There is no infinity associated with discreteness. You got that wrong right there. The battle is between continuous and discrete nature. Between t1 and t2, there are either infinitesimals aka continuous or discrete finite moments aka discreteness. Don’t muddle the distinction.
The solution to Zeno is finite discrete units. Do not confuse math with physical reality.
If the universe is without a beginning, this means an infinite number of events took place in the past.
How is that possible? How is it possible to complete an infinite number of tasks? How is it possible to reach an end of something that is endless?
EDIT: Note that it does not matter WHERE you start traversing an infinite number of points and IN WHAT ORDER you traverse them. The point is that you traversed ALL of them and that you’re DONE traversing them.
God can argue ex-cathedra, but man is only an imperfect image.
An infinite beginning intrinsic in the mind of God, is extrinsic causally from Man, therefore consisting of a cyclically infinite Mobius return as dissimilar to a beginning infinite sequence .
Not merely by definition.
Does not anyone see this?
I can pull out the lengthy proof for this extrinsic argument.
It is not merely a demonstration of another intrinsic absolutel derived from an
extrinsic casual relationship.
And therefore a result of an effected intrinsic device to prove some kind of non referential argument is mistaken
This is analogous of political expediency to try to get out of a simple device, like referring to the ‘swamp’.
Silhouette,
My personal Solution to Zeno (because I think calculus is bullshit and I don’t believe in experientialism) is this:
All you have to do is double the length of the line, then they reach the old finish line in one step. In this way, you can use lesser fractions for different beings to create an actual race.
I don’t know how you manage to get things so backwards.
I am literally unmuddling the distinction between the continuous and the discrete by explaining their difference, and un-confusing math with physical reality by explaining how the former is built on the discrete when the latter is continuous.
I’m doing the exact opposite of how you seem to have interpretted me, and it’s honestly just weird how you managed to do that…
And the whole problem of Zeno in the first place are these “finite discrete units” imposed on continuity - the solution is to treat it in the opposite way: as continuous without arbitrarily imposing Zeno’s infinite discrete fractions of the total distance as conceptual obstacles. In reality, the space between the arrow and its target, or achilles and the tortoise is continuous, and it continues beyond the target and beyond the point where Achilles actually overtakes the tortoise. It’s breaking the problem down into finite discrete units that causes the conceptual problem in the first place. Likewise, you can interpret the time between t1 and t2 as either continuous or discrete - the former will be true to experience, and the latter will be useful for analysis of experience - that’s my whole point, why are you saying it back to me as though you’re correcting some error of mine when it was what I was saying in the first place?
It’s impossible to have a discussion with you because you demonstrate no capability to understand what I’m very clearly and logically explaining - don’t bother talking to me unless you’re going to make the effort to actually understand what I’m saying, I’m not made of straw.
What exactly is it about Experientialism that you “don’t believe”?
And I don’t understand what you’re saying for your personal solution to Zeno. What line are we doubling the length of? What finish line? What one step? What lesser fractions? What different beings? I assume you’re saying about Achilles and the tortoise for this race? I really can’t be sure though.
Sorry Silhouette, I thought it was obvious.
So, the way the paradox is set up… they take a step that’s half a distance to the finish line, then they take a step 3/4 to the finish line. Etc… and they never reach the finish line (absurd on its face if you think of a 100 meters and their first step is 50 meters! But whatever! Let’s go with it!
If you draw a 200 meter line, then the first step (by definition of the paradox construction must be 100 meters (which means they won the original race in one step).
Since the tortuous went first, the tortuous won.
Silhouette, the other way the paradox works is that by the tortuous taking the first step, the tortuous is the finish line!!! That means that Achilles can ever reach the tortuous.
Zeno’s argument is grounded on the premise that space is infinitely divisible. One can argue that the flaw in Zeno’s argument lies precisely in this premise (that this premise is false) and that the rest of his argument is fine. I think that’s John’s position.
My position, however, is that even if we accept that space is infinitely divisible, Zeno’s conclusion does not follow. In other words, his argument is logically invalid.
What Zeno has shown is that you cannot cross an infinitely divisible distance by following Zeno’s algorithm. Zeno’s algorithm consists of making sure that each one of our steps is equal to one half of the remaining distance. This is where I agree with him. You can’t cross a path if you’re trying to walk this way (in the same exact way you can’t cross a path if you’re simply standing in one place.) However, he goes further than this, as he takes this to mean that no other algorithm exists that can allow us to cross an infinitely divisible distance, which means that no motion is possible if space is infinitely divisible. That’s where I disagree.
I argue that one way one can cross an infinitely divisible distance is by making sure that all of our steps are equal in size. If each each one of our steps is (1cm) in size, and if we’re crossing a distance of (1m), it will take us exactly (100) steps to cross it. However, if space is infinitely divisible, this means that (1cm) consists of an infinite number of points, so in order to make a step that is (1cm) in size, one has to cross an infinite number of points.
The question is: is this possible?
The answer depends on one’s definition of the word “infinity”.
Depending on how one defines the word “infinity”, the answer can be either “Yes” or “No”.
If the meaning of the word “infinity” is captured by the contradictory statement “A number greater than every number (including itself)” (Sense A) then one cannot visit an infinite number of points because regardless of how many points one visits there is still more points to visit.
However, if the meaning of the word “infinity” is captured by the statement “A number larger than every integer” (Sense B) then it might be possible to visit an infinite number of points since there is more than one such number. A number greater than every number including itself is only one such number. If the number of points is equal to some other number greater than every integer (not the one greater than literally every number) then one can cross all of the points.
The word “infinite” in Sense A is not the polar opposite of the word “finite”. In other words, if something is not infinite in Sense A, it does not mean it is finite. It might actually be infinite in Sense B.
Gotta love that auto-correct: tortoise → tortuous 
Yeah, just change the metric that you’re dividing into fractions and the problem disappears - increase it from what Zeno stipulates by any amount and poof, gone, even though the scenario itself of Achilles racing a tortoise does not change.
It’s dubious to talk about which of the two takes the first step though. That’s not a part of Zeno’s paradoxes unless you make it one.
The paradox does actually have the tortoise as the finish line, by the way - the whole idea is that Achilles never overtakes it. But yeah, if you insert turn-based steps into the paradox and double the distance being divided into fractions, Achilles would never even move before he lost… but as I was saying - that’s not actually part of Zeno’s paradox, just a modification of it.
Btw, you didn’t answer my question about why you don’t “believe” in Experientialism.
Magnus,
You love that phrase “number greater than every integer”. Unfortunately for you, infinity is not a number, it’s an operator upon numbers.
And thus you are refuted.
You know, I have to say, I enjoy debating everyone in this thread. I think you guys are awesome.
Right. So “3 infinity 5” must be a perfectly sensible mathematical expression (: What’s the result of it?
You don’t enjoy debating, you enjoy talking.
Well…
3 infinity 5 (without parentheses) would mean an infinite number of 3’s with a five that’s separate from the infinite number of 3’s.
Not so hard is it.
Just as saying, of the two representations, the turtle or Mobius, which is the in-verse, that is all forms of turtles up in each other? It is Mobius, …
In verse is not merely lots of ex cathedral talk, for it is not a simulatied archetype ahead of it’s time, but a directly attributtal response to Wittgenstein’s idea of similitude.
In method, the infinitely reproducible artifact, is only limited by the inconceivable scintilla that only a god can conceive .
A god is firmed put of that scintilla, by necessity, to enable man to make ultimate sense of the meaning to the question-why was He created.
I think if you were to search the Tractatus , I am pretty sure more inference could be drawn of the basic hypothetical re: intuitive analytical-mathematical assumptions.
At least one definition in black letter is evident: ignorance of the Law is no excuse.
If he took it to mean no motion is possible to discretely measure if space is infinitely divided, then he’d have been right. Motion is measured in distance per unit time, but if the units of distance are infinitely small we run into infinite numbers to denote motion, which prevents us from discretely dealing with it. The solution is obviously that you need merely treat things in terms of finite discrete divisions of distance that aren’t divided into infinite divisions of distance.
Let’s try not to make this thread into that one.
I mean, John has already shown himself incapable of understanding logic in its technical application to his arguments - so there’s not much to spoil - maybe I shouldn’t have brought up Zeno in the first place, but it was the perfect example to mirror a couple of John’s arguments that try to prove that there has to be a beginning to the universe.
If you can solve Zeno, you know why those arguments of his are false, that’s as far as it needs to go.
Just to wrap up what is meant when infinity is said to be an operator - it is only validly used in mathematics as part of an operation, more like an operator on an operator. This doesn’t mean it’s interchangeable with operators like addition and multiplication etc. - it means it can be used to apply to the number of times you add or multiply etc.
This isn’t up for debate by the way, I’m just quickly saying what math does - nothing more nothing less, no should or shouldn’t, just what math does.
What is up for debate are the arguments that open this thread 
Let’s resume, shall we?
This is actually quite a nice analogy for a conception of the universe defying the need for a beginning or end - in this case with the universe being temporally contained and “flat” (which is how physicists describe the universe) yet simultaneously temporally infinite through a simple half twist along a second time dimension.
But this requires the ability to perform multi-dimensional toplogy in your head, which is probably quite a bit beyond the calibre suggested by the opening post.
Silhouette,
You kinda waved your hands around in your reply to magnus in the first paragraph. More to Zeno’s point, basic math intuitions are insolvent towards basic understanding of what this is for all of us.
Zeno is basically saying “choose math or choose this”
You didn’t really solve anything in that paragraph other than to say “thus it must be finite”
But if you say that, it means you agree with John over gib.
I don’t wave my hands - you know that. I am extremely specific and pedantic, which you repeatedly and correctly accuse me of being.
If you think my conclusion means I agree with John over gib, you’ve misunderstood Experientialism - and you’ve still not said why you don’t “believe” in it.
It’s quite simple: experience is the concrete version of what existence is in the abstract. Experience is observably Continuous Experience, and rationally it is also continuous because there are no gaps of nothingness to divide it up. Yet we routinely do divide it up into discrete experiences (rationalise it into ratios) for explanatory power - that’s what math does when it is used validly. Math gets very messy once you delve into continuous infinites - I know you appreciate that much. I side with math and physics sticking to discrete experiences for the purposes of discretely measuring phenomena in a meaningful way - that’s all I’m saying when I say “treat things in terms of finite discrete divisions of distance”. This is different from saying that math and physics treat the universe as it is, because the universe is continuous and not discrete. It’s saying that it treats the universe differently in order to extract discrete knowledge about it.
Note what I’m saying about how one shouldn’t treat the universe as a whole as a discrete experience with a beginning and an end - this makes no sense as it wouldn’t be everythingness if it was discretely bounded, “with nothing outside of it”. This is where the religious flounder and assert a greater existence outside of all existence in place of this nothingness that would otherwise be outside of a discrete universe’s “bounds”. The universe has no bounds - everythingness is continuous.
What I am saying is that to create knowledge out of continuity (about the universe with no beginning or end), one must conceptually break it down into discrete parts, which have beginnings and ends because you can conceptually work with that. What you don’t do is then apply that back to the universe as a whole because of the contradictions that I just mentioned. You have to convert it back to continuity to get back to the universe as a whole. Scaling our knowledge of discrete parts back up to some “discrete whole” is where John is fundamentally erring.
This is just another way that Experientialism makes entirely consistent sense of everything.
Why wouldn’t you “believe” in that?
Silhouette,
You keep using the term “discrete” much to my point.
Existence has a beginning and end, just like John argues.
Gib argues that it never started. I agree with gib.
I think atheism is much more mysterious than the god John always invokes.
The definition of the word “infinity” is precisely what one of his (I mean John’s) arguments rests upon. It’s unavoidable.
The problem with this discussion is that noone bothers to properly understand what the author is saying. Noone is asking him questions. Instead, everyone is merely assuming (and as a consequence, strawman attacking him.)
Silhuette said,
“But this requires the ability to perform multi-dimensional toplogy in your head, which is probably quite a bit beyond the calibre suggested by the opening post.”
I agree. The mathematicization of philosophy has to break the nominal descriptive presumptions relating to any attempt to pre position- a proof for a re-positional attempt like this. Therefore, an inversion or counter proposal has become a fitting and likely necessary model.
The Theistic/atheistic breakage still
figures in the conflated , undifferentiated world of basic modeling. What John is attempting to do is to regain an epoch(epoche) of a regression, whereby he can draw attention to the fact, that if he were unable to demonstrate the “impossibility of an unlimited to totally absolute level of regression” he would be open to the charge of severe structural damage.
That is to say, he couldn’t want to admit a problem of accepting an identifiable damage in reference to ‘God in Himself’ since that would severe damage to a personal (Das Sein) severance, and he may suffer consequential problems that befell the great philosophers, who dared thread similar grounds; but in John’s case it is an honest attempt to try to describe and interpret the problem, rather than to actually retain the momentum to reassert the claim Saint Anselm made, which has become a seriously contended probability of late.
I don’t think anyone is trying to place anyone on a downward incline and push him off the slope, its merely a showing of how strongly emotional the issue of God’s existence has tried to overcome the great 19th and 20th century’s explosion of rapid industrial progress.
Discrete is the opposite of continuous, what’s wrong with using the word?
Okay, lovely.
My point is that the universe is continuous therefore beginnings and ends don’t apply.
If you want to make useful and meaningful sense of the universe, you have to change it into something it isn’t: a collection of (discrete) parts that interact, which in turn have their beginnings and ends however we decide to define them for maximum perceived utility. This doesn’t mean the universe actually is a collection of parts, only that it’s useful to think of it that way. It’s an error to take this dissection of the universe, scale it up to the scale of the universe itself, and then speculate about what’s “outside everything”. If you make this error, at best you’ll meaninglessly conclude “nothing” is outside everything, and at worst you’ll anti-meaningfully conclude that there’s even greater existence outside of all existence. Ideally, you won’t even make that mistake in the first place, and you’ll undo your conceptual dissections (of Continuous Experience into discrete experiences) and get back to the universe as continuous - no beginning or end.
There’s literally no holes in using Experientialism like this to get to correct answers and to get to the bottom of misguided threads like this.
You’ve STILL not said why you don’t “believe” in Experientialism.
“A number larger than than every integer” is what 14 Cosmological Arguments for the Existence of God rests upon?
Are you sure?
Not true. I began my contributions to this thread by thoroughly dissected his first argument line by line in ways that he’d agree with, and he hasn’t said he disagrees with the meticulous way that I did it. What he disagrees with (or rather “dislikes”) is the lack of logical consistency that I’ve pointed out results from dissecting his argument.
What I got in return was a complete ignoring of my points, or blanket claims that they don’t exist/are weak with zero further explanation, and accusations that I’m the one making blanket claims without any further explanation, which is the literal opposite of what I’ve been doing.
I went to great lengths to parse what the author is saying, and I received nothing but bad faith. This is why I’ve concluded that nothing constructive can come from this, and why I’m largely avoiding any contact with him and instead only engaging others.