My debate on Ultimate Location
Jul 12, 2022 19:45:25 GMT -5
Post by Radrook Admin on Jul 12, 2022 19:45:25 GMT -5
My conversation on Ultimate Location
This debate with a Lichess member called FC-in-the-UK, started at the Lichess discussion forum several days ago. No, my comment wasn't meant to be a topic for debate. It was merely offered as another example of a paradox. But that's the way it turned out.
FC-in-the-UK Comment:
Since you weren't convinced by my counter-examples, let me explain why your reasoning is flawed (note that it is not personal, and that it has the merit of existing).
When one wants to prove something, one is ultimately led to accept some basic assumptions or axioms. Axioms are generally thought to be self-evident. Now let us examine your axioms:
>Axiom 1: In order to exist, things need to have a shape.
Why on Earth would something like that be self-evident? The answer is kind of obvious: your intuition is shaped by things that you observe in your daily life. Of course what you observe in your daily life consists in things that exist in space, and that, in particular, have a shape. So your intuition about "existing" really is, as I said earlier, an intuition about "existing in space", hence you are producing a circular reasoning.
My Response:
Strange! Well, as humans, we are inextricably tethered to our senses. So observation of phenoma via those senses is the only way that we can reach conclusions that are considered self- evident. In fact, and as you should know, the scientific method is totally dependent on observation via the senses in order to arrive at valid conclusions. So your denigration of the senses as a means of to attaining accurate knowledge is rather strange. BTW Calling a conclusion based on accurate observation mere intuition doesn't magically invalidate it. It merely expresses a disagreement with it.
FC-in-the-UK Comment:
Furthermore, when you say:>there is definitely a shape to the electrical impulses in the brain that represent the concept of the color green,
you are confusing the map with the territory. The color green exists independently of its representation in our brains. In addition, the ways my brain and your brain encode the color green is presumably not the same and might even vary over time as our brains develop, while the concept "green" does not change.
My Response:
Well, there you go again Jimmy! I never claimed that the concept of green changes nor that it has an identical detectable shape in all brains on earth. Of course slight variation might occur. However, you are totally missing the point and going off on an irrelevant tangent. What is relevant is the color's representation within a location via optic nerve and neuro-transmitter signals. That is what is relevant to the issue at hand which is location.
Also, I am not referring to abstract ideas. I am referring to things that possess dimensionality not colors, emotions, or abstract mathematical scribbling that postulate hypothetical mathematical realities which cannot be found nor replicated in the real world. By real world I mean this:
In general relativity, there are four 4 dimensions, 3 spatial and 1 temporal, which accurately describe our reality. The others are merely hypothetical speculations invented for theories that require additinal dimensions to work.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimension
FC-in-the-UK Comment:
>Axiom 2: A shape involves boundaries.
That is mathematically inaccurate. More precisely, if T is a topological space then the boundary of T itself is empty.
My Reply:
Really? Squares, triangles, circles, spheres, cubes, cones, can all exist without shape? Shape is what provides them with an identity. Divest them of shape and they cease to exist. Please note that I am talking about the realm of reality and not abstract mathematical concepts that can only exist on paper, but not in the real world.
In general relativity, there are four 4 dimensions, 3 spatial and 1 temporal, which accurately describe our reality. The others are merely hypothetical speculations invented for theories that require additional dimensions to work.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimension
In short, you are once more arguing via straw man.
FC-in-the-UK Comment:
>Axiom 3: Boundaries must be surrounded with non boundaries
That is mathematically inaccurate. More precisely if D is a dense subset of a topological space, and if the interior of D is empty, then the boundary of D is all of T.
My Response:
Your confusion is that you think that all things mathematically expressed have their counterpart in reality. That simply isn't true. You see, there are certain impossibilities that are mathematically correct but are impossibilities in reality such as the literal existence of the infinite.
Can the physically infinite literally exist?
Can something be actually infinitely small or large and exist? Mathematically it can be represented by certain symbols, of course. But what is mathematically representable isn’t necessarily possible in the actual reality. To illustrate this impossibility, let us imagine a microscope with infinite magnification. Let's attempt to focus that infinitely powerful microscope on what we might imagine as an infinitely small thing.
Now, if indeed that microscope manages to focus on that supposedly infinitely-small object, then it ceases to be infinitely small. Why? Because then it assumes a measurable size and the infinitely small cannot be measured without ceasing to be infinitely small.
Quote:
An event that takes infinitely long to occur simply never happens. Something at an infinite distance is simply not there. Infinitely small means 0.
www.massline.org/Philosophy/ScottH/infinitely_small.htm
bigthink.com/experts-corner/infinity-is-not-real
FC-in-the-UK Comment:
Now let's take a step back and suppose you manage to fix your axioms. What you really want to prove is "every thing that exists is surrounded by something else." Now consider "everything that exists". It is a thing. So it must be surrounded by something else, which therefore exist, which is a contradiction. So really there is no hope in proving that.
My Response
I see absolutely no need to fix the axiom. Neither do I see a contradiction. Care to clarify exactly what the contradiction is? Also, please note that I never claimed that the axiom is provable. Paradoxes cease to be paradoxes if they are and I offered it up as a paradox.FC-in-the-UK Comment:
BTW As a Christian, I don't believe that our material universe is all the space that exists.
That doesn't really matter. My point is that the question of the location of "all the space that exists" is, by definition, meaningless. Whether "all the space that exists" is "our material universe" or "our material universe plus heaven and hell" or really anything you want does not fundamentally change anything about the question if the "ultimate location".
My Response
I never used the term, all the space that exists, and claimed it to be surrounded by more space. Such a term involves a serious contradiction. That's why I never proposed it About Heaven's existence? You are right. My belief in a heaven doesn't change anything in relation to the issue of ultimate location. But please note that I never claimed that it did. The same question is relevant everywhere.
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