God exists; but how?

[tonyrey]

And how can physics have anything whatever to say about God ?​

That which has been created by God may well tell us something about God. If you believe the physical universe is uncreated you need to explain how and why it exists…

 

[Detales]

Hi Yp,

Re your statement: “The multi-verse theories: Magueijo’s successive BB’s; Linde’s Bubble universes; and the Big Crunch are all designed to eliminate the need for a single universe with a beginning, creatio ex nihilo.” Emphasis mine.

It is a poor scientist who goes about observing phenomena with the intent in mind to defeat a particualr doctrin of a particular church. I suggest that the theories are just that, extrapolations of observed data worthy of attention and research on their own merit. I think that it’s certainly clear, as you stated seemingly pejoratively later in that same tract, that science is specualtive. Isn’t that, indeed, what you are doing with your own proposed theories? What’s wrong with that? What you accuse science of doing in regard to the named theories is in fact what the Church and the pious do with data: bend them to fit theology, regardless of the observations.

This is not, before anyone gets pouty, a strictly Catholic phenomenon by any means. It is a phenomenon of any belief system, from infantile tooth fairy mythology to the ignoring of E=MCC by the physicists who went to their graves rejecting the math because they didn’t like it. There is a universe of ignorance of self-observation associated with religious thought best summed up by Albert E. himself~ " I know two things to be infinite: the universe and man’s stupidity. And I am not sure about the universe." BTW, strictly speaking, a multi-verse is still in the quale of one creation. You might be interested in www.tenthdimension.com

That is not meant to be, in this case, an epthetical application. It is a nostrum designed to facilitate clear and correct thinking. If we know that as a race we are stupid, ignorant, and greatly lacking in observational prowess, we might be more careful in accepting belief systems once we have reached the alleged age of reason. OOPS! Too late…By then the emotonal patterns of belief are chemically engrained as addictions in our awareness, necessitating a shock of some kind to derail thinking back into the empirical experience mode.

In the religious arena, eliminationg the very numerous other areas where the same thing happens, we can readily observe from news media the astonishing amount of hatred lavished by Christians on each other in particular, since that is close to home, or the equally large data base of other religionists currently and in the past slaughtering each other in the name of God’'s Love. Well, He did it too, in the Bible, so who can blame anyone, eh, for being good followers? After all, He has sponsored so many One True faiths. Ask all the people who are ready to kill for theirs.

That is not speculation, and the “but religion itself is good, especially mine, because it has tradition and the Holy Spirit guiding it” defense is useless. There is as much mayhem, physical and psychological, commited by religionists as any other group, defusing the theory that religion makes people better. Goodness is goodness, irrelevant of faith. It exists in another axis of experience. Goodness is of the Spirit, religion is of the mind, despite its “good” and necessary intentions.

But I digress. But maybe not, because there is that “ex nihilo” thing. I happen to agree with that. However, my basis for such agreement is on a radically different footing than the magical thinking of christianists. Again, we are dealing here with a mental construct as distinct from an experiential observation.

“Ex nihilo” in churchianity is the magical concept of everything being made from “nothing” over a period of six “days.” Since the human mind works on the principle of stories to explain itself and the world it is part of, that so far is well and good. It is well and good as an ad hoc, anyway, until something better comes along. This is where religon and science part ways. Science tends to be childlike and never stops exploring. Religon tends
to canonize a system by emotional sanctions and discouraging inquiry. Witness the astonishingly large bodies of knowledge burned to ashes as early Catholics ravaged libraries in the name of the faith. The Church has not been a friend of thinking, has it?

Unless of course that thinking is the rationlization surrounding the contortions of dogma. That thinking is nothing short of brilliant! Kudos for form, failed for content. But that failed content is the stuff of peoples unexamined lives!!!

In the case of ex nihilo, the error is one of proceedure. Unfortunately, about one in a million gets the proceedure correct and reaches the inescapable conclusion. But that conclusion has been accessible to all, save for the prophylactic efforts of religionists and financeers who thrive on the ignoranceof the population. Wasn’t it Hitler who said “It’s great luck for leaders that men don’t think?”

Unfortunately, especially in the case of proofs of God or His alleged ways, the proof is not in thinking or in rationalizations. It is smack where St. Thomas Aquinas found it. He stopped writing his proofs because upon his own realization he saw that they were “all as straw.” This is a recognizable pattern throughout the ages. It is the result of the exhastuion of the reasoning mind by effort or trauma and the surrender to Being. The result, to thinking, or the reasoning mind, because of its limited, temporal, 4-D oriented nature, is a blank nothingness. Read “nihilo.” To the faculty or ability of Conscious Awareness, it is ALL.

This is the “nihilo” all ex is from: The Mind of God, His very Being, percieved in the glory of Beatific Vision, not separate, but ALL. Our conclusions based on a fragmentary world of mistakenly aprehended discreet objects is a perceptual and proceedural error. A great exegisis of this is F. Merrell-Wolff’s “The Philosophy of Consciousness Without and Object,” a contemporary treatment of an age old universal experiential Truth.

 

[yppop]

.

You might like living in a space like mine. In midsummer I can walk the woods at night by the light from the Milky Way because that’s all the light there is.

Lucky you! Here is an experiment for you: some night focus on the dimmest star you can find away from the Milky Way and try to perceive the distance. Then shift your focus to the area next to it and try to perceive the depth of the blackness. Then ask yourself if you are seeing infinity. What kind of reaction does it give you?

How does the s-gap determine the speed of light?

Nice question. You may have caught me in a contradiction. It has to do with my view of the nature of motion at the implicate level; motion is the perception of the change in position from one s-frame to the next and not within the s-frame itself. Any given s-frame is static; the s-gap is a property of the s-frame, so its width apparently has no impact on motion. I will rethink this to see if I could dig myself out of the hole. If not I will scrap the notion of variable speed of light, but that’s okay it has nothing to do with my basic thesis; it merely is additional support.

Personally, I’m more focused on the question of why God exists. I vaguely recall those lattices from solid state physics, but that area of physics never did catch my interest, so I’m a long way from even guessing about the applicability of crystalline structures to the digitization of space. If you think that you can help me out here, go for it.

I use the word crystalline to indicate that the arrangement of s-points most likely will have some kind of regular arrangement (not random). The particular arrangement of s-points in the s-frame doesn’t matter. I imagine a crystalline lattice only as a background. What matters is the change in the overall configuration from s-frame to s-frame.

While my picture of the structure of the universe shares some common ground with yours (e.g. I agree that objects don’t move through space), my version of the mechanism is different from yours. At least I think so, I don’t understand your mechanism well enough to say. Perhaps you could clarify by answering a few questions

Like, what is the function of the s-points? Do subatomic particles occupy them (like marbles in a Chinese checkers game board)?

Do the s-points lie along lines of orthogonality? (Unanswered question.)

Are all s-points equidistant from adjacent s-points?

I’d like a better picture of what happens when an electron (for example) moves through space in a straight line for a small distance.

Likewise for an electromagnetic wave. I’m looking for a picture (or mathematical expression) of what actually happens on a small scale…

S-points are the building blocks of matter. Subatomic particles are constructed from s-particles. Their sequential displacement in the cosmic s-frame is manifested as energy and time at the explicate level. The whole universe is constructed from s-points. Discrete space is the ground of reality. If this seems implausible, then ask yourself, just what does science claim the elements of string theory or quantum loop theory are made of if not space of some sort, and ask yourself how light travels across the emptiness of outer space unless it is some form of distortion of space.

Now for a implicate view of a moving electron. Image a finite number of s-points arranged in some particular way so that when view at the explicate level, scientists observe an electron. Suppose this electron (arrangement of s-points) is located in position 1.0 of s-frame-1; in position 1.1 of s-frame-2, in position 1.2 of s-frame-3, and so on. As the s-frames increment sequentially from frame-1 to frame-3, to an observer at the explicate level, the electron will have appeared to move in a straight line from point 1.0 to point 1.2. There is no motion happening in the way that our minds sense motion; there is only a change in the configuration of the cosmic s-frame. What induces the change in the s-frame will be discussed in the next post. So what we observe as the motion of matter at the explicate level, is nothing more than a clumps of s-points, hierarchally organized as quarks and leptons, neutrons and protons, atoms and molecules, rain and leaves, appearing in different positions in subsequent s-frames. Similarly, radiant energy is the result of s-points associated with open space being in displaced positions in subsequent s-frames.

I’m hoping you mean that the “concept of energy” did not exist prior to the formulation of Newton’s laws of mechanics, but energy has been around for quite a while awaiting a suitable formulation. Or are you declaring the Three Laws of Thermodynamics to be invalid?

What I meant was this:When Newton was head on the head with the apple all he noticed besides pain was matter and motion. To explian and quantify what he observed he resorted to abstraction. He abstracted the cause of the motion and called it action-at-a-distance, which was then called gravity and eventually generalized with the word force. He abstracted the property of matter that resulted in the apple to fall and called it mass. In doing so he introduced abstracion, which allowd the phenomena to be symbolized, and described mathematically. Without this great contribution, science could not advance. Energy was abstracted later by Leibnicz and Young. I do not plan to challenge or change anything science has observed and described at the explicate level. Three cheers for the three laws of thermodynamics, much as I hated them during my academic years.

I hope I am not diverted by a discussion of the philsophy of science.

Thanks for your helpful post.
YPPOP

 

[yppop]

So, in your theory, this “empty space” is the space where the spiritual (God, angels, souls) can interact with the corporeal?

Hello Helena,

Thak you for your very perceptive post.

Yes, the space between the s-points that is in the s-gaps is infinite nothingness, the spiritual nature of our reality. The universe at the ground of reality is a configuration of s-points that are immersed in the infinite nothingness (the nature of God). Although the infinite nothingness within the s-gaps forms a seamless unity with the infinite nothingness beyond the boundary of the universe, it acquires a distinct identity by virtue of being coextensive with the universe. I call it nomos. The identity that it acquires is that of personhood as I expect to explain at a later time. And like the Holy spirit, I believe the nomos can and does act directly with our physical nature

And the Higgs particle, the so- called God particle, would likewise contain this sort of mostly-empty structure? So everything that exists holds part of it’s existence in the “infinite nothingness”?

The Higgs particle is jokingly called “the God Particle” from the title of a book by the same name. The Higgs particle is presumed to be the mechanism by which matter acquires mass. The particle physicists expect to find it when they get the supercollider in Cern, Switzerland up and running. It was scheduled to turn on last summer, but sprung a leak or something. If there is such a thing as the Higgs particle, I would bet it is mostly space or even space itself in some form, the simplest form of which would be discrete space.

I am really having trouble understanding much of what you are talking about and am just trying to pick apart what I can until it makes more sense to me. I’m interested in any concepts that try to explain how God can act on physical matter,and how our souls can affect our behavior, if they are both non-physical. Your way seems to say that God is actually part of us in that His essence is in every particle. If that is your point, doesn’t that make God physical in some sense as well, in that He is interacting with matter so intimately on every level? (if that is what you were getting at)

What I am envisioning as the ground of reality is a duality of the physical and the spiritual. The physical aspect of the ground of reality is provided by discrete space, a collection of points derived directly from the infinite nothingness, but separated from it. The spiritual aspect of reality is provided by the infinite nothingness that permeates the gaps in the discrete space. I use the prefix s- to describe that which is created from the points of discrete space. Thus I talk about s-points, s-gaps, s-particles, and s-frames in which the (s-) stands not only for spatial but also for special. The s-points, which before the creation of the universe, were part of the infinite nothingness became physical only for purposes of distinction. The nomos that fills the gaps is in essence spiritual and always remains so. God who fills the gaps is not physical in the same sense that the s-points are.

Perhaps this will be clearer in my next main post when I describe the nature of God’s interaction. I call it the holonomic mechanism.

YPPOP

 

[yppop]

To one and all,

To this point I have explained how I believe God arranged a structure at the ground of reality from which He caused the universe to unfold along a path of actualization. I described the basic structure as a lattice of s-points (discrete space) immersed in a background of infinite nothingness (continuous space). The lattice (the cosmic s-frame), a static configuration of s-points, progressed through a sequence of reconfigurations, each one slightly different than the previous one. And like the static frames of a movie film passing through a projector to cause the appearance of motion of a screen, the incrementation of the static comic s-frame creates a similar simulation of motion at the explicate level of reality. I contend that this process took place at a deeper level (the implicate level) than the one we observe and science describes (the explicate level) as time, energy, and matter. This process continued along the path of actualization for 13.5-billion years at the rate of 10^43 changes per second. The path of actualization reached its pinnacle in the mind and soul of Man.

In explaining how God might exist I devised the structure that explained how each and every particle of matter was in intimate contact with a spiritual component of reality. Now to continue with my thesis I will propose a way that God might implement the actualization. The mechanism I describe is called the holonomic mechanism. (Karl Pribram coined the word “holonomic” to describe a theory of the brain based on holographic principles.) I use it because “holo” refers to the single, whole, inter-related s-frame that is the universe and the “nomos” is the Greek for law.

At the explicate level, science describes reality based on continuous space, energy, and mathematical models. At the implicate level reality is based on discrete space, information, and algorithms. There are three requirements for the holonomic mechanism to cause the incrementation of the cosmic s-frame: (1) information about where each s-particle will be in the next s-frame, (2) an impetus to increment the present static cosmic s-frame to the next one; and (3) a set of initial conditions that determine an end point or goal in the path of actualization; in other words, where to go and the impetus to get there. The first requirement determines the nature of the change; the second is the cause of the change; and the third determines the long range objectives on the path of actualization.

(1) I contend that the infinite nothingness, which contains neither matter, energy, nor time, is not a void because of the presence of information. Information is transferable knowledge; the infinite nothingness contains infinite knowledge hence all possibilities; and is therefore omniscient. The infinite nothingness is the Mind of God. God communicates with reality at the implicate level through two conduits. The first conduit processes the flow of information through the nomos to each s-point. The second conduit is one (that I will discuss in a subsequent post) that connects the infinite nothingness to the mind of Man.

The information that controls the incrementation that creates objective reality is generated by a cosmic algorithm — the steps of instructions that guide each s-point from s-frame to s-frame. Imbedded in such an algorithm are the laws of physics. Since an algorithm is not constrained by the inflexible form of a mathematical equation, it introduces contingency by using IF, AND, OR and other logic statements as commands. An algorithm provides an opportunity to explain a broader range of phenomena.

Contingency arises at the implicate level through a holographic mechanism. A hologram is a device that projects a three dimensional image when a laser light is reflected from it. It has this unusual property: if the hologram is broken into pieces, each piece would contain the entire image although with diminished clarity. In reality things go wrong because in downloading information holonomically to each s-point, which is only part of the entire cosmic s-frame but still contains all the information, acts with diminished clarity. Although God’s design is perfect, contingency intervenes and tornadoes and earthquakes happen.

(2) At the implicate level, there is only space; the impetus is the mind of God. The argument for this is simply that if something that isn’t energy or matter caused the big bang (and I have not seen any explanation to the contrary) then surely the same something can increment a cosmos of nothing but discrete space.

I will continue later with the third part of the holonomic mechanism, the impact of initial conditions. I’d like to make a few comments before I exceed the word limit.

To many of you reading this it may seem as though I am drifting off into fantasy land, but the basic premise of this thesis is that God exists. I am presenting a thesis not a theory or even a hypothesis and certainly not science (as science defines itself); I am merely presenting a view of how God might exist at a deeper level of reality than science is willing to venture. It is virtually impossible to mentally translate the view of reality composed of discrete points to the view of the ocean. When I propose that 10^150 points are incremented 10^43 times a second for 13.5 billion years it is beyond mind boggling, but what it really represents is omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence.

Thank you all for your kindness in tolerating my endeavor.

Yppop

 

[yppop]

To One and All

The third requirement for the holonomic mechanism is the initial conditions. To get a better understanding about the holonomic mechanism, google and run John Conway’s “Game of Life”, which displays the results of an algorithm on the computer screen; it was based on three simple rules that determined the subsequent state of each pixel based on the state of its eight adjacent neighboring pixels. (1) If for a given pixel, the number of neighbors that are turned on is exactly 2, the pixel remains in the same state in the next generation, that is, if the pixel is on it stays on and if it is off it stays off. (2) If the number of neighbors that are turned on is exactly 3, the pixel will be turned on in the next generation whether it is on or off in its current state. (3) If 0, 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8 neighbors are on, the pixel is off in the next generation. When the rules are programmed into a computer, an initial pattern (name removed by moderator)ut, and the rules are repeated over and over, interesting patterns appear to: grow, move around, destroy each other, give birth, and disappear. The evolution (or path of actualization) of the patterns on the screen depends on the initial pattern (or initial condition).

If you do find the game and there is a “next” button, clicking it will increment through sequential patterns just as I propose happens at the implicate level of reality to alattice of discrete points on a much greater scale. Then click the start button and watch the evolution of the patterns. The path the patterns take depends both on the algorithm that controls the generation of each “next” pattern and the initial pattern (initial condition). An algorithm, which is a series of instructions in which the result of one or more steps is fed back into the initial step, is inherently evolutionary. Where that evolution ends up depends on the initial condition. I believe God’s initial conditions appear at the explicate level as the constants of nature.

It seems plausible to me that God’s cosmic algorithm would produce a process of change we recognize as the theory of evolution. I happen to believe the theory of evolution is a plausible explanation of the stasis parts of the fossil record and fails completely in at least three events: at the first appearance of life 3.5 billion years ago; at the creation of multicellular organisms during the Cambrian explosion 600 million years ago; and at the creation of the first human. God retains control of the initial conditions, so in effect, determines those events on the path of actualization. In John Conway’s game of life the initial condition is a simple pattern on the computer screen; in God’s plan, the initial condition is most likely the alteration (mutation) of cellular DNA. But I am getting way ahead of myself.

I intend to address the matter of life, mind, and soul. However, I am awaiting the results of a CAT scan my wonderful wife underwent this morning and those results will determine the amount of time I could devote to a continuation of my thesis about how God exists. I wouldn’t bother anyone with my personnel life except I suspect that this forum represents a powerful prayer group. I believe deeply in prayer.

Yppop

 

[liquidpele]

It seems plausible to me that God’s cosmic algorithm would produce a process of change we recognize as the theory of evolution. I happen to believe the theory of evolution is a plausible explanation of the stasis parts of the fossil record and fails completely in at least three events: at the first appearance of life 3.5 billion years ago; at the creation of multicellular organisms during the Cambrian explosion 600 million years ago; and at the creation of the first human. God retains control of the initial conditions, so in effect, determines those events on the path of actualization. In John Conway’s game of life the initial condition is a simple pattern on the computer screen; in God’s plan, the initial condition is most likely the alteration (mutation) of cellular DNA. But I am getting way ahead of myself.

You have just pointed out the only sane way to think about creation while still believing in God, thank you.

However, saying evolution fails at the first thing (appearance of life) is moot since evolution does not talk about how life formed, that would be abiogenesis (which is not proven, just an option so far). The other two I’m not sure why you think evolution does not easily explain. By your own example, you think God couldn’t come up with an algorithm where that would happen? Anyway, this is an old thread, I just wanted to point that out.

 

[Detales]

Liquidpele could be right, *if one assumes a separate, anthropomorphic god. The contortions necessary to explain such a diety, however, defeat the simplicity that I believe is the actual Nature of the God LP isn’t sure about. If we are to talk sanity, and answer LP’s criticism of the “failures” Yppop points out as the lack of accounting for transition periods in the alleged time line in the fossil record, we can do something very unabrahmist and pose another, simpler way.

This other way assumes that life is a Force equal to Creation. that Force being an attribute** of God, is always and everywhere. That means that the qualities that we ordinarily recognize as belonging to the “kingdoms” that make them different from each can be seen not as developing linearly one from the other, but vertically as a portion and manifestation in Mind of a vision that is an already completed “thought,” if you will, in the Allness of God. We can refer this idea to the well known concept that is part of the understanding of dimensions. That is that the dimension below has only a fractional view of the dimension above. E.g., a two dimensional creature would see a cat as a series of thinly sliced images starting at the nose and regressing to the tail, “CAT” scan like. Simplistic, but effective, and I beleive, accurate. (I beleive I refered earlier to a piece on how to see the tenth dimension) So from our perspective there appears to be creation, evolution, and eventual dissolution, whereas in fact it is, along with the totality of the Universe, fait accompli.

This way we bypass the necessity of Life springing from a preceeding materiality as both ends of the bridge are already on the same ground. The bridges are also eased somewhat byt the areas of indestinction between the kingdoms as represented by certain catagories of viruses, zooplankton, alges, and a gradiant of “animal” intelligence including the famous anomalistic chimp who appeared to be a shocking cross between human and ape, welcome neither by humans nor apes.

Bluntly, it is appearant to me that the Abrahamic religions have misconstrued and in ignorance misrepresented the actual Nature of Man’s relationship to God. Acts 17:23 comes to mind. I also believe that sincerity and enthusiasm trump ignorance, but that does not fill the cognative line that is so satisfying in a more proportianatly accurate accounting system than christianism et al offer. I can to a degree understand why in lieu of more accurate options such folks as LP become agnostics, atheist, or converts to other more inclusive ways.

*Yppop’s quoted line about “fail” might better end with “…as far as we know at this time.”

**Of course we speak of “attributes” of God for educational purposes only.

 

[yppop]

However, saying evolution fails at the first thing (appearance of life) is moot since evolution does not talk about how life formed, that would be abiogenesis (which is not proven, just an option so far). The other two I’m not sure why you think evolution does not easily explain. By your own example, you think God couldn’t come up with an algorithm where that would happen? Anyway, this is an old thread, I just wanted to point that out.

Hello LP
Thank you for taking the time to comment. As you recognize: the theory of evolution does not address abiogenesis because evolution is a theory of speciation, which assumes the presence of a multicellular organism as its starting point.

Let me address the events for which the theory “fails”. Perhaps ‘fails’ is too strong a word; instead I shoud have written, “I contend that the theory of evolution does not apply to the three mentioned events.”

Abiogenesis, the creation of life: Early in the 19th century, the Russian scientist A. I. Oparin presented a theory of prebiotic evolution. He proposed that life originated in small steps beginning with an interaction of gases in the earth’s atmosphere producing amino acids. The amino acids formed more complex molecules such as proteins; then the complex molecules combine to form the first proto-cells and eventually the first true living cells. Oparin’s hypothesis was meant to show how life was created from matter without the presence of a non-material substance. What it lacked was details of how evolution led to each of the steps. No one could explain how the theory of evolution could be applied to abiogenesis. In the 1950’s, Stanley Miller synthesized amino acids by passing an electric spark through a mixture of methane, ammonia, and hydrogen. This provided evidence for the first step in Oparin’s sequence. No hypothesis since has gained the acceptance for the other steps and abiogenesis remains one of the great unsolved mysteries of science.

There have been many hypotheses offered to close the explanatory gaps between the formation of amino acid and the creation of a living cell. Most of the proposals address particular steps of Oparin’s sequence without tying them all together in a single coherent mechanism. For example conditions are addressed by the deep sea vent theory, radioactive beach theory, and Gold’s deep hot biosphere theory. The polymerization problem was addressed by the clay theory, the iron-sulfur world theory, polyphosphates, and the lipid theory. The proto-cell problem was addressed by Fox’s microspheres and bubbles. In addition the scientific community cannot agree on what came first, DNA or RNA. And to jump right to the solution there are some who argue that life originated in outer space and came to earth on the back of a meteorite. The bottom line in all of this is that science cannot explain abiogenesis, and especially science cannot apply the theory of evolution to explain the mystery.

Multicellular genesis: I have been reading and studying this subject and no the where that I have looked can I find an explanation of the appearance of multicellular organisms based on the theory of evolution. I would surely appreciate it if you could point me to a reference that explains how evolution easily explains how multicellular organisms were created from single cell organisms. I am slightly familiar with the multicellular theories based on symbiosis, multiple nuclei, and colony behavior, but these theories cannot be construed as the theory of evolution.

Creation of Man: I admit I left myself open for an argument on this one because I violated one my own observations: Evolution as process that results in speciation and a gradual but tenacious increase in level of complexity is well documented in the fossil record. And on that there is little doubt that Man is at the apex of the most complex line, and therefore can be explained by the theory of evolution. However, in addition to complexity one can reasonably assume that there is also an associated increase in the level of cephalisation (centralization of neural and sensory organs in the head or anterior region of the body) resulting in an apparent increase in consciousness in the animal kingdom with time.

Abstracting complexity-consciousness and plotting it over the history of life would result in a straight increasing line with large discontinuities at the beginning of life and at the advent of multicellular life. Then consciousness would separate from the complexity to make another large discontinuity at the creation of man. Although the human animal tracks complexity, it also is represented by the large discontinuity for consciousness track. It is the consciousness discontinuity that the theory of evolution cannot explain. Here I am on thin ice, not having read more than a couple of books relating to consciousness, and if anyone wants to describe an evolutionary explanation I wouldn’t contest it.

What do you mean THIS is an old thread? Do you mean the discussion about evolution? If so, I agree. The last thing I want to do on this the thread is to get into a discussion about evolution, not at least until I address it as part of my thesis. I hope you didn’t mean that “God Exists, But How?”is an old thread even though it was introduced and moderated by an old man!

Of course when I get around to explaining how I believe God was involved in creation, you will find that, yes, God does get involved algorithmily (Sp.?). In fact, I implied as much when I wrote, “God retains control of the initial conditions, so in effect, determines those events on the path of actualization.” The events I was referring to were the three creation events mentioned.

Always willing to listen and learn
Yppop

PS. Detales I need a little more time before I can respond to your post.
Yppop

 

[yppop]

Liquidpele could be right, *if one assumes a separate, anthropomorphic god. The contortions necessary to explain such a diety, however, defeat the simplicity that I believe is the actual Nature of the God LP isn’t sure about. If we are to talk sanity, and answer LP’s criticism of the “failures” Yppop points out as the lack of accounting for transition periods in the alleged time line in the fossil record, we can do something very unabrahmist and pose another, simpler way.

This other way assumes that life is a Force equal to Creation. that Force being an attribute** of God, is always and everywhere. That means that the qualities that we ordinarily recognize as belonging to the “kingdoms” that make them different from each can be seen not as developing linearly one from the other, but vertically as a portion and manifestation in Mind of a vision that is an already completed “thought,” if you will, in the Allness of God. We can refer this idea to the well known concept that is part of the understanding of dimensions. That is that the dimension below has only a fractional view of the dimension above. E.g., a two dimensional creature would see a cat as a series of thinly sliced images starting at the nose and regressing to the tail, “CAT” scan like. Simplistic, but effective, and I beleive, accurate. (I beleive I refered earlier to a piece on how to see the tenth dimension) So from our perspective there appears to be creation, evolution, and eventual dissolution, whereas in fact it is, along with the totality of the Universe, fait accompli.

This way we bypass the necessity of Life springing from a preceeding materiality as both ends of the bridge are already on the same ground. The bridges are also eased somewhat byt the areas of indestinction between the kingdoms as represented by certain catagories of viruses, zooplankton, alges, and a gradiant of “animal” intelligence including the famous anomalistic chimp who appeared to be a shocking cross between human and ape, welcome neither by humans nor apes.

Detales
I have to apologize; I’ve read your post several times and confess that I don’t understand what you are saying. The best I can do is this: I gather that in some way the gaps I referred to can be “bridged” without “the necessity of life springing from a preceding materiality”. How that occurs is certainly not clear from my reading of your post. If you have a theory or a thesis explaining creation I would be happy to read it, but at this time I have my own thesis that I am presenting on this thread.

The logic of my thesis is relatively simple. I begin with the familiar dichotomy: God exists or God doesn’t exist. If one assumes that God doesn’t exist, then one is stuck with the current scientific explanations for creation. If one assumes that God exists, then there are a number of possible explanations, all of which depend on how God exists.

My thesis describes a possible way that God might exist. I view objective reality to be composed of both kinds of space resulting in a matter/spirit duality; discrete space providing the basis for the material aspect of reality, and continuous space providing the spiritual aspect. The dynamics of such a model, at the ground of reality, is provided by an information-driven algorithm (the mind of God) that causes an incrementation of static configurations of s-points that I call the cosmic s-frame (the universe). This is an implicate view of reality, which is then manifested as matter, motion, time, energy, etc. in an explicate view that we experience and science describes. With such a model, of duality, the creation of life, multicellular life, and humans, is easily explained as God’s alteration of the basic algorithm. (More about this in future posts).

You, of course, are free to disagree, criticize, or ridicule my thesis, but when it is completed, even though it may not meet the scientific standards, it will, I believe, provide a coherently comprehensive argument for the existence of God and His creation. And your comments are always welcome.

Thank God for all those men and women that gave their lives defending our freedom to have such discussions. Happy Memorial Day!

Yppop

 

[Detales]

Hi Yppop,

I have exceptionally little expectation that many will understand what I am saying, as my premise is a different understanding of the relationship of God and Creation than what you or most adherents to the Abrahamic religions presuppose. I believe from by generalizing from my own experience that these religions have made the matter far too complicated, necessitating sorts of explanations that are difficult to make and apply. Also, a theory of creation implies the lesser including the greater. That is not to say that we are not able to point to a fundamental called Creation or describe some of what appear from this “side,” to us, as the mechanics of manifestation.

Neither am I trying to explicate my own theory of Creation here. I was assuming that since you were, you were, by the implication of posting, asking for comments. Clearly, you have a brilliant mind and are developing a system of explanation in order to have the feeling satisfaction of having some sort of handle on a great mystery. You may be doing it out of need or out of curiosity; I don’t know. I’m just offering the observation that, as far as I can see, it is not necessary to explain the alleged gaps in evolutionary theory. Those gaps, I gather from your naming them, are the “transitions” from nothing to energy to mineral to vegetable to animal to human. (Personally, I don’t think it tops there.) You are curious or interested as to how they were “made,” if I understand correctly.

I am postulating as a criticism of your presentation that they never were “made” in the ordinary sense that that we as creatures understand the term. Neither were they “created,” if we choose by dint of culture and upbringing to be religionists who believe that. And by the example of the cat viewed by a 2-d creature, I attempted to show how something already done can appear as a “making” or evolution. Simply put I am saying that all the forms and their associated level of awareness are implicit in the Unified Field, or God. Certainly if God “created,” the idea had to be already always in His Mind so as not to contradict eternality. That means that if we manage to concoct a molecule that exhibits “life,” we’ve created only a form that as a pre-existing requirement carried with it that quality. We just assembled pieces that invoke their necessary equivalent in higher dimensions of Being, we did not create the Principle of life. There is not a dichotmy between spirit and matter except as an artifice of perception, not of actuality. We would not create life, only invoke it, even if we managed to put together a string of events that resulted in a microbe or monkey that bit your…But I digress.

The whole problem you face and evolutionists face is that you postulate either a God that made" a “special” creation, or it all came out of nothing anyway, but without a Divine agent. I’m denying the "either/or trap and am saying that both stances are equally impossible and radically unnecessary. All the forms appearing as a serial manifestations of energy, matter, veggies, animals and us, all always already *are *in the eternal Mind of God. It only looks as if we are “growed” to us being the manifestatons of a point of view. That does not contradict agency, but I’m not going into that here. Neither does it defeat evolution nor the appearance of creation. But it does have some astonishing implications, among them the idea of precipitation as distinct from creation. Those implications may be well summed up in the word “Allness,” as in the Allness of God.

 

[MindOverMatter]

All the forms appearing as a serial manifestations of energy, matter, veggies, animals and us, all always already *are *in the eternal Mind of God. It only looks as if we are “growed” to us being the manifestatons of a point of view. .

There is an element of truth to this, however, it needn’t be either or. It seems as if you are suggesting that time is just an illusion in order to make way for eternity.
However; I would suggest that not only “time” as in actual “change” exists, but “all possible time” exists in the eternal now, and exists because of the eternal now. It seems to me that the root of all existence is by its very nature “Creative expression”, hence the existence of time. And in contemplating this, i feel that there are in fact as many “creations” as there are possibilities.

 

[Detales]

That’s a brief paragraph, briefer thatn the famous History of Time, lol, and therfore simplistic to a degree. Actually I contend that because Eternity IS, time can appear to be,and though actual is a perceptual phenomenon associated with our 4-D type of awareness. I agree about the multiple universes. Just because we see only one doesn’t mean there can’t be more. that fits, I think, with even the Creationist contentions, as the whole shebang (lol) could have as easily been made as just one, given that paramater. Also it fits better with the eternality idea. I think I mentioned some recent theories about that idea in a previous post in this thread.

 

[yppop]

.

I’m just offering the observation that, as far as I can see, it is not necessary to explain the alleged gaps in evolutionary theory. Those gaps, I gather from your naming them, are the “transitions” from nothing to energy to mineral to vegetable to animal to human. (Personally, I don’t think it tops there.) You are curious or interested as to how they were “made,” if I understand correctly.

And by the example of the cat viewed by a 2-d creature, I attempted to show how something already done can appear as a “making” or evolution. Simply put I am saying that all the forms and their associated level of awareness are implicit in the Unified Field, or God. Certainly if God “created,” the idea had to be already always in His Mind so as not to contradict eternality. That means that if we manage to concoct a molecule that exhibits “life,” we’ve created only a form that as a pre-existing requirement carried with it that quality. We just assembled pieces that invoke their necessary equivalent in higher dimensions of Being, we did not create the Principle of life. There is not a dichotmy between spirit and matter except as an artifice of perception, not of actuality. We would not create life, only invoke it, even if we managed to put together a string of events that resulted in a microbe or monkey that bit your…But I digress.

All the forms appearing as a serial manifestations of energy, matter, veggies, animals and us, all always already *are *in the eternal Mind of God. It only looks as if we are “growed” to us being the manifestatons of a point of view. That does not contradict agency, but I’m not going into that here. Neither does it defeat evolution nor the appearance of creation. But it does have some astonishing implications, among them the idea of precipitation as distinct from creation. Those implications may be well summed up in the word “Allness,” as in the Allness of God.

Hello Detales.

The following items are my main interpretations of your comments:

1. Everything always existed in the Mind of God and what we believe reality to be is merely an illusion.
2. I gather that the illusion of evolution, or “making” (or even motion?) is the result of a consciousness existing in a lesser dimension when in fact “ALL” exists in the Allness of God”.
3. Since everything already exists and can be “precipitated” into our illusory world as “already is”, there is no need for a “cause” or a required precondition.
4. Since “all always already” includes the matter from which life appeared and includes the cells from which multicellular organisms appeared, there is no “gap” for God or evolution to bridge.

I suspect that you are presenting (or paraphrasing) Advaitist doctrine? It seems to me this is a static view of reality, and if I have interpreted correctly then it is a major difference between what I am presenting in my thesis because I believe in a dynamic view. God’s plan surely is to evolve His creation toward an end point (Omega). Consequently the thing I call the path of actuality that is measured by the complexity and consciousness present in what we observe, is increasing from the least (Nothingness) to the greatest (Omega or Pleroma or whatever else the end point might be). My thesis is an attempt to describe in physical terms (I consider space to be a physical element) a possible way in which His plan is implemented.

There are several reasons I have been engaged in constructing such a thesis, primarily to finding meaning in life by developing arguments to counter materialistic arguments and to find answers to the questions of cynics and skeptics. And if one follows the thesis close enough one should recognize a plausible argument for intelligent design.

You might be interested in a book, The End of Time, by Julian Barbour, in which he proposes that each moment in reality represents a NOW and there are an infinite number of NOW’s representing all possibilities. Any life time is guided through this forest of NOW’s based on his/her/its wave function. When it gets to the wave function part it gets a bit ponderous, but the beginning is interesting.

Thank you for your comments,
Yppop

 

[Detales]

Hmmm… Given your intensity in persuing your theory, Yppop, I would say that indeed you do advocate a dynamic view. No argument there. I feel my life to be rather dynamic as well. In fact, we all, as far as I can tell, describe the world in dynamic terms.

" 1. Everything always existed in the Mind of God and what we believe reality to be is merely an illusion." Everything *always already exists now in the Mind of God as potential, the world as we experience it being part of the playing out of the dynamics of that as various conditons of individual experience based on the principles inherent in creation, whether we percieve them or not. That our human mind divides and and mispercieves the wholeness aspect of creation, a la Bohm, for instance, constitutes the illusion. Part of the illusion is also inherent in the falure of ordinary human thought to account for its reliance on the laws of awareness and of the foundation of those in Pure Consciousness (the state which supports both Nirvanic and subject-object consciousness.) As I have mentioned before, there is a book by your fellow engineer F. Merrel-Wolff that has a remarkabley cogent exegesis of this dynamic. His story as to how he arrived at is equally interesting and of practical value.

“*2. I gather that the illusion of evolution, or “making” (or even motion?) is the result of a consciousness existing in a lesser dimension when in fact “ALL” exists in the Allness of God”. *” There is no lesser Consciousness, as Consciousness properly ought to refer to the ultimate Principle eqatable to God. Any particualrization or limitation of that general Principle can be called awareness, which has forms and manifestatons. If there is indeed an equivalent to the christialist god (Ishwara,) that diety exists in or as this second realm as it is the first that requires subject-object awareness. I say this because of the insistance of creationists that God is separate from His Creation. This is the only way that that is possible, all Substance rightly being of Principle itself, or of Love, or any of the other seven synonyms applicable. So, “making” and “motion” are properly in the realm of awareness, and not an atribute of Principle, or Pure Consciousness, God.

“3. Since everything already exists and can be “precipitated” into our illusory world as “already is”, there is no need for a “cause” or a required precondition.” Every “thing” is a percipitation inseparable from the whole. The percipitation is an aspect of desire, or the perception in awareness of difference, and the desire being a sense of Union or the need for experiential union. This is the dynamic that plays out as choice and intention (free will) leading to the Omega or Pleroma.** The sense of separation necessitated by awareness agitates the feeling of need for the pre-existing unity as experience. In this dynamic the lack of perception of wholeness and the need for unity constitute the feeling of incompleteness. The lack of understanding of the “other” as Self leads the desire to include activity not condusive to unity. That activity is known as evil, and is a function of ignorance inherent in aspects of the dynamic. That would answer the semantically impossible question of “Why does god allow evil?” Principle is not divisible; God is not devided against Himself.

“*4. Since “all always already” includes the matter from which life appeared and includes the cells from which multicellular organisms appeared, there is no “gap” for God or evolution to bridge./I]” “all always already” refers to the completeness of potential without the need for special inventions of form or process. The cells and multicellular organisms are extant as potential and function in the way of the probability cones many physicists describe, the point of the cone being equivalent to our experience of “now” as a temporal event as distinct from the “NOW” of Eternality. Do you need a bridge to be “I”? What is “I”?

What appers as the increassing complexity (inclusiveness) od “cosciousness,” awareness, really, is the experience of the dissolution of limitations in awarenes, or the increasing awarenes of the pre-existing always already Unity, or Omega, or Pleroma.

" A cynic is what empties into the sceptic tank." We don’t need that. Just BE the love you obviously are. Your intellections are wondeerful and ought to be persued to the utmost with all the energy you have to muster. Perhaps you will see why St. Thomas ultimately came to his conclusion about his own magnificent writings. Q’plah!

• The Philosophy of Consciousness Without an Object being the treasties, and Pathways Through to Space being the story. Mr. Merrel-Wolff is a contemporary, and wrote in English, being an american, lessening the possibility of errors inherent in translaion. There are many such works dating from the fome of Adi Shankara, all of which are noteworty. I like the more contemporary ones.

*This play of choice and intention is the area where we might consider the experience of enlightenment or beatific vison as experienced by individuals as distinct from the race. This is also precisely where the politicization and historicizaton by those far lesser than Jesus has caused a metaphysical tragedy of undescribable proportions.

 

[yppop]

To One and All
So far what I have presented of my thesis is my view of how God interacts with objective reality, i.e., the reality of matter, energy, space, and time. I believe that there are three other levels of reality; they are: subjective, rational, and transcendental reality. With this post I begin that part of my thesis that deals with subjective reality, the reality based on life.

All life inheres in a cellular structure, so it is to the cell that we must turn to discover the mystery of life. What is it about a cell that animates the matter of which it is composed? Biologists have thoroughly explored and described the function of all the parts of the cell. Biology, in a relatively short time has exploded into a body of descriptive knowledge. Biologists have come far in their descriptions of the constituents of life. They have identified and categorized a large portion of the diversity of organisms on Earth. They have identified and described the functions of components and systems of every type of organism. They have identified and described the cells that make up the parts of the organisms. They have identified and described the molecules responsible for life from the part they play in cells to the part they play in the human body. And they have described the progression and diversity of life on earth through the theory of evolution. What biologists cannot do is explain what life is and how it began.

I believe that the key to discovering what animates matter is two characteristics of a cell: complexity and corpusculation. Even though there is no good single definition for complexity, we all think we know what it is when we see it. Corpusculation, on the other hand, is a word I made up to describe the characteristic of a cell that describes its corpus, its body. A corpus is a complex organization of matter that isolates the individual cell or multi-cellular organism from its environment while at the same time engaging its environment for its specific needs of metabolism and reproduction. I contend that corpusculation is the clue to understanding the nature of life.

Before I describe what I think life to be, let me first rehash the holonomic mechanism I contend that God used to design, create, and operate objective reality: Objective reality is the incrementation of the cosmic s-frame, which consists of a lattice of a finite, but enormous, number of s-points. Matter is a specific configuration of s-points. Energy and time are manifestations of the incrementation. The incrementation is determined by rules in the cosmic algorithm, implemented by the Mind of God (pure information), and directed toward goals determined by initial conditions set in the algorithm. This does not mean that God is determining the configuration of each s-frame each instant of time - although He could if He wanted. For the most part, the incrementation operates autonomously without direct (name removed by moderator)ut from God. How this occurs I hope will be more clearly understood after I present the implicate view of multi-cellular life.

Certain initial conditions determined by God has led the evolution of matter down a path of complexity, which has as an end point, the planet earth. Here a threshold of complexity was crossed; matter organized about a center and formed a corpus (the material body) of a cell. In doing so, the cellular corpus “captured” a particle of the nomos (the infinite nothingness permeating the s-gaps of discrete space) that remains with the cell until the cell dies. I call the nomos contained within a cell, bios. The cell is a container for bios, which being consubstantial with the nomos, possesses the capability of controlling the s-points of the matter composing the body of the cell from within. Just as nomos applies the holonomic mechanism to activate inanimate matter by incrementing s-frames; bios applies a *cytonomic mechanism *to animate the corpus by incrementing the s-points that constitute the material body of the cell.

The cytonomic mechanism is a holonomic mechanism in that it involves an initial condition, algorithm, and impetus. The initial condition is manifested as cellular genes; the algorithm is manifested as cell function; and the impetus is manifested cellular behavior. Life is nothing more than the cytonomic mechanism acting on the s-points that compose the corpus of the cell resulting in reconfiguration of the s-points that make up the body of the cell. This is what happens at the implicate level; the result is the appearance of motion and the exchange of energy at the explicate level. The cytonomic mechanism is the primary animating force for bacteria and vegetative life and the autonomic behavior of cells in a multicellular animal.

There is a degree of probability involved in the information transfer from the bios to the behavior of the single-celled organism. That is to say, unlike an electron, the precise behavior of the single-celled organism cannot be determined by any predetermined set of rules. Single-celled organism apparently have options. The options arise from the need to sustain metabolism and to reproduce. Bios brings to the cell the ability to determine and implement the change in position of all the s-points contained within its corpus in subsequent s-frames (each corpus is an individual s-frame within the cosmic s-frame). This quasi-autonomous navigation, controlled from within, is manifested as life. Hence, life is the localized, control of matter by a particle of nothingness called bios. The bios within the cell receives the implicate pattern for metabolism and reproduction in the form of a genome and the bios acts to maximize its success.

Thank you for reading this.
Yppop

 

[yppop]

Hmmm… Given your intensity in persuing your theory, Yppop, I would say that indeed you do advocate a dynamic view. No argument there. I feel my life to be rather dynamic as well. In fact, we all, as far as I can tell, describe the world in dynamic terms.

Thank you for the time invested in commenting on my post. You obviously love to think, but your thinking apparently is running on a different track than the one my thinking is on with one possible exception. I read your bio and was surprised to see “The Phenomenon of Man” on your favorite book list, especially since I didn’t recognize any of the others on the list. Unless there is another book by that name, you should be familiar with Teilhard’s philosophy. If so, you should also recognize that what I am writing is in many ways an explanation of his beliefs. I explain his Teilhard’s concept “within/without” with the duality I introduce through the assumption of continuous/discrete space. When I get to the creation part of my thesis, I rely on Teilhard’s complexity/consciousness curve, also radial/tangential insight. His Centration becomes my corpusculation, etc. etc. Other than that intellectually we exist on opposite sides of the planet.

That said, let me comment on your post: I read a previous post from you and responded with four ideas that I extracted from it, on which you then reposted with an extended comment on each. I reread each several times and, I am sorry, but I still don’t know if what I interpreted is close to your thoughts, way off, apposite, or opposite. (I threw those last two in to get back at you for that word precipitation that I read as a misspelling of precipitation). Anyway, I see that you are 62 and I am 75 and there is no sense trying to teach old dogs new tricks, so I am going to proceed with my thesis and I hope that you tag along and out of respect to your thinking I will read K. G. Mills because I suspect that that may be where your thoughts are coming from?

Good luck
Yppop

 

[Detales]

Hi Yppop, (part 1)

I have high respect for someone my senior who is still as agile and active as you obviously are. Kudos! In my opinion, seniors (hey, anyone older than me, right?) are a group that are underappreciated and underutilized as a resource. Millions of years of experience wasted on golf courses and in front of television, the monocular hypnotist. And you are right. Despite my advanced years, my spelling stinks.

I first was introduced to and read Chardin in a high school religion class. I admire him greatly. Our instructor, a Salesian priest who had been a Navy SEAL and was head of the science department at our Catholic school, brought the book in as an extra credit project. I was amazed.

The title of the book precipitated (is that right?) a notion in my mind that I had been puzzling about for many years, as I had had a number of inexplicable experiences having to do with prayer and adoration. It had to do with the ability of the human to step outside their own circumstance and regard it as a phenomenon capable of analysis and adjustment from an impartial standpoint. I won’t go into those experiences and considerations now, save that they convinced me of two things: there is an interior reality that is amenable to exploration, and that it is dangerous to talk about such things to anyone who has not had a similar experience.

As far as the exploration component, mostly, and the other as well, it became a matter of sanity and survival to develop a sharp tool for critical thinking and of self assesment. The practicality of this consideration was born out not too long after when I had a revelation of literally stunning proportions. Let’s just say that my perception of reality and personhood as such was unceremoniously and completly pulled out from under me in an instant.

Afterwards, my mind, as I used to know it, was intact. This was proved by the fact that despite being in an absolutely different place in awareness, I was yet able to function, albeit with some difficulty, in a normal fashion without any more attention than I recieved by some concerned individuals who witnessed the exterior appearance of the event.

To cut a long story very short, I understood that approaching any spiritual matter only as a matter of fath or intellect, or a combination thereof, was monumentally inadequate. Much later, when I heard that St Thomas had, after what may have been his final revelation, said that all his writings “were as straw,” I understood. At least I understood as far as the difference between my faith before and after my experience.

I also understood something else, after beating my head against the brick wall of every book and cleric I could aproach on the matter: The Church, as it was available to me, having been a very fervent, devout, well catechized and proselytizing Catholic, was less than amenable or helpful in explaining or dealing with the phenomenon of my insight. I felt dismissed and demeaned. There was, to me, a new universe of theology opening up, having to do with the nature of human awareness relative to God, and no one not only gave a hoot, but no one was interested, and on top of that they didn’t care. I didn’t fit any dogma and was credited with being wildly imaginative.

Well, I knew that. I am artistic by temperament and love music, and can be transported by contemplations of the beauty of nature, art, math, or just plain practical elegance. I didn’t know where to turn. Eventually, after serial rejections of my experiential premise, that Consciousness was the substrate of awarenss and that was the substrate of thought, and that whole dynamic was an avenue of spirituyal understanding particularyly of our relationship with God, I eventually had to leave the Church.

OK, it wasn’t a going from, it was a going to. I began to pick up intimations of a way of understanding that not only included my own perception, but was founded on a similar and experiential thesis. Eventually, I serendipitously, if you can say that after arduous prayer and contemplation of the matter, met a living exponent of what I have since come to know as The Perennial Philosophy. He did not call himself that, as he, like so many in the ages of Man who had independently arrived at it, was simply speaking from his own experience as he was asked.

That was Dr. Mills, a former concert pianist, who stopped his career after recieving two identical messages from complete strangers. The message was: “You must learn to speak the Word again.” He contracted with himself to speak only if asked, and then only about his own experiential understanding, with the contingency that “May the words of my mouth be acceptable unto You, oh God.”

Well, as things played out in his life, everyone from Jesuit scholars who were in the midst of an impass, to Mother Teresa, (yes, that one) to clerics of every faith, to Eastern teachers, came across his doorstep to ask questions and left in awe of his answers. One Buddhist nun said that his offerings were a sort of teaching that had not been heard in her tradition for 2000 years. Some Catholics regarded him as a St. Chrysostom. In any case, he was an absolutely remarkable man. I would hesitate to describe some of the things that came to pass around him.

 

[Detales]

(part 2)

He was the one for whom I worked for many years and who introduced me over time to Shankara, Ramana Maharshi, Merrel-Wolf, Nisargadatta, and many others. Yes, he read from many Catholic authors as well, but it was to clarify what it was that they had actually meant or seen slightly sideways. In any case, unlike the Catholic teaching I’d grown up with, it all always fit. I had never, ever met someone who over so many years so precisely and exactly talked his profound walk. He went about doing good, and unfolding the abilities and talents of those who asked him. He was, to greatly understate the matter, a walking talking miracle.

Anyway, you are right. He is the source of my inspiration, as he was able ot reveal the coincidence of the cognative line of divine exegesis with its experiential component. There was nothing, from the spelling of words, to sunsets, to personal foibles, to scriptures of any description, that were not transparent to Divinity in his light. That is my simple legacy, and that is why the complications and mechinations of ordinary dogmatizing are passe for me. Those may yet serve many, and that may be well and good. But perhaps there is belief, and there is a way from belief. It is so in my case.

 

[yppop]

Hello Detales,
Very nice post! I understand better where you are coming from. You obviously have the soul of an artist. I have the soul of an engineer. And never the twain shall meet, as they say. But I don’t believe that is completely true. I am going to impose on your patience and include the opening section of a book I am working on and will probably never finish. The reason I include it is to show that two minds travelling on separate tracks can hold something in common, in this case feelings (if I read you correctly). The beauty of the internet (thank you engineers) especially on a forum such as this is that people can purely engage their minds to seek common ground. To me, this is what Teilhard meant by “building the noosphere”. So here goes:

*As a boy, I often slept outdoors on warm summer nights. On those perfect nights when the sky was dark and clear and you could see the Milky Way, I would gaze for hours at the stars. My eyes were sharp then and able to resolve the tiniest p(name removed by moderator)oint of light. Usually I saw the sky as the ancients saw itas a vast light-speckled dome hovering above the Earth, but there were moments when my imagination penetrated the celestial shell to see into the depths of the universe. One night, I lay in the warm grass scanning a small patch of sky when my focus came to rest on a very dim star. I quivered in subtle awe as my mind contemplated the immense distance to that star. Then my gaze slipped into an adjacent patch of blackness and I quivered with deeper awe. I did not realize it at the time, but in that brief moment, the infinite and the eternal reached down from that black hole of nothingness and touched my soul. Youthful exuberance transformed my pristine mind into a conduit through which awe has flowed ever since and no matter how mundane life became a sense of wonder remained imbedded within my being to surface whenever the need arose.

Intense awe terrifies, so on that boyhood night I averted my eyes to gaze upon the Milky Way to resolve that vaporous veil into a network of sparkling points of light too numerous to comprehend. I scanned the heavens and contemplated the vast number of stars, each star composed of a vast number of particles and each particle composed of an infinite number of points. I know not what I thought on that distant night, but ever since I could not help thinking how insignificant we humans are: immersed in an infinite number of things, existing momentarily in an immense expanse of matter, energy, space, and time. Yet, in spite of this physical insignificance, we are capable of a mental transcendence. In our imaginations, we can travel beyond the stars fueling our journeys with a gift called wonder.

A lifetime has passed since that wonder-inducing moment. Since then, I marveled at the fragile beauty of a butterfly drinking nectar from a purple Buddleia. I watched the seed of a daylily sprout, grow into a tender shoot, and become a thing of beauty. I comforted a sobbing child in the stillness of a dark night. I solved a differential equation. I thrilled to the music of La Boheme. I gazed across the great prairie of the American heartland. I watched the graceful trajectory of a baseball leaving the cool light of the stadium into the warm darkness of a summer night. I experienced awe and ennui, joy and despair, peace and anxiety. I traveled a journey filled with countless emotions. I observed and felt these and a thousand other things, but most of all, I wondered: could God’s hand be in all of this or is life nothing more than a silly statistical accident? I wondered about many specific things, about deep things, about shallow things; but what I wondered most about was the mystery of God and the meaning of life. Finding the meaning of life became my quest.

To find the meaning of life entails finding a path through the forest of knowledge. I found a path, but not with a preordained purpose. My quest was not based on knowledge of what I was doing. One can live a meaningful life with little knowledge or with vast knowledge. Fulfillment is independent of any specific knowledge. Knowledge merely allows us to understand where we have been. I know many people who have lived happy, fulfilling lives without ever hearing about Kant, Voltaire, the Higgs particle, entropy, bosons, homology or any of a thousand other deep glades of knowledge. Such are the people of grace. On the other hand, many brilliant people live lives of despair. The inverse of these two observations is also true. Brilliant people can lead fulfilling lives and people with little knowledge can lead lives of despair. This merely verifies the obvious that fulfillment is not dependent on the amount of knowledge one accumulates. Nevertheless, understanding how fulfillment was achieved does require one to ponder how one’s own life fits the worldviews of science, philosophy, history, and religion. *

continued-