There is a question that hovers in the air every day of our existence. Whatever your belief system or lack thereof, there has been a point in your life, or more likely, years in your life when you were reduced to questions. What is real? Is there more that this? Is there something after I die? What lies beyond this physical realm? With the exception of those with a faith so hard that they are incapable of understanding that faith is not knowledge and fact, nobody really knows. Arguably those with faith do not know either, they simple have decided on their truth and hold fast to it with an unshakable belief beyond fact.
The question of why we are here, in this plane, on this planet, as part of this life is something that has been discussed, dissected, debated and pondered for as long as people have had thoughts. Consistently and constantly in the history of humankind we have created stories, myths and religious practices surrounding our suppositions on where we came from and why we are here.
In the beginning it was mostly about why bad things happened. To explain disasters and to create context and stories around events. Some anthropologists have even suggested that many of the early stories were built more to aid in remembering what happened than to explain extraneous occurrences. Hero’s became Gods as their stories of survival merged into the mists of time. The stories gave people a means or way of solving something or showed how people could do something in a better way. The retelling of the stories and embellishments that gave the story meaning and context in everyday life added to the story.
I won’t try to talk about the origins of spirituality, religion or the beginnings of the understanding that there is something more than just the physical. Anthropologists and Sociologists spend enough time debating the starting points and many books have been written to discuss the intellectual developments that have lead humans to their current understandings of spiritual matters. A discussion of this outside the halls of learning would undoubtedly devolve quickly, particularly if some of the participants belong to different faiths. It is impossible to have this discussion with a person whose belief system is based on a fundamental and literal interpretation of any text, tome or authoritative source of the beliefs of a faith. Those literal interpretations stifle debate and present a singular worldview that is not open to alternate interpretations or discussion. A fundamentalist biblical scholar who has a literal belief in the bible can only state that his or her God started it all and met the original people who handed down the facts. Not a discussion but a dictatorial enunciation of an article of faith. It is unfortunately a common attitude, and much how we teach children or an early age. It makes sense to have such processes and understandings when you have a simple culture that you want to control, as the story contains a childlike quality that invites belief without conflict or question and allows people to dismiss the more complex questions from their minds.
It is these complex questions that are the most interesting. What is infinity? What is outside or our universe? How do you encompass the concept that something never, ever ends? These are the mind blowers that have driven human exploration and development. These are the thoughts that cannot make sense without letting go of the shackles of restraint that are created when we live in a physical body. The physicality of each individual constrains them to a limited view. It is the attempt to transcend that the mind needs to see something greater. Whether a person has faith or is an atheist matters not when you get to the infinite. The infinite is something that presents as a mystery – either a holy mystery or a fundamental mystery. Even the atheist must hold that infinity is a concept that must be accepted as an article of faith because no human can actually experience it.
Infinity. The nature of infinite is the basis for most of what we refer to as spirituality and religion. Infinity and that basic question of why we are conscious. Both key into the same sorts of spaces and qualities that create a space of interest in what is beyond this realm, beyond the boundaries of our existence.
Boundaries are a major point in the discussion of the infinite. Infinite is defined as “limitless or endless in space, extent or size; impossible to measure or calculate”. Meaning that infinity has no boundaries. This is antithetical to human physical existence. I use physical to keep the statement sane. We as individuals, as a species and as inhabitants on this planet measure, note and experience everything through measurement and boundaries. We mark the seasons, months, moons, tides and years. We spend effort on measuring success and failure. We judge and measure. It is almost as though human experience can be defined and described through our penchant for measuring. But infinity can’t be measured.
Every talk of God, the gods, the Gods or whatever starts with a tale of creation. Every religion has their creation story. Even scientists and the most atheistic among us have found a story to tell of creation. How did we get here? How did the universe get here? What started it and what came before? All of this is part of the discussion of the infinite the understanding that there is an alpha and omega, a beginning and an end, a start and a finish. When did the sun start burning? When did the earth form? When did the first people show up? Where they human? Each piece presupposes a beginning and an end. Of course, everyone usually asks at some point “So what started it? The very question is an example of our limitation as a human being. It is baked into our DNA, and part of our very existence. We know that there was a point when we didn’t exist. When we cast our minds back we discover a time that was before we were. Usually we can ask someone older to tell us about it. And, in every school in the world there is a set of departments that define the human existence. Sociology, Anthropology, Archeology, and history. The studies of what happened and how we ended up where we are now.
There is also a point during this thought process when we begin to see ourselves and wonder where we are going. A certain maturity brings us to an understanding that there is a future. When will we end, and no one can say. This drives the other side of infinity. The end or omega point. From earliest times when humans began peering into the future and attempting to see beyond the now to the present day. Armageddon hounds us with the prophecies from religious people – having a facility to see or predict the future is rewarded highly in life. This propensity to know what will happen, to predict is what gave birth to the other side of education, the sciences. Sciences discover things. Usually they discover how things work, and mostly they are aimed at understanding what will happen when processes complete.
It is only understandable that we want to know what has happened and what is to become of us. But infinity does not lend itself to that. It is a credit to humankind that we can even define the concept. Just try, try the exercise of holding the concept of infinity in your mind. Think of the earth, the sun. The earth rotating around the sun. See the sun as a star in a field of starts and zoom out. See the Galaxy, all of the galaxies. You are envisioning yourself like a god looking at the myriad galaxies dotting the universe like stars in the sky. Now, turn around. What lies outside of this? If there is an outside is it the opposite? Does it have other galaxies? And what contains it?
As we grow and move from quarks to electrons to atoms to molecules to cells to planets to solar systems to galaxies, to universes – see that expansion – without end. Try to hold that picture and concept in your mind and allow it to be. Whole. Complete.
If you do this correctly, the first time you do, your mind will slide away from the concept of forever, from infinite from that understanding that things don’t end. This is the beginning of understanding and seeing the infinite. It isn’t about God or spirituality, it’s about expanding your ability to see things beyond the myopic limitations of starts and finishes, beginnings and ends.
Note1: Existence – are we just who we are? what is purpose? we have that biological drive to survive, to procreate to feed ourselves and create progeny. But is our consciousness born of that and what use is it. Does free will exist or do we act as collection of experiences that have created our present being?
Note2: Religion – arguments with atheism. Why do the religious assume that an atheist has no moral compass or boundary. In many discussions that occur those that have a specific faith often degenerate to pointing out that their moral compass is set by God and their faith. Without this they say the atheist is not constrained to behaviours that are acceptable and moral. The question that arises is: if they see this about atheists, is it because their faith and belief systems is all that keeps them from perpetrating sinful, immoral behaviours. Do they not have an innate moral bearing and is religion all that keeps them from antisocial, sociopathic behaviours? Is that why they fear so much and so many things?
