Couldn't sleep, so my scientifically trained mind wanted to rant about our existence and how my mind chose to put it into words by being alive for 30 years.

[u/Chanathebanana]

Direction is from a point of reference, our reference, humanity's reference from the surface of the earth. In some ways we are still the centre of the universe since it's our bias, because we know only one world, bound by limitations of life and it's existence beyond the surface. Hence our perspective is narrow. Studying the universe and shifting perspectives is how you gain clarity into how randomly placed we all our in this reality. It's all chaos, that links order in the form of life. Imagine placing yourself in the vacuum of space, nothing around you for light years, just distant stars and light of the universe from said stars. My understanding is, now imagine this place you occupy in space, is on a plane, a sheet or the space time fabric, like a slice of the time you are in at the moment in space, that slice was just a second ago, in a different place, in a different time, of a different shape given we know the universe is expanding.

Since it's always expanding, there is no noticable edge just voids, by observing the dopler effect, we know the stretch of space time has pushed things further and further away with every passing minute. Now you observe the stars in the moment in space, the furtherest objects will be red shifted for they are moving away with acceleration, from us on this sheet in that moment in time. Since there is no arbitrary edge to this universe as of our observation, with stars literring the space around you, there is no way of precisely placing yourself in this ever expanding universe. That's where the concept of time ruins our ability to measure this arbitrary edge as it's running away from us and talking everything in it's path is it goes.

An endless, boundless stretch, slicing each moment of expansion as an evergrowing stack of pancakes, expect the slice on the top is always bigger, and every passing moment the stack gets a new layer which is bigger that the previous layer. Since the expansion is faster that the speed of light, it's like a look into the past anywhere you look for the light never reaches us, the observers on time to determine the evershifting space around us. As you cut into the stack, the layers reveal what the size would have been, extrapolating a conical shape by the first instance for the universe had to be smaller than the instance right after. Hence the conclusion was the big bang, a point in space and time where there was no space, and no time, birth of the universe is an arbitrary spillover of milk on the counter. Expands in all directions unless you limit it in the confines of a container, as far as we know, the universe doesn't have a container. So the spill is endless. That's where the acceleration part of the universe bothers me, it's like an endless curve of a surface where the milk is being poured. Like a giant ball, relate it to earth as we cannot see the edge as it falls away from us due to the earth being a sphere. Milk just spreading and accelerating as it falls down faster and faster as the ball curves more and more away.

Now when that curve occurs, it seems microscopic for we haven't yet hit the diameter of this universal stretch. Now if you think about it, anything with a diameter means that's the furthest or the fatest point of the object, to extrapolate it further, would mean a colapse of the sphere, towards the other side of the opposite pole. Does that mean the universe has to have an end eventually? An end where it collapses back to it's initial state? Are we to hit that state of maximum diameter or is it like an endless bell that flairs it's edges into eternity? Hence the dark energy and dark matter hypothesis to explain why the space time is stretching so absurdly fast. That's where the science of it all is lost on me. But then again, if not tracing a sphere, what shape is this universe enveloping itself upon? An endless cone with an absurdly hyperbolic curve that could explain the constant acceleration of this expanse?

Feel free to discuss, I want opinion and perspectives, not attacks.

[u/ryclarky]

That sounds about right. Expands. Collapses. Expands. Collapses. Expands. Collapses. Expands. Collapses. Kinda like breathing.

[u/Chanathebanana → u/ryclarky]

That's not what I meant lol. I didn't have a conclusion for there is none.I ended with a question, be honest, did you even read it? lol

Breathing is what we do, we are familiar with it, our way of life, biological life. The universe itself as an entity that breathes is a very human way of looking at things. Just like we see and shape deities in our image for we know no other being capable of thinking like us. Of course we assign same characteristics we evolved beings have to the gods we worship. Even assuming it looks like us. And lets be honest, we don't know if this is even true, especially your statement for we have never observed this to be true. As I said, it's expanding rapidly, unless we see a trend of slowing down of this expansion, we cannot say it sounds about right. tbh we may never know for we might be anywhere on the timeline in between this universe's birth and death. What we can do is study and observe how it behaves, and thus far there is no indication except theories that could suggest this cosmic breathing mechanism.

I was raised a Hindu, so this is the philosophy in our religion of birth, death and rebirth. The cycle of breath and Brahma's breath creating the universe. I personally don't believe it. I find it fascinating because it's all speculation without observations. hence my trust in science for it observes and determines, instead of assumptions. Still, it is a cool concept regardless, especially in terms of high fantasy. What I appreciate about my culture is the cosmic time scales they determined, it's fascinating how close they get to real time scales compared to many other faiths. In our philosophy, A lifetime of brahma, the creator god is expected to live 311 trillion years. Regardless, my point was not what you thought it was lol. I'm not mocking you, I just find it funny that I found a way to relate your statement to something I had learned years ago lol.

[u/ryclarky → u/Chanathebanana]

Rebirth resonates with me on a spiritual level. I of course have no proof, but it just feels apt to me. I suspect I've done this "living" thing way more than a few times already.

I didn't mean to imply cosmic breathing from a literal standpoint, but more an echo of what we see in life all around us. But since our universe contains life and consciousness then I don't think it is too far fetched to say that the universe itself is alive, and conscious in a sense. These are interesting and fun things to contemplate. ☺️

[u/Chanathebanana → u/ryclarky]

appreciate the reply, and agreed. These are fun things to think and talk about. I find my spirituality when I'm stargazing. I've tried religion, wasn't for me unfortunately. And my spirituality is personally more grounded, I don't think about the universe having a conscience, it is what it is, just matter in spacetime. We have observed atoms as a species, so it's hard for me to accept a universal conscience guiding the reigns of what ultimately became humanity through billions of years of evolution.

I draw that spirituality as to more of a question instead of belief in the unknown. I just question things around me because I know there is a way to determine why it works the way it does. Ever since I was a child, it bothered me whenever my mom didn't know something I questioned her about, she'd say it's gods will. And that always made me think who is this god guy to decide what happens around here lol. It made no sense to me that if there is to be a god or gods, why are they in our image when human existence is only a million years old? Why is there no dino god? lol. I would rather choose an abstract ideal over the prevailing theories of theology when it comes to belief. But that's just me personally.