I woke this morning thinking about the distinction between finite and infinite. I started to list all the things I knew were finite and then list all the things I knew were infinite.
Of course, I immediately concluded that being finite, I could have no knowledge of anything infinite, so the infinite list was easy. The finite list was a bit more puzzling.
Is it possible that everything else is finite? But if some things were more finite than I was finite, (e.g. I am told cactus live for several hundred years and cockroaches have been around for ever.) then I could not be indisputably sure that an object was finite. However, if everything else is finite, then at the end of its finite-ness, it must def-finitely go somewhere.
As far as I know, you can change the form of a tree, but the carbon and other elements still exist. Light a tree on fire, and you may destroy the form of the tree, but the elements are still present in other gaseous or inert forms. This begs the question are elements infinite? For example, is carbon infinite. In which case, I could add carbon to the infinite list. If everything is made of elements and elements are infinite, then everything is infinite. This conclusion made me feel a lot better.
I understand that I can not be genuinely sure the elements are infinite, but a bit of faith is helpful.
Bob
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