The Living Universe by Duane Elgin Page B

recently, we thought the
entire
universe revolved around us! So, it is an exercise in humility to ask: If the universe is a unified, living entity, then what is the larger context within which it exists? Where is our relatively young cosmos located? Although we encountered the grandeur of our living universe in the previous chapter, here we open into an even greater immensity and ask: What is the nature of the generative ground that is able to hold and sustain multiple universes? This is much more than a conceptual question because we are not separate from this spacious context, but live within it and are an integral part of it.

The Meta-Universe in Science
    When our universe blossomed into existence from an area smaller than a pinpoint nearly 14 billion years ago, it emerged out of somewhere. In reflecting on this, mainstream scientists such as astronomer Carl Sagan have put forth the increasingly accepted view that our universe “may be one of a very large number, perhaps an infinite number, of separate closed-off universes.” 2
    Modern physics is now actively exploring the nature of the generative ground that is at the foundation of our universe and, likely, countless others. As I noted earlier, scientists consider space to be the basic building block of reality. The distinguished Princeton physicist John Wheeler agrees, and explains that materialthings are “composed of nothing but space itself, pure fluctuating space . . . that is changing, dynamic, altering from moment to moment.” Wheeler goes on to say that “Of course, what space itself is built out of is the next question. . . . The stage on which the space of the universe moves is certainly not space itself. . . . The arena must be larger:
superspace
. . . [which is endowed] with an infinite number of dimensions.” 3 What Wheeler calls superspace, other scientists have called the “Meta-Universe” and “Multiverse.” I call it the Mother Universe.
    We can glimpse the Mother Universe and her great power when we recall the enormous energies required to generate and sustain our universe. As mentioned in Chapter 2 , empty space is permeated and sustained by unimaginably immense amounts of energy. If our cosmos were ancient matter floating through pre-existing empty space, then it seems reasonable that relatively little underlying energy would be required to sustain it. However, because the entire universe, including the fabric of space-time, is being regenerated at every moment, it is understandable that this requires phenomenal amounts of energy. A similar theme is developed by philosopher-scientist Ervin Laszlo, who has written, “The primary reality is the quantum vacuum, the energy and information-filled plenum that underlies our universe, and all universes in the Metaverse. . . . The universe we observe and inhabit is a secondary product of the energy sea that was there before there was anything there at all.” 4
    From the Hubble telescope to the electron microscope, everywhere we see an astounding intelligence, refinement, subtlety, and design becoming progressively manifest. What is the nature of the deeper container that can hold this intensity and refinement of consciousness and creativity as well as our expanding universe? Many cosmologists now hypothesize that an innumerable number of universes exist—allexperimenting, evolving, and leaving their learning to their offspring universes. To reiterate a key idea from physics, a black hole in our universe can be viewed as a potential doorway or wormhole into a new, baby universe, enclosed in its own bubble of space and time. Then, as the newly born universe grows to maturity, it will produce countless black holes that lead to the birth of other baby universes. Whatever we call this larger space, cosmology now provides us with a context—a hyper-dimensional ecology—from which we can regard our universe as one among many unified, living, and growing