The Ways of the Lord are Complex

By Pierluigi Assogna

The bad news is that according to science we do not have free will, we cannot freely decide anything.

The good news is that, because we are IN the world but we are not OF the world, beyond what science assesses, we can decide, represent the current apex of evolution, and have the responsibility of governing wisely the future of our planet, and cooperating for the realization of this complex universe.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pierluigi Assogna
• Release date: Dec 20, 2016
• ISBN: 9788822879431

Book preview

Conclusions

Introduction

This book has been suggested by the dismay that I feel every time that some heavy accident happens, or a particularly malicious action is perpetrated, at the ensuing comments and rhetorical questions that boil down to: It is impossible that an omnipotent and infinitely good God existed, together with these manifestations of pure Evil. If he existed, he would prevent this to happen. This is the proof that he does not exist, or is less than omnipotent, or has a sadistic nature.

Integrating on one side my professional activity of information systems designer, mainly oriented in these last years to complexity management, and on the other my Christian faith, I’ve devised a counter line of reasoning to this common assessment, by using scientific and philosophical considerations.

The underlying conceptual structure has lead me to a world vision that I personally find enthusing, and that is probably interesting for every person that likes to explore many facets of a concept, and is not at ease with superficial slogans.

Coherently with the main concept expressed in its title, that is complexity, the presentation of the rational process is far from a linear and self-consistent sequence of steps, more or less like a river is different from a straight and well designed channel. The new questions that keep stemming from any tentative answer evoke age old debates and studies, and is of course impossible to examine in turn every one of these. The compass I use, when the landscape gets into a maze of landmarks that confuse the direction, is that of considering only the ones that historically have been used by most travellers, whose reliability has been better appreciated. Continuing on the river metaphor, in some joints of the trekking, where its view becomes uncertain, I take a brief rest, and make a short recollection of the previous steps. I’m using verbs at present tense because I feel always engaged in this exploration, with an enthusiasm that I hope to be able to communicate to those who will have the patience to share this for a while.

I propose hypotheses and considerations wearing two alternated hats, one rational and one spiritual, generally signalling which one I’m using, in order to avoid misunderstandings. Another reasoning method I use is that of looking at things from two different levels: first synthetically and then more analytically.

The main underlying consideration is that our context is a complex system of systems, continuously evolving. This approach gives me the opportunity, considering the unaccountable number of facets of any topic that comes up, of highlighting only those that have a substantial connection with complexity.

The first part of the conceptual course is based on the Question: Where is God when Evil is so patently exhibited?, and considers both evil caused by the natural environment and that perpetrated by humans. The anticipated conclusion of this process is that:

Natural Evil is an emotional and a-scientific interpretation of events that necessarily punctuate the evolution of the universe and of life on earth: tectonic plates shift and collide, atmospheric forces build and release energy, organisms compete and cooperate for survival and prosperity, and so on. Without all these processes we would not be here to talk about them.

Human generated Evil is an expression of our free will, scientifically unexplained and negated, but nevertheless existing, otherwise it would not be considered evil.

As in the case of the fabled bumble bee, that aeronautical engineers concluded that itcould not fly, but ignoring this scientific conclusion keeps flying, we humans keep deciding our actions, and some of us are even convinced that these decisions can be free of any mechanical influence.

From the suggested possible answers, it becomes clear that for science pain exists, while evil does not. Evil exists only in a universe where freedom and responsibility exist, and at this point a sub-question remains open: why humans are apparently the only species endowed with freedom of thought and action? The answer to this requires to walk a conceptual path longer and less obvious, where many monumental topics have been and are being debated at length. I will trod this path in four main spans. It roughly follows the course traced last century by Theilhard de Chardin.

The first span examines complexity, underlining its influences in shaping the physical, biological and cultural evolution of our context and of ourselves. The second examines our apical role in evolution, mainly in view of our potential and realized management of complexity. These first two spans are based on falsifiable considerations, delve into scientific hypotheses.

The third span gets into the realm of non-falsifiability (we will consider this aspect of scientific method later on), where the scientific method cannot be used. Here we can examine the main hypotheses, intuitions, spiritual paradigms evolved in different cultures, and still debated in our days. Also here the key of our analysis is evolutional complexity . We analyse aspects such as the basic goodness or malice of the physical world, existence, immanence or transcendence of spirituality, and others.

The fourth and last step proposes a synthesis of evolution where our role, thank to our unique freedom, is seen as co-developers of a universe that is not precisely defined, where neither chance nor necessity are the name of the game. Here the advent of the Reign of God is possible in the physical realm. It is the beautiful ocean where the river that we have followed will rest, it has already been designed and described. It is our responsibility to make it real.   

Prologue

Before getting into the considerations related to the ambitious topic, I would like to propose a couple of metaphoric short stories, in order to frame the context and the line of reasoning later addressed, that essentially delineates the existence of a spiritual dimension of our mission in this world, expression of a transcendence to the world itself. This dimension is by definition not usable by a scientific exploration, as defines the coordinates of non-falsifiable objects, like beliefs, subjective emotions, thoughts, intuitions. As a mathematically dimension, it is orthogonal to all the others that define our rational and emotional internal space, and does not take out any other coordinate, attribute, to the objects that populate this space. It only adds new coordinates, and can easily be collapsed if one decides that does not appreciate or need this additional perspective tool.

The Symphony

In the beginning was the Music, and the Music was with the Composer, and the Music was the Composer.

A first note resounded, that some scientist, with proper instruments, can still hear, tens of octaves lower than the ones we can perceive with our ears.

From this note and its harmonics a first melody developed, than a cadence: the Music had (has) a wonderful characteristic: its autopoiesis, that means not only self-organization, but also self-evolution. Every melody, harmony, cadence, rhythm, once generated, compete, cooperate, integrate with all the pre-existing ones, creating an ever richer Symphony. To-day it keeps evolving in complex polyphonies, harmonies, rhythms, and new instruments keep entering the orchestra.

All instruments have the ability of creating and playing their parts in the Symphony, that means the ability of understanding and exploiting all the different musical rules. Some of them are also capable of criticize and appreciate these rules, and create new ones.

This description of the interpreters of the Symphony considers the universal comprehension of the HOWs of the music, in an extremely large scope of complexity.

There is a different characteristic, dealing with the WHYs, that (luckily?) has manifested in a small minority of the instruments: the freedom of deciding not to follow some of these rules. This attribute is radically different from all the others, as in order to participate in the Symphony it is sufficient, and in some respect advisable, to explore only HOW the rules have to be devised and followed. The decision of WHY to follow the rules is different, sounds as a gift coming directly from the Composer, and has in itself the seed of the disruption of the Symphony, of playing off-tune notes and disturbing harmonies.

This ability loads on the shoulders of these instruments a great responsibility: each one of these is free both of contributing to the evolution and poiesis of the musical rules towards an asymptotic tendency to perfect harmony, or of directing it to an horrendous cacophony.

The Garden

The delicate hue of jasmines, as twilight was advancing, was pervading the air, and in that particular spot of the Garden it could be distinctively appreciated above the concert of all other flowers, like a crystalline solo player. The light was shifting from a golden sunset to a cool azure, and the hues of the flowers were cooling as well. The view was superlative.

Mario continued his stroll, driven both by the whispering scents and by the colours, the shadows, the almost hidden paths, the sudden splashes of evening light filtered by the dancing tree branches. Every now and then he crossed some Disinterested, that with his or her eyes diligently closed cleverly managed the maze of paths and the patches of grass and flowers. Most of them were clearly inebriated by the concert of scents, and on passing lightly caressed flowers and leaves. Lifted their faces to the breeze, touched appreciatively the different textures of trees.

He met also a couple of Seers, that were enjoying, as he was, the beauty of everything, and exchanged a smile and the sign of salute and blessing.

At a junction of paths he saw Marcella, with which he shared the task of controlling the watering system of the orchards that represented an important part of the Garden. Also she proceeded with closed eyes, being guided by the scents, the sounds, the breeze flows, the texture of the ground under her feet, bare as for everybody. Mario called her, and saw, with a slight emotion, that her nice face, at the sound of his voice, took a slight increase of vivacity and colour. They stepped close and exchanged a light and affectionate caress. Where are you going, are you eating in some restaurant here around? no, I visited the mother of a school friend of Virginia, that has been invited to dine with her. I will take the opportunity of tidying up her room, always full of scattered toys and booklets. Her friend’s mother will take her home later.

The word book sounded rather incongruous to Mario. Books? You mean that Virginia looks and reads? Oh, you know how it goes, one of the teachers wants to ‘educate’ the kids to seeing, and this impresses many young minds. Excuse me, I know that you are a Seer, but I do not approve, and I’m sure that in a short while also Virginia will get tired of this fable, and will proceed in life with her feet solidly planted on the dirt, and nose and ears well tuned to reality.

For some time Mario, on hearing this kind of words from the part of the Disinterested that had shared some part of his life, had tried to convince them that looking at the world was not only a beautiful story, but also a habit that could enlighten an entire life. He had gradually desisted, accepting the fact that even when he had succeeded in convincing a Disinterested to open his or her eyes and look at a flower or at a cloud, the person felt some sort of fear, and after some other experiment preferred to retreat to the safety of smelling, tasting, touching.

When Mario had tried to understand the reason of this apparently absurd attitude, what came out typically where stories of a bad education to seeing, in the family or at school. Someone had been invited to use heavily coloured lenses, that restricted the spectre of colours, others had been shown only unpleasant pictures, not flowers or trees or landscapes . As time went by he had accepted the fact that even when confronted by beautiful scenes, most people chose to keep their eyes shut, probably afraid that seeing could have reduced the solidity of other senses.

One thing that Mario had never ceased to enjoy, was debating these topics with Negationists. These were not many, but every time that Mario happened to discuss with one, he sensed the enjoyment of an intellectual challenge, enjoyment very often shared with the other party.

The debated reasons were always very similar: "...it is true that seeing provides new and interesting aspects that regard the watched objects, but in order to use these rationally, you have to touch, weight, measure them. And if those are edible, before eating them you have to touch and