The following glossary of terms as mentioned in A Radical Guide to Reality or inferred in its message and the associated links to online resources are neither definitive nor exhaustive, but simply offered to guide and invite further exploration and discovery.
Six KEY TERMS – and see below in alphabetical order
Microcosmic Co-creators (MCs)
Emergence
Living Universe
Planck Scale
Cosmic Hologram
Holotropic Attractor Pattern
Big Bang
Describes the beginning of our Universe c13.8 billion years ago - as being tiny and implicitly chaotic. See Big Breath.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang
Big Breath
Instead of beginning in implied chaos, the evidence shows that while tiny and incredibly hot, our Universe began in an exquisitely fine-tuned and ordered state – and so, with space expanding ever since and time flowing forward, to be reframed as the beginning of an ongoing 'Big Breath'.
Biosphere
The biosphere is made up of all the ecosystems of Gaia comprising biological organisms and the environments that sustain them.
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/biosphere/
Black hole
A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravity is so strong that nothing, not even visible light and other electromagnetic waves, can escape it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole
Black hole - stellar
Black holes can be stellar, the remains of massive stars that undergo gravitational collapse at the end of their lives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_black_hole
Black hole supermassive
Black holes can also be supermassive, with masses ranging from hundreds of thousands to millions of solar masses that form at the centres of most and perhaps all galaxies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermassive_black_hole
Chemical elements
Our Universe has 94 natural chemical elements from the lightest hydrogen to the heaviest plutonium. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_element#:~:text=Of%20the%2094%20naturally%20occurring,which%20have%20no%20stable%20isotopes
Cosmic hologram
Theoretical and evidence-based model of our Universe as manifesting holographically, with its meaningfully in-formed appearance projected from the boundary of spacetime – as detailed in The Cosmic Hologram: In-formation at the Center of Creation
Cosmic intelligence
The intelligence of an infinite and eternal cosmic mind underpinning, embodied by and all-pervasive throughout our Universe as a finite ‘thought’.
DNA and RNA
Organic molecules, known as nucleic acids, that carry the genetic information of biological organisms. They have distinct and complementary roles in the synthesis of proteins, the organic molecules that are the building blocks of an organism. DNA holds the genetic in-formation as a template, with the primary type of RNA (messenger mRNA) carrying the in-formation to where the protein is then assembled.
Emergence
In evolutionary terms, emergence describes when new phenomena arise and how complexity can embody attributes and behaviours that their parts or simpler systems do not have or enact.
Energy-matter
The equivalence of quantised energy (E) and matter (m) is described as conjoined by the speed of light squared (c2) in Einstein’s famous equation E=mc2.
Evolution
While evolution has hitherto usually referred to the evolution of biological organisms, scientific discoveries are revealing that our entire Universe embodies an innate evolutionary impulse and purpose from its initial simplicity to complexity – from atoms to planets and plants and people.
Evolutionary impulse and potential
Evidence is growing that the laws of physics enable our Universe to purposefully evolve from its initial simplicity to complexity - and so can be described as embodying an evolutionary ‘impulse' to do so and potential for such emergence to continue
Expansion of space
From its tiny birth, space has expanded ever since, which together with the onward flow of time, enables ever more meaningful in-formation to be expressed and so is vital for the evolutionary impulse and potential of our Universe to unfold.
Flow of time
From the beginning of our Universe c13.8 billion years ago, as space has expanded universal time has also flowed forward from past to present and continuing into the future. This unidirectional or ‘arrow of time’ is fundamental for its evolutionary impulse and potential to be played out during its finite lifecycle.
Gaia
Named after the Ancient Greek goddess of the Earth, the view that our planetary home as part of an essentially living Universe is also a sentient being as detailed in The Story of Gaia: The Big Breath and the Evolutionary Journey of Our Conscious Planet
Gaiasphere
Gaia's sentience is embodied throughout the rocks and minerals of her planetary geosphere, waters and ice of her hydrosphere and cryosphere, air of her atmosphere and biological organisms of her biosphere as an interdependent, dynamic and co-evolutionary gaiasphere.
Holotropic attractor pattern
Underlying the appearance of our Universe, in nonphysical realms of intelligent causation, reside the dynamic in-formational patterns of what are known as holotropic attractor patterns or simply attractors that template and guide the in-formed manifestation of energy-matter. With the evolution of progressively complex systems they underpin their nested interdependence and coherence.
In-formation
Digitised information that is innately meaningful and which is the fundamental substance, expressed in complementary ways of the energy-matter and spacetime appearance of our entire Universe.
Interstellar molecular clouds
Referred to as molecular clouds due to being primarily formed of molecular hydrogen, where two hydrogen atoms share their electrons, the clouds are where stars and planetary systems are born. Their collective and collaborative components also include multi-elemental dust grains and gases, non-crystallised ice grains, and low-level ultraviolet (UV) light. This mix enables and empowers the brewing of a varied range of complex organic molecules as forerunners for the evolution of biological organisms on future planets and moons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_cloud
In-tropy
Restating and expanding the concept of entropy (the energetic microstates of a closed system) to intropy, as its informational content – and further, to in-tropy as the meaningful in-formational content of our entire Universe and which from its lowest level at the beginning of our Universe, with the expansion of space and flow of time, has increased ever since.
Living Universe
Expanding the description of ‘life’ beyond biological organisms to comprise the sentient and living nature of our entire Universe – and as universal and indigenous wisdom traditions have taught us.
Microcosmic Co-creators (MCs)
From its very first moment, the macrocosm of our Universe has embodied, as a ‘great thought’ of cosmic mind, not only intelligence and meaning but purpose: an innate evolutionary impulse that has continued for 13.8 billion years, and poised in every moment to continue its emergence into the future.
As individuated self-aware expressions of its unity and continuing flow, human beings, individually and collectively, are its microcosmic co-creators.
Multidimensional
From the earliest memories of our species, there is evidence that we have perceived realities beyond the physical world. Spiritual and wisdom teachings of numerous traditions maintain that our existence on the physical plane of our Universe is part of a vibrational spectrum of multidimensional consciousness extending far beyond the limitations of energy-matter and spacetime: experiential perceptions that are now being borne out by scientific discoveries.
Nonlocal
For the quantum mechanics that describe the behaviour of energy-matter to take place, quantum theory requires that our entire Universe exists and evolves as a unified – otherwise termed as being nonlocally connected or ‘entangled’ – entity. The 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics – only given for ‘settled’ science - was awarded to three researches experimentally demonstrating such universal nonlocality.
Planck scale
The reality of the appearance of our Universe emerges at the minute Planck scale of existence and is fundamentally embodied in five phenomena: energy, matter, space, time, and temperature.
Relating the energy of a photon of light to its frequency, a universal constant, also named after Planck, depicts the essential vibrational nature of energy and matter. Often referred to as the quantum of electromagnetic action, the Planck constant shows the fundamental role of light. The constant also mediates foundational relationships, such as between energy and time and between momentum and position, and is key to the framework of quantum mechanics, which describes how energy and matter behave.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_units
Protoplanetary disk – proplyd
As the gravitational collapse of an interstellar molecular cloud is underway, irregularities cause the infalling material to begin to spin. In doing so, a protoplanetary disc, or proplyd, forms around a protostar at its centre that eventually heats up to ignite, and with the matter of the disc accreting to form its planetary family, along with moons, asteroids, and comets.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protoplanetary_disk
Protostar
A protostar is a young star in the early stages of formation, when it is still gathering mass from its originating molecular cloud and its core is not yet hot enough to ignite and enable nuclear fusion to occur.
Sentience
Sentience is a consequence of mind with an individuated ability to perceive, experience feelings and sensations and may include having cognitive abilities such as awareness and emotional reactions. It can also include the capacity to choose, evaluate actions, remember consequences, and assess risks and benefits.
Simulation hypothesis
There are two versions of the so-called simulation hypothesis – neither, though, based on any evidence:
1. We are ‘real’ and conscious but the rest of the Universe is a simulation by an advanced Extraterrestrial (ET) species (as per a classic Star Trek episode)
2. Nothing, including us, is ‘real’ – everything is a simulation by an advanced ET species
However, in complete contrast to either versions of this idea, evidence at all scales of existence is showing that our entire Universe and everything in it – including us – is meaningfully in-formed and holographically manifested. Reality and we are real but the appearance of separation isn’t.
So, we cannot consider ourselves to be ‘real’ Star Trek crew members and the rest of the Universe, as per version 1, as a vast ‘holodeck’ and somehow separate from us.
If the entire Universe were to be a simulation, then we are too – and with no free-willed consciousness or agency (version 2). Not only does this logically require us not to be ‘us’ and the why of our self-awareness going unanswered - but it also continues the illusion of separation.
Spacetime
Whereas Einstein showed that space and time are each relative to the position of an observer and woven together by the constant speed limit of light, he realised that their integration as four dimensional spacetime is invariant and universal: so, all measurements of the same event in spacetime will give the same answer to all observers, regardless of their locations.
Universal 'alphabet'
Our Universe uses the simplest ‘alphabet’ possible, comprising only two letters, the zeros and ones of digitized information, from which to express its universally meaningful and in-formational reality. The universal ‘alphabet’ of zeros and ones, pixelated at the minute Planck scale, is combined and accumulated at all larger scales of existence to meaningfully in-form and manifest the energy-matter and spacetime appearance of our Universe.
Universal Mind and consciousness
Leading edge science is converging with wisdom teachings such as the Vedic tradition of ancient India to show that universal mind and consciousness are primary to and all-pervasive as the intrinsic nature of reality.
https://www.wholeworld-view.org/science-simplified
A New IN-SCIght of IN-formational SCIence
https://www.wholeworld-view.org/a-new-inscight-of-informational-science