Sean, thank you for your valuable comments. First of all, I should say that, this is just because of my personal curiosity. I am not into Cosmology in an academic level. Maybe If I continue to question this much, I will end up going for Masters degree in Cosmology instead of Electronics Engineering. I think, I am looking into subject more from philosophical perspective than its physical reality point of view. This is most likely because understanding of some cosmological concepts' reality requires very high level knowledge of mathematics and physics. Approaching the subject from its philosophical point of view requires rather less energy comparing to grasp its physical truth. Once we were discussing these topics with one of my friend who studies PHD for Cosmology in Cambridge University. He said that according to the evidences that we have had till now, it is not possible that the universe can collapse in it. I think this is due to matter density in the universe. But this is science, even though the scientists try to achieve an absolute true explanation, what they have come up by time can be falsified later. The history is full of this type of events. Oh yes, maybe we have very well defined physical laws but who can guarantee that they will work at the yet unknown sides of the universe? On the other side, it is easy to say, that the universe has oscilating model or we have many parallel universes. The beauty of this idea is because somehow it gives us power to be eternal yes to forever. But at some points it's very hard to make a distinction between reality and fantasy. Maybe each time we are on the brink of revealing every unknown in the universe, the universe will come to its end. (This is also interesting apocalypse scenario, isn't it?) Just like in the short movie titled: Das Rad, but on a very small scale comparing to vastness of the idea of the universe. I watched Sagan's Cosmos serie. There he used a wonderful analogy to explain the human-beings' place in the universe. He demonstrated that the time has passed till big-bang to now as a whole year, and we human-beings are on this time-scale only along the last few minutes of December 31st. Even though we have been on the scene for a few minutes we have progressed through boundless information oceans. We have been dealing with these complex subjects since when? Not a few decades ago before the year 0. Had those turtles been lying there even before big-bang, or all there had been cows that eat grass? :) On Dec 16, 2007 5:17 AM, Sean Breheny wrote: > Hi Gokhan, > > I found this web page about the "turtles" comment: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down > > There is some wisdom in what Wittgenstein said. However, there's a > difference between speaking univocally and speaking analogically. > > When a scientist says that, for example, the wavefunction of the > electron in the Hydrogen atom in a certain state is X, he is trying to > make a precise statement which has meaning which can be traced back to > measurements which can be repeated. This type of description is > extremely powerful and tends to lead to general agreement among > diverse people. Such is the basis of the success of physical science. > This is called a univocal statement, because it can only have one > meaning (uni=one, vocal=voice). > > This type of statement has limited application, though. It cannot be > used to talk about the entire depth and breadth of things which are > relevant to humans. For example, as Carl Sagan (ironically since he > was at most an agnostic) brought up in "Contact", human love cannot > truly be understood this way. It takes another way of speaking since > the concept is too deep to express precisely in words. This way of > speaking is by analogy - "My love for her is like a burning fire" or > "My mother loved me very sweetly and tenderly" (an analogy to taste > and touch). These are analogical statements. Although a lot of modern > philosophers would disagree, one can formulate much more precise > analogical statements and reason with them, if one is careful. A > scientific-related example of this would be "wave-particle duality", > which is more of a way to imagine how things work at the subatomic > level rather than a precise description relating one set of > measurements to another. > > We will never be able to define and analyze every last bit of the > beginning of the universe univocally. However, we should not stop > trying to do so analogically. If we do, we have closed off our minds > from a whole other realm of possibility. Also, it opens up new ways to > see science itself (e.g. science can have beauty to it, science can be > symbolic of the intent of a creator, etc.) > > Sean > -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist