What does it mean for something to be "logically possible"?

[fromderinside]

P1) I have thoughts
P2) I convey thoughts
P3) I receive replies to my thoughts.

Fixed it. It's called communication.

 

[Kharakov]

If it's true, it's not necessarily worthless.

It is not a rational concept.

It's the only logically valid proposition. Something has always existed.

p1) something that does not exist cannot cause something (although the thought of something that does not exist can)
p2) nothing does not exist (nothing is the complete absence of anything existing)

c1) nothing doesn't cause anything to exist

p3) the universe exists

c2) nothing cannot have existed before the universe because nothing begets nothing

 

[Speakpigeon]

Very interesting but there are several serious problems with this argument.

Some of them you could fix but not all of them.

Still, let's see if UM can find anything convincing to say.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

I came to the idea that meaning isn't where we might otherwise thought it might have been.

Before I tie up the loose end--the most major loose end of all, any thoughts?

Go on, tie up, we don't have all the time in the world. I'm busy myself if you wanted to know.
EB

 

[fast]

I came to the idea that meaning isn't where we might otherwise thought it might have been.

Before I tie up the loose end--the most major loose end of all, any thoughts?

Go on, tie up, we don't have all the time in the world. I'm busy myself if you wanted to know.
EB

If what's in the mind are thoughts, and if what we're conveying is in the mind, then what we're conveying are thoughts. Seeing the difference is as simple as seeing the difference between a ball and a ball in motion. We can have a ball without a ball in motion, but we can't have a ball in motion without a ball. Likewise, we can have thoughts with the conveyance of thoughts, but we can't have the conveyance of thoughts without thoughts.

If I'm successful in conveying my thought, then you know what I meant by what I said, but if I didn't say anything, asking what I meant is nonsensical. If I convey my thought and you ask what I meant, you're asking about my thought. The explanation of thought is in the conveyance. That's meaning.

Recall, lexical meaning is a function of collective usage. Why does it not make sense that individual meaning is a function of individual usage. Usage is on the conveyance side of the equation.

 

[fromderinside]

Seeing the difference is as simple as seeing the difference between a ball and a ball in motion. We can have a ball without a ball in motion, but we can't have a ball in motion without a ball. Likewise, we can have thoughts with the conveyance of thoughts, but we can't have the conveyance of thoughts without thoughts.

Consider seven sound sources and seven light sources. If one switches between either set (sound sources, light sources) one can generate sound or light movement without any source even moving. So maybe you have several stationary thoughts you're are switching between them in sequence so you get the appearance of thought conveyance. What's worse if you switch between one set of thoughts in one order and another set of thoughts in the other order you might even find that thought conveyance suffers common fate.

I wonder where I've read that before ....

Minds are an easy place to fool or is it minds are a fool's place.


Whatever ... together .....

 

[untermensche]

It is not a rational concept.

It's the only logically valid proposition. Something has always existed.

That doesn't make "beginningless" a rational concept. It is only something you can say, not something that makes sense. It is the negation of something rational. It is not something you could define or explain. And it is only half the story not the only valid proposition.

When we look at time, not objects, there are only two possible choices.

A. Before some given moment, moments without end have already occurred, time without end has already occurred.

B. Before any given moment a finite amount of time has already occurred.

Choice A is a contradiction and invalid in itself. Moments without end never stop occurring so they could not have ALREADY occurred.

To claim something has ALWAYS existed is to claim moments without end have ALREADY occurred. It is an irrational claim. It is making the absurd claim that the time that has already passed was infinite. Which is impossible. Infinite time never stops passing. It can't have already passed. Only finite amounts of time can have already passed.

In terms of time your argument dissolves into absurdity.

This is a paradox.

You will not escape it by merely claiming one side is valid.

There are two sides. Not one.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Go on, tie up, we don't have all the time in the world. I'm busy myself if you wanted to know.
EB

If what's in the mind are thoughts, and if what we're conveying is in the mind, then what we're conveying are thoughts.

Thanks for going the fast route.

I'll try not to speak pidgin.


I agree that thoughts are standardly thought of as "in the mind". In a way, our mind, our conscious mind at any rate, is probably best thought of as whatever it is we are thinking on the moment, which makes mind an ever changing thing but, equally, the only thing we know for sure exists as it appears to us.

Seeing the difference is as simple as seeing the difference between a ball and a ball in motion. We can have a ball without a ball in motion, but we can't have a ball in motion without a ball. Likewise, we can have thoughts with the conveyance of thoughts, but we can't have the conveyance of thoughts without thoughts.

You just messed up here! Please have a look at what you just said:

"We can have a ball without a ball in motion"

"we can have thoughts with the conveyance of thoughts"

Your second claim does not parallel the first one even though that's clearly what you thought it did.

Your second claim should have been: "we can have thoughts without the conveyance of thoughts".

And indeed, while we know our own thoughts, so we know we have thoughts, we just don't know whether we successfully convey them to other people. Sure, that's what we want to do and what we are trying to do all the time, and indeed what I'm doing right now. Yet, we just don't know that we are successful in that.

A more reasonable interpretation is that we communicate by exchanging sounds and other things like gestures and so on. The sounds at least we meanly use to communicate through language.

So, even if we tentatively assume we are successful in exchanging linguistic sounds, which requires in particular that the speaker and the listeners should understand the same language, it's really very clear that it doesn't look like we're exchanging actual thoughts. Instead, we're exchanging linguistic sounds requiring codification by the speaker and interpretation by the listeners so that whatever thoughts the listeners will be able to have in their own minds as an outcome of this process will be the thoughts they themselves will have produced on the basis of their own independent interpretation of whatever linguistic sounds they will have heard.

The result of this process is only for each listener to know as their own private thoughts. In particular, the speaker won't be able to know what the thoughts of the listeners are and the listeners won't be able to know what the speaker's thoughts were. All we're able to do is try our best guess and double-check. But no actual conveyance of our thoughts, ever.

This sort of reasoning in fact applies to all levels of communication. We don't actually exchanges words. We don't actually exchange sounds. Most likely something is indeed exchanged but it's more something like whatever basic energy the universe is made of rather than anything so fancy as words or thoughts, even though we know our own private thoughts at least exist because our mind is essentially made of those.

If I'm successful in conveying my thought, then you know what I meant by what I said, but if I didn't say anything, asking what I meant is nonsensical. If I convey my thought and you ask what I meant, you're asking about my thought. The explanation of thought is in the conveyance. That's meaning.

Recall, lexical meaning is a function of collective usage. Why does it not make sense that individual meaning is a function of individual usage. Usage is on the conveyance side of the equation.

There's no harm in postulating the existence of collective usage and of a collective meaning that would result from collective usage, but only as long as you don't fool yourself in pretending collective meaning is the only meaning there is or even the only 'true' meaning. Each of us likely mean something, most of the time at any rate, when they utter words and I can't see how we could conclude that what each individual means is necessarily in line with collective usage and meaning. Communication is an exchange. It's not some kind of magical sharing of our meanings. And all we can hope to exchange are not thoughts but something like the precursors of thoughts, not even words, but something we, as listeners, have to interpret as words and then to produce our own thoughts on the basis of those words. To talk of "conveyance of thoughts" is really playing fast and loose with what seems more likely to happen in reality. It's wishful thinking.

Yeah, in a way it's a harsh place to be of course. Emotionally, we'd like to be able to share with others, truly. But, think of it this way: it is maybe the sine qua none condition of our fundamental freedom as intelligent beings to have this irreducible distance between each other. We are free to think whatever we like because we have to, and can only, interpret whatever it is that other people are trying to convey, and this can only be done on the basis of what people actually convey, whether it is some fundamental energy or anything else.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

That doesn't make "beginningless" a rational concept.
<snip>
A. Before some given moment, moments without end have already occurred, time without end has already occurred.
<snip>
Choice A is a contradiction and invalid in itself. Moments without end never stop occurring

It is definitely fascinating but also painful to watch a flawed mental process fail to make sense. Again, and again, and again.

Presumably, "beginningless" was thought of originally by K. as applying to a period of time, for example the one that ends now, and that at least makes perfect sense, as all rational people understand.

But then, the UM flawed argument quoted above switches from "period" to "moments", and from "beginningless" to "without end", without justification or explanation, and even though it's patently not the same idea at all.

The result, of course, is terminally irrelevant and, thus, inevitably flawed.

A beginningless period is not necessarily a period of time without end. A beginningless past for example is a period of time without beginning but not without an end, since the past, beginningless or not, by definition ends at the present moment.

So, a beginningless past stop occurring and there's nothing irrational or illogical in the notion of a beginningless past.

My heart bleeds.
EB

 

[untermensche]

You have things very muddled.

To say there is no beginning would mean time without end has ALREADY occurred. What else could it mean? If it means a finite amount of time has passed then that is time with a beginning, not beginningless.

Time without end in the past DOES NOT mean that some finite amount of time has already passed and time is still passing.

That is time moving towards infinity, moving from some starting point, not an infinite past.

To refute this you have to demonstrate in some way it is possible for time without end to have ALREADY occurred. You must demonstrate something that is impossible to demonstrate in other words.

That is the only way there could be "no beginning".

This is an insurmountably paradox. The past could not either be finite or infinite.

To claim one side of the paradox has a superior position is irrational.

Existence itself is not something humans understand. All they can understand are aspects of apparent existence, not existence itself.

 

[Kharakov]

When we look at time, not objects, there are only two possible choices.

A. Before some given moment, moments without end have already occurred, time without end has already occurred.

B. Before any given moment a finite amount of time has already occurred.

c. Before some arbitrarily selected point in time, there is no specific beginning to time's progression.

Choice A is a contradiction and invalid in itself. Moments without end never stop occurring so they could not have ALREADY occurred.

Well, yeah. It's the way you put it (you put an end to a moment without end). If a timeline without end begins now (yup, it has a beginning in this case), the timeline will always have a finite length, even though it has no end.

To claim something has ALWAYS existed is to claim moments without end have ALREADY occurred.

Close, but not quite correct. If you say something (with some form or another) has always existed, you are saying that there wasn't a beginning to something's existence.

It is making the absurd claim that the time that has already passed was infinite. Which is impossible. Infinite time never stops passing.

That's wrong. An infinite amount of time has passed, because there is no beginning to time.

Assuming that somehow one could eliminate the whole universe, one could say that "after an eternity, time stopped passing". Although it might start up again.

 

[untermensche]

c. Before some arbitrarily selected point in time, there is no specific beginning to time's progression.

That is an irrational statement.

It implies that endless time has already passed.

You have no argument that can defeat this.

The past cannot logically be finite or infinite.

All humans can do is try to live with this paradox.

Only fools think they have some kind of handle on existence itself.

An infinite amount of time has passed...

You're using your own special definition of "infinite". That is the whole flaw of your argument. You stop using the proper definition of "infinite" when it suits you.

Because an infinite amount of time is an amount of time that goes on forever. It can never have "passed".

 

[untermensche]

For those who have trouble with the concept of "infinite time".

A finite amount of time is an amount of time that can pass and be done.

Infinite time never stops passing and is never done.

Therefore it is obvious infinite time could not have ALREADY occurred in the past.

 

[beero1000]

Same old question begging. How can you not see that? It's sad, really.

 

[untermensche]

Same old question begging. How can you not see that? It's sad, really.

If all you do is say it and not show it you are wasting your time.

Are you claiming that infinite time does NOT mean "time that never stops passing"?

Do you too have a special definition for "infinite" when it applies to time?

Time that stops passing is called FINITE.

Saying the magic words "without beginning" is no solution.

The only thing "without beginning" could logically mean is "to not exist".

It is not a rational way to allow an infinite amount of time to have already passed.

 

[beero1000]

Same old question begging. How can you not see that? It's sad, really.

If all you do is say it and not show it you are wasting your time.

Are you claiming that infinite time does NOT mean "time that never stops passing"?

Do you too have a special definition for "infinite" when it applies to time?

Time that stops passing is called FINITE.

Saying the magic words "without beginning" is no solution.

The only thing "without beginning" could logically mean is "to not exist".

It is not a rational way to allow an infinite amount of time to have already passed.

Realistically, what's the point? Here and here are posts of mine from more than 3 years ago pointing out why you're begging the question in this exact argument. It's one of the many, many times that I've pointed out your mistakes. Other's have tried too. It never works, so I've moved on to just accepting your inadequacies. My only consolation is that you've made the tiny amount of progress to 'it's a paradox'. Maybe in 3 more years you might understand a little bit more...

 

[Kharakov]

Maybe I should break out the text diagrams again, like in the last thread.


<------------------beginningless and endless time---------------->
whatever..... no end, no beginning. Any moment in time is preceded by an infinite past....

<-------------------beginningless time, the time stops here.
An infinite amount of time passed before time stopped.

endless time starts here ------------------and goes on forever---->
A finite amount of time has passed at any point in time, because time has a beginning (starting point). This possibility is eliminated because something exists, and nothing cannot precede something that exists, because nothing cannot change into something or it is not nothing.


Why don't you try a different type of wrong?

 

[fast]

Which sense of time are we discussing? Not sure it matters, but just curious.

There's a sense of time, apparently, where time just doesn't metaphorically stand still but quite literally stops when objects cease to move. To see this requires a stepping away, so imagine a large (substantially large clock) where within it, all parts cease moving; also, all objects within it freeze such that even the molecules in life forms stops all movement at even the cellular level. To those of us outside the clock, we can measure the passage of time that elapsed inside the clock even though everything in the clock will be just as it was and so too is that the case with everyone inside the clock, as they report that time stopped.

Of course, or to me it's an of course, there is no possible way for those in the clock to measure the elapsed time, but it's my contention that the passage of moments need not be possible to measure in order for there to be a passage of time. The inability to answer the how in no way alters the what. Unanswered epistemic questions doesn't imply ontology or some such.

Any rate, time1 vs time2 is my question. Time1 like normal people or time2 like science says? Time1 is time is persistent whereas time2 is persistent only when objects are in motion allowing for scientific measurement.

 

[bilby]

For those who have trouble with the concept of "infinite time".

A finite amount of time is an amount of time that can pass and be done.

Infinite time never stops passing and is never done.

Therefore it is obvious infinite time could not have ALREADY occurred in the past.

For those who have trouble with 'beginning' vs 'end'.

The beginning is the first element of a vector series. The end is the last element of a vector series.

Time is a vector; There are therefore four distinct possibilities:

1) Time has a beginning and an end. This implies that time is finite.
2) Time has a beginning and no end. This implies that time is infinite.
3) Time has no beginning, but has an end. This implies that time is infinite.
4) Time has neither a beginning nor an end. This implies that time is infinite.

Of course, we need not look at all of time; we can arbitrarily define a period of time. We can examine the period of time from 11am today until 12am today. This period has both a beginning and an end, and is finite, with a finite length of one hour.

Or we can look at all of the time from now into the future. This has a beginning (Now), and may be finite, if it has an end; or infinite, if it does not. NOTE - it would be a stupid error to claim that this is 'time without beginning', as it is defined as having a beginning.

We can equally well reverse this, and look at all of the time from the past until now. This has an end (Now), and may be finite, if it has a beginning; or infinite, if it does not. NOTE - it would be a stupid error to claim that this is 'time without end', as it is defined as having an end.

Infinite time might EITHER be time that never stops passing; OR time that never starts passing; OR time that never starts nor stops passing.

This is not that hard to understand, unless your REALLY REALLY want it not to be, so badly that you are prepared to use an equivocation fallacy to avoid seeing what is bloody obvious. But, of course, here we are again. There are none so blind as those who refuse to see.

 

[untermensche]

If all you do is say it and not show it you are wasting your time.

Are you claiming that infinite time does NOT mean "time that never stops passing"?

Do you too have a special definition for "infinite" when it applies to time?

Time that stops passing is called FINITE.

Saying the magic words "without beginning" is no solution.

The only thing "without beginning" could logically mean is "to not exist".

It is not a rational way to allow an infinite amount of time to have already passed.

Realistically, what's the point? Here and here are posts of mine from more than 3 years ago pointing out why you're begging the question in this exact argument. It's one of the many, many times that I've pointed out your mistakes. Other's have tried too. It never works, so I've moved on to just accepting your inadequacies. My only consolation is that you've made the tiny amount of progress to 'it's a paradox'. Maybe in 3 more years you might understand a little bit more...

So you have no argument you can even put forth. Just claims about wondrous arguments in the past in some other context.

As I thought.

Come back when you have ONE argument and not a bunch of whining.