Infinity III
The past cannot be an infinite amount of time because the past is finished, and an infinite amount of time never finishes.
What you have to remember is, infinity is not a very large number which is you keep counting you will eventually reach. Even if you count forever, you will not reach "infinity". When we say that there are an infinite amount of finite natural numbers, we mean that no matter how long you were to count, you will never get to the end of those finite numbers. But each and every number will be finite, no matter how much time you spend counting.
So therefore, if you did count and reached a certain number, that number cannot be infinity.
Thus, if the past would consist of an infinite amount of time, it would never be over. At no point would you be able to say "we have reached infinity", since that point is unreachable. The past, however, is over. Therefore, the amount of time that has already transpired in the past could never have reached infinity.
As a syllogism:
If the amount of moments in the past is infinity, those moments would never be finished.
But the past has finished.
Therefore, the amount of moments in the past is not infinity.
This is the answer to the spoon-football field paradox, which is a problem because even an inch can be divided up an infinite amount of times. Which means an inch and a mile - which also is divisible an infinite amount of times - are really the same length.
But this is wrong, obviously, and the reason is, because you can never divide up an inch, or a mile, an infinite amount of times. No matter how many times you divide up the distance, the resultant amount of parts will always be a finite number. So you will never, ever have an infinite amount of parts in any given line.
Infinity cannot be reached in real life, ever. You can never count until infinity. You can never have an infinite amount of anything that has magnitude. Therefore, if we already had a certain amount of moments in time, since each moment does take up time, the total amount of moments cannot be infinity.
If any partition of time would be infinite it would never end. Since the time-partition was finite it therefore can not be comprised of an infinite amount of parts.
In theory and in reality, infinity cannot be reached. The time period from the beginning of time until today HAS been reached. Therefore it cannot be infinite.
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What you have to remember is, infinity is not a very large number which is you keep counting you will eventually reach. Even if you count forever, you will not reach "infinity". When we say that there are an infinite amount of finite natural numbers, we mean that no matter how long you were to count, you will never get to the end of those finite numbers. But each and every number will be finite, no matter how much time you spend counting.
So therefore, if you did count and reached a certain number, that number cannot be infinity.
Thus, if the past would consist of an infinite amount of time, it would never be over. At no point would you be able to say "we have reached infinity", since that point is unreachable. The past, however, is over. Therefore, the amount of time that has already transpired in the past could never have reached infinity.
As a syllogism:
If the amount of moments in the past is infinity, those moments would never be finished.
But the past has finished.
Therefore, the amount of moments in the past is not infinity.
This is the answer to the spoon-football field paradox, which is a problem because even an inch can be divided up an infinite amount of times. Which means an inch and a mile - which also is divisible an infinite amount of times - are really the same length.
But this is wrong, obviously, and the reason is, because you can never divide up an inch, or a mile, an infinite amount of times. No matter how many times you divide up the distance, the resultant amount of parts will always be a finite number. So you will never, ever have an infinite amount of parts in any given line.
Infinity cannot be reached in real life, ever. You can never count until infinity. You can never have an infinite amount of anything that has magnitude. Therefore, if we already had a certain amount of moments in time, since each moment does take up time, the total amount of moments cannot be infinity.
If any partition of time would be infinite it would never end. Since the time-partition was finite it therefore can not be comprised of an infinite amount of parts.
In theory and in reality, infinity cannot be reached. The time period from the beginning of time until today HAS been reached. Therefore it cannot be infinite.
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Labels: Hashem
posted by Moderator at 8:39 AM
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