“A TRIP TO INFINITY” Review/Post-view Musing

I took a trip to Infinity today.

Now what could a stray philosopher like myself- one who's quick to say she's no good with mathematics- have to say on such a matter? Well matter in and of itself made up our question didn't it?

Whether you find yourself dealing in numbers or notions, theories or theorems, A Trip To Infinity presents itself in a  format digestible for everyone. Well I say everyone. 

You need only mention the concept of the  "infinite" to neatly divide a room into two categories. Those keen and even drawn to peering over a cliff's ledge, and those that sit comfortably under their shady tree. Picnic blanket grounded and poised far from any unwelcome precipice. 

(No hard feelings to the tree folk. It sounds like a lovely time.)

I said infinity could divide a room and then I've gone and put you outside even in my metaphor.

Apologies.

If you're still with me so far I imagine you're ready to take the leap. (And might well be my kind of people.) A Trip to Infinity is much like this. Imagine a room that never ends yet can be scoured in one minute. A tiny circle and a larger one that are actually the same size.

Grasping at the shadows of a beautiful paradox.

I was surprised at the two things that touched me.

The first and more semi-simplistic is as long as we know of nothing faster than the speed of light (don’t hold your breath) we’ll never be able to truly know the reach and breadth of the Universe.

The second was (to be brief) that in an ever expanding universe, where galaxies flit away asserting their independence on this everlasting near unfathomable scale- energy will eventually burn itself out. 

Now that’s maybe not news to anyone who has a remote interest in physics. Nor is it news to say mankind will eventually kick the bucket.

But someone mentioned that one day, there will be “a final thought.”

A final burst of consciousness.”

Seems almost as impossible as life itself doesn’t it?

Even if sentience were to emerge beyond humanity, if we’re to believe the current running theory- (And it’s not lost on me, nor should it be on you that they’ve gathered a conglomerate of experts.) 

-one day thought in and of itself will cease.

And what then?

The concept of my own death has never bothered me. We’re all stories in the end.

But to be able to gaze out at the stars and wonder, to feel as we all have, that “something more” before you can even put names such as Earth, Astronomy, Infinity…

What happens when that book, one we can never finish but keep on writing, is closed for its final chapter in a library that carries on?

Will Infinity be lonely with no soul to count the stars? (Or whatever it is that comes after cosmic dust has run its lifespan some 100 billion years from now.)

Whilst not religious I suppose I’ve always thought of sentience as a kaleidoscope. Shifting and changing oh so S l o  w  l   y till it finds its way back again.

That a bit of fat, salt and water inside a sack of meat can run these things that we come to call ourselves with a few electrical impulses is incredible. Think about it for just a little more than a second and it’s really something isn’t it?

The hopeful in me wonders. Questions spring to mind. “Is there perhaps an undiscovered colour of light we can’t see due to how humans perceive the colour spectrum?”

Could that uncover something “faster”?

Make those mysteries more attainable?

Is this the theory of the time as Shakespeare once said through Hamlet “Doubt that the sun doth move..” 

Could we reach a breakthrough? In centuries Time?

If only for the chance to achieve another.

As I say at the start, I'm no scientist. No physicist or mathematician. And I care too much for knowledge, even today’s shadows of it, to persist in stubborn obstinance. Should Thought ever tangle with infinity, well. I won’t be the one to know anyway.

But say the verdict for now is no.

One day we’ll have a Universe, remnants of stars and galaxies and all that was drifting on forever.

Without our questions.

Our stories.

Existing all the same. Yet oh so different. So very very different. But none to be the wiser.

What does a philosopher do with that?

Call it Schrödinger’s Universe and hang their coat up for a final time.

Perhaps.

I could go on a long winded tangent about how the film offered this small comfort in the fact that “We are all cats” dealing with concepts beyond even the grasps of our greatest minds.

You- if you’ve read this far probably feel I’ve taken an “infinite” amount of your time and would like nothing more than a little ceasefire of thought-in-action!

I’ve lived and try to live my life as curiously as possible. (I’m sure some would attest to that in more ways than one!) Some people- those who’d broadly call me and others who watch this “nerds” think we seek to “know.” And whilst yes there’s joy in the discovery I think the true treasure is seeing that that is. Seeing it and taking that as far as possible. As children everything sparks curiosity. Then we grow into our personalities and wonder how we got there. Or we don’t.

We make choices. Some by hierarchy of necessity. Socio-economic luck of the draw and given values. Nature vs Nurture comes in and at the end of it we’ve lived a life.

What does that have to do with Infinity?

Well, broadly speaking all of this…

It’s a blip. Not just our individual stories.

But Curiosity.

The Big Think.

Questions. Answers. Pandora’s Box.

The Universe- whatever it is- was given this small chance to know itself.

Through your eyes.

Through mine.

Through the uncertainties, the shadows, the Plato’s Caves and the conundrums.

With as much certainty as one can know a painting

What is Everything?

Really?

And could even that come close?

I don’t know.

I’m just a blip on a blip in a daydream.

A little thinker with the stars in her eyes.

I have tomorrow. To be curious.

To take the colours as they come and toy with starlight in my time.

To try and keep my person in time with my pen in my own beautiful paradox.

Take A Trip to Infinity and perhaps you’ll do the same.

Even if you can’t see it, some 100 billion years away.. it’s quite a cosmic echo to carry on the wind. 

That which is. So it was.

Carry me to Infinity in this kaleidoscope I leave.

©️~Belle Emilie Gold