If space is expanding, where is it expanding to...

The space itself is expanding. Nothing was there before.

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That's the wonderful thing about cosmology: it forces us to go beyond our Frame of Reference. For example, we think of things relative to other things WITHIN OUR "known world". Hence, it makes no sense to me to think that the universe is "expanding" but within an "environment of nothing"--any something-of-nothing is profoundly paradoxical to me, but that doesn't bother me a big. It merely refers to the relativity of things and the parochial nature of my reality as thought of in conventional terms. I presume the theoretical mathematicians are more comfortable with such matters.

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Re: If space is expanding, where is it expanding to...

LatinoSoldier wrote:

If space is expanding, where is it expanding to

Apparantly into the vicinity of my ass.

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Brandon, that's right. I've heard that when the Big Bang occurred it produced the space in which it expanded. I suspect that "expand" is a misnomer. That something else happened, something which refers to what happened within a kind of non-spatial (and non-temporarl) dimension. But this dimension is something that, as Kant noted, we are neurologically constrained to think in terms of space (and time). We mustn't assume a necessary isomorphism between the structure of our neurology and that of the Cosmos.
BTW, I don't think an ant--even the smartest ant--has a chance of understanding what we are up to, because of its neurology. The same applies to humans regarding the Absolute Cosmos. The most we can do is uncover paradoxes that reflect our nature and its relationship to the Cosmos.

Nevertheless, we should not forget that the Cosmos includes us. I like to recall that the universe is on both ends of a telescope. And that would apply also to a microscope,

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The question "If space is expanding, where is it expanding to", is in a way a product of itself.
All the words in the question require a context, and the context is implied in the words themselves.

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Yes, and the question is loaded with presuppositions that are in themselves problematical.

I guess that was part of what you were saying.

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Yes.

Our understanding of terms relies to a large extent on our understanding of the terms' relations to eachother.

If something is expanding that implies space to expand in, as we would picture it with a balloon for instance, hence the question of where it is expanding to.

It is not precicely a logical flaw, more a linguistic limitation.
It is the same as with the concepts "beginning" and "end".
It's hard to fathom a beginning without something before it, since a starting point is implied in the very term. The question "but what was before" always seems reasonable. As we see all the time in discussons about god or the big bang and such things.

But even if our words are bound by linear, dualistic mechanisms, by the dimensions we percieve around us, our thoughts are not.
That is why I think it is best to realize that thoughts require no words. Sharing thoughts however, does. But I think the distinction is important to realize, lest our minds become bound by the limitations of our language.

And as a digresson from this subject, (but on another we've discussed in another thread), I would like to suggest that this is a key point in understanding attachments and how to be free of them while they still affect us, so to speak.
In a way, wordless thought is detachment.

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What do we mean by this "space" that we see expanding? Say two astronomical bodies are growing apart. This, it seems to me, is a matter of an expanding distance between them (and this distance is the amount of time it takes to travel between them?). Is this what we mean by "space" or are we positing something beyond them, an area--whether or not it contains astronomical bodies--that is expanding in itself? I think not.

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I don't think so either... :wink:

How would we know there's nothing if there isn't also something to contrast it against? Space has no body, no precence.

I don't believe in space :wink:

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JLNobody wrote:

Brandon, that's right. I've heard that when the Big Bang occurred it produced the space in which it expanded. I suspect that "expand" is a misnomer. That something else happened, something which refers to what happened within a kind of non-spatial (and non-temporarl) dimension. But this dimension is something that, as Kant noted, we are neurologically constrained to think in terms of space (and time). We mustn't assume a necessary isomorphism between the structure of our neurology and that of the Cosmos.

BTW, I don't think an ant--even the smartest ant--
has a chance of understanding what we are up to,
because of its neurology.

What is the source of your knowledge
of what an ant can understand ?
Have u consulted ants ? Did u discuss this with psychiatric veterinarinans ?
or with entomologists who r skilled in the psychology or filosofy of their subjects ?

or r u propagating arbitrary and naked prejudice against the ants and their intellects ?

R u picking on them because thay r unrepresented in this forum,
and hence unable to defend themselves from your vilification ?

casting aspersions upon their minds ?

exposing them to public humiliation, gratuitously and entirely unprovoked ??

Has your allocution revealed your closeted entomological bigotry ?

Tell the truth ! CONFESS !!!!

Quote:

The same applies to humans regarding the Absolute Cosmos.
The most we can do is uncover paradoxes that reflect our nature and its relationship to the Cosmos.

During the Abraham Lincoln Administration, a congressman sought to save money
by abolishing the Patent Office on the grounds that everything of any importance
that cud be discovered or invented had already been.
How have YOU discovered what is "The most we can do" ??
Have u consulted this congressman ?

David

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I consider (humans) to be superior to ants. I admit it. But I stress that my bias is shared by all humans. At a more transcendental level, however, I acknowledge that while ants cannot share our experience, we can't share theirs. Thank God.
Laughing

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JLNobody wrote:

I consider (humans) to be superior to ants. I admit it.
But I stress that my bias is shared by all humans.
At a more transcendental level, however, I acknowledge
that while ants cannot share our experience, we can't share theirs. Thank God.

Still, it is grossly unfair for u to expose them to such ignominy
and to treat them as if thay were such low beings as u have implied.

U have taken advantage of their inability
to reach a computer keyboard and push down its keys,
in defense of their intellects !

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David wrote:

What is the source of your knowledge
of what an ant can understand ?
Have u consulted ants ? Did u discuss this with psychiatric veterinarinans ?
or with entomologists who r skilled in the psychology or filosofy of their subjects ?

I have consulted ants. When exposed to ideas of existence expressed by a human they showed no response at all. They just went about their day as if I wasn't even there...

If I wanted to really interact with the ants I had to settle for basic things that weren't beyond their physical capability. :wink:

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But seriously, David, I believe that "superior" and "inferior" are notions invented by humans. Ants and humans are neither, except that thinking makes it so. I wonder what (and if) ants think at all. I know SOME humans do.

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Cyracuz wrote:

David wrote:
What is the source of your knowledge
of what an ant can understand ?
Have u consulted ants ? Did u discuss this with psychiatric veterinarinans ?
or with entomologists who r skilled in the psychology or filosofy of their subjects ?

I have consulted ants. When exposed to ideas of existence expressed by a human they showed no response at all. They just went about their day as if I wasn't even there...

If I wanted to really interact with the ants I had to settle for basic things that weren't beyond their physical capability. :wink:

Do u think that thay were looking down on u, so to speak ?
Unwilling to discuss filosofy with u ?

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JLNobody wrote:

But seriously, David, I believe that "superior" and "inferior" are notions invented by humans. Ants and humans are neither, except that thinking makes it so. I wonder what (and if) ants think at all. I know SOME humans do.

HOW did u decide what thay UNDERSTAND,
as u indicated hereinabove ?

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David wrote:

Do u think that thay were looking down on u, so to speak ?
Unwilling to discuss filosofy with u ?

I have no indicaton that an ant is capable of discussing philosophy with me. But that is not to say it has nothing to teach me.

But what if you envision humans as you would ants? On a biological level, as an outside observer of an entirely different species...

If you look at ants and humans in this way, is there more indication that humans can think than there is that ants can?

Also, wouldn't the answer to that question partly depend on the observer's own version of the concept of thought, and his understanding of it?

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Cyracuz wrote:

David wrote:
Do u think that thay were looking down on u, so to speak ?
Unwilling to discuss filosofy with u ?

I have no indicaton that an ant is capable of discussing philosophy with me. But that is not to say it has nothing to teach me.

But what if you envision humans as you would ants? On a biological level, as an outside observer of an entirely different species...

If you look at ants and humans in this way, is there more indication that humans can think than there is that ants can?

Also, wouldn't the answer to that question partly depend on the observer's own version of the concept of thought, and his understanding of it?

Do you know, that is quite funny, Cyracuz: an ant, maybe with a monocle and an ascot smoking jacket, enquiring about Hegel's notion of the Absolute. Laughing

Seriously, ants move in huffs and puffs, and Aristotle opened his Metaphysics with that question; but there is nothing to disprove the possibility that ants can teach us anything. Though on the biological level, observation- especially from the vantage point of other civilizations more intelligent than us or ants- would attribute a higher intelligence percentage to the human than the ant. Any observer capable of carrying out empirical (biological) observation would see the same.

Concerning the universe, I would very much like to know not only where each universe is expanding to, but more importantly (to me, that is), where is it expanding? I mean to say, is the set of all universes in space evolving within another set, or container so to speak? Is it growing "in" something, or is the container the growth itself? What does quantum physics say about that? I am not familiar with much science.

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OmSigDAVID wrote:

JLNobody wrote:
I consider (humans) to be superior to ants. I admit it.
But I stress that my bias is shared by all humans.
At a more transcendental level, however, I acknowledge
that while ants cannot share our experience, we can't share theirs. Thank God.

Still, it is grossly unfair for u to expose them to such ignominy
and to treat them as if thay were such low beings as u have implied.

U have taken advantage of their inability
to reach a computer keyboard and push down its keys,
in defense of their intellects !

We ought to put this issue in front of a judge. I would pay good money to hear those arguments- seriously. It could be a defamation case... Laughing

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If space is expanding, where is it expanding to...

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