x not= x

[123rock]

It was a juvenile mistake of his, which he honestly admitted in his later years. He was influenced by the empirio-critical philosophy of Ernst Mach. It's very sad that so much of 20th century physics is based on this error of Einstein, which he himself [b']repudiated.[/b]

 

According to you time is separate from space, thus the apple would exist at 0 time as an unchanging apple, but not according to this:

 

The same instant? Pardon me sir' date=' but how long is an instant exactly? Is it an infinitesimal interval of time? But then the apple will be subject to minute changes. Or is it no time at all? A zero of time - what a meaningless fancy. Everything exists in time; time is consequently a fundamental element of existence. The axiom x = x signifies that an object is equal to itself if it does not change, that is, if it does not exist.

 

That's right - an instant does not exist. It is just another figment of your mind. I shall commend you on your very lively imagination. But imagination only makes good science fiction, not good science. What we have here is a prime example of philosophical idealism - you take the abstraction, which is after all only an approximation of the real world (i hope you don't disagree with that), and hand it back to the real world, expecting the real world to follow your dictat. It is a terrible shame that so many scientists and science-interested people are ignorant or contemptuous of philosophy. So many - there is no milder expression - so many infantile mistakes could be avoided![/quote']

 

These two statements of yours contradict each other. Pick one, either the apple exists or doesn't exist at 0 time.

 

You're exagerating the concept of infinity here. An object in 3D is composed of an infinitely many 2D "sheets" which are each with respect to 3D equal to 0 volume, thus how could we fundamentally exist? The answer to that is that infinity is not a number, it is a set of numbers, thus an infinite number of 2D sheets make the 3D world.

 

The same with your apple concept. At 0 time, one "instant" in the infinite instants, you have the apple equal to itself. You have a number of infinite apples equaling themselves, when in the end you have one segment of time, where the apple equals itself. That segment of time can be a second, a minute, an hour, or when the apple disintegrates when an astronaut is done eating it and chucks it into a black hole. (though I don't know how he would eat it through his suit)

[123rock]

You should at least point out that you are not using the convention definition of 10, 2, 1 or / in that example.

 

It would be the same representations for the same notions, but the system would be different. However you are right, with respect to our system it would be a different definition. That system would have a definition for itself.