What Is the Empty Space into Which the Universe Expands?

[Cryptonic]

Anyone who asks "what is outside of the universe" knows nothing about... the universe. It is an entirely meaningless question. Just like asking "what happened 'before' the universe'". Meaningless garbage. The universe is all there is. No outside of it.

If we are talking about inflationary multiverses, we can define "outside" differently, but that is a different matter.

If you want to believe the universe is expanding, fine, but it's just expanding. Not expanding into something. It's expanding in the sense that things are getting further apart. Period.

This almost sounds like a quasi-religious stance to me heh! It's almost a stubborn refusal to question. Maybe there's fear lurking in such staunch conservatism, like a fear of the unknown or something?

Jack21222 makes valid points. Inside an event horizon of a black hole, you would be completely disengaged from the "outside universe", but that doesn't mean "nothing" exists "out there" somewhere!

Besides, Dmitry67 correctly points out our universe may be a subset of a larger multiverse. Defining "universe" as an "all-encompassing EVERYTHING" can be deceptive and is really nothing more than word-games!

 

[cristo]

This almost sounds like a quasi-religious stance to me heh! It's almost a stubborn refusal to question. Maybe there's fear lurking in such staunch conservatism, like a fear of the unknown or something?

Such statements have nothing to do with Cosmology, and thus this thread is done.