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Subject: By all means, justify your position.

Author:
Wade A. Tisthammer

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Date Posted: 06/10/05 12:26pm
In reply to: Damoclese 's message, "A bunch of philosophical hoo ha" on 06/ 9/05 7:31pm

>>Not plausible, for a number of reasons. One is that
>>outside of time there is no change (only being and
>>non-being)
>
>Exactly how do you know what dimensions exist outside
>of time? How do you know that change doesn't happen
>when time isn't involved?

Due to the definition of what time is. Change (as from state A to state B) presupposes time. There would be a past state A and a current state B.

>>We do have good empirical evidence to think
>>that the known physical universe began to exist some
>>10 to 20 billion years ago, and we have good
>>philosophical reason for thinking that past is finite.
>
>No, you really don't have a good philosophical reason
>for thinking that

Then by all means please solve address my philosophical reasons for thinking that. You can start here and here.

>because as many outstanding
>paradoxes adequately demonstrate, when it comes to
>infinity logic has some serious breaks.

I'm not sure what you mean by that. If you are saying that the notion of an actual infinite leads to absurdities, I suppose you may be right. But that itself argues against the existence of an actual infinite, and in doing so argues against an infinite past.

>>Given ex nihilo nihil fit, some atemporally
>>timeless agency had to create the universe. It's the
>>only alternative to an infinite past.
>
>Or there could be other dimensions that aren't time
>but that act like time.

Really? How would this dimension act without actually being (or involving) time? I�m not convinced that your proposal is a coherent position.

>>Except that an infinite past is metaphysically
>>impossible, so we have to discard that possibility.
>
>Since when does metaphysics determine reality?

You seem to be confused. Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy that is concerned with the fundamental nature of reality. When I say something is "metaphysically impossible" I mean that it cannot be possible in actual reality under any possible circumstances.

>>Not quite, since we still have the same basic problem
>>of an infinite past (e.g. the universe began and ended
>>infinite number of times, going through an infinite
>>number of iterations, thus traversing an infinite
>>number of years etc.) not to mention the problems that
>>known physics suggests....
>
>If this is true, the mathematics suggests that you
>never travel any distance since you have to cover an
>infinity of fractional distances.

Mathematics does not suggest any such thing. Zeno's paradox has been resolved for quite some time now. Didn't we discuss it already? And didn't I offer a resolution to the paradox?

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Replies:

Subject	Author	Date
How obfuscating and declarifying won the west	Damoclese	06/10/05 8:15pm
By all means, justify your position (please). -- Wade A. Tisthammer, 06/10/05 9:09pm Lifestyles of the rich and semantics -- Damoclese, 06/11/05 10:54am Lifestyles of Count Int -- Wade A. Tisthammer, 06/11/05 9:05pm