In Search of the Creator, 4th Edition

By AJ Marcout

The essays also serve to audition a positive view of how and why we came to our place in this universe. It is the story of the longest project ever undertaken:
Phase 1
During the first 9.3 billion years of the universe, planet Earth and other objects of the cosmos evolved from gases released by the Big Bang. For planet Earth, the end product of the first phase was a unique planet carrying an enormous payload of complicated resources, e.g., materials, energy sources, and forces extraordinary. Intelligent beings capable of using the items were to arrive billions of years later. The sphere was carefully placed in a favorable orbit of the Sun.
Phase 2
During the 4.54 billion years of the second phase, the laws of nature directed the evolution of Earth’s eco systems. Flora and fauna appeared to participate in the ecology. Mountains, oceans, deserts, and farm lands emerged. The planet was ready to support life, but skilled custodians had not yet arrived.
Phase 3
Now, today, we are in the last phase of the project. This phase began 5,000 years ago with the evolution of the first Literate Man. Compared to the overall span of the project this phase is miniscule in time -- the accomplishments, however, are nothing short of astonishing. Literate Man promptly developed a language, invented sciences, and began harvesting the treasures. Many facts support this remarkable report.
AJ Marcout

• Language: English
• Publisher: AJ Marcout
• Release date: Jul 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476324937

AJ Marcout

After retiring from a number of decades as an engineer and as a manager of operations in a large organization I devoted myself to the task of validating or changing my religious viewpoints. My goal was to record my beliefs for my children and grandchildren -- I had been agnostic long enough. What I learned was, for me, much more than expected and worthy of passing on to others. This is my way of paying something back to the wonderful people on this planet.

Book preview

Essays:

Creator of the Universe

Based on Nature, Experience, and Reason¹

by A.J. Marcout

Copyright © A.J. Marcout 2015

Introduction

This essay on the general subject of searching for the creator of the universe covers the questions of, What is the Universe? and, Is the universe the product of a creator? Purpose of Literate Man will be the title of the next essay.

Thank you for participating in the dialogue.

A. J. Marcout

1. Existence Begins

The universe came into being when the laws of time and space went into effect and created the limits of existence for all things.   Gravitational forces and nature's laws of motion stood ready to govern oncoming entities of energy and matter moving into and throughout the vacancy of inconceivable size.  Bearing embedded chemical, electromagnetic, and physical properties, the arriving components whirled to the orders of nature's laws for fluids, for thermodynamics, for waves, for electrons, etc.  Nature, in abhorrence of the vacuum, drove on to successfully complete the occupancy -- the universe was born (fictional view).

2. Definitions: ‘scientific-reality’ and ‘nature’

’Scientific-reality’:

scientific-reality --

1) proven existence,

2) has 1 or more scientifically detectable properties.*

*(Detectible properties include: mass/energy; invisible and intangible forces such as gravity and magnetism; laws of nature such as motion and thermodynamics; electromagnetic and sound waves; and the borders of the universe, i.e., ‘time’ and ‘space’.)

‘Nature’ has outgrown the ‘worldly’ limits of planet Earth. Mankind has opened many gates for passage from Earth into the universe as a whole. It is time to remove the barriers and let ‘nature’ embrace all that mankind discovers:

‘nature’ -- all entities having scientific-reality.

3. Domains of Nature, Faith, and Imagination

When using logic it is useful to keep things orderly.

Humans are blessed with minds of extraordinary functionality.  Three basic types of existence are recognized by the human mind:  1) scientific-reality, 2) unproven reality, and 3) imagined reality.

In logical terms the categories would be:

Domain ofNature: all entities of scientific-reality.

Domain of Faith:  includes all entities believed to exist without scientific proof. Examples would include the widely held beliefs of an eternal afterlife, miracles, and a Creator of the universe having supernatural powers.  In many cases the holders of these views regard their beliefs as having more importance than any ‘proven’ entities. 

Domain of Imagination:  includes all entities viewed as a fabrication of the mind.  Included would be dreams, mental designs, and theories awaiting empirical proof of hypothesis such as theories of multi-universes.

4. All Things are Finite

Occasionally we see references to things as having 'infinite' characteristics, e.g., There must be an infinite number of stars in the sky. or Time has no end. When applying logic in search of a reasonable answer, remember that 'infinity' is a useful mathematical concept but it does not reflect a real number. 

If a student proudly tells his teacher that he found the value of infinity on his calculator, the teacher might say, Take your number for infinity and add 1 to it … what do you have now?

Everything, including galaxies, has a beginning and an end.  Something proven to be of infinite physical dimension has yet to be discovered.

5. Axiom of Causality

[This discussion is limited to cause and effect links driven by physical laws such as mechanics, electromagnetism, gravity, etc. Cause and effect connections related to morality issues are not denied in this paper, they are simply deferred.]

"In addition, everything that becomes or changes must do so owing to some cause; for nothing can come to be without a cause." -- Plato in Timaeus

Every day we do things with an experience-based expectation of producing some effect, e.g., simply turning on a light. Every time we do this we reaffirm the axiom that For every effect there is a cause. It is logically possible to work the causal chain backwards through time following the links from a selected effect, back to its cause, and then treating that cause as an effect when reaching back to its cause, etc. Continuing the process would eventually take us to the effect which is the origin of the universe. The name First Cause is given to the source for which the effect was the origin of the universe as a whole -- because everything in the universe first came from it.

6. Laws of Nature

Man often learns of the laws of nature by experience.  Each of us soon learned of the law of gravity as we took our first steps on wobbly legs -- and fell! Many laws are enforced by nature’s delivery of unexpected consequences.  Sometimes a rare accident reveals a gift of nature in the form of a law as when Becquerel discovered the ability of radioactivity to penetrate substances and create clear photographic images.  Other discoveries occur at the cost of hard work and the persistence of an inventor like Thomas Edison who would not quit while facing a seemingly endless number of experiments till light emanated from a bulb.   A lifetime of patient observation, recordation, and analysis may be the only way to discover a law as in the case of Darwin's discovery of the law of evolution, (or theory, if you prefer). Relay teams of scientists are needed to unravel the strings of laws for large interlinked discoveries, e.g., Otto Guericke (static electricity) Stephan Gray (conductors), Charles Du Fay (electrical attraction), Servigton Savery (compound magnet), Gowen Knight (first commercial magnet), capacitor (Musschenbroek) , and others who launched magnetism. Still other laws of nature handle the reflection of light, expansion of gases, flotation of ice, thermal expansion of bridges, etc. and the properties of  uncountable other components.   Scientists, on our behalf, have achieved amazing knowledge of these rules and how to benefit from them.

Have you noticed:

The laws of nature are perfect laws, i.e., universal, inviolate, permanent, unambiguous and independent of language -- no courts needed.

7. Essential Components of the Universe

Among the many components of the universe a few are viewed as being essential to the existence of the universe itself -- the ones that had to be there at the onset to get the universe up and running:

Space and Time:  Non-physical entities which define the enormous boundaries of the universe.  These are prerequisites to the existence of all other things in the universe; without space, nothing can exist, without time, nothing can move. 

Newton's Laws of Gravity and Motion:  Laws of nature that provide intangible- invisible forces to control both the movement and stability of matter throughout the universe.  They are integrated to encourage interaction without chaos in the behavior of electromagnetic waves and pulses, chemical processes, and movements of masses. Scientists, on our behalf, have achieved nearly full understanding of these rules and how to benefit from them.  The essentials of many forces have been reduced to mathematical expressions.

Mass/Energy:  Without mass, matter would not exist; without energy, motion would not be possible.  The fundamentals of mass are found in the Periodic Table of the Elements.  Scientists have identified an abundance of energy forms including gravitational, thermal, electrical, radiant, kinetic, biological, nuclear, chemical and the promise of abundant supplies from the conversion of mass to energy in ratios of E = Mc².

Properties of Chemical Elements:  Porosity, luminosity, color, mass, conductivity, and hundreds of other characteristics discovered among the various elements determine the nature of each element.  These attributes do not appear to be a direct function of the atomic configuration; rather, they appear to be assigned.  These are treasures.  Many properties buried in the makeup of material components lay dormant until the arrival of intelligent, inquisitive, and motivated beings; still others await discovery and application.

Magnetism and the Electromagnetic Spectrum:  These components enable the creation of electromagnetic waves with separate bandwidths for providing useful functions such as radio, microwave, infra-red, visible light, ultra-violet, x-rays, gamma rays, magnetic attraction, electricity, etc.  Activity abounds in this fertile field of recent progress for mankind.

A true theory of origin for the universe would address/explain the source of each of these phenomena.  If a theory of origin for the universe posits the pre-existence of an essential component of the universe, e.g., ‘time’, the theory should be considered as logically incomplete since it fails to explain the source