GENIUS FORUMS

Laird: You've made one attempt which I've already rebutted.

Kevin: You've done no such thing. You don't even understand how my rebuttal relates to your argument.

That's because there's nothing to understand: it doesn't relate to my argument. You wrote:

I will prove that "one second ago" never happened, and can never have happened.

And I then showed you how this "proof" of yours was flawed due to its incorrect modelling of time as not flowing at all under the pretence that it was flowing (in the case of the infinite-set-of-points model that you originally posed) and as flowing in an ever-diminishing rate (in the case of the half-by-half-by-half model that you added as an addendum). My argument is totally unrelated to these flawed approaches of yours. My argument is that because an infinity cannot be reached, the earliest part of the so-called "past" of your beginningless model can never have been the present: it is contradictorily in fact not the past.

Laird: Mathematicians have had no problems with the concept for well over a century.

Kevin: You are dreaming if you think that mathematicians have no problems with the concept of infinity. You must have your head firmly stuck in the sand.

You misread me. I was saying that mathematicians have had no problems with the concept of approaching infinity, not with infinity itself.

Kevin Solway wrote:Regarding your interpretation of what we call "the Totality", David has correctly told you that what you are getting out of the term is only a framework, an intellectual artifice, or a model if you will, and is therefore not even close to what we are talking about.

And what else is there to get out of it?

Laird: So what does "block" mean to you then in this context?

Kevin: You should be asking your questions first, rather than after launching an all out attack.

I could explain what the poetic usage of the word "block" in that context means for an entire week, and I still don't think you would understand, because of your natural tendency to grasp at something finite.

Ah, that's reason number six on the list of Reasons Why It Is A Waste Of Time To Debate With Kevin Solway:
6. He will evade the answering of questions and the explaining concepts by making such claims as "you wouldn't understand anyway".

Come on Kev, it's a pretty simple question: what do you mean by "block" in that context?

Laird: This is a limitation (aka boundary).

Kevin: All things are "limited" to being what they are, and not other than what they are. But being limited to the law of logic is not really a limitation. You are just playing silly games here.

Ah, the irony: yeah, it's me who's playing silly games! You with your endless redefinitions and recastings of words; you with your supposed proofs of absolute truths: you are the gamester Kevin.

You refuse to accept that the Totality has limitations which translate into boundaries, because it's a heresy to your religion, but such is the case.

David Quinn wrote:Again, they are just stepping stones. If, somehow, these "beliefs" were revealed to be false it would make no impact on me, just as a bird flying in the sky wouldn't care if the egg it had originally hatched out of was destroyed.

Ah, so that's why you so consistently argue for them here in this forum and in your book then, is it? You "wouldn't care" if they were proven false... ha! Pull the other one, mate.

David Quinn wrote:Being aghast is such an irresistible pleasure. Or so I've been told.

Try it sometime. Oh, hang on: you can't, can you? You have an unemotional front to present.

Laird: None of this is in the slightest relevant to the syllogism unless you can prove that it is possible to reach an infinity. Otherwise the syllogism stands.

David: Again, there is nothing to reach. The present has always existed, and always will.

The present moves through the continuum of time. There is something to reach: the future. But it has to have come from somewhere: the past. And the problem with the beginningless past is that because an infinity cannot be actually encountered (reached), the present moment cannot ever have been there.

If it were somehow possible for the present not to have existed at some point in the past, such that the Universe had to reach for it (can anyone make sense of this notion?) [...] However, the very notion of a present not existing, while other things do, has no meaning.

I can't make sense of what you're saying there but I don't think that it's what I'm trying to say.

DQ: "The most infinite early point" - this doesn't have any meaning.

Laird: I've already accepted that I phrased that poorly and offered in my post of Fri Nov 16, 2007 3:02 pm the rephrasing: "the earliest infinity".

DQ: This is just as meaningless. We can't speak of what is "earliest" when we are talking about the infinite past. This is because whatever can be postulated as the earliest will always have something before it.

To speak of "earliest" on its own in the context of an infinite past would, I agree, be meaningless: hence the pairing with the word "infinity" - so we have "earliest infinity" as opposed to "latest infinity" being the future infinity.

DQ: The present is not something that has to be "reached". It has always been here.

Laird: That's just completely wrong. By definition the present is now, not always has been.

DQ: The infinite past is made up of present moments. At no time did the Universe have to reach from the non-present to the present.

That seems to be a reasonable way to phrase it but it ignores my key point, which I will keep repeating: the infinite past cannot ever have been the present moment because infinity cannot be grasped.

David Quinn wrote:If the past has already happened, then it automatically means that the present had occurred at each point in this past. A past is comprised of nothing else but present moments. Your point about an infinity incapable of being reached is irrelevant in the light of this salient fact.

It is completely relevant: to have been a present moment at the infinite past, the marker of time would have had to encompass an infinity, which it cannot do.

David Quinn wrote:I don't know where you grabbed these assertions from, but they have nothing to do with Kevin or myself. For example, where on earth did you get the "three spatial dimensions, and no more" bit from? From the ether?

OK, so how many spatial dimensions are included in the totality then?

Regarding your idea of "infinity" and "approaching infinity", it is clear that you are refering only to models of infinity, and not the real thing. The mathematical model of infinity is just that - a model.

A model is completely different to the real thing, and we are talking about the real thing, and not a model. That's why you won't ever hear us speaking of anything "approaching infinity" or suchlike.

Kevin Solway wrote:Regarding your interpretation of what we call "the Totality", David has correctly told you that what you are getting out of the term is only a framework, an intellectual artifice, or a model if you will, and is therefore not even close to what we are talking about.

And what else is there to get out of it?

We are pointing at it all the time.

what do you mean by "block" in that context?

It is currently beyond your ability to understand such things. If it was within your ability, you would already know the meaning.

There is a "real infinity"? Nope, it is just a concept, in fact it is just the opposite of the concept of a thing with boundaries.

Neil Melnyk wrote:There is a "real infinity"? Nope, it is just a concept.

So what is your proof? (remembering that you can't use any mere model of infinity to make your point)

Kevin Solway wrote:Regarding your idea of "infinity" and "approaching infinity", it is clear that you are refering only to models of infinity, and not the real thing. The mathematical model of infinity is just that - a model.

A model is completely different to the real thing, and we are talking about the real thing, and not a model. That's why you won't ever hear us speaking of anything "approaching infinity" or suchlike.

No, Kevin, a model is not completely different to the real thing: the characteristic of a good model is that it has features and correspondences that map accurately to the real thing. The mathematical model of infinity as used in calculus has proven itself through effective results to be a good one and we can be assured that it corresponds well with actual infinity.

Kevin: Regarding your interpretation of what we call "the Totality", David has correctly told you that what you are getting out of the term is only a framework, an intellectual artifice, or a model if you will, and is therefore not even close to what we are talking about.

Laird: And what else is there to get out of it?

Kevin: We are pointing at it all the time.

Reason #6.

Laird: what do you mean by "block" in that context?

Kevin: It is currently beyond your ability to understand such things. If it was within your ability, you would already know the meaning.

Reason #6 again.

Laird,

Your satire was great, you've got talent there. But here, with your complete misunderstanding of the infinity Kevin refers to, you really are showing that your understanding of the concepts elucidated around here and the admins' MO - that which you were so seemingly au fait with in the frivolous environment of satire - are merely superficial.

Kevin's right, you don't even understand how his rebuttal relates to your syllogism. Your reason #6 really does apply.

You need to think about the concomitance of the unbounded, the undifferentiated and timelessness.

Laird wrote:the characteristic of a good model is that it has features and correspondences that map accurately to the real thing.

All models are necessarily infinitely removed from the real thing. This is because all models are finite, whereas reality is infinite.

A model does not contain all the information of the real thing, and therefore can never be an accurate map of it. A model can only ever approximate, and even those approximations can be entirely off the mark. Approximations that may have been serviceable in the past may not work at all in the present.

Zeno's "paradoxes" clearly reveal the shortcoming of models.

Kevin Solway wrote:All models are necessarily infinitely removed from the real thing. This is because all models are finite, whereas reality is infinite.

LOLOLOLOLOL.

Kevin Solway wrote:All models are necessarily infinitely removed from the real thing. This is because all models are finite, whereas reality is infinite.

&

A model can only ever approximate, and even those approximations can be entirely off the mark.

So your finite idea that Reality is Infinite could be an approximation that is infinitely removed and entirely off the mark.
K.

average wrote:So your finite idea that Reality is Infinite could be an approximation that is infinitely removed and entirely off the mark.

I'm not sure what you mean by a "finite idea". It is the object or meaning of ideas that matters, just as it is the object or meaning of words that matters, rather than the words themselves.

If you have an illusion of finitude in front of you, and you are able to dispose of that illusion, the result is a lack of finitude. The result is not something that you can reach out and grasp, but is rather a lack of something - namely a lack of finitude.

David Quinn wrote:In other words, the concept of causality necessarily breaks down beyond a certain point because it is predicated on the false idea that "things" really exist, that boundaries are inherently real. When it is realized that things do not really exist, the concept of causality suddenly becomes meaningless. The very substance upon which it feeds - namely, "things" - is no longer there.

So while causality is logically true, it has its limits and can't be regarded as the final word on Reality. Instead, it should be treated as a stepping stone to even greater realizations.

David Quinn wrote:That's right. As soon as we project boundaries onto Nature, causality immediately comes a reality. This is true regardless of whether we believe these boundaries are inherently real or realize they are imaginary projections.

Wait a minute. I don't equate Emptiness with "imaginary projections," either! Those things I consider as (non-inherently) existing things definitely present to my senses (whether or not they might be present to anyone else's at the same time and in the same general space or otherwise). In the case where a thing presents to my senses and not anyone else's, then I still consider it a particular kind of thing--that is, a thing that has presented to my senses and not anyone else's. If ever a fairy or a unicorn or such things presented to my senses (and I don't mean a picture or an idea of one, which would be an imaginary projection), then I would also not consider them to be imaginary projections, by definition; you might think me mad, not having had the same thing present to your senses, but that's besides the point, I think! I wouldn't think myself mad, though I might indeed wonder why such a thing presented to my senses and not anyone else's.

So, David, do you think every thing that appears--all things--are necessarily imaginary projections?

Kevin Solway wrote:I'm not sure what you mean by a "finite idea".

Same as you mean by "finite model".

Dave Toast wrote:Kevin's right, you don't even understand how his rebuttal relates to your syllogism.

Kevin's attempted rebuttal was unrelated to my syllogism as I've already explained several times. But if you think that you can explain how you think it is related, rather than merely assert that you believe that to be true, then please go right ahead: I'm all ears.

Dave Toast wrote:You need to think about the concomitance of the unbounded, the undifferentiated and timelessness.

First of all I think that it's nonsensical to claim that reality is undifferentiated: without differentiation life would be impossible for a start. Secondly, I can go with unboundedness in the spatial dimensions and with timelessness in the forward direction, but it just plain doesn't make sense in the reverse direction. And yes, I have thought about it.

Kevin Solway wrote:All models are necessarily infinitely removed from the real thing. This is because all models are finite, whereas reality is infinite.

A model does not contain all the information of the real thing, and therefore can never be an accurate map of it. A model can only ever approximate, and even those approximations can be entirely off the mark. Approximations that may have been serviceable in the past may not work at all in the present.

First of all it's merely your belief that reality is infinite. You have no proof.

Secondly: conceptual, symbolic and linguistic models are abstractions which means that they condense information. A good model condenses information accurately.

Thirdly: merely because a model can be improved upon does not make it worthless.

Finally: if you think that you're not modelling when you describe the Totality in words, then you're dreaming.

Kevin Solway wrote:Zeno's "paradoxes" clearly reveal the shortcoming of models.

Calculus clearly reveals the power of models.

Laird wrote: First of all it's merely your belief that reality is infinite. You have no proof.

Finally: if you think that you're not modelling when you describe the Totality in words, then you're dreaming.

+

Kevin wrote:All models are necessarily infinitely removed from the real thing. This is because all models are finite, whereas reality is infinite.

A model can only ever approximate, and even those approximations can be entirely off the mark.

Lets go further.

An understanding or belief, just like a model, is infinitely removed from the real thing because it does not contain all the information of the real thing, and can never be an accurate representation of it. All understandings are finite, while reality is infinite...

Thus, you can never have an accurate understanding of reality...

Therefore, the notion that reality is infinite is infinitely removed from what reality actually is.

Laird wrote:

DQ: Again, they are just stepping stones. If, somehow, these "beliefs" were revealed to be false it would make no impact on me, just as a bird flying in the sky wouldn't care if the egg it had originally hatched out of was destroyed.

Laird: Ah, so that's why you so consistently argue for them here in this forum and in your book then, is it? You "wouldn't care" if they were proven false... ha! Pull the other one, mate.

Here is a mundane example which illustrates my point:

Imagine there lived an intelligent fellow back in ancient times who was inspired by the current scientific theories of the time to reach an understanding of the scientific method. He might have been inspired by navigational theories, for example, which assumed that the sun traveled around the earth, or that the earth was at the centre of the universe. These theories, although subsequently proven to be faulty, were enough to stimulate his thinking and cause him to arrive at a good understanding of how the scientific method works. Now, having reached this advanced understanding, it no longer matters to him whether these initial theories are correct or not. He has transcended the need to place stock on any particular scientific theory, for he is in tune with something greater.

Similarly, the logical truths that I have used to springboard me to a more advanced understanding are no longer important to me on a personal level. It no longer matters to me whether they are true or false. As it happens, they can no more be proven false than 1+1=2 can, but again, such things don't really mean anything to me nowadays.

The reason why I continue to talk about them is because I know how effective as springboards they can be. I have the desire to provide these springboards to others.

Laird: None of this is in the slightest relevant to the syllogism unless you can prove that it is possible to reach an infinity. Otherwise the syllogism stands.

David: Again, there is nothing to reach. The present has always existed, and always will.

Laird: The present moves through the continuum of time. There is something to reach: the future. But it has to have come from somewhere: the past. And the problem with the beginningless past is that because an infinity cannot be actually encountered (reached), the present moment cannot ever have been there.

Again, this is poorly conceived because it rests on a meaningless construct – namely, the earliest point in an infinite past.

To illustrate, imagine that a fellow decides to travel backwards in time from the very latest point in the infinite future in an attempt to reach our present. If he really does embark on this journey from the very end of infinity and has to travel an infinite amount of time to reach our present, then it could be successfully argued that he will never reach us.

However, there is an obvious flaw with this - namely, that it is impossible to isolate the latest point in an infinite future from which to start the journey. No matter where he chooses to start from, there will always be more future beyond it. So apart from any technological difficulties he might have, the entire exercise can never get off the ground in the first place.

The same reasoning can be applied to the infinite past. It is impossible to isolate an earliest point in the infinite past from which to embark on a journey to reach the present.

Your argument is taking advantage of the fact that if we were to start from a particular point in time and move forwards to an infinite future, we can never reach the end of this future. While that is true, it cannot be applied to the matter we are discussing here. We cannot move forwards from an earliest point and travel an infinite amount of time to reach the present. It is literally impossible, both theoretically and practically.

In other words, we can use the present as a starting point and move infinitely into the future, or infinitely into the past. But we can't use a most earliest point or most latest point to try and reach the present. No such points exist.

DQ: I don't know where you grabbed these assertions from, but they have nothing to do with Kevin or myself. For example, where on earth did you get the "three spatial dimensions, and no more" bit from? From the ether?
Laird: OK, so how many spatial dimensions are included in the totality then?

That ultimately depends on how we choose to divide the Totality up. But the important point is that nothing is excluded from the Totality, by definition. So if there are more than 3 spacial dimensions, they will also be part of the Totality.

-

Laird wrote:Kevin's attempted rebuttal was unrelated to my syllogism as I've already explained several times. But if you think that you can explain how you think it is related, rather than merely assert that you believe that to be true, then please go right ahead: I'm all ears.

Evidently, being all ears isn't quite doing it. It has already been made clear how they are related N amount of times. My repetition would be redundant. Having said that, the rest of my post necessitates such.

DT: You need to think about the concomitance of the unbounded, the undifferentiated and timelessness.

Laird: First of all I think that it's nonsensical to claim that reality is undifferentiated: without differentiation life would be impossible for a start.

I'm not sure what you're trying to get at here. I certainly haven't claimed anything of the sort. As far as I can see above, we were talking about the unbounded, undifferentiated, infinite nature of the concept of totality.

Secondly, I can go with unboundedness in the spatial dimensions and with timelessness in the forward direction, but it just plain doesn't make sense in the reverse direction. And yes, I have thought about it.

So time in the reverse direction makes sense?

You keep on applying conceptual boundaries - be they spatial, temporal or whateveral - to the concept of unboundedness. Does that make sense?

If someone was not understanding how one cannot apply any concept of differentiation (which necessitates limits) whatsoever to the concept of limitlessness, how would you explain it to them beyond pointing them towards a dictionary?

So there you have it. The rebuttal of your syllogism was related in that it employed and exposed the very same category error you employed, that of limiting limitlessness.

Laird wrote:

Kevin Solway wrote:All models are necessarily infinitely removed from the real thing. This is because all models are finite, whereas reality is infinite.

A model does not contain all the information of the real thing, and therefore can never be an accurate map of it. A model can only ever approximate, and even those approximations can be entirely off the mark. Approximations that may have been serviceable in the past may not work at all in the present.

First of all it's merely your belief that reality is infinite. You have no proof.

It can be proven purely logically that reality is infinite. This is because if you put a boundary on something, there are two sides to that boundary.

Secondly: conceptual, symbolic and linguistic models are abstractions which means that they condense information. A good model condenses information accurately.

Models are attempted condensations of information.

But when you try to condense an infinite amount of information into a small box, you end up leaving out an infinite amount of information.

Imagine using Winzip to try to compress a complex file of infinite size. You will get nowhere.

if you think that you're not modelling when you describe the Totality in words, then you're dreaming.

You have agreed that words do not necessarily indicate models, but can in fact be pointing to the real thing, as in when I use the word "moon" to indicate the real moon, and not a model of the moon - just as when I point at the moon with my finger.

Kevin Solway wrote:Calculus clearly reveals the power of models.

Models can certainly be powerful, it's just that they're not accurate, and models that may have worked in the past may not work at all in the present.

What is more, models are designed for use in very particular, specialized, contrived contexts, and if used outside of that context become completely useless.

For example, I might have a model of a tree that is working fine for purposes of production forestry and short-term profits, but is completely useless with regard to the ecological balance of the planet, or poetry.

Leyla Shen wrote:

David Quinn wrote:In other words, the concept of causality necessarily breaks down beyond a certain point because it is predicated on the false idea that "things" really exist, that boundaries are inherently real. When it is realized that things do not really exist, the concept of causality suddenly becomes meaningless. The very substance upon which it feeds - namely, "things" - is no longer there.

So while causality is logically true, it has its limits and can't be regarded as the final word on Reality. Instead, it should be treated as a stepping stone to even greater realizations.

David Quinn wrote:That's right. As soon as we project boundaries onto Nature, causality immediately comes a reality. This is true regardless of whether we believe these boundaries are inherently real or realize they are imaginary projections.

Wait a minute. I don't equate Emptiness with "imaginary projections," either! Those things I consider as (non-inherently) existing things definitely present to my senses (whether or not they might be present to anyone else's at the same time and in the same general space or otherwise). In the case where a thing presents to my senses and not anyone else's, then I still consider it a particular kind of thing--that is, a thing that has presented to my senses and not anyone else's. If ever a fairy or a unicorn or such things presented to my senses (and I don't mean a picture or an idea of one, which would be an imaginary projection), then I would also not consider them to be imaginary projections, by definition; you might think me mad, not having had the same thing present to your senses, but that's besides the point, I think! I wouldn't think myself mad, though I might indeed wonder why such a thing presented to my senses and not anyone else's.

So, David, do you think every thing that appears--all things--are necessarily imaginary projections?

For deluded people, the appearances experienced in each moment are a mixture of reality and imaginary projections, whereas for enlightened people the imaginary projections are absent.

To use an analogy, when an enlightened person observes a cat, that is all he sees - a cat exhibiting cat-like behaviour. But the deluded person sees a highly-conscious creature with human-like thoughts, emotions and spiritual qualities, who knows their soul and loves them. Where the enlightened person sees a statue of a woman in a church, the deluded person sees the literal embodiment of the Virgin Mary. The subconscious projection of boundaries and inherent existence onto things is similar to this. It is adding something which isn't really there.

-

David Quinn wrote:Imagine there lived an intelligent fellow back in ancient times who was inspired by the current scientific theories of the time to reach an understanding of the scientific method. He might have been inspired by navigational theories, for example, which assumed that the sun traveled around the earth, or that the earth was at the centre of the universe. These theories, although subsequently proven to be faulty, were enough to stimulate his thinking and cause him to arrive at good understanding of how the scientific method works. Now, having reached this advanced understanding, it no longer matters to him whether these initial theories are correct or not. He has transcended the need to place stock on any particular scientific theory, for he is in tune with something greater.

Similarly, the logical truths that I have used to springboard me to a more advanced understanding are no longer important to me on a personal level. It no longer matters to me whether they are true or false.

So according to you in the above quote, the correctness of your initial theories doesn't matter to you, and yet in the final chapter of Wisdom of the Infinite can be found this quote:

David Quinn in WOTI wrote:It should also be noted that the conclusion that "everything is an appearance", as articulated in this chapter, is built upon a whole series of truths which ultimately rest on the core truth that all things are finite and caused. As such, both the conclusion and the core truth live and die together. One cannot use a logical conclusion to falsify one of its own premises, at least not without falsifying the conclusion itself. Thus, to the degree that "everything is an appearance" is correct, to that very same degree "all things are finite and caused" is also correct, and vice versa.

So it seems that the correctness of the initial theories - and of the intervening ones - is vitally important to you after all because your most supreme conclusion depends upon them.

This also happens to be further evidence that you are involved in a process of modelling reality: a "series of truths" about reality that rely upon each other can reasonably be described as a model.

David Quinn wrote:As it happens, they can no more be proven false than 1+1=2 can, but again, such things don't really mean anything to me nowadays.

Oh, just like having other people know that you believe that you're enlightened "doesn't really mean anything to [you] nowadays". Sure, sure. Just like Paul McDermott doesn't care that he's famous, no doubt.

David Quinn wrote:The reason why I continue to talk about them is because I know how effective as springboards they can be. I have the desire to provide these springboards to others.

You have the desire to impart unto others an entire system that describes reality.

David Quinn wrote:To illustrate, imagine that a fellow decides to travel backwards in time from the very latest point in the infinite future in an attempt to reach our present. If he really does embark on this journey from the very end of infinity and has to travel an infinite amount of time to reach our present, then it could be successfully argued that he will never reach us.

However, there is an obvious flaw with this - namely, that it is impossible to isolate the latest point in an infinite future from which to start the journey. No matter where he chooses to start from, there will always be more future beyond it. So apart from any technological difficulties he might have, the entire exercise can never get off the ground in the first place.

Exactly! That's exactly what I'm trying to say to you. When you apply that reasoning to the past it becomes plain that a beginningless past is unreasonable: as you put it, "the entire exercise can never get off the ground in the first place." More on this below though.

David Quinn wrote:The same reasoning can be applied to the infinite past. It is impossible to isolate an earliest point in the infinite past from which to embark on a journey to reach the present.

I'm still in firm agreement with you.

David Quinn wrote:Your argument is taking advantage of the fact that if we were to start from a particular point in time and move forwards to an infinite future, we can never reach the end of this future. While that is true, it cannot be applied to the matter we are discussing here. We cannot move forwards from an earliest point and travel an infinite amount of time to reach the present. It is literally impossible, both theoretically and practically.

In other words, we can use the present as a starting point and move infinitely into the future, or infinitely into the past. But we can't use a most earliest point or most latest point to try and reach the present. No such points exist.

And this is precisely the problem - not simply that we cannot find an earliest point but that even if we could, we would still have "reached" an infinity by arriving from the infinite past to the present moment, and we both agree that that's impossible - as you write above (substituting "start" for "end"): "If he really does embark on this journey from the very [start] of infinity and has to travel an infinite amount of time to reach our present, then it could be successfully argued that he will never reach us." Precisely. That's another way of looking at my argument in a nutshell.

DQ: I don't know where you grabbed these assertions from, but they have nothing to do with Kevin or myself. For example, where on earth did you get the "three spatial dimensions, and no more" bit from? From the ether?

Laird: OK, so how many spatial dimensions are included in the totality then?

DQ: That ultimately depends on how we choose to divide the Totality up. But the important point is that nothing is excluded from the Totality, by definition. So if there are more than 3 spacial dimensions, they will also be part of the Totality.

However you look at it though, it will be comprised of a fixed number of dimensions. That is a limitation aka boundary. The Totality reasonably meets your definition of a "thing".

DT: You need to think about the concomitance of the unbounded, the undifferentiated and timelessness.

Laird: First of all I think that it's nonsensical to claim that reality is undifferentiated: without differentiation life would be impossible for a start.

DT: I'm not sure what you're trying to get at here. I certainly haven't claimed anything of the sort. As far as I can see above, we were talking about the unbounded, undifferentiated, infinite nature of the concept of totality.

Well, as Kevin has made clear, he believes that reality and the Totality are one and the same. So when you talk about the "undifferentiated ... nature ... of totality" you're essentially putting up the argument that I took fault with: that "reality is undifferentiated". I don't understand why you're not sure what I'm trying to get at.

Laird: Secondly, I can go with unboundedness in the spatial dimensions and with timelessness in the forward direction, but it just plain doesn't make sense in the reverse direction. And yes, I have thought about it.

DT: So time in the reverse direction makes sense?

I suppose that it's a possibility but one that I'm not particularly trying to canvas. Perhaps my phrasing was unfortunate - perhaps I should have said "it just plain doesn't make sense to apply timelessness to the past".

Dave Toast wrote:So there you have it. The rebuttal of your syllogism was related in that it employed and exposed the very same category error you employed, that of limiting limitlessness.

I don't see how I'm "limiting limitlessness". On the contrary, I'm arguing that limitlessness itself is what makes a nonsense of the idea of a beginningless past.

Kevin Solway wrote:It can be proven purely logically that reality is infinite. This is because if you put a boundary on something, there are two sides to that boundary.

That's purely your definition of a boundary. I will now define a boundary to be a limiting region of some thing, which might or might not have something on the other side. So now I have "proven purely logically" that reality need not be infinite. See how easy it is to construct models that don't have any necessary correlation to reality but that you can simply assert to be true because it's "by definition"? Sure it's by definition, but the definition is arbitrary. You guys do this all of the time and I'm not the only one to see it - Victor understands your game pretty well and I suspect that quite a few of the participants in this thread are onto you too.

But when you try to condense an infinite amount of information into a small box, you end up leaving out an infinite amount of information.

Imagine using Winzip to try to compress a complex file of infinite size. You will get nowhere.

You don't need to compress the information, you need to abstract it. The difference is that the former contains all of the original information in some form; the latter excludes details that are less significant and it might include extra information such as descriptions of the relationships between parts etc. You don't need to know every detail of every thing in an infinite totality in order to be able to model it in words as "infinite", as your descriptions of the Totality are testament to.

Laird: if you think that you're not modelling when you describe the Totality in words, then you're dreaming.

Kevin: You have agreed that words do not necessarily indicate models, but can in fact be pointing to the real thing, as in when I use the word "moon" to indicate the real moon, and not a model of the moon - just as when I point at the moon with my finger.

I agreed (in our conversation on your lawn yesterday) that it's debatable whether a single word is best described as a model - I think that in some situations it's a reasonable description but perhaps not in others. But what's not debatable is that "the moon" is a specific, concrete object that can be (literally and directly) pointed to, whereas "the Totality" is an artificial construct that can't be (literally and directly) pointed to and that must instead be defined - your definition creates your model. In other words, the characteristics of this artificial construct, "the Totality", are up to you to specify (and as you would have it but which I say "phooey" to, to "logically prove") whereas with the moon it's pretty much a case of what you see is what you get.

Laird: Calculus clearly reveals the power of models.

Kevin: Models can certainly be powerful, it's just that they're not accurate, and models that may have worked in the past may not work at all in the present.

Where do you get off saying that (all) models aren't accurate? Some mathematical models are very sophisticated and provide high levels of accuracy. Or how about a scale replica of a sailing ship? How might that "have worked in the past" but "not work at all in the present"?

Kevin Solway wrote:What is more, models are designed for use in very particular, specialized, contrived contexts, and if used outside of that context become completely useless.

Again, that doesn't necessarily apply to all models. Some models, such as simple linguistic constructions, are used for general purpose understanding.

Laird wrote:

Kevin Solway wrote:It can be proven purely logically that reality is infinite. This is because if you put a boundary on something, there are two sides to that boundary.

That's purely your definition of a boundary. I will now define a boundary to be a limiting region of some thing, which might or might not have something on the other side. So now I have "proven purely logically" that reality need not be infinite. See how easy it is to construct models that don't have any necessary correlation to reality but that you can simply assert to be true because it's "by definition"? Sure it's by definition, but the definition is arbitrary. You guys do this all of the time and I'm not the only one to see it - Victor understands your game pretty well and I suspect that quite a few of the participants in this thread are onto you too.

Agreed. Kevin: The notion that anything can be proven purely logically is stupid in itself. All you can do with pure deduction is dig up truths that you were implicit in the definitions. So then we look at where the definitions come from. I try to convince you that they were created to model the empirical world. David agrees. OK... so how can we extrapolate terms created to model the empirical world into the "beyond", the "Totality"? We can't. We can't even claim they are a perfect model of the empirical world. The only reason we have them is because they are useful and allow us to survive better. David somehow fails to see this. Kevin won't agree that all concepts (definitions) come from the empirical world -- perhaps he sees the problem David runs into and wants to avoid it. So where do they come from? Kevin has no idea. Instead he wants to just accept that since we can't know for sure where they came from, and that we already have them, that they are perfect and can be used to wrap chains around the "Totality" upon which he can hold fastened in the changing world to avoid suffering. This faith is about as ridiculous than faith in the Christian God, probably even more ridiculous, though a more subtle error.

It can be proven purely logically that reality is infinite. This is because if you put a boundary on something, there are two sides to that boundary.

That's purely your definition of a boundary.

It is the standard definition of boundary.

I will now define a boundary to be a limiting region of some thing, which might or might not have something on the other side.

Then you need to define exactly what you mean by "limiting region", otherwise it is meaningless. And if your "limiting region" doesn't divide two different things then you are creating a brand new definition of boundary that nobody else uses.

the latter [models] excludes details that are less significant

When you are creating a mere model to approximate an infinite reality you are always excluding something significant - namely, reality itself.

You don't need to know every detail of every thing in an infinite totality in order to be able to model

Certainly, models can be as simple as you like. But they are never accurate for the reasons I made clear previously.

it's debatable whether a single word is best described as a model

A word, such as "moon" is no more a model of the the moon than my pointing finger is.

That is, it is not a model whatsoever. It's not even debatable.

But what's not debatable is that "the moon" is a specific, concrete object that can be (literally and directly) pointed to, whereas "the Totality" is an artificial construct that can't be (literally and directly) pointed to

The Totality is just as concrete as the moon is, since the moon is part of it. And just as the moon is not artificial, nor is the Whole of which it is a part.

When I say that "the Totality is absolutely everything", that is a very clear pointer to what the Totality is, and is essentially no different to pointing at the moon, but it does require a fraction more intelligence from the listener.

All religious scriptures are pointers to the Totality, God, or Reality.

how about a scale replica of a sailing ship? How might that "have worked in the past" but "not work at all in the present"?

Let's say you want to build a full-scale ship based on a model. But something might have happened to cause any structure made out of a certain material that is over a certain weight to simply disappear. So if you build a full-size ship, based on a model composed of the same materials, it will disappear, and so your model will be a failure. Models do not even come close to accounting for the infinite complexity of nature.

Where do you get off saying that (all) models aren't accurate?

That is the whole point of Zeno's paradoxes. You obviously didn't learn anything from them.

What is more, models are designed for use in very particular, specialized, contrived contexts, and if used outside of that context become completely useless.

Again, that doesn't necessarily apply to all models. Some models, such as simple linguistic constructions, are used for general purpose understanding.

"Linguistic constructions" are only words, and are therefore only pointers, and not models.

Even the simplest of models has a context that it is designed for.