Space, Time & Stephen Hawking Jive

[FNHinVA]

I was doing some more searching on the Web and ran across some stuff that gave me a new way to think about this issue.

I believe I would be correct to say that there exist in abstract math, higher physics, etc., contradictory proofs that are – for all appearances - each valid but seem mutually exclusive… sort of a “can’t be… but is” deal. In fact, I believe you alluded to this in an earlier post.

It was inferred in some of the very materials I cited:

“Nevertheless, Zeno's paradoxes are still hotly debated by philosophers in academic circles. Infinite processes have remained theoretically troublesome.”

“It would be incorrect to say that a rigorous formulation of the calculus … has resolved forever all problems involving infinities, including Zeno's.”

I started from (using a convenient reformulation I ran across):

0.9r .NE. 1

(where .NE. can be either “NOT EQUAL” or, (my fave) “NEVER EQUALS.”)

This… to me… is a “self-evident truth.” It requires no proof. I can keep adding 9s until the end of time (and we don’t want to go there) and it will always be true that 0.9r .NE. 1.

But, I now understand that you (and your fellow-travelers – I’d like to shoot some of them too) can use “theoretically troublesome” abstract concepts and “prove” that 0.9r = 1. (And BTW, I don’t blame you; who wants to wait until the end of time to find out what 0.9r comes out to? You guys have stuff to do and need answers NOW.)

This abstract math stuff is your world; you get to make up the rules… even if you can’t always agree on them among yourselves.

I accept that in your world, 0.9r = 1 and that you can prove it. I admit I don’t fully understand some of the concepts used but I’m much closer to “getting it” than I was before I (foolishly) started this thread.

BTW: One “proof” I ran across used set theory to eliminate all numbers smaller than 1 (the limit I acknowledge can’t be exceeded) and leave no possibility other than 1. To the extent I understood it, I liked it better than yours. You are free to feel insulted.

The problem I’ve had is that I was obstinate about rejecting the abstract math proof because it was threatening to my understanding of real stuff. In other words, both can’t be right; I have to reject yours.

Now, as I see it, we have “contradictory proofs” and I can accept it because that kind of stuff happens. It “can’t be… but is.” Both can be right on their own terms and in their own worlds. I just have to accept that you get to do things in your world that I can’t do in my world.

I see the merit in yours; but I’ll keep mine. The calculus works wonderfully in the practical world so that’s cool too. Long live the “limit.”

So it seems futile for me to point out where – in your last post – it still seems to me that you are “jumping the infinity” or “terminating the infinity” or making “simplifying assumptions.” (Although, I have to mention I did get a little chuckle from: “…the upper limit is 1 is sufficient.”) I would just be flogging the “theoretically troublesome” horse and nobody needs that.

In closing…

“Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I will stand against a wall and allow you to personally shoot me for my grievous slights against your character, if and only if you can prove irrefutably, either that space is not continuous or Santa Claus doesn't exist.”

I don’t have to prove anything. If I ever get to Ireland (and I hope to) I’m going to hunt you down like the math dog you are and shoot you anyway. I don’t need no stinkin’ proofs.

And, I KNOW Santa Claus exists; I see him every year at the Mall.

I don’t have to prove space is not continuous; I BELIEVE in the non-continuity. It’s my new religion. I call it Planckism.

Every Full Moon, we will gather around a bonfire of math textbooks and dance nude until the Sun come up. (Although we have no understanding of how that Sun thing works.)

Always fun…

Seeyadowntheroad…