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Cogito ergo sum

Here in the Philosophy forum we will talk about all the "why" questions. We'll have conversations about the way in which philosophy and theology and religion interact with each other. Metaphysics, ontology, origins, truth? They're all fair game so jump right in and have some fun! But remember...play nice!

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The Concept of the Infinite

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  • #61
    Originally posted by Chrawnus View Post
    Can you please bold the part that you misunderstood to confirm the existence of actual infinities in nature?
    I do not spoon feed the intentional ignorant. The references speaks for themself. I detect a severe deficiency in your English and math comprehension?
    Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
    Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
    But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

    go with the flow the river knows . . .

    Frank

    I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

    Comment


    • #62
      Yippee!! More hurling elephantine block-quotes to choke on! Let's see if they're just more inconsequential poppycock. It must be nice to do absolutely no work going through the time to actually understand the issues. It's the dark side of the Internet. Let me just put "William Lane Craig", "Infidels", and "Morriston" into Google, cross my fingers and toes, close my eyes, click my heels, control+F 'actual infinite', and copy/paste a big, shiny block-paragraph for my response.

      In a series of much discussed articles and books, William Lane Craig has
      vigorously defended the view that the past could not consist in a beginningless
      series of events.1 Craig’s goal, of course, is to make a strong case for the existence
      of God. If the past has a beginning, then so does the universe, and a familiar line
      of argument suggests that there must be a First Cause.2 In the present paper, I cast
      a critical eye on just one part of Craig’s case for the finitude of the past – viz. his
      philosophical argument against the possibility of actually infinite sets in the ‘real
      world’.3 If this argument were to succeed, then an actually infinite series of past
      events would have been proved impossible, and we could go on to ask about the
      cause of the very first event. However, I do not believe that Craig has succeeded in
      proving that actually infinite sets are impossible. As far as this particular line of
      argument is concerned, I shall try to show that it remains an open question
      whether the past could consist in a beginningless series of events.
      I shall also take a
      close look at several considerations that are often thought to favour the possibility
      of an actual infinite, arguing in each case that Craig’s response is inadequate. [/cite]

      My previous references confirm that actual infinities do exist in nature.
      Prophecy fulfilled! I love being right. Thanks for quoting a darn 'abstract' addressing absolutely nothing I said. Have you read Craig's response to Morriston, or do you have a Morriston-statue by your bedside you pray to before you go to sleep every night?
      Many and painful are the researches sometimes necessary to be made, for settling points of [this] kind. Pertness and ignorance may ask a question in three lines, which it will cost learning and ingenuity thirty pages to answer. When this is done, the same question shall be triumphantly asked again the next year, as if nothing had ever been written upon the subject.
      George Horne

      Comment


      • #63
        Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
        I do not spoon feed the intentional ignorant. The references speaks for themself. I detect a severe deficiency in your English and math comprehension?


        I have to call the Guinness Book of World Records and let them know that this might be the blackest pot of all time calling a kettle that's not black 'black'!
        Many and painful are the researches sometimes necessary to be made, for settling points of [this] kind. Pertness and ignorance may ask a question in three lines, which it will cost learning and ingenuity thirty pages to answer. When this is done, the same question shall be triumphantly asked again the next year, as if nothing had ever been written upon the subject.
        George Horne

        Comment


        • #64
          Originally posted by mattbballman31 View Post


          I have to call the Guinness Book of World Records and let them know that this might be the blackest pot of all time calling a kettle that's not black 'black'!
          I do not spoon feed the intentional ignorant. The references speaks for themself. I detect a severe deficiency in your English and math comprehension?

          Smiley faces do not help your case.
          Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
          Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
          But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

          go with the flow the river knows . . .

          Frank

          I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

          Comment


          • #65
            Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
            I do not spoon feed the intentional ignorant.
            Funny. You gobbled up the spoon I was feeding you with a long time ago. Now, you just puke up extraneous block-quotes that are as irrelevant as they are desperate. Your misunderstand-Craig-derangement syndrome knows no bounds.

            The references speaks for themself.
            Nice English skills, dolt! 'Themself'?

            I detect a severe deficiency in your English and math comprehension?
            Your detection device got darn broke in yer Dunning-Krueger algorithm. Seriously. For you to talk about someone's English comprehension is freaking hilarious. Your math comprehension is equally hilarious. Just nodding, drooling in the corner, at whatever beneficial, constructive points Boxing Pythagoras had made earlier in the thread does not a competent math guy make.

            Smiley faces do not help your case.
            I know, but aren't they so cute???
            Many and painful are the researches sometimes necessary to be made, for settling points of [this] kind. Pertness and ignorance may ask a question in three lines, which it will cost learning and ingenuity thirty pages to answer. When this is done, the same question shall be triumphantly asked again the next year, as if nothing had ever been written upon the subject.
            George Horne

            Comment


            • #66
              Let me slog through your probably irrelevant Barrow quotation from the 10th circle of Hell Dante didn't mention because he didn't have the misfortune to talk to you on this forum.

              Scientists also started to distinguish between mathematical and physical infinities. In mathematics, if you say something "exists", what you mean is that it doesn't introduce a logical contradiction given a particular set of rules.
              Cool. Craig addresses this. So scared! I would tell you what he says, but I don't spoon feed the intentionally ignorant!

              In most areas of science, if you see an infinity, you assume that it's down to an inaccuracy or incompleteness of your model.
              So, no infinity in nature. Thanks, shuny!

              when you did a calculation to see what you should observe in an experiment you always seemed to get an infinite answer with an extra finite bit added on. If you then subtracted off the infinity, the finite part that you were left with was the prediction you expected to see in the lab. And this always matched experiment fantastically accurately.
              Calculation? Right, dimwit. Calculation. Craig doesn't deny the mathematical legitimacy of the actual infinite. And you saw the finite part "in the lab", in reality, in nature. Got that, weirdo?

              This is why string theory created great excitement in the 1980s and why it suddenly became investigated by a huge number of physicists. It was the first time that particle physicists found a finite theory, a theory which didn't have these infinities popping up.
              A theory that DIDN'T have the infinities popping up????? Do you even read these block-quotes before you paste them?

              It's that sharp corner in the picture that's the source of the infinities in the description.
              Here Shuny is drooling with excitement! Oh my gosh! Look! A block-quote with "infinities in the description" in it!!! Yippee! Oh wait, I have to read the next part of Barrow's quote,

              But if you have two loops coming together, it's rather like two legs of a pair of trousers. Then two more loops move out from the interaction — that's like sewing another pair of trousers onto the first pair. What you get is a smooth transition. This was the reason why string theory was so appealing, it was the first finite theory of particle physics.
              See that, numbskull? "The first FINITE theory of particle physics"???? Your English comprehension is really atrocious. Nothing you quoted from Barrow supports the idea of infinities in nature, dummy.

              What about this Alain Riazuelo?

              Another type of infinity arises in gravitation theory and cosmology. Einstein's theory of general relativity suggests that an expanding Universe (as we observe ours to be) started at a time in the finite past when its density was infinite — this is what we call the Big Bang. Einstein's theory also predicts that if you fell into a black hole, and there are many black holes in our Galaxy and nearby, you would encounter an infinite density at the centre. These infinities, if they do exist, would be actual infinities.
              You really are pea-brained. This is on the level of mathematical descriptions of densities in nature, which Craig would yawn at. Physicists, or pea-brained sycophants like you, that just dogmatically assert as settled the continuous nature of space (and therefore its infinite divisibility) are just clueless about the raging debate in physics, metaphysics and philosophy of science as to what the proper physical interpretations of the mathematical formalisms are regarding how quantum physics and general relativity imply that space is discrete or continuous, along with the debate swirling around whether you have to be a mathematical realist regarding the infinitesimals in the equations needing to correspond to discrete, mathematical quanta in the continuum. All of this is still up for debate, with physicists split down the middle, so maybe you shouldn't quote-mine to substantiate your confirmation bias. Oh, and Craig is aware of all this hooey already. He wrote a huge tome you probably won't read (and I won't tell you about, since I won't spoon feed the intentionally ignorant) about why the aforesaid mathematical realism is groundless and false. Further, more and more physicists are acknowledging the potency of the philosophical arguments from metaphysics as posing significant external conceptual problems for those physical interpretations of the formalism of general relativity and quantum mechanics that imply that an actual infinite of discrete quanta of space are logically prior to the continuous nature of space as a whole.

              But I won't expect you to understand or read any of this. Go fetch another block-quote doggy!
              Many and painful are the researches sometimes necessary to be made, for settling points of [this] kind. Pertness and ignorance may ask a question in three lines, which it will cost learning and ingenuity thirty pages to answer. When this is done, the same question shall be triumphantly asked again the next year, as if nothing had ever been written upon the subject.
              George Horne

              Comment


              • #67
                Originally posted by mattbballman31 View Post
                Let me slog through your probably irrelevant Barrow quotation from the 10th circle of Hell Dante didn't mention because he didn't have the misfortune to talk to you on this forum.



                Cool. Craig addresses this. So scared! I would tell you what he says, but I don't spoon feed the intentionally ignorant!



                So, no infinity in nature. Thanks, shuny!



                Calculation? Right, dimwit. Calculation. Craig doesn't deny the mathematical legitimacy of the actual infinite. And you saw the finite part "in the lab", in reality, in nature. Got that, weirdo?



                A theory that DIDN'T have the infinities popping up????? Do you even read these block-quotes before you paste them?



                Here Shuny is drooling with excitement! Oh my gosh! Look! A block-quote with "infinities in the description" in it!!! Yippee! Oh wait, I have to read the next part of Barrow's quote,



                See that, numbskull? "The first FINITE theory of particle physics"???? Your English comprehension is really atrocious. Nothing you quoted from Barrow supports the idea of infinities in nature, dummy.

                What about this Alain Riazuelo?



                You really are pea-brained. This is on the level of mathematical descriptions of densities in nature, which Craig would yawn at. Physicists, or pea-brained sycophants like you, that just dogmatically assert as settled the continuous nature of space (and therefore its infinite divisibility) are just clueless about the raging debate in physics, metaphysics and philosophy of science as to what the proper physical interpretations of the mathematical formalisms are regarding how quantum physics and general relativity imply that space is discrete or continuous, along with the debate swirling around whether you have to be a mathematical realist regarding the infinitesimals in the equations needing to correspond to discrete, mathematical quanta in the continuum. All of this is still up for debate, with physicists split down the middle, so maybe you shouldn't quote-mine to substantiate your confirmation bias. Oh, and Craig is aware of all this hooey already. He wrote a huge tome you probably won't read (and I won't tell you about, since I won't spoon feed the intentionally ignorant) about why the aforesaid mathematical realism is groundless and false. Further, more and more physicists are acknowledging the potency of the philosophical arguments from metaphysics as posing significant external conceptual problems for those physical interpretations of the formalism of general relativity and quantum mechanics that imply that an actual infinite of discrete quanta of space are logically prior to the continuous nature of space as a whole.

                But I won't expect you to understand or read any of this. Go fetch another block-quote doggy!
                There is something seriously wrong with your attitude towards fellow members.
                “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

                Comment


                • #68
                  Originally posted by mattbballman31 View Post
                  Let me slog through your probably irrelevant Barrow quotation from the 10th circle of Hell Dante didn't mention because he didn't have the misfortune to talk to you on this forum.



                  Cool. Craig addresses this. So scared! I would tell you what he says, but I don't spoon feed the intentionally ignorant!



                  So, no infinity in nature. Thanks, shuny!



                  Calculation? Right, dimwit. Calculation. Craig doesn't deny the mathematical legitimacy of the actual infinite. And you saw the finite part "in the lab", in reality, in nature. Got that, weirdo?



                  A theory that DIDN'T have the infinities popping up????? Do you even read these block-quotes before you paste them?



                  Here Shuny is drooling with excitement! Oh my gosh! Look! A block-quote with "infinities in the description" in it!!! Yippee! Oh wait, I have to read the next part of Barrow's quote,



                  See that, numbskull? "The first FINITE theory of particle physics"???? Your English comprehension is really atrocious. Nothing you quoted from Barrow supports the idea of infinities in nature, dummy.

                  What about this Alain Riazuelo?



                  You really are pea-brained. This is on the level of mathematical descriptions of densities in nature, which Craig would yawn at. Physicists, or pea-brained sycophants like you, that just dogmatically assert as settled the continuous nature of space (and therefore its infinite divisibility) are just clueless about the raging debate in physics, metaphysics and philosophy of science as to what the proper physical interpretations of the mathematical formalisms are regarding how quantum physics and general relativity imply that space is discrete or continuous, along with the debate swirling around whether you have to be a mathematical realist regarding the infinitesimals in the equations needing to correspond to discrete, mathematical quanta in the continuum. All of this is still up for debate, with physicists split down the middle, so maybe you shouldn't quote-mine to substantiate your confirmation bias. Oh, and Craig is aware of all this hooey already. He wrote a huge tome you probably won't read (and I won't tell you about, since I won't spoon feed the intentionally ignorant) about why the aforesaid mathematical realism is groundless and false. Further, more and more physicists are acknowledging the potency of the philosophical arguments from metaphysics as posing significant external conceptual problems for those physical interpretations of the formalism of general relativity and quantum mechanics that imply that an actual infinite of discrete quanta of space are logically prior to the continuous nature of space as a whole.

                  But I won't expect you to understand or read any of this. Go fetch another block-quote doggy!
                  Your selective citations to justify a religious agenda do not reflect the content of the whole reference. Smiley faces are a nice smoke screen for self imposed ignorance.
                  Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                  Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                  But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                  go with the flow the river knows . . .

                  Frank

                  I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                  Comment


                  • #69
                    Originally posted by Tassman View Post
                    There is something seriously wrong with your attitude towards fellow members.
                    There's something seriously wrong with your face . . .
                    Many and painful are the researches sometimes necessary to be made, for settling points of [this] kind. Pertness and ignorance may ask a question in three lines, which it will cost learning and ingenuity thirty pages to answer. When this is done, the same question shall be triumphantly asked again the next year, as if nothing had ever been written upon the subject.
                    George Horne

                    Comment


                    • #70
                      Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                      Your selective citations to justify a religious agenda do not reflect the content of the whole reference. Smiley faces are a nice smoke screen for self imposed ignorance.
                      Okay, dummy. Whatever you say. Go get lost!
                      Many and painful are the researches sometimes necessary to be made, for settling points of [this] kind. Pertness and ignorance may ask a question in three lines, which it will cost learning and ingenuity thirty pages to answer. When this is done, the same question shall be triumphantly asked again the next year, as if nothing had ever been written upon the subject.
                      George Horne

                      Comment


                      • #71
                        Originally posted by mattbballman31 View Post
                        Okay, dummy. Whatever you say. Go get lost!
                        Gotta love the Christians!
                        “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

                        Comment


                        • #72
                          Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                          I do not spoon feed the intentional ignorant.
                          Why should I do your job for you?

                          Comment


                          • #73
                            Originally posted by Tassman View Post
                            Gotta love the Christians!
                            We love you too, Tass Guy the Scientism Guy!
                            Many and painful are the researches sometimes necessary to be made, for settling points of [this] kind. Pertness and ignorance may ask a question in three lines, which it will cost learning and ingenuity thirty pages to answer. When this is done, the same question shall be triumphantly asked again the next year, as if nothing had ever been written upon the subject.
                            George Horne

                            Comment


                            • #74
                              Originally posted by Chrawnus View Post
                              Why should I do your job for you?
                              Your the who asked me to do your laundry. It is your problem that you are not will to read the references and do the homework. At present you have an F-.

                              For example in the course of this thread Boxing Pythagoris does do the homework and responds intelligently to the thread when responding in the dialogue.


                              Originally posted by mattdamore
                              At this point, I need to use characters for the Greek alphabet, which I don't have. I'll use an English transliteration, but I apologize if this is cause for confusion. I'll try my best to be as clear as I can.
                              Originally posted by Boxing Pythagoris
                              Most fonts support Greek and Hebrew characters, these days, but you'll have to use some extra manner of accessing them-- for example, the Charmap program in Windows or http://typegreek.com/

                              Another option, and the one which I prefer, is to use LaTeX formatted images. This tool is very helpful in that regard: http://www.codecogs.com/latex/eqneditor.php

                              Omega = Aleph null - [Omega is the first infinite ordinal. Aleph null is first infinite cardinal: the set of all natural numbers. The set of all natural numbers is countably infinite. - The sets above this point are all finite.]
                              It is not quite true that . The cardinality of omega is Aleph null, but ordinals and cardinals are very different sorts of numbers. We can't just equate them in this way. For example, it is true that ; however, we know that . Saying that these two numbers equal one another would make our mathematics inconsistent.
                              Originally posted by mattdamore
                              As I said, I am a rank amateur when it comes to this concept, and I have probably made mistakes above. Any contribution or clarification is most welcome.
                              Originally posted by Boxing Pythagoris
                              In general, it is useful to note the difference between ordinal and cardinal numbers. Ordinals, as their name implies, are a description of how elements of a set may be ordered. Cardinals, on the other hand, are a description of how the elements of one set can be mapped onto another. So, ω describes the first number which is ordinally greater than any Natural number, in transfinite arithmetic. On the other hand, represents the cardinality of any set which can be mapped with 1-to-1 correspondence onto the Natural numbers.
                              I have consistently followed and agree with Boxing Pythagoris's view of Math concerning infinities/ Where are you at?

                              Originally posted by Boxing Pythagoras
                              Calculus is a tool for calculating actually infinite sets of objects, and this tool can be used to describe the workings of the real world with incredible accuracy, as Newton demonstrated with his celestial mechanics. There is some philosophical debate, however, as to whether such tools are just decent idealizations which provide reasonable approximations of reality, or whether they accurately describe reality.

                              I'm a Formalist when it comes to the philosophy of mathematics, so I think ALL mathematics is a purely abstract means of describing the real world-- including basic arithmetic. However, there are ways in which this abstraction can be more or less accurate in its description of the world.
                              Actually, doing your own homework can amount to simply reading Boxing Pythagoris's posts.
                              Last edited by shunyadragon; 03-27-2018, 07:56 AM.
                              Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                              Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                              But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                              go with the flow the river knows . . .

                              Frank

                              I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                              Comment

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