Ways to argue that the universe is finite

[danserr]

• So it looks like it is more plausible that the universe began to exist than not. Which brings us to the cause of the universe
  The Universe Began to Exist- Since the second argument is more plausibly true than not, We consider the cause of the universe. I offered two arguements:
  a). The cause must be non-spatial, immaterial, atemporal (since those things began to existthis means it could be an abstract object or a mind. Abstract objects don’t cause things, therefore the cause is a mind.
• you claim that minds are physical and then, that minds don’t cause anything physical. This is clearly a contradiction. But since the argument to this point is sound, and since numbers clearly do not cause anything, the cause of the universe is a mind, it logically follows. Of course neuroscience only studies the physical nature of the brain, science only can study the physical, but it doesn’t follow that there cannot be other evidence for the mind. Many philosophers insist on it. And scientific evidence cannot exclude the non-physical. Consider this: I ask my wife why water on the stove is boiling. She could say 1. because the heat is causing the water to reach sufficient kinetic energy that it boils, or 2. she could say: because I wanted tea. The scientific explanation (1) does not exclude the personal explanation (2). But your argument requires it do so. Since this is clearly untrue, we can conclude the cause of the universe is a mind, as the argument requires.
  b) The cause must be personal or scientific, it is not scientific, therefore it is personal
• you object:

This is the formal fallacy “Disjunctive Syllogism,” where you give two options, dismiss one, and select the other without due consideration of its flaws and merits.

: What flaws? If I have shown that one explanation (the scientific) is flawed (which you don’t dispute), and all that remains is another option (the personal), so then we justly infer the cause of the universe is personal. No fallacy is involved, scientists, philosophers, and historians reason this way all the time.

• So you can see why your objections don’t really work. The first two premises are more plausibly true than not, and conceptual analysis of the cause shows it to be an unembodied mind, which Christians call God.

As for my last thought:

You object to the first premise that maybe something we don’t know about could come from nothing, to the second, that maybe something we don’t know about besides God did come before it, and to the third, that maybe something that we don’t know about besides God, did cause it.

• You keep accusing me of appealing to ignorance, but on the other hand, this is precisely what you are doing. This is why it seems to me you might want to consider that this argument implies the existence of God.

 

[wanstronian]

• Now consider first this point, you have often appealed (as I observe at the end of me last post) to something indefinite besides God that could come before the universe, cause it or pop into existence out of nothing. You offer no suggestion what this could be, hence no way to assess it (which makes your suggestion unfalsifiable and therefore unscientific. And yet you accuse me of appealing to ignorance; surely you can see why this is unreasonable on your part.

I think this is where you are going wrong - I have shown that your assertion that God did it is unreliable. That is all I have to do. I don’t have to prove an alternative, I just have to demonstrate that your assertion is unsupported by evidence. The burden of proof is on you.

It is not enough for you to throw out a bare possibility to try to escape the argument, you must show that the negation of each premise is more plausible than the premise itself. Otherwise, the rational thing to do is accept the argument.

I’m not “trying to escape the argument,” I’m demonstrating how weak it is. I have shown why your premises are unreliable, that is the limit of my obligation. You are making a positive assertion, the burden of proof is entirely on you.

-To demand complete certainty, as you do, would make science itself impossible. Imagine a scientist who successfully tested a cure for cancer. Now imagine he had a colleague who said “no, you may not conclude the drug is successful, for perhaps, some other undetermined cause explains the apparent success of the drug?” Certainly, no one would consider this a reasonable reply. And the same principle applies here.

Sorry, but that’s a dreadful analogy. A more appropriate one would be a scientist who claimed his drug would cure cancer, but wouldn’t let anybody try it out, and still expected to get a Nobel Prize for his work.

The obvious difference here is that your fictitious scientist has proved something - something that can be empirically demonstrated. This is not the case with the KCA.

So with this in mind, let me consider your objections again:
1). Everything that begins to exist has a cause - Why? It is continually affirmed in our experience, if it is not true, then why does everything and anything not just come into existence from nothing.

-You object that the First law of thermodynamics shows matter cannot be created or destroyed. Yet this is precisely what the Big Bang cosmology holds, that matter began to exist at the Big Bang. The same hold for the cosmological implications of 2nd Law and the philosophical argument I use that the universe had a beginning. The first law of thermodynamics is a physcial law, it applies once the universe exists, but such laws have no force at all, with no universe. (This is why Hawking’s view that laws like gravity caused the universe to create itself is so absurd). On the other hand “Everything that begins to exist has a cause” is not a physical principle, it is a meta-physcial principle. You ridicule this, but no do not refute it. That is very unsatisfactory.

No - the objection is that your criterion for defining things that begin to exist was that you have observed things that have begun to exist. But, you haven’t see a Universe begin to exist, have you? So you can’t rely on observational evidence, so you rely on extreme extrapolation. But you ignore the fact that your observational evidence is bound by the First Law of Thermodynamics, whereas the creation of the Universe, according to your hypothesis, can’t be. So your extrapolation is unsafe. You cannot use the birth of a puppy to prove that the Universe began to exist.

So you rely on the 2nd law to show that the Universe began to exist, but have to reject the 1st law in order to define the contents of the set “things that began to exist.” This is clearly inconsistent.

• Next you object that somehow I must complete a set of things that begin to exist and don’t. Now you know perfectly well this is a trick on your part that I refuse to play, since to fill that set before the argument is complete would be question begging. But I need to do no such thing, hold your skepticism a moment and consider the first premise.

I did not ask you to populate the sets, I asked you to define the criteria for populating the sets. This is not a trick, it’s a scientific approach. And it seems to have defeated you because you’re crying “foul!”

(1) “everything that begins to exist has a cause”- Now this seems more plausibly true than not, (you now agree with me that quantum physics is not a counterexample),

You make it sound like I’ve changed my mind in the face of your overwhelming logical tour de force. Quantum physics throws the whole thing into doubt - nobody actually knows whether things appear without cause or not. Another nail of doubt in the coffin of the KCA.

 

[wanstronian]

Since this is probable, all the argument requires is that I be able to show premise (2), that the universe began to exist. There is absolutely no reason I should have to begin the argument by establishing a set of things that did not begin to exist. And I do not begin by stating that God is the sole member of this “set” as you claim. I infer that only from the successful conclusion of the argument. There is not question begging at all, save that you try to trick me into it.

I’m not trying to trick you into anything, I’m trying to get you to defend the argument. So far, you’ve failed.

Implicit in the first cause is that there is a set of things that began to exist, and a set of things that didn’t. The reason you need to define criteria for set population is because you need to show that your second premise meets those criteria. The reason you need to show that the second set “things that did not begin to exist” contains one, and only one, member, is that you intend to populate it with one, and only one member. You need to show that your conclusion is consistent with all the implications of your first premise. Welcome to the Scientific Method.

So, the first premise seems more plausibly true than not. Ask yourself, is is more plausible that everything that begins to exist has a cause or not? But why should the universe be an exception (remember the taxicab fallacy). If you agree that it is, then you are committed to accepting the first premise.

As I have pointed out, the taxicab fallacy accusation is false - I’m not dismissing a principle, I’m showing that you have not applied it consistently.

Being “more plausibly true” than not is an Argument from Ignorance. Can’t you even see that? It’s nowhere near robust enough to be used in support of claim of the magnitude of “God exists.”

2). The Universe began to exist - So the first premise seems good, what about the second? One one hand you don’t refute any of my arguments, on the other, you try to claim that no one knows how the universe came out. Now this is not enough. You have to refute my arguments, either by showing they are flawed, or by showing a way the universe could always have existed. But you haven’t at all. So if my argument is good, you are committed to believing the conclusion. Consider then my arguments:

You keep saying things like, “The universe began to exist,” “since this is probable,” “the first premise seems good.” Who are you trying to convince? I’ve shown you why such statements are unreliable, you seem to be just glibly ignoring them in the hope I won’t notice?

If you can’t justify your premises, your conclusion is unsafe. Is there a number of times that I can point this out and you’ll realise it, or are you just too focussed on your conclusion to let a little thing like integrity get in your way?

a). The impossibility of the formation of the infinite by successive addition. The present event adds to the set of past events, but if this is the case the past cannot be actually infinite, because it is like counting to infinity, you could never actually get there. And if the number of past events is not actually infinite, then the universe had a beginning (including any potential universes that came before it).

The problem with this argument is that you’re smuggling in the premise that you’re trying to prove - namely that there’s a limited number of past events. You’re assuming this is the case because events continue to occur, but this is a dangerous assumption to make - how do you prove it’s the case?

b). The evidence for the expansion of the unviverse Now you agree that the view of most experts is that the universe (time, space, matter) spawned from a singularity. And you will not reject the view of most experts. If you are serious, then you are accepting the view that time, space, and matter began to exist at the Big Bang, which is precisely my point, so you admit this argument is good. You even try to claim is is irrelevant. hardly, it means (as most experts and you agree), that the universe began to exist.

It is irrelevant. Ask those same scientists what they think occurred before the big bang, you’ll get a host of different answers. The universe *as we know it" came from singularity. That tells us nothing about its cause. Any claim that God did it is an Argument from Ignorance. Ignorance = “we don’t know.”

c). Implications of the 2nd law. you don’t try to refute this, and so I gather agree with it.

Yes - it is not I who is cherry-picking which laws to conform to! The 2nd laws says nothing about what might have existed before the beginning of the universe, however.

 

[wanstronian]

• So it looks like it is more plausible that the universe began to exist than not. Which brings us to the cause of the universe

Yes. In its current form. We cannot know what caused it to begin existing in its current form.

The Universe Began to Exist- Since the second argument is more plausibly true than not, We consider the cause of the universe. I offered two arguements:
a). The cause must be non-spatial, immaterial, atemporal (since those things began to existthis means it could be an abstract object or a mind. Abstract objects don’t cause things, therefore the cause is a mind.

• you claim that minds are physical and then, that minds don’t cause anything physical. This is clearly a contradiction.

Only because you’re refusing to take the point. Let me spell it out:

The actual mind is a product of brain activity, a physical process. This is what all the evidence suggests

The abstract notion of “the mind” has never caused anything physical.

But since the argument to this point is sound, and since numbers clearly do not cause anything, the cause of the universe is a mind, it logically follows.

An Argument from Ignorance, as I said before. “It can’t be numbers, so it must be a mind! QED.”

Of course neuroscience only studies the physical nature of the brain, science only can study the physical, but it doesn’t follow that there cannot be other evidence for the mind. Many philosophers insist on it. And scientific evidence cannot exclude the non-physical. Consider this: I ask my wife why water on the stove is boiling. She could say 1. because the heat is causing the water to reach sufficient kinetic energy that it boils, or 2. she could say: because I wanted tea. The scientific explanation (1) does not exclude the personal explanation (2). But your argument requires it do so. Since this is clearly untrue, we can conclude the cause of the universe is a mind, as the argument requires.

Well, if you’re going to insert an arbitrary appeal to the supernatural, what are we arguing about? As I said before, you can prove anything if you posit an unexplainable supernatural force. Why bother with all this Kalam nonsense? Just assert the supernatural and you’ve ‘proved’ your conclusion! It’s becoming clear that logical and scientific integrity are hurdles that you’re just going to run around, so why not just cut all the corners?

b) The cause must be personal or scientific, it is not scientific, therefore it is personal

• you object: : What flaws? If I have shown that one explanation (the scientific) is flawed (which you don’t dispute), and all that remains is another option (the personal), so then we justly infer the cause of the universe is personal. No fallacy is involved, scientists, philosophers, and historians reason this way all the time.

Again, the Disjunctive Syllogism. Random assertion 1: “Scientific or personal.” Random assertion 2: “It’s not scientific, therefore it’s personal! Wow! Just the answer I was looking for!!! Who knew??”

Can you describe the process by which you arrived at your two options? “Scientific” and “Personal” do not immediately spring to mind as mutually exclusive options to any puzzle I can imagine. It seems like you have created two options, one of which is the one you want to be true, then discounted the one you don’t want to be true.

I’m a bit mystified about your statement that I agree that the “[scientific] explanation is flawed” - I haven’t seen a scientific explanation offered. Maybe that’s why I haven’t disputed it…

• So you can see why your objections don’t really work. The first two premises are more plausibly true than not, and conceptual analysis of the cause shows it to be an unembodied mind, which Christians call God.

I can see that you want to disregard my objections (and I understand why), but I can’t see why they don’t work. You’ve failed to address them.

As for my last thought: - You keep accusing me of appealing to ignorance, but on the other hand, this is precisely what you are doing. This is why it seems to me you might want to consider that this argument implies the existence of God.

Well, maybe you should read up on the Argument from Ignorance, as with all due respect, you don’t seem to understand it. But basically it’s when you draw an affirmative conclusion from a lack of evidence against it. The reason that I haven’t committed this fallacy is that I have made no affirmative conclusions. You, on the other hand, most definitely have.

Your comment in the last post, “Given the lack of anything solid to appeal to, why not God?” suggests that I indulge in an internal Argument from Ignorance. “Ah, why not?” is a truly awful reason to believe in anything.

 

[hecd2]

Well, hello, Alec! Haven’t spoken with you in quite some time. It’s always good to hear from you.

Hi - just passing by.Good to hear from you too.

I hate these threads that break up in to single sentences answered by single sentences.

The basic problem with your definition of infinity is that it bears absolutely no relation to what physicists or mathematicians mean by their several different uses of the term. The question of whether the universe can be infinite in extent is a physics question, so using a private definition of infinity doesn’t help anyone. I’m not aware of any mathematician or physicist who defines infinity as being everything, everywhere and everywhen - that sounds like a theologian’s definition of all of reality including God, but it is not a suitable definition of infinity for the purposes of the question in hand.

The link you provided is a rather technical discussion about the status of the concept of infinity in the field of natural numbers with Peano arithmetic and ZFC, but it does not support in any way your definition, nor does it conflict with the fact that your definition is not correct for these purposes.

First of all there are infinities of very specific sets (such as the cardinality of the set of all integers or all prime numbers which are countably infinite - or a larger infinity such as the cardinality of the set of all real numbers which is uncountably infinite). Neither of these encompass everything, everywhere and everywhen.

They are not. They’re not real. They are abstractions. They are game settings for “what if’s?”

I’m sorry - are you claiming that the cardinality of the set of natural numbers is not infinite? That would be a bizarre assertion. My point is simply that infinity is defined much more narrowly than you are seeking to do and can be applied to entities or properties that are not everything, everywhere and everywhen.

But actually the converse is also true - in a closed universe, what is, is everything, everywhere and everywhen and is finite

.Play on words. Cute. If I were wrapped in a tight fitting plastic bag, I, too, would be defined by your distortion.

Wrong. If you were wrapped in a tight fitting plastic bag you would be a finite corpse, but you would not everything, everywhere and everywhen. But since the universe is everything, everywhere and everywhen, if it closed (for example a simply connected positively curved space such as a hypersphere), which is what you arguing for, then it is finite.
With regard to black holes, they might or might not contain actual infinities of space curvature, gravity and material density, but whether they do or not, when people talk about them they are using a definition of infinity that is nothing to do with everything, everywhere, everywhen.

The proposition that one or more dimensions in the universe can be actually infinite does not depend on it being non-composite.

What? Are you trying to tell me that a surface can be an actual infinity? A Really real infinity? How absurd.

I have no idea why you are conflating the proposition that a dimension in space can be infinite with it being composite or non-composite (which in this case is meaningless - it’s caused by your misunderstanding of the nature of space that we see further down) Furthermore this seems to be the argument from your personal sense of the absurd.

In fact, in a universe with at least one infinite dimension, the matter of the universe is infinite, irrespective of the amount of space between particles

                  How absurd.

The argument from your personal sense of the absurd again. Nevertheless, what I say is correct. For if there is a finite amount of matter in any given volume of space, however small, and the volume of space is infinite, then the total quantity of matter is infinite.

I suppose the entire concept of solidity is now completely wrong. Space, I guess, is just some ethereal substance that permeates solids? Space-time is another one of those nasty abstractions, combining the physicality of space with the non-physicality of time.

Not sure what your point is - space is not a thing in itself like a fluid - it is the framework or manifold in which matter-energy interacts. Space is no more “physical” than time. None of this precludes solidity.

I don’t think this is necessarily true. Big Bang cosmology tells us that this era in the observable universe began 13.7 billion years ago. It says nothing about the era beyond that event or in places beyond the observable universe.

Finally, something true. However, it is more logical and likely that there is/was a front side of that singularity. To the best of our knowledge, that side of it was immobile. Without mobile being there can be no time.

I have no idea what you mean by the assertion that it is more likely or logical for there to be front side - you mean a time before time? More logical or likely than what? At the moment it is not meaningful to talk about "the best of our knowledge " for that era, because we have no knowledge - the best of our knowledge is zero.

Not so. The “Now” (or, “Present” (Too bad! ) is not a part of time. It is that which separates time-past from time-future. It is that between the outermost skin (so to speak) of time-past and the outermost skin of time-future.

Are you saying that because the set of real numbers is uncountably infinite then pi isn’t a number? Because that’s exactly the same claim. It’s clear that elements of a field in a continuum, even if uncountably infinite, exist. The present is an infinitesimally short period of time, but it is a real point in time (I am using infinitesimally in its strict mathematical sense)…

 

[hecd2]

…

BTW, what number is infinity?

Not sure how that question is relevant, but the answer is that in Peano arithmetic with ZF and the axiom of choice, infinity as defined by the limit 1/n as n goes to zero (ie the extreme end of the real number line) is not a number. However the cardinality of the natural numbers is infinite and is aleph null, and the ordinality of the natural numbers is infinite and is omega, and we can do arithmetic with them. (Don’t make the mistake of claiming that because these are not natural numbers therefore they are not numbers. Neither are pi, or euler’s number, or any other irrational number; nor are imaginary numbers).

It is what was meant before Cantor’s imaginary ideas called “sets,” and set theory ruined some peoples’ minds!.Set theory is not a real reality, like the laws of thermodynamics. It doesn’t have, nor has it ever had, that union with the real world that makes it really real and not imaginary.

Wow - sets don’t have a union with reality? I’ll just go and count my fingers. Set theory is a mathematical system, like analysis, or geometry, or topology that happens to have uses in describing reality. Cantor brought the concept of infinity into set theory in a rigorous way. The laws of thermodynamics aren’t part of reality. You seem to be falling into the trap of confusing the model with reality. The laws are expressions of our understanding of how reality works - they are not reality itself.

But the point is that your definition of transfinite is wrong, by definition. I have no idea why you think transfinite meant big but finite before Cantor, because as far as I know the word didn’t exist. But in any case, what it means now is , by definition, not what you said.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[LogisticsBranch]

. Big Bang cosmology tells us that this era in the observable universe began 13.7 billion years ago.

13.7 ± 0.13 billion years. Sorry to be picky about it.

 

[LogisticsBranch]

As far as we can see, the universe has a finite amount of energy. I think that is the current
hypothesis from NASA.

 

[hecd2]

13.7 ± 0.13 billion years. Sorry to be picky about it.

Well let’s be really picky. That estimate and its confidence relies on the model, the chosen free parameters in the model, the data set, the measurement errors and the choice of priors. So could you remind me of what these things are for that particular estimate?

As far as we can see, the universe has a finite amount of energy. I think that is the current
hypothesis from NASA.

Really? Can we have a reference for that?

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[LogisticsBranch]

Well let’s be really picky. That estimate and its confidence relies on the model, the chosen free parameters in the model, the data set, the measurement errors and the choice of priors. So could you remind me of what these things are for that particular estimate?

Sure, thanks for asking. I can assist you with your request:

WMAP Can Measure the Age of the Universe

Measurements by the WMAP satellite can help resolve this crisis. If current ideas about the origin of large-scale structure are correct, then the detailed structure of the cosmic microwave background fluctuations will depend on the current density of the universe, the composition of the universe and its expansion rate. WMAP has been able to determine these parameters with an accuracy of better than than 3% of the critical density. In turn, knowing the composition with this precision, we can estimate the age of the universe to about 1%: 13.7 ± 0.13 billion years!

How does WMAP data enable us to determine the age of the universe is 13.7 billion years, with an uncertainty of 1%? The key to this is that by knowing the composition of matter and energy density in the universe, we can use Einstein’s General Relativity to compute how fast the universe has been expanding in the past. With that information, we can turn the clock back and determine when the universe had “zero” size, according to Einstein. The time between then and now is the age of the universe. There is one caveat to keep in mind that affects the certainty of the age determination: we assume that the universe is flat, which is well supported by WMAP and other data. If we relax this assumption within the allowed range, the uncertainty increases to a bit over 2%. However, theorists have long known that a nearly-flat universe is very difficult to produce, whereas inflation naturally predicts a flat universe.

The expansion age measured by WMAP is larger than the oldest globular clusters, so the Big Bang theory has passed an important test using data independent of the type collected by WMAP. If the expansion age measured by WMAP had been smaller than the oldest globular clusters, then there would have been something fundamentally wrong about either the Big Bang theory or the theory of stellar evolution. Either way, astronomers would have needed to rethink many of their cherished ideas. But our current estimate of age fits well with what we know from other kinds of measurements.
map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_age.html

Really? Can we have a reference for that?

Sure. My pleasure. Again, thanks for asking. Here it is:

6. Conservation of Energy and Big Bang
*How are the big bang and the law of conservation of energy compatible? *Since the Universe (as far as we can see) has a finite amount of energy, all that is required is for that amount of energy to be present in the Big Bang, and energy is conserved. There is no way to prove that this is true, but it is a good working hypothesis.
Dr. Eric Christian
helios.gsfc.nasa.gov/qa_sp_pr.html

 

[JDaniel]

Hi - just passing by.Good to hear from you too.

I hate these threads that break up in to single sentences answered by single sentences.

that made me laugh. I find these single-sentence things irritating, too.

The basic problem with your definition of infinity is that it bears absolutely no relation to what physicists or mathematicians mean by their several different uses of the term.

But, remember, whatever definition you are currently using is a relative nuance, compared to the “other” definition from earlier science and philosophy. Besides, that older definition cannot be extrapolated into imaginable numbers, so that mathematicians can see what happens when they . . .

The question of whether the universe can be infinite in extent is a physics question, so using a private definition of infinity doesn’t help anyone.

I wonder who’s using the “private definition?” The definition I am using pre-dates the one(s) you are choosing to use by centuries:

“Infinity - The infinite, as the word indicates, is that which has no end, no limit, no boundary, and therefore cannot be measured by a finite standard, however often applied; it is that which cannot be attained by successive addition, not exhausted by successive subtraction of finite quantities.” - New Advent Encyclopedia

I’m not aware of any mathematician or physicist who defines infinity as being everything, everywhere and everywhen - that sounds like a theologian’s definition of all of reality including God, but it is not a suitable definition of infinity for the purposes of the question in hand.

Just because you say it’s not, does not make it so.

newadvent.org/cathen/14167a.htm

The link you provided is a rather technical discussion about the status of the concept of infinity in the field of natural numbers with Peano arithmetic and ZFC, but it does not support in any way your definition, nor does it conflict with the fact that your definition is not correct for these purposes.

That’s simply not so, as anyone can read for himself. (I hope this is not going to turn out to be how many times each of us can say the other is wrong! )

You are still using mathematical abstractioning for the meat of your definitions. You’re using conceptions derived from “what if’s.” Humans do this all the time. We make horror movies this way. But, that the mind of man can arrive at a conception of what a monster should be, is not equivalent to the monster being actually real - except as a mental construct. Divide a cow into equal parts and you kill it. Say a quantum division of a table top results in an infinity of quantum table-top particles, does not mean that it will take forever for a marble to roll across its surface.

Unlike mental pictures, grounded in reality, that are used by the future perfect tense, mathematical abstractions do not have such a grip on reality other than as a trivial thing, grasped via a chance encounter, useful in the game.

I, on the other hand, am using real mobile being in real space, for my grounding. In the absence of real space, real mobile being cannot exhibit motion, nor any potential for motion. If that is so, and it certainly appears to everyone that it is, there is nothing to measure by the standard we call “time,” or, by any of the other standards, or equations, of measurement used in physics whether mathematically displayed or not.

I’m sorry - are you claiming that the cardinality of the set of natural numbers is not infinite?

You know full well that I am saying that there is no grounding for it in Reality. It exists only as a mental construct: an abstraction. Bird-ness is not a real, tangible objectum. It is an abstraction, too. True, it is a different order abstraction, a physical abstraction rather than a mathematical one, but, bird-ness has no quantitative reality of its own.

That would be a bizarre assertion. My point is simply that infinity is defined much more narrowly than you are seeking to do and can be applied to entities or properties that are not everything, everywhere and everywhen.

And I am saying that that is fine: in the proper settings. But, not in the ultimate setting, which is non-fiction Reality.

Wrong. If you were wrapped in a tight fitting plastic bag you would be a finite corpse, but you would not everything, everywhere and everywhen.

However, that is precisely how you were distorting the concept in your earlier response to my original post. Thus, within that plastic bag, I am everything, everywhere and everywhen, precisely as you distorted it. Can you see that now?

But since the universe is everything, everywhere and everywhen, if it closed (for example a simply connected positively curved space such as a hypersphere), which is what you arguing for, then it is finite.

While the postulated hypersphere you bring into the argument is true of my argument, your conclusion is incorrect. You are contending that physical space and physical matter/energy is all there is. Thus, it is somehow infinite. You can’t simply alter definitions to make them fit at and to your personal exquisite whim.

With regard to black holes, they might or might not contain actual infinities of space curvature, gravity and material density, but whether they do or not, when people talk about them they are using a definition of infinity that is nothing to do with everything, everywhere, everywhen.

What people? (Some) physicists and mathematicians? All the while, the rest of us know what it is we are describing and defining.

continued . . .

 

[JDaniel]

continuation . . .

Some of those people, the ones you were mentioning earlier, also believe that as a black hole ages, it gains more mass as it sucks in more matter. Now, how can the core of a black hole gain more mass? It is already, supposedly, at “zero,” and “infinite density?” So, more mass can be accumulated to make the singularity more “zero?” More mass can be accumulated to make the singularity more “infinitely dense?” Tell me, exactly how does a thing that is already infinite, become more infinite? Exactly how does a thing that is already at absolute zero become more zero? Can’t you see: if a thing can become more infinite, it wasn’t really infinite to begin with. If it can become more zero, it really wasn’t zero to begin with. The words were nonsensically used.

I have no idea why you are conflating the proposition that a dimension in space can be infinite with it being composite or non-composite (which in this case is meaningless - it’s caused by your misunderstanding of the nature of space that we see further down)

An infinity is not an amalgamation of points. Therefore, it can’t be composite.

Furthermore this seems to be the argument from your personal sense of the absurd.

Really?

The argument from your personal sense of the absurd again.

Really? - to Infinity! There! I win.

Nevertheless, what I say is correct.

Really? - to Infinity plus one!

For if there is a finite amount of matter in any given volume of space, however small, and the volume of space is infinite, then the total quantity of matter is infinite.

OK: Really? plus two!

I’m sorry, this is getting to be beyond absurd - if going beyond absurd is even possible.

Not sure what your point is - space is not a thing in itself like a fluid

No, not like a “fluid.” More like the least dense gas you can envision. Space, to be sure, consists of areas perhaps of nothing. But, it also consists of vast areas that are traversed by gamma rays and photons, etc. Astronomers have found molecular hydrogen at the edge of the universe:

sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060508112217.htm

• it is the framework or manifold in which matter-energy interacts.

That begs the question. Actually, it begs lots of questions!

Space is no more “physical” than time.

But, space is Real. Time is a mental concept that helps us understand motion in a broad sense.

None of this precludes solidity.

Good. you had me worried, for a moment.

I have no idea what you mean by the assertion that it is more likely or logical for there to be front side - you mean a time before time? More logical or likely than what?

More likely than “nothing.” Remember, another precept, like the laws of thermodynamics, you get no-thing from no-thing. Rather, you can’t get any-thing from no-thing.

At the moment it is not meaningful to talk about "the best of our knowledge " for that era, because we have no knowledge - the best of our knowledge is zero.

I posit God. You posit nonsense. Sorry.

Are you saying that because the set of real numbers is uncountably infinite then pi isn’t a number?

I’m sorry, but, did you answer my question, in my last post, about what the number infinity is? I didn’t see it. I have one more question for you: is that number odd or even?

Because that’s exactly the same claim.

It’s clear that elements of a field in a continuum, even if uncountably infinite, exist.

Can you show us one? Can I touch it? Can I smell it? Can I taste it? Can it be heard? Can it be seen?

The present is an infinitesimally short period of time, but it is a real point in time (I am using infinitesimally in its strict mathematical sense)…

Of course you are. If you were using it in its more appropriate sense, as a reality, the present would never get here. So, you must be saying that the present is here by infinite chance.

Anyway,
God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

Sure, thanks for asking. I can assist you with your request:

Sure. My pleasure. Again, thanks for asking. Here it is:

LogisticsBranch: you are too suave!

God bless,
jd

 

[LogisticsBranch]

LogisticsBranch: you are too suave!

God bless,
jd

I try my best to be a well-mannered and courteous lady. I’m not in the mood to ramble on in an effort be rightous about too much of anything at this point. I’m relaxing while attempting to be helpful and kind to everyone here! Call it charity! Tiss the season if you don’t already know. (lol) Plus, I’m not much into a silly mood. I’m in a positive mood.

Since there is a current discussion about “infinity” I’d like to know if anyone here has read from CERN this:

Title:A short course on infinity-categories
Author(s) Groth, Moritz
Imprint 20 Jul 2010
Note Comments: 53 pages
Subject category Mathematical Physics and Mathematics
Abstract : These are notes on the theory of infinity-categories building on a series of talks given by the author in Warsaw in January, 2010. The aim is to give a non-technical introduction to some of the main ideas of the theory in order to facilitate the digestion of the far more voluminous tomes due to Andre Joyal and Jacob Lurie where the theory is developed in full detail. Besides the basic infinity-categorical notions, we mention the Joyal and Bergner model structures which are two approaches to the theory of (infinity,1)-categories. We then treat the theory of (symmetric) monoidal infinity-categories and introduce the notion of (commutative) algebra objects. We finish with a summary of Lurie’s treatment of spectra and the smash product from the perspective of infinity-categories which allows us to give the definition of A-infinity and E-infinity ring spectra.
cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1278789

 

[JDaniel]

I try my best to be a well-mannered and courteous lady. I’m not in the mood to ramble on in an effort be rightous about too much of anything at this point. I’m relaxing while attempting to be helpful and kind to everyone here! Call it charity! Tiss the season if you don’t already know. (lol) Plus, I’m not much into a silly mood. I’m in a positive mood.

Since there is a current discussion about “infinity” I’d like to know if anyone here has read from CERN this:

Were you attempting to hypnotize me? :whacky:

Whew!!

God bless,
jd

 

[hecd2]

Sure, thanks for asking. I can assist you with your request:

The odd thing is that if someone corrects what another has said, you’d think they would know what they were talking about. So I assumed you actually know something about Big Bang cosmology . So you’ll understand why I’m puzzled when, in response to my request for specific conditions underlying the estimate you quoted, you cut and pasted a simplistic and popular guide to estimating the age of the universe that didn’t actually say anything about a single one of the conditions I asked about:
The model? No
The chosen free parameters? No
The data set? No
The measurement errors? No
The choice of priors? No

I wonder why you chose to give a reply that completely failed to answer the question?

BTW, I understand the reference to “as far as we can see” now that I see it in context. It literally means as far as we can see, which I agree with. As far as we can see is to about z=1080, and that is finite, so the energy contained in the observable volume, ie as far as we can see, is finite. But that doesn’t mean the universe is finite or the total energy in the universe is finite.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[LogisticsBranch]

I don’t consider having failed. I stated that I could assist you. Basically, I was opening a door for you to enter. I thought it might be an opportunity for you to go in depth since you seem to be fond of Cosmology too. I not a selfish person. Perhaps you aren’t pleased by someone who considers alternative ways to contribute when dialoging that encompasses a charitable exchange without restraints. Doesn’t your website have an article that can help you? I can go digging through my own research material that supports the Big Bang theory and earned a Nobel Prize for scientists John Mather and George Smoot. Is that what you want me to do?

 

[LogisticsBranch]

As far as your last paragraph goes, do you have a link (url) to support it? That would be much appreciated.

 

[LogisticsBranch]

Were you attempting to hypnotize me? :whacky:

Whew!!

God bless,
jd

No.

 

[hecd2]

But, remember, whatever definition you are currently using is a relative nuance, compared to the “other” definition from earlier science and philosophy. Besides, that older definition cannot be extrapolated into imaginable numbers, so that mathematicians can see what happens when they . . .

It pretty much comes down to this, your private definition of infinity. I continue to call it private, because you don’t seem to share it with anyone else who has ever thought seriously about the concept of infinity. Neither of the “authorities” you’ve linked me to (someone’s blog about technical aspects of infinity in arithmetic, and a 1917 encyclopaedia) define infinity as you have. You are yet to support the definition of the concept of infinity that whatever is is everything, everywhere and everywhen (the WIIEEE definition). Since your criticism of the idea that the universe can be spatially infinite seems to depend rather closely on it that would be your first task, which so far you have failed to accomplish.

But even if you were to establish your claim that some serious thinker or thinker(s) have used that definition and found it useful for some purpose, you would still fail, because it is not pertinent to my claim. When I, and other physicists and mathematicians say that the universe could be spatially infinite, we are making a physics claim, and we are not using the definition of infinity that you are - we are using a narrower definition that is not your private WIIEEE definition. If you wish to critique our claim then you have to address the claim as it is, otherwise you merely setting up a strawman. If your contention is that there is only one definition of infinity and that everyone who uses the term must use WIIEEE, well that is silly on the face of it, because people use the term to mean something other than WIIEEE and are able to communicate coherently on that basis.

Your last post has some other bizarre things in it - like the suggestion that space is very very low density gas (perhaps a gas with infinitely low density ). Or that space is real and time isn’t. Or that a continuous field of uncountably infinite points cannot be traversed in finite time (Zeno’s paradox - that one was resolved by Newton and Leibniz, and Newton used his mathematical conception of infinitesimals to solve the problem of planetary motion - so much for the claim that these mathematical concepts have no place in describing reality or that mental pictures of reality are more powerful than mathematical descriptions). Or that black holes are allowed to have only one mass. Or that a singularity is a zero. Or that you have or can have knowledge of anything on the other side of the BB singularity. Or that gamma rays are different from photons. Or that space exists independently of matter-energy. Or that an actually finite universe would be somehow infinite. Or that the discovery of molecular hydrogen at large z is somehow relevant to this discussion.

But there is no point in dealing with those until we resolve the definition problem, so the ball’s in your court a) to show that WIIEEE is a valid definition of an infinite, and b) to show that that definition is congruent with what physicists mean when they say that the universe can be spatially infinite.

Alec
evolutionpages.com