The Great Chain of Being, or the Ramblings of a Metaphysical Mind
Infinity is an idea, not a number. Zero is an idea, not a number. These two concepts belong to metaphysics properly, not mathematics.
Every metaphysical object is a set between zero and infinity. That is every object has a pre-existing state in the metaphysical world where it has the potential to be any number between zero and infinity, that is it can never be zero or infinity but somewhere in between. This means that objects are constantly growing in complexity as time goes on. For example imagine the metaphysical object of an apple, where its metaphysical composition can be described by a unique number. Let us arbitrarily call this number 6. The apple is 6 only for an instant, then 6.0001, then 6.0002 where these numbers are arbitrary extensions of the object through time, as complexity changes the object. This allows for infinite divisibility, and addition through time.
Infinity exists in potentiality in the manifested world. Infinity exists in actuality in the metaphysical world.
Infinity has two other meanings: non-comparability and the changing of scales. Mathematics becomes metaphysics when we compare two non-comparable numbers. Pi is a good example of the first meaning — the two numbers being compared are the circumference and the diameter. The circumference is a curved line, the diameter is a straight line. These are two fundamentally different objects, the ratio of which produces a transcendent, potentially infinite number.
This also occurs on the cartesian plane for the function y=1/x when x=0. This occurs because zero is not a number but a metaphysical concept. The ratio of a number and a concept produces an error and hence we have positive-negative zero and positive-negative infinity occurring simultaneously.
The second meaning of the changing of scales is less obvious and harder to demonstrate because our sciences have yet to acknowledge the dynamicity of metaphysical objects between opposites. Imagine an object is defined as existing on a scale between arbitrary extrema — let us imagine this object to be the wages of an arbitrary company. The wages of this arbitrary company exists between a set minimum and maximum. Let us say these are extrema are
10, 000 and 100,000. Therefore any wage found between 10,000 and 100,000 is a properly defined object, that is wages of this arbitrary company. Now suppose we find a wage that is 110,000. From the perspective of the original object, this is an infinite leap because it is not found on the properly defined scale, and hence is another object. In this case we can say it is wages of a different company.
Therefore when we find infinity in the sciences, it can either be an expression of potentiality, the possibility of going forever, or the expression of a transformation of one object into another. Studying the two meanings of infinity we will see that the second is merely a further expression of the first, i.e. non-comparability occurs when we have transformation of one object into another.
It is not yet proven, nor demonstrated, but I believe this is what occurs in the physical sciences, specifically that all physical objects are scalable expressions of speed/energy. It would explain the weird quantum nature of objects — that an object disappears would only mean that it is no longer that object anymore but a different one because it has speed/energy either exceeding the maximum or falling short of the minimum. It has made an “infinite leap” between non comparable objects. An electron disappears, or becomes an electron cloud, when it is no longer an electron, but rather in a transformational state of becoming another object. This would definitionally occur when the speed/energy of the electron changed beyond the extrema of a set object.
This differing understanding of objects posits that the very characteristics we measure of a physical object describes that object. It is not that an electron has a certain speed/energy. It is that an electron is a certain speed/energy. To change the speed/energy of an electron is to begin to transform the electron into something else.
This explains why there is a “limit” to the speed of light — the maximum of the photon is 299 792 458 m / s because anything more than this is no longer a photon but an object which is beyond our current physical technology to measure, and perhaps beyond the ken of 3-dimensional physicality itself to measure. And the corollary to this, is that according to this system there is an potential infinity of objects greater in energy/speed than a photon which definitionally travel faster than the speed of light. Quantum entanglement can be explained as an exchange of faster-than-light mathematical objects — we could call these range of objects as mathematons.
What we would need to do in order to “see” these objects is to “break” into the world of pure mathematics/ information where objects do not have physical form but merely mathematical. That is, 3 dimensional reality is only a certain range of energy/speed beyond which becomes pure mathematics, or 4-dimensions and higher. It is also probably true that after a photon becomes a graviton, or an object that is a unit of spacetime curvature. (this is pure speculation)
Quantum mechanics and relativity can be reconciled if we view the whole of physics as gradations of different scales of objects, where exceeding maxima results in new, qualitatively different objects. In the same way we have qualitative difference in mathematics i.e a dot becomes a line when a dot is added to a dot, a line becomes a plane when a line is added to a line, etc etc — we should have qualitative difference in physics where a small object by varying its speed/energy becomes a larger qualitatively different object.
All this speaks to the fundamental flaw of Western science which, had it listened closely to Aristotle two millennia ago, it might have missed: objective science lacks a telos. The Law of Telos might be expressed as Object A tends to become a more complex version of itself called Object B, and so on and so on. This is how we reconcile the subjective-objective nature of the universe. There is a quasi-subjective purpose to every object in the universe, which ignoring any mention of a Creator, and which just as easily could have come about through randomization of variables (albeit , here’s the catch, by a creative purposeful intelligence). Object A’s purpose is to become Object B, and B to become C etc etc. This leads to the Great Chain of Being, a liner link between every object to every other object, which has a definite historical reality in the process of creation. The dot definitionally preceded the line, etc etc. It is the job of all sciences, as it has been in the biological sciences, to trace out the evolution of objects through time.