Aum Sri Sai Ram

Complexity – The Language of GOD! The Science of Complexity Just after Sports Meet 2005, I ventured to settle down to resume my routine and on one day I took a book on the science of complexity. As I opened the book, the following quote of the author triggered a series of thoughts in me: “Complexity – a subject that is still so new and so wide-ranging that nobody knows quite how to define it or even where its boundaries lie… because the complexity research is trying to grapple with questions that defy all the conventional categories. At first glance, about only thing that these questions have in common is that they all have the same answer: Nobody Knows”. We all witnessed in wonder how our students presented marvellous events during Sports and Cultural Meet 2005 learning very difficult items only in a matter of a few weeks. They were so focused and had one pointed attention to perform very well in front of Swami. Who can fathom the abilities of men when they give their heart and soul to things they want to achieve? Who can model the complex dynamics of sports or human interactions when asked for? Nobody! Yet all seems to be in order and well planned for execution.

“Are we running away from understanding Nature’s Mathematics?” asks Dr. V. Chandrasekaran in the third of the issues under this monthly column.

Is Mathematics the right tool? May be all these are written in the language of Mathematics as Galileo said in 1623: “Philosophy is written in the grand book – I mean the universe – which continuously opens to our gaze, but it can not be understood unless one learns the language in which it is written. It is written in the language of Mathematics, its characters are triangles, circles and other geometric figures without which it is humanly impossible to understand a simple word of it; without this, one is wandering about in a dark labyrinth”. We mathematicians must be proud to see such a bold statement. However, even after 380 years, where are we now? Do we understand a single word of the Universe? In 1984, Benoit Mandelbrot developed a notion of fractal which somewhat overcame Galileo’s restraint – God’s language in terms of Geometrical figures or symbols only. He pondered: “Why is geometry often described as cold and dry? One reason lies in its inability to describe the shape of a cloud, a mountain, a coastline, or a tree. Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line. Nature exhibits not simply a higher degree but an altogether different level of complexity. The number of distinct scales of length of patterns is for all purposes infinite. The existence of these patterns challenges us to study those forms that Euclid leaves aside as being formless, to investigate the morphology of the amorphous. Mathematicians have disdained this challenge, however, and have increasingly chosen to flee from Nature by devising theories unrelated to anything we can see or feel”. Mandelbrot’s quest to understand nature indeed brought new challenges to us - the mathematicians. Are we running away from understanding Nature’s Mathematics as Mandelbrot theorizes after his discovery on fractals?

Complexity - Unraveled or Unrivaled? Let us ponder on this. If God has made His model of the Universe and His creations too complex for any human to understand, how do we unearth His secrets, so we may become God and play His dice? So I decided to pray to the Lord “O Lord! Please reveal this secret to me, for I know not the direction to follow.” The answer came from within “Don’t waste your time in modelling the illusory world and its perceived activities as they are mere mental imaginations that do not exist. Know that unreal has no existence and real has no non-existence. So take the inward journey and walk with me. When you have reached the destination you will know” - sloka 16, Chapter II, Bhagavad Gita. I closed the book silently, shifted my position from the right angle and slumped into deep sleep state with no worries or anxiety of the future. And I have a convenient excuse to shy away from the Science of Complexity – The language of God! Too complex!