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2. God’s
or Nature's Laws?
For forever and a day, humans
have attributed their existence to the work of an intelligent
designer, a godhead who created all life. All religions tell
some sort of creation story that addresses the question of why
we are here. Scientists, on the other hand, have traditionally
been concerned with the ‘how’ rather than the ‘why’
of things. They might ask, not why we were created, but how
we came to be. That is an altogether easier question for science
to tackle. According to the scientists’
version of creation, we ultimately owe our existence to the
fundamental laws of nature. In many ways, cosmologists see
this as rather a simple affair. From a few natural laws and
an inert gas, comes all the diversity and complexity of life,
the universe and everything.
Indeed, Professor John Conway of Princeton
University showed beyond doubt that simple rules can create
complex patterns. He invented a simple mathematical game consisting
of a grid of squares, which he called Life. Some squares are
filled with counters, whose fate is determined by three basic
rules that correspond to birth, life and death. When this
game is run on a computer, what transpires is a pattern that
looks as though it were purposeful enough to have been designed.
‘My little Life game is surprising
because from the simple rules one wouldn’t expect to
find things that move in a sort of purposeful manner. It mimics
life to that tiny extent. Like a little mini universe,’
says Conway.
The notion that the universe was created
with purpose begins to disintegrate in the face of a greater
understanding about how complex systems can emerge from randomness.
And they do so with no further input than a few simple rules.
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