An Exploration of The Nature of Reality. Science and Metaphysics.

The Universum Model:

The Eternal, Cyclic Universe

The Universum Cycle

Imagine existence not as a singular, unchanging entity, but as an eternal state of 'somethingness'—the Universum—from which all universes emerge and into which they eventually return. Derived from the Latin term meaning "all things rolled into one," the Universum encompasses everything that exists, has existed, and will exist.

The Universum is not a multiverse. Multiple universes do not coexist within it simultaneously, but rather unfold sequentially. One universe leads to the next in an ongoing continuum.

Periodically, the Universum undergoes transformation, giving rise to a new universe—a distinct, time-bound expression of itself, with its own structure, phenomena, and physical laws. Each universe is temporary, representing a unique phase in the ongoing evolution of the Universum. Over unimaginable spans of time, this process repeats in a boundless cycle of birth, imbalance, and renewal. This is a form of Differentiation-Driven Cyclic Cosmology (DCC), distinct from other cyclic models.

Our universe is one such expression—a temporary, structured manifestation of the Universum as it exists today. In this view, the universe is not a one-off event nor the result of nothingness, but a moment in an infinite rhythm of creation and transformation.

The Universum Cycle offers a new interpretation of cosmic evolution: a cyclic cosmology driven not by oscillations of space itself, but by internal structural differentiation. Over time, imbalance accumulates—driven by mass-energy contraction, expanding voids, and eventual destabilization. When the structure can no longer sustain its extremes, the system resets. The Universum rebalances through what we call a Big Reset, beginning the cycle anew. There is no origin and no conclusion—only transformation.

The cycle unfolds as follows:

( .. Reset > Differentiation > Extreme Differentiation > Reset .. )

The Big Reset

What we call the 'Big Bang' may not have been a creation event, but a phase transition—a radical shift in the Universum's vacuum, symmetry, and organizing principles. This global transition is an instantaneous restructuring of everything; a Big Reset. As one universe ends, another begins. There is no time between them—no interval in which events can occur or be measured. The transition is initiated with the end of one universe and concludes with the beginning of another, a multi-phase process rather than a single moment.

During a universal phase transition—a “Big Reset”—the Universum does not explode or collapse, but temporarily stills. All emergent structure dissolves, leaving behind a smooth, symmetric state of maximal potential and minimal activity. It is not a chaotic beginning, but a silent return to uniformity—an interval of stillness before the next wave of differentiation begins.

At time t = 0, our universe was not a singular, infinitely dense point, but a forced state of homogeneity and stillness—deconfigured into virtual symmetry. This was not a violent or chaotic moment, but a condition of extreme potential. Yet total stillness is not a preferred state for a universe. Some stillness is necessary, but not perfect uniformity.

Certain fundamental properties persist across this Big Reset transition. These are not events unfolding in time, but universal continuities—invariants that exist in all universes, with or without structure:

The Universum: Existence itself always exists. There is always a state of 'somethingness'.
Mass-energy: Always present, even if what it measures changes.
Spacetime: Not structured spacetime, but the potential for spacetime—the background canvas.
The universum blueprint: A pre-physical template that encodes the deep rules of physical law—governing energy, matter, spacetime, and their interactions. Like DNA, it ensures consistency across resets.
Asymmetry: True symmetry never exists. No universe “breaks” symmetry if it is already broken. The Reset enforces a high-energy blending—like oil and water violently mixed—appearing uniform, but inherently unstable. As the Reset fades, asymmetries reassert themselves and shape the universe’s evolution.

Everything else is reset.

Emergent physical phenomena.
Entropy reverts to minimum—rebooting the arrow of time. After the Reset, entropy is tied to the local differentiation of matter and energy.
Vacuum state: The prior vacuum is wiped clean. New virtual particles emerge, defined by the new vacuum.
Fundamental forces: Present in all universes, but potentially different in expression and balance.

Differentiation

Differentiation is the universal process by which differences arise from sameness. In cosmology, it describes how an initially homogeneous universe evolved into structured distributions of mass-energy—through symmetry breaking, gravitational collapse, and particle formation. Differentiation persists today, though more slowly. The universe continues to evolve hierarchically: galaxies merge, clusters form, and dark matter’s gravity sculpts the cosmic web.

After the Big Reset, the Universum immediately leaned away from uniformity and began to differentiate into a newly emergent, structured state of 'universe'. It rapidly assembled itself from the ground up, leading to the formation of stable matter within minutes. This cosmic reconstruction, guided by inherent tendencies toward self-organization, laid the foundation for all future evolution, as mass-energy reorganized into increasingly complex structures.

Each universe in the Universum cycle tends toward contrast, not uniformity. All are inherently asymmetric—universes in which perfect balance never fully settles in. Instead, they oscillate between moments of balance and imbalance. Asymmetry is not a flaw but a feature; it’s what allows anything to happen at all. Without it, there would be no time, no change, no structure—only a flat, frozen sea of sameness. Asymmetry gives the universe direction, variation, and depth.

When a universe initially breaks from near-symmetry, it creates heat. As fermions and radiation emerged to break that symmetry, the universe rapidly entered a high-energy state. This was not an outward explosion of matter into space, but an inward explosion of energy into structure. The universe condensed itself into form—symmetry breaking inward, not blasting outward. From that point on, cooling became necessary for the structured universe, now carrying energy in motion, interaction, and radiation.

Temperature and thermodynamic activity began once the universe crossed the threshold from pure potential into active dynamic structure. When standard cosmology refers to the early extreme temperature of the universe, it is describing the era after coherence and structure have emerged—when particles, radiation, and causal processes exist. The violent heat and energy in the initial universe is generally considered a result of particle emergence, not something that existed meaningfully before it.

The universe had built-in ways to cool itself. One was through mass-contraction: energy condensed into atoms, then stars and galaxies. Each time energy locked into a more stable structure, it wasn’t lost—but it stopped bouncing freely. That’s a form of cooling: less chaos, more coherence. The other side was void-expansion: while matter clustered inward, the surrounding voids passively expanded in response, thinning energy across widening regions. Radiation spread into this low-density environment, cooling everything further.

In this model, entropy increases not through decay into disorder, but by locking energy into form and diffusing what remains. Free energy fades through differentiation, not disintegration.

Though gravity drives ongoing mass contraction, its roots trace back to the moment of symmetry break—when energy, unable to radiate outward, collapsed inward, giving rise to mass-bearing fermions. This initial inward pull became a self-sustaining process that continues to shape the universe.

On larger scales, as dense regions of mass contract under gravity, surrounding voids expand proportionally in response—passively stretching outward. This reciprocal behavior amplifies cosmic structure and redistributes energy across vast distances. The balance suggests a deeper kind of equilibrium—one that may preserve not just energy, but also spacetime volume or even information itself.

A symbolic expression of this balance might be:

\( P_{me} = \frac{M^c}{V^v} \)

Where \( P_{me} \) is the structural pressure exerted by mass-energy concentration, \( M^c \) is total mass contraction, and \( V^v \) is the volume of expanding voids. This inverse relationship reflects how concentrated matter intensifies surrounding void expansion—and vice versa: a cosmic balancing act that preserves structure until instability emerges.

The rate of differentiation is not constant, but evolves dynamically in response to local and global conditions. This may help explain the 'Hubble tension' (covered in the previous article). As mass contracts gravitationally, it deepens contrast and drives cosmic evolution. This ongoing process can be modeled as a time-based integral:

\( D(t) = \int_0^t \left( \frac{\partial M^c}{\partial t} \right) dt \)

Where \( D(t) \) is the cumulative differentiation at time \( t \), and \( \frac{\partial M^c}{\partial t} \) is the rate of mass contraction. Over time, this reflects the gravitational structuring events that shape the universe’s large-scale architecture.

Entropy

Entropy—often equated with disorder—plays a vital role in cosmic evolution. As mass-energy differentiates into more complex structures, entropy rises globally and locally. This is not decay, but transformation: the system explores new configurations by reducing the freedom of its energy.

In this model, each universe in the Universum cycle approaches equilibrium not by flattening into sameness, but through differentiation—like oil and water separating into layers. Complete differentiation equals maximum entropy. This doesn’t violate thermodynamics; it drives it. Differentiation is the universe’s natural path toward balance.

Yet this same tendency can go too far. Runaway mass-contraction leads to excessive contrast and eventual instability. Even after the universe reaches maximum entropy in a classical sense, it continues to evolve: contrast sharpens, and the distinction between hot and cold deepens. Contrast is not infinite—but it is persistent, until the system tips and resets again.

Entropy–Differentiation Relation:

S(t) ∝ log(D(t))

This equation expresses how entropy increases with the degree of structural differentiation. The logarithmic relationship implies that while differentiation adds to entropy, each additional layer of complexity yields progressively smaller increases in entropy.

Extreme Differentiation

If differentiation continues unchecked, a universe will eventually reach a critical tipping point—where the contrast becomes too extreme for it's structure to sustain.

Over-differentiation is driven by runaway mass contraction and the expansive response of voids. Gravitational collapse is not self-regulating—it continues unless actively countered. As mass compacts and voids expand, the universe's structure becomes increasingly strained, compromising its overall integrity.

The tipping point can be defined as a critical threshold where imbalance forces exceed structural resilience:

\( F_{imbalance} \geq R_{gs} \)

Here, \( F_{imbalance} \) is the cumulative force of structural imbalance (from over-contraction and void expansion), and \( R_{gs} \) is the resilience of the ground-structure. When this inequality is satisfied, the universe undergoes a Big Reset—restructuring from its foundational layer upward.

Eventually, this global stress reaches the deepest layer—the ground-structure. While this foundation can withstand extreme local imbalances, such as those found in black holes, it cannot resist global imbalance. Read more: Black Holes and Singularities.

The Big Reset is not caused by a single external event or object, but by an internal structural failure of the ground-structure (aka: vacuum structure)—the foundational layer of reality that underpins space, time, and all physical interactions. More can be read about this ground-structure in the next article The Ground Structure of Our Universe.

Once pushed beyond a critical threshold, the ground-structure transitions—not by decaying into a lesser form or vanishing, but by restructuring entirely. There is no lower state to collapse into; instead, the foundational fabric of reality resets. Because this layer underlies all else, the universe resets with it.

We call this transformation the Big Reset: a Universum phase shift—a sudden and total restructuring of reality.

The Ground restructures by altering its internal relational geometry—the way energy, tension, and potential interact across all points in space. It still occupies all locations, but its capacity to support pattern changes. Before the Reset, the Ground held stable pathways for structure to emerge—fields, particles, causal interactions. But when the informational contrast becomes too high, the lattice of these possibilities fractures. The Ground does not lose energy or vanish—it reformats. Like a field changing its phase, or a medium switching from one resonance mode to another, its internal rules shift globally and instantly. This is not decay—it is a change in format, a rewriting of what kinds of form are allowed. The universe, built atop this substrate, reboots accordingly.

It’s like any phase change—whether water turning to ice or steam. The substance doesn’t disappear; it just reorganizes at the smallest scales. Transitions like this usually start from the bottom up: molecules shift first, then larger patterns follow. One set of micro-behaviors gives way to another. In the Big Reset, the same thing happens to the Ground. Its deepest structure rewrites itself—not by losing energy, but by changing what kinds of structure are possible. The universe that emerges isn't built from something new, but from the same underlying medium, now behaving differently.

There is no warning. No gradual lead-up. Just a sudden, complete reset. One universe ends, another begins. After the reset, differentiation begins anew, unfolding into a different expression of “universe.” The cycle continues.

This is a profound irony: the same process that allows the universe to cool and structure into form ultimately leads to its own dissolution. It’s a cosmic "over-correction". Cooling demands contrast... but contrast grows until it destroys equilibrium. The universe is both architect and wrecking ball—a loop of creation and collapse.

Every universe in the Universum cycle ends with a reset. Each universe is temporary, yet the Universum—beyond any individual universe—is eternal.

After the Reset:

D(t) → D₀, S(t) → S₀

The universe transitions to a new phase of structure, resetting its entropy and differentiation baseline values. A new cosmic cycle begins.

Why the Universe Cannot React to Its Own Differentiation

For the universe to preserve its structure under increasing differentiation—the contrast between contracting mass and expanding voids—it would need some form of counteractive mechanism. But unlike subsystems within the universe, the universe as a whole has no external environment to push against. It is a closed, all-encompassing system. Any reaction to its internal stresses must come from within, yet no such reactive field or force is known to exist.

While localized forces like radiation pressure or angular momentum can temporarily stabilize stars or galaxies, these are not global regulators. There is no large-scale field that inhibits mass contraction or void expansion proportionally to their increase. On the contrary, gravity accelerates mass contraction, and entropy ensures that differentiation continues. There is no counter-law in physics that opposes entropy. The laws of physics, as we observe them, support the growth of contrast—not its moderation.

Symmetries that might have enforced balance in the early universe have already broken. From inflation to the separation of forces, these breaks created structure but also locked the universe into an irreversible trajectory of increasing entropy and structural imbalance. Once those symmetries fractured, no restoring principle emerged to reestablish equilibrium.

Therefore, the universe lacks the capacity to counteract its own differentiation. It cannot react to its own structural stress in any meaningful way. If contrast continues to escalate unchecked, the universe will eventually exceed its capacity to maintain structure—forcing a collapse, reset, or transformation into a fundamentally new state. The universe must undergo a state transformation—not because it wants to, but because it cannot do otherwise.

The Nature of Previous and Future Universes

Each universe within the eternal Universum cycle follows the same fundamental orderly process—Reset > Differentiation > Extreme Differentiation > Reset—yet no two cycles are identical. Like variations on a theme, each incarnation of Universum fine-tunes itself from the start, shaping physical constants, energy distributions, and particle interactions based on its unique conditions. Fine-tuning is context-dependent, influenced by the mix of particles, energy densities, and structural constraints emerging post-Reset. While the cosmic blueprint embedded in the Universum ensures continuity, subtle variations arise based on the specific conditions present at the beginning of each cycle.

No universe—nor even the Universum itself—ever settles into perfect balance or symmetry. It thrives on imbalance and complexity. Rather than decaying into stagnation or collapsing into nothingness, the universum perpetually renews itself, sustaining its dynamic existence for eternity. No universe ends in a simple “Big Crunch” or “Big Rip,” but undergoes a “Big Reset”—a phase transition that seeds the next universe. Every manifestation of universe within the Universum brings new possibilities for structure, complexity, and life, ensuring that the Universum, as eternal existence, remains a dynamic, ever-evolving system. Our universe did not emerge from nothing—and it wasn’t all for nothing.