The paradox of moving from Point A to point B

[Vitalux]

I enjoy using this paradox with people to illustrate that this physical dimension we find ourselves existing it, like Alice in Wonderland, some things just don't make sense.

In this example is a paradox where traveling from point A to point B is not possible to reach our destination;. even though you are traveling in a strait line, but just moving in 1/2 increments.



Lets say I wanted to travle from point A to point B.
A distance which is exactly 10 feet.

Ok...lets say I travel half way, and then stop.
Than I travel half the distance again, and stop.
Than I travel half the distance again, and stop.

Lets say I continue to repeat the above procedure over and over up to and including infinity....:rolleyes:

http://www.bullhorn.com/sites/default/files/simple.png


Question:

1. Will point B ever be reached? :confused:


Give it some thought, and see if you can solve the paradox :confused:

[DeDukshyn]

meh ... that's an old one ... ;) But a good mind exercise for those who have never done it.

Another one is the consideration that light always exceeds the speed of anything traveling any speed by the speed of light. :)

[conk]

We'd have to shrink ourselves down to the size of a quark to see how this would work. ;)

Or just go all the way in one jump, without stopping. Or just admit it's all an illusion and we never go anywhere?

[CD7]

were moving in spirals silly rabbit!...which way they go anyones guess :rolleyes:

[Shamz]

We will never reach point B this way...because we are stopping half way all the time...so no matter how much distance we traveled or whatever distance is left, when we stop half way...there is still half the distance left to reach Point B.

Whatever our sense of measurement is (macro or micro)... there will always be half distance left when we stop at half way.

BTW - this is first time I read this paradox and thought about it.

thanks

[christian]

It's very reminiscent of Zeno's dichotomy paradox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno%27s_paradoxes#Dichotomy_paradox).

I find it really not that impressive, because it runs contrary to common sense. As if I would go ten feet then stop, then five feet, then 2.5, then 1.25, and so on ad infinitum, eventually proceeding in microscopic increments, never reaching the point that I want to go to.

What Zeno wanted to say was that to get from point A to point B you have to walk an infinite amount of stretches of way, which he says is impossible. The distances become infinitely small, but the number of separate distances is infinite.

Now the solution to the paradox is: We can walk infinite amounts of stretches of way, because we are one with the infinite, time is an illusion. And so is movement in a way... :)

Cheers...

:hat:

[sirdipswitch]

I find this paradox working brilliantly on my thread. ccc. :wizard:

[marielle]

I don't know if you have ever heard of Thomas Campbell or read his books, but he just did a video on this question and his answer surprised me:

ZHhPbDC2pMI

Basically, he says that the assumption of being able to divide space and time down to infinity is incorrect.

[Billy]

Just a thought.


Einstein said

Logic will take you from A-B but imagination will take you everywhere. :dance:

Peace

[Orph]

Years ago I did this very thing in my imagination. I imagined myself walking halfway towards a wall, but shrinking in size by 1/2 as well. In no time at all I was the size of a "thread" of carpet. I kept walking towards the wall, and shrinking more and more. But then I got to the point that I was the size of an atom. By that point, there is no more wall, and there is no more me. Everything just kind of became one. But I kept imagining that I was getting even smaller than an atom. Then I was hit with a burst of bright light and was jarred back to reality. So, what did I learn? Well, at least I learned that it's fun to use my imagination.

[Kano]

I don't know if you have ever heard of Thomas Campbell or read his books, but he just did a video on this question and his answer surprised me:

ZHhPbDC2pMI

Basically, he says that the assumption of being able to divide space and time down to infinity is incorrect.

Pure awesomeness! :-) A thinker's thinker.

[Delight]

were moving in spirals silly rabbit!...which way they go anyones guess :rolleyes:


I enjoy using this paradox with people to illustrate that this physical dimension we find ourselves existing it, like Alice in Wonderland, some things just don't make sense.

In this example is a paradox where traveling from point A to point B is not possible to reach our destination;. even though you are traveling in a strait line, but just moving in 1/2 increments.



Lets say I wanted to travle from point A to point B.
A distance which is exactly 10 feet.

Ok...lets say I travel half way, and then stop.
Than I travel half the distance again, and stop.
Than I travel half the distance again, and stop.

Lets say I continue to repeat the above procedure over and over up to and including infinity....:rolleyes:

http://www.bullhorn.com/sites/default/files/simple.png


Question:

1. Will point B ever be reached? :confused:


Give it some thought, and see if you can solve the paradox :confused:

I am not sure I understand because if one always goes halfway, you will never get there. But that is because you are only going halfway each time. But you set it up this way....


In this example is a paradox where traveling from point A to point B is not possible to reach our destination;. even though you are traveling in a strait line, but just moving in 1/2 increments.

It was that you set it up, not that it wouldn't be possible to go the whole way or part of the whole way and Then change to go to the end.
I must be missing something.

And do we ever move linearly>>> like CD7, spiral and round geometry has no beginning and end. So that takes me to....how was intending to go half way even possible? That feels weird because maybe I am not going anywhere hehe....

http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/1272/vesicascan0038st9.gif

Mn51BgDcCkI

[TraineeHuman]

I believe what Zeno was actually trying to do was two things, which I’ll now try to give a precise account of – though I would have thought this topic shouldn’t be in the Spirituality thread.

Maybe it’s easier if I just explain how his first point was eventually taken up by mathematicians/physicists. By the time of the mathematician Lagrange (late eighteenth or early nineteenth century, I think?) it was clear that the mechanics of physical motion should be expanded into what mathematicians and physicists call dynamics (of physical motion). Lagrange did this by recognizing that it was not enough to use three dimensions of space and one dimension of time if you want to fully describe the physical behavior of an object –- which was precisely the first of the two points Zeno was actually making (except he was talking two dimensions rather than three). Lagrange recognized that it was necessary to add three more physical dimensions of motion (for motion, or velocity, in each of the three dimensions of extension), and did so. All mathematicians and physicists agreed that he was right to do so. Then, not long after, Laplace realized that it was necessary to add a further three physical dimensions of acceleration (a point which escaped Zeno, actually).

So, according to the theory of motion used (or presupposed) in all physics and mathematics (and normally taught to all physics students in their freshman year), the physical world we live in has ten dimensions (the tenth being "time" as physicists use that term, though it's not the real time), not three (or four), as many people seem to misguidedly suppose. I consider it funny (laughable) how string theorists don’t realize that the ten or eleven dimensions they wrongly suppose string theory reveals as necessary have already been presupposed by those physicists before they started – the eleventh (and optional) dimension in string theory simply being added to cover any interaction with the physical world that’s coming from beyond the physical.

By the way, the “dimensions” of physics and mathematics have nothing to do with the “dimensions” beyond the physical, such as the astral dimensions which are often called the “fourth and fifth dimensions”, or the formless worlds and the divine worlds.

The second point Zeno was making was that the logic which the ancient Greeks used can’t explain change. For instance, if a traffic light changes from green to red, Greek logic would say it’s always either one color or some other, but pretends that a transition from one color to another is non-existent. I hope I explained that clearly enough. These abstract points can be quite subtle.

[Vitalux]

The wonderful thing about this thread is;

that it is drawing our attention :attention: to a goal that should be able to be reached, can't :nono:be reached.

Now imagine in theory, if you were trying to physically reach a door, and then push on that same door to open it, the door would never be opened. http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/vv333/Pixine/swingingdoor.gif (http://media.photobucket.com/user/Pixine/media/swingingdoor.gif.html)


Imagine again how naive , egotistical, and arrogant we human's are in thinking we are very intelligent, when some paradox like this has us confused to dickens :noidea: