it would be harmful to humanity to have the explanation known, and that's why we can only guess - Isaac Asimov

Baley needed a friend and he was in no mood to cavil at the fact that a gear replaced a blood vessel in this particular one.

It was the addition of status that brought the little things: a more comfortable seat here, a better cut of meat there, a shorter wait in line at the other place. To the philosophical mind, these items might seem scarcely worth any great trouble to acquire.
Yet no one, however philosophical, could give up those privileges, once acquired, without a pang. That was the point.

Very well. So the universe is not quite as you thought it was. You'd better rearrange your beliefs, then. Because you certainly can't rearrange the universe.