Is there a finite amount of beings?
score:2
Learning mathematics, I was warned to beware of logic based on an informal or naive definition of infinity (it is tricky and error-prone, see for example Zeno's paradoxes).
According to Wikipedia, 4th century BCE Jain mathematicians distinguished between "uncountable" and "infinite" (see ref and ref and ref) but I'm not sure that other (Buddhist) literature/authors supported a similar, specific, precise, or modern meaning of the word "infinity".
Some of The unanswered questions are questions about infinity: including whether the world is infinitely large, and whether it's eternal.
If these two questions were unanswered for good reason, then perhaps your question should be too.
Upvote:0
According to zen attitude: one could say there are no beings, and also everything is being, and neither are there no beings or everything is being.
This is uncertainty. When one says something with certainty, there is only one side of the subject. The universe if 96% dark matter and energy of which we have no conceptual understanding except to know it exists. How can we speak of certainties.
If we must have confession, I am guilty of trying to make things certain too often.
None of what I said may be true. Or all of it. Or neither of these. Uncertainty is harder to live with than certainty.
Upvote:1
According to Buddhism there are infinite number of beings. The number of Buddhas are like the grains of the sand in the banks of the Ganges. (Infiniti literally. ) The enlightened beings during a Buddha Sasana in also very large.
Because there are infinite being though and infinite of beings have crossed don't reduce the number of beings.
Upvote:1
I am aware that the question posted is an imponderable and one among the unanswered questions by the Buddha, and doesn't help alleviate my suffering in samsara.
But just to give my thoughts on this, I seem to gravitate towards the notion of "infinite beings", because this universe seems infinitely huge. And only an infinite universe can host either finite or infinite number of beings, and latter is my bet. Not implying that the universe exists only because sentient beings live in it though.
Be that as it may, we will never decipher certain mysteries that lie behind the thicket of veil of ignorance, without rooting it out of our mind and reaching enlightenment. Peace.
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