The universe also can't be infinitely large - another day, another legit observation

Jason Genova

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Dec 13, 2016
It is impossible for any object to be infinitely far away from me (or you, or anything else).

Want me to prove it?

If there is an object that is infinitely far away from me that means that the object in question must be at a location that is an infinite number of feet (or meters or whatever). If it exists at all it can't be infinitely far away from me.
 
I don't think you understand how infinities work.

Take the function f(x)=x. f(x) can be enumerated for any value of x, but the proof that the limit of f(x) as it approaches infinity equals infinity is trivial. By your logic, the function does not approach infinity.
 
The Tortoise challenged Achilles to a race, claiming that he would win as long as Achilles gave him a small head start. Achilles laughed at this, for of course he was a mighty warrior and swift of foot, whereas the Tortoise was heavy and slow.
“How big a head start do you need?” he asked the Tortoise with a smile.
“Ten meters,” the latter replied.
Achilles laughed louder than ever. “You will surely lose, my friend, in that case,” he told the Tortoise, “but let us race, if you wish it.”
“On the contrary,” said the Tortoise, “I will win, and I can prove it to you by a simple argument.”
“Go on then,” Achilles replied, with less confidence than he felt before. He knew he was the superior athlete, but he also knew the Tortoise had the sharper wits, and he had lost many a bewildering argument with him before this.
“Suppose,” began the Tortoise, “that you give me a 10-meter head start. Would you say that you could cover that 10 meters between us very quickly?”
“Very quickly,” Achilles affirmed.
“And in that time, how far should I have gone, do you think?”
“Perhaps a meter—no more,” said Achilles after a moment’s thought.
“Very well,” replied the Tortoise, “so now there is a meter between us. And you would catch up that distance very quickly?”
“Very quickly indeed!”
“And yet, in that time I shall have gone a little way farther, so that now you must catch that distance up, yes?”

“Ye-es,” said Achilles slowly.
“And while you are doing so, I shall have gone a little way farther, so that you must then catch up the new distance,” the Tortoise continued smoothly.
Achilles said nothing.
“And so you see, in each moment you must be catching up the distance between us, and yet I—at the same time—will be adding a new distance, however small, for you to catch up again.”
“Indeed, it must be so,” said Achilles wearily.
“And so you can never catch up,” the Tortoise concluded sympathetically.
“You are right, as always,” said Achilles sadly—and conceded the race.
 
Even something like the set of real numbers is infinite. Not only infinite, but uncountable and unenumerable.

Even something smaller, like the set of all possible real numbers between 0 and 1, is also uncountable and unenumerable.

Take a list, make it as long as you like. It goes off infinitely to the right, too. If it ends, it can be represented by an infinitely recurring 0 at the end.

cantor-1.png


No matter how large that list is, even if it is itself infinite, there's at least one more number. As the diagonalization shows, take a number from the first item in the list, and go down diagonally all the way, and change all those numbers. You now have a number that wasn't in the (already infinite) list. Now you've got that number you're done, right?

Nope. Because you can now add this number to your list, and then do exactly the same thing. Forever.

Obviously, this isn't mine because I'm not that smart. It's from Georg Cantor.

Infinity doesn't work how you think it does.
 
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Even something like the set of real numbers is infinite. Not only infinite, but uncountable and unenumerable.

Even something smaller, like the set of all possible real numbers between 0 and 1, is also uncountable and unenumerable.

Take a list, make it as long as you like. It goes off infinitely to the right, too. If it ends, it can be represented by an infinitely recurring 0 at the end.

View attachment 219539

No matter how large that list is, even if it is itself infinite, there's at least one more number. As the diagonalization shows, take a number from the first item in the list, and go down diagonally all the way, and change all those numbers. You now have a number that wasn't in the (already infinite) list. Now you've got that number you're done, right?

Nope. Because you can now add this number to your list, and then do exactly the same thing. Forever.

Obviously, this isn't mine because I'm not that smart. It's from Georg Cantor.

Infinity doesn't work how you think it does.
I have never been able to get my head around the whole "some infinities are larger than others" thing.

I need probably need more time to cook some of these theories in my head.

were you at least impressed with my antinatal thread, bro?
 
I have never been able to get my head around the whole "some infinities are larger than others" thing.

I need probably need more time to cook some of these theories in my head.

were you at least impressed with my antinatal thread, bro?
You can't even figure out how to get your dick wet. Why did you assume we'd listen to your theories on astrophysics or ethics?
You can make a dozen more of these threads, but you'll still be retarded.
 
The Tortoise challenged Achilles to a race, claiming that he would win as long as Achilles gave him a small head start. Achilles laughed at this, for of course he was a mighty warrior and swift of foot, whereas the Tortoise was heavy and slow.
“How big a head start do you need?” he asked the Tortoise with a smile.
“Ten meters,” the latter replied.
Achilles laughed louder than ever. “You will surely lose, my friend, in that case,” he told the Tortoise, “but let us race, if you wish it.”
“On the contrary,” said the Tortoise, “I will win, and I can prove it to you by a simple argument.”
“Go on then,” Achilles replied, with less confidence than he felt before. He knew he was the superior athlete, but he also knew the Tortoise had the sharper wits, and he had lost many a bewildering argument with him before this.
“Suppose,” began the Tortoise, “that you give me a 10-meter head start. Would you say that you could cover that 10 meters between us very quickly?”
“Very quickly,” Achilles affirmed.
“And in that time, how far should I have gone, do you think?”
“Perhaps a meter—no more,” said Achilles after a moment’s thought.
“Very well,” replied the Tortoise, “so now there is a meter between us. And you would catch up that distance very quickly?”
“Very quickly indeed!”
“And yet, in that time I shall have gone a little way farther, so that now you must catch that distance up, yes?”

“Ye-es,” said Achilles slowly.
“And while you are doing so, I shall have gone a little way farther, so that you must then catch up the new distance,” the Tortoise continued smoothly.
Achilles said nothing.
“And so you see, in each moment you must be catching up the distance between us, and yet I—at the same time—will be adding a new distance, however small, for you to catch up again.”
“Indeed, it must be so,” said Achilles wearily.
“And so you can never catch up,” the Tortoise concluded sympathetically.
“You are right, as always,” said Achilles sadly—and conceded the race.
This exercise presumes an arbitrary endpoint to the race that favors the tortoise, because in the tortoise's shitty argument each iteration becomes asymptotically shorter than the previous.

Let's say Achilles moves ten meters a second, and the tortoise moves one meter a second. After the first second, the tortoise will be one meter ahead of Achilles. But one more second later, the tortoise will be 8 meters behind Achilles. So swift of foot still beats specious pedantics.
 
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were you at least impressed with my antinatal thread, bro?

Nah. Antinatalism is fairly easy to arrive at as a position, but fairly difficult to justify against arguments to the contrary. It's sort of like solipsism, babby's first edgy philosophy.
 
Nah. Antinatalism is fairly easy to arrive at as a position, but fairly difficult to justify against arguments to the contrary. It's sort of like solipsism, babby's first edgy philosophy.
Here's another question:
Do you think questions about infinity are more mathematical or philosophical in nature?
When we're talking about infinity we're talking about something that is often paradoxical. Like with the fucking diagonal line thing.
It is true you could draw the diagonal line through the list and create a number that didn't exist on the already infinity long list that contained all the possible number orders.

It's a fucking paradox: if you have an infinitely long list of infinitely large numbers and each one of them is different then you MUST have all the infinitely large numbers, yet you could still make a new one.
 
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It's a fucking paradox: if you have an infinitely long list of infinitely large numbers and each one of them is different then you MUST have all the infinitely large numbers, yet you could still make a new one.

Except that's not true. "The set of all even integers" is infinite, and there is an infinite number of integers that aren't in it, the odd integers. "The set of integers divisible by 3" is also infinite, and that stays true if you make that number 4, 5, 6, 7, or even a number so large that if you wrote it on a piece of paper, that piece of paper would have to be larger than the known universe.
 
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Except that's not true. "The set of all even integers" is infinite, and there is an infinite number of integers that aren't in it, the odd integers. "The set of integers divisible by 3" is also infinite, and that stays true if you make that number 4, 5, 6, 7, or even a number so large that if you wrote it on a piece of paper, that piece of paper would have to be larger than the known universe.
This is a very common misconception, but there actually is a number that won't be found in that set.

It's 11. 11 is an asshole number and won't be on the list just because it's a dick. That's it.
 
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