Things You'll Need:
- Your Mind
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Step 1
Getting trapped by infinity can happen to anyone at any time. It can be a frightening situation, but if you remain calm, you'll see that there is a way to deal with it, and a way for you to find your way back. You first have to understand how you came to be lost or trapped by infinity.
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Step 2
Let's say that you want to go the liquor store. Let's say that the liquor store is 10 miles from your house. So you get in your car and start driving to the liquor store. So far so good, but you are already plunging deep into the endless chasm of infinity. Read on to find out why.
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Step 3
So the liquor store is 10 miles away -- and sooner or later you will go half that distance -- 5 miles. You will agree with me now that you are not yet at the liquor store. That's obvious. So now you keep driving to the liquor store, and you now go half of the remaining distance of 5 miles. When you get to 2.5 miles away from the liquor store, you are still not there, right? You still have 2.5 miles to go.
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Step 4
So now you have to eat up that last 2.5 miles before you can finally arrive at the liquor store. But first, you must go half the distance of the remaining 2.5 miles. And after you go half that distance, you have to keep gobbling up those "half-the-distance" units in order for you to get to the liquor store. The trouble is -- no matter how small those "half-the-distance" units get, you still have to cross them before you can get to the liquor store.
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Step 5
You are now starting to panic because you realize that each "half-the-distance" units will never be zero. That may get extremely tiny, like one-millionth of a mile, or one billionth of a mile. Yet, no matter how small the distance, that distance will always be between you and the liquor store. So the math is clear. You cannot ever get to the liquor store. There's an infinite number of "half-the-distances" blocking your way.
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Step 6
So you get frustrated and decide to turn around and go back home. But, huh-o, you soon discover a problem. To get back home, you must first travel half the distance to get there -- and you run into the same trap again. There will always be an infinite number of "half-the-distance" units separating you from your house. Guess what? You are now lost in infinity. There is no way out. What should you do?
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Step 7
The first thing you must do is accept the fact that you are trapped in infinity. You must now radically restructure the way you think about the world, and re-tool your sense of what "reality" is. You must recognize that there are inherent and strange paradoxes bleeding through to all aspects of your life. You must come to accept that what you thought was your normal life no longer exists as such -- you have to because it's obvious you are trapped in infinity.
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Step 8
While you are sitting there in your car, driving endlessly, trapped by infinity, you must stop struggling against your situation. The more you try to drive your way out of an infinite distance, the more you struggle, and the more you will stay lost in infinity.
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Step 9
So, rather than struggling with the impossible, simply stop driving and start contemplating the strange paradox you have gotten all tangled up within. You know that you can't get to the liquor store, or back home, yet you clearly remember being at the liquor store many times, and being at your home many times. So, even though it is impossible to travel and infinite distance, you still have the ability to do so. You know that because you have done it.
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Step 10
So you hold the concept of being separated from all reality by an infinite distance, and the seemingly contradictory fact that you can go and get to anywhere you want. Your brain, your normal way of thinking, will get frustrated as it tries to hold two opposing facts as being equally true when they both can't be true at the same time.
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Step 11
When your brain reaches its maximum capacity of frustration over the problem, it will solve the problem by taking a transcendent leap beyond the problem, and present you with an amazingly clear and simple solution to the problem. You will have a new awareness. You will awaken to a greater reality. At that point, you will be home -- safely and soundly returned from your entrapment by infinity.
Comments
presnick said
on 9/16/2008 So is the cat dead or alive? I've heard this a million times but it still was a wonderful giggle. Thank you! Now pull your tongue out of your cheek before it becomes permanently stuck.
voyd said
on 2/9/2008 The smallest mesurement is the preception of the observer itself.
voyd said
on 2/9/2008 The smallest mesurement is the preception of the observer itself.
john4444 said
on 1/25/2008 Yeah, this is the classic "Achilles and the tortoise" paradox by Zenon of Elea. It has been posed since 500 A.D.!
However, there is a solution. There is the so-called Planck length, which is the smallest length that can exist in the universe. It is equivalent to 1.616252 × 10−35 m. So you can divide in halves as much as you want! When you reach the Planck length you cannot go any further!
Paradox solved.
Insightful said
on 1/24/2008 Wow! You can't be serious! You say that you've been successful for 20+ years as a freelancer, and have written over 50 books, yet you churn out articles like this.
Come on now; a sentence like, "When you get to 2.5 away from the liquor store, you are still not there, right?" is a waste of words. It's kind of obvious that you are still not there, right? Don't you have a more worthy sentence than that one? It appears that it was written for the mere sake of putting something in print. Please, use your knowledge and experience for more meaningful work.