If space is a substance rather than plain nothingness as has
been traditionally thought, it should have a universal composition and nature
that would in a way be comparable to quantum structures. If inflation is an
expansion of space rather than some other cause, because more space substance
seems to be created and fills an increasing volume, that seems opposed to the
idea of nothingness expanding.
Nothingness as space in the absolute sense should neither be
created or destroyed. It ought logically to have existed infinitely forever and
isn’t capable of increasing or decreasing. Space as a substance on the other
hand could have been initially finite to alternatively infinite and existing
within the underlying host of nothingness.
There are several definitions of space as well as Universe
these days that help to confuse the topics one is addressing for others. There
are logical modal universes and alternate universes such as one finds in
multi-universe theories derived from eternal inflation.
I wanted to point out that if inflation of space occurs
forever as a localized process that moves on leaving nonexpanding space in its
wake, that it is just as likely that the boundaries of substance-space move on
through already existing infinite space, or bring more substance space within
its moving boundary region as that substance space itself upsurges into being
from nothingness. Of course one might infer that if substance space upsurges
into being that it must be from somewhere other than the present region of its
expansion.
The Universe is everything that exists. It is generally
regarded as being made of energy or converted to mass, yet it is everything and
logically infinite. Modern science has provided a wealth of confusion
concerning what formerly was simple and given humanity the ‘multiverse’.
When I was a kid the
Hoyle hypothesis was still hanging on although heavily tattered. Einstein
believed in a static universe. I would
guess he believed it infinite as did I when I first learned about those things
at age 6 or 7. The profusion of Multiverse jargon since then has required a
rethinking, yet ultimately the meaning of Universe remains intact as everything
that exists rather than one part of a vast structure with an infinite number of
others similar to it connected by space
or even juxtaposed in Hilbert space with infinite dimensions. Just because
scientists discover new facts about the Universe concerning its structure that
doesn’t mean they have discovered alternate Universes; it just indicates they
did not know what the structure was of the Universe they were in. The Universe is everything that exists
including a goggleplex of other units inconveniently named universe 1 through
infinity.
Most people
including scientists didn’t know the real structure of the Universe in 1950 yet
most people probably assumed it was infinite and unbounded. When cosmologists,
theoretical physicists and astronomers inducted, discovered and theorized about
an expansion of their knowledge of the Universe and extrapolated about other regions of space forming from
inflation proceeding the Big Bang that may have continued after this observed
Universe formed some 13.3 billion years ago more or less as the crow flies they
choose to call those hypothetical regions of unobservable space universes too; primarily
because they lacked a term for a meta-universe or greater universe that
included all possible hypothetical universes of which there might be an
infinite number. Basically they lacked a name for the new units of universe so
they called it a Multiverse; and that was a bad choice though convenient for
scientists at that time.
Most people had an
existing concept of an infinite unbounded Universe already yet lacked knowledge
of its distant structure. Modern cosmology has been mapping in fact and with
theory, hypothetical structures of space that include possibly an unlimited
number of regions of space like the one scientists knew before the rise of Multiverse theory. In
a way a universe has been downgraded comparatively to the status of a galaxy.
It as if scientists believed there was just one galaxy (Universe) and having
found more or hypothesized about more existing galaxies existing they have
developed multigalaxy theory. That is fine for galaxies yet doesn’t work with a
Universe that should rightly be defined as everything that exists including
that which cannot be observed. Plainly there isn’t a word existing presently
for the unit that includes all of the galaxies and mass existing in a
contingent expanded spacetime from an inflation or big bang that would
disambiguate it from the infinite other potential units like itself. The
Universe that includes all the universe-like units could be called the
Metaverse reasonably well yet it would be better to name it the Universe and
find a named for structures that are like the observable universe humanity
lives in. One could call them big units, big bang units, second tier units,
temporal verses, boroughs, legally defined regions of largest scale, etc
however about any serviceable designation would be better than calling them
universes. A universe is a good concept to retain. It is simple and suitable
for an infinite and unbounded structure that is unmapped and perhaps
unmappable. One day people may find a way to journey transcendentally beyond
the boundaries of physical spacetime before death, and if so it might be useful
to still regard oneself as being in the Universe when relocating to another
unit.
For an example of
the circumstance, compare the Universe to a chess board. A chess board has
sixty-four squares and the grid coordinates are labeled columns A through H and
rows 1 through 8. Consider that in the past humanity lived in square A1 and
thought of themselves as being located in the center of the universe in the
middle of square A1. Though their knowledge of the chess board universe did not exceed beyond square
A1 the popular belief was that the Universe square had no limits and was
infinite in extant (some humans did have other beliefs). After a few thousand
years- within the past century and a half, scientists have learned more about
the chess board and have observed the visible horizon limits of square A1 where
they lived and developed theories concerning a vast number of squares like their own existing beyond the
edge or boundaries of A1. They call those new squares universes instead of
regarding them as distant and almost inaccessible areas of the infinite
Universe. It would have been useful to rename the new squares or theoretical
squares as different areas of a universe without limits or for this analogy, a
chessboard in Hilbert space with infinite dimensions and without an edge
for-itself although it hosts/contains all space-time unit big banged squares.
Physical space and energy quanta plus fields may not be the
sole form of being; scientists seem willing to believe so though because it is
observable and spirit or divine content generally aren’t. The Universe or
Metaverse could be a though in the mind of God; who can say? Human language
should at least keep a word to define
everything that exists and not regressively dispose of a word (Universe) for
the all-encompassing Universe though it can have complex, distant and infinite
areas difficult to map with different physical laws and non-contiguous
space-time content events. Reducing the Universe comparable to meaning a small
county amidst an infinite number of counties makes it challenging for people to
understand the actual state of things of cosmology.
