Between Two Theories (Part 2): What the Universe Teaches Us About Society, Structure, and Survival

“An organization that can hold and manage its disagreements will evolve; one without disagreement, or without the capacity to contain it, will decay.”

You may think that “heavenly harmony” means no friction, no disagreement, no change; everyone living together in constant happiness, smiling serenely in a state of nirvana. But if that is your idea of utopia, then consider how emergence, progress, and transformation actually unfold in the real world, a world we are part of. Did atoms, molecules, living cells, species, societies, and cultures appear out of nothing, peacefully and without friction? Or are they the direct result of tension, pressure, and contradiction?

Complexity in Practice – From Physics to the Farm

I have witnessed the same structural patterns that appear in physics unfold in meeting rooms, orchards, and the daily life of organizations. At Biofeed, there were moments during management discussions when everyone nodded in agreement with my proposals. You might assume such moments would inspire confidence and offer stability. Instead, they often left me uneasy. It was not because I doubted the proposals themselves, but because the absence of disagreement pointed to a deeper, hidden fragility.

A company in which no one challenges the leadership may appear unified, but in practice, it becomes brittle and slowly begins to decay. I came to understand that disagreement, when voiced constructively and held within a stable structure, is not a threat to coherence. It is a vital sign. It is the raw material from which adaptability, innovation, and resilience are formed. A team that suppresses conflict does not grow; it remains static and eventually declines. Without dynamic tension, there can be no emergence of new capabilities. What remains is either repetition or erosion.

This understanding did not arise solely from theory, but from direct observation. In organizations where conflict is discouraged or avoided, the structure weakens; energy may still exist, but it scatters without direction or containment. In contrast, environments that welcome honest debate generate internal energy that, when channeled effectively, becomes a source of growth. That energy must be guided by a shared mission and stabilized by structures capable of integrating differences without collapsing under it.

This same pattern extends far beyond the life of a company. Societies, like organizations, must be designed to accommodate contradiction. Prosperity does not come from the absence of friction, but from the managed stabilization of tension between freedom and order, between tradition and innovation, between individual needs and collective responsibility. The most resilient societies are not those that eliminate conflict, but those that turn conflict into meaning.

The Kibbutz model offers a vivid example. It was never a place of perfect agreement, nor did it try to be. Its strength came from its capacity to hold contradiction in coherent form. The Kibbutz was structured around shared core values, a unifying mission, and a vision for the future, while also allowing for evolving leadership and personal identity. Its rituals, institutions, and collective responsibilities gave its members the tools to remain engaged in tension without fracturing the community.

Those who lived through the early decades of the Kibbutz remember long meetings where disagreements were not buried, but aired fully, often forcefully, and where debates would continue deep into the night. Yet those were the most prosperous and creative years of the community. The sustained presence of tension, held within a shared purpose, was not a weakness. It was the engine. In later years, as members began to avoid conflict or bypass it quietly, the core structure weakened, the mission lost its clarity, and although the outer form remained, the inner momentum was gone.

This same principle lies at the heart of the Universal Law of Increasing Complexity (ULIC). Prosperity, whether in ecosystems, economies, or human organizations, requires more than effort or knowledge. It requires a structure capable of absorbing friction without disintegrating, and a direction that can convert raw energy into meaningful progress. When energy, structure, and direction align, emergence becomes possible. That is as true for inanimate particles as it is for technologies, living organisms, companies, and societies.

We often assume that poverty results from a lack of resources or talent. But more often, what is missing is the kind of structure that transforms energy into capability. Without such structure, even immense effort and innovation may be wasted. With it, even in harsh conditions of scarcity and distress, growth and resilience can take root.

The contradiction between quantum theory and general relativity, as discussed earlier, reflects this same underlying pattern. So do the tensions between the individual and the group, between risk and stability, and between the desire to evolve and the need to remain grounded. These are not flaws to be corrected; they are the generative forces from which life and complexity emerge. The challenge is not to eliminate contradictions, but to create structures strong enough to contain them and wise enough to guide them toward higher levels of capability and coherence.

The Failure That Already Works

It is easy to describe the contradiction between quantum mechanics and general relativity as a scientific failure. After more than a century of scientific effort, we still lack a unified framework that explains how the smallest particles relate to the shape and behavior of space-time. Some view this unresolved contradiction as a flaw in modern physics, a sign that something essential is still missing from our understanding of the universe. Yet what if this apparent failure is not a dysfunction, but a function we have not yet learned how to interpret?

Viewed through the lens of the ULIC, what we are seeing may not be a broken system at all, but rather one that is alive and thriving. Contradiction is not always a flaw to be eliminated; in many systems, it is the very mechanism that enables transformation. The universe does not appear to require that our theories agree in order for complexity to emerge. What it seems to require instead is interaction; enough interaction to generate structure, invite direction, and hold tension long enough for something new to take shape.

The universe did not pause for theoretical coherence before it began its long journey toward increasing complexity. Even as its foundational principles remained in conflict, it continued to generate forms of rising capability. Subatomic particles gave rise to atoms, which in turn formed molecules, and these molecules became the basis of life. Life evolved into systems capable of perception, cooperation, and culture. The contradiction between quantum mechanics and general relativity has never prevented the world from becoming more complex. If anything, the tension between them may have acted as a catalyst, fueling the very evolution that could not have taken place without it.

This insight invites a deeper reflection. If the universe is capable of growing through unresolved contradiction, then perhaps disagreement is not a flaw to be corrected, but a necessary condition for emergence. We often assume that contradiction signals disorder or failure, when in fact it may point to a generative tension, one that, if properly contained and directed, becomes a source of transformation. The true limitation may lie not in the nature of the universe, but in our expectation that truth must always be captured in a single, unified framework. Complexity may not require agreement. It may require structures that can hold opposing forces long enough for something fundamentally new to arise.

This pattern is not confined to physics; it recurs across political history, scientific progress, and the evolution of life itself. Transformational change does not typically emerge from the disappearance of conflict, but from its stabilization within a structure capable of integrating opposing forces. In governance, this is reflected in constitutions that balance conflicting interests while maintaining systemic coherence. In biology, it manifests as the interplay between genetic stability and mutation, an interaction that fuels the long arc of evolution. In science, too, paradigm shifts do not resolve all contradictions; instead, they construct frameworks broad enough to contain what earlier models could not accommodate.

Seen in this light, the contradiction between quantum theory and relativity may be less an obstacle than it first appears, and more the outward expression of a deeper system still in the process of evolution. If the ULIC holds, then this contradiction is not a failure to be corrected, but an essential phase in a larger process of emergence. The system is already energized, structurally coherent, and moving in a clear directional trend through expansion, Genordo (the driving force behind entropy gradients), and an observable rise in capability. What remains is the development of a conceptual structure capable of containing this tension without forcing premature resolution into a reductive formula.

Our challenge, then, may not be to merge the two frameworks by eliminating their differences, but to build a new foundational structure, one that can host both theories in their full depth. If designed with enough coherence and capacity, such a structure could allow their contradiction to become not only manageable but productive, unlocking the next chapter of scientific understanding and advancing the complexity of our models in ways we have yet to imagine.

A Universe That Grows Through Contradiction 

We often imagine that universal laws operate quietly and harmoniously, as if the fabric of reality is woven from seamless, symmetrical principles. Yet when we look more closely, whether into the behavior of particles or the evolution of human societies, we encounter something far more dynamic and unsettling. We do not find perfect harmony, but rather an ongoing tension, persistent contradictions, and a visible truth: the most complex and capable systems are not those without conflict, but those that learn to contain it without disintegration.

This is not merely a philosophical suggestion to be contemplated in abstraction; it is a structural principle that recurs across layers of reality, from the atomic to the societal. Consider the unresolved contradiction between quantum mechanics and general relativity; two theories that continue to shape our understanding of the universe not because they align, but precisely because each reveals something essential about existence. Similarly, stars are not born out of stillness, but out of a balance sustained between gravitational collapse and explosive pressure, a process held in dynamic equilibrium. The same pattern is visible in the history of the Kibbutz, where the capacity to host long, emotionally charged meetings and tolerate deep disagreements did not weaken the community, but strengthened it through shared commitment and collective responsibility.

The ULIC does not promise resolution, peace, or static balance. Rather, it reveals that systems evolve and become more capable when they are structured to absorb tension and friction, and guided by a direction that channels those internal forces toward emergent capabilities. Energy, structure, and direction do not merely support survival; they are the building blocks that enable transformation.

This same logic applies within human society. A nation, like a theory, may appear stable for a time, but when contradiction is suppressed or disagreement is silenced, decay soon follows. The vitality of any system, whether scientific, political, or economic, depends on its ability to stabilize and guide internal contradictions toward a shared purpose. When disagreement is processed through the lens of mission and values, within structures designed to hold tension without collapsing, then transformation becomes possible, and sometimes even inevitable.

Such direction, however, cannot be improvised in a moment of crisis. It must be embedded long in advance, built into the system's foundations, and nurtured over time. Societies that endure through upheaval are not those with the most advanced technologies or the highest GDP, but those rooted in shared values, guided by a long-term vision, and united by a mission that transcends immediate benefit and binds individuals together when short-term incentives falter or lose relevance. When such direction is absent, energy is wasted; when shared meaning dissolves, even the strongest structures begin to erode.

If we are looking for a universal law that explains not only how the universe operates but also how it evolves into greater forms of capability, we must recognize contradiction as a potential force for growth rather than a defect. The energy of becoming is not smooth or linear; it is turbulent, uncertain, and constantly tested by internal collapse. It proceeds not through perfect balance, but through structures strong enough to contain divergence and direction powerful enough to shape it into coherence.

The universe has not waited for our deepest theories to agree before continuing its evolution. It has already moved forward and will continue to do so, regardless of whether we succeed in reconciling its contradictions. The work before us is not to resolve every tension, but to build systems, whether in science, governance, or community, that can hold complexity without falling apart.

From this perspective, a different kind of clarity begins to emerge. It is not the clarity of final answers, but the clarity that comes from recognizing what must be held together for something new to form. That is how stars are born, how civilizations grow, and perhaps how the universe becomes what it was always capable of becoming.

* I strive to stay true to the facts and the reality they reveal. If you find an error or see a need for clarification, your insights are welcome.

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See you soon,

Nimrod

Dr. Nimrod Israely is the CEO and Founder of Dream Valley and Biofeed companies and the Chairman and Co-founder of the IBMA conference. +972-54-2523425 (WhatsApp), or email nisraely@biofeed.co.il

P.S.

If you missed it, here is a link to last week's blog, “Between Two Theories: How Physics Reveals the Engine of Emergence (Part 1)“.

P.P.S.

Here are ways we can work together to help your agro sector and rural communities step forward and shift from poverty into ongoing prosperity:

* Nova Kibbutz and consultancy on rural communities' models.

* Local & National programs related to agro-produce export models - Dream Valley global vertical value and supply chain business model and concept connects (a) input suppliers with farmers in developing economies and (b) those farmers with consumers in premium markets.

* Crop protection: Biofeed, an eco-friendly zero-spray control technology and protocol.

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*This article addresses general phenomena. The mention of a country/continent is used for illustration purposes only.