The core creative process in the universe involves quantum mechanics and thermodynamics.

Whenever atoms combine to make larger structures, from simple molecules to liquids and solids, there is a quantum mechanical interaction of the atoms. In such interactions the relatively simple quantal wave functions of the isolated atoms are replaced by molecular wave functions or wave functions that describe atoms in the solid or liquid state. These are difficult to calculate compared to atomic wave functions, but describing the process of combination is similar to describing an experiment that attempts to measure the state of any quantal system.

We can calculate only the probabilities that the atoms will wind up in given molecular states, in particular arrangements in a solid structure for example. In other words, the process is a statistical one, subject to the usual principles of quantum uncertainty.

Whether we are describing the depositing of atoms on a surface to dope a semiconductor or of adding a complex nucleotide molecule to a growing DNA macromolecular chain, the principles are the same. The initial state uses the wave functions of the separated system. Then we calculate the evolution of the wave function in time as the isolated systems interact or collide. At some point, we make the ad hoc assumption that the wave function "collapses." This produces a set of probabilities of finding the resulting combined system in its various eigenstates.

In many standard discussions of quantum mechanics, it is said that we need the consciousness of a physicist to collapse the wave function. Wigner and Wheeler describe the observer as making up the mind of the universe.

We will see in our discussion of Schrödinger's Cat that the physical universe can be its own observer.

Quantum measurement is not a part of the mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics. It is an ad hoc heuristic description and method of calculation that predicts the probabilities of what will happen when an observer makes a measurement.

Measurement requires the interaction of an observing instrument, assumed to be large and adequately determined. It does not require a conscious observer.

The second law of thermodynamics says that the entropy (or disorder) of a closed physical system increases until it reaches a maximum, the state of thermodynamic equilibrium. It requires that the entropy of the universe is now and has always been increasing. (The first law is that energy is conserved.)

This established fact of increasing entropy has led many scientists and philosophers to assume that the universe we have is running down. They think that means the universe began in a very high state of information, since the second law requires that any organization or order is susceptible to decay. The information that remains today, in their view, has always been here. This fits nicely with the idea of a deterministic universe. There is nothing new under the sun.

But the universe is not a closed system. It is in a dynamic state of expansion that is moving away from thermodynamic equilibrium faster than entropic processes can keep up. The maximum possible entropy is increasing much faster than the actual increase in entropy. The difference between the maximum possible entropy and the actual entropy is potential information.

Creation of information structures means that in parts of the universe the local entropy is actually going down. Creation of a low entropy system is always accompanied by radiation of entropy away from the local structures to distant parts of the universe, into the night sky for example.

We describe these processes that create information structures, reducing the entropy locally, as ergodic. They appear to resist the second law of thermodynamics, but any local decrease in entropy is more than compensated for by increases elesewhere, satisfying the second law. Normal entropy-increasing processes we call entropic.

Without violating the inviolable second law overall, they reduce the entropy locally, ergodic processes produce those pockets of cosmos and negative entropy (order and information-rich structures) that are the principal objects in the universe and life on earth.