Shantaram - Theory of Ultimate Complexity

Hi everyone! Some of you are maybe familiar with the book Shantaram. It really fascinated me when I read it a few years ago. Without going into the intricacies or details, since some of you may not have read it, I highly suggest it. Rarely has a book really left such an impression on me. It's filled with amazing quotes along the way, and philospohical questions and conclusions by the main protagonist. Other than that it's philosophical side is very much present, and that is why I write about it here.

In Shantaram there is a fascinating talk between two characters, and in case you are interested in philosophy, I can presume you will enjoy in this excerpt!

‘The history of the universe is a history of motion,’ Khader began, still looking at the boats nodding together like horses in harness. ‘The universe, as we know it, in this one of its many lives, began in an expansion that was so big, and so fast that we can talk about it, but we cannot in any truth understand it, or even imagine it. The scientists call this great expansion the Big Bang, although there was no explosion, in the sense of a bomb, or something like that. And the first moments after that great expansion, from the first fractions of attoseconds, the universe was like a rich soup made out of simple bits of things. T hose bits were so simple that they were not even atoms yet. As the universe expanded and cooled down, these very tiny bits of things came together to make particles. Then the particles came together to make the first of the atoms. Then the atoms came together to make molecules. Then the molecules came together to make the first of the stars. Those first stars went through their cycles, and exploded in a shower of new atoms. The new atoms came together to make more stars and planets. All the stuff we are made of came from those dying stars. We are made out of stars, you and I. Do you agree with me so far?’

‘Sure,’ I smiled. ‘I don’t know where you’re going yet, but so far, so good.’

‘Precisely!’ he laughed. ‘So far, so good. You can check the science of what I am saying to you— as a matter of fact, I want you to check everything that I say, and everything you ever learn from anyone else. But I am sure that the science is right, within the limit of what we know. I have been studying these matters with a young physicist for some time now, and my facts are essentially correct.’
‘I’m happy to take your word for it,’ I said, and I was happy, just to have his company and his undivided attention.

‘Now, to continue, none of these things, none of these processes, none of these coming together actions are what one can describe as random events. The universe has a nature, for and of itself, something like human nature, if you like, and its nature is to combine, and to build, and to become more complex. It always does this. If the circumstances are right, bits of matter will always come together to make more complex arrangements. And this fact about the way that our universe works, this moving towards order, and towards combinations of these ordered things, has a name. In the western science it is called the tendency toward complexity, and it is the way the universe works.’ To continue this point, the universe, as we know it, and from everything that we can learn about it, has been getting always more complex since it began. It does this because that is its nature. The tendency toward complexity has carried the universe from almost perfect simplicity to the kind of complexity that we see around us, everywhere we look. The universe is always doing this. It is always moving from the simple to the complex. ’The universe,’ he continued, ‘this universe that we know, began in almost absolute simplicity, and it has been getting more complex for about fifteen billion years. In another billion years it will be still more complex than it is now. In five billion, in ten billion— it is always getting more complex. It is moving toward …something. It is moving toward some kind of ultimate complexity. We might not get there. An atom of hydrogen might not get there, or a leaf, or a man, or a planet might not get there, to that ultimate complexity. But we are all moving towards it—everything in the universe is moving towards it. And that final complexity, that thing we are all moving to, is what I choose to call God. If you don’t like that word, God, call it the Ultimate Complexity. Whatever you call it, the whole universe is moving toward it.’

‘Isn’t the universe a lot more random than that?’ I asked, sensing the drift of his argument, and seeking to head it off. ‘What about giant asteroids and so on? We, I mean our planet, could get smashed to fragments by a giant asteroid. In fact, there’s a statistical probability that major impacts will occur. And if our sun is dying— and one day it will— isn’t that the opposite of complexity? How does that fit in with the movement to complexity, if all this complex planet is smashed to atoms, and our sun dies?’
‘A good question,’ Khaderbhai replied. A happy smile revealed the run of his slightly gapped, ivory-cream teeth. He was enjoying himself in the discussion, and I realised that I’d never seen him quite so animated or enthused. His hands roved the space between us, illustrating some points and emphasising others. ‘Our planet may be smashed, it is true, and one day our beautiful sun will die. And we are, to the best of our knowledge, the most developed expression of the complexity in our bit of the universe. It would certainly be a major loss if we were to be annihilated. It would be a terrible waste of all that development. But the process would continue. We are, ourselves, expressions of that process. Our bodies are the children of all the suns and other stars that died, before us, making the atoms that we are made of. And if we were destroyed, by an asteroid, or by our own hand, well, somewhere else in the universe, our level of complexity, this level of complexity, with a consciousness capable of understanding the process, would be duplicated. I do not mean people exactly like us. I mean that thinking beings, that are as complex as we are, would develop, somewhere else in the universe. We would cease to exist, but the process would go on. Perhaps this is happening in millions of worlds, even as we speak. In fact, it is very likely that it is happening, all over the universe, because that is what the universe does.’

‘Okay okay. And you want to say— let me guess— that everything that helps this along is good, right? And anything that goes in the other direction— your spin on it is that it’s evil, na?’

In essence, you are right. Anything that enhances, promotes, or accelerates this movement toward the Ultimate Complexity is good,’ he said, pronouncing the words so slowly, and with such considered precision, that I was sure he’d spoken the phrases many times. ‘Anything that inhibits, impedes, or prevents this movement toward the Ultimate Complexity is evil. The wonderful thing about this definition of good and evil is that it is both objective and universally acceptable.’

‘Is anything really objective?’ I asked, believing myself to be on surer ground at last.

‘When we say that this definition of good and evil is objective, what we mean is that it is as objective as we can be at this time, and to the best of our knowledge about the universe. This definition is based on what we know about how the universe works. It is not based on the revealed wisdom of any one faith or political movement. It is common to the best principles of all of them, but it is based on what we know rather than what we believe. In that sense, it is objective. Of course, what we know about the universe, and our place in it, is constantly changing as we add more information and gain new insights. We are never perfectly objective about anything, that is true, but we can be less objective, or we can be more objective. And when we define good and evil on the basis of what we know— to the best of our knowledge at the present time— we are being as objective as possible within the imperfect limits of our understanding. Do you accept that point?’

‘When you say that objective doesn’t mean absolutely objective, then I accept it. But how can the different religions, not to mention the atheists and agnostics and the just plain confused, like me, ever find any definition universally acceptable? I don’t mean to be insulting, but I think most believers have got too much of a vested interest in their own God-and-Heaven franchises, if you know what I mean, to ever agree on anything.’
‘When we say that this definition of good and evil is universally acceptable, what we mean is that any rational and reasonable person— any rational and reasonable Hindu or Muslim or Buddhist or Christian or Jew or any atheist, for that matter— can accept that this is a reasonable definition of good and evil, because it is based on what we know about how the universe works.’

‘I think I understand what you’re saying,’ I offered when he fell silent. ‘But I don’t really follow you, when it comes to the … physics, I guess, of the universe. Why should we accept that as the basis of our morality?’

‘If I can give you an example, Lin, perhaps it will be clearer. I will use the analogy of the way we measure length, because it is very relevant to our time. You will agree, I think, that there is a need to define a common measure of length, yes?’

‘You mean, in yards and metres, and like that?’

‘Precisely. If we have no commonly agreed criterion for measuring length, we will never agree about how much land is yours, and how much is mine, or how to cut lengths of wood when we build a house. There would be chaos. We would fight over the land, and the houses would fall down. Throughout history, we have always tried to agree on a common way to measure length. Are you with me, once more, on this little journey of the mind? Well, after the revolution in France, the scientists and government officials decided to put some sense into the system of measuring and weighing things. They introduced a decimal system based on a unit of length that they called the metre, from the Greek word metron, which has the meaning of a measure.’

‘And the first way they decided to measure the length of a metre was to make it one ten-millionth of the distance between the equator and the North Pole. But their calculations were based on the idea that the Earth was a perfect sphere, and the Earth, as we now know, is not a perfect sphere. They had to abandon that way of measuring a metre, and they decided, instead, to call it the distance between two very fine lines on a bar of platinum-iridium alloy.’

‘Platinum …’

‘Iridium. Yes. But platinum-iridium alloy bars decay and shrink, very slowly— even though they are very hard— and the unit of measure was constantly changing. In more recent times, scientists realised that the platinum-iridium bar they had been using as a measure would be a very different size in, say, a thousand years, than it is today.’

‘And … that was a problem?’

‘Not for the building of houses and bridges,’ Khaderbhai said, taking my point more seriously than I’d intended it to be.’

‘But not nearly accurate enough for the scientists,’ I offered, more soberly.

‘No. They wanted an unchanging criterion against which to measure all other things. And after a few other attempts, using different techniques, the international standard measure for a metre was fixed, only last year, as the distance that a photon of light travels in a vacuum during, roughly, one three-hundred-thousandth of a second. Now, of course, this begs the question of how it came to be that a second is agreed upon as a measure of time. It is an equally fascinating story— I can tell it to you, if you would like, before we continue with the point about the metre?’

‘I’m … happy to stay with the metre right now,’ I demurred, laughing again in spite of myself.

‘Very well. I think that you can see my point here— we avoid chaos, in building houses and dividing land and so forth, by having an agreed standard for the measure of a unit of length. We call it a metre and, after many attempts, we decide upon a way to establish the length of that basic unit. In the same way, we can only avoid chaos in the world of human affairs by having an agreed standard for the measure of a unit of morality.’

‘I’m with you.’
‘At the moment, most of our ways of defining the unit of morality are similar in their intentions, but they differ in their details. So the priests of one nation bless their soldiers as they march to war, and the imams of another country bless their soldiers as they march out to meet them. And everybody who is involved in the killing, says that he has God on his side. There is no objective and universally acceptable definition of good and evil. And until we have one, we will go on justifying our own actions, while condemning the actions of the others.’

‘And you’re putting the physics of the universe up as a kind of platinum-iridium bar?’

‘Well, I do think that our definition is closer, in its precision, to the photon-second measure than it is to the platinum-iridium bar, but the point is essentially correct. I think that when we look for an objective way to measure good and evil, a way that all people can accept as reasonable, we can do no better than to study the way that the universe works, and its nature— the quality that defines the entire history of it — the fact that it is constantly moving towards greater complexity. We can do no better than to use the nature of the universe itself. And all the holy texts, from all the great religions, tell us to do this. The Holy Koran, for example, is often telling us, instructing us, to study the planets and the stars to find truth and meaning.’

‘I still have to ask the question, why use this fact about the tendency toward complexity, and not some other fact? Isn’t it still arbitrary? Isn’t it still a matter of choice as to which fact you choose to use as the basis for your morality? I’m not trying to be obtuse here— I really think it still seems quite arbitrary.’

‘I understand your doubt,’ Khader smiled, raising his eyes to the seasky horizon for a moment. ‘I, too, felt very sceptical when I first began along this road. But I am now convinced that there is no better way to think of good and evil, at this time. That is not to say that it will always be the best definition. With the measure of the metre, as well, there will be another, slightly better way to measure it, in the future. As a matter of fact, the current best definition uses the distance travelled by a photon of light in a vacuum, as if nothing happens in a vacuum. But we know that all sorts of things are happening in a vacuum. There are many, many reactions taking place in a vacuum, all of the time. I am sure that in the future an even better way to measure the metre will be found. But, at the moment, it is the best way that we have. And with morality, the fact of the tendency toward complexity— that the whole universe is doing this all the time, and always has— is the best way we have to be objective about good and evil. We use that fact, rather than any other, because it is the largest fact about the universe. It is the one fact that involves the whole universe, throughout the whole of its history. If you can give me a better way to be objective about good and evil, and to involve all the people of all the faiths, and all the non-believers, and the whole history of the whole universe, then I would be very, very happy to hear it.’