Article – Seeing Order in the Universe
This is the second in a series of articles on commonalities across religions. In the introductory article for this series, we refer to these commonalities as “common threads” because they are woven th
This is the second in a series of articles on commonalities across religions. In the introductory article for this series, we refer to these commonalities as “common threads” because they are woven throughout human history and reflect the fact that we are all made of the same fabric. However, there is great diversity and beauty in the many different colors of dye observed across cultures and belief systems.
In our previous article, we explored the common thread of belief in a higher power, a belief that is closely tied to our inclination to make meaning through seeking order out of chaos.
The ability to see order in the world is and always has been vital to our biological survival. Our ancestors’ abilities to study and interpret the stars in the night sky, for instance, enabled them to develop better navigational skills and to better understand the passage of time and predict time-dependent phenomena like the changing of the seasons.
In addition to this survivalist need, we have an existentialist need to establish order where there is none. Our minds simply find meaninglessness and chaos unpalatable.
This compulsion for order has catalyzed the creation of society, nations, corporations — institutions created in order to fill the void of chaos and meaninglessness that we would otherwise be prone to experience. We see this in rhythmic poetry and music. We see it in the way we look for railway timetables or in the regularity of our daily newspaper. Something as small as packing a child’s bag every morning gives us order in our day.
But there is also an extraordinary order in the universe that exists independent of us — the tides, the stars, or the ways in which our cells divide and multiply, and the precision with which the sun rises every morning and sets every evening are just a few examples of this.
There is order in the web of diverse lifeforms that have existed for far longer than we have. It was by apprehending the logical order running through the amazing biodiversity of the Galapagos Islands that Charles Darwin was able to formulate his theories of natural selection. There was order to be seen in the ways that different species of birds were uniquely adapted to their own specific environments, each having differently shaped beaks to suit their respective needs.
We tend to spontaneously feel a deep sense of mystery and awe when witnessing this quality of order that exists independently of us. This order lives well beyond humanity. Robert C. Fuller, a scholar of psychology and religion, explores this sense of awe in his book Wonder. He describes one of the mysterious features of order in the universe that is particularly striking, the prevalence of the number “Phi.”
“The most commonly cited example of how mathematics can unleash the emotion of wonder is the mystery surrounding the number Phi[…]What is so astonishing about this number is that it spontaneously appears in the most unexpected places. If we count the female bees in a beehive and divide that number by the total of male bees, we approach the number Phi. Or if we examine the ratio of successive spirals on a mollusk, we again arrive at Phi[…]Nor does it end there. Instances of Phi appear throughout the world in great works of architecture (e.g., the Great Pyramid) as well as great music compositions (e.g., Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony).”
This is echoed in the Qur’an, which affirms that the same truth is being spoken in “monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques in which Allah’s Name is often mentioned” (Qur’an 22:40). Similarly, Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism (the fifth largest religion in the world with 25 million followers) taught that, “There is but one God. True is his name, creative his personality, and immortal his form. He is without fear sans enmity, unborn and self-illumined. By the guru’s grace he is obtained.” God, Yahweh, Allah, the One, Brahman, the Tao — absolute reality is spoken of with many names by many voices. Whether we hear concordance or discord in these many names has important consequences for the future of our species, as all too often we have seen conflict and violence erupt over the misguided conviction that the God of one religion is “true,” while those of all other religions are “false.”
As a species, we have always wondered who or what created us, who or what created the Earth and the Heavens, who or what is the cause of the laws of nature, natural disasters, and so on. A leading theory in the field of neuroscience known as “predictive coding” argues — I think convincingly — that our brains function as prediction machines.