An infinite series of finite causes.

[shunyadragon]

Modern medicine can do wonders with incontinence.

Just sayin'

I can recommend over the counter medications that will do for you.

[mattbballman31]

I can recommend over the counter medications that will do for you.

Go away, shunya. No one likes you.

[Tassman]

1. I provide a BRIEF list of the examples and the methodologies involved, and then you'll predictably cry foul because your scientistic impulses will automatically disqualify the examples, with cries of protest over the fact that I've done nothing to justify the methodologies involved.

[Tassman]

Did you miss my post?

You acknowledged engaging in a "snide and unjustified attribution of false motives". I was too polite to mention it.

[Tassman]

And how exactly do you prove that a multiverse is past eternal? That it never began to exist in the far distant past?

What are you talking about, is not this universe expanding? Is not the second law of thermodynamics active?

I need to do no such thing, you made a claim that you can not back up. Just admit it.

My claim is that gods are human constructs without an independent reality; you are unable to prove my claim wrong.

[JimL]

I understand the rest of the musings except this.

How can entropy decrease in infinity?

or

Can you explain what you mean by that?

Well like I said, I don't really know, but it's not as though an infinite cosmos could be expanding, so entropy wouldn't be increasing either, right?

[element771]

You acknowledged engaging in a "snide and unjustified attribution of false motives". I was too polite to mention it.

[element771]

Well like I said, I don't really know, but it's not as though an infinite cosmos could be expanding, so entropy wouldn't be increasing either, right?

[Tassman]

[element771]

[mattbballman31]

Huh? What I already spelled out for you was NOT complex at all. But thanks for fulfilling that prophecy I predicted! It's not a simple as 2+2=4, and it's on the same level as pretty much any philosophical issue. It'll never be like 2+2=4 and depending on how far you go, it could be something like square-integral functions. But that's not remotely how I already described it for you. Once again, you've put any potential explanation into the Procrustean bed of gross, caricatured simplicity, and you've done this to such an absurd degree, that you're free to demand for more elucidation no matter where the threshold is for sufficiency (you can literally shift the goal posts at any point for any stupid reason). And any attempt at further elucidation is further subject to your demand for more simplicity. It's no use even talking to you with these trollish escapades. Where's that mysterious, mythical line beyond which is too much explanation, and before which is too little? No one knows. You don't know. Why waste my time trying to feel out where it is? I've already explained it "too much": that wasn't good enough. I've already laid out simply what my points were in connect-the-dot thesis sentences: that wasn't good enough. I mean, seriously? How the heck do we go about this in a way that I already haven't gone about it?

I got an idea! Admit you're an obtuse, pathetic troll!

[Tassman]

Whatever!

[mattbballman31]

Whatever!

See! This is what Tass does! He's a troll! He gets other people to the point where they have to explain the crap out of why what he's saying is so absurd, and he ends it with quoting the whole thing, and writing one word. Why does anyone waste their time on this idiot?

[seer]

Go away, shunya. No one likes you.

Well there is that kind of sick fascination, like when you drive by a car accident...

[shunyadragon]

Go away, shunya. No one likes you.

Oh! How precious! Sandbox talk!

Actually in another thread Boxing Pythagoris provides the best explanation for math on this topic and reading his posts will provide the best explanation. The following is an example.

Calculus is a tool for calculating actually infinite sets of objects, and this tool can be used to describe the workings of the real world with incredible accuracy, as Newton demonstrated with his celestial mechanics. There is some philosophical debate, however, as to whether such tools are just decent idealizations which provide reasonable approximations of reality, or whether they accurately describe reality.

I'm a Formalist when it comes to the philosophy of mathematics, so I think ALL mathematics is a purely abstract means of describing the real world-- including basic arithmetic. However, there are ways in which this abstraction can be more or less accurate in its description of the world.