Actual Infinity in Reality?

[GrandizerII]

There are many people that do think the B theory of time is correct (physicist, cosmologists, philosophers).

And in fact, Einstein himself was a B-theorist with regards to time, calling time (or rather, the flow of it) an illusion.

General nor Special Relativity do not entail the B theory of time--it only implies that such a theory my be correct. BUT, more importantly, your belief there is no causal connections is NOT a part of the B Theory of time. If you think it is, it should be easy to post a link from a nice concise article on the subject.

What do you think B-theory means? Have you at least looked up Wikipedia on this?

Here's an article for you to read:
http://www.exactlywhatistime.com/physics...stic-time/

Quoted below is a relevant paragraph from that article:

Modern physicists therefore do not regard time as “passing” or “flowing” in the old-fashioned sense, nor is time just a sequence of events which happen: both the past and the future are simply “there”, laid out as part of four-dimensional space-time, some of which we have already visited and some not yet. So, just as we are accustomed to thinking of all parts of space as existing even if we are not there to experience them, all of time (past, present and future) are also constantly in existence even if we are not able to witness them. Time does not “flow”, then, it just “is”. This view of time is consistent with the philosophical view of eternalism or the block universe theory of time (see the section on Modern Philosophy).

Time does not flow => B-theory of time, which is consistent with the other philosophy of time: eternalism.

Here's a roughly 30-minute documentary video for you to watch on the B-theory of time, and how it is supported by modern science (unlike the A-theory of time, which is not exactly a scientific theory, only a theory in name and by convention):





With respect to change and events, what does it mean for time to not really be flowing? And what do you think the symmetry of time implies (as entailed by the laws of physics)?

I am a perdurantist, meaning that I am the sum of all time instances of me (in this local universe, in case of a multiverse). This is a logical implication of eternalism.

That does not answer the question. Yes or no--are you the same person you were in 2010 or will be in 2020? If not, you have temporal parts that are causally connected in a specific direction--from earlier than to later than.

I am not the exact same person I was in 2010 nor will I be the exact same person in 2020 (if I'm alive then). However, by convention and because we are wired to do so, we perceive the self to be this enduring entity that actually crosses time. It doesn't mean, however, that it does. Each instance of me is stuck in one of the time moments that are a part of this space-time reality.

No, it does not mean that I have temporal parts that are really causally connected, just connected. And direction, even if there is one in the objective sense, does not necessarily imply causal connection.

Human consciousness perceives causality from our temporal perspective. It's not an illusion in the sense that it isn't perceived. Rather, it is an illusion in the sense that fundamentally, causality is not a feature of the underlying reality.

Again, you have not shown that to be part of the theory. Can you explain why science is almost entirely focused on causation if it is an illusion.  It seem the claim that it is an illusion is driven by something else rather than science.

Then you haven't read enough articles on the B-theory of time. It is logically entailed by the theory. If the flow of time is an illusion, then what we are perceiving is an illusion. All the changes and events we supposedly witness are not really happening. It's all psychological. But it nevertheless serves an evolutionary benefit for us to perceive changes and events.

And, of course, science is going to focus on causation and changes and events much of the time, because much of the time, we are analyzing the world from a temporal perspective, assuming the flow of time, and because it's not a useless way of analyzing the world from such a perspective. Saying that causality is an illusion, fundamentally and ultimately, does not mean it is a waste of time to understand how this actual local universe works from a temporal perspective. Different aims/purposes, and different questions about the world, mean different ways of studying the world. It's normally when you need to answers questions regarding time itself that you jump some levels and analyze the world from a vastly different perspective, one that is atemporal.

How many times have I asked this: " We could not have gotten to our current universe without an infinite amounts of universes already being created. We would still be waiting for an infinite amount of universe to be sparked before ours could be sparked--which will never happen, because there still needs to be an infinite more that need to come first. Why can't you address this!?"

I don't adhere to such a model of cosmology. I think all universes exist eternally and simultaneously.

NOT SO. The B theory of time does not entail an actual infinite. The standard big bang models all have our spacetime manifold with a definite beginning.

If time does not really flow, then what can one say about "past", "present", and "future" time moments, other than what I have been arguing the whole time about them?

And even if there was what we may call the "beginning" moment, this is being said from a temporal first-person perspective.

Anything with a beginning is by definition not an actual infinite.

Actually, not true.

Remember this set?

{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, ... }

This is an example of an infinite set that has a starting number.

If something were to "start existing" it most certainly can be counted.

Which is irrelevant to everything I've been saying here.

One man's "counter-intuitive outcomes" is another man's absurdities. Notice the word I marked above - assume. If you assume an actual infinite, you are question begging.

We're assuming it in order to see if we can disprove it, via a reductio ad absurdum argument. Since you have failed to disprove it, then it's fair to say that an actual infinity seems logically possible. Or at least, we haven't seen a logical argument that proves it is not logically possible. And I'm being very generous here.

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Why are you counting *backwards*? Time moves forward! Nobody is counting backwards from today to the infinite past.

I'm not sure what you mean by there having to be an infinite number of *more* events before any particular moment of time. Where is the 'more'?

So, what we do *NOT* have is a situation

start----infinite time----now.

Instead, we have the situation for any point in the past,

infinite time----point in the past---finite time---now.

Bold mine.

I think what Steve means is, if we have time moving in a forward direction, how do we get to that one point in time from an infinite past?  How do you get to that single event in time without beginning somewhere?  If events are happening in succession, and time is infinite into the past, how would we ever arrive at a singular point in time?  Wouldn’t you have to start somewhere to get there?   I’m confused! Lol

Steve is assuming the A-theory of time, which is very problematic and a clear contradiction of modern science. What he seems to be doing is treating time as if it's this one entity (NOT a stream, but a "something" like a point/dot or whatever) which actually moves along from "somewhere" to "somewhere else", and wherever it hits, that is the "present moment". But according to science, time isn't anything like that. It's more of a dimension of space itself (similar to the x, y coordinates in high school algebra graphs), and all things in existence are already there and have already "happened". So there is no "arrival" to worry about. This "present moment" exists because it's always been there, being experienced by its corresponding instance of "you".