The Light-First Universe: Why the Big Bang Gets Creation Backwards

Faith & Science Conversation
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We are not seeing the near point-like gravitational lensing, nor the gravitational waves expected if there were that many black holes in our galaxy. 90% of the mass of the galaxy is lot of black holes! So while it might work for distant galaxies it is not a good hypothesis for the dark matter in our own galaxy, let alone in space even closer to us. It seems awkward to constrain the workable size of these black holes depending on how close to us you look – all the so called dark matter black holes close to us would have to be pretty small. I guess it is not impossible but some people find it hard to believe. Also I am personally skeptical because I think we would see a LOT more black hole star interactions than we are seeing. We have observed 18 such interactions out of 1.7 billion catalogued stars. These are dramatic events with very high energy output.

No. The whole point is that we can measure the dark matter distribution which would produce the gravitational effects which dark matter is supposed to explain. Furthermore dark matter would be black holes we don’t know about and haven’t detected.

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That’s the kind of creative thinking I like. Whether it’s correct or not, we flesh out ideas.

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They’re not really doing the math wrong. The equations they use work fine given the starting assumption. It seems that the catch is that astrophysicists usually start by assuming there’s a dark matter halo around every galaxy, then they pick a formula for what that halo might look like (NFW, Burkert, etc.), and adjust the free parameters until the curve matches (could be mistaken). In that sense, the “halo” is built into the math from the beginning.

When I ran through the set of SPARC galaxy data, I didn’t find anything that looked like a halo in the everyday sense. Nothing that rose up and then fell off again as you’d expect from something self-contained. Instead, the residuals just keep increasing outward, more like the missing mass stretches on indefinitely beyond the visible edge of the galaxy. It never turns over, it never returns to zero.

So the math isn’t wrong. It’s consistent within that framework. But what you’re really seeing is:

  • a good fit to the observed velocities,

  • with a model that assumes an invisible halo,

  • but no direct evidence that the mass distribution actually behaves like a halo with boundaries.

That’s why some of us wonder if we’re missing a deeper principle. The data don’t really scream “finite halo”. They look more like galaxies are embedded in some broader effect that doesn’t neatly stop at the edge.

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No… This doesn’t agree with the gravitational lensing data, which shows that dark matter is clumped up around galaxies and in galaxy clusters.

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I get what you’re saying about lensing, but here’s the puzzle: if dark matter is really “clumping,” why does the rotation curve math require it to be distributed so smoothly and uniformly around the centers of galaxies? Those two pictures don’t quite line up.

And then there’s the deeper question: even if lensing shows distortions, why must the explanation be dark matter? For sure: lensing tells us light is bending, which is way cool, but it doesn’t say what’s doing the bending. We’ve just chosen to attribute it to an invisible particle distribution. That’s one option, but it’s not the only one. It could be that gravity itself behaves differently on large scales, or that some deeper field or gradient effect is at work.

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In Fabric, lensing would be more like atmospheric refraction or mirages than like gravity from a hidden clump of matter. Light bends not because there’s a big invisible ball pulling it, but because the medium it travels through, the fabric, has gradients and flows that steer it.

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What ARE you talking about? The galactic halo is not perfectly symmetrical. But even if it was your argument makes no sense. It is like saying the spherical shape of the earth contradicts irregularly shaped asteroids. It is absurd. There is no contradiction. Just as there is a reason why the earth is spherical and asteroids are not, so also is there a reason why the galactic dark matter halo is approximately ellipsoidal. It is formed by gravitational collapse from an imperfectly uniform distribution, which always includes non-zero angular momentum.

When the gravitational lensing sufficiently matches the other gravitational effects attributed to dark matter, then what reason would we have to think the gravitational lensing has some other cause?

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I see it a bit differently. They use observations to determine where the mass is, and then they subtract out the luminous matter. What is left is the dark matter.

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What you are describing is spacetime curvature in relativity.

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What I’m calling M_latent is very similar, indeed. Here’s a table, I recently built to show the similarities. ~

Fabric Concept Astrophysics Analogy Biology / Mind Analogy Intuitive Description
M_latent Dark matter or unseen mass influencing rotation curves Latent potential, memory, or predisposition Hidden “stuff” that shapes dynamics without being directly observable
M_active Visible mass, luminous matter Expressed traits, active neural patterns Things you can directly measure or see
Gradient flow (∇M) Matter flows toward higher memory density, explains rotation & tides Biological gradients, chemotaxis, energy flows Systems tend to move along “pulls” of hidden structure
Resonance (R) Orbital resonances, bar patterns in galaxies Rhythms, entrainment in neural or social systems Patterns that stabilize or amplify certain behaviors
Beauty / Coherence (B, ∇C) Galaxy structure, spiral arms, hexagonal patterns on Saturn Organized structures in biology, coordinated activity Emergent alignment or order that “makes sense” across scales
Agency (A) Probabilities, randomness Conscious decision-making or self-directed action The unmeasurable factor that activates latent potential
Light threading / fabric Photon paths, redshift effects Signal propagation, attention focus How influence or information threads through a system
Latent memory fields Past galaxies leaving “footprints” on light propagation Long-term memory, epigenetic marks The way past states influence present dynamics
Residual effects Outer rotation curve deviations, unexplained lensing Subtle behavioral or physiological tendencies Signatures of underlying latent structures
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Sufficiently matches, from my understanding, is a forced match. But that aside, note the table I just posted. There are similarities to dark matter it seems to what I’m describing as M_latent. Quite different, but similar.

Since I think the universe is crazy-old (no need for The Big Boom), galaxies have a birth to death sequence. One question I’ve struggled with is just what is that cycle/branching (I’ve mapped my thoughts, but haven’t shared yet) and how does a galaxy die. Clearly, the universe is filled with subtle lensing effects over the entire sky. What if (total speculation), a strong lens occurs at the M_latent location of a long faded galaxy, in the exact location where one died. Now, that’s speculation! with no data to support. :wink:

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Black holes or dark matter? I guess I’m a little confused. Has any dark matter been accounted for, been identified as being anything other than black holes?

Black holes (other than the super massive in center) are collapsed stars correct? In that case, a lot of them would be fairly small and there would be no gravitational lensing to see if there is no visible star light close by. The distribution throughout the galaxy would be similar to that of visible stars.

edit to add: Super massive would be a mass of collapsed stars… a mass grave of stars.:laughing:

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The difference being we can measure spacetime with rulers and clocks. M_latent et alia doesn’t appear to be anything other than something you dreamt up.

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The irony of your response is funny.

Maybe I shouldn’t go here, but one of the reasons I even dreamed this up was because of dreams. What if dreams themselves are a form of M_latent, not literal dark matter, but an unseen store of potential patterns and possibilities, like epigenetics is to genetics?

Think of the acorn analogy: an acorn already contains the latent oak, but you won’t see it until the conditions activate it. That’s how I view M_latent. It’s a placeholder for “hidden structure or stored influence” that can later become active (M_active).

Does it affect galaxy rotation, probably not directly. But with dark matter, astronomers have also created a placeholder concept: something unseen, inferred from its effects on rotation curves and lensing. I’m not claiming M_latent is dark matter. I’m suggesting it’s a broader category, a way of framing phenomena across disciplines where there’s evidence of hidden influence but not a directly observed mechanism. In physics, that might be unseen mass or a modified field; in biology, it might be epigenetic potentials; in psychology, it might be unconscious processes and dreams.

Here’s the difference though: I don’t think M_latent influences M_active by gravitational pull the way dark matter is modeled to. Instead, it might influence what I’m calling resonance or beauty: patterns of coherence, harmony, and stability that shape how structures emerge or hold together. In other words, where dark matter is tied to gravity, M_latent is tied to form, order, and coherence.

So M_latent isn’t meant as “I dreamed up a new particle.” It’s meant as a cross-domain framework to unify how we talk about latent versus expressed structure. Dark matter is one possible instance of hidden influence, but not the only one.

What I’m really hoping is that this framework serves as an opening of new avenues of thought, engagement, participation, and collaboration. Not as a finished answer, but as a way of asking different kinds of questions—where physicists, biologists, and even psychologists can bring their insights to the same table. If M_latent, resonance, and beauty don’t line up perfectly with existing models, that’s okay; the point is to explore, test, and build together. Especially theology, which is why I’m here.

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The point of “dark matter” is that we have no identification of what is causing the gravitational effects and for this galaxy that is 90% of the total mass of the galaxy or IOW what we haven’t identified is 9 times the mass of what we can identify. Black holes is just one hypothesis for this unidentified mass, but you asked what are the problems with this hypothesis and so I listed some of them. Other scientists certainly have different hypotheses for dark matter. If any get confirmed then it wouldn’t be called dark matter any more.

Most of the other black holes we have observed like those 18 interacting with stars are collapsed stars (we can see the remnant of the supernova which created them).* But the hypothesis of dark matter being black holes often resorts to smaller primordial (created by the big bang) black holes to explain why we don’t see supernova remnants. But this has its own problems because the smaller they are the more of them you must have to account for dark matter, which makes the lack of interaction with stars more unlikely.

The range of masses for black holes created by collapsed stars is 3 stellar masses to 33 stellar masses (most range from 5 stellar masses to 20). Less than 3 stellar masses and you get neutron stars and white dwarfs from those stellar collapses. Too much and you exceed how big stars can be (up to around 200 stellar masses) and thus how big their remnants (remember most of the mass is blown away in the supernova).

  • An exception is OGLE-2011-BLG-0462, a rogue black hole wandering by itself. It is thought to have the same origin in a supernova, but off center enough to give a kick to its velocity.
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Thanks. I’m glad that you enjoyed the poem. I really appreciate nearly all of Hopkins’.

I think that people require abstract thinking to grasp reality. (@Christy once posted a great article about that; I can’t recall where it is). Using metaphor, or symbol, can help that. I am not sure what you mean by whether a symbol can become reality. Can you please clarify?

In fact, I think our poetry/symbol/metaphor use arises from our own deeply held beliefs and background. That is one reason why science, I think, requires detail and repetition, with analysis, rather than song–we can only communicate across cultures, and beliefs, with the common language of hard, repeatable science.

Let me know if I’m misunderstanding you, please.

Thank you.

Blessings, Randy

PS-

@jammycakes is really good with boiling down the rules of science; he may want to weigh in.

Thank you

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I hope you get to live in a hut like your avatar. I’m jealous.

I mentioned the idea about symbols becoming reality because of the sacraments, “I am the bread of life.” And the fact that language and math are symbols and through it human intention does emerge and become manifest. Science and math uses keen logic metaphor as symbols to represent reality and I certainly would agree our science and math does not become manifest (heaven forbid!), though it does at times rockets and computers. What’s the difference between a dream, a sacrament, and manifestation? Probably a topic for a different thread.

No, scientific theory will never = reality. The fabric framework will never = reality. What is closer to ~? I’ve set out is set of broad descriptors which I personally use to understand the deeper relationships among/within nature and humankind and even within the deep: our relationship with the kingdom of heaven (dare I even be so bold as to think that!). It’s an ontology that helps me. Will it help others? Unknown.

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Thank you. Re the hut, no, though I did live in a combination mud and cement (with imbedded rock) in Africa, which was quite cool in the hot day, some of the time.

Re the theological interweaving with science–I am sorry; I can’t follow you there. I make a leap by faith, but can’t bring that into the realm of the verifiable.

Do you have any favorite poetry or verse

Have a good night!

Randy

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Always. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be faith. Hope would not be hope either. Love would be programmatic. God bless you!