The universe is an infinite loop

[mjcabooseblu]

What if the big bang wasn't a spontaneous event, but rather the result of a repeating system wherein the universe continually expands then collapses in on itself, eventually resulting in an outward explosion of energy and matter? Rather than wondering how the universe started, why not assume that it is in a perpetual state of existence, outside the current assumed notions of "beginning" and "end?" Time is a subject we know very little about--it would not be unreasonable to assume that, in a sense, everything that exists has always existed in some form. If the Heisenberg uncertainty principle is applied, it could also be said that all unobserved points of the universe are simultaneously in states of stability and nonexistence, and by observing the universe, we are essentially "expanding" it, possibly contributing to the expansion and aforementioned collapse. The moral implications of this are staggering--our pursuit of knowledge could be contributing to our own destruction, yet the lust for the unknown is all but genetically programmed into our greatest minds. Do we live in the dark, and allow ourselves comfort and safety from the theories of one unknown citizen, or do we boldly move forward into what could very well be our demise? More importantly, will the ramblings from said citizen be acknowledged, or dismissed as just more nonsense spouted from the mouth of a crazy hippie?

It might be time for me to sleep, and stop thinking about such things.

 

[Loop Stricken]

I was under the impression that this was, in fact, the current consensus on the Universe.

 

[Sightless Wisdom]

Philosophy 101, you should take it somewhere. The theory you're talking about is called Eternal Recurrence, or something similar to it anyway. It was a theory popular with the man often called the father of Nihilism, Friedrich Nietzsche. What he thought was that if time were infinite and matter was finite, then theoretically there would be a set number of combinations for all things physical, ergo everything would at some point be exactly as it was at another point. This would also mean that events could only occur in a finite number of ways before they were to repeat themselves. Somewhat difficult to actually process mentally, but deceptively simple in principle. It's my favourite theory as far as plausibility of truth is concerned.

 

[mjcabooseblu]

wordswordswordswords

It makes sense, as well; though the universe may be infinitely perpetuated, there conceivably could be a finite amount of existing matter contained within it. Thus, it would stand to reason that this finite amount of matter would have a finite amount of interactions. Who knows, maybe I've typed this thousands of times before, eons ago, and will once again in the distant future. Though I suppose it wouldn't really me "me," unless the matter that is currently constituted as my body were to recombine in an example of the infinite loop theory.

 

[Loop Stricken]

The theory you're talking about is called Eternal Recurrence, or something similar to it anyway.

That or the Big Crunch [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Crunch]. If we're talking cosmology readily, you guess which is more likely.

 

[Thaluikhain]

That was more or less my idea, only I had wondered if it was because the physical laws aren't constant, they just change far too slowly for us to observe.

No proof for this idea, it just happens to explain things reasonably well to me.