Last time I blogged about the nature of Infinity. For example, no matter how fast and how long you count the number of integers (1, 2, 3 …) you can never count them all. This counting process would go on forever and last an Eternity.
To me an Eternity means time never ending or time going on for forever. However, “cutting hairs” people make a distinction between an infinite temporal existence and a timeless existence altogether outside time. For these types of people an eternal being exists outside time; while by contrast, a sempiternal being exists throughout an infinite time.
In a slight digression, this reminds me of a statement in the first issue of Psychology Today. “There are two types of people in the world. Those who believe there are two types of people in the world, and those who don’t.”
I believe most people have no problem with the concept of lasting for an Eternity. However, I don’t believe very many people do not have a problem with the concept of having already existed for eternity. Biologically our lives start at a point in time (birth) and end at a point in time (death). For example we can “put our arms around” the concept of immortal vampires, but what about vampires that have always existed? I think it goes against our birth-death biology to be comfortable with the concept of having always existed. On the other hand, our souls help us to be comfortable with the concept of an eternal afterlife.
The non-biological sciences like Astronomy and Physics teach that stars, galaxies and even the Universe have not always existed. On the other hand, my top two physicist, Newton and Einstein believed that God exist for a plus and minus Eternity.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Monday, July 5, 2010
To Infinity and Below?
Does Buzz Lightyear’s statement "To infinity ... and beyond!" make any sense?
In order to answer this question we need to what is infinity. Infinity is something so big or large or long that it is beyond the ability of any human, besides Chuck Norris, to count to, or reach, or measure.
Then the next question is, “are there different sizes of infinity. The answer is yes, and there are three sizes. The smallest is the number of integers. The middle size is the number of decimals numbers larger than zero but smaller one. And the largest is number of irrational numbers. This comes from the German mathematician Georg Cantor (1845-1918). He used his German intellect to put infinity on a firm logical foundation and described a way to do arithmetic with infinite quantities useful to mathematics. His basic definition was simple: a collection is infinite, if some of its parts are as big as the whole.
So there you go Buzz, you can travel beyond infinity if you know your decimals!
Bye the way, if there were “things” that were infinitely long or large, it would require an infinite amount of time to measure them so they would fall out of the realm of physics and into metaphysics
In order to answer this question we need to what is infinity. Infinity is something so big or large or long that it is beyond the ability of any human, besides Chuck Norris, to count to, or reach, or measure.
Then the next question is, “are there different sizes of infinity. The answer is yes, and there are three sizes. The smallest is the number of integers. The middle size is the number of decimals numbers larger than zero but smaller one. And the largest is number of irrational numbers. This comes from the German mathematician Georg Cantor (1845-1918). He used his German intellect to put infinity on a firm logical foundation and described a way to do arithmetic with infinite quantities useful to mathematics. His basic definition was simple: a collection is infinite, if some of its parts are as big as the whole.
So there you go Buzz, you can travel beyond infinity if you know your decimals!
Bye the way, if there were “things” that were infinitely long or large, it would require an infinite amount of time to measure them so they would fall out of the realm of physics and into metaphysics
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