Einstein’s Relativity showed that time was a component of the Universe. Or, more accurately, a coordinate on it. Simple premises, simple conclusion:
If something is said to have a “beginning”, then it means that there must have been a time where it did not exist. If there is no time or end when it did not exist, then it is eternal.
Time cannot have a beginning because there cannot be a “time where there was no time”. Indeed, “when” is a time-dependant word. There can be a time where t=0, but there cannot be a beginning to time.
That which does not have a beginning cannot have been created – it is eternal.
Time being eternal, and being a component of the Universe, it makes the universe eternal whether it has existed for a finite or an infinite period of time.
Therefore, the Universe was not created.
Isn’t this just a case of trying to define something that might exist outside a given set of bounds, but using terms that are only relevant within those bounds and upon failing, declaring that it can’t exist?
Hmmm; the whole thing seems somewhat circular or tautological; to me, it reads like “Within the bounds, there is nothing outside the bounds”. I think all that would establish is that the universe would be very difficult to create from the inside.
Like mangetout sais, the OP forgets that “time” is nothing but a way to describe a human perception of things.
Did you ever ask an animal or a plant or a star what “time” is?
It is not because humans claim that something “was always there” that their perception of this is the only perception possible because they are humans and have this idea.
I think you need to come with stronger evidence if you want to lecture that the universe was not created because in your idea “time is eternal”.
Salaam. A
Sheesh, things move fast around here. I see you set your thread out a lot nicer than mine. I should have defined a few terms better; by Universe, here, I meant “everything”. I don’t really want to get into the various multi-verse/string theories. The Universe in this sense is the totality of matter and time. Pretty discursive thread you had there; talk ranged from singularities to materialism :D.
I think black holes might need a little more examination, but I’m simply not well-versed enough to know the scientific accuracy of some of my thoughts. Can black holes be said to exist? If, they have no volume and are timeless. If the Universe, as I posited, is the totality of matter and time, then it appears as though black-holes are not in our universe; interesting.
On another note, it might seem philosophically problematic to suggest that anything “becomes” timeless. And, even more problematic that it ceases to become timeless. That is, when the black hole dies out, and they do, per Hawking etc… :D. Still, there are probably some reputable scientific explanations for this.
Mangetout,
Indeed, it is. However, it still makes the presupposition that “an entity created the Universe” to be faulty. Other problems, I imagine, with it are to do with causation and time; whether causation is bound by time etc… if causation is bound by time, then the Universe cannot be caused, but philosophical thought varies on theories of causation quite significantly.
P.S. Apologies, I’m new to this board, what’s the “OP”?
I always translate it as Opening Post
Had to ask the same question when I came first to enlighten the SDMB with my shining presence and (still unrecognized) wisdom.
The fact that we have developed brains and animals and inanimate objects don’t doesn’t mean the things we use to describe our world don’t exist. Animals and star both have finite lifespans, so time (whatever you want to call it) obviously applies to them. We know for a fact that the universe is approximately 13.7 billion years old. We’ve only been around for a tiny fraction of that, but it doesn’t mean that time didn’t exist until we did.
Black holes do come into being, so I’m not sure how they can be called timeless.
Inside a black hole, time has no meaning. And ex animo, they need not have zero volume - they need only curve spacetime strongly enough that light cannot escape.
Nothing in science is a “fact”. Something is only “fact” until it is overthrown by further research leading to further developments leading to other (temporary) conclusions.
In the Middle Ages it was considered a fact that the earth was flat and the center of the universe.
Are you saying that humanity reached in these days the end of its ability to research “facts” ?
Salaam. A
That the universe effectively is time was a hypothesis of General Relativity. General Relativity was subsequently shown to be correct in all of its absurdly unlikely hypotheses. General Relativity is not circular.
I think we still may be talking past each other (or maybe I’m just not understanding you) - it’s the bit about the universe not having a beginning that is throwing me; certainly from any point of view within the universe, this is clearly true, because the dimension of time bounded within it, but from the point of view of any meta-universe (which might very well not exist at all), in whcih our universe would be embedded, the limitations would be different.
The whole thing trips up, I feel, over the tautological statement: “there cannot be a “time where there was no time”” - there could be a meta-dimension (to which we do not have access), in which there is no time in some places.
I said: it was considered a fact (and when I talk about the Middle Ages I have Europe in mind). And it was considerd to be a fact indeed, despite the existence of other opinions. That this line of reasoning was linked to Christianity is of course also considered a fact nowadays.
As for the existence of time: As I said: the perception of “time” and how it is explained as “time” is limited by our human perception of all things.
If you claim that “time” is eternal, I can claim that you are wrong since you can’t know anything about this beyond what you are able to learn about it. A science that is on its own limited by the human perception.
Salaam. A
With that position, you can’t claim I’m wrong; you can only claim I can’t prove I’m right. If I can’t know anything beyond what I can learn (duh), neither can you, thus you’re unable to say definitively that I’m wrong.
