The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity's Search for Meaning

by Jeremy Lent

More than half the continent of Asia was governed by Europe, along with more than 90 percent of Africa and 99 percent of Polynesia.56

It's estimated that, in total, about twelve million people were shipped to the Americas as slaves. The conditions in the boats were so terrible that about one-fifth of those who were transported died on board.57

With science replacing Christianity as a framework for making sense of the world, leading European thinkers showed great dexterity in appropriating the new way of thinking as further justification for world domination. The early-nineteenth-century French naturalist George Leopold Cuvier contributed to a newly emerging field of scientific racism by declaring that “the Caucasian race has given rise to the most civilized nations, to those which have generally held the rest in subjection.”59

Human exploitation continues to ravage billions of lives, with the wealthiest fifth of the world enjoying 70 percent of global income while the poorest fifth scrapes by on just 2 percent.62

the early years of Islamic civilization, various groups vigorously competed for the hearts and minds of the Muslim community. Those who actively pursued the Greek classical tradition of knowledge were known as the faylasuf or “philosophers.” Another group, taking a more mystical approach to Islam, were the Sufis. However, the two principal groups that emerged were the Ash'arites, traditionalists who believed in the primacy of Islamic faith, and the Mu'tazilites, who believed

In spite of their precarious standing, the faylasuf achieved an array of remarkable intellectual breakthroughs. However, the writings of al-Ghazali (ca. 1058–1111), commonly viewed as the most influential Muslim philosopher in history, spelled the beginning of the end for the faylasuf tradition. Al-Ghazali's philosophical works became the mainstay of the Ash'arite school in their battle against the Mu'tazilites, who never really recovered from his attack. But al-Ghazali reserved his greatest vitriol for the faylasuf, in an assault that came primarily through a book called The Incoherence of the Philosophers.

In 1620, Francis Bacon observed that three technologies had transformed the face of European civilization: printing, gunpowder, and the nautical compass. All three were, in fact, inventions of the Chinese and were already fully utilized by the time of the Song dynasty.19

The scale of iron production in China was, in the words of one historian, “truly staggering,” reaching a level of 125,000 tons a year by 1076, as compared with the 76,000 tons produced in England in 1788 at the onset of the Industrial Revolution. One ironworks alone employed more than 3,600 workers.

Joseph Needham, author of the multivolume classic Science and Civilisation in China, is convinced that it's the latter. China, he writes, “had been self-regulating, like a living organism in slowly changing equilibrium.”

the cognitive structure of Islamic civilization was organized around submission to God and gave primacy to faith, Chinese civilization was organized around social cohesion and gave primacy to harmonizing with the Tao. By virtue of their cognitive structures, neither civilization was headed in the direction of a scientific revolution, and it seems unlikely that such a cognitive upheaval would ever have occurred in either of them. However, neither of these great civilizations would be a match for the cataclysmic confrontation with the forces that were unleashed in Europe

Celsus wrote a comprehensive attack on Christianity around 177 CE, every copy of which was destroyed by a fifth-century pope; we only know about it today because Origen, writing about fifty years after Celsus, responded to his arguments point by point, quoting him so extensively that 90 percent of Celsus's original work survives intact.

In the late tenth century, Gerbert of Aurillac, an accomplished mathematician, became pope. Gerbert used his influence to promote classical learning, and his followers assiduously disseminated his methods for teaching what was known as “natural philosophy” throughout northern Europe, with logic becoming a core part of the curriculum in the European cathedral schools.16

Psalm 103 described the heavens as a skin or an arched roof, it was assumed that the scriptures were speaking metaphorically.

Thomas Aquinas, whose ideas would dominate European thought for the remainder of the Middle Ages, was the first to make the unprecedented claim that theology was, in fact, a science. Indeed, it was “the most perfect science” because its knowledge came from God.26 Thomas claimed priority for theology over natural science but didn't view this as diminishing the importance of the latter. Rather, it seemed clear to him that reason could be fully reconciled with faith because both are ultimately gifts from God. It was Aquinas, more than anyone, who consolidated the framework of Christian rationalism. “There is a certain Eternal Law,” he declared, “to wit, Reason, existing in the mind of God, and governing the whole universe.”

Very interesting statement. Lays tghe foundation for Christian apologetics.

When Galileo forced the issue to a head, Cardinal Bellarmine was called to adjudicate the matter. Bellarmine had lectured on astronomy in his youth and was in close contact with astronomers in Rome who were enthusiastic about Galileo's work. His writings show respect for Copernicus's theory along with a desire to avoid escalating the conflict unnecessarily. When it came to changing official church policy on such a substantive matter, Bellarmine insisted, quite reasonably, on seeing proof, writing: If there were a real proof that…the Sun does not go round the Earth but the Earth round the Sun, then we should have to proceed with great circumspection in explaining passages of Scripture which appear to teach the contrary, and we should rather have to say that we did not understand them than declare an opinion to be false which is proved to be true. But as for myself, I shall not believe that there are such proofs until they are shown to me.40

Georg Cantor, a devout Catholic, believed that, through his mathematical study of infinity, he could prove the existence of God, much as Anselm had been asked by his monks to do in the eleventh century. Cantor saw numbers as eternal realities that were discovered by humans and followed God-given laws.

With words that reprise the insights of the Neo-Confucians a thousand years earlier, he observed: “We are but whirlpools in a river of ever-flowing water. We are not stuff that abides, but patterns that perpetuate themselves.”19

Every five days, a person gets a new stomach lining, and, every two months, a new liver.

The systems perspective offers important insights into the nature of reality that upend many assumptions forming the basis of the predominant worldview. It tells us that the relationship between things is frequently more important than the things themselves. It emphasizes that everything in the natural world is dynamic rather than static and that biological phenomena can't be predicted with precision: