STUFF AND STYLE OF THE UNIVERSE

Chapters 6,7 and 8

Continued from Chapter 5 of Stuff and Style of the Universe

 

Back to Chapters  4 and 5
Back to Chapters 1, 2 and 3

6

In Common Interest

A decline in the vigour of S is no ill wind that blows no one good. Decline in the vigour of tough S means a fall in the toughness of it. (On the other hand, in humble S, decline in vigour connotes a shift towards lesser humility.)

But what leads to a fall in the toughness of tough S anywhere? That is a tricky question that will have to wait till the section about the big bang. For now, we assume that in a certain region of tough S there is ‘thinning’ going on. In other words, S in such a region gets more and more ‘reluctant’ to react. How do the pulses already ‘living’ in the ‘area’ take to this?

These pulses are the progeny of tough S of a different vigour. Their pulsing is best ‘attuned’ to that ‘environment’. The S around is now going back on the ‘terms’ of the ‘original agreement’ mutually ‘worked out’ and happily ‘kept’ till then.

This is almost the same as when a happy marriage turns sour. There is a lot of heartburn, even violence and fury. But in most cases re-adjustments are not beyond reach. The chance of another round of fighting sooner or later notwithstanding, those who have survived this sort of thing may (at least during the brief interval of ‘peaceful co-existence’) feel that to have fallen out and made up is better than never to have fallen out at all. Pulses survive the crises though they carry the marks of the estrangement.

Fig. 27 is the picture of a survivor. It is the very same pulse dealt with before. But why this pulse instead of a ‘natural-born’ one? Does this mean that the S around us (this part of the universe) has already declined in vigour? Of course, yes. Is the fall still in progress? Again, by all telltale symptoms, yes. Some of these symptoms have already been discerned and many more are on the cards.

This type of a pulse was brought into the discussion early enough. But this picture of it is far different from what it had looked earlier when, as a ‘natural-born’, it happily pulsed in S of an appropriately higher vigour. (Fig. 28) If it were the same it would not be donning secondary pulse-lets, the add-ons accumulated due to progressive ‘devaluation’ of the vigour of S.

Secondary pulse-lets begin to form, as already shown, when the vigour of ‘mother-S’ starts falling because the new ‘surroundings’ fail to match the expansion ‘thrust’ of the mother-pulses and also the implosion challenge they pose during their reverse cycle. At the culmination of their expansion cycle the toughness of the shell of ‘rolled up’ S of lesser vigour does not match that of the shell of the mother-pulse. At the pinnacle of reverse pulsing, as described earlier, there remains a ‘deficiency’ in the form of inadequate ‘fill-up’ around the core.

The secondary pulse-lets are part of - and performing in - S of vigour different from the one that gave birth to the mother-pulse. The vigour of S around the mother-pulse now has its own characteristic resonance specifications (quanta definitions) and pulsing regulations ‘in force’. Secondary pulse-lets are subject to these. But at the same time they have to ‘relate’ to the ‘needs’ of the mother-pulse. In short, they are destined to serve two masters at the same time. As a result, they ‘suffer’ varying degrees of a handicap. The ‘content’ of new-vigour S involved in most secondary pulse-lets therefore happens to be either wanting or in excess to ‘suit’ any resonance slot defined by the new-vigour S. At the same time, secondary pulse-lets are not able to fully ‘suit’ the needs of the ‘suffering’ mother-pulse either. They are classic examples of ‘barely workable’ compromises. The ‘middleman’ earns the ‘wrath’ of both parties involved and suffers deprivation imposed by both.

What happens if a portion of a negative secondary pulse-let is driven out of its place around the mother-pulse? Once freed, any ‘portion’ of the negative secondary is at liberty to pulse on its own. We have seen the peculiarities of its pulsing act.

These are what we call positive and negative charges. It has been established long back that theoretically an electron can cascade indefinitely downward in energy. This is no surprise as different kinds of ‘apportionment’ of secondary pulses occupy different resonance slots and shift slots as they lose out in each one.

The secondary pulse-let merits a lot more detailed discussion but that will be out of place in a general presentation of this nature.

A pulse without any secondary is a happy-go-lucky thing. Its expansion cycle is a ‘clean’ sweep. Its outer shell perfectly matches the counterpart put up by the displacement of S around it. The recoil kick it gets from this shell, the kick that helps it to go in the reverse, is as strong as needed to keep it in harmony.

The pulse caught in S of declining vigour faces a difficult situation. It cannot change the pattern of its act. That is the very style of its heartbeat. But the new surroundings do not fully co-operate with the style in which its heart beats. With its resonance thus circumscribed, it finds itself shifted from the secured point on the survival scale. It is ‘sentenced’ to a ‘half-life’ that gets reduced further as it falls more and more out of harmony with every increment of ‘recession’.

In this kind of a pulse one has the perfect example of the estranged first-generation immigrant with the essential difference that the ‘new country’ comes to it instead of it going to the new country. All the same, it is unable to go back where it truly ‘belongs’. At the same time, however much it tries, it cannot fully adapt itself to the ‘tune’ of the new surroundings.

The ‘richer’ the ‘immigrant’ the worse its plight. The ‘disproportionate-ness’ is more precarious, the out-of-tune-ness much more ‘disconcerting’. Its position on the survival scale is farther from the ‘ideal’ point. The ‘very rich’ ones, too big for the ‘eye of the needle’, are the first to reach the end of all hope. Heavy elements prefer ‘load-shedding’ through fission. In this case they do not mind some expenditure to buy better peace. They are ‘relieved’ when the persuasive trigger comes their way. But what makes mother-pulses also stick together, form crystal lattices, chemically react the way they do, freeze, melt and vaporize?

A ‘rich’ pulse ‘possessing’ many times what the ‘poorest’ one has, finds its problem of adjustment increasing with ‘richness’ as evinced by the growing ‘entourage’ of secondary pulse-lets paraded by ‘heavy’ elements. However, as seen earlier, the ‘contents’ of the secondary pulse-lets too happen to be either slightly ‘wanting’ or a little ‘in excess’ for their own comfort. Under these circumstances, ‘sharing’ of the secondary pulse-lets is resorted to. It helps ameliorate the inadequacy at least ‘in parts’.

By their very ‘internal makeup’ they may not like to be too close to each other in the ‘normal course’ but now they do not mind being close enough to share the ‘comfort’ of a ‘common wrap’. Unfortunately for them even the common wrap most often fails to provide ‘ultimate’ comfort. It again is either a little too loose or too tight or there is an extra ‘length’ dangling. So a third pulse and a fourth and so on, as many as can be accommodated, are welcome with their out-size wraps provided the ‘out-size-ness’ of their wraps is of the kind that tends to better meet the ‘covering’ needs of the group already formed. When the group finds itself more or less ‘comfortable’, there are no more vacancies. The number that fits in depends on the individual nature of ‘unfitness’ of the wraps joining in. The perfectly ‘covered’ is not taken into any fold, nor does that ‘fortunate’ one ‘need’ any company. Also unwanted is the one with nothing on.

Once a grouping is established it is not easy to break it if the ‘comfort’ derived from the arrangement is ‘appreciable’. If not, even minor inducements may make the members of the group give up the arrangement, disperse and try afresh. To break or burn a twig is easy, but not a rod of steel.

They do not, in most cases, ‘look’ for ‘like-minded’ company or rush to form groups. They have to come to it by chance or through intervention from outside. Some bonds are established only with the help of heat and pressure. Everything depends on the nature and extent of the ‘outsize-ness’ of individual wraps. When the bonds are sealed, some ‘radiate’ thanksgiving ‘presents’ around, generating ‘warmth’. Some have to be brought into bonds after sufficiently ‘warming them up’ in preparation. Variety indeed is the spice of crystal bonding and chemical compounding.

Warming helps many a class of pulses achieve bonded status quicker. Warming means the application of electromagnetic radiation. This radiation does not do anything to S while finding its way through it. However, it does a lot to the pulses it hits. Radiation agitates them. This means contribution of extra bits to wraps already ‘wanting’ to further ‘prompt’ them to bond. The first affected by this kind of agitation are secondary pulse-lets as they are add-ons.

For the formation of some bonds, agitation is a pre-requisite whereas in some other cases it is not needed at all. In certain other cases, some ‘bits’ of secondary pulse-lets get discarded when bonds are readily established. Adjectives like exothermic and endothermic are used to describe these ‘reactions’.

This provides the chance to see ‘heat’ in a different light. Everything around is more or less ‘hot’, meaning every pulse or group of pulses is in a state of agitation imparted to it by some radiation or other. Given a chance, they ‘cool down’ by relinquishing the radiation, thus getting rid of the extra fervor. The relinquished radiation goes some place else and agitates other pulses it chances upon.

The natural state of every ‘thing’ is solid in this part of the universe. Agitate it, the ‘bonds’ get jittery and break up. The ‘material’ melts. The extent of agitation needed to accomplish this varies with the strength of the bond in existence. Agitate the ‘thing’ more, it will turn into vapor. More agitation dismantles all of the secondary pulses, turning the ‘thing’ into what is called plasma. If agitated still more, the very cores of the pulses of the ‘thing’ begin to get jittery.

If all ‘agitation’ of this kind is allowed to drain away, the above events go in reverse gear. Gas turns into liquid and liquid into solid. Even in the solid state there is some agitation left in pulses and the bonds between pulses. Suppose even that is drained. One can go on till the last vestiges of agitation are taken away and out. Then what? It is Absolute Zero or –273.15 degree Celsius. At this stage all pulses and bonds get totally free of all ‘imposed’ agitation.

If left to its own design, everything around us will eventually reach solid stage and Absolute Zero temperature. But ‘heat’ cannot go and hide itself anywhere. It is either moving from one pulse to another as radiation or agitating this or that. So, even if all ‘heat’ in a region is ‘removed’, the universe as a whole cannot become any poorer for it. Does this mean that the second law of thermodynamics is applicable only to one ‘region’ of the universe at a time? This law says that, in the long run, there will be no iota of ‘heat’ left anywhere in the universe to warm one’s frostbitten foot. (In that event, there will be no foot or a living body attached to it either, so no problem.)

Thanks to the pulses, the second law of thermodynamics can now be understood on a different footing. The law becomes universally true and binding in another unique way.

For the time being there is a more urgent matter to attend to. It is the matter of matter itself. There are a great variety of pulses around. In the periodic table there is a long list of elements.

Resonance slots of pulses depend on slots for the primary pulse-let.

A). Resonance slots for the primary pulse-let:

1). Vertical.

These correspond to the slots in the periodic table. Hydrogen is the smallest primary resonance slot.

The affinity if the primary pulse-let (nucleus) for the electron pulse-let is termed a positive charge. It is a unit charge as the primary pulse-let needs a single electron pulse-let. However, the affinity varies for different pulse-lets or different elements. Similarly the electron pulse-let has the same affinity for the core with its full pulsation. This affinity is the negative charge. Pulse-lets that have affinity to either of these two for reasons of their resonance needs are called charged particles. (This is just an example, the fit is still not exact in the hydrogen atom. This ‘less-than-desirable’ status in this respect leads to a small dipole movement.)

2). Horizontal.

These slots are added by quanta of neutron pulses. They represent the isotope slots.

The neutron has no primary or secondary pulse-lets, and hence no charge. This is the model of the pulse begotten in ancient, tougher S. There the independent neutron pulse would have pulsed without bother. This pulse is out-of-tune for stable pulsing in this S now, as the S has declined in toughness. It is not in resonance with the first slot here and now, the hydrogen slot. So the pulsation of the independent neutron becomes progressively out of tune that after a few minutes, the pulse modifies its internal structure and releases the primary pulse-let, the secondary pulse-let, and a lean quantum of humble vigour, in the form of an antineutrino pulse-let. The fate of the neutron pulse is a very important indicator of what would have taken place on a large scale billions of years ago. From the model it is inferred that all the elements present now, in this part of the universe, have formed as a result of decay, as every one of them has secondary pulse-lets. A rough measure of how much the vigour of S has gone down is indicated by the relative size of the nucleus (primary pulse-let) with the size of its buffers (secondary pulse-lets or electron pulse-lets). The secondary pulse-let appears distributed in a wide area from the primary pulse-let to the periphery.  It is more versatile to the changes in vigour of the surrounding S because it has no core. It also has no sharply defined outer border, as this border is involved in pulsing, resulting in jerking-in and jerking-out motion. The dynamic model of the pulse also predicts it impossible to fix the position and momentum of the electron pulse-let. A wide range of probable values for its position and momentum can be obtained.

Two primary pulse-lets make a compound; a larger primary pulse-let makes a heavier element. In the model of the pulse, a heavier element is not seen as a group of individual primary pulse-lets or as an aggregation of protons and neutrons. It is just a larger primary pulse-let. The quanta that has gone into the making of this larger pulse-let is, of course, additions of the smaller resonance slots.

How must have been these various kinds of pulses made in the first place? Hydrogen fuses with itself and the products of this fusion again fuse and so on in the interiors of stars. But how does one account for the birth of heavier elements? The proneness for fusion goes in reverse gear and becomes the readiness for fission after a ‘critical’ point on the periodic table.

The sun does not produce heavy elements. Did the forerunner of the sun do it within its nuclear furnace? There is reason to believe that it would not have succeeded if at all it had tried. The heavy elements would only split and spill instead of fusing and growing heavier. Physics so far does not know of any plausible mechanism that could have produced the entire spectrum of elements.

One guess that stands reasonable scrutiny is that all elements were natural products in S of a higher vigour. The elements were born out of emission issuing into that S from ‘mother-packages’ of still higher vigour. All of the very heavy and therefore very unstable elements predicted by the periodic table were born this way. There must have been extra heavy elements too. Gravitational pull was stronger and therefore accretion quicker. There was a lot of thermal and other radiation around, born along with these pulses, but bonds between the pulses, or compounds, did not come into being till the vigour of S into which the pulses were born declined and secondary pulses developed providing ‘cement’ for the bonds.

When the vigor of S declined further, the heavier elements began falling out of ‘tune’. The ‘top-heavy’ were the first to crack up. Meanwhile all elements developed secondary pulses. Chemical bonding began and was aided wherever necessary by radiation. Stellar interiors fused light elements and suns blossomed showering more radiation.

The neutron is naturally formed only when the toughness of S increases to welcome that resonance slot, or when that quantum is necessary for a horizontal resonance slot of a higher element. The sun can be taken as an example for the first, where the vigour of S is tougher in the centre due to the jerk-in gravitational pulse-lets. In the sun neutron has a 'production half-life', the reverse of what is happening here on earth.

If the vigour of S continues to go down, there is shift of the horizontal slots to the right. More neutron quanta are converted to proton quanta, more compounds form with stronger bonding, gravitational force goes weaker, and the less heavy elements also become prone to decay. The charge difference (affinity) between the nucleus and the electron pulse-lets will increase, yet more and more electron pulse-lets will be formed from the nucleus. When the vigour increases, there is shift to the left and more neutron quanta are formed as electron pulse-lets return to the nucleus. The charge difference (affinity) between the nucleus and the electron pulse-lets will decrease. The number of compounds will come down, gravitational force will increase, and larger elements in the periodic table will form and stabilize. Visualize a place of still higher vigour and we get a glimpse of a hostile world - huge hot suns, tremendous explosions, unbearable gravitational pull, very high temperature (yet stable pulses), super heavy elements, and high energy, ultra-penetrating radiation.

The beta decay represents a change in the entire primary pulse in which the out-of-tune quantum is converted to form a pulse with stable primary and secondary. For some nuclei, the reverse process occurs. It depends on the horizontal resonance slots. Electron capture is a decay mode for isotopes that will occur when there are too many proton quanta in the primary of an atom and insufficient energy to emit a positron. If the energy difference between the parent atom and the daughter atom is quite low, electron capture is the decay mode.

Decays producing higher energy ‘load shedding’ emit the quanta through gamma radiation rectification pulse-lets.

The corresponding antimatter pulses are naturally formed in S having the reverse vigour, i.e., in humble S (H-in-H pulses). The different states of vigour of S are discussed in the section about the universe. The humble S, the flat S and the tough S form the three worlds in this universe. In this part of the universe, the lacking of vigour (humble vigour) is emitted as antimatter, and the extra vigour (vigour of toughness) is emitted as its counterpart.

Split the nucleus and we get individual stable or unstable quanta with possible resonance slots. Split them still further and we get thoroughly unstable quanta with very short-lived resonance slots. Naturally, beyond a point, a pulse-let cannot be split to form smaller pulse-lets as it interferes with its basic pulsing action.

B). Completeness of the secondary

This is not a requirement for stability of the total pulse. The secondary pulse-lets have to ‘relate’ to the ‘needs’ of the primary-pulse-let. They act as 'buffers' between the primary pulse-let and the surrounding S. But the ‘content’ in most orbitals of secondary pulse-lets happens to be either wanting or in excess to complete the orbital resonance slots defined by S. The secondary pulse-let orbitals are classic examples of ‘barely workable’ compromises when the vigour of S came down. The slots are obvious. Stable pulses may or may not be complete pertaining to the secondary pulse-lets. The so-called inert gases are examples of those having completed orbitals of secondary pulse-lets. (Actually no pulse is completely resonant or inert, as there is at least a minimal amount of out-of-tune-ness with the surrounding S.) The pulses just before and just after these gases in the periodic table, as a consequence, are highly reactive with respect to their affinities for the electron pulse-let. The multiple secondary pulse-let orbitals represent various energy levels with respect to their proximity to the primary pulse-let. The chemical properties of the pulse depend on the secondary pulse-lets.

The rest of the pulse model is similar to the present orbital model with the s p d and f energy levels, except for certain perceptional differences. For example, pairing of electrons with opposite spins mean pairing of an electron pulse-let in the expansion phase with another in the contraction phase. The spin is always in the direction of the contraction phase. This mode of pairing also caters to the contraction-expansion phases of the nucleus as layers of 'oscillations' of the secondary shells in the contraction and expansion phases.

Pulse-lets with charge produce corresponding ripple pulse-lets in the surrounding S (R pulse-lets for short). They are also conducted in the direction of their movement at production. In an electric field the R pulse-lets are produced by the charge or affinity of the secondary pulse-lets, and correspond to them. That is why charged particles react to these R pulse-lets. When the primary pulse is distorted to one side and the secondary pulse to the other by a strong electric field, it leads to the birth of an electric dipole, which is indicated by the magnitude of the charge times the distance between them.

R pulse-lets are also induced by the momentum of the secondary pulse-lets.

The R magnetic pulse-lets induced in S by certain elements are very strongly resonant, or amplified. Such ‘momentum R pulse-lets’ form the magnetic field. These elements are all close to each other in their resonance slots in the periodic table, viz., manganese, iron, cobalt and nickel. A smaller group also comes in the lanthanide series, viz., europium, gadolinium and dysprosium. When multiple pulses are aligned, a strong magnetic field is created, and the block of the pulses becomes a magnet. Remnance is by locking of the alignment by the reinforcement of R pulse-lets. The arrangement is stable at suitable temperatures.

In such a strong field, a current is induced by constantly moving a permanent magnet in and out of a coil of wire, or by constantly moving a conductor near a stationary permanent magnet. The R pulse-lets in this case are cut and they flow as individual electron pulse-lets.

Since mass can be understood as the unit of pulsing-vigour-difference in S in this model, theoretically every pulse or pulse-let has mass. It may be very negligible in the case of a photon or the neutrino. Wave and particle are not treated differently in the model, because they are neither – they are pulses. In other words, every particle can be considered a standing wave and every wave a moving particle. And since E=mc ², the pulsing-vigour-difference is, simply, energy.

Further explanation into all the phenomena of micro particles are either self-evident or can be easily derived from the model. It is practically impossible to consider all of them in a presentation of this nature.

When there are many bodies orbiting a massive attracting body, like in the solar system, gravitational attraction between the orbiting bodies tend to align them in a common plane. The spiral component reinforces so that it influences all the pulse-lets in these bodies. Thus the primary pulse-lets are always aligned with their axis of spin perpendicular to the spiral. (The plane of the in-jerking spiral component of the graviton corresponds roughly to the equator.) Free or unpaired electron pulse-lets are also influenced to a lesser extend by the graviton. Therefore, ideally the magnetic field vector should be perpendicular to the equator. But this may not always be the case, as the electron pulse-lets are more influenced by electromagnetic field than by gravitons, as they have no core.

All of this indicates that the vigour of S hereabouts continues to be on the decline.

It may slowly reach (of course only after a very long time) a stage when no single pulse of today, whether ‘matter’ or radiation, survives. The second law of thermodynamics thus gets established on an even firmer foundation.

This also opens the way to think afresh of ‘time’ and reckon it in terms of decline of the vigour of S around, say, from the start of ‘coming into being’ to the last ‘undoing’ of pulses.

7

The Pulse of Life

When will the eras-old evolution of life come to an end and at what point? A continuous phenomenon of this breathtaking complexity can’t do without an intricate plan and meticulous supervision. But there is no plan or supervisor anywhere in sight.

Some admirers of reductionism believe, with enough reason, that the laws of biology can be reduced to those of chemistry. They point out that we have already seen this happening with the structure of DNA. A few of them further believe that the laws of chemistry can be reduced to those of physics. They hope most chemists would agree. That would depend on how well physics tries to accomplish it. What are the advantages that we have in this regard?

1) Pulses ranging from the most stable to the ‘aborted’.

2) S declining in vigour.

3) Vigour of S appearing as various forces.

4) Transactions between pulses and S.

Are these enough to originate, form and support what is known as life? Pulses provide the building blocks. Secondary pulse-lets, brought about by decline in the vigour of S, come in handy as cement. The forces labor day and night to move the ‘material’ about. Radiation provides ‘agitation’.

These materials and the forces are capable of bringing forth pulses and combination of pulses like crystals, chemical compounds and molecules. Gravitation can amass them. Electro-weak and strong-nuclear forces can agitate them further. But boulders amassed and given a good shake do not make the Great Wall of China. How is a wall, any wall, built? It is done block by block, section by section. It must be the same with anything else in the universe.

Fortunately, every piece of stone has rough edges that fit into the rough edges of some other piece. The ‘stones’ that go into the making of life too have ‘rough edges’ that match in more ways than one. With proper assortment and the right kind of packing, the joining is achieved.

The pulses are the ‘stones’ with which forms of life are built. Pulses do have ‘rough edges’. This ‘roughness of edges’ is due to their individual secondary pulses not being ‘wholesome’. Moreover, these ‘stones’ are of different sizes and have different kinds of ‘rough edges’.

The art of building with this material is indeed tricky. When two ‘pieces’ of different kinds of them are glued together, the ‘rough edges’ of the pair do not relate to those of any of the two ‘pieces’ already ‘enticed’ into bonding. When one block thus made is glued to another ‘stone’, the combine has yet another pattern of ‘rough edges’.

This joining up goes on and on because the ‘common blanket’ formed out of the parts of the secondary pulses shared by the entrants into the effort is never entirely wholesome after any step in the ‘bonding’. It is either a little more or a little less than what is needed for ‘ideal’ harmony with surrounding S. So there is scope for yet another stone or block to be attached. And again, it is the same story. But there are limits to this process. After a while ‘adhesion’ of this kind results in making any ‘great wall’ either too long or too tall or both to remain in one piece.

In biology the nth cementing act has to ‘take into account’ every such act accomplished before. If any further step is not to the ‘liking’ of the ‘union’ already arranged, the ‘thing’ manages to get over the discomfort by ‘modifying’ the integration of its own interior, trying to ‘avoid’ the new union, ‘refusing’ to be cemented to the new piece, discarding it or even ‘eliminating’ it. ‘Who’ decides which course to take is the basic question.

In other words, at what stage did a combination of this kind come to have a ‘will’ of its own? When did this ‘will’, very much in evidence at every ‘step’, begin to develop? Was it as early as when the very ‘first’ pulses took shape? Or, was it when the vigour of S began to fall, giving rise to secondary pulse-lets? Was it still later, when radiation began to agitate the pulses and gave them the ‘opportunity’ to build bonds? Did it have to wait till the sun blossomed and filled the region with radiation to raise the fervor of agitation from –273.15 degree Celsius to the ‘necessary’ level? The situation today is that one may put the first milestone at whatever point one likes on this very long road.

But it is obvious that the ‘will’ is inherent in S, unseen, as S itself is. S does not ‘like’ to be tough or humble. Its ‘natural’ state is flat, calm and still. The unique force that drives it out of this state is the ‘will’ behind the ‘happening’ of all assemblages including evolution. The name of the game is creation. Life anywhere is the outcome of it.

All forms of life are made of S and are ‘driven’ by the force that agitates S. As per every available indication, S tries its best to regain calm. The universe, visible and invisible, is the result. Who wins in the end? The force, of course, because S itself has got to have a genesis and that has to begin from none other than the very same ultimate force. Perfect harmony is when S establishes it with that force. Evolution of ‘life’, just as everything else, is ‘working’ towards that end. The perishable material world, the imperishable S and the ‘parental’ force are the three factors of the universe.

One may see a great wall or a not-so-great one in any light one pleases. For one bird it is an obstacle to its flight, for another a place to take a breather during its marathon migration, for yet another a nice location to build a nest. Any bird is ‘free’ to define the ‘purpose’ of any wall after its need or imagination. The point is the ‘science of life’ if ‘freed’ from the stranglehold of the animate-inanimate divide is bound to conclude that any wall is as alive as any bird. (Physics already has half-dead cats grin half-alive.)

A paramecium in ‘action’ illustrates the point. It is single-celled, just a couple of macromolecules put together. It is considered ‘alive’ because it ‘swims’ towards food, ‘retreats’ from danger, ‘negotiates’ obstacles in its path and seems to ‘learn’ from experience (like man thinks he does).

Whatever the object created, Nature expresses its ‘emotion’ in the making of it. The essential difference between a paramecium and a wall is that the former is the ‘direct’ outcome of the expression of that ‘emotion’ whereas the latter is just a fabrication by a product of the expression of the same ‘emotion’. The difference is more than that between a bird and its droppings as the droppings are ‘natural’. The ‘pulses’ in a heap of it may join up to form macromolecules and cells sooner or later. The ‘emotion’ to do so is latent in them as in every other ‘natural’ thing.

Everything suggests that this emotion stems from the ‘urge’ of the force driving S. The ‘out-of-tune-ness’ of secondary pulse-lets make it possible for crystals and molecules to come into being through the establishment of common blankets made out of (shared) secondary pulse-lets. Even this does not ‘help’ beyond a point. The new avatar has its own ‘imperfections’. Therefore, the ‘emotion’ makes these avatars join up again with the most ‘suitable’. But the ‘imperfection’ persists even after that. So the ‘quest’ becomes never-ending.

After a stage very subtle electric and magnetic fields and forces come into play and the transactions between the ‘seeker’ and its surroundings begin to look like ‘reasoned-out’ or ‘calculated’ moves. What is ‘wanted’ is ‘picked’ from what is available. If anything ‘unwanted’ is taken in, it is ‘expunged’. By the time the ‘expression’ reaches the single-cell stage, it has become a ‘closed loop’. It ‘pulses’ with one form or other of energy it ‘produces’ on its own. It develops its own ‘heartbeat’.

In achieving its ‘mission’ of attaining better harmony, it ‘faces’ two obstacles. 1) The integration already achieved is not sustainable beyond the over-all ‘half-life’ it has come to inherit. 2) After a stage, more experiments with its own ‘body’ are either suicidal or impossible or of no avail. One ‘needs’ a ‘different’ order of integration, often involving even a paradigm shift, to ‘create’ and try out a new ‘variation’.

The ‘being’ attempts to overcome the first by dividing itself into two and growing afresh separately so that the two parts thus coming into being get fresh leases for ‘experimentation’, at least from halfway up. The second problem too is somewhat taken care of by the splitting as now there are two entities ‘to be experimented with’ instead of one.

But the first problem, in essence, persists even after the implementation of the strategy of splitting. At the same time, experimentation only from halfway up does not help much. So, another way is found that facilitates alterations right from square one. Variations on the pattern of integration already achieved are ‘encoded’ into ‘eggs’ and laid. This mode throws open the chance to try out a lot more of variations. Survival, particularly in the case of out-of-the-way variations, being not at all guaranteed, as many eggs as can be produced are laid to take care of ‘premature’ losses.

It is to be noted that better survival is bargained for not as the ultimate aim of ‘evolution’. Had it been better survival alone that mattered, attempts at variations would have stopped when more-or-less ‘stable’ products like the Galapagos tortoises were accomplished way back.

In any environment, structured combinations of macromolecules are subject to limitation of size beyond which they tend to get unwieldy and break down. This puts a ceiling on experimentation with serial add-on variations. But the chances for internal variations are multiplied sky-high when two separate ‘codes’ (of integration already achieved) are brought to interact to ‘beget’ a fresh variant. But such progeny will have to be groomed and nourished for a crucial period in ‘safe custody’ before ‘release’ because greater degrees of variant-refinement result in more and more ‘complex’ faculties that need time to ‘mature’ before going operational. Earlier the offspring could become adequately functional right at birth. Prolonged period of ‘childhood’, in turn, necessitates nursing, ‘education’ and physical protection which paves the way to ‘family’, ‘tribe’, ‘kingdom’, ‘empire’, ‘global village’ and ‘universal village’.

Therefore, every part of such external infrastructure is solely ‘intended’ to suit better nurturing of variations. So, any ‘establishment’ that stifles variety is ‘spontaneously’ rebelled against. Standardization is the thing least ‘desired’. Here and now is never taken as the be-all or the end-all. Therefore, however good any establishment is, there is always the urge for ‘better’ conditions, resulting in perpetual ‘unrest’.

With pulses of all kinds, S and the forces it manifests, possible permutations and combinations for creation of variations in integration are endless. Infinite variety in coding is possible. That is why everybody, though ‘basically’ the same, is different. Every individual is a unique variation.

Intelligence is just one of the many manifestations of this motive. It is neither a product of chance nor the culmination of the process of evolution. It is one of the many tools that assist the ‘urge’ towards better attunement.

Is human intelligence computational? It may appear to be so, but it is not. One may, with enough effort and infrastructure, succeed in copying one’s own functional intelligence onto a machine. But the basis of one’s ongoing interaction with the surrounding S, the urge to attain better tuning, is inimitable unless the machine is an ‘exact’ replica of oneself. Under the circumstances procreation looks the best bet but here again exact replication is overridden by the relentless ‘urge to improve’. This urge is not coded because it is the very driving force behind the coding process itself. The code or manual of it is unknown and is bound to remain ‘unknowable’ as long as the only available tool with which one can attempt to know it is no other than its product.

Man is more than a computing machine. Computational skill is just one of the ever so many faculties man is endowed with. Playing with our marbles is better than counting them because there are only so many marbles but infinite are the ways in which we can play with them. Besides, every other moment provides fresh ideas and opportunities for new games.

Again, playing a game is different from knowing it. One who knows a game well may not be able to play even a single match to match that knowledge. At the same time one who wins the trophy perhaps knows no more than the ABC of the game. There is no underestimating the difference between academic knowledge and inherent knowledge. ‘Knowing’ the universe is different from ‘playing with’ it. If mathematics alone is employed to draw a unique world of ideas to ascribe a unique physical reality to the universe, discarding everything else, one is playing soccer on the writing table with rulebooks to guide.

8

Where We Are

Where are we in the universe? Right at its centre? At its edge? How do we proceed to seek an answer?

The first step will be to find the answer to the question what the universe is. From what we know of pulses, the universe can be safely considered one. As in the microcosm, so in the macrocosm. The universe is the biggest of pulses imaginable. We are within it. Therefore to take a look at it, one has to get out of it and place oneself far from its limits.

Supposing we do that, what picture does the universe present? Pulses know no rest so it is a motion picture. But the pulsing action of the universe involves a time-scale so large that we may see no appreciable part of the action even if we wait for a couple of centuries. The only way is to imagine a small-scale model that goes conveniently faster.

Well, after that where does one begin? Right at the beginning, presumably. But there is no beginning or end of a pulse. It goes on and on, beat after beat. We might think it is best to begin at the beginning of a beat. But where does a beat begin or end? Is the expansion cycle the first? Or is the reverse the case?

Let us freeze the show so as to look at the pulse condensed at its core and take a cross-section through its centre. (Fig 29) Practically the whole of the toughness of S in it is now assembled at its core.

However, the toughness of the core is far from uniform. It has a gradient that sharply declines as one moves along the radius of the pulse away from its centre. S from outside the pulse has cascaded in.

The super-tough S at the core is too tough to harbor any pulse within it. Matter in any known form is non-existent. This means no gravitation, nuclear interactions, electromagnetic phenomenon, time and motion. It is S of near-infinite vigour. Does it look like the picture of the super-condensation just prior to the big bang?

In the normal course it should be the explosion of explosions next. But, instead of exploding, the conglomerate behaves rather ‘meek’. It is spreading in a spiral. Of course, it is quite quick but it is far from the explosive action of, say, a bomb. There is no fragment of anything flying out.

In the next scene, every point on the spherical spiral has become an emitter. (Fig. 30) Pulses of all kinds, small and big, are being formed as whirls and swirls in the wake of the spread of the super core. There is a flood of radiation pulses.

Suddenly, there is light. And what light! The brilliance of a trillion suns.

Gradually, the spread increases in radius. In its wake, pulses are tumultuously born as if from nowhere. And then, in areas the front has passed, in accordance with the continuing variation in the vigour of S, secondary pulses form, large pulses crack up, small ones fuse. Pulses also radiate and attract each other.

There are more and more pulses born as the front advances. But the advancing front does not ‘carry’ away with it any of the pulses it ‘hatches’. The pulses generate more pulses and everything that forms continues to remain practically where it is, in whichever association it has meanwhile developed with its kith or kin, and 'drifting' with whatever velocity it has imbibed at birth or by association later, namely, attraction and/or repulsion.
 

The figure on the right shows a spiral galaxy.

It is this unique behavior of the core of the super pulse during its expansion cycle that gives the impression that there is no ‘explosion’ taking place. The expanding spiral emanating from the super-tough core is almost explosive but it is ‘invisible’ till pulses, small and big, begin to issue forth in its wake — almost like a jet plane flying too high to be seen or heard but announcing its course by a fabulous trail.

Stage after stage, it is the same. Whirls and pulses of all dimensions, regions of S of varying vigour and radiation of all descriptions are created as the spiral advances. But on the heels of this sweep follows a general decline of vigour. The toughness of S at any region slowly falls after the spiral onslaught of expansion passes it.

So, man and his abode are HERE, somewhere on the way of the onslaught of the spiral after it has passed the spot. There was ‘no matter’ here before the spiral came this way. The onslaught of the spiral created every ‘thing’. After it passed, the vigour of S ‘here’ began to decline. The vigour of S hereabout is on the decline even ‘now’. The heavier pulses are falling apart. The lighter ones achieve better resonance if fused together. Every ‘primary’ pulse created ‘earlier’ has developed secondary pulses.

Naturally, the physical constants of ‘our region’ are not applicable except for HERE and NOW. Their values do not relate to anything anywhere ‘else’ or at any ‘other’ time. But unfortunately, most of the theories of the universe insist that these constants remain ‘invariable’.

Look at the definition of vigour. One cannot measure its ‘true’ value. If one tries to, one will get the same value everywhere in the universe irrespective of the ‘actual’ vigour of S anywhere because any instrumentation employed for the measurement ‘adjusts itself’ to the vigour of S at that ‘place’. In fact, one is in a non-computational world.

There have been efforts to freely extrapolate ‘local’ conditions to describe regions far remote, indeed the universe itself. The pictures thus obtained would have been right if the vigour of S everywhere in the universe for all time were to remain the same as here and now. But, at every given ‘place’ the vigour of S keeps varying. Strictly speaking, it is not the same even at two adjacent points or instances of time anywhere in the universe.

Most eyebrows are likely to be raised at the proposition that the universe is not ‘expanding’. We see the galaxies running away, so, how are we to believe that there is no physical expansion of the universe taking place and that there has not been an ‘explosion’? The farther the galaxies are from us the faster they seem to recede. Isn’t that proof enough of expansion?

It is true that from the red shift of the light reaching ‘us’ from remote galaxies it has been inferred that they are running away from ‘us’. The conclusion that emerges from the pattern of this recession is that ‘our’ position in the universe is the exact centre of the sphere of their expansion.

But can’t the observed red shift come about for reasons other than physical expansion of the universe as a whole? For instance, what happens to electromagnetic or any other radiation if, after originating in S of a higher vigour, it undertakes time-consuming travel and reaches a region of S the vigour of which is considerably less?

The vigour of S is the readiness of S to react to attempts at alteration of its toughness. A pulse of electromagnetic radiation is a rectification-pulse depending entirely on this readiness of S for its pulsing. When the vigour declines the ‘action-reaction-act’ appears ‘slackened’. In a region of S of lesser vigour, a rectification-pulse that originated in S of a higher vigour appears to ‘flap its wings’ slower. In other words it ‘displays’ a longer wavelength. The more distant a galaxy is, the greater the time the pulse has taken to ‘arrive’. ‘Our’ S has meanwhile declined in vigour by that much more. This means the pulse originated in an environment of vigour comparatively that much higher. Take the pulse back to S of that vigour and it will ‘flap its wings’ as fast as it did at its birth.

This is the secret of the observed ‘red-shift’ that leads to the conclusion that galaxies at ‘equal’ distances from ‘us’ have the same speed of recession. ‘We’ certainly cannot be the ‘chosen’ people placed at the exact centre of the universe, the point where the big bang occurred.

This means most of the radiation observed today manifests itself differently from what it was at its birth as any radiation destined to suffer a major decline in the vigour of S surrounding it changes beyond recognition. It can be safely assumed that a good part of radio frequencies and microwave being received now originated as parts of the visible spectrum in S of higher vigour. The more ‘distant’ the source, the farther one is from the ‘truth’. That is not all. Radiation coming through areas of very low vigour may take ‘ages’ to reach here, if at all. Moreover, radiation from beyond a certain ‘vigour-difference’ will never reach man and his world. Other things remaining the same, man can never get to ‘see’ what goes on (went on) in most parts of the universe.

However huge the telescopes and however high their perch, what man sees is a very small part of the universe. But this ‘small’ part where the vigour of S can be considered to remain more or less ‘uniform’ (over ‘short’ periods of time) is so very ‘big’ and apparently ‘permanent’ that man has enough of a sight with as much ‘depth’ as he ever can exhaustively probe. Man is yet to reach the limits of even this ‘small’ part of the universe. Looks like this universe is in fact a lot ‘bigger’ than known hitherto.

By the time the expanding spiral has completed about half of its onslaught, the vigour of S at the very centre of the core has fallen. At the pinnacle of the expansion cycle, the S in most parts other than regions close to the ‘shell’ of the pulse is far from tough. All ‘matter’ created during the onslaught gets ‘undone’.

What are the chances of ‘matter’ being produced again during the next cycle, beginning with the ‘spiral-bang’? The chances are as good as in the ‘past’. And, this ‘matter’ again gets ‘wiped out’ as that cycle draws to its close.

On its own the universe renews its interior décor at every cycle of pulsing. There is no knowing how long this has been going on. Neither does anyone know for how many more cycles it will last.

Is every cycle of the universe an exact replica of the one before it? Well, that depends on what external factors influence ‘our’ universe. This in turn points to the nature of its surroundings, the S in which ‘this universe of ours’ pulses. Any change in the vigour of ‘that’ S has consequences in here. Are there other pulses of the same kind or any other kind around ‘us’? If there are, what their pulsing may do to ‘us’ has to be taken into account.

Commonsense suggests that our universe cannot be alone. No pulse of this kind can exist in isolation. It becomes necessary to assume that ‘some’ S with a lot of similar pulses in it exists around ‘us’. But doesn’t that lead to another universe encompassing all of those including ours? Yes, and one cannot quit even at that. There are an infinite number of universes, each one telescoped into the next.

Microcosm or macrocosm, S is continuous whichever way one turns. It loops or folds on itself, gets tough or goes humble, but is never broken, disrupted, transformed or destroyed. Neither can it remain idle in any pulse anywhere in the universe or in any universe for that matter. One does not know of its origin, or of its end. The force that plays with it must be the most fundamental one but, again, nobody ‘knows’ anything of it.

According to the definitions laid down at the beginning of this overview, the vigour of S is the square of its toughness. This, in turn, is the radius of the volume that will be occupied by a unit-radius volume of the S if allowed to spread to its flat state. Later, while discussing radiation pulses, it was observed that the speed with which they travel is a manifestation of the vigour of the S in which they move. In other words, speed of light is a measure of the vigour of the S through which it travels.

The vigour of S decides the nature of every physical event. Any physical parameter remains invariant just as long as the vigour of S does not change. As and when it changes, all physical parameters get altered so as to make the resulting picture ‘appear’ the same as before, meaning that no absolute and all-time ‘value’ can be ascribed to the speed of light or physical constants.

So far the assumption was that the vigour of the S around us is invariant. The vigour of ‘local’ S has also been considered a universal invariant, meaning that the vigour of S all over the universe remains the same for all time. We have observed earlier that it does not.

This need not cause much concern. Every law established on the basis of the above assumption continues to hold good ‘here’ and also will ‘appear’ to hold good anywhere in the universe except in the case of what are known as discontinuities.

If the ‘apparent’ physical parameters pertaining to ‘local’ S are extrapolated to formulate a model of the universe, it is likely to be far from ‘true’. For instance, cosmological distances ‘measured’ may hardly relate to their ‘actual’ value. A constellation ‘appearing’ a certain number of light-years away may not in fact be at a corresponding number of ‘actual earth-miles’ away. Variations in the vigour of S through which the radiation passes would have surely affected the speed of propagation of the pulses arriving.

When any such model is brought to encompass the microcosm, difficulties of a different kind show up ‘here and now’ itself. This is because every pulse oscillates between stages of near-infinite vigour of S and these points are discontinuities according to the basic laws that formulate such a model. The hard outer shell and the hard core of a pulse are ‘events’ where these laws ‘break down’. Also, at no instance does the vigour of S at any point within any pulse stay the same.

Under the circumstances, empirical formulations aided by probability statistics have been quite successfully employed to deal with the microcosm. Thoroughly deterministic equations have been established but this does not succeed in dealing with the macrocosm where the vigour of S practically remains the same for ‘a while’ and therefore better ‘order’ seems to prevail.

No wonder Albert Einstein had to tell the exponents of quantum theory that ‘God doesn’t play dice’ and they asked, ‘If God doesn’t, who does?’

The life of any pulse (any particle of matter) in the universe is related to the change of vigour of S in which it pulses. Again, at any point within any pulse, the vigour goes on changing. In the large pulse that is the universe, at any point in it, the same thing happens. So time can also be reckoned on the basis of change in the vigour of S.

The time scale of the observed universe is such that it changes with the vigour of S. As the vigour of S comes down, the speed of light also comes down. However the perceived time remains the same for any individual, and for every instrument that measures the time. Therefore this time scale can be called the apparent time, and for everything in the observed universe, it is applicable. This apparent time starts at the point where the first pulse is manifest at the big bang. 

The time scale of the Stuff may be called actual time. It begins before many spiral bangs than the one of ours. It decides the time between the expansion and contraction events of S at the large scale. The apparent time is dependent on the actual time also, because this is the true time scale in which everything in the observed universe is manifested and un-manifested.

The change of vigour of S at any point within a pulse can be in two mutually opposite directions – increasing vigour or decreasing. If one is called forward, the other is to be called backward. At the centre of the pulse and close to its border where the vigour of S alternates between infinite toughness and infinite humbleness, the change of vigour first ‘moves’ in one direction, turns around and then goes the opposite way. The arrow of it can be visualized as ‘turning back’. This may help us get a glimpse into what are hitherto known as the no-man’s land of singularities where all known laws of physics are supposed to break down.



END



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Verses from the Bhagavad Gita outlining the ancient eastern concept of the Stuff (Brahma)

The fundamentals of Advaita philosophy, with a study of the concept of Brahma or the Stuff
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Stuff and Style of the Universe
First published Nov. 2002 by Hi-Tech Books
Copyright with Hi-Tech Books, Kochi, India