Two Universal Forces (part one)

Boaz and Jachin, the pillars of the Temple of Solomon

There are lots of twos in Magick.

Yin and Yang. Male and Female principle. Tastes great and less filling. The two that I want to talk about are basic principles of life. I will argue they make life and complexity not simply possible, but inevitable.

You see, it all starts with Hydrogen. Well, it starts before that... I mean there was this big bang and stuff. My problem is that my sub-atomic physics is really poor, and I will let the smartypantses fill in the time between Bang and Hydrogen.

For now, we're at the bit about the Hydrogen.

Hydrogen atoms have a certain gravity and natural attraction due to their single electron. The attraction is infinitesimally small, but nonzero. Eventually they clumped together and formed H2 molecules, because this is what their chemical bonds naturally want to do. Those molecules drifted together with other molecules and we got gigantic clumps of Hydrogen. All of a sudden, under the pressure of the now monstrously massive clumping of Hydrogen, some of these clumps ignite and become stars. The process of fusion begins its long and storied history in the Universe, and there was light.

This is the story of the first principle: Concentration.

The early Universe didn't know what to do with all this Hydrogen crap. It just knew there was an awful lot of Hydrogen. The Universe didn't have to intervene - it just let gravity do its thing and BAM! a whole new phenomena appeared. What's more, the fact that fusion is a Concentrating process is right in the name! It takes Hydrogen atoms, fuses them into Helium atoms, and releases energy while increasing the complexity of matter. The release of energy powers further fusion, making it a system with positive feedback. Until the fuel is gone, fusion will continue to concentrate, diversify, and produce surplus. Stars fizzle out when their fuel is gone. Basically stars have gone and created a whole bunch of new types of matter by Concentrating, and they can't continue to produce surplus. They go into a cycle of death throes, expanding, then suddenly contracting upon themselves. This is followed by a massive explosion, be it nova or supernova, and the Concentrated matter is blasted into the wide.

This is the second principle: the principle of Dispersion.

Once all this new complexity has been created, physics deigns it should be shared with the Universe once again. In the process between being super-heated nova debris to becoming relatively cool dust in the interstellar medium, a lot of this ejecta has the opportunity to interact in interesting ways and at multiple different temperatures and states of matter. Energy - both kinetic and heat - is dispersed and transferred. The new types of matter in different states increase the variety of interactions that occur between matter. These increased interactions may provide novel ways for Concentration to occur once again.

This is just the beginning of a rather extended discussion I would like to have about these two forces. The key to understanding them is to remember that Concentration creates new stuff and is able to derive energy from a new energy source. Dispersion creates new interactions and chances for interaction, and spreads around, shares, and dissipates energy.

A sharp-eyed reader might have identified that the release of energy during fusion could be considered a Dispersive process and the interactions between Dispersed matter could be considered Concentrating processes. You're right. There's a reason there's a black dot in the middle of the white side of the yin-yang symbol. Depending on your level of analysis, any number of different processes can be occurring at the same time, and in turn begetting other processes that contain their opposite. That's just how things go.