The Emergence of Everything : How the World Became Complex

This book looks at the history of the universe, explaining the succession of steps in the emergence of complexity. Emergent properties are those features of any system that resist reductionist approaches, that cannot be anticipated or understood by a complete analysis at the next lower level. Emergence is thus the key concept of the sciences of complexity, and Morowitz maps the path to our present position and condition into successive emergences, from primordial conditions of the big bang, to human transcendent and religious thought. This book will be a contribution to the dialogue between science and religion, as well as an ambitious, mature statement of the antireductionist agenda of the sciences of complexity, by one of our wisest scientists.

When the whole is greater than the sum of the parts--indeed, so great that the sum far transcends the parts and represents something utterly new and different--we call that phenomenon emergence. When the chemicals diffusing in the primordial waters came together to form the first living cell, that was emergence. When the activities of the neurons in the brain result in mind, that too is emergence.In The Emergence of Everything, one of the leading scientists involved in the study of complexity, Harold J. Morowitz, takes us on a sweeping tour of the universe, a tour with 28 stops, each one highlighting a particularly important moment of emergence. For instance, Morowitz illuminates the emergence of the stars, the birth of the elements and of the periodic table, and the appearance of solar systems and planets. We look at the emergence of living cells, animals, vertebrates, reptiles, and mammals, leading to the great apes and the appearance of humanity. He also examines tool making, the evolution of language, the invention of agriculture and technology, and the birth of cities. And as he offers these insights into the evolutionary unfolding of our universe, our solar system, and life itself, Morowitz also seeks out the nature of God in the emergent universe, the God posited by Spinoza, Bruno, and Einstein, a God Morowitz argues we can know through a study of the laws of nature. Written by one of our wisest scientists, The Emergence of Everything offers a fascinating new way to look at the universe and the natural world, and it makes an important contribution to the dialogue between science and religion.