The Experiment and the Flower

When you start down a path of explaining the physical universe, you eventually find yourself at the Big Bang and the singularity, the cosmological event that supposedly started our Universe. Now, it goes without saying that scientific evidence is pretty much irrefutable on this: there was a Big Bang and the resulting expansion of that single point in time (perhaps the beginning of time, but I’ll get to that). But as quantum mechanics (QM, QED, and QCD) have become reconciled with General Relativity (GR) through, and you can argue about this as much as you want, String Theory (and M-Theory), it begins to beg the question of design.

Physicists have long known that symmetry is a natural ingredient of successful theories. The Strong Nuclear Force, the Weak Nuclear Force. These and other frameworks demonstrate clear symmetry through mathematical equations (regardless of whether you are a fan of some of the mathematical gymnastics necessary to get rid of the infinities). And String Theory represents even greater symmetries without those gymnastics: a superforce at the beginning of the Universe when all particles and forces were combined. But why symmetrical? Why is nature full of symmetries? Why are the very foundational blocks of the universe symmetrical?

God…Or Something Else?

Let’s suggest for a second that there is a God and that he designed and created the singularity which gave form to the known universe. But that does not mean that a God still manages the universe. As Dawkins very successfully pointed out in The God Delusion, a single entity watching over the universe is not physically possible within the structure of the universe that was created. It would require too much energy and the energy, and matter, within the universe are finite. So if there is exactly enough energy in the universe to run the universe as it stands, then where would the energy come to allow God to manipulate everything at will?

Still, there seems to be too much purpose in the fundamentals of the physical universe. So I am going to suggest an alternate theory. That is the “something else”.

A Long Time Ago, In a Galaxy Far, Far Away…

No, I am not suggesting that the universe was created by Star Wars. What I am suggesting is that our universe was an experiment approximately 13.8 billion years ago by a super advanced species who had the technology and knowledge to create universes. Perhaps they were, as we are, interested in discovering where they came from, where their universe started. The best way to do that, without postulating and theorizing, is to create a laboratory environment where the things can be studied. So imagine create a physical universe in a bottle, building a singularity, and then letting it expand within the confines of the experiment. With such controls, knowledge, and technology, they would even dictate the time within the experiment, allowing billions of years to unfold in just a matter of seconds.

So, here we are. Am I suggesting that we are just an experiment? That the experimenters are still there, watching us? I guess that could be a possibility but that’s not what I am proposing. Before we get into that, though, let’s talk a little bit about the design of the system.

Elegance or Chaos. It’s Your Choice.

If you were a scientist with the power to create an entire system, this “universe in a bottle”, how would you create it? Would you design something that is chaotic? Would you design something that doesn’t make sense? Perhaps that was the first or thousandth go and those universes simply collapsed. Those experiments showed that chaos isn’t sustainable.

Or would you design something that is elegant and beautiful in its design? I would argue that it’s the later. Most scientists would choose to create something elegant, even if the demands of the system didn’t require it. Imagine the universe as a flower. It began as just a bud, where all of the symmetry was hidden in the collapse folds of the petals. But as the sun shines, as time advances, the flower unfolds, with each petal representing a part of that symmetry. Think of it like this: at the beginning, before the bloom, there is the superforce and everything is combined into a tight package. Then, as it blooms, that super symmetry breaks apart until we are left with petals, still connected to the base of the flower, but distinct. Connected, and a part of the whole, but independent as well. But it’s more than just a single flower. It’s a tree of blooms. What was created wasn’t just a single universe but a system to create an infinite number of universes because that’s where the true experiment happens. When multiple universes can pop into existence and be “pruned” just as quickly, the experimenters can gather better data about how the environmental variables (chaos and symmetry) form, evolve, and operate over time.

If we imagine the blooming flower in its many incarnations, where perhaps one petal is larger than the others, off-balancing it, reducing the bud’s ability to unfold properly, then we can see how the buds would die off. And, if an experimenter is manipulating the framework, when those flowers are identified, they can be pruned immediately so that the experiment can focus on the buds that offer a better chance of a sustainable flower. But this isn’t happening over hours or minutes. Millions of years of a universe “blooming” are happening in just seconds. So none of these universes are able to expand within their containers very much before they are destroyed. And remember that the experiment itself is not just about the flowers, it is about the framework, the tree if you will, being able to produce new flowers (universes) as the experiment runs.

So let’s say that one bloom appears which has perfect symmetry. And the experimenters allow the time dilation to continue for longer than they normally would, to see the universe play out…

An Experiment That Is No Longer an Experiment

The experiment’s container was never designed to withstand a universe expanding for too long. But, as scientists, letting the experiment run just a little longer, just to collect a little more data, is just part of being a scientist. Perhaps it was the point of inflation where our visible universe began to flatten and they wanted to see just what the impact was of such an event. Unfortunately, the ramifications were profound. The flower expanded beyond the confines of the container and the universe in which the experimenters lived was replaced with ours.

But the flower is just one part of a bigger framework, a bud on the branch, and so when the container was breached, the entire system was expelled. And here we are today. In a universe that is still attached to the system where the “space-time foam” (Hawking) is constantly producing and destroying universes even as ours, because it is symmetrical, continues to expand. Given that the rate of expansion is actually accelerating further supports the idea of a runaway experiment breaking the confines of its container. And the infinite solutions possible with M-Theory could illustrate the very nature of the tree itself, giving continual rise to an infinite number of buds that are continually pruned because they collapse with the perfect, symmetrical configuration.

A little side-note on the multi-dimensionality of M-Theory (and string theory in general): there are only four primary dimensions. The other seven are simply there as part of a support structure to the entire physical system. So they are necessary but are not “inhabitable”. If you try to divide 11, of course, it’s not symmetrical. But if you put one in the middle, you are left with 10, which is symmetrical. So imagine the 11 dimensions as a sphere with 10 on the outside and one at the center. Or imagine it as one in the center, four in the next layer (symmetrical), and six in the outer layer (symmetrical). All of them are necessary to support the overall structure of the sphere so removing one breaks the structure (and physical reality; hence why string theory equations can be solved so easily when working within 11 dimensions).

Working Backwards To the Bud…And Forward To Us

This is where physicists are today: reconstructing the image of the original flower, before it bloomed; the time when everything was united in a superforce across all 11 dimensions. But perhaps that was the very nature of the experiment itself, to see how the flower would unfold exactly, how the forces would break apart (but still be connected), how the dimensions would peel apart but still be intrinsic to the foundation of the symmetry.

And perhaps, if you carry this idea further, the metaphor of the experiment and the flower, maybe the ultimate goal of those scientists was to see how intelligent life formed, the point within the system where it was possible for that life to form. Only, they never got a chance as the experiment destroyed their reality. Still, let’s imagine and carry this further. There is postulation that our cognitive functions are quantum, our memories quantized over multiple dimensions, which would be possible if the very physical nature of our universe defined that. Perhaps everything in our entire reality, from us to atoms, exists within, and is defined by, the symmetry of the flower that is our universe. We cannot escape it.

Had the experiment’s container held, that super advanced race would have been able to see the formation of intelligent life based upon the symmetry that defined the structure of the universe that had bloomed into existence. But that also means that at some point, the evolution of our universe is happening without control. Did the experimenters imagine a contacting universe? Did they see it returning to the bud and then reforming? Or did they see it growing infinitely and never ending? Perhaps there are mysteries that we, as the intelligent creatures which were a product of the experiment, will figure out once we have a better understanding of the structure of our universe. The only problem there is that to do so, we will probably need to develop the knowledge and technical skills to form universes in controlled experiments. Of course, we could possible do this via a computer simulation but the simulation isn’t real. It’s impossible to account for an infinite number of variables because part of the blooming of such a system as a universe is a variable in and of itself. Perhaps those experimenters were so excited by a universe, a bud, popping into existing that flowered just as they had hoped, whose symmetry correctly unfurled (rather than broke), that they just watched it grow, enthralled by its beauty and what they had created…until it was too late. And we would be in the exact same position. To understand our universe truly, we must be able to create universes and, as such, we risk the same fate that befell them.

Wackiness Abounds

Can this be proven? Of course not. But sometimes we need thought experiments to get us thinking orthogonally rather than linearly. And that’s exactly what this is: a thought experiment to ruminate on one of the biggest questions we have ever formulated: what gave rise to the Big Bang? What gave rise to our universe, to us? I hope that you can lean back in your chair and just let your mind wander, considering for a moment if this might be the origin of our reality, if this might be an answer for why there is symmetry in everything. Then again, maybe there is a God and he’s still there pulling all the strings.

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