I don't see how that follows, and I don't recall seeing an argument for that. Thus far, I've only assumed it for argument's sake. — S

With an infinite regress there is no first cause. If you remove the first cause from any chain of cause and effect, then the rest of the chain ceases to exist. So I think the axiom 'all effects have causes' is violated by an infinite regress - individually each effect has a cause but when the sequence is considered as a whole, there must always be a missing cause (because there is no start).

The argument is no different to the original prime mover which also assumes an infinite regress is impossible.

The integers (negative and positive) comprise an infinite linear sequence. What is its first member? Which integer does not have a predecessor? — aletheist

No, that's not right. Any member that you single out will necessarily have a predecessor, even if you don't explicitly include it in the part of the sequence that you're focussing on. — S

Sorry the predecessors argument I was using is not right. What I should have said is if the sequence of cause and effect goes back infinitely, it cannot have a start, or first cause. Meaning the rest of the sequence cannot be caused / exist.

There are twice as many integers as even numbers within any finite (and even) interval, but neither the set of all integers nor the set of all even numbers is finite. — aletheist

You are claiming:

- Twice as many integers as even numbers within a finite interval
- An equal amount of integers and even numbers in an infinite interval

This is nonsense.

But it seems to me that time wouldn't really end, it would just transition over and over again infinitely. — S

But that should be a potential infinity rather than an actual infinity... maybe... it's sort of hard to talk about outside of time.

What? It looks like you're running into contradiction again. If there's a member without a predecessor, then that must be a starting member. — S

If there is a member without a predecessor then that is contrary to the axiom of 'cause and effect' I'm using. All effects must have causes so all members have predecessors.

An example of a infinite linear sequence:

..., x2, x3, x4, x5, ...

So x2 does not have a predecessor. Or if you add x1:

..., x1, x2, x3, x4, x5, ...

Now x1 does not have a predecessor. No matter how many predecessors you add, there is still a member without a predecessor. So all infinite linear sequences are missing a predecessor. So they run contrary to cause and effect - the infinite linear sequence is never fully defined; there is always a first member missing.

What's supposedly finite in that model, then? You say that it's not infinite, but you're describing an infinite loop. You yourself say that the same events repeat themselves endlessly, and that there's no beginning or end, which means that it must be infinite. There isn't a first cause or a last effect, except in name alone. — S

The 'current time pointer' loops around and resets itself at t=0. So infinity is never encountered; the pointer reaches the end of time and resets; not holding state beyond one rotation around the loop is a way to avoid infinity.

I don't see how the objections to an infinite linear regression wouldn't equally apply to an infinite loop. You say that if there is no first member in the sequence, then the whole sequence of cause and effect cannot exist. Well, there is no first member in the sequence under your model. You're just arbitrarily picking a member in an infinite circular sequence and calling it that, but the same can be done in infinite linear sequence. — S

With an infinite linear sequence there is always some member without a predecessor - an infinite linear sequence has no starting member so the whole sequence is undefined. With a finite circle, all members at least have a predecessor.

With a finite, eternal, circle of cause and effect there is a problem of where did the circling originally start. But this circle is eternal so beyond time so 'start' does not have a proper meaning. Thats not a great answer. I'm not sure on this point. Maybe God to the rescue? (Bit of a lazy option!).

By such (il)logic, there should be twice as many integers as even numbers, which is also not the case. — aletheist

Twice as many integers as even numbers makes sense. We can count them:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, ...
Vs
2, 4, 6, ...

Appears to be twice as many integers by counting up-to 6. We can us our knowledge of extrapolation to conclude that there are twice as many integers than even numbers.

A simplified version of my argument:

P1 The universe is everything
P2 Cause and effect apply
C1 The universe was caused by the universe (IE time is circular)

No, it doesn't. 4 might be twice two, but what could it mean to say it has twice the information? — Banno

The interval 4 is twice the length of 2 so it should contain twice as many real numbers. In our minds both intervals contain an equal and infinite number of real numbers . But I believe that could not be the case for any real life interval - the larger interval would contain more numbers/information.

So your mind is not in the real world? Infinity is not a thing like my cat or last Tuesday? What's going on here? Is infinity a thing like my mortgage? Like a unicorn? — Banno

Infinity is an illogical concept. Illogical concepts can exist in our minds but not reality. Faeries, talking trees, infinity we can all imagine but they do not exist in reality IMO.

If so, then there must be a first cause. Yet what is being called a first cause in the argument isn't actually a first cause, because it was caused by an effect which was presumably itself caused by an effect, and so on. So, there must be a first cause, but there isn't. :chin: — S

On a circle of cause and effect you do not need a first cause. All causes are also effects. You can choose a first cause but its arbitrary. I chose the Big Bang/Big Crunch as first cause because of convention.

"The only answer is that the first cause was caused by the last effect.
— Devans99

Which suggests an infinite regress of cause and effect, if that's his answer when you zone in on this point each time. Yet he says that an infinite regress of cause and effect is impossible — S

No it's not infinite. The circle of time is a finite circle. First cause (which is an arbitrary choice on a circle) always causes last effect. The circle of time is eternal - outside of time and finite. IE the same events repeat themselves endlessly.

So you can imagine if the circle was say 50 billion years in circumference that an event A might occur 10 billion years after the Big Bang. Then after another 50 billion years, event A occurs again. It is the exact same event A that occurs again; it's not an identical but different event, it's the same event.

How do you know? — Banno

Cause and effect is the axiom I'm using (or more 'specifically all effects have causes' and 'all causes are effects'. It might be wrong, but I think its a pretty good axiom:

Cause and effect does appear to hold for everyday experience.

For non-everyday experience, it may hold as well. Two examples from the quantum world:

- Quantum fluctuations are caused by a field and the field is caused by space (empty space is something - it has vacuum energy). Space was caused by the Big Bang. The Big Bang caused by the Big Crunch.

- Radioactive decay. Caused by the jiggling of particles in the nucleus under the influence of the strong and electromagnetic forces.

That makes sense. What does not make sense is that they both contain an actually infinite and therefore equal amount of information. One is larger than the other.

Only in our minds does the actually infinite exist; its not a real world concept.

Everyday experience tends to revolve around human beings. Human beings have thousands of hydrogen bombs aimed down our own throats, an ever pending suicide event we rarely find interesting enough to discuss. Are human beings logical? This is who you are analyzing a realm so vast as to be beyond our comprehension with, suicidal cave men. — Jake

We are just creatures of cause and effect. Our inputs determine our outputs. So we are logical entities who just appear to act illogically due to our inability to master the complexity of human dynamics.

The origin of time however is a cleaner problem than human dynamics.

Imagine an interval of 2 and 4 I mean...

Everyday experience leads me to believe nature is logical. My knowledge of astronomy suggests this extends to the universe as a whole. So I think applying logic to the origins of time is justified.

If the universe truly is illogical (and there is no evidence to suggest this IMO) then we have no hope of ever figuring it out. Might as well give up on cosmology if thats the case.

We have everyday experience to go by. Everything is caused by something else seems to be the way the world works.

We have no everyday experience of things being uncaused.

Hence I feel it is a good axiom.

everything is an effect, which is precisely what proponents of an unmoved mover deny. — aletheist

That is a very illogical belief IMO.

'Everything is an effect' makes sense as an axiom.

As soon as you talk about comparing the "amount" of something, you are quantifying it, and thereby treating it as discrete — aletheist

We can compare analog quantities perfectly well.

What part of "motion is more fundamental than position" do you still not understand? Giving the position of something to any degree of precision requires measuring its distance from an arbitrary reference point at an arbitrary instant using an arbitrary unit. — aletheist

You are clearly on a different planet to me. There is just no way a light year has identical granularity and structure to a centimetre; I think I will have to bail out! Thanks for the conversation though. Happy Xmas.

But the car can only be said to have instantaneous in a continuum; in a discrete world it would have velocity over a discrete interval rather than an 'instant'

Photo's require a non-zero length to exist (exposure time).

I think I will maybe adopt 'things need a non-zero length to exist' as an axiom.

My argument starts with the simple axiom ‘all effects have causes’ and proceeds via deduction to circular time.

You either disagree with my axiom or my reasoning. Which is it?

Not sure I see what you mean. A calculation is just purely in our heads; that does not mean an object actually has instantaneous velocity. Discrete space-time would make instantaneous impossible.

What about the analogy of filming someone for zero seconds? No film would exist. Film is a good analogy for time.

Ah sorry. The information can be in analog form; number of bits is merely a way to quantify it. Indeed that is the problem; the fact that position is given to infinite precision by the continuum means it is contradictory; all volumes of space-time contain the same amount of information no matter what size is clearly contradictory.

No, that progress itself through the space-time continuum (i.e., motion) is the fundamental reality; any discrete subdivisions of space and time are our arbitrary constructions. — aletheist

I don't think we will ever agree on this point.

You did not answer my argument that the information content of a larger region of space-time must be larger than a smaller region of space-time? It rules out all forms of continuum with a very reasonable axiom?

I just read the synopsis on Wikipedia. Does sound very interesting!

No.

I'm not sure where else to put it. The time cursor must have originally started at the Big Bang I feel. My argument suggests an eternal universe but it would still have to be built up somehow. So the time cursor must of started at a Big Bang, building up the universe as it goes and then spinning around and around.

Sorry if that sounds a little crazy... this is the outer edge of my ideas so please take with pinch of salt.

For a circle the choice of start/end point is arbitrary. In the case of the universe; the most obvious place to put it is the Big Bang/Big Crunch. The time cursor if such exists must surely have started at the Big Bang.

So entropy is not connected in anyway to time and vice-versa? — Pussycat

I think entropy is unrelated to time; they just happen to point in the same direction; one does not cause the other.

this process of big bang/crunch repeats itself indefinitely and eternally, right? — Pussycat

I'm not sure. I imagine the time cursor spinning around the loop of time a potentially infinite number of times but it's difficult to say.

I think time runs always in the same direction. Once the universe starts contracting and compressing, entropy comes down (smaller universe = less micro states) and eventually reaches zero at the point of the Big Crunch / Big Bang. But time does not need to run backwards.

The universe presumably began at the point of the big bang. It plays out completely deterministically until the big crunch where it returns to its initial state and then the time cursor spins around for another loop...

The axiom I'm using ('all effects have causes') pretty much rules out Presentism by the way:

What caused the first cause? There is nothing in the presentist model before the first cause except a barren, endless stretch of time. So it's impossible for the universe to begin.

Or what caused God? There is nothing in the presentist model before God but an empty stretch of time. So God must be eternal outside of time.

I also think that time has a cursor that moves in one direction only around the circle of time. This allows us to know the direction of time.

I think what happens with entropy during the big crunch is that the whole universe compresses down to a single discrete space time 'cell'. So the universe is in a state of zero entropy and also the Big Bang is identical to the Big Crunch at that point in time (t=0).

It seems time is uni-directional. Entropy increases with time and is then reset to zero entropy by the big crunch.

Bi-directionality I am not sure about. There is the quantum eraser experiment that possibly indicates information can travel backwards in time but that's a controversial interpretation.

The end of time causes the start of time. The Big Crunch causes the Big Bang. It seems the only way out of the infinite regress / chicken and egg problem with regards to the start of the universe. The other options are not good:

- An effect without a cause (an unmoved mover). It would have to exist for an infinite period of time and then start moving all by itself with no prior reason. Plus it runs contrary to the axiom 'all effects have causes' I'm using
- Something came from nothing. Magic IMO. Also violates 'all effects have causes'
- An infinite regress of cause and effect into the past. Magic IMO. Also violates 'all effects have causes'.

Time being circular seems unlikely on the face of things, but the alternatives (the above three) are all impossible with the 'all effects have causes' assumption. Obviously you can question that assumption but it seems common sense to me.

Time is an eternal circle. It causes itself. Nothing else is needed?

No, any real continuum could potentially be subdivided infinitely; it can never actually be subdivided infinitely. See the difference? — aletheist

I would argue that our progress through time is progress through the continuum at the most fundamental level so it requires actual infinity. As does our progress through space when we move. So in both cases our progress through time and space subdivides the continuum to an actual infinity.

Didn't you know that the mathematics of infinity is a kludge put there to force it into the arithmetic we use on finite numbers? — Pattern-chaser

Yes I think so. It was all motivated by misplaced belief I think: Cantor an Co thought God was infinite so infinity was shoe-horned into mathematics for that reason.

Nothing wrong with having a finite-sized God IMO.

How many times must I repeat that I am arguing for real continuity, not actual infinity, and that these are two distinct concepts? — aletheist

I see no model of continuity that does not need actual infinity. If you point me to such a model, I stand corrected, but they all seem to use actual infinity.

Any real continuum can be subdivided infinity so it it exists in the present or the past, it must support an actually infinite number of sub-divisions.

Only by ignoring the fact that the whole point of arguments for an unmoved mover is that there must be a first cause that is not itself an effect of some other cause — aletheist

But we arrive at the conclusion there must have been a first cause by consideration of cause and effect. So I'd argue the start of the prime mover arguments uses the axiom 'all effects have causes' and the abandons the axiom at the end of the argument.

And the concept of a first cause is illogical as is an infinite regress. When you eliminate everything else, you are just left with circular time as the only possibility.

The last effect.

IE The Big Crunch caused the Big Bang.

No doubt they would say the same about your arguments here — aletheist

My arguments are not shot through with paradoxes. Cantor's, Galileo's, Hilbert's Hotel, Zeno's... what a mess actual infinity has made of maths and science.

Paradoxes indicate an underlying logic error (actual infinity exists).