Infinity
Infinity
January 2, 2006
To imagine that something might go on and on forever without stopping--- without having limits---is a different sort of exercise that is somewhat counterintuitive. I think humans tend to want to compartmentalize things. I know I do. So when I think in terms of the infinite, I automatically want to assign limits despite everything I know to the contrary. I have to catch myself to keep that from happening.
In another essay, I described how brutal logic boils it all down to the one thing that most assuredly can be infinite. That thing is nothing. Nothing is a thing? Well, nothing must be a thing that does not consist of anything at all: emptiness, nothing material at all, no expression of any form of kinetic energy. No radio waves or photons. No nothing. That is the thing I am writing about here. Nothing.
You would expect nothing to go on forever. It is, again, brutally logical that the basal state of the macrocosm is zero. Not that on a macroscopic scale you would seem to find any zero anywhere. The macrocosm is teeming with things and their activities. Would you find zero on a microscopic scale? Yes, I believe so. There is the empty space between material things and their activities. That is where nothing is---between physical objects.
Keep in mind that forces such as gravity and magnetism seem to transcend or bridge this nothingness. The nothingness appears to be that way from the standpoint of not containing kinetic or photonic or wavelike energy or physical matter such as atoms and quarks. Gravity and magnetism end up being different animals entirely. They most likely depend on physical matter for their existence. Whether or not they obey the laws of quantum mechanics is uncertain as of 2005, but the answer to that question may be possible in the future as we develop new tools for analysis. Personally, I think it could go either way, but I would lay my money down in the “not” circle.
Aside from speculating that there might be other dimensions that contain the majority of gravity that just somewhat interfaces with the macrocosm as we know it, the least weird explanation for gravity and magnetism is that they are each quantifiable weak forces per unit of matter which collectively can do incredible things. But the word “incredible” is an opinion, while in fact the impact of gravity or magnetism is relative to its circumstances, similar to but not exactly like the way speed is in the Theory of Relativity. One could just as well assert that the most remarkable thing about gravity, to single it out, is what it does not do. For instance, why do I not weight 900 pounds on Earth instead of the somewhere-between-one-hundred-and-two-hundred that I do right now? Apparently matter can have only so much gravity and not any more (except maybe for that which is contained within black holes; I probably shall write something about that elsewhere). Never mind discrepancies that might be perceived giving rise to claims that there is not enough gravity to balance everything out. We have probably just not yet discovered the things that fulfill the equation.
So back to nothingness. It certainly makes a lot of sense to me that nothing is the only “thing” that could go on forever and not beg the question as to its derivation. For sure, you could advance the notion that if anything can be infinite, then a “spirit” or even a macrocosm filled with matter, for that matter, could be infinite, too. I guess that the unique thing about nothingness as opposed to something else is that the zero state is the lowest common denominator below which by definition you cannot go. It reminds me of the joke about the lady who claimed that Earth travels on the back of a giant tortoise. When asked what supported the animal, she said that it was simply another tortoise. And when asked what underlay that one, she incredulously asserted that it was “tortoises! Tortoises all the way down!” There is a fundamental difference between tortoises all the way down and nothingness all the way everywhere. Zero has legitimate status, because when asked what underlies nothing, one can only answer that nothing underlies it, because there can not be anything else underlying it, because nothing is the most fundamental state, and anything underlying it would have to be the same thing that it is, and since it is infinite, anything underlying it would have to be it itself: nothing.
It is funny designating nothing as a something, but it is something, because it has a name and it exists as a thing, but it is not a thing at the same time. Nothing is the ultimate paradox. This lends credence to its uniqueness and its standing in the macrocosm. Nothing is one of the best examples of elusiveness that there could be. I think the phenomenon of “nothing” is more elusive than that which is described in the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, which also involves elusiveness. “Nothing” has duplicity. It is, and it is not, both at the same time.
I have chosen to use the term “macrocosm” in this essay because I believe that the infinite nature of “nothing” changes the definition of “universe” as we used to use it. If, therefore, the big bang theory is correct, there probably was finite energy released, although enormous by our standards. A definite quantity of energy would have boundaries at any one point in time. And if the big bang could happen here, it could happen elsewhere in the vastness of infinite nothingness. In fact, I suppose it could happen here again. But big bangs must be rare as events go. Otherwise things would get a lot more disruptive than they already are. Anyway, if big bangs can occur elsewhere, then the result would be different universes than ours. Thus, I propose that the term “macrocosm” be used for the sum total of everything out there, while “universe” is that thing which results when a big bang occurs.
To conclude, I am convinced that zero is the basal state of the macrocosm. Universes result from big bangs, which can occur anywhere and at any time. Nothing is the only entity that can go on infinitely without needing to be explained as to where it came from. Yet nothing is elusive, in that it exists and does not exist at the same time, and it is in fact the matrix that contains everything else. Gravity and magnetism can span nothing but depend on the proximity of matter in order to operate. This approach, while simple, appears elegant and would be perfect were it not for the details. However, I boldly speculate that discrepancies among the details will be reconciled once we develop more refined analytical tools.
© 2006, srman07
January 2, 2006
To imagine that something might go on and on forever without stopping--- without having limits---is a different sort of exercise that is somewhat counterintuitive. I think humans tend to want to compartmentalize things. I know I do. So when I think in terms of the infinite, I automatically want to assign limits despite everything I know to the contrary. I have to catch myself to keep that from happening.
In another essay, I described how brutal logic boils it all down to the one thing that most assuredly can be infinite. That thing is nothing. Nothing is a thing? Well, nothing must be a thing that does not consist of anything at all: emptiness, nothing material at all, no expression of any form of kinetic energy. No radio waves or photons. No nothing. That is the thing I am writing about here. Nothing.
You would expect nothing to go on forever. It is, again, brutally logical that the basal state of the macrocosm is zero. Not that on a macroscopic scale you would seem to find any zero anywhere. The macrocosm is teeming with things and their activities. Would you find zero on a microscopic scale? Yes, I believe so. There is the empty space between material things and their activities. That is where nothing is---between physical objects.
Keep in mind that forces such as gravity and magnetism seem to transcend or bridge this nothingness. The nothingness appears to be that way from the standpoint of not containing kinetic or photonic or wavelike energy or physical matter such as atoms and quarks. Gravity and magnetism end up being different animals entirely. They most likely depend on physical matter for their existence. Whether or not they obey the laws of quantum mechanics is uncertain as of 2005, but the answer to that question may be possible in the future as we develop new tools for analysis. Personally, I think it could go either way, but I would lay my money down in the “not” circle.
Aside from speculating that there might be other dimensions that contain the majority of gravity that just somewhat interfaces with the macrocosm as we know it, the least weird explanation for gravity and magnetism is that they are each quantifiable weak forces per unit of matter which collectively can do incredible things. But the word “incredible” is an opinion, while in fact the impact of gravity or magnetism is relative to its circumstances, similar to but not exactly like the way speed is in the Theory of Relativity. One could just as well assert that the most remarkable thing about gravity, to single it out, is what it does not do. For instance, why do I not weight 900 pounds on Earth instead of the somewhere-between-one-hundred-and-two-hundred that I do right now? Apparently matter can have only so much gravity and not any more (except maybe for that which is contained within black holes; I probably shall write something about that elsewhere). Never mind discrepancies that might be perceived giving rise to claims that there is not enough gravity to balance everything out. We have probably just not yet discovered the things that fulfill the equation.
So back to nothingness. It certainly makes a lot of sense to me that nothing is the only “thing” that could go on forever and not beg the question as to its derivation. For sure, you could advance the notion that if anything can be infinite, then a “spirit” or even a macrocosm filled with matter, for that matter, could be infinite, too. I guess that the unique thing about nothingness as opposed to something else is that the zero state is the lowest common denominator below which by definition you cannot go. It reminds me of the joke about the lady who claimed that Earth travels on the back of a giant tortoise. When asked what supported the animal, she said that it was simply another tortoise. And when asked what underlay that one, she incredulously asserted that it was “tortoises! Tortoises all the way down!” There is a fundamental difference between tortoises all the way down and nothingness all the way everywhere. Zero has legitimate status, because when asked what underlies nothing, one can only answer that nothing underlies it, because there can not be anything else underlying it, because nothing is the most fundamental state, and anything underlying it would have to be the same thing that it is, and since it is infinite, anything underlying it would have to be it itself: nothing.
It is funny designating nothing as a something, but it is something, because it has a name and it exists as a thing, but it is not a thing at the same time. Nothing is the ultimate paradox. This lends credence to its uniqueness and its standing in the macrocosm. Nothing is one of the best examples of elusiveness that there could be. I think the phenomenon of “nothing” is more elusive than that which is described in the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, which also involves elusiveness. “Nothing” has duplicity. It is, and it is not, both at the same time.
I have chosen to use the term “macrocosm” in this essay because I believe that the infinite nature of “nothing” changes the definition of “universe” as we used to use it. If, therefore, the big bang theory is correct, there probably was finite energy released, although enormous by our standards. A definite quantity of energy would have boundaries at any one point in time. And if the big bang could happen here, it could happen elsewhere in the vastness of infinite nothingness. In fact, I suppose it could happen here again. But big bangs must be rare as events go. Otherwise things would get a lot more disruptive than they already are. Anyway, if big bangs can occur elsewhere, then the result would be different universes than ours. Thus, I propose that the term “macrocosm” be used for the sum total of everything out there, while “universe” is that thing which results when a big bang occurs.
To conclude, I am convinced that zero is the basal state of the macrocosm. Universes result from big bangs, which can occur anywhere and at any time. Nothing is the only entity that can go on infinitely without needing to be explained as to where it came from. Yet nothing is elusive, in that it exists and does not exist at the same time, and it is in fact the matrix that contains everything else. Gravity and magnetism can span nothing but depend on the proximity of matter in order to operate. This approach, while simple, appears elegant and would be perfect were it not for the details. However, I boldly speculate that discrepancies among the details will be reconciled once we develop more refined analytical tools.
© 2006, srman07
posted by srman07 at 8:12 PM
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