Does infinity have starting point?

[elloy6783]

This have been bugging me for a long time.I am referring this to time, not vacuum, etc.Our perception of time may be false but lets put that aside and think about it. To people who think time doesnt exist: lets just say time exists, and think about before the big bang.Mathematics is also a concept people made in order to benefit society, just like time, etc. Just like any other tool, it helps in our everyday life.This infinity thing is not going to help our everyday life but its intriguing so if you have any idea on this kind of matter, share with me. Someone said this concept is like a circle, no start no end. But someone may ask where did the circle come from. It could just be our brain that is programmed to think there is a start, or the person answered may be right.What are your thoughts on this matter?There are things in life which we may not be able to conceptualize but that doesnt mean we shouldnt try to understand it.Something cant come from nothing, nothing is a human concept, there cannot be completely nothing, because energy may have been always existed, that is why i asked this question.A lot of physicists are coming up with theories why this whole thing 'began'. Again, i believe absence of everything is nonexistent, same logic as what i mentioned above.I believe in multiple universe theory, i think its plausible but i dont think it should be categorized as something 'infinte' because it doesnt seem like a right term to use.Seems like you are talking about cyclic universe theory thing, i dont think that makes sense, it lost its credit when dark energy was introduced, how can the universe suddenly shrink when the expansion is accelerating? Gravitation 'potential' wont be able to overcome dark energy. Again, i dont believe pure 'nothingness' exists.

[dlars5]

No, nothing has a starting point.

[socother]

Mankind needs to take into consideration that there might be which we are not able to realize. This is a very general statement, so let me give you a few hints:Insects keep flying against a window, although it might not be fully invisible to them, and they should feel that there is something in their way ...We might perceive the world around us, but that does not mean that we fully understand it. There might be other dimensions in addition to time and space but we just don't realize it.Thus, it is possible that our world has been created by something. The potential for time to exist for infinitely long does not imply if it has to have a starting point, nor that it's been there for an infinite amount of time from our point of view.

[ChawnaJ1]

Study some metaphysical philosophy and your brain might explode while you try to grasp the concept of the infinite. I have thought a long time about this. It's the big question. How can something come from nothing? How can there be a beginning? What was there before the beginning? What is the absence of everything? I've not been able to come up with answers to this and neither have the great minds who have contemplated it. I hang out with a bunch of astrophysicists and they have a lot of theories about the universe and what was there before the Big Bang. One of the prevalent theories is that there are infinite universes. But then you still have the question of where did infinite universes come from? Another theory is based on the fact that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. The idea that comes with this fact is that the universe will expand infinitely until it implodes upon itself, Mind boggling I know, that implosion will then cause another Big Bang and another Universe will be born. This is called the infinite regress. You should read up on some current astrophysics if you like to wrestle with this question, there is a lot of food for thought. Also Quantum Physics is a tantalizing area that deals with the nature of matter itself and it seems there might be evidence that matter can spontaneously come from nothing.

[Tiryad]

infinite ~ limitlessLike our imagination, for as long as we never stop wondering there will always be a great amount of wanting to "know".The moment we start thinking, infinity follows.

[GrahamP7020]

I agree with you that Einstein's relative time explanation does not change the fact that events that interact usually happen serially. Putting side the Space-time continuim for a moment, when we have a cause-event chain we candefine time as the order of chained events. Using this method we can reasonably ask what happened before the big bang by asking what caused it.The model I propose is one where we have at least two times. The first being the scientific space-time of physics and the other the causational order of events.Lie our spacial dimensions there may be a mulitiyde of physical times but there mighty only be a single causational time chain starting from a first cause, which like the first domino in a collapse chain is the first to fall and start the chain reactions.I am suspicious of models that have circular time. Godel proved that loops in time are possible but I suspect that initializing events are needed to start such loops. Such loops may be like Einsteinian time, with reverse time allowed but I suspect causational time would still have to be operating. Events always have causes and causes always precede events. Admitedly Quantum Mechanics allows time reversal or future to past causation but the future being referred to is Einsteininan time and causal chains still can be made. E.g. If we perform a test of an undecided state which causes a past event to become decided we can argue from a causational standpoint that the past event did not happen until after the quantum collapse.To understand what I mean let us assume that I will make a time machine in the year 2015 and go back in time to 2010 with the instructions on how to make the time machine. If I then make the time machine in 2015, I may wind up with a Godellian time loop. On the other hand if my going back in time causes the time machine to be made in 2011 we may have a parallel worlds scenario, or a time revision. If time is revisized the first revision would be before later revisions in causational time. Another way of explaining it is if you went back in time as an adult and visited your child self the you the adult would remember the future self of the child. The order of event that hyou remember such as the time machine being made beforeyou visited your younger self, would be the causational order of time. It is possible that there was a first event that just was that started everything but finding the cause of the uncaused initial cause, is something that might alsmots stump even a genius like myself.Circular time is often put forward to solve this dilemma but even if we have circular time the problem exists as to where the circle came from. In the end we must always wave our hands and say "it just is".This reminds me of a story about a supposed Philosphy exam. There was only one question: "Why?" The stort goes that most students filled pages of arguments but the person who got the highest marks answered "Why not?"This is obviously a myth but If we do go back to an ultimate cause with no reason, this reply is as good as any.Thus it may be conceivable to have an infinite causational time that begins with the first uncaused event.

[SlyFox]

I could very well write pages, no libraries on this and have the same finally result as that which I will used below to answer your question. That which is, is all that which is, and always has been and always will be, even when it is not, it is still part of all that which is! Now this is the problem (and it really has become a problem) What is that which is? be care when looking for that which you can never hold! for by giving false definition you create a false image! So maybe it is better to say it's that which is and it's too great to be contained! Ok, this may seem like Zen, but seriously if you remove the complex dressing you will see it for what it is! Can we truly know everything! or should we accept guess as fact, independent of whose guesses they are!

[matowakan58]

im not a genius scientist or anything like that but it seems simple to me,if we say ad infinitum ,we are saying that after somthing begins it goes on and and on.so some things have a begining and then continue on into infinity,or what we concieve as infinity.such as the birth,death ,birth cycle,as far back as we know past time, it has been so and continues. but then you have the infinity that has no witness of a begining nor has anyone witnessed its end therefore its concluded that it Always has been ,always will be.symbolicaly infinity is the figure 8 lying on its side.no begining,no end.but at the same time there are beginings and ends that take place within that infinity. like a life cycle,when he is born, a person jumps onto the infinite road of life.that is his begining. and death is his end ,so the finite joins the infinite and then even in death has he not been a part of the infinite ?I was wrong its not simple to explain.

[jonnetuomela]

infinity could be described as a line. A line goes on for ever in both directions so logiclly, the center of the line would be the begining.