I am deeply frustrated by my inability to locate the source for this, but I distinctly recall a (letter describing) a lecture Von Neumann gave where he addressed the question of “Why the atom?” in the same vein as this post. The answer he gave was that atoms are very stable, and this is effective at ensuring there will be atoms in the future; it was a kind of propagation strategy that relied on guaranteeing a minimum.
I am deeply frustrated by my inability to locate the source for this, but I distinctly recall a (letter describing) a lecture Von Neumann gave where he addressed the question of “Why the atom?” in the same vein as this post. The answer he gave was that atoms are very stable, and this is effective at ensuring there will be atoms in the future; it was a kind of propagation strategy that relied on guaranteeing a minimum.