Could time be finite, infinite, or cyclic?

HuggetZukker

Inspired by Thomas Acquinas' cosmological argument, I've asked myself, what are the big picture implications of causality? Using the argumentation that follows, I've arrived at three possibilities, which I really have trouble picking a favorite out of.

How can my argumentation be broken, and can the possibilities I've arrived at possibly be reduced or expanded? Do you think there can be a better reason to believe one of the possibilities than the others?

The argumentation goes:

If every effect has a preceding cause, as classical inquiry implies, there could have been no first cause, since it would constitute an uncaused effect, which contradicts the premise that every effect has a preceding cause.

Therefore, either

A) The premise is technically inaccurate, or
B) Time had no exact beginning.

Let's assume A, and see how we can adapt the premise to gain more options:

A) MOST effects have a cause, which always precedes the effect
B) Every effect has a cause, which USUALLY precedes the effect

Now we have three possible solutions:

A) There were one or more first causes
B) Time is essentially a causal loop
C) Infinite things have happened

Let's consider some of the implications:

A) If there was uncaused cause then
1. Time (the cosmos) had a beginning.
2. Time (the cosmos) may plausibly end some day - a property that B and C lack, which I will argue for.
3. Time will not necessarily end: There is nothing about a first uncaused cause that implies a finite future.
4. Something has come from nothing.

B) If time is a causal loop then
1. Time has no absolute beginning or end, since no event in a causal loop can be given privilege.
2. The past and the future basically describe the same thing, since they are in a cycle, only appearing distinct from each other thanks to a prominent arrow of time.
3. There is no free-will in the commonly understood sense, because 1) paradoxes would arise, and 2) if those paradoxes were resolved via flexible determinism, you would in principle end up with possibility C instead.

C) If infinite things have happened then
1. Anything possible has, with infinite probability, already happened.
2. Time (the cosmos) had no beginning.
3. The cosmos was infinitely sustainable in the past, since otherwise it would have collapsed by now.
4. The future cosmos should also be infinitely sustainable (and never-ending), unless the laws of nature, which sustained the infinite past, will some day go on a fatal strike for no obvious reason.

unenlightened

Cause precedes effect, temporally.
Therefore, there cannot be a cause of time.

Causation is internal to the world. Whatever is external to the world, where 'the world' includes temporal succession, cannot be spoken of in terms of cause. What is true of 'cause', here, is equally true of 'randomness'.

HuggetZukker

I don't understand what you're objecting to. I haven't spoken of a cause of time. Frankly, I consider time and causality as two sides of the same coin, like wavelength and frequency. I can't conceptualize one without the other. I don't think time is external to the world; it's integral to it.

noAxioms

The argumentation goes:

If every effect has a preceding cause, as classical inquiry implies, there could have been no first cause, since it would constitute an uncaused effect, which contradicts the premise that every effect has a preceding cause. — HuggetZukker

Technically this doesn't follow. You would have to additionally posit that all causes are an effect of something else. It probably isn't unreasonable to do so, but it needs to be stated.

That said, there are known uncaused events like photon emission or radioactive decay. There are metaphysical interpretations that say there are hidden variables that make such events actually caused, if not predictable, but that is just one possible interpretation, sort of matching your option B below.

A) MOST effects have a cause, which always precedes the effect
B) Every effect has a cause, which USUALLY precedes the effect

Cause preceding effect requires the principle of locality, which is a different set of metaphysical interpretations than those that assert that all events are caused.

A) If there was uncaused cause then
...
4. Something has come from nothing.

This doesn't follow. It assumes that 'nothing' is the first uncaused cause.

C) If infinite things have happened then

Infinite things having happened doesn't imply infinite time. There are infinite events (no end to space), so only finite time is necessary for infinite things to happen. I'm suggesting that C be worded as just infinite (non-cyclic) past time.

3. The cosmos was infinitely sustainable in the past, since otherwise it would have collapsed by now.
4. The future cosmos should also be infinitely sustainable (and never-ending), unless the laws of nature, which sustained the infinite past, will some day go on a fatal strike for no obvious reason.

Any model of this needs to account for entropy. It defines the arrow of time, and something needs to reset it, or it doesn't describe the reality we see.

HuggetZukker

That said, there are known uncaused events like photon emission or radioactive decay. There are metaphysical interpretations that say there are hidden variables that make such events actually caused, if not predictable, but that is just one possible interpretation, sort of matching your option B below.

A good angle. At the opening of the argumentation, I wrote:

If every effect has a preceding cause, as classical inquiry implies

I chose the wording, "classical inquiry", in avoidance of the word, "science", because I wanted to keep the arguments simple, but the angle you give is something I had strongly considered bringing up.

Hidden variables may not help improve current theories, but they remain a wide open possibility.

A) If there was uncaused cause then
...
4. Something has come from nothing.
This doesn't follow. It assumes that 'nothing' is the first uncaused cause.

I didn't mean it that literally, but rather like this: "Something which didn't come from anything has existed." I can't imagine what "coming from nothing" means if taken more literally, but I'd like to be helped by a description.

Infinite things having happened doesn't imply infinite time. There are infinite events (no end to space), so only finite time is necessary for infinite things to happen. I'm suggesting that C be worded as just infinite (non-cyclic) past time.

You're completely right that if there is infinite space, infinite events have happened in finite time. My bad.

Any model of this needs to account for entropy. It defines the arrow of time, and something needs to reset it, or it doesn't describe the reality we see.

Hmm. I could at best give reference to some hypotheses (for example, the eternal inflationary model might give leeway to infinite past), but I have nothing solid to counter your argument. I really like the idea of infinite past, but it doesn't seem likely, so therefore I give up.

TheMadFool

As far as I know...

Time has two flavors

1. Time is real and flows

2. Time is just a mental frame, invented by our minds to make sense of the world

Science, if I remember correctly, avoids the above dilemma by defining time operationally as something measured by a clock.

I asked this question here but no one answered it satisfactorily or, more likely, they weren't interested.

I think time is very peculiar. It is measured using cyclical processes e.g. pendulum swings and atomic oscillations. The interesting thing is when something cycles it means we can't distinguish between two/more states as to which is first (like the chicken egg problem). In other words any cyclical process (clocks too) is atemporal, meaning time doesn't exist for them. A pendulum swings from one side A to another side B but we really don't know which side is the future and which is the past. That makes clocks, all of them, paradoxical tools to measure time with, right?

noAxioms

I didn't mean it that literally, but rather like this: "Something which didn't come from anything has existed." I can't imagine what "coming from nothing" means if taken more literally, but I'd like to be helped by a description. — HuggetZukker

Much better. I came to the same conclusion, but then after a while even that seemed presumptuous to me, but that's just me.

I find an excellent model of the universe to be the set of all possible legal chess positions, which has 2D space, time, multi-world, deterministic, and entropy. Every state seems to be an effect of a prior cause (one move before), but to conclude that the initial state must have been caused would be an error. It didn't come from nothing, and it doesn't necessarily require platonic existence for it to be the set of all legal chess states.

Unlike our universe, it is very finite (8x8 discreet locations), finite discreet time (the longest possible chess game is about 10000 moves (counting each move, not each pair of moves as is normally recorded), but it is nicely illustrative of the sort of thing that we might be.

BrianW

↪HuggetZukker

What if the first cause is causation?

HuggetZukker

What if the first cause is causation?

Can you hypothesize a process whereby causation causes an effect?

Relativist

An infinite past seems impossible, because that would entail a completed infinity; it would mean TODAY is the conclusion of an infinite series of actualized past days.

BrianW

↪HuggetZukker

The idea of a first cause is rather paradoxical and my hypothesis may be quite distant from being logical. However, I hope you can help develop it further.

=> Following the chain of cause and effect in reverse towards the origin, builds what seems like an 'infinity-chain' with no clear ending or beginning in sight. This is because we seek to find something which is not caused and therefore determine that it is itself the first causative agent. This, to me, seems impossible.
However, let us use principles and take the general idea of existence, which represents everything we mean by anything, and apply to it that reversal in the cause-effect chain. What can be said to have existed prior to existence? The answer is probably nothing because whatever identity there is, it would still have to satisfy the definition of existence. And here lies the paradox. The only way out is to concede that existence is the fundamental nature of everything, of reality.
Also, this existence must have its fundamental characteristics which are constantly mapping out its nature. This nature is inherent in existence and can be identified as a necessity. Firstly, existence must have a form, which is the constitution of its existence or 'being-ness' (a need to have); secondly, it must have influence or power to exert itself as an existence or to assert its 'being-ness' (need to be); and thirdly, it must manifest activity, which is the constant expression of itself as an existence (need to do). That necessity which is fundamental to existence is the impulse or stimulus or will which drives existence and may be referred to as a cause.

HuggetZukker

An infinite past seems impossible, because that would entail a completed infinity; it would mean TODAY is the conclusion of an infinite series of actualized past days.

From the phrase "actualized past days," I infer that you probably approach time as a force that actively flows by the present moment. This is compatible with Presentism and Growing Block Universe. It's a very intuitive approach, but it may be helpful to try to see it from a different perspective. In the context of possibility B and C, I approach time as still with all moments eternal as consciousness flows through. This falls under an approach called Eternalism.

In mathematics, there are both positive infinity and negative infinity. Think of the present as t=0 where t is time. Starting at t=0, line P for past extends infinitely towards t=negative infinity, and also starting at t=0, another line F for future extends infinitely towards t=positive infinity.

None of these lines' lengths are completed infinities.

Chronologically speaking, the past timeline "ends" in the present, but it doesn't begin at any time, and therefore it's incomplete.

Geometrically speaking, P begins at t=0, but it doesn't end at any t, and therefore it's incomplete.

Banno

If every effect has a preceding cause... — HuggetZukker

How could you know that this is true?

How could you show it to be false?

So where does it stand?

gurugeorge

If every effect has a preceding cause, as classical inquiry implies, — HuggetZukker

That's not the Thomist argument, the Thomist argument is that everything we experience has a cause. That's precisely why the classical Cosmological Argument has some plausibility: although everything we experience has a cause, it's still possible that something exists uncaused that we have no experience of.

Marchesk

How could you know that this is true?

How could you show it to be false?

So where does it stand? — Banno

Depends on whether truth can be something which is unknowable to us.

Banno

↪Marchesk

So are there things you do not know? Or do you know everything? Or are we embarking on some word game?

Marchesk

So are there things you do not know? — Banno

There are things no human knows.

Or are we embarking on some word game? — Banno

If I ask you what the number of hairs were on Julius Caesar's head before he died, is that a word game? Would we ever be able to know?

Banno

↪Marchesk

So we are agree that there are things we do not know.

Hence,

Depends on whether truth can be something which is unknowable to us. — Marchesk

is not at contention.

Marchesk

So we are agree that there are things we do not know. — Banno

Right, but that's different from whether there are things we cannot know, because of some limitation to our ability to know. We don't know whether there is life on Mars, but humans are capable of finding that out in time. We also don't know whether there is life in a galaxy 5 billion light years away, but we might not ever be able to know that given it's distance.

Banno

↪Marchesk

And...?

If every effect has a preceding cause...
— HuggetZukker

How could you know that this is true?

How could you show it to be false?

So where does it stand? — Banno

I pointed out that "every effect has a cause" cannot be either proved, nor disproved. How does what you have said relate to this?

Marchesk

I pointed out that "every effect has a cause" cannot be either proved, nor disproved. How does what you have said relate to this? — Banno

Which means we can't know whether it's true. But it's also possible there is no truth to be had in this matter, depending on what one thinks about statements which are unprovable.

Banno

↪Marchesk

A statement's being unprovable does not render it false. Talk to Gödel.

HuggetZukker

If every effect has a preceding cause...
— HuggetZukker

How could you know that this is true?

How could you show it to be false?

So where does it stand?
— Banno

If you can argue that it is true, or that it is false, I encourage you to go ahead and make your case.

My argumentation hinges on it having unknown truth value, and therefore I have no incentive to argue that it is true, or that it is false.

Could time be finite, infinite, or cyclic?

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