h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: On the infinity of the universe... - A815528
Author: Grand Moff Adon - U201702

This is the first thing that I have ever submitted for Peer Review...

What do you think?

Definitely worth putting in. It reads well. I'm sure the more scientific types will have more to say.

You can't link to anything that hasn't been Edited, though (although people have been known to link when they have two entries in Peer Review at once.

(As for the one about time, I thought that time was a function of on observer?)

Thanks for the advice...I've taken out the link.

As for the infinity of time, all we have are theories, so I might be wrong.

This reminds me of this great fragment of TRATEOTU:

"It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination."

However, I must say, this quotation contains many mistakes (of which DNA was highly probably aware).


I have no problem with an infinite universe that *doesn't* contain every sort of stuff. Imagine eg a universe that is infinite but only filled with matter within a certain sphere. Why not?

Moreover, the infinite universe if not the favourite model in modern cosmology, to say the least. Do you have a reference where I could learn more about the theory described in the article?

Well I'm a not-at-all-scientific type, but I do have something to say, which is 'Hmmm...'

"If the universe is indeed infinite, than there is an infinite amount of chances for anything to exist in that infinite amount of space."

The fact that there is a chance for something to exist is not proof of its existence. If there is an infinite number of chances that something exists, isn't there an equal number of chances that it doesn't exist?

So your conclusion: "Anything you can imagine that is possibly out there, and probably even some stuff you can't imagine, is out there!" is a non-sequitur. All you can say is that anything you can imagine that is possibly out there, and probably even some stuff you can't imagine, is possibly out there.

And again:

"Space is so infinitely huge that there has to be an alien somewhere that looks exactly like your imagined alien."

I would accept that Space is so infinitely huge that there is the possibility of an alien somewhere that looks exactly like your imagined alien - but you have not shown that there has to be such an alien. Indeed, unless you can prove otherwise, it may be that there are no aliens at all in the infinite universe, however many aliens I can imagine.

Very interesting.

Bels

Bels' brain works like mine, because those comments are exactly what I was thinking....

Grand Moff Adon (and of course anyone else) -- you may want to read A765029 (Olbers' Paradox) thoroughly, and then include it as a reference somewhere in the beginning of this piece, as one of the arguments *against* the infinity of the universe.

Well, although I don't think the article is waterproof, too, there is one thing that made me a little bit uncertain:

If you put atoms in a box, then thermodynamics says that they will reach every configuration that is not agains natural laws, all you have to do is to wait long enough.

Now, here we have infinite space and not infinite time, but be that as it may ... although I'm pretty sure that the article contains a mistake somewhere, I'm unable to say where it is. Therefore I asked the author for references.

The afore mentioned complaints are true. There is a chance that there is nothing out their in infinity. Nevertheless, that is only one chance in an infinite amount of chances. Thus, as DNA mentioned, anything divided by infinity is really close to zero (infinitely close, actually) and so (if the universe is infinite) there is an extremely thin likelyhood of that happening, but yes, it is possible. Thanks for all the input!

I'll change the article to appropriately represent your advice.

And that Olber's Paradox thing makes a good point against the infinity of time which I might quote in my "On the infinity of time..." article.

I've added a disclaimer to the article and included the term "extremely-probably-almost-definitely."

Sorry, but your disclaimer is not valid. You can't say how probable it is that the world looks like this or like that. Either you know how it is because you see it, or you don't know. In the latter case, everything is speculation.

How probable is god?

By the way, is this your theory or have you read about it somewhere?

Mathematically the theory and disclaimer are sound. With an infinite amount of chances for something to happen, it will almost definitely happen (infinitely close to 100%), although it is possible that the thing will not happen, though the chances are extremely thin (infinitely close to 0%.)

Say you had a deck of cards, and you picked cards from it at random and replaced them in the deck. If you did this for infinity, you'd probably draw every card...though it is remotely possible that you wouldn't.

I did not come up with the theory, though I have no references to where I heard it.

To me a deck of cards means 52 cards or thereabouts. But what if you had a deck with an infinite number of cards?

Mathematically 'infinitely close to 100%' and 'exacty 100%' are identical. But that's a minor point.

You say, 'With an infinite amount of chances for something to happen ...'. Well, you don't know whether there is anything to happen at all! You try to multiply a small number by infinity -- granted, then you get infinity. But if this 'small number' is zero? Then the result is undefined, and it may well be zero.

What is, eg, if some weird natural law forbids little green men (LGM) outside this galaxy? A crazy law, but possible. And the chances that such a law exists can't be determined. No way. And then the universe can be as big as you want, there are no LGM outside this galaxy by law.

Your theory may be sound under certain clearly defined premises. But in this general form it's easy to find counter-examples.

And all this apart from the fact that most cosmologists seem to assume that the universe is finite. So, according to state-of-the-art physics the basic premise of this theory is not fullfilled.

Exactly,
The universe is finite like everything else!!!
Anykind of matter has a beginning and an end in anykind of dimension.
The meaning of the word "infinity" or "god" is just an exemple that shows where the human imagination stops...

that means that either Cindy Crawford is somewhere out there gioving me an oil-massage or the universe is finite?



Interesting thoughts. And cool that you kept that entry succint and to the point.

But that reminded me of something else... that is many somethings elses.

1. You cannot define infinity from the inner part of the set of infinite stuff. So we will never ever be able to know which one is true. Gödel.

2. Fractals and Mandelbrot: Infinity isn't necessarily huge. The length of Britains coastline is infinite. It only depends on the scale you're using.

3. There's plenty (infinite) room at the bottom - Feynman (I love this guy) - goes along the same lines of 2.

4. Circles: You can walk around in circles and never come to an end, or never see where you started.

etc. etc...

Never mind my comments - they were just indpired by your Entry.

HELL

So you think that it's true?

To be honest, I doubt that. What follows is my own humble and personal opinion, but I want to be provoking in order to tease Adon a little bit: I don't think that it's suitable for the Edited Guide, because I don't think that it is cogent.

On the other hand, I find the subject very interesting and would be very happy about references. Maybe Adon (or whoever) could do some internet research?

In this sweeping form it is certainly not right; but maybe there is indeed a version that is robust.

What you are discussing here is on dimention of Nietzsche's theory of eternal return (it works equally well with eternity / time).

The article on Olbers' Paradox is really good, but does have one error (which in itself is a bit of a paradox) it suggests that "the universe is not infinite in time" because it has a starting point - the big bang. However, something can be infinate in one direction only - just because the time began, doesn't mean it's ever going to end necessarily, therefore it's still infinate.

Of course i got it wrong above, time is eternal, if it stats but doesn't end, but not infinate, which means without begining or end.

It's a shame we don't have an entry on Ininity. There are loads of unedited ones, including this one which includes some nice bits you might want to nick.

A294482

Cefpret? Was your comment aimed at me?

If so: No, I don't believe any of it. But that doesn't mean it's not suitable for the Edited Guide. The Entry IS a nice succint and brief description. I don't believe we can make any assertion about the universe as a whole because - I'm with Gödel on this one - we're part of the set. Or Socrates' version: I know that I know nothing.

Later,

HELL