Big Bang Philosophy

SUMMARY OF THE BIG BANG PHILOSOPHY

Since the universe is finite, the first question that occurs to the mind is this: What is there beyond? Indeed, the finite universe cannot be explained by itself, it needs an external cause. Let us wonder what stops at the limits of the universe. The Big Bang theory teaches us that space is a component of the universe and that it this which has been expanding during 12.000.000.000 years. Outside the universe there is no space, therefore there are no dimensions.

Our brain needs dimensions in order to reason and calculate. This signifies that the external world is totally outside our investigations. We are intellectually and physically prisoners of the universe and this situation will last as long as the universe will last. We cannot even say that there is nothing outside the universe, because on the one hand the universe needs an external cause and on the other hand the notion of emptiness, as opposed to fullness, applies only inside the universe.

If the external world is not thinkable, it is nevertheless possible to approach it indirectly. We know that it is at the origin of the universe, that the universe came out of it, and that this renders it important for us. But there is more. The universe being finite in time, it will go back to the external world. We do not know when, but we are certain that it will do so. The universe is also entirely surrounded by the external world at the limits of its large dimensions as well as at each point of space at the limits of its small dimensions. The external world is therefore every where in us, in every thing. The basis of the universe is in the external world. The universe is the superstructure of a whole of which we cannot know the infrastructure. The exterior of the universe, being non-measurable, can be described as infinite. When we consider this and add that the answer to the why and wherefore of the existence of the universe is to be found in the external world, we cannot but think that the external world is the real world and that the universe is the world of illusions.

While we are all separated by space and time in the universe, we were one in the real world. Our condition was therefore better.

There is in human beings a desire to find the real world again. This desire is expressed by a moral conduct which consists in considering others as ourselves, and treating them therefore as ourselves, since we were ONE before. This moral attitude can nevertheless not change the structures of the universe.

The Big Bang theory shows us the extreme elasticity of the universe, which reached its present dimensions starting from practically nothing. The universe is therefore malleable.

It seems that life appeared and developed until now in order to give the universe the possibility to understand itself and to change itself. Humanity is on the march, since all time and without knowing it itself, toward the limits of the universe. The physicists who discover new particles and our ancestors who discovered fire are on the same path. When humanity will have reached the limits of the universe, it will be able to use the very forces of the universe and its malleability in order to go back to the real world. We understand for the first time that this fantastic adventure gives meaning to life. History is a relay race in which each generation goes as far as it can before passing the stick to the following generation, until the time when our far-off descendants will be in a position to carry out our destiny.

Jean-Pierre Burri

Geneva, Switzerland.

(Last updating: 16 August 2001)