The Materialization of the Swimmer

From Chapter Three

Might a living woman spontaneously materialize within the waters of a swimming pool? Might a soup of simple organic molecules organize their motions to coalesce into the living, breathing body of a swimmer?

Most of us would say that such an event is beyond incredible. We know that in the textbook, Biochemistry, Voet explaines that a swimmer who jumps into a pool is never thrown back out by the water molecules because of entropy--the Universe's movement towards greater disorder. As Voet points out, it could happen. It really could. But the possibility that the pool's water molecules should organize their motions to eject someone from a pool is so astronomically remote we would never view it in a million lives.

Likewise, because of entropy, we would never expect little molecules floating about in the pool to spontaneously organize their motions to form the human body's unbelievably intricate structures. Again, nothing in the laws of physics prevents it from happenings. The watery molecules could suddenly leap into the incredibly complex molecular dance that becomes the swimmer’s cells, tissues, and organs. Yet, the probability of such an event is so low that one would say it is totally impossible.

But let us suspend our disbelief for a moment and imagine that we are standing at the edge of our community swimming pool one afternoon. A small dark cloud in water catches our attention. We watch with curiosity as the cloud grows to the size of a watermelon. It then mysteriously continues to increase in length and breadth. Once it reaches five feet in length, the cloud twists upon itself and four appendages emanate from the central cloud and condense into arms and legs. We watch with amazed apprehension as the cloud gains the definition of a distinctly human form. The head separates from the torso and a face develops with lips, eyes and nose. Before we have fully grasped what is happening, the cloud has solidified. The living, breathing body of a woman has gained tangible substance in the water!

Should I watch this miracle occur, my skin would prickle with awe. If one were to be confronted with the divine powers of the supernatural, it would be now. Yet as we watch, the materialized woman appears entirely unfazed by the events. As if no more than taking an afternoon dip, she glances up with an enigmatic smile, rolls to her front, swims to the side of the pool, and climbs out. She slips a robe over her nakedness and brushes back her hair. What creates this intelligent, conscious being? With a parting nod, she murmurs, "Have to run," and walks off to the bathhouse as though no explanation were needed. What has occurred?

To view a human body materialize in a swimming pool is a miracle of the first order. Mere ejection of a swimmer from the pool by water molecules is child’s play in comparison. We now view a conscious, emotive human being gain tangible form and climb out on her own. Yet as Voet would note, the only thing that prevents the forces of the pool’s water molecules from becoming self-organized into human form is the statistically improbability. With a material view of reality, one would say the materialization of the woman is absurd.

However, this extravagant, incalculable improbability is the essence of life. Somehow, in life the vast volume of chaotic forces of the environment becomes the vast volume of exquisitely organized forces of the body’s physiology. When the swimmer materializes in the pool, the timeframe for the process of growth is drastically altered. Instead of watching a human body grow over months and years, we watch the miraculous process occur in a span of minutes. Yet, the organization of forces of watery molecules into human form is exactly what happens in the creation of each of us. We might think that the machinery of the mother’s body directs the growth of a baby. But actually, the mother’s body simply provides a nutrient rich soup that feeds the growing form. The waters of the swimming pool adequately model the chaotic pool of nutrients upon which an embryo grows.

As Erwin Schrodinger, the Nobel Prize physicist, would remind us, the incalculable improbability of the event is exactly the same whether the event takes seconds or years to occur. How do we explain this? What organizes life’s molecular motion? We cannot ignore the significance of DNA. Suppose I return to the waters of life. Standing at the edge, I toss magic dust, far too small to be seen into our pool of nutrients. Within the flesh of my hand reside billions of tiny specks of DNA. Dropped into the pool, the strands are too small to disturb the water with the slightest ripple. Invisibly small chromosomes fall from my skin and magically my form appears in the pool.

From invisibly small specks of DNA thousands of identical copies of my being form in the chaotic forces of the pool. A ghostly legion of full-sized replicas of me spurts from the waters. They start to sing, clap, and call for an encore. I may repeat the process endlessly with the same result. I bring other bottles of magic DNA dust to the pool. From one bottle, an invisibly small speck produces a great blue whale that fills the pool and thrashes water from the diving well. With my magician hat on, I try another bottle. Around each piece of chromosomal string forms a new creature––a potato plant, a giant redwood, a flock of birds that fly into the sky, a school of fish that swim in migratory patterns, a lion that jumps from the pool and tries to eat me. Plants appear in the energy of the sun. And when the life of each of these magic creatures departs, molecules disperse again in simple forms returned in equilibrium to the anarchy of nonliving waters.