(February 11, 2018 at 5:10 pm)Grandizer Wrote:(February 11, 2018 at 5:01 pm)polymath257 Wrote: I gave the example of the negative integers to show how an infinite regress is *logically* possible. Did you not understand the example?
The distinction between potential and completed infinities is part of the philosophical problem: it is a false dichotomy. There is no logical problem with a completed infinity.
OK, so what does it mean to be 'part of the natural order of things'? How is that any different than simply existing? Anything causally connected to something natural is itself natural.
If I may play Devil's advocate, and because I'm curious about how Steve's overall argument about infinity can be effectively countered without assuming at least B-theory of time (if not eternalism).
Steve isn't necessarily arguing against the existence of an already completed infinity. At least not here (from what I've read). He's arguing against the impossibility of successively adding things (integer by integer) from negative infinity to any integer. Hence, the counting analogy.
Yes, and the porblem here is the implicit assumption that there is a start to all the adding. If there is no start, then the adding has always been going on.
I certainly have no issue with considering time (and space) as a whole. it is done all the time in cosmology. So, time being infinite in one direction or the other is equally problematic. And, in fact, in a multiverse cosmology, time *is* infinite in both directions.
