Infinite regress is logically impossible

[Immanuel Can]

How's your latest project of correcting all the dictionaries going, btw; are you making much progress?

I'm not "correcting" the dictionaries:

Shall we say modifying, then, and adding the odd bit here and there that the compilers overlooked?

Why don't we just say the truth?

[attofishpi]

I'm not "correcting" the dictionaries:

Shall we say modifying, then, and adding the odd bit here and there that the compilers overlooked?

Why don't we just say the truth?

Compilers never overlook bits, it's a big part of their job to get on and off correct.

[bahman]

Regress means the action of returning to a former state.

That's not quite right. I know that a lot of dictionaries start with that definition, but it's too general to be informative of anything, and that's why they have to go into a whole series of more refined definitions...as in, what "regress" means in medicine, or in philosophy, or in mathematics...

I am quite happy with that definition since the state could be the state of matter that evolves based on cause and effect or the beginning of time.

In the Kalaam Cosmological Argument, it refers to the sequence of cause and effect. Suggesting that something is a "cause" for something else means that we are "regressing" into the reason for the thing coming about. To ask why that "cause" was "caused," or to ask of what it was an "effect," in the cause-effect chain, is to "regress" one step further...and so on.

The Kalaam points out that an infinite regress of causes is impossible. And the reason for that is if the causes are infinitely recessive behind any given effect, then there is no point at which the chain of cause and effect can "get going."

So yes, to suggest an infinite regress of causes and effects is absurd and illogical. We can know for certain that no such thing has happened, since it would be impossible. And the Kalaam points out that the universe itself is an effect of some set of prior causes, which are themselves the effects of prior causes, which are themselves the effect of prior cause, which are also the effect of prior causes...and so on. But the chain, we know for certain, cannot be infinite: because if we imagined that, then we would also have to conclude the universe could not exist, and neither could we. In fact, nothing could exist.

But something does exist. Here we are. So we know that there was an original starting point for the cause-effect chain that resulted in the universe's existence, and in our own.

And there, the Kalaam stops. It doesn't tell us what that original Cause of all things had to be, in specific. But it does make it necessary for us to conclude that there had to be an original Cause.

Yes, the original cause could be God or the universe that existed at the beginning of time.

[bahman]

Can you reach infinity?

No.

Well then, therein within a metaphysical comprehension of anything, 'infinity' is a paradox.

No. The infinity, for example, the infinite past, is something that cannot be reached. We use this fact to argue that time has a beginning. There is nothing paradoxical about it.

[Immanuel Can]

Regress means the action of returning to a former state.

That's not quite right. I know that a lot of dictionaries start with that definition, but it's too general to be informative of anything, and that's why they have to go into a whole series of more refined definitions...as in, what "regress" means in medicine, or in philosophy, or in mathematics...

I am quite happy with that definition since the state could be the state of matter that evolves based on cause and effect or the beginning of time.

But according to logic and mathematics, there can have been no "beginning of time," if the universe is thought to be eternal in the past. Rather, any putative "cause" regresses into the infinite past: which means that nothing ever would have happened. No causes, and no effects..

Get it?

"Beginning" means a finite causal chain -- no infinite regress. And since causality exists, we know that the universe is not eternal in the past.

[bahman]

That's not quite right. I know that a lot of dictionaries start with that definition, but it's too general to be informative of anything, and that's why they have to go into a whole series of more refined definitions...as in, what "regress" means in medicine, or in philosophy, or in mathematics...

I am quite happy with that definition since the state could be the state of matter that evolves based on cause and effect or the beginning of time.

But according to logic and mathematics, there can have been no "beginning of time," if the universe is thought to be eternal in the past. Rather, any putative "cause" regresses into the infinite past: which means that nothing ever would have happened. No causes, and no effects..

Get it?

"Beginning" means a finite causal chain -- no infinite regress. And since causality exists, we know that the universe is not eternal in the past.

We are dealing with a regress if time comes to existence. That is true since, no time to time is a change. You need time for the change. This obviously leads to regress. So time has existed since the beginning of time.

[Immanuel Can]

So time has existed since the beginning of time.

That's like saying, "I've existed since I was conceived." It might be true, but it tells us absolutely nothing, because it simply repeats as single fact: "Time began, since time had a beginning."

But that's exactly what the problem of infinite causal regress proves is the case. Time began. So what's the big reveal, there?

[bahman]

So time has existed since the beginning of time.

That's like saying, "I've existed since I was conceived." It might be true, but it tells us absolutely nothing, because it simply repeats as single fact: "Time began, since time had a beginning."

But that's exactly what the problem of infinite causal regress proves is the case. Time began. So what's the big reveal, there?

Time didn't begin to exist in the sense that there was a point that there was no time and then there was time. This as I discussed leads to regress since no time to time is a change and time is needed for change.

[Immanuel Can]

So time has existed since the beginning of time.

That's like saying, "I've existed since I was conceived." It might be true, but it tells us absolutely nothing, because it simply repeats as single fact: "Time began, since time had a beginning."

But that's exactly what the problem of infinite causal regress proves is the case. Time began. So what's the big reveal, there?

Time didn't begin to exist

Wait a minute: look above. Did you not say, "the beginning of time"? Are those not your exact words?

Are you now saying that there was no "beginning of time"? Which one do you actually believe?

...no time to time is a change and time is needed for change...

That rule would only apply once the universe already exits, and there are multiple objects and states.

There is no possibility of us speaking of anything we understand as "time" before that, because time is an interval between at least two different things or states. If those two things or states haven't come to exist, then there's no time in moving between them. They don't exist.

In fact, if only one thing exists, then there's no "time" either, since there is also no interval. There's no "between" when there's only one thing.

[Harbal]

I'm not "correcting" the dictionaries:

Shall we say modifying, then, and adding the odd bit here and there that the compilers overlooked?

Why don't we just say the truth?

Be careful what you wish for.

[Harbal]

That's not quite right. I know that a lot of dictionaries start with that definition, but it's too general to be informative of anything, and that's why they have to go into a whole series of more refined definitions...as in, what "regress" means in medicine, or in philosophy, or in mathematics...

I am quite happy with that definition since the state could be the state of matter that evolves based on cause and effect or the beginning of time.

But according to logic and mathematics, there can have been no "beginning of time," if the universe is thought to be eternal in the past. Rather, any putative "cause" regresses into the infinite past: which means that nothing ever would have happened. No causes, and no effects..

Get it?

"Beginning" means a finite causal chain -- no infinite regress. And since causality exists, we know that the universe is not eternal in the past.

Now that you've set the stage, are you going to introduce God, or is it important that someone else needs to be guided towards having to do it?

[Impenitent]

people cross infinite distances all the time

-Imp

No, they don't. If you think they do, I shall ashore you, I will win this debate.

I'm not on a boat

"What is in motion moves neither in the place it is nor in one in which it is not”. - Zeno

-Imp

[Immanuel Can]

Now that you've set the stage, are you going to introduce God, or is it important that someone else needs to be guided towards having to do it?

God needs no "stage setting" from me, or from anybody else, of course. When He wants it, center stage is inevitably His.

[attofishpi]

people cross infinite distances all the time

-Imp

No, they don't. If you think they do, I shall ashore you, I will win this debate.

I'm not on a boat

"What is in motion moves neither in the place it is nor in one in which it is not”. - Zeno

-Imp

Yes I am familiar with the Zeno paradox. Your statement "people cross infinite distances all the time", indeed Zenos paradox fails at a binary point where either an event (1) or not an event (0) occurs it is the nature of our itsy bitsy reality.

[Harbal]

Now that you've set the stage, are you going to introduce God, or is it important that someone else needs to be guided towards having to do it?

God needs no "stage setting" from me, or from anybody else, of course. When He wants it, center stage is inevitably His.

Yes, but he usually waits until you have killed off all the other performers before he makes his entrance.