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That's a completely misrepresentative metaphor. Let's try it this way.

Subtract infinity from zero. Then from that number (whatever it would be), start counting up one number at a time, every second for eternity until you reach zero. How long will it take you? So in a sense, while zero exists, it can't be counted to sequentially from any number that is infinitely less than zero.


Yes, I just wanted to point out how illogical your assumption was. You do not need to count up from minus infinity to reach zero. In the same way you do not need to wait an infinite amount of time for existing at the present moment, just as you do not weed to walk an infinite long distance for being at your present location. Yet, infinite numbers can exist as well as infinite time and infinite space. You can not reach a point in an infinite distance, but things can very well exist at that point.

I hope the difference is understandable.

Some aspects of infinity might appear counter-intuitive and difficult to grasp. If you're interested in infinity and want to make some _qualified_ statements about it, I can absolutely recommend reading "Infinity and the Mind" by Rudy Rucker. This is one of the best popular-science books, a really great read.

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In fact, you might then be able to answer a question for me that I haven't heard answered yet. QM theory states that because anything is possible at the atomic level, there's a universe for every possible outcome. But why? Just because anything is possible in our universe, doesn't mean that the other possibilities have occured.


Actually, that was not QM, but the Everett interpretation of QM. Today physicists normally prefer the Kopenhagen interpretation, which states that quantum events do _not_ create a universe for every possible outcome.

The motivation for the Everett interpretation was an attempt to explain the Schroedinger's cat paradoxon in a more intuitive way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schroedingers_cat

According to the Kopenhagen interpretation, the cat exists in a superposition of alive and dead. This superposition is destroyed as soon as the cat's isolation breaks down, and then the cat is either alive or dead, with a true random outcome.

According to Everett however, rather than containing a superposition the world is split in two, one with the living and one with the dead cat.

There is probably no experiment to decide between the Everett and the Kopenhagen interpretation.