Re: Eternity

On May 8, 12:39 pm, "Thomas" <some...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[...]

For the naive kind of infinite world envisaged by Kendal we have to suppose
that we retain all of the symmetries of nature (aka fundamental particles
and forces) that allow our current universe to exist and then add in some
additional constraints which somehow prevent any degenerative processes from
occuring. Quite apart from the problem of objectively identifying which
processes are wholly degenrate we also need to find somewhere or somewhen to
add these new constraints.

Do you have some reason to think it's impossible?

It makes no sense to me at all and I don't find
the response that "god can do what ever he likes" to be particularly
convincing.

Your original claim was that a particular type of eternal life was
physically (and logically) unsound. Backing this up by noting that you
don't see how to set up the laws of physics that would make it
possible is very far from convincing.

(I don't even know how to set up laws of physics that give rise to the
physical world we do observe.)

As for 'logically ... unsound', I'm none too sure what you're getting at.

Mathematicians have struggled with the concept of infinity for millennia.
The situation in modern times has been largely normalised due to the work of
Cantor on infinite sets although there still exists a school of 'finitism'
in mathematics which rejects the use of infinite sets altogether.

A very-far-from-mainstream school.

In any event, infinity must be used with great care in mathematics and logic
and is generally used in the sense of a limit to which some well defined
sequence tends. For example, in the limit, the sum of the series 1, 1/2,
1/4, 1/8 etc is 2, however any particular evaluation of this series will
always be less than 2.

Both limits and "actual infinities" are frequently used in
mathematics.

If we try to transfer the idea of infinity to any physical world then we
have to be at least as cautious. So in the real world, Zeno's paradox is
easily resolved but Hilbert's Hotel is not.

There is no paradox that I know of concerning Hilbert's Hotel. (Nor
Zeno for that matter.)

In other words we can have a
countable infinity of objects which tend to zero but not a countable
infinity of objects which each have a finite extent - at least not without
running into a real paradox.

In the context of heaven for example, we might imagine the big boss
welcoming a recently deceased (or should that be re-born) 'elect' and giving
him the standard intro'; "welcome home, enjoy yourself but remember I can't
abide idleness, be sure to work as much as you play". Now, an elect who was
well versed in Cantor could simply work for one day and then party for the
next million years and so on. When the big fella demands to know what's
going on he points out that in the limit, the number of days in which we
works is exactly the same as the number on which he parties. Don't believe
me? look they can be paired off against each other,  (.....see any standard
work on infinite sets to see how this is done).

Assuming that "work as much as you play" means "make sure that the
cardinality of the set of days you work is at least equal to the
cardinalilty of the set of days you play". I can think of much more
plausible things it might mean.

Anyway is there supposed to be a paradox here? If so what?

Michael


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