Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Bahman]

Time can pass without any other change.

I dont think time can pass without any other change, i see time as an unit of measurment for motion, for change. I also think that motion, or change, is immanent in the cosmos - panta rhei seems to be true.

What do you mean with time is a unit of measurement for motion?

"Act of creation from nothing is logically impossible"

It is one of the older questions in the book - if nothing exists, and when usually nothing comes from nothing, how can there be something rather than nothing ? You see if nothing doesnt exist, therefor all things must be formed by preexisting things, therefore material existence itself must be eternal. I myself believe creatio ex nihilo, god as the first cause, to be true.

Do you have any objection to my argument? If yes, then what? If we accept that my argument is correct then it follows that spacetime is acausal.

[GrayArea]

"Self-causation is possible for self-causation itself."

hilarious tautology.

You sound like you're more furious than you are laughing at something. I know that people get mad at something they don't get, but you need to know that being mad at something you don't understand won't make it any less true.

Fro two words you conclude that I am "furious"???
You might want to look at why you feel that way.
Alternatively you could try to support and defend your tautology.

Oh well, if you're not, then that's that.

Anyway, what part of "self-causation is possible for self-causation itself" do you not get? It is possible for existence to exist on its own without being caused by something else, because existence is defined as something that exists, meaning its own definition causes itself to exist on its own.

[Bahman]

Time allows change to occur.


That is not true. Time can pass without any other change.

Prove it!

Which one do you want me to prove?

You say time can pass without change.
That is not a statement you can make.

Time is the fundamental variable of any dynamical theory. Any dynamical theory also addresses a static system in which there is no change yet there is time.

[Gertie]

Bahman, I'm thinking this through on the hop, so apologies if my answers are a bit messy.

Gertie wrote: ↑Yesterday, 1:11 pm

Bahman wrote: ↑February 14th, 2023, 8:25 am To show this we first notice that any act including the act of creation has a before and an after. This means that time is needed for any act since there is a before and an after in any act. The act of creation however includes the creation of time as well. This means that we need time for the creation of time. This leads to an infinite regress. The infinite regress is not acceptable. Therefore, the act of creation from nothing is logically impossible.

It's a weird question to try to get your head round, for me anyway. But here's how I see it.

I understand time to be a marker of change.

Time allows change to occur.

Gertie wrote: ↑Yesterday, 1:11 pm Without change, time is meaningless.

That is not true. Time can pass without any other change.

I'm inclined to disagree.  Consider it this way - the reason  time didn't exist before the universe existed is because there is no change occurring when nothing exists. This makes sense if time is a marker of change.

Similarly if the universe had popped into existence in such a way that it was static and unable to ever change, time within the universe wouldn't exist. Because there is no change to mark.

The alternative is to see Time as a thing in itself, which flows regardless of anything existing or changing.  But that sort of thing in itself Time would have no properties or effects, including flow in a non-existent or static universe.  Or there'd at least be no discernible difference in whether it existed or not, there'd be nothing to identify or describe as Time Itself.

Which I suppose boils the question down to whether it is in the nature of stuff to change in certain  ways which time marks, or time is an existing medium of sorts through which stuff changes, a medium which simultaneously comes into existence with stuff.  A linguistic parallel would be to classify time as an adverb, or Time as a noun.

If we compare  time to  spatial dimensions,  I'd say spatial dimensions  also reference and mark   the spatial physical properties of physical stuff, like the way an adjective works.  Once stuff exists, it can be described and marked in spatial dimensions because of the properties stuff has (hence no stuff = no spatial dimensions). Likewise when stuff changes according to its own properties (matter being acted on by forces according to physics) time marks those changes. If there are no changes to mark, time is meaningless, because there is nothing for time to reference.

My question to you then, is if  Time is a thing in itself, what is it?    And if it has no discernible independent properties or efects of its own, except as a marker of stuff changing, in what sense does it exist? 

Gertie wrote: ↑Yesterday, 1:11 pm I know change exists because my conscious experience changes.  I assume the change in my conscious experience represents the sequentially changing universe my experience represents. (Time being relative doesn't mean it doesn't exist as marking change, just that how we experience and measure it is relative, I think).

And I understand logic to be a human concept which is rooted in our observation and understanding of how our universe works.

Now within our already existing universe as we experience and understand it, to say time/change/anything is created out of nothing/no time/no change at a particular  temporal moment seems illogical.  Because we live in a pre-existing universe and only understand time as marking the change from one state of affairs to another, which we experience and have coherent and reliably predictive ways of explaining.

However, if we're talking about the creation of our universe, we're considering a different state of affairs we call 'nothing' (aka not our universe) and we have no access  to  how things work 'outside' or 'before' our universe.  If or how time, stuff changing, or logic can make sense to us outside what we can access from within our universe.  So for example if we're considering the existence of some creative force which is responsible for the existence of our universe (including time, stuff and logic as we experience/understand it), we have no way of knowing what the conditions in which such an act of creation might or might not occur.  That's assuming the notion of 'outside our universe', or outside what is epistemologically accessible to us, is itself meaningful.

One of the main premises is that any act requires times since any act deals with a change. Agree or disagree?

As explained above, I agree in the sense that time marks the change.  But not convinced that time is some sort of thing in itself medium necessary for stuff to change within. 

The other premise is that there was no time before the point of creation. Agree or disagree?

Agree, because if nothing exists, then there is no change for time to mark.

Gertie wrote: ↑Yesterday, 1:11 pm We can speculate, but using our 'in-universe' notions of logic based on how our universe seems to work to do so,  could well be simply not understanding the implications of trying to say anything about what is outside what we can know or understand.  Or if it even makes sense to try.

On the other hand if we consider our universe to be eternal/infinite having no temporal beginning, we run into apparent paradoxes, in which our logic seems incapable of reconciling our universe's infinite past with reaching this point now, and now, and now, like Xeno's arrow. Or how our spatially infinite universe which encompasses everything can expand.

Eternal universe is illogical since it takes infinite amout of time passage to reach from infinite past to now.

Agree, according to our human in-universe knowledge about how the universe we're in works.  But we don't have access to/knowledge of the state of affairs, if any, not included in what we can recognise as our universe. 


Inconclusive conclusion -

Our logic based on what we flawed and limited humans observe about how our universe works has problems with both creation ex-nihilo and an infinite past.  Our human logic suggests it has to be one or the other, but can't unproblematically get us to either.

Answer - dunno.

[Gertie]

GE

Gertie wrote: ↑Today, 11:34 am
The points between location A and B represent real locations too tho.

Sure. But representing a real location doesn't make that representation a real location. Those points are just our means of representing a location.

The archer shoots the arrow from actual location A and it arrives at actual location B. But there are an infinite number of actual locations between location A and B . . .

No, there are not. A "real" location is a place where something exists or something happens. There are a large number of atoms along that path, but that number is finite. The apparent infinity of "points" is only an artifact of our conceptual and descriptive apparatus.

Forget the points then. There is an actual location, lets call it Half Way, which is half way between actual locations A and B. And there is an actual location half way between A and Half Way. Ad finitum. Similarly between the atoms, and the atoms themselves can be infinitely divided.

The same goes for time.

Yes, it does --- a "real" period of time is an interval wherein something exists or happens. "Moments," like points, are conceptual artifacts.

OK, no moments or points then. Something actually begins to happen (aka changes) at 1 o'clock today, I start eating lunch. In reality I finish my lunch at 1.30 pm. But to do so I have to begin to raise the food to my mouth - and we're in the same infinity paradox as Xeno's arrow.

I also disagree, I think, that just having something exist is sufficient for a period of time to exist. If a static universe instantaneously pops into existence, but never changes, there are no further intervals (ie changes from one state of affairs to another) to mark. Time is meaningless in such a universe. If it exists in some way, it makes no practical or discernible difference in that universe. I think that's because time is only a marker of the property actual existing stuff has of changing.

But my point is our concept of what is logical derives from our observations and theorising on how our universe works (I think this might mean I'm with you on that 'metaphysics' doesn't really add anything, not sure exactly what metaphysics is to be honest, it's still on my list). To us, nothingness can't do anything. But we can't know anything about what does or doesn't lie 'beyond' what we can identify as our universe. What the rules are, how it works, if something can come from nothing, and whatever else might imaginably/unimaginably be going on. Or not.

Well, that sort of thing is what many metaphysicians endeavor to explain, and usually offer up "explanations" that are not verifiable or falsifiable and lead to no confirmable predictions. Thus they have no explanatory power. The best we can do "metaphysically" is produce a theory that is at least coherent and not illogical. The cyclic universe seems to satisfy those criteria.

Logical according to our human in-universe notion of how our universe works, and what is and isn't possible/coherent/causally predictable/whatev. (Which looks completely rooted in physics to me, I see no 'meta' part). And yep that's the right thing for scientists to do, because those are the tools available.

So yes, once the universe exists we can observe and theorise from our in-universe perspective about how it works and develop logic grounded in that. We can use physics to explain the expansion and predict the collapse and re-expansion. But that only puts the question back a step. The question remains was there an original first universe, or has this process been going on forever? And at that point our limited and flawed in-universe ways of understanding fail us again.

[Sculptor1]

"Self-causation is possible for self-causation itself."

hilarious tautology.

You sound like you're more furious than you are laughing at something. I know that people get mad at something they don't get, but you need to know that being mad at something you don't understand won't make it any less true.

Fro two words you conclude that I am "furious"???
You might want to look at why you feel that way.
Alternatively you could try to support and defend your tautology.

Oh well, if you're not, then that's that.

Anyway, what part of "self-causation is possible for self-causation itself" do you not get? It is possible for existence to exist on its own without being caused by something else, because existence is defined as something that exists, meaning its own definition causes itself to exist on its own.

Things do not define themselves. Humans are the origin of definitions.
And just because I define a thing, does not mean it exists.
What you are saying is meaningless like the following:
Definition: Octpussies are eight legged cats.

[Sculptor1]

Prove it!

Which one do you want me to prove?

You say time can pass without change.
That is not a statement you can make.

Time is the fundamental variable of any dynamical theory. Any dynamical theory also addresses a static system in which there is no change yet there is time.

Time is a measure of change.
Without change time is meaningless.

[Bahman]

Bahman, I'm thinking this through on the hop, so apologies if my answers are a bit messy.

Gertie, no problem at all. Hopefully, things become clear through the discussion.

Gertie wrote: ↑Yesterday, 1:11 pm

Bahman wrote: ↑February 14th, 2023, 8:25 am To show this we first notice that any act including the act of creation has a before and an after. This means that time is needed for any act since there is a before and an after in any act. The act of creation however includes the creation of time as well. This means that we need time for the creation of time. This leads to an infinite regress. The infinite regress is not acceptable. Therefore, the act of creation from nothing is logically impossible.

It's a weird question to try to get your head round, for me anyway. But here's how I see it.

I understand time to be a marker of change.

Time allows change to occur.

Gertie wrote: ↑Yesterday, 1:11 pm Without change, time is meaningless.

That is not true. Time can pass without any other change.

I'm inclined to disagree.  Consider it this way - the reason  time didn't exist before the universe existed is because there is no change occurring when nothing exists. This makes sense if time is a marker of change.

Similarly if the universe had popped into existence in such a way that it was static and unable to ever change, time within the universe wouldn't exist. Because there is no change to mark.

The alternative is to see Time as a thing in itself, which flows regardless of anything existing or changing.  But that sort of thing in itself Time would have no properties or effects, including flow in a non-existent or static universe.  Or there'd at least be no discernible difference in whether it existed or not, there'd be nothing to identify or describe as Time Itself.

Which I suppose boils the question down to whether it is in the nature of stuff to change in certain  ways which time marks, or time is an existing medium of sorts through which stuff changes, a medium which simultaneously comes into existence with stuff.  A linguistic parallel would be to classify time as an adverb, or Time as a noun.

If we compare  time to  spatial dimensions,  I'd say spatial dimensions  also reference and mark   the spatial physical properties of physical stuff, like the way an adjective works.  Once stuff exists, it can be described and marked in spatial dimensions because of the properties stuff has (hence no stuff = no spatial dimensions). Likewise when stuff changes according to its own properties (matter being acted on by forces according to physics) time marks those changes. If there are no changes to mark, time is meaningless, because there is nothing for time to reference.

My question to you then, is if  Time is a thing in itself, what is it?    And if it has no discernible independent properties or efects of its own, except as a marker of stuff changing, in what sense does it exist? 

Well, we need to agree on whether time is necessary for change to happen. If we agree on this then it follows that time exists regardless of change. How? Consider a system S which is subject to change by which I mean there is a set of parameters, let's call it P, that defines the system and they are subject to change. Now assume a change in the system, P to P', where P is at time t and P' is at time t'. The difference between P and P' tells how big is the change. This difference could be large or small though the difference between t and t' is always constant. Now consider a very very small change. Again, the difference between P and P' is the only thing that changes while the difference between t and t' is constant. So as you can see, time and change are two different independent things. You can have arbitrary change during the time interval which is constant. Time in other words changes constantly regardless of how much the change is.

Gertie wrote: ↑Yesterday, 1:11 pm I know change exists because my conscious experience changes.  I assume the change in my conscious experience represents the sequentially changing universe my experience represents. (Time being relative doesn't mean it doesn't exist as marking change, just that how we experience and measure it is relative, I think).

And I understand logic to be a human concept which is rooted in our observation and understanding of how our universe works.

Now within our already existing universe as we experience and understand it, to say time/change/anything is created out of nothing/no time/no change at a particular  temporal moment seems illogical.  Because we live in a pre-existing universe and only understand time as marking the change from one state of affairs to another, which we experience and have coherent and reliably predictive ways of explaining.

However, if we're talking about the creation of our universe, we're considering a different state of affairs we call 'nothing' (aka not our universe) and we have no access  to  how things work 'outside' or 'before' our universe.  If or how time, stuff changing, or logic can make sense to us outside what we can access from within our universe.  So for example if we're considering the existence of some creative force which is responsible for the existence of our universe (including time, stuff and logic as we experience/understand it), we have no way of knowing what the conditions in which such an act of creation might or might not occur.  That's assuming the notion of 'outside our universe', or outside what is epistemologically accessible to us, is itself meaningful.

One of the main premises is that any act requires times since any act deals with a change. Agree or disagree?

As explained above, I agree in the sense that time marks the change.  But not convinced that time is some sort of thing in itself medium necessary for stuff to change within. 

So I assume that you agree that time is needed for any act.

The other premise is that there was no time before the point of creation. Agree or disagree?

Agree, because if nothing exists, then there is no change for time to mark.

Not in that sense. In the sense that if nothing exists, then time does not exist either.

Gertie wrote: ↑Yesterday, 1:11 pm We can speculate, but using our 'in-universe' notions of logic based on how our universe seems to work to do so,  could well be simply not understanding the implications of trying to say anything about what is outside what we can know or understand.  Or if it even makes sense to try.

On the other hand if we consider our universe to be eternal/infinite having no temporal beginning, we run into apparent paradoxes, in which our logic seems incapable of reconciling our universe's infinite past with reaching this point now, and now, and now, like Xeno's arrow. Or how our spatially infinite universe which encompasses everything can expand.

Eternal universe is illogical since it takes infinite amout of time passage to reach from infinite past to now.

Agree, according to our human in-universe knowledge about how the universe we're in works.  But we don't have access to/knowledge of the state of affairs, if any, not included in what we can recognise as our universe. 


Inconclusive conclusion -

Our logic based on what we flawed and limited humans observe about how our universe works has problems with both creation ex-nihilo and an infinite past.  Our human logic suggests it has to be one or the other, but can't unproblematically get us to either.

Answer - dunno.

Well, if we accept two premises then it is easy to show that the act of creation leads to an infinite regress. Agree?

[GrayArea]

You sound like you're more furious than you are laughing at something. I know that people get mad at something they don't get, but you need to know that being mad at something you don't understand won't make it any less true.

Fro two words you conclude that I am "furious"???
You might want to look at why you feel that way.
Alternatively you could try to support and defend your tautology.

Oh well, if you're not, then that's that.

Anyway, what part of "self-causation is possible for self-causation itself" do you not get? It is possible for existence to exist on its own without being caused by something else, because existence is defined as something that exists, meaning its own definition causes itself to exist on its own.

Things do not define themselves. Humans are the origin of definitions.
And just because I define a thing, does not mean it exists.
What you are saying is meaningless like the following:
Definition: Octpussies are eight legged cats.

I don't think humans are the origins of definition, but more so the re-definers for definitions that have already been created by objects themselves.

For example, existence HAS to "exist" first in order for us to define existence as something that "exists". You would agree with me when I say that when a human being defines things, they're not creating them, but are rather perceiving them as they are.

And to clarify, my logic that explains how "existence causes itself to exist on its own" only applies to literal existence itself and not anything else within existence i.e octopuses or cats.

The only reason why octopuses or cats exist is because of existence. But why does existence exist?

[GE Morton]

Anyway, what part of "self-causation is possible for self-causation itself" do you not get? It is possible for existence to exist on its own without being caused by something else, because existence is defined as something that exists, meaning its own definition causes itself to exist on its own.

Er, "existence is defined as something that exists" would be a blatantly circular (and uninformative) definition.

Also, while "It is possible for existence [I assume you mean "something which exists"] to exist on its own without being caused by something else," that doesn't imply that it "causes itself to exist." If it was not caused by something else, then it was not caused at all. "Self-caused" is an incoherent expression that collapses the distinction between cause and effect, thus rendering the concept of causation meaningless. You can only claim an X is a cause if there is an effect Y distinct from X.

[GE Morton]

I don't think humans are the origins of definition, but more so the re-definers for definitions that have already been created by objects themselves.

Egads. Definitions are words uttered by speakers of a structured language to explain the meanings of other words. Only humans (that we know of ) use structured languages, coin words and define them. Other "objects" don't have languages, coin words, or define them.

You would agree with me when I say that when a human being defines things, they're not creating them, but are rather perceiving them as they are.

Certainly not. What humans define are words for denoting things. How they define words depends upon how they perceive the things denoted, which may have little to do with "what they are."

[Sculptor1]

Fro two words you conclude that I am "furious"???
You might want to look at why you feel that way.
Alternatively you could try to support and defend your tautology.

Oh well, if you're not, then that's that.

Anyway, what part of "self-causation is possible for self-causation itself" do you not get? It is possible for existence to exist on its own without being caused by something else, because existence is defined as something that exists, meaning its own definition causes itself to exist on its own.

Things do not define themselves. Humans are the origin of definitions.
And just because I define a thing, does not mean it exists.
What you are saying is meaningless like the following:
Definition: Octpussies are eight legged cats.

I don't think humans are the origins of definitions,...

It seems pointless to go on if you really want to say that.

[Leontiskos]

Well, we need to agree on whether time is necessary for change to happen.

Creatio ex nihilo is not a change. See for example, <Thomas Aquinas' De Potentia Dei, Question 3, Article 2>. More generally, see <What is Creation? (Thomistic Institute)>.

As to your OP:

To show this we first notice that any act including the act of creation has a before and an after. This means that time is needed for any act since there is a before and an after in any act.

Your premise is, "All acts have a before and an after." There is really no argumentation on offer, just this lonely and undefended premise. I'm not sure why we would take such a premise to be true, particularly on a metaphysical level, and you give us no reason to believe that it is true. You just assume your conclusion.

[Bahman]

Well, we need to agree on whether time is necessary for change to happen.

Creatio ex nihilo is not a change. See for example, <Thomas Aquinas' De Potentia Dei, Question 3, Article 2>. More generally, see <What is Creation? (Thomistic Institute)>.

Creation from nothing deals with change as well.

As to your OP:

To show this we first notice that any act including the act of creation has a before and an after. This means that time is needed for any act since there is a before and an after in any act.

Your premise is, "All acts have a before and an after." There is really no argumentation on offer, just this lonely and undefended premise. I'm not sure why we would take such a premise to be true, particularly on a metaphysical level, and you give us no reason to believe that it is true. You just assume your conclusion.

That premise is true since any act including the act of creation from nothing is dealing with a change. Thanks for the links also. I will read them shortly.

[Sculptor1]

Well, we need to agree on whether time is necessary for change to happen.

Creatio ex nihilo is not a change. See for example, <Thomas Aquinas' De Potentia Dei, Question 3, Article 2>. More generally, see <What is Creation? (Thomistic Institute)>.

Creation from nothing deals with change as well.

Change is a constant and with it we conceive of time, which relies upon it.