Our Living Universe
Our Universe ... but not as we know it
Why does life happen?
Despite the great technological advances of the last two hundred years, our sciences are still unable to answer this one very simple question. Our inability to address this most basic mystery persists because of implicit assumptions that we make about the nature of the universe.
Let me take you on an intellectual adventure, traversing all the sciences. On our travels, we are going to re-interpret key areas of learning to create anew a beautiful coherent picture of our cosmos. But, be warned. If you stay the journey, it will mess with your head, for we inhabit a truly living universe.
Our Universe ... but not as we know it
What if we’ve got it all wrong? What if the science we’ve inherited from our Victorian forefathers has instilled in us a way of looking at the universe which is fundamentally mistaken. For the last hundred years, quantum mechanics has been trying to tell us something different. But we’ve been misinterpreting the message. It’s time for a radical re-think.
Let me introduce you to a new universal framework for evolution.
200 years ago, Darwin originally penned his approach to natural evolution. From the outset, he was acutely aware that his concept had a glaring hole: it did not explain cooperation. Through ‘survival of the fittest’ Darwin deduced there to be generic competition between members of species – self-same organisms competing to survive, the successful passing on their traits to each next generation. His was just the introduction to a much larger story. When you quantise Darwin’s theory, then a whole new way of understanding the universe emerges.
Extending Darwin's thinking, it can be shown that systems (including but not limited to all living organisms) compete and cooperate in a priority set of very specific ways. This creates a layered framework for the progression of evolution from competition of lone entities through to the emergence of highly organised cooperative groups, such as multicellular organisms and us.
But this new construct goes much further than this. Applied to the physical sciences, the same approach shows why there exists the major phases of matter (gas, solid and liquid). Applied to the social sciences, it provides a way to understand the long-term development of civilisation, showing why we experience various types of social structure and cultural influence.
When it is appreciated that material systems compete or cooperate for energy in discrete ways, then it becomes apparent that there are four fundamental processes, which drive the emergence of all things from sub-atomic particles to autonomous galaxies.