.. get ready for a profound post (I think) that no one will read.

One caveat: while I’m familiar with science, I’m not a scientist. I will get some terms wrong or imprecise. I am also not a (credentialed) theologian, so I may get some concepts a little wrong there too. I don’t really care about all that.

You may be familiar with the Three Laws of Thermodynamics (and they’re so important that they get a capitalized title). They are (thanks to Google’s generative AI summary, which I don’t ever trust, but meh):

• First Law:Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only transformed from one form to another; example: a light bulb converting electrical energy into light energy. 
• Second Law:The entropy (disorder) of an isolated system always increases over time; example: a cup of hot coffee naturally cooling down to room temperature as heat disperses to the surroundings. 
• Third Law:The entropy of a perfect crystal at absolute zero (lowest possible temperature) is zero. 

I have heard these summarized in a slightly different (and negative) way: You can’t win, you can’t break even, and you can’t get out of the game.

What I think these laws actually summarize is the Universe’s general slide from potentiality to realization. What I mean is, at the very first millisecond of the universe, there is ultimate potentiality (I mean, the fields have barely condensed yet) but no realization. As everything proceeds, reality is realized, and at the end, there is no more to be done and everything that could be realized, has.

But there is an aspect to this that most scientists seem to skip over, and I think it’s mostly because it’s not really something that can be quantified.

I think these laws can be reframed as: Everything requires a sacrifice.

What is sacrificed? Well, we don’t know. It’s something we quantify as “entropy”, but what is actually spent when entropy increases? I don’t think we know. I mean, no one really knows what energy is, just that it’s something that exists, sort of.

Something is sacrificed every time work is done, or every time energy is converted to one form to another. There is a price to pay for everything that happens in the universe.

So, let’s reframe the laws in those terms:

• First law: The universe is zero sum. Everything that we have available to us was provided at the beginning, and nothing can be taken from us that was created.
• Second law: Everything requires a payment. Everything, from conversion of the smallest particle to the mechanisms of the most powerful black holes, requires a payment, and that payment manifests as a small reduction in the potentiality of the univice.
• The only way to not require a payment is to do absolutely nothing, and that’s impossible.

To me, this is a complete 180 in how we view the universe, and it provides a framework for a lot of spiritual and religious thought that is actually missing in general theological conversation (as is usually the case, as theologians seem more concerned with counting the angels dancing on the head of a pin than answering any of the real questions). The traditional formulation of the three laws, while accurate, is negative and hopeless. This way is… also somewhat hopeless, but contains the seeds of hope by allowing for the possibility that something on the outside has manifested all of this and has set rules.

I’ll be, hopefully, writing more posts in this series that explains how this interfaces with Christian thought. Stick around if you dare…