no actually i think saying something is infinite is the easy route out…
i think a far more interesting and challenging view of the universe is summed up in philosophy, not physics. find the short story by borges about the library of babel. essentially it is a story of a library containing books of identical length but of every possible combination of an alphabet. since it is created from a limited set of parts it is in fact finite but it also contains every possible grammatical organization of those words which is actually infinite. something finite containing something infinite- tough thing to think about. although these infinite combinations of grammatical sentences are also extremely rare as the vast vast majority of the books would contain nothing but non-sense. so you have a vanishingly small number of legible texts that actually represent an infinite set, mixed in with an enormous amount of non-sense all contain in a finite library of books.
and the real kicker, the physical size of this library, which is finite, wouldn’t even physically fit within the bounds of the known universe…
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no actually i think saying something is infinite is the easy route out…
i think a far more interesting and challenging view of the universe is summed up in philosophy, not physics. find the short story by borges about the library of babel. essentially it is a story of a library containing books of identical length but of every possible combination of an alphabet. since it is created from a limited set of parts it is in fact finite but it also contains every possible grammatical organization of those words which is actually infinite. something finite containing something infinite- tough thing to think about. although these infinite combinations of grammatical sentences are also extremely rare as the vast vast majority of the books would contain nothing but non-sense. so you have a vanishingly small number of legible texts that actually represent an infinite set, mixed in with an enormous amount of non-sense all contain in a finite library of books.
and the real kicker, the physical size of this library, which is finite, wouldn’t even physically fit within the bounds of the known universe…
Wrong. You said all the books are all of same length. Not infinite lengths. I’ll await your next rebuttle.
interesting point earlier about the use of DNA in trials and its connections to evolution being in conflict with someone’s non-belief in evolution…
so i’m surprised you can’t see how your statements about religion causing harm in the world are in conflict with your belief in the FACT of evolution. if evolution as a system is to be believed, or considered FACT in this case, then you should certainly be able to see how religion plays a role in that system. people of different faiths fight in an effort to have their religion come out on top. they are attempting to be the fittest and to eliminate competition. of course religion does not in and of itself exist to achieve this end it is an outgrowth of culture, society and civilization all of which are most certainly in competition with each other…religion might just be a storm trooper.
humans fight each other and our environment because we are in an evolutionary system with limited resources. religion causes conflict because humans cause conflict because they have no other choice but to compete either explicitely or implicitely.
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hey dummy…how many numbers are in the standard numbering system? 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9…and isn’t that finite set capable of expressing infinite combinations? the exact same concept holds true to letters and words.
the books are the same length as a matter of convenience… say they are 500 pages long. certainly there are books longer than 500 pages, we know this because they exist. those books would simply be found in multiple volumes. but these volumes although limited in number, can be strung together into a story of infinite length…just as a number system works.
nice try though. clearly for all your proclaimed ability to wrap your head around the concept of infinity you can’t even imagine the hugely finite
One of you doesn’t get it. It’s not purextc though. You cannot create infinite combinations of a finite set unless you repeat elements of the set infinite times. Either the books are all the same length of infinity or the number of combinations of their content is finite.
again see the numbers 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 they can be combined in an infinite number of ways by simply adding 1
the letters of the alphabet or all the words in the english language work the same way.
as these books theoretically contain every possible combination of the letters of the alphabet, they would necessarily contain (over multiple volumes) a detailed account of every event to have ever occurred in the universe as well as everything that will ever occur in the universe… although all of this would be contained in a library with finite bounds…albeit those bounds would not fit into the known universe.
again, all of this is just to prove the point that the term ‘infinite’ as a description of the size of the universe is extremely sloppy and disregards the potential enormity of the finite and thus the knowable.
words are representations of concepts. there is a limited set of words in any given language. there is no limit on the numbers of ways those words can be combined into grammatically correct structure. thus you have a limited set of words capable of representing an infinite number of combinations because no one says you aren’t allowed to use a word more than once.
and as i said, as this library would theoretically contain every possible combination of these words it would contain the detailed and accurate story of everything to have ever happened in the universe. it would also have a enormous number of detailed but just slightly inaccurate stories of everything in the universe. if the universe were to live on to infinity, its story would already be written, but in a limited set of different volumes.
and the point is still that the use of the word infinite to describe the universe is unneccessary and sloppy. its a crutch used to explain away anything that is too difficult to rectify otherwise.
lol OK I’m out. Neat little exercise. I may look up the actual story to see if I can find the flaw in the flaw in the premises of logic that creates the contradiction you’re trying to come up with. It’s too easy to find the flaws in your explanation. (Contradictions don’t exist, only errors in premises.)
i highly recommend it. borges ‘library of babel’. the story on its face isn’t written as the thinking exercise i’m portraying, but the structure created by the story raises these questions.
the story also has some very good parallels with evolutionary thought, computer science and the possibility of life in the universe.
Ok so can someone tell me how the fuck all the evidence that Jesus left behind came to earth, ie holy grail. What about all the books that were written by the apostles, if those weren’t his words were the fuck did they come from. (I don’t think apes were that smart)
Maybe they were young aliens visiting our planet long ago. Perhaps they have an infinite life span so they’re not Ancient Aliens but Infinite Aliens. See if we can send this in another direction.