Infinte Regress Timeline...

[skepticalbip]

Who said anything about lines (other than you)? Coordinates are directions. Lines aren't necessary unless you want to do some sort of plot on paper or a computer screen. Do you really believe that North, South, East, West, up, down, yesterday, tomorrow are lines?

What point are you trying to make?

I said time is real.

Either it is something real in itself or it is something that arises because of the interaction of real things. Either way it is something real.

I don't see how talking about the x,y,z coordinates is any objection.

I am not objecting about x,y,z.t coordinates, I am the one that used that to show that your counting time was nonsense. Yes time is real but your insistance on relating it to counting grains of sand to "prove" whatever the hell your point was supposed to be is sheer idiocy.

 

[ryan]

We can know that real things are theoretically countable because there is no reason to think differently.

If you would just change the word "know" with "assume", then there is no problem.

If all we saw were white swans, we wouldn't say that black swans don't exist. Just because we have never observed a black swan, doesn't mean we know that no black swans exist.

If it exists why couldn't it in theory be counted?

If one had an infinite amount of time, then it would be fully counted.

Why would we think human limitations implies infinity?

We wouldn't think that. We would never know if it's infinite.

It may be absolutely true that everything is quantifiably finite in number, but it doesn't necessarily mean that we know it. We can theorize about it, but we don't know it.

One of the most interesting things that I have ever heard Laurence say is that in the far future, a galaxy of people could have complete knowledge of everything that they could possibly know, but they will never know that anything else existed. This is because of the expansion of space. This means that what we observe should not be extended to all of reality and not taken with absolute certainty.

It assumes the universe is out there and that repeated controlled experiments can better tell us how the universe behaves.

Okay, now do see how it doesn't make sense to make positive/absolute claims? For all we know, we are brains in vats, and an entirely different universe exists beyond us. Or maybe Descartes' evil demon is tricking us into thinking we know anything.

And repeated experiments tell us that there is a small amount of energy contained within what used to be thought of as empty space.

Yes, but they still don't know whether or not space-time is curved. This seems to mean that there could be lengths shorter than Planck lengths.

What got everyone excited with your posts is that you made a positive claim without using any assumptions.

I don't agree, we have to assume that time is real, like matter, and it is not imaginary like numbers. Like this number infinity.

Okay, so maybe your argument implied uncertainty, and this whole thing was a bit of a misunderstanding.

People who make positive claims are always going to be jumped on. I have never heard of a positive claim holding without it based on assumptions/uncertainties.

I suspect Lawrence Krauss implied "if ..., then ..." if he didn't say it explicitly.

 

[untermensche]

What point are you trying to make?

I said time is real.

Either it is something real in itself or it is something that arises because of the interaction of real things. Either way it is something real.

I don't see how talking about the x,y,z coordinates is any objection.

I am not objecting about x,y,z.t coordinates, I am the one that used that to show that your counting time was nonsense. Yes time is real but your insistance on relating it to counting grains of sand to "prove" whatever the hell your point was supposed to be is sheer idiocy.

Time is measured, not counted.

But what's the difference? We can attach a number to it either way. If it can be objectively measured it is by definition real.

 

[untermensche]

If you would just change the word "know" with "assume", then there is no problem.

I would change it to "should assume". We should assume that if something is real it is out there with the possibility to be counted. We should not assume that if something is real it can't possibly be counted.

Any possible counting is a finite counting. Since all real objects can possibly be counted the realization of that counting will be a finite counting.

 

[skepticalbip]

I am not objecting about x,y,z.t coordinates, I am the one that used that to show that your counting time was nonsense. Yes time is real but your insistance on relating it to counting grains of sand to "prove" whatever the hell your point was supposed to be is sheer idiocy.

Time is measured, not counted.

But what's the difference? We can attach a number to it either way. If it can be objectively measured it is by definition real.

Are you trying to make it appear that my contention is that time isn't real? Nice attempt at a diversion.

The question is the nature of time, not whether it is real. So far, your contention (for quite a few pages now) has been that time is like matter so can be counted like grains of sand since anything real can be counted. My contention is that time is real but is absolutely nothing like matter.

 

[untermensche]

Time is measured, not counted.

But what's the difference? We can attach a number to it either way. If it can be objectively measured it is by definition real.

Are you trying to make it appear that my contention is that time isn't real? Nice attempt at a diversion.

The question is the nature of time, not whether it is real. So far, your contention (for quite a few pages now) has been that time is like matter so can be counted like grains of sand since anything real can be counted. My contention is that time is real but is absolutely nothing like matter.

You are right. The discussion was about infinitesimal amounts of time and my point was that time was real and couldn't be divided infinitely.

But you are right. Time is a different kind of real that can't be divided at all.

 

[ryan]

If you would just change the word "know" with "assume", then there is no problem.

I would change it to "should assume". We should assume that if something is real it is out there with the possibility to be counted. We should not assume that if something is real it can't possibly be counted.

By "real" do you mean "observable" or "comprehensible" in scope? If not, then I still don't understand how finite is a qualifier for "real".

Any possible counting is a finite counting.

How do you know that it's impossible to count forever? Krauss believes in a universe for free, i.e. a universe of 0 total energy, so infinite time definitely seems possible in this sense.

 

[ryan]

Are you trying to make it appear that my contention is that time isn't real? Nice attempt at a diversion.

The question is the nature of time, not whether it is real. So far, your contention (for quite a few pages now) has been that time is like matter so can be counted like grains of sand since anything real can be counted. My contention is that time is real but is absolutely nothing like matter.

You are right. The discussion was about infinitesimal amounts of time and my point was that time was real and couldn't be divided infinitely.

But you are right. Time is a different kind of real that can't be divided at all.

You can divide a measurement of time, and dare I say: using numbers as markers.

 

[George S]

Time is a parameter in physics. Plug in a future time and see what is predicted.

More accurately duration, distance along the t axis, is arbitrarily zero at the beginning of the experiment.

How do we measure time? We do indeed count with whole numbers. A certain natural frequency is taken as the time standard. Every photon has a frequency. We have photons from when the universe was so young, so hot she was all plasma. We got her picture! The CMBR.

But, anyhow, any time for the age of the universe may be converted to an integer that counts the peaks of a continuous sine wave. And as long as there is frequency, since hf = E, there is energy.

 

[untermensche]

I would change it to "should assume". We should assume that if something is real it is out there with the possibility to be counted. We should not assume that if something is real it can't possibly be counted.

By "real" do you mean "observable" or "comprehensible" in scope? If not, then I still don't understand how finite is a qualifier for "real".

By real I mean to have existence.

Any possible counting is a finite counting.

How do you know that it's impossible to count forever?

A counting means to make a count of something. So to make a counting requires a finite amount to count. That is what that sentence means.

Krauss believes in a universe for free, i.e. a universe of 0 total energy, so infinite time definitely seems possible in this sense.

Zero total energy sounds to me like something finite.

 

[untermensche]

You can divide a measurement of time, and dare I say: using numbers as markers.

You really haven't divided anything. You've only made an arbitrary reading.

 

[ryan]

By "real" do you mean "observable" or "comprehensible" in scope? If not, then I still don't understand how finite is a qualifier for "real".

By real I mean to have existence.

Okay, now why does there have to be a limit on the number of things that can exist? We don't know this because nobody can count to infinity, right?

Any possible counting is a finite counting.

I agree given the way you are using "counting".

A counting means to make a count of something. So to make a counting requires a finite amount to count. That is what that sentence means.

Okay, but you did not answer the question. Let me put it this way: why can't we count real objects and never finish?

Zero total energy sounds to me like something finite.

Draw a circle (you don't actually need to draw this to get the point). Imagine that circle is perfect and continuous. Now draw a larger circle around the first circle, and imagine it too is perfect and continuous. Any infinitesimal point on the smaller circle will actually expand into a measurable arc length on the larger circle. One of the interesting things about infinity is that the "pieces" are not conserved; we seem to get something from nothing - a universe from nothing?

 

[ryan]

You can divide a measurement of time, and dare I say: using numbers as markers.

You really haven't divided anything. You've only made an arbitrary reading.

Okay, so if we only make arbitrary markers in time and you are now saying that time isn't divisible, then what is the Planck time? Is that just a imaginary marker of measurement, or is it an intrinsic graininess of the 4th dimension?

These are all questions unknown yet answered over and over since B.C..

 

[skepticalbip]

Are you trying to make it appear that my contention is that time isn't real? Nice attempt at a diversion.

The question is the nature of time, not whether it is real. So far, your contention (for quite a few pages now) has been that time is like matter so can be counted like grains of sand since anything real can be counted. My contention is that time is real but is absolutely nothing like matter.

You are right. The discussion was about infinitesimal amounts of time and my point was that time was real and couldn't be divided infinitely.

But you are right. Time is a different kind of real that can't be divided at all.

I appreciate that, thanks.

Now that leaves us with the matter of the full nature of time, which is still a mystery to science. But without which, it is impossible to determine whether time had a beginning or if it is somehow eternal (that seems to have been the original subject of the OP). Anyone who claims to know is just farting in the wind unless they have one hell of a verifiable model rather than just arm waving assertions.

 

[untermensche]

By real I mean to have existence.

Okay, now why does there have to be a limit on the number of things that can exist? We don't know this because nobody can count to infinity, right?

Here's the argument again:

We should assume that if something is real it is out there with the possibility to be counted. We should not assume that if something is real it can't possibly be counted.

Any possible counting is a finite counting. Since all real objects can possibly be counted the realization of that counting will be a finite counting.

...why can't we count real objects and never finish?

How could there be a real object that we couldn't theoretically count?

As said above, if something is real it can in theory be counted. It is there to be counted. The fact that we can't fully realize all the counting doesn't change the fact that the counting is theoretically possible. And if the counting is possible it is finite.

Draw a circle (you don't actually need to draw this to get the point). Imagine that circle is perfect and continuous. Now draw a larger circle around the first circle, and imagine it too is perfect and continuous. Any infinitesimal point on the smaller circle will actually expand into a measurable arc length on the larger circle. One of the interesting things about infinity is that the "pieces" are not conserved; we seem to get something from nothing - a universe from nothing?

Again you reach for imaginary mathematics. There are no infinitesimals or perfect circles in the real world.

 

[skepticalbip]

By real I mean to have existence.

Okay, now why does there have to be a limit on the number of things that can exist? We don't know this because nobody can count to infinity, right?

Any possible counting is a finite counting.

I agree given the way you are using "counting".

A counting means to make a count of something. So to make a counting requires a finite amount to count. That is what that sentence means.

Okay, but you did not answer the question. Let me put it this way: why can't we count real objects and never finish?

Zero total energy sounds to me like something finite.

Draw a circle (you don't actually need to draw this to get the point). Imagine that circle is perfect and continuous. Now draw a larger circle around the first circle, and imagine it too is perfect and continuous. Any infinitesimal point on the smaller circle will actually expand into a measurable arc length on the larger circle. One of the interesting things about infinity is that the "pieces" are not conserved; we seem to get something from nothing - a universe from nothing?

My understanding of "the universe from nothing" is that all the matter/energy in the universe (positive energy) plus all the gravity in the universe (negative energy) equal zero. So the postulation is that what we now see as the universe started from nothing (and is still nothing if taken all together) when the fundamentals of matter/energy and gravity seperated from that nothing.

It's sorta like you are flat broke. You borrow a few million dollars and put it in your bank account. You now have a few million dollars you can show off but you are also a few million in debt. Your net worth is still zero.

 

[George S]

Driving through Colorado learned there are two kinds of drivers: the nuts who fly by you, and the idiots slowing traffic down. Photons have just one speed when viewed from our frame. From their own frame they simply are at both ends of the trip. Strangely they have a momentum vector that is affected by gravity. Photons follow gravitic geodesics.

Photons almost follow gravitic geodesics. They peer ahead in time with a wavelike vision that softens the way. (Guiding Wave interpretation.)

We peer ahead in space while driving among the nuts and idiots. But we really only ever see what was. We only see the past, a yet we use that past to predict the future. The road ahead curves, take it. If crash we must, as most photons do, we deliver here and now. Pushing an electron around usually.

To the other photons they move at the right speed, light speed. They take no notice, but those idiots slowing things down I'll give them a shove! Okay, my momentum vector shifted a bit, which may change my direction. A lot. I'm freaking massless; I rebound easily (shiny). Electrons do not do that, and aren't you glad.

Photon's frequency, any photon will do. Ones generated by transition between two hyper fine energy levels of a particular isotope of Cesium (iirc) is used today. But that's just physics.

There is a mental sine wave with 13.72 billion peaks, each peak a year that stretches to time zero and beyond. All our math fails (Nonzero mass in zero volume is what it "says.").

The most intuitive for me is simple symmetry. Time flows there from zero to infinity,too. Why the universe did the yin-yang trick with energy and anti energy and time away from zero can never be seen. In the same way that we never 'see' the future, we cannot see past 0, even theoretically.

Indistinguishable from a beginning. It quacks, it waddles,....

 

[ryan]

Okay, now why does there have to be a limit on the number of things that can exist? We don't know this because nobody can count to infinity, right?

Here's the argument again:

We should assume that if something is real it is out there with the possibility to be counted. ...

I want to stop you here because this is the crux of you argument. I will explain my issue with it below.

...why can't we count real objects and never finish?

How could there be a real object that we couldn't theoretically count?

We could theoretically count them if we had an infinite amount of time. It can't be finished in a finite amount of time, well, unless you could count infinitely fast, whatever that means.

Draw a circle (you don't actually need to draw this to get the point). Imagine that circle is perfect and continuous. Now draw a larger circle around the first circle, and imagine it too is perfect and continuous. Any infinitesimal point on the smaller circle will actually expand into a measurable arc length on the larger circle. One of the interesting things about infinity is that the "pieces" are not conserved; we seem to get something from nothing - a universe from nothing?

Again you reach for imaginary mathematics. There are no infinitesimals or perfect circles in the real world.

The point was that something from nothing fits nicely with 0, or an infinitesimal, becoming something infinitely more.

You made a conjecture, so I did too.

 

[ryan]

Okay, now why does there have to be a limit on the number of things that can exist? We don't know this because nobody can count to infinity, right?

Any possible counting is a finite counting.

I agree given the way you are using "counting".

A counting means to make a count of something. So to make a counting requires a finite amount to count. That is what that sentence means.

Okay, but you did not answer the question. Let me put it this way: why can't we count real objects and never finish?

Zero total energy sounds to me like something finite.

Draw a circle (you don't actually need to draw this to get the point). Imagine that circle is perfect and continuous. Now draw a larger circle around the first circle, and imagine it too is perfect and continuous. Any infinitesimal point on the smaller circle will actually expand into a measurable arc length on the larger circle. One of the interesting things about infinity is that the "pieces" are not conserved; we seem to get something from nothing - a universe from nothing?

My understanding of "the universe from nothing" is that all the matter/energy in the universe (positive energy) plus all the gravity in the universe (negative energy) equal zero. So the postulation is that what we now see as the universe started from nothing (and is still nothing if taken all together) when the fundamentals of matter/energy and gravity seperated from that nothing.

It's sorta like you are flat broke. You borrow a few million dollars and put it in your bank account. You now have a few million dollars you can show off but you are also a few million in debt. Your net worth is still zero.

Yeah, but it's still something from nothing. It is all conserved and nicely symmetrical in total, but something and nothing is not symmetrical.

Philosophers criticize his use of "nothing". Are quantum fluctuations really nothing?

 

[skepticalbip]

Okay, now why does there have to be a limit on the number of things that can exist? We don't know this because nobody can count to infinity, right?

Any possible counting is a finite counting.

I agree given the way you are using "counting".

A counting means to make a count of something. So to make a counting requires a finite amount to count. That is what that sentence means.

Okay, but you did not answer the question. Let me put it this way: why can't we count real objects and never finish?

Zero total energy sounds to me like something finite.

Draw a circle (you don't actually need to draw this to get the point). Imagine that circle is perfect and continuous. Now draw a larger circle around the first circle, and imagine it too is perfect and continuous. Any infinitesimal point on the smaller circle will actually expand into a measurable arc length on the larger circle. One of the interesting things about infinity is that the "pieces" are not conserved; we seem to get something from nothing - a universe from nothing?

My understanding of "the universe from nothing" is that all the matter/energy in the universe (positive energy) plus all the gravity in the universe (negative energy) equal zero. So the postulation is that what we now see as the universe started from nothing (and is still nothing if taken all together) when the fundamentals of matter/energy and gravity seperated from that nothing.

It's sorta like you are flat broke. You borrow a few million dollars and put it in your bank account. You now have a few million dollars you can show off but you are also a few million in debt. Your net worth is still zero.

Yeah, but it's still something from nothing. It is all conserved and nicely symmetrical in total, but something and nothing is not symmetrical.

That seems to just be a choice of terminology. Rather than calling the universe something call it [(+something) + (-something)] and it would be symmetrical with nothing.

Philosophers criticize his use of "nothing". Are quantum fluctuations really nothing?

Good question. Another would be was it a quantum fluctuation or something we have no knowledge of?

In any case, it seems that his "nothing" is postulating a void very different from the fourspace we now see. Wouldn't our fourspace have come into being from his "nothing" along with the energy/matter and gravity when they seperated from the "nothing"?