Mysteries of the Universe- a perspective by Narendra Nath

An article titled ' Science Interface with Spirituality ' is attached as a prelude to the essay submitted already entitled ' Mysteries of the Universe -a perspective '. It relates to the experiences personally noted by the author as he conducted his R & D studies during active service as also the period of retirement. Reviews by other participants/contributors as well as referees of the FQXI movement are most welcome!Attachment #1: SCIENCE_INTERFACE_WITH_SPIRITUALITY_REVISED_II.doc

Additional Attachment of a mss ' Inconstancy of the physical Constants.........' may prove helpful for the discussionsAttachment #1: INCONSTANCY_OF_THE_PHYSICAL_CONSTANTS_AND_1_12.doc

Narendra,

I really like the closing comments of your "Science Interface with Spirituality" piece. In the final discussion of my own essay, I made some similar "child-like" comments. I would love to hear what you think!

CKM

Dear Clinton,

Just as we get conditioned with age, we loose the child-like wonder as also the smile of true innocence. You apparently had no comments on my Essay as well as the Attachment' Inconstancy of the physical Constants....'.You liked the other Attached MSS to just comment on the brief ending with poem-like prose i happen to compose too. After going through your essay, i see why you have chosen to ignore the 'Physics ' as your article emphasizes the importance of ' this moment ' that one actually lives. The rest is past or the unknown future we think about, worry or feel anxious about. Thus, you are the true believer in life as it is. Let me share something rather personal with you now. The motivation to write the MSS ' Science Interface with Spirituality' came to me after i had undergone a week's course on Yoga run by an Institution called 'The Art of Living ' founded by a living saint called Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. The two ideas that i later patented following my voluntary visits to two concerned industries also followed more or less simultaneously. The two scientific mss on ' Mysteries of the Universe- a perspective' and ' Inconstancy of the physical constants....' followed later, as i experienced the effect of my personal 'awakening' in my profession as a teacher cum researcher in Physics at the University. During my active service i was restricted to R & D in Nuclear Physics and associated. experimental techniques. The awakening period lies well into my retirement from service, as i am presently in 76th year of my life.What a pleasure it is to share this information with you at 20 yrs. of age!!

two typographic mistakes are noted in my essay as posted:

1.page 3, line 5 from bottom: delete 'instability ' at the end.

2. page 5,line 2 from top:' cognize' should read as ' cognizer'

Awaiting comments from public as well as other authors of the essay competition!

Dear Mr. Nath,

re:

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Current fashion

favors the Big Bang with the cosmologists, as it explains better the

limited experimental data available so far. Its weakness lies mainly

in its inability to understand what may have pre-existed!

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ya. there's some problems there. the notion of a 'big bang' first arose from a 'Doppler' interpretation of the red shift in the light spectrum of distant astronomical bodies. the interpretation is that the observed red shift is a function of increasingly greater velocity with distance, giving rise to the notion of an expanding universe, like some fireworks display. this interpretation would appear to be inconsistent with general relativity's insistence on a fixed constant, 'c'. even something akin to a refractive quality of space would seem more gratifying - a function of distance rather than velocity [playing with a cheap plastic prism, i notice that i can, by angling the incidence of the light source, compress the spectrum, but not get it to change it's range, or i can expand the spectrum, and shift the spectrum to such an extent that i get an exclusively red image...].

the 'big bang' is a curious idea. we have a singularity which encompasses the entirety of the universe. there is no time/space within this 'all that is', effectively eternal always was/is/will be. where are 'we' in this visualization? we appear to be sitting outside of this singularity looking at it, objectifying it as if something separate and distinct from ourselves. this does not seem to work. there could be no 'outside' to such an object.

if singularity, then there is also the problem of how this singularity could have arisen. the present universe could only be interpreted as 'winding down' energetically. which implies that something had to have originally 'wound it up'. there does not appear to be a dynamics inherent in the system to generate a cyclical process of a 'self winding universe'.

problems....

re:

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Within the existing limitations of locations and precision in

cosmological measurements, it becomes difficult to follow a

strictly rational approach usually adopted in science disciplines.

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yep!

human perceptual perspective would seem to be much less a matter of logical precision, much more a matter of 'practical interpretation'.

but that's why looking at the universe is so much fun. it's actually looking at ourselves and how we perceive things.

:-)

re:

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Another aspect that bothers the Big Bang enthusiasts relates to the

observation that it took just a trillionth of a second for the nascent

universe to cover its initial vastness!

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it would be a sizable energetic event, apparently accelerating 'faster than light'...

i wish to take this somewhere...

coming up; stay tuned.

re:

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The primordial matter was too dense and the initial expansion was due to extremely strong gravitational repulsion, on lines with strong nuclear force repulsive component at extremely short distances.

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you wouldn't happen to have a citation for the source of this handy would you? (or is that part of "2. Cowen J.J. and Snowden C., Nature, 440, 1151, 2006."?)

gravity as a repulsion force interests me. i'm looking at the possibility of a different interpretation of gravity, that locally it is accelerating outward (a 'repulsion' force) in what we might call 'backward time' [note: this would accommodate a constant local environment factor shaping our perception of a temporal directional arrow, where metric 'time' has been shown to be so relative/condition dependent - what it is about a discrete inertial vector that identifies/defines its temporal characteristics...]. dark matter may be the same as 'our stuff', just going in a different temporal direction, for want of a better terminology. the temporal directional variance could account for it's 'darkness'. from there, we would likely appear as a very mysterious 'dark matter' also.

'if 'big bang'', that temporal eternity of the original 'singularity' is going to have to still be represented in the universe; it's going to have to balance out somehow in 'forward' and 'backward' time...

see also my comments to Mr. Pitkänen, in response to his paper, "About the Nature of Time".

re:

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In chapter 1 verse 41, Patanjali postulated that the cognize, the cognized and the process of

cognition must merge into one whole in any rational search for the truth.

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noting that consideration of the nature of consciousness is a recurring theme in the papers presented here.

yep.

a physics of consciousness... needs more study.

maybe a study of 'wisdom' would be good too. a physics of wisdom....

;-)

warm regards,

matt kolasinski

Dear Matt,

i appreciate your comments. There is no reference cited for the initial repulsive gravity following the Bigbang. i just quoted the analogy of repulsive strong nuclear force at very short distances. Please remember, nature guides nus but we don't guide It. You have to explain things as these appear to happen in nature. The creator ' consciousness' can not be judged by our personal rules and regulations!

The dark matter postulated by me is on the basis of the observation that we are unable to interact or receive any response from it. It can't be excited by signals that we send. Thus, it can't be Baryonic in nature as our visible world is. Thus, its non-baryonic nature needs to be understood. For that purpose, i postulated primordial matter to consist of very heavy neutral quarks, unforseen thus far!Then, these were considered to be very fast decaying to lighter quarks under the original unified field that was bvery very strong. At some stage of this process, that field became weaker not to enable such fast decays to be sustained and those quarks froze as dark matter. The remaining ones decayed to lighter quarks which started to invlove fractional charge states with the advent of Unified field's components of e.m field,strong & weak nuclear and the the new gravitational attractive field. The latter is in contrast with the very very strong repulsive gravitational field that was used to explain only the initial evolutionary expansion of the Universe soon after Bigbang.

You are right we may take the originating Unified field to be a kind of intelligent potential field that existed even prior to the Bigbang! Nature is mysterious for we humans to have come on the scene well after its 13 billion years of Universe 's existence.

More later!

Both Matt and Dr. Pitkanen may look at the posting by me on Dr. Pikanen's essay just now. Hopefully, it may provide a healthier outlook on ' consciousness ', in order to use it effectively in searching for truth through science.

Dear Narenda,

one of the big cosmological problems you mention is "What existed before Big Bang?".

If we mean with time geometric time, as a fourth space-time cooordinate, the question becomes obsolete. We do not ask what was before or after the surface of the table but what is below or above it. Big Bang is just the boundary of space-time. The 3-D light-like boundary of future lightcone of Minkowski space is a good illustration for Big Bang since future lightcone can be regarded as expanding cosmology with vanishing mass density with lightcone proper time hyperboloids (Lobatchevski spaces) identified as cosmic time= constant surfaces.

With respect to experienced time "before" makes sense but not when we are not talking about subjective experiences but space-time geometry.

The identification of experienced and subjective time is what leads to the question what was before Big Bang plus many other problems related to time and usually ignored in recent day theoretical physics. The reason is probably that this problem is really difficult and there is no hope of producing highly technical papers full of formulae. Rather, the basic challenge is to first articulate the deep ignorance and after than possibly end up saying something about consciousness!

With Best Regards,

Matti Pitkänen

So, I think that understanding consciousness can beging only when we realize that these two times are not one and same thing.

With Best Regards,

Matti Pitkänen

i just happen to post my comments on your essay posts. i personally give greater importance in formulating the precepts and then the concepts to understand and explain a process. The tools of maths/geometry or whatever we use to formulate the theory will always reflect the short comings left behind in the conceptual part of our explanation. Thus, our contemplation, intuition play a very significant role. The rest is a just an exercise in calculation. That is what Einstein remarks in the personal observations on his profound 1905 discoveries. His own thinking did not provide him the basic idea, it came from outside his own thought processes. He then gives importance to his capacity to realise promptly the significance and importance of that idea and then apply the mathematic tools he was conversant with to work out the solution!

I agree with your view. The worst that can happen to a new idea is that it is mathematized too early. Simply because a really novel idea requires new conceptualization possibly leading to a new mathematics when the time is ripe.

Super string models are an excellent example of what can happen. The physical shortcomings are completely obvious to the beginner but those who have worked with it their professional life are blind for these shortcomings or are not even interested since the work with the mathematics involved is very rewarding in itself.

TGD would have suffered same fate if I had just started to produce publishable papers three decades ago. My luck was that I was too lazy!;-) And also well aware that the existing recipes did not work. Many of the mathematical concepts needed in TGD are considerable generalizations of existing ones. Several genuinely new notions are needed: infinite-dimensional geometry, generalization of the notion of number, and even the notion of space-time point.

What is consolating that all these theories, which all very probably catch only some aspects of reality, produce mathematical notions which can be used by the next generation.

Matti

To the various postings & all the authors,

i have to say something general about ' nature of Time '. Terresterial and intercontinental time may be different in scale. Also, the time scale may differ hugely between the manifested consciouness (physical universe) and pure or cosmic consciousness. Time is linear or non-linear can produce 'unknown' consequences. Indian mythology refers to different Universes having very different time scales. Also, it talks about the body and the spirit having such anamolies. Then , there is the sense of time duration that one may encounter during meditation stage compared to the other three known stages of wakeful, dream and deep sleep! if i may vouch from my personal exdperience i have observed such a behaviour on more than one occasion during 'meditation' session. Also, it is common to observe our sense of timings during a pleasant , normal and unpleasant gatherings!

May be the oncepts like protons, neutrons etc. etc. are all created by the big bang ,if there ever was one.

Why do we want to dig on the past? Why not use all the information & knowledge ,and try o simulate the immediate future.

GKM

GKM, thanks for the straight comment aout looking at the times in the future, instead of digging the past. At the human level, it is certainly the desired objective to live 100% in the present and that way ensure an anxiety free future. However, the field of Cosmology that my essay intnded to cover, naturally demands understanding of the past. Past experiences also provide us with guidelines to live a better tomorrow,as well as ensure that our Universe also maintains its natural tendencies experienced thus far.

A little correction, the essay started with postulation of very heavy neutral quarks and came down to the level of charged quarks as currently known from Particle Physics as building blocks of n, p nuclei, atoms and molecules....

Dear Narendra:

Thank you for posting on my essay. I am posting here issues relating to

consciousness in your essay. We agree that time is not as structured in

human consciousness: i.e., past, current and future is not clearly cut out.

How about in cosmic consciousness you mention in your paper? And

through the interaction between the two, how do they affect the notion

of time in ourselves or vice versa?

Sincerely,

Toru

What a wonderful rejoinder from you on the nature of ' cosmic consciousness'. We already agree that we still need to go some distance on human consciousness. Cosmic one has given rise to our manifestation itself. What can one say about the most superior level of consciousness, except to imagine to be ever present, timeless, powerful beyond measure. Science has followed a certain level humanity that we have been able to achieve thus far. One can hope to experience it through self-observation, as i attempted to narrate in my essay through the experiences i had using the techniques of meditation and yoga. I have already mentioned in one of my postings that meditation is the forth state of consciousness, following the ones associated with waking, dreaming and deep sleep stages. i continue to have such experiences and the same may get reflected in my postings on the essays of ten other authors. Such experiences come through moments of silence, emptiness of the mind and a feeling of extreme humility in the context of the hugeness of the Universe!

Hi Narendra,

You wrote in my forum:

"i await your response to my posting of Oct.,31 as also an earlier post on your draft essay on a pre-existing FQXI site. The later demanded suggestions to finalize the essay draft. Both cover more or less the same material."

I'm sorry Narendra, but I truly am at a loss as to how to respond to your posting of Oct 31st, and I don't understand what you mean by "a pre-existing FQXI site." Where do I find such a site to read the post that you are referring to?

I face a very definite challenge of deducing the consequences of a fundamental postulate. I know that the task requires more than I can deliver without the help of a power greater than my own, but, in my case, it requires an appeal to the God of Israel for enlightenment and guidance, something that is a private matter of contemplation and discernment of the promptings of the Holy Ghost, the prospect for the success of which is intimately connected with matters of worship and devotion.

In my mind, the discussion of these things, as part of a recommended methodology for scientific research, seems to be inappropriate in a public, scientific, discussion.

Regards,

Doug

Dear Doug,

My post material got lost before submission! So, i have to re-establish the response flow again.it is unfortunate that you have misunderstood me as i never ever talked of God/Holy Ghost or any religion and associated beliefs individuals may have. This essay competition has come out in the spirit that our current scientific journals don't publish free discussions on the Foundational Questions, specially if it is going to invoke what are not currently accepted as parameters of sciences. If you look at this competition, nearly every essay worth a mention has invoked ' consciousness' which is definitely a non-physical entity. What is consciousness is seriously being discussed and a few have even attempted to model it as per science methodology known to us presently. In fact, i feel it is too early to model it as our concepts based on percepts need to rise to a higher level before attempting Mathematical/geometric or stochastic simulations. Somehow, i happen to have personally experienced the effects of meditation and Yoga practices ( nothing to do with religious practices at all). The human mind that controls even the body capabilities and not just the human brain but the body as a whole with its infinite living cells, gets affected in a positive manner! This is science we need to comprehend better and evolve for our own good. It is not just confined to medical aspects but also our capabilities and potentialities in any profession!

Experiments , experiences, intuition and inspiration are all utilized by us in furthering science or any other professional activity.

Kindly i request you humbly to open up your horizon and accept all such discussions on ' consciousness' currently in progress in several postings on the essays in this wonderfully organized competition. i am at your service to respond to any specific queries/ clarifications you may desire. In fact, i myself have had somewhat similar feelings you expressed during early part of my professional career as Professor of Physics. But personal, self-critical observations/experiences compelled me to broaden my outlook and in turn i benefited professionally too! NN

Just noted that at the end of your response to my last but one post, you indicate that you are bound by 'science methodology'. i wonder who claims to be the guardian of it. I believe it is a constantly developing methodology and takes care of the Expanding paradigms for science itself to grow. Eventually, several things in the present science did not meet wide acceptance initially but Time took care of the same.

This may be considered as a continuation of my Nov., 06 post on your essay!