Originally Posted By: Orac
I am clearly missing something in english translation here

You and some seem to be getting hung up on =>
"Can we have an infinite number of finite things"

To me thats a complete consistant statement because you haven't put a context around it or as you would call it a bound, you have made an open statement.

Can we have an infinite number of finite things in a defined range or bound .... NO.

The only reason this comes up is in the context of the universe being infinite.
...To put it in perspective I will ask you a much simpler interpretation is your ability to think infinite or finite.
See here is the same problem in a much more constrained and easy to understand realm.

The answer is both, you only have finite nuerons so you can only store a discretely finite maximum number but that number is huge. You can also recycle and erase or drop thoughts and that rate is alot faster than you save them so the answer is also infinite.

To most scientists the universe is both finite and infinite we need context to decide which answer to give you and it's the not giving context that creates the ambiguity.


It is an open question. It is a basic question. Before we try to answer what the universe is, I think, we have to answer this question. The question is put independent of the nature of the universe.

In a defined range, it would be finite (always?). Your statement "You can also recycle and erase or drop thoughts and that rate is alot faster than you save them so the answer is also infinite" is incorrect. The number of times you do these (erase, recycle and drop thoughts) will be very very large but will be finite.

Regarding the universe, what you have pointed out is correct. Some aspects may be finite but some other may be infinite. However, IMO, there is ambiguity in the present concepts even when the contexts are given.