The universe is not past eternal but had a beginninghttps://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1333-kalaam-the-cosmological-argument-for-gods-existence#5124The universe had a beginninghttps://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1297-beginning-the-universe-had-a-beginning1. The theory of the Big bang is a scientific consensus today: According to Hawking, Einstein, Rees, Vilenkin, Penzias, Jastrow, Krauss, and 100’s other physicists, finite nature (time/space/matter) had a beginning. While we cannot go back further than Planck's time, what we do know, permits us to posit a beginning.
2. The 2nd law of thermodynamics refutes the possibility of an eternal universe. Luke A. Barnes: The Second Law points to a beginning when, for the first time, the Universe was in a state where all energy was available for use; and an end in the future when no more energy will be available (referred to by scientists as a “heat death”, thus causing the Universe to “die.” In other words, the Universe is like a giant watch that has been wound up, but that now is winding down. The conclusion to be drawn from the scientific data is inescapable—the Universe is not eternal.3. Philosophical reasons why the universe cannot be past eternal: You cannot reach B from an infinite interval of time. It has to be finite starting from A. If we start counting from now, we can count infinitely. We can always add one discrete section of time to another. If we count backwards from now, the same. But in both cases, there is a starting point. That is what we try to avoid when we talk about an infinite past without a beginning. So how can you even count without an end, forwards, or backwards, if there is no starting point? A reference point to start counting is necessary to get somewhere, or you never get "there".
WHY INFINITY DOES NOT EXIST IN REALITY
https://mindmatters.ai/2022/07/1-why-infinity-does-not-exist-in-reality/
Why can't the past be infinite? If the past is infinitely old, then getting from the past to the present would be like trying to arrive at the surface from a hole infinitely deep—from a bottomless pit. In other words, if the hole is infinitely deep, someone would never, ever make any progress at all in getting closer to the surface of the hole. There would always be an infinite distance to go before arriving at the surface of the hole.
There is motion. Things move when potential motion becomes actual motion. Only when potential motion exists ( the possibility to instantiate actual motion ), actual motion can be instantiated.
Each thing beginning to move is moved by a cause. The sequence of motion cannot extend infinitely. Therefore, there must be a first mover, that puts motion in motion which is God.
al-Ghazālī asks to suppose that Jupiter completes two and a half revolutions for every one revolution that Saturn completes. al-Ghazālī argues that, if both these planets have been revolving constantly from eternity, then, both of them would have completed the same number of revolutions. This is clearly absurd because Jupiter has completed two and a half more revolutions than Saturn has completed. alGhazālī raises a further difficulty by asking: ‘Is the number of the rotations even or odd, both even and odd, or neither even nor odd?’. According to alGhazālī, the supporter of the actual infinite is forced to affirm that the rotations are neither even nor odd and this, again, is absurd. al-Ghazālī concludes, therefore, that, since the actual infinite leads to absurdities, the actual infinite cannot exist.
Moreland on the Impossibility of Traversing the Infinite: A Critiquehttps://philpapers.org/archive/LEOQOT.pdf...
My answer: The author basically claims that an eternal Perpetuum mobile is possible. Reality has been a beginningless movement. Even IF we grant that claim, it would be disproven by the second law of thermodynamics.
1. The Big BangThe theory of the Big bang is a scientific consensus today: According to Hawking, Einstein, Rees, Vilenkin, Penzius, Jastrow, Krauss and 100’s of other physicists, finite nature (time/space/matter) had a beginning. While we cannot go back further than planck time, what we do know, permits to posit a beginning.Moreland on the Impossibility of Traversing the Infinite: A Critique
https://philpapers.org/archive/LEOQOT.pdf...
My answer: The author basically claims that an eternal Perpetuum mobile is possible. Reality has been a beginningless movement. Even IF we grant that claim, it would be disproven by the second law of thermodynamics.
Closer to truth: Martin Rees: Did Our Universe Have a Beginning? After 7:55I think the claim that this universe started from a very hot dense state should be taken seriously because it is corroborated by a whole network of interlocked arguments. The chain of events, which started maybe a billionth of a second after the very beginning is a chain of events which we understand and outline. It is an extrapolation of what we know. We had a beginning. Life had a beginning, stars had a beginning. Galaxies had a beginning. All atoms, now we can see some collecting beginning sometime in the past which we can date with a percentage of a few percent.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed0Yj6QCSU4Alexander Vilenkin: The Beginning of the UniverseInflation cannot be eternal and must have some sort of a beginning. Richard Dawkins: The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution page 613:The fact that life evolved out of nearly nothing, some 10 billion years after the universe evolved out of literally nothing, is a fact so staggering that I would be mad to attempt words to do it justice.2. The second law of thermodynamicsThe 2nd law of thermodynamics refutes the possibility of an eternal universeRoger Penrose The Second Law of thermodynamics is one of the most fundamental principles of physics.Luke A. Barnes The Fine-Tuning of the Universe for Intelligent Life June 11, 2012The origin of the second law of thermodynamics and the arrow of time — is suspiciously missing from the scientific literature. Why? Because it is one of the deepest problems in physicshttps://arxiv.org/pdf/1112.4647.pdfLuke A. Barnes The origin of the second law of thermodynamics and the arrow of time — is suspiciously missing from the scientific literature. Why? Because it is one of the deepest problems in physicsThe Second Law points to a beginning when, for the first time, the Universe was in a state where all energy was available for use; and an end in the future when no more energy will be available (referred to by scientists as a “heat death”, thus causing the Universe to “die.” In other words, the Universe is like a giant watch that has been wound up, but that now is winding down. The conclusion to be drawn from the scientific data is inescapable—the Universe is not eternal. As entropy increases, less and less energy in the universe is available to do work. Eventually, all fuels will be exhausted, all temperatures will equalize, and it will be impossible for heat engines to function, or for work to be done. Entropy increases in a closed system, such as the universe. Eventually, when all stars have died, all forms of potential energy have been utilized, and all temperatures have equalized there will be no possibility of doing work.Roger Penrose The Second Law of thermodynamics is one of the most fundamental principles of physics
https://accelconf.web.cern.ch/e06/papers/thespa01.pdf
Luke A. Barnes The Fine-Tuning of the Universe for Intelligent Life June 11, 2012
The origin of the second law of thermodynamics and the arrow of time — is suspiciously missing from the scientific literature. Why? Because it is one of the deepest problems in physics
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1112.4647.pdf
The Second Law points to: (1) a beginning when, for the first time, the Universe was in a state where all energy was available for use; and (2) an end in the future when no more energy will be available (referred to by scientists as a “heat death”), thus causing the Universe to “die.” In other words, the Universe is like a giant watch that has been wound up, but that now is winding down. The conclusion to be drawn from the scientific data is inescapable—the Universe is not eternal. http://apologeticspress.org/pdfs/courses_pdf/hsc0102.pdfAs entropy increases, less and less energy in the universe is available to do work. Eventually, all fuels will be exhausted, all temperatures will equalize, and it will be impossible for heat engines to function, or for work to be done. Entropy increases in a closed system, such as the universe. But in terms of the universe, and the very long-term, very large-scale picture, the entropy of the universe is increasing, and so the availability of energy to do work is constantly decreasing. Eventually, when all stars have died, all forms of potential energy have been utilized, and all temperatures have equalized (depending on the mass of the universe, either at a very high temperature following a universal contraction, or a very low one, just before all activity ceases) there will be no possibility of doing work.https://opentextbc.ca/physicstestbook2/chapter/entropy-and-the-second-law-of-thermodynamics-disorder-and-the-unavailability-of-energy/Under the orthodox view presented in physics texts and widely accepted among philosophers of physics, it is claimed to explain the laws of thermodynamics, such as the second law, which holds that the entropy of a system will increase towards its maximum with overwhelming probability.A scientific evidence that the universe had a beginning comes to the 2nd law of thermodynamics or the law of entropy. This law says that in a closed universe the finite amount of energy is winding down, moving towards a time when all energy will be expended. If we spin a ball on a table what we find is that it has a finite or limited amount of energy that was applied to spin the ball. The spinning ball will soon stop; it has run out of energy. In a similar fashion, the universe with its limited amount of energy is going to wind down to where there is no energy left.Another illustration of the 2nd law of thermodynamics utilizes a hot cup of coffee. Over time the coffee cools and the heat moves outward into the room. Soon the temperature of the coffee and the room will be equal. The same goes for the universe. Heat is moving outward from stars and is being uniformly distributed throughout the universe. Eventually, the limited amount of heat energy of the stars throughout the universe will run out and suffer what is called, “Heat death.” L. Barnet said this, “The universe is progressing toward an ultimate heat death or, as it is technically defined, a condition of maximum entropy. When the universe reaches this state some billions of years from now, all the processes of nature will cease. All space will be the same temperature… There will be no light, no life, no warmth–nothing but perpetual and irrevocable stagnation…and there is no way of avoiding this destiny!”If the universe was eternal, all the heat energy would have been utilized an infinite amount of time ago. If this is true then we should currently be at heat death. All the energy should have been used up an eternity ago. Since energy exists today we can conclude the universe is not eternal. If the universe is not eternal, it must have had a beginning. Both the big bang and 2nd law of thermodynamics refute an eternal universe.The British astrophysicist Arthur Eddington have a stern warning to would-be theoretical physicists in 1915. “If your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation,”
https://www.newscientist.com/definition/second-law-thermodynamics/?fbclid=IwAR2n4yrvIXCtt5dHtZDhe2pBtw_gOhNaS9Q1K3xM08eG6acZ-bRzaX_Ixrw#ixzz7Ao7kdrKB
3. Philosophical reasons why the universe nor quantum effect potentials cannot be past eternalIf we start counting from now, we can count infinitely. We can always add one discrete section of time to another. If we count backwards from now, the same. But in both cases, there is a starting point. That is what we try to avoid when we talk about an infinite past without a beginning. So how can you even count without an end, forwards, or backwards, if there is no starting point? A reference-point to start counting is necessary to get somewhere, or you never get "there".
There is motion. Things move when potential motion becomes actual motion. Only when potential motion exists ( the possibility to instantiate actual motion ), actual motion can be instantiated.
Each thing beginning to move is moved by a cause. The sequence of motion cannot extend infinitely. Therefore, there must be a first mover, that puts motion in motion which is God.
Why can't the past be infinite? If the past is infinitely old, then getting from the past to the present would be like trying to arrive at the surface from a hole infinitely deep—from a bottomless pit. In other words, if the hole is infinitely deep, someone would never, ever make any progress at all in getting closer to the surface of the hole. There would always be an infinite distance to go before arriving at the surface of the hole.
It is impossible to complete an infinite series by addition. No matter how long you count, you will always be at a finite number. It is impossible to complete an actual infinite by successive addition. Imagine an event that would occur in the future. Let's say, Real Madrid would win a soccer game against Barcelona at 2:0. If this game would be occurring 100, or 1000 years from now, we would know, after that finite time period, that soccer game would actualize, and occur. But, if we imagine that it would occur at an infinite period of time from now, then that game would never actualize, because, no matter, how many years from now, it would always be an infinite period of time ahead. That period would never actualize. If we imagine that the soccer game mentioned above would occur right now. Then this moment is the future of the past. In order to actualize, the past cannot be infinite but must be finite, otherwise, the soccer game would never actualize.
Stephen C.Meyer: The return of the God hypothesis, page 81
If the past is infinitely old, then getting from the past to the present would be like trying to climb to the surface of the earth from a hole infinitely deep—from a bottomless pit. As one contemporary philosopher has characterized the problem, “one could get no foothold in . . . [an infinite temporal] series to even get started, for to get to any point, one already has to have crossed infinity.”
If the past is infinitely old, then getting from the past to the present would be like trying to arrive at the surface from a hole infinitely deep—from a bottomless pit. In other words, if the hole is infinitely deep, someone would never, ever make any progress at all in getting closer to the surface of the hole. There would always be an infinite distance to go before arriving at the surface of the hole.
Regarding the law of causality (cause and effect), finite nature is “needy” in that it needs an infinite cause to bring it into existence. By this fact, we know that since something exists, It’s a MUST that something has always existed, because finite nature (time/space/matter) came into existence by a pre-existing cause and HASN’T always existed. That means the cause of finite nature (our infinite supernatural prime mover/uncaused first cause/G0D) existed, does exist and obviously existed before finite nature (time/space/matter) was brought into existence by our infinite supernatural G0D. G0D NEEDS NOTHING and thus, G0D ALONE is the only rational possible source of EVERYTHING, including needy finite creation. The non-needy infinite creator of the finite needy CANNOT BE finite and needy also, BECAUSE it would again need a creator to create it. And then that needy creator would also need a cause/creator to create it - on and on ad infinitum, which is an impossibility. Because no chain of events can exist if all the links are ‘needy.” At some point, there must be an “prime mover/ infinite uncaused first cause/G0D to start the chain of existence.
The impossibility of infinite regress proves our infinite GOD:
Infinite regress (a creator who needs a creator who needs a creator who needs a creator who needs a creator who needs a creator - ad infinitum), like an infinite chain of toppling dominoes, is an IMPOSSIBILITY. Because you can’t have a chain of only “needy” finite effects. There must be a “non-needy” prime mover to start the chain of creator/created – cause and effect.
Why can't the past be infinite? The answer is that it is impossible to complete an infinite series by addition. The series of past events is complete. Think of this mathematical fact. Why is it impossible to count to infinity? It is impossible because, no matter how long you count, you will always be at a finite number. It is impossible to complete an actual infinite by successive addition.The past is complete. This claim means that the entire series of past events ends now. It ends today. Tomorrow is not part of the series of past events. The series of past events does not extend into the future. It is complete at the present. If it is impossible to complete an infinite series by successive addition (as it is impossible to count to infinity) the past cannot be infinite. If the past is finite., that is, if it had a beginning, then the universe had a beginning. We have strong philosophical reason to reject the claim that the universe has always existed.https://web.archive.org/web/20120326111050/http://www.gradresources.org/worldview_articles/evidence_for_god.shtmlImagine an event that would occur in the future. Let's say, Real Madrid would win a soccer game against Barcelona at 2:0. If this game would be occurring 100, or 1000 years from now, we would know, after that finite time period, that soccer game would actualize, and occur. But, if we imagine that it would occur at an infinite period of time from now, then that game would never actualize, because, no matter, how many years from now, it would always be an infinite period of time ahead. That period would never actualize. If we imagine that the soccer game mentioned above would occur right now. Then this moment is the future of the past. In order to actualize, the past cannot be infinite but must be finite, otherwise, the soccer game would never actualize.
Lets suppose that an infinite period of time elapsed from ‘minus infinity’. This suggestion means that past history would have had to ‘count through’ a countably infinite set of years with an infinite number of members. No matter how many members of that set go by, there will always still be an infinite number of years to go before arriving at the present. In other words, if the past is infinite, actual history would never, ever make any progress at all in getting closer to the present, or any other arbitrary point in time. There would always be an infinite number of years to go before any historical event could occur.
Kip K. Sewell: THE CASE AGAINST INFINITY
https://philpapers.org/archive/SEWTCA
Throughout physics and cosmology infinitudes are asserted to exist. For example, there has been a number of Steady-State models proposed in cosmology. According to these models, space is infinite in all directions and time is infinite in both past and future. Other versions of Big Bang cosmology hold that the observable universe is just part of a greater universe that exists “alongside” other “parallel universes” making up a complete set of universes called the Multiverse. The Big Bang that created our universe is just one in an infinite cycle of big bangs; each big bang creates its own universe, which lives for a time and then dies to be followed by another big bang creation event. The whole process carries on in an infinite cycle of universe creation and destruction events across the entire Multiverse. The Multiverse cosmology is thus a kind of Steady-State model on a grander scale.
Infinity is a succession or series of things that exist one after another in a sequence that has no limit. Finite means to end, to be bound, or to limit to its measure. The circumference of a circle has no endpoints or boundaries and yet is still finite in the sense of being limited in size or scope as shown by the diameter of the circle. A circumference is thus said to be limited while also being unbounded. If something is mathematically finite, it is measurable by a positive or negative numerical value that is limited. The property of finitude contains both complete and incomplete sets. That is illustrated by the example where there are real finite towers that are roofed and finished while others are left unfinished or in ruins. Completeness and incompleteness also need to be distinguished from a couple of related categories—definitude and indefinitude. Along with being complete or incomplete then, a finite set or series can also be “definite” or “indefinite.” The known segments of time are composed of finite values that are definite (defined or determined).
The term “infinite” has been defined by mathematicians as a quantity that is limitless because its value is greater than any terminating sequence of natural numbers. And this mathematical definition in turn implies that
infinity is a value that cannot be counted or “a value greater than any computable value.” “The indefinite” designates numeric value that is also “greater than any terminating sequence of natural numbers” in the sense that, though finite, the value would lie just beyond where the known set of natural numbers actually does leave off (“terminate”) at any time—so, such value is indefinite. Another way to designate indefiniteness is to represent the set of natural numbers as 1, 2, 3, 4…n where n is equal to a finite number that is indefinite (not defined) because it is above the highest number actually defined thus far.
If we can define values that are added endlessly to the biggest number accounted so far, then this makes what was supposed to be infinite indistinguishable from what is actually indefinite. Indefiniteness and infinity become conflated. This conflation is a problem because infinity is not supposed to be the same thing as indefiniteness: to be infinite is to be not finite; to be indefinite is to be undefined in value but still finite in principle. . Unlike indefiniteness, infinity doesn’t have a limit that is beyond what is actually calculable; rather, infinity is
without limit. This difference indicates that we cannot mathematically define infinity as we did in terms of being simply incomputable or as being greater than any terminating sequence of defined natural numbers. . To be indefinite is to have an unknown limit in quantity, but to be infinite is to have a non-zero, positive or negative, quantity with no limit—to be
infinite is to have limitless quantity.Both the infinite and infinity are limitlessness in quantity; the former is to be limitless as an entire set of things that exist all at once and the latter is to be limitless as a sequence. The contradictions in the traditional understanding of the infinite have to do with the concept of sets. A set is a collection of distinct elements, such as numbers or objects, classed together. A traditional notion of the infinite is that it is supposed to be a non-zero set (a set with a positive or negative number of members) that also has “no limit” in the sense of having no highest definable value even in principle. If the scale of natural numbers were infinite, then even if you had the means to calculate higher values on the number scale than those that can be defined now or ever in actual practice,
you still would never reach a value you could call the highest value of all. Infinity, as a limitless succession of steps in the set, cannot be reached because the infinite—the set as a whole—is inexhaustible. But the infinite is not just limitless; the term “infinite” is also meant to describe
any set that is complete as well as limitless.
If an infinite set were incomplete, it wouldn’t really be infinite—it would merely be indefinite. A complete-limitless thing is an oxymoron.
We can come up with the highest number conceived, but then still add another finite number that could be defined. But then sill, that number summed up would still have only a finite number of values actually defined at any time no matter how far we calculate or extrapolate it. This means that it is logically possible for there to be numbers that, added up, would nevertheless have terminating values and so still be finite. And because this implies limits, albeit extended limits, these numbers would remain finite at any step of the way. The number added up, would still have a finite number of values actually defined at any time no matter how far we calculate, sum up, or extrapolate.
A continuous counting from past eternity could/would never lead to actualizing the present moment in time. Periods or sections of time cannot be added or subtracted from an "actual" infinite. If the universe had no beginning in the past, and would infinite and eternal, then it would be limitless. There would be no starting point and no limit. There would be not a limited number and sequence of days, and no limited sections of time.
That leads to the conclusion that the Universe must be finite in the past, and had a beginning.
If we are starting to count from now. Whenever we stop counting and look back, there is always a finite number that was counted. If we stop counting after one million, it is a finite number. A trillion. Finite. it is impossible to complete an infinite series by addition. The series of past events is complete. The same is with time. If we start counting from now, whenever we stop, a finite timespan has passed. We realize that we can never get to an infinite period of time in the future by adding individual events together. Now, today, this point of time in the present is a point of time future to all past. Correct? In other words, we are future to yesterday, and the day before that. Some have suggested that the universe is eternal. That it has existed forever. But that is not possible for precisely that reason.
This point in time is actually the future with reference to all of the past. We cannot say that any particular point in the future will accomplish an actual infinite as events are added one to another. Therefore, this present moment in time can't represent an actually infinite number of events added one to another proceeding from the past. Time has proceeded forward from the past as one event is added to another to get us to today. But we know that whenever you pause in the count as we've done today, that you can't have an infinite number of events. This means that there is not an infinite number of events that go backward from this point in time. Only a finite number of events. Which means the universe is not eternal. This means the universe has not existed forever and ever with no beginning, but it in fact had a beginning.
Imagine that you see dominoes falling, one knocking over the next, as this series of falling dominoes comes into your room. As a person can never finish counting to infinity, an actual infinite number of dominoes could never finish falling. Therefore, if an actual infinite number of dominoes had to fall before getting to your door, then the falling dominoes would never reach your door. In the same way, if an actual infinite number of minutes had to take place before yesterday, time would have never reached yesterday, much less today. Therefore, just as there had to be a finite number of falling dominoes, there also had to be a finite—not infinite—amount of time before today. An infinite past is impossible. Time must have a beginning. And if time had a beginning it must have had a cause.
http://stayontargetstayontarget.blogspot.com/2012/05/universe-caused-self-caused-or-uncaused.html
Working from the assumption that if a thing is in motion then it has been caused to be in motion by another thing, an infinite chain of things-in-motion and things-causing-things-to-be-in-motion is impossible. If an infinite chain or regression existed among things-in-motion and things-causing-things-to-be-in-motion then we could not account for the motion we observe. If we move backward from the things we observe in motion to their cause, and then to that cause of motion within those things that caused-motion, and so on, then we could continue moving backward ad infinitum. It would be like trying to count all of the points in a line segment, moving from point B to point A. We would never get to point A. Yet point A must exist as we know there is a line segment. Similarly, if the cause-and-effect chain did not have a starting point then we could not account for the motion we observe around us. Since there is motion, the cause and effect chain (accounting for motion) must have had a starting point.
[url=https://www.qcc.cuny.edu/SocialSciences/ppecorino/INTRO_TEXT/Chapter 3]https://www.qcc.cuny.edu/SocialSciences/ppecorino/INTRO_TEXT/Chapter%203%20Religion/Cosmological.htm?fbclid=IwAR1ED86OISvFNiAgqivLR4_dFdaqUvqFzrf3AJ24oNLjy5HpdMV3cKgiktU[/url]
Is it possible for actually infinite numbers of entities to be realized in the actual world?http://crossexamined.org/philosophical-arguments-universe-beginning/
One of the greatest mathematicians of all-time, David Hilbert, certainly didn’t think so: “the infinite is nowhere to be found in reality. It neither exists in nature nor provides a legitimate basis for rational thought.“ Georg Cantor established a mathematically rigorous way of dealing with the concept of infinity that is very useful for mathematical and scientific calculations. Although Hilbert defended Cantor’s work, he argued that infinities couldn’t exist in the actual world or they would lead to absurdities.
Some readers may be thinking that if it is mathematically possible it has to be physically possible. But not everything used in mathematics necessarily implies a direct correspondence with physical ontology (nature of being). Infinitesimals are mathematically feasible and highly useful in calculus, but modern physics holds that everything is quantized. Mathematical consistency and coherence doesn’t necessarily imply physical realization – there are abstract mathematical systems that can be constructed that are coherent but not all of them are necessarily realized anywhere in physics. In computer science we often choose between multiple mathematically equivalent but quite different ways of computing things – they can’t all correspond to physical ontology because they entail fundamentally different ways of modeling reality. Infinities that show up in physics equations are considered problematic unless and until some type of renormalization can be performed.
So if we can show that absurdities result if actual infinites exist, then we have good reasons for rejecting the possibility of an actually infinite number of past events – even if it is mathematically feasible. Here is how philosopher Peter S Williams makes this argument to a lay audience:
Suppose I ask you to loan me a certain book, but you say: ‘I don’t have it right now, but I’ll ask my friend to lend me his copy and then I’ll lend it to you.’
Suppose your friend says the same thing and so on…
If the process of asking to borrow the book goes on forever, I’ll never get the book
If I get the book, the process that led to me getting it can’t have gone on forever
Somewhere down the line of requests to borrow the book, someone had the book without having to borrow it. It’s easy to see how this analogy applies to the Kalam – if the arrival of the current event/book required infinitely many prior events, it would have never arrived. You cannot traverse an actual infinity. If the current event/book did arrive, the process that led to it couldn’t have gone on forever.
Another example of the physical impossibility of an actually infinite number of items is the following. Suppose that there is one particle of some type for every positive whole number (integer) – we can think of these as comprising a mathematical set in which we’ve numbered the particles. The number of particles is aleph null and represents a so-called countable infinity. Suppose this type of particle is not stable and thus half of the particles decay in some time interval. One could think of the number of particles in this set as now consisting of the even integers. But one can also reach a contradictory answer that the number of particles is the same as the original by proving mathematically that the number of even, positive integers is the same as the number of positive integers.
This mathematical proof is quite simply done by showing a one-to-one correspondence between the elements in the set. For every integer in the original set, there is one integer in the set of even integers (2,4,6, …) obtained by just doubling the original value. Thus, the number of particles in each set is mathematically identical even though half of the original particles underwent decay. After we wait another half-life, half of the remaining particles have now decayed so the set would consist of particles (4,8,12, …). However it can also be mathematically proven that the number of positive integers that are multiples of 4 is identical to the number of positive integers. Have the number of particles been reduced or not? We reach contradictory results – no matter how many half-lifes we wait, the number of particles is the unchanged and has been reduced as per the usual physics equation. Thus, dealing with the actually infinite in reality would violate the laws of physics.
Philosopher Alexander Pruss offers at 6 arguments in support of premise 2 of the Kalam – that there couldn’t have been an infinite number of past events. Although he thinks actual infinities might be possible in general, he doesn’t think an infinite causal chain is possible. “This strengthens the Kalaam argument by showing that the premises can be weakened: the Kalaam argument only needs the kind of causal anti-infinitism that I now cautiously accept.”
Infinite regress is impossible 1
A potential infinite is a collection which is increasing toward infinity as a limit, but never gets there. An actual infinite is a collection in which the number of members really is infinite. The collection is not growing toward infinity; it is infinite, it is "complete." The sign of this sort of infinity, which is used in set theory to designate sets which have an infinite number of members, such as {1, 2, 3, . . .}, is À0. Now (2.11) maintains, not that a potentially infinite number of things cannot exist, but that an actually infinite number of things cannot exist.2.1 Argument based on the impossibility of an actual infinite.
2.11 An actual infinite cannot exist.
2.12 An infinite temporal regress of events is an actual infinite.
2.13 Therefore, an infinite temporal regress of events cannot exist.
2.2 Argument based on the impossibility of the formation of an actual infinite by successive addition.
2.21 A collection formed by successive addition cannot be actually infinite.
2.22 The temporal series of past events is a collection formed by successive addition.
2.23 Therefore, the temporal series of past events cannot be actually infinite.
Objection: The cosmos isn’t eternal it gets caused by eternal quantum effects.Response: The idea is from this paper: Cosmology from quantum potentialhttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0370269314009381Wikipedia states:In particle physics, an event refers to the results just after a fundamental interaction took place between subatomic particles, occurring in a very short time span, at a well-localized region of space.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_(particle_physics)Following link discusses the paper: The Time Problem in Cosmology from quantum potential https://milliern.com/2015/02/17/the-time-problem-in-cosmology-from-quantum-potential/A world whose temporal domain, which stretches back infinitely far, implies that the moment/instant of now, could never come to be, because the infinitude of time that precedes the now is inexhaustible, by definition of Aristotelian actual infinity.Philosophical reasons why the universe cannot be past eternal We realize that we can never get to an infinite period of time in the future by adding individual events together. 2 But today, this point of time in the present, is a point of time future to all past. Correct? In other words, we are future to yesterday, and the day before that. Now, some have suggested that the universe is eternal. That it has existed forever. But it is not possible that it has existed forever. Here is the application. This point in time is actually future with reference to all of the past. We just agreed that you cannot say that any particular point in the future will accomplish an actual infinite as events are added one to another. Therefore, this present moment in time can't represent an actual infinite number of events added one to another proceeding from the past. Time has proceeded forward from the past as one event is added onto another to get us to today. But we know that whenever you pause in the count as we've done today, that you can't have an infinite number of events. Which means that there is not an infinite number of events that goes backward from this point in time. Only a finite number of events. Which means the universe is not eternal. Which means the universe has not existed forever and ever with no beginning, but it in fact had a beginning.We cannot reach the present moment from an eternal pasthttps://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2049-we-cannot-reach-the-present-moment-from-an-eternal-pastWhy Past History Cannot Be Infinite: There Must Be a BeginningIn the real, physical world, it is impossible to “count down” an infinite number of actual years, one at a time, from minus infinity to the present. No matter how many members of that set tick by, there will always still be ℵ0 years to go before it arrives at the present. In other words, if the past is infinite, actual history would never, ever make any progress at all in getting closer to the present, or any other arbitrary point in time. There would always be ℵ0 years to go before any historical event could occur. Yet here we are. The only way this can be possible is if the past is not actually composed of ℵ0 years. The set of years in the past is finite (as opposed to infinite) and there was a beginning, as science also seems to indicate.
https://evolutionnews.org/2016/03/why_past_histor/
Jacobus Erasmus The Kalām Cosmological Argument and the Infinite God Objection 2015
Two types of infinityIn order to better understand this argument, the proponents of the KCA distinguish between the potential infinite and the actual infinite. The potential infinite denotes a boundless quantitative process, such as endless addition, endless division, and endless succession. For example, counting all the natural numbers (1, 2, 3, …) resembles a potential infinite, for it is impossible to complete this counting process because once a number has been counted, another always follows. Thus, a potentially infinite series is a series that increases endlessly towards infinity as a limit but never reaches it. Strictly speaking, the very nature of the potential infinite is that it is never complete and it is always finite at any given point. On the other hand, the actual infinite denotes a boundless, completed totality of infinitely many distinct elements. Mathematicians today define an actually infinite series as a series that may be placed in a one-to-one correspondence with a part of itself (Huntington 2003, p. 6), i.e., each member in the series may be paired with one and only one member of a subclass of the series. An example of an actual infinite would be the completed collection comprising every possible natural number (1, 2, 3, …). Thus, by describing an actual infinite as a ‘completed totality’, we mean that it is an unbounded collection whose members are, nevertheless, present all at once. The fundamental difference, then, between the potential infinite and the actual infinite is that the former is not a completed totality whereas the latter is. It is important to bear this distinction in mind when discussing the KCA as the KCA does not deny the existence of a potential infinite but, rather, it denies the existence of an actual infinite.
Furthermore, to support the claim that an actual infinite is impossible, proponents of the KCA generally use thought experiments to demonstrate that certain absurdities would result if an actual infinite were instantiated in the real, Spatio-temporal world. For example, al-Ghazālī (1058–1111), the notable jurist, theologian, philosopher and mystic, asks us to suppose that Jupiter completes two and a half revolutions for every one revolution that Saturn completes (al-Ghazālī 2000, pp. 18–19). al-Ghazālī argues that, if both these planets have been revolving constantly from eternity, then, both of them would have completed the same number of revolutions. This is clearly absurd because Jupiter has completed two and a half more revolutions than Saturn has completed. alGhazālī raises a further difficulty by asking: ‘Is the number of the rotations even or odd, both even and odd, or neither even nor odd?’ (al-Ghazālī 2000, p. 18). According to alGhazālī, the supporter of the actual infinite is forced to affirm that the rotations are neither even nor odd and this, again, is absurd. al-Ghazālī concludes, therefore, that, since the actual infinite leads to absurdities, the actual infinite cannot exist.
https://sci-hub.ren/10.1007/s11841-015-0460-6
What is Infinity? Difference between Countable and Uncountable Infinity
First, we should ask what is not infinity. Infinity is not a number. It’s just an expression of signifying something that goes on and on for eternity; something that has no end. But someone can only start counting without ending from a starting point. That is what atheists try to avoid, claiming that the universe is infinite in the past.
If a set of sets is infinite or contains an infinite element, then its union is infinite. We can’t figure out which number is the immediate successor or predecessor of 0. Is it 0.001? But 0.00001 is smaller and 0.000000001 is even smaller than that. So, the number of decimal numbers between two natural numbers is also infinity. This is a completely different type of infinity, uncountable infinity.
In the real world, we cannot split time infinitely. Time is discrete, dependent on the ability of maximal atomic interactions and change. The fastest rate an atom can change its state per second = 1 x 10^43. So this is the discrete unit of change, and time flows from there, one discrete section at a time.
https://medium.com/the-wisest-friends/my-2-yo-cousin-cant-count-from-0-to-10-but-neither-can-you-4882571cc286
We cannot reach the present moment from an eternal pastWe realize that we can never get to an infinite period of time in the future by adding individual events together. But today, this point of time in the present, is a point of time future to all past. Correct? In other words, we are future to yesterday, and the day before that. Now, some have suggested that the universe is eternal. That it has existed forever. But it is not possible that it has existed forever. Here is the application. This point in time is actually future with reference to all of the past. We just agreed that you cannot say that any particular point in the future will accomplish an actual infinite as events are added one to another. Therefore, this present moment in time can't represent an actual infinite number of events added one to another proceeding from the past. Time has proceeded forward from the past as one event is added onto another to get us to today. But we know that whenever you pause in the count as we've done today, that you can't have an infinite number of events. Which means that there is not infinite number of events that goes backward from this point in time. Only a finite number of events. Which means the universe is not eternal. Which means the universe has not existed forever and ever with no beginning, but it in fact had a beginning.You will not live for an eternity. Are you ready for this? Boy, that sounds weird. That doesn't sound like Christianity to me. That sounds like an annihilationist, or something. I think you will be forever and ever with God in heaven if you're a Christian. Or if you reject the forgiveness that God offers through Jesus Christ, then you will pay for your crimes against God forever and ever in a place of punishment. But even though you will do that forever and ever, you will never do that for an eternity. How does that work? Think about it for a moment. Are numbers potentially infinite? Yes, sure they are. They can go on forever and ever. Potentially the quantity of numbers is infinitely large. There's no end to them in that regard. Now, how do you ever get to an infinity of numbers actually? Well, you can start counting. One, two, three, four, five, billion one and billion two. A zillion one, two. A quintillion one, two..... Keep going. Do you realized that at any particular point in time as you keep adding one number after another, which potentially could go on forever, that you have never really accomplished that feat. You have never really gone on forever, have you? You've just counted a finite series of numbers. It gets bigger and bigger, of course. But at every particular point that you happen to be counting at, your count describes a finite number. Will you ever get to eternity by counting, adding one number onto another? The answer is no, you won't. That is why I can say that you will never live for an eternity. You started at some point in time, and time has added to your existence, one event upon another. But as you go forward into eternity, at any particular point, if you clock your cosmic age, you will always be some age. From the time you started, to the time you're at. Now you will keep going on forever and ever but no matter how long you continue going on forever and ever you will still have an age, a particular age identifying the length of time of your existence. That particular age will never be an infinite amount. Do you see how that works? This is why you can never count to infinity because infinity is not a number, a particular number. Every stage along the counting process you are always describing a finite number, even though it gets larger and larger as you count. You will never live to eternity even though you live forever and ever and you never cease to exist, because at any point you will still have an age, even though the age is getting larger and larger as you move deeper and deeper into eternity. This is why, by the way, I think eternal life in the Scriptures is not identified principally as a quantity of time, but as a quality of time. Look at John 17:3. Remember the great high priestly prayer of Jesus? He says, "And this is eternal life: that they may know thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent." Notice the focus on eternal life there is not how long you're living as if you were actually accomplishing an eternity of existence. It's on the quality of life you live forever and ever. Knowing God and His Son, Jesus Christ. Because you can't accomplish an actual infinity with regards to time which would be an eternity. It can't be done. Why? Because you can only move towards eternity by adding one upon another and you can never add one upon another and accomplish an infinite number of things. In this case, an infinite number of events that transcribes an infinite period of time. This is what is called in philosophical circles as the problem with accomplishing an actually infinite series of events by simply adding one event to another. As we've done our little mind experiment here, our experiment in thinking and reflection on the nature of eternity and how one gets there, we realized that you can't really get to eternity by adding events together, one upon another. Because at every point you still have a finite number, even though it is much larger than it used to be. In other words, time proceeds forward as one event is added to another and that time that proceeds forward is always a finite amount of time. Do you see that? Now if you grasp that, and it's not really as hard as it may seem at first, I am just simply saying that when you count numbers are potentially infinite, but you can never count to infinity because you can't get there by adding one number after another because at any point in your count you are still dealing with a finite number. The same applies to events in time Which means with regards to your eternity, though you will live forever and ever, you will never live for an eternity. Because you cannot accomplish an eternity by adding one event upon another. Now this has very significant applications for the concept of the existence of God. It's really quite simple. Our little experiment took us from the present into the future. We realize that we can never get to an infinite period of time in the future by adding individual events together. But today, this point of time in the present, is a point of time future to all past. Correct? In other words, we are future to yesterday, and the day before that. Now, some have suggested that the universe is eternal. That it has existed forever. But it is not possible that it has existed forever. Here is the application. This point in time is actually future with reference to all of the past. We just agreed that you cannot say that any particular point in the future will accomplish an actual infinite as events are added one to another. Therefore, this present moment in time can't represent an actual infinite number of events added one to another proceeding from the past. Time has proceeded forward from the past as one event is added onto another to get us to today. But we know that whenever you pause in the count as we've done today, that you can't have an infinite number of events. Which means that there is not infinite number of events that goes backward from this point in time. Only a finite number of events. Which means the universe is not eternal. Which means the universe has not existed forever and ever with no beginning, but it in fact had a beginning. If it had a beginning, if the universe came into being, and it's not eternal, then something must have caused it that didn't itself have a beginning. It had a Beginner. Some infinite, self-existent, uncaused, non-contingent Someone who started it all. Some kind of God must have been back there. I kind of like that argument. It's a little tricky, but it shows what you can do - and it's a good argument by the way - it's basically the Kalam cosmological argument actually developed by Muslim theologians during the Middle Ages. It shows how much work you can do just by simple reflection. If the work is good on simple reflection, of course, it should match the world as we understand it, as we discover it. And science has demonstrated this particular thing to be true because science has demonstrated with Big Bang cosmology that the universe did have a beginning prior to which there was nothing physical. That time and matter and energy and motion all had their beginning at a point called the singularity. Prior to that, there was nothing physical. The universe came into being. That raises some very interesting questions about how such a thing ever happened to begin with. I'm not going to carry it further at this time. Others have done so and we've talked about this at other times. You chew on that for awhile.Let me just bring this out of the intellectual stratosphere for a minute. You are talking with an atheist. You ask the atheist, OK, if God doesn't exist, where did everything come from? Obviously something is here. Where did it come from? Why is there something rather than nothing at all? He says, I don't know, I'm not an expert. I don't know all the answers; you're the one with all the answers. You say, Wait a minute. It's not that hard. Because there are not too many options. Either everything was always here or it wasn't always here. The law of Excluded Middle says it's got to be one or the other. Can't be neither. Can't be both. Well, we know that it wasn't always here because of this little exercise we did. The impossibility of an actual infinite series of events adding one on the other, like we see happening in our universe now. And also, science seems to make the point very clearly from what we know in cosmology and astrophysics, astronomy is that the universe had a beginning. So we are stuck with a universe that began. So it wasn't always here, it began. Now, it either began by itself - in other words, it created itself - or something else caused it to happen. Things can't create themselves and here's why. In order for a thing to create itself it would have to be the cause that caused itself as an effect. We have cause and effect - you make a pie. You making it is the cause. The pie is the effect. In this case, we'd have to say the pie made itself which means it is its own cause even though it is the effect. Which would mean it would have to exist to cause itself before it existed as an effect. It would have to exist and not exist at the same time. That is absurd. Therefore, it must have been caused by something else. Now what caused it? It would have to be something that itself wasn't caused, or else you would run into the same problem. So just with a little thinking here, we come to the conclusion that everything wasn't here and so something must have caused it and it would have to be something that wasn't itself caused but was eternal. A little more thinking and you could come to the conclusion that it must be personal as well because the cause has to be greater than the effect and the universe has personal elements in it so therefore the cause must be personal as well.That's pretty easy, I think. Where did everything come from? Well, there are not too many options. You can move from there to at least the fact of some kind of intelligent first cause. Aristotle's unmoved Mover. You haven't proven the God of the Bible, but it is a beginning. Now if an atheist rejects that then what is he committed to? He is committed to either saying that everything always existed, for which there is no evidence. None. Zero. Zip. Or he has to say that everything came from nothing for which there is no evidence. None. Zero. Zip. Now who is the person who is taking the leap of faith?http://www.str.org/articles/you-will-not-live-an-eternity#.VYTUkflVhBcThe universe had a beginning, therefore a causehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9UMDiiE0kY&t=75s9:35 Scientific reasons to conclude that the universe has a beginning16:32 Further scientific evidence why the universe cannot be past eternal18:35 Philosophical reasons why the universe nor quantum effect potentials cannot be past eternal1. http://www.reasonablefaith.org/the-existence-of-god-and-the-beginning-of-the-universe#ixzz4jEcNSl00
More:https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com.br/2011/07/so-you-think-you-understand.html
Moreland on the Impossibility of Traversing the Infinite: A Critique
https://philpapers.org/archive/LEOQOT.pdf?fbclid=IwAR14DMOuhMKjjaR3GiXgTqV37x4akJ32qwamh2EAO6g7X0vUhA2WUWD_e24#page=1&zoom=auto,-73,792
https://web.archive.org/web/20071014175411/http://qsmithwmu.com/infinity_and_the_past.ht
