The tao of cosmos, p.1
The Tao of Cosmos, page 1
The Tao
of Cosmos
“This fascinating book is essential reading for both scientists and mystics alike! Ma skillfully integrates Western philosophy, Eastern wisdom, and modern science, offering a tour de force in his synthesis of a holographic approach to a new model of reality that unifies heaven, earth, and humanity. It stands as a magnificent contribution to the quest for that holy grail known as the Theory of Everything. His integration and skillful weaving of a coherent theory from a vast spectrum of knowledge across disparate fields is truly remarkable. Supported by meticulously detailed and captivating diagrams, charts, and advanced mathematics, this book describes his model in terms of a torus topology, integrating the classical yin/yang motif with elements of the I Ching, Leibniz’s binary code, and contemporary DNA research discoveries.
Ma encourages readers to contemplate the boundless mysteries that go far beyond our current understanding of spacetime, urging us to consider humanity’s place in a vast multiverse of multiple dimensions. A must-read for thinkers seeking to comprehend our role in the cosmological reality.”
SHELLI RENÉE JOYE, PH.D., AUTHOR OF
THE ELECTROMAGNETIC BRAIN AND TANTRIC PSYCHOPHYSICS
“This book details two key advances in science and cosmology and articulates the coupling between recent scientific achievements and the ancient paradigm of the Eastern neo-Confucian philosophy of the oneness of heaven and humanity. The author integrates Daoist ontology with Confucian cosmology to suggest a numero-cosmological system. He scientifically validates the unity of nature and man, showing that humanity is inextricably and holistically blended in the cosmological evolution.
This original cosmology—by a qualified scientist with a background in both astrophysics and Chinese philosophy—has the makings of a longstanding primary source.”
RICHARD GROSSINGER, AUTHOR OF
BOTTOMING OUT THE UNIVERSE AND
DREAMTIMES AND THOUGHTFORMS
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Park Street Press is a division of Inner Traditions International
Sacred Planet Books are curated by Richard Grossinger, Inner Traditions editorial board member and cofounder and former publisher of North Atlantic Books. The Sacred Planet collection, published under the umbrella of the Inner Traditions family of imprints, includes works on the themes of consciousness, cosmology, alternative medicine, dreams, climate, permaculture, alchemy, shamanic studies, oracles, astrology, crystals, hyperobjects, locutions, and subtle bodies.
Copyright © 2024 by Zhen G. Ma, Ph.D.
Portions of this book are based on the author’s 2019 Ph.D. dissertation, “New Philosophy of Onto-Cosmology: Swimmean Paradigm Synthesizing Daoist Metaphysics and Big-Bang Physics.”
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Cataloging-in-Publication Data for this title is available from the Library of Congress
ISBN 978-1-64411-776-7 (print)
ISBN 978-1-64411-777-4 (ebook)
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In Appreciation of the Beauty and Magnificence
of the Universe
Contents
Foreword: Toward the Great Unity
by Brian Thomas Swimme, Ph.D.
Acknowledgments
Introduction to the Holographic Unity of Heaven, Earth, and Humankind
1Statement of the Problem
2Historical Background
3The Wisdom of Eastern Philosophy
4Swimmean Spiritual Evolutionism
5Quantitative Principles of the Holographic Universe
6Holographic Theory of Everything—A Conclusion
Appendix A: A Representative Set of 325 Cycles
Appendix B: Rule of the Distributions of Qi on the I-torus Topology
Compendium of Celebrities and Chinese Terms and Texts
References
Index
FOREWORD
Toward the Great Unity
Brian Thomas Swimme, Ph.D.
It is impossible to know what the future holds, but I have confidence in my prediction that the book you hold in your hands will be read by scholars a thousand years from now. To justify my confidence in making this judgment concerning The Tao of Cosmos: The Holographic Unity of Heaven, Earth, and Humankind by Zhen G. Ma, Ph.D., I will begin by placing his work in the history of cosmology to show its significance in shaping humanity.
In terms of Darwinian evolution, the first human ancestors emerged six or seven million years ago in Africa. For our purposes, the primary difference between humankind and primate species and chimpanzees is the eventual development of symbolic language by humans. Though the origin of symbolic communication is lost in the depths of time, some biological anthropologists place its beginning at the same time as the use of fire, some 1.8 million years ago. It is probable that for as long as humans have existed, we have pondered our place in the universe. Cosmology as a human activity appeared in different groups throughout Africa and then around the planet, where a cosmologist is understood to be someone who constructs a story concerning the origin and development of both the universe as a whole and the human species in particular. Many stories were articulated. Each of these stories established the fundamental values and meanings for each group. Celebrations of their shared story created bonds among groups of humans. Cultural anthropologists estimate tens of thousands of these cosmological stories appeared throughout the long history of Homo sapiens. Each of these stories was cherished so deeply, wars between different stories became common right up to the modern age. To take one example, in the sixteenth century, Protestants and Catholics began killing each other over differences between their cosmologies with a combined death toll estimated to be between six and nineteen million.
In the seventeenth century, a profound change took place. Humans discovered the scientific exploration of the universe which led to a new kind of cosmology, one that is empirically based, one that speaks not in terms of gods or titans or semi-divine animals creating the universe but of mathematical, physical laws that control evolution. Scientists from every civilization became involved with the development of this cosmology. After three centuries of work, the physical outlines of a universal creation story have emerged. In a single sentence this is the story of the universe that began fourteen billion years ago with the emergence of elementary particles in the form of primordial plasma, which quickly morphed into atoms of hydrogen, helium, and lithium; a hundred million years later, galaxies began to appear, and in one of these, the Milky Way, minerals arranged themselves into living cells that constructed advanced life, including evergreen trees, coral reefs, and the vertebrate nervous systems that humans used to discover this entire sequence of universe development. That sentence required four and a half centuries of scientific investigation. It is a crowning achievement of the scientific method.
Having established the history of cosmology as our context, we turn now to Ma’s work. His bold assertion is that the empirically based, scientific story has a universal interpretation, a spiritual meaning, for all humans. That is to say, Ma has provided a synthesis of two vast domains of thought: the science of an empirically based account of evolution and the profound insights into cosmological meanings found in Daoism and Buddhism, spiritual systems that have been developed over thousands of years. The erudition demanded for this synthesis is vast. Ma has devoted decades of study in order to understand the intricacies and far-reaching consequences of contemporary mathematical cosmology. His study of Daoism and Buddhism has required an entire lifetime. Growing up in a family with a distinguished lineage of Daoist healers, he has been a student of this complex Asian practice and philosophy from his earliest childhood. The Tao of Cosmos: The Holographic Unity of Heaven, Earth, and Humankind is the world’s first vision that combines Western mathematical cosmology with Asian wisdom at a high level of professional expertise.
One final comment. As you will see, Ma has drawn from my work on what I have called the “powers of the universe.” I want to quickly indicate the major scientists who have discovered these powers. None of these powers is my invention. Each one comes from our centuries-long investigation of matter.
Power-1 Seamlessness refers to the discovery of the quantum vacuum. The physicist Paul Dirac was the first to propose the existence of this realm, which gives birth to elementary particles.
Power-2 Centration refers to the way the universe is composed of individual entities or centers. Among other scientists, the chemist John Dalton established that each thing in the universe is a composition of particles.
Power-3 Allurement is the attraction that binds entities together. The physicists Isaac Newton and James Clerk Maxwell constructed theories of two attractive forces, gravity and electromagnetism, that act throughout the universe.
Power-4 Emergence occurs throughout the entire history of evolution. The first scientist to articulate evolution at a cosmic scale was the mathematical cosmologist Georges Lemaître.
Power-5 Synergy—the power of relationships to birth something new—is at the base of biologist Lynn Margulis’s work on the emergence of the eukaryotic cell.
Power-6 Transmutation—the power for organisms to adjust over time in order to fit into a community—was discovered by the biologist Charles Darwin.
Power-7 Transformation—the power to construct through evolution a more harmonious community—was proposed by the paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.
Power-8 Cataclysm, leading to mass extinctions in life systems, was first elucidated by the zoologist Georges Cuvier.
Power-9 Homeostasis—the self-regulation of a system—was investigated in a deep way by the physiologist Claude Bernard.
Power-10 Interrelatedness was discovered by the botanist, naturalist, and geographer Alexander von Humboldt.
Power-11 Radiance is rooted in the Second Law of Thermodynamics as developed by the physicist Rudolf Clausius.
Power-12 Collapse and rebirth as an ongoing power in the universe is fundamental to the theories of the mathematical cosmologist Lee Smolin.
Ma has joined the ancient tradition of cosmology beginning in the distant past and pointing the way to a future of harmonious convergence. Where the first cosmologists constructed narratives that united groups of a couple dozen humans, and where later cosmologists proposed stories that united many millions in each of the major civilizations, Ma has taken the next step. With a profound ability for navigating both science and philosophy, he has bequeathed to the world a vision of the universe that draws from both Asia and the West. His work is a challenge to read. But in the mathematics and story is the glimmer of a new wisdom, a new understanding, a new beginning in humanity’s long quest to establish a vibrant community that includes all humans and every sentient being.
BRIAN THOMAS SWIMME, PH.D., a specialist in evolutionary cosmology, was educated at Santa Clara University and the University of Oregon. At the present time he is the director of the Center for the Story of the Universe and Professor Emeritus at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. His most recent book is Cosmogenesis: An Unveiling of the Expanding Universe. Discover more about his work at storyoftheuniverse.org.
Acknowledgments
This book is a revised version of my third Ph.D. dissertation (2019), combined with additional illustrations and tables from my presentation at the fifth meeting of the Foundations of Mind (2017). The first and the last chapters are fully rewritten.
My first Ph.D. supervisor, Tsin-chi Yang, a prominent professor in high-voltage engineering in China (also a lifelong taiji practitioner) at Tsinghua University, Beijing, introduced me to Einstein’s quest for a theory of everything (ToE) during the early 1990s. Eventually, in the late 2010s, I had the privilege of being under the guidance of Brian Thomas Swimme, a mathematical cosmologist, in the philosophy of cosmology and consciousness at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), San Francisco. It was through his mentorship that I discovered the path toward a quantitative ToE by integrating Eastern wisdom, Western evolutionism, and black-hole physics. I extend my heartfelt gratitude to him for his insightful ideas, critical feedback, and invaluable suggestions, which have greatly influenced my academic journey.
In addition, I would like to extend my gratitude to Professor Goodman, an expert in Asian philosophies and cultures from CIIS, and Professor J. F. Marc des Jardins, a Canadian Sinologist from Concordia University, Montreal. Both of them served as members of my Ph.D. committee. They provided invaluable advice during the project proposal and thesis completion stages. Particularly noteworthy is Professor Marc des Jardins’s considerable time spent reading, reviewing, and providing feedback on the thesis to ensure the quality of the content. Undoubtedly, this book greatly benefits from his assistance, and I deeply appreciate it.
Furthermore, I am deeply indebted to Dr. Yi Wu, a professor emeritus and distinguished adjunct instructor from CIIS. He bestowed upon me a precious gift: an outdated bilingual version of the I Ching by Z. D. Sung (1892–1980), published in 1935. It was indeed one of the leading references in this book. Dr. Wu had diligently annotated numerous pages, offering insightful interpretations of the hexagrams and unveiling the hidden philosophical wisdom of Eastern numero-cosmology. His notes proved invaluable in my research journey.
A special appreciation is extended to the Avatamsaka Buddhist Lotus Society (ABLS) in Milpitas, and the City of Ten-Thousand Buddhas in Ukiah. The ABLS provided partial financial assistance, while the City of Ten-Thousand Buddhas generously granted access to its library. Ven. Master Tian-Cheng at ABLS, an expert on the Avatamsaka Sūtra, provided invaluable insights into several Buddhist concepts from the sūtra.
Additionally, I express my sincere gratitude to Dr. Cuiwei Yang from Concordia University, Montreal, an expert in Chinese history and politics. Dr. Yang patiently offered detailed introductions and accurate comments on the formation and development of neo-Confucianism, the significant contributions of missionaries to Sino-West exchanges, and Shao Yong’s neo-Confucian ideology.
In particular, I extend my heartfelt gratitude to the editorial department of my publisher, Inner Traditions. Transitioning from a weighty, scholarly Ph.D. dissertation to a commercially appealing book is an immensely challenging and distinct process, particularly within a short editing period. This task is compounded by the inclusion of various unconventional materials, such as Chinese texts, equations, extensive tables, and complex multicolor figures. These elements add layers of complexity to the editing and publishing process, requiring meticulous attention to detail and creative solutions to ensure the final product meets both academic standards and market expectations.
Considering all these factors, I am especially grateful to Jeanie Levitan, vice president and editor in chief, who offered detailed guidance regarding timing and scheduling. In addition, Courtney B. Jenkins, in her role, graciously extended the manuscript submission deadline, allowing for thorough proofreading. I am also very thankful for the kindness of all the staff, particularly the typesetters who perfectly designed and laid out this book. For example, the book cover appears mysterious, offering a farsighted view of our universe, and intriguing, capturing attention with its shocking imagery.
Among all, I am profoundly thankful to my editor, Kayla Toher, whose dedication and expertise have been instrumental in shaping the manuscript into its final form. Kayla’s meticulous attention to detail, deep understanding of language nuances, and her patient, thorough, and professional approach has not only enhanced the readability of the text but has also elevated its overall quality. Moreover, Kayla’s insightful feedback and suggestions and her willingness to go above and beyond in reviewing and refining the manuscript, always with patience and efficiency, speak volumes about her commitment to excellence. I am truly grateful for Kayla’s unwavering support and her pivotal role in bringing this project to fruition.
Finally, I extend profound appreciation to Richard Grossinger, a distinguished American writer and the visionary founder of North Atlantic Books. His unwavering encouragement, insightful guidance, and steadfast support have been instrumental throughout the journey of bringing this book to fruition. Richard’s deep insights into the literary world, coupled with his invaluable recommendations, have played a pivotal role in ensuring the timely publication of this work. His enduring inspiration continues to fuel my creative endeavors, and his mentorship serves as a beacon of wisdom and encouragement on this writing odyssey. I am truly grateful for Richard’s belief in the potential of this project and for his enduring friendship, which has enriched both my professional and personal life beyond measure.
During the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, Sir Isaac Newton discovered the mathematical principles of natural philosophy. His work set up a solid foundation for classical physics. Human beings were therefore able to change the way they looked at and understood the universe. About two hundred years later, Albert Einstein developed the special and general theories of relativity, as well as the formula for mass-energy equivalence. He reformulated and extended Newton’s laws in view of an absolute 3-dimensional (3-D) space and 1-dimensional (1-D) time to a curved 4-dimensional (4-D) space-time. The fundamental rules thus established were testable in explaining new astronomical observations. They became reliable in proposing novel and transformative theories that govern the entities of the reality we inhabit.
