The First Antinomy of four Immanuel Kant’s Antinomies (from the Critique of Pure Reason) is:
Thesis:
The world has a beginning in time, and is also limited as regards space.
Anti-thesis:
The world has no beginning, and no limits in space; it is infinite as regards both time and space.
Kant offered a logical reasoning to substantiate both, thesis and anti-thesis. It has always been my understanding that Kant tried to reveal limitations to human cognition. As if he told us: These problems are beyond our abilities to solve, don’t even try, waist no time. Do what is doable. And that is logical.
Trying to convey the idea to my neighbour, a very smart girl a few days ago I, all of a sudden, understood there could be another conclusion, as logical as the Kant’s one and derived from the same antinomy:
If it is logically proven that the world can be limited and unlimited at the same time why then we don’t conclude just that? World is limited and unlimited at the same time! Go ahead now, research it as you wish: As limited or as unlimited! Why not?
We know that light can behave as a wave or as a stream of particles and the performance depends on the practical conditions, experimental or not. But we cannot tell whether light is wave or stream of particles! The very question now seams to be incorrect.
What about the world? Now I believe its performance in a experiment depends on how we understand it (either limited or unlimited) and respectively frame the experimental conditions. Then we can learn how the world performs when it is supposed to be limited and how it does if supposed to be unlimited. Experiments of both types will tell us something real…
What do you think? I like that.