Why Do We Exist?

That's somewhat of a misleading question.  I don't know why we're here, nor do I care quite frankly.  I'm just glad I exist.  For that answer, all I can say is, yoyo (yer on yer own).

If you ask me why we exist from a more mechanical standpoint, I might have an idea to help you out.  We're here because 1 does not equal 0.  Yes, it's very anticlimactic, but it is a mathematical truth of existence.

Although 1 ≠ 0, there is an inverse equivalency between 0 and 1.  You could also claim there is a congruence of 0 and 1.  I think that simple fact is the key to defining the mechanics of the universe and why everything exists. 

This simple thought experiment we are familiar with explains it all mostly.  If the entire universe were empty, would it still exist?  Of course it would.  That leads to one inevitable conclusion. Something and nothing cannot occupy the same state.

I think too much thought has been wasted on the 0 problem, so we gave up and called 0 imaginary.  We like 1 much better, because it's easier to wrap our brains around.  I suppose I would have to disagree with that last sentence, and argue 1 suffers the exact same fate as 0 in an inverted manner.  If 0 is imaginary, then 1 by default would also be imaginary.  You simply can't believe one truth without believing the other.  They are bound.      

What 0 represents to 1 is potential, and vice versa, and there is an infinite amount of potential between 0 and 1.  0 though, does exist.  The problem with making that claim though is a matter of scientific observation. 0's spacial dimension is 0, and its motion is 0, and its time is 0.  All values are equal, which is the exact inverse of a singular state.  What that tells me is 1 isn't an observable state either, because all of 1's dimensions and physical properties are also equal.  The closer you get to either state, the harder it is to tell the difference.

You might be asking what any of this has to do with physics.  The closer something gets to nothing, the harder it becomes to physically observe the difference, and the less you can trust the observation.  The consequence lies in the uncertainty of the observation.  Is it a particle, or a wave?  That all depends on how you observe it, which has been proven mathematically and by observation.  It can be both, but not at the same time.  You can observe one or the other.

We have the same problem in the macro world when observing a black hole.  We know it's there, but can't observe it.  Naturally, we begin to question its existence, because we can't observe it directly. 

The further away from 0 we get, the more certain we become in our observation.  Likewise, the further away from 1 we get, the more certain we become in our observation.  This is the congruence or inverse equivalency between the quantum world and the macro world.  We have a problem identifying what it is we're observing on both ends of the extremes, because they are spatially and physically proportionate.    

Our existence, or awareness of our existence, always lies in that sweet spot somewhere in the middle. I think we need to keep in mind though, we're defining our reality on the outer edges.  Things get very murky on the outer edges of existence in both directions.  Are we expanding, or contracting?  I don't know, but neither does anyone else.  Don't let anyone fool you on that answer.  No one knows.

So, why do we exist?  Well, because we're .5, not 0 or 1.  We know where 0 should be, and we know where 1 should be.  That gives us our bearings, which is all we need to navigate reality.

Bearing
b :  a determination of position  
c plural :  comprehension of one's position, environment, or situation

Why Scale?

Why are atoms any particular size?  As small as we think atoms are, they could still be infinitely smaller, or infinitely larger.  There are no rules in physics that says matter is x size because of y, or the speed of light is c because of b.  The laws of physics just define their mechanical nature or characteristic based on themselves. Actual size is virtually meaningless from a physics standpoint.  

When I talk size, I'm talking scale, not dimensions from our perspective of scale. If everything was scaled down precisely 50% for example, our rules of physics would not change, nor would our perspective.  Nothing would change from our point of view.  Our static view would remain static regardless of any discreet or undetected change in the underlying reality even though the entire universe was 50% less.  

I think we have a preconceived bias towards a static perspective because of our earthly existence, but the real truth is, a static reality has never been proven to exist.  Yes, we keep looking for that answer, but there is no mathematical evidence to prove or even suggest any constant is purely static.  The speed of light is the speed of light because that's what it is, and that's all we know.  That goes for all constants, but that's not proof from a scientific standpoint.  That's just a declaration of an observation we don't fully comprehend, much less understand.  From a scientific standpoint, it's like believing in Santa Claus because your parents told you, and that's not very scientific..  We don't know why or if constants are actually constant.  That's the facts.

Once we disregard any bias towards a static existence, and look again at our perspective of expansion, we have to question it as a scientific probability.  A scaling process would look exactly like an expanding process if our perspective was merely relative to the process.  All of physics hinges on the constants we observe.  

Seeing might be believing in everyday life, but beliefs have no place in science.  We either know something or we don't in science.  Beyond verifiable mathematical proof, all else is conjecture or speculation.  If we can see two answers to the same problem logically, and mathematically we can't determine which answer is true and which one is false, then we're simply left with two equal possibilities from a mathematical standpoint.

We've assumed elements within the universe are static in nature, without mathematical proof.  The observations aren't proof, they are evidence.  As we've unequivocally proven in quantum mechanics, nature isn't always what is appears to be, so the evidence is circumstantial which is leading us to conjectural definition at best.  Observations are a matter of perspective.  It might be right, but we don't know that, and I most certainly don't believe it no matter who is telling me they know the answer.  They don't, and neither do I.     

Matter & Motion

Keep in mind, this is only a layman's viewpoint, which I am.

We are immersed in Einstein's space time continuum.  What exactly that represents to my view of a contracting universe is a little more mundane I suppose, because it implies more of a bound mechanical state. 

Our perspective of the universe lies between the interior wall of our universe and the exterior wall of the atoms that we're made of.  This is where Einstein's space time exists.  Everything becomes regulated by these two points, including our perception of time and the speed of light.

As I mentioned in my previous post, we are in an encapsulated state.  Our existence is a virtual particle in a much greater universe.  Following the logic of e=mc^2, I think the speed of light in the universe beyond our interior wall is C^2.  Likewise, I think the speed of light inside the exterior walls of the atoms we're made of is √C.  That's why e=mc^2.  Nature follows a logical pattern, always.

Everything works from the rate of contraction, which defines all of our physics.  I think naturally time follows the same pattern, but that perspective follows the opposite path.  So the perception of time beyond our exterior wall is √T, and inside the exterior walls of atoms time is T^2.  C slows exponentially inside atoms, while time accelerates exponentially.

In our universe, matter is already traveling at the rate of C inwards.  That's the really strange part about this view that's difficult to wrap your brain around, but it makes sense.  Motion, like time, flows in a single direction.  Time accelerates inwards, while motion accelerates outwards.  This is the core definition of Einstein's space time continuum.  Space and time flow in opposite directions.  There are two arrows, not one.  We have an arrow of time, and an arrow of motion.  

I realize this is nothing like you've heard before from the scientific community, but it's the way I see it.  It changes very little of the underlying theories, but the reality is a profound difference. 

Motion is an illusion of perspectives.  It's real enough for us to get from A to B, but we don't really travel as we perceive motion in the conventional sense.  We're simply resisting omnidirectional contraction in a directional manner.  The faster we travel in any direction the slower the time, because time and motion are flowing in opposite directions exponentially.  I suppose you could consider them somewhat stair-stepped, with a range of motion in each step.  w-x, x-y, y-z.  

This gives a definitive physical explanation why matter cannot exceed the speed of light, because we're already traveling at C inwards in an omnidirectional manner.  We can skew our inward motion directionally, which gives us the illusion (and reality more or less) of lateral motion, but we can't exceed the inward motion laterally.  Lateral motion is a consequence of skewed inward motion.  You can't have one without the other.  It's difficult to explain.  Essentially, you can't reduce your rate of contraction or inward motion, to 0, but you can slow it down to a point very close to 0.  The sum total of your motion is always equivalent to C.    

Motion and time are separate dimensions, but they're both bound in Einstein's space time continuum.  I may not be explaining this correctly.  I get a little confused trying to understand the definitions of dimensions in human terms and how they're defined in physics. 

One thing that has always puzzled me is mass-less particles.  I've always wondered how they got to the speed of light so quickly.  For instance, you turn on a flashlight and instantly get a beam of photons.  The photons themselves are ejected from matter.  When we observe matter though, things inside aren't traveling anywhere near C from our perspective.  It's always puzzled me.

It dawned on me that the electrons and photons are already traveling at C within the shell of an atom. When they get ejected from matter, they simply adapt to the new limits within our universe and continue on their way.  They never accelerated, because they simply obeyed the laws of physics once they entered our relative state.

It all makes sense, to me anyway.

This is a purely mechanical process.  Speed is potentially infinite, or instantaneous.  The walls that divide us from different relative states impedes the flow of space.  It's like loosely putting a lid on a bottle.  The walls regulate the natural flow.  Our existence is walls within walls  within more walls, and so on and so on.  Relativity changes with each step inward or outward.  We define our physics from our base state, which lies between the interior wall of the universe and exterior wall of atoms.  That's what we observe, although I'm not sure we'll ever see the universes wall.  I imagine it being somewhat opaque, or possibly reflective in nature.  Anything outside our universe would be outside of our range of detection.

There is one thing a little weird, time doesn't really slow with acceleration, it expands with mass.  Consider the speed of light in our universe 1.  Time is frequency.  I think it's reasonable to assume acceleration alters frequency, which alters our perception of time.  The longer the frequency, the slower the time, and the shorter the frequency the faster the time.  If we were to accelerate to C, our frequency would match our velocity, so both values would become 1.  Time is not stopped, it's simply at the maximum range of perception, which is essentially out of our range.  It's not stopped though, and that's what's important to consider.  Shorter frequencies are closer to 0, longer frequencies are closer 1.  Motion rises from 0 to 1, while time frequencies expand from 0 to 1.  Time and motion are bound.  

The Universal Engine

So, here I sit one last time trying to convey my idea to anyone that might find it plausible, or interesting.  Preferably one of you will have the skills to take it where I can’t, a conclusion of some sort, or to an actual theory.  I’ve been researching this for over 20 years now, so anything you read is not some half baked idea.  Unfortunately though, it could be a crackpot idea, admittedly, although I’m certainly no crackpot.  I’m just a guy with a concept of the universe, and I just can’t shake the feeling that it’s most likely the correct path to an answer.  

Anyone reading this should understand that my intent was never to develop some elaborate mathematical model.  It was never intended to be the next e=mc^2.  Math was the furthest thing from my mind actually.  I just wanted an explanation that made sense to my ears.  I was looking for something I called the Universal Engine.  It was a hypothetical mechanism that animated our sense of reality and kept everything in motion.   

Although the math is extremely important in the end, and I fully understand that simple fact more than anyone could possibly imagine, it’s the human ideas or interpretations that were much more interesting to me.  I think anyone that’s done something big had to start with a hunch or had to apply some good old fashioned human intellect as a starting point.  That’s all I was doing, was exploring the possibilities and trying to find a new concept to explain the unexplained.  This is the abstract to an unwritten theory on the universe, but certainly not an official theory.  

We’ve solved many problems in physics, and we continue to solve many more everyday.  Still, I’ve always felt we’ve been missing a basic fundamental understanding of what’s going on in the universe.  Nothing really makes sense.  

The big bang is especially hard to wrap your brain around.  Not because it’s a complicated tapestry of formulas, but for the simple fact that it is improbable.  It defies reason and explanation in my mind. If nothing existed before the big bang, I would think the universe would be perfectly content remaining in that state of nothingness.  Surely the universe can’t be the cause and effect of itself. We’re missing something.

And what about matter?  All that energy packed into a microscopic point of primarily nothing. Why does matter even exist?  Where did it come from?  Conventional thought says everything we are, came from a single highly condensed point of energy which exploded outward, and then that energy started to condense into matter over time.  Matter is considered a static primordial element of an unlikely beginning.  I know, the universe inflated supposedly.  Still, it just doesn’t make logical sense to me. There is absolutely no reason for matter to still be here after 15 billion years, give or take a few 100 million years.  I don’t really buy into the current interpretation of the observations and formulas.   

With all we know our universe is still one big mystery to me.

One thing we do know with reasonable certainty is that the math is correct so far.  That being said, the more probable chance for errors lies in the human interpretation of what it is we’re observing and calculating.  Humans are fallible, math is either right or wrong, and those answers can be verified one way or another, human definitions cannot be verified.  The litmus test of any good theory is its ability to convey the mathematics into a logical explanation that can be understood by human beings, not just make a prediction.  If it can’t do that, we’re either missing something, or it’s wrong. Although we do have many things right, we still can’t explain the most basic things rationally in human terms.  This leads us to all kinds of weirdness, like string theory, hidden dimensions, and multiverses, and such.  And we still don’t have a decent explanation of gravity, or why light appears to be constant, or why mass cannot exceed C.  We don’t even understand what energy itself is, really.  Yes, we know the math and observations appear to confirm some things, but why?  We're slapping human definitions on things we don't fully understand, and calling it the answer. I don’t think we’re asking the right question.

I wiped the slate clean over 20 years ago, and started looking for an answer.  I knew nothing when I started, literally.  What I’ve been searching for is a human explanation that might weave a path through all the observations and theories, and just make sense.  I felt the answer would reveal itself, or just come to me once I had a good general idea of what we thought was happening or had happened.  I guess you could say, this concept or theory was based on deductive reasoning and common sense.  I’m not trying to change the theories or disprove anything.  What I am trying to do is change the human interpretation of those theories and lay out a plausible explanation for a paradigm that just makes sense logically.  I’m putting all the little pieces together like one might build a jigsaw puzzle, and I see a different picture now.

I wasn’t sure I would ever arrive at some sort of conclusion, but about 10 years ago I did just that. The number of pages I’ve written to myself combined with the number of posts on forums over the years is staggering.  I have created countless graphics as well.  I’ve also asked 1000’s of questions. Looking back I have to admit, some of it is pretty ridiculous, but it did help me to clarify my own thoughts tremendously.  I actually dread writing about this again.  It takes a lot out of you, and could be in vain ultimately.  I understand that all too well.  Not to mention the flack I’ll get online from arrogant people who assume they have all the answers because they had a few physics courses, or maybe even a masters.  They’ll beat you down and try to make you feel small.  I certainly don’t mean to imply everyone is this way.  I’ve met a lot of great people online that helped tremendously with the process.  You could say this was a collaborative effort to an extent.  Still, there are an awful lot of jerks out there that make you question your own sanity in the process.  That never deterred me though, because I’m stubborn.  I also know one simple fact that most would never admit, which is they are as clueless as the rest of us.  You don’t need a masters to figure any of this out really, but you do need the tools to submit a theory.  Anyone can think, and anyone can decipher the human side of scientific theories, roughly speaking.

So, without any further ado, I’ll attempt to explain what it is I think is really happening with the universe.  It could be wrong, but I can live with that.  It’s fine by me.  Ironically, no one can really disprove it.  Or at least, no one has tried yet.  Not sure how one could honestly. Regardless, whether someone could disprove it or prove it would simply be a load off my mind.  It just keeps cropping up in my mind and it won’t go away.

Let’s start by defining what our universe represents in the entire scope of existence.  Our universe is an atom, which makes up a grain of sand sitting on a beach, which makes up a planet, which makes up a solar system, which makes up a galaxy, which makes up the sum total of a universe.  Now multiply that by infinity, and we’re getting close to comprehending how insignificant our universe really is.  As vast and significant as we perceive everything that makes up the universe, we are but a mere blink away from nothing.  Our universe is completely insignificant.  That certainly doesn’t make our existence insignificant, but from a perspective of size or scale against the backdrop of infinity we barely exist.  We are merely one inconceivably tiny speck among countless specks all around us and/or within us.  

At this point I need to make up a word to describe the universes beyond ours, because there’s nothing that really describes it adequately.  So let’s call the entire scope of existence the Ultraverse. I know, the name was already taken by a comic book, but I could spend hours trying to come up with something more creative or unique.  It works.  The ultraverse is essentially the bleeding edge of infinity, but still finite to large degree.  Our universe is a blip in the ultraverse.

As I implied earlier, I’m not a fan of the big bang as currently described by science.  It’s too complicated and makes little sense.  I’ve often scoffed at the idea we were created by a quantum fluctuation.  Supposedly a dense point in space containing all the energy in the universe exploded into a full fledged universe due to a quantum fluctuation, or cascade of quantum fluctuations.  I don’t know, the explanations get a bit murky and varied the more you dig.  I do realize an explosion does not adequately describe it either.  We inflated or something, along with space and time, and we are continuing on that inflationary path at somewhat random velocities over time.  

Let’s take this to the next logical thought and roll with it though.  Quantum fluctuations are real, and they spawn matter-antimatter particle pairings, or virtual particles, continually.  It does make perfect sense that these random fluctuations in the vacuum of space are part of the problem.  What doesn’t make sense is that they caused anything before time and space supposedly existed.  Without time and space there is nothing to fluctuate, randomly or otherwise.  Nothing is nothing, and nothing would be perfectly content remaining nothing.  You simply can’t act upon a something with nothing to make a bigger something surrounded by nothing.  It’s nonsensical.

Although our space and time is encapsulated within a beginning and ending point, the ultraverse has always been and will always be.  I think Einstein’s initial thoughts on a static universe was more or less correct, but so was his rewrite to add expansion based on Hubble’s direct observation of the redshift.  Einstein was more or less right, twice, but the idea that our universe is merely an insignificant minuscule shard of an incomprehensibly large ultraverse, hasn’t really been advanced as a serious concept, unless you consider recent musings of multiverses and hidden dimensions relevant to the subject.  I get it.  It’s not observable in a practical manner, so there’s no real way to wrap a theory around it and make a paycheck.  So, we stick with what’s observable and what’s potentially provable in a nice neat theory with formulas and abstracts.  That way, we can send it out to peer review and dissect the finer points of the supporting mathematics and human interpretations of those mathematics.  If the math checks out, your interpretation is considered valid, roughly, and you have a shot a prize and your eternal place in history.  I'm not knocking it, I'm just being realistic. Science has little patience for speculative theory. Everyone has to eat. As I said though, humans are fallible, mathematics are not.  If there’s a mistake in our logic it’s not going to be in the math, it's going to be in the interpretation of the math and observations.  Humans can be easily duped.

So, what was the big bang event that occurred roughly 15 billion years ago?  A quantum fluctuation. Yep, that’s it.  Our universe was not caused by a quantum fluctuation, it is a single quantum fluctuation.  Science has been busy looking for the antimatter and puzzling over where it went in the very beginning, when all along they already had it figured out.  There wasn’t one big bang, there were two.  It was never a singular event, or singularity.  Our universe is the matter particle, and the antimatter spun off in the antimatter particle of the initial quantum fluctuation.  The big bang represents the creation of two universes simultaneously, one being a matter-universe, and the other being an antimatter-universe.  We are your average everyday run of the mill matter-antimatter quantum fluctuation.  Makes sense, doesn’t it?  It’s the simplest solution to a puzzle that has befuddled science for a very long time.  It’s just hard to wrap your brain around the idea of just how insignificant we really are in the scope of things.  We think we’re something enormous expanding outward, but in reality we’re far closer to being nothing than we ever imagined, and moving closer to being nothing every perceived second.

What is reality?  That’s a broad question science has sought to answer for a very long time.  We investigate nature down to the last quanta of existence, cataloging each discovery along the way like a detective investigating a crime scene.  We figure once we gather enough evidence an answer will present itself.  Leave no stone unturned.  Yes, those discoveries are extremely important, and also extremely useful.  Without them, we would not have all the wonderful technology we possess today. Discovery is an essential part of our evolution.  However, these discoveries are not getting us any closer to an answer, because we aren’t asking the right question.  I think the question we should be asking is; What elements are necessary to define a sense of reality?

Keep in mind, this has nothing to do with defining human beings or the human condition.  That’s an entirely different topic that has nothing to do with any of this.  I am merely curious about existence itself from a more material or mechanical standpoint.  If you want to know why we’re here, well, you’ll have to find that answer on your own, or look to god I suppose, if that’s what you believe.  I’m not trying to solve that one.  Not sure we ever will honestly.

To define reality from a physical sense, all you really need is a static perspective on the material world.  Things need to be black and white mostly.  Up needs to be up, down needs to be down, left needs to be left, and right needs to be right.  This is what we’ve been busy proving all this time.  The sum total of all our discoveries in physics empirically defines that our sense of reality requires physical laws to govern nature.  Once we know those laws intrinsically, we can then play by the rules and manipulate our surroundings to suit our needs.  You can’t make anything practical unless you have laws governing nature.  Imagine a computer that didn’t abide by the laws of nature.  1+1 might equal 5, sometimes, so a computer itself would be an impossibility.  Reality requires governing laws of the physical world.  Hence, physics.  Physics job is to figure out what those laws are.  Afterall, we certainly aren’t handed a rule book or manual at birth.  Reality simply is what it is, and the burden of definition relies on us to discover.

The key word in all this rambling is perspective, or relative perspective.  All that is really needed to experience reality based on the known laws of physics is a static perspective.  The underlying reality based on the laws of physics though, does not require anything in nature to be purely static.  The speed of light does not need to be constant.  Mass does not need to be static.  Nothing in this universe needs to be static, except our relative perspective of these physical realities.  As long as that requirement of a static relative perspective is met, reality will work just fine.  I think that’s one thing science isn’t fully aware of at this juncture.  The only constant we’re defining is a fixed perspective for our sense of reality, but perspectives don’t necessarily define the true nature of that underlying or hidden reality.  Perspectives can be somewhat of an illusion without altering our true sense of reality.   

There are three key elements from which all of physics are defined.  One is the speed of light, another is time, and the last is mass.  We know without a doubt time is variable, and depends entirely on your velocity or location in the universe.  The underlying reality of time is not static, it's merely a matter of perspective.  The speed of light is also somewhat variable.  We know for fact that light travels at a different velocity in water, for example.  Distance is measured by the distance a photon travels over time, which was originally defined by a piece of metal.  And mass is measured by a physical weight sitting under guard in a room in France.  We assume that mass is static in nature.  1kg will always weigh 1kg.  I’m not so sure that’s a true reality as much as we’d like to think it is.  We do know that mass also changes with velocity, but we still assume our periodic table defines the atomic weight of each element, and that those weights are static in nature.  We also assume their physical dimensions are mostly static, with the exception of maybe a few natural physical variances between like atoms.  Mostly, atoms are akin to a box of BB’s.  From our perspective, they’re all the same, and always have been, and always will be.  If those weights were ever stolen from that room in France, our world would be turned upside down more so than anyone realizes.  Everything we weigh and measure in physics and commerce is based on them.    

So, our understanding of physical reality hinges on weights sitting in a room.

In the mid 1920’s, much work was being done to understand the movement and distance of galaxies.  What they discovered was that distant galaxies showed a redshift consistent with what was determined to be movement away from one another.  We were expanding in other words.  This was a completely rational and plausible explanation based on our most recent understanding of light wavelengths at that point in time.  

Here’s where things get a little tricky in my mind though.  I’m not disagreeing with the red-shift at all. In fact, I completely agree.  Distant objects are moving away from one another, exactly as we are observing them.  However, that doesn’t necessarily guarantee that the direction is definable as expansion.  Reality only needs the relative perspective to be static, not the underlying reality we can’t necessarily detect.  If everything in the universe were contracting proportionately inward, we’d see the exact same red shift.  So, which way are we really headed?

I know, some people reading this might be laughing at the idea, and insisting contraction has been ruled out.  I would argue, no, it hasn’t.  If the only thing static is our perspective on the universe, and everything is really contracting inward at the same approximate rate relative to that perspective, how would we know?  The measuring sticks are contracting.  The speed of light is slowing down.  Time is speeding up.  If everything we use to define our sense of reality within physics is potentially changing proportionately; the result would be a static perspective nothing more.  We aren’t really proving anything concrete, other than the fact that we need a static perspective to define reality. This is what we found with the constants we use to measure physical properties in the universe, but that certainly doesn't guarantee constants are static in nature. They just need to hold a fixed perspective long enough for us to take a static measurement at that moment in time. A snapshot, so to speak.

Imagine there are only two planets in the entire universe.  Nothing else exists.  Both are streaking through space side by side at some unknown velocity.  You’re sitting on one of those planets looking over at the other.  Seeing as you have nothing to compare to but the other planet, you’d assume you were both standing still.  That would be your definition of reality.  You wouldn’t necessarily be wrong either, because that motion wouldn’t be relevant to your sense of reality.  The only motion that mattered would be the motion between you and the other planet.  If those planets started pulling away from one another, you couldn’t even say which one was moving, so you would have to assume both were moving away from one another equally.  You’d essentially be saying the motion of one causes the exact opposite motion of the other.  They would appear bound in some manner.  

What I think the big bang represents is an instant universe at maximum size or scale.  A point in space heated up, instantly.  Since that first moment we have been cooling, condensing and contracting.  It’s like an empty plastic milk carton in a hot room.  Seal the lid, and stick in the freezer for a moment.  The whole thing contracts.  From the universe's perspective though, there is no definable limit in how far something can contract.  We can contract for billions and billions of years. We can literally be a speck of our former self and be none the wiser.  Atom’s may have been the size of planets, or solar systems, or even galaxies at some point in the history of the universe.  Scale is irrelevant as long as the entire process was uniform or proportionate across our entire universe. Size truly is a meaningless concept in the whole scheme of the universe, but meaningful when comparing elements to other elements in more human terms.

I might be going a little too fast in my explanation.  I see the mechanics so clearly right now, and have for years.  I just can’t shake the feeling that this is our true underlying reality.  It’s just so hard to get past the idea that every moment we exist the entire universe condenses, including us.  That rate of contraction is probably what defines the speed of light,  Mass certainly wouldn’t be able to exceed its own rate of contraction, which might be why it can’t exceed the speed of light.  As a matter of thought, it also becomes a good explanation of matter itself.

In my view, matter isn’t like a BB packed with some ever lasting primordial battery full of energy, it’s more like a deflating balloon.  The little pieces inside (gluons, quarks, leptons, electrons, etc) don’t bind it all together, they slow its collapse allowing it to exist.  And because everything is collapsing at approximately the same rate, it all appears static relative to your perspective.  The energy thrown off is more like an eddy or ripple left in the wake of the collapse.  The radiation emanating from radioactive particles isn’t being ejected, it’s being left behind.  The constant motion of spinning particles is caused by the continual condensing process.  Substance is an illusion of the continual inward motion.  Atoms never really touch because they are collapsing away from one another. Substance is real to our senses, but more virtual in nature.  It’s all a matter of perspective.  If you peer inside the shell of an atom, what you find is about 1% something, and 99% nothing.  It’s mostly empty space.  

I thought about this a long time, and I know some might point to Einstein field equations.  I’m not even sure what that has to do with anything.  All we’ve been proving is that an observer's perspective remains static relative to their local environment.  People in a rocket ship traveling near C wouldn’t notice they weren’t aging as quickly as those who were back on Earth.  Everyone’s relativity is unique to their local physics, and that view or perspective is static, even though underlying reality is a little different for everyone.  

I understand full well this flies in the face of everything we think we understand.  I’m not even sure how we would go about proving or disproving it.  There is no easy way to figure this out from a physical sense.  If everything we are using to detect elements changes proportionately, then there’s no fixed point of reference to see this change.  There’s is no real constant, just virtual constants.  We compare elements to other elements.  Light is compared to time, and time is not static.  This also doesn’t change anything we already understand mostly.  Matter simply contracts against space, so the volume of space increases over time when compared to matter.  It looks like expansion, and could be called expansion, but it isn’t necessarily expansion.   It’s a very weird concept.  Predictions for contraction would be exactly the same for expansion.  It’s basically a sign change change from + to -, or an inversion.  It’s a mirror image with a flawless mirror.  We’re immersed in the problem which makes it exponentially more difficult to comprehend.  We’re also bias to our physical understanding of reality.  We perceive everything around us as static, so expansion would be the natural perspective we would cling to.  

Let me try and give you a better perspective on the concept.  We’re all familiar with placing photos and graphics in word processing software or publishing software on a computer.  When we click on an image we can grab a corner and scale it to any size proportionately.  We can also zoom out of the page which scales down the entire page and graphics proportionally.  Imagine taking that further and scaling down the computer itself, and the desk it’s sitting on, and you, and the planet, and the solar system, and the galaxy, and then the entire universe.  Because you’re immersed in the scaling process, everything appears static from your perspective. You can't see the changes.  

Applying this to our universe, imagine what it would look like if matter was scaling at a slightly higher rate than space.  Since the beginning of time, galaxies really haven’t moved anywhere.  The entire universe began almost exactly as science speculates.  It was an evenly distributed hot mess of elementary particles.   This plasma state was evenly distributed across the whole of the universe and came about in an instance.  As elementary particles formed gaseous matter clouds, or nebulas, and began condensing and cooling and rotating in unison, galaxies formed pretty much where they are today, not counting local motion of course.  They would naturally seek out their positions based on the path of least resistance.  It would create a web of gravity essentially holding galaxies in place. As they continued to contract or condense to a smaller state, the distant effect of their energy and gravity diminishes over time.  They didn’t have to move anywhere to create the effect of expansion, they just had to get smaller against the space that lies between them.  From our perspective within a galaxy, it looks exactly as if they moved away from one another.  I suppose they did move in a sense, but that motion is inward, not lateral or outward in an expansive manner from a central point of origin.  We aren’t expanding into “nothing”.  There is nothing really pushing galaxies apart, although there would be some sort of underlying effect of the separation that would look like a process. We call it repulsive dark energy.   And it all began with a simple quantum fluctuation.

Another puzzle this could explain is the vacuum of space.  Why is space a vacuum?  If we think back to the warm milk carton in the freezer, what happened to it as it cooled?  The molecules inside it condensed creating a vacuum contracting the entire milk carton inward.  So the vacuum of space is created by condensing matter which drags space inward with it.  Space lags behind the process. Typically vacuums aren’t something associated with an expanding process.  I suppose it could be if something were acting externally pulling our universe out, but it’s not really necessary.  Condensing matter can easily explain a vacuum state.  It also makes a little more sense in my mind, because we are cooling and condensing exactly as science has already figured out.  I guess mainly I feel this way because everything that we observe in our universe wants to condense.  It seems to be the natural order of things.  Everything wants to slip into a black hole eventually, which is the ultimate point of contraction.  Why wouldn’t the entire universe be contracting rather than expanding?

I think the hardest part about accepting this concept is our natural bias towards a static perspective. It’s even taken me a long time to accept this possibility.  I mean seriously, it has.  I sit in front of my computer banging keys, which never appear to change.  Grab a glass and take a sip of water.  Walk down the street.  Fly in a plane.  Watch rockets blast off into orbit and beyond.  Hammer a nail into a 2x4.  Nothing about our existence would lead anyone to believe anything but a static universe.  No matter what we perceive though, the underlying nature of the physics is no guarantee of a true static reality.  Reality is always a matter of your relative perspective.  This is not flying in the face of Einstein either.  This is more like Einstein on steroids, or taken to the next obvious conclusion. Everything is relative, including mass and the scale of the entire universe..   

In my point of view, science has a dilemma.  There is definitely more space between distant objects over time, and that distance is increasing at an accelerated rate according to the redshift.  That leaves two distinct possibilities.  We are either expanding, or contracting, but both could be perceived identically.  From where I sit, I see a 50/50 chance that it’s either one way or the other. We’ve only explored one of those possibilities in depth over the past 100 years or so, because we are understandably and naturally bias towards that perspective.  That certainly doesn’t make it right though.    

Personally, I think contraction explains the universe much better than expansion.  It takes far less energy to simply maintain your existence, than it does to expand.  Even life itself would have a much easier time putting up a subtle fight against contraction, rather than fighting to expand outwards against all the forces of nature.  It just has to momentarily hold its ground and wait for the universe to condense around it.  A redwood tree wouldn’t really be reaching up towards the sky, fighting all that gravity under its own weight.  It just has to build a defensive wall against the natural contraction process around it.  And why is everything spinning and moving?  Why is everything in motion, and how does it continue on that path of motion?  Contraction is what animates us and keeps us moving. No motion, no energy.  Everything really moves in only two directions, inward or outward.  The outward motion though, is merely a resistance to inward motion.

To me the odds of a truly static universe are remote at best, especially when I consider particles. What makes sense to me is the illusion of substance is caused by the collapse of points in space, which we call matter.  Everything is moving inward and away from one another.  That’s the illusion of substance.  These particles aren’t bound by the four known forces contained inside them complete with some primordial unknown internal energy source, they are bound by their wakes and eddies they leave behind in the condensing process.  Every piece of matter is losing energy at an incredible rate as it condenses, but everything is doing the same thing.  When comparing one molecule to another the energy between them only appears constant or static, because the condensing process is uniform.  I’m speculating there is no holy grail of the particle world deep inside an atom.  There is nothing energizing it or giving it mass.  There is going to be something that looks like it, smells like it, and tastes like though, but it’s not the reason for its existence, because that existence is not static in nature.  All energy in the universe is simply trying to return to the direction from which it came along the path of least resistance.  We came from a quantum fluctuation, and we’re simply trying to return to that original state.  That’s what keeps us animated.  That’s what the mechanics of the universe is all about.   

These thoughts get really weird, and it hurts my brain.  The dynamics to a contracting universe are just so much more diverse, opening up a whole new world of possibilities to explore.  I admit, it’s weird and hard to imagine or swallow.  I had to let it marinate for a few years.  That certainly doesn’t make it wrong.  On the contrary, I think this is exactly what’s happening.  Although I do reserve the right to be wrong.

Einstein’s initial theory assumed the universe was a steady state.  In other words, he thought the universe was infinite.  No matter how far you went it would all look about the same, with ever more galaxies.  The redshift observation by Hubble changed all that.  What we discovered was that our universe was unique and encapsulated in some manner.  It was a closed system essentially.  Our existence was undeniably finite in nature.  I don’t think that changes Einstein’s initial hunch though.  I think he was right, but you can’t prove anything beyond our universe, because it’s closed off.  All we can do is define what we can observe.  Anything outside the universe is reserved for speculation. There is a true answer though.  Something lies beyond the confines of our universe in both (inward and outward) directions.  What that something is, is an ultraverse of finite universes stretching out to the bleeding edge of infinity in either direction.  Universes are finite shards of the infinite.

As I said earlier, I don’t see how to prove this one way or another.  I can’t think of any prediction that would be any different from the current predictions based on the idea expansion.  It’s simply an inverted view of the same thing.  We’re observing mirror images of reality trying to decide which perspective is real.  The mirror between these two distinct possible realities is flawless, so it’s nearly impossible to distinguish the original from the copy.  Our perspective is static, because reality needs to be static in order to make sense of our surroundings.  But it’s only perspective, and a relative perspective could simply be an illusion of a much more profound reality hiding in the quantum world.

If I’m right, every quantum fluctuation in our universe could represent a big bang within a unique encapsulated micro-universe, within our universe.  We would be a micro-universe within a much greater ultraverse, and so on, and so on.  The only difference between all these universes would be our perspective of time, and of course the possibility that universes come in matter-antimatter pairings, not singularities.  We know for a fact at this point that time is fluid, and only meaningful to our own relative perspective of a physical reality.  We’ve proved Einstein was right.  We even have to compensate for time differences in our GPS system.  

If you’re having trouble reconciling that a quantum fluctuation could possibly represent the entire lifespan of a micro-universe, consider this thought.  Our universe has been around for about 15 billion years, give or take.  It may seem like a long time, but compared to forever, 15 billion years doesn’t even register on our most sophisticated piece of test equipment.  No piece of equipment we could ever build would even detect it.  Our existence is a blip from the perspective for forever, as a quantum fluctuation in our universe is a blip from our perspective. It's all a matter of perspective.

In order to explain this in the most simplistic terms, think of those coin vortex games/wishing wells, in shopping malls or science type museums. You know, that game where you release coins into a vortex shaped funnel, and watch them swirl around the wall, spinning around faster and faster until it falls into the hole. Everything in the universe is dwindling down. Moons spinning around planets, planets spinning around stars, stars spinning around galaxies, and galaxies spinning around black holes. Everything is moving towards a smaller more condensed or contracted state of existence. Everything is a reflection of the greater universal condition. In the vortex game, the universe is analogous to the coin. It spins around and around, faster and faster, at a higher and higher frequency of time with each revolution. We see this acceleration in the red shift, but we have it all backwards. We see the coin moving up the vortex, faster and faster, and then keep trying to add energy to push it up the funnel to explain the expansion and acceleration we're seeing in the red-shift. Hence the repulsive dark energy. The universe doesn't need the dark energy to explain it, because we aren't traveling up the vortex, we're simply falling into it, exactly like the vortex game. The universal vortex though, doesn't have a hole like the game. We just keep contracting indefinitely over time. Like the quantum fluctuations we see in our universe though, eventually our universe will simply pop out of existence. It is not expanding, it is contracting.

I think this might explain a lot, but who knows for sure, right?  This could all just be the musings of a crazy old fool.  Something tells me it’s not though.  Please, prove me wrong, because I sure don’t see how to do it.

I will add one cautionary statement.  If you’ve made it to the end of this text and immediately want to jump on it and say it’s all wrong, "because", you don’t fully understand the scope of what’s written here.  Let it marinate a little, and think before you speak.  There is not a definitive answer one way or another, and nothing in physics can disprove this concept currently.  It is a curious possibility, and that’s about it.  It is neither proven nor disproved.  That’s the rub.  I don’t know how to prove it or disprove it.  Contraction and expansion are equal but opposite problems.  You can’t easily tell them apart while immersed in the soup of existence.  The observations are reciprocal in nature, because we're bound to static relative perspective.  I’ve been thinking about this problem for over 20 years, and you’ve had approximately 10 minutes.  Be respectful, please.