Regarding the infinite past, I heard a good riddle: if a clock has existed forever, what time would it show this moment?
This is a good one.
It would need to show some time, undoubtedly. But how do we know how it was set, if it was never set? Remember, it had no beginning, no manufacturing date. It has existed for ever. It shows some time, as it is a regular clock. What is the time it shows?
Yeeee-haaaw! — god must be atheist
Create means "bring something into existence". This cannot be done for something that has always existed. — Down The Rabbit Hole
Why not? — Raymond
Dear rabbit, I have personally written a blog or two and collected and published data on the topic (non-being) of nothing. You may also find L.M. Krauss "A Universe from Nothing" an intriguing read.
I have not learned much from reading three pages of comments on here. I will tell you my vote is that time is perpetual and infinite in both directions.
Our newest Telescope, Webb's, will reveal more about the nature of time and the beginning of our universe (cosmology). . — Josh Alfred
Talk of totals assumes finitude - to say the planets total the same number of orbits you need finite numbers to compare; instead it seems right to say that one planet has always done more orbits than the other; it’s only if they were finite that at any point they could have done the same number. — AJJ
Speed one up all you like. I’m saying talk of them doing the same number of orbits assumes finitude - if they’ve been going forever there is no total number of orbits to compare. The most you could say is that, given any stretch of time within that infinity, one planet has invariably done more orbits that the other. — AJJ
I’m not sure I’d call it absurd, because what you’re identifying again is simply that there isn’t a total to be added to, which given an infinite past is necessarily so. We can still say that one planet does so many orbits per year and the other does this many; in this light the lack of a grand total for each seems something to be accepted as necessary and unimportant. — AJJ
Sorry to move the goalposts, but what if instead of the orbiting planets it's an infinitely ticking clock — Down The Rabbit Hole
It’s necessarily impossible to say what time it would show, precisely because it’s an infinite clock. If you saw it and it read 12 o’clock then the explanation for that would be that it said 11 o’clock an hour ago and 10 o’clock the hour before that, and there would be nothing more to it. — AJJ
It strikes me that in neither case (the planets and the clock) is there a logical problem. It’s just that there are things missing or that you can’t do given the nature of infinity. — AJJ
Having always existed means it didn't start to exist. — Down The Rabbit Hole
But still... The eternal can be created from outside of spacetime. — Raymond
I'm not sure where your preoccupation with number of periods of planets? If you increase the number of the revolutions of one planet in particular, what's the problem? — Raymond
Ah! It's here that you make a wrong assumption. There is no clock tic-tac-ing eternally. Only an infinite sequence of clocks taking of from perfect clock states. The universe is eternal but there is an infinite succession of beginnings in time. An infinite eternal universe isn't a physical possibility. If there were no point zero in time life could not develop. It would be a time and spaceless universe devoid of matter. I.e. a nothing.
The steady state universe enjoyed some popularity but was not tenable. — Raymond
The ticking of a clock is an example to test an infinite chain of events (in this case the infinite ticks). Each of the "infinite succession of beginnings in time" you refer to is like the tick of a clock. — Down The Rabbit Hole
Although this infinite series of bangs runs into the paradoxes, it might be the most plausible option. Sir Roger Penrose seems to think so. — Down The Rabbit Hole
Aristotle started the trend by pointing out that the world cannot possibly have been created out of nothing — Olivier5
That's also extremely dishonest to use the quote function to attribute to someone something they never said- reported, btw — Seppo
It’s necessarily impossible to say what time it would show, precisely because it’s an infinite clock. If you saw it and it read 12 o’clock then the explanation for that would be that it said 11 o’clock an hour ago and 10 o’clock the hour before that, and there would be nothing more to it. — AJJ
You’re right, but does the contradiction make impossible an infinite past or just an infinite stopwatch? I’d say the latter, since a stopwatch doesn’t run in cycles so its count necessarily has a beginning. — AJJ
Yes, ostensibly a clock that has always been ticking cannot exist. — Down The Rabbit Hole
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