In none of my analogies, there isnt any duration used. YOU are the one that keeps assuming duration, not me.
I'm going to try and address this first, as so much depends upon you understanding me here. I'm going to be as clear as I can, so if something seems incorrect, false, wrong, or you don't understand, please be as specific as possible when saying so.
Your analogy, or example, was the following: imagine someone sitting (or who has been sitting) in a chair for eternity.
Now, why do I keep "assuming a duration" ? It's required by the linguistic construction you used. Before I say why, let me explain what I mean by construction. All languages have a "lexicon." This is a term linguists use to describe the words in the language, or the dictionary entries (I'm simplifying here, but being more accurate would require technicalities that aren't necessary and would just be confusing).
Eternity is part of the "lexicon" of English. As with all words, it is polysemous. It has more than one meaning. However, once a word is put into a clause, sentence, phrase, etc., it is subject not only to the full lexical meaning, but also to grammar. Whether one uses the word "construction" depends on one's view of language (mainstream generatic linguistics traditionally denies the existence of of constructions, while traditional grammar and more recent linguistic theory include, even depend, upon constructions). However, whether one's linguistic framework/theory is cognitive grammar (where grammar depends on, even is, constructions) or government & binding, or any other framework or theory, will not change the following:
English grammar limits the range of meaning of "eternity" in the phrase "sitting for eternity."
You use a verb, plus the preposition "for." When you do this, only certain things can follow the preposition "for" and when they do, they can only mean certain things. I cannot, for example, "sit for an upon". I cannot "sit for a to walk." I can sit for a rehearsal, I can sit for my friend, I can sit for an hour, I can sit for a while.
The meaning of the whole phrase depends upon what follows "for." In the examples I used, and in the English language, if I follow "for" with something that can refer to a duration, even an infinite one, then the whole phrase is durational.
I can look up "eternity" in the dictionary. However, once I use it in the phrase "sit for eternity" I have already selected a use of the word. I cannot then point to a different use in the dictionary.
I tried to make this clear with the verb "drive." I cannot say "work's driving me crazy" and then point to a dictionary and say "drive means operating an automobile and that's what it means here.
Likewise, you cannot say "someone sits/is sitting/has been sitting
for eternity" and then point to a dictionary and say "eternity means timeless." It does, but it can't when you use it in a durational construction, and that's exactly what you are doing. Just by using a subject + verb phrase + "for" + a term which
can refer to time, you
make it refer to time. To sit "for eternity" is to sit for all of time. It cannot be "to sit for timeless." That makes no sense.
The reason I keep "assuming" a duration is because your sentence "assumes" a duration. You can't use "eternity" in this context and say it means timeless. One cannot "sit for timeless" but one can "sit for eternity." This is because the construction "doing X for Y" means to do something for a duration of time, even an infinite duration. You are using one sense of "eternity" which is specified by the sentence you use it in, and then claiming it means something else. Only that "something else" doesn't work (is nonsensical and/or ungrammatical) in your sentence.
Time and change are dependent upon each each. The change is the passing of the state from one state to another, and time is the duration at which the change is made. You can't have one without the other.
When a mathematician or a scientist (or a philosopher) speaks of states and transitions with respect to time, the transition from state to state need only involve a transition (or change) of time. A model of a system, using a difference (or differential) equation (or equations), can describe a system at several different states which has not changed. All that is needed to go from state to state is a change in time, nothing else.
And, by the way, according to you, if we accept the above, then god is now changing, and has been since the creation of time.
But apart from just saying so, why must time entail change apart from the change of time? Again, hypothetically, why can't there be an unmoving, unchanging particle in the midst of the universe? Unchanging through time.
Thats the problem, time isn't infinite.
And if that's true, as the big bang theory holds, then one cannot speak of "before time" or "before the universe." Again:
From Professsor Michael Woolfson's Time, Space, Stars, and Man: The Story of the Big Bang (Imperial College Press, 2009): "Like any sensible person you will ask the question, "What was the state of affairs before the Big Bang?", to which you will receive the answer, "There is no such thing as before the Big Bang because time did not exist until the Big Bang occured."
Good job of purposely ignoring the broader point. How about addressing what was said?
I'm trying. But it's difficult to address assertions without knowing upon what they are based. For example, you stated above that change and time are inseperable. You can't have change without time. But if time itself changes, then that is all that needs to change. Nothing else is needed. And your hypothetical example used to make your point hinges on impossibility.
Playing word games huh? "has been sitting in a chair for eternity" does not describe duration.
That's true, but only because the phrase is nonsensical/paradoxical. Sitting "for eternity"
requires unending sitting. But the perfect tense is used to describe an action or state of affairs which has ended. In other words, "has been sitting," as a progressive perfect, is a description of a state of affairs which, from the view of the speaker/writer, has ended. However, eternity doesn't end. To sit for eternity is to sit forever. An infinite duration of time. If one stands up, then one has not sat for eternity.
If there was never a point at which a person began sitting, there WAS no duration leading up to that person sitting.
If time had a beginning, then that's true. If time has always existed, it isn't. And if time had a beginning, than to speak of anything "before" time is impossible, or at least impossible to speak of with meaning and accuracy.
So answer this question, how could there be duration for something that never began??? Please answer this question.
I'll try to be clearer.
On time and duration:
1) If time is eternal, and has always existed, then something else could have always existed as well. The duration is infinite in both directions.
2) If time had a beginning, then something cannot have happened "before" this beginning. To speak of anything "before" time is to speak of temporality in a atemporal reality. Without time, there is no "before."
The problem with your example is, again, that you are trying to pick a meaning from a dictionary an place it into a construction in which it does not fit. If one sits for eternity, then one sits for an infinite duration of time. The construction requires this: "doing X for Y" is a temporal/durational construction. You cannot use this construction and then decide to pick a meaning from a dictionary which doesn't work in the construction.
You are missing the point my friend. If there is an infinite number of points between 0 and 1, and i asked you to count all of the points leading to 1, will you ever arrive at 1? No, because you have to count an infinite number of points to reach 1, so you will never get there.
Zeno's paradox. You're quite wrong, actually. Zeno's paradox was resolved some time ago. An infinite number of points can absolutely sum to a finite number. It does every second of every day. Each second is a unit, an interval, of time. Each such unit can be subdivided indefinitely. It is composed of an infinite number of points.
To illustrate, imagine you look at your watch, which reads 10:00 and 0 seconds, and a second later reads 10:00 and 1 second. How many "moments" have passed? Let's start at half a second. Then go to half and a quarter, increasing by half of what we started with. We continue in this way by increasing by half of a quarter, then half of that, and half of that, and we keep splitting. We can split forever. We can keep counting forward in halves for eternity, because there are an infinite number of such increases. However, these increases sum to reach 1 second. The 1 second mark is the "limit" of this infinite sequence. Look up "limit of a sequence."
Set theory and calculus are just mathematical instruments that work on paper, but when you convert the numbers from paper to reality, you will get contradictory results, which is why you will be unable to count the points in-between 0 and 1 to arrive at 1.
I take it you haven't studied either. What contradictory results?
