Abstract tools that help us understand our reality should not be confused with the actual reality that humans seek to understand. Intangibilities are of particular interest to me. While science divides the universe or reality into two basic parts — energy and matter — my thinking seems to have gravitated to dividing our understanding of the reality, of which we are a part, into two types of elements — the tangible and the intangible. The parallel structure of dividing reality into energy and matter or dividing it into the intangible and the tangible renders some interesting perceptions. Energy is intangible and matter is tangible. The Uncaused Cause of the First Cause is intangible. The condition of the universe just before the Big Bang has zero space and is infinitely hot. The condition of the universe just before the Big Bang is that it is intangible. Since the universe is infinitely hot and has zero size and since heat is a form of energy, then the universe is infinitely energetic and, just before the Big Bang, it is in the condition of being the potential energy that converts into the kinetic energy of the Big Bang. It is my understanding that neither science nor religion has definitively delineated all attributes accepted by both regarding the event just before the Big Bang nor the nature of UCFC other than UCFC has no cause that brought it into being. Intangibilities are perceivable by perceiving their effects. If infinite energy resides in zero space then it cannot be perceived until it generates an effect. Humans know or understand energy by its effect.
I have bookmarked a website called The Physics Hypertextbook as a reference source for issues regarding physics. The Physics Hypertextbook defines energy in this fashion:
A system possesses energy if it has the ability to do work. Work shifts energy from one system to another. Energy is a scalar quantity; abstract and cannot always be perceived; given meaning through calculation; and a central concept in science.
This is an operative definition. This definition tells what energy does. This definition does not tell me what energy is. Since the universe is infinitely hot, therefore infinitely energetic, science has described the universe as having the ability to do infinite work. The condition of the universe just before the Big Bang does not need to be considered by science because according to page 136 of A Brief History of Time:
The boundary condition of the universe is that it has no boundary. The universe would be completely self-contained and not affected by anything outside itself. It would neither be created nor destroyed. It would just BE.
Given the information above about tangibles, intangibles, energy and the situation in which the universe has zero space; is infinitely hot, and is self contained without any boundary, then I see no reason not to conclude that this is the position of Zen — “It would just BE.” I have no information to indicate that Stephen Hawking was a Zen master. I believe this to be true of Saint Thomas Aquinas as well. The Uncaused Cause of the First Cause and the Universe just before the Big Bang is the IT of Zen. The UCFC, the universe just before the Big Bang, and the IT of Zen are intangible and are the exact, same reality.
My understanding is that Zen masters never explain IT. My understanding is that Zen masters perceive language as a pollution that must be removed in order to experience the Zen of IT. I believe this understanding of Zen is presented in the book Zen In the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel (©1989 by Vintage Books, 1953 by Phantom Books and 1981 by Random House, Inc.). I read it many, many years ago. It is my understanding that Zen is about acting not about speaking. Obviously I am not a Zen master, nor have I ever interacted with a Zen master. What cursory knowledge I have about Zen was gained through my reading together with my practicing some rudimentary sessions of meditation during my college years. This cursory knowledge about Zen and my rudimentary experience with meditation triggered my intense amazement of Stephen Hawking’s observation that the universe “would neither be created nor destroyed. It would just BE.”
Three-thirds of One-Third Three Times is my attempt to convey my understanding about The Great Spirit which is my current expression of Aquinas’s god of my upbringing in the Roman Catholic Church (the UCFC) and the universe of Hawking just before the Big Bang exploded. The first section, Air, is comprised of three parables: The Master, The Master Pronoun and Two, and Breathing. These three are about the Creator. The Creator is Aquinas’s UCFC and Hawking’s universe just before the Big Bang. The Creator is the first of the three persons in one God, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. These three persons in one God are recognized and affirmed every time a Roman Catholic blesses him or herself. The second section, Wind, is about the Holy Spirit. Wind, is composed of three poems, Wind and Rancor, Rocks and Stones . . . And Mountains, and Incipit. Wind is about the Holy Spirit. The third section, Earth, is about God the Son. The form of expression in Air, Fire, and Earth represents the nature of the individual persons constituting the three persons in one God.
The challenge in writing the parables of Air was to express my understanding of the act of creation in words with the least use of nouns and those needed nouns had to be the least tangible as possible. The first act of creation precedes matter, therefore Air must be as intangible as possible in its descriptions. Creation is the act of bringing matter (tangibility) into being. The use of pronouns over nouns was obvious. The focus would be to describe actions as opposed to describing material being.
The challenge in writing Fire was to focus on emotive content. Fire is about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is intangible as are emotions and attitudes. Poetry was the obvious choice due to the emotional component of the Holy Spirit.
The challenge in writing Earth was to highlight life on Earth, the interactions of people living in society. The format of a pseudo script of a play was obvious to my thinking. All the world is a stage and all of that sort.
Air and Fire needed to have a similar structure of being divided into three of the unique expressions God: the Father (the Creator), the Holy Spirit (emotions and motivations), and the Son (life on Earth). Earth is the realm where the three persons of one God manifests themselves as one living God in an experience which requires concerted contemplation to perceive the three persons of the one God — hence any structural division in Earth would be incorrect form. The earthly manifestation of the three persons of one God is the mathematical equation: 3/3 x 1/3 x 3 = 1 (three-thirds of one third, three times equals one god). Humans have to work diligently to perceive and understand the whole of divinity which is highly intangible in a reality that is quite tangible in its presentations.
The Epilogue, Dance, Shiva, Dance is about the unification of existence and the absence of time. Time is a human construct. Time is not real like the sun is real or the moon or a person is real. Reality is about events. Events are about change. Reality is change.
Three-thirds of One-Third Three Times is about my understanding of the UCFC, the Big Bang just before and after the Big Bang, about the intangible giving rise to the tangible, and energy manifesting and working through matter. Given what I have written, it is time to reflect upon the title: A Brief History of Time.
My first perception is that the title is misleading because time is an abstract, intangible construct invented by humans and not a true part of reality like a car, a tree, a person or planets or gravity, or fire, or wind, etcetera. So, if I were to rewrite the title, it would be A Brief History of Imaginary Time. However, upon further reflection, A Brief History of Time is correct because before the Big Bang there was only The Uncaused Cause of the First Cause before the first cause of our cause effect chain came into being. The Big Bang is quite literally the explosion of history. “A Brief History of Events From the Big Bang To Now,” would be more accurate. Again, upon further reflection, since history has exploded and Hawking’s text is about the events of that exploded history, a construct is needed to organize all of those significant events into a clear, meaningful structure that will enhance human understanding of the incredible history of amazing events. It would be nice to understand reality, our universe, as well as we can understand a football game.
The abstract construct of time is required. However, individuals need to remember that time is not real. The events are real and the construct of time only assists in our full understanding of those events. Even with the help of time, it appears that a full understanding is difficult at best. So, if time is not a part of reality; then, to perceive the Big Bang without time, we have only the events of the Big Bang to consider. Without categorizing the events of the Big Bang into discrete sets and subsets marked by intervals of time, we would perceive one big explosion, the superset of all events of that explosion. Since the universe is expanding, the explosion continues. Think of any film footage that has captured an above ground detonation of an atomic bomb and the mushroom cloud that is precipitated by that detonation.
In perceiving the Big Bang as a single event with a beginning (the detonation and the complete expenditure of the energy of that explosion (visually something analogous to the mushroom cloud produced by an exploded atomic bomb) and an ending event which we have no accurate way of definitively perceiving. There have been suppositions that the universe might collapse back in on itself but the fact that the universe is still expanding indicates that the end has not yet occurred. If the universe is to continue to expand without ever collapsing upon itself, then no end point exists. The universe could infinitely expand. Currently scientists are trying to predict which way the Big Bang resolves itself.
Infinite expansion is an interesting consideration especially if we go back to Hawking’s description of the universe just before the Big Bang occurred: “At the Big Bang itself, the universe is thought . . . to have been infinitely hot.” Heat is energy. Being infinitely hot, to my understanding, is to be infinitely energetic. Likewise if the universe had a space of zero then I surmise that it has no mass or matter. The universe is intangible and without form but it has infinite energy. With Neils Bohr in mind, the Big Bang is a metaphor.
The Big Bang is an explosion of infinite energy occupying zero space (thus intangibly having no form) that transfers this energy outward in all directions.
The above sentence is highly abstract because every element being conveyed is intangible though infinitely powerful. I can fully embrace the above statement only through meditation. I believe the above statement to be the most accurate description of the Uncaused Cause of the First Cause which is also part of our universe.
Reflecting upon the Big Bang in this fashion (the Big Bang absent of time) reveals the single most defining element of the universe. Before the Big Bang when the UCFC was without space and infinitely hot, it was a condition of being static as opposed to the explosion of the Big Bang whereby the universe became a condition of being dynamic. The essential element of being dynamic is change. An event that never changes is static. An event that never stays the same is dynamic. A photograph is a static image. A motion picture is a dynamic image. The condition of the universe is dynamic. Change is an imperative. Evolution is adaptation to change.