Human Dignity and Bioethics

72 | Robert P. Kraynak
“The Intelligibility of Nature.” 18 Davies’s thesis is that we live in a
universe that is highly intelligible—indeed, it is written in a “cosmic
code” with mathematical precision—and that such a universe could
not have emerged by accident. Accidents are random processes, and
they are not sufficient to explain the universe’s evolution from its
original simplicity to the highly organized and complex structures
of today, including life and consciousness. Random processes are
structurally arbitrary (why should a boundary be here or there?) and
statistical odds weigh heavily against the chance creation of order
in a finite amount of time: it assumes “an unreasonable ability for
matter and energy to achieve complex organizational states.” A more
plausible inference is that the universe’s features emerged by a different
type of causality—“self-organizing complexity,” meaning formal
causes of some kind that organize matter and energy into ordered
wholes, like galaxies, living cells, and human minds.
While “self-organizing complexity” hearkens back to Aristotle’s
formal causality, Davies finds it not in an eternal order of the universe
but in the expanding and evolving universe of modern cosmology:
“The universe began in an essentially featureless state, consisting of a
uniform gas of elementary particles, or possibly even just expanding
empty space; and the rich variety of physical forms and systems that
we see in the universe today has emerged since the big bang as a result
of a long and complicated sequence of self-organizing physical processes….
Consciousness should be viewed as an emergent product
in a sequence of self-organizing processes that form part of a general
advance of complexity occurring throughout the universe.” Davies’s
bold conclusion is that “the emergence of mind is in some sense inevitable”
and that it is unscientific to regard intelligent life as “either
a miracle or a stupendously improbable accident”; for “the laws of
nature encourage…the emergence of intelligent organisms with the
ability to understand nature at the theoretical level.” In other words,
nature is directed toward intelligent life and even seems to aim at
conscious understanding of itself as its natural end.
Davies is cautious enough to say that this does not necessarily
imply the guiding hand of an intelligent God, but he does say
“we may legitimately talk about ‘cosmic purpose.’” He hedges a
bit by referring to his view as “teleology without teleology” because
the laws of nature, once given, operate with both determinism and