posted on Mar, 17 2011 @ 09:38 PM
I'm not sure you can actually have "infinity" going backwards, from the perspective of time.
Time always "begins"; it's of the essence. If you have "today", then you have "yesterday", but the logical implication is that there must have
been "day one", in order to have a sequence.
This is one of the reasons the traditional "Big Bang" theory posits the universe and time "beginning" together. The religionist might say they
were "created" together. Scientists actually can't clearly make a separation, they call it "space / time".
There is no "before" T= 0. Philosophically, whatever/whenever could be "before" T = 0 is of a different "substance", sometimes (perhaps
erroneously) called "eternity".
From what I understand, the main competing "M" theory involves "branes" that are perhaps "before" the "instant" of our Big Bang, but even they
must occupy something like "super-time" (and "space"). In other words, science doesn't seem to be able to make an "eternal", always-existing
universe really work, in spite of the earlier attempts to do so when the idea of an "oscillating" universe took hold some years ago. The problem
was that upon the proposed "contraction", space-time would again effectively dissolve. Which means we really can't say anything about it
scientifically at that "point". Meaning, the idea was pretty much meaningless, even if intuitively satisfying.
Eternity does not "equal" infinity. Qualitative difference. Science still doesn't have it figured out, and this is the area where philosophy then
has to suggest "answers".
Oops. One little problem! The greatest philosopher ever, Socrates, has been famously given credit for telling us that there are NO answers...only
questions.
Hmmm....
JR