A refutation of an infinite regress

  • Thread starter Thread starter ChainBreaker
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
C

ChainBreaker

Guest
It’s logically impossible to count to an infinite. Not because it would take you an infinite amount of time to count, but rather it is because no matter how much quantity you have the amount you are left with is always a finite number away from where you started counting. The reason for this is because a true infinite is not a quantity. You cannot complete or fulfill finite numbers. They are potentially infinite but never actually infinite.There is no “number” that can transcend a finite quantity; there is no breaking point from which we can say we have reached infinity. Therefore a finite quantity cannot become an actual infinite.

An infinite regress of events involves finite quantities and that is to say it is composed of a number of events, each event representing the number 1. Therefore the idea of an infinite regress is self contradictory since there cannot be an actual infinite containing quantities that are a finite number away from one-another because you cannot transcend a finite number. An infinite regress by definition transcends all potential finite quantities and thus cannot be a number of events.
 
ChainBreaker said:
It’s logically impossible to count to an infinite. Not because it would take you an infinite amount of time to count, but rather it is because no matter how much quantity you have the amount you are left with is always a finite number away from where you started counting. The reason for this is because a true infinite is not a quantity. You cannot complete or fulfill finite numbers. They are potentially infinite but never actually infinite.There is no “number” that can transcend a finite quantity; there is no breaking point from which we can say we have reached infinity. Therefore a finite quantity cannot become an actual infinite.

An infinite regress of events involves finite quantities and that is to say it is composed of a number of events, each event representing the number 1. Therefore the idea of an infinite regress is self contradictory since there cannot be an actual infinite containing quantities that are a finite number away from one-another because you cannot transcend a finite number. An infinite regress by definition transcends all potential finite quantities and thus cannot be a number of events.
Click to expand...
Actual infinity cannot work the same way as numbers do, but that does not mean that it cannot exist. We just can’t understand it from a mathematical perspective. Don’t some things, especially spiritual things, seem actually infinite, like God’s love?
 
It is true that you cannot get an infinite from any number of finites. This is true, and you’ve explained it very well.

So that leaves two other explanations for the origins of everything:
  1. Everything came from nothing
  2. Everything came from something infinite (i.e, the cause, not the amount of time, is infinite)
 
ChainBreaker said:
It’s logically impossible to count to an infinite. Not because it would take you an infinite amount of time to count, but rather it is because no matter how much quantity you have the amount you are left with is always a finite number away from where you started counting. The reason for this is because a true infinite is not a quantity. You cannot complete or fulfill finite numbers. They are potentially infinite but never actually infinite.There is no “number” that can transcend a finite quantity; there is no breaking point from which we can say we have reached infinity. Therefore a finite quantity cannot become an actual infinite.

An infinite regress of events involves finite quantities and that is to say it is composed of a number of events, each event representing the number 1. Therefore the idea of an infinite regress is self contradictory since there cannot be an actual infinite containing quantities that are a finite number away from one-another because you cannot transcend a finite number. An infinite regress by definition transcends all potential finite quantities and thus cannot be a number of events.
Click to expand...
The set {1,2,3,4,…} is an infinite set.
The number ∞ is greater than any finite quantity.
The set {…, -4, -3, -2, -1, 0} allows for an infinite regress.
 
Tomdstone said:
The set {1,2,3,4,…} is an infinite set.
The number ∞ is greater than any finite quantity.
The set {…, -4, -3, -2, -1, 0} allows for an infinite regress.
Click to expand...
Ontological numbers cannot be -1 since -1 is non-existence. An infinite set is mathematical concept, and ∞ is a symbol describing a potential-infinity as opposed to an actual-infinity.
 
ChainBreaker said:
Ontological numbers cannot be -1 since -1 is non-existence. An infinite set is mathematical concept, and ∞ is a symbol describing a potential-infinity as opposed to an actual-infinity.
Click to expand...
On the IRS forms, -15 is designated as (15) and denotes an amount that you owe. There is nothing more real or ontological than the IRS.
 
Tomdstone said:
On the IRS forms, -15 is designated as (15) and denotes an amount that you owe. There is nothing more real or ontological than the IRS.
Click to expand...
:rotfl: Minus 15 is the absence of 15 in the account you owe it to. -15 in the particular context of debt is referring to the absence of something owed; not a real ontological number.:rotfl:
 
Tomdstone said:
On the IRS forms, -15 is designated as (15) and denotes an amount that you owe. There is nothing more real or ontological than the IRS.
Click to expand...
That means that you owe $15 that you do not have. There is no such physical thing as negative fifteen dollars.
 
blase6 said:
Actual infinity cannot work the same way as numbers do, but that does not mean that it cannot exist. We just can’t understand it from a mathematical perspective. Don’t some things, especially spiritual things, seem actually infinite, like God’s love?
Click to expand...
I was not denying the existence of the infinite, i was denying the existence of an infinite number of actual events.
 
TarkanAttila said:
That means that you owe $15 that you do not have. There is no such physical thing as negative fifteen dollars.
Click to expand...
Not true. IOU slips are just as real as a 5 dollar bill is real. They are both real pieces of paper denoting real quantities. Tell the IRS that the money you earned is not real. There are further examples of the use of negative numbers such as 1 year ago (-1 year) which denotes a real year 2013 that had existed in the past.
Your argument comes down to stating that numbers are not real.
 
blase6 said:
Actual infinity cannot work the same way as numbers do, but that does not mean that it cannot exist. We just can’t understand it from a mathematical perspective. Don’t some things, especially spiritual things, seem actually infinite, like God’s love?
Click to expand...
A note: God’s Love is the Holy Spirit (Love being one of the proper names of the Holy Spirit). God’s Love is eternal because it is God, who is the only eternal.

Usually, infinite regress is regarded with reference to quantity (causal regression of being), and as such, ChainBreaker has fairly well stated why it cannot be from a logical perspective.

There is another type of “infinite” which is that of being itself, of actuality. God would be this “infinite” or “eternal” being. And it can also be said of the angels and us, not with reference to having no beginning, but with reference to unending being, once we are created and actual.
 
Tomdstone said:
Not true. IOU slips are just as real as a 5 dollar bill is real. They are both real pieces of paper denoting real quantities. Tell the IRS that the money you earned is not real. There are further examples of the use of negative numbers such as 1 year ago (-1 year) which denotes a real year 2013 that had existed in the past.
Your argument comes down to stating that numbers are not real.
Click to expand...
What are you talking about?!! IOU slips are real. But that does not mean -5 is an ontological reality; it is abstract. You owe five pounds, thats it, that is all it means. It doesn’t mean there are 5 minus 1’s in actual reality. Its a “negation” not an ontology.

One year ago is clearly not -1.“2013” is a concept. The ontological reality behind it is not “2013”. This is simply a number used for our convenience as we are measuring time in-reference to our needs in a particular context that has nothing to do with the actual number of ontological events that have ever existed. If you counted the number of actual changes or states since the big bang, clearly it does not add up to “2013”.

I am quite simply stunned that you are failing to comprehend something so simple.
 
The question is whether the future, reaching towards infinity foreve,r will ever reach past the infinity of the smallest past infinity? I don’t know if there is anyway for humans to know this…
 
Tomdstone said:
Your answer here shows the frivolity of your argument, which will not be taken seriously due to its shallowness.
Click to expand...
No. It shows the hilarity of your so-called rebuttal. But i am sorry for laughing.
 
Tomdstone said:
Not true. IOU slips are just as real as a 5 dollar bill is real.
Click to expand...


What you have said is true. However, you are comically - almost tragically - missing the point.

But if you’ve managed this sort of audacity, I think the only way to make your error abundantly clear is to spell it out: an IOU is a promise to pay a certain amount of money. It has absolutely no monetary value, especially if you never pay it.

In fact, money is just a symbol for our perception of the value of something else. Money has no intrinsic value, as has been proved time and time again when currencies experience hyperinflation, or are replaced with a different currency. If the US government decides to abolish the dollar, or if the US economy experiences hyperinflation the way Zimbabwe, the Weimar Republic, or Hungary have experienced, the US dollar will not be worth the paper it’s printed on.

So not even money is real. Its value as a currency is entirely subjective.
Tell the IRS that the money you earned is not real.
Click to expand...
I’d like to see what the exchange rate is for negative dollars. Where would a negative dollar have value: Bizzaro World, perhaps?

So if the IRS told you your money is now currently worthless you would believe them? You would believe all the time you spent working for that money is worthless? That’s really what the money stands for - time and/or valuables you have given to someone. And you’ll give that money to someone when they have something that, to you, is worth the money.

Nobody, and I mean absolutely nobody, not even the IRS, works to get money for money’s sake. Money is food. Money is electricity. Money is Internet and things on the Internet. Money is roads, schools, businesses. Money is power. And when it ceases to be any of those things, it’s an artifact and a piece of history. Money is worthless for its own sake.
There are further examples of the use of negative numbers such as 1 year ago (-1 year) which denotes a real year 2013 that had existed in the past.
Click to expand...
Which brings us full circle to the discussion at hand.

No, numbers are not real - in the sense of possessing value or tangibility. Even assuming money has real value, doing sums on a calculator will not put one penny into your pocket. You can’t really possess a “one”, or a “pi”, or a “152,634.56”. Numbers are abstract concepts with no value. They signify tangible things.

Negative amounts of any object signify a deficit - or a lack. They signify a nothingness that can only be filled by the positive number of that object. If I have -6 doors, what that really means is I will only be able to keep at least one door once seven doors have come into my possession, six of which I will give to other people and cease to possess.

In very, very brief: it is not possible to physically, tangibly, or even symbolically own a deficit. Deficit is the opposite of ownership. Deficit is a lack of ownership.
 
TarkanAttila said:
https://imgur.com/jiFfM

What you have said is true. However, you are comically - almost tragically - missing the point.

But if you’ve managed this sort of audacity, I think the only way to make your error abundantly clear is to spell it out: an IOU is a promise to pay a certain amount of money. It has absolutely no monetary value, especially if you never pay it.

In fact, money is just a symbol for our perception of the value of something else. Money has no intrinsic value, as has been proved time and time again when currencies experience hyperinflation, or are replaced with a different currency. If the US government decides to abolish the dollar, or if the US economy experiences hyperinflation the way Zimbabwe, the Weimar Republic, or Hungary have experienced, the US dollar will not be worth the paper it’s printed on.

So not even money is real. Its value as a currency is entirely subjective.

I’d like to see what the exchange rate is for negative dollars. Where would a negative dollar have value: Bizzaro World, perhaps?

So if the IRS told you your money is now currently worthless you would believe them? You would believe all the time you spent working for that money is worthless? That’s really what the money stands for - time and/or valuables you have given to someone. And you’ll give that money to someone when they have something that, to you, is worth the money.

Nobody, and I mean absolutely nobody, not even the IRS, works to get money for money’s sake. Money is food. Money is electricity. Money is Internet and things on the Internet. Money is roads, schools, businesses. Money is power. And when it ceases to be any of those things, it’s an artifact and a piece of history. Money is worthless for its own sake.

Which brings us full circle to the discussion at hand.

No, numbers are not real - in the sense of possessing value or tangibility. Even assuming money has real value, doing sums on a calculator will not put one penny into your pocket. You can’t really possess a “one”, or a “pi”, or a “152,634.56”. Numbers are abstract concepts with no value. They signify tangible things.

Negative amounts of any object signify a deficit - or a lack. They signify a nothingness that can only be filled by the positive number of that object. If I have -6 doors, what that really means is I will only be able to keep at least one door once seven doors have come into my possession, six of which I will give to other people and cease to possess.

In very, very brief: it is not possible to physically, tangibly, or even symbolically own a deficit. Deficit is the opposite of ownership. Deficit is a lack of ownership.
Click to expand...
I couldn’t have said it better.👍
 
ChainBreaker said:
It’s logically impossible to count to an infinite. Not because it would take you an infinite amount of time to count, but rather it is because no matter how much quantity you have the amount you are left with is always a finite number away from where you started counting. The reason for this is because a true infinite is not a quantity. You cannot complete or fulfill finite numbers. They are potentially infinite but never actually infinite.There is no “number” that can transcend a finite quantity; there is no breaking point from which we can say we have reached infinity. Therefore a finite quantity cannot become an actual infinite.

An infinite regress of events involves finite quantities and that is to say it is composed of a number of events, each event representing the number 1. Therefore the idea of an infinite regress is self contradictory since there cannot be an actual infinite containing quantities that are a finite number away from one-another because you cannot transcend a finite number. An infinite regress by definition transcends all potential finite quantities and thus cannot be a number of events.
Click to expand...
What you say is simply not true.
One way of looking at ∞ is to add ∞ to the real numbers and thereby obtain a number that exceeds any real quantity.
Secondly, negative numbers are just as real as positive numbers and they can be used to demarcate time. An infinite regress of events can be obtained by going back in time without limit. If you want to count in years, you can represent an infinite regress in time as {2014, 2013, 2012, 2011,…}. If you give me any particular year, I can give you a year that came before it. That is an infinite regress in time.
 
I’m wondering what Chainbreaker would consider an “actual infinity” to be. Our current models in physics assume that motion is continuous. Consequently, when you move through space (suppose we are considering only one-dimension for simplicity), the Intermediate Value Theorem applies, which essentially says that you pass through each point in space between your starting point and your endpoint. You cannot “teleport”.

Since each dimension of space is modeled by the continuum of real numbers, and there are infinitely many such numbers, you must pass through infinitely many points to move at all. If passing through a point constitutes an event, we have infinitely many events taking place in a finite amount of time. In other words, we found an “actual infinity”. You cannot use calculus at all if such infinities aren’t invoked.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top