Holy Homeostasis, Batman!

Complex and dynamic systems self-regulate, moving through equilibrium states in response to stimuli and feedback. Seen from the outside, these systems, because they are complex and not deterministic, look like they are guided by some kind of invisible hand. We have a word for it: homeostasis.

In opposition to the simplistic thinking of journalists, politicians and morons (but I repeat myself), homeostasis is a primary reason why all models are wrong (though some are useful). The more complex the system being modeled, the less likely it is that anyone can accurately predict the future, because the systems have incredibly complex feedback mechanisms.

And yet, thanks to homeostasis, the world is far more stable than “experts” can understand. The ocean, for example, never tops 31C – when it gets close, storms invariably emerge and provide cooling. We live in a chaotic system that nevertheless ends up looking like it is externally regulated, because climate inherently seems to resist “runaway” scenarios.

And it works because complex systems prove to be far more resilient than we might have thought at first. Simple systems fail when stressed, but the very best systems are complex: they contain lots of independent actors, often in tension with each other.

These systems work: Think of all the predictions of global financial collapse that have sounded very sensible – but have yet to come true. The global financial system has countless actors of all kinds, and it often seems to defy gravity; it is simply too complicated to be able to pinpoint when, for example, the US debt is going to lead to a fundamental economic crisis – I remember Democrats predicting it would happen way back when Reagan was president! The timing of even inevitable outcomes seems to remain far beyond our reach.

And complex systems definitely improve the material well-being of the world. Jeremy Clarkson put it this way:

Just look at a tin of baked beans. There’s a man who knows how to grow and harvest those beans but I bet he has no clue how to make the tomato sauce and even less of a clue about how to make a tin can. We all need each other to keep the system working. … I’m fairly sure I’ve never met anyone who could even make a pencil.

The very complexity of our world, the vast number of interactions, has yielded a civilization richer than the wildest dreams of a mere hundred years ago. And all because of endless feedback and the resulting homeostasis.

These general guidelines seem to work across everything we know: from the economy to the body politic to the world’s weather and climate to complex and resilient machinery and technological systems, and even to human cultures. Homeostatic systems are arguably the very best way to find the Good. They clearly are the very best way to deliver unthinkable riches to humanity.

Here is the central principle: The more independent actors there are (as long as they do not overwhelm the others), the more robust and adaptable the machine/organism/economy/culture, etc. Top-down economies never win in the long run: bottom-up economic systems are the source of the world’s success today. The very same thing is true in the competing arena of ideas, and music and art… it seems to be ubiquitous.

What occurred to me recently, however, is that this is also very much true for each person. We are all comprised of selfish and contradictory needs and desires. We each have a body and a soul, and any of us who are aware of our souls know that there is a tension between the two: what my body tells me it wants is often at odds with what I should want. Think of monogamy or healthy eating or exercise. Or even bungee jumping. Most people, most of the time, do not actually act in their own best long-term interest.

But our lives have many more actors than just our body and soul. We have relationships with the opposite sex (most deeply within a marriage). And we have relationships with our siblings, parents, and community. Those relationships come in a full spectrum of mediums: physicality, love, resentment, money, language, coercion, attraction, sight, sound, smell, emotions, reason, etc., etc. Many of these languages are not even encompassed in our conscious awareness, but they are there, and influential, nevertheless.

The more elements we have in our lives, the more feedbacks there are, the more we can grow and develop. In essence, we become better people when we can interact with others – and the deeper those relationships, the more we can grow. This is especially true within the family (parents and siblings and children), a marriage – and, critically – with G-d.

This is actually not hard to prove, at least in a hand-waving kind of way. Any of us can look around and observe that the most fulfilled people we know are those who are involved with, invested in, others.

We can summarize Genesis in this way: we have brothers who murder (Cain & Abel), despise (Ishmael and Isaac), cheat (Jacob and Esau), and even sell each other into slavery (Joseph’s brothers). We evolve and grow toward Ephraim and Menasseh and Moses and Aharon, who display no envy and work together as a team. A lot more is accomplished by Moshe and Aharon than by the earlier pairs of brothers. For best results, add more ingredients and stir well.

The Torah tells us of marriages that start with a man and woman who blame each other (Adam and Eve), pre-Flood men who simply took women they chose, then a man who sells his own wife into harem slavery (Avram and Sarai), to women who show more independence and power (Rebekka and Tziporrah), and on to women who advise and consent and challenge their husbands and leaders (Rachel and Leah, midwives Shifrah and Puah, Pharaoah’s daughter, the daughters of Tzelofchad). The direction of growth is always toward non-dominant interaction, without any one party or class crushing the others.

The Torah even tells us of sons who leave their fathers (Terach, Avraham, Isaac, and Jacob), finally landing on sons who choose to live with each other and with their father (Joseph’s generation). In order to truly create an amazing homeostatic culture, we need to maximize the number of elements interacting with each other.

Joseph Cox brilliantly pointed out that the description of the Jewish people by the non-Jewish prophet Bilaam (N. 24:6) is itself a set of impossible contradictions:

As valleys planted / as gardens by the river-side / as tents set firmly by the timeless G-d /as cedars on the waters; Valleys … are not planted, normally. They flow. But here, they are set into the land. And then we have more contradictions. Gardens that are located on a river bank will be swept away with the spring waters. Tents of the timeless G-d – bring the temporary and permanent together. And cedars on the water, where they cannot grow because cedars need drainage.

In other words, the Jews are a walking impossibility. We are described by, and defined as, something that cannot be found in nature: flowing valleys that are stable; gardens growing despite the risk of being washed away; permanent impermanence; things that never persist in nature. It is this moving equilibrium, the instability of a shifting existence, that brings us closer to G-d, closer to a purpose-driven life. Ours is the embodiment of an unstable yet homeostatic existence.

So I think the overall approach of maximizing feedbacks in order to create a robust and adaptable system is not just true for climate or economies or the production of food: I think that same principle is also given to us through the Torah as a way for humans to maximize our societal and spiritual growth.