Is infinity a long way?

[Catchoftheday]

Or is it just around the corner

I was going to ask a genius but he doesn't seem to be answering my questions. Maybe one of the other clever people on here will be able to answer this question?

 

[TwasBrillig]

Far away? Not if you spell it Infiniti. There's a Nissan dealer about a mile away.

Sorry, I'm still on my first cup of coffee and couldn't resist but I'll be better soon.

Actually, you can't get there from here. Or from anywhere else for that matter.

 

[tiggerpoo]

no matter how far you go, it's still infinitely far away.

 

[cockoloco]

Infinity is everywhere, it's everything.

I probably confused you even more with this.....

 

[Principessa]

Or is it just around the corner

I was going to ask a genius but he doesn't seem to be answering my questions. Maybe one of the other clever people on here will be able to answer this question?

I wasn't aware infinity was a destination so much as a measurement of time. For instance: In the movie White Men Can't Jump the Rosie Perez character tells her bf she loves him "infinity plus infinity."

 

[Bogatyr]

Maybe infinity is a long way away, but heaven isn't too far away. Closer to it eve-ry day, even. :biggrin1:

 

[Phil Ayesho]

There is no such thing as infinity.

There is no infinite space, nor infinite time. There are a finite number of photons and a finite number of atoms...

Infinity is a useful conceptual construct, but it can not actually exist in the real universe.

For example... conceptually, numbers go on infinitely... no matter how big a number you can write, you can always add one to it and write a bigger number.


However... in practice... can any machine COUNT to infinity? No. There is not enough time, the machine could not have enough circuits to keep calculating ever larger numbers unless it had an infinite number of circuits... and no matter how small you can make the circuits, they would still take up an infinite amount of space.

Conceptually, you can divide an apple infinitely... using math... but with a knife... at some point you have divided the apple down to an individual molecule of
"apple" and, dividing it, it ceases to BE apple.
Keep going and you come to the point of dividing quarks... at which point it ceases to be matter and your theoretically infinite divisions come to an end.

Or- here's a more philosophical proof of the impossibility of infinity.

Say you are following a set of footprints that go on infinitely.... even if you had infinite time to follow those footprints... if the footprints go on infinitely... WHERE is the creature leaving the footprints?
Answer... there can be no creature leaving an infinite set of footprints as you can never get to the end of the line of footprints.

And if there can be no creature leaving such footprints... then there can be no footprints at all.


Any notion of infinity being real is an illusion.

Zeno proved this logically thousands of years ago.

 

[Mr. Snakey]

If we could find a black hole and go through it we could leave the future and visit the past. In a context of numbers time is only a perception.

 

[Phil Ayesho]

This is actually not true.

We have a theory in which the math suggests this possibility... but the same theory also results in terms which are infinite, which means it can not possibly be perfectly accurate, because infinity is impossible.

I agree, tho, that Time is only a perception.

Although Einstein and others imagined time as a 4rth dimension... that can just as easily be viewed as a convenient mental trick.

There probably is no such thing as time..... its just the fact that the Present... the only actual reality we know is, in fact, the ongoing moment of change.

That the RATE at which events unfold differs from place to place makes the notion of comparing events incommensurate does not alter the fact that the PRESENT instant is universally the same moment.
Now.

If there is no such thing as time... if it is simply the artifact of our ability to remember former conditions and imagine future conditions of this one present moment...
then any math showing travel in time is nonsense...

I concept of there being no time actually solves one the greatest puzzles in physics... the arrow of time.

Looking at time as a dimension, there is no reason why events would only occur in one direction...

But if reality is just the continuous uncertainty of wave function collapsing into the certainty of event... then events can only move from the uncertain, to the certain... and that is why reality seems to unfold in only one direction.

Of course, this results in an indeterminate universe... something many scientists will do anything to avoid...

 

[ZOS23xy]

Time is considered a function of time and life in some philosophical circles.

Time's arrow is determined by life span, which a mind notices.

I explained Zeno's paradox to my son using, instead of the bridge, a pizza. There just isn't a way to have another slice (or that next step).

 

[Deno]

Maybe infinity is a long way away, but heaven isn't too far away. Closer to it eve-ry day, even. :biggrin1:

yuk :biggrin1:

Phil its all theory. No one could possible prove one or the other. Even if there was an edge to the universe. is there nothing afterwards. Take the entire so called universe and pretend its in someones locket around someones neck and they live in there own universe thats in somebodies locket who, well you know....

 

[2322]

Infinity is so far that if you live forever and can fly at any multiple of the speed of light you can imagine, no matter how long you travel or how fast you go, you may as well not have even started.

 

[Phil Ayesho]

Zeno's paradox is actually a logical proof of the impossibility of a continuum. It formulated it to illustrate that MATH is a human mental construct that, albeit useful, has no real correlation to reality.

It proved, long long long before Quantum mechanics, that motion is not linear. And that time is not infinitely divisible.

For thousands of years Zeno's paradox was treated as odd, but clearly wrong...because people believed time and distance were infinitely divisible... because or physics, which assumed they were a continuum, seemed to work.

But QM threw all of that out. We now know of the quanta. and that there are not "divisions' of energy between them...

many theorist suspect that the difficulty in coming up with a unified theory is rooted in the false assumption of the continuum, and are working on 'granular' theory, which describes space as being points of being that have no being between them... like the pixels on your screen.

All proof is founded in observation... and logic. Logic dictates that, for example, two mutually exclusive things can not both be true.

Its impossible.

Infinity is impossible...

And time... it probably does not exist in the way we envision it.
Now changes.

that is all there is to it. No past, no future... just the constant process of present change.

 

[TwasBrillig]

Great post, Phil. Unfortunately not all things are observable which leaves us in a world of probabilities. But I guess that's the turf of QM.

I wonder what Heisenberg would say about the probablity of my getting laid in the near future. Infinitely small?

At any rate, I'm enjoying following this thread. Thanks.

 

[Not_Punny]

Is infinity a long way? Or is it just around the corner

DUH!!!

Infinity is only in your mind... but yours (your mind) is a long way away, although you DO sometimes find it around the corner at the pub!:tongue:

 

[Phil Ayesho]

I wonder what Heisenberg would say about the probablity of my getting laid in the near future. Infinitely small?

Being Heisenberg... I am sure he would say it was uncertain.

 

[TwasBrillig]

Is he certain about his uncertainty?


'cause if he is I guess I can look forward to getting/not getting laid in which case;


Aaaarrrrggg!!! I think Ill go rearrange my sock drawer instead.

 

[ZOS23xy]

Perhaps we should consider if Zeno ever got over that bridge he was trying to cross.

 

[lucky8]

Technically, it's right where you're sitting, although I doubt you could find it











...cause it's not real...

 

[HamYai]

Wouldn't wanna be dragged there by my balls.