The Hole at the Center of Creation by George Gantz

Dear George,

I find several interesting ideas and details in your essay. For example, the text is very effective in representing the fading of the optimism that characterised scientific inquiry up to the dawn of the 20th century. I was not aware of the naively optimistic (in retrospect) 1903 quote by Michelson; one lesson we get from from it is that we must always be ready for dramatic revolutions in fundamental physics...

The core of your essay is your revised Genesis: first the step from 0 to 1 - perhaps, the hardest to be explained without resorting to some external metaphysical intervention (or the only one that actually needs it?) - then the appearance, through Necessity, of logic and mathematical form, and finally sound, for the physical Cosmos (good choice of icon!).

"Physical reality begins to flow along a precise set of potential pathways available in the Form." Very nice formulation! The idea of a universe that is born as mathematical (and geometrical), and then evolves into a physical phase, is attractive - I find it even 'natural' - and can be also found, in various forms, in approaches that, unlike yours, try to avoid external purposeful interventions such as 'the voice'. This would indeed provide a simple and rather convincing explanation of the unreasonable effectiveness of math in physics, and one not too distant from Tegmark's conjecture. Personally, I do not see the step from pure math (and computation!) to a physical universe as requiring external and purposeful intervention, as much as the step from 0 to 1 (although quantum-mechanical arguments circulate that tend to explain also the latter).

Chapter Omega is much harder than Chapter Alpha to grasp. You seem to suggest an identification of Void and Voice with, respectively, 0 and infinity in mathematics, but I spot a potential loop here: infinity (the Voice) is a product of mathematics, that is in turn created by the Voice... And one needs a well developed sense of myth for absorbing the image of the 'mutual self-reflection' of Void and Voice, its meaning, and its relevance for Creation.

It occurs to me that your myth is basically binary (Void-Voice), while, under a Christian perspective, it should probably be ternary. Are the two compatible? Who might be the missing third person in the Void-Voice dualism?

Regards

Tommaso

Dear George Gantz ,

A business executive with multiple interests! No wonder, your balance sheet perfectly tallies. Spirituality with a central void, the void purposefully filled, would be symmetric to your physical/mathematical view.

It seems you follow the latest developments in physics. I invite your attention to my alternate view: Starting with one type of fundamental particles, the theory explains everything physical. Please visit my site: finitenesstheory.com. I claim that I have reduced the void to the minimum: If space and matter exist, the rest follows.

Dear George Gantz ,

"Interestingly, zero and infinity would both seem to have symmetry with infinite degrees of freedom", (or we can say with zero degrees of freedom). Sure, in principle, that is a right starting point. But practically, we can start from zero, but never reach infinity. So zero can be regarded as a real point, and infinity an imaginary point.

As pointed out by you, we can start from zero in both mathematics and physics. In maths, our zeros are the same. But in physics, my zero has a background where zero meets infinity: the three-dimensional space with reversible arrows and and the one-dimensional time with an irreversible arrow - the infinite time and infinite space together represent the zero in physics. I count 'one' only when matter comes. By adding up finite numbers we can never reach infinity; by adding up matter we can never reach infinity; infinity is unreachable. So my universe is finite. Since the staring point is where zero and infinity meets, there is no beginning: the universe never started from zero and never reaches infinity; it is in an infinite loop.

So either there is no creation or the creator introduced an infinite loop. Both ways, it will appear to be the same. We cannot logically arrive at a conclusion regarding this by analyzing the regularities observable in the universe. Creator, if he decides so, can reveal himself by showing that there are arbitrary changes in this world.

Dear Mr. Gantz.

You wrote in the abstract of your essay: "What is the stuff of which the world is made, and how does it work?" Here is my definitive answer.

Accurate writing has enabled me to perfect a valid description of untangled unified reality: Proof exists that every real astronomer looking through a real telescope has failed to notice that each of the real galaxies he has observed is unique as to its structure and its perceived distance from all other real galaxies. Each real star is unique as to its structure and its perceived distance apart from all other real stars. Every real scientist who has peered at real snowflakes through a real microscope has concluded that each real snowflake is unique as to its structure. Real structure is unique, once. Unique, once does not consist of abstract amounts of abstract quanta. Based on one's normal observation, one must conclude that all of the stars, all of the planets, all of the asteroids, all of the comets, all of the meteors, all of the specks of astral dust and all real objects have only one real thing in common. Each real object has a real material surface that seems to be attached to a material sub-surface. All surfaces, no matter the apparent degree of separation, must travel at the same constant speed. No matter in which direction one looks, one will only ever see a plethora of real surfaces and those surfaces must all be traveling at the same constant speed or else it would be physically impossible for one to observe them instantly and simultaneously. Real surfaces are easy to spot because they are well lighted. Real light does not travel far from its source as can be confirmed by looking at the real stars, or a real lightning bolt. Reflected light needs to adhere to a surface in order for it to be observed, which means that real light cannot have a surface of its own. Real light must be the only stationary substance in the real Universe. The stars remain in place due to astral radiation. The planets orbit because of atmospheric accumulation. There is no space.

Warm regards,

Joe Fisher

Dear George,

As you will find out if you read my essay WHY THE REAL UNIVERSE IS NOT MATHEMATICAL, everything is actually physically connected. Only abstract things are abstractly intimately connected by abstract mathematics.

Joe Fisher

Excellent essay George..

This paper leaves me with a lot I want to add or discuss. In this installment; I'll start with the idea that the hole at the center is actually what drives the process of creation, in a manner of speaking. The torus or donut shape is the simplest free-standing form that will propagate in a single medium. Smoke rings are a common example. But did you know you can draw a 7-color map on a torus?

I notice that your creation myth follows the Biblical example of a seven stage evolutionary process, and I've been studying that this has a strong connection with the Octonion number type. This fact could explain the Creation myth basis, and the seven stage phenomena cataloged by Arthur Young in his Reflexive Universe book.

My version of the story goes like this..

One, open, as multiplicity and formless nothingness, finds peace in true relation, and knows all as self.

Have Fun!

Jonathan

To be clear..

1. Oneness. 2. Openness. 3. As-ifness. 4. Multiplicity...

Oneness is, in this construction, akin to the void as you speak of it. It is the state beyond or before distinctions, as with the concept of Wu-Ji; neither hot nor cold, light nor dark, great nor small. In other words; it is what mathematicians call a non-commutative space.

If you add, having neither inside nor outside, this makes it a non-associative space as well. And since we are talking about the void, a place beyond or before entities and contents, it satisfies this condition as well. This is where I tell you that the octonion algebra is non-associative.

Consider that in an evolving torus or donut shape, the center hole defines how it moves or changes. So on some level; what the hole in creation signifies is that there is always a state of becoming, where something yet to be defined is evolving to be a certain way.

All the Best,

Jonathan

George,

Thanks for commenting at my essay. I read your essay at your invitation, and found it a beautiful meditation which fits well into my Unitarian Universalist spiritual journey. Indeed, the world is full of paradox and perhaps we really can't ever resolve all of them. I don't think any kind of math can explain or replicate true indeterminism, of the sort represented by the varying life-times of apparently structureless, identical muons (which is "absurd" as Feynman noted.) So as I also offered, we have to fall on our chosen intuitions without knowing for certain if they are correct, or if indeed there is a clear "truth" for them to be about. Your final statement is moving and persuasive:

"The Whole that Encompasses Creation is that which we believe in yet cannot know - it is what gives each of us purpose."

Yes, it is the way out of the Hole. Although focused on a specific physical problem (the viability of physics in spaces with other number of dimensions), I too offered the broad insight that we can't know what or why is the "more" than the math we analyse with, but didn't recommend a path. And, although many find purpose in specific work in the world, without a grand framework then that too would not be possible or intelligible or meaningful. Good work.

Dear George Gantz

Thank you for your comments on my essay I will respond on my page.

Your exceptionally well-written essay is refreshing because it grapples with questions that the sciences have practically banished from educated discourse these days. Yes science and religion do not mesh and I believe should not attempt to try to, but this leaves important questions that remain unanswered, and you have put them into a beautiful gilded Whole Hole Box for further respectful inspection and contemplation. Your WHB is a good place to turn to when multiverses, questions of what happened before the Big Bang and so forth crop up.

Some haphazard remarks generated by my reading:

- Like most educated Westerners these days the development of mathematical and scientific thought is neatly channelled into the Greeks-to-Renaissance story. This ignores the important achievements of Hindu, Arab and Muslim scientists, mathematicians and philosophers who have grappled and solved some of the conundrums before they landed in Europe.

-Another thing is that Buddhist thought ancient and modern has centered on much of the Whole-Hole idea you highlight. Zen of course is wholly focused on the idea of emptying the mind to find truth. The philosophy of Kitaro Nishida centers on the concept of Nothing. I hastily withdraw from further discussion on all of this as my mind is happily materialistic as far as physics in concerned. (While looking for a place to stay in Kyoto my wife an I met Kirtaro's widow, but the rooms offered where impossible: she kept about 60 cats roaming the grounds and the stench of fish and cat litter was overwhelming! That was Something).

- For an essay centering on the Whole-Hole in the Universe you only mention the Big Bang in passing but there is nothing about the vacuum but that is alright because the thrust of your essay is more philosophical than materialistic.

- You touch on Quantum and Relativistic mysteries and paradoxes. In my outline theory Beautiful Universe I try to show how the assumption of a Universe of simple mechanical self-assembled dielectric nodes may answer many of these questions in realistic terms.

What remains of course is to be found in the WHB.

Ommmmmmmm

Best wishes from Vladimir

Hi George,

A wonderful contribution and quite fundamental. I tend to like such essays.

Regarding Zeno supporting a conclusion that movement was an illusion, I fully agree that this would be so without some fundamentally significant change in how we view space and time. I however suggest that while calculus is useful to quantify motion, it does not fully address the fundamental basis for it. For example, calculus admits that space is infinitely divisible and Zeno's Dichotomy Argument was formulated to show that with infinite divisibility, motion would not even start in the first place. To avoid the problem, the "infinitesimal" was created, a quantity that can be zero and not zero at the same time, i.e. neither dx = 0 nor dx тЙа 0. When you therefore say, "The invention of calculus fundamentally reaffirmed the notion of space and time as infinitely divisible continua", I have an alternative view. The idea I propose in my essay is that we exorcise the spell cast on our physics by Parmenides, who was Zeno's teacher.

I argue and try to demonstrate in my essay that what you call, "the process of the separation of One {1} from the Void {0}..." is not just a once and for all event but a continuing event underlying all activity and motion in our universe up till this very moment. Even today, you have yourself caused the process of One from Void several times and vice-versa, the reverse which you did not much discuss, Void from One. Even, if you do not agree with my hypothesis, I believe you will find it interesting.

Best regards and all the best in the competition,

Akinbo