My Universe Musings

Please note this article is still in a draft form and will continue to undergo changes over time as my own understanding of this subject grows......

A lot of what was put together in this article is really an attempt to piece together varied ideas and facts from various scientific and philosophical books and articles, and evaluating them based on my own understanding of these subjects.

Please note that where ever appropriate, I have indicated quotations from
various authors and my sources for various scientific ideas and facts.


Start of the article............................................................................................... ....
Since the dawn of humanity, man has been fascinated by the sky and beyond. As man’s understanding grew over the ages, numerous theories of the Universe emerged. Some looked towards Religion/God/ mythology for answers while others looked to science for deeper understanding.

This article attempts to find a link between a modern Physicist’s/ Cosmologist’s understanding of the Universe and its origins, with some of our ancient Hindu beliefs and Vedantic understanding of the Universe that can be found in Hindu Religious Texts, Mythology and folklore

I would like to start the discussion from a modern cosmologists viewpoint and then try to piece together some of its similarities with the Vedantic viewpoint, while always trying to verify with current scientific understanding and use that to explore these philosophical view points further.

Before we dive into this subject, It would be prudent to establish the ground rules for the scientific understanding so that we can then proceed with this discussion at a scientific level based on accepted and established facts in physics/cosmology. Anytime I deviate from established fact, I will try to make sure that the reader would become aware of it and take it as a mere statement on my part. It would help if the reader also could subscribe to and agree with the Scientific method of analysis and deduction so that we have a defined basis for this article.

The scientific method of exploration is a process by which in science, a hypothesis is tested with experimental proof, again and again and is only accepted as scientific fact when every experimental result validates the hypothesis. Even one failed experiment is enough to discard the hypothesis. This method of testing of a hypothesis, must pass the scrutiny of numerous others who are either testing the authenticity of current hypothesis itself or using it to test the authenticity of some other hypothesis that may have some bearing on this one.

Essentially, the point is that a scientific method of enquiry is one of the best ways to differentiate fact from fiction or just mere understanding from fact, since this method is designed just for that purpose. As explained above, this method rests on experimentation and proof of repeatability with the expectation of the same results over and over again to continuously refine the theory and make it into an irrefutable “Fact”.

Therefore with this kind of basis, Scientists/Cosmologists have been able to make some startling predictions about the origins of the Universe and have been able to probe deep into its mysteries to provide us a pretty thorough knowledge of the Universe and its beginnings. Their understanding is by no means anywhere near complete. They have merely been able to scratch the surface, but it is enough to get us started on this discussion on what it means as compared to age old philosophical views of the Universe. Before we set the stage for the Philosophical discussion there are a few more scientific facts that I would like to draw your attention to, since they will have a bearing on what we will compare against in Hindu Philosophy and Vedantic understanding of the Universe.

Based on measurements , scientists have been able to come up with a chart of the Temperature readings at various points in the Universe and have used that and the presense of microwave background radiation that is found to pervade all of the Universe, to date the Universe as having begun approximately 13.7 billion years ago with a Big Bang. (This is called the Big Bang Theory of the origin of the Universe). These days the Big Bang theory has emerged as the most accepted scientific theory of the origin of the Universe though there are numerous other Theories of the origin of the Universe, one of which is the Steady state theory that suggests that the Universe has always been there and will always be there. The Big Bang Theory has emerged as the strong contender, with some solid proof to back it up. So we will use this Theory as a basis for our arguments in this article

According to the Big Bang Theory, the Universe began from a singularity ( *) or single point with a Big Bang, and all the countless stars and galaxies emerged from this single point and over time became the unfathomable and Gigantic Universe we all know and love.

(*) The Singularity by itself is something that Scientists like Stephen Hawkins and other stalwarts like him are trying to understand, since it is the single point at which macro scopic scientific theories and equations from Newtonian mechanics* (* physics of large or Macroscopic objects in layman’s terms) , no longer apply, and one needs to start considering the physics of small and microscopic particles called quantum mechanics* (*the science of the microscopic or very tiny particles). The effort is to find the answer to “how everything came out of this single point? “. The point at which everything began , a point before which there was no time, there was no space, there was no “before”. This is a point at which there is no answer to , “where” “how”,” when” , “why” it all began. Before that one could say it is just absolute nothingness from which something as vast and as unfathomable as this Universe came into being.

The above statement is almost an incomprehensible fact that scientists are butting against as they accept the Big Bang theory and as they go backward in time to reconstruct what must have happened 13.7 Billion years ago when according to them it all began with the Big Bang and from a single point or singularity. So it is very interesting that Science as it tries to reconstruct the past comes to a point at which there are either no answers or the answers are starting to get rather smudgy and only lead to more questions for which there are no answers yet.

The answers for this confounding question of how the almost infinite space and time and countless billion of billions stars and galaxies in our Universe were born from a single point, less than the size of a pin head ( a pin head is way too big to describe the singularity) is a question that is being wrestled with by the greatest scientific minds of this century. Arguably they are all using Quantum mechanics ( the physics at the microscopic level) to understand and answer some of the questions that are posed by this enigma.

Quantum mechanics was first introduced to the world of science in 1920s by Schrodinger, and Bohr and other great minds who worked at the microscopic particle level and were trying to explain some of the strange phenomena that they had seen at that level. At that level , Classical physics or the physics we know about regarding large bodies ie :Newtonian mechanics fails. Or in simple terms, Particles do not behave the same way as you would expect them to behave when you compare their behavior with larger objects, whose behavior has been very thoroughly explained since Newton . That is why the subject is called Newtonian Mechanics.

First of all, at this microscopic or quantum level, physicists cannot say whether we were dealing with particles or waves. The particle seems to exhibit both particle and wave properties. A particle cannot be shown to exist with certainty at a point and with a certain speed. The act of measuring it creates a certain uncertainty. The particles seem to exist in sort of a cloud and cannot be pin pointed with certainty.

Because of this wave/particle duality, Schrodinger applied corrections to Newton’s equation and came up with an wave equation that could describe the properties of all matter, and it could be reduced to either a particle or a wave function as needed to describe the characteristics of these particles and generally any matter.

Also that was not the only problem they noticed with Quantum mechanics. So the particle could be a particle or a wave, but also at the particle level, a fundamental observation was that these particles don’t come into existence as we know it unless we actually “measure it” . Or” the act of observation or measurement seems to cause the particle to come into existence”. This is a very difficult point to grasp and can lead to a lot of philosophical questions about reality itself, but let us shelf that for the time being. So, as long as we don’t measure it, a particle only shows “a tendency to exist” in that space, and an atomic event only shows a “tendency to occur” at a particular time till we actually measure it. Sort of like a wave function or cloudiness mentioned above that doesn’t culminate into something till we actually measure it.
Stated another way, The Quantum enigma is that at sub atomic levels one cannot correctly pinpoint both the location and speed of the particle at the same time. The very act of measuring it introduces a certain uncertainty in location or the momentum of the particle.

Numerous studies and experiments have been carried out and it has been proven that at a sub-atomic level, matter does not exist with certainty at a certain place unless you measure it. It merely shows a “tendency to exist” at that place and atomic events do not occur with certainty at certain times and certain places rather they show “a tendency to occur” unless you measure it. ( Capra, 1982, p 80).

In fact there is a famous hypothetical experiment proposed by Schrodinger, who imagined a cat in a box in a quantum world where quantum laws applied . The box was supposed to be booby trapped, meaning if the cat tripped on a certain lever, this action would release cyanide poison and the cat would die. So the hypotheitical experiment showed that if one was to use quantum mechanical principles , then depending on ‘when” we “observed” the cat in the box, the cat would be alive or dead and continue to remain alive or dead with a past history of the cat having not tripped the lever or having tripped the lever. This is a hard experiment to grasp since Schrodinger was trying to apply quantum principles to an object larger than an atom but was trying to really show that at the atomic level “Observation” is the key thing that makes a difference between existence and non existence and between one reality or another and one past history or another. So the essential point that Schrodinger was trying to make was that the very act of “Observation” creates a reality and a past for that reality in the Quantum world. And an observation is what determines existence or non existence of a particle at an atomic level
When this point is taken to a higher level where we are talking about all matter ( since all matter is made up of tiny particles) we start to have questions about what we see around us as “reality”. Since the questions that arise is “Did we cause the reality to occur (with a history behind it) by the act of observation or maybe because we are sentient beings that are capable of observation and understanding did we cause the reality to occur?.
If one agrees that all large objects that we see in reality are made up of small particles, then we now have to question the “reality” itself since it looks like reality comes into existence because of an active act of observation or that reality is essentially an illusion or Maya as has been propounded by Hindu Philosophy for ages.

The next enigma with Quantum mechanics is one of “Non Locality”. Quantum non locality is another paradox that was first described by Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen in 1935, which essentially states that measurement on quantum systems which are spatially separated can instantaneously influence one another.

What this means to a lay person is that at the particle level , when one measures something,(that is when this something seems to come into existence after we measure it) and also if this something is part of a system of two particles, this set of two particles( that were born out of one system) seem inseparable and anything done to one influences the other instantaneously, even if we separate the two of them by millions of miles. For example , if we measure the spin of one particle, (that particle comes into existence with a particle spin since we measured it) ,then its twin that is millions of miles away, even though we don’t measure it comes into existence with the opposite spin instantaneously.

That is, there is a principle of holistic interconnectedness operating at the quantum level which contradicts the localistic assumptions of classical, Newtonian physics. Meaning some particle came into existence with certain properties when we measured some other particle from the same system somewhere else.

Quantum non locality does not prove that signals somehow travel faster than the speed of light, and somehow this signal told the other particle to behave that way but rather one has to believe that somehow the phenomena was instantaneously connected regardless of distance.
Basically, It says that even though certain particles are far far apart they tend to influence one another instantaneously.

So at the quantum level, instantaneous actions occur at a distance. Two particles that are part of a single system continue to act in concert with one another no matter how far apart they appear to be separated by space and time, and one came into existence due to our measuring it, the other one came into existence with opposing properties.

Quantum nonlocality as suggested by Bell's theorem is a fact of nature that has now been experimentally verified on many occasions. Alain Aspect's experiments in 1982 at the University of Paris-South proved the existence of quantum nonlocality. These experiments have been refined and repeated many times since.

The implication of this is that, We can no longer consider particles as independently existing entities that can be localized in well-defined regions of space and time. They are interconnected in ways not even conceivable .

Since all large objects are essentially made up these particles then wouldn’t the same thing hold true for them also?

Nature has shown us that our concept of reality, consisting of units that can be considered as separate from each other, is fundamentally wrong and everything is really interconnected and part of a whole.

For this reason, Bell's theorem may be the most profound discovery of science. (Kafatos and Kafatou, 1991, 64-65)

Quantum nonlocality proves that "particles that were once together in an interaction remain in some sense parts of a single system which responds together to further interactions" (Gribbin, 1984).
Since the entire universe originated in a flash of light known as the Big Bang, the existence of quantum nonlocality points toward a profound cosmological holism and suggests that If everything that ever interacted in the Big Bang maintains its connection with everything it interacted with, then every particle in every star and galaxy that we can see "knows" about the existence of every other particle. (Gribbin, 1984).
So we have come to the path of Philosophy that shows the essential interconnectedness of everything that originated at the Big Bang and Singularity and it also tells us that essentially at the smallest level a particle does not come into existence with specific properties until it is measured or observed.

So so far, we have seen that at a particle level, there seems to be a certain interconnectedness with these particles that come from the same system and there seems to be non existence till we observe something as stated earlier.
The above arguments from Science and Physicists are really proving what we always believed in our hindu philosophy regarding the oneness of everyone and everything. All of us emanating from the one universal being, which from a physicists point of view is the singularity or the big bang from which everything came and everything is proven to be one interconnected whole.
The concepts in Quantum Mechanics that tell us that the existence of a particle at a quantum level is dependant on whether it was observed at one point or another raises the baffling question of whether the reality that we see is really only because at some point we observed it and it would not have existed were it not observed. This begs the question of whether our philosophers knew this all along and that is why they called it as “Maya” or illusion?..

As Physicists struggle to answer the questions that were uncovered by their own scientific enquiry into the origins if the Universe ( using an irrefutable scientific method for finding facts), we can look back to Ancient Hindu Philosophers to see how they grappled with some of these questions and other similar ones in the Upanishads. For example we touched on the subject of “Maya” or illusion referred to in Bhagavat Geeta, the Upanishads and folklore, which describe the world as mere illusion and the only truth being that of the soul. We can also go back and explore some of the other interesting concepts regarding the Universe and find parallels in Hindu Philosophy for each of these concepts.

So , If one was to go back and review Hindu Philosophy and Vedantic thinking in our Upanishads, they point to several interesting ideas and thoughts about our Universe. They do not refer to the Universe as being born in a Big Bang from a singularity but do believe it to be egg shaped and lasting forever, but stuck in continuous contracting/expanding cycles of creation and destruction, resulting in several yugas, kalas and manvantaras ( their method of counting time). Please note that a parallel to this is , present day cosmologists also believe that the Universe is ellipsoid in shape and there is a possibility of finding some proof that it will go through countless contraction and expansion cycles. ( this by the way does not contradict anything we said so far regarding the Big Bang theory). For example they believe that the Universe is currently expanding but at some point has to start contracting when it reaches a certain critical mass. Apart from this our Hindu Philospohy talks about ten dimensions of our Universe not unlike the 10 dimension theory that is now being proposed by String theorists ( who are physicists that subscibe to the idea of strings, that will be explained in the following paragraphs. ( Please note that String theory at the present time is only a theory and does not have proof to back it up).

The above paragraph warrants an explaination of String Theory or alteast some basic concepts of String Theory.
(ie: this theory states that everything in this Universe is made out of multi dimensional strings (ie 10 dimensions) and the M-theory, a follow on theory that suggests that there may actually be a 11th dimension.

Just for clarity, so we understand what strings are : scientists have proven that every atom is made up of Electrons and Protons and Neutrons in the nucleus, and each of these subatomic particles are made up of Quarks. So far, all this is fact and proven time and again. Now the String theory states that each quark is really made of multi dimensional strings, ( the dimensions are based on curvature, rotation differences in the String etc). Now the part about sub atomic particles being made of quarks is a proven fact. The part about quarks being made of strings is only a hypothesis, with equations to prove that these must be string like things, but no proof since no one has ever proved the existence of strings. The recent inauguration of the CERN experiment may actually prove the existence of Strings but that is still to be seen. So in the case of String Theory, it is still undergoing the scientific method of proof by experimentation and repeatability, and is not an established fact, but Quarks are an established fact. But, if for the sake of argument one was to accept the String Theory as fact, then one starts to see one more parallels with Hindu Philosophy, the parallel of existence of multiple dimensions.

If at some point when it is proven, we accept String theory then it would mean the presence of all pervading strings everywhere in the Universe that allow us to determine the size, shape, properties of material things. Not unlike something God like that pervades all things big and small, living and non living in the Universe. The concept of an Omni presence of God. So if one was to accept the Big Bang theory and the origin of the Universe from the single point or singularity and the accept the existence of Strings, now we are talking about
A single point being the source of all things that now exist in the Universe including sentient beings such as ourselves. One could also very well say that singularity from which all matter and non matter, time and space and stars and galaxies and our solar system began is the crux of everything. It is the seed that then gave rise to all that we know off in this Universe.

So if that was the case and there was this cosmic seed that gave rise to everything, whatever was in the cosmic seed must therefore be present in everything. Or there is scope for Omni presense of something throughout the Universe, not unlike our understanding of God.

But it helps us now to take a leap of faith and say, even science seems to be saying that we are all born from a cosmic seed that pervades all animate and inanimate objects alike in the Universe. One needs to understand the strings further to figure out why some things are animate ( with consciousness) vs others are inanimate ( without consciousness) but it still seems to be saying, we are all in one and one in all. Meaning Strings are the omnipresent thing in anything and everything in the Universe.

Now the above statement is not too different then the same statement made by Lord Krishna in the Baghavat Gita. “ I am in all and all are in me, I am omnipresent, omniscient and all pervading”. So can we assume that in using the scientific method to find out the origins of the universe one inadvertantly stumbled onto an omnipresent, omniscient and all pervading thing or things that makeup the whole universe that is essentially interconnected, and we also have proof to show that the whole thing could be a Maya or illusion.

So if one was to make a sweeping generalization…………..

Can we say we are starting to realize the one thing we all want to realize, the existence of God in one glorious scientific proof ? Not exactly but we are getting very very close.