Part 1: The Foundation of Existence. Chapter 1. A new view of the Universe

I believe our universe is fundamentally different from what we commonly assume. I’m not a physicist. I approach the cosmos from a philosophical perspective, and far from seeing this as a limitation, I consider it an advantage. Many of the great thinkers of antiquity were both philosophers and natural scientists, laying the foundation for what we now call physics. Philosophy and physics have always needed each other, and I believe that still holds true today.

Physicists often immerse themselves in specific problems, calculations, and data. This is essential and valuable work, but it also risks losing sight of the bigger picture. Philosophers, on the other hand, have the freedom to question established frameworks, to temporarily set aside accepted truths and provisional consensus, and to look at things anew.

Against this backdrop, something fundamental about the current cosmological standard model bothers me. It is brilliantly constructed and explains an astonishing amount, yet it relies on two pillars we have never directly observed: dark matter and dark energy. Dark matter was introduced to explain the extra gravity needed where visible matter falls short, such as in galaxies where stars at the outer edges rotate far faster than expected based on visible matter alone, or in galaxy clusters where background light bends far more than observable mass can account for. Dark energy was invented to explain the observed accelerated expansion of the universe. Both concepts were not derived from direct observations but introduced as necessary adjustments to make the equations work.

This isn’t inherently problematic. Every model starts with assumptions, and if the rest of the framework works exceptionally well, it’s reasonable to provisionally accept major unknowns in hopes of future experimental confirmation. But with dark matter and dark energy, something doesn’t sit right with me. These aren’t minor tweaks. They are two central pillars of the entire model, and so far, we have found no direct evidence of their existence.

This led me to ask, what if they simply don’t exist? What if there’s another way to understand the universe without these two invisible components? That question launched my own journey past stars and black holes, through clusters and merging gas clouds, alongside spinning supernovae and gravitational waves, deep into the maze of quantum mechanics. Before I knew it, I was unexpectedly engaging with physics. Equations filled my mind, and I tried to distill a coherent picture from them.

By the end of this journey, I had developed a framework I call GLV (Gravitational Lensing Variability), along with a concrete vision of how our universe originated, what space itself is made of, and where it comes from. When I tried to explain this to others, I quickly realized how strange, even improbable, it can sound when you step away from the dominant narrative. That’s why, in this book, I return to the basics, not with mathematics or data, but with a philosophical, cohesive description of how I believe the universe truly functions.

I now confidently propose a vision of how our universe began, not from a classical singularity, but as a structure awakening from an ever-present zero-point field. This zero-point field is not an empty void. It is the ground state in which energy, space, time, and information already exist as potential.

In my view, the universe takes the form of a three-sphere, finite yet unbounded, with no center and no edge, fundamentally uniform everywhere. Space is never truly empty. At every scale, there is a fine texture of gas, dust, particles, and field fluctuations that influence light and gravity. As a result, light doesn’t travel in straight lines but follows winding paths past countless tiny lenses, making the optical path systematically longer than the geometric distance.

Because we interpret observations as if light travels in straight lines, we overestimate distances and masses, constructing a cosmic image that is subtly distorted.

In the GLV framework, this structural lensing explains many phenomena currently attributed to dark matter, such as flat galactic rotation curves and the lensing effects of galaxy clusters. The same optical distortion can also account for the apparent accelerated expansion of the universe, without requiring a mysterious reservoir of dark energy.

In my model, collapsing massive stars form black holes whose cores are not points of infinite density but local returns to the ground state of the zero-point field. Around these black holes, a relic curvature remains, a permanent deformation of space that causes additional local lensing without the need for invisible mass.

GLV describes these processes in layers, from cumulative path elongation and direction-sensitive lensing to subtle time differences and quantum-like modulations on the largest scales. All our cosmic knowledge, in this view, is inseparably tied to a single light cone. We always perceive the universe through specific paths, never from the outside.

Dark matter and dark energy, then, are not real substances but names for the gaps that arise when we ignore these optical and geometric effects. The universe is not a sterile, expanding backdrop but a dynamic, possibly cyclical three-sphere that breathes, restructures, and remains anchored in the same zero-point field. This book is my attempt to unfold this worldview step by step, a cosmos where field, geometry, and observation together form one coherent story.