“Tao can be roughly thought of as the flow of the universe, or as some essence or pattern behind the natural world that keeps the universe balanced and ordered.”
I am not a Taoist, nor do I subscribe to any mystical beliefs or religion, but of all of the philosophies I have read about, none resembles, however superficially, the hypothesis that I have presented more than Taoism. The emphasis on balance, flow and simplicity in nature mirror my understanding of a process that is based on reciprocal properties of vacuum and matter.
What does philosophy have to say about the universe and why should anyone care? Even if one thinks of philosophy as speculation in the absence of facts, then it can still be useful. It can lead people to test the speculation and see if it bears fruit. Unfortunately, it can also lead people astray and, when philosophy is preeminent, it can even shut down avenues of inquiry.
I have presented the reasoning, evidence and predictions that underlie my hypothesis, but there are other considerations. These don’t involve evidence, and can’t be said to be persuasive or definitive, but even generalizations and trends can help one to understand.
Let me begin by describing some random trends in nature starting with the very tiny and proceeding to the very large.
Atoms seek equilibrium. The nucleus of an atom may be said to be stable if there are balancing forces of neutrons and protons. Unstable nuclei deteriorate releasing various types of electromagnetic radiation and particles and the atom reaches a new state of equilibrium. The electrons are balanced with respect to the number of protons, or, in combination with other atoms, seek equilibrium by joining together and “borrowing” electrons that are then shared. Electrons, in their “orbits”, seek the most stable configuration possible and, if they absorb energy, they may temporarily accommodate that energy by changing to a different shell until the energy is released, and they then return to the most stable configuration. The same is probably true of subatomic particles as they form the basis for the protons, neutrons and electrons in regular ways according to physical principles.
Chemical reactions also seek equilibrium, and physical forces can affect the state of equilibrium or the speed of a chemical reaction. Attraction and repulsion guide atoms and molecules as they form compounds that tend to be more stable, but virtually all chemical reactions are reversible depending on the circumstances. Enzymes and catalysts can also affect or direct chemical reactions, and they do so by strictly physical principles. The state of atoms, molecules and chemical reactions all contain information of one form or another. Energy and potential energy are forms of information, as is organization, and there are only physical limits to the amount of information that can be carried by molecules and atoms.
Climate, weather, geophysical activity and planetary dynamics are all manifestations of the interaction of massive amounts of atoms and molecules, each playing a role in the transfer of energy and information, each seeking some state of equilibrium while being influenced by energy outside of itself and influencing that which is nearby.
In nature, species compete for food, and, without consulting other species, balance is achieved – between animals and plants, insects and mammals, hunter and hunted. Through birth and death and sheer survival, information is passed along and the environment is both the director and directed.
The competing and balanced forces of gravity and energy released by fusion keep the Sun from collapsing, and the excess energy radiates outwards affecting each of the planets in the same way, but different because of the amount each planet receives. Each planet, in turn, affects the sun each in its own way, by returning some tiny bit of energy or by gravitational effects. Orbits of the planets are the lowest state of equilibrium that can be reached given their origin, how they developed, their mass and their location.
Throughout the universe, stars are being born from collapsing gases that gather by gravity only to ignite fusion reactions. They may last a long time or a (relatively) short time, and if they are too large or small, they release their fusion products back into space sooner rather than later. These fusion products, in turn, are taken up by other clouds of gas and incorporated into other stars whose sizes may permit a longer period of organization. Imbalances are corrected, and balance is achieved. Galaxies are no more than larger products of the collapse of gases and, as the gases collapse, they carry with them the energy of the collapse and spin fast enough to maintain the most comfortable state of equilibrium between total collapse and explosive disruption.
Nature is balance and equilibrium, and even where there is a temporary state of imbalance, it is only one part affecting other parts such that the final result is some state of equilibrium. Nature doesn’t care about birth and death – of atoms, molecules, animals, plants, humans, stars or galaxies. In time, our own sun will expire, and its contents returned to the galaxy for other uses. Other stars will take up our material, and there will be atomic, chemical, biological and energetic equilibrium of other types in other places.
We see beginnings and endings; nature sees only continuity.
Scientists now view the universe as a whole as a single, isolated, nonrepeating event of finite duration. Some realize that there is likely something being missed by this one-shot picture of “everything”, and so there are suggestions of bang and collapse (perhaps followed by another bang), repeated bangs precipitated by the absence of mass, multiple universes and other dimensions. These concepts all have something in common; there is no information, no trace, of the universes that endures. Equilibrium plays very little if any part in the concepts of universal birth and death.
The hypothesis that I have presented has equilibrium built in. There is balance between expansion/acceleration and gravity, mass and vacuum, space and matter. Just as stars expire, new stars are made. Galaxies may have a finite existence, but they play a part in the birth of new galaxies. It is clear, however, that without new mass being introduced into the universe, with the evaporation of mass, the universe itself will vanish in time if the presumed critical mass for collapse does not exist. Accelerating expansion gives little hope for the presence of the “critical mass.”
If even some part of my hypothesis is correct, it is extremely unlikely that the entirety of the balance in nature is reflected. What is the fate of black holes and ancient galaxies? Do they also return their energy to the Great Vacuum? So it would seem.
The vacuum is energy and it has mass. Matter is energy and it has mass. I suspect this equivalency is the basis for a self-sustaining and eternal universe that is driven by the intrinsic struggle between expansion of space and gravity of matter. The balance achieved by this struggle is the pattern behind the flow of the universe.
