how does infinity work?

Question

I do'nt know if this really belongs under science or philosophy....or metaphisics.

someone once told me that if infinity is so, than anything is possible including oposites existing at once. he tried to explain it to me, but I can't wrap my head around the idea of infinity so trying to figure out what happens in an infinate world is crazy to me.
does someone want to explain to me how infinity works and how it manages to bend every law that we know as existing now?

Answer 1

INFINITY starts as a mathematical concept. As in you can start counting "0, 1, 2,3, 4, 5, 6..." and in theory never stop. The counting can go on forever and ever and ever - no end. Obviously we are limited in our grasp of infinite numbers because we are limited by time, energy, life, batteries, life of the sun, etc...

When you start to apply this philosophically or metaphysically, you might be discussing ideas like there are an Infinite Number of Outcomes, Infinite Possibilities, Infinite Worlds, etc... This is less hard science and more "what if..." sort of thinking.

So IF there are an INFINITE NUMBER OF POSSIBILITES - then anything and everything is possible - all at once, opposites together, seperate, EVERYTHING. Science fiction has a field day with this - Apes rule the earth and man is the animal, JFK lived and lead us to World War III, on a parallel earth good guys are bad and bad guys are good... etc.

A MORE PRACTICAL, everyday application of the idea of Infinite Possibilites is that you have more choices in life than the ones you think you have. Sure you could go to school, go to college, get a job at the big company, get married, have kids, vacation at Disneyworld, worry about the bills, eventually retire and watch your children grow to do the same thing. BUT you could make an INFINITE NUMBER of choices on the way...

MAKE A DIFFERENT CHOICE - join the peace corps, go live in Batswana, write a a Batswana cookbook, become a world-renown authority on Batswana cuisine, marry a native and become a citizen of Batswana, eventually having daugter who grows up to become Prime Minister of Batswana and lead the world to peace - and it all started when chose the possibility of the Peace Corp instead of college...

Or something else... INFINITE POSSIBILITIES

Answer 2

It doesn't bend any laws, it completes them. It is just the idea that another can always be higher or lower than the one you have selected. It is like thinking of a number close to zero, say 0.000000000000000000000000001 but 0.0000000000000000000000000009 is even closer.

Now when you really get up there into the really complex mathematics, you learn of many levels of infinity. There is one that deals with every integer from negative infinity to infinity. Then there is one that deals with every decimal number between two integers (so it is basically infinity to an infinite power).

Answer 3

Well, it is definitely a philosophical question. One can say that infinity is larger than anything else that is not infinite.

If you have a number that is infinite, than this number is so large you will not notice any difference even if you multiply it with two, or add one to it. If you start adding 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 and so on you will never even in theory reach infinity cause it is so large.

And if you are talking about the universe one could say that you can never go so far that you come outside the universe, hence universe is infinitely large. Hence infinitely large even means that it is without bounds.

Answer 4

sounds like your friend needs to smoke less. Infinity is a mathematical concept, & is ONLY bound to those laws defined in the equation.

For example, Y = X^2+2 is an infinite function. However, it will never drop below y = 2 @ x = 0. You can plug in an infinate number of X values & get an infinite number Ys. All that changes is their difference. The relationship is ALWAYS constant.

Answer 5

Infinity won't be able to be expanded in the type you're questioning. it particularly is the value purely previous the selection line, as such, there's no longer a discrete degree. in spite of the indisputable fact that, there are diverse "kinds" of infinity, there may well be better and lesser quantities of infinity. evaluate the set of complicated numbers, the place i is the sq. root of damaging one. so as that they style a set of numbers a+bi for the time of a airplane with the actual line being one axis and the imaginary line being the different axis. Now evaluate the set of organic numbers, they seem to be a subset of the particular line and at the same time as the actual line is uncountable, the organic set is countable. on account that area is the geometric results of multiplication, greater precisely rectangles, then whilst you're taking the actual line at suitable angles you wind up with a actual airplane, the x-y airplane. it is likewise infinity and may well be what you're finding for, or returned utilising greater useful style, the complicated airplane with the i conjugate on the y axis. I actually have a greater useful one so you might contemplate. think of a actual selection, say call it d, it particularly is on the element of 0, yet no longer 0. better, enable us to think of it particularly is a small constructive selection, better think of a selection that once coming from the properly suited is often to the left of you, yet continually to the properly suited of 0. This selection might desire to be infinitely small. Now it particularly is an exciting selection.

Answer 6

Are you talking about infinity as a mathematical concept? It doesn't bend many laws.

Answer 7

INFINITY SIMPLY ---IS-- and because of it's infinate nature can not be summated or explained in any context---theories abound and will continue as long as there are theorists--and long after theorists are no more--infinity will be

Answer 8

Infinity is something without end

Answer 9

Infinity only exists in your mind. It can't be portrayed physically.

Answer 10

Hopefully there wil not be an infinite number of answers

Because we are finite our lives, time on this earth we can never trully understand what it is