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Jorge Luis Borges in 1976. Copyright: By Annemarie Heinrich (1912-2005), Public Domain

In 1975, Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges published his short story The Book of Sand, a tale that explores the terrifying concept of infinity.

The plot revolves around an unnamed narrator, who acquires a mysterious book from a Scots Bible-seller, who had bought it from a Dalit in India. The book, titled The Book of Sand, is so named "because neither the book nor the sand has any beginning or end." Upon opening it, the narrator discovers that it is infinite - its pages multiply endlessly. Over the coming months, he withdraws from the world, obsessing over the book and cataloging its illustrations. Eventually, after realizing that the book is in nature monstrous, he hides it in the National Library, reasoning that "the best place to hide a leaf is in the forest."

This story explores the terrifying concept of infinity - a fear many of us share with the narrator. To some people this fear is so profound, that it has a name: apeirophobia, characterized by the excessive fear of infinity, endlessness, or eternity. But what makes the infinite so disturbing to the human mind?

Why Do We Fear Infinity?

Photo by Senya Mitin on Unsplash

Reflecting on infinity naturally leads us to question the nature of space and time. This area of thought belongs to philosophy, and while it is deeply fascinating, it often raises more questions than answers. The concept of time, in particular, is elusive - difficult to define and even harder to understand when considered alongside space. Some philosophical schools suggest that the human mind may be fundamentally incapable of fully grasping the true nature of space and time.

If we cannot understand or define these concepts, how can we answer the inevitable questions: Are space and time infinite? Do they have a beginning or an end? The result is often a feeling of unease -a symptom of our discomfort with the unknown and it has been repeatedly demonstrated that humans fear the unknown. Neuroscientists have even hypothesized that apeirophobia may be a manifestation of this exact primal fear. Our minds easily engage with what we can measure: people, objects, and events that we can observe and, to some extent, control. Infinity, by contrast, exists outside our realm. It is a concept we cannot measure or contain, making it seem alien to us.

We could also reason, that infinity may provoke anxiety because of our innate need for closure. In social psychology, the need for closure is defined as

"the motivation to find an answer to an ambiguous situation. This motivation is enhanced by the perceived benefits of obtaining closure, such as the increased ability to predict the world and a stronger basis for action. This motivation is also enhanced by the perceived costs of lacking closure, such as dealing with uncertainty" (Kruglanski, A., Individual Differences in Need for Cognitive Closure).

Without closure, we often become anxious, uncertain, and bombarded with distressing thoughts and reflections, trying to make sense of a situation that we cannot understand.

And here comes a paradox in the way we think - on the surface, we often claim to long for absolute freedom - freedom from limitations, from expectations, and even from the confines of logic and time. We celebrate the idea of imagination and infinite possibilities, imagining that to be the ultimate liberation. Yet, when faced with the idea of true boundlessness - we recoil. The infinite is not just unfamiliar; it is unsettling. It undermines our need for patterns, stability, and predictability. In this contradiction lies the essence of our discomfort.

Infinity reminds us that some things may always remain just out of reach of our understanding - and that, too, is a kind of terror.