… because a past infinity is impossible?
Earlier today, we noted a new “No Big Bang” theory that posits instead an infinite very cold past, in which “Instead of a singularity (which is what the Big Bang necessarily is), we must accept a hypothetical cosmon field.” Philosopher friends have written to complain, not about the cosmon field (we had thought that would be the hard sell), but about the notion of an infinite past.
One philosopher tells us that there cannot be an infinite past. A Google search was attempted and William Lane Craig, of all people, turned up, explaining why a past infinity cannot occur:
Suppose we meet a man who claims to have been counting down from infinity and who is now finishing: . . ., -3, -2, -1, 0. We could ask, why didn’t he finish counting yesterday or the day before or the year before? By then an infinite time had already elapsed, so that he should already have finished. Thus, at no point in the infinite past could we ever find the man finishing his countdown, for by that point he should already be done! In fact, no matter how far back into the past we go, we can never find the man counting at all, for at any point we reach he will already have finished. But if at no point in the past do we find him counting, this contradicts the hypothesis that he has been counting from eternity. This shows again that the formation of an actual infinite by never beginning but reaching an end is as impossible as beginning at a point and trying to reach infinity. More.
What you think?
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