Can time be infinite?

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Windfish

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I have heard this argument before:

If there was no beginning in time, the present would never arrive since there an infinite span of time precedes it. There would always be a previous moment before we could to this moment, and a previous moment before that moment, ad infinitum.

Does this argument work?

Also, doesn’t Big Bang cosmology already settle this for us?
 
We know from the Theory of Relativity that time is not absolute, it slows down for an object approaching the speed of light and it slows down as gravity increases. In a singularity like a black hole, where gravity goes to infinity, the space-time curvature goes infinite and time “stops”. So running the clock backward towards the Big Bang, which is the ultimate Singularity, as you approach that Big Bang Singularity, the density of matter approaches infinity and with that density the force of gravity approaches infinity, and thus the space-time curvature approaches infinity until at the moment of the Big Bang Singularity all values do go to infinity and time “stops”. Thus, you could say that time “started” at that Big Bang Singularity, there was no flow of time before it.
 
Personally, I think “time” is a sensation our minds create, just like “distance” and “colors.”

The reason these sorts of paradoxes confuse us is because we’re trying to figure out an abstraction of thinking, an artifact of thought. But the “reality” is something beyond what we can conceive.
 
This is what Aquinas thinks:

Objection 6. Further, if the world always was, the consequence is that infinite days preceded this present day. But it is impossible to pass through an infinite medium. Therefore we should never have arrived at this present day; which is manifestly false.

Reply to Objection 6. Passage is always understood as being from term to term. Whatever bygone day we choose, from it to the present day there is a finite number of days which can be passed through. The objection is founded on the idea that, given two extremes, there is an infinite number of mean terms.

newadvent.org/summa/1046.htm#article2
 
The "singularity’ was created out of no thing other than the loving will of God. The present is measured in relation to an event (i.e. AD). The Summa deals with the aeviternity (no time). In time Our Loving Father has suspended duration for some (St. Paul,St. John of the Cross) so that they have perceived indescribable (fourth heaven) realities without the passage of the present. It seems to me that time(space) coexists with “no-time” (?ultimate reality?). I mean they are not separated by vast distances (parsecs) such that I would seek God a great distance in space time away. In fact all of creation would be imbued with the original creative loving will. Time and aeviternity are within you?

Peace
 
Can there be an infinity of change?

Change is made up of finite points. Where potentiality becomes reality, this is one point; more importantly it is finite. We can thus represents these points with numbers.

An absolute perfect infinite transcends all possible finite quantities. But an infinite number is suggested to be infinite because of the finite quantities it contains. It is said that when you add up all the finite quantities, what you are left with will be infinite by definition. But it is already evident that a true infinite transcends all finite quantities. This means that it is not infinite because of the quantities that it contains. This means that the pairing of the two words “infinite number” is meaningless.

It doesn’t matter how many numbers you add, you cannot complete numbers or have more than a finite number of things. There will always be a finite number, a potential infinite, but never an actual infinite. All numbers are a finite duration away from its source. If you cannot add up to infinity, you must admit that a true infinity (as opposed to a potential infinity) cannot by definition contain a finite number of things. An infinity is not a finite number of things therefore you cannot say that an actual infinity can exist.
 
MindOverMatter2 said:
Can there be an infinity of change?

Change is made up of finite points. Where potentiality becomes reality, this is one point; more importantly it is finite. We can thus represents these points with numbers.

An absolute perfect infinite transcends all possible finite quantities. But an infinite number is suggested to be infinite because of the finite quantities it contains. It is said that when you add up all the finite quantities, what you are left with will be infinite by definition. But it is already evident that a true infinite transcends all finite quantities. This means that it is not infinite because of the quantities that it contains. This means that the pairing of the two words “infinite number” is meaningless.
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Georg Cantor is not your friend. Nor is Isaac Newton.

Alec
evolutionpages.com
 
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