A story of an intellectual challenge may be far more fascinating than a novel. It’s certainly the case of the essay “L’intelligenza della natura” (The Intelligence of Nature) published in Italy by Cantagalli publishing house. This is a book that deserves to be read for several reasons.
By Primavera Fisogni
First and foremost, "L'intelligenza della natura" moves from the desire to explore, through the lenses of the finest interdisciplinary approach (the Systemic Thinking), the immense wealth of the world of life. Secondarily, the authors prove that, when appropriately questioned, the environment reveals previously unknown aspects, giving rise to new theories, explanations, and disciplinary fields. Worth noting that the topic has been widely investigated by a company of systemic thinkers, who are also internationally renowned scholars, in response to a question posed by Cardinal Camillo Ruini:
“How much intelligence is there in the world? How, under what conditions is it possible for there to be knowledge in nature, concretely in living beings, more precisely how it is possible for knowledge to be objectified”.
Professor Lucia Urbani Ulivi, a beautiful mind of Systemic Thinking is the curator of the book and the team leader of the company of scholars who have come together to answer Ruini’s question, each of them bringing the most innovative acquisition and orientation of their discipline.
The cover of the collective essay published by Cantagalli
Professor Urbani Ulivi, what idea of "intelligence" do we look at when we talk about the "intelligence of nature"?
The problem of what is meant by "intelligence" was the first difficulty to overcome when setting up the work. We are well aware that in psychology there is no shared definition of "intelligence" and that psychologists have listed numerous and different types, without reaching a general consensus. We had to proceed with our own strength, and in a way that satisfied everyone, both the scientists and the fields in humanities being involved, i.e. theology and philosophy. My proposal to understand by intelligence "the ability to overdetermine the available data" was accepted by everybody. It refers to the activity with which thought, while starting from the experience we have of single and separate things, unifies them in genres, categories, universals, and explains them by identifying the rules that govern behaviourism. Basically "intelligence" is the ability to understand and explain the world.
My proposal to understand by intelligence "the ability to overdetermine the available data" was accepted by all. It refers to the activity with which thought, while starting from the experience we have of single and separate things, unifies them in genres, categories, universals, and explains them by identifying the rules that govern their behavior. Basically "intelligence" is the ability to understand and explain the world.
In the book, there is a contribution that clarifies the meaning of the word "nature". Can you briefly tell the readers of Rekh Magazine where it takes us?
By "nature" we meant everything that is observable and understandable about ourselves and the world using the tool that all beings share, that is the natural reason. In other words, we have excluded the use of any knowledge derived from divine revelation or acquired in non-ordinary states of consciousness.
Why is the systems approach the most promising for discovering the intelligence of nature?
Because it investigates a property of nature and not of its parts, as the reductionist approaches that are so popular in various fields do. Let me explain with an example: let's imagine we are aliens and we want to understand if human beings are intelligent – in the sense intended above. The reductionist alien will study the parts of human beings, i.e. the body, brain, phonation, metabolism, etc. and he will find no understanding in it. The systemic alien will go in search of properties that are not found in the parts and will discover that human beings have behaviours that reveal their intelligence: they build inhabited centres, interact with the environment in which they live, and produce artistic artifacts. Starting from these observational data, the systemic alien will be able to conclude that human beings - and not their parts - are intelligent.
We live in a hyperconnected environment. What lies at the very heart of this important, multidisciplinary work, is precisely the intelligent "connections" of natural phenomena. But is it possible to understand how much transcendence is there in these relationships?
One could stop at the description of nature as a system of fine and deep connections and we would be in a "systemic naturalism". The hypothesis of a transcendent God can be made if we go beyond the natural world when we seek an answer to the question: the painting is to the artist what the natural world is to X. Who is X? A very convincing answer is that the unknown is God, who transcends the world as the artist transcends the painting. They are reasoning based on analogy, which some will find convincing, while others will brand them as implausible.
The Dna elix
Professor Urbani Ulivi, how did you manage to get scholars from different scientific disciplines to write so clearly?
With coordination and revision work: the scientists were patient and available; Cardinal Ruini and I insisted on wanting to understand, putting ourselves in the shoes of a non-specialist reader. The desire that we all have had to make ourselves understood and to transmit the most useful and up-to-date scientific information to review clichés that are still widespread has made a great contribution. I am thinking of materialism, mechanism, reductionism, genocentrism in biology.
The hypothesis of a transcendent God can be made if we go beyond the natural world when we seek an answer to the question: the painting is to the artist what the natural world is to X. Who is X? A very convincing answer is that the unknown is God, who transcends the world as the artist transcends the painting. They are reasoning based on analogy, which some will find convincing, while others will brand them as implausible.
As you have just said, there is a Cardinal at the origin of this book. Compared to past closures or even walls within Catholic thought, which openings are there on the subject on the behalf of the Catholic Church?
The great merit of Cardinal Ruini is to have understood the importance of scientific knowledge also in the humanistic field and to have built a bridge of collaboration and convergence between the basic sciences and theology. For my part, I can say that the same applies to philosophy: one cannot do philosophy today by thinking of the world with the ideas of the past, as a great machine governed universally by the laws of physics. The philosopher must go to school with the scientist and learn from him how the world is made in order to proceed with a philosophical elaboration consistent with today's sciences.
As it is brought to the book's theme, the intelligence of nature convincingly discusses concepts like "finality" and "connaturality" of entities... New words to better understand even apparently obsolete ideas...
You hit the mark perfectly: terms such as "purpose" or "of the same nature" that have been rejected for centuries by scientific language as they do not fall within what can be observed in the empirical world, are now taken up precisely in the scientific field, in particular in biology, and are better understood and theorized. It is clear, for example, that if you are an entity with certain characteristics, you will be led to have certain behaviors concerning which it can be said that you are finalized, and if entities have the same nature, they will share the same orientations. If you're a human you're thinking-oriented, the fish in a school share the ability to swim.
The dominant culture is still largely imbued with reductionism and/or mechanisms that raise protectionist barriers to safeguard its own survival.
You were the founder and the coordinator, for over twenty years, of the interdisciplinary systemic seminars, which gave rise to several publications: in Italy for Il Mulino, globally with Springer and other publishers. What point is currently reached by Systemic Thinking? What are the knots to untie, and what are the most promising prospects?
Systemic thinking is present in multiple basic and humanistic disciplines, where it is a source of renewal and progress. This undoubted success does not correspond to an explicit and widespread recognition: the dominant culture is still largely imbued with reductionism and/or mechanisms that raise protectionist barriers to safeguard its survival.
Systemic researches are vast and articulated and in constant progress; they are merging with studies on complexity, so today we speak of research on complex systems rather than research on systems. Recently published studies have underlined the importance of concepts such as "vague", "multiple", "quasiness", and "incompleteness". As far as philosophy is concerned, many issues have not yet been addressed, for example, the problem of conflicts between levels, and others that could be usefully addressed, for example by introducing the concept of "constraint" into ethics.
© Rekh Magazine
An international scholar
Professor Lucia Urbani Ulivi (Philosophy of Mind at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart of Milan and Introduction to Philosophy at the Theological Faculty of Lugano) is one of the most authoritative contemporary philosophers. She studied themes and authors from different periods, from Abelard to Descartes to contemporary analytic philosophy, focusing on theoretical problems such as the problem of universals, the concept of reason, the reliability of introspection, the conception of the human. Starting from the belief that philosophy has the task of elaborating a meta-level vision of the contemporary world, she created interdisciplinary seminaries for exchange, comparison and connection with representatives of different scientific and disciplinary fields, organizing a vast series of conferences. She introduced the systemic approach into philosophy, which has proved to be a flexible and effective tool for an adequate understanding of unitary phenomena such as the mind-brain relationship, identity, environmental issues. Her research field is now mainly focused on systemic thinking, developed in seminars, privatissimum, national and international publications. Among the most recent publications: Structures of the world. Systemic thinking as a mirror of a complex reality (Bologna 2010, 2013 and 2015); The systemic turn in human and natural sciences. A rock in the pond (New York – Switzerland 2019); Mutiplicity and Interdisciplinarity (New York – Switzerland 2022).