-when I said “logic” is man’s tool, I should have said “science”. Logic can be applied anywhere in the universe, but it’s going to rely on what we know to help it along, and what we know is science. So if I were to use logic, it wouldn’t be as critical as it is around our part of the galaxy.
-an infinite universe would have infinite instances of the same thing because everything exists (a very important support to most of this opinion). How this can’t be seen to include infinite instances, I don’t understand.
-I don’t know how impossible things exist, but they do. I don’t expect to know how, either (but I must follow the rule stated above). Yes, I know. Silliness.
-I can’t say that I am able to “demonstrate” an example of infinite things existing, but I’m pretty sure smaller forms than atoms have been discovered, and will likely be proven larger than other things once technology allows those discoveries.
-I was speaking of a single universe in dimensional terms.
What I want to know is why shouldn’t an infinite universe have more than one instance of each of an infinite number of things. If something occurs once in this universe, what prevents it from happening again in each point (as in no length, width, or height) an infinite number of times? I think, in an infinite universe, then an infinite number of things will happen an infinite number of times in an infinite number of places. In other words, everything happens everywhere an infinite number of times.
Isn’t this the basic point we are arguing? If the above is true, and one travels in one direction for an infinite amount of time, then that person should see everything. (Actually, that person should see everything an infinite number of times as well.)
Please don’t be too hard on me.
“Everything exists” and “everything exists an infinite number of times” are different claims. “Everything exists once” satisfies “everything exists” just as much as the infinite claim.
Why does “everything exist”? What is it about an infinite universe that necessitates, or even makes probable, the existence of everything conceivable? Our infinite universe could be empty, or consist almost entirely of energy fields of probabilistic radiation, as some scientists now think. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that what is possible must exist, just because it’s possible.
Even if everything exists, you’re using “everything” in an opaque way. Why does everything include paradoxes? By definition, paradoxes cannot exist, so if you’re going to include paradoxes, you’ll need a good reason.
I’m serious about these questions. Try to answer them. That’s what philosophy is all about.
You’re just claiming this. Support it. It’s not silliness, it’s emptiness.
Then we’re getting somewhere. Your straight line path will not succeed in exploring the entire universe, but a “spheres within spheres” path will, in an infinite amount of time, so our notional explorer can see the whole universe, and everything in it.
That’s your claim: back it up. “Why wouldn’t it be the case?” isn’t a sufficient argument for “it is the case”.
You are most probably wrong to think that everything that can exist will exist an infinite number of times. It is entirely possibly for nothing to exist at all for all eternity.
What is your logic, that everything will eventually exist, then keep repeating itself for all eternity in every point in space. I don’t understand how you come to this.
In this universe, cause and effect doctrine events (at least above the quantum level) and a very chaotic way, and that might mean an event or object may only exist ONCE for all time, and never repeat itself again.
Just like pi…
Evno, please try to touch on all these points. Like Hansel says, you’re making some jumps here.
I said this in my first post. It’s what you’re telling me now. I already know it.
The ideas I’m throwing out here are not definite, they’re just things I like to believe, and it’s a pain in the ass to back them up. So don’t expect to be convinced. If I could prove these things, I’d be doing more than typing them to people I don’t know.
-What makes everything probable in an infinite universe is the idea that not everything can be proven improbable or even impossible. Using the word PROBABLE is a safety word. It’s not a solid YES or NO.
-Saying the universe is “empty” (like people have) is a selfish, vain, and ignorant way of making the whole Big Question have a simple answer: If we don’t know of anything else, and we’ve never met anything else, then screw it, we must be alone. I’ll have nothing to do with this attitude. It’s reserved for the kind of person who would rather ditch the entire space program and concentrate on other things, like world hunger (which is a hole-in-the-bucket problem anyway).
-“Everything” includes paradoxes, infinite everythings, nothings, and whatever else you can think of. That’s why it’s called EVERYTHING.
-Impossible things exist. Alot of things we think are now impossible will become possible with time. History has proven this. And there’s may be no difference between what we think is impossible and what IS impossible. Our words can differentiate between the two for the sake of understanding in OUR method of comprehension, but perhaps our words aren’t enough to explain everything out there.
-I may be wrong, but I don’t believe I actually ever SAID that a linear path would lead to the exploration of “the entire universe”. What I said was that it would lead to the exploration of everything that exists.
-If I explained this right now, I’d be repeating everything that I’ve posted here.
you know, this whole thread has lost alot of sense, and it’s mostly my fault. So just forget it. Let me age another ten years and maybe I’ll be able to say what I mean in better ways, or perhaps I’ll change my mind.
There are an infinite amount of positive even integers. However, even if you were to count those forever, you would never come upon the number “3”. “3” could be classified as a part of the set that is all real numbers, which is also infinitely large. Both sets are infinitely large, but they don’t necessarily have the same things in them.
Same thing with walking in only one direction. By only walking in one direction, you might not ever see the same thing as if you’ve walked in another direction, even though the paths are both infinite. All infinites are not equal.
Of course, I’m probably completely wrong (like always…)
Mikakw, your first statement I can swallow, but the second one wouldn’t be true if the person was walking on a planet. Maybe some infinite plane in space, but not a round body.
If you went due east from Seattle, you would never see Australia no matter how many times you went around the planet. If you go in one direction on a planet and keep going the same direction, you can’t possibly see everything. I suppose you could see everything if you were at a high enough altitude, though.
you’re talking about a loop, which doesn’t apply here. The universe is not a loop. There may be a loop in the universe, but there is a boundary to the loop in SOME direction, and outside that boundary is…Australia.
In other words, If I were to create a plane in the universe that’s a billion light years long, and when I reach the end of that plane I start back at the beginning, whatever is after the end of that plane would still be unexplored.
Loops are a form of containment. The universe I’m talking about had no Tupperware around it.
I would like to modify my argument. If in an infinite universe all possibilities occur, then I think they will occur an infinite number of times. What leads me to believe this is that, if given an infinite amount of time, everything possible will occur and will occur more than once. I think of it like dice. If I rolled a dice with numbers 1-100 forever, I will roll each of those numbers and I will roll each of these numbers more than once; an infinite number of times, in fact. This is because it is possible to roll each of these numbers.
Now, here is where I stretch my dice analogy to include infinity. Randomly picking a real number once a second for infinity, no number will be excluded or unpicked. I don’t think that I can say I will pick every real number, since I will never actually be finished picking numbers.
In addition, nothing prevents me from picking numbers twice. Or three times. Or an infinite number of times. Remember, there is no hurry, I have forever to do this. And I will never finish.
If something happens once, it is possible. If I roll a 7 on my dice, I can and will roll a 7 again and again if I continue to roll the dice forever. However, I can see my flaw in this way of thinking. So I need the following question, upon which my argument hinges, answered:
If I roll a dice with numbers 1-6 on it an infinite number of times, am I guarenteed to roll each number?
The odds, of course, are against this from happening, but if it were a dice with an infinite number of sides, then I see the problem.
I want to modify this statement a tad. According to me, the traveler does not even need to move at all. He can stay in a fixed point and still see anything. Evno, do you agree with this? Why does the traveler have to move at all? Wouldn’t it be cool if I could sit in my recliner for all of eternity and see every possible thing?
Once again according to me, and I think Evno will agree, even though he did not like this loop thing, it does not matter whether you do loops or swirls or sit on your head. Mikahw, you are correct that I would never see Australia per the instructions above on this present earth. But, eventually (there is no rush, remember) another earth will occupy the space our current one is in, and will have Australia line up with the southern course from Seatle.
I am quite curious as to why the traveler must travel in a straight line, or move at all. (This means enclosed loops will get the job done too.)
To everyone, especially hansel and Mikahw, I greatly thank you for your incredible patience.
I agree, but I think this has already been said here. And the trick with the 1-100 die being rolled forever would work also, but it doesn’t really coincide with the universe as an analogy, as the die has a limit of 100 possible outcomes, while the universe has no limit of outcomes.
When you say “randomly picking a real number once a second for infinity”, are you talking about picking from your 1-100 die, or any number from 0 to infinity? Regardless of which one you meant, both would be true, the way I see it, because of what you said in the next line: Infinity has no time limit, and there’s never a point in the number choosing where the person would likely say “well, that’s about all, guess I can’t pick any more numbers (see anything else).” To see more, one would only need to continue further. What remains to be seen, being a whole different story.
“Filling up” an infinite space is possible but not probable. What the universe holds is simply what anyone can think of, and everything they can’t. But it’s all probable, since we can’t seem to prove it.
I like to think that this is sort of a militaristic attitude towards the whole infinite universe idea. The military has certain basic principles within it, and one of those is to “prepare for the worst”. Infinite everythings may not qualify as “the worst”, but it’s certainly something to prepare for, instead of assuming there’s nothing beyond the known celestial bodies and stellar forms.
I don’t think exploration can be achieved without movement. The only way I can agree with this, right now, is if space is expanding, as I’ve heard. Then, there are two possible outcomes, from staying still: 1–the explorer would expand with space, fixed to his position according to where s/he was, and would still be moving, but not going anywhere new, or 2–the explorer would be fixed to a point not anchored to the space around him/her, and would not move with expanding space, and would indeed see everything, while it expanded around him, moving away. In this situation, roles are reversed, the universe moving and the explorer not moving. But this method could be slower, depending on how fast the explorer is able to travel on his/her own will.
It also brings up the idea of If space is expanding, and there’s a central point somewhere that it’s expanding away from, what’s there? Zoiks!, an interesting question.
I didn’t agree with the Earth-land analogy because it’s on the surface of a planet (that’s how I understood it), and the surface of a planet doesn’t have the infinite area that a path across infinite space does. So I thought it was a faulty comparison. But now I get the idea that what was originally intended (perhaps only by JFMichael) is that one would start at a point on Earth, and would travel…off into a straight line, ignoring gravity, and soon be into space, continuing that line? Please clarify what is meant of the situation here.
How can exploration inside an enclosed loop lead to the exploration outside the loop? That’s why I think a loop isn’t comparable.
I am talking about and number from 0 to infinity, and in fact negative numbers; that is why I said real number, as in complex->real->rational->integers->whole numbers->natural numbers. I’m sorry if this was unclear, I suppose those of us not currently enrolled in algebra II have not heard the term “real numbers” for many many years.
This is true. However, as I interpreted your proposal, we are not trying to explore.
According to you, we are trying to experience everything, not explore space. I am trying to say that, eventually, everything will conveniently appear in one point of space for you to experience in your recliner/sofa/toilet as you please; the traveller does not need to move anywhere, nor move at all. The “everything” comes to him, he just has to wait forever to see it.
The straight line from earth (or from anywhere) was how I interpreted your origional proposal (see above). What I am trying to do is take your proposal (is this the right word?) one step farther by saying that the traveler doesn’t need to move at all. I am not sure how you can agree that he will see everything moving in “A LINEAR PATH FOR ALL TIME” but will not agree that he will see everything without having to move at all. This is because the linear path is really just many, many points (BUT NOT NEARLY ALL OF THEM). If it takes a relatively longer time to see everything when moving in “a linear path” then it will just take that much longer to see everything when not moving at all, and staying at a fixed point. I do not understand the expanding universe and I am not attempting to include it or the resulting issues relative to this discussion.
Once again, I see no need to travel outside the loop, since everything that can appear outside can, and will appear inside. There is no need to explore outside the loop, we only need to experience what can appear in the universe.
If you think we need to explore outside of the loop in order to:
“EXPERIENCE ALL THAT A PERSON WOULD FIND ON A MULTI-DIMENSIONAL (ABLE TO EXPLORE IN ALL DIRECTIONS) PATH.”
then moving on a linear path will not let you explore outside of the loop either, you will only explore what is on that path, not the ACTUAL SPACE of places not on the path.
The way I see it, the only difference between moving in a linear path and not moving at all that is moving in a linear path will take a relatively shorter time to experience everything (of course, both will take forever).
I need to know what you mean by “everything”. How can “everything” eventually happen in just one space? Don’t those things have to be moving in and out of that space for everything to happen there?
It’s plain to me, Evno, that you’re attaching a lot of value judgements to very hypothetical abstracts. I wonder if you think that I’m rejecting your ideas because I feel threatened by them, or because the failure of mankind to accept such ideas somehow leads to the demise of humanity.
I’m digging at your ideas because they’re basically empty. They have no explanatory power, they lead us nowhere, except where our romantic inclinations would have taken us anyway. The power of philosophy is that it leads us somewhere definite, even if we find that we’re wrong when we get there.
True, but I never claimed to be speaking the facts. Perhaps my intentions were always of a “romantic” nature.
And there’s no part of me that felt I might change your thoughts. I just like to discuss these things. My story may be full of holes, but we all get the general concept behind them, and we can appreciate the world of fantasy.
Yet, I honestly believe that it won’t be proven wrong or right by any means we try, and neither will anything else said by anyone. I don’t believe in trust.
Sorry if I gave you a pitiful impression of what I was up to. I’m just here to have fun, and learn.