Many physicists abruptly shy away from the idea of intelligent design but they have no scientific reason to reject that option, because beyond the idea that we experience this universe because all imaginable universes exist, a reasonable solution to why the complexity of the universe has come to be, or why the universe is uniquely this way, has never been found. Specifically we have no idea why there are forces of nature.

The reason we don’t yet understand the forces of nature is because in a way there aren’t actually any forces of nature. There isn’t even a single direction in time. The world around us is a tapestry of time directions that results of the free flowing of time. The forward direction of time is dominant, but the general flow of time since the big bang splatters in every direction. Our very own time is constantly moving both backward and forward, and also time moves in various directions at right angles to the past and future. Time is flowing in all directions simultaneously. We actually feel this splattering of time, we feel time pulling us around, the various directions time is pulled into are very powerful. We call the various directions that time moves the forces of nature.

I guess what makes the soaps model so compelling is that it makes it easy to understand why there are forces of nature and what causes them. Where Boltzmann’s approach was correct enough to provide a simple explanation for the general direction of time’s arrow, an improved picture of what is ultimately possible provides clear and simple ‘reasons why’ for gravity, electromagnetism, the strong force and even the weak force. The forces of nature and the various directions of time are really the same thing.

All forces are probabilities. In the very same way that certain events in our lives are possible and impossible, probable and improbable, the four forces of nature that govern the physics of the universe are themselves probabilities. The forces of nature are simply the most predictable events we experience. For example, the chance that gravity will hold you firmly to the surface of the Earth is one of the more predictable events in your life. Gravity is so dependable that we tend to categorize it as a constant of nature, but gravity, like all three other forces, is just a large group of possibilities attracting the present. In fact, gravity is the probability for time to travel backwards.

Gravity is trying to recreate the past. You’ve probably have never heard such a statement before but once you think about it, the idea that gravity is trying to recreate the past is nothing but common sense. When noticed it seems self-evident. In an expanding universe the past is increasingly denser; less expanded, and finally becomes an infinitely dense point. Gravity pulls all matter together. So obviously gravity is at least trying to recreate the past. In fact the reach of gravity is infinite, so it not only tries to recreate the past locally, it is trying to pull the whole universe back together as it was in the distant past during the big bang. Essentially gravity is in a battle with the expansion of the universe. If expansion ever became the weaker of the two forces then gravity would successfully recreate past-like conditions by collapsing the universe in on itself.

We can easily identify the portion of possible states that pull at our universe, trying to recreate the past. They are all the states which are more (positively) dense than our present. All the states between Alpha and our present form a group of states which are denser than our present, as shown below. Each state is a possibility and collectively those states form a strong probability which pulls at the conditions of the present. 

Figure 1:  Time can move backward toward past-like states, or forward toward future-like states. Broken vases would not fuse themselves together, but if the whole universe collapsed inward in a big crunch, time would be traveling backward in state space.

Gravity is a force produced by the set of all the possibles (past-like states) on the Alpha side of the present, in opposition to all the possibles (future-like states) on the Omega side of the present. The present is of course the natural dividing line between those two sets.

Gravity is time moving backwards. Taking this a step further, simply saying the same thing in another way, gravity is time in reverse. We can recognize that anyplace where gravitation is successful in increasing the density of the universe is a case of time or conditions moving backward in time. If you have a really strong desire to travel backward in time, just visit the sun. The sun is an example of how the whole universe used to be billions of years ago. In a very real sense the sun is still in a very retarded state compared to most of the universe. Even the gravity holding us to the Earth is time moving backwards. Again this is something simple and self evident. A necessary portion of the universe must travel backward to accommodate the possibilities of past-like conditions. Areas of the universe which retreat in time of course become denser and areas that are advanced in time become less dense or expanded. In hindsight it is actually very surprising that gravity has not been imagined to be the influence of past-like states since the influence of such states are also evident in Boltzmann’s way of modeling all possible states.

Figure 2:  Past-like states pull time backward while Future-like states pull time forward toward zero. The balance of Lumpy states and Smooth states causes the early fluctuations that become our present semi- lumpy (stars and galaxies) universe. These groups manifest as the four forces of nature and cosmological expansion. All the dense areas in the universe are the result of retarded time, time moving backward or not moving forward. Note that this present shown is much earlier than our present location in state space.

Expansion is a force from the future. The strongest probabilistic trend of nature is not at all toward disorder, as physicists presently claim, the overall trend is for balance to increase. The most fundamental force of nature is simply the tendency for all things to balance out. And in being drawn toward the balance of zero the universe invariably expands. There are certainly other forces that pull at time. In every direction that possibilities exist, there is a pull. But extremes balance out with the opposite extreme, and balance always ends up the winner, which is why gravity is losing the cosmic battle against expansion. Gravity is a force from the past and expansion is a force from the future. The past-like set of states which pull time backward is always smaller in comparison to the future-like states pulling time forward, at least until the two sets finally reach an equilibrium at Omega.

The expansion of the universe is time moving forward. Cosmological expansion isn’t a product or consequence of some chance explosion in the past. It is a force just like gravity. Just as we can describe gravity as time moving backward, expansion is time moving forward. The why of gravity can be understood in a simple way and so also can expansion be understood in a simple way. Although the set of states producing gravity is very strong on the cosmic scale, more of the universe is moving forward in time toward balance than backward toward imbalance, so a greater portion of the universe is presently expanding and cooling, moving us slowly more forward into the future than backward into the past. 

Time is not moving purely in one direction. Any gravitationally contracting area of the universe, such as a star, is an example of a group of time directions moving backward toward Alpha, while the large expanding regions of the visible universe between the galaxies reflect the majority of time directions moving forward to Omega. Two steps forward, one step back. But we have only considered time directions on the largest scale. What about time directions in our immediate environment?

Electromagnetism is time moving forward. Electromagnetism is the perfect balance of absolute zero in the future influencing our present. The great balance of the future, being the most probable state, is a great cosmic attractor of all universes and all change. The future-like conditions located between the present and zero are all more like the flatness and uniformity of zero than past-like conditions. They are less lumpy, less grouped, and more uniform than past-like conditions. The future-like states also includes the whole of all the inverse negative states, which are less positive than the present. So, as that dominant set of possibilities funnels time toward absolute zero, the cosmos must become increasingly less lumpy, less grouped, more uniform, and more neutral. Those changes are produced by cosmological expansion, the electromagnetic force, and entropy.

We can actually feel absolute zero pulling and pushing the cosmos around. We feel the balance of zero as electricity and magnetism. If we imagine a state of perfect balance, it would be perfectly smooth and uniform. It would be neutral. If positive and negative particles are moving nearer to that balance, like particles will naturally repel while opposite particles attract, because that moves them toward greater balance. Electromagnetism is that simple. Like expansion, the force of electromagnetism is the present being influenced by our ZAT future. The difference between expansion and electromagnetism is that expansion applies to the large scale universe. Expansion works on the whole while electromagnetism works in the micro-world of particles, but they are both caused by the same inevitable future. 

Figure 3:  Electromagnetism can be easily understood as the result of our universe moving ever nearer to the balance and symmetry of absolute zero. Above we see grouping order in the separation of positive and negative, with each forming an Alpha state for opposite directions of time. In the middle we see the checkerboard pattern representing the balance and extreme symmetry order of absolute zero or Omega. Adjacent exists the smooth and lumpy states which produce the first level of diversity in state space.

To highlight the fact that electromagnetism is a force creating balance we can just imagine electromagnetism in reverse. Like particles would then attract and opposite particles would repel. Such a force would cause positive and negative particles to divide apart into separate groups, just like dividing up colored checkers. In fact, when like particles such as positive protons bond together, time is actually moving backward. The strong force is essentially electromagnetism in reverse.

The Strong Force is time moving backward. Of course a group of possibilities fights against the fundamental force toward balance even in the small world of particles, so in the same way that gravity battles against expansion, the strong force battles against electromagnetism, by causing positive protons which are like particles to attract at very short distances. If protons and neutrons get close enough, the repulsion of electromagnetism is overcome by the strong force, which is time moving backward, just like gravity. The strong force holds a group of protons and neutrons together to form the nucleus of atoms, just like gravity holds together particles to create stars and galaxies. The strong force is the gravity of particles which has a short range because electromagnetism is dominant on the larger scale, just as expansion is dominant on the large-scale over gravity. 

The Weak Force is time moving forward. The one flaw in the strong force is the weak force, which can cause the nucleus of atoms to decay, and properly so. In the future, something has to eventually overcome the strong force, because electromagnetism cannot break down the bond between like protons by itself. So in order for electromagnetism and expansion to eventually win the battle against gravity and the strong force, at some point in the future the weak force has to break down all the complex atoms in the universe into individual protons and electrons. The weak force is very much an extension of electromagnetism. In fact we know the weak force grew out of electromagnetism in the early stages of the big bang, prior to which there was just one force called the electroweak force. We can generally recognize that electromagnetism and the weak force together are working against both gravity and the strong force. Isn’t it really funny and amazing how a sensible purpose to the forces of nature can suddenly seem self-evident. The forces of nature aren’t arbitrarily selected in some way by chance or design, they are simply the possible directions of time.

Part Four: Beautiful Diversity

This is from Chapter 18 from the book Everything Forever.

This page last updated April 10th, 2007