Tharan

[canesin4]

I am not going to judge you Theran.

 

[Superfluous_Nut]

regarding what happened before the big bang or whatever... people tend to have the ability to project infinity into the future, but not into the past. nobody seems to ask the question what exists after the universe is gone, but they do ask what existed before the universe was here. personally, i think the question is moot as time and universe go hand-in-hand. no universe, no time and so no "before" and no "after".

 

[tharan000]

regarding what happened before the big bang or whatever... people tend to have the ability to project infinity into the future, but not into the past. nobody seems to ask the question what exists after the universe is gone, but they do ask what existed before the universe was here. personally, i think the question is moot as time and universe go hand-in-hand. no universe, no time and so no "before" and no "after".

Assuming there is an infinity involved somewhere in there. There is no evidence that our universe is the only one of its kind.

I should point out that infinity does not seem to exist in real physical space, as far as we can see. No evidence whatsoever outside of math. The idea of mathematical infinity was invented with the Greeks and was subsequently modified conceptually by George Cantor in the late 1800's and early 1900's. It is not a monolithic object mathematically but rather a proliferation of overlapping bounded parameters (a never ending series of digits, a forever repeating function, etc).

Therefore, I think it would be good to define it exactly when discussing philosophy.

 

[Superfluous_Nut]

infinity in the sense of a thing without an end. if you can imagine a thing that projects forever into the future, why not a thing that projects forever into the past?

 

[Coach Micool]

Agreesome

 

[Black&Black]

 

[tharan000]

infinity in the sense of a thing without an end. if you can imagine a thing that projects forever into the future, why not a thing that projects forever into the past?

That's a tricky concept when you apply it to the real world. Does a black hole contain infinite density? Any particular black hole does not contain all the matter in the Universe, so it is not at least one kind of infinity. This is essentially what Cantor showed, that there different kinds of mathematical infinities.

Do infinite loops in programming have a beginning and an end? The original infinitely looping function is probably not still running somewhere, and it definitely had a start date. The idea of "but if we let it run, it will run forever" does not hold water. That system is run by electricity hooked up to a city grid most likely, correct? There are an "infinite" number of possibilities that limit its life span and at some point in the future, for whatever reason, it will cease to run.

In the real world, we cannot name a single existing infinity that we know truly exists. We have no physical evidence that they exist. Just vague concepts about "going on forever". In physical reality, those concepts are always bounded by some limiting condition.

 

[Cyberjag]

Tharan, if you don't believe that things can go on forever you've obviously never been to a kid's swim meet.

 

[dig-it]

tharan

 

[tharan000]

Tharan, if you don't believe that things can go on forever you've obviously never been to a kid's swim meet.

Sunday morning church is the evidence I use for infinity.