An argument that an infinite past is impossible

No, it isn't sound, as Hegel pointed out in his criticism of Kant, one can select any arbitrary chunk, as it were, of infinity and progress from the assigned beginning to the assigned end.

What's really wrong with it is two fold. First of all an infinite universe implies that everything that is possible is actual, even contradictory things. Like an alien that exists that has destroyed an infinite amount of the universe, but there still being an infinite amount left to destroy.

Secondly, it assumes a linearity of time rather than relativity. Without there being some context, some movement, change, space then it makes no sense to talk about time, and certainly not in a linear overarching progressive fashion such as that.

Sample objections:

A more accurate conclusion (sequitur), 5,6, is that now does not have a specific (whole, positive) number.
And that would be the case if there were an infinite amount of prior moments.

You'll notice that items 1,2,3 refer to non-indexical moments (1st, 2nd, 3rd), whereas 5,6 is indexical (now).
This is masked a bit by item 4.
There are examples of indexical and non-indexical information being two classes of knowledge.

With an infinite past, the present, now, does not have any particular number, if you will.
Or, alternatively, any numbering is equally fine.
Item 5 a non sequitur.

Reply to jorndoe Interesting argument, I like it. I'll stick around to see what the others have to say on this. However I suspect it is not solid. It seems to depend on the idea that time moves forward in one direction; an intuition that is theoretically refuted from deduction of scientific observation (I can't remember the specificities, perhaps someone like apo will).

Also, can it not be the case that all of time is already set out? It would go as follows:

1 -> 2 -> 3 -> 4 -> 1 -> ... -> infinite loops. Thus all moments of time are already set in stone, and we just keep looping, like a temporal mobius strip. There was no first cause, because the past, present, and future all exist simultaneously, independent of any sort of tense intra-worldly beings place on them, so there is no progress in the actual sense (only the phenomenal sense). So when we progress forward in time, we are actually just another wakened form of existing. The past self that thinks about the future five seconds ago still exists and is still thinking about the future. And the self existing right "now" will always be thinking of the past self. The feeling that we persist is wholly an illusion, then, but nevertheless an experience that will always be the case in this "moment", and all the other moments of experience. "You" are not "you" five seconds ago - they are separate things entirely, existing in a wholly different temporal (yet static) frame, in no way more or less existing than you are now.

Why a temporal mobius strip would be the way it is, I have no idea. It's just a funny idea I've been toying with.

A better argument is that infinity is paradoxical which is why nobody has ever managed to prove it actually exists. Quantum mechanics can crush Zeno's paradoxes into indeterminate mush and does so by everything remaining both indivisible and infinitely divisible allowing the law of identity to go completely down the nearest convenient rabbit hole or toilet of your personal preference. As a result everything should turn out to be infinitely divisible and indivisible with electrons recently providing the first example. Their particle-like aspect is indivisible and fundamental, while their wave-like is infinity divisible. What a paradoxical infinity should also display is four fold supersymmetry in everything and, I believe, a self-organizing systems logic. The recent proof of the Monstrous Moonshine Conjecture means it is possible to prove that for all practical purposes infinity might as well exist.

Quoting darthbarracuda

It seems to depend on the idea that time moves forward in one direction; an intuition that is theoretically refuted from deduction of scientific observation (I can't remember the specificities, perhaps someone like apo will).

You are right the argument would be suspect simply because it depends on a particular notion of time. And while modern science might not be able to offer a concrete "better model of time" right at the moment, it does have plenty of evidence to doubt the kind of simplicities the argument assumes.

Quoting darthbarracuda

Why a temporal mobius strip would be the way it is, I have no idea. It's just a funny idea I've been toying with.

But the problem here is that you have just destroyed causality, and causality is something we would expect to be able to extract from "a better model of time". Causality is what we observe in the world - it is why we believe it to be "time-like" - and so at the very least, an arrow of time ought to be the emergent feature of any good model of time.

That was the problem of Newtonian time, and the reason for recent thermal models. Newtonian time could not build in a direction. As a result you can get insane metaphysical notions like "the block universe", or "eternal recurrence".

Quoting jorndoe

An odd argument I came across recently:

A modern version of this argument is used to show the Big Bang could never have happened. If eternal Time exists (in big-T Newtonian dimensional fashion), then there would have had to have been an infinite amount of time elapsing before - suddenly, in a bright flash - our Universe got created. So therefore never enough time could pass to arrive at that point.

A better answer is that the Big Bang was the start of time, as well as space. So we can't think of the pre-Bang as a temporal dimension - except in some far simpler metaphysical sense yet to be articulated scientifically.

Reply to apokrisis What it means is infinity is a metaphorical concept that has no clear identity outside of specific contexts which is the kind of thing that quantum mechanics can establish statistically. The Monstrous Moonshine Conjecture will change everything within the next few decades and show just how infinity actually applies observably to the world around us by establishing that some things, for example, are at least 26 dimensional.

Reply to wuliheron That's the kind of "dancing wu li master" nonsense that gives serious systems science such a bad name.

Quoting apokrisis

That's the kind of "dancing wu li master" nonsense that gives serious systems science such a bad name.

LOL, the theory of everything is coming and the world will never be the same again because mother nature's sense of humor is the only rival to her beauty. The problem is modern western science has focused on her beauty to the exclusion of humor which is why Max Planck begged his colleges to explain the joke.

Quoting Wosret

No, it isn't sound, as Hegel pointed out in his criticism of Kant, one can select any arbitrary chunk, as it were, of infinity and progress from the assigned beginning to the assigned end.

I don't see how that solves anything with respect to the argument presented in the first post of this thread.

All one would have to do to counter that counter is to change "momemt" to "chunk":

1. if the universe was temporally infinite, then there would be no 1st chunk
2. if there was no 1st chunk, then there was no 2nd chunk,

etc.

Its more argument for argument's sake when the evidence of quantum mechanics says there is no way any length of time can be smaller than 10^-27s. You guys might as well be debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin for all the respect you show for evidence.

Quoting wuliheron

The problem is modern western science has focused on her beauty to the exclusion of humor

So beauty = ideas with mathematical precision, and humour = measurement uncertainty? Where then is there a problem if science has mathematically precise models of measurement uncertainty?

Like the 1960s Batman, the argument is so bad that it's good. Here are some bad/good (nonsensical) things about it that I love:

Line 4 is note even a proposition, as it lacks a verb.

The only justification offered for line 5 is 'then'. Can I apply the same reasoning to the proposition 'You must give me all your money' by putting 'then' in front of it?

The most interesting one though, to me, is that proposition 1 is also insupportable, even though most people would usually accept it. If we map each instant in time to an ordinal that denotes how many years ago it was, we can hypothesise that the collection of all non-fractional instants in time might map to the set of all finite ordinals together with the first infinite ordinal ?. Then the instant of time that maps to ? can be thought of as the first instant of time, even though the past is infinite in this model.

The key point though, is that these days arguments of the impossibility of an infinite past are only made by people that do not understand mathematics well.

Reply to apokrisis Yes, most of the essential equations in physics today can fit on a t-shirt and display what physicists like to call elegant simplicity. Einstein compared Relativity to a Jewel for its symmetry, while Indeterminacy expresses asymmetry because it can be considered paradoxically both symmetrical and asymmetrical. In general, you could say western thinking focuses on beauty to the exclusion of humor with the result that Asian languages have jokes that go right over our heads and use more of their brains than our languages do. We think more mechanically, while they think metaphorically and mechanical perspectives are better for beauty among other things. But it means for science to take the next leap it will have to acquire a better sense of humor that is compatible with all that beauty.

Next generation computers will spit out jokes routinely that go over everyone's heads and the US federal government has finally admitted they have classified a few jokes as "Vital to the National Defense." It requires mathematics that are four times as complex and Contextual philosophies such as the one I am writing. You could say the rise of civilization has so far depended upon digital approaches which are better for error correction and accuracy, but now we are beginning to master analog logic.

Quoting apokrisis

But the problem here is that you have just destroyed causality, and causality is something we would expect to be able to extract from "a better model of time". Causality is what we observe in the world - it is why we believe it to be "time-like" - and so at the very least, an arrow of time ought to be the emergent feature of any good model of time.

That was the problem of Newtonian time, and the reason for recent thermal models. Newtonian time could not build in a direction. As a result you can get insane metaphysical notions like "the block universe", or "eternal recurrence".

Right, again, it was just supposed to be a musing idea. In any case, though, the notion of causality has been attacked, many times. So this muse accordingly would destroy the illusory concepts of causality and persistence. Which does seem implausible, as our minds seem to pick up on these sorts of things.

There are some extrapolating arguments from evidence that the universe was not temporally infinite (e.g. Big Bang models, entropy, the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem).
These may vary a bit on the no-boundary hypotheses.

I was mostly interested in the logical argument here.
If someone shows that anything but a definite earliest time is impossible, well, then that's the most rational scientific pursuit, for example.

Personally, I think there are better arguments by intuitive appeal (I can post some if anyone's interested).
Seems to me the argument isn't sound.

Quoting andrewk

these days arguments of the impossibility of an infinite past are only made by people that do not understand mathematics well

Yep, especially for logical arguments.

Quoting andrewk

Here are some bad/good (nonsensical) things about it

I apologize for any poor wording. :)

Let me try adding details, some of which go one way, others another:

1. if the universe was temporally infinite, then there was no 1st moment
2. if there was no 1st moment, but just some moment, then there was no 2nd moment
3. if there was no 2nd moment, but just some other moment, then there was no 3rd moment
4. ... and so on and so forth ...
5. if there was no 2nd last moment, then there would be no now
6. since now exists, we started out wrong, i.e. the universe is not temporally infinite

As before

• items 1,2,3 refer to non-indexical moments (1st, 2nd, 3rd), but 5 is indexical (2nd last, now), which is masked by 4
• 6 is a non sequitur because the argument only shows that, in case of an infinite past, now does not have a specific, definite number (1st, 2nd, 3rd, ..., now)

Quoting wuliheron

US federal government has finally admitted they have classified a few jokes as "Vital to the National Defense."

References please....

Quoting darthbarracuda

In any case, though, the notion of causality has been attacked, many times.

That's a little hand-wavy. Where do we have evidence that on the whole causality fails the locality principle?

Yes, we definitely also have good evidence that "at the quantum scale" causality breaks down in a particular fashion. But we rely on causality being pretty conventional at an emergent classical scale.

So this is why we would want an emergent model now. It is not a reason to just throw away classicality. That still "works".

Quoting jorndoe

1. if the universe was temporally infinite, then there would be no 1st moment

Time is continuous. To assume that there are moments in time is to contradict "time is continuous". Therefore either my assumption that time is continuous, or the posted argument's assumption that time consists of a succession of moments, is false. Or both are false, and time is neither.

A quick observation:

If we argue from Big Bang models, i.e. extrapolate to a definite earliest time, then other infinites just show up instead, infinite density and temperature.

[quote=Foundations of Modern Cosmology by John F Hawley and Katherine A Holcomb]
Temperature may be a better label than time for the evolution of the universe

Perhaps time is the wrong marker.
Perhaps what we call time is merely a labeling convention, one that happens to correspond to something more fundamental.
The scale factor, which is related to the temperature of the universe, could be such a quantity.
In our standard solutions, the scale factor, and hence the temperature, is not a steady function of cosmic time.
Intervals marked by equal changes in the temperature will correspond to very different intervals of cosmic time.
In units of this temperature time, the elapsed interval, that is, the change in temperature, from recombination till the present is less than the elapsed change from the beginning to the end of the lepton epoch.
As an extreme example, if we push temperature time all the way to the big bang, the temperature goes to infinity when cosmic time goes to zero.
In temperature units, the big bang is in the infinite past!

In an open universe, the temperature drops to zero at infinite cosmic time, and temperature and cosmic time always travel in opposite directions.
In a closed universe, on the other hand, there is an infinite temperature time in the future, at some finite cosmic time.
A closed universe also has the property, not shared by the open or flat universe, of being finite in both cosmic time and in space.
In this case, the beginning and end of the universe are nothing special, just two events in the four-geometry.
Some cosmologists have argued for this picture on aesthetic grounds; but as we have seen, such a picture lacks observational support, and has no particular theoretical justification other than its pleasing symmetry.

If we are looking for clues to a physical basis for the flow of time, however, perhaps we are on the right track with temperature.
[/quote]

The no-boundary hypotheses do not have any of these, but are sometimes dismissed as counter-intuitive.

Quoting jorndoe

If we argue from Big Bang models, i.e. extrapolate to a definite earliest time, then other infinites just show up instead, infinite density and temperature.

I certainly agree with a thermal approach to time. But other infinities don't show up at the beginning. Instead, all things have the same Planckian scale.

So even temperature or energy density is not infinite at the Planck scale. It has a size - at least when measured against an extrapolated version of a Newtonian system of clocks and rulers with scales that go "all the way up" to zero (just like Spinal Tap's amps!).

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

time is continuous

Maybe.
I don't think the argument intended zero-dimensional "moments", or a particular quantification, as such.
It was given to me in a much less formal format; it's also possible my rendition remains a bit hokey. :)

Reply to apokrisis Indeed, it still works, but it might not be an accurate picture of reality. Hume tried to ground all metaphysics in experience. And Russell thought causality was the common man's myth, as did some of the logical positivists.

I'm not saying I agree with them. Causality isn't my best topic. But in any case, just because something works does not mean it actually is the case. A convenient explanation need not always be the correct explanation.

Quoting darthbarracuda

A convenient explanation need not always be the correct explanation.

But also if you advance a positive doubt here, it needs to be constrained by what appear to be the facts, dontcha think?

You seem to be claiming that causality fails in some generic sense. I ask where are the facts that suggest that?

Quoting apokrisis

You seem to be claiming that causality fails in some generic sense. I ask where are the facts that suggest that?

I am saying that what we experience is all we ever actually know, and that causality may or may not be needed in order to understand the world. I consider it to be likely that causality is indeed real (as is the outside world) but it's not straightforward either.

Reply to darthbarracuda Huh? You are confusing an epistemological point with an ontological question. Hume ain't relevant here as this was about specific models, not the underlying possibility of modelling.

Reply to apokrisis Again I wasn't making an ontological claim, just pointing out the fact that the the reality of causality is not altogether obvious or straightforward.

I think a better argument is that: all temporal events are finite, if time was infinite, everything would be finished already.

It's worse than that, time like space is a result of extension. Pondering the products of extension doesn't tell us anything about the nature of the origin of the extension. Chattering about notions like infinity in relation to extension, or what is beyond this extension(our world) is pie in the sky.

Quoting apokrisis

. . .(just like Spinal Tap's amps!)

:D

Quoting jorndoe

I don't think the argument intended zero-dimensional "moments", or a particular quantification, as such.
It was given to me in a much less formal format; it's also possible my rendition remains a bit hokey. :)

But the argument assumes a particular quantification, a first, second, third moment of time, etc.. Without this quantification of time, there is no argument.

A similar principle acts as the grounds for Aquinas' cosmological argument which speaks of quantifiable things, actual individual entities. If individual things are generated and corrupted in time, then we can assume that there must be a first thing, as per your argument posted. That forms the basic definition of finite existence, individual, bounded objects. So if there are such finite things in existence, there must be a first. The definition of "existing things" is such that they are finite, and this denies the possibility of infinite regress.

Now we proceed, if there is a first thing, then the potential for that thing must be prior to the thing itself, from inductive reasoning. So the cosmological argument insists that there must be something actual which is prior to all these individual things, in order to actualize this initial potential. The potential for the first thing could not actualize itself, so it is necessary to assume an actual cause, which is prior to all actual things.

Quoting jorndoe

An odd argument I came across recently:

1. if the universe was temporally infinite, then there would be no 1st moment
2. if there was no 1st moment, then there was no 2nd moment
3. if there was no 2nd moment, then there was no 3rd moment
4. ... and so on and so forth ...
5. ... then there would be no now
6. since now exists, we started out wrong, i.e. the universe is not temporally infinite

EDIT: Post 17 or thereabouts below has an extended rendition of the argument

Sound argument?

It's not sound because if there is no beginning then it would be illogical to count moments. The only thing you could do is start with an arbitrary moment and count from that. There would still be moments.

There's some scary looking argumentifying going on here but we can simply dismiss the fundamental premise that infinite series are by definition continuous in both directions. We are are surrounded by what I like to call directional infinities; the natural numbers, the Mandelbrot set etc. These are indisputably infinite but only in one direction. Therefore there is no conceptual dissonance in a Universe that is both temporally infinite and has a temporal beginning.

Quoting apokrisis

References please....

They don't provide references for classified information, however, there are quite a few mathematicians using variations on the excluded middle and fuzzy logic whose work has been classified. Paradoxical logics that use different variations on the excluded middle. These are jokes along the lines of the poetry I write which contain fuzzy logic and can become so complex they go over almost anyone's head or just sound silly. Universities are now routinely having contests to write them. Among other things, their fuzzy logic provides a more efficient, compact, and precise approach for things like air rebreathers and missile guidance systems and it can be illegal to export such technology.

I would post more here, but they just keep erasing my poetry.

I'd be interested in any objections to the objections, that hence finds this peculiar argument (deductively) sound.

Quoting jorndoe

I'd be interested in any objections to the objections, that hence finds this peculiar argument (deductively) sound.

When in trouble, when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout!

Quoting wuliheron

When in trouble, when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout!

:D

Will Donna Summer (1977) do?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVM1nUmDHHc

As sexy as Donna is, yin-yang dynamics demand a somewhat more cartoonish universe. Doctor Doolittle's push-me-pull-you and Tom and Jerry running in circles are popular examples. Its analog logic along the lines of Yogi Berra's "90% of this game is half mental." Stephen Wright and Yoda are also good examples as are the Three Stooges and Gonzo the Muppet. The sexual humor I won't cover here but, suffice it to say cockroach humor like Groucho Marx's, "One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I'll never know" is popular and often traditional in Asia. Primitive tribes can tell jokes that would make a porn star blush and run the other way.

Reply to Barry Etheridge But mathematically it starts with an infinitesimal rather than a zero if we are talking about the other "end" of infinity.

Quoting wuliheron

They don't provide references for classified information

But you can provide a reference to support your clam about this being a fact? This is something you know because it has been reported somewhere credible you can now point too?

Quoting apokrisis

But you can provide a reference to support your clam about this being a fact? This is something you know because it has been reported somewhere credible you can now point too?

No, the government and even large corporations like Google censor the internet to prevent any such information from becoming widely known. Its not in any of their interests to allow such information to become widely known with Google and IBM's specialties including artificial intelligence and their reliance upon the government for some of their funding and information. Go ahead, try to look up classified information and you'll be lucky if you get someone claiming UFOs are real or information declassified concerning the second world war. Military intelligence is an oxymoron and they'll keep things classified for fifty years if they even suspect it might be important.

Quoting wuliheron

No, the government and even large corporations like Google censor the internet to prevent any such information from becoming widely known.

So how did you yourself become acquainted with this fact that you cite so often in your posts?

Quoting wuliheron

US federal government has finally admitted they have classified a few jokes as "Vital to the National Defense

You've written that the government has finally admitted this. You quote some actual words. So where and when did this happen? Tell us the story of how you come to know about this unusual fact.

Quoting apokrisis

So how did you yourself become acquainted with this fact that you cite so often in your posts?

Quoting apokrisis

You've written that the government has finally admitted this. You quote some actual words. So where and when did this happen? Tell us the story of how you come to know about this unusual fact.

I've actually conversed with one mathematician whose work was widely publicized as classified by the government. He was soliciting papers of any kind, even from a brain damaged mentally deranged hippie dippy like me, concerning paradoxical logic jokes incorporating a specific variation on the excluded middle and he also expressed a keen interest in Taoism which he had begun to study. Physicists are also familiar with the idea and in the last few decades academia as well as governments have shown intense sudden interest in both the Tao Te Ching and I-Ching.

A ten year cross disciplinary study of the I-Ching concluded it was word perfect for introspective purposes making it ideal for AI and theoretical physics research. One of the few things you can learn online about fuzzy logic is that it is of intense interest in both fields. My own expertise is a mastery of the Tao Te Ching and, theoretically, a complete word perfect set of 430 poems extrapolated from the text can describe both how to build an AI and construct a theory of everything. Thus far, to the best of my knowledge people have only managed to write perhaps 150 or so that are word perfect and complete, but that's because nobody has the philosophy worked out yet and they don't comprehend the logical or mathematical foundations.

Within twenty years computers should be capable of exposing the mathematical foundations and writing the complete set, but that's just all the more reason to keep most of the basic information classified for now. Among other things, the book I'm writing attempts to describe primitive tribal Pragmatic Taoism in a demonstrable, self-consistent, and nontrivial manner making it the first ever that meets modern academic standards as a formal philosophy. Its a multifractal or fractal within a fractal of a Fractal Dragon within a broader Mandelbrot pattern which is what the current theories in physics suggest is required and, hopefully, will produce a systems logic capable of describing anything. Sort of a top down approach to philosophy where first you assemble all of the pieces for any elegant and humble simplicity and allow them to express their own foundations.

I've spoken to the CEO of Google and experts from every field I've mentioned who all expressed interest in my work. Hell, even Ram Das expressed interest in my work. Google's entire website is designed to encourage people to write fuzzy logic poetry and there are other popular websites like it now appearing online with some designed specifically to encourage people to tell jokes.

Quoting wuliheron

A ten year cross disciplinary study of the I-Ching concluded it was word perfect for introspective purposes making it ideal for AI and theoretical physics research. One of the few things you can learn online about fuzzy logic is that it is of intense interest in both fields. My own expertise is a mastery of the Tao Te Ching and, theoretically, a complete word perfect set of 430 poems extrapolated from the text can describe both how to build an AI and construct a theory of everything. Thus far, to the best of my knowledge people have only managed to write perhaps 150 or so that are word perfect and complete, but that's because nobody has the philosophy worked out yet and they don't comprehend the logical or mathematical foundations.

:-| Wuli, I admit that this isn't my field, but this really sounds to me like the ramblings of a person with mental illness. The Tao Te Ching theoretically contains instructions on how to build an AI and construct a TOE? Whaaa...

Quoting Arkady

Wuli, I admit that this isn't my field, but this really sounds to me like the ramblings of a person with mental illness. The Tao Te Ching theoretically contains instructions on how to build and AI and construct a TOE? Whaaa...

Its mathematical poetry where every word can be treated as a variable with no intrinsic meaning or value. Its not like the authors knew what they were writing, but the mathematics are there just the same. Its a minimalistic expression of a Fractal Dragon equation that would require some 4,430 poems to express in excruciating detail but, thankfully, only 430 are required for a good representation that can be used to formulate a theory in eight dimensions and a singularity. Sort of a mathematical compromise for how to describe an infinite number of dimensions.

That it sounds like mad ramblings comes as no surprise. Taoism is like quantum mechanics in that the minute you think you understand it you are wrong.

Reply to wuliheron
Ok, this doesn't sound any more sensible to me (it doesn't help that you claim to have shopped this idea around to the CEO of Google...), but, as I said, I'm out of my element here. Could you provide some links/references to what you're talking about?

EDIT: I see above that you claim that this information has been censored. Oh, my...

Quoting Arkady

Ok, this doesn't sound any more sensible to me (it doesn't help that you claim to have shopped this idea around to the CEO of Google...), but, as I said, I'm out of my element here. Could you provide some links/references to what you're talking about?

I didn't shop the idea around, except for the mathematician whose work interested me, all the rest came looking for me the minute I let it be known I was writing a book on the subject. I've even had dozens of people online actively helping me research all the necessary metaphors for what I'm writing over a nine month period. Metaphors are not what most people think they are, but cutting edge Intuitionistic mathematics that the next computer revolution will leverage the same way the current one has calculus and Boolean logic.

You are welcome to look up AI research, fuzzy logic, Intuitionistic mathematics, metaphoric logic, etc. Its all analog logic which every popular computer and software today is moving towards adopting. IBM has been working on putting an AI in a coffee can sized device that draws about a 100 watts and has an intelligence somewhere between that of a cat and a human. You just can't do that with calculus and boolean logic, but require a much more analog approach. Ideally, something along the lines of the human brain which resembles a distributed gain amplifier incorporating Bayesian probabilities vanishing into indeterminacy. The NSA made it clear to the entire semiconducting industry they either move in this direction or peta scale computing will remain a fantasy. Efficiency is the new mantra or the parts get too hot when you just jamb them all together meaning intelligence is itself is a question of efficiency and creativity.

Quoting apokrisis

A modern version of this argument is used to show the Big Bang could never have happened. If eternal Time exists (in big-T Newtonian dimensional fashion), then there would have had to have been an infinite amount of time elapsing before - suddenly, in a bright flash - our Universe got created. So therefore never enough time could pass to arrive at that point.

A better answer is that the Big Bang was the start of time, as well as space. So we can't think of the pre-Bang as a temporal dimension - except in some far simpler metaphysical sense yet to be articulated scientifically.

Right. I guess contemporary cosmology will have it that temporality is an aspect of the universe. So, where causation (among others) is temporal, causation is also an aspect of the universe.

Anyway, it seems to me the principle of sufficient reason is hiding somewhere. That is, if the universe has a definite age, then a sufficient reason is sought for this particular age. If the universe does not have a definite age, then it would have to be infinite or "edge-free".

I've come across a few logical/deductive arguments that the universe cannot be temporally infinite, and others that it must be. :) At closer inspection it seems none of them hold, though.

This is one of the things that tends to bother me about theology and philosophical cosmology: I don't see how we're supposed to be able to know something like this. How on earth (literally) are we to know where the universe came from, or what the nature of the First Cause is (if there is one)?

While other metaphysical debates feel closer to home, so to speak, philosophical cosmology is quite the opposite. I can see how the problem of universals, for example, would be close to home (we encounter similarity every moment of our lives), but what remains to be shown is that the causality that seems to be apparent on the billiards table is identical to that billions of years ago.

It doesn't matter if we're Humeans are Aristotelians or Kantians or whatever: all we have access to is the causality that is apparent right now. This is why the more comfortable debates, like the problem of universals, are perfectly acceptable, since we are talking about something that is immediately perceived. But the origins of the cosmos is not apparent, and this especially becomes problematic when we start to consider more anti-realist conceptions of reality, like transcendental idealism or its realist offshoot, speculative realism. Did everything that happened billions of years before consciousness emerged actually happen? This is what Meillassoux claims to be the correlationist dilemma, and also the correlationist's responsibility to tell the scientists that they are studying something that never actually happened.

And so philosophical cosmological debates become suspect because they tend to implement a metaphysical framework of the here-and-now for the then-and-there, when there doesn't seem to be any real justification for the claim that the metaphysical structure of the here-and-now has been and always will be the same. It may be the case that the metaphysical structure of reality evolves, and that is all we can know: that is evolves, and what was the case before is lost.

Instead of armchair theorizing, the only method capable of producing anything of substance in this debate would be actual, pure empirical observations.

basic common sense should be enough to indicate the eternal, infinite nature of ultimate reality

A few points worth considering.

1. I did a very brief study of the etymology of "infinity" and discovered the root word is "finis" which means end; unremarkably, "infinite" means endless. This, I reckon is crucial to solving the puzzle of whether the past is finite/infinite because, all said and done, we're looking for a beginning. Is it there? Is it not there? The catch is, our concept of infinity (endless) isn't designed for any consideration of beginningless.

2. On a timeline, with the arrow of time, if you're facing towards the future (normal), there's no problem with an infinite future but the moment you look behind you, you encounter the infinite past problem.

Imagine now that you're a time traveler to the past i.e. you're now facing in a direction opposite to the (normal) arrow of time, the world's past is your future and suddenly, an infinite past is not an issue because it's your future and the future is/can be infinite.

The nub of the issue is this: time elapsed can't be infinite or has to be finite but time yet to elapse can be infinite. Beginningless (not infinity) vs. Endless (infinity).

We need a brand new concept for beginninglessness.

Reply to Agent Smith
Some Eastern thinkers suggest that time had no beginning, but I am not sure if that is possible logically. It seems like trying to draw a circle but without beginning it somewhere. The idea of eternal recurrence may have some bearing, but it still seems that there must be some kind of start. But, it could be that there is no end, but even this is hard to know with any certainty.

Quoting Jack Cummins

Some Eastern thinkers suggest that time had no beginning, but I am not sure if that is possible logically. It seems like trying to draw a circle but without beginning it somewhere. The idea of eternal recurrence may have some bearing, but it still seems that there must be some kind of start. But, it could be that there is no end, but even this is hard to know with any certainty

Begin-ninglessness isn't something that our current understanding of infinity (based on end-lessness) can handle/tackle. A begin-ning is baked into the idea of infinity as end-lessness.

Quoting Wosret

First of all an infinite universe implies that everything that is possible is actual, even contradictory things.

An infinite universe does not have to contain everything. You can have an infinity of even numbers 2, 4, 6,... but that infinity does not contain any odd number.

Quoting jorndoe

1. if the universe was temporally infinite, then there would be no 1st moment
2. if there was no 1st moment, then there was no 2nd moment
3. if there was no 2nd moment, then there was no 3rd moment
4. ... and so on and so forth ...
5. ... then there would be no now
6. since now exists, we started out wrong, i.e. the universe is not temporally infinite

Infinity is not endless counting 1, 2, 3,...
It is a set. The set of all numbers simultaneously in one set. Eternity is all time.

Quoting jorndoe

1. if the universe was temporally infinite, then there would be no 1st moment
2. if there was no 1st moment, then there was no 2nd moment
3. if there was no 2nd moment, then there was no 3rd moment
4. ... and so on and so forth ...
5. ... then there would be no now
6. since now exists, we started out wrong, i.e. the universe is not temporally infinite

I think 5 is a non sequitur.

Let’s say we are trying to figure out if time A (the Big Bang, for example) was the first moment or not.

If the universe is temporally infinite towards the past, then time A could not be labeled as the first moment, but there would still be a time A. Likewise, the very next instant (time B) could not be labeled as the second moment, but there would still be a time B.

I think the argument should be rephrased, in order to avoid confusion, as follows:

1.If the universe was temporally infinite towards the past, then no moment of time could be labeled as the first moment of time.

2. If no moment of time could be labeled as the first one, then no moment of time could be labeled as the second one.

3. If no moment of time could be labeled as the second one, then no moment of time could be labeled as the third one.

4. ... and so on and so forth...

5. Therefore, the “now” can’t be labeled as the nth moment of time, no matter what you substitute for n.

Labels in a universe with an infinite past work the other way around: you can only label each moment as last (the “now”), second to last, etc, always in reference to the last moment rather than the first one, since by definition a universe with an infinite past has no first moment.

Or maybe I made a mistake somewhere.

Time is continuous in that it is infinitely divisible. This is so because time measures motion which is measured by distance. A point of time has no length but separates chunks of time.. All motion travels infinite time in one respect but the argument of the OP is that there is too much time in (past) eternity for it to have reach the Big Bang. However I think it's obvious eternal time has enough time to reach now or any past point by the mere fact that it is eternal. The wheel of time is the supreme ruler of the world

Reply to Amalac

There is no first motion in an eternal universe and so no second but every point in it is in bounded by eternity and the whole system is eternal

If there is no first moment then that doesn't imply there is no second. Each second moment needs a predecessor. Which can be a first moment. But as a moment needs a predecessor, there can't be a first moment. So the universe has to be infinite. We call the first moment first because we can't see its preceding moment. I can see a rabbit making droppings. Apparently out of nothing. Coming to realize the drops emerge from the rabbit's interns seems like a revelation. Same for every first moment.

One exciting possibility is that time is unreal or, to rephrase, time is an illusion. An infinite past doesn't make sense and nor does a finite past. Ergo, time is...a mirage.

Reply to Agent Smith

That clock ticking on the wall seems pretty real. And it had to start sometime. Time can last forever but it needs a start. Of course it can restart infinite times.

Quoting Raymond

That clock ticking on the wall seems pretty real. And it had to start sometime. Time can last forever but it needs a start. Of course it can restart infinite times.

If you say so.

How can time have no beginning? There should be initial çonditions to arrive at the present. We already know that matter is not constantly created. Wouldn't an infinite past imply a dead present?

Are there two kinds of time maybe, one reversible and one irreversible? The irreversible exploding from the reversible?

Quoting jorndoe

1. if the universe was temporally infinite, then there would be no 1st moment
2. if there was no 1st moment, then there was no 2nd moment
3. if there was no 2nd moment, then there was no 3rd moment
4. ... and so on and so forth ...
5. ... then there would be no now
6. since now exists, we started out wrong, i.e. the universe is not temporally infinite

"now" doesn't identify a moment relative to a temporal series. Indeed you do not need to know the timestamp of the current moment, to know that is now. This is to say that no counting from a "first moment" will ever reach a "now" even if the past temporal series was finite, unless one already knows what now is. On the other side one can count a series of temporal events starting from the moment identified as now. So the logic of "now" doesn't provide any evidence that the past/future temporal series are finite, on the contrary it admits that possibility (since one can count from now to the past or to the future indefinitely).