Imagine a number line where here (where the centre of the lens of one of your eyes are) is zero. [Which eye is up to you!] The distance between zero and 1 is 1cm. Pick some things (on you, in your house, on earth, the solar system, Milky Way, Universe) and say what number would be on the number line when the line reaches that place, ie., the computer screen 60cm from my head would be 60 on the number line. (You can also get into decimals as well, ie., how far is it from the lens to that dust particle that just landed on top of your lens ?)
The line is straight and can go through things but is affected by space-time. Perhaps it should be thought of as the line travelled by some strange sub-particle as it travels from creation in the lens of your eye (yes direction would matter).
You can easily get up to really big numbers that imply that it would take many years to travel along your number line to get to that number (to make things easy assume travel at the speed of light.) With one of these super-big numbers what would have been happening at zero when the trip started ?
(okay - your eye wouldn't have existed then and if it had, you would've moved over the years - so let just assume I mean where the lens of your eye is now but before it was there!)
Is there a problem here ? What if we are talking about a number that would be at the place at the moment of the big bang. Where is here then ? Does the 3 dimensions of space a trillionth of a second of the big bang represent the whole universe now so that one could say that somewhere in the supertiny universe is the place that 'grows into' here? Or is 'here' somehow independent of the objects in the universe as Newtonian phsyics implies ?
Enjoy the challenge and comment on the strange questions it suggests. And please raise any more weird ideas the challenge implies.
H'mmm
Infinity must have some reality...
Why must? I might as well say that God must have some reality. Saying it doesn't make it true.
Dammit
The last time I heard talk like this was at Cartography, everyone was chatting about quantum physics. Oh, by the way Chris, I have spies spying on your spies, and just to be safe, I have spies spying on my own spy.
GOD & INFINITY
INFINITY
This can be turned the other way - how can you say God & infinity don't have any reality - & what does reality mean? & does it mean the same for both ideas.
For example, infinity as a mathematical concept is certainly real. There is clearly no upper limit for real numbers, primes etc. & clearly a number can always be divided to make a smaller number so infinitessimals also exit (at least mathematically). Furthermore, general mathematical laws & proofs rely on the notion of infinity - otherwise the laws and proofs would have limits.
Now what about a physical reality for infinity. For a start we clearly have surfaces that have no beginning and end & hence are 'infinite' in that there are no surface-specific criterion for where a journey on that surface would begin and end. (In contrast to climbing a ladder where there is a ladder-specific criterion for beginning and ending).
Could the universe be infinite in the same way as the surfaces above? Christopher Jury commented that my perpetual motion machine described above was infinite in a finite sort of way. I assume he meant by this if you travel out from the centre of an area you will at some point reach area-defining boundary. So if the Universe was like the inside of a soccer ball or the inside of a discus then the boundary of the Universe might be infinite as described above but finite in that an area-defining boundary can be reached (unless space turns in on itself). My reading (& I not that type of scientist) is that space-time is determined by the objects in the universe (ie., space-time is 'bent' by large objects. To my mind, this is simply saying that space & time as we understand and measure it, is dependent on the objects in the space (this is not circular because gravitation 'causes' this dependence) - therefore I would assume that such a universe is finite (or at least infinite in a finite way as CJ put it).
However, why couldn't this visible universe exist within an absolute 'space' which is infinite (ie., as you travel out from the centre has no boundary ever.)
Now to me there's a paradox here. Surely such a space would have no centre & no beginning and end (ie., eternal as well as infinite) so how could a finite universe exist within it ? But in the absence of a first cause (an old argument for God) then we have no explanation of how the Universe came to exist anyway. (Explaining the Big Bang doesn't do it because there still has to be a prior cause to whatever cause is temporally first in the set of events being focused on.)
So does infinity exist physically in an infinite way ? One can not provide empirical evidence that it does or doesn't so we can only rely on argument & mine is above.
GOD
It all depends on how you define God. When boys join cubs they make a promise to' ....do my duty to my God etc.' Taking the process seriously I am faced with boys who tell me they don't believe in God. What I do here is simply suggest that whatever force(s) created us is God. Hence biologically evolution is part of God. Now this destroys any notion of God as an entity but does put notions of God to my mind as being similar in type to that of infinity. God as an entity (or as entities) on the other hand is different from infinity as this implies that he/she/it has some corpereality. This I don't believe in because the notion of a corpereal God & his/her/it's [surposed] influence on the world seems to me to be inconsistent with my understanding of how processes in the Universe and on earth operate. However, I can not make this latter statement about infinity.
QUANTUM PHYSICS
don't worry if you don't understand Quantum Physics apparently no one does (esp. the Quantum physicists).
How about a cartography challenge ? Sadly i don't know anything about graphics and the web. Could we set it up that you guys could create your own maps in a computer program / on paper & scan it in the computer (or 3 d then digitally photographed)? Just an idea. If you want to follow this idea up & discuss it with Christopher Jury, Caleb Wells etc. use our CHAT ROOM (the random ideas challenge).
I guess the NUMBER LINE THROUGH THE UNIVERSE is sort of cartographical.
I still think that ...
infinity is just a concept. Making references to the inside of a football (why not the surface of a planet?), doesn't prove anything (and I'm not sure why climbing a ladder is different!). The fact that if you travel a distance, I can always travel that distance, plus an extra foot, doesn't make infinity real. Sure, we can speculate on what caused the universe, and what caused that cause, but we have to be honest, and say that speculation aside, there is no evidence of infinity (or God) in the physical world.
For all we know, the origin of the origin of the universe might be explained by some concept that has nothing to do with infinity - the same way that the difference between two dimensions and three dimensions has nothing to do with infinity.
Epudianaria! (Don't try and figure out what language it is)
1.The belief in multiple universes is my pet hate.
2. All the spies in the world won't do you any good because my spies look like yours and my spies confuse your spies easily because whenever you think you have one of my spies it will probably be one of your spies because half the time they are having a tea break in a place far removed from the reaches of your imagination.
3. Albert Einstein said, "The Universe, rather than being infinite, is in fact finite yet unbounded" which goes back to my sphere explanation.
4.What is the "google......" people keep mentioning.
5. I have invented my own philosophy called triexistelism.
6. I have made up a paradox: "When you get closer to something bigger than yourself the more magnified the centrepoint is. However as you get closer the less you can see of its outer points. Therefore, when you get closer to something bigger than yourself you are also getting further away because the outer points are moving away from you.
Officially Signed and Most Graciously Authenticated, His Most Imperial Majesty, Kaiser Christophe Wilhelm XII, by the grace of God.
© Christopher Jury 2007
INFINITY & REAL - to GAMEMASTER
PROOF doesn't provide empirical evidence that anything is real. Proof is the line of logic (deductive) by which certain conclusions are derived given particular assumptions. Kant pointed out that the truth or falseness of certain propositions (ie., God exists) can not be decided logically but only by empirical evidence. Science, therefore does not rely on proof but on evidence. Similarly in court no person can be proven guilty or innocent because it is evidence that determines whether a person committed a crime or not (of course, certain evidence can be used as a set of assumptions from which one can logically argue that a person is guilty - ie., circumstancial evidence).
Mathematically you can show that infinity exists, ie., that the set of numbers is open (ie., more members can always be found). There is as far as I know, no way of providing conclusive evidence that the Universe is infinite (ie., that space goes on forever). There is data on the shape of the known universe & I think that suggests that it is rather flat. Given data about the universe mathematicians and theoretical physicists draw other conclusions some of which stretch the inferential line of logic considerably.
However, to say that something is 'just a concept' when there is no evidence it exists when we have such limited ability to obtain evidence is a bit like saying in 1400 that there is no land to the West of Europe when no one (people didn't know about Vikings) had gone and looked. I also think treating infinity as you do limits the ways we can appropriately think of the Universe we are in.
I guess I am not as narrow an empiricist as you are.
CHRISTOPHER'S COMMENTS
MULTIPLE UNIVERSES
There is no (& maybe there never can be) any evidence one way or the other. Perhaps it's just useless speculation, unless you write SF.
HOwever, one can make certain assumptions about the Universe from which one or more other universes can be logically derived. For example, the Big Bang must have come from something. Therefore there must have been something before the BB & hence before our univserse. That something must have been a prior universe. Note how the line of argument follows from the reasonable assumption that the BB came from something.
A second argument for a larger universe (perhaps completely empty) is based on the assumption that the expansion of the Universe must occur in some 'space', which is (i some unspecified way) external to our Universe.
Therefore, our Universe must exist in a larger one.
Note that this argument is again based on an assumption (the deep assumption for both is that the whole universe acts in a way that is consistent with our world experiences and normal science, ie., that nothing can't cause something & that something can not expand when there's no space to expand in.
SPHERICAL SHAPE OF THE UNIVERSE
I think the common view now is that the visible universe is more like a discus than a sphere.
TREXISTELISM
How about you design a challenge in which people describe their own philosophies - you can tell us about TRIEXISTELISM there
YOUR PARADOX
It is only a paradox if you think as the big thing an unit. There is no contradiction in saying that you are coming closer to some midpoint while the boundaries are becoming further away.
GOOGLE
Brian Grady has entered some Google Whacks on the CHAT ROOM - the RANDOM IDEAS CHALLENGE - is that what you're asking about ?