Why is Our Universe the Way it is?

[PoeticUniverse]

Part 1

Before I get on to the particulars of our universe, note the larger scope:

An Eternal Existence has to be, with no option not to be, for there is no alternative to Existence, given that ‘Nothing’ cannot exist, and so it must remain, with no ‘End’ and no ‘Beginning’. It is there before, during, and after our universe. To be Fundamental, it has to be necessarily simple, not composite.

So, The Eternal Existence wasn’t decided or created, but is only what it can be, for it can’t have any input, as there is no point for that, given no ‘Beginning’. Thus there is no magic required for it to be, and so a Theistic explanation is not needed for The Eternal Existence that was never created.

‘God’ was never going to be a factor; a composite cannot be Fundamental, for its parts must precede; not even a tiny proton can be Fundamental, for it has parts as quarks. Nor is it good reasoning to propose something greater that would need even all the more explanation. Begging the question by proposing a larger question can’t provide an answer.

Our universe had a beginning, yet it was already potentially contained in The Eternal Existence, as were we. Therefore, it had to come forth. Since our universe is here, there was no option for it not to be present. It was always a must and so were we.

Our universe is not perfect, nor it is completely mathematically elegant, for there are superfluous entities in it, along with a lot of waste. Protons and neutrons require only up and down quarks, and not the other four quarks.

There are but three main stable particles in free space that show a curious symmetry: two matter particles oppositely charged, the proton(+) and the electron(-), and one energy particle, the photon(neutral charge). It had to be that there were only those ways to make a stable particle in free space (and their antiparticles).

Our universe is generic, as mediocre, even, somewhere within the range of universes that can achieve life. We cannot be in a universe which didn’t get to life, so here we have to be. Our universe took an extremely long time to evolve cosmically, as well as for life to develop biologically; it wasn’t the quickest or the slowest to do so. It kind of limped along. It needs no big explanation, but we will look into it anyway. That our universe is somewhere in between perfect and none at all shows that there has to be a multiverse or a metaverse. Also, if there can be one universe then there can be more.

Motion has to be, for if there were ‘Stillness’ naught could happen, and yet there are happenings. Stillborn universes can’t get off the ground nor can those not energetic enough go far; however, given the necessity of motion, there has to be the basic constant that is the never-ceasing movement of quantum energy and also that it must be the minimum energy, the so-called zero-point energy that cannot be zero, as what has to be the simplest, such that it is not composite.

The Eternal Existence is Permanent, without ‘Beginning’ or ‘End’, and so has to ever remain as itself at heart; thus the temporaries that it spawns can only be rearrangements of it. Our universe is a temporary event, as are we and all that can’t be Permanent. The universe is a process and it can’t remain particular for even an instant, it continually changing and transmuting according to the laws of nature. There are no so-called ‘things’, for a ‘thing’ can never be identical to itself over time; there are events/processes.

The Eternal Existence again has to be continuous, because no spacers of ‘Nothingness’ can be present. This means a field and naught else; a field has a changing value everywhere—due to ‘Stillness’ being impossible. It waves.

At each successive level of organization of temporaries in the universe new capabilities and emergences must occur that pertain to their own levels, and so it must be that they take on a life of their own in addition to what gave rise to them that is ever present.

From the field points moving in their one degree of freedom, a wavering quantum field results, the sums of these harmonic oscillators having to make for the persistent elementary fermions and bosons only at the stable quanta levels of energy. The various fields overlap and can interact; so, there is one overall field that is as sometimes called the wave function of The Eternal Existence. It is as the potential of anything and everything possible, for it can’t have any particulars designed into it.

There are a handful of confounding exact parameters that have to be precise; universes without these will flop.

What must the elementaries then do?

…

[JackDaydream]

@PoeticUniverse
I think that your post is extremely helpful as a point of reflection, and raises some very important questions. It is so hard to blend metaphysics and ideas within science, but this may be an extremely important area of enquiry in trying to understand reality in a deeper way.

[PoeticUniverse]

Part 2

The elementaries have to form protons, neutrons, and whatnot, these combining into the first few atomic elements, mostly hydrogen, all these having to collect into stars eventually, due to gravity. Universes without gravity don’t go anywhere.

But, how come all the atomic elements couldn’t have been formed right away?

Remember, our universe is just among the average ones that work for life. It just couldn’t form all the elements right away.

Deuterium is a very fragile nucleus, and in the the great heat of the Big Bang it is soon ripped apart. Without forming deuterium, the heavier elements are unable to be forged, a barrier known as the deuterium bottleneck.

The electrons were moving too fast to join an atomic nucleus to create all the atoms. Instead, the universe was full of plasma, with free electrons jostling with light rays, making it opaque.

Inflation was necessity in the Big Bang so that the micro could become the macro and so that the universe could be flat and rather smooth. When inflation ended, its energy was dumped back into the universe, into the particles and radiation that provide the basic building blocks. But the temperatures were so hot that the normal, everyday matter couldn’t exist yet. Only the fundamental building blocks existed: the quarks, the electrons, and the superhot photons. This soup was supposedly an equal mixture of matter and antimatter. Electrons were accompanied by their positively charged antimatter siblings, the positrons.

So, when the universe was about 10–11 seconds old, the end of inflation had flooded the universe with energy, a mix of matter and antimatter in a soup of high-energy radiation. But by this point, the photons in this superhot soup no longer had enough energy to create particles when they collided, so the universe became unbalanced. No more electron-positron pairs were created, and no more quark-antiquark pairs were produced. There were still particles in the mix, both matter and antimatter, and these could still collide, be annihilated, and create photons. Very rapidly, all the electrons met up with positrons, and in an instant, they transformed into photons. The same is true of the quark-antiquark pairs, rapidly being annihilated and turning into more photons. So once the universe passed this critical cooling point, all the matter had turned into radiation, and there should have been no particles left in the universe. The universe should have had no more matter. Yet it did. Where can we look to show the excess?

The cosmic microwave background is the leftover radiation from the early times in the universe. This radiation must have come from the particles and antiparticles being annihilated. If we count the number of photons in the cosmic microwave background, there are about a billion for every one of the pieces of matter, the protons and neutrons found in the nuclei of all atoms.

This suggests that the universe was already unbalanced before the final annihilations took place—it was not, in fact, a perfectly even mix of matter and antimatter to cancel itself out. For every billion positrons in the universe, there must have been a billion plus one electrons, so that after the final annihilations and creations, we were left with only electrons and photons in the universe. The same must have been true for the quarks and the antiquarks, with unbalanced annihilations and creations leaving only quarks and more photons behind.

Without this cosmic imperfection, we would not be here to wonder at all. It seems that everything has to leak, that there cannot be infinite precision to infinite decimal places, and perhaps not even to a billion decimal places. This rules out the block universe of eternalism, and so there is presentism. Neutrinos provide for a big leak for parity violation as an asymmetry, per a recent scientific finding.

…

[Sculptor1]

When we ask why is a dog the way it is, or a cake, or a factory there are alternative animals, desserts or building which conform to different specification and some suggestions are to alternative causes such as Formal, Efficient, Material or even Final causes.
We can only speculate on the "whys" when we consider there may be differences.

Since there is only one universe, by definition, then this means that you have asked a non-question, since all the answer to that question have to stem from the reality of the universe as it is and as it is presented to us. We are all of us, all our questions, causes and reason part of that single reality we call the universe. It is the way it is, there is no more to say about that.

[PoeticUniverse]

Part 3

Again, when the temperature dropped low enough in the first minute after the Big Bang, deuterium started to form. The temperature was low enough that the deuteron bond could not be broken. Right away, the most stable element, helium-4, started to be built up, and the race was on. But it was over before it even started. The larger nuclei required more energy, and the temperature was dropping. What’s more, the number of neutrons available for further reactions was too low. In fact, after only a few minutes, all the neutrons created in the Big Bang ended up as helium-4 (with a few in the next heaviest element, lithium). The extra protons that were left over? Well, they were just hydrogen nuclei.

So, the universe had cooled enough for deuterium to survive the collisions and thus be used as the building blocks for the larger nuclei. Two deuterium nuclei could bind together to form the nucleus of a helium-4 atom. If a deuterium nucleus could snare a single proton, a helium-3 nucleus was formed. With that, we appeared to be on our way to building all the chemical elements. However, with the universe continuing to cool, the further hurdle became apparent.

Deuterium nuclei are positively charged and therefore repel one another. With the universe cooled, the motions of the deuterium nuclei slowed. They became sluggish. As they approached one another, the electromagnetic force built and forced them apart. They simply couldn’t get close enough for the strong force to reach out and bind them. Free protons were also forced away. After a few minutes in which some helium and lithium nuclei were formed, this nucleosynthesis appeared to be over. The pathway to forging heavier elements in the Big Bang was completely cut off. Cripes!

That seemed to be the end. Following the first few minutes after the Big Bang, the cosmological nuclear furnace dimmed as the universe continued to expand and cool. Leftover radiation also cooled, with the universe eventually fading into the blackness of a dark age.

…

[PoeticUniverse]

Part 4

After about 380,000 years of cosmic time, the universe was cool enough and the electrons slow enough for them to stick to the atomic nuclei, although it wasn’t easy, which is why the universe would evolve only very slowly. In a moment, the universe became transparent.

Gravity had dominated, pulling matter together into lumps and clumps. Mass, in the form of the dark matter, the dominant mass in the universe that lurked in the background of the Big Bang, formed the seeds of the first galaxies. Some normal matter, as the first few atoms, came along for the ride, thank goodness. The gas cooled and collapsed, crushing down hard and driving temperatures at their cores to extreme values. The first stars were born, and the universe lit up and entered its modern age. At center stage, the world of the quantum was found to play a leading role, for without it, stars would not shine.

The weak nuclear force can can change protons into neutrons! But the chances of this are very small. So if we can use tunneling to form a diproton, there is then a small chance that one of the protons will convert into a neutron, forming a stable deuteron before it can fall apart. The chances are very, very small, with only about one in every 10**28 (10 octillion) collisions between protons in the Sun producing deuterium. It’s a highly inefficient process, but it is the first step to creating heavier elements. The universe can only evolve slowly.

…

[PoeticUniverse]

Part 5

The reactions that create heavier elements allow us to live comfortably on Earth, but they took a lot of time since they are difficult to create. If it were too easy for these reactions to occur, the Sun would burn up its hydrogen fuel much more quickly, and we would not have the stable energy it has provided our planet for hundreds of millions of years.

The remainder of the atomic elements had to arrive, but they needed more energy, and the stars had to make them. The atomic elements through iron are made directly and the remainder become from supernovae or neutron star collisions or by some minor processes. There are more atomic elements but they are only made in our laboratories.

From atoms, molecules became, and from molecules cells became, and from cells life became, and from life brains became, and from brains consciousness became. This was all done on Earth, so there is no mystery about where and how it happened. Nature accomplished it. There was once no life or consciousness on Earth and now there is.

…

[LuckyR]

When we ask why is a dog the way it is, or a cake, or a factory there are alternative animals, desserts or building which conform to different specification and some suggestions are to alternative causes such as Formal, Efficient, Material or even Final causes.
We can only speculate on the "whys" when we consider there may be differences.

Since there is only one universe, by definition, then this means that you have asked a non-question, since all the answer to that question have to stem from the reality of the universe as it is and as it is presented to us. We are all of us, all our questions, causes and reason part of that single reality we call the universe. It is the way it is, there is no more to say about that.

Well put. One cannot do a comparitive study on a singularity.

[Steve3007]

An Eternal Existence has to be, with no option not to be, for there is no alternative to Existence, given that ‘Nothing’ cannot exist, and so it must remain, with no ‘End’ and no ‘Beginning’. It is there before, during, and after our universe.

In my view, this rests on a misuse of the words "existence" and "nothing" similar to what the poster called philosopher19 did (e.g. in this topic) when he used the word "Existence" as a noun and "to exist" as a verb and then claimed that it was self-evident that "Existence exists" because the words are the same. It was a fallacy of equivocation. Saying things like "Existence must exist" and "nothing cannot exist" incorrectly uses the words "nothing" and "existence" as if they purport to refer to an existent, like a lot of other nouns do. Nothing isn't a thing called nothing. It's nothing.

[Steve3007]

"Nothing" is one of those words that people sometimes have a strange attitude towards. For example, some people seem to think that the word "nothing" is not nothingy enough so they add the suffice "-ness". For some reason, they then seem to be satisfied that "nothingness" is sufficiently nothingy.

[Steve3007]

Typo: should say suffix.

[PoeticUniverse]

Part 6

Some milestones:

The Earth’s atmosphere took two billion years to form, first from bacteria that exuded oxygen as a sort of unwanted poison, and then from plants that made oxygen. No creatures were around asking for an atmosphere rich in oxygen to be able to become; adaptation happened.

Before mammals were plentiful on Earth, five near extinctions occurred, the last and worst one being the Permian extinction from asteroids or volcanic eruptions that wiped out the dinosaurs and 95% of all existing species, this making the opening for mammals to evolve much further from a shrew-like creature. Extinctions are not indicative of intelligent design, as if the ‘God’ idea has to become even double dead and more.

As the third chimp, we potential humans had to evolve our separate way when two of our chromosomes fused, making us incapable of producing offspring by mating with the regular chimps. We have 23 chromosomes and the chimps have 24.

So, luck was needed, as always, in this and many more instances, such as the Earth having to have the right conditions in the first place, out there among the huge waste elsewhere which wasn’t really such a waste after all, it providing so many chances for there to be a workable planet for life such as Earth.

Enrico Fermi had placed tin foil over his instruments in 1938 and so he did not discover nuclear fission, which would have put Germany ahead of the game in WW II. During the war, Germany put Heisenberg in charge of the nuclear effort to produce an atomic bomb. One of the early labs mysteriously caught fire and burned down.

Heisenberg later travelled to see his old friend and mentor, Neils Bohr, in Nazi-occupied Denmark, and gave Bohr a drawing the German effort. England eventually got Bohr out of Denmark and soon flew him to Los Alamos. Upon showing the drawing to Oppenheimer and others, they concluded that the Germans were on the completely wrong track, which was a great relief.

Currently… droughts, fires, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and exponential global warming…

So, here we are, facing obliteration. We will have to colonize space in this century. If not, well, if there can be one Earth then there can be others.

[PoeticUniverse]

(Milestones…)

So, where did all the energy in the universe come from and why was it so easy to come by?

It is that the positive kinetic energy of stuff is canceled by the negative potential energy of gravity that grew it. So it is that the macro could blow up from the near Nothing of the micro quantum fluctuations which get writ large as the galaxies.

The universe thus weighs near to zero; its overall electric charge is zero; its contents can easily be humongous, as material is so easy to come by; it is wound up like a spring; patient time restrains it from unwinding all at once.

All That Lies Between as Energy:

[3017Metaphysician]

Part 1

Before I get on to the particulars of our universe, note the larger scope:

An Eternal Existence has to be, with no option not to be, for there is no alternative to Existence, given that ‘Nothing’ cannot exist, and so it must remain, with no ‘End’ and no ‘Beginning’. It is there before, during, and after our universe. To be Fundamental, it has to be necessarily simple, not composite.

So, The Eternal Existence wasn’t decided or created, but is only what it can be, for it can’t have any input, as there is no point for that, given no ‘Beginning’. Thus there is no magic required for it to be, and so a Theistic explanation is not needed for The Eternal Existence that was never created.

‘God’ was never going to be a factor; a composite cannot be Fundamental, for its parts must precede; not even a tiny proton can be Fundamental, for it has parts as quarks. Nor is it good reasoning to propose something greater that would need even all the more explanation. Begging the question by proposing a larger question can’t provide an answer.

Our universe had a beginning, yet it was already potentially contained in The Eternal Existence, as were we. Therefore, it had to come forth. Since our universe is here, there was no option for it not to be present. It was always a must and so were we.

Our universe is not perfect, nor it is completely mathematically elegant, for there are superfluous entities in it, along with a lot of waste. Protons and neutrons require only up and down quarks, and not the other four quarks.

There are but three main stable particles in free space that show a curious symmetry: two matter particles oppositely charged, the proton(+) and the electron(-), and one energy particle, the photon(neutral charge). It had to be that there were only those ways to make a stable particle in free space (and their antiparticles).

Our universe is generic, as mediocre, even, somewhere within the range of universes that can achieve life. We cannot be in a universe which didn’t get to life, so here we have to be. Our universe took an extremely long time to evolve cosmically, as well as for life to develop biologically; it wasn’t the quickest or the slowest to do so. It kind of limped along. It needs no big explanation, but we will look into it anyway. That our universe is somewhere in between perfect and none at all shows that there has to be a multiverse or a metaverse. Also, if there can be one universe then there can be more.

Motion has to be, for if there were ‘Stillness’ naught could happen, and yet there are happenings. Stillborn universes can’t get off the ground nor can those not energetic enough go far; however, given the necessity of motion, there has to be the basic constant that is the never-ceasing movement of quantum energy and also that it must be the minimum energy, the so-called zero-point energy that cannot be zero, as what has to be the simplest, such that it is not composite.

The Eternal Existence is Permanent, without ‘Beginning’ or ‘End’, and so has to ever remain as itself at heart; thus the temporaries that it spawns can only be rearrangements of it. Our universe is a temporary event, as are we and all that can’t be Permanent. The universe is a process and it can’t remain particular for even an instant, it continually changing and transmuting according to the laws of nature. There are no so-called ‘things’, for a ‘thing’ can never be identical to itself over time; there are events/processes.

The Eternal Existence again has to be continuous, because no spacers of ‘Nothingness’ can be present. This means a field and naught else; a field has a changing value everywhere—due to ‘Stillness’ being impossible. It waves.

At each successive level of organization of temporaries in the universe new capabilities and emergences must occur that pertain to their own levels, and so it must be that they take on a life of their own in addition to what gave rise to them that is ever present.

From the field points moving in their one degree of freedom, a wavering quantum field results, the sums of these harmonic oscillators having to make for the persistent elementary fermions and bosons only at the stable quanta levels of energy. The various fields overlap and can interact; so, there is one overall field that is as sometimes called the wave function of The Eternal Existence. It is as the potential of anything and everything possible, for it can’t have any particulars designed into it.

There are a handful of confounding exact parameters that have to be precise; universes without these will flop.

What must the elementaries then do?

…

PU!

After reviewing the material, one thing, seemingly, remains clear: Why is there something and not nothing? (Is that what you're really trying to say?)

If not, start with something a bit more simple (actually not so simple depending on your answer), like your definitions in your thesis:

1. "The Eternal Existence". What does that mean? In other words, is there a definition standard for that?

[PoeticUniverse]

"The Eternal Existence". What does that mean? In other words, is there a definition standard for that?

It's the basis of all, the one, what underlies, the fundamental, a permeant existent thing, absolute truth, ultimate reality, etc.