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)