Exactly correct, logic like science is a human construct that helps us understand and explain reality.
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Just noticed this. There is a proposition that ‘time’ did not exist prior to the universe (in fact that ‘prior to the universe’ is incoherent, like ‘north of the North Pole’). If that is the case, then the observable universe has existed for all of time. That is, as stated in the definition I provided for “always existed”, there has never been a time the universe did not exist. Unlike Earth. 5 billion years ago is a time, and at that time, the Earth didn’t exist. 13.77 billion years ago, the universe existed, and 13.78 billion years ago is ‘north of the North Pole’, incoherent, and so doesn’t exist, so the universe can’t be said not to exist at a time that also doesn’t exist.
I’m not sure why. @David_Killens pointed out that the logical absolutes are neither mortal nor immortal. But that includes ‘not mortal’, which is all I said about it. In any case, I think my syllogism analogy wasn’t very good anyway. Don’t have a replacement analogy right now, though.
Perhaps because the implication of “not mortal” is immortal.
This is an unknown. An idea of man may die with the extinction of our species (if the idea itself survives that long), or may be “preserved” through AI, etc. No way of “knowing” the mortality of an idea.
Edited to add: a theist will grab ahold of it, and before you realize it, they’ve twisted it (Logic) into an immortal spirit quality emerging from god. So I tend to get specific.
May the force be with you Cranky - you need it 
Just a misunderstanding in communications
That was what motivated me to comment. I see theists tack on unnecessary words that just cloud the landscape and make everything confusing.
Oddgamer, this is what I do, pick out weird wording and attempt to define or simplify the definition. My drive is to simplify things instead of allowing it to wander off into the land of apologists.
To quote Einstein … "if you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.
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Good thing this isn’t my actual argument, just an attempt to explain how the logical syllogism of my actual argument…
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I wish Nomer had understood this.
I make this subtle point every time a theist claims the universe had a beginning. Can a point of origin be called a start in the sense we understand it, if time doesn’t exist?
It’s not that I’m making a claim the universe didn’t have a start, but rather that bold claims made in religious apologetics use language that is not really up to the task. Science is far more cautious and guarded in its language.
The universe as we currently observe it, has a point of origin science refers to as the big bang.
Another error apologists make regularly, is they muddle scientific fact with philosophical claims and imply the claims have some kind of scientific grounding.
See fine tuning arguments for a prime example of that muddled (dishonest) type of apologetics.
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No one is talking about “Prior to the Universe.” The topic was, “The universe had a beginning.” The observable universe “HAS NOT” Demonstrate there is no “Always” beyond the creation of our local time. You are like a person living in a house and then asserting that because things are this way or that way in the house, they must be the same way outside the house.
You do not get to assert “always” and thereby assume that which we do not know can somehow be known. You were correct with “incoherent” and should simply stop at that point until more is known.
The universe has existed for all “Local Time,” beyond that is incoherence. We know the beginning of our own universe to Planck time. You know nothing about “Always.”
How do you know this? Are you arguing for “Nothing?” In what form did the “Earth” not exist? We have no evidence that something can come from nothing. Your assertion is confusing at best. Perhaps you are referring to the Earth as we know it today? Have you missed the fact that most things are part of a process, ebbing and flowing, existing and existing differently. To say the Earth did not exist is fairly meaningless unless you are arguing for the existence of nothing.
No… the universe can not be said to exist at a local concept of time. This says nothing at all about universal time or probability of some other measurement beyond Planck time. Again, you should have stopped at “incoherent.” You are absolutely correct to that point.;
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I suspect even Einstein would have had trouble providing a simple explanation for tensors …
Hey there.
There might be another dimension of time, or time may extend past the BB, but we have no good reason to think it did. According to B-Theory time, which has evidence in QM, the flow of time we observe is an illusion of sorts, presentism is wrong. If so, there is no reason to think the universe ‘came from’ anywhere at all despite being bounded on at least one side but a terminus.
When I said the Earth didn’t exist, I was discussing thr planet and it’s currently accepted age of 4.54 billion years, but not claiming it comes ‘from nothing’.
The whole point of the bits about time is that we only know of one sort of time (local), and have no evidence, nor good reason to think there is another. This is why I defined the term ‘always existed’ in reference to time as we currently understand it, something that would equally apply to the universe as WLC’s definition of “begins to exist”.
When I was at university, studying pacific island cultures, the lecturer introduced us to a
society which has an holistic concept of time. Did my head in, I couldn’t grasp it.
I also read/heard somewhere that time happened all at once.That we just perceive it as linear. Can’t remember when or how I came across that, so I guess it’s anecdotal.
Found this:
"##### Pre-Industrial Cultures
Some cultures, though, appear to have little or no time orientation , and tend to exhibit not so much a relaxed attitude to time as no attitude at all. The Pirahã tribe of the Amazon rainforest is often mentioned in this context. The Pirahã have an extremely limited language based on humming and whistling. They have no numbers, letters or art, no words for colours, no specific religious beliefs and no creation myth. They also appear to have no real concept of time. Their language has no past tense , and everything exists for them only in the present: when they can no longer perceive something, it effectively ceases to exist for them.
The peaceful Hopi tribe of Arizona, USA, as well as some other Native American tribes, also have a language that lacks verb tenses, and their language avoids all linear constructions in time. The closest the Hopi language comes to a sense of time are one word meaning “sooner” and another meaning “later”. The Hopi appear to have little or no sense of linear time as most of the Western world knows it, and it comes as no surprise to learn that their religious beliefs include a cyclic view of time, similar to ancient Hindu and Buddhist belief in the “ wheel of time ” (see the section on Ancient Philosophy).
Many primitive agricultural and hunter-gatherer societies have very different attitudes to time and work than the industrialized West. The Kapauku of Papua New Guinea, for example, do not like to work on two consecutive days. The !Kung bushmen of the Kalahari Desert of southern Africa work two-and-a-half days per week, typically six hours per day. In certain South Pacific islands, men typically work only four hours per day."
http://www.exactlywhatistime.com/other-aspects-of-time/time-in-different-cultures/
That was the B-Theory time I was mentioning, I think. Not so much that it happens all at once, but rather that past and possibly future are as real as now, they already exist, and do not stop existing, no more so than the left or right of a cube does when considering a middle segment of it.
Mkay.
I love time travel movies, because of the paradoxes they ignore.
My two favourites are “Looper” and " Predestination" , especially the latter. I won’t add spoilers in case you haven’t seen them. Highly recommended.
In “The Time Machine” HG Wells tries (and fails) to address the question that travel though time does not necessarily mean travel through space as well, imo. But of course,who can say. EG Brian Cox argues that time travel can only exist one way. I don’ understand enough science to be able to offer an informed opinion.
@Cranky … I love time travel movies too!
OK - the “supposed” paradoxes of time travel are easily done away with when all possibilities exist and “time travel” is just a name or word for say, multiple earth (or the idea that each decision you make leads you on a path in this reality, but the other paths are still “there” just not accessible)
Think “Sliders” (the first and second season - after that it sucked!!!)…
So “you” could time travel to kill your past or future self or grandpa - that world or path wouldn’t have “you” anymore, HOWEVER, you still exist because your “original” path didn’t have this event (you created it on a different path) … BUT you can’t get back to your original path anymore (big drawback!!!)
Mind-candy 
I just finished binge watching Futureman which has the funniest outcomes about the weirdness of time travel. Loved how they lampooned James Cameron and Hollywood science fiction.
And Rick and Morty don’t have traditional paradoxes…