We all identify entities with their forms. Either living or non-living entities are all identified by their physical forms. Our own body-form creates a memory map in our brain, and we identify ourselves and others with those memories.
The idea of form has always intrigued me. If a simple physical and thermodynamical analysis is done on a system, then one faces a dilemma on how to put the energy of form in it. For example when a body (either a living or a non-living one) gets destroyed then its atoms and molecules all get distributed in space since matter cannot be produced or destroyed except in nuclear fission or fusion; or at very high temperatures when it becomes plasma! Similarly, the energy that goes in making its structure converts into heat and is also dissipated in space. But what happens to the energy of form? And also what happens to its space-time structure that it displaced for some time in that form?
These are some issues which I think are fundamental to species survival and procreation. I feel that the fear of death is associated with the destruction of form. Hence all living entities protect their forms and procreate to provide its continuity.
Darwin in his seminal work “Origin of Species” always talked about how all species and living organisms reproduce so that the genetic information is passed from one generation to another and survival of the fittest is tied to this concept of propagation of genetic material. But the central question of why any species has this inbuilt mechanism that it wants to propagate the species or basically its form is still not answered.
Similarly Patanjali in his Yoga Sutras says that the desire to have life and the fear of death is eternal but is silent on why it is so.
A possible answer to why it is so can be gleaned from the description of origin of Universe in Sankhya philosophy.
According to this philosophy the interaction of Purusha and Prakriti produces matter and the worlds. Purusha is described as omniscient, omnipresent, and indivisible entity. Prakriti (nature), which is always active, interacts with Purusha to produce the worlds.
We can think of Purusha as multidimensional (MD) space and Prakriti as time. When they work together the creation and evolution of universe and the visible world takes place.
This is similar to the conjecture of some of the modern scientists about the birth of universe. They say that in the beginning, time and multidimensional (MD) space were in equilibrium. The Universe came into being when that equilibrium was disturbed. Why that equilibrium was disturbed we do not know. Various theories abound like big bang, multiverse, brane world etc. but why the big bang took place nobody is sure.
I would like to conjecture on a possible scenario; after the space-time equilibrium was disturbed, time came out and the MD space started “flowing”. This flow of space possibly produced gravity and eddies which are the cause of visible matter and galaxies. Eddies are small whirlpools which are formed when anything flows turbulently. These are clearly seen in the flow of water in rivers and canals. In air they give rise to production of drag on airplanes which sometimes produces bumpy rides.
Formation of eddies is like a new structure being formed from the chaotic (turbulently) flowing material. According to chaos theory order and form suddenly materialize out of chaos. These structures in chaos theory are called “attractors” and probably gave rise to the matter and form of the visible world. This is what scientists call as production of matter from vacuum.
Thus the visible world seems like a crystallization of the higher dimensional space and is the basis of all forms.
Eddy formation is a continuous process, and it is possible that with time more and more space is used up for these structures to form the visible world. The rest of the space remains invisible and could be the basis of dark matter and dark energy that the physicists and astrophysics talk about.
Thus it is possible that the production of eddies and hence galaxies and visible worlds will keep on happening till all the dark space is used up and then the reverse cycle of converting visible world to invisible MD space will commence which will finally lead to time and space coming back in equilibrium. This is the eternal Brahmakala cycle; at the end of which all the life in the Universe is supposed to be destroyed.
According to Sankhya this “exhaustion” of space takes place since Purusha has “experienced” and has become satisfied though one is not sure what Sankhya means by experienced. Same thing is said by Patanjali in his Yoga Sutras.
Why does the MD space go through the journey starting with the humblest of living systems and proceeds to evolve into a highly thinking human brain and even beyond? It is because movement and “becoming” is the only way in which consciousness can exist. A system in which nothing is happening is a dead system. The MD space can only “feel” and “enjoy” itself through living systems and thus wants to maximize the number of living bodies. Also a big and powerful brain has the capability of mind-matter interaction which can change and manipulate the space-time continuum.
Just like rainwater starts its journey with many small tributaries and goes through rivers and ultimately to an ocean, the MD space may go through innumerable life forms and may evolve through humans and other more evolved beings. This follows the laws of thermodynamics in which the system tries to maximize the flow of energy and materials through it with minimum of resistance. The MD space minimizes this resistance by going through billions of life forms. These life forms fill up the MD space and evolve till they obtain the power to change space-time fabric so that the closure of space takes place and the cycle continues.
This is possibly the reason why the living beings want to continuously replicate their forms and fear of death is losing that form.
©Anil K Rajvanshi. November 2020