Introduction to Timelessness

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In Terry Gilliam’s movie Time Bandits, a small band of God’s helpers steal a map of the Universe and travel through special portals that bridge different periods of history. Seeking gold and jewels, the bandits use the portals to invade other times which on the map are different regions of a larger timeless Universe. Turning that storyline into non-fiction, we are about to sneak a peak at God’s map. This website literally journeys through the timeless realm, presenting a panoramic God’s eye view of the big picture. What is timelessness? To the surprise of many, all the world's greatest physicists such as Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Stephen Hawking, and also David Bohm, concluded during their lives that past, present, and future all exist simultaneously. What then is the timeless universe like? Can it be mapped and made visible?

Surprisingly, a map of timelessness is easily made visible. The infinitely dense point of the big bang is often called the Alpha singularity. It is known as an extreme beyond which no further possibilities exist. Although physicists have tended to ignore the other boundary, there is also a boundary found in our future. In moving away from Alpha the expanding universe follows a gradient of decreasing density, mass, and energy, toward the extreme of absolute zero, the bottom end of all physics, which I call Omega. Every possible universe necessarily exists between these two boundaries. And interestingly, our own time begins from Alpha and ends at Omega.

In 1998 astrophysicists were shocked to discover that the expansion of our universe is accelerating. What is the universe accelerating towards? Physicists today are beginning to say openly that time ends in the future with our universe evolving into empty space. Physicist Robert Caldwell describes time ending at "the ultimate singularity" in the famous "Big Rip" scenario. Physicist Sean Carroll has stated "our universe evolves to empty space", as if this is now obvious. In physics empty space is the ultimate ground state of absolute zero, the place where all motion and all change cease. Zero is the true vacuum and perfect symmetry. At zero the universe is stretched perfectly flat and extends infinitely in all directions.

So what is this future zero singularity?  In the same way all colors coexist in white light, or just as all positive and negative numbers sum to zero, all universes sum into what we perceive as empty space. Individual universes are like single slices of a pie, together they also form an omnipresent zero that extends infinitely in all directions. The space around us is not full of universes or virtual particles like a glass of water is full of particles, rather particles or universes take away from space. In other words, inverse to what we normally assume, empty space is more full than a dense matter filled space, which is merely a fraction of that fullness. It follows that such fractions and the whole are naturally interdependent, always conserved, and their laws self-contained. As the computational mathematician Russell Standish writes, "something is the inside view of nothing", except if so then of course what we imagine to be nothing is really everything.

Today the second law of thermodynamics is used like a road map of timelessness. It describes all possible states for our universe, claiming generally that there are more disordered states than ordered states. Consequently most scientists believe the universe is becoming increasingly disordered with time. Most believe our beautiful universe is dying. This has long been the most disappointing lesson of science because it suggests the evolution of time has no purpose or meaning. In fact the second law is like a black cloud hanging over humanity.

The great news is that science is beginning to realize that time ends at absolute zero, not disorder. Although it is certainly true that entropy, the measure of spent energy is always increasing, it is incorrect to imagine the universe is becoming disordered. Our beautiful universe is not dying of disorder. Quite the contrary, zero is balance, and balance is a powerful kind of order. What we haven't realized in science yet is that there are two kinds of order in nature, one kind of order exists in our past, while another exists in our future. David Bohm whom Einstein expected to succeed him but who died prematurely of a heart attack also described these same two kinds of order.

If the zero in our future is the order of balance, what then is the dense (Alpha) singularity in our past? Just think in terms of the mathematical plane. Zero has a positive and a negative side. If you slice zero in half then you have a pure positive and a pure negative side. The singularity in our past is the positive half of zero, infinite, but still only half of the larger whole. Alpha is like all the white checkers divided apart from all of the black checkers, waiting for the game to begin. It is like a pendulum swung all the way to one side, the most imbalanced state. So in terms of probability, Alpha is the absolute most improbable state in all of reality, which is why time rushes so fast away from Alpha, which creates the big bang. Zero on the other hand is perfect balance, which makes it the most probable state in all of nature. So considering the big picture, the arrows of time for all universes naturally travel away from imbalance and travel toward balance. In timelessness history naturally traces backward to a big bang, and traces forward to a seemingly empty universe.

And so the big mystery of “why is there something rather than nothing?” is answered simply by understanding that nothing still exists. Zero is both nothing and everything simultaneously. What we think of as nothing is like the whole world painted white, so that everything looks the same (the ultimate singularity). In other words, nothing, the void, zero, is simple and complex at the same time. You can’t have the inner complexity of zero without the outer simplicity of balance, and you can’t have balance without all the inner complexity of universes that are enfolded into and create zero. What zero is not, is nonexistence. As Parmenides said long ago, nonexistence cannot be. There is no state 'greater than' or 'less than' the perfect zero. Zero is the default setting of reality. 

Zero exists now, it has always existed, and it will always exist. It is the native state of existence. It is what David Bohm called implicate order. It is the timeless quantum superposition of all universes and all life in an infinite universe. As the most brilliant physicists have long held, a perfect zero is the most ordered state of all, it just isn’t found in the past where time begins. It exists in the future where time ends. The physically real zero in our future is literally everything forever.  It is a whole other paradigm, but discovering that there are two kinds of order in nature is perhaps the grandest step we can make toward understanding the governing dynamics of both the physical and the human universes. Hold on to your hat, your in for quite a ride. Discovering timelessness opens a door to understanding life, the universe, and everything, like no other.

Begin Here

"The First Cosmology Balanced on Zero"