whether a completed real infinity is possible.

Simply claiming it could possibly exist is not a rational argument. It is a totally worthless claim.

Show me how a real completed infinity could possibly exist.

Infinity, if it exists, if it is actual and real, must necessarily be complete. What makes infinity impossible? Not because it can't be infinite and complete....that being the definition infinity. If a infinite/eternal Multiverse exists, it has always existed (for example) therefore it has always been 'complete'

Your objection - 'cannot be completed' - contradicts the very definition you seek to deny.

 

[untermensche]

If infinity exists it is, by self definition, complete. There is no reason why infinity cannot exist. That it appears unlikely is not a reason. Saying infinity cannot be 'completed' is not a reason, it is only your claim. A claim you cannot support.

The question is whether a completed real infinity is possible.

Simply claiming it could possibly exist is not a rational argument. It is a totally worthless claim.

Show me how a real completed infinity could possibly exist.

Infinity, if it exists, if it is actual and real, must necessarily be complete. So why is infinity impossible? Not because it can't be infinite and complete, that being the definition infinity. So if a infinite/eternal Multiverse exists, it has always existed (for example) therefore it has always been 'complete'

Defend your nonsense.

Infinity could not possibly exist in any form. It is not a real world quality. It is purely a human invention. It is not a discovery or anything that has ever been observed.

Totally imaginary concepts like infinity cannot rationally be thought to exist.

Show me how a real completed infinity could possibly exist.

Until you do you are just a waste of time.

 

[Poppa Popobawa]

It is more than visualizing the whole. You cannot imagine starting anywhere on an infinite series and moving to the end of that series. You cannot even approach the end. You cannot move towards it. It can't be done because infinite series do not complete and no matter how far you move you still have infinitely further to move. That should be a clue to anyone we are not talking about something that could even possibly be real.
But given enough time you can visualize any finite series and any amount of grains of sand.
Since at given moment the past represents a completed series of changes it is clear it was not infinite.
That is a separate issue. I would rather just look at one issue and not pollute the discussion with a bunch of irrelevant side issues.
All that could be said about the initiation of time is that it had to arise from conditions that we cannot understand. A state that does not include time.
All we can say is that time needed a beginning because it could not possibly have been infinite in the past. An infinite series never completes.

I note that you swapped from calling them not adult, to "bad attitude".

What I label as not an adult attitude is the magical belief in real completed infinities. In other words a magical belief that things as we can observe them could have existed for infinite time in the past.
Being highly skeptical of the claims of all scientists is a very adult attitude. Scientific delusions can last a long time. The history of science is full of them.

You can't produce evidence of no real infinities...

I can't produce evidence of no real fire breathing dragons either.
A negative cannot be proven.

since no one can show you a second, a minute or an hour etc...

I think what you mean is nobody can show you "time". There is nothing anyone can point out and say "This is time."
But that is no different from the other three dimensions.
Nobody can point out something and say "This is width". They can measure the width of some thing but not "width" itself.
Dimensions are just freedoms. If the dimension of width exists that mean there is the freedom for something to have a width.
If the dimensions of height, length and width exist then there is the freedom for things to have height, length and width.
What time allows is change. It is the freedom that allows things with height, length and width to move and change.
So while we can't see time we can see change and we can measure change.
Change exists, "three" does not.

{You cannot imagine starting anywhere on an infinite series and moving to the end of that series. You cannot even approach the end. You cannot move towards it. It can't be done because infinite series do not complete and no matter how far you move you still have infinitely further to move.}

But you can imagine starting anywhere in the past, and going further into the past. Now in your mind, you might imagine that there is a beginning point, but if there is none, then you won't find it. If infinite past time rarely exists, then you will always find more, and will have {infinitely further to move}. That is a description of what it would mean to have an infinity, and it is not a refutation. However, going back in time, if it is finite, then there is a beginning. That presumed beginning is just as mysterious as a presumed no beginning.

That is a key point, can one go back in time to that beginning, or does it just go on and on ?

{ . . .

You can't produce evidence of no real infinities...

I can't produce evidence of no real fire breathing dragons either.
A negative cannot be proven.}

You are quite right, and that part of my post was unreasonable and silly. Thank you for pointing out my error, untermensche.
{What time allows is change. It is the freedom that allows things with height, length and width to move and change}.

Certainly , and if there is infinite time, then you can have infinite change, (receding into the past). However, you are proposing a first cause, which is therefore uncaused, and hiding it behind the notion of an irrelevant side issue. But such a thing would be a supernatural cause, and absurd, so we must reject a first cause, (with respect to time). In so doing, we necessarily have infinite regress.

If we look at time as a degree of freedom, then it can have a degree of regression without bound, and a termination to the present, (speaking of local time only). If, untermensche, you cannot identify the first cause and event, nor how it is possible or anything beyond magic, then I can say, just as you have been on infinity, show it to me, or else it is absurd. So let us abandon the not adult attitude of a first, magical, supernatural cause. Let us say better than that, that on this issue, we should remain agnostic - we don't know.

{Scientific delusions can last a long time. The history of science is full of them}.

But are you not referring to long held hypotheses, which later evidence showed to be wrong. The modern scientist who proposes an infinitely old universe is doing ground-breaking work and thinking, and may well be the one who shows that the belief in time-past to be limited should be abandoned. It is the religious after all, who claim that the universe is less than 10,000 years old.

And the set of the negative Real numbers ends at 0

First of all zero is not negative or part of the negative reals.
And the negative reals approach zero but never touch it.
Not like the past at all.
No series can be defined as starting from infinity. Infinity is not a value. Nothing can begin from it.
The past completes at every moment. It has all occurred. There is no more events that will take place in the past looking at the past from any present moment.
All the events in the past complete at every present moment.
Infinity is in conflict with completion.
Infinity is in conflict with the past.

There is no requirement for an infinity to be infinite in both directions. So long as an infinity, (were one to exist), does not terminate in one direction, then it is still infinite.

Something infinite and real, (were one to exist), does not necessarily need to fill all of space. Suppose you had an infinity of spherical ball bearings - you'd need infinite space to do that, and yes scientists conjecture that that is possible too, (infinite space). In such a scenario, there would always be space for more ball bearings, so there could be an infinity of them, but there must necessarily be spaces between them, as they don't pack into 3-D space without voids. But the infinity of ball bearings would be possible with the proviso of infinite space, because there would always be more space to add more ball bearings, no matter how loosely packed they happened to be.

I also have no problem, if space is infinite, with huge voids in space, with all of the spheres, (for example), assembled together, and loads of empty space still available. Isn't the idea of infinity weird? I say: "Yes, it is!" For example, suppose you had an infinity of something, then took one away somehow. You'd still have an infinity of them left. It's in the maths of infinity.

Consider the set of positive even numbers. The set contains an infinity of such numbers, all even, and without an upper bound. Now consider the set of positive numbers. That set is infinite also . . . no end to it, (but yes, there is a start). Now exclude all of the even whole numbers, leaving only the odds and fractional ones. There is still an infinity of numbers in the set. So take an infinity from another infinity, and you still have an infinity. That's maths for you.

I know that the numbers are not real things, but they show how the concept of infinity behaves under the circumstances I just laid out. It is not an argument by me, in favour of the existence of infinities of real things in the real world. But in no way can I see that {Infinity is in conflict with the past}. I have agreed that: {All the events in the past complete at every present moment}. On the other hand, there is no need to say that therefore of necessity, (mathematically speaking), events in the past have a beginning.


I know that the numbers are not real things, but they show how the concept of infinity behaves under the circumstances I just laid out. It is not an argument by me, in favour of the existence of infinities of real things in the real world. But in no way can I see that {Infinity is in conflict with the past}. I have agreed that: {All the events in the past complete at every present moment}, (local time - remember time is a relative thing - the present is not the same everywhere, for all people and places). On the other hand, there is no need to say that therefore of necessity, (mathematically speaking), events in the past have a beginning. I think that the fact that I'm considering all of this points, to an active and reasonable mind on my part, so I'm not non-adult, (not childish in my thoughts), nor do I have a {magical belief in real completed infinities}. What I do have is a failure to accept that infinities cannot exist.

Similarly, untermensche, the fact that you are considering all of this, points to an active and reasonable mind on your part, so you're not being non-adult, nor childish in your thoughts.

Best wishes, Pops

 

[fromderinside]

Infinity could not possibly exist in any form. It is not a real world quality. It is purely a human invention. It is not a discovery or anything that has ever been observed.

Totally imaginary concepts like infinity cannot rationally be thought to exist.

Show me how a real completed infinity could possibly exist.

Until you do you are just a waste of time.

Let's see. hmmmnnn

Unsupported ergo Fake Fact

Unsupported ergo Fake Fact

Request response re two fake facts

conditioning on response to unsupported declaration would require an infinity so consequence is ad hom and proof even you think infinity exists.

Your best attempt yet sir.

 

[untermensche]

Infinity could not possibly exist in any form. It is not a real world quality. It is purely a human invention. It is not a discovery or anything that has ever been observed.

Totally imaginary concepts like infinity cannot rationally be thought to exist.

Show me how a real completed infinity could possibly exist.

Until you do you are just a waste of time.

Let's see. hmmmnnn

Unsupported ergo Fake Fact

Unsupported ergo Fake Fact

Request response re two fake facts

conditioning on response to unsupported declaration would require an infinity so consequence is ad hom and proof even you think infinity exists.

Your best attempt yet sir.

You have waved your arms a little.

Nothing more.

It is a positive claim that a real completed infinity is possible.

How is it possible?

Because you claim it is?

An infinity of time is time that grows and grows and never stops growing. It never completes.

All the time in the past completes at every present moment.

It was not infinite.

 

[untermensche]

But you can imagine starting anywhere in the past, and going further into the past. Now in your mind, you might imagine that there is a beginning point, but if there is none, then you won't find it.

So lets do the thought experiment. Let's assume the past was infinite.

So we start at some moment in time and move backwards. We are now covering all the time that had to pass for that moment to occur.

We move and move and never end. If the past was infinite we move backwards forever and can never stop moving.

How do we conclude that an amount of time that never ends passed before that moment in time?

An amount of time that never ends never passes. We run immediately into a huge contradiction.

If the past was infinite it is impossible for that moment in time to occur. An amount of time that never ends must pass first.

The modern scientist who proposes an infinitely old universe is doing ground-breaking work and thinking...

Maybe in other areas but trying to shove the imaginary concept of infinity on to the universe is folly.

I also have no problem, if space is infinite...

There is no intellectual connection that allows us to imagine this purely mathematical invention can be applied to reality.

To do it is folly.

So take an infinity from another infinity, and you still have an infinity.

Which should lead a rational person to see we are not dealing with real concepts.