Creation ex nihilo

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Fopp</i>
<br />Integers don't exist, the physical world does. ... the same mistake as you in not seeing the distinction between actual and potential infinities.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">I thought I had a vague idea what you meant by this distinction, but my hunch was wrong, given that you deny that integers exist. Apparently, you deny the existence of all concepts. I see no justification for that, especially because time, space, and scale are concepts, not physical entities. So by extension, you deny all existence. ??? -|Tom|-

<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 jrich</i>
<br />The infinite series explaination does not answer the fundamental question: <i>How do you cross the street without traversing the infinite?</i><hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">You do traverse the infinite.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Or to put it differently: <i>Since traversing the infinite is impossible, how does one cross an infinitely composed finite distance?</i><hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Ignoring your premise and addressing your question: Each distance step is traversed in a comparably small time step, as Larry showed. The ratio of distance interval to time interval remains constant for all steps, however small. So the infinite distance series and the infinite time series both have a finite sum which is reached in a finite time. Hence, motion is possible. -|Tom|-<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Tom, the problem as I see it is very simple. The infinite series as you are using it is a potential infinity. It is not strictly true that adding the terms iteratively collapses to a finite sum, it only <i>approaches</i> the sum. It is only when all of the terms are treated as a completed infinity that they sum to the finite value. The difference is similar to the distinction between a created universe that exists eternally in forward time and an eternal universe that has alway existed.

Consider that for the completed infinitely composed particles of MM there is no smallest particle. As you have ably explained many times if one attempts to find the smallest particle by iteratively dividing some particle of finite size you will never complete the task. An eternity will not be enough time to complete the task, because an eternity can never completely pass. It is truly unbounded. A corollary of the fact that there can be no smallest particle is that no particle may be completely decomposed. For how can it be otherwise, if there is no final component that may be disposed.

Now consider the statements above but substituting distance in place of particle. They are true for one if they are true for the other.

But this should not bother us since there is never a need to completely decompose a particle or a distance. It is sufficient to decompose it to a size that exhibits the properties that we need. If a particle seems to truly disappear it is only because its disassembled components are too small to interact consequentially with larger particles. Thus it appears that particles have a limited scope of influence with respect to other scales both much larger and much smaller than the one in which they inhabit. This limited scope means that coincidence need not extend to all the infinite components existing at the proximity of the point of contact. Therefore, there is no need to squeeze out the separating distance all the way down the infinite scales. In any case there are no hard edges, no clearly defined boundaries that extend infinitely downward where one can say that the particle ends and something else begins. As a further complication we must consider the fact that in the completed infinity universe of MM there is something always in coincidental contact with everythng. Everything is being touched by something at some scale everywhere all the time. There are no true voids. Movement fundamentally then involves rearranging things, pushing things out of the way.

JR

I'm toss in another possibility as to how it is we can get from one place to another.

We are all sitting here in what amounts to nothing at all, buttressed by finite geometric representations of it. Such that these geometric representations are composed of nothing, and that is all that there is. We can move from point A to point B without fear of halfway points, because there are no halfway points in a sea of nothing, and the geometric representations are finite. In other words: We would always cross through a finite number of geometric representations from point A to B, in an infinite sea of nothing that (can) be infinitely devided. The key point here is that nothing (can) be devided up infinitely, but it isn't. Hence we as finite creatures can move from point A to B, because the distance from point A to B is composed in a finite geometric fashion.

Well, i for one, am completely confused again [] Aristotle looked at potentiality and actuality. Remove the forms of determination from something and we are left with potential. This is Aristotle's matter. Gold for instance, is matter and form, explicit. Matter can be potentialy gold, it's implicit. Note that Aristotle does not believe that the universal forms exist. Note also that he's not talking about the universal categories as apply to being, he is talking about actuality, with the clear understanding that actuality and existence differ.

We cannot have completed infinities, we cannot have potential infinities. Reason splits the world into existence and reality. The real doesn't exist but neither does existence have reality. However when we look at the real, we see it actualised time and time again in existence.

The number line doesn't exist; aha!! say a lot of people on this board, it doesn't exist, so bin it [] Using spurious reason to deny reason itself, is not to my mind, a fruitful use of time. The number line doesn't exist, it's REAL!

There's no doubt that Cantor was working on a universal theory of everything. Let's look at the Lorenzian for matter contraction.
(1 - v^2 / c^2) ^3 / 2 Somehow this relates to Cantor's matter monads and aleph null (countable). The Lorenzian for radiation contraction, (1 - v^2 / c^2) ^1/2 This relates to Cantor's ether monads and is aleph one (uncountable)

Speed of gravity, it's complex, also for it to explain the hyperbola for entropy , it needs to be a contracted natural log function.
Log base e [ 1 - ( 1 - v ^2 /c ^2 ) ^1 /2 ]

Is this a third "substance" that has aleph two qualities? Can Cantor's project be completed? I've no idea but it looks like a possible avenue of exploration. Let's face it, Einstein's attempt at unification was/is a complete disaster, maybe Cantor's will fair better.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">I thought I had a vague idea what you meant by this distinction, but my hunch was wrong, given that you deny that integers exist. Apparently, you deny the existence of all concepts. I see no justification for that, especially because time, space, and scale are concepts, not physical entities. So by extension, you deny all existence. ???<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
Time and space are not just concepts in your head. Time and space consist of physical entities. If you have 1000 rocks you can assign each of them an integer, but surely you must realize that there is a difference between the rocks and the integers. You have an infinity of integers to assign to each rock (because they are mere concepts), but you can never have an infinity of rocks.

The rocks (and other things) are what constitutes space and the change in position of the rocks constitutes time. Integers don't need rocks.