It is a natural feeling for many people to want to turn to a higher power when life becomes almost too difficult to bear. “Irritated by Trivialities” is a poem that explores this feeling with a specific focus on the poet’s frustration with people that cause discord and violence in society. He calls upon God to grant him guidance and peace, and to break the monopoly on power that some tyrants in this world have over the innocent.

Mainstream psychology has long been a secular discipline that has shunned most efforts to include elements of spirituality or faith. However, the emerging field of Islamic Psychology looks to combine traditional, Sufi concepts of spiritual health with modern, empirical research on successful psychiatric practices. The result is the formation of the TIIP (Traditional Islamically Integrated Psychotherapy), a manual for clinicians that wish to educate themselves about this holistic approach to mental health.

The complexity of the human body is always amazing to reflect upon, and aging has consistently remained one of the most elusive areas to understand. Recent research has been shedding light upon “Free Radicals,” unstable molecules that buildup in our bodies over time and have been linked to a variety of age-related disorders such as Alzheimer’s Disease and diabetes. It is possible to remove many of these Free Radicals by consistently eating fruits and honey that contain powerful antioxidants, however it is not possible to stave them off entirely or to prevent aging. Still, the healing properties of many fruits are indeed blessings sent to us.

Lastly, we can observe immense complexity and depth within the animal kingdom. Our article “How Do Ants Know Trigonometry?” explores the Black Desert Ant and its exceptional process for finding its way home after successfully scavenging for food. Is it truly possible for such a tiny creature to develop systems so immensely complicated on its own just because it felt like it needed them?

Books, bodies, and beautiful paintings – these are all emergent systems. As our understanding of these systems grows, so, too, do the questions about how we study them.

Scientific revolutions require the shift of paradigms [1]. According to Thomas Kuhn, a paradigm is more than a current theory and its implications. It’s also combined with a worldview where the theory exists. As an example, classical mechanics does not only consist of Newtonian laws, but also has a deterministic worldview. Kuhn states that when the anomalies and limitations of the current paradigm are encountered in the scientific community, new ideas pour in and thereby a new paradigm is formed. The development of quantum mechanics against classical mechanics is an example of such a paradigm shift. Along with this shift, not only new formulas and theories were developed, but a new worldview – one that was not deterministic – emerged.

In the last century, we witnessed many scientific breakthroughs in the areas of chemistry, computer science, medicine, molecular biology, and physics. Along with the experience and knowledge we gained from them, we still try to understand the secrets of the universe we live in from “very small” to “very big.” However, certain systems, so-called complex systems, push the limits of our scientific theories and the tools used to analyze them. In this article, we will describe such systems, viewing them as candidates for a new paradigm, with their characteristics and their implications to our worldview and science.  

In the existing literature, complex systems are defined as those formed by many elements that correlate and interact with each other somehow. As a result of these correlations and interactions, these systems reveal behaviors and properties that are not obvious in their individual parts. There are numerous examples of complex systems, including biological systems, climate systems, and economic systems.  

The most important feature of complex systems is emergence, which can be deciphered from the below example. When someone moves into a new apartment, the first issue they face is how to decorate their place. Depending on what they have, they put pieces of furniture in certain places within the room and organize them according to their taste. For example, if they decorate a living room, they might put two couches against the walls in such a way that they sit perpendicular to each other. A rug might be laid out before them and a coffee table might be placed on it. Moreover, another table with a lampshade on it might be put in an empty place where the two couches connect. They might put a television stand so that it faces the couches and the café table. In addition, a dining table with a nice tablecloth on its top and six chairs around it might stay in the far corner. A vase with flowers might be put on the middle of the table. In this example, they picture a pattern that emerges in decorating the living room according to one person’s taste. Clearly, someone else could have organized the room differently with the same furniture and thereby another pattern might have emerged.

Let us consider a bit what the aforementioned example tells us. First, the character and the impression we get from the room depends intimately on how it is decorated. Changing the arrangement of furniture leads to the emergence of new patterns which might seem lovely to some people, boring to others. Although the impression might vary from person to person, everybody might agree on a professional’s take of the decoration. Second, the emergence of patterns in the organization of parts is not limited only to the decoration of rooms. It is obvious in many, many systems. For instance, Monet, Picasso, and Renoir made their masterpieces using different colors of oil paint and a canvas. With the same pieces, one can however paint figures with no clear meaning. By the same token, using letters in one language, Shakespeare, Goethe, and Dostoyevsky wrote their masterpieces. However, with the same letters, it is possible to write essays that do not say anything at all. In these examples, we see different patterns emerge by arranging the pieces in different plans.

Now let us ponder on the following question: What is the relationship among individual parts and the pattern that emerges when we arrange these parts in specific ways? In all the examples mentioned above, none of them seem to have a direct relationship with the emergent pattern. In the case of room decoration, just a couch or just a café table does not tell us what kind of living room there will be. In other cases, the lack of relationship is even more obvious. Twenty something letters do not possess any insight into Shakespeare’s Hamlet or Goethe’s Faust. Nor do oil paints have any hidden picture in them related to Monet’s Argeteuil or Renoir’s La Grenouillere. Then, it is clear that patterns emerge according to the knowledge, talent, vision, and plan of whomever is organizing them.

The above examples were chosen from daily life for the sake of simplicity. At this point, let us turn our focus to the scientific aspects of pattern emergent systems due to the interaction of parts. This emergence phenomenon is universal and one of the characteristics of the complex systems that are formed by many parts with different features and characters. Therein, new features that are not obvious in individual parts arise as a result of their interaction. There are numerous examples of such systems such as the internet, stock market, economic systems, and biological systems [2]. As you might see, they interact extensively with our daily lives; therefore, understanding them offers unlimited benefits to us. Furthermore, they challenge us in both scientific and philosophical manners. Let us see how so in the below paragraphs.

The first way we’re challenged are the scientific aspects. Let us see emergence in the following example. Quarks are the most fundamental particles that are experimentally verified in the universe. That is, they cannot break into parts. Their typical features are mass and electric charge. When they come together in certain combinations, they form protons and neutrons that form the nucleus of an atom. Atoms also have electrons around the nucleus; these electrons have different energy levels.

Up to this level, we do not see much difference in behavior emerging from the arrangements of parts aside from some physical details. When atoms come together, they connect by chemical bonds and thereby form molecules and matter. At this level, the chemical bond is a new feature. If we had a single atom, we would not know chemical bonds were possible. Then, a single atom does not have this feature: a chemical bond.

As an example, two hydrogen atoms and one-oxygen atom bonded together form the water molecule. By itself, this molecule does not display very peculiar phenomena. However, when many of them come together, they can be ice, liquid, or vapor depending on the environment’s conditions, e.g. temperature and pressure. Again, these behaviors are completely new and do not appear in a single water molecule.

Another aspect is this. Up to a few molecule levels, quantum mechanics describes what’s going on. However, when the system size reaches a certain level, usually a few centimeters to meters, we use Newton’s laws to describe the system. According to a Noble laureate in Physics, Robert L. Laughlin [3], Newton’s Laws are emergent properties that arise in a sufficiently large scale as a result of the interaction of smaller entities described in the Quantum regime. This point of view differs from the classical reductionist approach in which a complex system might be understood by studying the simpler parts that constitute the system. This is quite opposite to what is described above. Laughlin, as many others, sees the reductionist approach limiting our understanding of complex systems [3].

We would also like to look at examples from biological systems. In contrast to the above example, in this case, there are numerous types of molecules. Additionally, most of them function in the water; thus water is part of the system. Biological molecules are organic and made of a few types of atoms – nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon. In addition, a few ions, such as zinc, sodium, and so on, play crucial roles.

Simple biological molecules are DNA, RNA, and proteins. Even they are made of thousands of atoms. At this point, it is clear that a special arrangement of this many atoms yield very complex molecules. If we go one level up and investigate a system of DNAs, RNAs, and proteins, we will reach the basic unit of living organisms: cells. In a simple bacterial cell, there exist a few million proteins that float in the water. In more complex organisms, this number significantly increases and the cell becomes more complex. However, what emerges keeps us in awe: life. A single DNA or single protein does not have this feature. However, when they are together, they act in harmony, produce, grow, exhume energy, and die. These are very distinct features that do not exist at the level of a single molecule. Biology does not have quantitative theories, such as physics or chemistry. The approach to study such systems is usually to modify a certain gene and to check its effect on the phenotype. Then, this approach can be considered reductionist.

In the above examples, we saw how emergence occurred. Now, let us see how science studies complex systems. There are two approaches to study such systems. One is top-down, or the reductionist approach; the other is a bottom-up, or holistic approach. So far, the former has reigned over science. This is due to various reasons. The most important is that breaking the system into subsystems reduces the complexity. However, this approach is valid only if the system is the sum of its parts. In contrast, in emergent systems, as Aristotle said, “the whole is more than the sum of its parts” [4]. Then, you might expect that the holistic approach might be more useful than reductionism.

However, there are other factors challenging this approach. One is the lack of tools or insufficient availability to study the systems. For example, with the advances in today’s technology, we can simulate and do the necessary calculations to dock a small molecule to a protein structure in a few days using the methods of Molecular Dynamics. In this simulation, there are a few thousand atoms. However, in a cell, there are roughly 10¹⁴ atoms and the simulation of such an environment would take forever.

The philosophical aspects of complex systems are not limited to how we study such systems or the emergence of physical laws. One important question is this: how do parts with no relationship to the emergent pattern know which pattern they will give rise to? In the science community, this question causes a big debate due to its outcomes. As we see in the decoration example, or the painting and literature examples, emergent patterns do depend on how they are arranged and thereby who arranges them. Can we say that many letters come together randomly to form words and later sentences? Are those sentences arranged randomly to give birth to Hamlet? If you adopt these questions to the cellular, then you must ask how life emerges by the arrangement of zillions of atoms. At this point, we are forced to agree with both Aristotle that, “the whole is more than the sum of its parts” [4] and Paul W. Anderson, Noble Laureate in physics: “More is different” [5].

Murat Erdin is a freelance writer living in Massachusetts.

References

1. Kuhn, Thomas. 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, The University of Chicago Press.
2. Waldrop, M. Mitchell. 1992. Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos, Simon & Schuster.
3. Laughlin, Robert. 2006. A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down, Basic Books.
4. Metaphysics, Aristotle.
5. Anderson, P.W. 1972. “More is different,” Science Vol. 177, No. 4047, 393-96.

Chaos Theory

Over the last fifty years Chaos Theory has evolved as a new science which assumes that the natural order is irregular, discontinuous and erratic (Gleick, 1987). Newtonian physics implies that there is a rational order to everything, that we can predict the events of any system if we are able to plug in enough variables. The idea behind “chaos theory” is that we can predict what systems might do, but we cannot be sure. Everything exists as a series of possibilities.

Since the beginning of the twentieth century several other sciences have evolved that have sought to solve the problems in prior models. For example, the theory of relativity eliminates the illusion of absolute time and space. Quantum mechanics eliminates the Newtonian dream of controllable measurement processes, as well as the fantasy of deterministic predictability. Chaos theory, the third new science, embraces irregularity as a norm. Scientists from different fields have begun to observe the regular patterns within the irregularity of the natural world.

In the old views of nature, notes Gleick (1987), it was held that simple systems behave in simple ways while complex systems imply complex causes. In the new view, it is believed that simple systems give rise to complex behaviors and complex systems give rise to simple behaviors (Snyder, 1995).

The new science of chaos centers around two points. The first is the exploration of the hidden order that exists within the chaotic systems. The second is the study of how self-organization emerges from chaos (Hayles, 1990).

The three principal conditions for a chaotic system are: (1) that it operates in a non-linear way; (2) that it is iterative (the output of one cycle becomes the input of the next); and (3) that small variations in initial conditions lead to large differences in outcomes. Many systems within educational organizations appear to meet these conditions (Cunningham, 2000).

The concepts of chaos theory can explain the way schools work. For example, teachers do not exist as separate entities, but are affected by the relationships that exist within schools. It may also shed some light on how we can deal with and understand how things in our classrooms, schools, and entire communities are interrelated and all reflect in some manner upon each other.

There are several aspects of chaos theory such as nonlinearity, complexity, butterfly effect, fractals and feedback mechanisms that may have significance for educational settings.

Nonlinearity

In a linear system there is a simple cause and effect relationship; A causes B which causes C, and so on. However, a chaotic system is nonlinear. A may not necessarily cause B at all times. Lots of variables come into play and interact with each other. School systems look like nonlinear chaotic systems, too. In school district A, the purchase of new computers might have a positive impact on student achievement, while in school district B, this might bring little or no gain in student achievement.

It is widely believed that experienced teachers have better classroom control. If you have a veteran teacher in a classroom, you will have an orderly environment and the administrators, thinking in a linear way, might believe that the more veteran teachers in a building, the more orderly the environment will be. That might not be the case in every school district, especially in urban schools; there are instances where young and inexperienced teachers contribute positively to the school environment much more than veteran teachers.

Complexity

Chaotic systems take complex forms, making their precise measurement difficult if not impossible (Glickman, 2001). Different measurement instruments have been put in place to evaluate and compare the performance of a school. However, due to the complex nature of schools, none of these assessment methods seem to measure precisely the school performance and have very limited validity for the following reasons (Cunningham, 2000):

• The prior achievement of pupils is not taken into account and this is a major factor in pupil achievement at a later stage.

• Schools are differentially effective in different subjects and with pupils of different ability, which is not reflected in a single figure.

• Schools change over time; however, the achievement data used reflects only one group and is essentially historical data.

• Student mobility between schools is not reflected in the assessment.

• Social factors, sex of students, ethnic origin and social background are not taken into account. These factors are out of the school’s control.

Therefore, assessing school performance and comparing one to another have become increasingly difficult given the complex nature of today’s schools.

The Butterfly Effect

The butterfly effect means that a small and seemingly unrelated event in one part of a system can have enormous effects on the other parts of the system. Theoretical meteorologist Edward Lorenz made the term ‘butterfly effect’ famous when he argued that a butterfly stirring its wings in Bejing today could unleash powerful storms in New York city next month. One implication of sensitive dependence on initial conditions is the impossibility of predicting not only next year’s weather, but the long term future of any chaotic system (Glickman, 2001).

In terms of school improvement, what we understand from the butterfly effect is that it is impossible to predict the long-term effects of school improvement efforts. Planning in a chaotic system like a school should be medium range (one or two years) rather than long range (five to ten years). Formal planning in an unpredictable system needs to focus on process rather than product with the goal of producing “a stream of wise decisions designed to achieve the mission of the organization” (Patterson, Stewart and Purkey, 1986).

The butterfly effect ensures that no lesson will ever go completely as planned, or have the same effect on any two students. It indicates the need for teacher flexibility in teaching, as well as the need for individual attention to students, each of whom is experiencing a given lesson within his or her own personal context (Glickman, 2001).

Fractals

A fractal is a geometric shape that is similar to itself at different scales. Mid-sized branches of a tree are remarkably similar in shape to the larger branches from which they come. Smaller branches, in turn, are the same shape as the mid-sized branches from which they come, and so on.

Through work with fractal generations, it has become apparent to scientists that predictability does exist (known shapes re-appear), and randomness plays an important and unexpected role. What has been learned is that, within chaotic and seemingly unpredictable systems, structures of order exist through which the system recreates itself.

Complex social systems can also reveal self-similarity on different scales: at each level of the system, specific patterns of organization and culture reappear. Like fractals in nature, schools reveal self-similarity in different scales. For example, a school-wide staff development day, a department meeting, a classroom lesson, and a halfway interaction between a teacher and student might all reveal the same cultural characteristic. Thus, reflective inquiry at the school, team, classroom and individual level can help educators better understand their school culture, change needed, and pathways to improvement (Glickman, 2001).

By being reflective practitioners, teachers can develop their teaching skills, acquire more insightful experience in their fields and learn to look at problems from a different perspective. They also understand their weaknesses, areas of strengths and recognize the repeating patterns of their teaching styles.

Feedback Mechanisms

Chaotic systems contain feedback loops enabling outputs to feed back into the system as input. Feedback can bring stability or turbulence to a system. For example, a thermostat is a feedback mechanism that causes temperature stability. Conversely, when the sound from a loudspeaker feeds back through a microphone, it is rapidly magnified to create a disruptive shriek (Gleick, 1987). Feedback can also cause a system to move toward greater levels of complexity.

Feedback in schools can take the form of student performance data, survey results, quality circles, third party reviews, and so forth. The important thing is that meaningful data on the results of change efforts be made available to teachers, and that they be given opportunities to reflect on the data and redirect their change efforts accordingly.

With all the unpredictability present in classrooms, beneficial feedback is critical for both teachers and students. For teachers, student performance data, direct student feedback, and classroom observation data can all assist them to improve classroom instruction. For students, feedback on their cognitive and affective performance-from teachers, parents, and peers-is an essential part of the learning process. The fact that in chaotic systems like classrooms output becomes input means that the artificial distinctions we often draw between learning and assessment need to be removed: in reality, learning and assessment cannot be separated (Glickman, 2001).

Conclusion

The deterministic view of education that schools are simplistic, cause-effect systems which can be easily manipulated, quantized and controlled is not addressing the problems of today’s schools. From an alternative perspective, chaos theory gives us an understanding that the things we consider unimportant or trivial in our daily lives might have an equal weight in terms of affecting the results as the things we consider important. Just as it is characterized in the Qur’anic teaching that every minute thing or action is recorded in a Book regardless of its proportion. “Whatever your preoccupation (O Messenger), and whatever discourse from Him in this (Qur’an) you may be reciting, and whatever work you (O people) may be doing, We are certainly witness over you while you are engaged in it. Not an atom’s weight of whatever there is in the earth or in the heaven escapes your Lord, nor is there anything smaller than that, or greater, but it is (recorded) in a Manifest Book” (Yunus 10:61). It further suggests that everything we do has a significant impact on us, our communities and ultimately society as a whole.

In conclusion, chaos theory has the potential to offer deeper understanding of how today’s schools function in an ever changing world of our times.

Aydin Kara is a graduate student at University of Dayton. He studies educational leadership and administration. He can be reached at aydinkara33@hotmail.com.

References

• Cunningham, R. 2000. Chaos, Complexity and the study of Education Communities. Institute of Education.
• Gleick, J. 1987. Chaos: Making a new science. New York: Penguin Books.
• Glickman, Carl D. 2001. Supervision and Instructional Leadership: Allyn and Bacon
• Lortie, D. C. 1975. Schoolteacher. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Patterson, J. L., Purkey, S. C., and Parker, J. V. 1986. Productive school systems for a nonrational world. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Biological systematics classifies animals according to its own standards. So far about two million animal species have been distinguished. Each species has distinguishing characteristics and study of a few members of a species gives us general information about the whole of that species. For example, study of a pigeon gives us general information about all birds from nightingales to eagles, from grebes to albatrosses.

Systematic study of a species reveals that the assertions of being more or less developed are of relative nature. Also, study of the general control mechanisms in animal bodies shows a relative complexity in their metabolic and, especially, hormonal and nervous systems from one-celled organisms to mammals. It is difficult to attribute this complexity to chance or coincidences. Determining an entity of such complexity and adaptive effectiveness requires an absolute knowledge, will and power.

The standards by which to determine the degrees of development for animals vary from species to species. For example, with respect to the sense of smelling, sharks, according to our present knowledge, are relatively the most developed among vertebrates. Compared with a shark which can smell a drop of blood in the sea from a distance of about 25,000 feet, man is very much less developed. If we judge the degree of development according to the sense of smell, in place of men or monkeys, sharks will be the first. Whereas, with respect to the sense of seeing, eagles are much more developed than sharks, as well as than men and monkeys. An eagle can see a rabbit on the ground from a height of about 6.000 feet. Also, a bat which catches its prey in the dark with its ultrasonic equipment and a rattlesnake which catches rats with its infra-red eyes are far more developed than human beings in their respective areas of specialization.

Supposing a man was to enter the world of flies, what would flies say about him? ‘How simple and undeveloped that being is! He does not know how to fly. Even with the planes he made, he cannot fly as perfectly as we do. We turn somersaults, alight wherever we wish and take off very easily. Even one-tenth of the subtleties of art in our wings is not to be found in his most elaborate devices. Despite his abilities, skills and knowledge, he is completely unable to make one wing such as ours!

Would it not be true for a honey-bee to say of us:

‘Those clumsy ones can draw with tools and only after calculations the hexagons that I can make so easily and exactly identical to one another. They cannot make so sweet and healing a substance as honey that I produce in great amounts.’ Again, should a microbe or virus not consider itself as more powerful or developed that man seeing that it can cause him to die? With respect to their ability to swim and live in water, are not fish more perfect or developed than us? But then animals living on land are surely more developed than fish in respect of the mechanisms enabling them to live on land.

When we consider the world of insects, we are amazed at the degree of social organization they have achieved: the solidarity in the social life of bees, ants and termites, the communication among them, the absolute obedience of the individual to the commands of the collectivity, and the fulfilment by each individual of its duties to the community- compels us to wonder whether insects or human beings are more developed in this respect. It is for this reason that some socio-biologists tend to think of a society of insects as if it were an individual organism, operated by a single brain, the individuals in the community functioning like separate cells within the larger single organism.

Those who classify creatures according to the complexity of their brain structure and faculties assert that the more complex a brain is, the more developed the animal. However, even though the weight of the brain or the ratio of brain weight to general body weight sometimes appears to confirm this assertion, it usually leads on to wrong conclusions. Those who argue that the mammals whose brains are smaller than the human brain are simpler than human beings, forget that the main difference between human beings and mammals lies in man’s memory and capacity of thinking and speaking, and that there are great differences among the intellectual capacities of human beings. Also, every human being is different from others in many ways-in character, ambitions, attitudes, etc. 

It is function which determines the form and type. That is, an architect does not determine the function of a building after he has built it. On the contrary, he builds the building according to the function it will serve. In the same way, the structural perfection of the human brain corresponds to its functional perfection. That is, man did not become man after he had acquired his brain capacity or complexity. Rather, he was given a brain according to his functions with respect to other creatures and to the duties he was expected to perform. Thinking, as evolutionists do, that brains in animals grew more complex and their ‘intellectual capacity’ increased in parallel with the line of evolution, means attributing all the intellectual faculties and activities like thinking, reasoning, imagination, speaking and so on, to the brain as a physical entity. This is the crudest sort of materialism and reduces man’s existence entirely to matter, rejecting the existence of the spirit and spiritual dimension of man. Also, it is not possible by this hypothesis to explain the differences among human beings in their intellectual capacities, desires, ambitions, and character. If it were possible to increase or strengthen man’s intellectual capacities by making him a bigger and heavier brain, rather than educating him, would it not be more reasonable to try to find ways of enlarging his brain or, as some assert, enabling him to use a greater part of his brain?

How can we regard it as simpler or ‘less evolved’ that in the cytoplasm of one-celled organisms many vital activities like digestion and excretion are carried out? As a small watch is usually more intricate and requires more artistry in its production than a big clock, it may well be said that one-celled animals are more complex or difficult to come about than large, multi-celled ones. Again, although it seems at first sight that the more the number of cells increases, the more complex the creature grows, no one can say that an elephant is more developed than a mouse. Both being classed as mammals, with respect to their bodily activities, one cannot be considered more developed or simpler or requiring more artistry than the other. This leads us to reflect on the following Qur’anic verses:

God does not disdain to coin even a gnat as a parable, or a larger creature. As for those who believe, they know that is the truth from their Lord. But those who unbeliever say, ‘What does God wish to teach by such a parable?’ He leads astray many thereby, and guides many. He leads astray only the corrupt. (al-Baqara, 2.26)

O mankind! A parable is set forth, so listen to it: Surely, those whom you invoke, apart from God, will never create a fly even if they combine together for the purpose. And if the fly took something from them they could not rescue it from it. Hence, weak are both the seeker and the sought! (al-Hajj, 22.73)

It is foolish to regard the bony scales of fish as simple while regarding the pituitary glands on the skin of frogs as developed and the scales of lizards as more developed and the feathers of birds as much more developed and the hair of mammals as the most developed. It is no more than a speculative assertion that those protective parts of the bodies of the animals mentioned evolved each from a simpler one by chance. Is it not more reasonable to accept that each species of animals was given a particular body with its particular parts and systems according to the function it would serve among creatures and the environmental conditions to which it would be best adapted and adaptable?

Synchronization is a problem in many areas of science, notably in electrical and electronics engineering. In synchronization, there must be at least two events, one of which serves as the reference for the other. Synchronized events always follow each other in a regular manner. In electrical engineering at the instant of synchronization of two busbar voltages, both voltages must be equal in magnitude and period and they must be in phase so that they can be switched in parallel if desired.

In my research I was synchronizing output voltage with line voltage; more recently I was trying to add certain further features into my program like time delay. At this stage while trying to generate synchronized outputs with a delay I failed to allow a few microseconds to the related registers (necessary because of some time delay caused by a few instructions) and also (as I later realized) I was putting some instructions in the wrong sequence. Maybe the beauty of the micro controller design is that it does not allow you to generate (actually you command the microcontroller to generate at the related outputs what you want it to generate) just anything you may happen to have in mind. The input has to be correctly ordered. If you give the right instructions in the right order, it generates (of course, within its limitations) the correct result, otherwise it generates the wrong result or just rubbish.

I spent a whole week looking for the reason for the problem which I have very roughly described. The program ought to have worked correctly because every instruction looked to be all right. But I didn’t see far enough into just how important a few microseconds and the sequences of instructions are. So, I got very frustrated and annoyed at not being able to find the reason for the failure of what ought to have been a simple program.

At night, while thinking about the problem, I realized some of the reasons for the problem, with the help of God. It was only a matter of a few microseconds in every cycle. I did not think that the program could be affected that much by that little. The outputs appeared quite stable for a time but then, after a while, the program would suddenly crash.

Ordinarily we might think: What can a few microseconds matter or the sequence of instructions? When we ask such questions, actually we are starting to think about the complexity of the universe.

The cause of the problem I was having was a few microseconds in every cycle (one cycle is 20,000 microsecond). A few microseconds in one cycle may seem nothing, but in fact the few microseconds are out in a continuous system, every cycle is affected. As a result, the program was causing the wrong outputs to be generated.

If, at this juncture, we think about the magnificence and/or complexity of the universe or for that matter of human beings, we begin to appreciate the greatness of God. In reality, it seems to me, it is impossible to imagine fully or to realize exactly the greatness of God since we cannot even grasp fully how complex the organization of the universe is. Take my problem as an example: it was a simple system with single input and single output, and yet neglecting to compensate a few microsecond of delays caused my output to crash. In the universe, every action and event in every bodily process in every plant and animal, must take place with the most minute exactness in real time, and not in the microsecond range but maybe in many times more or less than that range. Any oversight, be it ever so small, any error of sequence, any delay however small in any event in the universe, will affect all the other events in a chain of effects causing the system to crash suddenly, locally or, maybe, entirely. In short, the existence of the universe depends upon the correct instructions being minutely programmed in the correct sequence.

When we look at either the universe or at an individual creature in it, a human.being or plant or animal, we see that each operates as a large, separate system. We cannot even imagine how many inputs and outputs these systems have, we cannot imagine the complexity of the innumerable problems that are solved in such a way that life has been going on for millions of years. Whenever we look with open mind at any living organism within the universe or at the universe as a single, whole system, our sight returns to us, dazzled and overwhelmed-exactly as is described in the beautiful words of sura al-Mulk:

Then look again and yet again, your sight will return to you weakened and made dim. (67.4)

We see in the sky billions of stars turning in synchronization with each other according to some extraordinary law of harmony. And this harmony has been operative for millions of years, so effectively that its continuance is not in doubt. The same extraordinary miracle of harmony can be studied at the microscopic level: Within a single atom huge numbers of particles whizz past each other around the nucleous at unimaginable speeds in a continually renewed and vital process of creation.

Our understanding cannot fathom, nor our researches exhaust, the wonder in which we live and which we behold. And when we realize the complexity of the innumerable systems which compose the universe and whose inter-related functions have been managed not for seconds or hours, but for hundreds of millions of years, can we do otherwise than humbly acknowledge the wisdom and power of God? Equally, when we accept, as logically we must, that in the universe as a whole, everything is organized in the right way for its continued operation, are we not bound to conclude that every event, seemingly good or bad, has occurred at its own time and place, precisely, as pre-ordained (or ‘programmed’ we might say) by God? Thus, we are led to acknowledge the Creator, to marvel in humility at His grandeur, and His greatness.