Finding God with biocomplexity
After centuries of trying to uncover the fundamental laws of the universe, science is still no closer to answering some of humanity鈥檚 biggest questions about the meaning of life, the existence of God and the evolution of the human mind and societies. Is that because science is not sufficiently advanced to tackle such problems? Or is it because the traditional approach to science is incapable of answering humanity鈥檚 deepest wonders?
It is the latter, according to University of Calgary physicist, biologist and philosopher Stuart Kauffman, who argues in his forthcoming book that nature鈥檚 infinite creativity should become the basis for a new worldview and a global spiritual awakening.
鈥淲e are at the point where we are realizing that there are some things we are never going to fully understand because there are no natural laws that can fully explain the evolution of a species, the biosphere or the human economy,鈥� says Kauffman, a pioneer of complexity theory and founder of the U of C鈥檚 Institute for Biocomplexity and Informatics. 鈥淭his means that reason alone is an insufficient guide for living our lives. I believe we can reinvent what we hold sacred as a view of God that is not a supernatural Creator, but the ceaseless and unforeseeable creativity of the universe that surrounds us.鈥�
Kauffman鈥檚 newest book Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion (Basic Books, New York) will be released in Canada on May 19. 鈥淩adical,鈥� 鈥渂rilliant,鈥� and 鈥渃omprehensive,鈥� are words being used by colleagues and reviewers to describe the book, which Kauffman hopes will provide a middle-ground between the destructive tendencies of religious fundamentalism and the anti-spiritual attitudes presented recently in popular books such as Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins鈥� The God Delusion 鈥� and journalist Christopher Hitchens鈥� God Is Not Great.
鈥淲ords like 鈥楪od鈥� and 鈥榮acred鈥� are scary to many of us who live in modern, secular society because they have been used to start wars and kill millions of people, and we just don鈥檛 need any more of that,鈥� Kauffman says. 鈥淲hat we do need is for humanity to become reunited under a common global ethic based on the idea that we are all part of nature, and we will never be the master of it because it is not entirely knowable.鈥�
Reinventing the Sacred argues that Reductionism 鈥� the philosophy based on the work of Galileo, Descartes, Newton and their followers that everything can ultimately be understood by reducing it to laws of chemistry and physics 鈥� has been the basis of our scientific worldview for nearly 400 years and is the foundation of modern secular society. Using arguments grounded in complexity theory, he argues that it is time to break this 鈥淕alilean spell,鈥� since the reductionist approach is inadequate to explain the infinite possibilities of evolution and human history. Instead, Kauffman argues that the highest levels of organization are the result of the unpredictable process of emergence.
鈥淚t鈥檚 not that we lack sufficient knowledge or wisdom to predict the future evolution of the biosphere or human culture. It鈥檚 that these things are inherently unpredictable because we can never prestate what all the possibilities might be,鈥� he says. 鈥淐an a couple walking in love along the banks of the Siene really be reduced to the interactions of fundamental particles? No, they cannot.鈥�
The book then argues that the process of emergence can provide the platform for reinventing what humankind considers most sacred. It also discusses why arguments for intelligent design fail in the scientific realm and how complexity theory can build a bridge between the traditionally opposed views of science and religion.
鈥淕od is the most powerful symbol we have and it has always been up to us to choose what we deem to be sacred,鈥� Kauffman said. 鈥淭o me, the idea that we are the product of 3.8 billion years of unpredictable evolution is more awe-inspiring than the idea than the idea that everything was created in six days by an all-knowing Creator.鈥�
An essay outlining Kauffman鈥檚 Reinventing the Sacred thesis is contained in a new series of 13 essays by distinguished thinkers on the topic 鈥淒oes science make belief in God obsolete?鈥� currently published on the John Templeton Foundation website at: . The preface and first chapter of the book are currently published as an essay titled 鈥淏reaking the Galilean Spell鈥� on Edge.org at:
An essay by Kauffman titled 鈥淩einventing the Sacred鈥� is also scheduled to be published in the May 10 issue of New Scientist magazine.
Source: University of Calgary
