Actual Infinity in Reality?

[polymath257]

Again, the definition of 'infinite' that you are using isn't the one that others use. That infinite sum does, in fact, add to be 1/3. The *limit* is exactly 1/3. We can, in fact, evaluate the answer without going through the whole process.

Yes, you can, in fact, add an infinite number of distances and obtain a finite distance. That is precisely what limits do. 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 +...=1. Exactly.

Yes, the infinite aspects do come to completion in a finite time. That only shows your definition isn't working.

There was another post, where I was going to mention this, but this seems like a good one as well.

There have been a number of times where you do the typical atheistic thing where you dismiss logic and philosophy (seemingly to avoid it).  You question the definitions of infinity, even the use of the terms actual and potential infinities.  And demand that everything to be changed to dealing with infinities in math. 

If math has something to add to the discussion, then that is good.  However the OP was not about mathematical infinite sets that exists only in the abstraction of the mind.   It is about actual infinity, and infinity in regards to philosophy.   That you keep wanting to change things, says to me, that you are not talking about the same ideas....   I also think this is why you do not see the obvious contradictions.

1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 +...<1     It is never equal to 1.    If you where to reach 1, then you would stop your infinite chain, and it would not be infinite.

Well, perhaps part of the problem is that philosophers have chosen the wrong things to focus on?

And you are wrong about that inequality. Each stage is less than 1, but the sum is equal to 1. it isn't a problem of 'reaching'. The infinity is completed and the answer is 1.

I would suggest that math is a much better way to look at reality than philosophy. This is demonstrated by the lack of progress in the sciences when philosophy was dominant and the progress exactly when math became central.

I don't avoid Aristotelian philosophy. I dismiss it as invalid. In particular, the distinction between potential and actual infinities is a false one. There are only infinities and all infinities are completed. Individual processes may not terminate, but that is irrelevant.  The infinities themselves are actual.