BBC Focus Magazine

[M Paul Lloyd]

Illogical Lateral, because although infinity is an unattainable abstract concept like zero for instance, time is definable concept so you cannot draw a credible comparison between the two. Sorry.

[Lateralman]

Beam me up Swotty.

[Lateralman]

Mr Lloyd, the “Wrath of Can,” drives me!

Why can’t you draw a comparison between the two? You have a starting point for infinity an interval and no end. You have a starting point for time an interval and an end. They both begin, have an interval but only one ends. They share the same plain, are the same.

If there is no end to infinity then you have a definition. The definition being that it begins and has an interval. Meaning that the points measured by time are only a small part of the abstract of infinity. Like the points on an endless ruler.

To me if you can’t draw a comparison between the two then you have to accept that infinity does not exist because it has no end, so is an illusion, and if infinity is an illusion then because time shares the same measure, then so is time. Neither exists. Therefore, if neither exists then time cannot wind down or stop because it has never started.

To put it another way, how does all other life on earth measure time.

[M Paul Lloyd]

Exactly Lateral infinity does not exist because it has no end, so it is an illusion, because you can never achieve it just an abstract invented to help make math work.

As for what other life measures time.... well in what context? and why?

[Shadowwolf]

Infinity is mostly a mathematical construct afaik, however, it could exist in space or time but we could only infer that either were infinite as an actual edge or end could be just beyond what we can see or measure; we'd never know unless we encountered an end.

You err when you say that if there is no infinity then there is no time, it's like saying that if there are no red M&Ms then there can be no M&Ms. Besides, the very point of the linked ideas in the OP is that there is an end to time.

Animals etc. measure time in their own rudimentary fashions as they live, they do not deal with time as we do, no portioning it up, no labels, no appreciation of past or how much time they may have left, no appreciation of the moment they are in. Their perceptions of time are not relevant in this context.

[M Paul Lloyd]

The problem with infinity is that it is a bit like the biggest number, no matter how hard you try with say a Googolplex and then squaring it, which is mighty big, even then someone could just add 'to the power of' to it and off it goes again, so you'll never ever reach the end. You might reach the end of the universe or indeed count all the atoms therein and do it all again until time itself runs out but infinity would just keep on going, for ever. That's why its an abstract concept.

[Lateralman]

So if the mathematics proves that infinity is an illusion, then why is time considered real?

Because it has a beginning, infinity ends when an event gets in its way.

The only end for infinity that I can logically comprehend is the big bang. This was supposed to be the beginning.

Consequently, we are right back to the start with no beginning and no end and left with an illusion.
No M&M’s.

All other life, (by this I mean any life form that occupies the planet,) measures time in immeasurable moments...it’s now.

Therefore, as life in general constitutes the bulk of all existence on earth I think that it is relevant to consider time from its perspective.

The worker bee, whose lifetime consists of a single summer, for example. It knows nothing of another summer. For it, another summer is an illusion... it does not exist.

Excuse me, while I stop for an aspirin.

[M Paul Lloyd]

infinity ends when an event gets in its way.

No, that's the point, infinity never ends it just keeps on going for-ever. Nothing gets in its way and it never stops and extends way, way beyond both the beginning and end of the universe which is why it is an abstract concept and not actually related to our perception of 'time' at all.

Time, on the other hand, is relative to an individuals position and velocity and as far as I am aware only humans have bothered to try and actually measure it.

[Lateralman]

If infinity has no relationship to time, then why do we as humans have any perception of infinity when we have an understanding of time?

Why is there a necessity to conceive of an abstract gap filler at all?

All I am suggesting is that infinity could end where it began. Where everything supposedly began. With a bang.

Mr Lloyd, it is interesting to note that you are wavering slightly on the, “as far as I am aware only humans have bothered to measure it,” item.

I shall have to take time out to confer with my telepathic dog.

She has already told me that Einstein’s theory that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, is wrong.

I have asked her why, but she is holding me to ransom by demanding that I throw her a bone.

[M Paul Lloyd]

I merely qualify my "as far as I am aware only humans have bothered to measure it" statement because for all I know some sentient race 'out there' in the vastness of the universe may exist who take time as seriously as we do.

As for trying to connect time to infinity, I'm sorry but you are barking up the wrong tree. Time is one thing, infinity another, the former expresses the progression of events around us the latter something not just big but eternal which goes beyond the universe and time and everything but which is impossible to achieve.

Its a bit like zero which in ancient times did not exist and everything started with number one (its why we are in the twenty first century when it clearly says 2012 as their was no year zero) as the idea of nothing seemed impossible, which is actually true but mathematicians soon began to realise that without zero maths gets really complicated so it was in effect 'invented' to make things simpler. Around the year 130 ad Ptolemy used Omicron as a substitute for zero but it wasn't until the seventh century ad when it began to be used in India. So, once you have a concept of nothing then you start to think about the possibility of everything and so you get infinity. But its not real, ok?

[nemisis39]

End of time depends on how strong your battery is

Say for arguement sake all the power that drives the universe runs out would that stop time. I always thought that time was a human concept that we used to give order to our live's. so when you die your time stops so if everyone on the planet died, there is no one left to measure time so in a sense time would have ended

[M Paul Lloyd]

Time is defined as the 'progression of events' and even if all life ended and the last star died out the atoms that made up the left overs would still be doing their weird little internal dance.... but as the temperature dropped lower and lower this would slow until you reached a point where all movement stopped, which would be absolute zero (theoretically impossible if I recall correctly?) and then with nothing moving at all and no 'progression of events' possible, well then I think you could say time had stopped.

[Shadowwolf]

Infinity