Okay, you're right. I was going by what I assumed was a consensus that may have existed in philosophy since Aristotle. In fact, I think if a survey were done today with academic philosophers, most would "abhor" the infinite mundane. — spirit-salamander

Depends on who you ask. I would expect that philosophers of physics, and generally those who have a handle on the mathematical and physical concepts of the last three centuries would, for the most part, be comfortable with the idea of physical infinity in some form, particularly the infinity of space. Classicists and medievalists (such as might use the words "infinite mundane") may well exhibit the prejudices of their subjects.

Giordano Bruno could also be mentioned. Not directly enlightenment, but strongly influenced the Enlightenment. — spirit-salamander

Indeed, the influence goes all the way back to Lucretius, who praised Epicurus and his doctrine of infinite worlds - which, of course, was considered heretical in Bruno's time.

My point was about philosophers. — spirit-salamander

Well, you did ask about physicists. But so far I have found that scientifically and mathematically literate philosophers are largely on the same page with physicists on this. There are, however, both respectable philosophers and physicists who are skeptical about even the least controversial forms of infinity: cosmologist George Ellis, for instance, who has been making inroads into philosophy in his later years. But they seem to be in the minority.

Since Aristotle, the philosophers say that there is only the potentially infinite. — spirit-salamander

That is a gross oversimplification. Philosophers argued for (or at least insisted on) the existence of infinities both before and after Aristotle. The extension of the universe is the most common type of purported infinity, and it was widely believed in the ancient world until the Church made Aristotelian position on the matter something of a theological dogma. For example, both Atomists/Epicureans and Stoics believed in the infinity of space - they only disagreed on whether it was uniformly populated with matter and even other worlds (Atomists/Epicureans) or whether it was void beyond our world (Stoics).

In the West Aristotelian dogma began to crumble during the Enlightenment, and in modern times the infinity of space, at least, was thought to be pretty much self-evident. That only started to change with the development of topology and differential geometry in mathematics and of General Relativity in physics.

Nowadays you would be hard-pressed to find a physicist who denies the possibility of some type of infinity on principle. Even those cosmologists and astrophysicists who propose that the universe is finite in extent do so on contingent empirical grounds, and would readily admit that there is no decisive evidence one way or the other.

Such statements by Greene as these are philosophically irritating:

"If space is now infinite, then it always was infinite. Even at the Big Bang. A finite universe can’t expand to become infinite." — spirit-salamander

Why is this "philosophically irritating"? (He is stating the mainstream position on the matter, BTW.)

If someone just doesn't give a crap about what's good or bad at all, — Pfhorrest

Now I remember why my earlier attempt to engage you on this topic was a failure. Bye.

Is the philosopher allowed to interfere in these debates? — spirit-salamander

You know that philosophy of science is a thing, right?

And to the extent that they are genuinely trying to answer those questions and not throwing up their hands and saying "because ___ said so!" or "it's all just opinions anyway!", they're doing things as my theory recommends. — Pfhorrest

If you are not with me, then you are not genuinely answering moral questions? One can disagree with the answers that other people give to moral questions (as well one must), but to deny that they are being genuine is extremely presumptuous, not to say insulting. You have not earned the right to this stance.

Everyone makes moral valuations. Everyone decides what is right and what is wrong. As a moral theorist, what you are proposing goes above and beyond genuinely answering moral questions. It is incumbent upon you to explain why this theoretical superstructure is needed in the first place, and how we can know if it's any good.

You're asking where my views "find purchase". That reduction of the particular things I disagree with to just giving up is where that happens. If I'm right about all the inferences between things, of course. But that -- "don't just give up" -- is what I'm ultimately appealing to to support everything else. — Pfhorrest

You keep repeating this pitch, but it is unconvincing, because it is empty. If you can give us the motivation - What are we looking for? Why do need it? How will we know when we've found it? - then the rest is a no-brainer. No Pascal's Wager is needed to additionally convince us to go searching for answers. But I have not seen the answers to these questions from you.

You want to have a science of morality, but absent the motivating principles that underlie science, this is just a simulacrum, a pseudo-science. It's technical, but ultimately pointless.

No, I've said that if I am right, then every difference from to my view, if applied consistently, is tantamount to "just give up" (on answering moral questions). — Pfhorrest

Don't be ridiculous. Everyone is answering moral questions, no thanks to your theory.

That's just the big picture overview. If you want the full argument, I've done a huge series of threads on it here over the past year. — Pfhorrest

No, thanks. I entered one of those discussions once, and it went nowhere (just as it's not going anywhere here). I never got any answers from you, just a repetition of the same pitch.

If all the inferences making up my theory are correct, what makes it right is that to do otherwise ends up implying merely giving up on trying to answer moral questions, in one way or another; so every attempt at answering moral questions is at least poorly or halfheartedly doing the same things I advocate, and what I advocate is to do what's already being done some and working some, just better and more consistently, and avoid altogether the parts that, if people were consistent about them, would conclude with just giving up. — Pfhorrest

Well, all you've told me so far is "if I am right, then I am right." I still don't have any idea of where your moral philosophy gets its purchase.

the breadth or fundamentality I'm talking about here is relative to the sets of intuitions we're discussing

We're talking about whatever theoretical framework our interlocutors already have. — Pfhorrest

Unstructured sets don't have such relational properties. And even if they are structured, they can be structured differently from yours, as evidenced by every other moral theory in existence. Absent shared epistemic standards for evaluating such structures, how can you argue for yours?

I hope you would agree that those post-truth type of people are epistemically wrong, and that in principle philosophical arguments could be given as to why they're wrong, and why the scientific method is better than their unsorted mess of relativism mixed with dogmatism. And that those arguments hold sound even if it comes to pass that most of the world abandons science and devolves into epistemic chaos. — Pfhorrest

I don't know if empiricism can be philosophically justified - I doubt it. Fortunately for empiricists, there isn't much need for that, despite what you just said. Empirical intuitions are deeply ingrained, and social institutions for conducting investigations and accumulating knowledge will emerge and persist in the right circumstances.

Moral theorists are not so fortunate. We don't have much in the way of shared epistemic standards for evaluating moral theories, besides simply comparing particular first-order beliefs.

I view my arguments about ethics as like that. I know there's not broad consensus on them, but that's beside the point, just like it would be beside the point of arguments for science to say that most of the world rejects science. What's philosophically right or wrong, true or false, sound or unsound, etc, is not dependent on how many people accept it. — Pfhorrest

So what is philosophically right about your moral theory, as opposed to others, besides its being your theory?

Edit: I have found out that ‘Darwin’s doubt’ is not the thing I have described in the above. So that I don’t have to rewrite a load of things, just keep this in mind. — Georgios Bakalis

"Darwin's doubt" is a nickname that Alvin Plantinga gave to the idea that you sketched in your post (in his book "Warrant and Proper Function"), although the idea itself goes further back. (It is doubtful that it accurately reflects Darwin's own thinking; in context, Darwin was musing about highly abstract theoretical constructs like moral theory and religion, not basic cognitive function.)

Anyway, I don't think you will find answers to this question in formal logic: logic is not equipped to deal with epistemological issues like justification. You can, of course, formalize the thesis, but the result will be logically trivial, because all the non-trivial stuff will be encapsulated in the semantic content of logical symbols.

If you want to pursue this particular question, you can start with the debate around Plantinga's thesis (and you will quickly find that it leads deeper into the epistemological weeds - theories of justification, epiphenominalism, etc.)


What I found interesting about your stab at formalization is what should at first strike one as a basic error: You write pT to express that p is true. That is not how one would usually notate that in logic. In a logical formula when you write a symbol for a proposition, its truth is implicit (to express falsity you would use negation). But I think this notational error is telling: you are trying to express general theses about truth or consistency of an entire system. This will take you into very different weeds than what I referred to above - the metatheoretical work on formal languages and logic that goes back to Tarski and Godel. They won't help you with your epistemological query, but you may find them interesting in their own right.

But in any case, the breadth or fundamentality I'm talking about here is relative to the sets of intuitions we're discussing, and is basically a measure of how interconnected that intuition is to all the others, as in, how many others depend on that being true, and would have to be rejected along with it if we rejected it. — Pfhorrest

You can only talk about how moral beliefs are interconnected with and depend upon other beliefs after you put them into a theoretical framework. But we haven't agreed on a framework - that is still your argument to make as a theorist. We haven't even agreed that there must be a framework (your attempt to beg that question notwithstanding).

With empirical beliefs we have shared ways of establishing facts and validating theories. We have shared intuitions about the object of study, such as its objectivity and permanence, and that allows us to agree on how to conduct investigations, make progress and settle conflicts. None of that seems to apply to moral beliefs. We certainly share a good deal of our moral beliefs and tendencies, we have shared ways of transmitting and enforcing our morals, but I don't think that we have anything like shared intuitions about metaethics.

There are people whose moral beliefs conflict with yours (e.g. they value retribution, regardless of whether it increases your hedonistic metric of good). What are you going to tell them? That they are wrong because their beliefs don't fit into your moral theory? But they aren't buying your moral theory - why should they?

The point of that Russell quote on that topic I quoted earlier is pretty much that in doing philosophy, we're always going to start out appealing to some intuitions people have, and showing that other of their intuitions are contrary to the implications of those. If we're doing it well, we'll pick deeper, broader, more fundamental things, the rejection of which would be even more catastrophic, as premises, and show that other less foundational but still common views are incompatible with those, for our conclusions. — Pfhorrest

And how can you argue that some moral beliefs are broader and more fundamental than others? How can you even argue that there is such a hierarchy of moral beliefs without assuming your conclusion at the outset?

Now that's an interesting difference. I was speculating that one could capture the extensional features of retributive justice in a sufficiently wide definition of 'suffering-reduction', only that to do so would be trivial as the definition thereby allowed would be so wide as to just be synonymous with 'morally bad' anyway. Am I right to think you're suggesting here that no such definition could be made of even the extensional features alone? — Isaac

Seeing that retribution and reduction of suffering have different ends, it should be surprising to find that they never pull apart in specific instances. It is a common assumption that as an institution, criminal punishment serves to deter crime, but that is actually a questionable thesis. It is far from clear whether, how much and in what circumstances punishment has that effect. And what about private, non-institutional retribution?

If so, what features of retributive justice do you think fall into that category? I tried thinking along lines of your example of ensuring the perpetrators suffer, but even then could frame that as easing the suffering of the victim by schadenfreude. — Isaac

Well, one could say that doing what one believes is right satisfies an "appetite" and thus falls under the hedonism, but I wouldn't want to interpret Pfhorrest so uncharitably.

I understand what you're saying, but the manner in which I meant it is the manner in which your first proposition is undermined by your second. — Isaac

Not entirely undermined. I said that one could try to argue that retributive punishment is conducive to the reduction of suffering, but it wouldn't be a perfect fit, even extensionally (it doesn't always reduce net suffering), not to mention intensionally (it isn't aimed at reducing suffering). Trying to fit examples like punishment into the reduction-of-suffering paradigm is just as you said earlier:

like packing for camping and leaving the poles behind because they're longer than the box you had for the tent. — Isaac

What I'd be looking for, if you still think I've missed the mark, is an example of a moral position which cannot be (not just is not) construed in some super-widened sense of reducing suffering. — Isaac

Being a naturalist about morality, i.e. believing that moral intuitions and norms are the outcome of biological and cultural evolution, social dynamics, and other such natural factors, it seems reasonable to expect that common moral principles would be at least somewhat aligned with the imperative to reduce suffering. But by the same token, it wouldn't be reasonable to expect the alignment to be perfect.

Of course, I am not proposing a naturalistic moral principle (moral = natural) in opposition to @Pfhorrest's principle of reducing suffering. But if he is trying to start with widely shared, uncontroversial premises in building up his argument, he has to contend with the fact that, right out of the gate, people's moral intuitions aren't in alignment with his principle.

If one excludes the religious, then I think it is indeed plausible (trivially so) that "all that matters, morally speaking, is people not suffering", if you want to frame everything that way, you can. — Isaac

Actually, it is trivially false that all commonly held moral beliefs can be construed as being aimed at minimizing suffering. (I am including the "commonly held" qualification in deference to your social/semantic take on ethics.) Take, for example, the imperative to punish offenders. While it can be argued that just punishment, on the whole, tends to reduce suffering (by way of deterrence, for example), this is not so in every particular case. And in any event, minimizing suffering is not what motivates the imperative in the first place, even if it happens to have that side effect - on the contrary, what matters to those who adhere to it is that the offender does suffer.

If we survey current and past moral attitudes, we can find plenty of examples of moral imperatives that are not aimed at the reduction of suffering. I take it that @Pfhorrest and a number of others would not support such attitudes. So people disagree about right and wrong. What else is new? What are we discussing here? What's the point of all these threads and polls? To identify like-minded members?

It is my belief that the "preposterous beliefs" are the end result of moral relativism. — Fides Quaerens Intellectum

That's nice, but for this to be of interest to anyone other than you, you need to present a coherent argument against moral relativism. And before that, you need to tell us what it is that you mean by "moral relativism" and why it matters. Instead, you have this vague label that you associate with everything bad and wrong. Like Fascism! Everyone hates Fascists, right? And that's what moral relativism leads to! - Wait, what? What did you say "moral relativism" was again? Oh right, you didn't.

And prepending my quote with Mussolini's demagoguery, unsubtly implying that that is the position that I was defending (I wasn't even defending any position) is the last straw. You have lost any respect and good will that I have been giving you up to this point. Bye.

My question is for someone to spot the mistake in the above. — Georgios Bakalis

There is no mistake in what you said (other than some questionable choice of words). The mistake is in your misplaced expectation of certainty. Science and empirical investigation in general provides plausible beliefs, not certain knowledge.

No one believes this, that I know of. My point is that the horrific beliefs that I described are the end result of moral relativism. I have never met someone who would embrace the ideas I posed however. — Fides Quaerens Intellectum

But if no one believes in this purely hypothetical "moral relativism," then (I keep coming back to this question) what is the point of railing against it? It seems that the real objective is a bait-and-switch. To wit:

My intent with this argument was to point out that because moral relativism claims morality as an invention of humanity, almost no human, at least that I know of, would be ok with the morality that moral relativism represents. — Fides Quaerens Intellectum

The thesis that morality is the invention of humanity is not tantamount to the preposterous beliefs that you attribute to "true moral relativists." At least you haven't made that argument, you merely insinuated it.

This is an excerpt from another writing I did — Fides Quaerens Intellectum

PS-I understand that you are not claiming that morality is just a method for the weak to hold back the strong, but I hope this example illustrates my point. — Fides Quaerens Intellectum

Well, it illustrates some point, just not the one that you set out to prove. It is directed against moral nihilism, rather than the modest and morally-neutral thesis that morality is a human artefact.

As to why I point out the outrageous beliefs of true moral relativists, is to point out to those who claim to believe in it without giving it much thought, where their supposed worldview gets them. — Fides Quaerens Intellectum

And who would those people be? I mean, who would be the people who actually believe all the stuff you say they believe? Your mistake, I think, is in ascribing so many attributes to "true moral relativists" that hardly anyone would recognize themselves in your characterization. And that makes the whole project into an exercise in futility.

It would be better to target a more realistic position for your criticism, like you did here:

1. Moral relativism claims that there is no independent moral standard.
2. Judgements of value cannot be made without an independent standard.
3. Actions have value.
4. Therefore moral relativism is false. — Fides Quaerens Intellectum

Now, "Moral relativism claims that there is no independent moral standard" is something that we could possibly work with - if it can be made clear what you mean by independent standard. Independent of what any people believe? As if it was woven into the fabric of the universe - or the mind of God?

But how does (2) follow? You give examples of broad trends and commonalities in moral beliefs, but how does that show that they stem from some mind-independent standards? What you describe is perfectly consistent with morality being a product (or byproduct) of human nature and history. Why would we need to appeal to anything beyond that to explain these facts?

Couldn't you maintain all physical laws within two worlds such as gravity and electromagnetism but have it so that one is capable of consciousness while the other isn't? — Yun Jae Jung

Not if you adhere to at least a very modest type of physicalism: supervenience physicalism.

I'm saying if you could imagine a situation like this, it shows that physical laws alone can't break down the emergence of consciousness. — Yun Jae Jung

I don't understand what you mean by physical laws breaking down the emergence of consciousness. And I don't see how imagining what some people can imagine proves whatever it is that you are trying to prove (some non-naturalist conception of consciousness, which you seem to equate with free will). I get that you are trying to do something similar to Chalmers' argument for phenomenal consciousness, but I confess that I never bought his argument either.

Imagine that there are two distinct worlds that share the same physical laws but are different in that consciousness can emerge from one but not the other. — Yun Jae Jung

Well, you lost all physicalists right here (and a good deal of others who wouldn't even describe themselves as physicalists).

As consciousness is not physical in nature, it is not entirely bound to physical elements — Yun Jae Jung

That's another way of putting your initial assumption. So you have concluded exactly what you assumed at the start. How is that a proof?

It's the simplest possible form argument. If A believes in the possibility of x, a fortiori, A acknowledges the possibility of y. — Pantagruel

And you are saying that Dennett both believes that God is possible and denies the same? Show me, I am not taking your word for it.

And in any case, as you said, this is a trivial argument. Was it worth starting a thread for it?

I don't need to summarize his argument if his own beliefs demonstrate the contrary — Pantagruel

Contrary of what?

I don't follow Dennett — Pantagruel

So you are just making shit up.

This is a worthless OP.

Dan Dennett is known for his "no good reasons for believing" in God argument. — Pantagruel

I haven't heard of it.

However I also do not "actively disbelieve" in the possibility of God, in abstracto. — Pantagruel

Though like I said, I am not familiar with Dennett's argument, this doesn't sound remotely like your 5-word summary of it.

As previously stated, moral relativism is — Fides Quaerens Intellectum

Previously stated - where?

You are right that it's hard to imagine someone actually holding all the outrageous beliefs that you attribute to "true moral relativists." But then why do you waste so much effort beating on this strawman? And why do you insist on calling it "true moral relativism?" If anything, the closest thing that comes to mind is moral nihilism.

Most moral relativists, as stated above, are really absolutists — Fides Quaerens Intellectum

There's that "as stated above" again. Is this a cut-and-paste from somewhere?

Well, it's an awkward question, but, what in fact is probability? — denis yamunaque

It's a very legitimate question that has received plenty of attention from mathematicians (who invented the concept) and philosophers. Have a read: Interpretations of Probability

Now why would I not want Her to exist? :pray:

Belonging is never up to 'you', it's always a social matter. — unenlightened

Only if we are talking about social belonging, and even then it's true only of some groups, some of the time, but not all groups all of the time.

But I was talking about belonging to a category, not necessarily a social one. One can be a thief by virtue of stealing. One can be a kind person by virtue of having a kind character. (Now, some will argue that what character you have is not really up to you, but that's a different argument that I won't address here.) These are examples where being who you are is up to your decisions or your character. Appraising people by placing them in such categories is fairly uncontroversial. To complete the pattern, contrast that with categories that have little or no dependence on one's decisions or character, and you will find most of the things that you and I hold as unsuitable for judging a person's worth in that list: race, ethnicity, gender, age, health, disability, sexual orientation - and yes, nationality.

Because "races" are notionally physical demarcations, racism involves an an instant process of stigmatization and potential dehumanization based on arbitrary and immutable characteristics in a way that nationalism doesn't. — Baden

I am not sure about that. Race boundaries aren't so clear-cut (which is why there is no true race science, only pseudo-science); ethnic boundaries - even less so. National identification, in theory, is much easier: either you are a citizen or you are not; either you are from here or you are not. There are, of course, edge cases, but they are fewer.

In practice, of course, race, ethnicity, religion and nationality are often entangled in a messy way. A minority race, ethnicity or religion can make you an outsider in your own country, even to the point that your loyalties are suspect. In extreme cases, e.g. Rohingya in Burma/Myanmar, you can be denied citizenship.

What unites these identification categories is that belonging is, by and large, not up to you. It cannot be credited to or blamed on your character or your decisions. We are born into these categories, and changing them is difficult, if not impossible. (And even if you succeed in nominally transitioning from one group to another, e.g. by immigrating, it is still a question of whether you will ever fully identify with your new group and be fully accepted by it.)

I believe it probably really did happen this way, however, am amazed most scientists fail to see the mystery of it. — Joe0082

So how do things which are clearly and obviously not possible, given a material universe, happen anyway? — Joe0082

Why do you believe that "it probably really did happen this way" if you also think that it's "impossible" and that it's all a "mystery?" Who are the mysterians that initiated you into the secrets of the universe? Not scientists, apparently, since they don't know what they are talking about. Then who?

Probably because countries around the world tend to be conceived of as nation states, not as race states. — baker

Still not answering the question. Yes, countries are not races and nationalism is not the same as racism, but we knew that already. The question is: why is one good and the other bad?

You could say: "just because," and leave it at that, and that would be a legitimate answer. But then you have nothing more to say on the topic. If you think you do have something to say, then you need to tell us what it is that makes racism objectionable and nationalism unobjectionable - other than them not being the same, that is.

Aw, you have such a cute coat of arms!

"Make white people great again" is a ridiculous statement, but if someone were to say. e.g. "Make France great again" I don't see what's offensive about that. — BitconnectCarlos

Well, you are just reiterating the received wisdom that @unenlightened is questioning. And the question is normative, not anthropological. Racism is just as easy to explain in anthropological terms as nationalism (at least at the just-so story level). But how is it that racism is less acceptable than nationalism or ethnocentrism, when they are so similar?

When you see the Spanish flag you think about that bigot who hates gay people — javi2541997

When you see the Spanish flag you think: "Hm, whose flag is that?" :joke:

I don't really get the point of the poll. On the one hand, "ethical hedonism" is mentioned at the start, which refers to a metaethical position that I don't really understand (but I confess I don't know much about it). But the poll questions don't seem to be about metaethics - or are they? Taken at face value, the questions seem to be about personal ethical beliefs.

"Do you think that whether things feel good or bad to people is morally relevant at all?" Well, I believe that hurting people is usually bad, and pleasing is often good, so yeah? What else could I say?

Determinism: the doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes external to the will. — ToothyMaw

That's an odd way of defining determinism: it is more like a conclusion or an intermediate result. Determinism in this context is usually assumed to be causal determinism, which means that the state of the world at any given time, together with causal laws, fixes everything that happens at all other times, before or after. Conjoined with the belief that the past is fixed, this implies that the future is fixed by the past.

This should not be confused with epiphenomenalism, which says that if A fully accounts for B, then nothing else accounts for B. Here "accounts for" can mean being a prior cause, but it can also stand for any other type of explanation. For example, an epiphenomenalist might say that brain activity fully accounts for the decisions that we make. This is not a causal account, in the strict sense, because decisions on this account do not occur as a subsequent result of brain activity - they are brain activity. Epiphenomenalism is equally compatible with causal determinism and indeterminism. The epiphenomenalist in the above example would say that human action is not determined by human will (since it is already determined by brain activity), but she may allow that brain activity could be indeterministic.

Why does it contradict our common experience? — Tombob

I went to some pains to explain why.

Besides, the idea of time and space relating to (1) contradicts scientific facts. — Tombob

No, it doesn't. Our best cosmology hasn't delivered a verdict on whether the past is infinite, and it likely never will have a definitive answer to that question.

I was talking about time: "Imagine a growing number with an infinite past, that has been increasing each second of its existence." The concept implies physical impossibility, thus existing as an abstracticality, while our reality is existing as physical. — Tombob

Just because you managed to contrive a nonsensical model of an infinite past doesn't mean that you have proven a physical impossibility. I went to some pains to explain that, too.

To assume space-time cannot be caused, is to assume (1). — Tombob

No, to assume that space-time cannot be caused is to use the word "cause" in its usual sense. Causation is something that happens in space-time. But there is no implication from here to the topology of space-time.

While I am recognizing (2) as a possibility, I see it as highly unlikely. Where everything happens for a reason, it would be intuitively reasonable to assume space-time happened for a reason. — Tombob

"Reason" and "cause" are not synonymous. "Reason" is a much broader and vaguer notion. Even then, the proposition that everything happens for a reason is controversial, especially if you take it to its logical limit. I for one don't believe it.

And you seem to be dropping something essential, that has a commonly understood meaning; Big Bang. — Tombob

Huh? When did I do that? I didn't even mention Big Bang. Are you, by any chance, under the impression that Big Bang is your fantastical "infinite state"? It's nothing like that (not that there could be anything like that).

That is why I exclude 1. — Tombob

If you agreed with what you quoted, you wouldn't have excluded (1) for the reason that you gave:

I exclude 1 considering physical measurements would not be possible in such circumstances. Why? Because physical measurements need a starting point, which 1 lacks. — Tombob

That's what I've been objecting to, because it's manifestly false, it contradicts our common experience.

Imagine a growing number with an infinite past — Tombob

I can't imagine such a thing: numbers don't have a past. And we aren't talking about numbers, we are talking about time. True, we use numbers and other mathematical concepts to model time, but it is up to us how we do that; physical time doesn't come with numbers already attached. If you run into difficulties while modeling time, that may just mean that you are doing it wrong.

Here is a model of an imaginary eternal process that doesn't seem to run into any such difficulties, one familiar to any elementary algebra student:



Let's say that the horizontal axis measures time in some units, and the vertical axis measures some physical property. Time in this model extends indefinitely into the past and into the future. There is a zero, but it is nothing other than our choice of a reference point for the coordinate system: it has no physical meaning. If you ask: "What time is it now?" the answer will depend on this conventional choice of the reference frame. Nevertheless, change is happening here and time passes. Indeed, if we could measure the physical property pictured, it could serve as a handy clock by which we could measure the passage of time.

Can you break down and furtherly explain the last sentence?

Could an explanation of the cause of time and space be that it exists as its own cause? — Tombob

Our usual idea of causation is tied up with space and time: causation occurs in space-time, with causes preceding their effects. Therefore, causation outside of space-time makes no sense. Nor does it make sense to ask what caused space-time itself: it is not something that can be caused.

You can instead ask about causes of events, states or entities in space and time. But if you ask what caused something right at the beginning of time (if time has a beginning), then the answer will have to be that it doesn't have a cause, because there is nothing preceding it.

If you want to appeal to some unusual concept of causation, one that does not apply to events, states or entities in space and time, then you will have to develop that concept first and convince us that it is real. We may take familiar causation for granted within the context of a discussion, but you cannot expect us to take for granted something unfamiliar, just because you decided to call it "causation."

It would be immaterial, seeing as it exists with no regard to time and space. But I have no real explanation how or why it gives rise to time and space, other than its setting makes it possible. — Tombob

Well then it's not an explanation, but something pretending to be an explanation. If we drop everything that doesn't have a commonly understood meaning, then all that is left is a placeholder where an explanation is supposed to be. Giving it a name, such as "infinite state," doesn't legitimize it as an explanation.

What's funny here, is one of my themes is — schopenhauer1

Even if it was funny the first time, after countless repetitions it no longer is. I don't understand why the mods allow this sort of thing here.

What the fuck? How many of these copycat antinatalist topics are you going to start? There is no philosophical content here. This is ideological spam.

An existential beginning is required to be able to measure time. — Tombob

And yet here we are, measuring time all the time (as it were) with no regard to any such existential beginning. So this can't be true. All we need to measure anything is a measuring device (a clock in this case).

If time and space would have an infinite past, motion would be impossible, and its state would be unchangeable. — Tombob

I don't see how this follows.

It means that time and space came into being without a cause. — Tombob

Well, what would it mean for time and space to be the effect of a cause? We usually assume that causes precede effects, and that requires time to be already in place. No time - no causality. So if you are talking about the beginning of all time, rather than just the beginning of an age, then it must perforce be uncaused.

By infinite state I mean something that is existing with an infinite past. A framework that allows time and space, and everything in it to exist. It is immaterial, as physicality cannot have an infinite past. — Tombob

You lost me here. Something "immaterial" - that apparently exists within some sort of immaterial (?) time - somehow (?) gives rise to the physical time? This is "language on holiday," I am afraid. You just said some words, waved your hands, and made like you've solved the problem. But what have you solved? Where's the solution?

1) Time and space has been in motion without a starting point. — Tombob

I guess by this you just mean that the past is infinite.

a) I exclude 1 considering physical measurements would not be possible in such circumstances. Why? Because physical measurements need a starting point, which 1 lacks. — Tombob

The objection doesn't make a lot of sense. We choose the starting points for our measurements to be whatever we want, and the overall extent of time and space has no bearing on that - demonstrably so, because in no instance (other than traditional creation stories and such) do our measurements reference an absolute beginning of time and space.

And even if there was such a difficulty, that would not be a good metaphysical argument, unless you think that time and space have no mind-independent existence whatsoever. Reality doesn't care about our convenience.

2) Time and space came into existence by chance. — Tombob

b) I see 2 as a possibility, but unlikely, as it contradicts the fundamental observations of cause and effect in the universe. — Tombob

I don't know what either the thesis or the response even mean.

3) Time and space emerged through an infinite state. — Tombob

c) 3 is based on cause and effect. If everything is based on cause and effect, it ultimately leads to something that has its own cause of exstience; an infinite state. — Tombob

Ditto. I have no idea what you mean by "infinite state."

If everything originates from an infinite state: everything that has existed, exists and will exist has always existed. — Tombob

I don't know how that follows (since I don't know what "infinite state" is), but taken at face value, this is absurd.

This leads to the universe being deterministic. — Tombob

OK, now I don't even know what you mean by "deterministic." Since you constantly refer to "cause and effect" I took you to mean causal determinism, i.e. the idea that given the state of the world at some point (or slice) in time, everything that happens before and after is determined by causal laws. This notion of determinism is timeless, i.e. it does not depend on whether we are talking about something that has happened, is happening or will happen.