Although waves may not have objective existence, the abstract wave equations of quantum mechanics have provided excellent approximations for a vast range of systems, from crystals to atoms. But the theory can only make accurate predictions for systems at the subatomic and atomic level, where energy is low and, above all, the number of components is small. The physical principles involved in the theory appear to be inappropriate for the description of very complex systems with a great number of degrees of freedom such as those found in biological structure. Quantum mechanics is thus an incomplete, complex, and indirect description of reality.
Theoretically speaking, modern physics possesses two major doctrines of space and time, general relativity and quantum mechanics, each applying to extremes of the magnitude scale of the universe—the macro and the micro world—but lacks a theory for the world in between, the one we inhabit. Attempts have been made—and continue to be made—to generalize, reconstruct, or build a new and more comprehensive quantum mechanics, but the various approaches so far pursued in these directions have been unsuccessful. The unification of quantum mechanics and general relativity has also been intensively sought, but the so-called “theory of everything” has not been achieved. A major obstacle in these attempts appears to be the passage from simple to complex systems.
In the first half of the twentieth century, it was recognized that the concept of a purely entropic universe did not make sense. Human beings living in such a universe would be in a constant struggle against nature, pushing things uphill and powerful laws bringing them down over and over again. Under these circumstances, life could not be sustained. This is against the order observed over billions of years of successful organic evolution. Among the scientists who recognized this paradox was the quantum physicist Schrödinger (1887–1961), the composer of the wave equation, who was looking at the phenomenon of life from the point of view of physics. To describe those obviously orderly processes, he invented the term “negative-entropy.” Order in organisms was maintained by an intake of “negative-entropy” from the environment, contained in the food they ingested. In this way, the universe became a mixture of order and disorder.
Since the latter part of the last century, the introduction of powerful electron microscopes and telescopes made it evident that this world contains countless ordered or partly-ordered spatial units—atoms, molecules, macromolecules, organelles, cells, organs, organisms, stars, solar systems, galaxies, clusters of galaxies—distributed all over the visual space of the organic and inorganic realms. Although less evident, these spatial units are organized in complex hierarchies in every organism and in the universe as a whole. To explain the origin of these units and hierarchies of units and their development over time, a new kind of general theory, a one-way (irreversible) science of changing structure accounting for all the patterns in the universe, is required. To be successful, this theory should be built on the geometry of tridimensional space—the space we really see. It should be simple and capable of explaining all known partial theories, including quantum mechanics and thermodynamics. Is such a grandiose theory possible?
It is not only possible but its blueprint already exists, although present physics has not recognized it as a legitimate theory. To openly admit the irreversibility of natural processes, physics would have to renounce the whole system of Newtonian concepts on which the ideas of quantum theory and relativity are rooted, and so far it has been reluctant to do so. Matter, energy, forces, interactions, and wave properties are not appropriate for the description of irreversible effects. A whole new set of concepts is required to deal with one-way processes.
Contrary to all available theories of classical physics, this unique one-way field theory was primarily derived from observations of biological structure. It is a theory of change built on a sound scientific foundation. Its basic concepts were developed over the centuries, from Heraclitus and Aristotle (384–322 BC) all the way to Ernst Mach (1838–1916), Pierre Curie (1859–1906) and Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), but it was only in the middle of last century that they were put together by the Scottish physicist Lancelot Law Whyte (1896–1972) and later extended by the American physicist and psychologist Leo John Baranski (1926–1971). The theory is the most general ever conceived, in fact universal, and therefore applicable to all physical, organic, and social systems. Its realm is not that of quantity but of order.
For the purpose of this work, we are only interested in those systems where there is structural change over time with formation and extension of ever more complex structural patterns. The concept of order described below refers to the order found in these systems.
The ultimate source of order
Our world—stars, planets, trees, and people—is constantly changing. Stars are born and die, the earth is continuously rotating and translating, trees have cycles of growth and decay, and the same is true with us. But this change is not arbitrary: there is an order hidden in it. We know that tomorrow will be here and next spring will arrive in the predicted time. It is the existence of this order that allows us to make plans for the future. And it is because of this order that not everything is possible in the world. We cannot fly like birds do, for instance. There are laws in nature.
Logically, however, there should be just one general law from which all other partial laws should derive. If there were two or more general laws, a clash would inevitably occur at some point along the vast time expanse of evolutionary development, with disastrous consequences. Besides being the most general of all laws, that single law of order should be simple and should reside at the beginning of all things: that is, at the level of the field, since it is from the field that every structure derives. The unitary field theory referred above fits these requirements. But how did such field theory come about?
A turning point in theoretical physics occurred somewhere from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century, when it was recognized that in isolated systems the cause and effect relation—the causal relation characterizing any science—was not equal. This scientific conclusion contradicted what Greek philosophers had assumed and present physical science had accepted—equality of cause and effect. The principle of conservation of matter and energy, one of the pillars of modern physics, is therefore based on the equality relation. Conversely, the new unitary theory is grounded on the scientific relation of cause-effect inequality. This type of causal relation is more general than, and contains within it (when the inequality is vanishingly small), the equality relation.
Such drastic change in the foundation of physics required a correspondent change in its basic conceptions. For unitary theory, unchanging matter and energy disembodied from matter—that is, outside matter—do not exist. What exists and is directly observed is structure, which is in constant change. And structure itself is conceived as a system of relations obeying certain logical properties.
The old ideas of permanent matter and flowing energy are both contained in the new idea of changing structure. Under this reasoning, energy is conceived as structural asymmetry, taken as any distortion of a latent symmetry or regularity. In other words, structure is itself a form of energy or, more specifically, structure is energy in a characteristic form. Energy and structure are thus intimately related. The changing relations of structure are very appropriate to the description of complex systems such as organisms.
Besides the concepts of matter and energy, the concepts of time and space are also changed by unitary theory. Space becomes primary and time secondary. In other words, time becomes a function of space. Furthermore, time as an entity or measured quantity is discarded from theory and replaced by the realistic, immediately observed, temporal