Xeno's Paradoxes (was Re: [UA] The End of the World, and so on.)

Nick Wedig mrteapot at disinfo.net
Mon Jun 11 09:56:07 PDT 2001


>Either way, math, before the advent of calculus had no way of dealing with
>an infinite series of numbers.  Xeno didn't believe that you could never
>touch anything.  But what he was pointing out was the flaw in greek
>mathematical logic.  He was noting that every fixed number is by definition
>an infinite series of smaller numbers, and thus, an infinite series of
>numbers may in fact be a fixed number.  He knew that it didn't work that
>way, but was pointing to a danger sign in math.`

All of the primary and secondary source material I've seen on Zeno places his use of that arguement and others (other not directly related to math) as a way of showing motion couldn't exist, and was therefore an illusion (specifically to refute Heraclitus's claims that all is change and similar).  Particularly the Platonic dialogue Parmenides.  (Though you may very well be right, I've never seen any mention of this)

Lewis Carroll has an odd variant on the paradox involving that to accept the truth of any logical construct requires accepting another statement not contained in the construct.  "Godel, Escher, Bach" presents this, and I have an inkling that it could be used for a Ua magick system, though I don't know how.

Mr. teapot
an eternal goldren braid

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