(February 15, 2018 at 12:05 am)Jörmungandr Wrote:(February 14, 2018 at 11:15 pm)Whateverist Wrote: My naive intuitions balk more at the idea of a first moment than at the idea that there will always be another moment before any moment you choose. To insist that there was once a brand spanking new, first ever moment before which there was no before .. certainly requires a lot of support.
The idea is very reminiscent of the same question about space. If there is an end to space, what lies on the other side of that boundary? If there is always an 'other side' to any boundary in space, then surely it must be infinite? Some stomp their feet and declare that there is nothing on the other side, so space is finite. Others point out that this doesn't make sense; how can there not be 'something' on the other side, even if only empty space? It seems to me that our questions about whether time and space are infinite or not rest upon questions which, by their very assumptions, admit of no answer one way or the other. It seems to me an obvious sign that the question is in some sense malformed. That it makes no sense to claim either based upon what appears to be nothing more than questions that seem to simply reflect our ignorance about the matter as a whole. Garbage in, garbage out. If the assumptions, intuitions, and models behind these questions are flawed, surely our responses to them are going to be similarly flawed.
Well said. Thinking time goes back limitlessly certainly isn't anything I'm greatly invested in. The main thing is that for any reasonable question involving the past there would always be a time before that. Perhaps there is something we are missing given our frame of reference which prevents us conceptualizing time in a manner which renders the eternal/true beginning question moot. Perhaps. But I'm quite content to concede that the matter is indeterminable and therefore useless as at the premise in any argument.
