Is 1 = 0.999... ? Really?

You and me both, bro.

This is why I warned you a while ago that this thread is in fact only about psychology and not reasoning around the actual topic. As such I’m not surprised that even with your input, when you’re so obviously in a position of expertise relative to others here, you end up feeling like your attempts to inform/explain/teach what you know and they don’t are in vain.

This should be such an obvious red flag to those who you won’t be taught that maybe they’re the problem - but this seems to be what internet debate has become - that this never occurs to them.
Give those who don’t know how to debate quick and easy access to information, and they will use this to quickly skim topics and immediately feel like authorities themselves, unable to know any difference between themselves and those who have properly studied these topics and all those leading up to them in genuine depth over the course of years and years.
Everyone’s an expert these days, with no need to humble themselves by learning how to learn from others anymore, and with such opportunity to proudly share what makes them feel so important with so many other people.

Cognitive biases have never had a better chance to thrive.

Wtf believes what wtf was told to believe:

1.) 0.999… = 1
2.) orders of infinity exist

I dislike generalization but specialization is what becomes the trend nowadays.

Its either a ontological pursuit , a pschochologism, or a profession of mathematical analysis, usually lumped together for others to untangle.

How close to specifications can formerly irreduced quantities can be said to equal to the next numerically significant marker?

Marks on paper are vastly different then the ideas represented there, and even A1 suffers from lack of certain demarcations in that regard.

Ideally, it must be admitted that there are limits that absolutely will prohibit any conclusively quantifiable infinite progression, when science entails the opposite: as an integrate of all sets.

That said, the search goes on for the ultimately reduced quantifiable particle, the so called god-particle.

So named appropriately , but that uncertain absolute is totally identical and not merely relatively so, with the idea of ‘God’.

Yet trillions will be spent , in the name of progress, an engine that resembles more a run-away train that can not be stopped.

But the quest can not be given up for different philosophical reasons then say, the proposition that it is merely to stop-gap the force needed to be applied so that once a body is set in motion, an opposite and equal force needs to be applied to stop it.

That is what pure psychology demands to prevent the ultimate collapse of conscious awareness itself.

The investment requires return, other wise even the philosophical implications will be negated.

And no one goes for that.

And I explained why that’s not the case.

It can’t be in one-to-one correspondence because earlier statements say otherwise.

You stubbornly ignore the stated premises.

I will repeat myself one more time, just in case.

We started with the following situation:

Boy1 → Clone1
Boy2 → Clone2
Boy3 → Clone3
etc

We put the two sets in one-to-one correspondence. We paired every boy with exactly one clone and every clone with exactly one boy. This means that every boy is paired (which means there are no unpaired boys) and that every clone is paired (which means there are no unpaired clones.)

Once you remove Clone1 from the set of clones, you get the following situation:

Boy1
Boy2 → Clone2
Boy3 → Clone3
etc

Boy1 is now unpaired because we removed the clone he was paired with. At this point, there is no one-to-one correspondence between the two sets. In order to restore it, there must be a clone in the set of clones that is not paired – an unpaired clone. But there are NO unpaired clones. We STATED it earlier. And f there were unpaired clones, that would mean there was no one-to-one correspondence in the first place. But didn’t we put the two sets in one-to-one correspondence?

A possible way out is to say that by removing Clone1 a new clone is generated. But the problem with this is . . . that’s not what the word “remove” means. To remove a clone does not mean to remove a clone and add a new one.

Another possible way out is to say that there is no need for an unpaired clone to exist. You can just pair Boy1 with one of the paired clones. But the result of that wouldn’t be a one-to-one correspondence. You’d have a clone paired with TWO boys. One-to-one correspondence requires that every clone is paired with EXACTLY ONE boy.

How can you possibly argue against this?
You can’t.

The best you can do is redefine words to avoid admitting a mistake (on the part of mathematicians, that is, since people who post in this thread are merely following what mathematicians are doing.)

For 1 Magnus, I have repeatedly stated that infinity is not an object, but a process… thus, a new clone is always being created!

But that’s not really the point!

Your bizarre idea that if you add one clone by everyone taking a step back or step forward means that one boy must have 2 clones is absurd, in fact, it’s schizophrenia, it’s psychosis.

The fact of the matter is:

Infinity doesn’t act like the finite. You’re still using arguments as if infinity has an end.

For some bizarre reason, you cannot fathom that every argument of yours in this thread has amounted to: “infinity must be finite”

It’s not too complicated to understand that infinity doesn’t end.

So! If you remove 1 member from the beginning, then if every being on the “larger” column takes one step forward, they’ll all be paired again! That’s how infinity works.

And I have repeatedly stated that infinity is not a process.

It’s my word against yours. How are we going to resolve it?

If we say that the number of people in the world is infinite that does not mean that the number of people is increasing with respect to time.

The word “infinite” does not mean “expanding”.

I am not even sure you understood what I said.

Putting that aside, note that by moving clones around you can neither add new clones nor remove existing clones. “To move” is simply “to change position”. Motion is change in position.

Consider the set of natural numbers (N = {1, 2, 3, \dotso}). You are saying the word “infinite” implies continual increase in size. This means the set of natural numbers is continually increasing in size. So at some point (t_1) in time, the set looks like this: ({1, 2, 3, \dotso}). Then, at some subsequent point (t_2) in time, a new number is automatically added to it. Which one? And I guess the set has been increasing since we first came up with it. Since it has been quite a while since we first invented it, it must have acquired a lot of new numbers by now. I didn’t know that. And then there’s the question of the rate at which it is increasing in size.

Well sure, rate means quite a bit!

That’s why I told you it was primarily a TIME problem before…

Look at this again…

1 —> not correspondent
2 —> 2 (correspondent)
3 —> not correspondent
4 —> 4 (correspondent)

Etc…

If the side with half the “numbers” (as you state) moves four times as fast, then the “smaller” set is the one you declare to be the “bigger” set

I think you missed the part where I said that I disagree with your claim that infinity is a process.

You have to prove that the word “infinite” means what you think it means. I am not seeing you doing that here.

Do you believe the contradiction “completed infinity”?

Why don’t you do some explaining on this for a change!

Explain to me why the COMMON mathematical term for infinity is “COMPLETED! infinity”!!!

The other common term is “BOUND! Infinity”

If infinities are bounded, then they are objects and not processes, if they are unbounded, then they are processes and not objects. See?

Read message above!

Sorry for chain posting. I think mathematicians are not only arrogant, but blatantly contradicting themselves to declare infinities as bounded…

Almost out of fear or lack of self esteem, they need to believe infinity is an object to be controlled. They don’t even care about the DEFINITION of infinity, just though, to feel more powerful in their lives that they feel is insignificant

I don’t know what “completed infinity” is. Or rather, I don’t know what you in particular mean by that term. Perhaps you can help?

Note that you ignored my request to prove that the word “infinity” describes a process and not a quantity.

I refer you to two posts ago…

viewtopic.php?p=2768041#p2768041

I don’t know what you mean by the word “object” but as I’ve said many times in the past I don’t agree with your claim that infinity is a process.

How are you going to prove that the word “infinity” refers to a process?

I am looking forward to that.

Here’s how Google defines the word “infinite”:

Nowhere is it mentioned that it refers to a never-ending process of increase.

My own opinion is that you’re confusing the process of enumerating the elements of a set with the set itself.

The set ({1, 2, 3, \dotso}) and the process by which its elements are enumarated (e.g. a computer process executing a computer program) are two different things. You are trying to deny the former and reduce it to the latter. Not gonna work.

Whether “completed infinity” is a contradiction or not depends on how you define the terms.

You define “infinity” as a never-ending process of increase and you interpret “completed infinity” to mean “A never-ending process of increase that ends at some point”. If we accept YOUR definitional premises, then yes, it logically follows that “completed infinity” is a contradiction in terms.

The problem is:

Why should we accept your definitional premises?

You have YET to prove that the word “infinity” means what you think it means.

Endless. (With a beginning)

Eternity on the other hand means without beginning or end.

Alright.

[s]I’m inclined to think the word “endless” actually means “without an end”. If “mindless” means “without a mind”, it’s only sane to assume that “endless” means “without an end”. (And not, as you say, without a beginning.)

Google appears to be in agreement with me:

But there’s a bigger problem than that.

Even if the word “endless” means “without a beginning”, I don’t see a way to apply it to sets since the word “beginning”, just like the word “end”, is not defined with respect to sets.[/s]

I misread the above quote which is why the above is struck through.

The only part that does not need to be struck through is this last bit:

Take the set of ternary digits ({1, 2, 3}). What’s the beginning of it? And what’s the end of it? Note that sets have no order, so you can’t say the beginning of this set is (1) and the end of it is (3).

So if “infinite” means “endless”, and endless means either “without an end” or “without a beginning”, what does it mean to say that a set has no end/beginning?

It’s actually sequences, not sets, that possess the ability to have a beginning and an and.

The sequence ((1, 2, 3)) starts with (1) and ends with (3). It has a beginning (the first element) and an end (the last element.)

There are sequences that have a beginning but no end e.g. ((1, 2, 3, \dotso)). Such are necessarily infinite.

Then there are sequences that have an end but no beginning e.g. ((\dotso, 3, 2, 1)). Such are necessarily infinite just as well.

And then there are sequences that have no end and no beginning e.g. ((\dotso, -3, -2, -1, 0, +1, +2, +3, \dotso)). These are necessarily infinite just as well.

But there are ALSO infinite sequences that have a beginning and an end e.g. ((1, 3, 5, \dotso, 6, 4, 2)).

Depending on how you define the term “infinite”, it might be a contradiction to say that such sequences are “infinite”. But you can’t deny that they exhibt the same property that what we nowadays call “infinite sets” do – the number of their elements is greater than every integer.

But there’s an even bigger problem than this. You’re actually arguing that the word “infinite” means more than “endless”. You are actually saying that the word “infinite” means “a never-ending process of increase”.

The problem with such a claim is that neither sets nor sequences exist in time. They do not occupy time. Thus, they can’t be one thing at one point in time and another thing (or the same exact thing) at another point in time. They have no temporal existence. Since they have no temporal existence, they cannot change (since change is a difference between two points in time.) Since they cannot change, they cannot increase in size. Their size is fixed. The set of natural numbers (N = {1, 2, 3, \dotso}) isn’t ONE size at one point in time and ANOTHER size at another point in time.

Sequences and sets, being highly abstract concepts, have no temporal existence. But there are special (non-mathematical) kinds of sets and sequences that do have such a property.

For example, the set of apples on one’s table is something that exists through time. Another example is a train – a sequence of wagons. These things have temporal existence but they AREN’T mathematical entities. And this thread is ENTIRELY about mathematics. So there’s no point in discussing them (other than to distract.)

Yet another completely irrelevant concept (:
(Which also does not mean what you think it means.)

Magnus,

You’re playing with concepts in a very sloppy way.

Infinitesimals are surreal numbers or hyperreal numbers.

You think you can use a magic wand to make a number like:

0.333pi3333…

You can’t do that.

One of the big problems you face with your arguments about infinities is that you say that if they subtract, then they can also ADD (but you only bother with subtraction because you think that’s your strongest argument.).

If you stated, 2/3rds tacked on the end of 1/3, you’d be immediately laughed out of this thread!

0.333…0.666…

Everyone would call you stupid.

How about this?

0.333…9

Same thing!

There is actually no known math utility for hyperreals, but you believe them because you can make the sentence! There are an infinite number of sentences that aren’t true:

“Existence doesn’t exist!”

There, I made a sentence! Is it true just because I made it?

Of course not!

You’re writing math that is false (hyperreals)

Is the entire point of your presence here in this thread to delcare that you’re right and that everyone else is wrong?

Sort of like what you’re doing here?

I am still waiting for you to begin addressing my points.