Concept of Infinity

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
582

[quote]forlife wrote:
Numbers aren’t real things, period. So why are you trying to restrict an explanation of the universe to numbers? Infinity may be something you have a hard time grasping, but that doesn’t make it supernatural. If matter and energy cannot be destroyed in this universe, it’s hardly a stretch to postulate that matter and energy cannot be destroyed in universes preceding this one, or that this universe has always existed.

And again, you are postulating a supernatural being that has always existed. If that is possible, at least admit that it’s possible energy and matter have always existed. Your assumption is less parsimonious than mine.[/quote]

But numbers are rational discrete concepts. Infinity isn’t. This is just getting stupid. Causation for the universe and it’s laws must be external to the universe.

It’s like you just continue to ignore all of my points and post the same thought over and over. I have contradicted pretty much everything you just posted and you have yet to counter those arguments. You also seem to keep attributing things to me I haven’t done regardless of how many times I’ve corrected you.

I need someone else to debate with. Our discourse has been exhausted.

583

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
But numbers are rational discrete concepts. Infinity isn’t.[/quote]

This is not true.

584

[quote]Rational Gaze wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
But numbers are rational discrete concepts. Infinity isn’t.[/quote]

This is not true.[/quote]

what is irrational or indiscreet about the number 2?

585

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:
Numbers aren’t real things, period. So why are you trying to restrict an explanation of the universe to numbers? Infinity may be something you have a hard time grasping, but that doesn’t make it supernatural. If matter and energy cannot be destroyed in this universe, it’s hardly a stretch to postulate that matter and energy cannot be destroyed in universes preceding this one, or that this universe has always existed.

And again, you are postulating a supernatural being that has always existed. If that is possible, at least admit that it’s possible energy and matter have always existed. Your assumption is less parsimonious than mine.[/quote]

But numbers are rational discrete concepts. Infinity isn’t. This is just getting stupid. Causation for the universe and it’s laws must be external to the universe.

It’s like you just continue to ignore all of my points and post the same thought over and over. I have contradicted pretty much everything you just posted and you have yet to counter those arguments. You also seem to keep attributing things to me I haven’t done regardless of how many times I’ve corrected you.

I need someone else to debate with. Our discourse has been exhausted.[/quote]

Yes, we’re wasting our time but not for the reason you cite.

It’s because you stubbornly insist that the universe MUST have a cause, and refuse to even acknowledge the possibility that it has always existed, and thus HAS NO CAUSE. It simply is, and has always been, kinda like your hypothetical supernatural being.

586

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:
Numbers aren’t real things, period. So why are you trying to restrict an explanation of the universe to numbers? Infinity may be something you have a hard time grasping, but that doesn’t make it supernatural. If matter and energy cannot be destroyed in this universe, it’s hardly a stretch to postulate that matter and energy cannot be destroyed in universes preceding this one, or that this universe has always existed.

And again, you are postulating a supernatural being that has always existed. If that is possible, at least admit that it’s possible energy and matter have always existed. Your assumption is less parsimonious than mine.[/quote]

But numbers are rational discrete concepts. Infinity isn’t. This is just getting stupid. Causation for the universe and it’s laws must be external to the universe.

It’s like you just continue to ignore all of my points and post the same thought over and over. I have contradicted pretty much everything you just posted and you have yet to counter those arguments. You also seem to keep attributing things to me I haven’t done regardless of how many times I’ve corrected you.

I need someone else to debate with. Our discourse has been exhausted.[/quote]

Yes, we’re wasting our time but not for the reason you cite.

It’s because you stubbornly insist that the universe MUST have a cause, and refuse to even acknowledge the possibility that it has always existed, and thus HAS NO CAUSE. It simply is, and has always been, kinda like your hypothetical supernatural being.[/quote]

No, I could go back through my posts and copy and paste a retort for every single one of your points. I feel neither like doing that nor re-typing them over and over.

Everything we know of has a cause. An initial cause is the product of rational thought. It is you who are trying to dismiss the possibility of an initial cause and sell your idea as superior. Not to mention trying to discredit it by making arguments causality is not defendant on as you’ve been shown over and over. I’ve also never claimed anything is infinite including god. I’ve specifically rebuked you on this over and over but you keep assigning the claim to me. Nor have I ever assigned any reference to a being as you continue to claim.

But again I could have gone back and copied and pasted all that from my previous posts you are ignoring.

587

If you don’t believe your god is eternal, then what created your god?

588

[quote]forlife wrote:
If you don’t believe your god is eternal, then what created your god?[/quote]

I don’t claim he’s eternal. Never have. and you are attempted to apply the rules of the universe to something outside the universe twice in that one sentence. I’ll let you see if you can figure out where. Hint I’ve already pointed it out multiple times in previous posts.

589

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

Sure. If the universe, in whatever shape or form, always existed there’s no need for a something to birth something.

[/quote]

You know what chaps my ass? If you post a video or link, you insist I watch it…But if I post a link, you don’t bother with it and repeat the same thing over and over again when the links I provide clearly dispel what you just wrote. It was dispelled centuries ago. I know what I believe and why I believe it. I do not see from you the same thing. I think you believe what you believe because it’s convenient, the truth of it is irrelevant.[/quote]

I think we’re getting somewhere pat. Maybe we’ve even reached a breakthrough.

This applies to all of us: I think you believe what you believe because it’s convenient, the truth of it is irrelevant

I don’t think the eternal universe is the truth. I don’t know the truth. You otoh say you do know the truth when the fact of the matter is: all you have is assumption disguised as truth.

We all are really just the same; the only thing that’s different is how we deal with not-knowing.

[/quote]

I don’t think we are getting anywhere really. Despite my best efforts you assume, in the face of contrary evidence, that I arrived at my conclusions the same way you did. I did not. Deductive logic is not the same as a posteriori inference. It’s not. There is a deductive argument on the table, with premises that lead into one another, and a conclusion that is arrived directly by the premises. You infer I am arguing for a Christian God who makes big floods and illegal trees. I am not, I am simply stating that, the only logical conclusion to solve the problem of causation, is an Uncaused-cause. We’re arguing causation vs. randomness.

I do believe in God, and that he is the same God that is in the Bible, but that has nothing with the conversation at hand. You need to be able to make the distinction. Even if you accept the Uncaused-cause that does not necessarily mean you are Christian. Indeed there are those who accept cosmology and are still atheists or agnostic.

590

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

Ofcourse matter can exist of it’s own accord. It exists, doesn’t it? That’s your proof.

Now give me proof of your uncaused cause.
[/quote]

It existing and having no ability to bring about it’s own existence is my proof.[/quote]

Not having proof is proof of not having proof. It doesn’t prove that of which you have no proof.
[/quote]

So where’s your proof? I have asked for proofs for your singularity thingy, your proof for randomness your proof for chaos, you have provided none. So why should anybody be obliged to provide you proof? It’s a legitimate question, is it not?[/quote]

Do you accept the Cosmic Background Radiation as proof of the Big Bang?
[/quote]

I certainly accept the possibility, though I don’t know that the definitive line has been drawn, but it sounds good.

591

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

Check chaos theory how ordered systems emerge from chaos.

I don’t know where the forces that rule the universe come from. Nobody knows.

You do realise that “god” is an unfathomable inconceivable concept, don’t you?
[/quote]

Chaos is just a name, there’s only understood things…
You realize that “something from nothing” is ridiculously unfathomable…It’s simply not possible.[/quote]

That’s why i never claimed “something from nothing” but say “there’s always been something”.

But you don’t think God is that unfathomable?
[/quote]

No, not at all. But again, just asserting Uncaused-cause. Deriving God from Uncaused-cause is something different, though certainly plausible and indeed probable. But I don’t see the need to argue God here. No, not unfathomable. I don’t see God as something supernatural, but to me there is nothing more natural.

592

[quote]Rational Gaze wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:
Do you accept the Cosmic Background Radiation as proof of the Big Bang?
[/quote]

You don’t even need that. Using highschool calculus, and assuming expansion, the strong energy condition, and isotropy you can show there was necessarily a big bang. You can relax isotropy and do it more generally, which is the content of the Hawking-Penrose theorem.[/quote]

Sounds good to me…

593

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:
You lost me here.

What’cha talking 'bout Brewster?
[/quote]

Me from above:
“It [matter] existing and having no ability to bring about it’s own existence is my proof.”

It logically flows that if nothing then always nothing. If nothing => matter? doesn’t make since. Matter cannot exist because of matter itself.[/quote]

But there was never nothing. There has always been something. That’s the whole point.
[/quote]

An infinite regress means that the matter now exists because the matter before it did. and that matter was there because of the matter before it, to infinity.

That is an attempt at justifying matter because of matter. Turtles all the way down. “Always been” is just a better sounding way of saying it.[/quote]

You cannot regress infinitely. Eventually you run out of “things” to strip. You can regress for a long time, but not infinitely.

594

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:
Nothing. Just thought it made a cool picture.[/quote]

It’s funny how nature does that. Is it possible that nature is scaled to infinity in both directions? could a quark be a universe and our universe be a quark in some larger reality? is there any real reason to think it’s limited in either direction?

It’s like the stoners might be right.[/quote]

Don’t underestimate your average stoner…The truth of the matter, is all that is actually possible.

595

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:
Now you’re just playing semantics. Care to explain time dilation as an exact expression of two integers/polynomials?

Are you saying the First Law of Thermodynamics is irrational? Or maybe it’s just supernatural? [/quote]

Time dilation isn’t a number. Its a fact of the universe, like gravity or sunlight. It is expressed succinctly by specific equations describing its effect.

It is not like infinity.

It really sounds more like you don’t understand dilation or length contraction of relativity.[/quote]

The First Law of Thermodynamics isn’t a number either. It’s a fact of the universe, which states that matter/energy CANNOT BE CREATED OR DESTROYED.

If you want to talk about numerical infinity though, please explain the infinite number of subdivisions within a yardstick. Maybe that’s supernatural too?[/quote]

Correct in a practical sense. Whether or not energy can be destroyed is still unknown. It seems a possibility in a black hole…But that’s all it is a possibility.

596

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

I don’t think the eternal universe is the truth. I don’t know the truth. You otoh say you do know the truth when the fact of the matter is: all you have is assumption disguised as truth.

We all are really just the same; the only thing that’s different is how we deal with not-knowing.

[/quote]

I don’t think we are getting anywhere really. Despite my best efforts you assume, in the face of contrary evidence, that I arrived at my conclusions the same way you did. I did not. Deductive logic is not the same as a posteriori inference. It’s not. There is a deductive argument on the table, with premises that lead into one another, and a conclusion that is arrived directly by the premises. You infer I am arguing for a Christian God who makes big floods and illegal trees. I am not, I am simply stating that, the only logical conclusion to solve the problem of causation, is an Uncaused-cause. We’re arguing causation vs. randomness.

I do believe in God, and that he is the same God that is in the Bible, but that has nothing with the conversation at hand. You need to be able to make the distinction. Even if you accept the Uncaused-cause that does not necessarily mean you are Christian. Indeed there are those who accept cosmology and are still atheists or agnostic.[/quote]

You’ve arrived at a conclusion, based in logic, that cannot be tested or verified, ever.

This is unsatisfactory to me, altough it would be foolish of me to deny that there’s a possibility an uncaused cause exists. But because this position can never be proven to be correct i see no use in contemplating it’s veracity.

And that, i guess, concludes our discussion on the subject.

597

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

Ofcourse matter can exist of it’s own accord. It exists, doesn’t it? That’s your proof.

Now give me proof of your uncaused cause.
[/quote]

It existing and having no ability to bring about it’s own existence is my proof.[/quote]

Not having proof is proof of not having proof. It doesn’t prove that of which you have no proof.
[/quote]

So where’s your proof? I have asked for proofs for your singularity thingy, your proof for randomness your proof for chaos, you have provided none. So why should anybody be obliged to provide you proof? It’s a legitimate question, is it not?[/quote]

Do you accept the Cosmic Background Radiation as proof of the Big Bang?
[/quote]

I certainly accept the possibility, though I don’t know that the definitive line has been drawn, but it sounds good.[/quote]

There’s a lot of actual science pointing in that direction though.

598

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:
If you don’t believe your god is eternal, then what created your god?[/quote]

I don’t claim he’s eternal. Never have. and you are attempted to apply the rules of the universe to something outside the universe twice in that one sentence. I’ll let you see if you can figure out where. Hint I’ve already pointed it out multiple times in previous posts.[/quote]

hmmm, weird.

599

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:
<<< And again, you are postulating a supernatural being that has always existed. If that is possible, at least admit that it’s possible energy and matter have always existed. Your assumption is less parsimonious than mine.[/quote]It’s just things like this that demonstrate unequivocally that you never knew the God I know. I’ll get to your other post hopefully later.
[/quote]

I’d agree, His God hates: fags, Catholics, Anglicans, Jews, Muslims, pygmies, Russian orthodox, Eastern orthodox, Buddhists, Hindus, retards, people in comas, stupid people, people who cannot read, poor people who cannot afford a bible, North Koreans, Japanese, Chinese, Eskimos, deaf people, rednecks, Africans, Slaves, babies, atheists, agnostics, people who listen to naughty songs, porn stars, etc.

600

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]Rational Gaze wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
But numbers are rational discrete concepts. Infinity isn’t.[/quote]

This is not true.[/quote]

what is irrational or indiscreet about the number 2?[/quote]

Infinity is a rational concept.

601

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:
If you don’t believe your god is eternal, then what created your god?[/quote]

I don’t claim he’s eternal. Never have. and you are attempted to apply the rules of the universe to something outside the universe twice in that one sentence. I’ll let you see if you can figure out where. Hint I’ve already pointed it out multiple times in previous posts.[/quote]

hmmm, weird.[/quote]

Not subject to time is different than eternal. Eternal means still part of time.

Maybe I can better explain what I’m talking about with externally applying rules…

Say I’m a programmer (creator) and I write a program that creates a digital universe. In this universe I only program in the colors red and blue. Then lets say I give rise to intelligent beings in my universe.

Now, 2 of these intelligent beings are discussing how they might have come to be. One is claiming that the creator must be either red or blue. The other is telling him he is an idiot for attempting to limit their cause to the way they experience their own world.

The guy trying to apply the rules of the program to the programmer is wrong. It is flawed logic. A programmer is not subject to the programs he writes. Time is a component of this universe, you cannot apply the rules of it to something that created it. Just like the people in my little universe could have no concept of green or yellow, I don’t know what it really would mean to be outside of time. BUT it is still wrong to limit the scope of your beliefs based on the flawed logic that a programmer would be subject to his program.

But forelife can go ahead and claim god is blue and/or red. He just needs to stop claiming it’s part of my argument and demanding that I need to explain it.