Question regarding time

Someone once asked me in a discussion "why can't the universe just be eternal?" I didn't have an answer so I did some research. I am posting a short summary here to see what reactions and criticisms the idea receives.

The answer is "time". The universe cannot be eternal because time exists and we are moving through it. For the universe to be eternal, time would have to be actually infinite. However, if something is actually infinite, you cannot move through it. There is no real forward or back (or any direction, really) because there is no real point of reference. One can only progress when something is *potentially* infinite. By that I mean, it has a specific point of origin and moves on from there (like a ray, instead of a true line).

We can only move through time if it has a beginning. If time is actually infinite, then we cannot progress through it because there is no real frame of reference. So, how do non-theists explain time coming into existence? There can be no empirical cause (because there is no time in which to act) nor can there be no cause (because you can't get something from nothing). That leaves a non-empirical cause that exists outside of time as the only reasonable explanation.

What say you, forum-posters?

 

That leaves a non-empirical cause that exists outside of time as the only reasonable explanation.

What say you, forum-posters?


I say...that last sentence sums it up.

Since this section of HF is concerned with religion, I assume you're looking for theologically-based responses...the question is both scientific and spiritual in nature.

To venture an answer I would have to go beyond strictly Christian parameters, into the Vedic scripture Bhagavad-gita and general eastern spiritual concepts.

Since this is the Christianity forum, I try to respect that and usually phrase questions and answers in Christian terms.

I'll answer but will have to use some non-Christian sources...any problem with that?

 

Sounds fair. I probably should have posted in the general Religion forum. Fire away.

 

OK. It'll take me awhile to come up with something intelligible, and I'm leaving town for the weekend on friday, so this one will sit dormant on my end for a few days.

Others out there...fire away!

 

Space is infinite - we continually move through space. So why not time too?

 

What about a circle? A circle is an infinite line, no beginning, no end, and yet you can certainly move on a circle, with a certain direction, at a certain speed, and whatever else. A neat thought, but infinite doesn't mean you can't travel through it.

 

[/QUOTE]However, if something is actually infinite, you cannot move through it. There is no real forward or back (or any direction, really) because there is no real point of reference. One can only progress when something is *potentially* infinite. By that I mean, it has a specific point of origin and moves on from there (like a ray, instead of a true line).[/QUOTE] I like this kind of science as it is more like movie than actual science.
Back in the world of reality, I can see wgere you have gone wrong. Your conclusions are wrong because the premises upon which you rest the conclusion are false.

Of course you can move through something that is infinite. It might be an almost infinitely small distance but then a fraction which starts of like this ( 0.00000000) and then contains a thousand trillion million zeros with a 1 at the end is also near the infinitely small, BTW make your point of reference to be exactly at some point where mars is as any point of its orbit and you have reference to the planet mars which will be in relation to the sun.

hoh?????

Is it possible to draw an infinite circle and if you could would it be a straight line? google Euclid and non-Euclidean

 

and

Both of these seem to be dealing with an infinite number of conceptual--mind imposed--points through which actual travel in possible. However, I think what Alsharad is talking about, here, is time actually being infinite in the sense that it has no beginning and no end (not just conceptual points of which there are potentially an infinite number of) in which case arriving at any particular point would be impossible.

 

I'm not really sure what you mean. Time either exists or it doesn't. Because I see change from this point in time to the next, I'm going to go ahead and say it does. I can certainly travel through time, and you and me and everything else constantly are. I see no reason for that to mean that time must have a beginning.

 

The point being that if time had no beginning then it would be impossible for you to arrive at the present moment since there would be an infinite number of moments that would have to past before the present one could be reached--an infinite amount of time before the present moment.

 

Ah. That's faulty logic though. If time started yesterday, there are still an infinite number of moments before now. There are an infinite number of points in a foot, but that doesn't mean we can't go anywhere.

Edit: Say I have a line. Sure it's composed of points, but unless you work with the points, it's a line, infinite in both directions. No beginning or end. No point of reference. However, we find ourselves at a point on the line where certain conditions are met. The universe around us is as it is, and as this point in the line says it should be. Points of reference are inherent in the timeline because the each infinitely small point in the line is a unique description of universal events.

 

Re: time and non-empirical existence.

For the soul there is never birth nor death. Nor, having once been, does he ever cease to be. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing, undying and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain.

(Bhaktivedanta, Bhagavad-gita As It Is, Chapter 2, verse 20)

 

LOL, right as I got finish typing "an infinite number of moments" I thought to myself "That's a really bad analogy!" That's why added "an infinite amount of time before the present moment."


At anyrate, as I was saying before, there are an infinite number of conceptual points in a foot-long line. That is to say the line isn't actually infinitely long in distance, there's just potentially an infinite number of conceptual mind imposed points which have no baring on the actual length of the line itself. Now imagine that the line really were infinitely long. Imagine trying to run your finger across the entire length of the line. You could never arrive at any point because there would be an infinite amount of distance to cover before you reached that point.

 

I would say that there is an infinite number of divisions (which are conceptual). We can transverse an infinite number of divisions between point A and point B because the "infinite" divisions are not actual. However, if something is actually infinite, you cannot reach B from A because you must actually transverse an infinite number of actual points. In essence, there would be an actual infinite distance between any two points. So, if time never started, then to move from 10 seconds ago to now, we must transverse an infinite amount of time.

This will help. Infinity divided by 2 is infinity, divided by 200000000 is still infinity. There is no number of conceptual (or actual) divisions that will result in less than infinity. So, the amount of time that must be transversed between any two conceptual divisions is actually infinite (not merely an infinite number of divisions).

 

No we mustn't. We only need to transverse ten seconds. Just because a line is infinite doesn't mean that points on the line can't be spatially measured. All it means is instead of each point being relative to a beginning, each point is relative to each other point. Relative to the year 1, we are 2005 years farther in one direction on the line. Relative to an hour ago, we are one hour farther along. You can go in the past and describe any number of points until we don't know anymore, and time will keep extending back, just as we can keep going into the future until we die, and there will always be more hours, years, and millenia, even if we aren't there to describe or measure them.

In high school (maybe middle school) math, we learned all about lines. Even though they went infinitely on, past the paper, past the school, to the edge of the universe and beyond, we were working with one little part, in which the distance between two points on the infinite line were described as a line segment. It only describe part of the line, and was finite and measurable. That's what history is. We make line segments on the timeline, arbitrarily defined by whatever topic we're concerned with, but defined nontheless. All we know of the universe is around 16 billion years, but that 16 billion years can easily fit into line segment AB on a sheet of paper. Or AB could be from year 1 to now. Or from ten seconds ago to now. Whatever you want to use for a distance, the line extends infinitely beyond points A and B. In that way, time is infinite and easily traversed.

 

True, you cannot divide infinity and get an integer. But all that means is that you can't say line segment AB is so-and-so percent of all time. It's always zero percent. But that's only because of the nature of infinity, and doesn't mean there is no distance between A and B. There's no division of infinity involved. There's not really any math at all. X used to equal 1492, now X=2006. If you want the difference you subtract, but that's about it.

 

I don't think I am making clear the distinction between potential (conceptual) infinity and actual infinity. We aren't talking about the ability to conceptually divide infinity, we are talking about actually transversing an infinite. No matter the number of conceptual divisions, in an actual infinity, there is an infinite number of actual points between any two points. In terms of time, if time were actually infinite, we would would have an infinite number of moments that must be transversed to move from any moment to another.

How many moments are in 10 seconds? If time is actually infinite, there is an infinite number of moments. How many moments are in 1 second? The same number... infinite. So, we can take it and conceptually divide it, but if time is an actual infinite, we must transverse an infinite number of actual moments between any two moments.

The issue is not defining points, but moving from point A to point B in an actual infinite. It cannot be done.

 

How is your actual points thing any different from the conceptual divisions? You're making a distinction that isn't there. For there to be an infinite number of points between any two given boundaries on a line, those points must be infinitely small and infinitely close together, and that's just how it is.

Infinity, my friend, is not a number. Since a moment is not a measurement of time, you can fit infinity in however small a space as you want. This is how it is. And yet, we somehow move through time. I've heard this before, from people attempting to "prove" we can't move, or something stupid like that. The fact is that we can move through time, and since it is only a measurement, it had no beginning. You can't ask where does a meter begin, where is liter number one, it's only a measurement.

 

Is time made up of an infinite number of infinitely small and infinitely close moments? If not, then the line analogies completely fail since time is not fundamentally like a line. If yes, then we have a dilemma.

1) By definition, the whole of time is made up of an infinite number of infinitely small and infinitely close moments.
2) Between any two moments A and B, there is an infinite number of infinitely small and infinitely close moments.
3) To transverse from any moment A to any moment B would require transversing an infinite number of infinitely small and infinitely close moments.
4) To transverse from any moment A to any moment B would require transversing the whole of time.
5) The whole of time cannot be transversed.
6) Therefore you cannot transverse from any moment A to any moment B.

Time is not a measurement, it actually exists. We can measure time, but we are measuring the actual, not the conceptual. I am not trying to prove that time doesn't exist. Quite the opposite. I am trying to show that because we can move through it, time must have an actual point of reference (either a beginning or, possibly, an end).

 

Yes, just like any other line.

Yes

Yes indeedy

That's where you're wrong. To equate the infinitely small and infinitely close together points between A and B to the whole of time itself is erroneous. Time is infinite not only in the number of moments it containst and the number of points, but also in length, while the part between A and B is not. When you divide a number (the length of AB) by infinity, you get zero. When you divide infinity (the length of the timeline) by infinity, you get one. A whole. Therefore, the length of AB is zero percent of all time, because of the nature of infinity. But that has nothing to do with the length of AB or whether or not you can cross it, because the same is true for all values, and all lines, and all conceptual and actual infinities.

Indeed, but travelling an infinite distance on a line is different than travelling an infinite number of points. 'Cause I do that all the time. Even when I roll over in my sleep, I traverse an infinite number on points. AND, line segment AB has an infinite number of points WHETHER OR NOT time is infinite.

This would be true if all the above were true, but they aren't. Your logic is that you can't traverse an infinite number of points, but you can, and time being infinite or not has no bearing on that.

I agree, time exists without our measurement, which is why time existed before you and me, before humans, before earth, before the big bang, and before every other non-constant. But...being able to move through time doesn't mean it must have a beginning. Sure, your measurement of it does. 12 am, year1, 4.6 bya, 16bya, whatever, but those are just reference points. You use them to find where you are. Again, using length as a simile, we can move through distance. We measure it with a meterstick (or yardstick if you like), but it exists outside of measurement as well. We mark point of reference, like milestones on the highway, or A and B on line segment AB in middle school math, but that doesn't mean it begins somewhere.

Again, it was a neat idea, but I'll bet if it were true, it would have been thought up long ago, and confirmed by the scientific (of mathematic) community. But it's fallacious.