quick question:

@AXE,

^^^ Right, 'motion' is not possible in timespace.
Look up Zeno's paradoxes..
Peace

@AXE,

You can find a discussion of Zeno and his paradoxes in the link below. Specifically, section 3 reviews his paradoxes of motion:

Zeno's Paradoxes (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Cheers,
John

@AXE,

yes yes yes...thank you...i went to bed last night telling myself you can't sleep until you find that out...well, and this morning at 630 i was on here seeing if someone replied. thank you very much.

@AXE,

Is that supposed to mean that you wont get across the room because you would have to reach other points first? That is pretty weak.

@NeOH,

NeOH wrote:

Is that supposed to mean that you wont get across the room because you would have to reach other points first? That is pretty weak.

Because you have to go through an infinite number of points first in a finite period of time.

@AXE,

Maybe I dont understand outside of its original context. I understand that one would obviouslly be perceived as getting to other percieved points before actually reaching the goal, but why is that to say that they could never get to the otherside of the room.

Since all of the points (points meaning starting point, middle, otherside) are relative to any number of things, like which direction one will be starting from whether or not there is a coffee table in the way etc, then all of the points ar percieved based on what they are relative too.

If a person wandered "aimlessly" around the room, with no intention of reaching a percieved point, like if they were dusting or something, an obseverver could notify the person that they had in fact walked across the room, without ever reaching any percieved point. There has to be a prescribed route in order for there to be a half way point before the journey started, otherwise the half way point wouldn't be percieved nor would it exist until they person had gone all they way there. Even the observer wouldn't know until the guy had gotten there because he didn't know what the guys next step would be. Meaning, he may take the last step and reach the otherside, or he may take a step back to do something else.

But I still dont understand why he would NEVER reach the otherside just because he would reach other points first.

@NeOH,

Zeno's paradox is basically this.

Also, many people understand zeno's paradox by different examples, whether it be an arrow, a hare and a tortoise, or even a man and a room. The arrow is the best example I know of so I am using that one.

@VideCorSpoon,

Unless I still misunderstand, I disagree based on the reasons in my post above.

"Half" is not a number, it is something relative and only a principle. It means something in concept but has no numeric value in itself. 50 is a number as in 50ft. 50 has one half, that is 25, 25 has one half that is 12.5.

If there are not an infinite number of feet in 50 feet there can be only one half.

An archer sees his target as the goal, he understands that given its distance, and the current envirnmental conditions (wind direction and force etc) that he will have to aim the arrow at such an angle, and given the distance the bow will need a certain amount of tension to reach that distance from that position. He knows it is 5o ft away.

Within the active principle (the cause of the event) the factors are set into action- as the arrow crosses the trajectory it could be said to have travelled half that trajectory at 25 feet, but this is only half in relation to the 50feet considered in the action that began the motion. When it hits another 12.5feet it will have traveled .75 of the trajectory, only because 50ft had previouslly measured out. You could not say that it travelled another half of its actual trajectory until it hit its trajectory. You could say that it traveled 0.5 of 25 feet but 25ft is not in relation to the trajectory, its sounds more like whoever is doing the measuring got carried away with the concept of "half way point" and started going backward at some point forgetting that a straight line, if it has two points has one half way point with an infinite numbeer of PERCIEVED points.

And then there is also like I said above, that if the trajectory is not intended until it is reached, then the half way concept is never percieved until the wanderer reaches what the observer would call the otherside. There would be no such half way point until the event had a begining and an end.

@NeOH,

NeOH wrote:

"Half" is not a number, it is something relative and only a principle. It means something in concept but has no numeric value in itself. 50 is a number as in 50ft. 50 has one half, that is 25, 25 has one half that is 12.5.

If there are not an infinite number of feet in 50 feet there can be only one half.

2 and- a-half

NeOH wrote:

An archer sees his target as the goal, he understands that given its distance, and the current envirnmental conditions (wind direction and force etc) that he will have to aim the arrow at such an angle, and given the distance the bow will need a certain amount of tension to reach that distance from that position. He knows it is 5o ft away.

NeOH wrote:

Within the active principle (the cause of the event) the factors are set into action- as the arrow crosses the trajectory it could be said to have travelled half that trajectory at 25 feet, but this is only half in relation to the 50feet considered in the action that began the motion. When it hits another 12.5feet it will have traveled .75 of the trajectory, only because 50ft had previouslly measured out. You could not say that it travelled another half of its actual trajectory until it hit its trajectory. You could say that it traveled 0.5 of 25 feet but 25ft is not in relation to the trajectory, its sounds more like whoever is doing the measuring got carried away with the concept of "half way point" and started going backward at some point forgetting that a straight line, if it has two points has one half way point with an infinite numbeer of PERCIEVED points.

NeOH wrote:

And then there is also like I said above, that if the trajectory is not intended until it is reached, then the half way concept is never perceived until the wanderer reaches what the observer would call the other side. There would be no such half way point until the event had a beginning and an end.

A trajectory can be determined on any two points in a given line, etc. Does a missile need to hit its target before its trajectory can be calculated? No. Take the asteroid Apophis that's going to fly within a few miles of earth in 2029. Scientists know that, based on its trajectory, it will fly by earth in 2029. They also know that if its trajectory is within a certain influential factor, in 7 years that asteroid will hit the California coastline. It can be done, and also that the paradox relies on all thing being equal ceteris parabus

@VideCorSpoon,

VideCorSpoon;43076 wrote:

2 and- a-half ceteris parabus

Well I did say that "half" would have a numeric value, but it would be inrelation to the entire trajectory, so in the case of a 50ft straight line course half would be 25ft. And yes 12.5 is half of 25-but I dont understand why the halves are being measured, why if the arrow has completed 50% of its trajectory are we seeing the last half, as a new whole with a new half.

Do you understand? If a straight line is the whole, how can we assign infinite halves when by definition half is very specificly in relation to the whole? if we are talking about an infinite distance, which we arent, then the concept of half is meaningless. Again-I dont understand why we would measure the halves because they do not become new wholes, they are still fractions progressively changing based on the whole which is definite.

I don't know who berkeley is but I used the illustration of a man wandering where no one knows the trajectory and only the observer knows the goal because I think its a valid argument to such an explanation of something that seems contradictory. I understand that it is a paradox, but a paradox should be able to be explained as to why it is a paradox.

If the idea is that the motion of the arrow never reaches a point w

@VideCorSpoon,

VideCorSpoon wrote:

Zeno's paradox is basically this.

Also, many people understand zeno's paradox by different examples, whether it be an arrow, a hare and a tortoise, or even a man and a room. The arrow is the best example I know of so I am using that one.

The term, "paradox" comes from two Greek terms which together mean something like, "contrary to what we ordinarily believe", or, "contrary to commonsense". Zeno, of course knew that commonsensibly Locke can get across the room. We can see he did. But Zeno draws the lesson (as did Plato, later) that only shows that commonsense, based as it is on perception, is misleading, and that rather than trusting to commonsense, we should trust to our intelligence and intellect, and they prove to us that what we observe (Locke being able to reach the other side of the room) is mere appearance and not reality. Philosophy trumps commonsense.

@kennethamy,

I agree with you in spirit, yet the fact that someone crosses the room is not what I'm tripping on. I know what a paradox is, its when two things are true and because of what they are true about they both say different things regaurding that subject which would lead someone to think that one has to be false.

I've offered up some pretty valid, even philosophical arguements to the information presented, yet neither one of you has been able to represent the info as tho it is part of your own understanding. To explain it away as incommunicable because it is a paradox means its not understood well enough by whoever is representing the idea. Because the paradox itself should be definable.

I understand what was said, my counter argument was partialy avoided and partially misunderstood, so because I see it a certain way I'm not going to swallow it just because some guy said that some guy said so when they don't understand it themselves. As a child I refused to believe in Santa Clause, I just wouldn't believe it because I could tell that none of the adults believed it. My dad said when I was 4 and 5 and someone started talking about santa I would look to my dad and smirk. I get the feeling that alot of people swallow these ideas because they've been convinced or they just agree, yet they never construct the idea in their own minds and thus the understanding is never established, it gets learned and remains unknown.

My arguement isn't necessarilly that the guy crossed the room so the information regaurding zeno's idea is false, it had more to do with the reasoning used to explain why he couldnt because of the halves. At this point it sounds more like pretentious intellectualism then philosophy.

Can you explain to me how this is a paradox based on my arguement?

@NeOH,

NeOH wrote:

Do you understand? If a straight line is the whole, how can we assign infinite halves when by definition half is very specificly in relation to the whole? if we are talking about an infinite distance, which we arent, then the concept of half is meaningless. Again-I dont understand why we would measure the halves because they do not become new wholes, they are still fractions progressively changing based on the whole which is definite.

Yes. If we allow the first half to be travelled as a whole, it is inconsistent not to allow this for the second half also. The division of the journey into smaller and smaller fractions is completely arbitrary. But in any case, the paradox can be resolved as follows.

The 'infinite division' refers to an ongoing but never completed process. So at any given time, however far in the future, there will be a last intermediate point, from which the traveller can reach his destination in one go.

@ACB,

RESPONSE TO POST #11

NeOH wrote:

Well I did say that "half" would have a numeric value, but it would be inrelation to the entire trajectory, so in the case of a 50ft straight line course half would be 25ft. And yes 12.5 is half of 25-but I dont understand why the halves are being measured, why if the arrow has completed 50% of its trajectory are we seeing the last half, as a new whole with a new half.

NeOH wrote:

Do you understand? If a straight line is the whole, how can we assign infinite halves when by definition half is very specificly in relation to the whole? if we are talking about an infinite distance, which we arent, then the concept of half is meaningless. Again-I dont understand why we would measure the halves because they do not become new wholes, they are still fractions progressively changing based on the whole which is definite.

NeOH wrote:

I don't know who berkeley is but I used the illustration of a man wandering where no one knows the trajectory and only the observer knows the goal because I think its a valid argument to such an explanation of something that seems contradictory. I understand that it is a paradox, but a paradox should be able to be explained as to why it is a paradox. If

LOL! Thats the nature of a paradox... otherwise it wouldn't be one.

RESPONSE TO POST #13

NeOH wrote:

I agree with you in spirit, yet the fact that someone crosses the room is not what I'm tripping on. I know what a paradox is, its when two things are true and because of what they are true about they both say different things regaurding that subject which would lead someone to think that one has to be false.

Etymologically, paradox derives from the latin paradoxum meaning "statement seemingly absurd yet really true." The deeper meaning paradoxos means "contrary to expectation, incredible," from para- "contrary to" + doxa

NeOH wrote:

I've offered up some pretty valid, even philosophical arguements to the information presented, yet neither one of you has been able to represent the info as tho it is part of your own understanding. To explain it away as incommunicable because it is a paradox means its not understood well enough by whoever is representing the idea. Because the paradox itself should be definable.

NeOH wrote:

I understand what was said, my counter argument was partialy avoided and partially misunderstood, so because I see it a certain way I'm not going to swallow it just because some guy said that some guy said so when they don't understand it themselves. As a child I refused to believe in Santa Clause, I just wouldn't believe it because I could tell that none of the adults believed it. My dad said when I was 4 and 5 and someone started talking about santa I would look to my dad and smirk. I get the feeling that alot of people swallow these ideas because they've been convinced or they just agree, yet they never construct the idea in their own minds and thus the understanding is never established, it gets learned and remains unknown.

NeOH wrote:

My arguement isn't necessarilly that the guy crossed the room so the information regaurding zeno's idea is false, it had more to do with the reasoning used to explain why he couldnt because of the halves. At this point it sounds more like pretentious intellectualism then philosophy.

NeOH wrote:

Can you explain to me how this is a paradox based on my arguement?

LOL!

@AXE,

Quote:

Yes. If we allow the first half to be travelled as a whole, it is inconsistent not to allow this for the second half also. The division of the journey into smaller and smaller fractions is completely arbitrary. But in any case, the paradox can be resolved as follows.

The 'infinite division' refers to an ongoing but never completed process. So at any given time, however far in the future, there will be a last intermediate point, from which the traveller can reach his destination in one go.

But you wouldnt be starting from any of those points unless you stopped there in which case the point you stopped at would be where the trajectory ended if I intend on flinging my spinach across the table and I put forth the exact ammount of energy required to hit the wall behind my grandma, once that spinach has been flung, that activity is based on the action I put forth in the original aim/fling. When it gets half way across the trajectory, it doesnt stop and start from any point midway. If it only gets midway that is because it only had so much momentum, and it has to regain motion from another point to make it to the wall. The potential for activity was in the aim/fling, that is where the motion "began". It at no point stops, so any of the midway points can not be thought of as starting points because none of those points are capable of delivering the spinach with enough energy to get it any where, let alone to get it to stick to the wall. So If I am the cause and the spinach soaring is the effect, there are no causes to give it the momentum to travel anywhere else... unless grandma picks it up and throws it back at me.

So do you understand where I am confused? Where/what are the active principles in the middle of the room that cause the spinach to be starting at those midway points, and how are they of a greater velocity then my original fling since they are what is overtaking the original momentum and causing a new begining?

And if the arguement is that even tho locke made it across the room he never really does except in perception, then he never really left the other side of the room to begin with.

@VideCorSpoon,

VideCorSpoon;43162 wrote:

RESPONSE TO POST #11RESPONSE TO POST #13

Etymologically, paradox derives from the latin paradoxum meaning "statement seemingly absurd yet really true." The deeper meaning paradoxos means "contrary to expectation, incredible," from para- "contrary to" + doxa

Quick reply- You've been misunderstanding me from the begining and keep repeating yourself without answering anything. Youre just not getting it and it is probably my fault.

A paradox can to be explained. Example

LBW paradox.

Babies born with a low birth rate have a higher mortality rate.

Babies born to mothers who smoke have a high mortality rate.

here is the paradox-Low birth weight babies born to mothers who smoke seem to be otherwise healthy and have a normal survival rate. I understand that this is a paradox and I understand why.

I think ABC is finding it easier to follow me and I appreciate abc taking the time to explain without trying to insinuate that I am incapable of understanding.

I think if you dont question to gain a thorough understanding then you're not really getting it and will fail to establish the info/phenomenon in your mind as something you are cognitive of, and it is merely something you've m,emorised which you clearly havn't.

here is an example of a type of paradox.

I have a bag of coffee. This particular strain of coffee has a very high alkaloid content lets say 3% by weight (but I dont know if that is really alot of caffine)

Someone gives me another bag of coffee, twice as much, however this new coffee is 1.5% caffine by weight so I now have more.

I put them togeather and by weight I have less cafine then I started with, even tho I have more.

I'm capable of understanding things far more complicated then these examples if anyone is capable of explaining it a complicated enough manner.

@NeOH,

In reply to VideCorSpoon I would say this:

I understand 'paradox' to mean a situation where two apparently contradictory statements both seem to be true. If you are saying that they can ever be really contradictory and both really true, then I would strongly disagree, because I believe in the law of non-contradiction. All paradoxes must be capable of resolution. Simply saying 'it's a paradox, and that's that' is a bit like a theist using the 'divine mystery' argument.

NeOH - Like you, I do not think this paradox has any merit, but I would argue against it in a different way. It does not claim that the traveller/projectile would have to stop at any intermediate point; it merely requires him/it to travel through such points. So I don't think you can refute it with arguments about momentum. This is a logical rather than a physical problem. I think you need rather to look at the incoherence of 'infinity' in order to demolish the paradox.

@NeOH,

NeOH wrote:

Quick reply- You've been misunderstanding me from the begining and keep repeating yourself without answering anything. Youre just not getting it and it is probably my fault.

To be honest, this is not a novel experience here on the forum. I can only give the same response I gave the others, "people will, no matter the facts, believe what they want." Applies to you, me, everyone. All we can do is put the facts on the table and see where that leads us.

NeOH wrote:

A paradox can to be explained. Example

LBW paradox.

Babies born with a low birth rate have a higher mortality rate.

Babies born to mothers who smoke have a high mortality rate.

here is the paradox-Low birth weight babies born to mothers who smoke seem to be otherwise healthy and have a normal survival rate. I understand that this is a paradox and I understand why.

Ok. It's probably not the best example. But I suppose it is a paradox none the less. The low birth Weight paradox does not account for the Wilcox-Russell argument, but still it is a paradox of sorts. But unlike Zenos paradox, there are physiological implications that are problematic. Now... what do you suppose makes that a paradox? There is on one hand a set of data corresponding to what we know. On the other hand, there is a set of data that does not correspond to what we know. Can something be both one and the other? Thus, there is an inconsistency in our logic, or at least the given syllogistic chain. How on earth is this any different from Zeno's paradox. All you have done is given a different paradox that segway's off topic.

NeOH wrote:

I think ABC is finding it easier to follow me and I appreciate abc taking the time to explain without trying to insinuate that I am incapable of understanding.

NeOH wrote:

I think if you dont question to gain a thorough understanding then you're not really getting it and will fail to establish the info/phenomenon in your mind as something you are cognitive of, and it is merely something you've m,emorised which you clearly havn't.

NeOH wrote:

here is an example of a type of paradox.

I have a bag of coffee. This particular strain of coffee has a very high alkaloid content lets say 3% by weight (but I dont know if that is really alot of caffine)

Someone gives me another bag of coffee, twice as much, however this new coffee is 1.5% caffine by weight so I now have more.

I put them togeather and by weight I have less cafine then I started with, even tho I have more.

NeOH wrote:

I'm capable of understanding things far more complicated then these examples if anyone is capable of explaining it a complicated enough manner.

Nor do I doubt your ability to understand complicated things. But basically what you are saying is "I will understand it if it is far more complicated than it should be." There are many problems with this statement.

@AXE,

LBw is a perfect example of a paradox, the caffine example is an example of simpsons paradox.

The wilcox/russel hypothesis does not negate the lbw paradox, its a hypothesis about the paradox.

I think you are confusing paradox with miracle or something, you dont think they would be the same do you?

Edit-ViD,I just read a little bit about these paradoxes, I'm not so sure that you do understand the concepts Zeno presented.

One of his concepts about motion and the arrow- while it is in motion it is always somewhere, in a place, so he is saying that because it is somewhere, it dosn't actually go anywhere. Get it. It does not disappear and reapear somewhere else. This was based on the idea that all things are one, and also that all things are at rest in there natural state, and that is essentially what he was trying to express...well they're not.

Not only have his paradoxes been refuted by people now, but also over 2,000 years ago. and yes what I had to say earlier on page 1 and page 2 also refute his concept.

Quote:

Aristotle remarked that as the distance decreases, the time needed to cover those distances also decreases, so that the time needed also becomes increasingly small.[11] Aristotle solves the paradoxes by distinguishing "things infinite in respect of divisibility" (such as a unit of space that can be mentally divided into ever smaller units while remaining spatially the same) from things (or distances) that are infinite in extension ("with respect to their extremities")

This is pretty much what I was saying this whole time about the crossing the room paradox. I had said that what zeno is talking about are percieved points within the 50ft. They do not grow or shrink so while the trajectory is traveled the distance to the end shrinks. The trajectory is 50ft; just because you cross half of fifty feet does not mean you cross another fifty, that the more percieved positions you cross, the closer you will actually get rather then traveling the 50ft from each point. Do you understand?

The point I was getting at with asking about what is the active principle that moves the arrow if each perceived position is a new starting point is also said like this- There is not an archer at every percieved point so it is not a starting point and the arrow never ended there. An arrow is givven a certain ammount of energy, that energy comes from specific intentions to get it across the 50ft trajectory, it is neither used up, nor is it refilled along the way, because the arrow only has 1 starting point where it recieved the energy to go the 50ft.

You dont, like you said, use logic to understand what he was saying; such as on the subject of infinity, you use logic only to express it. What it express's challenges logic.

And per your last statement- I did not pass higher than 9th grade quite plainly because it was not complicated enough for it to make sense to me.

And did you even understand what I said about coffee. I had one bag at 3% alkaloids + one bag at 1.5%- that makes it about 2.2%alkaloid when added together yet there is the same ammout of coffee. so if each bag is 1lb then I have 2 lbs of coffee which is more,( understand, 2 is more then 1). Yet the alkaloid content is less then the originnal 1lb, because 2.2 is less then 3.

I see why were you multiplying, but its an addition and find the avg word problem.
You failed to find the avg so you ar still wrong. If I had 1.5 +1.5 + 3=6
6/3=2 so the alkaloid content would still be lower.
I think you are drunk, and only skimmed over what I posted-from the begining.

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