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I learned several years ago to interpret the world in terms of critical reality. Whatever views you yourself espouse, there will be instances when all other formulations are discarded, like if you are caught in the hills in a hailstorm, or are being herded toward a gas chamber, or are attacked by lions. Our responses are emphatic, immediate and final; to declare, as did the rabbi at Auschwitz, “There is no God,” or to be infused with adrenaline and act. In my own case, I was attacked by lions. There was no time to ponder existential theories of reality, and afterwards it was useless.

This is, in a way, to argue anthropically. On the basis of my own existence and nature, the world, because I experience it so, is thus. The domain of our subjectivity constitutes a proper and essential sphere of investigation into the nature of the universe (Sam Harris, The End of Faith). In other words, if we do not use consciousness to discover some facts, they might never be discovered at all. One must also remember that our experience of life is dualistic – in which we the subject observe the object. This is the product of our particular evolved consciousness – and not necessarily useful when contemplating phenomena we CANNOT observe, such as atomic particles and quanta, black holes and the start of Universe. Perhaps it is this failing that prompts us to conjecture deity, the remote observer manufactured by our consciousness to witness and account for that which lies forever beyond our gross perception. Our subjectivity throws up dust before our eyes.

There are many instances where an anthropic argument has been used conclusively to satisfy questions that have no other means of clarification. For example, the universe (I will name it “Universe” in the same way we speak of reality, as opposed to the reality) is the way it is because, were it any other way, we would not be here to see it. I am a product of the world; my chemistry is the world’s chemistry; I must have the wherewithal to know it truly, even if to do this I must think indirectly. For metaphor and intuition are the tools of the unknowable. God has been a metaphor for all things unseen till science opened expanding vistas of knowledge. Yet even scientists employ metaphor and abstraction to comprehend quantum physics, the deep past and the nature of time and space - places where our thoughts and senses struggle to go.

Having done some reading myself, and quite probably not nearly enough, I am about to present to you an original and new view of Universe based on my own reasoning, using the anthropic principle. It differs a little from the mainstream scientific viewpoint, and yet I (humbly) think it’s important. I know its heavy stuff (I mean, writing this caused some brain pain) but please try your best and give me your opinions.

Here goes:-  

e=mv² is the old formula that gives us the energy of a moving object: if you weigh m (mass) kilograms and are running from a lion at v (velocity) metres per second, then your e (energy) can be calculated. e=mv² had been around for 200 odd years until (having done some reading), in an accomplishment of pure thought, Einstein reasoned that since no velocity higher than the speed of light is possible for matter, this limiting factor must be integral to the relationship between energy and mass. And thus, e=mc². c is the velocity of light, incorporating distance and time. These are the basic constituents of Universe: energy, mass, and spacetime, and in fact the basic constituents of our reality. Together, they are reality.

But what about = ? Is it not as intrinsic a part of this reality? “Equals” represents the activity of a verb, or verbs, but fails to tell us what actually happened, for the process of obtaining energy out of mass is anything but simple. The formula, we must remember, is a mathematical statement replete with unsolved mystery. Saying that Einstein had a brainwave is an understatement, is itself a colossal understatement! Some, who knew him, thought that he himself may even have understood the formula! All = tells us is that mc² becomes e, but it fails to qualify this in any way. As = also appears in a myriad of forms, its generic use here shrouds a wide field of enquiry. It is the elephant in the room.

Black holes, the Table of Elements, the Big Bang, Hiroshima: all these can be understood in terms of e=mc². Almost all is understood, yet the need to invent God survives still in the lingering human questions containing “why”. Perhaps the human child in us simply needs to be told “because why is a crooked letter”. There are many times when the why question is neither useful nor welcome – it is thinking inside the box.

In the beginning was the word. “Word” and “verb” are etymologically related, verbum being the Latin for word. It may well be that ancient desert musings intuited accurately that at the core of all the reality we can perceive is some, personal or not, volition. (I don’t see why my own stream of ideas should not have been repeated many times by others down the ages). For what caused the Big Bang to be, in all its blinding light? It most definitely occurred in a process contained in = , the relationship between the participants in reality.

So what is this word, or sentence, or recipe, that describes the relationship? If we can find its meaning, perhaps it will be the meaning of all we have ever sought, this relationship between energy, matter, distance and time; and it may also flesh out the mystifying pivotal instant of inevitability immediately prior to the Big Bang, when reality came into being.

It has to be more than a simple word, most probably a complex sentence or understanding, with qualifications and provisions. The formula stands alone quite satisfactorily as a mathematical statement. But we know that for a large part of the life of Universe (i.e. during reality) most matter, and most energy, are not actively engaged in the formulaic process of transformation. Thankfully for us. It happens under certain circumstances, to be found in very heavy elements, stars, and some bigger reactions. Most matter is stable and most energy remains energy. So first of all, conditions have to be correct for = to operate.

The object, or rather Situation, that existed prior to and became the Big Bang was neither energy nor matter nor did it have dimension or duration. These were all unrecognisably transformed. It incorporated all, in a combination for which we have no conception or practical description. It also, like a super-black hole, exerted a field of almost infinite gravity. This definitely does not mean void, as the pre-primal non-substance is biblically named. Far from it. This was simply a non-reality thing. We, being products of Universe where energy, mass and spacetime are interdependently discrete, and gravity is weak, can only use the now-unbundled tools of this (our) reality to observe them. e=mc² emerges as the very definition of reality itself.

Now pay attention! Transcending the absolute moribund nature of this Situation, was its ability to transform – we know it did, for we are here. It seems as if = represents the requirement to transform, a Law of Progression, or Law of Unlimited Compulsion. (This is not to be confused with the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which, only within Universe, dictates an increase of entropy, making possible the changes of Universe, including the production of forces and particles, and the evolution of elements and life). It is as if, with e, m, and timespace collapsed upon each other, = still retains its freedom of action: it stands outside.

I believe that the extreme tension between collapsed matter and the resultant  intense gravitational field caused a reversal in the disposition of energy, somewhat analogous to a reversal in polarity. I do not think there was a Big Bang as it has been suggested up till now: an explosion. Instead, the gravitational field became evenly infused with all (i.e. the total amount of all) the energy previously locked in the Situation, the energy dissolved, forming a uniform distribution of energy particles as a pressureless colloidal dust, or field matrix plasma. Simply put, the gravity “vacuumed” the energy from an inwardly collapsed state into an outwardly open and distributed state. This occurred with a commensurate dissipation of the gravity – and a surge of released spacetime (with some attributes of superconductors) which is still continuing, even as gravity again accumulates (for gravity results from the accretion of mass. Bear in mind that gravity distorts and bends spacetime in on itself). This explains the observed uniformly expanding nature of Universe as well as its residual electromagnetic radiation; imagine dots on an elastic sheet which is being stretched.

I feel it is necessary to paraphrase this explanation simply, lest its meaning escapes us. The Big Bang does not emerge explosively from a point; it erupts equally everywhere into energy, and there is an oscillation of states of being as equilibrium is maintained (gravity – spacetime – gravity). The singularity was not a point but a pervading field having the potential for transformation into energy and spacetime.

There are parts of Universe we cannot see because their light has not yet reached us. In conventional Big Bang theory, for this to have occurred, the speed of the explosion must have been great indeed. Those invisible parts must have reached their destination at speeds greater than the speed of light… or else we could see them. Is this speed possible for matter? Is not an Instant Universe a more compelling theory?

For those who would disagree I ask: Where is the singularity located? In an infinite gravitational field, CAN it be located?

The field yields a sudden even distribution of elementary energy particles which, from a momentary matrix of average symmetry, are, through freedom of motion, and cooling and convection, thrown into interactions which result in uneven, asymmetric concentrations of forces, and the onset of angular momentum. These concentrations are the factories of proto-mass, recreating gravity again, to begin the evolution of matter and stars. It is in the emergence of energy particles from gravity that unifies it with the other forces.

It was in this super-hot, elementary particle “flour” in which collisions and associations between particles led to elementary mass particles akin to the theoretical Higgs Boson, and subsequently to hydrogen atoms. It is the non-regular, angular momentum of elementary particles and their resultant increase in speed that gives rise to their relativistic mass – or protomass – in unstable packets of short duration. Some transmutation occurs, inducing interactions of strong nuclear forces and permanent relationships.

Were elementary particles initially as various as those we have recently discovered? Or are many of these the offspring of later stars, elements and cosmic combinations? I guess that the initial mix was simpler, yet complex enough to produce hydrogen, and helium. Simple hydrogen therefore might contain the original recipe.

We know that the bonds that keep mass from reverting explosively to energy are very strong. We now know that in achieving fission in the most unstable of elements, this is only partial. But what about the opposite process? What about ongoing solidification of energy into mass?

We live in the Universe Epoch. It may well be incorrect to speak of alternate universes: such things may have been so strikingly different to Universe (our reality), that we could neither experience them, let alone describe or name them.

Universe functions by means of intrinsic laws and actors – forces, energy and mass, gravity and linear spacetime. Without these, including the Second Law of Thermodynamics, we simply could not be here.