Infinite Universe? Heaven?

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hecd2 said:
No, the current scientific evidence tends to support the idea that the universe is flat (and therefore infinite in extent).

Can you make a good philosophical case that an infinite amount of space in the actual universe is impossible? I mean actually make the case, not just state it as an assertion?
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Aquinas presents an interesting argument in Whether there can be an infinite magnitude and Whether there can be an infinite multitude in the Summa First part. If space is infinite, it is purely accidental whether it is filled with anything. But if space or something filling it is infinite, it has no shape. It can’t be flat
 
hecd2 said:
No, the current scientific evidence tends to support the idea that the universe is flat (and therefore infinite in extent).
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Yes, that is correct!😃 I supported that with scientificdocuments already on this topic. It is expanding and infinite. People will have to review them in the previous pages. My major interest at this time is a very large “Black Hole” in our galaxy that is pulling in stars from our galaxy. I’m in the process of gathering more scientific information about it.

Thanks dear one! 🙂 You are doing a fantastic job here. Take care. I have to run the hound now.
 
By infinite, do you mean “is actual in all three dimension space”. It could in that case only expand in a fourth and further dimensions
 
thinkandmull said:
Aquinas presents an interesting argument in Whether there can be an infinite magnitude and Whether there can be an infinite multitude in the Summa First part. If space is infinite, it is purely accidental whether it is filled with anything. But if space or something filling it is infinite, it has no shape. It can’t be flat
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OK - you’ll have to excuse me here. I don’t share the devotion, almost worship, that some Catholics have for the Aristotlian-based Thomist metaphysics. I know I’ll be rubbing people up the wrong way by saying this and I apologise in advance, but it seems to me that the argument often goes “Aquinas argued such and such, so it must be so and so that’s the sum of my argument”. That goes completely against what I believe to be a healthy method of discourse - it’s back-to-front. The argument, not the author, should be paramount, whoever makes it. No-one argues that time dilates in moving frames because it’s Einstein’s idea. They argue that it does because a coherent theory of dynamics which matches other observations predicts it, and because we observe that the prediction is correct. In Aquinas’s day, and afterwards for a couple of centuries, the statements of authorities were taken as unquestionably correct, and Aquinas based much of his thinking on Aristotle. Galileo’s enemies were outraged that he dared to question Ariostotlian physics. But Aristotle’s metaphysics seems to me to be profoundly undermined by errors in his physics, errors which are propoagated in scholastic thinking - and by subsequent developments in the physical understanding of the universe and in mathematics.

And I could have avoided raising hackles in this particular case by simply pointing out that the two arguments you link to do not actually apply when it comes to the Universe as a whole whatever their other merits might be.
 
thinkandmull said:
By infinite, do you mean “is actual in all three dimension space”. It could in that case only expand in a fourth and further dimensions
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I have no idea what you mean by “is actual in all three dimension space” and “expand in a fourth and further dimensions”. My position with regard to an expanding infinite (in extent) universe is provisionally but clearly set out in post #87 of this thread. If you want to discuss this me, that’s what you should address.
 
I only take Aquinas’s word when he backs it up with good arguments. The argument in those links I simply thought was interested for the discussion, and it does apply to this discussion. Basically he was saying that it is superfluous and against the nature of species for their to be an physical infinity of any kind. “For granted that a body exists infinite in magnitude, as fire or air, yet this could not be infinite in essence… it still remains to inquire whether any creature can be infinite in magnitude…” Since he didn’t believe in a void, like Aristotle and unlike Newton, “fire or air” was referring to the expanse of the universe. By “is actual in all three dimension space” I mean that space goes out from where you are sitting in every direction and has no end. There is nothing that can be added to it, unless one means dimensions beyond the three that we’ve known since childhood.
 
thinkandmull said:
I only take Aquinas’s word when he backs it up with good arguments. The argument in those links I simply thought was interested for the discussion, and it does apply to this discussion. Basically he was saying that it is superfluous and against the nature of species for their to be an physical infinity of any kind. “For granted that a body exists infinite in magnitude, as fire or air, yet this could not be infinite in essence… it still remains to inquire whether any creature can be infinite in magnitude…” Since he didn’t believe in a void, like Aristotle and unlike Newton, “fire or air” was referring to the expanse of the universe. By “is actual in all three dimension space” I mean that space goes out from where you are sitting in every direction and has no end. There is nothing that can be added to it, unless one means dimensions beyond the three that we’ve known since childhood.
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As I said, my position on this laid out in post #87.
 
This may be useful,

In one sentence, how can something infinite in size have a shape in it’s infinity? Again, one sentence
 
thinkandmull said:
This may be useful,

In one sentence, how can something infinite in size have a shape in it’s infinity? Again, one sentence
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Mathematically, there are a number of shapes that are infinite; the hyperboloid, paraboloid, plane, etc.

ICXC NIKA
 
GEddie said:
Mathematically, there are a number of shapes that are infinite; the hyperboloid, paraboloid, plane, etc.

ICXC NIKA
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I know mathemeticians say that, but something that is actual, going in all directions infinity, actually there infinity, cannot truly have a shape
 
Dear thinkandmull:)

You can read what I wrote earlier on in previous posts on this topic. Let’s see if this will help you and look at the dates of the articles from NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) a highly reputable website:

From Chandra X-ray Center, Operated for NASA by
the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory:
The Extraordinary Success of General Relativity
Mon, 2015-11-23 00:07

This month, people around the world are celebrating the hundredth anniversary of Albert Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity (GR). Although this theory can seem esoteric, it has an important practical application: the accuracy of Global Positioning System (GPS) relies on corrections from GR.

The GPS satellites orbit about 20,000 km (12,000 miles) above the Earth and experience gravity that is four times weaker than found on Earth’s surface. GR tells us that clocks traveling in this weaker field tick more rapidly, at a rate of about 40 thousandths of a second per day. This may not sound like much, but if these differences were left uncorrected they would cause navigational errors to accumulate faster than 10 km (6 miles) per day, as physicist Clifford Will explains in this article about GPS and relativity. By using GPS to successfully navigate around unfamiliar roads, people are inadvertently testing and retesting the accuracy of GR.

In astrophysics, GR has been tested and applied in multiple ways, including many that involve Chandra observations. Several years ago scientists used Chandra to test GR over distances that are much greater than those of Earth-orbiting satellites. They showed that GR correctly predicts the rate of growth of galaxy clusters and that GR performs better than an alternative model of gravity. They have also provided a new way to study the accelerating expansion of the Universe.

chandra.harvard.edu/blog/node/580

From NASA:

04.04.13
European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano said:
So I like to say that when, an astronaut needs to be a very flexible sort of a character. We start our flight as a pilots, in a way, so we are inside a cockpit and I will be following procedures and looking at instruments and looking for the docking, sort of what I used to do as a pilot in the air force. And then we get to the station and I have to take off the hat of the pilot and put on the hat of the scientist to follow these experiments, but then the station has been on orbit all ready for over ten years, at least the oldest part, and it will be going on for another ten years. Even more hopefully, so from time to time we need to be plumbers and mechanics, we do a lot of maintenance. It’s either preventive maintenance when we know that something is reaching its time life, we will go and exchange the ORUs, orbital replacement units, so we will go and exchange these parts or, if possible, we will fix them so that they last longer, and then we do very ordinary maintenance where we are simply cleaning the filters and keeping everything nice and tidy for ourselves and for the crews that will come after us. And then also the inventory management is a very big part of our life because even though the universe is infinite the space station has a very limited volume.
nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition36/interview_parmitano.html

The universe is infinite and expanding (accelerating expansion). Hope that helps you better understand.🙂
 
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