4 ms·

Given that no one, or at least no human, can experiment what reality in its whole, and as far as we want to honestly recognize the effective scope of our knowle

Given that no one, or at least no human, can experiment what reality in its whole, and as far as we want to honestly recognize the effective scope of our knowledge, probably we will never know in absolute terms. What matter is a subjective topic. What we all have in common is logistics constraints. So if some people set as a goal something that requires to settle if reality is more easily handled when modeled in continuous or discrete manner for logistical reasons, then it this scope it matters. But whatever you settle on, human brain is thus built that it can always assume that the perfectly fitting model is only valid in its scope which is built on top of an other more subtle level of reality which is on it’s part better modelized with an antithetic approach. Now, on a very personal out of blue opinion, I fail to see how any causal series might happen without an underlying continuous flow of event. I mean, supposing causal discontinuity is to my mind as relevant as supposing that universe as it is right now, actually just appeared, without anything we can think about it being relevant, and in the next instant could be completely different or nonexistent since universe is not bound in any remote way to what we might expect on our delusional just created sense of causality.

lupire 3y ago
Continuity just hides the ball. You say you can't comprehend how something can move from 1 to 2 discretely. But the paradoxical notion of infinite continuous change has been known since antiquity. It's faith either way. Discrete doesn't mean state changes are wholly globally arbitrary. Imagine a graph with nodes and edges, a state machine as computer sciences call it. I think it's easy to agree that the universe could be parsed by a regex ;-) Heck, imagine an integer on the number line that can go up or down. Worlfram has written a ton about this. Despite all his issues, his math is solid. (Which is not to say his physics is true.)
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  Zeno's """Paradox""" was nonsense even in it's own time. Easier now that we understand Newton's laws of motion but his contemporaries were able to sufficiently dispute his idea even without them.
  - Tainnor 3y ago
    Not nonsense. The argument goes that if time and space are both discrete, then to move from A to B in finite time means that you have to perform infinitely many actions in finite time. Zeno didn't believe that the latter was possible. But he wasn't stupid, he obviously knew that motion was happening all the time in real life. His paradox really only makes sense in the context of Eleatic philosophy which assumes that reality is an illusion because change is fundamentally impossible (how can something come from nothing?). If you want to reframe it in more modern terms, Zeno's paradox shows a contradiction in axioms. If you want to get rid of the contradiction, you have to change some of the axioms. In real analysis, loosely speaking, we remove the axiom that an infinite process cannot result in a finite outcome - this way we are allowed to sum (some) infinite series, for example. But we don't "know" if reality behaves that way. The atomists found a different solution: they argued that reality was fundamentally discrete. This way, Zeno's paradox also doesn't arise.
    - Tainnor 3y ago
      > if time and space are both discrete my mistake - that should have read "are both continuous".
- psychoslave 3y ago
  > You say you can't comprehend how something can move from 1 to 2 discretely. I didn’t mean that, sorry if my words that induced you to believe so. What I want to point out is that, to my mind, if I assume a discrete foundation of universe, on meta-cognitive level I must recognize it implies everything I experiment through my current attention might possibly be a just made up state without any compelling ontological relation to anything I can recall or think of. So, as far as I’m concerned, believing in continuity is just a lazy way to relax on a metaphysical Gordian knot. > It's faith either way. Yes and no. It’s probably easier to change scientific perspective to whatever model apply best for some purpose than to adhere to some philosophy about Nature.

lupire 3y ago

Continuity just hides the ball. You say you can't comprehend how something can move from 1 to 2 discretely. But the paradoxical notion of infinite continuous change has been known since antiquity. It's faith either way. Discrete doesn't mean state changes are wholly globally arbitrary. Imagine a graph with nodes and edges, a state machine as computer sciences call it. I think it's easy to agree that the universe could be parsed by a regex ;-) Heck, imagine an integer on the number line that can go up or down. Worlfram has written a ton about this. Despite all his issues, his math is solid. (Which is not to say his physics is true.)

mrguyorama 3y ago
Zeno's """Paradox""" was nonsense even in it's own time. Easier now that we understand Newton's laws of motion but his contemporaries were able to sufficiently dispute his idea even without them.
- Tainnor 3y ago
  Not nonsense. The argument goes that if time and space are both discrete, then to move from A to B in finite time means that you have to perform infinitely many actions in finite time. Zeno didn't believe that the latter was possible. But he wasn't stupid, he obviously knew that motion was happening all the time in real life. His paradox really only makes sense in the context of Eleatic philosophy which assumes that reality is an illusion because change is fundamentally impossible (how can something come from nothing?). If you want to reframe it in more modern terms, Zeno's paradox shows a contradiction in axioms. If you want to get rid of the contradiction, you have to change some of the axioms. In real analysis, loosely speaking, we remove the axiom that an infinite process cannot result in a finite outcome - this way we are allowed to sum (some) infinite series, for example. But we don't "know" if reality behaves that way. The atomists found a different solution: they argued that reality was fundamentally discrete. This way, Zeno's paradox also doesn't arise.
  - Tainnor 3y ago
    > if time and space are both discrete my mistake - that should have read "are both continuous".
psychoslave 3y ago
> You say you can't comprehend how something can move from 1 to 2 discretely. I didn’t mean that, sorry if my words that induced you to believe so. What I want to point out is that, to my mind, if I assume a discrete foundation of universe, on meta-cognitive level I must recognize it implies everything I experiment through my current attention might possibly be a just made up state without any compelling ontological relation to anything I can recall or think of. So, as far as I’m concerned, believing in continuity is just a lazy way to relax on a metaphysical Gordian knot. > It's faith either way. Yes and no. It’s probably easier to change scientific perspective to whatever model apply best for some purpose than to adhere to some philosophy about Nature.