How Much Time Has There Been

The universe is eternal, it has no beginning. A common rejoinder to this point is found in asking the question: “then how much time passed prior to today?” The question is invalid on two counts.

First, how much time passed prior to today relative to what point in the past? Last Tuesday? Three weeks ago? The 1st of January 1970? Without providing the starting point the question simply cannot be answered. Asking in a vacuum “how much time passed prior to today” is equivalent to the question: what is the distance to my finger? The obvious answer in the space-case is: “the distance from where?” The question that these people mean to ask on this front is “how much time passed prior to today from the first instant of time?” But then this hardly forms a valid counter to the stance that there is no first instant of time! “There is no first moment.” “Oh yeah? Well then how long has it been since the first moment, wise guy?”

Second, how much time passed prior to today through which path in space? Time is local, we know from GPS satellites that one needs to compensate for the slowing effect that gravity has on clocks—without this compensation you get inaccurate results. Thus, perhaps we have an origin point, the 1st of January 1970, and we want to know how long ago it was—we also must specify through which path in space. How long has it been since then on the event horizon of a black hole? How long has it been since then in the void of deep space? How long has it been since then for an object travelling close to the speed of light? There are different answers to all of these. The analogy to the distance case here would be: “what is the distance between my finger and the Eiffel Tower as the crow flies?” vs “what is the distance between my finger and the Eiffel Tower following public roads?”