God exists; but how?

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*My path through the forest of knowledge wound past those glades inhabited by science, philosophy, history, and religion. I did not pause long anywhere, so the many details the experts in those fields observe may be different from what I observed in making my journey. To describe the meaning of life, we who have lived first do not have time in a single lifetime to stop at any particular glade in the forest of knowledge to study the fauna and flora in depth. The length of the journey dictates that we smell the fragrance of the rose and relish the beauty of its form rather than study its botany; that we feel and see the durability and sculptural form of a granite boulder rather than study its materiality; that we contemplate the mystery of a new born fawn and the grace of its mother rather than study their morphology; that we immerse ourselves in the coolness of the brook rather than study its hydrodynamics; that we bathe in the moonlight rather than study its electromagnetic characteristics. Nevertheless, to understand the structure of the path through life we cannot ignore science. To understand the social forces that play such a big part of our lives, we cannot ignore history. To understand our individual role among the rest of humanity and how we should live, we cannot ignore religion. Hence, breadth not depth of knowledge is more conducive to finding the meaning of life. *

I will be a little disappointed if you don’t find a resonance of feelings with what I express. I have great hope that mankind will eventually find a common resonance even though I place my hope in ritual and you (I think) in contemplation. You left the church at about the same time I came back to it. Amazing isn’t it?

Yppop
 
Yppop,

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. As for the artist and engineer never meeting, I always thing in this case of Leonardo da Vinci.* And rather than tracks that never meet, I find it useful to think of seemingly divergent paths as stemming from the same root, however distant that might be. In our case it may not in fact be that far apart, save in labeling and some points of interpretation.

It was refreshing to read your sidereal considerations. When I was a professional driver in Arizona, one of the things I got to do as a town car driver was pick up train crews. I got to drive my nearly brand new Lincoln town car out I-10 from Tucson into the desert to the East. In the middle of nowhere I got to get off the freeway and drive five or ten miles down a dirt road and park, there to wait for a train to arrive and stop on a deserted siding. Since my shift was 6PM>6AM, this errand often left me in the middle of the Sonoran desert at 3AM in the morning, a perfect time and place to watch stars. As you might know, Tucson is a major center for astronomy, even the famed “Pope 'scope” being located nearby. (I even worked at the UofA Optical Sciences lab for a while, but that is another also fascinating story.)

I remember waiting for the wail of the distant train whistle while sitting against the broad windshield of the Lincoln, hearing coyotes and assuring myself that the chupacabera was real only in the minds of believers, like so many other things. Stars of every color and size, alone, in groups, in clouds of misty haze, were strewn about on the velvet blue- black floor of the sky like a spilled bowl of sugar and party flakes. I was often transported in awe and wonder. Wonder, I figure, is the feeling of being open to newness appearing. Few other qualities of awareness are more valuable and rewarding, if you ask me.

And there were the blank black spots. I knew they were filled as well with more stars and galaxies, as I had looked at those same “empty” spots with optical instruments and seen wonders in their apparent nothingness. They serve well as an analogy. The nothingness they represent, and the fear that might happen on contemplating that emptiness is, I sense, properly labeled the fear of God. Here I don’t mean the cowering of a coward, but the sense and feeling (they are different) of someone ordinarily identified with limits being confronted suddenly by the ALLness of God.

One can rightfully feel insignificant in that dynamic. The mind, being a slave to the ordinariness of its subject-object relativity of perception, necessarily cowers in front of the perception of ALLness and sees nothingness. It is confronted with a blank incapable of its analysis, and yet feels being and awareness. This is the essence of the great Mystery: the sense of division confronted by the feeling of ALLness, both existing in the same awareness. And that, in its irresolution, constitutes the forest and the glades. Here is the “human” mind, capable of n to the x orders of perception of magnitudes from the meson to the limits of the Hubble, confronted with its own ability to do so as the encompassing phenomenon. It all stimulates the activity called “the search for Meaning.” And as you so beautifully put in your contrasts of opposites, that search can take place in the mind of a child or a priest-king.

But as you say also, one cannot explore every tree and glade. That is human knowledge.** Yet we must pursue Meaning. In my experience, I would now conjecture that meaning is the feeling of the significance of connections. You have likely noticed that one’s body of knowledge grows and has integrity according to its functional connections. The disconnects prompt inquiry. To me this is the movement of awareness toward Omega or Plurema, which depends at another level on that existence being already present as Being, or the undifferentiated Unified Field. The separation exists as a quality of human awareness. It is always already solved in the ground of Being. The exceptionally rare someone who experientially carries this knowledge as a living experience has, as my Mentor put it, “The fragrance of the Rose.”

The Rose has as its highest accomplishment its fragrance. That is the invisible mode of experiential significance that points to its own Essence. The fragrance carries with it the attractive power of wonder leading to inquiry and discovery including an unifying the Invislble and the visible. It is little wonder that the Rose is a symbol of the Christ.

I am moved an feel privileged that you shared the initial pages or your book with me. It points to the far richer and amazing experience that is your life. You are experiencing the authorship of a wonderful work, and will come up, you know, smelling like a Rose.
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*There was a world renowned photographer who did work for NatGeo and NASA who was a dear friend of my Mentor. He did a composite work of Dr. Mills face nest to Leonardo's. The resemblance was uncanny! 

**If it is of any interest, you might look at a post, #16 in "Calling all Thomists," which deals with the distinction between human and Divine truth/Truth.
 
To one and All

In my last post I explained the nature of life based on the implicate view of reality that I presented in previous posts. I believe that life is based on a reduced version of the holonomic mechanism that God uses to implement the universe. The reduction being that God engages the entire universe - the cosmic s-frame in my terminology - whereas each living cell merely engages the s-points that constitute the cell. Now I turn to multi-cellular organisms.

Multicellular organisms appeared in the fossil record about 600 million years ago. Science has no plausible theory to explain their appearance. One thing we do know, the theory of evolution does not explain the creation of multi-cellular organisms. Difficult as it is to explain the creation of multi-cellular organisms, it is just as difficult finding an explanation for morphogenesis. Morphogenesis, the formation and growth of the body from fertilization to death, has been described in great detail and still science cannot explain how it works. The form a multi-cellular organism takes cannot be predicted from its constituent parts or by any known physical law. That doesn’t mean that scientists haven’t presented hypotheses to explain morphogenesis. Most attempts have been based on something called a morphogenetic field. The most famous of these is one proposed by Rupert Sheldrake.

Sheldrake extended the concept of morphogenetic field that was proposed by earlier biologists in order to explain certain biological observations such as: the regeneration of a complete embryo that has had a section removed. A morphogenetic field acts to replace the lost section in order to restore the form. Sheldrake explains that although the matter-energy aspect of an organism is governed by the laws of physics, its form is guided by the morphogenetic field, which is neither explained nor governed by the laws of physics. Once a specific form is generated it will influence the replication of all similar forms. This influence is called formal causation. The cause of the influence is called morphic resonance. In other words there is a memory of form that exists in the morphogenetic field. The main objections to Sheldrake’s hypothesis were that morphogenetic fields are without mass or energy so how could non-matter influence matter; and formal causation acts non-locally.

I support the morphogenetic field concept since it fits well with my thesis. Here is how I apply the holonomic mechanism to explain multi-cellular organisms:

Cellular life began with the corpusculation of matter, which captured a particle of nomos that implements the incrementation of the s-points that form the cell. At some point in the Earth’s history another creation event occurred (to be discussed later when creation is addressed) at a higher level and captured another particle of the nomos that will be called nous. As life evolved on the earth there was an increase in cephalization (the tendency for nerve tissue to concentrate at one end of the organism, which in the higher orders concentrates in the brain). Cephalization is an indication how nous is distributed in the multi-cellular corpus.

Nous is manifested at the explicate level as the thing we call consciousness. All living multi-cellular organisms exhibit some degree of consciousness. The degree is directly related to the complexity of the corpus, especially the complexity associated with the central nervous system. Just as nomos is the basis for the holonomic mechanism, which is the cause of objective reality; and bios is the basis for the cytonomic mechanism, which animates matter; nous is the basis for the morphonomic mechanism, which induces biological behavior. Cells and multi-cellular organisms are subjected to the holonomic mechanism (to gravity for example). Cells are also subjected to the morphonomic mechanism. All three mechanisms are the result of initial conditions, algorithms, and information-driven impetus. In short, cells and multicellular organisms are individual s-frames whose behavior is the result of internally induced reconfiguration and incrementation of the s-points that constitute my body (corpus).

For example, when I awake in the morning and throw off the covers, the first thing I do is reach for my glasses, then I swing out of bed and head for the closet where I begin to dress. All of these motions are routine, but the objective of the closet is the result of an initial condition built into the algorithm, the set of instructions fed to the cells of my body. The impetus is the information fed to the cells. The expended energy to get my body from one point to another is the manifestation of the cytonomic mechanism working of the cells of my body.

This explanation of biologic behavior may sound incredulous when contrasted with our personnel experience of motion, matter, and energy, but we exist at and conform to the explicate level of reality and I am presenting a view of how God might exist in our lives at a deeper level, the implicate level. Having developed a model based on discrete space that led to the idea of a holonomic mechanism, I could see no other way to establish a comprehensive view than to apply the same mechanism to all facets of reality. This approach may be clearer when I discuss animal behavior in a subsequent post. In my next post I will discuss how the morphonomic mechanism relates to Sheldrake’s theory, which establishes the existence of forms.

Once again, thank you for your time.

Yppop
 
Hello Detales

Sorry for not responding sooner; spring is the busy season for me – yard work and family activities. Besides I am not as prolific a writer as you. I enjoy your last post very much. Very inspirational! I also read #16 on the thread you referred me to. I think I know what you are saying, but I am having trouble relating to it. I never really had a spiritual awakening like the one you allude to. Although I am a thinker I am not a contemplative thinker. My thought is primarily analytical. That doesn’t mean I don’t experience the spiritual; my experiences come in small doses of joy, peace, and awe. They are, however, cumulative. I am at peace with the world.

I bought “The Cornucopia of Substance” by Mills and will read it as soon as I finish my two library books.

Yppop
 
Yes, you are right about how we experience the spiritual. We each have our temperament and our devotional way. I think that is why Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, had seven synonyms for God. It doesn’t change God, but it allows for an emphasis in practice according to what we were given as propensities. I agree with C.S. Lewis: “I pray to God not to change Him, but to change myself.” And I believe that that is why we have our ways.

I am certainly an admirer of the depth of your considerations. I look forward to more of your explication on here.
 
To One and All,

To understand the relationship between Sheldrake’s morphic field theory of morphogenesis and the holonomic mechanisms I am describing, it is useful to review my thesis regarding these mechanisms. The mechanisms I refer to as holonomic, cytonomic, and morphonomic are mechanisms that define behavior of objective reality, cellular life, and multicellular organisms respectively. All three mechanisms include three requirements: an initial condition that defines an end point or goal; an algorithm that establishes the rules by which the incrementation occurs, and the impetus that causes the particular s-frame to increment. The holonomic mechanism operates the cosmic s-frame, the entire universe including life; the cytonomic mechanism operates the s-points that constitute the corpus of a single cell, a cellular s-frame; the morphonomic mechanism operates the corpus of a multicellular organism, a morphic s-frame. Nomos, that part of the infinite nothingness conterminous with the cosmic s-frame, is the source of activation for the universe; bios, the particle of nomos enclosed within a cell, is the source of life; and nous, the particle of nomos enclosed in the corpus of a multicellular organism, is the source of consciousness and behavior.

Sheldrake’ s theory describes morphogenesis, the development and growth of a multicellular organism, as the result of the guidance of a morphic field in accordance with a specific “form”. Once developed a particular form persists within the morphic field. Sheldrake’s theory, in effect, describes the transition between the cytonomic and the morphonomic mechanisms in my thesis. Sheldrake’s morphic field is the thing I call nomos. The objection to Sheldrake’s theory, the mind/matter question and the problem of non-locality are addressed by the holonomic mechanism.

I contend that at the ground of reality, there is no matter. The appearance of matter is merely a specific configuration of s-points, which are spatial. At the ground of reality, we are nothing but space, so the question of how the non-material affects matter is moot. Non-locality, in addition to having been determined to exist by Bell’s theorem and the pertinent experiments that proved it, in my thesis non-locality is real because the universe as a cosmic s-frame is a single unified whole in which every point is in instant contact with every other point. The appearance of motion that we experience at the explicate level is nothing more that the reconfiguration of s-points. An s-point does not move within a specific s-frame, the s-frame is static. It is the change in position of s-points from one s-frame to the next that gives the appearance of motion. Therefore, science’s assumption of locality that two things cannot affect one another if they are separated by a greater distance that light travels does not hold.

Once we accept the holonomic mechanism as the underlying cause of reality, it can be applied to understand the nature of human behavior. Amazingly, the vast, sterile cosmos and we inconsequential organisms are composed of the same stuff; we and the stars, organized at a cosmic level, share the same atoms. So we are subjected to the laws of physics and chemistry; we are an inescapable, yet ephemeral part of objective reality. Amazingly the teeming biosphere and we are constructed from and animated by a diversity and similarity of cells. So we are subjected to the rules of biology; we are an integral, yet transient part of subjective reality. Amazingly, we rise above the material and the biological universe as a unique creation of the divine. We experience freedom.

Our uniqueness resides in the mind and its divine spark, the soul. In my next post I will describe how the holonomic mechanism relates to the mind and soul.

Peace
Yppop
 
To one and all,

Gerald Edelman, a noble prize winning neuroscientist who has written several books advancing a theory of consciousness, poses this question: How can the firing of neurons give rise to subjective sensations, thoughts, and emotions? He then proceeds to answer the question with a book length description of connections and interconnections in the brain. Here is an example from his book, Wider than the Sky:

“…Cortical reentry was mediated by the emergence of several grand systems of reentrant corticortical connections linking distributed areas of the cortex. At the same time there was an increase in the reentrant connectivity with the thalamus, as well as an increase in the number of thalamic nuclei. The reentrant connection between the thalamus and the cortex were enhanced, both by the specific thalamic nuclei and the intra laminar nuclei described in Chapter 3, while the reticular nucleus of the thalamus developed enhanced inhibitory circuits by which it connected to the specific nuclei…”

Edelman obviously has in-depth knowledge of the human brain, but nowhere in either of his two books that I’ve read could I find an explanation of what consciousness is. He merely presents the complex circuitry of the brain that he feels gives rise to consciousness. Also, he assumes, as do most definitions, that consciousness is solely associated with self awareness, a unique property of humans. I prefer a definition that includes a broader range of life forms. Just as life is a manifestation of the cellular activity induced by bios, the particle of nomos that is corpusculated in the cellular corpus; consciousness is the manifestation of the morphic activity induced by the nous, the particle of nomos that is corpusculated in the multicellular corpus. Therefore, I believe that all multicellular animal forms have varying degrees of consciousness, a property of life easily explained in a holonomic model of reality. We acquire life through our cells; we acquire consciousness and the activities it induces (thought, dreams, awareness, etc.) through the activity of the corpusculated nous. Consciousness is the observation of the nous at the explicate level of reality. Awareness, which is the main feature of consciousness, is the evidence of the presence of nous. Self awareness, on the other hand, is a property of the mind not the property of consciousness. Only humans are self aware; only humans have minds.

As complexity of multicellular organisms increased, sometime in the distant past, a threshold of complexity was crossed and humans were created. The modification that separates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom is the acquisition of a mind. And the mind appeared when the first human acquired a language instinct. The mind is an interface between the neuronal circuits of the brain and the nous. They interact with one another. The nous is instrumental in creating the circuitry that forms words and other symbols and conversely words and symbols recall meanings and percepts stored in the nous. There is a two way communication. The morphonomic mechanism allows the nous to activate the neurons in the brain through the reconfiguration of the pertinent s-points associated with the circuits representing specific words. And being exposed to a word or a percept allows specific neuronal connections to form. Thus we learn language through the connection between the physical (brain) and the spiritual (nous). That is what I mean by the language instinct. But the language instinct, although fundamental to thought, is only one function of the mind. The mind is the interconnection of the brain and nous.

Thinking is the manipulation of symbols, mostly words, representing meaning, percepts, and abstractions. The manipulation of symbols takes place in the brain, which in a holonomic scheme means the incrementation of the s-points comprising the appropriate neuronal circuits. The source of the impetus for the incrementation that becomes the manipulation of the symbols resides in the nous.

In my next post (if enough views are recorded to indicate interest) I will discuss the nature of the soul and in subsequent post discuss human behavior.

Yppop
 
yppop said:
Edelman obviously has in-depth knowledge of the human brain, but nowhere in either of his two books that I’ve read could I find an explanation of what consciousness is. He merely presents the complex circuitry of the brain that he feels gives rise to consciousness.
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Thats because you cannot describe conciousness by revealing its associations with physical patterns. You can say that when y does x, v happens. But thats about it. You cannot explain subjective realities through physics.
 
To me it makes more sense to view the matter realm as the development of patterns of awareness in Consciousness manifesting in dimensionality.
 
Detales said:
To me it makes more sense to view the matter realm as the development of patterns of awareness in Consciousness manifesting in dimensionality.
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I think i get you, but i am not sure enough to comment. Please give another description of what you mean.
 
MindOverMatter said:
Thats because you cannot describe conciousness by revealing its associations with physical patterns. You can say that when y does x, v happens. But thats about it. You cannot explain subjective realities through physics.
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Hello MindOverMatter,

Yes and no. It depends on how you define your terms. Perhaps you may have noticed that my thesis is an attempt to describe consciousness by revealing its associations with physical patterns by giving new meaning to “physical patterns”. I do this by considering reality at two levels: (1) the explicate level: the “physical” world we experience and science describes, and (2) the implicate level, the ground of reality, which is completely “non-physical”.

I contend that what science describes as neurons at the explicate level are material manifestations of specific configurations of s-points arranged at the implicate level. The s-points are subjected to the holonomic mechanism and are actuated by the non-physical stuff I call nous. Nous is that particle of the infinite nothingness (the spiritual) that our bodies have corpusculated (captured or enclosed in other words). Consciousness is an observable state of the nous, in the same manner that ice is the solid state of water.

So, although it may not be “scientific”, my thesis does describe a way for the “physical” to interact with a subjective state.

Thank you for your comment and the opportunity to help clarify my view.
Yppop
 
Detales said:
To me it makes more sense to view the matter realm as the development of patterns of awareness in Consciousness manifesting in dimensionality.
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Hello Detales,
Again yes and no for the same reason that I answered MOM’s previous post and that is: it depends on how you define your terms. I view matter at the implicate level as a “pattern” (I prefer configuration because it fits better with the three dimension lattice of s-points) of discrete space, not consciousness. In my thesis, consciousness is associated with nous, which is a spiritual component of reality.

Thank you for your comment’
Yppop
 
Yes, I guess defining terms is the thing here, as always. I’ve seen so many good discussions or even dialogs go south because of too much parsing, on the other hand.

We have reached a point, you and I anyway, yppop, where we acknowledge a proceedural differnece. I’m guessing mine is the least attractive of many options because it requires a metanoia, or knowledge by Identity as the source material for undestanding manifestation, as distinct from infering the Source and connections from what we know by observation of the manifest. In other words, I’m saying partly in answer to MOM that metanoic Self knowledge is direct experience of nous and bypasses the need to explicate particulars, though it may inform such an explication.

This, I understand, was not new to the rishis, who it is said could devide their perception of time so finely that they actually observed the pulse of apppearnce/disapperance of the particles that constitute manifestation. I’m not that good, but I can certainly vouch for the direction of that mode of knowledge as having its base in nous. For clarity’ssake, in my definitions, Consciousness is equatoble with the Unified Field while awarenss is the experiential particulariztion of that Principle in the subject/object field of experience. It is in the s/o field that the questions we deal with are questions.

Some of us have what yppop clearly has, namely what has been called a cosmological imperative. We must know how it all hangs together. Clearly this is not possible on the plane of huan existance, as the lesser cannot contain the greater. That is why I advocate the development of that experiential link with nous (metanoia) that allows a trans-human/personal perception of the foundation of experience, or Reality. Therefore so far the only general criticism I have of yppop’s thesis is that it treats, as far as I can tell, the Principle of Consciousness as an object, whereas I hold it to be always and only Subject, that Subject including what appears from the point of view of awareness to be objectified as dimensions and the illusion of division. That is because awarenss is in Consciousness as a point of view relative ot all “else” whereas Consciousnes itself is always already One. Awareness is the multiplicaton in possibility of the reflexive nature inherant in Unity, or the implicate order.

That makes the single act of Creation an Always and NOW event not contradicting the eternality of God, whereas a single special act of creation precipitationg a begining of time would, in my estimation, contradict etrnality.
 
Detales said:
We have reached a point, you and I anyway, yppop, where we acknowledge a proceedural differnece. I’m guessing mine is the least attractive of many options because it requires a metanoia, or knowledge by Identity as the source material for undestanding manifestation, as distinct from infering the Source and connections from what we know by observation of the manifest. In other words, I’m saying partly in answer to MOM that metanoic Self knowledge is direct experience of nous and bypasses the need to explicate particulars, though it may inform such an explication.
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Detales,
As always an interesting post. You left me a lot to chew on. I have two graduations this week, one an over nighter and will be out of town, so I need more time to give your post the thought it deserves. I haven’t gotten to K.G.Mills’ book yet; I am currently reading Larry McMurtry’s Comanche Moon. His books, though captivating, consume lots of time (I am not a fast reader). And I would like to get a background in Mills’ thinking before I address your thoughts.

On first and second reading, however, I perceive a potential commonality of objective, but a difference in perspective. The difference between an artist and an engineer? I need to understand “how”; you need the understand “what”???

I’ll get back to you later.
Yppop
 
Yes, it is a busy time. I’m opening in a gallery North of here tomorrow, off to a Consulate in San Francisco the next day, and South to my nephew’s graduation Saturday, and then back to the Gold Country to check on my sister’s place and do watering, etc.

I agree that we have a commonality of objective. And I find the what/how distinction very perceptive. In my practice, as recommended by Dr. Mills and others, my inquiry, or “how” is constituted of variations of “what am I?” (not the misleading “who,” which leads to personal entanglement and relativism.) I find that line of questioning both fascinating and practical in that it tends to rotate the angle of inquiry away from invovement with subject/object perception of personal invovement and towards a penetraton of the phenomenal aspect of Being. It sort of reverses the heirarchy of “Consciousness is the Light to the awareness of ideas and thoughts” into an empirical penetration of the structure of awareness and its Source. It is an easy and handy tool that can be used at any moment it comes to mind. With practice it can become habitual, yet lively. Maybe that helps with your question as well, MOM?*

In this regard I got to wondering about the framing of your thread question. It is itself revelatory of the structure you are using to conduct your inquiry. What if it was something more like “Given that God IS, how is awareness of “self” and matter experienced?” As Dr. Mills often said, “View *out from *the Star, not up to it.”

A variation of that on the analytical level of “how” is the astoundingly effective method proposed by Byron Katie. Hers is the “Four questions and turn around” that has brought to conscious light many of the purturbations of personality that stand in the way of mature and clear perception of self relative to involvement with “others.” I use quotes there advisedly, as any serious and sincere method of self inquiry leads to the inescapable realization of what an astonishing proportion of the world “out there” is in fact a projection of ego “in here,” or of our own constructed world view. This is easily born out by the whole phenomenon surrounding the observation that when someone speaks, they are saying much more about themselves than about the alleged topic of their expression. Sound, in particualr, tells. You have noticed, I’m sure, as an engineer, that the resonant frequency of an object made audible yields great and useful information about the nature of its substance.

As a potter, for instance, I can tell from the “ring” of a struck piece whether it is fully vitrified or not, if it is whole and sound, and often even whether it is porcelain or earthenware, and so on. this is common in that tradesmen of every variety often claim that they monitor their work by sound and do it by “feel.” Only the tyro thinks in the ordinary sense, the higher thinking of a musician or mathemetician being more like an intense manipulation of focus through the lensing properties of the elements of the effort at hand. It is also likely that you know of Tesla’s demonstration of using a tap timed to the resonnant frequency of a structure, by which he could induce vibrations dangerous to the integrity of that building by simple addition of minute force at the return of each wave. Even Bucky Fuller utilized the frquency properties of geometric structures to leverage strength and “tensegrity.” His theory of the tetrahedron being the fundamental shape of the structure of matter is intruiging in this regard and worthy of study.

Best Greats,

AKA “B. Doondat, FZAP”

*MOM turned on its head is “WOW!” An instrucitve symbolism, at least. My mentor used to say "It’s not mind over matter; it’s Mind instead of matter!’
 
Detales said:
*MOM turned on its head is “WOW!” An instrucitve symbolism, at least. My mentor used to say "It’s not mind over matter; it’s Mind instead of matter!’
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Are you of the opinion that all is mind.
 
Well, MOM, think of the structure of your own experience. Where does it stem from? What is the least necessity for experience? What does or can that imply? As for mind/Mind, it is a subtly yet radically different understanding than what it might say in the dictionary. “Mind” certainly includes matter, but how? Crucial here, again, are the distinctions between subject/object awareness, Objectless Consciousness, and the ability to balance the two. It is a far different state of experience than what the “ordinary” person is even aware of as a possibile mode of engagement. It is why, for simplicity’s sake, I often recommend Merrell-Wolff’s books.

Bindar
 
Dear OP Because we mere humans look at things from our own experiences it is hard for us to understand any other concept…
“God is, always has been ,and always will be”…
Thats pretty hard to accept i suppose on a mere scientific level as we are used to being born as babies growing up and dying (generally) and so the generations go on.Needing partners etc

BUT God is not human he is immortal he didnt have to be born doesnt have to die.
HE is everything He needs to be.We simply have to accept some mysteries of faith.
It is not for us to understand it is about faith.
Its always great to talk with your priest about these matters he will be a great source of information and understanding
God Bless
 
Are you of the opinion that all is mind.
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Detales, MindOverMatter and one and all,

Yes all reality has its origin in “mind” although I call it infinite nothingness (the Mind of God)

Much of the discussion in this forum is about the meaning of words. There appears to be much difference of opinion and even misunderstanding, especially on the words that are pure connotation such as consciousness, mind, soul, reality, and spirit. You could put “What is…” in front of each of those words and you could argue about them ad infinitem. In my thesis, I endeavor to avoid ambiguity with such words by giving them specific definitions. This entailed the creation of new words. For example, here is how I define consciousness in post #67:

Just as life is a manifestation of the cellular activity induced by bios, the particle of nomos that is corpusculated in the cellular corpus; consciousness is the manifestation of the morphic activity induced by the nous.

MEA CULPA! I am embarrassed to read that as a stand-alone sentence and if I was reading it imbedded in someone else’s writing, the thought that would enter my mind and I am sure entered most of your minds would be something like, “What in the hell could that possibly mean?” In one sentence, I drop on the reader: bios, nomos, corpusculated, corpus, morphic activity, and nous. I do have clear ideas about the meaning of those words, but I don’t believe that I have conveyed those meanings to many of you. For example, what I mean by “morphic activity” is: behavior associated with multicellular organisms both mental and physical. (Digression: I would love to use the word animal instead of multicellular organisms, but who thinks of an insect as an animal? again the problem of ambiguity?). It is completely understandable to me that anyone reading “morphic activity” for the first time would be befuddled. I surely would! So I apologize for not being more understandable to those of you that have been following my thesis without comment.

However, when I visit other threads I often recognize that my thesis contains an answer for many of the disputed topics. It may not be the right answer, but it is a consistent answer based on my original premises. My thesis presents a possibility of HOW God may interact with our reality. In that regard it outlines a distinct model of HOW God is possibly involved in creation, hence, represents a plausible explanation of the known observations, solves a number of problems, covers more phenomena with a single principle, and is comprehensive.

The single principle is the recognition that there is a deeper level of reality than the one we experience and science describes. Science describes at the “explicate” level of reality. Newton is the guy who established (and constrained) science to the explicate level when he introduced (necessarily so) abstraction. In observing a falling apple (so goes the story) he wondered about what caused the earth to attract the apple; and not finding an answer invented one: “action at a distance”, which eventually came to be called “gravity” and generalized as “force”. His approach of creating abstractions such as gravity to describe the cause of a phenomenon worked beautifully because it allowed him to describe the phenomenon mathematically. However, although we contend that gravity causes the mutual attraction of material bodies; we don’t know what gravity IS. Gravity is a description at the explicate level; the true explanation lies at a deeper level of reality, the implicate level, which I believe coincides with the ground of reality.

Some of the observations for which I offer explanations are: matter, energy, time, motion, the dual nature of light, the double slit dilemma, and others; some of the problems I claim my model explains are: the mind/brain, substance/form, necessity/contingency dichotomies, how the non-material can affect the material; and evolution. Some of the phenomena covered with a single principle are cosmic creation, life, animal and human behavior.

Let me now review my approach to how God might possibly exist and in doing so, how intelligent design is implemented.

I begin with “infinite nothingness”, the only thing imaginable, that possibly could have come before and still lies beyond the universe. Infinite nothingness has all the attributes of the transcendent God — God the Father, from whom all things come. Infinite nothingness has the characteristic of continuous space, that is, it is infinitely divisable. Space consists of points, and continuous space contains an infinite number of points. Infinite nothingness, the substance of God, when given finiteness is still divine.

The infinite nothingness that is conterminous with our universe is called nomos. Infinite nothingness when corpusculated within a cell is called bios. Infinite nothingness when corpusculated within a multicellular organism is called nous. Infinite nothingness is the spiritual aspect of reality. It is found proximate to all matter; within each living cell; and in every multicellular organism; and, of course, in every human being. That takes care of the spiritual aspect of reality.

Since no matter, energy, universal space, or time existed before the universe was created, the material aspect of reality must be derived directly from the infinite nothingness, which although has the characteristic of continuous space is not the “universal space” that defines the dimensions of the universe. Universal space is of a different and lesser nature than the infinite nothingness from which it is taken; it is discrete space. Discrete space, unlike continuous space has form and it is from this form that matter is created.

I know I am repeating myself, but I though perhaps a different approach might help to understand the basics of my thesis.

To be continued when I get more time…….Yppop
 
tbcrawford said:
Dear OP Because we mere humans look at things from our own experiences it is hard for us to understand any other concept…
“God is, always has been ,and always will be”…
Thats pretty hard to accept i suppose on a mere scientific level as we are used to being born as babies growing up and dying (generally) and so the generations go on.Needing partners etc

BUT God is not human he is immortal he didnt have to be born doesnt have to die.
HE is everything He needs to be.We simply have to accept some mysteries of faith.
It is not for us to understand it is about faith.
God Bless
Click to expand...
Hello tbc

I am not sure what you are driving at or even if this post is directed at me, but I do agree with everything you say.

I am not trying to explain God “on a scientific level” in fact I take great care in separating science’s view at the “explicate’ level” from my view of HOW God might Possibly interact at the implicate level.

Part of my intent in creating a model is to assist the Intelligent Design side of the great intellectual argument of our time.

The model that I created was a neccessary first step in my quest to find the meaning of life that satisfies not only my faith but also Reason.

As to your suggestion: “Its always great to talk with your priest about these matters he will be a great source of information and understanding.” I do talk with a priest every Friday and Saturday and other times when he decides to come home. My middle son is a priest and he is not the least bit interested in these matters although he does tolerate my unusual views. I am a devout Catholic and I feel the only heresies I might blunder into are scientific heresies. But if I do inadvertently commit an error against my faith, I would immediately alter my view.

Thank you for your post,

Yppop
 
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