Infinitely confusing

From Mary Midgley Your article on cosmic conundrums surely reasons from a very slender base (8 March, p 26). It may indeed be that our visible universe is “part of a larger spacetime of infinite volume” in which there may be “an infinity” of similar occupied patches. But how does anyone get from this use of the word “infinity” – which means mere absence of known bounds – to positive factual claims such as “universes indistinguishable from ours would be repeated infinitely” and “everything that can happen will happen, infinitely many times”, where infinite means a very large number?  Our ignorance of limits is just a negative. It cannot spawn new facts in this way. Unfortunately this sort of  thing is not philosophy. It’s just muddled language. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK From Andrew Howe We’re told that in an infinite multiverse, “everything that can happen will happen, infinitely many times”. This is traditionally exemplified by the idea that there will not only be another exact “you” somewhere, but also a “you” who is king or queen, president, Superman, riding a unicorn, and so on. However, take the much simpler case of numbers. There will be infinite sets of random numbers which don’t include any conceivable number you might choose to specify, never mind infinitely repeated within. Is there any probability theory to say a multiverse must mean all these things can manifest themselves somewhere, or should the infinite stats be taken to mean that although we can’t rule out such  a possibility, it is not necessarily the case either? Sheffield, UK