Reclusland

Posted this recently on the research feed:

The Quintessence Field

• In the late 1990s, observations of supernovae revealed that the universe has started expanding faster and faster over the past few billion years. Einstein’s equations of general relativity provide a mechanism for this phenomenon, in the form of the cosmological constant, also known as the inherent “dark energy” of space-time. If this constant has a small positive value, then it causes space-time to expand at an ever-increasing rate. However, theoretical calculations of the constant and the observed value are out of whack by about 120 orders of magnitude.
• To overcome this daunting discrepancy, physicists have resorted to other explanations for the recent cosmic acceleration. One explanation is the idea that space-time is suffused with a field called quintessence.
• This field is scalar, meaning that at any given point in space-time it has a value, but no direction. Einstein’s equations show that in the presence of a scalar field that changes very slowly, space-time will expand at an ever-increasing rate.
• According to the UCL team’s models, inflation would have induced quantum fluctuations in the quintessence field. When the universe began its more sedate expansion after inflation ended, the field and its fluctuations would have been frozen into the fabric of space-time, so that the energy density of the field did not change with time.
• This field would have had no impact on the early universe, which would have been dominated by matter and radiation. But eventually, as the universe grew, its expansion rate slowed down and the influence of matter and radiation diminished, the relative strength of the quintessence field increased, causing the expansion of space-time to accelerate.

More modern day alchemy!  Sounding strangely reminiscent of the old “sphere who’s center is everywhere and who’s circumference is nowhere…”

And then today I read this from my “list of things to read” (can’t remember where I found it originally):

Nisargadatta’s Difference Between Consciousness & Awareness

• When he uses the term “consciousness” he seems to equate that term with the “I Am ” and when he talks about “awareness” he is pointing to something altogether beyond the consciousness (“I Am”), that is, to the absolute.
• When the realization has established itself that I am the consciousness itself when I realize that I am the “I am” he take us to the next realization which is when I subsequently realize that I am NOT the “I am,” I am beyond that, I am pure awareness only!
• If I am conscious it is always conscious OF something. Consciousness always has an object of which I am conscious. So while the realization of my identity as the “I am” is very much closer to reality than the idea that “I am so-and-so, a person” it is still a step away from the final realization of the absolute, that I am the non- dual awareness which is allowing the consciousness to be conscious. Awareness is that which is shining through the consciousness, but it is beyond the consciousness itself.
• You are beyond the beingness, beyond the consciousness, beyond the sense of presence, you are the pure awareness only by which the conscious has been able to come into being: you are the absolutely pure original awareness only.” This latter realization can only proceed out of the former realization. First I must realize that I am the “I am,” the universal consciousness, then out of that I can realize that I am NOT the “I am!” I am actually the absolute only, and nothing else REALLY exists at all! Everything else is no more real than a dream.
• (T)he consciousness can only exist because of the prior shining of pure awareness. The awareness, on the other hand, does not depend on any way whatsoever on the consciousness, and is not even touched by it. The consciousness comes and goes, waking and sleeping, birth and death, but the awareness is always there. The consciousness suddenly appears in the morning on top of the birthless and deathless ever existing pure nondual awareness. Other than that absolute, there is really nothing.

Some interesting parallels there between Nisargadatta’s awareness and this “quintessence field”.  Though I am not a fan of “quantum souls” or “chakra string theories” any commonalities between high-level subject investigation and high level objective investigation do interest me.  For poetic purposes alone, if nothing else…

PS: I am working on some sesshin stories, hoping for some time this weekend to finish them up.