Craig Minns,

You got me there, of course Csíkszentmihályi, not Chikszentmihályi as I wrote, neither Cziksentmihaliy as you wrote, (and the ‘Cz’ is pronounced ‘Ch’ in Polish; the Hungarians have ‘Cs’ instead).

I find your observations re God of Abraham vs God of the philosophers insightful. The difference between us is, I think, that by ‘philosophy’ I tacitly assumed metaphysics and/or epistemology (see my post to Sells) whereas you ethics. And, of course I agree, that the idea of God as understood by philosophers (defined roughly only as the ultimate cause and purpose) is not as simple as the God preached about from the pulpit.

I have never heard of applying game theory (or systems theory) to the interaction of religions, if that is what you mean, but it could be very interesting. Do you have a link to an online source (not a collection of books) explaining this? I would be grateful.

Dear Yuyutsu,

What does all this mean, how should a scientist who believes in God make use of your advice? Stop with his/her research, because he/she is not doing God’s bidding? Or should ideally all research into physical reality be stopped because of that?

Are you not confusing scientists - who might or might not be religious - with those who subscribe to scientism, i.e. made science into their godless religion (which includes some scientists but also many who have a very naive understanding of science and philosophy thereof).

Hi George,
I'm afraid I can't point you at anything specifically on the topic, because the ideas I've put forward are from my own analysis.

Perhaps we differ less than you might think vis a vis philosophy vs religion. It seems to me that the epistemology/metaphysics is inherent in a systems view. In other words, what has traditionally been ascribed to God is the same thing as might more usefully perhaps be described as an emergent property of a complex system.

What makes the difference in the way they are described is contextual: if, like Yuyutsu for example, one chooses a mystical context, then that is how one will interpret any experiences which cannot be easily described deterministically. On the other hand, if one is strongly locked into an empirical paradigm, like John Nash for example, then similar experiences may be very hard to contextualise at all. Nash was famously declared schizophrenic, although I doubt he ever was. His is a fascinating story.

The problem with so much of empiricist thought has been that it struggles, like Nash did, with complexity that is not readily amenable to reductionist analysis. Bayes had a go by ignoring determinism altogether, which is question-begging. GT, GST and CT tackle the problem head on, but require the addition of iterative methods to be truly useful.

The interesting thing about them is that they don't require complex mathematics at any point and yet complexity emerges. Everything from group theory to quantum mechanics falls out, including, in my opinion, religious doctrinal underpinnings.

When combined with psychology the insights are overwhelmingly powerful.

Dear George,

Being religious is not black or white, but a gradual progress. One spends years if not lifetimes in a tug of war between God and the world. No one is totally irreligious regardless of their professed belief or lack thereof, as religion first occurs sub-consciously.

So a scientist too does not become religious overnight. Like the rest of us s/he vacillates between the yearning for God and worldly temptations. Given that the scientist still has a family to feed and bills to pay, I do not advise that they leave everything behind, nor do I advise that they do their scientific work sloppily just because they recently realised that its results do not really matter: all I suggest in their case is a change of attitude, that instead of thinking how great their work is, they do it instead as a duty, as a responsible penance for their former choices which led them into that position.

Scientists should continue to work diligently to justify the money they receive for their research - otherwise they become thieves and that won't get them ahead at all on their spiritual journey. On the other hand, as they become more religious, they should try to save enough, living frugally in order to retire sooner and still have time to pursue God full-time.

There are however exceptional scientists who feel that their work is a call from God: these do not need to change anything because they already do their work in the spirit of humility and service rather than of pride in their achievements and/or in support of scientism, or the desire to see mankind control the world. Blessed be they who do God's work.

Craig Minns,

>> what has traditionally been ascribed to God is the same thing as might more usefully perhaps be described as an emergent property of a complex system <<

This somehow reminds me of what Hawking-Mlodinow (authors of The Grand Design, Bantam 2012) have been accused of - not without justification, in my opinion. Namely, that what has traditionally been ascribed to God they explain by gravitation.

I think the concept of God (for a Christian) is more fundamental, and at the same time more philosophically subtle, than gravitation or any emergent property of a complex system studied by Bertalanffy. Scientific theories, including systems theory, serve us to have a better understanding of the world of phenomena, whatever worldview we subscribe to. In addition, for those who believe in God, these theories can also serve - through a suitable interpretation - to rationally underpin their faith; NOT to replace or explain it away.

Religion (usually though not necessarily, involving belief in God) is a very complex phenomenon. I have been looking at it from a philosophical perspective. System theory, even Bayes's theorem, might be useful when looking at its sociological function interacting with the psychological (see my metaphor with the elephant and the blind men, http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=8567#136197)

>>The interesting thing about them (about what?) is that they don't require complex mathematics at any point and yet complexity emerges. Everything from group theory to quantum mechanics falls out, including, in my opinion, religious doctrinal underpinnings <<

The last sentence is rather sweeping, though it depends on what you mean by “falling out”. To avoid misunderstandings, let me quote:

“System theory is the transdisciplinary study of the abstract organization of phenomena, independent of their substance, type, or spatial or temporal scale of existence. It investigates both the principles common to all complex entities, and the (usually mathematical) models which can be used to describe them.”

In my opinion, this implies that it can model many situations indeed, but whether it can lead to useful insights, even making predictions (like scientific theories are supposed to be able to) is a different matter.

Dear Yuyutsu,

Thanks for your thoughts. It tells me much about your spiritual disposition which I can appreciate. Including, I am afraid, your misunderstanding of what a scientist’s aims are. Not everybody - scientist or not - who is sincerely religious has to have an urge to turn into a mystic.

Truly, everybody needs to earn his living but not for all scientists is this the SOLE motivation of their work, certainly not for those (theoretical) physicists, biologists etc. who are practicing Christians.

I wrote ‘Christians’ to indicate that not only modern science as such, but also the incentive to use reason and experimentation to try to understand the physical world, is of Western, in fact Christian, provenience. Here is a quote where this is better expressed:

“It is by no means accidental that the modern physical sciences emerged when and where they did, namely, in a culture shaped by Christian belief. Two suppositions were required for the sciences to flourish, and they are both theological in nature, namely, that the world is not divine and that nature is marked, through and through, by intelligibility. As long as the natural world is worshipped as sacred—as it was in many ancient cultures—it cannot become the subject of analysis, investigation, and experimentation. And unless one has confidence that the world one seeks to analyze and investigate has an intelligible structure, one will never bother with the exercise. Now both of these convictions are corollaries of the more fundamental doctrine of creation. If the world has been created by God, then it is not divine, but it is indeed marked, in every nook and cranny, by the intelligence of the Creator who made it.” (http://www.strangenotions.com/a-theory-of-everything-a-god-haunted-film/ ).

Hi George, I don't disagree with anything you say. As I tried to point out, context is vital (the elephant and the blind men, to use your example).

On the other hand, religion, like mathematics, is a human construct and like mathematics it is an approach to organising a systemic understanding of the world. The context is different, but the purpose is the same. In fact, as you would no doubt be aware, some of the great mathematical ideas have come to people seemingly in inexplicable ways and have then taken great trouble to prove, which is not unlike the efforts of theology to prove the reality of some of the great revelatory insights driving religion, albeit within different contexts.

God is an idea to explain those phenomena which cannot be otherwise easily explained, including the internal interplay of emotion, perception and cognition that is a numinous experience. That is the very nature of emergence in complex dynamical systems.

General systems theory is important to this discussion precisely because it is, to use Wilson's expression, consilient; it is not a model of a specific system, but can be applied to analyse any system holistically. Game theory is important for the same reason, but unlike GST it approaches the problem of a system from the bottom, at the level of individual interaction (reductionism). The top-down approach of systems theory along with the bottom-up approach of game theory is essentially the same as the theological approach, replacing an inherently mysterious God, with a potentially understandable emergence from complexity.

Also, like organised religion, this approach is entirely behaviourist, and behaviours are ultimately explicable, which is why I mentioned Deutsch's CT, which is nothing less than an attempt to redefine physics, the ultimate reductionist science.

Before scientific theories can make predictions they have to be able to explain observations.