Rats and intelligent design

He finished reading Jim Holt's book (1) at night and was feeling a little confused when he got into bed. When he opened his eyes in the morning, he found himself in a situation where he was wondering what or who he was and where he was. It was nothing more than a huge corporeal question mark. 

He realized that such a situation of astonishment was the basic proof of his existence. His body parts, if he had any, could be anything. Once he observed his body and the environment where he was, seeing that there was nothing strange, he felt a sensation of heaviness. 

The state of astonishment was followed by sensations. He had a slight headache, a sign of mild dehydration. ‘Get up, lazybones, it’s late! ’- he heard in his brain. Commands, obligations and feelings were processes of internalized external education.  

Who was giving the orders in his head? 'I?'- he asked himself. He was not clear about what that 'I' was, beyond something where sensations, experiences, feelings, reflections and commands were found. And dominating that union is the ever-vigilant reflection. But how could we see ourselves? 

That watcher could have many dimensions. How many times could he see himself? Once, or could he find another behind that first watcher? And after that second one, another one? And so on… until when?

He stood up and glanced at the ‘Berria’ newspaper. He had the world before him. A dictator, with the excuse that he intended to end fascism, continued the war. 

At the other extreme, another character uses all the lies in his favor to be re-elected president, putting the largest democracy at risk of destruction.  

To complete this red triangle, to respond to a violent attack, with a violence a thousand times greater they destroy all the buildings where the population lives. Aren't all human beings equal? Where and in the land that is known as the Holy Land! Even if it was impossible, he felt the desire to erase himself from the list of human beings.

After reading Andoni Egaña's column, he went out to work in his social environment. ’Don't think about it too much, focus on work to avoid anxiety!’-murmured. And the problems around him captured his full attention. Then he felt immersed in the world that was truly his.

At coffee time he was mulling over what he had read in the book. The idea that we live in the best of all possible worlds, although clear to Leibniz, had little reason to make us believe it was true. 

The principle that goodness rules the world did not seem more likely to be true. Neither simplicity. ‘How simple you are sometimes to believe that!’ - an inner voice told him.  

The Universe was in motion, and what we saw one night was not the same as what we saw the night before.  Attractive and repellent forces were constantly at play in different areas. Some prestigious physicists postulate the theory of the Multiverse. 

There are many universes for the followers of this theory. He thought that this theory could be used in another context. ‘God, the quantum vacuum or whatever could have created infinite universes out of nothing. 

But unfortunately, it has been our lot to live in a mediocre world. Goodness, virtue, simplicity, love of truth are difficult to find. What can we do?'- he murmured to himself.  

He remembered what he had written when he was about twenty years old. At that time the following phrase came to his mind: ‘How badly the world turned out for God, that He threw it so far away from Himself!’ He wrote the phrase and kept it inside a book. Outbursts of youth!

With the help of memory, an event that occurred in his town, Mondragon, showed him how far we are sometimes from knowing the reasons for normal events.  According to this, it is difficult to believe that we are close to knowing the design of the Universe. If this design is intelligent, it seems to be still far from being known to our intelligence.

It would lack about a couple of years before the fifty years since that event occurred. In the village, people left their rubbish in certain places. 

A truck collected all the garbage every day and took it to a dumping ground on the road that led to Kanpanzar. From the road the garbage fell down forming a small hill. The truck would get there, raise the trailer, and the load would make its way down, with the new trash being dragged over the old downhill. There went all the empty cans rolling. 

The easiest solution: out of sight, out of mind! For a large town it did not seem to be the most suitable solution.  The mountain of garbage was getting bigger and bigger and that could lead to many problems.  As a solution, the City Council finally decided to put an incinerator in that same place. 

In the village it became the topic of all conversations. ‘How is the work going?’ – they asked each other every day. Since it was not close to the town, the few who knew the status of the works gave the information, and this way the information was updated for the entire town. 

It was the obligatory topic of mention in all conversations. Soon that mound of garbage that spoiled the landscape would disappear. Everything was on track and in the right direction, how beautiful the progress was! The townspeople felt like they were part of the world's vanguard group. 

But when the work was finished, seeing that the incineration had not begun, the town was plunged into a state of confusion. ‘Why is it that the garbage is not incinerated yet?’ the villagers asked themselves. From a corner of the town a rumor began to spread using a cursed word: 'The rats'. ‘‘What do you mean, rats?’ the interlocutor asked, with a look of disgust. 

'Yes, there are a lot of rats in the dump, and as soon as the garbage is gone, they will come down to the village in search of food.’ Disgust and fear spread through the town like ignited gunpowder. More than one would start rereading the story of ‘The Pied Piper of Hamelin.’ 'Isn't there someone like that boy somewhere?' - they would think in their fantasy. Others might be reminded of the ballet ‘The Nutcracker’ or the book ‘The Nutcracker and the Mouse Prince’. They would be immersed in an epic fight against the mouse king and his army. 

But leaving aside the epic, disgust and fear were the predominant feelings. To calm those feelings another rumor began to spread through the town from a corner: The City Council had contacted world experts in rat extermination. 

The conversations also indicated that these experts were Japanese.  The gossip in all the street circles was: 'Yes, Japanese. You know, the Japanese use cutting-edge technology.’ 

As time went by and the issue of garbage and its incineration remained pending, the few environmentalists who existed at that time began to take part.  For them, incineration did not seem to be the most correct solution. They requested permission to hold a demonstration. Once the authorization was obtained, many people from the town took part in it. People were not clear about the objective of the demonstration, but they were clear about the following: the rats coming down to the village was a huge problem. Few slogans were heard at the demonstration. 

As time went by, people knew that something was being done, but they understood that it was the work of experts. The end of all the street talks was the same: ‘You know, the experts will be doing their thing.’ After a couple of months or so, the incinerator began to operate. The descent to the village of rats did not occur. What a relief people felt! 

But a week after the project was launched, a friend, whose father was a member of the City Council, told us: ‘You won't believe what my father told me when I mentioned the end of the rat problem’. ‘What did he say to you, then?’’- we asked him. ‘Well, that's what he answered, snorting: neither rats nor bats! The person who made this project forgot to run the power line from the town to the incinerator.  And they have worked in silence, taking advantage of that lapse of time to bring the electric current there, without saying anything to anyone.’- He answered us. We went stunned without knowing what to say.

He sank back into his thoughts. ‘Before, everything we were was expressed only as matter. Now, as a continuation of this denialist simplification, we are only data, that is, everything is information. All kinds of measuring instruments have been used to capture our universe. But in the end, all those measures have caught up with us. 

Everything is a measure, so are we. The servant has become lord. People are now just mathematical functions with certain variables. And since we are attached to a mobile phone or a similar device, this has become something increasingly real. Somewhere what we read appears, since even the reading is automatically loaded for us. 

It is recorded at what time we get up and in what physical places we move and in what time slots. So is what we search for and what we buy. All of this data, which defines us, remains in some database. As we get more complicated, our function will have more variables, but that's about it.’ Quite angrily, he muttered: 'Something must be done about that.' 

This was his last thought: ‘We will have to start reading more books. Books do not emit any signal that places us locally, and their reading will not be stored in any database, only in our brain.’

Then with a smile he recalled what he saw in the 2024 Tour de France. During the last stage against the clock, the riders climbed a steep climb one by one. At that place there were three young women encouraging the runners. 

They carried a cardboard banner with a message in blue, white and red letters. In a not very academic French, it said:’ pedal as if the bar were going to close in five minutes’ (2). Unable to contain his laughter he said in a low voice: ‘Blessed be you all, may this wonderful wit save us!’

 

(1) Holt, J. (2012). Why does the world exist? New York/London: Liveright Publishing Corporation

(2) ‘pédales comme si le bar ferme dans 5 minutes’