AskPhilosophers: Infinite Duration? (And unasking questions)

I follow the AskPhilosophers site occasionally, where layman from the general public get to ask interesting philosophical questions of professional thinkers. It's an interesting site because the professional thinkers do have a lot to say.

Anyway, there was a good question up today:

If the universe has existed forever, i.e. if the universe did not have a beginning, would the present time be possible? That is, if an infinite amount of time was necessary to get to the present time? And if this is so, does this mean the universe necessarily had a beginning?

This one piqued my interest, because the answer is well written, and alludes to different ways of understanding time, which is related to the philosophy of change I posted about a while ago.

So the obvious, intuitive answer to this guy's question is that yes, the current moment in time is possible, because you're in it. The explanation about why that is though rests on a certain understanding of time's meaning, and the relationship of one point in time to another.

The long answer given on the site is fairly technical for folks who haven't read this material before. (Read it for yourself if you're interested) Years ago, I found answers like this deeply unsatisfying because they didn't fill some need that I have for an elegant solution.

The reason these technical answers are necessary though is this: if a question is asked that includes an improper conceptualization, then there can be no response that is both elegant and correct. The only correct response is to "unask the question", that is to reframe the debate and start by conceptualizing the question properly.

This gets perceived as dodging or evading the question, because there's no doubt that the question being answered isn't the one being asked.

The question above talks about "getting to the present time", i.e. movement through time. It explicitly includes a destination (the present moment) but doesn't refer to any starting point. This is the error in conceptualization of the problem. The response to the question starts by calling the question out on this point. In order to go anywhere in time, you have to have started somewhere. In this way, the response rephrases the question without the asker's permission. That small twist of rhetoric is what I could never put my finger on when I was younger; the thing that made these technical explanations seem so lifeless.

The fact remains that if the response had accepted the conceptualization of the question, it might have been elegant but it wouldn't have been correct.

This is the facet of philosophy and indeed the english language that is extremely troublesome. If someone makes a statement that contains a subtle problem in conceptualization, and you aren't able to identify that problem, you're hosed. Arguing through complex scenarios that rest on improper conceptualizations is a sure way to end up in contradiction or absurdity. If you don't have the skill to identify the error in the premises, you end up confused.

Update

Yet another recent AskPhilosopher's question gave me a good example of this conceptualization problem. Remember the classic question - "If a tree falls in the forest, and there is no living thing around to hear it, does it still make a sound?" The answer hinges on your definition of what it means to "make a sound". Any person who would answer the question correctly would first start by stating assumptions about what it means for something to "make a sound".

• Group A: To "make a sound" means to cause a living thing to perceive something auditorially. Clearly, this tree we're talking about doesn't make any sound.
• Group B: To "make a sound" means for the motion of an object to compress air waves in a particular pattern. Clearly, this tree does make a sound, because in falling it will compress the air in this way.

Now of course you're left with a different conundrum - is there such a thing as an objectively correct definition for any given term? :)