A compelling and sweeping argument that complexity theory can build a bridge between science and religion.
Consider the woven integrated complexity of a living cell after 3.8 billion years of evolution. Is it more awe-inspiring to suppose that a transcendent God fashioned the cell, or to consider that the living organism was created by the evolving biosphere?
As the eminent complexity theorist Stuart Kauffman explains in this ambitious and groundbreaking new book, people who do not believe in God have largely lost their sense of the sacred and the deep human legitimacy of our inherited spirituality. For those who believe in a Creator God, no science will ever disprove that belief. In Reinventing the Sacred, Kauffman argues that the science of complexity provides a way to move beyond reductionist science to something new: a unified culture where we see God in the creativity of the universe, biosphere, and humanity.
Kauffman explains that the ceaseless natural creativity of the world can be a profound source of meaning, wonder, and further grounding of our place in the universe. His theory carries with it a new ethic for an emerging civilization and a reinterpretation of the divine. He asserts that we are impelled by the imperative of life itself to live with faith and courage--and the fact that we do so is indeed sublime. Reinventing the Sacred will change the way we all think about the evolution of humanity, the universe, faith, and reason.
The author says that for those who believe in god, no science will ever disprove their belief. To this the appropriate response is Huh? Of course science cannot disprove the existence of a god, any more than it can disprove the existence of a spaghetti monster orbiting Uranus. Does that mean god and the spaghetti monster exist? No. It is up to the god believers to prove god exists, which they have never, and never will, be able to prove. To which people should say, why should I believe things just because other people do? The author of this book does not seem to understand that god is just an imaginary friend. Believers in god will never consider the evidence for their beliefs, because they don't want facts to get in the way. They just want to believe in what they want to believe, without regard for reason or rationality.
The main idea of this work , if I understand it correctly, is that the Universe is an evolving creative, self- organizing system. Creativity and non- predictability are inherent in its development. Attempts to understand the 'higher levels' of reality by reducing them to ' simpler' or ' lower ' ones including reductions of the realm of the spiritual to the physical do not provide satisfactory explanations. There are self- organizing higher realms whose development is an ongoing process. What Kauffman calls for is a process of - co- creation in which humanity through its own creative efforts contributes to the development of the Universe in the direction of its own ideals and values.
I do not understand how Kauffman determines or derives what these Values and Ideals should be. But my guess is that these Values and Ideals are too meant to be not fixed and final Determinants but ever- evolving Realities.
Kauffman wishes to stress that while he does not deny the possibility of a Transcendent Creator Who Directs the whole process, he does not favor this possibility. As he understands it the creative process in itself is sufficient to provide explanation of the overall continuing development of the Universe.
As I have said I have not read the whole, or even the great part of this work so I do not know the way he sees the process going on through vast stretches of cosmic time. Is he one who definitely believes the biological basis of Mankind must be transcended for us to truly extend Consciousness in the Universe? Is he one who imagines some kind of eventual 'filling of the Universe' with Consciousnesses, colonies of Mind, capable of connecting by communication all the great distances?
I don't know.
I do feel his work is of tremendous interest to me personally as I too seek to like so many others understand the future direction of mankind and the universe. In this regard I look forward to reading the full text when it becomes available.
I would only say that I personally see a Higher Being , God as the inevitable End of all the striving to extend Consciousness- and therefore however paradoxically the 'logical' 'Beginning' also.
