ELEPHANTS AND THE CONQUEST OF THE UNIVERSE

Edwin Francisco Herrera Paz

Yesterday, while watching TV with my kids (Nat Geo, I guess… can’t really recall), I was surprised to see a group of African elephants trying to rescue one of its babies that had fallen into a lagoon where the herd was quenching its thirst. It was virtually impossible for the little creature to escape for there was a certain height from where the baby was to where the elephants were standing. While the baby was drowning, his aunt came down, and standing behind him began her rescuing attempt. Given her unsuccessful efforts, his mother went down as well, also joined by a male. After many efforts, the mother came up with an ingenious idea: instead of pushing the baby out through to the steep end, she pushed her son several feet to the other end, which was much lower. With the help of the entire herd the baby finally came out, but then, suddenly, began to sink into the muddy soil. The elephants tried in vain to get him out, because the more he struggled, the more he sank in. Suddenly, the mother came up with another idea: she began to dig a canal in front of her son. She was soon joined in this task by other elephants until the baby was finally rescued through a dry canal. The entire rescue operation lasted around 7 minutes.

Incredible! I was simply astonished. Who says humans are the only intelligent beings on earth? In front of the camera, this impressive group of mammals showed more intelligence than some civilized people. Among the features of this rescuing operation one can notice a very quick emergency response, perfect coordination and teamwork, ingenuity and creativity, but most importantly, a strong will to help their fellow. The operation seemed to be performed by a well trained rescue team.

Science shows, increasingly, that intelligence is not a gift limited to us, bipedal mammals; that it’s widely distributed among the animal kingdom. However, only humans have the ability to transcend our environment and daily lives, use our members to create very intricate mechanisms, and to develop sophisticated and highly accurate forms of communication. Despite that, I have no doubt that if we allow the evolution of elephants a sufficient amount of time (which could be considerable depending on environmental pressures), they will end up adapting their trunks to the use of tools, developing a complex form of oral communication, and increasing their capacity for abstraction and planning. And maybe, just maybe, they could become a technologically advanced society.

The question arises: are we humans unique? Has God built this magnificent universe to be enjoyed only by us, imperfect fallen mammals, full of passions, with a tendency to destroy each other? Well, I'll tell you what I think.

Why would God create something as rare as life in the first place? Really, life is something very, very strange. While most events in the universe tend to increase disorder (which in physics is called the second law of thermodynamics), life just seems to follow the opposite path. The simple forms evolve to form more complex structures, and this occurs at multiple levels, in a manner that resembles fractals. The temporal direction of life seems to be opposite to that of the inanimate world. Although other types of complex systems exist, the evolution towards complexity causing a variety of adaptive forms of life is unique, as far as we know; but why?

Specialized molecular machines evolved to cooperate and form organelles; different organelles specialized and cooperate to form cells; cells specialized and cooperate to form tissues; different tissues specialized and cooperate to form individuals; individuals specialize and cooperate to form communities; communities specialize and cooperate to form conglomerates of communities, and so on. Do these processes of increasing complexity end with globalization? Or, is it possible to conceive multiple levels of complexity above this?

This evolution to complexity is not limited to the human race. A colony of ants (or other eusocial species) functions as an orchestrated whole that has been considered by some scientists as a superorganism, and there are many examples in biology in which the limit between community and organism is blur. I can say that the distinction between an “organism” and a “community of lower level organisms” is just the result of our tendency to structure reality into categories, which is, at the same time, the result of operational, pragmatic cerebral processes that helped us survive as a species. Categories are useful in science as well as in daily life.

However, levels of complexity do not possess true boundaries. We are a continuum that goes from organic molecules to communities. In this sense, all living beings on earth (and perhaps other planets) are tide to each other. We are parts of the same river of life, flowing from free, simple molecules to progressively higher levels of beautiful order and complexity.

In my personal opinion, what God intended allowing the development of life through physical laws, was to create a system capable of conquering. Conquer what? You may ask. Well, I do not know, but I can sure speculate. I think that if living systems are allowed the sufficient time to develop, could some day, through higher orders of complexity, domain progressively larger environments and finally save the universe from an inevitable death. Living systems could someday find a way to control the omnipresent and destructive second law. At a very large level of complexity a universal superorganism will have mastered the intricate recesses of the physical world, including the secrets to neutralize entropy.

Wow! Can you imagine? The domination of the second law of thermodynamics and the immortality of the universe obtained by the systems which God created for that purpose! The second law is related to destruction and disorder. In the spiritual world, destruction and disorder, namely evil, are related to malignant entities with decadent purposes. It is likely that in some distant future humanity will finally understand that theology and science are two sides to the same coin.

Well, maybe we will conquer the universe, but only if we survive. It is now that we have our chance. The dinosaurs ruled and fail, and if we fail other species may take our place. Who knows? Perhaps elephants, birds, a social insect, or specie we now neglect to see. It all depends on how we deal with security problems for humanity: climate change, nuclear weapons, the dangers of an annihilating pandemic, sustainable development, caring for our environment, or even the danger of a meteorite impact. In addition humanity must, at this crucial and decisive time, develop new models to successfully expand to higher levels of complexity.

AFTER ALL WE ARE THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE

By: Edwin Francisco Herrera Paz

One of the complaints of reactionary science is that humanity, for the longest time, lived in obscurantism primarily attributed to the dominance of the Catholic Church and its imposition of religious dogmatism to the crowds. Of these paradigms perhaps the most criticized are the anthropocentric and geocentric theories.

The work of Galileo, Kepler, Copernicus, Darwin, Wallace and others put a definitive end to those misconceptions and proved, without any doubt, that the earth was not the center of the universe, and that human beings were not all that special and unique entities.

We are not the center of the universe, and ultimately religion had to pay the price for the imposition of a deceiving misconception to humanity bound by the ecclesiastical power. They were wrong. They believed that some biblical texts, especially Genesis, had to be interpreted literally; that the forbidden fruit was actually a fruit of a planted tree, and that Satan really did come through a snake; that God really built the universe in seven days, and so on.

However, since ancient times many erudite scholars of the scriptures warned that the above texts should be interpreted as allegories, and as a notable example I refer the reader to the exegesis of an Alexandrian man called Origen. He used allegory to reconcile the Old Testament with the New. Although in our time, the need of allegory as an explanation to reconcile science and the Scriptures becomes even more necessary.

The allegoric nature of sacred texts becomes obvious when one asks: How long was a day before the sun and the earth were “created”? Since a day is defined as the period in which the earth makes a complete turn on its own axis, if taken literally, the biblical text makes no sense. And if we go beyond that point, a deeper question arises: How long was a day when there was no time? Certainly time and space were created at the same moment and cannot be separated from each other.

To my surprise, I have discovered that when Genesis is read taking into account that it was written for all further generations of humans and not simply as a mere technical manual to fit our modern scientific paradigms, we find the Bible is perfectly in tune with modern scientific knowledge. God created Adam and Eve out of clay, because from the mud were all species created throughout time by means of evolution, including us. And God´s creation has taken some time. Seven days is actually 13.7 billion years according to those approximates given by astrophysicists. 

We humans, as all other living organisms on earth share the same genetic code as well as the same protoplasmic structure, built mainly of protein. But for some reason we feel separately special, unlike any other living being, so far indeed that we call “animals” creatures as different as a worm and a chimpanzee, and we extract ourselves from that definition, despite that the similarities between us and chimpanzees are much greater than those between them and worms.

But what makes us really different, if we are indeed? Do we really have the spirit of God within us? I believe we are in fact made in the image of God, and that we are (in a sense) the center of the universe.

According to Stephen Hawking we humans are made of basic biochemical matter, that`s living in an simple ordinary planet in an ordinary planetary system, located in an very ordinary galaxy. That is, this is a typical place in the universe without any special features. However, in the universe we find that matter is far from common. A typical place in the universe is almost an absolute vacuum. Matter is in fact a rarity. And the temperatures and conditions of our world are also far from typical. Even if there were a million worlds that could harbor life, it would not be at all typical. Life is, rather, an extraordinary rare exception.

So what about mankind? The human brain is an astonishing computing machine capable of processing extremely complex information. Thus, we can make great mathematical models out of phenomena, such as supernova explosions, formation of black holes, and the nature of quasars and pulsars. We can go as far as to even formulate mental representations of what happens in the very boundary of our visible universe.

We can mathematically model the origin of the universe, galaxies and stars, and life itself. In other words, the complexity of the brain, despite its small size, may reflect the same patterns of virtually any possibly different physical environment. Our brain can imagine, interpret, model and make predictions. Two things which could not be more different, as the collapse of a star and the brain can follow the same mathematical patterns. The human brain is able to replay, to be a sounding board of universal phenomena. Our brain reflects physical reality in the same way a diapason resonates when its single note is played.

The information that the brain is capable of handling matches the information contained in the universe. Although I must say that not all information, but the one that includes the basic principles, which would be, in theory, enough to recreate the entirety of what is and exists. And we're just at a beginning, constantly learning at an exponential rate, and if were to add to all which is the human brain a higher step of complexity to include, (as I like to call it) a “global brain” with all its computing aids, we would then realize that the potential we humans have is almost infinite.

Carl Sagan said that our home is just a pale blue dot floating in infinite space. I say that we are fragile and ephemeral, but when we understand the potential that lies in human beings; that our intelligence could lead us one day to the stars and beyond; that perhaps one day we could be capable of mastering the information in such a manner that we could control the second law of thermodynamics; that as a race we could, perhaps someday, be able to create matter and complexity taking from the fountain of inexhaustible energy in the unseen world of a microcosm where particles are continuously being born and die, then our perception of reality changes.

When you finally appreciate those things, a sense of teleology invades you; you realize that we are not here by chance and that every one of us, like all species on earth, are bridges to higher purposes about which we do not yet have a clear conscience of. And that is precisely what Scripture teaches us; eternal purposes that we can only roughly understand through the revealed word. No doubt science will gradually enlighten us, at a small step by step rate, about our place in the cosmos.

In this sense we are God's image. We are creatures with mechanisms for interpreting a highly complex reality, which are still developing. Technological living beings, including us and any other technological race in the vastness of space, are the center of the universe, hereof in sense that we are pinnacles of acknowledgment, understanding and mastering, but also, and most concomitantly undergoing intellectual development, we have actually obtained the capacity to interact with the Creator through our own individual spirit.

Yesterday I asked

Edwin Francisco Herrera Paz. Yesterday, before praying, I reviewed the things I wanted to ask my Lord. I would like a house. Yes, yes. A huge, pretty house. How do I want my house to look like? Well, maybe like the luxurious Tiger Wood’s house at the beach. It's exactly the kind of house I want. I like it. It is very spacious and comfortable, and it’s near the sea. I also need a car. I have two, but they are a little bit old. I want a latest model. A European truck, perhaps. And additionally a sports car. I visualized it. Metallic blue, shining with the radiance of the sun. Beautiful. All muscle.

I also need a surgery room for my small hospital, not only for a higher profit (it is placed in a very poor area of my home country, Honduras), but also to help a greater number of people: material goods are best enjoyed when they bless others.

I need physical and mental health for me and my family. I want my children healthy and without complications, any kind of them. I also need wisdom to write and teach my classes. Maybe someday I'll win the Nobel. Or perhaps the Pulitzer? Who knows? I’ll ask for it to. And what about ummm, a million dollars? In the past I used to pray for a few thousand, but for God, there is no difference between one thousand and a million. I also thought about asking for the world's poor, for the needy, and for the emancipation of slaves, prisoners of their personal chains, or others’. There is nothing wrong in asking. The children ask their father, and the kind father provides its children.

Jesus in his teaching said: "Ask and ye shall receive. Seek and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be opened." The prayer of faith is one of the most powerful forces of the universe. Skeptics doubt, but they certainly will never see faith in action, for faith and doubt are opposites: one cannot exist in the presence of the other. Jesus said, "If only your faith were the size of a mustard seed...."  Well, all those things I shall ask my Lord and the Lord will give them to me if I ask with faith.

After thinking about all these issues I began to hear a gossip: "with great power and glory," and I began to pray. Just then I felt a special presence; a presence of love and protection. I think it's like the feeling a child, not yet born, experiences in the mother’s womb. At that moment I forgot all those things I wanted to ask, because all things were small; because everything is too small when in his presence, in the presence of God, the Creator.

And then, I did not ask for anything because at that moment I had it all. I could only say, "be thy will, Lord".