Actual Infinities

[GrandizerII]

The principle is abstract.

Abstractions exist only in the mind. Some things, like the Principle of Non-Contradiction (PCR), exist independently of any mind.

It doesn't have a concrete existence in reality. That, to me, is abstract enough. And that's why they call it a principle.

Is God a principle?

[Excited Penguin]

You've got a point Nestor, and some believers of a more philosophical mindset might take that into consideration.

[Mudhammam]

Not so. An object capable of being known can exist before anyone knows about it.

An object can only be capable of being known if there is an observer capable of knowing about it.

Do objects possess any qualities absent of perception or do such properties, whether primary or secondary, subsist only in the knower? If they exist solely in the knowing subject and not in the known object, then what is an object and in what way do these exist outside of the mind? 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.

[Edwardo Piet]

As I see it, it's incoherent to suggest that infinity can exist as a complete set - think of infinity as a number. You can always seemingly add to whatever that infinite number "is" - hence, it could not actually be infinite. So, if past time were infinite, the present could not arrive, for it would require an infinite amount of time for every prior successive moment to reach completion, which doesn't appear to mean anything. But if we grant infinite past time, there is no need for God. I'm more interested in granting the logical impossibility of actual infinities for the sake of argument, and then asking how it is that God is also not made logically impossible?

How is the problem of an infinite regress never reaching the present different than the problem of an arrow never reaching it's mark because there are an infinite number of points between where it was shot and its mark?  The arrow does reach its mark whether we can describe how it gets through an infinity of points or not.

I think it's different for this reason:

What Nestor is suggesting is the concept of a supposed actual amount of infinite time in the past... which would mean it really never could reach the present because there would be an infinite amount of time in between.

The example you give is actually about a finite passage of time in the big picture but on the micro level there is just ultimately no finite way to measure because all the points of that finite passage of time can be divided further and further to create a infinite regress of immeasurability within that finite passage of time defined.

Does that make sense?

[Wyrd of Gawd]

What if time were just an illusion given by chemical reactions?
Seriously,think about it,imagine earth where no chemical reactions are taking place.Time would have stopped right?
Maybe time really isn't a *real* and complicated thing as how we built it up to be.Maybe and most probably it is just an illusion that chemical reactions give us

just saying..
okay,continue.

So time doesn't exist elsewhere in the universe.  Sounds legit.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Not so. An object capable of being known can exist before anyone knows about it.

An object can only be capable of being known if there is an observer capable of knowing about it.

So the distant universe didn't exist before man saw it in the 1920s.

[Alex K]

An object can only be capable of being known if there is an observer capable of knowing about it.

Do objects possess any qualities absent of perception or do such properties, whether primary or secondary, subsist only in the knower? If they exist solely in the knowing subject and not in the known object, then what is an object and in what way do these exist outside of the mind? 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.

Isn't there a third possibility - that the objects (the world) indeed exist outside of the mind, but are not in their nature the same as the representations of them in our minds - e.g. they may inspire logic and reason, because evolutionarily, logic and reason are successful strategies for interacting with them - but that does not mean that they themselves possess some sort of exact templates for logic and reason?

[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?

[robvalue]

Interesting question!

It kind of makes sense actually. We haven't been invaded yet. Would you try and invade a planet with those fuckers walking around on it?

[I_am_not_mafia]

An object can only be capable of being known if there is an observer capable of knowing about it.

Do objects possess any qualities absent of perception or do such properties, whether primary or secondary, subsist only in the knower? If they exist solely in the knowing subject and not in the known object, then what is an object and in what way do these exist outside of the mind?

Knowing is an act. Therefore by definition you need something to act in order to know.

Known is a property of something that can know something.

Take intelligence for example. You can only be as intelligent as your environment allows. If you take an ordinary baby and grow it in a sensory deprivation chamber with life support tubes, then 30 years later take it out, you're not going to have an intelligent human at the end of it.

Take that same baby and educate them and test all forms of their intelligence to the extent of their ability every waking moment of their lives then 30 years later you'll have someone who is remarkably intelligent.

The same applies regardless of whether we are situated agents or brains in a vat. It all depends on what signals are being passed into our brains and whether the signals passed out of it can shape the next set of input signals.

In terms of non-equilibrium thermodynamics, our brains are just a particularly ordered island of complexity within a larger self organising system.

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.

If you wiped out the human race then all those frameworks would also be wiped out.