Our Own Wonderful Infinite Nature

[Molly Brogan]

“Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have Immortal longings in me,” Shakespeare instructs us. But do we? Is there a part of us that is infinite, or is immortality just a longing? There are at least parts of our beings that are infinite, according to Shakespeare: “What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god.”

Our infinite nature is not just fodder for the poets. Einstein came to the conclusion that “the infinite nature of man includes the universe.” Kierkegaard explained our existence in this way: “Man is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity, in short a synthesis. A synthesis is a relation between two factors. So regarded, man is not yet a self.”

What do YOU think?

[...]

..i think what we have is a limitless imagination that coaxes us to believe we are not this body, not this brain, not our DNA, but in essence a formless being that's temporarily bound to matter. I think that is wrong, and inspite of beautiful musings from greater minds than my own, there's nothing that suggests i'm not right...

[Flux]

When used in this way, I don't think that the notion of infinity makes any sense at all (although it has been used in this way by many great philosophers, Kierkeggard and Descartes included). These are the qualms of a math enthusiest, more than anything--I see infinity as a mathematical construct. I think that you could have an infinite amount of matter, space, or time, but I'm not sure what it would even mean for humans to be "part infinite". I mean, in one sense, you could say that we are definitely infinite, insofar as we are composed of a temporally bounded continuum of infinite points in time. This is an unremarkable sort of infinity compared to what you and other philosophers seem to be alluding to however.

Call the seemingly inexhaustable potential of the human spirit and of life itself by another name that has the same connotations of freedom and wonder, but none of the mathematical connotations. It helps me talk about the same thing that you an other philosophers seem to be discussing while simultaneously avoiding hairy philosophical issues about infinities. That word is "boundless". Experience shows us that there is always something fresh for the mind to do, some new place to go, some new dream to chase. I don't know if it's infinite or not, but from our perspective, it is endless.

We will certainly see no end of wonder, and I think that this isn't to far from what is meant when people talk about "infinite nature". From our perspective, there are many things that might as well be infinite, since we will never see an end of it. Interestingly, it is the fact that we are finite that allows some things, which are finite, to appear infinite to us. For the purposes of individual humans, and perhapse for humanity itself, depending on how long we last, days and nights are infinite--they have been occuring since before we were born, and will continue millions of years after we die. From our perspective, the cycle of days might as well be infinite. This is the real miracle--that a finite viewpoint gives meaning to inexhaustable experience.

[Trevor]

Here we all are caught between the infinite macro and microcosms. We are finite, but I agree that we are growing into our infinite natures.
I just heard a radio interview with a girl who asked her brother, who had a near death experience after being declared clinicaly dead for three minutes, what he experienced "on the other side". For years whenever she had asked him he would not answer, but finally in this taped interview he answered her. He said that he had seen the door to heaven.
She pressed him further about his experience. He then said that he saw many people and the next thing he knew he was standing in front of God, Who had a white beard, and said that he wasn't going to die and that he had to return back to his life. His sister then asked what it felt like, and he exclaimed that it was weird. She continued by asking why it was weird, and he answered that he had been walking throughout the whole experience. She then explains to the listeners that for all of his young life he has been bound to a wheelchair. He has Spina Bifuda.
Call it desire, wishful thinking, or imagination. I call it wonderfully weird.

[John]

“Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have Immortal longings in me,” Shakespeare instructs us. But do we? Is there a part of us that is infinite, or is immortality just a longing? There are at least parts of our beings that are infinite, according to Shakespeare: “What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god.”

Our infinite nature is not just fodder for the poets. Einstein came to the conclusion that “the infinite nature of man includes the universe.” Kierkegaard explained our existence in this way: “Man is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity, in short a synthesis. A synthesis is a relation between two factors. So regarded, man is not yet a self.”

What do YOU think?I think that when we die our brain ceases to exist and with it, our identity as an individual ceases to exist and with that, we merge into the conciousness from which everything is made.

[Kat]

Interesting proposition and well supported. However, I think once we die we turn to dirt. We are food for worms and our bodies decompose to the earth to enrich it. Unless we lived badly. Then we pollute.