Dilemma of beginning of time

[Logik]

Even your personal insults make you look like a fool.
Given the sheer number of your posts, it's a miracle you're not improving.
I'm safe.
EB

I don't care much about appearances, to be honest.

I may LOOK like a fool, but you are one

[bahman]

According to wiki: Infinity is a concept describing something without any bound

Nah. We conceive of the future as infinite, yet it has a lower bound, the present.

No. The future has two distinct parts: (1) Finite future and (2) infinite future. I showed that you cannot reach from (1) to (2).

, or something larger than any natural number (ANN). For any ANN A+B=C where C>A and C>B. Infinity is however bigger than any ANN therefore C<infinity. Thus you cannot reach infinity by adding ANNs.

What does that have to do with T0 + infinity = Now?!
And I would have thought an infinitely long sum of 1's is infinite. I cannot do such a sum, yet I can conceive of it. Just add an infinite number of 1's.
EB

The future has two distinct parts: (1) Finite future and (2) infinite future. I showed that you cannot reach from (1) to (2). I don't need to show anything else.

[bahman]

According to wiki: Infinity is a concept describing something without any bound

Nah. We conceive of the future as infinite, yet it has a lower bound, the present.
People should think a little bit more before making up stuff.

, or something larger than any natural number (ANN). For any ANN A+B=C where C>A and C>B. Infinity is however bigger than any ANN therefore C<infinity. Thus you cannot reach infinity by adding ANNs.

What does that have to do with T0 + infinity = Now?!
And I would have thought an infinitely long sum of 1's is infinite. I cannot do such a sum, yet I can conceive of it. Just add an infinite number of 1's.
EB

Moreover I can show that T0 + infinity = infinity: There are two case: (1) T0 + infinity = FN (finite number) or (2) T0 + infinity = infinity. I can show that the first case cannot be correct knowing the fact that you cannot reach infinity by adding and obviously subtracting any natural number: 1 + infinity = FN which can be written as infinity = FN - 1 which is a contradiction.

[Speakpigeon]

Moreover I can show that T0 + infinity = infinity: There are two case: (1) T0 + infinity = FN (finite number) or (2) T0 + infinity = infinity. I can show that the first case cannot be correct knowing the fact that you cannot reach infinity by adding and obviously subtracting any natural number: 1 + infinity = FN which can be written as infinity = FN - 1 which is a contradiction.

You ain't going to convince anybody with that. Not even if you had started at the beginning of the infinite past.
EB

[Logik]

You ain't going to convince anybody with that.

But it sure will convince somebody.

I am convinced.

Not even if you had started at the beginning of the infinite past

The only thing stopping you from being convinced is cognitive dissonance.

Here's the challenge you can't address:

Start at the beginning ( at 0 )
Question 1: What is the first real number after 0?
Question 2: If you counted 1 real number per second how long will it take you to get to 1?

[Speakpigeon]

The only thing stopping you from being convinced is cognitive dissonance.
Here's the challenge you can't address:
Start at the beginning ( at 0 )
Question 1: What is the first real number after 0?
Question 2: If you counted 1 real number per second how long will it take you to get to 1?

No cognitive dissonance here I'm afraid.
Your comments are so outlandish that I can only assume you're from a different dimension.
Maybe you have a two-dimensional mind?
One-dimensional?
Point-like?
Well, if so, there's an infinity of you between 0 and 1.
You just need all to get your acts together, literally, and you should get somethere, eventually.
EB

[Logik]

Well, if so, there's an infinity of you between 0 and 1.

There is an infinity of you between 0 and 0.1
There is an infinity of you between 0 and 0.01
There is an infinity of you between 0 and 0.001
There is an infinity of you between 0 and 0.0001
There is an infinity of you between 0 and 0.00001
There is an infinity of you between 0 and 0.000001
...
∞
...
There is an infinity of you between 0 and 0.00000000000000000000000000................∞.....1

There are an infinite "yous" between negative and positive infinity.

Talk about a fractured mind

[bahman]

Moreover I can show that T0 + infinity = infinity: There are two case: (1) T0 + infinity = FN (finite number) or (2) T0 + infinity = infinity. I can show that the first case cannot be correct knowing the fact that you cannot reach infinity by adding and obviously subtracting any natural number: 1 + infinity = FN which can be written as infinity = FN - 1 which is a contradiction.

You ain't going to convince anybody with that. Not even if you had started at the beginning of the infinite past.
EB

What is wrong with my argument and calculation?

[Justintruth]

We are discussing two things in here: (1) Time cannot be emergent (cannot have any starting point)

That just means that time cannot have a starting point in time.

In fact there can be a starting point prior to which nothing (no things) existed and subsequent to which something (some things) did exist, even though there was time prior to that starting point.

Now it get's tricky. The question of whether there were seconds prior to the starting point is more difficult. Someone once wrote a paper that said that the following statement has the logical structure of a false dilemma: "Either there was a first second, or there were an infinite series of seconds in the past." His claim was that the definition of "a second" is based on the frequency of a type of radiation that comes from the cesium atom. Now that frequency is subject to what Einstein called the assumption of the "homogeneity" of time. He meant that physical laws do not change with time.

So if the frequency of Cesium atom were to be unstable in the past and that stability was introduced gradually then the basis for defining a second would slowly be lost and you could not identify except arbitrarily the sec that the instability was too great. So there did not have to be a "first second" nor a sequence of seconds backward forever. There would be a point where there were no seconds and then gradually they began to form and now the stability is so great that we can define a second with Cesium.

So we are talking about time not in a way that is based on number of seconds where a second is defined by a physical process. The physical meaning of time is based on the stability of cesium and it defines the meaning of the parameters in the equations of physics by agreement. That is not "time" in the sense that we are talking about it. That is just the basis of the parameter in the equation which is kind of a measure of time that has been adopted by physics. Time is not seconds. Seconds are a measuring procedure that allows us to define the parameter in the physical theories.

As a side note, every physical measuring device has two ends. Look at a telescope for example. It has the end you look into and the end you point at a moon of Jupiter. Look at CERN. There is a chamber where the detectors are and the screens on which data is displayed. This is the case for all scientific instruments except one: Clocks. Why? Because we are looking directly at a change in the clock which we have found is stable and we have a calibration process that links it to the bureau of standards. But we never "point" a clock at time? Do you understand the significance of this fact? If not read Heiddeger's book "Being and Time". He has a great exposition of it.

So if we allow that kind of talking then time can be thought of as infinite backwards even though the entire universe and the possibility of physically defining a second as we do now did not exist at some time.

Assuming the homogeneity of time we can use the current definition and other measurements, based on the current definition of time using cesium and the current measurement of it based on the cesium fountains that form the atomic time tracked by the Greenwhich Observatory and other institutes that function as bureaus of standards, and too which all scientific instruments of time are calibrated, we can use that and the theory to calculate when in time the universe began according to our theories and measurements.

And that calculation, if done wrong, will result in the wrong answer. There is one answer, given all of the facts, (or a small group of competing answers one of which is right) that is *the* correct one. In other words it is not arbitrary. It is as sure as the rest of science which, actually is none too sure, especially since no accepted theory predicts that fact that the universe's expansion is accelerating.

But there is another problem. Wald, an eminent general relativist, has said that in the first very small fraction of a sec of the universe the entire universe was smaller than Plank's constant and anything we say about the time *prior* to that is purely speculative. So physicists can calculate when the beginning would be assuming their theories are correct while simultaneously agreeing that there is no evidence that their theories hold all the way back. No evidence. Purely speculative. That's one of the best scientists saying that and it is in his field of expertise.

So it could be that the universe had a begining in time but we just don't know if it did. But according to our best theory it looks like it did but we have insufficient evidence that the theory is correct for times very close to the beginning. We just can't do experiments at that energy density.

and (2) Time cannot be eternal.

Time is eternal. You can see this by considering a moment in the past and asking whether it can be changed. Time is a process when facts become eternal. What happens, happens, rendering an eternal contingent fact eternal. You cannot change the past. If, as in sci fi you can go back then you are not really going back. Rather there is a kind of circularity. If you go back and kill your grandfather and consequently cease to exist there is the time that you were born, the time you went back, and the time you killed your grandfather and died because of it. Those times are in order. You went back to a circumstance in which the world was identical to when your grandfather was young and you killed him and that caused your own death.

This leads to a dilemma. We first discuss (1) and then (2).

1) Time is the fundamental variable of any dynamical theory. Time therefore cannot be emergent variable of a dynamical theory since time cannot be emergent and fundamental variable at the same time.

It not only can but it looks like it did. Cesium was not present in the universe until rather late. So the count that defines physically what time is and what is the dependent variable in fact emerged.

Therefore there is no theory that can explain the origin of time, in another word, time cannot have any beginning.

There is. It is modern cosmology.

2) Time cannot be eternal since it takes infinite amount of time to reach from eternal past to now.

You would be better to say it that there are an infinite number of seconds prior to now. The idea of a continuum extending infinitely is well established mathematically. Infinity of time backwards simply means that for any time t there was some time less that t. That is true even if there was a big bang at some time and prior to that no universe existed. That would not mean that we could not subtract 1 from that beginning and get another number which would be a time before the origen of the universe.

So here is the dilemma: Time can neither have any beginning nor can be eternal.

The physical universe could have had a begining. All experiencing could also have had a beginning. It is also true that those concepts "physical universe" and in some sense "experiencing" are sufficiently vague to alow them to gradually come to be in a way that there is no non arbitrary point that you can argue is the real beginning.

Speaking as a modern person, time has no beginning but the universe did. Sometime after it did the atoms coallesed and in particular cesium did and much latter conscious experience came to be and even latter some experiencing people decided to define a second using the cesium. All of that process is eternal no matter whether there was a beginning or whether their will be an end. Eternality is not whether the essent is finite or infinite. Eternality is the fact that what is in time is in time factually and facts about the past are eternal any change to them cannot occur because that are in fact past. Change, is by its meaning, present.

Get it?

There is a relationship between time and present-ing. Check out Being and Time by Martin Heidegger for the best available description of the relationship between being and time. What we mean by "there being" and "time" are very close to the same thing. Not exactly for we also allow things like between the integer 3 and 5 there *is* the number 4. And that is not temporal. It is purely eternal. It is not an eternal fact that suddenly became true at some time and might not be true in the future.

You have to get rid of materialist superstitions. Physics is no longer - strictly speaking and in a precise way - a "material science". It has moved beyond that into the modern era. But the descriptions we use are still rooted in the past and because the idea of a material object is so close to holding given our size and speed, and only very careful observations with instruments and theories that then describe those observations, and because our brains have evolved at those speed and sizes approximately, we are naturally fooled into thinking in the old terms.

Good luck.

[Justintruth]

Moreover I can show that T0 + infinity = infinity: There are two case: (1) T0 + infinity = FN (finite number) or (2) T0 + infinity = infinity. I can show that the first case cannot be correct knowing the fact that you cannot reach infinity by adding and obviously subtracting any natural number: 1 + infinity = FN which can be written as infinity = FN - 1 which is a contradiction.

You ain't going to convince anybody with that. Not even if you had started at the beginning of the infinite past.
EB

What is wrong with my argument and calculation?

What is wrong is you must first define "+". Usually "+" is a binary operation from a set like integers or reals onto itself. Infinity is not a real number. The limit of certain sequences in mathematics have been defined as infinite. This has a very precise meaning. It means that given some member of the sequence there exists some other latter member of the sequence that is higher and that is true for all members of the sequence. So using something similar to that we know that the set of integers is infinite. The set of numbers from 0 to 1 inclusive is not infinite even though there are an infinite number of numbers between 0 and 1. The set of numbers greater than zero and less than one is actually infinite in the sense that there is no number in that set that does not have a higher number. Algebraic topology defines this all very carefully and you can fine precise definition of the senses of "infinite". But you made a sum of a real and infinity. The usual meaning of "+" is that it is a function on, for example, the real numbers. But "infinity" is not a member of the set of real numbers. So you have used the function over a set that is not the set over which it is defined. That is what is wrong with your argument. Your statements have the logical structure of a false dilemma. When you say "Either .... or...." you are missing the possibility of one more "or", namely that 1 + infinity is undefined. In fact it is undefined.

[Speakpigeon]

What is wrong with my argument and calculation?

I already told you.
EB

[Speakpigeon]

Your statements have the logical structure of a false dilemma. When you say "Either .... or...." you are missing the possibility of one more "or", namely that 1 + infinity is undefined. In fact it is undefined.

Undefined, Exactly.
There is an infinity of infinities and so which one are we suppose to be talking about here? It's not specified so we just don't know.
EB

[bahman]

We are discussing two things in here: (1) Time cannot be emergent (cannot have any starting point)

That just means that time cannot have a starting point in time.

In fact there can be a starting point prior to which nothing (no things) existed and subsequent to which something (some things) did exist, even though there was time prior to that starting point.

Now it get's tricky. The question of whether there were seconds prior to the starting point is more difficult. Someone once wrote a paper that said that the following statement has the logical structure of a false dilemma: "Either there was a first second, or there were an infinite series of seconds in the past." His claim was that the definition of "a second" is based on the frequency of a type of radiation that comes from the cesium atom. Now that frequency is subject to what Einstein called the assumption of the "homogeneity" of time. He meant that physical laws do not change with time.

So if the frequency of Cesium atom were to be unstable in the past and that stability was introduced gradually then the basis for defining a second would slowly be lost and you could not identify except arbitrarily the sec that the instability was too great. So there did not have to be a "first second" nor a sequence of seconds backward forever. There would be a point where there were no seconds and then gradually they began to form and now the stability is so great that we can define a second with Cesium.

So we are talking about time not in a way that is based on number of seconds where a second is defined by a physical process. The physical meaning of time is based on the stability of cesium and it defines the meaning of the parameters in the equations of physics by agreement. That is not "time" in the sense that we are talking about it. That is just the basis of the parameter in the equation which is kind of a measure of time that has been adopted by physics. Time is not seconds. Seconds are a measuring procedure that allows us to define the parameter in the physical theories.

As a side note, every physical measuring device has two ends. Look at a telescope for example. It has the end you look into and the end you point at a moon of Jupiter. Look at CERN. There is a chamber where the detectors are and the screens on which data is displayed. This is the case for all scientific instruments except one: Clocks. Why? Because we are looking directly at a change in the clock which we have found is stable and we have a calibration process that links it to the bureau of standards. But we never "point" a clock at time? Do you understand the significance of this fact? If not read Heiddeger's book "Being and Time". He has a great exposition of it.

So if we allow that kind of talking then time can be thought of as infinite backwards even though the entire universe and the possibility of physically defining a second as we do now did not exist at some time.

Assuming the homogeneity of time we can use the current definition and other measurements, based on the current definition of time using cesium and the current measurement of it based on the cesium fountains that form the atomic time tracked by the Greenwhich Observatory and other institutes that function as bureaus of standards, and too which all scientific instruments of time are calibrated, we can use that and the theory to calculate when in time the universe began according to our theories and measurements.

And that calculation, if done wrong, will result in the wrong answer. There is one answer, given all of the facts, (or a small group of competing answers one of which is right) that is *the* correct one. In other words it is not arbitrary. It is as sure as the rest of science which, actually is none too sure, especially since no accepted theory predicts that fact that the universe's expansion is accelerating.

But there is another problem. Wald, an eminent general relativist, has said that in the first very small fraction of a sec of the universe the entire universe was smaller than Plank's constant and anything we say about the time *prior* to that is purely speculative. So physicists can calculate when the beginning would be assuming their theories are correct while simultaneously agreeing that there is no evidence that their theories hold all the way back. No evidence. Purely speculative. That's one of the best scientists saying that and it is in his field of expertise.

So it could be that the universe had a begining in time but we just don't know if it did. But according to our best theory it looks like it did but we have insufficient evidence that the theory is correct for times very close to the beginning. We just can't do experiments at that energy density.

Could you please summarize the above text. I cannot find your point.

and (2) Time cannot be eternal.

Time is eternal. You can see this by considering a moment in the past and asking whether it can be changed. Time is a process when facts become eternal. What happens, happens, rendering an eternal contingent fact eternal. You cannot change the past. If, as in sci fi you can go back then you are not really going back. Rather there is a kind of circularity. If you go back and kill your grandfather and consequently cease to exist there is the time that you were born, the time you went back, and the time you killed your grandfather and died because of it. Those times are in order. You went back to a circumstance in which the world was identical to when your grandfather was young and you killed him and that caused your own death.

Infinity is a concept describing something larger than any natural number. You cannot reach from finite regime to infinite regime by adding times.

This leads to a dilemma. We first discuss (1) and then (2).
1) Time is the fundamental variable of any dynamical theory. Time therefore cannot be emergent variable of a dynamical theory since time cannot be emergent and fundamental variable at the same time.

It not only can but it looks like it did. Cesium was not present in the universe until rather late. So the count that defines physically what time is and what is the dependent variable in fact emerged.

Time is objective without it all events would occur at a timeless point which there cannot any order and directionality in events.

Therefore there is no theory that can explain the origin of time, in another word, time cannot have any beginning.

There is. It is modern cosmology.
[/quote]
Big bang model intrinsically cannot address the beginning of time. Cyclic model has the problem of eternality.

2) Time cannot be eternal since it takes infinite amount of time to reach from eternal past to now.

You would be better to say it that there are an infinite number of seconds prior to now. The idea of a continuum extending infinitely is well established mathematically. Infinity of time backwards simply means that for any time t there was some time less that t. That is true even if there was a big bang at some time and prior to that no universe existed. That would not mean that we could not subtract 1 from that beginning and get another number which would be a time before the origen of the universe.

I already discussed this in the previous comment.

So here is the dilemma: Time can neither have any beginning nor can be eternal.

The physical universe could have had a begining. All experiencing could also have had a beginning. It is also true that those concepts "physical universe" and in some sense "experiencing" are sufficiently vague to alow them to gradually come to be in a way that there is no non arbitrary point that you can argue is the real beginning.

Speaking as a modern person, time has no beginning but the universe did. Sometime after it did the atoms coallesed and in particular cesium did and much latter conscious experience came to be and even latter some experiencing people decided to define a second using the cesium. All of that process is eternal no matter whether there was a beginning or whether their will be an end. Eternality is not whether the essent is finite or infinite. Eternality is the fact that what is in time is in time factually and facts about the past are eternal any change to them cannot occur because that are in fact past. Change, is by its meaning, present.

Get it?

There is a relationship between time and present-ing. Check out Being and Time by Martin Heidegger for the best available description of the relationship between being and time. What we mean by "there being" and "time" are very close to the same thing. Not exactly for we also allow things like between the integer 3 and 5 there *is* the number 4. And that is not temporal. It is purely eternal. It is not an eternal fact that suddenly became true at some time and might not be true in the future.

You have to get rid of materialist superstitions. Physics is no longer - strictly speaking and in a precise way - a "material science". It has moved beyond that into the modern era. But the descriptions we use are still rooted in the past and because the idea of a material object is so close to holding given our size and speed, and only very careful observations with instruments and theories that then describe those observations, and because our brains have evolved at those speed and sizes approximately, we are naturally fooled into thinking in the old terms.

Good luck.

Eternal time cannot exist.

[bahman]

You ain't going to convince anybody with that. Not even if you had started at the beginning of the infinite past.
EB

What is wrong with my argument and calculation?

What is wrong is you must first define "+". Usually "+" is a binary operation from a set like integers or reals onto itself. Infinity is not a real number. The limit of certain sequences in mathematics have been defined as infinite. This has a very precise meaning. It means that given some member of the sequence there exists some other latter member of the sequence that is higher and that is true for all members of the sequence. So using something similar to that we know that the set of integers is infinite. The set of numbers from 0 to 1 inclusive is not infinite even though there are an infinite number of numbers between 0 and 1. The set of numbers greater than zero and less than one is actually infinite in the sense that there is no number in that set that does not have a higher number. Algebraic topology defines this all very carefully and you can fine precise definition of the senses of "infinite". But you made a sum of a real and infinity. The usual meaning of "+" is that it is a function on, for example, the real numbers. But "infinity" is not a member of the set of real numbers. So you have used the function over a set that is not the set over which it is defined. That is what is wrong with your argument. Your statements have the logical structure of a false dilemma. When you say "Either .... or...." you are missing the possibility of one more "or", namely that 1 + infinity is undefined. In fact it is undefined.

"+" is the sum operator for any natural number and infinity.

[Atla]

You don't even realize when you disagree with yourself..

You don't explain, as usual.
There has to be a reason for that.
EB

Reason: well I admit I assumed that you had at least some intelligence, but maybe I was wrong. Okay explanation:

I said that something "infinite that ends", is overall still seen as finite (normally). You disagreed for dozens comments saying that it's overall infinite.

Then I said that even in mathematics, an 1 2 interval (that contains infinitely many rational numbers, and we throw out the rest of the numberline), is overall still seen as finite. You said well duh, that was your point.

So for dozens of comment your point was that it's seen as infinite and I'm stupid, and now your point is that it's seen as finite (which I said all along) and I'm stupid.

(And here we are even ignoring the fact that time is not a mathematical construct, like a set, so your reasoning is irrelevant anyway.)