Author:
Wade A. Tisthammer
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Date Posted: 02/20/04 10:43am
In reply to:
Damoclese
's message, "?" on 02/16/04 9:29pm
>
>>Okay, it’s wrong in the sense that it just can’t apply
>>to an infinite past, where there is no year
>>where he starts at. Hence we count backwards.
>
>Why count in the first place forward or backwards if
>it's infinite? How can you count backwards if you
>don't know where the beginning of something is?
It's just a way to label our years and days. When we ask what day he wrote about last year, counting backwards seems to be the most logical choice. How can you count backwards without having a beginning? Well, just start at the present or recent past. Yesterday is day 1, two days ago is day 2 etc.
>>I agree that Shandy would never finish if he had been
>>writing from eternity past. But if this is true,
>>Shandy is infinitely far behind, and we get the
>>paradox I described earlier.
>
>His being infinitely behind doesn't mean he doesn't
>get to experience the present.
It does in this case. If he is infinitely far behind the day he wrote about last year (let's call this day point B) is infinitely far away into the past from the present point in time (let's call today point A).
To get from point B to point A we would have to traverse an infinite distance of time, and we would never finish. To see why, let's label point B “day 1” and point A “day infinity.” Now suppose we count one day after the other. Day 2, 3, 4, 5, 6… will you ever reach “infinity”? No, the day number will just get larger and larger without limit, always being finite. You can’t reach an actual infinite this way any more than you can reach the greatest possible integer. An actual infinite cannot be formed by successive addition. Thus, if Shandy were infinitely far behind, the present never would have been reached, because we would have to traverse an infinite temporal distance from point B to point A.
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