Consider the following sentence:
It’s possible that time travel is possible.
The first possible refers to the kind of possible you have in mind. The second possible refers to a true hypothetical possibility. The first possible means that we don’t know if time travel is absurd or not. The second possible means that time travel is not absurd and therefore something that can happen in Existence. Just so we’re clear, time travel is absurd. Therefore it’s not possible that time travel is possible. The potentiality/possibility of time travel is absurd.
What’s the difference between that which is hypothetically impossible (married bachelor) and something like a flying horse? One is a hypothetical possibility, the other is not. You should not say “And that makes it not even hypothetically possible”. Married bachelors are not hypothetically possible.
Nothingness/non-existence is an absurd concept. There is no nothingness/non-existence just as there is no married bachelor. So clearly, nothing is not the reality. There never has been nothing and there never will be.
If you continued our discussion in the other thread and replied to my points, you may have come to an understanding what I mean by “the infinite itself”.
I acknowledge this. My reply to you and Wendy, was wrong. There isn’t just one thing in Existence. Nor could there only be one thing in Existence. Existence contains all existing things necessarily.
Why is it worded improperly? You don’t think Existence/the Universe encompasses all things? So…it’s necessarily Infinite. It Is the Infinite Itself. Do you deny its Infiniteness? Or do you deny that It encompasses all things?
You didn’t answer my question. In any case, so you think 1=0. It’s like saying Infinity is nothing. Or infinity = 0. How do you act as though there is nothing different between that which is infinite, and that which is not a thing? How do you treat 1 thing as being equal to 0 thing(s)? How do you treat something like nothing?
So you are saying that infinity and existence equal the two things, EC?
The confusion for me stems from the definition of a thing. I believe a thing has both differences and connectivity between the differences but I don’t consider a difference, a second thing, this otherness per se, but it is looking like that technicality seems important. Just ordered part one of Plato’s complete works so maybe that will shed some light since he covers aspects of religion, unknowns, etc.
And yet we actually do (depending on who “we” is).
Except that it is absurd - for those educated on the subject.
OK -
And if you know enough about flight and the weight of a horse, a flying horse isn’t hypothetically possible either.
So what is your point? Is this going anywhere?
So why did you bring it up as “hypothetically possible even though not the current state”?
Aren’t you the one who said “We are going to have to agree to disagree”?
Since that time I have wondered if by “the infinite” and “infinity” you are referencing all existence. That would be a horrible usage, but maybe that is common for you.
OK then we can drop it.
That just confirmed the suspicion I just mentioned. To you, “the infinite” means “all existence” - poetic but hardly useful in a proof.
I get that way of putting it, if maybe it’s a different way that it can become clearer.
Wendy, infinity is not nothing because 1 is nothing. There are two planes of thought here, and they do not confirm an up and down equivication, because if there is one , it is by definition ex clusively 1.
The other , is not one, because then there are 2.
If there are two, it destroys the concept of the one.
The only way where there could be multiples of The One, is, if all the multiples were 1 and the same
But that us an impossible state if affairs, where sameness of every one would exist.
Why? Because then, every one would be undifferenfiable from each other, and then there would not be more then one, only mire ones. Everyone would think " that one is the same as - pointing to itself, and it is me, over there, like somehow teleporting myself over there.
It would be a universe populated by the reflections of the same.
And sameness would predominate and isn’t the idea of cloning exactly the net result if the etymological flatness effected by post modern technologicAl assimilation?
Our self awareness is becoming less fragmented, by becoming defensively anti- digital.
If is AI who is performing the task of dealing with substantiation of post Decartea doubt. We can never under stand that because of the phenomenoligical prominence of our material brain over the functional split from the effected mind, through the symbolic structural epiphenomenal process that developed through such fractured symbolism.
The whole point of this thread is to highlight that if x is meaningful, then it must either be a hypothetical possibility, or it must be more than just a hypothetical possibility. Unicorns, trees, humans, things that go on forever, can all be accounted for as being hypothetical possibilities. Existence, the Infinite, Perfection, Omnipotence, cannot be accounted for in the same way, despite being meaningful concepts. Thus, these concepts are necessarily at least as real as we are (see OP for more details). In other words, a unicorn may or may not be at least as real as we are. God/Existence, the Infinite, the Perfect is at least as real as we are.
I didn’t. Where did I do this? Also, I stand by the fact that all things that are at least as real as us can be destroyed, except Existence Itself. This is a hypothetical possibility.
Yes, and then you continued to discuss anyway, as did I. And then I felt I was reaching a point where I was able to convey to you why the current mainstream usage of Infinity or the Infinite is problematic…and then you just stopped discussing the matter. You did not address my point. My interpretation for why you stopped, is not that it was because we had agreed to disagree.
Existence and Infinity denote the exact same thing. Again, had you replied to my last post, you’d see that I was getting to prove this point. But you stopped replying there, and here you are suggesting that my use of infinity is horrible, without saying why.
The proof is simple. That which is truly Infinite has no beginning and no end. Existence has no beginning and no end. No other thing can have no beginning and no end. Only Existence is truly Infinite. Trying to sound good or be poetic is not my primary goal here.
For those who only started acknowledging what I’ve highlighted in this thread (Existence Is Perfect/Infinite), it should result in them being better people for at least the following reason: Since they no longer view Existence as imperfect or non-infinite, they are now less unfair or unjust or unreasonable in their view of Existence and how they treat It. Given that Existence Is Perfect, them becoming more reasonable, fair and just, will result in them being better off.
There are a lot of actual dualities that allow discernment as a being that exists.
Motion and objects
This is even in physics as it is in metaphysics. Light is both a wave and a particle. So, in that sense, you are correct about the one becoming two. But to be a sentient being, you can only see one part at once.
Let me give you an analogy…
You know those optical illusion pictures ?
Where you look at it one way and then you look at it another way and you can’t do both at the same time?
Like those pixel pictures that were popular in the 90’s for example. They look like nothing but meaningless pixels … but when you shift your vision, you see a 3D picture.
That’s how existence works. Can you see them both at the same time? No. That’s not how vision works. And that’s not how physics works either.
We know everything is moving all the time, and we also can name stuff as objects. Like a tree or a mountain or a jogger.
Since position is always relative, our measurements are just made up, but they work. We pick a slow constant (like atomic clocks) and they work for our purposes.
Now, I want you to ponder something. You believe that the many comes from the one… let me posit this to you: does the one come from the many?
It’s a different way of putting it isn’t it? Not as easy to use conjecture for.
That which is truly Infinite/unlimited (as opposed to partially infinite/unlimited) has no beginning and no end. It is absurd for Existence to have a beginning or an end. Thus, Existence must be truly Infinite. Things can go on forever because accommodates things going on forever by virtue of being truly Infinite.
The mathematically minded must ensure that they do not contradict semantics. Maths would be better if it clearly distinguished between that which is truly infinite and that which is partially infinite. It doesn’t, so it allows itself to say there are infinities of various sizes. This creates problems. Cantor’s paradox is one such problem. If maths distinguished between that which is truly infinite and that which is partially infinite, it would not have this problem.
To be, again, perfectly honest with you… you’re talking about things that you’re wrong about. I’m sure obsrvr will clarify, if not, I will.
But that’s not the end of my bluntness here… you’re also talking about things that nobody knows about.
Sure, you can posit the highest level of knowledge possible. But you can also posit the highest ineffable.
As Einstein is famous for stating: as a circle of light increases, so does the circumference of darkness around it.
You actually came to a very bizarre corner of the internet where there are very intelligent people. It may be interesting for you to sit with what we say as if it were the absolute truth (each of us). ‘Step into our shoes’ for a moment and build a synthesis from there.
Every religion on earth (even Buddhism) has an eternal damnation, a blasphemy.
This should actually wake people the fuck up.
Over the infinite course of existence in a win/ lose reality, the odds of blaspheming are 100%. That literally means that everyone is going to eventually go to eternal damnation.
It’s more complicated than that (actually worse than that) but I’ll just leave it there for now.
Now, blasphemy is defined as the unforgivable sin… scares the shit out of everyone. The way that the spirit world defined blasphemy is that no matter what you say or do, you’ll never get out of hell.
Now, of course, this is irrational in anything resembling a somewhat beneficent existence where omnipowers come into play.
But there it is… in all their teachings.
And then I get a smug guy like you, who wanders in here and states that we all get what we deserve.
You know why you’re a lucky person? Because I’m not interested in giving you what you deserve from the way you think about these things. You are totally demented if you think any being in an ultimate sense deserves to be in hell ever.
I believe we’re encroaching on the domain of physicists here.
To be clear, what “clear paradoxes” do you have in mind for a non-infinite x?
I’m guessing things like “well what’s outside of the finite x?” etc.
You may not be aware that relativity already solved this one, by discovering that spacetime is not an absolute against which we simply measure lengths (as Newton supposed when constructing his physics from everyday human scales). Spacetime itself curves and warps, and when you try to ask “what’s outside of spacetime itself?” you’re asking a question about spacetime beyond spacetime - and there’s your square circle (which is yet another reason to logically reject the contradictory notion of “the supernatural beyond spacetime”).
This is the way in which we can have all existence be finite without clear paradoxes. We already know how much mass is in the universe, and it’s a finite amount, and we know proportionally how much more there is of things currently made of (the placeholder names) “dark matter” and “dark energy”. We know the universe had a beginning, we’re still working out how it’ll end - the current most popular theory being that its expansion will tend to infinity, but even this says nothing of “actually getting to infinity” - which is kinda impossible from the starting point of finitude that we know existence to have.
You might even be tempted to claim that even if the universe is finite, it can be infinitely divisible, but even this isn’t true due to the limit of the Planck length. We already know x is finite from evidence - it’s not something we need to speculate about through reasoning on unsound premises.
I’m guessing this already kinda messes up the rest of your post, but not everyone is a physicist who is familiar with all of the above - nevermind a topologist. That stuff messes with your brain, with all the curvature of the three (or more) dimensional etc.
I regard a 20th sense to be of a different category to a square circle: the former contingently meaningless (on our current human limitations) and the latter necessarily meaningless.
But regardless, in each case we can conceive of the constituent parts individually - the problem is their conjunction.
The same goes for the infinite: we can conceive of the “finite” and “not that”.
At best we understand “the finite” plus “extrapolation”, but the final result is clearly not meaningful.
To conceive of something is literally “to take in and hold” or “to grasp” (by derivation) - and this is exactly the problem of forcing things into the finite frame of limited human conception. The word “infinity” is like an instruction to go beyond the point that you can go. Obviously we understand everything finite along the way - as far as the point beyond which we cannot go - and no further. We understand the instruction that refers entirely to the exact opposite of the word itself, and entirely in terms of the exact opposite of the word itself. The word itself is null, we can neither concretely contain it within our finite conception nor abstract any meaning as some final point that’s infinite (a contradiction). You can’t “get to” infinity from finitude, hence it being the exact opposite to a necessary trait of anything of which we can conceive. If you’re being strict enough, you should even note that “define” (in order to establish meaning) is directly contradictory to the “infinite” (the non-definite, by derivation).
You have to really break down and pay attention to what’s going on here to see how infinity really isn’t “clearly meaningful” at all. It can only seem that way from colloquial usage.
To confirm your agreement with “perfection” to humans being merely “imperfect human conception of perfection” - I have no issue with your imperfect human conception of perfection being “everyone getting what they truly/perfectly deserve”, as far as this discussion is concerned. Rejoice and worship to your heart’s content by all means. I said myself how “divine perfection” (beyond “imperfect human conception of perfection”, and not to be confused with “beyond perfection” which is not what I’m talking about) would be indistinguishable to us from our “imperfect human conception of perfection”. But just because we can’t tell, that is a function of our human limitations and not a reflection on divine perfection, which presumably must be “beyond imperfect human conception of perfection” without being “beyond perfection”.
My point was that either you’re talking about “beyond imperfect human conception of perfection” - and it seems clear you are not - or you’re talking about “imperfect human conception of perfection”, which doesn’t require anything divine and beyond human conception. So given that it must be the latter, you’re speaking of perfection purely within human conception and therefore with nothing divine and beyond human conception about it. I’m completely cool with these constraints, I just want to be clear of this distinction. It’s Godless, no matter how much reason there is to rejoice and worship the “imperfect human conception of perfection”. You can have one or the other, but not both.
So I think that should wrap up the journey from God through Perfection to Infinity. I did suspect a Motte and Bailey, and it looks like my spider sense served me well.
You probably weren’t intending to do this, but you’re beginning from a conflation of the three, and attempting 3 distinct strategies in the hope that at least one might stick, so as to then validate all 3 by virtue of their conflation, even though each of the 3 strategies are mutually incompatible.
To summarise the conclusions to each of your approaches:
God must have His necessary essence beyond human conception,
Perfection is being presented as entirely within human conception with nothing divine needed, even if it is special,
Infinity is being presented as meaningful by virtue of its constituent parts rather than their conjunction, muddying its status as meaningful - which hopefully I’ve shown to be erroneous.
I welcome any further angles you wish to try, if you have any. And if you’re still unsure about what we’ve covered so far, please feel free to continue to ask any questions you might still have.
It would have helped me and probably many if you had stated that simply in the beginning as a premise to your “proof”. There are people who would object (I don’t know if any on this board would).
Actually I think you are merely using the word in a poetic sense, not a strictly accurate sense. Maths have it right without contradiction (infinite = endless). Your version is a presumptuous poetic extension (Infinity = the universe - merely because the universe is supposed to be infinite in scope - a separate argument that some people would argue against).
But ok. At least I understand that part of what you have been trying to say. And I don’t disagree with it (except for the wording). But also I don’t see how that proves anything.
If we accept that God = existence then obviously existence/God exists - tautological.
I don’t know why you have gone through so much rhetoric about it.
Suppose our scientists observed virtual particles popping in and out of existence. This logically/semantically implies that they exit existence, and then re-enter it. What bridges existence and non-existence for x to pop in and out of existence? How can we describe non-existence as a location that x can enter? We cannot.
Any reasonable/sound scientific theory, ensures that its interpretation of observations made, lead to 0 paradoxes/contradictions. Describing the universe as being all there is to existence, and further describing the universe as having a beginning, clearly logically implies that something came from nothing. Or that existence came from non-existence. Is this not paradoxical? Can a theory be at all meaningful (let alone scientific) when it is clearly paradoxical? Surely scientists cannot meaningfully say, “yes, we just observed the virtual particle go into non-existence, and then it pop back into existence” precisely because such a claim is equivalent to saying “yes, we’ve just observed a square circle”. They must formulate a non-contradictory proposition or theory with regards to what it is that they have observed. For example, they can conclude “perhaps the particle went into another dimension, perhaps it shrank beyond our observational capabilities”. It cannot be that it found a route to non-existence and went ‘there’ (non-existence…the place/thing that does not exist at all). Also, it cannot be that something literally became nothing. x can become y. x cannot become absolutely nothing.
Yes, we are in agreement. Except I think the former is either certainly absurd or certainly meaningful. We just don’t know which. It’s not certainly the case that there is a 20th sense and we are just unaware. It’s certainly the case that we don’t know if there’s such a thing as a 20th sense or not. But we know there are no round squares. Surely, we also know nothing can come from nothing. We should treat the unknown as unknown, and the absurd as absurd. I have seen far too many people (including philosophers and scientists) embrace absurdities in the name of unknowns.
Hume also made a similar point of “not that”. He said infinity is the negation of finite. But how? Not finite does not necessarily mean infinite. It can mean triangle. The opposite of finite is infinite, just as the opposite of light is dark. But these things actually exist. Darkness is the absence of light in any given space. Light is light. Finite is finite, and infinity is infinity. If existence was finite and you were to negate it, you would be left with non-existence, not something infinite. On the other hand, if you were to negate all finite things within an infinite existence, then all you would be left with is something infinite. But this is still not the same as “negating X results in an infinite X”. which is what Hume appeared to have had in mind.
So how did we come to obtain awareness of Infinity if not for Existence being Infinite Itself? Most importantly, the following is crucial:
If we say Existence had a beginning, we would be saying that Existence came from nothing/non-existence. Clearly, to reject Existence as being Infinite, is to believe in something coming from nothing. Again, any theory (scientific or otherwise) must be non-paradoxical. Science cannot non-absurdly claim that the universe is all there is to existence and then say it had a beginning. We cannot escape using Infinity. To deny it, is to allow our belief system to be paradoxical. So, clearly, it’s not just some concept that we’ve created independently of it being representative of Existence. 1 + 1 = 2. This is a feature of existence. Triangles have three sides. Existence is Infinite. These are all features of Existence. The last of which, is per your argument, beyond human conception. But surely we do understood Infinity, such that rejecting it as being descriptive of the nature of Existence, clearly leads to the paradox of something coming from nothing. Does it not?
See above, plus, yes, you cannot expand/count to infinity. If x is not infinite, then x will never be/become infinite. But if x is infinite (as must necessarily be the case with Existence) then x has always been and will always be Infinite. It did not expand to infinity. It just was/is/will be Infinite. This is why we can have things that go on forever. Existence being Infinite accommodates such hypothetical possibilities. Despite this, Existence does not accommodate non-existence, or round squares. There are no holes or gaps of non-existence in Existence. There are no married bachelors in Existence.
Thank you for the summary. Let’s first focus on Infinity and whether Existence is necessarily infinite or not, and then focus on the other points. My overall question is:
Given my reply to you, can you still describe existence as being finite, and at the same time, avoid the paradox of something coming from nothing? If so, how? Space time being curved does not solve this. If the universe is all there is to existence, and it had a beginning, then clearly, it is paradoxically saying, something came from nothing. That time came from 0 time, or space came from 0 space
Thank you. I hope this discussion benefits the both of us.
I apologise for not making it clearer. Premise 5 covered Omnipresence and I thought everyone would have the view that Existence and Omnipresent, logically/semantically denote the exact same thing. It would have been better of me to have not made this assumption.
x can expand forever. x will never become infinite (because in the same way that one cannot count to infinity, one cannot expand to the point of becoming infinite). But there clearly is the infinite. Existence clearly, necessarily, has no beginning and no end. Existence did not expand to the point of becoming Infinite. That which is forever expanding, is not infinite, because, at any given point of its expansion, it has an end. It just keeps surpassing this end. But it never ceases to have an end.Existence just is Infinite. It has never had an end, and will never have an end. This necessary truth, clearly makes it possible for things to go on forever. In other words, because Existence is Infinite, things can go on forever. Cantor’s paradox arises from treating that which has no beginning and no end, as equal to that which has a beginning, yet goes on forever. To expand forever, is clearly distinct to being actually Infinite. To go on endlessly, is clearly distinct from being actually endless. The set of all cardinalities, IS Existence. Which I would represent with the symbol of Infinity. I honestly think if we approached the matter in this way, as in, if we were clearer with our labels of semantics, we would not say things like “there is no universal set” or “there are infinites of various sizes”. Others who do not occupy positions of responsibility, would then not allow themselves to believe that there are no truths, or that reason is fallible.
If maths just acknowledged Existence as being Infinite, and then recognised that things can go on forever purely because Existence is such that it as has no end to it, maths’ confusion over Infinity would be solved.
That wasn’t the clarification I was referring to. But never mind.
I don’t see anyone arguing with that (no need to keep repeating it).
That I don’t see as the problem. But perhaps I haven’t identified the problem.
And I think that might be your misunderstanding (and related to your poetic use of “The Infinity”).
I think it is the clarity of labels that leads to people saying those things.
I don’t think those two concerns are related. I don’t think Cantor’s “paradox” (and I have yet to see it as anything paradoxical) is related to why those irresponsible people deny logic, truth, and reason. I have observed very many people doing that and none referencing Cantor.
Maths has little to do with existence. And it doesn’t deny that existence is infinite (some theoretical physicists and preachers do). Maths is about concepts or ideas. There are many maths concepts that clearly can never exist (such as the “imaginary number”). Maths are used to help predict things about existence by using concepts even though some of those concepts could never exist. People have been doing that forever in many ways. Relativity is a useful fantasy.
From what I have read (and very recently so maybe I am missing something significant) Cantor merely explained that there is no highest cardinality, just like there is no highest ordinal number. He was just saying that the set would be infinite = endless. And because an endless set had no end, it has no highest real point called “infinity”. Infinity is a maths term indicating the imaginary point just beyond the infinite. It is imaginary just like the square root of 2.
Infinity is not part of existence. It is merely a sometimes useful concept (to imply a direction).
If you decide to say that existence IS infinity or that existence IS the set of all cardinalities and that God IS existence, you are actually saying that existence and God are purely imaginary. And that truly is what those irresponsible people repeat as excuse for their irresponsibility. You seem to be cutting off your feet (your broader understanding) to improve your balance (your uplifting and well founded reasoning).
As far as there existing varied sizes of infinities, even I can prove that - and probably even to you (it depends on you being well able to follow those labels).