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While walking and talking with a friend who was a mechanical engineer, he asked me, what is science?
Great question, which eventually led us to talking about what is lacking in today's science.
I proposed that when an astronomer looks at a beautiful nebula,
the first question should be what is the function of that? But of course, that is not
the first question most astronomers ask. This is the crux of why astronomy is currently broken.
Our first question should be, what function is that serving? And yet that is never even asked.
Hence, modern astronomy can never understand anything it is looking at.
With a surprised smile he said, give me an example [of] cosmological things having a function.
I replied, did you know that the atmosphere above our heads has seven or eight distinct
layers before it meets the magnetosphere? And the magnetosphere itself has seven
or eight layers and structures which complete the connection to the solar wind?
It takes all these layers and structures to connect the solar wind to the Earth.
That is the function of those layers. If those layers were not present, then the solar wind
would crash into the surface of the Earth creating a mix of ceramic and molten glass.
These layers are not an accident. One of their purposes is to allow organic life to exist on
Earth. The presence of plants and animals is a vital importance to the Earth, and hence to
the solar system as a whole. To say that all of life on Earth is an accident, typifies how
out of touch modern scientists are with reality. I feel the need to say that again: to say that
all of life on Earth is an accident, typifies how out-of-touch modern scientists are with reality.
Why would a planet have a magnetic body, and a plasma body, and a monoatomic body and a gaseous
body? Why would the electric currents from the Sun go into and out of the poles of the Earth?
Answer. The energy of the Sun must be digested by the Earth. Outside our Earth is a world of
almost inconceivable fire, rarified beyond our understanding, so energetic, most atoms cannot exist.
One must come down into the sphere of a planet before the electron and the proton can settle
down enough, to come together into even the first molecules. And yet, here on the surface of the
Earth, everything lives in a cool, wet world with rain and wood, and ice, and fish, rivers and fields.
This is an enormous stepping down. This is a condensation, more extreme than liquid into ice.
The matter itself must be carefully brought, through stage after stage of cooling and
solidifying. These functional layers are what is needed to convert the solar wind energy
to be usable here on Earth. My engineering friend said, that's a very poetic way to describe things.
I thought about it and responded. Yes, but it's also the solution to an engineering problem.
Where else have we seen the union of engineering solutions with beauty? Oh, that's right. We see it
everywhere here on Earth. Every butterfly wing, every spider web, every musical instrument, every
flower, every perfectly tuned car engine, all built to solve a very practical problem and
all beautiful. The Victorian idiot warmongers who have forfeited their sex and the Darwin school
flunkies, have somehow convinced many of us that life is ugly and brutish and somehow makes sense,
only if profits are kept up, and new territories are conquered. Nature always makes a profit, but
not at the expense of itself, and somehow does it by maintaining a very high standard of beauty.
If our current scientists are not trained in beauty, they will forever miss the mark. Tell me
your explanation of things; if it lacks beauty, then I will know you are on the wrong track.
The Electric Universe position helps with all this. I am still at a bit of a loss how this is so.
In 2010 I came across Wal Thornhill's work on how supernovae make much more sense as an
electrical phenomenon and that began my journey of seeing that including electricity in the models
naturally paints the correct picture of a hierarchical universe.
Maybe it's because electricity naturally travels between larger and smaller worlds.
Maybe it's the other way around, and people who feel that we live in a living Universe are drawn
to using electricity as a way of describing what they see. For too long the progress of contemporary
science has been made absurdly slow because we have no idea what we're looking for. Whereas if
we started with the idea that we live in a living Universe which is a structured hierarchy, and that
energy and influence must travel from the larger worlds into the smaller, and then again be brought
up from the smaller back up to the larger, well then the progress of science would go much faster.
Instead of being surprised that our atmosphere has layers, we would begin the research expecting such
an arrangement. And we'd look for the role of electricity in maintaining these layers.
A colleague of mine sent me this link about the ACES II mission. Let's spend a little time looking
at the mission. Here are some images of the flow of electric current around the solid, rocky Earth.
The electric and magnetic body of the Earth is quite complex.
It is important to change your thinking about what is the body of the Earth.
Because we all have received no training in how to use our five senses, we generally believe that the
body of the Earth is only the rock below our feet. But this is only a part of the body of the Earth.
Maybe we could call the rocky part the bones of the Earth. Around this solid core is a body
just as complex and multi-layered as the rest of your body that surrounds your bones.
Plasma has an amazing ability to segregate to form walls, membranes, and tubes. The flow of electricity
through this larger body of the Earth is just as segregated as the flow of blood in your veins.
The plasma flows only where it is supposed to. And just like your arteries and veins, the plasma
membranes are semi-permeable. The right things get in, the right things get out. And still, the whole
system is highly pressurized and self-contained. Long before the mammalian circulatory system came
to be, the Earth had solved all the problems of a self-contained circulatory system
with semi-permeable membranes. Only it did so in the realm of plasma, electricity and magnetism.
Getting back to the ACES II Mission, look at this image.
The orange lines coming into and flowing away from the Earth are electric currents. The flows
have an interesting double in-and-out structure. Energy comes from far away, and then it goes
back into the magnetosphere, and then it returns, and then it is sent back into the solar system.
Most of this activity is along the sunrise and sunset lines.
if you pull back from the Earth, you will see that there is only one sunrise and sunset because the
shadow of the Earth remains fixed, while it is the surface of the Earth that spins underneath
that shadow. Along this shadow line electric currents flow both into and out of the Earth.
We don't know what happens to this current close to the Earth's surface, and this is the
focus of the ACES II Mission: fly two [sounding rockets] through this lower region and collect data.
While the mission is very exciting, it is half a mission. It is half a mission because
it is not starting with the question of what is the function of the aurora?
The aurora must transfer its energy to the body of the Earth and must also translate the
digested energy back up into the solar current. The circuit does not just come down willy-nilly,
make a right turn, and head back out to the magnetosphere. End of story. The current is
coming down to interact with the Earth and all that lives on the surface of the Earth.
This is like breathing; this is like digestion. The Earth is receiving solar energy and the
Earth gives something back. This is physics, this is engineering. It is also permeated with beauty.
Quite literally, solar energies enter into the Earth at sunrise. We all, animals and the
plants and the lichen, all use this energy as we live a day on this Earth. And when we lie down to
sleep, something is taken back up into the solar wind current. The ACES II Mission needs to be
paired with measurements of the electric currents and magnetic fields in the surface of the Earth.
The aurora and surface of the Earth might be connected directly, like a flashlight current
flowing through a filament. The solar current could flow directly into the body of the Earth,
or the aurora might make a connection through induction, like an AC Transformer where vibrations
in the input current are communicated to the receiving coil, but no electric charges
flow from one to the other. My bet is that both induction and transfer of matter are happening.
This is the sort of question that needs to guide missions of this kind. I've been looking
for updates on the mission since its successful November 21st launch, but cannot find anything yet.
Millennia ago, the word ‘cosmos’ was used to designate a living whole. All ‘cosmoses’ are built on
the same blueprint, the only difference being the size and how physical laws manifest at that scale.
You and I are each an example: citizen cosmoses that live in the larger cosmos of the Earth.
Planets are an example: citizen cosmoses that live their life in the larger world of stars.
Star is an example: a citizen cosmos of the larger beings we call galaxies. Going the other direction,
every plant and animal on Earth is composed of cells which are built on this same blueprint.
A cosmos is born and dies, eats and eliminates. A cosmos has power to heal after injury or sickness.
Coming back to the very start of this lecture, a nebula in our galaxy is not a cosmos. At least I
don't think so. The nebula is an integral part of a larger being or of an organ within our galaxy.
Yes, galaxies have organs that perform specific functions. Like this beauty. What's the standard
explanation of this? Oh, just another random explosion crashing into pointless surrounding
gases. What's a better explanation? This highly structured object is doing something.
Nature always links structure and function. So, let's try to understand what it is doing.
The Electric Universe paradigm somehow brings all of this into better focus. Electricity and light
as the finest matters we know, permeate all levels of the universe. Electricity and light can organize,
and manifest, at all levels large and small. And can travel between the large and the small.
By comparison, I would say for example that gravity plays a very small role in the world of cells.
If you believe that nothing in the universe is alive, that is a belief, not science. You have done
precisely zero experiments to test your belief. If you believe that stars are not conceived and born,
that is based upon precisely zero experimental evidence. If you believe that love and yearning
are not powerful forces for stars and galaxies and cells, okay, that is a belief. If you call yourself a
scientist, it is time to grow up and admit that these are beliefs based upon, you know not what.
Perhaps you no longer trust your feelings and trust only your instruments, made of metal and
glass. An instrument made of metal and glass is not alive, and hence can only measure other
things that are not alive. A living being can only be sensed by another living being.
One of us looks out and sees a dead universe, the other sees a living universe.
Those who study the dead are always surprised by the new findings,
while those who study the living often have an inkling of what we would find.
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