The Big Picture

People can experience a lot of resistance to a purely materialistic or naturalistic worldview like the one being presented here. Many find such views repulsive and opt for metaphysical visions that they find to be more attractive. The belief that we are special creations of a supernatural entity has an attraction for us, while the facts of evolution can arouse repulsion. What leads us to discover and finally accept unpalatable scientific findings, like evolution, is our attraction to knowledge.

So, attractions and repulsions can create conflicts for one’s self and this prevents us from being mindless automatons of the attract/repel dynamic. If we find ourselves attracted to knowledge and also to metaphysical visions that are at odds with a particular body of knowledge then we have to make educated reasoned judgments about reforming our worldview. Or close our minds off to knowledge in order to cling to our beliefs.

Now to return to the universal phenomenon, discussed in the previous post, where something is created out of something it is not – the classical world out of the quantum world, for instance, where some threshold event occurs to trigger a metamorphosis.

And there are many other such thresholds; Protons, for example, are formed from quarks and gluons but protons are something else entirely from the particles that form them. And it would seem that, just as the classical world does not exist as far as the quantum world is concerned, protons don’t exist as far quarks and gluons are concerned. And just how protons and the classical world materialize from things that they are so different from is one of the great mysteries of the universe. Other threshold events include individual anatomical cells creating particular organs. Neurons, for instance, coalescing at some point to produce a working brain and then, as a result of another threshold event, the brain goes on to produce a conscious mind. How the brain goes about producing the phenomenon of consciousness is as mysterious as how the classical world is produced from quantum particles. All we can say is that some kind of threshold event triggers a kind of transcendence. And one may wonder if all the various threshold events in the universe are informed and instructed by the exact same elemental influence that must in some sense be vitally connected to the primal force of nature. But if various forms of existence do not register as such with preceding forms then it’s likely that as far as the primal source of nature is concerned nothing else exists beyond itself. That’s not to say the universe doesn’t really exist. It does. But just as the classical world doesn’t exist for quantum particles the universe doesn’t exist according to that which it is created from. As far as energy is concerned nothing exists except energy.

We might list the various threshold events in this way:
ENERGY -> PARTICLES
PARTICLES -> ATOMS
ATOMS -> MOLECULES
MOLECULES -> INORGANIC MATERIAL
INORGANIC MATERIAL -> ORGANIC MATERIAL
ORGANIC MATERIAL-> CELLS
CELLS -> ORGANISMS
ORGANISMS -> CONSCIOUSNESS

Each stage in the right hand column represents an apparent departure from its partner on the left. Each stage in the left hand column remains unchanged throughout all subsequent stages. Each stage is unique unto itself while each and every stage is a result of the previous stage. From the perspective of quantum particles, for instance, the world that we inhabit is nonexistent even though it is those very particles that form the objects that inhabit our world – the classical world. Chemicals such as amino acids are not in and of themselves organic, but they are, along with other chemicals, useful in developing the organic chemistry responsible for life. The quantum world does not change as it composes the classical world. Brain cells are not transformed in bringing about consciousness; they are not transformed into consciousness. Our consciousness is something other than the neuronal activity from which it arises. The separate chemicals in a living cell are no more alive than they would be outside of a cell. It is the interactions of non-living chemicals within a cell that creates a living cell. What is not life creates life. And Energy itself does not change in composing particles. From the perspective of energy nothing else exists except energy.

Generally speaking, with regard to each manifestation of existence, a threshold is reached and something happens to extract one stage of existence from another. Again, Individual brain cells reach a particular threshold at which point they become a functioning brain and another threshold is reached where consciousness is produced. And some threshold is reached to produce the classical world from the quantum world. But what is behind these thresholds, what mechanism, what force, what influence? Could such thresholds be determined by some ultimate source - the origin of all things that must be omnipresent in a deep and abiding way at every event in existence?

Fundamentally the universe is comprised of energy. Energy is what empowers the whole universe. It is energy that configures the universe with material objects. Spacetime itself has to do with the transformation of energy from one state to another.

The whole universe, and all that comprises it, is derivative of one energy. This might be why all of the various fundamental particles of force and matter, which are the next stage over from energy, are absolutely identical to each one of their kind. Each photon is exactly identical to every other as are electrons, positrons, quarks, protons, etc.

Energy was behind the initialization of the big bang - an energetic display of a particular manifestation of energy. And as far as we know energy is all there is. We know that everything is energy but we do not know what it actually is. In order to be energy, however, it must be energetic. If energy is all there is then its energetic activity must be self-generated. That energetic activity could be the result of an inherent attraction/repulsion dynamic A/R. That is, energy is attracted to itself while at the same time repelled by itself.

The A/R dynamic of the universal energy causes it to be in a state of extreme tension. A certain ratio of the A/R dynamic was reached at one point in that energy and resulted in the intense eruption known as the big bang. The eruption momentarily compromised the energy’s force of attraction while its repulsive force enjoyed a massive energy gain. The universe expanded at a relentless pace leaving the flotsam and jetsam of the big bang to hold itself together as best it could. So, we can see the universe at large as being formed from, and being an ongoing revelation of an attract/repel dynamic constituting one energy.

The idea that the big bang was propelled out of nothing, that nothing existed prior to that event, could have some validity here. If the inherent attraction/repulsion of energy is generally equal it would at some point cancel itself out. And that would be its eternal state. As far as eternity is concerned, then, nothing exists. Eternity cannot be arrived at. It always is, always was and always will be. Within that eternity, however, all manner of various configurations of A/R are possible. Eternity would, in effect, comprise all possible states including, of course, the one where A/R is perfectly equal. The equal state where energy cancels itself out is the actual eternal state because it is the only one that never changes. Any particular temporal manifestation of energy is non-existent as far as the eternal is concerned.

Think of the attractive force as positive and the repulsive force as negative and relate them to positive and negative numbers. There are always as many negative numbers as positive numbers and, therefore, the numbers are cancelled out leaving only zero forever in their stead.

So, to answer the question posed by Leibniz, “Why is there something instead of nothing?” we say there is something and nothing. Taking the measure of time moment by moment something exists; but in the all-encompassing eternity nothing exists. But again moment-to-moment existence is something entirely separate from eternity; the eternity of zero is something separate from a progression of moments.

How can this be? Well, again, we see in the universe certain threshold events where things exist as they are while at the same time they manifest themselves as something entirely different. Also, quantum particles have been found to exist in different states at the same time. As it manifests itself on this side of the big bang energy gives rise to a lot of bizarre happenings. Can we expect anything less from energy on the other side?

To say, however, that particles exist in the energy that they are formed from would be somewhat misleading. Particles do not actually exist in energy anymore than a particular life form actually exists in genetic code, though it can be said that all possible life forms are contained in genetic code. The genetic code bears no resemblance to that which it creates. Life forms are completely different from that which produces them. The world of quantum particles remains oblivious and fundamentally unchanged by the macroscopic worlds that they compose. The macroscopic worlds are completely different from that which produces them. So too, energy exists as it is in and of itself alone with seemingly no connection whatsoever to anything else. Energy is, however, everything that exists. Energy also remains as one thing in and of itself alone while at the same time it gives form to all the various particles of force and matter. Energy is everything that exists and everything is composed by virtue of energy though it is completely different from what it composes. Everything it seems is composed of that which it is completely different from. Everything, that is, except energy, which is a thing in itself.

Finding a formula for one of these threshold events would, one might surmise, be a rather significant discovery with respect to describing the fundamental nature of the universe. A complete understanding of one of these threshold events could very well serve as a complete understanding of all of them and give us an idea about the universe prior to the big bang. We have an understanding through quantum chromodynamics of the quark gluon interaction but none with regard to how the quark/gluon arrangement came about or how a nucleon is created from it. An exacting quark/gluon arrangement is found within each and every nucleon. And that arrangement was somehow arrived at from an amorphous plasma of quarks and gluons? How can that be? Perhaps it has to do with information. A microscopic life form can be taken apart in a petri dish where it will spontaneously reassemble itself, retain all of its functionality and go about its business as if its parts were never separated. This is because all the information required for its construction is inherent in its parts. Could this be the case with the formation of the universe?

Might energy be pure information managed by the binary of its A/R dynamic that when released, via the big bang, conspired to inform particular structures orchestrated by the binary of A/R which went on to produce a universe according to an ad hoc program designated by conditions at the release, like the ratio of A to R.

In looking at a particular threshold event with the A/R dynamic acting as the program’s binary we have, for instance, the repulsion of quarks drawn together by the force of attraction provided by the strong force, which produces a proton. Perhaps, when a certain arrangement of repellant quarks interact with the attractive strong force a particular ratio between the forces of attraction and repulsion is reached and this informs the construction of a specific energy field to envelop them that produces a proton. The particular ratio of the two forces could be the key to a formula for other threshold events. Consciousness could be the result of the various attractions and repulsions of a complex nervous system informing it to create a window to manage them in an orderly fashion. One might imagine lines of the two forces of the A/R dynamic extending from the universal energy and working the universe and everything in it like the binary code of a computer program.