[xamuel]

Not sure what happened in the 2nd half of your post, it kind of went off the rails. But the in the 1st half, you're basically getting at the ordinal numbers. Now just drop the "philosophy" from it (which is just a placeholder, since you could replace it with anything else whatsoever and still get the same chains) and focus on the underlying structure---infinite chains of infinite chains, etc.---and you're actually standing on the threshold of some very interesting material. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinal_number

[crimsonalucard]

I think philosophical conjectures are ultimately useless. You can talk about abstract concepts all you want but you don't get anywhere unless you have rigor or formalism. This is why philosophy can do things like talk about logic and ethics and science and religion.

The post is ultimately a trap. I introduce a bit of a simplistic but semi-mind-bending concept but then when you get to the end you realize my true thoughts about philosophy. It's for all the philosophers out there who always tell me that even though I don't know it I'm actually talking about philosophy. Well it's kind of hard not to talk about it given the fact that the word is defined to encompass everything.

I think your post hits the nail on the head. If you want to learn about these concepts formal math is the way to go. The layman description I wrote is really not that deep though, it's all pedantic.

[xamuel]

Everything seems useless if you don't understand it. Open a giant page of mathematical number crunching (with integrals and infinite series and everything) and it'll seem totally useless if you don't have the prerequisites for it.

The difference in philosophy is there are no pages full of integrals and infinite series, it's all just words, many of which look familiar to you, so you don't even realize that you don't have the prerequisites for it.

[crimsonalucard]

I have the prerequisites. Philosophy is an art and therefore inexact and open to bias. It's more similar to literature than it is to number theory.

I'm not a chemist so if I open an advanced chemistry book, all the symbols are magic. But I do know that there's a hard science and logic behind chemistry and therefore I don't view it the same way I view the humanities. Philosophy is a humanity... an art.