Originally posted by twhitehead
Again you are assuming an external timeline in which there is first nothing and then the universe and time and time 'starts' and eventually repeats.
Your record similarly has and external timeline in which it is going in a spiral and at a definite point it skips and starts to repeat. If the record has just a circle and is endlessly repeating then there i ...[text shortened]... u say a line of longitude does, just because a direction of 'southness' can be defined?

If the record has just a circle and is endlessly repeating then there is no definite begging or 'skipping point'
WHITEY

Ah.... but the phrase "endlessly repeating" suggests both an external timeline and eternity. You have to put yourself INSIDE your model to see the repetiton or imagine what you would hear if such a record was playing.

What you are implying is that although we would know that the record was repeating , we could select any point on the circle as the repetiton
point and thus it would be impossible because ALL points would be a point of repetiton and there would be no "specific" beginning.


However , the only way you could hide the beginning point is if the record has been playing forever without beginning . As soon as you make the amount of time the needle goes round the groove finite(and give it a beginning) then you would be able to identify the beginning point of repetition. If you were travelling along this groove you would know where the beginning point was. You could cheat and say that one could walk in the room after the record started and thus not know at what finite point on the circle the needle was placed.

In short you have solved the problem of having a circle of time with no beginning by postulating that the amount of times the circle repeats is endless and beginningless and indefinite. This only proves what I have said all along that you can't hide eternity in a finite system and think you can hide the beginning. You had to make your circle of time eternal to make it work.

Originally posted by knightmeister
If the record has just a circle and is endlessly repeating then there is no definite begging or 'skipping point'
WHITEY

Ah.... but the phrase "endlessly repeating" suggests both an external timeline and eternity. You have to put yourself INSIDE your model to see the repetiton or imagine what you would hear if such a record was playing.

What you ...[text shortened]... you can hide the beginning. You had to make your circle of time eternal to make it work.

If we have a universe in which time is circular, then it simply doesn't make any sense to talk about the amount of time that the cycle has been going on. There is/was no "starting point." Time hasn't started: for every point in time there is a time before that point. And yet there's only a finite amount of time, so it makes no sense to say that time has been going on "forever".

Similarly it doesn't make any sense to talk about the number of times the cycle has been repeated: there is only one cycle, the "next" cycle is really the same one as the first.

Originally posted by knightmeister
In short you have solved the problem of having a circle of time with no beginning by postulating that the amount of times the circle repeats is endless and beginningless and indefinite. This only proves what I have said all along that you can't hide eternity in a finite system and think you can hide the beginning. You had to make your circle of time eternal to make it work.

So a circular track on a record contains an infinite amount of music? Or am I misunderstanding you?

Originally posted by twhitehead
So a circular track on a record contains an infinite amount of music? Or am I misunderstanding you?

No the track would still contain an finite amount of music that would repeat but it could be looped indefinitely. My point was that the only way you could avoid a beginning point was to have the record playing eternally.

Maybe this will help. Imagine two timelines...

1) Timeline 1 is of a finite length and if one travelled along said line it would last for x minutes. This means it has a defined staring point and ending point.

2) Timeline 2 is just as equally a timeline and behaves in the same way but has two major differences the beginning point and ending point are indefinite(infinite) and do not exist. This timeline is eternal .

Now , there is no way that you have been able to show how one can take timeline 1) and place it in a circle in such a way that it does not repeat at a specific point (you might also use the analogy of a finite piece of music here)

What you have done in my opinion is taken timeline 2) and placed it in your circle in order to be able to argue that it might repeat but the beginning or ending point could not be specified. This is theoretically correct but is ultimately self defeating because you need to have an eternal timeline to start with. What's more you would need to find the ends first to make it into a circle! Also the circle would have to be of an infinite size.


The only way out of this is to suggest a finite circle that "repeats endlessly" as you put it. The problem you have here is that immediately you would have to posit an external timeline to say how long the circle would repeat for , which is something you have been slating me for for ages!!

Originally posted by GregM
If we have a universe in which time is circular, then it simply doesn't make any sense to talk about the amount of time that the cycle has been going on. There is/was no "starting point." Time hasn't started: for every point in time there is a time before that point. And yet there's only a finite amount of time, so it makes no sense to say that time has been g ...[text shortened]... peated: there is only one cycle, the "next" cycle is really the same one as the first.

Time hasn't started: for every point in time there is a time before that point. And yet there's only a finite amount of time, so it makes no sense to say that time has been going on "forever". GREG

And how would you be able to say that there's only a finite amount of time? If there is only a finite amount of time in the circle then this implies the circle could be cut and stretched out as a timeline which would last for x amount of time. There is no way that a circle like this can't repeat , it has to.

Originally posted by GregM
If we have a universe in which time is circular, then it simply doesn't make any sense to talk about the amount of time that the cycle has been going on. There is/was no "starting point." Time hasn't started: for every point in time there is a time before that point. And yet there's only a finite amount of time, so it makes no sense to say that time has been g ...[text shortened]... peated: there is only one cycle, the "next" cycle is really the same one as the first.

Similarly it doesn't make any sense to talk about the number of times the cycle has been repeated: there is only one cycle, the "next" cycle is really the same one as the first.GREG

Ok , so now place yourself on this imaginary circular timeline . What would it be like?

Originally posted by knightmeister
Ok , so now place yourself on this imaginary circular timeline . What would it be like?

Nothing particularly special. At any given point, nothing would look strange.

Note that you could have no memory of any "previous" cycles because they are all the same cycle, so there is nothing different between one cycle and the "next," including your memory.

It might be possible to determine the circularity of time from within the universe, though. Suppose the universe consists of a single room with a stopwatch on a table. You pick up the stopwatch and notice that it has been running for five minutes. You reset the stopwatch, start it again, and set it down. Suddenly you hit your head on the ceiling and black out. You wake up some indefinite time later with absolutely no memory. You notice a stopwatch on the table; you pick it up...

From the fact that the stopwatch reads five minutes you might be able to conclude that you are in universe with circular time of period about five minutes. It would be hard to be sure, though, because you can have no memory of time repeating.

Originally posted by knightmeister
The only way out of this is to suggest a finite circle that "repeats endlessly" as you put it. The problem you have here is that immediately you would have to posit an external timeline to say how long the circle would repeat for , which is something you have been slating me for for ages!!

The problem is that in the analogy there is an external timeline to the record. In reality, there isn't. So my model there is a finite amount of time in a circle with no begging and no end. 'Eternal' can only come in if you invoke an external timeline in which you 'play' the record.

I think the real problem is that your understanding of time is Newtonian. (lets ignore your claims that it doesn't exit.) You see it as a single endless line. You cannot conceive of finite time and therefore whenever a 'model' for time is suggested you always instantiate an imaginary external timeline.

You still cant seem to explain how you accept finite space without any problem but cant accept finite time.

Originally posted by twhitehead
The problem is that in the analogy there is an external timeline to the record. In reality, there isn't. So my model there is a finite amount of time in a circle with no begging and no end. 'Eternal' can only come in if you invoke an external timeline in which you 'play' the record.

I think the real problem is that your understanding of time is Newtoni to explain how you accept finite space without any problem but cant accept finite time.

You cannot conceive of finite time and therefore whenever a 'model' for time is suggested you always instantiate an imaginary external timeline.

You still cant seem to explain how you accept finite space without any problem but cant accept finite time.WHITEY

It is you that doesn't understand . I have no problem at all accepting time as finite. I have no problem at all in accepting the universe as a finite space/time continuim. Where I disagree is the idea that time is a pre requisite for any existence (because I don't think something that doesn't exist can be a pre-requisite). I have no problem accepting that finite time can be placed in a circle , I just disagree that this would make it eternal and without beginning and that it wouldn't repeat.

It was YOU that brought in the idea of your circle "endlessely repeating" and therefore YOU that brought in an external timeline in order to try and fit eternity into finite time. If your circle is made of finite time then there is only a finite amount of times it can repeat.

Originally posted by GregM
Nothing particularly special. At any given point, nothing would look strange.

Note that you could have no memory of any "previous" cycles because they are all the same cycle, so there is nothing different between one cycle and the "next," including your memory.

It might be possible to determine the circularity of time from within the universe, though. S ...[text shortened]... utes. It would be hard to be sure, though, because you can have no memory of time repeating.

Nothing particularly special. At any given point, nothing would look strange.

Note that you could have no memory of any "previous" cycles because they are all the same cycle, so there is nothing different between one cycle and the "next," including your memory. GREG


ERHEM.....One huge problem ...how would one get from the end of the cycle to the beginning of the next cycle? Would one die and then come back to life , reborn into an exact repeat of your life? Maybe one would step into a timeless dimension and jump across the gap between? But of course there is no gap , time would have to continue on in this circle. There would have to be a continuum of time joining the end of the cycle and the beginning. What would happen if my beard grew ? Would it reset itself ? Or continue growing? If my beard didn't continue growing then how could one say the circle was complete? Time is the passing of events causally linked one after another . If this process does not continue "across" the gap between the end and the beginning then it cannot be a true passage of time.

In short this circle of time could only work in the way you describe if it was a curved timeline that got incredibly close to joining as a circle but didn't touch . One would have to go backwards to the beginning again and "reset" in order to repeat exactly. As soon as the circle touches itself there would need to be some causal effect carried over from one cycle to the next otherwise it could not be said to be a true continuum of time. Your circle of time works as a mathematical model but it could never be a true circle of time because...time isn't like that.

An even simpler way of refuting the idea of a circle of time is that if you join up the circle in anyway then you have a casual chain (time) of events passing from the end of the cycle through to the beginning of the next cycle , thus each cycle would have to be influenced by the preceeding one , otherwise no circle.

No come on greg , this is obvious, really think it through this time please.

Originally posted by GregM
Nothing particularly special. At any given point, nothing would look strange.

Note that you could have no memory of any "previous" cycles because they are all the same cycle, so there is nothing different between one cycle and the "next," including your memory.

It might be possible to determine the circularity of time from within the universe, though. S ...[text shortened]... utes. It would be hard to be sure, though, because you can have no memory of time repeating.

From the fact that the stopwatch reads five minutes you might be able to conclude that you are in universe with circular time of period about five minutes. It would be hard to be sure, though, because you can have no memory of time repeating.GREG

However , the much more illuminating and interesting question is not what you may or may not have remembered but whether your beard would have grown. If it had , even by a micron then the cycle cannot repeat exactly. In the end after some repetitions you would look like Tom Hanks in Castaway , if your beard did not grow then how can the circle be continuously joined?