Infinity issues

I used to think about the afterlife a lot, and still do although it doesn’t hang over me as much as it used to. I once believed in God and was preoccupied with eternal punishment because I believed I was bad, although my understanding of theological teaching evolved as I got older and it stopped being a preoccupation. Now, I don’t believe in God, although I would like to as the reassurance was comforting. I think a lot about the state of ‘nothingness’ after death, about ‘how come I was born in this body rather than as an animal such as a rabbit’. Thinking about infinity takes up some time, imagining it going on and on and on, putting up an imaginary wall at the end of it, but something is beyond the wall …. Nobody has ever satisfactorily answered these questions. I find it helpful to imagine looking down on the earth and considering how minute and insignificant I am among all the created world and thinking about how all life, plants and animals die. New life is always being born and eventually, according to astronomers, the earth will eventually cease to exist. Somehow, knowing I came from non existence and will return to that non state, is consoling. 

I think the religious obsession with "eternal" and "eternity" is based on a failure to truly comprehend infinity.

Eternal punishment.  So you burn for a billion years. Then a trillion more. But even then you're not even a quadrillionth of the way through your time in the fire.

What kind of crime could possibly deserve such a horrendous punishment? I wouldn't even do that to Hitler.

And yet we are told a "loving god" would do this to people for trifling misdemeanours?

I think the religious obsession with "eternal" and "eternity" is based on a failure to truly comprehend infinity.

Eternal punishment.  So you burn for a billion years. Then a trillion more. But even then you're not even a quadrillionth of the way through your time in the fire.

What kind of crime could possibly deserve such a horrendous punishment? I wouldn't even do that to Hitler.

And yet we are told a "loving god" would do this to people for trifling misdemeanours?

ArchaeC wrote: "There is much to digest in what you say. Embodiment can mean different things to different people, for different purposes. Are you talking about the sense of giving form to our emotions, beliefs, likes, hearing, pain, etc?"

Not quite ~ in that our emotions etcetera are all experienced through the rational, sentimental, communicational, emotional, imaginal, reproductional and sensational sensibilities ~ as which altogether in the dimensionally and formationally interwoven sense embody us as a conscious ‘spatial’ being.

Hence it is more accurate to state that emotions etcetera are given form through the experiential embodiments of our embodiment.

"..it" always rolls downhill.

Take the compliment!

Teehee, I confess I nicked some of that phrase from one of Doctor Who's more arthouse episodes :-)

Shardovan said:

and when the first test post finally appears, the first second of eternity will have passed.

Were you the scriptwriter for Bladerunner?

..and when the first test post finally appears, the first second of eternity will have passed. :-)

Deepthought said:

Well thanks for the welcome and all that ~ but I have weekly been doing experimental post tests with no manifest results for the last month, aside that is from being informed that there is an error and I need to contact the administrator each time I have tried unsuccessfully to post a particular reply. 

I no longer bother with reporting the same problem ~ I mean this is after all the second website that has the same problem, only to a much greater extent of course ~ glum rolling eyes emoji.

You are another 'older' member I've read today has been stopped from posting here.

I'm glad you achieved a post today DT! + welcome back.

Well thanks for the welcome and all that ~ but I have weekly been doing experimental post tests with no manifest results for the last month, aside that is from being informed that there is an error and I need to contact the administrator each time I have tried unsuccessfully to post a particular reply. 

I no longer bother with reporting the same problem ~ I mean this is after all the second website that has the same problem, only to a much greater extent of course ~ glum rolling eyes emoji.

Actually that isn't what we are told by God or Jesus, that helfire stuff is inventions of the guys with big hats. 

There is however likely (It seems to me) to be a time when one needs to choose eternal life or nothing at all, but by then I am reliably informed everyone will know the score, so it'll be a fair choice...  

I'm trying to love the life I have, and subdue it enough to confidently step into the next challenge (whether it's a long cold rest or some spiritual shenanegans) when the time comes.

Knowing that God is both real and "good to know" is a great help with that, I've found. 

Welcome to the world of "experimental post tests."

More tedious than most things.

"Be passers by"......feels apt at times like this?

FYI - I'm still contemplating a true and appropriate response via pms.....I think it has only been x months.....and because neither of us have any clue what x is/means.....rest assured that my thoughts still abound on the specifics...deeply.

With value.

Yours.

Iain said:

Deepthought said:

Finite bodies can only in part understand the nature of infinity,

It does not help that the one observable "infinite" system we can refer to - the universe - is measurably expanding.

Experimental post test.

Iain stated: “It does not help that the one observable "infinite" system we can refer to - the universe - is measurably expanding.”

It is though instead helped by it’s expansion ‘through’ absolute space and the infinite dimensional plains of ‘dark’ (in-visible) energy and matter.

Iain stated: “Something that is infinite cannot, by definition, change size.”

Absolute space exists as an ‘atmos’ of dark energy that has no boundary spherical or otherwise and hence as such we and all created things exist through it ~ rather than in it, with dimensions as such having plains for their infinite series of ‘interweaving’ expansions from and contractions into one another through space ~ as is observable in terms of galactic formations involving respectively black wholes, gas clouds, stars and solidifying bodies to lesser and greater degrees.

Iain stated: “The same applies for eternity. It was proven back in the 1960s by Steven Hawking and Roger Penrose that time cannot extend back indefinitely and is provably demonstrated to start with a singularity we refer to as the Big Bang.”

The Big Bang Hypothesis is not yet evidentially supported in regard to it’s explanation of the origin or the initiating stages of the universe, and in that it is a reverse extrapolation based upon the theory of galactic expansion ~ it neither proves or disproves the existence of a singularity that initiated the process of inflation, hence Roger Penrose's proposal that the Big Bang is instead part of a cyclic process of infinite expansions and contractions through the absoluteness of space ~ as is described under the heading of Conformal Cyclic Cosmology, or more simply referred as the Big Bounce Theory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformal_cyclic_cosmology

Iain stated: “Before the Big Bang the laws of physics did not exist as time is one of the dimensions that was created by the big bang so there is no meaning to time beforehand.”

As mentioned above, the Big Bang Hypothesis is incomplete and only theoretically validated in relation to inflation, whereas prior to the big bang, you describe a lack of means for relational time and space to exist physically ~ and therefore no causative or initiative sequencing either ~ whilst absolute space and time by way of being dark energy and matter enables relational space and time to have either become so, or in more relative terms to have continued on being as it is.

Iain stated: “Fun fact - there are 11 dimensions (not just the 3 spatial and 1 temporal one we perceive) as predicted by M-theory, a derivative of superstring theory, which moved into Multiverse theory and a whole new noodle-baking bunch of implications."

Fun corroborating fact ~ humans neurologically operate on the basis of seven dimensional geometries involving up to at least 11 dimensions.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fncom.2017.00048/full

There are of course infinite progressions of dimensional plains and spatial domains ~ just as our visible spectrum only accounts for a tiny percentile of what we can so far detect instrumentally, with the experiential domain we physically exist through having a 3 dimensional theme running through it’s octave ~ hence light having 7 colours, diatonic music 7 notes and minerals 7 crystal lattices.

The idea of time being the fourth dimensional plain is though a bit off ~ as each plain has it’s own frequency and therefore timing, but it is the central plain of this domain at least that facilitates it’s harmonic frequency, and as such governs each temporal manifold as a relative time-frame with it’s own curvatures involving particular amplitudes and probabilities ~ hence the infinite wavelengths of possibilities and finite probabilities becoming our singular timeline of experience.

Iain stated: “I'm not sure the average human mind has the capability of grasping all of this (mine struggles at the concept of infinite infinities) so we are relying on the propeller heads doing the research to make some sense of it for us.”

The more that near death and seizure induced out of body experiences and the like are experienced, researched and instrumentally recoded, and the more that human body proves as such not to be the final limit of our conscious experience ~ more and more cohesive and thus expansive grasps of universal principles can be better refined and defined.

https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2014/10/07-worlds-largest-near-death-experiences-study.page

I think the simplest way though to analogise infinite series of infinities is by way of imagining modern televisions with endless series of channels involving just one show, with each version of which showing different levels of the same existence ~ i.e., what is done physically on channel 1, what might have instinctively been done otherwise on channel 2 ~ had we listened to our selves or self, and what is or was otherwise imagined on channel 3 as being perhaps more concerning or anticipated ~ and so on and so forth ad infinitum.

Iain stated: “Start looking down this rabbit hole and you are probably going to need some high grade medical relaxants to get over it all.”

Westerners are more prone to ‘worm-hole’ or tunnel experiences it seems according to some research, whereas mine like easterners involve experiential phase-shifts as I disembody through the geometries of the dimensional plains into the spatial light of this octaves lights ~ with prescribed medicines helping to minimise the number and aftermaths of my seizures, which are of the ‘psychogenic’ (stress induced) variety ~ due to having gotten so ill as a toddler that I very nearly died, along with all the other traumatising complexities that were increasingly forced upon me for not “fitting-in” socially, educationally and professionally.

It is somewhat ironic that having a ‘seizure’ is also called ‘fitting’, given that I have been doing this ‘in’ every social setting and scenario since the age of 3.

My next life-span resolution is to select only a minimal difficulty study course, rather than than the average, substantial ‘and’ lethal ones altogether. ;-)

Iain stated: “A strong cup of builders tea is my go-to drug in this case.” ;-)

I go for cups of ‘architects’ tea me ~ i.e., a comparative blue-print of flavour when compared to the rugged burliness of builders tea! :-)

Iain stated: “Sometimes it helps not to think about it at all.”

Being able to just think about it ‘sometimes’ seems quite pleasant ~ what with it being as such almost completely optional for the vast majority of people, and all that

Experimental post test.

Also if the universe is literally infinite it means there’s an infinite number of versions of me writing this post.

Some of whom will be sentient cauliflowers.

I think the issue of whether the universe is infinite is still a discussion point. Big bang implies it’s very large but finite (assuming BB is correct).

There is much to digest in what you say. Embodiment can mean different things to different people, for different purposes. Are you talking about the sense of giving form to our emotions, beliefs, likes, hearing, pain, etc?

Deepthought said:

Finite bodies can only in part understand the nature of infinity,

It does not help that the one observable "infinite" system we can refer to - the universe - is measurably expanding.

Something that is infinite cannot, by definition, change size.

The same applies for eternity. It was proven back in the 1960s by Steven Hawking and Roger Penrose that time cannot extend back indefinitely and is provably demonstrated to start with a singularity we refer to as the Big Bang.

Before the Big Bang the laws of physics did not exist as time is one of the dimensions that was created by the big bang so there is no meaning to time beforehand.

Fun fact - there are 11 dimensions (not just the 3 spatial and 1 temporal one we perceive) as predicted by M-theory, a derivative of superstring theory, which moved into Multiverse theory and  a whole new noodle-baking bunch of implications.

https://interestingengineering.com/science/how-many-dimensions-does-our-universe-really-have

I'm not sure the average human mind has the capability of grasping all of this (mine struggles at the concept of infinite infinities) so we are relying on the propeller heads doing the research to make some sense of it for us.

Start looking down this rabbit hole and you are probably going to need some high grade medical relaxants to get over it all. A strong cup of builders tea is my go-to drug in this case

Sometimes it helps not to think about it at all.

ArchaeC said:

Yes you have made an interesting point, but does anybody fully comprehend infinity?

Finite bodies can only in part understand the nature of infinity, but that that which is embodied is gaining an increasing comprehension of which, but never a full one given what infinity describes.

Yes that’s right! Sorry I didn’t express things well. I also think that some people believe in God out of habit, because it is what was taught by predecessors and school. Not all religions reject sound scientific teaching and some actively promote it.  I wanted to clarify that not all Christian denominations teach that hell is a certainty for people like Hitler. I have no intention of trying to convert anyone to Catholicism or any form of  Christianity, any other religion or atheism. I just can’t get my head round infinity even though it is a reality.

But that is dependent on you choosing the “correct” religion, which would rule out most of humanity even if there was a “correct” religion.

cf Pascal’s Wager

Yes you have made an interesting point, but does anybody fully comprehend infinity? Most of the world’s major religions think along the same lines about the afterlife. Perhaps some types of Buddhism might differ, and I wonder about how our human ancestors, such as Neanderthals, Denisovans as well as Homo Sapiens, first began considering where we came from and how the earth evolved. It is fascinating stuff but we will never know. The catechism of the Catholic Church does not definitively state that anyone will go to hell. It states that hell is a real place, but that our hope is that ‘all will be saved’. The belief is that after death, if we haven’t already repented and had our sins forgiven, we will be given the opportunity to say sorry and to go to heaven - that applies even to Hitler. It is a matter of hope and faith rather than proof. I don’t like to think of anyone suffering forever either and I just thought I’d put the record straight for people who might have a belief in God from a Catholic perspective. As a non believer now, I still appreciate how people derive meaning from faith in God.