Defining a Starting Point
Each person seems to have their own idea of what constitutes a starting point. Some say God is the starting point, but don't seem to ask the question: " Was there anything before God." Many in Science believe it all started with the "Big Bang", but we are still left with the question: "Was there anything before the Big Bang?" I am asking a more basic question: What constitutes a "Starting Point"? It seems we each have arbitrary starting points, each based on our own understanding. But, each understanding does not seem to recognize a "before", even though we also seem to believe - there must have been "something" before - something before God, or something before the Big Bang. A Starting Point, or something before the Starting Point - or can there even be such a thing as a Starting Point?
Comments (23)
So, does anyone have any creative perspectives that don't involve illogical random subject-verb-object constructions?
A starting point in time is not really an issue. What matters is that something must necessarily exist if something contingent is to exist; an oak tree is contingent because cells, molecules and atoms must exist if the oak tree is to exist. The question here is 'What is necessary existence?'
The necessary existence - that precedes all other things - is existence itself. It is not something that has the property 'existence'. It is existence itself because existence is not a property. Existence precedes all other contingent things and they inherit their existence from the necessary existence that is.
How do you know it’s necessary? Also I like your name.
Sure.
Quoting Present awareness
Agreed.
But that is different from the OP’s question. OP is asking when the “starting point of time” is. He is not asking whether or not we can measure time at a moment other than now or if we can be at a moment other than now. He’s asking how far back do our measurements go.
Why not the ending point? Or the only real moment?
I think the answer to this depends on what type of topic you have in mind. If you're talking about the starting point of the universe, then that's one question. Some argue that it simply was the beginning of the universe, to ask what came before it is a bit like asking what's south of the south pole while you're standing on it. Others speak of cyclical universe in which the universe eventually contracts and it all starts over again. Yet other speak of multiverses. Who knows?
If you have in mind the starting point of an event, say, WWII or something, then yes, there will always be an arbitrary stipulation of some kind. To say that such an event caused or began WWII, for example, you'd have to be able to provide some reasonable causal explanation between the event you have in mind, and the start of the war. But as you say, it suffers from infinite regress and speaking about casual relations in international affairs is very difficult, given how many people are involved.
Maybe this is a cheap way out, but I'd say that whatever fits your intuitions best is the most reliable "starting point" for "normal life" questions. For example you see someone slip and break a bone. What caused that? Well you happened to catch someone throwing a wet towel at the person. If someone asks what caused him to break his bone, your intuition would be to say that the person who throw the towel was the starting point of the events that lead to a person breaking a bone.
You will always be able to complicate the situation more by asking "what starting point led the person who throw the towel want to throw it?" And then you'll get stuck. So I think our intuition here is the safest bet in manifest reality. Science is a different matter.
Alternatively you could say it necessarily exists because it exists. It could not have been otherwise because it is what it is and there is nothing else preceding it.
Starting point: Cogito ergo sum
Another starting point: T = There are no truths. T can't be true because then it's, self-contradictory. T has to be false ergo, S = There are truths
You have a point but the two arguments that I brought to your attention are not restricted to a single perspective; they're true from all angles..