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Although, I can conceive of a potentially infinite amount of time ahead of me, for it is not actual as it remains to be experienced, I can't conceive of a potentially infinite amount of time behind me, for having been experienced it is actual, and being actual it is finite, as I can't conceive of actual infinities.

Hence there is a beginning to time.

Has anyone discussed this argument in the literature?

Mozibur Ullah
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    IMO, you can conceive of *neither* **equally**... – stoicfury Mar 06 '12 at 01:50
  • Is that because you're holding that we can't conceive of infinites? I can agree with that. But though I can't grasp an infinite future in its entirety, I can grasp the idea of a potentially infinite future, whereas I can't do that with a potentially infinite past. – Mozibur Ullah Mar 06 '12 at 02:17
  • Possibly related http://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/2281/aristotle-and-the-eternity-of-the-universe – Joseph Weissman Mar 06 '12 at 03:08
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    A joke by Wittgenstein: "... 9, 5, 1, 4, 1, 3. Done!" "What were you doing, God?" "Oh, just reciting all the digits of pi backwards." - https://twitter.com/seanmcarroll/status/47343988474261504 – nir May 09 '15 at 21:44
  • This has been commented on in the Vedas, Upanishads and numerous Hindu commentators. Time is endless in both directions. – Swami Vishwananda May 10 '15 at 15:19
  • @SwamiVishwananda: do they present an argument for this? If so is it similar to how ever far back we go, we can go back further; the opposite view is if an infinite amount of time has passed, how did we reach now; Kant deduced from that the question was irresolvable. – Mozibur Ullah May 10 '15 at 20:01
  • How old do you expect to live? Not ridiculing. But we are destined to die **someday**. So your speaking **I can conceive of a potentially infinite amount of time ahead of me** will potentially dismiss your question by one punch. –  May 10 '15 at 22:03
  • There are arguments presented for this. There are also arguments as to why it cannot be anything but. How can something which has a beginning have no end? Anything which has a beginning must have an end. Only a thing which has no beginning can have no end. – Swami Vishwananda May 11 '15 at 06:13
  • The problem with using "Mozibur Ullah can conceive of it" as a criterion for existence is that every time we have a question about ontology, we're going to have to get the answer from Mozibur Ullah, and he might not always be available. – WillO May 11 '15 at 16:39
  • @tomono: sometimes it's possible to remove the personal I; here I can't because the argument hinges on the actual experience of time. – Mozibur Ullah May 11 '15 at 21:11
  • @willo: there is always google...and see above comment. – Mozibur Ullah May 11 '15 at 21:13
  • @MoziburUllah What would you mean by "higes on actual experience of time". I am sorry what you are trying to say by "**potentially** infinite amount of time **ahead of me**. You can use your Popper's test here. Then your question itself will be prevailed. Since there is **no example at all** ( meaning, we can not take example = those or these who have been living from the point they were born **until now**. ) So even the test can not be conducted, thus this is a non-falsifyable argument. Don't you think so? –  May 12 '15 at 02:04
  • Mathematically it's straightforward now to draw a line out to infinity and include the point at infinity; but experientialy we never see an actual infinity - this is why in physics for example locating an infinity is a sign of the failure of a theory - for example a singularity where density is infinite; time is different from space, since we are always at the *now* - so a different argument is required and hence the experience of time. – Mozibur Ullah May 12 '15 at 06:31
  • @MoziburUllah It was easy for me to have guessed that you would draw math as examples. O.K. The root of 2, pie, exponentiation, you can tell me. Now the problems lies not **there**. If I understood Swami's comment correctly, if **something** has a beginning, there would be an **End**. So, since we are born, we are taught math at school or university etc etc, but as Swami suggests one can recognize such mathematical issue **while we live**. Whereas, empirically, very very very very very likely we can **not** live forever, then could you give me an evidence **even after we die,** –  May 12 '15 at 07:31
  • **we can still recognize such mathematical issue??** Where?? May be even in Heaven stuff??? Here I can see I am sorry these with high knowledge someway somehow, could lose their driveway when they seemed to have started thinking something like whatnot. –  May 12 '15 at 07:35
  • Let us [continue this discussion in chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/23686/discussion-between-mozibur-ullah-and-kentaro-tomono). – Mozibur Ullah May 12 '15 at 07:38
  • I would like you to start a new question so that we can have many opinions openly rather than in chat. I am afraid to have said so. –  May 12 '15 at 07:51
  • The sages say not just that time has no beginning or end but that it does not really exist, and this this would be why it makes no sense that it does. That it makes no sense that time has a beginning or an end would imply its illusory nature. –  Jan 17 '19 at 11:52

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There is a pretty fundamental fallacy at play in the argument. Let's take it step by step.

I can conceive of a potentially infinite amount of time ahead of me, for it is not actual as it remains to be experienced

True. Naturally, since no one (yet) has proven to be immortal, the vast majority of that infinite time "ahead of you" will also be "without you"; but either way, we can conceive of, say, the year 2090, or the year 20000000[...insert zeroes at leisure...]000090.

I can't conceive of a potentially infinite amount of time behind me, for having been experienced it is actual, and being actual it is finite,

Wrong. You have experienced a small fraction of that potentially infinite time "behind you", but there is nothing stopping you from conceiving of, say, the year 1890, which (to all appearances) occurred without your presence. Of course, if you are a Buddhist, the year 1890 did include your presence, in some manner or another, but that's neither here nor there-- and that's precisely the flaw in the argument. Imaginary time is symmetrical, whether we imagine ourselves around to experience it or not.

Has anyone discussed this argument in the literature?

Nope, for reasons that should be apparent.

Michael Dorfman
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  • I haven't probably phrased myself clearly enough in the question. I'm not talking about my own actual lifetime. Living through, as in your example, 122 years doesn't trouble my imagination. Nor would living through 5000, or 10 billion years. But no way can I imagine myself living through an infinite amount of time. Have I misunderstood you, are you saying that this is imaginable? – Mozibur Ullah Mar 06 '12 at 08:13
  • I am saying two things: 1) Yes, this is imaginable, and the Buddha is reported to have imagined precisely that, and 2) it doesn't matter, anyway, as we don't need to imagine ourselves *having lived through* an infinite amount of time to be able to imagine that that time *occurred anyway* without our presence. To summarize: if you can imagine living through an infinite amount of time in the future, you can likewise imagine living through an infinite amount of time in the past; and, one can imagine an infinite amount of time passing (in the future or the past) without imagining living it. – Michael Dorfman Mar 06 '12 at 08:40
  • I didn't say that I could imagine living through an actual infinite. I said that I could imagine a potentially infinite future. There is a difference, whether you happen to agree with it or not. According to the SEP, Aristotle argues that in the case of magnitudes, an infinitely large magnitude and an infinitely small magnitude cannot exist. In fact, he thinks that universe is finite in size. But he explicitly argues for an eternal universe, presumably for the same reason stoicfury did. I'm simply making the point that his argument should apply to both time & space. – Mozibur Ullah Mar 06 '12 at 09:31
  • I'm using 'myself living through' as a rhetorical device. To reiterate, I can't imagine an infinite time occurring, in the same way Aristotle presumably couldn't imagine an infinite amount of space being traversed. – Mozibur Ullah Mar 06 '12 at 09:50
  • @dorfman: What you said about the Buddha is interesting. Could you expand on that? – Mozibur Ullah Mar 06 '12 at 09:58
  • @MoziburUllah: Aristotle's argument is symmetrical-- he's not arguing that we can only imagine the universe is infinite toward the north, but must imagine it as finite toward the south. As for the Buddha, he claims to have lived through countless lives in the distant past, and that the universe is eternally old. – Michael Dorfman Mar 06 '12 at 10:08
  • @dorfman: This argument *is* discussed by Kant in his antinomy of time. He uses my argument to show that there must be a beginning to time, Stoicfurys argument to show that there isn't. He resolves the contradiction by stating we are using reason in a sphere which transcends it. – Mozibur Ullah Apr 17 '12 at 10:54
  • @MoziburUllah: Kant's argument is somewhat different; at least in my reading-- his argument is not about whether one is capable of imagining an infinite past, but rather, whether it makes sense to claim that an infinite amount of time has elapsed (as an infinity, to him, would be necessarily incomplete.) It's still a very weak argument, in my opinion. – Michael Dorfman Apr 17 '12 at 11:44
  • @dorfman: it is in the same ballpark. and I was looking for pointers in the literature that discussed it. I can't imagine this argument originated with Kant. – Mozibur Ullah Apr 20 '12 at 06:21
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The question seems to invoke a rather specious argument but it seems like a genuine concern so I'll counter it with another thought experiment: Why can't you just always conceive of an earlier time? Let's say you're right, and that time started at time T. Certainly one can conceive of a time just before T, right? In fact it seems to be embedded in our very concept of time that there is always a before and after...

stoicfury
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  • Thats a good point. I don't know how to resolve my own question as well as the one you're asking. But I don't understand why you see the argument as being specious: Countering one paradoxical statement with another doesn't resolve either, but complicates both. – Mozibur Ullah Mar 06 '12 at 02:52
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    It's *specious* because while it seems valid on some level, it clearly goes wrong somewhere as my little counter-example highlights. Unfortunately, sometimes with these things it's easier to see that something is wrong than to point out the exact flaw. – stoicfury Mar 06 '12 at 06:55
  • This has nothing to do with my own argument. But does this mean that you don't agree with the conventional notion that time began with the big bang? – Mozibur Ullah Mar 06 '12 at 08:25
  • The Big Bang doesn't suggest *all time* began with it. It is merely demarcated as the earliest *knowable* point in the timeline of our universe. We have predicted how long ago it occurred, but that doesn't mean time started with it; it just means that we lack the ability to predict any further back. – stoicfury Mar 06 '12 at 16:29
  • My argument isn't specious - Kant says so! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinomy – Mozibur Ullah Apr 17 '12 at 10:56
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    @stoicfury From a lot of positions, for instance Hawking's imaginary time, the big bang does presuppose no time before it. If space and time are a single thing, you cannot compress all of space to a point and let time flow. Also at a certain density of matter, time is flowing perpendicular to its ordinary direction, which means by our standards looking backward, it just was not passing. –  May 10 '15 at 18:11
  • @MoziburUllah I am not sure that counts. Isn't the point of an antinomy that all the relevant arguments are necessarily specious because the question is badly framed? –  May 10 '15 at 19:40
  • I don't think so; it's a perfectly legitimate question; just impossible to answer definitely but I suppose one can mark out possibilities. – Mozibur Ullah May 10 '15 at 20:06
  • Like Hawking has; and Smolin and others besides. – Mozibur Ullah May 10 '15 at 20:10
  • Interestingly for Hawking time has a beginning, and for Smolin not (I mean wrt to this universe); the same two possibilities that Kant ruled on. – Mozibur Ullah May 10 '15 at 20:18
  • A possible beginning of time depends on the universe at hand. You can easily design one where at some time T no earlier state could lead to T via the rules subsequently at work. The Big Bang hypothesis is in that category, as well as any digital universes designed that way. On the other hand you can design a universe so that there is always the possibility of an earlier state, using the same rules of state evolution. I think it's debatable whether there is a starting time or not if the state evolution rules can change. – Cheers and hth. - Alf May 10 '15 at 23:59
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Imagine time as circular. That would mean it has neither a beginning nor an end, yet it is still finite in length.

Time has traditionally been viewed as either like a circle or like a line. Plato, Aristotle and many other Greek and Roman thinkers, particularly the Stoics, advocated a circular view of time. Linear time first appeared in Hebrew and Zoroastrian Iranian writings. Seneca was an advocate of linear time. Augustine thought time was specifically like a line segment. It had a distinct beginning and end, from Genesis to judgement day. Later on Aquinas agreed, and even further on Newton mathematically represented time as a line in his equations. Prominent thinkers such as Barrow, Leibniz, Locke and Kant all agreed with a linear type of time, and in the 19th century time was widely regarded, in both philosophy and science, like a line. It wasn't until 1949, when Kurt Godel, working with Einstein's equations, developed "closed loops of proper time", which are semi-circular in that they allow one to end up where they started after going forward in time.

The internet encylopedia of philosophy

John Slegers
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    This does not answer the question "Has anyone discussed this argument in the literature?". This should be a comment. –  May 10 '15 at 05:41
  • It could use some elaboration, but I think it's potentially useful or helpful to someone. – stoicfury May 10 '15 at 17:34
  • @Keelan In a trivial way this quote is part of 'the literature', so this is a more compliant answer than mine or virmaior's. Sometimes long comments just get to be answers, especially when the comment is a long version of "that question lacks perspective". –  May 10 '15 at 18:15
  • @jobermark I don't actually have an answer posted here on this question... – virmaior May 11 '15 at 23:26
  • Sorry, that is stoicfury. –  May 11 '15 at 23:35
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I accept the result of Kant's antinomy on time, from which he deduces that time is a human interpretation, imposed on thought, and not a real thing. Then to address a question like this, we have to decide what we are really talking about when we speak of time passing. For me, that is the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

If time is not a dimension, but is the effect of the ongoing increase of entropy, then it cannot be infinite in either direction, especially if it is linear.

As we reach utter pattern-lessness, time should have more and more difficulty moving forward. If there is in fact a state of such disorder that it no longer allows for the osmosis of heat, time will eventually stop. At the same time, if entropy decreases backward in time, it must lead back to a state of very high order. At either end, time slows asymptotically as either freedom or movement becomes so rare that what is going on cannot be seen as the passage of time.

In one interpretation, the fluctuation theorem says time can flow in either direction, but must reverse at a point of zero or maximal entropy. So if we managed at the right point to reverse the dependency of our processing and storage mechanisms, we could experience the time reversal as continuing forward, with all of our thermodynamics reversed.

This implies to me that the two ends of time need to be symmetrical, and it cannot be possible to experience a limitless future with a fixed beginning, in a consistent way. If time is reversible, imaginary time can be boundless in either direction, and real time as process we actually observe must stop at both ends.

  • I have heard this explanation about time slowing down or space shrinking several times including by physicists but there is one thing I don't get. If time and space are relative then what does that even mean to the average dude in that shrunk and dead slow coordinate of space time? For all he cares time and space are perfectly ordinary for him, aren't they? – nir May 10 '15 at 17:19
  • In the theory I am coming from, subjectively, time near heat death would mean insane unpredictability. As time slows, random changes in energy would become macroscopic. Stuff would just move or warm up or cool down, and that would be normal. Early in history near total order, the background entropy that lets us feel like everyone else is sharing time would not be there. Time would noticeably pass at different rates in different places Reversed time would mean entropy increases subjectively in your experience. Heat would not spread, it would coalesce, stuff would un-burn... –  May 10 '15 at 17:48
  • @nir -- forgot to tag you on the comment above. –  May 10 '15 at 18:02
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... as I can't conceive of actual infinities. Hence there is a beginning to time. Has anyone discussed this argument in the literature?

Yes, actually even someone who could conceive of actual infinities, namely Georg Cantor. Here are some quotes of his. They have been stated in private letters but meanwhile exist in printed form:

"With respect to the creation of the world and its temporal beginning I completely agree with you Reverend Father but I also agree with St Thomas Aq., who contests in his Opusc. de aeternitate mundi the mathematical provability of this theorem (that a temporal beginning of the world has to be assumed). [...] If it is said here that a mathematical proof of the beginning of the world in finite time cannot be given, then the emphasis is on the word 'mathematical' and only in that respect my opinion is in agreement with St Thomas. On the other hand, just based upon the true teaching of the transfinite, a mixed mathematical metaphysical proof of the theorem might well be possible. In so far I differ from St Thomas, who holds the opinion: 'Only by belief we know that the universe did not always exist, and that cannot be checked by proof on its genuineness'." [G. Cantor, letter to A. Schmid (26 March 1887)]

"I definitely agree with you, Reverend Father, in the assumption of a temporal beginning of the world. I have always considered the contrary dogma of present natural sciences as violating good reason in highest degree." [G. Cantor, letter to A. Schmidt (5 Aug 1887)]

"I do not only maintain with all Christian philosophers the temporal beginning of the creation, I also claim like you that this truth can be proven by rational reasons. [...] The foundation of actually infinitely great or, as I call them, transfinite numbers does not entail that we have to refrain from rational proofs of the beginning of the world." [G. Cantor, letter to J. Hontheim (21 Dec 1893)]

"[...] for instance, the time elapsed since the beginning of the world, which, measured in some time-unit, for instance a year, is finite in every moment, but always growing beyond all finite limits, without ever becoming really infinitely large." [G. Cantor, letter to I. Jeiler (13 Oct 1895)]

"With great interest I have studied your essay: 'The teachings of holy Thomas of Aquino about the possibility of a creation without beginning.' It was very satisfying for me to see the position of holy Thomas concerning actual infinity be discussed from such a profound expert and to learn that I had correctly understood holy Thomas in this point and related questions, in particular that his arguments against the actual infinite in creatis or against the possibility of actually infinitely great numbers has, for himself, not the meaning of a demonstratio, quae usquequaque de necessitate concludit leading to metaphysical certainty, but was in his own eyes only probable to a certain degree." [G. Cantor, letter to T. Esser (5 Dec 1895)]

Hilbert7
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Time is infinite - there was no beginning - there couldn't be, just like numbers you can subtract 1 from any number, infinitely. If you believe there was a year ago, and a 10 years ago, then theres no reason you should have to stop adding zeros, infinitely, to represent a time that happened.

John Doe
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    If you have a reference this would help support your answer and give the reader a place to go for more information. Welcome to Philosophy! – Frank Hubeny Jan 17 '19 at 08:01
  • What I know about time and space cant be found in any reference. – John Doe Jan 17 '19 at 14:34
  • @john Doe: Time is not like a number - numberr is an abstraction whereas time is physical. There in lies a distinction that you mind find fruitful to ponder on. – Mozibur Ullah Jan 17 '19 at 18:30
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    Numbers can represent time - 1 hour = 1 number, or 1 year = 1 number. And of course numbers are infinite, so is time. – John Doe Jan 17 '19 at 19:13