0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
Time Has An End..............Time is Circular
Quote from: Devans99 on 21/11/2018 13:08:29Time Has An End..............Time is CircularAt least one of these statements is false: a circle does not have an end.
This is straight metaphysics and belongs in a philosophy forum, where you've already posted I notice (onlinephilosophyclub) where you ignore all the places where flaws in your argument were pointed out.If presentism is false, then it should make some empirical prediction via which it can be falsified. If that is not proposed, this isn't really a physics question.
Sorry, but I thought it would have been of some interest here too. For example if time has a start then that effects cosmology.
It makes the prediction that past, present and future are all real.
You could argue the quantum eraser experiment confirms this.
If you check my OP, you will see I first proof time has a start
and then show that implies eternalism (hence ruling out presentism).
Except neither eternalism nor presentism assert that time has a start, or that it doesn't.
Quote from: Devans99 on 21/11/2018 13:54:06If you check my OP, you will see I first proof time has a startYou posit an eternal being counting (essentially a device that gives a measure of the age of the universe), which begs a start to time, invalidating the 'proof'.The argument also implies that infinity is a number, which it isn't. You show the difference between Aristotle's two definitions of it, but then imply that said the current age needs to be actual infinity.
Quoteand then show that implies eternalism (hence ruling out presentism).Didn't see it. I see "So before the start of time there was nothing" which is contradictory. You can't make reference to 'before the start of time' if it has a start. If there was a before, then that wasn't really the start.
Alternate proof has a similar self-contradiction." (top level) Time had a start. ... Implies Time must have always existed"If time must always have existed, then you've contradicted that time has a start. This statement actually would disprove that time has a start if it were a valid argument.That is followed by "IE Eternalism" which is just an assertion, since either view supports both finite and infinite past.
If you check the OP, I gave 8 separate proofs that time has a start.
If infinity is not a number; it's not part of mathematics.
So what do you claim is before the start of time if it is not nothing?
Its not contradictory, you need to think in terms of 4d space time. Best imagined as 3d space where one of the spacial axes has been changed to time. Then you can imagine the universe as a 3d object. It would have a start in the time dimension. If the shape is circular, the start corresponds to the end, if you see what I mean.
Quote from: Devans99 on 21/11/2018 14:38:22If you check the OP, I gave 8 separate proofs that time has a start.You need to cut out the ones that beg the premise then. Is there one?QuoteIf infinity is not a number; it's not part of mathematics.Oh really....Similarly pi is not a rational number, and is thus not part of mathematics.
I know how to envision it, being an eternalist myself.The finite model is more typically envisioned as a sphere with time being the radial axis. Making reference to a point before the start of time is similar to making reference to a point deeper than the center of Earth. You just can't go deeper. It isn't cyclic: The center of Earth does not rest on itself at some point higher up.The presentist model would say that only the surface of that sphere exists, not the points below or above. It does not assert infinite radius to the sphere.The infinite model is more like just a boundless coordinate system, with nowhere to point that is outside the model, and the presentist would say that only a cross section of that exists.
- So all things happen an infinite number of times. - So all things are equally likely.
Quote from: Devans99 on 21/11/2018 13:08:29 - So all things happen an infinite number of times. - So all things are equally likely. That does not follow. If the probability of getting struck by lightning is 1-in-1 million per year (just a random number), that probability isn't going to change just because you posit an infinite number of years over which it could happen. Even if such a hypothetical immortal gets struck an infinite number of times over an eternity, that won't change the average rate at which it happens.
If you posit an infinite number of years then the number of people struck by lightening is infinite and the number of people not struck by lightening is also infinite (and equal).You have got out of the paradox by removing infinity and using a million years instead (a finite period). The paradox goes away as soon as you use finite time.
Quote from: Devans99 on 22/11/2018 07:52:02If you posit an infinite number of years then the number of people struck by lightening is infinite and the number of people not struck by lightening is also infinite (and equal).You have got out of the paradox by removing infinity and using a million years instead (a finite period). The paradox goes away as soon as you use finite time.There is no paradox. Even if an infinitely-old immortal lived on an infinitely-old planet and had been struck by an infinite number of lightning bolts in the past, that wouldn't affect how likely he would be to be struck by lightning this particular year. The odds are still the same.
Yes but you have shortened time to 1 year to get out of the paradox. The paradox calls for the likelihood over all of eternal time of being struck by lightening Vs not struct by lightening. Which is ∞ Vs ∞ IE same likelihood.Here is the wikipedia entry for the paradox:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measure_problem_(cosmology)
Quote from: Devans99 on 22/11/2018 18:03:18Yes but you have shortened time to 1 year to get out of the paradox. The paradox calls for the likelihood over all of eternal time of being struck by lightening Vs not struct by lightening. Which is ∞ Vs ∞ IE same likelihood.Here is the wikipedia entry for the paradox:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measure_problem_(cosmology)It depends on how you phrase the question. If you are asking "how likely is event x to happen over a given period of time?" then you will get a different answer than if you ask "how likely is event x to happen eventually?" If "event x" has a finite probability, then the chance of it happening eventually over an infinite period of time is indeed 100%. That still isn't a paradox because you're measuring probability in two different ways.
I'm not following your argument. It seems straight forward enough to me. Over eternity, there are an infinite number of days when the being is struck by lightening and also an infinite number of days when he is not. So the two are equally lightly?
Quote from: Devans99 on 22/11/2018 18:18:49I'm not following your argument. It seems straight forward enough to me. Over eternity, there are an infinite number of days when the being is struck by lightening and also an infinite number of days when he is not. So the two are equally lightly?The problem is that you are treating infinity like it is a number. It isn't.
It's impossible to construct mathematically or geometrically.
Then you must agree that any attempt to calculate probabilities using infinity doesn't work. This in turn means that your conclusion that all probabilities become equal after an eternity is flawed reasoning.
But it's not probability that's broken; it's actual infinity that is a broken concept. As you demonstrated, as soon as you take infinity out of the picture, the paradox disappears; so probability must be sound and infinity must be paradoxical.