Intelligent Design

When ye consider this matter with care, it will become apparent that this is according to a universal law, which one can find at work in all things: the whole attracteth the part, and in the circle, the centre is the pivot of the compasses.”

(Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha: 62)

Science makes much of ideas such as spontaneous evolution, order out of chaos, of properties that emerge from the union of what were separate things, and the like.  This view is called epigenesis.  It does not acknowledge any basis for preformation or design.  Higher properties just emerge as needed from previous things or conditions.  But how can a whole that comes into being only gradually from its parts be the cause of the properties of those parts?  It cannot, of course, unless the whole precedes its parts: i.e. it is the more fundamental reality, the parts being manifestations of this fundamental reality.  That is my view.
       In creation, the spiritual whole, which ‘Abdu’l-Baha says is “created perfect and complete from the first” (Some Answered Questions:198), has its stages of material manifestation that build into a manifest perfection called maturity.  But the manifestation is, too, an arena of spirit.  There is no “Spirit” as special hermetically-sealed category of existence so different from matter that there is no possible relation.  That is the Descartian, materialist split of Reality into the eternally separate spheres of thought and extension.  Though there are degrees and kingdoms, levels and limits, of spirit there are basically three conditions: Spirit, spirit as mind, spirit as matter.

 Arguing in favor of preformation, rather than epigenesis, is also a teleological argument (the connection between formal cause and final cause) because intention has implications for intelligent design and what some exponents of that principle call irreducible complexity. This is more of the religious view of things.  I am not arguing in favor of either preformation or epigenesis.  Either is only one half of the structure and process.  For me, intelligent design works through both preformation and epigenesis.  Intelligent design is the whole (the essence) preceding its parts spiritually, but epigenetically the parts precede the whole into existence, so that more of the essence emerges into manifestation—the whole attracteth the part.  That is, the whole exists as both formal preformational cause and as complete image of itself that attracts the epigenetic building process to its full materially mature expression.
        Reality is irreducibly complex: i.e. all of it must exist at all times.  This is the complete and perfect from the first statement of ‘Abdu’l-Baha.  Yet all of Reality is not physical.  In fact, most of Reality is not physical.  Yet the manifestation of Reality on the plane of material existence where life is governed by time evolves in scale, scope and complexity.  Guiding that emergence into manifestation are things I call spiritual templates, the largest of which are Revelations, which can be grasped as vast fields of potential that human beings can actualize into knowledge, social structures, technologies, and symbol systems.

Ervin Laszlo explains that: “A system is irreducibly complex…if its parts are interrelated in such a way that removing even one part destroys the function of the whole system.  To mutate an irreducibly complex system into another viable system, every part has to be kept in a functional relationship with every other part throughout the entire transformation.  Missing but a single part at a single step leads to a dead end.  How could this level of constant precision be achieved by random piecemeal modifications of the genetic pool?” (Science and the Akashic Field: 86-87)  Baha’u’llah states: “I recognize, moreover, that were any of the revelations of Thy names and Thine attributes to be withheld, though it be the weight of a grain of mustard seed, from whatsoever hath been created by Thy power and begotten by Thy might, the foundations of Thine everlasting handiwork would thereby be made incomplete, and the gems of Thy Divine wisdom would become imperfect.” (Prayers and Meditations by Baha'u'llah: 325)

Again, though Reality is irreducibly complex, increased manifest complexity over time, (i.e. the emergence of new phenomena and creations) is also true.  The laws governing living things have produced through great stochastic processes (stochastic means random purposefulness—e.g. trial and error) increasingly complex forms over vast scales of time.  But these processes are not entirely random.  If they are purposeful this also indicates some kind of plan.  This is progressive revelation, the bringing forth and actualizing of potential into the plane of manifestation.  Thus, creation is both irreducibly complex and infinitely complex.  The whole cannot collapse into a state of less complexity, but it can evolve in manifestation.

Those who see all causality as efficient causality will never grasp the idea of intelligent design, or see emergence as qualities and principles emerging from somewhere into here.  Nothing is self-emergent.  It does not come out itself.  Marx, I believe, said: “Man makes himself, but not by himself.” When something is needed from the self a signal from the environment is needed to bring it forth.  We call these signals tests, opportunities, challenges and crises.  Something in the environment must trigger the emergence of a latent quality or ability.  And if most of Reality is non-physical, then most of our environment is, too, non-physical.  Changes in the spiritual environment are the origin of most of the challenging life-triggers that bring forth our potentials.

The more awareness we have of our total environment the better the chances of not just survival but evolution.  When cells band together, their awareness increases exponentially.  Likewise, the more humans band together in cooperation and unity the better awareness they have of their natural, mental and spiritual environments, and the more their life is enhanced.  The sharing of information and awareness speeds up evolution of all kinds, including mental and social evolution. 

Genes have been described as the “physical memories of an organism’s learned experience.” (Lipton The Biology of Belief: 45)  Instead of individuals laboriously forming into a community, perhaps the community, the archetype, the human whole, is first and it guides individuals into manifest community from an existing spiritual model—the Kingdom of God.  In this view, the template “Human” was first and every individual is the physical representative of that collective singularity.  Each cell in the body possesses the functional equivalent of all the bodily processes, a kind of physical hologram of the whole.  Thus an entire body can, theoretically, be generated from a single cell.  Baha’u’llah asserts: “Verily God is fully capable of causing all names to appear in one name, and all souls in one soul.” (Tablets of Baha'u'llah:183)

Intelligent design has associations with formal causality, which has, in turn, associations with spiritual causality.  Intelligent design is not mechanical.  It is not a blueprint to build a house or machine.  It is organic design, like that of a tree or flower which has a great number of choices to make as it unfolds its potentials into actualities and realizes its evolutionary purpose.  Organic things interact with an environment at every step and sequence, filling its forms with the content of what it encounters, assimilates and gives forth.

Similarly, with the fields of potentials I am calling spiritual templates—for they are both information and energy: i.e structured, intelligent energy.  Human beings can to a large extent choose which potentials to manifest and use the energy of the field to do so.  The Master explains: “Now the new age is here and creation is reborn. Humanity hath taken on new life. The autumn hath gone by, and the reviving spring is here. All things are now made new. Arts and industries have been reborn, there are new discoveries in science, and there are new inventions; even the details of human affairs, such as dress and personal effects—even weapons—all these have likewise been renewed. The laws and procedures of every government have been revised. Renewal is the order of the day.

And all this newness hath its source in the fresh outpourings of wondrous grace and favour from the Lord of the Kingdom, which have renewed the world. The people, therefore, must be set completely free from their old patterns of thought, that all their attention may be focused upon these new principles, for these are the light of this time and the very spirit of this age.” (Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha:252-253)

Orders of Knowledge

What a penetrating vision into philosophy this eminent man had! He is the most distinguished of all philosophers and was highly versed in wisdom. We testify that he is one of the heroes in this field and an outstanding champion dedicated unto it. He had a profound knowledge of such sciences as were current amongst men as well as of those which were veiled from their minds. Methinks he drank one draught when the Most Great Ocean overflowed with gleaming and life-giving waters.

(Baha’u’llah, Tablets of Baha’u’llah:146)

            These words, written by Baha’u’llah about Socrates, indicate not only the eminence in the field of philosophy achieved by Socrates, but also, for our purposes, indicates that the knowledge of creation is as vast as creation, and most of this knowledge is hidden from us.  I mean that the part of the quote that I bold-faced states that there were sciences in Socrates time which were hidden, but that Socrates penetrated to them, or was informed of them.  Either way, they were there, but other minds were veiled from them.  Where were they hidden?

            There are orders of knowledge still waiting to be discovered by us.  Witness to this is all the knowledge that has been discovered in the last century and a half.  This knowledge explosion shows no signs of slowing down.  But where did all this knowledge come from?  We can not say that humans invented it.  I believe it was always there, waiting for the right time and kinds of insight to unlock it.  Until it is discovered, the human mind is veiled.

           Being veiled can occur for several reasons.  Perhaps the sciences are hidden until the proper mental maturity has been achieved, like a small child veiled from algebra.  One can be veiled because one does not have the proper mental vision, like, for example, how the proponents of Newtonian physics could not see Relativity.  One can be veiled because one lacks the proper context, such as being veiled from the meaning of cultural practices different from one’s own.  A new creation requires a new epistemology, and this in turn means new faculties of knowing, heretofore latent and dormant, are awakened and made manifest.  Perhaps the answer to the question of where is knowledge hidden lies in Baha’u’llah’s statement: “Likewise, reflect upon the perfection of man's creation, and that all these planes and states are folded up and hidden away within him.” (The Seven Valleys and The Four Valleys:34

No doubt new properties emerge: But from where?  New properties cannot emerge that were not there in the first place. Though they may have been hidden or the mind was veiled, discovery can only mean discovery of something that already exists.  We can invent, but we cannot invent knowledge.  We can only discover and communicate it.  The creation is whole and complete and we gradually discover the vast interconnections of principles and laws, insights and experiments that reveal what was there, and that discovery is also self-discovery.  Any new property is not absolutely new, but only new to human awareness.  The last couple of posts explored the theme that all creation, from nature through material civilization, was incomplete and education was the process of gradually completing it.  But it is a never-ending process, though any one stage of it has a beginning and an ending.  But, spiritually, the creation is whole and complete, unimaginably complex, potentially infinitely deep with innumerable levels.  But it must be created whole and complete, or there is no good answer to the question: How can a whole that comes into being only gradually from its parts be the cause of the properties of those parts?

 I am not arguing in favor of preformation rather than epigenesis.  Preformation is a spiritual principle; epigenesis is a material one. Both are necessary.  What emerges in time already existed in spirit.  Guiding that emergence are what I call spiritual templates.  Spiritual templates are found in the Revelations. 

We are moving toward such a conception, but our minds must slog through the veils of materialist science.  The principles of quantum mechanics, for example, emphasize the primacy of energy fields in their influence over matter. Consequently, the universe's matter is organized by information, represented as knowledge patterns.  But where are such patterns? Again, I say, without being able to empirically verify, that the templates for the unfolding of knowledge are contained within the field of Revelation. These were/are the spiritual creation itself unveiled by the Revelators.  With every new Revelation new templates by which to interpret the universe are given.  We have the potentials within us to grasp them, and we will eventually.  But we can do so more quickly should we do as Socrates did and drink one draught when the Most Great Ocean overflowed with gleaming and life-giving waters.

Perhaps by way of example of spiritual templates, historians have noted times in human history that were especially fertile in bringing new ideas and principles to light, often in many fields and places simultaneously.  Such times have come to be called Axial Ages.  “Axial Age” was coined by the German philosopher, Karl Jaspers, in his groundbreaking work: The Origin and Goal of History.  Axial Age (meaning a pivot) denotes the period from 800 to 200 BC, during which, according to him, similar and revolutionary thinking appeared in Persia, India, China, and the Occident.  In addition, the philosopher, Eric Voegelin, referred to this same period as The Great Leap of Being, constituting, he felt, a new spiritual awakening and a shift of perception from societal to individual values.

Jaspers identified a number of key Axial Age thinkers, Socrates was one, as having had a profound influence on future philosophies and religions, and identified characteristics common to each area from which those thinkers emerged. Jaspers saw in these developments in religion and philosophy a striking parallel without any obvious direct transmission of ideas from one region to the other, having found no recorded proof of any extensive intercommunication between Ancient Greece, the Middle East, India, and China.  Jaspers held up this age as unique, and one to which the rest of the history of human thought might be compared.  Jaspers claimed that during the Axial Age: "the spiritual foundations of humanity were laid simultaneously and independently in China, India, Persia, Judea, and Greece. And these are the foundations upon which humanity still subsists today." 

 He said such far-reaching innovations in thought and social life arose in these seemingly diverse places as a response to similar political circumstances: each comprised multiple small states engaged in internal and external struggles.  He is correct in his social analysis, but for me the real origins of these revolutionary advances were due to the revelations of Zoroaster (Persia) Buddha (India and influencing China, but also Confucius and Lao Tzu) and to the fertile influence of the Jewish faith on the leading thinkers of Greece.  These divine thoughts provided the templates for philosophers and thinkers to generate new thoughts, and so did not need to have any contact with each other to do so.  But Jasper’s Axial Age was not an unique event, except in its particular developments.  Rather it was but one of several Axial Ages, all of them having a common Source yet each having its own characteristic advances.  (I am currently studying these ages.)

Jaspers believed that the Axial Age gave birth to philosophy as a discipline.  I would agree, as it represents the collective awakening of humanity’s left-brain functions of abstract thought.  That is its special virtue, and a very powerful one it was.