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Does the infinite exist? (uncountable style)

#1
C C Offline
https://bigthink.com/13-8/does-infinity-exist/

EXCERPT: The conclusion may be disappointing, but it is also extraordinary. The universe may be spatially infinite, but we cannot know. Infinity remains more of an idea than something that exists in physical reality... (MORE - missing details)
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COMMENT: By definition, it can't refer to a fixed quantity or magnitude. Otherwise it would be finite; measurable at least in theory or via "prowess of a deity".

So if the abstraction that the adjective "infinite" denotes were reified or made physical, it would actually concern an incomplete condition that could be increased as needed. Perpetually open to either being divided into more units or having more units added.

It would entail change or involve a generative process, since if it literally existed wholly complete in a material context (a static being) it would thereby be demoted to finite classification. Even as a process, it would technically only elude finite status by constantly growing its units, in order to evade a fixed value and measurement.

Thus, the aforementioned "increase as needed" is a luxury or temporary rest that cannot apply. A physical correlate for "infinity" would have to constantly either add to itself or divide itself to ensure that no fixed, finite or bounded count could capture or be absolutely true of its magnitude.


Finity, delaying its end, did say:

"Like a flea attached to its beast I stay!"

"I vow," quoth Infinity, "So you do.

"And feeding from my very ichor, too!"

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#2
Kornee Offline
I posted the following links some years back over at SF, in response to a 'deep philosopher' there:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlU2_0DIVNQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjRT28uq3Ro

A brief summary if you can't spare the effort or time:
Even if there are actual, physical-not-merely-mathematical infinities in nature (extremely doubtful), they can never be proven to exist. Emphasis on the word 'proven'. Infinity is NOT by nature merely a very very large number!
Above two linked lectures by George Ellis reinforces but with great thoroughness, the theme of the Big Think article linked to in #1.
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#3
Zinjanthropos Offline
Out of my league but still I tried to imagine infinitely round and infinitely flat. However trying to imagine infinitely bagel was too much. Why would something infinite have a shape or how can a shape be infinite?
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#4
C C Offline
(Jun 13, 2022 11:20 AM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: Out of my league but still I tried to imagine infinitely round and infinitely flat. However trying to imagine infinitely bagel was too much. Why would something infinite have a shape or how can a shape be infinite?


Light information circularly going round and round a small hypersphere or hypertorus shaped universe might create an infinity mirror effect, but it's an illusionary appearance or specious recruitment of "infinite". IOW, travel long enough in one direction and an immortal being in an immortal spaceship would return to where they started (if precise orientation was maintained) in those topologies.
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#5
Magical Realist Offline
Quote:By definition, it can't refer to a fixed quantity or magnitude. Otherwise it would be finite; measurable at least in theory or via "prowess of a deity".

So if the abstraction that the adjective "infinite" denotes were reified or made physical, it would actually concern an incomplete condition that could be increased as needed. Perpetually open to either being divided into more units or having more units added.

Thus the time-like quality of any actual infinite/infinitesimal magnitude, always going beyond any attempt to measure or contain it finitely. Is time itself nothing but this instantiation of infinite Becoming in our reality?The presence of the transcendental event of novel and changeful ocurrence there on the sparkling edge of nascent Being? The eternal ellusiveness of the all-surpassing---"the tao that can be named is not the true tao."?
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