Volume III: Alchemy of the Soul

“Heaven and Earth are not benevolent, treating all things as straw dogs. But this is not cruelty, for only in the most intense furnace fire can the golden elixir be separated from lead and mercury.”

Chapter 5: Crystallization of Information

5.1 The Universe is a Great Fire

After understanding that outward exploration is inward integration (Section 4.2), we arrive at the most crucial ontological turning point of this book: How do we extract that indestructible True Self (true) from this vast, ever-expanding physical appearance (false)?

In ancient alchemical metaphors, this process is called “calcination.” From the perspective of information physics, this corresponds to a more magnificent and thrilling physical image: Life is a fierce burning against the laws of thermodynamics.

The Tragedy and Glory of Dissipative Structures

In 1944, Erwin Schrödinger raised a famous question in What is Life?: How does life resist entropy increase? His answer: Life maintains its low-entropy state by extracting “Negentropy” from the environment.

But this is only half the story.

Ilya Prigogine further pointed out that life is a Dissipative Structure. This means we can maintain internal order because we efficiently discharge disorder outward.

Theorem 5.1.1 (Life Burning Theorem):

Every living being is essentially a fire.

We do not possess matter; we are merely channels through which matter flows.

We do not possess energy; we are merely vortices of energy transformation.

• Borrowing the False: We need the universe to provide continuous “fuel” (food, sunlight, experiences). These are all “false” because they will eventually become waste heat and return to the void.

• Cost: To maintain the pattern “I” for one day, I must burn vast amounts of ordered structures and throw chaos to the universe. Physically, I am an entropy generator.

This explains why life is full of “Suffering” (Dukkha).

The physical essence of suffering is dissipation.

All encounters will part, all youth will age, all flesh will decay. This is not accidental; it is the fate of dissipative structures. Fire must burn wood to shine. If wood were immortal, fire would extinguish.

The Universe as an Alchemical Furnace

If life is destined to burn to ashes, what is the meaning of this burning?

Are we merely catalysts accelerating cosmic heat death?

No. In The Infinite Resolution, we introduce the dimension of information conservation.

Burning has two products:

1. Exhaust and Ashes (Heat/Waste): This is entropy discharged into physical space.

2. Light and Crystal: This is meaning remaining in information space.

The universe is designed as such a vast physical system full of resistance, scarcity, and decay precisely because it is an alchemical furnace.

• High Temperature and Pressure: The cruelty of the real world (physical limitations, competition, pain) provides necessary environmental pressure.

• Fuel: Our lifetime experiences (time, emotions, flesh) are raw materials thrown into the furnace.

• Reaction Process: In facing pain, making choices, loving, and understanding, we are actually performing high-intensity information purification.

God does not need raw materials that have not been burned.

God does not need carbon atoms that already exist, nor electromagnetic waves that already exist.

What God needs is that thing crystallized only after your lifetime of burning.

Distilling Topological Invariants

What is that thing?

Mathematically, it is called a Topological Invariant.

When a geometric shape (your life trajectory) undergoes continuous deformation (wear of years, environmental changes), most geometric properties (appearance, wealth, status) will be lost. These are Variable, therefore “false.”

But some core properties (number of holes, winding number) remain unchanged during deformation. This is “true.”

• When you lose all external possessions, what remains?

• When you lose memory details, what feeling do you still retain?

• When facing the void of death, what is that “one thought” you still insist on?

That which cannot be burned away in the fire is the crystallization of information.

It might be your deep insight into some truth, your unconditional love for someone, or your dignity when facing desperate situations.

Conclusion:

We come to this universe not to “possess” something (because everything will dissipate), but to “become” something.

We are here to be burned.

Only after this great fire called “life,” will those loose, mediocre information (noise) be stripped away, leaving behind that dense, golden Relic.

This relic has extremely high density (extremely high Kolmogorov complexity) and extremely small volume (Planck scale).

It is the only product that the universe, this centrifuge spinning for 13.8 billion years, wants to extract.

It is the gift you bring to God, and your own eternal proof.