Therefore If you have an infinite past then there exists some past event that must of gone an infinite number of events to get to the present, but since addition from a point will always be a finite number, an infinite past is impossible and so would two event that have infinite events inbetween. — BB100
where P is the present and E1 is the first event that occurred before the present, E2 the second, and then all the rest — BB100
Now let us say, since there is a real infinite past then we can list all past events with the Natural Numbers in their terms. — BB100
Therefore there exists some event in the past that is an infinite number of events from the present. — BB100
The idea of time, I believe, presupposes a starting point from which to measure its passing. So I doubt that the past is infinite. — Sir2u
The method of ‘postulating’ what we want has many advantages; they are the same as the advantages of theft over honest toil. — Bertrand Russell
This is McTaggart's C series, which by itself is inadequate as a definition of time, because it lacks direction. The A series is also required to get past, present, and future.Let us Define Time as simply the whole set of ordered events. — BB100
This does not really define what an event is, which seems rather crucial for your argument.An event is the entire characteristics of existence ... — BB100
A visual is ( E(nth)....E3, E2, E1, P), where P is the present and E1 is the first event that occurred before the present, E2 the second, and then all the rest. — BB100
Indeed, and this was also McTaggart's assumption--time is composed of individual moments, whose contents are individual events--which I consider faulty.You are clearly assuming time is discrete and not continuous. — jgill
Why would anyone be restricted to traversing only half the distance to the wall with each step? If the first step goes halfway, and the second step goes the same distance, then you are contacting the wall after just those two steps. Zeno's paradoxes dissolve once we recognize that he is smuggling in a requirement for discrete steps that does not apply to continuous motion--just like assuming time to be composed of discrete moments, rather than continuous.Imagine you are facing directly a wall and every step you take is half the distance to it. Since each step happens one after the other, there will never be any step that gets you to contact the wall. — BB100
Again, the order is not the issue, it is the direction that is lacking; and this "visualization" wrongly treats events as discrete individuals.The order I thought I visualized with (E(nth)... E3, E2, E1, P). — BB100
Again, you are making what I consider to be a faulty assumption. In my view, time is real but does not exist--it is as it is regardless of what any individual mind or finite group of minds thinks about it, but it is not a concrete thing that reacts with other concrete things. Instead, it is a law that governs concrete things, enabling them to possess different abstract qualities at different determinations of time.The existence of time requires that what is , is no longer the case. — BB100
A statement is not an event, although it might be a description of an event. Statements can be true or false, but events cannot. In my view, an event is a definite change; if statement X is true at an earlier determination of time and false at a later determination of time, then an event is realized at a lapse of time between those two determinations, during which statement X is neither true nor false.A change of what characteristics in reality exist and what does not, meaning if a statement X is true and then not, then the we can say statement X is an event along with all other statements that were true along with it. — BB100
Why would anyone be restricted to traversing only half the distance to the wall with each step? If the first step goes halfway, and the second step goes the same distance, then you are contacting the wall after just those two steps. Zeno's paradoxes dissolve once we recognize that he is smuggling in a requirement for discrete steps that does not apply to continuous motion.
Right, but it is faulty because continuous motion does not require a series of discrete steps, going only halfway to the destination with each step. Likewise, continuous time does not require a series of discrete moments or events.First of all it is a thought experiment that says any point the takes half the distance for every change of distance to some point, then it will never get there. — BB100
Yes, that is McTaggart's A series that provides the direction of time.Past is before , present is the refrence and future is after. Right? — BB100
It is misleading to call excluded middle a law, because it is not universally applicable. Instead, it is a logical principle that holds only for whatever is determinate. At the lapse of time when a concrete thing is changing from possessing a certain abstract quality to no longer possessing it--i.e., during an event--that thing is indeterminate with respect to that quality, so excluded middle does not hold. By contrast, the principle of contradiction is indispensable--there is no determination of time at which the same statement is both true and false. Look up intuitionistic logic for an example of how this can be worked out formally.Your last statement is false because under the law of non excluded middle a statement has to be either true or false. — BB100
That is the mathematical continuum, not true continuity. I deny that the real numbers are truly continuous. A truly continuous line is not composed of discrete points.First of all, a continous function means infinite points inbetween any point with no gap. — BB100
No, again, I deny that time is composed of discrete point-like moments; i.e., durationless instants.The point is is there exist discrete points in a continous function like the Natural Number Integers in a plane. — BB100
I am confused by what you mean true continouity. — BB100
No measurement can ever be infinite, ergo there is no infinity in the real world. — A Seagull
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