Not sure if a /his/, /lit/, or /sci/ question. - /his/ (#17858047) [Archived: 192 hours ago]

Anonymous
7/20/2025, 7:41:21 PM No.17858047
images (5)
images (5)
md5: 6fec9ea39f7e19e320c9cafa88c925bf๐Ÿ”
How come actual infinities can only exist in math but not in the physical world? I know there are plenty of examples of potential infinities in physical reality but no actual infinities that we know of. Physics either gets violated when you add in infinities, or if a theory predicts an object with some such property which is infinite in the math, like black holes, the theory is incomplete because there are no actual infinities. Is it a valid assumption to make about reality that there are no actual infinities in the physical world? What does this even tell us about the nature of math?
Replies: >>17858083 >>17858094 >>17858284 >>17858310 >>17858372 >>17858419
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 7:43:53 PM No.17858051
No idea!
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 7:47:08 PM No.17858059
I don't know if experts and big-brains make this distinction, but I think there is one between "eternal" and "infinite." Mostly unrelated to what you're asking.
Replies: >>17858089
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 7:55:02 PM No.17858073
Try going inside a black hole and tell us if you find infinity, report your observations back here in the next 6 million years. We will eagerly await your arrival
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 7:59:03 PM No.17858083
>>17858047 (OP)
They exist in the real world but aren't practically measurable.
Replies: >>17858093
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 8:01:25 PM No.17858089
>>17858059
Are you talking about the continuum hypothesis? That just hypothesizes about the existence of a set whose cardinality is strictly between the real numbers and integers. Both real numbers and natural numbers are objects called sets which are actually infinite. The main difference mathematically is that the former is uncountably infinite while the latter is countably infinite. This is a different question from what is in the OP. The OP is more philosophical and metaphysical, whereas the continuum hypothesis is strictly mathematical.
Replies: >>17858121
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 8:02:53 PM No.17858093
>>17858083
If you haven't measured them how do you know about them? I thought materialists understood how science works.
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 8:02:56 PM No.17858094
>>17858047 (OP) Only God is infinite. Only what has no beginning can have no end.
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 8:13:55 PM No.17858121
>>17858089
No, I mean broadly philosophically and I'm probably misguided and being retarded here. Many cases. I mean a difference between infinities in specifics vs blunt infinity in the nature of what potentially could non-infinitely exist. So the the universe could be in some sense eternal, there might always be something, without containing anything specific that's truly infinite. I don't know what that would mean exactly, I'm just testing this out. It's unrelated to the specific questions OP was asking.
Replies: >>17858140 >>17858148
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 8:20:03 PM No.17858140
>>17858121
I'm looking at a reddit post, God forgive me:

wbenjamin13 2y ago - edited 2y ago
>Infinity is a mathematical concept, it is basically a theoretical number which is boundless, nothing can be bigger.

>Eternal is an adjective meaning something which exists forever and often it is something which never began either, it always existed. It is often used in religious contexts.

>Everlasting is an adjective meaning something which will last forever. It is often used interchangeably with eternal, but it cannot replace it in all contexts, as it does not have the same implication of always existing.

OP's asking about infinities and I have nothing to contribute. I'm going to let you carry on.
Replies: >>17858144
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 8:21:04 PM No.17858144
>>17858140
25 upvotes. Carry on.
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 8:22:53 PM No.17858148
>>17858121
>I mean a difference between infinities in specifics vs blunt infinity in the nature of what potentially could non-infinitely exist.
I mean "specific infinity" would be instantiated actual infinities, if I am interpreting you correctly. But we don't see that in the physical world. I can't make out your jibber jabber in the second part, could you explain?
Replies: >>17858161
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 8:31:16 PM No.17858161
>>17858148
The universe might exist eternally. I don't know if that means :"in time" or "with or without time," I don't understand these things. But it might not contain instantiated actual infinities within that boundless/infinite framework, I've heard cosmologists repeatedly mention their math breaks down at certain points when dealing with singularities. But, to me, that counts as a type of infinity, eternal somethingness does, but it's not a "specific infinity" ie. the type of infinity used as a tool in mathematics. I'll let you be the judge if I'm talking nonsense.
Replies: >>17858174
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 8:38:01 PM No.17858174
>>17858161
>But, to me, that counts as a type of infinity, eternal somethingness does, but it's not a "specific infinity" ie. the type of infinity used as a tool in mathematics.
But I think what your talking about would be unfalsifiable. We define infinity using mathematics. If your theory on infinity cannot be shown mathematically true, then how could we ever truly know about an actual infinity in the world? It's a philosophical conjecture at best. It's vague. You're just positing the existence of some new vague entity. I'm not even sure if it's coherent.
Replies: >>17858207
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 8:50:12 PM No.17858207
>>17858174
I'm not either. To me that's the only vaguely satisfying explanation for how something exists vs nothing, that there's never been actual true nothing, it's not a state that can or ever did exist. But I'm in well over my head when time is included and the idea that time didn't exist before our spacetime emerged, I don't understand what that does to causality.
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 9:11:11 PM No.17858263
Feel like our explanations haven't changed fundamentally since the IE vs farmer days. Boundless Mother nature or a creator father God, not much in between.
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 9:13:54 PM No.17858272
And I mean BOUNDLESS you know what I'm saying
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 9:16:00 PM No.17858284
>>17858047 (OP)
Space is continuous according to the dominant theories of physics, and if that's correct then then there is an actual infinity of points between any two points in space.
Replies: >>17858347
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 9:21:15 PM No.17858310
>>17858047 (OP)
Zenoโ€™s first paradox would actually be an incredible refutation of space-time if Planck lengths hadnโ€™t been discovered millenium later refuting it.
Replies: >>17858332
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 9:27:00 PM No.17858332
>>17858310
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/9720/does-the-planck-scale-imply-that-spacetime-is-discrete
>The proposition that distances or durations become discrete near the Planck scale is a scientific hypothesis and it is one that may be - and, in fact, has been - experimentally falsified. For example, these discrete theories inevitably predict that the time needed for photons to get from very distant places of the Universe to the Earth will measurably depend on the photons' energy. The Fermi satellite has showed that the delay is zero within dozens of milliseconds
Replies: >>17858337
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 9:28:40 PM No.17858337
>>17858332
>which proves that the violations of the Lorentz symmetry (special relativity) of the magnitude that one would inevitably get from the violations of the continuity of spacetime have to be much smaller than what a generic discrete theory predicts.
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 9:32:29 PM No.17858347
>>17858284
That's an example of a potential infinity, not an actual infinity.
Replies: >>17858386
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 9:39:15 PM No.17858372
>>17858047 (OP)
Scientists and physicists tend to have this idiotic idea that anything outside of human observation is so irrelevant that it's stupid to consider. They'll tell you about the smallest subatomic measurements and the most distant telescope data but if you argue that the actual universe extends further than what can be formally observed based on mathematically expressible ontology/epistemology, they'll call you an idiot. They end up making an unjustifiable assumption that the physical universe is exactly the perfect thing to fill the bounds of reality and isn't absurd, randomly picked out of a field of possibilities. The philosopher asks "Why is there anything at all? What exists instead of just a total void?" And these dumb fucks are like "Acktually this very specific set of guage groups, number of dimensions and geometrical specifications is REALERINO." These are people whose general philosophical perspective is skewed by the particular expertise they have. They don't actually know better than "schizos". They just know absurd particular details that happen to be difficult to understand. I reccomend OP read non-fictional existentialist literature. You get closer to good philosophical positions by pulling many disparate insights and seeing where they don't contradict rather than constraining your mind with too much attention to discernment.
Replies: >>17858381
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 9:41:26 PM No.17858381
>>17858372
I think you talked to a non-scientist once and mistook him for a scientist and came to these conclusions.
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 9:42:11 PM No.17858386
>>17858347
How so? The cardinality of the set of points on a continuous line is aleph 1, an actual infinity.
Replies: >>17858396 >>17858442
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 9:44:46 PM No.17858396
>>17858386
*actually 2^(aleph 0) I think. I forgor that the continuum hypothesis isn't a given.
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 9:51:14 PM No.17858419
>>17858047 (OP)
There's one infinity, sort of, it's "time back to the beginning" because there was no beginning. There was empty space with a small amount of energy or fine dust for effectively eternity, although it wasn't really that long. The speed of time is determined by the proximity of events. There was an infinite amount of spacetime between events because there were no events for a long time. After infinite eternities, the energy built up and compounded on itself like static electricity, or black hole gravity, setting up a chain reaction. That chain reaction became our "time" a series of events burning and converting material energy from an initial source.
Replies: >>17858458
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 9:58:49 PM No.17858442
>>17858386
You're failing to understand that the physical theories are approximations of physical phenomena. They are idealizations of reality, there is no actual instantiation of infinity in the physical world.
Replies: >>17858461
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 10:02:29 PM No.17858458
>>17858419
This sounds a little bit like a heat death dead universe coming back to life over unimaginably long stretches? I know there are cosmological models that incorporate something like this, I don't know what the consensus validity state of any of them are, but there are big respected names tied to stuff akin to this if I'm understanding you correctly. There's also the possibility of false vacuum decay that might possibly lead to some rebirth-potential for dead universes, or dead pockets of universe maybe, or maybe perma-death somehow.
Replies: >>17858994
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 10:02:54 PM No.17858461
>>17858442
It sounds like you're taking it as an axiom that there are no actual infinities, but, since the theories do work on the assumption of actual infinities and the evidence so far seems to lean more toward there being an actual infinity than not, I think you should consider it to be at least *possible* that reality really does match the theories in that respect.
Replies: >>17858476
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 10:08:51 PM No.17858476
>>17858461
Has infinity ever been measured physically?
Replies: >>17858508
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 10:17:16 PM No.17858508
>>17858476
Not that I know of, and I'm not sure how we'd go about proving that spacetime definitely isn't discrete at some extraordinarily tiny scale. Maybe there'd be some way for all I know. But whether or not we can confirm something by measurement is a separate topic from whether it actually is a certain way. And give the uncertainty and that our models do include infinities, I don't think it's justified to assume that there are none as if that were the default.
Replies: >>17858540
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 10:27:15 PM No.17858540
>>17858508
>I don't think it's justified to assume that there are none as if that were the default.
Why? If you cannot empirically demonstrate it to be true, then once again you've made an unfalsifiable claim. This is a classic case of Russell's Teapot.
Replies: >>17858574 >>17858581
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 10:34:43 PM No.17858574
>>17858540
There are two possibilities: one which the best models rely on, and one which is conceivable but for which we do not have very successful models. If you know nothing else, why would you for granted that, despite appearances, the second model is what we should assume until proven otherwise?
Replies: >>17858606
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 10:36:21 PM No.17858581
>>17858540
There are two possibilities: one which the best models rely on, and one which is conceivable but for which we do not have very successful models. If you know nothing else, why would you take for granted that, despite appearances, the second possibility is what we should assume until proven otherwise?
Replies: >>17858597
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 10:42:05 PM No.17858597
>>17858581 (cont.)
To me it's as if you're saying, "Well, if it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck... actually we should assume that that it's a turtle disguised as a duck because allowing the existence of ducks introduces an unnecessary extra type of entity into our world model!"
Replies: >>17858617
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 10:44:17 PM No.17858606
>>17858574
I think if you're going to argue that there are instances of actual infinities that it needs to be empirical and scientifically based, because these are the types of questions science deals with. The problem is that science cannot even measure infinity, it doesn't deal with it as a concept in itself, which is why physicists don't consider infinite objects in their theories to be actually real, they're approximations. If science deals with the physical world, but cannot measure something part of nature, then it's not science anymore. You've posisted something outside of the realm of nature and to me this seems like a contradiction.
Replies: >>17858617 >>17858656
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 10:48:35 PM No.17858617
>>17858597
See >>17858606
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 11:02:17 PM No.17858656
>>17858606
>physicists don't consider infinite objects in their theories to be actually real
I'm not sure if this true in general. Do you have a relevant survey of physicists?

To be honest, it sounds to me like you have an irrational prejudice against actual infinities. An infiniphobia, you might call it. Mayve one day there will be therapy for this, in the distant future when we take advantage of actual infinities to solve otherwise unsolvable computation problems, and many people will have to confront actual infinities on a day-to-day basis.
Replies: >>17858680
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 11:09:58 PM No.17858680
>>17858656
*confront the reality of actual infinities on a day to day basis, since under the assumption that they do exist we probably already are confronting them on a day-to-day a basis, just without having to recognize them.
Replies: >>17858692
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 11:15:46 PM No.17858692
>>17858680
What does this mean though? 1) pedantic but, we're not confronting them because we don't experience them (or if we do, they're unsolvable by memory and wiped from continuity sense). 2)
Replies: >>17858758
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 11:36:31 PM No.17858758
>>17858692
Do you accept the existence of quarks and electrons and that in some sense you deal with them all the time? It's my understanding that we don't observe them directly, but we infer their existence because they explain well what we do observe. Actual infinity in the context of the continuity of spacetime is arguably the same way I think. It explains well what is observed. Though if is true, we may or may not ever be able to directly perceive it directly, at least not with our brains, just like how electrons can't be seen with our eyes. Though if maybe actual infinity is something that can be directly felt in massively altered states of consciousness like near death experiences, psychedelic trips, or deep meditative absorption, since infinity does get used to describe those things sometimes.
Replies: >>17858767
Anonymous
7/20/2025, 11:40:40 PM No.17858767
IMG_20250720_174021
IMG_20250720_174021
md5: b85f318a8e78cb8605ffcbed5792975b๐Ÿ”
>>17858758 (cont.)
>directly perceive it directly
I hope my obvious brain damage doesn't detract too much from my arguments.
Replies: >>17858821 >>17858844
Anonymous
7/21/2025, 12:04:43 AM No.17858821
>>17858767
I will hedge and say that since our physics theories aren't perfect, it may be that somehow part of what's wrong with them is the assumption that spacetime is continuous, so anyone accepting actual infinities could be leading themselves up the garden path as far as understanding the universe goes. But I still think anything that seems logically coherent and consistent with observation shouldn't be ruled out. Though, admittedly, a few thousand years ago being overly willing to accept infinities might've led to me believing the earth was infinite and there were infinitely many suns and moons flying over head all the time like Xenophanes is supposed to have believed.
Anonymous
7/21/2025, 12:13:31 AM No.17858844
>>17858767
No lad, no detraction. I'm batting about 0% for posts that don't include maddening repetitions (your repetition of directly DID make me MAD). I hope janny, whom I adore and worship even, bans you promptly. You'll notice I have no argument.
Replies: >>17858891
Anonymous
7/21/2025, 12:30:07 AM No.17858891
Screen-Shot-2017-10-17-at-4.45.19-PM
Screen-Shot-2017-10-17-at-4.45.19-PM
md5: aa50550fbcab41d63cfc38f3054fcb95๐Ÿ”
>>17858844
Anonymous
7/21/2025, 1:12:51 AM No.17858994
>>17858458
It's not really important to my point how it went from mostly empty to full universe, or whether it could happen multiple times, though I have some ideas about the mechanism. The point is there was no beginning and the idea of "well what happened before that?" is a mere human invention that isn't cosmologically necessary.