143. System of the World. Part One

 

When one thinks that how this universe is run, many questions arise in one’s mind. For instance, who created this universe? Did the universe create itself? Why was it created? Is there a God? Is planet Earth, which we call our world, runs on the same principles, as the rest of universe? Are we the only intelligent, self-aware, sentient form of life, or are there other planets or moons where there are similar life forms? What are the fundamental laws of nature? A universe is governed by same laws of nature, are there other universes which have different laws? Does true vacuum (where nothing is present) exist? And there are many other questions which philosophers and astrophysicist have in their minds.

 

This mote is a mystic, not a philosopher, astrophysicist, or a religious scholar. Here I want to theorize, not on the universe, but on the system of this world, our earth.

 

Basically, there are three hypotheses to explain the system:

 

1. There is no GOD or Creator. The universe was created at a finite period of time. Nobody knows, for sure, what was before that time. Scientists have theories about it, but essentially it is unknowable. Why was it created and who created it is also unfathomable, but scientist surmise that it created itself.  After the creation of universe, it is running on its own, by the laws of nature. Everything that happens in the world happens, because of the law of cause and effect. For purposes of this discussion we will name this, the “Materialistic theory”

 

2. There is a God or Creator. God created this universe at a finite period of time. God was there before the universe was created. He created it because of reasons only known to Him. Everything that happens in the universe happens because of His will. The world runs by fundamental laws of nature including the law of cause and effect. These laws were created by God. We will call this the “Religious theory”

 

3. There is a God or Creator. God created the universe at a certain period in time. God was there before the universe was created. He created it because of unknown reasons. However, after the creation of the universe he does not run the universe (but He may intercede on some occasions if He so desires), it runs automatically by the law of cause and effect and other laws of nature.  We will call this ‘Materialism with God theory’

 

Let us now examine these three hypotheses in greater detail.

 

Materialistic theory: I have discussed the origin of universe and the evolution of life in some detail in my blogs 98-101, in Part Three. According to the present knowledge, the universe started with a big explosion called Big Bang, 13.8 billion years ago. Nobody knows what was there before Big Bang. Was there a complete vacuum, with nothing in it? No matter and no energy. If that is true then this huge universe came into existence out of nothing! I think this is a preposterous notion. Nothing can arise out of nothing.

Science deals with this question in several ways:

1. It is useless to surmise without facts. Since we have no pre-Big Bang data we are not going to think about it. Universe is just there.

2. There is no pre-Bing Bang, because Time started at Big Bang. This is what St. Augustine also said 1600 years ago. Big objects such as planets and stars pull the fabric of time-space towards themselves by their force of gravity. Time slows. A big object such as Sagittarius A at the center of our galaxy has a mass of 4 million suns. Time must be slower over there. At Big Bang the whole matter-energy of the future universe was compressed in a singularity much smaller than an atom, the size of a Planck length; a centimeter divided by 1 followed by 32 zeroes. The massive pull of this singularity made the Time stand still.

 

3. As Sherlock Holmes, a fictional detective, once said, that if you eliminate the impossible, whatever is left, is the truth. Therefore, it follows that there must be the same amount of energy-matter before Big Bang as it was at Big Bang, and is there now, 13.8 billion years later, because the law of conservation of energy-matter states so. The law of conservation of energy is a fundamental law of nature. According to this law, energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but it can be transformed.

One of the current popular theories is that most or all or some of the energy-matter was in the form of extremely small ( the size of a Planck length ) strings, or in the form of membranes (abbreviated as brans). These strings ( like the strings of a guitar ) vibrated at different speeds, all the time, giving rise to different types of particles, just like different musical notes emerge by different tension and plucking of  guitar strings.  These subatomic particles caused the formation of atoms.

 

If my writing, at this time lacks clarity, it is because the subject itself is not clear.

 

To be continued.