/lit/ - Literature

>>17888343
Reality isn't infinitely divisible

>>17888343
it's a linguistic trap

you ever done calculus?

Bros... was Newton wrong?

>>17888354
This is just not true. Whether or not we can be certain something has been divided is irrelevant. Planck established the smallest possible human-relevant unit, not some kind of cosmic rule as to divisibility. Additionally, even though there very well be a limit to how divisible matter is, there's no real evidence to suggest that spacetime cannot be infinitely divided. It may turn out that it can't, but my point is this: anyone who wants to speak definitively as to our actual KNOWLEDGE on this is full of shit. What we come up against is unknowability itself when the scales get small enough. The idea that you can know the nature of things which lie beyond knowability is a non sequitur.

>>17888354
>>17888356
>>17888390
Wrong

Philosophy starts and ends with Zeno.

>>17888411
Retard.

>>17888411
ok lex, what's right, then?

>>17888343
>in the time the guy takes to reach A the turtle will already be at the point B, when the guy reaches B the turtle will be at C
>therefore the turtle will always be ahead
I don't see the problem

>>17888390
If reality was infinitely divisible Zenos Paradox would be right. It's not ergo you cannot divide reality into infinitely small portions.

>>17888430
This is some of the dumbest logic I've ever seen employed in my general vicinity. In a thread about Zeno's paradox and its extrapolations, your argument is that Zeno's paradox is right because... Zeno's paradox is presupposed. Are you trying to troll me?

>>17888439
it was a test of your intelligence and you failed

>>17888446
Take your meds.

>>17888439
You're not as smart as you seem to think you are anon. My point was that the logic of Zenos Paradox is correct IF reality was infinitely divisible. The fact that you can't outrun an arrow is indicative of the fact that the arrow actually doesn't have to traverse an infinite number of half distances to hit you since it does actually hit you.

>>17888439
Not him but Zeno seemed to point out that in an infinitely divisible universe you have an infinite recursive loop of subtasks to fulfill in order to have movement, and that is logical and practically impossible. So a quantized theory, or a limit to divisibility mist exist in order to movement to happen. It's like the return function in a cascade of recurring functions that finally solves up and provides solutions to the nested functions that can be computed.

Ooga move, thus zeno wrong. Ooga smart now

Motion is unthinkable, that's all.

>>17888460
Again, you appeal to the internal logic of the paradox rather than engaging the actual content of my post. I'm almost entirely unconcerned with reconciling the facts of observational, material reality with a paradox cooked up thousands of years ago. A paradox is not a rigorous statement – it's a thought experiment. The conclusion you drew from a solution to the paradox (ie that "reality" is not infinitely divisible) flies completely in the face of the conclusions of ontological frameworks much more suited to explaining the material world: mathematics and science. I'm sorry if that gives you the bad touch, but that's not really my problem if it does.

>>17888470
Looks like we should dig Zeno up and give him a handjob or two because he solved QM.

>>17888439
>Zeno's paradox is right
what in God's name do you mean by "right"?

>>17888497
Physics says reality is not infinitely divisible, keep digging your hole deeper you fedora wearing pseud

>>17888509
he does not "solve" quantum mechanics because he has not created a theory to explain why his paradox happens. He simply states the paradox.

>>17888497
>flies completely in the face of the conclusions of ontological frameworks much more suited to explaining the material world: mathematics and science
Yet they came up to the conclusion that matter and force fields are quantised

>>17888343
ancient greeks were smarter than modern humans

>>17888521
what is the name of the theory that suggests this?

It takes the man less time each time he reaches where the tortoise was.
In fact, it takes exponentially less, and when you add up all the time it actually approaches a specific value. The man reaches (and will then soon pass) the tortoise after that specific amount of time has passed.
This is some pretty basic high school math.

>>17888528
This is unironically correct

>>17888531
>In fact, it takes exponentially less, and when you add up all the time it actually approaches a specific value.
okay, it approaches that value, but it never actually reaches it. Yet achilles does pass the tortoise, I've seen it with my own eyes. Contradiction.

>>17888528
Most ppl really underestimate the good 'ol "start with the Greeks", I did that too but when I read up the philosophy they produced in the short span of a century across 300BC I was completely blown away
Those niggas were smart

>>17888497
>flies completely in the face of the conclusions of ontological frameworks much more suited to explaining the material world: mathematics and science
Cheeto stained fingers typed this post

>>17888529
planck's constant and quantum theory in general, you fucking mongoloid.
God damn, and here I though /lit/ was supposed to be one of the brainy board

ITT: People who have no idea what calculus and Quantum physics is.

>>17888570
I thought planck's constant, and quantum theory in general, dealt with particle physics, and had little to say about space and time, which is explained by relativity, which is what we are concerned with here (motion). If I am wrong, please correct me.

>>17888343
Infinity fags will never recover from this.

>>17888576
Calculus doesn't solve Zeno tho. QM does.

>>17888570
If you don’t think that post, no matter how dumb it was, isn’t smarter than 99.9% of posts on 4channel.org, then you clearly aren’t familiar with the site. /lit/ is incredibly smart by 4chan standards.

>>17888582
Particle moves, you dumbo

>>17888541
Time is constant, not exponential.
Achilles only doesn't ever reach the tortoise if time never passes the point we've specified.
If you only look at the time before Achilles passes the tortoise, then yes of course he never passes the tortoise.

>>17888595

Imagine arguing over troll physics

>>17888587
>Not knowing what a limit is
Literally proving my point.

>>17888427
Line 1 is t=0
Line 2 is t=1
Line 3 is t=1.1
Line 4 is t=1.11
Line 5 is t=1.111
.
.
.
Line N is t=1.111...1
Now do you see the fallacy?

>>17888610
>not knowing that a limit means that the function does not actually reach the limit and that is what Zeno's paradox is try to say

>>17888343
I guess they were thinking of a supertask but had no way to abstract the idea in those times.
(vid on supertasks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffUnNaQTfZE))

It's not really a paradox because in reality achilles will just pass the turtle.

>>17888528
Modern humans are pretty much retards all things considered

>>17888343
>he thinks reality operates geometrically and not arithmetically
>he doesn't realize that maths and logics are just imperfect tools for describing the real world and are not the real world itself
ngmi

>>17888582
Google these terms:
Planck units
Heisenberg uncertainty principal

>>17888643
>Heisenberg uncertainty principal
I fucking hated that guy, he could never decide which physics class I was meant to be in

>>17888640
This

>>17888633
>supertasks
yeah, prettyuch
>It's not really a paradox because in reality achilles will just pass the turtle
?

God can you guys shut the fuck up about whether the universe is infinitely divisible or not?
It's a brainlet take to think that's what solves Zeno. Zeno is literally just limits. This thread is a waste of time.

>>17888647
Now demonstrate that you understand limits by telling what exactly f(You) is equal to based on your picture.

>>17888652
if the turtle is moving slower than achilles then achilles will overtake it
we don't know the speed of the turtle or achilles, but it is implied that the turtle is not as fast since it is given a 100m head start

>>17888657
inb4 zenos paradox of /lit/iots

>>17888610
limits don't solve shit

>>17888655
It's not "just limits", because infinitesimals and infinites don't exist in reality, ergo Zeno's paradox is still metaphysically relevant. It's fine in mathematics because they only deal in abstraction, not in actuality. It's impossible to show me an actual infinitesimal or infinite beyond symbolic abstraction.

>>17888677
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7Z9UnWOJNY
Cause I am too lazy to retread your dumbass through this.

>>17888708
Read this, the guy in that video even admits that it's still technically a philosophical "problem", it's just not a mathematical problem.

>>17888655
Mathematical abstractions don't always correspond to the way physical reality works though. Unless you think the math literally is reality in that case you've just gone in a circle and returned to Platonism where mathematics is the immaterial "form" of whatever it is that its describing

>>17888669
I mean it's obvious that irl we observe Achilles taking over the fucking turtle, it's called a paradox for a reason.

>>17888677
Let's say that Achilles is travelling at 1m/s and the tortoise is travelling at 0.5m/s. The tortoise is 1m ahead of achilles. It takes Achilles 1 second to travel that 1 meter. Once he does, the tortoise has travelled 0.5m. It takes Achilles 0.5 seconds to travel that 0.5m. This continues, with Achilles travelling half the distance he travelled before in half the time, forever. Achilles approaches the tortoise, gets closer and closer each time, but never reaches it. Makes sense, right?
Now that seems to imply that Achilles never reaches the tortoise, he just gets closer and closer. But look at what we did to the time each time. Each step sees Achilles going half the distance, but also necessarily in half the time. Make an infinite sum of the distance travelled and the time it took, and you get that Achilles approaches 2m and approaches 2 seconds.
In other words, that was just a really long overly-complex way to show that Achilles travels 2m in 2 seconds. You can do the same thing for the tortoise and it'll show that the tortoise travels 1m in 2 seconds, and because of the head start that means that Achilles and the tortoise are in the same place, i.e. Achilles caught the tortoise. From there, Achilles is going faster so it's logical to say he will then pass the tortoise.
>>17888701
Yes, infitesimals do not exist. That's why it's insane to manipulate time the way Zeno does in his paradox. That's why the paradox seems to defy logic.

>>17888745
The paradox is based on a false premise. We never observe people running geometrically with respect to other runners. Running is done arithmetically, in whole number additions of displacement according to their relatively consistent velocity. If someone were to somehow run geometrically behind a turtle, he would eventually get to the hind of the turtle, and then start and stop sporadically as he very slightly (eventually infinitesimally) moves closer to the turtle without ever quite getting to the turtle. Paradox solved.

>>17888657
f(you, cock)

>>17888756
The whole point of the paradox is it's supposed to explain how we run in a different way.
If you looked at the data, you would see exactly what happens in Zeno. You could look and you could find half the distance being covered, then half again, then half again, forever (assuming your data is continuous not discrete).
The problem is that in order to do that you would also be looking at smaller and smaller divisions of time. Zeno's paradox relies entirely on you not noticing that manipulation of time, and how it stops time from flowing forward like it does in reality.

>>17888793
>The whole point of the paradox is it's supposed to explain how we run in a different way.
No, all it does is show how we couldn't run in a different way. It's the most pointless thought experiment ever.
>If you looked at the data, you would see exactly what happens in Zeno. You could look and you could find half the distance being covered, then half again, then half again, forever (assuming your data is continuous not discrete).
>data manipulation, assuming continuous not discrete
Yeah, sure, but this is just a technical problem (caused by an autistic consciousness focused on rigidly systematizing things in their mind according to a "perfect" schematism) and not of any real relevance. If I try to abstract from something inaccurately, then the result will be inaccurate (or senseless), this is not news to me.

>>17888657
F(you) = Faggot(sin^2(cock+(you))+cos^2(ass+(you))
as cock --> ass, sin^2(cock+(you)) --> sin^2(ass+(you))
let x = cock+(you)
then as cock --> ass, Faggot(sin^2(cock+(you))+cos^2(x)) ---> Faggot(sin^2(x)+cos^2(x))
as sin^2(x)+cos^2(x) = 1, Faggot(sin^2(x)+cos^2(x)) = Faggot(1)
Faggot * 1 = Faggot.
Therefore, as cock-->ass, F(you) --> Faggot.

>>17888818
>No, all it does is show how we couldn't run in a different way. It's the most pointless thought experiment ever.
You don't understand the thought experiment.

>>17888831
Yes, I do, and I've already explained how it is rubbish.

>>17888823
The madlad did it

>>17888823
>>17888855
No he didn't. The function is one variable function of You. Cock is a constant. It makes no sense to have cock approach ass. It can't. Cock is a constant. This guys and you are retards for not even understanding how to interpret f(You)

>>17888529
Zeno's Paradox

So the answer is that time isn’t made up of instants?

>>17888419
Discrete

You shouldn't, Xeno doest understand time

>>17888343
its a dumb thought experiment where you're tricked into thinking this is a race, but the situation described by the paradox is that achilles is actually just chasing the tortoise, not racing him. mathematically, if you were to continue the OP pic, the tortoise never reaches the goal either, and what's actually being depicted is the exact moment (or limit) that achilles surpasses the tortoise.

>>17889003
No but our perception of it is constantly moving

>>17888343
It's a fallacy of equivocation.

>>17888356
this is the one. this is the guy that gets it.

>zeno STILL causing enough butthurt to power several households on the regular
triple based

>>17888356
it's not linguistic, it's a problem about continuity

>goal is to move the full length
>this sets a premise for a decision
>but dependent origination makes definition of the premise of the decision an impossibility
no one can reach the goal because there is no one and no goal

>>17889003
No, it's that Zeno was using a retarded manipulation of time to make it seem like a finite amount of time would last forever.

>>17888488
underrated

>>17888343
Easy

MATH PROBLEM

Three guys rent a hotel room, it costs $25, they pay 10 each and get 5 back. They decide to keep 1 each and give back 2. They have then paid (10-1) 9 each, plus the 2 they gave back. 9*3+2=29. Where did the last dollar go?

>>17888528
This is why we start and finish with greeks.

.999... = 1

>>17889990
Minus the 2 they gave back, that was already part of the inital 30 put in.

>>17888343
Zeno is making fun of critics of Monadism who think making 10 billion arguments against it without validating any of them is effective due to their sheer number. He explicitly says that the paradoxes aren't "good" arguments, they are there to make pseuds feel retarded but are easy fodder for anyone competent.

>>17888470
the paradox is about human thought, not a definitive scientific statement. the fact that achilles so clearly wins the race despite it being logically impossible is meant to demonstrate a limit of reason beyond which it fails. flat earthers literally do the same thing, they don't prove that the earth is flat they just expose a series of limits to the power of reason

>>17889471
i wish i could go back in time and tell zeno that people would still angry enough to remember his name thousands of years later, i bet he'd get a real kick out of that

This isn't exactly about the problem itself but if it's true that Zeno was Parmenides' student doesn't his attempt to show these paradoxes strongly confirm that the interpretations of Parmenides seeing the world as illusory or false in some sense are correct? It seems from what I read that these are not the only interpretations out there, but why else could Zeno have been so concerned with creating these paradoxes?

>>17891554
Retard lmaoo

>>17888354
Based Zeno.
The Ultimate Pleb Filter Paradox.

>>17888411
how do you explain quantum fields then

checkmate pseuds

>>17891554
what

>>17888528
yep
earlier humans built structures that have lasted for hundreds or thousands of years but modern buildings with all of their engineering can barely last a century kek

>>17888868
>It can't. Cock is a constant. This guys and you are retard

Freshmen faggot detected

>>17888343
Mathematically, this is only the case if the segment of time is halved with each iteration.

>>17888587
Planck length deals with the smallest unit of length that renders reality intelligible given our mathematical models of it. It has nothing to say about the topology of space.

>>17888354
Yes it is.

>>17888460
This is strange because I believe in Aristotle's response which is that space is continuous and not discrete and Leibniz's view that space is relational (and, eventually, topological), not a flat plane where objects exist. Yet your response is that space is quantized and hence discrete. For some reason both make sense to me, they both resolve it, even though they are opposite responses. I believe the latter response is deficient though for reasons outlined in this post:
>>17891924

>>17888460
No it doesn't you retard. An arrow does not travel along finite points or infinite points. The points are a human convention.

>>17888646

And Schroedinger could?

>>17891990
Reality is infinitely divisible in terms of human convention. This description is not reality itself which is never divided whatsoever so not bound by 'points'.

>>17888868
>Cock is a constant
For you maybe

>>17888718
>Evola/Guenon did it again
Secularists BTFO

>>17888390
OK. Get up and walk one attometer then.

No, you can't do it and neither can a turtle.

>>17888343
This is why mathematicians invented limits and calculus

Read Godel Escher Bach

>>17894983
> GEB
lol ultimate pseud book

>>17888413
starts with Parmenides. Ends with Zeno. Everything after is cope.

>>17895209
Starts with Heraclitus, ends with Heraclitus.

>>17888528
Very much so.
They not only had natural selection, they also didn't have liberalism, and all its contituents

>>17895194
Oh let me guess I should do an archeological dig so I can read some fucking ancient runes instead? I fucking hate all you esoteric gatekeeping snotty little faggots on this board. Yeah I'm a fucking pseud, and I enjoy myself too so FUCK YOU

>>17888343
arguable you will be so close, that your penis will be inside of the tortoise

Ahhh, you morons, stop thinking that the Planck units have anything to do with reality being continuous or discrete. They are just some specific scales (orders of magnitude) relevant to particle physics.

>>17888521
No, physics says it is UNKNOWABLE whether or not ""'"reality"""" (dumb, imprecise overgeneralization) is infinitely divisible. Physicists deal with an indivisible reality because what goes on beyond the Heisenberg limit is unknowable. Physics concerns itself with functions of the material, observable universe, and there being literally zero utility (as far as we can tell) in functions of matter beyond the Heisenberg limit, we choose to make an arbitrary designation of the point at which matter can, or should, no longer be further reduced. This is yet another way of restating what I initially referenced >>17888390 wrt "human relevance." You guys always start throwing mental rods when you're confronted with the literal limit of knowledge. It's really tiresome.

>>17896440
"space" doesnt have any determinate corporeality, its "indivisible" as much as its "infinitely divisible". But matter is not infinitely divisible (something having infinitely many parts cannot be finite), and something that is finite in size cannot move over an infinitely small distance. No need to drag QM or other stuff 4chan knows jack shit about

>>17897401
by matter here I refer to fundamental particles, or philosophical atoms

>>17888343
Aah but you see, this "paradox" assumes you are able to traverse the first half of this distance. Which is also a distance.

>>17888497
>science and math
>ontological

>>17888669
>it is implied that the turtle is not as fast since it is given a 100m head start
That's a much larger inferential jump than you think it is. The turtle gets a head start. We can say nothing beyond that.

>>17888390
Reality is infinitely divisible, but the symbolic is not, and all motion is symbolic

This is one of the best threads on /lit/ in a long time.

>>17888529
oh shit he actually doesnt know

>>17888529
>>17888529
Loop quantum gravity

>>17888343
Sum of infinitesimals is finite. Can't give Zeno too hard a time for not figuring it out, after all it took our lord and saviour Newton to figure it out.

This is simple calculus, the people talking about quantum physics do not know what they say.

Let a be the initial distance between Achilles and the tortoise, v the velocity of the tortoise and v'=kv the velocity of Achilles. Zeno points out that the duration after which Achilles and the turtle meet is the infinite sum of the durations in the geometrical decomposition of the movement exposed in the paradox.
I made the calculus for you, the total duration between the moment they start and the moment they meet is a*k/(v*(k-1)).

The paradox relies on the idea that an indefinitely large amount of durations is an indefinitely long duration, which is false.

>>17888354
>Reality isn't infinitely divisible
if that were true calculus wouldn't work

>>17888343
Some infinities are bigger than others.
/Thread

>>17898852
wow it's almost like the greeks believed a lot of lame fallacies that humanity finally moved on from during the enlightenment

>>17897406
do we know about truly empty space tho?

the real realization to come from all of this is htat it is impossible for time to move forward. there truly is only "now"