Infinte Regress Timeline...

[skepticalbip]

Exactly. Your "yesterday would never arrive" means that last hour would never arrive, last minute would never arrive, last second would never arrive, etc. etc. to an infinity of infinestimals of time. Exactly the same "logic" that destroyed Zeno.

Yesterday is just used as an example. If times moves infinitely into the past then no now could ever occur because any now would require infinite time to pass before it could occur.

This has nothing to do with infinitesimals.

Right.

You are claiming that yesterday would never get here but an hour, minute, second, etc. ago would.

Any point can be assumed on an infinate timeline. It is just that you can't get to either end from there.

An infinite amount of time would have to pass to get to now from when? Certainly not yesterday, last week, last year, etc. So from when? You seem to be trying to put a starting point on an infinite past, a logical impossibility given the definition of infinity.

 

[ryan]

Actually, just give me some time to think about this. I think there is a way where infinity can actually pass.

There is no way for it to have already passed.

All you have to know is what infinity means to understand that.

Imagine that space-time is curved (smooth). Take some arbitrary interval. It has an infinite number of subintervals that have an infinite number of subintervals between the subintervals, and this keeps going. How do you know that our infinite amount of time isn't an infinitesimal for some other much larger interval? Our infinity would pass very quickly on an infinitely larger scale. So our infinite amount of time can pass given a large enough scale to compare it to.

I am not totally sure about this, but I am confident that I will hear about it if I'm not right.

 

[ryan]

Yesterday is just used as an example. If times moves infinitely into the past then no now could ever occur because any now would require infinite time to pass before it could occur.

This has nothing to do with infinitesimals.

Right.

You are claiming that yesterday would never get here but an hour, minute, second, etc. ago would.

Any point can be assumed on an infinate timeline. It is just that you can't get to either end from there.

What untermensche (good god I miss the gender question) is saying is that there couldn't be an infinite number of hours behind us because an infinite number of hours never comes.

 

[skepticalbip]

Right.

You are claiming that yesterday would never get here but an hour, minute, second, etc. ago would.

Any point can be assumed on an infinate timeline. It is just that you can't get to either end from there.

What untermensche (good god I miss the gender question) is saying is that there couldn't be an infinite number of hours behind us because an infinite number of hours never comes.

That's because he doesn't understand infinities.

The question is one of the mathematics of infinities not his so called logic based on his incredulity.

(I have no trouble with PC gender assignment. "He" for an unknown gendered subject has been perfectly acceptable and correct usage for hundreds of years, except among recent ultra-PC-sensitive people)

 

[Kharakov]

Sure there is. If time did not begin, time has always existed, any point in time can be selected from, which has an infinite amount of time before it and after it.

Simply saying the words "time did not begin" and actually providing argument how this could be logically possible are worlds apart.

Time that did not begin means time without end. So the time before yesterday was without end. How yesterday arrived when time without end occurred first is the mystery.

No it isn't. It simply means that whatever point in infinite time that you focus upon has infinite past and infinite future. Do you deny that is how I came into existence?

 

[Malintent]

Imagine that space-time is curved (smooth). Take some arbitrary interval. It has an infinite number of subintervals that have an infinite number of subintervals between the subintervals, and this keeps going. How do you know that our infinite amount of time isn't an infinitesimal for some other much larger interval? Our infinity would pass very quickly on an infinitely larger scale. So our infinite amount of time can pass given a large enough scale to compare it to.

I am not totally sure about this, but I am confident that I will hear about it if I'm not right.

You are not right (ROAR!!!)

You are correct that there would be an infinite NUMBER of subdivisions of time, however the LENGTH of time for each of the infinite possible intervals would be finite.

 

[skepticalbip]

I suppose that it is possible that the whole thing is intended as a lesson in how not to form an argument.

The lesson is you can lead a horse to water.

Explain.

Are you saying that you are leading other posters into endless arguments by continually just posting things intended to provoke them to respond? Or are you saying that you can't admit, even to yourself, that you are wrong even when it is clearly pointed out to you many times so are trying to lead other posters to your erroneous assumptions?

 

[Kharakov]

You are claiming that yesterday would never get here but an hour, minute, second, etc. ago would.

That's impossible! The past will never become now.

You know what's neat- that a finite number of thoughts can be used to indicate that an infinite number of terms can be summed up to a finite sum. Finites effectively define infinites.

 

[ryan]

Imagine that space-time is curved (smooth). Take some arbitrary interval. It has an infinite number of subintervals that have an infinite number of subintervals between the subintervals, and this keeps going. How do you know that our infinite amount of time isn't an infinitesimal for some other much larger interval? Our infinity would pass very quickly on an infinitely larger scale. So our infinite amount of time can pass given a large enough scale to compare it to.

I am not totally sure about this, but I am confident that I will hear about it if I'm not right.

You are not right (ROAR!!!)

You are correct that there would be an infinite NUMBER of subdivisions of time, however the LENGTH of time for each of the infinite possible intervals would be finite.

Yeah, and there can even be an infinite number of those finite intervals inside of some other larger finite interval - and we are still in the aleph null.

 

[ryan]

Time that did not begin means time without end. So the time before yesterday was without end. How yesterday arrived when time without end occurred first is the mystery.

I just realized that my arguments have been circular. But I still have an issue to bring up.

Imagine I shoot an arrow (Zeno's paradox), and it moves continuously through time. It must go halfway before it reaches the end of the other half. So an arrow that needs to travel 20 meters to reach its destination must always go half of the distance in front of it before it can reach the 20 meter end. So logically, it will never reach the end.

So you might say that this proves that space-time is not curved/smooth, and it is tough for me to argue that, hence the circular argument.

But what would it mean for space-time to be granular? Every "pixel" (maybe a Planck time) would be an instantaneous point in time, then there is a void then another Planck time. Wouldn't this mean that any length of time would be instantaneous? In other words, how would a finite number of Planck times give us this succession of time; the present would be the past and the future - causation would be in trouble.

 

[Kharakov]

Imagine I shoot an arrow (Zeno's paradox), and it moves continuously through time. It must go halfway before it reaches the end of the other half. So an arrow that needs to travel 20 meters to reach its destination must always go half of the distance in front of it before it can reach the 20 meter end. So logically, it will never reach the end.

Assume the velocity of the arrow is 20 meters per second, which is the same as

\(\frac{20 \times m}{s}= \frac{\frac{1}{2^n} \times 20 \times m}{\frac{1}{2^n} \times s} \)

Even with n= infinity, the (1/2)^n divide out, and you always go 20 meters per second.

But what would it mean for space-time to be granular?

They've found no actual evidence for the granularity of spacetime- in other words, everything points to smooth continuity.

In fact, from what I've read recently (including this article), measurements of distant gamma ray bursts have indicated that if there is granularity of spacetime, it is at least 10^13 times smaller than the Planck length.

Smoooootttthhhhh.....

 

[ryan]

Assume the velocity of the arrow is 20 meters per second, which is the same as

\(\frac{20 \times m}{s}= \frac{\frac{1}{2^n} \times 20 \times m}{\frac{1}{2^n} \times s} \)

Even with n= infinity, the (1/2)^n divide out, and you always go 20 meters per second.

But what would it mean for space-time to be granular?

They've found no actual evidence for the granularity of spacetime- in other words, everything points to smooth continuity.

In fact, from what I've read recently (including this article), measurements of distant gamma ray bursts have indicated that if there is granularity of spacetime, it is at least 10^13 times smaller than the Planck length.

Smoooootttthhhhh.....

But I realized today that I have been guilty of a circular argument myself. The logic seems to be a fundamental problem for even assuming a curved space-time.

To put it bluntly, something that can never pass can't pass. By assuming a smooth space-time, we are bypassing the logic, are we not?

We may have taken differently to untermensche's argument if it was put more clearly from the beginning. The initial argument and the arguments that followed were hard to follow if they were good, or they were circular and convoluted.

 

[skepticalbip]

But I realized today that I have been guilty of a circular argument myself. The logic seems to be a fundamental problem for even assuming a curved space-time.

To put it bluntly, something that can never pass can't pass. By assuming a smooth space-time, we are bypassing the logic, are we not?

Not at all. If we find space-time to be perfectly smooth then it only shows that the earlier logic was founded on an incorrect assumption, so bad logic. We will now be able to make more accurate logical predictions based on more accurate assumptions about reality. Actually for "logical" arguments like Zeno's and unter- this more accurate understanding wasn't necessary to show their logic was bad (false). All that was needed was math and in the case of unter-, an examination of his "logic" itself shows it to be full of logical fallacies so not logic at all but nothing but nonsene.

 

[George S]

But I realized today that I have been guilty of a circular argument myself. The logic seems to be a fundamental problem for even assuming a curved space-time.

To put it bluntly, something that can never pass can't pass. By assuming a smooth space-time, we are bypassing the logic, are we not?

Not at all. If we find space-time to be perfectly smooth then it only shows that the earlier logic was founded on an incorrect assumption, so bad logic. We will now be able to make more accurate logical predictions based on more accurate assumptions about reality. Actually for "logical" arguments like Zeno's and unter- this more accurate understanding wasn't necessary to show their logic was bad (false). All that was needed was math and in the case of unter-, an examination of his "logic" itself shows it to be full of logical fallacies so not logic at all but nothing but nonsene.

The logic used in physics presupposes continuity in all dimensions. Waves of photons occur in a continuous EM field.

The sum of half a second plus a quarter second, plus an eighth, sixteenth and so on to infinity is one second. Or so close reality can't tell the difference.

 

[untermensche]

An infinite amount of time would have to pass to get to now from when? Certainly not yesterday, last week, last year, etc. So from when? You seem to be trying to put a starting point on an infinite past, a logical impossibility given the definition of infinity.

Wow. Even you are getting warm.

If infinite time must pass before now can occur then now will never occur.

 

[George S]

An infinite amount of time would have to pass to get to now from when? Certainly not yesterday, last week, last year, etc. So from when? You seem to be trying to put a starting point on an infinite past, a logical impossibility given the definition of infinity.

Wow. Even you are getting warm.

If infinite time must pass before now can occur then now will never occur.

Right. So what shall we make of negative time? (Hint: see above about Sean Carroll)

 

[Kharakov]

The logic used in physics presupposes continuity in all dimensions. Waves of photons occur in a continuous EM field.

Well, the lack of granularity (continuity and smoothness) of spacetime has been confirmed by observation, at least up to 10^-48 meters, which is ~10^-13 times smaller than the Planck length (1.6*10^-35).

 

[skepticalbip]

Not at all. If we find space-time to be perfectly smooth then it only shows that the earlier logic was founded on an incorrect assumption, so bad logic. We will now be able to make more accurate logical predictions based on more accurate assumptions about reality. Actually for "logical" arguments like Zeno's and unter- this more accurate understanding wasn't necessary to show their logic was bad (false). All that was needed was math and in the case of unter-, an examination of his "logic" itself shows it to be full of logical fallacies so not logic at all but nothing but nonsene.

The logic used in physics presupposes continuity in all dimensions. Waves of photons occur in a continuous EM field.

The sum of half a second plus a quarter second, plus an eighth, sixteenth and so on to infinity is one second. Or so close reality can't tell the difference.

True. But I was assuming that Ryan was talking about the logic of Zeno where the idea was that space could be infinitely divided and somehow also assumed that the time to cross each division would take a finite amount of time. I know it is pure nonsense but that was the argument.

 

[ryan]

But I realized today that I have been guilty of a circular argument myself. The logic seems to be a fundamental problem for even assuming a curved space-time.

To put it bluntly, something that can never pass can't pass. By assuming a smooth space-time, we are bypassing the logic, are we not?

Not at all. If we find space-time to be perfectly smooth then it only shows that the earlier logic was founded on an incorrect assumption, so bad logic. We will now be able to make more accurate logical predictions based on more accurate assumptions about reality. Actually for "logical" arguments like Zeno's and unter- this more accurate understanding wasn't necessary to show their logic was bad (false). All that was needed was math and in the case of unter-, an examination of his "logic" itself shows it to be full of logical fallacies so not logic at all but nothing but nonsene.

But I am worried that we are essentially saying that what can never pass can pass; that is self-contradictory.

 

[ryan]

I am starting to feel like untermensche is the holdout from 12 Angry Men.