The Limit of the Universe

Stoic dogma holds that location can be divided into two categories - 'place' and 'void'. It is a bit more nuanced than that, but that distinction suffices. Place is finite and is the three-dimensional space in which matter subsists. Void is also three-dimensional, but infinite, and by definition contains nothing. The world, which for Stoics was everything, exists in 'place'. Outside of the world is an infinite void, within which there is nothing.

Obviously, astronomy has revealed the existence of matter outside of the world. I consider the Stoic view to be somewhat strange even for their time, as they must have realized the sun and stars existed far away from the world. But, I didn't live back then, so who knows. In any case, we are still presented with the same dilemma today, only in the location of the boundary has been pushed back. The accepted theory of the cosmos is that the Big Bang occurred 13 billions years ago and change, and the universe has been expanding ever since. But, what exists outside that ever-expanding wave of the first bits of matter? More to the point - what is the universe  expanding into? The Stoics conceived of a philosophical quandary that is still unresolved more than two thousand years later. For that, they deserve some credit.