Your consciousness will be mine.

Just got to kill myself first...

(September 14, 2012 at 5:55 pm)automaton Wrote: In an infinite amount of time it's IMPOSSIBLE for everything to not occur infinitely, even if that everything is also infinitely varied. If there's an infinite amount of time, I would say it IS necessary that all of them must be repeated. Infinity isn't a finite number, so we can't treat it in the same way.

Simply stating that doesn't make it true. You have made a statement that in an infinite amount of time, each and every event must be repeated. How do you address the following objections?

1. How do you know that the number of events is finite?

2. Even if the number of events is finite, how do you know that it's not the case that only some repeat infinitely while others occur singularly?

3. The number line is infinite in both directions and yet each and every number occurs only and exactly once. None of them is repeated even once. How do you know that the same concept is not applicable to timeline on which the events represent mere discrete points?

Quote:If you want a true definition of physical time then you'd be better speaking to a physicist. I believe I've already stated why I thought that time cannot have a beginning or an end. This is because it seems to me that it is an analytic truth that time cannot have a "before", because the whole notion of "before" implies a TIME before. There needs to be a before for there to be an event of "starting".

No, it certainly is possible for there to exist an ultimate before, prior to which no sensible concept of before is even in theory possible.

If time is to be measured by sequenced events, there can certainly in principle be an signal event before which no individually distinguishable, even in principle, events occurs, and therefore there can be a start to time, prior to which time simple does not exist in any discernible manifestation. Hence that signal event is the start of time. There can also be the last distinguishable, and therefore sequenceable event, and that would be the end of time.

Ask yourself this, what would be time if there were no sequencerble events of any type anywhere?

If there can in principle be existence without time, then it is possible for there to exist an beginning and an ending to time.

If the amount of time between the beginning and the ending of time need not be infinite, then there is no reason to assert everything with non-zero probability of occurring over a finite period of time must have had time to occur.

So there is no reason to humor yourself by asserting reincarnation, however flacidly defined, has any reasonable chance of happening.

(September 14, 2012 at 5:55 pm)automaton Wrote: Most popular theories that I know of that are widely supported go against this notion (i.e. string theory). Either way, if you say time did not exist before the big bang then you come to the same problem that I demonstrated in response to the above post.

Look up virtual particles.

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(September 14, 2012 at 7:13 pm)Norfolk And Chance Wrote: We don't, and can't, know that to be fair.

Did the big bang come from a singularity or from a big crunch of a previous universe? Or something else? No way of knowing is there.

Going on with Stephen Hawking and Laurence Krauss on this one.

Oh yeah, they've made interesting claims about the universe being 0, and 0 doesn't need to be created, and obviously 0 isn't "something" therefore ruling out "how did something come from nothing?"

I like it, but...

(September 15, 2012 at 6:18 am)Norfolk And Chance Wrote: Oh yeah, they've made interesting claims about the universe being 0, and 0 doesn't need to be created, and obviously 0 isn't "something" therefore ruling out "how did something come from nothing?"

I like it, but...

Read a little more into it. I was as sceptical as you, till I studied further. Difficult to get your head round, I'm still struggling but well worth the time.
All the energy in the universe adds up to 0. Energy and dark energy. How Hawking put it, by creating a hill you end up creating a hole, the negative version of the hill. So you don't require energy/matter to create the universe. Also sub-atomic particles such a photons do pop in and out of existence, literally self-created and destroyed, and it doesn't violate the laws of nature. The fact that no energy is required for a universe and there being no time before the big bang, perhaps nothing created the universe. A spontaneous expansion.
Bloody interesting.

(September 14, 2012 at 1:22 pm)automaton Wrote: First off, hi

Secondly, I'm not close-minded enough to think that I'm definitely right with this, and the fact that it's not a popularly believed argument among rational people leads me to believe there is obviously a reason for that being the case. Nevertheless, I shall present an argument that I thought of a while ago and can't seem to think of any counter to it.

P = premise
C = conclusion

P1) If time was not infinite, there could be no point in "time" for which time could start.
C1) Therefore time is infinite.
P2) If time is infinite, everything that can possibly come to pass will come to pass an infinite amount of times.
C2) Therefore the function of our matter (our consciousness) will come to pass an infinite amount of times.
C3) Therefore our personal consciousness' will be "reincarnated".

The main problem I can see with my argument is that someone may disagree with time being infinite, but I don't see how it can be finite due to P1, and also the thought of "no time" just doesn't feel right to me.

I think my consciousness just exploded. So much wrong in so few lines.

I need a cup of sanity. BRB.

(September 14, 2012 at 2:14 pm)Ace Otana Wrote:

(September 14, 2012 at 1:22 pm)automaton Wrote: and also the thought of "no time" just doesn't feel right to me.

There was no 'before' the big bang. Time did not exist.

I've read this before but have never thought it very likely. No one now knows if on some larger scale than that which includes everything related to our big bang, it may be that big bangs are common place but greatly dispersed. We just don't know, and right now at least, we have no way to see beyond the limits of our own big bang phenomena.

From the stand point of such a scale, time may or may not be infinite but I see no reason to think it isn't. Time doesn't end when I die, when this planet we live on dies or even when our sun burns out. So who's to say if time ends when all the energy in what we call our universe is spent? And since time didn't begin with my birth or that of our planet or sun, who knows if it began with the bang?

In the absence of evidence, I'm going with the intuitive.

(September 14, 2012 at 7:13 pm)Norfolk And Chance Wrote: The bigger question for me is why do I experience my consciousness and nobody else's? Why am I me?

Simple. Brain chemistry.

You are a single organism with a single nervous system with a single mind. That's how we work. Stand-alone.

You cannot experience what you are not physically or biologically a part of.

(September 15, 2012 at 11:50 am)whateverist Wrote: In the absence of evidence, I'm going with the intuitive.

Our understanding comes from what affects time. Mass does. If all the matter/energy was concentrated to smaller than a sub-atomic particle, it'll cancel out the effects of time. Because pretty much, there'd be no time.
It's all down to maths really. If Hawking is wrong and someone can substitute another theory that better explains things and with evidence, I'll look into it. For the time being, I'm sticking to this one.
Go 18 mins in and watch from there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjaGktVQdNg