Complexity

   Lewis Thomas writes a lot about the complexity of biological systems, using a chain or network metaphor. Talking about the way diseases have evolved in tandem with the workings of the immune system (and how the immune system often overreacts), he remarks, "We are systems of mechanisms, subject to all the small disturbances, tiny monkey wrenches, that can, in the end, produce the wracking and unhinging of interminable chains of coordinated, meticulously timed interaction (1979, p.82)." While Thomas might be overstating the mechanistic aspect of life, he seems to correctly surmise that living beings are implicated in very complex fields of being, where things interconnect in complicated ways. To me, the idea that all living things are related in a complex way sheds a different light on what the meaning of success is. After reading Thomas, I am inclined to think of successful adaptation more as a sideways reaching outward to benefit others in an organized way, rather than using an elevation metaphor of 'upward climbing'. Perhaps this is what adaptation means: finding ways to harmonize or co-exist, rather than trying to stand out in some way.
   The problem with this model, in a sense, is that it can seem a bit too much like assimilation. While a person might think that their purpose in life is to adapt to the society in which they live, that person also has a part play in influencing how the system works. It isn't that the system is static and individuals find a way to hitch onto a spoke in the wheel. Rather, we also have ways of communicating with this mechanism in ways that potentially could alter it, particularly when we find more effective strategies for performing things. Sometimes, I wonder if perhaps there are two things happening when people harmonize with groups or communities: the first, considering what the community has to offer, and second, looking into their own mystery to find out what they have to offer the community. Without this two-fold discovery process in place, a person is left somehow having to fit into what already exists as a system, rather than taking time to explore the differences they make as individuals in the system.
   Could it be that wisdom is the process of clear seeing within to resonate with what happens in the whole? The more I can understand my own mind and its tendencies, the more I find a way to be spiritual which allows my potentials to connect with others' potentials. The challenge lies in being able to be true to one's abilities and talents while infusing them with a spiritual teaching or principle.


Thomas, Lewis (1979), The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher  Toronto. Bantam Books