What is "now"

[Jeff]

Yes thats true Mystic! Without math science couldnt handle many problems
in rl.

Jeff

[mystic]

@Atheist

That’s where my other long-standing puzzlement comes in. Look around you… everything is moving at a noticeable rate. However, exactly how many ‘stages’ of movement occur between any particular time unit? What’s the smallest amount anything can move? Certainly it can’t be infinitely small, or else (as with time) nothing would move at all. There must be a minimum amount of space that can be traversed, but how small is it?

There was an article linked on the forum a few months ago that described this dilemma. Basically, how can any arbitrary point in space (a point being infinitely small) exist at a different position to any other point, given that an infinite number of infinitely small points separate the two? Certainly an interesting thought.

I think you’re mixing up two things here: the purely theoretical symbolism of infinity (or infinitesimal small divisions), and reality. The first one is only a fundamental method used in science in an attempt to describe a wide variety of phenomena as accurately as possible. “Infinity”, more specifically it’s symbol, the infinity symbol, is no real number. If you add up “infinity” with “infinity”, you still get infinity. It has no meaning if you’re trying to represent this theoretical concept in existing terms such as space or time. Then it only gets more complicated until you can’t see the wood anymore for the trees…
But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some boundaries to space and time. These boundaries are the elementary time (about 10^-111 sec) and the elementary length (about 10^-102 m). As far as we know, these are the ultimate boundaries of time and space in our universe with its fundamental characteristics such as the speed of light or the mass of an electron. From these two fundamental quantities and from other fundamental constants, scientists have derived the so-called Planck units (certain quantities which characterize the universe when it was as big as the Planck length, about 10^-35 m). If we want to have a look what lies beyond the Planck units, we need a whole new understanding of physics. All these fundamental quantities are specific for our universe (and independent of the existence of man), so they probably have other values in other universes.

[foolish]

If you add up “infinity” with “infinity”, you still get infinity

If you add zero to zero you get zero. By the same logic, zero cannot exist, there is no such thing as zero. But hang on, that is a paradox. If there is no zero then there are zero zeros… How can I explain… like saying “This statement is false”… the two zeros would cancel each other out!! ARGH!

[Atheist]

Mystic, you seem to have a way of overcomplicating things until it becomes tedious.

All I basically asked was: “What is the smallest amount of time that can elapse?” Then I proceeded to guess that it couldn’t be infinitely small, due to the idea that nothing would then move at all.

Suddenly I’m apparently confusing several issues that require ridiculous numbers and multiple theories on top of each other to explain.

[mystic]

@Atheist

All I basically asked was: “What is the smallest amount of time that can elapse?” Then I proceeded to guess that it couldn’t be infinitely small, due to the idea that nothing would then move at all.

Suddenly I’m apparently confusing several issues that require ridiculous numbers and multiple theories on top of each other to explain.

Hm perhaps… I just tried to answer your question scientifically without starting to philosophize about infinite time…