Following in the footsteps of Schrödinger, we propose a unified view of matter, life and human culture, with particular emphasis on the role played by the second law of thermodynamics and the primordial matter-antimatter separation. In doing so, we highlight the fragility of ‘construction’ (order) and the robustness of ‘destruction’ (chaos), when they locally and contextually face each other within a same reality layer, and the power of ‘construction’ versus the weakness of ‘destruction’, when they oppose each other at the global historical level, which is a result of the irreversible choices that were made by ‘matter, life and human culture’ in the course of their evolution.

Aerts, D. & Sassoli de Bianchi, M. (2022). On the irreversible journey of matter, life and human culture. In: Wuppuluri, S., Stewart, I. (eds) From Electrons to Elephants and Elections. The Frontiers Collection. Springer, pp. 821-842. Doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-92192-7_42.

Also published in Italian, in an extended version, in: AutoRicerca 27, 2023.