tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post214027554355812294..comments2024-03-28T12:34:14.649-07:00Comments on dangerous idea: The Kalam Cosmological Argument from Philoponus to ProkopVictor Repperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10962948073162156902noreply@blogger.comBlogger40125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-23722682664820470102013-08-15T08:54:15.152-07:002013-08-15T08:54:15.152-07:00Over at Philosophical Disquisitions, John Danaher ...Over at <i>Philosophical Disquisitions</i>, John Danaher summarizes Landon Hedrick's critique of the Kalam:<br /><br />Part one:<br />http://philosophicaldisquisitions.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/hedrick-on-hilberts-hotel-and-actual.html<br /><br />Part two:<br />http://philosophicaldisquisitions.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/hedrick-on-hilberts-hotel-and-actual.html<br /><br />I'd be curious to know what people who know the Kalam better than I think of Hedrick's critiques. (Unfortunately, Hedrick's paper is available online for free.) Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12030785676230758243noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-7359972178310181372013-08-15T04:32:45.232-07:002013-08-15T04:32:45.232-07:00"I had been mistaken, however, in attributing..."<i>I had been mistaken, however, in attributing the argument to Islamic sources.</i>"<br /><br />One should take with a grain of salt any belief, assumption, or claim that any good thing has its roots in Islam.Ilíonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15339406092961816142noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-35872234302118319372013-08-15T04:07:27.481-07:002013-08-15T04:07:27.481-07:00Awww... you made me kinda nostalgic here. I believ...Awww... you made me kinda nostalgic here. I believe this posting was my very first contribution to <i>Dangerous Idea</i>.<br /><br />Just got back from a week up in the Vermont woods. Took my telescope with me to take advantage of some of the darkest skies left in Eastern North America. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful! Managed to observe many objects impossible to see from Maryland's sadly light-polluted skies. The Milky Way was a band of fire extending from horizon to horizon.<br /><br />Decided to return home via the Adirondacks in upstate New York, and got ridiculously lost in that maze of anonymous back roads! (And no, diehard Luddite that I am, I don't have GPS.)B. Prokophttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10548980245078214688noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-89163286334068007012013-08-14T07:32:49.539-07:002013-08-14T07:32:49.539-07:00Here another fairly unknown argument against the p...Here another fairly unknown argument against the possibility of an actual infinity by philosopher Casper Storm Hansen of the University of Aberdeen called "New Zeno and Actual Infinity" which can be found here:<br /><br />http://core.kmi.open.ac.uk/download/pdf/5849860 GGDFan777https://www.blogger.com/profile/09797575391769250203noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-51495398758630268722012-01-26T08:52:05.790-07:002012-01-26T08:52:05.790-07:00If I may interject, a few comments about the Kalam...If I may interject, a few comments about the Kalam:<br /><br />First, it is perfectly possible to postulate that the infinitude of the past is (the dual of) some ordinal strictly larger than the first infinite ordinal (or even some more bizarre linear, non well-founded order). And for this case, it is literally true that no finite amount of steps can take us to the present. Since, I am assuming no one is defending this, we can advance to the KCA properly speaking.<br /><br />There are two sub-arguments that now purport to establish the main premise KCA. The first rules out the existence of actual infinities -- this is also one way to deal (but definitely not the only one) with suggestions like an appeal to a B-theory of time. Curiously, the *only* response I have ever seen to this line of argumentation is an appeal to mere logical possibility, which as a *positive* argument is completely useless. Mere logical possibility does not imply metaphysical or nomological possibility, and given the arguments against the existence of actual infinities, one would hope something more substantial than trying to refute these arguments or an appeal to logical possibility would be put forward.<br /><br />The second, and the one that seems to be the center of controversy, purports to show that no collection formed by successive addition (e.g. time) can be actually infinite. By the way, note that this argument is independent of whether or not actual infinities exist; for the purposes of this sub-argument we can remain agnostic on that front. The metaphysical intuition at work here is that the past and the future are asymmetrical: if the future is potentially infinite and every future instant is at a finite time-distance from the present poses no problem but this is not so with the past because the past is past and has already passed; if it was an infinitely long past then there would have been an actual infinite number of past instants and this contradicts the fact that no actual infinity can be formed by successive addition. And why is this so? The point is not that there must have been an instant infinitely distant in the past, but that whatever instant you choose in the (dual) first countable ordinal of the past it will be at a finite past-distance from the present. And since time flows by successive addition it follows we could never have reached the present -- run the Tristram Shandy paradox in reverse. Another way to see this is that if time was infinite-past then label the past events by -1, -2, etc. with 0 being the present. But then it is inexplicable why we are at time 0 instead of -1 or -2 or whatever point in the past you choose -- once again run the Tristram Shandy paradox in reverse -- and you finish off by appealing to the PSR. Or still in another way, *without* a starting point, we cannot even put a numeric label in each day and put them in (order-preserving) bijection with a time line.<br /><br />A more detailed consideration can be found in Prof. D. Oderberg's "Traversal of the infinite, the "Big Bang", and the Kalam cosmological argument". You can find a link to the article in Prof. D. Oderberg's home page (just google). There you can also find replies to the objections of Oppy, Grunbaum, etc.grodrigueshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12366931909873380710noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-68297719412585994102009-11-25T08:21:51.450-07:002009-11-25T08:21:51.450-07:00Here are my two cents:
It seems to me that BP is ...Here are my two cents:<br /><br />It seems to me that BP is saying that it is impossible that the set of past years is infinite. But i dont see any contradiction with such a set. It does not seem more improbable as set of all future years, which is infinite.<br /><br />Another (more crazy but probably more faithful) interpretation could be:<br /><br />There is a year at infinity, like there is a infinite natural number in non standard arithmetic. From this past year at infinity, we cannot get to year 0 (now). Infact no finite year can be reached from this special year, by adding a finite number of years. <br /><br />But if we allow a "year infinite", then why not allow an infinite passage of time? Then it would be possible to add to the year at infinity an infinite duration and we are at a finite year again.<br /><br />But even if an infinite passage of time is impossible, it still needs to be shown, that this year at infinity had to be a year which was once present. Like in non standard arithmetic the set of normal natural numbers is still closed. The non-standard numbers cannot be reached from the standard ones by normal addition or multiplication. Likewise the set of the normal years is closed. And because we only allow normal passage of time, these infinite years cannot be reached from the normal years and vice versa. <br /><br />But i dont see why this special year should have been once "present", not to mention the possibility of such a year. <br /><br />As i said, this interpretation is crazy.<br /><br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-standard_arithmeticUnknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08599925810845161336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-31244706737698739592009-11-23T16:05:38.932-07:002009-11-23T16:05:38.932-07:00time is merely the measurement between events.
me...time is merely the measurement between events.<br /><br />measuring celestial movement allows for our observation of time in the form of a calendrical system & 24 hour days. our observation of the consistent half life of carbon-14 atoms offers us a somewhat reliable foundation for coordinating & synchronizing other events globally.<br /><br />between now & <br />infinity then, means between now & always always & forever. infinity is a permanent condition of waiting, doing, measuring, observing - being.<br /><br />God is infinite - a condition - always being.<br /><br />for "time" to exist requires<br />a) a conscious/sentient observer to measure between events.<br />&<br />b) events to exist<br /><br />but we can simplify this since ideas/emotions are measurable events, so all we'd need for time to exist would be:<br />a) a conscious, sentient observer <br /><br />if we try to imagine an original nothing (very little, which usually amounts to black in my minds eye), that would still be something - which would have been everything (& nothing).<br /><br />actually, i think it's very difficult or impossible to imagine nothing because first you'd have to be able to imagine *everything* & then subtract it from itself. but we can scarcely observe reality, let alone understand it, let alone create it, destroy it, or subtract it from itself.<br /><br />but for the sake of argument let's pretend you can imagine nothing (an impossibility). <br /><br />if you *could* do that, & accounting for human error, then all you'd be left with, is still *everything*.<br /><br />the first events would have been God infinitely (always) considering everything & nothing (introspection) which wouldn't have taken him very long, let's say, infinity or so (infinity = when God stretches back & says with a yawn, that seems like it took forever!) & eventually experiencing a thought or feeling something along the lines of "i'm rather not satisfied with how uneventful things could be & i think i'd like some company." <br /><br />not long after that (a trillion years +/-), here we are, with a chance to be.<br /><br />God is nothing & everything (the same thing), the alpha & omega, always & forever. <br />1 john 2:<br />22 Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. 23 Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also.none can outdream God.https://www.blogger.com/profile/17205120510817715923noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-55061344308178696902009-11-22T23:08:40.885-07:002009-11-22T23:08:40.885-07:00Oooh ooh Mr Kotter: This animation is perfect, it ...Oooh ooh Mr Kotter: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Relativity_of_Simultaneity_Animation.gif" rel="nofollow">This animation</a> is perfect, it shows exactly what I'm talking about. Let event A be person thinking "Wow dude this experience is happening at universal NOW baby", and let event B be the same thought for a different person separated as shown, and same for C.<br /><br />Depending on the reference frame, the order of events can either be simultaneous, A then B then C, or C then B then A. <br /><br />So, when is the universal "now" for subject A, B, and C? If you were to say the reference point in which they all are happening at the same time, we could easily add a fourth person D, that is outside of that plane of simultaneity, and you'd be left with the conundrum again.<br /><br />OK I'm done fun discussion Wikipedia provides the perfect diagram how unusual.<br /><br />I'm not saying this kills Bob's argument: it kills the 'experiential' argument for an objective universal common 'now.'Blue Devil Knighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12045468316613818510noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-31746036517566530982009-11-22T22:56:10.940-07:002009-11-22T22:56:10.940-07:00All that said, the subject of the directionality o...All that said, the subject of the directionality of time is very interesting, and physicists have no explanation of it as of yet. Why can we travel in arbitrary ways in space, but not in time? I don't want to pretend the answers are known: the issue of simultaneity is pretty much settled, but there are tons of other completely mysterious weird things about time that reasonable people can fight about.<br /><br />Even the question of simultaneity has some windows of opportunity for people. E.g., quantum wavefunction collapse is simultaneous. Callender actually has a paper about this, criticizing this approach to get out of special relativity.<br /><br />At any rate, the burden of proof is clearly on the person who would say that special relativity is wrong, or for some reason does not apply in the case at hand. But that doesn't mean there aren't weird things about time.<br /><br />I just don't have time to study them thoroughly.Blue Devil Knighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12045468316613818510noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-32839528418973830632009-11-22T22:47:49.618-07:002009-11-22T22:47:49.618-07:00Shackleman said:
Perhaps, but you've got a *lo...Shackleman said:<br /><i>Perhaps, but you've got a *long* way to go to prove your case. </i><br /><br />It's one of the most basic results of special relativity that there is no objective simultaneity. <br /><br />Now that I've looked over the issues, I'm certain I can't add anything useful to the hundreds of popular books and articles on the physics of simultaneity. For instance, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_of_simultaneity" rel="nofollow">Wikipedia's article</a> on the relativity of simultaneity has a nice description of this.<br /><br />To blow your mind, you might want to read about the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladder_paradox" rel="nofollow">ladder paradox</a>, which makes the point about the relativity of simultaneity quite vividly.<br /><br />Those articles, coupled with my thought experiment of two people locally locked into classical limits, but separated by large spatial scales (the reason for the spatial separation is made clear at the Wikipedia articles), is sufficient for my argument to push through. There is no reference-frame independent way to specify the "actual" time at which those two subjects experience is occuring. In some reference frames, they experience the "now" at the same time, in others at different times. There is no correct reference frame (that would be like saying there is an objective location in space, e.g., that the US is the spatial center of the globe).<br /><br />At any rate, as Callender says one problem is that the 'tenseless' people haven't developed much of a "positive" story because much of their literature is of the form "The tensers are wrong because of such-and-such basic result from 1905 physics. End of story." <br /><br />Obviously simply refuting a theory isn't the same as providing an account of your own. The detensers would respond that their account was already given in special relativity which is a well-established theory, so these tensers just need to go learn freshman physics.<br /><br />Yes, they could say that, but as Callender points out they have been a bit too dismissive of the basic intuition based on <i>experience</i>, the feeling that there is a "now", that we experience the "now." <br /><br />While I think my thought experiment, coupled with elementary SR, kills the view of an experiential grounding for an objective "now", I do think it is cool that Callender is working on that problem. That's what I'm thinking about now, as the physics is already pretty much worked out on this matter, and I don't know much physics compared to neuroscience/psychology.Blue Devil Knighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12045468316613818510noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-17891139065652594092009-11-21T18:15:33.583-07:002009-11-21T18:15:33.583-07:00Thanks, BDK for your additional thoughts. I look ...Thanks, BDK for your additional thoughts. I look forward to reading what you come up with!<br /><br />I've started on the paper you linked to, but don't quite have the time (!) now to finish it (since I'm unfamiliar with some of the literature he's quoting, and some of the terms he's using, I have to read it quite deliberately and take my time). Hopefully I can finish it up soon--it starts out interestingly.<br /><br />As an aside, all this talk, especially the paper you linked to makes me want to reinvestigate Berkley's idealism. I have a suspicion that all the trouble you "detensers" (as coined in the paper you linked) are getting yourselves into is a result of the denial of Mind/Soul as a real thing, separate from matter. Could it be that the unified matter known as the body exists in a field of time, accurately described by the physicists (as in SR), but that the Mind/Soul sits on the edge of an arrow of time? I wonder if anyone's ever approached it this way---where *both* are correct. <br /><br />I heart Descartes! :-)<br /><br />If I were a real philosopher I'd flesh this hunch out some more! (Maybe a real philosopher already has---feel free to point me to the book!) But alas....back to network engineering I go.<br /><br />One last thing,<br /><br />You say <i>"They can be measured as happening at very different times, yet each judging in their own little reference frame that their experience is happening during an objective universal "now." <b>Such a thing does not exist, even if in our Newtonian limit it seems to.</b></i>"<br /><br />Perhaps, but you've got a *long* way to go to prove your case. you haven't done enough legwork here to be able convince me of your assertion here. But maybe you'll show your work in your next installment!<br /><br />Looking forward to it.<br /><br />Be well.Shacklemanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01190598990748327537noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-31906436279486678152009-11-21T13:10:33.235-07:002009-11-21T13:10:33.235-07:00Bob Prokop writing:
Also, keep in mind that withi...Bob Prokop writing:<br /><br />Also, keep in mind that within the constraints of the Standard Cosmological Model (a.k.a., the Big Bang) no two points in space can ever be an infinite distance apart. The most they can be separated by (at present) is 21.2 billion light years, assuming an age of the universe at 13.5 billion years. This is due to the curvature of our three dimensional space into a four dimensional hypersphere, which is expanding at some undetermined speed less than C (the speed of light).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-81626161933039451492009-11-21T11:58:06.286-07:002009-11-21T11:58:06.286-07:00Shakelman:I'm trying to come up with a simple ...Shakelman:I'm trying to come up with a simple way to express what I'm saying. It's not my specialty, so it will take a little time.<br /><br />Your intuition clearly is shared by many, and debates in philosophy of time often end up being intuition wars that hinge upon this very thing.<br /><br />Craig Callender, a philosopher of physics, has written what looks to be an interesting paper on the topic <a href="http://philosophy.ucsd.edu/faculty/ccallender/Papers/The%20Common%20Now.pdf" rel="nofollow">here</a>. I need to read over it again as I don't understand the physics as well as I understand the neuropsychology.<br /><br />The gist is, if you have two people separated by enough distance, there is no objective way to determine if their "nows" are simultaneous. They can be measured as happening at very different times, yet each judging in their own little reference frame that their experience is happening during an objective universal "now." Such a thing does not exist, even if in our Newtonian limit it seems to.<br /><br />But I need to think about it more and look over the math.Blue Devil Knighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12045468316613818510noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-47115805280494545862009-11-20T23:31:59.353-07:002009-11-20T23:31:59.353-07:00Thanks for trying to clarify Mr. PatrickH. Still ...Thanks for trying to clarify Mr. PatrickH. Still makes no sense to me though. <br /><br />You say <i>"My argument was simply that there is no point in either an infinite past or an infinite future that is an infinite distance away. <br /></i><br />Sorry, I don't follow. If time is infinite, then ALL points are infinitely "distant" from us. Which of course is Craig's point. We cannot get to "now" if time is infinite.<br /><br />You continue: <i>"Just as the infinitely large set of natural numbers is composed entirely of finite natural numbers" </i><br /><br />This strikes me as a word game. Infinity is not comprised of numbers. It's its own imaginary entitiy comprised of nothing but it's imaginary self. There are no numbers "in" infinity.<br /><br />You continue: <i>"so the infinitely long set of future times is composed of elements all of which without exception are a finite temporal distance from us. And so with past time." </i><br /><br />First, you are assuming that "the future" is a real thing. I say it doesn't exist. How would you prove me wrong? Second, if the future does exist, and it's infinite, then ALL points in the future are infinitely distant from us. When one adds or subtracts any number (or "distance" as you like to say) from infinity, the answer you get is ALWAYS infinity. So, all points future are infinity distant from us. As is the case with all points past. Infinity minus 100 years equals infinity. Infinity plus 100 years equals infinity.<br /><br />I say our *universal* experience is correct. That we sit on the edge of the arrow of time. That edge is moving toward the future, but the future doesn't exist yet. The edge of time is called the present, or now. We can look backward across that arrow to record the past, but only if that past is finite, otherwise there would be no "edge" to the arrow.<br /><br />I just cannot square your thoughts and ideas with this quite universal experience. EVERYONE experiences time this way. We don't have memories of the future. We can't take future photographs. And conversely, we can't uncream coffee. The arrow of time is fixed in our *experience* and again it's this way for *everyone*. Why should I accept anything to the contrary? It seems to me that if one is committed to a worldview which denies any possibility of a created cosmos, then one is forced to twist ones thoughts and words into this puzzle in order to deny time, and to deny our everyday, universal experiences, so that we can deny the creation.<br /><br />Perhaps you can explain it differently so that I can better understand your point. I must admit...right now I'm scratching my head and I just don't comprehend what you're saying. <br /><br />Blessings to you.Shacklemanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01190598990748327537noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-63753381719603889662009-11-20T11:18:08.440-07:002009-11-20T11:18:08.440-07:00From James Chastek (with apologies for any persona...From James Chastek (with apologies for any personal misuse of his point):<br /><br />***********************<br />-Consider two series:<br /><br /> [1,2,3... infinity] and<br /><br /> [1,2,3... finiteness]<br /><br />Both seem to be a confusion between members of a series and a property of a series. It is as if one said [Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday... daily] or, if one were speaking about BMW’s [100 series, 200 series, 300 series... four wheels].<br /><br />*********************<br /><br />By asking us to imagine a point infinitely far away, either in the past or the future, BP was asking us to consider the series (1 moment from now, two moments from now, 3 moments from now...infinity of moments from now). But that is inserting a property of the set into the set as a special kind of member.<br /><br />My argument was simply that there is no point in either an infinite past or an infinite future that is an infinite distance away. Just as the infinitely large set of natural numbers is composed entirely of finite natural numbers (as BDK says, there is no natural number called infinity), so the infinitely long set of future times is composed of elements all of which without exception are a finite temporal distance from us. And so with past time.<br /><br />It seems that BP's argument from "there being a now" is a variation on the argument from the impossibility of an infinite traverse. The problem with its application here is that there are no infinities to be traversed, either from anywhere in an infinite past or an infinite future.PatrickHnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-39787966458880671822009-11-19T13:46:00.549-07:002009-11-19T13:46:00.549-07:00Bob: I was implicitly referring to multiverses whe...Bob: I was implicitly referring to multiverses when I said ' Universe budding, creation, emergence, could be itself a physical process. This is something for the cosmologists to answer.' I explicitly avoided using that term because it is a can of worms.Blue Devil Knighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12045468316613818510noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-47883205671405535542009-11-19T13:43:15.135-07:002009-11-19T13:43:15.135-07:00Shackleman: it's not complicated: infinity is ...Shackleman: it's not complicated: infinity is not a number, so my original claim that we should all agree too is basically true by definition. This is just restating what Steve said.Blue Devil Knighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12045468316613818510noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-7225560801867570392009-11-19T10:32:19.402-07:002009-11-19T10:32:19.402-07:00Greetings, Mr. Prokop (or is it Dr.?),
I caught y...Greetings, Mr. Prokop (or is it Dr.?),<br /><br />I caught your reference to the multiverse, but like you, I find it not worthy of much discussion. It's a neat story. That's about it. It isn't science, and it doesn't even strike me as good philosophy as it just pushes the question of creation further back. (What or Who created the universe-generating process? etc etc).<br /><br />Like GK Chesterton once said, at some point one must stop asking questions and begin to find answers. For me, the Kalam argument isn't enough alone to convince me of the truth of God and of Christianity. However when combined with the AfR, the AfMorality, Properly Basic Belief, archaeological evidence suggesting the historicity of parts of Scripture, the AfFunction (it works), Special Revelation, hell, even Quantum Mechanics, etc etc...eventually I just succumbed. I could be wrong, and I still allow for that, but if I'm wrong now then when I'm dead it won't matter. That pesky Pascal was onto something.<br /><br />Over and out for now! :-) Hope to read more comments from everyone! They're always engaging and enriching.<br /><br />Blessing, M(D)r. Prokop!Shacklemanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01190598990748327537noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-24338090739611345632009-11-19T09:38:17.082-07:002009-11-19T09:38:17.082-07:00Bob Prokop writing:
For someone determined to dis...Bob Prokop writing:<br /><br />For someone determined to disbelieve in a starting point for the universe/creation, I only see two ways out. The first is to accept that the concepts past, present, and future are meaningless, and that consciousness is an illusion. Shackleman captured that idea quite nicely in his last post. I once again recommend a 1966 science fiction novel by the late British cosmologist (and inventor of the term "the Big Bang"), October the First is Too Late, which deals with that very concept.<br /><br />(By the way, this idea is quite compatible with Hinduism, so I hearby offer it as a religion for any that wish to go that route.)<br /><br />The second way out, and I'm rather surprised that no one picked up on this one when I alluded to it yesterday at 9:27 AM., is the "multiverse" concept. Under this speculation (I can't really dignify it with the term "theory", which implies it would be scientifically testable), our own universe is a bud, or offspring, of a second universe, unseen and undetectible by us. That universe is, in turn, a bud of a third... and so on ad infinitum. The nice thing about this concept (for those who can't stand the idea of Creation), is that you can both have your cake and eat it too. Our own universe can have a finite age, and so can every other universe in existence (presumably, an infinite number of them). But the relationship between the separate universes is causal, not temporal. There is no need for an infinite past under this scheme of things. But unfortunately (or perhaps, rather conveniently for the proponents of the multiverse concept), the idea is totally unprovable (and neither can it be disproved), because the other universes would be inherently indetectable from our own, and their existence would have to be taken on faith.<br /><br />(I myself am an agnostic, in the classic sense of the term, as to their existence.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-46026206812088846102009-11-19T08:29:08.322-07:002009-11-19T08:29:08.322-07:00Hey BDK,
Hope all is well.
You say "Even if...Hey BDK,<br /><br />Hope all is well.<br /><br />You say <i>"Even if the universe is infinitely old, that doesn't mean there is a number, infinity, that it stretches back to in the past."</i><br /><br />Why not? I don't see this as obvious and in fact this makes the case that Mr. Prokop and Craig are arguing for quite convincing to me. <br /><br /><i>"We can't conflate this with the conclusion that the universe is not infinitely old! That gets it exactly wrong,"</i><br /><br />If you say so. It makes no sense to me that time can stretch infinitely into the past without an infinite number of "dates" associated with it. The assertions don't do anything to help me understand. Unfortunately your blog link (http://www.philosophyetc.net/2006/04/unchanging-time-and-infinite-past.html) suffers from the same sort of "assertion without adequate argumentation". <br /><br />To rephrase your argument in terms I'd understand, it's as though time is sort of locked into reality like it would be if reality were nothing more than a DVD movie. "Inside" the DVD, the participants (us) would be unaware that time isn't really flowing in one direction. If there are outsiders with the power of the DVD remote control who rewound the disc, we "in the movie" would be completely unaware that time was just reversed for us. In fact, in this example, "time" doesn't even really exist---not for the people inside the DVD anyway...it'd be illusory.<br /><br />This is how I pictured it for myself anyway when I was first introduced to SR. And while I think that's REALLY cool, and is a fascinating concept, it's far from obvious that reality really is this way, and even less obvious that all the arguments suggesting such have proven the case.<br /><br />Brian Greene, again, has a very rich and robust treatment of "time" in his book Fabric of the Cosmos. Anyone know if Greene has ever specifically argued against Craig's Kalam Cosmological Argument? I doubt it since scientists stay away from philosophy, except when they're, you know, philosophizing about their science, as they're wont to do every day of their lives, whilst denouncing philosophy as meaningless!! {haha}<br /><br />Anyway, blessings to you, BDK.Shacklemanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01190598990748327537noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-24847697629439716822009-11-18T22:37:31.526-07:002009-11-18T22:37:31.526-07:00We all agree that the following is correct:
Even ...We all agree that the following is correct:<br /><br />Even if the universe <i>is</i> infinitely old, that doesn't mean there is a number, infinity, that it stretches back to in the past.<br /><br />We can't conflate this with the conclusion that the universe is not infinitely old! That gets it exactly wrong, and that was the point of me citing the quote about t and t' and such from the other blog post.<br /><br />Shackleman: if the ideas were uniniteresting, none of us would be writing hre.Blue Devil Knighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12045468316613818510noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-46763151540742135402009-11-18T21:38:47.212-07:002009-11-18T21:38:47.212-07:00I can't tell, honestly, if this point has been...I can't tell, honestly, if this point has been raised yet because I'm not smart enough to even keep up with some of the posts already written. <br /><br />But just on the off chance it hasn't been stated yet:<br /><br />Assume an infinite past. Now, imagine a time machine capable of going to any point in the past. Set the date to 10000000 years ago. You'd still have an infinity of years BACKWARD in time you could set the date to. Imagine we set the date to take us to 1000000000000000000000000000 years ago. We'd STILL have an INFINITE number of years backward we could set the date to. Let's set the date to a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion years ago. We'd STILL be able to go an infinite number of years into the past. We'd NEVER run out of dates. We'd ALWAYS, regardless of how long ago we set the date, have an infinite number of years backward MORE we could set the date to, given an infinite past. <br /><br />Therefore, an actual infinite past is impossible.<br /><br />But then again, this is all covered in Craig's argument and is touched on in Hasker and even in hard science books such as Brian Greene's Fabric of the Cosmos.<br /><br />As an aside, I wonder if we could all stand a bit more humility. Is it really such that a single 5 paragraph post on a blog could answer all of the points raised in a philosophical work that has garnered countless papers in response, written over decades, offering arguments and counter arguments? It would be good for us all to remember to indulge in a piece of humble pie at least daily. Myself included. It's good for the soul.Shacklemanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01190598990748327537noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-12623198893028417572009-11-18T16:35:43.452-07:002009-11-18T16:35:43.452-07:00Bob Prokop writing:
Patrick says, "There is ...Bob Prokop writing:<br /><br />Patrick says, "There is no such point".<br /><br />That is EXACTLY what I have been saying all along. There is no infinite past to the universe.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-90232360401137688722009-11-18T16:23:43.968-07:002009-11-18T16:23:43.968-07:00To jump in late, and to expand a bit on what Steve...To jump in late, and to expand a bit on what Steve said:<br /><br />BP: “Now, imagine a point in time an infinite number of years in the future.”<br /><br />There is no such point. All points in infinite future time are a finite distance in the future. The infinity of future time simply means that there will always be point more future than any point we can specify. But we will as surely reach that further point as we will the one before it.<br /><br />BP: “Finally, imagine a point in time an infinite number of years in the past. (Our present existence) would always be an infinite time in the future, and never arrived at.” <br /><br />There is no such point. All points in an infinite past are a finite distance from the present. The infinity of past time simply means that there will always be a point in time past that is more past than any point we can specify. But our present can be reached from that further point as surely as it can from any time nearer to us.<br /><br />Infinity is not a member of a set of which it is the cardinality. The infinite cardinality of an infinite set is a property of the set as a whole, not of any of its members. <br /><br />William Lane Craig makes several mistakes when he claims that aleph-null as an actual infinity is contradictory. To the extent that his kalam argument relies on his claims of the impossibility of an actual infinite, it strikes me as a weak argument. <br /><br />To realize the weakness of his argument, consider his example of two sets, one being (1,2,3,4,5,6,7...) the other (4,5,6,7...). Craig mistakenly thinks that subtracting the cardinality of the second set, which is aleph-null, from the cardinality of the first set, which is also aleph-null, the countable infinity of the natural numbers, somehow leaves you with 3. He achieves this result by subtracting 4 from 4, 5 from 5, etc., leaving 1,2,3 from the first set hanging around after the operation like wallflowers at a dance at which everyone else has paired up.<br /><br />But you don't do that with cardinalities. The operation you perform is not subtraction--essentially meaningless in this context--but bijection, establishing a one-to-one correspondence between the sets.<br /><br />This last point is not directly germane to BP's argument, but confusing a countable infinity with the numerical value of a member of a set is a common mistake...and one that, IMO, creates the problems with BP's argument, and with Craig's.PatrickHnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-35819678716531018172009-11-18T15:53:13.120-07:002009-11-18T15:53:13.120-07:00Bob Prokop writing:
Dang. This has been interesti...Bob Prokop writing:<br /><br />Dang. This has been interesting, but unless a fourth party weighs in at this point, I think the three of us have said about all we have to say on the subject. We're starting to repeat ourselves.<br /><br />Victor, any comments from your end?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com