I’m not a physicist, but I disagree with @meiosis – when the physics boffs run out of numbers to express ‘infinity’, they call it a ‘singularity’. One. The closer they come to finding some unifying principle, the more complex the universe appears. But, the notion that infinity doesn’t exist, is simply due to the relative lack of skills we (humans) yet have in understanding, or properly describing, our own existence.
The first law of thermodynamics ”...the total amount of energy and mass in the universe is constant; energy and mass can be neither created nor destroyed” (from here but there are loads of academic refs) is very clear, and can be applied to all the energetic states we are able to record or experience. Even if the Universe itself is described as ‘finite’, energy cannot actually ‘go’ anywhere. I think this relates to experiential infinity. We describe the hugely indescribable as infinite, or eternal and are beginning to realise this in scientific terms.
If one perceives life as finite, then the world becomes a loveless place. The point in attachment is lost, it will be broken; the end of living is simply the end. However, if science means anything (and it so clearly does) the suggestion is that there are absolute constants. That existence itself can never truly cease. Our comprehension of this is small – we are young in our understanding – but it provides a substrate for the many belief systems humans have invented, to explain the very big and difficult.
There is essentially, no need to define a ‘box’ of love. If life energy (I like to think of it as such) can never disappear, if our molecules get recycled, our spirit/consciousness/elan or whatever dissipates but remains part of a larger whole, then love can be sustained and become infinite also. I don’t like labeling it as ‘God’, there are too many connotations which limit any real understanding. I do like the sense that I am part of a whole. I have never felt ‘small’ in the face of nature or it’s actions, only part of something, connected. This is where our future as a species lies I believe… Sticking my neck out now – we need to evolve a conscious way of attending to the life we seem to have such control over. We have to grow up and take care of our world, we have the power!
sorry if i started to get a bit evangelical there, but this is important stuff! GQ @wundayatta!