The Ground Structure of Our Universe

Existence itself is never empty. There is no state of true non-being—there is always something. This baseline reality of somethingness is not composed of matter, but it has substance. When people speak of a "vacuum," they often imagine empty space. But true emptiness doesn’t exist. What we call the vacuum is actually a structured, dynamic foundation woven into the fabric of the universe—a medium far richer than nothingness. Even at its lowest energy state, it pulses with latent potential.

We will call this reality of ground states the Ground (ϕ). Its structure, or 'ground-structure', underlies everything in our universe. It isn’t separate from the universe’s large-scale structure—it is its stable foundation. Though it does not stretch infinitely deep, it represents the terminus of physical structure: where motion nears stillness and energy nearly rests. The Ground is a timeless, ever-active substrate that ensures reality never vanishes into nothing. Though it lacks particles or form, it's a physical presence defined by its intrinsic motion. Its restless fluctuations give it substance—not in the classical sense of material “stuff,” but as a dynamic foundation that endures, behaves, and passively gives rise to everything else.

Our universe began in a hot, chaotic state. where microstates (quantum ground state fluctuations) filled space, but lacked structure. As the universe cooled, these microstates settled statistically, setting the foundation for larger structures to emerge. This process is governed by bottom-up statistical evolution and gravitational amplification of tiny initial fluctuations.

The Ground and its structure is everywhere—within atoms, between galaxies, and throughout so-called “empty” space. It exists at every point in space. If you zoom in far enough at any location, you eventually arrive at it. This foundational layer—the Ground—is not 'beneath' everything, but rather 'within' everything. It's like the atoms within you, but at the deepest possible level. This perspective supports the idea of a liminocentric universe, where the center is not a single point in space, but exists at every point.

The ground-structure does not expand; it is already present at every point in space. It never spread or grew—it simply is. It is spatially total. It did not fill space—it simply is space at its most fundamental level, the base from which all form and force arise. Spacetime is the geometry rooted to it. Spacetime is shaped and defined by the very presence and distribution of mass and energy.

The Ground's structural nature arises from it's omnipresence. Because it exists uniformly at every point in space, it forms a continuous, unbroken field—a baseline framework that shapes how matter, energy, and space itself can behave. It does not have edges, centers, or gradients; its very constancy gives rise to spatial coherence.

Mass is confined energy. The ground-structure is not confined by boundaries—but by totality. It is self-confined because it is everywhere. Its omnipresence gives it a kind of mass: not by compression, but by containment without escape.

Ground-structure behaves like a field: uniform, omnipresent, and predictable when disturbed. Though it might be described as a scalar field, it is not identical to any standard quantum field or Zero-Point Field. These fields are mathematical constructs; the Ground is a real, physical presence. Think of it as a tensioned, foundational fabric on which all existence is etched. The Standard Model’s zoo of fields (electron field, quark field, Higgs field, etc.) may just be emergent behaviors of one ground structure.

As outlined in the earlier article, The Eternal, Cyclic Universe, during a Big Reset, the Ground is wiped clean—only to re-emerge. Each universe possesses its own version of the Ground.

Viewed at the smallest scales, this structure is not a smooth, uniform surface. Instead, it’s a sea of random quantum fluctuations, resembling the static on an old analog TV—only in three dimensions. Chaotic up close, yet smooth and uniform from a distance. In the same way, our universe on macroscopic scales appears homogeneous, despite the differentiation beneath.

The kinetic energy of ground fluctuations also averages out to a temperature—just above absolute zero, close to 0 K. This temperature reflects the Ground itself, not the 2.725 K of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), which is thermal radiation from photons released long after the Big Reset. The CMB represents the background temperature of space today, but it does not describe the temperature of the ground state fluctuations, which is negligible compared to the CMB.

The Ground is a sea of fleeting ground state fluctuations, also described as virtual particles. These are transient, unobservable pulses within the underlying structure. Inherently unstable, they never become any stable “thing” and possess no mass, spin, or charge. Though undetectable directly, their effects are real—shifting atomic energy levels (as in the Lamb shift) and generating measurable forces (such as the Casimir effect). The Ground doesn’t merely contain these fluctuations; they are the Ground. Their collective behavior defines its structure.

Ground state fluctuations do not interact directly, but they coexist. They 'self-organize' statistically. Despite their random appearance and disappearance, physical laws—such as conservation principles and symmetries—ensure that their collective behavior settles into a stable equilibrium. This ongoing balance sustains the Ground’s bound structure. That structure, in turn, contributes passively to the stress-energy tensor 𝑇μν in Einstein’s equations, manifesting as negative pressure. The Ground is thus both the foundation and a silent participant in cosmic evolution.

The Ground is not Aether or Quintessence. It does not resist motion or slow objects down. A photon, for instance, is not an object traveling through space—it is an emergent ground-excitation, a self-sustaining propagating pattern. Like a ripple on a sheet, nothing moves through the Ground—the pattern is the Ground, briefly reshaped. The sheet doesn’t drag on it's ripple, but the ripple’s speed is constrained by the sheet’s structure. This constraint defines the universal speed limit: c. If c is constant, so is the Ground’s structure.

The Ground Structure of Our Universe

READ MORE: The Universum Model