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142 of 147 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
The Emergence of Monotheism: Teilhard de Chardin Revisited, April 21, 2003
I feel somewhat presumptuous and impertinent writing critical words about a book written by an author like Harold Morowitz. He's a man with impressive credentials including once having been editor of the journal Complexity and now on the Science Board of the Santa Fe Institute. And there are glowing comments on the book jacket--stunning, provocative, and brilliant-from the likes of highly respected John Holland. Nonetheless, here is my reaction as a layperson who's read many of the popular books on emergence, complexity, etc. First, some positive comments. Morowitz has written numerous books. He appears to have a vast knowledge of physics, biology and early western religious beginnings and in this book he provides a sweeping view of, well, everything! His most interesting insight: the far-reaching explanatory power of the Pauli exclusion principle. Morowitz also comes across as likeable and humble, the latter being a characteristic that is often lacking in the authors of other "complexity" books as previously noted by several Amazon reviewers. In fact, Morowitz seems likeable enough that I offer my apology for any personal offense he might take. On the less than positive side, I found the book "stunning" all right, but probably not in the way the publishers intended. The book is as much about "religion" as it is emergence. And I don't mean the emergence of a new kind of spirituality that arises out of discoveries in complexity theory. I mean old fashion Judeo-Christian religion. There are numerous pages of discussion of early Christian thinking and an extensive apologia for the Jesuit paleontologist, and Morowitz's role model, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (p. 15). The reader is also treated to passages like the following: "Note that God's transcendence was not meaningful before the emergence of humans and human culture. Violation of the natural law is only meaningful to individuals capable of knowing natural law. Divine transcendence arose from immanence and emergence and coevolved with Homo sapiens. Transcendence is an emergent property of God's immanence and rules of emergence. We Homo sapiens are the mode of action of divine transcendence." (p. 195) I have nothing against such talk and on occasion even enjoy it. But I find Morowitz's to be particularly parochial in his views. It's as if he is trying to come to terms with his personal scientific career and his own traditional religions training, with us as an audience. On more than one occasion he even offers up quotes from the Pope. If he was intending a thorough discussion of how the emergent mind may evolve into spirituality he should have presented at least a cursory overview of eastern religious thinking, particularly Buddhism with its heavy emphasis on the study of the mind's workings. After all, the Dalai Lama's hobby is modern physics. Morowitz's explanation for this deficiency, "We all have out limitations" (p. 17). Stunning! What's also stunning is Morowitz broad-brush characterization of atheists as those who slavishly maintain that emergent "choices" are merely random and then become frozen accidents (p. 198). On page 197, Morowitz admits that his purpose has been theistic. "This book has proceeded with two agendas: to study emergence by examining a number of examples, and to seek for the nature and operation of God in the emergent universe." And on the next page he says, "We are just beginning our understanding of emergence, and hence must be patient about understanding how the Word becomes flesh". But these kinds of ideas are not noted in the promotional material provided by the publisher, Oxford University Press. Perhaps Oxford is just trying to jump on the "complexity fad". Maybe I should have realized that the "everything" in the title was a code word for discussing the emergence of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, the Word, etc. Foolish me. And finally, a small part of Morowitz's discussion seem to come dangerously close to what amounts to an emergent version of social Darwinism (pp. 147-154). For example, he uses Gause's Competitive Exclusion principle to explain the conflict in Northern Ireland as two "psuedospecies" attempting to maintain their separate niches or, in the alternative, kill each other off. Morowitz's "most humane" solution: encourage interbreeding (p.152). Maybe an interesting notion but one that is provocative enough to require a much more rigorous analysis than that offered by Morowitz. If you want a book that looks to early philosophers and religious thinkers in order to explain how science and religion interact, this book may be for you. Morowitz even welcomes a return to Scholasticism (p. 191). If you want to see how a scientists tries to synthesize everything from the Big Bang to the Trinity with the modern vocabulary of emergence, this also might be for you. The book reminds me of an interdisciplinary undergraduate course requirement at a small religious school-a kind of "we put God in every subject" approach. Those inclined toward Creationism of the Intelligent Design variety will like this book and quote from it. With the exception of this review, I likely won't.
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43 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not light, but definitely worth reading!, April 22, 2003
This is a relatively small book with a huge message. It deals with complex, sophisticated theories - some explained clearly; others such as the emergence of metabolism, not so clearly despite Dr. Morowitz's efforts. It is written at a scholarly level - at least at the undergraduate level - as evidenced, for example, by his syntax and the technical lexicon he employs, often without definition. Dr. Morowitz's premise is that at the dawn of the 21st century "we now see the world through the fresh perspective and understanding of the computer revolution and the study of complex systems...[and] this new mode of thinking has begun to develop an exciting explanatory concept designated emergence, which develops previously unrealized ways of deepening our understanding of the past eons and illuminates how the universe, after a long and complex 12-billion-year trajectory from the Big Bang, has given rise to the human mind and modern man" (pg. 16). Classical science is based on reductionism and theory formation that work their way back up to the world of observation. I disagree from the review from Scientific American that emergence is the opposite of reductionism; rather, emergence supplements and complements reductionism, taking it to a new level. It essentially is the realization - the study - that the whole is often greater than the sum of the parts (pg. 23); that is, the system or process that emerges is something more than would have been expected by the study of the constituent parts. Dr. Morowitz selected 28 examples of "observed instances that have emergence in common but vary over an enormous range...selected to form an almost linear chronological sequence from the beginning of the universe we now occupy toward a conscious grasping for the future, a search for spirit, or something in that domain" (pg. 25) - in other words, a grand tour from the beginning of our universe towards what our species is to become. This is a heady undertaking, to be sure, and Dr. Morowitz is up to the task. He first steps through the 28 examples ever so briefly in order to provide an advance summary. He then takes us through them in more detail with a chapter devoted to each. Some are straightforward and easy to grasp, such as numbers 3/the emergence of stars and 4/the periodic table; but others are complex and abstruse, such as numbers 10/cells with organelles and 11/multicellularity. He provides plenty of supplemental reading along the way with suggestions at the end of each chapter. What we see from his 28 groupings is that existence, as we know it, stretching from the Big Bang into the future as far as our minds can visualize, has been and continues to be one continuous emergence - what one might call a mega-emergence. We can segment it however we like (he segments it 28 ways), but it doesn't change the fact that from the Big Bang there is no known way to predict what has come to be and what is yet to come. While some of the concepts are difficult to grasp, Dr. Morowitz is still a delight to read. He uses language wonderfully - precise, concise, and descriptive. Take for example, "Toward the end of the accretion period, the Earth was still occasionally subject to large meteoritic impacts that boiled away the oceans into cloud layers that subsequently precipitated" (pg. 70), or "Among the reptiles of the Pennsylvania Age of the upper Paleozoic, courtship ritual and sexual selection emerged...[which] was the beginning of a type of behavior that culminated in the dramas of Shakespeare" (pg. 125). Cool. He weaves a great thread about the development of animals through numbers 13/animalness, 14/chordateness, 15/vertebrates, 16/crossing the geospheres - from fish to amphibians, and 17/reptiles. ("Geospheres"? That's number 10.) After he discusses the emergence of 18/mammals, but before he moves on to 19/higher mammals he sets the stage by discussing the definition of species and the concepts of niches and the principle of competitive exclusion. He applies the latter to human social behavior as one basis for cultural and ethnic friction, but with a twist. "In a battle between hominid species, the victors kill the vanquished. In battles between hominid races, the victors breed with the vanquished. The difference is a flow of genes between the groups." (pg. 153.) From there he finishes with 23/toolmaking, 24/language, 25/agriculture, 26/technology and urbanization, 27/philosophy, and 28/the spirit. Where does he see this thread taking humanity? "Two new futuristic views have developed in recent years. The first of these argues that carbon-based life will be the precursor of silicon-based life that, because of potentially superior intelligence, will ultimately take over, with humans either eliminated or in a secondary role. [Perhaps this is where the concept for the Wachowskis' The Matrix originated?] ...The second futuristic view is a world in which genetic engineering is used for us to become the race of hominids we want to be." (pg. 177.) Dr. Morowitz opts for the latter. "I assume that something new will emerge in human society, and it will present us with undreamed possibilities in science and the arts...There will be a new emergence, and we will play a part in what that emergence is. That is our destiny." (pg. 178.) Dr. Morowitz has an amazing tale. It's difficult to follow many of the details, but overall it is upbeat and optimistic. Time will tell. In the meantime, this is an excellent read if you want to start towards an understanding of the cutting edge of science, where it blends with religion and philosophy.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting Topic, Only Fair Execution, November 14, 2003
While the concept of emergence is quite interesting, this book lacks enough depth to really cover the material in a meaningful way. The book is more a collection of brief essays on various topics, and does provide a useful overview of the topic. However, the same material in a more masterful writer's hands could have been a fascinating work. Each of the chapters only contained a skeletal outline of the emergent behavior, with nothing to flesh it out. Because the facts were so sketchy (and often amounted to prose hand-waving) I wasn't always convinced that the arguments were sound.
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