Infinte Regress Timeline...

[Kharakov]

And infinite amounts of time don't finish. They don't ever finish. Even if you describe an infinite amount of time as time that doesn't start. It is still an amount of time that can never finish.

Have you noticed that every time that you said "time ends now" it didn't end? The continuum is unbounded in both directions- now is not an "end". If it was, this thread would have ended long ago....

 

[Speakpigeon]

If the past was infinite nobody would have been there to observe this infinite amount of time passing.

Whether seen or unseen, it still has to pass.

No necessarily. The notion that time passes may be entirely subjective. The concept of time as used by scientists does not require time to pass. Time there is a mere parameter in equations relating one distribution of matter-energy at t1 to another at t2.

We have the concept and we don't have empirical data because we couldn't have any so empirical observations provide no support for your views. You are trying to argue using "empirical" data provided by your subjectivity but this is of no use since we are talking about infinity and nobody has made any observation that time is not infinite.

If the past is infinite that means infinite change has already occurred in the past.

Not necessarily either. If you define time as the amount of change yes but we could also see time as a sort of absolute frame as I think most scientists thought of it before Einstein.

Further, if time is only change, we may have cyclical time, i.e. infinite time with the same changes coming round again and again.

Now, assuming just to please you that we had an infinite past because we had an infinite amount of change, personally I have no problem with an infinite amount of change. This has various consequences to be sure but that's no problem that I know of.


You also have to understand that according to the concept of absolute time as imagined by scientists before Einstein time was independent of events taking place in the universe. Physical events had no effect on time. So if you want to discuss the concept of time as scientists think of it now, then you need first to explain what it is exactly they think. As I understand the issue, for the moment there is no consensus on what time is beyond the pragmatic view of Einstein's relativity, which is not that of Quantum physics, which is not that of Thermodynamic and so on. So, explain first the concept you are talking about and we'll see then if there is a discussion to be had.

[
And saying change has always occurred means there is reaction without action.

Ok, let's assume that change has always occurred since forever. I say each change came in reaction to the one that came before. Since I assume that the past is infinite, there is always a change before so any change is always a reaction to an action, i.e. the action produce during the change that came before.

Me, I don't see where there would be any difficulty there.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Suppose an infinite road and assume you are somewhere on this road. Now, are you going to claim that it's impossible for you to be anywhere on this infinite road because you would have to have travelled along the whole of the road? This is idiotic, the road is already there, infinitely long in both directions and you don't need to travel on the road itself to get at one particular point along this road. Same thing for time.

If the road never began what is the person walking on?

How do you walk on a road that never began? A road that never begins can't take you anywhere.

This is quite fascinating.

So you, in fact, really don't understand the idea of infinity. Forget about infinite past! You don't understand the concept of infinity (to start with if I may say).

There's not much to explain, unfortunately.

I can always suggest you try to imagine a straight road which would be infinite in both directions and such that it exists in its entirety as an infinite road. Amusingly, it wouldn't even collapse on its own weight! Hey, presto! Well, as long as nobody walks on it. But assuming it exists on its own, with nothing else in the universe, and made of matter that wouldn't decay too fast, then it would sit there, a straight line lost in an infinite universe (the universe would have to be infinite at least in the diection of the road of course but it could end at a short distance from the road in all other directions, making, like, a tunnel!).

So, OBVIOUSLY, such a road would not start anywhere (and wouldn't end anywhere either except along all directions perpendicular to its main axis). It would sit there, and it could have alternative black and white markings all along to give a sense of location although all locations would be symmetrical (equivalent).

I have of course no idea how such a road could possibly come about but it seems a logical possibility.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

I say "we" because we do have today. We are both here at today.

Yes we are here today but we never had to travel through the entire length of the past, infinite or not, to get where we are. Time may be passing only for us. This is a property relative to our viewpoint.

No. Change is occurring whether we note it or not.

Oh and YOU DO KNOW that, do you?

So how do you know that if that's not being too nosy of me? YOU HAVE BEEN THERE ALL ALONG, of course! AMAZING.

So you have all this empirical evidence about time. I'm not sure there is any need for a concept then. Just tell us how things are. And please don't stop at time. Tell us how the whole of the universe is, and was, and will be. AMAZING. JUST PLAIN AMAZING.

My point was precisely that since we were not there we can't claim to know that change occurred in the past the way we think it occurs in the present.

If time is infinite in the past that means infinite change has occurred in the past because infinite time means an infinite amount of change.

NO IT DOES NOT.
But equally an infinite amount of change would be perfectly Ok logically.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

The only concept of time that exists is the concept of absolute time which is pretty much what Newton had in mind. In this view, the past is infinite and we are here today at some point in time between an infinite past and an infinite future. We as a human species never had to go through any infinite amount of time to find ourselves here today. The universe itself never had to go through time because if time exists at all it is just one aspect of the universe so if time is infinite then the universe is infinite in a way which doesn't require the universe to go through time, through this infinite past in order for us to exist today. In this universe, we are where we are and we are conscious of where we are without having had to go through this infinite past.

So the past is infinite because Newton said so?

No, it's just that there is not much to discuss appart from this.

The universe is changing. It had to go through all of it's prior changes to reach today. Today could not occur unless all the changes in the universe that came before today finished first.

If those prior changes were infinite the universe could not go through all of them to reach today.

Why not? It just doesn't make sense.

You seem to think of the universe as some kind of very busy little leprechaun who could only have a pot of gold today if he had been dilligent enough to count and recount his treasure every single day for an infinite amount of days prior to today. Nobody is arguing that there has been an infinite amount of time since the Big Bang occurred so the issue of some entity conducting some joined up activity during an infinite time doesn't even arise. I guess that if the past had an infinite amount of time, and maybe an infinite amount of change, we won't ever be able to understand reality and of course an idea we could have about reality would have to be relative to our immediate experience of it, including our idea of an infinite past but that doesn't mean the concept of infinite is self-contradictory or even false as to the actual universe.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Theory of relativity shows that time is as real as the other three dimensions.

I thought that general relativity regarded spacetime as an epiphenomenon of, or somehow emerging from, gravitation?
Just saying...
EB

 

[steve_bnk]

It is now 10 hours 40 minutes 10 seconds Pacific time..no wait that 15 seconds ..no wait 20 seconds...

Golly, a philosophical conundrum. Every time I try to be now it is already gone.I try to be now it is already gone.

Endless debate ensues.

note; The above is sarcasm.

 

[skepticalbip]

Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once. It's sorta like the other dimenisions are nature's way of keeping everything from happening at the same place.

 

[Juma]

Theory of relativity shows that time is as real as the other three dimensions.

I thought that general relativity regarded spacetime as an epiphenomenon of, or somehow emerging from, gravitation?
Just saying...
EB

So what? That doesnt mean that time is not a feature of the universe.
It is definitely not a human invention.

 

[Wiploc]

Anyway, a large amount of modern (non-creationist) cosmological thought has evolved past the point of a geocentric universe in addition to evolving past the thought of a "start" at the BB. So, I'm not sure if you're going to find an actual physicist anywhere in the world who says "nothing was happening before the BB".

Just show me evidence of any kind of an event that occurred before the Big Bang to demonstrate time existed before it.

Or you could show us evidence that no such event occurred.

In the complete absence of evidence we don't assume things exist. We assume they don't.

So you're making an assumption.

And the physicists who I refer to when I refer to physicists claiming time started at the Big Bang are Stephen Hawking and Lawrence Krauss.

In Brief History, Hawking said the big bang was the beginning, but then he corrected himself, saying we can call it the beginning, since we don't know what happened before that. In other words, the sense in which the big bang was the beginning is the same sense in which 1 AD is the beginning of the calendar: It's not a fact, but rather a convention.

I have read Hawking say it and heard Krauss say it.

I've never seen anybody print it in hardcopy without also saying, as Hawking did, that they are simply calling that the beginning out of ignorance.

Some may claim they are not saying the Big Bang is the ultimate beginning of time. It is only the beginning of time for this universe.

But until we have evidence of time before this universe we can't assume it exists. We have to be very skeptical of things claimed to exist yet have no evidence to support their existence.

Isn't that what you're doing, claiming---without evidence---that the big bang exists as the ultimate beginning of time?

We can say for certain the Big Bang is A beginning to time. It may be the only beginning or it may be one of many.

Why would it have to be a beginning at all. Just because we don't know whether anything came before? That's not evidence of a beginning. If you don't favor claims without evidence, don't claim a beginning without evidence.

 

[fromderinside]

We seem to be getting a little less ignorant.Abstract: Concentric circles in WMAP data may provide evidence of violent pre-Big-Bang activity
The paper: http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1011/1011.3706.pdf

Also if we exist in multiverse environment there should be evidence of such present in our universe.
Evidence for the Multiverse in the Standard Model and Beyond Paper: http://arxiv.org/pdf/0712.2454.pdf

So here we are able to model based on uncertainties in what we know.

 

[fromderinside]

We seem to be getting a little less ignorant.Abstract: Concentric circles in WMAP data may provide evidence of violent pre-Big-Bang activity
The paper: http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1011/1011.3706.pdf

Also if we exist in multiverse environment there should be evidence of such present in our universe.
Evidence for the Multiverse in the Standard Model and Beyond Paper: http://arxiv.org/pdf/0712.2454.pdf

So here we are able to model based on uncertainties in what we know.

So why are we presenting rational questions when there are empirical data with which we can manipulate inconsistencies with our generalizations about how the data holds together. One can test the models. The rational questions we are asking have already been asked. Pissing contests don't go anywhere. ...and other useless thing I can present but won't.

 

[Speakpigeon]

I thought that general relativity regarded spacetime as an epiphenomenon of, or somehow emerging from, gravitation?
Just saying...
EB

So what? That doesnt mean that time is not a feature of the universe.
It is definitely not a human invention.

I agree. But, surely time as we see it would be different from this emergent time. I mean the concept of absolute time humanity has believed in for... a very long time, wouldn't in fact exist. Only our impression of such would and this emergent time from which we derive our impression and our concept of absolute time.

I guess the main point is that if time is somehow emergent it's ipso facto restricted by physical laws, in particular by quantification. Time consequently is more like change. It's the ticking of all events which makes the clock of time (pun: cloth of time).

Now, even so, I don't see how this would change an iota as to the possibility of an infinite past (although abviously this is precisely what would determine the reality or irreality of it).

Now of course, we still don't know if general relativity is really true.
EB

 

[fromderinside]

So what? That doesnt mean that time is not a feature of the universe.
It is definitely not a human invention.

I agree. But, surely time as we see it would be different from this emergent time. I mean the concept of absolute time humanity has believed in for... a very long time, wouldn't in fact exist. Only our impression of such would and this emergent time from which we derive our impression and our concept of absolute time.

I guess the main point is that if time is somehow emergent it's ipso facto restricted by physical laws, in particular by quantification. Time consequently is more like change. It's the ticking of all events which makes the clock of time (pun: cloth of time).

Now, even so, I don't see how this would change an iota as to the possibility of an infinite past (although abviously this is precisely what would determine the reality or irreality of it).

Now of course, we still don't know if general relativity is really true.
EB

What is the emergent construct? Can it be physically justified? Failing that Maybe you should defend emergence logically and analytically.

 

[Juma]

if time is somehow emergent it's ipso facto restricted by physical laws, in particular by quantification.

Sorry, but I have idea what it is you are trying to say here.
And why do you say that time is "emergent"?

Now of course, we still don't know if general relativity is really true.
EB

Of course there could be even better models, but GR is astonishingly accurate, so: yes we know that GR is true.

 

[Speakpigeon]

I agree. But, surely time as we see it would be different from this emergent time. I mean the concept of absolute time humanity has believed in for... a very long time, wouldn't in fact exist. Only our impression of such would and this emergent time from which we derive our impression and our concept of absolute time.

I guess the main point is that if time is somehow emergent it's ipso facto restricted by physical laws, in particular by quantification. Time consequently is more like change. It's the ticking of all events which makes the clock of time (pun: cloth of time).

Now, even so, I don't see how this would change an iota as to the possibility of an infinite past (although abviously this is precisely what would determine the reality or irreality of it).

Now of course, we still don't know if general relativity is really true.
EB

What is the emergent construct?

Physical time.

Can it be physically justified?

Its existence would be entirely logical but would be nothing more than time as science think of it and use it so I'm not sure what "physically justified" would imply beyond that.

Failing that Maybe you should defend emergence logically and analytically.

I guess it's typically a physicist's problem. I'm not a physicist. Call on your acquaintances there.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

if time is somehow emergent

why do you say that time is "emergent"?

I didn't say that time is "emergent".
EB

 

[Juma]

why do you say that time is "emergent"?

I didn't say that time is "emergent".
EB

Yes you did:

What is the emergent construct?

Physical time.

 

[untermensche]

You have made no argument showing how it is possible for there to be a present moment even if the time before it is infinite.

Nobody needs to do that. If you don't think an infinite past is possible it's up to you to show why it is not possible.

HINT: usually, this involves logic...

Specifically, you have to show that the concept you want to attack is somehow self-contradictory.

That is not at all how it works.

If somebody claims that it is possible for there to have been an infinite number of moments in time before the present moment THEY have to show how this is possible.

If somebody claims they climbed an infinite number of stairs before the stair they presently stand, THEY have to show how this is possible.

If somebody claims they had an infinite number of children before the child they hold, THEY have to show how it is possible.

The believers in real infinities have to show how any could be possible.

In no way do we assume that ANY are possible without a demonstration.

Notice that nobody cares if you proved that your own private concept of an infinite past is wrong.

What I notice is that YOU don't have any interest in defending what are incredible claims. Claims like, an infinite amount of something can be encased in a finite container, that an infinite amount of time ("A" in my little graph) can be contained and bounded by the present. You possibly think this is possible because you don't know my little graph is a complete abstraction of the situation. It uses lines of finite length to define lines of infinite length.

Basically you claim that infinite time isn't really infinite. It can finish at the present moment.

And you think you can somehow get away with this by saying you will define an infinite amount of time as time that never starts, whatever that could possible mean. You think by defining infinite time this way it isn't really an infinite amount of time. It is an amount of time that finishes. Since ALL the time that has occurred in the past ends at the present, saying an infinite amount of time occurred in the past means an amount of time that never finishes finished.

It is an absurd claim.

So you first have to understand the concept of infinite past that people are using, for example the one assumed by scientists before Einstein. Do you?

People presenting what they think Einstein means isn't at all convincing.

Relativity is about speed and light and what happens when the speed of things made of matter approaches the speed of light. It is not a proof or argument of any kind that infinite time already passed in the past.

Is it possible to count to the end of the negative integers before some point in the future?

How did infinite prior moments finish passing before the present moment?

...we don't have to show that it would still be possible to count past years if the past was infinite.....

Here is where you are dead wrong. A year is an amount of time. If time always existed then the passing of years of time always existed, even if there were no people to record those years.

And if time is infinite in the past that means that an infinite number of years passed before the present moment.

It is quite funny to see that in your analogy between an infinite past and the set of negative integers, YOU JUST CHOOSE to ignore the fact that the infinite set of negative integers ends at the number 0 just like an infinite past would end now. By your own account, you have just definitely shown that the set of negative integers cannot possibly be infinite although for some mysterious reason you only fathom you see no problem with the future being infinite as you don't see any problem with the set of positive integers being infinite. Your argument has to be ridiculous.
EB

The negative integers DO NOT end at zero.

They BEGIN at negative one. There is no end to the negative integers, just like there would be no end to the past if it was infinite. It could not end at the present.

 

[untermensche]

And infinite amounts of time don't finish. They don't ever finish. Even if you describe an infinite amount of time as time that doesn't start. It is still an amount of time that can never finish.

Have you noticed that every time that you said "time ends now" it didn't end? The continuum is unbounded in both directions- now is not an "end". If it was, this thread would have ended long ago....

What I have said over and over is that all the time that has occurred in the past ends at the present. You couldn't have a present unless this was true.

I have never said time ends at the present.

Nor have I tried to make the ridiculous claim that an infinite amount of time could end at the present.