In the Face of Infinity

This afternoon I found a large spider in my pants. Tonight I found a black widow next to the toilet. Clearly, nature is out to ensure I can never have kids. I just wanted to get that off my chest.

I remember one night in particular, at Indian Hills summer camp, sitting in an amphitheater under the stars. The speaker told us something along these lines: "Compare yourself to the size of this amphitheater. Now compare that to the size of this camp. Compare that to the size of California. Compare that to the size of the US. Compare that to the size of the world. Compare that to the size of the galaxy..." and etc. He had a point (other than to depress us), I'm sure, but all I remember from that night is an overwhelming sense of smallness. In the face of infinity, I was absolutely nothing. Mathematically that's not an exaggeration: the ratio of any finite thing to infinity is zero.

That sort of sentiment isn't nearly as abstract or esoteric as it sounds coming from a math geek. We've all heard despairing remarks like "Why bother feeding children overseas, when the death toll is so high? It makes no difference, not even a dent, in the issue." That's numbness in the face of overwhelming figures, and it's hard to avoid.

It's not limited to pessimism either. Selfishness is another basic effect. You're waiting in a long line at an amusement park, and what do you think? "If only I could just cut in front, I'd save hours of time, and everyone else would only lose a few seconds. They wouldn't even notice." Or a typographical error adds an extra zero on your paycheck: "The company has so much money, it won't even feel the lack. But for me, this is huge."

The number can be anything; even, and often most dangerously, time. In the face of an 80-year-long life, my actions today seem absolutely trivial. In the face of eternity, I'm dumbstruck. I can't imagine simply not being (nor do I want to), but the prospect of eternity is so grandiose, it makes me dizzy -- should I say scared? -- just thinking about it. Some, taking it for granted, live however they want, knowing everything will be washed out completely by the infinite.

To get a visual of the point I'm making, take any bar graph (on infinite paper, of course!) Take the roughly infinite number of bars to be: children overseas, people in line, paychecks, days of your life, etc. Let the Y axis be: health, waiting time, money, goodness/badness, etc. Make it as steep, jagged, tumultuous as you want. Then start zooming out. The further away you get (the more of the X axis you "take into account"), the smoother it becomes. In the end, no matter how jagged, it will always look like a straight line. Everything is washed out. Even though locally (one bar compared to another) there's a tangible difference, universally (taking everything into account), there's not.

But we live in that local realm. Differences are felt, and things matter. How do we reconcile that with the "big picture"? Two different things come to mind.

The first is that large numbers are made up of individual parts, and in the real world those parts are always, always connected. And there's a sort of ripple effect in that. Even if helping one individual didn't, in itself, have any effect on the scheme of things, that individual will have an effect on others near it. And even if living, holy, today, won't even be seen from an infinite vantage point, it will be seen from tomorrow. As individuals influence individuals and tomorrows beget tomorrows, that singular act will be like a wave, rising and rising as it moves forward. The scheme of things, in the world, in lines at Six Flags, in businesses, or in life, will be shaped by trends, which every small part helps create. That idea is what Immanuel Kant had in mind with his "categorical imperative": you should act in a way that, if it were universal law (everyone/thing behaved that way), the universe would function well. Even from an ardent skeptic, that's a complicated way of affirming the same truth.

The second is that there is a beautiful duality, in us and in God, where meaning isn't only in the "scheme of things" but also in the tiniest of parts. We simultaneously can live in a world where we recognize our smallness, and can live in the moment, where emotion and beauty reign. More to the point, we were created with an infinite worth, whatever the paradox, with value to God. To continue the nerdy math analogy (please forgive me), the ratio between any finite number and infinity is zero. If we were nothing more than well-oiled physical machines, the product of chaos, that would be our scenario. But as infinite souls, the ratio is between infinity and infinity, which is undefined. I don't think there's any wacky new age meaning behind that metaphor, but the word is still a fitting one. Undefined. There's something going on, in us and our interaction with the world, that can't be measured objectively, and isn't prey to nihilism or apathy. Something tantalizing, which logic can't quite capture.

Sleep time. Post your thoughts.