An Attempt at Philosophy

I've been listening to a podcast called Philosophy Bites.  Filled with courage, I went to Craigslist and began a thread on the definition of infinity. My handle is dada-drummer

< dada-drummer > 01/13 11:11:14 

Some might use the word finite, to define infinity. For example, that which is not finite is infinite.  Yet, infinity is all inclusive so infinity includes the finite.

A paradox... 

 < absolutefutility > 01/13 11:24:50 

That isn't a paradox. That is your rudimentary human language attempting to express complicated concepts. 

 < dada-drummer > 01/13 11:35:47 

Right now, I can only use my current intellectual abilities to define infinity.

I am like a man who climbs a mountain whose peak is in the clouds. I cannot see the destination, yet I know it exists. 

 < NewMsLoree > 01/13 11:56:07 

If the mountain is infinitely tall there is no peak. 

< absolutefutility > 01/13 13:16:09 

Wrong.  If a "mountain" is infinitely tall, it doesn't have a base. It can't be "infinite" and have a beginning. 

< NewMsLoree >01/13 14:24:00 

In an effort to be charitable, I have come up  with a way for you to be right when you say:

"If a "mountain" is infinitely tall, it doesn't have a base"

This would be true if you were at (or could see) the summit of an infinity tall mountain.

But if you were at (or could see) the base of an infinitely tall mountain, it would be false.

Therefore this is wrong:

"It can't be "infinite" and have a beginning."

It actually could be infinitely tall and still have a base. Think of the progression of all positive integers. That is an infinite progression and yet it has a beginning.

In the case where you are on the side of a mountain and can see neither the summit nor the base, you don't know if it has a summit or a base... but if you do know it's infinite then you know it can not have both a summit AND a base and it may have neither. 

 < huhwhowhere > 01/13 12:54:02 

ah. Infinity included everything within it, and is limited by nothing finite within it.