In this blog we have theorized that consciousness and free agency connect to the fundamental process of quantum evolution. We also have theorized that quantum reduction, that phase of quantum evolution in which the microscopic quantum world meets the macroscopic classical world, is the physical process that creates macroscopic reality. If these things are true, what is the underlying meaning of quantum evolution? What is the function of that process in the mechanism of the universe?

As far as we know, the quantum and classical worlds represent two divergent realities, a connected microcosm of all things in superposition and a seemingly disconnected macrocosm of unique, localized events in spacetime. The divergent reality in which we live is the world of spacetime. Our world is linked to the microscopic quantum world through quantum reduction. It is through that process that the continuous wave function of the quantum world transforms into unique, discontinuous moments in spacetime, generating and regenerating a macro world that seems almost a holographic projection from quantum fields below.

The process that generates that projection is almost metaphysical in its materiality—involving infinite possibilities in microscopic superposition, weighted amplitudes determining probabilities, and random indeterminacy transforming probabilities into unique macroscopic events. The universe performs this recurring physical process through the evolution of the wave function—both the continuous evolution described by the Schrödinger equation and the discontinuous transformation of quantum reduction.

This process of quantum evolution is integral to the core engineering of the universe. It enables the universe to create its future constantly through random, indeterminate selection among infinite possibilities, subject only to the laws of deterministic probability. It is the mechanism that results in the two divergent planes that characterize the universe—the quantum plane in which anything is possible and the classical plane in which some things are more likely than others. Although an entirely mechanistic and physical process, it might best be described as what philosophers call a process of becoming.

That process of becoming is what makes our world. The universe is built on constant change and evolution through which macrocosmic events congeal and emerge from an ocean of quantum possibilities. Despite Einstein’s objections, the universe is engineered to “roll the dice” in its own probabilistic evolution. The function of quantum evolution in the mechanism of the universe may be to enable that probabilistic process of change and becoming.

In our own small corner of the universe consciousness and free agency may play a role in that probabilistic evolution. Consciousness may be a local instantiation of the universal process of resolving probabilities into outcomes. Free agency may be how we select indeterminate outcomes from possibilities shaped by deterministic probability. Both consciousness and free agency may contribute to the probabilistic evolution of the universe by enabling localized moments of choice in a universal process of becoming.