Since 2001 I have been motivated by emperical evidence to look for a general principle of nature.
Nature is rich in diversity but not random.
There are rules and regularities that we know as laws of physics and chemistry,
and as canons in biology, economics, behavioral and social sciences.
Disciplines are not separated but linked together, for we find the same patterns all over in data.
These sigmoid sum curves of skewed distributions, logarithmic spirals, and chaotic courses follow mostly straight lines (power laws) on log-log plots.
This Grand Regularity makes no distinction between living and non-living or microscopic and cosmic or innate and artificial.
Universality implies unity: Everything is made of quanta of light, in accordance with ancient atomism.
Thus, while an observation could be interpreted by some specific theory, all observations should logically be comprehended by the same principle.
The principle of least action was already early on thought of making sense of complex just as of simple phenomena.
It says: difference in energy of any kind will level off in least time. A step down in free energy is an irreversible step forward in time.
This universal principle explains the aforementioned universal patterns when derived from statistical mechanics of open quantized systems.
It reveals that evolution is inherently a non-determinate and path-dependent process that produces history.
Processes as flows of quanta will all by themselves search by variation and naturally select those ways and means,
such as species and societies or gadgets and galaxies or behavior and business, to consume free energy in the least time.
Eventually, the system attains balance with its surroundings, then no new property will emerge and no old one will vanish.
Science by submerging in specialties supplies us with detailed information
and by unravelling universalities it endows us with insight and thorough understanding.
Indeed, when our delusions of uniqueness have narrowed, our worldview has widened toward the entirety.
As apparent from papers and talks, as well as from the recent book, many phenomena, puzzles, and paradoxes can be comprehended by the universal principle of least time.