This article first appeared in Forum, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on April 26, 2021 - May 2, 2021

The US-China rivalry is often cast as a competition of ideologies.

Most people think that the difference lies in state-led governance versus democratic or market-led politics. If we explore the origins of Chinese thinking, there are similarities with modern Western science, which suggests that the different path of political evolution may be more due to history and institutional experience, rather than fundamental differences in approach.

At the heart of modern (Western) science lie the physics laws of thermodynamics. In his lecture on The Two Cultures, scientist and novelist CP Snow lamented that academics in the arts know Shakespeare, but do not understand the second law of thermodynamics, while few scientists read Shakespeare. The art culture expresses change in qualitative terms, whereas science stresses quantification that can measure change.

Here is where the Chinese and Western thinking clearly has similarities and differences.

Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that looks at how heat or energy affects different states of matter. There are four such laws, which form the basis of key conceptual thinking in science. In essence, the natural world, including human life, runs on energy. Thermodynamics basically looks at how matter changes into energy and vice versa.

The Zeroth law of thermodynamics, sometimes called the fourth law but which actually precedes the other three, is that if two thermodynamic systems are each in thermal equilibrium with a third, then they are in thermal equilibrium with each other. Essentially, this says that systems can be in equilibrium with others. The Chinese concept of equilibrium is what Confucians call the Golden Mean, stressing stability rather than going to extremes.

The first law is derived from the conservation of energy, which is that the total energy of the universe remains the same. What it suggests is that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; it can only change forms. In any closed process, the total energy of that universe remains the same. Einstein’s famous equation, E = mc2, obeys this law. Essentially, Einstein identified that energy and matter are the same thing, so small masses like uranium can release huge energy, creating the atom bomb.

The second law is very important, which says the entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, until it approaches a maximum value at equilibrium. In layman terms, it means that entropy (defined as complexity) always increases in an isolated system. Needless to say, open or non-isolated systems are also likely to see even more entropy or complexity.

The third law is that as temperature approaches absolute zero, the entropy of a system approaches a constant minimum. Obviously, if temperature is absolute zero, then entropy may become zero. But a collorary of this is that absolute zero may be unattainable.

It is a curious coincidence that there is a parallel between these laws of thermodynamics and the Chinese Book of Changes or I Ching, documented in 1,046 BC during the Zhou Dynasty, but possibly drawn from earlier oral traditions. The Book of Changes states that there are three fundamental forms of change. The first is that things always change, which Greek philosopher Heraclitus (500 BC) observed independently as “all things stay in flux”. The second principle, which appears exactly opposite to the second law, is that things will simplify, rather than get more complicated.

The third I Ching principle — that things remain the same — was also independently observed by Heraclitus’ contemporary, Parminides (early 500 BC), that everything that exists is unchanging, which is like the first law of conservation of energy.

Chinese philosophy therefore accepts that change is the only constant, and therefore Man has to decide whether in response to the change, he should be active or passive. The active player wants to change the game; the passive player goes with the flow.

The Laozi classic, Dao De Jing or the Essence of Tao, starts with the dictum that no Tao (way, principle or rule) is eternal. Furthermore, it argues that complexity always increases (Chapter 42), so knowledge and action are a matter of seeking what is the right way and simply acting at the right time and place. Chinese thinking therefore accepts that life is a complex interaction between self-order and intervention. Because the Tao is systemic, Man and Nature are One, as are State and Market. That is to say, change to the system happens when the parts interact reflexively (in Soros’ terminology) with each other.

I interpret the second I Ching principle that everything simplifies as a logical extension of human beings needing to simplify matters in order to deal with unending complexity of change. This is the exact opposite to the second law of thermodynamics, which states that entropy or complexity increases. The I Ching breaks down complexity by reducing it to 64 hexagrams, each of which can vary and then be interpreted in different ways. This introduces the element of chance into change, which is equivalent to the quantum idea that everything is probabilistic.

The Western logician deals with complexity by reductionist thinking. Living things cope with complexity by using rules of thumb or heuristics that simplify decision-making. For example, complexity scientist Bar-Yam argues that living things deal with complexity in a reductionist manner, sometimes in the form of complex algorithms that enable living things to evolve through emergence. (See Incomplete Nature by Terrence Deacon on reductionism versus emergence, Chapter 5, 2011.)

The Darwinian concept of “survival of the fittest” suggests that those who cannot cope with the changing complex environment will not survive and only those who evolve complex thinking can adapt or survive the complexity of the changing environment.

The Darwinian concept endorses the dominance of man, because he who is the smartest and, by extension, the strongest state, survives because he is the fittest. Life therefore involves constant competition between different species and different human groups, even as the environment changes. Great power rivalry is Darwinian in philosophy. Political philosopher Hobbes argued that society needs a Leviathan (one Alpha) to rule them all.

Western science therefore has gone full circle and has become intuitively very similar to Eastern thinking. Dutch physicist Piet Hut (Everything is Possible, 2018) argues that classical physics dealt with objects that are independent of each other, with absolutes that are deterministic. Quantum physics, however, moved into relativity and how objects interact with each other in an entangled and probabilistic way.

Science has not yet been able to achieve a unification of conscious minds and matter, but we do know that Chinese and Indian thinking accepts that mind and matter are one, because they are part and parcel of the whole universe. Just like quantum theory, Eastern philosophers do not pretend to understand how the interaction works, but it works. Because Piet Hut is a student of meditation and Eastern exploration of consciousness, he thinks that the next theory to unify mind and matter will be through the enlightenment from the meditation level of the human mind.

To put it simply, classical Western science was very much influenced by the idealism of Christian-Judaic religion that there is only one God and there is absolute perfection, which man seeks. Since Einstein and Niels Bohr, relativity and quantum theory has accepted uncertainty and that things change in ways that are interactive with each other. This line of thinking is converging with Chinese and Indian philosophy, and as the East learns Western science, there are convergences in world views.

But since Western social science advanced in natural science, the thinking of good versus evil and the idea, say, that democracy, rule of law and absolute freedom is the “natural” order of human governance, is retained very much within the West. This religious streak runs through racial supremacy and rejection of diversity of views and lifestyles, which makes cooperation much more difficult, leading to growing conflict and polarisation.

The heart of humanity is whether humans fight or cooperate to deal with the existential problems of mankind and nature. To fight is positive action, but that has negative consequences. To cooperate may be good for all of us, but because some of us may lose, they may defect or may want to be “bribed” to stick together.

To conclude, Eastern thinking and Western science are beginning to converge, recognising that there is no absolute good or bad, but everything is relative within a universe that may be existing within multiverses that we sense or theorise but cannot yet prove scientifically.

Change and chance are something we have to live with, just as without death, there is no life. This is why we are unable to picture the world in silos, and must accept that we all live on the same planet, with common bad fate if we fight and continue to destroy our environment. To continue to do bad things will result in bad fate, which is karma, not science, but, at least, believe.

Andrew Sheng is a former central banker, whose views are personal to himself

Save by subscribing to us for your print and/or digital copy.

P/S: The Edge is also available on Apple's AppStore and Androids' Google Play.