COMMUNICATING COMMUNICATION THEORY
Only rarely do major theories in science originate as solutions to engineering problems. Information or communication theory is one. Even as early as the Second World War, pioneers in the infant field of electronic technology realized that new developments in telephone technology, television, and electronic digital technology would be impossible without a sound theoretical understanding of communication itself. In 1948, an American electrical engineer, Claude Shannon, building on the contributions of his contemporary, the equally brilliant scientist Norbert Wiener, published his germinal paper, "A Mathematical Theory of Communications," laying out the foundations for such a theory.(1)
Communication covers far more than reading, writing, and reciting. Communication occurs when specific codes in the strands of DNA convey valuable instructions for the development of new cells and organisms, when electrical impulses sent from the brain trigger impulses in the muscles toward the achievement of specific tasks, when the eyes see and the ears hear, when the thermostat controls the furnace, and when the artist takes the paint from the palate to the canvas. That is, communication occurs whenever an impulse originating in one place generates a response in another place through the transmission of signals.
As broad as it seems, even this definition was too narrow for Shannon's intention. He preferred a more comprehensive definition; communication is a decision process wherein a field or set of possibilities is reduced to some smaller number or even to a single possibility by the operation of a decision agency. To communicate is to rule out possibilities. Life, and, in fact, most events in the world, may be understood as the very process by which a range of possible states found in one moment is reduced to just one state in a subsequent moment through some general process of specification or selection. Within this understanding it is entirely possible to see the flow of the world as a continuous stream of communication from potentiality to actuality. If communication can be defined so broadly, then it may be possible to extend the concepts of communication theory to include not only life and creation but also, isomorphically, the life of God.
An allegory may bring this discussion down to earth. In 1501, in Florence, Italy, the great Renaissance artist Michaelangelo, chisel and mallet in hand, stands before a massive block of marble considering his many options. By his side a friend observes the artist at work. Ignorant of the artist's intention, the observer is at a total loss in answering the question, "What will this block become? What will he make of it?" Michaelangelo, however, has something specific in mind. He begins his work. Chips of marble pile deeply on the floor. The observer, returning frequently over the next several years to watch and learn, detects the emerging outlines of a human form. After three years the artist completes his great creation and the observer's patience is finally rewarded with a stunning sight of the magnificent David, a defining masterpiece of the Renaissance.
Think of the uncarved block of marble as a set of possible messages, each representing one form or figure that could be shaped from the material. The possibilities, of course, are numberless, and, with reference to the block alone, each one has an equal probability of being realized. The disorder or information contained in this set of possibilities is maximal. The artist's associate, observing the block before a single chip had been removed, is completely uncertain about the final result. Ignorant of the intentions of the artist, she has nothing to go on and simply must wait expectantly. With Michaelangelo's labors, patterns emerge and the observer's uncertainty is progressively reduced by the introduction of constraint. The appearance of the human body limits the immense set of possibilities to a much smaller set by eliminating those that are not human bodies. Some predictions are now possible, although, even at this point in the emerging form, the number of persons in the world who could be depicted by the artist constitutes a very large remaining subset. Further specifications reveal more-the person is a male, a young male with a classic form and pose, and so on. And again, the range of possibilities grows smaller by a process of elimination. Eventually, the observer's ignorance, reduced chip by chip vanishes altogether. Finally, only one possibility remains, the one that stands before her as David.
In skeletal form we have the essential elements of a system of communication. The observer or receiver, entering the artist's studio off the street, is originally in a state of complete uncertainty. As a homogeneous mass of stone, the block itself is the totality of possible messages, immense and perhaps infinite in number. Michaelangelo is the transmitting source, the one who selects from this rich set just those messages that will be sent. The sculpting itself represents the transmission of messages of increasing specificity with the effects of removing the ignorance and the uncertainty of the observer. Each swing of the mallet could be interpreted as a yes or no decision by the artist with respect to answering the question "Shall this part remain; yes or no?" and thus contains one bit of information. As great subsets of possible forms are eliminated, constraints are introduced that increase the receiver's confidence in deducing the artist's final intention.
From this instructive allegory, which actually is not an allegory, but a literal example of communication, it is clear that Shannon's theory, originally intended for highly technical applications in electronic networks, has a great range of application in a more intuitive or general and less technical approach. So its relevance to artistic creation is neither unique nor accidental. This example also serves as a preamble to subsequent chapters where our intention will be to employ the theory of communication in a similar way as a complex isomorphism to speak about and further understand cosmological and theological matters.
THE ELUSIVE CHAOS AS INFINITE VARIETY: THE PANDEMONIUM TREMENDUM
The first premise of philosophical theology is God, the second, being, and the third chaos. No one would argue our first two choices in this list (although some would reverse the ranking), but the third requires considerable justification. The initial task is to explore ways of discussing chaos at all. Chaos has an odd hybrid or dialectical character that contributes to its elusiveness. It is more than nothing, less than something, not quite anything.
Chaos is perplexing. It is neither here nor there, this nor that. Being true to the reality (if one can so speak) of chaos means accepting and working within the ambiguity of its state and status. This accomplished by steering a course between its negative and positive character, refusing to deny either or, better yet, embracing both in a broader, dialectical account.
There is probably no better place to begin an account of chaos than with the observation that "chaos is the antonym of system." (2) A system is a whole with contributing components whose natures are determined by their place and role in the whole. The wholeness of the system as an arrangement, most often a dynamic, functional arrangement, is the emergent property of the components and the relationships between them. A system represents the outcome of the information processes, of messages sent and received through the workings of decision that progressively limit an initial field of possibility out of which a system arises as a complex, concrete whole. Chaos must, in contrast, be a state without wholeness, contributing components, or web of connecting influences. Organization and pattern or anything whatsoever that could be called a defining form, boundary, or essence are absent.
The concept of variety may provide a key to understanding chaos. Variety is a technical term in communication theory. Variety is an attribute of a set of potential messages. The uncertainty of the receiver is proportional to the variety of this initial set. The greater the variety, the greater the uncertainty. Uncertainty is relieved with the reception of messages wherein variety is reduced. Information generated in the transmission not only reduces variety but also moves the process from possibility to actuality and toward a settled state. Variety is therefore also proportional to entropy. In communication theory, entropy is greatest when uncertainty is maximal in the receiver and no constraint exists in the ensemble of possible signals.
It follows, then, that chaos, in its primordial manifestation, may be likened to an infinite field of variety, of complete indeterminateness filled with potential power, the source of all created things and one aspect of divine abundance(3) Representatives of this position might include Jacob Boehme's Ungrund, later developed by Nicolas Berdyaev as the freedom of me on or nonbeing; Meister Eckhart's enumeration of the natures of divinity as the indeterminate ground, giving rise to a determinate figure; and Rudolf Otto's phenomenological appraisal of the holy as the Mysterium Tremendum et Fascinans Pandemonium captures the character of the primordial chaos as an uproarious bedlam. Hence, Pandemonium Tremendum qualifies as an appropriate name.
The Pandemonium Tremendum is not limited to a fitful state of affairs that disallows the emergence of any enduring order. Rather, it consists of infinite variety as understood in communication theory. This would be an infinite assortment of discrete events, elements, or states distributed with complete randomness-and equiprobable distribution-shifting and mixing incessantly in a condition of complete instability. Each element or potential state is dead-even with respect to its realization in competition with all other states. Essential also to the PT is the aspect of turbulent mixing or elemental agitation, the ceaseless shuffling of possibilities in a roiling chaotic sea.
Endnotes
1. Claude E. Shannon, "A Mathematical Theory of Information," Bell System Technical Journal 27 (1948): 379-423, 623-56.
2. Stafford Beer, "Below the Twilight Arch: A Mythology of Systems," General Systems Yearbook 6 (1961): 9.
3. See Philip Hefner, "God and Chaos: The Demiurge versus the Ungrund," Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 19, no. 4 (1984): 469-85.
From Pandemonium Tremendum: Chaos and Mystery in the Life of God, by James E. Huchingson. Cleveland, The Pilgrim Press, 2001.