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

[Wossname]

Maybe there are YouTube videos available about the subject.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNQ8-4 ... C21TENHCrw
[/quote

Thank you arjand.
On my to do list.

[psyreporter]

It is the perspective that is at question. When one views an amount per se, does that not imply a total? If not, what would be the basis for such an idea?

If you're going to claim that it's a total, you need to be able to specify what we're totaling.

So what are we totaling when we refer to, say, 6:38 p.m.?

You are considering 6:38 p.m. relative to an infinite amount on the basis of which you claim that the logical impossibility ¹ is applicable on the basis of which you claim that time must have had a beginning.

What would an amount represent when there is no total?

How is it possible to claim that an infinite amount of time is an impossibility while in the same time stating that that which is denoted as an amount is not representing a total?

[Terrapin Station]

If you're going to claim that it's a total, you need to be able to specify what we're totaling.

So what are we totaling when we refer to, say, 6:38 p.m.?

You are considering 6:38 p.m. relative to an infinite amount

What in the world?

No. I didn't say anything even remotely like that. I said that we can simply have two change states where one can be labeled 6:38 p.m. (via what a clock reads during that change state for example), versus one that's labeled 7:42 p.m. (or whatever, I don't remember what times I used for the example).

That was nothing about "an infinite amount" or relative to anything else other than another change state.

[psyreporter]

You are considering 6:38 p.m. relative to an infinite amount

What in the world?

No. I didn't say anything even remotely like that. I said that we can simply have two change states where one can be labeled 6:38 p.m. (via what a clock reads during that change state for example), versus one that's labeled 7:42 p.m. (or whatever, I don't remember what times I used for the example).

That was nothing about "an infinite amount" or relative to anything else other than another change state.

You specifically argued the following:

Now, if there's an infinite amount of time prior to the creation of the Earth, how does the time of the creation of the Earth arrive. For it to arrive time has to pass through an infinity of durations, right? (Again, this is going by you saying that time is duration and that time as duration occurs independently of us.) Can time pass through an infinity of durations to get to a particular later time? How?

You don't seem to understand my comments to creation. The whole point is that if there's an infinite amount of time prior to Tn then we can't get to Tn because you can't complete an infinity of time prior to Tn. Why not? Because infinity isn't a quantity or amount we can ever reach or complete.

It is clear that you consider an infinite amount relative to Tn (i.e. 6:38 p.m.) by which you imply that time must have had a beginning.

To return to the pending questions:

1) How is it possible to claim that an infinite amount of time is an impossibility while in the same time stating that that which is denoted as an amount is not representing a total?

2) If you agree that the concept total must be applicable to what you denoted as Tn, then the question is on what basis you consider it a valid idea to perceive time from a totality perspective?

[Terrapin Station]

What in the world?

No. I didn't say anything even remotely like that. I said that we can simply have two change states where one can be labeled 6:38 p.m. (via what a clock reads during that change state for example), versus one that's labeled 7:42 p.m. (or whatever, I don't remember what times I used for the example).

That was nothing about "an infinite amount" or relative to anything else other than another change state.

You specifically argued the following:

Don't think about OTHER posts when I'm trying to simplify and clarify something.

You wrote: "You mentioned that you view time as a state relative to an amount."

I was trying to clarify the problems with saying this. I wrote:

"'Change state.' So in other words, 'End of the drive' is different than 'beginning of the drive'--something has changed. We could call each change a 'change state.' And we can assign numbers to those states, like T1 and T2 or 11:30 a.m. and 12:04 p.m. 'Totality' makes zero sense to me here. What are we totaling?"

When I write something like that, empty your mind of anything else that was said and just look at what I typed. It's a very simple idea, and a very simple question. I'm trying to correct misconceptions. Thinking about other stuff that caused the misconceptions in the first place isn't going to help.

[psyreporter]

Ultimately it is about the claim that time must have had a beginning. My questions are simply intended to discover the validity of your reasoning.

The paper ends with the following:

There are, of course, other arguments for the finitude of the past that we have not discussed – most notably, perhaps, the one based on the supposed impossibility of ‘traversing the infinite’. We shall have to leave them for another occasion.

You are essentially defending the impossibility of ‘traversing the infinite’ as a ground for the claim that time must have had a beginning.

What has been discovered so far is that it appears that you contradict yourself by stating that an infinite amount of time is an impossibility while in the same time you maintain that that which is denoted as an amount (Tn) is not representing a total.

What would an amount represent when there is no total?

[Terrapin Station]

Ultimately it is about the claim that time must have had a beginning. My questions are simply intended to discover the validity of your reasoning.

The paper ends with the following:

There are, of course, other arguments for the finitude of the past that we have not discussed – most notably, perhaps, the one based on the supposed impossibility of ‘traversing the infinite’. We shall have to leave them for another occasion.

You are essentially defending the impossibility of ‘traversing the infinite’ as a ground for the claim that time must have had a beginning.

What has been discovered so far is that it appears that you contradict yourself by stating that an infinite amount of time is an impossibility while in the same time you maintain that that which is denoted as an amount (Tn) is not representing a total.

What would an amount represent when there is no total?

Why does one have to say things over and over and over and over and over again on this board?

Once again, I wasn't arguing that time must have had a beginning.

[psyreporter]

The paper addresses the claim by the Kalam cosmological argument that time must have had a beginning. It seems logical that your argument must have been intended as a defence for that claim.

What did you intend to imply when you argue that an infinite amount of time prior to Tn is impossible?

The argument is specifically cited in the paper as impossibility of ‘traversing the infinite’ as a defense for the claim that time must have had a beginning.

With regard to repeating. The following question is not yet answered:

What would an amount represent when there is no total?

[Terrapin Station]

The paper addresses the claim by the Kalam cosmological argument that time must have had a beginning. It seems logical that your argument must have been intended as a defence for that claim.

What did you intend to imply when you argue that an infinite amount of time prior to Tn is impossible?

The argument is specifically cited in the paper as impossibility of ‘traversing the infinite’ as a defense for the claim that time must have had a beginning.

With regard to repeating. The following question is not yet answered:

What would an amount represent when there is no total?

It's just impossible to get you to read what I'm actually writing.

[psyreporter]

I've read the following carefully. It appears to be clear that you are defending the claim posed by the Kalam cosmological argument that time must have had a beginning.

Now, if there's an infinite amount of time prior to the creation of the Earth, how does the time of the creation of the Earth arrive. For it to arrive time has to pass through an infinity of durations, right? (Again, this is going by you saying that time is duration and that time as duration occurs independently of us.) Can time pass through an infinity of durations to get to a particular later time? How?

You don't seem to understand my comments to creation. The whole point is that if there's an infinite amount of time prior to Tn then we can't get to Tn because you can't complete an infinity of time prior to Tn. Why not? Because infinity isn't a quantity or amount we can ever reach or complete.

If you did not want to argue that time must have had a beginning, can you then explain how time did not start while, according to your reasoning, time cannot span backwards into infinity?

[Terrapin Station]

I've read the following carefully. It appears to be clear that you are defending the claim posed by the Kalam cosmological argument that time must have had a beginning.

Now, if there's an infinite amount of time prior to the creation of the Earth, how does the time of the creation of the Earth arrive. For it to arrive time has to pass through an infinity of durations, right? (Again, this is going by you saying that time is duration and that time as duration occurs independently of us.) Can time pass through an infinity of durations to get to a particular later time? How?

You don't seem to understand my comments to creation. The whole point is that if there's an infinite amount of time prior to Tn then we can't get to Tn because you can't complete an infinity of time prior to Tn. Why not? Because infinity isn't a quantity or amount we can ever reach or complete.

If you did not want to argue that time must have had a beginning, can you then explain how time did not start while, according to your reasoning, time cannot span backwards into infinity?

At the moment, what I'd be interested in would be you understanding that we can have two different change states and label them with names such as "6:45 p.m." and "7:15 p.m."

I'd also be interested in your saying why the above would be anything about "amounts," especially "totaling amounts"

I'm not really interested in you ignoring most of what I type and then just trying to steer the conversation elsewhere.

[psyreporter]

At the moment, what I'd be interested in would be you understanding that we can have two different change states and label them with names such as "6:45 p.m." and "7:15 p.m."

Agreed. The human can count.

I'd also be interested in your saying why the above would be anything about "amounts," especially "totaling amounts"

The concept amount would become applicable when you would argue that an infinite amount prior to Tn, i.e. 6:45 p.m., is impossible.

With regard to the concept total not being applicable. That would be for you to explain.

What would an amount represent when there is no total?

[Present awareness]

The paper addresses the claim by the Kalam cosmological argument that time must have had a beginning. It seems logical that your argument must have been intended as a defence for that claim.

What did you intend to imply when you argue that an infinite amount of time prior to Tn is impossible?

The argument is specifically cited in the paper as impossibility of ‘traversing the infinite’ as a defense for the claim that time must have had a beginning.

With regard to repeating. The following question is not yet answered:

What would an amount represent when there is no total?

Kalam’s argument is flawed:

Whatever begins to exist has a cause;
The universe began to exist;
Therefore:
The universe has a cause.
Given the conclusion, Craig appends a further premise and conclusion based upon a conceptual analysis of the properties of the cause:[6]

The universe has a cause;
If the universe has a cause, then an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists who sans (without) the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful;
Therefore,
An uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and infinitely powerful.


1. The universe did not begin to exist, it was always here.
2. I find it odd how people can believe in a beginningless creator and yet not a beginningless universe.

Time is just a measurement. Space is the “now” point in time. Anything moving through space may be measured in terms of time, but may not leave the present moment.

Size does not exist either, except for by comparison. We naturally compare things to ourselves, bigger then us is big and smaller then us is small. However, if we no not exist, those comparisons do not exist either! The entire Milky Way galaxy could fit into a grain of sand and all the galaxies in the universe could simply be brain neurones in some cosmic beings head.

[Hereandnow]

arjand
1) is it possible for true infinity to exist?
2) is it plausible to assume that time must have had a beginning?

There is, arjand, an entirely different approach to this issue. Consider the analysis of time not as forward looking or backward looking, then making the impossible attempt to intuitively grasp it---and it is here, at this precipice of the impossible, that one can only embrace the intuitive paradox, far more unsettling than, say, a logical one, as in, "this sentence is false". Quite a thing to do, really, but note: in this, one never comes understand infinity; it remains remote and impossible,so when the issue is taken up as it is here, one has to confess at the outset that s/he doesn't know what the issue really is about at all, literally doesn't know what s/he is talking about.

But this is true for all things, isn't it? There comes to a point in all inquiries where the "words run out" and one is faced with the impossible even in the most mundane affairs, for, as an obvious example, all things are in time, yet all time meanings are relative to the system of time: the befores and afters, and until 5 ams, and the rest of the language in which time is expressed, and all of these are analytically bound to temporal eternity, and eternity is an impossibility to the understanding; so: so much for the temporal assumption about "when' my lamp is, for all time concepts are cancelled by eternity. Spatial terms work out the same way, leaving the where and when of all things impossible, and we live with this impossibility, but ignore it because language about time works, is pragmatically efficient.

If our time references are contextualized meaningful only, then it does no good to use these as a means to grasp infinity in any significant way, for all you will ever get is contextual meanings. But there is one way to go, and this is to rethink time at is basis: in the language that makes time events possible. Ask, what time is it in the Buddhist's ideal meditative state. It has been described as a succession of present moments, a continuity that knows no past of future, but only an eternal present, eternal because it is out of the construction of time found in the everyday events, and there is no past producing existence in its projections of the future. A truly still mind does not produce time events; hence, no time, and timelessness is eternity.

A little wordy. Apologies.

[Terrapin Station]

Kalam’s argument is flawed:

Whatever begins to exist has a cause;
The universe began to exist;
Therefore:
The universe has a cause.
Given the conclusion, Craig appends a further premise and conclusion based upon a conceptual analysis of the properties of the cause:[6]

The universe has a cause;
If the universe has a cause, then an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists who sans (without) the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful;
Therefore,
An uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists, who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and infinitely powerful.


1. The universe did not begin to exist, it was always here.
2. I find it odd how people can believe in a beginningless creator and yet not a beginningless universe.

Time is just a measurement. Space is the “now” point in time. Anything moving through space may be measured in terms of time, but may not leave the present moment.

Size does not exist either, except for by comparison. We naturally compare things to ourselves, bigger then us is big and smaller then us is small. However, if we no not exist, those comparisons do not exist either! The entire Milky Way galaxy could fit into a grain of sand and all the galaxies in the universe could simply be brain neurones in some cosmic beings head.

My name is there, but you don't seem to be quoting anything I wrote (?)