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Charlemagne_III
Guest
How do you distinguish relations from interactions?
Does the past not interact with the present? Does the present not interact with the future?
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Does the past not interact with the present? Does the present not interact with the future?
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thinkandmull
Guest
That’s interesting… tell me more
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thinkandmull
Guest
A clock.
I thinks its a measure that can be measured, or even more than thought. I think time may be a real thing created by God
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JuanFlorencio
Guest
Charlemagne, Thinkandmull,
Time is the comparison between two movements. You can observe, for example, a car that moves from point A to point B. You obtserve too to movement of the hands of your clock, which is usually taken as the movement of reference (for every measurement you need a reference). And when you say that the car took one hour to move from point A to point B, all you are saying is that the car moved from A to B while the big hand of your clock gave a complete turn (or revolution? I don’t know how to say it).
Now, every comparison is a relation. That is why Time is just a relation. Ok?
Regards
JuanFlorencio
Time is the comparison between two movements. You can observe, for example, a car that moves from point A to point B. You obtserve too to movement of the hands of your clock, which is usually taken as the movement of reference (for every measurement you need a reference). And when you say that the car took one hour to move from point A to point B, all you are saying is that the car moved from A to B while the big hand of your clock gave a complete turn (or revolution? I don’t know how to say it).
Now, every comparison is a relation. That is why Time is just a relation. Ok?
Regards
JuanFlorencio
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
The nature of time has been debated for many centuries. There is a brilliant study of time by St. Augusrtine in Book 11 of his Confessions. Is time merely a concept or a thing that can be conceptualized? Some people take it to be a concept only because it seems to be purely a “relation” or measurement of movements.
I would agree that time is not something you can put in your hand or study under a microscope or on a petri dish, but I still think it is a thing rather than a purely mental construct for the simple reason that time has existed since the start of the universe and the evolution of the universe can only be described as events that occurred in time, not in my concept of time but in actual time. Time I take to be a dimension, much as space is a dimension that cannot be put in your hand either, yet it exists in its own right and has existed since the s tart of the universe. If we did not exist, both space and time would continue to be in force as dimensions through which the universe passes.
ericrosenfield.com/time.html
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JuanFlorencio
Guest
There would be change, but not time.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
Time is also discussed in the Catholic Encyclopedia.
oce.catholic.com/index.php?title=Time
Whether time is purely subjective, or objective, or subjective/objective has never been fully resolved. It is still being vigorously debated by scientists and philosophers.
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thinkandmull
Guest
Zeno’s angle of this question is easily answered.
However,
This is not really a “paradox”, I believe.
Extension is nothing other than evidence that God can make the equivalent of square circles.
How can a hare, taking half-way jumps towards a point, never reach the point even though he is ever getter closer to it?? Lines are BOTH infinite and finite at the same time. This is not different than having a square circle.
Is motion logical though? The hare stopping at the halfway points is accidental to the question, since it is not about there not being enough time. It is about the fact that there is never a point at which one step will arrive at the destination. There is always a halfpoint to stop at or pass over first.
Another way of seeing this is to take a marble. Cut it in half. Then cut one piece in half, ect ect. until you can’t go any further. You have to reach an end because the size of the marble is in a way finite, like a line. Now line up all these parts biggest to smallest, each one half the size of the one to its left. Now, put your finger to the part farthest to the right. What are you touching? Is it extended? If so, then you didn’t divide far enough. See? God somehow, in creating extention, made things finite and infinite at the same time.
However,
This is not really a “paradox”, I believe.
Extension is nothing other than evidence that God can make the equivalent of square circles.
How can a hare, taking half-way jumps towards a point, never reach the point even though he is ever getter closer to it?? Lines are BOTH infinite and finite at the same time. This is not different than having a square circle.
Is motion logical though? The hare stopping at the halfway points is accidental to the question, since it is not about there not being enough time. It is about the fact that there is never a point at which one step will arrive at the destination. There is always a halfpoint to stop at or pass over first.
Another way of seeing this is to take a marble. Cut it in half. Then cut one piece in half, ect ect. until you can’t go any further. You have to reach an end because the size of the marble is in a way finite, like a line. Now line up all these parts biggest to smallest, each one half the size of the one to its left. Now, put your finger to the part farthest to the right. What are you touching? Is it extended? If so, then you didn’t divide far enough. See? God somehow, in creating extention, made things finite and infinite at the same time.
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lmelahn
Guest
Assuming an idealized, geometrical space, here, the line and the solid are infinite and finite simultaneously, but not in the same way.
Let’s take the marble, which is easier to visualize. Before it is cut, it is not composed right now of an infinite number of parts; it is a continuous solid. However, it could be cut in half—it is undivided currently, but divisible.
Naturally, when I actually do cut it in half, the two halves can be cut again; and the quarters in turn; and the eighths; and the sixteenths… And actually (again, assuming an idealized Euclidean world here), there is no limit to how many times I could divide the marble.
That is an example of what is called a “potential infinity.” Right now, the marble is one and whole; but it could be divided, and there is no limit to how much it could be divided.
In no case, however, could it ever be actually divided into an infinite number of pieces.
If you have ever worked with the mathematical concept of limits, they work in the same way.
So, the line and the solid are finite actually, but potentially infinite (in divisions). They are, of course, always finite in magnitude. Unlike the square circle, there is no contradiction here.
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thinkandmull
Guest
Aristotle’s “potentially infinite” is a red herring. It doesn’t matter if the tires are on or off the car. Those are four parts of the car. A line has infinite points, so its infinitely long AND finite at the same time. To move is to pass over an infinitude of points. Hence, a round circles exists
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thinkandmull
Guest
Another to see this amazement, if to lines going infinitely out towards the horizon away from you, what would happen in if pull one of them a little behind me? Would it be shorter than the other?
I want something beyond matter!
I want something beyond matter!
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inocente
Guest
Wolfram has this joke:
A mathematician, a physicist and an engineer were asked to answer the following question. A group of boys are lined up on one wall of a dance hall, and an equal number of girls are lined up on the opposite wall. Both groups are then instructed to advance toward each other by one quarter the distance separating them every ten seconds (i.e., if they are distance d apart at time 0, they are d/2 at t=10, d/4 at t=20, d/8 at t=30, and so on.) When do they meet at the center of the dance hall? The mathematician said they would never actually meet because the series is infinite. The physicist said they would meet when time equals infinity. The engineer said that within one minute they would be close enough for all practical purposes.
mathworld.wolfram.com/ZenosParadoxes.html
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thinkandmull
Guest
Are you saying that atoms don’t exist, just the composed object? I’ve speculated on that too on this forum, but the combination of infinite with finite still applies to the area of the object
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lmelahn
Guest
One thing to keep in mind (I think I have mentioned this before) is that geometric forms are idealizations. Hence the very idea of continuity is a mathematical abstraction: real matter is, in fact, broken up into discrete pieces (atoms, molecules, etc.). So sure, atoms exist, and so do the objects that they make up.
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thinkandmull
Guest
I think math is just a function of the mind
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