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Author | Topic: The Power of the New Intelligent Design... | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stile Member Posts: 4295 From: Ontario, Canada Joined:
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I don't think you understand how infinity works.
It's okay - I mean, I think I kinda understand, and I understand what Paul K is saying here.But I know that I don't really understand how infinity works... as far as higher level maths go, anyway. It is a really weird concept. But this is lower level maths.And if you don't understand how lower-level-maths infinity works... then you just don't understand how infinity works. Hint: It's not a "really-really big number you can eventually add enough things up and get kinda-close to."There's no such thing as a really large number that's "getting near infinite." You're mistaking a conceptual-tool-of-learning for how-a-thing-really-is.The stepping stool itself is not the top shelf. I know this doesn't help show you what infinity really is.But that teaching is above my pay-grade. All I can say is... currently... you're a swing-and-a-miss. You need to step back, reflect, and take another attempt at understanding what infinity is before moving forward in your current vein of thought.
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nwr Member Posts: 6408 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
Nobody can fully calculate the sum.
You cannot fully calculate the sum in WookieeB-math. But it is easily done in ordinary math. Or, to say it differently, you are spouting nonsense.Fundamentalism - the anti-American, anti-Christian branch of American Christianity
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Tanypteryx Member Posts: 4344 From: Oregon, USA Joined: Member Rating: 5.9 |
Don't turn tail and run. Please answer the question. A simple 'no' would do. Either that or a lengthy dissertation on what IDv2 is, how it works, that would be good, too. I assume we will not get a satisfactory answer from Wookiee about IDv2 or IDv1. I'm still trying to figure out if the infinity thing is a rabbit hole or a red herring.Stop Tzar Vladimir the Condemned! What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python One important characteristic of a theory is that is has survived repeated attempts to falsify it. Contrary to your understanding, all available evidence confirms it. --Subbie If evolution is shown to be false, it will be at the hands of things that are true, not made up. --percy The reason that we have the scientific method is because common sense isn't reliable. -- Taq
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WookieeB Member Posts: 190 Joined: |
why a causal chain going backwards in some temporal chain infinitely is not logically possible We are still waiting for you to show us how it's done. If some proposed, real entity (ie:causal chain, universe) never began to exist, then the number of past events in the history of such an entity is infinite. But having an actually infinite number of things cannot exist. If they could, various absurdities would result. As an example, if I had an actually infinite number of CDs all with an infinite number of songs on them, if you listened to only one CD, you would hear the same number of songs as you would if you had listened to every CD in my collection. Or take PaulK's example. Conceivably, a finite thing (time length) could be sub-divided an infinite number of times. 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8....... And supposedly that is enough to demonstrate an actual infinity. Why would the same concept not apply within the same thing, as in fractions of fractions. Any fraction (any single sub-division) could further be subdivided an infinite number of times. So instead of one infinite chain, you potentially have an infinite chain with infinite subdivisions that themselves could be infinitely divided. So in PaulK's example, traversing an infinite chain to get a finite is the same as an traversing an infinite ^ infinite chain to get the same finite. So now infinity ^ infinity = infinity = something finite. Absurdity! It is impossible to transverse an infinite. If the entity (universe) has existed for an infinite number of days, we could never arrive at today because that would mean infinity came to an end. But infinity can’t come to an end. That’s what it means to be infinity. Or think about it another way. Before we can arrive at today, yesterday would have to occur, and the day before that, and the day before that, and so on to infinity. But how does one know when we’ve reached infinity in the past? There’s no point at which we could start counting the days backward to today. That would be like counting all the negative numbers from infinity back to zero. If an actual infinity is impossible, any entity (ie: the universe) could not exist for an infinite number of moments.
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WookieeB Member Posts: 190 Joined: |
AZPaul3 writes: Do you understand MrID and this IDv2.0? I think my confusion with MrID's sayings has already been indicated. But if you need a formal answer- No, I do not understand MrID or his IDv2.0. I do not think he even understands what he probably considers IDv1.0
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WookieeB Member Posts: 190 Joined: |
People have known how to sum infinite series in special cases
Then please show an example. I have a feeling "special cases" means bending the normal rules.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: This is not true, since if time is finite anything that existed at the first point of time will have always existed and have never begun to exist, yet we need not propose an infinite number of events (unless you get into Zeno’s Paradox which will just cause you even. Ore trouble). Note also that you propose that God is a real entity that never began to exist, so you will no doubt propose exceptions for that, too.
quote: Which simply means that infinities don’t behave like normal numbers. It certainly isn’t an argument for logical impossibility. It isn’t even a good argument for lesser degrees of impossiblity
quote: Given the assumption that time is a continuum - which you granted - it is in fact a proof. And therefore it is certainly enough.
quote: Obviously it does.
quote: The traversal is your addition however the truth isn’t wrong just because you think that it is absurd.
quote: That depends on a view of time that is controversial and largely rejected by physicists (due to relativity). The alternative view of time - treating it as a dimension has no such problem. There is no need for the time to be traversed. (I knew this one was coming, because it was obvious that you were parroting apologetics).
quote: If time is continuous any finitely small portion of time contains an infinite number of moments. That’s an actual logical truth. So it seems that you are saying that the universe can’t exist. Of course you are wrong because you don’t understand what you are saying.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
quote: It doesn’t. Start with the examples I have given. The sum of the series 0.3, 0.03, 0.003, 0.0003… Or - again - the integral calculus (which is very much part of the “normal rules” of mathematics).
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nwr Member Posts: 6408 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
If some proposed, real entity (ie:causal chain, universe) never began to exist, then the number of past events in the history of such an entity is infinite. But having an actually infinite number of things cannot exist. If they could, various absurdities would result.
Have you ever looked at Zeno's paradox? You are making a similar mistake.Fundamentalism - the anti-American, anti-Christian branch of American Christianity
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nwr Member Posts: 6408 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.1
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Then please show an example. I have a feeling "special cases" means bending the normal rules.
Mathematics is a system of conventions. When we write: 3 + 5we are depending on conventions -- in this case, the conventions for addition. Talk of infinite sums is also conventional. What we mean by an infinite sum is a matter of convention. You are arbitrarily rejecting some of the normal conventions of mathematics.Fundamentalism - the anti-American, anti-Christian branch of American Christianity
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AZPaul3 Member Posts: 8513 From: Phoenix Joined: Member Rating: 5.3
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So in PaulK's example, traversing an infinite chain to get a finite is the same as an traversing an infinite ^ infinite chain to get the same finite. So now infinity ^ infinity = infinity = something finite. Absurdity! Except on my ruler, between 1 and 2 is an infinite set of points. Each of those points is, likewise, infinitely divisible. So, between the 1 cm mark and the 2 cm mark there ∞∞=∞ divisions resulting in a finite length. Yes, infinity ^ infinity = infinity = something finite can be done and to posit otherwise is absurd. Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.Stop Tzar Vladimir the Condemned!
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AZPaul3 Member Posts: 8513 From: Phoenix Joined: Member Rating: 5.3
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Then please show an example. The point of all this mental masturbation with infinities is you desperately trying to avoid the actual real probability that in your speculations about time prior to t=0 there may be a causal chain extending infinitely into the past. That would preclude the need for your god as some majikal first cause. You cannot insist that a first cause is required, or even likely, or that your flavor of god is that first cause if there is no first cause. No first cause is required in an infinite universe with all causal chains extending infinitely back in time. No first cause necessary. You lose that justification for your god. But, as speculation, if a first cause existed then a spark, an energy potential, is infinitely more probable as that cause than some old white guy from some far future planet Earth. There is no justification, in logic or physics, to posit any god, especially the one you create and operate in your own mind, as a first cause of anything, ever. Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.Stop Tzar Vladimir the Condemned!
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WookieeB Member Posts: 190 Joined: |
if time is finite anything that existed at the first point of time will have always existed and have never begun to exist
You dont see the contradiction of this???? If this makes any sense, you have different meanings for the terms "exist", "time", and 'begin'.
Which simply means that infinities don’t behave like normal numbers. It certainly isn’t an argument for logical impossibility. It isn’t even a good argument for lesser degrees of impossiblity
Yes, I have been saying infinity is not like normal numbers. Not like in that, in at least one respect, a thing represented by infinity cannot be actualized. Whereas things represented by finite numbers can and are actualized.And sorry? Degrees of impossiblity? Given the assumption that time is a continuum - which you granted - it is in fact a proof. And therefore it is certainly enough.
No it is not. You continue to obfuscate. An actuality would be a snapshot of time, not the whole continuum of it. Or at the very least, a finite slice of time. At any time, in realspace, there is no such thing as a infinite anything in existence. One could say that in the continuum of time, the future is infinite. The future is a potential infinity. But at no time though is it actually complete. The future is not actualized yet. It is ongoing, not ending.
The traversal is your addition however the truth isn’t wrong just because you think that it is absurd.
Yet you never get to the end in your addition. So how can you say you get your finite thing?If a person in a race starts the race, but the track is infinite in length, the person will never finish the race. They will never cross the finish line. In your addition, you have to cross the finish line to get your finite thing. Yet you will never do so in the infinite summation. That is not hard to understand. Only unless you bend the rules, which you apparently want to do, could someone finish the race. That depends on a view of time that is controversial and largely rejected by physicists (due to relativity). The alternative view of time - treating it as a dimension has no such problem.
Now who is special pleading? Of course there would have to be an alternative view. What is it? Are you referrring to the differrence in a tensed or tenseless sense of time, or something else? You will have to explain your alternate view.
If time is continuous any finitely small portion of time contains an infinite number of moments. That’s an actual logical truth.
Explain please. I think you have a unique view of what it means as to "time is continuous".
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WookieeB Member Posts: 190 Joined: |
The sum of the series 0.3, 0.03, 0.003, 0.0003… Except you never have a final sum equaling 1/3. Any sum that results in a finite number would have to have a finite number of elements added up. The "sum" as a completion of all the additions, then NO, you never actually have a sum. There will always be more .....3's to add to the rolling sum. You cannot have additions to no end that results in a summation that is an end! Sum of 0.3, 0.03, 0.003, 0.0003 = .3333 which is not quite 1/3.Sum of 0.3, 0.03, 0.003, 0.0003,...(repeating the series out to a googolplex of digits ending in 3) will not quite equal 1/3. Sum of 0.3, 0.03, 0.003, 0.0003,... will not quite equal 1/3.
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WookieeB Member Posts: 190 Joined: |
Yes, infinity ^ infinity = infinity = something finite can be done and to posit otherwise is absurd. You do realize that mathematically is infinity ^ infinity = infinity, makes no sense. So you have to apply a particular definition of infinity that does not work like any other number. That special definition may work in some mathematical senses (like in calculus with a well-behaved sum), but it has no representation in reality. An absurdity is not a real thing. I'm only saying that an actual infinity is not a real thing. It is a conceptually mathematical thing, depending on how you are defining your infinity. Just like a married bachelor is a concept, but not ever can be a real thing.A square circle is a concept, One could write "square circle" an infinite number of times on a piece of paper if it gets infinitely smaller each time, yet a square circle is never real. The problem you are all making is a category error (or more precisely a modal operation shift in logic) in how you are defining or using infinity. In one aspect, you use it like a number, but it is not a number. In the Zeno's paradox math, you have to treat your infinity sets distinctly and like numbers. Like the set of {2,3,4.5,.....) is an infinite set, but {1,2.3.4.5.6,....) is a separate infinite set, and the subtraction of one from the other will leave you with 1. Yet to actualize either of those sets is not possible, but you could create either set to represent the points in between your two finite points. In one sense, they would represent the same thing, an infinite number of points between two points. Yet mathematically, they would not be the same thing. So you keep having to change your definitions and point of view each time you try to justify it. You should also realize that when you are supposedly saying that the set of infinite points summing up equals the finite sum, you are begging the question of an actual infinite set of points before you can even begin to show this.
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