Message from discussion Rand and Infinity (Was: Re: Rand & Von Neumann....)

From: DSANDIN <dsan...@aol.com>
Subject: Rand and Infinity (Was: Re: Rand & Von Neumann....)
Date: 1998/05/07
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"Clinton" <ccprossnospamimea...@earthlink.net>  wrote:
    Date: Wed, May 6, 1998 12:07 EDT
    Message-id: <6iq1sd$...@suriname.earthlink.net>

>This seems like a ridiculously inappropriate use of philosophy to describe
>the physical world.  Can someone please elucidate?  I cannot fathom how
>objectivism disallows an infinite universe.  Anyone???

Philosophy *does* describe the physical world in certain general ways.
It insists on identity and causation and non-contradiction.  It 
formalizes and validates the methods used to understand the world.  To 
deliberately think conceptually about the physical world in the first 
place is to have (at least implicitly) done philosophy first -- to have 
selected what we take to be a valid method of thinking and a valid set 
of principles about reality.

Ask what "infinite" -- having no limit -- could physically mean.  Taken 
literally, it means "having features or attributes embodying amount, but 
at the same time *beyond* any particular amount".  This means, having no 
identity.

If infinity does not name a specific amount, then it isn't a number that 
can be applied to reality.  More precisely, the strategy (discovered by 
Cantor) that gives it numerical meaning is indulged at the expense of 
entirely abstracting away the connection to existence that gives numbers 
their objective status (i.e., their connection to reality).  It cannot 
name any specific amount in reality.

"Infinity" is still a valid mathematical concept, however, so that in 
a certain non-numerical sense Objectivism *does* allow an infinite 
universe.  Rand said in _Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology_, "An 
arithmetical sequence extends into infinity, without implying that 
infinity actually exists; such extension means only that whatever 
number of units does exist, it is to be included in the same sequence."
(This makes "infinity" what her epistemological view calls a concept of 
method.)

The application of her statement to the physical universe is that 
"whatever number of existents (or measures of their attributes) exists, 
it is to be included in the same sequence" of progressively larger 
numbers.

--- Dean