Complexity is the result of effect processes, leading to systems with great
organization, containing large information stocks. This organization of the molecules
of a living organism, a result of accumulation of information, is what makes them able
to produce useful work. The useful work involves both the fulfillment of basic
biological processes, such as metabolism and reproduction, and the further increase
in the information content that builds up in living systems. This last process is
subject to the great chain of evolution of biological systems, this development is
governed by the law of natural selection. The capability of reproduction, mutation and
metabolism are necessary conditions for the latter.
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A system which has got these properties automatically is able to take part in the
“game” of natural selection and evolution. The natural selection leads in forms of
organizing, which are more effective, leaving the less effective ones at the process of
disappearing. This way, a form of organizing which is stabilized dynamically in a
system out of the equilibrium state, will disappear, if a an improved form of organizing
appears. In this sense, progress means constant amelioration of the operational
efficiency of the biological systems.
A yet unsolved problem, associated to biological order is the way in which the
transition from the molecular activity to the supermolecular order of the cell takes
place. The biological order was usually considered as a natural condition which was
created by enzymes playing a similar to the demon of Maxwell role, maintaining
chemical differences in the system. However, today, it becomes understood that this
role is ensured by the genetic information contained in the nucleic acids and is
expressed by the creation of enzymes which ensure the perpetuation of life. The
enzymes thus contribute to the prolongation of life and postpone death. Namely, life
is not located out of the natural order, but appears as the ultimate form and
expression of the self organizing processes.
Creative Chaos
By focusing on the role of chance and chaos at the creation of structure, Prigogine
pictures a universe in which the objects are not defined as well as they are defined in
classical or quantum physics.
In Prigogine’s universe the future cannot be defined because it is subject to chance,
fluctuation, and support. This is characterized by Prigogine as the new “uncertainty
principle”. According to the famous uncertainty principle, which was expressed by
Heisenberg, it is impossible to know in absolute accuracy the position and the
momentum of any subatomic particle. Prigogine’s new uncertainty principle teaches
us that beyond a boundary point of complexity, the systems are directed to
unpredictable directions.
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The systems lose their initial conditions and cannot obtain them again or reverse
their course. Their inability to look back in time is an “entropy barrier”. The discovery
of the entropy barrier is similar to Einstein’s discovery that the human beings and the
messages cannot travel faster than light, namely, beyond the “light barrier”.
Prigogine’s uncertainty principle, just like Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, is a
damage against reductionism (raising all phenomena to simpler ones). But for
Prigogine, this way of viewing nature does not reduce its capabilities, but it
recognizes its creative possibilities.
Even when we see a system moving to chaos, points – situations, in which order
emerges, appear in that system.
Similarly, inside chaos there are traces of a peculiar order. It is also possible that
where the system has the shape of a stable system areas cal ed “windows” or “islets”
appear. These areas oscillate around a certain number of values. These islets of
order, which are interposed into the areas of chaos, are called intennittencies. The
importance of these “islets of order” is great because it indicates that there is a close
relationship between order and chaos. The relationship between order and chaos
must be due to a single process which is subject to the dynamics of nonlinear
systems. Namely, there has to be a global chaotic attractor. Generally, the correlation
between order and chaos is taken for granted and reflects a holistic concept for the
operation of Nature.
Is Time Ahead Of The Being? The Pre – Universe
Two of the biggest questions that preoccupied philosophers and scientists of all
time, are the following: a) does the world (the universe) have a beginning or is it
infinite? b) does time have a beginning? It is proved that these questions are not
independent of one another. The second one refers to the topological characteristics
of time. The problem of the nature of time is connected to the above.
For Newton, time is absolute and independent of the history of the Universe. This
abstention has now been rejected. Today we accept that the Universe was somehow
created, namely it has got a starting point. In this point Prigogine wonders:
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“However, how can we realize this starting point (of the time)? It seems more logical
to me to suppose that the birth of our Universe is an event in the history of the world
and as a result we owe to attribute to it (to the world) a time which comes before the
birth of the Universe.”
But how does he mean this birth of the world? “This birth could have been similar to
a change of phase which leads from a pre – Universe (that is also cal ed “quantum
gap” or “next universe”) to the Universe that is being observed and surrounds us.”
Prigogine goes further explaining the known theory of Big Bang: the Universe begun
from a singularity, a point which enclosed all the mass and the energy of the current
Universe. But we do not have a theory able to describe this point abnormality.
However, many scientists consider the beginning of the history of the
Universe, as the beginning of time.
Subsequently, Prigogine poses the question: “Does actual y time have a defined
beginning or is it infinite?” and he goes on: “We cannot support that we hold the
definite answer, but our phrasing of the laws of Nature, through probabilities and not
certainties, can contribute towards this direction. Our research will follow a different
way of the one followed by other scientists. We suppose that the Big Bang is an
eminently irreversible process. This irreversibility would occur as a result of the
instability of the pre – Universe, an instability which is caused by the interactions
between gravity and matter. Inside this perspective, the universe would have been
created with the characteristic of instability. Meanings, which we have mentioned, as
self – organizing, would likewise be applied in the early stages of the Universe”.
It is known that Einstein believed that the discrimination between the past and the
future is an illusion because the equations of the, until then, known theories were
symmetrical according to time. Κ.Godel extended this idea to the end, suggesting a
cosmological model in which it was possible for someone to travel into his own past.
Einstein, who was concerned a lot by this, eventually ended u
p in expressing his
ideas on such an extreme thesis, supporting that it would oblige physicists reconsider
their beliefs on the problem of non reversibility.
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Hawking, on the other side, introducing the notion of the imaginary time, reached the
point of expressing the belief that at the first stages of Big Bang, space and time
could not be discriminated from one another and time obtained the characteristics of
space. Prigogine, however supports that “time is eternal. We al have an age, our
culture has an age, the Universe has an age, time, however, has neither a beginning
nor an end.”
Namely, since the Being, the Existence is meaningful only from the moment the
Universe started existing and since, according to Prigogine, time is eternal, then time
came before the Being. Einstein, by the General Theory of Relativity and the field
equations, linked the measuring of space-time to the total amount of matter -energy
of the universe, namely he showed that the geometry of space – time is affected by
the matter – energy, and the moving of the material objects are defined by this
geometry. The solution of the field equations, which was suggested by Einstein,
matched to a static Universe, thus a universe without a history, according to the
classical ideal, which contained the reversibility of the processes, and therefore, the
symmetry towards the time of the past and the future. Later on, Friedmann and
Lemaitre showed that such a universe is exceptionally unstable and it may be
damaged by the slightest disturbance. Eventually, we have reached the acceptable
standard model of the Big Bang, which is firmly supported by critical experimental
data, such as the experimental verification of the law of Hubble and the background
radiation of 2.7 K.
According to this model, as it is reported, the Big Bang began from a point defect,
wherein the density and the curvature of space-time are infinite. The size scales
involved in this history of the Universe, are measured according to the fundamental
physical constants, i.e. the world gravitational constant G, the speed of light c, and
Planck's constant h.
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The elementary aggregates calculated by those constants are the following:
(1) Planck's length, which is 10 -33 cm.
(2) Planck's time, which is 10 -43 sec.
(3) Planck's energy, which corresponds to a temperature of 1 ~ 2 Kelvin grades.
(4) Planck's mass which is 10 -5 gr. It is huge compared to the mass of the
elementary particles. (e.g. proton mass is 10 -23 gr)
During the first moments of the Universe’s life, what is cal ed Planck epoch (or era),
these orders of magnitude dominated. Ρrigοgine, considering that in that epoch the
quantum processes, along with gravity, should play an important role, introduces, in
that point, the necessity of quantization of gravity, and consequently of space – time.
This attempt has not yet delivered the expected results. Concerning the model of the
inflationary universe, Prigogine underlines that “the results are very interesting. They
show a possibility of an irreversible process that transforms gravity into matter. They
also focus our attention on the pre – Universe, which would here be Minkowski’s
vacuum, a starting point of irreversible transformations. We shall stress that this
model does not describe a process of creation from the beginning. The quantum gap
is already characterized by the universal constants, and hypothetically, we can
attribute to these constants the values they have today.”
In an other point of his work, he writes: “the substantial point here is the fact that the
birth of our Universe is not yet connected to an abnormality, but to an instability,
similar to a change of phase or a bificuration.”
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And by stressing on the ratio between geometry and matter, on the one side, and on
the equivalence of the mechanical work and the heat on the other, he proves the
importance of the second thermodynamic law, which “breaks” this notion of equality:
the mechanical work can always be transformed into energy, but not vice versa.
The case of space – time and matter is equivalent: the transformation of space – time
into matter correlates to an irreversible release process, which produces entropy.
The reverse process, which would transform matter into space – time is excluded.
Namely, the birth of our universe happened due to the transformation of space – time
into matter and is interpreted in an explosion of entropy.
Quantum Shift in the Global Brain: How the New Scientific Reality Can Change
Us and Our World
The Newtonian mechanics was the model of classical science. In the classical
science all the natural laws had an absolutely deterministic and descriptive character
and defined the course and development of every phenomenon. The knowledge of
these laws assured the human – observer the ability to understand not only the
present but also the past and the future. In a deterministic and timeless universe, the
arrow of time is nothing but a human illusion. Only the vision of the universe from the
perspective of eternity ensures the truth of physical theories. In the deterministic
universe of the classical science, the order always creates disorder and never vice
versa! The scientific dream of a united (applying on the microcosm as well as on the
macrocosm) and objective (i.e. independent of the observer) description of the
natural world, would become the nightmare of the contemporary physics in the
beginning of the 20th century. The quantum description and interpretation of the
microcosm, which is regarded as the fundamental level in which all the natural
phenomena are raised and explained, requires a radical review of not only the
classical description but also of the metaphysical preconditions of classical science.
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The classical ideal in physics was to be able to predict with certainty the future
development of a physical system. Newton’s mechanics led to the triumph of the
deterministic vision of the natural processes: if we know the initial conditions of a
dynamical system, then the solution of the differential motion equations would allow
us to know in certainty not only the past but also the future of that system. This,
however, is not feasible for two reasons: a) it is not possible to have the initial
conditions of the system in absolute accuracy and b) the analytical solution is not
feasible for the great majority of the systems. As far as the first reason is concerned,
we have to mention that after the discovery of the unstable systems, it became clear
that very neighboring orbits (which, namely correspond to initial conditions and
whose values may differ slightly) after a certain period of time are removed
exponentially. In this notion, the orbit is actually an idealization, since it is never
possible to know the initial conditions in “infinite” accuracy. According to
Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle and Bohr’s principle of correspondence, the
neutral and deterministic description of the microcosm is impossible: discontinuity
and indeterminacy are inherent characteristics of microphysical phenomena and in
order to describe them we have to integrate t
he observer within his own
observations!
Beyond the separation: the new cosomological paradigm
Science evolves through alternating phases of 'normal' science and radical shifts that
create scientific revolutions. We saw this at the turn of the 20th century, when
science shifted from a Newtonian worldview to Einstein's relativity paradigm, and
again with the shift to the quantum paradigm. Now, as we recognize the non-local
interconnection of all things in space and time, we find our scientific worldview
shifting once again. The insight now emerging in the physical sciences, especially
but not exclusively in quantum physics, highlights the role of interaction and
interconnection in the diverse spheres of observation and experiment.
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He insight now emerging in the physical sciences, especially but not exclusively in
quantum physics, highlights the role of interaction and interconnection in the diverse
spheres of observation and experiment.
The quantum theory holds that we live in a participatory universe - which is what we
consider as an independent, external reality is linked to the way we observe. When
making observations and measurements, the quanta which are everything in the
universe, changing. It makes no sense to talk about the properties of quanta without
an observer. The universe is connected by conscious observation instruments from
the most elementary particles up to huge galaxies. Moreover, quantum theory gives
prominence to the quantum vacuum, the vacuum that is prior to observable
phenomena, such as atoms and molecules. Unlike the common sense notion of
empty space, the quantum vacuum is full of potential prospects. The quantum
vacuum is essential in all aspects of physics, the quantum vacuum is an infinite set of
"space-time foam" beyond which time, space - and physical - come to an end itself.
Quantum theory has reached the point where the source of all matter and energy is a
vacuum, a nothingness that contains all the possibilities of everything that has ever
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