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Originally Posted by Dennis
Hi Ving,
Like you (and no doubt many others) I am having some difficulties with the “meaning” of an infinite universe. Not the mathematical concept, but the analogies and explanations used to help me peel away my layers of ignorance.
If infinite is taken to mean timeless and unbounded, that is, without a beginning and without an end, as well as not having any edges, then there can not be any differentiation within infinity. There can be no inside or outside, before or after, here or there, past or future. There can be no “thing” as all things have edges, colours, shapes, energy, characteristics, attributes etc which are bounded or finite, so we can recognize them, measure them, investigate them, describe how they operate, etc.
As far as I understand it, there can only be “one” infinity, not two or more. If there were two or more, then there must be an interface where one “ends” and the second one “begins”. If infinity is unbounded, it cannot begin or end; it can not have any edges; “it” must have always just “been”, everywhere and "outside" of time.
What seems to satisfy my (albeit limited) understanding of infinite, is as follows:
“it” can be the only “thing"; there cannot be two or more.
"it" must be unbounded or everywhere
“it” must have always been everywhere, as it cannot have arrived from somewhere else or arisen from some other event, or been made from other ingredients.
“it” must never have changed otherwise it has attributes and is therefore finite “it” cannot be grasped in a formula, thought, theory, etc because “it” has no edges or handles with which we can hold it.
We cannot “think” for ever. Our minds are limited. Through the sciences, studies of the mind, exploration etc we will continue to stumble upon and reveal what has always been there, just waiting to be discovered. But as our faculties and tools are but a sub-system of a larger system, of an even larger system ad infinitum, can we ever understand or “know” that “ultimate” system?
Cheers
Dennis
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