Ok. Let's think for a moment. There have to be an insanely large number of visitable Ages, but not an infinite number of visitable Ages. There are, however, an infinite number of unvisitable Ages. Here's why:
If an "instance" is simply an Age that differs only incalculably slightly from another Age, then there are as many linkable Ages as there are instances: however in order for it to be an instance it has to at least resemble its brother and sister Ages. And there are as many instances per Age as there are molecules in that whole Age (meaning the time, place, and universe that that Age resides in) which is why you can't Write a descriptive book to the same Age twice-- if even a few molecules in that Age are altered, you go to a different Age.
And if you alter the Descriptive Book even slightly, you end up in a different Age entirely (even if it is so incredibly similar, with the same people, places, or things that you do not notice a difference. But it is still technically a different place.)
So if you have 1 Age on your bookshelf, and each Age has as many instances as there are molecules in the universe, then there are that number of instances (which are seperate Ages) just for that one Age. If one molecule is in point A instead of point B in one instance, BAM, it's different from every other instance where it might be in point B. So from that respect, there are an incalculably large number of nearly-identical Ages, but not an infinite number. Lost yet? We're not even half-way there.
There comes a point when Ages no longer resemble other Ages-- at which point they are not instances, they are seperate. And each seperate Age has an equally massive number of corresponding instances. And on and on and on. But it gets even more confusing.
There comes a point when the instances seperate from each other and become individual Ages. And each of those Ages has instances. It's like a rainbow: sooner or later, yellow and red seperate, but that's a hard line to follow. The rainbow is like the Ages we can visit and actually see.
The Ages we cannot visit are the ones where all the molecules in their respective universes are mushed up in such a way that there is nothing material in the Age. Remember, Ages are just a selected arrangement of molecules in a given instance. So there must be Ages where all the molecules are in non-visitable forms. And there are as many molecules in each universe as there are universes, and there are more molecules in the universe than we can ever measure.
So for all intents and purposes, all Ages point to an infinite number of universes in which non-visitable Ages exist, but there are only so many (albiet a very, very large number) of Ages that could support us.
_________________ I miss my old signature.
|