Where does our idea of Infinity come from? Certainly not from experience, which is all limitation, narrowness and bond. Is it then the result of a mere denial of the finite? A denial of the finite is still something finite. Only a continued and endless denial of the finite would qualify as a denial of Infinity, that is, the denial would have to become infinite. Therefore, Infinity is not the opposite of Finitude, since contrary things are understood one from the other, and Infinity is understood – when rarely it is understood - from its own nature.
If it is neither an experience nor the result of a mere logical denial of the finite, Infinity must be a pure intuition. Kant spoke of space and time as pure intuitions, as conditions of possibility for any of our experiences. But if Infinity is not an experience, it cannot be associated with either space or time, since neither space nor time are conditions of something that is not in experience. Neither space nor time are infinite, they are limited by the Consciousness-Force, Chit (in terms of Vedanta), that is: space and time are forms of Chit. Infinity is not a pure intuition either.
So what is Infinity, if it is not pure intuition, nor experience, nor logical denial?
One would be tempted to say: it's nothing. Of course, if I say that something is nothing, I incur the paradox that I make it something for the mere fact of making it part of a sentence. Infinity is then something and nothing, which shows that it is something different and unique, something that is here and is not here. This has always been called the Great Mystery, The Divine that hides and shows itself (as a shadow) at the same time. This Mystery would not be exactly the Deus Absconditus of the ancients, but rather something more similar to the Pleroma which in Vedanta is called Parabrahman.
Let's go back to the initial question: where does our idea of Infinity come from? If it does not come from anywhere, if it is both something and nothing, the Infinity that we try to understand and cannot, has to be in us, has to be our nature. But our finite formation cannot contain the Infinite, therefore, it must be the Infinite that contains us. It is Infinity that asks about itself from us. In this sense, I say that we are of lineage of Infinity, a breed of that which has never been born, and therefore, also unborn.
When I say in the aphorism that Infinity has chosen us and that we are afraid to accept our ancestry, I express the inevitability of fear, and the fragility and tenderness of our denial. A denial as useless as it is stubborn, childish, that leads us to think that our finite objections to Infinity have a place beyond the small neighborhood park where we think we fight with another child to be first to go down the slide.
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