Jason Kuznicki on Mar 8th 2010 |
The more I think about the eternal recurrence, the less I’m sold on it. Let’s all agree to bracket the question of God’s existence for the moment and reconsider the original claim about the nature of time. I suspect there’s an area of strong agreement to be had among theists and at least some non-theists. (And personally, I was hoping we could move away from the tiresome question of God’s existence altogether.) Here’s the quote once again:
If time is infinite on both ends, then we have infinite rolls of the dice of probability. That means, however infinitesimally small the probabilities that brought “you” into existence, with enough rolls of dice, “you” will come into existence again, and again and again forever. And if time is infinite in reverse, “now” isn’t the only time “you” existed.
Accordingly, “you” have always existed and always will.
But this really, really doesn’t follow, does it? Say I have a perfectly functioning CD player (yes, I’m an old fart). Say that it has a limitless supply of energy and that it will never wear out. I use it to play my favorite piece by J.S. Bach (currently it’s the Ciacona from Partita No. 2).
Then I take out the disc and put in Led Zeppelin II. (Before you ask: Yes, it’s an infinitely durable disc.)
How long do I need to play Led Zeppelin before it turns into Bach? A long time? A very long time? Forever?
Would it help if I put it on shuffle?
Is there any reason to believe that every part of the long, long track of the universe recurs? Can’t it be that only some parts do, and others do not? Clearly it can be so — there’s nothing about a very, very long time that will turn Led Zeppelin into Bach, and thus there’s no saying that I won’t have to listen to Led Zeppelin forever.
The problem here is that the analogy to rolls of the dice is fundamentally flawed. Some parts of the universe might as well be random, for all we can tell, but that “for all we can tell” speaks more to human ignorance than it does to the true inner workings of things. Analogies to dice probably don’t do the universe justice, because it appears that not everything is random. Add even a little constraint, and some things just aren’t going to repeat.