Monday, July 03, 2006

Infinity I

Take a six-inch spoon, and divide it in half. Now divide those halves in half. Keep dividing it over and over again. How many pieces can you divide it into?
Infinity, right? OK, now take a football field, and divide it into half, and then again in half, and again and again. How many pieces can you divide it into?
Infinity, right? This means that a spoon and a football field are comprised of the same amount of points: Infinity. And that makes no sense.
If A/B=C, then C*B=A. So if 6 inches divided infinitely equals an infinite amount of pieces, that means that if you take an infinite amount of pieces and line them up side by side, you'll get a 6 inch spoon. But you'll also get a football field.
The answer to this is that infinity is not a large number, which you can reach if you count a long time. Infinity is unreachable. Therefore, no matter how long you chop up that football field, or that spoon, the number of pieces you have will always be finite. You can keep chopping them in half forever, but no matter how long you chop, you will never get an "infinite" amount of pieces.
You can never reach infinity.

Another cute illustration of this is the case of the hotel with an infinite amount of rooms, fully occupied. Someone comes to the hotel and asks the receptionist for a room. She says there are no rooms, the hotel is fully occupied. The customer then says "I have an idea. Since you have an infinite amount of rooms, and infinity plus 1 is also infinity, all you have to do is move the occupant of room number 1 to room number 2, then move the person in room number 2 to room number 3, etc, ad inifinitum, and then room 1 will be empty!" And you can keep doing that endlessly. In other words, a hotel with an infinite amount of rooms, all occupied, also has an infinite amount of vacancies?! The answer is that it is impossible for a hotel to have an infinite amount of rooms. Infinity cannot be reached, it cannot be contained, it cannot be collected - it is unreachable. Thus, if you have already collected it, reached it, or stored it, it cannot be infinity. You may say that infinity exists as potential, but not as actual.
So now the question is: The amount of seconds that have already happened from the beginning of time until now – are they infinite or finite?
Finite. Because you can’t have already reached an infinite amount of seconds.Time can go on and on forever, meaning, it may never end, but you will never reach an infinite amount of time-moments. That is not possible. And so, the past must be finite. And if the amount of time in the past is finite that means it had a beginning. Which means it had to have a cause that made it begin, since nothing can start itself. And that cause had to exist outside of time, obviously, because if it caused time that means it has to be able to exist without time. Because it caused time to come into existence. And if it exists beyond time, it exists beyond space because all space exists within time.
And if it exists beyond time, it cannot ever change, since change means before and after, which is the result of time.And since it cannot change, it can never disappear; never die; never get weaker, stronger, angrier, wiser, or different in any way. This entity that caused time and space --- this is what we refer to as “Hashem”.

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2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

i think the hotel example is confusing and i dont think you need it...

8:11 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It is a little confusing, but i think that was Moderator's point; to show how infinity can't even be reached in your mind.

2:30 PM  

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