Dilemma of beginning of time

[Logik]

Does this mean you are actually getting angry or just making some point?

Means I am getting tired of pointing out the absurdities infinitism leads to.

Bounded rationality (ultrafinitism, ultra intuitionism) is a product of our own, FINITE minds!

We are trapped in this crappy hardware. It limits our capability to "understand".
You want better understanding? You need new hardware.

You misunderstand. While there can be an infinite set of 'explanations', not all of them cover at LEAST what we finitely know.

It doesn't matter! Because if it doesn't cover ANYTHING we already know, BUT it predicts better then it's a better model!

Guess what? We have to throw everything we already know away and start again, so that we have a single, consistent view on everything.

This is precisely what's going on in physics right now. GR and QM are incompatible. So (eventually) we will have to throw one of them away IF/when somebody unifies them.

That's how paradigm shifts work. And (to my knowledge) Mathematics is the one field in human knowledge that is looooooong overdue a paradigm shift. Come to think of it - it has never had one.

I expect to piss off MANY Mathematicians. Good!

As the metaphor goes: we are going to have to rebuild the airplane in the air.

All theories are not 'equal'. All theories can be presented in Totality but as distinct worlds, most of which lack any meaning or have consistency. [Given anything not-totality means something in it; ...that nothing is within totality along with something.] You can have a 'Christian' world reality, even if it is only false here because it lacks consistency. This 'world' is NOT our world though.

You are moving the goal posts. Completeness AND predictability go hand in hand, but if you have a theory that predicts better than anything else we have, that is almost certain guarantee that it's more complete!

BUT PLEASE, deal with the topic at present. I presented you some things you seem to be unwilling to tackle. Are you looking only for something extraneous you see as 'weak' to attack instead? Ignore this. Deal with the question of whether there can be an origin or not.

And my answer to that question is: I don't know and I don't care.

Because the meta-question that you can't answer is thus: How would you tell the difference between a universe with an origin and a universe without one?

You can't? Oh well!

[Scott Mayers]

You responded before you read the end, I'm guessing. My point about you missing it is about thinking that the theorems were asserting that reality itself was finite. That is a misrepresentation of the theorems. If you read Godel, Escher, and Bach: An Eternal Braid, as you said you had, AND understood it, this was the point about his own explanation. The empty complement to a finite universe/universal, is only a one way reality. That is, if you complement X to become not-X, the complement of not-X, in reality is not-X, but X PLUS not-X. [See page 71(paperback version) figure 18 in the chapter on Figure and Ground. The 'ground' is that complement to the posited 'figure' of a finite known logical universal.]

And if you were actually familiar with logic, its theory and inner workings you wouldn't have to use an entire, verbose paragraph to say what you just said.

It's called "completeness'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Completeness_(logic)

The book you appeal to is 40 years old. It merely popularised that which was understood in the 70s. Things have happened since.

Maybe you need a break?

I appear to be angering you and I am not meaning to. I can explain better if you don't follow but require MORE effort that I'm guessing is only going to piss you off more. So which is it?

A Turing Complete machine is any GENERAL COMPUTER now but WITH an infinite memory (ideal). The machine itself is finite, the memory infinite. You can't use Cantor's final representation to his proof without this factor. Since the machine represents logic, the data and its spaces represent the input/outputs of reality.

Cantor is a set-theorist. All my arguments are based on the rejection of set theory as the foundation of logic. I also reject all the attempts to rescue set theory e.g ZFC.

My foundation is type theory. And until you recognize this disparity we are speaking from different paradigms and hence: different languages.

Why are you stepping beyond our common domain. If you disagree with ZFC nor Cantor's naive form of set theory that was used to express the proofs of Turing and Godel and Church, then who are you to accept them when these incompleteness theorems are DEPENDENT upon them?

[As to your 'Type theory' I am more familiar with the original "Type theory" discussed by Russell. All that does is it distinctly separates meaning from the container that holds it. The liars paradox, for instance, is cheaply resolved by separating the types of classes defined to speak about what is in the sets from the actual members to avoid the circularity. But it doesn't fix it and why Godel proved it using Russell's own kind of reasoning to dislodge it as inescapable.

I'm not against your extended interest but just can't argue that one way or the other. But if you actually understand the underlying incompleteness theorems, this is what we have to at least come to a common understanding of first. Maybe that 'theory of types" is itself at fault for misunderstanding these theorems?

Yes. He needed to have a general computer that can hold an ideal infinite memory set. The proof was to show that the programs placed in the memory to create any particular program (Turing machine) cannot have one of them specifically designed to solve the problem: "list all the programs (Turing machines) that cannot 'hang', using our terminology today." It can't do so because if you make a list of all possible programs even if you could exhaust all infinite possibilities, you will still find that there is another program that is not on that list....Infinity + 1. He then uses Cantor's proof of this to show the list cannot be exhausted, thus the VERY program (particular Turing machine) used to seek a problem WITHIN its domain is not able to....and thus, incomplete.

You are mistaken.

1. You think a program is a Turing machine - it's not. That which EVALUATES the program is the Turing machine.
That which evaluates "A and B is True" is your mind. The hardware.
The logic (language, rules for evaluating things) is the software.

2. That is PRECISELY THE POINT of the halting problem. The consequence of the halting problem is a rejection of infinities!

Because (100th time I am saying this and I am getting ruther frustrated with the dumb)

Logic is the laws of THOUGHT, NOT the laws of the universe.

Logical theorems/axioms etc. are about THOUGHT, not REALITY.

How you apply thought TO reality? Entirely separate issue!

NO. The rejection is not of infinities but the proof that you cannot exhaustively cover an infinitesimal (a bounded infinite) precisely because there are always another infinity beyond those boundaries. The machine used IN that boundary can solve all problems, inside and out, but because most solutions lie outside that boundary, it cannot solve all problems in reality. If reality is greater than the calculator, reality is like the domain of a greater infinity outside it. The perfect ideal calculator (as an ideal logic) is unable to solve all problems without becoming greater itself than the universe it is speaking about.

So the theorems are about setting limits to the capacity of solving all real problems ideally through any logic machine or calculator. Logic is still real, just as the fact you can hold a real smart phone that holds a potential general computing chip that is 'complete'. [they do use a general computer but more often locks us out because the operating system is embedded and limits the chip's capacity]

You can also prove something universally ABOUT totality outside that is itself a universal theory or theorem. You just can't solve ALL particular problems without literally trying each one out one-by-one.

We can determine whether a finite boundary exists for discovering MORE but without that evidence, we are permanently unable to assertively claim a finite end when an infinite set of possibilities is the only option to asserting a unique and special one without proof. The default to either nothing or everything, which inclusively contains nothing, means that only nothing can be an origin but we can never get there, just approach it infinitely.

But I can permanently claim that your mind is finite. And for as long as your mind is finite and it's SMALLER than the universe you will always be working with the map not the teritory.

e.g Kolmogorov complexity. a.k.a compression.

Then you can't accept that reality is itself a type of real calculator?

The 'map' is real too, though. The map is all we have to deal with. But you can determine the formula for a finite general machine that can speak about general truths about the whole, just not about all of the specific cases in it. My mind can create a proper 'map' of Totality and its general logic but not its complete set of EACH sub-logic system it contains. I can't even know all my own mind's component logic but can discover its general forms. I cannot make the neuron I want to determine what it is made up of reflectively because the information to observe it is greater than its capacity to hold it.

So we understand each other on this. You just interpret that I cannot make a universal machine that cannot determine itself as incomplete, which is not the case. How else could you hold a limit of our mind's map to be incomplete as a certainty without believing that map determined this fact?

No, the meaning is like asking how many real numbers are between the bounded integers 0 and 1. There are an infinity of them!

No there aren't. The number of real numbers between 0 and 1 is a function of amount-of-time, the rate at which you can generate new numbers and your range-precision trade-off function.

I will spell out range-precision trade-off in the easiest way possible for you. ARBITRARY CHOICE.

infinite precision requires infinite numbers between any range.
Be it 0 and 1, or 0 and 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000..........1

So you will spend an infinite amount of time BEFORE you can even utter a single real number!

Infiinties are stupid.

And so you STILL concluded with closure something universal about reality. Thus you cannot deny that some map (a logic) can determine A universal theory/theorem about reality itself.

[Now I need a break even though I'm not wanting to: my neck and back are killing me. If you have more, I'll wait to respond. We've covered a lot anyways and it might help to have some time to absorb it. Goodnight/morning.]

[Logik]

Maybe you need a break?

I appear to be angering you and I am not meaning to. I can explain better if you don't follow but require MORE effort that I'm guessing is only going to piss you off more. So which is it?

I gave you a commonly accepted concept called "completeness" as well as a link.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Completeness_(logic)

Is completeness not what you are talking about?
Is 'completeness' not the word you are looking for?

If you are attempting to describe a concept/phenomenon other than completeness then I will listen.

But if you are trying to re-define 'completeness' then I will not.

Why are you stepping beyond our common domain.

Because I am not a commoner.

If you disagree with ZFC nor Cantor's naive form of set theory that was used to express the proofs of Turing and Godel and Church, then who are you to accept them when these incompleteness theorems are DEPENDENT upon them?

Do you understand what Bootstrapping is? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrapping#Computing

Once you get to Turing-completeness (whether via set theory or via thumb-sucking) it doesn't matter.

Once you have Bootstrapped yourself into Type theory - you no longer require set theory.

Furthermore: Turing did not use set theory to prove the halting problem. That's an outright lie.

[As to your 'Type theory' I am more familiar with the original "Type theory" discussed by Russell. All that does is it distinctly separates meaning from the container that holds it. The liars paradox, for instance, is cheaply resolved by separating the types of classes defined to speak about what is in the sets from the actual members to avoid the circularity. But it doesn't fix it and why Godel proved it using Russell's own kind of reasoning to dislodge it as inescapable.

You forget - both Russel and Godel's work pertains strictly (and ONLY) to integers/real numbers.

That is the mathematical error! Mathematicians take the digits for granted. I do not.

I take symbols for granted. 1 means the STRING 1 (Hello! Godel, Escher Bach!) 1 doesn't mean the DIGIT 1


FROM symbols - I invent the digits.
I invent arithmetic.
I invent algebra.
I invent calculus.
I invent geometry.

This is how constructivism works.

I'm not against your extended interest but just can't argue that one way or the other. But if you actually understand the underlying incompleteness theorems, this is what we have to at least come to a common understanding of first. Maybe that 'theory of types" is itself at fault for misunderstanding these theorems?

You are preaching to the quire. My understanding is more complete than yours.

NO. The rejection is not of infinities but the proof that you cannot exhaustively cover an infinitesimal (a bounded infinite) precisely because there are always another infinity beyond those boundaries.

Yes. We are back to arguing completeness. In THEORY you can always invent another more-infinite set than the infinite-set you already have.
In practice you can't.

Because finite time.

The machine used IN that boundary can solve all problems, inside and out, but because most solutions lie outside that boundary, it cannot solve all problems in reality. If reality is greater than the calculator, reality is like the domain of a greater infinity outside it. The perfect ideal calculator (as an ideal logic) is unable to solve all problems without becoming greater itself than the universe it is speaking about.

So the theorems are about setting limits to the capacity of solving all real problems ideally through any logic machine or calculator. Logic is still real, just as the fact you can hold a real smart phone that holds a potential general computing chip that is 'complete'. [they do use a general computer but more often locks us out because the operating system is embedded and limits the chip's capacity]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bekenstein_bound
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margolus% ... in_theorem
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer%27s_principle

You can also prove something universally ABOUT totality outside that is itself a universal theory or theorem. You just can't solve ALL particular problems without literally trying each one out one-by-one.

Yes, but you are conflating language with problem-solving.

Language is the DESCRIPTION to the solution. As we encounter new physical phenomena that our current languages cannot explain we invent new languages.

Lambda calculus is complete in so far as it can EXPRESS the solution to a problem.
It is complete in so far as it can EXPRESS every physical phenomenon we have so far encountered in the real world.

You want entanglement? Here: https://algassert.com/quirk

Then you can't accept that reality is itself a type of real calculator?

I can't say ANYTHING about 'reality itself' and so I will shut up now.

All I can ever speak of is my experience of reality.

The 'map' is real too, though.

There we go. 'Real' - fighting words.

What is 'real'? How do you define 'real'? Oh wait. DEFINE. We are still talking about language it seems.

I refer you back to model-dependent realism. The model that predicts best is the most 'real' one.

Turing machines predict best how the human mind works. Therefore your mind is a computer.

For real.

[Logik]

And so you STILL concluded with closure something universal about reality. Thus you cannot deny that some map (a logic) can determine A universal theory/theorem about reality itself.

No I fucking didn't! It's just language. We are just talking. What I concluded is NOT EVEN TESTABLE.

Because infinities do not allow for empiricism.

I will say it in the clearest way possible.

Theorems are NOT about reality.
Theorems are about logic.
Logic is NOT about reality.
Logic is about human thought.

Logic is just language!

To claim that I am making claims about reality is you abusing logic/language beyond the domain of the discussion and for purposes that it may or may not be suitable for.

You are committing the Ludic fallacy!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludic_fallacy

The fallacy is a central argument in the book and a rebuttal of the predictive mathematical models used to predict the future – as well as an attack on the idea of applying naïve and simplified statistical models in complex domains. According to Taleb, statistics is applicable only in some domains, for instance casinos in which the odds are visible and defined. Taleb's argument centers on the idea that predictive models are based on platonified forms, gravitating towards mathematical purity and failing to take various aspects into account:[citation needed]

It is impossible to be in possession of the entirety of available information.
Small unknown variations in the data could have a huge impact. Taleb differentiates his idea from that of mathematical notions in chaos theory (e.g., the butterfly effect).
Theories or models based on empirical data are claimed to be flawed as they may not be able to predict events which are previously unobserved, but have tremendous impact (e.g., the 9/11 terrorist attacks or the invention of the automobile), a.k.a. black swan theory.

The realm of Cosmology AND philosophy can be described in one phrase: It is easier to macrobullshit than to microbullshit.

Precision matters.

[Scott Mayers]

I'm linking this to my own thread on this to keep my arguments referenced with ease. Goto Another Brick for a Wall...An Origin for Time and Space to continue my own responses on this topic.

From there I'll link to the other two regarding reality limits.

[Speakpigeon]

Actually many people not trained in philosophy intuitively find it nonsensical that the world has been going on forever, always changing. That's one too many infinites and well, the world is alive then? And the world is changing at a finite pace, how do you get that from an infite? And so on, change just doesn't make much sense.

OK, so I tak it you're downgrading your initial claim that the idea of an infinite past is logical impossible to it being merely nonsensical to a lot of people. Right. I knew that. Whatever the idea, you will always find a lot of people to support it.

I think it's obvious to almost anyone above some existential intelligence level. But most philosophers weren't bright. (It says Parmenides was against the idea of change and Plato agreed with him but I haven't read them, don't know how they meant it. Plato was thoroughly insane anyway.)

Well, at least philosophers explain themselves. You don't beyond asserting people you disagree with are not very bright or confused or ideologically influenced.

I've never seen an authority on logic. Logic is extremely simple, the more people study it the more confused they seem to get.

Our logical intuitions appear simple on the surface, somewhat like looking at a tree is deceptively simple.
People do seem to get confused on studying logic, that seems to be true to some extent, but it's likely because actual logic is really the result a mental process which is very complex process. How complex I don't know but definitely much more complex than anything formal logic has ever produced. So, studying it is really beyond the capability of most people. Hence, possibly, people going insane, like some guy here.
I would also agree that the original, Aristotelian, idea of formal logic was initially that of a simple system. The idea that formal logic should be simple is still alive, in particular in the original idea of natural deduction. However, mathematicians, starting with Boole, Frege and Russell, have tried to find a mathematical formalisation of logic and they have abysmally failed. Please don't make the mistake of concluding that these people are idiots. They were very bright and they failed. So, I would conclude myself that logic is simple only deceptively. In actual fact, it's very complex.
Anyway, given your various pronouncements, it's not clear to me that what you mean by logic is what most people mean by logic.
EB

[Speakpigeon]

The problem is that it takes infinite amount of time to reach from past to now. Time passes with specific rate which is finite. Therefore it is impossible to reach from infinite past to now by finite rate of passing.

Reach? What does it mean in this context?

For example: It took two days to reach from a point to another point".

???
Sorry, you're not making sense.
It may take me two days to reach a point in space from another point in space.
But how would it be relevant to say that one needs two days to reach Wednesday from Monday?
If that's what you mean, I still don't see where would be the problem. It took two thousand years from the Roman emperor Augustus 1st to today. If the past has been infinite, it has nonetheless taken a finite time to get from any point in the past to today. So, where is the problem?
Even with notions of an infinite past a bit more creative, with a beginning for example, it would have taken an infinitely long time to get from the beginning to now. So what? Where would be the problem? You still haven't said.

And what's the "rate" you're talking about? A rate is a quantity measured with respect to another measured quantity. So, what's the rate of passing one hour? And rate relative to what?

By rate I mean degree of progress or change.

Same thing. Any notion of rate of change would have to be relative to something else. What?
Time, if it exists at all, isn't at all something that's changing. The only thing we have empirical evidence that it is changing is the world and it is changing relative to itself. We're different from what we were. But there is no empirical evidence that time itself, again if it exists at all, is changing.
So, maybe you have a point but you would need to articulate what you mean because for now what you say doesn't make sense.
EB

[Logik]

How complex I don't know but definitely much more complex than anything formal logic has ever produced. So, studying it is really beyond the capability of most people. Hence, possibly, people going insane, like some guy here.

"Some guy here" knows exactly how complex it is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computati ... ity_theory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcomp ... al_problem
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bremermann%27s_limit

Unlike philosophers, Physicists/Mathematicians don't have to explain themselves.

If the numbers don't make sense to you the English certainly wouldn't either.

[Speakpigeon]

An Absolute Nothing as an origin doesn't HAVE laws to obey nor disobey. It doesn't require BEING logical where logic nor reality exists at that point.

Yes, that's the key point to understand. Simple enough. People should be able to understand it.
If there is nothing, then there is non law at all and therefore no law to prevent something. Existence without a cause. What's difficult to understand?
EB

[Speakpigeon]

How complex I don't know but definitely much more complex than anything formal logic has ever produced. So, studying it is really beyond the capability of most people. Hence, possibly, people going insane, like some guy here.

Some guy here knows exactly how complex it is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computati ... ity_theory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcomp ... al_problem
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bremermann%27s_limit

Unlike philosophers, Physicists/Mathematicians don't have to explain themselves.

If the numbers don't make sense to you the English certainly wouldn't either.

I didn't say "complicated", I said "complex". Logic is complicated but much more problematic, it is also complex. And you don't even understand how complex because nobody does.
EB

[Logik]

If there is nothing, then there is non law at all and therefore no law to prevent something. Existence without a cause. What's difficult to understand?

The fact that it could be THIS universe.

THIS universe could exist without a cause.
THIS universe could have "laws" that are temporary e.g always changing.

Which (statistically) means we are nothing more than a Boltzmann brain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain

[Logik]

I didn't say "complicated", I said "complex". Logic is complicated but much more problematic, it is also complex. And you don't even understand how complex because nobody does.
EB

I am talking about complexity. We can measure complexity. Don't you know ?
It has an precise and quantifiable meaning in physics and computer science.

I told you how complex it is. Bremermann's limit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bremermann%27s_limit

Or if that number doesn't make sense start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limits_of_computation

[Speakpigeon]

If there is nothing, then there is non law at all and therefore no law to prevent something. Existence without a cause. What's difficult to understand?

The fact that it could be THIS universe.
THIS universe could exist without a cause.
THIS universe could have "laws" that are temporary e.g always changing.
Which (statistically) means we are nothing more than a Boltzmann brain.

Doesn't change the fact that our brain works very well. Even the fact that the universe would be entirely random wouldn't possibly prevent the existence of us human beings as we are, complete with our wits and survival skills. So, what's the metaphysical difficulty already?
EB

[Logik]

Doesn't change the fact that our brain works very well. Even the fact that the universe would be entirely random wouldn't possibly prevent the existence of us human beings as we are, complete with our wits and survival skills. So, what's the metaphysical difficulty already?

Complexity is the difficulty! The very fucking thing you just pointed out.

Our brains and bodies are adapted to surviving Earth's biosphere, not The Universe.

As soon as you step out into zero gravity a bunch of brain circuitry gets confused.

[surreptitious57]

Our brains and bodies are adapted to surviving Earths biosphere not The Universe

Over 99 per cent of the Universe is totally incompatible for human existence
We are effectively prisoners on this tiny floating rock in the middle of space