Is the Universe Infinite?

Finite - has boundaries within which our reality exists - still apparently expanding. Beyond our reality call things nullspace or other membranes - which ours may or may not eventually interact with - alah developing M-Theory.

I too don't see any infinities outside the world of mathematics.

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BoGoWo,

In re. your comments on my last post.

My posting was in response to a question that seemed to be: Can space be finite, and time infinite. Perhaps I've inadequately understood the question, but my response were to that ... and my short answer was no.

You quote me, and then say, "I see (d4) time as merely a viewpoint, without a vector reference!" Alright, but I don't understand your point. Time only exists when change exists, so before existence (a necessary state in a finite universe) there is no time. With "creation" of the universe change has occurred (before and after). Hence, time comes into existence. The finite models also tend to regard the perceptual universe as "real", so when multiplicity is created out of "nothing" space also comes into existence. Prior to the beginning of the finite universe neither space nor time exists, and the beginning both exist. Once time and space come into existence. Vector references are nonsensical if time/space don't exist.

Youn comment, "a finite universe can contain as many cycles as one would want; an infinite universe contains 'all' cycles." I totally agree, and I think you might note that my sentence says "infinite cycles", so that the reader should not be misled into believing that "finite cycles" are not a possibility within the model.

Since my post was intended to focus on the difficulties with finite models, especially their relationship to time, your comment, "and there is no reason to be sure something else won't happen at that, or any other point" seems gratuitous. Of course, if something happens to continuously forestall the "end" we are no longer talking about a finite model at all. As you've commented elsewhere in this thread, the perceptual universe is indeed a process, and one that we don't fully understand. The effect upon perceptual reality of multi-dimensions at the Planck level may make it no more possible for us to fully understand this universe, than it would be for the flatlander to understand ours. But, that's another discussion, isn't it?

From your earlier remarks about the relationship between zero and infinity, and your final comments in the post referred to here, I take it that our understanding is not too dissimilar. For me, finite systems are just a non-starter. Though problems always are turning up with infinite, and closed systems, I pretty sure that the universe is infinite and that if we are to get a good grasp of it we need to examine those models as a priority. BTW, we are badly handicapped here because almost certainly the best way to describe and talk about these things requires a level of mathematical skill far beyond me at any rate.

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extra Medium, remember that the Maya also came up with the idea of zero as a mathematical concept.

Naj. Very good english. Interesting thought. If there is an end to the universe and your thought experiment asks what would happen if a space ship should fly to the end and try to cross into the area beyond our universe what would happen. Keep in mind that the space ship is not just flying IN our universe; it IS part of our universe. So for it to enter beyond the universe is meaningless. It would be expanding our universe (because it is part of it) and thus never go beyond it. Does that make sense?
It is a common mistake we make to think that we are IN and surrounded by our universe. We are (part) our universe. A different but related point: when we look at the cosmos through a telescope we must keep in mind that the cosmos is not just on the other side of the telescope; it is on THIS side as well.

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najmelliw:
You do not have any obstacle in the use of English......your position on infinity was well expressed and appreciated......certainly by me...and I'm sure many others.

extra medium:
As you noted, zero is a mathematical term . It is not necessarily a philosophical term, unless, as some of our A2K
philosophers choose to use it as such in argument.
It certainly does not mean infinity....it means, as you say,'" nothing".....a quantity of nothing.
The concept of "nothingness" was not necessaily foreign to either Eastern or Western
philosophers........the concept of "zero" however was foreign to western mathematicians.
The Western Existentialists (take Sartre's
"Being and Nothingness", as an example) , were philosophically
involved with that concept, but as you say, perhaps
the Western religions did in fact delay the Western
understading of the use of the Zero/Nothing concept.

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alikimr wrote:

The concept of "nothingness" was not necessaily foreign to either Eastern or Western
philosophers........the concept of "zero" however was foreign to western mathematicians.
The Western Existentialists (take Sartre's
"Being and Nothingness", as an example) , were philosophically
involved with that concept, but as you say, perhaps
the Western religions did in fact delay the Western
understading of the use of the Zero/Nothing concept.

Right. What I'm saying is perhaps the East was more comfortable with the idea of nothingness long before the West. You don't see nothingness discussed much in the Bible (flames begin). However, the concept of nothingness (Void, etc.) is found throughout early Eastern thought.

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At one time the concept of nothingness could get you into trouble in the Christian west as it implied that God was not infinite and all encompassing.

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EM, that's right.

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JLNobody wrote:

............Each concept makes no sense without the other and together they tell me nothing about the world as I experience it........

Nothing makes any sense without an understanding of its opposite!

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I'd like to expand on my earlier comments on why the universe is temporally infinite. But first I need to apologize for my lack of sophistication in Math and Philosophy. It may seem to those with greater knowledge that I am making uninformed arguments: which can be annoying. Please bear with me.

Earlier I advanced a rationale for a temporally infinite universe by saying that the universe was pulsating; that it always has and always will be. Then I read, I think, that there is some differences between the mathematical constucts depending on whether one was talking of the universe as viewed telescopically or microscopically.

Does this mean that it is being proposed that there is either an infinity, or not, of big to small? That the microscopic world goes on forever getting smaller: or doesn't? And if it doesn't (go on forever) that means that we have found a beginning, or end, and so the universe is not infinite? If all of the above is so, then I disagree.

Imagine that: you are the smallest possible particle (either matter or energy or some unknown); you have no space within you; you are just solid matter or energy or some unknown; you can't be further broken down; there are others like you; there are others as small as you but of a different nature; you and your fellows and the others interact to form systems. There would be space between particles.

Your existence would not suggest a finite universe because there would be that space. The space is the same space that exists between the planets and between the stars. Not a suggestion of finite but merely a part of the infinite.

The pulsating infinite that has always existed and always will.

I am looking forward to getting educated,

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najmelliw wrote:

.........Suppose the little people we sometimes scribble on paper, would start to exist in their two dimensional world, and explore their universe. Suppose the paper is being folded in a form like a mobius eight or a globe, (talk about infinity symbols) their universe would be infinite to them, since they can't find an edge.
So perhaps we are, in turn, limited by the dimensional depth we, as humans, can explore...........

Suppose that on every electron, revolving about every nucleus, of every atom making up the firmament of our world, there are civilizations living.
Think of the devastation of a nuclear explosion, were that the case!

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Asherman wrote:

......You quote me, and then say, "I see (d4) time as merely a viewpoint, without a vector reference!" Alright, but I don't understand your point. Time only exists when change exists, so before existence (a necessary state in a finite universe) there is no time. With "creation" of the universe change has occurred (before and after). Hence, time comes into existence. [I do not see 'time' as 'change', i see it as 'relationship; and i do not call the start the 'creation' - it is merely an 'event', but i understand your meaning] The finite models also tend to regard the perceptual universe as "real", so when multiplicity is created out of "nothing" space also comes into existence. [ i see the void of nothingness in which current space is contained as having always been there; the existence of nothingness (lots, and lots of it - it's plentiful, since it is nothing, is axiomatic; and a prerequisite for everythingness] Prior to the beginning of the finite universe neither space nor time exists, and the beginning both exist. Once time and space come into existence. Vector references are nonsensical if time/space don't exist.

Youn comment, "a finite universe can contain as many cycles as one would want; an infinite universe contains 'all' cycles." I totally agree, and I think you might note that my sentence says "infinite cycles", so that the reader should not be misled into believing that "finite cycles" are not a possibility within the model.

Since my post was intended to focus on the difficulties with finite models, especially their relationship to time, your comment, "and there is no reason to be sure something else won't happen at that, or any other point" seems gratuitous. Of course, if something happens to continuously forestall the "end" we are no longer talking about a finite model at all. As you've commented elsewhere in this thread, the perceptual universe is indeed a process, and one that we don't fully understand. The effect upon perceptual reality of multi-dimensions at the Planck level may make it no more possible for us to fully understand this universe, than it would be for the flatlander to understand ours. But, that's another discussion, isn't it? [Quite!]

From your earlier remarks about the relationship between zero and infinity, and your final comments in the post referred to here, I take it that our understanding is not too dissimilar. For me, finite systems are just a non-starter. Though problems always are turning up with infinite, and closed systems, I pretty sure that the universe is infinite and that if we are to get a good grasp of it we need to examine those models as a priority. [Here, here!] BTW, we are badly handicapped here because almost certainly the best way to describe and talk about these things requires a level of mathematical skill far beyond me [us!]at any rate.

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JLNobody wrote:

extra Medium, remember that the Maya also came up with the idea of zero as a mathematical concept.

Naj. Very good english. Interesting thought. If there is an end to the universe and your thought experiment asks what would happen if a space ship should fly to the end and try to cross into the area beyond our universe what would happen. Keep in mind that the space ship is not just flying IN our universe; it IS part of our universe. So for it to enter beyond the universe is meaningless. It would be expanding our universe (because it is part of it) and thus never go beyond it. Does that make sense?.........

Infinite sense! Laughing

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john/nyc; while i find it hard to comment on your post, i think i understand what you are getting at, and .............perhaps an analogy:

we are worms in a peach; looking outward to the skin (where it transparent) we can almost make out a spherical shape with a sort of muted light beyond. What is actually beyond that would render our dreams (and nightmares) tame!
Looking inward we see a solid pit (spherical again). We can assume that is all there is or we can tunnel into it to find its layers of discoveries, seemingly ending at the centre. But with an electron microscope we can look beyond into a "Narnia" (wondrous place in a children's story) of delights; and how far beyond that, who knows?

At either end are imagined infinities; which are actual, we may never know.

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Asherman

What about the idea that time is infinite and systems are finite. Whether a system is microcosmic or about to happen, macrocosmic, happening, developing or ending, wherever there is a process, there must be the ingredient of time. Can entropy ever be so absolute that creation, order and process remain FOREVER as impossibilities? This would infer that its information content cannot even reform to new potentialities; a true death as incomprehensible to humans as is the concept of infinity itself. Also, if finite systems are inelegant it may only be because their topology hasn't yet been discovered. And, from what I understand, there can be an exceptional number, if not innumerable, of possible finite topologies that make it APPEAR as if the universe is infinite. It is also very difficult to circumscribe the words "exist and existence" in pre or post context as time itself would seem to pre-exist the Big-Bang meaning that time remains operative after the theoretical implosion of a blue-shifted universe.

It would seem at this point in the state of the art of cosmology that there is a greater paradoxicality and insurmountability of explaining an infinite universe then there is in awaiting the discovery or at the very least, the probablity of one whose credentials are based on a finite topology.

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In re. Infinite time-finite space, I thought that I had covered this ground in my last several posts to this thread. "Systems" consist of multiple elements and in existing create or exist within at least 4D. "Infinite" v. "finite" has to do ultimately with whether the universe is bounded or not, whether there are beginnings, endings and boundaries. Different things, and in a finite system time comes into existence with the beginning event (thanks BoGoWo, for the better term).

In a finite system/universe there is an end state, and in our perceptual universe that is supposed to be the result of entropy. Entropy is not linear, and the rate increases as disorganization, slowing and cooling proceed. As the end state approaches entropy can be expected to reduce universal motion and temperature to absolute zero very quickly. If I understand your description of entropy correctly, it appears incorrect. This is the old problem of the hare who in crossing a field covers half the distance in each time period, ergo the hare can never cross the field. Even if entropy slowed as it progressed, at some point the finite universe must end. Now a much better question to my mind is what is it within a closed model, or infinite universe that counteracts and balances the equation that entropy forces upon us. The existence of Entropy may be the best argument for a finite universe. The old closed model was that universal expansion would slow, at least partially due to gravitational pull between matter, and then accelerate back to an end state called the Big Crunch, a singularity that would also be the Big Bang of the succeeding universe. That model has been problematical for some time now, and I don't think there is yet any consensus as to what a replacement model ought to be. Dark matter and Dark energy have both been advanced as candidates for a "mechanism" bringing about a closed system. However, I have a hunch the ultimate answer is hidden down there on the Planck level where additional dimensions give rise to our perceptual universe.

Of course, it is possible that the finite model IS elegant, and that we are just too dense to perceive it, or the elegance is not perceivable because the elegance is hidden within dimensions not accessible to humans. I don't think so. On the other hand, infinite models are evidently elegant and hence Occham's Razor makes them preferable.

To say "innumerable finite possibilities" is problematic. What you are saying is there are an infinite number of limited possibilities. Certainly a true statement, but then there are an infinite number of infinite models as well. Finite can exist within infinity, but infinity subsumes finity.

BTW, much of our problem here is that English is far too imprecise to clearly express the concepts, what is needed is the language of higher mathematics. If you think these postings are occasioinally confusing, try stumbling through a few pages of equations.

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Wouldn't it be safe that any assumptions re the universe being finite or infinite are pure speculation since there is no way to see beyond what we are able to see?

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Of course, that would be a safe assumption. However, not a very useful or satisfying one. We would very much like to know the nature of things. To know how the universe is structured, is one important factor in how we view everything within it. How we think and act is largely dependant on our understanding of what reality is. If the universe is finite, the implications are very different than if the universe is infinite. Our Weltanschaung is fundamental to how we relate to ourselves, others and the universe at large. We need to keep an open mind, but almost everyone has already taken a position one way or another. As long as we are questioning and discussing the question there is a chance that we might learn something new, that our understancing will be expanded, and that our errors and mistakes will be rectified.

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Well that's true Ash. For me, I want it to be infinite, to go on forever, so there will always be something new to explore.

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How about a 'binary' (per event), infinite (i still see finite as a meaningless dead end; pardon the pun! :wink: ), series of universes, based upon super massive black holes.

Here the 'yin/yang' truly comes into its own!

A black hole being the implosion of all trapped matter, and energy, falling within its event horizon, could be the surface of a 'big bang' like event, describing my nothingness to everythingness model, and including the 'happening over a space/timeframe' factor.

When a black hole coalesces in space it 'eats' its surroundings into an internal space which is, in effect 'lost' to us forever, radiating only an electromagnetic message announcing its presence.

I am thinking that this new black hole event in our universe actually is the beginning of a new 'inverse' universe on the other side, in new space/time (gives new meaning to the phrase "the dark side"!).

Also perhaps all black holes are sources of wormholes through which other dimensions can be crossed, possibly ending up in our universe again via another 'entrance', without any physical displacement, hence no travel
'time'!

I am seeing universes, and wormholes as iterations of the same phenomenon, size being the only delimiting factor.

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BoGoWo,

The size of a black hole is believed to be related to the amount of "stuff" it has sucked into it's gravitatinal field. As matter is stripped down to it's elemintary essence, the Black Hole increases in size. At what point in the life of the Black Hole is the "Big Bang" opening event in the theoretical new universe? We're back to dealing with time. At the bottom of the Black Hole is singularity where time and space are zero. Timeless, yet time continues in the perceptual universe at the "mouth" of the Black Hole. Are all singularities, then equal and the perceptual universes stemming from them the same?

Let us say that a Black Hole develops when its mass reaches Y, and that Y constitutes some small percentage of the apparent mass of the perceptual universe giving birth to the Black Hole. In our perceptual universe there are a finite number of black holes, but the number is almost certainly very large. For sake of clarity let us suppose that there are 100 black holes, each of which reaches the requisite mass when it has accumulated .1 percent of the total matter making up our theoretical universe, that is 10% of the parent universe is consumed to create 100 black holes. Each of the 100 black holes will create at least one new universe as a result of its singularity. Each of those 100 new universes are .1 of the parent mass. So are those new universes smaller? I think not.

In actuality it may be that each hlack hole can give rise to an infinite number of new perceptual universes as the time of the parent universe is reduced back to a zero state. So as one perceptual universe produces numerous black holes, each of which in turn give rise to more, we have something akin to a chain-reaction in the proliferation of universes. The mass converted into a Big Crunch within the heart of the black hole gives rise to a universe with a total mass similar to the parent universe in the infinite series. This is truly spontaneous generation.

I think that for this to be the case, my repeated notion that the perceptual universe of multiplicity is illusory must be at least reasonably accurate.

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