Latent Types In The Fabric Of Nature Poem by Denis Mair

- a prose meditation on where we should look for the origin of life.

Some forward-looking scientists (such as James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis) have been laughed at for suggesting that earth and cosmos are somehow intelligent and alive. I totally sympathize with their point of view. Old-fashioned science says everything that happens in the cosmos comes from blind, random collisions of atoms. They try to grind physical matter under the boot-heel of their mechanistic philosophy. Bullshit! The natural laws that incubated us could not be stupider than we are. Physical matter is stardust. The natural laws underpinning matter are beautifully interwoven in a way that enables life to emerge. We need a new vein of science that recognizes immanent intelligence, present in the way laws fit together. It may not be the fleshly theater of consciousness that we're used to. It is solid-state, non-local intelligence that is manifested in the interrelated, life-fostering properties of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, etc.[1] Some scientists are groping toward this kind of breakthrough in understanding, for instance Michael Denton. In his books 1) THE DESTINY OF NATURE; 2) EVOLUTION, STILL A THEORY IN CRISIS; and 3) THE WONDER OF WATER, he speaks of the 'possibility-spaces' of carbon chemistry and the theory of 'TYPES' that are latent in the fabric of nature. When taken together synchronically, these TYPES foreshadow the diachronic growth of the tree of life. The TYPES correspond to major phyla, classes, orders and genera on the tree of life. As potential forms (existing in possibility space) , they are nestled together like Russian dolls; when they are serially instantiated as living beings, they emerge and unfold like branches on a tree.

Denton claims that DNA is the optimum information-carrying molecule, being well-suited to coding for enzymes and proteins, which in turn are the optimal nano-assemblies for carbon-based life. He claims that the TYPES gravitate towards either radial or bilateral symmetry in their body plans, because those are optimal structures for multi-cellular organisms. He says the complexity of these structures seems to suggest a designer, but he admits it would be a leap of faith to conclude that an intelligent designer stands outside the fabric of natural law. I respect his reluctance to make that leap, because I cannot conceive of how a supernatural designer could manipulate natural laws. Are there laws at the interface of the supernatural and the natural that partake of both realms? Does the creator formulate natural laws, then suspend them at his will? Where are the handles by which a supernatural designer could manipulate natural laws as if operating a machine? This is not for us to know. To posit an external designer seems to multiply the difficulties. Instead of saying that a supernatural designer stands outside of natural law, why not say the cosmos itself is both holy and natural. Why not say that the cosmos itself possesses creative intelligence? Must divine agency and cosmos be separated? Why?

The clearest evidence we have is an elegantly woven fabric of material properties, without which life couldn't have emerged. (Evidence by revelation leads to contradictions among communities of faith.) To say that a Creator stands outside of natural law would be a leap of faith. To locate the creative principle within a fabric of natural laws would mean that intelligence is immanent in the cosmos. I take a pantheistic path, which holds that the cosmos itself is divine.[2]

Note:
[1] Perhaps such immanent intelligence bootstrapped itself through massive distributive processing of structural information throughout a quantum matrix, even before the emergence of physical matter.
[2] Here I would like to mention a doctrine called 'PANENTHEISM, ' which holds that a divine power pervades the universe. That is, divine power is at work from WITHIN everything (hence '-en-, ' which means 'in') . Panentheism does not necessarily believe in multiple gods of the natural world, as in pantheism. It does not claim to know whether or not the divine power is a single personal god, as in monotheism. I like panentheism because I am interested in what intelligence is and where it comes from.