Thinking about the universe

[avevale_intelligencer]

I'm thinking of two realms.

(I should point out, for anyone who hasn't guessed, that my knowledge of science is of the rudimentariest, but that I'm not talking here about anything I would describe as metaphysical. I also should acknowledge a debt here to Diane Duane's The Wounded Sky, possibly the best Star Trek novel ever.)

One is the realm of what we know as matter and energy, space and time, and I think of it rather like John Wheeler's quantum foam, consisting of minute bubbles floating in an interstitial medium. Each of these bubbles is what I call in Oonaverse a "protocosm," a potential universe, microscopically small in terms of the meta-space in which it exists, having no internal dimensions at that point. The other is a realm of (so far) undifferentiated awareness, possibly organised on similar lines; I'm not as sure about that.

At some point (since meta-space would presumably require meta-time as well) there is an incursion from the realm of mind into the realm of matter. One of the protocosms, acted upon by this incursion, begins to expand internally, acquiring its own spatial and temporal dimensions, the matter and energy within it organising itself according to physical laws. The point of incursion is pulled apart by the expansion, fragmenting into innumerable smaller holes each of which is attached to a particular locus, a point of matter or a quantum of energy. Time within the universe goes by, and the awareness that is attached to each hole becomes differentiated from the rest of the realm of mind, believing itself to be "in" the universe of matter and energy that has been thus created. This in turn has progressive effects on the realm of mind itself; the idea of differentiation spreads, and there are further incursions, further universes created; while the separate units of consciousness which believe themselves to be physical beings inhabiting a universe of matter retain only a dim half-memory, if that, of the realm of mind from which we came, and, as we find ourselves viewing our universe through wider and wider holes, evolving physical mechanisms to extend the range of our agency, we wonder how, in a purely physical universe, such a thing as mind could possibly have originated.

You may not think much of it as an idea, but it works for me.

Comments

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

Interesting, and could well be the basis/foundation/environment of some fascinating writing.