I recently reflected on an ultimately pointless discussion I was involved in not too long ago, and it occurred to me that the vast majority of arguments some people tout as coherent and ironclad are actually flawed and deceptive.
The biggest doozies among these have to be the arguments marinated in things like Zeno’s paradoxes. Chief among these is the old, you can’t traverse the infinite and arrive at the present time spiel, which is commonly employed by people enamored by thinkers like William Lane Craig and his Kalam Cosmological Argument.
The impossibility of traversing the infinite is also known as the Successive Addition Argument, and it is commonly wielded by those who wish to “prove” that the universe had a finite beginning.
The argument proposes that the universe’s past cannot extend infinitely into the past because this would create an impossibility, specifically, that all the events in the past have been adding up since eternity, hence completing, at this present moment or any moment infinitely far back from the present, the traversal of an infinite series.
Okay, whatever, but the argument very subtly includes a beginning point, and that is where the little trick in the argument is hidden. You see, there is nothing inherently contradictory or metaphysically impossible about traversing an infinite that never began. More precisely, the infinite can be traversed because it lacks a definite starting point called “infinity.”
The same holds for a beginning that is infinitely far in the past. Contrary to claims otherwise, the infinite can be traversed by starting somewhere. The possibility of infinitely far beginnings reveals infinity can be traversed. Incidentally, it could be traversed many times. Perhaps even infinitely.
Anyway, none of that is of particular interest to me one way or another. What interests me is the obstinance with which successive addition arguments are utilized, even after the flaw in the argument is exposed. That's where the motivation behind the flawed argument usually surfaces.
The biggest doozies among these have to be the arguments marinated in things like Zeno’s paradoxes. Chief among these is the old, you can’t traverse the infinite and arrive at the present time spiel, which is commonly employed by people enamored by thinkers like William Lane Craig and his Kalam Cosmological Argument.
The impossibility of traversing the infinite is also known as the Successive Addition Argument, and it is commonly wielded by those who wish to “prove” that the universe had a finite beginning.
The argument proposes that the universe’s past cannot extend infinitely into the past because this would create an impossibility, specifically, that all the events in the past have been adding up since eternity, hence completing, at this present moment or any moment infinitely far back from the present, the traversal of an infinite series.
Okay, whatever, but the argument very subtly includes a beginning point, and that is where the little trick in the argument is hidden. You see, there is nothing inherently contradictory or metaphysically impossible about traversing an infinite that never began. More precisely, the infinite can be traversed because it lacks a definite starting point called “infinity.”
The same holds for a beginning that is infinitely far in the past. Contrary to claims otherwise, the infinite can be traversed by starting somewhere. The possibility of infinitely far beginnings reveals infinity can be traversed. Incidentally, it could be traversed many times. Perhaps even infinitely.
Anyway, none of that is of particular interest to me one way or another. What interests me is the obstinance with which successive addition arguments are utilized, even after the flaw in the argument is exposed. That's where the motivation behind the flawed argument usually surfaces.
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