Killing the Watchmaker (Origins)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Sunday, July 03, 2011, 15:50 (4890 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

Tony,-Well played here. The only question I can ask, is what basis do we really have for making the claim, "the infinite exists..." when if you dissect your words you realize that your reasoning is really "What if...?" I can't think of anything that I believe in, based on purely the justification of "what if."-What's wrong with taking a view like mine that says, "I'll believe it when I have evidence?" (The utterly boring agnostic view, I know...)-> It was written by a French writer, Eliphas Levi, in 1856. And honestly, while the terms like infinite may be, strictly speaking, incorrect, I do not think the sentiment is wrong. 
> 
> We have plumbed the depths of Quantum physics, and there is still the possibility of finding bits smaller than quanta that we are as of yet unable to detect. We have mapped the edge of the universe(supposedly), and yet it is ever expanding and what lies beyond that boundary could very well be an infinity of other universes of which we have no current knowledge. We know there is a boundary, so it stands to reason that there must be something on the other side, even if that something is nothing. That nothing could very well be 'manifestly infinite". In this sense, the statement "..one can say not only I believe, but I know that an infinity of things exist which are beyond my reach" is very accurate. We know that something had to occur before the Big Bang, or it stands to reason that the big bang could not occur. We can only peer forward, back, outwards, larger, and smaller to the limits of our technology. Even within those limits however, while technically finite, we can still reason that there is something for us to know that is beyond those limits, and once those things can be reasoned, we will have a new set of limits within which we can work.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"