Entropy can be reset to initial or previous state

“Hilbert’s Hotel is a joke for the simpleminded.”

Yeah well it’s better than hotel california… because you can check out any time you like, and you can ALWAYS leave.

Buh dum tshhh

thank you, thank you. Really, you’re too kind. Thank you.

“that wasn’t even funny, dude” - ilp

“omg. if you read Aristotle’s poetics you’d recognize the peripety there. Duh. The comic tells a joke which isn’t funny at all, and in making a histrionic display of appreciation for telling it, he doubles his idiocy and becomes the brunt of the joke himself, thus creating the sense of the comic.” - prom75

hey lemme squeeze this in during the interim…

taken from this excellent article: academia.edu/1455334/WITTGE … SET_THEORY

for all this technical talk, the moral of the story is really rather simple. wittgenstein is suggesting that we are bewitched ‘metamathematically’ when we take an otherwise perfectly sensible language of rule governed abstract symbols - in this case numbers - to use for quantifiying our experiences of things, processes, events, durations, etc., … all of which are finite and limited experiences - and naturally mistake the intensional use of the language as a proper representation (or i should say evidence for) of an actual, extensional instance of an ‘endless’ experience (e.g., counting infinitely). we extend the rule beyond our experience of what the rule can yield as extension in normal experience, and imagine that to simply continue to follow the rule would necessarily result in an extension of the infinite. but he points out that endlessness can’t be done, and is therefore a senseless notion despite it being perfectly logical that the rule (intension) should produce an infinity if it is simply followed through endlessly. it’s that concept of ‘endlessly’ that gets us all befuddled. we are writing a list… and we stop. we’ve created a set. but why should’t we be able to list without ever stopping? it’s here that the intensional and the extensional intersect and create the confusion. the extension of the list is completed whenever the listing stops. it reaches an extensional terminus, so to speak, while its still possible to continue with the rule indefinitely. therein lies the bewitchment.

so think about that quote above, again. he says ‘no such thing as all numbers’. you will never complete a finished set of all numbers… but what you can experience directly is applying the rule. following the rule in a direction toward infinity is only ever an ‘approach’, as sil put it. if one insists that an ‘actual’ infinity can exist, well this is some kind of quasi-platonic realism so far divorced from empiricism that it’s… well it’s just fucked up, man. wtf.

I disagree that it is merely language and “abstract notation” that brings the conclusion that there are things (although not objects per se) that have infinite qualities, such as distance. To suggest that what is true is ONLY what we have experienced directly is to say that we have NO capacity for conscious awareness beyond our eyes and ears, that we are but forest animals.

It appears that Wittgenstein is denying that at least some people can reason. And I must point out that he, himself, is using that very same reasoning in defense of the notion that it shouldn’t be used as reliable evidence.

I am really getting the impression that the guy wasn’t all that bright. And I will say again that it is politics that dictates reputation, not performance. Perhaps the politics of that era had incentive to promote the lack of effort to believe in reasoning and science. In fact, I have little doubt of that.

What religion was Wittgenstein? I could look it up, but the question is mostly rhetorical. I think about such things before taking anyone’s reputation and their preaching very seriously.

he was a rastafarian. why? you don’t think rastafarians do honest philosophy? omg that’s so ad hominem.

When you hear something that seems to not make sense and you have to rely on thier reputation, you must then examine their politics and religion.

I don’t think that philosophy should be a product of ad hom. But reputation IS ad hom. If you say that because he has such a strong reputation he should be believed (which you have done) then you have already invoked an ad hom argument, merely in his favor rather than against him.

His reasoning or logic should stand alone. But it doesn’t appear to do so. He seems (by your own account) to be proposing the axiom that unless we directly experience something, it doesn’t exist. And that presumes complete inability to logically project. Science is a demonstration that logically projecting works extremely well when carefully checked for errors.

As it stands, what is said about him testifies that his words are contrary to the evidence that we have directly experienced (technology). His argument is defeated by his own proposition.

very nice, 524, and indeed true. the ad hom works both ways, and i do brag on W quite often, but i’d never encourage anyone to take his word just because he’s like grease lightening. i’d expect people to also notice and give some consideration to the peer review his ideas have received by other major philosophers, typically in the analytical tradition. but therein lies the rub; if you aren’t big on the analytical tradition and its history, you’d probably not find the significance of his thought.

That isn’t the problem.

That’s some hobby you got there. :open_mouth:
I do think your analysis of JSS is correct… his arrogance on his own ideas hindered him from listening to others… because he was right. Were his theories ever peer reviewed or proven?

Politics? I dabble too, but on the fence between volunteer and career.

Well… why not.

Lol… but it is funny. :laughing:

Ah some content, I knew I could find some somewhere in amongst the accusations - got faith in ya, buddy!

Who said the rule changed? The rule is the same, but the result it would get to, if it could, is not. One endless string of "1+1"s is not endless more than another endless string of "1+1"s. They’re both endless…

I get your simple mistake, instead of concluding that infinities result in paradoxes, you represent infinities paradoxically. Endlessness going on further than endlessness? - nice try, but no.

We already had plenty of content:

Did you think we forgot?

No. It’s amazing how you don’t see the connection here…

Like I just said, the rule doesn’t change for how you construct these sums, but what you get differs depending on whether they’re sums of a finite or infinite series:

This method is fine while “…” is a finite number of "1+1"s. Agree for finites, but disagree for infinites - like I already covered - not because the construction is different, but because what you tend towards defies this [n] structure you’re imposing on it. That structure is valid for finites because by definition they have ends to distinguish [n] from [n+1] but infinites by definition do not…

You’re distinguishing one endless string of "1+1"s from another during the course of the same summation i.e. imposing a bound: a finitude - to separate an endlessness in the middle of its endlessness.
It’s as though you’re saying that continuing an endlessness on a new line makes the endlessness different. New steps in the same endless process don’t give ends to an endless process.

Again, the method you’re using is fine while “…” is a finite number of "1+1"s that justifies a distinction that could be validly represented by the structure of [n] followed by [n+1] and so on.

More of the same.

More of the same - building contradictory assumptions to produce a contradictory result.

It’s like, because you don’t understand the basic distinction I’m making in your third grade elementary maths, you don’t think I get the elementary maths… even though I keep saying I agree with the elementary maths only for finites. I’ve been saying all along you’re using your intuitions about finites to apply to infinites. But somehow, because I’m showing you something you don’t seem to understand, “I’m distracting” from what you understand. So, to you, my explanations of what you don’t understand have been attempts to “forget” that we need to stick to your elementary mistakes. When you graduate from third grade elementary maths and eventually get to infinites you’ll see the difference (clue: it’s in the name!)

The alternative that you’re completely missing, that there’s something you’re missing, is what I’ve been covering all this time - but it all just completely bypasses you… how are you ever going to grow? At this point you’re making it very clear that learning and growing is not your intention. All I can do is continue to try and show you where you’re going wrong and put up with the presumption that if someone else is seeing something that isn’t covered by your understanding, they either don’t understand your understanding or are trying to distract from it. Your lip service to finding presumption “sinful” and understanding infinities is just that: lip service.

That was almost a definition. One times ANYTHING is that same thing. It doesn’t matter what that thing is. There is no “approaching”. It is a simple defined concept times one.

If infA = (1+1+1…+1) then
1 * (1+1+1…+1) = infA

How could anything be simpler?

Agree :slight_smile:

Now build on that simple definition to the point you’re missing that I’m trying to explain: is (1 * ) more or less endless than (2 * ), or even (n * ) ?

For finites it’s obvious: the ends of a series that equals “2n” get to twice the finite quantity more than the ends of “n”.
For infinities the paradoxes emerge: there are no ends of “2n” to be quantitatively twice as endless as the ends of “n”.

So that was NOT the first line that you disagreed with. You agree that it doesn’t matter what “…” stands for when you simply multiply by 1.

I think what you are trying to say is that you first disagree with:

Right?

I definitely disagree with the meaning that “2 * ” provides, as if you can be “twice” as endless as endlessness, and I definitely disagree with dividing endlessness into arrays of [n] and [n+1] etc. to get there (like you do with “1 x (1+1+1…+1) = infA[2]”).

I can’t currently see any definite issue with “1 x infA = infA”, but I suspect that issues could maybe arise through using the finite “1 x” part to insert finitude into the infinite expression of “infA”.
“1 endlessness” seems strange as it combines finite quantity to a quality that defies finite quantity by definition. So I’m warey of it, but provisionally I’ll allow it depending on what you do with it.

This is it, 524. Time to do this, man. You own it, you better never let it go. You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow. This opportunity comes once in a lifetime…

Ok, a hair of progress. :slight_smile:

Now, do you agree or disagree that the whole number set, infW, is smaller than the real number set, infR?

Realize that if you disagree, I believe that you are going to be disagreeing with almost the entirety of maths professionals.

…a pivotal nail-biting moment of a crossroads.

I mean, this is what I’ve been saying for a while now, but I’m glad you now see it as progress.

Which is worse? Disagreeing with almost the entirety of maths professionals, or disagreeing with almost the entirety of physics professionals by denying both relativity and the laws of thermodynamics? I think we’re both way past appeals to authority fallacies here.

Not a distraction, just something to bear in mind when we eventually apply all we’ve learned back with the topic of this thread.

If my logic is right, there’s something wrong with “infW” being smaller than “infR”, and authority doesn’t override that. Logic can though - so let’s get to that. I’m fully aware that there’s something I might be missing that elite mathematicians aren’t - but there needs to be a logical explanation from you that doesn’t contain contradictions, like we’ve had so far. I’d be quite happy to accept one if you have one, once you have it. Repeating anything you’ve already said doesn’t cut it for reasons I’ve explained a great many times by now. I’m looking forward to it :slight_smile: