My main argument for a finite universe is exposed in the first paragraph of the first hypothesis: "The universe, finite and intelligible in all its parts, cannot be infinite and unintelligible in its whole. It cannot have two completely different natures simultaneously." You may also be interested to know what is my definition of the universe : "Everything which is thinkable or calculable". This argument and this definition allow a multitude of universes and Big Bang. In fact, you can give me any number of universes or Big Bang, and I will be at ease with your figures but do not speak about infinity. In that case, our universe would be one among many in a multiverse (new word which I just learned yesterday) but the multiverse would not be infinite.

My second argument for a finite universe is that in an infinite universe, every one of us would have an infinite number of doubles living in exactly the same conditions as ourselves. This looks absurd to me.

May be you would like to answer these two points. I would be happy to read your arguments.

Best regards.

Dear Jean-Pierre,

My son has given me your e-mail and asked me to answer for him. Apparently, he has started some kind of argument with you and I very much appreciate your attitude of discussing ideas without using bricks or other objects of unnatural and illogical persuasion.

You propose "The universe, finite and intelligible in all its parts, cannot be infinite and unintelligible in its whole. It cannot have two completely different natures simultaneously." I guess our first problem is definitions. I define the cosmos as all that exists. I define a universe as that portion of the cosmos that has a common beginning or ending. In other words, the Milky Way and the galaxies that are about 100 million light years across that are traveling in concert together would probably represent our universe. Once you understand the gravionic model, all of this comes into perfect sense. Each and every particle that comes into existence is unique. This is because a particle and its connections of gravity must be taken as parts of the same whole (E=gmc2). Thus a particle comes into existence without connections to "its" universe. In effect, it is its own complete universe as a single particle without connections to a universe. (A neutrino actually represents such a particle that has no connections to its universe) But the cosmos is a very busy place and sooner or later, this particle will "run into" a particle that does have connections and then the new particle will be a part of that universe. As this particle travels through time (the changing of the connections of gravions) the particle gains new connections and in effect, converts more of its energy into these connections while taking the energy from the mass. Thus as time passes, the particle moves from a condition of all mass (or identity) to all gravity ( or relationship). Thus any universe is merely the relationship of all the masses of that universe and gravity has the role of making those connections. But gravity doesn't stop at the boundary of any universe, so even though every universe and every position of reference in the cosmos is finite, the number of connections is infinite because each universe is connected to others and so on forever in every direction. Thus your first sentence shows no contradictions. Under the gravionic model, we each face a finite number of connections to the cosmos, connections that ultimately branch into an infinite network. We can never know about most of it, but the part we can see shows that the cosmos is infinite. The term multiverse doesn't mean much to me. Presently our telescopes can see hundreds or thousands of universes, each of which are unique and has its own history and set of masses and gravions that led to its exists as it is today. When I was young, I asked my mother how far the stars went and she said they went on forever. How can you argue against her. If she can imagine an infinite cosmos, how could the actual cosmos be less?

The second argument makes no sense in light of the gravionic model. There would be no doubles, since as I have explained, each particle, each person, each sun, each planet, each living thing at any place in the cosmos is unique and will never occur again. Like things may come into existence, but each individual particle or person has a single and unique life.

I would very much like to continue our discussion to see if we can arrive at an agreement. You see, you are just about the first person that I have found who is willing to even announce their position on infinity and are willing to argue your position. I admire you very much for that. I think you are wrong, but I have been wrong about many things and I always rejoice when someone shows me my errors so that I can adjust my thinking. So I would like the opportunity to try to convince you of my arguments, since my arguments go much deeper than just an infinite cosmos, they go to the very workings of the whole thing, which I now believe I understand. My roles as a philosopher are to present arguments and then make observations to see if minds are changed. But most people won't "play along" and they just aren't any fun.

Thank you for you time. If you don't mind, I will post your letter and my response on my web site. You are welcome to post any arguments defending a finite cosmos on my web sites as I eventually intend to make it into a forum where people can look at the different arguments and then vote on how they feel. One of my goals is to introduce people to logical thinking, which I have found to be lacking in the population. For instance, many people today believe in a single big bang, but don't believe the cosmos is finite. Logically, I believe a single big bang would be a finite cosmos and since I believe in an infinite cosmos, then I can't logically believe in a single big bang.

Your friend,

m mike