The basis for physical systems theory as I have developed this in relation to natural systems theory has been to rethink the implicit systems models that have governed the dominant and conventional paradigms of thought in the physical sciences. This rethinking has taken several directions simultaneously. If we apply concepts in general systems theory to a model of the total universe, we are left with some interesting insights and unanswered questions regarding its structure. For instance, natural systems can be said to be open systems. The universe appears to be an open system. Open systems have the possibility of establishing a form of dynamic equilibrium within its meta-systemic context. Living systems are open systems as they depend upon the continuous exchange with their environment. If we conjecture that our model of physical reality is an open system, then we can understand that even though the principles of thermodynamics always guarantees a loss of heat from systems and a tendency towards increasing entropy, within an open system there may occur inflow of energy, of various forms, that counteract the tendency towards continuous loss. Most analytical models of physical reality are based upon models of closed systems, and indeed our entire cosmology of the big bang universe is essentially a closed model system.
I will state my first general principle of physical systems:
1. All naturally occurring physical systems that are real are open systems.
2. There can be no perfectly closed real system.
3. There can be no perfectly isolated real system.
4. All naturally occurring systems, as real physical systems, are connected to all other real systems, however remotely or indirectly.
As a conclusion of this basic set of postulates, I will conclude that the universe, in its most basic structures of physical reality, are open and infinite in all possible directions. It cannot reasonably or logically exist in any other form, else it would constitute a closed system that would be thermodynamically impossible.
Underlying this conception are what I would call several meta-physical postulates concerning our knowledge and ability to know objective reality.
1. Objective physical reality exists in the universe of phenomena regardless of whether we observe or are able to observe this phenomena or not. In other words, a tree that falls unseen or unheard in a forest, still falls, and the objective occurrence of reality is not dependent upon the subjective experience of its event structures by some observer.
2. An extension of postulate 1 is that there may occur in the larger universe of physical reality objective phenomena that are not observed or even observable, but which nevertheless can be inferred to occur. When we examine and presume an instantaneous structure of the physical universe, one in which the temporal dimensionality is held constant, we discover a perfect 3 dimensional cosmology that can be inferred to exist regardless of our limited capacity for directly observing it.
From this model, we may see the instantaneous or inferable universe as a single point that is infinitely expandable in all directions. Just as we can pass an infinite number of lines through any single point, and each line would be infinitely long and have an infinitely discrete directionality. The geodesic or minimal distance between this origin point and any other point in the universe would be a unique line with a discrete direction.
All motion in the instantaneous universe can be said to be discrete to a specific direction. It is non-linear in the sense that the differential trajectory of motion is continuously shifting, and in the presumed curvature of empty space-time, constitutes a geodesic.
1. All things in the universe are in continuous motion, which motion is from an instantaneous standpoint always discrete.
2. All things in the universe exhibit non-linear patterns or state-path trajectories of motion because they are temporally constrained, or rather, they are constrained in the temporal direction which renders a four rather than a perfect three dimensional cosmology.
3. The gravitational influence of the shape and curvature of space-time influences in a relative and non-linear way the motional trajectories of all systems and event structures in the universe.
4. Only a motion that is of infinite speed can be said to occur in a perfectly three dimensional universe.
Evidence for these kinds of conclusions comes from logical deductive inference from the observation of gravitational interactions of naturally occurring systems. Gravitational phenomena occur which appears, under conventional explanation based upon closed systems, to defy the basic laws of thermodynamics. For instance, an object set in motion in space, without hindrance or obstruction, can be presumed to travel forever in a single state-path trajectory, without change of its speed or directionality. Another observation--gravitating bodies appear to continuously exert gravitational force for the life of the body, without apparent comparable input into such systems. In other words, they appear to be perpetual motion machines of a certain order and form, that appear to continuously produce work without any obvious or apparent inputs. In fact, inputs are continuously occurring in such systems, as part of open dynamic systems, but these inputs have not yet been acknowledged by scientists as occurring. It is this set of observations, deductions and postulates that constitutes the basis for an alternative cosmology of the dynamic state universe, a model of a meta-state system that can be said to be:
1. infinite in multiple dimensions.
2. stochastically self-organizing.
3. stratified along an open continuum of size-event structures.
4. gravitationally dynamic.
5. cold-fusion in probable origins.
6. universally equivalent in its basic forms.
First is an open, non-zero model of the dynamic state universe at the base of which is a fundamental systems theory of natural physical change covering all possible event structures in the total universe. I hypothesize that the universe, as a composite, meta-state system, must logically and empirically be open and infinite in extent and therefore eternal in age. We cannot explain certain phenomena in thermodynamics, Olber's paradox, or the vast observable depths of space-time adequately in any other framework. We cannot inquire into the ultimate origins or the final fate of the universe because it has existed, as the total physical reality, forever. We cannot yet identify any fixed extensive boundaries to the universe, beyond which we can confidently say there is nothing, or there is another reality than what we understand it. The universe is so large, in fact, that the ends never connect, and not even the light that travels forever from one corner, will reach the light traveling in the opposite direction, forever, from the opposite corner. It may have changed its overall physical form and distribution of mass and energy, but there can be said to be no non-relative base-line by which to determine these kinds of super-scale transformations of physical reality.
The basis for a theory of universal relativity is to state that there are few if any true universals or absolutes in the physical universe, except for absolute zero and the known constant of the speed of light, which may or may not have greater theoretical significance concerning the shape and distribution of the universe. Upon a universal scale, in fact, time as we construe this may have no determinant or comprehensive influence or universal applicability. If there occurs a sense of universal simultaneity, or co-occurrence of all physical events, everywhere in the universe, in the same instantaneous and ever-emergent "now," we may be fundamentally unable to prove or demonstrate this to be true. We may infer such a sense of universal "nowness" or simultaneity about the event structures in universal reality, without having the means for ever testing our conclusions. That regions of the universe, or sub-universes, may exist in different temporal dimensionalities, not all of which are coordinate with our own, is a tremendous stretch of our Newtonian imaginations. An infinite universe would be so large that light from one end of the universe may travel forever, and never come into contact with light from the other end of the universe, and yet we are left with the grand paradox of inferring that both ends of the universe may be temporally united within the same simultaneous or instantaneous event structures, and also with inferring that there is no area or region in the universe, infinitely large, that is a complete energy vacuum. In other words we may be hard pressed to say that time even exists upon this tremendous scale of dimensionality. The universe as a total meta-state system must also therefore be non-isotropic and gravitationally unintegrated in the sense that it consists of many different regions that are internally united within a gravitational framework, but which just hang together somewhat randomly as a composite whole.
Time upon a fundamental level may be universally simultaneous, but this may not be true or the same on grander scales of cosmic regions or areas. It is the possibility of a universal synchrony of time upon a fundamental level, and even of a inherent uncertainty of time upon a fundamental level that nevertheless leads to synchronous event structures anywhere in the universe, which is suggestive of a stranger patterning of reality than we may yet comprehend. With a fine enough mesh, the rate of event structure may vary intrinsically and hence be fundamentally indeterminate from beginning to end. Considering time and change in the universe is another way of looking at the transformational structure of events, or complementary change processes, upon different scales of measurement, and of attempting to understand how our ability to measure these events with our chronometers and micrometers may be fundamentally limited and relative to our own inescapable physical dimensionalities and constraints.
Time is our measurement of change, and change, not time, is intrinsic to the processes of the universe. These change processes tend to be systematic in a predictive and measurable manner, at least upon some non-fundamental scales of measurement. Change occurs at differential, usually non-linear rates, as measured by time, at different scales of measurement, and these rates themselves may be complexly determined by a number of interdependent variables. In physical systems, we may speculate upon different kinds of change processes occurring. From a purely structural point of view, all change can only operate within a paradigm of a limited number of possibilities--for instance change as an increase or decrease in rate, and lead to developmental or evolutionary transformations, toward increasing order, or alternative towards disordered states or entropy, or towards a steady state of relative non-change, punctuated or periodic change.
Gravitational fields also take a form of negative energy that is implicit to the structure, conformation and flow dynamics of the space-time matrix or manifolds. This flow influences gravity and the flow of objects through space-time in relation to one another, and forms the basis for the induction of space-time into gravitating bodies or rather into the nuclei of matter that composes these bodies.
This leads to a second formulation of my theory of the infinite, dynamic state universe and universal relativity, that has been the formulation of a paradigm of gravitational dynamics that encompasses the framework of thermodynamics and that makes possible processes in the universe that are strictly speaking not subject to the laws of thermodynamics.
Third has been the hypothesis of a componential, or rather, infinitesimal model of the fundamental structure of physical reality upon a level of a class of so-called zeroth entities, at the level of which there is no clear distinguishing between large-scale field structures and composite point event structures--summative and constitutive models of the physical structure of reality converge upon this level to the point of being inseparable. If the universe hangs together upon this level of fundamental reality, then it appears to do so in a universally simultaneous and minimal manner that implies a common periodic event structure, inherent quantum indeterminancy, and an infinite rate of velocity associated with any string or propagation structures.
Fourth, and finally, I deal with an alternative cosmology of the dynamic state universe with a theory of origins, geography and complexity of the total universe as a meta-state system, a system that has been in place from the beginning and that has had its own curious developmental history possibly rooted in large-scale processes of stochastic differentiation.
The most important question we can try to answer in regard to the total universe is the problem of whether it is infinite or not in scale. The evidence I offer for what I will refer to as an open, non-zero state model that implies, among other things, an infinite geometrical structure to the universe, are the following arguments:
1. The universal application of the laws of thermodynamics demands an infinite energy sink or reservoir within which all energy dynamics are contained. This logically necessitates that the total structure of such a containment reservoir would be infinite in size and scale.
2. Olber's paradox that has been taken as evidence for a closed model of the universe, is here used as evidence suggesting that in fact space is infinite in expanse, and that the stars are in the long run and the large spaced few and far between in the total depths of the dark night. The night sky is dark because starlight from near infinite distances cannot reach us. A counterfactual argument can be developed in this regard. If the universe were a closed structure, then we would expect that all the stars in the universe would become visible to us simultaneously, and we might expect Olber's paradox to then be a real paradox. The omnidirectional darkness of the night-sky, of space, which ever way we may look, suggests that wherever we may travel in the universe, we will always see the same black background.
3. Accounting for vast distances/depths of space-time in the observable sphere of the universe renders logically unlikely and impossible that the total universe could be anything but unfathomably large in scale and extent. If the sphere of our observational universe is estimated to be 15 billion light-years in radius, then we can infer a diameter of at least 30 billion light years for our current sphere, and we can extend this diameter to at least 90 billion light years if we conclude that light that traveled towards the center of our sphere from 15 billion years ago also traveled in opposite directions at the same time. If we extrapolate this procedure a few more steps, the potential scale of the universe grows exponentially to truly astronomic proportions. If a photon of light could theoretically have traveled 90 billion years across the inferable spaces of the universe, then it could have traveled in opposite directions of at least 270 billion years, and so forth ad infinitum. We would be hard pressed to estimate the total volume of space-time of such a scale of universe, much less the average amount of star-matter and galactic formations that would be expected to occur in such a vast volume, assuming a perfect cosmological principle. We would be hard pressed to infer a uniform curvature of space-time for all this vast dimensionality. The pervasive background of radio-waves that fills the night-sky in all corners is evidence of the red-shifted edge of the universe. The accumulation of a significant proportion of helium in the universe is also evidence for the great age of the universe that has allowed the stockpiling of this relative inert element throughout the universe.
The ultimate dilemma of the fundamental and universal structure of the universe is that physical reality is both analytically composite and componential constitutive, and self-consistent as a well-system with emergent properties, at the same time. Our scientific knowledge, thinking and praxis must come to reflect this paradoxical and dialectical nature of physical reality, split as it has been between reductionist and holistic approaches to reality.
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The paradox of the model of an infinite, open state universe is that we can absolutely designate no center point, and hence neither any marginal or excluded point, in this structure. All points in the universe are equally distant from the furthest points, and all are equally deficient in serving as central reference points. Universal relativity demands that all points in an infinite universe are relative to the point of view of the observer, and the entire system cannot be observationally comprehended or encompassed as a single entity. There is, in other words, no privileged vantage point in the universe from which we may look out and observe the total structure of the physical system.
It also comes as something of a paradox that any finite object has a virtual center point, and this virtual center point will always correspond to the center of mass and of gravity for the mass object in question. It follows that if the universe can have no center point, it can have no common or integrated system of gravity, and therefore it must in its total structure obey the cosmological principle in lacking any sense of isotrope order. There is in other words no basic system of gravitational attraction that can be common to the total universe as a whole system, and the universe as a whole can be said to be not gravitational integrated as a single system. It consists of multiple subsystems, stratified at different levels, but without an overall sense of coherence of gravitational structure. Nevertheless, universal relativity determines that the same principles of gravitational dynamics, thermodynamics, and the mechanics of mass, apply in all regions of the total universe with equal measure.
Another consequence of this model, I believe, is that no single set of physical events can affect or have as a consequence the universe as a whole or entire single structure. The universe may contain a collection of events, more or less independent of one another, but it cannot be contained by such a set of events, and rendered dependent upon them.
It may therefore be said that in the model of the infinite state universe, one point, anywhere, is just about as good, and as deficient, as any other point, for observing phenomena that occurs in the universe, and we are likely as well, standing at any point, to observe generally the same kinds of events regardless of where we are observing from, with but few exotic exceptions. It becomes possible to generalize about the total structure from observations conducted from one or more limited points of view, in an inductive and hypothetico-deductive manner, except that we will always be lacking in the empirical proof of our generalizations by direct observation. Universal relativity proceeds as a doctrine of the physical structure of the total universe, as long as we acknowledge that this structure is infinite and therefore open in the largest sense possible.
The hypothesis of universal instantaneity or simultaneity is one such generalization we may make about the total universe. We assume that as total physical system it occurs everywhere instantaneously at the same moment, and this process of continuous occurrence, or recurrence, has carried on eternally, without effective beginning or end. We are forced to this universal generalization on the basis of the extension of our local observations only. We know Mars to exist at this moment, though its light takes 30 or forty minutes to reach us. This assumption provides us with a sense of historical continuity, or continuity in and through time, upon which we depend in our sciences as well as in our everyday sensory experiences, to confer a sense of order upon the world around us. We do not expect that Mars will suddenly blink out of existence, although we cannot discount completely and absolutely the possibility of a major cataclysmic event that disintegrates Mars as a planet.
Universal Simultaneity provides not only temporal continuity and order to our sense of events in the physical universe, but it also depends upon the principle of the physical separation, in space-time, of independent events. Events that are not physically separated and that do not occur independently of one another in space-time cannot be said to occur in a totally or absolutely simultaneous manner that may be said to be complementary. Rather they exhibit a form causal determinancy or interrelationship. The primary form of phenomena we observe in this manner in the universe are the phenomena of motion, mass and gravitation, and this form of structure in space-time provides a sense of non-complementariness or causal determinancy to event-structures that can thus be said to occur in a non-simultaneous and interdependent manner.
This gives us a clue to the properties of complementariness of event structures--such event structures must occur in an independent, simultaneous manner. The observational relativity that comes from our knowledge of these event-structures derives from the possibility of not being able to witness two or more simultaneous event structures that are truly, entirely independent of one another, at the same exact moment in time, even if such event structures are in fact quite proximate to one another. The paradox is that both complementarity and causality of event structure must be inferred as a process of sequential time, rather than as a product of simultaneous event structure.
The universal structure of space-time that maintains the possibility, indeed the necessity, of universal simultaneity of co-occurring event structures, demands that all independent event structures are effectively separated or partitioned by space-time no matter how large or how small this measure of separation. It is the partitioning effect of space-time which maintains the universal order of both simultaneous and non-simultaneous, or causal, event structures in the universe. If space-time did not exhibit this partitioning effect as a basic constraint to all event structures, however small or large, then time as a function of change and causal process would not be possible, and we would not observe the universe to exhibit the kinds of dynamic processes that it does.
All event structures of the total universe are instantaneously and simultaneously embedded in the background field of the universal space-time manifold. They cannot escape this embedded field and there appears to be possible no discontinuity or discontiguity of this field. No event can occur outside of its embedding constraints. The general relativity of space-time, and the special relativity of event structures, are a function of the universal relativity of the largest structure of the total universe that is probably open and infinite and therefore without a unified sense of time or temporal organization of event structure to the whole cosmos. It might be said that a common sense of time, or of temporal organization of event structure, cannot apply to the universe as a whole--it can only be applied by degrees to regions or partitions of the universe. A structure that exists without a unified sense of time, exists without a sense of beginning or end. The sense of simultaneity of cooccurring event structures separated by space is merely an observational illusion based upon our inference and our desire for conservation or continuity of physical structure or presence in the universe. The great accuracy and predictability of our mathematical formulas of the orbits of the planets and moons in our solar system, from instance, is based upon the implicit generalization of the simultaneity of event structures occurring within the solar system. Another way of putting this is to say that event structures cannot be observed, and simultaneity of structure inferred, in a universe that were non-dynamic and completely static or absolutely changeless. Sense of time is merely the sense of continuity of event structure that we bring to our observations and predictions of events in the universe.
It follows that time is not a universal constraint that orders all events in the universe, rather, events are the constraints that order our sense of time in the perception of these events. Events occur in temporal order and sequence as the natural consequence of the properties and principles affecting event structures due to their embeddedness within the space-time field--because this field applies equally everywhere, we expect event structures everywhere to exhibit the same relative sets of properties in regard to motion, mass and gravitation. Time becomes therefore merely the relative observational measure of the mechanical and instantaneous constraining effect of the universal field upon all event structures that we may observe. The dynamic change processes that occur in the universe occur as a consequence of these mechanical partitioning constraints of the unified field and the lack of overall order to these constraints. Universal instantaneity precludes the doctrine of universal time, or the idea that the entire universe is set to a single ticking clock. Universal simultaneity is merely the inference we logically draw from the observation of the relative independence and continuity of partitioned event structures.
Time becomes a means for organizing event structures through partitioning and the action of basic mechanical and dynamic principles. Two independent events cannot happen at the same time and place--they can either happen in different places at the same time or in the same place over multiple times. All event structures and change processes must work through the medium of the universal field. Two interdependent events can be said to be two event structures which are consequential one to another, in a partial and indirect manner. Because both event structures must be embedded in the common universal field, it is the contextual relations of the shared universal fields that influences the interdependency of event structures. This is equivalent to saying that for every action, we can expect an opposite, but equal reaction. The universe, and the universal field, perfectly conserves itself in all its dynamics.
What we construe as time is really the well ordered and measured nature of the dynamic trajectory of instantaneous, non-linear event structures in the universe. A pulse of light emitted from a far distant source is nothing more than a certain kind of ripple, an instantaneous perturbation, of the fabric of the instantaneous universal field that propagates away from its source in a very predictable manner. The inference of the great time depth we infer from such far-distant starlight is only the residual information we are able to glean from the patterning such a rippling effect is able to make and be measured by our observational instruments and recording devices. We infer the history into the trajectory of the light perturbation back to its source.
Volume by itself is the minimal measure of the instantaneous, simultaneous universe. All finite objects have a specific measure of volume, however they may be shaped. This volume may be in the larger sense non-Euclidean in that its three dimensions may be non-linear with the result that the larger sphere, if we project it from any single point in three perpendicular directions, will be either greater or less than the amount we could calculate through Euclidean geometry. The volumetric measurement of empty space can be seen fundamentally as the three dimensional projection of the infinite number of vectors that may extend from any origin point. If a line is the product of a point in projection, and the plane the product of a line in projection, and three dimensional volume, or pure space, the production of the projection of the plane in the third dimension, then we can see that from a geometric standpoint, whether the geometry we use is standard or nonstandard, space as a construct becomes the necessary consequence of the degrees of freedom permitted to a single point.
We may say that the volume of an infinite universe is infinite, and that space tends toward near complete rarefaction or emptiness, no matter how great local densities of mass may occur, or how apparently dense the formations of matter across a large region of space. It may be said that the total universe is nearly completely rarefied or vitually empty, even though the total mass it contains is very large and may in itself be an infinite subset of the total volume of the universe.
The empty volumetric measurement of the total region contained by the universe can be said to be an abstract value--the actual volume is relative and quite variable, determined by the fluctuations of density of the actual space-time that is contained within this volume. What is space-time then. I will refer to it as a form of negative, or potential energy, that has mass and gravitational effects. It appears to be dynamic in that it flows from one place to another.
Beyond the non-Euclidean geometry of the volumetric measurement of the universe, a factor that may be of some influence on red-shift observed in distant light, it is evident as well that the total density of the space contained in the measurable volume is far greater than that suggested by the calculation of empty and equally or uniformly rarefied space-time.
Though the volume of the total universe may be infinite, we may say that what we refer to as space-time, or the substance of this space, fills this volume with variable densities and with dynamic flow. This density and flow variability is normally experience in terms of gravitational fields and differentials and the gravitational dynamics of systems occurring in the universe. Matter and energy represent fundamental state transformations of the basic substance of space, or spime, and the dynamics of spime and differential densities appear to be greatest in and around very dense formations of matter. Otherwise, the unified field exhibits uniform gravitational dynamic properties, properties affecting motion, wherever it occurs.
It is apparent that the alternate, complement and equivalent states of Matter and Energy arose as the consequence of dynamic local perturbations of the spime field, and increased gradually in relative density and ration compared to the unified field. Matter and Energy were emergent from spime as a product of the intrinsic dynamics of this alternative medium of physical reality.
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The alternate model of space encompasses the Einsteinian model of general relativity. Gravitation, as free energy, represents a form of energy that is released from the folds of spime. Spime represents a form of negative or potential gravitational energy. The quadrapolar nature of gravitation may be related to the alternate quantum switching of its structure.
Blanket Copyright, Hugh M. Lewis, © 2005. Use of this text governed by fair use policy--permission to make copies of this text is granted for purposes of research and non-profit instruction only.
Last Updated: 04/19/05