In Search of Consciousness and the Theory of Everything: Towards the Final Answers to the Mystery of Existence

By Abed Peerally

Abed Peerally’s books will not only review historically how humans have been searching for their ultimate cosmological explanation of existence since millennia, but will actually clearly explain to the whole of humanity, not just scientists, how the Supernatural Mind or God went about to produce all our realities.

To date, in spite of the enormous contributions by several generations of top physicists and philosophers toward elucidating how the universe originated scientifically, Abed’s first book “In Search of Consciousness and the Theory of Everything”, effectively demonstrates that, although we do not know what kind of thing the universe really is, the whole mystery of what is the universe, how our realities of life were conceived, and of whether there is really a Super-intellect or God behind all of existence, will be known, soon, in our current lifetime. The total status quo around the ultimate nature of our realities of existence, since millennia, has been a source of huge frustration confusion, leading several groups of philosophers and cosmologists, during the last few decades, to search for alternative concepts surrounding the issue of the origin of universes and of our realities, attempts usually based on philosophy or mathematical models. Our current period of existence, in the second decade of the 21st century happens, intriguingly, to be the precise moment nature has decided, in a manner of speaking, to reveal the secrets of the supernatural origin of our universe and of humanity.

This first book is indispensable to enable our men and women, around the world, whatever be their religious belief, to understand for themselves that there has to exist within our intellectual possibilities, the ultimate concept of the origin of our universe based on a Theory of Everything, and a Supernatural Creator, based on the Ultimate Philosophy of Everything. Historically, it has been predicted by Kepler and William Whewell, that humans possess God-given intuition and intellectual perspicacity capable of leading, in due course, to the discovery of the extraordinary supernatural divine mechanism, which the Super-intellect behind our existence, masterminded to put up the universe and us in it. There are convincing reasons that drive us to believe that the ubiquitous sensation of consciousness, associated with every phenomenon, in existence, derives from the creation process of the origin of our universe. The writings of Abed Peerally show that humans have been created in God’s image and therefore they have a metaphysical nature, that can somehow even exist in the eternity of a transcendent after life. The interesting ideas of Rupert Sheldrake on consciousness are pertinent with reference to the author’s views on the same topic, to be discussed in the author’s second book. Several of these studies have been unanimous in conveying the message, in cosmology and philosophy, of the extraordinary nature of the scientific design of our universe, strongly suggesting there was a Super-intellect behind existence, that goes to show we too could be of supernatural nature. Abed Peerally’s present book emphasizes that we will, in his next book, come face to face with the Ultimate Theory of Everything, the final scientific concept of existence that will confirm we are indeed a supernatural creation associated with the universal phenomenon of consciousness, and that we have, likely, an eternity of existence, in the hereafter. Abed Peerally’s books, integrate philosophy and science, starting with “In Search of Consciousness and the Theory of Everything”, in a coherent narrative that will lead to a comprehensive scientific Theory of Everything, in the second book, “The Origin of the Universe: The Theory of Everything”, and subsequently to a comprehensive philosophical concept of everything in a third book, entitled: The God Theory and The Ultimate Philosophy of Everything”.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Abed Peerally
• Release date: Apr 20, 2017
• ISBN: 9781773022451

Abed Peerally

PhD from Manchester University; Former Pro Vice Chancellor and Chairman, Road Development Authority, Mauritius. Fellow World Academy of Science and African Academy of Sciences. Author on the topic of the Origin of our Universe.

Book preview

DEDICATION

Dedicated

to the memory

of

my parents

Ayoob and Jaytoon,

of

my great-grand parents

Ismael and Raheeman Ramdin

and of

my late brother and sister-in-law

Swaleh and Farida.

Spiral Galaxy NGC 300

Credit: ESO

TABLE OF CONTENTS

A FEW INTRODUCTORY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS BOOK

Our Galaxy, the Milky Way: Seen as an arc high above the antennas of the Atacama Large Telescopic Array.

Credit: ESO.

This beautiful ESO picture shows the intellectual paradox of our existence. Science and technology produce precious data, but only human mind can speculate on the ultimate explanation of existence. The universe and existence are the philosophical paradox of humanity, a feeling which is beautifully reflected in the essence of Ray Bradbury’s statement shown in the next page. For obvious reasons, this book deals with the historical, literary, philosophical and scientific facts around what our universe is or is not, in humanity’s appreciation, so far.

To understand the final meaning of what we and the universe are, we must solve the philosophical interpretations encrusted, for instance, in the views, amongst many others, of Niel Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Albert Einstein and of Abed Peerally, following Bradbury’s profound philosophical statement, shown in the next page.

Tarantula Nebula 30 Doradus

Credit: NASA/ESO

Our Galaxy: The Milky Way

Credit: ESO

Werner Heisenberg, Nobel Laureate

Main work: The Principle of Uncertainty

Any concepts of words which have been formed in the past through the interplay between the world and ourselves are not really sharply defined with respect to their meanings: that is to say, we do not know exactly how far they help us in finding our way in the world. It will never be possible by pure reason to arrive at some absolute truth.

Albert Einstein, Nobel Laureate

Law of Special Relativity and Law of General Relativity;

Quantum Nature of Light

The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.

I want to know how God created the universe. The rest are mere details.

391 Our Galaxy:The Milky Way as a Galactic Bridge

Credit: ESO

Neil Bohr, Nobel Laureate

Quantum Theory, Copenhagen Interpretation

We must be clear that when it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing the facts as with creating images and establishing mental connections.

Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.

Abed Peerally

Integration of Einstein’s Laws of Relativity into the Law of Proportionality of Relativistic Effects,

SAJS 2008

The Relativistic Concept of the Exponential Inflationary

Epoch of the Origin of the Universe,

vixra; academia.edu 2013, 2014

Theory of Everything= Philosophy of Everything+ Physics of Everything, vixra; academia.edu 2016

To arrive at some absolute truth about the ultimate nature of our universe, we need philosophical interpretations of the science behind the empirical approaches used by the Supernatural Mind in the creation of the universe.

Star Forming Region RCW38 in Our Milky Way Galaxy

Credit: ESO

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

During the preparation of this book my family, children, relatives and friends were cooperative and particularly impatient, among them my son Jameel, to see my book, to know the current views about the theory of everything and the origin of the universe.

Hamita was far-sighted in initiating me, more than a decade back, in touch-typing and, no wonder, I easily managed the entire typescript of this book. I am very grateful to Djunaid Jeetoo, Graphic Designer, for designing the book’s front cover and the Ray Bradbury picture. All the other pictures were selected by me and prepared for submission to the Publisher by my daughter Shahira.

Most of the text of the book was written in Montreal, and I am thankful to my daugher Jahan Ara, Professor at the HEC, for making the appropriate arrangements for our stay in this wonderful city.

Many eminent philosophers and scientists of the past more than two millennia have contributed towards the appreciation of what the universe and our realities of existence represent. Without their cosmological and philosophical contributions, I might never have understood what, I believe, is an interesting philosophical, intellectual and scientific insight into what kind of reality, ultimately, is the universe and its human existence. These great minds include Plato, St Aquinas, Al Ghazali, Newton, Leibniz, Descartes, Lorentz, Planck, Lemaitre, Bohr, Einstein, Hubble, Heisenberg, Weinberg, Hawking, George Ellis, Smolin, Chalmers, Unger, the group of String and M theorists, and also the LHC team and the Higgs phenomenon. It was inspiring too, reading popular journals like Physicsworld, Nature and scientific articles in The Economist, as well as in vixra and academia.edu.

I was determined to pursue academic research after my retirement from the University of Mauritius, and to writing articles and books, as well as acquainting myself with relevant world literature about cosmology and the universe. In this respect, I was lucky to have received expert ophthalmological treatment under the care of Dr Madath Gaya and Dr Hassenjee Dawreeawoo, of the S. Bharati Eye Hospital, Mauritius, and of their close overseas collaborator, Dr Mohammadi Tabatabaie, of Geneva University. They told me I would see as clearly as with the eyesight I was born with, and it is so.

I am delighted to have completed at least half of this book and carried out the revision of the typescript in the beautiful city of Montreal, particularly in the modern, splendid and cosy Webster Library, University of Concordia, conceived as the library of the future. I wish to express my gratitude to Dr. Lorie Kloda, Associate University Librarian, and Nadia Pecora, Library Officer for Budget and Facilities, and to Martine Langevin, Library Assistant and Zahra Saeedozakerin, Librarian Trainee and graduate student, for giving useful hints about how to do PDF text corrections. Mr. Geoffrey Little, Chief Editor of the University of Concordia Press was kind enough to give a few publishing hints.

My thanks are also due to Natasha Miller, Project Manager, Tellwell, Canada, and her colleagues, particularly from the Graphic Section, for expertly facilitating the pre-publishing process.

Abed Peerally

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS TO ESO AND NASA

Headquarters of the European Space Organisation.

Credit: ESO

Langley Research Centre of National Aeronautics and Space Agency.

Credit: NASA

The author is grateful to the

European Space Organisation (ESO)

and to the

National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA)

for permission

to reproduce some of their cosmic photos.

These pictures bring out

the awe, fascination and mystery

surrounding the cosmos, constituting the cosmological

equation which this book tries to

communicate to its readers, philosophically and scientifically.

Astronomers perpetually gaze at the Universe, but some galaxies might be gazing at us! An image realised by NASA/ESA seems to say so: a pair of interacting galaxies appears to be staring at us, a rare phenomenon though.

Image of galaxies IC 2163 and NG 2207

in the Constellation Canis Major.

Credit: ALMA/ESO/NAOJ/NRAO/M. KAUFMAN and NASA.ESA HUBBLE TELESCOPE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Credit: La Baie Photo Studio

Montreal

Abed Peerally did his Ph.D. from Manchester University and later served as Dean and Pro Vice Chancellor of the University of Mauritius. His intellectual background is in biological and cosmological fields.

He integrated Einstein’s special relativity and general relativity within a single equation of relativistic effects, published in the South African Journal of Science (April, 2008). During the period 2012-2013 he wrote a series of articles mainly in cosmology for the French Mauritius newspaper "Le mauricien". He also published online on academia.edu and vixra, a paper about the inflationary expansion in the origin of the universe, based entirely on special relativity and entropy, which confirmed that there was easily such an exponential inflationary phase, when elementary particles were produced from pure energy in the earliest moments of the origin of the universe. He also posted online on vixra and academia.edu his other Relativity and Cosmology papers, as well as an introductory article about the Theory of Everything.

Abed Peerally was a Fellow of the Association of Commonwealth Universities for his PhD studies in the UK, and was a Senior Fulbright Fellow in the USA and a Senior DAAD Fellow in Germany. Abed Peerally was elected Vice President of the International Mycological Association in 1994 in Vancouver, and Vice President of the African Academy of Sciences in 1993. He was also the first Editor-in-Chief of the Editorial Board of the University of Mauritius Research Journal, whose membership comprised many eminent scientists from overseas. He was Chairman of the Road Development Authority, Mauritius, for the period 2007 to 2012. He was President of the University Academic Staff Association. He also served as President of the Alif Society, dedicated to the promotion of multicuturalism, for ten years. He was for 28 years a member of the prestigious constitutional Commission of the Prerogative of Mercy, Mauritius, a quasi-judicial body. In 2014, he was invited to chair the 2nd International Jury Panel set up by the Mauritius Research Council to select the candidate for the Best Mauritian Scientist Award. He also served as reviewer, from time to time, for publications, documents/books, by the World Bank, UNEP, and for the UN on behalf of the International Academy Panel. He was also a UNDP Consultant to establish the Regional Biotechnology Centre in Algiers.

Since 2006, his research in philosophy and cosmology has focussed on concepts of our universe and on the laws of nature and realities of existence. Abed Peerally believes that the explanations of the how and why of the ultimate origin and nature of our universe and of existence should come primarily from science, based on appropriate philosophical interpretations. Recently, he contributed to the poster session of The Science of Consciousness Conference, organised at the Tucson Consciousness Centre, University of Arizona, in April. 2016.

Dumbell Nebula

Credit: NASA/ESO

FOREWORD

Despite the tremendous efforts that accompanied the writing up of this book, it was worth it. Our contemporary women and men have the obligation to know that, behind our difficulty to understand how our unbelievable universe was created, there have been, since numerous millennia, hundreds of millions of humans who have revered and who revere our universe and the supernatural force behind it, in the hope to get nearer to our ultimate cause. This book describes the difficulties and the opportunities confronting philosophers, ordinary people and scientists to understand our ultimate realities. General readers, acquainting themselves with the materials they are reading now, are undertaking an intellectual journey indispensable to discover what the universe ultimately represents in the eternity of existence, and why our distinguished intellectuals, since more than two millennia, have given so much of their energy and time to understanding the mysteries behind it. The frustration which has resulted from our incomprehension of the how and why of our universe has reached a point where humankind, at the highest intellectual level, has nearly given up all hopes we would ever know what kind of thing is the universe, in its ultimate reality. Ray Bradbury’s remark depicts existence as an impossibility in an impossible universe, a theme which aptly sets the wavelength of what this first book, of the author’s trilogy, is all about. We are going to attempt to describe without, for the time being, engaging in systematic technical and scientific language to demonstrate, to some extent, why we are an impossible creation in our impossible universe. Despite the precious reflections of our greatest minds, for instance Plato, Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, Nasir Al Tusi, Al Ghazali, Kepler, Leibniz, Descartes, Newton, Whewell, Poincaré Einstein, Lemaitre, Heisenberg, Dirac, Salam, Weinberg, Hawking, Chalmers and many others, we have no clue what is the ultimate nature of our universe, how it originated and why we are here.

We will show, in various ways, that the universe appears to be, conceptually, an impossibility, although numerous eminent people have unraveled its basic natural laws, which show that the universe is not an illusion, for to some extent, it is quite comprehensible. This book is about many unanswered questions and issues, which have been the nightmare of great philosophers and scientists for millennia and centuries, and which have constituted the most persistent scientific vacuum in our contemporary period. The most negative impact of our ignorance of what is the universe, in its finality, has been the feeling we have a materialist existence. It is useful to have such issues in mind while reading this book, to appreciate the intellectual botteneck confronting our philosophers and scientists, about what the universe really means in the present moments of our lifetime. Naturally, to strike a far more positive note, the author’s next two books will clarify why and how we happen to be here, a discussion that will clearly show that we are a very extraordinary scientific and philosophical miracle, in an extraordinary supernatural universe. In other words, we are a metaphysical and supernatural possibility in a possible supernatural universe.

The intellectual history of humanity is testimony of the huge contributions, by thousands of great philosophers, scientists and thinkers, from Plato to Descartes, Leibniz, Unger, Derek Parfit, David Chalmers and Charles Taylor about the philosophy of existence, and from Al Tusi to Newton, Einstein, Weinberg, Hawking, on the physics of nature, amongst many other highly competent past and contemporary intellectuals. It is true that the world intellectual output about our laws of nature and what surrounds our existence has been extraordinary. Everything that has been written ever since documents exist, during several millennia back in history, every paper or book, in all areas of knowledge, in fact deals with a certain aspect of existence. Therefore, writing three coherent and interrelated books on the supernatural origin of our universe, while appearing to constitute an impossible venture, will have the noble impact of contributing towards humanity’s comprehension of himself. The whole subject is, obviously, so elusive and demanding that even this brief Foreword to the author’s trilogy, exceptionally and unfortunately, had to be written by the author himself.

Our existence is apparently as impossible to explain as that of the Supernatural Mind or God. The task we confront is discovering the ultimate secrets surrounding our mysterious existence, if they really exist, an exercise that demands telling a comprehensive account of the origin of our universe based eventually on the ultimate supernatural Theory of Everything or TOE. We can appreciate that describing the TOE will be a task requiring a meticulous methodology, one that can enable readers, from a diversity of educational or academic backgrounds, to follow the sequence of philosophical ideas and scientific concepts in an orderly and logical manner as follows:

Book 1: describes practically the entire background of the great ideas, concepts and research by eminent minds surrounding the origin of our universe. Their enormous contributions have, however, practically proved that we will never know how and why the universe and we humans came into existence. The universe appears to harbour a sensation of consciousness, which not only merges existence with spirituality, but also appears to be the invisible power behind everything that exists since the creation of our universe.

Book 2: describes the various facets of Science and Philosophy of the Theory of Everything, in other words, explaining how the combination of philosophical and scientific concepts constitutes the basis of the metaphysical approach devised by the Supernatural Mind to create our universe. These new science concepts would lead to dramatic new perceptions about the scientific explanations of the laws of nature, in centuries to come.

Book 3: completes the full description of the meaning of the universe and of existence based on the Ultimate Philosophy of Everything, an attempt to link the Theory of Everything of our universe with a transcendent supreme power, the Supernatural Mind. Consciousness, which binds everything within the universe, could also probably be the link between the universe and the transcendent dimension of the Mind behind the creation of our universe.

The objective of this first book, focusing on the search of consciousness and the origin of our universe, intends to demonstrate the inevitable and perpetual association of a ubiquitous consciousness with existence. This is obvious for consciousness has been intimately associated with the spiritual cultures of humans since millennia, about which facts exist in historical records. Consciousness is a phenomenon necessary to produce every conceivable action, which has taken place since the moment the universe came into being. In fact, the reality of consciousness demands that there must exist a final scientific and philosophical explanation of our realities, in a Theory of Everything that can elucidate the why and how of our universe. A detailed description of the science and philosophy of the Theory of Everything will be the subject of the second book of the author’s trilogy. The contents of the second book will also create the sense that there is a supreme philosophical and spiritual reality, in a transcendent dimension that underpins the Theory of Everything. The third text of this cosmological trilogy, will explain how this supreme metaphysical reality within the Theory of Everything, must be the ultimate fundamental reality linking us with the supernatural Mind behind the science of our ultimate origin. We intend to show that the Theory of Everything necessarily merges with a transcendent supreme spiritual dimension whose occurrence appears to fulfill the equation of the ultimate meaning of existence. Concisely, the science and philosophy encapsulated within the final theory of everything of the universe leads to an ultimate metaphysical truth, the theme discussed in the third text of the author’s trilogy.

This first book of the trilogy introduces the universe as a creative act infused with an ethereal consciousness that impinges on all the aspects of the creation process, like, for instance, cosmological, physical, chemical, biological, intellectual, cultural evolutions, mentioned in the historical accounts presented in this book. The second book will complete the author’s ideas and hypothesis given in the first book to show how the universe originated, based on scientific and philosophical accounts. To complete the ultimate meaning of existence, the third book delves into the metaphysics of our ultimate spiritual reality. The intellectual upshot will be a comprehensive treatise that, scientifically, spiritually and philosophically, will give a metaphysical dimension to, for instance, Descartes’ philosophy encrypted in his famous statement "Cogito, ergo sum" meaning "I think, therefore I exist ". Briefly, the scientific and philosophical implications of the manner the universe was supernaturally conceived will reveal the ultimate meaning of what is the quintessence of existence. This trilogy about our universe has no connection with any specific religion and surprisingly, we believe that all religions, including even the absence of religion, would have the opportunity to draw appropriate interpretations from science and philosophy, because ultimately these three domains of human knowledge should logically be an integrated and comprehensible domain of natural philosophy for the whole of humanity, until the end of existence.

Views about the nature of existence voiced by philosophers in the last two and half millennia are available in historical records. Destiny appears to have waited our current period to be the torchbearer of the ultimate knowledge about existence that, finally, will provide scientific validation of the belief of the deliberate creation of our universe, by a supernatural Mind. To those general readers who are reading this book now, I just wish to suggest it is useful to remember to skip sections that appear technical for the time being, for they will become clearer eventually. A comprehensive Glossary is available as an annex to help, as far as possible, in the explanation of various technical terms. I assure generalist readers there are several cosmological books that many of us, including scientists and philosophers, read more than once to improve our appreciation of their narratives, since the subject of what is the universe, is not only intensely captivating, but also often elusive. This is necessarily so, mainly because of the fact we do not know what kind of reality is the universe. To know the mind of God on how the universe was created, was the profoundest wish of Einstein until his demise in 1955, while he was intensely engaged in research to explain the universe based on a theory of everything.

The author’s trilogy is a continuous and logical account of the final concept of our universe and existence, and so is likely to constitute, without any offence to modesty, an intellectual exercise worthy of Milton’s famous reflection, which runs as follows: "A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life". A favourite criticism levelled against the natural sciences, particularly during the so-called "period of modernity was that they led to the desacralisation" of nature. Our postmodernity seems to be successful in discouraging such negative perceptions of the social and spiritual impact of scientific advances, at least for the time being, but the author’s books promise to have a profound positive impact on the comprehensibility of our universe and of the meaning of existence. Humanity is the deliberate ultimate reality behind the creation of the universe and we have a duty and interest to know how and why we are a spiritual and philosophical entity. Therefore, the final explanation of our universe must reflect the philosophy of the universe described by Plato, Thomas Aquinas, Al Ghazali, the Abrahamic religions, the Yin, Yang and Tao of Chinese philosophy, and the Hindu Vedanta philosophy and doctrine of Maya, particularly since they all hover around the same wavelength of beliefs around our realities of life.

A final theory of our universe is an elaborate and ultimate theory, because it describes the eternal question of how and why we have our universe, but it is likely to be subject to continuous modification, elaboration, improvement and interpretation as we move into future decades, centuries and millennia.

The intellectual exercise in putting up this book has depended significantly on what many philosophers and scientists, past and present have achieved in their efforts. However, when we make historical references, it needs be resaid that scientists are not historians, and what we mean by historical facts, in fact, amounts to historical messages we have gathered. The authentic historical descriptions of these messages and of their authors are matters which only professional historians are trained to undertake and we apologise if there is any reference that causes uneasiness.

The pictures of ESA and of NASA, which accompany the text, are meant to provide visual aesthetic lustre to the mental descriptions of the extraordinary grandeur, complexity and beauty of the cosmos.

Abed Peerally,

Montreal,

December, 2016

Fine Shades of a Sombrero: Messier 104 Galaxy

Credit: ESO/P. Barthel

PREFACE

Emperor Marcus Aurelius

Never forget that the universe is a single living organism possessed of one substance and one soul, holding all things suspended in a single consciousness and creating all things with a single purpose that they might work together spinning and weaving and knotting whatever comes to pass.

Max Planck, Nobel Laureate

I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.

Sean Carroll, physicist, cosmologist, author

We seek an understanding of the laws of nature and of our particular universe in which everything makes sense to us. We do not want to be reduced to accepting the strange features of our universe as brute facts.

Existence is human existence in an extraordinary universe, the why and how of whose origin is, to us humans, as mysterious as the nature of the Supernatural Mind that created the universe. We cannot, not help believing, that the reason the universe exists is that we humans are the goal of existence. Based on this hypothesis, it is natural that the universe must be a complex reality, which we humans are destined to unravel. Let us see for instance a brief but deeply meaningful abstract from the recent book by Roberto M. Unger and Lee Smolin, " The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time , 2015, in which Smolin says: A new kind of methodology and framework is needed to answer these questions. Therefore, the crisis that cosmology faces is not a crisis of a theory in progress, it is a birth crisis, which accompanies our efforts to invent a new scientific methodology. The goal is the invention of a truly cosmological theory which is to say a theory that could apply to the whole universe and explain its features to us, including the choices of laws and initial conditions ." Smolin’s view of the future of cosmology, expressed in the period 2014-2015, is not only the most contemporary we have in the history of cosmology, but is timely and pertinent, except that I am quite aware the solution lies in a complicated set of philosophical and scientific reasoning, which will amount to the discovery of the ultimate cosmological theory.

Notwithstanding the scientifically complicated nature of our universe, in the final analysis, there is no valid reason why educated humans, once we possess the final explanation of existence, should not be capable of understanding what the fundamental nature of the universe is, how it originated, and why we have our existence in it. As Sean Carroll says, we should not accept the strange features of our universe as brute facts. The hard truth is that science does not yet know how the universe came into being, although several theories describe universes popping into existence, by accident. However, the supernatural creation of our universe is not a topic easily appreciated by the public mind, unless the latter has been intellectually prepared to understand the basic features of our universe as an extraordinary philosophical and scientific entity. Therefore, this book prepares readers to come to grip with the mysteries surrounding our universe, its nature, the problems surrounding its origin and its ethereal consciousness. It is an intriguing fact that Emperor Marcus Aurelius, nearly two thousand years back, and the Physics Nobel Laureate Max Planck, a century back, predicted the quintessence of the essence of existence, by perceiving that the whole universe seemed to possess one soul and one consciousness, comprising fundamental truths that cut across everything in the universe. What is fascinating is the fact that eighteen centuries stretched between the respective periods they lived and, yet, they both had the same intellectual and philosophical insight about our realities of existence. What is particularly amazing is the fact that their views, about what we and the universe are, have been suspected, perhaps superficially, by practically the whole of humanity for many millennia. Unger and Smolin have done a great job by presenting the philosophical and scientific problematic that our contemporary world needs to understand about the why and how of our universe. Clearly then, in the final analysis, the ultimate intellectual cosmological solution lies in having, as far as possible, philosophical and scientific explanations of what is existence, within an ultimate cosmological theory that really applies to the whole universe.

No wonder, the deep realities of our universe have impressed the minds of many philosophers, in the last more than two millennia, per documented historical literature. However, there is archaeo-astrological evidence of ancient spiritual practices since at least the last seventeen millennia, depicting cosmological reflections about what could be existence. The reason why many philosophers and scientists share the same wavelength of vision about the mysterious, incomprehensible supernatural nature of our universe, is largely the fact that the history of humanity, since ancient times, seems to be the history of the role of consciousness in existence. Consciousness is one unique universal reality that permeates everything that exists. Therefore, against the background of often comparable philosophical ideas relating to our universe, we can sense that there should exist one unified scientific Theory of Everything and one unified Philosophy of Everything that can underpin our ultimate explanations. The reason that Smolin, in the period 2014 and 2015, contemplated the invention of a final theory of our singular universe, is surely the fact that our contemporary period has practically unanimously concluded humanity cannot hope to discover our ultimate explanations. The likelihood that we may be near to having an ultimate general scientific and philosophical explanation to understand our universe is what this book is all about. The inspiration to hold this view comes from the realisation that our intellectual history has been the history of what philosophically our universe is. This is so much so, that all the concepts which attempt to describe the origin of our universe, are basically philosophical, including Reverend Lemaitre’s Big Bang concept, the nearest we have, scientifically and philosophically, about the manner our universe came into being. The author of this book, who has been working on the ultimate Theory of Everything of our universe and existence in the last several years, proposes a change of intellectual perspective in the manner the women and men of our present world understand the universe. In this trilogy, contemporary readers will follow philosophically and scientifically, how the Super Intellectual Designer, the architect of all of existence, produced our miraculous universe, created to be what it is, structured to lead to human existence in our current era, in the astronomical history of the universe, at least on our planet.

First, it needs be emphasized that this book attempts, as far as possible, to understand and appreciate the full intellectual meaning of what could be a final theory of the universe and of existence. The final theory of the universe, or the Theory of Everything, contrary to common belief, does not consist of complicated scientific and mathematical enunciations understood by physicists, mathematicians and cosmologists only, but of an elaborate scientific and philosophical scheme that falls within the intellectual ambit of all educated readers. The Theory of Everything is an intellectual theorem, in other words, a general proposition, which is not self-evident, which uses a chain of logical reasoning, to establish a final universal truth, based on accepted truths. The final story of the how and why of existence is meant for humanity, the ultimate products of existence in our universe. Important cultural, scientific and philosophical ideas about our realities abound in human history, and they constitute an important basis on which to build a firm comprehension of what a final theory of our universe is truthfully. This first book provides such a foundation of comprehension of our ultimate purpose of existence.

The aim is that educated persons, and ordinary people, will be able to appreciate and discuss the nature of the universe and of our realities of existence among themselves, and with authors, philosophers, news reporters, scientists, to create a new intellectual, philosophical and cosmological culture for our planet. This would ensure we could build a more precise picture about our universe, for currently, in cosmology, we are really stuck, in terms of understanding how and why we happen to be here in our universe. The final explanation is not a vacuum of no ideas, nor a mass of ideas that do not seem to be leading anywhere. It is a fact that the basic foundational truth behind the Theory of Everything, in other words what is the universe and existence, occurred, in bits and pieces to philosophers at least since numerous millennia back in human history. Gradually, with the progress intellectual development has achieved in the last more than two millennia, knowledge has now reached a point where we can now formulate, to the extent we can, the philosophical and scientific truths, capable to really describe the origin of the universe, and what we are and how we got here. However, to appreciate what the concept is and what it means requires preparing the mind of people, an exercise which begins now and here, so that this process of intellectual acclimatisation will be adequate by the time you reach the final page of the author’s trilogy. The second and third books will be less voluminous that this first one.

We are living an incredible instant of the evolution of humanity. Readers will be told the cosmological history of humanity, starting with our ancient societies and gradually spanning history until we reach our contemporary times, to see how humans have been naturally inspired and captivated by the forces of nature, in the same way that we, modern humans, feel despite our modernity. In parallel, readers will see the evolution of cosmological and philosophical concepts from ancient times to the age of Plato, then across the centuries, until we see what our contemporary writers are telling us about the universe.

We know there is one universe, ours, and it does not matter, really, if there are multitudes of universes. This is a conclusion that will become clear after reading all three of the author’s books. There is only one method to answer Einstein’s question of whether God had any choice in the manner our universe was created. There was no other possible mechanism of creation to produce our universe and humans, and this conclusion will be clear once readers go through the author’s trilogy.

A comprehensive Theory of Everything, therefore, is one that explains, in one concept, how to unify the fundamental realities of our universe into a unique master concept. In general, a Theory of Everything is often the subject of mistrust if loosely used, for it should, strictly, be one which presents a scientifically unified view of our universe as is for instance Vlatko Vedral’s unified "Information Theory Concept" of our universe, in his book Decoding Reality: The Universe as Quantum Information. However, the universe is much more than quantum information, for it is an extraordinary existence, which links the infinite with the finite and the mortal with the immortal, and so it explains why there is something, rather than nothing. We do, frustratingly, seem to be an impossible existence in an impossible universe.

To explain to humanity what is the universe, how its creation, about 13.8 billion years back, happened, what is its ultimate nature and what is meant by existence, cuts across many intellectual, historical, philosophical and scientific topics, which we present in a manner that can be understood by educated women and men, irrespective of their educational background. To get to appreciate what kind of thing the universe is requires progressively reading practically every chapter of the three books by the author.

Publishing a coherent and comprehensive discussion of the ultimate origin and nature of our universe would not materialise without the enormous accomplishments by numerous eminent philosophers, scientists, mathematicians, cosmologists, anthropologists and literary writers of the last more than two millennia. Even the shamanistic way of life, since more than 15 millennia back in history, which connects nature and all of creation in its beliefs, has countless similarities among numerous ancient traditions, and more interestingly show parallel basic philosophies with those of modern spirituality, and provides useful indicators of what is behind our realities of existence and the phenomenon of consciousness.

The author’s three cosmological texts have the following titles:

In search of Consciousness and the Theory of Everything (2016)

The Theory of Everything: Origin of the Universe. (scheduled for late 2017)

The Ultimate Philosophy of Everything: Understanding the Unknown and the Immortal/Mortal (scheduled for mid 2018)

The topics under these sections are quite possible to tackle, because philosophy and science have produced enough, though disparate, knowledge to generate a logical and quite a good comprehension of our universe. It is, however, certain that a sound TOE will lead to a lot of credible philosophical and scientific interpretations and explanations about the nature and implications of our realities of existence.

While the last twelve decades have witnessed excellent scientific work, particularly about particles, forces, space time, relativity and quantum mechanics, we have been fortunate, as well, that the last two and a half millennia have seen interesting ideas regarding philosophical and cosmological concepts of the origin of our universe. However, the issue of how our universe could have come into being is a hard nut to crack. This is the reason why there has not been, so far, any credible extension or rival concept to Reverend George Lemaitre’s notion of an initial cosmic corpuscle, extrapolated from Einstein’s general relativity theory, in 1927 and 1931, to explain the manner the universe originated, billions of years back, in the concept that became known later as the Big Bang. That does not mean there have not been other positive efforts in cosmology, for there is a huge literature in cosmology and on the nature of universes, some of which date back to the period of ancient Greek philosophy. The history of human cosmological philosophy is a fascinating collection of events, ideas, concepts and of discoveries, which taken together show, as will be described later in this Preface and in later chapters, a generally coherent evolution of intellectual cosmic notions. From studying the details of our cosmological history, and provided we are perspicacious enough, it is possible to detect evidence that adds some substance to the mystic prophecy of Johannes Kepler and William Whewell, as you will see later, that humans are destined, in due course, to understand the supernatural creation of the universe. Kepler and Whewell were convinced that humans have been pre-programmed to achieve this kind of mystic knowledge, due to the manner intellectual evolution progresses during human history. It appears that we have now reached a fateful conjecture of adequate philosophical and scientific knowledge, capable of giving substance to the prophecy of Kepler and Whewell.

We intend to describe the whole notion of how humanity and the universe are one unit of supernatural creation, a mysterious entity, the purpose of which seems to complete the equation of existence, of the mortal with the immortal, and of human natural existence with supernatural existence. The truth is that we humans seem as impossible to explain as the existence of a supernatural power behind the whole of creation. Behind this huge paradox, there is an equation. The equation is of such a kind, that if one kind of existence exists, then the existence of the other is inevitable. Therefore, normally existence ought to lead to belief. This observation will come under scrutiny, to the extent that is humanly possible, in the author’s three books. It is true that some ideas about universe/universes make a remarkably trivial assessement of the nature of the universe and of what we are, to the extent of arguing that if we humans wonder about our universe, this is merely because we humans are here to think so for, for no other good reasons, because, under such concepts, there does not exist any philosophical and scientific explanation why we exist.

The whole of humanity, who is generally convinced we must be a special kind of creation, will have the opportunity to appreciate fascinating new ideas in this first book, as well as in the second and third texts, in due course The reason is simply that scientists and philosophers, due to the fact they are deeply engaged in research work, are likely to be more intellectually perplexed about the ultimate nature of our universe than the rest of humanity, who sees the universe simply as the natural habitat of humans, perhaps deliberately created by a Supernatural Mind. Scientists and philosophers, naturally, are generally not prone to impassively accepting scientific and philosophical concepts. We have a duty to ask scientific and philosophical questions in search of the most appropriate answers about the nature of the realities of existence. However, if science and philosophy elucidate the nature of existence and of the universe, the beneficiaries will be the whole of humanity, and not just those scientists and philosophers, who all together, have contributed towards reaching the final answers. However, science has produced interesting and, often, contradictory ideas in cosmology, a matter we must address together as we proceed in our intellectual journey.

I need to quote myself at this juncture for the objective of my mission is partly reflected in the following statement, which I made under the section "Comments", of an article entitled "World’s most sensitive dark matter search comes up empty-handed", in the "physicsworld" of week 30, 2016. The issue at stake is that the universe is far more mysterious than what science can scientifically explain. It is true that science, and cosmology have generated some concepts that appear to be perpetual mysteries, which tend to give an impression that the universe is incomprehensible, while Einstein was convinced that the universe should be comprehensible. Dark matter/energy is one of the physical stuff, which some physicists have predicted but have been unable to say whether it really exists, or how to find it, although the prediction occurred some two decades back. Not a single proven physical information about the