Posted: Sep 10, 2015 11:34 pm
scott1328 wrote:
I am arguing with your benighted terminology. you keep saying integers are not real numbers, but they are, you keep saying other very odd things. Like 2.0000... is not the same as 2, that discrete objects cannot be counted with real numbers, they can. For some reason you seem to think that the "non-existance" of reals implies a discrete universe, it doesn't.
Or at least that is what you appear to be saying to me.
If you're doing some kind of mathematics that is restricted to integers, then to me, the 2 used there is not real, it's integer. Yes, integers are a subset of reals, but when you're doing something where reals don't apply, then you can't use 2.000..., you use 2. There's some fundamental difference when using an integer verses using a real, even if they're the same number. It's the difference between continuous and discrete, how an integer can only change by whole multiples of 1, and reals can change by infinitesimals. I apologize that I don't know the technical language, but I can't believe these distinctions aren't made in some way.
I think, in my far from qualified way, that infinite precision can't be real, from the informational aspects, which you don't agree exist, but there's a lot of mathematicians and physicists who do. Also, because of how there's a lot of physics that imply a quantized universe, I don't even know if that could technically be equivalent to 'discrete universe', though it has some real basic similarities if it isn't equivalent.