Pervaiz sahib
Mr.
Rafi Aamer had sent in his
review and comments on my essay 'Nature of Nature'. I have
been very impressed by his observations. There were some
explanations and points of clarification in his write-up. I
request you to please send my reply to him and post it at
the appropriate site if you think it advisable.
Thank you
Zia
NATURE OF
NATURE
Reviewed by Mr. Rafi Aamer
Explanation and
reply by Ziauddin Ahmed
March 2005
The following are my comments on Mr.
Ziauddin Ahmad's essay "The Nature of Nature". The full text
of the essay can be found
here. I will quote the part of the essay that I am
commenting on. The entire context can only be understood by
reading the full text, my quotations from the original essay
only serve as pointers. All emphasis in the excerpts are
author's.
Let me begin by saying that the entire
premises of this essay is very intriguing. I have enjoyed
reading it and found it very thought provoking. Although I
may not agree with portions of it, I do appreciate the
thought process of the author and his presentation. Quite
remarkable.
At the
outset let me just say what a pleasure it was to receive
your views. You, I can safely say, are one of the few people
who have really read the essay critically and have examined
the core of its message. Your discussions and observations
are very valuable to me and I earnestly appreciate your
review and comments. It seems I have finally found someone I
can communicate with. I hope you will allow me to continue
the discussion and elaborate some of the points you have
raised in the review.
Now, my comments. My general
impression about the premises is that while intellectually
stimulating, it is generally hypothetical. Mr. Ahmad did not
present any evidence as the basis of any of his assertions
so I can not call this a theory (as in scientific theory).
My exposure to philosophy is very limited and to mysticism
even lesser and some of the finer points in the essay seem
to belong to those realms and my inaptitude might show in my
comments for which, please accept my apologies and treat me
as a eager but novice student.
You are correct. The whole idea in the essay is
hypothetical. It cannot be substantiated by evidence,
scientific or otherwise. I have mentioned this at the very
outset, in the preamble I made out in the introduction of
the essays. Please visit my web site at www.tidylink.net
Mr. Ahmad writes:
It is said that ‘Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder’.
Were there no beholder there would be no beauty and were
there no beauty no beholder would be needed. The one is the
essence of the other. If the beholder were to shut his eyes
would beauty cease to exist? According to one school of
philosophy it would. Yet, it would perhaps exist, but both
the beauty and the beholder would be unconscious or unaware
of each other and thus be unaffected by each. Only awareness
gives meaning to things. The effect of a thing makes it
presence felt and the presence of a thing gives it the
effect. It takes two to tango.
The Creator would be nothing without the created, and the
creation would have been meaningless if it did not give any
satisfaction to the Creator Itself.
Lets see if I got it right. A affects
B, however that effect is registered or perceived is
insignificant. "The effect on B is proof of the
existence of A" is the simplest way I can put it. I am
watching television. The television screen is sending out
light pulses to my retina and my brain translates those
light pulses into pictures. Due to this effect, I know that
the picture on television exists. If I am not looking at it,
its not registering any images on my brain but it still
exists. It has an existence independent of any effect on me.
Let me reiterate that I am emphasizing only on the ‘cause’
and its ‘effect’. I am by no means denying or supporting
the existence of either one or the other. My primary concern
is the seeking of purpose and / or reason for the Beauty and
the Beholder’s existence. As in your example of the
television my main concern is the cause of the impression on
the brain. Not the reason for the existence of the picture
or the television. I am saying that the picture is the cause
of the registering of the image on the brain. The image is
the effect of that cause. The question is WHY the cause and
WHY the effect?. Their existence is a pre-drawn conclusion
and is not being questioned at all.
Lets see the last sentence of the
paragraph again
The Creator would be nothing without the created, and the
creation would have been meaningless if it did not give any
satisfaction to the Creator Itself.
Note that the author is not saying
"The creator would be nothing without the created and the
creation would have been nothing without the creator"
which would have been consistent with thesis presented just
before this assertion, which was
both the beauty and the beholder would be unconscious or
unaware of each other and thus be unaffected by each.
Instead, in my opinion, the author
departed from this assertion when he wrote that the
"creation would have been meaningless" if it didn't provide
"satisfaction" to the creator. Also, the creator wouldn't
have been a creator without creation, agreed, because to
qualify as a "creator", one has to create something but is
that all that is to it? The entity that hasn't created
anything has an existence anyhow. It doesn't need to create
something to exist.
Re assess my comments above and see that my interest is
in the reason for the being of both the creator and
the created. I am not questioning the fact that they exist.
I am in full agreement with you when you say: “ The entity that hasn't created anything has an existence
anyhow. It doesn't need to create something to exist.”
Once again, the assertion, in my
opinion, is that the proof of existence of A is in the
effect it has on B. This is nothing new. Its the same old
argument of "The First Cause" in a round about way where
effects on B provide proof of existence of A but existence
of B is only required to give satisfaction to A or has some
other purpose. Or, since we are here, there must be a God.
After establishing it, Mr. Ahmad
writes,
simple statement can have profound significance. For
instance, ‘Any and everything anyone does, does so for their
self’. It sounds quite selfish, but seen in a non material
sense it gives an axiomatic connotation. The self cannot be
separated from ITSELF, however much one tries.
Total agreement but to explain this,
one doesn't need to use non-material sense. Its been shown
that every living thing in the world is genetically
predisposed to be selfish. Since the explanation of that
claim is somewhat irrelevant, I have written it on a
different page and following is the link to that page for
anyone who's interested.
Again I agree with you. The non material remark above is
basically sarcastic and only shows my corny sense of humour
.It was primarily made because most of us see only the
material substance in life and are absorbed in the
mundaneness of day to day existence.
Genetic selfishness
This is an excellent piece and it only goes to support my
contention in the other essay, ‘Ultimate human reach’.
Lets, for the argument's sake, stick
to Mr. Ahmad's assertion and consider the notion of
selfishness in the non-material sense. What is the purpose
of this assertion? The purpose is that Mr. Ahmad is drawing
a parallel between human beings and the Creator. He writes
The Sadhu, Sufi and Saint may be able to detach their-self
from themselves but they remain attached to the Over-Self,
which is nothing but another dimension of Self. Once again
the deed may be completely unselfish yet its very
performance yields some or other form of effect or
satisfaction on either of the Selves.
In the later part of his essay, he
expands this.
For instance, what would be the motivation of leaders,
sages, philosophers and the like? Power, and the desire for
it may motivate leaders. Tranquility, and the quest of peace
may be the search of the sage; and love of knowledge and the
quest for truth may
work
for the philosophers.
and
Remember, we are told that ‘Man’ is made in the image of
‘God’, so if we were to study the nature of ‘man’ it should
give some inkling to the nature of the Deity Itself.
So
1- Man is made in the image of God, so
its nature should give us some hints about God.
2- Men like leader and sages sometimes
do things that are rewards unto themselves and have no
apparent ulterior motive.
3- The apparent absence of ulterior
motive doesn't mean that there isn't one because they may be
guided by a very selfish motive of discovering themselves or
finding satisfaction in the said acts.
Having established that, Mr. Ahmad
moves in for the kill
The Deity, therefore, having all else in the bag, is seeking
to become aware of Itself.
Fine, but there are a couple of
problems.
Maintaining that man is made in the
image of God and has some fleeting resemblance to the deity,
Mr. Ahmad only gives examples of leaders, sages and
philosophers. What about megalomaniacs? What about serial
killers? Who can say with any authority whether the Deity is
reflected more in Mother Teresa or Adolph Hitler?
The example of leaders, sages etc. is just to establish the
idea of various forms of motivations and stimulations for
different people. Also to establish the point that each one
of us are desirous of self fulfillment in one way or the
other.
Now the question of serial killers, megalomaniacs etc., can
be better explained by the genetic science and its allied
fields of knowledge. In my opinion human are an evolution
over the basic animal self. They are only above them by
virtue of the development of the brain. Humans will continue
to exhibit both tendencies of pure animal behaviour and also
the control of it by the use of the intellect. This struggle
lies at the very heart of man’s progress. Those that learn
to harness their animal behaviour will advance and improve.
Man’s development and further evolution will be in the field
of mental power and intellect. This is brought about by the
refining process of knowledge and education. This concept
has been expanded in ‘Ultimate human reach’.
Secondly, most of the activities by
most of the people most of the times have ulterior motives.
Mr. Ahmad's assertion requires focusing out a large number
of human actions to concentrate on a precious few. The
reason we are brushing the many aside in favor of few is not
provided.
In many natural processes it is observed that a sieving and
selection of the constituents is done, and either the
‘fittest’ or the ‘most suitable’ is selected or remains in
the end. Just one example to elaborate this. A large number
of semen swim towards the egg but only one reaches and
fertilizes it. It is only that one which matters. Those
lost on the way were an essential part of the process but
are not lamented upon by nature, or its laws, that governs
them.
Thirdly, to believe the thesis, one
has to accept that God shares the emotions and insecurities
of human beings. Mr. Ahmad writes elsewhere in his essay
For surely the Deity is no earthling to be in need of rest
due to depletion of energy after hard labour or the like.
The most basic premise of the essay is that God or Deity or
the SYSTEM all have a different connotation for different
people. The most common concept of Creator is an
anthropomorphic God. This is the common concept of Orthodoxy
of the three main religions. Perhaps it was necessary to
give to God some human traits in order to understand and to
explain Him to the populace. I feel that this does not
satisfy my curiosity and also it restricts my flow of
thought. I seem to understand and fathom the Deity better as
a SYSTEM. The maker of it yet subservient his own laws and
conditions. Let me give an example. In the Qur’an, God is
said to be AL HAYO AL QAYYUM. (This cannot be translated in
a single format for it covers four attributes or qualities
of the Deity. It means THE LIVING, ETERNAL, SELF SUBSISTING,
EVER SUSTAINING – all at the same time.) Now which entity
can encompass all these four simultaneously. It has to be
some sort of a system. Something like a perpetual motion
machine – surely beyond the normal laws of Physics. Now if
we assume for a minute that this phenomena is possible then
it will be a SINGULARITY of existence. Science is still
trying to study the singularity of the big bang. Once it
decodes it we may understand AL HAYO AL QAYYUM)
I am looking at the Deity as a System, or if you wish as a
Phenomena, and so I say, GOD’S ALONE IS THE PERFECT SYSTEM
AND, SYSTEMATIC PERFECTION LEADS TO GODLINESS.
So there are at least some things that
Deity doesn't share with humans. Who can say, without
invoking religious scriptures, what God shares with humans
and what He doesn't. If you invoke a scripture, then you
have to reconfigure your image of the God according to the
package presented by the scripture, to which I will come
to in the following part of my comments.
Provided the scripture’s meaning is universally and
completely understood. If the scripture is God’s revelation
it would be instinctively and universally understood by all
the creation. Let us take an example to elaborate this. It
is universally understood by all living things that food is
requirement for sustenance and survival, for which they
struggle as per their abilities. It is in the nature of all
living things to protect their existence in the best way
that each can. Every living thing knows and implements the
propagation of its species. And many similar other truths.
Growth and multiplication of species come about by the
adoption of these basic procedures of the Natural law. The
ones that survive and flourish are the ones, that as per the
‘natural selection’ are capable of it, others that do not
make it are never the less participants in the whole scheme
of things. They are a cog in the wheel and serve that
purpose in the natural system. This in my opinion is the
way revelations made, instinctively to every living
creature, to function and perform according to its station
of existence in the phenomena of Nature.. So the question
is then what is the need for the scriptures ? The
scriptures, or if you wish the revelations, are enlightened
pronouncements by individuals who have the qualities and
abilities of a higher level than the common multitude and
they are those who can see beyond the ordinary. They think
more, feel more, and visualise phenomena not fathomed by the
majority of their species. They are the torch bearers of
humanity. Only the leader leads, as explained in the example
of the sperm.
This is the part of the essay which
most intrigued me.
The answer to the question would lie in the fact that there
has got to be a reason for all the hullabaloo. This raises
the next question -- that of purpose..... The Deity,
therefore, having all else in the bag, is seeking to become
aware of Itself. To see how and why It does what It
does. For, when It says ‘Be’ ! a thing ‘Becomes’. Now, this
Deity, which has this power to issue a command and get
instant gratification would seeks to get awareness of Its
inherent qualities. In other words an ‘Unconscious Deity’,
capable of doing what It wishes to do, is seeking to become
a ‘Consciously Conscious Being’, studying the cause
of Its own acts. This It will do by going through the entire
process of ‘ Re-becoming Itself ’ in order to
recognize Its own Self and thereby fulfill Its own purpose,
much like the activity that all of humanity is engaged in,
i.e. seeking the reason of their own being and its purpose.
By re-enacting the play the Deity is going to gain full
awareness of Its own actions and, in the process, the reason
for them. To do this It will have to replicate Itself from
the very scratch. It seems to start with ‘the Big Bang’,
goes through the phase of expansion, condensation,
evolution, reformation and compression modes, to eventually
reach ‘the Big Crunch’. (Using terms of astrophysics ).
Religious people usually say that God
must have a purpose behind the creation but that purpose is
in God's mind and we are not equipped to understand God's
mind.
This
is due to the natural construction of humans – because they
have evolved and have acquired a mind to try and find a
meaning and reason for every thing.
I have no problem with this notion
except that I don't find myself compelled to blindly believe
that there is a purpose. But what Mr. Ahmad is saying
is refreshingly different. He is saying that by creating all
the matter in the universe and setting the processes and
laws that govern this matter, God is testing the limits of
his ability and gaining gratification from this process.
Needless to say that this is purely hypothetical and like
the hidden-purpose-of-God assertion, this doesn't have any
supporting evidence. Nonetheless, it is a very interesting
notion. I suppose people who believe in the concept of God
sketched by organized religion are going to have more
problems with this hypothesis than someone who doesn't
believe in God at all. The reason is that this concept goes
diametrically opposite to the concept of Judeo-Christian God
or Islam's God. God of Islam, Christianity or Judaism is not
a God who is experimenting and watching the results with a
glee. He is not someone who is in process of finding out.
He is a God who knows what he is doing, who knows the
results of his doings and not just that, he also tells us
what we should do. Its not an experimenting God that warns
you of eternal damnations and dire punishments. He is not
some sage or leader who is trying to see what He can do. He
is a spiteful God who destroys the entire town because of
rampant homosexuality. He is a vindictive God who kills
every first-born of every house. He is a sadist God who
sends his Son to die painfully. He is more like a God who is
trying to tell us what He can do. The Judeo-Christian
and Islamic God sounds like someone who is sure of Himself,
sometimes even too sure, and while Mr. Ahmad may interpret
some of the verses of Quran to his benefit (heck, everyone
does that), the entire body of Quran, or for that matter any
scripture of the three main organized religions, does not
support the thesis. The God of these scriptures is not
trying to "gain full awareness of its own actions" because
such an entity would be unsuitable to tell us what we should
do. Simply because the universe is still out there and He
can not gain "full awareness" of His own actions till the
end of this exercise. Till that time, He is only partially
aware and that fact alone leaves every religion without any
foundation.
This
is exactly why I feel that the idea of an anthropomorphic
God of the religion is inadequate. For if God knew
everything and the result of each action, what was the
reason for the elaborate process of creation and then its
destruction. I feel that since every man is engaged in self
discovery, some consciously while others unconsciously, so
would the Deity be absorbed in Self exploration. This whole
idea in itself is very human. But tell me in which other way
is it possible to probe ideas except in a manner which is
understood by us humans.
The reason
that I went on on this diatribe is very simple. I have a
feeling, and I may be entirely wrong and out of line here,
that Mr. Ahmad seeks Quran to support his hypothesis because
in the next couple of paragraphs that deal with "six-spans"
of creation, he started off with quoting the famous verse of
Quran that says that God created the universe in six days
(that is interpreted as spans in Mr. Ahmad's essay. As I
said, everyone interprets Quran to support his/her position,
which is fine with me as long as they don't do that to
Ghalib's poetry, then its not fine with me). Lets go
to that portion of the essay.
This is a very important and sensitive area. But I cannot be
constrained from saying that I sincerely feel that the
Qur’an has not been truly understood even by some of the
most able scholars, and least of all by the orthodox
clergy. My own attempt to understand it has been really the
outcome of the feeling of dissatisfaction at the
explanations given by most which do not seem to conform to
the observation of laws of Nature. I have had the feeling
that the core of the message is not the fear of punishment
or the motivation of reward, but the examination of the
human thought process and the explanation of human
psychology. This led me to examine the nature of things and
even the ‘nature of Nature’ Itself.
Interestingly enough you mention Ghalib’s poetry. That is another
area I have tried my hands on. Let me just say here that I
have felt that Ghalib too has been only superficially read
by most. There is a parallel between Ghalib and the Qur’an,
both are a study of humanity and its psychology.
Starting off
with the verse in question where Allah claimed to have made
everything is six spans or days, Mr. Ahmad explained those
six spans to us. Please note that there is no such
description or breakdown of these stages in Quran and these
are all hypothetical.
The six spans or stages would then be:-
(1). The stage of Ex-Nihilo, Nothingness, Zero,
Unawareness. This is the stage when the Deity is
Un-exposed, Self-contained or Dormant – not that It lacked
anything or was short of completion, but that It did not
fathom Its own power, and had yet not become conscious of
Its own capabilities and was thus unfulfilled.
(2). The stage of pure Energy, pure Form or
pure Idea. A subconscious state in which Nature is
in Its basic condition of pure thought and is
stationary—static , not yet dynamic.
(3). The phase of conversion of Energy into
matter as per ‘E=mc2’ -- The coming forth of the
Cosmos (the material Universe), the Earth and all
Non-living matter.
(4). The stage of the interaction of Energy with
Matter -- The origination of the cellular process and the
emergence of Living things -- Vegetation and sedentary life.
(5). The stage or progress of evolution, the
incorporation of mobility, and development of animal
life, the final stage of which is Man.
I would like
to break the continuity here to point something out. As I
said before the above quotation, these are all arbitrarily
drawn up spans of time. The thing that made me stop here is
in the fifth span. There is something there that for which I
would like to see some supporting evidence. This is not the
first time I have seen this claim so I am not surprised. It
amazes me how arrogant we are to assume that we are at the
pinnacle of design. What makes us think that we are "the
final stage"? Has evolution stopped? Has natural selection
been suspended? Have laws of nature been changed? The last
time I looked, none of that had happened.
A very
pertinent observation. We humans have not stopped evolving
but it seems we are the most evolved of the creation because
we have the capacity to think and question. Which other
species does this? Evolution is once again discussed by me
in the essay ‘A Muslim’s destiny.’
Lets move on
6)The stage of human journey through the various phases of
development by trial and error, and the conquering of
ignorance by knowledge and awareness, to the level of self-
advancement unto the achievement of the state of
re-merger. This is the level when Matter would have
acquired the capability to convert back to Energy, pure form
or pure thought. This is thus the stage of re-attainment of
the original Form. The position when the Deity has become
aware of Itself through knowledge acquired by humans – the
instrument created by It for that specific purpose. Man is
thus the final vehicle in Nature’s process of acquiring
self- awareness and thus Self-fulfillment through
regeneration and self-replication.
(7).
The Day or the stage or phase when re-merger occurs. This is
when Nothingness becomes Everythingness, and Everything
becomes Nothing. The Deity achieves full awareness of
Itself. The Parts become the Whole. The stage when Zero
attains Infinity. Or O
Þ
¥
(Notice
that zero ‘O’ when it repeats itself, or makes a full
reverse cycle, becomes infinity (¥
); Or when one zero fuses with another zero it
becomes infinity. Infinity is when nothingness is interwoven
with another nothingness.
The development of the phases and their explanation are my
own and not from any religious source.
And finally:
“Surely we are for God
to Him we shall
return”.
(2:156)
To fulfill this religious prophecy, the Zero (man) must move
forward and merge with another Zero (God) to complete the
cyclical Zeros i.e. infinity. For, ‘WITHOUT GOD MAN IS
NOTHING, AND WITHOUT MAN GOD IS DORMANT AND UNAWARE OF
HIMSELF’. Both are the essentials in the equation of
AWARENESS OF meaningful EXISTENCE.
There it is again; a Quranic verse
serving a purpose that it wasn't suppose to serve in my
opinion. Lets see a verse before and a verse after to
understand what's being talked about
And surely We shall try you with
something of fear and hunger, and loss of wealth and lives
and crops; but give glad tidings to the steadfast,
Who say, when a misfortune striketh them: Lo! we are Allah's
and lo! unto Him we are returning.
Such are they on whom are blessings from their Lord, and
mercy. Such are the rightly guided. (2:155-157)
Clearly, Quran is talking about an
individual's returning to Allah upon dying. This is not some
religious prophecy of "nothingness" becoming
"everythingness" in the seventh span of the universe; this
happens everyday hundreds of thousands of times and was
already happenening at the time Quran was written/revealed.
How's it a "prophecy"? I think the verse has no more cosmic
messages than saying that I am my wife's and unto her I
return after office hours.
The greatness of the Qur’an is that it
can give different shades of meaning at different times and
at different occasions, not necessarily conflicting or
contradictory, but more deep, profound and elaborative.
There may be a difference in your and my view but that is
all about individuality and uniqueness.
On with it.
Were NATURE to be an uncontrolled Force or Energy, It would
not accomplish anything but destruction. This is not likely,
for if it were so then why the elaborate process of creation
and the APPARENT systematic evolution of it.
So, since nature does accomplish
construction as well as destruction, its not an uncontrolled
force. If it were to be uncontrolled, it would accomplish
nothing but destruction. Let me ask if the reverse is true.
Is the following statement which is reversed image of the
first sentence true?
Were NATURE to be a controlled Force or Energy, It
would not accomplish anything but construction.
Exactly yes.
The destruction that is seen in NATURE is part of its grand
master plan. The effect of some cause and it effects
, functioning within ITS laws and their system. Part of an
evolution or change. The phenomena may not be completely
understood or explained by the facts currently available to
man because all laws of nature and their functioning has not
been fathomed yet. Those that have been understood and
utilized have led man to move forward. E.g. Man has learnt
and mastered the law of aerodynamics and so he has learnt to
fly in space.
I am sure Mr. Ahmad will not agree
with the reverse. As for me, I don't even agree with the
utility of this argument.
Most of the
mutations, micro or macro, end up being destructive to its
holders. Probably, one in a million is either harmless or
succeeds in improving the chances of survival of the body
its in.
That one in a million is the engine for change or evolution to
the next stage.
This
phenomenon is very much visible in viruses. Most of the
mutations of viruses in a controlled environment end up
destroying the mutated strain while very few are either as
good or better than the base model. The reason we see only
successful mutations is because they were successful and
survived for us to observe. Even in humans, some mutations
have been harmful for us. Diseases like Cystic Fibrosis,
sickle sell anemia and hundreds of other genetic diseases
are examples of very destructive mutations. Some
creationists try to use these kind of mutations as an
evidence against the theory of evolution where actually it
is an argument against intelligent design. In a purely
random process, you can not claim that the things will
always be "destructive" or "constructive". I can go a level
below and ask what is "destructive" or what is
"constructive"? Whether some event is constructive or
destructive depends on who you ask. A mutation that wipes
out a specie, lets call it specie A, can be taken as
constructive for a rival specie, lets call it specie B,
since it eases the selection pressure on B. So should we
consider it "constructive" or "destructive"? Surely
destructive for A and constructive for B. But wait, what
about specie C which is a rival specie of B but not of A?
The relief of the selection pressure on B will increase the
selection pressure on C so for C the mutation that wiped out
A is very destructive. Let me flip this argument on its head
now. Is selection pressure such a bad thing? Surely, for
individuals in a group, it is bad but for the specie, its
the selection pressure that improves the gene pool, so its a
good thing. The extinction of A will relieve selection
pressure on B and increase the selection pressure on C who
may come out as the winner. No natural effect can qualify as
constructive or destructive since it will vary from group to
group. Based on that criterion, its hard to issue a verdict
of whether nature is controlled or not. I think the real
question is whether its random or not. Whether its moving in
a systematic way to achieve a pre-set goal or not. The
absolute randomness of nature is very much visible in biota.
Some people confuse the randomness of the process with the
effects it generates. The process is truly random but the
results it generates are predictable and thus not random.
Random number generator in computers is random in the sense
that you can not predict what number would it generate next
but the true test of a random number generator is that if it
generates, lets say, 1000 numbers, they should be equally
distributed on a plane. If that pattern is not there,
the generator is not truly random. So for nature to
be controlled, it should show signs of being organized and
not random.
It seems that we can continue to argue on this for a very long
time. I just feel that since we mostly view the trees we
miss out the forest.
Now let me
correct a wrong statement that I deliberately made in the
previous paragraph. Mutations don't wipe out species. Nature
weeds out the bad mutations so the specie is spared. I could
provide some other phenomenon of nature beside mutation to
make specie A go extinct like a volcano eruption or drought
but I think nothing conveys the sense of randomness of
nature better than mutations. What is the process of nature
that weeds out bad mutations so that it doesn't wipe out a
specie? The answer to that question is a bit irrelevant so I
am writing it on a different page and following link can
take you there. You will see that there is nothing
"controlled" about it and it follows a very simple chain of
causes and effects.
How nature weeds out bad mutations?
The control in the sense Mr. Ahmad
describes it manifests in the following way, in his own
words.
To do any worthwhile thing an act has to be thought out,
planned and then executed; keeping the three -- plan,
thought and action in harmony and balanced along the way.
What's missing is the "purpose" of
that plan, thought and action. A non-random process would
surely point to a predetermined goal but, as I believe,
nature does not demonstrates any predetermined goal because
of its randomness. Mr. Ahmad calls it
its own proposed goal of true Self- education
as in the Deity discovering itself and
there I have another dilemma with this hypothesis.
The process
of self-education has to be by definition an open system. It
has to have an output mechanism as well as a feedback
mechanism. The purpose of this feedback is to determine the
nature of next steps. Had nature been such a system, we'd
have seen changes in the laws of nature depending on the
feedback yet we don't. In Mr. Ahmad's own words
Nature Itself demonstrates and achieves this by exercising
Self-subservience and maintaining Its own
Self-control through Self-discipline. Having the
idea and laying down a plan of action It executes it by
taking Itself along the route of Self-nurture,
obeying Its own laid down rules and regulations along the
way......Nature, which is capable of everything, does imply
Self- restraint even in situations where it is well within
Its power to affect change instantaneously. It does not
interfere in the workings of Its own System and its Laws,
and lets the process take its due course to bring about the
desired effect.
If someone's setting up a
self-educating system without a mechanism of feedback and
gear it for that kind of self-discipline, he is setting up
this system for a failure from the very beginning. I surely
hope, for the sake of humanity, that if there is a God, He
is smarter than that.
My dear, the
central idea of the essay is that Nature is completely
capable of affecting change or doing what it pleases. The
whole exercise is based on the premise that if this is so
then what is the reason for it to be so? The answer I get
is that the Entity is seeking a reason for it being
the way IT is. And that is what I mean when I say the
Nature is on the road to Self- discovery or Self-
awareness. To find out Why IT does what it does. The going
through the entire creative process is giving to the
Creator the reason of ITS own action. Even if the very
doing of that action i.e. ‘creation’ does not provide the
answer it will at least give satisfaction of having tried,
as trying and action is the nature of the being. This is
exactly what happens in the case of humans. Failure or
success, in my opinion, are secondary and not the primary
outcome of action and its subsequent reaction. The act of
trying is the fulfillment of ones nature, and I call it the
fulfillment of self, because it gives purpose to ones
existence. Purpose is the core of action. The true nature of
a purpose may not be known but still there is essentially
some reason or purpose for any action. The true nature of
Nature may never be known but its search is the inbuilt
motivation of human thought.
In the end,
a person who, say is blasphemous and openly curses
God.....s/he meet their own natural doom, maybe by openly
hurting a believer’s feelings and getting beaten up in
return.
I'd take that as a threat and stop
rambling. Seriously though, there are many points in the
essays that I wanted to comment but my fingers hurt and its
1:30 am.
Thank you Mr. Ahmad for writing such a
thought provoking essay.
I am
delighted to have conversed with you Mr. Aamer, and hope to
continue to remain in touch.
Ziauddin Ahmed
tidylink@yahoo.com
Rafi Aamer
rafiaamer@comcast.net