Creation ex nihilo

I see that I mis-attributed a quote above.

My apologies to both. I will review my post and see whether I need to replace it, reword it, or remove it.

LB

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
In MM, after you have gone down in scale by a factor of a googleplex (an unimaginably large number), and you stop there and look around, you see essentially the same kind of universe as you see at our scale, differing only in the details. And you still have an infinitely great way to go.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
Tom: you're not telling me anything new here. I've been down this path many times before, as most anyone else has. I understand your analogy exhaustively. In fact I understood it as a preteen. []

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Your mind isn't letting you treat infinity as literally unbounded.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

And you're not letting you're mind tell you that the Meta Model has that under lock and key. i.e. All scales are there, every single last one of them. There are no scales that are missing. We (must) come to nothing in an infinite sequence of smaller and smaller scales by fiat under this model.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"> You keep suggesting that it leads to a smallest particle.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Actually I'm telling you it leads to nothing. I might have called it the smallest particle, but I assumed you would understand when I said the smallest particle would ammount to nothing, nada, zero size. 1 - 1/2 - 1/4 - 1/8 ... = 0

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">But the "distance" between the smallest particle you can imagine and infinitesimal is still infinite, just as the speed of gravity (at least 20 billion times the speed of light) is no closer to infinite speed than a snail's pace.


Keep going back to the integer analogy or the infinite series analogy, which ever is appropriate. All integers and all scales are finite. Yet the set of all integers and the set of all scales are both infinite.

Here's one more angle to approach this. As you go down in scale, you are not getting any closer to a fundamental particle or building block, or any closer to an origin, or any closer to anything other than the next scale down. There is no evolution (meaning progressive change, as opposed to cyclic change) in scale, just as there is none (overall) in space or time. So you cannot get closer to a "smallest possible particle" because none exists, in the same way that a googleplex is no closer to infinity than is any other integer. -|Tom|-
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

All of this becomes mute in the Meta Model wherein the universe
<font color="red"><font size="6">IS</font id="size6"></font id="red">
infinitely composed. You are not relating to the Meta Model in any way with your analogies., for these are all finite representations, rendered meaningless by the Meta Model which bares the mark of infinity.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Skarp</i>
Actually I'm telling you it leads to nothing. I might have called it the smallest particle, but I assumed you would understand when I said the smallest particle would ammount to nothing, nada, zero size. 1 - 1/2 - 1/4 - 1/8 ... = 0<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">I think I understand what you are claiming now. You are claiming that because this infinite series converges to 0, that proves that infinitely dividing a particle, if it were possible to do so, leaves Nothing. So what. This is no more surprising than saying that if I have an apple and you take it away I don't have an apple anymore. Again, what's your point?

JR

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Larry Burford</i>
<s>[Skarp]</s> [JR] "I have expressed to Tom in the past that his use of the infinite series in trying to explain MM concepts is problematic and can be a cause of confusion ... "

Could it be that <s>he is</s> you are experiencing (or did at one time experience) the confusion <s>he worries</s> you worry about above, and <s>is</s> are just trying to save others from it?

No single explanation for just about anything is going to work for everyone. And the more exotic a concept is, the fewer people are going to be satisfied by any given explanation.

You should rest easy, <s>Skarp</s> JR. Most of us seem to have no confusion about this.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Actually, I have a problem with it because it is just plain wrong. The infinite series explaination does not answer the fundamental question: <i>How do you cross the street without traversing the infinite?</i> Or to put it differently: <i>Since traversing the infinite is impossible, how does one cross an infinitely composed finite distance?</i>

JR

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">I think I understand what you are claiming now. You are claiming that because this infinite series converges to 0, that proves that infinitely dividing a particle, if it were possible to do so, leaves Nothing. So what. This is no more surprising than saying that if I have an apple and you take it away I don't have an apple anymore. Again, what's your point?<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

The point is that the Meta Model is in the same situation, because it states that the universe is infinitely composed. Composed of what you might ask? The answer is that it is composed of it's fundamentality, which is nothing. Nothing being the answer to the completeness of it's infinite composition. The point is that if the Meta Model is incorrect than something else will carry the torch.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Skarp</i>
The point is that the Meta Model is in the same situation, because it states that the universe is infinitely composed. Composed of what you might ask? The answer is that it is composed of it's fundamentality, which is nothing. Nothing being the answer to the completeness of it's infinite composition. The point is that if the Meta Model is incorrect than something else will carry the torch.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">You have only shown that an infinitely composed particle decomposes <b>to</b> Nothing (x/infinity = 0). You have not shown that an infinitely composed particle is composed <b>of</b> Nothing (0 * infinity = x, x &lt;&gt; 0). The second does not follow from the first and is in fact false. For if 0 * infinity = x for any x &lt;&gt; 0, then 0 * infinity = y where y &lt;&gt; x. But then x = 0 * infinity = y, so x = y which is inconsistent.

JR