An Emergent God?

Stuart A. Kauffman, a sterling scientist who has produced ground-breaking work in self-organizing systems, has proposed a secularist antidote to scientific reductionism, in an Edge.org article titled Beyond Reductionism: Reinventing the Sacred. Kauffman describes himself as a secular humanist. I highly respect the clear-eyed look he takes at some of the most problematic issues that worldview faces.

He lists these issues under one overarching theme, reductionism, defined (after Steven Weinberg), as the view that "the explanatory arrows always point downward." Organisms are explained in terms of systems are explained in terms of cells are explained in terms of molecules are explained in terms of atoms are explained in terms of quantum interactions . . . . and the organism is lost. Benjamin Wiker and Jonathan Witt showed the irrationality of losing the organism, and the damage caused by such a loss, in A Meaningful World: How the Arts and Sciences Reveal the Genius of Nature. I get the sense that Kauffman would agree with that portion of Wiker's and Witt's thesis, though certainly not with their proposed solution to the problem.

The more specific issues Kauffman addresses are the origin of life and "its non-reducibility to physics," agency, and consciousness. Give him credit for tackling all the right problems, and for seeing their implications:

"We secular humanists have paid an unspoken price for our firm sense that (reductionist) science tells us what is real. First, we have no well wrought scientific basis for our humanity. . . . and equally important, we have been subtly robbed of our deep capacity for spiritualism."

He speculates that his own work on self-organizing systems may lead to an answer, some day, to the origin of life question; he also candidly admits that the problem is far from solved. I have no background from which to comment on his self-organizational theory as science. I'm more at home with the question of agency. (Agency, in this context, is the property of being able to make purposive, self-directed decisions affecting self and other entities; as opposed to having all behavior determined by natural laws, including those expressed through genetics and environment.) Kauffman said,

"You are now reading this article, presumably on purpose. You are able to act on your own behalf. You are the clearest example we have of agency. It is utterly remarkable that agency has arisen in the universe -- systems that are able to act on their own behalf."

Remarkable, indeed. Daniel Dennett tried to explain freedom of will in his book Freedom Evolves, and as I noted some time ago (be sure to see the Vallicella links there, too), he may have gained some kind of non-determinism, but he offered no explanation for agency.

Kauffman follows Penrose in an interesting argument to show that the mind is not algorithmic: thoughts and ideas do not flow deterministically out of brain states, or even from prior thoughts, as an algorithm causes output to flow from input in a computer. Suffice it to say here that scientists and philosophers have poured out rivers of sweat trying to explain how the mind can work that way. In a purely natural world it's quite a puzzle.

Kauffman takes each of these three -- the origin of life, agency, and consciousness -- as givens. Nobody doubts that life had an origin, of course; but there are some who doubt the reality of agency and consciousness. From a reductionist perspective, they view human mind and intention as products of events that happen ultimately on the atomic level, and they view agency and consciousness as illusions cast upon us by our secret inner selves. That's a self-defeating view, but for Kauffman that's not the issue: he just sees that consciousness and agency are real, as do most of us.

But as a committed secularist, he won't go where many have gone, to conclude that there must be a God to explain this. His view could be compared to the building of America's transcontinental railroad, a project which was started from both coasts and met in Promontory, Utah. From one coast, Kauffman starts with the view that nature and natural forces are all there is; from the other, he recognizes that we have life, agency, and consciousness. The two must be joined in their own Promontory point. The golden spike that joins them for him is his theory of self-organization.

I welcome comments from those who may be able to tell us more about how his theory describes the natural world. In lieu of that, for now, I have to wonder how organizing non-purposive and non-aware systems could make them purposive and aware. It seems that something entirely new and unique has been poured into the system, something that can't be explained just in terms of organization. Kauffman doesn't explain it; he's still building his railroad from both coasts, and the meeting in the middle is not at all well mapped, much less reached.

Every worldview has its creation and development story, its view of where we came from and what it means to be human. Kauffman has an answer to both of those, but the two answers don't seem to connect to each other at all clearly.

So that train won't cross the country yet. He's confident it will, though, and given a bi-coastal beginning like his, his solution is probably as good as any. But he has still another phenomenon to explain, which is that of humans' perceived meaning and value. Recall that the article's title promised something about "reinventing the sacred." Kauffman sweeps aside revealed religion as "contrary to science" (a philosophically untenable viewpoint, which we'll leave alone for now), but recognizes its contribution in providing a thought-basis for value, meaning, and morality. We've already seen how he laments the loss of "our deep capacity for spiritualism."

He would restore it by recognizing and extending

"the astonishing theme . . . that the biosphere and human culture are ceaselessly creative in ways that are unpredictable and presumably non-algorithmic or machine like [sic].

. . .

"In short, in wondrous ways, these our universe, biosphere, econosphere, and culture are ceaselessly creative and emergent.

. . .

"God is the most powerful symbol we have created. . . . Shall we use the God word? Mine is a tentative 'yes.' I want God to mean the vast ceaseless creativity of the only universe we know of, ours. What do we gain by using the God word? I suspect a great deal, for the word carries with it awe and reverence.

. . .

"You see, we can say, here is reality, is it not worthy of stunned wonder? What more could we want of a God?"

God, for him, is just a symbol, so he's content to keep using the term for its symbolic effect. There is nothing of the original substance in it, though. For millions of believers through the ages, God has never been just a symbol, but a real Person whose purposeful, meaningful creative agency explains all of creation and all of agency and meaning and purpose.

For Kauffman, the sacred is about awe and wonder--easily mistaken for worship, which includes those emotions but also has to do with recognizing majesty in a Person far superior to ourselves, to whom we owe existence and life, our love, gratefulness, and yes, obedience. Kauffman's "sacred" is weak and washed out by comparison. Of course he would not see it that way, but as more accurate than belief in a God, and the best we have at any rate. He has high hopes:

"Let us go forth, as was said long ago, and invite consideration by others of this new vision of reality. With it, let us recreate spiritual community and membership. Let us go forth. Civilization needs to be changed."

It's a grand dream. It's doomed. It's doomed by its lack of personality, its lack of transcendence, its lack of a motivating power, as Rodney Stark amply demonstrated in a book I need to blog on someday (but probably won't find time for, sad to say). And though I'm sure Kauffman won't agree with me, it's doomed because it's based on a falsehood. God is not just about emerging systems, and he's certainly no mere symbol; he's real.

For all that we would disagree, though, I still Kauffman for an intriguing and thoughtful article. At least he sees that, for a naturalist/humanist like himself, there are two coastlines, and a lot of work to be done to connect them.

Posted: Tue - November 21, 2006 at 11:56 AM |

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson getCategoryName("<$CategoryUUID$>");

An Emergent God?

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson