I’m continuously astounded by the strength of people’s conviction when they talk about the universe. The universe is so and so billion years old, it’s so and so many billions of light years wide and so on. Sure, many of the assumptions made by science are reasonable if you take into account the knowledge we currently posses. It seems people aren’t willing to consider that we might be completely off on a great many things. Of course, building on previous discoveries is the most efficient way of expanding our knowledge and make new discoveries. All I’m saying is that it’s important that we, at the very least, be open to the possibility that a previous discovery was faulty, or just plain wrong, even if it was proven to be true based on our knowledge at the time.

For example, the theory of the Big Bang - that the universe is expanding and has done so ever since it originated from “the primordial atom” - is supported by quite a bit of evidence. It could very well be perfectly true. Then again, it might not be. It could be sort of a half-truth. The universe could be truly infinite, meaning in every conceivable (and non-conceivable) direction. That doesn’t have to contradict the evidence we currently have of an expanding universe. The universe could be expanding “outward”, and at certain stages in this expansion there are cataclysmic events that cause the expansion from that point to speed up dramatically. From “the outside” this could be viewed as a Big Bang, but in reality the universe continues on “inward” infinitely, just as it does “outward”.

There could be and infinite amount of dimensions, parallel universes and so on. It’s simply impossible (I HATE that word, but here I believe it’s appropriate) for us to even begin to understand it, because we’re such an infinitely small part of it and we’re “right smack in the middle”. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to understand any of it of course, it just means we should try to be more humble in our beliefs regarding what’s true and what’s not.

There are certainly lots of humble scientists out there, but there is a disturbingly large amount of arrogant ones out there too.

Here’s a neat trick if you’re having trouble falling asleep at night. Simply make a serious effort to visualize a universe infinite both outward and inward (there are probably infinitely many other directions, but thos two should suffice… ).

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