© 2012 Philip Calabrese
© 2012 The Urantia Book Fellowship
According to The Urantia Book[1] many of our basic contemporary scientific concepts are greatly in need of revision or completely new foundations.[2] The Big Bang (BB) Theory, the so-called Standard Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, and also Einstein’s Relativity Theory, all need revision or overthrow.
It is indeed difficult to find suitable words in the English language whereby to designate and wherewith to describe the various levels of force and energy—physical, mindal, or spiritual. These narratives cannot altogether follow your accepted definitions of force, energy, and power. There is such paucity of language that we must use these terms in multiple meanings. In this paper, for example, the word energy is used to denote all phases and forms of phenomenal motion, action, and potential, while force is applied to the pregravity, and power to the postgravity, stages of energy.[3] [UB 42:2.1]
¶ Deficiencies in Contemporary Human Cosmology in the early twenty-first century addressed by The Urantia Book
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Spectral misinterpretations of wavelength redshifts of light from outer space—the so-called Big Bang theory of universe birth in an explosion 13.6 billion years ago.
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The assumption that the universe is a summation of pre-existent parts (unable to influence one other at faster than light speeds); it is rather one infinite Whole, “The Universe,” divided into finitely many or infinitely many parts that can then be aggregated.
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The lack of a postulate of a unique fixed “center of inertia” of all matter and of each material quantum.
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The lack of any theory of the internal spatial composition and motion of the quantum of massenergy presently represented in the standard model as a geometric point in space with energy properties or as an indefinitely extended wave with the ability when measured to instantly collapse to the place and time of the measurement.
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The philosophical and scientific denial of the phenomenon of choice.
Concerning choice, some academic departments in prestigious universities are seriously suggesting that because the energy states of our brains are subject to antecedent energy causation, personal “free will” is completely impossible. This is a serious error that strikes at the very dignity of human persons and their prerogatives of choice and action. It assumes that a person’s brain is within a closed energy system including the environment and therefore cannot “at will” escape the pre-ordained energy consequences inherent in the initial energy relationships.
Therefore, besides the above scientific topics, we shall also address the following partially philosophical issue: How, in principle, are we persons (spiritual-minded-physical beings) able to choose among physical options and then act to bring about self-desired outcomes among alternative future possibilities? On this and the other questions, The Urantia Book offers much help. Let us start with a consideration of the speed of light.
¶ The Speed of Light
In the mid 1800s our understanding of the phenomena of magnetism, electricity, and electromagnetic radiation were beautifully unified by Clark Maxwell’s celebrated equations of electrodynamics. Interestingly, the theory implied that the speed of light in “empty” space was unaffected by the relative speed of a body emitting the light! This counterintuitive fact was experimentally verified.
It is an experimental fact that the distance alone between the geometric positions in space of two moving bodies determines the time of light travel between them. In other words, the measured time of light travel between any moving emitters and receivers is a number depending only on their positions, not at all on their velocities. Light doesn’t carry the velocity of the light emitting body.
To man on bank, speed of walking man on train = V + W, but light from both flashlights have same speed c. Light from bank and train moves at same speed c.
This is, of course, quite different from how ordinary velocities appear to combine: A man walking forward on a moving train appears to move with the sum of the speeds of the train and his walking as viewed by a man watching the train go by. But this idea of motion breaks down with light. A particle of light emitted from the sad man’s flashlight as he walks forward on the train moves no faster or slower than if he were on the bank or “sitting still” on the moving train. He can’t make light go faster.
¶ The Hypothetical Ether
Since light was thought to consist of waves, this seemingly strange property could be explained if there were some fixed medium (an ether) in which light is a wave. The position of this ether medium would establish being “at rest”, and all other motion would be measured with respect to it. Light emitted from a moving body would then not carry the motion of that body. The emitter would simply initiate the light wave in the ether medium at a specific position in space. A receiver would later observe it when and where the light wave reached that receiver.
However, no “ether drift” (motion of the ether relative to earth) was ever found even though the earth orbits and rotates in different directions through this hypothetical ether during each year. Nevertheless, there is something ingenious to salvage from the ether idea, namely, a fixed place from which light comes into space thereby not being affected by the motion of emitter or receiver.
¶ Quantum Mechanics & Absolute Relativity of Motion
Then, at the turn of the twentieth century, after demonstrating that light acted like quantum particles, not waves, in the phenomenon of the photoelectric effect, Albert Einstein formulated his theory of “Special Relativity,” which besides the constancy of light speed also assumed absolute relativity of the motion of bodies moving uniformly with respect to one another. The result is that we are all ‘dabbling’ in a strange world where there is, by assumption, no fixed reference frame in the cosmos.
Based merely on personal esthetics, Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity postulated the absolute relativity of all reference frames for physical measurements, that none should be considered to be actually at rest, but only relatively. This assumption, coupled with the speed of light being constant in all such reference frames, implies (among other surprises) that the age of identical twins (or the hands on two initially synchronized clocks) will differ (each being younger with respect to the other) if they are equally accelerated apart from one another and later brought together. Simultaneity in space at a specific moment in time becomes essentially relative to the reference frame. A strange world indeed!
The increase of mass in matter is equal to the increase of energy divided by the square of the velocity of light. [UB 42:4.11]
Although he discovered the correct relationship between energy and mass (E = mc2) according to The Urantia Book, Einstein lost sight of the eternal Source and Center of the Cosmos.
And let not your dabblings with the faintly glimpsed findings of “relativity” disturb your concepts of the eternity and infinity of God. [UB 195:7.5]
Space is by definition a simultaneity concept because it is understood by synthesis, not analysis—geometric relationships between associated points “now.”
Later, as a birthday gift, mathematician K. Gödel, already much celebrated for his logical completeness and incompleteness theorems, presented Einstein with a paper showing that there are “fixed center” solutions to the Einsteinian field equations.[4]
In these solutions by Gödel, every material body is attracted to its center of inertia and spins around it. These worlds are also strange in that everything rotates around the same fixed center, toward the universal center of inertia! Lo! That is exactly what The Urantia Book says about the ultimate and first measurable material particles.
The ultimaton, the first measurable form of energy, has Paradise as its nucleus. [UB 42:1.2]
Ultimatonic rays. The assembly of energy into the minute spheres of the ultimatons occasions vibrations in the content of space which are discernible and measurable. [UB 42:5.4]
Without linear-gravity response they are thus held in the universal space drift. Ultimatons are capable of accelerating revolutionary velocity to the point of partial antigravity behavior, but they cannot, independent of force organizers or power directors, attain the critical escape velocity of deindividuation, return to the puissant-energy stage. [UB 42:6.3]
The ultimatons are not subject to local gravity, the interplay of material attraction, but they are fully obedient to absolute or Paradise gravity, to the trend, the swing, of the universal and eternal circle of the universe of universes. [UB 41:9.2]
There has been some difficulty grasping, topologically, how this can be. How can Paradise simultaneously be both a Macro-nucleus for all ultimatons, and a Micro-nucleus of each ultimaton? In short, the answer is that Infinity is located in all those places. Let’s come back to that topological issue.
¶ A Fixed Place for Light Emission
Although light is a particle (photon) moving through space, and so the globally fixed “luminous ether” does not exist, the idea of a fixed place in the nucleus of electrons from which light is emitted as photons does embrace the required constancy of the transmission speed of light since then the speed of light would not be affected by the relative motion of the radiating body. The light would come from the stationary nucleus.
How long before you will regard time as the moving image of eternity and space as the fleeting shadow of Paradise realities? [UB 189:1.3]
With an absolutely fixed “Nuclear Isle of Light” in the cosmos, roughly “above space,” it is possible to imagine light as particles (quanta) emitted from this fixed place and projected into space from the nucleus of moving electrons without carrying their motions. It is an absolutely fixed, nonspatial location at the macroscopic focus of space and at numerous microscopic foci of space around which energy is configured as mass.
The Isle of Paradise has a universe location but no position in space. [UB 0:4.12]
Paradise exists at the focus of space, the Unqualified pervades it, and all relative existence has its being within this domain. [UB 105:3.4]
Space does not touch Paradise; only the quiescent midspace zones come in contact with the central Isle. [UB 11:7.1]
Exactly where is this nuclear fixed point with respect to space?
According to The Urantia Book, Paradise can be located at the focus toward motionlessness of the relatively empty mid-space zones existing between and around the moving zones of matter and space.
With Paradise in the cosmos as the eternally fixed source of energy, time becomes a moving projection (image) of eternity and space bodies become fleeting shadows of eternal Paradise realities. We shall revisit this issue later concerning the structure of ultimate mass.
¶ Hubble’s Law and the “Big Bang” (BB) Theory
Like train whistles, colors (frequencies) of light from receding objects are observed to look more reddish (lower frequency) than they actually are.
Initial surveys (circa 1920) of the outer space galaxies found that the more distant ones[5] had huge redshifts. These shifts in characteristic patterns of emission of known chemical elements toward light waves of longer length were (and still are) interpreted as being mostly Doppler shifts due to receding motion.
Distant objects appear to be receding faster than closer objects. Edwin Hubble had observed that these redshifts are proportional to the estimated distance to the object suggesting that the farther away in space an object is, the proportionately faster is its velocity (V) of recession:
where D is the distance away and H0 is called Hubble’s constant, estimated to be 72 km/sec for each Megaparsec (Mpc) distance from earth. One Mpc is about 3,262,000 light-years.
However, this implies that the universe exploded, the fastest objects getting farther away, and that the explosion occurred at a time T = Distance/Velocity = D / (H0 * D) = 1/ H0, which is a mere 13.6 billion years ago,[6] no more than three times the estimated age of the Earth.
Thus, the observed recession velocity increase with distance, when run backwards implies that 13.6 billion years ago the velocity of expansion was zero and the distance D was also zero. According to the initial BB theory, the whole universe of matter exploded into existence 13.6 billion years ago from an undefined “point.”
Estimates of H0 have been quite imprecise due to the imprecision of the distance measurements using Cepheid variable stars whose inherent brightness and period are known.[7] Although the 4 degree Kelvin background radiation is claimed as strong support for the theory, the BB theory is based almost entirely on the interpretation of large redshifts seen in the characteristic wavelength patterns of various elements.[8] According to a later (1980s) adjustment to this theory, not just matter, but space too, had to explode instantly into existence at that time because how else could matter so quickly get so far apart in space that it took 13.6 billion years for the light to get back to earth? It would take twice as much time to get there and back.
Expansion of space, not just expansion of matter in space, was added to the BB theory to account for how objects could immediately get 13.6 light years away so that the light was just now getting back to us? It would take more like double that time unless … space itself expanded (exploded) during that same period of time.
Already had Einstein conceived of space as being warped by massive objects thus causing nearby objects to fall toward it. So to answer this embarrassing question, the extra computational freedom of space expansion was used to fit the BB theory to the data.
¶ Redshift Interpretations
Many alternative conjectures have been offered to interpret the huge redshifts in some other way apart from receding motion. None have been convincing.
The present relationship of your sun and its associated planets, while disclosing many relative and absolute motions in space, tends to convey the impression to astronomic observers that you are comparatively stationary in space, and that the surrounding starry clusters and streams are engaged in outward flight at ever-increasing velocities as your calculations proceed outward in space. But such is not the case. You fail to recognize the present outward and uniform expansion of the physical creations of all pervaded space. Your own local creation (Nebadon) participates in this movement of universal outward expansion. The entire seven superuniverses participate in the two-billion-year cycles of space respiration along with the outer regions of the master universe. [UB 12:4.12]
¶ A Hypothesis for non-Doppler Redshifts
It turns out that even a single photon carries a frequency (color) f, which is proportional to its energy. This suggests to me that a single photon has sub-particles that can carry specific frequencies. Therefore, the photon would have one or more implied wavelengths L = c/f, where c is light speed.
If these sub-particles were to slow down in their intraphoton orbits (say due to inter-galactic travel), then the photon’s frequencies would decrease and its wavelengths would increase even while the photon nucleus itself might not slow down much or at all. That might partially account for how huge redshifts do not necessarily imply huge recessional velocities.
This brings us to “dark matter.”
¶ Redshifts that Imply Dark Matter
With the advent of better spectroscopy it became possible to measure the wavelength (or frequency) shift in characteristic patterns between opposite ends of whirling outer space galaxies seen more or less on end. The speed of rotation of a galaxy can be determined from the difference in wavelength patterns of the galaxy’s outer edge moving toward the observer (Earth) versus the edge moving away from the observer.
It was quite unexpected by contemporary astronomers when the rotation speed was found to be so fast that the observed luminous bodies were not nearly numerous enough or massive enough to hold the galaxies together! They should be flying apart unless there is some non-luminous (that is, dark) matter that is holding these luminous stars together. The reason for postulating dark matter distributed throughout the cosmos, initially estimated to be over 90% of the total, is to explain how galaxies with such rapid spin are not flying apart.
The existence of the implied “dark matter” preventing the rapidly spinning galaxies of luminous stars from flying apart suggests that there is a very powerful force of coherence at work in the universe, holding together the cosmos both microscopically and as a whole.
By postulating a Center of the Universe, including dark gravity bodies near that Center, it is possible to imagine matter held together by strong attractive nuclear forces balanced by rapid rotation and spin. Dark matter would exist at the center as a strong central attractive force balancing circular motion and giving rise to tremendous angular kinetic energies— nuclear energies.
This rapidly spinning matter circles Paradise, the fulcrum of INFINITY, which configures this moving energy in space primarily by virtue of central (Paradise) gravity attraction, and secondarily by the well-known much weaker secondary “linear” gravity of the mutual attraction between particles of mass. Therefore the so-called “god particles” responsible for mass, is the single Body called Paradise. Paradise imparts mass instantaneously by central attraction balanced by axial spin and orbital rotation.
¶ Dark Energy
Just when the proponents of the BB thought that the matter of universe expansion of matter and space was under control, the expansion was measured to be accelerating! How could that be in an explosion? It was time for another ad hoc assumption. There must be “dark energy” accelerating the space expansion.
In the face of such recidivist theoretic development, The Urantia Book’s 1955 description of “space respiration,” twobillion year expansion and contraction cycles of space and the matter in it including the additional specific information that we are presently in a maximum acceleration phase of expansion is a very impressive prediction of science about to be discovered.
The cycles of space respiration extend in each phase for a little more than one billion Urantia years. During one phase the universes expand; during the next they contract. Pervaded space is now approaching the mid-point of the expanding phase. [UB 11:6.4]
Unlike the meandering BB theory, periodic “space respiration” is completely consistent with what has been observed in the decades since The Urantia Book was published in 1955, including even the phase of the respiration cycle— approaching the midpoint of the expansion phase, which is the phase of accelerating expansion before expansion begins to slow down (decelerate).
Dark matter and dark energy are both due to the presence of Paradise gravity and the now revealed mysterious central dark gravity bodies surrounding Paradise that also act as an invisibility cloak neither absorbing nor reflecting light, but rather bending incoming light around the central region (an infinite singularity) making it invisible even to nearby universes. There is also much ordinary dark matter present in space acting as a balance wheel to stabilize surrounding bodies.
The recently observed orbiting of huge clusters of galaxies around something[9] is the first experimental indication of the existence of some great macroscopic gravitational field holding the universes together.
¶ Quantum Mechanics and “Spooky Action at a Distance”
Einstein could not fathom energy influence propagated at faster than light speed, referring to it as “spooky action at a distance.” Isaac Newton’s very successful theory of gravitation included the instantaneous attraction of two bodies with a force inversely proportional to the square of their distance (and proportional to the product of their masses). In his theory of general relativity Einstein did away with such instantaneous ‘action at a distance’ by assuming that massive bodies warp space, thereby producing an energy trough around the body. For Einstein, influences can be propagated through space no faster than the speed of light.
However, the Universe did not agree. Experiments in quantum mechanics and the interpretive work of mathematician John Bell[10] showed that if a particle, initially having zero net spin, is split into two particles moving apart, and if they are later measured at the same time but at two distant places, then measurements on the two particles somehow influence one another at faster-than-light speeds. In particular, random measurements of spin direction (+ or -) of the two separated particles along three different spin axes show that when the same spin axis is measured on both particles, the directions of spin are always opposite each other. When the randomly measured axes are not the same, the spin directions are found to match each other half the time.
John Bell proved that these correlations and probabilities are inconsistent unless there is some “non-local” influence operating at faster than light speed between the separated particles being measured. This phenomenon has been called “quantum entanglement.” The particles seem to be entangled even though widely separated in space. Spooky? Not really.
By experimental observation our scientists have concluded that even light consists of particles of energy called quanta. Since these quanta are always spinning and moving rapidly in orbits they give rise to associated guiding waves[11] in the pre-mass force-energy field of open (but not empty) space.
Space is not an absolute, but it is “absolutely ultimate,” a transcendental reality eternally originating in nether Paradise. Distances in space are not absolute separations because the universe is firstly a unified Whole and secondly, a division of that Whole into parts including different regions in space. Therefore, events can instantaneously affect other events at distant places.
Human beings are only just beginning to realize that the reactions of existence appear between acts and their consequences. [UB 86:2.3]
The universe always reacts between an act and its consequences. This is always true only if the universe reaction to any act is instantaneous with the act. Otherwise, some acts would cause immediate local results before a delayed universe reaction could happen.
It is wrong to think of space as an absolute separation between places. According to Einstein’s theory (and confirmed by experiments) the mass and energy of an object increases without bound (to the point of de-individuation) as that object is accelerated toward light speed. Since electromagnetism worked at light speed, Einstein asserted that influences between different places in space could not be propagated at faster than light speed. He did not consider the possibility of pre-mass energy waves in space rapidly affecting the movements through space of quantum particles. That seems to be exactly what happens.[12]
Thinking of space as an absolute separation led Einstein to discard what he said was “spooky action at a distance,” and so he could not believe in the long distance influence of quantum measurements now considered proved by John Bell’s Theorem on distant quantum correlations.
¶ Scientific Dogmatism and the Standard Model of Quantum Mechanics
The now standard interpretation of quantum mechanical measurements, if one is offered, is that particles are also waves infinitely extended in space and that they can influence each other at speeds faster than light can transmit an influence between them. Supposedly, these wave-particles can instantly collapse to a single position when measured.
This “standard model” of quantum mechanics identifies a particle with its associated wave, combining them together into a “wavicle” that supposedly has infinite extension but which, if measured, will collapse instantaneously to the position of the measurement. Its proponents seriously defend this bizarre scenario while they declare irrelevant any other interpretation that predicts similar or equivalent experimental results but which maintains the local nature of the particle.
The locally realistic alternative theory (de Broglie-Bohm) attributes internal energy and momentum to internal rotation (spin) but attributes the associated waves to the motioninduced mechanical reactions of fields of force that pervade open space. In this alternative theory, waves of pre-mass energy travel much faster than the speed of light and can influence subsequent particle positions and trajectories. There is no need for fanciful images of instantaneous collapse of the particle. A faster-than-light collapse of an associated wave in the pre-mass force field of open space will explain the same quantum measurements while each particle of mass can be thought of as having an actual position and velocity at any given time even if we cannot measure it precisely.
Some people claim that such a theory is irrelevant because it predicts the same probabilistic results as the particlewave theory. These folks might have had similar criticisms of Copernicus and Galileo since in their time the motion of the planets could be accurately predicted from an earthcentered frame of reference, and so why would anyone want or need to imagine a sun-centered system?
The “standard interpretation” is an admitted dead end to quantum knowledge, but the de Broglie-Bohm guiding wave interpretation points the way to sub-atomic structures and pre-mass energy waves.
Before numerical fractions for calculating became popular no doubt many people claimed that there was no need for them since all calculations with fractions reduce to integer arithmetic. Nowadays that position is laughable.
If we take the Universe as firstly a unified and infinite Whole, then qualifications of this Whole, including space separations, are always related to one another through their being qualifications of the one Whole. ‘In God (the infinite Whole) all things consist and have their being’. Let’s further consider the idea of the Infinite Whole utilizing The Urantia Book as a guide.
¶ Unity, Division and Aggregation
The unity of Total Reality cannot be “understood” because any concept of Total Reality utilizes distinctions (divisions of Total Reality) that are more or less erroneous. They are intellectual scaffoldings that to one degree or another always falsify the object of observation. For example, eternal events don’t really have a “first” transaction. That would make them finite. Time sequenced eternal events are meant to connote simultaneous logical consequences.
Whatever the inherent unity of the totality of reality, human attempts at representing that unity must postulate a pre-existent and absolute division thereof—mental distinctions with which to frame information. A complete division of Reality Totality includes spiritual, mental, physical, and personal aspects. Mind is an interface between the more or less purely physical plane and the mental-spiritual plane.
¶ Absolute Oneness and the Qualification of Oneness on Absolute Levels— INFINITY & the INFINITUDE
The totality of reality (I AM) refers to all that ever existed, exists now, or ever will exist in the future, both potential and actual. The unity of this totality of reality, this Universal Absolute, is partially acknowledged by contemporary science, which assumes that supposedly separated parts of the universe in time and space are governed by the same physical laws.
¶ The Absolutes
INFINITY (I AM) can be divided into seven Absolutes, three personal (Father, Son and Spirit) and three impersonal (The Unqualified Absolute, Deity Absolute, and The Universal Absolute) plus Paradise, which is both personal and impersonal, having both an upper (personal) side and lower (nether) side.
As a time-space creature would view the origin and differentiation of Reality, the eternal and infinite I AM achieved Deity liberation from the fetters of unqualified infinity through the exercise of inherent and eternal free will, and this divorcement from unqualified infinity produced the first absolute divinity-tension. This tension of infinity differential is resolved by the Universal Absolute, which functions to unify and co-ordinate the dynamic infinity of Total Deity and the static infinity of the Unqualified Absolute. [UB 0:3.21]
In this original transaction the theoretical I AM achieved the realization of personality by becoming the Eternal Father of the Original Son simultaneously with becoming the Eternal Source of the Isle of Paradise. Coexistent with the differentiation of the Son from the Father, and in the presence of Paradise, there appeared the person of the Infinite Spirit and the central universe of Havona. With the appearance of coexistent personal Deity, the Eternal Son and the Infinite Spirit, the Father escaped, as a personality, from otherwise inevitable diffusion throughout the potential of Total Deity. Thenceforth it is only in Trinity association with his two Deity equals that the Father fills all Deity potential, while increasingly experiential Deity is being actualized on the divinity levels of Supremacy, Ultimacy, and Absoluteness. [UB 0:3.22]
INFINITY manifests in eternal “tensions” between the Absolutes. The all-pervading Unqualified Absolute, which is responsible for the pre-mass potency of space, appropriately releases force-energy into space in response to the presence of special minded beings that can organize it. (It has been revealed that the sub-atomic world has an extensive intelligent development by special beings designed for this role.)
Force, energy, is the one thing which stands as an everlasting monument demonstrating and proving the existence and presence of the Universal Absolute. [UB 42:0.1]
Although encircuited in nether Paradise, this pre-mass force-energy is at first not responsive to Paradise “circular” gravity except macroscopically. After two transcendental stages of development handled by Transcendental Force Organizers of Paradise, the force-energies emerge as minute spherical ultimatons, the first measurable masses. Free ultimatons respond to Paradise gravity but not linear, masstomass gravity. Further intelligent physical manipulation by Force Controllers and similar beings fabricate electrons and protons out of ultimatons until linear gravity attraction of aggregate atomic masses occurs, at which point they pass on control to lower order power control beings.
Physical stability associated with biologic elasticity is present in nature only because of the well-nigh infinite wisdom possessed by the Master Architects of creation. Nothing less than transcendental wisdom could ever design units of matter which are at the same time so stable and so efficiently flexible. [UB 42:9.5]
The resulting stability of this lower world sets the stage for intelligent life high and low to choose and act upon this stable pre-existent atomic and molecular matter for the benefit of “self” and other selves.
¶ The Genesis of Mass
Time cannot slow the influence of distant quantum events. Therefore something else exists beyond even spacetime. It is those Absolutes again. The under (or nether) side of Paradise eternally originates all space while the Unqualified Absolute (UQA) focused in nether Paradise, pervades all space.
Pre-mass force-energy comes from the UQA pervading space in response to the presence of certain beings called Primary Transcendental Force Organizers. They organize energy macroscopically as it en masse becomes gravity-attracted to Paradise at the macroscopic center of the cosmos. They impart initial transcendental macroscopic rotations to the energy universe (producing galactic rotations.) Since they are transcendental there was never a finite “time” when these rotations began. They are eternal events whose scope includes all finite beginnings and all finite endings of temporal events.
These Beings are followed (in eternity) by certain Secondary Transcendental Force Organizers who organize these still pre-mass rapidly moving energies as they become individuated into particles centering on focal locations where Paradise gravity is present in space. It is this strong force of Paradise gravity that holds each ultimate unit of mass together as an individuated particle of spinning space force-energy. [Here also is “dark matter and dark energy” hold ing the galaxies together and controlling space expansion and contraction.]
This is the transcendental origin of inherent orbital rotation and inherent spin of all matter. One seventh of the Grand Universe is devoted to force organizing beings that actively operate in the sub-atomic and sub-electronic domain, a domain that Urantia scientists are just now beginning to explore.
100 Concentric Ultimatons Form an Electron
It is on top of their stabilizing work in the sub-atomic micro world that atomic and molecular universes are founded, allowing creature and higher life to operate on matter with mental energy and even choose to act. Those looking for a “graviton” particle to convey mass between bodies are in the dark about this micro-world and the source of gravity.
¶ Finite and Infinite
INFINITY evidently includes the possibility of finite things and beings since we finite beings exist and still can recognize and approach INFINITY in various ways. INFINITY must impinge on the finite realm in some noticeable ways. It cannot be completely absent. Where could INFINITY be located (hidden) with respect to space? And how is INFINITY related to mind and to motion?
INFINITY must be in some way insulated from finite things and beings lest they be “dazzled by brightness,” so to speak, and thereby rendered unable to “see.” What do we see from our world that looks like insulation from the brilliant light of INFINITY?
For instance, notice that there is no largest whole number. If any given candidate for being the “largest whole number” is offered, then that number plus 1 is a still larger candidate. Therefore there is no largest whole number. The “number” or more properly the cardinality of the set of all whole numbers is not finite. It is infinite. Therefore, Infinity can be approached from within the mind in the number concept.
Nor is there a greatest distance on a Euclidean number line since it stretches out without ends. No matter how far out on the line in either direction we look there is always more line. There is no finite length for the line. Its length is infinite. This is also true, of course, in the other two spatial dimensions, but not so of time. Time comes from motion, and motions in and of space are periodic—finite.
¶ Ubiquitous INFINITY
INFINITY is also potentially present between the points on the Euclidean line. Between any two different points there are an infinite number of intermediate points. And there are many other ways that INFINITY is sometimes apparent from inside the finite world in which our perceptions live.
The concept of space would seem to be maximal on the material level since all matter is in space and includes space. With respect to the totality of space, INFINITY can be located at infinite distances beyond space.
The “surface at INFINITY” includes the limiting “surface” of the three Euclidean dimensions at infinite distances in all directions. This adjoined surface holds INFINITY. It is a topological neighborhood of INFINITY. In this topology INFINITY is within this peripheral “Surface at INFINITY.”
With respect to both the outside (at infinite distances in all directions) and with respect to the inside (potentially infinite orders of smallness within) each material particle is a “neighborhood of Infinity.”
Furthermore, utilizing the notion of the finite as a qualification of the INFINITE, we can conceive of each material particle as a configuration of spinning force-energy (initial mass) about a nuclear center. A focal, primary gravity presence of INFINITY holds the particle of mass together as it rapidly spins in space. Particles held together by the postulated central (circular) gravity also attract each other by the familiar but very much weaker (linear) gravity. Here again, INFINITY must have some presence or location apart from potential INFINITY at infinite distances. There is also a macro center at “the focus of space.”
We are advised that it is helpful to think of the Cosmos as an almost infinite ellipse with one Absolute Focus ever reaching for that other absolute Focus beyond space-time in the potential infinity of the Unqualifiedly Absolute.
TO EVEN high orders of universe intelligences infinity is only partially comprehensible, and the finality of reality is only relatively understandable. The human mind, as it seeks to penetrate the eternity-mystery of the origin and destiny of all that is called real, may helpfully approach the problem by conceiving eternity-infinity as an almost limitless ellipse which is produced by one absolute cause, and which functions throughout this universal circle of endless diversification, ever seeking some absolute and infinite potential of destiny. [UB 105:0.1]
Macroscopically, INFINITY must be present at the geographic center of (linear) gravity. There is always a geographic center of linear gravity attraction for any finite collection of particles. Consider the center of gravity of all the masses in the universe. Discounting the addition or subtraction of mass in the universe this center of linear gravity will have a fixed location with respect to all motion in space, and possibly of space.
This Center of Gravity around which the entire aggregation can move, need not itself be in space. For instance, the center of gravity of a donut is in the hole, not the dough. Similarly, there is a focal hole in the interior space of each particle, and now we conclude there is also a single focal hole at the center of mass of all particles taken together. Finite things are insulated from INFINITY by transcendental space-time.
INFINITY is shrouded in the interior of each particle and at the center of mass of all particles as they spin and orbit in energy circuits and material configurations. It is mathematically reasonable to co-locate all of these impingements of INFINITY on our finite viewpoints as “toward the center of INFINITY,” however from different directions. Distant locations in space are no barrier to coordinated configuration by INFINITY.
The postulated “God particle” permeating space and attaching mass to other particles is the Universal Body, Paradise, at the core of each and all masses.
¶ Paradise, the Absolute Pattern of all energy configurations and motions in, and of space
While INFINITY can exert force from the center on each and all things, balanced by spin and orbital motion, the evident quantum configurations imposed on energy must arise from still another aspect of INFINITY responsible for configuring (structuring) the energy and dynamics of motion.
For example, the highest energy state of a hydrogen proton-electron pair is with the electron infinitely far from its position in space near its associated proton; the lowest energy state maintains the electron at a minimum distance from the proton by some unknown provision. This balance of electronic charge attraction and motion in the form of quantized configurations is a reflection of an inherent pattern to energy motions and attractions in physical reality.
It therefore seems appropriate to postulate an intervening fulcrum between INFINITY and finite space, a surface at INFINITY enclosing INFINITY. The fixed patterns enclosed by this surface are responsible for maintaining the energy configurations and balanced quantum interactions and transformations of shadowy moving finite material bodies. Our friends the Midwayers ask? “How long before you will regard time as the moving image of eternity and space as the fleeting shadow of Paradise realities?”
Mankind is slow to perceive that, in all that is personal, matter is the skeleton of morontia, and that both are the reflected shadow of enduring spirit reality. How long before you will regard time as the moving image of eternity and space as the fleeting shadow of Paradise realities? [UB 189:1.3]
¶ Time and Eternity, Space and Infinity
While space may be a fleeting shadow of circularly simultaneous eternal events in Paradise (ala Plato), and while time may be a moving reflected image in space of events projected from eternity, nevertheless, from the finite point of view, time is measured by relative periodic motions—so many of these motions per one of those motions.
Distances between two positions in space are measured (somewhat circularly) as the time of light motion between them. This gets tricky when those positions are moving material bodies. However, the speed of light provides an invariant constant independent of relative motions of emitters and receivers.
Therefore light establishes absolute distances between positions with respect to Paradise. Absolute distances logically exist before space eternally exists. Otherwise space could not “move.”
Cyclic motions in, and of, space give rise to relative time—so many of these cycles per one of those events. But time is a finite approximation of the absolute of time— Eternity, which has no beginning or ending.
“Times” are fragments of the wholeness of eternal events projected in space as moving images of our perception.
The circular nature of matter in space depicts the present finite nature of the cosmos while allowing for a potentially infinite spatial universe in the eternal future.
¶ Motion
Motion is defined only with respect to something that is regarded as fixed. Einstein felt that there should be no special fixed frame of reference in terms of which other distances and motions could be measured. But the solution of his field equations did not require this additional assumption as demonstrated by mathematical logician K. Gödel.
Scientists first made the mistake of imagining an earthcentered model of the sun, moon, and other planets, but later recognized the importance of the sun’s central position. Similarly, as we discard our geocentric prejudice concerning motion and gravity, we should find a worthy replacement, not imagine a completely non-centrist universe, one without a central mass, without a fixed frame of reference as Einstein’s Special Relativity presumes.
That is like trying to imagine the earth, sun, and planets without a central body to hold the system together. Contemporary scientists recognize that the stars are, after all, not randomly distributed (as Einstein initially thought) but are generally organized in very rapidly spinning galaxies with dense centers. Beyond the Milky Way, our local group of galaxies, huge voids exist between “walls” of outer space galaxies.
¶ The Physical Plane of the Universe
As envisioned here the elliptical motions of matter (mass) are basically flat due to their rapid internal spinning and rapid external orbits. This is observed in the solar system and the myriads of flat spinning galaxies of stars. The view of the Infinite Universe from within finite space can be envisioned as an almost infinite ellipse having one fixed, non-spatial focus of actual INFINITY located at the macro center of all matter and a second absolute focus in the infinite reaches beyond outer space wherein lies potential INFINITY, the Unqualified Absolute, focused in nether Paradise.
¶ Absolute Directions and Distances
Since all matter ultimately orbits and spins about the large fixed ellipsoidal surface at INFINITY, absolute directions of East, West, North, South, Up, and Down, and distances from this macro center are possible to define. Cylindrical coordinates seem particularly appropriate having an angle for horizontal direction, a horizontal radial distance R and vertical height or depth Z to identify the position of any point in space relative to the fixed center.
¶ A Theory of Spaces and Motions
The cycles of space motion can be considered periodic, with all spaces eventually returning to their former positions with respect to nether Paradise.
All units of cosmic energy are in primary revolution, are engaged in the execution of their mission, while swinging around the universal orbit. The universes of space and their component systems and worlds are all revolving spheres, moving along the endless circuits of the master universe space levels. Absolutely nothing is stationary in the entire master universe except the very center of Havona, the eternal Isle of Paradise, the center of gravity. [UB 12:4.1]
If all units of cosmic energy have primary revolution while also swinging around the universal orbit, then all such units of energy have three essential components: 1) something spinning and also orbiting, 2) a nucleus around which something spins and orbits, and 3) space containing the spinning and orbiting motion. The space within a moving body is a property of the body and moves with it. This implies that the notion of a “single energy unit,” a particle, is not really an individual whole! It must already have the three essential components listed above. The ultimate units have the same interior nucleus and exterior orbital center. In two different motions, they both spin and orbit Paradise. Truly, in God, who is Spirit, all things consist and have their being.
¶ The Shape of Ultimate Units of Mass-Energy
If we take a particle to be localized at a specific position in space, but insist it be more than a mere position in space, rather be something extended in space, then we must imagine the geometric shape of an ultimate or prime unit of mass-energy that cannot be further divided into smaller units of mass. What could be the shape of the surface of such a unit?
From an energy point of view we can envision a spinning toroidal-shaped “space-energy” ring around the Paradise gravity nucleus thereby constituting it a unit of mass-energy of definite size (outer and inner distance from the nucleus) and spin velocity. Such a ring of spinning mass can have a velocity orbiting through space and a spin angular velocity about an axis. Aggregations of such spinning rings can move as a whole with a global velocity and also have a moment of inertia tensor and an angular momentum vector due to concentric spinning on different (possibly moving) axes and at various distances making up a composite spherical particle. This, together with pre-mass energy waves, is enough to embody the de Broglie-Bohm version of quantum mechanics.[13]
Notice that each unit of mass has relatively non-moving space within it in order to spin about the nucleus. This non-moving space is a property of the spinning particle as it impinges on the huge non-moving nuclear surface P of Paradise, which maintains its fixed location in the nucleus even as the body moves through space!
This question of the motion of the interior space when a particle moves through space suggests the need for a more careful examination of how the interior space of matter can move with it through space while somehow having a fixed nucleus.
It may help to an understanding of space relationships if you would conjecture that, relatively speaking, space is after all a property of all material bodies. Hence, when a body moves through space, it also takes all its properties with it, even the space which is in and of such a moving body. [UB 118:3.6]
¶ Gravity presence
Paradise §, the fulcrum of INFINITY, can be gravity present at the nucleus of any moving space body because the potential locations of INFINITY from space constitute a dense set of non-spatial locations pervading space.
For example, the set of all fractions (n/d) on the real number line is a dense set with respect to the number line. That is, for any given number (including irrational, non-repeating decimal numbers like √2 or π) there is an infinite sequence of fractions approaching it. There is also an infinite sequence of irrational numbers approaching any given fraction.
Since matter, energy, and matter-energy transformations are finite and come only in discrete quantum multiples, it is reasonable to assume that the measurable universe, including space, can be represented by a finite geometric configuration with fractional distances and quantum energy and mass values. That allows for a dense set of non-spatial locations from which INFINITY can influence space and its content. This dense set of nearby locations not in space, but roughly “above” space, is nether Paradise.
Since P is not in space it need not move and can serve as a fixed location from which to measure absolute directions, distances, and motions. The macro- and microscopic location of the surface P is the limiting surface of the all relatively non-moving spaces within or enveloping all matter. Thus the surface at P includes the hypothetical adjoined fixed surface at infinite distances plus the limiting surface of any converging-to-motionlessness sequence of relatively non-moving spaces within or between the theoretical, rapidly spinning, smallest (quantum) particles that have been called ultimatons.
¶ A Fixed Source of Light
Understanding the way that space and motion behave must key on the fact of the constancy of the speed of light relative to moving reference frames or emitters. By locating the source of all light emanations as coming from a fixed nuclear location, light would naturally not carry the motion of its emitters or receivers.
Following this image of light propagated into space from an immense fixed location dense in space but not moving in space, matter acts like a moving shade here and there letting light pass or reflecting it or capturing it temporarily until releasing it again perhaps in a different direction. Topologically, this simply requires that the surface P be potentially dense with respect to space thereby allowing a moving emitter of light to “open a moving window” to the nuclear source of light “just within” or “above” the space of the shadowy emitting body.
Only by ubiquity could Deity unify time-space manifestations to the finite conception, for time is a succession of instants while space is a system of associated points. You do, after all, perceive time by analysis and space by synthesis. You co-ordinate and associate these two dissimilar conceptions by the integrating insight of personality. Of all the animal world only man possesses this time-space perceptibility. To an animal, motion has a meaning, but motion exhibits value only to a creature of personality status. [UB 118:3.1]
¶ Mathematical Versus Volitional Reality— Choice in the Cosmos
The phenomenon of choice[14] in the cosmos is a profound embarrassment for scientists and philosophers with completely mechanistic theories of our cosmos. Such scientists and philosophers claim there is no need for a scientific postulate that is not completely material. They deny any need for a non-material plane in the cosmos. They hold that choice is a myth.
Could everything be determined by the antecedent causation of the material energy universe? These mechanistic scientists and philosophers are being taken seriously when they postulate that there is no real choice in the universe, just mechanical interactions determined by antecedent causation. In this world individual responsibility is replaced by training. Choice in the present moment is impossible for a mechanist who believes that every physical manifestation including those in your brain has a physical cause and there is no choice about it. In this view, a mind is a creation of a material brain (that can only imagine that it is more than that.)
For these people the existence of choice in the cosmos is a philosophical inconvenience. Choice in the cosmos implies not everything is predetermined by antecedent physical causation. Why not, I ask them, assume the self-evident common experience of personal choice in the cosmos just as we accept a geometric axiom? Of course, choice implies the mechanism is not alone in the cosmos.
¶ Whence Choice
The existence of choice (ability to express the desire of the subjective self objectively) requires something more than matter completely subject to past causes. The mathematical and the volitional can be distinguished.
Early man did not differentiate between the energy level and the spirit level. It was the violet race and their Andite successors who first attempted to divorce the mathematical from the volitional. Increasingly has civilized man followed in the footsteps of the earliest Greeks and the Sumerians who distinguished between the inanimate and the animate. And as civilization progresses, philosophy will have to bridge ever-widening gulfs between the spirit concept and the energy concept. But in the time of space these divergencies are at one in the Supreme. [UB 103:6.10]
In so far as motion is mechanical, without choice, completely determined by antecedent causation, it can be considered to have already occurred in the universal event space of time, from the infinite past to the infinite future. This eternal time line will correspond to an infinite cycle of revolutions of some standard orbiting body in space thereby establishing a standard but arbitrary time period of space.
However, when the phenomenon of the consciousness of personal choice in the cosmos is included in the model of the universe, then we must include a way for the flow of events (otherwise completely determined by past events) to be influenced by a “choice” in the present moment that results in an altered flow of events from that “moment” into the future. A choice, by definition, inserts an optional cause into the stream of events, changing it.
How can a person be capable of this? How must the universe be constructed to allow this? There must be a higher plane of some sort from which the mind of the person can create a mental-physical decision-lever by which the human mind-body can transfer the inward choice of the person into the outward movements of brain and body.
This is not so hard to believe since both scientists and religionists are persons with private lives conscious of making personal choices. Choice implies the ability to change the future. Since a personal mind can perceive millions or more years into the past and similarly project into the future, choices can span such long periods of time even while the decision is tied to a single short period of time when it is made. How, in principle, can this occur in the universe?
“Will is that manifestation of the human mind which enables the subjective consciousness to express itself objectively and to experience the phenomenon of aspiring to be Godlike.”—Jesus [UB 130:2.10]
If some non-material aspect of mind can add even a small amount of energy to space, then it can in theory independently affect some energy flow, or complete some circuit. Equivalently, mind could have some amount of anti-gravity spirit power to affect brain matter and so the objective world. The non-material aspect, or plane, from which mind gets power over matter can be called spirit.
However this word must be qualified because it has been revealed that there are inter-weaved forms of spirit and matter amounting to an intermediate stage of reality connecting the material and spiritual planes. This spirit-matter that is invisible to us has been called “morontia”, connoting a body with more substance.
The complete, most real substance of the body must be located in the nucleus, in fixed (nether) Paradise. In this way The Urantia Book avoids dualism, since there is just one eternal substance of the Body (Paradise) but many copies, moving images (shadowy moving space bodies) of it.
Mind transmutes the values of spirit into the meanings of intellect; volition has power to bring the meanings of mind to fruit in both the material and spiritual domains. The Paradise ascent involves a relative and differential growth in spirit, mind, and energy. The personality is the unifier of these components of experiential individuality. [UB 9:4.6]
¶ Spirit-Matter Interface
This then is a primary interface between spirit reality and material reality, an interface every person experiences, the spiritual realm of volition—choice. Much has been written about the moral standards of this spiritual realm, but here I just want to help establish an energy way for choice to exist. It is enough here and now to identify and describe this important philosophical and cosmological “choice connection” between the recognized spiritual realm and the recognized material realm.
¶ Mind – the Spirit-Matt er Interface of Choice
Choice in the cosmos requires the postulate that there is something else, call it “life,” along with matter endowing it with “selfhood” options with respect to matter. But the energy to move the matter in a personal choice must come from some place outside of the prior, strictly mechanical, energy relationships, including any in the physical brain or body that is assumed to be determined by antecedent causation. Were this postulated energy included already in the system, then by the conservation of energy-matter there would be no way to alter its predetermined course or that of the rest of the system.
Whence this energy to choose? There must be some realm of energy available to choosing beings that is not completely determined ahead of time. This realm and ability to choose must have been in the cosmos eternally, since were it ever missing, it could not subsequently pop into existence (“emerge”) from the mechanism uncaused.
The ability of living selves to presently choose according to subjective values and change the objective world must be postulated as an original feature of the cosmos, a self-evident assumption of mind. “I know that I can choose and act.”
The unpredictability found in the performances of individual subatomic particles is an indication of human ignorance of this complex and intelligently managed “underworld,” not a way to explain choice in the cosmos. The aggregate affect of all these particles and sub-particles is indeed quite predictable, and it is upon that very predictable aggregate behavior of atomic particles that human electrochemical life, and finite choice is built.
¶ Endnote
The Urantia Book qualifies its immensely valuable revelation of cosmology as follows:
Truth may be but relatively inspired, even though revelation is invariably a spiritual phenomenon. While statements with reference to cosmology are never inspired, such revelations are of immense value in that they at least transiently clarify knowledge by:
The reduction of confusion by the authoritative elimination of error.
The co-ordination of known or about-to-be-known facts and observations.
The restoration of important bits of lost knowledge concerning epochal transactions in the distant past.
The supplying of information which will fill in vital missing gaps in otherwise earned knowledge.
Presenting cosmic data in such a manner as to illuminate the spiritual teachings > contained in the accompanying revelation. [UB 101:4.5-10]
Since there is so much in need of fundamental revision in human cosmology, recognition by most contemporary scientists will have to wait for some tipping point event that makes it quite impossible for science to further ignore the need for a new paradigm—a fixed geographic center of Infinity in the cosmos. Then will the “immense value” of the cosmology in The Urantia Book be recognized and its limitations important to recall. This will overthrow the Big Bang theory, Einstein’s absolute relativity of motion, and the wave-particle duality interpretation of quantum mechanics. Mechanistic scientists and philosophers might even have to include some “living choices” in the cosmos reflecting the existence of the First Chooser of Heaven—the God of Paradise, our spiritual Father.
Appendix 1. Computation of the Hubble Time T = 1/H0. The Hubble “constant” H0 is presently estimated to be about 72km/sec in additional recession speed for each additional million parsecs of distance. A parsec = 3.262 light years.
To 3 digit accuracy, there are 60 * 60 * 24 * 365.25 = 31,556,736 = 3.16*107 seconds in 1 year (yr).
Note also that 72 km/sec = 72 km/sec * (3.16*107 sec/yr) = (3.16*107) (72 km/yr). That is, an object going 72 km/sec is going (3.16*107) (72) km/yr.
Furthermore, 1 light year (LY) = (3.00*105 km/sec) (3.16*107 sec/yr) (1 yr) = (3.16*107)*(3.00*105) km.
Therefore:
H0= [72 km/sec] / 106 parsecs
= [(3.16 * 107) (72 km/yr)] / (106 parsecs)
= (3.16 * 107) (72 km/yr) / (106 * 3.262 light years)
= (3.16 * 107) (72 km/yr) / [106 * 3.262 * (3.16 * 107) * (3.00 * 105) km]
= (72 km/yr) / (106 * 3.262) * (3.00 * 105) km
= (72) / [(3.262) * (3.00) * 1011 yr]
Notice that the number of seconds in a year appeared in both the top and bottom of the fraction and so cancelled each. Therefore:
T = 1/H0 = [(3.262) * (3.00) * 1011 yr / 72] = 1.36 * 1010 yr = 13.6 billion years.
Dr. Philip Calabrese is an internationally recognized authority on the faithful representation, combination, and implications of uncertain conditional information. He is most recently a senior research analyst for the United States Navy, and was formerly a mathematics department faculty member at several California universities. He has also provided analysis and high fidelity computer simulations of various defense systems as a senior analyst/programmer for the Defense/Aerospace industry. His article “The Coming Scientific Validation of The Urantia Book” was published in The Fellowship Herald in the summer of 2006. A followup paper appeared in The Herald in 2007.
¶ References
- Article obtained from The Fellowship site
¶ Notes
The Urantia Book, URANTIA Foundation, 1955 . ↩︎
Although The Urantia Book’s scientific cosmology is not intended to be infallible or inspired, it does claim to be temporarily of “immense” scientific value in several ways so to better present it’s much longer lasting spiritual message. See Endnote. ↩︎
The Urantia Book, ENERGY—MIND AND MATTER: Paper 42, Sec 2, Para 1. denoted [UB 42:2.1] ↩︎
“An Example of a New Type of Cosmological Solutions of Einstein’s Field Equations of Gravitation”, Kurt Gödel, Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol. 21, Number 3, July 1949 . ↩︎
Using Cepheid variable stars to independently measure distances ↩︎
See Appendix 1 for computation of 1/H0 ↩︎
See “The Hubble Constant”, John P. Huchra, 2008, for a good review of the scattered estimates of H0 that vary over a full order of magnitude. https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~dfabricant/huchra/hubble/ ↩︎
However, the cosmic background radiation shows evidence of an up-down axis, called “evil” since its confirmation tends to destroy contemporary theories. http://arxiv.org/abs/0802.3229 ↩︎
Known as the “great attractor” http://www.world-science.net/exclusives/060419_attractorfrm.htm ↩︎
John S Bell, “On the problem of hidden variables in quantum mechanics” Rev. Modern Phys. 38 1966 447 –45 2. N. David Mermin, “Hidden variables and the two theorems of John Bell” Rev. Modern Phys. 65 (1993 ), no. 3, part 1, 803–815. ↩︎
Broglie-Bohm theory, the pilot-wave model, the causal interpretation of quantum mechanics http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-bohm/ ↩︎
David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order, 1980 ↩︎
Sheldon Goldstein, “Bohmian Mechanics”, Oct 2001; revised 19 May 2006. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-bohm/ ↩︎
The terms “choice” and “volition” are here used as synonyms in contrast to the mathematical level of reality that is logically determined and not a matter of choice. ↩︎