what you think about this.?

Question

remeber the equations in alg II.. when you graph them some of the equations suddenly appear on different quadrants...so, can the universe be an everlasting line that comes back to itself and countinues the same thing.. like a cricle.

Answer 1

Why A Universe Exists Timelessly
A Journey Beyond Nothing

As we move backward in time we watch the universe de-evolve, we pass the dinosaurs and the emergence of life on this planet, then view the Earth de-form into clouds of stellar materials produced from exploded stars which themselves de-explode and then de-coalesce toward becoming a dense uniform opaque plasma. As time accelerates backwards space itself folds and collapses inward as all the matter of the universe moves closer toward inhabiting the same space. The whole universe moves ever nearer toward becoming a single, unimaginably small point. As this collapse crashes inward toward a primordial singularity it seems we are closing in on the birth of all being, of all thought, movement, change. We seem to be moving ever nearer toward an ultimate nothingness from which a universe must have somehow emerged.

So now we are standing at the very precipice of the birth of all being. I imagine myself kneeling down as if crawling out to the tip of a cliff, putting my hand out to the surface of the beginning, to the origin of everything that will ever think or be. So then try now to imagine beyond the surface, beyond the outermost edge. Try to imagine the abyss of nothingness that would have been prior to existence, and try to understand its nature. Reach out with your hand beyond what exists to touch void. What words best describe it? Is it thick, dark, warm or cold? Is it frightening or menacing? Or is it beautiful and vibrant with all the potential of being? Is it simple, as simple as simple can be?

Actually if we are able to imagine something, or describe something, or feel anything, we need to realize that we must not be quite all the way to the edge. We are after all talking about nothing. So move further out this time, going all the way with your mind, beyond all descriptions, beyond all senses. And yes, there it is now just beyond the edge of thought itself, hidden there in a colorless black, in a soundless silence. Oh my, there is the absolute void.

Are you still here! So you didn't disappear yet? You didn't get sucked in? That's strange. I wonder what went wrong. Didn't you feel it? Did you at least sense it? No? What do you mean "No"? How could that be? You must not have a very good imagination! Or maybe you do, maybe that is the problem. Maybe your imagination is getting in the way because what we are trying to imagine isn't cold or dark, or a void or an abyss, and it's hardly anything to be afraid of, because maybe it doesn't exist. Maybe it's unimaginable because there is nothing to imagine. Perhaps this old nothing we expect to be prior to everything is just a myth, a misconception. Indeed if you came up with any sense of what is beyond the cliff, then you sort of missed the whole point I was trying to make.

The Big Mistake
The thought experiment above reveals a sort of anomaly in how we see the world, and yet it is a paradox that anyone can sort out and appreciate regardless of education or religious beliefs. There are two concepts that we regularly combine together which don't belong together, and at this time in history those two concepts are regularly confused even in modern science and philosophy, and even in the dictionary. If we carefully study the common meaning of nothing we can discover two distinct references. One reference we make is toward something that has no discernable form or substance, such as a void or a vacuum. Nothing logically wrong in this case. This first type of nothing is real and exists. It is actually quite ordinary. It is just extremely boring. There is nothing in the refrigerator. There is nothing on TV. However, the other reference we make when using the word nothing is toward a different and much more radical concept, that of non-existence.

The very word nothing is the culprit, or rather our insistence on using the word nothing without differentiating between the nothing that exists and the nothing that doesn't. We tend to mix the two together and so we muddy up our understanding of both, and since nothing is a fundamental axiom in the way each of us models reality, well, you see the problem.

There is a real nothing that seems to have no form, and this nothing is one of the most common features found in nature. The ordinary empty space that surrounds us is the most obvious example. If we remove all the ordinary matter from space it becomes a singular expression of nature. The oneness of space makes it a singularity. Singularities are not uncommon. Imagine a plain white artist's canvas that hasn't been painted on, and is hung on the wall. Most people would agree that not only is there nothing painted on the canvas, but also that the blank sheet of white is a pretty good representation of nothing. It actually doesn't matter what single color is on the canvas, each is a singularity, and any single color if alone can represent nothing.

To be really clear about this, imagine yourself in a world of all white. You try to look out into the distance but all you see is white so you can't tell if it goes forever or just a few inches in front of your nose. Your mind tells you there is nothing around you. There is no distance, no substance, even though the white is real. In fact, if you further paint yourself white, suddenly all dimension is lost. You can't even differentiate between your body and your surroundings. After awhile you forget there is such a thing as white. If you were born into this dimension of white, you wouldn't see white, you would be blind to color, because you don't have any other color to judge the meaning of white against. For example, someone who is blind doesn't see black, because even if they did upon initially going blind, the black would quickly loose meaning for them because it is just one color and without differentiation, that one color becomes nothing at all. Paint the world one color and the world seems to turn into nothing, but there is still a world there, it has merely become a singularity.

But non-existence is a whole other subject. When the dictionary defines nothing as something that does not exist, it is reasonably obvious that the syntax of the phrase, simply the reference to a something which 'does not exist', makes no real sense. This is beyond the white world, even beyond the word 'nothing'. In fact simply using a word in any attempt to mean non-existence creates a sort of unsolvable riddle. What word can represent a form that isn't a form, or a thing that isn't a thing? What concept has no reality or meaning? How can we refer to a state of non-existence when there is no such state, and no such form? Indeed we have a problem here. Any attempt to define a non-existence using any meaningful idea or thought, by using the meaning that otherwise defines all language, that defines our reality, is by nature pre-destined to fail horribly. Non-existence cannot be. There is no such thing. In fact there is no such concept or idea. There is only the mistake of assuming the word non-existence has any meaning whatsoever. Non-existence cannot be. And that is a radical concept, very different from the real nothing that exists.

The fact that we regularly confuse nothing and non-existence is the very reason we don't yet understand why we exist.

Nonexistence cannot be
In this strange realization we are confronting an anomaly, a single part of our thinking that doesn't fit in with the rest. In the use of meaning, the meaning that otherwise defines all things in all languages, a non-existence cannot be described. Nor can it be imagined or conceptualized. It cannot be signified, or resembled, or symbolized. By its own definition, a non-existence cannot even be inferred with any logical coherency. It is a one of a kind. Nonexistence is a word without meaning. Term non-existence does not belong as a member of any language. Its use is a contradiction in meaningfulness. And there is no escaping this realization once it is understood.

All attempts to define non-existence, even as the absence of existence or as the negation of being commits a fundamental semantic crime. It is true that the words absence and negation, or existence and being, each have real syntactic meanings, but when placed together they express a radical contradiction, since they attempt to define with meaning a non-something which by definition cannot have meaning at all. It is the existence and being of the universe that creates meaning, or at least they are intermingled. Only existence allows for there to be meaning, just as only meaning allows for there to be existence. So the word nonexistence is purely meaningless gibberish.

At the heart of the matter is that the notion of a total nothingness is a false assumption we make. Non-existence by its own definition cannot be. That is a very ponderous statement, but a true one. The most simple of logic, and the deepest intuition, both lead to the same amazing realization. There is no alternative to existence. So our earlier time line into the past to search for the beginning of existence can never reach any point of origin. There is no such precipice as the one imagined. I am not suggesting the big bang didn't happen. If we look into the past we might find a point where our space-time begins from some timeless singularity, but that state, like the page of a story book, continues to exist even after our time begins and travels away from it. And maybe there is some other explanation of how something else becomes our universe. But any attempt to find an ultimate beginning from nothing is doomed to fail.

The "good" nothing
Is nothing ever genuinely real? The word nothing can be as meaningful as any other. The white canvas is a real nothing. Anywhere we don't see any things, or where thingness is not readily apparent can be designated as a nothing. Nothing is what you see when looking at the polar bear in a snow storm, or everything in your refrigerator thrown in a pot and cooked for ten hours. Many individual forms melt and become one. And that oneness looks like nothing. Cook the whole universe and suddenly there is a nothing in the cooking pot, everything melts together. Everything melts or unifies into the same single thing. Obviously, we don't have to confuse these real nothings with the weird anomalous word non-existence, and doing so turns everything crazy.

The absence of thingness is just no things. But no things is still a thing. Just like the overcooked stew. The mush stew is a combination of all that was in the refrigerator, yet cooked together it becomes a single thing. If we consider that thing alone, enter its world and make no reference to it relative to other things, then that one thing looks like nothing to us. And notice the mush stew is not so different than the seeming absence, the void of empty space, left over after taking everything out of the refrigerator. Both form a oneness, a oneness that seems like a nothing when solely focused upon, i.e., space.

With carrots and potatoes and onions and celery, you have asymmetry, the asymmetry necessary of things. Cooked all together into a oneness you loose your asymmetry, and you end up with uniformity and balance. You end up with perfect symmetry. And that we call nothing? Yes we do, even science does, and that is okay, because this seeming lack of form is the only correct and meaningful use of the word nothing. I realize it feels like something is missing, like this definition of nothingness falls short, but that feeling is because we want to mix in non-existence. That is when the word nothing seems profound and mysterious. But clear as a bell, that is the mistake, mixing the two concepts. And if we rid ourselves of that old habit, change our thought patterns, then we can recognize how the difference between the nothing that exists and the nothing that isn't explains why we exist. We can recognize that the word nothing refers only to the appearance of formlessness. And that is as empty and small and simple as the universe ever gets. There is always existence. Existence has no alternative. Now consider the confusion that mixing nothing with non-existence is causing to our view of the universe and reality.

The universe is everywhere we go and everywhere we see. There is no place where the universe is not. Yet we still imagine in a vague way an alternative, as if the universe could stop existing, as if we ourselves might not exist. Its kind of funny really, the way we spend most of our lives thinking we shouldn't exist, because it is so impossible for there to just be something rather than nothing, instead of realizing how inevitable and innate we are, instead of realizing there is no alternative to there being something. All this confusion because of a subtle mistake.

Answer 2

I just finished Algebra II (thank god) and Geometry....doesn't a line go on forever in OPPOSITE directions? So wouldn't that mean that for line to come back around and meet again....that it wouldn't be a line....but a circle? Thus making the universe a circle? But a circle is 2D...and the Earth is 3D...so how could a 3 dimensional figure exsist in a 2 dimensional figure? When you answer that, I'll answer yours...

~SugarSw33t

Answer 3

No it can't be like a circle. Scientists know that the universe is constantly expanding, but for the universe to come back to the present, it would have to begin to shrink and then expand again.

Answer 4

that is a good question and we will never know because we cannot travel that far out into space to know for sure. that isan interesting oncept though...

Answer 5

Too advanced for me to understand.

Answer 6

Some believe that's exactly what happens.