Brett Williams's Reviews > At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity

Stuart Kaufman’s 1995 book in the second in a series of 6 (most resent, 2019) that carry on where D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson (1860-1948) with his 1917 book On Growth and Form began, and shares ideas with Michael Polanyi’s (1891-1976) “spontaneous order.” Though like Adam Smith’s (1723-1790) “invisible hands,” none provided the cause. Kaufmann does that. His topic is “complexity theory.” The idea that by physics alone, crazy but quite natural reactions in sufficiently nutrient rich environs with disequilibrium energy gradients making reactions run up or downhill will create complex, self-sustaining systems. Be they elaborate molecules, catalysts, cells, life, economies, technology or democracy, each conforms to its fitness landscape, dictated by its own constraints and that of others its interacts with. Blind nature pushes itself toward the boundary between order and chaos, crossing into the oblivion of runaway reactions, retreating into less orderly arrangements, or tempting fate at the door to one or the other in long term survival. That “order for free” occurs, resulting in such extreme complexity by relatively simple but rigorous laws is the shocker. Order for free moves the goal posts, once 100 yards away, 60 yards closer. In the arena of biology, evolution’s random mutations and deterministic selection take it from there. (Sorry, Creationists.)

The first half of this book, part spirituality (See? We’re not an accident), part revelation (the “famous” Belosov-Zhabotinski reaction that I never heard of—kooky!) would be of interest to just about anybody. The second half is of such detailed nuance you could write your own code from it. And even though I was interested in doing just that, Kaufmann occasionally crossed my eyes with so much detail. Carl Sagan and Stephen J. Gould gave it high marks for good reason.