THREAD: On the impossibility of an infinite cosmos. [By Al Kindi]
![THREAD: On the impossibility of an infinite cosmos. [By Al Kindi] https://t.co/L5igBwmIKk](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ELWu3ObXYAAdEcs.png)
1. The first argument against the eternity of the cosmos aims at proving that body, time, and movement do not precede each other and hence, if time is finite, “the extension of the existence” of the universe is finite.
2. This argument assumes that time is not a being, but an attribute of the body. Let us say now that no body, nor anything else that has quantity and quality, can be infinite in actuality and that infinity is only in potentiality.
3. The argument then unfolds in four steps. Following a Euclidian form, it starts (a) with a series of six axioms or “first true immediately intelligible premises” , four of which will be used in subsequent argumentation.
4. (b) that no magnitude can be infinite in actuality by showing the absurdities that will loom when one tries to apply ordinary arithmetic operations to magnitudes hypothetically infinite.
5. (c) Since time is a quantity, it is impossible that there be an infinite time in actuality, since time has a finite beginning. Also, things attributed to a finite [body] are necessarily finite; therefore every attribute of a body, be it magnitude, place, movement, or time
6. (c) continued: And time is divided by motion, and the sum total of all the attributes of the body in actuality, is also finite, since body is finite; hence the body of the universe is finite, as is every one of its attributes.
7. It has been made clear that an infinite time in actuality cannot exist. Now time is the time of the body of the universe, or its extension.
8. If time is finite, the existence of the body is finite, since time is not an existent and there is no body without time, because time is an extension measured by movement. So, if there is a movement, there is time, and if there is no movement, there is no time.
9. Having shown that body, time, and motion are coextensive and finite, you still have to rule out a possibility (d): what if someone “thought that it is possible for the body of the universe to have been at rest first, having the potentiality to move, and then to have moved?”
10. Since body cannot have preceded its generation, then generation “is its essence,” and hence the being of the body is not prior to movement.
11. On the other hand if the universe was eternally at rest, motion could never arise, for motion is change and the eternal does not change, it simply is. Therefore it is self-contradictory to say that the universe is eternal and yet motion has a beginning.
12. Thus, if there is movement, there is necessarily body, and if there is body, there is necessarily movement. But we already said that time does not precede movement;
13. thus necessarily time does not precede body, since there is no time but with movement, and since there is no body but with movement and there is no movement but with a body, and no body without extension.
14. Proof by composition: This is based on the double composition of bodies, every body being composed of matter and form or sub- stance and tridimensionality. But composition is a change (affecting the state of non-composition) and thus it is a movement.
15. Without movement there is no body since body is composite. Hence body and motion do not precede each other but are coexistent.
16. Argument for the Finiteness of Past Time: The argument unfolds in two steps: (a) from the impossibility of an infinite series of past segments of time which draws (b) the impossibility of traversing a temporal infinity in order to reach a given time.
17. the present could never have been reached if infinite past time or an infinite series of past segments of time had to be traversed. But we reach a definite time; hence time does not proceed from infinity but necessarily from a limit.
18. The extension of the body is thus not infinite, and it is impossible that a body exists without extension. Therefore the existence of a body is not infinite, but the existence of a body is finite. Thus it is impossible for a body to be eternal.
19. Finally, after proving that past time can't be infinite, we have to complete the last step of this argument and prove that future time is not infinite either. No matter what definite time is added to the already accumulated finite past time, the total sum will remain finite.
20. The three arguments, intended to prove the finiteness of the world, entail de facto its creation or at least its beginning and hence the necessity of a first cause. This is linked to the thread on emergence of the body:
End of thread🙂. Likes and retweets appreciated.
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