Philosophy Now Forum

devans99 wrote: ↑Mon Dec 24, 2018 3:29 pm Everything in existence seems to fall into the following categories:

- space
- time
- matter/energy
- motion
- information (probably emergent from the others)

What is fundamental in your view?

In this context I'd say: the quantum structure of the universe is fundamental.

Atla wrote: ↑Mon Dec 24, 2018 3:58 pm

devans99 wrote: ↑Mon Dec 24, 2018 3:29 pm Everything in existence seems to fall into the following categories:

- space
- time
- matter/energy
- motion
- information (probably emergent from the others)

What is fundamental in your view?

In this context I'd say: the quantum structure of the universe is fundamental.

So discreteness is fundamental? You rule out all forms of continuum?

devans99 wrote: ↑Mon Dec 24, 2018 5:09 pm

Atla wrote: ↑Mon Dec 24, 2018 3:58 pm

devans99 wrote: ↑Mon Dec 24, 2018 3:29 pm Everything in existence seems to fall into the following categories:

- space
- time
- matter/energy
- motion
- information (probably emergent from the others)

What is fundamental in your view?

In this context I'd say: the quantum structure of the universe is fundamental.

So discreteness is fundamental? You rule out all forms of continuum?

No, that's beside the point, but I think it's fundamentally a continuum. It may appear as discrete to us.

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The universe is not infinite.

And I believe that the “why” of that statement can be understood from the perspective of a Berkeleyanish form of idealism as per the following:

As we stand on the earth and look out into the universe, I suggest that the sense of endlessness and infinity we experience as we try to imagine the outer boundary of the universe, is indistinguishable from the same sense of infinity we experience when we look inward and try to imagine the outer boundary of our mind.

In other words, if you close your eyes and attempt to envision the outer boundary of your own mind, you will, by analogy, discover the truth of the boundary of the universe.

Even though the universe appears to be open and endless, it is not.

It is the closed mental system of God’s personal consciousness (mind) that is bounded in the exact same way that our own minds are bounded: by reason of the limited field of the life energy that makes up the sum total of each individual mind itself.

I am a separate mind, you are a separate mind, and God is a separate mind. And in all cases, these invisible mental boundaries that somehow create the illusion of being infinite from the perspective of the inward occupants...

...are simply the dividing lines that delineate the point where one individual mind ends and another one begins.

People need to stop confusing what we call the “universe” with that of the infinite and omnidirectional nothingness (void) that is forever giving-way to the exponentially-growing number of new minds (new “universes”) that are constantly being added to the mix.

(See this post here – (viewtopic.php?f=16&t=22811&start=30#p343003) - where I elaborate (speculate) on what I believe infinity actually applies to.)
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seeds wrote: ↑Wed Dec 26, 2018 9:15 pm _______

Actually I think I can prove time is finite:

1. AXIOM: events are caused by events
2. The number of events in an infinite regress is > any number
3. Thats a contradiction (can’t be both a number and > any number)
4. Making up magic numbers is not allowed (can break any theory if magic is admissible)
5. There must be a first event.
6. Time must be finite

As I mentioned, its actually circular too:

A. Axiom 1. The universe is everything
B. Axiom 2. Events are caused by events
C. Conclusion 1. The universe was caused by the universe

devans99 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 27, 2018 4:39 pm Actually I think I can prove time is finite:

1. AXIOM: events are caused by events
2. The number of events in an infinite regress is > any number
3. Thats a contradiction (can’t be both a number and > any number)
4. Making up magic numbers is not allowed (can break any theory if magic is admissible)
5. There must be a first event.
6. Time must be finite

Even if there was a “first event,” one can still imagine the arrow of time extending eternally into the past, prior to that first event.

devans99 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 27, 2018 4:39 pm As I mentioned, its actually circular too:

A. Axiom 1. The universe is everything
B. Axiom 2. Events are caused by events
C. Conclusion 1. The universe was caused by the universe

If axiom 1. – “The universe is everything” is a question-begging assumption on your part and is not necessarily true, then what does that say about your conclusion?
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seeds wrote: ↑Thu Dec 27, 2018 8:17 pm

devans99 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 27, 2018 4:39 pm Actually I think I can prove time is finite:

1. AXIOM: events are caused by events
2. The number of events in an infinite regress is > any number
3. Thats a contradiction (can’t be both a number and > any number)
4. Making up magic numbers is not allowed (can break any theory if magic is admissible)
5. There must be a first event.
6. Time must be finite

Even if there was a “first event,” one can still imagine the arrow of time extending eternally into the past, prior to that first event.
_______

But if time extends forever before the first event, there is nothing to cause the first event - that violates the axiom 'events are caused by events' - so time cannot extend back indefinitely. The only thing that can be before time is more time. The end of time precedes and causes the start of time. The Big Crunch causes the Big Bang.

seeds wrote: ↑Thu Dec 27, 2018 8:17 pm

devans99 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 27, 2018 4:39 pm As I mentioned, its actually circular too:

A. Axiom 1. The universe is everything
B. Axiom 2. Events are caused by events
C. Conclusion 1. The universe was caused by the universe

If axiom 1. – “The universe is everything” is a question-begging assumption on your part and is not necessarily true, then what does that say about your conclusion?
_______

Axiom 1 is more of a definition than anything. Defining the universe as everything (including any multiverse and God and alternate realities and such) means that the conclusion is inevitable - the universe caused the universe. There must be something circular about it. Time.

devans99 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 27, 2018 8:28 pm But if time extends forever before the first event, there is nothing to cause the first event - that violates the axiom 'events are caused by events' - so time cannot extend back indefinitely.

From my perspective, a first event would merely be an inexplicable occurrence that would represent a reference point that stands between the infinite and eternal past and that of the infinite and eternal future.

devans99 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 27, 2018 8:28 pm The only thing that can be before time is more time. The end of time precedes and causes the start of time. The Big Crunch causes the Big Bang.

Keeping the above in mind, you later stated the following:

devans99 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 27, 2018 8:28 pm Axiom 1 is more of a definition than anything. Defining the universe as everything (including any multiverse and God and alternate realities and such)...

By insisting that the “Big Crunch causes the Big Bang,” you keep revealing the fact that all of your ideas with respect to time are completely dependent on a materialistic interpretation of reality that, in truth, does not actually include God.

I mean, how in the world could God,...

(i.e., an incorporeal Being who allegedly possesses complete dominion over the fabric of the universe)

...again, how could God not be exempt from all of the “banging and crunching” of a dimension of reality that he himself created and controls?

Therefore, your attempt to somehow incorporate God into your definition of the universe is illogical.

Don’t get me wrong, devans99, your circular time theory has many good features. However, based on the fact that it appears to be purely materialistic in nature, it simply will not pass muster with those of us who favor idealism.
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seeds wrote: ↑Thu Dec 27, 2018 10:48 pm Therefore, your attempt to somehow incorporate God into your definition of the universe is illogical.

Don’t get me wrong, devans99, your circular time theory has many good features. However, based on the fact that it appears to be purely materialistic in nature, it simply will not pass muster with the those of us who favor idealism.
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Thank you for an engaging conversation.

I am having problems combining these two favourite ideas (circular time and God). A timeless God might work. The axiom I'm using 'events are caused by events' could maybe be made conditional on the presence of time. Then God is made timeless. He needs no cause because he is beyond cause and effect.

Actually, I thought about it a bit more. An argument for an Eternal (outside of time) First Cause:

1. Axiom: ‘events in time are caused by events’
2. Can’t get something from (the philosopher’s) nothing
3. So something must have existed always (because we exist and from [1])
4. Time has a start *
5. So nothing can exist forever in time
6. So something must have existed forever outside of time
7. Existing outside time would mean not subject to axiom [1]
8. This would be the eternal first cause


* Assume time is infinite with events stretching back forever:

a. The number of events in an infinite regress of events is > any number
b. Thats a contradiction (can’t be both a number and > any number)
c. Making up magic numbers is not allowed (can break any theory if magic is admissible)
d. So that means a finite number of total events happened
e. Can’t just be an empty stretch of time before the first event (no cause)
f. So time must of had a start

With all the evidence of design in the universe, there seems there has to be a creator...

Oh dear thats not quite right! It allows you to get something from nothing timelessly. Back to the drawing board... Sorry about that.

devans99 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 28, 2018 1:10 pm Oh dear thats not quite right! It allows you to get something from nothing timelessly. Back to the drawing board... Sorry about that.

What I am about to say is not intended to dissuade you from formulating your theories, however, in my personal opinion, here is the crux of the dilemma:

If you have absolute nothingness, then there is absolutely no way for anything whatsoever (neither life nor matter) to come into existence – period, end of story.

On the other hand, if you have “something” that acted as the precursor to the genesis of life and matter (which obviously there was), then how and from what did that precursory “something” come from?

Indeed, that’s what instigates the problem of infinite regress.

As I stated elsewhere, the mystery seems to be so profound that I wonder if even God knows the answer, because even God’s existence would surely have been dependent upon some form of “precursory conditions”...

...(if not, then we’re again back to the impossible problem of how somethingness could arise from nothingness).

The point is that when it comes to the existence of life and matter (in any form, or at any level, or in any alternate context of reality), then neither a perfectly worded theory regarding “circular time” nor saying that “God did it” is going to resolve the deeper issue.
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I don't see much of a mistery here. Causality only applies to spacetime (in the "underlying" QM there is no cause and effect, just "correlations"), and spacetime may be circular, a closed loop. But otherwise reality just exists without a cause, there is something rather than nothing without a cause, without reason, and it's all timeless. Just how else could it be? Infinite regress solved, no First cause needed, no Creator needed.

Atla wrote: ↑Sat Dec 29, 2018 12:07 am I don't see much of a mistery here. Causality only applies to spacetime (in the "underlying" QM there is no cause and effect, just "correlations"),...

From where, exactly, did that which is capable of having “correlations” come from? - That's the mystery.

Atla wrote: ↑Sat Dec 29, 2018 12:07 am ...and spacetime may be circular, a closed loop.

A closed loop constructed from what?

Again, where did the constituents that were able to form themselves into a closed loop come from?

Atla wrote: ↑Sat Dec 29, 2018 12:07 am ...But otherwise reality just exists without a cause, there is something rather than nothing without a cause, without reason, and it's all timeless. Just how else could it be?

“Just how else could it be?” is precisely the mystery at hand.

In which case, your suggestions seem to be more of a surrendering to the depth of the mystery, rather than an actual answer that makes any sense.

Atla wrote: ↑Sat Dec 29, 2018 12:07 am Infinite regress solved,...

No it isn’t,...

...not if you cannot provide a logical explanation regarding the “origin” of the fundamental essence from which life and matter are constructed.

Atla wrote: ↑Sat Dec 29, 2018 12:07 am ...no First cause needed,...

A first cause may not be needed, but only if one is easily satisfied with question-begging solutions.

Atla wrote: ↑Sat Dec 29, 2018 12:07 am ...no Creator needed.

Absolutely none of your (or devans99’s) assumptions can even remotely explain how the order of the universe was achieved without some kind of guiding intelligence – (to understand what I am getting at, see this post here: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=23943&start=45#p357784)

And if that isn’t problematic enough, devans99 wants to make it infinitely worse (literally) by assuming that the order has been achieved over and over again (each time by sheer “chance”) in an eternally looping cycle of bangs and crunches.
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seeds wrote: ↑Sat Dec 29, 2018 7:01 pmFrom where, exactly, did that which is capable of having “correlations” come from? - That's the mystery.

I don't understand the question. I rather meant that there are no separable parts to reality, it isn't coming from anywhere.

A closed loop constructed from what?

Again, where did the constituents that were able to form themselves into a closed loop come from?

I don't understand the question. The loop is just there within "timeless eternity", it didn't come from anywhere. You could say it has "always been there". It's an inseparable part of reality.

“Just how else could it be?” is precisely the mystery at hand.

In which case, your suggestions seem to be more of a surrendering to the depth of the mystery, rather than an actual answer that makes any sense.

You got it backwards. Causality is the odd phenomenon, and then you are projecting causality beyond spacetime, which makes no sense.

No it isn’t,...

...not if you cannot provide a logical explanation regarding the “origin” of the fundamental essence from which life and matter are constructed.

Time is circular, it has no origin. There is no such thing as a fundamental essence. Life and matter aren't "constructed".

A first cause may not be needed, but only if one is easily satisfied with question-begging solutions.

Haven't seen a valid question so far. Every "problem" you've mentioned is merely a product of your own way of thinking, as usual.

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Absolutely none of your (or devans99’s) assumptions can even remotely explain how the order of the universe was achieved without some kind of guiding intelligence – (to understand what I am getting at, see this post here: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=23943&start=45#p357784)

That's a different problem. We have basically come up with two ideas for this one so far: God and multiverse (infinite multiversal field).

I consider the multiverse idea the natural and simpler hypothesis, so I go with that one. Of course many people in a monotheist culture will have "God-experiences" during their lives, that's just natural but no need to take these seriously.

And if that isn’t problematic enough, devans99 wants to make it infinitely worse (literally) by assuming that the order has been achieved over and over again (each time by sheer “chance”) in an eternally looping cycle of bangs and crunches.

I'm not entirely sure what he means, but circular time is NOT an eternally looping cycle. There is only one "cycle" because it's circular, not an infinite spiral. That's why it solves the infinite regress problem, it's the only valid solution I know of.

(edit: although there is a variation on circular time, where "our" universe goes through a finite number of cycles, 6 for example, and these form a closed chain, a closed loop.. in fact I have a pet theory that the universe is made of 6 cycyles, each cycle made of 6 parallel realms, and the total sum of matter and antimatter are equal across the realms)