Actual Infinities

[ignoramus]

Guys, answer me this.
If there's a planet 65million light years away, and they had a powerful telescope and could view our earth, would they see dinosaurs walking about right now?
And if they recorded what they saw and played it back on massive Samsung lcd tv and we built a huge telescope to see them clearly as they have, would we also see the dinosaurs walking around our own earth on their tv?

No. Whackjob.  

The flag on the moon is 125cm (4 feet) long. You would require a telescope around 200 meters in diameter to see it.

It's a hypthetical question.
Where'd you get 130 million from?

~from http://www.telescopes.com/blogs/helpful-...n-the-moon

I was trying to get some numbers and facts to go with the problems imagined in my head, and came up with the above as a starter... so yer telescope would have to be as big as the solar system or something equally unlikely. Besides, their TV would be showing scenes from 130 million years ago.

[I_am_not_mafia]

Spoken like a true dogmatist - lots of handwaving, zero substance. I agree with CW that before you dismiss the concepts herein discussed, including the various projects of philosophers, or try to formulate an argument against them, you should learn about them first. "Philosophy is largely obsolete since the rise of science" gives away your astounding ignorance.

As Rebecca Goldstein argues:

What's wrong with this story? Well, for starters it's internally incoherent. You can't argue for science making philosophy obsolete without indulging in philosophical arguments.

https://edge.org/response-detail/25423

Zero substance? Maybe you need to actually read my posts.

I made some solid arguments. Chadwooters did not respond to any of them except to tell me to look up nominism.

So basically he said that what he was arguing was valid because it had a branch of philosophy named specifically for it.

He did not argue his case. He did not try to refute mine. His response was like an argument from authority mixed with argument ad populum. Basically his argument is that lots of educated people who can use long complicated words that they made up disagree with me. I don't know what you would call it. An Argument ad Erudite Wank?

There's a joke that the only use for a philosophy degree is to make you philosophical enough to work at McDonalds. There's a reason that's true.

[robvalue]

I agree that philosophy is useless when used as a substitute for evidence. It's an attempt to circumvent the scientific method by creating a simplified model which leads to the desired conclusion via a tautology.

[GrandizerII]

If qualities such such as shape, extension, location, etc. are intrinsic to the nature of objects that exist in an external void, known or otherwise, then they possess distinct features from which logical principles necessarily follow. Thus, humans didn't "invent" reason, they discovered it through the intellectual faculty categorizing sense data of external properties. Similarly, the rules that govern mathematical relationships are known as a result of discovery by the intellect in the same way that knowledge of external objects is acquired through such senses as "sight" or "touch". It isn't necessarily the case that I'm not a brain in a vat, but I see no reason to begin with that premise.

Humans invented the scientific method and it's still being finessed today. Humans invented logic. There are many different forms of logic that have been invented to try and deal with situations where previous forms of logic have failed. For example, fuzzy logic. They also invented Maths. There are many arbitrary rules in Maths that show that it was invented and new forms of Maths are being invented today for specific purposes. In the same way that new computer algorithms are being created for specific purposes.

The law of noncontradiction is not something that is discovered but is invented? Therefore, squares-circles can exist with the right mindset? Married bachelors?

Just trying to understand your view more.

[houseofcantor]

It's a hypthetical question.
Where'd you get 130 million from?

Need at least 65 million years for them to see our dinosaurs, and then 65 million years for us to see their TV.

[ignoramus]

It's a hypthetical question.
Where'd you get 130 million from?

Need at least 65 million years for them to see our dinosaurs, and then 65 million years for us to see their TV.

You're right Gwynnie!
That's why it can't work.
Even if we find someone 32.5m light years away it won't work.

(32.5 each way to see the dinos) because they will only see earth at 32.5m years ago ...no dinos again.

OK, let's forget the other guys, We invent warp drive in 500 years and chase the dino light ourselves at a safe warp 9.
It's still going to take us 7 million years to reach it. Then we have to build the telescope as big as the universe to see the dinos up close.
Negative time travel seems to be physically impossible. Only relative forward time travel is possible.

[I_am_not_mafia]

The law of noncontradiction is not something that is discovered but is invented? Therefore, squares-circles can exist with the right mindset? Married bachelors?

Just trying to understand your view more.

Square circles cannot exist because a circle is also a concept. A square circle therefore violates a rule that we have already invented.

A circle matches so closely with reality that it's easy to mistake it as feature of reality, but perfect spheres do not exist in nature.

A circle therefore is an approximation. A concept that we use as shorthand when we don't want to describe a shape down to its smallest detail. The power of Maths and logic lies in it being an abstraction of the real world.

Take numbers. If someone wants to argue that Maths exists as a feature of the universe then they need to explain why 1 is not a prime number, or why zero raised to the zeroth power equals one

Zero raised to the zero power is one. Why? Because mathematicians said so. No really, it’s true.

[...]

But if this is the case, then how can mathematicians claim that 0^0=1? Well, merely because it is useful to do so. Some very important formulas become less elegant to write down if we instead use 0^0=0 or if we say that 0^0 is undefined.

[Alex K]

Need at least 65 million years for them to see our dinosaurs, and then 65 million years for us to see their TV.

You're right Gwynnie!
That's why it can't work.
Even if we find someone 32.5m light years away it won't work.

(32.5 each way to see the dinos) because they will only see earth at 32.5m years ago ...no dinos again.

You have to rely on them having started up their TV already 32.5Ma ago, of course...

[Alex K]

It's a hypthetical question.
Where'd you get 130 million from?

Need at least 65 million years for them to see our dinosaurs, and then 65 million years for us to see their TV.

Well, it'd still be okish, we had Dinos 130 Million years ago... Not as cool ones of course...

[houseofcantor]

Need at least 65 million years for them to see our dinosaurs, and then 65 million years for us to see their TV.

You're right Gwynnie!
That's why it can't work.
Even if we find someone 32.5m light years away it won't work.

(32.5 each way to see the dinos) because they will only see earth at 32.5m years ago ...no dinos again.

OK, let's forget the other guys, We invent warp drive in 500 years and chase the dino light ourselves at a safe warp 9.
It's still going to take us 7 million years to reach it. Then we have to build the telescope as big as the universe to see the dinos up close.
Negative time travel seems to be physically impossible. Only relative forward time travel is possible.

Why wouldn't you just grow one from a chicken, or watch Jurassic Park like a normal person?