I observe that certain things seem to be beyond the scope of the human imagination. Yes, our imaginations are powerful, and can render many exciting, useful, and entertaining things, but it may just be that there are some boundaries beyond which the human imagination is powerless to take us. In this article, I will submit a few examples for your consideration.
A Finite Universe
Let us suppose that you and I could get into a spaceship and set off to find the end of the Universe. (Since this is an imaginary experiment, we’ll imagine that our spaceship can travel at nearly-infinite speed.) We set a course and go zipping by solar systems and galaxies and after some time, we see a sign that says “End of the Universe Ahead”.
Naturally, we slow down and watch keenly for whatever is approaching. In a short time, we see yet another sign: “End of the Universe: 1 Light Year Ahead”. After that, another sign cautions us to slow down, and yet another warns us to stop ahead. At length, we stop our spaceship just in front of a sign that says “This is the End of the Universe”.
Fascinated at our find, we don our spacesuits for some extra-vehicular activity. We hop out of the craft and jetpack ourselves over to the great sign lettering, which seems to be painted somehow on the surface of an endless expanse of black wall. We both knock on the wall with our white-gloved hands and we hear the resultant reverberations.
If this is the End of the Universe, then tell me: what is beyond the wall?
Can you imagine it? If your answer is “Nothing”, can you imagine what that “nothing” is like? And how can there be a boundary between space and non-space—between Universe and Non-Universe? How can the wall we knocked on have a front side, but no back side?
If you’re like me, it is impossible to imagine concrete answers to these questions.
An Infinite Universe
(NOTE: Yes, I know there are some scientific problems with certain elements of the following narrative, but I think its point still stands as the liberties simply serve to set up the scenario.)
Let us begin with the same narrative as above, but in this case, we are riding in our spaceship at near-infinite speed and I discover a big red button under a protective cover that says “Infinite Speed”. I say, “Cool, let’s try this!” But you quickly shout “No, don’t touch it!” I ask what the problem is and you inform me that if the Universe has an end, we wouldn’t see it coming if we were traveling at infinite speed. You argue that we might run into its outer wall, if it has one, or that we might somehow fly out of the Universe and not be able to return.
I tell you that I see your point, but as I begin to lower the protective cover back over the Infinite Speed button, I accidentally press the button, and off we go at infinite speed! We are both horrified as we’re certain that doom awaits us, and yet minutes and seconds pass with no trouble at all. We realize that if there were something to run into (or out of) out there, we’d have run into it already at infinite speed, so we relax a bit. After some brief discussion, we agree to stop the ship in order to look around us.
What we see is quite like what we saw before: stars, galaxies, novas, and such. So we punch the ship back into infinite speed and stop periodically, observing the same type of cosmic “landscape” over and over again.
Question: How could this be? How could there be a Universe that has no end? Again, if you’re like me, your imagination doesn’t do well with this question.
Causeless Origins
Imagine, if you will, a pebble about the size of a walnut. Imagine that this pebble does not have an ordinary mass (for a pebble), but that it is packed with an entire universe full of mass–enough to build billions of stars and planets and other things. Imagine that it suddenly explodes and thence spreads its billowing mass about, forming into a swirling Universe such as the one we call home.
If you’re like me, you can imagine all these things so far–although the mass of an entire universe packed into a walnut-sized pebble is a bit of a stretch. But here’s the real trick: Imagine that the explosion has no cause. How could that be?
A Beginningless Creator
Imagine that there exists a Creator who built the Universe just as he had in mind to do. That’s a stretch for most, I suppose, because of the amount of power and knowledge that would be required for such a task. It is, however, imaginable.
Step two in this exercise, however, is to imagine that this Creator has no beginning himself. The human imagination does not do well with this problem.
I believe we’d all be better off if we’d give such scenarios a whirl from time to time. Not only does it sharpen the mind, and not only might we stumble upon a useful nugget of fact or logic from time to time, but it might just help to keep us humble about what we think we know.
The fact of the matter is that we could very well be wrong about a great number of the things we think, believe, and suppose. And so could the people whose words we have traditionally taken for fact.
Don’t misunderstand me; I don’t mean simply to toss up my hands as if nothing is knowable and certain. On the contrary, there’s far too much hand tossing of this sort going on already! No, what I’m aiming at here is intellectual honesty….and not intellectual apathy or acquiescence.
It was in struggling with such barely-imaginable problems that I stumbled upon the realization that a causeless “Big Bang” is equally as unlikely as a beginningless Creator—no more, and non less. While either could be true (or false), so far as we know, decency demands that we admit they are equally unexplainable. Yet both notions have their “true believers” who readily resort to grand assumption, deceit, and irrational argumentation…both to keep their own boats un-rocked, as well as to convince others to believe likewise.
I’m hoping for better things, however. I’m hoping that there can be a significant awakening of character in our generation, whereby fairly large numbers of people become wholly rational, honest, and responsible.
And so I ask—can you imagine that?
Jack
