Complexity, Confusion and Connection – Part I

 

 

Stuart Fickler, Ph.D.

 

When the number of factors coming into play in a phenomenological complex is too large, scientific method in most cases fails.--  Einstein

 

Know that for the human mind there are certain objects of perception which are within the scope of its nature and capacity; on the other hand, there are, amongst things which actually exist, certain objects which the mind can in no way and by no means grasp.  --  Maimonides

 

The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. --  Einstein

 

In today’s world, there are many who claim that the “real miracles” come from science.  They would argue that computers, genetic engineering and a vast array of other scientific achievements support their position.  Then, they ask, what has religion accomplished?  It has only been a burdensome millstone around the neck of progress.  This type of discourse abounds in daily news stories on embryonic stem cell research, abortion and end of life issues.  Their arguments are, at times, compelling, promising each of us a better life.

 

Unfortunately, these arguments are not supported by either science or Judaism.  They are, at best, wishful thinking and, at worst, a prescription for self-destruction.

 

The methods of science are, indeed, brilliant for the task of unraveling the simple processes of creation and applying them to the development of technology.  However, as Einstein so lucidly points out in the quote above, science has been limited in its ability to deal with a vast array of complex processes that exist in that same creation.  This is not just a matter of the limitation of the technology of measurement.  It involves a fundamental limitation of the rational processes that have made science so astoundingly successful.

 

Albert Einstein was brilliant in his ability to reduce very difficult problems to simple “gedanken (thought) experiments” which lead to his understanding of underlying processes.  His “train” and “elevator” gedanken experiments were seminal in the theories of special and general relativity.   To illustrate my point, I should like to follow in Einstein’s footsteps by considering the following two-part gedanken experiment.

 

Part one: You are a world-class pocket billiards champion.  Your task is to break the racked balls.  Then, in sequence, sink as many of the individual balls as possible.  What is the possibility of clearing the table without a miss?  Pretty good.  That is why, in competition, the opponent is given the break.

 

Part two:  This time, break the racked balls and, simultaneously, sink all of the balls in a single shot.  What is the probably of success this time?  Very, very unlikely!

 

In the first case, the problem of sinking the balls was reduced to a series of operations involving the collision of two balls at a time.  Although, it might involve cushion shots or use of an intermediate ball, each step involves only two balls, or a ball and a cushion.   In the second case, the problem deals with the simultaneous collision of sixteen connected balls.  This is a situation that overwhelms the best of champions.  This is what Einstein was talking about in the first quote above.  This illustrates the difference between simplicity and complexity.

 

Virtually all of the successes of science have been achieved by its ability to reduce all of its problems to simple “two ball” problems.  The entire rational mechanism underlying its analytic processes involves this type of simplicity, or an approximation to it.  In recent times, science has crossed into domains where the problems no longer approximate this type of simplicity.  This has led to considerable reexamination of principles that were the rational structure of science.  This is what is meant by “revolution” when the word is associated with quantum theory, relativity and chaos theory.  We appear to be living in a universe where most of the phenomena are more like part two of our gedanken experiment.

 

Science was fortunate that the earliest problems it dealt with could be simplified.  Further, subsequent more complex problems could still be reduced to a sequence of simpler problems.  Consider what would have happened to the accomplishments of science if all of the problems presented to us by the universe were complex.  It would be Judaism.

 

From the outset, Judaism chose to deal with the relation of humanity with creation and its Creator.  I was once told that the number of possible synaptic connections in the human brain is greater than the number of atoms in the universe.  If this is even close to correct, it provides an awesome, intuitive measure of the complexity of the problem Judaism sought to address.  Of the three essential tools that Judaism seeks to apply to its problem, two are shared with science.  Judaism is a religion that seeks to find HaShem’s presence in history.  It is reality based.  Anyone familiar with Talmudic thought and the works of Maimonides, among others, recognizes that Judaism is rational.  In my previous article, I demonstrated that there was overlap between Judaism and science in the third area, revelation.  This article shows that Judaism necessarily has a greater requirement for revelation.

 

At this point, we might propose a hypothesis for future exploration.  Does the need for revelation of some sort increase with the increase of irreducible complexity?  This also implies a second question.  Can one establish an empirical approach to revelation in a manner similar to that of science?

 

 

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