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Aleister Crowley Diary Entry Monday, 14 May 1923
Die Luna
Woke at 9.30 not too fatigued.
Note from yesterday's work: We find that there is no obstacle—a priori—to our continuing to count 1, 2, 3 ... and we assume that each step is similar to the last. On this experience is based the argument for A to the power of 0. BUT: In fact:
a) we cannot go on counting for ever
b) we have reason to assume that plus 1 affects 2n as it does n (e.g. we know that one's eighth Mandarin has an effect quite different to one's second, that one's mile is ‘further’ from one's 24th that one's fourth from one's third, etc).
In view of this and the idea of number given in CCXX, the continuum and the infinity postulate become quite meaningless except as expressions of the form of the mind. There is now no reason whatever to suppose that the idea of the universe formulated by any individual has any basis in ‘reality’ of the sensory sort.
Note that the ideas of infinity and the continuum are always discredited by such thinkers as assert a maximum finite velocity—that of light—and that at the absolute zero gases suddenly refuse to proceed by Boyle's Law.
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