I've been reading more of Dennett's book (Darwin’s Dangerous Idea), which has sparked me in two different ways. For one, he talks about life-–about the creation of the universe, the existence of organisms, the perfection of species–-as a simple learning algorithm, one that makes mistakes and then corrects itself. In the span of eternity, these mistakes are insignificant; what matters is how things evolve and progress, the successes that lead to improvements, the improvements that continue to grow and enhance. I like this idea. Although my life is finite, it is nice to think of existence as a series of choices, probabilistic decisions, that accumulate into better design and more beautiful living. That it is the mistakes that shape us, so long as we have the self-awareness and courage to learn from them. It is redolent of advice an old friend once gave me: make good mistakes. This is how we adapt and grow, as if our own form of individualistic evolution. To see it in such a way frees us to live fully, without hesitation or fear.
The other point that he makes--or rather, conclusion that he draws from the above discussion--is that biology is engineering. He begins by stating how typically this concept is initially perceived as repulsive: how can biology be mere engineering? Yet as a person who loves numbers, I cannot help but have the opposite reaction: yes! Let’s assume that biology is indeed engineering! Let’s look at biological systems as a mathematician, as a physicist, as an engineer. Let's model biological systems to see their underlying framework, the mechanisms of their design, the simplified equations that describe their complexity. There is beauty to be seen from that vantage point, to describe life in its most conceptual form through mathematics. They say that physics is the discipline closest to mathematics, but perhaps not--perhaps it is biology, once we have stripped it of its conceptual idiosyncrasies and esoteric jargon. Taking the study of life itself and viewing it through equations, models, mere numbers: pure beauty.