Though even if there were an answer to that question, or instance of wonder (and I’m not certain there is), the number of hypotheticals that could make themselves consequent to it could drive a person mad, or, anyway, to a discourse resembling madness, if that person were to attempt to describe those hypotheticals in such a way that the listener might begin to imagine the sequences, involving those shells alone, that could have occurred but didn’t occur, and then to extrapolate those ‘non-occurring’ sequences (which, if not infinite, are so mind-bogglingly many that they might as well be) to every other configuration of matter (involving those shells or not), and every duration of time, and order of causation, so that one would begin to fathom (with a faintness that is almost laughable) how the record we know as the ‘past’ is both singular and arbitrary to such an extent that, without the fact of our volition (which is sometimes referred to as ‘free will,’ and which most definitely is holy), it could be likened to the laying out, or expression, of some fantastic but meaningless program.