The idea of an infinite past

[untermensche]

Okay, I think I'm done!

I would have tried and it was fun but there's no way I could justify to myself continuing this useless and one-sided conversation.

I guess we all know the score. There's not one post, out of the whole 32,819 of them, to redeem him. The poor wretched soul is just plain sick and I'm not medically competent to guess what the cure could be.

So I put UM on ignore.

And it works!
EB

What a spectacle!

What total bullshit.

You have nothing to say about one word of it.

You are a waste of my time. Go away. PLEASE!!!!!

 

[untermensche]

I don't really have opinions.

You are a liar too.

Do you have one argument that isn't just an invocation of a magic spell to make an infinity complete?

If not you have nothing to say here.

 

[Phil Scott]

I don't really have opinions.

You are a liar too.

Do you have one argument that isn't just an invocation of a magic spell to make an infinity complete?

If not you have nothing to say here.

I meant "Husserl" in my last post. I really shouldn't get those two confused.

Come on, it'll be a real grown-up philosophy discussion. I'll hold your hand if you're scared.

 

[untermensche]

I don't really have opinions.

You are a liar too.

Do you have one argument that isn't just an invocation of a magic spell to make an infinity complete?

If not you have nothing to say here.

I meant "Husserl" in my last post. I really shouldn't get those two confused.

Come on, it'll be a real grown-up philosophy discussion. I'll hold your hand if you're scared.

I don't think you know what a philosophical discussion is. You think it is genuflection to dead arbitrary schemes.

If one tiny aspect of your faith is questioned you cry like a child and have a fucking tantrum.

You do not need my permission to make any rational argument.

Do you have one?

I am so sick of the delusional infinity believers and their lack of arguments to justify their religious beliefs.

Do you honestly think the imaginary magical concept of infinity could be real?

If so I don't give a shit if you have a nifty argument from Husserl or Sartre or Elmer Fudd.

Make it.

 

[Phil Scott]

I meant "Husserl" in my last post. I really shouldn't get those two confused.

Come on, it'll be a real grown-up philosophy discussion. I'll hold your hand if you're scared.

I don't think you know what a philosophical discussion is. You think it is genuflection to dead arbitrary schemes.

If one tiny aspect of your faith is questioned you cry like a child and have a fucking tantrum.

You do not need my permission to make any rational argument.

Do you have one?

I am so sick of the delusional infinity believers and their lack of arguments to justify their religious beliefs.

Do you honestly think the imaginary magical concept of infinity could be real?

If so I don't give a shit if you have a nifty argument from Husserl or Sartre or Elmer Fudd.

Make it.

Why do you assume I'm an infinity believer? I suggest you calm down and read more carefully.

I'm actually pretty much a finitist. I think we should, if possible, eject the infinite even from maths. I cited that Hilbert paper rejecting the infinite because I agree, to a large extent, with Hilbert and his programme. We can go back over that paper, if you'd like. Hilbert's arguments aren't great, but they're still brighter than yours.

As for Husserl, I've no idea what he would have to say about the infinite. I've been aware of phenomenology recently because it's been heavily referenced in a few philosophy books I've read over the last couple of years, but I know very little about it. I've just finished an introduction to it, and would be prepared to read a bit more of Husserl, not just because of his influence, but because he had a maths background and had some stuff to say about the nature of numbers. I thought it might be interesting.

 

[fromderinside]

Of course time does not complete.

The events in the past are complete at every present moment.

At that moment only future events will occur.

No more events will occur in the past.

The past represents change that has completed. It has all occurred.

The future represents changes that will occur.

... and flat earth thinking continues.

Completion is not relevant to infinity only beyond measure and beyond counting are relevant here. If, after events in continua have been measured they retain their place in the continua relative to whether they are counted or measured..

They need not be completed since completion is also measured and counted. Consequently ccompletion being relative can also be infinite. Measure and quantity should be considered relative to their measure not to some fixed marker which is not relevant to the measure or count in the continua measured. Points and counts exist only relative to others being measured or counted in a continua or system.

It's as fast wrote:

The map is invented, not the terrain. Well, human made exceptions of course, but not the fundamental components of it.

 

[Speakpigeon]

So I put UM on ignore.

And it works!
EB

YOU'LL BE BACK!

Oh sure, yes, I'll be back next winter, during the long dark evenings, when I won't have anything better to do! Right now it's springtime here, temperatures are seriously going up. It's time to do the "action man" again, while I still can!
EB

 

[fromderinside]

Descartes will be disappointed.

View attachment 15263

 

[untermensche]

I'm actually pretty much a finitist. I think we should, if possible, eject the infinite even from maths.

I see no reason to reject anything that is useful.

And that is all your maths are. A useful tool. Not anything else.

Not a discovery. An invention. Like a hammer.

As interesting as a hammer.

Hilbert's arguments aren't great, but they're still brighter than yours.

What are my arguments?

 

[untermensche]

Completion is not relevant to infinity....

The lack of completion is a defining feature of the concept.

Yes. Events have a continuum.

But I am talking about looking at events from a moment in time. An arbitrary point in time.

From a moment in time events are divided.

There are the events that have completed. The past.

And the events that will happen. The future.

At any moment all the events in the past have completed. No more events in the past will occur. Only future events will occur. Some of which are a continuation of past events. Ultimately all are a continuation.

The past are events that have completed. Being completed is not compatible with infinity. The past was not infinite.

 

[Phil Scott]

I see no reason to reject anything that is useful.

Okay. The point is that I'm not one of those "delusional infinity believers". I'm also not sure where this happened: "If one tiny aspect of your faith is questioned you cry like a child and have a fucking tantrum."

Do you think it's we who are having emotional outbursts here?

Do you want to read the rest of my post, or is that not the game?

What are my arguments?

Here ya go:

What's your argument for the impossibility of an infinite past exactly?
EB

If we say the past was infinite that means there were infinite events in it.

That also means that before any event can take place infinite events must take place before it.

That means we must accept that infinite events are some quantity of events that can actually take place.

But that is absurd.

Infinity is not a quantity.

It is the idea of not having a quantity.

To make sense of the alternative means demonstrating infinity is actually a quantity, not just pretending it is.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Descartes will be disappointed.

Sorry, your nice little picture doesn't display on my laptop. I may not have the appropriate app.

So, I have no idea what you're talking about. It's as if you, too, were on "ignore"!

Nah, I wouldn't do that to you. That would be too harsh.

And, I keep thinking deep thoughts even during my joggings because that's one of the very few things I can do.

And to exist, you need to think.
EB

 

[untermensche]

"If one tiny aspect of your faith is questioned you cry like a child and have a fucking tantrum."

I actually questioned your notion that coming up with the mental abstractions of variables and equivalent functions are something objective.

Yes the abstraction where we say a 1 here is exactly the same thing as a 1 there is a very useful abstraction. But it is a mental process. Not a discovery.

Because the truth is this 1 is not equivalent to this 1 unless 1 exists in no place except the mind. Because they are clearly in two different places.

Here ya go:

That's one argument. And it is fine. Not dressed up. Concise, succinct. Not overflowing with flowery rhetoric. Meant to express ideas as cleanly as possible.

There is no way to look at a real infinity and not conclude it is an absurd impossibility.

There is no quantity called infinity. There is no real world understanding of the idea of an infinitesimal.

And of course the defenders of real infinities offer absolutely nothing but their absolute faith that infinities are possible in a quantum world.

 

[Speakpigeon]

The map is invented, not the terrain. Well, human made exceptions of course, but not the fundamental components of it.

Well, I for one only know my own nice little private map. Very confortable.

And I'm not sure I would want to know the dirty scratchy bubonic territory that may or may not lie beyond it.
EB

 

[Phil Scott]

I actually questioned your notion that coming up with the mental abstractions of variables and equivalent functions are something objective.

Where did I say anything of the sort? Here's all I've said:

1) Modern definitions can tell us the nature of something that we have been using since before those definitions were stipulated. Your argument otherwise is invalid.
2) Your attempt to fix your invalid argument relies on settling whether mathematics is invented or discovered, which is controversial, and so needs further argument.

 

[untermensche]

That's not the exchange.

I noted that the abstraction of x = x is invention and you whined and said you were leaving.

Your modern definitions are pure invention. There is no discovery anywhere.

A number is just a word.

To know what it is requires knowing what a word is.

 

[Phil Scott]

That's not the exchange.

I noted that the abstraction of x = x is invention and you whined and said you were leaving.

Yeah, that's reflexivity of equality. I'm not sharing that can of worms with you.

A number is just a word.

Sounds like a deepity.

 

[untermensche]

That's not the exchange.

I noted that the abstraction of x = x is invention and you whined and said you were leaving.

Yeah, that's reflexivity of equality. I'm not sharing that can of worms with you.

A number is just a word.

Sounds like a deepity.

Saying that every 1 no matter where it appears is the same thing is an abstract invention.

You don't seem interested in defending your religion at all.

You are beyond that.

 

[DBT]

It is a relatively familiar concept;

It is an imaginary absurdity.

You have any evidence of a so-called multiverse?

Completion and infinity are two concepts in opposition to one another.

The only way a present can occur is if all the events in the past have completed.

It will be repeated until the first person shows it wrong.

You miss the point entirely, only to repeat your mantra. You need to lift your game.

 

[DBT]

Of course time does not complete.

The events in the past are complete at every present moment.

At that moment only future events will occur.

No more events will occur in the past.

The past represents change that has completed. It has all occurred.

The future represents changes that will occur.

So, what's special about an infinite past? The events in an infinite past would be complete at every present moment just as they do for a finite past. Can you explain?
EB

Infinite events do not complete.

You are merely violating the meaning of infinity to pretend one can exist.

Infinity and completion are in conflict with one another.

Like asymptote and intersection are in conflict.

Your whole completion of infinity objection is bogus. If something is Infinite, it has no beginning or end. An infinite Multiverse has no end. The idea of 'complete infinity'' does not even apply, except maybe loosely in the sense of 'without end'