Cosmology is that branch of astronomy concerned primarily with the overall structure of the physical universe. Einstein's general theory of relativity made possible for the first time a self-consistent description of an unbounded self-gravitating medium. 

In general, the general relevance and applicability of science and scientific knowledge depends upon our ability to extend its results and inferences to a larger structure of physical reality. 

A cosmological paradigm I would define as a general model of the structure of reality that we apply to explain the construction of the physical universe. Different models may be developed, leading to different outcomes in cosmological construction.

Basic cosmological principles that we adhere to, either implicitly or explicitly, include the following:

1. Universal Isomorphism of Fundamental Physical Structures: The fundamental structure and dynamics as we encounter this in our everyday physical reality, is presumed to be isomorphic with the structure of physical reality everywhere in the universe, under similar conditions. To put it simply, if we see stars in the distant reaches of space, we presume the basic structures that formed these stars are similar to or the same as the ones that formed our own sun.

2. Universal Statistical Isotropy of Dynamic Event Structures: Matter and motion in the universe is, in the structure of the large, is statistically homogeneous and isotropic--"no average property of the distribution defines a preferred place or a preferred direction." The universe therefore has no center and no main axis.

3. Universal Symmetry & Equivalence of Fundamental Physical Structure: In whatever event structure we may observe, fundamental principles of equivalence and symmetry always apply. For every particle of a certain kind created, we can presume that an anti-particle of the same kind is also simultaneously created. All energy equations always balance to zero. Mass is fundamentally equivalent to energy, so forth and so on.

One of the basic considerations of a cosmological scale has been in the presumed kinds of motion: 1. no motion; 2. contraction; 3. expansion. The presumption of static (non-dynamic) space was demonstrated by Einstein to be inconsistent with his relativistic field equations. He revised his equations to include a new hypothetical constant, called the "Cosmological Constant." Relativistic field equations have been found for instance to admit of two kinds of dynamical solutions to the problem of the distribution of matter in space. Friedmann models show Space to be possibly curved, either positively or negatively. Einstein and Willem de Sitter developed a third solution to the field equations based upon a model of Space that is flat.

Armed with these basic assumptions, we infer by deduction the larger patterning of reality in terms of a total cosmology. We cannot directly see the total universe in an instantaneous or contemporaneous sense. The speed of light limits our observational sphere to a compass of the universe that is severely constrained in space-time. We depend upon the validity of our cosmological inference structures therefore in order to seek to build models of the total universe.

I'm inclined to a fourth cosmological principle, which would be stated in something like the following form:

4. Universal Statistical Complexity of Dynamical Space-Time Structures. In other words, in the larger structure of the universe curvature of Space-time may be encountered in a statistically homogeneous and isotropic manner--either in the form of negative space curvature, positive space curvature and flat space. Models of the dynamical state universe that I have constructed entail that this may be so. In other words, the structure of space we would encounter in a gravitationally unified system, like the solar system for instance, or upon earth, is fundamentally different from the structure of Space as this may be found in deep-space between different galactic clusters, or in other regions situated as these may be between different gravitational systems. We cannot specify universally a preferred orientation of the curvature of space-time. In the total volume of Space in the universe, we expect something like Einstein's cosmological constant to apply, and that the universe though locally dynamic everywhere, is universally static. 

The dilemma of applying a cosmological paradigm to understanding the cosmological structure of the universe in a statistical manner is that we do not have a predefined volume of Space that would meet quantitatively criteria of a "sufficiently large volume."  If we set our sites merely to the limits of our own Milky Way, we would be inclined to reject the cosmological principle. There occurs no magnitude of statistical departures from strict uniformity or isotropy, given that such departures are always locally relative. I am inclined to impose a fifth cosmological principle, stated thus:

5. Universal Relativity of Dynamic Event Structures: All non-zero departures of variation from statistical homogeneity and isotropy of dynamic event structure are relative to the local space-time frame in which they occur. There are no non-relative, non-local,  dynamic event structures that may occur.

It is beyond the scope of this brief note to further develop the argument for this last principle, except to state something like the following, in an open and hypothetical infinite universe, there occur no non-local, non-relative patterns or structures that are deterministically non-random. Any dynamic event structure that occurs, or that may occur, is relative to the local cosmological frame of reference in which it occurs.

Quintessence is the name for a fundamental form of energy that I have proposed hypothetically as part of a systems-based model of the fundamental structure of physical reality. I propose this model as an alternative solution to the problem of a unified field structure. The basis of this model is the examination of gravitational dynamics and their relationship to the nucleus and to other forms of energy. Essentially, gravitational dynamics upon either a basic level or upon extended, derivative levels that we are more familiar with, do not follow the standard principles of thermodynamics. We are left then having to rethink basic paradigms and ways of seeing the world, even upon a very basic physical level. The model of quintessence is consonant with a systems-based explanation, and it appears to be sufficient to the basic parameters of acceptable explanatory theory--namely logical parsimony in accounting for all observable facts, and the capacity to effectively explain mechanisms of change.

The foundation of the model of quintessence is the mechanism that I have come to call spime-gravitational replacement. Essentially, we may say that all forms of matter and objects of mass carry energy. We know by the principle of equivalence that energy is equivalent to mass by the speed of light squared. Mass therefore represents highly concentrated forms of energy. All objects bearing mass represent forms of energy that are entrapped. The conclusion is that energy carries mass, and energy is continuously dynamic in that it continuously replicates itself in four-space. The self-replication of mass based objects, of energy, and of space-time itself, occurs at all levels simultaneously, and is an on-going event framework in the universe. The discontinuity and variability of this process constitutes the basis for dynamic variation in unfolding structures in the universe, and becomes a model of universal change.

It is expected that the rate of self-replication is upon a fundamental level constant, and is related to the speed of light, which can be thought of as the instantaneous rate of reiteration of a photon of light in four-space. Quintessence can be thought of as a basic form of energy that is hidden in the fabric of space-time. It holds the universe together, on a string, so to speak, and simultaneous it is the basis for the articulation of all dynamic events in the universe, at all levels of integration. We may hypothetically reduce all energy exchange transactions that occur to a common quintessential denominator, and look at these transactions systematically in terms of state changes of quintessence.

Local self-replication of matter comes at a cost--essentially, energy must replace itself on a periodic basis, and this replacement is achieved by the conversion of the "hidden" quintessence of space-time into alternative forms that are more recognizable and observable. We can only explain a process of the self-replication of energy in terms of being able to draw from a larger pool of energy in an open environment.

This process of replication of energy underlies all dynamics we observe, and constitutes a system that occurs between a "thing" which in this case is a given form or state of energy, and its environment. The consequence of this process of replication is the property of discrete mass, and the displacement of the space-time manifold that embeds an object of mass. This process results in gravitational dynamics, as is especially evident with very large gravitating bodies that may be said to continuously consume the space-time manifold that surrounds it. We experience the consequence of this process, the continuous consumption of space-time, as a gravitational field effect. 

It is beyond the scope of this article to fully outline or provide the points of argument for such a model. It is addressed in the context of this Newsletter as a means of providing a forum for its presentation and for further development and refinement of the general model without resort to its specific points. Suffice it to say that upon this model an entire paradigm of gravitational dynamics can be constructed, and this paradigm is entirely consonant with a systems-based and meta-systems framework of explanation. Upon this framework we can articulate an alternative cosmology of the total universe, a cosmology I've come to call the "dynamic state universe." It is possible as well, I believe, to successfully and systematically account for all fundamental structures that occur on the basis of this kind of model.

"Eventually, God sneezed, and then the entire universe was suddenly created."

There may be anti-matter galaxies floating around out there somewhere. We should not assume there isn't absolutely until we perchance run into one. But the likelihood seems greater that the universe that we can see and infer seems mostly built in one way, and not the other. This is a universe that has been built on the stability of the proton. The proton appears to be an extremely stable fundamental system of physical reality. It is not only super stable in the structure of the long run, but super-abundant in the structure of the large. Received Big Bang models hypothesize that most protons were created in the first few seconds of the somewhat "immaculate" birth of the universe. This Catholic, Gamowian vision of our universe has never been seriously contested except by means of Fred Hoyle, Gold and Bondi's idea of a "Steady State System." Perhaps as a boy I liked Hoyle's model better than Gamow's single creation event. Never good in life to take sides with the losing party in any debate. I must side with a kind of "Steady State System" because, in the main, it is precisely in keeping with a framework of universal systems theory, even if the exact mechanisms or nature of this systems state is not yet well described and the original cosmological model developed by Hoyle et. al. was not quite correct.

The basic dilemma of any cosmological argument about origins or total scale of universes is the question "one came before" whatever it is we say came first, and what created that. Alternatively in terms of scale, whatever boundary or limit we may imagine for the universe, we must ask, what is beyond that and how is it contained? To say there was something that just was, that always was, that was not somehow previously created, that was everything, is, once again, scientifically unproveable hence untenable as scientific explanation.

The exact mechanism of the original production of the proton, and especially of so many protons, has not yet been sufficiently explained or empirically validated one way or another. The point is, whatever our received or agreed upon models of Cosmology may or may not be, we just don't know for certain and do not have enough evidence to say one way or another. Reason can therefore spin on a proverbial pin-head.

The only obvious instability of a proton seems to be its nucleonic nature in the context of the atomic nucleus--its apparent ability to receive an electron and shift states back and forth from a neutron to a proton. I'm not sure that the exact configuration of a nucleus of an atom can ever be completely determined at any particular moment, but that this kind of nucleonic transvestism is not going on continuously as protons and neutrons switch back and forth on a regular basis. But this appears to be a relatively minor point to make. 

A point that might be made is that protons appear hardly ever by themselves without an electron or set of electrons potentially hanging about. I think even in a neutron star that has shed its electrons and electronic orbitals to comprise an extremely dense for of nucleonic matter, we would find the absorption of electrons and the radiation of alpha particles and positrons as a consequence. We can speculate that a black hole may be composed of a form of super-matter that is relatively devoid of any electrons, and that may be just a large mass of protons all bound together, perhaps interlaced with neutrons. I would be inclined to call this "super-matter" in the sense that it would be the equivalent of a single mass of rather homogeneous element--perhaps we can find the occurrence of the "magic islands" of stability that are projected from an extension of the periodic table to higher atomic numbers. With the end matter of an expired Sun like ours we may end up with a large iron type of core, with some radiation and a lot of molten heat. With a larger mass like those leading to black hole development, we might expect possibly a stable configuration of elementary mass, albeit higher on the periodic table. This is of course largely conjectural as no one really knows what it may be like inside a black hole and its possible no one will ever find out and live to tell about it.

It is of course the other end that I'm interested in understanding more--rather not the end but the beginning of basic things in the Universe like protons. My argument goes as follows:

If something, even protons, exist in the universe, they have to have been somehow created, not by the hand of some nameless God, but by the concatenation of event structures that, in systems parlance, can be described as self-organizational. The mechanisms of this process of creation of protons must be therefore available to descriptive scientific explanation.

Protons, like all other "things" in reality, are "systems" and all systems in principle are susceptible to systems explanation. One of the basic principles of all finite systems, and a proton is definitely about as finite a system as we can find, relativistic considerations notwithstanding, is that all finite systems represent temporary event structures--they have a beginning, a life-trajectory, and an end. If something can be made (systems-wise) then it can be destroyed, and if it was made, it will be eventually destroyed. 

Our alternative here is logically untenable without making a final (unscientific) leap of faith. We can assume that protons are indestructible and last forever. We can logically conclude therefore that: 1.) they were never created, but always existed, because they had no beginning; 2) they will always exist, and will not change in basic form--they exhibit no pattern variation whatsoever. If we make these assumptions, we must conclude by deductive reasoning that the universe is infinite and eternal. We must also assume that the universe was created by some source of divine predetermination that was ultimately supernatural and that cannot be finally explained within a systems framework.

We must conclude therefore that the more reasonable scientific argument is that there is some pathway for the production of protons, a pathway that at least one point in the history of our universe was common and widespread, and that there is also at least one pathway for the destruction of protons, and for their demise.

We can also conclude a corollary of our argument that protons probably do demonstrate considerable degrees of pattern variability--we may eventually discover different "species" of proton or at least a broader range of variation of proton pattern and structure than a stereotypical model of the "indestructible homogene" leads us to believe.

We may also speculate that in the course of the history of the Universe there may have been more than one pathway of the production of new protons and more than one possible avenue for their destruction as systems. Not to be a self-promoter, I must plug my own model of the Dynamic State Universe, which is not a second-generation derivative of a Steady-State model, not exactly at least. On the basis of this kind of model, I hypothesize common secondary pathways by which new protons are created and destroyed, even under our feet, so to speak, though we do not yet see the flat world in a round way. But the hypothesis of common secondary pathways does not answer the basic question of a primary and original pathway, especially on a super-common and super-abundant scale.

A central question to try to answer in the resolution of this kind of problem is of course whether so many protons were made one time, all at once, in the beginning, so to speak, or if the universal abundance of protons points to a common pathway that still exists (i.e., protons are still being produced.) Solid answers to this question has a tremendous impact in the kind of cosmology we end up with.

I've myself been working on various possible models on how protons may be produce in large quantities, even vast quantities without any prior mechanisms "systems" being involved. We must speculate some kind of pre-existing "system" that would have lacked protons in the beginning, and that would therefore have lacked any matter as we know it. I would even argue that such a system lacked as well the differentiated forms of energy that we know it now by, though it had an basic quintessential and undifferentiated form of energy that was part of its substrate. It is beyond the scope to fully elaborate this hypothetical model or its many implications. Rather, I see possibilities like large-scale "space-time" tidal waves that surge across the vastnesses of the universe on a regular basis, even if undetected by our earthbound standards of measure, so far. The causes of these large scale event structures are hard to ascertain, though one kind of even that might precipitate it would be the explosion of a black hole as a final end event, or alternatively the collapse of two black holes into one another. Any number of possible scenarios might be imagined, and this is imagination at its scientific worst, but ultimately we need to explain things without resorting to such end-game players like black-holes etc., as we would need to then explain their origin before hand.

So about all I'm left with is a strange kind of "butterfly" effect. A rift, a ripple, a pimple, on the fabric of space-time, a cosmic hiccup, that perchance, for some unknown set of reasons, amplifies and propagates chaotically until we have this rolling, curling wave of space-time propagating itself across the vast emptinesses of the empty original universe--in its wake, or where such waves crash together, primitive protons get made, with all the consequences thereafter.

There is one main set of observations that are available to us, not clearly, but generally, that may help in this matter. Hydrogen gas in basic form appears abundant and pervasive throughout the universe, forming what are tremendous "clouds" or "nebulae" that appear to be relatively amorphous. The amorphous nature of these clouds suggests that they may not be quite as well gravitationally unified as are perhaps most clear galaxies that we can see. If my earlier argument is correct, that protons never seem to venture far without the accompaniment of electrons, then it is possible to see these regions of concentration of hydrogen gas as possible zones where new protons have been formed, or arising from such zones. 

The lack of overall gravitational unification of such regions--large collections, suggests a couple of other possibilities as well. First, hydrogen gas by its nature resists gravitational unification until certain relatively high densities can be achieved, and in those areas of relatively high concentration, spontaneous formation of new stars can be expected. This is in fact observable. Second, large hydrogen gas envelopes appear relatively amorphous and gravitationally un-unified. We must seriously question the occurrence of things like red-shift in these contexts that lack clear gravitational unification as systems. Such areas cannot be necessarily considered to be racing from some ancient origin in a uniform and self-consistent way, and if they demonstrate any kind of Doppler effect in terms of the red-shifting of the light received from these zones, it might be better explained in some other way that the presumed recession of galaxies.

If we examine the larger scale distribution of these tremendous "cloud formations" of hydrogen, we discover that they appear to be arranged in the universe like the matrix of huge three dimensional cells, irregular, but with a consistency of form and unevenness of distribution that suggests that the larger structure of the universe may be something we have hardly yet guessed at.

Certainly, any extant galaxy must have arisen from such gas clouds in the first place, just as the creation of a sun can only be explained in terms of its formation by the condensation of hydrogen at specific and sufficient concentrations. If we find well formed galaxies at a distance of 13 billion light-years from earth, surely these galaxies must have already been well formed much earlier than 13 billion years ago--adding considerable time depth to the current structure of the universe. And the mechanisms accounting for these early galaxies can be presumed, by an extension of the Cosmological Principle, to be similar to the mechanisms probably still occurring now in the Universe. 

Surely, we must speculate that the Universe as a whole has aged, and evolved in its development over the structure of the long run and the large. If our line of thinking is even remotely accurate, from a systems standpoint, then we can speculate that there was probably a very early period when the Universe was far less dense in concentration of hydrogen than now, and that ultimately, there was a very early time that it was effectively devoid of any hydrogen or higher states of matter. If we had a super-huge and super-precise telescope, perhaps we could look back in time deep enough to find such a relative absence of galaxies--surely we couldn't see individual stars that deep in space-time. 

If my thinking is correct, we would at that limit begin to see as well a relative absence of light, as light as we know it is in the main produced by stars, and no stars would be found. Perhaps then we might explain Obler's Paradox in this way--the dark of the night between the stars is the silent and empty background from which the stars themselves were molded, long, long ago, and, apparently, very far away.

If this kind of model has any hope of success, we must ultimately be able to account for the original formation of hydrogen (i.e. protons) in otherwise empty space-time, in terms of mechanisms that would be available in such a context. Again, I go back down to basics. Hydrogen gas in the observable sphere of our universe does not appear completely uniform or random in its distribution, though this distribution is relatively random over all. This patterning of distribution belies a meta-systems "structure" that hints at the operation of some "subsurface" system that we might not directly see and have not yet sufficiently accounted for in our explanations. I suspect this has something to do with the inherent dynamics and turbulence of space-time itself, even hypothetically in "empty" space without the influence of objects of matter embedded in that space, as we commonly observe now. It's of course not what we are seeing, but what we do not see, and possibly cannot see, that may be critical.

Just as we have assumed that protons may be relatively uniform and in a sense homogenous in structure, we have I think also implicitly presumed that empty space-time must also be somewhat homogeneous and uniform in structure, even if apparently convoluted. Space-time is not static, but flows like water in a vessel. It appears to flow in a non-isotrope way when there are no gravitational objects to focus its direction or rate of movement. It is possible in this vast sea of the universe therefore, at this basic level, that the otherwise random flow of the tides and currents of space-time coalesce into things like space-time hurricanes or "fronts." 

But this explanation, as yet does not go far enough. We would need to be able to explain how things work on a fundamental level, but this must wait for another Newsletter.

It is not by chance that information theory is almost exactly parallel to thermodynamic principles in basic form. Relative inefficiency of working systems due to heat loss is completely homologous to the principle of "noise" in informational systems--carrying capacity or channel capacity of an information transmission system is synonymous to the load or working efficiency of a energy train in an energy transmission system.

I will venture a basic rule--wherever we find the non-random organization of energy exchange within a system, we will find information, and wherever we find information, we can expect to find the non-random organization of energy occurring. So now the sixty thousand dollar question, what comes first, the information or the energy?

We may put this problem another way. Wherever we find in the physical universe energy that is being systematically trapped, transformed, transferred, stored, and organized in some kind of cyclical feedback process, in a manner that is in local violation of the laws of thermodynamics, we will find also in the organization of the system meaningful pattern we refer to as information. The information is of course implicit to the pattern of relationship that we read from the observation of the system itself. If the system may be said to contain "intrinsic" information, this is a form of structural patterning that is inherent to the semi-deterministic organization of the system itself.

I will further speculate that if we combine informational and energy paradigms in a systems based framework, we end up with a third systems-based paradigm that refers to the relational organization of events and things in interaction to one another. We may say that all organization is semi-self-deterministic to the extent that the reactions of one part of a system are the direct or indirect consequence of the previous actions or interactions of other parts of the system or of all parts of the system as a whole. We may say furthermore that just as we cannot have perfect energy conversion or 100 percent carrying capacity in informational systems, we cannot have a fully 100 percent determined system of organization. Relations occurring between parts of a system will be inherently variable and the outcomes not completely predictable.

We may break this into a paradigm of systems organization: 

Any system is a working, functional organization of energy, containing intrinsic information. 

The relations between components of a system are inherently variable and never exactly determined.

Any system is finite in the number of its components, the number of relations between its components, and in the combined size and distribution of its components over space and time. 

Any system must maintain a boundary mechanism that mediates energy relationships between the external environment of the system and the components of the system.

Emergent properties of the system are the behavioral properties of the system as a whole that is the product of the dynamic integration of the components of the system, in interaction to its environment.