Understanding our universe

Our universe is a closed system, but because it is constantly expanding, it is a non-repetitive system. Unlike a closed local system that can be ergodic, which would mean that any point moving in the system would eventually visit all parts of the space of that system — any point moving in the universe will never visit all the possible space-points. Because of being non-repetitive and non-ergodic, events in the universe are not going in circles i.e. the universe has a unique non-cyclic history.

This means that all possible events that can happen in the universe will never be fully eventuated, rather a very small percentage of possible events will ever actually happen. And because of this non-ergodic nature, with the unceasing expansion of space at every point of space-time, the ratio between the number of events that have actually taken place and the number of all possible events that could have taken place expands all the time too. Meaning that at any time in the history of the universe, the number of events that have taken place is smaller than the number of all possible events at that time; and that this gap is only increasing with every passing moment.

What does this say then about quantum events that lay at the very deep fabric of the universe — the events that are themselves stochastic, meaning they move in random probability, are analysable only statistically and are not precisely predictable? If the quantum strata of reality — which seems as of today’s scientific knowledge to be the basic building block of the universe — is probabilistic and also non-repetitive and historic, it is understandable that, as in the course of its life, the universe has been coming about with numerous radically emergent phenomena — and that those emergent phenomena were neither having any historical precedence nor were unique; and necessary effects of their causes, rather if they were indeed effects of some causal chain, they were not the normal effects, rather they were abnormal effect, unlike what was already happening in like casual chains before that time. Or perhaps the casual chains had been stretched every time into circumstances never faced before in the expanding framework.

The picture that comes out of these facts is one of an expanding universe, filled with natural laws that apparently set its events on a predictive path, yet every now and then the universe demonstrates the act of ‘change’, the creation of something new, the emergence of some new sets of paradigms, some new physical phenomenon, some new ecology!

This leaves us with the question whether the events occurring in the universe are random and unpredictable or they are completely predetermined. That is, if we are considering the universe to be an enclosed system — which it is, as in, though it started from a central point and has been expanding ever since, yet it has an outer bound, like it is always inside its limit of expansion — then, all events can be predetermined and are the result of physical laws working in a closed system, and new situations or occurrences only appear when/because the moving point has hit the wall at a new point in space-time and the new/unique course it has set upon now is going to manifest in new/unique events or phenomena that were present in the blueprint but only got the chance to be manifested now, when this new trajectory has been hit.

But if we, considering quantum properties, assume the universe to be made up of completely random, unpredictable events then we can also be led to believe that within a very basic framework of set natural laws, all event-points, perhaps after getting the initial thrust, have been led to venture into completely undetermined paths that have become increasingly chaotic. And new, emergent phenomena occur when random, unpredictable point-events find themselves emerging into new things completely ‘by chance’.

These are two diametrically opposing ideas, rather they present a war between determinism and chaos.

It turns out that belief in determinism — which was strengthened with Newtonian physics, of which Laplace said, “given accurate… and sufficient calculational power, it would be possible to determine the entire course of history” — is really true only for linear systems, while for all real systems, that have more than two variables, any amount of accurate and sufficient information of the initial state cannot predict precisely the future of that system. This is because of two reasons: one that in non-linear systems, the changes in each interacting variable are not proportional, rather they are exponential; two, that many real phenomena, like radioactivity, weather, heartbeat, a drop of a fluid, throwing of a dice, etc have randomness and unpredictability.

We live in a strange universe. In a broad outlook, we see laws, balance, structure, placidity, complementarity and reliable systems, but when we try to look deeper into each system, we find randomness and unpredictability.

Can it be true that even with the amount of ‘accurate and sufficient’ information of initial states, as we find them with the help of our strongest computers, for us they are just the elements of randomness only because our minds and our computers, however complex and advanced, are intrinsically unable to jump the level of know-ability that would make clear the reasons or patterns behind apparent random behaviour!

Can it be true that non-linearity of all real systems that does depict chaos, yet the same chaos is always tending towards essentially the same optimum state, giving individuality and continuity to all our systems!

Do pre-determinism and random chaos work side by side! Does chaos have a direction towards a determined outcome! Do chaos and the abundance of choice depict destruction! Or do they depict life and life’s unboundedness within its bounds!

So, do we live in a constantly expanding, bounded universe that has a unique, unrepeated history that travels along the arrow of time! And is chaos a possibility at every event-point! Yet is the play of this chaos, itself bounded in the confines of the larger designs!

Thus, is controlled and bounded chaos not an assurance of more construction and less destruction in the universe! And does this intertwined nature of checking a number of possibilities within a close bound of laws and structure, when the range of doable possibilities is already limited by our non-ergodic universe, not make possible the coming about of so many phenomena in the universe that are useful, complementary and full of beauty and design!

Published in The Express Tribune, December 8^th, 2023.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.