What is the universe expanding inside of?

[Obvious Leo]

You need to get out more, mate. I've been consistently singing the same song since the day I joined this forum and scarcely a single one of my posts fails to refer to it. However I must confess I haven't bothered to seek science lessons from you because I've been a man of science all my life.

Regards Leo

[DarwinX]

You need to get out more, mate. I've been consistently singing the same song since the day I joined this forum and scarcely a single one of my posts fails to refer to it. However I must confess I haven't bothered to seek science lessons from you because I've been a man of science all my life.

Regards Leo

Don't worry, one day science will catch up to me. In the field of germ study they are already starting to admit that viruses are not contagious. Reference ABC TV - Gut Reaction: Part 1 - What You Eat Could Be Making You Ill

[Obvious Leo]

Well done, mate. This is actually a scientific statement, based on a genuine scientific paradigm known as co-evolution, where the 10,000-20,000 different species which co-operate to define the human organism are involved in a never-ending dance of perpetual flux in holding the composite whole together in a state of homeostasis which is continuously being disturbed by disruptive influences from the external environment. This doesn't exactly mean that viruses are not contagious but it certainly means that the situation is nowhere near as simple as many people seem to think.

There's a lot to be learned from science books.

[DarwinX]

Well done, mate. This is actually a scientific statement, based on a genuine scientific paradigm known as co-evolution, where the 10,000-20,000 different species which co-operate to define the human organism are involved in a never-ending dance of perpetual flux in holding the composite whole together in a state of homeostasis which is continuously being disturbed by disruptive influences from the external environment. This doesn't exactly mean that viruses are not contagious but it certainly means that the situation is nowhere near as simple as many people seem to think.

There's a lot to be learned from science books.

Maybe one day they will get around to admitting that cells are composed of viruses and bacteria. But I think that a quantum leap of such great proportions is too big a step for conventional science to take at this point in time, even though it was proven over one hundred years ago to be true. Thus, the human body is just a composite of primitive organisms which can convert back to their original state if they can't be sustained by vitamins and oxygen.

There's a lot to be unlearned by science books too.

[Obvious Leo]

There's a lot to be unlearned by science books too.

I won't argue with this but science is an incremental discipline and only a fool would dispute the fact that the scientific method has led to an increasingly deeper understanding of the world around us. I don't share your contempt for the scientific community but I've always stressed the point that considering new ideas is always easy enough but getting rid of old ones can seem to take forever. This is not a conspiracy by scientists to keep people ignorant and in the dark because they are perfectly capable of doing this to themselves without assistance.

Regards Leo

[Atreyu]

There could be stuff outside space yes. This is not impossible. It's probably inaccessible though.

My only problem is with people saying that NOTHING can BE outside the UNIVERSE because the term means EVERYTHING.

Well my problem with this is that scientists often talk about a multi-verse reality. Implying that other space/time continuum(s) may exist which are not connected to this one. Whatever it is that separates them it is not space/time.

So basically we need to come to terms with the "terms" or we would not be able to communicate efficiently about this, as everyone is talking about a different thing when they say "Universe", including scientists. I am an apologist of adopting the terms "Cosmos" for a connected space time and Universe for the collection of Everything - Every connected space/time and everything else that may theoretically exist in a non space/time existence.

Yep. Great point. That is why I usually insist on that definition of "Universe" --- because it's the historical one and sticking with it keeps everyone on the same page.

The so called "multiverse" view is sound philosophically, but unfortunately the name is simply a misnomer and now we are stuck with it.

And the Universe can be "All" and at the same time be getting bigger. "Everything" in no way implies anything static.

[Bohm2]

There could be stuff outside space yes. This is not impossible. It's probably inaccessible though.

This may not be true. Assuming a 'realist' interpretation of QM, some physicists, like Gisin, have argued that the necessary non-locality does appear to be coming "outside" space-time:

To put the tension in other words: no story in space-time can tell us how nonlocal correlations happen, hence nonlocal quantum correlations seem to emerge, somehow, from outside space-time.

Quantum nonlocality: How does Nature perform the trick?
http://lanl.arxiv.org/pdf/0912.1475.pdf

A non-technical summary of some of these papers can be found here:

If so, whatever causes entanglement does not travel from one place to the other; the category of “place” simply isn't meaningful to it. It might be said to lie *beyond* spacetime. Two particles that are half a world apart are, in some deeper sense, right on top of each other. If some level of reality underlies quantum mechanics, that level must be non-spatial.

How Quantum Entanglement Transcends Space and Time
http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/994?search=1

[HZY]

It seems this question has no solution. Scientists say that since the Big Bang, the universe has been expanding. Okay I can buy that one. But then the question turns on inside of what? Another universe possibly? Or nothingness?

What say you to this?

PhilX

Can expansion be expanding relative to expansion itself? Can 0 be zeroing relative to 0 itself? Can beauty be beauty-ing relative to beauty itself? Can you be you-ing relative to yourself? Can anything be anything-ing relative to anything itself? Ultimately, can existence be existing relative to existence itself? ... Well, what say you(-ing)?

[Mechsmith]

The term "Universe" is defined by linguists who are not necessarily philosophers or physicists. If we define Universe as all that "is" then we are limited in our thinking, again not by observations but by definitions.

IF a universe had a big bang then the fields, forces, volumes, and densities that we observe all come from it and it has necessary mechanical limitations on it. This does not preclude a void, being defined as a volume that has no fields, matter, energies. It's nothing, hell it's a void, and does not need anything to describe it.

Since "nothing" needs nothing to describe it any attempts to describe it must come to naught . However a 'universe" consists of "something not nothing" It is best described by volume, fields, time, densities and energies and several other possibilities. There is no reason why nothing can't exist except as an empty volume which we can call a void.

We can impose no limits on a void. If we wish to impose limits on a void then it becomes "space". Space as a volume between objects is simply part of the "Universe". A volume between objects that contains fields, forces, etc. is often called "spacetime".

My point is that we cannot allow definitions to shade our views of either infinity or eternity. The Big Bang universe" is perfectly capable of expanding into a void. Nothing to prevent it By the same token we should not allow light, which has been defined for us by natural means to shade our views either.

Personally, but that's another thread, I suspect that the void doesn't exist, and probably never did.

[Present awareness]

I suspect that the void doesn't exist, and probably never did.

The non existence of the void, is why it's called a "void". As soon as we name something which isn't there, we are implying that there is something there ( which doesn't exist) and that we are able to name it. But how can we logically name something which isn't there?

The Tao would say " the void that can be named, is not the nameless void".

[Atreyu]

The term "Universe" is defined by linguists who are not necessarily philosophers or physicists. If we define Universe as all that "is" then we are limited in our thinking, again not by observations but by definitions.

But we are limited in our thinking, and the purpose of definitions is not to "expand" our thinking apparatus but rather to understand things and make sense of our world. The essence of any explanation, definitions included, is to make that monstrosity out there more manageable. To "subdue" it, if you will. To make it something our puny minds can grab onto and deal with. And that is precisely why "Universe" was defined as "Everything that is". It doesn't "limit" us in any way. What it does is to give us a term that refers to "All" so that we can use that cognitive construct to communicate ideas; so that we can have a term, besides "Everything that is", in order to refer to such a concept.

The rest of your post was answered quite nicely by Present Awareness, so I won't further elaborate on any real existence of a "void" or "Nothing".

All I'll add here is to say that there is no need to think of the Universe as expanding inside of anything else, since the Universe is All. But the Universe as we know it, which consists of three dimensions of space, certainly can be inside of something else. But the only logical thing that our apparent three dimensional Universe could be inside of, expanding or not, is dimensions of space greater than those three we know.

[Obvious Leo]

Dimensions are mathematical entities only, not physical ones. They are human inventions.

[Jhindo2010]

To Vijaydivani: The Bible says "You wear light like a robe. You spread out the heavens like a curtain. (‭Psalms‬ ‭104‬:‭2‬)" This Bible verse is thousands of years old, so the Big Bang "theory" couldn't have made the universe if this exists. Modern day scientists weren't the first ones to discover the ever expanding universe.

[Atreyu]

Dimensions are mathematical entities only, not physical ones. They are human inventions.

So what? That's how we perceive and cognize the world. The original post, "What is the Universe expanding inside of?" cannot make any sense in the first place without a cognition of space and time. "Expanding" implies both space and time, and "inside of" cannot make sense without a cognition of space.

I don't see why you're bringing up the fact that "dimensions" are a cognitive construct and not "physical".

I was merely pointing out that the only way to understand the OP is to consider higher dimensions of space. There is no other way to imagine or visualize our entire three dimensional "All", infinite or not, expanding "inside of" something else. The only thing a three dimensional space can be inside of is the fourth, fifth, and so on dimensions of space.

Think about it. If you imagine all of the Universe, all of its galaxies, as if you could see them all as if from far away, a sort of very "macro awareness", what would be "outside" of it? Anything you point to outside of all the myriad of galaxies will still be a part of the Universe. No matter how far out in terms of distance you go, you will still be inside the Universe. Far far away, beyond all the known stars (assuming the Universe is infinite), looking back at them as they all recede to a point, finally disappearing altogether, and you will still be INSIDE OF the Universe. As long as you are observing the Universe from the point of view of three dimensions of space, you will be inside of it, no matter how far you go in any direction.

The only way possible to cognize and visualize getting "outside" of this three dimensional Universe is to reduce it all to a point in our minds. Only then will we be OUTSIDE of the Universe as far as our reference point is concerned. We are here and the Universe is there. It's that little point. We are entirely outside it. What has made this visualization possible is that we are now seeing dimensions of space greater than the three of our visible Universe. We now see length, width, and height relative to the point. Three more dimensions beyond the point. And so our awareness and cognition has escaped the Universe, gotten "outside" of it.

As long as we visualize the Universe as if from within it, as science always does because in fact we are in it, we will not be able to even imagine or cognize, and therefore not even discuss, what in the world could possibly be outside of Everything? We imagine "Everything" (the Universe) as being everything that exists in three dimensional space. Therefore the only thing that could be outside of it, and the only thing it could be inside of, is higher dimensions of space, which I have just shown more directly by using the "thought experiment" (as you scientific types like to call it, lol) of reducing the three dimensions to a point. We cannot even imagine anything being outside of "All" without using some kind of model of higher dimensions of space.

[Obvious Leo]

I don't see why you're bringing up the fact that "dimensions" are a cognitive construct and not "physical".

I'll make it easy for you then. If dimensions are not physical they don't belong in a physical description of the universe. This is why the models of physics make no physical sense even though they make mathematical sense.

Regards Leo