number help: It is known that there is an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. - Help.com

But we don’t live in the universe, we live on just one planet, which we will probably never leave. More than that, we live in one country, in one city, in one neighborhood (at least one at a time).

Perspective.

See this is people drive themselves mad.

This is how*

No, this is someone getting too caught up in numbers.

But then they start moving onto other things like we’re actually really insignificant and my life doesn’t really mean anything in the grand scheme of things…it’s a slippery slope.

But yeah you’re probably right, Xeno.

The largest flaw in this is that the universe is ever-expanding, therefore it DOES have limits. The reason we use the term infinite is because it’s unknown to us. We, at this point, are unable to calculate the true size of the universe, even though we know there is one.

Now, other flaws include, but aren’t limited to:

No one said other life forms have to be on a planet.

No one said a species has to exist in a form we can comprehend. (Beings of energy, light, and even pure thought have been a popular theme in SciFi for decades.)

You’re dealing with math, so to say that all the living things… even just all the Humans on Earth are negligible is a calculation error.

I was going to write out some equations to prove it here, but it looks like I’ve been beaten to it.

Red_Sky wrote:
it’s a slippery slope.

Which is a logical fallacy. They teach you not to do that when you study Philosophy.

Something less than infinity is not necessarily finite. You could look up cantor on wikipedia for info on how infinities are usually considered mathematically.

djames361 wrote:
Sorry Xeno Dragon! Please feel free to throw out another way to approach this if you so desire.

No biggie. Math isn’t my thing anyway.

Numbers are a disease.

The thing about infinity is this.
You couldn’t count to it even you lived for 1000 years!

If the universe is infinite, then it would have infinite space.
It would therefore contain an infinite number of planets.
And even if not all of them were inhabited, there would still be an infinite number that were…

Infinity is not something to be comprehended lightly!

Another flaw… who says that an infinite space must contain infinite objects?

You could have a chess board with four sets of pieces, and it’d be full.

However, who says the pieces would keep the same density and configuration if you moved them to a basketball court? What if, for the sake of this example, a basketball court can fit X pieces. Who says X has to be reached? if X is 100, what if you only put the same 64 pieces that were on the chess board?

The universe is not evenly spaced out and ordered in single file. It’s random.

Now, my point here is this: Unless every inch of an infinite space is filled, the number of objects filling it is not infinite. There IS a specific number of planets with life. We don’t know what it is, but it is a number. Therefore, not infinite.

Yes but infinity can fit an infinite amount it.
Yes, it doesn’t have to.
It is not flawed at all.

And your chess board example does not stipulate that the chess board in question is infinite. You are using finite examples to illustrate your point!

Just to illustrate the concept with manageable examples.

Dougie the Pisces wrote:
Yes but infinity can fit an infinite amount it.

The Universe isn’t infinite. It’s ever-expanding.

That’s fair enough.
But infinity is not a finite number.
And you can’t deal with as if it is.

Infinity fits nicely inside infinity.
If you add it to itself, it is still infinity.

And it has not been proven conclusively that the universe is not infinite, regardless of how compelling the scientific evidence may be.

And just because from our viewpoint, the objects in the universe appear to moving away from each other does not mean the universe is expanding.

So… Basically, OP had logic fail, and we DO all exist?

Thank goodness.

Ah, the philospher versus the scientist!
The debate continues, unending! lol

Dougie the Pisces wrote:
And just because from our viewpoint, the objects in the universe appear to moving away from each other does not mean the universe is expanding.

There’s far more to it than that. Science tends to be a bit complex. I don’t claim to understand it thoroughly, but I’ve read Stephen Hawkings’ books, and if anyone knows what he’d talking about, it’s him.

Here’s something relevant. http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/st…

I sometimes wonder Xeno, if anyone other than Stephen Hawking knows what Stephen Hawking is on about hehehe

I can follow his logic, but afterwards I have to look up everything he referenced, just to make sure.

Check out my latest post about the WorldWide Telescope for more cool stuff about the Universe.

this is the monkey and the piano paradox.

you will often here the theory that an with an infinate number of monkeys playing on an infinate number of pianos will result it some of then playing ‘God save the Queen’

this is in fact false, a smaller infinity of monekys will play ‘God save the Queen’ as there is no limit to the number of monkeys and pianos…

its a tricky one to solve…

but a simple solution is to only look at a section of the sample, then there is a limit and a definate answer. It all depends on what scale you are at, as humans we are pretty small and our lives are finite and there is a limit to what we can experiance, but for example, say that you were observing how many time a team won a football match;

after 1 match: (home) 1-0 (away)

you would not be incorrect in saying that the home team will always win as this is the only evidence you can base you statement on, for all you know this could always be the result

after 2 matches: 1-1

you would now be forced to drop your previous theory and say that it alternates between winners, making it even throughout

after 4 matches 3-1:

but that has changed again, you have to alter your theories based on your perception, and this pattern continues forever

this is a possible scenario:
after 10 matches: 6-4
after 100 matches: 32-68
after 1000 matches: 32-968
after 10000 matches: 5000-5000
after 100000 matches: 80000-20000
after 1000000 matches: 980000-20000

ect ect, each scale of perception can give a seemingly definate rule for the rates with each higher and lower levels of perception being able to display somthing completly different…

I subscribe to the belief that all possible outcomes exist at the same time.

wolfsilverwolf wrote:
I subscribe to the belief that all possible outcomes exist at the same time.

correct, it all depends on where you are on the huge spectrum of space/time and the higher dimensions…

I always heard it said as a million monkeys on a million typewriters would eventually type out Shakespeare.

Commander Ikari wrote:
So… Basically, OP had logic fail, and we DO all exist?

I do, how about you?

A smaller infinity?
Sounds like yet another oxymoron to me!

Commander Ikari wrote:
I always heard it said as a million monkeys on a million typewriters would eventually type out Shakespeare.

Yeah, I think this is the more common one. Same concept, though.

haha, this is a Douglas Adams quote.
one of my favorites too. ^^