Big Bang: Real or Imagined?

 The talk about Time by Jim Al Khalili, a theoretical physicist, at the Humanity Convention in 2024 has set me into thinking in ways I had not anticipated. 

Physics has, until now, never been a subject that I have been able to understand A or B about, let alone its XYZs. For the first time I was actually understanding what the guy was saying in this talk. I had to listen to it carefully twice for a better understanding and insights into the subject.

My inherently Vedanta oriented mind was trying to connect both sides of the insights( what I already knew and what I had just understood from Al Khalili’s talk) and make sense out of it. Al Khalili had left no room for doubt at the end of his talk that he did not intend to carry any spiritual or religious angle to his research. Which is truly a fair thing to do in order to keep scientific research true to itself. 

At the same time, it must be pointed out that Al Khalili used the actual experience of music during his talk to elicit the point that a comprehensive experience is based on independent small experiences occurring in quick succession. A melody is perceived as such by a continuum of one note followed by another. Without the previous note, the next note has no relevance in the experience of the music. Now physics and its related research may have nothing to do with music itself. But the principles of music can be certainly used to understand principles of physics. I feel the same open mindedness towards the principles of spirituality or spiritual philosophy may help in a better understanding of both subjects. 

In his talk Al Khalili explained the view of Time from the angle of quantum mechanics, theory of relativity and thermodynamics theory. In this discussion the one thing that caught my attention most was the concept of entropy. How this entropy is in ever increasing as time moves in a direction from the present to the future. 

The point he made was pertaining to the direction of time. Based on the entropy or cause and effect concept time appears to move in a single direction. While other laws of physics tend to be symmetric with respect to time and space, time itself contradicts this principle of symmetry. 

Entropy is higher today than it was yesterday and will be predictably higher tomorrow than it is today. If we keep going backwards, theoretically it would be at its lowest just before the big bang. 

If it were to follow time symmetry like the other laws of physics, it would be the lowest today and higher on either side, meaning yesterday and tomorrow. But it is not so. 

As I listened to Al Khalili with full attention to every word he was saying and every concept he was explaining, suddenly my Vedanta mind flashed. What is so special about the present moment ? Why does entropy behave rather oddly here when compared to other laws of physics? 

In Vedanta , manifestation is real only in the present moment. The past and future are considered illusions compared to the present moment. A static or continuous creation never happened. Time, space, matter, consciousness all become one indivisible entity in the present moment. When you perceive divergence of time, space, matter, you have entered a sort of delusional phase with multiple entities instead of a single one. 

Theoretically stepping out of the state of a single indivisible consciousness into a state where you perceive objects and become an observer of those objects is what conceptually is the Big Bang. 

It is kind of a paradox to expect any physicist to allow the negation of matter as an object and consider it as an optical illusion so to say. If one takes that position, entropy becomes zero in the present moment. All laws of physics come into play outside of that center of the present moment. 

Within the present moment  time, space and matter have merged into one entity. Outside of that moment they exist separately. Within the present moment even the observer doesn’t remain as a separate entity. There is simply observation merged with time, space, matter, light everything one knows separately in the usual world of duality.

Just like Al Khalili was explaining in his talk with an example of two rockets passing by each other and observing simultaneous flashes of light. For one of the rockets they would appear simultaneously but for an observer moving in the opposite direction they would not appear simultaneous. The reality is different for each observer. 

This concept must be borne in mind when comparing the behavior of symmetry of time from the present moment model made synonymous with pre Big Bang moment and also synonymous with a state of Non Duality, Vs behavior of Time( asymmetrical ) from the point of an observer in the state of Duality. Understandably when Big Bang in the state of Duality becomes a thing of the past, entropy can only go in a single direction which is forward with respect to time. 

I wonder if Time becomes a single axis in this dual state and can be visualized as theoretically moving in as many directions as it possibly can from a neutral central point of the present moment? It can only be theoretical in that state because everything outside of that center point lies outside reality and by that definition is an illusion. 

I am not a physicist. But as a Vedantin, this concept makes perfect sense to my mind. 

Science and scientific discoveries, laws of physics and biology and chemistry etc still remain relevant in the context of duality.

Just like the various theories of philosophy such as dvaita, Vishishta advaita etc remain relevant in their respective contexts. 

Duality is not going anywhere except in the understanding of the ones who have understood both non duality and duality. Even for them just the perception of duality changes conceptually. A book doesn’t start appearing like a ball or water doesn’t appear like fire. Everything appears just the way it did before the concept was clarified. Life is still lived following the same ethical and commonplace rules 

Science is not refuted. Its context is understood in a different or better light. 

I don’t know. 

May be I’m crazy. And day dreaming. 

Another crazy idea that sprouted in my mind when I tried to understand the double slit experiment in quantum mechanics. Why particles behave differently when they are not observed vs observed? Is it that inherently duality is programmed to behave with ups and downs or negative and positive but the moment it aligns with its source which is by itself non dual consciousness it rectifies and the pairs of opposites disappear? 

Again, I don’t know the answer. It is just my mind trying to make sense out of it and comparing the behavior of the particles with the human mind. Aberrant behavior is natural to a human not aligned with spiritual/ethical/ moral principles. A human mind not heeding to conscience. But as soon as it recognizes that there is something watching it, the aberration begins to correct itself. Human mind cannot theoretically be different from other particles in the world of matter.

Just my musings. Who knows? What makes sense to me may be utterly nonsensical to someone else.