Actual Infinity in Reality?

[SteveII]

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.

I'm not so sure. Perhaps he was, but relativity/time dilation is not B Theory. From your same article:

According to Einstein, then, time is relative to the observer, and more specifically to the motion of that observer. This is not to say that time is in some way capricious or random in nature – it is still governed by the laws of physics and entirely predictable in its manifestations, it is just not absolute and universal as Newton thought (see the section on Absolute Time), and things are not quite as simple and straightforward as he had believed.

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.

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 understand B Theory of Time just fine. I have actually seen the video and read at least a dozen articles on it. My problem with you is that you think that the theory does away with causation. It does not. Even if you believe that all time slices (past, present, future) are equally real, they are all ordered by a causal connections in one direction. Fruit rots in one direction. Baby horses always preceded adult horses. These connections can be drawn with exact precision--that is literally what science does. There is nothing in B Theory that gets around this. You are adding a layer on top and calling it B Theory.

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.

I think your theory (which is not B Theory) is a real fringe theory and you would be hard pressed to find an article on. The business of science is exactly opposite of what you just said in that last sentence. For some reason, you got it in your head that B Theory of Time entails this. Find an article. 

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.

I see one of your problems. You said "causality is an illusion". You will not find that phrase anywhere in an article of B Theory. The typical description is the "flow of time is an illusion". 

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.

That is a metaphysical claim with very thin reasoning. We only know about the laws of physics in our universe. Extrapolating what appears to be a finite universe into a spacetime manifold for all universes ever is a stretch. HOWEVER, that doesn't really answer the question. Regardless of your insistence, there would still be measurable causal connections all the way back through the time slices and you are back up against my point above. 

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.

Not so at all. If the universe had a beginning, the spacetime manifold had an absolute beginning. Has nothing to do with observer position. The fact that all timeslices were created at once does not mean there was a first time slice in the sequence. 

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.

Your example is a potential infinite set -- not an actual infinite. Two very different things. This distinction is important for this whole discussion. 

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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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".

For this discussion, I assumed all along B Theory (even though I don't believe it) because it does not matter to my point. Time is one thing. Space is another. They both exist. Treated together, we have spacetime. You can break them back up and do equations and put them back together again. You think I am talking about A theory, but its because you don't understand B theory. 

"Arriving" to the present is a handy placeholder. You still have causal connections all the way to whatever "present" you want to observe. You can't avoid it by mincing words.

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Why (Almost All) Cosmologists are Atheists

Interestingly, here's what Sean Carroll had to say on causality from the paper linked to in the quote:

In particular, we should emphasize that there is no place in this view for common philosophical concepts such as “cause and effect” or “purpose”. From the perspective of modern science, events don’t have purposes or causes; they simply conform to the laws of nature. In particular,
there is no need to invoke any mechanism to “sustain” a physical system or to keep it going; it would require an additional layer of complexity for a system to cease following its patterns than for it to simply continue to do so. Believing otherwise is a relic of a certain metaphysical way of thinking; these notions are useful in an informal way for human beings, but are not a part of the rigorous scientific description of the world. Of course scientists do talk about “causality”, but this is a description of the relationship between patterns and boundary conditions; it is a derived concept, not a fundamental one. If we know the state of a system at one time, and the laws governing its dynamics, we can calculate the state of the system
at some later time. You might be tempted to say that the particular state at the first time “caused” the state to be what it was at the second time; but it would be just as correct to say that the second state caused the first. According to the materialist worldview, then, structures and patterns are all there are — we don’t need any ancillary notions.

So it's not an idiosyncratic view I just happen to personally hold. This is the view on causality that physicists themselves adhere to as well.

He didn't say anything i haven't been saying. I understand the B Theory of Time. But we still have "connections" (see highlighted). I called them "causal connections" for convenience. A rotting apple is still connected to the good apple. The baby horse always precedes the adult horse in these connections. You are grasping onto a couple of phrases and reading things into it. Of course if time slices are equally real, you cannot say one caused the next. But you cannot say they are not linked!!!! Those links can be followed backwards through the slices.