The Extremis of Rationality

[Mudhammam]

There are points at which rational thought must break down and admit the fundamentally absurd. One such paradox is found in the origin of change, or time. Either time began or it is eternal, both of which seem impossible to swallow. The problem with a beginning of time is that it requires there to have been a time in which there was no time. This is absurd. That is, to say that time began to exist is to say that its non-existence preceded the moment at which it began. What else can "began to exist" mean other than that time was non-existent, and then - voila! - it existed? Furthermore, if time did not - at one time - exist, there was always the potentiality for time to come into existence, and so time always existed potentially before it existed in actuality. So, time was actually non-existent but not potentially non-existent (in other words, the existence of time was not an impossibility). If actual time had a beginning, then prior to actual time there was an eternity of potentially existent time. This is absurd. So, either the actuality or potentiality of time must be eternal. This amounts to nothing other than the observation that there has always been change, either actually or potentially. If there was a state in which change did not occur, then such a state could not but remain in stasis. For, if change did occur, then the conditions upon which the prior inactivity [of the state in stasis] were necessitated must have changed. But if those conditions were unmoved prior to moving, or unchanged prior to changing, then they must have begun to move or change as a result of those very conditions which necessitated stasis - a contradiction in terms - or as a result of an external force or mover. But the same reasoning applies to the external force or mover. Either that moved as a result of the conditions upon which its prior inactivity were necessitated, and in that case, the original problem surfaces, or it must have begun to move or change as a result of another external force or mover, ad infinitum. So, change then must either be eternal, à la an infinite regress of change, i.e. there has never been a state which was not preceded by another, or change does not exist. But an infinite regress of change means that a series of infinite changes have reached the completion of their set, as the present is its end term for which no future time has yet come into existence, and that amounts to saying that it is possible to traverse the whole of an infinite series. But an infinite series cannot have an end term because that is the very definition of infinitude - it has no end or final term. Again, this is absurd. And if we accept that change exists, this is the bullet we must bite when it comes to the question of origins: Either the universe (or multiverse) is eternal, and there is an infinite amount of past time, or the beginning - the something for which we ask ourselves "Why?"- arose from nothing, and there is no time preceding the first cause - the first cause being neither temporal nor eternal, but self-actualization from non-existent potentiality. THIS IS ABSURD. Of course, positing God as an uncaused cause does not allow one to escape the paradox for the reasons suggested in blue. Three options: No change exists, there is an infinite regress of past change, or change spontaneously arose from nothing. With respect to the latter two choices, the same dilemma, in a slightly different context (where change is substituted for cause) that faces the macrocosm (the universe) confronts the microcosm (man) when it comes to the issue of free will. That, however, is a different topic. This, I contend, is the extremis of rationality: it refutes itself.