

The Reassuring Universe

(Also available in hard-and soft-cover print editions)

Dr. Don Ray

_Don Ray's work published by Quantum Embrace Publishing at_ Smashwords

Copyright © 2011 Don Ray

All rights reserved.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this e-book. Even if you received a free version, it remains the copyrighted property of the author. But since the author's intent is to spread a reassuring message, you are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to Smashwords.com to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

DEDICATION

This project is dedicated to you, the reader, the focus of the entire creation process of this book, and the focus of the entire creation process of the Universe.

Prologue

Perhaps this book will help someone gain awareness that their daily life unfolds within a current, a flow, a direction that hints of meaning and Purpose; a current, flow, and direction that each of us already senses though often without awareness. Perhaps the reader will experience some reassurance through this increased awareness, and if so, they and the world will be a little better off, and the cardboard ceiling that blocks our view of our personal potential and the embracing Purpose will have a few more holes punched in it. _Don Ray, s.D.g._

Table Of Contents

Part I: Science and Spirit

Part II: Hints of Purpose

Part III: Googoogoojoob

Author biography and message to the reader

Image Credits. And interesting background.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I stare at this page, wondering where to even begin. Too many people have played too many roles for too many years to do any justice to giving them credit. For every name I include, ten will be left out.

But as I procrastinate by playing with fonts and spacing, my eyes are finally drawn skyward (I work outside if at all possible) by a persistent and unusual sound of an airplane. I look and look, but do not see it. But then I see something else.... a hawk, and then a second, spiraling up together into the clear sky. The second hawk looks white, though at this distance I cannot be sure. Only once have I seen a white hawk, an experience I cherish for many reasons. I step inside the open door to grab my binoculars, an action of a few seconds, but when I again look up, neither hawk is to be seen, nor is the airplane to be heard.

Such improbable occurrences provide the foundation and framework, and the motivation and inspiration for this book. A chance meeting here, an introduction there, a person or guide or partner or leader or .... a white hawk.... . who set my life on a different course, who provided essential opportunity, who challenged or encouraged.

I acknowledge with deep gratitude the roles you each played, I celebrate having shared a rare and beautiful "white hawk" moment with you, and I acknowledge with wonder the Reassuring Universe in which every role fits, every interaction contributes, and as stated in the title of the wonderfully enlightening book by Richard Rohr, "Everything Belongs".

I must add one critical individual acknowledgement though. Throughout this e-book, and much more in the print versions, the beautiful and evocative images by Karen and Spence add immeasurably to whatever impact this publication may someday have for someone. For Karen's diligent searching through her and Spence's remarkable collection of photographs, for her eye for sublime beauty, for pursuing permissions for use from other photographers, and for proofreading and ongoing support, I and any reader of this book are indebted

*************

*************
Part 1: Science and spirit

(back to table of contents)

*************

*************

Science:

Science has nothing to do with spirit and soul. Science is black and white, sharp, verifiable, not a thing of heart and intuition and desire.... and this is good.

Science and Spirit:

Can these two words even appear at peace in the same phrase? Are they not immediately and mutually antagonistic? Have they not clashed through the centuries? Surely our intellect and our heart must remain locked in combat for our loyalty, and surely intelligence precludes faith; education exorcises belief.

Can beauty and truth be found in the arcane hieroglyphs of science? Or is beauty and Truth found only in that which can be calculated and quantified and mathematically expressed?

I would argue that elegant beauty is to be found in the runes of science and its ritual math, its hieroglyphs eloquently revealing concepts otherwise unfathomable to the human mind, yet even with this tool of elegant mathematical expressions, still the concepts and conclusions to which they lead often remain unfathomable, leaving us in wonder at their predictions and raw power, leaving us helpless and small in trying to grasp their meaning.

"Elegant beauty"? "Unfathomable concepts"? "Wonder at raw power"..."helpless and small". . . "grasping at meaning"...are these not the words, phrases, and expressions also evoked by the realm of spirit and soul, that other realm of prediction and raw power.

Expressing in words the profound meaning of mathematical equations is often a futile exercise. Expressing in logic the experiences of the heart is often a hopeless gesture.

The preceding equations are nothing more, and nothing less, than two of Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism, in other words, the mathematical expression of the laws of our universe that give rise to.............

................ **. Light.**

" _And God said 'let there be light', And there was light. God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. "_ _(Genesis 1:3-4)_

Expressed in symbols black and white and conveniently applicable for use in designing antennae and headlight lenses and in explaining rainbows, or expressed in grandiose summarizing proclamations of holiness and grandeur, does the light they describe not look as beautiful through either lens?

Courageous daring and open-mindedness allowed scientists of yore, and today, to boldly explore realms unimagined and unanticipated and, at least in their initial forays, realms resoundingly unaccepted by peers and institutions.

Courageous daring and open-mindedness allowed, and allow, mystics and prophets to climb up mountains literal and figurative, to explore realms unimagined and unanticipated, realms resoundingly unaccepted by peers and institutions.

Can we summon the courageous daring and open-mindedness needed to explore the gap between the scientific realm and the spiritual mountain to see what undiscovered terrain lies in that unmapped territory? The maps proffered from either side of the gap are rife with edge-of-the-world warnings of "go not beyond this point, venture not further from these known shores of logic (or of faith), beyond in direction of that other land lie monsters and sirens and whirlpools that will capture and swallow your intelligence (or your soul)".

And if one did succeed in crossing to that other side, surely the benighted natives on that distant shore share no common basis with our enlightened selves, no comparable understanding or perspective or foundation. Surely we can learn nothing from them, and they are unwilling, or unable, to learn from us. Surely mistrust and separation are our only recourse.

But throughout history, some people have been called to explore, some cannot resist the blanks on the map, cannot resist the urge to find paths and build bridges. These few willing to leave familiar shores, called by something, something alternately described as intellectual curiosity or whispering spirit, may find they, we, are exploring more than a blank space on the map, We may discover we are in fact exploring ourselves, discovering unmapped lands in our own nature, and in building bridges they may discover that the bridge is no longer necessary because the perceived gap and blank and void and separation between science and spirit never existed in the first place.

In leaving the shore of science or of faith, the courageous explorer may find the world is round, and your bold explorations bring you not to an alien shore but back to familiar home, having sailed through the mirages of separation and difference.

Set sail with confidence from either shore, for mind and intellect need not be threatened by explorations of the heart, and the heart can still securely hold on to its foundations when intellect seems to founder on the rocks.

This voyage of exploration is intensely individual, existential some would call it, mystical others would say. This voyage is for you, to satisfy your curiosity, to resolve your own questions.

Your mind and intellect and intelligence are invaluable navigational aids, and only a fool would embark without them. But they and their tools of words and language may not be able to express the personal discoveries to which you sail, and insistence on discovering only that which can be shrunk and packaged in language and liturgy, equations and dogma, may deny you entrance to the harbors you seek.

"I implored the sage in earnest last night to unveil the mysteries of the universe. He whispered softly in my ear, 'Silence! It is something to perceive but never to say. '"

Rumi, The Life and Thought of Rumi

Science's take on spirit and soul

So what is your understanding of what science says about spirit and soul? Some might say science says nothing about spirit and soul. Others might say science argues against spirit and soul. But we are not here to engage in discussion of such responses, but only to explore your response to the question.

Many would say the following about science's take on spirit, soul, and meaning.

Biology describes your body as a mobile life support system to transport genetic material to opportunities for reproduction and propagation of that genetic material.

Science says:"We looked into space. There is no Heaven above us. "

Genetics assures us that all your wants, loves, desires, emotions, and feelings are programmed behavior honed by natural selection to optimize species survival. Biochemistry describes all your thoughts as cascading electrochemical reactions.

_What do_ **you** _say?_

If you look with doubt upon the preceding statements about what science has to say about spirit and soul, if you are willing to entertain a different perspective arising from the same science, then welcome to.... . . .

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The Reassuring Universe

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

It's big, cold, violent, and doomed. Now what could be reassuring about this?!

On our path to the Reassuring Universe, we must first pass through

The Clockwork Universe

19th century science promulgated a clockwork view of the universe. The commonly held perception was that if we could just measure enough, detect enough, and analyze enough, then we could predict anything, for all existence obeyed Newton's Laws and Maxwell's Laws and Boyle's Law and so on. The universe was boringly law abiding. Billiard balls always bounced per prescribed angles. Atoms and molecules were after all just little tiny billiard balls. Planets and asteroids were after all just really big billiard balls. So with merely more precise measurements and better microscopes and bigger telescopes we could pretty much predict the motion of every orbit, impact, collision, splatter, grain, drop, molecule, and atom.

The universe was mechanical, and by extension, we were mechanical.

With the entry of Darwin's statistically driven life evolution onto the stage, the picture became even clearer. We were the mechanistic outcomes of a few million years of billiard ball collisions and chemical reactions and statistical happenstance.

Mystery solved, it was now just a matter of cleaning up a few details and taking lots and lots of measurements.

This approach to science proved invaluable for predicting the behavior of turbines and generators and steam engines and light bulbs and a host of other inventions that none of us are willing to go without.

But the success of clockwork science in producing airplanes and bumper crops led us to extrapolate its view of existence beyond that which could be measured and quantified. A world view began to take hold that if science could so effectively measure some things and predict some outcomes, then if science could not measure, or even detect, some things, then those things must not exist. That would seem a rather extraordinary leap of faith, and certainly religious in nature, and hardly consistent with the tenets of science and its adherence to repeatable empirical evidence as the basis for conclusions, but take hold the leap of faith did.

Now, that was after all the 19th and early 20th centuries, a long time ago, and people were newly enamored with the ongoing parade of marvels produced by science, so they could be excused for letting their enthusiasm extend the applicability of clockwork science beyond its original, verifiable, empirical realm into the realm of the mystical and spiritual.

But here we are, well into the 21st century, yet a surprising number of people still think of science in terms of this mechanistic, clockwork existence. It's as if Einstein, Planck, and Pauli had worked in another universe. Science has moved on, but the perception of the general public has not. It's as if Magellan et al had repeatedly shown the world as round, but the vast majority of people still believed the world to be flat.

So a century old form of clockwork science remains ingrained in the public perception, and ironically this dated mechanistic mindset has also in large part excised the modern citizen's ability to understand religious and spiritual scriptures in terms of allegory, symbolism, and poetry. A significant portion of the populace believes they live in a physical existence fully understood in terms of its mechanical structures and forms. And this same (mis)understanding of science demands literal interpretations of religious/spiritual scripture.

But this clockwork universe in which all existence is measurable and quantifiable and predictable stands in direct contradiction and opposition to scriptural texts that for the past century or two we are told must be understood in literal (which ironically means worldly) terms.

It becomes impossible to believe in both the scientific and the spiritual. Entering the temple, church, or mosque you have to check your brain at the door; entering the laboratory or university you have to check your soul at the door.

And as Dr. Phil would ask, how is this working for us?

The vocal and strident proponents of the extremes will vociferously exclaim that their fundamentalist science or religion is working just fine for them, and who can argue against that? And as we all know, there is no point in arguing with these people anyway.

But for no small number of people, faith in clockwork science has proven synonymous with emptiness and purposelessness and nagging, even gnawing, dissatisfaction. And for people raised in the new religious world of literal, physical interpretations of text (as opposed to historic interpretation as allegory, imagery, symbolism, and poetry), the mental constructs of dogma they are asked to swallow are just too incongruous with fact.

The investigations of science have left no place for soul, eternal life, heaven, or God.... .

Why do we even seek to understand?

How the mind struggles to understand! How we are compelled to construct models and forms, to make comprehensible the gods and universes that direct our fate.

From Moses to Newton, Joseph Smith to Albert Einstein, and every priest, shaman, and graduate student in between, minds stretch to describe the indescribable, and the rest of us hungrily accept the images and equations they offer, desperate to glimpse a reliable truth.

Surely it must be there! . . . . . . . somewhere, behind the deceptions of our senses. How elusive the Truth, whether due to shyness or a cruel sense of humor we know not.

Obviously the earth feels and looks flat, obviously it is stable, and celestial bodies go around it,.... but no, Truth proves subtler, remaining hidden and disguised until more insightful calculations and sophisticated instruments could ferret it out.

In this example of earth round not flat and even up and down turned down and up if we but spin the globe, we speak of provable, irrefutable, demonstrable and verifiable truth, Yet still such truth remains hidden to any child until told, still it runs counter to senses and experience.

If even such irrefutable scientific truths are so effectively obscured by our daily experience, with what precocious audacity do we dare to pretend we know the never provable Truths of God and Life, of Creation and destiny, of right and wrong?

When even senses and scientists prove so oft false, what foolish faith would prompt us to entrust our beliefs to fickle heart and boastful prophet?

Yet entrust we must, and believe we do. Each soul seeks a foundation, a reference...the atheist, nihilist, existentialist, and humanist no different from the Baptist and the Buddhist.

How the mind struggles to understand. How hungrily it accepts the proffered paradigms of priests, prophets, atheist authors, and neighborhood gangs.

.... and therein we find a truth, consistent and repeatable....

The human mind, every fully functional human mind, can and must function within some reference frame of explanation.

Our universe of personal experience cannot remain a void, for even if our intellect insists that our existence is suspended in void, our mind reaches into that void, feels it, defines it, making even the void and our place in it a tangible reality.

We cannot escape our need to understand. We can however choose how open, how receptive, how challenging, how intelligent, how questioning, how optimistic we will be in pursuit of understanding.

What we eventually come to believe may indeed be limited by what exposure our society offers, what books catch our eye, what people cross our path.

_Quantum Mechanics:_ _Fundamental unpredictability; multiple simultaneous locations; inescapable uncertainty._

But though the available information and experience with which we shape our understanding may be limited, in the courage we each bring to the search for Truth we will define and sculpt the essence of our soul.

I say that because we can each come to believe only that which we are willing to accept. For example, we cannot and will not believe a Truth that demands love, surrender, or sacrifice if we are not willing to love, surrender, and sacrifice.

Our nature demands that each of us try to understand, try to fill in the blanks. That universal fact speaks of a profound Truth. In that imperative to understand and explain, Nature is forcing us to create ourselves, to choose the essence of our being.

The investigations of science have left no place for soul, eternal life, heaven, or God.......

......or have they?

It's time to leave the 19th century and come kicking and screaming into the bizarre, disturbing, perplexing, and wondrous world of 20th and 21st century science. We will look at several avenues of scientific discovery with profound, earthshaking, stunning, revolutionary, mind-boggling, paradigm shifting (get the point? ) consequences for how we view physical existence, and maybe our own existence.

First up to bat to take a swing at our cherished misconceptions, quantum mechanics. Strange and unpredictable are not just descriptive adjectives for this field, but scientific terms applied with specific intent.

Before we talk about the weirdness of quantum mechanics and its implications for God and soul and eternal life and all that spiritual stuff we're interested in, we should talk about the reality of quantum mechanics.  
How esoteric, academic, and irrelevant is it? Without our understanding of quantum mechanics we would have no computers, no LED lights, no cell phones, no microwave ovens, no flat panel TVs, no lasers, no desk top printers, no internet, no digital anything. Oh yea, and every chemical reaction in every cell of your body would not exist. Quantum mechanics is solid, established, reliable science.

And quantum mechanics says that the world is unpredictable and objects can be in two places at once but not in certain places and particles may come into existence out of absolutely nothing and then disappear again and reality is just a rippling wave and ....... interesting, huh?

Quantum mechanics wrecks the fine tuned workings of the clockwork universe.

That atom that we treated like a billiard ball and thought that if we could just measure it precisely enough we could know exactly where it would land.... . well, quantum mechanics demonstrates that that atom can act as if in two places at once because, well, because it is, as long as we don't measure it too precisely and it maintains its wave form.

Then when we do measure it, it will appear to be in just one place, but maybe it will be here.... or maybe it will be there.... just depends.

"Depends on what? ! " you impatiently ask. "Just depends", I answer, on luck of the draw, statistical flukes, random fluctuations, and pure unadulterated, inescapable uncertainty.

The world is not predictable!

OK, big things, like planets and baseballs, are pretty predictable. It's the little stuff that's not predictable, quarks escaping via radioactive decay, electrons passing through little gaps, and how that synapse in your brain will connect with its neighbors.

Yea, synapses in your brain, cells in your body, all the little stuff, it's all subject to quantum mechanics. That may well be why you have free-will. Mind you, in the clockwork universe, every electron in every cell of your brain was just following the orders of physics, with no slack or room for wiggle. Outcomes, including thoughts and feelings, were supposedly as predictable as a well angled bank shot on the billiard table.

Quantum mechanics frees you, and frees the universe. Fact is, the Big Bang presumably resulted from a quantum wiggle. How about that? All existence arising from a sub-microscopic quantum fluctuation.

So, you thought reality is predictable, unfolding per laws of physics, with no room for course changes, free will, or the occasional outrageously unlikely outcome that some folks might dare to call a miracle? Hmm. Turns out it's not so simple.

There's wiggle room in the universe.... and in your head. There's room for a little fluctuation to change your mind, or make a seed sprout, or fix a broken gene, or make a universe come into existence.

Does that fact prove anything spiritual? Of course not. It simply opens the door to unpredictable events and outcomes that can unfold in ways that we perceive as accident or statistical chance, without any risk of contradicting causality or physics. It simply opens the door for something.... Purpose, God, Destiny, miracles, prayer results, whatever label you want to stick on it, to have influence while remaining backstage, out of view, unobtrusive, leaving us free to ignore or seek that source of influence without it ever being discoverable or provable.

Something else about this quantum mechanics: remember I mentioned that the whole universe came (or may have come, you choose) into existence out of the quantum wiggle that led to the Big Bang? Yea, quantum mechanics provides ample opportunity for particles, and maybe universes, to come into existence out of nothing. Well, not exactly nothing. Actually fluctuations associated with energy uncertainty. Of course usually these particles are just virtual particles, meaning they politely disappear in an infinitesimal fraction of a second after they appear.

But all these virtual particles bubble along unseen and undetected in everything everywhere...yes, everything everywhere, every nook and cranny of every gap between every atom of the cosmos and the chair and your body.

With all this uncertainty about location and time and energy, and with particles popping into existence like pop-corn, it's a wonder that the universe, and our lives, are as well behaved as they are.

Quantum mechanics shows that the physical world in which we live, causal and rational and deterministic, is like a bubble of calm bobbing on an ocean of fundamental uncertainty, and in fact, our world arose out of that ocean of fundamental uncertainty.

"Uncertainty" might be translated "potential", potential in the grandest sense, all bets off, anything possible, maybe even other universes popping into being.

The universe is revealed to be rife with possibilities that would not be allowed by the rigid, unyielding, inflexible world of the clockwork universe, possibilities making room for life itself.

In only considering quantum mechanics, science has already begun to lose its street cred as an argument against anything. In fact, it is science sheepishly proclaiming that anything is possible.

Is that the sound of doors starting to open?

Relativity

Ahh, relativity. At least that's a word many people have heard. That will be our second batter to take swings at our head, trying to shake up our foundations of reality. Quantum mechanics tells us that our physical structures on which we thought we could rely are actually unreliable tricksters, and they may not be where we thought. But with physical existence reduced to unreliable rubble, at least we still have space itself, and time, those foundation structural elements that are the same for all of us....... . not. Einstein pulls that rug out from under us, with time itself, and space itself, forming a reality foundation as firm and secure as warming Jello.

Welcome to 20th century science folks! And this relativity stuff is early 20th century science. Hold on to your hats, if they haven't decayed into pure quantum energy.

Relativity: space bends, light bends, time slows down and speeds up there but not here, and space and time are actually sewn together as space-time and their warping and bending have to be envisioned with space and time together.

Envisioned? What a joke! You can't envision this stuff. It's just too flippin' strange. It comes out of the math, it's proven, it's repeatable, there's no controversy or doubt about it.... but the human mind is bereft of experience and paradigms and models with which to envision it.

Remember how all that quantum weirdness happened at really small scales, quarks and electrons and atoms and such? This relativity weirdness happens for the most part at really big scales, universe size and rocket fast.

And why is it called "relativity"? Because what we perceive, mass (kind of like weight), length, speed, and time, all depend on how we move relative to what we observe.

Measure the length of a rocket and weigh an astronaut and synchronize watches while you're sitting on the ground together. Then let them take off and swoop past at 90% the speed of light.

Now measure all the same parameters as the rocket swoops past.

Hmmm. Everything has changed. The mass of the cargo is larger, its length is shorter, and the clocks are out of synch. What a mess! OK, bring it back, set it back on the launch pad, and let's start over.

Hmmm. Weight (and associated mass) of the cargo is the same as before we launched it in the first place. The length has not changed a bit. The clocks are ticking at the same rate, though we notice that somehow the clocks on the spaceship did lose a little time.

OK, we launch again, expecting that now everything we measured will remain the same, and the previous fiasco had something to do with our measurement equipment or that practical joker astronaut on board, and we take our measurements, and.... . oops,.... we get the same numbers we measured on the previous pass, all different from what we measured on the ground.

It turns out that because the speed of light remains constant regardless of how fast the source of the light moves toward or away from you, everything else in the whole flippin' universe has to accommodate that speed limit , and when I say everything, I mean everything. (OK, recent neutrino experiments in autumn of 2011 may indicate motion faster than the speed of light, which means I better hurry up and get this book published before this section gets invalidated).

Through some surprisingly simple math Einstein predicted all these fiasco results of our rocket experiment. Mass, length, and the rate of passage of time are not fixed, not absolute. Objects, space, and time itself change, warp, alter, get more massive, and shorten in length, as they move past us.

Reality it turns out is made of taffy. The very foundation structure in which we live, how far away, how much, how long.... . toss in a little motion and all the values change.

The rigid clockwork universe is now not only broken in pieces but the pieces have been melted down.

Move fast enough relative to any object and time in that object appears to almost stop. Move fast enough and objects moving past will virtually disappear because they appear so short. Move fast enough and the equivalent of the entire energy of all the universe would appear to be contained in that now super-massive passing object. And observers in that object are saying the same thing about you.

So why don't we experience this in daily life? The same reason we didn't see the earth was round. If the earth were much smaller, it would have been obvious it was round. If it were hugely bigger, we might not have yet been able to sail around it and prove it round.

In the case of quantum weirdness and relativistic oddness, we conveniently exist in the sweet spot.... not too small, so we don't have to deal with quantum diffraction when we walk through a door, not too big so we don't have to take into account the curvature of space-time when tossing the softball.

That sweet spot served us well throughout our development and learning and history. But it does make it deucedly difficult to comprehend quantum and relativistic weirdness, which is why math is essential to discover what we otherwise would never guess and could not comprehend.

So do quantum mechanics and relativity effectively disassemble the clockwork universe? . . . . that universe that provides us such predictability and arrogant confidence in our understanding of everything? Just in case there's a spring or bearing or ratchet not yet fully melted down, let's bring into play:

String (M) theory:

With its 9, 10, or 11 dimensions, multiple universes coming into being, dimensions and universes inflating as matter+anti-matter annihilations release constraining wrapped strings.... .

Whoo hoo! Having already disassembled and melted down our comfortable and reassuring clockwork universe, we've now totally blown it to smithereens!

With M Theory we move into the 21st century science, where we will no longer have to deal with the weirdness of our universe, but the weirdness of lots of universes. But there is a caveat before wandering down this path. Unlike the preceding relativity and quantum mechanics, which are solidly verified, proven, accepted, and applied in daily life, M(String) theory remains to be validated. But our voyage of discovery seeks to find possibilities, and M (String) theory is certainly in the realm of possibilities, at least according to some of the most respected practitioners of the physics biz.

M Theory posits that all existence is made up of vibrating elements of energy, or strings. But to get the theory to work, the math requires at least 9 dimensions in which the energy vibrates. Other dimensions.... . dwell on that a moment.... . More than just our up-down, right-left, forward-back, we might live in a universe with six or seven or eight more "directions" (though tightly curled up so we don't experience them on a daily basis).

And that term "our universe" takes on a new meaning in that some M theory models make other universes look quite possible......other universes......other realms of existence not even connected to or detectable from ours.

Do you begin to appreciate just how open the possibilities are now? In comparison to modern physics, the clockwork universe that we allowed to constrain our imagination about what might be possible begins to look like a stone axe. Stone axes were pretty darned important mind you, and we would not have airplanes and notebook computers if our ancestors had not first had stone axes. But to let that rigid, predictable clockwork universe dictate our view of reality is tantamount to insisting that the world is flat.

What's going on in the invisible background we cannot see?

In the case of invisible airplane vortexes, we can make them visible with a little well placed colored smoke. But with hidden dimensions and other universes and wave functions and space-time warps, revealing their nature and behavior is not quite to easy. But what a leap forward in human perception it would be to acknowledge that there are some realms we do not quite yet fully understand. And maybe more than a leap forward in perception, it requires a leap off our cherished pedestals and a leap forward in humility.

The clockwork universe fed our hubris, putting human pride and ego on steroids, proclaiming that we could understand and measure and predict it all.

Maybe that's why the clockwork universe has maintained such a persistent grip on the human world paradigm. Quantum uncertainty is unsettling, relativity bends our perspectives, and M theory forces us to look at the possibility of realms of existence out of our control and our understanding. That will never be an easy sell!

Fact is, we are subject to countless influences that we do not see, most of us do not recognize, and that are utterly out of our control, and in fact, we are utterly in their control.

That picture of a giant solar prominence provides one example, a burst of plasma from the sun that could turn our lights off and shut down our communications. That's hardly a comforting notion. By the way, the little blue spec on the right in the midst of the curving magnetic field lines is the earth. Of course it's not draw to scale or it would be too small to see relative to the size of the sun.

But at least with proper instruments we can see the flare, and even understand some of its physics, though it is totally out of our control. But this talk of other dimensions and universes does not even offer that meager solace! If math and physics force us to acknowledge the possibility of unseen, un-measureable, undetectable, and uncontrollable forms of existence, we might as well go back to believing in God(s) and spirits and such!

" **(Quantum mechanics) describes nature as absurd from the point of view of common sense. So I hope you can accept nature as She is.... Absurd** _. "_ _Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize winning physicist_

It takes only the briefest glance to recognize that all kinds of startling, unbelievable, shocking, stunning, awesome events are unfolding around us all the time. Our eyes simply do not readily perceive them. Wind vortexes, solar flairs, supernovas, decaying atoms, replicating genes, and so on, pretty much all that makes our world what it is, all that shapes and forms and guides our physical world, remains unseen to the naked eye.

With our science, our telescopes, microscopes, detectors, sensors, and instruments, now we can see the previously unknown......or see part of the previously unknown. Does it seem maybe just a little bit arrogant to believe that we see it all?

Are you willing to entertain the possibility that maybe we don't yet quite measure and see and detect everything? And then are you willing to dare to ask the question, what might be going on in the unseen realm? As we explore the worlds of quantum mechanics, relativity, and M theory, you will find plenty that we do not perceive on a daily basis, plenty that leaves doors open for......?

As discomfiting as they may be, we should not deny the absurd implications of modern science, implications that we cannot deny, implications proven and confirmed and verified, no matter how rude an insult that may make to our ego that insists on understanding and being in control.

" _The meta-lesson of relativity and quantum mechanics is that when we deeply probe the fundamental workings of the universe we may come upon aspects that are vastly different from our experiences. "_ _Greene, Elegant Universe, p. 108._

To our chagrin, we cannot see and measure and detect everything. At the quantum level we fundamentally cannot with certainty predict anything. And even what we see may not be what it seems. In images of distant stellar objects, the light from the distant galaxies has been bent by gravity of massive nearby galaxies. We see the distant galaxies in one direction, but in fact, they reside in a slightly different direction.

But at least science knows what it doesn't know, right? . . . knows what it cannot detect, cannot measure, cannot predict. At least we are not in for any more surprises, right?

Guess again bucko. During the 1990's, well after humanity had landed on the moon, the Rosetta space probe swings past earth for a routine gravity assist. Things went according to plan, except the final resulting speed after the gravity assist was just a tiny, infinitesimal bit different from that predicted. Seems it may have had something to do with the rotation of the earth winding up the curved space-time around us more in one direction than another. "Winding up space-time"! There's that darned "taffy reality" again, and still capable of surprising us.

For a prime example of "taffy reality" see the following photograph of Abell 370, showing light smeared and distorted by the space-time curvature induced by the closer massive objects.

So with space-time itself not providing a rigid foundation for our reality, of what exactly does reality consist? !

Relativity shows us that there is nothing sacrosanct about space-time coordinates. Two moving observers watching the same two events can even see the sequence of the events switched, one observer saying "A" happened first, the other observer with a different relativistic perspective swearing that "B" happened before "A". (Though mind you, the speeds and distances required for such conflicting observations ensure no violation of causality. In other words, neither observer will see a ball caught before it's thrown. )

At first these seemingly conflicting observations, time itself proving unreliable and even the sequence of events turned topsy-turvy, may seem disconcerting. But hey, if we were staking our whole foundation and security on nothing, and space-time is after all just about as "nothing" as you can get, we shouldn't get too upset about discovering that in fact the flimsy network of our projected Cartesian coordinates and measurements on that "Nothing" prove fragile and unreliable.

But what are we left with? What is unyieldingly, objectively, resolutely, absolute? The event! The interaction! The time of the event, the energy released or absorbed, the momentum carried away or added, velocities, lengths, and locations, these quantified values will vary from observer to observer, being mere whims of our relativistic circumstance.

But the nature of the event itself, the collision, explosion, decay, or collapse, this the observers will agree upon, even if every measured detail about it is subject to relative disagreement.

In terms relevant to us, did the ball hit the goal? When, how fast, and with what impact, our relativistic referees may disagree on, but the fact of impact, the indentation of net, the buzzer detecting contact, the bending of the supports, that qualitative fact, if not quantitative details, all observers will agree on.

This provides profound testimony in support of the premise that interactions themselves underlie the foundations of reality. Ultimately, only the fact of interaction can be trusted. And ultimately, it is interaction events upon which all existence and reality are built.

All the queasy insecurity of quantum mechanics and the confounding twists of relativistic space-time no longer vex our perception of reality once reality is perceived as built upon interactions, with everything else, including even space-time, flexibly bending to accommodate the building of those interactions upon each other.

We have long held fast to locations, times, and outcomes of mechanical trajectories as the reference points, literal and figurative, for our framework of reality.

People's reluctance to accept the inescapable conclusions of quantum mechanics and relativity arose in part because we lacked another firm foundation reference base to replace those dismantled by Planck and Einstein.

We need not despair, for there is in fact an immutable foundation upon which reality solid and reliable can be built, and it is the interaction events themselves. Upon those interaction events of the past, through the ongoing crystallizing network structure of ever forming new interactions, the events of the future are quite securely anchored, not left to dangle in Einstein's space-time that twists and bends upon the slightest gravitational breeze and merest relative motion.

So what else is going on out there in space? Remember quantum mechanics and virtual particles popping into existence out of nothing?

_".... . even the vacuum of empty space is a teeming, roiling frenzy of virtual particles momentarily erupting into existence and subsequently annihilating one another_ **.** _"_ _(Greene, Elegant Universe, page 337)._

Well hey, these particles disappear almost as fast as they appear. They come out of "nothing", they return to "nothing", so no harm no foul, right? Virtual particles are at least one thing we don't have to worry about. For cryin' out loud, ongoing creation in the midst of perfectly good empty space? . . . that just can't be, and it's just a trick of the math, and let's worry about big stuff like black holes or something.

Except these virtual particles, boiling up out of "empty" space, provide enough momentary interaction to make micro-machined parts stick together

In the picture of the ball on the little "tuning fork", the little "tuning fork" is bent down toward the surface below.... . but not because of weight, because this little ball is really little! (note the scale marker indicating the length of 100 millionths of a meter). Weight is irrelevant. It is the attractive forces induced by virtual particles popping into and out of existence in empty space that cause the little ball to try to close the gap and move closer to the underlying surface.

This effect cannot be ignored as we design micro-machines even smaller than those used today in air-bag deployment sensors, ink-jet printers, chemo-sensors, blood-pressure sensors, and cell phone accelerometers.

We cannot escape the real world implications of modern weird science! Nor I would argue should we turn from the implications of weird science for other potential worlds.

It becomes clear as we peer deeper and deeper into the sub-nuclear world and discover ever more forms of matter and energy and dimensional curvatures, all blending together and changing identities as conveniently as business cards exchanged at a convention, that at the quantum level we see the remarkable flexibility and variety of the very structure of existence.

It's as if space itself is aching to give birth, the potential for virtual particles present everywhere at all times, energy impatiently putting in its appearances only to be yanked back behind the curtain not yet raised.

Matter becomes energy, energy becomes matter, virtual particles tease our detectors, quarks and gluons taunt with their "you know we're here but you can't get to us" game of hide and seek. Color charge remains invisible and always will, structures proven and verified still remain in fact only conjectures of hoped for symmetry.

We see in the sub-nuclear the whirling dance of Creation itself, possibilities unbounded by polite adherence to humanity's convenient labels.

At that quantum level, energy, that ability to alter future possible states, becomes a pure thing, too boisterous and playful to sit still for long in one form or one place.

In exasperation we long for the simplicity of merely a couple of quarks, a dab of gluon between them, and some dignified electrons in stately orbit about them. Instead we get levels of ever heavier and stranger quarks (to the point we name one of them Strange), while leptons of dubious repute and mass instigate disquiet and decay by their suspected, if not always detected, fleeting presence as agent provocateur.

In analogous example, on the surface of a tiny blue rock suspended in black void, mere chains of simple nucleic acids demonstrate dumfounding complexity in the infinite variety of forms that arise when replication runs amok.

From the cataclysm point of relativistic particle collisions we see the infinite variety of Creation, structure, and existence itself, rippling dimensions spawning vibrating strings that in their turn create other curvatures and bonds and energies, and it all shimmers in waves of potential that like all waves carry a beauty in their mathematical simplicity and an infinite complexity in their symphony.

Existence from quarks, life from DNA, and part and parcel of it all, consciousness, individual consciousness, miraculously able to model the infinite complexity of the life and structure that gave birth to that consciousness, models constructed out of math of consciousness' own creation, elegant and simple equations and symmetries.

Weird science goes to the dark side

We really should not go any further without bringing up the topic of dark matter and dark energy.

Turns out we don't even have to invoke virtual particles or extra dimensions or other universes to give ourselves a wake-up slap in the face telling us that we must might not understand everything to quite the degree our egos would like to.

To make a fascinating and long story very short, dark matter was discovered to be the stuff holding galaxies together. This discovery was no small trick as dark matter cannot be seen, measured, felt, smelled, tasted, directly detected, or bought.

It is about as unknown as anything can be, except for one thing: it does interact gravitationally. So in looking at the shape of galaxies and how fast they rotate, and in looking at all the visible matter in those galaxies, it was obvious they ought to fall apart. There was not enough matter to provide enough gravity to hold them together.

Enter dark matter. Sprinkle in enough of something, an unknown something, but sprinkle it in and spread it around in the right places, and voila, you get enough gravity to hold galaxies together.

Problem is, you then look for this stuff and can't see it.... or touch, taste, feel, etc. It has to be there. But you can't catch it in any of your traps.

And "there" is everywhere, throughout the whole bloomin' universe.

Sounds like a pretty wild stretch, huh? . . . . just making up some invisible "stuff" because your calculations showed you needed some. How can we take that seriously? ! How do we know dark matter is really there?

Remember that "light bending" characteristic of relativity and gravity and curved space-time? Remember how distant galaxies may not be where we see them to be because their light got detoured by the curved space between them and us?

Well dark matter provides a convenient signature of its presence. Get a big bunch of it, as in a halo around a galaxy, and the light from sources behind that galaxy (relative to earth), gets bent. Just as a magnifying glass will bend light and distort images in the distance if you look through the magnifying glass, so too a massive collection of dark matter will distort and bend the light passing near it.

Fine, we can conclusively prove the existence of dark matter about which we know almost nothing. But that shouldn't bother us too much. What's a little bit of not- so-well-understood material matter in a universe made of stuff we for the most part do understand?

Oops. The problem is the "little bit" phrase.

It turns out our universe has almost six times as much dark matter as "regular" matter. This world in which we live, all the mechanisms of the clockwork universe, all that we can see, touch, feel, taste, measure, and quantify, is not even half, not even third, not even a fourth of the matter in the universe. And we're more or less clueless about the nature of the stuff that comprises six times as much as our "regular" matter. We don't know what it is, what it's doing, where it's going, what's its structure .... . That 19th century scientific hubris may have been just a wee bit premature.

Fine, so dark matter, virtually unknown, mysterious, everywhere around us, dark matter comprises six times as much of the universe as our "regular matter". And that is, believe it or not, just the tip of the intergalactic iceberg.

Enter dark energy.

"Dark", as in the case of dark matter, again refers to the fact we cannot detect it, measure it, localize it, see it, hear it, feel it, or explain it.

So what gave away this shy form of existence?

It turns out that analysis of the rate of expansion of the universe, which was expected to be reasonably well behaved and predictable since an initial period of inflation, was not so well behaved and predictable.

It turns out "something" (there's that unsatisfying, nebulous word again), was giving the expansion of the universe a bit of a significant kick. The universe was not being quite as restrained by gravity as it should have been.

The only explanation was some form of energy, but it could not be any energy that we knew about.

So following the precedent of naming the unknown matter that held galaxies together "dark matter", this unknown, un-measurable form of energy got the name "dark energy".

But surely this cannot be a bigger deal than dark matter, right? We've already shown that our world, the world we can see and touch and measure, the world of the clockwork universe, is only a sixth of the matter in the world.

That's chump change folks. Dark energy's share of the universal pie? . . . . . . 74%. . . . . almost three-fourths of all existent entities in this universe.

Do the math, adding up dark matter and dark energy, and you find that our dear and familiar world, everything and anything that we can touch, feel, move, measure, and understand.... comprises a grand and underwhelming total of 4% of the stuff in the universe.

Even if the clockwork universe had been right about being able to measure and predict and understand everything about matter and energy, it turns out our grandest expectations and hopes, had they panned out, would give us domination over a grand total of four percent of the universe.

And we don't even know what the other 96% is.... but we do know it plays a critical role in shaping the universe in which we live.

We looked up into the sky, we penetrated that sky with our telescopes and rockets, and we saw no Heaven. End of story...............Or.........?

_Our universe may be only one of an enormous number of island universes._ _Paraphrase Greene in "Elegant Universe"._

Well, well, well. We understood it all, we were well on the way to being in control, we would claim our throne at the top of the evolutionary heap, and clearly if we could not measure something, it must not exist.

Now instead we must acknowledge how little we know, how little is in our control, and how rash our assumptions were.

The door of possibility is now surely wide open.

This paraphrase arises out of M (String) Theory. It is speculative. But it is not wild conjecture. It is supported (though not proven) by solid, and very complex, math.

Other universes......not just other worlds or other galaxies.... . other universes.... . In M Theory it is conjectured that universes, entire new universes, may regularly and continuously come into existence. This is nothing short of creation and genesis, each universe formed with its own structure and laws of physics.

Granted, this is conjecture, albeit with some substantial math supporting it. But even as conjecture, it reveals that modern science considers such prospects well within the realm of possibility. This universe of ours, 96% of which is already beyond our present measurement and understanding, is not even remotely the end of possibilities for other places in which consciousness could reside. Modern physics liberates us to accept such possibilities. This is a dramatic contrast to the clockwork universe which we extrapolated to argue against even possibilities of other homes for different forms of existence.

It is possible (you see that word "possible" appearing over and over when we discuss M Theory) that black holes might serve as the beginning point of entire new universes. Right there before us in our pictures of the surrounding galaxies with black holes at their cores, and in fact, right at the center of own galaxy with its massive black hole, might lie the root, even a form of connection, to entirely different universes. And by definition, in another universe, anything is possible.

Might the harsh realities of this world, this world of fang and claw and inevitable death, this world of evolution driven by inter- and intra-species combat, not be the only form in which life could exist? Obviously such conjectures go far beyond the math based conjectures of physics. But we can at least no longer invoke science to argue against possibilities, however grandiose, however beautiful.

And what of this dance of time, what of duration, what of eternity?

From Brian Greene in his exquisite book The Elegant Universe we hear the following conjecture: "...time itself comes to an end at the heart of a black hole.... it might be a gateway to another universe that tenuously attaches to ours at a black hole's center.... . where time in our universe comes to an end, time in the attached universe just begins. "

Intriguing, isn't it? Not conclusive, not definitive, and not unequivocal,.... but intriguing.

Earlier we mentioned that per M (String) theory even our own universe might have 9 or 10 or 11 dimensions, all but three (plus time) remaining invisible to our daily experience. Now we are discussing the possibility of additional universes. . . . which would have their own collection of dimensions and laws of physics.... . some of which might accommodate conscious beings. The possible nature of life and consciousness and being in these conjectured universes knows no bounds.

Laws of physics, the nature of communication and interaction and relationship, the very nature of time itself and development of life and individual consciousness, all can and would be different in those other universes.

We refer to this ever-growing ensemble of universes as "the multi-verse". In this scenario, each component universe provides opportunity for additional universes to bud forth, Creation continuing to unfold without bound. All existence grows and changes and evolves, with new forms appearing, with those forms that are more conducive to propagating new universes producing universes that themselves are more conducive to formation of yet more new universes.

This hypothetical image of propagating universes bears striking similarity to life itself. And it is life unbounded.

What of spirit and soul?

We only live once.

Eventually our neural functions, the electro-chemical source of consciousness, cease.

We die.

Our bodies decay.

Spirit, soul, eternal life....... remotely possible according to science?

For this topic we will invoke a theory titled "the holographic universe".

And we should emphasize "theory". The holographic universe comes out of quantum gravity and M (string) theory. So the theory invokes the curious possibilities of all the modern disciplines of physics.

And the results are even more curious. But they are a bit challenging to describe.

It has to do with taking information from a volume and getting all that information on a surface surrounding that volume. Hmmm. OK, let's back up and start over.

Let's start with photographs. A photograph, by using lenses and a photosensitive media, takes a 3-dimensional object, like your face, and turns it into a 2-dimensional image. But of course you lose a lot of information in the process. You would not mistake the image for your face.

A hologram is similar. Using a laser you take a picture of an object and record that image on film. But the image produced on the film can, by shining a laser through the holographic film, produce a 3-dimensional image.

Now holograms have an interesting trick up their sleeves. If you cut off the lower half, or the right half, or the upper half of the film, and then try to project the 3D image, you still get the entire 3D image. The image may lose some qualities, but it will still be a 3D image of the whole object, not just the upper half or the lower half.

So to what does the "holographic universe" refer?

The math that can result from combining quantum gravity and M theory shows that all the information of any point in space time is contained on a surface at the edge of the cosmological horizon. Oops. There we go with another new term. But let's not get bogged down in too much technical jargon.

Suffice it to say that the holographic universe is called "holographic" because the information in a higher dimensional space is recorded at the enveloping boundary formed by a lower dimensional space.

In other words, per this theory all information, yes, all information, at any space and time coordinate, is retained at the boundary of the universe surrounding that coordinate.

In other words (how many "in other words" will we have to invoke to make sense of this? ) the universe does not forget. Every moment of your life, your existence, your thoughts, your feelings, all the information associated with every electron and quark in your body and brain, is forever part of the universe.

(The fathers of this idea are Petr Horava and Raphel Bousso, at UC Berkeley at the time of the initial work on the topic. )

To take this a step further, from studies of entropy of black holes and volume and surface area, it can be shown (theoretically) that volume itself is illusory, and the universe is really just a hologram, with information encoded onto its multi-dimensional surface.

What might this theory mean for you?

...... _everything that occurs in the "interior" of the universe is merely a reflection of information defined on a distant, bounding surface_ _. Paraphrase Greene, Elegant Universe, p. 411_

i. e. , the essence of your being, your personality, and all your life is recorded throughout the universe (or is an integral part of the universe), and does not disappear when your physical life ceases.

Imagine out there, out everywhere, at the moving edges of the universe, is the source hologram, and you, this life, your experiences, are a multi-dimensional projection of that hologram. The loss of the projection is a loss of nothing, not a loss of source, merely a loss of the momentary image. Perhaps we might even perceive this multi-dimensional life we experience as masking the true depth and essence of the Source.

By now the discussion has left far behind anything remotely resembling hard science. And we should remember that the holographic universe is only a theory, a curious quirk of math. But we cannot rule out the described scenario.

Interestingly a similar speculative scenario appeared in ancient writings. Plato, in The Republic, Book VII, spoke of a people chained in a cave so they could only see the shadows cast by a fire. Seeing only the shadows, those shadows - the projections of their real selves, become their reality. They cannot imagine anything other than the shadows.

If theories of the holographic universe are correct, and if we can extrapolate them to our lives and consciousness, might Plato not be proven prophetic in this case? And might we not be forced to speculate on our true nature, a nature that casts the shadows that we interpret as this life?

From Plato to ripples on the event horizon surface of a black hole to stories of resurrections, from allegory to math to instincts of the heart, we wonder about the possibilities of life extended, even life eternal. And science, appropriately not commenting on the question, at least does not rule out possibilities, and perhaps even quietly hints at those possibilities.

We perceive each moment of life as forever gone. The holographic universe does not agree.

" _Every reality is eternal, every essence is as is: just don't seek outwardly. "_ \- _Hsuan-sha_

*********

*********

The Reassuring Universe: Part II

The role of the individual in the ongoing Creation

(back to table of contents)

*********

*********

" _One always learns one's mystery at the price of one's innocence"_ _Richard Rohr_

Direction......purpose.......

Of the universe..........

Of your life.......

Can we find in science, in the universe, hints of such direction?

Dare we look in our hearts for hints of such direction and purpose?

And is there any chance, even a prospect of a chance, that the lessons of science and universe might complement, and even support, the hints of direction and purpose whispered from our heart?

Should we dare to look for such direction, and should we find it, do we not face grave danger of losing our innocence? For we can then no longer plead ignorance as excuse should we choose to live counter to that direction and purpose. We will have eaten from the tree of knowledge, we will stand naked before ourselves, and we will forever know if we have chosen to move with or against the direction and purpose of all existence.

The direction of evolution of the universe, pointing directly at.........?

The journey in Part I to cross uncharted seas between shores of science and spirit required courage and openness. Now, to open the door to Purpose itself, and to nakedly see our place in it, will require yet more courage and openness.

Can we answer this daring query? Can repeating patterns and flows through the history of the universe provide clues to an answer? Dare we look?

We must begin by returning to the arena of relativity and cosmology and forces and laws of physics. Among the many curious and perplexing and entertaining quirks and conundrums posed by modern science, one of them is singularly, profoundly, and intimately personal.

You, yes, you, as an individual, happen to be placed at the exact center of the universe. Now we all know far too many people who want to believe that they are figuratively at the center of the universe, and the whole universe should orbit around and for them. But in physics we speak not of self-centeredness and me-first and it's-all-about-me when we place you literally at the center of the universe.

Whether you place your ego in the center of the universe is up to you. But your body, your center of consciousness, is quite literally at the center of the universe.

As is mine.

As is the pizza delivery person's.

No, I don't mean we are each close to the center. I don't mean it's in the neighborhood. I mean the exact center is the point from which you are at this moment looking out into the surrounding universe.

It has to do with that constancy of the speed of light and with the symmetry of the expansion of the universe.

Measure the speed of separation of the distant galaxies around you and you will find it symmetric in all directions.... . as will I.

Interesting, isn't it? The whole bloomin' universe is structured, its core and foundation and physics and space and time, to put you at the center......and me at the center.

When I talk about the structure of the universe, there's even more to it than just the constancy of the speed of light. All observation points in the universe are equivalent. Yours, mine, the astronaut's orbiting the earth, the alien in the next galaxy. The laws of physics, and that obstinately constant speed of light, are the same everywhere for everyone. It turns out, and for the moment we won't worry about the how, that symmetry leads unavoidably to the gravitational force....... which is of course just a curvature in space-time.

Through some math legerdemain called gauge symmetry it appears that in fact other forces also must arise if this observer symmetry and equivalence is to be maintained.

Well what do you know. The whole flippin' bloomin' universe, everything that holds it together, every force that shapes everything in it, every influencing law of physics that determines every structure, molecule, mouse, planet, galaxy and kitchen table.... . happens to be just right so as to provide this symmetry among all observers and all observation points.

There must be something special about you that places you at the center of the universe. And there must be something special about everyone else too.

The entire fabric and structure of the universe reflects a focus on you, placing you, and simultaneously everyone, at the center, each person the equal of every other.

As we set off down the trail of the evolution of the universe, keep in mind this little tidbit about the structure of the universe, and the way gravity and all other forces are such as to allow the symmetries that place you and everyone at the center. Because that really is the beginning point of the universe, the foundation, the point (or singularity) from which everything else we are about to discuss arises.

That structure of forces and symmetry truly is the "In the beginning", defining everything to follow. Remarkably simple at face value, but not a priori necessary, do not take this for granted.

You are at the center of the universe! .... . Really!

Look at the shape of the Universe from every individual's perspective! You are at the center! You are the focus of a perfect symmetry! All time comes to you! You are the leading edge of time itself! The most distant past lies at the edge of your universe! All events through all time coalesce onto your consciousness at this moment of now! This is not poetry or allegory or religion or spirituality, this is the literal, incontrovertible fact of physics!

Something seems to be afoot.

The Start......aannnndddd, they're off!

.... hint: the fact we can use the plural "they" may be the biggest clue to the direction of our universe!

Figuring out the direction anything is moving entails determining where it was and where it is now.

To that end we need to look back at the beginning of our universe and ponder just exactly what did happen.... and is it still happening.

Void within the Whole

We often presume that before space-time, before the Singularity that birthed the Big Bang, before inflating dimensions, there was Nothing. Creation occurred, something came into existence, existence itself became possible.

But as it turns out we need not start with such a presumption.

The inflating dimensions, the blossoming of space-time, can just as well be perceived as an opening up of nothingness, the expansion of a void, the initiation of emptiness, a making of room for.... . well, for particles, planets and people.

In this perspective this blossoming of three spatial dimensions to eventually create that dark emptiness that surrounds our planet can be seen as occurring within a greater surrounding existence. (Oh, for the moment let's not quibble about trying to visualize the dimensional structure and physics of something surrounding our entire universe. )

The Nothingness of space-time was created out of, and in the midst of, an existent Source. Only then did room exist for unfolding events leading to protons and pions, planets and people.

Here, in the very fabric of interlaced dimensions, resides one of the biggest clues to the overarching laws that govern our universe. Space, volume, and void unfolded to form a light-filled emptiness that could then be populated with individual, separate, distinct entities.

Beyond the initial Singularity need not be Nothing. It is on this side of the singularity that empty Nothing appeared, albeit initially rather densely packed with annihilating matter/anti-matter and the ensuing radiation storm.

Obviously it's not easy to come by meaningful analogies to illustrate multidimensional, extra-universal concepts. But for lack of anything better, please consider the following clumsy attempt.

Imagine the formation of a geode. Deep within an endless, mountainous matrix of rock, titanic forces induce a small crack, through which acidic waters flow, forming a tiny void, an opening that grows larger but remains within the mountainous matrix of rock. This represents the inflating dimensions that give rise to our space.

The process continues. Solutions of suspended minerals present in the void allow crystals to begin to form, condensing out according to bonding angles and physical laws that define their geometries and growth rates, crystals that could never have formed in the solid rock matrix, though all the constituents were present.

These beautiful, growing crystals in the geode correspond to the physical reality we experience in this world, interaction events growing through time according to the geometries dictated by the speed of light.

As I said, it is a clumsy analogy. But with or without analogy, I would hope to prompt a sharpened awareness of just how infinite are the possibilities beyond the initial Singularity, and no a priori reason exists to assume "nothing" before the Big Bang.

Perhaps a better analogy would simply be to view the Big Bang as a photonegative of how we usually think of it. Instead of a bright flash in the midst of dark nothingness, reverse that shading and imagine the bright flash replaced instead by an expanding void of space (and geometrically connected time) in the middle of a surrounding (though imperceptible) essence.

I would also hope to shift our mental focus on the Big Bang away from the unimaginable energy, the unfathomable density of the condensing matter, the freezing out of today's four forces from the original unified force, and instead pause to consider the momentous meaning of the inflating dimensions, the space itself, the astounding and contingent void necessary for existence of anything "individual".

Space for Individuals

There is no greater and more critical evidence for a Creation intended to give rise to individuals than the creation of space itself, the essence of the separation necessary for existence of anything we can call "individual".

If you were to watch the event of the birth of this universe (I'm not sure why I'm not quite fully comfortable calling it the Big Bang ), and if while watching this unfolding you were to ask yourself what each development would lead to, you could, a few billion years before the fact, surmise what the future would hold.

I think I would like to call the event the "Great Blossoming". I've no illusion that such a title will ever catch on with the scientific community or general public, but indeed, "blossoming" is what it resembles when viewed from outside this universe.

There, perhaps as a quantum fluctuation in some corner of some other universe, began to uncoil dimensions, three of space, one of time. What a truly remarkable concept! .... . the very structure of space and time itself coming into being, and with them all the physical rules that would define interaction across those rippling, newborn dimensions.

You, as observer in this first instant of birth of this universe, viewing from your outside vantage point the inflating three dimensional matrix of space, would note that it provides opportunity for separation, for distance, for existence of more than One.

Immediately, in that first infinitesimal moment of creation, you see that this universe possesses the potential to contain multiple individual entities, by virtue of the separation offered by this new marvel "space".

Densely packed into the finite volume, a volume not small because "small" is a relative term and there is nothing else with which to compare, resides the very essence for existence within this new universe, energy.

The very structural foundations of this universe are such as to allow condensation of this energy into entities constrained to existence within finite volumes of the rapidly expanding spatial dimensions. Within multiple billionths of billionths of what will 18 billion years later be called "seconds", already this potential is realized, energy, the very gift of existence, already condensing out into particles, and most amazing, these are separate particles, individuals, identifiable and detectable.

Individuals! ......This was what those first moments of inflating dimensions portended, this was the singular, unique gift lying within the uncoiling spatial dimensions, the gift of individual existence.

In that other odd dimension, time, we already see at the moment of first existence the potential nature of this universe. It will be time that will constrain all energy, defining transit rates across the uncoiling dimensions.

Hence, whatever individual entities arise do not exist alone. They can interact with each other. Energy will connect the physical entities, while not negating their individual existence.

If one did not even know what space and time were, if you were watching this exploding universe while you were trying to comprehend its nature, in your efforts to define these oddities we refer to as spatial dimensions, I believe you would have no other recourse in your definition than to simply say "dimensions are that which allow existence of separation.... separation between individual entities and across the spatially extended structure of an entity.... . separation between and across individually identifiable entities.

Steps in the development of the universe.... .

Random stumbling or steps toward.........?

In the beginning was just pure energy, which sounds nice, but it might help if we knew exactly what "energy" means. When discussing mechanical objects and chemical systems, "energy" has quite specific and convenient definitions. But when speaking of the beginnings of the universe, when there is not yet even any matter to provide a relative reference point, "energy" gets a little trickier to define.

It might be helpful to think of this initial energy as "potential", potential for condensation of matter based structures, and subsequent interactions of that matter.... . i. e. "potential" for anything and everything we know today.

In the beginning was pure energy......

......and energy begat.........................................................quarks.

We cannot isolate individual quarks because they combine with such ferocious binding energies we cannot separate them. In combinations they creates nuclei, i.e, protons and neutrons.

It did not take long (0. 000001 second) for quarks to come together and in their bound forms create nucleons

, i. e. protons and neutrons. In one step the matter in the universe transitioned from quark entities that we can no longer even directly experience to new structures, structures still containing those quark entities, but in their new properties radically different from quarks. Hold that thought as the universe, and we, continue to the next step.

Nucleons combined to form .......

...Stars

.... . stars. Again, a remarkable transition. Still the same nucleons, still protons and neutrons, but coming together under the influence of gravity to compress into thermonuclear reactions, igniting the assemblage, producing those structures that warm us and light our sky, producing the reactions that eventually would produce the carbon that forms your body and mine.

Nucleons, those elements formed of quarks, still existing, still individual, but by their interactions creating a radically, totally new structure and process.... . stars.

Nucleons combined with leptons to produce.......................................

Atoms

Yet another combination of individual entities, overlapping and blending per the dictates of quantum mechanics, nucleons and leptons finally together, resulting in a new form of existence, a structure dwarfing its components, yet tiny, seemingly infinitesimal in comparison with the spectacle of the fusing, glowing, churning, exploding stars that resulted from coalescing nucleons, a tiny structure of infinite importance.... . the atom.

Not merely a collection of the parts, not just more of the same, but a new structure, this atom,...

....... that while comprising the same old parts, the parts now dance to the rhythm of quantum energy resonances,...

.........these parts and components now creating by their resonant dance radical, unforeseeable, utterly new and shocking possibilities, again as if unfolding a new dimension, figuratively if not literally.

And these new fangled structures, these atoms, could themselves now combine in ways impossible for mere nucleons and leptons alone, two bumping into each other, then a third, then countless billions, sticking, bonding, combining, all the while maintaining individual identities, producing yet another figurative dimension of existence, yet another form capable of properties and interactions impossible for mere atoms alone, atoms combining not to merely produce an ensemble of more atoms doing the same old things, but

_atoms and their ionized relatives combining to form_ .... .

...molecules, particles, dust, and eventually, even planets.

The pattern continues, the inexorable rise continues, creation continues, the steps, one after another continue, quarks to nucleons to stars to atoms to molecules to atoms to dust to planets, ............combinations, ever more combinations, individual entities of their own characteristics and nature and structure combining to produce new entities of radically different properties and potential and interactions,

............never just more of the same, but something totally new, worlds (literally) of new possibilities springing into existence via combinations of individuals.

...as few as two atoms in combination sufficing to open a new world of quantum possibilities...

Manifold new appearances, colors, forms, physical states, interactions (always interactions) are unleashed by the cooperative willingness of atoms to join into molecules, the resulting panoply of possibilities so rich that from molecules arose properties bizarre, improbable, utterly impossible for single atoms, chemical properties resulting from vibration states of these connected atoms, bond distances, bond angles, bond energies, always the repeating pattern, individuals, unique identities, coming together... ...bonds.... connections.... interactions.... . all unfolding in obedience to quantum dictates, resulting in boundless new possibilities such as....

Water, ice, clouds.....

Now had the chain of creation finally reached an end? Had the new dimensions and new possibilities and new marvels and new states of being finally extended to their ultimate limits, or might this radical new form of existence called "molecules" carry the pattern yet further? Of course we have a few billion years of hindsight with which to declare that:

Molecules combined to form......

.... . Nucleic acids

Nucleic acids and other molecules cooperated to form...

....... . Cells......

living, moving, breathing, photosynthesizing, sugar-generating cells.

Indeed, "new dimensions" is hardly an overstatement for this new combination. Each molecule unchanged within each cell, each molecule still identifiable as individual and type, each molecule still just a molecule, and each atom in each molecule still just an atom, but together, together under the direction of all the laws of nature and physics, the ever growing symphony reaches yet another crescendo, the docile and predictable individual molecules, once obeying each mechanical and thermal interaction with the predictability of the billiard ball in a bank shot, now together create things that move, respond, absorb, reach, energy no longer merely absorbed or reflected, but now stored as sugars for use by the assembled masses of molecules.

The inexorable path toward new forms and new possibilities now flows both ways, these new living cells producing their own new building blocks, no longer content with the selection provided by the exotic thermal and combinatorial and radiation catalysts at play on the surfaces of the dust and comets and planets suspended in space. The cells, these unpredictable, moving, reaching, absorbing, secreting, new entities, themselves add to the burgeoning assemblage of molecules in the universe, each new form of molecule in turn able to play yet some new role in creating yet a more outlandishly exotic form of existence released with yet heretofore nonexistent properties and potential.

Combinations, connections, onward marches the pattern begun with the first quarks agreeing to cooperate to form a nucleon, new possibilities born of connection exploding into forms, life itself now instantiated, not as newly interjected alien form entering our universe, but as outgrowth of combinations and connections of pieces formed in the first quantum instant within our universe.

The avalanche of combinations cascades faster and faster, and _cells now reach out and connect and form.... ._

Multi-structured life-forms

No "mere" amoebas or bacteria these constructs. Each cell intact, but now each cell connected and specialized, functioning with all the cooperation implicit in "specialization". The march of structural creation continues, the breadth of possibilities explodes, life once drifting in currents now climbs to the sky, all as a result of cooperation, connection, and in light of the mutual inter-dependence among forms that depend on each other for their existence and identity, dare we say, "communion".

Where might it lead, each new connection, each new combination, producing yet more possibilities and potential, one upon another, no longer limited to cells combining but now species combining in symbiosis, in food chains, in ecological webs and matrices, more and more combinations and connections while maintaining individual identity of each species, cell, molecule, atom, nucleon, and quark, the raging torrent of possibilities leading to.... ?

Life integrated information, genetic history, environmental history, experience, nutrition sources, breeding success, and one planet in one galaxy saw the birth of......

....... Humanity.

Only moments ago in the great scale of universal time, molecules and cells combined to create yet another new form of existence, and again, radical new possibilities are evoked by the sheer weight of the total combinations,...

....... . for this new form, this "human", sitting atop the pyramid of combinatorial entities can now invoke its own new combinations,...

....... combining beyond family, with other families, into alliances and bonds and treaties and tribes, cultures, societies, traditions.... .

....... . but not merely combinations of individuals as done by other species to produce herds and flocks and pods, which are after all merely more of the same,

...............but these humans now self-initiate new combinations resulting in yet more new forms of being...

...humanity combined its growing knowledge, its ever expanding experience, its increasing skills and abilities and methods and produced.......

Language......and.... .

.... Writing

Still the pattern, the universal pattern, still the inexorable flow to combinations and connections, but now connections not formed of quantum states and shared charges and exchanged mesons, but connections formed of pure information, and the connecting entities no longer bound by energy levels and mechanical forces, but participating in connections to a greater or lesser degree of their own volition.

A growing massif of shared experience, observations, experiments, and edicts combined to result in....

Structures, buildings, technologies, societies, civilizations,......

Unimaginable such a short time before, new forms impossible and meaningless without connection and cooperation among individual beings, each still with identity, and each also an individual in communication......

Individual entities combining via new paths to create entirely new forms of existence: quarks to atoms to molecules to life to humans to tribes to nations to......? ? ? ? ? .... .

....part of something bigger, something greater, the bigger and greater built upon and out of combinations, as they have been forever....

* At the deepest, founding level of existence the principles of indeterminacy (or "uncertainty").

* From that arises the very potential for physical and temporal existence.

* That resulting existence arises from inflating and vibrating dimensions.

* Inflated dimensions and their associated fields are nothing more than a medium with the profound characteristic of allowing separation, the prime prerequisite for existence of individual entities.

* Through inflated dimensions, oscillations in other dimensions as hypothesized by M-string theory) can give rise to temporally stable structures (matter).

* Through these flexible, inflated dimensions the very existence of those structures (matter) is inextricably also associated with fields of potential interaction, connecting those temporally stable structures......

Individual entities......

inextricably intertwined and interacting,

through force fields and associated force particles extending through space and time,

that interaction inexorably acting as an exchange of information,

facilitated by the force carrying particle.... .

Herein we see the foundations of the nature of life itself, individual entities, interacting and continuously exchanging information.

Interactions, information exchanges, and associated bonds led within brief moments after the Big Bang to formation of new structures, the individual strings, membranes, leptons and quarks. Time passes, and these entities still defined by their resonant energies at the sub-nuclear level combined into ever-greater complexity of protons, neutrons, atoms, molecules, stars, and galaxies. All these higher-level structures' existence remained dependent upon assemblages, interchanges, and exchanges among still existent, individual, lower scale, entities.

With each new complexity of structure, new forms enabled yet more and higher complexities of structure and heretofore non-existent forms of interaction, (interaction = information exchange).

Protons allowed nucleons, nucleons allowed fusion reactions creating more nuclei, nuclei allowed atoms, atoms allowed electron shell spectra, more atoms facilitated organic chemical reaction, those chemical reactions grew to allow replication, replication continued to allow tribes, and from thence regional wars, and eventually worldwide economies......

And through all those levels runs a connecting thread, long hidden, but perhaps now revealed as brightly colored.

That single thread, spun from quantum fluctuations in vibrating dimensions,

....... . by its more profound and basic nature inevitably weaving individual entities,

....... . entities unavoidably connected by interaction through the fields born of their own existence,

....... . entities combining in ever more complex forms,

.........combinations not destroying the individual entities,

.......... . but by maintaining their individual identity, empowering them in their aggregate to form ever more complex, yet still individual, entities,

.......... that in turn are bound by inexorable interactions,

....... . which build to yet higher levels by applying integration of information from others at their own level....

.......... and on the process goes.

That bright thread spun from the loom of earliest creation weaves an ever more complex pattern of......Unity......the creation of higher holistic forms by the mutually constructive, cooperative interaction of lower level constituent individuals.

An elegant continuity appears in protons formed of quarks and civilizations formed of people.

For those people averse to invoking Purpose in the study of life, since "Purpose" holds connotations of future goals and teleology, let them instead look to the data of the past and present to infer implications about the future. The appearing pattern, universal and bound in the very nature of all existence, is a pattern of ever growing unity.

Though disguised by forms of ever-higher holistic complexity, the same primal structure of existence is seen in both the Big Bang and in the Internet, that is, the creation of completely new entities by information interaction among existing entities.

This is the primal mover, the foundation of existence, the ongoing force of Creation.

Any natural trend, repeatable and verifiable, must eventually be considered for promotion to the rank of "scientific law". If for the moment we dub the aforementioned trend "Unity Integration", what implications does it have?

Should we expect this natural state of ongoing Creation to stop? In parallel to those tedious Bible chapters about lineage, we describe a new lineage, quarks begat protons, protons begat atoms, atoms begat molecules, molecules begat organic chains, and so on to life, tribes, and political parties.

If "Unity integration" dictates evolution of higher, more complex forms, what might we anticipate? Does this merely imply ever-progressing forms of government, economic systems, and communication? Or can we look even beyond that?

Aren't more clever forms of communication and social structure actually just variations on the same theme, analogous to protons eventually forming the complete families of atoms and molecules, but all molecules, even the most complex, are still molecules, not really an entirely new form of higher complexity.

It was the linking of molecules into replicating cells that really represented the next quantum step in increasing Unity integration, which is to say, a totally different, higher complexity of being.

So too we must wonder what the principle of growing Unity might imply for the human race, beyond mere fine-tuning of communication and social organization.

What completely new, and likely unimaginable, form of existence might arise from individual conscious humans cooperatively interacting? Considering that dimensions inflated and at least one entire universe came into being to facilitate existence through unity of individual entities, can we rule out possibilities of further such profound dimensional structural changes to further facilitate the ongoing path of progressing Unity?

Of course with humanity, one aspect of continuation of progressing Unity does differ from the events that brought quarks together into protons and molecules together into replicating cells. We each have a Choice about whether to personally participate in the next step toward Unity.

As individuals we can only perceive and experience this ageless pattern from out of our own perspective, and we must ask, if we dare....

Does this concept of "the individual as part of the greater" apply to you?

We have looked at combinations forged of energy and gravity and quantum laws and chemistry and evolutionary statistics and societal tsunamis, but does this grandiose and inexorable trend through all the history of creation, this seemingly inevitable expression of the very laws of physics and nature, does it have personal, deeply personal, relevance?

What are the lessons of our joys? . . . . . . . .

............... _. the lessons of our pain, grief, and sorrows_ ............

What common denominators define the moments we cherish and the moments we dread?

Do we see any connection between these deeply personal connections and the connections of nature and physics? Is it mere coincidence, this parallel path toward connections, driven by electromagnetic forces in nature and emotional forces in us?

Do we discern any parallels in the nature of combinations that create vs the interactions that destroy?

Family, friends, teams, clubs, institutions, nations, individuals striving, growing, learning, accomplishing....... individuals connected together into something greater.... .

How does our heart respond to the concept of family, friends, community, team, nation.......

how does our heart respond to that which breaks apart, that which undercuts that higher structure, that which destroys instead of builds?

Does our heart tell us of the same universal pattern seen in quarks to nucleons to atoms to molecules to life?

Do our hearts tell us we are part of that universal pattern to which science and history testify? . . . . . or at least we could be part of it?

What common factors do we see in all the big and small destructive moments in our lives?

What commonalities do we see in the various sources of our pain and suffering?

What characteristics do the moments we dread and regret and avoid all share?

Loss, death, divorce, breakup, abuse, language barriers, appearance, cliques, impatience, rudeness, age, bias, and bigotry, damaging the individual, taking their toll, imposing their cold isolation.... .

Don't our meaningful joys arise when we are part of that which supports, sustains, nourishes, and nurtures the individual, and when we are part of that which joins those individuals into something greater?

Are our pain, grief, and sorrow not consistently associated with that which threatens survival, health, and wellbeing of the individual and/or threatens bond, connection, and relationship among individuals?

Are our pain, our suffering, our grief, and our sorrow merely our sensing of separation from the universal, and natural, direction? . . . and conversely our deepest joys testimony to living in wholeness with that direction?

Does all of natural history and all our personal history point in the same direction?

Do we sense, feel, experience, hear, and respond to a pattern universal, a direction discernable at any level, at the level of the isolated nucleon primed by physics for bond into a nucleus, at the level of the teenager drawn to join a gang......

Do we sense, feel, experience, hear, and respond to a pattern drawing individual entities together to form something greater, drawing every individual entity together to form something always greater?

Just as planets are pulled together by gravity yet remain in separate orbits, are conscious souls pulled together, not in order to dissolve into an oblivion of Oneness, but to facilitate Communion, Connection, Contact, and Unity among unique individuals?

And in considering this, let us invoke that earlier lesson of this exploration into direction and purpose, the lessons of science that told us that you, and I, and everyone, reside at the center of the universe.

The Universe itself centered about each individual.... .

Individuals, each creating their own composition .... . individual identities......so sacrosanct that the entire universe is centered about each and every one of them......

What do we see when these individuals, atoms or Andrews or Andaras, constructively come together to form something unimaginably greater? . . . . but come together in ways not hindering or damaging or threatening other individual identities?

What unbounded potential awaits in the ongoing flow of Creation formed of individuals, each choosing their own direction, but with awareness of their position in the whole and relation to other individuals.

Or conversely, what outcome results when individuals come together but not in Unity, not accepting responsibility for their role in the whole, acting for themselves without regard for others?

Mutually destructive chaos is hardly the only danger. Individuals uniting, coming together, forming something larger, something made possible only by the combined efforts of individuals now connected in cooperation, can lead to the worst of horrors, if......

.... . the individual identity becomes subsumed by the mass.

The pattern of Nature is clear and repeatable throughout the history of the universe. It is individual entities uniting, not masses of components melting together, that leads to the great new dimensions of positive possibilities. When the individual identity is subsumed in the ranks or the cult or the blind patriotism or the insidious uniformity of marketing and trends and fads and styles, there inevitably results loss, not gain; harm, not blessing,

Grief, sorrow, loss......

.......... merely genetically programmed responses?

Joy, love, and compassion, ......

Sympathy, bonds and embrace.............

.........are these just honed instincts and learned behavior? .

.......... . or in the respites from combat and crisis, do we get a glimpse, a hint, of something more?

A glimpse......in the moments of beauty and warmth and touch and embrace, a glimpse of something more......but of what?

Can this question, personal and spiritual, have any possible relationship to science?

Perhaps, perhaps not. But perhaps science can provide if not an answer, a way of looking, a way of looking that might provide reassurance that in fact we are not just imagining when we ask the question, do we glimpse "something more".

Bear with me as I wander down a somewhat curious path.

We live in a three-dimensional universe, with up and down, left and right, front and back. But as we've already mentioned, in some hypothetical models we may actually live in a universe of nine or ten or eleven dimensions, dimensions which we cannot perceive, but dimensions fundamental to the structure that we call "reality".

But I will ask you to look in the other direction, to a universe of only one dimension. Imagine you have no up- down or right-left, only forward-back. Consider two spaghetti-like residents staring at each other in this universe. They cannot pass each other. They cannot go around. They cannot see all of the other "person", for there exist no extra dimensions through which they can move, reach, or see. They can only see straight ahead, eye to eye.

No, of course this is no practical or realistic example. But please allow me to run with it for a moment and see what we might find that is relevant for our universe, and our lives.

The residents consist of far more than just their eye. Yet all they can see of each other is their eye. They sense there is more to themselves than what they might see in a one dimensional mirror. But they can only sense it. They cannot look at all of themselves, only the eye reflected in the hypothetical mirror.

They might build all their laws of physics and construct all their structures and businesses and lives based on that view (and yes, of course the example is silly, for they would be hard pressed to construct anything, since all they can do is bump into each others' eyes, but please be patient as the analogy builds )

In a one dimensional universe we could not see all of the "other person", but only their eye staring back at us.

Likewise in our three dimensional universe we can see only our bodies. We cannot see our heart, soul, essence.

.... . or can we at least get a glimpse?

What if for our spaghetti land there were an extra, unknown dimension? For the spaghetti person to suddenly realize there was an up-down dimension as well as a forward-back dimension would be quite the startling revelation. Imagine that first view as they could finally see, or at least one mystic among them could finally see, that there existed more than just the one physical dimension to which they were accustomed!

Imagine you live in that one dimensional universe. Imagine suddenly being able to see that in fact your senses and feeling and emotions had correctly hinted to you that there is more to you than just your body.... I mean, more to you than just your eye.... . and more to that other person also.

What a revelation! . . . . . after a life-time of denying you existed as anything more than just your body.... I mean, eye.... you discover more to you than meets the eye. (How could I resist that line? ! )

More to you, perhaps via another dimension, more to you than just your body. More to your thoughts and feelings than just physical synapse links and neuron firings.

And more to everyone else than just their physical body.

What if there was far more to us than what we see in a mirror and what we see of each other. What if in our sensing and meditations and prayer and emotions .... . we were getting a glimpse? . . . . a reassuring glimpse.

In the midst of the harshness of life, do we get glimpses of another dimension, glimpses of the direction in which we could move?

_"The outward form of things passes away, but the essence remains forever. How long will you be besotted with the shape of the jug? Cast aside the jug, and seek the water. If you look too closely at the for, you miss the essence. If you are wise, you will always pick out the pearl from the shell. "_ _Rumi, "Mathnawi"_

Do we not sense a glimpse of the eternal in each fleeting embrace?

Do we sense glimpses into extra dimensions? . . . . into parallel universes? . . . . Our souls extending into those dimensions? . . . . .

Could this be the Kingdom at Hand?

But we have a hard enough time understanding our daily experience in three spatial dimensions. While wondering about the "something more" of which we get a glimpse, in the spirit of playful exploration let's consider some descriptions to help us make sense of the universe that we can see.

_Space-time_ : the potential for individual entities, interactions among those entities, and causality based change of those entities.

_Matter:_ temporally extended and spatially localized entity associated with dimensional curvatures

_Energy:_ the potential to redirect matter

_Life_ :the potential to redirect energy

_Love_ : the potential to redirect life

The equality of matter and energy is beyond dispute, and their intimate relationship with the curvature of space-time and vibrating dimensions (according to string theory) allow us to say that matter and energy are just different expressions of the potential inherent in space-time.

If we consider the possibility that space-time and matter and energy are all equal and just different forms and expressions, dare we stop there? Can we not say that life is in fact just a peculiarly complex form of energy? If we extrapolate further to the last item in the list, although that puts us far outside the realm of the quantifiable, we can say that indeed love does not exist in the absence of life.... . and so space-time, energy, matter, life, and love are all intertwined, all different manifestations of.... . the same thing? . . . . of One? Their various characteristics and titles serve as a convenience to facilitate discussion, but nothing more, and the definitions should not imply truly separate identities.

Do we see the same thing, the same Source, the same One, in the swirling patterns of interstellar space, ecological systems, and ourselves?

The descriptions for these terms unavoidably refer to our worldly experience, which after all is about all we have to work with. Like the "spaghetti people" living in one dimension, we remain unable to look outside our three dimensions; but still we can wonder if through life and love we might not be glimpsing something more. .

...glimpses of distant realities through an abiding mist; feelings, extrapolations,

conjectures...

...extending out like tenuously grasping vines from what we would like to think of as at least a relatively solid core of logic and science.

Such discussion of glimpses and hints inevitably begs the question of what can we, with all our terminology and theories and theology, what can we really know?

We can even turn to science for a perspective on, if not an answer to, this question.

Or perhaps more accurately said, we can look to science and math for a perspective on what we cannot know.

The time, 1931. The person, Kurt Goedel. The publication: "Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems". You probably have a copy on your coffee-table.

The conclusion: in any mathematical system we will find some basic suppositions that we can neither prove nor disprove. Or in Goedel's words: ". . . a consistency proof for [any] system . . . can be carried out only by means of modes of inference that are not formalized in the system . . . itself".

In a mathematical system when we bang up against this frustrating limitation, in principle we might add some new axioms and postulates and then prove (or disprove) a point in question. But in the process we will have added yet more external boundary conditions that in turn cannot be proven or disproven.

There is no end to this chain, no ultimate provable answer. Eventually, the entire system of proofs and certainty and verifications and logical deduction reduces down to something we chose, or something we believe, or something we choose to believe.

There is of course no reason to limit this profound consequence to mathematical systems, or conversely, one can recognize that in fact all existence is just a mathematical system.

Which means that, in light of Goedel's incompleteness theorem, we are forever destined to not be able to prove all the answers.

If our spaghetti people look into a second dimension above and below their familiar one dimension, wonderful worlds of possibility and understanding and explanation open up to them. But wouldn't their discovery raise the prospect that yet more dimensions might await their discovery?

If we try to prove, try to rationalize, try to analyze our way though questions of spirit as well as science, we must accept that we will always reach a point of assumption, or postulate, or faith, some personal axiom that itself cannot be proven.

That hardly should discourage us from exploring and explaining as far as possible. But it should dissuade us from hoping for, or insisting on, ultimately provable explanations for anything, in math, or science, or spirit.

_"The ratio of learned ignorance to knowledge tends always to increase. "_ _Edward Harrison, Masks of the Universe, Cambridge_

The more we learn and study and prove, it is philosophically and mathematically inescapable that growing along with our knowledge of what we know will be our knowledge of what we do not know.

In the absence of verifiable, ultimate proofs we cannot escape our freedom to choose the foundations we will call truth.

We will ultimately have to freely choose our personal foundation for filling in the un-provable gaps. Throughout history we see cultures, societies, and individuals defining themselves by how they fill in these gaps in certainty, rushing to convenient assumptions facilitating profit or power, embracing models of reality for comfort and solace.

And throughout our own lives, we often as not hold onto our cherished beliefs without too much questioning because we've learned that the more we know, the more we doubt.

Instead of fleeing from this fact, can we find comfort in it?

Can we accept and embrace this reality that in exploring science and philosophy and theology we are still, even after all our books and reading and lectures and analyses and learning and explanations, ultimately left with ourselves and our freedom?

" _The greater the knowledge, the greater the doubt" . "_ _Edward Harrison, Masks of the Universe, Cambridge_

" ... _. . he will be more learned the more one becomes aware of himself as ignorant"._ _Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa writing in "De Docta Ignorantia (On Learned Ignorance)"1440_

" _Scientific superstition is the expectation that science answers our every question"._ _Edward Harrison, "Masks of the Universe", p. 289_

" _This is the tragedy of the modern mind which 'solved the riddle of the universe" but only to replace it by another, 'the riddle of itself"._ _Alexandre Koyre', "Newtonian studies", from Harrison, "masks of the Universe"_

So what can we _really_ know?

Or said another way............. .

What can we really, really, really know?

We began this exploration with an invocation of science. And indeed, science did serve to reveal repeating patterns and consistent directions, and opened our eyes to potential new perspectives on our lives and our existence. But the science can prove nothing of a spiritual nature. After studying all the science, it reveals to us is that in discovering our foundation we will still be left to our own devices.

Through the ages, humanity's view of the universe has regularly changed, sometimes painstakingly over centuries of discovery, sometimes violently during a few days of invasion by foreigners with different gods.

Greeks saw fire and water and earth. Asians saw a giant turtle. Our scientists see rippling sub-nuclear strings and curved dimensions.

It seems the height of hubris to think we have arrived at the final answer, the inarguable Truth, that which will stand verified and substantiated as future millennia pass in review.

If honestly and objectively assessed, one would have to conclude from humanity's panoply of universes that the only certainty is that in a few centuries at most, and more likely in a few months, our "sure and certain foundation of reality" will once again change its ephemeral costume.

Again, if considered honestly and objectively, one would have to admit that for the average person making their way to the office, or school, or field, or pyramid, or altar, or hospital, that day's grand conceptions for the form of the universe matter not a whit.

Well, maybe those models of the universe matter a little, or else the pyramid and altar wouldn't exist in the first place. But when one's child is sick, and you're hungry, and you wonder how well your tribe or nation's army is keeping the threatening invaders or terrorists at bay, all those universes and their abstract models and their descriptive equations don't really mean a great deal.

In moments of crisis and terror, in moments of love and embrace, all is the same, and always has been the same, and all the images and models and structures and equations of all the universes wither into inconsequential dust.

Surely there, in the anguish and joy, passion and compassion of the human spirit, surely there resides a trustworthy and more enduring conception of reality than all our fleeting universes dictated by doctrine and equations.

" _Pulling out the chair beneath your mind and watching you fall upo God – There is nothing else for Hafiz to do that is any fun in this world! "_ _Shams ud din Mohammed Hafiz ca. 1325 – 1390._

So let us playfully calculate our equations, let our curiosity explore with happy abandon the infinite possibilities for fleeting universes awaiting our momentary discovery......and let us humbly acknowledge a reality deeper and unchanging, awaiting our Choice in each moment of life.

" _Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions. "_ _Rainer Maria Rilke, quoted by Richard Rohr._

If intellect and math and science suffice only to conclusively prove that they cannot ultimately prove foundational truths, but can only serve to eliminate certain illusions and distractions and misconceptions, then ultimately what can we really, really, really know? Are we left with intellectual models of limited usefulness? And if so, does that mean we cannot ultimately really, really, really know anything?

Or do some truths stand without need for intellectual model and proof and justification, truths made true or false by our own freewill choice of whether to incorporate them into our lives, truth ultimately rendered intensely individual, and thereby inviolate, irrefutable, and sacrosanct?

" _You never think yourself into a new way of living. You invariably live yourself into a new way of thinking. "_ _Richard Rohr_

" _What good is a man's knowledge unless it prompts him to prevent the pain of others as if it were his own pain? "_ _Tirukkural 32: 315-317_

"To be attached to one's own happiness is a barrier to the true and perfect path. To cherish others is the source of every admirable quality. "

\- Tsongkhapa, "The Splendor of an Autumn Moon"

_"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. "_ _John 13:34_

" _Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. . . And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love"._ \- _excerpts from 1 Corinthians 13:4-13_

" _Love each other as I have loved you. "_ _John 15:12_

The direction of evolution of the universe,

pointing directly at................ .

.......... . You.......

.......... . and at every other individual in your life, each one of them offering you that glimpse of something greater, and providing opportunity by your daily Choices to continue the process of Creation.... .

*********

*********

The Reassuring UniversePart III.........

GooGooGooJoob

(back to table of contents)

*********

*********

Science no longer stands in the way of spirit. We are liberated to explore the spiritual.

We have seen a pattern in the universe and in life, a pattern consistent and continuous, repeated and relevant, a pattern revealing direction, direction in which we can choose to participate, to which we can choose to contribute.

But what of the nature of this universe (and other universes? )What of our nature, what of the nature of Source of this universal direction? And most important, how do we relate to it, or it to us, or can we, or should we, or is the question meaningless? Are we alone, or are we part of.... ?

Surely such existential questions are no place for science. And we saw that ultimately science cannot prove anything of spirit anyway, and we are left with the truths we choose to allow entrance to our heart.

But didn't science reveal possibilities, and thereby allow us to hope, even if it did not and cannot verify our beliefs? And didn't science provide hints of direction, and thereby open our awareness to those directionswe already sensed in our own being?

Through this journey hasn't science proven reassuring, affirming the possibility of that which heart might have hoped to believe, or unconsciously sensed?

On these existential questions about the nature of the universe and life and ourselves and the prospects of relationship and connection with it all, might we not again trust science, not to provide answers, but to open our minds to recognize answers our heart already knows?

Let us move forward, now science and spirit reconciled, walking hand in hand. And as our words and pictures and quotes and ideas and conjectures flow before us, let us use them not as ends in themselves, not as authority to be memorized and taken too seriously, but as signposts to help us find that ineffable foundation and relationship that can carry us through the relentless challenges of life, even to the end of life.

"Do not just memorize sayings, recite words, and discuss Zen and the way based on books. The Zen way is not in books. Even if you can recite the teachings of the whole canon and all the masters and philosophers, they are just useless words of no avail when you are facing death. "

\- Chien-ju

One

Salah satu

Uno أحد

Eins

Yksi

What if...............

What if all were..........

What if all were, what if all was.........

............. One.... .

And if it's not now all One..................

............when did it quit being One?

Does science, does spirit, have anything to say about One?

Before people, before planets, before dust, before light,....

.......... . science says all forces, all energy, all space, and all time were............. .

................... . One

" _In the beginning, this world was the Self alone, in the form of a man. He looked around and did not see anything apart from himself. In the beginning he uttered 'I am!_ _'"Pre-Buddhist Brihadaranyaka Upanishad I. 4. 1. Per Alexander Wynne, The Origin of Buddhist Meditation, Routledge 2007, p. 55._

"...cause and effect, sentient beings and Buddhas, subjects and objects, path and goal are ultimately revealed to be of one taste: movement from one to the other is no movement at all, really, but a dynamic stillness. "

Wangyal, Unbounded Wholeness, Oxford University Press, 2006, p. v , referring to Dzogchen state (Tibetan Buddhism)

" _In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God_ **. "** John 1:1

One......oneness......directly and unambiguously, or alluded to and implied, it appears in the equations and the scriptures.

If everything is One, we can hardly explore everything. So let us explore five bite-sized pieces of reality and ask what they tell us about this curious concept of One.

* _Spectra_

* Quantum observations

* Background radiation

* Relativity

* Holographic universe

But all from One? ! What does that even mean? ! Look at you, look at me, we are distinct and separate, certainly not One. What foolishness is this talk of One, when the quickest glance and our entire life experience unambiguously reveal the multitude, the separate, the individual.

We have been conditioned from childhood to see the other as separate, distinct, different, too detached for us to accept them and us as One! Even from childhood we define ourselves in terms of our enemies, the other, the different, the "over there", that threat to our being or barrier to our wishes. We will not hear this ludicrous talk of One for it poses a dire threat to our individual ego identity we have worked so hard to construct!

Besides, just a few pages ago didn't we elevate "individual" to the role of fulfilling the very direction and Purpose of the universe? !

But what is that whispering doubt? What is that moment's hesitation as we take aim at the other? What is that fleeting awareness that flickers across our countenance and for just the briefest moment dampens our pride and enthusiasm about our individual superiority and distinct separation from those of a different uniform or language or religion or politics or pigmentation?

Surely complex science can shed no light on this confusing and esoteric concept of "One"!

But we said we would look at five topics of science, so let us remain true to our word, though approaching our investigation with ample pessimism and cynicism.

Spectra

Take a light beam, one light beam, one white light beam, and run it through a prism, or a water drop. Out the other side appears the rainbow, the spectrum, all the colors the human retina can perceive.

They were there all along, they were present in the white light beam. We have created nothing with our piece of glass or mist of rain. We have simply taken one beam and made visible the range of wavelengths that were present all along.

The red is not confused with the blue. Yet they arose from one.

I am not confused with you. But what if we share a common Source, split into our different colors by the diffraction of space and time?

In addition to spectra, does science offer other "enlightening" perspectives on the possibility of One?

Quantum principles and Entanglement

Science says observer and observed are intimately entangled, any interaction altering both, even mere observation inescapably altering observer.

And what does spirit say?

" _Because of the interdependence of causes and effects (because a cause depends on its effect to be a cause, as effect depends on cause to be an effect), it is quite meaningless to talk about them as existing separately. "_ _(Paraphrase of Nagarjuna of the Madhyamaka School)_

Quantum mechanics, the realm of the tiny, the perplexing, the baffling, the unexpected. But also, the foundation realm, the foundation that reveals the essence and nature underlying all our physical reality and experience and life at even the largest of scales.

All matter can be mathematically described in terms of waves.

**But in the Beginning, in its mathematical structure,** _all was One,_ **the Source Singularity, a wave compressed into no length and no time.**

Quantum mechanics says:

In the Beginning all was One in the most literal, scientific, mathematical sense. All. This entire universe.... . the essence of the Big Bang, a wave form of space and time and energy with no time required to traverse its entire length and width and breadth, which meant that in the essence of reality there existed no length and width and breadth. All that would come to exist, or the potential for all that would come to exist, resided in the universe, as it does today, but it was a universe of One, nothing separated, nothing individual.

All matter can be described as waves.......

**And in the Beginning,** _All_ **was One.**

.... Space and Time were born, and in and through them the wave function, that which describes all physical existence.

The division of a particle into multiple particles is represented as a separation of wave packets.

As the universe expanded, the initial singularity, the One, expanded and cooled and individual wave packets separated.

The wave function, that which describes all physical characteristics, is not broken.... . just stretched.

Particle wave packets separated.... . individual.... unique.... but are they separate?

.... the One, the starting singularity.... Every particle, every wave, every ripple, every vibration of existence...separating in time and space...yet still connected...still one wave.... still One.

Every wave, particle, photon, all was connected, all was an extension of One, all within One, all an expansion of One.

Did the connection ever break?

To examine this question, consider the Einstein-Podolski-Rosen experiment. (Yes, that Einstein).

Entangled states and the Einstein-Podolski-Rosen Experiment

Take a quantum level particle, such as a photon, or in principle any subatomic particle (though photons provide the most practical alternative), and split it into a couple of other photons (or a positron and electron). No matter how far apart the two sibling particles separate, in the absence of external interactions their state of being remains entangled, measurements of one particle perfectly describing the state of the other.

The fact the two particles (or photons) stem from one source seems to leave them forever related. This fact is not conjecture or speculation, but repeatedly proven, demonstrated, and verified.

Of course the two sibling particles will each have their own independent interactions, eventually bumping into this or that along their way, passing through their own individual "experiences", each of which will independently alter them. But that original entanglement, though perhaps reduced to an inconsequential part of their characteristics and history as they cascade through ever more interactions, testifies of common source. Only interactions with other particles and the environment mask that entanglement evidence of one Source. But those other particles, and everything in the interacting environment, in turn descended from their progenitors, so they too once displayed entanglement and common source with another.

This chain links all the way back to the beginning, and at the beginning was One.

After division, now many. . .

......but still expression of, part of, essence of,.......... One?

While mulling over that quirk of quantum physics and its implications for One, let's move on to the next witness in the court of physics.

The Cosmic Background radiation: looking directly at the Big Bang.

Where do we look to see the background radiation from the "Big Bang", the beginning of all existence of our universe?

Everywhere! We are in it!

Every direction! We are surrounded by it!

The Big Bang is not "over there". It is not in one direction. We have never left it.

We earlier said that initially everything, the entire universe, was all One at the instant of the Big Bang ("instant" being a misleading term when time is curled up, but let's run with it for now. )

We think of the Big Bang as "blowing up" and we're somehow riding on the outside of it. But its present day appearance actually looks more as if we fell into it, and are now in the middle of it.

I say that because we can measure the residual microwave energy of the Big Bang, and in every direction we look space glows with that radiation. That remains true wherever you are. (Remember the earlier section that described how you, and I, are each at the center of the universe).

Watching the Big Bang would be akin to watching fireworks if you got to ride up in the launched pyrotechnic canister, all your universe contained in the canister of gunpowder, then it blows up, and you see the explosion from the center, with all the bright points of color moving uniformly away from you, and the "bang" echoing in your ears, a bang not from "over there", but from all around, or even within.

You would perceive all the sparkling and glowing elements falling with you through the sky as the same materials (energy) that were with you in the canister, still one system, just transformed into multiple entities of that one system, with a lot of separation added between them.

If you slept through the launch and the explosion, and woke up to see the glowing, sparkling components uniformly moving away from you, it would not take much thought to figure out they, and you, had started as one, and you all share the same present trajectory and location and fall rate because you did share that same starting point and you were in fact one.

Now, what about anyone else who also rode along in the launching of the pyrotechnic canister? They are looking at the same explosion, the same bright points of light, the same sparkling elements, and hearing the same resonant bang, which they also say sounds like it happened inside their head. And they describe the expansion of the bright points of light and sparkly objects as uniformly distributed about them....... just the way you describe events.

Hmmm. Listening to them makes you wonder if they were in the pyrotechnic canister, if they arose from the same single starting point of this universe of gunpowder, just like you.

And though its form and identity and structure has changed, you, and that person experiencing the same anisotropic expansion, are still part of that same ensemble of material. It is, however far it spreads, still One.... and you are part of that One.

Now that we're talking about blasting through space, it's an appropriate time to bring up the topic of relativity.

The following makes use of that concept of you (and me, don't leave me out) being at the center of the universe.

" _The gravitational force allows us to declare that all observers – regardless of their state of motion – are on absolutely equal footing.... gravity ensures the equal validity of all points of view.... the strong, weak, and electromagnetic forces are also all connected with enforcing symmetries. "_ _Greene, Elegant Universe, p. 125_

Now that equality of all observers is a nice trick, courtesy of relativity. Or is relativity actually not the cause, but the result, a necessary law of the universe for reasons we will now discuss?

All different observers and their positions and motions are equivalent for observing the universe. But what if you could observe the universe from multiple perspectives? Imagine you could choose to be in multiple places at once, kind of like watching those inset images on television during the football game so you can watch multiple camera angles at once.

But there's a catch to watching multiple football games at once, some rules you have to follow. If you are watching one event through multiple cameras, each camera has to display the same outcome. If one screen clearly shows the pass caught, and another screen clearly shows the pass dropped, we have a serious problem with reality.

Now let's tear ourselves away from the TV screen(s) but continue this imaginary scenario of experiencing multiple perspectives, i. e. , you as one observer experiencing what multiple observers would normally experience.

Let's imagine you are in the pyrotechnic universe of the exploded fireworks shell, and your consciousness is riding along with each of the glowing embers flying through space. So you are experiencing the whole bloomin' explosion, from every point of every piece of shrapnel, kind of like a bee simultaneously seeing through those zillion facets of its eye. In fact, it's as if you are the pyrotechnic shell!

In such an experience, certain rules have to apply in order for us to say you are experiencing being a pyrotechnic shell. Outcomes would have to be the same from wherever you viewed them. One part of you could not experience something that contradicts the physical reality that you (it's still you) perceive from other points in "your" explosion.

Remember, you are the exploding pyrotechnic shell. There's only one of you. Just as laws of optics relate the view through each lens of the multi-faceted eye of the bee and result in consistent and seamless integration of an image across all the lenses, so the laws of physics must be consistent to ensure your multiple experiences across all the fragments of the fireworks shell remain consistent and not in conflict.

Now look at something bigger than fireworks, much bigger. Look at the universe.

"All observers are on absolutely equal footing". Call it a coincidence. But the laws of physics of our universe, this equivalence of all observers, are what you would have to have if in fact all the observers were facets of One Observer.

The Holographic Universe

The parade of witnesses testifying on behalf of One continues with the holographic universe. But this witness, unlike quantum mechanics and relativity and spectra, has questionable credentials, for proof and verification of its claims are still lacking, and may always be lacking.

But the witness is attractive and entertaining and intriguing and controversial, so naturally the court is willing to hear the testimony.

Remember the previous discussions about the holographic universe?

The theory describes a universe in which everything in a volume of space is contained in, or recorded at, or a projection of, the equivalent information at the boundary of that space. (Feel free to take your own stab at putting this into words).

Do you see how the idea of "One" could play into this? The distinction between the internal volume and the information encoded at the boundary begins to blur. It's as if the event, and the equivalent information, might as well be everywhere, or might as well be "One". The volume, the space, that which separates and distinguishes, begins to look like an illusion, just a projection contained within the One.

So here we are, talking about the volume of space as potentially an illusion or a projection, but a darned good one you have to admit. And "space" and "volume" bring us to our next witness on behalf of One, that being the expansion of space.

Expansion of the universe

(and if you're lucky, maybe expansion of your mind)

It's all expanding, all, everything, the entire universe, making room for more information, making room for more unraveling of interactions that can appear to be utterly disconnected from distant events because of the inordinate amount of time required for light to traverse the universe. So it appears we are all separate, unique, individual, and "One" hardly seems relevant.

Expansion of the universe: what does that even mean? ! The universe is all, everything, all time, all space, all location, all matter, all things......what's "expansion" of everything mean? !

" **The Big Bang is a singularity extending through all space at a single instant, while a black hole is a singularity extending through all time at a single point. "** http://www. astro. ucla. edu/~ _wright/cosmology_faq. html#DN_

Hmmm. I really wish that had cleared up the whole thing for me, but truth be known, it didn't.

Let's try the following:

"The Standard Big Bang model is singular at the time of the Big Bang t = 0. This means that one cannot even define time, since space-time is singular. "

http://www. astro. ucla. edu/~wright/cosmology_faq. html#DN

Was that any help? Naww, me either.

Expansion of space and time gets deucedly tricky to put into words. As Frank Ramsey said, "what we can't say we can't say, and we can't whistle it either".

But let's flail on with some attempts at using words and concepts to lead us into something beyond words and concepts. Expansion: more space.......... . and more time.........

The result: it takes longer to communicate across the universe................ so what?

In the very small universe, it takes very little time to communicate across that entire universe. When the universe was the size of our earth, every point in the universe and all existence, could communicate with every other point in about 0. 05 seconds. There is almost no time for development of individual events or identities or thoughts before the entire universe, All, the One, would interact with them.

In the expanded universe, complex events (and thoughts) can now arise and develop within individual entities such as stellar systems (and people).......... .

.......... . now arising in relative independence from the rest of the universe, as billions of years are now required to communicate across the expanded space-time.

This is the meaning of the "expanded universe".... . "individual" becomes possible, because each galaxy,......

............. each planet, each mind, can now exist and function with significant independence.......

....... . still the same universe, still the One, still containing all time, all space, all existence.... . but no longer alone...now, unlike at the beginning, now able to contain individual and independent histories.

All time, all place, all existence, the entire universe, was One.... the One expanded, making room for individuals and causality and history......

.... . but the individuals were still within the original One.... and through their ever dividing but ever entangled wave functions, they remain connected.

So in summary, in the expansion of the universe, and quantum mechanics, and the proposed holographic universe, and even in a rainbow, we can find interpretations consistent with seeing all existence as elements within One. But they are just interpretations after all, nothing conclusive. And like our earlier exploration of the direction of the universe and life, we eventually find ourselves relying on our own devices and perspectives, personal and existential.

Even discussion of the topic quickly poses risk of violating the Zen precept of "Do not plunder the Mystery with concepts". But surely we must at least try to communicate among ourselves about our search that might reveal that we are indeed not fully separate, though still fully individual.

So science aside, what in our own lives and experience speaks for or against One?

Individuals, still within and part of One.... .

Can they, can we, discern the One?

Individuals, still within and part of One.... .

Can they, can we, directly look at the One?

Individuals.... yet One? ! . . . . . What's it even mean? Can we see an example where each individual so intimately interacts with each other that they are One, yet still individual?

Do these images of storms on Jupiter provide any useful analogy? Each oval shaped storm can obviously be identified, distinct in location, color, character, speed......yet each arises from planet scale flows, for there is ultimately only one atmospheric system, and all within it is interconnected, the flow of atmosphere and energy into one storm being directly influenced by the neighboring storms.

Perhaps such analogies help us comprehend how we can be One yet still be individual.... . or perhaps not.

Why is it so difficult to see the answer, to see God, to see the nature of life, to see our nature, to define or recognize or prove One?

Perhaps that fact itself is argument for One, and argument for our consciousness and experience as part of that One. Perhaps we do not clearly see the One when we look because in fact we are the One. Instead of looking for the One, perhaps we must seek to look through the eyes of One. (paraphrasing Richard Rohr).

" _Can thought look at thought? No. Just as the blade of a sword cannot cut itself, or a fingertip touch itself, so thought cannot see thought. "_ _Sikshasamuccaya_

Can we not see God, not prove God, not prove any spiritual concepts, because just as the sword cannot cut itself, we as part of the One cannot externally discern ourselves?

Can we see the One only by seeing ourselves?

Are we each mirrors for each other, each imperfect mirrors of the One?

Such irony that our attempts to explore One, and our efforts to express what we find, lead to such disparate language and descriptions and experiences and poetry. But though words and perspectives may radically differ, does the attempt itself offer evidence of One, and that other person's attempt to express their ineffable experience validate our own unexpressed experience?

"God's remembrance is my remembrance, and mine is his. Can two beings who remember one another not be in union? "

\- Hallaj, "Tawasin"

And after all is said and done, it is of course only a word, this word One. After all our philosophical posturing and intellectual speculations, does the concept of One have literal, tangible relevance in our lives?

How literally should we take this premise that we are all One; how wide should we open our arms to embrace others, and in the process embrace our Self?

To honestly look at this world, its savage beasts, its ravaging pestilence, and its sadistic citizens, and still proclaim all to be One and of One Source, requires either faith of monumental proportions or undiluted self-delusion.

To the casual, objective observer there appears little clinical difference between the deeply faithful and the abjectly delusional mind.

Wishing to believe in an unseen Oneness is one thing. Continuing to believe in the face of unrelenting, contradictory evidence is another.

Yet science testifies of One, sages expound about One, and some long denied awareness gently and relentlessly pulls, tugs, and whispers, furtively ducking in and out of the pillars of our temples of rational logic and trenchant strategic goals.

_"Mitakuye Oyasin"_ _(Lakota Indian guidance prayer: "We are all related")_

We attempted to clear our view by applying cold logic to burn away the dark, tangled forest of superstition and magic. But the now plentiful sunlight of modern science reveals not the reliable, firm, solid, foundation of predictable earth and rock we sought, but an entangled underlying network of life interconnected.

Might some symbolic and abstract spiritual statements be not just symbolic after all?

" _I and the Father are One"._ _John 10:30_

"Tug on anything at all and you'll find it connected to everything else in the universe. "

John Muir

" _I am neither Christian, nor Jewish, nor Muslim. Doing away with duality, I saw the two worlds as one. I seek One, I know One, I see One, and I call One. "_ _Rumi, "The Life and Thought"._

_"Talk as much philosophy as you like, worship as many gods as you please, observe ceremonies and sing devotional hymns, but liberation will never come, even after a hundred aeons, without realizing the Oneness"._ _Sankara_

If you knew you and every one of them were......

.One.... .

If you knew they and you and all were One, would it matter?

In each jostling, bumping, pushing, passing touch, contact, interaction, and relationship.........

....... would it matter?

Would it make any difference if people recognized that our lives stem from One Source, and that we each experience the yearning to bring consciousness back together?

_"When a person responds to the joys and sorrows of others as if they were his/her own, s/he has attained the highest state of spiritual union. "_ _Bhagavad Gita 6:32_

When faced with each little opportunity to notice, to help, to pick up, to assist, would it matter if we saw that person before us, and ourselves, as elements of One?

"Jesus said unto him,'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. '

This is the first and great commandment.

_And the second is like unto it: `Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself._ '" _Matthew 22: 37-39_

God – neighbor – yourself......................... . universe – humanity – yourself....... .

" _Our task must be to free ourselves, widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty. "_ \- _Albert Einstein_

The intellectual models and religious dogmas and philosophical analyses and certainly the fascinating but inconclusive science are ultimately rendered irrelevant, and we are left with only our Choice to make real or not make real the One in our personal Youniverse.

" _I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together. "-_ _the Beatles_

And if indeed all came from One, is One, and can only remain One, in our Choice to act for goodness, to strive to participate in the universal drive toward Unity, to accept our role in ongoing Creation, we will not be alone. We have always been part of the One, for there is no separation from the One, for there is nothing other than the One.

" _Sakka asked: 'What is the cause of self-interest? 'The Buddha answered: 'It is perception of the world as one's object. ' 'How does one overcome this perception of the world as apart from oneself? ' 'By acting for the increase of goodness and happiness. It is in this way that the world ceases to be one's object. '"_ \- _Digha Nikaya_

We cannot accept and seek One without also accepting and finding ourselves, and experiencing that inescapable Charis (grace) that has since the Beginning waited to embrace us and whisper into our ear the Word, the Love, the forgiveness, the acceptance, the Spirit, the Christos, without which there would have been no Beginning.

" _In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. "_ _(John 1:1, God's Word ® translation, ©1995)_

" _And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may be with you forever. "_ _John 14:16, English Revised Version._

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

**Author biography** _and message to the reader_

(Back to table of contents)

Some degrees in physics, some time in research laboratories and thatched hut villages, some teaching in universities and management in international technology: all sound like credentials to lend credibility to the role of author. But such experiences provide only tools and terminology and opportunity, not wisdom and insight.

You and I share the same foundation for whatever wisdom and insight we may glean out of life, the joys and grief, the celebrations and hunger that make up daily living. I hope through this book my knowledge of physics and funerals, science and spirit, quanta and cultures, can help you bridge the illusory gap between intellect and heart. If so, that will happen not through transfer of wisdom, but through an opening of windows to allow realization of your own wisdom.

Questioning "what" and "how" led me to universities and degrees in physics. Questioning "why" led me to cathedral and temple and mosque. I have been blessed to learn from a winner of the Einstein Award and from village shamans. But such learning seems inconsequential in comparison to life's lessons: the grim look on the face when after the wreck you ask "will she be OK?"...the feel of the hospital sheets after the stroke...and every warm embrace and authentic smile and sincere welcome.

I am grateful to professors and priests, research centers and jungle shrines. But they provide only the paint color to be applied to the structure built of the scope of real life, built of pets and people, love and loneliness, homes and hospitals.

I pray my degrees and travels, survival and losses that led to my books can bring a little light to your very real life and reveal to you the brightness of your heart's wisdom and the Source awaiting our discovery.

Author contact and scheduling of speaking engagements

DrDonRay@HotMail.Com

Website and blog

SmashWords link

GoodReads

Other titles by Don Ray

Doubt and Reassurance Volumes I and II

The Reassuring Universe ,illustrated hard-cover and soft-cover editions

Image Credits

(Back to Table of Contents)

Numbers on the following entries refer to page numbers in print editions of "The Reassuring Universe". Though not corresponding to any actual value in this e-book version, hopefully their sequential values can assist the reader of e-books in locating explanations for images of interest.

6 Star cluster. NASA Hubble. www. hubblesite. org

8 Portrait of an articulated skeleton on a bentwood chair, 1895 - 1905

http://www. powerhousemuseum. com/collection/database/? irn=386897#ixzz1F6Z5w3hm  
Fomat: Glass plate negative.

Part Of: Powerhouse Museum Collection

General information about the Powerhouse Museum Collection is available at http://www. powerhousemuseum. com/collection/database

Persistent URL: http://www. powerhousemuseum. com/collection/database/? irn=386897

Acquisition credit line: Gift of the Estate of Raymond W Phillips, 2008

9 NASA Hubble. www. hubblesite. org. Arp 273. The larger of the spiral galaxies, known as UGC 1810, has a disk that is tidally distorted into a rose-like shape by the gravitational tidal pull of the companion galaxy below it, known as UGC 1813. A swath of blue jewels across the top is the combined light from clusters of intensely bright and hot young blue stars. These massive stars glow fiercely in ultraviolet light.

The smaller, nearly edge-on companion shows distinct signs of intense star formation at its nucleus, perhaps triggered by the encounter with the companion galaxy.

The larger galaxy in the UGC 1810 - UGC 1813 pair has a mass that is about five times that of the smaller galaxy. In unequal pairs such as this, the relatively rapid passage of a companion galaxy produces the lopsided or asymmetric structure in the main spiral. Also in such encounters, the starburst activity typically begins in the minor galaxies earlier than in the major galaxies. These effects could be due to the fact that the smaller galaxies have consumed less of the gas present in their nucleus, from which new stars are born.

Arp 273 lies in the constellation Andromeda and is roughly 300 million light-years away from Earth. The image shows a tenuous tidal bridge of material between the two galaxies that are separated by tens of thousands of light-years from each other.

The interaction was imaged on December 17, 2010, with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3).

10 http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Uhrwerkszerlegung_01_01. jpg

AuthorHNH

10 Stone impact into mud. Spence Swanger/Karen Morris

12 Pandora's Cluster, Abell 2744; Hubble telescope ACS/WFC; ESO Very Large Telescope; Chandra X-ray Observatory. NASA, ESA, and J. Merten (Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, Heidelberg/Astronomical Observatory of Bologna; and D. Coe (STScl)

13 Spence Swanger/Karen Morris

15 http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:First_Gold_Beam-Beam_Collision_Events_at_RHIC_at_100_100_GeV_c_per_beam_recorded_by_STAR. jpg. Results of collisions between gold ions at Brookhaven Lab's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, as captured by the Solenoidal Tracker At RHICdetector. The tracks indicate the paths taken by thousands of subatomic particles produced in the collisions.

17 Spence Swanger/Karen Morris

17 Photograph of the 1919 eclipse that confirmed Einstein's theory of the the curvature of space-time.

20 Wake Vortex Study at Wallops Island

The air flow from the wing of this agricultural plane is made visible by a technique that uses colored smoke rising from the ground. The swirl at the wingtip traces the aircraft's wake vortex, which exerts a powerful influence on the flow field behind the plane. Because of wake vortex, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires aircraft to maintain set distances behind each other when they land. NASA Langley Research Center (NASA-LaRC)

21 Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) -- This illustration shows a CME blasting off the Sun's surface in the direction of Earth. This left portion is composed of an EIT 304 image superimposed on a LASCO C2 coronagraph. Two to four days later, the CME cloud is shown striking and beginning to be mostly deflected around the Earth's magnetosphere. The blue paths emanating from the Earth's poles represent some of its magnetic field lines. The magnetic cloud of plasma can extend to 30 million miles wide by the time it reaches earth. These storms, which occur frequently, can disrupt communications and navigational equipment, damage satellites, and even cause blackouts. (Objects in the illustration are not drawn to scale. )NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory http://sohowww. nascom. nasa. gov/gallery/images/sunearth01. html

22 http://www. hubblesite. org/gallery/album/entire/pr1998018b/

23 Quasar PG1115+080 with distorted light. NASA/Hubble

24 NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle (SSC/Caltech)

25 NASA/Hubble; http://www. hubblesite. org Abell 370

26 Disk of dust and gas around core of NGC 4261 (possible black hole). Walter Jaffe/Leiden observatory, Hubble Telescope NASA

27 Umar Mohideen (U. California at Riverside), Scanning Electron Microscope photograph

31 Galaxy Group Stephan's Quintet. NASA \- Hubble, and S. Gallagher Penn State University); STScl-PRC01-22. www. hubblesite. org

31 Casssiopeia A Supernova remnant; NASA/JPL-Caltech/O. Krause (Steward Observatory); ssc2005-14c; Spitzer space Telescope, MIPS; Hubble space Telescope,ACS; Chandra X-Ray Observatory. www. hubblesite. org

32 Dumbell Nebula; NASA – Hubble; www. hubblesite. org

33 The Mice, NGC 4676, NASA – Hubble; www. hubblesite. org

35 Cemetary, Hashimiyya, Ajloun, Jordan; Author: TheLastShot; http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Hashmiyya_Cemetary. jpg

36 Colliding black holes in NGC 6240; NASA Hubble; www. hubblesite. org

37 Spence Swanger/Karen Morris

37 Ring Galaxy; NASA Hubble; www. hubblesite. org

38 Pictograph, Native American, southwest U. S. ; age: greater than 800 years; Spence Swanger/Karen Morris

38 Shadows of father with five daughters, 2006. Standing at half pipe at skateboard park. Author: D Sharon Pruitt. http://upload. wikimedia. org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/The_Skate_Park_Shadows. jpg

39 V838 Monocerotis: The expanding light sphere is not an expanding cloud, but a light echo, showing the progress though space of lightemitted by V838 Monocerotis during an eruption event. The light progressively reflects off matter already in place around the star prior to eruption. NASA Hubble STScl/AURA, HST ACS, STScl-PRC04-10. http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/File:V838_Monocerotis_expansion. jpg

39 Nucleus of Halley's Comet, European Space Agency, Giotto Project

40 ESO's Paranal Observatory, while observing the center of our Milky Way galaxy using the laser guide star facility at Yepun. . The Laser Guide Star (LGS) is part of the VLT's adaptive optics system and is used as a reference to correct the blurring effect of the atmosphere on images. The colour of the laser is precisely tuned to energise a layer of sodium atoms found in one of the upper layers of the atmosphere. This layer of sodium atoms is thought to be a leftover from meteorites entering the Earth's atmosphere. Author:ESO/Yuri Beletsky (ybialets at eso. org)

Sourcehttp://www. eso. org/public/images/potw1036a/

42 Galaxy NGC 1275; NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage (STScl/AURA)-ESA/Hubble collaboration – Hubble Space Telescope ACS – STScl-PRC08-28; www. hubblesite. org

43 Spence Swanger/Karen Morris

44Spence Swanger/Karen Morris

46Solar Coronal Mass Ejection, August 2002. (Material leaving the sun at millions of miles per hour. )Image by LASCO C2 instrument. Solar and Heliosperic Observatory/NASA.

46 Two up quarks and one down quark spinning freely in a particle accelerator's stream. Quarks are the foundation building blocks of matter. Protons and neutrons, and the atomic nuclei they form, are all built of quarks.

Quarks come in a variety of forms, given whimsical names by physicists. In our universe today we do not experience individual quarks, their binding energy to each other being so high that we cannot readily separate them.

Author Brianzero;http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Quark_wiki. jpg

47 Helium atom representation, with nucleus magnified in inset. Author Yzmo, derivative work of Mpfiz (talk). http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Helium_atom_QMuniv. svg

47 Coronal Mass Ejection, 4 January 2002; NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory; http://sohowww. nascom. nasa. gov/gallery/images/suncombo2. html

48 Schematic of helium atom. Author Wykis. Wikipedia Commons. http://upload. wikimedia. org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/15/Explained_Atom. svg/2000px-Explained_Atom. svg. png

49 A quintet of Saturn's moons come together in the Cassini spacecraft's field of view for this portrait. Janus (179 kilometers, or 111 miles across) is on the far left. Pandora (81 kilometers, or 50 miles across) orbits between the A ring and the thin F ring near the middle of the image. Brightly reflective Enceladus (504 kilometers, or 313 miles across) appears above the center of the image. Saturn's second largest moon, Rhea (1,528 kilometers, or 949 miles across), is bisected by the right edge of the image. The smaller moon Mimas (396 kilometers, or 246 miles across) can be seen beyond Rhea also on the right side of the image. This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from just above the ring plane. Rhea is closest to Cassini here. The rings are beyond Rhea and Mimas. Enceladus is beyond the rings. The image was with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on July 29, 2011. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 1. 1 million kilometers (684,000 miles) from Rhea and 1. 8 million kilometers (1. 1 million miles) from Enceladus. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute http://www. nasa. gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/gallery/pia14573. html

50 Molecular content of plumes rising into space from Saturn's moon Enceladus (neutral mass spectra). NASA March 2008.

51 Crepuscular rays, Antarctic sunset, January 1991. Source:http://www. photolib. noaa. gov/htmls/corp2437. htm . Image ID: corp2437, NOAA Corps Collection. Photographer: Dave Mobley, Jet Propulsion Laboratory. http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Crepuscular_rays_illuminate_half_the_sky_-_NOAA. jpg

51 Hydrogen bonds and van der Waals contacts for two stacked, adjacent GC base pairs of RNA. Gray dots outline the van der Waals radii of the atoms (including hydrogens); pillows of pale green dots show atomic overlaps at the base-pair H bonds, and blue and green dots show the layer of van der Waals contact where the bases stack.

Author Jane Richardson (Dcrjsr)http://upload. wikimedia. org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/All-atom_contacts_for_two_GC_basepairs_of_RNA. jpg

52 Spyrogira cell (detached from algal filament) by Jasper Nance. http://upload. wikimedia. org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Spirogyra_cell. jpg

52 A simplified model of influenza virus surface glycoprotein hemagglutinin. This model was constructed using 3D molecular graphics software. For simplicity, protein sidechains not shown. Protein backbone shown in blue. Heterogens are represented by spacefill. All sequence data necessary for construction are freely available in open access fashion at the National Center for Biotechnology Information, an agency of the U. S. National Institutes of Health. Source National Center for Biotechnology Information AuthorU. S. National Institutes of Health.

53 Spence Swanger/ Karen Morris

53 Spence Swanger/ Karen Morris

54 Colonial Namibia. •Source:

Der Bildbestand der Deutschen Kolonialgesellschaft in der Stadt- und Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt am Main

54 Two images, Spence Swanger/ Karen Morris

55 "Conversation outside a Castle". Artist: Dirk van Delen. 1636. Oil on panel. Current locationStatens Museum for Kunst

Source/PhotographerWeb Gallery of Art (#6276):http://upload. wikimedia. org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Dirck_van_Delen_-_Conversation_outside_a_Castle. jpg

55 Clay cone about the frontier conflict between Lagash and Umma. The inscription reads: "(...) may your city be destroyed—surrender! May Umma be destroyed—surrender! " Terracotta, Archaic Dynasties III. Found in Telloh, ancient Girsu. Current location(Inventory)Louvre Museum Department of Oriental Antiquities, Richelieu, ground floor, room 1a, case 4

Accession numberAO 12779

Credit line Excavations of Henri de Genouillac, 1930

Source/Photographer Jastrow (2007)

http://upload. wikimedia. org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Clay_cone_Lagash_Umma_Louvre_AO12779. jpg

56 Kowloon walled city, 1989. Source :Edit of Image:19890327hk. jpg by Stevage;Author: Jidanni;http://upload. wikimedia. org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/Kowloon_Walled_City. jpg

56 Endeavour Catches Satellite

Three crewmembers of mission STS-49 hold onto the 4. 5 ton International Telecommunications Organization Satellite (INTELSAT) VI after a six- handed "capture" was made minutes earlier during the mission's third extravehicular activity (EVA). From left to right: Mission Specialists(MS) Richard J. Hieb, Thomas D. Akers, and Pierre J. Thuot. The three prepare to attach the capture bar which is tethered to Hieb. Thuot is positioned on the Remote Manipulator System (RMS) arm, from which he had made two earlier unsuccessful grapple attempts on two- person EVA sessions. Ground controllers and crewmembers agreed that a third attempt, using three mission specialists in the payload bay (PLB) was the effort needed to accomplish the capture. http://www. nasa. gov/mission_pages/shuttle/flyout/multimedia/endeavour/92-05-13. html

56 Computer altered "Little World" fantasy image of ESO's Paranal Observatory. The observatory lies deep in the barren Atacama Desert. Date19 September 2011

Sourcehttp://www. eso. org/public/images/potw1138a/

AuthorESO/Y. Beletsky/A. H. Parkerhttp://upload. wikimedia. org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/Little_World_of_Paranal. jpg

59 "Archimedes Thoughtful";Domenico Fetti (1588–1623) ; Date 1620

Medium:Oil on canvas

Current locationGemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden, Germany; Source/Photographer:http://archimedes2. mpiwg-berlin. mpg. de/archimedes_templates/popup. htm

http://upload. wikimedia. org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Domenico-Fetti_Archimedes_1620. jpg

60 Une mère hupa et son enfant en 1924. This image was copyrighted or originally published in 1924. This image came from The North American Indian by Edward S. Curtis. These images were published between 1907 and 1930. The digitization of this image was done by the Northwestern University Library, sponsored by the U. S. Library of Congress. Credits: Northwestern University Library, "The North American Indian": the Photographic Images, 2001. http://upload. wikimedia. org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Edward_S. _Curtis_Collection_People_004. jpg

60 A grief stricken American infantryman whose buddy has been killed in action is comforted by another soldier. In the background a corpsman methodically fills out casualty tags, Haktong-ni area, Korea. , 08/28/1950. http://arcweb. archives. gov/arc/action/ShowFullRecordLinked? %24searchId=2&%24resultsDetailPageModel. search=true&%24showFullDescriptionTabs. selectedPaneId=digital&%24digiDetailPageModel. resultPageModel=true&%24resultsDetailPageModel. currentPage=0&%24digiDetailPageModel. currentPage=0&%24resultsDetailPageModel. pageSize=1&%24partitionIndex=0&%24sort=RELEVANCE_ASC&%24highlight=false&%24digiSummaryPageModel. targetModel=true&%24submitId=1&initpagemodel=on&mn=digiDetailPageModel&goto=0&detail=digiViewModel/1

60 Jubilant American soldier hugs motherly English woman and victory smiles light the faces of happy service men and civilians at Piccadilly Circus, London, celebrating Germany's unconditional surrender. England, May 7, 1945. Record Creator: Department of Defense. Department of the Army. Office of the Chief Signal Officer. (09/18/1947 - 02/28/1964). http://gallery. pictopia. com/natf/photo/? photo_name=531280%20%28111-SC-205398%29

61 Wheelchair basketball at the 2008 Summer Paralympics. Sourcehttp://cc. nphoto. net/view/2008/12353. shtml. Author王伟00715. http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Wheelchair_basketball_at_the_2008_Summer_Paralympics. jpg

.

61 GORI, Georgia (Aug. 25, 2008) A teddy bear lies amidst rubble in Gori after theconflict between Georgia and Russia. U. S. Navy photo by Lt. Jim Hoeft. http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:US_Navy_080825-N-0629H-010_A_teddy_bear_lies_amidst_rubble_in_Gori_after_the_recent_conflict_between_Georgia_and_

Russia. jpg

62 ShutterStock "lonely woman"

62 Grief stricken German woman.

An aged German woman, overcome by the worry of trying to find a home, breaks down and cries, head in hand. In her other handshe holds the handle of a small hand-barrow containing her few scant belongings. 1945. Source: Deutsches Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive), Bild 146-1996-036-01 http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_146-1996-036-01,_Fl%C3%BCchtlingsfrau_mit_W%C3%A4gelchen. jpg

63 ShutterStock: "couple fighting"

63 "Still unaware of despair, a small boy of Matera, Italy, unconsciously repeate the gesture of his.... ". Record Creator: U. S. International Development Cooperation Agency. Agency for International Development. (10/01/1979 - ca. 1998) (Most Recent)

Department of State. International Cooperation Administration. (06/30/1955 - 11/1961) (Predecessor)

Foreign Operations Administration. (08/01/1953 - 06/30/1955) (Predecessor)

Economic Cooperation Administration. (1948 - 12/30/1951) (Predecessor)

Mutual Security Agency. (1951 - 08/01/1953) (Predecessor). ca. 1948 - ca. 1955. Current location:National Archives and Records Administration, College Park

Still Picture Records Section, Special Media Archives Services Division (NWCS-S). National Archives identifier 541739. •Series: Photographs of Marshall Plan Activities in Europe and Africa, compiled ca. 1948 - ca. 1989, documenting the period 1945 - ca. 1954 (ARC 1dentifier:541631) . Source: U. S. National Archives and Records Administration. http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Matera,_Italy. _Still_unaware_of_despair,_a_small_boy_of_Matera,_Italy,_unconsciously_repeats_the_gesture_of_his. . . _-_NARA_-_541739. tif

64 Author: Fabric. http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Crowd_and_laser. jpg

64 Erasure performed at Delamere Forest (near Chester), England, UK on 1 July 2011. Source:Flickr: Vince Clarke under the spotlights. Author: Andrew Hurley.

http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Vince_Clarke_under_the_spotlights! . jpg

65: Traffic in Hanoi. Author: Northboer. http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Hanoi_traffic. jpg

66 Competition at the West End Fair Demolition Derby, Gilbert, Pennsylvania. Source: Transferred from en. wikipedia; transferred to Commons by User:Xnatedawgx using Commons Helper. Author :Original uploader was Lowenburg at en. wikipedia.

http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:West_End_Fair_Gilbert_PA_Demolition_Derby. JPG

66 Hitler accepts the ovation of the Reichstag after announcing the "peaceful" acquisition of Austria. Berlin, March, 1938. Record Creator: Office for Emergency Management. Office of War Information. Overseas Operations Branch. New York Office. News and Features Bureau. (12/17/1942 - 09/15/1945). Current Location: National Archives and Records Administration, College Park.

Still Picture Records Section, Special Media Archives Services Division (NWCS-S).

http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Hitler_accepts_the_ovation_of_the_Reichstag_after_announcing_the_%22peaceful%22_acquisition_of_Austria. _It_set_the_stage. . . _-_NARA_-_535792. tif.

67 "Grief". Edgar Bertram Mackennal (1863 – 1931). Source/Photographer:http://www. archive. org/stream/royalacademyillu1898royauoft#page/52/mode/2up. http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Bertram_Mackennal_-_Grief. jpg

67 Return to Marine Corps Air Station Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, after five-month assignment. Author: U. S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Alfredo V. Ferrer. http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:US_Navy_091215-M-9234F-001_Lt. _Brian_Roberts_embraces_his_son_during_his_return_to_Marine_Corps_Air_Station_Kaneohe_Bay,_Hawaii. jpg

68 Spence Swanger/Karen Morris (both photos)

71 Source: Little boy in sprinkler/goodncrazy. com. Author Carissa Rogers;

23 July 2009, 17:34; http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File%3aLittle_Boy_in_Sprinkler. jpg

71 A rat, cat and dog pyramid at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, California. 11 October 2008Author: BrokenSphere

© BrokenSphere / Wikimedia Commons.

http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Rat,_cat_%26_dog_pyramid_at_Fisherman%27s_Wharf. JPG

71 Children in water; Spence Swanger/Karen Morris

72 Photo: Pasquale Sorrentino,

Neolithic period, 5 – 6000 years old,found 5 February 2007 near Valdaro-S. Giorgio, near Manova, Lombardy, Italy, now at Musei Civici, Como, Italy;http://www. sorrentinopasquale. it/index. php/contatti. html

73Tadpole Galaxy. NASA Hubble. www. hubblesite. org

73 Karen Morris

73 Fingerprint detail on male finger. Author:Frettie

http://upload. wikimedia. org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Fingerprint_detail_on_male_finger. jpg

74 Spence Swanger/Karen Morris

75Bibliothèque du Grand Séminaire de Montréal, Québec, Canada ;Author : Cephas ;http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:BibliothequeGSM1. Jpg

76 Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland, wearing Chancellor's Robes and the Garter Ribbon. On or after 1641 (the portrait was commissioned posthumously by Percy's son, Algernon Percy, the 10th Earl of Northumberland). Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641). English aristocrat Henry Percy, the 9th Earl of Northumberland (27 April 1564 – 5 November 1632), was a grandee and one of the wealthiest peers of the court of Elizabeth I. Under James I, he was a long-term prisoner in the Tower of London. He acquired the sobriquet "The Wizard Earl" from his scientific and alchemical experiments, his passion for cartography, and his large library. Current location: Petworth House, West Sussex, England. Source/Photographer: http://www. marlowe-society. org/marlowe/life/images/wizardearl. jpg. Source for this book:http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Henry_Percy-9th_Earl_of_Northumberland. Jpg

76 Stained glass with scientist: ShutterStock

77 Pictograph, Native American, age greater than 800 years, U. S. southwest. Spence Swanger/Karen Morris.

77 : Vandalized cast of Rodin's Thinker, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, USA. Author: Daderot;http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Cleveland_Museum_of_Art_-_damaged_Thinker. Jpg

78 A juvenile Cherry-crowned Mangabey (Cercocebus torquatus) born on 16 July 2007 at Colchester Zoo, Essex, England. Author: Keven Law;http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Cercocebus_torquatus,_Colchester_Zoo,_Essex,_England_-_20080211. Jpg

79 The Thinker, 1918. Author: William Orpen. http://www. chinaoilpainting. com/htmlimg/image-26513. htm;http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Orpen_the_thinker. Jpg

79 U. S. Army Cpl. James Daoust, field medic provides medical care to an Afghan boy during an air-assault mission. Photo by Matthew Freire, 29 July 2009, Khost Province, AF. Author Mtthew Friere via DVIDSHUB. htt://upload. wikimedia. org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Afghan_child%27s_head_wound_treated.jpg

80 EL REALEJO, Nicaragua (July 23, 2007) - Two students from a local school watch as a fellow classmate receives dental care at the El Realejo Health Care Center, where medical personnel attached to Military Sealift Command hospital ship USNS Comfort (T-AH 20) are providing care. Comfort is on a four-month humanitarian deployment, to Latin America and the Caribbean to provide medical treatment to patients in a dozen countries. U. S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Elizabeth Allen. http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:US_Navy_070723-N-7088A-006_Two_students_from_a_local_school_watch_as_a_fellow_classmate_receives_dental_care_at_the_El_Realejo_Health_Care_Center,_where_medical_personnel_attached_to_Military_Sealift_Command_(MSC)_hospital_ship. jpg

80 Homeless children in New York, date earlier than 1914. Jacob A. Riis. Source:http://www. zeno. org/Fotografien/B/Riis,+Jacob+A. %3A+%C2%BBNomaden+der+Stra%C3%9Fe%C2%AB,+Stra%C3%9Fenjungen+im+Schlafquartier ; Source for this book:http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Sleeping,_homeless_children_-_Jacob_Riis. jpg

81 Author: Fabric; http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Crowd_and_laser. jpg

82 Cat's Eye Nebula; NGC 6543;NASA, ESA, HEIC, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA),; HST ACS; STScI-PRC04-27;http://www. hubblesite. org/gallery/album/nebula/pr2004027a/

83 Rusting metal. Spence Swanger/Karen Morris

86 Nebula M1-67 around Star WR124; NASA Hubble WFPC2; PRC93-38; STScI OPO; Y. Grosdidier and A. Moffat (University of Montreal) http://www. hubblesite. org/gallery/album/nebula/pr1998038a/

86 NASA Hubble Gas plume, newborn star, Orion nebula; http://www. hubblesite. org/gallery/album/nebula/pr1992029b/

87 Jena, Skulptur vor der Goethe-Apotheke (Weigelstraße); Andreas Praefcke

87 NGC 7009; NASA Hubble; www. hubblesite. org

88 United States Air Force photo by Senior Airman Joshua Strang

Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska — The Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, shines above Bear Lake. 18 January 2005

89 A "son of the regiment" wearing the Red Star for bravery, surrounded by his admirers. "Sons of the regiment" were orphans adopted by Soviet regiments, and were looked after like the soldiers' own sons. They lived with the soldiers and fought alongside them in front-line actions. After the war, they found it difficult to adjust to civilian life, the company of other children and to children's activities.

http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Soviet_Child_Soldier. JPG

90 Full featured double rainbow in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska

Eric Rolph. Wikimedia Commons.

91 Bullfight at San Marcos Fair, Aguascalientes, Mexico, May 1, 2010. Tomas Castelazo;http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:San_marcos_bullfight_01. jpg

91 The head of a Buddha statue, entangled in a tree, Ayutthaya. Paul bavo; http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:P1030468-Ayutthaya-BuddhaHeadInTree. JPG

92 Aurora caused by ion flux impacting the upper atmosphere. Ion collisions in turn generate more ionization in a cascade of quantum transitions. Colors result from quantum transitions among electrons and ions in the atmosphere. Aurora Australis Observed From the International Space Station. These ever-shifting displays of colored ribbons, curtains, rays, and spots are most visible near the North (aurora borealis) and South (aurora Australis) Poles as charged particles (ions) streaming from the Sun (the solar wind) interact with Earth's magnetic field.

While aurora are generally only visible close to the poles, severe magnetic storms impacting the Earth's magnetic field can shift them towards the equator. This striking aurora image was taken during a geomagnetic storm that was most likely caused by a coronal mass ejection from the Sun on May 24, 2010. The ISS was located over the Southern Indian Ocean at an altitude of 350 kilometers (220 miles), with the astronaut observer most likely looking towards Antarctica (not visible) and the South Pole.

The aurora has a sinuous ribbon shape that separates into discrete spots near the lower right corner of the image. While the dominant coloration of the aurora is green, there are faint suggestions of red left of image center. Dense cloud cover is dimly visible below the aurora. The curvature of the Earth's horizon (the limb) is clearly visible, as is the faint blue line of the upper atmosphere directly above it (at image top center). Several stars appear as bright pinpoints against the blackness of space at image top right.

Auroras occur when ions in the solar wind collide with atoms of oxygen and nitrogen in the upper atmosphere. The atoms are excited by these collisions, and they typically emit light as they return to their original energy level. The light creates the aurora that we see. The most commonly observed color of aurora is green, caused by light emitted by excited oxygen atoms at wavelengths centered at 0. 558 micrometers, or millionths of a meter. (Visible light is reflected from healthy (green) plant leaves at approximately the same wavelength. ) Red aurora are generated by light emitted at a longer wavelength (0. 630 micrometers), and other colors such as blue and purple are also sometimes observed.

Author: International Space Station Expedition 23 crew. Source: Mission: ISS023 Roll: E Frame: 58455 Mission ID on the Film or image: ISS023; Source for this book: http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Aurora_Australis_From_ISS. JPG

93, 94, 95Spence Swanger/Karen Morris

96 No, this is not an image of the Big Bang. But it is an image of a "bang". Two decades ago, astronomers spotted one of the brightest exploding stars in more than 400 years.

Since that first sighting, the doomed star, called Supernova 1987A, has continued to fascinate astronomers with its spectacular light show. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is one of many observatories that has been monitoring the blast's aftermath.

This image shows the entire region around the supernova. The most prominent feature in the image is a ring with dozens of bright spots. A shock wave of material unleashed by the stellar blast is slamming into regions along the ring's inner regions, heating them up, and causing them to glow. The ring, about a light-year across, was probably shed by the star about 20,000 years before it exploded.

Astronomers detected the first bright spot in 1997, but now they see dozens of spots around the ring. Only Hubble can see the individual bright spots. In the next few years, the entire ring will be ablaze as it absorbs the full force of the crash. The glowing ring is expected to become bright enough to illuminate the star's surroundings, providing astronomers with new information on how the star expelled material before the explosion.

The pink object in the center of the ring is debris from the supernova blast. The glowing debris is being heated by radioactive elements, principally titanium 44, created in the explosion. The debris will continue to glow for many decades.

The origin of a pair of faint outer red rings, located above and below the doomed star, is a mystery. The two bright objects that look like car headlights are a pair of stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The supernova is located 163,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

The image was taken in December 2006 with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys. Credit: NASA, ESA, P. Challis and R. Kirshner (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. http://www. hubblesite. org/gallery/album/pr2007010a

97, 98 Spence Swanger/Karen Morris

99 No, of course it's not a picture of the center of the universe. Didn't you read the preceding section? But it is the nice circular symmetry of Hoag's Object. A ring of hot blue stars pinwheels around the yellow nucleus of Hoag's Object Galaxy. Image Credit: NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA). Acknowledgment: Ray A. Lucas (STScI/AURA) http://www. hubblesite. org/gallery/album/entire/pr2002021a/

101 The Hodge 301 Cluster: Multiple Generations of Stars in the Tarantula Nebula' Credit: The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA / STScI / NASA); http://www. hubblesite. org/gallery/album/entire/pr1999012a/

102 M17 – Omega/Swan Nebula. WFPC2; NASA, ESA, and J. Hester (Arizona State University); STScI – PRC03 – 13; http://www. hubblesite. org/gallery/album/entire/pr2003013a/

102 The Boomerang Nebula is a young planetary nebula and the coldest object found in the Universe so far. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is yet another example of how Hubble's sharp eye reveals surprising details in celestial objects.

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows a young planetary nebula known (rather curiously) as the Boomerang Nebula. It is in the constellation of Centaurus, 5000 light-years from Earth. Planetary nebulae form around a bright, central star when it expels gas in the last stages of its life.

The Boomerang Nebula is one of the Universe's peculiar places. In 1995, using the 15-metre Swedish ESO Submillimetre Telescope in Chile, astronomers Sahai and Nyman revealed that it is the coldest place in the Universe found so far. With a temperature of -272C, it is only 1 degree warmer than absolute zero (the lowest limit for all temperatures). Even the -270C background glow from the Big Bang is warmer than this nebula. It is the only object found so far that has a temperature lower than the background radiation.

Keith Taylor and Mike Scarrott called it the Boomerang Nebula in 1980 after observing it with a large ground-based telescope in Australia. Unable to see the detail that only Hubble can reveal, the astronomers saw merely a slight asymmetry in the nebula's lobes suggesting a curved shape like a boomerang. The high-resolution Hubble images indicate that 'the Bow tie Nebula' would perhaps have been a better name.

The Hubble telescope took this image in 1998. It shows faint arcs and ghostly filaments embedded within the diffuse gas of the nebula's smooth 'bow tie' lobes. The diffuse bow-tie shape of this nebula makes it quite different from other observed planetary nebulae, which normally have lobes that look more like 'bubbles' blown in the gas. However, the Boomerang Nebula is so young that it may not have had time to develop these structures. Why planetary nebulae have so many different shapes is still a mystery.

The general bow-tie shape of the Boomerang appears to have been created by a very fierce 500 000 kilometer-per-hour wind blowing ultra-cold gas away from the dying central star. The star has been losing as much as one-thousandth of a solar mass of material per year for 1500 years. This is 10-100 times more than in other similar objects. The rapid expansion of the nebula has enabled it to become the coldest known region in the Universe.

The light in the image comes from starlight from the central star reflected by dust particles. Source:http://www. spacetelescope. org/images/heic0301a/ Author:ESA/NASA; Source for book:http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Boomerang_nebula. Jpg

103 Gravitational lens J033238-275653, Mix of galaxies; Hubble ACSCredit: NASA, ESA, J. Blakeslee and H. Ford (Johns Hopkins University)http://www. hubblesite. org/gallery/album/entire/pr2004021a/

103 Star-Forming Region LH 95 in the Large Magellanic Cloud; Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble http://www. hubblesite. org/gallery/album/entire/pr2006055a/

104 Gravitationally lensed quasar in Galaxy Cluster SDSS J1004+4112. Hubble – ACS/WFC. STScI-PRC06-23

The gravity of a galaxy cluster called SDSS J1004+4112 warps and magnifies the light from a distant quasar. Light from the quasar, the bright core of a galaxy fed by a black hole, appears in the center of this image and four other locations around it.

Credit: ESA, NASA, K. Sharon (Tel Aviv University) and E. Ofek (Caltech) http://www. hubblesite. org/gallery/album/entire/pr2006023a/

104 X-Rays Emanate From Heated Material Falling Into Black Hole;Credit: NASA, ESA, A. M. Koekemoer (STScI), M. Dickinson (NOAO) and The GOODS Teamhttp://www. hubblesite. org/gallery/album/entire/pr2004019b/

105 http://www. hubblesite. org/gallery/album/entire/pr1998018b/

106 NGC 5139 Core of Omega Centauri. NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team; (STScI/AURA)Acknowledgement A. Cool (San Francisco State University) and J. Anderson (STScI) http://www. hubblesite. org/gallery/album/entire/pr2008014a/

107 Nucleus of Galaxy Centaurus A;Credit: E. J. Schreier (STScI), and NASA http://www. hubblesite. org/gallery/album/entire/pr1998014j/

107 Hubble/IRTF Composite Image of Jupiter Storms; Credit: NASA, ESA, IRTF, A. Sánchez-Lavegaand R. Hueso (Universidad del País Vasco, Spain ); http://www. hubblesite. org/gallery/album/entire/pr2008006d/

108 Jupiter; Credit: NASA Voyager

109 ShutterStock, sword, reflection, and shadow

109 Francisco M. Marzoa Alonso; http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:BallSelfPortrait. Jpg

110 A homeless individual near Waitan in en:Shanghai;October 2006;Transferred from en. wikipedia; transferred to Commons by User:Politizer. Original uploader was Politizer at en. wikipedia;

http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Shanghai_homeless. JPG

110 The Field Training Week in Southern Israel, part of the IDF Infantry Instructors course, includes individual and group drills, navigation practice, sleeping in the field and camouflage training. At the end of the course the female soldiers will be placed in different positions, instructing IDF Ground Forces. 5 December 2006, 09:19;Source:Israel Defense Forces from Israel;http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Flickr_-_Israel_Defense_Forces_-_Field_Training_Week_for_Ground_Forces_(1). jpg

110 A Madonna of sorrow at her son's grave; France;National Geographic Magazine, Volume 31 (1917), page 549. International Film Service. http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Madonna_of_Sorrow_NGM-v31-p549. jpg

111 Spence Swanger/Karen Morris

111 Burnham: Dorney Wood pond; Nigel Cox; Geograph. org. uk;http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/

111 Detail - Glory of the New Born Christ in presence of God Father and the Holy Spirit (Annakirche, Vienna;Ceiling painting by Daniel Gran (1694-1757). Photo by Alberto Fernandez Fernandez;

http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/

112 ShutterStock 5492095

113 Ahron de Leeuw,Dhaka, Bangladesh. http://www. flickr. com/photos/ahron/

113 133rd Street and 7th Avenue, Harlem, 1964; Dick DeMarsico, New York World Telegraph & Sun;http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/

114 August 11, 2007, COP Heider, border crossing point between Iraq and Syria. . . In this photo a large crowd of people are seen awaiting processing for entry into Iraq or Syria. As many as 30,000 people a week attempt to pass through this point of entry in summer months. Jim Spiri in Iraq114

114 Spence Swanger/Karen Morris

115 Public domain http://www. visualintel. net/USAF/Medical-Service/USAF-Medics-Training-Exercise/061006-F-3961R-048/392849215_b9jFu-M. jpg

115 The Good Samaritan by François-Léon Sicard (French, 1862–1934). In the Tuileries Gardens, Paris. François-Léon Sicard (1862–1934)photo : Marie-Lan Nguyen (User: Jastrow);

http://commons. wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Good_Samaritan_Sicard_Tuileries. jpg

Front cover: A ribbon of gas, a very thin section of a supernova remnant caused by a stellar explosion that occurred more than 1,000 years ago, floats in our galaxy. The supernova that created it was probably the brightest star ever seen by humans. Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)Acknowledgment: W. Blair (Johns Hopkins University)http://www. hubblesite. org/gallery/album/nebula/pr2008022a/

###############

