Infinity

[ultimatewizz]

Is infinity unreal? We talk about infinite space or an infinite number of real numbers between 0 and 1 a sort of endless division by 2 or whatever. But I wonder how real Infinite actually is.

• Take an infinite line and join the ends. Is it a finite circle? Or is it an infinitely expanding circle?
• How about the real numbers between 0 and 1. If you integrate from 0 to 1 you get 1. Is that like joining the ends?
• And, even if the universe is closed (as opposed to an infinite flat Euclidian one) can it expand infinitely?

It seems as if there is a resolution (like joining the ends) but more profound. As if there is something more fundamental than 'joining the ends'
I cannot crack it. Anyone?

If a line is infinite it has no ends to join. No matter how far you go you will never find an end.

 

[contrarian]

"Is infinity unreal?"

"Infinite" seems to depend on definition. As you note, math is something which can have infinite aspects, which includes the line in a circle. But these are abstractions. What about "real" things, like what humans see or imagine to be real?

Like cosmology.

Most "experts" in cosmology suggest that the Universe is on an endless expansion from the BB. and will continue to expand as it approaches heat death. This might expand space infinitely since some of those same cosmologists tell us that heat death is never totally reached, so that might offer a case for an infinite, theoretically of course.

And there is the rub...........How will we ever know if we have all the details to draw any such conclusion?

 

[CreatedEvolution]

I enjoy the thoughts of infinity. Perhaps infinity is possible with chemistry we do not understand like universal weather that repeats itself. Or a repetitive equation of chemistry and gravity.

I personally believe there was never nothing. I have trouble grasping any flux without something existing. I choose the easy way to know that we exist and as much as I like to wonder why we exist it is not very beneficial now days. But if I chose a belief something always existed maybe not intelligent but mass existed.

I’m neutral on whether or not a god exists I’m pretty dam certain we evolve but when you believe in infinity you start to wonder what could be out there.

 

[Atlan0001]

Per the collapsed cosmological constant (/\) Planck heat of ('1' ('Unity')) in superposition Horizon of Universe (U) there never was, nor never will ever be, any heat death of the universe. Per Newton, entropy is always to the middle between extremes. The middle, the center, just happens to be Hawking's "life zone" of universes.

Planck heat is a radiation of heat. So is the equal but opposite radiation of cold, a radiation . . . for one to exist, the other must equally exist (+|-):

On the order of:
=================

Möbius strip - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

=================

Dipole . . . monopole.

 

[Ignat]

If a line is infinite it has no ends to join. No matter how far you go you will never find an end.

So no one will ever get out of the beginning.

 

[Catastrophe]

No one is ever at the "so-called" beginning.

An infinite line only exists in the imagination.

A beginning, or an end, is an imaginary infinitely far away.


Cat

 

[Ignat]

An infinite line only exists in the imagination.

A beginning, or an end, is an imaginary infinitely far away.

The same applies to the concepts of space and time. They do not exist in the material world, they exist only in our consciousness.

 

[whoknows]

The same applies to the concepts of space and time. They do not exist in the material world, they exist only in our consciousness.

How do you know that your material world exists outside of your consciousness?

This applies to everybody. Is our reality outside or within?

 

[Catastrophe]

Our abstraction of an external reality is within.

Cat

Is there an external reality?

Only a sum total of all external (observable), based on all modes of abstraction throughout the 'Universe'.

Such a totality is unknowable to any combination of abstraction modes.

So, effectively, there is no knowable external reality.

See also: https://forums.space.com/threads/de...res-clarification-to-enable-discussion.69364/

 

[whoknows]

"So, effectively, there is no knowable external reality."

Within science, at this moment. Consciousness is not defined by internal reality.

 

[Ignat]

How do you know that your material world exists outside of your consciousness?

Have you ever lost consciousness? Has anything changed around you since you came to your senses? Or another example. Do you know where the bread in the store comes from? Or is it not there when you are not in the store?

 

[Ignat]

So, effectively, there is no knowable external reality.

Our brain creates models of the world around us, but this does not mean that there is nothing around us or that we cannot explore this world. The world around us exists and does not depend on whether we know it or not.

 

[Catastrophe]

Our brain creates models of the world around us, but this does not mean that there is nothing around us or that we cannot explore this world. The world around us exists and does not depend on whether we know it or not.

So, effectively, there is no knowable external reality.

this does not mean that there is nothing around us or that we cannot explore this world

All that means is that there is "something there" but our "exploration" only provides our abstraction of it.
So, effectively, there is no knowable external reality.
Only something of which we can obtain only a limited subjective abstraction.

Cat

 

[Atlan0001]

No one is ever at the "so-called" beginning.

An infinite line only exists in the imagination.

A beginning, or an end, is an imaginary infinitely far away.


Cat

The 0-point dimension, at once the lowest and highest, widest and narrowest, largest and smallest, dimensionality (a wrap to itself (thus, self-similarity)), the dimension of 'Chaos', is infinity.

 

[whoknows]

Have you ever lost consciousness? Has anything changed around you since you came to your senses? Or another example. Do you know where the bread in the store comes from? Or is it not there when you are not in the store?

This was a reference to your post #57, in the context of your "was there a Big Bang thread", with the emphasis on "your" and "our" subjective realities - concepts of space and time as with your ideas, and mine, until they can be rooted in external objectivity, will remain subjective imo. (I agreed with your #62 btw)

 

[whoknows]

The 0-point dimension, at once the lowest and highest, widest and narrowest, largest and smallest, dimensionality (a wrap to itself (thus, self-similarity)), the dimension of 'Chaos', is infinity.

How can you be so sure, that your subjective, mathematical concepts of 0 and infinity exist in objective reality?

 

[whoknows]

Our abstraction of an external reality is within.

Cat

Is there an external reality?

Only a sum total of all external (observable), based on all modes of abstraction throughout the 'Universe'.

Such a totality is unknowable to any combination of abstraction modes.

So, effectively, there is no knowable external reality.

See also: https://forums.space.com/threads/de...res-clarification-to-enable-discussion.69364/

The only difference I have with your view Cat is that external reality is effectively unknowable.

Science (if that is the measure), in a sense, and by requirement, endeavours with one arm tied behind its back. Its ways of "seeing" exclude all things that are not within its remit, which include, almost certain unknown unknowns imo.

 

[Catastrophe]

Have you been reading my posts?

I could not agree more with your last post.

Science can only deal with inputs recognisable to our limited senses.

Cat

 

[Atlan0001]

How can you be so sure, that your subjective, mathematical concepts of 0 and infinity exist in objective reality?

(+1) and/or (-1). I've been rated twice by testing, and once in my youth called by my mathematics teacher, an "intuitive visual mathematician." It never meant anything to me in and of itself, but it helped me hugely to see into the boxes and outside the boxes in my other careers and interests ("****, how can you keep on jumping into manure and come up smelling like a rose?!" (I could because when I was interested and given just a minimum of background, I could visualize more and higher dimensions of complex problems and solutions than most)).

And I could reduce an artificial complexity to a natural simplicity.

 

[whoknows]

Have you been reading my posts?

I could not agree more with your last post.

Science can only deal with inputs recognisable to our limited senses.

Cat

I have, not sure you have read mine though. Where I disagree is that external reality is unknowable. Science might find a way of "seeing" it - maybe the unknown unknowns will become more visible. And also science is a very limited tool.

 

[Catastrophe]

Please clarify:

Where I disagree is that external reality is unknowable

This is ambiguous. Does it mean you disagree THAT external reality is unknowable, or you disagree BECAUSE external reality is unknowable? Either you think it is knowable (double negative) or it isn't.

This is getting bogged down in semantics. I say it is unknowable because we can't abstract from all of it, and our means off abstraction are limited. Agree or disagree that external reality is unknowable in part or in total?

Cat

 

[whoknows]

Please clarify:



This is ambiguous. Does it mean you disagree THAT external reality is unknowable, or you disagree BECAUSE external reality is unknowable? Either you think it is knowable (double negative) or it isn't.

This is getting bogged down in semantics. I say it is unknowable because we can't abstract from all of it, and our means off abstraction are limited. Agree or disagree that external reality is unknowable in part or in total?

Cat

"Where I disagree is that external reality is unknowable. Science might find a way of "seeing" it - maybe the unknown unknowns will become more visible. And also science is a very limited tool."

I do not think we know enough to assert that external reality is unknowable. That's all!

 

[Catastrophe]

I do not think we know enough to assert that external reality is unknowable.

We are just wasting our lives on semantics. Nothing new there.

I do not think we know enough to assert that external reality is unknowable.

Questions of degree are just life-wasting. That's enough for me.

Cat

 

[whoknows]

These are your semantics, nothing new there. I answered your question several posts back. You introduced the questions of degree, not me. There is a fundamental difference between whether something might be knowable or not - if it is not knowable then there is no point in trying, if it is, there is. I'll leave you to have the last word .

 

[Catastrophe]

I do not think we know enough to assert that external reality is unknowable. That's all!

"That's all" seems fairly final.

I only think we differ semantically, possibly because we are not understanding each other.

Re: the above. if we do not know enough to assert that external reality is unknowable, I would agree on the basis that what we do not know, possibly only temporally, is, at least for the moment, unknowable.

You can have the last word, but I hope that it might mean that we sort of agree on that, and leave any residual doubt as due to semantics. Otherwise, we might have to start picking at definitions, and what we think the other person means, which might be temporally unknowable. Nice talking with you.

Cat