Assembly Theory

Because I like articles that make me go, “What?” I dove into an article in “Aeon” recently that made the case that time is an object. Since I’m still trying to wrap my poor head around the concept of “spacetime” I confess I have no ability to even begin to explain what I read. What I did take from that article is the idea that evolution is necessary for things to come into being and the evolutionary principle demands we recognize time as an object rather than a mere conceptional framework by which we humans talk about the process of life.

There is, according to the article, an assembly index that has to measure fifteen steps sequentially, not by random chance, and must be accomplished by living systems, in order to produce life. Non-living systems do not get beyond thirteen steps.

We’ve all grown used to the concept that entropy is inevitable but, this new understanding, seems to me, to call into question that law of thermodynamics. I may be totally off base on that but it makes sense, if time is an “object” and is a necessary component of evolution… and, about there, my thought processes begin to fail.

It reminds me of the common translation of the Hebrew in Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created”. That implies a fixed, static, universe. Until 1931 Einstein believed in a static universe. The discovery that the universe is expanding and stars are still being created seemingly makes that Biblical assertion simply a false notion of how God would have proceeded with Creation.

Although the Bible is certainly not a book of science, it is still causes pause when Hebrew scholars say the correct translation is, “In the beginning when God began to create”. Then the notion that God uses evolution, with time as a necessary component, begins to make sense.

If this Assembly Theory of time is correct we, who are egocentric creatures, inevitably ask ourselves, “Is God, through time, evolving us?” Maybe God, no matter what terminology you use for the creative force of the universe, is evolving you and me and everyone with a level of awareness into greater understandings, greater capacities?

That negates the idea that we must tighten our grip on the past instead of stretching toward the future. Just because something has been does not mean it has to be forevermore. It is cowardly to assert that we have to cling to the past. Change is constant and it takes at least a modicum of courage to embrace change and evolve.

We love our traditions, love our established truths that have been polished shiny by our constant caressing of them. But that is not how we ought to view life. Dare we, then, try to envision a better future that can evolve if we get out of the way and stop defending old concepts?

I cannot chart the course to get from here to a better future but time will tell if we can evolve.