Toward the most numerate…

Toward the most numerate… [+ favourites]

There is an idea, mathematical in nature of things progressing towards infinity…

Due to limitations, perhaps it would be more apt to consider things progressing to what could be called the ‘Most Numerate’…

The most numerate would be the highest possible number of items within a set…
The limitations implied would be of circumstances relating time, space as well as permutations…

For example, you may have a certain number of most repetitions (or ‘x’) of the set of permutations (or ‘y’) which would involve a most numerate number of repetitions of the permutations, being the most numerate number in that reality (or ‘n’). Such that ‘x’ times by ‘y’ equals ‘n’…

The practical reason for choosing the ‘most numerate’ over infinity, would be based on the limitations we encounter, and the reality we are subject to…
With mathematics, as we use it, there is little purpose to applying it to situations outside the possible, and makes the most sense when we find practical examples to apply it to…

The mind on a final note, would naturally have a problem creating a true sense of infinity, but would most likely have greater success with the idea of the ‘most numerate’…

What d’you think?

"There is no negative one..."

What do you mean when you say that things are "progressing" towards infinity? The Snyder-Oppenheimer model, now pre-eminent, implies an expanding universe - but to what exent can it "progress" towards infinity? One might say: "The universe has been growing in mass since its birth; and it will continue to, for an infinite amount of time. When it has done so, it will thereby have an infinite mass". This line of argument is easily controverted. For if a point takes an infinitely long time to reach, it can, by definition, never be reached: no matter how much time has passed, there will always be more to go.

It is incumbent on us, then, to define infinity. There is a tendency in aesthetics to associate the infinite with the sublime, (Dilthey and Nietzsche) but I recoil aginst this explanation because it is purely psychologistic. Another, parallel possibilility is this: we say that the infinite is the unquantifiable. This explanation, though demystifying, fails on account of the fact that it imperils the infinite's status as a number. A number must be quantifiable. And it is no good saying that the infinite stands for those numbers which cannot be known, because a number can only have one value, and there are, conceivably, a plurality of unknown numbers.

Either infinity is suceptible of precise definition or it must be dismissed as a mere phantasm, as simulacra. One does present itself, the author of which is Kant: it is simply that the infinite is the largest possible number. And, defined thus, infinity is more efficacious than 'most numerate', for the cleavage between "permutations" and "reality" evaporates. The largest possible number is a concantenation of the facts. We need not imagine "repetitions" of "permutations" - that is, we need not split reality up into atomic parts - for the infinite is simply the totality of things in the world. Set theory cannot have recourse to such a category, since the "set of all sets" only connotes that part of reality which has been matematically documented.

I think what I was referring to was the mathematical concept that is used in equations where the answer is said to be towards infinity, like the ‘limit of an equation’ (if I remember correctly… it has been a while!)…
Does that help?

There is a little more to the idea that I can add…

I guess it comes down to a concept that because we can name something, we assume it must exist somewhere…

This is not truly so, as things can be referred to as the opposite or absence of another thing…
In a Universe there can be no absence of a part when you consider the whole, and the idea of ‘true opposites’ I find does not hold up…

In the case of infinity it is that without end… That which is not finite… The Universe started somewhere, and although the jury is out on this one, I believe the Universe will end somewhere…
I am referring to the Universe in all the four dimensions, not just time, but space as well…
Thus, there would be a most numerate amount of time and space possible…

You may have many more questions to ask regarding this… Which may include:
What is outside the Universe?
What is after or before the Universe?
These are not easy questions to answer…
All I can say is that I have a hunch that the answer is in the finite, rather than the infinite…

I think the rest off the post you know just what I was referring to and I appreciate your reply…

Back to infinity, which you have demonstrated more knowledge of, I think there are limits to everything, potentials, possibilities, rather than endless amounts of time, space, energy, etc…
And you think I am wrong here, please tell me why and if possible give examples…

"There is no negative one..."

In mathematics, we would say that infinity denotes an unbounded limit. What this means is not exactly clear, but I would be tempted to quote Aristotle, and say that the infinite represents a potentiality rather than an actuality. For example, central to Euclidean geometry is the assertion that there are no limits to how many times one can divide up a line. And a Turing machine, given an infinite amount of time, could conceivably write out an irrational number in full. What are we to infer? Why, surely that infinity is not a number, but a meta-number. It does not correspond to a set: rather, it defines the limits to sets. Add infinity to a number, and it becomes larger than any assigned value; take infinity from a number, and it becomes smaller than any assigned value (as I suspect you know, one can add infinity to a number in topological space). The function of infinity is to account for the fact that there are sets which the human mind cannot compute. Instead of positing "everything" (the set of all sets) infinity posits "everything there could possibly be".