The Universe of Interactions

THE UNIVERSE

OF

INTERACTIONS

(A World View)

By John A. Economides

Smashwords Edition

Athens, Greece 2012

Copyright 2012 John A. Economides

(Ιωάννης Α. Οικονομίδης)

4 Herodotou, Athens 10675, Greece

Telephone +30 210 7245295

Email: info@theoryofcosmos.com

www.theoryofcosmos.com

An earlier printed version of this book was published in Greek as Η Θεωρία του Κόσμου (Theory of the Cosmos) (Athens 2010), and distributed by Apollon A.E.

For Maria-Stefania and Nafsika

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Introduction

II. The Origin of the Universe

Contraction and Expansion

Motion and Density Variation

Energy and Matter

Dimensions

Certainty and Uncertainty

Limitation and Definition

III. Particles and Interactions

Quarks and Gluons

Neutrons and Protons

Electrons and Atoms

Molecules and Compounds

Molecular Clouds

Gravity and Pressure

IV. Celestial Bodies

The Stars

Supernova Explosions and Black Holes

Planets and Other Bodies

The Solar System

The Earth

V. Life

Catalysis and Inorganic Compounds

Organic Compounds

Biological Functions

Unicellular Organisms

Multi-cellular Organisms

Sexual Reproduction

Plants

VI. Animals

The Neurological Condition of Animals

Animal Systems

Animal Evolution

Mammals

Primates

VII. Humankind

The First Hominids

Palaeolithic Hominids

Modern Man

The Mind

Cognition

VIII. The Neolithic Period

Agriculture and Ceramics

Economic Organisation and Exploitation

Political Organisation

Theoretical Organisation

IX. The Bronze Age

The Chalcolithic Period

Bronze Age Civilizations

An Overview of Civilization

X. The Iron Age

Money and Economics

Iron Age Civilizations

The Hellenic Breakthrough

The Rise of Rome

Philosophy and the Rise of Christianity

Iron Age India and China

Meso-American Civilizations

XI. The Middle Ages

The Byzantine Empire

The Middle Ages in the East

The Middle Ages in the West

XII. The Early Age of Steel

Technological Advances

The Renaissance

The Age of Discovery

XIII. The Industrial Period

Technological Innovations

Intellectual Movements

Industrial Mobilizations

XIV. The Age of Information

Key Technologies of the Information Age

Global Integration Movements

The Liberal Future

XV. Concluding Thoughts

About the Author

I.

Introduction

Every young child explores the universe. Children are eager to learn, first about themselves and then about how they fit into their surroundings. My own curiosity was driven by a sense that one day I would accomplish something special, even if I did not know what it would be or how I would achieve it.

In school, though all subjects engaged my curiosity, I was puzzled at the failure to present them in a comprehensive and systematic way that related the human condition to the world. The absence of this unity made my schooling at times confusing and frequently uninspiring. Reluctance to engage in subjects I (mistakenly) thought peripheral did not help my grades. Still, geography (space), history (time), physics, and mathematics led me to hope that one day I would understand the world better. Pursuing these subjects through reading, thinking, and writing essays was a first effort at making sense of knowledge in general – a pursuit that was certainly not part of the curriculum.

Law, the subject of my university studies, I found interesting as a regulating framework for society, but unenlightening on the broader questions of human organization. As my understanding of the world increased through social, business and professional interactions, my questions about it also increased. The acquisition of knowledge should be a thorough and comprehensive process, but the completeness and unity needed for comprehension were missing. Early on in my work, I realized that an integrated World View, founded in philosophy and science and encompassing and explaining natural and human forces, would be a new and important contribution to the future of mankind.

My ambitions when I set out on theoretical exploration were not as grand as mapping out the nature of the World or the human relation with it. Contemporary Greek politics and economics seemed a fine and manageable field for raising questions and seeking answers. So in April 2005 Ι started writing an essay on "The Importance of the Important." With this essay I hoped to raise public awareness of information and organization as a fundamental economic condition. I further hoped to inspire greater rationality in a political and economic system increasingly adrift in inefficiency and corruption.

While working on "The Importance of the Important," I realized that people evaluate importance according to the effect of what they consider as important. Effect is the product of change, and change is a relation, specifically a time relation between the previous/past state and subsequent/future state of a given thing, through the action of energy upon matter. Going back to first principles, I contemplated the definition of change as (time) relation, its association with energy, and the concept of interrelatedness. Everything that has effect, everything that changes and everything that moves is relational, I thought, and everything relational exists. Existence, hence, is relational and interactive.

The temporal (past/future) configuration of change was a useful analytical tool, but specifying what relation was and what was related to what, and how, had to start from somewhere. My intuitive compass kept pointing unwaveringly at the origins of the universe. Beginning at the origin of everything offered philosophical attractions like entirety and unity but also promised formidable intellectual difficulties. However hard I tried to pass up the temptation and prefer safety and convenience to risk and toil, ultimately I could not avoid running my account back to the very beginnings of the Cosmos.

In my review of the past it became evident that the Cosmos and humankind had been shaped by an interactive process of development. Generalizing from this interactive process, the past emerged as an epic journey of evolution, where every previous step was unfailingly correlated with every subsequent by the continuous transformation of interactions into organizations.

And thus, The Universe of Interactions evolved into a World View, a unified and comprehensive (global) system of knowledge that would explain as much as possible to as many as possible. This view is based on evolution, an unbroken thread connecting readers with the origins of the Universe. I decided to describe this evolution in thorough and sometimes innovative detail.

I begin my review of this epic journey of the Cosmos and of mankind with the Big Bang. According to prevailing theory, in the beginning the Universe was contained in one original gravitational singularity, and the universal material was in the form of energy. This energy drove a huge inflationary expansion, in which the Universe changed state from full energy to full matter. Inflationary expansion was succeeded by much slower marginal expansion, in which expansive energy states kept interchanging with contractive matter states, forming density variations (fluctuations). In the high density points of these variations developed particles. In the low density points of these variations developed interactions.

Interactions are sequences of actions and reactions. As each action causes a reaction (consequence) and vice versa, I observed that prior interactions induce subsequent ones, creating interchanges. Changes and interchanges have effects that create differences. Differences are comparable and relational between previous and subsequent states of things. Differences provide distinctions, which relationally develop into definitions. Recurring changes and their effects (differences) create patterns, which configure to information. Information is thus relational between previous and subsequent states of things. It refers to interchanges and interactions and develops into organization. Systematic association of temporal states develops into condition. Information, relation, organization and condition increase probability and predictability, in other words they reduce uncertainty and increase certainty over the course of time. Through information and organization, temporal association of events is consolidated into the past. In organised entities, relational information is stored, processed, reproduced and disseminated interactively.

One example of information is scale, which is indicative of change and especially of difference, therefore comparative and relational. From scalable relations in the universe develop the dimensions of space and especially of time.

Interactions, interchanges and the temporal and relational effects they generate are powered by energy/matter interchanges. In physics, interactions are considered to be forces exercised between entities. As interactions, forces have temporal and relational effects (changes). Forces drive entities to change positions. This motion is produced by previous interaction (past) and produces subsequent interaction (future). Motion, like change, relation and information, runs in the present where the past (matter) and the future (energy) converge.

In the course of evolution, interactions developed first as fundamental forces exercised between elementary particles. Interactions between elementary subatomic particles, quarks, by exchanging gluons led to the formation of composite subatomic particles (organisations) like neutrons and protons. Orbiting subatomic particles like electrons created further interactions. From these interactions developed atomic elements with electromagnetic mass. Gravitationally collapsing (contracting) electromagnetic mass in the form of molecular clouds took shape as stars and other celestial bodies. Among such bodies were planets, which developed through gravitational and electromagnetic interactions in orbital motion around stars.

Planetary motion, both axial and orbital, modulates the effects of electromagnetic (solar) radiation on the planetary surface. This observation, associated with biological functions like metabolic photosynthesis, led me to the inference that the energy organization patterns in biochemical compounds were somewhat related to the gravitational regulation of electromagnetic radiation on Earth. Such patterns became configured as biological information, which ultimately became genetically encoded in living organisms. From the first cellular organisations developed plants, phototrophic organisms drawing energy from solar radiation, and then animals, chemotrophic organisms drawing energy from the consumption of other organisms. Plants used this energy to expand. Animals used this energy to develop motion. The evolution of animals was driven by this motion, which is interactive, thus information producing and organisational. In animals motion is managed neurologically. Neurological organisation and the information management it provides convert sensory actions into motor reactions, therefore into motion, and interact accordingly.

As evolution ascended to ever higher levels of interactive organisation, the effects of interactions multiplied and amplified. As the effects were relationally organised and shared between the interacting parties and information developed, it became evident that the organisation of such parties elevated and improved. The neurological organisation of animals improved dramatically during the evolution from primitive invertebrates to fish and reptiles, then to sauria, to mammals, to primates and finally to human beings, now the dominant primate species.

In addition to general body motion, human beings developed the use of hands. The use of human hands was exceptionally purpose driven and for this reason powerful, interactive and information generating, with extensive relational and organisational effects, both neurological and kinetic. As the tasks human beings directed their hands to perform grew ever more complex and power-focussing, human brains became more organised, programmable in the schedule of time and so controllable. From the use of hands, human beings developed relational information, intelligence, psychology, instrumentation and of course, interaction. Intelligence developed particularly into cognition, which was expressed as communication. Cognition and communication used signals, from which developed means of expression and representation: music, dance, language, and mathematics. Through communication, information was neurologically (interactively) shared. In human beings it led to commonality of reason and, through the time condition it entails, to organization. Through experience and education, information and intelligence developed intellectually and organised into knowledge. Human beings used knowledge (interactions of the past) to determine their interactions in the future. Organizations they developed as a result were technology, economy, culture and civilization.

Both technology and economy derived specifically from the neurological control by human beings of power, change and difference, therefore from the temporal (past – future) human relation between effects i.e. between previous – subsequent states. Human biological evolution during the long Palaeolithic period (Age of Stone) provided the neurological development that enabled mankind to move from the Age of Stone to the Age of Metals, first the Ages of Copper and Bronze, then the Ages of Iron and Steel. This progress has enabled human beings to survive in adverse climatic conditions such as those of the last glacial period.

In the Iron Age and particularly the Age of Steel (the Industrial period), progress – technological, social and economic – became explosive to the point that in a very short period mankind prevailed over all other living species of the planet and on numerous instances upon nature itself.

This progress has been unfailing and accelerating throughout the course of human history. However, it has accelerated even more in the current Age of Information. Communication and computing technologies have now empowered human interactions as never before. The prospect is for this trend to keep increasing in power and acceleration as information technologies continue to evolve. The resulting information explosion expands interactions and organizations, transcending borders, and so integrates the World.

Interaction management requires information organized on a global scale. The Universe of Interactions offers a World View, founded in philosophy and science, that aims to be unified, comprehensive, systematic, and global, perhaps more so than any predecessor. The nature of the evolving World and the human relation with it are explained as simply, clearly and fully as this short edition permits.

Knowledge develops from understanding, and understanding develops from making sense of things. The Universe of Interactions is a tool for making sense of things. I hope this tool will prove useful in the everyday life and activity of individuals, companies and organizations. The ongoing process of global integration, driven by information-intensive technology and economy, promises to keep the confluence of individual, communal, and if possible global interests, at the centre of our intellectual evolution.

(Back to Table of Contents)

II.

The Origin of the Universe

The evolution of the Universe is driven by interactions, that is, by sequences of actions and reactions. Sequences of interactions develop into relations and then to organisations and conditions. The original source of interaction was gravitational contraction, the original absolute limitation of the Universe, from which energy developed.

Contraction- Expansion

The Cosmos had a beginning. Observations and calculations made by astronomers since the beginning of the 20th century indicate that the distance between galaxies is continuously increasing. The Big Bang theory, developed to explain this expansion, implies that expansion began with its opposite, contraction. The Universe – everything that exists, matter and energy – was once concentrated into a single infinitesimally small point approximately 13.7 billion years ago.

The force that kept the Universe contracting is thought to have been the uniform, inward-pulling force of gravity. Cosmologists thus describe the initial point of universal departure as a gravitational singularity. In that state of contraction the Universe was infinitely dense. Density was a fundamental property of the primordial material and, by extension, a fundamental condition of the Universe. In concentration and density develops energy so in the beginning the Universe was an infinitely small and dense ball of energy.

The hyper-concentration of energy at that initial point created a dynamic condition (mobilization). Hyper-pressure broke the limitation imposed at the point of gravitational singularity, powering the first and most fundamental universal change, the shift from contraction to expansion. This happened once the negative gravitational force yielded to a positive expansive force. Energy was converted into matter and potentiality flowed into reality.

The shift from contraction to expansion led to the creation of dimensions. Space was born through expansion. Time was born through change.

In their basic form, interactions (actions and reactions) develop as density and energy variations. Density variation first developed as a total variation (change of state) of the Universe from the original gravitational singularity. This variation was the universal change from (gravitational) contraction to (inflationary) expansion.

Initially the release of energy and the associated expansion of the Universe was gradual and progressive. This was because in the beginning of the Big Bang, gravitational limitation did not dissolve completely and immediately. The initial expansion was limited and contained. The initial break of limitation, however minimal, was nonetheless sufficient to lead to a first density decrease, which created the first fluctuation. From that point onward, expansion and density decrease were continuous but fluctuating. Density fluctuations and interrelations led to the progressive stratification of energy in the expanding Universe.

The Universe expanded in waves developing from the centre of gravitational singularity and growing towards the periphery. Stratification was caused by variation of wave lengths. Longer preceding waves lost density and energy faster than following shorter waves. The pressure differential between the denser inner layers, made of shorter waves, and the less dense outer layers, made of longer waves, appears to have been pushing universal expansion.

Expansion was followed by proportional fall in temperature and pressure. Soon the pressure differential reached a peak (limit), after which it started to reverse. This happened, because the pace of expansion was not fast enough to diffuse the pressure exerted by the more dense inner layers against the less dense outer layers. Accordingly, the meeting of decelerating outer layers and the accelerating inner layers led to the formation of a ring, through the gradual condensation of the outer layers at the rim of the expansion.

In this ring, a new limitation developed. While density and pressure increased at the point of this new limit, new energy also accumulated. The conditions created at this stage of expansion were akin to a bomb. The gradual accumulation of power and pressure at the rim of expansion resulted in a huge energy wave. The force of this wave broke the limit at the fringe of the expansion and drove the Universe into a super-rapid hyper-expansion, so powerful as to be almost instantly isotropic – uniform in all directions.

This hyper-expansion, known as the inflationary expansion, levelled almost instantly all the density variations that had developed at the initial stage, causing the Universe to become a totally homogenous, flat and undifferentiated unity. Thus, from an excessively hot and dense ball of energy, the Universe became a very cold and diffuse bowl of matter. Inflationary expansion, however, created new limits of its own.

Strong Deceleration- Marginal Expansion

Gravitational contraction and inflationary expansion were extreme states of variation. Variation, multiplied and generalized, is the basis of interaction. Containment was provided by strong deceleration which happened at the peak of inflationary expansion.

Gravitational origination and limitation kept weighing on the development of the Universe. Although inflation was instantaneous, the diffusion of power was so great at its height that the energy and the potentiality of the Universe were temporarily exhausted. The depletion of energy converted inflation to deflation, caused by the deceleration of the expansion at its peak. The deceleration seems to have come about once the expansive pressure differential reversed. In this reverse the internal-previous layers started to lose energy faster than the external-next layers. Correspondingly the inner waves became longer and the outer waves shorter. Deceleration was nearly as intense and abrupt as was the acceleration in the beginning of inflation.

Strong deceleration brought the Universe in the new state of marginal expansion, a bounded condition in which density variations configured into fluctuations. In the high points of density fluctuations polarizations developed. In the low points of density fluctuations interactions developed. Polarizations were contractive energy states. Interactions were expansive matter states. Interactions developed into powerful relations between polarizations, expressed as force.

The energy recovered during the strong deceleration powered the continuation of Universal expansion; however, this continuation was at the limit necessary, and thus a new gravitational collapse was averted. Initially (in the first 5 billion years), it seems that the pace of expansion was slightly decelerating. Then, the energy increased and the rate slightly accelerated.

As a result of strong deceleration, concentration (density), energy and potentiality started to rebuild. Temperature and pressure rose and the Universe reheated. Concurrently, an ebb and flow effect developed at this limit. The return wake broke the expanding waves (fluctuations) into multiple smaller density fluctuations. The consequential fragmentation of density fluctuations and the new interrelations which developed were expressed in universal turbulence. Progressively this turbulence stabilized and organised into larger density variations (fluctuations).

Motion and Density Variations

The Big Bang and particularly marginal expansion set the Universe in motion. Motion is continuous change (activity), deriving from fundamental states and conditions such as contraction and expansion (density variations), energy and matter, power and force, potentiality and reality, space and time (dimensions), past and future (time frames), certainty and uncertainty, limitation and control. Corollaries of motion are speed, acceleration and direction.

The first change from contraction to expansion happened at the point of gravitational singularity at the Big Bang. Ever since, alternating contractions and expansions have powered the Universe. These alternations generated density variations in the form of fluctuations.

* In the high density points of these fluctuations, elementary particles developed.

* In the low density points of these fluctuations, interactions developed.

Interactions are composed of interchanging actions and reactions. Repeating interchanges create interactions, forces exerted between concentrations. Density variations create limitations by way of balanced relations.

Particles are elementary concentrations which develop power and realize it by interacting with one another through the forces exercised between them.

* Contractive (attractive) forces develop gravity, pulling inward.

* Expansive (repulsive) forces develop pressure, pushing outward.

Essentially, forces act and mobilize particles which react and move. Moving particles are combinations (concurrencies) of concentrations and extensions expressed in density variations. In marginal expansion, the propagation (extension) of density variations was assisted by two factors. The one was the uniformity of the universal material, all of which originated from gravitational singularity. The other was the unity and continuity of the Universe in the dimensions of space and time.

Motion is created by the propagation (extension) of moving particles (condensed fluctuations) in the universal fabric. The combination of mobilization (energy) and movement (matter) in moving particles and collectively, in motion, is evident in the interactions they correlate with.

Motion derives from (previous) interactions but also produces (subsequent) interactions, due to the concurrency of the density variations with which motion is engaged. Moving particles produce such concurrency because concurrently they approach some points and distance themselves from other points.

* With reference to the particles they approach, density increases.

* With reference to the particles from which they distance themselves, density decreases.

Thus density variations and therefore interactions are continuously and simultaneously created by distance variations. Distance variations are motion-relevant. Distance and consequently density variations are indicative of interactions.

Energy and Matter

Energy is the initial state of Universal material at the point of gravitational singularity. Through density variations energy states transform into matter states. From interactions (i.e. energy relations) developed the structure of matter.

* Energy (power and potentiality) develop in concentrations, therefore in high points of density.

* Matter (force and reality) develop in extensions, therefore in low points of density.

From interchanges between energy and matter develop activity and change. In these interchanges,

* energy energises (acts upon/activates) matter.

* matter materialises (reacts to/realizes) energy.

Dimensions

Originally the Universe was condensed in a non-dimensional point of gravitational singularity. During expansion, the Universe developed dimensions. Dimensions are predominantly relational. From dimensional relations develops scale. Scalar dimensions are space and time:

* Space develops from relations between fixed points.

* Time develops from relations between variable (moving) particles.

Time develops from change and change develops from motion. Change configures the two intervals of time, past and future. The time intervals of past and future are united and divided at the present, the point in time when potentiality (energy and power) convert into reality (matter and force). The product of this conversion is the flow of time which is determined by change.

The present is a moving point in space and in time (space-time). Motion configures the intervals of the past and the future as follows:

* The past is created by the previous movement, composed of previous positions of points in motion. These positions form the time interval of the past (in space).

* The future is created by the next movement, composed of next positions of points in motion. These positions form the time interval of the future (in space).

Motion and change configure respective kinetic and temporal relations.

* Motion is the kinetic relation between matter and energy.

* Change is the temporal relation between the past and the future.

>From these dynamic convergences between the past and the future, occurs change. Change is then realized into motion (of points).

Certainty and Uncertainty

Time intervals create determination (certainty) and uncertainty. Certainty derives from: the past, matter, force, reality, motion and expansion. Uncertainty derives from: the future, energy, power, potentiality, mobilization and contraction.

Certainty and uncertainty develop in the time frame of potentiality, which is relative to change. Uncertainty is created by the tendency of the past to liquefy in the future and change. The future is materialized into the past and conversely the future evolves from the past. Certainty is created by the tendency of the future to crystallize (solidify) in the past and change. The past is energized then into the future and conversely the past evolves into the future.

As it was mentioned, the past and the future relate through motion which is realized in the present. Motion develops from interactions and density variations. Density variations develop into wave fluctuations. In the peaks and dips of such fluctuations (high curvature points) develop concentrations. In the intermediate transitional stages (low curvature points) develop extensions. In these interim stages, motion is expressed in duality, as a moving point and as a wave, i.e. as particle (folding) and as interaction (unfolding).

For example, in an unfolding fluctuation (and density variation), a point is detected in a given trajectory, but not in a given position. In these cases the moving point’s position, distance, speed and direction are determined by approximation. Approximations are probabilities of (future) change (tendencies and curvatures) calculated from the past.

In approximations and probabilities as well as in the relativity between certainty and uncertainty, in the interaction between energy and matter and especially in the relation between past and future, develop so called quantum phenomena.

Quantum phenomena are typical of wave motion and fluctuation in general. Quantum phenomena are indicative of relativity, particularly of limitation. Relativity, from which emanate uncertainty (quantum) phenomena, is expressed also in in(de)finite mathematical calculations.

Limitation and Definition

The past and the future are a temporal relation. This relation is configured in the present where the past and the future converge. In the present develops change and motion. A point (particle) and its motion provide unity in space and continuity in time. Motion is marginal and limited because it develops in fluctuating interactions.

Through limitation, motion controls the temporal relation. If the past is the temporal origin, then the future is the temporal destination in motion. That is why moving points have directions in time and cover distances in space.

Limitation and control are provided in particular by:

* Energy, which produces