Infinity in depth?

Tony Mei
First off I have 2 different ideas about infinity. One about how religion/philosophy and the concept of infinity coincides and the other about the relation between math and infinity, and I will finally add on a few comments to connect the two.

First off the concept of infinity has always been there, even without knowing the number system or any form of religion; we have always have some understanding of the word called infinity. As we all know of the saying “Truth is absolute/objective”, one of the famous Philosophers Martin Heidegger believed that the one thing that makes us better than animals is that we have the way to discover truth; that humans is a medium to revealing concealed truth. Now if god does exist, and created the universe, then all truths are also created by him, and these truths should have a purpose. But at a first glance, the idea of infinity seems to not have much of a purpose it wasn’t something amazing in a philosophical or religious context, unlike how Socrates challenged the Athenians during his trials or the rise of Christianity. Infinity was just there, we may have wondered about it, but we kind of took the word for granted.

Infinity in the mathematical sense is just a symbol that represents a never ending count to the positive end or the negative end of the number spectrum, that’s about it. We use the concept of infinity to create laws and theorems in calculus like integration and limits, and then er expand from those and create formulas. Yet we still don’t seem to appreciate what infinity is.

Seeing that we are born to discover truth like what Heidegger said, it seems the concept of infinity wasn’t something that we really need to discover. We know it’s there, but many just gave it a few thoughts, that was probably why Newton “invented” Calculus in the period he did, of course I am not discrediting any ideas on integration and derivatives before Newton’s time, but it is Newton who really set the ball on it.

So as I previously stated, if god created all truths, and each truth should have a purpose, what is the purpose of infinity? Well seeing that many of us have the idea of infinity without trying to prove that infinity exists, it seems to be a fundamental truth, we didn’t need people to prove that infinity exists, we just know it does. Now with infinity being a given, with the combination of other possible truths like the different shapes in mathematics, we discover integration. So in theory the infinity is a fundamental truth that allows human beings to create more concrete truths solidifying our understanding of the universe.

Now that is a picture of the universe and its inhabitants in the eyes of Mass Effect! In Mass Effect, humans have more or less evolved to the extent where space is no longer infinite. Humans have discovered all the races all over the universe through devices called Mass Relays, they allow us to instantaneous travel from one point of space to another in a matter of seconds. They are developed by the race called the Protheans. And it is thanks to these devices that human evolution is not restricted to Earth.