We are so hyper-involved in our physicality and in materialism that we think of evolution as a physical process, where the physically simple forms migrate through random processes toward forms that are more complex. I believe this to be a limited view. If we are simply physical, then there continues to be no explanation for our self-awareness, the I AM that is us.
The story of evolution is also the story of forms which have evolved as vehicles for Intelligence, or Mind.
The history of the Universe is the history of the evolution of intelligence from recurrent order (like the rock) toward expanding order, awareness, and finally to self-awareness and self-directed evolution.
The physical history of the Big Bang that we normally think of is the EFFECT of this evolution of mind. Does Mind exist independently, outside of the Universe? Who knows? Is God in the Universe or outside it? That is the next BIG question. Let's address it.
The argument for a God outside the Universe is a tricky one, because normally we define the Universe as being the sum total of everything. If everything is in it, how can anything be outside it? Of course we cannot just step out of the universe to have a look. Science has estimated what may have occurred just AFTER the big bang, but is simply not able to get a grasp on anything which may have come before.
For now, we will side-step the question of whether there is such a thing as before or after. If time is a feature of the created physical universe, then we don't have to worry about it in the 'before'.
Quantum mechanics may have the answer for this as well, because it implies that energy is inherent in the very fabric of space itself, and the matter we observe is merely a protrusion of energy patterns into three dimensional space of a multi-dimensional reality. That's like saying there's more to the world than we can see and touch. We are seeing only a piece of what is there. Just as we can't see electric fields; we can't see magnetic fields; we can't see most wavelengths of radiation. Much of what is there, we cannot see. But the stuff we can't see makes up the Universe as well.
We know that the Universe contains intelligence, assuming we consider ourselves intelligent. We also can see, or think we can, that other lifeforms contain greater or lesser degrees of intelligence. What we have not quite figured out is where to draw the line. The answer, I think, is that there is no line. There is a continuous scale of intelligence from the simplest inert matter, through complex molecules, viruses, unicellular life, plants, animals, through man, assuming that man is indeed where it stops.
Software people understand that intelligence is programming. The physical Universe is energy, formed into patterns. The patterns themselves, as in the structure of the atom, are a program for the recurrent re-creation of the atom thousands of times each second, according to the quantum mechanical laws of physics. Inert matter is the energy of the Universe locked into definite form. Those forms follow some rules (programming rules?) which dictate the layout of atomic orbits and quantum energy levels.
Material forms are patterns superimposed upon the basic energy 'stuff' of the Universe; what we might loosely call the fabric of space. Most of the patterns are recurrent; if they were not, matter would fade and disappear with time. A few are temporary, as with certain particles which are created in nuclear research devices under extreme conditions.
Could it be that the programmer is one with its programming? Are the forms which make up our world just the substance of the intelligence that created them?
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