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Re: Some Questions About God
Posted:
Sat Jul 16, 2016 6:02 pmby Lance
Мастер wrote:Lance wrote:These are all human constructs though anyway, right?
I agree with that. Numbers were not discovered in a cave somewhere, we invented them. We can invent different number systems. Some systems of numbers may be more or less useful as models for real, physical things out there.
Lance wrote:I mean, there is no "infinity" out there somewhere defying definition and laughing at us for even trying...
It should laugh at us if we assign to it properties that are logically inconsistent. (E.g., there is an infinity number that can satisfy my eleven rules.) As long as we are logically consistent, the worst thing any infinity can say is, "that's not me they're talking about, it's some other infinity".
I love this!
So the bottom line here, if I understand everything correctly, is: For
Dragon's proof to be correct, you have to allow for exceptions to the rules of numbers and define infinity in a way that is not generally accepted. Is that it in a nutshell?
Re: Some Questions About God
Posted:
Sun Jul 17, 2016 2:13 amby Мастер
Lance wrote:So the bottom line here, if I understand everything correctly, is: For Dragon's proof to be correct, you have to allow for exceptions to the rules of numbers and define infinity in a way that is not generally accepted. Is that it in a nutshell?
I would say, one way (perhaps not the only way) for the Dragon inequality 1=0 to hold, is for us
not to allow exceptions (specifically, the exception in M5 that every number has a reciprocal
except zero). If zero has a reciprocal (which we could interpret to be "infinity"), and there are no exceptions in the other rules, then I can prove that every number is equal to every other number.
So I would say, the exception in rule M5 is necessary (or some other exceptions in some of the other rules) if you want the numbers to work the way we usually expect them to.
Re: Some Questions About God
Posted:
Sun Jul 17, 2016 3:07 amby Lance
Okay, I get it. Thank you.
So if I reduce the equation completely, it really just boils down to:
Dragon ≠ Correct
Re: Some Questions About God
Posted:
Sun Jul 17, 2016 3:38 amby Enzo
As opposed to Dragon < Correct.
Re: Some Questions About God
Posted:
Sun Jul 17, 2016 3:43 amby Lance
Or that.
Re: Some Questions About God
Posted:
Sun Jul 17, 2016 3:48 amby Мастер
Lance wrote:Okay, I get it. Thank you.
So if I reduce the equation completely, it really just boils down to:
Dragon ≠ Correct
I interpreted the Dragon's argument to be essentially, if you treat infinity like a number, and try to apply the same rules that would apply to numbers, you get results like 1=0. In essence, if you expand your number system to include infinity, and you don't include some infinity exceptions, you end up with a number system in which 1=0.
So I would say Dragon = Correct on this point.
I would say you have three choices. (a) Banish infinity from your number system (or, maintain the zero exception - there is no reciprocal of zero). (b) Include infinity in your number system, but recognise that there have to be some exceptions in the way infinity works. (c) Conclude that 1=0.
(c) seems not to lead to a useful number system, so it might be best to stick with (a) and (b). Most conventional mathematics goes with (a), although sometimes it veers into (b).
Re: Some Questions About God
Posted:
Sun Jul 17, 2016 3:53 amby Мастер
Lance wrote:Who ever said it is a number? I think infinity exists outside the realm of numbers. It is something you can go toward but never reach. Kind of like that one 18 year old blonde girl.
Cruising some of the earlier posts, I found the origins of this discussion on infinity.
We can easily argue that "infinite" things exist in the realm of mathematics, even if we don't call infinity a number. For example, how many real numbers are there? Every real number is finite; there is no real number called "infinity". But there are not a finite number of real numbers. If you try to write them all down, you will never reach the end of the list.
So we can easily say things like "the set of real numbers is infinite". This is different than saying infinity is a number to which you can apply mathematical operations, i.e., you can find infinity plus three.
Whether the universe is finite or infinite, or whether there are infinite multiverses - I don't know anything about that.
Re: Some Questions About God
Posted:
Sun Jul 17, 2016 3:57 amby Lance
Мастер wrote:Lance wrote:Okay, I get it. Thank you.
So if I reduce the equation completely, it really just boils down to:
Dragon ≠ Correct
I interpreted the Dragon's argument to be essentially, if you treat infinity like a number, and try to apply the same rules that would apply to numbers, you get results like 1=0. In essence, if you expand your number system to include infinity, and you don't include some infinity exceptions, you end up with a number system in which 1=0.
So I would say Dragon = Correct on this point.
But doesn't this also produce the number system where all values are equivalent?
Re: Some Questions About God
Posted:
Sun Jul 17, 2016 4:04 amby Lance
Мастер wrote:Lance wrote:Who ever said it is a number? I think infinity exists outside the realm of numbers. It is something you can go toward but never reach. Kind of like that one 18 year old blonde girl.
Cruising some of the earlier posts, I found the origins of this discussion on infinity.
We can easily argue that "infinite" things exist in the realm of mathematics, even if we don't call infinity a number. For example, how many real numbers are there? Every real number is finite; there is no real number called "infinity". But there are not a finite number of real numbers. If you try to write them all down, you will never reach the end of the list.
So we can easily say things like "the set of real numbers is infinite". This is different than saying infinity is a number to which you can apply mathematical operations, i.e., you can find infinity plus three.
Yes. This.
Мастер wrote:Whether the universe is finite or infinite, or whether there are infinite multiverses - I don't know anything about that.
And how do you even define the universe? If it has bounds, what is beyond it? And beyond that? And beyond that? It's turtles, all the way down.
Re: Some Questions About God
Posted:
Sun Jul 17, 2016 4:33 amby Мастер
Lance wrote:But doesn't this also produce the number system where all values are equivalent?
It does, but I think that was his point - "use infinity like a number" ==> "problems"
Re: Some Questions About God
Posted:
Sun Jul 17, 2016 4:49 amby Lance
Мастер wrote:Lance wrote:But doesn't this also produce the number system where all values are equivalent?
It does, but I think that was his point - "use infinity like a number" ==> "problems"
I took it differently. I thought his point was more that infinity doesn't make sense because using it you can prove that which isn't true. And equating infinity to god and the universe, both of which are supposedly infinite and also don't make sense.
Re: Some Questions About God
Posted:
Sun Jul 17, 2016 4:56 amby Мастер
Lance wrote:I took it differently. I thought his point was more that infinity doesn't make sense because using it you can prove that which isn't true. And equating infinity to god and the universe, both of which are supposedly infinite and also don't make sense.
Ah, OK. Well, infinity as a number causes problems, needing various exceptions, but then again, I can't perform arithmetic on "blue" or "angry" either, yet this does not cause me to conclude there are no such things as "blue" or "angry".
Re: Some Questions About God
Posted:
Sun Jul 17, 2016 5:27 amby Lance
Мастер wrote:Lance wrote:I took it differently. I thought his point was more that infinity doesn't make sense because using it you can prove that which isn't true. And equating infinity to god and the universe, both of which are supposedly infinite and also don't make sense.
Ah, OK. Well, infinity as a number causes problems, needing various exceptions, but then again, I can't perform arithmetic on "blue" or "angry" either, yet this does not cause me to conclude there are no such things as "blue" or "angry".
Yes you can.
blue + yellow = green
angry + beer = domestic abuse
Easy peasy.
Re: Some Questions About God
Posted:
Sun Jul 17, 2016 5:30 amby Enzo
Ooooh, I an so angry I could just factor.
If the universe is bound, what is beyond it? If it is the universe, then it is everything, and there is no beyond. "Beyond" would be non-existence.
Probably not what you meant.
I do hear people asking about the big bang, "if the universe is expanding, what is it expanding into?" They imagine like a balloon being inflated in the air, rather than existence itself expanding.
Or... could it be that there already was some form of existence, and the big bang singularity blows up and expands our entire universe into that existence, pushing it away on all sides. I am reminded of the schoolroom science demonstration of surface tension. Sprinkle a bunch of black pepper flakes on the surface of the water so they evenly cover it. Now touch a tiny drop of soap to the center of the water, and WHOOSH, all the pepper flakes rush to the edges.
Re: Some Questions About God
Posted:
Sun Jul 17, 2016 6:20 amby Lance
Well, the big bang was the beginning of space and time yet it is generally accepted that there was a "before" the big bang. For that to be true it would have had to be in a time frame that exists outside of our own; or outside our universe.
The more I think about it, the more I realize that our universe almost has to be part of something greater. Probably something we can never perceive...
Re: Some Questions About God
Posted:
Mon Jul 18, 2016 5:09 amby Enzo
Like the ending scene of Men In Black.
I would have to say there was something to cause the BB. But maybe not in this universe. I personally think there are more dimensions in play in our existence, but they are all part of this universe. What other universes exist? WHo knows.
Here is as good a place as any for my sophomoric notion of the universe. We are baffled by dark matter and dark energy. The dark matter we cannot detect, but infer its presence. It seems to have a major effect on things. My own little hypothesis is that dark matter is just regular matter removed dimensionally from our perception. An example:
Consider "Flatland", a two dimensional universe - a plane. A line across it is a wall to those living there. I can put my face an inch from their plane, and they would never see me, they cannot perceive the third dimension. Now what if I put a large bowling ball of lead a millimeter above their plane. They could not perceive it, however, it would have a gravitational attraction to things in the plane. On a vector basis, the things in the plane would really be attracted to the center of the ball, so at an angle out of hte plane, but there would still be a large component of that attraction along the plane. The closer one got to the ball, or to the epicenter of the ball in the plane, the stronger the gravity. Until you got close. Right direct under the ball, the attraction would be 90 degrees to the plane and thus zero to them. I imagine a volcano shaped curve of attraction. To them, gravity grows as you near the epicenter. but there would be some point in a ring around that where the attraction would start to fall to that center zero. As the vector moves to the perpendicular. So the gravity curve looks like a cross section of Mount Fuji.
Does that make sense? Now what if we in our three dimensions cannot perceive some fourth dimension right "next" to us, and some large mass is there just out of sight. Call it the unseen part of the galactic iceberg. Some galaxy has stars we can see, and all this mass we cannot, because it is simply away from our three dimensions in a fourth direction we cannot see. Things are still attracted to that galaxy gravitationally, like my big lead ball. I propose we look for a gravity profile in a volcano shape. For example dark matter might seem to attract things towards the center of a galaxy, but perhaps right in the center of it, there are anomalous differences. A donut hole in the gravity. More precisely, a hole in the excess gravity we now accord to dark matter.
There may be some fundamental reasons why this idea is totally implausible. But I don;t know them. There may be some cosmological theory which precludes it, or other implications that are unmet and so disprove it. But for now, it works for me.
Re: Some Questions About God
Posted:
Mon Jul 18, 2016 6:17 amby Lance
I'm off to bed now but I will sleep on this. And IIRC, Quantum Mechanics predicts 11 special dimensions in our universe.
Re: Some Questions About God
Posted:
Mon Jul 18, 2016 7:44 amby tubeswell
Lance wrote:... Quantum Mechanics predicts 11 special dimensions in our universe.
Re: Some Questions About God
Posted:
Mon Jul 18, 2016 2:20 pmby Lance
Nice!
Re: Some Questions About God
Posted:
Mon Jul 18, 2016 5:12 pmby Мастер
Ramones?
Re: Some Questions About God
Posted:
Mon Jul 18, 2016 6:31 pmby tubeswell
Мастер wrote:Ramones?
More like Spinal Tap
Re: Some Questions About God
Posted:
Tue Jul 19, 2016 9:37 pmby Enzo
Re: Some Questions About God
Posted:
Sun Jul 31, 2016 8:50 pmby Dragon Star
Lance wrote:Мастер wrote:Lance wrote:But doesn't this also produce the number system where all values are equivalent?
It does, but I think that was his point - "use infinity like a number" ==> "problems"
I took it differently. I thought his point was more that infinity doesn't make sense because using it you can prove that which isn't true. And equating infinity to god and the universe, both of which are supposedly infinite and also don't make sense.
Exactly this, actually.
As for the BB and universal expansion, and what is the universe...I really love me some M Theory, specifically Brane Cosmology. Inevitably collisions between the branes through expansion occurs, giving birth to a BB event. Very simple, elegant explanation of the BB and how everything WE know came from nothing.
Of course the question of what is beyond that still occurs, what started this cosmic foam in the first place...but at the very least there is a graspable concept of how our BB came to be. The other options are a little more obscure, we could be inside of a black hole, or an advanced civilization laboratory experiment, or simply we're the product of a universe simulation in which everything we perceive is not of a natural world at all.
I like to take any of these options over a natural world that was created and is ruled by "God".
Re: Some Questions About God
Posted:
Mon Aug 01, 2016 12:48 amby Lance
You know, what ever you figure we, the universe, everything are, there must always be something beyond it. And where did _that_ come from? It hurts to think about it.
Re: Some Questions About God
Posted:
Thu Sep 01, 2016 9:01 amby Heid the Ba
It's turtles all the way down.
Watch on