This is nothing particularly new or mind-blowing, but I appreciate science and watching this made my gears turn. Like any bored individual might, I browsed through the comments (the video I watched was posted to iO9). Watching this video reminded me instantly of the idea of "groupthink." One comment from "science4thewin" stated simply, "order from disorder without the interaction of a 'god.'" Of course, I have some disagreements with this comment. After some careful consideration, here is what I'm sure will come across as a rambling response.
First, I do believe God has interacted and continues to interact with Creation. That said, my question was, "Does our Creator interact with us with the intention of achieving synchronization?" My immediate and, I think, final answer is a solid NO. Just as the Creator is infinitely creative, so is Creation. Creation is not just a noun, it is also a verb (I would argue that the latter is the more important). Creation didn't just happen, it is happening. The Creator didn't finish the work to resign and wait for us to fall into synchronization. This is a process referred to as "locking" by the engineers of the Millenium Bridge in London. Here's a video of what happened when it opened.
Because of the way the bridge behaved, the pedestrians changed the way they walked which ended with thousands of people walking in a side-to-side motion that made the bridge sway significantly. We often react to what surrounds us and, like the metronomes or the people on the bridge, we lock in with each other and fall in sync with each other. However, I would argue that in our actions and in my life as a Christian, we have something that metronomes don't have. Free will. Unlike metronomes and crowds on bridges and planets and entire galaxies, our actions are not always dictated by the physical laws of our world. This is another way in which the creature/creation conflicts with itself. We are created to live beyond the laws of physics and nature, but we are also of this world and, thus, we often apply these laws to our metaphysical existence.
Here's an example. When it comes to peace, we often are so confounded in how to achieve it that we comply with the laws of physics and instead of equity, we settle for sameness. For the same reason that our finite-ness leads to us applying physical law to the non-physical, we apply the same laws to each other. Take any utopian/dystopian novel or story. Think Brave New World, The Giver, or "Harrison Bergeron." In each story, the characters' lives are dictated by rules that intend to equalize every citizen of their world (all except, of course, the people making those rules). It is completely involuntary and it always takes some kind of crisis event for one or more individuals in these worlds to overcome this oppressive equality. Sometimes, it overwhelms them altogether.
Order certainly has it's place and I am not proposing that Christians should "go against the current" just for the sake of being different. However, we have the right, privilege, and duty in many cases to exercise our will. I have a deep appreciation for the physical Creation that so often orders itself through synchronization, gravity, natural selection, and other such forces. But we are called to operate beyond these forces. We advocate for the weak and systematically disadvantaged; we strive to defy the impossibilities of yesterday; we urge ourselves not to "conform but to be transformed."
The metronomes have no will. They can't choose to be out of sync. Even the last one on the right in the second row eventually succumbs to the pendulum swing. We can choose to act instead of react. The example I choose to follow is that set by Jesus. He is the ultimate interaction between our Creator and Creation. Not just the interaction of "a 'god,'" but of the God.
