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Politics : Should God be replaced? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: one_less who wrote (19091)	1/7/2005 2:34:23 PM
From: Solon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

"Yes, and in order to walk from the corner you must first go half way to the corner and that series of movement events takes half the time" Xenophanes certainly gave the mathematical and philosophical disciplines a wealth of interesting puzzles to pursue; but these seeming paradoxes do not answer here. Firstly, it is not axiomatic that there is such a thing as infinite smallness in the real world. We can divide numbers in half in an infinite succession. But numbers are abstract--they are not material. Nor is it true that one needs to stop at any of the mathematical points that may be abstractly conceived between object A and object B. If that were true then one truly could not reach another object nor could one PASS another object. Yet no sensible person can deny that we are indeed able to bring objects together and to pass objects. When the catcher throws the baseball back to the pitcher, the baseball is eventually caught. So regardless of how small distance or space may actually be divided in the abstract world of numbers--symbolism if you will....it is clear that there is a finite distance between any two objects and a finite time between any two events. It does NOT take an eternity for the ball to reach the pitcher. And all events do NOT occur at the same time. The catcher throws the ball BEFORE the pitcher catches it; and the pitcher catches the ball AFTER the catcher throws it. It is because these events are separated in space and time that we are able to EXPERIENCE that something has happened. If there were a universe or Holy Place where time did not exist, then neither would events and neither would experience. "We make an infinite number of movement events through an infinite number of moments in time to reach the corner." Of course, that is a contradiction. If the moments in time are infinite, then you CANNOT reach the corner! You are confusing reality with mathematical symbolism. People cannot reach the end of infinite time or space. So if infinite moments of time exist between me and the corner, then I do NOT reach the corner...which is absurd! Thus, there are NOT infinite moments of time or infinite segments of distance between me and the corner. Otherwise, I could never reach the corner. Indeed, I could not reach an inch in front of me, nor any part of an inch. I could not move at all. And that is basically what Xenophanes believed--that motion was an illusion. At least he understood what he was arguing... "So, are we approaching conscious respect for the eternity of the moment?" There is no evidence that moments are eternal. If they were then the associated configuration of each moment would be eternal. After a few billion years there would be no place to move. And if you believe that there is only ONE moment, then you cannot believe in space or time or movement.