Questions tagged [infinity]
Use for questions about the properties, nature, or definition of infinitude.
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Stack vs. Queue Brainteaser [closed]
So I have a thought in my head I was wondering if anyone could offer wisdom on, and excuse me if this is a silly question or is not philosophical in nature. The question is basically this:
Let's ...
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Would it be logically possible that the Universe has a beginning in time but an infinite amount of time has elapsed since this beginning?
Imagine that the Universe had a temporal beginning but no temporal end. At the beginning the Universe has a finite size, and as time passes its size increases exponentially. And the number of ...
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Is this general argument against immortality valid?
I found the following argument here (although the paper is about a different topic):
A General Argument Against Immortality:
The method of Theory Confirmation can be applied to the question of ...
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Do questions of Infinite regress, uncased cause and nothingness just point to our limits?
A lot of debates and conversations with theists seem to end up with the "ultimate" questions where the questions themselves seem to me to be conceptual/linguistic/psychological dead ends.
Infinite ...
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Theology of set theory
Absolute space and time are said to emanate from Aristotle. The Church acted as custodian of these concepts from early on up to recent times.
I am thinking about another issue, namely that of ...
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Can the Universe Be Infinite?
Some think that the universe is infinite. To convince one in the creditability of the idea they point mainly at our inability to conceive of its spatial limits. Hence, here, I use 'infinity' (of the ...
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Infinite past with a beginning?
I can conceive of an infinite past with a beginning. I can in fact represent this idea by a simple diagram, part analogical, part symbolic. So, to me, this idea is a logical possibility.
I initially ...
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Perpetual Division
I recall a story about a philosopher who proposed an idea that everything is essentially perpetually divisible. That is to say, you can divide a whole into two halves and for each half (regarded as ...
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Does infinity in philosophy reduce to philosophy of mathematics?
It seems to me that any modern philosophical investigation of infinity reduces to looking at the mathematical concept of infinity (as introduced by Georg Cantor) and then delving into philosophy of ...
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Infinity in modern integration theory
The Riemann integral itself doesn't work with infinity (±∞) as “endpoints”, you have to take a detour by calculating the integral for arbitrary endpoints ±z and then take the limit for z→∞, which ...
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Is there an alternative to Cantor's cardinalities that makes proper subsets smaller than their sets?
Cantor defined an infinite set as a set whose subset can be placed in a one-to-one correspondence with its subset. That is, take the set of all natural numbers: {0, 1, 2, 3, 4,...}. From that set, you ...
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What's the difference between infinite divisibility and infinte extension?
I understand that most people would say that time, such as the time it takes to write this question, is infinitely divisible. But I'm guessing it's unusual to suppose that makes time infinitely ...
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Are there any good philosophical arguments for or against Cantor's theorem, other than the ones that Cantor came up with?
I am looking for philosophical arguments for and against Cantor's theorem other than the ones Cantor came up with, if you know any, can you present them or a link to them?
I post this in philosophy ...
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Can infinity have a beginning? [closed]
I have trouble with the mathematical notion of infinity.
Example: Consider all of the natural numbers. It has a beginning, therefore it is bordered, therefore it cannot be infinity.
Considered the ...
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Are there any arguments for why something past-eternal must necessarily be future-eternal as well?
If we assume that something has always existed in the past, what reason is there to assume that it won't perish in the future?
I pondered on it and I wondered whether the following argument works: ...
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