Anything that could possibly be created, will be created an infinite number of times?

[Prism]

Think about it: the number of possible artworks you could create using various mediums is finite. Let's use drawing as an example: there's a finite number of colors the human eye can see (around 10 million according to some sources), and if on a 1x1m canvas, you count every square micrometer on it as a 'pixel' which that could be filled with one of those 10 million colors, there'd be a finite number of ways you could rearrange those pixels of different colors. Sure, that number is astronomically huge, but it's still finite. Even if you increase the canvas size, the number of possible paintings that could be created will remain finite. It'll remain finite as long as the canvas size and the number of possible colors is finite. 

 

The same could be said for other forms of art, like sculpting (or 3D modeling if you prefer using a computer): there's a finite number of ways you could re-arrange every possible combination of atoms in a, let's say, a 1x1x1m space. Even if you increase the size of the hypothetical sculptures to 1 cubic kilometer, the number of possible sculptures remains finite. And the same could be said about music: due to a limited number of notes, there's a finite number of melodies that could be composed. 

 

Again, those numbers are huge. Astronomically huge. So huge that we probably wouldn't be able to comprehend their size even if we calculated them. But they're still smaller than infinity - infinitely smaller you could say. Even the largest number mathematicians have thought of is nothing compared to infinity. And in the New System, we'll live forever; an infinite amount of time. Graham's number, TREE(3), will all eventually seem tiny compared to the number of years we'd live. 

 

Unless there'll eventually come a point at which humanity decides: "Yup, we're never creating art again," and everyone keeps their word for the rest of eternity, art will always be created. And every artwork that could possibly be created, could be created an infinite number of times. 

 

Let's use drawing as an example again: if somebody in the New System draws an illustration on a canvas, they probably won't keep it forever. Sure, they may keep it for millions of years, but eventually, they'll probably eventually recycle it simply due to a lack of extra storage space. Assuming perfect human memory would be better than our imperfect memory, that person, and others who saw the artwork, may retain partial memory of it for millions of years, but eventually, it'll fade away (unless perfect humans would not be able to forget things, which I think would be scary!)

 

After many trillions/septillions/???-illions of years, someone may create the same exact painting. But no one would complain about it and say "Hey, I made the exact same one 10^80 years ago! This is nothing new!" because they won't remember it. Granted, not EVERY possible artwork will be created (clearly offensive ones won't be), but in a way, we'll be stuck in an infinite loop: creating, destroying, forgetting, and creating again the same artworks over and over again, for an eternity. Each "loop" will be take an indescribably long, albeit finite amount of time, but there'll still be an infinite number of them. 

 

But we won't complain about it because of our ability to forget. So in a way, while it may seem annoying to us now, in the long term, the ability to forget will be the very thing that'll keep us from going insane. 

 

Just a showerthought. I might have made mistakes somewhere, and I'm sure others have probably had similar thoughts in the past. And this is definitely one of my more Hotteok-ish threads, lol. 

 

[Prism]

I'm not sure about literature though: while there is a finite number of ways you could put words/letters in a book, those words represent concepts, and concepts are things people come up with in their minds. If the range of human thought is infinite, then there could be an infinite number of concepts which could be assigned to different words. So maybe the amount of literary works, or at least stories we could possibly think of, is really infinite? Idk.

[Dages]

I like these topics

[computerwiz]

Sounds like a job for Vsauce!  Here's a similar question to what you're asking.

 

 

[1MKnight]

Some related terms are “Deep time,” “Infinite monkey Theorem”,  and maybe “Platonic Perfection.” Most people (I assume) don’t tend to think in terms of deep time when contemplating the new world. They think in terms of hundreds, thousands, and maybe millions (without really comprehending how long millions is). For instance, you will never be able to live in your house “forever” because it will inevitably be washed away by the sea, taken over by mountain, sunk into a deep canyon, or something. That’s not even taking into consideration that the house you build 1000 years from now, will not be the same house (even if it looks identical) to the house that sits there 6000 yeas later. All things decompose, and parts need to be replaced, and in no time (well… quite. alot of time) you’ve got yourself a “house of Theseus.” 

 

If you put a million monkey’s in a room with typewriters, and they can live forever, eventually, one will accidentally write the complete works of Shakespeare, with perfect spelling and punctuation. Give them long enough and one will eventually write the entire Bible in it’s original languages. So, in theory, your point about the arrangement of visual media is identical, just even more astronomically diverse than characters on a page. 

 

As to the human memory being able to remember everything: there is no biblical basis for such an idea. I hear often people claim that we’ll remember everything in the new world. Or I’ll hear people say we’ll be masters at every possible skill eventually. There is no biblical or other foundation for such a belief. These sorts of ideas (that perfection = superhuman) are related to Plato’s and other hellenistic philosophies about perfection. Philosophers imagined a definition of “perfection”, then, knowing that God is “perfect” put him into that box. That’s where Christendom gets the idea of predestination. (“Perfect knowledge must mean God knows all things that ever were, are, and will be, thus everything that will happen has been preordained, even the rebellion in Eden.” But that’s a very unbiblical view.) Similarly, many today imagine a definition of “perfection” then put future perfect humans into that box. But, Jesus became tired, hungry, thirsty. Adam felt indecisive. The human brain is a finite thing. It would not physically be possible to remember everything, forever. Anything with infinite memory would take up infinite physical space, no matter how efficient it is at storing memory. It is my personal opinion that we won’t be substantially different than how we are today. Our brains will be perfectly healthy, our bodies without disease, but still finite and squishy. We won’t have chronic ailments, but we may experience pain in reasonable amounts on occasion. We’ll have more time and less stress allowing us to focus on skill acquisition, but we’ll still forget, and it’s unlikely most of us will be Olympic level athletes or musical virtuosos at the same time. We may experience brief moments of loneliness, but then we’ll fix that by socializing and praying, just like you fix the pain of hunger by eating. We may remember more, but most likely a time will come where we have completely forgotten the thrilling climax of armageddon, and the only recollection we’ll have is by reading about it. Eventually, our own personal history will become as difficult to decipher as putting together ancient manuscripts of the Bible. (Hopefully we won’t have to copy by hand though lol) But, despite these “limitations” we will be happy, healthy, and fulfilled. We will feel “fresher than in our youth.” 

[Hinata]

5 hours ago, Prism said:

I'm not sure about literature though: while there is a finite number of ways you could put words/letters in a book, those words represent concepts, and concepts are things people come up with in their minds. If the range of human thought is infinite, then there could be an infinite number of concepts which could be assigned to different words. So maybe the amount of literary works, or at least stories we could possibly think of, is really infinite? Idk.

 

The Library of Babel contains every piece of literature that has ever been, and ever will be. It also includes your very own post and my own (search through the search tab)!

 

[Dages]

13 minutes ago, Hinata said:

 

The Library of Babel contains every piece of literature that has ever been, and ever will be. It also includes your very own post and my own (search through the search tab)!

 

Found you  

[Prism]

@1MKnight All good points. I agree that we won't be able to remember everything, because, as I've mentioned before, we'd go insane if we would (and as you said, perfect ≠ superhuman with infinite brain space). In fact, I'm not sure if our memories of minor things will last millions of years. Either way, we'll eventually find out.

 

2 hours ago, Hinata said:

The Library of Babel contains every piece of literature that has ever been, and ever will be. It also includes your very own post and my own (search through the search tab)!

 

Yeah, I've seen it, interesting stuff. There's also the babel image archives, which generates random permutations of pixels on an image. If you refresh enough times, you'll eventually get to see every image of a certain size that could possibly be created. 

[Dages]

The fact that things decay, unlike us, so indeed, even if we redo exactly the same artwork after 1^10^141 years, the original one will no longer be there so it's ok, good point.

[Hotteok]

23 hours ago, Prism said:

Think about it: the number of possible artworks you could create using various mediums is finite. Let's use drawing as an example: there's a finite number of colors the human eye can see (around 10 million according to some sources), and if on a 1x1m canvas, you count every square micrometer on it as a 'pixel' which that could be filled with one of those 10 million colors, there'd be a finite number of ways you could rearrange those pixels of different colors. Sure, that number is astronomically huge, but it's still finite. Even if you increase the canvas size, the number of possible paintings that could be created will remain finite. It'll remain finite as long as the canvas size and the number of possible colors is finite. 

 

The same could be said for other forms of art, like sculpting (or 3D modeling if you prefer using a computer): there's a finite number of ways you could re-arrange every possible combination of atoms in a, let's say, a 1x1x1m space. Even if you increase the size of the hypothetical sculptures to 1 cubic kilometer, the number of possible sculptures remains finite. And the same could be said about music: due to a limited number of notes, there's a finite number of melodies that could be composed. 

 

Again, those numbers are huge. Astronomically huge. So huge that we probably wouldn't be able to comprehend their size even if we calculated them. But they're still smaller than infinity - infinitely smaller you could say. Even the largest number mathematicians have thought of is nothing compared to infinity. And in the New System, we'll live forever; an infinite amount of time. Graham's number, TREE(3), will all eventually seem tiny compared to the number of years we'd live. 

 

Unless there'll eventually come a point at which humanity decides: "Yup, we're never creating art again," and everyone keeps their word for the rest of eternity, art will always be created. And every artwork that could possibly be created, could be created an infinite number of times. 

 

Let's use drawing as an example again: if somebody in the New System draws an illustration on a canvas, they probably won't keep it forever. Sure, they may keep it for millions of years, but eventually, they'll probably eventually recycle it simply due to a lack of extra storage space. Assuming perfect human memory would be better than our imperfect memory, that person, and others who saw the artwork, may retain partial memory of it for millions of years, but eventually, it'll fade away (unless perfect humans would not be able to forget things, which I think would be scary!)

 

After many trillions/septillions/???-illions of years, someone may create the same exact painting. But no one would complain about it and say "Hey, I made the exact same one 10^80 years ago! This is nothing new!" because they won't remember it. Granted, not EVERY possible artwork will be created (clearly offensive ones won't be), but in a way, we'll be stuck in an infinite loop: creating, destroying, forgetting, and creating again the same artworks over and over again, for an eternity. Each "loop" will be take an indescribably long, albeit finite amount of time, but there'll still be an infinite number of them. 

 

But we won't complain about it because of our ability to forget. So in a way, while it may seem annoying to us now, in the long term, the ability to forget will be the very thing that'll keep us from going insane. 

 

Just a showerthought. I might have made mistakes somewhere, and I'm sure others have probably had similar thoughts in the past. And this is definitely one of my more Hotteok-ish threads, lol. 

 

 

You are not only Hotteok-ish but also have the same name!! Though my real name ain't Tim. 

[Hotteok]

1. We humans tend to think we are creative but truly creative people are truly limited, hence they are called geniuses when they appear.

Most people only build upon what their ancestors have built and can only add their small piece of creativity to the original pile of creativity that's been piling up slowly. 

 

2. What was I going to write... I forgot.

 

By the way, think about the amount and quality of information someone who's born 1 billion years later might have to learn to have some sort of understanding of what's going on! He'll never catch up!