Nine nails in the coffin of Presentism Thanks for the reply!
1. What exactly is an eternal being? He has no start in time (no birthday so does not exist). Ask him how he came about. He cannot tell you. So he can’t exist. Because eternal is impossible
ANSWER: It is non-sequitur that one without a birthday does not exist. Maybe he always existed. Maybe he is existence itself. If so, then it is non-sequitur and counter-intuitive that existence itself, has to have assigned to it, a period of non-existence prior to it. — BaldMenFighting
I don't think you can exist within time without a start, that would make you undefined. God(s), if they exist, exist outside of time and are finite in spacial extent.
2. Say you meet an Eternal being in your Eternal universe and you notice he is counting. You ask and he says ‘I’ve always been counting’. What number is he on?
ANSWER: Never heard this question before but l do like it, bravo!
Essentially, the Eternal being is beyond time, he is pure existence, no becoming, no deceasing. Actual infinity = everything present. Nothing remaining, hence no change, no death, no becoming (change = something new)
Within himself, he sets up a virtual machine and steps down, say, an eternal frequency, via a series of transformers (these are known as Intelligences, some call them archangels, l don't know if they exist or not but this is prominent in classical and mediaeval thought).
f = 1/t
if f = infinity, t = 0, time does not exist
as f is stepped down, we have various spheres where time, and thus reality (physicality relates to spatial dimensions, right? Which related to time) are felt differently
Btw it's absurd that you will meet eternity in the world. The world is within him, and that includes you. — BaldMenFighting
Im not sure I understand your argument, could you expand?
4. Assume time is eternal. If it can happen it will happen. An infinite number of times. No matter how unlikely it was in the first place! So all things happen an infinite number of times. So all things are equally likely. Reductio ad absurdum. Time is not eternal
ANSWER: It is non-sequitur that given infinite time, a thing will happen. Consider that an infinity of its not-happening would also happen, by the same token. So it's absurd to think this, and because it's non sequitur, l believe the absurdity is in the idea that anything can happen, rather than in infinity existing. — BaldMenFighting
This is a well known paradox with eternal time:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measure_problem_(cosmology)
5. Relativity suggests the existence of multiple presents, whereas Presentism demands one present
ANSWER: I've no idea what presentism & relativity are but if that is what they are, then great!
However, please regard the answer to your point #2, there would be at least 2 presents - one that of the Infinite being, which is the eternal present, and then there's the present that we feel, in our fake virtual machine reality, staged within that infinite being. — BaldMenFighting
I do agree there is a real possibility we are in a virtual machine. Time must of been created; it can't of existed Eternally. How do you create something like time? Virtualisation is the only solution I can think of.
6. Time clearly passes. Time cannot have started passing infinity long ago because there is no way to get to today (IE -oo +1 = -oo)
ANSWER: I believe the reply to your point #2 explains this. You have actual infinity where time does not pass, and within that, some virtual machines operating virtual realities such as ours, where time flows. I guess t=00 in those realities would be observed as Big Bang type events, which are backed up by modern science by the way — BaldMenFighting
Actual Infinity is not allowed in the material world (discussed at length here
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/4073/do-you-believe-in-the-actually-infinite).
I believe base reality would be timeless but finite.
7. The universe follows rules that are described by mathematics. Negative infinity does not exist mathematically; there is no number X such that X< all other numbers because X-1<X. Hence the universe is not Eternal
ANSWER: I don't understand this, sorry, maybe explain deeper?
At least though, we can agree that the universe is not eternal. — BaldMenFighting
To model eternal time mathematically, we need -infinity to represent past eternal
-infinity is a quantity less than all other quantities
But -infinity - 1 < -infinity
So -infinity is not a quantity
So we can't represent eternal time mathematically