This is an argument that we will experience identical lives over and over again — Devans99
This is an argument that we will experience identical lives over and over again. — Devans99
This is an argument that we will experience identical lives over and over again.
— Devans99
Eternal Return - Friedrich Nietzsche — Gus Lamarch
Your argument falls down here because we can't assume that any intellectual conclusions we make from our limited standpoint have any reality other than in that we have experience of them.A final argument: I believe that the universe is a creation, implying a creator(s). So putting our God shoes on for a moment
2. Then there is no first moment
3. If there is no nth moment there is no nth+1 moment
4. But we have moments (contradiction) — Devans99
Being condemned to live forever would be literally a fate worse than death — fishfry
Why would God, who is perfectly good, make us live our lives here over and over? — Bartricks
Also the proposal seems incoherent. I cannot live 'this' life again, I can at best live another life that is indistinguishable from it — Bartricks
It would be awful to live the same life over and over. — fishfry
I don't want to close down this question, but rather contribute an appropriate level of humility to it. — Punshhh
I find this really iffy. I think 3 is straight up false though. If time ends somehow there will be an nth moment without an (n+1)th moment. — khaled
Not only that but I find the whole conception of "nth moment" problematic. There can be a moment but no nth moment. As in there can be a moment in time, but one that we cannot label with any number n, namely, if time is circular. If time is circular you can't label any point on it n without that labeling being arbitrary. However that doesn't actually mean there is no moments in circular time, that's absurd. You conflate not being able to count moments with them not existing at all — khaled
Yes, I agree, but not via the route of the intellect alone, but via the route of knowing yourself, on the assumption that in some way yourself is God. This knowing is of itself not an intellectual process, but rather a knowing of someone. The intellect would then be used to process and analyse this knowing.Great minds think alike they say. I'm not saying we have minds as great as God, I speculating that all intelligent beings would have a similar thought of mind so that it would, in a limited sense, possible to read the mind of God.
You would not remember anything so it will feel like living a whole new life. — Devans99
How though? It's not like your memories will transfer between lives. You won't notice you're living the same life for the 20 billionth time. If your memories trasferred then you're by definition living different lives — khaled
No, that only applies to distinct instants, not indefinite moments. In any case, what is the first real or rational number after zero? It straightforwardly begs the question to insist that only the natural numbers can be used here, because by definition they have a first member.I disagree, moments are arranged sequently so they must be representable by the real number line or the naturals. — Devans99
No, that only applies to distinct instants, not indefinite moments. In any case, what is the first real or rational number after zero? It straightforwardly begs the question to insist that only the natural numbers can be used here, because by definition they have a first member. — aletheist
It is possible to prove God is benevolent
— Devans99
Please do. All humanity awaits. — tim wood
Agreed.If the width of 'now' is zero, time never flows. — Devans99
As usual, this wrongly confuses "infinitesimal" with "actual infinity." The proper mathematical definition of "infinitesimal" in this context is having length that is non-zero, but shorter than any assignable value relative to an arbitrary unit interval. The proper phenomenological definition of "moment" in this context is a continuous span of time with duration too short for any sensible change to take place.'now' cannot be infinitesimal width because actual infinity is metaphysically and logically impossible — Devans99
What is this alleged finite, non-zero duration of "now"? On what rational principle can we go about determining it, rather than just arbitrarily defining it?So 'now' must have a finite, non-zero length which we can call a moment. — Devans99
No, "indefinite" quite literally means "not defined" (by anything). We directly perceive the continuous flow of time within the present moment, and then abstract distinct instants that stand in the relations of preceding (earlier than) and following (later than).Besides one 'indefinite moment' is defined by the preceding. — Devans99
The proper mathematical definition of "infinitesimal" in this context is having length that is non-zero, but shorter than any assignable value relative to an arbitrary unit interval. — aletheist
What is this alleged finite, non-zero duration of "now"? On what rational principle can we go about determining it, rather than just arbitrarily defining it? — aletheist
No, "indefinite" quite literally means "not defined" (by anything). We directly perceive the continuous flow of time within the present moment, and then abstract distinct instants that stand in the relations of preceding (earlier than) and following (later than). — aletheist
That's actually pretty good! But you've proved nothing whatever about God. At most you have given a demonstration that If.... And while the "if" enables, it also disembowels what it enables. — tim wood
No number can have a length at all. In any case, we are not talking about numbers, we are talking about time.No number can have a length greater than zero and less than all reals IMO. — Devans99
No, and I have stated this plainly before. I provided the relevant definitions, so please stop trying to impose others.So it must be the imaginary construct of 1/∞ that you refer to? — Devans99
Irrelevant; how we measure time does not dictate the real nature of time.How do we measure time? — Devans99
We cannot "prove" anything empirically, only gather evidence. What kinds of experiments could somehow demonstrate that time is discrete?It is worth noting that someday we maybe able to prove empirically that space/time are discrete. — Devans99
Again, we directly perceive the continuity of time. What more conclusive empirical evidence could there be?We will never, ever be able to empirically prove they are continuous. — Devans99
No, we already agreed that "now" is not a durationless instant, and all we ever experience is "now"; so we never experience any distinct moments, let alone an actual infinity of them.But in the second of time that started two seconds ago and finished a second ago, I experienced all possible instances of time as distinct moments - I actualised each moment. — Devans99
We had that conversation already.Likewise, when I move my hand, I actualise all possible intermediate positions. — Devans99
Positions are artificial creations for describing motion, not real constituents of the motion itself. Likewise for instants and any "distinct moments" that they allegedly define.No, the only actual intermediate positions are the ones that we individually mark. There is a potential infinity of such positions, but we can only mark (and thereby actualize) a finite quantity of them. Again, continuous motion is the reality, while discrete positions are our invention. — aletheist
No number can have a length at all. In any case, we are not talking about numbers, we are talking about time. — aletheist
No, and I have stated this plainly before. I provided the relevant definitions, so please stop trying to impose others. — aletheist
We cannot "prove" anything empirically, only gather evidence. What kinds of experiments could somehow demonstrate that time is discrete? — aletheist
No, we already agreed that "now" is not a durationless instant, and all we ever experience is "now"; so we never experience any distinct moments, let alone an actual infinity of them. — aletheist
Positions are artificial creations for describing motion, not real constituents of the motion itself. Likewise for instants and any "distinct moments" that they allegedly define. — aletheist
It is possible to prove God is benevolent but I don't believe one can prove him omni-benevolence? — Devans99
More fundamentally, however, your view is incoherent. As I said, if you're proposing cycles in time, then the present moment is also a future moment. I mean, how can you deny that? It is in the future, and it is present, and it is past. It is all three. Right now. Right now, it is all three. Yet they contradict. if an event if present, it is not also future and past. If it is past, it is not also present and future. — Bartricks
The idea that I could watch the film 'for the first time' numerous times is equivalent in incoherence to your proposal that we live our lives over and over. It doesn't make sense. — Bartricks
I imagine a moving spotlight rotating around the circle of time. Where the light shines, that is 'now'. So all moments have a real existence but only one is present at any time. — Devans99
Yes, assuming that you meant non-zero duration. Where we disagree is whether this non-zero duration must be finite, and therefore measurable.So a moment of time must have a non-zero width — Devans99
The only other definition of an infinitesimal I'm aware of is a number x>0 such that x^2=0. — Devans99
The proper mathematical definition of "infinitesimal" in this context is having length that is non-zero, but shorter than any assignable value relative to an arbitrary unit interval. — aletheist
This once again confuses measurement with reality.Energy and matter are discrete quantities so that means c^2 is discrete. But c is distance/time, so are these also discrete? — Devans99
No, I am claiming that all the real moments that we ever experience are indefinite.You are claiming there are moments in the last second I did not experience. — Devans99
This is the fundamental assumption on which we disagree--that the only possible positions are distinct positions.... every possible position the hand occupies must be a distinct position ... — Devans99
In fact, true continuity entails that there are possible positions exceeding all multitude, such that they cannot be distinguished; as I have been saying all along, they must be indefinite. We only distinguish, and thereby actualize, the individual positions that we deliberately mark.... and there must be a greater than any number of such distinct positions if space is a continuum. — Devans99
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