fourcheese said:
I think we're maybe tackling too many threads of this argument at once. Let's just backpedal slightly here because I really don't want to miss your point:
Zeno's paradox is caused by being able to split a finite space (actually a distance) into an infinite number of pieces, but not affording the same courtesy to time. So in reality the paradox doesn't exist. Given a finite number of infinitesimal distances you really do move nowhere. Calculus clears this up for us by being able to calculate what happens as dt -> 0 and ds -> 0. Do we both agree on this, or have I misunderstood your position (again)?
However Zeno is still talking about finite amounts of time, he's just dividing them up into chunks of 0 duration. I don't see how this translates to an infinite time problem.
I wasn't looking for an explanation of Zeno's paradox. I actually proposed the idea of quantum time while a Junior in High School based solely on Zeno's paradox. I am quite familiar with it.
The point I am making with bring it up is that Zeno himself, along with many of his followers, rejected reality based on these paradoxes. They thought life was an illusion on the basis of a paradox! That's not rational! They, in effect, rejected rationality because of a paradox which they could not have come up with without rational thought and my point is that suggesting that God exists outside of time in order to evade the infinite regress paradox is making the exact same error that Zeno made.
Now, you made the claim that I am trying to have it both ways, which lead me to ask you if you understood the difference between a paradox and a fallacy of logic, to which you did not respond.
Do you understand the difference? It is a tricky subject, to say the least. In many contexts the words 'paradox' and 'contradiction' are interchangeable but in this context, it is important to draw some distinction between them because otherwise all contradictions can be blown off as mere paradoxes and lived with happily by whomever wants not to be bothered with the fact that there worldview is incoherent.
Paradoxes are logic puzzles. They are apparently true statements that contradict what we seem to know to be true. The key is not lose grasp of your senses because of a the presence of a paradox. You don't throw out the baby with the bath water, if you will. Paradoxes, if one is intellectually honest, present proof that there is something wrong with the thought process involved in the paradox. It is a matter of choosing what portion of the paradox you are going to reject and on what basis.
Zeno's paradox is easy. You reject the notion that motion is impossible because of the rational impossibility of the contrary. If motion were actually impossible, you could never have read Zeno's paradox and come to the conclusion that motion was impossible in the first place. That doesn't solve the paradox but it does tell you where the error is because the form of the argument itself is entirely valid thus the error must be in the premises, as you skilfully pointed out with what you were saying about Calculus.
This same thing can be applied to the infinite regress problem.
We KNOW that the present moment has arrived because of the rational impossibility of the contrary.
The form of the infinite regress argument is valid.
Therefore all or some of the premises (implied or otherwise) are false in some way.
In other words, I don't let the infinite regress paradox convince me of an irrationality like timeless existence any more than I would have allowed Zeno's paradox to convince me that I can't walk across the room.
