Doesn't the 'Infinite Regression Fallacy' Prove that Time Had a Beginning?

[JapaneseKappa]

It is absurd to make such a ridiculous mapping. The Real numbers are not a sequence of events, but merely an ordered set of quantities. You want to compare apples and oranges.

How do you know that time is not simply an ordered series of events? And even if it wasn’t, why can’t you create a mapping between time and the real numbers?

Lol, yes, the Big Bang began the flow of time as we know it.

The “as we know it” part may be true, in fact it is probably more true than you realize. It seems to me that you’ve latched on to some sort of “big-bang-for-dummies” description of the big bang which describes it as a beginning. However, while the big bang itself is well established, there are various theories for what might have caused the big bang, and some of them (e.g. eternal inflation) have time extending beyond the big bang. Therefore, this particular claim is different from your previous claim, which was: “it is an established fact that the universe is past-finite.” Why are you moving the goalposts?

It is not an established fact that the universe is past finite, and I would still love to see your “physical proof.”

 

[inocente]

As I essplained above, it is to convey mirth so people wont think me angry or annoyed, etc. I have been told I come across as angry quite often, kind of like ‘defensive’ I guess.

I have Aspergers Syndrome, and my mind does not work like yours or normal people, so your projections really do not apply here.

Ah, OK.

What experiment? Where are the links to it?

For example particle interactions, anything to do with electromagnetism, a planet orbiting a star can go clockwise or anticlockwise, and so on.

Here’s a standard text on the subject of time in physics:

informationphilosopher.com/solutions/scientists/feynman/past_and_future.html

*This is a simple straightforward mathematical FACT.

One cannot sequentially count to an infinite quantity. Similarly one cannot count backwards to an infinite negative.

In reverse, we cannot start at an infinite quantity and sequentially progress to the present or a current sequence.*

You might count and I might count, but physical phenomena don’t count, so it doesn’t matter. The earth doesn’t know how many times it has been around the sun. Why would anything care?

(are smiley emoticons OK? Don’t want to offend)

Don’t worry, I’ll let you know if you offend, .

 

[inocente]

Perhaps you should support you own assertions and not pass it off even in the same post in which you make it?

I reread the post several times and I do not see anything off, of course, but that would be where YOU come in and show me my error, is it not?

Not sure what you mean. You asked me “how here in the real world we can have per accidens cause without preceding per se cause?” but that’s not an issue either way, since the one per se cause doesn’t commit an infinite regress all by itself.

Probably best if you talk to someone else about these scholastic terms though.

 

[RGCheek]

For example particle interactions, anything to do with electromagnetism, a planet orbiting a star can go clockwise or anticlockwise, and so on.

You said you had an experiment that proved my assertion wrong, I asked for what it was specifically and you give me generic descriptions.

Do you have an experiment that disproves what I said about time or do you not?

You might count and I might count, but physical phenomena don’t count, so it doesn’t matter. The earth doesn’t know how many times it has been around the sun. Why would anything care?

No you anthropomorphize planets? That is your answer?

Sorry, I have to lol that one.

 

[lmelahn]

In some philosophical hypothetical realm, perhaps all per accidens can exist without per se causes. Perhaps in some magical way God is sustaining each moment autonomously in time simultaneously without our ability to detect or fathom it.

I guess you are a Bonaventurian on this point , which is fine, but I have reasons for following Thomas Aquinas.

What I would say is that creation is a single act on God’s part (in fact, strictly speaking, God only acts once, and that action is His very being). However, from our point of view, it entails bringing us into being and also maintaining us in being. God is infinitely powerful, and so there is nothing preventing Him from creating an infinite number of creatures (at least of material creatures). Since all times are present to Him, that infinity could stretch indefinitely into time in either direction. Thomas Aquinas argues (again in De principiis naturae) that we can only know that the universe has a temporal beginning thanks to Revelation. Certainly modern cosmology seems to corroborate that view.

But here in the REAL world, we know that per accidens is preceded by per se cause.

And thus your observation, while hypothetically valid, leaves cold comfort for the person who wants to understand the real world we live in.

Although the hypothesis of an infinitely remote past is just a hypothesis, I don’t think the rest of the reflection is invalid for the real world. Perhaps I didn’t explain well.

Every effect must have at least one per se cause (by definition!). It may or may not have various per accidens causes, which at one time (in the past) were per se causes, but are so no longer. Strictly speaking, however, per accidens causes are actually not causes any longer.

At the moment of the crack of the bat, the baseball bat (and ultimately the batter) change the velocity of the baseball. They are both per se causes of that change. Once the ball is flying to left field, however, neither bat nor batter are (strictly speaking–i.e., “per se”) causes of the baseball’s motion any longer; that is what I mean when I say that they are per accidens causes.

The problem is that, in common parlance, when we think of a thing’s causes, we usually mean the per accidens causes. For example, who is the cause of my existence? Most people would answer, “your parents.” Sure, but they are now per accidens causes. At the moment of my conception, they were per se causes, but they are so no longer. What causes my existence now is, among other things, the food I eat, the health of my body, my soul and its spiritual nature, and (ultimately) God the Creator–all of which are per se causes of my being.

We KNOW that each moment in time is predicated by previous moments in time. If a time keeping device was somehow stopped at second 10, then we know that seconds 11, 12, 13…etc will not occur without restarting the clock.

So in our real world sequential flow of time, there can be no infinite regression no more than we can count forward to an infinite limit and reach it.

I would say that time is never independent of the changes in the world. Aristotle famously defined time as the “measure of movement according to the before and after” (Physics IV, 11, 220a24-25) and I think that is basically a valid definition. (I don’t think that either Theory of Relativity fundamentally changes this definition–on the contrary, in my opinion, they confirm it.)

In other words, our time has a beginning, precisely because God decided to create a finite number of material creatures, not the the other way around.

 

[lmelahn]

Of course you do; it supports your prior conclusion.



But perhaps you can help me with understanding how here in the real world we can have per accidens cause without preceding per se cause?

I would really like to read about that.

Oh OK, now I understand your difficulty, I think. I concede your premise, with one slight adjustment: every cause that is per accidens in time *was once a *per se cause in the past. It is the very same thing that produced its effect in the past, and does so no longer. (Remember what I said in the other post: per se causes are always simultaneous with their effect.)

Or, if you will, every per-accidens-in-time cause is an ex-per-se cause.

(A note on terminology: Aquinas admits of other kinds of per accidens causes besides what I have called ex-per-se causes, but there is no need to complicated the argument, I don’t think.)

The things is, a properly infinite extension of time into the past does not violate the premise, however you interpret it. In such a hypothesis, every per accidens cause would indeed be preceded by at least one per se cause–just infinitely many.

It would work like the number line (sorry if I am resurrecting an older reply here). Is 0 (which more or less represents the present) preceded by another number? Sure: for example, -1 (and also -10, -5000, and many others). What about -5000? Sure: by -5001. In fact, no matter how “low” I go in the number line, I can always find an even lower number.

I should point out, of course, in such a hypothesis, all of the creatures in question would remain creatures. God remains the per se cause of their existence, always. Thus, for Him, all things are present.

To look at it a different way, there is no greater difficulty in positing a universe that is infinitely extended in time as to posit one infinitely extended in space.

 

[lmelahn]

An excellent analysis. In general it seems to me that the scholastic system of per se, per accidens, essence, substance, potentia and so on doesn’t stand up to cross examination, but I’d say your argument here hits the nail on the head.

You can probably tell from my answers that I am a follower of Aquinas on many points.

I don’t want to get too far off-topic, but I think the problem lies not so much in the concepts of substance, essence, accident, act and potency, and so on, but in how they are interpreted by certain Scholastics. Thomas Aquinas interprets them very differently from Duns Scotus (almost contrarily) or Francisco Suarez.

I have gleaned this analysis comes from the Angelic Doctor. Both Scotus and Suarez would give very different interpretations: in fact, both are predecessors (in my opinion) to the typical modern understanding of causality, which is exemplified by René Descartes.

 

[lmelahn]

OK, after rereading the thread, I think we may need to discuss time a little more carefully, especially why the comparison between the number line and time is valid. (This seems to have been a sticking point for RGCheek.)

In reality, this is a very old problem, which has its roots in the famous paradoxes of Zeno, in which the philosopher attempts to disprove the reality of both multiplicity and movement.

The most pertinent one is the paradox of the arrow: we are to imagine an arrow being shot. It appears to be moving, says Zeno; however if we were to examine it at any given infinitesimal moment–if we could stop the videotape, so to speak–it would actually be stationary. Therefore, argues Zeno, in reality the arrow is stationary at every moment. (Millennia later, Immanuel Kant thought up a strikingly similar “antinomy of pure reason” which, I think, can be answered in a similar fashion.)

I think that Aristotle’s reply is the best one: he notes that there is a qualitative difference between an arrow in motion and an arrow at rest. (I concede that rest and motion are, as Newton noted, relative to the observer, but the fact of the matter is, you have to get out of the way from an arrow being shot at you, not for one sitting on the ground.) In fact, a flying arrow is in the process of completing a movement: as such, that movement is partly complete, partly incomplete. (In Aristotelian language, it is partly in act and partly in potency.)

Zeno’s error, argues Aristotle, is envisioning time (and space) as a succession of infinitesimal discrete “points,” ignoring the fact that a flying arrow possesses a quality (a certain velocity) that the arrow at rest does not. (Or taking into account Newtonian mechanics, they have, in any case, different velocities.)

Time, says Aristotle, is intimately connected with changes (or “motion” as he calls it). If there were no changes whatsoever (as Zeno thought), there would be no time. It is this connection with change (or motion) that gives time its directional character: strictly speaking, only the present actually “exists;” it is impossible to make the past return or the future appear.

Material things constantly perform actions, bringing them to completion (in Aristotelian parlance, they go from potency–an incomplete state–to act–a complete state): acorns germinate and become oak trees, arrows fly, stones fall to the earth, the sun rises and sets (or, as we now know, the earth rotates, making the sun appear to rise and set), and so on.

Time is not identical to these changes, but is their measure. How do we know how “long” something takes? Only by comparing it to how “long” some other, relatively stable change takes (whether that be the rising and setting of the sun, the hands on a watch, or the natural oscillations of Cesium-133).

So, returning to our problem, “time” exists only to the degree that there is observable change (or motion), and it is the directionality of motion (the fact that it always goes from incomplete to complete) that gives time its directionality.

There is, however, nothing preventing these motions from always having existed or existing forever in the future (except for the fact that God decided to create things the way He did: with a temporal beginning and end). Naturally, that would take nothing away from God as Creator: in such a hypothesis, he would have created an infinite succession (but not a regression, not in the sense that Aristotle talks about it), but created it, nevertheless.

 

[inocente]

You said you had an experiment that proved my assertion wrong, I asked for what it was specifically and you give me generic descriptions.

Do you have an experiment that disproves what I said about time or do you not?

No, you asked for an example of what physics says about time and I gave a number of examples. I also linked a standard text which includes more experiments for you.

*No you anthropomorphize planets? That is your answer?

Sorry, I have to lol that one.*

I don’t believe there’s any point continuing, as you’re just sarcastically dismissing everything out of hand. Bye bye.

 

[inocente]

OK, after rereading the thread, I think we may need to discuss time a little more carefully, especially why the comparison between the number line and time is valid. (This seems to have been a sticking point for RGCheek.)

In reality, this is a very old problem, which has its roots in the famous paradoxes of Zeno, in which the philosopher attempts to disprove the reality of both multiplicity and movement.

The most pertinent one is the paradox of the arrow: we are to imagine an arrow being shot. It appears to be moving, says Zeno; however if we were to examine it at any given infinitesimal moment–if we could stop the videotape, so to speak–it would actually be stationary. Therefore, argues Zeno, in reality the arrow is stationary at every moment. (Millennia later, Immanuel Kant thought up a strikingly similar “antinomy of pure reason” which, I think, can be answered in a similar fashion.)

As a teenager I learned calculus before hearing Zeno’s paradoxes, and in the style of teenagers had enormous difficulty understanding how he could possibly be so dumb. Why didn’t he understand derivatives? What was the matter with the man? But of course we profit from him asking such questions, and they still pose difficulties.

Imho it’s a common problem to confuse how the world works with our analysis of how we think it should work. It’s easy to believe that the world must conform to our logic, but of course it doesn’t. I linked a Feynman lecture earlier, reminded me of his famous quote: “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself–and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool others. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that.”

PS: not sure teenagers would understand “stop the videotape”, you might have to say “freeze the MPEG” now.

 

[RGCheek]

Oh OK, now I understand your difficulty, I think. I concede your premise, with one slight adjustment: every cause that is per accidens in time *was once a *per se cause in the past. It is the very same thing that produced its effect in the past, and does so no longer. (Remember what I said in the other post: per se causes are always simultaneous with their effect.)

Or, if you will, every per-accidens-in-time cause is an ex-per-se cause.

(A note on terminology: Aquinas admits of other kinds of per accidens causes besides what I have called ex-per-se causes, but there is no need to complicated the argument, I don’t think.)

The things is, a properly infinite extension of time into the past does not violate the premise, however you interpret it. In such a hypothesis, every per accidens cause would indeed be preceded by at least one per se cause–just infinitely many.

It would work like the number line (sorry if I am resurrecting an older reply here). Is 0 (which more or less represents the present) preceded by another number? Sure: for example, -1 (and also -10, -5000, and many others). What about -5000? Sure: by -5001. In fact, no matter how “low” I go in the number line, I can always find an even lower number.

I should point out, of course, in such a hypothesis, all of the creatures in question would remain creatures. God remains the per se cause of their existence, always. Thus, for Him, all things are present.

To look at it a different way, there is no greater difficulty in positing a universe that is infinitely extended in time as to posit one infinitely extended in space.

I really appreciate the time you take to respond, and I think I understand you better now, though I still disagree, but it is a ‘smaller’ disagreement.

Chores call me away, but God Willing I will reply to you today. I want to give this some thought as I have a foggy notion of the crux of our disagreement and I want to bring it into focus before trying to respond.

I hope you do not mind my delay.

 

[RGCheek]

As a teenager I learned calculus before hearing Zeno’s paradoxes, and in the style of teenagers had enormous difficulty understanding how he could possibly be so dumb. Why didn’t he understand derivatives? What was the matter with the man? But of course we profit from him asking such questions, and they still pose difficulties.

Imho it’s a common problem to confuse how the world works with our analysis of how we think it should work. It’s easy to believe that the world must conform to our logic, but of course it doesn’t. I linked a Feynman lecture earlier, reminded me of his famous quote: “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself–and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool others. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that.”

PS: not sure teenagers would understand “stop the videotape”, you might have to say “freeze the MPEG” now.

Yeah, I read Zeno with similar frustration, but the infinite regression fallacy has nothing to do with Zeno.

 

[RGCheek]

I posted what I know has repeatedly been shown to be true by experiment, and which you’ll find in every physics book and every physics course in the world.

To which I asked for what specific experiment you refer to.

No, you asked for an example of what physics says about time and I gave a number of examples. I also linked a standard text which includes more experiments for you.

I know what I asked for.

 

[RGCheek]

OK, after rereading the thread, I think we may need to discuss time a little more carefully, especially why the comparison between the number line and time is valid. (This seems to have been a sticking point for RGCheek.)

In reality, this is a very old problem, which has its roots in the famous paradoxes of Zeno, in which the philosopher attempts to disprove the reality of both multiplicity and movement.

The most pertinent one is the paradox of the arrow: we are to imagine an arrow being shot. It appears to be moving, says Zeno; however if we were to examine it at any given infinitesimal moment–if we could stop the videotape, so to speak–it would actually be stationary. Therefore, argues Zeno, in reality the arrow is stationary at every moment. (Millennia later, Immanuel Kant thought up a strikingly similar “antinomy of pure reason” which, I think, can be answered in a similar fashion.)

I think that Aristotle’s reply is the best one: he notes that there is a qualitative difference between an arrow in motion and an arrow at rest. (I concede that rest and motion are, as Newton noted, relative to the observer, but the fact of the matter is, you have to get out of the way from an arrow being shot at you, not for one sitting on the ground.) In fact, a flying arrow is in the process of completing a movement: as such, that movement is partly complete, partly incomplete. (In Aristotelian language, it is partly in act and partly in potency.)

Zeno’s error, argues Aristotle, is envisioning time (and space) as a succession of infinitesimal discrete “points,” ignoring the fact that a flying arrow possesses a quality (a certain velocity) that the arrow at rest does not. (Or taking into account Newtonian mechanics, they have, in any case, different velocities.)

Time, says Aristotle, is intimately connected with changes (or “motion” as he calls it). If there were no changes whatsoever (as Zeno thought), there would be no time. It is this connection with change (or motion) that gives time its directional character: strictly speaking, only the present actually “exists;” it is impossible to make the past return or the future appear.

Material things constantly perform actions, bringing them to completion (in Aristotelian parlance, they go from potency–an incomplete state–to act–a complete state): acorns germinate and become oak trees, arrows fly, stones fall to the earth, the sun rises and sets (or, as we now know, the earth rotates, making the sun appear to rise and set), and so on.

Time is not identical to these changes, but is their measure. How do we know how “long” something takes? Only by comparing it to how “long” some other, relatively stable change takes (whether that be the rising and setting of the sun, the hands on a watch, or the natural oscillations of Cesium-133).

So, returning to our problem, “time” exists only to the degree that there is observable change (or motion), and it is the directionality of motion (the fact that it always goes from incomplete to complete) that gives time its directionality.

There is, however, nothing preventing these motions from always having existed or existing forever in the future (except for the fact that God decided to create things the way He did: with a temporal beginning and end). Naturally, that would take nothing away from God as Creator: in such a hypothesis, he would have created an infinite succession (but not a regression, not in the sense that Aristotle talks about it), but created it, nevertheless.

Thank you again for the time you have taken to answer.

Zeno’s problem is that he failed to take into account how his division of distance into smaller and smaller increments also divided the time required to traverse said distances into smaller and smaller units as well. And so there was no infinite amount of time required at all in the final analysis.

But I will get back to this thread later today, God willing.

Till then I hope you have a good day.

 

[inocente]

Time, says Aristotle, is intimately connected with changes (or “motion” as he calls it). If there were no changes whatsoever (as Zeno thought), there would be no time. It is this connection with change (or motion) that gives time its directional character: strictly speaking, only the present actually “exists;” it is impossible to make the past return or the future appear.

Material things constantly perform actions, bringing them to completion (in Aristotelian parlance, they go from potency–an incomplete state–to act–a complete state): acorns germinate and become oak trees, arrows fly, stones fall to the earth, the sun rises and sets (or, as we now know, the earth rotates, making the sun appear to rise and set), and so on.

Time is not identical to these changes, but is their measure. How do we know how “long” something takes? Only by comparing it to how “long” some other, relatively stable change takes (whether that be the rising and setting of the sun, the hands on a watch, or the natural oscillations of Cesium-133).

So, returning to our problem, “time” exists only to the degree that there is observable change (or motion), and it is the directionality of motion (the fact that it always goes from incomplete to complete) that gives time its directionality.

I forgot to add earlier the Oxford Dictionary of Physics definition of time, which agrees with the above, and which you might like for its simplicity:

Time - a dimension that enables two otherwise identical events that occur at the same point in space to be distinguished. The interval between two such events forms the basis for time measurement.

 

[RGCheek]

Now, returning to the problem of infinite regresses: in reality they are only impossible in a line of simultaneous per se causes. …
***From a philosophical ***point of view, anyway, there is actually nothing that prevents an infinite regress of per accidens causes. …
Applied to the original question regarding time, in my opinion you cannot prove that time has a beginning by attempting to reduce it to an infinite regress.

I think the distinction between addressing the problem as a philosophical question (which I admit that I am not sure what you mean) as opposed to a real world question is the distinction here.

I agree that one can create set of numbers or other elements with an infinite number of members as an abstraction, say all even numbers evenly divisible by 6. Poof, there it is.

But when speaking of real world problems, this does not work. If someone signs a contract with you to manufacture a million bobble head dolls this is hugely different than a contract for an infinite number of bobble headed dolls. And there is the rub.

I am speaking of real world problems, problems that involve process over time, not instant creations of abstract sets, or an infinite number of angels dancing on an infinite number of pins through an infinite number of years.

Back to the OP; I want to take this one step at a time to avoid confusion and focus with clarity of thought and presentation of points of contention. Once we agree we can go to the next logical point, OK? If we cannot agree, then at least we will have found the crux of the disagreement.

Suppose I am hired to do some real world process, say shelling peas. And lets suppose I can shell a thousand peas per hour with this handy little machine I invented. Were I asked how long it would take me to shell a million peas I could give an answer. Were I asked how long I must sign my contract for to shell five TRILLION peas, I could give an answer.

But how long do I say it would take me to shell an infinite number of peas? Some say that I would have to say that the answer is undefined, but I think them cowards The answer is that it would take an infinite amount of time.

Now this is no Zeno’s paradox, any rational person would agree that an infinite number of peas takes an infinite amount of time for a single person or even billions of people to shell such a number (if it really is a number (ut its all we have to work with at the moment).

So, point 1: It is impossible to completely shell an infinite number of peas with a finite number of people.

Do you and I agree or not?

 

[thinkandmull]

The distinction between per se and accidental doesn’t prove anything. So there was a cause of the ball being flying through the air. That cause is in the past, so the accidental is nothing, since the past doesn’t exist. There is just causes. And if you have infinite causes going back, it leads to a contradiction. Make 2 o’clock today the end of the time series. Then apply the infinite integer system on top of the infinite series (there could be more than one series, but that is beside the point). Is the first moment even or odd? I know it sounds like a false question because you say there isn’t a first, but it shows the absurdity of your position. There has to be a first, an even or odd, not in math, but in reality.

 

[Oreoracle]

I think the distinction between addressing the problem as a philosophical question (which I admit that I am not sure what you mean) as opposed to a real world question is the distinction here.

I agree that one can create set of numbers or other elements with an infinite number of members as an abstraction, say all even numbers evenly divisible by 6. Poof, there it is.

But when speaking of real world problems, this does not work. If someone signs a contract with you to manufacture a million bobble head dolls this is hugely different than a contract for an infinite number of bobble headed dolls. And there is the rub.

If you had said this earlier, we would have agreed. It is coincidentally true that we live in a universe in which infinite regressions do not seem to occur. But as you said, we could conceive of a universe that behaves otherwise. So as I said from the very beginning, “there are no infinite regressions” is an a posteriori truth (at best) rather than an a priori truth. That is, it happens to be true in this universe, but it is not provable by logic alone because there are consistent frameworks in which it is false.

Since the problem isn’t a problem of logic, there is no “infinite regression fallacy” just as there is no “Steady State Theory fallacy” or “Luminiferous Aether fallacy”. Those ideas were shown to be incorrect in our universe by experiment, but there is nothing logically problematic about them.

 

[RGCheek]

The distinction between per se and accidental doesn’t prove anything. So there was a cause of the ball being flying through the air. That cause is in the past, so the accidental is nothing, since the past doesn’t exist. There is just causes. And if you have infinite causes going back, it leads to a contradiction. Make 2 o’clock today the end of the time series. Then apply the infinite integer system on top of the infinite series (there could be more than one series, but that is beside the point). Is the first moment even or odd? I know it sounds like a false question because you say there isn’t a first, but it shows the absurdity of your position. There has to be a first, an even or odd, not in math, but in reality.

The first moment is odd by definition.

Anything else?

 

[RGCheek]

If you had said this earlier, we would have agreed. It is coincidentally true that we live in a universe in which infinite regressions do not seem to occur. But as you said, we could conceive of a universe that behaves otherwise. So as I said from the very beginning, “there are no infinite regressions” is an a posteriori truth (at best) rather than an a priori truth. That is, it happens to be true in this universe, but it is not provable by logic alone because there are consistent frameworks in which it is false.

Since the problem isn’t a problem of logic, there is no “infinite regression fallacy” just as there is no “Steady State Theory fallacy” or “Luminiferous Aether fallacy”. Those ideas were shown to be incorrect in our universe by experiment, but there is nothing logically problematic about them.

OK, in this universe there is a math-physical fallacy regarding an infinite regression.

I guess that is just one more indication of my philosophical newbness. I simply assumed we were talking about this universe.