Synchrony,
nature’s true beauty
In a period of war, terror and chaos, human
affairs may seem rowdy, but the rest of
nature is buzzing along just fine — thanks
to intrinsic properties that emphasize teamwork
and synchrony from the atomic level up.
In fact, scientists say that sync is embedded
in the rules of nature, rules we’ve never
been able to figure out with basic calculation
and observation alone — even though we’ve
been surrounded by them since the beginning.
Anyone who has seen the aquatic ballet of
schooling fish knows that nature provides
glorious examples of synchrony — the rhythmic
interplay of parts that combine in patterns
to make up a greater whole. But this is
nothing compared to what advanced computing
and sophisticated math have shown recently:
Sync underlies some of the most complex
and perplexing phenomena around, from fireflies
to human consciousness and from traffic
to energy.
For instance, how do some groups of fireflies
manage to flash together in rhythm, as if
driven by a drumbeat indistinct to the rest
of the world? For years, only the lucky
people who saw the spectacle believed in
it. Today, however, science verified that
the firefly brains are equipped with a metronome,
which sets the pace of their flashes based
on what other fireflies are doing. If, by
chance, a few insects flash in unison, others
will notice and adjust their own flashes
to match, until the entire group is putting
on a coordinated light show with no leader
to set the tempo. Wow!
How about human consciousness, the most
sophisticated organism of nature? Metaphorically
speaking, if the brain is an orchestra,
each neuron plays a different instrument.
With no conductor, the brain creates order
out of chaos by using sync. Recognizing
a face, for example, requires neurons to
put together a huge amount of data. A familiar
face may cause 80 percent of the neurons
to fire in unison. If 90 percent join in,
it’s even more likely that the face will
be recognized. In this sense, science now
logically entertains the hypothesis that
all consciousness may be the result of synchronized
neuron-firing.
The last place you’d expect to find sync
would be on the highway—but, according to
“traffic physicists,” it’s not quite so.
Despite motorists’ tendency to tailgate
and cut off other drivers, they most often
avoid traffic jams simply by acting in sync.
In computer simulations, for example, cars
and trucks spontaneously synchronize, traveling
as a solid block of vehicles, striving to
find the most efficient routes.
Nature, by itself, generates all kinds of
energy, from mechanical to nuclear. Energy
is the dynamic quality that never diminishes
or ceases to exist, continually fueling
something to do work. And—guess what—there
is synchrony in energy as well. With energy
disappearing in one form and reappearing
in another, the total energy in nature always
remains constant; the synchrony of energy
is never really lost.
When, for example, an oak tree dies, irrespective
of whatever internal changes may take place,
its energy will continue to circle in nature.
Death may be the end of a person’s conscious
life, but it signifies, at the same time,
the beginning of a new one in a different
form.
The fact that everywhere we look, to whatever
depth we look, we find a design of absolute
harmony and cooperation stands opposed to
the idea of chaos and disorder. The deeper
question, however, is: What is the actual
source of this mystifying synchrony in nature?
Is it a higher being, such as God? Or, is
nature the source of its own harmony? To
these questions, I’d unassumingly respond
with a further question: What if God and
nature are one and the same?
As imperfect beings, we may never come to
know the answers — and grab a hold of the
eternal truths. They are a matter of philosophy
and, in a way, pure faith. At the same time,
we — the daring people who have always looked
for, but failed to find a remedy in the
supernatural realm — need to recognize that
the key to the deepest mysteries of life
resides within the realm of nature. In other
words, regardless of how much we contemplate
and speculate via philosophy and religion,
the best way to understand the complexity
of life is still by observation and falsification
alone.
Barlas F. Esin is a journalism major and
a philosophy minor at Cal State Long Beach.
He can be reached at besin@csulb.edu.
|
