A Debate on Time

Thank you, gizmo, for your arguments. First, my opponent tries to show how the series of successive addition can reach infinity. However, he commits the same mistake that he made last time in his eighth step, in which he converts successive addition into instant multiplication. This may work on paper, but it doesn't work in principle. In successive addition, every prior step must be completed before moving on to the next step. This mirrors time, as before any segment of time can pass, all segments before it must have already passed. Using my opponent's example function, before one could calculate f(n), he must calculate f({all real integers < n}). To calculate f(infinity), therefore, one must calculate f({all real integers}), which includes every single real number in existence. It can't be done; once one calculation is finished, another calculation will always be necessary, and infinite time can never be achieved. What my opponent's function does show, however, is time's potential, which is infinite. Assuming no strange universal apocalypse, time can, in the future, eventually reach a length of time in seconds greater any real number any of us could possibly mention. However, it will never exceed all real numbers, an impossibility as I have repeatedly demonstrated, a precondition for infinity. The same mistake is made in the second proof, in the ninth step, as we see an instant multiplication where only successive addition can truly represent the passage of time. Next, my opponent rewrites his proof against finite time as a proof of infinite time, but even if one accepts this proof as valid (for I intend to invalidate it soon), this leaves us at an impasse; I have proven infinite time to be impossibe, while my opponent has proven infinite time to be necessary. As his proof requires proving finite time to be impossible, the following clause from the outline shall fit: "if both debaters prove the concept that their opponent defends impossible, the debate defaults to PRO. " This we would both have done, so even if my opponent's proof is considered valid, the debate would default to me. I shall now attack my opponent's proof. Earlier, I pointed out that the end of time changes as time passes; essentially, we are always living at the end of time, as no time had yet passed beyond the current time. Note that in Round 1, infinite time was equated to "the presence of an infinite number of events preceding now, with no first event at all. " This can only be consistant with my opponent's definition of infinity if we assume the end of time to be now; otherwise, time would be considered to be infinite regardless of the presence of a first event, which was already established as a difference between infinite and finite time. My opponent offers that "[w]e are not yet at the end of time, because we still have tomorrow. " However, we do not yet have tomorrow, so tomorrow is not yet a part of time. Tomorrow, tomorrow will be added to the finite series of time. In my opponent's proof, he again fails to take into account the fact that the finite series of time grows, which throws off the entire proof. It would be the equivelant of taking a child's age and height, waiting for a year, recording the child's new height, and claiming that his predicted growth chart is off, without remeasuring the child's height. For my opponent's final proof, I never said that time will ever actually reach all real numbers. Whenever time reaches one point in time, there will always be another point in time waiting, representing a larger number, no matter how much time passes. Time will never reach a true infinity. It would be irrational. As long as time ever was of finite length (as my opponent seems to have conceded), time will always remain at a finite length; it is impossible for time to go from finite length to infinite length within a second, as must occur at one point for time to shift to infinite length. Time can never reach infinity. Time will never represent all real numbers, negating my opponent's proof. To conclude: 1. An actual infinite cannot be reached through the successive addition of finite values. (R3, PRO, p4-5) 2. Time increments with the successive additionof events of finite length. 3. Time cannot ever reach an actual infinite. (1+2) 4. Time is not currently an actual infinite. (3) Thank you, gizmo, for this debate over time. Good luck, and finish strong!