RE: Presentism and Infinite Chain of Past Events
December 11, 2017 at 12:49 pm
(This post was last modified: December 11, 2017 at 1:03 pm by Edwardo Piet.)
(December 11, 2017 at 12:35 pm)SteveII Wrote: You articulated the problem very well to Hammy. How do you have the Dec 11 timeslice which is causally dependent on the previously ordered timeslice which is causally dependent on the previously ordered timeslice...forever? You are still postulating a past-infinite series of causes that can be ordered according to a causal principle (leaving time/temporal language out of it because it is irrelevant). This is the same logical impossibility you presented to Hammy.
Well this is why I think the universe isn't infinite. Like I've said before, it's eternal but finite. There are no problems of infinite causation in a finite universe. And how could there be?
As for science, I don't think science is or even can be relevant here if we're talking about the philosophy and logic of the existence of the phenomena of time itself rather than the philosophy and logic of the existence of our experience of the phenomena of time as studied by scientists via empircism + theorizing about their empircal findings.
(December 11, 2017 at 12:46 pm)wallym Wrote: Physicists have and continue to wrestle with the idea of nothing as we speak.
No they don't. Labeling something as "nothing" isn't wrestling with nothing. Laurence Krauss himself has been criticized for this both by other physics and philosophers. The science he does is all good and right, but if he thinks that he's found nothing he's very confused. Kraus is an example of someone who is a world class scientist but very poor philosopher.
The science behind the scientific model of atoms is all good and right too. But this does not mean that when scientists split the atom they split the unsplitable. And nor does finding "empty space teeming with quantum activity" mean you've found nothing. No, what you've found, is the physical evidence of the empirical discovery of what seems to be empty space teeming with quantum activity. That very much is not nothing. There isn't anything that is nothing.
Give me one example of nothing that can be wrestled with. And I can guarantee you, you won't have given me anything to be wrestled with.
(December 11, 2017 at 12:35 pm)SteveII Wrote: You articulated the problem very well to Hammy. How do you have the Dec 11 timeslice which is causally dependent on the previously ordered timeslice which is causally dependent on the previously ordered timeslice...forever?
You can't. That's why existence is finite or time is and/or causation is an illusion (or both).
