Chicken or Egg Theory...

Tonight I had a nice dinner with my sister and her husband. We were chatting about a variety of things, but in the course of our discussion my mind came back to an idea I’ve been playing with for a long time. In the lego exhibit a bit part of my job is taking apart the buildings the kids make. Every day there are one or two buildings that are truly creative and unique, but for the most part all the buildings are built using the same methods and “design” patterns that I see every other day. Sometimes I wonder, if the child who designed this buildng has never seen another lego building, can I call this creative even though it looks exactly the same as most other buildings that kids build? Is it the materials (the intuitive nature of a lego, for example) that are influencing this builder, or the culture, or human nature or what? If everyone else uses the same techniques and lego pieces to build a house, yet none of them have ever seen anyone else build a house, is what they are doing creative, or something else?

This led me to think about a concept I have pondered a lot through studying archaeology—this phenomenon that ancient cultures who lived totally independently of one another all developed the same tools and weapons and buildings as each other, though they never had any contact with one another. For example, every culture went through a ‘stone age’ in which they developed tools made of stone to perform simple tasks such as cracking nuts, eventually their skills developed to make knives, and at some point the figured out how to knap. At some point the hunters and gatherers decided they needed more permanent housing and began designing structures with walls and roofs, the majority of hich were square, rectangular or circular. For the most part they used the same tools—branches for roofs at first and then progressing (in many cultures) to cut stone and then eventually tile. Many used dried mud for walls and then progressed towards learning to work with wood and stone. At some point these cultures all decided to form communities, and most interesting to me, to build monuments and commemorate their dead. In some cases these things became so important and intrinsic to their cultures that they hauled 1,000 pound stones over hundreds of miles to build tombs, temples and other monuments. What taught them to commemorate their dead? What taught them to build monumental buildings at all? Why would they feel so strongly about it that they put so much effort, time and resources into completing these tasks? Language also has examples of this, look at how many cultures have a word similar to ‘mom’ or ‘dad’ for the female and male parents in a family unit.

What is it that causes humans to act so similarly to one another and yet so independently of each other? My brother-in-law joked about the ‘common consciousness’ or ‘aliens’. But seriously, is it something about human nature that functions in a way in each one of us to the point that we process problems, questions and ideas in the same way? Are we first influenced by the problem or idea, or the materials at hand? What makes us do such similar things independently of one another? Are we creative? Or just responding to some natural instinct and the materials at hand?

As a Latter-day Saint I have to give a nod to my belief in a divine connection between each of us. I also believe everyone is a child of God and that everyone has a portion of his spirit dwelling with in them. I believe in a Holy Spirit which influences and teaches us, brings things to our remembrance and gives us ideas. In Alma 30:44, the prophet Alma testifies that all things denote there is a God—the movements of the earth, the animals and trees, the stars. I’ve always used this as a way of proving evolution, for example, or the movement of the earth or what have you. I firmly believe that everything on this earth has developed in such a way because of the hand of God. But here is another question, is he personally responsible for directing us in –everything- and telling us what to do in every situation, or is he merely responsible for providing us with the materials we need to be successful and the appropriate encouragement to ‘be creative’ and to solve our own problems. Is he responsible for every answer himself, or does he leave some of that up to us?

This reminds me of the story of the brother of Jared in the Book of Mormon who God instructed to build a ship. What is key in this example is that the scriptures do not say that God told him exactly how to build a ship, he just told him that he should build a ship. After the brother of Jared was told what to do, he was left to his own resources to figure out how. Jared came up with an idea and then asked God for advice on where to get materials for his ship. Isn’t the superior teacher the one who knows when to be completely involved in a student’s learning, and when to let the student learn for himself? Don’t we learn more after hours of tinkering and working things out then we do if someone just tells us what to do?

I wonder if this has any bearing on God’s relationship with us. I know that we believe that God leads us in all things, but does that necessarily mean he tells us everything we should do and how we should do it? To me, this idea makes me more in awe of God and his perfect abilities by believing that he –doesn’t- in fact instruct us in absolutely every detail of our lives, but he allows us to use our divine attributes and talents to figure things out and to work through things. I mean, when we are making decisions we are taught to work things out ourselves through study and prayer and hard work and then to go to God for his input, isn’t this kind of similar? By allowing us to be individuals he allows us to progress and to develop—what would it be like if God told us how to do absolutely everything? We would have no confidence in our accomplishments, we would defer to God in every instance—I’m not sure this is totally bad, but how are we ever going to learn to be like God if he micromanages our every action? We wouldn’t even have agency, would we? I mean, even in religious things God does not expect that everyone will believe and act in the same way. He provided different heavens for a reason—because he –doesn’t- expect us to work out all of our problems in the same way and to defer to him in every instance.

So what is the connection between all of my thoughts here? Are we creative people? Or is everything we do a product of our circumstances, human nature, or resources? I’m not sure I have a well-developed idea here. I think it must be a combination of things. I do believe that we are instructed by the Holy Spirit, I do believe He enlightens us to help us solve problems and that he instructs us in certain things like teaching us about our divine heritage. But there is part of me that believes he must leave a lot up to us, in which case there must be something about human nature, and the way we respond to our environment and process problems that means that we come to such similar conclusions even though we live independently of each other. I don’t think God instructs us in all ways, but rather, that he is with us and gives ideas here and there like a teacher might, and then just encourages us in our development. What do you think?