alborzThu, Apr 26, 2007 Can there be novelty in an infinite world? Wouldn't everything we think is novel have the opportunity to occur again? And again and again ad infinitum until every possibility occurs somewhere?
Are you saying that the universe is finite but that there are infinite possibilities of occurance in it? In which case wouldn't an infinite universe have had the opportunity to occur as well?
...hmm...now I don't know if I'm being too abstract for my own good. I find the idea of infinity troubling and almost impossible to deal with without getting into a pattern of maddening circular logic. But I have the sneaking suspicion that believing in infinity is no different from believing in a god - in that it seems like an easy way out of explaining the universe.
I don't know...obviously there's more thinking to be done - until it all gets too heavy and rolls back down the hill...an ironic metaphor since Sisyphus rolled his boulder for eternity himself.
Can there be novelty in an infinite world? Wouldn't everything we think is novel have the opportunity to occur again? And again and again ad infinitum until every possibility occurs somewhere?
Are you saying that the universe is finite but that there are infinite possibilities of occurance in it? In which case wouldn't an infinite universe have had the opportunity to occur as well?
...hmm...now I don't know if I'm being too abstract for my own good. I find the idea of infinity troubling and almost impossible to deal with without getting into a pattern of maddening circular logic. But I have the sneaking suspicion that believing in infinity is no different from believing in a god - in that it seems like an easy way out of explaining the universe.
I don't know...obviously there's more thinking to be done - until it all gets too heavy and rolls back down the hill...an ironic metaphor since Sisyphus rolled his boulder for eternity himself.