Infinite Universe? Heaven?

[I_am_learning]

We talk about science a lot in my robotics class, and a few things have been talked about which I was not sure about.

1. I hear that more scientific evidence is pointing towards an infinite universe. There was a video that talked about the visible universe, and what we cannot see, and that what we do know about the universe as a whole is that it seems to continue to expand.
   Would this be like saying that the universe is not finite, therefore just an infinite regress, and no God? But isn’t an infinite regress illogical or impossible or something?
2. Some questions about Heaven have been popping up too. The recent one was “can Heaven be in another dimension?” This seems tough to think about, but is that a possibility?

Thanks!

 

[JuanFlorencio]

We talk about science a lot in my robotics class, and a few things have been talked about which I was not sure about.

1. I hear that more scientific evidence is pointing towards an infinite universe. There was a video that talked about the visible universe, and what we cannot see, and that what we do know about the universe as a whole is that it seems to continue to expand.
   Would this be like saying that the universe is not finite, therefore just an infinite regress, and no God? But isn’t an infinite regress illogical or impossible or something?
2. Some questions about Heaven have been popping up too. The recent one was “can Heaven be in another dimension?” This seems tough to think about, but is that a possibility?

Thanks!

That is a strange robotic class! Do they talk about robots sometimes as well?

It is impossible to show without measurements that the universe is infinite; and to measure an infinite space is equally impossible. Would a demonstration be possible? We would need a good definition of an infinite space, some axioms and the corresponding inference rules. I don’t know any of these. Have they talked about this in your science discussions? If not, I dare to say, it is not science what they are talking.

However, it is possible to show that the universe is expanding.

 

[JimG]

I think the universe would only be infinite if it is flat. Then space might extend infinitely in all directions. But if there is sufficient matter in the universe to cause it to be sufficiently curved, the space of the universe might curve into a spherical shape, like the earth. In that case, you might circumnavigate the universe much as one would circumnavigate the globe.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

I think the universe would only be infinite if it is flat. Then space might extend infinitely in all directions. But if there is sufficient matter in the universe to cause it to be sufficiently curved, the space of the universe might curve into a spherical shape, like the earth. In that case, you might circumnavigate the universe much as one would circumnavigate the globe.

But then, it would not be flat, would it?

 

[mikekle]

1. Some questions about Heaven have been popping up too. The recent one was “can Heaven be in another dimension?” This seems tough to think about, but is that a possibility?

Thanks!

I would say that is accurate, Heaven, Hell are likely on different ‘planes’ of existence, as we would define the word, Ive heard some people liken it to changing stations on a radio dial.

I think we are getting close to actually proving the existence of these other planes, but I doubt mankind will ever ‘discover’ the location of heaven or hell, in the sense of us finding new land somewhere anyway.

 

[Bradski]

1. I hear that more scientific evidence is pointing towards an infinite universe. There was a video that talked about the visible universe, and what we cannot see, and that what we do know about the universe as a whole is that it seems to continue to expand.

Whether it continues to expand is the $64,000 question. But it is at the moment. And objects at the limit of the observable universe will continue to get further away from us at every increasing speeds. Not because they are moving, but because the space between us is expanding.

Once that apparent speed becomes greater than the speed of light, then they will simply disappear. The light from everything in the observable universe, starting with those objects further away from us, will eventually be travelling away from us, not towards us. The lights will all go out…

How much is already past this point is another good question. I think we can assume it’s quite a lot. And it may be infinite. Which raises the question: ‘What is it all for?’. Because we have never been able to access it, and never will. Seems like a bit of divine overkill to me.

 

[GEddie]

Heaven was never (at least not in a long time) believed to be in outer space, so the size of the Universe is not an issue.

ICXC NIKA

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Whether it continues to expand is the $64,000 question. But it is at the moment. And objects at the limit of the observable universe will continue to get further away from us at every increasing speeds. Not because they are moving, but because the space between us is expanding.

Once that apparent speed becomes greater than the speed of light, then they will simply disappear. The light from everything in the observable universe, starting with those objects further away from us, will eventually be travelling away from us, not towards us. The lights will all go out…

How much is already past this point is another good question. I think we can assume it’s quite a lot. And it may be infinite. Which raises the question: ‘What is it all for?’. Because we have never been able to access it, and never will. Seems like a bit of divine overkill to me.

But, Bradski, if, on the one hand and according to your prediction, the lights will go out in the future (it’s a matter of time, I guess) and, on the other hand, the past is infinite, there would be no lights already, don’t you think?

 

[Ghosty]

An infinite regress is different from an infinite universe. An infinite regress is an infinite series of causes. Imagine a coat hanger hanging on a coat hanger that is hanging on a coat hanger on and on forever. The problem with this is that there is nothing to ultimately hang from, so the hangers can’t be suspended.

An infinite universe still wouldn’t be the cause of its own existence.

As for Heaven, it isn’t possible to reach any conclusions about it since what we know of it is limited and comes solely through revelation and not experimentation. Even other dimensions fall within the bounds of Creation, even if they are beyond this universe, just as other planets fall within Creation but have no bearing in the story of Creation in Genesis.

Whatever Heaven is, it is beyond all concepts of Creation, including observable laws. It is definitively “other”, a Sacred Mystery of the greatest sort. This doesn’t mean it has no relation to Creation, just that it is not something a created mind can ascertain through it’s own power.

Peace and God bless!

 

[eazyduzit]

Don’t be fooled I Am Learning. Only God is infinite, created things can never be. The universe has an end.

Heaven is God’s house. It is huge, about the size of our whole galaxy. It is outside the universe, but it is also near, because it exists in other dimensions. There are certain “gates” or “portals” through which the angels may pass through to shuttle between heaven and earth. There is much more to explain about it than I can do here. Put in “heaven” and “portals” in YouTube to learn more.

 

[yppop]

We talk about science a lot in my robotics class, and a few things have been talked about which I was not sure about.

1. I hear that more scientific evidence is pointing towards an infinite universe. There was a video that talked about the visible universe, and what we cannot see, and that what we do know about the universe as a whole is that it seems to continue to expand.
   Would this be like saying that the universe is not finite, therefore just an infinite regress, and no God? But isn’t an infinite regress illogical or impossible or something?
2. Some questions about Heaven have been popping up too. The recent one was “can Heaven be in another dimension?” This seems tough to think about, but is that a possibility?

Thanks!

I am Learning 2

If the universe started out as an infinitesimal object called the singularity, exploded and at one point in its evolution was the size of a pumpkin, it was finite then and it must still be finite. Nothing that is finite can ever reach infinity because by its very definition, infinity can never be reached. A finite universe implies a beginning and a beginning implies the existence of God. To avoid this, materialistic scientists look for a way around the Big Bang implication of a beginning.

If the universe is finite, totality (both known and unknown reality) is divided into two realms separated by a boundary. If we were travel to the end of the universe, we would run into an impenetrable barrier, simply because we cannot travel beyond the universe. Many cosmologists deny such a boundary exists and argue as Einstein did that the universe is finite but unbounded. According to the General Theory of Relativity, space-time bends in the presence of large masses. Therefore, the total mass of the universe bends space such that a light wave would bend back in upon its starting point and would never reach a boundary. This argument applies only to space with positive curvature. However, recent data indicates that the space has a negative curvature and its expansion is slightly accelerating. Therefore, we have something of a contradiction here. Einstein’s finite and unbounded universe doesn’t seem to be an option. In addition, when cosmologists calculated the cosmic microwave background, they assumed a black body condition for which the radiation was contained within the universe by reflection from a boundary. Those calculations have been verified by observation of the cosmic microwave background, which suggests that there is a boundary between our universe and what came before and still lies beyond. Thus we can argue that the finiteness of the universe, the flatness of universal space, and the observation of the cosmic microwave background implies that the universe has a boundary. How else can a universe the size of a pumpkin, whose space is not curved in upon itself not have a boundary? It must and I argue that the universe is finite and bounded, the only scenario that is both simple and easily imagined.

I suspect that those that can’t live with a finite, bounded universe don’t want to think about the boundary and the obvious question it raises—what is the nature of such a boundary and what came before and lies beyond the universe—because the obvious answer is God.

In thinking about a boundary that separates our universe from the before/beyond, I imagine that at the edge of the universe, like a minimalist painting of black on black, there is a finely delineated perception of two forms of blackness: one form of blackness is the space of our universe; the other form of blackness is the infinite nothingness, the only thing I can imagine the before/beyond to be. According to the big bang theory, expanding space defines the volume of our universe. Therefore, like the skin of a bubble, the imperceptible delineation that defines the limits of the edge of the expansion, divides total reality into two realms: an expandable and bendable space on one side and an unchanging, infinite nothingness on the other. This can only mean that total reality is bifurcated by two kinds of space.

The space that defines the dimensions of the universe must be discrete ( can be described by the rational numbers) and the space that existed before and lies beyond the universe must be continuous (can be described by the real numbers). Based on this structure we can argue that discrete space is the material substance from which matter is formed and continuous space is the immaterial substance which describes the omnipresent psychical/spiritual substance that matter is hylomorphically immersed in.

Heaven is another matter.
Yppop

 

[JerryZ]

There is no infinite past. If you use logic and come to realize that every thing in the Universe is contingent, which simply means that it has a cause. The Sun has a cause namely an aggregation of hydrogen atoms as well as other gases that started a nuclear fusion reaction some 6 billion years ago. The hydrogen atoms themselves are contingent something must have created them and so and so forth.

If you realize that as everything has a cause an infinite regression is impossible. At a certain point you will run out of contingencies.

Further, modern physics has pretty much measured how old the Universe is, current estimates hover around 13.8 Billion years ago.

Having the Universe come from a singularity (a point) which when it expanded created space and time within it’s confines.
The Universe continues to expand and eventually all the energy within it will be expended and in the end there will be no more energy or matter. And the Universe will cease to exist, an empty void of space time where time will mean nothing since time is just the measure of change. Since the Universe at this stage will be dead there will be no changes within it.

Here is an image that explains the timeline of our Universe, if you are interested in learning more about the science behind I suggest this website:

map.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Also: nasa.gov/mission_pages/planck/index.html#.VnJCWl42w_s

…

Timeline of the Universe

A representation of the evolution of the universe over 13.77 billion years. The far left depicts the earliest moment we can now probe, when a period of “inflation” produced a burst of exponential growth in the universe. (Size is depicted by the vertical extent of the grid in this graphic.) For the next several billion years, the expansion of the universe gradually slowed down as the matter in the universe pulled on itself via gravity. More recently, the expansion has begun to speed up again as the repulsive effects of dark energy have come to dominate the expansion of the universe. The afterglow light seen by WMAP was emitted about 375,000 years after inflation and has traversed the universe largely unimpeded since then. The conditions of earlier times are imprinted on this light; it also forms a backlight for later developments of the universe.

 

[Faith1960]

We talk about science a lot in my robotics class, and a few things have been talked about which I was not sure about.

1. I hear that more scientific evidence is pointing towards an infinite universe. There was a video that talked about the visible universe, and what we cannot see, and that what we do know about the universe as a whole is that it seems to continue to expand.
   Would this be like saying that the universe is not finite, therefore just an infinite regress, and no God? But isn’t an infinite regress illogical or impossible or something?
2. Some questions about Heaven have been popping up too. The recent one was “can Heaven be in another dimension?” This seems tough to think about, but is that a possibility?

Thanks!

Do you mean the universe might go on forever with no end or that it had no beginning?

 

[JerryZ]

As far as Heaven and Hell being in other “dimensions” there is a bit of an issue with that.

We are already existing in a universe with at least 4 dimensions that we can know of. If there are other “higher” dimensions within our own Universe.
We are not capable of perceiving their existence but mathematics have described or posited their possible existence.
However GOD as understood in Catholic Theology and Philosophy cannot be a part of this Universe or any other Universes because the first cause is itself a simple being having no parts. Since parts beg contingency and the first cause does not have contingency.

Heaven by having access to GOD directly therefore cannot be a region in the Universe or Universes or higher dimensions which could be contained within our Universe, since higher dimensions are also material manifestations incompatible with the nature of GOD.

…

 

[JimG]

But then, it would not be flat, would it?

No. A universe with positively curved space would not be spatially flat. It could form a globe of billions of light years in diameter which could continually expand (or expand until it slowed, stopped and began to contract.)

 

[hecd2]

yppop writes below in an authoritative tone. But much of what he writes is wrong. There are far more more incorrect statements than I can deal with in a single post so I will just select a few. The point is that yppop’s post is not authoritative and his misunderstanding of the science undermines much of what he has to say.

If the universe is finite, totality (both known and unknown reality) is divided into two realms separated by a boundary. If we were travel to the end of the universe, we would run into an impenetrable barrier, simply because we cannot travel beyond the universe.

There is no such hypothesis of a boundary in cosmology, so this is ypop’s unsupported notion. The idea that a boundary exists is excluded for physical and philosophical reasons. I’m not aware of a single professional cosmologist who thinks that a boundary is a serious hypothesis.

-]Many /-] All cosmologists deny such a boundary exists and argue as Einstein did that the universe is -]finite but /-]unbounded.

FTFY

However, recent data indicates that the space has a negative curvature and its expansion is slightly accelerating.

No - all measurements indicate that space is FLAT although it is also true the expansion is accelerating

.Therefore, we have something of a contradiction here. Einstein’s finite and unbounded universe doesn’t seem to be an option.

Einstein’s GR doesn’t favour an unbounded finite universe. In GR, the universe might be finite or infinite, flat, positively or negatively curved but it is generally taken to be unbounded in all cases.

In addition, when cosmologists calculated the cosmic microwave background, they assumed a black body condition for which the radiation was contained within the universe by reflection from a boundary.

This is absolutely not true. There is no assumption in the theory of the CMB that the “radiation is contained by reflection from a boundary”. Where on earth does yppop get that idea?

Those calculations have been verified by observation of the cosmic microwave background, which suggests that there is a boundary between our universe and what came before and still lies beyond

. No, just no. That’s simply not true.

Thus we can argue that the finiteness of the universe, the flatness of universal space, and the observation of the cosmic microwave background implies that the universe has a boundary.

You can argue no such thing. First, flatness plus a finite universe do not mandate a boundary. A toroidal topology is flat and finite, and unbounded. Furthermore nothing about the CMB is evidence for a boundary.

How else can a universe the size of a pumpkin, whose space is not curved in upon itself not have a boundary?

But there is no evidence that the universe was ever the size of a pumpkin. There is evidence that the OBSERVABLE universe was once very small, but that is an entirely different claim - the observable universe could have been the size of a pumpkin and yet the universe could have been then, and would be now, infinite.

Or it could be finite and unbounded. What is unlikely according to serious cosmological hypotheses is a boundary.

 

[Rolltide]

Here are a couple of really excellent videos from PBS that explain the scientific principles behind your question in very easy to understand terms.

How do you measure the size of the universe?
youtube.com/watch?v=QXfhGxZFcVE

What happens at the edge of the universe?
youtube.com/watch?v=AwwIFcdUFrE

 

[JuanFlorencio]

No. A universe with positively curved space would not be spatially flat. It could form a globe of billions of light years in diameter which could continually expand (or expand until it slowed, stopped and began to contract.)

I have to confess my ignorance about flat and curved spaces.

When someone says the universe is flat, does he mean that if we travel in a given direction we will get to the edge on the universe in a time “t”, while if we travel in a direction perpendicular to the first one we are going to get to the edge in a very small fraction of “t”?

And when someone says the universe is curved, does it mean that if we travel in a given direction, no matter which it is, we will get to the edge in a finite time (quite long but finite)?

As for the expansion rate, I can imagine the sequence of increasing expansion rate, followed by a slowing down rate, then a stop, and then an accelerating contraction; but which physical principles would explain such behavior?

Now, what you say sounds as if you believed that space is a kind of substance which grows in size and by doing this has as an effect that the distances between celestial bodies increases more and more? Is it correct?

 

[JimG]

I have to confess my ignorance about flat and curved spaces.

When someone says the universe is flat, does he mean that if we travel in a given direction we will get to the edge on the universe in a time “t”, while if we travel in a direction perpendicular to the first one we are going to get to the edge in a very small fraction of “t”?

And when someone says the universe is curved, does it mean that if we travel in a given direction, no matter which it is, we will get to the edge in a finite time (quite long but finite)?

As for the expansion rate, I can imagine the sequence of increasing expansion rate, followed by a slowing down rate, then a stop, and then an accelerating contraction; but which physical principles would explain such behavior?

Now, what you say sounds as if you believed that space is a kind of substance which grows in size and by doing this has as an effect that the distances between celestial bodies increases more and more? Is it correct?

Well, I’m no cosmologist. But my understanding of an expanding universe is that it is indeed the space that is expanding. I had not realized until reading hecd2’s post that current evidence in cosmology favors an overall flat universe, rather than a curved one.

Space is curved, as I understand it, by the presence of matter. So that a large star, for example curves the space around it. Gravity can perhaps be conceived as simply due to the curvature of space, but again I am no physicist or cosmologist, so I would recommend reading some better sources. In any case, there are no “edges” to the universe no matter its shape. The surface of the earth is a curved shape. You can travel in any direction and never come to an edge. But if it were an infinite flat surface, the same would be true.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Well, I’m no cosmologist. But my understanding of an expanding universe is that it is indeed the space that is expanding. I had not realized until reading hecd2’s post that current evidence in cosmology favors an overall flat universe, rather than a curved one.

Space is curved, as I understand it, by the presence of matter. So that a large star, for example curves the space around it. Gravity can perhaps be conceived as simply due to the curvature of space, but again I am no physicist or cosmologist, so I would recommend reading some better sources. In any case, there are no “edges” to the universe no matter its shape. The surface of the earth is a curved shape. You can travel in any direction and never come to an edge. But if it were an infinite flat surface, the same would be true.

Thank you, Jim!

We can observe that when a small body approaches a big one, it accelerates just as when it goes down along a slope (which is a curvature of a surface, or two-dimensional space). Then we can think (though we can’t imagine it) that also in the space of three dimensions there can be a kind of curvature (and we can fancy that it is produced by the presence of massive bodies): then, when bodies approaching a big one are accelerated, we could conceive that they are going down a three dimensional slope. Then, if that three dimensional curvature is produced by the presence of a massive body, such curvature at a given location does not imply that there are no more bodies beyond it. In other words, the space would be curved in many locations, depending on the presence of massive bodies here and there. As you suggest, the abundant curvatures of the space would not imply an edge of the universe.

Also, if we fancy that the space has elastic properties it would be easy to understand that it is expanding now, and after a certain time it will stop and then contract. However, it would still be impossible to understand an accelerating expansion of it.

Regarding the surface of the earth as an example, it is clear to me that we are on the edge already, and if we simply jump (that is to say, if we travel in a direction perpendicular to the surface), we go beyond the edge, don’t we? And if it were an infinite flat surface exactly the same would apply.

Perhaps hecd2’s can tell us about those evidences of the overall flatness of the universe. Perhaps he can even explain in which sense the universe is flat. It would be interesting.