You are viewing the historical archive of The Philosophy Forum.
For current discussions, visit the live forum.
Go to live forum

Ryan O'Connor

['Member']Joined: February 27, 2021 at 01:55Last active: September 21, 2024 at 23:312 discussions87 comments

Discussions (2)

Comments

.
September 21, 2024 at 23:39
July 08, 2024 at 11:20
Since both you and @"fishfry" reacted the same way, I've learned that I shouldn't try to make a point in the form of a question. I know that there is ...
March 18, 2021 at 00:06
It is? Can you point me to the demonstration? This may be going off on a tangent, but the Bekenstein bound poses an upper limit on the information tha...
March 17, 2021 at 21:34
@"fishfry" I'm trying to let you off the hook on talking to me about the nature of continua but you keep coming back for more. I'm not complaining! Ex...
March 17, 2021 at 01:48
Atalanta is walking from x=0 to x=1. What is the first non-zero coordinate that she walks to? I'd like to know how mathematical analysis solved this. ...
March 17, 2021 at 00:14
No, I'm saying that my philosophy is in agreement with modern physics. We know much more than what our measuring equipment says. Our measuring equipme...
March 17, 2021 at 00:03
I wouldn't dare, I've already had my fair share of backlash in the math group. I don't agree with this. You're missing the key ingredient: time. A vid...
March 16, 2021 at 23:21
Name calling doesn't win debates.
March 16, 2021 at 01:49
Space is far from empty. Fields permeate all of space.
March 16, 2021 at 01:49
1) The parts only exist when measured. If nobody is looking, it is meaningless to speak of parts (just as it is meaningless to say that Schrödinger's ...
March 16, 2021 at 01:47
I suspect it's the apostrophe...it's always given me computer problems. I've posted a comment in the 'Feedback' section, hopefully a moderator will al...
March 16, 2021 at 01:35
Hi Moderators, when others try to mention me with @ my name doesn't come up. I suspect that it's due to the apostrophe in my name. Can I change my nam...
March 16, 2021 at 01:01
Agreed. It is easy to talk about doing something (e.g. completing an infinite process), it's another thing to actually do it. I think your story is qu...
March 16, 2021 at 00:57
I've said this many times, but I'll say it one more time. We can talk (using finite statements and operations) about potentially infinite processes wi...
March 16, 2021 at 00:35
Newton's world was one where the present took the center stage, time marched forward instant by instant, and everything always held a definite state. ...
March 15, 2021 at 21:58
I'm not sure how to respond to most of your post, but as for pi we typically understand it precisely using some algorithm described with finite charac...
March 15, 2021 at 03:16
Hmm, maybe I wasn't consistent, let me try again. -The aforementioned program is written with finite characters. -The execution of the program is pote...
March 15, 2021 at 03:01
We can certainly talk about a system at a particular instant of time. For example, we can talk about the time on our clock, and the position and shape...
March 15, 2021 at 02:32
I certainly like the idea of constructivism in that it is necessary to construct a mathematical object to prove that it exists, and my understanding i...
March 15, 2021 at 02:04
I'm not a physicist but this is my understanding of how our world works. A wave function of the universe (describing potential/probabilities) exists s...
March 15, 2021 at 00:38
Sure, physicists could be wrong but that doesn't mean you should stick with outdated information (which could also be wrong). A program written to spi...
March 15, 2021 at 00:08
There are two ways to describe the car's motion. 1) Over any non-zero interval of time the car's average velocity is 60mph. 2) At any instant the car'...
March 14, 2021 at 23:20
I think this is the wrong question to ask. We know what we want (a consistent foundation for calculus) and we think we know how to get it (with real n...
March 14, 2021 at 22:07
It's a useful concept, especially in an applied sense like engineering.
March 14, 2021 at 03:57
I'm not proposing we ban Infinity altogether. I'm proposing that we restrict ourselves to only use Infinity in a potential sense.
March 14, 2021 at 03:13
I believe physicists think particles are only states of quantum fields. If so, you should not be thinking of the point where a particle appears, but i...
March 14, 2021 at 02:18
You're right, I shouldn't have generalized.
March 14, 2021 at 02:00
Perhaps I am misusing terms. Certainly, when I say graphs are topological, I don't use it in the standard sense of the word topology. Instead, I'm usi...
March 14, 2021 at 01:51
My view is that actual infinity should not be permitted in math any more so that than it is permitted in physics, but that's just my view and it's con...
March 14, 2021 at 01:28
My impression is that you're a finitist, so I presume that you believe our universe had a beginning of time. If particles are fundamental, they must h...
March 14, 2021 at 00:35
Are tangent and instantaneous rate of change not the same thing? If you reject the notion of instantaneous rate of change, how can you not reject the ...
March 13, 2021 at 19:17
Are you just sharing a nice quote from Hawking, or is this supposed to support your argument? If the former, thanks! If the latter, please provide a l...
March 13, 2021 at 01:46
"Quantum indeterminacy is the apparent necessary incompleteness in the description of a physical system" source ] Doesn't that sound a little like Göd...
March 13, 2021 at 00:53
I can accept that the square root operation is closed over the 'reals', but that doesn't mean it's closed over the real numbers. I don't deny the valu...
March 13, 2021 at 00:50
No, continuous curves. What you don't realize is that it's your description which stops the car from moving. That's Zeno's paradox. Motion is impossib...
March 13, 2021 at 00:13
I think you are indeed pointing at the problem but when you start talking about your solution involving multiple time dimensions and spatial expansion...
March 12, 2021 at 23:02
This is the view that we've been indoctrinated with. We can't help from thinking that points (i.e. instants) are fundamental and so we believe that co...
March 12, 2021 at 03:28
When you draw a graph, do you think you actually draw infinite points placed perfectly on the page? Or do you place a few points on the page accuratel...
March 12, 2021 at 03:14
At every time interval we will find the car moving. At every instant in time the car's motion is indistinguishable from that of a parked car. It's Zen...
March 12, 2021 at 03:08
It's true that in my video I showed a blurry curve in between the measurements, but prior to that I showed the curve being 'topological' . If instead ...
March 12, 2021 at 02:57
Isn't that what we do with quantum mechanics? We have finite results corresponding to our actual measurements and everything between the measurements ...
March 12, 2021 at 02:46
Never in the history of mathematics or physics has discovering truth set us backwards. The fact that your philosophy would result in a weaker mathemat...
March 12, 2021 at 02:14
I believe that's a false equality. The correct statement is "the potentially infinite process defined by 0.333... converges to the number 1/3" not "th...
March 12, 2021 at 01:49
The beauty of calculus is that in performing a finite number operations (e.g. in manipulating the exponents and coefficients of a polynomial to determ...
March 11, 2021 at 22:36
Imagine water flowing uniformly out of the faucet onto a flat plate. Below the flat plate is a spring which compresses. We can determine a relationshi...
March 11, 2021 at 03:01
I do like this idea and I need to find out why it's disturbing. That's a reasonable statement. It reminds me of the Chinese room argument in AI. Someo...
March 11, 2021 at 02:27
@"fishfry" I'm not denying measurement at all. If an event can be completely described by a photograph then it is instantaneous. If it needs a video t...
March 11, 2021 at 01:24
With you being a crankologist, I'd really benefit from your criticisms and I think you'd enjoy learning my view as I believe I am coming at infinity f...
March 10, 2021 at 22:45
No problem at all. I appreciate the message! Although I don't expect a response, I do want to say a couple of things. I obviously know how to plot a p...
March 10, 2021 at 02:48