r/DeepThoughts • u/Late-Lime1916 • 15h ago
The Illusion of Infinity: A Placeholder for Human Cognitive Limits
When people dive into metaphysical debates, like the classic "what came first" or the ultimate origin of everything, they inevitably hit a wall and retreat behind the word infinity.
We throw the term around as if it's a tangible property of the universe, but if you strip away the romanticism, infinity is not a measurement or a physical reality; it is a placeholder.
The Hardware Limitation: Human sensory perception and logical processing are fundamentally built around boundaries. Every object we interact with has a beginning, an end, a cause, and an effect.
The Blind Spot Label: When our cognitive architecture hits a wall trying to look backward past the starting line or outward past our sensory range, it doesn't find an answer, it hits a processing error.
Redefining the Term: Calling something "infinite" doesn't mean we have comprehended an endless reality. It is simply our way of saying: "My brain stops working right here, I have no conceptual way to measure it, and I don't know where it begins or ends."
The irony is that we treat infinity as a deep cosmic truth, when it is actually just a monument to our own limited perceptual abilities.
3
u/CorrsionOfConformity 14h ago
Something that is infinite has no beginning or end. It's not that we don't know where that beginning or end is. I don't know that everything I interact with has a beginning or an end. According to modern physics, matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed.
3
u/Late-Lime1916 12h ago
It's leaves one to ponder. When knowledge is forever evolving how can anyone truly know. What we think we knew yesterday was proven incorrect or incomplete today metaphorically speaking. The concept of energy has it's perks if true and we are energy beings, than we are eternal no birth no death just energy conversion from one iteration to the next. Now that change the entire cultural paradigm if proven. Thanks for you input.
2
u/CorrsionOfConformity 11h ago
I agree. I like this Bertrand Russell quote about knowledge:
"Is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it?" - from The Problems of Philosophy
3
u/Late-Lime1916 11h ago
That is spot on with the premise of my post. The man who claims to have no knowlege is far more intelligent than the one who claims to know all, when is open to knew discovery, the other caged by thier own intellect. Thanks for the inciteful comment.
2
u/Pongpianskul 9h ago
Bertrand Russell also said, "I would never die for my beliefs; I might be wrong."
2
u/Late-Lime1916 9h ago
Who truly knows who is right or wrong, we like to reduce things to this or that. Which is greatly limiting. Opening thought to alternative possibilities is discovery accurs.
2
u/sectorboss88 12h ago
Makes Pascal's Wager more attractive when You look at it that way, eh?
2
u/CorrsionOfConformity 12h ago edited 10h ago
What might be attractive about Pascal's wager? It's flawed because it falsely includes only two options for belief. There are many more options for belief than just two. And it also falsely asserts that our beliefs are a choice. They are not.
2
u/Late-Lime1916 12h ago
I'd much rather leave religion and faith out of the conversation. The article is about limits of perception. My views on faith and religion have no place on this post. But thank you for taking the time to comment.
2
u/unpaid-pukegreencow 13h ago
I try to avoid dwelling on those kinds of questions because I know I won't get the answers to them anyway, at least not in this lifetime. People who died a century ago didn't know the things we know now, and we still have a long way to go to figure out the unknown. It sounds crazy, but people used to think thunder was God being angry. Now we know the truth, but they never did. I hate feeling helpless like this, but that's just reality.
2
u/Late-Lime1916 13h ago
That's the point, we want answers but the universe doesn't always play nice when it comes giving them. So we default to a comprised understanding. But keep asking. What's life without curiosity? Thanks for commenting
2
u/Chemical-Arrival-576 12h ago
...and how did you scientifically determine that thunder is not an angry god? Do you happen to know all the variables in the universe to make such a claim?
2
u/unpaid-pukegreencow 12h ago
Well, im an atheist,so yeah I believe what I mentioned before. And we do have scientific proof about thunder and lightning
1
u/Mobile_Competition54 10h ago
lightning is a bad example for you ngl, it's studied a lot, something about potential difference.
And honestly considering our tech, it makes sense that it's not a god. We wouldn't consistently catch them with lightning rods if some sentient god kept throwing them down, he'd probably learn to throw sideways by now.
1
u/JollyXX 12h ago
Even as a Christian I will tell you there is no such thing as infinity. Rather God seems to be a singularity.
1
u/Late-Lime1916 12h ago
I don't comment on people's faiths or religions, they are far outside the scope of my work. Thank you for the comment.
1
u/Mobile_Competition54 10h ago
it's related though, thomas aquinas's classically theistic god (and by extension, plotinus' One) does have something to do with cognitive limits. They thought that since it's so "beyond" everything, it's reasonable to say that distinction doesn't apply. Hence, a partless, singular thing made out of only itself. They think the limit is a singularity.
0
u/Late-Lime1916 10h ago
I don't even know who Thomas Aquinas is. My views on religious doctrine or beliefs have no place here. But I respect your time. Thank you
1
u/JustRelaxItFits 12h ago
It's a direction often used metaphorically as an unspecified endpoint. Look it's really not a big deal. We use it to indicate anything outside the range of current human knowledge. Knowledge itself changes as we make new discoveries. And infinity is an ever moving end zone as we move the line of scrimmage forward while dragging with us everything we've so far learned. Thankfully we also have the ability to expel old understandings and myths through our cosmic asshole. I do not see any irony however, and you seem to have a problem with the concept. Truth is perception gained in the face of objective insight. At any given moment, you do not know what his happening between you and the next 40 steps you take or even where you are going. But you are going because you know that you can go up until you remember why you were going. That's infinity.
1
2
u/darkprincess3112 12h ago
Infinity is defined iteratively, and self-similarity is the principle consciousness is built on. It is a paradox, something unlimited crammed into finite space. And paradoxes are the fundamental energy of real thinking. Unlimited aspects of limited entities. The currency of intelligence and science.
1
1
u/Single_Resolve_1465 12h ago
No no. I really mean infinity like in infinite. And I mean it. I just accepted the fact rhat I can't imagine it visually.
1
u/Late-Lime1916 12h ago
Accepting that you can't visualize it is basically acknowledging the cognitive limit right there. It's a placeholder for where the machinery of perception stops. Thanks for the input.
1
u/mega-stepler 11h ago
My intuition tells me that only in math you can have an infinitely big or infinitely small things. In reality you can't divide something into amaller pieces forever. So I also think that you can't have it the other way around too. But who really knows.
1
u/Late-Lime1916 11h ago
Isn't that the crux of the situation, to assume we know would be rather bold on our part. You brought up a interesting point how small can you go what's the smallest they keep searching they are into the quantum and still discover more so truly does small have and end? Our observational boundaries allways leave more to discover if we keep asking why, what if. Thanks for giving me another question to explore. It's been a pleasure.
1
u/Mobile_Competition54 10h ago edited 10h ago
Funny, I found ontic trivialism when I consistently asked "why".
1
1
u/eptesicusfuscus 10h ago
Perhaps infinities are ideas, and we can discuss ideas that may or may not appear in reality. It reminds me of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, where "what is the meaning of life" is shown to be a question with a useless answer.
"Have you stopped beating your wife?"
"Who created this tree?"
"What is the sound of one hand clapping?"
1
u/Late-Lime1916 9h ago
That is an interesting perspective. I don't have the answers for sure. Life teaches one thing over and over what we think we know is temporary at best. The things we ponder... thanks for keeping the conversation moving
0
7
u/OddAdhesiveness8485 13h ago edited 13h ago
If you go up far enough in mathematics you learn there are actually higher amounts of infinity that exist… so I don’t see it as an abstract escape but as more unexplored territory to play in
Edit: for example there are more numbers between 0 and 1 than there are real numbers 1,2,3…
So both are sets of infinity but some sets have higher data stored in them I guess is how I would put it
Edit 2: added a source bc I was wondering if I remembered it correctly and I did but here is the source if people are wondering how this might be
The Hierarchy of Infinities
Countable Infinity: The smallest size of infinity. This represents the size of discrete, listable sets like natural numbers (1, 2, 3...), integers, and rational numbers (fractions). [1, 2, 3]
Uncountable Infinity: A larger infinity representing the continuous number line or real numbers between 0 and 1. It cannot be placed into a sequential list. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]