No, magic has never been a taboo. The real taboo is meaning.
Once scientists thought that the Earth was at the center of the universe. Ptolemaic astronomy could explain nearly all celestial observations of its time based on just such an assumption. That gave us humans a sense of being special, significant, meaningful: we were at the center of existence; the heavens turned around us. But it was not to last. Once scientists realized that our planet was just a rock going around the Sun along with countless other rocks – other planets, moons, asteroids, etc. – a great sense of humiliation must have ensued. How presumptuous and stupid astronomers must have felt, all their aspirations of meaning and significance shattered beyond repair. What fools!
And it happened again; and again. For instance, for centuries many scholars believed that living creatures differed fundamentally from inanimate objects in that we were powered by a special force later called ‘élan vital,’ or ‘life force.’ Such distinction was construed to be sure evidence of purpose for our existence. Life was significant. We were significant. But again, it was not to last. Today, the majority of scientists extrapolate the little we know about molecular biology and assume that life is merely a complicated mechanical process. As discussed in essay 2.5, I think this assumption is wrong, but the point is that it is nonetheless accepted by the majority of scientists. In their view, after centuries of foolishly believing in our specialness, it turns out that we are just machines, not fundamentally different from rocks except in that metabolism operates a little faster than crystallization or erosion. Again we fell flat on our faces; or so most scientists suppose. We aren’t special or significant. We serve no higher purpose. We’re just like dust.
Psychologically, these are defining experiences. When you have aspirations of significance and nature conspires to show you, very publicly, how deluded you have been and how unimportant you actually are, the shame that ensues shouldn’t be underestimated. It is easy to see how this could have built right into the culture and core values of science a deep phobia against delusions of meaning. After all, it’s better to assume the very worst and be positively surprised, than to expect some kind of significance and be, again, disappointed and ridiculed. It’s better to assume – as a matter of principle – that there is no meaning and then let nature prove us wrong. This way, we turn the tables on nature: we challenge her to try to humiliate us again, if she can! For this time we are ready with our shields of cynicism. Never again will we be made to look like fools…or so the unacknowledged thought might go.
The problem is that, over time, what may have begun as a cautious value system has turned into a taboo; a cynical idea that has been instinctively taught and learned by osmosis over generations, and whose validity is now thoughtlessly taken for granted.
A taboo against meaning has the potential to be as naïve and delusional as the hope for meaning. The idea behind the taboo is that we are not special: what basis is there to assume that our existence has any significance in the grand scheme of things? But you see, who are we to decree that it doesn’t? What do we know about the grand scheme anyway? As discussed in essay 4.6, even evolution by natural selection doesn’t preclude the possibility of there being meaning and purpose to life. Our earlier conceptions of meaning have historically been proven hollow because they were ingenuous. Today, who would think that being physically located in some kind of cosmic center is a precondition for purpose and significance? The ingenuousness and failure of our earlier conceptions of it doesn’t imply that meaning itself is illusory.
At the end of the day, the fact is: the universe exists; life exists. Assuming that it all came out of nowhere for no reason is as much a leap of faith as anything can be.
4.6. Darwinian evolution: an open door to purposefulness
Rather simply put, the key idea behind Darwinian evolution is that species evolve from other species by the accrual of genetic mutations that provide a survival advantage. This has become known as evolution by natural selection and the evidence for it is overwhelming: it comes not only from the fossil record, but also from comparative genetics and comparative anatomy of living species. Laboratory experiments have also confirmed the phenomenon on a small scale.127
The problem, however, is that Neo-Darwinists conflate the established fact of evolution by natural selection with another hypothesis that is anything but established: that the genetic mutations at the root of the entire process are themselves random or blind.128 I believe such failure to separate belief from known fact is motivated by the Neo-Darwinist program to drive purpose and meaning out of nature.129
Indeed, the notion of ‘random mutations’ is hardly questioned today, hitching an easy ride with evolution by natural selection as if all the evidence for the latter were also evidence for the former. Many people uncritically take these two ideas to be intimately associated, but little could be further from the truth. In this essay, I will make the case that there is no convincing evidence that the mutations at the root of evolution are random, which opens up the possibility that evolution is a purposeful natural process.
Each segment of an organism’s DNA is either associated with a functional characteristic – an aspect of anatomy or physiology – or consists of non-coding DNA with no known phenotypical role.130 This non-coding DNA accumulates over time through evolution due to certain genetic amplification processes.131 For now, let’s consider only the functionally active part of the DNA. It is mutations in this part that lead to speciation, or the creation of new species. To say that the genetic mutations at the root of evolution are random implies this: if we simply looked at the functional changes caused by each raw genetic mutation before natural selection either fixed or deleted it, we should not be able to identify any phenotypical pattern or trend. There should be no preferential direction or gradient in the kinds of functional changes caused by the raw mutations over time. Only after natural selection should this be the case. This way, all the obvious patterns we can identify in the fossil record – as well as all over nature today – are allegedly the result of natural selection alone, the underlying mutations themselves being random.
There are formal randomness tests in information theory.132 Given a data set, we can run one of these tests and verify whether or not the data in it has discernible patterns. For this to be feasible, however, the data set has to be either complete or very densely sampled, since patterns can be easily lost if pieces of information are missing. Let us illustrate this with a simple example. Consider the number sequence below:
1 –2 –3 –4 –3 –2 –1 –2 –3 –4 –3 –2 –1
Suppose that this is our original, complete data set, representing a given phenomenon. Clearly, the phenomenon isn’t random, for the numbers follow a pattern: they ascend from 1 to 4, descend back to 1 and then the process repeats itself. Now imagine that, for whatever reason, we lost some of the numbers in our data set (marked with an ‘X’ below). We now have only an incomplete data set:
X –2 –3 – X –3 – X –1 – X –3 –4 – X – X –1
Or, more simply:
2 –3 –3 –1 –3 –4 –1
Clearly, this incomplete data set shows no pattern or trend. It isn’t representative of the original phenomenon. Because of the gaps in the data, we are unable to discern the underlying pattern and might wrongly conclude that the original phenomenon itself was random.
Like the incomplete data set above, the fossil record preserves only a small amount of the raw genetic mutations – or their functional, phenotypical correlates – that occurred during the course of evolution. Of all successful and unsuccessful species that have ever lived on Earth from the dawn of life, and of the countless unique organisms with non-viable mutations that never reproduced, how many have been preserved in the fossil record? And of those preserved, how much of the full range of their anatomy and physiology can be inferred from the record? In technical terms, our sampling of the complete data set is extremely sparse. Most of the data has been lost. Whatever patterns m
ight have been present in the original phenomenon cannot be reasonably assumed to be recoverable from such sparse sampling. Therefore, when one talks of ‘random mutations,’ one is in the position of asserting, based on a massively incomplete data set, that the original phenomenon was patternless! One simply cannot know this. To say that the genetic mutations at the root of evolution were random – that is, patternless – is a paradigmatic statement of faith, not of empirical fact. We have never run a randomness test on a sufficiently complete set of raw genetic mutations to know the answer either way.
Let’s now turn our attention to the present, as opposed to the fossil record. How much can be inferred about the complete historical set of raw genetic mutations from the DNA of living organisms today? Not much. Natural selection ensures that most mutations in the functionally active part of the DNA are not preserved. Therefore, nature itself, by construction, continuously eliminates large chunks of the original information. The noncoding DNA is a slightly more promising avenue: since it isn’t necessarily filtered out, it may indeed preserve a kind of sparse genetic history. However, there are two reasons why this isn’t enough: first, the patterns we are hypothesizing here have to do with the functional characteristics – the phenome – of the organisms. In other words, the hypothesis is that the raw mutations themselves, not only natural selection, are biased towards certain anatomical or physiological trends at different points in time. Since non-coding DNA, by definition, has no role in anatomy or physiology, it is irrelevant for the hypothesis. Second, even if noncoding DNA were relevant, it would still be unreasonably optimistic to imagine that a sufficiently dense sampling of all raw mutations that have ever taken place in the history of life on Earth could have been preserved this way.
In conclusion, one cannot assert that the raw genetic mutations underlying evolution are random on a geological scale. We are in no position to test this, for we simply do not have the necessary data over sufficiently long periods of time and across a sufficiently large population of species. That such a belief gets casually conflated with evolution by natural selection itself – for which there is overwhelming evidence – is incredibly misleading. It conveniently enables those who espouse a mechanistic view of nature to claim evolution as evidence in their favor.
Science is about finding the patterns that underlie nature. It is a fundamental premise of scientific activity that there may be patterns in natural processes where we can currently see none. To deny this amounts to arbitrarily decreeing an end to the process of scientific discovery. Indeed, openness to – and even an inner hope for – the possible presence of as-of-yet undetected patterns are integral to scientific inquiry. After all, new scientific conclusions arise from the patterns we do find, for these are the footprints of the laws of nature. Neo-Darwinism is an aberration in that one of its key conclusions arises precisely from the alleged absence of pattern, even though no substantial evidence for it exists.
To be sure, I am not outright stating that there is a pattern or a purpose behind the raw genetic mutations underlying evolution. I do not know it, since we do not have the data to conclude either way. What I am saying is that the possibility that there indeed is a purposeful pattern is scientifically as good as that there is none.
As discussed in essay 2.1, I hold the view that all reality is grounded in a transpersonal form of consciousness that I call mind-at-large. Each living creature is merely a dissociated complex, or alter, of mind-at-large. Since intentionality is a paradigmatic attribute of mind, it isn’t then unreasonable to hypothesize that, underlying the evolution of life, there is a transpersonal form of intentionality. As such, evolution by natural selection could reflect an iterative attempt of mind-at-large to reach certain goals. This doesn’t mean that mind-at-large knows exactly where to go, otherwise there would be no need for iterations. Rather, the hypothesis is that nature is a laboratory of experimentation. Natural selection may work as the evaluation function used in the experiments to determine their degree of success. In the process of experimentation, mind-at-large may make mistakes: mutations that are useless or detrimental are continuously tried out. But through iterative trial-and-error, it may adjust its strategies and advance towards its goals.
Some may claim that there is no conceivable mechanism for closing a feedback loop in this hypothetical learning process. In other words, they may claim that there is no way in which the mere existence of organisms arising from natural selection could influence future genetic mutations at a microscopic level. But this criticism ignores what we have learned from quantum physics over the past century. We know that genetic mutations are, at bottom, probabilistic quantum events. We also know that, at the quantum level, nature is non-local: an event in one place can instantly affect an event in another place over arbitrary distances.133 This opens the door to the possibility that the results of natural selection can tilt the probabilities of future genetic mutations through non-local quantum effects. In other words, the performance of an organism in the theater of nature could hypothetically influence what raw genetic mutations tend to happen next, thereby inducing a non-random pattern.
Finally, some may argue that my hypothesis is unnecessarily convoluted and inflationary, since there is no need for there to be feedback loops that create patterns in the mutations themselves. The proven mechanism of natural selection is allegedly enough to explain the emergence of all biological complexity we can see. But that, of course, begs the question: we simply don’t know whether natural selection really is sufficient as far as its explanatory power. We haven’t run a controlled evolution experiment at the scale of the Earth, over almost four billion years, wherein all genetic mutations were generated strictly randomly, to see if similar variety and richness of life would have emerged under those controlled conditions. So we just don’t know. If anything, the astonishing richness and variety of life we see around us today seems to suggest precisely that some form of built-in intentionality is at play at the root of the evolutionary process.
Of course, this whole hypothesis seems highly implausible under the subjective value system of a materialist, mechanistic worldview. Perhaps precisely for this reason, Neo-Darwinists feel the need to pass the alleged randomness of mutations for fact, when it is merely a hypothesis. Be it as it may, the alternative scenario I am putting forward here is entirely plausible under the view discussed in essay 2.1. Indeed, given all the evidence, it is entirely plausible to imagine that the evolution of life serves a universal purpose. This in no way whatsoever contradicts the established fact of evolution by natural selection.
4.7. To understand the anomalous we need more skepticism, not less
In September of 2014, arch-skeptic Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine and field marshal of militant skepticism worldwide, wrote a surprising piece for the Scientific American magazine.134 In it, Shermer relates a synchronicity that had recently happened to him and his wife Jennifer in the occasion of their wedding ceremony. A vintage, long-defunct radio set that originally belonged to Jennifer’s dead grandfather had suddenly begun to play music again right at the start of the ceremony, suggesting to Jennifer that her grandfather was somehow present. Such meaningful coincidence reportedly impacted both Michael and his wife at a deep emotional level. Shermer confessed in his piece that the synchronicity – which he termed an ‘anomalous event’ – had shaken his skepticism to the core. Personally, I think this is unfortunate; it may reflect a generalized misinterpretation of what skepticism actually means. Indeed, I think the problem with the militant skeptic movement is that it isn’t skeptical enough. Like an army attempting a forward-escape when pressed into a corner, I think the solution to Shermer’s dilemma is not to abandon skepticism, but to embrace it more fully, in an internally consistent manner.
Skepticism is a general and healthy attitude of doubt. In terms of ontology and cosmology, a skeptical attitude translates into a preference for parsimony: if we can explain empirical reality with less theoretical entities, why postulate extra,
unnecessary ones? Theoretical entities should be doubted unless they are necessary to make sense of things. The parody of the ‘Flying Spaghetti Monster’135 evocatively illustrates why parsimony is preferable from a skeptical perspective. While we can’t disprove the existence of the monster, we don’t need to postulate it in order to make sense of the world. Another example: if you find footprints in your backyard one early morning, you could infer (a) that a burglar tried to break into your house during the night, or (b) that aliens from another dimension landed their spaceship at your neighbor’s property, somehow stole his shoes, and then went for a stroll in your backyard before departing to space. Although you cannot disprove explanation (b), the reason you will certainly prefer (a) is parsimony: it only requires entities that you already know to exist – namely, burglars. Explanation (b), on the other hand, requires postulating a number of new theoretical entities: aliens, spaceships and extra dimensions. Clearly, skeptical parsimony is a good and important guiding principle in our efforts to understand reality.
But parsimony regarding theoretical entities is not the same as parsimony regarding nature’s degrees of freedom. Less theoretical entities may actually imply that nature has more degrees of freedom to operate. Let me unpack this with an example: during the 17th century, so-called ‘effluvium’ theories dominated research on static electricity.136 For centuries it had already been observed that if a piece of amber was rubbed it would attract chaff. Researches postulated that the rubbing dislodged a material substance – called ‘effluvium’ – which then stretched out in space mechanically connecting the amber to the chaff and, like an elastic band, pulled the chaff to the amber. The problem with this theory is that it could not account for electrostatic repulsion. So committed to their effluvium theories researchers were at the time, they couldn’t even see repulsion: they would describe chaff mechanically ‘rebounding’ or ‘falling from’ the amber, but not being repulsed by it.137
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