[Advaita-l] Re: Universe - finite or infinite?

[Slowfork at aol.com]

Dear Badisa and Group,

True, one fourth of infinity is infinity. However a reference to "one quarter 
of the universe" being purusha (or anything else) does not have the necessary 
implication that the universe is finite. The current majority opinion is that 
the universe is infinite but that does not render statements such as, for 
example, "only 5% of the matter in the universe is visible" nonsensical.

Here is another interesting example from mathematics. Suppose A is the set of 
all counting numbers i.e. 1,2,3,4... and that B is the set of all multiples 
of 4, i.e.4,8,12,16..... A and B are both infinite sets and in fact they have 
the same number of members. Nonetheless B is contained within A - indeed B is 
got by taking every fourth member of A so in a sense we can refer to it as "a 
quarter of A". The apparent contradiction arises because we are dealing with 
infinite sets.

Hari Om

Roger Floyd