RJG wrote:Time can be proven to be INFINITE by a couple of methods:
OK, so you're seeking to demonstrate that the statement "time is not infinite" is self-contradictory and that the statement "time is infinite" is true by definition. Two methods:
METHOD #1 - Simple Logic
The first and most obvious is the logical impossibility of "something existing before it exists". [X<X is logically impossible]. In this case, Time cannot exist before it exists.
I agree that a thing cannot exist before it exists. I think time is an abstraction of change and I think another way to say that is that time is what is measured by clocks. So I agree that change cannot happen before change happens.
Which means there can't be a "beginning of Time", as "beginning" is itself a temporal word.
I agree that "beginning" is a temporal word. I take it to mean "the first event in a series of events" or "the first change in a series of changes". So I disagree that there cannot be a beginning of time because I think it's logically perfectly possible for there to be a first event or first change.
In other words, since "beginnings" don't yet exist in the absence of Time, there can't be a beginning of Time. And if Time had no beginning, then Time must have always infinitely permanently existed.
Time has always (at all times) existed. To say otherwise would be self-contradictory. That's not the same as saying that it is infinite. If time were a finite sequence of changes then saying "time has always existed" is the same as saying "if change is happening change is happening". That's clearly tautologically true but it doesn't follow that there is an infinite sequence of changes.
So method #1 hasn't proved that time is infinite.
METHOD #2 - Imagination Experiment
Imagine there is nothing outside this universe; it is the totality of everything. Imagine this universe has a big "Power Off" button/knob. If you push this knob, it shuts off Time, which in effect, stops all activity within the universe. It shuts off and stops all movement, motion, change, and interactions of matter within the universe. Pulling on the "Power Off" button/knob will turn Time, and all activity, back on again.
I don't see this as proving anything. The idea of being able to perform the action of pushing/pulling on the "power off" knob to stop/restart time is self-contradictory. So it just appears to be to be description of a self-contradictory thought experiment.
If you were to speculate that all changes in the universe might spontaneously stop and restart, I don't see any self-contradiction in that. But in that case, by definition, no time would pass between the stopping and the starting. So the speculation that it had happened would be entirely abstract, in the sense that it wouldn't correspond to anything real. The situations in which it happened and didn't happen would be identical. There would be no possible test that could distinguish between the two.
As you know I view time as a dimension (a structural element of the universe; the means by which 3D objects move/change/interact), whereas you view time as “change” itself.
Yes, unpacking that a bit: Ontologically, I see time as an abstraction of change, created by considering the set of all possible changes. Sets/classes/groups like this are abstractions. Individual changes are instances.
Epistemologically I see time as the thing which is measured by clocks, where the word "clock" is used in its most general possible sense to refer to any physical system which undergoes periodic changes. It would be meaningless to consider the passage of time in the absence of any clocks, when the word "clock" is used in this sense. It is only meaningful to consider measuring the rate at which a clock is ticking by comparing it to another clock.
1. But since “change” is just an ‘action’ (or the name given to action), are you saying that Time is also just an action?
If we're taking "change" and "action" to be synonyms then time is an abstraction of action, created by considering the set of all possible actions.
2. How then is it possible for this ‘action’ to occur? How is it possible for objects to change/move/interact as opposed to NOT changing/moving/interacting? What is the means by which this motion (change/movement/interaction) is possible?
Why would it not be possible? I presume you're talking about
logical possibility here? If so, to be impossible for an action to occur it would need to be self-contradictory to say that the action has occurred. Where is the self-contradiction in saying that an action occurred?
I would tend to use the term "means" in the context of causality. So I'd usually use it as an approximate synonym for "cause". We know from observations of correlation that some events are causally related to other events. So if any given change has a cause then that cause is another change. To say that the cause is time is incoherent to me.
From my viewpoint, change is not possible without a means to change.
If you say this then you're left with a problem that is analogous to the problem some religious people are faced with when they say that there must be a universal prime mover. (I'm not saying you're religious. I'm just saying that the problems are analogous.) They say that there must be a first cause and therefore there must be a god. i.e. they say that the first action/event/change must have been caused by something, and they call that something God. Our answer is to ask if that is true then what caused God? They say that God didn't need a cause. We then reply that if there are some things (e.g. gods) that don't need causes, why not just say that the first cause didn't need a cause?
You seem to me to be proposing a similarly metaphysical construct as the means/cause of change. If you're going to think of time as a thing which causes other things to happen then you're faced with the problem of what caused time.
A train cannot move without means to move. The track is the means by which the action of train movement is possible. The means for change is called Time (a structural dimension of reality).
I'd say that the engine is the means by which the movement of the train is possible. i.e. the event/change called "train moving" is caused by various prior events/changes like "wheels turning" and "fuel burning". To extrapolate from this to saying that the means for change is time is, in my view, incoherent.