Atheism and the existence of peanut butter

[polymath257]

But if there was no beginning, then the time interval between any two *actually existing* times is always finite.

So what ? In an eternal past, there are infinitely many segments of finite time. [/o? No contradiction there that I can see.

Yes, I am talking about an *actually infinite* past. In other words, that there i no beginning. In other words, that there is an infinite regress of causes.

Why would *that* imply we 'could never get here'?

Because if there is no finite past, there can't be a present moment. An actually infinite past will take an infinite amount of wait by definition. Waiting infinitely for X means that X never happens, period.

What 'wait'? From when to when?

Once again, you make a claim that is irrelevant to the point. An infinite amount of time has *already* happened at any point of time. So there is no waiting that needs to be done.

Think of the negative integers. There are infinitely many numbers before 0, but yet 0 certainly appears. And yes, the collection of numbers before 0 is an *actual* infinity.

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Give a detailed argument why there could not be an infinite past that doesn't simply claim that we could not 'get here' without an argument *why* we couldn't.

In particular, when you say we couldn't 'get here', exactly *from where* are you saying it is impossible?

Precisely, because there is no *from where*. There is no starting point when we assume an infinite past. You can't just pick a moment and start with it, if you do that, you are not talking about an actual infinity any more, you will be considering the past a potential infinity, just like numbers. It's as if you skip all the (infinitely many) negative numbers and start from 0, false.[/quote]

EXACTLY. There is no start. it has always been running. At any point of time you pick there has *already been an infinite amount of time that has passed*. No starting point is needed! There is no 'infinite wait' because an infinite past already occurred.

Any negative number you pick already has an infinite number of precursors. There is no start. And *that* is the point: there is no start, But that doesn't mean the system can't exist at all. And, in fact, the negative integers show that there is no *logical* contradiction involved.