universe

[crazie]

what is outside the universe??? when will the universe end and to me there has to be an end to everything!!!!!!

[jake-the-peg]

If there has to be an end to everything what is after the end. What was before the beginning? Why is a dog?

Language has the capacity to phrase questions regardless of whether they a meaningful or not. Obviously my last one is not meaningful but the others are not really meaninful either.

When you say "outside" you are assuming a certain structure - outside a circle makes sense - outside a line does not - We don't know whether the universe has an outside if it does it certainly doesn't refer to the 3 physical dimensions we're used to.

Much the same about the end of universe it might start to collapse back on itself but the evidense is against it right now. But time on a cosmic scale doesn't work the way we're used to.

I think it was JBS Haldane who said "The universe is not only stranger than we imagine but stranger than we can imagine"

[Loosehead]

As jake says, there is no "outside" or "before" or "after". The language we use is not equiped to describe the universe in these terms. If we assume that 4D space-time started at the big bang then the concept of space and time before and after is invalid. It's a thought problem, there is no language to describe it, you have to invent in your own head the necessary thought processes to describe it. I tend to use the "Black Box" technique, ie anything unresovable just gets a label as a Black box and I can then concentrate on thoughts that can be productive.

[chainfire]

The universe literary means "Everything", the oxford dictionary describes it as: "all existing matter and space considered as a whole". You cannot have something outside the universe because it would be considered part of the universe (as the universe is everything).

[kermit911]

What about that undervers? people were talking about earlier this year. Somthing like, it's a univers under are univers or somthing like that.

[mibn2cweus]

If you search long enough and hard enough for oblivion you will eventually arrive there, maybe before your time!

[bernardo]

A large cheese and tomato sandwich, a tortoise, three tenths of a dead octopus, and 54 tonnes of cornflakes.

3:20pm on 32nd Octember 8537.