The religion of "no beginning".

[untermensche]

I don't know whether infinity is a reality or not - which I have already stated several times - I am merely pointing out that your condition that something must be able to transverse infinity is bogus.

I do know it is not real.

It is not something that could be real.

If you think it might be real tell me how.

How could you have an infinity of some item? Infinity is not an amount.

If there are items, no matter how many, there are a finite amount of them.

Maybe you should give a definition of the concept. You must have something in mind when you offered the ''cannot be transversed' clause.....

Imagine you are on an infinite line and traveling down it, traversing it.

Will you ever get to the end?

Is it possible to traverse an infinite line?

 

[bilby]

You believe that imaginary things can somehow be real. You are no better than any religious fundamentalist.



How exactly do you know there would be no difference? What test of the two systems have you done? The null hypothesis is something you test. Not something you pull from your ass.

There is such a thing as infinity. It is an imaginary mathematical concept. It is a group of imaginary concepts.

It cannot possibly be real based on it's definitions. It is totally imaginary.

The default rational position is skepticism of claims.

And that IS MY POSITION. I am making no claim at all; You are claiming that something is impossible. I am highly skeptical of your claim.

Your position is you believe totally imaginary made-up concepts can somehow have existence. And you have absolutely no evidence to believe it.

I on the other hand am very skeptical of the idea that totally imaginary concepts can somehow be real.

Do you also think pure imaginary numbers can somehow be real? Is believing they can be real your default position?

I don't believe that imaginary numbers are real.

I understand it. https://www.livescience.com/42748-imaginary-numbers.html



Once again, your incredulity and lack of understanding of something is NOT evidence for its falsehood.

Reality is under no obligation to be easy for you to understand. None.

If you want to understand reality, then first you need to learn how to reason. So far, you haven't even managed to stop employing logical fallacies that are explicitly pointed out to you - you just ignore the parts of any posts that you cannot respond to, and carry on with the same tired fallacious arguments over and over again.

Please stop making such a clown of yourself. It's becoming really embarrassing.

 

[Speakpigeon]

I suddenly feel the urge of spinning round the wheel a bit myself.

So, here it is, on the impossibility of actual infinities:

Actual infinities
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalam_cosmological_argument#Actual_infinities

On the impossibility of actual infinities, Craig asserts:
The metaphysical impossibility of an actually infinite series of past events by citing David Hilbert's famous Hilbert's Hotel thought experiment and Laurence Sterne's story of Tristram Shandy.
The mathematical impossibility of forming an actual infinite by successive addition.
Michael Martin disagrees with these assertions by Craig, saying:
"Craig's a priori arguments are unsound or show at most that actual infinities have odd properties. This latter fact is well known, however, and shows nothing about whether it is logically impossible to have actual infinities in the real world."
Andrew Loke, however, thinks that even if an actual infinite is possible, there is an argument to show that it is impossible to traverse it. He proposes the following argument:

1. If time is beginningless, then it would be the case that a causal series which has members being generated one after another as long as time exists would arrived at an actual infinite of generations of members at a particular time.
2. It is not metaphysically possible for a causal series which has members being generated one after another as long as time exists to arrive at an actual infinite of generations of members at a particular time.
3. Therefore, it is not metaphysically possible that time is beginningless.​

I cannot refrain from drawing your attention on the funny-looking kind of peculiar wording used in there, talking of a putative actual infinity: "it is impossible to traverse it".

I believe it's highly unlikely UM's would have come up with the same wording by chance.

It's really just so unbelievably spooky! I won't be able to sleep tonight.

I'll have to flush the toilet using my brand new toilet flushing system to pass the time. It just so works like a dream, I guess it will do in lieu of an actual sleepfull night.

So, it can only be that UM is in fact a Mister William Lane Craig in disguise. QED!

Still crap, though. Let's flush it.
EB

 

[untermensche]

I believe it's highly unlikely UM's would have come up with the same wording by chance...

You mean same word, not same wording.

Your English is weak.

And there is nothing rational about saying an argument is weak because it is used by somebody else.

I can understand the past could not have been infinite without having to invoke imaginary gods as an explanation. Imaginary gods are not an explanation of anything.

The defenders of a real infinity are those lost in delusion here.

Not much difference between Craig and those trying to use infinity as an explanation. Both using imaginary nothingness to explain reality.

 

[untermensche]

You believe that imaginary things can somehow be real. You are no better than any religious fundamentalist.



How exactly do you know there would be no difference? What test of the two systems have you done? The null hypothesis is something you test. Not something you pull from your ass.

There is such a thing as infinity. It is an imaginary mathematical concept. It is a group of imaginary concepts.

It cannot possibly be real based on it's definitions. It is totally imaginary.





Your position is you believe totally imaginary made-up concepts can somehow have existence. And you have absolutely no evidence to believe it.

I on the other hand am very skeptical of the idea that totally imaginary concepts can somehow be real.

Do you also think pure imaginary numbers can somehow be real? Is believing they can be real your default position?

I don't believe that imaginary numbers are real.

I understand it. https://www.livescience.com/42748-imaginary-numbers.html



Once again, your incredulity and lack of understanding of something is NOT evidence for its falsehood.

Reality is under no obligation to be easy for you to understand. None.

If you want to understand reality, then first you need to learn how to reason. So far, you haven't even managed to stop employing logical fallacies that are explicitly pointed out to you - you just ignore the parts of any posts that you cannot respond to, and carry on with the same tired fallacious arguments over and over again.

Please stop making such a clown of yourself. It's becoming really embarrassing.

You believe that imaginary ideas can somehow be real.

There is no possible way for infinity to be real in any way.

It is not a concept that could be real.

 

[Speakpigeon]

I believe it's highly unlikely UM's would have come up with the same wording by chance...

You mean same word, not same wording.

Same wording. Traversing infinity.
EB

 

[untermensche]

I believe it's highly unlikely UM's would have come up with the same wording by chance...

You mean same word, not same wording.

Same wording. Traversing infinity.
EB

What exactly is your point?

You have a pathological fear of the term "traversing"?

I talked of traversing an infinite line.

The idea is just something that came to me.

I am only somewhat familiar with Craig and I don't recall ever hearing him talking about traversing infinity. He starts with a goal. His goal is to prove his arbitrary god is real.

I have no prior goal. I lack his ulterior motives.

 

[Jobar]

U., you can always add one to any number- no matter how mind-bogglingly large that number might be. In fact you can double that huge number, or raise it to the power of itself- and it's possible to do that over, and over, and over. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_and_chessboard_problem

Of course you can't actually count to infinity; you'd soon enough run out of energy to do the counting, and of particles to count. But do you see that we can still name numbers so vast that they could never be counted to in the lifetime of the observed universe? A googol is a one followed by 100 zeroes; a googolplex is that number raised to the power of itself. Numbers like that are as uncountable as infinity, but we still can conceive of them. They are abstractions, not concretions. Yet mathematicians deal with them all the time. Even engineers have to do that, to solve plenty of real-world problems.

I had a calculus professor back in 1974 who would say "as X becomes arbitrarily large", instead of "as X approaches infinity". But they mean the same thing.

It does not matter how large the finite amount.

In the real world all amounts are finite amounts.

The idea of an infinite amount is absurd.

Infinity is not any kind of amount. It is that which does not have an amount. A totally imaginary idea.

"No infinity exists to be demonstrated!"
-Leto II, God-Emperor of Dune

And yet, that indemonstrable, abstract, seemingly imaginary idea seems necessary to the mathematics which accurately describe motion in the real world, untermensche. Do you deny the manifold applications of calculus to science, technology, and engineering?

I'm not going to argue with you that the concept is damnably odd, and seriously mind-bending. But then, a lot of higher math is like that. Mathematicians are quite aware of this; why, they even formally name some of the abstractions they deal with "imaginary numbers". Go read the Wiki article on 'em. The square root of minus one is even stranger than the notion of infinity, IMO. And yet complex numbers, too, seem to be required to understand the world where we live and move and have our being.

If you manage to come up with a mathematical formalism which obviates the need for infinity, or i, or any of the other weird terms in math as it is known today, you'll earn not just a bunch of prestigious prizes and eternal (heh) fame; you'll also earn the heartfelt gratitude of mathematicians everywhere. But until you do, I suggest you stop beating your head against them, like a brick wall.

 

[untermensche]

And yet, that indemonstrable, abstract, seemingly imaginary idea seems necessary to the mathematics which accurately describe motion in the real world, untermensche. Do you deny the manifold applications of calculus to science, technology, and engineering?

There is no doubt it is imaginary and it is useful in scientific models, which are abstractions of the real world.

But being useful does not make it a physical possibility.

And if you took calculus you know that infinity is not really ever used as a value. Nothing in the real world has a value of infinity. It is used in combination with limits and it is used only definitionally not in fact.

No matter how many times you divide a line segment you will always end up with a line segment of positive length.

You will never end up with a segment of zero length. That is not possible.

 

[Kharakov]

I do understand the imaginary quality of smoothness.

I also know it does not exist in the real world.

It couldn't exist. It is not a real world quality. It is only an imaginary quality.

Yet we perceive it, which means it exists in the universe, which means the universe supports it. It's like that theist argument, but it's actually valid. If it exists in the mind, it exists in the universe (smoothness).

Wow- it seems like some of the more popular theistic arguments have valid, interesting, deeply connected to underlying reality counterparts. By design, no doubt.

We don't perceive smoothness. We don't perceive points or lines or circles, as they are defined mathematically.

We perceive motion.

And there is no need to have smoothness to perceive motion.

Wut? You've never seen a circle? Wow.

Are you a frog?

 

[beero1000]

We don't perceive smoothness. We don't perceive points or lines or circles, as they are defined mathematically.

We perceive motion.

And there is no need to have smoothness to perceive motion.

Wut? You've never seen a circle? Wow.

Are you a frog?

Nah, he's a T-Rex. If you stand very still he won't see you.

 

[untermensche]

We don't perceive smoothness. We don't perceive points or lines or circles, as they are defined mathematically.

We perceive motion.

And there is no need to have smoothness to perceive motion.

Wut? You've never seen a circle? Wow.

Are you a frog?

How is a circle defined mathematically?

 

[bilby]

We don't perceive smoothness. We don't perceive points or lines or circles, as they are defined mathematically.

We perceive motion.

And there is no need to have smoothness to perceive motion.

Wut? You've never seen a circle? Wow.

Are you a frog?

Nah, he's a T-Rex. If you stand very still he won't see you.

The Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal is a vicious wild animal from the planet of Traal, known for its never-ending hunger and its mind-boggling stupidity. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy calls the bugblatter beast the stupidest creature in the entire universe - so profoundly unintelligent that, if you can't see it, it assumes it can't see you.

http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Ravenous_Bugblatter_Beast_of_Traal

 

[DBT]

Maybe you should give a definition of the concept. You must have something in mind when you offered the ''cannot be transversed' clause.....

Imagine you are on an infinite line and traveling down it, traversing it.

Will you ever get to the end?

Is it possible to traverse an infinite line?

I have already pointed out that your 'transverse an infinite line'' is arbitrary and bogus. There is no reason why something needs to transverse infinity for infinity to exist.

Please stop asserting false requirements.

 

[Kharakov]

We don't perceive smoothness. We don't perceive points or lines or circles, as they are defined mathematically.

We perceive motion.

And there is no need to have smoothness to perceive motion.

Wut? You've never seen a circle? Wow.

Are you a frog?

How is a circle defined mathematically?

Movement of a frog on a log, negative one.

 

[Lion IRC]

Maybe you should give a definition of the concept. You must have something in mind when you offered the ''cannot be transversed' clause.....

Imagine you are on an infinite line and traveling down it, traversing it.

Will you ever get to the end?

Is it possible to traverse an infinite line?

I have already pointed out that your 'transverse an infinite line'' is arbitrary and bogus. There is no reason why something needs to transverse infinity for infinity to exist.

Please stop asserting false requirements.

Has anyone told untermensche that "to traverse" is the infinitive form of the verb?

 

[Speakpigeon]

Same wording. Traversing infinity.
EB

What exactly is your point?

You have a pathological fear of the term "traversing"?

Yes. Impossible not to.

In French, we traverse the street, and mom always told me to be careful because there could be a car coming at me.

I talked of traversing an infinite line.

The idea is just something that came to me.

Possibly coming from an infinitely long time ago.

I am only somewhat familiar with Craig and I don't recall ever hearing him talking about traversing infinity. He starts with a goal. His goal is to prove his arbitrary god is real.

I have no prior goal. I lack his ulterior motives.

I believe you.
EB

 

[untermensche]

Maybe you should give a definition of the concept. You must have something in mind when you offered the ''cannot be transversed' clause.....

Imagine you are on an infinite line and traveling down it, traversing it.

Will you ever get to the end?

Is it possible to traverse an infinite line?

I have already pointed out that your 'transverse an infinite line'' is arbitrary and bogus. There is no reason why something needs to transverse infinity for infinity to exist.

Please stop asserting false requirements.

What exactly is arbitrary and bogus about not being able to traverse an infinite line?

There is no possible way infinity could exist, but that will not be discovered merely by imagining.

It takes the ability to reason as well.

- - - Updated - - -

I believe you.

I believe you have no rational objections to anything I have said.

 

[untermensche]

How is a circle defined mathematically?

Movement of a frog on a log, negative one.

You are the fool with egg on your face.

You've never seen a circle.

One has never existed in reality.

Just as smoothness has never existed.

It is not a thing that could exist.

Just because people can imagine it, they really only partially imagine it, doesn't mean it could actually exist for real.

How does something move smoothly? What is the smallest move? How is there movement if there is no smallest move?

The paradoxes are for those who imagine infinity could be real. They show the flaws in such thinking.

 

[Jobar]

And yet, that indemonstrable, abstract, seemingly imaginary idea seems necessary to the mathematics which accurately describe motion in the real world, untermensche. Do you deny the manifold applications of calculus to science, technology, and engineering?

There is no doubt it is imaginary and it is useful in scientific models, which are abstractions of the real world.

But being useful does not make it a physical possibility.

And if you took calculus you know that infinity is not really ever used as a value. Nothing in the real world has a value of infinity. It is used in combination with limits and it is used only definitionally not in fact.

No matter how many times you divide a line segment you will always end up with a line segment of positive length.

You will never end up with a segment of zero length. That is not possible.

The real mystery here, I think, is the point of contact between the abstract, and the concrete. The fact that concrete problems can be solved using such abstractions as infinity is just plain weird, yes. But your approach- simply denying that abstractions have anything to do with the real, concrete world- isn't going to help solve that mystery.