The Great Stream

 


(Last updated 18 March 2024)

I left society behind and walked into the woods about the time of the original COVID lockdowns in Spring 2020.

It proved to be the right choice.  It was a productive two years. 

For me, the purpose of the Hermit/Forest-Dweller lifestyle is to simplify and to look beyond the cares of this life.

Let me paraphrase Huston Smith in his remarkable compendium “The World’s Religions” (second edition, 1991), p. 53 from the chapter on Hinduism:

“Why are we born to work and struggle, each with a portion of happiness and sorrow, only to die too soon? The generations swell like waves. Each, in its time, breaks on the shore and subsides into the boundless Fellowship of [the Great Stream]. To find meaning in the mystery of existence is life’s final and fascinating challenge.”

As a scientist during my working years, the discoveries of Quantum Mechanics have always fascinated me. Nobody (and this is a direct quote from prominent physicist Richard Feynman) understands Quantum Mechanics.

I find this inscrutability fascinating. Among the paradoxical thought experiments that highlight the strangeness of this theory is the famous Schrödinger’s Cat scenario, in which a cat is sealed in a box with a vial of deadly poison gas, which is released when a purely random, quantum event (radioactive decay) happens—say, when a Uranium atom spits out an alpha particle on the way to becoming Lead. Quantum Mechanics tells us that until we open the box and observe the poor kitty, it exists in a state of ‘superposition’, both alive and dead at the same time.

My analysis of that thought experiment is the main subject of the video, discussed as I walk along a stream at my hermitage: the Cloister at Three Creeks.

The video verbalizes many of the ideas I have come to accept, including the idea that this ‘superposition’ state, which is achieved when consciousness is rejected, is a far better representation of reality, and is, for me, the ‘ideal’ state—my Nirvana.

Over the last few months, I have distilled these ideas into a ‘final’ form … at least one that I consider ready to share as my ‘Epitaph’ should I be called to ‘break on the shore and subside’.

It is a philosophical discussion, but it relies heavily on our current state of understanding (and lack thereof) of Cosmology and Quantum Physics. And then it extends into speculation (or Mythopoeia—i.e., fictional 'world building' for my newly published novel Eden's Womb) before winding up in the realm of Spirituality.

So, without further discussion, here it is:

 

INTRODUCTION 


How do I assess my own life?

What do I most value about myself?

 

In one word, I would call myself a Pathfinder.

 

My greatest joy is noticing something

that had not been noticed before—

‘seeing’ something in a new way.

 

I love sharing that joy with others …

… but …

… well, that’s why I write things down.

The ‘paper’ is a surrogate listener that accepts.

Unconditionally.


But the written word quickly grows obsolete.

Only the spoken word of the living has value.

It is the ‘last word’.  It is in the moment;

and the best of it supersedes any individual.

This is the ‘truth’ that becomes the central current of The Great Stream.

 

Yet somehow, the “last words” of an individual

seem to acquire special meaning, or attention.

It is the tradition of the epitaph.

 

This is mine—meant to please no one but me.

It hardly fits on a tombstone, does it?

But here it is, without apology—about 7000 words:

cold as a gravestone.

 



 

MY OVERRIDING PURPOSE

IN LIFE

 


My life’s quest has been to know the ultimate—

to understand the ‘big picture’ of our reality,

and therein to find ‘Peace of Mind’.

 

I never understood how one can find comfort

in a place s/he does not understand?

 

Yet I know the answer: They call it “resting on faith.”

“Nobody can fully understand the mind of God,” they say.  “Why waste your time trying?”

 

Why?  Because I am a restless soul, not yet called by God (though I am always listening) to come ‘home,’ to lay down my burdens

and surrender to faith.

 

Quite the contrary, I feel called to discover and reveal a deeper and more universal interpretation of ‘home.’

(The Great Stream)

 

The quest has been long and usually solitary.

(The only thing I’m really good at is being alone.)

 

 

I have found my Peace

in the most restless of places—a place

that makes most people’s minds reel and swoon.

 

It is the empty Vacuum, which Quantum Physics tells us is anything but empty.

It is a ‘place’ without any notion of ‘place,’

where space and time and our rock-solid Earth, and everything we recognize as reality somehow emerged out of nothing.

It is the unfathomable Chaos—

the inscrutable home of Paradox.

 

The Physical Vacuum teaches us that “nothing” exists in superposition with “everything.” 

The two are inseparable, and in constant flux—a dynamic balance.

 

The Philosophical Vacuum (from which all thought emerges [in each developing individual’s mind])

teaches us that balance itself is dynamic.

 

Peace of Mind comes as a Superposition

of Balance and Imbalance.

 

The notion of Balance

steps forth to be measured on its scales

amidst life’s inevitable buffeting. 

That Imbalance (Philosophical Chaos)

is laid down upon the other pan,

and their weights are deemed to be equal.

 

In practical terms, Balance is a thing that we actively manage, moment-to-moment; Peace of Mind is a journey of experience—learning to find comfortable pathways through the Chaos as it forever throws up new and unexpected challenges.

 

The notion of Dynamic Balance means that even our way of measuring our experiences can change.

The scale we use is a personal choice.

 

As I choose to view things, reality itself has no firm foundation.  Rather, it consists of an ever-shifting flow, brimming with memory and purpose,

with experience and constant learning.

It is a raging torrent where faith is a life-raft

for those who choose it. 

But like the written word,

any life-raft (any unquestioning faith)

decays in value as The Great Stream moves on. 

For me, understanding (constant learning and adjustment) is a better way.

 

So, I keep moving.  I seek out the paths

that avoid stagnant bogs and backwaters.

I aim to stay close beside The Great Stream

(the core currents of enduring existence—

i.e., the way of the Venerable Ones)

and I walk on.

 

“Walking is good for the soul.”

 


 

My intended legacy:

Sharing the news of

THE GREAT STREAM

 

 

 

 

The way I tell the story begins with three words:

 

“Truth is Paradox”

 

 

Paradox is the greatest thing.

This requires emphasis.

Most people think of God as the greatest thing—

the thing that supersedes all other things

and controls all reality.  

My belief is that

Paradox is the essential god—

God stripped of all His comforting

personal and anthropomorphic attributes.

 

Unassailable in its nature, Paradox is primal because it has no context and needs no context.

By its very definition, you cannot define it.

It embodies and ‘explains’ the chicken-and-egg nature of the origin of all things—it is the one and only true ‘Uncaused Cause.’

And, therefore, it is the only possible ‘Ultimate.’

 

At the same time Paradox is utterly simple, indifferent, and ephemeral.

It is the ‘Chaos’

—the fundamental state of the first and last things—

the enigmatic, frothing, Quantum Vacuum

in which all of reality is embedded.

 

Now this is what I believe in six times more words, less one (the sacred number Seventeen):

 

“Out of Chaos a current stirred;

And over time a Great Stream gathered,

embodying Meaning and Purpose.”

 

… and then further, in six times more words, less one (101 words):

 

 

“The Great Stream 101”

 

“The Great Stream is the font of Creation—

an endless torrent of Universes.

Universes beget matter;

And matter swirls within them.

Matter begat life;

And the flow of the Great Stream sustains it,

its Meaning made personal for you and me.

 

Life’s Great Stream runs its course

following the instructions found in The Book

(Our DNA, symbiotic biota, facultative processes, our physical environment and its enigmatic laws).

 

We humans oft neglect the Way of the Great Stream.  Preferring our own thoughts,

we eschew The Book’s accumulated Wisdom,

which guides the Venerable Ones (the enduring species); and this is to our peril.”

 

 

 


 

The Great Stream Hypothesis


This is a scientific hypothesis

describing how Reality formed

and how it functions.

It is meant to be testable,

with the understanding that any chosen test

affects the outcome.

 

* * *

 

Thus, the beginning:

 

The unassailable primacy of Paradox

 

The foundation of the

“Great Stream Hypothesis”

is this Seventeen-word conjecture:

 

“There is no argument or entity

that does not reduce to contradiction or infinite regress, including this.”

 

 

Within physical reality, the Paradox is the empty vacuum that rages with infinite activity

—The Chaos—

an ever-shifting sea with no direction.

 

The Theory of Quantum Mechanics describes precisely what had to have happened ‘first’

in order for the ‘something’ we see as our reality to appear out of ‘nothing’

(i.e., the ‘Uncaused Cause’ that some call ‘God’)

 

It is actually the most common event in the universe.

Out of the void/the Chaos/the Vacuum, myriad ‘things’ are constantly popping in and out of being.

The process is random—without cause.

The process is mandatory.  “Something” and “Nothing” co-exist in superposition.

 

 

The ‘somethings’ appear in dynamic balance, often in pairs that normally annihilate each other within a fraction of a second (so quickly that they cannot even be observed).

 

But if one of the pair happens to interact

with something else that pops out of the void,

then the annihilation can be disrupted, and three anomalous objects might result—the combined (entangled) entity and the two partners that did not interact.

 

Alternatively, if something can emerge that can causally separate from its partner before the two annihilate, then the result could endure.

 

Either way, the result is the first step

in the Great Stream hypothesis—

the moment of creation, when the currents of the Great Stream first stirred (in Seventeen words):

 

Without cause, an interaction of quantum fluctuations of the vacuum

can spontaneously produce

an enduring observable object.


 


THE FIRST ENDURING PARTICLE: 

 

What is that first enduring object?  I don’t think there is any one absolute answer, any more than we can speculate what life’s ‘Most Recent Common Ancestor’ was like (let alone what the original oldest ancestor—the very first life form—looked like).

 

One particularly fruitful idea that naturally falls from the concept of the “Big Bang” is that the first enduring object was cosmic inflation itself—the ‘False Vacuum field’ or ‘Inflaton particle’—and it is best described very simply, as a quantum ‘oasis’ of zero entropy within the roiling Chaos.

 

Picture the emergence (out of the frothing Quantum Vacuum) of a virtual pair of special things (point particles, perhaps even singularities) that look like a swelling balloon and its opposite, a ‘squeezing’ of the vacuum.

 

(It’s actually very poetic—a strange and wonderfully paradoxical reversal of the intuitive picture:

The universe begins as an insistent silence amid infinite noise, yet it makes the loudest sound of all.  It is a serene emptiness within a bustling city.)

 

Let’s run with this idea and speculate that the ’balloon’ side of the pair is a quantum of Dark Energy.  Its basic attribute is that it has intrinsic ‘volume potential’ such that it is capable of pushing back the infinite-entropy Chaos.  This is not the same as space but it would admit (make realizable) the emergence of space.

 

The anti-balloon, the squeezing particle, might be hard to distinguish from the general Chaos of the vacuum when searching for it from our unique perspective within the ‘balloon’ of our universe.

 

A quantum of Dark Energy’s intrinsic ‘push’ is both its cause and its effect (a superposition) as with all virtual particles.  If it is the signature of universe creation, detectable here within our universe, then learning to probe it would tell us much.

 

Continuing this line of thinking … in order to endure, a quantum of Dark Energy must be co-created with an individual fundamental particle with mass and a gravitational potential.  Initially this is just another virtual particle, but it fails to annihilate with its anti-particle, because it entangles with (interacts with) the quantum of Dark Energy, creating ‘real’ space-time.  This co-creation is the more explicit definition of one possible ‘enduring particle’.

 

The logical consequence of this idea is compelling.  The fact of an enduring particle—the existence of reality as we know it, at its fundamental level—is only possible by physically ‘pushing back’ the vacuum, making ‘room’ for a particle to endure.

 

This was the long-winded (hopefully careful) presentation of one possible first baby step to forming a universe.  It seems not to even need mathematical analysis, but it should be amenable to modeling and perhaps even observation.

 

The next step is to consider how one enduring particle could become a whole universe.

 

So … a single particle came to be, and it pushed back the Chaos.  It is the courageous one that took a stand in the Becoming poem (see the Firestorm tab at pjwetzel.com).

 

This may be happening all the time everywhere in the quantum froth.  What makes it ‘memorable’ (literally capable of being perceived/modeled by a mind) is when a great ensemble of particles result.

 

The simplest way for this to be conceived is for the original single particle that endured to have an enormous push (negative pressure) that created a vast region of zero entropy out of the original Dark Energy seed.  This is the egg from which our reality grew.

 

What could this ‘egg’ particle have been?  Could it be something like a Higgs Boson—the particle manifestation of the Higgs field—a special field that has energy when it doesn’t exist (when the field has a zero value) but has zero energy at some other field value?  Is it possible that this energy offset is a quantum fluctuation, and that all particles that we observe can emulate a Higgs Boson through such quantum fluctuations?

 

Regardless, the breakthrough realization/speculation of this thought-model is that Dark Energy is the signature, within the vacuum, of the ‘Creation’—the superposition of its cause and its effect.  (Recall the unassailable primacy of Paradox.)  Perhaps each fundamental particle that has endured in our universe is entangled with a quantum of Dark Energy.

 


Reiterating the seminal words above:

 

Without cause, an interaction of quantum fluctuations of the vacuum

can spontaneously produce

an enduring observable object.

 

This generic process should be observable

by studying the vacuum.

Deep under the earth, perhaps, scientists might search for spontaneous generation of some particle

and its tell-tale pair of non-interacting partners.

This would be, at least, proof of concept.

 

Theoretically, there is no problem.

The currently accepted laws of physics,

allow our Universe to form from nothing.

 

But how? What are the causal steps

that lead from the spontaneous appearance

of an object that avoids annihilation

to a whole complex universe?

 

The Great Stream hypothesis

addresses the problem directly.

It follows two courses at this point:

 

The first is the meta-hypothesis:

 

The universe we occupy came to its current state through a long evolutionary process involving quantum mutations.

 

The second posits the specific (speculative) Dark Energy proposal presented earlier, and how that fits into the evolution story—a succession of universes co-evolving with life itself.

 



First, the meta-hypothesis:

 

The Great Stream Hypothesis

proposes an analogy between the evolution of complex life forms from an original self-replicating molecule and a posited evolution producing the ‘fine-tuned’ complexity of our universe from a small original ‘enduring particle’.

 

It appears that our currently accepted laws of physics allow for the possibility that our universe

could produce offspring universes.

In fact, foreseeable technological advances

could enable humans to produce

‘a universe in a test tube.’

Physicists who have studied universe replication

include Roger Penrose, Lee Smolin, and Alan Guth.

 

They all faced the fundamental

underlying Mystery called

The ‘Fine-Tuning problem’.

 

“Why this particular universe,

with these particular, seemingly finely tuned

physical constants (which have no explanation)

and with this set of apparent Laws of Physics

(Though none of the accepted laws

are without serious flaws and/or inadequacies)?”

 

This is the question that the Great Stream Hypothesis confronts with a specific proposal:

 

Just as we humans appear as a particular current

in a Great Stream of living things, and are entirely dependent on the dynamics of that flow, which made us, and in which we find our niche,

 

so, too, is our universe a particular current

in a Great Stream, full of myriad other universes, all reproducing—all constantly evolving, adapting, and fine-tuning their physical laws and processes.

 


 


Now to the particulars.

What was that original ‘enduring object’,

and how did it transform/evolve to become a fully-formed complex universe capable of supporting life?

 

Based on theoretical Quantum Physics, it is not likely that there is one unique answer to this question.  If many different original enduring objects and subsequent pathways (channels and currents in the Great Stream) are possible, then perhaps it does not serve much purpose to propose a particular sequence of cosmic events.

 

This parallels the course of evolution of life from the (assumed) original simple self-replicating molecule or molecules that probably began the Great Stream of life on Earth.  Different paths can lead to the same result.  We see that today as ‘Convergent Evolution’—cases where two or more different species converge on the same solution to a problem, and mimic one another, even though the paths of their evolution have been completely independent of one another.


We do not know the evolutionary steps that life took here on Earth, and probably will never be able to definitively enumerate them, because not only can different species find the same path, but along the way they endured random catastrophic natural events that changed the course of evolution.  The Chicxulub Bolide impact that contributed to or led to the extinction of the mega-fauna dinosaurs is just a recent example.  Earlier mass extinctions were more severe.  Such natural catastrophes are both set-backs (like landslides that come down off the slopes and fill a valley, blocking the flow and damming-up the Great Stream) and major opportunities for new flow (like when the dam is breached and a gush of current cuts a brand-new channel).

 

So … with many paths to the same observed reality we see today, it is probably pointless to propose a specific sequence of events that may have led to it.

 

But Truth is Paradox.  It evokes a Zen koan (riddle):

 

  What is pointless

is the source of instruction.

 

And so, undaunted, we forge ahead.


 

 

 


Here is a proposed Seventeen-step sketch describing the course of the Great Stream from that primal ‘enduring object,’ via the appearance of the primal self-replicating molecule that begat all life, to the fully formed complex universe we see, populated with myriad fully formed complex living things … and beyond—far beyond.

 

1.      The primal ‘enduring particle’.  We assume that both time and three-dimensional space are emergent properties.  What came first was timeless, and it created space.  That is the Dark Energy Field as discussed at length in Page 5.

 

2.      Emergence of time’s arrow and the realization of space.  A particular Higgs-type field (or ‘Inflaton’ field) joined the Stream.  Our field of ballooned vacuum got seeded with some pair of virtual entities from which matter would emerge, and this would have been the very first virtual particle pair from the underlying vacuum to contaminate the zero-entropy silent garden that was the Dark Energy Field.  Something ‘Higgs-like’ and ‘anti-Higgs-like’ probably entered the balloon, while no equivalent emergence had to occur in the ‘squeezed’ anti-field, which separated causally and ‘fled’ to roam the Chaos.  This ‘contamination’ can be viewed like the fertilization of the egg that forms a human fetus.

 

3.      Baryon Asymmetry (perhaps only 'local,' yet so vast that it pervades all of the observable universe and beyond) fills a ‘region’ through some sort of rapid ‘inflation’—Here is the Primal Font of the family of universes within our channel of the Great Stream.  This is the moment in each universe that is called the “BIG BANG.”  Laws of math and physics, a recipe for the particle zoo, and prescriptions for cosmology set Creation in motion, and the Great Stream is born.  In the original Primal Font, this information (the ‘DNA’ of the resulting universe) could have been relatively simple and minimal—just enough to allow the possibility that the resulting universe could replicate, no matter how unlikely that process might have been.  From what we know of our particular universe, it might require prodigiously high temperature and density—a packet of mass equivalent of about an ounce of matter packed into a space far smaller than a proton.  That is what one theory says is needed to occupy a vacuum state in the Higgs-like Field that favors reproduction, a state which physicists call the ‘False Vacuum,’ in which a run-away inflation-like expansion is triggered.  In a tiny fraction of a second all the matter of the Universe came into being.  This is permissible within the meta-law of conservation of matter because the sum total of the energy of a piece of matter and its gravity is zero.  Within a fraction of a second an ultra-hot ‘exploding ball’ of matter came seething into reality out of the initial seed, but very likely also being ‘contaminated’ by many other entities from the Chaos during that process of ‘inflation'—entities perhaps absorbed at need as a growing organism takes on food.  Alternatively, and more speculatively, perhaps quantum fluctuations create the energy-field offset mentioned near the end of page 5 allow each particle to be its own little ‘Higgs’, acting to create a bit of temporary negative-pressure space during momentary fluctuations.

 

4.      Cooling of the universe to align with the ‘true vacuum’.  Note that in that Primal Font of Universes, the resulting individual universes could have had very different properties from the Universe we know.  Any and all possible values of the physical constants, and any and all functioning sets of physical laws are permitted.  The next step to producing the apparent ‘fine tuning’ that explains the particulars of our universe is the formation of a stable universe with a lifetime long enough to produce stars and heavy elements.  It is at that point in the ‘history’ of our universe that its evolution begins to be explainable by our particular (accepted) laws of physics.

 

5.      The adjustment of physical laws and constants via quantum mutations.  There are several theories describing how a universe can spontaneously replicate.  Alan Guth’s is my preferred one.  It begins with a small high-energy packet of matter (again, about an ounce) that quantum-tunnels back into that ‘False Vacuum’ state that brought about the original Big Bang.  But then each child universe must also spontaneously nucleate into the true vacuum state just as its parent did.  Lee Smolin has another theory, in which he emphasized the possibility of quantum mutations and natural selection.  Universes that produce more offspring would be statistically favored and thus become prevalent.  Universes that are non-trivial, contain plenty of matter, and are long-lasting would have the natural selection advantage.  Within long-lived universes the vacuum has more opportunity to introduce new effects, processes, and/or types of objects from the (assumed to be) nearly inexhaustible ‘library’ of possible resources that reside in the vacuum (the Chaos), thus adding further interactions with new entities in order to further fine-tune the ability to reproduce.  Adjustment of physical parameters to allow fecund star formation and creation of heavy elements seems to be an important step, at least in our branch of the Great Stream.  Both Guth’s and Smolin’s theories of universe reproduction assume the fecund availability of matter in various high-energy states.

 

6.      Emergence of life.  Probably initially an ‘irrelevant tumor’ in the belly of an apparently ‘indifferent’ ancestor universe.  Plenty about the abiotic origin of life has been said elsewhere.


7.      Panspermia (which I assume, and believe, is both inevitable and essential to the Great Stream Hypothesis), and the first spontaneous transmission of life from parent to child universe. These things are obviously highly speculative.  Panspermia, if it is found to be true, most probably would occur in the form of simple single-cell deep-rock organisms that are hurtled into space during a meteor impact, survive as dormant DNA deep inside the resulting meteor, crash onto another planet, and ‘take root’ there.  With enough of that DNA drifting about a universe, I assume that eventually some of it would get caught in a quantum-tunnelling event that generates a child universe.  In Guth’s theory, explicitly, there is a small remnant of true vacuum that separates from the parent universe with the sudden explosive emergence of the germ of false vacuum and its subsequent tunneling and then closure of the ‘umbilical’ wormhole.   The child universe should thus be seeded with the physical constants and laws of the parent, but with quantum mutations, since this initial seed is far smaller, even, than a single proton.  Could a small packet of actual material—a ‘time capsule’ or ‘message in a bottle’, such as DNA get transferred?  This would require radical new technology and probably the discovery of new fundamental laws, or perhaps the emergence of some new property out of the hidden ‘library’ available in the Vacuum. I hypothesize just one possible example, a field I call ‘Throb’, which modulates the amplitude of Quantum Fluctuations. It would be during a quantum episode of extreme ‘Throb’ when Inflation would be most likely to begin and end. Throb or another element from the Chaos might also act to alter the local ‘grain size’ of reality such that a macroscopic object could pass through the umbilical between parent and child before it is cut.  The process would be analogous to a mother passing a virus, or gut flora, or other ‘biotic passengers’ to her unborn child.  The Great Stream Hypothesis suggests this possibility, that the deep origin of life on Earth came from elsewhere in the universe, and ultimately from a previous universe.  I believe that within the lifetime of those alive today, we will find enough evidence of life on other worlds and/or in drifting asteroids/comets/meteors to make Panspermia more than an assumption.

 

8.      Living organisms (probably simple single-cell organisms, which I give the name ‘Twees’) begin to evolve in ways that enhance the ability of a universe to reproduce. Twees might ‘learn’ to control ‘Throb’.  (And in a far distant future universe, so would ‘Wizards’.)  Once DNA is being transferred from parent universe to child, we can effectively begin to think of a universe as a living thing.  The process of natural selection then begins to include not only adjusting the physical parameters and laws of the reproduction of universes, but also, the well-known process of biological evolution.  More on the ‘environment’ in which universes ‘reside’ and interact later.

 

9.      The Clam-shell seed-pod hypothesis.  Eeyock.  (This and the Twees are a reference to my Sci-fi novel, Eden’ Womb, which explores a specific example of these future enhancements to the Great Stream Hypothesis.)  Through trial and error (natural selection), Twees ‘learn’ that higher forms of life, multi-cell beings, can be useful in enhancing universe reproduction. Twees become symbiotic with a species of clam-like creatures, selecting for very hard, durable, air-tight shells, eventually even evolving an internal ‘particle accelerator’ for enhancing the quantum-tunneling process that generates child universes.  Twees then become passengers in these air-tight ‘seed-pods’.  The clam-beings can, of course, evolve intelligence to any degree imaginable and could therefore develop technology that further enhances and controls the process of creating a ‘universe in a clam shell (test tube)’.  (In the novel, a highly intelligent clam named Eeyock has a deep and enduring role in the plot).  The Twees do not require living ‘clams’ to survive the transmission into the new child universe.  But their air-tight shells become inter-universe spaceships carrying Twees that then seed the new child universe… 

 

10.   With life in charge of the evolution of universes, physical parameters begin to be adjusted to favor life.  What I call the ‘Olbers Effect’ could be one very useful form of adjustment.  Nearly two centuries ago, Heinrich Olbers noted the seeming paradox that if the universe were static (not expanding) the sky would be as hot as the average star’s surface because light from stars at all distances, out to infinity, would be arriving at Earth.  Unless the universe was somehow limited in scope, an infinite number of stars would be shining in the sky.  The discovery of the expansion of the universe by Hubble removed that apparent paradox; and the later discovery of the cosmic background radiation led to the modern theory of the Big Bang origin of the universe.  But what if life, interacting with the evolution of its succession of universes, were able to adjust the rate of expansion of the universe such that abundant stars and planets formed during the era when the temperature of the cosmic background radiation was within the ‘goldilocks’ range of zero to 100°C?  The entire universe would be habitable!  Life could abound in unimaginable quantity compared to what we experience in our present universe.  This is the ‘warm sky’ branch of the Great Stream Hypothesis, and it is not a feature of our universe.  Ours has followed a different path:

 

11.   Intelligent life and the cold sky ‘channel’ of the Great Stream.  In contrast to the warm sky scenario, in which life would be so abundant that the universe would appear to be one gargantuan tropical garden, we find that our own universe, which is expanding way too fast, and is headed for a very quick dissipation or ‘heat death’, must find a different method of enhancing universe reproduction.  There are, of course, infinite possible scenarios for how such a  universe could attempt to compete with the warm-sky universes.  The Great Stream Hypothesis, however, seeks to be relevant to our species, Homo sapiens.  Our existence is proof that technological enhancements to physical processes can be a very useful survival tools.  However, intelligent beings are prone to making hasty decisions that are to their short-term advantage, but most often lead to their quick demise (I believe).  We’ll spare the lectures and prophecies, and instead move forward to the stage where the Twees arrive on Earth, via the Great Stream of panspermia from another galaxy.

 

12.   The Twees find intelligent beings useful and become symbiotic with them.  Through trial and error, their deep, slow DNA-language-based guidance steers humans (and intelligent clams like Eeyock in another cold-sky channel) toward peaceable and sustainable life styles while directing them toward the necessary technology to create safe life-boat ‘seed pods’ stocked with plenty of Twees, and launching them, via quantum-tunneling, into a child universe ‘in a laboratory’.   As with the clam-shell beings, the Twees find no necessity for the humans to survive the transcendence to the new universe, but neither do they preclude it if the technology allows.  So …

 

13.   *** SPOILER ALERT for the Eden’s Womb Novel—do not read the rest of this list if you intend to read the novel - skip down to 'Beyond the Great Stream' *** The first accidental transmission of intelligent beings (alive!) from parent universe to child.  ‘Adam and Eve’ – the actual real FIRST humans.  Myth becomes fact. Twees begin to adjust their host intelligent beings in order to improve their chances of ‘live transcendence’.

 

14.   Intelligent beings and Twees become fully symbiotic.  Transcendence of intelligent consciousness to new ‘designer universes’ becomes routine.  The level of technology is such that humans are capable of creating observable (simulated) child universes in order to more quickly and effectively fine-tune the ‘DNA’ of their real child universes.  See item 17.

 

15.   Universes become fully-engaged living things, guided by the mind of the individual or group of scientists that created a child universe and transcended into it within their ‘pod’.  (This, by the way, might be the answer to the Fermi Paradox [Where are all the other intelligent beings?  They left!], and our path to ‘eternal life’—our consciousness is embedded in the ‘hologram’ of the universe we created.)  Universes thus begin to find ways to interact with one another, initially only via the one-way transfer of information from parent to child universe, but eventually learning more subtle and sophisticated ways to directly interact with sibling universes and with ancestor universes, perhaps through wormholes, perhaps by tapping into the ‘one vacuum’ in unknown ways.  Of course, we’re now into highly speculative realms of science fiction or pure mythopoeia.

 

16.   Flat World.  A virtual (yet arguably physical) specific example of a putative hyper-realm where the community of conscious universes begin to gather as they learn to interact with one another in ever more complex ways.  At the center of Flat World is the original Font of sterile ‘germ baby’ universes (covered in item 3. of this list), ever gushing out an endless stream of them.  The source appears like a blazing sun, with each simple universe somehow like a photon and each living one like a single cell organism.  Without justification, I envision the inner portion of this radiating effusion of universes to take the form of a flat, rotating disc, like a galaxy.

 

17.   The likely predominance of simulated universes in Flat World.  Here is where future humans come to play their virtual reality games.  But some important simulations are not games at all, but scientific and experimental.  Research.  Among the myriad experiments are those that are attempting to reproduce that first transcendence of intelligent life—Adam and Eve, the literal first man and woman, truly alone in their newly born child universe, given the command to be fruitful and multiply.

 

 


 

Beyond The Great Stream

 

 

 

Beyond the realm of the basic Great Stream Hypothesis is the reminder that the Font that begat our particular universe remains just one more unremarkable object within the indifferent Chaos.

 

Indeed, it can be imagined that our putative Flat World—gathering place of uncountable universes—is not even a basic object in the Chaos at all, but a derivative fragment of the original ‘enduring object’.

 

Imagine that you are a conscious universe-entity standing on Flat World, looking up at the ‘sky,’ and seeing other points of light—other Flat Worlds.

 

What if these other ‘stars’ are part of a great hyper-cosmos?  What if our particular Flat World is merely a single ‘atom’ within a majestic ‘hyper-universe’ with its own set of physical laws?

 

This possibility illustrates that our universe may be so far removed from any fundamental original ‘source’ as a single ‘enduring object’ that it is truly hopeless to speculate as to how it came into being.

 

 

Hopeless?  Who said:

“Where there is life there is hope”?

 

It is in our DNA to have hope.  And it is within our DNA that we may someday recognize the interconnectedness of all this vast, mind-boggling landscape of possibility.

 

So, we now further extend the thought experiment.

 

What if that hyper-universe of ‘zillions’ of Flat Worlds is but one molecule within a single cell in a vast intelligent living being, who dwells on a planet in a solar system within a galaxy in some mega-hyper-uber-universe, which is itself only a speck …

 

… You get the idea … Infinite regress.

 

Or, alternatively, perhaps reality is cyclical.  What if that speck is a mote of dust floating in the air in the room where you sit reading this?

 

Paradox within Paradox

—the Gateway to the streaming wonder of existence.


 

 


 

 

Spirituality

 

  

 

In summary, the ‘Great Stream’ formed from the Ultimate but it is not the Ultimate;

it is the small part of the Ultimate that we can hope to grasp.

 

 

That is a paraphrase from an ancient text.

Chapter 1 of the Tao Te Ching reads:

 

“The Tao that can be told

is not the ultimate Tao.

The name that can be named

is not the ultimate Name.

 

The unnamable is the eternally true.

Naming is the origin of particular things.”

 

One could do worse than to look to that ancient

faith tradition called Taoism

to explain the Great Stream.

 

For one thing,

the name of the ‘Ultimate’ is the name of the faith.

 


(Compare with faiths named for an individual

[Christianity, Buddhism, Zoroastrian]

Or a population [Hindu, Judaism]

Or attributes of its followers

[Islam, Sikh, Jain, Shinto].)

 

I prefer what is simplest.

 

There is only the Tao.

Nothing gets in its way.

 

Here is the rest of Chapter 1:

 

“Free from desire, you touch the mystery;

Caught in desire you see only the manifestations.

 

Yet mystery and manifestations

arise from the same source.

It is called Paradox.

 

Paradox within Paradox:

the gateway to ultimate truth.”

 

Consciousness limits us.

To be ‘free from desire’,

one must transcend

the ‘now’ and the ‘me’.

 


 

 

 

 

 

Spiritual Influence

 

TAO TE CHING

 

道德經

 

 

… being the exploration of the ‘Dao’

– the ‘Ultimate,’

that of which there is no greater – and the way of attaining its limitless power.

 

Let us postulate a fictitious deity

that presides over our Reality

We will call her Dalle (yes, she is female),

from the French root meaning ‘channel’

—the central current

of the ever-changing Great Stream.

Dalle is the personalization of the ‘Dao’

(and a ‘corruption’ of that ineffable name).

 

In the fictional world of the novel Eden’s Womb,

Dalle plays a minor role as a River Goddess,

however, in our reality, She takes the role of Strongmother, the embodiment of our real, physical universe.

 

Dalle’s holy book is our genome—our DNA—so it is inherently personal to each individual.

 

Although I once created a Facebook Page

called the Communion of Dalle,

it was merely a thought experiment.

 

I do not proselytize.

All the trappings of my personal faith

in Dalle are strictly

“A Religion of One.”

 

Paraphrasing Chapter 6 of the Tao Te Ching:

 

Dalle never dies.

She is called mystical Strongmother.

Her doorway is the root of Heaven and Earth.

 

Gossamer, as if barely existing,

She is found within:

Always in use, never spent.”

 


 

 

Summary

 

 

The Great Stream begins

with the origin of our universe, via

evolutionary succession from an ancient germ,

as I believe.

 

Our universe is always in motion.

A hundred years ago it was proven

that it could not stand still

and appear as we see it.

 

Great currents of matter swirl within it,

and within those emerged our planet

and its Great Stream of Life,

ever changing, ever dynamic.

 

And this is how, in practical terms,

I equate “The Great Stream”

to the message of our DNA

—the flow of evolution—

where the fast flowing central current

is the Way of the most successful species.

 

Those Venerable Ones,

as I call them,

have come closest to what we all seek:

‘Everlasting Life, Peace and Security’

 

And so, my desire is to tap into

that ancient state of being.

  It is built into all of us.  The goal is to learn to recognize its manifestations in the every-day ‘conscious’ mind, not trying to search for it, or to work toward it, but to let it appear.

 

It most naturally comes not by shutting oneself away from Nature, trying to control the restless body, and meditating*, but rather by celebrating the body’s restless instincts, immersing oneself deep in Nature, ever on the move and alert, experiencing Nature in the way that our distant ancestors and ancestor species have done for billions of years,

via the deep message of our personal DNA.

 

For me, this state of mind most often comes into bloom during long walks, alone, deep in the woods…

 

 

Walking the Way of The Great Stream:

The Pilgrimage

with no outward destination

 

 

Walk with Nature.  Walk alone.

Quiet your footsteps,

still your breathing.

Walk as if you are stalking prey.

 

Because you are.

 

Open the senses.

Not just five.  There are hundreds of senses.

Thousands.

Revelation itself is a sense.  As are awe and wonder.

Joy.  Peace.  Strength.

Look to sense them all within.

 

Release the mind.

Then your path becomes Nature’s path.

 

Consciousness limits us.

It locks us into a tiny cocoon called ‘now’

in a body called ‘me’

which drifts on vast and ever-changing currents.

 

The Great Stream.

 

We cannot fathom its depths using consciousness.

To know the Great Stream

—to understand its motion, its direction—

we must escape the ‘now’ and the ‘me’

become the current,

immerse in the flow.

Feel it with a thousand senses.

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Meditation looks for the stillness within.

Pure consciousness, transcending the self.

Reaching it at last, you flow into that oneness.

Stream into the glorious light.

 

Perhaps it is the same place.

 


References are made, in the above, to the Firestorm tab on this blog.  It's a good supplement to what is discussed here.

Nobody ... I mean not one person, ever ... has encouraged me in this endeavor.  So, I can't explain why I spend so much time and energy on it.  Well ... maybe I can ... it satisfies a needa need for closure on every and all questions that I become aware of.  I am fundamentally a 'seeker'.  And that fundamentally makes me a Pathfinder.  I believe some of the answers I've uncovered have value and could find their way into public discourse eventually  but in this information-saturated age, with AI and SEO (search engine optimization) producing so much hot-button garbage, and with attention spans ever shortening ... well ... maybe not. 

“Unheeded, happy, and close to the wild heart of life” as James Joyce put it.

Revisions will probably be forthcoming, from time to time, for as long as I am able to pound my fingers on a keyboard.






No comments:

Post a Comment