If I were pressed to give a short but complete account of the Universe, I would base it on what the Universe does and how it does it.
So, what does the Universe do?
It discriminates.
It begins as a minimal speck of undifferentiated, unstructured stuff—immense in density and temperature. After an initial expansion and dissipation of energy, entities (matter) appear. From that moment on, discrimination among indistinguishable entities begins to take place.
Discriminated entities interact with one another and with their surroundings. This initiates a process of growth and development.
Development unfolds in stages, forming consecutive levels of interaction that gives rise to a hierarchy of scales.
Developmental processes are cyclical. When a developmental process reaches its limit, it gives rise to a new developmental process. Functional features that emerge in one cycle become structural properties in the next. These new structural properties are qualitatively different, bringing forth entities with novel characteristics. This novelty we call evolutionary change.
The result is a Universe of diversity and increasing complexity—the product of cycles of development, punctuated by evolutionary change.
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