QR4.8 The Living Universe

Physical realists see the universe as dead matter while theologians see it as divinely inspired.  In one case we are just an accident in a dead universe that is winding down and in the other we are the chosen ones in a universe built just for us. The difference couldn’t be greater but both assume a universe of matter that unlike us, isn’t alive.

Is the universe we live in alive or dead? Dictionaries define living as having life or being alive not dead, a circular approach that amounts to saying that life is what living things do. In medicine, a body is alive as long as the processes maintaining it continue, like heartbeat. When they stop, the body dissolves into atoms that become part of other entities. In these terms, an active entity that is born and evolves in unpredictable ways is alive if dynamic processes maintain it.

Applying this definition to the universe, if it is active, was born and is developing in unpredictable ways, it is alive as long as quantum processes maintain it and it will die when they stop. That the universe is alive answers the question how did dead matter create life? Otherwise, how could a universe that is itself dead give rise to life? It is ironic that we who consider ourselves alive now claim that what made us dead! If the universe is constantly generated by quantum processes, then if it is active not inert, born not made, evolving not designed and emerging not decreed, then it is alive.

QR4.8.1 Active Not Inert

QR 4.8.2 Borne Not Made

QR 4.8.3 Evolving Not Designed

QR 4.8.4 Emerging Not Decreed

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