One of the unexpected lessons of working in technology is that complex systems don’t appear by accident.
In the world of technology, information is everything.
Information (as data) is the reason why complex software systems are designed and built – to collect data from various sources, transform the data into something meaningful, transmit, store and share.
But a software application in and of itself is not merely a collection of electrical signals moving through hardware. Those signals carry meaning.
Business teams define requirements. Architects design and diagram solutions. Infrastructure teams provision environments. Developers write application code. Testers validate functionality. Eventually the application goes live, and is monitored and continuously improved.
At every stage, information (as sets of instructions) is being created, organized, transmitted, and interpreted.
The more years I spent working in technology, the more I began noticing a similar pattern elsewhere.
Not just in computers. In life itself.
Architecture Everywhere
When we encounter complex systems in everyday life, we instinctively recognize architecture. Homes begin as blueprints. Vehicles begin as engineering designs. Power grids, communication networks, water systems, medical devices… all exist because intelligent minds organized information into a coherent plan. The more complex the system, the more obvious the architecture becomes.
What fascinated me was that the natural world appears to operate according to similar principles. The universe is governed by mathematical laws. Physical processes follow predictable patterns (think Newton’s laws, thermodynamics and many others). Biological organisms contain staggering amounts of information encoded within their DNA and RNA. Every cell in our body functions like a microscopic factory.
Reality itself seems remarkably intelligible. And that intelligibility itself is a mystery worth contemplating. This is something I had rarely stopped to consider.
Why should the universe be understandable at all?
Why should mathematics describe reality so effectively?
Why should information exist in a form that minds like ours can discover and interpret?
The deeper I looked, the more extraordinary these questions became.
The Most Important Architecture I Ever Witnessed
One experience in particular changed how I thought about these questions.
When I was pregnant with my daughter, I eagerly looked forward to every ultrasound appointment.
Each visit revealed something new.
A heartbeat.
Tiny fingers.
Developing organs.
Increasing complexity.
I was fascinated by what I was seeing. Here was a tiny human being developing in a way that was both incredibly delicate and astonishingly coordinated.
As I learned more about fetal development, I found myself thinking about DNA. DNA is often described as a molecule, but that description feels incomplete.
DNA is information.
It contains instructions.
It communicates.
It directs processes.
It stores and transmits an immense amount of biological knowledge.
Long before my daughter took her first breath or opened her eyes, her unique blueprint already existed that would guide her development.
Her height.
Her eye color.
The structure of her body.
The organization of countless biological processes.
A single zygote was somehow packed with all of the information necessary to build an entire human being – but not just any human. A unique individual unlike any other in the world.
Her development process in utero felt less like randomness and more like the unfolding of a living design that adapted, repaired, coordinated and developed with astonishing precision.
After spending years working with information systems, I found that difficult to view as ordinary.
Certain questions kept returning to my mind:
Where does information come from?
Not merely the physical medium that carries it, but the information itself.
And if information lies at the heart of every software system we develop, what should we make of the extraordinary information present within living systems?
If we recognize architecture when we see it in software, buildings, and machines, why do we hesitate to acknowledge the incredible architecture present in living systems?
Fine-Tuning Beyond Biology
My wonder eventually expanded beyond biology. It reached into the universe itself.
Scientists have discovered that many of the fundamental constants and laws of physics appear to exist within extraordinarily narrow ranges.
If gravity were significantly stronger or weaker, stars might never form.
If the strength of certain nuclear forces were different, the elements necessary for life might never exist.
If the expansion rate of the universe had been different, matter could have either collapsed back on itself or dispersed too quickly for galaxies to form.
The universe appears balanced upon an intricate collection of conditions that make life possible.
Whether one interprets this as design, necessity, chance, or something else entirely, it is difficult not to be amazed by it.
The deeper I looked into these realities, the less ordinary existence seemed.
Wonder Before Conclusions
For me, science did not become a path away from faith. It became a path toward wonder.
The goal was never to prove God through an equation, a biological process, or a scientific theory.
Science is extraordinarily effective at explaining how things work.
Faith asks different questions.
Why does anything exist at all?
Why is reality intelligible?
Why is there order rather than absolute chaos?
Why does the universe contain beings capable of understanding it?
The deeper I explored science, the more I found myself standing in awe – not because every mystery had been solved, but because reality itself appeared far more remarkable than I had ever imagined.
The universe no longer seemed ordinary. It seemed purposeful, intelligible, and full of meaning.
And while science did not lead me directly to God, it awakened a sense of wonder that made me more open to the possibility that He had been woven into the fabric of reality all along, hidden in plain sight.
† Glória Patri, et Fílio, et Spirítui Sancto. Sicut erat in princípio, et nunc, et semper, et in saécula saeculórum. Amen. †