ABSTRACT
Nature, the physicists have found, “seems to keep all its options, all its probabilities, open for as long as possible…. It is the act of observing a system,” labeling and classifying it, “that forces it to select one of its options, which then becomes real” (Gribbin, 1984:172). Why this should be so is not known. Indeed, it is all we can ask of the science of physics to tell us how it is so. Let me suggest in non-physicist terms, that it may be numbers of options that keeps the universe flexible, able to maintain and to continue to evolve. It is limitation of options, whether by the human mind, the pressures of environment, or whatever device, that leads to collapse of energy and to extinction.
