The topic of Intelligent design is a picky one, since is often associated, wrongly, with the fanatic creationist ideas of some Christians. Science and religion do not need to be necessarily opposites, actually both are daughters of the everlasting mother philosophy, and they can find ways of stand on common ground.
A lot of scientist have refuse to see the Universe (or should I say now the Multiverse) as a random system that is only there by chance. Even if they don’t embrace the idea of a personal God, they acknowledge that the Universe is a very complex system, actually a group of complex systems that is so fine-tuned, that has so many connexions and coincidences, that is very likely that the universe is doing something purposive.
Science has focus too much and too many times in a materialist point of view, that has loose that from sight, it seemed that there was no need of a transcendent reality, since everything could be down to matter. However, as theoretical physics go forward, and quantum physics are better understood, it seems obvious that a purely material world has too many paradoxes, and in few words, things that don’t make sense if we only consider this. On the spiritual side, some philosophies tried to get along with this materialistic view, and some pantheistic world views emerge, God is the Universe, and everything on it, but then is limited to the material world, and then again there’s no purpose on it and do not explain things that go beyond matter, as creativity, or love, not to mention the spiritual transcendence ideas that have being present in almost every culture of the world.
But quantum physics can’t be understood on a materialistic point of view, since things on a quantum level, are not things, they are just possibilities, everything is just a possibility wave, Alain Aspect made an important discovery about this and the action that two photons can have over each other instantly, without depending of time and space.
Of course before him we have Schrödinger's cat principle and we have Everett’s Multiverse based on the creation of different realities by our will. Just to mention a few. So reality is not matter, reality is a bunch of waves of possibility, and therefore they have the potential to be transcendent, that is beyond matter.
That leads to a possible conclusion, is not the interaction of matter and energy what shapes the universe, is the consciousness what shapes it. However given the interaction between consciousness and matter, we really can make the traditional western separation of matter and spirit, we will need to see them both as part of the same. That could mean that the Great Spirit of the Universe is contained in all the Universe but at the same time it transcends it, what is called panentheism. But to be connected will means that this Spirit will need self interaction, a self aware universe, to be able to shape itself, to shape the reality and pass from a potential one to a factual real one as we perceived it, where there’s time and space. So probably the big bang was a time when one part of the Multiverse have self-feedback and awareness, and that the expansion, the movement, the evolution of planets and life, is just a process of self-awareness and shape, and this process needs to follow the rules of this fine-tuned machinery, called reality, on which every part, every action, every thought, every creation of the mind or the body has a purpose, a reason.
For example, one of the big mysteries of evolution is what is called the Theory of punctuated equilibrium, on which there are times where evolution jumps its usual time patter, to rapid epochs of evolution. If we see consciousness as the primary source then we could explain or at least see a phenomena of creativity, that is shaping the reality to a different path.
This approach, which I favour, not only conciliates spirituality and science, but make them interlink into a common source. No more the dualism that separates spirit-matter as the usual western monotheistic approach, neither the pantheistic materialistic one who limits the spirit to matter, nor the atheist materialism who denies any transcendence, but a way to understand different our world, which is also consistent with the way it works in reality.
So, do you think matter is all there is? Do you think that science and spirituality can get along? What do you think that an intelligent design that embraces reality and possibilities?
