WHAT EXISTS BEYOND THE BOUNDARY OF UNIVERSE?

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heracleitos
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Re: WHAT EXISTS BEYOND THE BOUNDARY OF UNIVERSE?

Post by heracleitos »

LuckyR wrote: October 1st, 2022, 1:42 am
heracleitos wrote: September 30th, 2022, 10:21 pm
LuckyR wrote: September 30th, 2022, 5:40 pm Good point and even if definitions are agreed upon this subject matter is fully in the unobservable (and thus unverifiable and therefore unknowable) category.
We know quite a bit about the natural numbers even though it is impossible to obverse them all. There is an infinite number of them, potentially or actually, depending on whether you accept the axiom of infinity.

However, it is not because the natural numbers are infinite that there is nothing beyond them.

According to CH (Continuum Hypothesis), there is gap after the natural numbers. Next, there is an entire copy of the real numbers. Next, there is another massive gap. That goes on forever.

If the elusive theory of the universe contains a copy of the relevant fragment of arithmetic theory (Robinson's Q), then the universe has the same structure.

By the way, in a similar fashion, you do not need to observe the entire globe to seriously suspect that it is round. There are in fact numerous, subtle hints that give it away:
7 Ways to Prove the Earth Is Round (Without Launching a Satellite)

The first person to estimate the circumference of the Earth was a Greek mathematician named Eratosthenes, who was born in 276 B.C. He did so by comparing shadows case on the day of the summer solstice ... On a flat Earth, there wouldn't have been any difference between the length of the shadows at all.
Similarly, you can detect the structure of the universe from subtle hints. One such subtle hint is the general self-referential lemma:

For every property about logic propositions, there exists a true proposition that has the property, or, a false proposition that doesn't have it.

If this lemma is true inside our universe, then we know what its structure must be.

By the way, Hubble's red shift is also just a very subtle hint, which tells us that the universe must be expanding.
Substituting "suspect" for your use of "know" is more accurate and makes our postings consistent with one another.
I have used the term "to know" unconditionally only once in my comment above, as in We know quite a bit about the natural numbers", In the context of the natural numbers, the term "to know" is actually appropriate and in accordance with the JTB account of knowledge: a justified true belief. The reason why the term "to know" is acceptable in the context of the natural numbers, is because we actually know quite a few theorems that are provable from arithmetic theory and that are therefore true in the natural numbers. Concerning the universe, however, I have used the term "to know" strictly conditionally.

By the way, the JTB account of knowledge is perfectly compatible with the theorem of soundness: If a proposition is provable (=justified) from its theory, then it is true in all its interpretations (=universes). Therefore, the JTB account of knowledge is the canonical definition for mathematical knowledge in all systems in which soundness is provable.
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Samana Johann
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Re: WHAT EXISTS BEYOND THE BOUNDARY OF UNIVERSE?

Post by Samana Johann »

The All/world/Universe.
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Re: WHAT EXISTS BEYOND THE BOUNDARY OF UNIVERSE?

Post by Thomyum2 »

dattaswami wrote: October 1st, 2022, 12:01 am
Pattern-chaser wrote: September 29th, 2022, 12:51 pm
dattaswami wrote: September 29th, 2022, 11:55 am WHAT EXISTS BEYOND THE BOUNDARY OF UNIVERSE?
This is a question about words and their assigned meaning(s). If the "universe" means 'everything there is', then there is nothing beyond it.



As for the rest of your extremely long OP, I'm afraid I didn't read it. Tl;dr. Sorry.
Then why scientists say the universe is expanding? If it expands it expands into something else right?
No, scientists aren't saying the universe expanding 'into something', they're saying that space itself is expanding. The distances between all of the objects in the universe are increasing. The model is that of a universe that is finite, and growing, but without boundaries.
“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.”
— Epictetus
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Samana Johann
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Re: WHAT EXISTS BEYOND THE BOUNDARY OF UNIVERSE?

Post by Samana Johann »

Rejecting extremes, the Buddha teaches the way to beyond, of course beyond merely philosophy:

Lokayatika Sutta: The Cosmologist
A well-traveled deva learns that we don't have to go to the ends of the world to find an end to suffering; we need look no further than right here, in this very body.

[url=https://sangham.net/en/tipitaka/sut/an/ ... 4.045.than[/url]
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Re: WHAT EXISTS BEYOND THE BOUNDARY OF UNIVERSE?

Post by Sy Borg »

Thomyum2 wrote: October 1st, 2022, 12:58 pm
dattaswami wrote: October 1st, 2022, 12:01 am
Pattern-chaser wrote: September 29th, 2022, 12:51 pm
dattaswami wrote: September 29th, 2022, 11:55 am WHAT EXISTS BEYOND THE BOUNDARY OF UNIVERSE?
This is a question about words and their assigned meaning(s). If the "universe" means 'everything there is', then there is nothing beyond it.



As for the rest of your extremely long OP, I'm afraid I didn't read it. Tl;dr. Sorry.
Then why scientists say the universe is expanding? If it expands it expands into something else right?
No, scientists aren't saying the universe expanding 'into something', they're saying that space itself is expanding. The distances between all of the objects in the universe are increasing. The model is that of a universe that is finite, and growing, but without boundaries.
We have some options:

1. Orthodoxy: Spacetime created by the BB is constantly expanding. It is not expanding into anything because it is everything. This may accord with math and observations but it is deeply illogical. If it is true then:

a. either all of our perceptions of space and time are wrong, or

b. reality operates by different rules at the largest of scales, just as it does at the smallest of scales. A "Dead Poets Society" idea would be that the physical rules might "circle around", being the same for both the very large and very small, with our universe being quanta of a factorially larger domain.

2. Spacetime created by the BB is expanding into emptier space, where there is only vacuum energy. This leaves the problem of an infinite field of space in which BBs can happen.

So the answers to the question of what exists beyond the universe's boundary may be:

1. There is no boundary
2. Nothingness
3. More than we can ever imagine.
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Re: WHAT EXISTS BEYOND THE BOUNDARY OF UNIVERSE?

Post by Pattern-chaser »

dattaswami wrote: September 29th, 2022, 11:55 am WHAT EXISTS BEYOND THE BOUNDARY OF UNIVERSE?
Pattern-chaser wrote: September 29th, 2022, 12:51 pm This is a question about words and their assigned meaning(s). If the "universe" means 'everything there is', then there is nothing beyond it.
dattaswami wrote: October 1st, 2022, 12:01 am Then why scientists say the universe is expanding?
Some do, some don't, I think.


dattaswami wrote: October 1st, 2022, 12:01 am If it expands, it expands into something else right?
Why would you think that? Provided there is no barrier of any kind to the universe's expansion, then expansion can take place. There isn't necessarily anything "else" there, to be somehow pushed out of the way by the expanding universe.

And there remains my original point. We define our word "universe" to mean 'everything there is'. It seems to be our intention to describe everything, taken together, leaving out nothing at all. So there can be nothing 'outside' the universe. This is not a logical or scientific assertion, but only a recognition of the way we have defined the word "universe".
Merriam-Webster wrote: Universe — all of space and everything in it including stars, planets, galaxies, etc.
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heracleitos
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Re: WHAT EXISTS BEYOND THE BOUNDARY OF UNIVERSE?

Post by heracleitos »

Pattern-chaser wrote: October 2nd, 2022, 10:08 am And there remains my original point. We define our word "universe" to mean 'everything there is'. It seems to be our intention to describe everything, taken together, leaving out nothing at all. So there can be nothing 'outside' the universe. This is not a logical or scientific assertion, but only a recognition of the way we have defined the word "universe".
Merriam-Webster wrote: Universe — all of space and everything in it including stars, planets, galaxies, etc.
There is a serious problem with this view. If you switch to the theory that describes this universe, the Theory of Everything (ToE), you may very well end up in with the following problem:
Wikipedia on "Löwenheim–Skolem theorem" wrote: In mathematical logic, the Löwenheim–Skolem theorem is a theorem on the existence and cardinality of models, named after Leopold Löwenheim and Thoralf Skolem.

The precise formulation is given below. It implies that if a countable first-order theory has an infinite model, then for every infinite cardinal number κ it has a model of size κ, and that no first-order theory with an infinite model can have a unique model up to isomorphism. As a consequence, first-order theories are unable to control the cardinality of their infinite models.
Since the universe expands, and if the exact moment for the end of the universe is not predictable from its theory, then it is potentially infinite. In that case, this universe is just one universe in a much larger multiverse, even though you would never be able to see the other universes from within the universe. Even though all you wanted was a theory about your own universe, such theory will not be able to control the cardinality of the universes that it describes.

So, even if you have the theory that correctly describes "everything there is", then you can see from that same theory that it cannot possibly be "everything there is".

It is like saying "all natural numbers".

It is not enough to merely keep counting forever (0),1,2,3, ... to reach all natural numbers, because you will never reach the non-standard ones in that way. if you establish the theory that describes the sequence (0),1,2,3, ... and how its arithmetic works, then you will detect that this theory also describes other numbers. It is not possible to define the standard natural numbers without simultaneously also defining the non-standard ones. They always co-exist.

In other words, defining the universe as "everything there is" is as naive a view on the problem as believing that "all natural numbers" would just be the infinite sequence "(0),1,2,3, ...". You can try to define the natural numbers like that, but that definition is wrong.
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Re: WHAT EXISTS BEYOND THE BOUNDARY OF UNIVERSE?

Post by Consul »

Pattern-chaser wrote: September 30th, 2022, 9:31 amThe boundary of the universe is the line beyond which there is nothing. This must surely follow from the universe being everything that is; everything that exists? As I said in a previous post, this is about the meaning of the word. "Universe" = "Everything". Therefore, 'outside' the universe there is nothing. This isn't so much a scientific claim as an etymological one, that abides by the meaning that we have assigned to the word "universe".
QUOTE:
"There was a time when 'universe' meant 'all there is.' Everything. The whole shebang. The notion of more than one universe, more than one everything, would seemingly be a contradiction in terms. Yet a range of theoretical developments has gradually qualified the interpretation of 'universe.' The word's meaning now depends on context. Sometimes 'universe' still connotes absolutely everything. Sometimes it refers only to those parts of everything that someone such as you or I could, in principle, have access to. Sometimes it's applied to separate realms, ones that are partly or fully, temporarily or permanently, inaccessible to us; in this sense, the word relegates our universe to membership in a large, perhaps infinitely large collection."

(Greene, Brian. The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011. p. 4)
:QUOTE

If "universe" means "the observable part of the universe" or "that part of the multiverse which is our universe", then it makes sense to ask what is beyond its boundary.
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
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Re: WHAT EXISTS BEYOND THE BOUNDARY OF UNIVERSE?

Post by Consul »

Consul wrote: October 3rd, 2022, 12:16 amIf "universe" means "the observable part of the universe" or "that part of the multiverse which is our universe", then it makes sense to ask what is beyond its boundary.
Well, even if "universe" refers to the entire cosmos, this question isn't meaningless; but then the answer is simply nothing (read as "not anything" and not as a reified "nothingness").
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
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Re: WHAT EXISTS BEYOND THE BOUNDARY OF UNIVERSE?

Post by Consul »

Consul wrote: October 3rd, 2022, 12:23 am
Consul wrote: October 3rd, 2022, 12:16 amIf "universe" means "the observable part of the universe" or "that part of the multiverse which is our universe", then it makes sense to ask what is beyond its boundary.
Well, even if "universe" refers to the entire cosmos, this question isn't meaningless; but then the answer is simply nothing (read as "not anything" and not as a reified "nothingness").
The question as to what is beyond the boundary of the universe (qua entire cosmos) presupposes that it does have a spatial/spatiotemporal boundary, which is not the case if it is infinite or finite but unbounded.
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Re: WHAT EXISTS BEYOND THE BOUNDARY OF UNIVERSE?

Post by Consul »

dattaswami wrote: October 1st, 2022, 12:01 amThen why scientists say the universe is expanding? If it expands it expands into something else right?
No, because in this case it is space itself which is expanding rather than something in space; and there needn't be any hyperspace into which space itself is expanding.
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
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Re: WHAT EXISTS BEYOND THE BOUNDARY OF UNIVERSE?

Post by heracleitos »

Consul wrote: October 3rd, 2022, 12:23 am
Consul wrote: October 3rd, 2022, 12:16 amIf "universe" means "the observable part of the universe" or "that part of the multiverse which is our universe", then it makes sense to ask what is beyond its boundary.
Well, even if "universe" refers to the entire cosmos, this question isn't meaningless; but then the answer is simply nothing (read as "not anything" and not as a reified "nothingness").
Technically, according to the continuum hypothesis, what lies beyond our universe, would indeed be "nothing", i.e. a massive gap, before the next universe somehow starts.
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Re: WHAT EXISTS BEYOND THE BOUNDARY OF UNIVERSE?

Post by Consul »

Let's assume for the sake of the argument that the universe (qua entire cosmos) has a finite volume and thus a spatial boundary.
What would happen when a spaceship reaches the end of the world? And what would the space travellers see when they look at the boundary of the universe?

My answer to the first question: The spaceship would abruptly stop moving (even with its engines on full power), because there is no more space in front of it through which it could move. There is no possible forward motion at the boundary of space, but only sideways or backwards motion.

My answer to the second question: They would see nothing but a pitch-black expanse.
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Re: WHAT EXISTS BEYOND THE BOUNDARY OF UNIVERSE?

Post by Consul »

heracleitos wrote: October 3rd, 2022, 12:48 am Technically, according to the continuum hypothesis, what lies beyond our universe, would indeed be "nothing", i.e. a massive gap, before the next universe somehow starts.
According to the continuum hypothesis, "there is no set whose cardinality is strictly between that of the integers and the real numbers, or equivalently, that any subset of the real numbers is finite, countably infinite, or has the same cardinality as the real numbers." (Wikipedia)

This is a hypothesis in set-theoretical mathematics rather than cosmology: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cont ... ypothesis/
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Re: WHAT EXISTS BEYOND THE BOUNDARY OF UNIVERSE?

Post by Consul »

Sy Borg wrote: October 1st, 2022, 8:04 pmSo the answers to the question of what exists beyond the universe's boundary may be:

1. There is no boundary
2. Nothingness
3. More than we can ever imagine.
To say that there is nothing beyond the boundary of the universe is not to say that there is something called "nothingness" beyond it, but simply that there is not anything beyond it.
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
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