How did the beginning of time start?

Metaphysics & Epistemology
23

Because true standstill — complete motionlessness — is never actually observed. Every apparently still thing is full of motion at smaller scales. Molecular vibration, atomic movement, quantum fluctuation. What we perceive as standstill is always relative — still compared to something else, which is still compared to something else, without end.

Standstill as an absolute state has no matching reality or object either. It is as much a concept as infinity.

And it requires infinity as its ground. Still relative to what? Which is still relative to what? Going back without limit. Standstill assumes infinity to exist at all.

You cannot accept standstill as real and reject infinity as merely conceptual. Standstill assumes infinity.

24

There are differences. I can perceive standstill and motionless objects all around me.

I cannot perceive the movement of particles, atoms or quantum fluctuation at all. I cannot perceive infinity either.

25

Is perception your test for whether something is real or just a concept?

If everything came from standstill, what caused the first motion?

26

Some objects I am seeing are real - books, computers, guitars, cups etc. Some are concepts - infinity, God, souls etc.

Not everything came from standstill. Standstill or motion, no one witnessed the first event. Did you witness the first motion or standstill?

27

How do you explain magnets? The ‘thing’ that moves them you cannot perceive directly. Is it real?

I am not sure about that.

28

We can perceive the movement, which is enough evidence for the force to be inferred.

Why not? How could you be not sure about it? Did you lose your memory?

29

You said there are differences.

Can you point to where difference itself stops being possible?

30

The difference is the visible and invisible. It is clear to you, to me and anyone with normal sight and thoughts.

31

That’s what difference contains. Where does the capacity for difference itself stop being possible?

32

I am not sure what you mean by your question. Your question is not clear what and why you are asking it.

The difference is not something which has anything to do with possible or impossible. It is a perception noticed on the visible and invisible. I wonder, if this helps.

If not, then please explain more clearly on your question. What do you mean by the capacity for difference. What do you mean by “itself stop being possible”. Please explain what is the relevance of your question to the beginning of time.

33

You accepted that the force moving magnets can be inferred from visible movement. That is the method I am using too.

You, me, anyone — distinctions. Normal and abnormal — distinction. Sight and blindness — distinction. These are all instances of difference.

Capacity for distinction — the condition that makes any of those instances possible at all. Not this distinction or that distinction. The fact that distinction can exist.

Can it stop being possible? I cannot find where. Can you?

If you can find a boundary where distinction becomes impossible — what is on the other side of that boundary?

And if you cannot find that boundary — what do you call something that has no boundary?

You said time is perception of motions and movements. Motion requires change. Change requires something being different from what it was. Different requires distinction. So before the first distinction — no change, no motion, no time.

So what allowed the first distinction to appear?

34

You notice time when the sun rises in the morning. You know a day has passed from yesterday, and a new day began. You perceived the time by the movement of the sun. The sun keeps moving in the sky to the centre of the sky, and you know time has passed from morning to mid day. The sun goes down in the evening and you perceive the night has come, and another day is passing.

Let’s assume that you are locked up in a room with no sun visible due to no windows or doors in the room. It is a space with the solid walls blocked from outside.

You will still perceive the time passing from your imagination, and you will get hungry and feel sleepy, and want to sleep after a day, which you didn’t exactly know how many hours has passed.

You will perceive time in your mind, that some time interval has passed since you are locked up in the space. But you won’t know exactly how many hours or days has passed. The only fact you would know would be some time has passed. It is from your intuition being able to tell time passing, and some sort of perception of it, but not to exact accuracy.

Hence you need some sort of regular movement such as from the Sun rising and setting, and nights and mornings observable to you, so you can tell the time with accuracy.

With no movement and motion, you can guess time passing, but not to anywhere near the accuracy.

So time has different dimensions, which is your intuition - Did you read Kant’s CPR by chance? Time and space is your a priori intuition.

There is time perception which comes from your observation of the external movement and motion of the objects.

And there is time which is a quality of all the existence and energy in the universe, which is the material time.

35

So there are 3 different dimensions of time. Your internal intuition time as a priori concept or form. The time you perceive from the external motions and movement of objects. And the time which are a part or quality of all existence in the universe.

You need to specify which time you are talking about when asking about the nature or origin of time.

36

You still have not clarified what you mean by all these P1-Px. What are they for, and what are their relevance to the beginning of time?

37

I haven’t read Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, but I see that infinity was a challenge for his account of time as well.

‘Material time’ is what I am talking about now.

This was my attempt to engage with your inquiry.

38

OK, let us know what you mean by material time, and how it operates.

39

@Corvus

It is a sunny day and even standstill needs the sun.

Some thoughts while we continue.

The 16 propositions describe how existence works — unbounded capacity for distinction that cannot be switched off, configurations appearing because difference cannot be prohibited, asymmetry inevitable because perfect cancellation is impossible locally, bubbles forming wherever asymmetry finds a stable pattern, nesting infinitely in both directions with no privileged scale.

This nesting has the structure of a fractal. The same rule — incomplete cancellation generating a boundary, that boundary becoming the context for the next level — repeating without end. No level more fundamental than another. The pattern recognisable at every scale while the structure at each scale is genuinely different. Zoom in, zoom out — same rule, different world.

But the same structure describes how mind works. Perception is distinction — the mind registers difference between states, without distinction nothing is perceived. Thought is configuration — ideas are arrangements of distinctions held in relation, some stable enough to persist, others dissolving immediately. Attention is asymmetry — the mind is not flat to its contents, always pulling toward resolution, toward the cancellation of uncertainty. Memory is what persists before cancelling — experience that found a stable pattern before dissolving, a bubble in the mental field defined by what it cannot be.

Among the nested bubbles — consciousness is the one that can see itself. The fractal becoming aware of the rule it is made of.

Heraclitus said you cannot step in the same river twice. I would add — you cannot step in the same thought twice either. The mind is the river. Always the same pattern. Never the same water.

The mind is a bubble nested inside material time, following the same rules as everything else.

If two things share the same structure — what is that pointing at?

When we continue — I want to come back to your three dimensions of time, how they relate to each other, and how Kant wrestled with the same territory we are walking through now.

40

You said, you are talking about material time. Is above about your understanding about material time?

We want to make that clear before progressing, because the 3 dimensions of time are all different each other. Talking about one, while implying the others would result in unnecessary confusions in the discussion.

41

Material time — the process of asymmetry moving toward cancellation. Where asymmetry exists, resolution is in process. That process is time. Where there is no asymmetry there is no time. Not perceived time. Not intuitive time. The process itself, running whether anyone observes it or not.

That is what I mean by material time and how it operates.

The question remains — what allowed the first distinction to appear?

42

Not sure if cancellation is correct word. Cancel means something ending by intervention. Who intervenes material time?

Distinction is not required or existent. Distinction only happened when you managed to perceive it.

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