The universe is finite? Can anyone come up with a counter argument?

Question

- An infinite universe would have a infinite number of days
- The end of that infinite series of days could never be reached.
- Therefore you could never reach today.
- Therefore the universe will have an end, it had a beginning... what caused the beginning... a first cause... that is what people understand to be God.
- Ed Millar
- Please do not answer 'what created God?'

'Please explain'
We are at the end of time this very second, as tomorrow hasn't happened yet. So you can reach the end. Where as if it was a infinite universe you never could never reach the end as it goes on forever!
So therefore the universe does not go on forever!

Not my theory or argument, i just need a counter argument for an essay! So calm down! no need to get stressed!

Answer 1

Yeah, the problem with your argument is that it's nonsense to talk about the end of an infinite series. It isn't that the end of an infinite series "can't be reached," it's that there's just no such thing as end. It's like building an argument on the fact that we can't discover the squareness of a circle.

Therefore, premise (3) doesn't follow from (2). For (3) to hold, "today" must be equivalent to "The end of that infinite series of days." As the above paragraph explains, this is impossible. Thus, the argument is invalid.

Also premise (4) doesn't follow from anything you've said, although it may very well be true. There's nothing logically contradictory about something having a beginning, and lasting forever past that point. There's nothing logically contradictory about an infinite series of causes for that matter. The words certainly don't clash (as they do in "end of infinity").

Also, per (4), a first cause of the universe doesn't have to be "God" as people understand Him. It might be a mindless, immaterial (if you like), universe making 'machine'. Why does it have to have intentions, desires, and general psychological states? Perhaps, if there is a first cause, it is intelligent. But that isn't shown by your argument.


NOTE on your additional detail, "We are at the end of time this very second, as tomorrow hasn't happened yet."

(1) According to general relativity, this is untrue. See "Fabric of the Cosmos" by Brian Greene for a good explanation with the underlying maths in an appendix.

(2) Saying, "we are the farthest that time has passed so far" is MUCH different from saying "we are at the end of time." The latter means that time will no longer pass after today, which is probably not true.

So, you equivocate on the word "end."

Answer 2

How could we never reach today? Please explain. And for those who ask what was the cause of God, many philosophers answer by saying he created himself- there is a difference between the supranatural and the natural, the former causes itself (causa sui) whereas the latter always has a cause. However this leads to question why the natural is not causa sui. Anyway, before I digress anymore, please explain how we can never reach today?


edit

So wouldn't that make you continously right today and wrong tomorrow? Science and probability leads us to believe that the world, or atleast the universe, will be here tomorrow, and for an unknown amount of time in the future. You may say it is ridiculous to use our limited knowledge of the universe to confidently predict that the universe will be here tomorrow, but if we accept that, we must also accept that it is ridiculous to predict that it won't! Either way, no one can predict anything 100%, but as some one else mentioned above, the universe exists in matter, not time- our time is 'earth time' and that will end when the earth does, not the universe- at which point, how could one then measure the universe according to the same time in 'earth days' that u have just done...

not sure if that makes sense or is just rambling but thanks for making me think for a change!

Answer 3

You need a counter argument for the essay? Go to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. This is one of the antimonies: where Kant takes a propsosition and argues it both ways (to show the limits of reason). The argument you have been given is direct from Kant and Kant gives the counterargument on the next page! My copy doesnt have paragraph numbers and there are too many editions to give a page number, but its in the "Transcendental Dialectic". Its the first Antimony. (Kant's alternative argument IS "so what happened before time started" - like who created God).

If you want another argument then liken it to Zeno's paradox. Throw a ball in the air. Now the ball flies upward at an ever smaller speed - 1cm per second, 1/2cm per second, 1/3cm per second etc. Now as there is no number, "n", that can serve as the smallest denominator in the fraction you can always have 1/n+1 cm per second. The list of fractions is endless. Never-the-less the ball stops rising and falls back to your hand. Infinitely long sequences end infinitely frequently!

Answer 4

We are trying to understand this concept of finite and infinite in our limited human thinking, but I will give it a shot. We measure time to be one day at a time. A beginning and an end. But our lives are not a series of beginnings and ends rather a continuation. Yes, we never reach today we only reach now. Our time measurement - hands rotating around numbers was designed for us to live a somewhat civilized life. That system of measuring minutes, hours and days can not be used to answer the question of infinite universe. We exist in now. We will continue in now infinately just as the universe. Our spirit is eternal, infinite, living forever continuing in the now.

Answer 5

We see the universe in a limited perspective. We see division aka between day and night, however when is the exact point of day and night. The sun does not blink off and on, in fact day always occurs somewhere. We think in a linear fashion but the universe is formed in a circular fashion with no beginning and no end. It does not even have a border and the centre is a mass of infinite complexity that we refer to as God.
Even our perception is formed from an infinite amount of sensation. We see a table and not a billion bundle of atoms or the subatomic particles which make up the billion atoms. When we break down particles we see smaller more stranger quarks which have are partial waves or signals, and we see a table.
The table is formed from our idea which is given to us from development. The universe is infinite in that we are infinite and infinity is everything.

Answer 6

The number of days would have absolutely nothing to do with the universe being infinite or finite. We are discussing spacial relationships here. Since no one has discovered the end of the universe, we must assume it is infinite.

Answer 7

1st to be finite you have to find the beginning, besides theory and religion no one has the slightest idea how the universe started if in fact it ever started or has just always been, solve that and then you can get whether the universe is finite or infinite. You are ahead of yourself

Answer 8

Well you see, we would be originally one day in the infinate matter of days, and progress day by day. In the ideas of an infinate universe, reaching the next day and the followign events is simple probability, due to an infinate unvierse, there is at least another dimension in which everything is the same as ours except for one event.

Today is not the end of the infinate series of days, but simply a day in it.

Answer 9

The universe is infinite, that is, ever-expanding.
But it is also limited, that is, we can find their limits at a particular point in time.
That's why now, we are at a point in time, in the present, respect to the "present past" and the "present future" but, simultaneously, our present is moving altogether with our past and our future towards an unreacheable non-existing end.

Answer 10

Who says God must exist in order to explain shared ethical senses/beliefs? Lets say there are a whole host of shared ethical beliefs, all that shows is that many people have similar values. It does not in any way, shape or form imply the existence of a higher being! All these groups of people may have arrived at these ethical beliefs through a variety of ways. And just for the record, contrary to popular belief, religion is not required for one to have morals.