For some time now, I have mentioned the notion of "useful work" as a universal principle. This is something I discuss in my Chemistry lectures as we deal with thermodynamics and the activities of the universe as we understand them. For those who are scientists, I will use some formulaics to demonstrate this. For the rest, you can read how I use them and trust that if I understand the relationships that the conclusions may be sound.
Gibbs Free Energy defines that the sum change of energy in a system consists of three values: work, heat and light. The work (w) is always defined as useful work, which is the energy involved in the actual chemistry of the moment (aka what we're trying to accomplish). Some energy is converted to heat (q) and the rest to light (l), which may or may not be useful. The work of chemistry is the conversion of matter from one form into another in the manner that is the most energetically efficient given the conditions in which the matter finds itself. This explains the behavior on earth of matter- it tries to reorganize itself to be stable in our atmosphere. When we want to change it, sometimes we must invest large amounts of energy to overcome a threshold activation energy, which occurs because it's energetically advantageous for the matter to rearrange under the new energy scheme. Matter adopts spontaneously the arrangement that is the most energetically efficient. This accounts for chemical geometry, chemical bonds, chemical reactions, radioactive decay, ad infinitum. It's all about greater stability and the most efficient energy in the moment.
We can sometimes force the other parts of energy to be useful. If you are cold, burning wood for heat is definitely useful work. If you are in the dark, the energy converted from a battery to a flashlight's beam is also useful work. The universe, I believe, always does the most useful thing that it can in the circumstances. It is involved in a preservation of the matter to energy ratio that best serves the momentary needs of the universe.
This is why sometimes we are personally or individually irrelevant. The universe can sometimes care less about whether or not you get promoted, fix your car, recover from a disease, or buy a new iPhone. The universe has bigger things to do. We are so vain to think that because we can force matter to rearrange on earth that we can change the climate, stop a comet, or harness the power of the sun. The universe doesn't care about us for ourselves; it helps us because we are somehow beneficial to it. Like George Carlin once postulated, maybe the universe wanted plastic, and so it tolerates us because we supply that material that it cannot make without us as an intermediate (note, I do not think that's our eternal significance)[second note: his conclusion is very sound- he says it MAY be the reason! Booyah!].
Sometimes, however, despite how inconsequential we are, the universe serves us. Although it is possible due to the chirality of prothrombin to create 251^2 possible different enantomers of that molecule, the body makes only one- the only one that is bioactive- thereby preserving not only the matter that would be wasted forming useless forms but also the energy spent to formulate them. Plants make one chiral form that is useful to humans, and they can use the form we make. Despite the fact that the earth's crust is circa 31% Silicon, we are carbon-based lifeforms instead, because carbon is a better backbone; despite the fact that the universe is pretty dry, 70% of the earth's surface is covered with water; despite the fact that it's 104F today in Vegas, the earth lies in precisely the right energy orbit to make our conditions conducive to life. The earth is in the prefect spot for us because it's in the perfect spot to keep the rest of the planets in our solar system in their proper energy orbitals around the sun. If our star, Sol, were larger, we'd be too close; it it were smaller, we'd be too far. Our sun is perfect for us, because somehow we are perfect for the solar system.
I find it somewhat paradoxical that people who disbelieve in deity still adhere to certain scientific principles. They will subscribe to the Law of Conservation of Energy and the Law of Conservation of Mass at the same time they think that "when a man dies that is the end thereof". Where does the matter go? Where does the energy go? Our memories, our actions, our thoughts, are nothing more than electrons in motion between the elements that return to the earth's crust at our death. We do not, even scientifically, cease to exist; we simply change from the form in which we find ourselves today into another one that our eyes and optics are unable to detect and that our vocabularies and postulates are unable to describe. None of that matter or energy is wasted or lost. It is converted to another form. In essence, we always have been, and we always will be. The energies we send out of our solar system are only now detectable beyond the solar system, where aliens are watching "I love Lucy" reruns and the Apollo moon landings. The energy may still be capable of capture and interpretation far beyond the limits of our solar system. What we do reverberates in ripples far from the source, even if we are unable to detect its influence. That is String Theory.
If it were not somehow advantageous to the universe for men to exist, we would not. The reason why we exist is because the organizer of the universe, He who created Heaven and Earth of the matter and energy made available in the universe's first moments, decided that it would be useful to the universe to have us in it. Everything wasteful gets changed to a more useful, a more stable, and a more advantageous form; it has ever been so for all of recorded scientific measurement. Even if we do not know the use of the heat or light, Einstein himself taught us that it was possible to interconvert energy into matter and vice versa. His famous equation E=mc^2 shows us one way. It is possible there are more. Just because we don't know other ways does not mean they do not exist.
Full truth, and full efficiency, are, for men at least, an asymptotic relationship. They are something at which we will draw ever nearer but never fully comprehend. The reason for this is because we use only our abilities, the philosophies of men. We are all imperfect, and nothing imperfect can create something perfect. That is illogical. Only true things can lead to true things. So, consequently, are most of our theories, postulates, and laws. Like I tell my students, the things I teach them are true ON EARTH. They might be different elsewhere.
Science never proves anything. It removes all other possibilities until only the truth remains.
On that, I will hang my hat.
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