has been in the last 150 years. We are just beginning scientifically to study the detailed behavior of complex systems— nothing as complicated as a single living cell, let alone a human being, but mostly models that are logical models that are run on computers.
Those already show us that complex systems in their totalities display astonishing properties that you would never guess from thinking about the properties of the constituent bits and pieces. Many of those properties relate to the spontaneous generation of extraordinarily high patterns of order, in other words, the spontaneous generation of something like information-bearing behavior.
Let me give you an example, chosen from Stuart Kauffman’s book At Home in the Universe. Kauffman is a chap who works on so-called complexity theory and has an interest particularly in its application to biology. Consider a system consisting of electric lightbulbs. This will be a picture of it:
The bulbs are either on or off. The system develops in steps. Each bulb is correlated with two other bulbs somewhere else in the array. What those two bulbs are doing now— either on or off— determines what this bulb does at the next step in the array, and there are very simple rules that specify this.
You start the array off in a random configuration of illumination. Some bulbs are on; some bulbs are off. Then you let it just play away on your computer and see what happens.
I would guess nothing really interesting would happen. It would just twinkle away haphazardly as long as you would let it, but that is not true. The system soon settles down to a self-generated, extraordinarily ordered behavior cycling through a very limited number of patterns of illumination.
If there are ten thousand lightbulbs in the array, there are two to the ten thousand [210,000] or ten to the three thousand [103,000]different states of illumination, in principle possible. That is a one followed by three thousand zeros. In actual fact, you will find that the system will soon cycle through one hundred different patterns of illumination. One with three thousand zeros possibility has somehow spontaneously gotten focused down into a hundred possibilities. That is quite an astonishing generation of order. I can see that as the generation of information. In fact, I think, if I remember correctly, he calls that chapter “Information for Free.”
So, there are still lots of things to discover. I don’t say there aren’t problems. Of course there are, and they certainly are not solved yet. I do think we should be wary of generalizing too quickly.
PETER KR EEFT
January 23, 2003
Good evening and welcome to Socrates in the City. I am Eric Metaxas. Socrates in the City takes its name from Socrates, who, of course, famously said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Then he drank the hemlock and died.
Do I have that out of order? Oh, right. He said, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” at some point earlier in his career, and he said it in a very positive way, meaning that we are to examine our lives. Of course, I think he was quite right.
We are, indeed, to examine our lives. It makes life much more worth living. So, a bunch of folks, most of them friends of mine, and I were thinking that most New Yorkers are so busy that we don’t really take out the time in our lives to examine our lives with any particular rigor. We thought that putting on these events called Socrates in the City and inviting speakers like Dr. Kreeft to address some of the big issues of life would be advisable.
It actually turns out that we were dead wrong. These have been a disaster, and I think this will be the last one we do. I’m glad you’re laughing.
These have been really extraordinary. I have to say I am humbled by the turnout tonight. The turnout has been consistently good, the speakers have been wonderful, and these things have been as successful as I have hoped. In any case, we call these events Socrates in the City: Conversations on the Examined Life, and they are meant to be conversations, not only in the question-andanswer that follows the talk but also after these events, when we leave from here. We hope that we have begun a conversation in your mind and that you will be thinking about these things beyond this evening.
In any case, you can’t go wrong following Socrates’s advice on the matter of examining your life. Of course, Socrates didn’t have to pay New York rent and could spend all his time thinking about his life. But you get the idea—and it is a good idea—and we are thrilled you can be here tonight to do it with us.
Tonight, we are privileged to have the estimable Dr. Peter Kreeft with us. Dr. Kreeft is a philosophy professor at Boston College, which, I am told, is located in Boston— is that right?
He is also a very, very much sought-after speaker. Believe me, it was very difficult to get him; we are lucky to have him. He has written many books— over forty— and many bestsellers among them. Most notably for tonight, he has written an absolutely fabulous book titled, appropriately enough, Making Sense out of Suffering, and of course, that will be his subject.
The goal of Socrates in the City is to attack the big questions— the biggest questions of all: about the existence of God, what it means to be human, about evil and suffering, and about where we come from and where we are going. We shouldn’t be scared by those questions.
Living in New York, you sometimes get the idea that the biggest questions we deal with are along the lines of “Do I take the cab or the subway?” Or, if I am on the second floor, “Do I take the elevator or do I walk down?” That is a big one for me.
For Boston, where Dr. Kreeft is from, I think one of the big questions that have really been in the minds of Bostonians and the people in Massachusetts for a long time now is “Why did Dukakis wear that absurd helmet?” I don’t think there is an answer. It is almost a rhetorical question, isn’t it? I don’t think there is an answer.
Another question Bostonians have, of course, is “Why can’t the Boston Red Sox1 get it together and win the World Series?” I am sorry; that is probably below the belt. Dr. Kreeft, please don’t leave. You have to keep in mind that I am a Mets fan; I was born in Queens. So, we are brothers in our disdain for the Yankees. It is a bond that we share as a Mets fan and a Red Sox fan. Let’s just pretend that the Bill Buckner thing never happened, and we will just be friends.
Anyway, tonight we are here to ask a big philosophical question. Woody Allen, in his writings, always had a knack for putting the huge philosophical questions right up alongside the picayune, practical problems of life. There are a couple of things that he wrote along these lines that I love, and I wanted to share them with you this evening. For example, he wrote, “Can we actually know the universe? My goodness, it is hard enough finding your way around in Chinatown.” That’s such a typical Woody Allen line that it’s almost not funny, right?
He also said, “The universe is merely a fleeting idea in God’s mind— a pretty uncomfortable thought, particularly if you just made a down payment on a house.” And this is my favorite; it’s more apocalyptic than it is philosophical. He wrote, “The lion and the lamb will lie down together, but the lamb won’t get much sleep.”
You’ll never be able to stop thinking of that. I wish I had written it. Anyway, perhaps one big question many of us have here tonight is whether the speaker’s name is pronounced “Kreeft”
