Infinite Past

[untermensche]

Are all moments the same thing? Time cannot be separated from space.

If they are different then different moments have existed in the past and different moments will occur in the future.

Under presentism there are no ''all moments' - there is only an omnipresent now. Nor is this separate from space, relativity, physics or change, all events and conditions and relationships happening now, not in the past (which under presentism does not exist), and not in the future, which under presentism does not exist. What appears to be the past being conditions that no longer exist and what appears to be the future being predictions of persistent patterns, all occurring now. No past and no future.

Now is not static.

Now is ever changing.

The way now used to be is the past.

The way now will be is the future.

 

[Speakpigeon]

'Where they began' is question begging.

If the past is infinite, they didn't begin. By trying to model an infinite past from its beginning, you are assuming your conclusion that there is a beginning.

There can be a beginning to infinity; there also can be an end. It all depends on the (1) reference and (2) ability. If Bob is standing on 1 of the entire natural number line, he can begin walking.

1) Reference: If someone fell into a black hole, they would see Bob finish his journey through the naturals (even if Bob walks at a finite pace).

2) Ability: If Bob runs infinitely fast, he would get to the end of the naturals in a finite amount of time.

Untermensche's "paradox" assumes that neither that particular reference is possible nor the ability.

Untermenshe is right that Bob, walking a finite speed, will never reach infinite, and thus could not be at his "infinitieth" step in the present if he were only walking a finite amount of time from the negatives.

The fact is, we don't know whether time is similar to N, R, or something else.

Second, even if time is a discrete set, similar to N, we don't know that anything moves from one moment to the next. What an observer thinks he is observing of the universe around him can be entirely accounted for by what the observer is at the considered point in time, without having to suppose that it is somehow dependent on what he was a moment before or at any other moment in time.

That it is our default conception doesn't make it necessarily true and the question in the OP is whether the idea of an infinite past is necessarily false, and if so why.

Also, the analogy of time elapsing as somebody walking along a road is a circular definition of time. It creates an infinite regress where time is both defined or described by the analogy and an integral part of the analogy describing time. It is circular because it says that time is something moving along a line, but time is also necessary to define what "moving" means.
EB

 

[untermensche]

Also, the analogy of time elapsing as somebody walking along a road is a circular definition of time. It creates an infinite regress where time is both defined or described by the analogy and an integral part of the analogy describing time. It is circular because it says that time is something moving along a line, but time is also necessary to define what "moving" means.
EB

It is far from circular.

It is descriptive.

With time you have movement of objects. Real things happen.

So having a person walking is an apt analogy.

If infinite time occurred before some moment that is exactly equivalent to saying infinite steps were taken before arriving at some location.

 

[Speakpigeon]

One more thing I want to say about this, to those on Untermensche's side.

If the universe did in fact begin from a singularity and then begin to stretch, it would not be surprising that we find our present moment not at the edges of infinity. For example, if you were to somehow stretch a single point into a 2-dimensional distance like an elastic (like the Big Bang might have done) there would suddenly appear to be points on the elastic that are an infinite # of infinitesimals far into your elastic that did not necessarily have to travel any distance at all to get there.

That's a good point.

We can think of how a single point transforms into a segment by visualising a triangle. One vertex, a point, can be seen as transforming into the opposite edge, a segment. We can also imagine the transformation as a wave moving from the initial vertex to the edge opposite and that this wave is the actual time dimension. The way we perceive time would only be a subjective perspective following from this larger framework.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Spacetime is smooth. This means 2 points (locations) in it can have an infinite amount of points between them. I don't know who would want to watch a time lapse from 10^-50 seconds ago to now, but if you zoomed in enough and had the ability to detect sub-Planck scale movement, you'd see stuff moving from one frame to the next (2*10^-52 second frames would work).

Basically, time is smooth, because nature (or God if you're a lying, hypocritical piece of shit who likes to take advantage of their socioeconomic position to ignore the fact that you're a piece of shit sacrificing others for your own pleasure... playing God, so to speak) is smooth and continuous.

Wouldn't it be more correct to state that "spacetime is *modelled* as a smooth function*.

No, that would be post-modernist cultural relativism.

Space-time is space-time, fortunately, we know that.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Positive numbers are infinite because they never end. Negative numbers must be finite, because it would be ridiculous to suggest that they are infinite, as that would imply that they never begin, so they don't exist. Apparently.

I suppose the real question should be, does future time exist? We expect it to be there, but have no way of knowing it will be.

Science tells us our belief that we are in the present is mistaken. The present is an illusion. We are in fact already in the future, doing things we have no idea what, but thinking we are in the present, and thinking mostly about the past that no longer exists.

Not surprising that some people should be confused about time.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

His logical error is clear.

He is merely pretending that an infinite amount of time is something that can be completed.

He says it can be completed in an infinite amount of time.

No it can't.

How is that a "logical error"?

"No it can't" is an opinion, not a logical argument.

EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Why do you need external sources?

Why is it so hard to get agreement on a definition that is clear?

If we start at some moment then infinite time into the future is time without end. That can serve as a definition of infinite time.

How is that not clear?

It doesn't work with a past having no beginning. A past with no beginning doesn't start. The past and the future are symmetrical, that doesn't mean we talk in the same way about them.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Also, the analogy of time elapsing as somebody walking along a road is a circular definition of time. It creates an infinite regress where time is both defined or described by the analogy and an integral part of the analogy describing time. It is circular because it says that time is something moving along a line, but time is also necessary to define what "moving" means.
EB

It is far from circular.

It is circular and therefore incoherent.

It is descriptive.

Description can be circular. Yours is.

With time you have movement of objects. Real things happen.

Drivel.

So having a person walking is an apt analogy.

It's incoherent.

If infinite time occurred before some moment that is exactly equivalent to saying infinite steps were taken before arriving at some location.

How would you know? Have you ever walked an infinite number of steps?!

You are delusional.
EB

 

[DBT]

Under presentism there are no ''all moments' - there is only an omnipresent now. Nor is this separate from space, relativity, physics or change, all events and conditions and relationships happening now, not in the past (which under presentism does not exist), and not in the future, which under presentism does not exist. What appears to be the past being conditions that no longer exist and what appears to be the future being predictions of persistent patterns, all occurring now. No past and no future.

Now is not static.

Now is ever changing.

If you had read what I said you'd know that this is exactly what I said about the concept of presentism.

The way now used to be is the past.

The way now will be is the future.

The point of presentism is that there is no past or future, only now, what we call the past being a different set of conditions in an ever changing present and what we call the future also a changing now....the impression of time coming from a progression of change in an eternal now rather than an actual flow of time, time being a measure of change....change being relative to frames of reference, rates of change, hence time being relative.

 

[beero1000]

I applaud you all for trying to get untermensche to see reason. I gave that up a long time ago.

My current goal is to get him to spell "discrete" correctly. Maybe I'll have more progress?

 

[untermensche]

It is far from circular.

It is circular and therefore incoherent.

It is descriptive.

Description can be circular. Yours is.

With time you have movement of objects. Real things happen.

Drivel.

So having a person walking is an apt analogy.

It's incoherent.

If infinite time occurred before some moment that is exactly equivalent to saying infinite steps were taken before arriving at some location.

How would you know? Have you ever walked an infinite number of steps?!

You are delusional.
EB

Claiming that using something in constant motion, like the spinning hand of a clock, to represent time is "drivel" is absolute ignorance.

If time was infinite a person could take infinite steps.

If time in the past was infinite that is saying a person could have taken infinite steps just prior to some present moment.

You can clearly see how absurd that claim is.

Your analysis is DRIVEL!!!!

 

[DBT]

I applaud you all for trying to get untermensche to see reason. I gave that up a long time ago.

My current goal is to get him to spell "discrete" correctly. Maybe I'll have more progress?

You can try. Just don't hold your breath if anticipating a breakthrough.

 

[Speakpigeon]

I applaud you all for trying to get untermensche to see reason. I gave that up a long time ago.

My current goal is to get him to spell "discrete" correctly. Maybe I'll have more progress?

I'm sure most of us have long ago given up on any positive association between these two words, "untermensche" and "reason" but there is some incredulity that his position could be so profoundly absurd as to be absolutely immunised against any logical argument.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Claiming that using something in constant motion, like the spinning hand of a clock, to represent time is "drivel" is absolute ignorance.

Your belief that some obsolete representation of time could logically imply that an infinite past is logically impossible can only be emotionally painful to the impartial observer. I'm sure God is starting to regret having created mankind.

Your position is a litany of irrelevant drivel. You pick up expressions from the garbage pile of informal conversation and turn them into eternal truths by taking them literally. But it's all nonsense.

If time was infinite a person could take infinite steps.

More drivel. No one could count up to infinity and yet we all accept that N is an infinite set.

So, what does it mean for a person "to take infinite steps"? How is this even an argument? You are completely delusional.

An infinite past wouldn't make a difference as to how people walk.

If time in the past was infinite that is saying a person could have taken infinite steps just prior to some present moment.

No. It's just more drivel coming from your mouth. What does it mean for a person "to take infinite steps"? And why would it be necessary? How could you know it would be necessary?

You are a complete ignoramus about the nature of time, like all of us, and yet, here you are, spewing drivel by the wagonload.

You can clearly see how absurd that claim is.

And now some rhetorical sputum.

Your analysis is DRIVEL!!!!

I was just looking at the facts and they are for all of us to see. You have shown yourself unable to articulate any logical argument. You don't understand even the principle of disputing the logical consistency of an idea. You take your drivel-like beliefs for actual knowledge. And your posts are just derail after derail because you just don't understand what the question is.

Many people here have tried again and again to have a proper debate with you, on many occasions, and you've flunked your exams at every opportunity. Nobody will believe they've learned anything of value from the flood-like drivel of incoherent posts you produce like a spittle machine.

And clearly you yourself have learned nothing. You've remained strictly identical to yourself and we have to wonder what it is you think you're doing here? You are a waste of time to everybody and probably to yourself as well.
EB

 

[Kharakov]

Obviously there are an infinite amount of moments every second. The duration of the present is 0. There are uncounted moments every second.... of 0 duration.

A moment of 0 duration is not a moment.

It is nothing.

The present is 0 duration. Or do you claim it extends into the past and future?

 

[PyramidHead]

No answer to this question is completely satisfactory to everyday logic. So there's nothing to be gained by accusing one's opponent of suggesting something ludicrous on its face.

If the past is infinite, it seems to violate our conception of the passage of time. Events in the past have already occurred, otherwise they would be happening now or in the future. Accepting an infinite past seems to require the acceptance that an infinite number of events have already taken place.

But contrary to what some might think, that alone is not enough to refute the idea. Its negation, that the past is NOT infinite, means there was an event before which nothing occurred. This violates our conception of causality in two ways: (1) we ordinarily believe that all events have causes, and (2) we ordinarily believe that causes happen prior to their effects. Quantum mechanics violates these concepts as well, but in different ways.

I don't think either possibility can be ruled out by appealing to common sense, as both are already in opposition to common sense.

 

[Speakpigeon]

No answer to this question is completely satisfactory to everyday logic. So there's nothing to be gained by accusing one's opponent of suggesting something ludicrous on its face.

If the past is infinite, it seems to violate our conception of the passage of time. Events in the past have already occurred, otherwise they would be happening now or in the future. Accepting an infinite past seems to require the acceptance that an infinite number of events have already taken place.

I think the issue of an infinite number of events is a red herring. It seems to me that the view that time is continuous rather than discrete is the default view, essentially because even if time is discrete we don't actually perceive any of it. If we think of time as continuous, then it seems to follow that we also accept the notion of an infinity of events taking place even within a finite period of time (even if this is not actually the case because for example of the quantification of interactions). I believe that we do have a repugnance for the idea not of an infinite past but of an infinite past history and the reason for that is more physical than subjective or even cultural. Humans have very limited cognitive capabilities and therefore memory. We can't remember more than a threadbare outline of our actual history. The more ancient the history, the less we are interested in knowing the details. Consideration of the possibility of an actual infinite history, full of recorded events, is abhorrent. It's just overwhelming. There is a sort of cognitive overload that tells us not to go there, and the best way to do that is just to deny that an infinite past is a realistic option. And whether or not we accept this interpretation, it shows how our subjective perspective on time can be irrelevant as to the reality of time. What matters to humans is not the reality of time, it's whatever we do perceive of time, which likely is a very narrow aspect of it.

But contrary to what some might think, that alone is not enough to refute the idea. Its negation, that the past is NOT infinite, means there was an event before which nothing occurred. This violates our conception of causality in two ways: (1) we ordinarily believe that all events have causes, and (2) we ordinarily believe that causes happen prior to their effects.

I'm also not so sure that we would want to insist that all events should have a cause, at least not in the physical sense. I think humans tend to accept any explanation that's economical. For example, the idea of a god creator of our world satisfies our need for a simple answer precisely because it makes memorising some handy history of our world a realistic prospect and it obviates the need for explaining how the god creator was created at the same time that it explains how our universe was created. Once we understand the idea of a creator god, we can go back to our main twin concerns of food and sex. This demand that all events should have a cause can be economically satisfied by the idea of a creator god. And then it's probably the dismissal of this idea with the rise of the scientific outlook which may have left us without any handy explanation for the creation of our universe until the invention of the Big Bang. And we're sort of on stand-by now, waiting for cosmology to tell us what this convenient explanation will be. Suppose we take seriously the idea of a successions of universes, one born out of a pre-existing one. This idea actually allows us to simplify our representation of an infinite past. All we need is to conceive of the cosmological history of our own universe and then think in generic terms: before our universe were other universes, similar to our own, that perhaps no longer exist, and that anyway we don't need to know anything about. That's all we need to know and it is I think satisfying because it is very simple and conveniently "granular". The infinity of events is subsumed in the concept of a discrete set of universes, an infinite set but one that's very similar to an infinite but simple set of points because we really don't need to know anything about them and that's just very convenient.

So, again, whether or not we want to accept this interpretation, it means that it is reasonable to dismiss our beliefs about time as irrelevant to the reality of time.

Quantum mechanics violates these concepts as well, but in different ways.

As indeed science has done for a long time now with most of our beliefs about our environment, about ourselves, and about the cosmos.

I don't think either possibility can be ruled out by appealing to common sense, as both are already in opposition to common sense.

They are not so much in opposition. They are just very inconvenient concepts.

But then logical analysis allows us to move out of our comfort zone by giving us the means to dismiss the kind of ill-argued criticism that we term as "illogical". And then we can eventually get a chance to test our ideas and maybe make an actual discovery.
EB

 

[untermensche]

Your belief that some obsolete representation of time could logically imply that an infinite past is logically impossible can only be emotionally painful to the impartial observer. I'm sure God is starting to regret having created mankind.

Your position is a litany of irrelevant drivel. You pick up expressions from the garbage pile of informal conversation and turn them into eternal truths by taking them literally. But it's all nonsense.

Try to follow.

If there is time then movement is possible. So the constant moment of anything can represent the passage of time.

If this is understood I can go on.

If there is a problem then I have little hope. The ignorance is too deep.

- - - Updated - - -

A moment of 0 duration is not a moment.

It is nothing.

The present is 0 duration. Or do you claim it extends into the past and future?

If there is a present moment it has duration.

Something with 0 duration has no existence.

It is nothing.

You do know what 0 represents? It is an imaginary concept meaning without any value at all.

 

[untermensche]

No answer to this question is completely satisfactory to everyday logic. So there's nothing to be gained by accusing one's opponent of suggesting something ludicrous on its face.

If the past is infinite, it seems to violate our conception of the passage of time. Events in the past have already occurred, otherwise they would be happening now or in the future. Accepting an infinite past seems to require the acceptance that an infinite number of events have already taken place.

But contrary to what some might think, that alone is not enough to refute the idea. Its negation, that the past is NOT infinite, means there was an event before which nothing occurred. This violates our conception of causality in two ways: (1) we ordinarily believe that all events have causes, and (2) we ordinarily believe that causes happen prior to their effects. Quantum mechanics violates these concepts as well, but in different ways.

I don't think either possibility can be ruled out by appealing to common sense, as both are already in opposition to common sense.

The people I am dealing with will not define concepts.

For instance, they all want to talk about this imaginary thing called "without beginning".

But they can't define what that means. They can only say it. Over and over as if it means something.

And when it is pointed out that infinite time in the future is the exact same amount of time as infinite time in the past they somehow can't comprehend that either.

These people do not really want to discuss anything. Some are incapable.