WEBVTT - Infinity + One

0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.000
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff

0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:13.600
<v Speaker 1>Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:16.560
<v Speaker 1>My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Dougness and Julie,

0:00:16.600 --> 0:00:20.040
<v Speaker 1>I believe this is definitely a case where we're biting

0:00:20.280 --> 0:00:23.479
<v Speaker 1>off more than we can choose an infante amount that

0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:25.640
<v Speaker 1>we can choot and maybe you guys can listen to you.

0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:27.840
<v Speaker 1>I don't know, we're gonna find out. Yeah, because we're

0:00:27.880 --> 0:00:34.519
<v Speaker 1>taking two episodes to discuss infinity only infinite amounts, right,

0:00:34.520 --> 0:00:37.159
<v Speaker 1>We're taking a finite number of episodes in each episode

0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:40.400
<v Speaker 1>is uh you know, consists of a finite uh number

0:00:40.440 --> 0:00:42.960
<v Speaker 1>of minutes. There only there's only so much time and

0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:45.640
<v Speaker 1>energy we can throw at the topic. And the topic

0:00:45.880 --> 0:00:50.400
<v Speaker 1>is the the infinite, the boundless, the pretty much one

0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:54.200
<v Speaker 1>of the biggest, most mind staggering concepts you could attempt

0:00:54.240 --> 0:00:58.360
<v Speaker 1>to try and comprehend. So you're gonna get lost along

0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:00.200
<v Speaker 1>the way. We're gonna get lost along the way, and

0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:04.320
<v Speaker 1>hopefully we will not all remain lost for an infinite

0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:07.039
<v Speaker 1>amount of time and just completely lose our minds. But yeah,

0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:08.840
<v Speaker 1>in full disclosure, at some point I'm going to have

0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:12.080
<v Speaker 1>the math sweats but you know, we're all going to

0:01:12.160 --> 0:01:15.080
<v Speaker 1>wait into the deep end of the pool to gather

0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:18.040
<v Speaker 1>the deep end of the philosophical pool, the theological pool,

0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:22.560
<v Speaker 1>the mathematical pool, to the physical pool. Uh, we're all

0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:25.000
<v Speaker 1>going to go together and hopefully none of us will

0:01:25.120 --> 0:01:29.600
<v Speaker 1>sink beneath the waters infinitely. But in the meantime, let's

0:01:29.640 --> 0:01:32.600
<v Speaker 1>get our hands and our minds around the concept of infinity,

0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:34.080
<v Speaker 1>because we use it all the time, or at least

0:01:34.120 --> 0:01:37.640
<v Speaker 1>my kid does. When she's really excited about something, she'll say,

0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:41.440
<v Speaker 1>infinity plus one. I totally want to go to Chuck

0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:45.840
<v Speaker 1>E Cheese, which is its own infinite hell um. But again,

0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:50.840
<v Speaker 1>it's we find this parlance um a way to try

0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:53.360
<v Speaker 1>to describe something that feels like it's going to go

0:01:53.400 --> 0:01:56.559
<v Speaker 1>on forever and ever. Yeah, and you know, also another

0:01:56.880 --> 0:01:59.360
<v Speaker 1>big pop culture mentioned of this that our pretty certain

0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:03.000
<v Speaker 1>knowledge is pointed out to infinity and beyond toy story movies,

0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:06.400
<v Speaker 1>which on one level kind of sounds like ridiculous but

0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:10.399
<v Speaker 1>actually is kind of key to some of the discussions

0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:14.799
<v Speaker 1>we're going to have about the nature of infinity um um,

0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:17.079
<v Speaker 1>which is kind of clever in its own way. But

0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:19.720
<v Speaker 1>but indeed, infinity is this thing that we kind of

0:02:19.760 --> 0:02:23.120
<v Speaker 1>pick up on even at an early age, even if

0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:26.760
<v Speaker 1>we're not giving it a lot of serious consideration. UM,

0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:30.680
<v Speaker 1>for your part, what was what was your earliest interaction

0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:35.120
<v Speaker 1>with infinity, your earliest even attempt to utilize infinity as

0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:38.720
<v Speaker 1>a concept or to think about it, or I think

0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:43.040
<v Speaker 1>just when I was considering the universe and the place

0:02:43.160 --> 0:02:46.360
<v Speaker 1>that I had on Earth and then Earth's place out there,

0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:49.680
<v Speaker 1>and so that was the first sort of inkling of like, wow,

0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:52.800
<v Speaker 1>things might go on forever and ever and ever. What

0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:57.919
<v Speaker 1>about you? I definitely remember the idea of a never

0:02:58.040 --> 0:03:00.240
<v Speaker 1>ending pit being the thing that came to my mind.

0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:01.960
<v Speaker 1>I think this came out of like playing with Masters

0:03:01.960 --> 0:03:05.640
<v Speaker 1>the Universe action figures or watching Heman cartoon and somehow

0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:08.320
<v Speaker 1>getting the idea that you know, you would have not

0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:11.680
<v Speaker 1>only would you have these action figures fighting on the

0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:13.600
<v Speaker 1>edge of a cliff, which would probably be the back

0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:15.760
<v Speaker 1>of a couch, but that this would be a cliff

0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:19.160
<v Speaker 1>above just an endless chasm that they would if they

0:03:19.160 --> 0:03:22.520
<v Speaker 1>start you started falling, you would just never reach the bottom.

0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:25.000
<v Speaker 1>And uh, and so we would when we would play

0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:28.440
<v Speaker 1>basically the Floor's Lava. Our version was the floor is

0:03:28.440 --> 0:03:31.720
<v Speaker 1>a never ending pit. Oh that really amps up the

0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:35.040
<v Speaker 1>the sorry by the again. Oh that really ups the

0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:37.800
<v Speaker 1>anti there. Yeah, and and so I would I would

0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:40.040
<v Speaker 1>think I remember thinking about the concept sometimes because then

0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:41.800
<v Speaker 1>you you have to ask yourself, well, if this is

0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:45.560
<v Speaker 1>a never ending pit, what does that mean? Are their

0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:48.600
<v Speaker 1>walls to this pit? Do the walls go on uh

0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:52.120
<v Speaker 1>at infiniteum and uh? And and if so, where is

0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:55.480
<v Speaker 1>this pit? Where are the walls? Where is the universe?

0:03:55.520 --> 0:03:58.440
<v Speaker 1>So you do kind of go down the wormhole a

0:03:58.480 --> 0:04:01.200
<v Speaker 1>little bit and even trying to you to figure out

0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:06.000
<v Speaker 1>that the rules of this fantastic childhood concept. You know

0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:08.320
<v Speaker 1>what I love about this is that the band The

0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:12.840
<v Speaker 1>Handsome Family has a song about a never ending pit, bottomless,

0:04:12.960 --> 0:04:15.800
<v Speaker 1>bottomless pitt in this guy's backyard, and he's obsessed with it.

0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:19.240
<v Speaker 1>And it's, as of course, depressing and beautiful, but it

0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:21.880
<v Speaker 1>deals with that same sort of concept of just the

0:04:22.200 --> 0:04:24.560
<v Speaker 1>never ending fall. Yeah, but I believe in the song

0:04:24.680 --> 0:04:27.640
<v Speaker 1>his his wife lowers him down and like a bathtub

0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:29.680
<v Speaker 1>or something, on a rope, and eventually the rope gives

0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:32.960
<v Speaker 1>way and he's just endlessly falling down for this whole

0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:34.800
<v Speaker 1>That's what I love about that band too, you know

0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:37.280
<v Speaker 1>it was a cloth footub. Yeah, of course, you know

0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:39.440
<v Speaker 1>you want to go down and style. Sure, all right,

0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:43.159
<v Speaker 1>perhaps we should talk about what infinity is not because

0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:45.080
<v Speaker 1>we've got that sort of simple idea of it's going

0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:49.440
<v Speaker 1>on on forever and ever. Infinity is not a real number.

0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:52.680
<v Speaker 1>We can't say, you know, it's this number of things.

0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:54.760
<v Speaker 1>There's an infinite number of things. We can say an

0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:59.040
<v Speaker 1>infinite amount because we don't know specifically, specifically what that

0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:02.520
<v Speaker 1>number would ever be. Yeah, there's no there's no number

0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:04.240
<v Speaker 1>that we can say is infinity. We just have the

0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:07.560
<v Speaker 1>symbol for infinity, which of course is essentially an eight

0:05:07.600 --> 0:05:09.240
<v Speaker 1>on its side, and you can think of as a

0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:12.120
<v Speaker 1>little little like childhood train track that circles back in

0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:14.599
<v Speaker 1>on itself. Yeah, it's actually called a Lemna skit. And

0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:17.560
<v Speaker 1>John Wallace began using the symbol for infinity in sixteen

0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:22.360
<v Speaker 1>fifty five. Um. Now, infinity cannot be measured, of course,

0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:25.160
<v Speaker 1>which also ties into it not being a real number.

0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:29.840
<v Speaker 1>It's not something that's growing, it's not doing anything. It

0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:33.720
<v Speaker 1>just is okay, Yeah, so it's it's not a situation

0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:36.480
<v Speaker 1>of the bottomless pit, the endless pit, an everything pit

0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:43.000
<v Speaker 1>actually getting deeper and deeper it is, right, right, Yeah,

0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:46.520
<v Speaker 1>And infinity comes from that Latin word infinitis, which means

0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:49.200
<v Speaker 1>unbounded nous, which is a good way to look at

0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:52.520
<v Speaker 1>that that pit. It is not bound to anything physically,

0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:56.240
<v Speaker 1>it's just going on for an infinity. Now, the reason

0:05:56.279 --> 0:05:59.480
<v Speaker 1>why this is an important concept is because it really

0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:03.800
<v Speaker 1>flavors different fields of study, like mathematics and physics and philosophy.

0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:06.760
<v Speaker 1>And today we're going to focus more on philosophy because

0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:08.680
<v Speaker 1>I think this is really at the heart of the

0:06:08.720 --> 0:06:11.760
<v Speaker 1>matter for humans of course, right, it's pretty much the

0:06:11.480 --> 0:06:14.160
<v Speaker 1>the underpinnings, you know, because once you get into the mathematics,

0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:17.280
<v Speaker 1>in the in the physics, uh, it's kind of the

0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:20.400
<v Speaker 1>tip of the spear and uh and philosophy is kind

0:06:20.400 --> 0:06:26.520
<v Speaker 1>of the shaft. And also having the philosophy in mind

0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:32.000
<v Speaker 1>really helps you better grasp the mathematics and physics of

0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:35.640
<v Speaker 1>the issue. Yeah, there's uh an article by George Divarsky

0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:39.000
<v Speaker 1>writing for Ion nine, and he talks about why infinity

0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:42.800
<v Speaker 1>is such an interest in and media concept and he says, quote,

0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:46.040
<v Speaker 1>as every chess player knows, each piece is assigned a

0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:50.320
<v Speaker 1>numerical value according to its tactical importance and strength These

0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:54.680
<v Speaker 1>values range from one ponds to nine the queen, and

0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:56.880
<v Speaker 1>are often used to keep a kind of score as

0:06:56.960 --> 0:06:59.760
<v Speaker 1>the game progresses. But he says the King is a

0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:04.480
<v Speaker 1>signed infinite value, and for a very good reason. He says,

0:07:04.560 --> 0:07:08.400
<v Speaker 1>losing the king is fatal. It's instant game over, regardless

0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:10.640
<v Speaker 1>of whatever else might be happening in the match. The

0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:14.600
<v Speaker 1>King's worth therefore cannot be bound within a finite set

0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:17.520
<v Speaker 1>of values. And he goes on to say therein lies

0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:22.000
<v Speaker 1>another kind of infinity death right because you kin gets

0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:24.920
<v Speaker 1>knocked out, as he says, it's game over. And he says,

0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:27.440
<v Speaker 1>assuming that nothing awaits us in the afterlife, the termination

0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:30.440
<v Speaker 1>of our lives represents a kind of eternity. It's an

0:07:30.440 --> 0:07:35.280
<v Speaker 1>internity of nothingness, but an internity nonetheless. Indeed, I mean,

0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:39.440
<v Speaker 1>infinity is often a concept in the religions and worldviews.

0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:41.240
<v Speaker 1>And and you go back to our episode on the

0:07:41.240 --> 0:07:44.160
<v Speaker 1>problem of mortality, I mean, that's that the key to

0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:46.600
<v Speaker 1>that is our struggling with the whole question, you know,

0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:49.480
<v Speaker 1>we what does it mean that we're not infinite? We're finite?

0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:52.040
<v Speaker 1>And maybe could we become infinite? And is there anything

0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:55.280
<v Speaker 1>about us or humanity or the universe that is infinite.

0:07:55.520 --> 0:07:58.280
<v Speaker 1>And chance is also such an interesting concept because another

0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:02.520
<v Speaker 1>uh interplay between chess and infinity is of course that

0:08:02.600 --> 0:08:05.720
<v Speaker 1>there are there are a finite number of chess games

0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:08.520
<v Speaker 1>start to finish when you start thinking about, all right,

0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:11.040
<v Speaker 1>I could move this, uh, this pond, and then my

0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:13.280
<v Speaker 1>opponent could move this pond, and then all the moves

0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:15.760
<v Speaker 1>that could they could go, you know, they could transcend

0:08:15.880 --> 0:08:18.800
<v Speaker 1>from the from that point there there's a finite number

0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:21.880
<v Speaker 1>of chess games that exist, uh, and it's beyond our

0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:25.440
<v Speaker 1>human ability to comprehend them all. But but there is

0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:27.320
<v Speaker 1>a limit. If you look, if you were to look

0:08:27.360 --> 0:08:30.480
<v Speaker 1>at a map of the universe of chess from an

0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:33.080
<v Speaker 1>impossibly high leveled where you could see it all, you

0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:36.839
<v Speaker 1>could see the collection here are the chess games, all

0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:39.679
<v Speaker 1>the chess games that are possible. Yeah, and that's it's

0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:43.400
<v Speaker 1>such an elegant metaphor for us grappling with the concept.

0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:46.800
<v Speaker 1>And you can really see why philosophers get bound up

0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:49.319
<v Speaker 1>in the idea of infinity, because the idea is if

0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:54.120
<v Speaker 1>if you could solve infinity, you could solve meaning, and

0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:57.439
<v Speaker 1>if you solve meaning, you could maybe solve death, or

0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:01.120
<v Speaker 1>maybe you could even prove the existence of God for

0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:04.200
<v Speaker 1>some philosophers. All Right, we're gonna take a quick break

0:09:04.200 --> 0:09:06.200
<v Speaker 1>and we come back. We're gonna talk about some of

0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:11.480
<v Speaker 1>the notable philosophers and thinkers throughout the ages that have

0:09:11.559 --> 0:09:20.000
<v Speaker 1>taken their minds and tried to contain within it infinity.

0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:24.960
<v Speaker 1>All Right, we're back, and we're discussing infinity. We're discussing

0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:28.000
<v Speaker 1>the history of infinity in the way that various great

0:09:28.000 --> 0:09:31.719
<v Speaker 1>thinkers throughout the ages have have tackled the topic. And

0:09:31.800 --> 0:09:34.439
<v Speaker 1>I actually got to hear Philip Clayton, the theo logian

0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:37.880
<v Speaker 1>and philosopher, discussed this at the World Science Festival few

0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:40.959
<v Speaker 1>years back. Uh And he in fact highlighted several of

0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:44.160
<v Speaker 1>these individuals we're gonna discuss right here. Um. A good

0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:46.600
<v Speaker 1>starting point is to go back to the fifth fifth

0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:51.960
<v Speaker 1>century b c e. To the philosopher Zeno of Elia. Uh. Now,

0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:55.679
<v Speaker 1>he introduced the concept in the West of infinity, playing

0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:59.360
<v Speaker 1>on an earlier idea of the boundless by an Aximander,

0:09:59.760 --> 0:10:01.800
<v Speaker 1>which show you have to think think about this. Put

0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:04.640
<v Speaker 1>yourself in the mindset of the ancient Greeks. You know,

0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:07.160
<v Speaker 1>if you're big on architecture and picking out the form

0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:10.479
<v Speaker 1>of things and here's the scary concept of the boundless

0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:13.280
<v Speaker 1>of the infinite, and so Zino came up with several

0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:16.680
<v Speaker 1>different paradox Zeno's paradox is including Achilles and the tortoise,

0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:20.680
<v Speaker 1>which is an interesting little thought experiment that if you

0:10:20.800 --> 0:10:23.360
<v Speaker 1>if you really focus on it too much, it means

0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:26.960
<v Speaker 1>that that movement isn't really possible. It gets kind of crazy.

0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:28.920
<v Speaker 1>But the basic idea here is that if a tortoise

0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:32.679
<v Speaker 1>has a headstart in a race against the mythic Achilles,

0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:36.079
<v Speaker 1>then Achilles can never actually catch up to the tortoise.

0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:38.600
<v Speaker 1>It's gonna take the Achilles a certain amount of time

0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:40.760
<v Speaker 1>to reach the point where the tortoise stopped. And then

0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:43.240
<v Speaker 1>you have all these different increments in the UH, the

0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:47.160
<v Speaker 1>shrinking space between the two UH. And so it means

0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:51.239
<v Speaker 1>that something finite can be divided an infinite number of times.

0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:53.960
<v Speaker 1>And I've seen it pointed out that that if you

0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:57.240
<v Speaker 1>if you have a mortgage or any kind of arrangement

0:10:57.240 --> 0:10:59.120
<v Speaker 1>with a bank on a loan, you can see that

0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:02.080
<v Speaker 1>that's possible because it seems like they find a way

0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:04.920
<v Speaker 1>to take a finite amount of money and make paying

0:11:04.920 --> 0:11:07.640
<v Speaker 1>it back last forever. What I like about this thought

0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:11.719
<v Speaker 1>experiment is that it really illustrates this concept of infinite continuum,

0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:14.280
<v Speaker 1>this continuum that goes on and on forever and ever,

0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:17.120
<v Speaker 1>even though you have these little finite parts of it,

0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:22.400
<v Speaker 1>that that Tortoise and Achilles are forever divided by a

0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:25.360
<v Speaker 1>certain space of time. Do you move onto another notable

0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:29.439
<v Speaker 1>Greek thinker, there's of course Pythagoras, Greek philosopher and mathematician,

0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:32.440
<v Speaker 1>invented the notion of mathematics that which can be learned,

0:11:32.880 --> 0:11:35.560
<v Speaker 1>and he said that that each integer has its own

0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:40.200
<v Speaker 1>spiritual meaning. Most notably, he launched the Pythagoryan theorem. Uh.

0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:42.640
<v Speaker 1>Just to to run through that one again, said the

0:11:42.679 --> 0:11:45.360
<v Speaker 1>square of a hypothenuse is equal to the sum of

0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:47.760
<v Speaker 1>the squares of the other two sides. If you plug

0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:50.520
<v Speaker 1>some ones in there. Uh, And the square root of

0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:54.560
<v Speaker 1>two requires infinite digits with no repeating patterns. You can

0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:58.240
<v Speaker 1>see infinity popping up right, because I mean, we've all

0:11:58.280 --> 0:12:02.040
<v Speaker 1>encountered that in in in our even basic mathematics classrooms.

0:12:02.040 --> 0:12:04.840
<v Speaker 1>You have that number and it has a remainder that

0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:08.120
<v Speaker 1>just that repeats forever, and you just have to give

0:12:08.200 --> 0:12:10.320
<v Speaker 1>up on it after a while, because the human mind

0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:13.480
<v Speaker 1>can only deal with so much so that you have

0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:17.599
<v Speaker 1>this infinite continuum the basis of that with Zino, with Pythagoras,

0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:20.280
<v Speaker 1>you have infinite digits just going on and on, no

0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:22.920
<v Speaker 1>repeating pattern. And then you have the Jain religion, the

0:12:22.960 --> 0:12:27.400
<v Speaker 1>Maharivad years ago, who begin to look at the infinite

0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:30.560
<v Speaker 1>and pars it in terms of different types. And they're

0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:32.920
<v Speaker 1>coming up with the concepts of an infinite length and

0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:38.959
<v Speaker 1>infinite volume, the concept of innumerable as represented by in

0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:43.880
<v Speaker 1>and now we have even more building blocks of conceiving

0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:49.000
<v Speaker 1>of infinity again within the field of mathematics, even though

0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:52.760
<v Speaker 1>these are philosophers essentially grappling with grappling with the idea

0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:55.559
<v Speaker 1>of infinity. Yeah, and in fact different infinities. And that's

0:12:55.559 --> 0:12:58.000
<v Speaker 1>where things start getting really weird, when you start realizing

0:12:58.000 --> 0:13:02.200
<v Speaker 1>there's not just the one infinity. They're different takes on infinity. Um.

0:13:02.240 --> 0:13:04.920
<v Speaker 1>This leads us to Aristotle. Of course, everything seems to

0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:07.000
<v Speaker 1>come back around the Aristotle when you start talking about

0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:11.840
<v Speaker 1>um history of thought, especially in Western traditions um and uh.

0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:15.080
<v Speaker 1>He found that with with actual infinities, physics doesn't work

0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:17.920
<v Speaker 1>that well. And we'll discuss more about this later. But

0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:20.640
<v Speaker 1>Aristotle said that there exists no actual infinities in the

0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:23.600
<v Speaker 1>physical world, so he'd banished them two more or less.

0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:27.440
<v Speaker 1>The realm of forms um and you can count. In

0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:28.960
<v Speaker 1>the basis here is you can count as long as

0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:31.720
<v Speaker 1>you want you can, but you experience finite results in

0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:34.560
<v Speaker 1>a finite lifetime. You can divide all day or you're

0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:37.200
<v Speaker 1>gonna run out of time. So you see this division

0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:43.920
<v Speaker 1>between between. So even though we're talking about infinity, where

0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:48.640
<v Speaker 1>of course finite minds and finite bodies and finite world. Yeah,

0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:52.480
<v Speaker 1>and this he describes as the notion of potential infinity.

0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:54.400
<v Speaker 1>And I like this because it kind of it's almost

0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:58.679
<v Speaker 1>like straddling offense between does infinity exists and does infinity

0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:02.920
<v Speaker 1>not exist? It kind of saying there's a potential for infinity.

0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:05.559
<v Speaker 1>And other words, if you have a line mathematics that

0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:08.440
<v Speaker 1>goes on and on forever, it exists there, but in

0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:12.160
<v Speaker 1>the physical world you have a finite line. Yeah. It

0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:14.040
<v Speaker 1>kind of reminds me of being in a Sunday school

0:14:14.080 --> 0:14:16.920
<v Speaker 1>class when I was a kid, and and I was

0:14:16.960 --> 0:14:19.840
<v Speaker 1>always one of the problematic Sunday school kids who would

0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:23.160
<v Speaker 1>want to ask about the really difficult stuff and or

0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:25.280
<v Speaker 1>the really crazy stuff. So I would always ask about

0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:28.040
<v Speaker 1>the Book of Revelation, and I remember this one Sunday

0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:29.640
<v Speaker 1>school techer. He would always just say, I don't worry

0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:31.920
<v Speaker 1>about that, just don't even don't just forget about all

0:14:31.960 --> 0:14:34.240
<v Speaker 1>that stuff, because that only worry about the stuff that

0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:36.200
<v Speaker 1>directly relates to your life. And because that's just a

0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:38.240
<v Speaker 1>bunch of you know, because it's dragons and stuff right

0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:40.480
<v Speaker 1>at the end of times, its codes and all. And

0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:42.840
<v Speaker 1>so you see a bit of that in this separation

0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:46.600
<v Speaker 1>between the between you know, infinities and the finite, right,

0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:50.200
<v Speaker 1>because we are finite and the infinity is ultimately beyond us,

0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:53.840
<v Speaker 1>all right. Another person who is exploring this notion is

0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:58.920
<v Speaker 1>thirteenth century theologian Thomas Aquinas. We've talked about him before too, yes,

0:14:59.000 --> 0:15:01.840
<v Speaker 1>and he was very much to focus on the quality

0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:04.680
<v Speaker 1>of existence rather than the quantity. And it's at least

0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:06.840
<v Speaker 1>as far as infinity is concerned. So he was saying

0:15:06.880 --> 0:15:10.480
<v Speaker 1>that God uh is infinite in quality more so than

0:15:10.520 --> 0:15:12.960
<v Speaker 1>in quantity. So he sees it more as a mode

0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:17.400
<v Speaker 1>of existence. And he identified a separation between mathematical infinity

0:15:17.440 --> 0:15:20.800
<v Speaker 1>and religious infinity. So we see a curious principle emerge

0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:25.000
<v Speaker 1>out of acquaintas is thinking here, even an infinite God

0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:30.400
<v Speaker 1>cannot create an infinite object. So think about that. Yeah,

0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:33.160
<v Speaker 1>now you have Nicholas of Cusa in the fifteenth century.

0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:37.160
<v Speaker 1>He's a philosopher who says everything is included in the

0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:42.520
<v Speaker 1>infinite heresy. Heresy, that's the reaction from the crowd in

0:15:42.560 --> 0:15:45.760
<v Speaker 1>the third and fifteenth century. Uh So, therefore, with this model,

0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:49.840
<v Speaker 1>you would have the world itself um being inside God.

0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:54.960
<v Speaker 1>And he used mathematical examples to describe this God world model.

0:15:55.080 --> 0:15:57.280
<v Speaker 1>And the crutch really is that God is the circle

0:15:57.320 --> 0:16:02.360
<v Speaker 1>whose center is everywhere, and the circ conference is therefore nowhere.

0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:06.200
<v Speaker 1>And this is called a coincidence of opposites because now

0:16:06.200 --> 0:16:08.840
<v Speaker 1>you have humans that the animals that stand at the

0:16:08.880 --> 0:16:12.960
<v Speaker 1>boundary between the eternal and the finite. And here's an

0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:16.640
<v Speaker 1>interesting when this comes from the seventeenth century Jewish philosopher

0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:19.920
<v Speaker 1>Baruk Spinoza, and he was actually kicked out of the

0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:23.960
<v Speaker 1>synagogue for allegedly arguing that God has a body. This

0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:27.040
<v Speaker 1>is where we see metaphysics meeting geometry. Said, if God

0:16:27.120 --> 0:16:30.200
<v Speaker 1>is infinite, then God is the one substance, and the

0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:33.680
<v Speaker 1>substance must have infinite attributes, and we must all be

0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:36.360
<v Speaker 1>modes of the one, which all sounds kind of nice

0:16:36.360 --> 0:16:37.960
<v Speaker 1>and if you feel good to read, I don't see

0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:40.000
<v Speaker 1>why they had to kick him out. It's very gaya

0:16:40.200 --> 0:16:44.640
<v Speaker 1>s so, so in this God is not the personal god.

0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:47.440
<v Speaker 1>God in nature one the highest ethic is to live

0:16:47.480 --> 0:16:49.840
<v Speaker 1>in accordance with the laws of nature and in doing

0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:53.560
<v Speaker 1>so be a part of the infinite. So would what

0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:57.440
<v Speaker 1>people were really disgusted by a pen which is how

0:16:57.560 --> 0:17:00.920
<v Speaker 1>terrible to live one with nature? Is that you know,

0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:03.880
<v Speaker 1>he's they're talking about a God that is, you know,

0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:09.919
<v Speaker 1>amorphous and infinite and almost unknowable except by nature. And

0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:13.560
<v Speaker 1>to say that nature might be greater than man at

0:17:13.600 --> 0:17:15.560
<v Speaker 1>that point, obviously would be sort of like, what are

0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:17.399
<v Speaker 1>you talking about? What we're trying to get away from

0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:22.360
<v Speaker 1>our animal selves and you're saying that this God has

0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:25.399
<v Speaker 1>a body in the form of everything. Yeah. Plus, I

0:17:25.440 --> 0:17:28.159
<v Speaker 1>mean he's saying, you know, God is boundless. God is

0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:30.920
<v Speaker 1>you know, ultimately not something you can know. You can't

0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:34.240
<v Speaker 1>contain God, and uh, And really that's what religion is

0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:38.639
<v Speaker 1>all about, containing God, shackling God, creating narrow definitions for

0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:42.600
<v Speaker 1>what God is and what God wants. Yeah, little God kidges. Yeah,

0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:46.000
<v Speaker 1>that's my take. Anyway. What I really like about Spinezza

0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:48.960
<v Speaker 1>is that he wrote ethics in the guise of geometry.

0:17:49.000 --> 0:17:53.040
<v Speaker 1>So he's calling out himself and pretty much saying, I

0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:55.680
<v Speaker 1>intend to to put this in the guise of geometry,

0:17:55.720 --> 0:17:57.960
<v Speaker 1>but I'm saying some pretty radical things for the time.

0:17:58.359 --> 0:18:00.400
<v Speaker 1>All Right, we're gonna take another quick break, and when

0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:02.520
<v Speaker 1>we come back, we're going to talk a little bit

0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:05.280
<v Speaker 1>about where this leads us in the pool of the

0:18:05.320 --> 0:18:07.960
<v Speaker 1>infinite and where are we hope to move on to

0:18:08.080 --> 0:18:17.720
<v Speaker 1>in the next episode. All Right, we are back, and

0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:21.320
<v Speaker 1>hopefully we have laid the groundwork for infinity, what it's not,

0:18:21.560 --> 0:18:24.080
<v Speaker 1>and maybe inching toward a concept of what it is.

0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:27.600
<v Speaker 1>Um you know, the question comes up, does infinity exist?

0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:31.280
<v Speaker 1>Is it like that perfect circle that we've talked about before.

0:18:31.320 --> 0:18:34.200
<v Speaker 1>Is it something that that only exists within mathematics? Does

0:18:34.240 --> 0:18:36.560
<v Speaker 1>it exist within mathematics? It kind of goes to step

0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:38.959
<v Speaker 1>even further than that, which is why the next episode

0:18:39.000 --> 0:18:42.080
<v Speaker 1>is going to deal heavily with us and uh, you know,

0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:43.800
<v Speaker 1>because of then we kind of get into those questions

0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:46.760
<v Speaker 1>that we've grappled with before, we've unwrestled with. Maybe that's

0:18:46.760 --> 0:18:49.919
<v Speaker 1>a better way to describe it is map intrinsic or

0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:54.080
<v Speaker 1>extrinsic to humans. And then that brings up the question

0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:58.760
<v Speaker 1>about infinity itself. Do we exist within infinity? Can you

0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:01.119
<v Speaker 1>exist outside of it? Which brings up the question of

0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:04.159
<v Speaker 1>time existing in and out of time? So all of

0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:07.640
<v Speaker 1>these concepts are bound up with one another and it's ah,

0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:12.080
<v Speaker 1>some good territory to chew over. Yeah. Like another big

0:19:12.119 --> 0:19:15.600
<v Speaker 1>one is when is infinity and acceptable answer to a question?

0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:18.520
<v Speaker 1>Because if if I were to ask my son how

0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:21.560
<v Speaker 1>many cashes would you like and he was to say

0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:24.639
<v Speaker 1>infinite cashows, that would be a problem because I don't

0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:27.960
<v Speaker 1>have infinite cashoes and he cannot eat infinite cashows. I

0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:30.159
<v Speaker 1>don't think you should have more than four, to be honest,

0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:33.880
<v Speaker 1>there's a thought experiment there, my friend. Um, but I think, yeah,

0:19:34.000 --> 0:19:37.280
<v Speaker 1>what this all gets down to is that complete knowledge

0:19:37.400 --> 0:19:40.520
<v Speaker 1>is impossible. Yeah, we've talked about this and they all

0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:45.960
<v Speaker 1>accept for Chuck Norris, who has counted to infinity twice

0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:49.440
<v Speaker 1>And do do you check out the next episode because

0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:53.119
<v Speaker 1>we do have some really great thought experiments in there, uh,

0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:56.280
<v Speaker 1>including the infinite Hotel. Yeah, you get to choose the

0:19:56.280 --> 0:19:58.720
<v Speaker 1>point during the podcast when you go Matt, We're not

0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:01.560
<v Speaker 1>going to tell you when lose your mind. Hey. In

0:20:01.600 --> 0:20:03.680
<v Speaker 1>the meantime, make sure you've got to stuff to Blow

0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:05.520
<v Speaker 1>your Mind dot com. That's where you'll find all the

0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:08.440
<v Speaker 1>podcast episodes, and particularly on on this one. In recent

0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:11.639
<v Speaker 1>episodem you know, trying to include links to up other

0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:15.840
<v Speaker 1>topics that we've covered, being blog form, video form, etcetera

0:20:16.000 --> 0:20:18.120
<v Speaker 1>that are related, as well as links out to some

0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:21.679
<v Speaker 1>important resources related to the podcast. If you are listening

0:20:21.680 --> 0:20:25.240
<v Speaker 1>to and if you have any um infinite ideas that

0:20:25.359 --> 0:20:28.520
<v Speaker 1>you want to express in a finite number of characters,

0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:31.200
<v Speaker 1>you can do that by sending us an email at

0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:38.640
<v Speaker 1>blow the Mind at how stuffars dot com for more

0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:40.919
<v Speaker 1>on this and thousands of other topics. Does it how

0:20:41.000 --> 0:20:43.600
<v Speaker 1>stuff works dot com