Two things which the human mind can NEVER imagine: Infinity and Nothing

My only contention is "we cannot possibly imagine how big it is" which is to misunderstand infinity, which has no form or size or boundry or properties by which it can be compared for size reference.

I have a thread about this not more than 3months old, check it out.

 

You can think about nothing and infinity all you want. Once you start claiming fact of nothing and infinity, that is when you fall off.

 

i believe nothing is purely a construct of the human mind. we often think of the universe as needing to grow into something, but it likely grows into itself.

 

I also like to contemplate infinity and nothingness when I'm high. I actually watched a short documentary about these concepts on YouTube a while back. One part that I found interesting was that, in ancient Greece times I think it was, it was illegal to think or talk about either of the concepts. It was so fucking mind blowing for those people, that if anybody was caught talking about them, they were literally drowned in the ocean. It also talked about how they discovered pi way back then. Can you imagine that? Mathematical concepts were being created back then, before they really had the tools to do it. I can't imagine how they even came up with the idea of pi. I think they said it in the documentary, but I can't remember. I'll try to find the video so you guys can check it out. It's actually from a series of documentaries covering all sorts of trippy topics.

Edit: Found it.

Cosmic Journeys - Is the Universe Infinite?: http://youtu.be/dG1JpC5jels

 

So what if there is no such thing as infinity or nothing.

 

In all reality, I'd say almost no mind could imagine it or comprehend it. I don't really think about infinity or nothing. To me, there is no such thing as nothing.. there will always be something. That something might be something that'd appear to be nothing.. but it'll still be something.
 
As for infinity, I just block that out.. and I think about what it means to be infinite. Infinity was a concept that when we still thought the sun revolved around the Earth.. before we knew that we are part of a solar system that was part of a massive galaxy.. before we learned there were billions of other galaxies.. back when the bands of the Milky Way that we can see in the night sky were thought to be part of the atmosphere.. before we learned that pi and the golden ratio are infinite numbers. It's a term that really no longer applies when you want to ponder on something being infinite.. and in a way, implies a measurement on something that is infinite.
 
Pi for example. Saying "pi goes to infinity" would be asinine.. because no matter how far you go, there will always be more after that. Instead, it is an infinite number. Something being infinite is beyond complete comprehension because there is no end to it, that's just common sense. Going with pi, if you took every human brain and computer in human history and combined them into one to calculate the largest known pi.. there would always be a larger number waiting to be found. If there was a super computer built at the dawn of time that could calculate 1,000 decimal places of pi every second since 14 billion years ago.. it would still be punching away at the numbers and would continue doing so indefinitely.
 
I guess the point is, if you want to think about infinity.. don't. Instead, think about what it means to be infinite.

 

 
I kind of have an 'anthropic' response to this and I usually don't talk about it, but I happen to be drunk and high so here we go. It pretty much boils down to, we are incredibly smart on Earth - but I think in the grand scheme of things we aren't geared to handle questions that exist beyond Earth. Understanding where Earth comes from, we totally get that, but understanding where the universe came from... we just didn't evolve to handle a question so significant as that (in my opinion). The idea of absolute nothing and infinity are completely absurd because they're completely irrelevant to our lives.

 

 
I agree that they are irrelevant. From what I've seen, I highly doubt you or I have much of a spiritual connection to anything.. and one of the main roots to "nothing" comes from the fear that there really is nothing. That when we die, there is absolute nothing.. and I think that's scary to most. So they spend their time pondering on nothing to try to understand it.. and while I don't agree with it, they make it relevant to their belief.
 
As for the universe, I do believe it is infinite.. on a physical level. I don't think it goes to infinity.. cause like I said, that would be asinine. A silly example, but it's an example of how infinity implies a value on something that is infinite.. is Buzz Lightyear and his "To infinity and beyond!" phrase. It's because infinity implies a value, one that you could go beyond.. but everything that is beyond would still be part of the infinity, so you'd never really be able to go beyond it.
 
It does suck because unless we break the speed of light, the majority of the observable universe and rest of the universe would be getting expanded away from us faster than what we can travel to it.. so in a way, pointless to think about, but still fun. Being infinite, most any aspect of the universe would be infinite.. including it's age. It didn't come from anything because it always was.. and always will be in one form or another. That's the understanding I've come to.. but it's one of those things that isn't falsifiable so I can't push it as a fact.
 
The fun part of an infinite universe is the possibilities. Seems like people assume that if you believe in a truly infinite universe that everything can and will happen indefinitely.. but that's only a possibilities. Thinking that something could be possible in an infinite universe isn't the same as believing a possibility is reality. That doesn't stop me from getting high and thinking about all the possibilities of an infinite universe.. that somewhere out there is a planet as wide as our solar system that has stars, planets, even whole star systems revolving around it. That somewhere out there is another Earth where it has gone through 99.9999999999% of everything we have gone through, except the only difference.. even on an atomic level.. is everyone's middle name. That pretty much whatever you can think of is a possibility of an infinite universe.. but just because it's a possibility doesn't mean it is reality. At the very least, might make a cool movie..

 

 
Pi is a simple mathematical constant.. meaning it's pretty much everywhere. We didn't invent math, we discovered it.. along with pi. All pi really is is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to it's diameter. So if you had a circle and cut it and straightened it out, you would see that 3 whole diameters go into it, plus some. We didn't discover that pi was infinite until around the 1700's.. but any culture with math tried to figure out pi seeing as it's a constant to reality.
 
This method right here is more than likely how the first attempt of figuring out pi went..

 

How does infinity exist if everything will end at some point?

 

 
I mean today the most elementary example of circumference is just using a piece of string around whatever object then measuring that piece of string. Then it had to be clear the radius (or diameter) of the object had to have a big effect on the circumference. Inductively we can see Circumference = Diameter * some unknown constant. So we just said hey I have a wheel that is circumference whatever and diameter whatever... what's the relationship between the two? And they found that constant to be pi. As Mantikore said, it wasn't thought to be infinite for a long time, it was originally just considered a fraction I'm pretty sure.

 

 
Gotcha, that makes a lot of sense. In fact, I think they actually used a similar animation to explain how they came up with it. Seeing your gif made me remember haha. That is very interesting. I thinks it is pretty mindblowing that things like this appear in the universe.

 

EveryTHING will end, but infinity isnt a THING.

 

An idea or concept is still a thing.

 

What is your definition of a 'thing', because its not a thing as i would define it?

The concept of nothing is also a thing even though the concept is of a no-thing?

 

I'd say a thing is of having form. While I know infinity has no definite form in itself, the concept is the structure of a formless entity. If something doesn't have form or any recognizable configuration, then it isn't a something.
To go on, I'd also say that infinity isn't a thing, but the concept is because it is a tangible notion.
But without the concept of infinity, what is infinity?

 

However, I believe that nothing is not a real arguable concept. There are atoms, protons, neutrons, space matter, and other what have you's that we have yet to discover. There are particles of SOMETHING everywhere. So to say that something is nothing is to say everything is nothing.

 

Hmm, 'structure of a formless entity' seems to be a contradiction, also i dont know how it could be considered a tangible notion?

 

The funny thing is, there is no such thing as a particle in the sense that its a solid object. Every time we look closer we discover there is noTHiNG there. In my opinion he entire universe is waves upon waves upon waves, some moving in relation to the observer and some standing still. The human mind desperately wants there to be something, some elementary solid particle that makes up the physical world. Problem is it hasnt been shown to exist and i predict it never will be found.

I believe in differentiation and what is differentiated is what we call something.
Infinity=nothing=undifferentiated