Two Handshakes Across Time
From Wheeler–Feynman to the Gnergy Principle of Organization
Sungchul Ji, Ph.D.
Emeritus Professor of Theoretical Cell Biology
Rutgers University
September 20, 2025
1. Why Radiation Needs a Handshake
When a lamp emits light, we usually think it just sprays photons into space. But John Wheeler and Richard Feynman proposed something far subtler: radiation only becomes real if there is a handshake between emitter and absorber [1, 2].
In their absorber theory, an emitter doesn’t just send light forward in time. It sends both forward-moving and backward-moving waves. A future absorber (like your eye, or a wall) responds with its own backward-in-time waves. Where these meet, the “contract” is sealed, and energy is transferred as a photon.
From this perspective, light emission isn’t a one-way throw but a two-way negotiation across time.
2. Virtual vs. Actual Handshakes
This leads us to distinguish two kinds of handshakes:
Wheeler–Feynman handshake (reversible, virtual):
Fully time-symmetric.
Energy is not yet dissipated; it’s a possibility, not an actuality.
Like a reversible contract written in invisible ink.
Gnergy handshake (irreversible, actual):
Governed by the Gnergy Principle of Organization (GPO) [3], which states that energy and information are both required for organization and selection.
When energy dissipates (heat lost, work done) and information is exchanged, the handshake becomes irreversible and observable.
Like signing the contract in permanent ink and filing it in the public record.
3. Reconciling Physics and Biology
Physics shows us that the laws are time-symmetric—they work the same way forward or backward. Biology, however, is built on irreversibility: metabolism, growth, evolution, consciousness.
By pairing the Wheeler–Feynman handshake with the GPO handshake, we see both layers:
Reversible substrate (virtual): negotiations across time that preserve symmetry.
Irreversible emergence (actual): energy + information transactions that drive organization and selection.
This dual-handshake model bridges the apparent gap between physics’ timeless equations and biology’s arrow of time.
4. An Everyday Analogy
Drafting an email and saving it without sending is like the Wheeler–Feynman handshake: the possibility exists, but nothing has happened.
Clicking “send,” consuming energy, and transmitting across servers is like the GPO handshake: irreversible, actual, and organizational.
5. Conclusion
What Wheeler and Feynman glimpsed as a reversible negotiation in the fabric of spacetime is completed by the Gnergy Principle: only when energy and information are spent does a handshake become real. [3]
In this view, reality is built from two tiers of handshakes—
virtual, time-symmetric possibilities,
and actual, irreversible organizations.
Together, they may explain how the mathematical symmetry of physics gives rise to the lived arrow of biology.
[1] Zurek, W. H. (1982). Environment-induced superselection rules. Physical Review D, 26(8), 1862–1880. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.26.1862
[2] Zurek, W. H. (1991). Decoherence and the transition from quantum to classical. Physics Today, 44(10), 36–44. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.881293
[3] Ji, S. (2018). The Gnergy Principle of Organization. In: The Cell Language Theory: Connecting Mind and Matter. World Scientific Publishing, New Jersey. Pp. 33-34.