Big questions – concise resolutions

What is life?

Life is a natural process like any other consuming free energy in least time. Animate exhibit the same ubiquitous characteristics as inanimate. Namely skewed distributions accumulate from sigmoid growth and decline curves which display the ubiquitous power laws on log-log plots.

Abiogenesis or panspermia?

Since there is no demarcation line between animate and inanimate, there is no distinct form of life either to seed life.

Why so many species?

Species, animate just as inanimate are means and mechanisms to consume free energy. Order and complexity are no ends themselves, but diversity will increase when more species allow an ecosystem, economic system or any other system to consume more free energy. Conversely, the number of species will decline when less will allow the system to consume more.

Space colonization – Future or fantasy?

A viable planet will have life of its own. Even when seemingly similar to ours, yet it would be incompatible with ours. To convert an unviable planet to viable will exceed our means. We do not only live on the face of Earth, but the Earth is a living planet as a whole.

Are we alone in the Universe?

We are not alone but a part of the Universe among all other natural processes. There are numerous local circumstances where natural processes have advanced far and perhaps even beyond those states we witness on Earth. Nonetheless, we may remain isolated from other civilizations by vast distances in space and time.

What is consciousness?

Consciousness is a means, like any other, to consume free energy. Awareness of activities enables coordination of actions. Not only individuals but also cells and societies and other systems monitor their own doings and surrounding processes in order to facilitate their consumption of free energy.

From where do values and moral ascend?

One values means and deeds good as much as they contribute to the free energy consumption. Conversely one deems acts and thoughts evil as much as they prevent from consuming free energy. All evaluations are subjective, at best inter-subjective as much as subjects are integrated with each other. Values and moral will change along with changes of an individual, community, society or any other system.

Does one have free will?

One has free will up to the amount of free energy in one’s command to direct natural processes among alternative trajectories. Conversely without free energy, there are no means to make any choice to proceed.

What is information?

Information is physical in its representation whose meaning is valued by the free energy that a message endows.

Why are some mathematical problems so hard to crack?

For a solution to exist, the mathematical equation must relate to a stationary state. Conversely, theorems and conjectures that concern non-stationarity but require stationarity in a proof produce a conflict.

What are the basic constituents of nature?

The photon is the basic constituent of nature, since no change of state will yield less.

From where do new qualities emerge?

When any two or more constituents integrate, the natural process engages also ingredients, at least one photon, from surroundings or expels ingredients to the surroundings. Due this influx or efflux of quanta new qualities are irreducible to the system’s prior constituents. The integrated or disintegrated quanta allow for new paths of energy transduction that manifests themselves as the new qualities.

What sets the arrow of time?

The irrevocable consumption of free energy sets the arrow of time. A flow of energy is a flow of time.

What is the cause of causality?

A flow of quanta will cause a change of state.

Why is the future unpredictable?

When flows of energy and their driving forces cannot be separated from each other, everything will depend on everything else and the future trajectories cannot be predicted with certainty. Future does not exist for a prediction prior to its execution. Only stationary-state trajectories are computable as well as those paths without alternatives.

What is the meaning of mass?

The mass is a measure of how much quantized flows of energy on their bound paths of a body will project on the freely propagating surrounding density of photons. In the energy-mass equivalence E = mc² the squared speed of light denotes the self-projection that characterizes the properties of free space.

What is the fate of the Universe?

The Universe in its entirety is a natural process that progresses by breaking its symmetry to lower and lower in the quest for the equilibrium with its zero-density surroundings. At the heat death everything has been broken down to the lowest group of symmetry U(1), that is, to extremely cold photons.