Infinitism

All things have happened, will happen, and for sure will happen again. This is the mantra of Metaphysical Infinitism. If one takes The critiques of the Cosmological arguments levied by Paul Edwards seriously (that the Cosmological argument isn't necessarily true due to the fact that a universe could be a self-sustaining infinite regress), then one must hold to infinitist beliefs. But, let's not get ahead of ourselves, what is Infinitism?

Infinitism Defined

Infinitism is a metaphysical belief that all logically possible things have occurred, will occur, and will occur again. While simple on paper, this means that any thought you've ever had will happen in reality. All thoughts you've never had will happen in reality. All realities of triumph and failure have happen in reality. Everything that has happened will happen again forever and ever and ever in the same and different patterns. The universe is a massive random number generator that is spewing out chaos until order arrives to allow us to exist for it to be destroyed universe seconds later to be recreated and destroyed. That pattern I just described is just for explanatory purposes, anything is possible and only logical necessity drives the capabilities of the random number generator.

Aquinas, Edwards, and a Regression Dichotomy

The cosmological argument goes, briefly, as follows: There must be an unmoved first mover (or cause) as to allow all movements (or effects) to exist (full text). The critique of this is contrary to this as it states that the unmoved first mover is not necessary due to the fact that an infinitely regressing set of causes can sustain any number of combinations after it. (full text). While a true fideist Christian would discard any arguments proving (or disproving) the faith, this argument is still commonly used and discussed among those who state that theism is logically affirmed.

If you take the side of Aquinas, then you cannot be an infinitist from behind. God created the world and therefore, at least when going back, not everything has been done. You can at least be a forward infinitist, but you may also believe God will come down and end the chain eventually. If you take the side of Edwards and say the universe is an infinite regress, then you must be an infinitist due to reasons we'll get into later.

But what if you're a contrarian? What about those who deny both statements. There isn't an infinite regress and there isn't one point of origin. Well, that isn't logically possible. The question of Aquinas or Edwards is a question of what starts the chain reaction of cause and effect. Neither of the two sides deny the necessity of cause and effect. If you decide that God or a similar architect didn't set the universe into motion, then something else must have, either another God-like being (or collection of beings, forces, etc.) or an infinite series of causes and effects. Where to cause and effect chain terminates, we're likely to find God. If it never terminates, you agree with Edwards. There is no conceivable situation where you don't agree with at least one without disagreeing with cause and effect itself or existence itself. This is a true and proper dichotomy for most people.

Why is Infinitism necessarily the case?

If one were to enter a magical casino that has a random number generator (meaning that it could generate any number at all, including imaginary, real, irrational, or fractions of numbers in a non-predictable fashion) and said person chose the number ‘10’ as his bet on the machine. Would he, assuming infinite level pulls on said machine, be guaranteed to eventually hit 10? I would say so. Given that one can generate numbers infinite times, has infinite time to generate those numbers, and the goal of this one number stays the same, eventually, despite the odds, one would hit that number due to the fact that the number of tries from starting to end is finite. To go further into detail on this, one may pull the lever 20 quadrillion times and finally land on ten, but that 20 quadrillion times is a finite number that can easily be achieved given infinite tries, in fact, one would only need a finite amount of tries to reach that number. Thus, since an infinite amount of tries is much bigger than a finite amount of tries and all we need is a finite amount of tries, then one can conclude that reaching ‘10’ is a guarantee.

But let's say that this doesn't happen, and someone performs the supertask of pulling that level infinitely many times and not once does it come up with a 10. Well, at that point, we would have to conclude that something is very, VERY wrong here. If every time a 10 never cropped up, we'd have ample evidence that something else should be causing that 10 to not appear rather than natural random number generation juts deciding to never spit out a 10.

The counter-argument is that it would be possible, a chance is not a gurantee after all. That is the point of a random number generator, you are pulling it to get a random number and there is not a single gurantee you will get 10 programmed into it. While all the facts are true, this doesn't add up due to a forgotten fact: this assumes that the infinite number of pulls doesn't in some way modify the nature of how chance outcomes happen. In laymans terms, this means that the fact we're pulling this lever infinitely many times changes the rules of chance implicitly. When we calculate the chance of something, we are dividing the number of events that would satisfy out condition, 1 in our case as there is only one number 10, by the total number of outcomes we could get, in our case that is... infinity? Infinity isn't a number, it's a single number, it's a concept. We have a type error here, we expect a number of some form and we got an input: math machine broke, we can't calculate this as a probability. As this is the case, the entire field of probability can be gutted from the equation, so the concept of a "chance" something happens gets gutted as well due to the inability to calculate the probability of this happening.

But, what does magical casinos have to do with infinite regress? Well, it's quite simple. If we have an infinite regression with infinite potential for activity to occur, it is a guarantee that the activity will occur eventually. All things that can happen will happen given infinite time. If we assume infinite cause-and-effect scenarios from Edward's critique, then we must say that the infinite cause-and-effect stream has lead to all occurrences infinitely many times over. Even if we are against Edward's ideas and are for a Godly/Architectural creation argument, everything forward is still governed by cause-and-effect rules that would allow all things to eventually happen. Although, God may put an end to the cycle when he so pleases.

Infinitist Implications

The Afterlife is not just real, but logically necessary

Yes, this is a way to give a secular afterlife, but it's by no means as glorious or torturous as heaven and hell necessarily. This also isn't any spiritualistic or Buddhist reincarnation nonsense either. This is merely a statement of facts: All that can happen will happen and it'll happen again and again. You will experience your life again, you will experience heaven, you will experience hell, you'll experience the pizza world, you'll experience it all infinite times over infinite time. You'll meet your loved ones again, but you'll also be ripped away from them violently by the tides of the world's chaos once the stability of the moment breaks down.

The Universe is Deterministic

In an infinitist world, you can pick a point and follow causes and effects down time to predict any and all actions that will happen. This may be done forever and ever, however, doing this requires a bird's eye view of the universe. While within the realm of possibility for this to happen, it is certainly not something that our current iteration of existence is experiencing: An individual with a birds eye view of all events. Even with this fact not observable, we can say this puts an end to the absolute free will concept if this view is accepted (that is, the view that all individuals are totally free and not under influence of anything when making a decision).

However, it is logically possible that we are capable of some form of generational thought and action that could be considered free. I can imagine that world, we are possibly in it currently. We could be creating our own effects daily to influence the world as a cause in ourselves. Our processing mentally, while influenced by the world, also could be giving influence back that is unique to its own interests, abilities, wants, and desires. That set of facts is not out of the realm of possibility. All that this says is that causes and effects are observable in a chain from any given point. If that ends up undermining whatever "free will" is, then so be it.

The Grand Superman

Eventually a God will emerge from the chaos. If we can imagine it, it is possible. If you can imagine a banana creating a God in your mind using magic and imagination, then the universe will surely allow it to happen as it follows the rules of Cause and Effect. This Chaos born demiurge will be capable of all logically possible things. It's not out of reasoning to say that we're living in an era where a Demiurge God is reigning and has created us, but it's also not necessarily the case for us to be that. Although, it is still a possibility we are a product of that set of events.

You will be all, You will be one, You will be none

If your consciousness is capable of being logically expanded to all entities in the universe so that you are all of them, it will happen. If consciousness of capable of being in only one being (as I would assume it is now), then it has already happened. If you can imagine a world where you don't exist, certainly your parents can, then it has already happened.

History is not over

History, in the grand scheme of all things, is not over. We haven't "solved" politics, and so long as things can keep changing, political rules will keep shifting. We haven't found the "one true" political system, economic system, technological status, set of laws, cultural rules, etc. If the rules change, and it is possible that they can, any "best solution" could become bunk in the matter of moments. While this isn't advocacy for loose holding of ideas, a mind too open could let the best solution slip out, it is a form of advocacy for openness to hearing and considering anything and all. Hearing and considering doesn't mean acceptance, implementation, and negation of those against it, merely just allowing it mind share to be thrown out or accepted.