Inteligent Design and Self-aware Universe

It’s always refreshing to read intelligent people that give you food for thought.  THIS ENTRY on Divine Caesar’s blog was definitely one of those cases, and I would like to dedicate this post as a response, and to share them to all of you as well.


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?

From the disbelief to the distrust

Science do not require belief, actually science try to fight belief most of the time in favour of trusting what can be proved and demonstrated, and the things that can’t be proved or demonstrated as religion and philosophy, are just taken apart, out of the scope of science. However every day I see more and more people refusing to trust science, to some extremes that are frankly alarming.

I just read this excellent article who discusses the topic: The trouble with trusting complex science, and I recommend its reading, it talks about a lot of problems that science and the general public face in this day and age.

The first one is about the access to the information. Let’s face it, science is not easy to be understood if you don’t have a basic scientific training, in could be confusing and boring to the “lay” people, and even if all the scientific knowledge was open to everybody, just a few will understand it for real. However, the alarming thing is that people who can have a basic understanding do not read the scientific studies for two main things. First laziness, except for some science geeks like myself, people don’t want to spend hours reading papers about science if it is not their “homework”, and second, availability, most of the primary sources of information, the first hand knowledge is published solely in scientific journals, that sadly, are not for free. So spending 20 quid to read just one article that may interest you, is out of the question for many. I think that information, specially this important information should be free, why to keep the firsthand knowledge in the hands of just a few?

After this, people then rely in second, third or fourth hand sources to inform themselves, in this era of information, disinformation is equally powerful and disturbing. Some popular books and media articles use pseudoscientific vocabulary to, ironically, attack science and it’s facts.

But Why? I mean if someone would publish a book saying that in reality the planets, sun and moon orbit the earth, and that all the satellite, telescope and books about the heliocentric nature of our planetary system is just a conspiracy and that there are no facts to sustain it... what will you think about him/her? My first thought will be, why do you believe that? Why are you refusing to see the evidence? And who benefits with you and your friends questioning some accepted facts?

Well, there are a lot of examples of people doing this: there are the creationist who call evolution a “laughable theory” and think that everything happened as the Bible said. There are the climate change deniers, who refuse to take the evidence into account and shout that everything is just a conspiracy, there are the ones who believe that sugar pills and drops of water can cure people even when evidence says that they don’t; there are the ones who believe that they daily horoscope is going to give them hints of their future, even when it’s just psychological discourses so open to interpretation that anyone can relate to them, oh and by the way they don’t even acknowledge that the star map on our skies is so different from ancient Greece. And the list goes on and on, and on.

Why?

Well, I have not all the answers of course, but I have some clues of what are the ulterior motives. And we are not talking about conspiracy theories of a New World Order in a magnitude as you can see in youtube. But realistic economic and political interests that move all that along. Information means power, disinformation means much more power, if you are able to confuse people to the extent that they don’t know what is real and what is not, to the extend that everything becomes relative, then those people are easier to manage, to keep them consuming without thinking of the consequences, of saying any lie enough times so the public think is true, to gain the war against critical thought, against rational and honest scrutiny, and therefore have free road to do as they want. This is no conspiracy is a reality that has being in use for centuries, mastered by many people from the Roman Emperors, later the Roman Popes, the Kings and Queens, or the dictators and the people behind them, from Richelieu to Goebbels.

It seems that people don’t care about facts and the truth, I was amazed when I read on the article I mentioned before this: In 2008 the Washington Post summarised recent psychological research on misinformation. This shows that in some cases debunking a false story can increase the number of people who believe it. In one study, 34% of conservatives who were told about the Bush government's claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction were inclined to believe them. But among those who were shown that the government's claims were later comprehensively refuted by the Duelfer report, 64% ended up believing that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. It looks that even when evidence is thrown to their faces they refuse to accept it. And here we are not talking about the “interests” behind, they just put the trail of bread-crumbs, but is the people the one who enter freely and on their free will to their game.

Why?

Because it is easier. Let’s take the example of climate change deniers. Accepting that there’s a climate change and that man-generated pollution is affecting it to a great degree is not easy to embrace, because there’s then only two options, either you become a cynical person that cares for no-one but himself and continues consuming and wasting energy, and on a consumerist way of life, prey of fashion and false needs. Or you realize that the only way of fighting this challenge is that everyone of us, not only our governments, make a change in our lives, attitudes, habits, etc. So the easy stance is “I’m not going to change”. But since most of people don’t want to feel like insensitive selfish bitches, then, deny that there’s a problem, hence embrace those theories. Like an alcoholic who refuses to accept his problem and says that you are limiting his freedom to drink if you say to him that is wrong. Another example, the horoscopes and homeopathy. People usually can bare the thought of not having control of their lives, not knowing what is going to happen next. Let’s face it, people need certainty and stability, one way or another, they need also hope, those things give people that, even when it’s a false sense of it.

So what can we do? Is there any solution to this?, or are we going to live in an age where science is less and less trust, with a big risk of getting ahead to a new age of obscurantism, a new middle ages, but now fuelled by relativism, and disinformation.

As I said, I have no answers, but questions. I firmly believe that education is the key, real education, teaching people to be honest and critical, to think for themselves, to reach for the truth, to get their own information instead of third or fourth sources, I think is the only way, although sometimes I think is not enough.

Patience Taught by Nature

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

'O dreary life,' we cry, ' O dreary life ! '
And still the generations of the birds
Sing through our sighing, and the flocks and herds
Serenely live while we are keeping strife
With Heaven's true purpose in us, as a knife
Against which we may struggle ! Ocean girds
Unslackened the dry land, savannah-swards
Unweary sweep, hills watch unworn, and rife
Meek leaves drop yeary from the forest-trees
To show, above, the unwasted stars that pass
In their old glory: O thou God of old,
Grant me some smaller grace than comes to these !--
But so much patience as a blade of grass
Grows by, contented through the heat and cold.

It's sad but it's true....

I’m at less than a month to enter my 30s. For a lot of people that could mean start buying anti-ageing creams, and start saving for Botox and liposuction treatments, or any other middle age crisis symptoms that you can imagine. Not for me, I find that too superficial.

Although your 30s are not, considering the life expectancy, really the middle of your life, they are the middle of your productive life, and the end of your youth in social patterns. You’re not longer a young adult, you’re just an adult entering the race to reach the old age.

It does, however make me think about two things. First of all the goals I have in life and that it seems that I’m running out of time every day. Not long ago I was asked of what I wanted to do before dying, and end up with a list, that includes doing a PhD, publishing a couple of books, record a proper studio based music albums and make some music for a film or documentary, buy a house, adopt a child, travel around the world, and the obvious, have a proper an steady relationship.

To be successful, a lot of those things have to be made in my following decade, but it seems that I don’t have enough time! And that worries me.

It also seems that since I didn’t had a very crazy youth, I have the temptation of doing that kind of stuff now; but on the other hand, if I didn’t do it when I was more immature, why should I go for it now that I’m more aware of the consequences, and the things that give me real joy?

There’s also the society pressure, where it seems that you are doomed to became a single forever if you didn’t manage to get a proper relationship on your 20s. On words of Lily Allen, “it’s sad but it’s true how society says her life is already over”. So, living in a society which focus on looks, age and things like that, statistically my chances seem to shrink with every passing day.

So here I am, in the verge of ending my youth, and wondering what I have done with my life and asking myself what is my reason to live? They say that it's not enough to just live. You have to have something to live for. The easy answer will be to achieve the goals I stated before, but to be honest, most of the time I find myself still figuring out which is mine.

Climate change, a business opportunity?

I got an email from a dear friend, asking my opinion about this article: Is a Stringent Climate Change Agreement a Pot of Gold?

I did find it interesting, although I think it misses a very important point.

First I would like to state that I’m in favour of entrepreneurs, either persons or companies that search for innovation, and that manage change in order to succeed. I do believe that that is a fundamental part of development, and also that we should all be able to manage change successfully, since all our life, environment, society, working conditions, and so and so forth, are in constant change.  This become of utterly importance to developing countries, where taking the risk and opportunities to find successful business areas is very needed.   There’s nothing wrong in supporting and encouraging entrepreneurs’ projects and ideas.

However the author of the article loose his compass when he sees the climate change agreement only as an opportunity to make money.  It is precisely that ideas, what have driven us to the need of that restrictions and emergency measures that we need to put into action now to ensure that we, as species, have a future.  The idea that everything is just a business opportunity to make more money is just wrong.  Granted, we need economies to grow, we want and need our personal welfare to grow in order to satisfy our needs and be comfortable, but the idea of seen everything in terms of profit is a distorted one.

A lot of that entrepreneurs’ projects have being useful, but there’s also a lot of rubbish around. Ideas and projects that only induce consumerism and fabricate needs, illusionary concepts that make us believe that we need them when it is not.   We can’t go around consuming and consuming more and more, without any idea of why or what are the consequences.  We need an economy of sustainability, not a more consumerist one. Full stop.

One of the core policies of the company I work for is: “nothing is more important than safety—not sales, not production, not profits”.  On a similar way I would propose that this climate change agreement is indeed an opportunity, an opportunity to change our mindset, to change the way we do business, and that the global core policies of every company and nation will be “nothing is more important than sustainability—not sales, not production, not profits.” 

We just can’t continue growing and growing, and consuming the world’s resources, and getting the third world country deeper into poverty to satisfy the needs of the highly consumerist first world, and not even the increasingly consuming developing countries.  The big problem is that the developing and emerging economies, as India, Brazil, Mexico, South Korea, etc. are looking to the USA as a model to reach, which is totally flawed! Do we all want to consume and behave as the States??  Blimey no! That would only collapse our world.  The rampant capitalism leaded by the people, companies and economists of the USA have proved that their model, even when it seems to be successful in short term, is a big failure to long term.   Why not looking for other models as many European countries, as Finland, etc. that without being so loud about their success have sustainable good living standards.   Of course they are not perfect and still that countries have a lot of work to do.

This times are indeed a big opportunity, moreover, they are a big business opportunity; but not to make money just for the sake of it, but to start a new economic model that do not extract resources and creates proverty in the third world to support the first and the developing economies, that is aware of its long term responsibility with the whole planet we are living in, and basically put sustainability as the top priority; for our own sake.  Is it enough space there for entrepreneurs and business success?  Yes I think it is, but only if we modify our priorities and kept behind that flawed ideas, otherwise there will be no future, not to mention no business opportunities, for our grandchildren.