Could Witnessing an Event Change Its Outcome?

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“Observing is participation.”

Setting the Stage

The implications of the classification method introduced in the previous column, A New Method for Classifying Complexity, extend far beyond academic curiosity. They challenge us to reconsider how reality itself is organized, showing that every level of existence, from particles to societies, emerges through the same structural logic of transformation.

If the Universal Law of Increasing Complexity (ULIC) describes this process accurately, then the same principles that govern the behavior of matter must also govern the evolution of life and the success or failure of human systems. Understanding that logic could therefore clarify not only the foundations of physics but also the causes of prosperity and poverty.

To test whether this framework reflects the structure of reality, we examine it in a field where emotion and ideology cannot distort observation: physics. There, measurement is precise, repetition is possible, and interpretation can be checked against evidence. Within that domain, we can see the clearest expression of the same forces, interaction, balance, and relation that later shape chemistry, biology, and society. If the framework that resolves one of science’s oldest paradoxes also explains the organization of human cooperation, then it confirms that a single law governs all complexity, from the motion of particles to the behavior of civilizations.

In this column, we test that logic against one of physics’ oldest and most puzzling questions. If by the end of this discussion the explanation feels simple and self-evident, then we will have accomplished something rare: transforming one of science’s great paradoxes into clarity.

The Cascade of Complexity

Everything that exists is part of a continuous architecture of increasing complexity, the sequence through which the universe organizes itself from energy into matter, from matter into life, and from life into society. Physics provides the foundation upon which chemistry arises. Chemistry gives structure to biology. Biology, through awareness and relation, gives rise to social organization. Each layer inherits the laws of the one before it and transforms them into new expressions of order.

New layers emerge when the tension within existing structures can no longer be contained, and that tension, between openness and constraint, is the driving pressure that pushes the universe toward higher coherence. This is the Cascade Architecture, a system in which every new level builds on the equilibrium of the previous one without discarding it.

Once we recognize this continuity, the boundaries between disciplines begin to fade. The same principles that bind particles into atoms bind cells into organisms and individuals into communities. The same logic that stabilizes chemical reactions also governs cooperation and trust among people. What changes across the layers is not the material itself but the pattern of relationships that determines how energy, information, and awareness are organized.

This realization helps us to change how we approach unknowns, because mysteries in one domain may find their explanation in another if the underlying structure is equivalent. The universe, viewed in this way, is not a collection of separate systems but a single evolving process in which each layer mirrors and extends the structure beneath it.

To observe this architecture in motion, we need not begin with instruments or equations but can first recognize it in life itself, where interaction and relationship continuously generate structure. Every connection reorganizes internal states and introduces a degree of order, and through repeated interaction, that order consolidates into coherence. From this principle, the inherent capacity of entities to respond to and reorganize through relation, the act of observation arises as a structural process rather than a passive event.

Observation Across the Layers

To observe the architecture of complexity in motion, we need not begin with instruments or equations. We can first see it in life, where every act of registering another’s presence initiates an internal reorganization. Across all layers of existence, awareness begins as the capacity to detect relation and unfolds as structural adjustment that leads to greater order. The visible result is a shift in behavior, from irregularity to alignment, from independence to coherence.

In this context, awareness is not thought or emotion but structural responsiveness, the capacity of a system to detect information, reorganize internally, and express externally a higher degree of order. The same process repeats in every domain of existence, from society to Nyxia, each layer arising when responsiveness stabilizes into a distinct mode of coherence.

Society – Conscience

When people act alone, their behavior is spontaneous and unpredictable. However, in the presence of others, through observation, expectation, or social proximity, they reorganize internally to align with shared norms. Externally, this reorganization appears as predictability and cooperation.

When my firstborn daughter was young, her play was free, unrestrained, and unpredictable, as shown by her tendency to paint on the walls of her room, cut her hair, and smear cream all over. However, the moment she realized she was being watched, her behavior became measured and deliberate. The change wasn’t imposed from the outside but was triggered from within, an internal shift caused by awareness, i.e., she knew she was watched. Social order at every level develops through this structural responsiveness that turns individuality into coherence. Repeated interactions reinforce the pattern, and the biological aspect of individuality shifts into the social layer of collective order.

Biology – Signaling

It is challenging to predict the behavior of an organism when alone. However, when it detects chemical or electrical signals from others, its internal state reorganizes, producing highly predicted coordinated behavior. The detection of a pheromone trail, for instance, alters an ant’s internal chemistry, aligning its movement with the colony’s collective path.

Biological coordination therefore originates in signaling, the capacity to register others and reorganize physiology accordingly. When this responsiveness becomes continuous and stable, cooperation replaces isolation, and the chemical foundation of life transitions into the biological domain of organized adaptation.

Chemistry – Bonding

Atoms drifting freely interact irregularly, reflecting the openness of their physical origin. When proximity allows them to register one another’s electromagnetic fields, internal redistribution of charge occurs, lowering potential energy and producing stability. Externally, this manifests as chemical bonding, the first persistent form of organized relation.

Through repeated bonding, matter acquires continuity and memory by maintaining structure through time. When such bonds proliferate and organize into complex molecules, the physical layer transitions into chemistry, where structure can persist and evolve.

Physics – Interaction

Particles alone move unpredictably, still reflecting the openness of Nyxia. When they interact through attraction, repulsion, or exchange forces, internal reorganization happens, forming stable relationships that we recognize as the laws of motion and conservation.

At this level, randomness narrows into consistency. The physical layer emerges when the interactions of energy and mass achieve a state of enduring equilibrium, forming the structural foundation upon which chemistry later develops.

Nyxia – Differentiation

At the boundary between energy and matter lies Nyxia, a dynamic field of equilibrium where openness and structure coexist. When no relation occurs, energy remains diffuse, a continuous wave-like field of probability. When interaction takes place, the field reorganizes internally, condensing into localized quanta, discrete packets of structure.

This transition marks the first distinction between freedom and constraint. Even before discrete forms appear, energy fields remain internally correlated across distance, showing that relation precedes separation and that coherence exists before locality. The emergence of such stable interactions within Nyxia generates the physical domain, extending equilibrium into measurable form.

Table 1 – Two Faces of Existence Across the Layers

Layer	When Unconnected / Unobserved	When Responsive / Observed	Resulting Advance
Society	Independent behavior, spontaneous variability	Alignment under shared awareness, cooperative order	Emergence of moral and social coherence
Biology	Isolated activity, irregular motion	Coordinated signaling, collective adaptation	Organized life and interdependent behavior
Chemistry	Free atoms or gases, random movement	Bonded molecules, stable shared structure	Matter capable of persistence and transformation
Physics	Unrelated particles, unpredictable interaction	Stable relations governed by consistent laws	Predictable, ordered physical systems
Nyxia	Diffuse, wave-like energy, full openness, low order	Localized quanta emerging from wave potential, first structural coherence	Birth of matter and the physical layer

Internal Change and Structural Transition

Across all layers of existence, the transition from isolation and low order to unity and higher order of complexity follows the same structural principle. The process begins when separate entities register the presence of one another. This external sensing triggers an internal reorganization of equilibrium, through which each entity moves from openness and irregularity toward greater coherence and stability. The moment awareness arises, order increases. Externally, this manifests as bonding, alignment, or collective behavior. While the signal between entities travels through the external environment, the transformation itself is not imposed from outside but arises from an internal restructuring within each entity’s system.

Energy, Structure, and Direction: The Forces of Emergence

Every phenomenon we observe, from light to life, reveals the same underlying process: energy becomes organized through the balance between Structure and Direction. These two complementary principles act upon energy to determine when potential transforms into stable form.

Energy provides the medium of motion and possibility.Structure gives that motion boundary and coherence, allowing energy to persist and accumulate information.Direction drives energy toward change and novelty, ensuring transformation rather than stasis.

When Structure dominates, systems become rigid and lose vitality. When Direction dominates, coherence dissolves. Complexity increases only when the two remain in equilibrium, when energy sustains both freedom and constraint within the same field.

This equilibrium first emerged within Nyxia, the transitional domain between pure energy and matter. In Nyxia, energy propagates as wave-like openness while simultaneously localizing into discrete quanta. The same logic continues through every subsequent layer, each expressing the balance between Structure and Direction in a different medium of energy.

Table 2 – Expression of Energy, Structure, and Direction Across the Layers

Layer	Structure (Stability)	Direction (Transformation)	Resulting Equilibrium / Outcome
Nyxia	Condensation of energy into quanta	Propagation of energy as wave-like openness	Dual nature of wave and particle; first measurable order
Physics	Stable interaction and conservation of motion	Expansion and field exchange	Predictable physical systems governed by law
Chemistry	Molecular bonding and energy storage	Reactivity producing new compounds	Matter capable of persistence and transformation
Biology	Genetic and cellular organization	Adaptation, evolution, and learning	Living systems capable of self-regulation
Society	Institutions, norms, and collective memory	Creativity, innovation, and reform	Cultures balancing freedom and coherence

Balance – The Source of Emergence

Emergence arises wherever energy sustains equilibrium between Structure and Direction. In this balance, tension becomes productive rather than destructive, allowing systems to transform without collapse. Each layer inherits this same architecture. In Nyxia, it defines the duality of wave and particle. In Physics and Chemistry, it stabilizes interaction and bonding. In Biology, it maintains life’s adaptability within form. In Society, it allows cooperation and freedom to coexist.

The same mechanism that enables light to manifest as both wave and particle enables living systems to preserve individuality within cooperation. Complexity advances not by replacing one form with another but by refining their balance. This equilibrium, the transformation of potential into structure without losing openness, is the foundation upon which all emergence rests.

Seeing Through the Slits: The Boundary Between Nyxia and the Physical World

Having established how energy organizes through the balance between Structure and Direction, we now test this principle against one of modern science’s most persistent puzzles, the double-slit experiment. For more than a century, this simple setup has challenged interpretation not because its results are uncertain, but because their meaning exposes a gap in our structural understanding of reality. The experiment does not reveal confusion in nature; it reveals the process that governs transformation.

The Experiment

A source directs light or matter, photons, electrons, or atoms, toward a thin barrier containing two narrow slits. A screen beyond the barrier records the impacts. When both slits are open and no attempt is made to identify each particle’s path, the screen displays alternating bright and dark bands, the signature of interference, indicating wave-like propagation through both slits simultaneously (A in the visual below).

When a detector is placed beside the slits to determine which slit each particle passes through, the interference pattern disappears. The screen then shows two broad regions aligned with the slits, as if the particles behaved like localized projectiles. The only change is the act of measurement, yet the entire outcome transforms (B in the visual below). At the end of the column, you will find a link to a video explaining the double slit experiment. 

The Enigma

Classical physics cannot explain this behavior. A particle should take one path or the other, never both. Quantum theory predicts the probabilities of each outcome but does not specify what physically changes when observation occurs. This is the measurement problem, the question of why detecting a particle appears to alter its behavior. The common description of a “collapse of the wave function” names the phenomenon but not its cause. Treating observation as either an external act or a property of consciousness leaves the mechanism undefined.

Table 3 – From Paradox to Clarity

Question	Conventional Physics	ULIC and Cascade Framework
What is observation	An external act that collapses a wave	A structural coupling that retains information and resolves internal equilibrium
Why does the pattern change	Collapse is asserted but not explained	Within Nyxia the balance shifts as Direction yields to Structure and one configuration stabilizes
Where does it happen	Unspecified act of measurement	At the boundary between Nyxial openness and physical order
How do correlations fit	Entanglement treated as an anomaly	Relation defined before localization, coherence through shared equilibrium
What is “collapse”	A jump from superposition to particle	Stabilization of one Nyxial configuration into localized form recorded as event
How does decoherence relate	Outcome described, mechanism implicit	Signature of equilibrium resolving into structure within Nyxia
Scope of logic	Limited to the quantum domain	Continuous across layers, physical, chemical, biological, and social

 

The ULIC Explanation

In the framework of the ULIC, the experiment unfolds within Nyxia, the transitional domain where energy exists in equilibrium between Structure and Direction. The particles that pass through the slits are not yet fully physical; they remain partly within Nyxia, simultaneously exhibiting wave-like openness and localized coherence.Before measurement, Direction dominates and energy disperses across the Nyxial field as distributed possibility. When the detector interacts with a particle, Structure asserts itself. Measurement is not an external disturbance but a structural coupling capable of retaining information. This coupling stabilizes one configuration of the field and converts potential into measurable form. In physics this is called decoherence; in ULIC it is the resolution of equilibrium within Nyxia, the moment when the system crosses from potential to structure.

What the Boundary Reveals

The experiment exposes a boundary between two modes of order. When unmeasured, the system remains within Nyxia, wave-like, relational, and delocalized. When measured, the same system reorganizes into the physical layer, localized, stable, and ready to combine with others. What appears as paradox is the structural threshold where energy reorganizes into coherence. This threshold is permeable. Adjacent layers remain open to limited two-way exchange: energy from Nyxia condenses into physical particles, and under specific conditions those particles return to Nyxial openness through tunneling, decay, or entanglement. The same bidirectional movement appears across all layers: bonds break and atoms revert to physical states, biological matter decomposes into chemistry, and societies alternate between coherence and fragmentation. Complexity persists through exchange rather than isolation.

Entanglement and Coherence

Entanglement illustrates the same mechanism. Correlation arises when separate quanta remain structurally linked within the Nyxial field. Their relation persists across distance because information remains conserved in the shared equilibrium. The double-slit demonstrates the complementary process: when a system couples with a detector, relation plus boundary becomes event. Across both cases, Nyxia carries the tension, and the balance of Structure and Direction determines the outcome. Measurement is therefore not an exception to natural law but one of its fundamental expressions, the point at which relation stabilizes into structure.

The Three-Beat Sequence

Every act of formation follows a consistent sequence. Open: the system exists in wave-like openness where many paths coexist and none are fixed. Hold: constraints shape potential without determining it, allowing interference patterns to accumulate. Fix: coupling occurs, relation becomes boundary, and one configuration stabilizes into form.This progression - open, hold, fix - governs transformation from energy to matter and from possibility to structure.

When Measurement Is Correct but Theory Is Partial

Scientific paradox arises when measurement is correct but theory too narrow. The double-slit experiment is one such case. Physics describes probability with precision but lacks a framework for the relational field in which probability becomes reality. The ULIC supplies that framework, showing that measurement and structure are complementary expressions of the same equilibrium.

When Direction dominates, systems remain open and undefined; when Structure prevails, coherence consolidates into measurable form. The transition between these states is not a violation of law but a passage between layers, the same dynamic that transforms energy into matter, chemistry into life, and awareness into society. Observation does not alter reality from outside; it participates in the process by which the universe organizes itself. Each measurement is a moment of stabilization in which relation becomes structure and potential becomes record. The double-slit experiment, therefore, reveals the threshold at which Nyxial energy turns into physical coherence, a process repeated in every layer of complexity.

Having seen how the smallest experiment reveals the logic by which the universe organizes itself, we now return to the human layer, where the same structural principles govern awareness, knowledge, and prosperity. Observation in the laboratory and awareness in the mind are two expressions of one process: the conversion of relation into structure. The question that guided this exploration remains: why should those who seek prosperity concern themselves with the mysteries of physics? The answer lies in continuity. The laws that shape the smallest systems also determine the stability of the largest ones. The same equilibrium that allows particles to form also allows societies to endure. Every structure that persists, from atoms to civilizations, does so by maintaining balance within the field that connects it to everything else. Prosperity is therefore not an invention of human culture but an expression of complexity seeking coherence.

Science itself reflects this universal order; it embodies the balance between Structure and Direction in its design. Direction appears as curiosity, imagination, and the drive to explore beyond the known. Structure appears as disciplined method, verification, and review. The scientific community functions as a Nyxial field, an open yet structured environment where ideas, experiments, and perspectives interact until coherence emerges. Each experiment and each theory represent a form of structured observation through which collective knowledge stabilizes. This balance between exploration and verification is not only a method but an architecture of learning, the same architecture that governs all emergent systems.

Science advances not through certainty but through humility. Its strength lies in the willingness to question, to revise, and to remain open to contradiction. Progress emerges not from perfection but from tension—between conviction and doubt, between what is known and what remains possible. Every theory we call true is a temporary structure within a larger field of potential understanding. The Universal Law of Increasing Complexity does not replace mathematics or measurement; it provides the structural context that allows them to cohere across layers, revealing continuity instead of division. Knowledge advances only when we accept that every explanation is a bridge between ignorance and deeper order.

Since the Renaissance, every expansion of understanding, from astronomy to medicine, from biology to social design, has begun not with certainty but with the courage to doubt what once seemed absolute. Each era of humility has opened a new layer of complexity for humanity to inhabit. The double-slit experiment reminds us that even when measurement is flawless, interpretation can remain incomplete. The same holds true for civilization.

Humanity’s greatest paradox today is not physical but social, the persistent failure to transform knowledge into shared prosperity. In the same way that physics sought coherence in matter, societies must now seek coherence in coexistence. The challenge is structural: to design human systems that balance freedom with order as effectively as nature balances energy with form.

Science remains humanity’s most potent instrument for confronting the unknown. Its discipline of testing, its openness to revision, and its curiosity toward contradiction ensure that mystery becomes knowledge. The same continuity that carries transformation from Nyxia into matter also carries meaning from knowledge into wisdom. Observation, whether physical or moral, is the process through which the universe becomes self-aware. The same qualities that revealed the hidden behavior of particles can reveal the architecture of prosperity. Poverty, then, is not an unavoidable condition but the next frontier of science, requiring the same rigor and openness that once unveiled the stars. To explore the causes of poverty with the same precision we apply to physics is to continue the scientific mission itself: to uncover coherence at every scale of existence.

Light itself embodies the principle of balance, freedom in motion sustained by structure. The double-slit experiment shows that the same equilibrium lives within us. Humanity’s task is to hold its contradictions until understanding becomes wisdom and wisdom becomes coherence. Science provides the means to observe; humility provides the direction to apply that vision wisely. Together, they form the human expression of the ULIC, the bridge between knowing and becoming, between the particle that stabilizes into existence and the civilization through which the universe observes itself and endures.

Link: For readers unfamiliar with the double slit experiment’s setup, visual explanations can be found in videos by Taylor Perkins.

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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, “A New Method for Classifying Complexity“.

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.