Infinite regression is plausible if beginning is singular

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Bahman

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Infinite regress in theories of existence is related to an infinite set of causes and effects which pushes the beginning into infinite past which is problematic. This problem can however be avoided if beginning is singular meaning that the number of causes and effects which take place in unit of time increases in a singular manner as we get close to beginning.

Your thoughts?
 
Could you please give more explanation? Perhaps an anology would be helpful. Thank you.
 
Bahman said:
Infinite regress in theories of existence is related to an infinite set of causes and effects which pushes the beginning into infinite past which is problematic. This problem can however be avoided if beginning is singular meaning that the number of causes and effects which take place in unit of time increases in a singular manner as we get close to beginning.

Your thoughts?
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Infinite regression would be more plausible if i could understand what you were talking about.

Just saying…
 
Bahman said:
Infinite regress in theories of existence is related to an infinite set of causes and effects which pushes the beginning into infinite past which is problematic. This problem can however be avoided if beginning is singular meaning that the number of causes and effects which take place in unit of time increases in a singular manner as we get close to beginning.

Your thoughts?
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A “singular beginning” is not infinite regress.
 
Why even waste your tragically limited time alive on this sort of stuff?

ICXC NIKA
 
tm21 said:
Could you please give more explanation? Perhaps an anology would be helpful. Thank you.
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Infinite regress is an infinite set of cause and effects. Put them on a line and you will have an infinite continuous line. Now it is matter of how you put this line on space then if you lay all points on the time axis then one end of it goes to minus infinity which is problematic but you can also put some half of points outside the time axis, lets call it number of event per unit of time axis such that the end which going to minus infinity goes to infinity in direction of second axis. This way you get a curve which its length is infinite but it takes finite time to reach to a point from where it does start. You can find a couple of figures which help your imagination in here.
 
ChainBreaker said:
Infinite regression would be more plausible if i could understand what you were talking about.

Just saying…
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I am talking about a singular point in which all point instead of going to minus infinity along time axis goes to infinity along another axis. I have to draw a curve but you can find some curves in here.
 
Bahman said:
Infinite regress is an infinite set of cause and effects. Put them on a line and you will have an infinite continuous line. Now it is matter of how you put this line on space then if you lay all points on the time axis then one end of it goes to minus infinity which is problematic but you can also put some half of points outside the time axis, lets call it number of event per unit of time axis such that the end which going to minus infinity goes to infinity in direction of second axis. This way you get a curve which its length is infinite but it takes finite time to reach to a point from where it does start. You can find a couple of figures which help your imagination in here.
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Guess what, the real universe is not an algebraic expression on a graph, it is the matter and form of actually existing beings. If you can’t accept that you should give up efforts at philosophy. Knowledge begins with that which actually exists, real beings. See Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book V or Thomas Aquinas’ Commentary on this Book.
dhspriory.org/thomas/english/Metaphysics5.htm

Linus2nd
 
Bahman said:
That is your definition? My definition is infinite set of causes and effects.
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So you are saying that there can be an infinite regress if we say that there is an “infinite set of causes and effects.” …

That’s a great circular argument! 👍
 
Bahman said:
Infinite regress is an infinite set of cause and effects. Put them on a line and you will have an infinite continuous line. Now it is matter of how you put this line on space then if you lay all points on the time axis then one end of it goes to minus infinity which is problematic but you can also put some half of points outside the time axis, lets call it number of event per unit of time axis such that the end which going to minus infinity goes to infinity in direction of second axis. This way you get a curve which its length is infinite but it takes finite time to reach to a point from where it does start. You can find a couple of figures which help your imagination in here.
Click to expand...
Taking the line of the regular linear successive means making time into something else and is no different from saying God is not in time. The question is can TIME be eternal
 
Linusthe2nd said:
Guess what, the real universe is not an algebraic expression on a graph, it is the matter and form of actually existing beings. If you can’t accept that you should give up efforts at philosophy. Knowledge begins with that which actually exists, real beings. See Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book V or Thomas Aquinas’ Commentary on this Book.
dhspriory.org/thomas/english/Metaphysics5.htm

Linus2nd
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I don’t know if Aquinas is the best interpreter of Aristotle. He tried to say in the Summa that Aristotle thought siply that it was merely probable that there was eternal motion. I just finished Aristotle’s physics last night, and it says “in fact, such a view (that motion is not eternal) can hardly be described as anything else than fantastic… We have **shown **there **must **always be motion.” I think Aquinas got hung up on the word “hardly” in an attempt to rescue his teacher, but in the Summa Contra Gentiles he simply states planly what Aristotle believed.
 
Time is itself a creature.
Also, eternity does not mean infinite time.
God is eternal.
God is also always creative.
This does not mean that the creatures are eternal themselves.
 
thinkandmull said:
Taking the line of the regular linear successive means making time into something else and is no different from saying God is not in time. The question is can TIME be eternal
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I don’t understand your first sentence. Could you please elaborate?

And time could be eternal if we are in infinite past.
 
Linusthe2nd said:
Guess what, the real universe is not an algebraic expression on a graph, it is the matter and form of actually existing beings. If you can’t accept that you should give up efforts at philosophy. Knowledge begins with that which actually exists, real beings. See Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book V or Thomas Aquinas’ Commentary on this Book.
dhspriory.org/thomas/english/Metaphysics5.htm

Linus2nd
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I found one example. Please read the debate in here and the following quote.
Oreoracle said:
Easy enough. Consider the usual setup for Zeno’s Paradox: A runner is stationed one mile from the finish line, and the race begins. Before he can reach the finish line, he must first reach the halfway point. But before he reaches the halfway point, he must get halfway to the halfway point, and so forth.

Zeno argued that this led to an infinite regress and, since he rejected infinite regressions, he concluded that motion is illusory. Assuming that you agree that motion is real and not illusory, it would seem that you are forced to accept the existence of infinite regressions.

Again, I suspect the real issue here is the question of what counts as an “event”. In this case, we have an infinite sequence of events, and each event is defined as getting halfway through completing the previous event. There is no “earliest event”, hence the regression. Can events be defined recursively in this way? Can they occur over arbitrarily small time intervals?
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I think Zeno’s paradox is wrong because the world is made out of types of light, and it is possible for a line of zero space plus another such line to equal just one unit of linear space. We can’t fully understand how, because the mind divides, but if matter was eternally divisible as Aquinas thought, than each thing would be infinitely large! No way out of that. Arguing with Zeno that the world is illusion is stupid because even the alleged illusion has parts, and thus the paradox still applies to it. On Infinite regress, if time once moved at the speed of light, could there have been infinite time? If the past infinite is the smallest of infinites (instead of each 7 in an infinite number, each infinite in it), could it be so in the past? Yes, but that would mean we could go back in time. Common sense knows this is absurd; it is like doing drugs and thinking in ways the mind is not meant to. Was Aquinas and Aristotle on quaalude? I don’t know, but they certainly lost their common sense when they thought of the infinite…
 
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