Sculptor1 wrote: ↑July 7th, 2019, 2:45 pm
devans99 wrote: ↑July 6th, 2019, 8:08 am
What I mean is a temporal infinity implies NO INITIAL STATE and everything requires an initial state to be fully defined/determined:
No. in a temporal infinity there is no meaning to "initial state". Nothing has an initial state and determinism requires no initial state.
All effect have multiple causes. You are using one way to look at reality and then applying a different one to offer a paradox
- A system (like the universe) has a state
- That state is determined by the previous states
- Existing forever implies no initial state
- So none of the states of the system can be fully determined (they all depend on that missing initial state)
No. There is nothing missing. "A state" is only a matter of perspective, in just the same way the idea of initiating an effect, is also a perspectival problem. Since we apply a sense of initiating things; we are born, we die. We switch from childhood to adulthood. Yet these are all subjective to our lived experience. But when you step back for a moment NONE of these things ever has an
initiation. A birth is just part of a process of growth.
An example would be from pool. The initial state is the balls racked. That initial state is a determinant all the subsequent states. If the initial state is removed (take the balls away) there are no subsequent states.
Just a matter of convenience. Ask yourself this. Is the initiating moment of a game of pool, when they balls are stacked; when the rack frame comes off the balls; when the first shot happens; when someone offers you a game; or when you decided to go out tonight and find a pool hall. Maybe it was the moment those balls came off the production line?
So where is your initial state?
Nowhere.
Everything has to an initiation. Or are you are saying you think you could exist without being born?
Would you agree that any system, studied over a finite period of time, has an initial state that determines all subsequent states? It is that initial state that makes all the subsequent states real. So if we now extend out to a system studied over an infinite period of time, then there is no initial state (because -∞ / past eternity has no start by definition). A start of time is required to make the contents of the universe 'real'.
So with pool, the choice of the initiating moment can be varied according to the period of time we consider, but there must be an initiating moment and that is not possible with a past infinity of time - no pool and no universe.
One example I gave on another thread: imagine an eternally existing clock. What time does it read now? Past eternity has no start - so the clock never started keeping time - so it cannot have a current time. In fact the clock never started existing either so it does not exist. Same argument applies to the universe.
So past time must be finite. There are many other arguments for this. Here is one:
1. If past time is infinite the universe should go through all possible states eventually
2. But some states are equilibrium states
3. Isolated systems naturally tend towards equilibrium with time
4. Once equilibrium is reached, no further change in the universe is possible
5. Example equilibrium states would be all matter in the universe in one gigantic black hole, or all matter converted to energy
6. So because we are not in equilibrium, time must be finite
Or I could argue from the BB, or entropy, or the measure problem, or the impossibility of the actually infinite, or BGV theorem. I think 'past time is infinite' is not a defensible position - there is just too much evidence on the other side of the debate.