comprehanding infinity (how to do it)

[Phong]

I used to do this when I was really young (5 or 6) and I started to think that if I kept doing it I would dematerialize (like on star trek). You're right, it is one of the most difficult things to do.

Something I'd always daydream about, while trying to comprehend infinity, would be imagining a ladder that went both up and down towards forever in both directions. I imagined myself on the ladder, looking downwards and seeing through the vanishing point and then upwards. But I cannot, for the life of me, keep the ladder from bending inwards or curving, eventually collapsing itself into a circle. I've tried and tried, but there's nothing for the bottom of the ladder to ground on and there's nothing for the top of the ladder to rest upon. Whenever I do this, I become troubled that my imagination has this annoying "limit."

[Stillwater]

When I was a young child, I stumbled upon the notion that physical space was probably infinite, and this concept was too much for me to fathom. I kept imagining that if there was a place on the periphery of the physical universe past which there was no matter, how could it continue forever?

Infinite emptyness?

A boundless void home to nothing?

I began to contemplate the nature of space, and came to realize that it was not mere emptiness alone, but that void is also something that occupies spatial location, and that perhaps when something occupies a point, it displaces void.

It was then that I came to think of emptyness too as being something that was created, just as energy and mass were, and furthermore, that all of these things had existed forever, for without their existence (assuming consciousness to be energy) there would have been no creator to create! Infinty² lol!

Thank you,
Stillwater

[Dav]

^ Bump ^

Sorry to bump this, but I think this is an interesting topic. While i'd never ever consider using this for any kind of technique, It is on worth talking about. Once when I was 8 or 9, I started to think about forever, never dying, and it is quite a scary thought. "Would I end up repeating things in the afterlife? Wouldn't it get boring after a while?" These questions I still want answers to, but I have come to terms with it.

[Mystic Cloud]

Comprehending infinity is pretty different from experiencing
infinity []

I would say that the latter is way more 'horryfying'.

One way to comprehend infinity is to go into a trance state
and feel how long your whole life has been, then extend that to
100 years, 200 years, 400,800, 1200, etc.

In a while you will get pretty far and then you can just think
that this timespawn is not even a quark of infinity []

[Phong]

Why is it horrifying? I tend to agree, first of all, but let's explore this.

It seems to me that it's horrifying because you realize that good and evil are just opposite spheres that dance on the rim of consciousness, orbiting an abyss of neutral nothingness. Dreams exist on the peripheral of an empty black hole, not within it. Or maybe it's because I've never held it long enough to go to the other side?

Or am I mistaken in believing that infinity also includes nothing? Doesn't infinity begin from infinite nothingness?[|)]

[dominatus]

When I was a little kid I'd image a place at the end of our physical universe.  The universe was encapsulated in an ever-extending sphere with the ridge being some very hot material like a huge galactic fire.  Once you passed this point however, as I did in my "spaceship", you would see these hallucinations.  Whatever you were thinking about would come on and you would see it.  Perhaps this is where other dimensions start?  I find it interesting at the detail this stuff was in when I meditated on it as a little kid, perhaps it was real all along?  Oh and btw, the other people on the "spaceship" were humans of an advanced society and didn't know about Earth, just to let you guys know.

[surgeline44]

i bring this up only because im certain many folks have never sat down and really thought about it.

it is a strange set-of-mind - the human brain cannot comprehend a never-ending never-been-started circle of existence, so you reach a 'peak' wherein you stagnant on a high level. once you comprehend it - the only way to let go of such is to stop thinking about it.

at first thought, the idea we live forever sounds awesome - but when you come to the full realization, it is scary. you really understand "i will never die" and it shocks the system. i've only lasted 20 seconds, before deciding to abort. it's not as easy as it sounds, as you'll find out.

lie down, preferably in your bed, close your eyes and think deeply about how God was never born and He will never die. just keep affirming "God was always here and will always be here - He was never born" drill the sucker in. don't break your concentration.

it hits you like a bolt of lighting. you then assume the position of God and put yourself in such a scenario. everyday thoughts seem so irrelavant within the big picture.

i've never attempted to force it pay dividends, but surely its a good way to meditate if you hold onto it long enough without being over come. countless others as well, undoubtly.

it's really quite simple to achieve- give it a shot - it's surreal.

cheers,

rob

[Telos]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I was reading some very profound literature on the subject - particularly Baron d'Holbach's paper The System of Nature. He quotes Hobbes with this:

Hobbes in his Leviathan, says, "whatsoever we imagine is finite. Therefore there is no idea, or conception of any thing we call infinite. No man can have in his mind an image of infinite magnitude, nor conceive infinite swiftness, infinite time, infinite force, or infinite power. When we say any thing is infinite, we signify only, that we are not able to conceive the ends and bound of the thing named, having no conception of the thing, but of our own inability."

And Sherlock (not Holmes, I take it) with this:

Sherlock says, "the word infinite is only a negation, which signifies that which has neither end, nor limits, nor extent, and, consequently, that which has no positive and determinate nature, and is therefore nothing;" he adds, "that nothing but custom has caused this word to be adopted, which without that, would appear devoid of sense, and a contradiction."

These views go with my experiences of infinity. There are times when I felt infinite comfort - but it actually makes more sense to say that I felt the total absence of discomfort. Likewise, I've felt infinite sadness - but it's actually just better to say that I felt the complete absence of hope. If you were somehow able to experiencie the totality of the universe and your imagination, then you're experiencing the universe without limits. Infinity really is "a nothing."