Upchurch
Papa Funkosophy
It is only common sense that something has been around forever. I mean, there had to be something before the Big Bang. Void. Time. God. Something. Right?
Okay, let's ignore that physical evidence tells us that spacetime isn't absolute. Let's ignore that it doesn't even makes sense that there is a time before the existance of spacetime. Let's focus on what it means to be something that has an eternal past. An infinite past.
For the sake of this argument, I'm going to assume that there is a prefered time line that extends backwards from a specific point (let's call it November 22, 2005) for an infinite amount of duration. It is absolute and all things can be measured against it in a common, un-changing metric that is constant throughout the universe and time. Let's call it a year. Let's also assume that there is some there is something (we'll call it X) that exists on this time line in the distant, infinite past and that X cannot age, decay, or be distroyed. Based on its definition, X can only be something that is eternal, but what you choose to call it (e.g. God, Time, Void, Ed, FSM, etc.) really doesn't matter. I'm only going to use one to prove my ultimate point, but feel free to apply it to your favorite eternal thingie.
To recap more simply, we've got a thing, X, that is forever many years in the past from November 22, 2005. The first question that springs to my mind is: how many years must X wait until it has traveled along the time line to November 22, 2005?
Well, an infinite number of years is a long amount of duration to calculate, so let's make it easy on ourselves and figure out how long it takes X to reach only half that duration. Half of infinite duration would take X infinity years to transverse. That puts X infinite years closer, but still infinite years away from November 22, 2005. How long will it take X to travel the remaining infinite years? Let's cut it in half and try again.
...or not. I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this obvious adaptation* of Zeno's Paradox.
X, having existed since forever, can never reach a specific point in time because there will never be enough years. That includes time itself. If time existed infinitely long ago, it could never be measured in enough years to arrive at our current time. The presant would never get here.
Obviously, the presant is here, therefore time did not exist infinitely long ago. Further, if time did not exist infinitely long ago, then it must have a beginning. Further2, if time has a beginning, then all things must have a beginning.
Therefore, nothing can have existed forever.
* read "rip off"
Okay, let's ignore that physical evidence tells us that spacetime isn't absolute. Let's ignore that it doesn't even makes sense that there is a time before the existance of spacetime. Let's focus on what it means to be something that has an eternal past. An infinite past.
For the sake of this argument, I'm going to assume that there is a prefered time line that extends backwards from a specific point (let's call it November 22, 2005) for an infinite amount of duration. It is absolute and all things can be measured against it in a common, un-changing metric that is constant throughout the universe and time. Let's call it a year. Let's also assume that there is some there is something (we'll call it X) that exists on this time line in the distant, infinite past and that X cannot age, decay, or be distroyed. Based on its definition, X can only be something that is eternal, but what you choose to call it (e.g. God, Time, Void, Ed, FSM, etc.) really doesn't matter. I'm only going to use one to prove my ultimate point, but feel free to apply it to your favorite eternal thingie.
To recap more simply, we've got a thing, X, that is forever many years in the past from November 22, 2005. The first question that springs to my mind is: how many years must X wait until it has traveled along the time line to November 22, 2005?
Well, an infinite number of years is a long amount of duration to calculate, so let's make it easy on ourselves and figure out how long it takes X to reach only half that duration. Half of infinite duration would take X infinity years to transverse. That puts X infinite years closer, but still infinite years away from November 22, 2005. How long will it take X to travel the remaining infinite years? Let's cut it in half and try again.
...or not. I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this obvious adaptation* of Zeno's Paradox.
X, having existed since forever, can never reach a specific point in time because there will never be enough years. That includes time itself. If time existed infinitely long ago, it could never be measured in enough years to arrive at our current time. The presant would never get here.
Obviously, the presant is here, therefore time did not exist infinitely long ago. Further, if time did not exist infinitely long ago, then it must have a beginning. Further2, if time has a beginning, then all things must have a beginning.
Therefore, nothing can have existed forever.
* read "rip off"
) amount of square roots of 1. Which makes kind of difficult to solve most equations.
