The Power Of Purpose Awards

The Natural Order and the Human Mind

By Stephen Pimentel

From the evolution of galaxies to the development of the smallest flower, nature exhibits exquisitely intricate and complex patterns of order. Throughout history, humanity has been amazed and fascinated by these patterns. The progress of science has only deepened our awareness of the order of nature by extending our ability to observe natural phenomena and systematically describe their elegant harmony. Many scientists and philosophers of science see manifestations of purpose in the natural order, beginning with the laws that govern the smallest subatomic particles and reaching to the highest forms of conscious life.

Although the topic of purpose in nature is now considered controversial, such purpose was once widely recognized and affirmed by the most sophisticated and critical thinkers. The greatest of the Greek philosophers, from Plato and Aristotle to Plotinus, considered the evidence of purpose in nature to be compelling and clear. The Stoics, for example, spoke of a logos or “reason” that embodied order and purpose within the cosmos. In general, these philosophers were willing to reason boldly from an observed effect to an inferred cause, even when the cause hypothesized was not itself observable.

Their confidence in such reasoning grew out of their strong belief that nature is not only ordered, but that its order is fundamentally intelligible, so that it can be effectively understood by the human mind. The physical processes observed in nature were believed to be not only consistent but ultimately rational in character. Therefore, the human investigator, employing rational tools such as mathematics, should be able to uncover the secrets of these processes and allow their inner workings to be clearly grasped. The pervasive order and intelligibility of nature was further taken to exhibit purpose at various levels. The entities observed in nature act not only in a predictable and consistent manner but so as to integrate harmoniously into a larger whole.

However, since the Enlightenment, there has arisen a contrary strand of thought that is deeply suspicious of the idea of purpose. This philosophy, sometimes known as “positivism,” does not deny the order of the physical universe, but simply takes this order as a “brute fact” that stands in no need of further explanation. The order of nature may be rationally intelligible and explicable through the tools of science and mathematics, but for the positivist it makes no sense to ask “why” this is so. According to this perspective, the universe “just is” as we encounter it. The task of science is restricted to producing ever more complete and precise descriptions of empirical phenomena. However, inferences concerning unobserved theoretical entities and questions pertaining to “why” the world is as we observe it are both dismissed as “unscientific.” Positivism simply forbids one to ask why the laws of nature are those that we discover rather than some others.

The Retreat of Positivism
Yet, the advances of physics in the past century have made the stance of positivism increasingly difficult to maintain. As physics has explored phenomena at ever smaller scales of distance that are ever more difficult to detect, it has moved further and further away from the everyday experience of human beings. When working in regimes that cannot be easily observed, physics becomes increasingly reliant upon the human ability to reason from observed effects to unobserved causes. Through such reasoning, theoretical entities characterized by mathematical relations are often hypothesized to account for observed effects, even though the entities themselves have not been observed.

The early history of modern particle physics offers dramatic examples of such reasoning. For example, in 1930, Wolfgang Pauli sought to explain an anomaly associated with “nuclear beta decay” by postulating the existence of an undetected particle. In 1933, Enrico Fermi wrote a paper concerning the particle, which he called the neutrino, and submitted the paper to the journal Nature. From one point of view, Pauli and Fermi were reasoning straightforwardly from observed effect to an undetected cause. Yet, this mode of inference offended the canons of positivism, and so the editors of Nature rejected Fermi’s paper as too speculative and remote from reality. The neutrino remained unobserved until 1956, when it was detected using the Savannah River reactor.

Just as the restrictions of positivism have proven untenable in regard to theoretical entities such as subatomic particles, so they appear questionable in regard to the discernment of purpose. The stimulus for the consideration of purpose lies in the nature of the scientific enterprise itself. Science seeks to identify the laws by which the natural processes of our universe evolve in time, and it is these very laws that serve as the primary indicators of purpose. The laws discovered by science have allowed the complex, multilayered order found in the universe, ultimately including life itself, to emerge over time from the relative homogeneity of the universe’s early state. These laws thus manifest an astounding creativity whose potential continues to unfold. It is the very operation of these laws, and not their contravention or even supplementation by any external force, that produces the subtle and amazing order of nature. Moreover, the order of our universe is closely calibrated to the particular laws that produce it. Physical laws chosen at random would, in an overwhelming majority of cases, lead to a universe completely lacking in the kind of order we observe. It therefore strains credibility to suggest that we ought simply to “take for granted” either the laws or their marvelous outcome.

Order in Physical Laws

A fundamental example of order in physical laws is found in the notion of symmetry. Symmetry is an intuitive concept familiar to us in the form of regular shapes, like that of the snowflake. However, symmetry can also be precisely characterized through the branch of mathematics known as group theory, which allows us to describe types and degrees of symmetry. A central discovery of modern physics has been the manner in which various laws exhibit particular mathematical symmetries. Furthermore, as physicists relate the various laws to each other, a peculiar and important relationship emerges. As we move to physical laws at “deeper” or more fundamental levels of organization, we find higher degrees of symmetry. The phenomena at more “shallow” or easily observed levels of organization have lower degrees of symmetry due to the relation of “spontaneous symmetry breaking.” Yet, the higher degrees of symmetry found at the deeper levels of organization, while exhibiting an intricate order, are in no way logically necessary.

The pattern discovered in regard to symmetry holds true of the order in nature more generally. As the sources of order are analyzed in terms of physical laws at various levels of organization, order is never seen to emerge from a lack of order. Rather, the order at each observed level of organization is found to unfold from a greater order at a deeper level. Thus, the scientific process explains order by mathematically relating it to a more profound order. The deepest levels of order, such as those that may be revealed by a future theory of quantum gravity, are the least readily observed. As the scientific process advances, progressively greater degrees of order are exposed. From the perspective of twenty-first century physics, the universe appears far more intricately ordered and profoundly rational than it did to Plato or Aristotle.

The Contingency of Physical Laws

What then is the significance of this order? To explore further the implications of natural order, we must begin to confront the very questions that positivism forbids us to ask. Why are the laws of physics what they are, rather than otherwise? These laws are surely not logically necessary, as are purely mathematical theorems. Even when physicists eventually arrive at a fundamental physical theory, such as a theory of quantum gravity, there is no reason to believe that this theory will be logically necessary. In other words, it will always be logically possible for the universe to have been otherwise. Physical laws that are not logically necessary may precisely describe order, but they do not “explain away” that order in any way that would obviate the question of purpose. Such laws possess no status that would prevent us from asking questions about their further significance. When such questions are squarely posed in regard to fundamental laws, with their intricate harmony and elegance, purpose seems to become manifested.

Moreover, the physical laws that have already been discovered seem to be “fine-tuned’ to produce a universe in a narrow regime that allows the emergence of novel structures through a process of self-organization. This self-organization is manifested first at the astrophysical level, in the structure of stars and galaxies, before we even consider the emergence of life. To permit such self-organization, the laws must achieve a delicate balance between an utterly chaotic and disorganized universe and one that is completely static and uninteresting. The fine-tuning of our physical laws to produce such an order weighs heavily against the credibility of treating those laws as “brute facts.” Rather, the fact that our universe appears to lie so perfectly in the favored range seems indicative of purpose.

The advocates of positivism sometimes object that the notion of purpose adds no “empirical content” to the known physical laws. However, this objection misconstrues the idea of purpose, treating it as if it were an extra force above and beyond those already accounted for. Purpose is not supposed to have empirical content apart from the physical laws in which it is manifest. On the contrary, it is the empirical content of the laws themselves that persuasively leads us to posit purpose.

Although the idea of purpose may not alter the empirical content of physical laws, it can nevertheless greatly affect our understanding of the significance of life and its relation to the rest of nature. While we might not be able to deduce an “ultimate” purpose for the universe from the evidence of nature alone, there is no reason for skepticism about obtaining at least partial knowledge of this kind. One candidate for a purpose of the natural order would seem to lie in the emergence of life itself.

Purpose and the Emergence of Life

There is no evidence that life arose in contravention of any physical law. Indeed, the astounding emergence of life entirely in accordance with natural processes reveals the special character of those processes. One might imagine that the emergence of life was a kind of freak accident, an enormously improbable event that somehow nevertheless occurred. Analysis of the essential physical and chemical processes suggests that such is not the case. Rather, the emergence of life toward the end of nature’s long process of self-organization appears to be sufficiently probable to consider it part of the universe’s purpose.

We can initially consider the laws of physics themselves. According to the so-called “anthropic principles,” the very possibility of life is highly dependent on the exact value of the constants that govern the fundamental forces of nature. If the values of the constants were to differ by even a few percent, life as we know it could not exist. This sensitivity of the constants can be interpreted as a sort of “fine-tuning” in support of life even at the level of fundamental physics.

Consideration of organic chemistry points in the same direction. When we examine the distribution throughout the universe of the carbon-based compounds that form the basic constituents of life, they are found to be sufficiently plentiful and widespread for life to arise in many places. While this fact does not show that life must arise or explain how it arose, it does at least establish that the basic conditions needed for life are not rare. One fascinating scientific study that could significantly help to determine life’s frequency of occurrence is the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project. If life, and indeed intelligent life, were to be found elsewhere in the universe, it would provide evidence of the propensity of the natural order to give rise to life and thus reinforce the hypothesis of life as one purpose of that order. Hence, those who are interested in the hypothesis of natural purpose ought to give SETI their enthusiastic support.

Moving from organic chemistry to the next higher level, we come to biology proper. An important new perspective comes from viewing biology in the light of modern computational science, including the branch known as information theory. The cell, whether that of a single-cell or multiple-cell organism, can best be understood as a highly sophisticated system that carries out a variety of information processing tasks.

Moreover, there is a precise sense in which the cell can be considered to act as a “digital” rather than an “analog” computer. Analog computers are hard-wired to perform some particular task through the physical design of their hardware. They have no separate software to speak of. Digital computers, on the other hand, have separate hardware and software layers. Rather than carry out a particular task, the hardware layer is designed for the more general activity of processing information that is symbolically encoded. This more sophisticated arrangement allows for the tasks carried out by the system to be controlled by the software layer, rather than hard-wired into the system’s physical structure. In other words, the digital computer is essentially a processor of information.

In artificial digital computers, the software and data are ultimately represented in the form of binary digits. Viewing the cell as a kind of natural digital computer, its software is encoded in its genes. Although the genes clearly depend on the underlying biochemistry of the cell for their “instructions” to be properly “executed,” the information that they encode is logically distinct from that biochemistry. The independence of the genetic “software” from its biochemical “hardware” is perhaps best illustrated by the process of cell division, in which the software causes a whole new hardware unit to be replicated for itself.

The genetic encoding of such complex information poses a major challenge to the study of the origin of life. Not only do genes encode a high degree of information from the perspective of information theory, but this information must be very specific in order to carry out the proper biological functions. A central question for scientific investigation is to understand better the processes that lead to such specific structures that bear a high degree of information.

One promising approach to this problem comes from the computational study of “genetic algorithms,” which are computational methods that incorporate the concept of natural selection. Genetic algorithms show that natural selection acts as a search method through a “space” of possible configurations. As a result, natural selection performs a kind of “information concentration” that allows a system locally to increase its information content by drawing energy from its global environment. In man-made genetic algorithms, the human designer supplies the “fitness function” by which potential solutions are evaluated. In contrast, the fitness function for organic systems is determined by the working of natural laws. The exact manner in which this determination takes place at various levels of organization remains a major question for investigation. This question is particularly difficult at levels below that of RNA. Discovering the processes by which amino acids came to be assembled into RNA may require a better understanding of the informational content of physical systems, perhaps even one that takes into account the informational effects of quantum mechanics.

Conclusion: Rationality and Purpose

Whatever the details of the processes by which life emerged, and whatever forms of information processing they may have involved, we may be certain that these processes did, in fact, give rise to myriad forms of life in our world. Even more remarkably, they have resulted in rational beings capable of reflection upon that very world. Humanity systematically probes the natural order to determine the laws by which that order operate and perhaps discover its purpose. It is surely a profound attribute of nature that its laws support a self-organizing development that eventually produced rational beings who turn their attention to the natural order and all that flows from it. This attribute of nature suggests that rational beings are themselves part of the purpose of the universe and, conversely, that part of the purpose of rational beings is to understand the workings of the universe. These twin purposes are mutually reflective, and their multifaceted interplay is a fascinating topic for study. If humanity finds its own purpose, in part, in seeking the purpose of the surrounding world, then we would expect science to play an integral part in the life of humanity, contributing deeply to the fulfilment of human purpose. Human beings are able to employ their rational powers to model the very processes that brought humanity about.

This perspective on the respective purposes of the universe and humanity also has strong implications for human culture. We have a pressing need in our day for a cultural outlook that both gives us a sense of purpose at a personal level and is fully integrated with our advancing scientific knowledge of nature. Too often, thinkers have attempted to secure a sense of purpose by supplementing nature with a “God of the gaps,” who is supposed to fill in where our scientific explanations are lacking. Philosophers and theologians could more fruitfully contribute to the search for purpose by taking the astounding powers of nature itself as their starting point for further reflection.

The pursuit of an integrated vision of human and natural purpose constitutes a genuinely noble vocation or calling that sets before us a profound task and offers a wonderful fulfilment. To achieve this vision, we must begin by studying the evidence of purpose in nature using the most sophisticated tools and techniques of science. We will also require the best efforts of philosophers and theologians to integrate this evidence into patterns meaningful for our lives and interpret its significance for purpose in humanity. Those who dedicate their lives to the pursuit of this vision will prove to be exemplars of the purpose-driven life.