Message from @Alphonsus

Discord ID: 444888106253156362


2018-05-12 15:35:17 UTC  

And not to go down the road of science, but I'd say that is also decently held to be the same in that field.

2018-05-12 15:36:29 UTC  

Can you enlighten me on why infinity is not possible from that perspective?

2018-05-12 15:37:22 UTC  

Wasn't aquinas willing to concede that it is possible that the linear cause of the universe could be infinite just for the sake of argument?

2018-05-12 15:39:50 UTC  

Well let us go back to Aristotle, he posited correctly with regards to his rivals the Pythagoreans, that "objects of sense" (i.e. Nature) cannot be infinite. How can there be an infinite amount of causes in a natural world? How could something naturally exist forever? If this isn't the case, how then could something come from nothing without an extra-natural act by something unnatural?

2018-05-12 15:41:10 UTC  

The Angelic Doctor conceded plenty, however he felt with regard to this that the only way that could be is if God had always and infinitely was with the universe, but he certainly didn't accept that notion, and I don't find it well grounded in Thomism.

2018-05-12 15:41:37 UTC  

True

2018-05-12 15:41:53 UTC  

which is why i said he just did it for the sake of his argument

2018-05-12 15:42:02 UTC  

But my answer to your first message

2018-05-12 15:42:12 UTC  

I hold him in extreme esteem, but in some matters he was repudiated by the magisterium. Example being, the Immaculate Conception.

2018-05-12 15:42:14 UTC  

would be that as far as I know mass/energy can't be created or destroyed

2018-05-12 15:42:41 UTC  

Not naturally.

2018-05-12 15:42:48 UTC  

right

2018-05-12 15:42:54 UTC  

So if it can naturally exist forever

2018-05-12 15:43:03 UTC  

isn't it plausible that it has always existed forever?

2018-05-12 15:43:15 UTC  

Lofi Hip-hop to study and beat minorities to

2018-05-12 15:44:07 UTC  

And I apologize that I'm not very well educated in this field

2018-05-12 15:44:13 UTC  

But I promise I'm arguing out of good faith here

2018-05-12 15:44:22 UTC  

Again infinity has largely been discredited as, for lack of a better word, paradoxical and illogical. Even physicists have deemed it so. Example being Georges Lemaitre, university of Louvain in Belgium.

2018-05-12 15:44:31 UTC  

No need to apologize.

2018-05-12 15:45:13 UTC  

I'm still learning about what Aristotle meant by the difference of potential and actual infinity.

2018-05-12 15:46:30 UTC  

Mathematic theory isn't my strong suit, but I love how he related the two, it shows his general brilliance if anything.

2018-05-12 15:46:33 UTC  

So is this infinity in concern to the passing of time or is it everything?

2018-05-12 15:47:33 UTC  

Infinity, being never ending, not expanding either. So this particular infinity deals with all of creation which is guided and defined by time.

2018-05-12 15:47:55 UTC  

No infinity has not at all been discredited by physicists

2018-05-12 15:48:15 UTC  

I never said all of them.

2018-05-12 15:48:21 UTC  

I simply gave examples where it has been.

2018-05-12 15:48:45 UTC  

Where?

2018-05-12 15:49:42 UTC  

George Lemaitre, one of the theorists behind the theory of the big bang, seen here.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/441068168845197334/444888914071650344/BIG_BANG.jpg

2018-05-12 15:50:12 UTC  

You realize even the most basic calculus relies on infinities

2018-05-12 15:50:41 UTC  

Almost every branch of physics that we even study in undergrad has infinities within the theory

2018-05-12 15:50:46 UTC  

Infinity in theory or infinity in practice? That is, infinity for hypothesis, or infinity with regards to metaphysics?

2018-05-12 15:51:07 UTC  

That question doesn’t really make sense

2018-05-12 15:51:35 UTC  

And I'm not colluding the two, I'm simply saying is infinity being used for theoretical purposes or for actual explanations of the natural world?

2018-05-12 15:51:41 UTC  

Help me understand as you do.

2018-05-12 15:51:48 UTC  

Actual explanations

2018-05-12 15:51:58 UTC  

GR is the best example

2018-05-12 15:52:36 UTC  

It requires no discrete lengths in space or time basically so that you can for any given curvature in space create a locally “flat” thing called a spacetime metric

2018-05-12 15:52:57 UTC  

To do that the world has to be continuous in time and space, so infinitely divisible

2018-05-12 15:53:42 UTC  

It’s really analogous with epsilon delta I think it’s callled from calculus one. Which is why infinities are also required there

2018-05-12 15:55:14 UTC  

I understand the necessity of it, but I fail to see how this correlates with infinity with regards to creation? While I certainly hold no credentials, and that should be apparent, how does this figure into the Lemaitre-Tolman-Bondi model?

2018-05-12 15:56:08 UTC  

I mean how can accelerated expansion be believed in an infinite understanding?