Broken Circle

Anti-Dühring by Frederick Engels 1877
Part I: Philosophy

V. Philosophy of Nature.
Time and Space

Just some text that is a relevant argumentation against the philosophic position that "time must have had a begin, since else the series of elapsed events must have formd an infinite set, which is impossible".

Sorry guys like I said it is a moot issue with me and not debateable. Have fun.

"Imagination is more important than Knowledge" -- Albert Einstien

<i>Originally posted by Mac</i>
<font color="yellow">Perhaps not except that the arguement which seperates time fromtime interval is a red herring. Where the arguement goes that time is not physical but a time interval is is flawed. It is flawed since if one accepts time as not being physical or a tangiable reality, then there could be no time interval to measure. </font id="yellow">

Comment: Physical events happen IN time (and space) which already means that the physical events must be different then time and space.
I.e. this means that time and space themselves, are not physical events or "things".



<font color="yellow">The problem here is that by claiming eteran existance you have already set the beginning at infinite time which is unachievable in terms of any time interval. Discounting time as being a tangiable physical enity eliiminates any time interval from existing as well. </font id="yellow">

<font color="red">Comment:
Wrong. See above. Time is not a "physical entity" itself.</font id="red">

<font color="yellow">On this we agree in theory as long as we recognize that that means an indeterminate amount of time and not necessarily infinte but unproveably has the possibility.</font id="yellow">

<font color="yellow">There is nothing physical, such as existance, than can be infinitely old. That is error #1 which you have already agreed nothing jphuysical can achieve infinity. Saying time has always been is worse than an assumption, it is nonsensical and doesn't solve the origin issue at all. It attemps (poorely) to sweep it aside. It attemps to evade the issue rather than resolve it.</font id="yellow">

<font color="red">Comment:
Physical events take place in time and space, and no measurable event takes place an infinite amount of time and/or in an infinite extend of space. So far this can be concluded.
But from that, one can not conclude simply jump to the conclusion
that THEREFORE all physical events together (= the universe) had a definite begin in time.

For example:

The sun (as a specific physical event) did not exist for an eternity, and will not last for an eternity. But that does not indicate that the sun started out from nothing at a point in time, or dissolves into nothing at some point in time. This holds true therefore also for any combination of physical events, which therefore means that time must extend both to the infinite past and to the infinite future.
</font id="red">

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
But the "stuff" that makes up the bigger "things" that makes up the still bigger "things" that ... that eventually make up the quark-pieces that form quarks, which then form protons, neutrons, etc., that make up the specific atoms that you are made of ... that "stuff" has always been. It is therefore infinitely old.
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<font color="yellow">This is simply a false conclusion based on poor assumptions which logically have no basis or meaning.</font id="yellow">

<font color="red">Comment:
That is a correct understanding. Those subatomic particles did not need to have been around for an eternity. But this would lead to the conclusion that other physical events have caused such particles to become existent, and would not necessitate the conclusion that such physical particles were 'created' (from nothing).
</font id="red">

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
If a thing isn't infintely old - if it hasn't always been - then it had to have been created. At some particular time. (We seem to agree more or less up to here.) From something. (But maybe not up to here.)
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<font color="yellow">I agree that we disagree in part here and agree in part.</font id="yellow">

<font color="red">
No comment
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<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
You seem comfortable stopping at this point. We aren't, because we realize that the existence of such a creation event means that, in reality, 'something' existed before the particular creation event being examined.
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<font color="yellow">Only because you refuse to acknowledge the possiblity that existnce is only half of a bifurcated "Nothing". As difficult as that is to understand it is heads above trying to declare eternal existance without any initial enception.</font id="yellow">

<font color="red">Comment:
For a better understanding of such abstract terms as Being and Nothing, and this regarded from a dialectical point of view, please reference: Hegel on Being and Nothing

it is argued in this abstract sense, that Being - without any determination in it - is just equal to itself, and also Nothing is just equal to itself. In that determination, Being and Nothing are the same. But at the same moment Being and Nothing are unequal to each other. It must be argued that being and Nothing can not be reflected upon as seperate realities, but as a (dialectical) unity of opposites, in which one passed into the other, and in which Becoming is their combined truth.
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<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
Sure - it might look like there was really and truely nothing there before the creation event. But there was. We just could't see it at first. As soon as we realize this our definition of 'Universe' (ALL that exists) then automatically includes the previously unsuspected 'something' that has now been revealed.
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<font color="yellow">This again is based on the (wrongful or unsupported assumption) that "Nothing" doesn't exist and can be bifurcated into two equal but opposite "Somethings".</font id="yellow">

<font color="red">Comment:
Please refer again to the dialectics of Being and Nothing (Hegel).
See above.</font id="red">

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
Our inability to comprehend or even detect the next 'level" of stuff does not mean it isn't there. Logic clearly dictates that it must be there, however.
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<font color="yellow">We agree with the exception that logic dictates it must be there. Logic would dictate that it isn't there and at some point, an initial form issued from "Nothing", came into existance.</font id="yellow">

<font color="red">Comment:
As above.</font id="red">

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
All of our experience verifies this logic, and teaches us that if we keep looking, we will eventually be able to detect that next level. Only if we believe we have finally found the "smallest possible thing" and quit looking will we stop finding that the current 'smallest possible thing' is actually made of yet smaller things.
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<font color="yellow">I can't remember for sure but I blieve it was NOrth that provided the best response for this arguement. Your samller and smaller forms extrapolated to infinity becomes "0" dimension, which could jposses no time and hence fits the description of my "N" as being the absence of time and space. Your smallest scale becomes the nothing for which the formula speaks to.</font id="yellow

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Mac</i>
<br />Sorry guys like I said it is a moot issue with me and not debateable. Have fun.

"Imagination is more important than Knowledge" -- Albert Einstien
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Now you have been debating and defending this position ove and over again, and therby atatcking the opposing position.

And now all of a sudden this isn't "debataeble" for you anymore?

Why then starting or replying to the debate on that issue in the first place?

I assume however, that you come to see your claim about a "begin of time" is no longer holdable or defendable.

Heusdens you've made a brave sally forth but I don't think there is anything we can say or adduce to to root out Mac from his perch. It seems to me that Mac has painted himself into a causality corner. The arguments he makes for the necessity of a finite past must be equally applied in the direction of the future to ordain that the universe must end and return to "nothing", whatever "nothing" is. According to him the future cannot be infinite because that would mean our present position in time would have to be in the infinite past relative to the other "end". Any mathematician can see the fallacy of this reasoning as a category error of applying the rules of the finite realm of a section of the number line vs the CONTINUUM of the number line in its infinite extent.

As you say, Mac has not explained how motion came into being. Is it his claim that conservation of angular momentum did not exist and then suddenly did? He appeals to experimental proof from us but seems to ignore the evidence that conservation of angular momentum is everywhere around us.

Thirdly, Mac defends his +s/-s by aligning himself with the quotes of numerous quantum physicists and their belief that virtual particles pop out of nothing. I am sure that the same physicists would also claim that ice cubes came from nothing when a jar of water is being frozen. But even so, the quantum sea does not allow +s and -s AT THE SAME MOMENT. As far as I know no experiment has ever shown a subatomic particle ceasing to exist, even matter/antimatter annihilations produce energy. If it came into existence then we should be able to make it not exist.

Infinite temporality/space has none of these problems. Mac has claimed them as logical impossibilities but has not provided the crushing logical argument to show that is the case. We shall all just have to agree to disagree on this issue I am afraid.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><b>Heusdens you've made a brave sally forth but I don't think there is anything we can say or adduce to to root out Mac from his perch.</b><hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

ANS: As I have said that is my opinion and it will remain my opinion until such time that there is evidence that should warrant a change of that view. Commentary by others is not such evidence.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><b> It seems to me that Mac has painted himself into a causality corner.</b><hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

ANS: I am not the one in a corner.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><b>The arguments he makes for the necessity of a finite past must be equally applied in the direction of the future to ordain that the universe must end and return to "nothing", whatever "nothing" is. According to him the future cannot be infinite because that would mean our present position in time would have to be in the infinite past relative to the other "end".</b><hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

ANS: I have never said any such thing. You either didn't read or you just make up your own interpretations of what you read. I said one can claim time will never end and claim that it shall therefore be considered infinite. But having said that:

1 - There is no evidence that that statement could be true.

2 - It will never "Become" infinite since that is impossible.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><b>Any mathematician can see the fallacy of this reasoning as a category error of applying the rules of the finite realm of a section of the number line vs the CONTINUUM of the number line in its infinite extent.</b><blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">

ANS: Where did you acquire your mathematics degree? ANyone that argues that something that exists never came into existnce simply has a bit of a logic problem. Invoking the theoretical infinity into the realm of physical reality is grossly flawed and provides no useful answer. Any mathematician will tell you that infinity is not a physical reality issue.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><b>As you say, Mac has not explained how motion came into being. Is it his claim that conservation of angular momentum did not exist and then suddenly did? He appeals to experimental proof from us but seems to ignore the evidence that conservation of angular momentum is everywhere around us.</b><hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

ANS: I have not once referred to angular momentum. Further it is not up to me to provide the ultimate sjolution as to how N

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&gt;(+s)+(-s) functioned or functions. But is imperative upon us to continue to look for that answer. Imagine should man learn that secret.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><b>Thirdly, Mac defends his +s/-s by aligning himself with the quotes of numerous quantum physicists and their belief that virtual particles pop out of nothing.</b><hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

ANS: So then you find solice by being in opposition to modern understanding? Good luck. I oppose some modern understading myself but only because I see viable alternatives. If I want support I would much jprefer it be recognized top minds than those that argue eternal existance without recognizing the pitfalls that invokes.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><b>I am sure that the same physicists would also claim that ice cubes came from nothing when a jar of water is being frozen. But even so, the quantum sea does not allow +s and -s AT THE SAME MOMENT.</b><hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

ANS: This shows callus disregard for common knowledge. Did you find your understanding in a book or did you just make that up. You needn't reply since I know what bonafide books have to say on the issue.

<b>As far as I know no experiment has ever shown a subatomic particle ceasing to exist, even matter/antimatter annihilations produce energy. If it came into existence then we should be able to make it not exist.</b><hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">


ANS: I agree. And that should be our goal. Learn to make things exist and go out of existance. Nature seems to know how.

<b>Infinite temporality/space has none of these problems. Mac has claimed them as logical impossibilities but has not provided the crushing logical argument to show that is the case. We shall all just have to agree to disagree on this issue I am afraid.</b><hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

ANS: I believe I already said that.[]


"Imagination is more important than Knowledge" -- Albert Einstien