Creation ex nihilo

I think that this thread is about a bunch of variants of the "spurious infinite." The true infinite applies to thought.

Tom, I have problems with your clock example. The abstracted number line is an infinite line of "bips" which have been labeled with a finite set of numbers. If I place these bips into one to one correspondence with the bips of my clock, then I have a redundancy, as they are identical. The number line is real but it doesn't exist, neither does the clock for that matter.

(edited) Actually Tom, I agree with you but I hope you agree that the big bang theory is popular, because most people believe they have an intuitive understanding of infinity. Even Plato had trouble with his forms existing [8D] Flick the universe along the infinite number line and people want to say that its at, let's say, half way along but it is in fact at infinity. It's strange that I've yet to see a universe based on the "tennis ball paradox." (Banach-Tarski paradox.) Now that would be fun []

Perhaps all science students should be given a primer course in logic, and I don't mean those silly, "the moon is made of emanthal cheese" venn diagram sheets that students make paper aeroplanes with [][8D]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Zeno himself argued that motion was impossible because a paradox would exist either way.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
More like Zeno argued that if there were an infinity of points to cross in any length of distance, that we could never reach any distance. Motion would be denied altogether by his reckoning. It's a thought experiment, so by his account to move from a starting point to the next point one could never find that point, because there would always be a point between any point you might consider as the first point to arrive at, and since he conducts this thought experiment within his own time frame, he concludes that motion is impossible if the world is infinitely divisible, for he could never find the first point to move to.

If he argued for anything, it was that the world we live in is quantized. He would be partially correct here, with the coveat that all segments have within their boundries an infinitely divisible composition of nothing at all, something apparently not within his realm of consideration.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by tvanflandern</i>
<br /><blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by rderosa</i>
<br />I don't really even think of it as "something from nothing". I think of it as something from the unobservable, undetectable, to the observable, detectable<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">But then you are not talking about <i>the beginning</i>, but just an event that happened somewhere, sometime. <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Yes, that's true, I'm only talking about that point in time and space that scientists have concluded that the big bang happened, and not really talking about the broader question of "the beginning of the universe" vs. "an infinite universe". Like I said, I got into this discussion somewhat haphazardly in reaction to your statement that the big bang had to be a miracle. What I'm saying in a nutshell is that the big bang could have happened, not been a miracle, and the universe is infinite. What Larry agreed is called the "known universe" under the rules set forth by the big bang theorists may only be a small part of the whole universe, and there is an unknown explanation for the big bang. That's all I was trying to say, and was not really tackling the issue of infinities.

rd

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">The math of infinities finally allows us to understand a way out of those paradoxes, but only if everything is infinitely divisible and infinitely constructible.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
No, it doesn't. The math you're talking about only shows how you can deal with it mathematically by creating certain rules that don't apply in real life.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Something from nothing is the classic example of a logical impossibility requiring a miracle.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
Yes, but I've never claimed that something came from nothing so that's a moot point.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Substance either came from nothing, or it always existed.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
This is a false dichotomy. I've already challenged this statement of yours. Repeating something several times doesn't make it true.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">You arbitrarily chose to label your “first state” as State #1.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
Arbitrarily? There was nothing arbitrary about that choice. I chose to label it state #1 because it is state #1. The first state.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Let’s instead agree arbitrarily to call it State #99. The point is that the transition from State #98 to State #99 requires a miracle by the ordinary meaning of the word.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
Why would I want to call it state #99? It's not the ninety-ninth state, it's the first (hence #1). Even if I did call it state #99, it wouldn't change anything. There is no transition from state #98 to state #99 because state #98 doesn't exist, just like state #0 doesn't exist in my example.

You keep assuming that there is something before the first state, but it's not. The first state is the first state.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">You simply do not accept that ordinary meaning and arbitrarily declare “it just is, but it’s not a miracle”.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
No, I accept the meaning. You don't accept that there isn't any state before the first state.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Does the next state of the universe at the next unit of time add to the first state, or replace it? If the former, then we have twice the substance. If the latter, then State #1 had to pass out of existence. Remember, in your picture, there is no motion, so there is to transition from State #1 to State #2. So what happens to State #1 at time unit State #2?<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
The next state replaces the last, but everything in the universe is the same, it only changes location. The change in location of the particles in the universe constitutes the transition from one state to the next.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Are State #1 and State #2 simultaneous, or separated in time? If the former, then they co-exist. If the latter, then there is an interval, the length of a time unit, which is apparently arbitrary and could be anything.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
Neither. They are separated in order. It wouldn't make sense to talk about time intervals between the different states since it's the transitions between states that constitutes time.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">About that, we disagree. Moreover, you are in disagreement with everyone who has studied and accepts the math of infinities. If I write down one integer and its negative every millennium, and do it for an eternity, there will be a one-to-one correspondence between millennia and integers that is equally complete for both.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
I'm surprised that you would make an appeal to authority since you yourself are challenging the prevailing thoughts about the origin of the universe.

You could never write for an eternity beacuse an eternity will never pass, as I've explained. There will never be an infinite one-to-one correspondence. It's impossible for an infinity to be complete.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">All integers are finite, yet the set of all integers is infinite. All time intervals are finite, yet the set of all time intervals is infinite. All forms are finite, yet the set of all forms is infinite. Note the one-to-one correspondences with the integers.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
As I said before, integers are only an abstract mathematical concept and they do not actually exist. The fact that you can come up with the concept of infinity doesn't mean that it is applicable to the real world. You can't actually even imagine the complete set of integers. You can only imagine that it has certain (made up) characteristics.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">But I just did. Show me where the one-to-one correspondence is incomplete.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
No you didn't! Please show me where you did. You said that you could do it but you didn't actually do it. The one-to-one correspondence is incomplete because you didn't even start, although I can imagine that if you tried, the correspondence would be incomplete where you stopped writing integers and replaced them with dots and an infinitysymbol.

Actually, I could even argue that the set of integers is not infinite at all. The fact that you call it infinite only means that there is no upper (or lower) bound to the size of integers you can create. It doesn't mean that the set consists of an infinite amount of integers. Infinity is not a specific amount, it's a way to describe the mathematical properties of integers.

This might be useful. www.math.vanderbilt.edu/~schectex/courses/infinity.pdf

Note that if we divide a countable infinity by a uncountable infinity we get the answer zero. Some infinities are much much larger than others [] Divide a countable ininity by a countable infinity and the answer is a constant. We can put certain infinities into one to one correspondence but not others, the real numbers for instance.

Playing a hunch, I would think that this bodes ill for the multiverse idea. Bosons and fermions are not playing the same game, I think.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">You could never write for an eternity beacuse an eternity will never pass, as I've explained. There will never be an infinite one-to-one correspondence. It's impossible for an infinity to be complete.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">This might be useful. www.math.vanderbilt.edu/~schectex/courses/infinity.pdf

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I don't see how this invalidates my point. I understand what mathematicians mean by countable and uncountable infinities, but you could still never count all the possible members of an infinite set. It doesn't matter if you call it countable. You can't count them all.

What mathematicians do is that they count the first four or five members and then writes three dots and calls it infinite. This works in mathematics but not in real life. An infinite set in mathematics is only a potential infinity, not an actual infinity. Tom is claiming that the universe is actually infinite, but he has only managed to show that it's potentially infinite.