Can the universe be truly infinite, or must it have an end?

By Geoffrey Moore

Author – The Infinite Staircase: What the Universe Tells Us About Life, Ethics, and Mortality

This is the second of three questions on time and infinity that Microsoft CoPilot deemed a perennial challenge to address.  The two words that dominate it are infinite and end, but I think the more significant ones are can, truly, and must.  Let me explain.

Infinity is an idea we first encounter when we learn the number system and realize that it has no endpoint.  If we stay with math long enough, we also learn about infinitesimals that asymptotically approach, but again can never actually reach, zero.  Two forms of endlessness—so far, so good.

Now, when we take this to everyday life, we realize that everything we experience is finite—even Thanksgiving dinners when you are seated between Aunt May and Uncle Arthur.  Every space we encounter eventually comes to an end.  Every time period we experience does too.  Nothing goes on forever. 

The challenge the universe poses, however, is that it is not something—it is everything!  Is everything finite or infinite?   How can we possibly explain something that we can never experience? In this case, we are talking about infinity, but we could just as well be talking about omniscience or omnipresence, or immortality.  The ideas themselves are clear, but they run counter to anything we can verify.

This is where the words can, truly, and must come in.  They represent our phenomenological self, the self that experiences life in the world, seeking to assert its strategy for living.  We are calling on words of verification, ones we use day in and day out, to test the validity of claims. When we apply them to concepts like infinity, however, they just seem to slip slide away.  We know intuitively they raise questions that cannot be answered, but we find ourselves asking them anyway because that’s what we do.

That in turn can bring us to the edge of religion, or Zen, or mindfulness, or any other pathway to spiritual experience.  As vulnerable creatures, we long for something that is ultimately stable, that is beyond change, that can anchor our hopes, assuage our fears, confirm our values, and secure our faith.  If we do not find it, we must retreat into some form of Stoicism that uses reason and counsel to contain and protect our psyche.  If we do find it, it is game-changing, allowing us to set aside verification in favor of trust, even though we cannot explain where that trust can or must come from truly.

That said, there are times when we can find ourselves caught out in between, neither believing nor disbelieving, sort of sitting on the sidelines but not particularly happily.  At such points, I propose we might take recourse in wonder.  (The fashionable word these days is awe, but that strikes me as too adult a concept.)  Wonder is what children do, and it is what attracts us to them.  It makes no claims per se.  It just connects us innocently to that which is beyond comprehension.  We retain a capacity for wonder even after we cease to practice it often.  Perhaps it is time to resurrect it.  It may not be the end goal, but it is not bad for a start.

That’s what I think.  What do you think?

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