Math of infinity

@dalehileman,

(.) Have a period - they're free.

@Ragman,

No they’e not. For instance I leave the water running as I brush contrary to all green advise. I do so because the water wasted amounts to perhaps three cents per year whereas a plumber visit is $400 min

‘I can back up my position in all regards

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@dalehileman,

dalehileman wrote:

So, Intuition insists, this just can’t be, maybe (1) my math is wrong, maybe there’s some size so big that above which no near-repetitions can occur. But why should there be such a dividing line

(2) Either forever or infinity are flawed concepts and thus the universe must be finite, a perfectly rational and plausible assertion. But how about forever: the ideas of a beginning and end entail all sorts of contradictions and paradoxes almost as troubling to the Intuition as all those exact copies above

I didn't see any mathematics in your posts, but your conclusions do appear to be wrong. Others here have pointed out that bounded sets (for example, finite intervals of time, or a bounded interval on a line in space)) can have infinitely many moments or points. I don't know exactly what concepts of "forever" or "infinity" you have in mind, but your questions imply they may indeed be flawed. There are many well-known paradoxes in this and other areas of philosophy. They all demonstrate the fallibility of what we call intuition,

dalehileman wrote:

(3) The rules change with each successive Big Bang. Okay but even given an infinite number of each physical constant wouldn’t there still be large numbers of pretty close copies

(4) There’s a God who can do the impossible and incomprehensible, an infinite number of Milky Ways each radically different from the rest

We don't know there have been successive big bangs and we don't know if "the rules change" if they occur. These are possibilities, but they raise more questions about our existence than they answer. There may well be a god such as you describe. That is an explanation no less fantastic than the notion of an infinite regression of expansions, contractions and big bangs, or an infinity of parallel quantum multiverses. Here you are raising questions that are outside the domain of science based on consistent logic and observation. Observational science can't answer them, even though some "scientists" claim it can or, more accurately, claim that any questions about their "explanations" are "not allowed", i.e. like asking what is North of the North Pole).

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@georgeob1,

Quote:

I don't know exactly what concepts of "forever" or "infinity" you have in mind, but your questions imply they may indeed be flawed.

Indeed they may. I simply maintain that given those parameters the Many Worlds Theory as mentioned above by Just seems to apply

In passing I also maintain Intuition objects to it for the reasons I have detailed

Quote:

explanation no less fantastic than the notion of an infinite regression of expansions, contractions and big bangs, or an infinity of parallel quantum multiverses

Precisely

Just a bit help me out here (no pun intended)

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@dalehileman,

Sorry about that digression. Let me try to explain my point a bit more..

Quote:

Forever is an infinite length of time

Time is a measure of movement of objects relative to each other. Time can only exist for as long as there are objects interacting and observers who have a use for the information measuring time yields.

You need to bear in mind that the understanding of these concepts comes from you. They are not precisely anthropomorphism, but as long as you forget that you understand these concepts on the background of your human notions of length, duration and time, they come close. Can you identify the assumptions in your knowledge? Most people cannot. Remember that axioms are not facts, yet they are fundamental to most facts.

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@Cyracuz,

Quote:

Time can only exist for as long as there are objects interacting and observers who have a use for the information measuring time yields.

Forgive me Cyr but that’s very hard to swallow. Time flows independently of you and me

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@dalehileman,

Infinites are the subject of speculation and moral forms, and not the objects of science...

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@dalehileman,

Quote:

Time flows independently of you and me

How do you know this?

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@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

Quote:
Time flows independently of you and me

How do you know this?

One cannot claim to have observed, it if that is your point. However the vast record of written and observable history on the earth provides reliable information that stuff was happening and material objects were moving about long before any of us were born. Observational science accepts the geological record of the planet as truth of physical events that span a period of 4.6 billion years. Most physicists place the age of the observable universe at about 15 billion years, but that depends on the various theoreticsal cosmological models they use.

Overall I would say that dalehilman is on pretty firm ground.

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@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz is correct. As far as physics is concerned "time" is a psychological construct of observers to "account for" three dimensional events in "space time". The second law of thermodynamics seems to adds to the utility of the construct by giving the "direction of time " as specified by increasing "entropy". But I suggest we need to consider whether "entropy" is definable without an observer to measure it.

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@georgeob1,

Even 15 billion years isn't an infinite length of time.
The only infinite part of time is the moment we call the present. This moment right now, which by now is the next, and so on. But this isn't my whole point.

My point is that time is a measure of change, but our language does not reflect this. We say time passes, when it is everything else that passes. One year is the amount of time the earth needs to complete a full orbit around the sun. We do not say "now one year has passed, so the earth must have completed one orbit". That's backwards.

dalehilman wrote:

Quote:

Time flows independently of you and me

We know that times does not flow independently of matter, and that how time affects things is relative to the speed at which those things are moving through space. A clock at sea level and a clock in orbit around the earth will tell slightly different times after counting for a while.

That time is linear is an assumption we embrace because it appears that way to us.

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@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

Even 15 billion years isn't an infinite length of time.

We agree.

Cyracuz wrote:

The only infinite part of time is the moment we call the present.

This makes no sense at all.

Cyracuz wrote:

My point is that time is a measure of change, but our language does not reflect this. We say time passes, when it is everything else that passes. One year is the amount of time the earth needs to complete a full orbit around the sun. We do not say "now one year has passed, so the earth must have completed one orbit". That's backwards.

Our language is full of various relative measures. We say "the sun sets" when in fact what we observe is - as we all know - a result of the earth's rotation. Despite this, what is said does accurately portray what is observed. So what? I think you are trying hard to read something profound into a mere adjustment of coordinates.

dalehilman wrote:

Quote:

Time flows independently of you and me

And he was entirely correct in writing it.

Cyracuz wrote:

We know that times does not flow independently of matter, and that how time affects things is relative to the speed at which those things are moving through space. A clock at sea level and a clock in orbit around the earth will tell slightly different times after counting for a while.

That time is linear is an assumption we embrace because it appears that way to us.

No problem there. With relativity corrections lots of the process we commonly take as linear are not linear at all. However, on the scale at which we live our lives the difference rarely amounts to anything either perceptable or often even measurable with contemporary instrumentation.

I don't know what you mean by the phrase "time is linear".

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@Fido,

Quote:

Infinites are the subject of speculation and moral forms, and not the objects of science...

That’s true Fido. However an intuitional reaction to the absurdity of identical galaxies might constitute a sort of evidence against the very idea of infinity

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@georgeob1,

Quote:

but your conclusions do appear to be wrong.

Ok Geo but which conclusions secifically

Quote:

[]They all demonstrate the fallibility of what we call intuition,[/]

Of perhaps the intuition of the ignorant but ought we not consider subconscious ruminations of the intelligent and educated as a possible inducement to further speculation

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@georgeob1,

Quote:

This makes no sense at all.

It makes perfect sense. You simply cannot identify the precise point at which future becomes past.

Quote:

So what? I think you are trying hard to read something profound into a mere adjustment of coordinates.

That's not it. I'm trying to give the OP some food for thought. Some ways of breaking down the concepts so they may give more clarity.

Quote:

I don't know what you mean by the phrase "time is linear".

Many people think of time as an axis or dimension which the whole of existence unfolds along, with the past in one end, the future in the other, and the present a tiny dot somewhere in the middle. This view is supported by ideas such as causality and chains of events, but modern physics tells us that outside our own perception this may not be the case at all.

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@Cyracuz,

Quote:

Time can only exist for as long as there are objects interacting and observers who have a use for the information measuring time yields.

But Cyr you seem to be asserting that if we all lost interested in it or died that time would quit

See Geo in post #405

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@dalehileman,

Perhaps it would. We have no way of knowing.
But more importantly, I am asserting that without objects in relation to each other, there would be no time. Without objects, there would be no space.

Some modern physicists, who are working on unified field theory, have taken to the idea that physical matter is a manifestation of our own consciousness.

Unified field theory is one example Einstein's dream of a theory of everything.

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@Cyracuz,

"Time flows independently of you and me"

Quote:

We know that times does not flow independently of matter, and that how time affects things is relative to the speed at which those things are moving through space.

The degree to which a moving clock squeezes up, runs slower, and gets heavier are independent of you and me

Forgive me guys but Geo seems to be the only contributor so far who makes any sense

1 Reply

@dalehileman,

Quote:

The degree to which a moving clock squeezes up, runs slower, and gets heavier are independent of you and me

Is it? What is the meaning or value of a clock without you or me to supply the thing with a purpose. What does it tell if it has no one to tell it to?

The idea of "objectivity" in science, the idea that we can disregard our presence and get true facts, has always been controversial.

Quote:

Forgive me guys but Geo seems to be the only contributor so far who makes any sense

Forgive me, but that is because of your capacity to understand, not our capacity to explain. It seems you have certain expectations that are throwing you off.

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@Cyracuz,

Quote:

What is the meaning or value of a clock

How can its meaning or value have any bearing whatever on the subject of the thread

Quote:

What does it tell if it has no one to tell it to?

Tells what time it is

1 Reply

Math of infinity

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