Summary[]
The Xeelee Sequence is a series of hard science fiction novels, novellas, and short stories written by British science fiction author Stephen Baxter (same author of Manifold).
This blog will cover its cosmology and stuff.
Universe[]
The universe is finite, closed, folded over on itself:
On the Nord, only very small children thought the universe was infinite. Just because it looked that way didn't make it so, any more than the apparent flatness of a planet meant it had to be an infinitely flat plane. The universe was finite: closed, folded over on itself. To Alia the finiteness of the universe was as obvious and intuitive as, to an Earthborn child, it was obvious that the sun was a star.
And it was useful. As the Transcendence had sought ways to recover its past, it had fallen on the closure of the universe. For time and space were not separate entities but merged into one unity, spacetime. And so in a finite universe the closure must be complete in time as well as in space. Just as one side of the universe was connected to the other, so the very far future was connected to the very remote past.
–Transcendent: Chapter 31
You must think of the universe, then, as a blanket of spacetime, stretching thirteen billion years deep into the past and some twelve billion light years across—’
–Resplendent: Ghost Wars
The universe not only has the standard 3 dimensions of space + 1 of time, but it also has 7 extra compactified dimensions, making it overall 11-dimensional. These extra dimensions is what they call "hyperspace":
Michael shook his head, impatient with the sudden jumble of emotions he found stirring inside him. "The hyperdrive," he said sternly. "All right, Harry. How many dimensions does spacetime have?"
Harry opened his mouth, closed it again. "Four. Three space, one time. Doesn't it? All wrapped up into some kind of four-dimensional sphere--"
"Wrong. Sorry, Harry. There are actually eleven. And the extra seven is what allows the hyperdrive to work..."
The grand unified theories of physics -- the frameworks that merged gravitation and quantum mechanics -- predicted that spacetime ought to assume a full eleven dimensions. The logic, the symmetry of the ideas, would allow little else.
And eleven dimensions there turned out to be.
But human senses could perceive only four of those dimensions, directly. The others existed, but on tiny scales. The seven compactified dimensions were rolled into the topological equivalent of tight tubes, with diameters, well within the Planck length, the quantum limit to measurement of size.
–Timelike Infinity: Chapter 14
Our Universe is an eleven-dimensional object. All but four of those dimensions are compactified—rolled up to an unimaginable thinness. What we call hyperspace is one of those extra dimensions.
–Vacuum Diagrams: The Quagma Datum
"Remember, though, the extra dimensions are here, still, but they're rolled up very tightly, into high-curvature tubes a Planck length across."
"So we can't see them."
"No. But - and here's the trick we think the Xeelee have exploited. Spinner the extra dimensions do have an impact on our Universe. The curvature of these Planck tubes determines the value of the fundamental constants of physics. So the way the tubes are folded up determines things like the charge of an electron, or the strength of gravity."
Spinner nodded slowly. "All right. But what has this to do with the hyperdrive?"
"Spinner-of-Rope, we think the Xeelee found a way to adjust some of those universal numbers. By changing the constants of physics - in a small region of space around itself - the hyperdrive can make spacetime unfurl, just a little."
Louise lifted her face. "Then the nightfighter can move, a short distance, through one of the higher dimensions.
"Think of a sheet of paper. Spinner. If you're confined to two dimensions – to crawling over the paper - then it will take you a long time to get from one side to the other. But if you could move through the third dimension - through the paper - then you could move with huge apparent speed from one place to another..."
–Ring: Chapter 21
The universe is composed of quantum wave functions, sheets of probability that links matter and time:
At first Michael labeled the places he visited, the relics he found, in human terms; but as time passed and his confidence grew he removed this barrier of words. He allowed his consciousness to soften further, to dilute the narrow human perception to which he had clung.
All about him were quantum wave functions.
They spread from stars and planets, sheets of probability that linked matter and time. They were like spiderwebs scattered over the aging galaxies; they mingled, reinforced, and canceled each other, all bound by the implacable logic of the governing wave equations.
The functions filled spacetime and they pierced his soul. Exhilarated, he rode their gaudy brilliance through the hearts of aging stars.
He relaxed his sense of scale, so that there seemed no real difference between the width of an electron and the broad sink of a star's gravity well. His sense of time telescoped, so that he could watch the insectlike, fluttering decay of free neutrons—or step back and watch the grand, slow decomposition of protons themselves…
–Timelike Infinity: Chapter 16
The quantum wave functions are the fundamental building blocks of reality:
She waved her hand with exasperation. 'Don't talk like a cheap data desk. Jack. There's nothing fuzzy about reality. The wave functions are the fundamental building blocks of the Universe; their governing wave equations are completely deterministic …
–Vacuum Diagrams
Other Universes / The Bulk[]
There are many universes, floating in a greater space, called the Bulk, which has many extra dimensions:
'Marshal, our universe of three space dimensions floats in a greater space, which the physicists call the Bulk, of many extra dimensions. There are many universes' – and she held her palms together – 'floating parallel to each other in the Bulk, like pages in a book. You can reach these other universes through engineering, like wormholes—'
–Xeelee: Endurance
‘There are believed to be many such universes, stacked up’ – the translator boxes hesitated, searching for a simile – ‘like leaves in a book.
–Resplendent: Ghost Wars
These universes can have their own characteristics with different values of the physical constants, such as having gravity one billions times stronger or more than 3 spatial dimensions:
'Gravity!' Vala said forcefully. 'That's the key to universe Beta – which is what the Integrality archivists of the time called it.'
'Our own universe being Alpha, I suppose,' said Sand drily.
Vala smiled. 'Gravity in Beta is a billion times stronger than in Alpha – you understand I mean the fundamental force, the magnitude of the constant of gravity. Other physical constants, the speed of light for instance, are the same.'
'Then everything is different there,' Sand said, pondering. 'If Earth was projected into universe Beta—'
'It would have a surface gravity of a billion gees – but it would implode in an instant. Even a mass as small as a human body would have a perceptible gravity field. In Beta, you could make a "star" with the mass of a small comet, say; that would give enough pressure to initiate fusion in the core. Stellar masses scale inversely as the gravity constant raised to the power of three over two . . . Other cosmic objects scale similarly – neutron stars, black holes.
–Xeelee: Endurance
"Spinner, maybe there are alternate universes, out there somewhere, where more than three dimensions ballooned up after the initial singularity. But as far as we can see, life - our kind of life - couldn't have evolved there; the fundamental geometry of spacetime wouldn't have allowed it…
–Ring: Chapter 20
The main universe is only one out of an uncountable infinite number of possibilities/timelines/worldlines that will terminate at timelike infinity, the true end of time:
"And so you believe," came the Ghost's simulated voice, "that this universe is essentially transient— all you sense, all you achieve, even your experiences of your inner self will pass away."
"Not transient, exactly," Burden called back. "Just one of an uncountably infinite number of possibilities which will, cumulatively, be resolved at timelike infinity, after the manner of a collapse of quantum functions."
"But in that case, what basis for morality can there be?"
"There is a moral basis for every decision," said Burden. "To show loyalty to one's fellows—to put oneself in harm's way for the sake of one's species. And while this is only one out of a myriad timelines, we believe that the, umm, the goodness in each timeline will sum at the decision point at timelike infinity to gather into Optimality..."
–Exultant: Chapter 46
At last, our world lines will terminate at a place called timelike infinity—at the infinitely remote, true end of time.
–Ring: Chapter 30
Configuration Space[]
Configuration Space is an aspatial and atemporal higher realm, which contains every possible material configuration of the universe, a configuration for each snapshot of the universe, analogously compared to grains of sand lined up, the "reality dust of the Nows". It is an abstract map of all the possible states our universe could take up:
"Imagine there is no time. Imagine there is no space..." In the still cold of Callisto, as she described extraordinary ideas, Luru's voice was a dry rustle. "Take a snapshot of the universe. You have a static shape, a cloud of particles each frozen in flight at some point in space." A snapping of fingers. "Do it again. There. There. There. Each moment, each juggling of the particles, gives you a new configuration.
"Imagine all those snapshots, all the possible configurations the particles of the universe can take. In any one configuration you could list the particles' positions. The set of numbers you derive would correspond to a single point on a mighty multidimensional graph. The totality of that graph would be a map of all the possible states our universe could take up. Do you see? And that map is configuration space."
"Like a phase space map."
"Like a phase space, yes. But of the whole universe. Now imagine putting a grain of dust on each point of the map. Each grain would correspond to a single point in time, a snapshot. This is reality dust, a dust of the Nows. Reality dust contains all the arrangements of matter there could ever be..."
Slowly, as Luru explained and Nilis tried to clarify, Pirius began to understand.
Configuration space was not Pirius's world, not his universe. It was a map, yes, a sort of timeless map of his own world and all its possibilities, a higher realm. And yet, according to Luru Parz, it was a universe in itself, a place you could go, in a sense. And it was filled with reality dust. Every grain of sand there represented an instant in his own universe, a way for the particles of his universe, atoms and people and stars, to line themselves up.
–Exultant: Chapter 31
Configuration Space not only lacks time (as shown above) but it's also beyond it:
She asked Asgard about time.
Asgard, gnawing absently on a handful of bark chips, ran a casual finger through the reality dust, from grain to grain. ‘There,’ she said. ‘Time passing. From one moment to the next. For we, you see, are above time.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Of course you don’t. A row of dust grains is a shard of story. A blade of grass is a narrative. Where the grass knits itself into vines and trees, that story deepens. And if I eat a grass blade I absorb its tiny story, and it becomes mine. So Pharaoh said. And I don’t know who told him. Do you see?’
–Resplendent: Reality Dust
Our time-bound language can't describe it:
‘But you still don’t see it,’ Reth said evenly. ‘She is alive – but our time-bound language can’t describe it – she persists, somewhere out there, beyond the walls of our petty realisation.’
–Resplendent: Reality Dust
In Configuration Space, all the moments that comprise history exist simultaneously. And all the other configurations that are logically possible also exist:
Reth glared at him, eyes hard. ‘You are beginning to understand. Now. Imagine a space of stupendously many dimensions. ’ He held up a dust grain. ‘Each grain represents one configuration of all the particles in our universe, frozen in time. This is reality dust, a dust of the Nows. And the dust fills configuration space, the realm of instants. Some of the dust grains may represent slices of our own history.’ He snapped his fingers, once, twice, three times. ‘There. There. There. Each moment, each juggling of the particles, a new grain, a new coordinate on the map. There is one unique grain that represents the coalescing of all the universe’s particles into a single point. There are many more grains representing chaos - darkness - a random, structureless shuffling of the atoms.
‘Configuration space contains all the arrangements of matter there could ever be. It is an image of eternity.’ He waved a fingertip through the air. ‘But if I trace out a path from point to point—’
‘You are tracing out a history,’ said Hama. ‘A sequence of configurations, the universe evolving from point to point.’
‘Yes. But we know that time is an illusion. In configuration space, all the moments that comprise our history exist simultaneously. And all the other configurations that are logically possible also exist, whether they lie along the track of that history or not.’
–Resplendent: Reality Dust
It contains all logical possibilities, a realm/world of logic:
‘I know it’s hard to accept,’ she said. ‘My mother spent a long time making me understand. You just have to open your mind.’
‘I am no fool,’ he said sharply. ‘I can imagine a map of all the logical possibilities of a universe. But it would be just that – a map, a theoretical construct, a thing of data and logic. It would not be a place. The universe doesn’t feel like that, I feel time passing. I don’t experience disconnected instants, Reth’s dusty reality.’
[...]
‘Configuration space is real, Hama Druz. This isn’t a new idea; Pleh-toh saw that, thousands of years ago … Ah, but you know nothing of Pleh-toh, do you? The higher manifold always existed, you see, long before the coming of mankind, of life itself. All that has changed is that through the patient, blind growth of the Callisto bacteria, I have found a way to reach it. And there we can truly live for ever—’
–Resplendent: Reality Dust
Reth grinned and stepped back. ‘You may be a mayfly, but you have the beginnings of wisdom, Hama Druz.’
‘Yes,’ Hama said quietly. ‘Yes, I believe I do. Perhaps there is something there, some new realm of logic to be explored.
–Resplendent: Reality Dust
‘If our second-hand wisdom has any validity at all, we know that the Xeelee react to what they fear. And almost as soon as Reth constructed his interface to his world of logic and data, as soon as the pharaohs began to pass into it, they came here.’
–Resplendent: Reality Dust
It is an abstract and Platonic realm:
Luru said, "Reth Cana discovered that, constrained in this space and time, the endoliths found a way into configuration space—and Reth Cana found a way for humans to follow. He could download a human consciousness into this abstract realm.
"I can see the appeal of that for pharaohs," Nilis said with dark humor. "An abstract, static, Platonic realm—a place of morbid contemplation, a consolation for ageless pharaohs as they sought to justify the way they administered the suffering of their fellow creatures."
–Exultant: Chapter 31
The Transcendence[]
The Transcendence is an abstract and ultimate unity of consciousness, while at the same time being greater than that, for no expression or words can define it. It is literally beyond human imagination:
This was the Transcendence,the shining nodes human minds, the links that joined them channels of shared thought and memory. This visual map was a crude analogy, and incomplete, for the merged mind was greater than a simple aggregate of individuals. And yet it helped her to begin to see. Reath had been right: location in space or even time was irrelevant to the Transcendence. This abstract realm was where the Transcendence existed, this no-place, and it was governed not by time or distance but merely by an effort of will.
–Transcendent: Chapter 27
I felt a gentle pressure, as if a hand had cupped my chin to lift my head, as if I were a child. Metaphor, metaphor. But metaphors are fine if they help you understand.
“Look now.”
I saw a black sky full of stars, all around me, above and below. It was as if I was a stranded astronaut taken far from Earth and left drifting in space. I had no sense of vertigo, though; perhaps that had been edited out. The stars were scattered deep through three dimensions, but they were all a uniform color, a kind of yellow-white. I began to make out patterns, groupings, tentative constellations.
“Stars. But they aren’t stars, are they? Just another metaphor.”
“A metaphor for what?”
It was obvious. “The Transcendents. The individuals who contribute to this group mind. Like us.”
“Like me,” Alia said. “Not quite like you.”
“Am I not a star?” I felt unreasonably disappointed. “Twinkle, twinkle.”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “But a special sort of star.”
The stars began to drift around me. Now they were like fish in some vast dark aquarium. The patterns they made became clearer, swoops and whirls and sketches of light. And each of them was a mind, I marveled.
I knew the principle. The Transcendence was not a simple pooling of minds but a dynamic network, of which these stars were the nodes. The greater awareness of the Transcendence itself was an emergent property of the network, arising from the community of minds, yet not overwhelming them individually. It had something in common with an anthill, I thought—or even uncle George’s strange Coalescence.
I saw more stars, swarms of them flocking in patterns that elaborated scale upon scale, rising up as far as I could see. And at the very limit of my vision the shifting constellations seemed to merge into a mist, and then a bright point. That ultimate unity was the consciousness of the Transcendence itself, arising out of the interactions of the community of star-minds on which it was based.
–Transcendent: Chapter 58
Alia knew that was too simple. Drea still thought of the Transcendence as a kind of comms network, as if the Transcendents themselves were nothing but monitoring stations, their eyes cameras. But the Transcendence was more than that. The Transcendence was literally beyond human imagination. Indeed Alia herself didn’t have the words to express it.
–Transcendent: Chapter 43
It encompasses ideas, beliefs, and understandings:
“These are the structures of the mind of the Transcendence,” Alia said. “Ideas. Beliefs. Understandings. And memories—many, many memories.”
–Transcendent: Chapter 58
Locations in space or even time are irrelevant for the Transcendence:
This was the Transcendence,the shining nodes human minds, the links that joined them channels of shared thought and memory. This visual map was a crude analogy, and incomplete, for the merged mind was greater than a simple aggregate of individuals. And yet it helped her to begin to see. Reath had been right: location in space or even time was irrelevant to the Transcendence. This abstract realm was where the Transcendence existed, this no-place, and it was governed not by time or distance but merely by an effort of will.
–Transcendent: Chapter 27
It is everywhere and nowhere. It encompasses all of space:
“Just as individuals don’t matter, nor do places; the Transcendence is everywhere, or nowhere… Even I’m not in charge; I’m only here to point out your choices. It’s always been up to you.” He sounded wistful—even envious, she thought.
–Transcendent: Chapter 25
“The Transcendence reaches across all of space. Each new soul drawn into the Transcendence, like yourself, enriches the whole. And each new form of humanity, each with its own unique way of perceiving the universe, deepens and widens our apprehension of the universe. All of this is brought into the center and shared among all. It is no coincidence that the Transcendence’s political presence is called the Commonwealth, for this merged awareness is the true common wealth of mankind.
–Transcendent: Chapter 45
It transcends notions such as causality and consequence. Even infinite tasks themselves are trivial compared to the Transcendence's nature:
Through the Witnessing and the Hypostatic Union, it tried to bring the suffering of the past into its full awareness, and so to atone. But mere watching could never be enough. So the Transcendence went further. In the Restoration, every human that possibly could have existed would be brought into reality. It would be a stunning, shining moment of rectification. Such trivialities as causality and consequence would be abandoned—but the Transcendence would be infinite, I reminded myself; and to an infinite being even infinite tasks are trivial.
–Transcendent: Chapter 58
The Transcendence's superiority over everything else is compared to a discontinuity, a step change. The analogy of slicing a cone illustrates a dimensional discontinuity, a shift from a 2D circular perspective to a 0D point, which is a fundamentally different kind of entity. In the same way, the Transcendence's evolution is not just a continuation into higher levels of existence/dimensions but a step change into an entirely new "order of reality", with there being absolutely no commonality between it and the finiteness that it trivializes:
But that process was not simple, not linear. It was believed that when the interconnection of the community of Transcendents reached a certain level of complexity, a critical mass, it would go through a phase change.
“A phase change?” That didn’t mean much to Alia. “What will it be like?”
Reath looked absent. “I am not a Transcendent. I can’t imagine. But it will be a different order of reality, Alia.
“Think of a cone. Imagine taking slices through that cone, higher and higher, approaching the apex. You make circles, don’t you? They shrink as you get higher—but then when you reach the tip itself, those circles transmute suddenly into a point, a quite different geometrical entity. It is a discontinuity, a step change.
“So it is with the Transcendence. It will proceed from its present scattered imperfection to a new level of awareness, a totality that will be a crystallization of mind, a full comprehension of the universe, and of ourselves. When it goes through its phase change, the Transcendence will become infinite, and eternal. Literally. Already it is planning on such scales.”
–Transcendent: Chapter 25
The Transcendence was not infinite, not yet. But it believed it was approaching a singularity, a gathering-up of complexity and cohesion, which would drive it along asymptotic pathways of possibility to an infinity of capability and comprehension. Beyond that point it would no longer be human, for there was no commonality between the infinite and the finite.
–Transcendent: Chapter 58
The Transcendence is also compared to the Christian God. It is both eternal and evolving, but in a way that does not contradict its final, unchanging nature. It draws on Schelling’s idea of "evolutionary metaphysics," where God undergoes a transformation from an implicit state (deus implicitus) to an explicit, fully realized state (deus explicitus). Basically, the final, perfected form of the Transcendence was always present in its initial state, just not yet fully expressed. It can realize/fullfill every potentiality, and everything is at one with it:
She talked of a nineteenth-century German philosopher called Schelling, who had been responsible for the introduction into philosophy of “evolutionary metaphysics.” What if God can grow, can change? And if so, what must He change into?
John said, “I thought God is eternal, and hence unchanging, as measured by our petty notions of time. How can an eternal God evolve from anything into anything else?”
But old Schelling, it seemed, had had an answer to that. His God was the first and the last, the Alpha and the Omega, but the Omega state was in some sense contained within the Alpha. The only difference was in the expression of that potential. Rosa spoke of the unevolved God as deus implicitus, and His final state as deus explicitus; the two states were different expressions of the same identity. “Schelling imagined that the universe evolves along with its god. In its final state the cosmos will be fully realized, every potential fulfilled — and it will be at one with its god. It is as if God realizes His own true potential through the vast self-expression of the universe. Perhaps these ideas foreshadow the entelechy of the Transcendence Alia described to Michael…
–Transcendent: Chapter 56
Monads[]
The Monads are abstract creatures from a void outside, time, space, energy, mass, and causality. They have this name because their nature is thought to be like Leibniz's Monad:
There was no place. There was no time. A human observer would have recognized nothing here: no mass, energy, or force. There was only a rolling, random froth whose fragmented geometry constantly changed. Even causality was a foolish dream.
The orderly spacetime with which humans were familiar was suffused with vacuum energy, out of which virtual particles, electrons and quarks, would fizz into existence, and then scatter or annihilate, their brief walks upon the stage governed by quantum uncertainty. In this extraordinary place whole universes bubbled out of the froth, to expand and dissipate, or to collapse in a despairing flare.
This chaotic cavalcade of possibilities, this place of nonbeing where whole universes clustered in reefs of foamy spindrift, was suffused by a light beyond light. But even in this cauldron of strangeness there was life. Even here there was mind.
Call them monads.
This would be the label given them by Commissary Nilis, when he deduced their existence. But the name had much deeper roots.
In the seventeenth century the German mathematician Gottfried Leibniz had imagined that reality was constructed from pseudo-objects that owed their existence solely to their relation to each other.
In his idea of the "monad," Leibniz had intuited something of the truth of the creatures who infested this domain. They existed, they communicated, they enjoyed a richness of experience and community. And yet "they" didn't exist in themselves; it was only their relationships to each other that defined their own abstract entities.
No other form of life was possible in this fractured place.
–Exultant: Chapter 35
They predate the birth of universes and are responsible for their creation and shaping:
Long ago they had attended the birth of a universe. It had come from a similar cauldron of realities, a single bubble plucked out of the spindrift. As the baby universe had expanded and cooled, the monads had remained with it. Immanent in the new cosmos, they suffused it, surrounded it. Time to them was not as experienced by the universe's swarming inhabitants; their perception was like the reality dust of configuration space, perhaps.
–Exultant: Chapter 35
The monads considered the bubbling foam around them.
They dug into a reef of spindrift, selected a tangle of possibilities, picked out one evanescent cosmic jewel. This one—yes. They closed around it, as if warmed by its glow of potentialities.
And, embedding themselves in its structure, they prepared to shape it. The monads enriched the seedling universe with ineffable qualities whose existence few of its inhabitants would even guess at.
The new universe, for all its beauty, was featureless, symmetrical—but unstable, like a sword standing on its point. Even the monads could not control how that primordial symmetry would be broken, which destiny, of an uncountable number of possibilities, would be selected.
Which was, of course, the joy of it.
–Exultant: Chapter 35
Time and distance have no meaning for them:
The universe aged, as all things must; within, time grew impossibly long and space stretched impossibly thin. At last the fabric of the universe sighed and broke—and a bubble of a higher reality spontaneously emerged, a recurrence of the no-place where time and distance had no meaning. Just as the universe had once been spawned from chaos, so this droplet of chaos was now born from the failing stuff of the universe. Everything was cyclic.
–Exultant: Chapter 35
Their perception of the lower realities is thought to be similar to how Configuration Space inhabitants perceive the lower universe:
Long ago they had attended the birth of a universe. It had come from a similar cauldron of realities, a single bubble plucked out of the spindrift. As the baby universe had expanded and cooled, the monads had remained with it. Immanent in the new cosmos, they suffused it, surrounded it. Time to them was not as experienced by the universe's swarming inhabitants; their perception was like the reality dust of configuration space, perhaps.
–Exultant: Chapter 35
They are a "greater mind" than the Transcendence, in addition of the latter being a project of the Monads themselves:
“And then there is our greater fate. Beyond the walls of time there are greater minds still, Alia. We call them monads. Our universe might not have been; there were other possibilities. Why our universe? Because of us —because of our potential to grow into afull apprehension of the cosmos, an expression of the objective cosmos in subjective awareness. So you see, Alia, we humans, through the Transcendence, will become the consciousness of the universe itself—and we will, we must, fulfill the great project of the monads.
“And all of this is built on love!”
–Transcendent: Chapter 45
Conclusion[]
- Universe: 3-A
- The Bulk: Low 1-C
- Configuration Space: 1-A
- The Transcendence: 1-A
- Monads: 1-A