Infinte Regress Timeline...

[Speakpigeon]

Because what I am arguing is the amount of time that has passed already must be finite.

(a) That is the only way to have a present moment. (b) If the amount of time in the past finishes passing.

(c) An amount of time that finishes passing is a finite amount of time.

This is all there is to it yes?

Yes, so, this is no justification.

This is just something you happen to believe. But there is no logic to it.

Well, (a) and (b) are Ok.

That is: That the past finishes passing is the only way to have the present moment.

(c) is iodiotic, though, at least as it is formulated, for the reason, already given to you, that the past is infinite because it has no beginning. So, the past has an end, which now is now, and it is infinite time because it's time that expands in the direction of the past, away from now.

So, maybe you can still try to justify (c) but you would have to reword it in the end because as it is, it is really worthless as a claim. It's a complete non-starter.
EB

 

[Juma]

The past can't come before anything. It doesn't exist and never has. All that exists and all that we know can exist, is the present.
.

Theory of relativity shows that both the past and the future exists. There is no common now for all observers.

 

[skepticalbip]

This is too funny.

You are claiming something exists that you can't provide evidence of.

Pointing to a photograph of the past is pointing to a photograph, not the past. Pointing to light from distant stars is pointing to light hitting the eye in the present.

Provide some evidence of this thing I am supposed to prove doesn't exist.

Give me some evidence of the little god you hide in your coat.

Why?

I am not the one claiming that something is impossible. The past may be finite, or it may be infinite. You claim that one of these is illogical, and you have as your rather bizarre foundation for this, the claim that the past does not exist.

My only claim is that you are talking bollocks. And you provide ample evidence for this claim, with no effort required on my part.

If you can't support your claim that the infinite past is illogical, then retract it.

Don't try to shift the burden of proof. The past exists, or it doesn't. You claim it doesn't. I make no claim other than that your claim is baseless. Prove it or STFU.

Looks like a major shift in goalposts to me (another logical fallacy). I thought his argument was that the past was finite, at least it was for most of this over two hundred pages. Now the question is how can there be a finite past if there is no past. Looks like major equivication on the word "past" (a repeat of one of his frequent logical fallacies).

 

[skepticalbip]

I agree he fucked up the philosophy. What the argument that the universe could come from nothing came from was his balancing the equation to produce a flat universe in his model. That is damned near impossible to do as a pop-sci book since the model is only one short equation. How many of the hundreds of thousands of readers of his book that he hoped to sell would or could understand a physics description of a flat universe and the consideration of mass/energy? The purpose of the book was to sell books and make money. Many theoretical physicists have been doing this since the success of Sagan showed that there was a hell of a lot more money in producing pop-sci than there was in science research. Even Hawking has produced a couple pop-sci books that really say nothing significant to get in on the gravy train (it was his name that sold them, not the content). The best pop-sci book I have seen is The God Particle by Leon Lederman. Few of the buyers that I know ever finished reading it because he actually tries to explain a little of the science so they got lost and gave up.

But the fact that Krauss fucked up the philosophy does not mean that balancing the equation of mass/energy and gravity in his model does not produce a flat universe. And if the universe is indeed flat then the total of all the universe could be zero only now it is divided as positive (mass/energy) and negative (gravity). He should have stuck to the science and avoided the philosophy but then he could not have sold enough books to pay for the publishing cost.

I think you're a tad too cynical here. I don't believe that a renown scientist would sex up a presentation of his own work for the masses to the extent that you suggest. Broadly, what you describe would be Krauss deliberately missleading the public over a fundamental question, i.e. whether the idea of the universe coming out of nothingness is meaningful, merely to sell more copies of his book. You should realise that appart from this idiotic digression the book is in fact good enough and interesting enough for the general public. There would have been no need to stoop below ground to make the book seriously misleading just to make it more attractive. I don't believe that.

No. I'm not suggesting that at all. I see no deliberate misleading. He is giving his philosophical interpretation of that part of his model. The model shows that if the universe is flat then all the positive energy of the universe (matter/energy) could be balanced by all the negative energy of the universe (gravity). This means that the total energy of the universe when summed is zero. If the total energy of the universe is zero then it is not a violation of conservation of energy to propose that the universe could come from nothing. This is no different, as far as energy balance, than quantum fluctuations in our current 4-space creating virtual particle pairs from nothing.

As I said, the problem is in some of his philosophical arguments, not in his science. But just stating the above science is not enough to make a book. And, yes, he wants to sell books. If you want to see theoretical physicists who really go off the deep end in their pop-sci philosophical ramblings then try Graham Greene or Michio Kaku. But there is money in it.

Second, the frame of mind that I think motivated the inclusion of the idiotic digression in his book, i.e some score to settle with the clerics, is clearly shared by many people on this very website. The idiocy of some of their posting here, including in this thread, show the reality of this frame of mind and that it can be motivation enough to stoop below ground just now and then. I think he couldn't resist the temptation. He used his science to try to make a point, even though it was an idiotic point. To go this far, he had to be somehow blinded and the anti-cleric frame of mind seems to me good enough to achieve that.

Conversely, I don't believe that without this frame of mind he would have gone eyes wide open into this mess just in the belief that it was a smart way to nudge up the sales. Bright people can do stupid things, and they do, but there has to be some twisted logic to explain that they do and he didn't have to do what he did to sell the book. It was good enough without that. I grant you that as a result he probably sold much more books (I bought it myself just because of that) but he wouldn't have done it even for money if he had been aware that the digression was so idiotic. He had to be blinded.
EB

I agree that he has a thing with religion. He has difficulty giving any talk without makeing a swipe against religion. But his personal philosophical problems have nothing to do with the validity of his science.

~ bippy

 

[Mageth]

Just show me the equation that shows infinite time does not equal infinite time.

Infinity is not a number; it's a concept. Infinity/infinity is not equal to 1. Infinity + infinity = infinity, NOT 2*infinity. Therefore...

 

[Kharakov]

Just show me the equation that shows infinite time does not equal infinite time.

Infinity is not a number; it's a concept. Infinity/infinity is not equal to 1. Infinity + infinity = infinity, NOT 2*infinity. Therefore...

.....indeterminate form......

 

[Mageth]

How can all of something completely pass without ever starting?!

How could time that had no beginning and has always been passing not have a present moment?

 

[another1]

How could there be a "common now" for all observers when common observers themselves are concocting their own observations which are unique only to themselves at inception? Then they are manipulated and shared through what could be considered a machine for collecting and transmitting data inside a field of psychic resonance. The machine being time of course. Time tinkers with the data and makes it all compatible so that what we consider reality can occur at all. 101 pages of TIME pressing the low priority panic button to convolute a point that is so simple and timeless. Ask me and I'll probably tell you that time is self aware. It doesn't allow enough time for itself to figure itself out. It just is. It isn't, but it of course is. That isn't a paradox to me, that is a mechanism that sustains what you (me) and I (you) must maintain to keep ourselves, or self... existing. The future has happened before, the past never happened at all and the present is a gift from God that can't be unwrapped. I don't know and shouldn't care. Too much time to think about it but never enough.

A train leaves Frank's house and travels at 65 miles per hour. 5 hours later, another train leaves from Frank's house on the track beside or parallel to the first train but it travels at 13 miles per hour. How far away from Lisa's house will the faster train pass the other train? Well where the hell is Lisa's house, first of all, and who is Frank?What gives him the right to assume that he exists? Only time allows that stuff to maintain the illusion that the plausibility of a solution could possibly exist. Time is recycled data and that is all there is. I'm done talking about frank and Lisa because they are of low moral stature and arrogant. Time is so stupid.

 

[Mageth]

How can something that has always been have a start?

If it has always been, then all of it cannot pass.

It's still passing, ryan. Whether finite or infinite, time is passing. Agreed? And we're at the present moment, agreed? If time is finite, there would be a present moment. Agreed? If time is infinite, there would be a present moment at which time is passing. Agreed? If not, why? Why wouldn't there be a present moment at which we find ourselves if time had no beginning?

Ignore your problems with infinity; just consider that question for a while. Think about it. EVEN IF time had no beginning, time still passes, and the leading edge of that time is the present.

 

[untermensche]

Infinite time in the future is time without end.
You somehow think infinite time in the past would represent some different amount of time.

No. I don't think that at all.

First, according to the ordinary concept of absolute time, the past and the future are symmetrical in every respect except that the universe appear to us as if it was going in the direction of the future and the correlate of this that we have a memory of the past but not of the future. So the notion of a future without an end is symmetrical to the notion of a past without a beginning. Also, the notion that the past ends now is symmetrical to the notion that the future starts now. Appart from that, the whole thing is rather bland and straightforward.

It's absurd to say the past ends at the present.

The past BEGINS at the present. First you have a present moment then that moment becomes a past moment. The past flows out of the present, the present is the beginning of the past, not the other way around as you imply.

Second, I have no reason to compare the amount of time already passed with the amount of time that could still pass. Supposing both are infinite, I don't know what it would be to compare them except to say that they would be both infinite. So, they would have a shared quality, being infinite, but one that would prevent any attempt at comparing them. Saying one is bigger, or longer, than the other, or that they are equal, would be idiotic. All we could say would be that they are both infinite.

To say they are of a different size would be irrational. They are the exact same kind of infinity. An ever growing sequential infinity. 1 +1 +1 + 1 + 1 ........

Infinite time in the future MUST represent the exact same amount of time as infinite time in the past. They are the exact same infinity.

If infinite time in the future is an amount of time that will never finish so is infinite time in the past.

I haven't seen were you provide a proper justification for your idea that a past without a beginning is a past that never ends.

The past is time that already passed. If time has no beginning that means the amount of time that has already passed has no limit.

An amount of time with no limit is an amount that will never finish.

 

[untermensche]

The past can't come before anything. It doesn't exist and never has. All that exists and all that we know can exist, is the present.
.

Theory of relativity shows that both the past and the future exists. There is no common now for all observers.

I'm not convinced that saying the pace of time is relative is the same as saying there is no now.

If I freeze the entire universe then it is just one thing. That one thing is labeled as "now".

I don't see how relativity prevents us from conceptually "freezing" the entire universe.

 

[untermensche]

Because what I am arguing is the amount of time that has passed already must be finite.

(a) That is the only way to have a present moment. (b) If the amount of time in the past finishes passing.

(c) An amount of time that finishes passing is a finite amount of time.

This is all there is to it yes?

Yes, so, this is no justification.

This is just something you happen to believe. But there is no logic to it.

Well, (a) and (b) are Ok.

That is: That the past finishes passing is the only way to have the present moment.

(c) is iodiotic, though, at least as it is formulated, for the reason, already given to you, that the past is infinite because it has no beginning. So, the past has an end, which now is now, and it is infinite time because it's time that expands in the direction of the past, away from now.

So, maybe you can still try to justify (c) but you would have to reword it in the end because as it is, it is really worthless as a claim. It's a complete non-starter.
EB

This is the argument, not what you posted. Those are just conclusions.

If one claims the past is infinite. That is the same as saying the amount of time that has already passed is infinite since the past is time that has already passed.

If this can't be understood then people have trouble understanding truisms. It is simply a truism that the past is time that has already passed.

If one claims the amount of time that has already passed is infinite they are saying it is an amount that has no limit or end.

This is just another truism, a definitional truism. An infinite amount of time is an amount of time that has no end. Infinite time in the future is time without end in the future. It is an amount of time that will never finish passing.

So if one claims the amount of time in the past is infinite that means they are claiming the amount of time that has passed before any present moment is an amount of time than never finishes passing.

Their claim is absurd. An amount of time that never finishes passing can't have already passed before any present moment.

It is like claiming the amount of time in an infinite future has finished passing.

This is what I am putting forward as my argument to conclude it is irrational to believe time in the past was infinite.

And once you conclude this you can say other things.

 

[untermensche]

Just show me the equation that shows infinite time does not equal infinite time.

Infinity is not a number; it's a concept. Infinity/infinity is not equal to 1. Infinity + infinity = infinity, NOT 2*infinity. Therefore...

The question was about infinite time, not infinity.

 

[untermensche]

How could there be a "common now" for all observers when common observers themselves are concocting their own observations which are unique only to themselves at inception? Then they are manipulated and shared through what could be considered a machine for collecting and transmitting data inside a field of psychic resonance. The machine being time of course. Time tinkers with the data and makes it all compatible so that what we consider reality can occur at all. 101 pages of TIME pressing the low priority panic button to convolute a point that is so simple and timeless. Ask me and I'll probably tell you that time is self aware. It doesn't allow enough time for itself to figure itself out. It just is. It isn't, but it of course is. That isn't a paradox to me, that is a mechanism that sustains what you (me) and I (you) must maintain to keep ourselves, or self... existing. The future has happened before, the past never happened at all and the present is a gift from God that can't be unwrapped. I don't know and shouldn't care. Too much time to think about it but never enough.

A train leaves Frank's house and travels at 65 miles per hour. 5 hours later, another train leaves from Frank's house on the track beside or parallel to the first train but it travels at 13 miles per hour. How far away from Lisa's house will the faster train pass the other train? Well where the hell is Lisa's house, first of all, and who is Frank?What gives him the right to assume that he exists? Only time allows that stuff to maintain the illusion that the plausibility of a solution could possibly exist. Time is recycled data and that is all there is. I'm done talking about frank and Lisa because they are of low moral stature and arrogant. Time is so stupid.

What people make of "now" is relative, just as what people make of a building is relative to their position in space.

But being relative does not mean you don't exist. The building exists.

 

[ryan]

There is only one length for a given timeline; there are many different lengths for an infinitely long timeline.

You are very vague. I guess that what you try to express is this:

1) the size of an infinite set is the same even if we remove some (finite) part of the set.

2) we cannot remove part of history without changing history.

But from this it does not follow that time cannot be infinite.

I don't think that it makes sense to assign a number that is not unique to something that is unique. It would be like saying that there are 11 days in the last 7 days.

Anyways, I don't care about that argument as much as I do the next argument.

Are you one who believes that an infinite number of units of time can completely pass for some reference frame?

 

[skepticalbip]

Theory of relativity shows that both the past and the future exists. There is no common now for all observers.

I'm not convinced that saying the pace of time is relative is the same as saying there is no now.

If I freeze the entire universe then it is just one thing. That one thing is labeled as "now".

I don't see how relativity prevents us from conceptually "freezing" the entire universe.

Of course you don't see because you don't understand that NOW is different for different observers. Each would see a different universe "frozen" universe if it was frozen from their perspective.

I know it may be shocking and unbelievable to you but you are not the center of the universe. What you see is not what people in another galaxy would see. If the universe were frozen from their perspective and you were suddenly forced to see their view of reality from where you currently are you couldn't recognize it because you could suddenly be exposed to a few million year jump in reality.

 

[ryan]

if the time has been going on for ever then the total amount is undefined.

How can the past be undefined? Each day either happened, or it didn't.

 

[skepticalbip]

You are very vague. I guess that what you try to express is this:

1) the size of an infinite set is the same even if we remove some (finite) part of the set.

2) we cannot remove part of history without changing history.

But from this it does not follow that time cannot be infinite.

I don't think that it makes sense to assign a number that is not unique to something that is unique. It would be like saying that there are 11 days in the last 7 days.

Anyways, I don't care about that argument as much as I do the next argument.

Are you one who believes that an infinite number of units of time can completely pass for some reference frame?

Misstating what someone said is a strawman argument.

If I understand Juma correctly what he said was that an infinite number of events can occur in an infinite amount of time.

Could you actually address what he said rather than your strawman version of it?

 

[untermensche]

I'm not convinced that saying the pace of time is relative is the same as saying there is no now.

If I freeze the entire universe then it is just one thing. That one thing is labeled as "now".

I don't see how relativity prevents us from conceptually "freezing" the entire universe.

Of course you don't see because you don't understand that NOW is different for different observers. Each would see a different universe "frozen" universe if it was frozen from their perspective.

I know it may be shocking and unbelievable to you but you are not the center of the universe. What you see is not what people in another galaxy would see. If the universe were frozen from their perspective and you were suddenly forced to see their view of reality from where you currently are you couldn't recognize it because you could suddenly be exposed to a few million year jump in reality.

A frozen universe is a conception.

And we are the observers looking at it from beyond it, not within it.

Within it, no observations are being made, it is frozen.

What in relativity stops us from conceptually freezing the universe?

 

[ryan]

How can all of something completely pass without ever starting?!

How could time that had no beginning and has always been passing not have a present moment?

Who said that time wouldn't have a present moment? Where did you get that from?