Over the past few years, many columns on this website have explored what I call the fluid society. Through my work in digitalisation, I have become fascinated by the transition humanity is undergoing: from a classical, industrial society — organised around nation states — towards a more global, digital reality, in which those structures are becoming less fixed and are gradually giving way to networks of companies, science and social communities. I call this new world “fluid” because fixed frameworks such as borders, institutions and identities are becoming less decisive, while dynamic, interconnected systems are becoming increasingly important.

This way of thinking — in terms of dynamics, processes and coherence — also raises a more fundamental question for me: how is reality itself actually structured? As a physicist by training, I have always been fascinated by the question of why there is anything at all. Why does reality exist? What makes it possible for an organised world to arise from a state without structure? 

In recent months I have taken up this question again. This has led to a series of reflections in which I try to explore the minimal conditions under which a physical reality is possible. These reflections are philosophical in nature, but they are aligned with the current state of physics and are not in conflict with it.