Ok - first of all, I apologize for what is likey to be a very long-winded example of my rambulitis.
It will soon be clear that I know absolutely nothing about any of this; I can hardly follow half of the jargon that you guys throw around so casually. I only came across this thread (and forum) by googling the question that is in the thread title, because I'm just crazy like that and found myself thinking about infinity (again), and I wanted to hear some smart-people thoughts on the matter.
But I quickly found myself over my head. I don't know what Hubble volume is; I don't know what TOE stands for, I don't really know what the Copenhagen interpretation is (although I'm sure I've read all about these concepts on Wikipedia at some point or another, because that's just what I do.) I suppose I could go and refresh my Wiki knowledge (and I probably will, sigh), but I know that if I try I will inevitably find something I don't understand within the explantion of what I'm trying to understand, which will lead me to delve into an explantion of that, which will of course contain another term or concept I don't understand, and so on, until I have 50 pages of advanced physics concepts opened on my web browser and a throbbing mental headache. The problem lies in the fact that there probably aren't too many laymen that are interested in discussing the finer points of such complicated topics, but there's at least one (hai dere!) So basically, what I'm trying to say is: be gentle.
So, all these different interpretations of infinity, countable and uncountable, etc etc... these just seems like different ways of putting a limit on infinity, which by (my) definition should have no limits. For instance, the example of how a set containing only even numbers could be infinite and yet not exhuastive... that was a great explanation, but it still seems to me that a finite limit has been put on the (my) basic concept of infinity. It's like saying an "infinite line"... to me that seems like a misnomer, simply because the phrase itself puts a finite parameter (a line) on infinity. Put another way, it's like saying infinity, but in only one direction. Which (to me) means it's not actually "infinite" at all, it just happens to go on forever in that one direction.
In my mind, imagining infinity (ha!) is more like picturing a sphere that expands outwards in all directions and never stops. In fact, time itself is kind of like this infinite line I mentioned, and by existing in the first place it already tells my feeble brain that a true infinity isn't possible in our observable universe. If infinity truly existed, physically, it seems to me that it would be everything, everywhere, EVER... happening all at once (and everywhere at once.) Over and over and over again, until my head assploded.
I'm realizing now that my defintion of infinity (everything) is the exact opposite of the definition of zero (nothing). I don't know if this is intuitive or if there's some mathematical basis for that, or if it's simply just incorrect, but that's how I've always defined infinity: on a number line, it's the polar opposite of zero, and to extend that concept in a philisophical sense is to make it the polar opposite of nothing.
But let's assume that we're only talking about infinite physical space. Time, whether I like it or not, seems to exist, even if only to keep everything from happening at once. So with this one boundary in place (time), let's assume that physical space goes on forever. I've always taken to heart the concept of "the closer you get to infinity, the probability of x happening approaches 1." And by extension, if you actually could get to infinity, then the probability of x happening, somewhere, sometime, must equal 1.
And I still just can't get past this. How is this not true? What exactly am I missing about this concept of infinity? Using that one example along the lines of "different blurry versions of myself that all slightly vary outwards from point A (the "real" me, from now) and some get hit by the car, or meet the girl, and some don't, blah blah blah" but then you assume this has been going on since the beginning of the universe (or dare I say, since even before that? Maybe it's been going on forever? Maybe the universe itself has infinite variations, an infinite amount of which evolved life similar to ours, or nothing like ours, and likewise, an infinite amount of universes that never were, so to speak.)
Here though, I must clarify once again that when I say infinity, I'm talking about something that all variations are encompassed within. I'm aware of the many-worlds theory, but in my definition of infinity, every world (or dimension, or variation, or whatever) is included within that term. I guess I'm saying that if infinity exists in any real sense, everything that exists, wherever it may be, is contained within that infinity. It's impossible for anything to exist outside it... well, because there is no "outside," it goes on forever, durrr.
So I can't help but stand by the concept that if our reality were infinite, everything would be happening within it. Everything meaning anything that any of us can think of, along with an infinite amount of things we could never possibly think of. And I just don't understand why it's assumed that all reality, even if infinite, would have to conform to our known laws. I don't understand why it's assumed that everything was once connected, as someone put it, to our reality (or something to that effect) and therefore must follow the laws we (think we) know. I mean, from what I understand, there's already contradictions in the "rules" when we try to relate them to very very small or very very large objects (the so far fruitless search for a unified theory), so it follows, for me, that our rules might conceivably not apply once we go even bigger (or smaller.) And when we're talking infinitley bigger (or smaller), well, it seems like everything we (think we) know could be up in the air.
I remember first thinking about this when I was about 14 (I'm 32). I read some sci-fi book that touched on the concept of "everything must exist within infinity", and I thought about it for a long while. The concept just made sense, and it still does, which is why I can't get past this. At the time though, I "proved" to myself that infinty can't exist. I did this by thinking of something that *should* exist, but obviously didn't. I thought of a planet full of alternate "me's" (an infinite amount of them). I then thought of a planet full of "me's" that had found a way to bend time and space and traverse dimensions with but a thought. I then thought of one of these "me's" that could observe (the real) me, and had the power to appear before me, and make himself known to me, and then I thought of a "me" who chose to do just that. And since I never appeared before myself, I thought I had proved that infinity didn't exist. (I then realized that there would be an infinite amount of these me's who would appear before me, as well as an infinite amount of anyone else, and everything else, appearing in front of anyone and everything else, and so on, and that's when I decided that true infinity would mean an unimaginable blur of everything happening all at once, everywhere at once.)
I am now old enough to undertand that the only thing I "proved" is that I didn't understand what the hell I was talking about. But the problem is that I still don't understand, because everything I just said still makes perfect sense to me. Even if we're in finite space, even if time is the only thing that's infinite, it seems to me that sometime, everything I can think of (and everything I can't) must exist, eventually. But again, I'm thinking of a "me" from the future who has figured out how to travel back here to my time, and of course there are an infinite amount of them at some point in the timeline, all of whom can travel back to this exact moment and have the power to make themselves observable to me, and... boom, everything at once.
Anyway, so I guess it comes back to these "rules" or "laws" that we have observed, and whether or not they can ever be broken, given infinity. Can infinty be separated into sections that can't ever co-exist? I contend that it can't; eventually they must (or already have.) Eventually, given infinity, all of our rules must be broken. So a *true* inifinty cannot exist in any physical sense.
Anyway, sorry for all that. I can never be concise in things like this, for 2 reasons: 1) I don't understand enough of the technical jargon to properly sum up complex thoughts with one or two terms, and 2) I have no idea what I'm talking about.
I guess I'll sum it up my questions here at the bottom for those not inclined to read this whole thing:
Can someone explain to me, as you would to a child, why an infinite universe "isn't sufficient" for *everything* existing? By the same token, why would an infinite timeline be insufficient for everything existing, eventually? Why can't laws (traveling back through time, or across dimensions, and all the rest) be broken, given infinite time or space? Why can't a four-sided triangle exist just because I can't conceptualize it? In infinity, even that should be there somewhere, even if our feeble, logical minds would snap if they ever actually tried to understand it. (To be clear, my whole argument is that these things don't exist, but only because infinity doesn't either, at least beyond a theoretical concept.)
But on that same note, is it possible that logic itself is only a limitation of the human perspective, rather than some universal, infallible ideal? (This is a question I asked someone in another forum recently, where a bunch of people got to arguing about whether or not God exists (and on a poker forum, believe it or not.) One guy (basically) said "No, because [too many things about that] are not logical." Which got me thinking about illogicalities, and the possible limits of human thinking/perception, and about how if God does exist, he could pretty much violate any rule we can think of, because let's face it, he's God. A bit off topic here, but I'm just reiterating the concept of "just because it doesn't make sense to us doesn't mean it's not true.")
In closing, can I just say I ****ing hate v-bulletin? To my great consternation, I swear that everybody uses it now. Someone hurry up and write something better.
I'm done with this topic.
