ideas on the whole
Outline
nature is never ending
Space Pulse, Many Worlds, and Billiard Balls
Let’s start at the beginning. The beginning of time. Start with the Big Bang that wasn’t big and wasn’t a bang. The start of it all was compacted so small as to be indescribable. For reason’s unknown at this moment in the story, it blew up. Rather, blew out.
It blew outward and continues to expand (except it doesn’t and more on that later as well). Since there was no air or other medium for sound, there was no bang. In space, nobody can hear you explode.
The smallest of bits blew outward, but the centre point remains a mystery. Maybe one day we will find the point from which everything is “out.” One day, everything will blow back in. More on that later too.
Attraction
I assert that the tiniest of bits have a property as basic as being. To be is to have this property. For the sake of simplicity, and this is a story of simplicity, that property is attraction. To be is to attract. Even as all the smallest particles were flying apart, they were drawn together.
Attraction isn’t quite gravity. Gravity is a result of the basic attraction of matter to other matter. Attraction isn’t a property of matter—and this is important. It is another way of looking at matter. Not the flip side of the coin, but one and the same as the coin. To be is to attract. To attract is to have being.
Particles combined. In those two words are found the origin of time and the universe. Let’s start with the universe. Time doesn’t actually exist. At least, not on its own.
Levels
The combination of particles settled in levels. The atomic, molecular, familiar, and cosmic. At the atomic and subatomic level are atoms and their parts, such as electrons and protons. But also bosons and quarks. Subatomic could be put in its own level, but they are all so horribly small that the distinction bears no difference to us. These are the billiard balls of the universe.
How much bigger is the molecular world? Measured size isn’t as important as awareness. That is going to take a bit to understand, but as said: it is important. Big ideas sometimes need big words. Epi– (which means above or beyond) phenomenon (which means occurrence, something observed). We will use this big word in a moment.
Water is a molecule. So is table salt. Propane for the BBQ is a molecule, so is chlorine in the swimming pool. Molecules arise out of atoms, but occur above or beyond atoms. Take the simplest: water. Water is two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. H2O.
In the world of water (which is the molecular level), there is no observable hydrogen (which is in the atomic level). There are no electrons or quarks in the observable world of water. If you could ride a tiny ship from the world of water down to the world of atoms, water would disappear.
In other words, water is an epiphenomenon of hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen consists of a single proton and single electron. If we look around the atomic world, we see protons and electrons, but no water. No salt, no propane, no chlorine.
Up and Down
So we can go up observable levels, from atomic to molecular or down them, molecular to atomic. And up from molecular to cellular. Skin cells, tree cells. They arise from molecules, but under the microscope, no molecules appear. They are just a nucleus and cytoplasm and other bits.
We are made of cells, but no matter how closely I look, I see no cells in you. That’s because people (familiar level) and cells are on different levels.
Cells can be their own level, if you want, somewhere between molecular and familiar. The edges become blurry. For instance, the largest cell is observable with the naked eye. Just barely. This is the oocyte, or human ovum. The oocyte is colossal compared to most cells.
Pictures in newspapers are made of tiny dots of ink. If you put nose to newsprint, you see only a lot of dots, no picture. Moving away from the newspaper, an image appears. Abraham Lincoln, for instance. Up close, there is no observable image. Further away, there are no observable dots. The image and ink dots occur in different levels of observation. The image of Abraham Lincoln is an epiphenomenon of ink dots.
Familiar
Our familiar level consists of trees and rocks and animals and oceans. Oceans are on the edge. Nobody can behold an ocean as a whole. Certainly not the world as a whole and much less a solar system or galaxy. Let’s put these in the cosmic level.
If we became as big as a galaxy, we would see no people. If we became as small as a molecule, we would see no people. Galaxies, people, and molecules occur in different levels of observation. So however you stratify or divide up the layers (atomic, molecular, cellular, and so on), what matters is whether what is observable as a whole in one level is observable in another. And, for our purposes, the atomic level is the foundation upon which all other levels rest. That is important because atoms are not unlike billiard balls.
Atoms
First a caveat: atoms do not look or act like solar systems. An electron does not orbit a nucleus in the way a planet orbits a star. An electron has a negative charge that creates a force field. Force fields can be very strong. Most of matter is empty, almost entirely empty, but you can’t walk through a wall by jiggling your atoms. You can’t pass your feet through the floor. The wall and floor are mostly empty space, but and this is a big BUT, electro-magnetic force fields make matter seem sold.
Now let’s take back that caveat and simplify matters. Atoms are pretty much like billiard balls. Imagine a set of them racked up on a pool table and break them sharply with a cue stick. When the cue ball strikes, the other balls scatter. Action, reaction. The solid and stripe balls, have no choice. They don’t think about it, but obey. At the atomic level, there is no free will. Yes, atoms are not billiard balls. This is a simplification. But still, they have no choice. At the atomic level, there is no free will. How the balls move is determined by how they were struck. Billiard balls and atoms are determined.
Freedom
The BIG question is whether determinism scales. That is, because atoms have no choice, do molecules have a choice, do people have a choice, do galaxies have a choice? It seems to us that we do, but seems does not entail is. Physical change is determined, such as the cause and effect of cue ball and billiard balls. Mathematical change is determined, such as adding two plus two. Always four.
I argue that there is no reason to believe the familiar world has free will when all other worlds are determined. It seems to us that we have freedom from cause and effect. The key word being: seems. But if mind states are an epiphenomenon of brain states, then your thoughts this moment are determined by thoughts before and any sensory input in the moment. Brains are made of cells are made of molecules are made of atoms. And atoms act and react like billiard balls.
And if mind states are not an epiphenomenon of brain states, then there is an unexplainable ghost in the machine. To say minds were put there by an outside force is to slide down the slippery slope of who put a mind in the outside force and who put a mind in the mind of that force. On and on, unless one short-circuits the process and declares: just because. Let’s hope for more of an explanation than: just because.
Time
Earlier I said: in the words “particles combined” are found the origin of time and the universe. It turns out there is more than one universe of awareness. There are stacked universes: atomic, molecular, familiar, cosmic. We will return to these after we dispose of time.
We left the familiar universe expanding rapidly after the now unfortunately-named big bang. It was, simply said, stuff in motion. Stuff that became bosons and photons, neutrons and protons, eventually crayons and drive-ins. But at first it was just stuff. Still is stuff, but the kind that is familiar to us. The stuff of our familiar level of epiphenomena.
Like objects moving relative to one another. Earth rotating about its axis. The flight of Wilbur Wright. The fourth and final flight of the Wright brothers lasted as long as it takes the Earth to rotate on its axis, or at least 1/1440 rotation.
There are objects in motion: Wilbur flying; Earth rotating. Motion can be compared, one to the other: the final flight of Wilbur right takes 1/1440 rotation of the Earth on its axis.
We can call this a minute, except time does not exist apart from relative motion. There are objects, there is motion, there is comparison. But there is no time. Time is a shorthand that becomes inconvenient when a minute or second or eon is thought of as existing in its own right. There is no time, only relative motion.
Time does not exist apart from matter. No matter, no motion. No motion, no comparison. No apparent time. In an absolute vacuum, there is no time.
Before the big bang, there was no time. Time (relative motion) began only when it all blew outward. And by it, we mean matter of whatever form, including the photon, which moves as a wave and strikes as a particle. Here we return to the interpretation of matter as attraction. It all blew apart and the parts have been (figuratively speaking) calling out to one another ever since.
Pulsating
One theory is they will smear out into a heat death and the universe stay like that, an unmoving soup where time (relative motion) slides to a halt when there is no further motion.
However thin the cosmic soup, to be is to attract—and attract the bits of the universe will. Collecting, aggregating, pulling in on itself, tighter and smaller until a single point occurs. A singularity which blows apart and the universe pulsates out, then in, then out.
But not randomly. There is no random; only a hard determinism at the atomic level. What was, is now, and will be again. Over and over, world without end.
You were here before. Not the here of this instance of the universe, but here in the instance before, the big bang blowout before the universe crunched together and blew out again into this world. You will be here again. And because the universe plays billiards, you will do as you did.
Blink
It isn’t like you have to wait long. Imagine a dreamless sleep. You fall asleep one moment and wake the next. This great cycle between one instance of you in this universe and you in the next could be written as a number with a large exponent, but what does that matter. You blink out, blink back in.
Not the same you; not a reincarnation. It is a you that comes about because the stuff of the universe reaches the point where the right combination of matter creates just that brain state that gives rise to the mind state that you know to be you. You are inevitable. You are eternal. You just don’t know it. Now you do.
You can’t know anything about the previous instantiations. They are discrete because all matter smoothed out into a cosmic soup and crunched in on itself and blew out again until there you are, thanks to hard determinism.
So the universe pulsates: out, in, out, in. And each time, eventually, stuff comes together in a composition that is uniquely you and there you are. Out, in. Out, in.
Nothing
How many times have you been before? The question is simple, but it makes no sense. There was no Universe-Zero. That’s true in part because there is no nothingness.
We talk as if nothing exists. That is, as if there is a nothingness. There isn’t. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only converted from one form to another. Something cannot come out of nothing, because nothingness does not exist.
We can think of a vacuum, of a patch of void in deep space where there are no atoms. That is emptiness, not nothingness. We can think of contrast, such as a shadow, where there is an absence light. Or hole where there is no donut. Or cold, which is the absence of heat. But these are apparent by contrast. A shadow, or donut hole or cold are a description of what is out there, but not here at a location. There is light, but it is dark here. There is heat, but it is cold here.
That there is no nothingness entails that what is always was. Nothing can come from nothingness, so what is always was. In short, no creation—only outward expansion from the singularity that started with a big bang.
Eternalism
The stuff of this instance of the universe is the same stuff of every instance of the universe. The stuff in you is the same as it has always been and always will be. You were merely waiting for the billiard balls to reach the configuration where they came together as your brain and, with it, your mind, your conscious sense of self.
You have been instantiated not a number of times—but always. That is because the stuff of the universe pulsates out and in, out and in, never creating new, never losing as much as an atom to nothingness. And you are a small part of that uncreated, never-ending stuff across all instances of the universe. You always are, were, will be. Everything is fixed and you can’t change it.
nature is ever emerging
Beasts, Herds, and Self-Awareness
The ground beneath you and the sky above, beasts of the forest and the chillin’ thereof.
Atoms and planets and the stars at night. If it walks or swims or even takes flight.
It appears as whole, it seems to be one. More than its parts, yet greater than none.
Similar bits are what nature favours. They interact, at least with their neighbours.
Geese will gather and fly in formation. Planets form by self-organization.
Towns arise from economic exchange. Diamonds are crystals so neatly arranged.
Internal harmonic brings parts into sync, like fireflies when the whole field blinks.
Or human cycles in tune with each other by subtle signals we’ve yet to discover.
Hives, herds, swarms, flocks, schools of fish. Emerging in turn, to flounder or flourish.
Emerging to represent internally, that which we all experience externally.
Patterns inside that roughly correspond to their world within and the world beyond.
Experiencing experience, itself self-aware, conscious of being and being somewhere.
Greater complexity, finer in clarity. Deeper in awareness, higher in verity.
Able to label and categorize. Construe it, intuit, and rationalize.
The mind of an ant at the hiker’s boot is how the hiker stands in Gaia’s pursuit.
From Gaia to galaxy or structures we can’t see, conscious beyond any descriptive degree.
To the universe itself and invention of time. Relative motion, yet each movement’s prime.
What is always was, there never was nothing. I think, I am; always was, yet becoming.
Wonderment
Science in Stories
Deceptively simple, Wonderment makes postcards of big ideas. It visualizes through humour and examples, rather than burying big ideas under maths and charts. This might be how Hemingway would have taught science, in stories. Say as much as needed and leave the reader to fill in from experience.
In all, Wonderment has a way of making connections that are only obvious once you know them. And it progresses this way from how the parts work to a speculative essay on the whole, from physics to a metaphysics, without losing its simple wonder of the way the world works.
