Customer Reviews

Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a hard book. A work of generative genius that is almost a sustained prose poem on the subject of how reductionism is not really a good way of looking at how the universe works.I found the early part of the book which shows how the operation of biological processes cannot be determined by or derived from the laws of physics understandable and convincing. This is his home territory from his work on autocatlytic sets described in his previous book At Home in the Universe that I really liked. But then Kauffman proceeds to build less convincingly and somewhat more opaquely a super structure on top of this to accomodate culture, the economy, consciousness and indeed the role of quantum theory in consciousness. In this process he frequently lost me at the detailed level, even when directionally his arguments made sense at the macro level: they were interesting and suggestive, but they were like a large flip chart report out of a brainstorm and the clarity of understanding that should have been central to his case was lost. And like a poem he repeated his mantra of the laws of physics not predicting biological processes, adding a little more to the chorus each time. I suspect Kauffman's genius and fast processing brain intimidated his editors, who were simply not tough enough with him. If perhaps 50 times during this book, they had said to him: 'Stuart exactly what do you mean here? Tell us and we will put it in words that your audience will understand'. Then this book would have reached its full potential. My editor uses the wonderful term 'muddy': too much of this book is muddy.It's great interesting mud but mud is mud. His closing pleas for a different take on ethics are heartfelt, appealing but are not as well connected with the foregoing framework as they could easily have been. Ultimately I preferred his previous book At Home in the Universe. But hard as this book is, it is worth some trouble and maybe like Gregory Bateson's work, someone will write a commentary on this book that makes it all clear. And yes ultimately I believe he has the beginnings of the reinvention of the sacred in his sights. He did begin to shift how I see things, and that was worth the journey.

In "Reinventing the Sacred", Stuart Kauffman explores the case for reinventing the sacred within the secular world, arguing for the establishment of a global spiritual space in which we can all find a common sense of something God-like, whatever our religious convictions (or lack thereof). To reach that point, Kauffman shows that we need to abandon the long-established world-view based on reductionistic (Newtonian) physics, and to look at the world instead through the lens of the new science of complex system theory. This need for a change of focus derives from the position that such concepts as meaning, purpose, ethics and even life itself can neither be predicted nor explained from a consideration solely of the behaviour of particles -- or whatever it is that physicists currently think is down there at the lowest level of existence -- in motion, when the reductionist approach tells us that everything that is real must be. And yet we, as humans, are generally uncomfortable with the idea that such things do not exist, or are unimportant. This is, of course, a quandary that reductionist scientists have long struggled with. Traditionally, the view has been to consign such things as morality, and the purpose and meaning of life, to the realm of the human mind, to call them mental constructs about which science has nothing to say, and move on. Kauffman aims to challenge that conclusion.

In the course of this book, Kauffman examines the latest theories on the likely origins of life on Earth, considers the chemistry of cellular biology, looks at evolutionary processes (and, in particular, Darwinian preadaptations) and then -- using an examination of the behaviour of complex human systems such as the web of global economics -- demonstrates that all complex systems display emergent properties (i.e. elaborate characteristics which arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions) which greatly resemble those things we call agency, value and meaning -- just those very properties that are denied an explanation (and therefore any real existence) by reductionist Newtonian physics. Using his complexity theory approach, Kauffman goes on to show that not only is the formation of life close to an absolute certainty (contrary to the commonly expounded stance that the probability of life arising spontaneously is almost infinitely small) but also that evolution of morality is a perfectly natural outcome of biological evolutionary processes. And, indeed, all of those things for which a creator God has previously been held accountable can be explained as the emergent outcomes of a boundless creativity that is a natural characteristic of our universe. Positing that this natural creativity is infinitely wondrous and thus worthy of our veneration, Kauffman exhorts us to recognise it as Divine, thus enabling it to stand as a substitute for a creator God for those currently without one, at the centre of a new sacred outlook on the world.

Now, while Kauffman makes the case strongly for why the human race may benefit from such an outlook (and may indeed need one, if we are to survive some of the challenges ahead) I for one feel he is somewhat naïve in his suggestion that it will fulfil the spiritual needs of both believer and unbeliever alike. And while he makes a case for his ideas healing many of the rifts that pervade our secular thought processes and mindsets, I think it is a step too far to suggest that they may also help to bridge the divides that currently separate most of the current world faiths from each other. To suggest especially that his ideas are at all equivalent to established belief-sets is largely to miss the point of most of those religious faiths, partly with regard to the central role played by faith itself and also with regard to the comfort which those beliefs offer, particularly with regard to the soul and its afterlife--an aspect of human thinking that Kauffman stays well away from in this book. To be fair, Kauffman never suggests for a moment that his ideas are likely to supplant those of established faiths, merely that they provide a framework that might be regarded as sacred in its focus wherein those individuals currently without such a basis to their lives may find one. Or something that substitutes for one (and onto which they can map for their own peace of mind the beliefs of others).

As a book, I fear that "Reinventing the Sacred" ends up falling between two stools -- falling, in fact, into one of the very rifts that Kauffman is so concerned to heal. The science it presents, for all that Kauffman tries to make it accessible, is nevertheless hard work in places. The "sacred" aspects of the book, meanwhile, will probably strike the atheist as needlessly pandering, whilst those readers already of a faith will find these same aspects wishy-washy and vague. For me, where the book really falls down is the lack of any clear progression through its subject matter because of Kauffman's habit of falling back onto the same phrases over and over again coupled with his rather annoying habit of going off on long excursive examinations of things which appear to have no bearing on anything else but which are later referenced without any obvious reason. This leads to a constant feeling throughout the book that one is missing something. Perhaps I was! I can't help but think, though, that with so much of import to convey, this book would have benefited from a much firmer editorial hand.

There were times reading this book, I thought it deserved five stars, at other times two or three. There were sections of sheer genius and others of intellectual meandering. To fully appreciate this book, it would take expertise in philosophy, mathematics, computer science, physics, genetics, economics, and neuroscience. Very few people can claim these, including myself, a neurologist. The more logically rigorous sections were a bit ponderous, but worth the time.

The main theme of the book is that nature is endlessly creative and it is through this creativity that we experience the sacred. His first point is that nature is non-reductionistic, that is we can't use elementaty physical laws, as Laplace's demon does, to derive the complexity of the universe. These more complex laws are emergent and nonergodic. He then applies these principles to explain a variety of phenomena, including the origin of life, genetic diversity, markets, and even consciousness. He concludes the book paying homage to the spititual gifts of pantheistic creationism. In this comprehensive endeavor, he sometimes falls short.
His arguments for eschewing reductionism are generally well taken. He invokes Godel's incompleteness theorem and quantum physics to bolster his argument. Outside of non-Boolean non-commutative mathematical attempts to eliminate the randomness of quantum physics, I see no other objections. On the other hand, I see it as the duty of any self respecting scientist to carry redutionism as far as it can go. It is not clear to me how Kauffman determines when a system is truly emrgent. Even when he runs his computer simulations to the point of criticality, he can't be sure he isn't missing some reductionist principle. Throughout the book he will look at a complex system and muse almost in awe, without any further argument, that it is non-reductionistic. It reminds me of Paley after staring at a watch arguing that like natural systems infer a creator. In Kauffman's case it is nature. Unlike his fellow pantheist, Spinoza, Kauffman believes in free will. He gets to this point by having the mind control the quantum decoherence process. Having almost no basis to make this statement, his genius still shines through, presaging the first human attempt (recently published) to control this process through the phase qbit. It puzzles me why Kauffman treats consciousness as a "sacred" entity that could not possibly emerge from classical physics. Some of his much simpler networks generate emergent rules. I don't understand why Kauffman believes that one hundred billion neurons and one trillion glial cells could not possibly lead to consciousness in light of the fact all neurons, and now recntly discovered, some glial cells, generate action potentials.

Ulimately, the question should be asked, does Kauffman's view of nature reinvent the sacred? Yes, if awe, beauty, and creativity are only considered. This view is probably not too comforting for the average person in times of despair or as he or she contempates his or her own mortality .

I have been waiting for days to see some real reviews of this book come up. Tired of waiting--let me say this is a fabulous book. For the lay reader, it is quite a challenge (I am an artist). Nevertheless, it is well worth the effort. Stuart Kauffman's ideas are powerful and sensible, above all else, inspiring.
I do not have the technical background to critique his ideas and I look forward to reviews written by those who do. However, as an artist, Kauffman's essential premise--that which is sacred is the immeasuarable, unfathomable creativity of the universe--resonates at a deep level. This is what I emotionally and intellectually react to each and every day I open my eyes and step out into the world.
The space of all possibilities, this is what Kauffman celebrates. I love his enthusiasm. He is a markedly creative individual, driven, no doubt, by passion. His sensibilities about the world around him are positive and heartening. This is a joy to encounter in a science-orientated, big-picture book. Kudos.

Like my fellow neurologist Dr. Lasker (whom I remember from days of yore when I was a resident at UCSD--hi Bruce!) I find much to admire but some things to criticize in this book. Some of Kauffman's main ideas are as follows:

1) At each level of organization (physical/chemical/biological), new laws emerge which are inherently unpredictable from first principles of physics. The analogy here is from Godel's famous theorem that in any system of mathematics there are true statements that can not be derived from the initial axioms. If such a statement is taken as a new axiom, more true but unprovable statements result. The new emergent laws are like such true mathematical statements. Thus reductionism is doomed to failure.
2)One of these emergent laws is that complex systems tend to self-organize, and that in particular living systems organize themselves such that they reside on the boundary between order and chaos. Kaufmann extends this analysis from an individual cell to other complex areas including economics and even legal and ethical systems.
3) There is no "Creator God" but only the endless creativity embodied in the universe where complex systems emerge spontaneously along with their new principles of organization. The laws of physics are never contravened; there are no miracles--yet the systems are not predictable from first principles.
4) This natural endless creativity itself can be called "God" and can be the basis for a new global system of ethics and religion.

I like these ideas, and along the way Kauffman provides some really interesting examples, like his speculations on how life may have first evolved from systems of catalytic peptides and RNA oligomers, and how the subsequent use by organisms of "preadaptations" in evolution are inherently unpredictable from physics.
What I didn't like were his speculations on the quantum nature of consciousness (which he admits are scientifically the weakest point of his book, though it is the longest chapter). The whole argument--that consciousness depends on decoherence of a poised, enormously complex quantum wave generated essentially by the entire brain--falls down from the simple observation that small, very specific brain lesions (in the brainstem reticular activating system)abolish consciousness. It seems to me that attempts to explain this clinical fact would result in absurd Ptolemic-like epicycles. I agree with his footnote that this chapter could be skipped by the reader with no harm done to his basic ideas.
I also agree that the book could use a heavier editing hand--Kauffman tends to repeat himself often, for example with how all the unpredictable ways a screwdriver could be used (to pry open a lid, jam a door etc.) could not possibly be predicted by first principles of physics, which he employs in detail several times.
But overall I think it's a great and important book that everybody should read and ponder.

Kauffman takes "reductionism" to task for not providing meaning, only facts. Indeed, physics is only about facts. In a later chapter Kauffman states that with life comes agency and meaning. Agency is the central player in complex systems which is the study of free agents operating on the edge of order and chaos. Kauffman has provided some wonderful insights into this science. I'm a great fan of Stuart Kauffman, the scientist.

Later I discovered that Kauffman calls himself an atheist, more specifically "A Jewish Atheist," whatever that might mean. Being an atheist myself and of Jewish extraction, I thought I understood. But no. In Kauffman's case it means that he is reverting to some form of deism or theism. As the title of the book clearly indicates, "Reinventing the Sacred" despite the subtitle, "A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion," is about religion, not about science. It can be summarized in one sentence: "The cosmos is so creative and awe inspiring that we can call it god and this will make us better, more tolerant and happier."

Other reviewers have commented on the need of a better editor and I concur, Kauffman tends to be repetitious specially if you have also read some of his prior books and have watched some of his video which are quite interesting. Kauffman is a likable speaker. Some of the writing is "muddy" but that could be on account of my own lack of familiarity with some of the science.

But in this review I want to concentrate on the religious issue because I don't think it is fair for Kauffman to call himself an atheist and in the next breath call for god and reinventing the sacred. That's dishonest! I call some atheists like Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkings "evangelizing atheists" for their efforts to spread the gospel of atheism. I don't belong to that school, I don't care what other people believe or don't believe, that's their business. But it bothers me that a self confessed atheist should be calling for god.

It took me a long time, 30 to 40 years, to become an atheist. My journey started as a teenager looking for god. I didn't find one. What I did find is that many people substitute god for something awesome or something unknown and threatening like death. Kauffman is no exception. He ends the chapter on the "The Origin of Life" with: "Life has emerged in the universe without requiring special intervention from a Creator God. Should that fact lessen our wonder at the emergence and evolution of life and the evolution of the biosphere? No. Since we hold life scared [this is a jump to an unsupported conclusion], we are stepping towards the reinvention of the sacred as the creativity in nature." The comment in square brackets is my emphasis.

In "Breaking the Galilean Spell" Kauffman writes: "The radical implication is that we live in an emergent universe in which ceaseless unforeseeable creativity arises and surrounds us. And since we can neither prestate, let alone predict, all that will happen, reason alone is an insufficient guide to living our lives forward. This emergent universe, the ceaseless creativity in this universe, is the bedrock of the sacred that I believe we must reinvent." This paragraph can be interpreted in various ways, 1) since reason alone is an insufficient, lets also use unreason... or 2) reinvent the sacred or create a god in some image we might have of him.

There is absolutely nothing new here. All Kauffman is saying is "the cosmos is awesome, let's call it god." It does not matter what myth you base your religion on, if you believe in some sort of god you are not an atheist, Jewish or otherwise.

I'm up to the 14th chapter, so perhaps it's not fair to come to a conclusion yet, but since this has turned out to be a philosophical tome that uses scientific theories for support, the science may continue to be illuminating, but the philosophical premises so far derived are in my view so flawed as to make anything that follows from them suspect. One significant example: The thesis presented depends almost entirely on the author's understanding of the problem of free will. He sees the problem, as do so many others, as one that involves our responsibilities for our actions, and appears to agree with these others that in a deterministic universe, where choices were illusionary, as they had not been ours to make, we would then not be responsible for the consequences of our acts, and somewhat paradoxically, when we came to understand that, our social order would break down. What these types of views fail to consider is that we can never really know if free will is or is not illusory, as if we find reason to believe we have it, it could well have been predetermined that we would so conclude and find all the evidence that supports that conclusion conveniently available. And any philosophical argument that says we can justifiably deny a cause and effect relationship between our decisions and their consequences will no longer be made by anyone who sees no harm in stepping on the tracks to examine the effects of appearing to be smashed by what we have had determined for us in advance as a rapidly approaching locomotive device.

So you ask, are the free will and related arguments presented here really that simplistic? Well, not in respect to the elaborateness of their presentation, because once we forget or move on from the premises of an argument, the resulting web of persuasive argumentation has its own predeterminative force.
There's a famous saying in this regard that has long been determinant in my choice of what to believe: Bertrand Russell, at age 92 (if that's relevant), wrote that reason had its limitations: "Beware of rational argument," he reminded us; "you need only one false premise in order to prove anything you please by logic."

And I'm afraid there's more than one core premise in this book that causes its logic to fail.

This book was a pleasure to read, very well-written and effectively integrating many important concepts from physics, biology, philosophy, cosmology, neurology, law, current events, economics, and other topics into a perspective that finds awe in the unfolding creativity of the biosphere and our role in it.

The author convincingly argues that the reductionstic perspective of much modern science is incomplete, and that there are emergent qualities in biologic systems that cannot be fully explained by the physical determinism of cells and physics. Because of this, we should view the inherent creativity of the biosphere as sacred, and reverence it as "God." If we can cultivate this perspective, it will create a shared understanding among diverse people and develop global interconnectedness and harmony which is increasingly crucial in our modern world situation, overcoming the cultural and religious differences that lead to conflict among us.

Part of this book's thesis is that biological systems are fundamentally self-organizing, sustaining, and adapting, thus being "acausal" and needing no "first cause" (which removes one of the classic conceptions of God.) In my view, however, "acausal" is not synonymous with "spontaneous" or "random," and Kauffman is merely ascribing to quantum uncertainty the role of "unmoved mover."

In making the case for how we have no need for a transcendent Creator God, however, one important question is never asked, or even mentioned: "What happens to 'me' when I die?" Each of us is fundamentally concerned with this question. Whether we will learn the answer, however, depends on what is the reality of our consciousness. If consciousness ends with the cessation of one's biologic existence, then the only prospect we can look forward to is an instant dissolution of self, a horrifying prospect precisely for all the same reasons Kauffman identifies life as sacred. Death is the ultimate sacrilege to such sacredness, and Kauffman's "God" has no relevance or answer for the individual in this fundamental conflict. While feelings of spirituality, sacredness, and reverence are all attributes of people's orientation toward a God figure, the primary role of a "God" is mediating one's orientation toward post-mortem existence, and all of a lifetime ultimately becomes a reconcilation with the unavoidable prospect of approaching death. Kauffman's notion of "God," while esthetically beautiful, amounts to essentially ignoring this concern and putting a smile on your face as you approach your final hour.

But for many of us, our very existence recoils from the prospect of individual annihilation, the "life" within us desires continuation before all other desires. The first purpose of life is to continue living. Therefore Kauffman's "God" is the food which does not satisfy. In seeking God, we desire an agency that transcends death and can sustain us for eternity. This is why the notion of a transcendent "God" remains in our deepest instincts through all human history. It is unfortunate that Kauffman did not address what his conception of "God" means for the prospect of individual death. This is a very significant omission in the book, as any viable conception of God must address this fundamental subject.

Nevertheless this book is a very stimulating and excellent contribution that advances discussion regarding integration of modern science, reason and religion, and as such is great a read for all who are concerned with such matters.

Richard Kauffman is always interesting to read. His earlier books are much more technical than the one under review. In Reinventing the Sacred he tackles philosophical problems rather than science. His scientific background gives him a platform on which to build a spiritual view of the world without invoking religion or transcendent gods. His attack on reductionism reminds me very much of the work of Arthur Koestler. Though Koestler was not the scientist Kauffman is, his theories on the need to go beyond reductionism are very similar. Kauffman does a good job of putting these ideas into a scientific paradigm - emergence. I only wish he weren't so human oriented. The universe is much larger than humanity, and man's place in it is not important, except to man himself. But the book is a wonderful read and, indeed, Kauffman does follow in the tradition of Spinoza/Einstein.

I read Stuart Kauffman's Reinventing the Sacred with some anticipation because Stu had been a classmate of mine in medical school. I knew then that he was on to something interesting and that he would go on to do something creative that we all could be proud of. Interestingly, another classmate, Joe Goldyne, went on to become a famous artist, so I have an extra reason to be proud to be an alumnus of the class of '68 at UC San Francisco. Anyway, Stu's book did not disappoint me, and I would like to take this opportunity to make some comments on the points which I find the most interesting.
Dr Kauffman does a good job of criticizing reductionism, which is Laplace's view that the universe is one huge machine and that all future events have been predetermined, including human actions. This mechanistic view of the world, which allowed the West to develop the scientific method and make great strides in understanding and controlling nature, does not leave much room for such concepts as ethics, esthetics, and, especially, free will. A universe that consists of an extremely complex series of events resulting from a gazillion particles of matter in motion interacting in a cause and effect manner cannot explain all the fun things about life and leads such a brilliant scientist as Stephen Weinberg to conclude: "explanatory arrows always point downward" and "the more we comprehend the universe, the more pointless it seems" (page 10). Reductionism involves supervenience, which is a term philosopers use to describe how higher level or more complex actions correlate exactly with and are determined completely by lower level actions. One example is that the properties of water are correlated with and determined by the molecular actions of hydrogen and oxygen. Another example is that the complex patterns of firing by cerebral neurons can lead to thoughts and ideas. In both cases the higher level activity is explained by the lower level, which is to say it is "reduced" to the lower level.
Reductionism helps scientists to understand how natural processes work, but does it really explain everything? Dr Kauffman explains the concept of "emergence": "The behavior of large and complex aggregates of elementary particles, it turns out, is not to be understood in terms of a simple extrapolation of the properties of a few particles. Instead, at each level of complexity entirely new properties appear, and the understanding of the new behaviors requires reseach which I think is as fundamental in its nature as any other" (page 21). Any chemist knows that he/she cannot completely understand the actions of chemical compounds simply by knowing the behavior of elementary particles.
While it is obvious that the principles of chemistry emerge from the more basic principles of physics, it is not so obvious that thoughts or ideas can emerge from neuronal firing no matter how complex (refer to Douglas Hofstadter's I Am a Strange Loop). Water, hydrogen, and oxygen have different properties, but they are still forms of matter and differ only quantitatively. Ideas are qualitatively different from neurons. Furthermore, it is impossible to be supervenient about ideas and neurons. The difference is that Ideas consist of meanings or understanding, which are immaterial and cannot be reduced to particles of matter in mortion. Take as an example the simple Idea: "I love you." Under most circumstances when this idea is communicated there is a physical response from the autonomic nervous system (flushing, diaphoresis, tachycardia, xerostomia) and the motor pathways of the central nervous system (hugs and kisses). Yet the message itself can consist of sound waves (vocal utterings, morse code, or drums in hundreds of different languages), photons (writing, sign language, semaphore again in different languages), or tactile sensations (Braille). There is no way you can correlate the physical responses with the mechanics of the message. The only reality in this case is semantics involving a conscious mind which understands the meaning of the message.
Dr Kauffman explores the conscious mind, and, like predecessors such as Sir John Eccles (How the Self Controls Its Brain) and Roger Penrose (The Emperor's New Mind), he looks to the world of quantum mechanics for an answer. This is a good idea. I mentioned above that the scientific method received a big boost from a mechanistic view of the world. If all events result from specific preceding causes, then the scientist can find out what these causes are. Interestingly, this scientific method allowed brilliant minds, such as Neils Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, to explore the world of elementary particles and conclude that the quantum world does NOT operate in a mechanistic, cause and effect manner but rather is holistic and acausal. Dr Kauffman maintains: "the conscious mind is a persistently poised quantum coherent-decoherent system, forever propagating quantum coherent behavior, yet forever also decohering to classical behavior." (page 209). I would like to point out, however, that just because the quantum world is acausal does not mean that the conscious mind has a free will, and being holistic does not necessarily explain how semantics can cause mental phenomena. We are still in the mystical realm of "warm and fuzzy" explanations if we want to establish a self capable of free will. I still think that Descartes was on the right track.
Dr Kauffman has spent his career showing how principles of self-organization can explain the evolution of biological systems (see chapter 8 - Order for Free). I have always thought that Darwinian natural selection is too clumsy and slow to account for such a complex thing as language. The human brain has 100 billion neurons which have over 1000 synapses each, resulting in an almost infinitely complex system. To explain the complex organization of language as the result of trial and error via random genetic mutations is just not feasible. There must be some sort of self-organization involved in this.
Finally, we get to the main point of the book - God exists! Dr Kauffman does a nice job of showing how self-organization and emergence can explain how purpose and creativity (God) arose as biological systems became more and more complex. Nevertheless I have some difficulty with this. I cannot fault his reasoning, but I have always thought of God as He has been described by my Jewish-Christian-Muslim-Baha'i ancestors - He is an eternal, transcendent Being who created the universe out of nothing by an act of His free will. I might add that the Big Bang theory is consistent with this. Dr Kauffman's God is immanent within this world and subject to its laws, as were the gods of ancient Greece and Rome. The main point of developing the concept of God is to explain human creativity and to give purpose to our lives, which I find much harder to do with a God that comes after the fact. I know that it plays havoc with Ockham's razor to use an eternal, transcendent, willful God to explain the origins of the universe, but it sure makes it easier for me to find meaning and purpose in life.
Thanks, Stu, for having written this book. I'm glad that I knew you back when.