Infinite

@Zacrates,

^ I feel like you're wrong about math.

The purpose of the study of mathematics has always presented itself to me as a means to discover, and increase human understanding of how the physical world works.

I mean to say Mathematics isn't a feasible means for understanding the universe... Maybe not entirely, but to understand the physical properties of the universe? I think so.

@Aphoric,

Aphoric;59287 wrote:

^ I feel like you're wrong about math.

The purpose of the study of mathematics has always presented itself to me as a means to discover, and increase human understanding of how the physical world works.

I mean to say Mathematics isn't a feasible means for understanding the universe... Maybe not entirely, but to understand the physical properties of the universe? I think so.

I'm not sure if I respond to what you were talking about, but math is in a way not a means of understanding how the physical world works.

For example, we define the axiom that real numbers exist. We can't prove it, but we have to assume it to start doing math. In that sense, math is always an expression about "what would be if...". It does not directly express what is.

@astrotheological,

The highest number that the greatest computers could generate in a billion, billion, trillion, trillion, years, is still "infinitely smaller or less than infinity"

Peace to those that love

@Alan McDougall,

Very interesting thread if I may say. Allow me shed my own philosophical idea on the matter?

Holiday20310401 wrote:

Is infinity the same as nothingness? :deep-thought:

:OK:

Zetetic11235 wrote:

Im staying here, I really am interested in what others have to say about my conception of infinity in its general form. I think that there is a strong linguistic tie with absolutes and infinity, both being physically asymptotic and syntactic rule sets.

How are infinetsimal and infinitely 'large' operational sequences related;is there a general form such that by context we could have macroscopic and microscopic infinities defined as manipulations on the basic rule set? How do absolutes relate to infinity?

Most of the time when we consider infinity we refer to very large quantities. Let us consider, however, very small quantities. Let us say that an object moved from an initial known location to a known destination some measurable distance away at a specific speed. This object arrived at its destination in at a particular time.

Yet, if the total distance were divided into infinite parts, that suggest that the object would not have ever reached the destination. As a matter of fact the object would not have moved from its intial location (0.0000....) to begin with. Get the point? Nevertheless, the speed remains the same since an infinitely small distance divide by an infinitely small time will attain the same ratio as the object with definite distance and time. This must be true when the same fraction of distance for the same fraction of time is considered.

Here is a paradox, an object moves to a known measurable destinaion, but yet according to infinity, it had never moved to begin with. This suggest that the possiblity of many dimensions with similiar events occur the same at the same speeds but different relations of time. While comparing one dimension with the other, one seem to be occuring slower from the others point of view, while the other appears to be occurring faster from its point of view, but to each other they appear to occur at the same rate from they own point of view of themselves.

Nothingness relates to the none existence of matter, while Infinity relates to a law that is unexpected to change; where it is believe to assume an intended continuously increasing or continuously decreasing vector quantity until the law has unexpectedly changed.

Khethil wrote:

Haha, nice thread. Lemme chime in if I dare...

Time is a concept we invented; we measure it by *other things*, but Time is a term only, invented by humans, to describe the frequency of events or intervals (regularity). Its just a word...

... as is "Infinity". This is but a word to describe the notion that something does not have an end, or does not terminate. It's a useful term, but just a word nonetheless.

We come up with words to describe concepts; but that doesn't mean they do or do not exist. Further, I'd think it a given to the thoughtful that "infinity" is something that can't be measured in any valid way. That something exists "forever" will forever remain a theory - until someone can measure it.

To prove this, I will now sit and stare at this pop can to see if it exists for all time. I can't really get back to you on my results; since, there'll be no point where I can say "There, See?! Told you this existed forever".

Just a concept; useful to communicate theories, but nothing more.

Artur wrote:

Infinity is a convenient convention used to express the "assumed" repeating/endless sequence of whatever subject in question. I do no think we know something is infinite, or that it is not-we just assume so for functionality purposes in real life.

Time is another convention created by humans, so that there could be some regularity to life. There is no such idea of time without human input, molecules would still react, the planets would still rotate, but it would be neither forwards or backward progress, just motion as we define it.

Zetherin wrote:

There is actually a theory which suggests that the universe would not exist without an observer. I'll try to dig it up for you.

I think the problem here is that we do not have a term in the languages to differentiate the difference between time when events occur and the moment where all events are halted, and time could not be measured, but time continues as if an observer were observing an alternate universe where events occurred and time could be measured. May be we shall call the moment 'objective time' and the time 'subjective time'.

@Sir Neuron,

The reason that neither mathematics nor any logical framework would answer any question beyond 'does this occur?' that is, it cannot ask how or why, is because causality is an assumption based on convincing correlation. You know that your neurons fire, your muscles tense and your arm moves when you pick something up, and also that the object you pick up moves with your arm. You can subdivide this occurrence ad infinitum and never find definite causality.

The only approach that makes sense with the advent of the sort of computing power we have available to us is to simply sort out those states of affairs that are not logically possible, and find those that are the most probably and simply approximate the patterns we see, never presenting anything through the lens of tellic fallacy.

Also, infinity has nothing to do with numbers. It is a recursive pattern applied to something whether it be numbers, shapes ect. When you consider infinity and you visualize a number line increasing you see a visual representation of the syntax of infinity. A process simply recurs over and over without end and there is infinity.

@astrotheological,

astrotheological wrote:

Only time and space can be infininte in an existence.

Agreed and one of my earlier thoughts on this subject is the specific instance of there being life on other planets. And due to space being infinite the only "number" you can put over infinity in a fraction is infinity. What i mean by fraction, When something is out of infinity (Space) there are infinite possibilities of there being life on other planets. If you were to choose a specific number in infinity at any given point to stop at, the number of planets that contain life might still be zero or very close to it (.0000000001). So the question of life on other planets is disproved, not in a sense that there is no life just that it is not a question but merely a number.

@Yogi DMT,

Infinite is an abstraction of what cannot be mathematically defined due to the limitations of our number system. Part of me wants to say it is akin to mankind's need to place the supernatural in place of science they cannot explain. I sincerely doubt there is a true infinity to anything, that all things are some way; else they would not exist in a form. Reality is based on is or is not.

Much like our ideas of morality, justice, and purpose, infinity is an abstraction which exists in our own heads and is due, largely, in part of misunderstanding our finite reality.

---------- Post added at 06:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:02 PM ----------

Yogi DMT wrote:

Agreed and one of my earlier thoughts on this subject is the specific instance of there being life on other planets. And due to space being infinite the only "number" you can put over infinity in a fraction is infinity. What i mean by fraction, When something is out of infinity (Space) there are infinite possibilities of there being life on other planets. If you were to choose a specific number in infinity at any given point to stop at, the number of planets that contain life might still be zero or very close to it (.0000000001). So the question of life on other planets is disproved, not in a sense that there is no life just that it is not a question but merely a number.

This is only under the assumption that dimensional space is infinite or that time exists at all. I would suggest that time is an illusion, a projection of our memories onto what can be described as our misunderstanding of a demonstrated mathematical probability. I would suggest that this would provide fault in the idea of a 'past'. Similarly, the future is our projections of possibilities based on what physical interactions have happened.

I understand that 'have happened' refers to an object in the past, but I'm suggesting that this is an illusion of of the principal that it no longer can or does exist outside of storage.

@Zacrates,

Well if you were to doubt the existance in time not only do you have to doubt the concept of space and therefore you doubt our existance in this world. Yes everthing we have ever known including ourselves may be a dream or an illusion but "i think, therefore i am" proves that right which allows us to function in this world. Even though the events that occur in time are very unpredictable, time itself is very predictable, a second is a second and 10 seconds later that now will be 10 seconds from now. When you say time is a projection of our memories, our memories themselves must have accumulated experiences that have taken time to acquire. Space is also predictable from my point of view because when we define space, there is no lineancy and the only differing of space can be from us changing our own measurements and perceptions.

@Yogi DMT,

Yogi DMT wrote:

Well if you were to doubt the existance in time not only do you have to doubt the concept of space and therefore you doubt our existance in this world. Yes everthing we have ever known including ourselves may be a dream or an illusion but "i think, therefore i am" proves that right which allows us to function in this world. Even though the events that occur in time are very unpredictable, time itself is very predictable, a second is a second and 10 seconds later that now will be 10 seconds from now. When you say time is a projection of our memories, our memories themselves must have accumulated experiences that have taken time to acquire. Space is also predictable from my point of view because when we define space, there is no lineancy and the only differing of space can be from us changing our own measurements and perceptions.

I think my point was lost a little. Time is often referred to as a medium or a dimension we travel through with an infinite amount of points in between. This common misconception is why people think you can go forward and backward through time 'somehow'. I do not see this as logically possible as is made evident by the many time paradoxes that exist. I am suggesting that time is a period of snapshots that would disallow time travel.

@Riordan,

We can imagine infinity but we cant measure it.We are only a minute second away from it but never reach it.It is an illusion of our time trapped existence. Take time away and we are as near as the furthest galaxy and we are eternal because time creates the illusion of infinity.

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