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Beyond Determinism and Design - why the universe needs a new story of its own evolution

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For over a century, explanations of the universe’s origin and evolution have been shaped by two dominant worldviews.

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1. The Deterministic View of Modern Physics

'The universe is a machine following fixed mathematical rules.'

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Many cosmological models—such as Penrose’s Conformal Cyclic Cosmology (CCC)—envision the cosmos as a cyclic, geometric continuum. The universe evolves through vast aeons connected by smooth mathematical transformations.  But these models offer no internal mechanism for why or how that transformation occurs.  The universe becomes a passive structure not an active system.

 

2. ​The Theological Designer

'An external designer sets the universe in motion.'

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Another longstanding response invokes a divine or transcendent mind to explain:

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• Fine‑tuning

• The low‑entropy Big Bang

• The improbable emergence of order

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This worldview introduces external agency to solve explanatory gaps.

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3. The Cosmological Structural Intellect: A Third Path 

'The universe as a self‑organising, self‑mediating, materially intelligent system'.

 

The Cosmological Structural Intellect (CSI) rejects both strict determinism and external design by proposing that the universe:

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• evolves through immanent logic from a previous universe

• renews itself through embedded structural intelligence that selects paths of least action

• contains within its geometry the rules for its own transformation.

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