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If we assume that something has always existed in the past, what reason is there to assume that it won't perish in the future?

I pondered on it and I wondered whether the following argument works: because it is assumed to be past-eternal, it would have already perished in its eternal past if it hadn't been future-eternal as well.

user3776022
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  • What reason is there to assume either way? Your argument does not work, it is perfectly coherent that something exists on (-∞,t] or on [t,∞) for any fixed time t. One can give some quasi-probabilistic arguments like: the past-eternal thing can "equiprobably" vanish at any time so it is "infinitely" unlikely this would happen in our (short) lifetime. But this is far from "necessarily" and even here the use of "probabilities" here comes close to the fallacy of arguing from ignorance. – Conifold Aug 19 '18 at 00:13
  • if something has always existed in the past, it is not a compound and it will always exist in the future. If something has not always existed in the past, it is not eternal, is a compound, and cannot by logic always exist in the future. This has been dealt with extensively in Buddhist and Hindu philosophies. – Swami Vishwananda Aug 19 '18 at 11:32
  • Yes, past-eternal, necessarily implies future-eternal! – Guill Aug 22 '18 at 07:39
  • However, since we can't know/prove past-eternal, we can't know/prove future-eternal! – Guill Sep 02 '18 at 02:45

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