Seeking the Infinitesimal

A suggestion for thinking about the basic philosophical question of the "actual infinite" co-existing with the finite, which is yet potentially infinite - just as our knowing is a potential infinity (we can always know more than we actually do). Seekers of the Infinite can be scientists, but they can also be mystics, and some mystics are also seekers of the infinitesimal - the incomprehensible mystery hidden within the most ordinary and least of realities in our everyday existence. One other note: the Infinitesimal is not zero, for zero is a number (the first in binary numbering systems).

Category:

Education

Tags:

• infinite
• infinitesimal
• knowing
• science
• mysticism
• Teilhard
• Teresa

[MrMarktrumble]

the actual infintesimal is the simplcity of soul which then cannot be distinguished from actually infinite of the all?

[unshakenpeace]

Infinitesimality is the absolute opposite to Infinity. Infinitesimality is the expansion from 0 to the negative real numbers while Infinity is the expansion from 0 to the positive real numbers. There is no such thing as infinitesimal if there is no infinite.

[philnoll]

200 views. 7 liked. Very Unpopular.

This mans argument is so natural, so conservative, so elegant and real, that it would be death to deny it. This is surely the new religion of the ages.

Let us all kneel. D&Df

[LooksAeterna]

Explaining the infinitesimal as "when all else is taken away" - thereby having taken away all constric and contracting factors as well - makes it easy to see that it is the infinite: brilliant !

The zooming into smallness dissolves itself after having shed all else. This is in fact part of any "completion stage" meditation practice in tantric deity yoga. The deity is dissolved into the heart syllable, then the syllable itself etc. Finally all has been dissoled and leaves spaciousness.

[2bsirius]

It's great when an ancient comment gets a follow up after months of sitting dormant.

I'm rereading Martin Gardner's "The Annotated Alice," and something he says in the introduction fits well here:

"The last level of metaphor in the "Alice" books is this: that life viewed rationally and without illusion, appears to be a nonsense tale told by an idiot mathematician." [AA, page xxiii]

[Israe5l]

God made the natural numbers. The rest was made by man.

Would that make infinity made by God? Intuitively of course. Because we count up to infinity. But mathematician will have a knee jerk reaction to that one. Because, we generally think natural numbers as ordinals. We go from 1,2,3,...But in order to state infinity we need sets. Sets of all natural numbers. But I don't think Kronecker and his accountants are ready for that.

[Israe5l]

"mathematical analysis" is the mathematical field that talks about infinitesimal. I don't believe I got my degree without taking a course in it.

The little bit I got, it seems very neurotic.

What about the Tao? You can say anything about it.

[2bsirius]

Very interesting...You mentioned the mathematical infinities, and of course Cantor discovered many infinities and that some of these mathematical infinities are bigger than others..

I've studied Giordano Bruno who was very much influenced by Nicholas of Cusa. Bruno was, of course, burned alive by the Catholic Church on Feb 17, 1600 in a failed attempt to suppress the kind of cosmological postulates that he was trying to explore.

The Tao we can name is not the real tao.