I have compiled some recent thoughts on time below, as I have been considering it quite a bit recently. The high relevance of time to the Kalam cosmological proof for an uncaused cause motivated me to organize my knowledge about time in general a little more. While my final point below has been stated and proven on my blog before, I have recited it again for the sake of new readers; the rest, I have not addressed before in great detail, if at all.
Our measurements of time do not affect the objectivity or passage of time.
Time still exists even if our units of measurement for it are arbitrary. The arbitrary nature of our measurement systems (for instance, we could have defined a moment as twice the length of what most people consider a moment) for durations of time do not mean that time does not exist; it does, or there could be nothing to measure, but the fact remains that the exact lengths we specify as an "hour" or a "day" or a "week" are arbitrarily chosen. I could just as easily have defined a day as being 31 of what I define as an hour! But time is unaffected by my random divisions of it.
The past exists, but it is no longer in the present.
I mean by the word past a "moment/series of moments of time that has/have already elapsed". Even if two seconds ago I was created and had all my memories implanted in my mind, the past still exists. Whether or not I am perceiving the true external world with my senses, I can still see the effects of time on a constant basis. So whether or not reality is exactly as it seems to me or different, the past still exists!
Even if my memories were implanted by an external source (maybe Descartes' evil demon or God or aliens), the source of my memories had to implant the memories before the present moment in order for me to have them at all. There was still what I call a "time" before I had the memories and then a time after they were implanted. Something called the "five minute hypothesis", explored by atheist mathematician Bertrand Russell in his book The Analysis of Mind, speculates that perhaps the universe, along with my memories of past experiences [1], was created only five minutes ago. But even if this is true, the past still exists. Thus, what I call time still exists.
Some things--like logic, mathematics, truth, my own existence, causality, the uncaused cause, and the past--are utterly impossible to escape from because there is no way they could be false or illusions.
It is impossible for the past to stretch on infinitely.
Even if time didn't exist (an impossible thing, considering what I have already explained), there could still not be an infinite regress of causality into what would otherwise be called "the past". If there were an infinite number of moments or an infinite number of causes causing effects before the present moment, no moment of time would ever be reached and no effect would ever actually be caused--there would be an endless number of moments elapsing and causality relationships occurring before the present and thus the present could never be reached. The very fact that I am in the present means that an infinite number of seconds or hours or any other unit of time did not precede this moment. This is crucial in demonstrating the absolute necessity of an uncaused cause--what I mean by the word God [1].
[1]. For proof that memory is a reliable faculty and at least some things within it must be reliable, see here:
A. http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-enigma-of-memory.html
B. http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-reliability-of-memory.html
C. http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/04/circular-reasoning-and-use-of-memory.html
D. http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-cruciality-of-memory.html
[2]. See the following:
A. http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-uncaused-cause.html
B. http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-god-of-big-bang.html
No comments:
Post a Comment