Time: Finite or infinite? (and other related topics), What are your thoughts on time? Options

[HiTheyCallMejOsh]

Recently, I was involved in a heavy discussion with a few people regarding one of Zeno's famous paradoxes, generally referred to as "The Dichotomy Paradox." Simply put, if one wants to travel from any one point to another, he must first travel half of that distance, and then half of that distance, and then half of that distance, and so on and so forth, infinitely. However, it is an axiom that it is impossible to do an infinite amount of things in a finite amount of time. Therefore, logically, we can never reach the second point. In fact, if you were to reverse the logic on it as well, we would never even be able to move from where we are standing.
This is where my theory comes into play. In a universe where time is infinite, we would logically never reach that point. However, seeing as in the real world, we do reach the door, the main factor that is different is motion. In an infinite universe, the paradoxical idea that we would never even be able to move would hold true; we would literally never move in an infinite universe, as motion would cease to exist. However, since there is such thing as time, it allows for motion.
One way to relate the two is using speed. We know the formula s=d/t, speed equals distance divided by time. You can never divide a number by 0 or infinite. Therefore, if the time were 0 or infinite, you would have no speed or no distance, you would have simply nothing. However, as soon as you throw in a real number, it makes the equation possible, bringing about the effects of motion.

What I'm saying is, the dichotomy paradox is actually proof that time and motion exist because of each other. If you take away all motion, time ceases to exist. If you take away all time, motion ceases to exist.

Anyone disagree?

Also, I was in heavy thinking mode yesterday after everyone left, and my roommate and I were kind of hanging out and chatting. We were going over some of the stuff we talked about, and I jotted down a few ideas...here's what I came up with.

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Assume time is finite.
Then, time started at some point.
Logically, time has to end if it is finite.
Then, if time ends, everything ceases to exist, because motion is dependent upon time.
If time is finite, then before it began, there was no time, therefore there was no motion.
By no motion, I mean absolute absence of motion. Not a single molecule would move, ever.
The slightest move would create time.
Since time began, there must have been a cause for the disturbance of molecules.
There was some motion that was created, since objects at rest stay at rest unless acted upon.

(If time=0 or time=infinite, then nothing could move; s=d/t, and nothing can be divided by
0 or infinite. Therefore, before time, when time=0, nothing was in motion).
Time is finite, because if time ceases to exist, then everything ceases to exist.
Time can never reach infinite, yet it is always approaching it.
Therefore, it is, paradoxically infinite.
If time were to end, then it would, per se, become infinite, which is logically impossible.
Therefore, time will always be, and always was, yet is not infinite.
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Any different opinions?
This is a subject I've been really interested in as of lately after picking up "Achilles in the Quantum Universe -- the Definitive History of Infinity," a book by Richard Morris. I would like to get some feedback and possible analysis of my theories, and maybe someone could try to point out some flaws.

[HiTheyCallMejOsh]

No no no!
Time is completely irrelevant. Time is continuous; one hour is one hour. If you want to 'travel ahead in time', as one would call it, you must change your speed; that is, approach the speed of light. The closer you are to the speed of light, the further ahead you will 'advance in time'. This is not literally because time is moving faster, but because you are literally making light....well....you're not really making time slow down, but it's just not catching up to you, in a sense.

Picture this.

Imagine we can travel at 20 light years in one second. In case you aren't sure what a light year is, it is the distance light travels in one year. In the case I am presenting, it would be the distance light travels in 20 years.

Remember; light is a moving thing. It moves at (I haven't checked, and I don't intend to give an exact amount, as it's pretty irrelevant.) roughly 186,000 miles every second. Like I said, this is not an exact amount, it's somewhere up there. Because it moves so fast and is everywhere, we generally do not think of it as moving; it is just light.

Now think about it.
Say we start at Earth.
We travel that 20 light years in one second.
The light from the Earth is literally 20 years behind us.
When we look at the Earth, we are seeing the light from the Earth, 20 years ago. We aren't literally in the future 20 years; we are just seeing the light from Earth 20 years ago. By travelling at higher speeds, we are not literally travelling back in time, but we are literally just "seeing" the past because the light has not caught up to us. But to travel back to that location you started would mean to catch up to that light, and you would no longer 'see the past,' if you will. Therefore, we will never move back in time.

However, I have heard some weird theories on time when approaching the speed of light. I can't really go into detail on that.

[*RubeTheCube*]

The closer you are to the speed of light, the further ahead you will 'advance in time'. This is not literally because time is moving faster, but because you are literally making light....well....you're not really making time slow down, but it's just not catching up to you, in a sense.

From what I understand, it isn't about leaving light behind at all. In fact, exceeding the speed of light is considered by physicists to be impossible, not because it is really effing fast, but because the force required to do so would have to be infinite, according to Einstein's special relativity.

The idea of going forward in time when approaching light speed is from observations made at a particle accelerator (as far as I remember). Basically, a certain particle was observed to decay slower when fired at really high speeds, so it is assumed that time goes slower for the particle but the same speed for everything else around it so the particle is essentially going forward in time.
I just googled it and there is a nice site that explains this stuff much better than I do :P
http://www2.slac.stanford.edu/vvc/theory/relativity.html

Also...If the universe is infinite in time, then the same would hold true: since dividing by infinity, as you stated, results in 0, then no motion would exist if time were infinite. (Then it would follow that a universe of infinite time is a universe where time cannot exist, since motion does not exist.)

I think there is an error in your thinking. You're looking at time and motion as grand, all-encompassing concepts, but they're not necessarily. Even if time is infinite, we can still break it up into finite parts; and motion isn't continuous and all-encompassing, so it, too, can be broken up into smaller parts. Time may be infinite, but it still only takes a finite amount of time for me to move from point A to point B. The fact that I can theoretically do that infinitely many times does not mean that each instance takes an infinite amount of time just because time itself is infinite.

Something that should be mentioned here is that while in all practicality dividing any finite quantity by infinity yields zero, it theoretically is not QUITE zero. No matter how large the number is by which something is divided, there will always be a finite quotient, albeit infinitesimal. While this infinitesimal quantity is always approaching zero, in theory it would never reach 0.

Going back to Josh's logic as quoted above, motion could exist because, even though it is zero in relation to the vastness of the universe, it still is a real quantity.