The Divine Gardener

I want to propose a simple idea – not much more than a thought-bite. The idea itself can be explained quite briefly. Proving it takes a little longer. The implications and applications of the idea, however, can go a long way.

The idea is this: G-d is not a super-engineer, a master designer nor an architect on a universal and microscopic level. At least, that model of the way He works is neither accurate nor productive. Instead, a more correct image of G-d is that of a Cosmic Gardener.

A gardener creates within the restrictions of the laws of nature. G-d may differ from the human gardener in that He authored the laws and is bound by them only by choice. Nevertheless, he has formed the Universe since its first moment of inception largely as if He was indeed constrained by such laws.

However, the critical difference between an engineer and a gardener is that the perfect engineer should experience no surprise. The Perfect Designer would plan out His Creation down to the minutest detail and then implement it exactly according to the plan. The phrase "and he saw it was good" would not be applicable for such an ideal architect.

A gardener may guide, uproot, nurture and weed his creation but the initiative seems to come from the plants themselves. The gardener may have an overall criterion for what is good: He may desire that the garden be green and lush or colorful and diverse. However, the exact dimensions of the outcome are not determined in advance. Rather, if a beautiful plant does well and flourishes, such a plant will be given attention and help. It may be given extra space or encroaching intruders weeded. A gardener may plant a specific species but since much depends on the seemingly independent growth forces of the plants themselves, the gardener may very well be surprised, reflect on the outcome and see that it is good. Each individual plant may develop in ways not under the direct control of the gardener. The plant as such proposes. The gardener, in response, disposes. A gardener is, in essence, an opportunist.

I propose a model that unifies G-d's guidance of His Creation both during the pre-human evolutionary phase as well as the human, historical period. We are used to the idea that human beings may have Free Choice. However, it is not only human beings that have the power to propose and create new historical directions. Life as a whole is allowed to develop its own paths. Nevertheless, in both phases there is a complex and dynamic relationship of initiative from one side and guidance from the other. There is outburst form one side and prevention or limitation from the other. In neither case is the outcome determined in advance. There are always many possible outcomes. Nevertheless, there are clear criteria for what the nature of the results should be. There is always a distinction between desirable and unwanted.

Combining and unifying two very different periods: the evolutionary and the human, gives us great intellectual power. We can apply the understandings and empirical observations of one to propose understandings of the other. We start therefore by showing that the gardener is the most appropriate model to apply to the process of evolution.

We need to start with some probability theory. We will try and keep the discussion intuitive and concrete. We can get the ideas across without abstract mathematical formulations. Let us start with a simple thought experiment. Take three coins. If we flip them all, there is only a one in eight chance that they will all end up heads up. That means that we need to repeat the experiment about eight times to get a reasonable chance that we should succeed at least one time. If we have 4 coins we need 16 times, 5 needs 32 and so on. If we have one thousand coins we would need an astronomical number of times: we would write it as a 1 with about 300 zeros after it. The thirteen billion years that our Universe has existed for is a number of seconds that is less than 1 with 18 zeroes after it. So even if we repeated the experiment once every second since the Universe began we would not have a hope. There are, as far as Cosmologists know, at most trillions of stars in the Universe. Even if they each have lots of planets and we repeat the experiment on every square meter of every planet every second we would not get close.

However, all hope is not lost. There is a way to get all 1000 coins to end heads up and it's going to take less than ten tries! I flip all 1000 coins. Around 500 will be heads up. I hold these down in the next try and allow only the rest to flip. Now another 250 will be heads up and so in total around 750 are heads up. I hold all these 750 still and allow only the rest to make their random moves. We will now have 875, then 937, 961,985,993,996,998,999 and then all 1000 will be heads up. The last few numbers are a little uncertain because the statistical sample is low but by about 15 tries there is very little chance of not having achieved our goal completely. We have made the impossible easy!

Now you might say that I might as well simply set up all the coins heads up and forgo the whole random pretence. However, the fascinating thing is that, as I will show soon, G-d or whoever the Cosmic Designer is, seems to use exactly this method. He does not just build some fixed outcome ex-nihilo. Instead, what we see is exactly such a process of random fluctuations that nevertheless make progress due to continuing intervention and guidance.