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16.1. The inflation phase

In astrophysics, the prevailing theory is that the universe started with an extremely fast and enormous expansion called the inflation phase. This is strikingly consistent with our own approach that the Experiencer formed the notion of a ubiquitous spacetime-field in zero time.

As I have shown, the Experiencer first creates an idea of a spacetime-field that forms a hectic fluctuating pattern. This abstract Pattern arose outside of time and space, in a timeless, spaceless void, an eternal now – which is still here forever.

Once the Experiencer had created the first interpretations, the laws that shape the Pattern – the laws were «everywhere» and «all the time». Knowledge behaves like this. Either you have it, or you don't.

Seen from inside the Pattern, where you and I are, i.e. inside time and space, it must have been an extreme event where the universe suddenly expanded from nothing to infinite size in zero time. In the same instance, time began to tick.

This is strikingly similar to what astrophysics describes as the inflation phase. It was over after 10-32 seconds, an almost incomprehensibly short timespan.

After the inflation phase, or actually, while inflation is still going on, the interpretation of the Pattern begins. This lasts the rest of the universe's lifetime, approx. 13.8 billion years up to now and will continue until the world's end.

In our idealistic worldview, there are thus two main phases: the pattern phase and the interpretation phase.

But now, let's see what science tells us and how idealistic emergence and physicalism match.

Again, I'm not a physicist. The point is to illustrate an idealistic way of reasoning.

Physics tells us that during the first 10-32 seconds, the universe expanded exponentially to a diameter of at least 100 million light-years.

Some sources say that even after a fraction of a second, the scope was many, many times larger than today's observable universe (ref). The same sources claim that the universe after a short time must be considered to be theoretically infinite in extent.

The inflation phase is a model, a theory that was developed in the 1970s and 80s and is not possible to observe directly. It shows mathematically and theoretically that the universe may have undergone such an expansion to obtain the size and properties we see today.

Here is one of the main arguments that support the theory:

With today's technology we are able to measure what is called the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) in the universe. This is the oldest electromagnetic radiation from The Big Bang that still exists and is possible to study.

It turns out that this radiation has minor irregularities; it forms a pattern. The pattern corresponds to the pattern we find in the zero-point field, this microscopic, hectic trembling chaos of events, the quantum fluctuations, which are found everywhere, even in absolute vacuum (ref). The irregularities in the pattern were the beginning of what later became galaxies.

How can the smallest and largest we know possibly have the same pattern? Inflation theory explains that the microscopic pattern was inflated like a balloon to astronomical dimensions in an almost timeless instant. From there, the «balloon», the universe, continued to expand at «normal» speed, the speed of light.

Think film again. The pictures you see on the big screen in the cinema hall come from a projector. On the film roll inside the projector, the images are tiny, usually 16, 35 or 70 millimetres wide. When they reach the canvas, they are blown up to maybe 20 metres or more, i.e. by almost a thousand times, 103.

During the inflation phase, the expansion took place by a factor of at least 1026. An object the size of half a DNA molecule (about 1 nanometer, 10-9 metres) was blown up to 10.6 light-years, or 100,283,746,237,467,330 metres (ref6). And this happened in virtually zero time.

I have said that the spacetime-field is knowledge outside time – in the Experiencer, who has infinite capacity and is in a timeless, eternal state of «now» and «nothing». That is not so far from what physics describes.

The spacetime-field with associated mass, motion and gravity – the Pattern – is a notion in a universal consciousness – created by knowledge of some simple laws.

Just as it takes zero time to transport a banana in mind from Earth to a planet light-years away, it takes zero time in the Experiencer's notion to create a universal pattern of infinite extent.