“So I guess what you’re saying is that the universe’s energy has been constantly involved in the process of natural selection since the very beginning of time. But not in terms of ever increasing entropy, or Darwinian natural selection of most efficient life forms, or increasing complexity and organization. All of these things have indeed taken place. But these are not the causes of the universe’s evolution, as scientists tend to think. Instead, they are but secondary consequences of a deeper, more fundamental mechanism driving the universe. The constant attempt by energy to return to its original state of absolutely stable equilibrium.”

“Exactly. But, as long as we’re summarizing here, I think I should take a minute or two and talk about the idea of our universe as a constantly evolving process.

First of all, we have to understand our universe, being a process, had a beginning, and will have an end. And there are other things we know about processes as well. For instance, we know that an individual process is completely defined by its initial conditions. More specifically, at the very beginning of any process, as a matter of fact even before the process begins, there has to exist a set of initial conditions, generally composed of the materials involved, their properties and characteristics, plus whatever forces and conditions which will be causing the process to proceed. In addition, there are what’s called boundary conditions, which are the actual physical connections that exist between the process and its larger, older, parent reality, which can also come into play as the process proceeds, thereby altering the direction the process takes as it evolves.

What’s so great about these initial and boundary conditions is that if you know them, you can develop an overall mathematical model of the process which can accurately predict everything that’s going to go on within the process as it evolves from its very beginning to its very end. Such a model, then, would allow us to completely understand the universe. What’s going on anytime, anywhere, and so forth. As I said, these initial conditions must have been in place before the universe began. As a matter of fact, the universe couldn’t have begun its evolution to its present state, and beyond, until they were in place. Right?

Which brings us to the source of our problems as we try to understand our universe since, obviously, locked inside our process as we are, we appear to have no way to find out what went on before our process began in order to determine these initial and boundary conditions.

But there is a way around this problem. If you think about it, our scientific community has already found out a lot about what’s going on in our universe. In other words, we know a lot about what the initial conditions have caused to happen. That being the case, then might not it be possible for us to, with reason, and maybe some good luck as well, go back to the beginning of the universe and assume that particular set of initial conditions which would cause the universe to evolve to the state we know it to be in today?”

“If so, why haven’t scientists and philosophers been trying to do this all along?”

“Actually, they have been trying to. I believe Feynman called it the search for the underlying rhythms of the universe. And in two different ways. First of all, some research scientists have been engaged in what’s called reductionism. Basically, what they’re trying to do is reduce as many of our physical laws as possible to a single, fundamental set of laws and principles. The laws and principles which must have existed at the beginning of the universe. The other way, as we’ve already talked about, has theoretical physicists constructing mathematical models of the current universe, and trying to take these models back mathematically to time zero to see what might have caused the universe to evolve as it did to its present state. I suppose you could call this mathematical reductionism.”

“Well, how come you could do it, and they can’t?”

“By making assumptions about the properties of energy and energy’s search for equilibrium, and helical wave propagation, and the symmetry-breaking event, I’ve been able to explain the origin and nature of time, and general relativity, and how quantum and Newtonian mechanics and Darwinian natural selection are connected, and so forth. In other words, how the whole universe is connected.

As soon as the scientific community figures out that the universe’s energy is driven by its most fundamental need to return to equilibrium, which I’m saying they’re going to figure out pretty quick now, they’ll basically do what I’ve been telling you I’ve done. Only they’ll do it right. They won’t have to rely on a bunch of assumptions, some of them admittedly pretty far out, the way I’ve had to do. As I said earlier, when they get their super-collider working, they’re going to finally break out of the box they’ve now unknowingly put themselves into. A box whose walls are constructed of quantum uncertainty, Newtonian chaos, and the belief that the universe, and life, are somehow sufficient unto themselves.”

“Maybe so, but I have to tell you, it might be really hard to get any theoretical physicists to even think about the big bang, and quantum mechanics, and time and relativity and so forth, the way you’re talking about them. Let alone the way you’re talking about the whole universe. As I understand it, they’ve been taught there really isn’t any explanation for why particles, and time, and general relativity, and whatever, act the way they do. They’re only concerned with developing mathematical models that predict the behavior of all these things without trying to figure out the mechanics of exactly how they work the way they do. Or the why of it either, for that matter. They just don’t think that’s possible to do. And I’m pretty sure most of them think that way. So if I were to tell them I met this guy who just might be able to explain how and why the universe works the way it does, they’re not going to listen to me for even one minute. As a matter of fact, they’re probably gonna laugh me out of the building.”

“Yes, I know. You have to understand, though, physics wasn’t always taught that way. Originally, that is, before the 20th century, researchers like Galileo and Newton were first and foremost interested in figuring out exactly how things work the way they do. To figure out the mechanics of things. How things reacted to various forces, what properties would cause them to do this, and so forth. Then, when they understood the underlying principles involved, they’d compose a law, or set of laws, which would precisely describe, often mathematically, exactly what was going on. So science students, taking a class on Newtonian mechanics, say, or thermodynamics, would be taught these laws and how to use them to predict the behavior of things. And, of course, that’s still the way these subjects are taught.

But during the first part of the 20th century, when Bohr, Heisenberg, Einstein and others began learning more and more about atoms and their individual particles--electrons, protons, and neutrons, and such--they could never seem to explain exactly what was going on. For instance, it turned out that they couldn’t completely describe the state of an electron in an atom. In other words, if they set up an experiment to measure the position of an electron in an atom at a particular time, they couldn’t determine its momentum at that same time. Or vice versa. So Heisenberg came up with what he called the uncertainty principle for individual particles. Another problem had to do with the fact that in some experiments electrons would act like actual particles, with mass and so forth, and at other times they’d act like electromagnetic waves. And researchers couldn’t understand this. So, since they couldn’t seem to figure out a way to explain the mechanics of individual particles, they couldn’t really come up with a set of laws stating what was going on. However, this didn’t stop them. With some truly brilliant mathematical legerdemain, they’ve managed to develop mathematical models which will predict much of the behavior of particles. At least large quantities of particles. And of course they’re still working on this. But, because they were never able to understand and explain how and why individual particles behave the way the way they do, they basically said that, well, it must be that the universe, at least down at the level of individual particles, is fundamentally uncertain and indeterminate. So let’s just accept that and move on with our mathematical models. Of course, they’re still using particle accelerators, and cloud chambers, and so forth, to run experiments on particles, and they’re refining their mathematical models more and more, but for generations now students of theoretical physics have been taught that there is no way we’re ever going to be able to explain exactly what’s going on. So don’t even try.

Of course, we know that at first not all physicists agreed with this way of thinking. Albert Einstein, the greatest of them all, and some others too, felt that the universe really was, even down at the particle level, an orderly and therefore understandable place. As a matter of fact, the argument over this issue, spearheaded by Bohr on one side, and Einstein on the other, is still one of the most famous arguments in the annals of physics. But, since Einstein was unable to prove his point, like I said, particle physics is taught with mathematical models and not laws.”

“Still, though, you’re saying that the universe is orderly. Even down at the level of individual particles. And that it is, as you say, therefore understandable. And that’s my point. Few theoretical physicists, if any, are going to want to even think about what you’re proposing. It goes completely against everything they’ve been taught.”

“Don’t think I don’t know it. And that’s why, like I said earlier, if you’re going to talk to any physicists about this, it’s best if they’re young ones. Because, you see, Einstein was right.”