![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I'm reading a new book -- The Infinite Book: A Short Guide to the Boundless, Timeless and Endless by John D. Barrow. I got it through my local library. I LOVE my library.
A paragraph in the preface made me laugh...
"Ancient philosophers, beginning with Zeno, were challenged by the paradoxes of infinities on many fronts, but what about philosophers today? What sort of problems do they worry about? We wil give some examples of live issues on the interface between science and philosophy that are concerned with whether it is possible to perform an infinite number of tasks in a finite time. Could a real computer perform a super-task. What would happen if it did. Of course, this simple question, in the hands of philosophers needs some clarification: like what exactly is meant by 'possible', by 'tasks', by 'infinite', by 'number', by 'finite', and, by no means least, by 'time'."
Yeah, I know people like that. ;)
I'm actually still surprised that I -- a militant non-mathemetician -- am reading books connected to the higher maths. What is up with that?
A paragraph in the preface made me laugh...
"Ancient philosophers, beginning with Zeno, were challenged by the paradoxes of infinities on many fronts, but what about philosophers today? What sort of problems do they worry about? We wil give some examples of live issues on the interface between science and philosophy that are concerned with whether it is possible to perform an infinite number of tasks in a finite time. Could a real computer perform a super-task. What would happen if it did. Of course, this simple question, in the hands of philosophers needs some clarification: like what exactly is meant by 'possible', by 'tasks', by 'infinite', by 'number', by 'finite', and, by no means least, by 'time'."
Yeah, I know people like that. ;)
I'm actually still surprised that I -- a militant non-mathemetician -- am reading books connected to the higher maths. What is up with that?
