Infinte Regress Timeline...

[untermensche]

To be going on forever means to be going on without end.

You have said nothing different.

I actually did. I used past tense.
Dont you know the difference?

Yes, but every moment in the past was first a present moment.

That is how you become the past by being the present first.

The past isn't some ethereal spirit. What is the past used to be the present.

So if you say the past has been going on forever that is saying the present has been going on forever as well.

You are saying that before any present moment a string of present moments that went on forever happened first.

You are not making sense.

 

[Juma]

[
So if you say the past has been going on forever that is saying the present has been going on forever as well.

No. What i say is that in the past time has been going on forever.
And that means exactly the same as saying that the negative numbers coming in to 0 has been going on for ever.
0 is not going on for ever, it is just 0. Exactly as now is just now and not a time interval.

 

[ryan]

No, I still think that there are an infinite number of all of the negative real numbers. When I said " between now and all" you just assumed "all" to be exclusive.

How the fuck can "all" be exclusive? You are out of your mind. Probably you meant something else but as usual you dont think things through before you post.

It is official; the only possible reason for these kinds of posts to another human being is that God has sent Juma down to punish me and my atheistic ways.

the challenges of the possible implications of using infinity in the real world.

You miserably fail to show any.

Thus God is punishing me.

 

[ryan]

Since nobody has replied to the best argument I have, I will post it again.

Let's assume that there is some frame of reference that existed a countably infinite number of years ago from today. It would have had a beginning; it would have a first year.

On its first year, there is no upper bound. If time ended today, then there is an upper bound for the same frame of reference. This is a clear contradiction.

 

[PyramidHead]

Since nobody has replied to the best argument I have, I will post it again.

Let's assume that there is some frame of reference that existed a countably infinite number of years ago from today. It would have had a beginning; it would have a first year.

On its first year, there is no upper bound. If time ended today, then there is an upper bound for the same frame of reference. This is a clear contradiction.

That's yer problem right there.

 

[ryan]

Since nobody has replied to the best argument I have, I will post it again.

Let's assume that there is some frame of reference that existed a countably infinite number of years ago from today. It would have had a beginning; it would have a first year.

On its first year, there is no upper bound. If time ended today, then there is an upper bound for the same frame of reference. This is a clear contradiction.

That's yer problem right there.

Why?

 

[bilby]

That's yer problem right there.

Why?

You are imagining two infinities in the space of one. That's not allowed. You could divide by zero while you are at it; than 1=2, which would be a great help with my bank balance

 

[ryan]

Why?

You are imagining two infinities in the space of one. That's not allowed. You could divide by zero while you are at it; than 1=2, which would be a great help with my bank balance

Yes, since that is a problem, then that is just another example of how it doesn't make sense for a countable infinity to precede today.

The only logic that I can see helps your side of the argument is that a set of an infinite number of the fractions 1/infinity can have a beginning and an end and still be the same infinity. For example, a continuum has 2^(aleph null) points in the space of one centimeter no matter which direction you go.

But this is sidestepping the argument a little by considering an observer in a higher dimension.

 

[bilby]

To say time has no beginning is to say the amount of it has no end.

Correct.

If we visualize the past stretching away from us, the amount of the past grows.

Not relevant. The amount of past remains the same for any given point in the present; The present moves forward, but that isn't relevant to the question of whether the past is finite or infinite. To avoid confusion, let us discuss the past from a fixed present point in time. Nobody (as far as I can see) disagrees that the present moves forward at a rate of 1 second per second in our reference frame as observers; the fact that we move constantly through time is irrelevant and should not form any part of our discussion. We are talking about the other end of the timeline.

If we say it stretches away from us forever, it has no beginning, then that is to say the amount of it has no limit.

Absolutely correct.

Time without limit is time that goes on without end.

Absolutely. Starting from here, and working backwards, we can go on forever, without reaching the end. There are two 'ends' to the timeline; in casual English, we call the earlier one the 'beginning' and the later one the 'end'; but both are 'ends' in the mathematical sense, and so a timeline without beginning IS a timeline without one of its ends; Something without one or both of its ends is infinite.

For the timeline to be finite, it must have two ends. We can, if we like, define the present as one end (aka 'the end') of the past timeline, and as the other end (aka 'the beginning') of the future timeline; now we have two timelines, each of which may or may not be infinite. The only way to demonstrate that the past is not infinite is to show that it has an end somewhere in the past. Showing that it has an end in the present does nothing towards this goal; we already accept that.

The distance between any two points in space is finite. The distance from any single point in space is infinite - unless you can show that there must be another point in space beyond which distance is meaningless.

The time between the present going back to any given event in the past is finite. The time going back from the present is infinite - unless you can show that there must be another point in time before which time is meaningless.

 

[bilby]

I actually did. I used past tense.
Dont you know the difference?

Yes, but every moment in the past was first a present moment.

According to whom?

That is how you become the past by being the present first.

So are you saying that nothing that happened before I was born happened? Or that nothing happened until there was someone to experience it as the present?

The past isn't some ethereal spirit. What is the past used to be the present.

So if you say the past has been going on forever that is saying the present has been going on forever as well.

There is no difference for our purposes; time is time. The present is our view of the bit of time we are currently at. Wherever we are is the present, this tells us nothing about the extent of the past or the future.

You are saying that before any present moment a string of present moments that went on forever happened first.

You are saying that in order to be here, a string of over there that goes on forever had to be travelled first. So we are nowhere. But here we are, so obviously there is a flaw in your logic.

 

[bilby]

You are imagining two infinities in the space of one. That's not allowed. You could divide by zero while you are at it; than 1=2, which would be a great help with my bank balance

Yes, since that is a problem, then that is just another example of how it doesn't make sense for a countable infinity to precede today.

The only logic that I can see helps your side of the argument is that a set of an infinite number of the fractions 1/infinity can have a beginning and an end and still be the same infinity. For example, a continuum has 2^(aleph null) points in the space of one centimeter no matter which direction you go.

But this is sidestepping the argument a little by considering an observer in a higher dimension.

No, the problem is much simpler than that; there is no point a countably infinite distance along an infinite line. All points on the line are a finite distance from the origin. So your thought experiment breaks the rules; it starts with a demonstrably impossible premise (specifically, a premise that requires two mutually exclusive meanings for the phrase 'countably infinite' at the same time).

There is no need to seek higher dimensionality to show that your argument is wrong; it is wrong before it even gets started.

 

[untermensche]

[
So if you say the past has been going on forever that is saying the present has been going on forever as well.

No. What i say is that in the past time has been going on forever.
And that means exactly the same as saying that the negative numbers coming in to 0 has been going on for ever.
0 is not going on for ever, it is just 0. Exactly as now is just now and not a time interval.

Do you think there can be some moment in the past that wasn't a moment in the present first?

How would that work?

 

[untermensche]

Yes, but every moment in the past was first a present moment.

According to whom?

According to your own eyes. You see how it works. The present becomes the past.

That is the way it works. You can't have some past moment that wasn't a present moment first.

There is no difference for our purposes; time is time. The present is our view of the bit of time we are currently at....

No two moments in time are the same thing. They each represent a unique moment in time.

There isn't this nebulous thing called "time" separated from the world in some way. There are only specific moments in time.

 

[bilby]

According to whom?

According to your own eyes. You see how it works. The present becomes the past.

So you ARE saying that time didn't exist before I was born. Thats... interesting. If I shut my eyes, does time stop?

That is the way it works. You can't have some past moment that wasn't a present moment first.

Present for whom? For God?

You assert that 'That is the way it works'; But I can see no reason to agree with you. Time is a dimension. Nobody has to travel a billion miles in order for us to accept that there is a place that is a billion miles away; and that is true for any distance. Why do you then insist that for time to exist in the past, it must have been traversed? Do you think the same applies to the future?

If you can accept the possibility of an infinite future, then simply reversing every part of that concept gives you an identically infinite past. There is nothing in fundamental physics that requires time to move in one direction. Entropy gives time a direction, and is an emergent property of probability acting on large numbers of particles. Time itself is not subject to entropy, because there is only one of it, and it is not dependant on particles in any way.

There is no difference for our purposes; time is time. The present is our view of the bit of time we are currently at....

No two moments in time are the same thing. They each represent a unique moment in time.

Indeed. And there may be an infinite number of them.

There isn't this nebulous thing called "time" separated from the world in some way. There are only specific moments in time.

So what? That doesn't say anything about their infinitude.

The amount of past remains the same for any given point in the present; The present moves forward, but that isn't relevant to the question of whether the past is finite or infinite. To avoid confusion, let us discuss the past from a fixed present point in time. Nobody (as far as I can see) disagrees that the present moves forward at a rate of 1 second per second in our reference frame as observers; the fact that we move constantly through time is irrelevant and should not form any part of our discussion. We are talking about the other end of the timeline.

Starting from here, and working backwards, we can go on forever, without reaching the end. There are two 'ends' to the timeline; in casual English, we call the earlier one the 'beginning' and the later one the 'end'; but both are 'ends' in the mathematical sense, and so a timeline without beginning IS a timeline without one of its ends; Something without one or both of its ends is infinite.

For the timeline to be finite, it must have two ends. We can, if we like, define the present as one end (aka 'the end') of the past timeline, and as the other end (aka 'the beginning') of the future timeline; now we have two timelines, each of which may or may not be infinite. The only way to demonstrate that the past is not infinite is to show that it has an end somewhere in the past. Showing that it has an end in the present does nothing towards this goal; we already accept that.

The distance between any two points in space is finite. The distance from any single point in space is infinite - unless you can show that there must be another point in space beyond which distance is meaningless.

The time between the present going back to any given event in the past is finite. The time going back from the present is infinite - unless you can show that there must be another point in time before which time is meaningless.

 

[ryan]

That is the way it works. You can't have some past moment that wasn't a present moment first.

Present for whom? For God?

Come on; it was tacitly understood that an infinite timeline means a timeline with one direction.

I have even given the qualifier of time having only one direction, and still nobody could budge.

No two moments in time are the same thing. They each represent a unique moment in time.

Indeed. And there may be an infinite number of them.

Good point untermensche.

Let's assume that an infinite number of days have passed before today. If you take out the day you were born, then there are still an infinite number of days in the past: [Infinite number of days] - [bibly's day of birth] = [infinite number of days]. But bilby exists today, so there cannot be an infinite number of days in the past.

 

[untermensche]

According to your own eyes. You see how it works. The present becomes the past.

So you ARE saying that time didn't exist before I was born. Thats... interesting. If I shut my eyes, does time stop?

?

I am saying that things worked exactly as they work now before you were born.

The present became the past just as now the present becomes the past.

That is the way it works. The past was once the present.

Why do you think that would change before you were born?

No two moments in time are the same thing. They each represent a unique moment in time.

Indeed. And there may be an infinite number of them.

You are saying that possibly an infinite number of present moments already occurred.

If there are an infinite numbers of moments, like infinite time in the future, it can't have already occurred. Infinite moments go on without end.

Starting from here, and working backwards, we can go on forever, without reaching the end.

We can? Says who?

If there are infinite moments of time in the past then that is time without end.

If the number of moments that existed in the past were without end how can we have a present moment?

For the timeline to be finite, it must have two ends. We can, if we like, define the present as one end (aka 'the end') of the past timeline, and as the other end (aka 'the beginning') of the future timeline; now we have two timelines, each of which may or may not be infinite. The only way to demonstrate that the past is not infinite is to show that it has an end somewhere in the past. Showing that it has an end in the present does nothing towards this goal; we already accept that.

Having a present is proof the past was finite.

The only way to have a present moment is if the amount of prior moments are finished and in the past. An infinite amount of prior moments can't be finished.

The distance between any two points in space is finite. The distance from any single point in space is infinite - unless you can show that there must be another point in space beyond which distance is meaningless.

The distance from a point in space is infinite if space is infinite.

But imagining a line from a point in space is not an argument demonstrating space is infinite.

The time between the present going back to any given event in the past is finite. The time going back from the present is infinite - unless you can show that there must be another point in time before which time is meaningless.

The time going back is infinite if it is infinite.

Saying it is infinite is not a demonstration of any kind.

 

[bilby]

Present for whom? For God?

Come on; it was tacitly understood that an infinite timeline means a timeline with one direction.

I have even given the qualifier of time having only one direction, and still nobody could budge.

It is far from 'tacitly understood'; QFT doesn't contain anything that suggests a preferred direction for time; entropy gives time direction, but entropy is a consequence of statistics, not any fundamental law.

It is a red herring anyway; time is a dimension. dimensions don't have direction, only objects moving in that dimension have direction. Distance doesn't move, and time doesn't pass. We, as observers move in space and in time, and we might casually characterise this in terms of 'time passing' or 'the miles flying by', but the dimensions themselves are not actually moving; the movement is a property of the objects being measured, not the dimensions with which we measure them.

No two moments in time are the same thing. They each represent a unique moment in time.

Indeed. And there may be an infinite number of them.

Good point untermensche.

Let's assume that an infinite number of days have passed before today.

Why would we assume something incoherent? Dimensions don't 'pass'.

If you take out the day you were born, then there are still an infinite number of days in the past: [Infinite number of days] - [bibly's day of birth] = [infinite number of days]. But bilby exists today, so there cannot be an infinite number of days in the past.

What kind of shit is that? Let's change the names to protect the guilty:

If the set of real numbers is infinite, and we take out the number 6, then we are left with the set of real numbers other than 6, which is also infinite. But the number 1 is still part of the set, therefore the set of real numbers cannot be infinite.

As you can see, this is a bunch of total arse. Or do you agree with this (non) argument, and actually think that the set of real numbers is proven to be finite by this 'logic'?

No two real numbers are the same; they each represent a unique value. There are, nevertheless, infinitely many of them.

 

[ryan]

So you ARE saying that time didn't exist before I was born. Thats... interesting. If I shut my eyes, does time stop?

Bilby, it's over.

If time goes in one direction and ended tomorrow, then today is the upper bound of days. But there is no upper bound for an infinite number of days.

 

[bilby]

So you ARE saying that time didn't exist before I was born. Thats... interesting. If I shut my eyes, does time stop?

Bilby, it's over.

If time goes in one direction and ended tomorrow, then today is the upper bound of days. But there is no upper bound for an infinite number of days.

Don't be so bloody silly.

If you must insist that time cannot be considered in both directions (on the spurious grounds that we don't experience it that way), then that still isn't correct; the negative integers are an infinite set with an upper bound, just to give one example. A set with no lower bound is infinite, whether or not it has an upper bound.

Of course, time doesn't 'go in one direction'. Time doesn't GO at all; it is a dimension, not an object.

 

[ryan]

Come on; it was tacitly understood that an infinite timeline means a timeline with one direction.

I have even given the qualifier of time having only one direction, and still nobody could budge.

It is far from 'tacitly understood'; QFT doesn't contain anything that suggests a preferred direction for time; entropy gives time direction, but entropy is a consequence of statistics, not any fundamental law.

I know; that is exactly why I qualified my argument so many times as time having one direction.

It is a red herring anyway; time is a dimension. dimensions don't have direction, only objects moving in that dimension have direction. Distance doesn't move, and time doesn't pass. We, as observers move in space and in time, and we might casually characterise this in terms of 'time passing' or 'the miles flying by', but the dimensions themselves are not actually moving; the movement is a property of the objects being measured, not the dimensions with which we measure them.

Why would we assume something incoherent? Dimensions don't 'pass'.

We are talking about quantities of time like days, seconds, etc. not the whole dimension.

Good point untermensche.
If you take out the day you were born, then there are still an infinite number of days in the past: [Infinite number of days] - [bibly's day of birth] = [infinite number of days]. But bilby exists today, so there cannot be an infinite number of days in the past.

What kind of shit is that? Let's change the names to protect the guilty:

If the set of real numbers is infinite, and we take out the number 6, then we are left with the set of real numbers other than 6, which is also infinite. But the number 1 is still part of the set, therefore the set of real numbers cannot be infinite.

Yes, but the point that the number 6 occupies is the same as the other points that the other numbers occupy. Discontinuing a graph at the number 6 does not affect the rest of the graph the same way as taking out the day JFK was assassinated.

This may seem trivial at first, but I think it's actually very important.