But, who wrote the code? — Derrick Huestis

We are back to the Great Scientist Programmer Deity, although many believers don't want a 'God' like that, plus what is He doing sitting around there all fully formed as the First.

I was an information engineer computer programmer at IBM for 31 years creating software in support of the logic design. I've been retired for 20 years now.



An Unnatural Universe? Fine Tuning?

Physicists note that the universe seems unnatural, in that 6-7 base parameters had to be just what they are, to the nth degree.

Some of the parameters can be understood:

From Victor Stenger:

For fine-tuning, only ‘dimensionless’ numbers that do not depend on the system of units are meaningful. The Fine Structure ‘Constant, ‘a’, is not even a constant. There can still be long-lived stars if we vary the parameters and certainly the universe is not fine-tuned for this characteristic. The 7.65 million electron-volts needed for Carbon to form actually hinges on the radioactive state of a carbon nucleus formed out of three helium nuclei, which has over a 20% range to work with without being too high. The vacuum energy of the universe is not fine-tuned, for the large value of N1 is simply an artifact of the use of small masses in making the comparison. The Expansion Rate of the Universe in not fine-tuned since the universe appeared from an earlier state of zero energy; thus, energy conservation would require the exact expansion rate that is observed. Same for the Mass Density of the Universe.

Plus see:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/07/05/the-universe-itself-may-be-unnatural/?sh=763422766c9d:

https://futurism.com/is-the-universe-unnatural

Has the multiverse finally become necessary?

The quantum fields can still be the All; they are there before and after Big Bangs; they are always there.

Not exactly. The energy released by the sun is many times less then the energy of the big bang, but as that energy dissipates smaller creations can come to be, all the way down to us weak humans. Basically, we needed the energy of the universe to lessen to come into being. As power goes down, creativity rises. — Derrick Huestis

The sun's energy is as a thousand atomic bombs going off every second, a mere pittance compared to the Big Bang. It's just the Bang made the sun to be possible. Our sun is a third generation metal-rich star, which is also what we needed, plus our planet being in the Goldilocks zone with other right conditions such as having a moon (else the Earth would wobble like a top, its surface areas ever going in and out of zones too freezing and too hot, alternating).

Glad you're still looking into the logic! There's no greater philosophical quest.

Just curious. Turning it around. Does opera inspire your poetry ?
What do you listen to when you write ? — Amity

No, not regular opera, but more like the 'Phantom of the Opera', which music doesn't seem to ever wear out, or just any emotional music.

My poetic style is kind of a blend of Shelley and Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat, as in particular the Rubaiyat quatrain of ten syllables, with some variations:

The verses beat the same, in measured chime.
Lines one-two set the stage, one-two-four rhyme.
Verse three’s the pivot around which thought turns;
Line four delivers the sting, just in time.

Such as:

“I’m the darkest,” boasts the Shadow to the Night.
“No,” gloats Midnight, “compared to me you’re bright.”
“You floodlights!” crows Starless Space, “Stop your fight.
The darkest plight is the lack of Love’s delight!”

I'm still hoping that some of my more lyrical poems can get sung, but may have to settle for now for some the Rubaiyat's quatrains sung, since two singers have done so that I found and incorporated into videos (they changed some of the words to make it easier to sing):

Dorthy Ashby:










Michael Montecrosssa (Bob Dylan style)(my favorite Rubaiyat rendition):




And finally, one of mine that I sang, ha, ha, needs improvement:

I then asked the Alien, “Is there randomness?”

“Your Anton Zeillinger found that randomness is the bedrock of reality to a confidence level of 3-sigma.”

“I guess so, then, but why the randomness?”

“The bedrock as the eternal fundamental with no beginning can’t have any input to it.”

“Wow! That makes sense. Does this randomness carry through all the way up?”

“Obviously, no; there is consistency in the laws of nature, regularities amenable to mathematics.”

“When and how does the randomness go away?”

“Gravity overcomes the vibrations that underlie superpositions when things get as large as a tiny piece of dust.”

“How come we didn’t know that?”

“Roger Penrose did, maybe.”

“Or?”

“When entities no longer touch the bedrock, or both ways, or another way, called decoherence.”

“Ha, you don’t really know!”

“I’ll have to ask an even higher alien.”

Intermission: one of my videos:

a few possible arguments in promotion of the idea of a mind:

1. I've presented the case for creativity… — Derrick Huestis

Look into fine tuning.

2. Consciousness as a higher-level of existence. — Derrick Huestis

In our universe, the lesser ever leads to the greater.

God as a personal being who is believed to be caring and salvaging the world would be beneficial for the followers and believers for giving the possible psychological comforts in their daily lives and hope for the possible immortality after death. — Corvus

Yes, the belief provides comfort.

It is doubtful if quantum field as a replacement for God could serve any purpose at all. — Corvus

It's doubtful that an Eternal Fundamental Existence with no beginning and thus no input could have any purpose. The only trait is that it cannot not be; that is the complete message: being is a must.

An idea that illustrates what I have in mind would be that an Intelligent Alien can, for example, perceive how quantum indeterminacy happens in an intuitive matter. Much the way we intuit how the Sun goes around the Earth. — Manuel

The Alien told me that instead the Earth goes around the sun; I explained that it was a typo.

The Alien further said that we shouldn't focus on just one probabilistic result but find the general pattern, which is that the probabilities are unitary in that they add up to one, showing precise group behavior; this is the pattern.

Any thoughts? — Manuel

Our instruments detect what we can't detect though our senses, although not yet dark matter.

Conscious experiences are of qualia as reality based 'apparitions' honed in the early years and onward from outward in and inward out into what is the best guess for the model and so soon one can tell a bottle of milk apart from what’s else. It’s not like the waves have a label on them saying that they came from the bottle but that one kept estimating the separate object into the best representation. Well, there is a bit of help in that light waves peel information of an object to help isolate it.

In a night dream, the apparitions and phantasms are as true ghosts in that they have no outside basis, but the same world-simulating model is being employed, already having its best guess available.

The identification of you as a self is also an experience as a best guess estimate.

no one really takes seriously his theory of the immaterial substance soul these days. — Corvus

Well, many religious 'God' followers believe in the 'immaterial soul' and the rest of the 'supernatural' in the way of having hopes and wishes. It's a whole nother story of why they want it.

It sounds too imaginative and naive judgement to conclude that quantum field is God for all the reasons listed up there. — Corvus

Well, QFT doesn't prove 'God' as a Person with Mind but rather replaces and gets rids of that type of 'God' idea to leave us with just a Ground of Determination (G.O.D.) type basis. Even the Deity 'God' becomes unnecessary as redundant.

QFT needs to be expanded to include quantum gravity and dark matter (unless neutrinos are already it) and then it will become the Complete Theory of Everything rather than very nearly.

Do you have any real life examples for these events? — Corvus

The closest I can think of that is of our real life is Descartes' declared separate and distinct categories of the mental and the physical. This fell apart because then the mental and the physical would not be able to interact.

Further, there is no 'metaphysical' being true by just saying the word. So, it's not like we can have an option to say if 'God' is 'spiritual' or 'supernatural' or 'intangible', and such. We have to see what comes out of any analysis we can do to approach it to make it have to be so.

Derricks' truth and proof of Existence not being optional really already suffices, but for us being curious as to its method, and quantum fields answers this.

We apparently don't have all the Omnis to the extent wished for in a 'Person God with Mind', but this may not be what Reality is bound to, plus how could any mind be fundamental, much less a really extensive one.

I suggested a Deity Scientist rather than a personal-god Theity Magician, but we can only meet a Deity's doings at the Big Bang, which we are not yet able to do, but, again, with Existence being a must, there is not really any more to it that it has to answer to.

science said — Corvus

Not just "said", as religion does, but shown and used and known.

Whatever accords to the OP, especially the happy case of a real physical example, is a candidate for 'God'. The OP starts with 'nonexistence' not being possible and thus the Base and Only Existence having to mandatory and continuous, without even any little spacers of 'nonexistence' with it.

Quantum fields are such, as fundamental, with no deeper parts, and omnipresent, as everywhere, with all the omnipotence they can have, as power to form the elementary particles, and omniscient, in the way of what all can become from it.

An example of what is not fundamental would be such as a proton, for it has quark constituents that have to be prior. What is fundamental, then, is of an even more lightness of being, such as fields.

No one knows if there is 'God' or what its nature would be if there is 'God', such as Personhood.

The suggestion was to define the nature of your God in its substance. Is it physical, spiritual or conceptual? Or non physical something like space? I am not sure what exchanging energies mean. Could you please elaborate on that, if relevant. Thanks. — Corvus

"Exchanging energies" means to be able to interact with the material. If something 'mysterious' is inert or of a distinct and separate category, then it's as if it isn't even there. If not, then it's material, too, since it can interact.

So, no 'intangible', 'non-physical', etc., affecting us and we back. 'Supernatural' would thus seem to be out and not there, or if it is then never the twain shall meet.

There's no 'space' as nonphysical. The quantum fields exhaust reality. "All is field", as Einstein claimed. There is also no space as something separate from the fields that is just there to hold the fields.

I am not sure if randomly promoting the quantum fields to the Fundamental Existence has any meaning when the OP has been trying to prove God. — Corvus

Not "randomly" promoting.

Quantum Field Theory is the most successful, accurate, and important Theory in the history of science, giving us the Standard Model and a myriad of devices that work.

The quantum fields accord with Derrick’s points in his OP, and further inform us in physical actuality of labels and associations that have been also used for ‘God’.

Since the quantum fields are already fundamental, the hypothesis for ‘God’ would want to attend to that.

Non-existence can't exist

-so, there must be infinite existence in all directions for all time

-something which exists carries certain attributes: is affected by things, effects things, takes up space and encompasses time

-things are separated by things which are not of the same type, so the only thing that could separate existence itself would be nonexistence which cannot exist, thus there must be one undivided existence

-this undivided existence must carry all the attributes labeled above. These attributes, when defined as being all-encompassing, define all the omni's associated with God: omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient. And perpetual change through creativity: omnificent.

-add to this the fact that it must encompass all time: eternal, and you get all the labels attributed to God

-thus, the notion of God can be grasped from a purely logical standpoint. — "Derrick

Applause and encore ? — Amity

Yes, both, to the fine summary of the Magnificat.

Next, here's one about the decay in energy's quality driving everything:

ALL THAT LIES BETWEEN As Energy

Energy is a beauty and a brilliance,
Flashing up in its destructance,
For everything isn’t here to stay its “best”;
It’s merely here to die in its sublimeness.

Like slow fires making their brands, it breeds,
Yet ever consumes and moves on, as more it feeds,
Then spreads forth anew, this unpurposed dispersion,
An inexorable emergence with little reversion,

Ever becoming of its glorious excursions,
Bearing the change that patient time restrains,
While feasting upon the glorious decayed remains
In its progressive march through losses for gains.

We have oft described the causeless—
That which was always never the less,
As well as the beginnings of our quest,
And too have detailed in the rarest of glimpses
The slowing end of all of forever’s chances.

So now we must now turn our attention keen
To all of the action that exists in-between—
All that’s going on and has gone before,
Out to the furthest reaches, ever-more,

For everything that ever happens,
Including life and all our questions,
Meaning every single event ever gone on,
Of both the animate and the non,
Is but from a single theme played upon.

This then is of the simplest analysis of all,
For it heeds mainly just one call—
That of the second law’s dispersion,

The means for each and every occasion,
From the closest to the farthest range—
That which makes anything change.

These changes range from the simple,
Such as a bouncing ball resting still,
Or ice melting that gives up its chill,
To the more complex, such as digestion,

Growth, death, and even reproduction.
There is excessively subtle change as well,
Such as the formations of opinions tell
And the creation or rejections of the will,

And yet all these kinds of changes, of course,
Still become of one simple, common source,
Which is the underlying collapse into chaos—
The destiny of energy’s unmotivated non-purpose.

All that appears to us to be motive and purpose
Is in fact ultimately motiveless, without purpose.
Even aspirations and their achievement’s ways
Have fed on and come about through the decay.

The deepest structure of change is but decay,
Although it’s not the quantity of energy’s say
That causes decay, but the quality, for it strays.

Energy that is localized is potent to effect change,
And in the course of causing change it ranges,
Spreading and becoming chaotically distributed,
Losing its quality but never of its quantity rid.

The key to all this, as we will see,
Is that it goes though stages wee,
And so it doesn’t disperse all at once,
As might one’s paycheck inside of a month.

This harnessed decay results not only for
Civilizations but for all the events going fore
In the world and the universe beyond,

It accounting for all discernible change
Of all that ever gets so rearranged,
For the quality of all this energy kinged
Declines, the universe unwinding, as a spring.

Chaos may temporarily recede,
Quality building up for a need,
As when cathedrals are built and formed,
And when symphonies are performed,

But these are but local deceits
Born of our own conceits,
For deeper in the world of kinds
The spring inescapably unwinds,
Driving its energy away—
As All is being driven by decay.

The quality of energy meant
Is of its dispersal’s extent.
When it is totally precipitate,
It destroys, but when it’s gait
Is geared through chains of events
It can produce civilization’s tenants.

Ultimately, energy naturally,
Spontaneously, and chaotically
Disperses, causing change, irreversibly.

Think of a group of atoms jostling,
At first as a vigorous motion happening
In some corner of the atomic crowd;

They hand on their energy, loud,
Inducing close neighbors to jostle too,
And soon the jostling disperses too—
The irreversible change but the potion
Of the ‘random’, motiveless motion.

And such does hot metal cool, as atoms swirl,
There being so many atoms in the world
Outside it than in the block metal itself
That entropy’s statistics average themselves.

The illusions of purpose lead us to think
That there are reasons, of some motive link,
Why one change occurs and not another,

And even that there are reasons that cover
Specific changes in locations of energy,
The energy choosing to go there, intentionally,

Such as a purpose for a change in structure,
This being as such as the opening of a flower,
Yet this should not be confused with energy
Achieving to be there in that specific bower,

Since at root, of all the power,
Even that of the root of the flower,
That there is the degradation by dispersal,
This being mostly non reversible and universal.

The energy is always still spreading thencely,
Even as some temporarily located density—
An illusion of specific change
In some region rearranged,

But actually it’s just lingering there, discovering,
Until new opportunities arise for exploring,
The consequences but of ‘random’ opportunity,
Beneath which, purpose still vanishes entirely.

Events are the manifestations
Of overriding probability’s instantiations—
Of all of the events of nature, of every sod,
From the bouncing ball to conceptions of gods,
Of even free will, evolution, and all ambition,

For they’re of our simple idea’s elaborations,
Although for the latter stated there
And such for that as warfare
Their intrinsic simplicity is buried more deeply.

And yet though sometimes concealed away,
The spring of all creation is just decay,
The consequence and instruction
Of the natural tendency to corruption.

Love or war become as factions
Through the agency of chemical reactions,
The actions being the chains of reactions,
Whether thinking, doing, or rapt in attention,
For all that happens is of chemical reaction.

At its most rudimentary bottom,
Chemical reactions are rearrangements of atoms,
These being species of molecules
That with perhaps additions and deletions
Then go on to constitute another one, by fate,
Although they sometimes only change shape,

But too can be consumed and torn apart,
Either as a whole or in part, so cruel,
As a source of atoms for another molecule.

Molecules have neither motive nor purpose to act,
Neither an inclination to go on to react
Nor any urge to remain unreacted;
So then why do reactions occur if unacted?

Molecules are but loosely structured
And so they can be easily ruptured,
For reactions may occur if the process energy norm
Is degraded into a more dispersed and chaotic form,

And so as they usually are constantly subject
To the tendency to lose energy, as the abject
Jostling carries it away to the surroundations,
Reactions being misadventure’s transformations,

It then being that some transient arrangements
May suddenly be frozen into permanences
As the energy leaps away to other experiences.

So, molecules are a stage in which the play goes on,
But not so fast that the forms cannot seize upon;

But really, why do molecules have such fragility,
For if their atoms were as tightly bound as nuclei,
Then the universe would have died, being frozen,
Long before the awakening of the forms chosen,

Or if molecules were as totally free to react
Every single time they touched a neighbor’s pact
Then all events would have taken place so rapidly
And so very crazily and haphazardly

That the rich attributes of the world we know
Would not have had the needed time to grow.

Ah, but it is all of the necessitated restraint,
For it ever takes time a scene to paint,
As such as in the unfolding of a leaf,
The endurations for any stepping feat,

As of the emergence of consciousness
And the paused ends of energy’s restlessness:
It’s of the controlled consequence of collapse
Rather than one that’s wholly precipitous.

So now all is known of our heres and nows
Within this parentheses of the eternal boughs,
As well as the why and how of it all has come,
And of our universe’s end, but that others become.

Out of energy’s dispersion and decay of quality
Comes the emergence of growth and complexity.

(The verse lines, being like molecules warmed,
Continually broke apart and reformed
About the rhymes which tried to be non intrusions,
Eventually all flexibly stabilizing to conclusions.)

Conservation of energy — Derrick Huestis

What I wrote once:

To look for what endures in the ongoing cause,
Turn to the basics, such as the conversation laws,
For they in summation with infinite precision
Maintain the balance in all the decisions.


On infinite precision:

https://www.quantamagazine.org/does-time-really-flow-new-clues-come-from-a-century-old-approach-to-math-20200407/

Here you get it wrong, the universe is in every way like a magnificent mind, performing many trillions upon trillions of calculations instantaneously without flaw. "Conservation of energy" is possible because the universe never makes an error in its calculations. What is tricky to explain isn't how a Mind could be first, but how the First Mind could create many minds much like it but so much smaller (and unfortunately sizably more inclined to error as well). — Derrick Huestis

I'm OK in that we have to build up to the desired points, which you are hinting at getting on to, since the readers won't all be that accepting of as declarations of "Mind" being so, especially as this is the polar opposite inverse of what they see in the reality of the history of the universe.

Perhaps 'conservation of energy' is just due to how it has to be traded without lending/borrowing possible. There is only the energy that was or is becoming.

The Fundamental never rests and so we see a kind of topological-like transmutation of it (since it ever remains as itself) as constant change according to what we call the laws of nature, with no miracles, skips, blips, or errors unless it has some 'random', which could be because the Fundamental can't have any input to it. We on Earth are in the Goldilocks zone, where we naturally ought to be, and not impossibly out near Neptune.

As smaller minds inside the 'Mind' or created outside of it, we have to be less, and from other limits, too, perhaps as being in a lower dimension, being chained to time, limited ingredients put in, of a poor craftsman, and never being able to equal the One Mind because there can only be One.

Of course, it was easy for us to out think the 'God' of the Old Testament and its cosmology and more, but that shows nothing but the human writing of a bad role model into it that many would not follow in the sense of the imitation of His qualities portrayed.

The intended design by 'God' as the Designer or by evolution as a design without a designer evidently had to be what it became, although it's not all that pretty, but workable, and it really sticks that we can't tell one case from the other, suggesting that 'God' is the same as nature and thus a redundant idea.

Most of the universe seems to a vast wasteland, most of the 10**76 'particles' of it. It's as if among all that extravagance, there was likely to be a few planets having the right conditions for life, it still taking 13 billions years of cosmic and biological evolution to get to that life, giving credence to natural processes from a very messy Big Bang.

We have to somehow dig deeper to get to the 'Mind' doing it.

(Amity, please turn all this into something like a grand opera.) — PoeticUniverse

Amity — Amity

Done yet? Maybe your lute people could do it.

Without science I can approach and try to surround these events too. So can my dog. — MikeBlender

My cat decided that a static discharge was a pain and so growled at the person who did it ever since.

Is it even worth it to engage with these people? — Xtrix

Not worth it, for they are stuck in their notions from thoughts that so often fired together that they became very strongly wired together. It shows a fixed will to the nth degree as well as an inhibited learning disability that prevents a new and wider range of will to form beyond the stuck notion.

What we get out of it is the knowing of this trait being able to be so in human nature.

In the case of not wearing masks and not getting vaccinated, it's even the simplest of science that can't be understood, so no wonder that great stuckness is prevalent in many less simple areas, too.

So, they will die, but at least evolution has this new opening to rid us of stupid people.

So ask a simple question: "what is gravity?", "what is a particle?", "what is magnetism?". The answers given are only the effects we can perceive of the phenomena. As to what these things are, we don't know. — Manuel

Yes, we approach and try to surround these events thanks to science.

Quantum gravity remains elusive because it is a universal effect and so it cannot be renormalized such as was done with the electromagnetic in QED.

The electric and the magnetic transition one into the other and back, and so forth, as a self-generating wave. An elementary particle is known to be the certain stable energy quanta of its quantum field.

We know in general that more and more complexity emerges from the simpler and simpler from past to future.

Trying to assert an invisible, inaudible, untouchable, and un-perceivable object as some existence is irrational. — Corvus

Yes. The immaterial can’t exchange energy with the material unless they speak each other’s language, but if they can, then there is no distinct category of immaterial at play in the first place.

Every existence is optional and contingent. — Corvus

The temporaries come and go; the Fundamental Existence of the quantum fields remains.

spiritual — Corvus

Can there be a distinct and separate intangible category such as called 'spiritual' which cannot walk the walk and talk the talk of the materiel? If so, it can't interact with us and so it just goes along its separate and merry way.

Anyway, there’s no big wondering required for where things came from. Existence isn’t optional; it is mandatory because ‘nonexistence’ cannot be, much less be productive. Forever quantum fields are already seen as fundamental. There is no ‘coming from’ for what is eternal.

So what is the purpose of his existence? — Corvus

We'd first have to show Him to be, and then identify His nature, and then get at His purpose, although He appears to be an unnecessary step to posit in the first place, for Existence has to be. and that's that, end of story, not needing anything extra.

The Knowing From
The Blowing of the Big Bang

Into this Universe, and why not knowing,
Nor whence, like water willy-nilly flowing:
And out of it, as wind along the waste,
Omar knew not whither, willy-nilly blowing…

Now I’m knowing, that out of this muddle,
Indeed, it’s that chaos doth free me to be,
For it’s all of disorder in disarray,
An ultimate disorganized confusion,
Whence all sprung, banged, and exploded,
With no hint or trace of order, law or plan.

‘Twas mayhem, bedlam, and pandemonium,
Wreaking havoc upon the turmoil of a tumult,
Heaping high upon, a commotion of disruption,
In the utter fullness of the uproaring upheaval…

The maelstrom to end all messes and shambles,
The lawless free-for-all of total energetic anarchy,
Entropy crowned the King of the great hullabaloo,
That cosmic hoopla from which all hell broke loose.

Never there was to punish one for not even knowing,
Why you are here in this world so much growing,
That become here all so willy-nilly going.
As life’s rose—outspread your fragrance blowing!

Whither flowing free, whether knowing, or not,
Hitherto, I know not whence, but am whither going,
Willy-nilly, hence that’s all there is to knowing…
Hence thither forth I go on hither flowing to find
That I am ever more free to be in body and mind.

It is of Ovid’s “rude and indigested mass:
The lifeless lump, unfashion'd, and unfram'd,
Of jarring seeds; and justly Chaos nam’d.

“No sun was lighted up, the world to view;
No moon did yet her blunted horns renew:
Nor yet was Earth suspended in the sky,
Nor pois’d, did on her own foundations lye:

“Nor seas about the shores their arms had thrown;
But earth, and air, and water, were in one.
Thus air was void of light, and earth unstable,
And water's dark abyss unnavigable.”

So it is that we the living might hereby agree,
To live a being that is much more intense,
To leap toward higher orders of actuality,
To revel in the glories of this conscious life,
To attain each minute a more euphoric joy…

And to bring this forth to all,
The increased intensity
Of life’s experience,
And build on it, etc.,

Ever growing;
Forever, amen.

Well, don't be shy. Sing us some with dance moves :cool: — Amity

I wish someone could sing some of my poems and accompany the songs with music, as there are no good apps for that yet… but they are trying to be.

Here's a dance only form a lady who I created. I haven't taught her to sing yet.



A philosophical science poem of mine on a rare subject (of a few that I found):

AFTER THE STARS HAVE GONE—
THE FINAL, SILENT DARK

The Last Chance Saloon

Entropy is always the winner in the end,
When there’s no more energy left to lend;
Meanwhile, we stabilize, in nature’s ways,
Rearranging resources temporarily.

Prelude

Going beyond our very old obsession so vast,
Of how it all began, back in the distant past,
Yet retaining our search for meaning, from that,
We now turn to how will it all end, this and that,
Whether becoming collapsed, expended, or flat.

Is there is some deep meaning in all that?

Yes, for it is there in that future distance,
We’ll find or not the end of our persistence,
Whether or not we are at all forever resistant,

Whether all that was and what was did and done
Will be of any long-lasting benefit to anyone—
Of what destiny awaits, if there ever was one.

Endings are important to us, of what we’re about,
Because we believe that how things turn out
Implies what the beginnings ultimately meant,
Of what or not is our place in the firmament.

As an ambitious species of nurture and nature
We now and have always pointed toward the future,
For, of the three forms of the chimpanzee:
The common chimp, the bonobo, and us, we
Are the only chimp who went beyond the trees…

And more importantly, ever out of Africa freed,
By that exodus, which laid down, indeed,
From that experience, the urge and the need
To move on, exploring, ever planting another seed.

The horizons on Earth sufficed us through time
For many millennia but now the horizons’ climes
Have broadened, through cosmology and physics,
And so they can well inform us of our prospects.

The future matters to us for very basic reasons:
We wish to offset our mortality, our pleasin’s,
To know if humanity’s works for every season
Will be remembered, or lost—all for nothing, even.

The Final, Silent Dark Marches On…

Time hurls a million waves of its displacements
At us, yet we are still here—the replacements.

Time ever gray with age hurls its changes then,
‘Gainst existence’s rock, time and time again,
The entropic seas denuding the sands,
Yet energy is preserved via nature’s wands.

Reminiscence had weathered but could ne’er wither,
For in the mists of time yesteryear yet appeared,
Since, without future, ‘past’ is all they’d have.

Would the prospect of a ‘Big Crunch’ bring on mania,
In an ever more confining claustrophobia?

Seems a better thought, somehow, though no picnic,
But more pleasing if the universe were to be cyclic,
Although then all would still be really crushed,
And forever lost, gone headlong into the rush.

We expect cycles, for all the days and seasons
Embedded this in our ancestors, into our reasons,
Since at least the periodic supplies some rhythm,
A pattern—the rolling hills of lives onward driven.

As for cyclic, endless repetitions, they too
Would seem to revolt more of us than just a few;
As too perhaps would some infinite abyss of time,
Which both grant us neither reason nor rhyme.

Does the drama go on forever, or does it end?
What do the visions of the future portend?
Doesn’t it all have some purpose meant—
A goodly end that all of it to us might it present?

Is our higher mammal time certainly
But of such a short parentheses within eternity?

It’s only a finite time then, which too tends
To horrify so many, as the universe ends,
Such as told by Robert Frost, a name of chill:
In heat or in cold, known as fire or ice, still.

Should we not believe in God since nothing lasts?

Well, if nothing lasts then of what our purpose past?

Is a purpose really required, so constructive,
Or would that really be quite restrictive?

No realm could really be special or sent,
Its becoming being of some specific intent,
For all has arrived as a causeless non-precedent.

Is there anything wrong with the freedom to be,
Anywhere, any how, or any time during eternity?

Should we rail against the law of entropy—
The ‘heat death’ of thermodynamic energy,
The second of its final laws, you see,
Because it would destroy all of history?

There are so many ways for disorder to be
Than any one ordered state specifically.

Would even a heaven on Earth become a misery
If as it might, contain no more novelty?

Must there be an end to our revelry?

Can’t we at least hibernate eternally?
Won’t all matter too last eternally?

Will Shakespeare’s works live on, paternally?

Is this not a Wagnerian struggle for eternity?

Science Can Settle Whether a Last Day
Is Ever Going to Come this Way

Only a decade or so ago, with consternation,
We discovered the universe’s acceleration,
Its expansion even increasing, onto a thin disaster,
The galaxies getting further away ever faster—
Then one last snapshot taken, for all to remember.

The accelerating expansion of the universe’s rafters
Means that the universe will cool even ever faster;
So, any rare forms of the future’s life prolongers
Will have to keep themselves ever more cooler,
Think more slowly, and hibernate ever longer.

One day even the protons will fade away,
Leaving but dark matter, electrons, and positrons.

The Waves of the Ancient Swells
Of Time’s Eroding Swells
Swept Ever On…
 
As Time, now hoary with age,
Yet hurls forth its ashen change,
The charge ever san, pale and colorless,
That force born to summon decay, so endless,
‘Gainst Nature’s Universe, every day.
 
Time and time again, Time feeds all upon,
In its bloodless, white, and waxen way,
But our everlasting rose would not fade,

Its luster even brightening by the day,
Ever unsuccumbing to the sickly, peakèd
State draining drawn Earth’s life away.
 
Entropic seas yet denude the mountains,
Yet our enduring flower never-endingly
Has cast Deathly Time aside, as now,
Ceaselessly somehow thriving on
Toward the hope of the near imperishable,

As beauty’s flame e’er inextinguishable,
Forever celebrated as immutable,
Gaining a seemingly perpetual permanence
From the undying love of our glorious dance.

Yet, everything was moving apart, cooling off,
The big slowdown not really so very far off;
Ultimately, even the black holes of late
And the lightless planets would dissipate.

The primordial soup once so rich and hearty
Will become a thin gruel that can’t serve the party.

One day, every particle will be moving away
From every other particle, so much out of the way
That they won’t even be able to see one another;
Thus, for all intents motion will have ceased forever.

Our spurt of life followed by an infinite stretch
Of dark equilibrium was but the briefest sketch—
A warm and fuzzy stage, so interestingly active,
Whose time relatively was but infinitesimive.

Yet we were there in all our glory,
For whenever else could we have been?

…

In the future, uncounted societies of
Overlapping minds accumulate, with love,
In island redoubts, their preserved data burning

With a vital remembrance, in which, returning,
The past is the present and future, they all reliving
The data, even animating it, and ever altering.

Without any new enrichments, the present and future
Reprise the past in this retreat from external nature.
Their candles would have been near invisible to us—
They enduring by diminishing so as not to exhaust.

They made few new memories, a kind of blind sight,
For whatever realities had ever existed out of sight
Of their own mental structures were now fractured,
And thus not so different from those manufactured.

The Penultimate Part of the Final Dark

An Escalating One-Way Trip
From a Fluke to Oblivion

The majority of the energy
Of the universe is dark today,
Although everything else passes
Through it in every way.

It’s everywhere,
Having a component
That repels its own state,
Which cause the expansion of
The universe to much accelerate.

Dark Energy Matters: The Escalation

We’re on a one way trip from the quantum fluke,
That maximal energy within old Planck’s nook,
Heading toward the oblivion of sparse expansion—
All that we ever loved and knew going to extinction.

They sent message of early warnings to some,
In those castles of illusion, yes, many a one—
That they would face the decay, not so far away,
Of the heavy particles—the ‘proton pause’, one day.

No self-assembled granularity can endure
Forever but must return to the substructure,
And so the lives must all transition, it seems,
From heavier to much lighter regimes,

Although this too would not be permanent—
All destined to be swallowed by the firmament.

We have often asked why some space exists,
Why it permits the countless to briefly persist
On Mother Earth, nourished under Father Sky—
All of those finite sparks that light and die.

There were those who endlessly debated
Whether to live in their virtuals unabated
Or to press forwards and outwards, in delirium,
To seek out new localities in the mysterium,

But the pauses of the heavy particles continued,
And so there was nowhere to go for the retinued.

It was much simpler in those days of old
When we thought that universes didn’t go cold,
But that they expanded and then collapsed,
Still destroying all, yet ever giving more to last.

And well before that, once upon a storied time,
We simply made it all up, with tales and rhyme,
In place of any physical observations,
Such as through revealing experimentations.

The past was now a reef of dead accumulation,
A graveyard of various useless information,
Which despite its splendorous beauty
Could not provide for a novel futurity.

The last one of us, born of the sparkness,
Kept a window to the outer darkness…
She looked out from a once brightly
Colored and sparkling inner reality
Into the dark abyss…

There was nothing out there,
All being so lonely and bare—
No more singing of life’s song,
For now everything was gone.

The Final Epilog

There could not have been any specific time,
One that was privileged over any other chime,
Nor any special place, nor any certain form
Arising out of the necessarily causeless realm.

Even the locally specific dates and places past
Of the events’ novel memoirs couldn’t last,
They being writ on water, with no meaning vast,
Disappearing in significance so very fast,
Since it’s only the universals that last.

The protons were now gone from the show,
Having decayed so very long ago
Into positrons—ever canceling the electrons,

And emitting the fleeing light of photons,
There being of course an equal amount
Of protons and electrons in the count.

And of course along with all the protons
Went all of the atomic elements—the end,
All of their forms becoming myth and legend,
As they were still dreamt in night dreams,
Those forms that we once had, so it seemed.

She, as many of a luckily adaptable kind,
Had long since lightened and lighted her mind,
With the dwindling electrons and precious photons—
That beginning light of ancient times growing wan.

Ours had been the only line in the universe,
One that had become sentient, with proto-man first,
The rest of the Cosmos being but a colossal waste,
A foreboding, harsh, and very dangerous place.

She was now the only one left,
Having outlived all of the rest.
The universe was near crumbling away,
Having run out of space, time, and all its sway.

She was dispersing, melting, into the vacuum, lone,
But she held on for another thousand years, alone,
And then she too was gone,
Being the last of the hominid’s song,

Of all that was sapient: the Magnificat,
The composition of Earth’s sweet plot,
The greatest symphony that was ever sown,
It now having faded into the unknown.

From near nothingness our forms became,
And into the same must go our remains.

If the unknown be such, though it’s otherwise;
But if it’s yet called ‘unknown’ then the reply
Is still for sure that we’re free to be, anywise.

If you’ve shed a tear reading here
For both the far and the near and dear
It won’t make their graves green again,
But it’s possible that life could begin again…

Be of Good Cheer—the sullen Month will die,
And a young Moon requite us by and by:
Look how the Old one meagre, bent, and wan
With Age and Fast, is fainting from the Sky! (—Omar)

Our fruits are of a universal seed
As the yield of All possibility treed,
And siblings elsewhere in the entropic sea
Will also be born of such probability.

The Eternal Return

Behind the Veil, being that which e’er thrives,
The Eternal IS has ever been alive,
For that which hath no onset cannot die,
Nor a point from which to impart its Why.

Some time it needed to learn Everything for,
And now well knows how the bubbles to pour,
Of existence, in some like universe,
As those that wrote your poem and mine, every verse.

So, as thus, thou lives on yester’s credit line
In nowhere’s midst, now in this life of thine,
As of its bowl your cup of brew was mixed
Into the state of being that’s called “mine”.

Yet worry you that this Cosmos is the last,
That the likes of us will become the past,
Space wondering whither whence we went
After the last of us her life has spent?

The Eternal Saki has thus formed
Trillions of baubles like ours, and will form,
Forevermore—the comings and passings
Of which it ever emits to immerse
Of those universal bubbles blown and burst.

So fear not that a debit close your
Account and mine, knowing the like no more;
The Eternal Cycle from its pot has pour’d
Zillions of bubbles like ours, and will pour.

When You and I behind the cloak are past
But the long while the next universe shall last,
Which of one’s approach and departure the All grasps
As might the sea’s self heed a pebble cast.

Seasonings

Nature springs from winter’s tomb,
The bloom already in the seed,
The trees within the acorns.

Surging sprigs sprout from the soil;
Spring showers make the summer flower.

Summer wakes from spring’s dying kiss,
Blooming when the rose does,
Sunning after the spring’s running.

Summer reigns upon the land,
Eventually fading in the night.

Autumn falls as summer leaves,
Harvesting its sum of days,
Seconding the rose of spring.

The smile meets the tear—
Fall’s embers last through December.

Ice winds stalk the weed flowers,
The ghosts frosting the dead stalks,
Snow crystals barring all that grows.

Winter is life cooled over;
Melting snows feed spring waters.

(Amity, please turn all this into something like a grand opera.)

!! ATTENTION all Physicists !! — Amity

Maxwell was OK, (7 out of ten) with good rhythm and rhyme, but some of the others stunk as poems and as also from being too technical. There are better ways to write philosophical scientific poems. I may have some myself.

And does he also sends texts using his mobile phone, and watching TVs, drinking beer, while reading his comic books and mags, while taking a break from playing the online games? :rofl: — Corvus

Yes, for we were made in His image.

He gets a quadrillion requests every second from all over our universe and from all the others universes in the Cosmos. He transfers the short ones to his phone and the longer ones to his email for better recall. He's worried about his memory ever since He couldn't retrieve His earliest memory, there not being one since He is Eternal; but He is forever working on it. Perhaps it would be, "Why Me?"

His million-foot-wide TV only shows live reality shows, but they are ever the same old, same old follies of human history. He has no money, so He can't afford Netflix. The churches don't forward the money to Him, even though they accept all denominations. He never can pay when He goes to stores, so they usually put up a sign, "In God We Trust; Others Pay Cash'.

He's too lofty for comic books and so He is currently reading 'The God Delusion' and other books by Richard Dawkins to get the whole story of how his fine-tuning worked. Sometimes He reads 'People' magazine to see how we're doing.

His beer is the ultimate brew, called 'ButWiser', and sometimes He turns water into wine.

He cooks his food in the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation.

He didn't have friends at first, so thus he made humans, but found that He couldn't trust them.

He's so old that He's getting OldTimers' disease, but the up side is that soon everything will seem new and surprising again.

Have no fear though, for He's not at all like his portrayal in the Old Testament.

The next part of the OP appears to be to show 'God' by extending the starting arguments or at least to get on to some more grounded 'God'-like labels out of 'What IS' before layering too much more on to a presumed 'God'.

So far, we have no 'Nothing' existing, thus Indivisible as Continuous with No Separation within, and thus Eternal without Beginning or End;

no Stillness, thus our Constant Change/Time of Presentism, making the Block Universe rather doubtful, although the mode of time favored by theists;

no Determinism projected (but hard to show choice as not stuck to a fixed will of the moment);

'God's' Unconditional Love projected, although confidently, thus no Blame;

no instant evolution, it taking very long, plus a 'God' not observed, thus then projected as perhaps just a Deity 'God' only kicking things off in the Big Bang via fine-tuning scientific expertise, with no likely personal Theity 'God' intervening in time.

It's only the most difficult assignment ever!

And then we have to explain how a Mind could be First, instead of evolving later on, since that is the reverse of the process we see in the history of the universe.

Me might magnify some of our human qualities, such as both being able to view the whole scene at once and also view it in detail, to get an insight into the nature of the 'Designer'.

Scientist deity to some, teacher deity to others — Derrick Huestis

Sometimes you and I gravitate toward the same conclusion, humor aside, that the universe is allowed to go on without pre-determination, as hands off by 'God', and so that is like a Deity. It is also that a 'God' would not be bound to time, plus many don't see him operating in time, doing this, doing this, Himself changing all the time, dumbly bumbling through 13 billion years to get us to come to life.

https://iep.utm.edu/god-time/

I'm taking it that 'God' is timeless/changeless, aka eternal, absolute, fundamental, 'IS' and thus a 'God' operating in time would be a changing 'God'. This is akin to the quantum fields ever remaining as they are, which they have to.

So now I have to invent a word, 'Theity', which isn't in the dictionary, for the unlikely 'God' who operates in time, as many think He does, such as when they pray to Him to change His Perfect Mind.

At least with the Deity notion, the believer doesn't have to stumble over the dilemma of why 'God' acts exactly the same as nature does and as nature would without Him as we well see through the science descriptions of what went on after the Big Bang.

The processes are of understandable laws of physics, chemistry, and biology, with no extra-natural of miracles. We know what happened in the first fractions of a second after the supposed Big Bang and can predict the course of the Universe to its thinned out future. After the start the progress was very slow, just as it would be naturally; it took 13+ billion years for life to appear on Earth.

So, 'God' the Deity is not a personal 'God'. God’s Good Plan would operate at the general, universal sense, not at a specific, personal sense. Example: water is good but also necessitates floods and drought; a farmer wishes for rain and the wedding party across the street hopes for sunshine. And so forth, as self-explanatory as what’s best for all.

Human nature must be imperfect. There can be only one 'God', plus perfection would be boring, and creatures and their natures are of a non personal general-for-all recipe of ingredients that can let life happen and be lived.

If we were Angels, life would be so just;
Instead, we try, we push, we climb, we lust,
We dance, we dream, we feel, and love with zest;
Yes, all this, thanks to the beast within us!

We have lesser abilities than the Whole/'God' because we have to be of smaller extent than it and also so as to be able to operate in the world. There can be only One Whole/'God', with the designs within or without necessarily having to be of less dimension in our lesser realm.

The 'God' not operating in linear time would be the Block Universe and we would be inside 'God'; however, I've given up on the Block Universe… allowing for some presentism.

Now after Now

Life’s a web, of whos, whys, whats, and hows,
Stretched as time between eternal boughs.
Gossamer threads bear the beads that glisten,
Each moment a sequence of instant nows.

No matter how one tries to shake from boughs
The fruits of truth from the Tree of Knows;
Computation makes not yet the morrows;
There’s naught else but lone, resultant Nows.

Memory’s ideas recall the last heard tone;
Sensation savors what is presently known;
Imagination anticipates coming sounds;
The delight is such that none could produce alone.

To future columns we stretch our present row,
By a lifeline of tenuously spun vow.
Oh, how soon the weighted web begins to fail;
The only real time under our feet is now.

Yet, still,

We, of the endless forms most beautiful,
Are stunned that our glass to the brim is full,
Life’s wine coursing through us, as magical,
On this lovely, rolling sphere so bountiful.


Of course, the Deity God could be outside of time. Or He just lets the universe alone that He started in time to do what it does (this relieves 'God' of having to be so slow-minded that cosmic and biological evolution took so mind-numbingly long.)


As for 'God's' Love, it is also for sure that it would Unconditional Love… and we can do that in our lives, too, and do:

Higher Consciousness

The three lower consciousnesses that are
Obsessed with the securing of objects,
With the chasing of sensations, and with
Power/control will never ever be enough.

There are NO actions of people that can
Justify our becoming irritable
Angry, fearful, jealous or anxious if
We give them our unconditional love.

Stress is the difference between what we
Expect to happen and what does happen,
Especially when we put our needs ahead
Of other, oft resulting in needless anger.

If we don’t accept the unacceptable,
Then we lower our level of consciousness
Our response will mirror their uptightness—
Which can spread the bad moods onto others.

Conscious Awareness, which can but witness,
Is a safe haven from which to observe
The drama of our lives playing in our minds,
Granting us a sobering distance from it.

From a safe subjective place that’s free of fear,
Our soul, our conscious awareness, can witness
The strange thoughts and emotions that surface
On the mind, sent by the subconscious brain.

Putting ourselves in the place of others
When hurtful things are done to us,
Expands our consciousness, compassion, and love
Since we can come to know why they did it.

When we converse with ourselves, it is our
Higher Consciousness—our Conscious Awareness
Or I, that questions our lower consciousness
Impulses toward securing, sensation, and power.

Seeing the big picture of life and its stages
And connections lets one not get annoyed, say,
At being cut off in traffic, for s/he
May be old, learning, lost, growing, or angry.

Putting the needs of others ahead of
Our own produces the byproduct of
Happiness and reduces stress, for we
No longer have unrealistic expectations.

Some fall for their thoughts, hook, line, and sinker:
Conditioned responses, reflexes, or
Overwhelming emotions, some spurious,
Or ancient, planted by evolution, or unbalanced.

Emotions are slow to react to logic,
Like molasses or slow forming crystals,
Or not at all, like rocks, blocking them.
Unless and until they change, progress halts.

Reason and emotion are hard to coordinate,
Each having a separate pathway to the mind,
That, perhaps, is all there is to tell about the
Miseries and follies of human history.

From its safe subjective place that’s free of fear,
The higher self, our Conscious Awareness, can witness
The strange thoughts and emotions that surface
On the mind, sent there by the subconscious brain.

First-level thoughts are beliefs and desires,
But second-level thoughts are beliefs
And desires about the beliefs and desires,
Becoming able spectators of the scene beneath.

Higher Awareness, which can but witness,
Is a safe haven from which to observe
The drama of the lives playing in the mind,
Granting one a sobering distance from it.

This detachment allows
The ‘thinking about a thought’
Without the thought itself
Trying to steal the show.

(soul acronym = spirit of unconditional love)


So far, we have both been eliminating what is impossible in order to better corner the truth, and this is where I think we are:

Oh, those imaginings of what can’t be!
Such as Nought, Stillness, and the Block’s decree,
As well as Apart, Beginning, and End,
Determinism, Blame, and Theity.

When the subject has not been coming forward to show it for thousands of years, and when it is impossible to locate for any ordinary living being, a subject who are with the attributes no matter how hard looking and searching every corner of the world for thousands of years, then should we not conclude that there is no such a being with such attributes existing? — Corvus

That the supernatural is supposed to be everywhere but is found nowhere implies that there is only the natural, making 'God' to be more of a Deity who no longer gets involved after throwing some stuff together, which makes Him a great scientist rather than a magician. So, then, while some livable planets or at least one came out of the humungous expanse over 14 billion years due to the odds of something working somewhere by having millions of the right conditions, a lot of good and horrible happenings can go on as a surprise and an amusement to Him.

The Great Scientist Deity sits back in his plush chair to watch this long great adventure movie or soap opera that He's never seen before…

knowing what is going on everywhere all at once. — Derrick Huestis

In the Cosmos, there may be some basic ‘knowing’ …

— All is One —

Everything connects to everything else
Through overlapping quantum field patterns,
And so nothing is separate at all, as it seems,
But is one large all-encompassing whole.

— Blake’s Vision Confirmed —

Every part of a hologram contains the whole,
The whole universe contained within a
Grain of sand, all eternity within a moment,
The universe rumbling when an electron vibrates.

— The All Is In the One —

All ‘things’ are connected, entangled,
As in a hologram each part contains the whole;
Everything interpenetrates everything;
The Cosmos is a seamless web of information.

— Seeing All? —

The connection of everything to everything
Is as a rudimentary perception,
But (responders can fill this in).

— Happenings —

Nature draws the world with interactions;
What’s real are relations between systems.
Events ground to the notion of ‘objects’;
‘Things’ are built by elementary events.

— Quantum Memory —

In the brain’s memory, every piece of info
Is cross-correlated with every other piece,
Which allows instant access and association;
Memories could be stored holographically.

— Instant Recall —

Memory does seem to be holographic,
Residing everywhere in the brain,
Every piece associated with others related,
Instantly broadcasting all the connections.

…

— The Will of the Cosmos? —

Where’s horrid Hell and gloried Heaven yon?
Who’s the scribe of my slab written upon?
I ask if I’m the stylus or the slate:
I’m both the dancer and the danced upon.

Can you say that what impels her - is to elucidate 'fundamental truths of the human experience of life' ? — Amity

Yes:

A poem is a truth fleshed in living words,
Which by showing unapprehended proof
Lifts the veil to reveal hidden beauty:
It’s life’s image drawn in eternal truth.


Emily's poem was already lyrical and so it was all the more suitable for being sung with music in the and so it became doubly powerful:

Poetry makes clear what’s just barely heard,
For it translates soul-language into words,
Whereas, music plays right on the heartstrings;
Merged, they create song; heart and soul converge.


Yes, her poem was private and so we need the background of it to fully understand it, but it still works wonderfully on its surface:

A poem is both the thought and the presence,
An object born from one’s profoundest sense,
An image of diction, feeling, and rhythm;
It’s both the existence and the essence.

Poems are renderings of the soul’s spirit,
The highest power of language and wit.
The reader then translates back to spirit;
If the soul responds, then a poem you’ve writ!


To get the unity of the flow, music, as well as any happening, requires three stages for continuity:

Memory’s ideas recall the last heard tone;
Sensation savors what is presently known;
Imagination anticipates coming sounds;
The delight is such that none could produce alone.


In the Poetic Universe…

We are both essence and form, as poems versed,
Ever unveiling our live’s deeper thirsts,
As new riches, from strokes, letters, phonemes,
Words, phrases, and sentences—uni versed.

We have rhythm, reason, rhyme, meter, sense,
Metric, melody, and beauty’s true pense,
Revealed through life’s participation,
From the latent whence into us hence.

The weave of the quantum fields as strokes writes
The letters of the elemental bytes—
The alphabet of the standard model,
Forming the words as the atoms whose mights

Merge to form molecules, as phrases,
Onto proteins and cells, as sentences,
Up to paragraphs of organisms,
And unto the stories of the species.

In this concordance of literature,
We are the Cosmos’ book of adventure,
As a uni-verse of sentient poems,
Being both the contained and the container.


In other more difficult words:

Informationally derived meanings
Unify in non-reductive gleanings,
In a relational reality,
Through the semantical life happenings.

Syntactical information exchange,
Without breaking of the holistic range,
Reveals the epic whole of nature’s poetics,
Within her requisite of ongoing change.

So there’s form before gloried substance,
Relationality before the chance
Of material impressions rising,
Traced in our world from the gestalt’s dance.

All lives in the multi–dimensional spaces
Of basic superpositional traces
Of Possibility, as like the whirl’s
Probable clouds of distributed paces.

What remains unchanged over time are All’s
Properties that find expression, as laws,
Of the conservation of energy,
Momentum, and electric charge—unpaused.


Emily, my 3rd or 4th cousin:

My great grandfather, Henry Johnson, famously captained schooners and steam ships to China and all over the world, somehow finding time to marry Henrietta Wood, who was related to Norcross somehow (my brother does the family tree, not me!), which was Emily's mother's maiden name.

Deriving the Narrative of the Cosmos

We’re already in touch with the unknown,
For that’s ever the reach of science shown.
Reality is grasped by focusing
On what interacts with what and the means.

There is a realm of happenings, not things,
For ‘things’ don’t remain the same on time’s wings.
What remains through time are processes—
Relations between different systems.

Quantum fields are the fundamental strokes
Whose excitations at harmonics cloaks
The quanta with the stability
To persist and thus obtain mobility.

The elementary particles beget,
As letters of the cosmic alphabet,
And combine in words to write the story
Of the stars, atoms, cells, and life’s glory.

For example, whether or not our universe would be made up of anti-matter doesn't seem determined, but once it was established to be matter there was no going back, and this is what makes up the whole universe today. — Derrick Huestis

Thank you, neutrinos, for our universe of matter!

https://www.quantamagazine.org/neutrino-evidence-could-explain-matter-antimatter-asymmetry-20200415/

I still think there needs to be some work into the possibility of time being eternal and linear all-in-one. — Derrick Huestis

Carlo Rovelli did some work on this. He’s my favorite philosopher/physicist, along with Lee Smolin.

From Rovelli on ‘Neither Presentism nor Eternalism’:

Relativity is not the discovery of a new ontology of simultaneity: it is the discovery that there is no fact of the matter, whether two distant punctual events happen at the same time or not.

Notice that what we directly experience is local becoming, not global becoming. That is: we are directly aware of things happening around us, not far away in the uni- verse. The local becoming that we experience and the becoming well described by Newtonian physics, happen to have a peculiar feature: events can be distinct between past present and future, and labelled by a single time variable t which is tracked faithfully by any good clock, irrespectively from the way the clock moves.

We are always tempted to extrapolate our experience assuming that what is true locally is true globally. Some- times this works (the Maxwell equations, found in England, happen to work pretty well in far away galaxies as well), sometimes it doesn’t (mountains are not always in the North, the ‘up’ directions are not all parallel and the Maxwell equations are modified in the atomic nuclei.) In the case of becoming we are tempted to extrapolate local features of becoming to global features: to assume that all events of the universe can be uniquely and objectively separated into past, present and future, and labelled by a single time variable t which is tracked faithfully by any good clock, irrespectively from the way the clock moves. We have learned that this extrapolation is wrong.

The reasonable choice is to recalibrate the notion of becoming, dropping the illegitimate extrapolations implicit in its old conceptualisation.

This is possible. There is real becoming in the universe. Things happen. The relativistic equations describe this unfolding of happenings. Each individual time-like worldline describes a sequence of events, namely a specific unfolding of local becoming. Distinct local becomings are not independent: they are weaved to one another by the structure described by the four-dimensional pseudo-riemanniann geometry of general relativity. The ensemble of all events of the world cannot be objectively arranged into a single simple succession of global instants.

This impossibility is not the absence of becoming. It is the fact that becoming is more complex than a naive non- relativistic extrapolation assumes. The temporal structure of becoming is not the non-relativistic line with a special point, the ‘present’, but rather the one defined by the causal structure formed by the light cones of a pseudo Riemanniann manifold.

Relativity does not deny temporality, it shows that it is less trivial than we thought.

The different nows at different locations are not simultaneous: they are independent, and in communication via the causal structure of spacetime. They are thus partially related, but not fully. Some ‘nows’ in a distant galaxy are definitely in our past, some in our future. But there is a long sequence of distinct ‘nows’ (different moments of time) which are all neither in the past nor the future with respect to the ‘now here’. This is of course nothing else than Einstein’s key discovery: objective simultaneity is meaningless. We can think of reality as becoming is complex and multilayered [30, 31].

Different aspects of experiential time depend on different natural structures. Some aspects of our common-sense intuition about time do not carry on to relativistic becoming. Directionality, for instance, is rooted in the fact that we interact with the world via macroscopic coarse-grained variables. It is a property of these variables and it does not belong to the elementary grammar of relativistic becoming. Hence the fundamental becoming I am referring to is un-oriented [6]. Similarly, our vivid sense of the flow of time is a consequence of the functioning of our brain, rooted in memory and anticipation, and so on [30]. But the fact that so many aspects of experiential time depend on approximations, and on complex structures, does not alter the fact that what elementary physics describes is happenings, not entities.

More from Rovelli:

WHAT IS REAL NOW?

What is real in the universe, then? The question is ill defined. Reality has a temporal structure, therefore asking ‘what is real?’ without specifying ‘when’ leads to mixing events that are real now with those that were real.

There is a long tradition of contrary comments by major physicists (‘Events do not happen; they are just there, and we come across them’, Eddington, 1920. ‘The objective world simply is, it does not happen’, Weyl 1949. ‘Each observer has his own set of “nows”, and none of these various systems of layers can claim the prerogative of representing the objective lapse of time’, G ̈odel 1949. ‘An observer is merely a world-line, once and for all, on the four dimensional manifold?’, Geroch 1984. All quoted in [27].) I disagree with them. They played a rhetorical role when the new physics needed to break with old habits of thinking, but they are not the best guide for clarity today. A different case is the commonly quoted phrase by Einstein: ‘For us believing physicists, the difference between past, present, and future amounts to an illusion, albeit stubborn’ (Einstein to Besso’s wife, 21 May 1955), which I believe is misinterpreted, when taken out of its emotional context (on this, see [30], Chapter 7).

Events in the past but are not real anymore. Hence to talk about the reality of something we have to specify a time. But to specify a time it is not sufficient to specify a number. We have to locate a region in the rich temporal structure of the universe. There are facts that are real now on Earth, facts that were real in the past, or will be real in the future with respect to here-now, and there are also facts that are real on distant galaxy at a time which is neither in our future, nor in our past, but nevertheless they are in the past of one another.

This may be hard to develop an intuition for, but it is just the way reality is. Our ancestors had equal difficulty in figuring out how people could live upside down on the other side of the Earth.

The fact that some events can be ‘real now here’ without being ‘real now’ in some other location is no more and no less mysterious than the fact that some events can be ‘real now’ at some time without being ‘real now’ at other times, which so much anguished Mc Taggart [7]. Hence relativity does not really add nor subtract much with respect to the pre-relativistic debate on the reality of time.

The fact that there is no preferred objective foliation of four-dimensional spacetime into three dimensional ‘time instants’ is not a denial of becoming: it is only a a denial of a synchronised global becoming. The ‘third option’ between Presentism and Eternalism is simply what most relativists give for granted: there is no global notion of present, but there is a local becoming, at every point of spacetime. The ‘present’ is not illusory: it is well defined, but relative to a location: in non relativistic physics, it is relative to a temporal location, in relativistic physics is relative to a spacetime location.

The four-dimensional spacetime is only a cartography of the relations between these multiple local becomings.

Einstein’s discovery is that Newtonian space and time and the gravitational field are the same entity. There is a tradition of expressing this discovery saying that ‘‘there is no gravitational field: space and time become dynamical’’. I think that this is a convoluted and misleading way of thinking, which does not do justice to Einstein’s discovery, and has the additional flaw of becoming meaningless as soon as we take into account the fact that the gravitational field has quantum properties.

The clean way of expressing Einstein’s discovery is to say that there are no space and time: there are only dynamical objects. The world is made by dynamical fields. These do not live in, or on, spacetime: they form and exhaust reality.

One of these fields is the gravitational field. In the regimes in which we can disregard its dynamics, this field interacts with the rest of the physical objects as if it were a fixed background. This background is what Newton discovered and called space and time. We can keep using the evocative terminology ‘‘spacetime’’ to indicate the gravitational field. But it has practically none of the features that characterized space and time. Relativistic spacetime is an entity far more akin to Maxwell’s electric and magnetic fields than to Newtonian space.

In classical GR, a given solution of the field equations might still have some vague resemblance to the Newtonian’s notions, since it defines a ‘‘continuum’’ which things can be imagined ‘‘to inhabit’’. But the only compelling reason for thinking that ‘‘spacetime’’ is the gravitational field, and not — say — the electromagnetic field, is the contingent fact that we live in a portion of the universe where the gravitational field is sufficiently constant for us to use it as a convenient reference.

Quantum mechanics reinforces this point of view. A solution of the classical field equations is like a particle trajectory: a notion that only makes physical sense in the classical limit. The gravitational field has quantum properties, and therefore it cannot define a spacetime continuum in the small.

Properly speaking, relativity has taught us that the effective way of thinking about the world in the light of what we have learned so far is to give up the notions of ‘‘space and time entities’’ entirely. This is not a dramatically radical view, since it is not far from the way space was commonly conceptualized before Newton. On the other hand, it has a novel twist of great interest, especially as far as time, and the relation between time and space, are concerned.

In Newtonian physics, if we take away the dynamical entities, what remains is space and time. In relativistic physics, if we take away the dynamical entities, nothing remains. As Whitehead put it, we cannot say that we can have spacetime without dynamical entities, anymore than saying that we can have the cat’s grin without the cat (Whitehead, 1983).

I would say that anything which is to become an existing thing anytime in the future carries the property of existence in a sort of eternal sense, even before it is created. — Derrick Huestis

(Just this first point for now…)

Your view might somehow help with a problem with presentism, which is:

The turning of a ‘now’ into the next ‘now’ sits on the thinnest knife edge imaginable, the previous ‘now’ wholly consumed in the making of the new ‘now’ all over the universe at once in a dynamical updating—the present now exhausting all reality. (Or at least just locally, according to Rovelli, which we can look at another time.) It’s not that the incredibly short Planck time couldn’t be the processing time, but… I don’t know.

The present undergoes a dynamical ‘updating’, or exhibits a quality as of a fleeting swoosh, and this additional dynamical aspect is what threatens the substance of the debate between the presentist and an eternalist opponent.

What is going to exist or was existent, as the presentist must refer to as ‘to be’ or ‘has been’ is indicated as coming or going and is thus inherent in the totality of what is, and so presentism has no true ‘nonexistence’ of the future and the past—which means that there is no contrast between a real future and an unreal future, for what is real or exists can have no opposite to form a contrast class.

In other words, what is going to exist or was existent, as the presentist must refer to as to be or has been is indicated as coming or going and is thus inherent in the totality of What IS, and so it has no true ‘nonexistence’, for this as ‘Nothing’ cannot be. This is saying that there is no contrast between a real future and an unreal future, for what is real or exists can have no opposite to form a contrast class.

!
!
V

The unborn future is inherent in the past,
Its ‘will be’ is real, with no unreal contrast class,
As there’s no opposite to existence—no Nil;
It’s not just that future is going to exist.

The present ‘now’ undergoes an updating,
In a fleeting swoosh that passes it away,
For the ‘now’ fades, consumed, as future becomes,
Yet, what will become past can’t just non-exist.


Presentism's 'now' occurring everywhere at once is also severely bedeviled by Einstein’s relativity of simultaneity.

Lee Smolin is one of the few who are for presentism, calling it ‘Temporal Naturalism’:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1310.8539.pdf

To Be or To Become

Being or becoming: that is the question
That haunts Existence’s investigation:
Whether ’tis simpler for the All to offer
The slings and vectors of a told fortune
All at once, in a marble monument,
Or to perform in the sea of actions,
And by disposing ever create them?

You mention some physicists as viewing randomness as the "bedrock of reality." Some quick research into this topic showed that apparently this concept of randomness was at odds with the views of Einstein. Reason is leading me to take Einstein's position, and it also places me in a good spot to promote the "omnificence" concept. — Derrick Huestis

I didn’t go for ‘random’ at first, but I came to realize that there can’t be any specific input or design going into the Eternal Existence that has no Beginning, nor anything going into it, for that matter, and so what would be its nature given that its bedrock can’t have a pre-definition?[/quote]

For this, I pose the question: Can randomness occur without being deliberate? Zeilinger argues that light reflecting off a mirror or being absorbed is a completely random phenomenon. But if it is truly random, then it could be the case that no light is absorbed, or all light is absorbed, and everything in between. But we don't see variation in the reflectivity of a mirror, so while it may be random at the individual level, it is patterned at the macro level, and what governs this to ensure that this "randomness" is patterned in such a way? — Derrick Huestis

The probabilities in QM results are unitary, in that they add up to one. This is like a pattern. When quantum systems don’t interact with something they are deterministic. Maybe it is that since we can’t take the whole universe into consideration during quantum experiment we get probabilities.

But really, there is no "random" at a macro level anywhere, everything is deliberate. Even human acts of obtaining "randomness" such as rolling a dice revolve around a deliberate act. At a macro level, there is randomness nowhere, but at a micro-level there seems to be randomness everywhere, and the governance of this--to my knowledge--is not fully known. — Derrick Huestis

Quantum probability ‘randomness’ averages out at the macro level, which is called decoherence. This use of “deliberate” suggests that there is mostly determinism at the macro level, which I would agree with. Others flat out won’t like it, emotionally, but the alternative is ‘not determined’, which is even harder to take. No one has ever been able to say what the ‘free’ in free will is supposed to refer to, other than the trivial sense that the will is usually able to operate. We are left with other non-starter notions such as one being a mini self cause, which wouldn’t know anything, or ‘random’, which would hurt the will, and never help it. Maybe some ‘randomness’ at rare times creeps in, but I hope that one is not standing at the edge of a cliff when this happens, or the ‘random’s vote gets swamped out but the majority votes. All in all, the fixed will grants consistency. Learning provides for new and better fixed wills to come along that have a wider range of intelligence behind them.

There is no "true" random, and presuming this statement is true, there is no "random" to the Big Bang and universe either. Everything is patterned, organized chaos. Even the logic we have been discussing demonstrates a necessity for pattern. But where things really get ambiguous is where the patterns are no longer necessitated by any logic, and yet they are patterned anyway. Here I find a kind of border line where arguing "omnificence is necessary" can be done. But if you have omnificence, you have a mind, you have a force that can create patterns, designs, uniqueness, etc. It organizes the "chaos" that exists out of necessity into a pattern that keeps changing and morphing but never dissolving back into chaos. — Derrick Huestis

Minds emerge later on, where there is more complexity. Look to the future for even higher human beings. In the past, we ever see but simpler and simpler things.

Determinism is still on, though, in presentism, as one ‘now’ leads to the next ‘now’, it getting consumed, and even more so, in a way, in eternalism, since it is all pre-determined.

It is the odd thing about this universe, everything that is "chaos" can be zoomed out of far enough to look beautiful. Black holes are one such example...So, back to the original question, can randomness exist without being deliberate? Especially when there seems to be two choices: random or patterned, and patterns seem to be the far more common choice than random — Derrick Huestis

The leftover relic of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation shows some minor variations. What we see in the universe as galaxies could be the quantum fluctuations writ large. From a very great distance out, the universe seems to be pretty smooth.

A Black Hole exists at the center of our galaxy. We are nowhere near this core but well safe from its harm out on the Orion Arm.

Again, what would be the nature of the forced Eternal Necessary Existence?

Random?

Everything, either as linear or all once?

A default for what is partless to have to be tiny?