Albert Einstein and the Fabric of Time

Albert Einstein and the Fabric of Time
Surprising as it may be to most non-scientists and even to some scientists, Albert Einstein concluded in his later years that the past, present, and future all exist simultaneously. In 1952, in his book Relativity, in discussing Minkowski's Space World interpretation of his theory of relativity, Einstein writes:
Since there exists in this four dimensional structure [space-time] no longer any sections which represent "now" objectively, the concepts of happening and becoming are indeed not completely suspended, but yet complicated. It appears therefore more natural to think of physical reality as a four dimensional existence, instead of, as hitherto, the evolution of a three dimensional existence.
Einstein's belief in an undivided solid reality was clear to him, so much so that he completely rejected the separation we experience as the moment of now. He believed there is no true division between past and future, there is rather a single existence. His most descriptive testimony to this faith came when his lifelong friend Besso died. Einstein wrote a letter to Besso's family, saying that although Besso had preceded him in death it was of no consequence, "...for us physicists believe the separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, although a convincing one."
Most everyone knows that Einstein proved that time is relative, not absolute as Newton claimed. With the proper technology, such as a very fast spaceship, one person is able to experience several days while another person simultaneously experiences only a few hours or minutes. The same two people can meet up again, one having experienced days or even years while the other has only experienced minutes. The person in the spaceship only needs to travel near to the speed of light. The faster they travel, the slower their time will pass relative to someone planted firmly on the Earth. If they were able to travel at the speed of light, their time would cease completely and they would only exist trapped in timelessness. Einstein could hardly believe there were physicists who didn’t believe in timelessness, and yet the wisdom of Einstein's convictions had very little impact on cosmology or science in general. The majority of physicists have been slow to give up the ordinary assumptions we make about time.
The two most highly recognized physicists since Einstein made similar conclusions and even made dramatic advances toward a timeless perspective of the universe, yet they also were unable to change the temporal mentality ingrained in the mainstream of physics and society. Einstein was followed in history by the colorful and brilliant Richard Feynman. Feynman developed the most effective and explanatory interpretation of quantum mechanics that had yet been developed, known today as Sum over Histories.
Just as Einstein's own Relativity Theory led Einstein to reject time, Feynman’s Sum over Histories theory led him to describe time simply as a direction in space. Feynman’s theory states that the probability of an event is determined by summing together all the possible histories of that event. For example, for a particle moving from point A to B we imagine the particle traveling every possible path, curved paths, oscillating paths, squiggly paths, even backward in time and forward in time paths. Each path has an amplitude, and when summed the vast majority of all these amplitudes add up to zero, and all that remains is the comparably few histories that abide by the laws and forces of nature. Sum over histories indicates the direction of our ordinary clock time is simply a path in space which is more probable than the more exotic directions time might have taken otherwise.
Other worlds are just other directions in space, some less probable, some equally as probable as the one direction we experience. And some times our world represents the unlikely path. Feynman's summing of all possible histories could be described as the first timeless description of a multitude of space-time worlds all existing simultaneously. In a recent paper entitled Cosmology From the Top Down, Professor Stephen Hawking of Cambridge writes; “Some people make a great mystery of the multi universe, or the Many-Worlds interpretation of quantum theory, but to me, these are just different expressions of the Feynman path integral.”
(below is not in book)
What is still not quite resolved in modern physics is how to properly combine Quantum theory with Einstein's Relativity Theory. It appears evident that time is purely a direction in space but how then do we explain the uncertainty of quantum mechanics? Why does it appear that God plays dice with the world. The two theories, each having been proven by their usefulness, do of course tell the same story about this one universe, but we just haven't learned yet to hear the story right. The best modern theory going is probably the No Boundary Proposal, put fourth by Stephen Hawking and Jim Hartle. This theory introduces a second reference of time which has been inappropriately named Imaginary time. Hawking, writes of the no boundary proposal, "The universe would be completely self contained and not affected by anything outside itself. It would neither be created nor destroyed. It would just BE."
In my book Everything Forever, and here at my website, I explain how fourth dimensional spatial directions travel through a series of independent three dimensional block-like spaces, which in science we call states, but they can also be thought of simply as patterns. Hawking has already proposed that imaginary time can be found at right angles to ordinary time. I further explain that it is possible in an objective way to understand the universe to be like a book or a movie film. Each moment is a separate universe just like each frame of a movie or page of a book is separate. Yet those separate states simultaneously form the larger whole of the movie or the book. Seeing each moment as a continually existing place sheds light on why particles would then travel as a quantum wave, rather than linearly from point a to point b. This is explained better elsewhere, but if each moment of ordinary time is a solid, static, "block of now", or field of space, then time each new moment is a distinctly different universe. What we call time is a spatial direction that travels through many static three dimensional universes.
In such a model, what we call time is created purely out of space. Special directions in space travel through each static three dimensional space, therein producing a new realm of space beyond three dimensions, which we call time. The interesting quality this produces, is how the inhabitants of this fourth dimension of space travel a linear path from past to future, but the surrounding environment of each path is shifting from one pattern to the next. This sends particles from one position in four dimensional space to the next without moving linearly. As a result, each individual observer in the fourth dimension experiences a continuous linear time, even though everything in their immediate environment is moving sequentially from place to place. Hence each temporal environment of four dimensional space is constructed relative to each independent observer.
One can imagine oneself smoothly traveling a direct and interconnected path through time, but in looking around at one's environment, one sees that all other directions of time are broken, causing particles to appear to sequentially leap from one place to another. Paradoxically, everyone observes their own path and experience of time to be linear, while all else around them is sequential. In fact, when we explore time as a direction through many 3D spaces, we find qualities of curvature, time dilation, and spatial contraction, precisely as relativity describes those qualities within our own spacetime.
There is one quote I have found from Einstein which is more or less a contemplative mental thought about the notion of infinite spaces, which doesn't directly relate to my own approach of describing a shape to all possible spaces, but it does at least open up the subject of an infinite number of spaces to speculation. And it also shows the open minded nature of Einstein's thoughts about empty space, which some have thought were closed.
When a smaller box s is situated, relativity at rest, inside the hollow space of a larger box S, then the hollow space of s is a part of the hollow space of S, and the same "space," which contains both of them, belongs to each of the boxes. When s is in motion with respect to S, however, the concept is less simple. One is then inclined to think that s encloses always the same space, but a variable part of the space S. It then becomes necessary to apportion to each box its particular space, not thought of as bounded, and assume that these two spaces are in motion with respect to each other...
Before one has become aware of this complication, space appears as an unbounded medium or container in which material objects swim around. But it must be remembered that there is an infinite number of spaces, which are in motion with respect to each other...
The concept of space as something existing objectively and independent of things belongs to pre-scientific thought, but not so the idea of the existence of an infinite number of spaces in motion relatively to each other. This latter idea is indeed unavoidable, but is far from having played a considerable role even in scientific thought.
I can testify that Einstein's speculations revealed here concerning infinite spaces in motion do at least carry us in the right direction in how they suggest space might have an unseen and possibly infinite content. Similar ideas were introduced by David Bohm, who claimed there are two kinds of order in nature, what he called explicate order and implicate order. Implicate order for Bohm was a way of acknowledging how quantum mechanics reveals a hidden order where our world is influenced by the whole of all possible states. However, that order is much more visible than Bohm ever realized, as explained in part two.
Unfortunately it wasn't until Einstein died that scientists began to consider the a Many Worlds Theory in science. It's safe to say that in Einstein's time we were still getting used to the idea of the Big Bang, adjusting to the ever more visible vast sea of other galaxies, and the possibility of alien life on other planets. The universe and reality were still primarily considered purely solid and material based. Quantum theory, which eventually led to the theory of many worlds, had not yet fully withstood the test of time. Einstein even rejected its implications, saying "God does not play dice" with the world, even as he himself established that there is more to the universe than a single evolving moment of now.
In my explorations of timelessness I reveal that ordinary space is not merely full of other empty spaces, but empty space is actually the whole of all physical realities; all the universes of the many worlds theory. Profound as it may be, if the theories I propose are correct, space is full, rather than empty. Material things are less than the fullness of space. In fact, it may be that space must include all possibilities in order to seem empty to us. So in summary, the universe we see is just a fragment nested in a timeless (everything) whole, rather than a single material world magically arisen above some primordial nothing. All universes exist without beginning or end in the ultimate arena of time, and each moment we experience exists forever.

Why the Universe exists Timelessly
A Journey Beyond Nothing (From Chapter Two)
If someone says, how did something come from nothing? what are they really asking about? Most of us think we know what somethingness is, but what exactly is nothing? Let's find out. Imagine you are transported all the way back to the beginning of time. Imagine standing at the very precipice of the birth of the whole multiverse. Imagine a cliff and out beyond the edge of the cliff there is nothing at all. So you put your hand out to the surface and touch the originating moment. Now push through it. Reach beyond. What is it like? Any words come to mind? Is it frightening, or menacing? Is it vibrant with all the potential of being? Is it thick or dark, warm or cold? Is it as simple as simple can be. Of course if you describe something, or feel anything, you haven’t gone enough beyond the origin of existing things. So try one more time. Let your mind drift beyond the edge of time, beyond all descriptions, beyond all senses. And yes there it isn’t, just beyond the edge of rational thought itself, hidden there in a blackness darker than black, a quiet beyond silence, a stillness beyond rest. Oh my, there “isn’t” the absolute void.
Are you still here! You didn't disappear? And you didn't get sucked in? But did you feel it? Did you at least sense it? “NO!” What do you mean “NO”! We were right there! How could that be? I wonder what went wrong. You must not have a very good imagination! No wait, maybe you do, maybe that is the problem. Maybe your imagination is getting in the way because what we are trying to imagine isn't cold or dark, or a void or an abyss, it isn’t quiet or simple, and it’s hardly anything to be afraid of, because it doesn't exist. Maybe this nothing is unimaginable because there is nothing to imagine. Indeed if you came up with any sense of what is beyond the cliff, then you sort of missed the point.
This thought exercise reveals a sort of anomaly in how we see the world. We cannot imagine nothingness, that is, if we are referring to a nothing prior to existence. We can describe the type of nothing that is common in our lives, the nothing that we encounter everyday. There is nothing here or there. There is nothing to talk about. There is nothing in the refrigerator. That type of nothing is something empty, something lacking substance, something uniform or plain or simple. But the other nothing that is prior to existence is a special case in terms of semantics and meaning. By definition, words simply can’t describe it, so it is different than everything else that we define with words and everything else imaginable.
In truth there are two very different nothings, and presently the two are entangled together when they don’t belong together. In other words, there is actually something wrong with the word nothing as we use it today. If we carefully study the definition of the word nothing we can discover two very different definitions of nothing. One definition of nothing is a physically real condition that has no discernable form or substance, such as a white canvas, or a uniform void in empty space. This type of nothing is real and exists, and is actually quite ordinary. An empty refrigerator has nothing in it. A white artist canvas has nothing painted on it. The real nothing is always a place or a space that is uniformly undefined, where there are no distinct things. There is just one thing, like one color, or just space alone, so we call it nothing. But the other definition of ‘nothing’, the one we were just a moment ago trying to touch and describe is nonexistence, which is a very difficult concept to understand when defined separately from the real nothing, which is the very reason we confuse the two. We confuse the two out of need, because one we can describe, the other we cannot.
When the dictionary defines nothing as ‘something that does not exist’, it is reasonably obvious that the syntax of the phrase makes no real sense. How can ‘nothing’ be a something which does not exist? In fact simply using any word in an attempt to mean non-existence creates a sort of riddle. How do we make a word refer to something that doesn’t exist? What word can represent a form that isn't a form; a thing that isn't a thing? What language can define a concept that has no reality or meaning?
Of course we cannot solve the great old riddle of how something came from nonexistence. It’s the ultimate oxymoron, and the ultimate contradiction in terms. We cannot even refer to a state of nonexistence when there is no such state, and no such form, to refer to. Any attempt to describe it isn’t describing it. Any word representing it, isn’t representing it. Non-existence can only really be defined as something that cannot be defined with a word. It can only refer to something that cannot be referred to. Obviously there is a vexing fundamental problem here. Any attempt to define a nonexistence using any meaningful idea or thought, by using the meaning that otherwise defines all language, that defines our reality, is predestined to fail.
Nonexistence cannot be. It cannot exist. It cannot even be meant. And that predicament, that total paradox, is very different from the real nothing that exists and can be talked about. And the fact that we confuse these two concepts is the very reason we don't yet clearly understand why we exist. We exist because there is no alternative. There never was a non-existence in the past and there never will be a non-existence. Existence is the default setting of reality. Existence belongs here. It has always been.
The Real Nothing
Imagine you are standing in a white world, like the commercials or movies portraying heaven. In this world there is nothing but white everywhere. The oneness of white extends away from you in every direction. You try to look out into the distance, but because there is just the one color you can’t tell if the space of this world extends out forever or if its edge remains just out of reach. As you reach out your hand, you realize that your physical body provides the only sense of distance here. Your body is all that exists in a giant field of nothingness. There is no length or width beyond your body. There is no distance to anywhere else, because there isn’t anything else to measure a distance to. So if your body happens also to turn white, then suddenly all sense of dimension is erased. The very meaning of place and distance is lost. Soon even the one color of white will disappear from your experience. You will soon become blind to white, because you don’t have any other color to judge the meaning of this one color against. Soon, for you, this endless white world becomes nothing at all.
If you were born into this one color dimension you wouldn’t ever be able to see it, you would not even know it was right there in front of you, since you would not have any other color or shade of gray to reference it by. Someone who is blind, for example, doesn’t see black or darkness, because even if they did temporarily upon initially going blind, the black quickly loses meaning for them because it is just one color, and without differentiation the mind interprets such a world as a perceptual nothing. And in fact the mind is correct, because this is the real nothing that exists in physical reality. The real nothing is just singular form. A real nothing is a singularity, and a singularity is all a real nothing can ever be.
Within a singularity, all distances and locations lose meaning because once there is a perfect unity, a oneness, then every object, every distance, every place, is the same as any other. Singularities are commonplace. Any single color is a singularity. A perfect blue sky is a singularity. The most common everyday example of a singularity is the ordinary empty space we travel through, which is why we typically refer to it as nothing. Never the less, singularities can have content. Most everyone has heard the idea of a polar bear in a snow storm. Singularities can even be full instead of empty. Suppose we take everything from a household refrigerator, put it all in a big stove pot, add some water, and begin stirring. After we cook all this awhile all the distinct parts begin to break down and blend together evenly into a soup. If we keep heating and stirring this stew for five or six hours, or two or three days, eventually all the many ingredients will unify into a single paste-like substance. Many have become one. All the ingredients of the refrigerator are still in there, within the one, they have just transformed into a singularity.
As we shall see, there are extreme cosmological singularities in our distant past and our distant future. Singularities are an interesting novelty of reality because, in the same way all the fruits and vegetables, the condiments, the juices and milk, in the refrigerator all vanish in creating the paste, all the physical properties of our universe suddenly vanish into thin air at the stage of becoming a singularity. If we imagine the infinity of all possible universes unified into a singularity, it would still have no size or properties. In fact if all possible worlds are at some ultimate level unified into a whole, the totality becomes something we perceive as nothing at all. The great unified whole is the white world. It can be imagined the size of a pin head small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, or an endless space stretching out forever. It can be said to exist in any point of space, as well as every place in space, here, there, and everywhere.

Part One
The Extreme Physics that Shape Reality
The Cosmic Absolutes of Alpha and Omega
If we could visually see the timeless realm of possibilities that exists around us we would quickly realize there is a vast unchanging architecture, immense and monumental beyond description, a world that is completely hidden from this world we know. And yet this other realm is actively shaping what is probable and possible for us in time. The American physicist John Wheeler referred to the realm of possibilities as Superspace, and the English theoretical physicist Julian Barbour named the same realm Platonia. Scientists in different fields generally refer to possibilities as state space, phase space, or configuration space.
The large-scale realm of all possibilities shapes and governs our universe by producing probabilities, which we face everywhere we turn. Occasionally we hear the odds of winning the lottery, the chance of an earth-quake, or a meteorite striking the earth. We hear of our chance of being in a car wreck compared to that of airplane crashes. By the time we reach adulthood we are all at least vaguely aware of the range of possible events in our lives, beginning with the more probable and ending with the highly improbable to absolutely impossible. In addition to all the ordinary and predictable events, like the sun rising in the morning, there is each day also a chance of something extraordinary happening.
We live in a universe governed, shaped, and ruled by possibilities and probabilities so it would be helpful if we had a map of all the possibilities. It would be helpful to be able to see the all bends and curves, the contours of potential, to know what lies up ahead, what lies around the corner, and to know the best path to take. It would be helpful to understand the shape of all possibilities well enough to answer profound but basic questions, such as, why does the possible realm place such limits on what happens in time? Why does it allow such wonder? Why is the probable world so beautiful and exquisitely systematic and orderly, rather than pure chaos? Where are probabilities guiding us? What is certain in the future, if anything?
The theme "Learning to See Timelessness" is all about learning to see the possible realm, which includes learning that there is a discernable shape to the whole of possibilities which can be modeled and understood. To learn to clearly see timelessness we first must learn how modern science today models possibilities with what is called the second law of thermodynamics, which sounds like a specific law about temperature, but it is actually a very rudimentary law meant to explain why the universe evolves and changes as it does.
Boltzmann’s Version of Overall Possibilities
The physicist Ludwig Boltzmann was the first to imagine that the realm of all possibilities has a shape and structure in 1868, as he further developed an understanding of nature that is known today as the second law of thermodynamics. Boltzmann was trying to understand the way that patterns evolve in nature, so he began to consider how an invisible world of possibilities might influence what is probable as the universe evolves and events unfold. He knew for example that gases disperse evenly throughout all available space. He knew that heat does not remain or collect in one area but rather spreads out, moving from warmer to colder bodies. He knew that although it is easy to break objects into smaller disorganized pieces, like a coffee cup or a glass vase, we never see the pieces organize themselves back together, at least not in forward time, as we would see of a broken vase if time were reversed. Why then is forward time different than backward time? Boltzmann concluded the reason is because there are fewer ordered possibilities than disordered possibilities.
Boltzmann in his own way explored timelessness by questioning what ultimately exists in terms of possible patterns. He identified a somewhat vague model of what exists timelessly which argues that there are fewer highly ordered patterns compared to the number of disordered patterns. Boltzmann imagined the shape of all possibilities to be similar to this wedge shape shown below, which indicates there must be a state of highest possible order. This state would be the most ordered state in all of reality. Boltzmann's approach turned out to be an incredibly fruitful way of understanding the universe even though he was unaware of much of the scientific and cosmological knowledge we possess today.

No one throughout the course of history would have been more thrilled and amazed than Boltzmann to learn of our big bang past. Today we know the large-scale grouping of stars known as galaxies are moving away from one another, not moving away from any center, but rather all the space between the galaxies is expanding. Space is somehow expanding internally, like the surface of a balloon being inflated with air. Consequently, galaxies twice as far away are speeding away twice as fast from us.
The conclusion scientists make is simply unavoidable. We need only imagine turning time backward to realize the inevitable result of letting all the air out of the balloon. If time were reversed all the stars and galaxies would collapse inward on themselves. If we could move into the deep past we would find that our visible universe becomes ever more dense and hot, as every star and galaxy in the heavens is drawn ever nearer. At thirteen point seven billion years into the past the volume of the universe disappears and all material objects are condensed into a single solitary place, a condition scientists often refer to as the Alpha State.
Figure 2 Blue arrows represent space expanding between the galaxies. Expansion in reverse becomes contraction and the yellow time arrows can be followed back through stages of increasing density to the beginning of time at the Alpha extreme.
It seems to some unimaginable that all the stars and galaxies in this enormous universe could ever have been crushed to a size smaller than the head of a pin. And yet we can imagine crushing and compressing material into an ever smaller space, the size of an orange, then a walnut, then a pea, and then finally there is a final collapse into what would be an infinitely dense point. Indeed we can imagine it! What is unimaginable is anything beyond that point. Many scientists consider this extreme at the beginning of time to be the most ordered state possible in nature. However, here we are more concerned with the role Alpha plays in our thinking and our ability to imagine.
For our discussion here, it matters not if time originated precisely from Alpha. Scientists aren't yet able to state that for certain. What is more important is that such an extreme exists in physics. Simply recognizing there is an extreme of possibility beyond which no other possibilities exist allows us to model timelessness in reference to a boundary. Alpha is not just a place where time may have begun, it is an ultimate boundary state in what is ultimately possible in the realm of all conceivable universes.
Ever since there have been philosophers there have been those who argued that the infinite possibilities are boundless. Many people like to imagine that anything is possible, which is tantamount to surmising that the timeless world is incomprehensible. Yet the Alpha state exposes the fact that there is at least one ultimate limitation out there for what can be. There is a distinct boundary in the realm of all possibilities that can be envisioned, and so we can appreciate its influence on our past, which today we call the big bang theory. But we should even think of Alpha as a cornerstone in the foundation of reality itself, a footing, and therefore Alpha deserves the title of Cosmic Absolute, a possibility beyond which no other possibilities exist.
Don't Forget Omega
Unlike Boltzmann who lived in the later 1800's, today we are fortunate to know the universe is expanding, as this highlights the fact that there are two ultimate boundaries in physics, one located in our past, and one located in our future. If we look toward the future the cosmos is ballooning outward due to cosmological expansion, so the volume of the known universe is becoming ever larger. Which means the density of the visible universe is steadily decreasing and the temperature of the universe is steadily dropping as light and heat waves are stretched and elongated by the expansion of space. If we run the clock forward in the same way that we turn the clock backward to find Alpha, we eventually encounter the extreme physics of absolute zero.
We tend to overlook the significance of the great cosmic zero in our future in comparison to the hot and dense Alpha in our past. Very few people are aware that there is a common zero for all measures in physics, a place where mass, energy, density, gravity, and temperature all become zero simultaneously. Absolute zero is more commonly known as the hypothetical temperature at which all motion ceases, a temperature equal to -459.67° degrees on the Fahrenheit scale, or -273.15° degrees on the Celsius scale. There are no temperatures colder than absolute zero. For those who wonder why there can't be a continually colder temperature, the issue of motion is the easiest to understand. At zero all molecular motion would be stopped, in a sense frozen, so hypothetically the passage of time as measured by clocks would stand still.
Figure 3 Mass, Energy, Temperature, and Density are all infinite at Alpha, the high end, and they reach zero at Omega, the low end. Volume collapses at both ends, at Alpha and zero, and time stops at both ends. Gravity is turned around, considered a repulsive force during the big bang. At Absolute Zero gravity is zero because space is perfectly flat (without curvature).

How near are we to this ultimate zero? The universe seems very warm here on Earth living so near to a star, yet farther out in deep space temperatures are extremely cold. Nearly fourteen billion years of expansion has produced so much empty space between the galaxies that the overall temperature of the universe has been lowered to a minus -454.74° Fahrenheit. The stars and galaxies don't heat the universe to any measurable degree. They are only the remnants left over from our dense and hot past, when there wasn't any space to move around in. Today the greatly expanded universe is only five degrees away from absolute zero on the Fahrenheit scale. In Celsius the universe's temperature is -270.415°C and since absolute zero is -273.15° Celsius, we are less than three degrees away from being timelessly frozen in place.
Of course that nasty word cold is just a word we give to a general condition or a certain way the universe behaves. When it comes to getting a sun tan, or taking a bath, we don't much like the extremes of hot either. The future cold seems unfriendly but the density and heat of the Alpha state in our past would crush and melt us. The important point is that our very ideal environment exists between these two extremes, so they both play a very important role in shaping the world we know. Alpha is the extreme of all matter and no space. Absolute zero is the extreme of all space and no matter. Science has given the past a lot of study. But we cannot appreciate our cosmos fully until we learn to appreciate and understand the absolute zero in our future. If time were somehow able to make it all the way to zero the universe would then exist in a state of perfect balance. All the positive and negative particles that make up the physical world would be stretched flat by the expansion of space. All energy would be spent, transformed into space, and time itself would stand still in that place eternally. But is it physically possible for the universe to reach absolute zero?
Figure 4 The curvature of an expanding circle moves ever nearer to the extreme of zero curvature. Similar to Zeno's paradox, it seems impossible for the space of an expanding universe to become perfectly straight or flat. Yet we so easily pull a curved string straight, or flatten a sheet, or straighten a curved rod.
Considering that ever since the big bang began, ever since time originated from or near the Alpha extreme, the flow of time has always been traveling directly toward zero, it might then seem strange that the future scenario of the universe actually reaching zero has been so neglected throughout history. Physicists are somewhat oblivious to the zero in our future. In a kind of double standard, many physicists have developed elaborate theories of time beginning from nothing, where a random fluctuation in a kind of perfect timeless yet unstable vacuum miraculously created the universe. Heinz Pagels wrote a book titled Perfect Symmetry: The search for the beginning of time. However in regards to time reaching zero in our future, the consensus has been that a matter universe cannot possibly cool all the way and become the ground state of absolute zero. As scientists have developed models of the future most have generally imagined only two scenarios, where the universe would either stop cooling toward zero and collapse inward in a big crunch, and thus heat up again, or what was said to be the more likely scenario, a never ending heat death, where the universe would expand at an ever decreasing rate forever, moving ever nearer to zero without ever reaching zero. Before 1998, science merely lacked enough information to determine if the distant future would be more like "fire" or "ice". Yet we have always known with great certainty that the universe has always expanded and cooled toward zero since time began and thus time is moving ever nearer to zero as if magnetically attracted. Only recently did we discover how powerful the great attraction to absolute zero is.
The Collision of Time with Absolute Zero
In 1998, a team at NASA, and leading astrophysicists from around the world, made a startling discovery for science entering the new millennium, when they found that the expansion rate for the local universe, compared to the very distant universe, is not slowing as expected, but rather our local expansion is speeding up. Studies of distant Type Ia supernovae clearly indicated that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, and today it is estimated that the expansion of the universe turned from decelerating to accelerating nearly five billion years ago, which is nearly half of the age of the universe. Since that summer, the data has been further verified by multiple teams and studies. And so science now is presently coming to terms with something totally unexpected. In essence, it appears the direction of time is set on a crash course with absolute zero.
Does this discovery of accelerating expansion indicate the universe can reach absolute zero? In 2002, in response to Robert Caldwell's paper on dark energy, physicist Brett McInnes of the University of Singapore explored the possibility of a "Big Smash, a final singularity in which the Universe is destroyed in finite proper time by excessive expansion." In March of 2003 Caldwell, a physicist at Dartmouth, already known for his related theory of Quintessence, and two other colleagues, Mark Kamionkowski and Nevin Weinberg, presented what they called the "Big Rip scenario" of the future, which considers the possibility that the dark energy density causing the expansion to accelerate, called phantom energy in this case, mysteriously increases with time. This exponentially growing phantom energy causes the expansion of the spatial universe to literally rip apart all the galaxies, stars, and finally all atoms. In the big rip theory, the evolution of our universe ends distinctly in finite time at what Caldwell also referred to as "the ultimate singularity", a runaway cosmic acceleration that causes our universe to end due to becoming the perfect singularity of empty space, i.e., absolute zero.
For myself, the discovery of accelerating expansion was experimental confirmation of what at the time were considered absurd predictions. Before accelerating expansion was discovered in 1998, I wrote three legally copyrighted books, in 1994, '96, and '97 arguing in each that cosmological expansion would stretch space perfectly flat and time will end at zero in a not-so-distant finite future, predictions I made based upon my understanding of timelessness which today is explained fully in my new book. As we speak, accelerating expansion is right now stretching out the curvatures we call gravity and given time it threatens to turn the universe into a flat plane of space, very much like a round balloon that is inflated into a square room, which makes all the surfaces of the balloon perfectly flat and square. Accelerated expansion is how the universe bridges the seemingly infinite gap between increasingly larger circles and the ultimate extreme of perfect flat space (zero). Acceleration is how our unstable past and present becomes the perfect stability of the true vacuum. It will take many billions of years, but eventually all the curvature of matter and energy will be transformed into a perfectly stable zero space. A universe that was once all matter and no space will hence become all space and no matter. That final 'perfectly symmetrical' and 'seemingly empty' space will extend outward infinitely in all directions. It will exist everywhere, everywhen, and be everything.
What is this final state of the universe? Zero isn't a world like our world, where things exist separate from one another. Zero is the permanent background, a larger world that exists behind the finite world we experience. Zero is like a whole pie that can be cut into infinitely many different slices, yet is always whole. Zero is timelessness, it is the ultimate top-down viewpoint or omnipresent perspective. In the same way the mathematical zero can be seen as the combination or sum of all the positive real numbers and all the negative real numbers, the cosmological zero in our future is the sum of all possible matter universes combined with all possible anti-matter universes. This final state of our universe is the quantum superposition of all universes of the multiverse. It is a sum of all life, all knowledge, all information, all that we were, are, and become. It is the one great infinite sum, the implicate whole, the ultimate singularity, which is why it is so much larger than the past, infinitely expanded, stretching infinitely in all directions. The physically real zero in our future is literally everything forever.

Once time reaches zero, all that remains is a perfect multidimensional space that extends outward infinitely in all directions, and yet such distances are suddenly meaningless from our perspective living in a world of many things, because we can only measure distances in relation to things in space. So that whole is suddenly everywhere at the same time. How should we imagine this final state? Is it physically real? The biggest step in appreciating zero is getting past our expectations and assumptions. First, we couldn't be more wrong in assuming that zero or empty space is nothingness. Zero is the ultimate singularity, but singularities are just the sum of many things combined together into a single whole, or many things combined into one thing. This is why the Alpha state of the big bang is a singularity. The point of the big bang is a singularity because all the density of stars and galaxies are crushed and melted together into one thing. Likewise, the zero in our future is a combination of many things; for example it is a combination of all the possible moments, and all such moments are unified together into a superspace. The superspace of zero looks like nothing at all to us because it is a uniform and smooth singularity, but it is actually simply oneness. All universes and all lives are all fragments of one great super whole.
The Direction of Time's Arrow
Contrary to modern expectations about the past, there is no reason, no known fact or evidence, that indicates an ultimate zero somehow existed before Alpha and the dense physics and heat of the big bang. There is the unsolved mystery of why time begins at all, but there is no science that indicates an ultimate zero somehow created the universe. Instead we distinctly see an absolute zero in our future. Science presently does not have an answer to why time suddenly began from the conditions of Alpha. The big bang is not such a theory, it is merely a recognition that all the galaxies are expanding away from one another, and the obvious consequences of that fact. Those consequences lead us to a recognition that the extreme state of Alpha exists in our past. So strictly imagining what we know, we actually realize that the early conditions of the big bang move us toward the high end of physics; approaching infinite mass, infinite energy, infinite density, and infinite heat. It really doesn't make sense to look for zero in the past, because absolute zero so plainly exists entirely at the other end of the scale. Absolute zero is the extreme bottom end of physics. Surprisingly, in reverse of what we insistently expect of the universe, the seeming nothingness of zero is plainly evident in the direction of our future, and not the past. Why is this? What is a seeming ultimate state of nothingness doing in the future?
If we now take a major step backward and consider how the universe has evolved from its beginning to present, which is one of the advantages of being able to step outside of time, we see that time began from, or time began very near to, an infinitely hot Alpha, and then the universe expanded and cooled for billions of years until it has almost reached Omega. The evolution of time of our universe spans across the whole spectrum of possibilities like a clothes line in between two poles. Imagine all the alternative directions for time to travel in. How relevant is it that time travels away from one extreme of an infinite hot and dense positive curvature, all the way to the other extreme of the absolute cold, zero density, and perfect flatness of Omega? Is there a discernable reason that this is the natural course of time for our universe?
Figure 8 Many cosmologists of the last century spoke of the universe being "finite yet without boundary." Here the proposal is that the universe is infinite but bounded by extremes, the Alpha in our past and the Omega in our future.
Over the last 100 years, discovering the universe is expanding away from the extreme of Alpha taught us a great deal about the past, but only recently, due to the discovery of accelerating expansion, are we discovering the role that absolute zero plays in our future, as well as considering the influence of a future zero on the present. Science is not only coming to terms with the real and likely possibility that in many billions of years in the future there is an abrupt edge to time that ends at Omega zero. We are also beginning to focus on the physically real properties of zero, so we are beginning to discover what zero actually is. The stage we are in now is quite similar to the period between 1910 and 1932 when Vesto Slipher began measuring the red-shifting of galaxies and when Edwin Hubble showed the universe contained many different galaxies all expanding away from one another. It was many years before the majority of scientists fully appreciated what the expansion of galaxies meant about the past, but that one piece of knowledge has led to virtually everything we presently understand about the evolving large-scale cosmos. Simply recognizing that there is an extreme in the past taught us a great deal about the universe. Recognizing there is another extreme in our future will lead us to a scientific understanding of the universe and life beyond what we expect is even possible.

Figure 9 Today many physicists believe many different pasts and futures are possible
for each observer, and neither past nor future is definite until we observe it. The extremes
of Alpha and Omega are the great pillars of existence that limit our possible pasts and
futures to those paths which begin and end at Alpha and Omega.
As we continue now we will be confronting the mystery of why time travels from Alpha to Omega. There is actually a very simple and comprehensible reason why time travels toward zero. We shall discover that there is always a single place from which time originates, an Alpha state. This is true for all possible universes. Any observer existing in time in any universe will trace the origin of time backward to an infinitely dense point, just as we do, and thus also determine that their history included a big bang event. All observers will also witness accelerating expansion in the later evolution of their own universe, and each universe will accelerate toward the Omega of zero where time ends. This is the natural course of time for all universes. It is possible to know this, to understand that the laws of nature and the parameters of space-time precisely as we know them, are not arbitrary, but rather are elementary to the whole of what exists. This can be learned if we develop a clear and precise model of all possibilities.
Welcome to excerpts from the book Everything Forever: Learning to See Timelessness. This website is a rewritten and shortened version of the book and is available online. The book is very similar, but of course there are lots of interesting details and whole sections not presented here that are included in the 348 page book that includes over 200 photos and illustrations, as well as the details of how and why a universe can exist timelessly. In this shortened version the next step is to clearly understand the hidden order and content that exists within absolute zero. What follows in part two is the magical key that unlocks a very clear understanding of the shape and structure of the infinite and timeless big picture. A few other people, such as the physicist David Bohm, once a student and friend of Albert Einstein, also recognized these two kinds of order. The writer and Nobel laureate Henri Bergson also recognized the two orders, just not as clearly as what is about to be explained.

Discovering the
Two Opposing Types of Order
In the same way that the presence of a universe seems like a miracle, as if there should instead be nothing at all, so also are we perplexed at the order that is such an elementary part of the universe in which we live. Order is everywhere, and yet it seems like there should be chaos instead of such strict governing forces of nature, for we naturally imagine the infinity of less consistent, less trustworthy, and more chaotic worlds that might exist instead. But suppose for a moment a rarely considered idea, that this universe is not actually unordinary or improbable, and instead we ourselves are making some critical mistake in how we see the world, a mistake which if we could somehow see beyond, suddenly the order in the universe would seem exactly how things should be.
Very simply stated, at present most everyone, even in science, believes order is generally definable with a single concept. In most dictionaries order is defined as "a condition of logical or comprehensible arrangement among the separate elements of a group." If we translate our sense of order into an image, we would draw an axis, with greater order in one direction and disorder in the opposite direction. Thus if the order of some system increases its disorder must decrease.

As an example, the second law of thermodynamics describes the universe as more ordered in the past and increasingly disordered in the future. The second law is one of the most fiercely defended laws in science, and yet many people have difficulty with this law and instead point out that in contrast to the uncomplicated order of an increasingly dense past there also exists a complex orderliness that has increased as the universe has evolved forward in time. Although the following is more developed than our existing vague definition of order, the basics of what I am about to explain aren't very complex or difficult to envision. We all know a great deal more about this subject than we realize because of our immersion in nature and because of our participation in the ordered flow of time.
Grouping Order
The kind of order we are most accustomed to recognizing is Grouping Order which can be understood as any class, or similar kind of thing grouped together, and located in a specific area or separate place usually apart from another group. Grouping order is the precursor of things and responsible for the definition we know as the finite world. It is very common and very easy to recognize. When we go to a grocery store there are groups and sub-groups of different products. There are apples and oranges and bananas grouped apart from each other. Also the whole store is divided apart into sections, a meat section, a dairy section, a bread section. By nature, like things grouped together become more pronounced, they stand out. If all the fruit was displayed mixed together with all the vegetables only the largest individual items would stand out. Yet separated each group is very pronounced. This same grouping kind of order is found in every store, every business, and every city. At home the dishes are grouped together in the cupboards, and the canned food is grouped in another cupboard. A well organized bedroom has the socks, tee-shirts, and underclothes each in their own place in the dresser drawer. Everywhere we humans go we group things together as opposed to the chaos of individual items being randomly located throughout a room or a space.
Grouping is how we typically organize the world of objects, but also places and information. Books are all grouped together in a library, where they are organized into sub-groups by subject or title, as this allows us to find the book we are looking for. When we communicate with others, such as when we convey ideas in writing, we tend to discuss one topic at a time, and we prioritize our subjects. There are places where people congregate together into groups, where we shop, where we eat, where we pray, where we play. People separate and group together by age, by sex, by race, by wealth, by appearance. People form teams and group apart in sporting events, we group apart in politics as parties, and geographically we divide ourselves and lands apart to form cities and states and countries.
In astronomy simple examples of grouping include a star, which is a large group of particles, galaxies which are large groups of stars, then clusters and superclusters which are large groups of galaxies. In chemistry and physics the classic example of order given is a concentration of gas particles contained within a flask, as opposed to opening the flask and allowing the gas to spread out throughout a room. Here we are defining that concentrated gas more specifically as an example of grouping order.


Figure 1: Generally Grouping Order is a type of cooperation between things. Many things rather
than randomly spaced in some frame of reference form a group. In nature things mysteriously cooperate
with one another in response to forces. Grouping order involves an increase in density, which
finally results in a more pronounced single object, like a star.
The underlying nature of grouping order involves dividing and separating things into individual groups. The best example, a sort of prototype idea to represent grouping order, is to imagine setting up a game of checkers or chess. To begin the game we divide the colors apart and place pieces of one color on one side of the board and another color is set up on the opposite side of the board. The pieces were previously mixed together randomly inside a box, so we would ordinarily say that they were mixed together irregularly, and so they were disordered, until we separated them by color into two distinct well organized groups.
Symmetry Order
The other kind of order, the second type, is called Symmetry Order which if I simplify its definition to extreme is an even and regular pattern or arrangement in which all different types of things are combined together and distributed evenly throughout the whole frame of reference. Where grouping order separates things apart into many groups, symmetry order mixes and combines things together ever more evenly.

The perfect prototype example of symmetry order also is visible as part of the games of checkers and chess, that is, if we focus our attention on the checkerboard on which either game is played, and for a moment ignore the game pieces. A checkerboard pattern is obviously ordered but we normally might not reflect upon it as a special type of order. The squares of the checkerboard are mixed together evenly, white, black, white black, then the next row is black, white, black, white. With very little effort we can recognize something very important. The pattern of the checkerboard is ordered oppositely to that of the game pieces separated into two groups. The checkerboard mixes two colors together evenly, which is completely opposite of the process of separating the game pieces by color into two distinct groups. In one process we divide things apart, in the other we mix things together. Grouping order produces difference and distinction. Symmetry order produces uniformity and sameness.
Suppose we take everything from a refrigerator, put it all in a big stove pot, add some water, and stir it all together. After we cook it awhile our parts begin to blend together evenly into a soup. If we keep cooking the ingredients for five or six hours, or even a day or two, eventually what before were separate things all unify into a single substance, a single medium. Suppose we take two colors of paint and pour them together into a larger bucket, then stir them together. Just a moment ago we had two separate and distinct colors, but now we just have one. We try adding another color, and the distinction of that color disappears also. We can just keep adding more and more colors, and yet the distinction of each unifies into one single neutral color.


Figure 2: Symmetry Order is also a type of cooperation between things, except in this case
things spread evenly in some frame of reference. Symmetry order involves a decrease in
object pronunciation which in extreme results in objects unifying with their reference frame.
This process of many things spreading out to unify with one another which then collectively form an entangled single whole throughout the overall space they exist within (frame of reference) portrays the direction of increasing symmetry order. Symmetry order is not "similar things" grouping into a distinct single object, it is many different things unifying together in a way that creates an indistinct single whole that is everywhere and everyplace, shown above as a single single color in the reference frame of the square. In mathematical terms, we can easily imagine summing together a -1 and a +1 which equals zero. A +2 and a -2 sum to zero, and so on, and so on. Classically we imagine that the positive and negative numbers are canceling, but in terms of symmetry order the two numbers are combining together into a single whole which we call zero. Explained in detail in a later section, this symmetry zero contains all numbers enfolded into it. This zero isn't zero unless it contains all other numbers. If you take any number away, such as +1, this zero becomes a -1. All numbers are in this zero! Zero is full. The same is true of the zero of physics, or what we imagine to be empty space. Everything exists within zero, rather than arisen above it.
Similarly the physicist David Bohm identified an enfolding type of order and called it Implicate Order. In his book Wholeness and the Implicate Order Bohm writes:
This order is not to be understood solely in terms of a regular arrangement of objects (e.g., in rows) or as a regular arrangement of events (e.g. in a series). Rather, a total order is contained in some implicit sense, in each region of space and time. Now the word 'implicit' is based on the verb 'to implicate'. This means 'to fold inward' (as multiplication means 'folding many times'). So we may be led to explore the notion that in some sense each region contains a total structure 'enfolded' within it.
Bohm also recognized grouping order, calling it explicate order, but he generally described explicate order as the order of the physical universe, while implicate order was almost a metaphysical concept, an order existing behind the physical world. The more specific concepts of grouping order and symmetry order extend Bohm's work and establish a new system of understanding the two orders of nature. In extending Bohm's general concepts I found that explicate order and implicate order are plainly visible in our immediate surroundings. Both implicate and explicate orders exist in lesser measure than the extremes Bohm recognized. The extremes do exist also, they are found in our distant past and distant future. The infinitely dense singularity of the big bang is the extreme of explicate or grouping order. The absolute zero singularity plainly evident in the future of an accelerating universe is the extreme of implicate or symmetry order. But in between extremes, where we live, we can easily recognize lesser measures of both orders. We can recognize lesser measures of implicate order as patterns of balance, symmetry, and uniformity, as shown in the images below. Therefore, a lesser degree of implicate order, which I specify as symmetry order, is a measurable physical property in any pattern. In fact both orders are separate components of a pattern. Each order is a one type of cooperation which overlap in the patterns of our intermediary present.


We quickly recognize the grouping of a single land mass, a cloud, a drop of water, a tree, a brick, while measures of
symmetry, and balanced distributions, are also common in our environment, both those in nature and man-made.
The two methods of creating order, separating apart and mixing evenly, are both very fundamental and yet opposite, which is what necessarily defines them as two very different types of order. It can be surprising to notice at first how contrasting the process of grouping apart the game pieces is, in comparison to the process of mixing differences together evenly. Below we see how the result of grouping order creates an imbalance on each side of the board, a purely black side and a purely white side, so that each side exists in opposition to the other, as if one side is positive and the other negative. While at the opposite end where symmetry order is pushed to extreme, the sharpness and contrast of the individual parts breaks down. In blending together previously separate things create a balanced distribution, so the black and white squares of the checkerboard transform into a single unified gray. Typically we see this gray as nothing at all. We see symmetry order as emptiness. Symmetry order in extreme is boring and even ugly to us, because we identify with a world of separate objects, rather than with the world of unified objects.

Figure 3: In one direction of order away from the checkered pattern the parts form two pure groups
of difference and opposition while in the other direction the parts merge into one.
Directions of Evolutionary Change
It can be seen that opposition, distinction, pronunciation, conflict all result of dividing things apart, they are products of grouping order. Oppositely, unity, similarity, harmony, and symmetry results of blending things together evenly. These basic patterns actually represent the basic reality that we exist within. We exist caught between two great forces, the two opposing ways objects in a pattern can cooperate with one another. All patterns, such as the checkerboard shown above, are recognizably created from the two kinds of order combining together in some way. This combining together can create the distinct orderliness of the checkerboard, or it can create the disorderly chaos of a cloudy sky. But both patterns are created by the two kinds of order combined together.
Once the two orders are made visible in a static pattern, we can also identify a fundamental direction of change occurring in the general evolution of the universe, and recognize that one kind of order is evolving into the other. One form of cooperation is becoming another. We are privileged to be living in that evolution, caught in the struggle between both types of order, where the two orders compete and in ways cooperate with one another to create complexity. The universe we observe is essentially a physical struggle between the extreme of grouping order and the extreme of symmetry order, which is why the universe is not simply chaotic and disordered. In the process of moving from one type of order to the other, all the myriad of complex orderly patterns are created as grouping order and symmetry order combine. The orderly and complex world we know is made from the myriad of possible combinations of both orders.
It is a fundamental rule or principle of nature, of physical existence, that we can only either mix things together or separate them apart. And it is not possible to increase both types of order simultaneously. In any attempt to change a pattern, we have to make a decision, either we move toward separating things into separate groups, or we move toward mixing things together evenly throughout the frame of reference. This exclusivity, this either/or decision is what clearly reveals the powerful unyielding difference between grouping order and symmetry order. We can even say the two orders are in competition with one another, because in creating any pattern, as we combine the orders together they both can't be continually increased.

Figure 4: The same underlying theme hidden in the game of checkers or chess, is true
of the universe in general. The universal way that patterns change in nature
involves a transformation of grouping order into symmetry order.
Many Patterns All Made of Two Orders
We observe order in the universe and are amiss at why it exists over disorder. However, a general disorder does not exist. All patterns are created from two orders. What we think of as disorder is merely a necessary stage in any transition of one order becoming the other. Disorder is an irregular combination of two orders. Indeed it is surprising that we don't already clearly understand there are two types of order. In fact there are serious negative consequences of missing out on something this simple and basic to nature. In modern times the second law has led science to generally view the universe as an evolution of increasing disorder, and consequently our human interpretation of reality has been dramatically misled.
The first step toward repairing our expectations involves discovering that literally ALL patterns are created by utilizing two different types of order, mainly because there isn't any other way in which to order things. Any classification, any categorization that we use to identify something is invariably grouping order. Any measure of balance in any pattern is a component of symmetry order. To begin to recognize this visually we start off with a few very simple patterns in which a combination of the two orders is easily recognized. Each pattern in the figure below utilizes both grouping and symmetry order. Notice that what we would ordinarily think to be simply an ordered pattern is shown to be two opposite types of order working together to create each of these unique patterns.

Figure 5: It is not difficult to learn to recognize how any pattern is composed of both grouping and symmetry order properties. In the first example above, grouping is necessary to create the vertical rows, and mixing creates the horizontal symmetry. In the ringed pattern, grouping creates each ring, while mixing creates oscillating rings. In similar fashion a spiral is an elegant and attractive mix of grouping and symmetry. Note that we can replace the objects of either color with empty space and still recognize grouping apart from symmetry.
These basic patterns repeated at every level of our environment. The following images are meant to help identify grouping order and symmetry order separately. Notice the grouping necessary of each stripe of a flag, or tower in a city, or tree in a forest, but also recognize the even distribution of those objects throughout an area as opposed to a closer grouping in one place. The pronunciation of each object or color is grouping order, but the even distribution of objects throughout any volume of space is symmetry order.
Figure 6: Orderly Rows
Even spacing of rows and lines is an elementary way grouping and symmetry combine.
Example 1: The design of flags must
naturally utilize simple measures
of grouping and symmetry.

Example 2: The volume of a tree is grouped in the line of the tree while the trees are generally spread out evenly through a forested area.
Example 3:
Rows of sunflowers growing in a field are complimented by an orderly row of bicycle riders. Rows are grouped things and yet the separate rows or the bicycles in the rows are spread out evenly in some area.
Example 4: A mass of buildings is pronounced grouping order, as is each separate building, yet they are also measurably spread even within the city.


Grouping is very common in our environment and grouping is the most fundamental way definitive form is expressed in nature. The largest pure example of grouping order in the universe is a star. A star is a single dense group of matter particles. Then at another level of grouping, our nearby star, the sun and its nearby planets, held together by gravity, form the group we call a solar system. At another level still, the stars on the largest scale, are gravitationally grouped into galaxies, while galaxies themselves group into clusters and superclusters. Gravity, the force that produces stars and galaxies, and super clusters, relates intimately to grouping order.
From its iron core to its diverse crust, even though the Earth is a single collected mass, there are also groups and sub-groups of materials, true of all the planets and the sun. Amongst all the different ingredients of our planet, it is most fruitful to find particles of gold grouped together in large amounts. In the microscopic world, when the individual chemical elements are grouped purely and not mixed they create pure gases, solids, and liquids.
Figure 7: Rings and Layers
Observing both symmetry and grouping in concentric layers or circular rows.

Example 2: Both grouping and symmetry are easily recognized in round circular patterns commonly found in nature.

Example 1: The orbits of planets maintains a balance between the potential of further grouping (gravitational collapse) and the increased symmetry order (non-grouped uniformity) of escape.

Example 3: A few biological examples of concentric layers where we see two orders.


All such order and structure exists in stark contrast to another universe we might imagine void of grouping; a cosmic soup of all particles blended uniformly throughout space so that there are no stars or planets, just a vast uniform sea of particles. Further still, we can imagine even the absence of particles where the universe is just a smooth fluidic material plasma spread evenly throughout the whole of space.
Yet grouping is not the only way in which the universe is organized. The universe also mixes different things together producing various patterns of increased symmetry order. Various elements mix to form molecules. The oceans, the soil, and atmosphere of the Earth are each compounds created from varied and unique materials. Rock, glass, wood, soil, plastics, and metals such as bronze and steel are all mixtures of atomic materials. And on the largest scale there is an even and isotropic distribution of galaxies and dark matter across the universe of space as far as our telescopes can see.
The world we observe is not generally more ordered than disordered, rather our present time exists trapped within a struggle between two great powers. In the play between extremes, with the influence and cooperation of each order at a nominal level, there exists a wide range of patterns in which both orders can be highly cooperative or oppositely they can be uncooperative, disorderly and chaotic, yet both orderly and chaotic patterns are produced only as the two orders combine. Even what we imagine to be disorder is produced by two orders.
The prototype of two orders cooperating is a spiral. A spiral is probably the best example of how the competition between two different methods of cooperation can work together to create complex orderliness. A spiral exemplifies a decrease of grouping giving way to the symmetry of the spiral. A spiral requires that grouping and symmetry orders cooperate simply to create the pattern.
Figure 8: Spirals
The rotation of a spiral is the most common pattern in nature where we see grouping order being manipulated toward increased symmetry order.












Example 1: A variety of spirals and fractals. The grouping and symmetry in each pattern can be recognized separately. The grouping in the pattern makes each spiral distinct and stand out while the spiral expresses an unraveling symmetry.

Example 2: Spiral galaxies are the universal shape in nature that vividly represents the opposition of grouping and symmetry.
Example 3: Moisture in the air of a weather storm produced by the collision of varied temperatures, and air and moisture densities.

Example 4: Waves curl into spirals as they crash upon the shore. The shoreline is a boundary between two large groups.


In the opposite direction away from grouping order toward increasing balance and symmetry, particles, objects, colors, shapes, can organize into lattice symmetries. In this direction of increasing order literally all that we define as form integrates and unifies with the reference frame of space, merging with the space they seemed to be arisen above. The many become one. Since we identify with form, we generally devalue how this final stage of symmetry order integrates parts and interpret it only as a destruction or loss of form. We interpret the product of increasing symmetry to be nothing at all, even though we easily identify and appreciate the magnificent beauty of lesser symmetries.

Figure 9: Beyond the cooperation of rows, rings, and spirals exists the crystalline lattice structures of matter, in which we easily recognize the balance and even spacing of increasing symmetry order. Where grouping order produces round shapes, symmetry order produces geometrical structures.
Generally in our culture, we idealize the way grouping order divides the world apart into separate and pronounced things, since this results in the diversity of form. We ourselves are distinct forms, seemingly arisen above the uniformity, the sameness, the seeming nothingness, of the symmetry order extreme, which we refer to as empty space or absolute zero. The imbalances of matter are pronounced and create the definitive world. So it seems that things are defined by what they are. However, things can also be seen to be defined not by what they are, but rather by what they are not. Imbalances are definitive, distinctive, definite, pronounced, because they lack the indistinction of extreme balance.
The key to fully appreciating symmetry order involves recognizing that increasing symmetry or balance eventually causes a shift in the nature of the pattern, because ultimately, when pushed toward the extreme of symmetry order, in the direction of balance, previously separate things transform into a single unified whole, just as colors of paint become one. When we combine parts together into a whole, everything we started with exists within the final product, in the same way all colors exist in white light, or mathematical values combine into a sum.

Figure 10: Within the Evolution of Grouping Order becoming Symmetry Order exists the systematic orderliness and complexity possible of both orders cooperating. In understanding two orders and viewing this spectrum the emergence of complexity and life no longer appear to be a product of an ordered past becoming disorder.
In summary, within the great expanse of cosmological space, extreme grouping order by nature typically produces a pronounced round object, like a single star, the most common feature of the universe, and also round like the planets, which are also general examples of grouping order. The very definition of an object is that it is isolated and distinct from other things. However, in the opposite direction, things can also organize into symmetries and lattice structures. In this direction the parts of an environment increasingly entangle and merge into the uniformity of space. As all things mix into one, the form of objects is given to the larger form of the whole. All physical properties exist at the surface of an infinitely complex underlying order of balance and wholeness, which Bohm called implicate order.
In part two of this essay we will begin to clearly understand exactly how patterns evolve in nature from one order to another, from grouping order to symmetry order.


Part Two - Page Two
Grouping and Symmetry continued
Grouping Order
Transforming into Symmetry Order
Learning how all patterns inevitably evolve from one kind of order to another allows a person to see the single underlying process by which literally everything in the universe changes and evolves, including how we ourselves inevitably grow and change as individuals and as a society. As a first step toward seeing this basic evolution of nature we must recognize that disorder is a temporary stage between one order and the other. In the first four squares below we recognize a common portrayal of order becoming disorder. Similar to an opened flask of gas, in the decay of grouping order a single dense object breaks apart and begins to spread evenly. As with a gas, eventually the parts spread out randomly within the volume of the square. The order of the single object has seemingly disintegrated into disorder. However, we can also see below that in the overall spectrum of patterns the first four stages have been moving in the same direction toward the objects being perfectly balanced within the space of the square. In the first four stages the patterns have not only been evolving toward disorder, they have also been evolving toward symmetry order. Beyond that fourth stage exists the extreme of the objects being evenly spaced, which exists beyond what we think of as disorder. In the fifth stage, beyond the even spacing of objects, exists the extreme of a final stage, where the individual parts are diluted and spread perfectly even. If a system continues in the direction of increasing symmetry order (balance) the objects become one with the reference frame (the volume of the square). The range of possible patterns includes two types of order, with extremes of each order on either end. This is true for the universe as well.

Figure 1: Symmetry Order Exists Beyond Disorder. The typical way that we expect changes to occur involves order
(grouping) becoming disorder as shown in the first four stages, yet the extreme of even spacing (symmetry order) exists
in that same direction, as shown in the fifth stage, then finally in that same direction exists the uniformity of perfect balance.
The purpose of this transition of patterns above is to show that even if disorder seems to increase, the evolution of patterns in that direction are invariably moving toward another kind of order. Disorder is recognized here only to be a stage in the overall transition between two orders. To understand why this temporary stage of disorder occurs, in the next step we will reduce the disorder to a minimum.
In any fundamental study of patterns we must recognize that all patterns exist trapped between the two kinds of order, and every pattern exhibits measures of grouping and symmetry. Said more precisely, each pattern exhibits a measure of cooperation between each order which varies in intensity. If the intensity of both orders is high, then the pattern exhibits a high measure of both grouping and symmetry, which we call orderliness. The entire transition of patterns below displays very high intensity between the two orders so it is very orderly. That high intensity decreases the amount of irregularity (disorder) allowed in the transformation, making each stage appear ordered.
Grouping Order extending into the future → ← Symmetry Order reaching into the past


Figure 2: In this very simple transition between grouping and symmetry the tension between the two orders is high,
so there is no irregularity. Each stage begins grouped, then breaks up, then spreads evenly. Once the objects are
spread evenly they are forced to undergo a phase transition by dividing apart, this being necessary if the pattern
evolution is to continue toward symmetry.
Notice that at each stage, between the extremes on each end, there is a high measure of both grouping and symmetry. Above we are seeing the same transition as shown in figure 1, except throughout the transition in fig. 2 the influence of each order is intense, causing the objects to remain grouped but evenly spaced. This maintains the objects in a lattice pattern. In looking at these patterns we can imagine the cooperation of each individual type of order intensely competing against one another. Notice the influence of each side is apparent throughout the transition, as if the invisible influence from the extreme order on each side is reaching all the way across to the other side. Below we see these same two transitions shown together, showing nature has two options when evolving from grouping to symmetry, one where the intensity of each order is very low and another where the intensity is high.

Figure 3: The entire library of the patterns in between the two extremes
of grouping and symmetry portray high and low measures of cooperation.
The more orderly patterns in nature are the product of the two orders competing or cooperating with one another. Orderliness is created when two orders strongly cooperate or compete, while disorder occurs when the two orders weakly cooperate or compete. In the images below, a field of grass forms a large group of that plant and yet the even distribution of the grass in the field is symmetry order. An orchard or a grove is a group of trees while the trees are spread evenly, extremely even in an orchard, and less intensely even in a natural grove of trees where the competition between both orders is at a natural level.

Thus far we have only considered the transformation of grouping to symmetry of a single element or one color. The same transformation using two colors is unique in that it requires a much more pronounced stage of irregularity. The patterns below portray two groups transforming into a single pattern of symmetry order. In order for balance to increase the two groups blend together, like the beginning moves of a chess game. This two color transition applies importantly to the small world of atoms since ordinary matter is created from positive and negative particles. With blue and red representing positive and negative, the end result of blending together is the neutrality of empty space, since oppositely charged particles annihilate one another. In the final stage the parts have enfolded into the perfect symmetry of space. They have become one with their reference frame.


Figure 5: With two or more colors the transformation has to pass through a more pronounced stage of disorder,
when the two groups begin to mix together. In the end, positives and negatives become neutral.
Phase Transition
I always use a checkerboard pattern to represent symmetry order however that pattern is actually a limited measure of symmetry order, since each square or circle in the lattice pattern represents a measure of grouping order, meaning that we can divide up each square of our checkerboard pattern into smaller, finer squares and then mix them back together again as a finer checkered pattern. Each square is unavoidably a grouping of smaller squares. Notice that once the transition above reaches a stage where the objects are spread evenly, they must then divide apart or dilute in some way, necessarily so if the pattern is to continue in the direction of increasing symmetry order or balance. In science this would be called a phase transition.
Importantly, note also in the two images to the right how an even distribution of the dots spread throughout the entire frame of reference (the square), has much greater symmetry order than a tight group of dots. The pattern on the left has greater grouping order, but the pattern on the right has greater symmetry order. The reason is because the even distribution within the reference frame is a more balanced pattern. Surprisingly, contrary to our ordinary sense of increasing order, symmetry order increases as parts are spaced or spread evenly throughout the entire reference frame. As we push the checkerboard pattern toward the ultimate extreme of its order the colors unify with the space itself, which exemplifies what always results from extreme symmetry order, a oneness of all objects and properties. Many different qualities or properties become one property. The final state is a unification of many things into a oneness that we ordinarily recognize as nothing at all, a perfect uniformity scientists sometimes refer to as a singularity.
1 Element Patterns





2 Element Patterns





3 Element Patterns





Figure 7: Grouping and Symmetry Order with increasing color dimensions.
In figure 7 above we see simple examples of rows, rings, and spiral, in this case portraying colors of light projected on a screen, forming patterns in which we easily see both grouping and symmetry. The first image of each example shows a grouping extreme while the last image shows the light combined together, resulting in a total lack of differentiation and form, yet each is the extreme of symmetry order for these patterns. Of course subjectively one's instinct abhors the notion of loss of form, the thought is almost horrifying to our identification with form, even if the separate forms are becoming the oneness we otherwise sometimes idealize. In reality we are more apt to see oneness as nothing. More objectively one's intuition might recognize that what is generally occurring in these transformations is that imbalances are combining together to become a balanced whole. There are many dualities in nature that balance out to zero, just as there are triads that balance out, and so on. Colors of light are an ideal example, in how the infinity of colors all sum to white light.


Figure 8: We observe simple grouping order and symmetry order in both galactic structure and atomic orbitals.


Figure 8: A large mass ornamented with symmetries. Orderliness is the product of two orders strongly cooperating.
Fundamentally we know that all identifiable material things are non-zero imbalances. They are made of positives and negatives. And of course the ultimate balance point is always a zero balance. In science we describe the grouping of matter, stars, galaxies, planets, gases, as order, yet each represents an imbalance in nature. Here we are discovering that the balance of zero has to be considered a type of order also. Balance isn't a nothing, at least not in the sense of not existing. Real nothings are simply balances and uniformities. The absolute zero of physics is the ultimate balance, it is a combination of all times and places and things that collectively form a oneness, making the uniform result appear to be empty of things. A really amazing fact about the universe is that empty space, and the result of combining everything together into a unified whole, have the same exact qualities. So how then do we distinguish between the ultimate everything of symmetry order, and the nothingness of empty space? Actually there is no distinction. Even the ordinary empty space that surrounds us is far from empty. It is full. The world of things we exist within is not more than a primordial nothingness, but rather all we know is less than a timeless everything.
Enfoldment
Symmetry order is the unifying force in nature. It is the great attractor, the great point of balance toward which all change naturally progresses. Symmetry order is the invisible backdrop, the blank canvas, the board on which the game is played. But acknowledging symmetry order is far more involved than simply recognizing that balance leads to a smooth uniform pattern. The direction of symmetry order is not merely toward a balance between the objects we see in our universe. Such is simply what exists at the surface of symmetry order, like waves on an ocean. True symmetry order involves unification of the world we see with the complete world, the infinity of other worlds, of other times, and other lives, all of which must be in balance in order to not be a part of our world, because our world, the things of our world, are created from imbalances. Parts are removed from what we experience, anti-matter for example. For us to have form, our identical opposite anti-matter selves have to exist somewhere else, creating the imbalances we see as the finite world. And naturally imbalances tend toward balancing out. That is a universal principle we all recognize. And of course the final product of balance is the native state of the collective Universe, the timeless whole, the basic nature of existence, the default of being. In the direction of increasing symmetry, the form of objects of this world are fusing and combining together with the underlying balance of the timeless infinite whole. The physicist David Bohm called this process enfoldment.
A surprising number of others in the past have constructed similar models of two orders, including Henri Bergson and William Yeats in the early 1900's, but the most recent and most notable was Bohm. Many of these same ideas were introduced by Bohm to modern science in the 1960's. In an interview with Omni magazine conducted by F. David Peat and John Briggs, David Bohm explained his concept of enfoldment:
"Everybody has seen an image of enfoldment: You fold up a sheet of paper, turn it into a small packet, make cuts in it, and then unfold it into a pattern. The parts that were close in the cuts unfold to be far away. This is like what happens in a hologram. Enfoldment is really very common in our experience. All the light in this room comes in so that the entire room is in effect folded into each part. If your eye looks, the light will be then unfolded by your eye and brain. As you look through a telescope or a camera, the whole universe of space and time is enfolded into each part, and that is unfolded to the eye. With an old-fashioned television set that's not adjusted properly, the image enfolds into the screen and then can be unfolded by adjustment."
Bohm did mean for implicate and explicate orders to replace order and disorder, unfortunately, the mainstream of other scientists didn't catch on to his vision, and Bohm struggled with despair and depression at not being able to convince the scientific community of the scientific value of his discoveries, a struggle I indirectly inherited and share frustration in. After independently discovering two orders in my own way, and learning to present my own system of seeing the same thing, the same principles, the same process in nature, and then discovering and studying Bohm's work in greater detail, I now believe the only reason Bohm's ideas were kept from having greater impact is that he was led more to challenge how quantum mechanics was being interpreted in his day rather than led to directly challenge the second law's usage of the terms order and disorder. Although judging from my own experiences I am sure it would have taken years for the challenge to sink in to the often dull collective mind of science.
As a practiced theorist I am personally aware of how developing ideas have a rhythm of their own, a way of emerging in various forms, and unfolding. The way they introduce themselves determines the direction they develop. Having discovered two orders as I did, as an exploration of the structure of possibilities, one of the most important lessons I convey perhaps uniquely, is that properties of balance and symmetry are derived from an entirely separate component of the patterns we find in nature, distinctly different than grouping, and that an evolution of explicate order becoming implicate order is taking place right in front of us. After learning to recognize grouping and balance as different orders we can observe any pattern and recognize the two separate components contributing to the order of the pattern. Since we don't yet recognize that increasing balance or symmetry order is the product of a special form of order, we incorrectly recognize for example the spiral features below as being properties somehow associated with grouping order, we see them as a product of the past, when such properties actually are related to the balance of the future. Eventually I shall explain that symmetry order is an order in our own distant future continually influencing the present.

Perfect Symmetry
We are not accustomed to recognizing the simplicity of uniformity and sameness as being properties of an underlying order. We easily recognize the balance and symmetry in the pattern of a snowflake as being highly ordered. Yet the same qualities of symmetry and balance pushed to extreme leads to an indistinct sameness that we have no respect or appreciation for because of our identification with finite form. The funny thing is that when many things become one thing, we see nothing. We are so attuned to recognizing the organizational properties of grouping order, or the pattern complexity that results of patterns which utilize both grouping and symmetry, that the uniformity of symmetry order in extreme, the order of oneness and wholeness, doesn't seem like anything at all.
We all know that if we mix two or more things together to extreme they become one thing, but when that one thing is everywhere and everything, it looks like nothing at all, so it is difficult to rationalize that the original parts that went into creating the uniform pattern are still there in the uniformity. There is a similar uniformity and sameness in grouping order when we combine all of one kind of thing into a single object, like many atoms of gold together form a larger body of gold. But the combinational sum of like things creates a larger object with increasingly distinct and pronounced qualities relative to other things. In contrast, when all things combine together into one thing everywhere there isn't anything else to relate the sum of all to, so symmetry order is ever less pronounced as various qualities merge together. Of course this is not how we expect the world to add up. In math when we add up things the sum gets ever larger and pronounced, not increasingly more invisible.
It seems of course that mixing different things together creates disorganization, at least in respect to the order we are so much more accustomed to. Causing the physical structure of things to disintegrate is not commonly seen as an alternative method of creating greater order. Disorder seems an end on to itself. Disorder seems like a general type of pattern with its own extreme measure, when in fact all disorder is a product of the two orders. Disorder is just an irregular combination of the two orders, small measures of grouping contrasted with small measures of evenness, arranged irregularly. The extreme of chaos can be understood as having a negative tension between the two orders. In other words, it takes work or effort to create high irregularity, which is why we observe so much order and only mild irregularity in our environment

Part Three - Page One
The Space of All Possibilities
The Second Law of Thermodynamics and Timelessness (chapter 12)
The imagination can easily create other worlds in fantasy. But do such worlds really exist? It seems that we have no way of knowing, unless perhaps there is an ultimate structure to the whole of all possibilities. We have already seen that the realm of possibilities is limited or bounded by the extremes of Alpha and Omega. Are there other limits? Indeed the whole of infinite possibilities has a distinct shape which can be understood. In fact there are boundaries in every direction of possibility, and such boundaries shape and guide the flow of time in our own universe. They influence and determine our entire lives.
If we know what is possible we can determine what is probable. We all intuitively know this. If we could create a map of all possibilities such a map should tell us what worlds are probable and what worlds are improbable or impossible. We know that what is possible determines what actually happens in our own universe, but we only vaguely understand why. The physicist Ludwig Boltzmann was the first to imagine that an overall set of possibilities has a shape and structure that controls what happens in time when he developed an advanced theory of thermodynamics in 1868.
In his now famous book, A Brief History of Time, the physicist Stephen Hawking uses a puzzle to explain the basic principles behind Boltzmann's statistical version of the second law. Hawking explains how the greater number of disordered states influences events. Note that each possible pattern or arrangement is called a state, and the overall realm of possibilities is called state space.
Hawking writes:
Consider the pieces of a jigsaw [puzzle] in a box. There is one, and is only one, arrangement in which the pieces make a complete picture. On the other hand, there are a very large number of arrangements in which the pieces are disordered and don't make a picture.
Suppose the pieces of the jigsaw start off in a box in the ordered arrangement in which they form a picture. If you shake the box, the pieces will take up another arrangement. This will probably be a disordered arrangement in which the pieces don't form a proper picture, simply because there are so many more disordered arrangements.
Each time we shake the box and look inside we discover a new unique pattern where the puzzle is broken apart. In fact there is a seemingly endless number of possibilities which are more disordered than the one most ordered pattern where all its pieces are fit perfectly together. Boltzmann believed this is the reason why increasing disorder is much more probable than increasing order, because in selecting the future, nature chooses among a larger pool of disordered states over ordered states.
Some have even applied the thinking of Boltzmann to the large-scale realm of all possibilities. In the book, "The End of Time", the English physicist Julian Barbour portrays timelessness as a wedge shape originating from the Alpha state. Having named his model Platonia, Barbour writes, "Platonia is necessarily skew. It is easy to imagine that the cone 'funnels entanglement outwards', much like a trumpeter blows air from a bugle" (pg.321). This model of all possible states will be referred to as the wedge model. This is generally how we have come to view the general shape of all possibilities, dating back to the late 1950's when Eddington proposed a relationship between thermodynamics and the cosmological arrow of time. Several scientists have modeled the realm of possibilities in this same way, however, it is important to consider that scientists today are usually only considering the possible states that are directly available to a system (where the system obeys the laws of physics) so they are not attempting to model all conceivable possibilities from a top-down perspective as we are doing here.
Improving the Wedge Model
What we are about to do now is take the wedge model and modify and mold it into a full and more detailed description of all possible states. The wedge model is very structured and precise in one direction, toward the Alpha state in our past, but it is non-descriptive of the future. Does the wedge accurately represent the structure of all possible states? Is there no structure or end to the measure of increasingly disordered patterns?
The wedge model predicts the direction of time is toward disorder. For several years now scientists have been aware that time itself is accelerating toward absolute zero, and yet our modern vision of all possible states does not yet include any representation of zero. The wedge model obviously only includes one of the two cosmic absolutes which we know today exist in cosmology (see part one). The classic wedge model does not include the ultimate zero of physics. So our first step is to integrate zero into the wedge model.

That first step is easy enough, but it immediately leads to a few new questions. What is the shape of pattern space near zero? Suddenly we have to completely reconsider the wedge shape as a description of all possibilities. We know there exists an ever decreasing measure of states leading to the single Alpha state in our past. Those boundary conditions near Alpha actually are what define the wedge. They give shape to what is ultimately possible. Integrating zero doesn’t challenge those boundary conditions. It just leads us to consider new boundary conditions in the direction of our future that come along with zero.
It is only natural that the same principles that apply to the Alpha extreme also apply to a zero extreme. Zero is also a single extreme state, a single condition, a singularity. It is a uniform state. So as we might expect, in moving toward that single extreme there is another wedge, a reversed wedge, on the other side of the great bulk of diverse states.

Zero is perfect symmetry. It is perfectly flat. It is the same everywhere. It is the template of sameness and symmetry. This necessitates that there are increasingly fewer states that are zero-like, that are almost flat, that are almost uniform. Consequently as we move nearer to zero the shape of state space closes and narrows inward toward the single state of zero. The overall measure of possibilities decreases. This forms a closing of possibilities in the direction of our future.
Let’s recall here Stephen Hawking's analogy of the puzzle in the box. Every time we shake the box there is a new pattern. And there is only one pattern where all the pieces of the puzzle fit together. But there is also only one pattern where the box is empty. Furthermore, if we consider patterns where there are just two or three pieces in the box, there aren’t nearly as many unique patterns as there are with ten or fifty pieces in the box. As we take away puzzle pieces, there are fewer and fewer unique configurations, until finally there is just the one state of an empty box. It follows that the measure of possible states is naturally greatest when the box is not too full and not too empty.
The same is true for the universe outside of the box. We can imagine that a large measure of unique possible states exist for the amount of galaxies that presently inhabit the universe, keeping in mind there are wide expanses of empty space between those galaxies, and that empty space would remain a constant for each possible state. If we then imagine adding galaxies into the measure of empty space, so that there were more galaxies in the same volume, as is increasingly true of the distant past, then we can easily recognize there would be a larger measure of possible states, since there are more galaxies in the same volume to alter into unique configurations. It follows that the measure of possible states is greatest somewhere in the middle in between Alpha and Omega where the greatest measure of diversity exists.
In considering the distant future the same principles which define the shape of the wedge model in our past apply also to the shape of state space near zero. As matter is stretched flat and the density of space approaches zero there is an ever decreasing measure of unique patterns in that direction. The nearer we are to zero the fewer possibilities exist that are zero-like. A wedge shape that contracts toward Omega is the most important consequence of integrating zero into the set of all possible states. The shape of all conceivable states is defined by two extremes, not one. And now we can see that there is a wide spectrum of patterns ranging from infinite density to the zero density. This creates a density gradient.

Recognizing the reversed wedge shape of possibilities out there in our future is a big step forward. It carries with it some profound implications that are even immediately visible. Considering we are moving directly toward zero, even presently accelerating in that direction, a narrowing structure of possible states means that our universe is increasingly influenced and focused by the final condition at the end of time. It means that time will eventually be forced into a very limited and defining number of future possibilities. This funneling of time not only creates a considerable restriction to what is possible in the distant future, this funneling of time’s direction would even be influencing our present at this stage of cosmic evolution.
Regardless of how many possibilities there are, if time is faced with ever fewer choices in the direction toward zero, then the future will naturally become increasingly determined or shaped by the availability of a fewer measure of patterns that exist in that direction. Considering how flat and empty the large-scale universe is at present, in the same way the past was focused outward by Alpha, as Barbour put it, “like a trumpeter’s horn”, our future is being increasingly channeled inward toward ZAT, so it is increasingly focused by, and made to be like zero, simply due to the narrowing of possibilities. Of course we are accustomed to the way zero is effecting our universe. In understanding that zero is the symmetry order extreme, and remembering how symmetry order supplies the component of balance to all patterns, we can realize that increasing balances are the result of time moving ever nearer to zero.

Figure 6: The shape of State Space near Zero.
Acknowledging zero leads us to recognize that there
is a decreasing measure of possibilities in the future.
Omega is full and not empty. So what the narrowing wedge in our future means is that the universe and we ourselves in various ways are presently feeling the influence of the balanced whole. Rather all the various paths of time all have the same beginning and the same final destination. Consequently zero is influencing the present universe. One force of nature in particular, the great balancing force of electromagnetism, is clearly the product of our moving ever nearer to the balance and symmetry of zero.
Later we shall give this focusing to the direction of time a great deal of further study since this influence from the future, combined together with the influence of the grouping order of our past, creates a wonderfully simple way of comprehending the forces of nature. However, before we are ready for that insight, we first need to more fully understand the shape of the possible realm. Now that we have considered the past and future, let’s take a look at those possibilities that exist adjacent the present.
http://www.everythingforever.com/st_order5.htm
The Adjacent Possible
Moving Toward A Cosmic Equilibrium
Ultimately we should expect that the structure of the universe we experience is directly the product of what is possible. In any scenario, a big bang, intelligent design, or creation, we should expect the overall big picture so to speak reasonably leads to the universe we experience, be that God, Mother Nature, or whatever that big picture is. If we take into consideration how the success of quantum mechanics and the second law both indicate that our universe is influenced by probabilities, then it starts to make sense that the really big picture is shaping every small part of what we experience. The really big picture shapes our past and our future, while both past and the future possibilities shape the present.
What we are going to do next is ask a question concerning the boundaries of a wedge. The classical wedge shape is conveyed by a top and bottom boundary expanding outward from a point. Julian Barbour diagrams his wedge with squiggly lines. Others have drawn straight lines. Here we are discovering a reversed wedge in our future. But what do the lines themselves represent? What actually defines the top and bottom edges of the wedge?

The Smooth Extreme
If we could watch the big bang event from a distance, a view from nowhere in particular, a question that would arise would be, why didn't the early universe remain perfectly smooth as it expanded? It is an old question in astronomy and cosmology. Instead of remaining smooth, very small variations in the rate of expansion produced minute differences, which gravity then amplified. The more dense areas underwent a phase transition and became matter, and eventually transformed into galaxies and galaxy clusters. Without these mysterious fluctuations in the density of space, the universe would have remained perfectly uniform. Gravity would never have been a distinct force of nature since gravity’s influence would have been evenly distributed over the entire volume of space-time. Of course life would not exist in such a universe to note the difference.

The question of why the universe isn’t smooth has led to a vague recognition in cosmology that a smooth configuration is an extreme of possibility. Physicists don’t talk about double or hyper smooth universes. There isn’t anything beyond perfectly smooth. It is just a natural boundary to what is possible at any given average cosmological density. Every other possible pattern is less smooth. So in the same way Alpha and zero create boundaries for our past and future, these smooth states form a sort of outer membrane to the whole of possibilities, beyond which no other possibilities exist. This line in the sand even represents the outer edge of reality.
The Lumpy Extreme
The next step along this same way of thinking is to recognize that another extreme exists opposite of the smooth extreme. Adjacent the wide axis from Alpha to ZAT, opposite to the smooth extreme, there is an extreme case of lumpiness, even if such a state is initially difficult to envision. We know the early universe did not remain smooth. Small fluctuations caused the universe to become moderately lumpy and yet isotropic, meaning that matter was for some reason distributed very equally throughout the entire universe. The original variations in density were moderate and similar enough to create the distribution of over a hundred billion galaxies presently observed by telescopes. But how lumpy could the universe have been had conditions been more extreme?

Some regions of the universe might have expanded during the big bang only for the first billion or so years, and then collapsed, forming ominous black holes unlike anything we observe today. Or we might imagine all the protons of the universe combined into a single giant proton particle, and all of the electrons combined into a super electron, and imagine this giant atom as the whole universe. Of course such an extreme division of charged particles doesn't seem normal or physically possible to us, however, simply imagine if like particles were attracted to each other while opposite particles repelled. Charged matter would naturally divide apart into two groups.
The lumpy extreme doesn't seem physically possible from our region of normalcy living in such a moderately lumpy universe, but keep in mind that what seems possible to us is a product of what we know to be probable. The whole point of this rendering is finding the outer edge of the possible, even if such a state is highly improbable or even impossible. All that matters is that the lumpy extreme is conceivable, which establishes a second outer membrane in the realm of all possibilities directly opposite the smooth extreme. And we of course naturally find ourselves in the middle between extremes.

The Balance Between Extremes
The density variations in the early universe that became galaxies and us are usually attributed to quantum instability but there may be a simpler way of looking at the mystery, a way of understanding why there is quantum instability. If mother nature is always choosing amongst all the patterns that are possible for each new moment of time, then the smooth path is only one possibility among the many alternatives where the universe doesn’t remain smooth and instead becomes lumpy. In order for the early universe to have remained perfectly smooth for any extended period of time, the selection process would have had to choose the one perfectly smooth pattern for each and every new moment. Mother nature would have had to pull that particular pattern out of the hat again and again, somewhat like the same person winning the lottery every day, every hour, every minute, every second.

Instead, the flow of time is naturally held within a central region between the improbable outer extremes. If the path of time strays toward the lumpy side, the group of states which are smoother than the present inevitably grows in size, so the comparison between groups might become 60/40 percent. If sixty percent of possibilities are more smooth than the present, the probability for time to turn back toward the smooth side grows stronger. In fact the farther that time moves away from the balance point in between extremes, in any direction, the greater the probability for time to turn back toward middle ground. The most probable location in pattern space is always the point of balance between extremes.

Figure 4: The Many Worlds Partition
The Many Worlds Partition includes worlds which follow
the basin of attraction between smooth and lumpy states,
and begin with a Big Bang event and end at Omega.
So notice that we have boundaries now in every direction of possibility. The realm of possibilities is closed and bounded in every direction by extremes. There are no possibilities more smooth or more lumpy than those represented in this bulb. There are no states more dense than Alpha, and there are no states more flat or empty of matter than absolute zero. There exists an unfathomable measure of possible states in between these extremes, to an extent beyond imagination, but not beyond structure.
To the Greatest Mystery
The Cause of Time
A well known problem with the second law is that it falls short of explaining why time begins from the ordered side of what is possible. It merely explains that if a universe for some reason begins ordered then time will move toward disorder.
As Stephen Hawking explains:
Suppose a system [or a universe] starts out in one of the small number of ordered states. As time goes by, the system [universe] will evolve according to the laws of science and it will change. At a later time, it is more probable that the system [universe] will be in a disordered state than in an ordered one because there are more disordered states. Thus disorder will tend to increase in time if the system [universe] obeys an initial condition of high order. (pg.146) [my comments]
We normally assume something in the past created the present, but notice how Boltzmann's way of explaining entropy suggests the future is creating the flow of time. The idea that the future is causing time's arrow is logically unavoidable. If we estimate the location of our own universe within the wedge model, this naturally splits the whole of possibilities into two groups, a group of states which are more ordered than the present, which we can refer to as past-like states, and a group of states which are more disordered than the present, which according to Boltzmann are future-like states. As shown below, we are splitting all possibilities into two groups, and according to Boltzmann the future-like set is much larger. Consequently that group is thought to pull time into those states.

Figure 5: Even the outdated wedge model includes a past-like group and a future-like group of possibilities. Time is thought to move toward disorder because there are so many more disordered possibilities.
The soaps model I have explained so far can also be split apart by the present, to form two groups. Logically we have to place the point of our own present very near to zero, because we know the universe is only a few degrees away from zero, and because there is already so much empty space between the galaxies, the stars, and even particles of matter.

Figure 6: If the past-like set of states is larger than the future-like set of states, then why is time traveling toward a smaller group of possibilities.
Only now we have exposed a problem with the soaps description developed so far. We can no longer detect a reason for why time is traveling, even accelerating, toward zero. If we imaginatively transport ahead in time and look at what is probable from the standpoint of zero, then all other possibilities lie in the opposite direction away from zero toward Alpha. In fact from the location shown, the past-like group of states is larger than the future-like group.
The real magic behind Boltzmann’s way of thinking about possibilities is the approach of splitting up the whole of possibilities into two large groups and then comparing those groups. The larger group of possibilities will always be the dominant attractor. In fact, the deeply simplistic principle that Boltzmann originally conjured up to develop the statistical second law was the principle that the free flow of time will move toward whatever ultimate balance exists in the whole of possibilities.
In considering the wedge model, time is at least trying to find a state of balance, even if the flow of time for the universe as a whole cannot find a state of balance because there is an ever increasing quantity of disordered states. Hence Boltzmann’s claim that systems move toward disorder always holds true regardless of where the present is located in the model. The mistake however is the assumption that the measure of disordered states is unbounded. First that belief conflicts with our observations that time is accelerating toward the extremities of zero. Second, in simply knowing there is an absolute zero in physics, we can reason logically that absolute zero exists out there in the future beyond any imagined bulk of disordered states.
So if the whole of possible states is bounded by zero, why is time traveling toward an extreme at the edge of what is possible? Speaking probabilistically, any given state that is an extreme is highly unstable compared to a state in the middle balanced between extremes. The perfect middle is a Cosmic Equilibrium State. Below in figure eight arrows represent the directions of probability. That balanced center should be the primary attractor for all probabilistically governed universes.

Figure 8. Logically time should be moving toward the ultimate balance point between Alpha and Zero, and Smooth and Lumpy extremes.
Instead we clearly observe time moving toward zero as if it is the ultimate balance point in the space of all possibilities.

However, time is clearly not moving toward the middle between Alpha and Zero. Time is long past that center point and still is moving toward zero. Time is even accelerating toward zero. Why then is time moving toward zero? There has to be a very good reason. And it has to be something that makes perfect sense once we realize it, because we are considering something very basic about reality.
So here we are forced to finally ask a question that has been lying in wait since the discovery of accelerating expansion surfaced in the mainstream of science in 1998. Why is the arrow of time aimed directly at absolute zero, and presently even accelerating toward zero? Why is time attracted to zero? What causes absolute zero to have such a powerful influence over time? What larger role does absolute zero play in the top-down picture of reality?

The answer is simply that absolute zero is the ultimate point of balance in the space of all possibilities, and our probabilistic world is guided through the possible realm by that one single state in our future. Time eternally branches away from the positive Alpha singularity out into the diversity of possibilities that exist between Alpha and Omega, and because time has a goal, a destination, then time doesn’t get lost in that vast realm of infinite possibilities. The absolute zero of temperature, density, energy, gravity, volume, and time, are all properties of a single state of perfect balance which similar to the zero of mathematics divides apart two realms, a positive state space and an inverse negative state space. Embedded in each there exists a many-worlds partition, where time travels away from the improbable positive or negative, toward the most probable state in all of physical reality; the perfectly balanced and unified state of absolute zero.
Everything Moves Towards Balance
The Governing Attractor for all Universes
We are about to study the basic probabilities inherent within the ultimate arena of all possibilities. The basic approach is similar to how Ludwig Boltzmann imagined a greater measure of disordered states influences the physical universe and the general arrow of time. The difference is that we are now working with three extremes of possibility, all positive, all negative, and all neutral (absolute zero).
When thinking in Boltzmann's terms of ordered and disordered possible states there is only one extreme, the most ordered state, and hence an overall asymmetry. Yet we are all very conscious of the fact that we live in a universe of positives, negatives, and neutrals. We are all aware of the principles of equivalence and balance. We know there is an anti-particle for every particle. And the ultimate relativity of things, up and down, hot and cold, is recognized both in western science and eastern philosophy. So which properly describes the overall big picture, the asymmetry of order and disorder, or the symmetry of positive, negative, and neutral? The ultimate space of possibilities is either imbalanced and asymmetric or balanced and symmetric. It cannot be both.
Recently I attended a presentation by Stephen Hawking in Seattle, and he displayed a picture of a puzzle all fit together, and in bold letters labeled it "order". Then he showed an image of the same puzzle pieces broken apart and spread somewhat evenly, under the label "disorder". Then he remarked of the improbability that the puzzle might piece itself together. It was difficult to remain silent. This argument is logically true if we think in terms of the asymmetry of order and disorder, however, it is entirely false if we imagine there exists an overall symmetry to the space of possibilities.
If we imagine a spectrum of possible states spanning from a positive Alpha, to a neutral Omega zero, and then continue onward beyond zero to the inverse negative side of the possible realm ending with a negative Alpha, then the paradigm we are using to see the big picture includes an ultimate state of balance. In the same way a swinging pendulum comes to rest, any puzzle made of positives and negatives will probabilistically (naturally) piece itself together. Particles will find anti-particles. Matter will find anti-matter, because in the really grand big picture, from a place of ultimate balance, there is always an equal number of possibilities in one direction as there are in the other. The cosmic pendulum swing will finally settle into a state of rest.

In the scientific study of state space there are what are called Attractors which influence or pull a system toward a specific direction or into a specific area within the internal structure of state space. The result is that a system comes to rest in a particular state or it might enter a repeating cycle of patterns. The great governing attractors we are about to consider exhibit a more general influence, but they also create trajectories and basins of attraction in the aggregate body of all possible states. Those contours in pattern space shape our universe and guide the flow of time.
If we momentarily apply how Boltzmann modeled possibilities to the space of all possible states we can identify two simple groups, divided apart by the present state of our universe. As shown below, one group contains past-like states or states which are more ordered than our present, and the other group contains future-like states or states which are more disordered than the present. The various problems of this model are much more evident when it is visualized. The most obvious problem is the apparent indefiniteness of disorder. Today we imagine the sea of all possibilities is unbounded, it is never-ending like numbers. So any comparison of past and future groups is akin to comparing the set of whole numbers one through one hundred with an infinite set containing all other whole numbers. The past-like group is a definite group while the measure of disordered states is indefinite. How can a definite and an indefinite group compare probabilistically? If indeed such ideas accurately represented the possible realm the influence of disorder would rip apart any state of order in an instant. The less obvious problem with this model is the absence of any recognition of zero and the absence of a gradation of possible states leading up to a state of absolute zero.

The new model of states we are working with has a boundary in the direction of the future and it also includes an inverse but identical set of states beyond zero. It is slightly more complicated than Boltzmann's model yet we are always working with definite groups of states, so we can divide the whole in relation to any imaginable present state and consider the influence of the two groups. We can consider the percentages of how the whole of all possibilities influences any universe.

In designating the present as shown above we know the universe has necessarily evolved away from the Alpha state through all points shown. We start to study the probabilities of this model from position A, or from Alpha, which is the most positive state in whole spectrum. If we imagine ourselves there at Alpha which is located entirely at one end of the spectrum, then we recognize that all other states are less positively dense than the extreme positive density of Alpha, so all other states form a group as shown below.

All other states besides the Alpha state form a collective group and they represent a measure of probability. All probability at this stage is for an evolving system to move away from Alpha and pass through lesser dense states toward the negative side, toward a position of greater balance. Generally reading the model, this vast set of states acts as a powerful attractor, causing the direction of time to explode through its state space toward the negative as fast as nature allows conditions to change. The decreasing positive density of the system or universe is caused by an invisible influx of negative density or negative space which inevitably causes expansion.

After a certain amount of time has passed the universe evolves to position B and C. At those points the whole of states is divided into two groups, the states which are still less positively dense, but now there is also a group of states which are more positively dense than the present. The evolving present is moving through the spectrum, so a set of states which we can refer to as Past-like states is growing in size and they begin to exhibit considerable influence over the general arrow of time and also conditions within the cosmological system.
By general rule any evolving universe is influenced by the entire spectrum. No one condition is inherently more probable than another. The probability law which dictates that time moves toward a balance point is partly based upon this principle. So a system therefore responds to probabilities dictated by all states, including even its present state. The universe having evolved from point A through F and finally to the present state shown, is dominated by the Future-like states (since they are all more negatively dense than the present).

The set of all the states which are less positively dense than the present create the Future-like Set. This includes all negatively dense states, or the entire negative side of the pendulum swing, which we can refer to as the Beta set, and it also includes all states which are simply less positively dense which exist in between the present state and absolute zero. Consequently the omega set is always of greater measure until balance ensues and so it dominates throughout the course of time over the Past-like Set.

Of course it is also possible for time to move backward. If time is probabilistic it doesn't have an inherent direction by which the entire universe evolves. There are possible states in the direction of the past. And so as a universe evolves ever nearer to zero that set of states grows and they also influence time. So as soon as the universe is no longer infinitely dense it is possible for the direction of time to reverse and conditions could move backward in the direction toward the Alpha state. This Past-like set also becomes an attractor and as it grows it opposes the more powerful Future-like Set that is attracting time toward the negative side of the spectrum.
The past and future sets are in a constant state of flux, always in conflict, each pulling at time. The future set causes the universe to expand while in contrast the Past set attempts to counter that time direction by pulling time backward, literally trying to recreate the past. Of course we know that pull of the past as the force of gravity.
As the alpha group now holding back time becomes ever more influential the momentum of time is increasingly more defined into a trajectory directed almost precisely toward zero and perfect flatness. The future set invariably remains stronger than the alpha set as it leads the direction of time and causes the universe to expand. But the ultimate attractor is the Omega state itself, since that state is the balance point of all states, and the gradation of states leading toward zero forces time increasingly toward symmetry order. In discovering accelerating expansion scientists have found reliable evidence that gravity will never prove to be the greater force and reverse cosmological expansion. The reason of course is because the direction of time is aimed precisely at absolute zero.
The Three Axes of All Possibilities
The first axis is a gradient of density that spans from a positive Alpha to Omega or absolute zero (zero density), and then extends to a negative Alpha. We will call it the "x" axis.
The Density Gradient

Then adjacent to the first axis, at right angles to it, there exists the axis from smooth to lumpy, what will be called the contrast gradient. The contrast gradient is bounded by the extremes of smooth and lumpy. We shall call this axis the "y" axis. The smooth state of course represents the extreme case of symmetry order, and the lumpy state represents the extreme case of grouping order, existent at each point between Alpha and zero.
The Contrast Gradient

There also exists another gradient which constitute the fifth and sixth directions of possible change, which are the most interesting, as one direction is toward increasing orderliness and the other is toward increasing disorderliness or chaos. As explained in part two, disorder is merely an irregular combination of two orders, and orderliness is created first in the cooperation of each order, then in the competition between grouping and symmetry orders. Disorder is the result of each order poorly cooperating, and chaos is the extreme of irregularity, where a pattern oscillates irregularly between each order, as if avoiding the regularity of either order. The world we observe is very systematic and orderly, and yet the natural world is not as orderly as it could be, and is not as chaotic as it could be. The reason is because nature rests in the balance between order and chaos. This span of patterns exists only adjacent the present, rather than in the directions of past and future. This range of possibilities between orderly and chaotic extremes creates the "z" axis.
The Cooperation Gradient

We can imagine increasing the basic influence of symmetry order on the conditions in a three dimensional field of space. This would cause whatever lumpiness existed at that particular average density to spread out more uniformly. An increase of grouping order would result in the opposite effect. But we can also imagine both orders intensely influencing the same matter without changing the overall measure of smoothness versus lumpiness of the "y" axis. This greater influence of both orders would result in the two orders cooperating in some way to create a more complex orderliness, represented by the checkerboard pattern in the image below. If the intensity of each order is moderate, then the measure of cooperation produces the calico pattern in the middle. If the intensity of both orders is low, or there exists a negative tension between the two orders, and the result is an irregular combination of the two orders; or a negative cooperation describable as chaos. This spectrum of possibilities produces a range of patterns along a “z” axis spanning from orderly to chaotic, and exists at right angles to the smooth and lumpy extremes, as shown below in a cross section slice of state space.



Figure 11: Cross Section of State Space There naturally exists an expanding then contracting measure of possibilities forming the second axis from Lumpy to Smooth, but adjacent the second axis there necessarily exists a third axis of patterns which are more orderly or disorderly. Arrows represent the probabilistic influence of both grouping order and symmetry order, strong on the top examples and weak on the lower examples. This results in a gradient of cooperation spanning from very orderly patterns to a complete resistance to the cooperation of grouping, symmetry, or any combination thereof. Note however this gradient is still not a gradient of order to disorder, but rather one spanning from the cooperative orderliness of both orders to the extreme of disorderliness which I am specifically referring to as chaos. Chaos is invariably produced by two orders, but represents resistance to, obstruction of, and prevention of any pattern cooperation.
Horizontally, the image above indicates the range of high to low orderliness in the “z” axis of the contrast spectrum. The checkered pattern requires a blend of two orders that is more exacting, and so less probable. Balanced between extreme orderliness and chaotic, the calico pattern being moderately irregular is a less exacting combination of two orders. Similar 'imperfectly even' distributions are common in nature. We find semi-even distributions of stars and galaxies throughout the universe. Such patterns represent a more probable middle ground in state space where the course of time is maintained, balanced first between the extremes of smooth and lumpy, then orderliness and chaos.
Grouping Symmetry Description Name of Extreme Spatial
Low High Perfect Symmetry - Symmetry Order Omega x axis
High Low Positive Negative Split - Grouping Order Alpha
Low High At each point along the gradient between Alpha and Omega there are extremes related to each order. Smooth y axis
High Low Lumpy
Low Low Irregular Combination of Two Orders Disorderly - Chaotic z axis
High High Intense combination of Two Orders (lattice) Orderly - Complex
Figure 12: Available Directions in State Space
The model of states now represents six directions of freedom available to a dynamic system; opposite directions along the "x" axis toward either contraction or expansion, opposite directions along the "y" axis toward lumpiness or smoothness, and opposite directions along the "z" axis toward either orderliness or chaos. Along the "x" axis a universe can shrink in size and densify overall, or it can expand and dilute. Along the "y" axis the aggregate contents of a universe can become either more lumpy or smooth without expanding or contracting. Along the "z" axis the regions of a universe can become orderly or chaotic without smoothness or lumpiness increasing. These directions of freedom are of course applicable to changes in any specific region of space as well as the overall evolution of time.

Adjacent Extremes
I first presented this basic state space model in my first book, The Structure of an Infinite Universe, written in 1994. Constantly in search of improved nomenclature I discovered Stuart Kauffman's use of the term The Adjacent Possible. I immediately was enthused by the phrase and will use the term here in a large-scale reference to those states within the model which influence time adjacent to the fundamental plane of density between Alpha and Omega. The true diversity of states exist in this domain and chiefly influence the patterns which seem ordinary to us, such as the even distribution of grouped stars or galaxies, and the measure of complex orderliness versus chaos witnessed in the cosmos. During the initial instant of expansion the early universe would remain relatively smooth because of time's original single mindedness. At first the path of time is very direct, mainly because the influence of the overall massive body of states attracting time, but also because the field of what is possible is so narrow. Before time begins there are no adjacent states, just the single Alpha state, but in moving toward Alpha there is a gradual increase in possible states as positive density decreases. Gradually the measure of possibilities existing at right angles to the direct path toward zero grows increasingly larger.

What this means is that as space-time rushes into its state space it steadily confronts an expanding number of unique possible paths, as shown below. The path through the first quarter of state space is called the Period of Divergence.


The adjacent possible shown below as the two groups adjacent the path of time moving toward zero are not past-like or future-like, but rather present-like. In other words, all the myriad of patterns which exist at the same average measure of cosmological density also influence time. The Present-like states can be understood in reference to the smooth and the lumpy extremes.

Smooth and Lumpy
Scientists question why fluctuations emerged in the original smoothness of the early universe. The density variations that gravity collapsed into stars and galaxies and us are usually attributed to quantum instability but there may be a simpler way of looking at the mystery, a way of understanding why there is quantum instability. If we imagine the early shaping of the universe as if nature is choosing among all the patterns that are possible, then obviously the smooth path is only one possibility among the many alternatives where the universe doesn't remain smooth and instead becomes lumpy. In order for the early universe to have remained perfectly smooth for any extended period of time, the selection process would have had to choose the one perfectly smooth pattern for each and every new moment of time. The path of time would have had to pull that particular pattern out of the hat again and again, somewhat like the same person winning the lottery every day, every hour, every minute, every second.
If a universe is perfectly smooth then its directions of freedom are obviously limited to either staying smooth or becoming lumpy. But there is only one perfectly smooth pattern and a whole variety of lumpy patterns. With so many lumpy patterns compared to the one smooth pattern, it seems extremely improbable that the path of a universe would continuously choose the smooth extreme, that is, if the path of time has a probabilistic nature. Note how this is the same basic reasoning that Boltzmann originally used (to explain entropy increase) when he developed the second law, except we are using it here to explain why the universe didn't remain in a perfectly equalized state. So we are turning the logic of the second law around to show that a physical and thermal equilibrium state for the entire universe is improbable in the early universe.

A smooth universe is improbable because there are so many other possibilities which aren't as smooth. The lumpy extreme is improbable because there are so many other possibilities which aren't so lumpy. In fact what is most probable is the balance point between extremes of smooth and lumpy. The reason for this is because when a universe is located within that middle ground, then half of all possibilities are more smooth, and half are more lumpy. extreme is improbable because there are so many other possibilities which aren't so lumpy. In fact what is most probable is the balance point between extremes of smooth and lumpy. The reason for this is because when a universe is located within that middle ground, then half of all possibilities are more smooth, and half are more lumpy. If the universe happens to move toward the lumpy side, the group of states which are more smooth than the conditions of the universe naturally grows in size, the comparison might then be 60/40 percent greater on the lumpy side, instead of 50/50 percent, and so the probability for conditions to turn back toward the smooth side, toward the point of balance, grows ever stronger. The farther the system strays away from balance, in either direction toward smooth or lumpy, the stronger the probability for that system grows toward turning back toward the more balanced middle ground. And of course the same is true in the opposite direction toward increasing smoothness. The most probable location in pattern space is always the point of balance between extremes. This creates what is called a basin of attraction in between the extremes. That basin of attraction is made purely of directions of time flowing between Alpha and Omega, which creates a well defined Many Worlds Partition.

Even before spacetime begins, what is ultimately possible of physical reality is preset and definitive. The smooth path and the extreme lumpy path are outer boundaries and consequently impossible. In between the two extremes there is an average and far more probable measure of fluctuation versus smoothness. Nature chooses patterns which are in between smooth and lumpy extremes for the same reasons it expands toward zero, because a Smooth set of states attracts time in equal strength to the Lumpy set of states.
Patterns between smooth and lumpy are naturally the most probable and such is primarily what we find in the observed universe with a moderate measure of deviation. As we presently map the universe we find grouped stars called galaxies, and clusters of grouped galaxies, and super clusters. We do not find smoothness in one direction of the universe and then find a massive clump of matter elsewhere. In reading the state space model we find the initial large-scale distribution of matter is managed as shown here by the shape of the adjacent possible, and ever more rigidly managed by the phenomenon of convergence about to be explained.
First a few notes. The points of balance in the adjacent possible are why we commonly observe our environment settling into an equilibrium state in short time durations (short compared to the general evolution of time toward a larger cosmological equilibrium). Reminded of the anthropic principle, in the same way we find ourselves here in this one universe and wonder in amazement at all the other imaginable worlds. We can literally imagine time being pulled in multiple opposing directions, and understand how that shapes the universe we know.
Convergence
During divergence the passage toward zero is slowed by the increasing influence of the adjacent states within an expanding body of possibility, but then space-time moves into a second phase. At some point possibly in the exact middle of the journey from Alpha to Omega, the body of states adjacent the present begins to shrink and collapse. Expansion begins to accelerate as the narrowing space of possibilities essentially forms a closing tunnel in the direction of zero.
I believe all of nature's forces including expansion are simply directions in time. Space expands or contracts, and bodies attract or repel, in relation to the contours of state space. I also believe these seemingly imaginary states are in fact not simply possible but actual. Profound as it may be, all these states are real spatial conditions which exist both separately and seamlessly bound together to form time. I further agree that time is describable as a direction in space as the physicist Richard Feynman described it. Space-time is a direction through many spaces, somewhat like pages in a book.
I dream of an ever improving scientific understanding of state space far beyond my non mathematical attempt. What I am really looking forward to is one day creating computer simulations. I believe the mathematical version of this state space model will create a universe of atoms and rotating galaxies right before our eyes on a computer screen. A combination of convergence theory and modeling the adjacent realm will precisely describe the rate of expansion, as well as the mass of the proton and electron, just as they determine the range and distribution of matter, galaxies, and galactic clustering.
Part of the reason expansion is accelerating is the narrowing of the adjacent possible. Another reason is that relative to our present world, flat space is the ultimate expansion of space, meaning each point in space would appear to us to be expanding away from every other point in space. Hence to arrive at that condition acceleration is necessary. Absolute zero is not in a state of hyper expansion. In actuality there are no spatial points at zero, or rather all points are merged into a single smooth hyperspace. For that reason time approaches flat space with each particle accelerating away from every other particle, as each particle itself stretches flat. As all finiteness dissolves there is then an ultimate unification of all time, all possible states, and all possible universes. Each unique world of space-time such as our own, as it unfolds, is simultaneously merging with all other worlds, finally dissolving into the ultimate state of Omega.

As for the mentioned impossibility of certain paths of time, I thoroughly believe probabilities are curved in ways that makes certain conditions impossible even in an infinite or a quantum universe. Extreme smoothness or lumpiness is impossible just as a big crunch future is radically impossible.
Impossibility within time becomes evident as one becomes accustomed to the idea that time ends in the future and simultaneously as one recognizes that time has a very distinct goal. I now would argue that ten monkeys pounding away at ten typewriters would never type out Shakespeare's complete works, regardless of how long they type, in ordinary time. Time itself is not so simple as temporal duration or change. Impossibility is in part due to improbability but it is also caused by laws or qualities inherent within time. The measurable time of space-time is never infinite in duration. It is limited and has a very specific destination and purpose. A direction in time can only deviate from its general path a certain amount or percentage, the measure of which we face every day.
I originally developed this model based upon the belief that the universe is totally infinite, but how infinite is it? I now lean toward the idea that what is ultimately possible of space-time worlds is limited worlds such as our own, every possible universe ruled by the same laws of nature. For example, no matter how long the monkeys type, they won't grow wings. There are a lot of unique tomorrows within possibility/actuality, but that infinite number seems far less when compared to all the impossible wild ideas we can dream up that lay outside the natural course of time. We experience those worlds only when watching the Twilight Zone because space-time has a precise beginning and an end which shapes its middle.
The Many Directions of Time
The Reason "Why" there are Forces of Nature (chapter 18)
Many physicists abruptly shy away from the idea of intelligent design but they have no scientific reason to reject that option, because beyond the idea that we experience this universe because all imaginable universes exist, a reasonable solution to why the complexity of the universe has come to be, or why the universe is uniquely this way, has never been found. Specifically we have no idea why there are forces of nature.
The reason we don’t yet understand the forces of nature is because in a way there aren’t actually any forces of nature. There isn’t even a single direction in time. The world around us is a tapestry of time directions that results of the free flowing of time. The forward direction of time is dominant, but the general flow of time since the big bang splatters in every direction. Our very own time is constantly moving both backward and forward, and also time moves in various directions at right angles to the past and future. Time is flowing in all directions simultaneously. We actually feel this splattering of time, we feel time pulling us around, the various directions time is pulled into are very powerful. We call the various directions that time moves the forces of nature.
I guess what makes the soaps model so compelling is that it makes it easy to understand why there are forces of nature and what causes them. Where Boltzmann’s approach was correct enough to provide a simple explanation for the general direction of time’s arrow, an improved picture of what is ultimately possible provides clear and simple ‘reasons why’ for gravity, electromagnetism, the strong force and even the weak force. The forces of nature and the various directions of time are really the same thing.
All forces are probabilities. In the very same way that certain events in our lives are possible and impossible, probable and improbable, the four forces of nature that govern the physics of the universe are themselves probabilities. The forces of nature are simply the most predictable events we experience. For example, the chance that gravity will hold you firmly to the surface of the Earth is one of the more predictable events in your life. Gravity is so dependable that we tend to categorize it as a constant of nature, but gravity, like all three other forces, is just a large group of possibilities attracting the present. In fact, gravity is the probability for time to travel backwards.
Gravity is trying to recreate the past. You’ve probably have never heard such a statement before but once you think about it, the idea that gravity is trying to recreate the past is nothing but common sense. When noticed it seems self-evident. In an expanding universe the past is increasingly denser; less expanded, and finally becomes an infinitely dense point. Gravity pulls all matter together. So obviously gravity is at least trying to recreate the past. In fact the reach of gravity is infinite, so it not only tries to recreate the past locally, it is trying to pull the whole universe back together as it was in the distant past during the big bang. Essentially gravity is in a battle with the expansion of the universe. If expansion ever became the weaker of the two forces then gravity would successfully recreate past-like conditions by collapsing the universe in on itself.

We can easily identify the portion of possible states that pull at our universe, trying to recreate the past. They are all the states which are more (positively) dense than our present. All the states between Alpha and our present form a group of states which are denser than our present, as shown below. Each state is a possibility and collectively those states form a strong probability which pulls at the conditions of the present.

Figure 1: Time can move backward toward past-like states, or forward toward future-like states. Broken vases would not fuse themselves together, but if the whole universe collapsed inward in a big crunch, time would be traveling backward in state space.
Gravity is a force produced by the set of all the possibles (past-like states) on the Alpha side of the present, in opposition to all the possibles (future-like states) on the Omega side of the present. The present is of course the natural dividing line between those two sets.
Gravity is time moving backwards. Taking this a step further, simply saying the same thing in another way, gravity is time in reverse. We can recognize that anyplace where gravitation is successful in increasing the density of the universe is a case of time or conditions moving backward in time. If you have a really strong desire to travel backward in time, just visit the sun. The sun is an example of how the whole universe used to be billions of years ago. In a very real sense the sun is still in a very retarded state compared to most of the universe. Even the gravity holding us to the Earth is time moving backwards. Again this is something simple and self evident. A necessary portion of the universe must travel backward to accommodate the possibilities of past-like conditions. Areas of the universe which retreat in time of course become denser and areas that are advanced in time become less dense or expanded. In hindsight it is actually very surprising that gravity has not been imagined to be the influence of past-like states since the influence of such states are also evident in Boltzmann’s way of modeling all possible states.

Figure 2: Past-like states pull time backward while Future-like states pull time forward toward zero. The balance of Lumpy states and Smooth states causes the early fluctuations that become our present semi- lumpy (stars and galaxies) universe. These groups manifest as the four forces of nature and cosmological expansion. All the dense areas in the universe are the result of retarded time, time moving backward or not moving forward. Note that this present shown is much earlier than our present location in state space.
Expansion is a force from the future. The strongest probabilistic trend of nature is not at all toward disorder, as physicists presently claim, the overall trend is for balance to increase. The most fundamental force of nature is simply the tendency for all things to balance out. And in being drawn toward the balance of zero the universe invariably expands. There are certainly other forces that pull at time. In every direction that possibilities exist, there is a pull. But extremes balance out with the opposite extreme, and balance always ends up the winner, which is why gravity is losing the cosmic battle against expansion. Gravity is a force from the past and expansion is a force from the future. The past-like set of states which pull time backward is always smaller in comparison to the future-like states pulling time forward, at least until the two sets finally reach an equilibrium at Omega.
The expansion of the universe is time moving forward. Cosmological expansion isn’t a product or consequence of some chance explosion in the past. It is a force just like gravity. Just as we can describe gravity as time moving backward, expansion is time moving forward. The why of gravity can be understood in a simple way and so also can expansion be understood in a simple way. Although the set of states producing gravity is very strong on the cosmic scale, more of the universe is moving forward in time toward balance than backward toward imbalance, so a greater portion of the universe is presently expanding and cooling, moving us slowly more forward into the future than backward into the past.
Time is not moving purely in one direction. Any gravitationally contracting area of the universe, such as a star, is an example of a group of time directions moving backward toward Alpha, while the large expanding regions of the visible universe between the galaxies reflect the majority of time directions moving forward to Omega. Two steps forward, one step back. But we have only considered time directions on the largest scale. What about time directions in our immediate environment?
Electromagnetism is time moving forward. Electromagnetism is the perfect balance of absolute zero in the future influencing our present. The great balance of the future, being the most probable state, is a great cosmic attractor of all universes and all change. The future-like conditions located between the present and zero are all more like the flatness and uniformity of zero than past-like conditions. They are less lumpy, less grouped, and more uniform than past-like conditions. The future-like states also includes the whole of all the inverse negative states, which are less positive than the present. So, as that dominant set of possibilities funnels time toward absolute zero, the cosmos must become increasingly less lumpy, less grouped, more uniform, and more neutral. Those changes are produced by cosmological expansion, the electromagnetic force, and entropy.
We can actually feel absolute zero pulling and pushing the cosmos around. We feel the balance of zero as electricity and magnetism. If we imagine a state of perfect balance, it would be perfectly smooth and uniform. It would be neutral. If positive and negative particles are moving nearer to that balance, like particles will naturally repel while opposite particles attract, because that moves them toward greater balance. Electromagnetism is that simple. Like expansion, the force of electromagnetism is the present being influenced by our ZAT future. The difference between expansion and electromagnetism is that expansion applies to the large scale universe. Expansion works on the whole while electromagnetism works in the micro-world of particles, but they are both caused by the same inevitable future.

Figure 3: Electromagnetism can be easily understood as the result of our universe moving ever nearer to the balance and symmetry of absolute zero. Above we see grouping order in the separation of positive and negative, with each forming an Alpha state for opposite directions of time. In the middle we see the checkerboard pattern representing the balance and extreme symmetry order of absolute zero or Omega. Adjacent exists the smooth and lumpy states which produce the first level of diversity in state space.
To highlight the fact that electromagnetism is a force creating balance we can just imagine electromagnetism in reverse. Like particles would then attract and opposite particles would repel. Such a force would cause positive and negative particles to divide apart into separate groups, just like dividing up colored checkers. In fact, when like particles such as positive protons bond together, time is actually moving backward. The strong force is essentially electromagnetism in reverse.
The Strong Force is time moving backward. Of course a group of possibilities fights against the fundamental force toward balance even in the small world of particles, so in the same way that gravity battles against expansion, the strong force battles against electromagnetism, by causing positive protons which are like particles to attract at very short distances. If protons and neutrons get close enough, the repulsion of electromagnetism is overcome by the strong force, which is time moving backward, just like gravity. The strong force holds a group of protons and neutrons together to form the nucleus of atoms, just like gravity holds together particles to create stars and galaxies. The strong force is the gravity of particles which has a short range because electromagnetism is dominant on the larger scale, just as expansion is dominant on the large-scale over gravity.

The Weak Force is time moving forward. The one flaw in the strong force is the weak force, which can cause the nucleus of atoms to decay, and properly so. In the future, something has to eventually overcome the strong force, because electromagnetism cannot break down the bond between like protons by itself. So in order for electromagnetism and expansion to eventually win the battle against gravity and the strong force, at some point in the future the weak force has to break down all the complex atoms in the universe into individual protons and electrons. The weak force is very much an extension of electromagnetism. In fact we know the weak force grew out of electromagnetism in the early stages of the big bang, prior to which there was just one force called the electroweak force. We can generally recognize that electromagnetism and the weak force together are working against both gravity and the strong force. Isn’t it really funny and amazing how a sensible purpose to the forces of nature can suddenly seem self-evident. The forces of nature aren’t arbitrarily selected in some way by chance or design, they are simply the possible directions of time.
Beautiful Diversity
Unifying the One and the Many
For every north there is a south, for every up a down, for every forward a backward. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Every school kid learns how to pair together opposites such as hot and cold, smooth and rough, short and tall. On the playground we learn what goes up must come down. And as we grow older there are lessons to be learned about pleasure and pain, strength and weakness, love and hate. In stranded moments throughout life we contemplate opposites of good and bad, wrong and right, darkness and light. The philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “Every sweet has its sour; every evil its good.” But does absolutely everything have an opposite? And if so, and it is also true what they say, that opposites attract, then what happens when all the opposites meet in the middle?
In between opposites there is always a middle ground, and yet the middle can be awfully difficult to describe. Between thin and tall there is the average height. Between heavy and light there is the average weight. We usually have to use neutral words and phrases such as medium, average, the most common, the norm, to define the middle ground between opposite attributes, because oddly enough there aren’t special words that identify the middle ground. What word defines the middle between strong and weak, hot and cold, sharp and dull, hard and soft, or easy and difficult? The middle ground is almost always nameless and yet we can easily recognize it exists between each opposite.
There are opposing directions in politics, the left wing and the right wing, but of course the balance between liberal and conservative is simply called the middle of the road? Why aren’t those ‘middle of the roaders’ allowed a special name of their own, or a political party of their own, like everyone else? And why aren’t there more of these people. Where do they hang out? I can’t remember ever meeting any of them. Could it be that when people reach the middle of the road they just disappear without a trace? Or is it that they just don’t speak up, or don’t have an opinion? Why are the rest of us so clearly on one side or the other? Why is everyone so polarized into camps, or sides, or groups? There are left wingers and right wingers in politics, religion, justice, education, and even art.
In the study of human personality, Carl Jung, and later Isabel Myers and Katherine Briggs identified the four temperaments that define the essence of each person’s personality. A multiple choice test identifies a person as more thinking or more feeling, more sensory oriented or more intuitive, more introverted or more extroverted, and finally in the last divide it tells if a person is more spontaneous, flexible, and free to flow with the ups and downs of life, or it tells if they are more inclined to be planned, rigid, structured, and organized. The four divides effectively define sixteen basic personality types. It can be quite surprising to find how accurate one’s own personality and behavior is described in respect to being one or the other of each of these temperaments. Yet I have wondered, with billions of people on this planet, isn’t there one person out there who is right in the middle, who isn’t any one type more than the other. Really there must at least be many thousands, but why hasn’t their personality been identified as the seventeenth type? What is their personality like? Do they have one? And how come I hear somebody telling these individuals (if I can call them that) to “take a stand”, “be somebody”, “make your mark!” Why are we expected to be off center? What is so terrible about being in the middle?
All opinions, all traits, all characteristics, all forms, have a middle ground, but we don’t name the middle ground apparently because we think it’s too plain and boring to be given a name. We usually act as if there is nothing in the middle, as if when two sides blend together they cancel out or disappear. But just because the middle ground is always less distinct and pronounced than the definitive extremes on either side, why do we go and think the middle ground is a formless nothing.
This elusive middle ground between opposites is itself a physical part of reality, although it depends upon how we look at it as to whether we define it as a combination or a cancellation. It can be seen as inclusive, as the combined sum of opposite properties, or it can be seen as exclusive; the negation or cancellation of opposite properties. It can be seen as the potential to be either or it can be seen as a nonexistent neither. It can be seen as everything or it can be seen as nothing. And since we are each defined by our own particular imbalances, it often depends on our own temperament as to whether we see the middle ground as the whole, or as a void.
The great egos, the loud and obnoxious, the pronounced types, of course see the middle ground as boring, empty, and repulsive. The practical, the conservative, the sensory oriented skeptic, tends to see the middle ground as irrelevant because it doesn’t, or it doesn’t seem to, have identifiable qualities. What isn’t physically definitive doesn’t exist. The classical physicists of the past century, in concert with mathematical logic, have strictly seen the merging of opposites as a cancellation. Someone with a practical and physical personality prefers to define reality as limited to physical things and measurable properties. On the other hand, the more intuitive, the progressive, the insightful, the more spiritual types, tend to sense the middle ground as a whole containing all opposing sides. They tend to depreciate the physical and see the balance between opposites as a unity, as two sides of the same coin. The middle ground is seen as a foundation or axis, from which form springs outward. For some, the combination of all opposites forms a single unified whole, a common oneness. This is the central core of many philosophies and religions in the east.
A common belief in Hinduism, Taoism, and Buddhism asserts the unity and interrelatedness of all things. In Buddhism the Dharmakaya is the experience of a timeless unity devoid of all physical characteristics, which is said to be true reality. The Heart Sutra of Buddhism states “...Form Does not Differ From the Void, And the Void Does Not Differ From Form. Form is Void and Void is Form...” More toward fullness, Brahman, in Hinduism and for the Yogi is the unchanging and infinite background of all physical being. It is the sum totality of all. Likewise, in Chinese Taoism the word Tien or Tao refers to the ultimate sum of all. Everything exists in relation to the Tao and everything is a part of the Tao, even though the Tao is one thing. Therefore nothing can exist or have meaning apart from the Tao. Out of the Tao comes the Yin and Yang, the two opposing forces or natures.
Oneness was also a common message of many great philosophers, including Xenophanes, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Plato, Plotinus, and Giordano Bruno. Xenophanes appears to have influenced a long line of other philosophers with his belief in an infinite and eternal Universe that is unable to change. He undoubtedly influenced the development of modern religion as he described the infinite whole as an omniscient God that sees all, thinks all, and hears all, “one god greatest among gods and men”. A few years later Heraclitus called the unity of opposites “Logos”. And following Xenophanes, the logically minded Parmenides described being as innate and without any opposite of non-being, since non-being cannot exist, and he also argued that being is ultimately timeless and unchanging. In that belief Parmenides treated time, form, distinction, and all duality, as illusion.
Plato also considered the visible world to be an illusion, one that produces weakly assumed beliefs in the illusion. In the allegory of the cave he suggests the world we experience is like the shadows of another much deeper reality. Plotinus, like the Buddhists saw the great Oneness as beyond all attributes, including even being and non-being. More recently, the Italian Philosopher Giordano Bruno wrote: “Everywhere is one soul, one spirit of the world, wholly in the whole and in every part of it, as we find in our lesser world also. This soul...produces all things everywhere; so that for the generations of some even time is not required...”
In modern times, Ralph Waldo Emerson in believing that opposite halves inevitably produce a whole writes: POLARITY, or action and reaction, we meet in every part of nature; in darkness and light; in heat and cold; in the ebb and flow of waters; in male and female; in the inspiration and expiration of plants and animals; in the undulations of fluid and of sound; in the centrifugal and centripetal gravity; in electricity, galvanism, and chemical affinity. Super-induce magnetism at one end of a needle, the opposite magnetism takes place at the other end. If the south attracts, the north repels. To empty here, you must condense there. An inevitable dualism bisects nature, so that each thing is a half, and suggests another thing to make it whole; as spirit, matter; man, woman; subjective, objective; in, out; upper, under, motion, rest; yea, nay.
It is extremely difficult to contemplatively turn a switch within oneself and suddenly see the world in an entirely different way. But if we really take a careful look at the way all opposites are bound by a neutral center, and simultaneously consider the likelihood that beyond our personal experience of time literally everything exists timelessly, meaning that all the opposites exist simultaneously…and then we try to imagine what the universe would be like if we could glimpse that whole if only for a brief moment, the vision we would see could be interpreted to be....continued in book :)
When Zero Equals Infinity (God's Math)
A Primary Mathematical System
What is the largest number you can think of, no wait, what is the largest number of all? What is the total sum of all numbers? Of course the answer is that there isn't an answer to this question. But let's put it another way. What is the greatest universe of all? What if we imagine all things that exist? Can we at least find a single concept, a simple word, that includes all things combined together into one single whole universe? Is there such a word? Sure, this is easy. The word everything does that. Also there are words such as Universe, or existence, or being, which can be meant to symbolize everything that exists.
What about math? How many numbers in mathematics symbolize an everything in the number world? Is there some place on the real number plane which symbolizes the sum or the whole of all numbers? Interestingly, the answer to this question is no. As everyone knows, there is always a next greater number when counting and it isn't possible to count to a final largest number. There is just something different about the nature of the system of mathematics which makes it impossible for it to represent itself as a whole.
We could use the term positive infinity to refer to all the positive numbers combined together, but such a term would not actually represent a completed sum or combined whole. Since there is always a next greater number in this group there cannot be a single definite value. This positive infinity is more a representation of a never ending process; a series of numbers, and not a number itself. Of course the same is true of the infinity of negative numbers. Like the positive side, there isn't a unified sum of all the negative numbers.
But what if we combine together all the positive numbers with all the negative numbers? We can write this as an equation. At first it seems like if we try to sum all numbers into a single ultimate number; if we sum all the positive numbers with all negative numbers, then the total combination of all in question would sum up to zero, as shown below.
(1 + (-1)) + (2 + (-2)) + (3 + (-3)) +... = 0 + 0 + 0 + ... = 0
Wouldn't that be strange if the sum of all numbers somehow equaled zero. We could then say that zero represents the everything of math, couldn't we. And that really wouldn't make sense, because the meaning of zero is very related to the word nothing.
The equation above makes it seem like zero is the sum total of all real numbers. There is always a negative value for every positive value, as shown above with integers. However, there is a problem with the consistency of this approach. It is possible to sum all numbers several different ways, and the sum does not always have the same answer. Several equations sum all real numbers yet each yields a different product. The two equations below add up all integers but as you can see, they have different sums:
(1 + 0) + (2 + (-1)) + (3 + (-2)) + (4 + (-3)) + ... = 1+ 1 + 1 + ...
next:
((- 1) + 0) + ((-2) + 1) + ((-3) + 2) + ((-4) + 3) + ... = (-1) + (-1) + (-1) + ...
These two equations, and the first equation that equals zero, each include all integers in the equation, yet we find three different solutions to the same equation. It is the same problem. In these equations we are summing definite things or values, which holds us in the realm of the finite, where a definite quantity of things is greater than zero things. The equations above sum a definite series of values, they don't sum the whole, and consequently it is said in mathematics that the sum of all real numbers is undefined. Which really kind of makes sense. Otherwise, zero would be a mathematical nothing and an everything simultaneously. So to be consistent, in ordinary math zero represents nothing and there is no ultimate number that represents all numbers, because math is the counting of definite things.
Zero cannot represent both nothing and everything in the same mathematical system of values, and as long as we remember that, we can discover a second mathematical system, very similar to ordinary math, and yet very different, because in this new system, zero represents a mathematical everything, which produces a whole other kind of math. And what is perhaps most interesting, is that in the same way that there isn't a number in ordinary math to represent everything, in this new system there isn't a number to represent nothing.
Zero as the Whole of All Numbers
It is said that the sum of all real numbers is undefined but logicians and mathematicians made a mistake in formulating the rules concerning zero. We tested the hypothesis that all numbers might sum to zero, using a mathematical system where the value of zero is pre-set to be nothing. In ordinary math, all values are relative to zero as nothing, so of course we would discover that all real numbers do not sum to zero. If it were not so, the logical consistency of mathematics would be destroyed.
Since we developed math to count definite things, and zero represents no things, it makes sense that we don't commonly switch into a system where zero is the sum of all numbers, although it can be done. It just can't be done half way. As the saying goes, it's all or nothing. Either we can see zero as every number or we can see zero as nothing.
It is only logical, that a test of the value of zero has to be a genuine consideration of the value of zero. If we test zero as the sum of all numbers we must allow its usual value of "nothing" to change to a value equal to the summation of all numbers. Which means we assume zero to have a value greater than all other numbers. Do you see what I am saying? Its a bit radical. If we sum all numbers instead of cancel all numbers, we alter the entire value system, and suddenly we have what appears at first to be nonsensical. If zero is the greatest value; i.e., the sum of all numbers, what then is the value of the number one, or two? Which is greater, one or two, if zero is greater than both?
How can zero be greater than one? This sounds like nonsense. Or perhaps we are touching on something completely different which takes time and thought to adjust to. Naturally in order to find out we must explore some unfamiliar terrain. However, keep in mind, that we are not considering a change to, or something new in, ordinary mathematics. The mathematical system developed since the dawn of human reasoning functions in relation to the definitive world of things that we observe each day. That system counts things, and it is a valid system evidenced by its application to the physical universe. And yet it is noteworthy, even important, that we notice how that system cannot describe the universe as a whole, as words and our thinking minds can. In math as we count a world of things we count upward into an endless abyss of numbers. If we wish to understand and describe the universe with a mathematical system that is able to represent the universe as a whole, then we have to make a switch and see the world in an entirely different way. Remember the first equation:
(1 + (-1)) + (2 + (-2)) + (3 + (-3)) +... = 0 + 0 + 0 + ... = 0
The simplest most straightforward way of summing all numbers is to sum the equal but opposite numbers together as shown above. So for a moment we will imagine that the correct sum of all numbers does sum up to and equal zero. Except this means that we need to change the value of zero away from being "no" things. We need to treat zero as the largest value in the mathematical system which actually includes the two already vast infinities of positive and negative numbers. Suddenly zero has become an infinite whole that contains all other numbers. Every positive and every negative number on the real number plane is summing or combining together to form an ultimate number of absolute value. Obviously this is not math as we know it. This is a math without time, without process, a math of truly infinite values.
So we have made a dramatic change and the next step is to see the effect that changing the value of zero has had on the value of other numbers. If we are going about this bravely, as if we are imaginatively exploring a series of ideas, and so the brain is actually working, we notice that the values of other numbers have also changed, transformed in the same shift that we have taken with zero. Ordinarily the nothing of zero is a foundational axiom. Our foundation has shifted dramatically. What now is the value of one or two?
If zero is seen to contain all other numbers, then logically all other numbers must have a lesser value than that of zero. If zero is the largest value, the only way there can be lesser values is if we remove some measure of value from the whole of zero. For example, suppose that we take away a (-1) from zero. What remains in the absence of that (-1)? Zero is still very large but zero is no longer an absolute value containing all other numbers. Something has been removed from it. But what value does zero transform into to show that loss?
The answer is simply that zero minus (-1) equals 1. The missing (-1) causes zero to transform into the value 1. If zero contains all numbers within it, and we take away a value, zero then contains all numbers except the removed value. If we remove a negative one from zero the value of zero records that loss by transforming into a positive one. It still contains all other numbers besides (-1). So it is still a very large number like zero. But it is no longer the complete whole of all numbers. It is one. A very large number one.
So if we treat what just happened as the logical rule we can now discover the values of other numbers in this system. For example, one is the sum of all numbers, so it contains within it all numbers, except (-1) is removed. The number two is the sum of all numbers except (-2) is missing, so it is also near zero but its content is less than zero and less than one. The number three contains all other numbers except (-3) so it is very large but smaller than two, one, and zero. And so on, and so on. The transformation that has happened is not simply an inverse reversal of ordinary mathematics, rather in this mathematical system, the value of a number decreases as we count toward greater numbers, since more of the negative numbers are being removed and placed somewhere else.
Now, I should point out, just for the sake of clarity, that switching to the negative, the number (-1) is a combination of all numbers except that a positive 1 is removed, which would otherwise create the balance of zero. And in removing a positive two the whole shows that loss by becoming the number (-2). Unlike ordinary math, where negative values are less than nothing at all, here the numbers (-1) and (-2) are very large. In fact the content of (-1) is equal but inverse to the content of (+1). In physics, matter and anti-matter particles are equally substantive yet inverse in form and structure.
Of course this feels odd to anyone at first exposure, and to a mathematician who is learned and naturally entrenched in the extensive field of mathematics, all this likely seems absurd and useless. Hopefully everyone is interested in and fascinated by logical consistency, and maybe wise enough to not expect to immediately see how a new set of ideas can be applied for some practical purpose. Keep in mind that we are no longer counting finite things, so it is certainly not being meant here that two things are less than one thing. None of this applies in any way similar to how ordinary mathematics is applied to the world in which we live. In what I shall now refer to as Symmetry Mathematics, the number zero is considered to be the everything of math. It is a complete and infinite value. In this system, there is a whole, and this means that the infinity of possible values is absolutely definitive, a definitive zero (like the physical reality of empty space), not merely a endless series or a process. In this new system zero is genuinely infinite, and as we remove a part from the infinite whole, we create definitive values which are themselves infinite as well. I can assure the reader that the applications of this system are as interesting as this system is unique. We can visually express this new system with the image below which shows the value or content of the number 2.
2|equals the set of all real numbers except (-2), or (-1)+(-1). The symmetry value of 2 can be drawn on a number line as shown.

It should be noted that we are not merely reversing the general value system of mathematics, we have changed the very nature of the system. This is most evidenced by the fact that there isn't any number in this system that represents nothing (and especially non-existence). There is no basic duality of something/nothing like that which exists in ordinary mathematics. An empty set in this system is recognized as the ultimate combination of all sets. And naturally, the values on either side of zero are less than the whole set.
There exists two entirely different ways of seeing zero and all other numerical values. It is a whole other type of value system, a system as valid as the one we presently use, one of no use within the abstract world of individual things, yet immeasurably valuable in cosmology where a mathematical value for the universe as a whole is of critical importance in any attempt to understand for example, the implications of a universe in which space is flat and infinitely extended, not curved into a loop (discovered by the WMAP space probe), or the many worlds theory based on quantum mechanics.
This new mathematical system is based upon a holistic perspective, its foundational axiom reflecting the innate singleness and wholeness of existence. Applied to the universe it would indicate that what we think of as empty space is really full and not empty. It would indicate that our universe is like a symmetry math number, definite, and yet infinite, but not yet the total infinite. Our universe is like the surface of the ocean, and underneath that surface is the rest of the infinite whole. Most importantly, it would show the interconnectedness of what we think of as separate things. As a perspective symmetry math doesn't see isolated or separate objects. Although its values are definitive, it does not see finite things. In the same way that its mathematical values are a combination of other numbers, this system represents physical form only as a single unified pattern, with each pattern (each number), being less than the whole. In the way that each number contains other numbers in symmetry math, a number is like a possible static state, a state being another term for a pattern.
One shouldn't assume this unique value system threatens our normal value system in any way. Each is built upon a perspective. Two apples are still more apples than one. We can still divide up and see the world from a finite perspective, in which case the infinite can be seen only as an indefinite process. Symmetry math shows us that the infinite is real and exists in a realm greater than our sense of time and place., What this system does, is allow a radical shift of perspective, so that we can also see the universe as an undivided whole, where apples are part a single universe. In symmetry math, one of the conclusions we can draw is that for there to be a positive two apples (matter), there must be a negative two apples (anti-matter) removed from the pattern that we observe. Finite form requires that the two positive apples are less than the whole of the four apples combined.
Such ideas are really very simple and increasingly sensible once one is more accustomed to switching from one perspective to the other. In the next essay we'll consider more of the implications of this system, and we will work toward relating symmetry math to the cosmology of two orders.
Proto and Eleah (God's Math)
The Infinite yet fully Definite Plane of Symmetry Math
The nature of infinity is very much an unresolved mystery in both physics and mathematics, but there are a few tolerated infinities, such as electrons and black holes. And there are infinite series equations which mathematicians say are defined because they express Convergence. For example, .999... is said to be equal to 1, even if the universe’s fastest computer would never be able to appreciate the .999…as a single definite value.
Other examples of convergence include:
The sequence: 1/1, 1/2, 1/3, 1/4 ... is converging toward 0.
The equation: 4 - 2 - 1 - 1/2 - 1/4 - 1/8 - ... is converging to 0 also.
The equation: 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 ... is converging toward a limit of one.
And the equation: 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + ... is converging toward 2.
Obviously (1 + 1 + 1 + ...) is not a convergent series, it has an increasing value, so there is never a completed sum. There is no convergence. In ordinary math we think of the set of positive or negative numbers as continuous and indefinite.
In symmetry math there is one ultimate value which contains all other numbers and on either side of Omega Zero other values decrease. As we count into ever larger numerals, the symmetry value decreases toward an infinitely small value. Consequently, the values of larger numerals converge toward two outer extreme points. This clearly visible convergence allows positive infinity and negative infinity to have definite values. So they can be represented as two numbers. Consider what a relief this model is to the anxiety of indefiniteness in ordinary math.
Unlike our present finite system of values, which definitely does not consider positive or negative infinity to be a number, in symmetry math we can define two final numbers on either side of zero. In symmetry math, if we add ones endlessly (1+1+1+ ...), there is still always a next greater numeral, but the value of the sum is decreasing and converging toward a point of infinitely small value. That point is a last number. I call the convergent sum for positive numbers Proto, which means first in time. Proto is a numeric representing positive infinity, here written +∞. I call the ultimate negative number Elea, the sum of all negative numbers. Obviously I derived the names from the proton and electron.
In treating a positive and a negative infinity as numbers, we then can write this simple equation:
+∞ + -∞ = ∞ = 0
All of symmetry math is defined and whole, bounded by extremes, just as pattern space is defined and whole. The symmetry plane is infinite but bounded. As a result, we can begin from Proto or Elea and count toward zero.

Figure 22.1: In symmetry math the whole mathematical
number line is a spectrum of infinities extending out
from a whole infinity toward two half infinities.
In ordinary math the nothing of zero cannot relate to positive or negative infinity in the way convergence allows the extreme values of this symmetry mathematical plane to relate. Unlike ordinary math, in symmetry math we can say both sides of the plane are perfectly balanced around zero and not balanced around any other number, simply because Proto and Elea are definite and absolute values. They are definable as numbers, where in ordinary math there aren’t ultimate positive and negative numbers, since we can never reach the end value of a non-converging series.
Three Different Answers
We can now reconsider the issue of there being three incompatible answers when summing all reals or integers. If we keep in mind that in symmetry math we have boundaries, zero in the middle, and Proto and Elea on opposite ends, we then again consider the equation:
(1 + 0) + (2 + (-1)) + (3 + (-2)) + (4 + (-3)) + ...
Since positive infinity is a number in symmetry math, we can count away from positive infinity toward zero, and so we can consider an end to this equation. As shown below, now the equation ends definitively with the same displacement that it began with, and since the equation is a sum of all numbers, the equation ends by also summing the number Elea into the final sum, causing the equation to equal zero, as shown below:

Figure 22.2: Notice that Proto can be subtracted from or reduced, but not added to. Elea can be added to but
not subtracted from. Also note that in symmetry math the addition of -∞ and +∞ is actually a combining of
both sets into an ‘everything’, rather than a cancellation of positive and negative which creates nothing.
Math and Order
One of the surprising and elegant features of symmetry math is that although the two smallest numbers, Proto and Elea, are points of infinitely small value, each number still represents half of the whole. What do I mean by half of the whole? Where the symmetry value of the number one includes all numbers except (-1), the symmetry value of Proto equals all numbers except all the negative numbers. All the negative numbers must be made separate, just as grouping order separates the game pieces of checkers. All we can do is remove all the negative numbers, or all the positive numbers, from the fullness of zero, which makes Proto and Elea the two smallest possible values in this system. Consequently we don’t have a value of nothing in this system. Proto and Elea are as small as any values can become. So even though Proto contains the infinity of all positive numbers, relative to all other values, it is infinitely small.
Obviously the infinitely small value of Proto (and Elea) can be related to the infinitely small size of the Alpha state of the big bang. Just as spacetime collapses in our past to a smallest possible size, Proto and Elea are equivocally the smallest possible values in symmetry math. Then just as the Omega zero of symmetry math is infinitely large and contains all numbers, the expanding universe ultimately becomes a space that extends infinitely in all directions. Symmetry math is essentially a mathematical model of the Universe.
Symmetry math provides a great deal of insight into the properties of the Alpha state from which time originated. Proto is all positive numbers grouped apart and unified into a positive singularity. Proto is a positive oneness, an ultimate one that is positive, like the 1 byte of computers. Some of Alpha’s properties such as "uniformity" are similar to Omega’s properties. The greatest difference is energy content. Since the very nature of being positive or negative is imbalance, the extreme positive of Alpha is naturally a very energetic state, a probabilistic energy all aimed at moving toward balance. Some big bang theorists describe time originating from a false vacuum, which is an empty space that for some reason isn't stable.
Symmetry Math and Space
In the same way that we live caught between two kinds of order, in terms of space we live in between a three dimensional (3D) space and a four dimensional space (4D), so we live in a fractional 3.x space. We might guess that we live in a 3.7304572 dimensional universe, that is expanding and so moving ever nearer to the complete 4D universe. Further, I believe a negative curvature is properly understood as being identical to an expanding space, and a positive curvature is identical to gravitational contraction (both are necessarily temporal). A negative curvature is time moving forward. A positive curvature is time moving backwards.
Relative to our expanded 3.x space, the Alpha space in our past, which is only a 3D space, is infinitely curved (and hot). Even though Alpha is a simple flat and empty infinitely extended space, that space is the smallest space possible and appears infinitely small relative to our much larger 3.x expanded space. So for example, a contracting universe (big crunch) could only reduce to a 3D space which we perceive from within spacetime to be a point. This explains why some physicists see a vacuum at the beginning of time while others see an infinitely dense singularity. They are the same state. Inversely, an expanding space ultimately becomes a 4D space (after a big rip type of ending), which is an absolutely full 4D space, meaning it contains all possible curvatures, or all 3.x fractional states (same as superposition of all possible universes).


An expanding universe is the result of a single 3D (positive) space colliding with a single 3D (negative) space, i.e., Proto and Elea, which causes the big bang. A summing of the two spaces results in a perfectly flat, fully inflated 4D space, i.e., the absolutely stable true vacuum, which is the absolute zero of all physics (a neutral space). Brett McInnes (2002 big smash paper) and Robert Caldwell (2002 big rip paper) have both referred to the end of time as the "final" and "ultimate singularity". Time ends as the ultimate 4D singularity. And this 4D singularity is the native state of reality, i.e., the default setting. It is the nothing that is everything. The two 3D spaces (positive and a negative) are inevitable components of a 4D space, two perfect halves of the 4D whole. A Euclidean 3D space can only expand, contracting toward a 2D or 1D space violates conservation of the eternal 4D whole (although we can understand the components of a 3D space as built from lesser dimensions. I prefer Rob Bryanton's model where a one dimensional line, and a two dimensional split, and a third dimensional fold, produce a three dimensional space that is seen as a point from higher dimensions. Note that in Bryanton's model we can more clearly recognize the full space (Omega) in our future to actually be 6 dimensional, 3D + 3D = 6D, i.e., time equals 3 dimensions of space).
In summary we can appreciate the consistency of structure between symmetry math and the two kinds of order. Symmetry math produces the same structure as the SOAPS model explained in earlier chapters. All possible curvatures (all possible states) exist between an empty Euclidean 3D space and a full 4D space, like slices of a whole pie. All fractions are embedded in the 4D whole. Conservation of the 4D whole is always enforced (the ultimate global symmetry). In the distant past, the electromagnetic energy of a 3D space, the false vacuum, is infinite. A 3D space is a false vacuum because electromagnetically it is either positive or negative in reference to a full and neutral 4D space, and so temporally or probabilistically a 3D space is like a pendulum swung to one side. A 4D space is a state of balance. In the distant future, the end result of accelerating expansion causes any two points to expand away from one another at the speed of light, therein not allowing virtual particles or quantum fluctuations. The dark energy density becomes infinite, which is simply nature enforcing the absolute stability of the perfect vacuum and perfect symmetry. This 4D space exists in our future, although it also exists now, or it is the now.
Always Infinitely Extended
Hopefully it is obvious that symmetry math relates so much more gracefully to the large-scale evolution of our spacetime than does ordinary math, particularly so since the WMAP anisotropy probe soundly determined the large-scale cosmos is geometrically flat. Most astrophysicists recognize that if the overall cosmos is geometrically flat presently, then even the Alpha state had to have been flat, which means that it extended infinitely in all directions. A cosmos that is flat in its present is always flat in its present state, even at the very beginning of time. This seems to lead to a paradox, since we see Alpha as a point, and a singularity, but it is simply a matter of perspective. Everything is relative, meaning everything is intimately related and interdependent. Even though we view Alpha as an infinitely small point at our beginning of our time, we can see from symmetry math that Alpha is still half of the infinite whole.
Just as Proto is an infinity of numbers, the positive density of our Alpha is an infinity of positive space, it is just not the larger whole infinity of Omega. Viewed internally positive Alpha or Proto would extend infinitely in all directions as a universe within itself. It would be flat and infinitely extended because it has infinite content (I will now sometimes refer the Alpha states as Proto and Elea).
In comparison to other states, Proto is a very simple state that is not further defined than itself, much like the word something. It is all the positives divided apart from all the negatives, and that creates a seamless union of all positives. Semantically Proto relates to the basic idea conveyed by the word ‘somethingness’. Alternatively we necessarily perceive anything beyond that somethingness to be a ‘nothingness’, when it is actually the flip side of the coin, or the negative Alpha or Elea. The other side of the balance doesn’t seem as real or valid to us, because it isn’t here. We can’t see it. We can’t detect it.
We also sometimes conceptually deny the reality of Proto in our past. It is said the laws of physics break down at Alpha. We deny Proto because we can’t imagine how time could have begun from a single point in time, or from an extremely ordered state. We only view Proto from the outside, because we view Proto relative to the much larger expanded space of our own cosmos. In fact our entire sense of dimension or size is ultimately relative to both Proto and Omega.
Our most basic sense of scale originates with Proto perceived as the smallest physical size possible in nature, half of the whole, and ends with Omega Zero as the largest physical size. It seems a little strange but we ourselves can seem larger than the infinite extension of Proto. Keep in mind that in science we already know or imagine our physical bodies to be larger than the tiny point of the big bang, which has been described as being as small as a pea, smaller than a proton, small enough to fit under one’s fingernail. We don’t relate to the internal dimensions of Proto, we are of the larger dualistic world, where positives and negatives combine into something larger, so naturally our world is comparatively larger in comparison to the vast inner Proto universe.
Finally, the size or volume of Proto and our own cosmos are both viewed relative to the much larger absolute fullness of Omega, which is one of two reasons why the expansion of the universe is presently accelerating. We see a absolute zero future as a hyper expanded space, with every spatial direction traveling away from every other spatial direction, therein creating the most extreme state of spatial inflation imaginable; which also happens to be the largest Universe imaginable, and naturally so. Due to the basic principle of relativity, we are naturally physically connected to both the bottom-up and the top-down of reality. We are invariably connected to the big picture.
Conclusions
Everyone unconsciously thinks in accordance with a logical framework. That framework is greatly supported by a highly successful mathematical system, one primarily based on the gain and debt of countable things. We see the world either as a thing, or as an accumulation of things, and can't help but imagine the many parts or the whole to be arisen above the backdrop of nothingness. This standard view of zero as nothing (meaning no distinct things or objects) is a valid system of understanding. Our ordinary math is based upon a perspective derivative of grouping order, or thingness. But a view where “the total summation of things equals zero” is also a valid system of understanding. There are two logical frameworks to utilize in order to understand nature, the bottom-up and the top-down. They are not independent. They are complementary. This new and unique mathematical system is derived from symmetry order, with its foundational axiom reflecting the innate singleness and wholeness of existence. As a perspective it doesn't see isolated or individual things. All its values are definitive but infinite, so it cannot divide up or count the world of objects. It sees geometric fields, patterns, curvatures in space, that extend outward infinitely, that always remain enfolded in the whole.
In ordinary math we count upward into an endless staircase of numbers, with no finality or boundary, and thus reality modeled by such a system has no ultimate sum. In that ordinary math fundamentally counts things, there is naturally a number that represents no things, while no number can represent everything. If we instead switch into a mathematical mode that is able to represent everything as a whole, then naturally we find that the system represents reality in an entirely different way. We haven’t merely reversed values, we have changed the very nature of our system of understanding.
In symmetry math, infinity is no longer constrained to a never ending process, but rather the infinity of mathematical values is whole, bounded only by infinite extremes. Engulfing the finite, the entire symmetry mathematical plane is real, complete, and consequently quiescent and timeless. In symmetry math, zero represents everything, and because the smallest values of this system still represent half of the whole, we no longer confuse the nothings in this system with nonexistence. Nothings in this system are singularities. In a purely philosophical study of the three fundamental states, Omega is of course denoted as everything while interestingly the positive and negative outer poles can be related to ultimate illusory concepts of something and nothing; two singularities annotated the simplest of any two meanings, concepts which are certainly real, but which eventually break down in an ultimate perception of reality.
In considering the new axioms of this system, we would not expect the values of the symmetry plane to be derived from an elementary first thing somehow emerging from nothing or an empty set, as is imagined of ordinary math. All is not magically arisen above nothing. In fact there is no axiom of nothing in symmetry math to imply a nonexistence, from which we question the existence of the rest. Not surprisingly I hope, this new system feels more like the primary system, while the axiomatic structure of ordinary math now seems more to be an abstract representation of reality. We just need to keep in mind the underlying lesson we have just learned from this math, that there cannot be a greater infinite without the finite, and there cannot be a finite world of things without the infinite whole.
Designing the Multiverse
Backward Causation and how the Future Influences the Past?
Imagine you decide to create something complex and beautiful out of wood or stone or metal. Perhaps it is a musical instrument, or a statue, or some kind of vehicle. Of course no one can instantly transform raw materials into a violin, a fine piece of art, or a bicycle. You have to carefully plan and organize and put a great deal of work into your creation. You have to affect the world around you in specific ways to make your future creative goal a reality. Essentially you have to influence the present in order to make something happen in the future. In this same way the universe itself has intent, it has a specific goal in mind, a future destination, and that future in order to make itself happen must reach into its past and influence events.
An inevitable future has a wonderful way of making things happen. Imagine that at exactly noon in one month’s time you will be at the top of the Eiffel tower in Paris. That one event in the future is set in place. It cannot be avoided. The event is as certain as if it has already happened. In fact it has happened, but of course you are not aware of your predestined future. You don’t know that some distant place is calling to you and pulling you in that direction. At least initially, everything seems normal because your immediate future is still open to the usual range of events. Almost anything can happen early in the month’s time, as long as it’s not something that will stop you from eventually making the future journey.
Yet behind the scenes, suddenly your life is anything but normal. The ordinary probabilities of your life are being redirected. Suddenly an event in your life must be designed and planned and made to happen. Some particular series of events must organize itself in a coordinated effort to bring you to Paris. Of course there isn’t just one way to travel to Paris, so behind the scenes, in a very non-local processing of potential events, all the various ways of traveling to Paris are probabilistically competing with one another. While simultaneously, all the futures where you don’t visit Paris are disappearing from possibility. The chance of visiting Paris was always there in your life as a possible future, but now that journey is the top priority of your life. It is only a matter of time before it happens.

We can imagine many of the unique events that could arrange and bring about your future visit. You might just decide you need a vacation and your spouse conveniently wants to go to Paris. Or it might be that you win the lottery and want to celebrate. Or you might find a job in Paris. Or your visit might be a planned romantic interlude with someone you met online who lives in France. It isn’t difficult to imagine unique scenarios that will bring you to Paris. They may even seem endless to an imaginative person. They are all possible here. Of course which specific scenario you experience isn’t important for our discussion. All that is important is how one moment in your future can cause a series of specific events to unfold in a way that brings you to a specific place in physical reality. An inevitable future must shape its own past to bring itself about.
If winning the lottery is what brings you to Paris, you must first buy a lottery ticket. Then you must realize you won. And then you must collect the prize. If it’s a vacation that brings you to the tower, you will have to accrue some vacation time at work. Your employer will have to approve your vacation. You will have to plan and schedule the journey. If a romantic interlude is what brings you to Paris, you will have to meet this person ahead of time, and build the relationship, and it will have to feel important enough to make the trip seem worthwhile. Every possible reason, every possible scenario of you going to Paris will have to set itself up. And so your inevitable future will need to make dramatic changes in the course of your life.
In that the natural course of time inevitably ends at zero, that one single moment of time dramatically influences our lives presently. In the same way that the noon event in Paris makes events related to the future more and less probable, the destined future for the whole universe, even though it will not occur for many billions of years, is currently shaping our present. It literally determines what is allowed to happen in our present. The condition of Omega must set itself up; it must arrange the past in order to happen in the future. In a strange way the future has to construct itself. The physical universe has to evolve in a way that will allow itself to become the Omega state. So in order for our small portion of universe to become perfectly balanced and unify with the greater whole, the future Omega reaches into its own past to organize events in a way that will make that one future happen.
Synchronicity is an unusually coordinated series of events. You may not notice the synchronization of events that carry you to Paris, depending on the makeup of your particular past and present life. You may have always wanted to go to Paris, and may travel regularly around the world or regularly visit Paris on business, so the trip may not seem at all out of the ordinary to you. On the other hand, Paris may be the last place on the planet that you would visit, or you may not have the means to go, in which case the arrangement and character of events that convince you, or help you, or force you, to arrive in Paris may seem outlandishly arranged.
At first the invisible attraction toward the Eiffel tower is mild. Your immediate day to day experience is still rather open to events that are unrelated to the Paris journey. In the first week it is not yet necessary for anything out of the ordinary to happen, although travel or preparations for the trip are more probable than they would be otherwise, while other events which lead you further away from Paris become increasingly improbable as each moment passes. Behind the scenes of your life, your predestined future necessarily eliminates all alternative futures. The possibility of remote travel, for example, into the wilderness of Alaska, becomes impossible, since it would interfere with the journey to France. Perhaps a trip to Alaska was a very unlikely event in your life, but now it is virtually an impossibility in your life. If you were scheduled to vacation in the Alaskan wilderness something will happen to negate such plans.


In a sense the universe knows where it is going from the very first moment of time. So the matter distribution in stars and galaxies throughout the entire universe has to be within tolerance of that goal, within the degree of randomness and freedom of that particular juncture of time. Within tolerance obviously would not include being the lumpy extreme or the smooth extreme. Within tolerance means the structure of particles and atoms that govern the stars and galaxies and matter will eventually produce Omega. For example, there has to be an equal number of protons and electrons in the universe, so that near the end of time a balance between time and anti-time can ensue. All such planning and coordination is the long arm of the future reaching into the past.
Generally, it is easy to see how the trip to Paris analogy dramatically increases the probability of some method of travel to Paris. And as the date of the event approaches, making the journey to France becomes increasingly more likely. You might leave early and tour all over the European continent for work or for play, but the probability of each event is aligned with the precise future moment of noon at the month’s end.
If the journey is delayed, and not instigated early on in the month, then faster modes of travel become ever more probable. A journey to Europe by boat for example is no longer an option. In fact as time passes, the width of the unique events is dramatically decreasing in your life. A large number of events are continuously becoming less likely and finally moving into the impossible realm. Yet the future moment of you standing on the tower is still not dictating a specific means of travel at a specific time. There are still many different pathways of getting to France, different airline flights for example, although the cloud of possibilities is ever more shrunken and focused.
Finally toward the end of the last week, events in your life become increasingly coordinated toward creating your one future. If events earlier in the final week had worked against your trip, later in the week events will seem increasingly synchronized and planned, as if everything is going your way, as if the whole universe wants you in Paris. If you don’t have the money for the trip, it would be a good time to take up gambling. Your destiny is calling you. And the more the defiant or random events occur to resist or divert you away, the stronger forces grow toward aligning you back up again with your course to the tower.
If you still haven’t yet left for Paris, at a specific moment, a certain number of hours before the tower event, all flights except those directly to France become impossible because other routes will no longer get you there in time. Absolutely powerful forces beyond your control now come into play. Some particular direct course across the Atlantic toward the tower now becomes absolutely necessary. You might be kidnapped or arrested and extradited to France, or your plane traveling elsewhere will be hijacked. And finally, at a specific point in time, the scenario of you not having left for Paris is no longer possible. Such worlds don’t exist. In the final hours it is inevitable that you are on your way, because in the future you are already there, so failure is not an option. Resistance is futile.
Chapter16
The Big Bloom
Why Space-time is Systematic and Orderly
As we discover the implications of an absolute zero future, the most dramatic shift in our understanding of time and the cosmos is the recognition that we are now being drawn into a decreasing measure of possibilities, rather than an ever enlarging body. The claim that 'possibilities are endless' is quite incorrect. In fact the direction of time has been facing an ever fewer number of choices for many billions of years.
The known universe is like a giant cosmic foundry. It is as if Omega has something in mind, a goal. Time begins with matter heated up in the kiln of Alpha. Then suddenly out comes the universe into the cold air, and as the matter cools it is guided into shape by the future. Slowly the hot plasma crystallizes into worlds, galaxies, all shaped by the great powers of grouping and symmetry, by the past and the future. This foundry is after all timeless. As the original potential of each time line is hammered out the future interestingly becomes itself, a sort of cosmic blooming that couldn’t be any other way. What ultimately exists, the greater Universe, the 'infinite but bounded' whole, cannot be changed. But when the whole is understood, who cares. Compared to any other scenario, this innate guidance system creates a pretty amazing local universe.
Stage One: Divergence - The Increasing Possible Futures
In spacetime's evolution toward the balance of zero, there are two unique temporal periods of change. The first phase of spacetime; the initial burst of change, is the period of Divergence. Divergence marks the period when there is an increasing number of unique pathways for time to move in. When time accelerates away from Alpha, it faces a rapidly expanding number of unique futures. For example, using the trip to Paris analogy, a person in Los Angeles at the beginning of the month can take a plane and travel in any direction, north, south, east, or west, since every direction generally leads toward Paris. They might travel first to Asia or Africa. Initially the variety of possible futures is very wide. Divergence generally defines a period of the universe when what is uniquely possible overall is vastly on the increase. But cosmically speaking, eventually the expanding diversity in the direction of greater balance gets used up and begins to decrease.

Figure 16.1: The upper half of the globe represents the way pathways of time diverge away from one single state; the north pole of time. The lower half of the globe reveals the rest of the story, explaining why time has a definite direction and a consistent nature. All space-time paths, after diverging away from one pole, are bent inward toward a common single inevitable future, the south pole of time.
Divergence ended long ago, possibly even during the early stages of the big bang, or it might have ended about six billion years ago. The outset of accelerating expansion, which was roughly seven or eight billion years after time began, may have marked the changeover between stages of divergence and convergence.
Stage Two: Convergence - Decreasing Possible Futures
If we imagine how many unique tomorrows there are in comparison to the one single present, then it seems like what is possible is an expansion of possible pathways for time to travel in, and not a decreasing set of pathways. But when we imagine the person from LA has one day left to get to Paris, we can see that most of the different ways of getting to Paris which were available early in the week are no longer a part of what is possible. The remaining unique routes to Paris still branch outward from a single specific present or location, but there is no time to drive across the states to New York and fly from that location. There is no time to take a boat through the Panama canal and cross the Atlantic. Only an airline flight will allow the person to meet their date with destiny. There may be many different airline flights leaving from the local airport, but as each hour passes there are fewer options. So the whole of what is possible is decreasing, even if there are still many unique pathways into the immediate future.
Pattern space, the infinite realm of possibilities, in that it is bounded by extremes in all directions, imposes severe limitations on the flow of time, limitations which establish a sensible reality. Just as spatial directions that travel away from the North Pole travel toward the South Pole, all time directions are guided by Alpha and Omega. This is visibly why physical reality itself is not chaotic. It is visibly why the universe is comprehensible. It is visibly why we are able to experience a sensible reality as we do. If possibilities were themselves unrestricted there would be no guidance system, so there would be no sensibility relative to physical reality. But since time has a goal, what was, what is, what will be, is meaningfully coordinated. Randomness and irregularity are kept in check, and the unfolding and enfolding universe remains systematic and organized.
The universe is not just a path of time, but an evolution of content. The evolution from one order to the other is likely the most important single piece of information we will ever know of the universe. Seeing both the divergence away from grouping order and the convergence toward symmetry order changes everything. A grand cosmic evolution makes the universe vibrant, purposeful, and alive. Time becomes a growth process, not a decaying or dying process. This knowledge awakens us to the universe and our own cosmic significance.

Figure 16.2: Divergence and Convergence forming the Many-Worlds Partition.
Of course a converging future returns us to the question, “infinity means what?” and all the different scenarios we discussed earlier. Objectively, scientists would imagine all the possible methods, and times, of how a person might travel to Paris as a cloud of potential, and beyond that probability cloud we can imagine seemingly normal events which are virtually impossible purely because the one future moment at the tower is destined to happen in a specific measure of time. A single destined future appears to draw a distinct line between events that are possible and events that are impossible even in the multiverse.
There is a distinct line being drawn here that not everyone will want to agree with, however, it is simply not enough to recognize certain events as highly improbable. If ZAT is acknowledged as the universal attractor for time, one has to conclude that there are for example no universes in which the big crunch scenario occurs. There are no parallel universes where gravity overcomes the expansion of the universe, where a whole universe ignores the attraction of the cosmic balance point and returns to Alpha by collapsing. Such a universe is so improbable that it doesn’t physically exist in time.
Convergence means there are fewer possibilities available today than there were yesterday, but a single future moment being inevitable is both limiting and liberating. The collision between past and future does initially dramatically knock down the more radical set of possibilities, but it also can create complex and improbable events. For example, for a person who is a homebody and would otherwise not visit Europe, it causes exciting and unexpected events to happen in their life. This may seem to be increasing what is possible, but if we consider the entire range of events that are to some degree remotely possible in that person’s life, no matter how slight the possibility, then we can see how a predestined future actually reduces the size of a much wider range of possibilities.
Time will find a way to cure the person of their otherwise more probable tendency to stay home, leading the person out into the world of greater experience. But it will do so by eliminating their tendency to stay home, the option that would otherwise dominate the person. It will make things happen, it will cause a person to learn and grow if necessary, by eliminating all other options rather than by creating new options that weren’t possible before. The options of a France trip were always there in the person’s life, if remotely slight, they just become more probable due to a destiny, as other options such as those we would expect to be more ordinary are ruled out as being impossible.
In this way convergence is an enfolding process in-synch with the idea that the symmetry order of the universe is continually increasing. During convergence each time frame has an increasing multitude of possible histories. Many pasts are ending up in the same future. They are merging together and not diverging apart. This is most evident at the stage where all paths of time reach zero and space becomes flat. All universes and so all possible pasts have arrived at that one time frame. All universes, both the positive and the negative directions of time, have merged and enfolded into a single whole.
The Handshake between Past and Future
Both Alpha and Omega pull at the structure of the world. The location of the person whose future is inevitable, whether it be Los Angeles, or Beijing China, or Sydney Australia, is naturally a defining factor for the course of the future. Also the momentum of events, especially the more recent flow of time, a person’s immediate past or history, influences the types of travel and times of travel. The personality, identity, health, wealth, and fortunes of each person we might imagine in the Paris scenario add all types of complex variables to what is uniquely possible and impossible, probable and improbable, for each person in each tapestry of time. A person may have a fear of flying that makes other modes of travel much more probable. They might be more likely to drive to the East coast and then boat across the Pacific, than fly in a plane.
In the same way that the Eiffel tower moment requires specific events to occur weeks before a person could ever arrive at the tower, the specifics of the past dictate what is possible and probable also. The deep and recent past, and the near and distant future, come together in a sort of collision to define the present. What we know as the forces of nature are part of the guidance system. Forces pull us backward toward the past, while greater forces pull us into the future, and the collision between past and future can be seen as creating all the refined motions of atoms, rhythmic motions of the planets, the falling rain, and waves crashing on an ocean shore.

Figure 16.3: We normally assume the present is created by the past but actually both past and future create the present. Without the influence of the future most of nature’s systemization and control of events would not exist.
There is one popular physicist who has for many years recognized the influence of the future within the physics of quantum mechanics. Not too surprising perhaps, there is already a well known interpretation of quantum mechanics, called the Transactional Interpretation developed by John Cramer, which recognizes the influence of the future. Cramer, a long time Professor of Physics at the University of Washington, columnist for Analog magazine, as well as science fiction author, is famous for developing one of the more interesting interpretations of quantum mechanics. Originally based upon what is called absorber theory originated by John Wheeler and Richard Feynman, and the time symmetric Lorentz-Dirac electrodynamics, John Cramer’s Transactional model describes all quantum events as a “handshake” executed through an exchange between past (retarded waves) information and future (advanced waves) information, which causes both probabilities to collapse into the present. Cramer himself explains, “The absorber theory description, unconventional though it is, leads to exactly the same observations as conventional electrodynamics. But it differs in that there has been a two-way exchange, a “handshake” across space-time which led to the transfer of energy from emitter to absorber.”
Time does not simply roll into the future. From our perspective in the present, we recognize cause and effect in the larger motions of things but to everyone’s amazement there is no such motion in the small world of particles. Instead there is a mesh of probabilities where possible pasts and futures meet which scientists correctly call non-local because those probabilities are produced literally from the whole of what is possible. As Cramer explains, “The transaction is explicitly non-local because the future is, in a limited way, affecting the past.” Cramer writes: “When we stand in the dark and look at a star a hundred light years away, not only have the retarded light waves from the star been traveling for a hundred years to reach our eyes, but the advanced waves generated by absorption processes within our eyes have reached a hundred years into the past, completing the transaction that permitted the star to shine in our direction.”

Figure 9 Today many physicists believe many different pasts and futures are possible
for each observer, and neither past nor future is definite until we observe it. The extremes
of Alpha and Omega are the great pillars of existence that limit our possible pasts and
futures to those paths which begin and end at Alpha and Omega.
There is great power behind a model of understanding which recognizes the influence of the future. The river having a specific ending explains why, what scientists call the wave function of the universe, is so specific. If what is possible is thought of as coming from the past only, there is no reasonable explanation for the control of probabilities, such as the wave density of atomic particles. A river only from the past would be flowing outward into chaos. But if time is like a river that flows in between two lakes, from Lake Alpha to Lake Omega, then the universe has a natural guidance system. The universe has a goal.
Built in From the Beginning
The Interdependence of Life with Omega
There would seem to be a case for at least a meager relationship between our consciousness and Omega. Simply considering that absolute zero is a product of synthesis rather than cancellation, we then are led to consider Omega to be a synthesis of all life, all experience, all thought, existent throughout the infinite expanse of galactic and planetary systems in an infinite universe. At this stage, remaining conservative is just unreasonable humility or biased skepticism. To the dismay of the skeptical, we are not here considering philosophy or religious idealism, we are rather properly applying an evident scientific theory. It follows that the emergence of life and biological diversity are probably best explained as future influences, which is classifiable as a form of intelligent design.
In fact the most reasonable conclusion is that the final state of time is by nature innately self-aware of its internal self, and thus supremely conscious (absolutely no correlation meant to any supreme consciousness as portrayed by any one religion), and that the very existence of life is directly attributable to an evolution of consciousness invariably built into the process of time reaching zero. The enfolding nature of symmetry order ultimately indicates that our intelligence and consciousness, the human desire to understand and model reality; life itself, exists relative to a predestined cosmological evolution toward the sum of all being and all life, all knowledge and all experience. As surprised as anyone, I find that I must argue that the supreme state of the universe is both shaping the universe and shaping human history toward a goal. The very same conclusion was made for similar reasons in concert with science by the physicist Frank Tipler in his Omega point theory, a conclusion in part based upon quantum theory. Tipler states:
Quantum mechanics says that it is completely correct to say that the universe’s evolution is determined not by how it started in the Big Bang, but by the final state of the universe. Every stage of universal history, including every stage of biological and human history, is determined by the ultimate goal of the universe. And if I am correct that the universal final state is indeed God, then every stage of universal history, in particular every mutation that has ever occurred, or ever will occur in any living being, is determined by the action of God.
Of course the view suggested here is not that Omega is dependent upon the summing of life, nor is the existence of life, systemization, and form, dependent upon the uniform whole for its existence. Instead there is a complementary interdependence between both realities. It is only natural and logical that there are no parts without the whole, and no whole without the parts. There is no infinite without the definite. Living systems are ultimately timeless and embedded in the whole. The summation of all life, all information, or the term I prefer is all meaning, forms a whole that is inseparable from its finer unfolded content. That whole is alive, by any definition of life that successfully applies to any part of the whole, all of which dramatically elevates the role of life.
I suppose it is the treasure of knowing that the infinite whole exists everywhere, in every part of the universe, which has led me to conclude that existence reduces to meaning, although in mentioning this some people are likely disturbed, as they think I am suggesting the physical world is an illusion. But that would simultaneously make meaningfulness an illusion. Instead I imagine meaning and physical reality as the same thing. Just knock on wood. That is how solidly real meanings are. The physical world is how concrete and vibrant and colorful real meanings are. So I have no trouble with the idea that everything is mindstuff, or consciousness, that is, as long as the physical cosmos isn’t degraded with that association. And as long as what consciousness is made of is understood to be the same as what physical reality is made of. Consciousness arises out of the meaningfulness of being. The physical world is made of the meaningfulness of being. The physical world isn’t just filled with an ethereal meaning behind objects, it is meaning.
Any view which separates meaning from physical reality moves us toward a division between matter and ideas or thought. Part of what can be deduced from the success of this cosmology, as well as the harmony exposed here between science and eastern philosophy, is that not only is it possible to discover good science that is based on sound reasoning, there also is a deep and fundamental relationship between physical reality and the world of ideas and meanings.
Omega isn’t hollow or empty or plain or ugly or nothing at all. Not one ounce of that impression we make of zero actually applies. All the life that inevitably exists outward amongst billions of galaxies in the visible cosmos is but a pin drop of the totality of life present in the timeless matrix of Omega. Every joy, every pain, every waste, every mistake, every solution, every tear cried, every prayer, every hope, every lesson learned, every pride, every humility forms a fullness that eludes description. Omega is forever preciously omniscient simply in being itself.
From Beginning to End (chapter 26)
The White World
Imagine a universe of white that extends outward in every direction. This single white is endless and beginningless. It is everywhere. Wherever the universe is, there is a total and complete whiteness. And so also imagine you are the white, because the white is simply all there is. This is not a place that can be viewed from elsewhere. There is no other place. There is nothing else. You and the white are inseparably one.
In this world you are like a living child in the womb before knowing differentiation of any kind. All that you know is the unbounded oneness of your being. The whiteness of your consciousness, which is being itself, is everywhere and everything. Without beginning or ending, for you time is one enormous moment of now. So you know nothing of change. You know nothing of time. You simply exist. You have always existed. Your consciousness and your being are the same thing.
The white world is all that you are and have ever known. And although your being is powerfully real you are absolutely blind to that same whiteness, because in an undifferentiated world there is no way for you to appreciate the single most fundamental property of yourself. You are blind to white because there isn’t an absence of white to differentiate your being against. You have nothing to reference the white with. Consequently, you feel yourself to be both everything and nothing simultaneously. You are a something that is everything, and an everything that is nothing. Such is the only broken symmetry in your perfect whiteness, and in that broken symmetry, in the confusion of your true identity, exists the birth of difference.
So it has been forever that you are the white, and it certainly seems as if it will always be so, except suddenly, for some unknown reason, as if a door opened that you didn’t know even existed, suddenly in a flash the timeless uniformity of white shatters. Almost immediately the whiteness is replaced by a rainbow of colors, so that there is red and blue and yellow, and green and orange and purple, which now illuminate the diversity of your being. Within this change or differentiation, or what we might call time, the broken symmetry splits you into two states of consciousness. In each a world begins. In each an expanded sense of existence or consciousness begins, and in each you begin to awaken from your deep silent sleep.
In one of two worlds you originate only seeing yourself as everything, different from another world where you only see yourself as nothing, and although you exist forever in each moment you are also beginning to wake up in each world. This sudden awakening gives birth to colors which interact in an initially inexplicable dance to illuminate a surprising number of properties and attributes that can be formed of each side. In this differentiation the oneness of each side divides and you become many. All this differentiation, all this form is overwhelming. You never knew your whiteness so you can’t help but begin to identify with all this form, as now you have something to identify with. The variety of form is so great that soon you know yourself only as color and form. Differences become your reality. Also since there is now change, there is a sense of difference between one moment and the next, and so a sense of time, and consequently that time takes the place of your timeless existence as if you’ve never experienced it.
Initially it seems an odd relationship which these parts have with each other, within time. In one sense the colors combine together to create the white, and yet the white divides apart to create the colors. There is a sort of complementarity, which is to say these two aspects of your reality are interdependent and inseparably connected, which is why when one of the primary colors is taken away from the others, what is left behind in its place produces a green, or an orange, or a purple. Eventually it becomes clear to you that in the variety of colors you are only experiencing lesser parts of yourself, parts that are fragments of the whole. The parts create the whole. The whole creates the parts. No part of you is really separate at all.
In immense measures of time you are given the opportunity to discover yourself, and slowly and meticulously as you discover the more unified colors of orange, purple, and green, and you begin to see the flow of various forms, after awhile you gradually begin to realize the relationship all these colors and forms have. You begin to realize they all exist within an original white, so you begin to realize you are the white, and that you have always been the white, and you realize all the colors and forms were there in the beginning, they were within you all along. And each side of you is beginning to experience this same lesson, which makes your two selves more and more alike. And finally you realize you are becoming the white world again.
As your two sides merge, you begin to see yourself as the white world refracted into a rainbow of colors. You begin to hear yourself as a perfect silence that is divided into a symphony of sound. You begin to feel the ensemble of all possible universes within you enfolding into the eternal white world. Eventually you begin to see clearly the two great forces within yourself. One force that divides your self into parts, creating real and yet illusory material things, as well as all the numbers and all the meaningful ideas, that create the finite side of yourself. Then there is another force that works to combine together all those many parts, the spectrum of colors, and the diversity of infinite many lives and experiences, into the single unified white world. There is still no other color than white, because all the colors are internal, all form is merely fragments of the great timeless white world.
In the end we all see ourselves as the great dance that begins with the colors divided apart and ends with the colors combined together, and then we will also know the dance only seems to have a beginning and an ending, a birth and a death, when in fact this story and the sense of time it portrays are only shifts in perspective between the timelessness of the mother and the birth and experience of the child.
As you become ever more fully aware of your whole self, you realize the being of the whole is actualized in being each part. You realize the ‘everything’ you thought you were is just a ‘something’ part of a greater Universe. You realize the ‘nothing’ you thought you were, is as relevant as the ‘everything’ you thought you were. Eventually all the boundaries of separation erode, and as you become the sum, all your pronounced experiences in time are balanced and given meaning by the fullness of the whole. You even feel yourself in the future shaping those experiences in the past to become the great completeness. In a final step you move from semi-consciousness to full consciousness. And you become the beginning, the evolution of all life, and the end, existing all in the one enormous moment of now, where you know yourself for the first time forever.