Intuitions about Infinity
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28
Ṁ870
Jan 1
85%
A concept of infinity makes lots of sense, and is indeed vital
66%
It is easy to imagine breaking something up into infinitely smaller pieces, but difficult to imagine something infinitely large
53%
Actual infinities can exist in reality; but they will not be material
48%
Actual infinities can exist in reality
46%
It is equally difficult to imagine both something infinitely large and infinitely small
45%
Abstract things ARE reality
43%
Time can be broken into infinitely small segments
38%
Infinities exist only in the abstract
33%
Any conception of infinity must by definition violate what we understand (intuitively, at least) about causality
25%
Causality is somehow doomed, in one dimension or another
10%
A concept of infinity makes no sense and is pointless intellectual gymnastics

Disclaimer: I am not a mathematician or any such thing, and do not know what I am talking about.

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There is a conception of infinity as that which can be continued indefinitely: space, time, quantity, content, etc can be increased indefinitely. But this is a spurious infinite

There's also a kind of infinity that is interpreted "negatively". It's the negation of finitude. A thing may

be in one place, not in another. It may exist at one time, not at another. It may have certain distinguishing characters, not others. Different spatial, temporal and substantival differences.

That which is truly infinite has none of these limitations.

Voting No on time being broken into infinitely small segments, because as far as I understand it, durations of time shorter than the Planck time are physically undefined and don't make sense to talk about.

There is no single concept of infinity in mathematics. It's possible to accept some infinities and not others, and some statements about infinites and not others.

Anyway, I think most mathematicians are formalists, in that they will accept whatever concept of infinity is needed for their next paper.

How will you resolve these?

@JonahWeissman I wanted it to be more of a poll, but I don't know how to do a poll with multiple options selectable. Fairly new here. It's annoying to have payouts that resolve simply based on proportional plurality but I don't know how else to do it.

bought Ṁ10 Actual infinities ca... YES

@JesseTate This should be unranked

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