The real world and paradox's

This is worth reading. It will get you thinking. This is genuinely a paradox i have thought up myself. If you cant be bothered reading the first bit, skip a couple of paragraphs down.

OK. So, I probably think a bit to much. I love long car journeys, because I can set my brain to muddle through these kind of questions. I never get any answers, and I generally bring up a couple more questions.
Anyway. I am guessing you all know what a paradox is.
For those who don't, below is a quick (and over-used) example:
You travel back in time and kill your grandfather before he meets your grandmother which precludes your own conception and, therefore, you couldn't go back in time and kill your grandfather.
You see how that works? By doing that, the very action you just did becomes impossible. It's like going back in time and killing yourself. You couldn't have killed yourself, because in the future you came back and killed yourself, and so on and so on.

So. We know what a paradox is. You may be asking what relevance this is to the real world, because obviously we are not going to travel back in time and kill ourselves.
Now, to explain the point of this thread, you also need to know what infinity is. Infinity is... infinity. Numbers go on forever right? There is no highest or smallest number. You can always times or divide any number by two, and make it bigger/smaller.

OK. So, back to the real world. Pick up a ruler, and see how long it is.
Now, if numbers are infinite, then you can measure anything to an infinite degree of accuracy. So, that ruler might say 30cm. But, if we measured it using a more accurate ruler, it might say 30.2cm. If we did it again, with yet a more accurate ruler, it might read 30.25cm. And so on. So, how long is it really?
We cannot know. Nothing can be measured to a singular point. That ruler's real length cannot ever be determined, because every reading you take on its length can always be measured more accurately, producing a different, and more accurate result.

Another one along the same lines is time. Time moves forward right? How is it possible. For time to move forward 10 seconds it must first pass 5 seconds, and before that 2.5, and before that 1 second, and before that 0.5 seconds. Basically, time has to pass an infinite array of points to reach any given distance, and for anything to reach infinity in a finite time is impossible.
This is very similar to one of Zeno's paradox's, which when i read about it inspired me to post this.

So whatcha think. Am i crazy, or is it impossible to move anywhere and measure anything?

 

wow.. i don't even know how you thought of that but i agree with you. With i don't think its possible to measure anything because you could always narrow it down even more. And since there is infinte amount of numbers, then u can't exactly get an exact measure lol very interesting thinking lol.. come up with more in the future =]

 

With the ruler, are you asking how long the ruler would be? It would be the same length, by making a ruler accurate your not increasing the size to fit it in, you are just making smaller markings to fit them in, if you wanted a ruler that had a marking for every 1,000,000th of a mm, then the ruler would appear to be just coloured in. You would need a microscope to see the lines.

Also, dont forget that time is only a measurement. It doesnt travel, its not moving forward, the time is always now. time is just a concept to measure speed, acceleration bla bla bla.

This is no different to the concept of the frog in a pond. frog is in the middle of the pond and keeps jumping half way between him and the edge of the pond, and therefor will never make it to the edge of the pond.

 

Okay but I don't see your point here, yes you could always narrow it down more to make it more precise, so whats your point?

 

yeah i was abit lost on his actual piont.

 

Just because decimal places going on infinitely doesn't mean a ruler couldn't be exactly 30 cm long.

there's an infinite amount of space between each number, but the numbers are used to quantify an exact location in this space which is entirely possible. Though it would be impossible to count every decimal number between the numbers 1 and 2...

As for time, time is really just an illusion in it's own self anyway... the only moment that is ever real is right NOW

now.

now.

now.

History is in the past, it isn't real. The future is yet to come, it isn't real.

All that is real is NOW. This moment.

We cross infinity within every moment, not only that, but we ARE infinity.

Peace!

 

Or you could realize that the smaller the unit of time you pass, the less time is required to pass it, so as the unit of time approaches zero, the amount of time required to pass it also approaches zero on the X, Y graph.

 

My point is if it can always be measured more accurately, what is its exact length?

That's not my point at all.
Take a 30 cm ruler. Look at the end. Is it exactly 30cm? No. Because it is not that accurate.
So, we measure it a bit more accurately. We find that it is actually 30.2cm long. Hmm. Lets measure it more accurately still. Hey look its 30.25cm long. And so on and so on.
So, how long is the ruler? If we measure it to 1000x accuracy, we can always measure it more accurately, and so we can never know its true length, because any length we get to by measuring it can always be measured more accurately. We can get close to its real length, but we cannot know it.