Eternity

An allegorical painting of a woman, representing eternity. She holds an hourglass, a skull rests on the table beside her, and an Ouroboros floats above her head. All of these are common symbols of eternity.

"Sempiternal" redirects here. For the fourth studio album by Bring Me the Horizon, see Sempiternal (album).

For other uses, see Eternity (disambiguation).

Time
Major Concepts
Past ♦ Present ♦ Future Eternity Arguments for eternity
Broad Studies
Chronology History (Paleontology) Futurology
Philosophy
Presentism ♦ Eternalism, Fatalism Philosophy of Space and Time
Religion
Creation End Times Day of Judgement Immortality Afterlife ♦ Reincarnation Kalachakra
Time measurement and Standards
Metric Time ♦ Hexadecimal time
Related
Spacetime, Motion ♦ Space Event ♦ Continuum Time Travel ♦ (Grandfather Paradox)

Eternity (or forever) is endless time. In philosophy and mathematics, an infinite duration is also called sempiternity, or everlasting. Eternity is an important concept in many religions, where the immortality of God (or the gods) is said to endure eternally. Some, such as Aristotle, would say the same about the natural cosmos in regard to both past and future eternal duration, and like the eternal Platonic Forms, immutability was considered essential.

Philosophy

The metaphysics of eternity studies that which necessarily exists "outside" or independently of space and time. Another important question is whether "information" or Form is separable from mind and matter. Aristotle established a distinction between actual infinity and a potentially infinite count: a future span of time must be a potential infinity, because another element can always be added to a series that is inexhaustible. Aristotle likewise argued that the cosmos has no beginning. Euclid invoked this distinction instead of saying that there are an infinity of primes... rather that the primes outnumber those contained in any given collection thereof.

Symbolism

Eternity is often symbolized by the image of a snake swallowing its own tail, known as the Ouroboros (or Uroboros). The circle is also commonly used as a symbol for eternity, as is the mathematical symbol of infinity, $\infty$.

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  The Ouroboros.

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  The "endless knot," a symbol of eternity used in Tibetan Buddhism.

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  Borjgali, an ancient Georgian symbol of eternity and sun.

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  Annulus, a Celtis symbol of eternity.^{[citation needed]}

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  Infinity symbol variations.

See also

• God and eternity
• Aeon
• Arguments for eternity
• Eternalism
• Eternal return
• Perennial philosophy
• Presentism
• Temporal finitism
• Time
  • Time (philosophy)
  • Time (psychology)
  • Time (science)
    • Timeline of the Big Bang
      • Planck epoch
• Yin and yang

External links

• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/eternity/ Entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on Eternity.
• http://www.iep.utm.edu/g/god-time.htm Entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy on the relationship between God and Time.