Starship Asterisk*

Beyond wrote:Existence........I am making this post. Therefore i exist. I am a very small part of something that is either finite, or, infinite. That's about all that is possible to say on the subject for now. Have an infinitely nice, finite day :!:

I don't buy it. I'm reading this post, so I know that I exist, but it certainly doesn't demonstrate to me that you do. You- along with all your posts- could just be a figment of my imagination.

Vice-versa on that Chris. I would imagine that believing that one exists in the first place, takes a certain amount of faith, based on the experience. And then the faith grows as each experience comes along. Until it becomes 'normal'. Such as chatting with others on the Good Ship Asterisk. Of course if one thinks it's just their imagination, try changing it. If it won't change, then it's not just imagination, i should think.

But what if most of the asterisk posts come from one person with an extremely fractured multiple personality dysfunction? How would you go about proving that Neufer, Owlice, Beyond, Chris, and other posters aren't in fact different personalities of the same person? Perhaps Chris and Harry are different sides of the same coin?

bystander wrote:...
∞ is not an integer, so your statement "for all numbers x, where x is a member of the set of integers, there is no x such that the successor of x is ∞" is true by default, because ∞ is not a part of the set. That does not mean there exists a greatest integer.

I believe I should have written 'cardinal' rather than 'integer' although the difference seems to be slight, cardinals are specifically for talking about the number of elements in a set, as in the discussion above (so the number of Plank volumes in the observable universe would be a cardinal number). I have looked at the definition of cardinal number, and they are transfinite. I have one last question on this topic before I give it a rest and get back to the lectures. I can't find the answer elsewhere on the Internet. I don't know whether you can answer this for me or whether I need to put this on a math forum, but please let me know either way:
is it also true that there is no x, where x is a finite cardinal number, such that the successor of x is Aleph Null?

Unlike ∞, Aleph Null is a member of the set of cardinals, so the above is not true by default, although I believe it is true. That is probably what I should have put originally. Thanks again for your time.

mst66186 wrote:I believe I should have written 'cardinal' rather than 'integer' although the difference seems to be slight, cardinals are specifically for talking about the number of elements in a set, as in the discussion above (so the number of Plank volumes in the observable universe would be a cardinal number). I have looked at the definition of cardinal number, and they are transfinite. I have one last question on this topic before I give it a rest and get back to the lectures. I can't find the answer elsewhere on the Internet. I don't know whether you can answer this for me or whether I need to put this on a math forum, but please let me know either way:

is it also true that there is no x, where x is a finite cardinal number, such that the successor of x is Aleph Null?

Unlike ∞, Aleph Null is a member of the set of cardinals, so the above is not true by default, although I believe it is true. That is probably what I should have put originally. Thanks again for your time.

I'm not really sure what your point is here, but to get a definitive answer you will probably need to go to a math forum. IMHO you are not looking for the cardinality of Planck units, but rather a count of them. The set of counting numbers (aka natural numbers) is more appropriate.

"Eternity is very long, especially towards the end." -- Woody Allen (The same could be said for 'infinity.')