Expanding

I have been delving into some philosophy books of late...

There is much to ponder, but two questions have captured my imagination the most....

Does the universe, which we know to be expanding, going to expand forever?

Will it reach out in every direction, filling the nothingness with itself. Eventually galaxies will be billions of light years away. Would the night skies grow darker? It is a lonely idea I think...that we may be moving more and more rapidly away from anything else.

Then there is the idea that after expanding to a certain point, physics would cause it to start collapsing in on itself. Eventually it would collapse to a tiny wee thing, jam packed with the whole universe...and it would explode with a big bang :) Again it would expand as stars and galaxies rushed away from each other. These are considered to be serious options when it comes to considering the universe.

Hindu people have believed for thousands of years that it expands and contracts in an endless cycle.

I know I like this option more! And it seems to make intuitive sense...all around, I can see this expansion and contraction. Every where in nature, from the tides to the opening of a flower reflects this. Of course the most obvious reflection of this, is in our own breath.

I have a strong idea that the universe will only ever be able to be understood as an entire organic whole...this is most likely beyond our understanding, as we can only ever see from where we stand, and we can never hope to get 'outside' it as it were :)

So if that was so..if it is an organic interconnected whole, could the expansion-contraction, be a breath..on a huge, universal scale :)

I will get to question two later......(is goodness inherent/instinctive?)