Can the definition of infinity disprove an infinite past?

[phands]

You are right.

Infinity is just something humans invented. It has never been observed in any way.

Like the Trinity.

But the Trinity could possibly exist unlike a real infinity.

Since you are so lost it is clearly futile to point out that an infinity of time is an amount of time that will never pass. Ever. It can never pass. Under no circumstances.

Just like you can never recite the positive integers. Ever. Under any circumstances.

That is one of the most nonsensical bits of gibberish I ever saw posted.

How is it nonsensical?

What specifically does not make sense to you?

Blanket statements about not understanding any part of something is usually cognitive dissonance.

The ideas are too novel for the person to understand.

Do you claim an infinite amount of time can pass?

Because that is a direct violation of the definition of infinite time.

Infinite time is time that never ends. Under any circumstance.

Utter wank. The bit about the trinity is just unhinged.

 

[untermensche]

How is it nonsensical?

What specifically does not make sense to you?

Blanket statements about not understanding any part of something is usually cognitive dissonance.

The ideas are too novel for the person to understand.

Do you claim an infinite amount of time can pass?

Because that is a direct violation of the definition of infinite time.

Infinite time is time that never ends. Under any circumstance.

Utter wank. The bit about the trinity is just unhinged.

Unhinged?

Exactly how?

I said the Trinity was invented and possible.

Unlike a real infinity that is also invented but impossible.

In what way is that "unhinged"?

I am doubting your ability to make judgements.

 

[Jokodo]

In fact if you find yourself in the midst of any directional sequence, like time, where events move in one direction only, the paper once burnt does not ever unburn, you know beyond doubt that sequence began. If it never began you could not find yourself anywhere within it. It and you wouldn't exist.

Apart from everything else that's wrong with this logic: Who is telling you that the directionality of time is an inherent property? What if time as such is directionless and it's apparent directedness an accidental property of this bubble of spacetime in which we find ourself, bounded by the Big Bang?

 

[untermensche]

One might as well talk of the gods when people talk about imaginary nonobservable magical "bubbles".

There is no evidence time is not unidirectional.

Events occur only in one direction. The human grows old. They never get younger.

Except in the movies.

 

[Juma]

You can name call instead of answering arguments all you want.

But an unbounded amount of time is an amount of time that can never complete.

There is no such thing anywhere, in mathematics or anywhere, as something that "begins" at infinity and completes.

To invoke it as an answer to something is ridiculous

The time in the past could not have been unbounded.

It is continually completing.

Its not up to me to answer these questions. It is up to you to actually show that you are right.
In over a thousand posts you have still not advanced a millimeter...

your statement ”an unbounded amount of time is an amount of time that can never complete” is totally wacko.
Time doesnt complete. humanly thought up processes completes. Nature just keeps going...
b

Amounts of time complete. A minute of time completes after the minute.

An unbounded amount of time can never pass, can never complete.

And it is nothing but sheer stupidity to talk of things starting from "infinity" and then ending. That is not a rational possibility nor is it any part of mathematics.

The time in the past must have been finite.

It is the only possible conclusion. It is a forced conclusion when you look at the situation rationally.

Infinities of time do not pass. Ever. That is what makes them infinite time. Like the positive integers. No end to them.

There is no end to infinite time.

If you see some amount of time end, like the past ends at every present moment, you know for certain a finite amount of time passed before it.

That is the only rational possibility.

In fact if you find yourself in the midst of any directional sequence, like time, where events move in one direction only, the paper once burnt does not ever unburn, you know beyond doubt that sequence began. If it never began you could not find yourself anywhere within it. It and you wouldn't exist.

You are ranting like a little child. ”I want, i want, i want”...
But it shown to be true just because you want it to be, you have to actually do your homework and create a logically sound proof. Sorry pal, nothing else is enough.

 

[untermensche]

Your reply is pure insanity.

I have not wanted anything.

I have pointed out calmly the impossibility of a real infinity of time ever completing.

That is the definition of infinite time. An amount of time that never completes. Like the positive integers never complete. That is what infinity means. To never end. To go on and on without the possibility of ending. No infinity ends.

There is no largest positive integer just like there is no end to infinite time.

And we know for certain all the time in the past has ended at the ever changing present.

Therefore it could not possibly have been infinite time.

Your reply to this is bizarre and reflects cognitive dissonance. The ideas are too novel. You can't make any sense of them.

If you could make any sense you would ask questions about your misunderstandings.

Not make absurd blanket statements that are not in any way true. Which is why you merely spew the opinion and do not explain what specifically you do not understand.

 

[Jokodo]

One might as well talk of the gods when people talk about imaginary nonobservable magical "bubbles".

There is no evidence time is not unidirectional.

There is no evidence that it is. None other than, maybe "it feels that way to me". Which is a very poor guide to discerning reality, as most of us have learned when we ditched the idea of a flat, stationary earth.

 

[Juma]

Your reply is pure insanity.

I have not wanted anything.

Your posts screams ”i want to be right” when you really should say ”i want to know the truth of this even if it means to admit that I am wrong”

I have pointed out calmly the impossibility of a real infinity of time ever completing.

You have STATED the impossibility. You have not shown that there really is such an impossibility.

That is the definition of infinite time. An amount of time that never completes.

No. The definition of ”inifinite time” is
is that there isnt a biggest timespan: for any interval of time you can specify a longer interval.
Or do you want to state that there set of negative numbers isnt infinite?

Like the positive integers never complete. That is what infinity means. To never end. To go on and on without the possibility of ending. No infinity ends.

The negative integers are also infinite... just saying...

There is no largest positive integer just like there is no end to infinite time.

There is no smallest negative integer just like there s no beginning of infinite time.

And we know for certain all the time in the past has ended at the ever changing present.

And we know for certain all the time in the past started at the ever changing present.

You realize that if the present has changed forever that time has been going on for ever and thus has alwas been...

Therefore it could not possibly have been infinite time.

On the contrary. Your own argument shows that time has always been going on..

 

[Bomb#20]

If you have any amount of things that take up a finite space the amount of those things are also finite.

... I also own the real estate beyond that, from 100 to 150 cm to my left; and in addition to those areas, I also have the real estate from 150 to 175 cm to my left, and I have the real estate from 175 to 187.5 cm to my left, and I have the real estate from 187.5 to 193.75 cm to my left, and so forth, forever. Each of those things I have takes up a finite space, and there are an infinite amount of them. Through the power of convergent series, those infinitely many finite things all add up to two meters of space.

Each of what "things"

You have described no "things".

Sure I have: infinitely many slices of space I own. The slices all run in parallel from about 100m west of me to 50m east of me, down several meters to mineral rights territory, and up several meters to airspace territory; I earlier described only those slices' north-south dimensions. If you want me to get pedantic I should probably describe them as bent slices of spacetime, extending back a few years to when I paid off my house and forward a few years to when I sell it or die.

If you have a piece of real estate it's size is finite.

Certainly; all the slices I described are finite; and the sum of those infinitely many finite slices is a finite-sized piece of real estate. Isn't math fun?

There are no infinities in reality. None.

And yet here I sit, owning a real infinity. You might as well tell me via my computer monitor that there are no computer monitors in reality.

Certainly it can be defined using only words, but you're not going to like it.

You have not defined infinity. Not close.

Dude, I defined it; and you claimed I didn't define it right after you snipped my definition out. What is wrong with you? Feel free to quote my definition back to me and tear it to shreds if you can; but claiming I didn't define it is just a dick move.

For your convenience, here it is again:

A set is defined as "infinite" just in case it can be put in a "one-to-one and onto" mapping with a proper subset of itself.​

You have described some aspects of an arbitrary infinite operation.

Not so. There's no infinite operation involved in the above definition. Here, for example, is a "one-to-one and onto" mapping from a set to a proper subset of the same set:

integer function f (integer x)
    if x <= 0
        return x
    else
        return x + 1

(That's the same function I showed in my last post; in that post I gave a fragment of an infinite description of it, but as you can see, it's perfectly possible to give a finite and complete description of the same function.) The function f(x) satisfies all the requirements of the definition: for any integer you put in you'll get an integer out; if you put two different integers in you'll get two different integers out, and the set of everything you can get out of it is a "proper subset" of the set of everything you can put into it, which is to say, there's an integer you can put in that you can't get out of it (in this case the integer 1). That's it. That's the whole thing. It fits in five lines of code and it doesn't contain any loops. Every bit of that operation is finite. So clearly such a function exists for the set of integers. For sets other than the integers, we can do the same sort of operation for some of them, but not for others. Any set for which a function like the above f(x) exists, we call "infinite". Any set for which a function like that one doesn't exist, we call "finite". So how the devil do you figure that isn't a proper definition?

Does it have a definition or not?

Yes, and I've posted the definition, twice now. In what way does it fail to define "infinite".

No infinity can exist.

Propose one and I will explain why it is physically impossible.

I propose the infinite number of distinct points in a finite volume of space, or in a finite amount of spacetime if you prefer to work in four dimensions. (Mathematically, this is the same sort of infinity as the infinity of real numbers between 0.0 and 1.0, which includes all the decimal numbers like 0.532, the rational numbers like 2/3, the algebraic numbers like the square root of 1/2, and the transcendental numbers like 1/pi.)

To say such a set of points in space is "physically impossible" is to claim there's a law of physics that it violates. What law of physics do you imagine it violates?

Based on the laws of physics as we currently know them, including quantum mechanics and relativity, that particular infinity is not only physically possible, but physically necessary. A volume of space containing only a finite number of discrete points is physically impossible, as far as physicists can currently tell. Physics appears to require space to be continuous.

If space is discrete then relativity is wrong. But relativity has been very thoroughly tested and appears to be right. Therefore, if you propose that relativity is nonetheless wrong, the burden is on you to present an alternative theory of time and space that is both (a) consistent with discrete space, and (b) at least as accurate as relativity at predicting our observations. Break a leg.

 

[Speakpigeon]

One might as well talk of the gods when people talk about imaginary nonobservable magical "bubbles".

There is no evidence time is not unidirectional.

There is no evidence that it is. None other than, maybe "it feels that way to me". Which is a very poor guide to discerning reality, as most of us have learned when we ditched the idea of a flat, stationary earth.

Did I? Ah, man, I can't even remember when I did that. I guess it must have been a very long time ago.

Then again, if time is in fact going the other way, it's quite normal I can't remember, 'cause, it would be in the future. And I would in fact do that one minute and the next I would believe the Earth is flat. A bit confusing, that. Ah, I don't know how you guys can make sense of all that highbrow stuff.
EB

 

[untermensche]

One might as well talk of the gods when people talk about imaginary nonobservable magical "bubbles".

There is no evidence time is not unidirectional.

There is no evidence that it is. None other than, maybe "it feels that way to me". Which is a very poor guide to discerning reality, as most of us have learned when we ditched the idea of a flat, stationary earth.

There is nothing but unidirectional evidence.

All observed events move in one direction only.

The paper burnt NEVER unburns.

The human grows old. NEVER young.

Just saying total nonsense is not much of an argument.

 

[Juma]

Hm. I dont buy that you have infinitely many finite areas.
To me a infinitisemal area is not finite.

 

[untermensche]

There is no such thing as a real infinitesimal.

All real objects are finite.

 

[Bomb#20]

Hm. I dont buy that you have infinitely many finite areas.
To me a infinitisemal area is not finite.

It certainly isn't; but none of the real estate slices I described are infinitesimal. Every one has a finite size, greater than zero by a finite amount. The first one is 1 meter wide, the second one is 1/2 meter wide, and so forth. The Nth slice is 1/2^N meter wide, a finite nonzero amount for all N. If you disagree, point one out that you think is infinitesimal.

There is no such thing as a real infinitesimal.

All real objects are finite.

We don't know that. So far there's no evidence one way or the other as to whether there's anything in physics corresponding to, say, the infinitesimals of hyperreal arithmetic. But for the sake of discussion, let's assume you're correct. Let's take for granted that the ordinary real numbers are sufficient to describe the real world. That doesn't help your case. There are infinitely many ordinary real numbers; and I didn't rely on infinitesimals in my argument.

 

[untermensche]

Of course we know that. Matter is not infinitely divisible.

 

[steve_bank]

How is it nonsensical?

What specifically does not make sense to you?

Blanket statements about not understanding any part of something is usually cognitive dissonance.

The ideas are too novel for the person to understand.

Do you claim an infinite amount of time can pass?

Because that is a direct violation of the definition of infinite time.

Infinite time is time that never ends. Under any circumstance.

That isthe question isn.t it, can an ifinite universe exist? A cosmic clock does not exist. What we cakk time here is a measure of change in the unverse. The better question is whether or not the universe will continue change without end. Time on this case does not mean a clock running forever, it is mataphor for infinity.

Usaing your wrist watch as a refence point will create difficlulty for you.

No infinity can exist.

Propose one and I will explain why it is physically impossible.

It is not possible that an infinite amount of time somehow passed in the past.

It is not possible for an infinite amount of time to pass under any circumstance.

That is the definition of infinite time.

Nathenatcally infinity is a term to descibe unbounded conditions. To th e OP our mathematcal infinies say nothing about the unverse.

It goes back to cosmology.
Did theuniverse have a beginning, if so where did it all come from?

Does the universe have a finite or infinite amount of matter and energy?

Does the universe have a finite end?

Is the universe infinite endless change ?

There is endless debate but there can be no proven answer. It becomes religion and philosophy.

We can debate issues related to an infinite universe but there is nothing that precludes an infinite universe.

 

[Bomb#20]

Of course we know that. Matter is not infinitely divisible.

So what? Not everything in the universe is matter. We already know of things that as far as we can tell are infinitely divisible, such as electromagnetic fields, wave function amplitudes, and spacetime itself. And there are probably things in the universe we don't know about yet -- physics is a work in progress. Complex numbers were invented in the 1500s, but if you'd told Newton we'd eventually be using square roots of negative numbers to explain physical phenomena he'd probably have laughed in your face. It's anybody's guess whether we'll need hyperreals to describe the discoveries of 22nd-century physics. That said, suit yourself -- we can stipulate no infinitesimals for the present discussion. But it's silly to kid yourself that it's something we know.

 

[steve_bank]

One might as well talk of the gods when people talk about imaginary nonobservable magical "bubbles".

There is no evidence time is not unidirectional.

Events occur only in one direction. The human grows old. They never get younger.

Except in the movies.

Seconds and meters are units of measure used to describe observation of change. The right question is whether observed change can run backwards. Time is a dimension like meters. The idea that time is an independent reality is scifi, starting with HG Wells and The Time Machine.

 

[untermensche]

Your posts screams ”i want to be right” when you really should say ”i want to know the truth of this even if it means to admit that I am wrong”

Which statement I made says this?

You have STATED the impossibility. You have not shown that there really is such an impossibility.

Is it possible to count all the positive integers?

That is the definition of infinite time. An amount of time that never completes.

No. The definition of ”inifinite time” is
is that there isnt a biggest timespan: for any interval of time you can specify a longer interval.
Or do you want to state that there set of negative numbers isnt infinite?

You are saying the exact same thing but don't even know it.

Like the positive integers never complete. That is what infinity means. To never end. To go on and on without the possibility of ending. No infinity ends.

The negative integers are also infinite... just saying...

What about them? They are merely a mirror of the positives. The negative integers begin at -1 and never complete. Just like infinite time.

There is no largest positive integer just like there is no end to infinite time.

There is no smallest negative integer just like there s no beginning of infinite time.

There is a beginning to the negative integers.

Just like time.

 

[untermensche]

Each of what "things"

You have described no "things".

Sure I have: infinitely many slices of space I own.

Show me a picture of these infinite slices? How long did it take you to make infinite slices?

You confuse your fantasy with reality.

Hint: In the real world all things are finite.