Infinte Regress Timeline...

[George S]

What a silly statement. According to the no-boundary conditions that Hawking speculated exist for the imaginary axis of time, a finite amount of time could be traversed for an infinite amount of time- you never reach the edge of a sphere that you are walking on. This means that you can keep regressing infinitely, traveling all over the sphere of imaginary time without hitting an edge.

The conclusion is that time had a beginning. Time is finite.

It couldn't be more clear. More hand waving can't change it.

Ok unter, I may have misinterpreted your incorrect statements as deliberate goading instead of indicative of misunderstanding concepts because I have a feeling that you possess some form of intelligence.

The next to last sentence of the concluding paragraph clearly states that the no boundary condition implies the universe will eventually collapse again. Now I'm wondering if you'll understand the implication of the universe collapsing again (to a singularity, like at the BB). Does this mean time goes on after the next BB? doyyyyy....

I notice how you like to completely ignore what Hawking calls his conclusion.

You do know what that word means?

The conclusion of this lecture is that the universe has not existed forever. Rather, the universe, and time itself, had a beginning in the Big Bang, about 15 billion years ago.

Your only talent seems to be ignoring the significant and worshiping the nonexistent.

You ignore logic, ignore quite obvious conclusions, and all in service to your imaginary god, infinity.

A day without a yesterday is absurd. Something from nothing is absurd.

A preexisting infinity of time is absurd. Time running backwards is absurd.

And, yet, we contemplate them all on equal footing: speculation...

The Big Bang plus inflation is one possible way the universe could have gotten as it is. There are other possibilities, among them infinite time in both directions that explain a different method that explains all data equally well.

When Stephen or Sean pronounces a scientific conclusion it is always taken as being based on given premises. Science is alway if-then logic. Hawking's no boundary proposal is that when spacetime came to be time was positive already; there never was a time zero.

Carroll's proposal also starts at with that state and can be viewed as proceeding both ways from this. It is a mirror image. Remember, all the physics works if you run the movie backwards. Entropy increases from the central point in both directions. The positive energy expanding on our side and negative energy expanding through the looking glass.

- - - Updated - - -

What a silly statement. According to the no-boundary conditions that Hawking speculated exist for the imaginary axis of time, a finite amount of time could be traversed for an infinite amount of time- you never reach the edge of a sphere that you are walking on. This means that you can keep regressing infinitely, traveling all over the sphere of imaginary time without hitting an edge.

The conclusion is that time had a beginning. Time is finite.

It couldn't be more clear. More hand waving can't change it.

Ok unter, I may have misinterpreted your incorrect statements as deliberate goading instead of indicative of misunderstanding concepts because I have a feeling that you possess some form of intelligence.

The next to last sentence of the concluding paragraph clearly states that the no boundary condition implies the universe will eventually collapse again. Now I'm wondering if you'll understand the implication of the universe collapsing again (to a singularity, like at the BB). Does this mean time goes on after the next BB? doyyyyy....

I notice how you like to completely ignore what Hawking calls his conclusion.

You do know what that word means?

The conclusion of this lecture is that the universe has not existed forever. Rather, the universe, and time itself, had a beginning in the Big Bang, about 15 billion years ago.

Your only talent seems to be ignoring the significant and worshiping the nonexistent.

You ignore logic, ignore quite obvious conclusions, and all in service to your imaginary god, infinity.

A day without a yesterday is absurd. Something from nothing is absurd.

A preexisting infinity of time is absurd. Time running backwards is absurd.

And, yet, we contemplate them all on equal footing: speculation...

The Big Bang plus inflation is one possible way the universe could have gotten as it is. There are other possibilities, among them infinite time in both directions that explain a different method that explains all data equally well.

When Stephen or Sean pronounces a scientific conclusion it is always taken as being based on given premises. Science is alway if-then logic. Hawking's no boundary proposal is that when spacetime came to be time was positive already; there never was a time zero.

Carroll's proposal also starts at with that state and can be viewed as proceeding both ways from this. It is a mirror image. Remember, all the physics works if you run the movie backwards. Entropy increases from the central point in both directions. The positive energy expanding on our side and negative energy expanding through the looking glass.

 

[ryan]

Kharakov brings up an interesting point in our latest exchange. The point I took is that if we can allow a fast-forward of an infinite number of intervals, if they exist, then one could get to the present from an infinite past.

Imagine being inside of a black hole. I think time would move infinitely fast (time dilation from the general theory of relativity) outside of the black hole. This would allow one to travel some infinite amount of time into the future in almost no time at all.

So maybe time can have a beginning and an end, and it can still be infinite. Furthermore, this may actually require a 5th dimension.

The people who argue for the existence of infinite time have neither logic nor evidence on their side.

Their belief is no different from the belief that Jesus is god and we see the twisted arguments used to try to prove the existence of infinity.

Now we are contorted into examining the effects of black holes and asked to imagine being inside of one.

And then we are supposed to talk about the effects on time being in this black hole.

It is absurdity on top of absurdity.

A desperate attempt to try to justify the existence of this imaginary thing called infinity.

No mater what argument is made the logic remains. If an infinite amount of time existed before yesterday then an infinite amount of time must finish passing before yesterday can arrive.

When you have neither logic or observation you wave your hands around and talk about black holes and the alleged ability of time to move infinitely fast. The argument is asking you to accept one infinity (infinitely fast time, whatever that is) to justify another. It is a worthless argument.

If time dilation can actually stop time in some reference frame such as inside of a black hole, then, energy permitting, a reference frame can go infinitely far into the future.

Your logic still works if you add the premise that a reference frame cannot experience 0 time for some non-zero amount of time relative to the reference frame.

 

[untermensche]

You ignore logic, ignore quite obvious conclusions, and all in service to your imaginary god, infinity.

A day without a yesterday is absurd. Something from nothing is absurd.

Please!!

To say that something starts is not absurd. It is all we know. Everything we see, every atom, had a start.

A preexisting infinity of time is absurd. Time running backwards is absurd.

Agreed and agreed. But the past is not time running backwards. It is time that has already occurred in the forward direction.

And to say that time is infinite in the past is the same as saying infinite time already occurred in the past or to say that infinite change has already occurred in the past.

Both illogical since infinite time does not "occur" and infinite change does not stop happening, it too does not "occur".

 

[skepticalbip]

What a silly statement. According to the no-boundary conditions that Hawking speculated exist for the imaginary axis of time, a finite amount of time could be traversed for an infinite amount of time- you never reach the edge of a sphere that you are walking on. This means that you can keep regressing infinitely, traveling all over the sphere of imaginary time without hitting an edge.

The conclusion is that time had a beginning. Time is finite.

It couldn't be more clear. More hand waving can't change it.

Ok unter, I may have misinterpreted your incorrect statements as deliberate goading instead of indicative of misunderstanding concepts because I have a feeling that you possess some form of intelligence.

The next to last sentence of the concluding paragraph clearly states that the no boundary condition implies the universe will eventually collapse again. Now I'm wondering if you'll understand the implication of the universe collapsing again (to a singularity, like at the BB). Does this mean time goes on after the next BB? doyyyyy....

I notice how you like to completely ignore what Hawking calls his conclusion.

You do know what that word means?

The conclusion of this lecture is that the universe has not existed forever. Rather, the universe, and time itself, had a beginning in the Big Bang, about 15 billion years ago.

Your only talent seems to be ignoring the significant and worshiping the nonexistent.

You ignore logic, ignore quite obvious conclusions, and all in service to your imaginary god, infinity.

You apparently didn't read the lecture to discover what he was really talking about. He was describing the BB model, not a model of all possible reality. The model begins with the birth of our current universe as we can observe so it sets the birth as time zero. To make it so you can understand it, a model describing you would start with your birth. That would be your time zero. It isn't necessary to describe your family tree or how your family tree came to be to understand you.

From your linked article:

Stephen Hawking from your linked article:

At this time, the Big Bang, all the matter in the universe, would have been on top of itself. The density would have been infinite. It would have been what is called, a singularity. At a singularity, all the laws of physics would have broken down. This means that the state of the universe, after the Big Bang, will not depend on anything that may have happened before, because the deterministic laws that govern the universe will break down in the Big Bang. The universe will evolve from the Big Bang, completely independently of what it was like before. Even the amount of matter in the universe, can be different to what it was before the Big Bang, as the Law of Conservation of Matter, will break down at the Big Bang.

Since events before the Big Bang have no observational consequences, one may as well cut them out of the theory, and say that time began at the Big Bang. Events before the Big Bang, are simply not defined, because there's no way one could measure what happened at them. This kind of beginning to the universe, and of time itself, is very different to the beginnings that had been considered earlier. These had to be imposed on the universe by some external agency. There is no dynamical reason why the motion of bodies in the solar system can not be extrapolated back in time, far beyond four thousand and four BC, the date for the creation of the universe, according to the book of Genesis. Thus it would require the direct intervention of God, if the universe began at that date. By contrast, the Big Bang is a beginning that is required by the dynamical laws that govern the universe. It is therefore intrinsic to the universe, and is not imposed on it from outside.

The full two paragraphs were included rather than just the bolded part so you would not claim it was taken out of context.

The first sentence of the second paragraph explains why his conclusion was that time begin at the BB for this particular model, it is only because that is where the model resets the clock to zero since what happened before has no observational effect on what we can observe today.

 

[untermensche]

...You apparently didn't read the lecture to discover what he was really talking about. He was describing the BB model, not a model of all possible reality....

Yes, he was limiting himself to what can be known by observation.

And he understands that there is speculation about what may lie beyond observation.

But within the limits of observation time began at the Big Bang.

And if people want to speculate that it existed before, that's fine.

But no amount of speculation without evidence will demonstrate that time existed before the Big Bang.

We must confine our statements to the evidence, not let them fly with every speculation. And as far as what we can discern presently, from the evidence, time is finite.

 

[skepticalbip]

...You apparently didn't read the lecture to discover what he was really talking about. He was describing the BB model, not a model of all possible reality....

Yes, he was limiting himself to what can be known by observation.

And he understands that there is speculation about what may lie beyond observation.

But within the limits of observation time began at the Big Bang.

And if people want to speculate that it existed before, that's fine.

But no amount of speculation without evidence will demonstrate that time existed before the Big Bang.

We must confine our statements to the evidence, not let them fly with every speculation. And as far as what we can discern presently, from the evidence, time is finite.

Well good. Congratulations. You are beginning to get a glimmer. Though the evidence is not that time is finite. There is no evidence. We don't know. Assertions that time had a beginning or assertions that time is infinite are equally unprovable (given our current knowledge) either with evidence or logic. Any "logical" argument has to start with an assumption that begs the question.

 

[Kharakov]

The next to last sentence of the concluding paragraph clearly states that the no boundary condition implies the universe will eventually collapse again. Now I'm wondering if you'll understand the implication of the universe collapsing again (to a singularity, like at the BB).

I notice how you like to completely ignore what Hawking calls his conclusion.

Not at all, you have to read the whole paragraph underneath what you've quoted.

You need to read the whole paragraph, not just the first sentence:

The conclusion of this lecture is that the universe has not existed forever. Rather, the universe, and time itself, had a beginning in the Big Bang, about 15 billion years ago.The beginning of real time, would have been a singularity, at which the laws of physics would have broken down. Nevertheless, the way the universe began would have been determined by the laws of physics, if the universe satisfied the no boundary condition. This says that in the imaginary time direction, space-time is finite in extent, but doesn't have any boundary or edge. The predictions of the no boundary proposal seem to agree with observation. The no boundary hypothesis also predicts that the universe will eventually collapse again.

Someone with adequate experience in mathematics, logic, physics, and philosophy can glean a little bit of important information from the whole paragraph, information that isn't included in the first sentence that you've taken to mean something entirely different than it actually means.

Basically, there is a finite amount of time spent on another timeline (the "imaginary" or timeline that is perpendicular to the "real" axis of time) between collapse and the next BB. In other words, time goes on. We can't observe pre-BB or post-collapse, but this doesn't mean anything along the lines of "time is finite", in fact it means quite the opposite (time is infinite, and there are an infinite amounts of collapses and BBs).

I don't buy into Hawking's "collapse" idea- I'm pretty sure the whole appearance of an end (and lack of a creator God) is there to provide comfort to those who are intimidated by eternal life and the existence of a being that knows their every thought. However, I know with absolute certainty that your claims about Stephen Hawking's concluding remarks are ignorant and misrepresent what he has said.

 

[untermensche]

Yes, he was limiting himself to what can be known by observation.

And he understands that there is speculation about what may lie beyond observation.

But within the limits of observation time began at the Big Bang.

And if people want to speculate that it existed before, that's fine.

But no amount of speculation without evidence will demonstrate that time existed before the Big Bang.

We must confine our statements to the evidence, not let them fly with every speculation. And as far as what we can discern presently, from the evidence, time is finite.

Well good. Congratulations. You are beginning to get a glimmer. Though the evidence is not that time is finite. There is no evidence. We don't know. Assertions that time had a beginning or assertions that time is infinite are equally unprovable (given our current knowledge) either with evidence or logic. Any "logical" argument has to start with an assumption that begs the question.

We also don't know if Thor is going to come back and rule the planet.

Not all speculations are the same thing. And when speculations include imaginary concepts that run into all kinds of logical problems when applied to the real world we don't give these speculations much credence.

Infinity is an imaginary unobservable concept. To draw speculations that it may be real would require extraordinary evidence or argument.

I know of neither. Saying it is possible is simply saying anything is possible, even the gods.

 

[skepticalbip]

Well good. Congratulations. You are beginning to get a glimmer. Though the evidence is not that time is finite. There is no evidence. We don't know. Assertions that time had a beginning or assertions that time is infinite are equally unprovable (given our current knowledge) either with evidence or logic. Any "logical" argument has to start with an assumption that begs the question.

We also don't know if Thor is going to come back and rule the planet.

Not all speculations are the same thing. And when speculations include imaginary concepts that run into all kinds of logical problems when applied to the real world we don't give these speculations much credence.

Infinity is an imaginary unobservable concept. To draw speculations that it may be real would require extraordinary evidence or argument.

I know of neither. Saying it is possible is simply saying anything is possible, even the gods.

I'll have to take back my congratulations. You are back to throwing in fucking strawmen rather than trying to expand your understanding that you appeared to be approaching earlier.

Finite time is just as much an unfounded assertion as infinite time. We don't know.

 

[Kharakov]

Kharakov brings up an interesting point in our latest exchange. The point I took is that if we can allow a fast-forward of an infinite number of intervals, if they exist, then one could get to the present from an infinite past.

You can't do that. The point is that you can keep looking further back (or forwards) from position now- you can't look from negative infinity or positive infinity. In fact there is no specific "position" negative infinity or positive infinity. Position implies a finite distance (within the cardinality of this timeline).

Imagine being inside of a black hole. I think time would move infinitely fast (time dilation from the general theory of relativity) outside of the black hole. This would allow one to travel some infinite amount of time into the future in almost no time at all.

Unless you transcend the cardinality of this timeline, you're still going to be a finite amount of time from now.

An infinite distance is undefined- although there are ways to create infinities which are finite sections of larger infinities- if you use a repetitive measurement with a different cardinality (but I can't see a good reason to do this at this point in time).

 

[Kharakov]

We also don't know if Thor is going to come back and rule the planet.

I'll have to take back my congratulations. You are back to throwing in fucking strawmen rather than trying to expand your understanding that you appeared to be approaching earlier.

At least he brought up Thor, which is sort of cool. I mean, it's better than misquoting a respected scientist...

 

[untermensche]

We also don't know if Thor is going to come back and rule the planet.

Not all speculations are the same thing. And when speculations include imaginary concepts that run into all kinds of logical problems when applied to the real world we don't give these speculations much credence.

Infinity is an imaginary unobservable concept. To draw speculations that it may be real would require extraordinary evidence or argument.

I know of neither. Saying it is possible is simply saying anything is possible, even the gods.

I'll have to take back my congratulations. You are back to throwing in fucking strawmen rather than trying to expand your understanding that you appeared to be approaching earlier.

Finite time is just as much an unfounded assertion as infinite time. We don't know.

We do know that finite time can be observed.

We do know that imagining infinite time leads to all kinds of contradictions.

We do know that speculating infinite time is real is not very different from speculating Thor is real. At least some of us know this, those of certain faiths disagree.

 

[beero1000]

I'll have to take back my congratulations. You are back to throwing in fucking strawmen rather than trying to expand your understanding that you appeared to be approaching earlier.

At least he brought up Thor, which is sort of cool. I mean, it's better than misquoting a respected scientist...

This is major progress IMO. He went from "It is LOGICALLY IMPOSSIBLE!!!" to "It is JUST SPECULATION!!!". It only took a thousand posts. I remain hopeful yet.

 

[untermensche]

At least he brought up Thor, which is sort of cool. I mean, it's better than misquoting a respected scientist...

This is major progress IMO. He went from "It is LOGICALLY IMPOSSIBLE!!!" to "It is JUST SPECULATION!!!". It only took a thousand posts. I remain hopeful yet.

It is both.

 

[beero1000]

This is major progress IMO. He went from "It is LOGICALLY IMPOSSIBLE!!!" to "It is JUST SPECULATION!!!". It only took a thousand posts. I remain hopeful yet.

It is both.

I would definitely like to see a logical argument proving the impossibility of Thor coming back and ruling the planet.

 

[untermensche]

It is both.

I would definitely like to see a logical argument proving the impossibility of Thor coming back and ruling the planet.

If it were claimed that Thor existed for infinite years before he came back then that would be logically impossible.

It would mean that infinite years would have to pass before Thor came back. In other words he would never come back, so to claim he came back is illogical.

 

[skepticalbip]

I'll have to take back my congratulations. You are back to throwing in fucking strawmen rather than trying to expand your understanding that you appeared to be approaching earlier.

Finite time is just as much an unfounded assertion as infinite time. We don't know.

We do know that finite time can be observed.

Well, a finite portion of time can be observed if we first specify the start and end points. But we also know that cause and effect can be observed.

We do know that imagining infinite time leads to all kinds of contradictions.

Nope (at least none that you have pointed out. The Penrose talk that I linked earlier addresses the only problem that I know of with infinite time.). Though imagining a finite start of time leads to trying to explain how the fuck it could have possibly started. Unless it is just taken on faith as the "god folks" do.

We do know that speculating infinite time is real is not very different from speculating Thor is real. At least some of us know this, those of certain faiths disagree.

Gotta love your non sequitur strawmen. They are the only thing that make your "arguments" interesting.

 

[Kharakov]

Not if Thor always existed.

But Thor's lifespan is around 5000 years, so.....

 

[skepticalbip]

It is both.

I would definitely like to see a logical argument proving the impossibility of Thor coming back and ruling the planet.

Beautiful. I wish I had thought of that...

 

[Kharakov]

I would definitely like to see a logical argument proving the impossibility of Thor coming back and ruling the planet.

Beautiful. I wish I had thought of that...

Methinks drinking a case of Storm King will convince you of Thor's return.