Hmm...

Why think that just because x doesn't end, x must not have had a beginning?
 I'm not suggesting that our concepts of 'beginning' and 'end' are all that
clear, but it doesn't seem to me that the lack of an end entails the lack
of the beginning (though I don't see how there could be ends without
beginnings).

Also, our concept of 'infinite' doesn't depend on infinite space (remember
Descarte's *bad* argument that since we don't have experience of anything
infinite, and because we are finite and finite substances cannot generate
infinite substances, God must have given us the idea of the infinite),
since once we have the concept of a finite series (of numbers, say), we can
imagine a series without end.  To put it another way, even if the set of
material things is finite, I don't see how this would show there aren't any
infinite sets (let alone that we couldn't have the *concept* of something
infinite).

Jeff

At 07:38 PM 10/29/98 +0000, you wrote:
>
>
>Hello readers
>
>Well stu, it's an interesting notion that something never truly ends.  
>But if we turned it onto it's head - can we say the same of beginnings? 
>ie, does something ever truly begin? I find it difficult to get my head 
>around this one - imagining that something never ends is the easy part, 
>but then I must conclude that that something does not have a beginning - 
>which annoys me to say the least.  I'm sure there's some philosophy 
>based around these notions, but for the life of me I can't remember what 
>it is.  The easiest way to look at it is by way of concepts of infinity - 
>which I hear only a handful of people believe anymore, since now they're 
>saying the universe is finite.
>
>I'm afraid I have to remain undecided on this one - I can feel myself 
>verging on a barrow-load of contradictions, so I'll end it there.
>
>See you later folks.
>
>Mark
>
>On Wed, 28 Oct 1998 [log in to unmask] wrote:
>
>> Does anything truly end in the first place?
>> If we took the whole development of the film process and put it into
life; we
>> would see eventually that nothing ever truly dies or ends. The subject
we love
>> of the style in which it was created fades out but is never fully
disregarded.
>> An example could be the whole "QT and Jackie Brown style,"
>> I know it strays slightly from the whole "Western" argument, but i think
i can
>> explain it better with these two. 
>> I'll leave you with "Star Wars and The legacy of Sinbad" and look
forward to
>> you comments.
>> 
>> Stu 
>> 
>
>
[log in to unmask]
Department of Philosophy
University of Wisconsin - Madison



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