Best Possible World: Gateway to the Millennium and Eschaton

This might also be called the Apology Page.  Not many people have ever taken seriously Leibniz' suggestion that this is the best of all possible worlds, but that is the intent here.  One could say that this is an exercise in metaphysical apologetics.

When it comes to cosmogony, there are just two choices: naturalism and supernaturalism.  According to naturalism ours is just one of an infinite and more or less random ensemble of worlds or universes.  There may, however, be at least some self-selection involved in our being here.  If this universe were incompatible with 'intelligent' observers, we would not be here, we would be somewhere else.  Also, just by probability, the average observer is most likely to find herself in a densely populated universe, rather than a sparse one.  It would seem that elementary logic and probability are already loading the dice in favor of our having a reasonably hospitable home. 

Is this the best that naturalism can do?  If we want to do any better are we going to have to call on the gods?  Not quite yet! 

There are those, calling themselves naturalists, who would rather at this point appeal to the Quantum.  By doing so they controversially carry the notion of self-selection a few steps further.  You may have heard about the 'measurement problem' in quantum mechanics.  It seems that electrons and other wee things have a hard time deciding whether to be particles or waves or be in any definite state at all, unless they are being observed.  This ambiguity in itself has left physics notoriously vulnerable to metaphysical speculation, almost ad nauseum.  The problem can be extended by noting that 'measurement' remains virtually undefined.  

The basic question pertaining to measurement is the issue of deliberation.  Or, to come full circle, is there such a thing as a natural measurement?  Can there be observations without observers, and just what constitutes an observer?   Most physicists suppose that a universe could exist without any observers, and that it would exist in a more or less definite physical state, but this is only a rather vague belief which is recalcitrant to justification, and absolutely recalcitrant to verification, unless...unless we posit a cosmic observer.  Obviously we are seriously pushing the envelope of nature. 

To make a long story short, if we push the Quantum hard enough we can drastically reduce the ensemble of possible worlds by appealing to a quantum bootstrap principle.  In order to graduate from mere possibility to actuality, any deserving universe must include a final phase that is sufficiently populated with observers to satisfy the quantum measurement problem on a cosmic scale.  Just applying a moderate push to the bounds of physics is enough to drive one perilously close to the pale of eschatological theology.  It may not be quite so easy to draw a line between naturalism and supernaturalism. 

Moving on from the problem of the Quantum, we next encounter the problem of the Mind, and once again confront the issue of natural vs. supernatural.

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Topical Index 

Index 

5/15/02
The Nature of Mind

There was a time when we distinguished ourselves from the other animals because of our powers of reason.  The icon of the Enlightenment was Rousseau's 'Smile of Reason'. 

Well, it seems, at least since the time of Machiavelli, Marx and Freud, that we have devolved from rationalists to rationalizers.  The primary target of postmodern deconstruction is precisely the notion that there exists any such archetype as Reason.  Reason has been dethroned by the Selfish Gene.  What was once a singular and progressive history of ideas has been reduced to an endless interplay of mere memes. 

There is a problem, however, that the deconstructors of the mind are not facing up to.  The whole notion of deconstruction is based on the possibility of analysis.  Behind deconstruction lies analysis and the analytical movement in philosophy.  Behind the analytical movement in philosophy lies the atomistic impulse of science.  Everything must have a foundation, and the foundation of deconstruction is to be found in the ancient concept of the Atom.  To deconstruct the mind is, in some very non-trivial sense, to atomize the mind. 

Many scientists and philosophers have for most of the last century been searching diligently for the mental atoms.  But if you ask them they will tell you that they have come up empty handed.  This does not mean that they have abandoned the search, but there is an unmistakable skepticism amongst the would-be analyzers of the mind. 

Nonetheless, there remains the quite prevalent view that the mystery of the mind has been virtually reduced to the firings of individual nerve cells and the combinatorics of binary bits.  After all, what else could it be?  Won't we, before long, be able to build a thinking machine?  Once we have such a device we can analyze its software and hardware to our heart's content, and therein will lie the answer to our question about the nature of the mind.  

I will not stand here and swear to you that this will not happen.  But I can offer to you a reasonable alternative.

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5/15/02

 Taking Stock 

More than a few people have been waiting rather patiently for a new worldview.  Indeed, the concept of the paradigm shift had become such a cliché that it fell out of use.  There are, of course, obstacles to any such advent. 

Worldviews don't just grow on trees, waiting to be plucked down.  Someone has to think one up and then facilitate its promulgation.  And even if someone does come up with a new, improved 'mouse trap', there is sure to be resistance from the owners and maintainers of the previous models.  With this in mind let us take stock.

By my own rather crude estimation there have only ever existed two-and-a-half worldviews: 'eastern', 'western' and scientific.  Am I having trouble counting?  Who is being short-changed?  Without exercising diplomatic caution, it is the mystics that I am hereby short-changing.  After all, the mystics make a point of being mystical and so it would not behoove them to have any very definite view of the world.  Among the Buddhists, Hindus, Taoists, etc. one finds many flavors of pantheism, pluralism, nihilism and what-have-you.  And in order not to leave our new acquaintances, the postmodernists, out in the cold, they might not object too strenuously to being provisionally included in this mixed company. 

That pretty much leaves us with just the scientific and theistic views.  It is the scientific view that has ruled the roost of modern intellectualism.  The scientific cosmology must necessarily be the primary target for any new world view.  But what do we do with those tired old theologians and other assorted mullahs of the world?  Without giving away too many secrets, let's just say that we are going to have to make a preemptive move.  I refer you to the first paragraph above. 

For the last two or three thousand years there has been a ready made constituency for a new worldview, or, perhaps more accurately, for a new world.  And is this not what the prophetic tradition is about?  Let us proceed with this consideration.

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5/16/02
A Turning Point? 

Just to recapitulate, for the last several centuries science and philosophy have been strenuously engaged in the analysis and intellectual atomization of nature and the world.  There are indications that the deconstructive spasms of postmodernism signal a final phase in this very lengthy process.  Perhaps the most appropriate monuments to this very significant historical epoch are the mile-wide 'atom smashers' that have been built on two continents. 

Where then do we go from here?  Will there no longer be a prevailing worldview,  a vision or a sense history?  Indeed, people speak of the end of history.  If there is going to be a new epoch of history it will necessarily entail some sort of reconstruction.  

Certainly from an intellectual point of view, after all the centuries of deconstruction, any systematic effort at reconstruction will be tantamount to creating a whole new world.  What are the chances that any significant number of people would ever agree on a new starting point and a new direction for the future?  It does not take any very astute observation to conclude that the chances for a concerted reconstruction appear slim. The only obvious recourse is the traditional, non-scientific one of appealing to a higher authority. 

Easier said than done?  Yes and no.  Certainly the intellectual deck has been cleared. We can suppose that somehow nature will conspire to fill this intellectual and spiritual void.  But what might one do to expedite this process, rather than just waiting on the sidelines, like the characters in 'Godot' and the assorted sects of fundamentalists, for a deus ex machina?  

We can always try using our heads. 

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5/17/02

 Post-Reductionism

If there is more to the world than just atoms swerving in the void, then we are going to have to use mostly non-scientific methods to investigate these other entities.  

Perhaps the most logical starting point would be ourselves.  Each one of us is necessarily the measure of our own perceptual world, and certainly the concept of the Self is a universal one.  This is not to say that there are no skeptics, but those who deny the existence of the self are just as likely to end up by denying the existence of almost everything else as well, and we are right back to our deconstructive starting point. 

What else might there be that we could agree upon?  Phenomenologies of various sorts have been be used to explore for other universal attributes of the mind.  It is not clear, however, that any very notable consensus is developing out of these efforts.  

And so it seems about time to make my proposal.  Admittedly it is something of a patchwork, and the only question is whether the whole is going to be more than the sum of its parts.  

The primary pieces of the puzzle are just the emergent entities.  Although we do not yet know specifically what these may be, we do know that the only claim to existence of these immaterial forms lies in their perceptibility and conceivability.  If there exists anything more than mere collections of atoms, that existence must be in strict association with perceivers. 

An irony of this observation is the implied inconceivability of a zombie world.  The irony is that hypothetical zombies have recently figured prominently in philosophical argumentation over the ontology of consciousness, and it might seem that I am siding with the functionalists who insist that zombies are inconceivable.  But I am taking their point and running it back.  How so?  

In making this move, I am taking a big step against mind-matter dualism, toward an inevitable immaterialism, but let us not skip ahead.  I am arguing here mainly against naturalism.  Naturalists accept emergent properties, but hold that they are purely spontaneous (i.e. natural) and have no logical prerequisites.  

Maybe I had better pause here for a consideration of naturalism.  Please pardon this spontaneous interruption. 

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5/18/02

 Naturalism

When I decided a few days ago to make this second attempt at a website, this was to have been the topic of the first page.  With the BPW page, I was perhaps getting ahead of myself.  That is, however, likely to remain the core idea of this obviously evolving website.  

Naturalism is a rather succinct label.  The only alternative is simply supernaturalism, and that is what we must consider.  I may have been procrastinating just to postpone this inevitable confrontation. 

I have spoken of the failure of the analytical movement to locate the mental or functional equivalent of the physical atoms.  This is also known as the problem of holism.  In psychology and linguistics everything seems dependent on everything else: everything is contextual. 

First came the sensationists, then the associationists, then the behaviorists, and lately it has been the functionalists.  Each in their turn has attempted to construct a theory of the 'mind' as a combinatorial construct of some set of simple elements.  The continuing lack of success has given rise to our (neo) naturalists.  The naturalists accept and even embrace the idea of emergent novel properties or entities.  Thus they distinguish themselves from the physicalists or  reductionists.  

The naturalists come in two main flavors: epistemic and ontic.  The former maintain that emergence is mainly just subjective and due largely to our (innate?) inability to make a proper analysis of sufficiently complex systems.  But they are unable then to explain the considerable success of the biologists in grasping and exploiting these 'illusory' entities.  How could such considerable ability be based on sheer ignorance?  The same goes for our everyday ability to communicate successfully, more often than by mere chance. 

This leaves us with the ontic variety of naturalist.  Those mysteriously emergent entities are objectively real, albeit immaterial.  There are, roaming the philosophical forest, a few who call themselves non-reductive physicalists, but theirs appears to be a rearguard action. 

What are we to make of these immaterial entities?  From whence do they come?  Where do they reside?  If they are 'real' then they exist independently of human consciousness.  As to their origin, they are just a concomitant of evolution.  End of story?  This website is dedicated to the real possibility that this is not the end of the story. 

It is with extreme reluctance and foreboding that the philosophical and scientific communities are being pushed into acknowledging an immaterial realm that is of material consequence.  Quite suddenly we are having to confront an immaterial but very substantial aspect of 'nature'.  (N.B. the 'scare' quotes!)

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5/18/02

Beyond Naturalism? 

The question to be put to our erstwhile naturalists is where does nature end and the supernatural begin?  Why are they not being spooked by these immaterial, emergent entities? 

The response is limited.  They may side with Aristotle, contra Plato, and declare these emergent forms to be inseparable from their material substrate.  They may also cite the comparable and notorious spookiness of quantum 'mechanics' and exclaim, 'c'est la physics.' What more can an underpaid, secular philosopher be expected to say or do? 

But you and I must keep on trucking, or maybe it's just me, anymore. 

With all these emergent properties shifting about, why not imagine an emergent intelligence beyond our own individual emergent selves?  Now we're getting down to the nitty and the gritty. 

If my intelligence is more than the sum of my atoms' intelligences (and what is the IQ of a carbon atom?), then why not suppose there is something more than the sum of all our individual intelligences?  Fine, but then do I have to turn my collar around?  No, but it may be advisable to fasten one's seat belt.

If there is nothing to prevent the emergence of a global intelligence, then it is just as likely to happen as not.  But when, and where is the evidence?  Who knows?  But it might be foolhardy to ignore the possibility that the emerging Internet is more than an accidental concomitant of it. 

But why must we limit our horizons just to the Earth?  Almost by definition, these emergent entities are non-local, rather like their quantum mechanical cousins.  If there can be a global intelligence then why not a cosmic intelligence, with all the appropriate interplanetary linkages?  And so we have an evolving cosmic intelligence that is more or less accessible to all of us.  But are not most scientists well into supposing that ours is not the only universe?  Other universes that exist well outside of our own parochial space-time manifold would surely be wanting to belly up to this same table.   

Are you beginning to see why the secular philosophers have already jumped through virtually every hoop in order to avoid having to own up to even one actually emerging entity?  Do you really suppose they are anxious to give up their ivory towers for the wooden sandals of the novitiate? 

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5/18/02

Index

0.  The Best Possible World Page

1.  The Nature of Mind

2.  Taking Stock

3.  A Turning Point?

4.  Post-Reductionism

5.  Naturalism

6.  Beyond Naturalism?

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5/18/02
Post-Theology and/or Pre-Millennium 

Now I sure don't have the keys to the kingdom, but I can do simple arithmetic.  Given that one universe exists, and that there is no law against it, there ought to exist a non-denumerable infinity of other universes.  Now even if only one out of a quadrillion of those universes had as much intelligence (sic) as ours, that would leave us only another non-denumerable infinity of cosmic genii with whom to contend. Now unless there is another law that specifically prohibits these emergent genii from engaging in non-local, intercosmic intercourse, we're talking many, many megabytes of intelligence here, there and everywhere, and everywhen, for that matter.  

But if the intercosmic Genie is so smart, well, why are we so stupid?  Why are we barely able to keep ourselves from committing nearly constant mayhem on each other?  Where is this Genii when we truly seem to need her?  Does the world not seem to have more than its quota of evil.  Perhaps we are dealing with an evil Genie?  You and I are certainly not the first to have wondered about this. 

There is really only one answer to this question that has ever made any sense.  All is well that ends well.  One cannot address the question of good and evil without addressing the eschaton.  If you remember Theology 101, you will remember that eschatology has to do with the end(s) of all things.  But, wait, isn't the end of the world also something bad, hardly something to look forward to?  How can two wrongs make a right? 

There is a kind of throwaway answer.  The end of the world is kind of like graduating to eternity, after, admittedly, a few hard knocks.  It's about going somewhere, nowhere and everywhere.  Again, no one has presented me with the keys to that kingdom, not yet.  But some of us are sure to find out sooner than others, and despite all appearances I am really not in a big hurry -- only a little hurry.  I am a minimalist when it comes to hurry.  Thus we have the Millennium.  I'll bet you'd thought I was going to forget about it. 

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5/18/02
Creation?

Can we not and should we not imagine that somewhere out in all that infinity of intelligence at least one creative intelligence finally hits upon a formula for creation.  Perhaps some genie figured out how to anthropically engineer a newly emerging universe so as to optimize its physical parameters for life, and, indeed, for other intelligence.  This engineering scenario does not have to be performed by a genie, it could just have been a normally cooperating group of advanced civilizations. Or perhaps some other genie simply 'falls asleep' and more or less inadvertently dreams up a whole world, rather like the Buddha under the Bo tree.  Or perhaps there is a band of inter-cosmic computer hackers who are particularly adept at the programming of virtual worlds and artificial intelligence.  

Here is the point.  We have pretty darn good evidence that life is possible.  Now if there is not a creator to begin with, the power of creation is almost certain to emerge somewhere and somewhen, and when it does there is a very powerful, unstoppable(?) bootstrap mechanism in place.  If life is spontaneously possible, then it seems natural to presume that even more life is deliberately possible.  

Unless there is a strict law against creation (and who would enforce it?), then creation is most likely to be the predominant source of all life.  That would mean that the average critter is pretty darn likely to actually be a creature, owing its ultimate existence to the more or less deliberate acts of some form of creative intelligence. 

Where does that leave us?  From whence did we come?  Don't we have sufficient evidence to prove that our particular world was a purely accidental occurrence?  All I am saying at this point is that with all the potential and actual intelligence that may exist in an infinity of cosmoses, we ought to consider the possibility that we may be more intimately networked into that creative potential than one might want to suppose from the relatively naive point of view that characterizes the mindset of the average materialistic scientist.  Just a thought. 

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5/19/02

Something Wrong with this Picture? 

Now I may be biased, but at this point it seems to me that we are presented with an almost nightmarish scenario.  Instead of a garden of Eden, we seem to have every imaginable world existing in every possible contortion, each one copied at least a million times over.  The sheer quantities have run rampant.  Something is wrong with this picture. 

Where is the Federation when we need it?  If the creative impulse is not to run amok, then there ought to be sources of restraint.  One might hope that there is an overriding moral force of some kind, or at least some kind of quality control in the creative process that would respect the rights of the creatures vis a vis the creators.  But I think there is even a more basic flaw in this thought process. 

The whole concept of separate existence is a product of the Newtonian, Cartesian mind set.  The most natural state of affairs was supposed to be that of individual atoms swerving in the limitless void of space.  General relativity and quantum mechanics have, admittedly, only made a very small dent in the Newtonian worldview.  But the rigidity of this mind set is equaled only by its fragility.  

This is why I believe that the issue of reductionism is crucial to any new worldview.  Anti-reductionism is anti-atomism.  Inasmuch as anything is physically irreducible, to that same extent the sanctity or absoluteness of space is violated.  It is the overriding idiom of modernism that we are somehow lost in space.  At the same time that we revel in our splendid isolation, we also tremble at the fear of falling into the absolute oblivion of the void.  

Now with the postmodern rediscovery of the mind, consciousness, and other seemingly unanalyzable, irreducible entities we are being forced back to accept the Cartesian duality of mind and matter, or more accurately we should say mind and space.  But is not this logical dichotomy the basis of all the incoherence of modernism?  Any new worldview will have to nip this incoherence in the bud.  Now I realize that there is a whole gallery full of philosophers who have been trained from early on to jeer at the merest mention of immaterialism.  That is hardly conducive to reasoning. 

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5/19/02

So Bring on Chicken Little! 

(There is a bit of a story behind the Chicken Little epithet.  It is a story that involved nearly ten years of my life.  This story figured prominently in the previous incarnation of this website.  At some point it may be advisable to resurrect a copy of that site, just to keep the record straight.  In the meantime, certain allusions and illusions are liable to creep back in, so, kindly, bear with me.) 

My contention is that there are a more than a few potential Chicken Littles running around in this postmodern world of ours.  I am certainly one of them, although I seem to be the only one out there with a website, as far as my modest googling skills can attest.  

There are more than a few of us who question the cosmic hegemony of materialism.  Now if one is content with mysticism, dualism or some other form of incoherence, one is free just to go on with one's own life.  But if one strives for coherence the options narrow rapidly.  If there is an option besides immaterialism, it surely is obscure.  In the West, immaterialism has not been taken seriously since the heyday of Hegelian idealism almost two centuries ago.  In the East, immaterialism has never not been taken seriously, but that is another story.  

From the perspective of an immaterialist, materialism looks ever so much like a balloon filled with a monstrous void and a few atoms.  There is a strong and probably childish urge just to pop that particular balloon.  And is it not said than one may enter into the kingdom only as a child?  Does it not take a child to point to the nakedness of the king?  

How much longer can the Hercules of the scientific-materialist complex continue to hold up the void that is its sky?   Just one prick, just one audible bump in the night and it is all gone.  I don't mind being that prick or that bump.  But before we succumb to the delight of 'popping' the Newtonian void, let us just take a peek to see what probably lies behind that particular veil. 

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5/19/02

Behind the Void

With just atoms in the void, existence is not problematic.  It is an either/or, absolutist proposition.  This is the Newtonian reality that still undergirds the entire apparatus of modernism.  By the way, Newton was notoriously un-Newtonian and un-modern, being, amongst other things, an expert in alchemy. 

Non-Newtonian existence is bound to be problematic.  If there is no longer an absolute spatial manifold to contain things, there has to be a completely different rationale.  Here it is.  To exist is to relate.  There is no such thing as passive isolation. 

All existence is relative to some holistic potency.  All existence must be bootstrapped in some microcosmic fashion.  This is almost exactly the opposite of the world we perceive, especially through our astronomical telescopes. 

I recognize that I am turning the world inside out and standing it on its head, or actually on all our heads.  Welcome to the world of immaterialism and idealism.  If the Buddha under the Bo tree wishes to dream up a starry cosmos, who are we to complain or second guess?  But I take that back.  It is precisely our job to second guess the Buddha, particularly if we are amenable to the prophetic tradition.  And this is why we have been brought together here in cyberspace.  So place your hand on the computer as we collectively use our ouija-keyboards to probe the mind of the Buddha and facilitate the next revelation. 

Logically this should have been the first page of the website, but then we are dealing with a non-Newtonian, alchemical logic, in keeping with that Master's own spirit. 

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5/20/02

How Many Buddhas? 

I recollect one tradition where there are ten Buddhas, or Buddha-like gods.  These gods do cooperate in the maintenance of the cosmic cycles.  In a relational world, however, there would be no separate Buddhas.  They would not just wander in off the street and then decide to make a world together.  

From our creaturely perspective, our greatest problem seems to be how to draw people together.  The creator, however, is presented with just the reverse problem: how to draw distinctions.  The natural, relaxed state of a relational world is rather like that of a compressed glue-ball, or would it be a black/white hole?  Actually, this might be kind of like nirvana.  It would be both everything and nothing, all the oppositions would naturally tend to cancel out.  Why not just leave well enough alone?  I am sure there are days when Buddha wonders about this herself. 

How many glue-balls?  Let's call on another master: Leibniz: One.  Next question?  Didn't someone say that black-holes (white-wholes?) have no hair?  They are indistinguishable, one from the other.  And so, according to Leibniz, all indiscernibles are necessarily identical.  This could also be Hegel's Absolute, the beginning and end of all disparate existence.  Unless you embed these absolutes in a preexisting spatial manifold, there is absolutely nothing to keep them apart.  And let me remind you that beyond and before space and time there are no such manifolds.  We are left with the one, ultimate, bootstrapping potency.  The Buddhas are the white-whole's hair.  In the end it is not so important as to how many Buddhas there are, as long as we recognize that they have no choice but to cooperate in any creative endeavors, because their own existence and derivative potency necessarily depends upon it.  They are all just part of the same bootstrapping process. 

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5/20/02

How Many Buddhas? 

I recollect one tradition where there are ten Buddhas, or Buddha-like gods.  These gods do cooperate in the maintenance of the cosmic cycles.  In a relational world, however, there would be no separate Buddhas.  They would not just wander in off the street and then decide to make a world together.  

From our creaturely perspective, our greatest problem seems to be how to draw people together.  The creator, however, is presented with just the reverse problem: how to draw distinctions.  The natural, relaxed state of a relational world is rather like that of a compressed glue-ball, or would it be a black/white hole?  Actually, this might be kind of like nirvana.  It would be both everything and nothing, all the oppositions would naturally tend to cancel out.  Why not just leave well enough alone?  I am sure there are days when Buddha wonders about this herself. 

How many glue-balls?  Let's call on another master: Leibniz: One.  Next question?  Didn't someone say that black-holes (white-wholes?) have no hair?  They are indistinguishable, one from the other.  And so, according to Leibniz, all indiscernibles are necessarily identical.  This could also be Hegel's Absolute, the beginning and end of all disparate existence.  Unless you embed these absolutes in a preexisting spatial manifold, there is absolutely nothing to keep them apart.  And let me remind you that beyond and before space and time there are no such manifolds.  We are left with the one, ultimate, bootstrapping potency.  The Buddhas are the white-whole's hair.  In the end it is not so important as to how many Buddhas there are, as long as we recognize that they have no choice but to cooperate in any creative endeavors, because their own existence and derivative potency necessarily depends upon it.  They are all just part of the same bootstrapping process. 

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5/20/02

Recap -- Metanarrative

Although we have come full circle back to the best of possible worlds, the story of this world is just about to begin.  This circling around has simply been by way of touching upon a few of the intellectual bases that have brought us to this jumping-off point.  The scientific and analytical movements to which I have been alluding have just been side-shows relative to the cosmic drama of what is now alleged to be the best of worlds.  

I am fully aware that I have not proven the BPW thesis.  What proof there is, is going to have to be in the pudding, that is, in what follows.  

I am offering an alternative to the factoids that make up the world of modernity.  Instead of a smorgasbord of facts, I offer you a meal that is one coherent truth.  From the perspective of postmodernism, we will be flirting with the dreaded reemergence of a Metanarrative, and, naturally, it will speak to the Eschaton, among other things.  

The Metanarrative, if it is anything at all, will serve as a revelation.  It will be a revelation of Biblical proportions.  In the end it will be self-justifying and self-verifying.  My own feeble attempt here in these few pages is simply in anticipation and facilitation of this revelation, which ultimately is a matter of our own hearts and spirits.  

Once again, I may be jumping ahead of the story.............

[Later on 5/20]  In these first fifteen pages I have tried to make plausible the extreme fragility of materialism.  It should only take one convincing encounter with a ghost to shatter the very thin exoskeleton of that metaphysic.  Instead of a ghost, I offer you the increasingly accepted notion of the irreducibility of a variety of mental entities.  These entities may not be quite as hair raising as a ghost, but what they portend for materialism is every bit as dire.  Once we afford reality to anything immaterial, our only logical recourse is to reexamine virtually every metaphysical possibility.  Out of these I suggest the path of coherence, simply because it is the only one that is, well, coherent. 

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5/20/02

Best World for Whom? 

The best for everybody.  But how could everyone ever agree on the best world.  We can't even agree on ice cream flavors.  Yes, and isn't that why Baskin Robbins has 56 flavors?  The point is that this is a big world.  There is a lot of variety and a lot of diversity.  And if you don't like things right now, then maybe you can wait around a few years, or, even better, get to work now on your personal vision.  That is more or less what I'm doing. 

Are we to understand that there has never been needless suffering or injustice?  I will turn that question around.  Is it not possible to imagine that all the suffering and injustice in the world could be healed or made right, given certain metaphysical conditions and theological and eschatological assumptions.  Simply assume then that those conditions and assumptions are already in place. 

Clearly the best possible world is a highly participatory one.  Our destiny is in our own hands, with God here mainly to provide cosmic oversight and guidance, and some very basic guarantees. 

How do we know that this is not just the second best world?  How do we know that we are not subservient to some other, numero uno world?  This will only become obvious in the light of the unfolding of the eschaton.  It is my job here to do as much of that unfolding as is possible.  In the meantime, the fact that this world is the center of spiritual gravity for the cosmos underlies the entire prophetic tradition.  Of course, that tradition could be bogus, and many suppose it is.  But that is what we are here to find out, isn't it? 

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5/20/02

Our Dramatic Cosmos 

What is the most important part of any story, particularly if it contains elements of mystery?  Typically it is the ending.  The story of our world turns out to be no exception. . 

Recall that the creative drama that became the frame for world history has come down to us from far beyond space and time.  How then is this piece of dramaturgy implemented?  I have already suggested that the implementation is teleological.   

 Consider these analogies.  The genesis of the pearl lies in the invasion of an external irritant.  With the cosmos there is no externality.  The stimulus-response pattern is all internal.  It is our history that predominates the cosmic bootstrap. 

On the other hand there is the dream sequence.  Most of us have experienced substantial, coherent dreams that, nonetheless, seem to end logically with what turns out to have been an abrupt external trigger.  Such occurrences continue to mystify.  It has been suggested that most dreams are actually scripted backwards, but in the process of waking they are experienced as if being played forward in the normal manner. 

Our eschaton has been present from the very beginning.  It is embedded in the fabric of reality.  Why then the dread?  We are a surprisingly cautious, conservative and skeptical species.  We sense that there is an emerging drama that will have both a global and personal impact.  Until we get to actually kick the tires of the eschaton we remain naturally wary.  I aim to be one of those tires. 

[Later on 5/21]  Silly me, I almost forgot John Wheeler's 'delayed choice' quantum measurement thought experiment.  It is theoretically possible to adjust a measurement apparatus after a given particle has already interacted with another part of the apparatus so as to retroactively impose certain conditions upon that previous interaction.  As some physicist once noted, not only is the world stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine. 

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5/21/02

Only One Show? 

Yes [, but do see below].  There is but one world.  There is but one show, and that show has but one showing. 

If I am correct, I have more right to be skeptical of this historical singularity than anyone, which leads to another slight digression. 

If I am even half-way right about the world, and I am even half-way successful in putting together a unique and coherent website, then yours truly is deliberately flirting with a rather specific and obvious messianic possibility (Y2C?).  Even if not me, it is likely to be another equally obscure soul in a similarly fortuitous place on our wired planet.  

Now consider the singularity of history from the perspective of this poor devil.  Imagine, if you will, the plaintiveness of her asking, 'Why me Lord?'  One would suspect that even just the subliminal anticipation of such a question is more than enough to keep this particular deck rather clear.  But this does not answer the original question.  

To maintain sanity in such a situation, consider this setting: a heavenly arcade with the always amusing 'messiah' game.  After some cajoling, I was just dumb enough to put my nickel in the slot.  The rest of you out there are just the wiser onlookers, feeling rather more sympathy or pity than anything else.  This is how most of us regard JC1, the original X-event, after all.  

Our singular history can be experienced and re-experienced in every possible way for all eternity.  It already has been.  There need be and can be no bigger or better game out there, remembering that you've hardly remembered any of it yet.  

More to the point is to recall that each of us is just a very small facet of the infinitely cohering cosmic omniscience.  We are the microcosms of that cosmos.  It is that to which we so hesitatingly awaken.  

Is there then nothing new under this Sun, or through this Son?  Doesn't God get bored?  No more than we ever do. 

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5/21/02

Explaining Science (part 1)

A Just So Story 

A major challenge for immaterialism is to rationalize both science and nature.  The Darwinists, in attempting to explain 'How the Leopard Got Its Spots', provide a model of explanation that we will be extending to the whole experiential world. 

The Darwinists have identified a survival mechanism to explain the taxonomy of the organic world.  With immaterialism there is much less distinction between the organic and inorganic, and we replace their survival mechanism with a somewhat similar bootstrap mechanism.  

The bootstrap is the cosmos' sky hook.  Logically prior to time and 'before' there was a world, there was just Possibility.  There was Potency.  Then there was self-actualization through various forms of self-posturing.  All of this is happening on the experiential level.  Materialization is partly the result of circular processes being stretched out so as to become habituated cyclically as the dimension of time emerges.  The cosmic potency actualizes itself by building its own relational network of cycles and sub-cycles.  There is a zone of alignment of the constant background of virtual chaotic experiential elements or felt meanings that are always holistic in a microcosmic fashion.  This process is ongoing in the human subconscious and through dreaming.  Out of these elements and this process there 'emerges' the Metanarrative that is world history.  

The Metanarrative is constructed with the simultaneous formation of an Alpha and Omega, as one might construct an expandable suspension bridge, not only across a void, but, in this case, within a void.  It is no mean engineering feat.  Experiential space and time are the flesh for this skeleton. 

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5/22/02

Explaining Science (part 2) 

We can get at least some feeling for how space, time and history may be fashioned in a continuous manner out of an otherwise merely latent and otherwise chaotic cosmic potency.  A virtual intelligence is always present, striving for self-realization.  The Metanarrative congeals out of an experiential background foam, mainly in a teleological manner. 

The cosmic organizing principle is always redistributing itself throughout an expanding network of microcosmic nodes, namely us creatures.  These would also be similar to Leibniz' monads.  To facilitate the redistribution of potency, it is natural to equip at least some of the monads with gonads.  But more generally we are looking for there to be an arena with some sort of game plan to support the overarching History.  The background game is necessarily metabolic in nature. 

Why metabolism?  It is impossible to imagine a natural ecology being based on anything else.  Any other networking or relational schema would have a top-down organizing principle.  Granted that reality is ultimately organized in a top-down fashion, there would be no dynamical independence from God without a seemingly independent and parallel system.  I am not talking about an ontological dualism, merely a dynamical dualism.  

This is the most important single point to grasp in order to justify the transition from materialism to immaterialism.  I will continue to harp upon the cosmic necessity of this dynamical dualism.  The upshot of which is that there are two logically necessary pillars of reality: God and Atom, truly the dynamic duo.  Until you fully grasp this logic you will be justifiably dubious of any other effort on my part to rationalize or deconstruct science.  Please note that my emphasis on this duality should in no way suggest an ontic parity between God and atoms.  Any such parity would immediately dissolve into an incoherent Cartesian dichotomy.  

With the background of the eternal cosmic potency, the primary problem of creation is the drawing of distinctions.  In order to keep everything from happening together and at once, there will be a spatial manifold.  Given any such manifold, any creative logistic will require the concept of the atom.  It was no accident that the concept of the atom emerged in philosophy long before the concept of science.  

In order for a dream to exist it must persist.  In order to persist it must cohere both meaningfully and logically.  Any surviving dream of the world, any metanarrative will by necessity have the atom as one of its logical foci.  All of science is then a straightforward elaboration of that basic logic.  Of course, we will be revisiting this point frequently. 

Our dream Atom is nothing absolute.  It cannot be a Newtonian atom.  It will, like everything else in our dream, have a purely relational existence.  It will, like Leibniz' monads, be microcosmic.  It may not have gonads, but it will have 'hair'.  That microcosmic 'hair' is what quantum physics is trying to describe.  The metaphysical panic engendered amongst the materialists by the quantum is very understandable.  They are seeing over the edge of their playpen into our upside-down and inside-out dream world.  Yes, I would panic too, if I were them.  

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5/23/02

Dream Atom 

There is a natural tendency to want to laugh at the very idea of a dream Atom.  Indulge!  

After this bit of indulgence, however, one has to wonder about the true nature of the Atom.  Is the scientific Atom really so much different from our proposed dream Atom? 

In each case we are dealing primarily with a conceptual or metaphorical atom.  In the case of science, the atom, or, actually, the elementary particle is merely the place holder for a, nowadays, mind boggling mathematical superstructure in an at least eleven dimensional abstract space. 

Just on the face of it, 'mathematical physics' is an oxymoron.  There is nothing even slightly physical about mathematics.  What we so quaintly used to think of as the physical has been turned into a mathematical wonderland, full of strange beasts, up to and including the notorious (at least to mathematical physicists) Monster group, q.v.  

Where does the Monster group, which has more elements than Jupiter has atoms, reside, other than in the minds of mathematicians?  If it is as objective and as physically significant as it seems, it must also reside in a kind of mental or Platonic ether.  Both the Quantum and the Math are pushing physics toward seeming more like a mental abstraction.  The closer you look at the Atom, the further does its tangibility recede into these mists.  

It seems that the immaterialists are being aided and abetted in these latter days of materialism by the likes of the theoretical physicists.  Perhaps the world did spring directly from the quantum potency prior to the Big Bang.  Or it may as well have sprung right from the head of Zeus or some mathematician God.  Now if God is as lazy as I sometimes suspect, she would not have to have worked out all this physics by herself.  She could simply have recruited our erstwhile mathematicians to work it out in teleological fashion.  We had better keep them on the payroll, because they are helping to design the world.  Getting rid of them would be as problematic as going back in a time machine and killing one's own grandmother. 

If our atoms had emerged accidentally and not been designed in such a teleological fashion by our mathematical physicists, they would never have given rise to us quantum observers to help reify their existence.  This is what relational existence is all about.  You scratch my back, and I scratch yours. 

Because each atom implements the entire realm of mathematics, they are indeed the microcosmic cornerstones of our reality.  All of  the prerequisites of our consciousness are thus ensured by their very manner of design.  The dream Atom is God's primary bootstrapping tool.  Very clever of Her. 

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5/25/02

Concealment 

I am remiss in not having discussed concealment up to this point, at least not that I can recall. 

Fortuitously, though, concealment is closely associated with the question of science.  

Originally science received considerable impetus by being conceived as the pious effort to read God's book of nature, along with the Bible, of course.  But as time passed, there was more passing of the ammunition and rather less of praising God, up to the present.  The more pious founding fathers of science could hardly have conceived of our present technocratic society.  That God was lost in the shuffle, was hardly an oversight.  It seemed that God did not have a prayer in competing with the Juggernaught of science and technology.  

Now I am by no means the first to suggest that this usurpation was part of a bigger plan.  At some point in our spiritual maturation we would have to be weaned away from the parental God.  We had always been accustomed to the teat of mother nature as our special entitlement.  Science would open a Pandora's box, with no visible Pandora.  As we rushed to embrace the materialist cornucopia, we naturally forgot about Mother.  Father remained as remote as ever.  

Science was to be the handmaiden of our spiritual adolescence.  This has been our rebellion, our golden opportunity to test our individual spirits before having to realign ourselves and comprehend that we are the actual protagonists in this cosmic drama. 

This planned adolescence is all in the spirit of the best possible world.  Adolescence is an awkward and often painful experience.  Ours has been no exception.  In a better world, could this have been avoided?  I am skeptical.  It is no small burden to have to come up with a better idea.  

This singular creation was not an experiment.  There is a least action principle involved.  The teleology of optimality is unavoidable in this alpha/omega bootstrap process.  Am I thereby denying the free will of the creator?  I am only saying that Her free will has been thoroughly redistributed amongst all of us.  The now ending epoch of science played no small part in that most significant of developments.  Realize also that God is 'simply' the means by which our alpha selves realize our omega selves.  God is our Omega Self in the dimension of eternity.  If this strikes a few as bordering on heresy, then we heretics have some very illustrious and spiritual company. 

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5/25/02

Concealment (part 2) 

Those of you out there struggling now to detach yourselves from intellectual teat of scientific materialism, might be wondering why God had to make her concealment so complete.  Is she not being fastidious in her bashfulness to the point of perversity?  Not only have all footprints and fingerprints been removed, but her tracks have been covered over with the most remarkable of backdrops or stage settings.  

But which is more remarkable: God's ability to fool us our, or our ability to fool ourselves?  In the aftermath (afterphysics?) we will, I am sure, see it was the latter.  We have simply spent three centuries willfully ignoring our own minds and spirits.  This studied ignorance is all the more breathtaking in retrospect.  We were so busy tracking dinosaurs and planets, and being blinded by the Sun, that we forgot all about the light of our consciousness that bathes all our reality.  

Of course, the image of God going around and planting dinosaur bones like so many Easter eggs, does not facilitate the rational comprehension of the average scientist.  The placement of stars and fossils is simply to be found in the fractal depths of the rational, relational Atom.  And for the actual rationale for the findings we need look no further than the collective rationality of the finders.  

Is this too easy?  The true ease of it will not be fully appreciated by any of us until we are fully engaged in the dramatic outworking of the Eschaton.  The material Alpha of paleontology, and astronomy, embodied in the almost tangible Atom, will be amply reflected in the spiritual Omega that is our Eschaton.  The dinosaurs will live again in some even more substantial fashion than is currently envisioned by Hollywood. 

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5/25/02

Eschaton  

I am guessing that it is high time we attended to the Eschaton.  Up to now it has only been mentioned in passing as I continued to procrastinate on this eventuality.  So here we go, finally.  My hope is that after this much preparation, the eschaton will be seen as the natural and inevitable resolution of any immaterialist history.  It will be the bottom line of any rationalist metaphysic, the capstone of any coherent metanarrative, the piece de resistance of the best possible world. 

Nonetheless, I readily admit that this is an uphill battle.  In the popular mind, eschatological doomsaying is the favored cliché for depicting fundamentalist irrationality and radicalism.  This stark image is deeply entrenched in the modern mind.  Could one imagine anything more likely to resist  revision?  You see how I try at least to win the sympathy vote. 

Yet, the arguments are simple and direct.  A story is not coherent if not complete.  It is not complete without a proper end.  Also an immaterial world has a maintenance issue.  It will not be self-maintaining, not beyond its allotted time.  Its allotted time is determined by the parameters of its teleological creation.  In the immaterialist metaphysic it is the omega point that is the primary locus of the creative potency.  The traditional Alpha of Genesis fame is only the tail, and it does not wag this dog. 

It is not a matter of if, but of when. What is the best possible time for the end?  Fortunately for any nervous Nellies out there, I am a millennialist.  I maintain that a proper end only comes after a proper Millennium.  We give ourselves a thousand years to get our house in order, and otherwise prepare for the spiritual denouement.  This should be plenty of time.  If anything, we are likely to exercise our prerogative to expedite things in the likely event of our spiritual impatience, as in, 'Let's get this show on the road!' 

And what is the most expeditious timing for the Millennium?  Here I will be a bit more adamant.  Now is the time.  My only point is: what are we waiting for?  Quite a few people, of course, are waiting for a messianic event.  Are we going to let a little thing like that stop us?  I don't think so.  But you might want to stay tuned. 

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5/26/02

Pre-Millennialism  

Is there anyone out there who would not agree that there has never been a more auspicious time for the Millennium? 

Here are the factors to consider.  History may be viewed as a long march into materialism.  As we have discussed above, there are ample indications that the intellectual energy behind this materialist sojourn is already on the wane.  Admittedly, though, the concomitant economic and political Juggernaught is still to be reckoned with, but, hey, that's why we're here!  

On the one hand we have the environmental problem.  If there is a solution it is not yet in sight.  On the other hand we have the clash of civilizations.  If the metaphysics here is correct, the modern materialists are on much more precarious ground than even our post-911 anxieties would indicate.  It may well be that these two problems will continue to exacerbate each other.  Or it may be that we will continue to muddle through.  

Materialism has been the great attractor behind the metaphysically necessary spiritual weaning of our souls.  The Atom has been the dual to God in the dynamic of Creation.  The fact, however, that the primary result of all our technology has been the wiring of our global brain, may not be incidental in the larger scheme.  

In the best possible world our demand for truth will subvert the materialist Juggernaught well before it pushes us further into tribulation and ultimately oblivion.  In the chaotic milieu of the global Internet, the merest butterfly of truth and vision quite possibly could foment a spiritual storm of awakening.  There is now a big stick and a small carrot.  How and when might the spirit be moved?  I would suggest that it could all come down to Google.  Put enough of the right words in the right places, and the rest will be history, or at least the end thereof.  

This is a minimalist version of the messianic event.  Volunteering to be a mini-messiah is about the least that any activist metaphysician could offer at this juncture.  Does anyone have a better plan? 

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5/26/02

Revelation 

Existence is a process involving a bootstrapped creation.  From the background of potency, creation is the drawing and maintaining of distinctions and thereby separation.  From an epistemic point of view, separation entails ignorance and concealment.  This is the primary source of 'evil' in creation.  To offset the fact of concealment, deliberate acts of revelation are entailed.  

There are many possibilities for revelation.  There appears to be an historical preference for prophecy.  Is this for the best?  There is a major communication problem.  The ability of the prophet to spread the word is severely restricted by technical and political considerations.  There are likely to be competing prophets and 'false' prophets.  One might wonder that there could not be more efficient and direct means of divine communication. 

More efficient methods would have their own drawbacks.  Significantly they would be more impersonal and would rob the spiritual community of its evangelical function.  Much of the motivation for technical and social innovation would be obviated.  

We are left with the necessity that all revelation is local, up until modern times.  Geographic and ethnic bias is unavoidable.  Is this unfair?  In the context of the millennial and universal 'salvation' being urged here, the question of unfairness becomes moot.  We are left with just the residual 'accidents' of history.  

The present result is that the prophetic tradition is not universal, and it is fragmented into major sub-groups.  It is the function of the pre-millennial messianic event to overcome these historical accidents and biases.  The timing of this event is likely to be tied to a particular technical deployment.  In this case I am looking to the Internet.  

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5/29/02

Millennium & Eschaton

The concept of the Millennium has been integral to the prophetic tradition since its inception nearly thirty-five hundred years ago with Zoroaster.  In that case Creation was given a span of seven millennia, with the defeat of evil giving rise to a final Millennium of divine harmony. 

I am simply augmenting that original notion with the idea of a spiritually directed paradigm shift.  The drama of this final intellectual and spiritual shift is greatly enhanced by the centuries of scientific 'progress' immediately preceding it.  Thus we have the defeat of evil being embodied in the pre-Millennial advent and revelation which results in the overcoming of spiritual ignorance.  The notion of supernatural armies clashing in the heavens is replaced by the clash of paradigms.  

Given that the potency of the cosmic genie is largely a function of its coherence, the defeat of ignorance and evil is teleologically preordained in the microcosmic makeup of the creatures.  This along with the social and technical potency of the Internet implies that the final messianic trigger should be the merest of 'butterfly' effects.  Thus is the cosmic coercion of this revelation minimized.  It is a maximally participatory event.  Why anyone with half a brain is not now scrambling to put together this prophetic website is well beyond my ken.  All the more for the rest of us, I suppose.  It does reduce the noise. 

Our spiritual matriculation occurs at the end of the seventh and final Millennium.  This is when linear, sequential history ends.  Having resolved our mundane affairs, we move into the infinite dimensions of eternity: we become one with the Divine.  Our sojourn into the limited dimensions of matter is completed.  Even this 'resurrection of the dead' was easily foreseen by the grandfather of the prophets.  Our spirits need only the slightest of nudges to remember the origin and purpose of our journey here. 

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5/29/02

Genesis 

These days even among fundamentalist creationists the so called 'young Earthers' are looked upon as being doctrinaire extremists.  Perhaps this helps to explain why the handful of us rational immaterialists are so reluctant to follow our own rationale to its logical conclusion which is not at all in harmony with the scientifically correct notion of an old Earth.  Anyone, however, who does have the courage of their immaterialist convictions is going to end up right about here.  That is the plan, anyway.  We will just have to buck up and suck up, and not foul up so we don't have to come back again.  We only go around once.   

If discretion were the better part of my valor, I might have left this topic alone.  The real action in this immaterial cosmos is with the Eschaton.  That is the tail that wags this dog.  The demand for coherence, however, does not allow me to walk away from the Alpha point of the cosmic equation.  Besides this, every engineer knows that a bridge needs two anchor points, and in our case they are the Alpha and the Omega. 

Compared to the Eschaton, the Garden of Eden is a literal Sunday school picnic.  Where is the Anchor?  Where indeed?  

In thinking of the duality of the Alpha and Omega, we cannot avoid reflecting on the dynamic duality of God and Atom discussed previously.  (I am not the first to have speculated on the Adam--Atom connection.)   I would suggest now, however, that this primordial duality is more accurately portrayed as being between God and the mathematical 'Monster' group.  This is the duality of the irresistible force and the immovable object.  That group seems to have acted as the grain of sand relative to the oyster, we being the resulting best of all possible pearls.  Should we then lay awake at night worrying about who created the Monster group?  What if there had not been a primordial Monster?  Where would that leave us?  Anyone who knows the answer deserves the messianic mantle. 

We have already noted that the footprint of the Monster is to be found in the depths of the Atom.  I will not hesitate long before speculating that the 'monstrous' geometry of the Atom is also reflected in the sacred, sky born geometry of the global megalithic culture.  It is as if the starry resonance of those ancient stone monuments were meant precisely, and we do mean precisely, to anchor our geodesics and thereby solidify the Earth from out of our primordial dream-time.  Yes, the Alpha Anchor is to be found in Angkor and in Giza. 

Can we suppose that the Hamlet's Mill of the mythically recorded precession of the Equinoxes is just a cosmic accident, amidst all this geodesic acumen?  Do we really suppose that we lost nothing on our long march into materialism?  

The actual time span of creation is framed in the stars.  A compromise between the biblical six millennia and the Great Cycle's two dozen, leaves a nice round dozen.  If anyone can argue for a better time frame for the immaterial Alpha and Omega (does the extra 'sabbatical' Millennium give us then a baker's dozen?) they are welcome to it.  Did not 1998 mark the date of orthogonality of the ecliptic and galactic circles? 

And for all the Dino-philes out there, well, why not trust in the teleological bootstrap cloning of a still materializing Dino-DNA sequence.  This will be alchemy at its best. 

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5/30/02

Christocentric?  

I can sympathize with the many folk who would not mind Jesus half as much if it just weren't for all those darn Christians.  Was this really the best of all possible Christian religions?  It just goes to show how strongly this religion was overdetermined by the very large scope of its role in history. 

You will notice, however, that I am referring to this religion in the past tense.  It is a fact of messianic life, that the only way to get around the historical obstacle that is the Church is through the eye of the needle that is the Second Coming.  Bless its heart.  The other fact of messianic life is that those fellow travelers will be the very last to accept these messianic facts of life in the cosmos.  They are only doing more or less what they were told. 

There is no way we can avoid the Second Coming, so we might as well enjoy it.  

But was Jesus really necessary?  And what about all that magic business? 

If we take teleology quite seriously, Jesus has not existed yet.  Jesus, and all of us for that matter, are just a twinkle in the eye of the Eschaton.  If he exists at all it is in the logic of creation.  If the Eschaton is a love tsunami, and God help us if it is anything else, then its historical focus, either before or after the fact, is undeniably to be found in the X-event.  The Eschaton is a big fat cosmic given, kind of like the Monster group.  But If I were God, and I wanted to have maximum leverage with minimum effort, I would put all my eggs in the X-basket.  That is just a fact of God's life. 

The X-event was the death of God.  She poured her entire Self into that one spot, because there was no logical alternative.  This was the necessary self-sacrifice.  We are that eternal resurrection.  There can only be one supreme sacrifice.   The X-event is to the geodesics of of the Spirit, rather as Angkor, Giza, etc., are to the geodesics of the Earth. 

And what about the Muslims and other folk?  Well, just as soon as the the Christians become more transparent to the sacrifice, everyone will be able to understand it.  In fact, the Muslims will probably end up having to explain it to the Christians.  But it is not really rocket science, is it?  If you believe in Tinker Bell, all you have to do is clap your hands.  It is the children and not the rocket scientists who inherit the Kingdom.  So much for magic, and so much for rockets. 

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5/30/02

Hanging by a Thread 

It would seem that our notion of the Best Possible World is hanging by a very insubstantial thread.  

Give me one irreducible entity and I will logically 'construct' for you a world, and not just any world, but the best of all possible worlds. 

Given the existence of just one immaterial object, immaterialism is the logical consequence.  If this fact speaks more to the fragility of materialism than it does to the robustness of immaterialism, well, so be it.  It will suffice for our purpose which has to do with what used to be called salvation.  

I am equating materiality with atomicity, or with physicality.  Physics would hardly be physics if it did not have a very restricted and exclusive ontology.  The existence of its objects is to be determined purely by means of physical experiments.   

Am I going to show you an immaterial object?  No.  One can only present indirect evidence.  But please note that the same is true for material objects.  Just showing you a chair is not showing you a material object.  Among other things, I would first have to prove that you are not dreaming, and the fact is that no one really even knows how to do that.  

[note added 6/14] [Our perception of a chair is a bundle of decidedly immaterial universal qualities.]

I can show you words and numbers.  I can show you, by way of the Internet, that virtually everyone who has explored words and numbers agrees that they are irreducible in all but the most trivial of senses.  

Why then is not every philosopher an avowed immaterialist?  If they were, they would have already constructed this web site, and the rest would have been history.  Someone has to be the first in modern history to demand a coherent reality [and get a hearing].  This necessarily entails cosmology, and philosophers, since at least the time of Darwin, are expected to leave cosmology to the scientists.  Any trespass on that territory is not taken lightly. 

The idea of a coherent cosmos has simply fallen through the political and logistic cracks of academia.  That is until the Internet has come along to drastically alter the logistics of presenting and communicating new ideas.  Am I holding my breath for the world to beat a path to this web site?  As long as that possibility exists, there will be ample motivation for more than a few of us to be in this business.  A dozen people knowing the truth and using the Internet can easily take this world away from the materialists: like taking candy from a baby.  

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5/30/02

Mere Words 

What I propose to consider here is the magic and metaphysics of words.  Most simply put, the question is whether words have a content.  If words have a content, artificial intelligence is impossible. 

Words certainly seem to contain information, but where is it?  The only information explicitly contained in a word are its letters or its sound pattern.  Otherwise, we have dictionary definitions along with an unlimited number of examples of actual usage.  These examples and definitions demonstrate the external relations or contexts in which a given word may be properly used.  To some degree, such patterns may be programmed into a computer, which will in turn display a more or less rudimentary language skill.  This accounts for the physical aspect and use of words.  But is there anything more, anything non-mechanistic or metaphysical? 

Certainly we are subject to the strong impression that words do have an intrinsic individual content or essence that we refer to as their meaning.  But no one has ever been able to point to a meaning, the way we can point to a definition.  

There is also the fact of language acquisition.  Human infants have a remarkable ability to pick up languages and then communicate with little or no formal instruction.  We do seem to posses an innate grammatical ability that is not reflected in any of the brute force procedures used to instruct machines in the use of language.  

The evolutionary explanation for this ability remains elusive.  Where in our full complement of 30,000 genes does this innate ability reside?  The fact that only a very few percent of our genes differ significantly from our non-verbal primate ancestors should make us wonder about the material basis for this skill.  We could, at most, only have evolutionally acquired the equivalent of just a few lines of computer code devoted specifically to language.  Why has not the hoard of programmers working on language processing been able even to approximate this natural ability? 

What seems intrinsic to words is their ability to refer to other things.  The fact is that there is nothing physical about referring.  Referring is not a physical process, per se, although it may have physical aspects.  There is a virtual unanimity among philosophers of all stripes that referring is an act rather than a process.  Action, as opposed to mere process, requires the participation of an agent.  It is the agent which determines the act of reference.  

Any act of reference must transcend a purely causal nexus.  If I am physically constrained to utter the word 'cat' each time I happen to encounter one, I am not thereby engaged in an act of reference, although a naive observer might be led to interpret this purely physical event as such.  

Is this too easy?  Have I just disproved artificial intelligence?  Have billions of dollars been wasted on AI just because the computer scientists were unaware of the distinction between act and process?   The proponents of 'Strong' AI are well aware of this de facto distinction and they take it as their primary objective to overcome it by building a robot with a mind.  

We have come full circle.  The true believers in science are at once the deconstructors and the would-be reconstructors of the mind.  If there is to be a paradigm shift of the sort we have discussed, then this group is the primary opposition in any future public discussion.  Until then they may serve as straw man.  

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6/1/02

Straw Man  

Let us briefly survey the postmodern intellectual scene as it pertains to the status of immaterialism. 

A preponderance of present-day intellectuals share the postmodern perspective.  Theirs is an almost militant pluralism.  They will join forces in the face of any perceived threat to that pluralism.  The cosmology, or, as they would say, the metanarrative that I have been outlining here would be perceived exactly as such a threat were it ever to appear on their radar screens.  In my pre-Internet attempts to bring these ideas to the attention of academics in person, I was never able to get beyond their rather understandable ad hominem reactions.  They could seldom see beyond what appeared to them simply to be a potential totalitarian threat.  The group solidarity among academics is sufficiently strong that no one wants to appear sympathetic with a controversial outsider, even in the very few instances where such sympathies might have actually been present. 

Consider the pragmatics of a paradigm shift.  All creatures are creatures of habit.  It takes a considerable force to cause us to change our habits, even, and perhaps especially, if these are habits of thought.  Any existing system has to be widely perceived as broken before there will be any concerted effort toward a revolutionary replacement.  Until such time, very many signs of failure will be willfully disregarded.  Like the proverbial lobsters, we might well endure increasing heat until it is too late for us to jump out of the pot.  This analogy may strike a bit too close to home in light of the one thousand deaths in the most recent heat wave in India.  Rest assured that the media moguls will be the very last to have to forgo climate control. 

Being the best of all possible worlds, our participation in tribulation prior to revelation will be just as short as possible, but unless Jesus is planning to return soon in a flying saucer, it is up to you and me to pick up these cudgels.  Our only stratagem is to foment a public discussion.  The previously mentioned deconstructors of the mind will be our straw man until the warm bodies appear. 

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6/1/02

Strategy 

I toyed with Cartesian dualism for several years before having to concede that it provided only an ad hoc, incoherent compromise between materialism and immaterialism.  Its only practical use would be to serve as a stepping stone for scientists like myself who embarked on the quest for a deeper understanding.  I had already realized that immaterialism would be much too radical to be taken seriously by anyone in the mainstream.  For several more years I discontinued my discussions with academics and religionists that had revolved around the possibility of a Cartesian metaphysic.  When I once again resumed those discussions it was under the rubric of the 'Aquarium', and those lasted until the Internet became available.  Actually, though, my first online discussions were on a CompuServe BBS.  

In the best possible world, the Internet will serve as the primary medium for revealing the truth.  This is in accord with the doctrine of divine minimalism.  At a coed summer camp I once attended there was a Hands Off Policy.  There is also the Prime Directive of Star Trek fame: interdicting cosmic intervention in 'primitive' or otherwise isolated cultures.  Divine minimalism in history is exemplified in the prophetic tradition.  Typically a prophet performs a miracle only as a last resort or only as an integral part of her message.   In our case the Internet should minimize the problem of disseminating the message, and thus we have the concept of the mini-messiah.  

For most non-fundamentalists, even a mini-messiah is likely to be too much.  For the fundies, even a mini-messiah would likely serve as one more excuse for bloodshed.  Why not just ditch the whole idea?  

My response is that to do so would be entirely ingenuous.  If we are serious about promulgating immaterialism, we surely recognize that it will constitute the mother of all paradigm shifts.  Furthermore, the whole motivation for this message has to do with eschatological preparedness.  This is nothing other than the dictionary definition of salvation.  If there ever was an event that called for divine intervention, this would be it.  Furthermore, there has never been a paradigm shift in the past that has not been pinned on someone.  Is this one likely to be an exception?  Is there going to be a Paradigm committee?  

The messiah problem is simply unavoidable.  Ironically, a little reflection will show that the best way to minimize the full messianic aspect is to cast it in the shadow of some other historical figure.  The only candidate meeting the criterion is Jesus, and I doubt that this is simply fortuitous.  Anyone serious about any of this business will see that we have already been upstaged in the casting department.  The role of JC, Jr. is just what the script calls for.  The best possible salvation in the best possible world is a package deal.  Sometimes the best presents come in the smallest packages.  

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6/1/02

Saving the World 

Saving the world may sound like a daunting task, but it seems rather less onerous once we realize that it appears to have already been saved and now only needs to be reminded.  And how do we do that?  Stand on a street corner holding a sign?  What you see here is the Internet version of that time honored tradition. 

An important additional benefit of the Internet is the ease with which one may keep an eye on things.  Besides presenting my own viewpoint, I can perform the additional service of helping all of us to keep current with respect to any other developments on the Internet that are likely to influence this effort.  I need only provide the links to the relevant web sites. Eventually one would hope for reciprocal links, and when that begins to occur in any substantial fashion, our job will be just about finished.  

Is it that easy?  It could well be.  Whoever's web site becomes the hub of the salvational network, that person, as the designated jc,jr, is likely to end up on 'Crossfire'.  She may also end up in a crossfire between rival sects.  This would lend credence to the epithet that the only good messiah is a dead messiah.  But, perhaps we have progressed in the last two thousand years to the point that history will not have to repeat itself in this unfortunate manner. 

You will notice that I am taking a recognizably Tom Sawyerish approach to this salvational fence painting.  This may be just a bit disingenuous on my part.  I am drumming up business by seeming to encourage competition, but perhaps with a deliberate insouciance.  For one thing, I'll have to admit that even after just a few years I have naturally grown somewhat attached to and protective of the jc,jr designation.  Rather than just roll over and play dead when the first contender appears on the Google screen or email box, it may be something more like, over my dead body, buddy.  All is fair in war and salvation?  Also there is the not so minor issue of precedence.  Publish or perish, as they say.  Time's a' wasting.  

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6/2/02

Hot Topic? 

Before attempting to link up, let me give you my own capsule interpretation of the status of 'eschatological immaterialism' on the Internet.  

For starters, when one enters the preceding phrase in Google, even without the quotes, there are a grand total of five hits, the second and third of which refer to myself.  It would seem that this is not a hot topic.  It also, of course, speaks to the issue of precedence.  

What is the problem?  Why are not more people seeing what appears to be so obvious?  People simply have difficulty grasping a gestalt of this magnitude, it is an enormous switch from our modern materialist cosmology.  If, nonetheless, someone does grasp it, they then have to confront the messianic, jc,jr, issue.  The fact that another bloke has already hung out that shingle, may or may not make things easier for our prospective neophyte.  

There are more than a few immaterialists on the net, but they understandably shy away from grappling with its cosmological implications.  The alternatives for them are the mystical tradition of immaterialism, i.e. eastern mysticism, or a very restricted analytical approach to it, or some combination of these two.  In any case, coherence comes up with the short end of the stick. 

The next most logical place to look would be for those espousing some form of Cartesian dualism.  There are a fair number of these as well, but they quickly run into the incoherence of that dichotomy, and are left with not much to say.  At best they can appeal to the Quantum as a means of reducing the incoherence.  These quantum dualists may warrant some further attention on our part. 

The problem with these two possibilities is that there is no apparent motion or trend to follow at present.  Also the advocates of these views are quite aware that they are already skirting the fringe of respectability.  Eschatological immaterialism is so far beyond that fringe that it is unlikely to hold any attraction for them.  Where else might we turn?  

I remain partial to the issue of reductionism per se.  A lively debate ensues and it is a make or break issue for materialism.  If materialism is going to implode, this would be ground zero for that event.  The shock of this might be sufficient to cause some of the participants and onlookers to be more open to radical alternatives.   This prospective event would be our most likely source of momentum, that all important political currency.  At the least, I can review the reasons for my prognosis regarding the eventual dramatic demise of materialism. 

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6/2/02

The 'Competition' 

So where is the competition?  Why are people missing the boat of theistic idealism (immaterialism), or 'rational theism'? 

More than a few Christian theologians, both liberal and conservative, are taken up with the Darwinian problem.   Those of a creationist persuasion are directly attacking the adequacy of natural selection as a blanket explanatory device.  They focus on those particular biological systems that appear to stretch the Darwinian model beyond its limits.  'Intelligent Design', q.v., is their most commonly used banner.  The more liberal theologians are looking at the broader perspective of non-reductionism and teleology, that we have discussed above.   

In both cases there is an explicit concern with the rationale of ends and means, but by focusing so narrowly on the Darwinian issue, both factions are unavoidably becoming more deeply entangled in the larger materialist cosmology of modern science.  Strategically, in becoming too closely engaged with the 'enemy' in the skirmish over Darwinism, they have been unable to keep their options open for the larger and inevitable battle over metaphysics and cosmology.  They are letting the materialists choose the battlefield, and set the terms of the engagement.  

Meanwhile, the theists are implicitly letting the pantheists continue their hegemony over immaterialism.  The possibilities of theistic idealism, i.e. rational theism, are being lost in the shuffle.  Theistic idealism remains consigned to the dustbin of history, a curiosity to be occasionally contemplated by the Hegelian scholars.  

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6/8/02

Never Mind? 

A very important lacuna among theists is the mind.  It is a fact of history that the western tradition has been much more extroverted than the east.  We westerners know that when it comes to introspection we can hardly hold a candle to the navel gazing mystics to the east.  This has never been our forte.  We are still seemingly paying a price for the one time that we traipsed into that corner, thanks to Sigmund.  The political dynamics of the still unfolding sex scandal of the RCC is not unrelated to those collective unconscious anxieties that the Viennese doctor managed to put his foot into.  This peculiar bit of history does nothing to encourage a broad theological inquiry into this dimension or our reality. 

Let me not overlook the continental phenomenologists.  In part, their roots can be traced back to Hegel and German idealism.  Yet, the fact is that in both their sectarian and secular guises, phenomenologists have opted for existence over being.  This is a decided turn toward the irrational, like their counterparts in the east.  It would seem that we rationalists are swimming against a strong tide.  Rationalism has almost never found fertile soil in either the east or the west.  The high point of rationalism was in Greek philosophy and then to a lesser extent in Thomism, which until very recent times was the canonical philosophy of the Roman Church.  

In the midst of a very imperfect world, rationalism can't help but inspire a revolutionary utopianism.  The vested interests look askance at such proclivities.  How is today any different from the past?  In a word, it is the Internet.  There is something new under the Sun.  There are other positive and negative aspects of technology that come to bear on a new millenarianism.  A distinct subset of the scientific community is likely to be a prime candidate for any new momentum in this direction. 

Down through the ages, the human mind has demonstrated a great affinity to the story form.  Science struggles constantly to feed us stories, but it has been an uphill battle in a 'meaningless' universe.  The only thing greater than our fear of an overwhelming cosmic coherence is our thirst for it.  The messianic path lies directly between the fear and the desire.  This is where divine minimalism will be of the essence.  

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6/8/02

Rational Theism 

When I went to China in 1980, this was the title of my talk to the Guongdong (Canton) branch of the Society for the Study of Dialectical Materialism.  This was before my conversion to immaterialism and eschatology, yet it was a sufficient departure from their party line to warrant a 50% absence from the dinner afterwards.  I would like to think there were no more serious repercussions for the hospitality of the elderly sponsor or for his family.

Nonetheless, rational theism remains the hard core of my worldview.  If the eschaton is a necessary part of the Metanarrative, then who are we to demand otherwise.  The eschaton should be hunky dory as long as it does not occur on the watch of any given politician.  It would seem that every story naturally has an ending except your story and my story.  We live happily ever after.  And so we will, but not quite in the same bodies or mind sets, and there will be some drama between here and eternity.  'Ts'alright?  'Ts'alright'.  

The worst that any self-respecting God could be is supra-rational.  But the only thing really worthwhile that is generally assumed to be supra-rational is love.  Would it not be logical then to equate these two.  What a great idea!  Imagine the bloke who first figured that out.  

People have figured out many ways to try to prove God's existence.  But why should the burden be on them.  Would it not be much more difficult to prove that it is impossible for God to exist?  And if any being were given her choice, would she not want to have some recourse to some such other being.  

The next question is how likely are there to exist worlds from which God would be inaccessible, as is sometimes alleged to be the case with ours?  Given the existence of a creative force, how fragmented is it likely to be?  As a related issue, how much distinction can their be between existence and experience?  

As one piece evidence, mathematics could be our exhibit A.  If nothing else, the physicists have demonstrated that our reality is saturated with universal principles of mathematics.  What is to suppose that accessibility to universal mathematics is not a condition of existence?  And what is the evidence against access to universal mind being another, and possibly closely related, condition of existence? 

But back to our fragmentation question.  Given the existence of any sort of creative, bootstrappable potency, as it appears to be given here, then there would exist a great potential for universal intercourse.  If there were any countervailing tendency, it would hardly seem to have that same level of potency or intelligence associated with it.  Unless there were a rationale for fragmentation, this would not be the prevailing condition.  (see next page  The Ecology of Existence )

There is indeed an obvious rationale for a separation between creature and creator during a significant segment of creation.  Thus any alienation that we experience is logically rather more likely to be due to some such deliberation than to mere happenstance.  At the very least, it is not obvious that the burden of demonstration should be entirely on the side of those who choose to purvey coherence. 

It should be clear that we are already most of the way back to our original concept of BPW.  All paths of coherence and rationality lead back to this fundamental telos.  And what other paths might there be besides beauty and truth?  And to what other conceivable destination might they lead?  

The best we can continue to do is thoroughly explore every such path, to the limits of our reasoning.  What else might be more timely? 

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6/9/02

The Ecology of Existence

From the evidence of physics, mathematics and psychology, among other disciplines, we have a strong case against the possibility of isolated or absolute existence.  Certainly, everywhere in the world of objects and abstractions, we witness the interdependence of systems within systems.  

There is no warrant to suppose that a space-time manifold could exist independent of the possibility of measurement.  Nor is there any warrant for the existence of a quantum system without similar possibilities.  This puts a substantial, but indefinable, lower limit on the minimum complexity of any self-existing system. 

It also remarkable that the lawfulness of all of physics is very close to being captured in a single coherent and overarching set of mathematical principles.  This is the much sought after Grand Unified Theory, or Theory of Everything.   Any arbitrary truncation of this set would appear radically incomplete or even incoherent.   

Finally with physics we also confront the Anthropic Principle, according to which life is by no means an arbitrary appendage to an otherwise lifeless world.  The necessary conditions for the existence of complex life forms put severe constraints on every aspect of the laws and boundary conditions of physics. 

In the case of mathematics, we cannot pick or choose what numbers or structures might exist.  It is an all or nothing proposition.  Mathematics has its own internal logic of consistency and all that we can do is continue to fill in the gaps in our knowledge of it.  The more we learn, the more remarkable are the subtle, surprising and convoluted interconnections of what we had once thought were quite separate and distinct branches of mathematics.  

In linguistics there is no hierarchy in the completeness of languages.  The base structure of any language is readily amenable to the expression of the most abstract ideas of any other language, as can be readily observed in the world.  Within each language there is a holistic system of meaning.  We cannot understand the meaning of one word without, potentially at least, understanding the meaning of every other word.  The fact that this principle of holism causes severe problems for any mechanistic account of language skill is well understood.  

The history of science is a steady progression in our appreciation of the complexity and interdependence of all existence.  No upper limits for interdependency are foreseeable.  

It has often been noted that the most incomprehensible thing about the world is its relative degree of comprehensibility, even at this stage of our ignorance.  There is obviously a kind of holographic principle underlying broad swaths of our reality.  To understand and appreciate the flower in the crannied wall, we have to comprehend even the starry heavens.  Every part of the holographic world serves as a microcosmic window on the whole.  

It is against this amazing background of even the most 'ordinary' aspects of our world that one can begin to appreciate the meaning and context of rational theism.  Creation is not a cacophony.  Its principle of organization is equally eluding and alluring.  We are given no choice but to persevere.

Given the apparent holographic, relational, bootstrapped nature of all existence, it would be incomprehensible that any part of creation or existence could be isolated from the creator, unless there were a rationale for maintaining a relatively superficial appearance of such, and this may be the case in our world as discussed above.   

Furthermore, under these same very general conditions for existence, any spontaneous creative process could be co-opted by God at an early stage of development.  In fact, it would probably be impossible for any such event to simply be ignored.  Existence and creation cannot be fragmented.   Any metaphysical system which neglects these most basic logical imperatives of existence is simply not conforming to the exigencies of reality.  

It is its departure from these norms that has led science into many very distorted frames of reference. 

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6/10/02

The Level Playing Field 

It's what you know, not who you know, at least for the time being.  

The natural relationality of the world would tend toward a claustrophobic situation, were positive steps not taken. 

Once we appreciate the truly relational nature of reality, it will take some additional doing just to postpone our immediate implosion back into a virtual white hole of divinity.  The world would just be one big eschaton, with everything happening all together.  The act of creation is the act of drawing out history by separating the Alpha from the Omega.  And so we arrive at our spherical orb with cycles of time.  Knowing God and having a buck seventy-five will get you a cup of coffee in Times Square.  Yes, it's home on the range, where survival means gathering no moss.  Realize that those wide-open spaces are a metaphysical luxury, hardly the absolute gratuity of Newtonian fame.  Recall those painstaking megalithic processes of archeo-astronomical interest which constituted our geodesic cornerstone, or Alpha.  It is also the raison d'etre of our fabulous metabolic atomicity. 

Any physicist will tell you that space is something awfully contrived.  Every attempt at a Grand Unified Theory is an attempt to plumb the secrets of our pre-geometry.  But is not peering into the depths of space really just trying to see the back of our own head, or into the mind of God?  Our very level Newtonian billiard table was no mean construct.  It is the veil of God, and all the King's mathematical physicists can barely penetrate its warp and woof.  As the mathematical convolutions of pre-geometry proliferate into m-branes and beyond, we begin to see that we are becoming enmeshed in the psychic ur-field of God.  It is definitely a slide-rule busting experience. 

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6/10/02

An Idle Question? 

Why is there something rather than nothing? 

One might next wonder whether there could have been nothing?  Even if there were actually nothing, would there not always be the possibility of something?  Is that not a real potency?  Even if there were no actual possibility, might there not have been the possibility of the possibility? 

Can there be both something and nothing?  Is there any actual instance of nothingness?  Or does the slightest something, or even the possibility of something, forever banish nothingness?  Is there still the real possibility of nothing? 

Is there nothing between worlds or between possible worlds?  What is there between you and me, baby? 

Could an objective emptiness or absence ever be as real as the its subjective counterpart?  Is there such a thing as an objective absence?  Nothing is conceivable only as absence. Ergo, true nothingness is inconceivable.  There can be no nothing, unless there is a true know nothing.  Ain't that something?  

If nothing were possible, how many nothings could there be, in addition to something?  Would the identity of indiscernibles allow there to be two nothings?  Can one person be absent in two different places at the same time?  But would it make sense for there to be just one nothing.  There could only be no nothings, which is what I have been trying unsuccessfully to say. 

And what of the Monster group?  Might that not have existed?  Is there any world were it does not or could not possibly exist?  

Might I never have existed?  Might I never have possibly existed?  If I could possibly exist, then I would have to actually exist in a possible world, but would that not also have to be my actual world, and is that not also this world?  But supposedly God is the only necessary being, so God and I must be the same being, QED.  (At least that must be true in my actually possible world.)  Just your basic mystical insight. 

What is the smallest world that could exist?  Well, if nothing could exist, the smallest world would be only infinitesimally larger.  The possible absurdity of that notion indicates there must be a lower limit of some kind on what it means to be a world.  Any world has to be big enough to contain the abstraction of the Monster group which is about the size of Jupiter. 

Is there an upper limit on a world?  A world might possibly be infinite, but that could not be known and it would be inconceivable.  If the world is relational, and how could it not be, an objective infinity is not relationally possible.  Only a subjective infinity is possible.  

Among the finite possible worlds, there is one that is best by all measures.  All other worlds serve no conceivable function.[*]  If the principle of sufficient reason is possible, non-optimal worlds are impossible.

[*later on 6/13] [Functionalism was once popular as an explanation of mind.  Taken literally, functionalism would confer reality only upon functions.  As such I can see no logical distinction between functionalism and Leibniz' PSR, which by the same token is not distinct from basic pragmatism, frequently noted for its for its supervenience upon idealism.]  

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6/13/02

Is Mind Possible? 

Not according to science.  According to science, only objects can exist, and only in space and time.  The mind is no such thing. 

But then where and when do space and time exist?  Science is beginning to countenance the real existence of other universes.  Where do they exist and if they cannot be located relative to anything else, how do they count as objects?   How could they be more than just an abstraction, and are we not just an abstraction relative to them?  

Might not other universes exist in the same sense that mathematical objects exist?  Any abstraction can exist only in thought.  Have we not just shown that ultimately we all can exist only in thought?  Realities exist only relative to each other.  This is the insight of relationalism.  All relations are ultimately subjective.  Any world and anything in that world can hardly be more than a set of contenful relations.  

If mind is not possible, then nothing (if even that!) would be conceivable.  Nothing would be possible or actual for that matter. 

Certainly the past and future exist just as abstractions.  And is the present different in kind?  Or is it only qualitatively different?  And where do those qualities reside?  

Not only is mind possible, but it is the generator of all possibility.  It is the generator of all relations, and what can exist unrelated?  

Can there exist half a mind?  Can there exist separate minds?  It is not at all clear what would separate them other than their subjective polarity, and what kind of separation is that?  Is your redness and your pain and your Monster group not really the same as mine?  What about our unconsciousnesses?  Somewhere, somehow there is a lot of overlap in the mental sphere.  One could call that (part of) the mind of God.  Is it possible to subdivide that territory in anything other than the most subjective or ad hoc manner?  

The existence proof for the Monster group required some 1,500 pages of explication published by a dozen or so individuals.  Not one of them knows all of that detail.  And yet is it not accessible to each of them and to you and me as well?  

Is a kitten excluded from all contact with the Monster group?  The symmetry groups of her dexterity, much more intimately known to her than to my klutziness, exist only relative to that master of all groups.  Where do you draw the line, and by what authority?  Who would doubt that when an infant learns the meaning of its first word that it is demonstrating the actual ability to grasp all possible meaning. 

We have naturally circled back to the question of the possibility of God (viz. Rational Theism).  Not only must God be possible, God must be the ground or the subject of all possibility.  Nothing can ever come between us and God, because there can only be ad hoc distinctions.  God can never be further from us than our own reason and feeling.  That some of us need to be reminded of this two thousand years after the fact can only be fully appreciated in an eschatological and 'mini-messianic' context. 

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6/13/02

Coherence 

From the perspective of materialism the most mysterious thing about the world is its comprehensibility.  Darwinism and complexity theory are among the explanations offered.  

Inherent in matter, we are told, is the ability to self-organize.  What is the source of this ability, we might wonder?  The only available (non) answer is that if this were not the case we would not be here to wonder.  But can the materialists expect us not to keep wondering, nonetheless?  

There is only one other possible explanation.  Matter is not the basis of existence.  Materialism is incorrect in its fundamental premise. 

Although materialists no longer rule the intellectual roost, they maintain the wherewithal to ensure that postmodernism remains anti-foundationalist.  If there is a source of order in the world, it remains well hidden, by all objective standards.  

If matter is not basic, then what is?  The basis for existence is the process of relating. 

The best understood example of a purely relational system is mathematics.  And does math not epitomize insubstantiality?  Yes, except for the fact that mathematics appears to be the foundation for physics.  It is the modern mathematization of physics in particular that most often prompts the remarks about the mysterious understandability of the world.  

So, where's the beef?  Where's the substance, if it is not in the matter?  The substance is in the coherence.  This is the whole story of this website in six words.  Coherence is what holds the world together, and what makes it go around.  It is what drives the story of history.  

Coherence exists only in relation to a subjective pole.  The coherence of the world exists in relation to an absolute subjective singularity.  That is the only logical alternative to the fundamental incoherence of materialism.  Logically there can only be a unique singularity, of which we creatures are the multiple reflections.  The physical atom is another reflection thereof. 

The atoms, while they are current, provide a centrifugal balance to the centripetal subject. They do this under the aegis of the Monster group, which is the locus of the mathematical coherence of the physical phenomena, and is the shadow of the subjective pole.  In the eschaton, the centrifugal force is overcome. 

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6/24/02

Distinction 

I am not the only one to have been intrigued by Spencer-Brown's Laws of Form appearing in 1969.  Basing his entire system on the 'mark of distinction' has also a metaphysical appeal.  It calls to mind our attempt to characterize creation as the process of dividing the primordial, singular unity. 

The Kabbalah speaks of the Zim-zum, sometimes pictured as a lightning bolt, as the '(self-)contraction' of God to leave a space for creation to manifest.  In this shadow ignorance is latent and knowledge becomes manifest.  

In Revelation there are the apocalyptic ten thunders that also play a central role in Joyce's Finnegans Wake.  The recursion that is doubly implicit in Joyce's title is explicit in the Laws of Form.  This speaks in part to the duality of the Alpha and Omega that is witnessed within history as the syzygy reenacted at the X-event, sometimes referred to as the (little?) death, or passion of God. 

In those thunders, are we not hearing the primordial creative word, or was it the primal scream, of God piercing the cosmic silence.  It is the beginning of revelation and concealment.  We also hear the Ur-language which may well have arisen out of a primal Aaaarrgghhhh of totipotent meaning, the stem cell of language, by degrees of distinction, down to the disquisitions of our analytic philosophers today.  Heading into the eschaton, this historical process is reversed and accelerated via the Internet, of course.  In place of the original Aaaarrgghhhh, we have the final Metanarrative.  

All we need now is to understand the connection between the Zim-zum and the Monster group and we will be in business....Aaaarrgghhhh!!

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6/26/02

The Relational Self

To exist is to relate, lest we forget.  Those five words need to be taken with the previously mentioned six, concerning coherence, as the basis of reality.  There is no escaping the resulting personalism.  Somehow the pantheists miss the nodal structure of the world.  But it is not nodes all the way down. 

No, no, no.  There is the even more fundamental dialectical dynamic, alluded to earlier.  There is Buber's I & Thou dynamic.  There is also God & Atom/Adam.  And how do we characterize this ultimate relational, personal dynamic?  How else but as love?  Imagine the poor bloke who first comprehended that!  

This is the only coherent alternative to atoms swerving in the dark.  If the postmodernists ever tire of incoherence, watch out!  The sky will soon be falling, like on the church of the nativity, or did that just happen?  Did you see that apocalypse?  Who, me?  Was that 11:11 or TX11?  Do we care? 

Coherence is the substance.  The self is the glue ball, and love is the glue.  Have you got a better idea?  Is this insufficiently precise to predict the tides?  Maybe, but if the tide don't float your boat, the eschaton surely will.  Not a threat, just a promise. 

As in the monadology, every node is a microcosmic hologram.  The cosmos is the holograph.  The preordained harmony is the agape betwixt the Alpha and Omega as produced in the X-event, not far from the above mentioned church.  

What more can I say?  What more is there to say?  Why don't we let it be?  When will we let it be?  We will let it be on Internet time.  

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7/1/02

Pantheism 

Pantheism has served as a bit of a strawperson in these pages, but I think it is big enough to be able to take it.  It takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'.  The worst that can be said of the pantheists is that they don't make very good scientists.  And how bad is that?  I was a transcendental pantheist, and not too bad a scientist at an early age.  Now I'm a theist and a much worse scientist, so there you go.  Did anyone say that I could be disarming?  I'm a disarmamentarian ('disarmament Arian'!?  I don't think so, but thanks for the thought, Bill!) . 

Let's face it, those pantheists are not real strong on rationalism, nor on the Metanarrative.  They are the darlings of the postmodernists because they can be soooo pluralistic.  They are a necessary antidote to the fundamentalist excesses inherent in theism.  And similarly they have withstood the materialism that necessarily inhered to the incarnation.  The Atom/Adam cut no ice with them.  And when it comes to the second coming, won't the last be the first?  

And remember there is no substance.  Love is just the vacuum energy of the Sunyata, the great void. There is no-self relative to the dissolution of the vacuum energy that is the cosmic agape of the omega.  Christians have trouble grasping these intangibles, bless their hearts.  And who doesn't? 

The Alpha is a bit more of a problem for pantheism.  The megalithic Angkor sailed right by them.  If one lives in Giza, it is more difficult to ignore these omphala. But aren't the pantheists supposed to be navel gazers?  Maybe in the next life.  

Islam 

I'll bet you didn't know that my guru's guru is an Imam at the Dome of the Rock.  Neither did I until a few weeks ago.  You never know what those Quakers will get into. 

If the modern materialist establishment needed a thorn in its side, as surely it does, could we have invented a better one than this?  Will they not also try the souls of the postmodern pluralists?  Those apocalypse freaks seem a bit impatient with my Metanarrative, bless their hearts.  What will happen when they discover the Internet?  

There are aspects of christianity that are too subtle, even for the Christians.  It gets very fuzzy.  Islam managed to cut out a lot of the fuzz, but it also managed to throw out the baby with the bath.  Without McCluhan how could they have known that the message was in the medium?  

They did not quite understand then that the last would be the first, but they are about to witness that in themselves, along with all the rest of us. 

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7/1/02

Emergence 

Very early in these pages I bet my 'kingdom' on the fact of emergence.  It is an issue that will continue to warrant much attention. 

What is the issue?  On one account it is whether the world can be explained purely in terms of physics.  Right there we have a problem.  If physics is unable to reduce itself, how can it be in a position to bring about the reduction of any other disciplines.  Even if we had in our grasp the so-called 'Grand Unified Theory' of physics, the question of the closure of physics would be far from being answered.  For example, after almost a century, fundamental aspects of quantum theory remain unresolved, quite independent of the existence of any GUT.  Solid state physics is showing no signs of running out of new phenomena to study, and our understanding of many of the older phenomena remains purely phenomenological.  The ultimate targets for reduction are biology and psychology.  Biology continues as a robust, self-contained discipline.  Biophysics remains a minor sub-discipline.  

On the other hand, no one can point to any vital force that emerges only in living systems.  What we do have is a rapidly expanding sense of the functional intricacy of all living systems.  No one ever expects to be able to look at the laws of physics and be able to predict life as we know it.  The question is then whether this gap is purely epistemic, or if it contains an ontology of actually emergent entities.  

As I explained earlier, this is not an idle question.  At the very least, it could be that emergence is explainable in terms of something like 'morphic resonance.'  This would constitute a non-local connecting principle whose main effect is to facilitate evolution.  Just in itself such an effect would upset our current understanding of physics, and would probably force us to confront the problem of teleology, and that should be sufficient to open up the rest of the metaphysical issues being dealt with here.  Once these issues become resurrected they are very unlikely to go away again. 

But we have only considered physics and biology.  The problem of emergence is much more flagrant in the realm of psychology.  We can study the neural correlates of our minds until the cows come home, but all the correlations in the world will not explain the existence of what is at least a very fortuitous dual aspect of matter.  Furthermore it does not directly address the issue of whether a mind could also exist in an uncorrelated state.  

Putting together these most obvious facts of physics, biology and psychology, the case for emergence should be open and shut.  The fact that it is not, simply reflects the social conservatism around having to confront the issues of ultimate concern that we are delving into here at this isolated outpost of cosmic rationality.    

It is not for nothing that people are reluctant to rock the intellectual boat that is modernism.  I strongly suspect that thoughtful people can sense, even if subliminally, that there is something out there of biblical proportions. 

There is already a small army of Intelligent Designers who are nipping at the heels of the Darwinists within the narrow confines of biochemistry.  Their narrowly sectarian interests seem to inhibit their straying into these deeper and swifter metaphysical currents.  But there are many fish in the ocean. 

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7/2/02

Relations 

My metaphysics is relational, as any idealist metaphysics should be.  But how does one know that relations are real and not just figments of the mind?  

My best answer is that relations have as much rationale to exist as anything else, and probably more.  The only thing counting against them is their intangibility in the regard of the materialists.  

If numbers can exist then certainly relations can.  Where would physics be without its mathematical superstructure?  What would it be without its virtual interactions, and what are those if not relational?  

Is the past real?  If it is, it is only in relation to some actual present. 

Very few are the materialists or physicalists who would wish to deny causality, as David Hume famously did in the eighteenth century.  Yet what is causality if it is not relational?  True that causes are generally taken to be physical, but they do not consist of particles or fields per se, but rather a particular relation between different sets of circumstances or events.  The collision of an asteroid with the earth caused the dinosaurs to become extinct, within the sub-narrative of naturalism.  The two events are thusly related, and so they both become part of a larger causal/relational system.  

If science is teaching us anything about the world it is the almost unlimited functional intricacy and interdependency of its parts, particularly as studied in the life sciences.  Ecological science is specifically devoted to studying such relational systems.  You can remove an entity from its ecological niche, but your understanding of it will be severely impoverished without understanding its relational context.  

Come to think of it, there is no such thing as an isolated fact.  Facts come in open collections.  There is always the possibility that some new fact will totally change our understanding of all the others.  A set of words can be put together as gibberish, or as the Gettysburg Address. 

The isolated object, fact or word mean virtually nothing without regard to its relations.  Put more strongly, unitary existence is virtually inconceivable.  

In such manner does our increasing knowledge of the world logically confront us with a relational metaphysic.  The singular and necessary existence of the Best Possible World is only at a slight remove from these considerations. 

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7/2/02

Relatedness  

If existence is based on relatedness, then it is a matter of degree.  The degree of existence, however, is not something that can be directly observed.  The Washington Monument exerts no more gravitation than its equivalent mass at the center of the earth.  A rock on the surface of Mars is apparently just as solid as the one in your back yard. 

Obviously the world would not work if solidity were a function or relatedness.  Among other things, the earth would collapse, which could be most embarrassing.  Physics works because it is so totally insinuated into our lives.  And it is so insinuated just because it does its work.  Is this circular?  You bet'chya'.  Creation is definitely a very participatory, bootstrap process.  

As long as astronomers are able to keep pushing the telescopic limits, they will not run into any cosmic or logical brick walls.  The sky will not literally fall on their heads.  However, they will gradually come to appreciate that the starry heavens function as a logically necessary backdrop to our earthly pageant.  A backdrop whose artistic potential is being increasingly realized!  Is this being anthropocentric?  Of course!  More accurately it is being philocentric, if I may drop another bon mot. 

Existence implies relatedness.  Relatedness implies coherence, or comprehensibility.  These invoke the operation of a principle of sufficient reason.  In like manner, the PSR implies the BPW hypothesis as Gottfried was able to deduce several centuries ago.  Trust me, Leibniz was no dummy.  If he were alive today, I would be standing on line to polish his shoes.  Thanks to the Darwinian Distraction, we can put away the polish, but not the bohunks, please.  

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7/3/02

Recap 

The poor reader may be getting a bit dizzy from going around in these circles.  That is unfortunate, but I'm not quite sure what to do about it. 

I am not writing a thesis.  I am keeping a wary eye out for the web crawling indexers.  That is a necessary fact of life in the Internet lane.  I am casting a loopy net into this vast ocean.  Snaring a few pairs of eyes is the name of the game.  Like those fair maidens of yore, I just keep on spinning.  When my own Googling becomes recursive, I will know that the end is in sight.  

This Metanarrative is being laid out in circular and holographic fashion.  Like JC1, one has to keep the Alpha and Omega in one's grasp at all times.  Even if my circles don't, your circles will hopefully expand as you hop and skip around in this labyrinth.  The occasional recap is about all that I can offer for the foreseeable future.  

Even the occasional recap is problematic.  Just one more circle.  The tide that runs out toward the shoals of a totally fragmented knowledge is strong.  I swim against that tide.  Each of these A/O loops has to be able to function as an independent lifesaver.  I will likely get only one chance with the saving fish, the leviathan indeed. 

The coherence theory of truth is being put into practice here as nowhere else.  My work will be finished when and only when another site takes on a more substantial coherence.  It might even be a spin-off.  It will not be difficult to apprehend.  It is nice to have such a simple, even measurable and pleasurable task.  We should all get paid to think expansively.  Trust me, we will! 

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7/3/02

Immaterialism 

Immaterialism is the intellectual and psychological challenge that stands between us and complete understanding.  

Down thru the ages, immaterialism and idealism have always been prevalent in philosophy and religion.  That is true today.  Even in modern philosophy, they continue to bubble up in various guises from just beneath the surface.  

The successes of science have managed to keep a heavy lid on idealist speculation, especially in the last century.  Postmodernism has raised the lid for metaphysical discourse amongst the intelligentsia, but this tolerance emphatically does not extend to questions concerning God and Cosmos.  

The inhibitions and prohibitions on cosmological speculation are both intellectual and political.  For the last three centuries, in case you missed it, there has been at least a cold war between religion and science.  Just in the last two decades, it has become tolerable, if not quite respectable, for an academic to speculate about metaphysics as long as the God question is kept firmly in check.  Anything more would be to provide an academic arena for the feared and reviled Creationists, for instance, and would seem too much like a unilateral disarmament after all these centuries of struggle.  The mood is to just let the 'Cretans' find their own soap boxes.  The emotional heat of battle is certainly not conducive to either side calmly considering the alternatives.  Evidently that is our job.  

On the intellectual side, Darwin and the Big Bang present a formidable obstacle to alternative cosmologies.  Immaterialism is the only way to meet this obstacle without making it a direct confrontation on the materialists' own territory.  We should wonder why the theists cannot find their way to the high road of idealism.  Again, history provides a partial answer.  Theists have grown much too comfortable with duality, and particularly with the duality of body and soul.  Immaterialism carries the strong odor of pantheism and mysticism.  They would much rather continue with the familiar skirmishes, than have to take on a whole new battlefield.  Never underestimate the power of habit, especially in matters of the mind.  None of us is immune to habit, but some of us feel more strongly the fascination of the uncharted.  

Now you ought to have a better idea of from whence we come as we launch into these uncharted waters.  

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7/4/02

Immaterialism (pt. 2)

Ever since I first speculated on such matters, I liked to think of myself as a transcendental pantheist, with a definite attraction to the saga of Jesus.  It was only rather late in the game that I had to conclude there must be more than an aesthetic connection.  

Transcendentalism remained but poetry to the prose of my earnest engagement with physics.  But physics never yielded to my need for a true depth of understanding of the world.  A random encounter with the notion of the Anthropic principle reawakened my desire for wholeness.  For almost five years I struggled to find wholeness within a quantum dualism of mind and matter.  But that slim thread or loophole never seemed sufficiently robust to explain all that needed explaining.  Even quantum dualism was still verging on the incoherence of Cartesianism.  

Once one has opened the door to the possibility of mind on a cosmic scale, all the qualities are drained out of matter, and one is left with the purely mathematical abstractions of physics.  The only hurdle to cosmic coherence was the obvious stratagem of subsuming those abstractions to the mental realm.  It was still a big leap, and there were more than a few 'sleepless nights'.  I continued to be haunted by dinosaurs among other things.  Barney may have saved me.  Yes, almost. 

I realized that my leap from science to immaterialism was a luxury that my fellow scientists could ill-afford.  I never seriously considered it to be an intellectual possibility until the advent of the Internet.  But by that time I was already well launched into the Aquarium stratagem, which lasted nearly ten years.  Now here I am praying to Google for the deliverance of this story. 

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7/4/02

Rationalism 

There are those who would equate modernism with rationalism, and so in advocating any sort of alternative to modernism, rationality and reason are given a correspondingly low priority.  

Part of the rationale for this irrationality is the scientific view that mind is an accident of nature and it is what sets humans apart from nature.  In order to get along in the world we must de-emphasize that which sets us apart from it.  The way to survive is to go back to nature and/or back to our various traditions.  Deep ecology, fundamentalism and postmodernism are the disparate responses.  

Historically, rationalism has been based in theism.  If reasoning is more than an accident of nature, then it must be based on the existence of a cosmic intelligence.  In practice, however, the religious establishments have never been comfortable with the political possibility of free thought.  Better to emphasize the authoritarian side of theism in prophecy and revelation, than open the gates to mass enlightenment or God knows what!  

The printing press did open the doors of the intellect to the masses, nonetheless.  But just in the nick of time, along came science to provide a tremendous outlet for a sustained but restricted intellectual endeavor.  The standoff between religion and science was a way for the various authorities to keep the mass mind safely divided.  The ultimately abortive outburst of dialectical materialism was the exception that proved the rule. 

Now with the advent of the Internet, will the authorities find another stratagem to keep human reason in check?  In the real-time global cacophony of the Internet, if there is a cosmic rationale, someone is bound to stumble upon it, and it is liable to make waves that no filter can stop.  I guess we'll just have to stay tuned. 

If there is a cosmic mind hiding somewhere behind nature and physics, the human mind will eventually reconnect with it, come hell or high water.  With all the means now at our disposal, can we still believe that the time of concealment is not drawing to a close? 

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7/4/02

A Metaphysical Introduction 

Metaphysics was scorned by the analytical tradition for most of the last century.  Only in the last decade or two has the academic rediscovery of consciousness forced the philosophers to reopen a metaphysical debate with regard to the venerable mind-body problem.  In keeping with their analytical scruples, a narrow focus and the endless parsing of phrases is the order of the day for the Anglo-American philosophers.  This is simply what it means to them to be professional.  What you see on these pages would never pass muster.  Sorry 'bout that! 

The Continental philosophers never quite gave up on the mind.  Phenomenology remains a wellspring, but much more fashionable of late has been the deconstructionist mentality of postmodernism.  A mind set that seems to translate into English more readily than does phenomenology.  In short, Metanarrative is scorned on both sides of the Atlantic.  

By the same token is coherence scorned.  The only good truth is a deconstructed analytical truth, e.g. spilling quantities of ink over the meaning of 'the cat is on the mat'. The fact that these scruples only lead up a blind alley is of precious little concern to the avid professionals.  

What you see here is way, way out in left field.  Just so as not to mislead you.  I am obviously not trying to appeal to professionals.  Only if an earnest band of amateurs can bring these matters to a broader public, might the professionals stoop to consider them.  They are no longer equipped to deal with coherence, other than in trying to grind it down.  We can only hope that they may be so provoked.  

The surest sign of the coherence of the world is its increasingly notorious ability to resist analysis.  Please keep in mind that veritable mountains of correlations in neuroscience or biochemistry provide not the slightest evidence for reductionism, per se.  They only demonstrates that the coherence of nature logically necessitates the existence of irreducible entities, as the Greek philosophers readily deduced millennia ago.  Nature exists not by induction on atoms, but rather atoms exist by deduction from nature.  If you can appreciate this simple gestalt switch, you will be on the threshold of immaterialism. 

Each individual mind is a locus of more or less coherence.  Our seemingly unlimited capacity for communication indicates that mental coherence is a readily shared phenomenon.  Is there a gene for coherence?  Let me know when you find it!  More likely there is a genius for coherence (as in Genie?!).  The mountains of coherence and correlations within and between mind and nature can only point to a Source.  Does not the anthropically biased mathematical superstructure of Physics point to a similar, or perhaps identical Source?  

Are not all of us apprehensive about the ramifications of a reengagement with any such entity?  Is not the metaphysics of the Source much too hot to handle?  Much too dangerous?  Well, let's just say, don't mess with the Source. 

Topical Index

Index

7/5/02

Topical Index 

(see the Commentary below)

An annotated contents  (old)

Index  (old)

0.  Introduction,  & (part 2),  Recap,  (brief list of explanatory links)

        The Topical Index proper comes after the following chronological section.  Notice also that there are summary pdf files in section 0.2.  These also may serve as introductory material.       

What follows here are the more recent pages listed chronologically.  These pages take the form of a weblog. 

    0.1  On the Web (a continuing weblog)  (in chron. order: 7/10 - 8/8/2002): 

Immaterialism,  Mind,  Postmodernism,  Eschatology,  A Hard Core of Truth Seekers?,  Funda-Mental,  & (part 2),  Quine's Holism,  Jerry Fodor & Co.,  'Naturalism in Question',   A de facto Dualism,  Mind-Body & God,  Theistic Idealism,  Charles S. Peirce,  C. S. Lewis,  Bomb + Internet >= better than a Saucer?!,  Idealist Cosmology,  Holographic Universe,  Teilhard's Omega,  Tipler's Omega,  Blood in the Water?,  From Intangibles to Memes,  

(9/7/02 to 12/21/02):  

The Observation Factor,  & (part 2),  Materialism,  Coherence II,  Dan Hutto,  Mind-Body Debate,  Huw Price,  Atomism & Transhumanism,  Representation, etc.,  Who's Keeping Score?,  Coherence Theory,  Aristotle Gets Real,  Representation, Reduction, etc.,  Nature & Plato, etc.,  Rationalism vs. Naturalism and other Orthodoxies,  What Is There?,  Coherence,  How to See,  Alice Through the Looking Glass,  Direct Realism,  Do Ideas Count?,  A Semiotic Answer?,  El Camino Real,  Gospel of the Real,  East is East & West is West,  Creation & Maya,  The Epistemic-Ontic Divide. 

(1/8/03 through 2005): 

On the Side of Reason,  Messianism,  The Force is with Us,  Unreasonable Coherence,  Creation vs. Evolution,  Omega,  Numbers,  Symmetry,  Bootstrap,  Mandelbrot Mystery,  Tar Baby,  Cosmic Dialectics,  Recap,  Crisis,  All or Nothing,  Triumph of Science?,  Angelic Doctor,  Solving the World's Problems,  Agoraphilia,  End Times & Apokatastasis,  More of the Same,  The Heart of the Matter,  The Mandelbrot Revisited,  Foreseeing the Second Coming,  End Game?,  Atoms [<<< Latest page goes here!]

    0.2  [4/7/05]  I'm still working on The Second Coming: for all us Dummies: (formats: PDF, MHT, PPT, RTF).  And I may be working on this for some time, yet.  The most current version will usually be the PDF version.  If we can make this material sufficiently user friendly, then who is to say that we cannot save the world from materialism?  [a]  Comments on Dummies.

    0.2a  [5/1/05]  I'm starting on a pdf for a prospective project with Jack Sarfatti:  BPW Physics. 

    0.2b  [5/2/05]  Here is another point of departure for the project: The Just So Story of the Universe.

    0.2c  [5/6]  Yet another perspective: The Lone Ranger & Tonto.

    0.2d  [5/22]  Go west, young man: Parousia by the Bay.

    0.2e  [5/29]  And here we have Fred Alan Wolf, d.b.a Dr. Quantum, of What the Bleep do we Know, along with Jack and myself.  To view this file, open a QuickTime player v. 6 or later, and insert [http://bestpossibleworld.com/fredgod2.mp4 this file was taken offline on10/21 due to its size] into the place where it asks for a URL.  The mp4 file is 66 meg.  It will stream only intermittently, because the download is longer than the 20 min. runtime.  Jack has it compressed down to a 10 meg 3gp file, but that is supported only with QT v. 7, which is available only for the Mac.  We'll try to do better next week.  The film was taken on Thursday morning, 5/26, at Fred's home in the Pacific Heights section of San Francisco.  Consider this the Blair Witch Project of eschatology.  Parental guidance is suggested.

    0.2f  [6/2]  On Being Focused. 

    0.3  [4/16/05]  Here is a link to the contents of my original website Aquarium Contents.  This was on clark.net, and any links still referring to that url will need to be updated.  I will be attempting to explain the old website here: Comments on the original website.  (The cosmology diagrams on the old website are as follows: here is one link.  You will see some diagrams mentioned down towards the bottom of the page.  Then there is this, and this.) 

    0.4  [4/27/05]  The latest upgrade is to exploit Google's AdWord facility.  Here is the 'landing page' for those clicking through from Google's right hand column. 

1.  Best Possible World (BPW):  

The Best Possible World Page,  How Many Worlds?,  Best World for Whom?,  

2.  Metaphysics:  

A Metaphysical Introduction,  The Observation Factor,  & (part 2),  

    * Mind & matter:  Antipodes,  Antipodes II,  
    * (Non) Reductionism:  Materialism,  The Nature of Mind,  Post-Reductionism,  Naturalism,  Emergence,  Mere Words,  Hanging by a Thread,  
    * Immaterialism:  Immaterialism,  & (part 2),  Explaining Science (part 2),  Dream Atom,  Idealist Cosmology,  
    * Relational metaphysics:  Coherence II,  The Relational Self,  Relations,  Relatedness,   Coherence,  The Level Playing Field, [later additions: Unreasonable Coherence, Coherence, Coherence Theory, Quine's Holism, The Observation Factor, & (part 2)]
    * Other:  The Intangibles,  Teleology,  History & Nature,  

3.  God:  

Introduction to God,  & (part 2),  Beyond Naturalism?,  Rationalism,  Rational Theism,  The Ecology of Existence,  Pantheism,  How Many Buddhas?,  

    * concealing:  Concealment,  & (part 2),  
    * revealing:  Revelation,  

4.  Metanarrative:  

Introducing the Metanarrative 

    * Creation:  Creation?,  Genesis,  Distinction,  Explaining Science,  Creation & Maya,  Creation vs. Evolution,  Bootstrap,  
    * Eschatology:  Eschaton,  Millennium & Eschaton,  Our Dramatic Cosmos,  Omega,  
    * Millennium:  Millennium,  but now see End Times & Apokatastasis for a possible major revision. 
    * Strategy:  Strategy,  Straw Man,  Recap,  Taking Stock,  
    * Messianism:  Saving the World,  The 'Competition',  Christocentric?,  Pre-Millennialism,  Only One Show?,  Messianism,  Dummies, 
    * Messianic Initiative (in chron. order: 8/25/02 - 8/29):  Messianic Gambit?,  Breaking the Barrier of Materialism,  On the Verge of God,  Creation,  Glass Ceiling,  Trickster,  & (part 2),  The Messiah Contingency,  How to Save the World,  & (part 2),  

Introduction 

We have come perilously close to losing our ability to view our world as other than an accident.  In this vein we have gone so far as to postulate the existence of an infinity of universes conforming to all possible physical laws and boundary conditions in order to account for the otherwise inexplicable suitability of our universe to the production of complex life forms.  This fact of suitability is sometimes referred to as the Anthropic Principle. 

An obvious statistical argument would place us among the relatively few universes best suited to abundant, and even to self-conscious life.  This sounds like a good deal for us -- a free banquet, it would seem.  Perhaps we should leave well enough alone.  It is the function of this web site, however, to inquire further into the basis for our existence. 

What particularly motivates this inquiry is the peculiar nature of the mind -- especially peculiar from the point of view of scientific materialism.  By almost every account, the mystery of the mind is the one abiding mystery of the world, possibly apart from the question of why anything exists at all.  

Might there not have been every conceivable physical existence without necessitating the seemingly non-physical existence of the mind or of consciousness?  The oddity of mind in an otherwise completely physical universe suggests the definite possibility of at least a quasi-independent, non-physical basis for its existence.  This is just the possibility that is pursued in this inquiry. 

To make a long story short, give mind an inch and it is liable to take a mile.  How so? 

Peculiar to the mind is its concentrated productive power.  Mind is much more than a mirror of nature.  It is the great embellisher of nature.  If science is correct, reality is a purely quantitative affair.  Our experience of the world is almost entirely qualitative.  From whence come these qualities?  Even more remarkable is the mind's unquenchable proclivity to create and simply spin out worlds of its own, often with little or no regard to the existing one.  This production is ongoing in virtually every state of our variegated consciousness.  

The most tangible product of the mind is our technology.  But what is the function of technology other than the production and dissemination of virtual or altered realities?  

If there were any reason to posit an independent basis for the mind, whatever balance might have originated between mind and matter would remain under constant revision on the part of mind.  Whenever and wherever mind is given the opportunity to tilt that scale, it surely will.  Matter is passive, just be definition, and mind is not.  

Among other things, such considerations provide ample motivation to question the arbitrary Cartesian dichotomy posited between mind and matter that has been the basis of our modern worldview.  The seeming artificiality of any rigid distinction between mind and matter should cause us to question under what aegis such a distinction might have been originated or be maintained.  Without this additional posit of an external aegis, the original posit by Descartes is suspect. 

Greatly abetting this suspicion is the increasingly elaborate mathematical superstructure being discovered by physicists investigating the nature of matter.  The involution of matter with math, and of math with the mind, removes a logical barrier between matter and mind.  The same suspicion is raised by the quantum, of course.  Neutral monism and even panpsychism are increasingly being entertained by serious minded, cautious professionals in response to these and other considerations. 

It is not my intent here to throw caution to the wind.  It is my intent to anticipate the outcome of such intellectual inquiries.  That I should foresee radical consequences stemming from such radical inquiries ought not be particularly surprising.  Neutral monism smacks of artificiality almost as much as the Cartesianism it is supposed to replace.  I agree with the materialists in acknowledging the reality of a Solomon's choice between materialism and immaterialism.  We can't have it both ways.  Coherence can and will be given its due.  It is simply that the materialists have picked the short straw.   

We immaterialists are then faced with the burden of re-explaining the world.  Not since Darwin has there been a serious attempt at a coherent alternative.  All I can do here is attempt to motivate such effort.  The successful motivation of a successful re-visioning of the world will have consequences of 'biblical' proportions, I will claim hereinafter.  The 'scare' quotes may be removed when appropriate. 

Introduction (part 2) -->

Topical Index

Index

7/8/02

Introduction  (part 2)

Since the 1950's there has been a fairly steady decline in the intellectual hegemony of scientific materialism.  The rise of postmodernism is a deliberate response to this decline of our modern worldview.  I have not been able to find anyone who foresees as radical an outcome of this trend as I do.  How come?  

There are several differing interpretations of the decline of scientific materialism.  The most common view is that we headed into an indefinite period of pluralism.  There exists no overarching truth about the world to capture our allegiance, or if such existed it is not accessible to our powers of reason. 

The other common view is that postmodernism is simply a symptom of cultural decline.  Scientists and religionists alike see this trend as a further falling away from either the intellectual or spiritual rigor of the past.  The apocalyptic minded sectarians are content to include postmodernism among the signs of the end times. 

What do I see that the other observers do not?  Coming from a background in physics, I am aware that there remains a hard core of scientists who are still in pursuit of Truth, with a capital 'T'.  The recent progress in theoretical physics leaves some of them tantalizingly close the 'Grand Unified Theory of Everything'.  And in general there is a silent minority which has not given up the strong desire for intellectual coherence.  If and when a few of these stalwarts are presented with a viable, coherent alternative to scientific materialism, some of them will take it seriously.  It would only take a determined and articulate handful of such individuals to constitute a publicly noticeable presence.  The ensuing discussions would presumably lead to more 'converts', and would constitute an intellectual and eventually a spiritual trend, given that there does indeed exist a personally accessible coherent Truth as is being outlined here.

I can only hope that in this Best Possible World we do not have to be prodded with a 'stick' in order to become interested in the intellectual and spiritual 'carrot' being offered.  

<--  Introduction

Topical Index

7/12/02

Recap 

I am, for the first time, about to attempt a major, but still informal, (year end?) recap.  I am not sure yet how to handle this, i.e. whether to make it part of the continuing web log, or to have it stand alone.  I will continue chronologically for now. 

The last major theme has been my sporadic struggle with the Monster Group, commencing on 2/26/03 and continuing up until 12/21/03.  I claim partial victory by incorporating the MG and all of mathematics under the aegis of functionality.  I am not thereby claiming that mathematics is merely conventional, certainly no more than a biological cell is conventional.  I am saying that mathematics is a very significant part of the teleological infrastructure of the cosmos.  

A second theme in the same time frame was the Archetypes commencing about 4/29.  I am also claiming success with this endeavor.  In their latest incarnation, they feel reasonably solid.  

[12/28] 

Despite these recent efforts, the BPW remains optional.  But I would also claim that in the BPW, the BPW hypothesis remains optional as long as possible.  No?  

However, the human psyche is such that paradigm shifting, gestalt switching, tends to be dramatically unpredictable, especially now that we are living mainly on Internet time.  A uniquely attractive and rational alternative to both religious and scientific fundamentalism, which the BPW claims to be.  If it cannot be dismissed out of hand, it will necessarily take on an insidious, insinuating presence.  That is the next and crucial phase.  To reach that point there will have to be some strategically located links back to here.  I doubt that Google alone could be a substitute for such links.  Once those links are established, the Millennium clock will start ticking.  The Tar Baby effect will kick in: kick these tires more than once, and your foot may not be disengageable.  T'will be a pity. 

Just how optional are we at this point?  Admittedly, the Big Bang materialist cosmology will be a tough nut to crack.  Even the Creationists have almost uniformly given up on their 'young Earth' scenario.  They have fallen into line with a post-Copernican sense of deep space and deep time.  Even my fellow idealists are strangely silent on the problem of cosmology.  I could complain about this lack of competition in the domain of immaterialist cosmology, but I think it is due actually to the logical uniqueness of the BPW.  It is either us or mysticism.  

Cosmic coherence is in extremely short supply in these postmodern times.  If I have indeed cornered the coherence market, if there is only this one corner to cover, the choice will be the BPW or cacophony.  It would take very few articulate spokespersons to make a very big dent in the otherwise incoherence of the present Internet.  In retrospect, will it not be obvious that the Internet existed as a gigantic means, moving us inevitably toward a coherent end, if there be such?  Someone was bound to run the flag of coherence up the Internet pole.  Even Google seems designed and destined to this singular end. 

Over the juggernaut of scientific materialism I cast the fine net of normativity.  Can its thin strands possibly be a match for that clanking mechanism?  From our slumber of materialism will we awaken in the place of Gulliver captivated by the fine thread of the Lilliputians?  That is the plan, anyway.  

Yes, another continuing theme has been norms vs. nature, beginning effectively on 10/10/02: Nature & Plato, etc.  There may be nothing more insidious in the entire materialist cosmos.  Norms, rather like consciousness, seem entirely gratuitous in the larger scheme, that is until you attempt to exclude them or explain them.  At first they may seem merely resistant, but they can quickly turn corrosive of even the most solid materialist fortress.  

A case in point is the functionalism of Putnam, Dennett, & Co. ( 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.).  Functionalism arose from the ashes of behaviorism, but now, in the hands of the biosemioticians, function threatens to break the back of materialism.  Once teleology gets its functional foot in the scientific door, it will not only be impossible to extirpate, it will, in the shape of normativity, simply take over the neighborhood.  As with consciousness, there is nothing that can escape its reach.  Kant clearly saw this inevitability long ago.  At this final juncture, his revived cautions and precautions are much too little and too late.  

Cannot the materialists simply nuke the norms?  What chance does a little norm stand against their deconstructive WMDs?  Can we truly 'normalize' the Big Bang?  The anthropic principle goes only part way.  By itself, it is too susceptible to a dualistic interpretation.  Here is where my struggle with the Monster Group will have to begin to pay off.  My Monster vs. their Big Bang.  Ownership of the Monster, however, may still be in some dispute.  Nonetheless, normalizing the MG is not inconceivable even by the most jaded materialist.  

The normalized MG plus anthropics puts a very short leash on the Big Bang.  Teleology is now raised to cosmic proportions.  Quantum cosmology and a universal observer principle can no longer be set aside, as has generally been the case before.  The anti-Occamist notion of (infinitely?) many worlds is now even less necessary and less attractive.  The normalizing of the MG also undermines the dualist proclivities of the Anthropists and the Intelligent Designers.  The net result is that everyone is emphatically being nudged toward immaterialism and the BPW corner therein.  All we need is a very few in this crowd to jump ship.  It would quickly set off a general alarm.  Normativity when diligently pursued is one more straw that turns into a hefty stone that could, along with all the older baggage, just about break this camel's back.  I wouldn't want to have to bet the farm on this beast's imperviousness.  

It is the Telos that finally confronts the Big Bang.  It has been my contention that teleology is an all or nothing proposition.  There is no such thing as half a Telos.  All politics may be local, but all teleology is global.  Teleology is all about coherence.  It verges on the oxymoronic to posit a partially telic or partially coherent world.  

Of course, the atomists, reductionists, naturalists, etc. would much prefer that we accept a diluted or palliative version of teleology, if we have to accept any at all.  Struggle as they might, you do not and will not see them making sense of any such palliatives.  It is simply a desperate, rear guard distraction on their part.  

Given the Telos, we can hardly avoid the notion of a BPW.  They verge on the synonymous.  We then must ask ourselves if the Big Bang cosmology is the best one possible.  Search as you might, you will not find a materialist touting the intrinsic merits of any of his or her hypothesized worlds.  If you don't like any given rendition, that is entirely beside the point.  We teleologists, however, take the opposite tack.  Everything answers to the principle of sufficient reason.  Presence is what counts.  The Big Bang universe of deep space and quasi-endless time is anyone's trophy for absence.  However, and this is a big 'however', the appearance of absence may serve many esthetic functions.  We'll take that 'natural' esthetic, thank you, but eschew its illusory substance.  Is that not a possible world?  Tell us why it's not possible, please.  So much for saving the appearance of the Big Bang.  Anything else you wish saved? 

[12/29] 

The Archetypes emerged here as a counter to evolution: Creation vs. Evolution.  Also they are intended to counter Samuel Johnson's alleged refutation of George Berkeley's immaterialism.  'I refute it thus,' says Sam with a well placed kick at an errant stone.  

The first choices were cycles (and here) and atoms.  The Dream Atom is no laughing matter.  We might also call it the quantum or normative atom, thereby challenging, along with Biosemiotics, the The Epistemic-Ontic Divide.  

The archetypes are simply the organizing centers of Creation.  A minimalist Creation posits a self-organizing cosmos.  But unlike our Santa Fe colleagues, we do not eschew the self.  The primal Self becomes 'X' in our AZO/X/QRP system of archetypes.  It occupies center stage.  

Now, better pay attention.  Here comes almost the whole show.  This may either be the weakest or the strongest link in the BPW system.  X marks the spot. A cosmic self spontaneously emerges from the totipotency of the Matrix.  Teleologically this is the creator, hero and, yes, savior.  It is the Adam/Christos.  It is the Alpha and Omega.  It is the first and last of the Archetypes.  It is the beginning and end of coherence.  

We could do worse than follow St. Anselm's ontological argument.  The only addition here is the Matrix as the ground of that Ontos.  The primal mark of distinction is also the dialectic of the I & Thou.  This schism sets up the main psychic oscillation, the primal cycle.  This duality plus their dynamic relation is the trinity.  This is the necessary buckle of the cosmic bootstrap.  This is both head and tail of the ouroboros.  

Relationalism and idealism are nearly synonymous.  To be is to relate.  We know of nothing more relationally promiscuous than the self.  It is the necessary nexus of all knowable relations.  

[12/30] 

The materialists bet the farm on the illusory nature of the self.  I bet the farm on its substantial nature.  The materialists must have us believe that the self is epiphenomenal, accidental in the larger scheme.  

If there is to be anything at all, there must be an ordering principle.  Cosmos derives from the Greek word for order, as opposed to their Apeiron.  Chaos can exist only relative to something more orderly.  To exist is to relate, there can be no relation without order.  For the materialists, space & time are the primary principles, but don't bother to ask from whence they derive.  

There exist many potential ordering principles.  The most potent among them will logically dominate any sort of bootstrapping process.  Everything else will then either go along or be gone.  Something on the order of self-love fits the bill.  Creation is self-realization writ large.  We are each an aspect or reflection of the cosmic Self on its inevitable way to self-realization.  We see this process under the aegis of temporal flux, but that is just our worm's eye view of the matter.  The only end of self-realization is eternal presence.  

So far, so good.  Where many people demur is with the anthropological problem, i.e. when we touch upon the Anthropos.  I see no way to avoid this.  No one does.  The only escape from the Anthropos is abject mysticism.  The only escape from the theos is the pantheos.  The only escape from coherence is incoherence.  

I can sympathize to a degree.  Each of us contains a piece of the cosmos and a piece of the apeiron.  The potential for rebellion and anarchy lies in every heart.  We would not be here without it.  Self-realization is a recreation of the potency of the self.  With every construct there is a de-construct, with every light a shadow.  With every affirmation there is a hesitation.  This is the natural dialectic of being, q.v.  

In hesitating, we are holding out for something better.  No?  That is why we have the BPW.  But there is a caveat.  Within the BPW, there is theistic minimalism.  Atheism is pandered to, up to a point.  I also believe in universal salvation.  I am a Universalist.  But there are limits, nonetheless.  We cannot hesitate forever.  If you have to ask how long that is, you may already be on thin ice.  

Nihilism is nothing natural.  It is pure posture.  It can be a dramatic show, just don't make it your last show.  Yes, Virginia, there is self-responsibility. 

Finally, if we cannot believe in the self, in ourselves, in what else can we possibly believe?  How can you possibly believe in an electron or the Monster Group if you do not believe in yourself.  The self is the logical and phenomenological beginning and end of all substance, all being.  Could there be any other source?  We can try, but we will never be able to totally deconstruct the Cartesian cogito. 

There will be those who wish to side-step the self in order to more fully embrace the Matrix.  That could possibly be our final act, but do not attempt this at home.  This is not a sport for amateurs.  When you attempt that, you are truly alone.  There will be no recourse.  The self is just designed to point the way back to the Matrix.  Don't leave home without it.  I point to the Mahayana.  For the Hinayana, you are on your own.  Come to think of it, though, is not the notion of a self-salvation from the self oxymoronic?  Don't get hoist on your own petard. 

Let us not forget the ecological objections to the anthropic bias of any ontology of the self.  Just who do we think we are?  Is not the self to blame for all selfishness?  The distinctions between selfishness and Selfishness are many and subtle.  My only caveat is that we not throw out the baby with the bathwater.  The deep ecologists seem bent to that untoward end.  See the previous paragraph.  

[12/31] 

If there are going to be any archetypes at all, the psyche is the only place to start.  This is particularly true with immaterialism where we must challenge the ontic-epistemic divide.  We start with psyche/episteme.  This is just our version of the cogito.  

We have ample reason to assume a substantial universality for the psyche.  It must be the basis of any possible coherence.  The microcosm of the psyche is our only portal to the cosmos.  There is indeed a bias toward the anthropos, a bias which we should be ready to amend according to the evidence.  At present there is no evidence for any substantial alternative.  Humans presently own the epistemic franchise.  Unless and until some contender appears, we make do with what we have.  To attempt philosophy without an anthropic bias is simply foolish, if not patently impossible.  Indeed, if there is anyway to overcome human parochialism or anthropocentrism, it would have to be through some form of philosophy.  

But I go further than this.  There is a more specific identity of the psyche with the christos.  I do this out of logical/historical necessity.  The mythos surrounding the X-event is simply an historically unavoidable nexus of archetypes.  No other event in history comes close to matching the semiotic density that has been ascribed to this one.  There are many other teachings and scriptures, but none claim or even pretend to be so personally grounded.  Christianity is indisputably a personality cult.  Its claims on the psyche are unequalled.  If there is a mythic coherence, if there is a metanarrative involving human history, there are no other contenders.  Unless one is prepared to reinvent the mythic wheel, we must be prepared to go along with what is so evidently a given. 

This, in a nutshell, is an argument for the X/christos/anthropos.  If you have a more coherent scheme, it is time to place your bet.  History rides on the outcome. 

X is the nexus of AZO/X/QRP.  We see here the macro/meso/microcosm.  The zodiacal Z is certainly a strong nod back to the Zoocosm, but there is no historicity comparable to the incarnation.  The Z is the primal circuit of the psyche.  I can hardly avoid the apt rendition of 'Lucy in the sky with diamonds'.  That 'Lucy' may also be the name of our mitochondrial, hominoidal Eve may be the closest we get to a scientific incarnation.  

Originally I took Z for Sol, but this was too limited in its scope.  Its brute nature does not conform with the minimalist creation scheme of the BPW.  One could do worse than envision a creation sequence of Zodiac, Luna, then Sol.  Heliotropism kicks in only in the latter phase.  The common connection made between deep space and the psyche is probably no accident.  

Taking Alpha and Omega as the extremes of the primal psyche-circuit of the Zoocosm, is nothing very radical.  Alpha and Omega are the seeds of the metanarrative when history is viewed from a progressive, covenantal perspective.  Can the BPW offer any less than a salvation economy?  That X is also identified with the A&O, but mainly with the Omega, can hardly be a surprise.  This short shrift may do for now, as I wish to turn to the microcosm. 

Where we first had Sun & Atom, we now have Z & QRP.  Much of our Logos is riding on Q, R & P.  This is our contact with science, mainly via mathematical physics.  But right now it looks more like manana. 

[1/1/04] 

Let's take it from the top again.  I postulate the spontaneous symmetry breaking of the totipotency of the Matrix into a zoomorphic collection of psyches.  These recombine into a semi-stable zodiacal/ouroboric circuit with the symmetry break now focused on the head/tail, Alpha/Omega gap.  This polarity is the primal duality.  The 'air gap' in the nearly complete 'magnetic' circuit becomes the basis of a temporal direction.  The logos of this gap is also the christos.  The christos is both the efficient and final cause of the gap.  Thusly is implanted our salvific economy, from the very beginning.  The salvific dialectic is virtually the precondition of history.  Thus do we have Z, A, O & X, right off the mark.  Q, R & P are more of a stretch. 

What are the common traits and relations between Q, R & P?  They occupy the borderland between subject and object.  They are essentially normative, each in its own fashion.  The biologic/metabolic cycle, R, is a prototype for the Quantum measurement.  Under proper conditions it is a primitive recording device.  Thus there is a mutual dependence between Q & R.  R is the microcosmic analog of Z.  

Q, R & P exhibit crucial symmetries.  Quantum logic is the basis for most of the many symmetries and conservation laws of physics, viz. the theorem of Emmy Noether.  Thereby enters substantiality into physics.  Stable atoms are a direct consequence.  The (molecular) measuring cycles of R complete the quantum measurement bootstrap.  Many 'quantum' philosophers suppose that this bootstrap is the basis of global teleology.  I demur.  Pi is my counterweight. It is my logos, even christos, in its own context.  Through it the anthropos crucially enters the telic bootstrap. 

[1/2/04] [a] 

All roads lead back to Pi and its singular relation to the christos.  If I could bequeath anything to the world, it would be a renewed appreciation for this fact.  First, glance back at 12/20 & 21.  Yes, I am saying that Pi is the number of Jesus.  You cannot understand one without understanding the other.  This is a radical statement.  Perhaps better than any other, it sums up the philosophy of the BPW.  This is all about the reenchantment of the world.  Others talk about doing this, but here you can see it being done in real time with all the vengeance of immaterialism finally overcoming matter. 

Pi is the Achilles heel of materialism: its jugular, to be more specific.  It was Archimedes who said, 'Give me a fulcrum and I will move the world.'  Well, Archie, here it is at last.  It was right under our noses all this time.  Do I detect skepticism?  From the frying pan of zodiacal astrology, I jump into the fire of numerology.  But if we are ever to reenchant the world, what else can a body do?  Yes, Pi is no more or less teleological than a biological cell.  (See 10/30 &ff, 10/13, 9/27 &ff, and other related entries, i.e. Pi anxiety) 

It is the Platonic absolutists who have done the most to disenchant Pi.  The same absolutism notoriously subverted Christianity.  Luther, Hegel, Adam Smith and Mohammed are just a few of its victims.  Scientific materialism is just the (very) last chapter in that sorry legacy.  But, with a nod to the BPW, we would not be here now were it not for this legacy. There may be many dialectics, but there is ever only one legacy. 

The crux of the matter lies in the anecdote of the freely drawn prefect circle, and also in our attempts to compute away our Pi anxiety.  Yes, we are afraid of ghosts, and especially of any Koestlerian 'ghost in the machine' (69,000 hits).  

Pi is the anchor of materialism.  Nothing in the world has been or can be more precisely fixed.  We've got this one nailed down, Baby!  I demur.  It's all in our mind.  Yes, let's watch as the ground begins to shift beneath our feet. 

There are no absolutes in the BPW.  The closest to such would be cosmic love.  Pi's pretense to absolutism stands to be revealed.  

Knowledge of anything lies only in its proper usage.  To be is to relate, is to be useful.  This is pragmatism and utilitarianism where the ends are eschatological and transcendental.  The final knowledge and being of Pi vastly outstrips any recitation of its digits, a mere exercise in syntax, with little or no semantic value.  Pi is substantial only to the degree that it contributes finally to cosmic love, and I suggest that degree may be far from inconsequential.  

Despite much opinion to the contrary, Pi is has much more to do with quality than quantity; although, in the end, it will hardly be possible to distinguish the two.  Much of its ultimate quality remains hidden.  That it may turn out to be the organic nexus of all math, could stand to revolutionize our conception of Pi.  Anything that is useful will be pliable in the hands of the user.  

The numerical value of any quantity exists only in relation to other known quantities.  The first billion digits of Pi are a pure abstraction, without any intrinsic meaning beyond that to which they might be assigned by some convention or another.  An atom at the center of the earth exists to the degree that it influences the gravitational field at the surface.  The billionth digit of Pi has not even that much influence, and certainly not as an individual. 

A principal influence of Pi is to be found in the syzygy: e^i*pi = -1, a configuration that was not even a gleam in the eyes of Pi's 'discoverers'.  Note that its influence here arises only in conjunction with the other quantities that participate in the context.  There is no such thing as an intrinsic or essential quantity.  That the same goes for qualities is hardly controversial, but we have lately fallen into the habit of thinking of quantity as quite distinct from quality. 

We cannot learn one new fact without modifying every other fact we have ever learned.  Some epistemologists suppose that this constitutes an insuperable paradox for holism.  The fixity of the billionth digit of Pi would be their exhibit A.  Holism is a problem only for the non-vitalist, not for the vitalist or panpsychist.  

Knowledge, like everything else, is alive.  It moves, it 'evolves': all of it together, not just particular parts.  Are there no eternal truths.  None, other than cosmic love, and that exists eternally only to the degree that it is lived eternally.  By the same token, nothing of value need ever be lost.  Yes, each one of us has only a tenuous grip on parts of the eternal truth.  Riding that beast is the task of a lifetime.  

Cosmic intelligence is like the software of an object oriented parallel processing system.  Its infinitely distributed intelligent agents are constantly reconfiguring and reconstructing themselves.  Pi is no exception.  Pi is another, albeit transcendentally important, chip off the cosmic spirit.  It all comes from the same place, and it all ends up there, in perfectly seamless fashion.  That is the one eternal verity.  That is the beginning and end of all coherence.  When we can see the world as Beethoven once saw his Fifth symphony, in one eternal flash, then our job will be done.  The Pi we know today is just a pale shadow of its true Self.  

----------------------------

Permit me to append a personal communication: 

The Matrix as the 'uncreated heaven' and 'cosmic womb' sounds right to me. This is also not unlike the Hindu concept of Nirvana. I see it as the source and ground of all being: pure potentiality, fecundity. It has a feminine connotation, naturally.

Out of the Matrix emerges a primal psychical circuit. This is the original pantheon including zoomorphic psyches, not unlike the zodiacal powers and principalities. These spontaneously organize under the aegis or sign of cosmic love, and this is where the Christos emerges as the preeminent entity. Assume a mixture of genders herein.

Thus we have something like: Matrix -> zodiacal/Logos -> Christos -> Creation proper.

We seem to be missing both Sophia and the Holy Ghost. Also there seems not to be a 'godhead', per se, but I would think that the Christos/Creator entity might be closest to a 'godhead'. I do not see truly distinct forms at these stages. It is still very much a spectrum. With my AZO/X/QRP scheme, I struggle to maintain as much fluidity as possible, even with respect to the entity I arbitrarily designate as 'P' or 'Pi'. What we think of as '3.14...' is a very pale shadow of the living Archetype that is 'Pi'. A, X & P are the core of the Logos, while O, Q & R relate back more to the Matrix. Z is a mixed bag and even less formal than the others. It is almost pure(ly) dialectic.

'Pi' may come closest to pure intellect and wisdom. If there were a Bible 'code', this would be it. The other archetypes are more functionally identified.

My tentative suggestion is that Sophia ~= P. The HG might be subsumed as the dialectic of Z. In the mathematical context it is the sqrt (-1) = i. But recall that the HG is also the Spirit of Truth which, in its turn, reflects Sophia.

A principal point here is that the main archetypes are moving targets. Trying too hard to pin them down is to commit idolatry, Platonism, absolutism. All that you and I can offer is the occasional snap-shot, meant for purely pedagogical purposes. The above dialectic is true of any meaningful relationship in which there is constant give and take, role playing and the like.

All I am aiming for is a minimal identification, and only then as it promotes an understanding of the cosmic dynamic. No eternal verity can or need restrict any living power. Nor need any pedagogical scheme impinge upon anyone's personal relation with the higher powers. The love engendered thereby demonstrates what the most thoughtful words can only dimly echo.

---------------------------------

[1/3] 

The least discussed of the archetypes is Q.  Following yesterday's communication I am inclined to associate it with the dialectic, picking up this topic from above and on the previous page.  

Hegel's great bequest may well be his (transcendental?) dialectic (246,000 hits), though he might not recognize all of its progeny.  What is it?  What is it to become?  

The great dialectician was Socrates: argumentative questioning in the ferreting out of truth.  The Socratic tradition appears unique in the world, inclined mainly to the West.  It stands in opposition to the mono-logic of rhetoric.  The dialectic finds itself refurbished in Kant's hands where his transcendental version of it is used to defeat the speculative pretensions and excesses of theology.  Hegel, not to be deterred, makes his transcendental dialectic the basis of his cosmology.  Here I take my cue from Hegel. 

Hegel used the dialectic to support his absolute idealism.  I use it to defeat absolutism, following Martin Buber and existential theology.  

Dialectical dynamics avoids Platonic stasis.  I posit but one eternal verity.  Lesser existence is not lost, it is merely subsumed, as the musical notes are subsumed by a symphony.  The notes are transparent to the final effect.  The final effect is the dynamical gestalt. 

Existence is relational and psychical.  Psychical existence is dynamical and dialectical.  The 'internal monolog' is always a dialog.  Gestalts are meant to be switched until the transcendental limit of coherence is grasped.  The switch from materialism to immaterialism portends to be singular in its scope. 

The closest that the dialectic comes to personification is as the third person of the trinity.  The Matrix achieves a similar personification as the Mother of God.  I oppose my personalism to the impersonalism of Hegel. 

The nearest that the dialectic comes to specification is as the 'imaginary' iota in e^i*pi = -1.  It enters physics as the quantum of uncertainty, placing it in a role that remains ontologically obscure. 

In biology the dialectic takes the form of the metabolic cycle, 'R'.  It is also the basis of the ouroboric A, Z & O archetypes.  

Have I gone overboard with the dialectic?  

[1/4] [a] 

Let me please follow up with Sophia.  The above mentioned correspondent and I have discussed her in the past.  My most significant spiritual encounter was with an entity of a similar quality.  What are we to do with her?  Is she being left out?  

My tentative suggestion was to have her be subsumed by M & P, i.e. by the Matrix and Pi.  Is this not doing her justice?  I picked up the Christmas issue of the Economist.  Mary was on the cover.  Her special connection to Islam was being touted.  It seems that there may be a message here.  Why not just add Mary/Sophia to the pantheon along side of X, christos?  Easier said than done. 

The X event is essentially singular.  This has to do with the singularity of the BPW.  There have been many well-meaning attempts to provide the christ with heavenly and earthly consorts.  Do we not jeopardize the Tao by failing to balance the yin and yang?  Where is the dialectic?  

My best answer at this point is that, in the BPW, balance only serves function.  Balance is not an end in itself.  The dialectic is an unstable equilibrium.  Balance and stability would be tantamount to death.  The Matrix is not the Tao.  The Matrix is unstable with respect to emergence.  X is the primary and singular emergence.  X is the cosmic hinge/fulcrum.  X & M can never be in balance.  The battle of the sexes is essential to history.  The resolution can only be eschatological and transcendental.  

With regard to the BPW, the trinity has been modified: M, X & HG/SoT.  The son has replaced the father.  Yes, Christ's conception was even metaphysically immaculate.  I have suggested that the holy ghost be considered as a personalized dialectic.  For that persona I would suggest Mary/Sophia.  How does this square with the archetypes: AZO/X/QRP?  Are not the Matrix and the Dialectic both missing?  The simple answer is that M & D, being pure potentiality and pure function, respectively, are neither one archetypal.  They are the primal pair from and by which the archetypes logically emerge.  Ontological priority is thereby being given to the feminine, it would seem.  The BPW is her emergent consort.  Sophia is the midwife.  The only qualm here might be that the feminine is made less personal than the Christ.  I would say that it does seem to be a bit more diffuse, but then that was part of the quality that I experienced of Sophia. 

As with every other topic here, there can only be provisional resolution. 

---------------------------------------------

Yesterday I started out with Q, but then got sidetracked onto the dialectic.  Among the archetypes, the Quantum, along with Z, perhaps, comes closest to expressing the pure functionality of the dialectic.  What emerges out of Q's dialectic is metabolism as here represented by R, the self-reproducing, self-recording biological cycle.  

Q is also responsible for the microscopic emergence of mathematical physics.  The mathematical aspect of Q is represented by the 'trinitarian' syzygy of e^i*pi = -1.  Using the previous symbols, this could be expressed as m^d*x.  The instability appears in the negative unit.  

Pi is the stalking/Trojan horse that smuggles every mathematical/physical symmetry into the dialectic of Q.  This is not unlike the redemptive role of X within history.  

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Commentary  (7/12/02)

[Note that the most recent additions, in the form of a weblog, appear grouped in chronological order near the top of this page.]

Here you have it in a nutshell.  If you have a familiarity with these four topics as treated herein, you may claim to have an overview of my philosophy, for better or worse.  Please note the three separate introductory pages under each major topic as well as the Introduction.  As of just now I would point to Introduction to God (part 2) as nearest to the crux of the issues being treated here.  [4/21/05 - Now also consider this.]

The idea of the BPW is the logical start and finish.  We like to complain about things, and with much cause, but that hardly proves that this is not the best possible world.  

If any part of this world turns out not to be explained by just atoms swerving in the dark, then, hallelujah,  none of it need be so explained.  Then we are permitted to turn our metaphysical attention from Newton to Leibniz, the originator of the BPW concept.  End of story, almost. 

Taking the leap from materialism to immaterialism opens the door to the gestalt of a world stood on its head, and to almost every other possibility including, of course, the BPW possibility. 

In questioning the authority of atoms, we consider reductionism vs. relationalism.  It is hard to see how reductionism still retains as much influence as it does.  We press ahead to the relational view associated with immaterialism and idealism.  Coherence wins the day.  Is anyone rooting for incoherence?  

If the atoms are not in charge, and naturalism is on shaky ground, to what do we turn?  How about to the Self and thence to the supernatural?  It may not be your father's God, but she will do in a pinch.  It will justify our consideration of the BPW.  We take up the all revealing issue of concealment. 

And finally the Big Story.  I don't want to give away too much, but it does have a beginning, middle and end.  It is a participatory drama in three acts and no intermissions.  It might behoove us to have a strategy regarding our participation.  Just a thought. 

Index  (old)

An annotated contents  (old)

Best Possible World (start)

email: dantsmith@comcast.net

9/8/02

Crisis  

Several divergent thoughts seem to converge on a singular crisis.  First, let me draw your attention to Elaine Pagels' Beyond Belief (2003), and 'Edmund Husserl and the Crisis of Western Science' by Thomas Molnar (1988).  I bring these up in connection with my thoughts regarding Sophia.  Why can I not do with Jesus what I have done with Sophia: defuse and diffuse the charisma?  There is going to be much pressure to ditch the X in AZO/X/QRP.  How shall we handle it?  This is hardly a sectarian crisis.  It is rather a crisis of cosmic proportions.  It has everything to do with the crisis of science.  It has everything to do with the future of ontology and epistemology. 

Here is Tom: 

To the question: "What went wrong?" the frequent answer is that it was inscribed in the nature of the Western, Greco-Christian project that it would end in modernity, nihilism, desacralization. The Islamologist Henry Corbin is perhaps the most radical exponent of this Muslim view: Christ's incarnation obliged the church to plunge into the vicissitudes of history, with its conflicts and shifts of power, which finally brought the church's own secularization. Today the world is homeless; it is torn by ideologies, all of them intent on remaking history and man.

Yes, are we not in the death throes of a singular personality cult? 

The crisis of science has been its failure, for all of its objectification, to find any objects.  Its legacy beyond technology is a fragmenting subjectivity.  Into that vacuum of meaning flows mysticism and absolutism.  

Against the tide of mysticism and absolutism, Elaine proposes gnosticism.  We seek to know the universal God, the divine spark within.  I subscribe to that.  Jesus was our greatest exponent of universal Gnosis. Period?  That is the question of the hour. 

Well, what then do we make of history?  May not God also be found in history?  If not, then what is the point of it?  Can God be universal and not historical?  Elaine avoids this question, as does every other gnostic and mystic.  If revelation does not have a social and historical dimension, we fall into a transcendental solipsism.  

Hinduism has been blessed with many great teachers down through the ages, but does it not also display a singular lack of coherence?  Is that a problem?  It is for anyone who seeks universality.  Science sought universality.  Does its failure mark the end of that quest?  

Let it, then, be given that if there is a cosmic intelligence it must have a social and historical dimension.  History may have meaning only as a progressive and collective gnosis.  This gnosis must include its own historicity.  The self-concealment and self-revelation of the transcendental dimension must be played out in the dimension of time.  The play must have finality.  There must be a final reconciliation of creatures and Creator.  

The choice is solipsism or universalism.  Universalism directly invokes a redemptive history, a salvation economy.  

Let us then consider God in history.  Is not the Invisible Hand sufficient?  Does it not keep the trains running on time?  The Invisible Hand is not sufficient for reconciliation.  But what about the Invisible Hand plus a solipsistic Gnosis?  Would this not be the proper minimalist version of salvation?  There is just a slight logistics problem.  There is no provision for finality.  For the eschatology to be coordinated it must be public.  If one were to imagine public salvation events, surely the X-event would be an extreme of minimalism, of such a degree that its efficacy could remain in grave doubt for at least two millennia.  A key to orchestrating such a minimalist salvific event was to provide it with a proper context.  That the social context should be an historically 'chosen' tribe, may seem obvious only in retrospect.  That the efficacy of the event could even be rejected by its nominal audience borders on the fantastic, in considering the subtlety of its orchestration.  That rejection, however, certainly facilitated its subsequent universalization. 

It is entirely within the specification of the event that the perpetrator would have only a vague understanding of the actual mission.  The appropriate labeling would be left to the historical redactors and its self-defined recipients.  

Who then was this Mr. X, a.k.a. Jesus?  Just some bloke who happened to have stumbled onto the scene?  It is even possible that there was no such person to begin with.  The X-event might have been redacted out of whole cloth.  What is the best possible answer?  The only logistic requirement is that the person be a member of the given tribe.  

The question might be rephrased.  If there has to be a public Reconciler, who would we prefer that one to be?  Would it not be most reasonable to suppose that the chosen one be especially reconciled with the Creator?  Why not, then, just have the person be as closely identifiable with the Creator as is humanly/divinely possible?  I see no good reason for skimping on this score.  The degree to which this identification is redacted becomes a moot point.  This point would matter only to the degree that we posit an epistemic/ontic divide, which is small indeed. 

Now, was this either difficult or painful?  Was this brain surgery, or was it a simple exercise in common sense?  Why then are we having so much difficulty with our reconciliation orchestration?  

The difficulty seems to have been built into the history of monotheism.  Particularly noteworthy in this regard is the history of Islam.  Did Mohammed simply miss the reconciliation boat?  Why Islam in the first place?  There must have been some mistake. 

I sincerely doubt it.  We merely have to put on our reconciliation orchestration thinking caps, and then we need to backup a couple of steps. 

Reconciliation is essentially eschatological.  Its orchestration is tantamount to orchestrating the eschaton.   In the BPW there is a Millennium for the public and universal preparation for the eschaton.  The inauguration of the Millennium becomes, almost surely, the singularly critical and dramatic event of our salvation history.  

We then look for a means to simplify and minimize the logistics of this most portentous inauguration.  That there be a reconciliation of believers would be a foregone conclusion.  That the believers be partitioned into two principal camps lends itself to all our requirements.  This theological reconciliation would provide both the context and pretext for the universally anticipated final messianic event.  It would effectively presage the metaphysical reconciliation. 

Lots of luck!  Right?  What then would be an adequate version of a minimalist X2-event?  I defer to Big Mo.  Big Mo is the touchstone for every political operator: Momentum.  I simply point out that before there is Big Mo there must be little mo.  Little mo is between you and me and the Internet.  If the BPW is, as it seems to be working out here, just a straight forward exercise of common sense, then little mo is just around Google's next corner. 

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The early Christian communities were millenarian and charismatic.  These two ingredients were mutually supportive.  This was arguably their first combined appearance in history, but they were to emerge repeatedly in the next two millennia.  It took several centuries for the original thrust of this spiritual momentum to exhaust itself.  The charisma was routinized, stagnation set in, and the dark ages ensued.  The monotheistic initiative then fell to a militant Islam.  It was neither charismatic nor millenarian.  

The enthusiasm of the early Church was not conducive to intellectual reflection.  Philosophy served only the evangel.  Such was not the case with early Islam.  Here a much more formal and austere theology cleared away the underbrush of pagan superstitions, while leaving the contemplative mind relatively free to reconstruct a rational order out of the detritus of the preceding cultures.  This period of enlightenment eventually encountered the expanding envelope of Islamic orthodoxy, but not before its intellectual drive had spilled back over to the stagnated Christendom in the west.  Thus began the second phase of Christianity, gradually blending into modernism.  

In this second phase, its millenarian enthusiasm was easily resurrected and harnessed into the singular notion of historical progress.  History was afforded meaning by manifesting the progressive stages of God's self-revelation, leading up to the inevitable advent of his Kingdom.  Nature was soon pulled into the revelatory dynamic and was cajoled and coerced into yielding up the secrets of Creation, all the better to fathom the mind and spirit of the Creator.  How else to fulfill the charismatic covenant of reconciliation than by laboring to comprehend the rationale of Creation?  I submit that there was ever only a token resistance on the part of the theocrats.  The gnostic impulse was comfortably channeled into the scientific enterprise, which soon took on an economic life of its own.  

Yes, science has been an enormous and sustained exercise is cosmic optimism and hubris.  I submit that this historical dynamic makes sense only under the aegis of a personally accessible creator, and is that not precisely the import of the X-event?  Yes, Virginia, there is a psychosocial linkage.  Science was no accident. 

Why then do not more of us see the hand of the creator writing on the walls of science?  I suspect that many do, but they have not the excuse to brag about it.  I would not be here if I did not feel so excused.  Being excused is no small thing.  It was not that for me.  There is no avoiding the concomitant messianic scent.  Propriety is a remarkable restraint.  Deliberately disregarding it is just another aspect of the Evangel of which we speak.  

The Prime Directive is most easily followed within a spiritual vacuum.  God seems quite adept at setting such a stage.  The aftermath of science leaves just such a void.  Indeed, it leaves an audience unprecedentedly receptive to a new and meaningful worldview, given a sufficient rationale.  Many ideas rush into this space, but where is there coherence and depth?  Is there to be no competition? 

Islam?  I don't see that it stands a chance in the tsunami that is bearing down on us.  It's not what you know, finally, it's who you know. 

[1/6] 

If I am right about the psychosocial importance of the human avatar, why then did Christianity not prevail from the start?  Why was there this Islamic hiatus?  Was this an accident of history or was there some internal dynamic that had to be played out?  Furthermore, the concept of avatar was not unique to Christianity.  The Buddha is an obvious example. 

What was unique to Christianity was its millenarian enthusiasm.  It was this enthusiasm that had a built-in obsolescence.  That it persisted for several centuries despite the lack of historical support is remarkable.  That it remained just below the surface through the dark ages, ready to flourish again in the Renaissance and beyond is no less remarkable.  

Why then were Islam and Buddhism able to flourish, but not able to incorporate a millenarianism?  There had to be a prophetic base, and there had to be a messianic event.  Siddhartha (Buddha) lacked the former and never claimed the latter.  Mohammed (Muhammad) had the prophetic base, why did he not attempt to usurp the messianic mantel?  He, like John Smith in our own times, was evidently not given that choice.  This is no small thing.  Are you a messenger, or are you the message?  Jesus and Siddhartha were the message; Moses, Mohammed and John Smith were the messengers.  Siddhartha was one in a supposed succession of avatars.  Jesus was unprecedented. 

If the notion of the Millennium is ever to be revived, Jesus will remain its messiah.  But will he not have to compete with the Maitreya and the Mahdi, to name but two?  

Shiism As Mahdism- Reflections On A Doctrine of Hope -- Kaveh L. Afrasiabi (11/20/03):  

In the vast field of Imamology, as a cornerstone of Shiite theology, Mahdism embodies the central axis of this theology, covering the most important doctrines of Islam: theodicy, eschatology, cosmology, pneumatology, ecclesiology, Creation, and political theology. These doctrines are embodied in the philosophical and theological method (eschatology, apocalyptic motif), epistemological presupposition (resurrection and history), and anthropological implication (hope) of Mahdism . With Mahdism as the center of its system, Shiism assumes a future-oriented eschatology continually speaking the language of hope, expressing God’s self-involvement in history. Based on divine intervention, Mahdi’s indwelling nature in history, or at least the part of history known as ‘Great Occultation’, creatively addresses the issue of theodicy from the perspective of divine suffering, for it is suffering in the exile of occultation mixed with hope in close proximity to a process history that defines and re-defines an eschatological community of people in the spirit of renewal and resurrection. [...] 

Here, the gap between the Mahdist concept of promise and Christian doctrine of resurrection need to be elaborated upon. In the resurrection of Christ, “the intensification of the promise finds its approach to the eschatological in the negation of death,” in other words, even death cannot set limits to the promise of God to human beings (for salvation). This is in contrast to the Jewish concept of promise that “finds its eschaton in the promise of Yahweh’s lordship over all people.” By comparison, the Mahdist promise presents itself as the epiphany of the eternal present in the world, which can be understood only as part and parcel of a transcendent subjectivity that asserts the self-concealment of Mahdi as a divine matter of “self-revelation.”

[...] The Mahdist “event,” namely, both the minor and the major occultation, is a single activity of God that orients toward the eschatological consummation of all things. Therefore, the premise of occultation and the promise of reappearance give the Shiite theological form the definitive character - History as eschatology, giving history a progressive nature. The ultimate self-disclosure of Mahdi is the moment of eschaton that overcomes the qualitative difference between time and eternity, i.e., an “eternal now” that addresses the transcendence of humanity, [...] 

[...] There is an ontological division here, between the being that is in time and yet outside of it, transported by divine intervention into the temporal vehicle of the eschatological promise, paralleling historical time and conjoining with it only at the climax of history, namely divine eschatology.

This is precisely where one may find striking resemblance between the Mahdi “event” and the Christ “event,” in the sense that both convey future-embeddedness of the present, where each stage of time points forward to the final completion of time in divine glory, even the apocalyptic moment which envelopes the eschatological promise, as an aeon of a new creation. 

I see no problem with this material.  Nothing here would prevent a fusion of the Mahdi and christos.  

Jesus of Nazareth and Maitreya the Christ -- Peter Liefhebber (Share International): 

In fact, the title Christ does not refer to an individual at all. It is the name of a function in the Hierarchy of Masters of Wisdom, that group of advanced beings who guide the evolution of humanity from behind the scenes. Whoever stands at the head of this Hierarchy automatically becomes the World Teacher, known in the East as the Bodhisattva, during the term of his office.

Maitreya, who embodies the energy we call the Christ Principle, has held that office for over two millennia, and in Palestine he manifested himself as the Christ to inaugurate the Age of Pisces, then beginning

Who is Lord Maitreya -- George Whitten: 

The world teacher as he calls himself, lord Maitreya.  Lord Maitreya claims to be the one expected of by all major religions.  He claims to be the Messiah that the Jews are waiting for.  He claims to the Krishna who the Hindus expect to arrive.  He claims to be Maitreya Buddha whom the Buddhists expect.  He claims to be Imam Mahdi or the Messiah that the Muslims are looking for.   But even more shocking he claims to the be Christ whom Christians are waiting for. 

Masters of Wisdom - Who Are They: 

Masters of Wisdom are men like us who have gone ahead of us in evolution and have now perfected themselves by the very same steps we are taking today. They have learned the every lesson the earth has to teach Them, have undergone every disappointment, humiliation, and pain, and are now members of the spiritual kingdom or the kingdom of God or Heaven. Therefore the earth has no further to offer them and most of them have moved on to other higher planets within and outside our solar system. [...] 

Sixty-three of them are involved with human evolution while others are involved with the evolution of animal, plant and mineral kingdoms. According to Mr Creme fourteen of them have already returned to the everyday world and are currently living in major cities of the world. They will show humanity that every human being can one day be like them.

Maitreya, here, is the Theosophical Master waiting to emerge and bring us into the age of Aquarius.  The Theosophical characterization of Maitreya, bearing more than a few traces of theodicy, has evolved significantly from its Buddhist origins.  The notion of a collective spiritual evolution of humanity guided by a succession of Avatars or Bodhisattvas is creeping into the New Age versions of Buddhism.  But if it is pushed too far this linear evolution runs afoul of the emphatically cyclical Buddhist cosmology.  

We quickly run into the great divide between theism and pantheism: Creation.  Pantheism need posit no Creator as long as it can explain the world as an endless cycle: no beginning, no ending.  

Primitive cultures are replete with creation myths.  Modernity is essentially characterized by the discarding of that 'primitive' notion. Pantheism is emphatically modern, then, in its disavowal of a Creator.  The historical irony, or perhaps paradox, is that science might never have taken off without the presupposition of a rationally ordered Creation.  On the other hand, the idea of progress, which is also essential to modernism, is antithetical to pantheism.  

We must wonder why the idea of Creation simply dropped out of such a great portion of the world's religions.  What could be the rationale or teleology of so significant a development?  It appears that the only sensible answer is that monotheism is not a natural belief.  The natural or logical progression seems rather to be from animism to polytheism to pantheism.  The only countercurrent in history was the singular Prophetic tradition.  

Why singular?  If there is a Creator, why was she so stingy with her prophets?  Why leave so much of the world in the dark for so long?  What can possibly justify such pedagogical parsimony?  I have spoken several times of the Prime Directive, but isn't this carrying that too far?  Think of the horrendous amount of religious strife that could have been averted with just a slightly more efficient dissemination and coordination of prophecy? 

Frankly, I think I had best sleep on this one.  Anon. 

[1/7] 

What I am seeing here is a naturalizing of our salvation economy: it's more like a salvation ecology.  It is an organic dialectic between cosmic and human intelligence.  It is a mutual process where we meet half way.  By this half measure, the Hebrew tribe and Jesus were self-selected.  Once selected, however, there was no turning back.  The reconciliatory teleology took over.  It became preordained. 

Such an organic process does not lend itself to duplication.  It is like the process of human fertilization: twinning is a rare phenomenon.  There could not be two chosen tribes, nor two saviors.  We are but one world.  Diversity here is priceless.  Why squander our precious diversity on mere redundancy?  All possible worlds exist in our imaginations.  The best of these is the one we live. 

There has been ample darkness before this dawning of the Millennium, but cannot and will not the new dawning remove every lingering shadow?  Will any of our dear departed ones miss this great awakening?  I see no conflict between our historical diversity and our future universal reconciliation.  Do you? 

Scientific materialism has played a crucial role in laying out the infrastructure of our salvation, but it has also been a great distraction for the spirit.  As we begin to see beyond this distraction, as the spirit begins to reorganize itself, the gospel of a permanent reconciliation will be beckoning every soul.  What obstacle will remain?  How can we shun such an obvious source of meaning for our existence?  How can our intellects avoid the snare net of cosmic coherence?  Can we possibly imagine a more efficient engine of coherence than the World Wide Web upon which I now type these words of reconciliation? 

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Ooops!  Have I neglected to mention Krishna (1,300,000 hits)?  

Lord Krishna, Source of Immortal Wisdom: 

And at last Lord Krishna revealed Himself before Arjuna as the source of everything, the eternal form of the Supreme, the Personality of Godhead.

Krishna was the eighth or ninth avatar of Vishnu.  The future avatar is designated as Kalki (45,000 hits).  He would be the tenth avatar if you (syncretically) count Buddha as the ninth.  Some allege that he will be the final avatar of this aeon, the Kali Yuga.  Each Yuga has four ages: Kali is the last and most depraved.  Kalki will defeat this evil and usher us back to the pristine Satya Yuga, to begin the entropic decline all over again.  Somehow I fail to get the point of this.  But isn't it just the point that there is no point?  We are encouraged to escape the wheel of illusion and meaningless rebirth so as to return to Nirvana, Brahma or the Matrix(?).  

What is the difference, then, if we all end up in the same place?  The most immediate difference will be the Millennium.  The Millennium would likely last only a thousand years at the most, while the Satya Yuga should last 1,728,000 years.  Should that not be 1,728 times as good as the Millennium?  

The answer to this question is very simple.  The question is, which is the best possible world?  The answer is that in order for there to be a best possible world it would have to be created.  If the Brahmanic world is created by Vishnu then it could be the BPW.  But if that were the case, why are we admonished to leave it?  We either love it or leave it.  Are the Hindus claiming that it is impossible to create a lovable world?  But could they not retort that we Millennialists will be forced to leave our lovable Millennium anyway; we are not even to be given a choice.  

Hold on.  A slight correction:   

Vishnu by Alan G. Hefner

Vishnu is regarded as a major god in Hinduism and Indian mythology. He is thought as the preserver of the universe while two other major Hindu gods Brahma and Shiva, are regarded respectively, as the creator and destroyer of the universe. 

[...] It is throughout this literature and especially through incarnations that Vishnu is raised to higher rankings within the Hindu pantheon. He becomes the prominent second god of the Trimurti, the Hindu Triad, while Brahma is first and Shiva is third.

The biggest difference appears to be that Christ is billed as the redeemer while Vishnu is billed as the maintainer of the world.  So which would you prefer, a janitor or a savior?  To each their own?  

I realize that this was a cheap shot, but, really folks, religion does not have to be rocket science.  These issues should not be that difficult, given a clear choice.  

The great wonder is that in the whole history of religion we encounter but one redeemer.  The only sensible response is: How many redeemers does it take to save the world? 

---------------------------

You may well object to being 'saved'.  Many of us style ourselves as self-made individuals.  Besides the parthenogenic difficulties of such a claim, does it not express a legitimate, humane need for dignity and self-respect?  The acceptance of charity often comes at the expense of self-respect.  Would we wish to marry someone who merely felt sorry for us? 

However, a (the?) major aspect of the BPW is its participatory nature.  We are the co-creators of the world.  By that same token we must also be its co-redeemers.  Co-redemption requires coordination.  The X&X2-events are simply the logical, preordained foci of this coordination.  If you wish not to participate, that is your choice, but could that refusal be viewed as anything other than the epitome of selfishness?  

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What was the crisis referred to above?  There is the crisis of modernity, for one.  Then there is the sectarian crisis.  If modernity fails to sustain itself, our first alternative is to fall back to a premodern, religious tradition.  Unfortunately the religious traditions have experienced little but sectarian fragmentation in the recent centuries.  

Modernity held out the promise of a single coherent worldview.  This was alleged to be its main advantage over the religious traditions: it would provide a universal basis for problem solving.  With that promise fading, is there any hope remaining for an alternative universal worldview? 

If there is not that hope, then we face the crisis of increasingly sliding back into sectarian conflict, but now on a truly global scale.  

There should be a great incentive to construct a postmodern worldview; indeed, the survival of civilization may depend upon it.  

New Age syncretism is a significant step in this direction.  

[1/8] 

Syncresis, however, fails to provide coherence, depth and vision.  The next logical step is synthesis.  Pantheism, being syncretic in nature, does not lend itself to this task.  Coherence cannot be accidental.  There must be a source.  The only logical source must be essentially theistic.  

India has survived and even prospered for millennia on a cultural diet of pure syncretism.  Why cannot this be a model for the postmodern world?  The New Age movement is certainly attempting to realize and expand on this model.  It is not, however, experiencing much success in penetrating the prophetic tradition.  This does not imply that syncretism should be abandoned; it does imply, however, that we should be on the lookout for alternative strategies. 

If we wish to elicit the spirit in response to any sort of crisis, then our only appeal is to the Evangel.  That is just the agent for the quickening of a communal or global spirit.  Any historically significant evangelism, however, is going to have to push the evangelical envelope either up to or beyond the messianic threshold.  To fail to push on that envelope would simply be to fail to rise to the occasion of a perceived global crisis.  

If these pages do not meet the above requirements, then I fail at my task.  If these pages do suffice, then you and I, together, have our work cut out for us.  My thesis is on the door.  I await the arrival of the Evangel.  You know who you are.  In the meantime I continue to fill in the details, while searching the web for any like-minded individuals.  

--------------------------

If often seems that the primary function of priests and shamans is to protect the rest of us from the spirits.  A widespread attitude is that spirits and ghosts are needy beings wishing to interfere in human affairs for their own ends.  For every benign angel, there is a legion of greedy ghouls.  We engage professional mediums to be our intercessors with the other side mostly just to neutralize what might otherwise be its baleful influence. 

Even among the more enlightened faithful, the principal motivation is likely to be the avoidance of divine wrath.  Fear of the gods is still a major force in our spiritual consciousness.  Having intercourse with the gods is considered risky business, if not just plain foolish.  

Before my involvement with phenomenology and more recently with the Internet, I spent considerable time discussing metaphysics with scientists and academics.  The biggest obstacle, of course, to any such rational dialog was to get past the gut reactions.  In most cases this was simply not possible.  The main response was almost always one of fear.  The exact nature of the fear was usually obscure, if not obscured.  Consider the possible objects of fear: of the unknown, of personal doubt and insecurity, of censure and ridicule, of not minding one's own business, of contamination, etc., and all of the above.  

Ritual and obsession dominate our behavior around the things we fear and distrust.  Religion is just for the purpose of routinizing our intercourse with the other side.  This reduces our anxiety level.  We could also speak in very similar terms of much of our scientific and technological intercourse with Nature and the Cosmos.  Is it not all part of the same bag?  

Then there are the mystics, gnostics, fools and geniuses who go where even the angels may fear to tread.  Such are the freelancers.  I certainly am the latter, but I don't seem to fit amongst the former.  I am rather too dogged in my approach to this subject to qualify as any virtuoso.  Some twenty-five years ago 'Sophia', in virtually subliminal fashion, indicated that there was a larger truth worthy of pursuit.  It was neither an offer nor an instruction.  It was more like, 'Look what you'll be doing.'  Truth leaves a taste that can scarcely be forgot.  Once bitten, always smitten.  I would not wish this on everyone.  I'm not sure I would have wished it on myself.  There only ever seemed to be this one path. 

Except possibly for Sophia, and an acronymous agency or two, this is just a case of WYSIWYG.  I try to be concise, but I don't hold back.  I use this public journal mainly in the struggle to constructively channel my thoughts.  I apologize for the endemic disjointedness.  If I knew where this was going, both of us would already be there.  Hyperlinking stray thoughts is a barely tolerable workaround.  If I don't get the chance myself, there is always the hope that an interested party will try to bring order to the chaos.  My heart goes out to such a one.  

Meanwhile, it does seem on occasion that there is a world out there that might be in need of saving.  Someone's attempt to conjoin intellect and spirit might figure in that process.  But wouldn't you think that if this were the case that God would intervene at the least just to indicate some sort of preference?  Should there not be a sign or two?  Well, I'm not sure that salvation would work that way in the BPW.  If there is truth, then we will individually have to be able to recognize it for what it is.  This is simply a case of management by objective, as opposed to management by directive.  God trusts her creatures; let us do likewise.  

The question of participation looms large, right about here.  So right about now I take a break. 

-----------------------------

Theism has been consistently hospitable to metaphysical dualism.  There are not many instances of theistic immaterialism.  Here are a few: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.  These instances have generally been considered heretical by the maintainers of the orthodoxy.  I am not presently aware of a handy explanation for this.  There is nothing in the logic of theism which requires a metaphysical separation between Creator and Creation.  Permit me, then, to attempt an explanation.  

Theism is marked, and many would say marred, by its attention to orthodoxy.  Fundamentalism is barely conceivable in the pantheist tradition.  Furthermore, while any god could be forgiven for an occasional bout of jealousy, Yahweh turned his jealousy into a commandment, his first.  As I have pointed out, monotheism does not seem to be a natural state of mind for us humans.  We had to be reminded of it frequently.  Theism is also marked by its moral dualism and absolutism.  The pantheists entertain a plethora of demons, but the concept of Satan is unique to theism.  Heaven and hell are part of this same package, of course.  

You must be aware by now that I am no friend of dualism, either in its metaphysical or moral aspects, which is to say that according to the BPW hypothesis, dualism is mistaken.  So how come this remarkable and erroneous linkage?  

It does, I believe, come back to the problem of concealment (1, 2.).  The whole point of creation is separation.  Creation and separation are the epitome of unnaturalness in a naturally relational, holistic world.  Maintaining that separation for the duration is no mean feat.  In particular, you have to watch out for those clever creatures who see through the game, and decide they've had enough.  Only the person who is 'it' is allowed to shout, 'All ye, all ye come in free!'  Otherwise, there would be no game.  

Where there is no physical or metaphysical barrier between Creator and creature, the trick is to create a mental barrier, which is the function of religion, as outlined above.  But instead of protecting us from God, this mental barrier is actually protecting God from us.  God does not wish to be overrun by conscientious objectors.  

But then what about all those gnostics, Christian Scientists, Shaivas, etc. who, more or less, figure out the game?  Won't they make trouble?  Yes, and no.  

[1/9] 

Even God cannot fool all the people all the time.  There are enough of the rest of us, however, to keep the game of Creation going quite smoothly.  Mostly we are adept at fooling ourselves.  Once we get into a rut, it is hard to get us out of it.  Furthermore we are quite adept at fear.  Once the notion of fearing God has taken hold of us, we are reluctant to let it go.  

The only place that God seems to have outdone herself was with the scientists.  She has sure kept a lot of scientists busy and off the streets.  It is in this arena that the BPW end game will have to be played out.  It is just in the present availability and in the recognition of the crucial significance of this audience that the BPW strategy is unique in the long history of immaterialism.  The other versions and the earlier versions of immaterialism either did not have the opportunity or have not had the inclination to tackle science on its own turf, if not quite on its own terms, as I propose here.  

Yes, God has afforded herself with an impressive camouflage in the form of scientific materialism.  Perhaps she has truly outdone herself.  It is a conceptual barrier of formidable proportions.  I must be out of my mind if I think I can even begin to make a dent in it.  My only weapon is the inexorable logic of coherence.  My opportunity is in the increasing awareness of the incoherence of scientific materialism.  

My target audience is not the professional scientists in the first instance.  It is rather the seekers of meaning who are also cognizant of science, and who are using the Internet to further that pursuit. If just a few of us could cooperate, we would constitute a phenomenon that could not be easily ignored.  Then it's up to Tar Baby.  

This brings us back finally to the question of participation.  Unlike the pantheist world of Maya, neither science nor monotheism presents a worldview that is conducive to participation.  According to the latter two, cosmogony is definitely a spectator sport: don't try it at home.  It is the task of us coherentists to insinuate some of the logic of pantheist participation into this spectator mindset, without subverting the crucial theistic/coherentist focus in the process.  For instance, we could take some of the quantum logic and expand it into a recipe for a participatory Millennium.  This would be a first. 

[1/10] 

I am trying to hold things together here.  This started out on the last page as a recap, but I keep returning to the urgency of these times.  I am struck again by the Islamic view of the incarnation:  

Christ's incarnation obliged the church to plunge into the vicissitudes of history, with its conflicts and shifts of power, which finally brought the church's own secularization. 

[In other words, the faithful felt themselves called upon to participate in what soon came to be thought of as 'progress': facilitating the advent of a Millennial aeon on Earth.] 

We should have known!  But this is just my point.  The believers were being called to make history.  

(The 'Right to Life' people take this calling in its narrowest possible (Islamic, legalistic) sense.  They see themselves as God's school master with the long stick, keeping the rest of us in line.  If that is not about the grossest possible perversion of our incarnational invitation to participate wisely in the world, then heaven help us.)

It has taken us two millennia to come to this threshold of deliberate participation in Creation.  [Understanding ourselves, now for the first time, to be the co-creators of the world.]   It is not surprising that we hesitate to cross this Rubicon.  We do need a signal.  We do need to compose our thoughts.  My further point is that the correct composition of our thoughts will constitute its own signal.  There will be no need for further ceremony.  We will recognize the Telos and our path to it.  The only real crisis here is our dramatic awakening to our place on the cosmic stage. 

God came all the way to be here and participate in our history with us.  What are we doing to return the favor?  Can we think of nothing better than to go around casting judgments on each other?  Can we not, at the very least, discuss our options? 

-----------------------

The path to our eschatological Self-realization has been fraught with twists and turns.  First there has been the delicate task of producing a 'naturalized' Creation, facilitated by our unwitting participation in the maya-esque 'dream-weaving' of the world, based on a preordained set of archetypes.  Then there was the inauguration and maintenance of a prophetic/incarnational/millenarian tradition.  Within that tradition was fostered an increasingly secularized notion of progress.   The spiritual, intellectual and social 'crisis' of modernity ensues.  As we come to the brink of losing our way and stumbling, we are impelled to reconsider the ground of our being and the Source of our coherence.  We re-envision the Metanarrative of history and the Telos.  Getting beyond this 'crisis' requires of us only the proverbial 'mustard seed' of faith.  

We now have to acquire a deeper understanding of our participation in Creation.  This 'gnosis' will prepare us for our participation in the Telos/Omega/eschaton.  Within the Metanarrative the gnosis was necessarily compartmentalized.  In that manner the keys to Creation could be hidden in plain sight, waiting for us upon the awakening from our 'slumber of materialism'.  The formerly seeming antithetical notions of maya and Creation may now be seen to invite a teleological synthesis.  The incarnation of the cosmic intelligence may thereby be brought to its natural fulfillment.  

[1/11] 

I continue to find remarkable the similarities and differences between the Eastern and Western traditions of philosophy.  The crisis of modernism is forcing us to examine its roots in Western philosophy and contrast that with the East. 

The theistic idealism/immaterialism proposed here has been much more strongly represented in the East than in the West.  What is missing in the East is the rationalism of the BPW.  With the immaterialism of the East, the theistic element was optional.  Theism in the East was geared mainly to popular consumption, in the form of mystical devotion.  Hare Krishna springs to mind.  Serious philosophy came mainly with an atheistic flavor.  There has been no Eastern tradition of theology, per se, despite the popularity of theism.  

Western philosophy has been indelibly influenced by two unique sources: Greece and Israel.  There is nothing comparable elsewhere.  Greece is the source of our rationalism, and Israel the source of our optimism.  In the East, optimism was just for the masses.  It was not given intellectual expression.  

What is not clear to me just now is whether optimism and rationalism are two sides of the same coin, and, if so, what is the coin?   Greek rationalism certainly has an optimistic color, but what is its source?  

Dualism probably figures here.  There is no Plato of the East. Plato's highest form or idea was the Good.  From whence did this come?  Now that I think about it, must there not have been an historical connection between monotheism and Platonic optimism?  I am not aware that this question has been raised.  And while we are on the subject of sources, how much of the theistic devotionalism in Hinduism is indigenous?  

The problem of evil is endemic and unique to the West.  So also is the problem of matter.  Which came first, dualism or optimism?  They seem closely related.  How then can I throw out the dualism and keep the optimism?  Why has it never happened before? 

But is it not obvious that cosmic optimism requires monism?  The evil must be subsumed by the good, and matter subsumed by mind.  This is just the statement of monotheism.  It would appear that the primary source of difference between East and West is Israel: Israel and its insufferably jealous Yahweh.  

Western dualism, then, is supervenient on Western personal monism.  The monism of the East remains impersonal, abstract and often negative.  Personalism comes only in the form of polytheism in the East.  

If monotheism is true, why is it not commonly indigenous, especially in pre-scientific cultures?  Why should paganism and polytheism be globally endemic.  Is this just another dimension of concealment?  If God exists, she had an incredibly effective anti-publicity agent.  Abraham/Yahweh got her exclusive global franchise.  How was the exclusion clause so effectively enforced?  There never was another Yahweh in all of history.  Is this not carrying jealousy too far?  I'm feeling stumped.  

But there is a confusion here.  Who is Yahweh?  I refer to the matrix and the christos.  Yahweh is neither of these.  Was Yahweh just local deity who made good?  How did he get linked up with M&X, ontologically and epistemologically?  Should Yahweh be taken as the eighth archetype?  Then there would be an X/Y gender problem.  But some could complain that Yang has not been properly represented here.  

Yes, Yahweh was a tribal god on steroids.  Every other such god ended up in a pantheon, but not our hero.  I suspect that M&X made sure that Y got plenty of spinach to eat.  They had big plans for this fella.  By the same token, all the other tribal gods were left to fend for themselves.  They twisted slowly in the wind, until they were either blasted with the gale of monotheism, or they were farmed out in pantheonic service to an impersonal monism.  

I am proposing an M, X & D [dialectic] trinity, followed by a AZO/QRP sextet.  In the trinity, the only real archetype or persona is X, so the gender specificity of the christos must be muted.  Y may then be subsumed by A (Alpha), whereas X subsumes the Omega, if you will forgive the apparent lack of symmetry.  Z figures as a relational nexus and a prototype for the celestial, mental and metabolic cycles. 

Yahweh was, and still is, the stalking horse for the christos.  The christos is much too subtle to be out in front.  Let Yahweh do the warrior stuff.  Yahweh starts the deck clearing operation, science finishes the job.  That is where we are now.  There is virtually a blank slate for the X2-event.  

-----------------------------

What of the difference between Brahman and the matrix?  What of it?  Perhaps there is none.  More specifically, Brahman has both personal and impersonal aspects.  The personal part has both a male and female aspects, and each of these can be many deities.  But then there is also Brahma, without the 'n', who is the first of the triune godhead along with Vishnu and Shiva, the creator, sustainer and destroyer, respectively.   Krishna seems the closest to the Christ figure in Hinduism, but then there is no christos.  Krishna is just one of ten incarnations of Vishnu, in this round of creation.  We cannot get away from the endless round of creation and destruction.  Redemption loses significance every time it is has to be repeated. 

[1/12] 

From whence comes our finality?  Is it something to be embraced?  Finality may look good in theory, but how will it be when we must collectively face it?  

My advice is that we will need to take this one step at a time.  It is still a long way from here to eternity.  Yes, we have grown very comfortable with mortality, temporality and biology, but we presume that there is more to existence than this.  

On the Eastern view, the eternality of the material world, in no way adds to its value.  In fact, while the finite Western world is seen positively, the infinite Eastern (material) world is seen negatively.  More is less, evidently.  Furthermore, with the finite world, redemption necessarily becomes a corporate or communal enterprise.  This then lends a transcendental value to our social relations.  In the East, salvation is mainly a solitary affair.  It is considered best to remove oneself from society. 

There is then a strong linkage between the communal spirit and the finite world.  One might have thought that this fact alone would have given the prophetic model a decisive social advantage from the beginning of history.  It should have become endemic with or without external influence, but this was not to be. 

It does appear that the prophetic model, like the world it purports to represent, is necessarily singular.  It is a package deal that is all or nothing.  No substitutions are allowed.  Thus, we have not only the singularity of the world to explain, but also the singularity of its representation in history.  But is this singularity not just part and parcel of the holistic, relational essence of reality?  In such a world there is no interchangeability of the parts, something to which we have become accustomed in our industrial world. 

To put this another way, the world and our normally accurate representation of it cannot be distinct.  We have noted that immaterialism implies a theory of direct perception for individuals.  The prophetic model, by the same token, implies a theory of (stimulated) direct perception on the part the (singular) spiritual community.  Gnosis is surely not something merely representational.  Gnosis is an immediate acquaintance with the cosmos and the personal intelligence that comprises it.  Normal perception is merely more limited in scope.  This is just part of the logic of our status as co-creators of this presumably mental world. 

The simple fact is that a created world must be quantitatively finite, otherwise it could not be relational or holographic in its essence.  Relationalism implies a governing PSR, and this principle can only have a finite scope.  This brings us back to Greek rationalism and their abhorrence of the Apeiron.  There is an immediate linkage between monotheism and rationalism.  This places Greece right on the verge of the prophetic community.  Beyond the pale of that community there was the inevitable entropic-like slide back into the Apeiron.  It is only the actual finitude of the world that prevents folk from falling off the edge.  Plato's non-organic rationalism is more understandable in this context.  His system was a useful abstraction of agape.  

--------------------------------

There are two things to explore at this point.  First is my contention that there is a natural slide from a finite to an infinite cosmos, outside of the monotheist order.  Second is the theistic antipathy to the positing of a God within.  

The time scale of the Hindu cosmos turns out to be much closer to the modern scientific time scale than the traditional time frame of the prophetic cosmos.  This has been taken as evidence of the superiority of the Hindu system.  Most theists now accept the scientific/Hindu scale.  Many of these would agree that this revision takes much of the wind out of the prophetic sails.  What is unclear to me is the motivation for this pre-scientific inflation of the time dimension.  Could the intent have been other than anti-theistic?  Was it targeted specifically against the prophetic tradition?  I'm not in a position to research these questions presently.  I suspect the answers to be definitely 'no', and probably 'yes', respectively.  

It might be more accurate to qualify the intent as anti-millenarian.  Utopian eschatology has figured strongly in the many revolutions of the West.  In contrast, the Hindu caste system and Chinese Confucianism have been comparatively stable, thanks in no small measure to the lack of a popular eschatological sensibility.  

The second item, however, might suggest a different picture.  One would think that theism would be naturally sympathetic to the idea of a God within, but this is not true historically.  This idea has been a specific target in the prosecution of gnostic and pantheist heresies.  

In the East we hear that 'thou art that': Atman, the higher self, may be identified with Brahman.  One achieves enlightenment by attuning to that inner sense.  This is an individual endeavor, although a teacher may be helpful in the early stages.  Here we see a further weakening of the social bond, something not conducive to revolutionary solidarity.  

As a non-dualistic theist, I am compelled to take up the cause of Atman, or the God within.  We'll need to better understand the antipathy. 

[1/13] 

The first goal for a society as for an organism is stability or homeostasis.  In pre-scientific societies, the realm of the spirits played a significant role.  The spiritual realm was not easily controlled, and it could be socially disruptive.  Societies evolved various means for taming the spirits, usually involving religious forms.  The Latin term re-Ligio suggests the binding of the spirit.  Many funeral customs seem intended to restrain or divert the spirit of the departed. 

Part of the difficulty was to regulate human intercourse with the spiritual realm.  This difficulty became acute in the prophetic sphere.  Attending to prophets was no small matter.  As a rule of thumb, the only good prophet was a dead prophet.  The medium of prophecy could best be regulated in scriptural fashion, after the fact.  As the scriptural tradition matured, the bar for admission to prophetic status could be continually raised.  Despite these precautions, it was not difficult for many individuals to successfully invoke the spirits in times of social crisis.  Charisma can never be completely routinized.  

Where the role of God has been diffused, as in the pantheist tradition, the concept of the God within, or even identification with God, will be rather less problematic than in a monotheist culture.  In the latter case, messianism can be endemic and demanding of vigilance on the part of the powers that be.  Ridicule is usually the best antidote, but, at times, messianism becomes no laughing matter. 

[1/14] 

I will readily admit to being surprised to learn that Brahman has a personal aspect, as well as an impersonal aspect.  I had plain forgotten that Brahma is the Hindu creator god.  It is then more difficult to rationalize the Hindu departure from the concept of a monotheist, and presumably singular, act of Creation.  First it might be useful to examine how the Buddhists depart from these Hindu teachings.  And while we're at it, I am still lacking a clear understanding of why the monotheists embraced metaphysical dualism, while the polytheists embraced monism.  It almost seems like a reciprocal compensation.  

Is the Buddha's EMPTINESS the Brahmin's BRAHMAN: 

In the high Hindu Vedanta teachings, the goal of the spiritual path is the realization of one's ultimate identity with Brahman, the Absolute, which is said to underlie all existence. Brahman, the indivisible, eternal, uncreated, is also called "the Deathless" -- that place beyond birth and death, beyond the world. 

Gautama the Buddha was acclaimed as a challenger and radical reformer of the decaying Brahminism of his time. One of the revolutionary ideas that he taught was the doctrine of Emptiness, said to be the cornerstone of Buddhist understanding. What he meant by Emptiness has been over the ages a source of much debate. Is Emptiness, as many believe it to be, a radical departure from the concept of the all-pervading eternal Brahman of the Vedas, or is Emptiness the Buddha's description of what is, in essence, none other than the Vedantic Brahman? 

Andrew Cohen: 

Shankara, the celebrated eighth century Indian teacher and founder of Vedantic nondualism or Advaita (not two) philosophy, from which many of the main currents of modern Indian thought are derived, referred to that which is absolute as "pure consciousness" or "fullness." Yet Gautama the Buddha is famous for declaring that that which is absolute is "emptiness" or "voidness."

There does seem to be some confusion. 

And if two of the most respected authorities in Indian spiritual philosophy seem to disagree on the most fundamental definition of that which is absolute, the experiential discovery of which is supposed to be "enlightenment," then what are we to do? If in fact Shankara and the Vedantic philosophers are correct in their declaration that that which is ultimate, and therefore absolute, is fullness or pure consciousness, then should this lead us to conclude that enlightenment is the experiential discovery of what is referred to in the West as "God" or "Love" or "Christ-consciousness"? Does that mean that ultimately there is something, the realization of which will set us free? If Gautama the Buddha was truly the Enlightened One, then does that mean that his doctrine of emptiness, stating that the absolute nature of all things is emptiness or voidness, implies that God does not exist? Does the experiential discovery of emptiness reveal to us that there is ultimately nothing, and will that discovery set us free? 

Dr. Medagama Vajiragnana:  

Then there were the Upanishadic teachers who adopted a different approach. They were metaphysicians who believed not in a Supreme-Godhead but in a universal principle - a highly metaphysical concept. This they called the Brahman, the universal soul, the matrix of everything. As a corollary to Brahman, they metaphysically conceived of an individual soul, an Atman, which is a replica of the Brahman, believed to be residing in all beings. These Upanishadic sages believed that the key to solving the human problem lies in the realisation of the undifferentiated Brahman-Atman identity, which has to be attained through the path of knowledge [...] 

The Buddha discarding theology adopted psychology [the best psychology is no psyche!], instead of being theocentric He was anthropocentric. Through this non-traditional approach He understood the problems of man, how they are caused, how they could be solved and the way leading to their solution in a way never heard of before. His analysis enlightened him with regard to the truth that dukkha is not something thrust upon in by some external force, but our own creation and therefore lying within ourselves. From this He concludes that the solution too has to sought within ourselves. [...] 

The central philosophy of Buddhism is called paticca samuppada. It rejects the view that everything happens either due to a creator, or fate or chance or karma. Everything happens due to causes and conditions and the Buddha explained these causes and conditions. [...] 

This is that man has no Soul or Self, he has no lasting permanent entity. This went against the accepted teaching of the time. There is an entity in Indian philosophy called "Purusha" which is also known as "Prkrti". Some said that this "Purusha" or "Prkrti" is the source of the world and all in it.

This very same "Purusha" or "Prkrti" was introduced by some thinkers as "Brahman" or "Paramatman". Everything has originated from the Paramatman with a "Small Atman" in each of them. It is an entity which is eternal, unchanging, omnipresent and indestructible. Through realization of that eternal entity and individual becomes one with it. This is known as "Moksha" (freedom).

The Buddha, however, rejected the concept of both Brahman and Atman and put forward His own teaching of No Atman, or Anatta. What we call a person or an individual is combination of five aggregates; physical body, feelings, perceptions, mental activity and consciousness. But there is no self existing, ego-entity, soul or atman or any other abiding substance within this physical and mental phenomenon of existence or even outside of them.

The Buddha's teaching also had widespread effects on the structure of society encouraging people to question some of the assumptions on which that society was based, specially with regard to caste and status of women. [...] 

The above account clearly shows why Buddhism could be rightly called a teaching that motivated its followers to swim against the current, not to pray and supplicate external forces, but to engage in introspection, strive and bring a total revolution within.

It seems that Siddhartha was putting forward an existential philosophy. 

I have referred to the Matrix as pure potentiality, or pure potency, if you will.  In this sense it is not something substantial.  If our reunion with the Christos is substantial, then our personal identity becomes less so.  Our personal identity is relative to the Christos.  Only the dialectic of M&X is eternal or primordial, all else is derivative. 

Bijoy H. Boruah: 

In contemporary philosophical parlance, the Advaita Vedantin would be a realist about the self and the Buddhist an anti-realist about the same thing. This is surely a radical ontological antinomy. But what is surprising is that despite such an ontological antinomy the two systems of thought have a more or less common "metaphysic of transcendence" or a transformative teleology. They each believe in the possibility of ultimate human liberation or enlightenment. The ultimate liberation (Moksa) of Advaita Vedanta and the ultimate enlightenment (Nirvana) of Buddhism are in essence similar notions of attainment of salvation or final freedom from the quagmire of human bondage. How would one reconcile the fact that the two systems share a basically similar metaphysic of salvation[!] with the fact that they are arch opponents on the issue of the ontology of the self?

Me too, w.r.t. salvation! 

Apparently, it would be absurd to profess total self-denial while admitting ultimate liberation because the experience of liberation, being enduring as well as unitary, presupposes an experiencer of some sort. We would do well not to short-circuit the Buddhist position into plain absurdity and examine whether there really is no sense of self-affirmation in the overall metaphysical stance of Buddhism. [...] 

I think that a reconciliatory philosophical reconsideration of the ancient debate between Buddhism and Vedanta would yield a picture in which the two systems would be seen as being complementary to each other. With this intent I shall start from the Vedantic angle to show that the concept of Atman is compatible with that of Sunyata. [...] 

Furthermore, Sunyata is not abhava or non-existence, but held to be the ultimate ground of everything, the utmost original condition of reality prior to all conceptualization and phenomenal distortion. It is characterized as pregnant emptiness, vibrant void. Cast in terms of consciousness, Sunyata is a state of pure consciousness that one would revert to if one were able to empty oneself of any illusory constructions or impressions of an unchanging or permanent reality, whether of things or persons. This reversal to original subjectivity, which also has an ethical import, may be interpreted as one's "becoming" Sunya or empty. But "becoming" Sunya does not mean going out of existence. Rather, one can truly be oneself, or become truly self-aware, only by "becoming" Sunya. Otherwise, one continues to be in an unawakened state---to be under the spell of Avidya.

Can we not say, now, that the Buddhist awakening in "the field of Sunyata" is most akin to the Vedantic realization of the ultimate identity of Atman with Brahman? And is not Brahman---the absolutely indeterminate (Nirguna) Ultimate Reality---itself more like a "field of Sunyata," the original ground of everything?

There does seem to be convergence on the notion of the Matrix. 

What is clearly missing is an affirmation of Creation and Creator or Christos.  Is it clear why?  Was it a positive avoidance, or was it simply a failure to grasp the possibility? 

What about the path of bhakti?  Is it other than the Christian agape?  Pure bhakti is objectless love.  Does not the Christos figure in agape? 

Scott David Foutz -- reviewing Global Philosophy of Religion by Joseph Runzo (2001): 

After dispensing with the traditional rationalistic approaches, Runzo sets his sites on what he deems the non-rational or "extra-rational" elements of religious belief, namely love, faith, compassion and devotion. By grounding a philosophical argument in these extra-rational elements, which he demonstrates exist in all the major religious traditions, Runzo believes he has found the means whereby a universal demonstration of the justification of religious belief can be set forth. [...] 

For purposes of discussion, Runzo lumps the non-rational elements together under the rubric of 'Love' and then develops a working definition. The term 'seraphic love' is employed to describe "the ultimate love of the Divine, as well as the human love which is modeled in the World Religions on Divine Love". Contrary to the traditional Christian habit of qualitatively distinguishing between Agape and Eros, Runzo argues that these latter are not two different types of love but rather the two poles of Seraphic love. He writes:

For we can ask what motivates agape. And the motive for agape is the passionate, devoted love which is eros. So agape and eros form a dynamic pair... Eros (or bhakti) is the dynamic pole of seraphic love which brings humans also to have agape (or egoless love).

[...] More specifically, Runzo seeks to include in his working definition six characteristics of eros, which are more fully delineated in his earlier The Meaning of Life in the World Religions. These are: relationality, surrender, vulnerability, integration, union, and equality. These interpersonal and relational elements will become critical for Runzo's argument that an ultimate religious response of seraphic love implies an Ultimate Other.

Now that we have a working definition of love, Runzo sets forth the argument whereby seraphic love is justified. He does this by introducing the discussion of values, multiple and single, extrinsic and intrinsic. Runzo here adopts Robert Nozick's (The Examined Life) definition of intrinsic value as that which is "organically unified". Runzo writes:

The degree to which something is organically unified is determined by how much diversity is being unified as well as the degree of unity that is achieved within that diversity. In short, the greatest intrinsic value results form the greatest integration of the greatest diversity. This is why human life has greater value than works of art or than plant life.

In other words, "the value of a thing is enhanced by meaning. [And] meaning comes from a thing's connectedness to other things". Within this dynamic of value and connectedness Runzo may argue that those love relationships whereby subject and object's interconnectedness increase causes or implies an increase in the individuals' intrinsic and extrinsic value. He then suggests that ultimate meaning can only be derived through connectedness to something outside ourself which is unlimited in value. This, of course, is where the Ultimate Object of justifiable religious belief is introduced. By attaching the notion of an increase of value to the act of loving, Runzo has put forth a rationale or justification for loving. And by introducing the relational aspects of eros into his definition of divine, seraphic love, Runzo finds implicit within such love an argument for God, since "the presence of love in the universe and the obligation to love implies a transcendent love". In the final pages of the book, Runzo delineates a formal "Argument For Love" whereby the causal relation between divine transcendent love and human involvement in seraphic love is laid out. I will leave the full exploration and analysis of Runzo's formulation to those who wish to read the book.

On the christian view, the path of bhakti must have the christos as its Telos.  Runzo is inserting the christos into bhakti.  Is bhakti thereby incomplete?  It is if it neglects the world Telos in favor of the individual telos of union.  One cannot escape the logic of the Incarnation.  Its singularity is the necessary logical basis for the singularity of the BPW.  But is the BPW hypothesis not compatible with monotheism in general?  The BPW is necessarily anthropocentric.  Monotheism, per se, is not.  Have I not understood this crucial distinction before?  Is it not obvious?  But is not this parochialism usually taken to be an embarrassment to christian philosophy? 

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Topical Index

1/5/04

All or Nothing 

We generally try to strike a balance between freedom and commitment.  We value our freedom to commit or not to commit.  What I am about to suggest, however, goes against that grain.  I am making an offer of all or nothing with respect to meaning, truth and, yes, existence.  It is an offer which can hardly be refused.  It presents an irrevocable choice, which most of us will want to, and are, postponing for as long as possible.  The proposition is pretty obvious, but we have become masters at rationalizing away from the obvious. 

The fragmentation of meaning, life and existence we have come to accept as part of the modern condition.  The virtually unlimited choices placed before us every day represent for us the foundation of our freedom.  On the other hand, there is the nagging suspicion that 'freedom' is just another word for nothing left to lose.  But what is it that we have lost, amidst all of our freedom?  

There is one word for that, too: meaning.  Are we going to have to choose between freedom and meaning?  Perhaps we just need to find a more meaningful meaning for freedom.  For instance, what is the meaning of 'free will'.  No one seems to know, but almost everyone has an opinion.  

Chaotic and quantum systems are characterized by their unpredictable and ontologically random nature.  For the materialist, this is as close to freedom as you can get.  Every other 'freedom' is an illusion.  Most of us find this response far from satisfactory.  That's why we still have philosophers.  Well, they were still there the last time I checked. 

However, to say that freedom is something more than randomness is, it turns out, having to say a great deal.  Very many papers and books have been written on this topic with, apparently, no one feeling that the topic has been exhausted.  As you may have anticipated, I am about to add my own two cents, and I'll wager that, despite its brevity, there will be a substantial originality.  

My proposition is that freedom and meaning are closely related concepts or problems, depending on your frame of mind.  They are both related to the problem of reason.  Reason is another word fraught with elusive significance.  It has been said that we are the rational animals.  We are the only animal purporting to have reasons, and do we ever!  We have never been known to lack for them.  Do we reason, or do we merely rationalize, more or less, after the fact.  Do we just play the obligatory language game that we label as 'reasoning'?  Reason, I maintain, is an all or nothing proposition.  So will be meaning.  Freedom?  We'll just have to see about that. 

Reasoning is generally teleological in essence.  My proposition then is that there is no telos without a Telos, and there is no truth without Truth. Yes, there are facts.  But we almost never want to tell just the facts.  Just ask Joe Friday.  What we almost always want to do is tell a story, and not just any story.  We want, above all else, to tell 'Our' story.  That is certainly what I am trying to do here.  So I am also saying that there is no narrative without a Metanarrative.  Now that is a bald statement.  Go to the fiction section in any library or bookstore and you will see shelves full of narratives, but I'll warrant that you'll find not a single metanarrative, because right now there is only one BPW story, and we know where it is. 

My bald statement becomes less bald when I say of what it is that stories are made.  In the first instance, a story is a complex transaction between the teller and listener.  Many norms come into play.  It can be a very fine art.  Perhaps it is even the only art.  The most elusive aspect of the transaction is empathy.  The listener must be drawn into the story, otherwise it becomes so much hot air, spilled ink or errant electrons.  

OK, then, what is empathy?  Just another feeling?  On the last page we discussed bhakti, agape and love.  Is empathy not of these?  It is not easy to argue that there are any higher emotions.  There are even those who have equated love with the Telos.  I am one of them.  And with this one twist of a phrase, I ought to be able to walk smiling into the sunset. 

There is, then, only one story: the love story.  All meaning, truth and existence derives from that Metanarrative.  So are we free to love?  Yes, and no.  If so, it is our first and last freedom.  That is my all or nothing proposition. 

I have spoken of the Trinity: M, X & D: matrix, christos, dialectic.  The dialectic is the elusive element.  It is also the engine of existence.  Dialectic is dialog.  It is sharing in a story.  It is, in the first instance, the playing out of the eternal, universal I & Thou.  That is simply, then, the dialectic of empathy or love.  The holy ghost is the holy spirit.  It is the prime mover: Eros & Cupid.  It has a thousand masks, but it is finally of one substance.  It is the one legal tender in all cosmic intercourse. 

Why then is D not an archetype?  If it were, there could be none other.  Love is jealous.  It brooks no rival.  

[1/16] 

If meaning is reducible or analyzable, it is, at least, reducible to words.  Are words reducible?  I believe that it was the logical positivists, who, back in the 1920's, claimed they could reduce all meanings to 'sense data'.  To some people back then, the idea sounded half-way plausible.  Unfortunately, when put into practice, no one could manage even a single reduction.  But, no, I believe the situation was worse than that: the logical positivists were never able to produce even a workable definition of 'sense data'.  That hope of the Positivists represented the high water mark of materialism and analysis.  The Artificial Intelligencers are the last bastion of 'Positivism', but they are no longer willing to engage in philosophical discussion.  Daniel Dennett is their most articulate spokesperson, and even he admits that his essays are polemical and evangelical rather than philosophical.  

Could any atomic theory of meaning make sense?  What would be the minimum number of atoms required to produce a reasonable combinatorics of meaning?  A very conservative estimate might be a hundred or so.  What then are we to make of those hundred irreducible meanings?  From whence did they come?  Should they not have universal significance, as is alleged for the elements of math and logic?  They could be likened to a finite set of prime numbers, for instance.  The ontogeny of the atoms of meaning would present a metaphysical problem of the highest degree, but let us set that aside and look at another problem. 

Given our hypothetical atoms of meaning, we still have the problem of context dependency.  Even if the atoms themselves were context independent, this would be no guarantee that the 'molecules' of meaning would also be independent.  At some level we will have to confront the Text.  But can a text have a meaning, per se, given our assumption of atomicity?  Texts should be epiphenomenal.  The text serves no mental function beyond that of its constituent atoms. Does this make sense? 

A text is a string of words.  The sequence of the words will surely influence the meaning of the text.  Where then is the meaning if not in the sequence?  Different sequences of words signify different things. Consider the genetic sequences of DNA molecules.  One sequence produces a chimp, another, slightly different one, produces a champ.  Our reductionist will then argue that chimpness and champhood have no significance beyond that of their constituent atoms.  But that is missing the point about the function of the DNA.  A random sequence of DNA will produce nothing at all.  This is nonsense DNA.  Even the village reductionist cannot claim that nothing is the same as something.  

What I am aiming at here is the so-called 'frame problem'.  DNA remains functionless or inert without a proper biological context or frame.  The same is true of language.  Language requires native speakers.  Native speakers require a culture.  The psychological or social function of a given text will depend on the culture in which it is used.  The problems of translation can be enormous, and there can be no such thing as an exact translation.  

No theoretical limits may be placed on the possible scope of the frame.  The more you know about the world, the more meaning you may be able to glean from or read into a text.  There is no reason that an astute reader cannot perceive social subtleties unintended by the author.  Authors are serving as cultural mediums as well as creators.  

Textual considerations demonstrate that subtle shifts in meaning are endemic to any text.  If that is true, our hypothetical atomic theory of meaning is simply not tenable.  Whatever the ontology of meaning, it is not atomic.  The only alternative is something organic.  Now we begin to see why we have been so reluctant to give up on reductionism, despite its excruciating shortcomings.  The devil we know is better than the one we don't.  Better to have no meaning than organic meaning.  

This is just what I warned you about: an 'all or nothing' problem with meaning.  But there is lurking here a much bigger problem: the all or nothing problem of organicism. 

It appears that semantics, among all our fields of knowledge, is the one most obviously susceptible to an organic interpretation.  It is the Achilles heel of epistemology relative to organicism.  But once that organism gets its foot in the semantic door, how will we keep it out of all the other doors?  Reductionism is looking more attractive all the time.  Well, lots of luck to us!  I have spoken of the crumbling of the foundations of the fortress of materialism, but perhaps that is the wrong analogy.  Perhaps those foundations are being eaten away.  It was bad enough when we discovered ourselves to be space-farers stranded on a desert island.  What will we do if  our little island begins to twitch? 

But, wait, we are only talking about epistemology, right?  So what if our brains are organic?  What else is new?  Well, sorry, it's not quite that simple.  A major tenet of reductionism was just the epistemic/ontic divide.  Without its reductionist support, that divide becomes ever so tenuous.  

If semantics is organic rather than syntactic or analytic, then our erstwhile computer will not be able to compute it.  Something substantial will have to be added to the machine.  That something must itself be organic.  Now we are talking about the ontology of the computer.  The distinction between natural and artificial intelligence is then an ontic distinction.  There is no longer a need or motivation to distinguish between the ontic and epistemic aspects of the organism that must exist as the ground of being.  At best, this organism would have various microcosmic aspects. 

We have long suspected that there was something more to life and mind than atoms swerving in  the dark.  This suspicion is the basis of our vitalistic, anti-reductive musings over the centuries.  That vital something is finally coming home to us.  Not, in the end, because we were out searching for it, but rather because we simply had to give up the constant battle of trying to avoid and ignore it. 

What then is this subtle thing that has been living with us, presumably since day one?  From whence did it come?  But are we not thereby asking, from whence do we come?  Where is Darwin when we need him?  Can't we just say that this organic quality evolved along with life itself? 

The point is that Darwinian evolution is just genetic evolution.  Clearly we cannot ascribe genes to organicism.  By definition it is something extra-genetic.  It would then, in fact, be a precondition for evolution.  The biggest puzzle of evolution is just the origin of the cellular-genetic processes.  This has been considered a prime motivation for vitalism.  Whatever this vital potency is, if it is anything at all, it is the source of life and mind.  

We have, at the least, an eternal vital potency that is both biological and mental in scope. This sounds like our hypothesized Matrix.  It ought to, because that is just what the Matrix was supposed to be.  But what then of the dialectic and the archetypes?  Here is where the metaphysics begins to get interesting. 

Did all of this potency sit idly by just waiting on the off-chance of a Big Bang so that it could then begin to impregnate the otherwise inert matter?  But is there not a blatant Cartesian bias to this question?  Why posit this dichotomy in juxtaposition to that which is inherently organic?  If anything is likely to be all or nothing, would that not especially apply to organicism itself.  What is the sense of a cosmos that is half organic? 

The Big Bang is the epitome of something inorganic.  It is certainly the contingency to end all contingencies.  The organically potent Matrix is the mother of all teleologies.  If ever there were oil and water, this has got to be it.  

This is the big metaphysical crunch.  We have been trying to make sense of Cartesian dualism for over three centuries, and look where it has gotten us?  Mainly it has brought us to this dead end of materialism.  If we wish to move forward, nay, start thinking again, we will have to choose the other branch of that fork.  Immaterialism, here we come.  You are welcome to keep your head stuck in the materialists' sand box.  That is just the 'slumber of materialism'.  Otherwise, let's wake up and smell the organic cosmic coffee.  Yes, to wake up, that is my final 'all or nothing' offer.  Refuse it if you can! 

---------------------------------------

So there we are.  We have our immaterial organic potency, our Matrix.  Then what?  Perhaps now there must logically come the single biggest step in our gestalt switch.  We must begin to focus fully on the Matrix.  We have to put dualism behind us.  We cannot do that without bracketing space, time and matter, and unless you completely missed out on modernism, it would be impossible to imagine a more severe blow to our metaphysical orientation. Are we not simply turning our backs on three centuries of science?  Yes and no.  

[1/17] 

There are several ways to proceed at this point.  Several major issues present themselves.  But, perhaps, first I need to back up a step.  We could use more justification and preparation for the big leap.  A bit later I will be attempting to justify the move from Matrix to Creatrix.  I don't think this will be terribly difficult, so permit me please to bring on that big gun.  Heck, let's go all the way and just postulate an omnipotent creator wishing to create the best possible world, and assume further that we can reason effectively about what might be the basic form of the BPW. 

The simple point I then wish to make is that the BPW would not be created by means of a Big Bang.  The Big Bang has features that would eliminate it as a candidate for the best possible creation.  However, and here is the real twist, those same features, along with some others, make the Big Bang a prime candidate for the best possible phenomenological background for the BPW.  With a little help from God, we can have our ontological BPW cake, along with the phenomenological icing of the 'Big Bang', and that this combination, if it were possible, would, indeed, be the best of all worlds. 

With the Creatrix in the picture, we can remake the ontology without disturbing the phenomenology, giving us creatures the best deal possible.  What is being offered to us is our 'dream' world, in both senses of the word.  This is, finally, the very simple point I am trying to make: the obvious, and perhaps only, way to create a 'dream' world is to just dream it up, if possible.  Like I say, metaphysics does not have to be 'rocket science'. 

So here is our problem now: what would our 'dream' world, i.e. our BPW, be; and would it not be possible, or perhaps even preferable, to create this world by means of dream power? 

Consider the last part of the question first.  If we wish to entertain the notion of co-creation and of a 'participatory universe', then using 'dream power' is virtually obligatory.  Here is another way to look at it.  Materialism tells us that we live in a dumb universe.  It came about, more or less, as the result of an accidental collision of dumb atoms.  Of course, if there are enough of these dumb universes being created all the time, then every once in while there might be one with the appearance of a masterpiece, like the proverbial monkey typing a Shakespearian sonnet.  If God were lazy, you would think she would use the 'monkey method' of creation.  

OK, here is the big secret, and don't tell anyone I told you: God IS lazy, but she is smart lazy.  Instead of using just the monkey method, she also uses the people method of creation.  Remember, we are the smart monkeys.  

Evidently, consumers are willing, these days, to pay more for a 'smart house' than for a dumb house.  God is just a little ahead of this curve.  She figured she would go ahead and create a smart universe.  However, to cut down on the costs and the work load, rather than relying on just one central processing unit, i.e. herself, she would use the very latest in computer technology, i.e. distributed/parallel processing, but she calls it 'creature power'. 

---------------------------

If bootstrapping is illegal, then that is too bad, but if not, then it would be pretty dumb for the Creatrix not to exploit it in Creation.  That we creatures would be the primary participants in any such bootstrap, ought to be a given.  But if this were the case, why aren't we aware of it?  Well, I believe it was Freud who first pointed out that there must be a great deal more going on under our bonnets than we could ever know.  Bootstrapping could well be one of those things.  But then why have we been kept out of the loop on this?  Maybe the Creatrix just wanted to surprise us.  Surprise! 

There are many skills we have which are performed better when we don't stop to think about how we do them.  This is probably one of those. However, to live is to learn.  To fully realize our function of co-creation, we will need, eventually, to give it our full attention, but this is a tricky business.  Think of the poor fellow who goes sleep walking out on the window ledge.  You're gonna have to wake the guy up, but you had better do it very carefully.  This pretty much explains the surprisingly (for many) subdued orchestration of the X2-event.  If Gabriel blows his horn too loudly, we might just fall off of our cosmic perch.  So, is my horn-blowing not loud enough?  Call 1-800-GET-THE-WAX-OUT! 

But why didn't the Creatrix even bother to give me the time of day?  It's all part of the Prime Directive.  If you disagree, then prove that it isn't. 

Yes, we are all part of the big Dream Machine in the sky.  The universe is just our folie a 10^10.  It must be a heck of job keeping 10^10 sleeping musicians on score.  How does she ever manage?  Hmmmm, let me get back to you on that one.  But if you think it's difficult now, just wait 'til they start waking up! 

[1/19] 

I think I'm supposed to explain how the dream machine works.  This is embarrassing because I don't know.  My job is to speculate, to make educated guesses.  So here we go. 

There are two things that need to be explained: substance and space.  If this is a dream that we are having, how does it manage to seem so substantial, so consistent, so realistic, so participatory?  We pretty much all agree on the nature of the phenomenon.  What is up for grabs is the noumenon.  The materialist says it is matter, the immaterialist says it is spirit that is supporting the phenomenal world. The dualist says that it is both.  

What is substance?  This is a trick question.  No, the answer is the trick.  Here is the issue: is substance something that is present or absent?  The materialist claims that substance is present.  I suggest it is absent.  The materialist claims that substance is just what is present(ed) to the senses.  No, I say.  Substance is present to our 'memory', or more specifically to our collective unconscious.  The infant has no conception of substance.  The mother's breast may be the first experience or conception of substance.  

The concept of substance is tied up in our memories, habits and concept of time.  It is something logically derivative, it is not yet immediate.  But then is substance in the past or the future?  The materialist would say that substance is mainly in the past, I say future.  Substance is that to which we awake.  Substance now is a shadow of that telic substance. 

I fall back in to poesy?  No, I fall forward.  The ultimate, teleological consistency, substantiality of the world is just poetic.  Our collective, telic unconscious is what drives the world forward.  That falling is normally just the task of the poet and musician.  Here you see me attempting to routinize, systematize the poetic charism. 

The materialist has, in fact, lost contact with substance.  Matter and substance are no longer to be found in the texts of physics.  What has replaced them?  Quite candidly, it is the Monster Group.  A Platonic conception of mathematics is the closest that physicists can now come to our traditional concept of substance.  

These few words may serve just to temporarily bracket the problem of matter and substance.  In the meantime we turn to space.  Matter is nothing without space.  Space is just an organized nothing.  Organized by what?  By matter?  Do we not then have a vicious, or is it a logically vacuous, circle?  

A time slice of the phenomenal world is presented to us optically in three dimensions.  To explain its optical properties, physicists perform ray tracing; that is, they trace the rectilinear paths of photons.  Well, if we can have substance without atoms, can we have vision without photons?   And which will be more difficult to rationalize? 

Space may be the greatest obstacle to immaterialism.  The reason is not because of the coherence of space, but precisely because of its incoherence.  Space is substantial because we cannot manipulate it.  We cannot manipulate it because we cannot understand it.  We cannot understand it because of its logical vacuity.  Am I making myself clear?  Space is logically vacuous because it is alleged to be elemental.  Einstein's General Theory of relativity went some ways toward reducing the substantiality of space by reducing its elementality, by increasing its relationality. 

[1/20] 

Permit me to back up a step and try a different approach to the problem of space.  Let us start with meaning and vision.  Meaning derives from narrative which entails a temporal sequence of causes and effects.  Vision entails a two-dimensional visual field.  Meaning and vision then require at least a two-dimensional dynamics and perhaps even a rudimentary physics.  But would this tell us anything about how space comes about? 

My thought is that in a teleological system there is no clear distinction between why and how.  This is an issue that we now take up. 

In a dream environment, the only limit on intent should be logical and narrational consistency.  Any further limitations would have to do with optimizing and coordinating that environment.  Virtually all dreams have a strong visual content.  However, the psychodynamics that we label as zodiacal would be one of the most primitive of dream sequences.  Cycles would predominate.  Direct perception of essences could predominate over any visual content.  Nothing spatial or celestial is entailed in the first instance. 

[1/21] 

The trick that we seem to accomplish is to have both direct and indirect perception without undue interference.  What is the advantage of this?  What does spatial or representational perception buy us over direct perception?  I would guess that spatial configurations provide combinatorial diversity, not otherwise possible.  Without spatial relations and the perception of those distinctions, Leibniz' Identity of Indistinguishables would severely limit our possibilities. 

If in the process of Creation it is deemed desirable to partition the cosmic self into some 10^10 entities, then spatial relations become a bare necessity.  Thus do we magnify the creative possibilities with minimal interference or contrivance.  

What we get with spatial relations is a parallel processing relative to the cosmic narrative.  At least we have a loom in time rather than just a single strand.  If our two-and-half dimensional mundane existence is good, why not go for more dimensions?  Somewhere I heard it argued that four dimensional topology presented some possibly insurmountable metabolic problems (e.g. difficulty of containment?).  3-D may be biologically optimal.  Someone should look into that.  

Where there's a will, there's a way.  Let us not underestimate the cosmic will.  But what exactly is the way to space?  How does the Matrix see her way into space?  The endlessly cyclical zodiacal narrative may just bore her to death.  She lets her potent imagination get off on the combinatorial possibilities, and voila!  The metabolic cycles pick up on Z, and kick into action.  Evidently, space is eminently imaginable and dreamable. 

Space and time are a major source of possibility.  Matricial potency is ramified thereby.  Without time, there is no narrational drama, merely aesthetics.  Even the notion of sequence fails without any dimension.  Could there be non-dimensional patterns?  Cosmos is akin to ornament in Greek.  Dimensional arbitrariness seems essential to the ornamental essence.  Dimensionality would also be essential to freedom.  It is hard to imagine a creation without the allowance of this aesthetic freedom, despite or because of the exigencies of the BPW hypothesis.  At this low level of understanding it is not even possible to determine if spatial relations should be deemed internal or external.  Temporal relations would be most likely to be internal.  We suspect that the answer to this and many other questions will be determined by considering how to enhance the creative bootstrap process.  Its space-time structure also enhances the participatory nature of Creation.  Aesthetic freedom is readily passed on to the creatures of such a manifold. 

Each creature is ensured its own spatial sensorium.  The greater problem may be to keep all the sensoria in alignment, without resorting to the physical objectivity of a single manifold.  It may be that the zodiac plays a role in the alignment.  The global nature of the celestial phenomenon makes it an ideal synchronizing agent.  The global megalithic culture was very much attuned to this phenomenon, in what appears to have been a closely coordinated fashion.  Materialists use matter to align the sensoria; we use the sky.  It is ironic that the material atoms must then be 'aligned' by the sensings of the creatures, according to quantum theory, at least.   

Our problem is to explain the 'heavenly' translation of the zodiac from cosmic psyche to starry sky.  It is not entirely unanticipated that the collective psyche should find itself projected upon the heavens.  Students of the mythos have noted the universality of the translation between sky and spirit.  Each of the archetypes has its work cut out for it, but it must also flow along with the phenomenon that it is organizing.  The more that the organizing intelligence can be distributed, the more plausible is the model; the more natural will it appear.  The zodiac may turn out to be the hardest working of the archetypes.  It will require some attention.  When it comes down to displacing matter, the zodiac may have to carry most of the water, Aquarian style.  It would be helpful if the task could be subdivided, but that may not be possible.  

[1/22] 

Materialists appeal to the alleged objectivity of the atoms to explain the objectivity of the world.  Objectivity projects upward in scale.  The higher level forms and patterns are more subjective, lacking as they are in any essential identity. 

For immaterialists the objectivity of the world projects downward.  This downward projection is facilitated by the microcosmic identity of the creatures.  We could also call this the zoocosm.  It here that the zodiac comes into play.  The zodiac is the original pantheon emanating from the Matrix.  It exists originally in ouroboric fashion, being the primordial psychic cycle.  The christos element comes to dominate this cycle, partly by preempting, in alpha-omega fashion, the narrative that generates all meaning and history.  The christos becomes the organizing principle of the zodiac. 

But then we have the ouroboric zodiac projected downward to the gaian zoocosm and outward to ouranos in a prototypical earth-sky duality.   Actually the zodiac becomes a quaternity: earth & sky, alpha & omega.  I certainly see a reflection here of the traditional four elements of earth, air, fire and water.  This identification is underscored by the tradition that identifies the beginning of the world in water and its ending in fire.  Like I say, the zodiac will have to work overtime.  We do need a rationalization of this subdivision.  In this scheme the quintessence is then the christos. 

The zodiac starts out as a (dialectical) mind game of the matrix.  It then projects itself out to cosmic proportions in a process of continuing symmetry breaking.  This sequence is even reminiscent of the big bang.  Here is the present sequence: M -> M, D, Z -> A, O, (X), Earth, Sky -> AZ'O/X/QRP.  This is still a very sketchy sequence, but it is better than nothing.  Keep in mind that this is much more of a logical sequence than a temporal sequence.  The linear time dimension grows out of the A/O asymmetry.  The time frame for the zodiacal precession of the equinoxes (25,000 yr, see Hamlet's Mill for the mythic origins) is of the same order as that of the Creation.  Also note the distinction now between the primal (psychic) and residual (celestial) zodiacs: Z/Z'. 

Here's just a thought: the psychology of Z gradually develops into an ecology.  The psychic cycle is replaced by a reproductive and predator-prey cycle.  What are the 'evolutionary' steps in this process?  The reproductive part will be the toughest to rationalize, that is why there is an archetype just for this.  

[1/23] 

In the attempt to rationalize Creation, Z is turning out to be the key element.  I had not originally anticipated that Z would portend the Earth/Sky duality, but that now seems to be the most natural way to proceed.  It is noteworthy that this step has been anticipated by significant versions of the Mythos.  For now, the Earthly side of the duality is my focus.  The principle obstacle is the transition from Z to R.  We'll know we're in Kansas when we can make this transformation.  Reproduction or bust!  This is the buckle of the bootstrap. 

The metabolic/reproduction cycle, R, is the most 'materialistic' of the archetypes.  This is our biggest hump, so to speak.  The ouroboric symbol itself has a strongly metabolic connotation.  (In this connection, note also the yin-yang symbol.)  It is alimental as well as elemental, but I don't see how to incorporate that into a narrative. 

With these caveats out of the way I can only give it my best shot.  The reproductive cycle is a microcosm of our singular cosmic circuit, with the reversal of the head and tail that form our 'buckle'.  Now the Telos or Omega becomes the head while the Alpha is the tail.  The eschatological resurrection is the final cause of the Creation.  Thereby the cosmos becomes self-consuming.  The self-sacrificing God comes into her own, so to speak.  There are no loose ends.  The microcosmic seedlings are taken back up into the cosmos.  As for the mechanics of this spiritual metabolism, I'm drawing a blank; but any good narrative ought to provide spiritual sustenance.  Our microcosm would be incomplete if we did not act out and reenact the cosmic circuit.  Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny in more ways than one.  Neoteny anticipates evolution.  Perhaps this is where the zoocosmic nature of the zodiac is more relevant than its more usual pantheonic, or purely anthropic interpretations.  Can we thereby save our Darwinian appearances?  Don't ya think?  With this rationale we do not have to explain away some arbitrary first appearance of R.  It is latent in the essence of almost everything, as is Creation itself.  

So much for the Earth, how about the Sky? 

[1/24] 

Given a 3-dimensional space and a zoocosm, the benefits of differentiating between horizontal and vertical dimensions should not be difficult to either conceive or implement, nor would the idea of a spherical Earth.  A remote, evenly distributed metabolic energy source should easily follow suit.  The starry version of the zodiac then becomes almost an afterthought.  Having done so much work already, the zodiac is seemingly relegated to its happy hunting ground, while helpfully providing chronometric orientation to any wayfaring species.  It is, however, our fascination with the heavens that finally empowers us to conquer the atom, transforming the Earth into our terrarium along the way.  Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the starry zodiac empowers us to empower the atom.  

The effort now is to see how the individual archetypes can emerge and function in bootstrap fashion.  This should go a long way toward establishing the plausibility of the BPW.  In this instance, atomic physics is brought about by the refocusing of Z after its branching out.  The atom is the ultimate microcosmic reflection of Z.  It sits at the confluence of Q, R & P.  Q and P have yet to be brought back into this narrative.  Originally in these pages the Sun and Atom were both primary archetypes, but later they were given a derivative status. 

I submit that Pi 'dropped' out of the sky.  This is not hard to explain historically.  Q is another matter.  It is Q that gives Pi its mundane purchase.  Q is the tricky one.  It may be allied with R and is the manifestation of panpsychism.  It has a bootstrap quality that may be related to the ouroboric Z.  Q, along with R, is the buckle of the cosmic bootstrap.  The plethora of metabolic cycles are the primary instruments of quantum measurement.  Animal consciousness might be viewed as simply an elaboration on this basic theme.  

From the Anthropic perspective, Q is practically a no-brainer.  It provides for the stability of the micro-world.  It accounts for photosynthesis, vision and thermal radiation, among many other functions.  But here again we are missing a narrative link to the other archetypes.  

Quantum related symmetries provide for micro-level cloning.  Thus its relation to R in providing the combinatorics allowed by spatial symmetry.  It must also be involved in the organics of mathematics, as part of the anthropic loop implied thereby.  In its relation to time it might possibly be sympathic with the A/O gap in the zodiacal circuit. 

[1/25] 

I am still trying to break the impasse over Q.  Perhaps we can resort to the trinity (1, 2, etc), i.e. MDX or e^i*pi.  The latter threesome suggest that Q should be identified with the imaginary unit and then, possibly, with the dialectic.  None of these three (Q, i or D) make a solid archetype.  Perhaps we can let Q represent the trio, among its more solid cousins.  The combination (Q, i, D or Quid) might help us gain insight into each member.  There is still the option of dropping Q from the seven primary archetypes.  The Quid are bridging elements.  They help provide for the relational character of the world, along with M.  Such considerations ought to provide additional understanding of the function of the quantum.  

[1/26] 

Another facet of the Quid is projection.  Quantum operators project probability functions into definite observable states.  Such projection may underlie the emergence of Z from M.  In this case there would be mutual observation and projection.  In some fashion, a conscious specificity is wrested from the unconscious potentiality.  A Quid for your thoughts. 

The necessary mutuality of the primal emergence maintains a cosmic dialectical balance as seen in the yin-yang dynamic.  However, the prophetic tradition does look forward to a constructive, teleological synthesis of Creator and Creation, Heaven and Earth.  

Yes, there must be a teleological character to the Quid bootstrap.  As it helps Z to emerge from M, so does it help R to emerge from the ouroboric structure of Z, and mainly from R we get the materiality of the world.  

It is occurring to me just now that the Quid may also be responsible for the singularity of Creation.  Consider Richard Feynman's quantum summation over histories formalism.  In this case the sub-optimal paths destructively interfere leaving the one path of least action.  This would be our BPW.  It is the path of least resistance, given the primal Quid impulse.  And there can only be one such BPW, just by Leibniz' Identity of Indiscernibles.  Can we not play it again, Sam?  Really there is no need.  The Telos is just a universal Presence.  Where there is no absence, there is nothing left to be repeated.  It's all right there. 

And now there is a bit of snow to be shoveled. 

Evidently the Quid is involved in the symmetry breaking of M.  In that role it is acting as the precursor of the Logos (1, 2, etc).  But we also have the Johannine equation of X = L, thus we may have to append Quid as QuidX [but see below].  This is just to emphasize the relational nature of the archetypes, AZO/X/QRP, following from MDZ.  QuidX is also involved in the A/O symmetry breaking of Z.  In the BPW metanarrative it may be that the Logos has more to do with X2 than X1, but that is a technical detail.  Both X and the third person, HG, serve as intermediaries between heaven and earth.  This is another indication of the centrality of X.  

[1/28] 

Pi has also been related to the logos, symmetry breaking and X.  This polyvalence of the archetypes is neither unexpected nor dysfunctional.  This is how a relational world is supposed to work.  It does not imply redundancy.  Strictly speaking, M, D & Q are not archetypes.  They are, however, essential to the bootstrap.  Q also stands in for the atom.  Perhaps the Logos as distinct from X should be given a formal status.  Also note that X and Z are interchangeable in the trinity of MDX/Z.   Z may emerge logically prior to X.  X emerges as the self-organizer of Z, for the sake of Creation.  Pi appears in the numerical trinity of e^i*pi, playing the role of the logos.  

Four days ago I claimed it would be easy to see how Pi 'dropped' out of the sky, but I am not recalling the point of the allusion.  OK, I believe that I was alluding to the chronometric power of the zodiac in particular and of the sky in general.  It was astronomy on which we cut our mathematical teeth.  The subsequent discovery of the e^i*pi trinity led the way to quantum physics and the taming of the atom.  This was virtually the second incarnation of the logos as manifested in Pi.  As such it would portend the X2-event that we are struggling to anticipate here.  

The dialectic symmetry breaking of the zodiacal circle gives us the ouroboros and the ellipse.  History is the result of the former, and I am tempted to say that anthropics is the result of the latter.  That is less than obvious.  Elliptic functions are the primary manifestation of the organicity of mathematics, which is a major factor in the anthropic telos via the physical symmetries of the Monster Group.  Of course, there would be no history without anthropics, and vice-versa.  Perhaps we are seeing the same breaking process from two different perspectives.  There is just one dialectic operation, logos, zim-zum, syzygy, which would help to keep the panpsychism coordinated as in a psyche.  The logos is always a dia-logos.  Speaking of the zodiac, the number twelve figures prominently in the 'Monstrous Moonshine' that is part of the above organicity. 

[1/29] 

Symmetry breaking:  I'm attempting to get a more coherent take on this topic.  I'm also interested in this related statement.  We have made some progress in deriving QRP from AZO, and AZO from M via D and L or symmetry breaking.  D & L have to do with the mark of distinction.  In physics, symmetry breaking is always spontaneous.  Not so, here.  Here it is always teleological, which is also true of D & L.  T(elos) is self-realizing.  Perhaps T & L are about the same, now that I think about it.  DLT is another trio.  These are three aspects of the self.  Our non-spontaneous SyBr makes this trio a foursome: DLTS.  Then we have the Syzygys to worry about.  To what may they be ascribed?  Here is some previous speculation.  

The mother of all syzygys is the total solar eclipse.  This is the most impressive of all celestial phenomena.  It has certainly shaped human culture.  Its related numerical coincidences were at the core of our ancient mathematical gnosis.  There is a gender specificity on several levels of the phenomenon, providing an added semantic charge.  The lunar shadow constituted a veritable stairway to heaven.  Outside of anthropics, it is one of the strongest pieces of evidence against the accidental nature of the world.  It is a calling card of the Creator.  

[1/30] 

The next most prominent syzygy is e^i*pi = -1.  This has a 3+1 structure similar to that of the eclipse and of the trinity, MDX, when we include ourselves as the targeted element.  Otherwise we have various types of coincidences, synchronicities and synergies to consider.  Coincidences may be accidental or not.  If not, they indicate an observer oriented and participatory bias in the structure of the world and the events that comprise it.  In some cases we confront a possible non-causal semantic linkage between events.  This could be the manifestation of an organic or holographic metaphysic.  Such a structure is presumed in the postulation of a primordial Matrix, which in turn is a presupposition of immaterialism and the BPW hypothesis.  In other words, the coincidences are the residue of the symmetry that preceded the dialectical breaking of it, and are the portent of a Telic synthesis.  They both shadow and foreshadow the soon to be completed dialectical process that we call Creation/Resurrection. 

The upshot is that we must add the syzygy/synergy to DLTS combination: now DLTSS.  This is the third or middle element of our MDX or MDZ trinity.  It is the engine of creation.  But could this be other than the force or potency of love?  Cosmic love + $3.75 will get you the proverbial cup of coffee in Times Square.  Then what?  The fact that we often identify X with O, T & L keeps our archetypal pot well stirred.  

[1/31]

The logos operates as a symmetry breaker, very often; while the telos, as the omega, is the mother of synchronicities.  Then recall that the dialectic, as a participatory dia-logos, combines L & T, sym/brk & synthesis, thus we may simplify DLTSS as D^3.  Recall that this same dia-logos may have the empathic quality of love, or, at least, agape, to restate yesterday's result.  As we identify O and T, we may also identify the Alpha with the logos, and then, following John, the christos with both pairs, and, so with the dia-logos [see below].  X then would be self-generating wrt M.  This would make both Z & X primordial, one circular, the other lineal, with the ratio of pi.  The cycle is something quite natural.  The line is less so.  Their ratio is also the logos, dividing the cycle.  Distorting the cycle is the function of the dia-logos, producing the ellipse.  This act puts us on the anthropic track via the Monster Group.  Recall the Quid.  It completes the microcosmic bootstrap.  Its projective quality places it in the lineal column.  It is the panpsychic version of the logos.  The microcosm is the atom and the psyche, the two being logically related.  Does this mean there cannot be an immaterial psyche?  Both X & Z must live off of borrowed time.  That need not render them mortal, but it does render time as virtual.  Lineal history is not optional in the big scheme.  The circuit collapses without a dia-meter.  (I think of the virtual 'tadpole' Feynman dia-gram, remind me.  The photon is lineal, like time but without time, while the electron/positron pair is excursive.)  I'm hoping we are on the verge of completing the outline of the metanarrative.  There are still some missing links, but the general form is taking shape.  The cosmos is often depicted as a doubly or axially connected sphere.  Shades of hollow earth!  [This structure will have to be related to that of the ouroboros.]  In e^i*pi, the imaginary iota serves as the dialogic element.  Along with the logos or pi, it tames the ex-potential matrix.  In math, the iota serves both an analytic and synthetic function.  

[2/1] 

The possibility that Z & X are coeval is a new thought for me.  It would be a major factor of the metanarrative.  It might help to explain the coevalilty of East & West.  Factored into the equation may be a 'stealth' aspect associated with X, going back to the notion of the self-concealment of the less natural one of this pair.  The mystical tradition is naturally diffuse, while the prophetic side is focused around a lineal succession, which is also the central story line of the narrative.  We return to the problem of prophetic stinginess.  

We see in the history of polytheism the example of the circle collapsing without a structural diameter.  This collapse is instructive mainly in its naturalness.  The dia-meter comes about as an alignment of the dia-logos.  The axial alignment of the dia-logos results in the polar structure referred to yesterday.  It may also be viewed as the head/tail symmetry breaking in the context of the ouroboros.  

The ouroboros is obviously a case of dog eat dog, or god eat god to be more precise.  There is much confusion about the nature of the sacrificial incarnation within the prophetic tradition, particularly between the orthodox and gnostic views.  Many lives went up in smoke as a result.  It all comes down to who ate whose lunch.  In fact, the son ate the dad's lunch, despite the immediate appearance.  Two of the pantheonic Z had to work out this deal, rather ignoring the rest, although there could have been a general conspiracy, the mother of all such.  [2/4 - Please recall the juxtaposition of X/Y.  Contra John, we may have to identify Yahweh with the logos.  If anything, the christos would have just the last word, which is love.  Yahweh is the mono-logos, Jesus is the dia-logos.  Y disrupts the Z circuit in favor of X.]  This is certainly a case of the telos wagging the dog.  The rest of the pantheon may readily be excused for ignoring this shenanigans.  It would all work out in the end.  But this does seem to make X the derivative of Z.  Is there a less biased way of spinning this yarn?  

There may have always been a favored son of a matrix, as the partner of a primal dia-logos, but I'm not seeing the necessity.  Does it have to be a single-self matrix?  Can we invoke Leibniz' I/I?  There must be a mythos relative to this problem.  

[2/3] 

Most of what I said yesterday was unnecessary.  The simple fact is that the matrix is nothing if not the mother of creation.  The genius of creation is simply its optimizing, teleological agent.  This is not the patriarchal Creator of our fathers.  That is the source all our confusion.  It is our telos/christos that wags that old dog, and us.  The telos necessarily operates though us creatures in participatory style.  The participation is logically realized in an eschatological resurrection.  This is just the bootstrap model of creation.  The X1-event was an attempt to explain the bootstrap to a somewhat inept audience.  It was never intended to be the final explanation.  It was mainly a pump priming exercise: the first fruit of the resurrection, and all that.  The final explanation is left for X2.  That the messianic kingdom was within us, this message did register, in no uncertain terms, but it registered mainly at the emotion level.  All we do now is rationalize that message.  That is our X2. 

The pantheists picked up on the notion of the God within.  This idea was also the mother of all gnostic 'heresy'.  Why have we been so slow to demystify that simple concept?  Concealment and revelation are just as participatory as the rest of the world.  It is only we who have concealed ourselves from ourselves.  Our learning curve has been slow, and not always steady.  We do, however, necessarily reach a threshold of readiness, when everything goes public.  The social dynamics will not be unlike the first time, but the communication factor is several orders of magnitude greater.  This is on account of the technology, but that is only the lesser part of it.  The greater part is the intellectual content and our greater ability now to absorb it.  Our training in scientific thinking over the last few centuries has much to do with our present state of preparation.  All we have to do is turn that analytic obsession on its head, and that will be our synthesis.  It may be easier said than done, but not by a whole lot.  This time around, it will be all or nothing: no child left behind.  

But is this X2 event not supposed to be of a minimalist sort?  Is the prospective socio-political drama either necessary or desirable?  In the first instance, I would say that it is technologically unavoidable, just from a communication perspective.  It has to be an all or nothing event.  But then won't there be disruptive consequences?  The idea here is to minimize these disruptions by emphasizing the rational aspect of this new gnosis.  This time around, the head will be leading the heart.  The heart will catch up soon enough, but not so soon as to aggravate any disruption.  Provided that the disruptions can be minimized, then any good story will benefit from its dramatic episodes.  The metanarrative should be no exception.  We are destined to live in interesting times.  

[2/4] 

Each time we go around the horn, there do seem to be fewer loose ends.  Yes, for every answer, there are ten new questions, but these questions may be seen as subsidiary.  The larger pattern becomes more solid.  This is not to say there can be no more quakes in this cosmic scheme, but hopefully the scheme is sufficiently robust to withstand the damage.  

What concerns me now is nothing less intractable than the genesis of genesis, or, in particular, the genesis of the logos.   Down here it arrives with Abraham via Yahweh.  In the BPW scheme, the logos serves as Alpha or the anchor of Creation.  

I am taking the zodiacal pantheonic circuit, Z, as mainly internal to the matrix, and not involving the logos initially.  The logos is the symmetry breaker of Z, occurring as either Y/X or A/O.  Creation is acting as an appendage to the matrix, as if that were possible. 

The radial symmetry of Z may be broken in elliptic fashion.  This would be less disruptive than a circumferential break, and corresponds to the 'hollow earth' model.  The logos then evolves via the syzygys of Pi.  Admittedly, it is a long way from Pi to the Ten Commandments, but it is not inconceivable.  A related issue is the origin of the Dialectic associated more with the christos.  With ellipsis, the logos and dia-logos would come in tandem.  Somewhere along the line we also have to come up with atom/Adam, speaking of anchors.  

Previously we have spoken of Quid as being instrumental here, as the precursor of the logos, along with e^i*pi.  But I have to ask if there can be a logos without a self.  I'm thinking that the primal Z precedes the self, which is more associated with X.  Nor may Pi precede the self.  However, is not the dia-logos coeval with X, even to the point of being subsumed thereby?  The primordial I/Thou is X/M.  This is also the dia-logos which then entrains the Y out of the Z.  Yes, the X does have to also belong to the Z.  The primal trinity of MDX, is also a triangle of MXY.  

Where then do we place the Quid?  This will be associated with atom/Adam.  The ouroboric Z and R are instrumental.  Adam is the material guy.  The Zoocosm, Z, converges on Adam, along with the metabolic atom.  The Z becomes stretched out into human and natural history, as logically distinct and parallel elements within a single ecological/metabolic context.  It is paleontology that is distinguished from archeology.  

I would observe that if the ouroboric cycle is broken and stretched out it becomes a gestational cycle.  The phylogenic version of the zodiac could then be applied to an ontogenetic cycle.  As this is happening, other metabolic systems are entrained in coherent fashion.  Ontogeny is a microcosm of cosmogony.  What else would we expect?  In cosmogony the logos plays the role of the DNA, yielding mathematical physics, for example.  Admittedly it is not easy to conceive the transitional stages.  Logical continuity in the 'evolution' of the archetypes is a big step toward naturalizing Creation, at least in the sense of rendering it coherent.  That is also to make it plausible.  

[2/5] 

A natural impulse that is not helpful here is our impulse to inquire after the first instance of something, by way of explanation.  This makes sense only when dealing with what Aristotle called 'efficient' causes.  Only in such a regime does the origin explain the succession, as with the Big Bang or with the six days of Creation.  The regime of the BPW is fundamentally teleological: it is the end that accounts for the means.  In this case, 'end' is to be taken in its most general sense, not just as 'ending', although the eschaton may be expected to carry much of the teleological burden.  The term Telos is meant to indicate the general sense of 'end'.   I am suggesting that atoms and babies can sneak up on us unannounced.  Their presence is felt well beyond the confines of history.  They are integral to the dia-logos.  We see this in the parturition of X.  This is both an efficient and final process.  Much of atomism is inherent in many fundamental phenomenologies.  Genetic coding and photosynthesis are among the most basic of these. 

[2/6] 

It is eminently logical that a combinatorial diversity in the macrocosm should be supported by a cellular and molecular combinatorics.  The habituation of biological cycles will serve to fix the molecular cycles.  Biochemistry and biophysics, more or less as we know them, is the only possible outcome.  The habituation process should be seen a logical rather than temporal.  Linear time is just the result of breaking the cyclical symmetry.  Time is the result of breaking the cycle habit.  

Atoms are simply the logical accretion of our 'circuitous' memory.  Memory is not in the atoms, atoms are in the memory.  And memory is simply the temporal asymmetry of a coherence emanating from the Telos.  This teleo-logic, organic though it is, also has a combinatoric support that we recognize as mathematical logic.  The dialectic regime of the Quantum is the nexus of these two atomisms.  In the terminology of the archetypes we might say that R & P -> Q.  The coherence of Q is ultimately derived only from T/O.  There is no logical way to get from Q back to T.  The hoped for reversal of this sequence, as held by the logical positivists, has been as thoroughly discounted and discredited as any philosophical thesis ever has been.  It is only the heavily fortified wall of Darwinism that is holding back the inevitable rising tide of a demand for coherence.  Here you see the first trickle of coherence to breach that wall.  The materialist establishment may only watch in silence as the trickle continues.  Any response whatsoever will only abet the flow and hasten the deluge.  

Individual memory is derivative of the atemporal cosmic mind or memory, which is not distinct from the immaterial cosmos itself.  Atomism, as far as it goes, is just the logical result of analyzing that memory.  Atoms cannot be more solid or stable than the logic of the coherence from which their quantum processes are extracted. 

[2/7] 

Let me hasten to point out that there is another aspect of the all or nothing game.  This has to do with existence.  For the immaterialist, existence is entirely relational, but for the materialist it is all or nothing.  I would like to show that the latter position is incoherent.  It should not be difficult. 

For the materialist, existence must be clear cut, but, unfortunately, existence has been and remains notoriously abstruse.  The fall-back position for the materialists is just to say that they will accept as gospel whatever happens to be the current ontological fashion within the physics community.  The unacceptability of such an ad hoc metaphysical stance is widely remarked and acknowledged, even amongst the materialists.  They apologize and ask the forbearance of their philosophical colleagues.  The simple fact is that physics and metaphysics are concerned with very different issues.  The ultimate responsibility of physicists is just to be pragmatic about their subject matter.  Their ultimate metaphysics can only ever be that of pragmatism.  The next simple fact is that pragmatism and materialism have a vanishingly small ontological overlap.  My case is closed. 

But just for the nonce, let us posit the existence of ideal [sic] atoms.  The ideal atom would have an entirely independent existence.  I maintain that this is incoherent.  Said atoms would have to be indestructible in all eternity.  More significantly, such entities would be incapable of internal relations.  Their only relations could be accidental or spatio-temporal.  Such a metaphysic could not support anything resembling chemistry.  What could be the ontology of water, for instance?   In fact, for our pragmatic scientist, the ontology of a molecule is not distinct from that of an atom; nor, even, is that of a pancreas.  There can ever only be differences of degree for any sort of pragmatist.  The ultimate ground of existence can ever only be phenomenological.  

I maintain that chemistry is possible only in a relational world.  No semblance of a molecule could exist without the presence of 'exchange' forces.  The exchange force operates only because the different types of atoms share essential mathematical symmetries.  These symmetries are only indirectly related to the external shape of a given atom.  These internal symmetries are manifested only in the interaction between atoms.  The symmetries are of no account other than in such a relational context.  These forces are one aspect of the widely touted 'non-local' nature of quantum phenomena.  The materialists do not deny chemistry, but they do deny that such purely relational essences exist outside of the quantum-chemical realm.  In contrast, I maintain that quantum chemistry is just the tip of the relational iceberg that is our world.  The essential properties of the pancreas are just as irreducible as are the molecular properties of water.  

------------------------------------

Just the fact that atoms are essentially relational does not make them the stuff of dreams, but it is a big step in that direction.  What steps remain?  There remains to reconsider the entire notion of independent existence.  I maintain that the whole idea is incoherent.  Let us consider the independent existence of the stars, just from the viewpoint of an astronomer.  

Every day another star blows itself (nearly) out of existence, and we are none the wiser.  We could care less.  What metaphysical conclusion might be drawn?  This says very little about the ontology of the situation.  

Here is some ontology.  The universe exists in a single unified dynamical space-time manifold.  That manifold is what imparts many of the relational and physical properties to its contents.  All of those contents once occupied a region vastly smaller than the volume of a single atom.  Every star has had a long and complex history.  That any star can exist at all is entirely the result of a remarkable balance in an intricate array of forces shared by every particle in the universe.  Virtually no stars can exist outside the very complex dynamical systems of galaxies.  The vast majority of stars were born in cohorts out of the death throes of a class of giant predecessors.  In short, celestial phenomena are less ecological than the biosphere of the Earth, but only by degree.

Let us then consider the independence of existence on the Earth.  Consider a baseball.  Your typical baseball finds itself stashed somewhere in a locker.  What is its ontological status?  The materialist would see it as a collection of atoms assembled so as to physically conform, more or less, to an historically derived cultural convention.  Despite these facts, its properties are completely reducible to the entirely local properties of its constituent atoms or molecules.  We immaterialists beg to differ. 

I will cheerfully concede that all of the physical properties of the baseball may be properly explained by physics.  The question is whether those properties are the only ones that are essential to the baseball.  The only essential qualities for the materialist are just the molecular ones, all other properties may be properly reduced to those.  The other relations are external or circumstantial.  For the materialist, all questions of ontological import reduce to those of physics.  All other questions are epistemological, at best.  We have already had reason to question the status of the epistemic/ontic divide.  Just for instance, is this division itself to be construed as epistemic or ontic?  I next point to mathematics as an obvious counterexample to any unambiguous division.  And then where does one draw the line between mathematics and physics? 

-------------------------------------

My attack on the absolutist position concerning existence invokes the problem of identity.  I question whether these problems may be properly distinguished.  Without alluding to identity, the question of existence becomes abstract, hypothetical and counterfactual.  Without reference to a particular individual, the question of existence is nearly vacuous.  Identity and individuation can be made as objectively as one might wish, but only according to such a wish.  Otherwise, identity erodes with more or less alacrity.  Existence without strict identity is necessarily probabilistic.  

To say that water exists is about as vacuous as any statement can be.  Sure, water absolutely exists, but perhaps not in this universe.  Well, thanks for the information!  When we inquire as to existence, it almost exclusively concerns particular existence.  But even if my concern was with water in general, we would have to agree on the semantic reference of 'water'. I dare say that too many books have been written on the identity of 'twater', i.e. something phenomenologically resembling water, but on a hypothetical 'twin earth'.  Ontology cannot logically escape the strictures of epistemology.  

Yes, we are all prone to the gut feeling that existence is an all or nothing, independent proposition.  My baseball may or may not still exist, independent of almost everything else in the world, and especially independent of the state of my knowledge.  It is an understandable feeling, it just doesn't happen to make sense.  It does not stand up to scrutiny. 

While on the subject of identity, let me point to another aspect of it.  Identity is necessarily projective.  Identity can only ever be reduced to the act of pointing, referral, or, ritually speaking, to a social act of 'baptism'.  The foundation of all identity is in self identity.  All identification points back to a particular set of selves.  This is an obvious, but often overlooked fact of existence, or simply a very pragmatic fact of life.  A materialist has no basis for positing existence of any kind without positing a particular self.  If I am an illusion, then so may be my world and everything in it.  Of course, I believe that I am, and that it is, but I may rationally entertain that belief only under the aegis of some greater and more real existence that is necessarily even more 'selfish' than myself, if you'll excuse the turn of phrase. 

[2/8] 

It does seem that God has not gone out of her way to make us feel like the co-creators of this world.  However, if her powers are limited, then we don't have to ascribe malfeasance to her.  It is hard for me and a lot of other people to understand why so many people so stubbornly cling to the notion of an omnipotent God, in the face of so much contrary evidence and argument.  The fact is, however, in the minds of most believers and non-believers the notions of God and omnipotence are practically synonymous.  This is surely the greatest obstacle to any form of rational theism.  The irrationalists manage to control the premises of the debates about God. 

Rational theism necessarily borrows much from pantheism, and must be considered almost as heretical.  The metaphysics behind irrational theism is dualism.  The Western mind has fallen very deeply into the trap of dualism.  It seems that the theists have gladly granted the pantheists an exclusive franchise wrt monism.  To our short list of ad hoc synonyms we must add theism and dualism along with pantheism and monism.  This historical convention presents a considerable pedagogical barrier to rational theism.  

There must be an historical explanation for the nearly ubiquitous juxtaposition of theism and dualism, but it is certainly not being touted.  I suspect that the notions of dualism and omnipotence are mutually supportive, but this is not immediately obvious.  Dualism is supportive mainly of deism rather than theism.  Deism also has to be considered heretical, but apparently less so than pantheism.  

What we may be facing here is a politically motivated metaphysic.  Pantheism/monism is frankly subversive to almost any established order.  Only the most stable of societies could afford to dabble in it.  However, theism is subversive relative to deism, but even deism turned out to be conducive to the advent of the scientific revolution.  Deism remained the herald of that movement for some time. 

Gnosticism is the most common form of theistic monism, only its otherworldliness keeps it in check politically.  That otherworldliness is a subdued or modified form of dualism.  It is a moral rather than a metaphysical dualism.  The constant threat of gnostic subversion has always tended to push established theism far into the deistic corner.  Scientific materialism has been the primary beneficiary of this circumstance. 

Pantheism is simply the decapitated version of monism.  Without recourse to a higher authority, the would-be social reformer is severely handicapped.  The caste system of India survived many centuries of Buddhist monism.  The linkage between prophecy and social criticism, particularly of the puritanical variety, endemic to the West, was absent in the East.  Concerted revolution in the East had to await the dialectical spin-off of scientific materialism.  Meanwhile, the polytheistic Hinduism plods along seemingly oblivious to the rest of the world.  

Be that as it may, we are stuck with dualism in the West.  I am suggesting a this-worldly gnostic heresy to counter the dualism and deism that has become so entrenched in the modern world, not to mention the presence of downright materialism.  There is what probably amounts to an unwitting conspiracy between scientific materialists and deists to maintain the present order and disorder of modernism.  Postmodernism, pantheism and mysticism are hardly a threat to the established modern order.  The deistic tendencies of fundamentalism are, for the most part, silently supportive of this order unless they happen to verge into activism and terrorism, which is atypical and ultimately controllable.  Modernism long ago made its pact with dualism, to the point that they are virtually synonymous.

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1/15/04

Triumph of Science? 

The coherence of scientific materialism is incredibly impressive and powerful.  It has transformed the face of the world.  Only a fool or a fundamentalist would dare challenge that great edifice of knowledge.  Tilting at a windmill would be much more likely to succeed.  

What I have come here to tell you is that the coherence of science, great though it is, can only be a pale shadow of what must lie behind it.  We have become the masters of our material destiny, thanks to science.  But will you believe me if I tell you that the magnitude of any imagined material destiny shrinks to insignificance before the reality of our true destiny?  Our romance with science has just been our aperitif.  Are we ready now for the full course?  Trust me, no amount of preparation could ever have prepared us for what comes next. 

Scientists have an understandable proclivity to hit us over the head with the incredible quantities that measure the vastness of space and time as well as the minuteness of the atom.  Yet, these are window dressing relative to the intricacy of the processes that fill those realms.  With the enormous complexity that nature has managed to throw at us, our minds not only cope but positively comprehend to the point of mastery.  There is finally only one glaring omission in this story of scientific conquest.  It is the instrument that has enabled our victory.  Yes, a mere three pounds of gray matter.  All the king's men remain baffled as they stand before it.  Will we not awaken to tomorrow's headline trumpeting the scientific breakthrough that solves our last puzzle?  Who am I to cast doubt on the final triumph of science?  

What I am struck by is the disparity in the degree of coherence in the realm of natural science compared to everywhere else.  The human sciences, for instance, remain in nearly complete disarray.  There is all the appearance of a positive comprehension barrier between the human and natural realms.  What could this signify? 

It could simply be a minor time-lag or a jog in our path to full understanding.  Or there could be a deeper problem.  My diagnosis is no secret.  I believe that reductionism has run its course.  To move forward from here, we will be required to switch horses.  I am not suggesting that the scientific juggernaut is about to come to a grinding halt.  I am suggesting that a growing number of us will seek a coherent alternative. 

The only rational alternative to reductionism entails a formidable gestalt switch.  The success of analysis lies in its step by step procedures.  As on a long hike, to reach the end, all you have to do is keep putting one foot in front of the other.  Not so with synthesis.  We will never be able to put Humpty-Dumpty back together without a plan, nay, without a veritable blueprint.  Nothing will happen with synthesis until that blueprint arrives. 

On these pages I can attempt nothing less than to deliver that blueprint.  Anything falling short will be a waste of my time and your time.  It is not that I reek with confidence, I have simply found myself with no alternative course.  I can do none other.  Here you see a former drip under some considerable pressure.  As to the ultimate source of this pressure, your guess is as good as mine. 

If there is a blueprint to be delivered and it gets delivered, it will have to be an event of biblical proportion.  Only a fool could rush into such a spot.  All that remains to be seen is whether I am a rational fool, or just a rash fool. 

-----------------------------------------

The bad news is that we have been deceived.  The good news is that we have only ourselves to blame.  It is not God's fault that the world looks so darn natural.  That's just how the Best Possible World should look, nay, has to look. 

It is only natural to create the best possible world.  There is involved in this process just the Principle of Least Action.  Even photons know how to do that.  In the realm of all possible worlds, one has got to stand out.  It could be the worst one, but which one is that?  I submit that it is no world at all.  The only one that can truly stand out is the best one.  The best world necessarily has the best possible creatures.  It is all us critters who ultimately make the choice and do the deed in this necessarily co-creative effort.  What happens to all the other worlds?  In the very best quantum fashion, all the others will destructively interfere, going up in the smoke of our individual dreams and nightmares. 

Granted, the best possible God is not your father's God, but that does not mean she is no God at all.  She is not lazy either.  She is an earnest cheerleader.  Heavens, she will even stoop to bare a breast if that will inspire the troops.  Some might call it entertainment, others will call it incarnation. 

------------------------------------

About that gestalt switch?  Think of it just as a pill to be swallowed.  The bitter taste will not last too long.  If you don't care to try it, may I interest you in some valium? 

The world is a living organism.  Most of it has gone to sleep, that is us creatures.  Parts of it has gone numb, that is matter.  In our sleep we dream of alternative realities.  The dreams gradually coalesce around what will be the best of possible worlds.  There is only ever one dream, but we see it through many prisms that we think of as our material brains.  The real dreaming is done well beyond space and time.  What we experience at night is just the chaff.  What we experience in the day is the absence of the Telos.  We are gradually pulled, reeled in as on a line, toward our eschatological awakening that is sometimes referred to as the rapture or the hieros gamos. It is the final Presence, our final Cause.  

While we are asleep, the world runs on an auto-pilot of pure logic.  Some call it physics.  It is phenomenological cycles within cycles that have long been habituated and optimized.  Gradually these cycles have been expanded to include the ouroboric circuit of the whole world and its history.  We experience time slices of them.  There are growing pains.  Some cycles are broken, others collide.  We are here to sort it all out and maintain continuity.  

Lately we have been passing through the scientific phase of our history.  We have been fascinated with atoms and space.  We have come to think of these as the substance and container of our world.  They are, however, just archetypes that we tend to reify in our systemic and instrumented probing of them.  They are, after all, the only logically possible outcome of our analytic compulsion.  They can be none other.  

If we truly desired, we could send a space probe to Alpha Centauri.  But what would that accomplish, other than to possibly extend our slumber of materialism?  I don't recommend this stratagem; our appointed hour will not finally be diverted.  And would it not be more amusing to persuade the stars to dance in the sky?  I not sure I recommend this either, but I don't want to be a party pooper!  The auto-pilot of our dreamship Earth conforms to our state of wakefulness.  We will know what to do when we need to do it.  That is how organicism works.  Our dream will only ever become more lucid and pellucid. 

---------------------------------

Is this so hard to swallow?  I doubt that you would be reading this if you were not a prospective pill popper and gestalt switcher.  However, if you are already feeling frustrated by the poverty of my gnosis, then your time has come.  I'll see you on the other side of the gestalt. 

[2/9] 

Science has certainly triumphed, well beyond anything anyone could have reasonably expected at the outset.  In its chosen arena, science has been unreasonably effective.  This remarkable fact raises important issues: 

    * Should not science be embarrassed by its own riches?  It seems that science can explain almost everything but its own success. 
    * Science may have to face a revolution of rising expectations that it has engendered but is unable to fulfill. 
    * There is likely to be a greater demand for the light of reason to be trained upon our ultimate questions.  The triumph of our scientific gnosis cannot help but raise our expectations concerning a boarder or higher gnosis.  I do not seem to be alone in this regard. 

It has been said that man does not live by bread alone.  Will the technology of the mass entertainment industry then be able to supply all the requisite circuses?  History is quite clear that the motive force behind our scientific quest has always transcended purely materialistic explanation.  The record is equally clear that, at the outset of science, it was seen, and even specifically recommended, as a constructive, non-subversive means to channel the all too human and otherwise heretical impulse toward gnosis. 

It is widely recognized that, whatever may be the continuing technological fall-out, the gnostic aspect of science, tied as it is to analysis and reduction, has nearly played itself out.  There will be many who will be content to rest upon those laurels, but are we then to suppose that gnostic impulse has been quenched?  Cannot it not be that for the few, that impulse will merely have been whetted? 

Science has been so dramatically successful, almost from the start, that its accomplishments have outpaced our ability to assimilate its larger import, to understand it from the standpoint of any larger historical narrative.  It appears quite possible now that our process of assimilating science is finally catching up with the enterprise of it.  For the first time we may have the ability and inclination to inquire after its larger context.  It has long been the taunting mantra of the obsessively scientifically minded: Catch me if you can!  Those days are coming to an end. 

It will be increasingly difficult to ignore the gnostic origins of the scientific quest.  As we reflect back upon those origins, we can hardly avoid comparing the original impulse with the eventual result.  Science will be found wanting in the balance.  

That the puzzle of the mind continues fall under the purview of science is strictly contingent upon its ability to meet some rather elevated expectations.  Failing these, there will be the devil to pay. 

There will be two ways to view science: either as a flash in the pan of history, or as a mission accomplished.  There will, of course, continue to be the true believers in science; however, they will be increasingly pressed to explain their unflagging expectations.  If all existence is material and accidental, then what could it possibly be that would underwrite their unlimited expectations concerning the future?  And perhaps even more to the point, what would be the point?  What is the Telos that they so fervently and blindly seek?  In attempting to scratch the surface of 'futurism' and 'technosis', one can hardly fail to be impressed by the lack of depth and the almost infantile nature of the desires being expressed.  Is technosis anything more than a smoke screen being thrown up against the present mystery of our inevitable gnostic destiny? 

The only way to move forward with understanding will be to view science as a mission well accomplished.  And if that is the case, reason dictates that it must have been our penultimate mission.  How so?   Once we turn our minds from analysis to synthesis, there will be no turning back.  If there is a Telos to be seen, it will come into view at that turning, or it never will.  But should not science now be seen as a false summit of the intellect?  What is to prevent science from being followed by yet another false summit?  The plain fact is that science never had a patron.  Gnosis, if it is anything at all, is a patronage.  If we have any further issues, we will know where to take them: to our Matron.  

[2/11] 

The main difference between materialism and immaterialism is the direction of the arrow of time.  Materialists argue that the direction cannot be reversed due to the laws of thermodynamics.  That this is a vacuously circular argument in support of materialism seems to bother almost no one, and certainly not the materialists.  I am not claiming that we should ignore thermodynamics, any more than we should ignore gravity, I merely point out that they are two parts of the same package.  It is only the package in its entirety that is at issue, not its individual parts. 

Time is a much bigger mystery than virtually any scientist could either grasp or acknowledge.  To the scientist, time is never more than a particular variable in particular dynamical equations.  In physics proper, it has no direction.  That it appears with directional specificity in the laws of thermodynamics remains unexplained.  Time symmetry is broken somewhere in the transition between microscopic and macroscopic regimes.  The best guess is that it has something to do with the quantum measurement problem, rendering it a mystery wrapped in an enigma. 

In common parlance, the direction of time is usually associated with the notion that cause precedes effect.  However, our conventional notions of causality are inextricably tied to our notions of intentionality, neither of which can have any formal role in science. 

In short, the concept of time is a potential loose cannon on the scientific deck.  Any significant loosening of its perceived tether places the whole ship in peril. 

What is easily the most remarkable feature of time is the indescribable nature of its presence to us.  The closest thing to such a description is simply the 'shining' present.  Science's objectification of time seems impossibly at odds with our singular experience of it.  By simply constructing a metaphysics of Presence, the entire scientific enterprise is thereby rendered moot.  Immaterialism is necessarily the science of Presence.  That is what these pages endeavor.  If the Present is to be salvaged, it will be partly at the expense of a cannibalized scientific corpus, but let us eschew necrophagy in this undertaking.   

As we focus on sheer presence, the directionality of time becomes open to reinterpretation.  The past and future may be subsumed by mere absence.  A more teleological view immediately recommends itself.  The Telos can simply become an ever fuller Present.  Time is thereby robbed of its gravity, or simply disrobed.  

----------------------------------

Before launching into directionality, let me briefly point to a connection between time and perception that is seldom remarked.  Much of our self-alienation from the world is tied up with our peculiar notion of indirect or representational perception.  This ubiquitous presupposition is, perhaps, the single most poisonous ingredient in the whole materialist pot.  Thus, so deftly, does materialism act to subvert the very possibility of Presence.  All that we can ever experience is an ad hoc and subjectively reconstituted fabrication of reality.  We can ever only be the passive recipients of sensory transductions.  

The notion of indirect perception is the result of a totally illicit but perfectly understandable conflation of an informal causal metaphysic with a formal mechanics.  It is also parasitic upon the completely gratuitous assumption that experience is only ever by and about the insides of our skulls.  Gratuitous because science does not even recognize the existence of consciousness: consciousness doesn't exist, but if it did, you may be sure that it would exist entirely inside your skull!  What easy marks we make of ourselves in the life and death game that is science.  

It is just the alleged direction of motion of the photon from object to the subject that strongly reinforces the naive notion of object as transmitter and subject as receiver, which underscores the confinement of consciousness to somewhere behind the retina, opening a metaphysical chasm between it and its object.  The nerve fibers behind the retina are simply another means of signal transduction.  Since neuroscience does not recognize the existence of consciousness in the first place, there is no basis to relegate it to any particular mode of signal transduction, be it neuronal, optical or by any other means.  

[2/12] 

Please let me rephrase that last statement: given that consciousness exists, we associate it with the nervous tissue of living systems.  However, all that can physically ever happen within that nervous tissue is signal transduction, so there is no reason to physically confine consciousness to any particular segment of that tissue.  The pain in my stubbed toe is just a part of my consciousness located in the nerves in my toe.  But once consciousness has been vouchsafed, we can, with the same logic, extend it back along the lines of signal transduction which now include the photon paths back to the surfaces of objects.  Voila, direct perception.  There is no logical or physical reason why we cannot incorporate the photons into our extended sensory signaling system.  

It is here that we run into the problem of time delay.  The photons could be coming from a distant star that self-destructed before the light reaches our eyes.  This, and only this, delay causes a problem for direct physical perception.  

--------------------------------------------

But let us now come back to the Present.  There is a gigantic metaphysical problem of Presence.  The problem is to distinguish it from Absence.  Where do we draw the line?  This problem, I maintain, is closely related to the problem of attempting to confine consciousness; in fact, I will suggest that the two problems compound each other.  

In order to distinguish presence from absence, we would also have to distinguish perception from inference.  Simply impossible!  Please recall: See Jane.  See Jane run.  Is Jane present to us?  Suppose that Jane had suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage in mid-stride.  When does she stop being present?  We can only ever infer the presence of persons.  We can only ever infer the presence of oceans.  Everything two hundred feet below the surface could have suddenly turned to ice without our being the wiser.  

You can see why analytic philosophers despise the notion of Presence.  Presence is in no way computable.  But may our analysts thereby deny Presence?  I would not recommend that course to them.  Denying presence is vastly more subversive to a lived world than to merely deny consciousness, which many still do.  Without the present, there is no past and future.  Without being able to distinguish past and future, one loses contact with the concept of life and living. 

Having said that, I will threaten to commit that same error myself.  I am also going to deny the past and future, but only in deference to the unbounded potential of the Shining Present/ce.  My Present will never lie etherized upon the analytical table. 

As a direct perceiver, I have a very hard time with the notion of memory being coded and stored in configurations of atoms.  But where else could it possibly be?  Our DVDs do an admirable job of storing feature length movies along with the director's cuts.  Why not our brain cells?  Well, next to consciousness itself, the physical storage and retrieval of memories remains the biggest mystery of neuroscience.  To call it an embarrassment to science would be a gross understatement.  Over the years, I have ever only seen brief allusions to this problem, never an actual treatise upon it.  If I were a rational scientist, would I not want to spell out the full nature and dimension of this puzzle, in all its gory detail, as the first logical step toward its eventual solution?  Well, we may then surmise that either there are no rational scientists, or they all subliminally sense that they don't have a snowball's chance in hell of ever solving this little puzzler.  

With direct perception: no problemo.  We directly perceive the past, with just a slightly cloudy crystal ball, or is that supposed to be the future?  Or is it the extended Present?  

---------------------------------------

Ev'ry time i see your face,
It reminds me of the places we used to go.
But all i got is a photograph
And i realise you're not coming back anymore. (Ringo Starr) 

And what about that photo?  Is this not a case of indirect, representational perception?  How do we explain this, Kimosabe?  I'm going to pull a fast one.  I equate the photo with a slice of photographic memory.  But is it not perfectly clear that the photo is not inside anybody's head?  Neither are memories.  Furthermore, I would compare a camera with a telephone: both actually operate as psychosocial channelers and facilitators of the psyche; that is, of our still hidden, from ourselves, psychic abilities.  This is all part and parcel of immaterialism.  If you don't like it, you are perfectly welcome to return to your materialist zombie-hood, atoms swerving in the dark, and all -- or is it nothing?  

Should we not then each take innumerable photos of ourselves so as to ensure our immortal presence?  Negative.  You may, of course; but thereby demonstrate a noticeable lack of regard for unlimited presence.  Photos and phones, even especially websites, are stopgaps, perhaps palliatives, wrt presence.  

With excruciating crudeness, each of us ~10^10 souls is a 'neuron' of the eternal cosmic mind.  That is true presence.  What we now call presence is the palest of shadows.  Phones and photos?  We won't be needing them in heaven.  My sincere regrets to AT&T and Kodak.  Now it is perfectly possible that somewhere, this side of eternity, we will have implanted phone chips; but, if I'm not mistaken, my teenage son already has one of them.  Nevertheless, as we walk naked through those pearly gates, I suspect there will be a full-body scan.  Security, you know! 

Do you get the picture?  The hardest part of materialism is recovering from its hangover.  Going cold turkey with immaterialism is just not in the cards.  But, trust me, one day we will look back on this awkward transitional phase and chuckle. 

----------------------------------

What I have ever so awkwardly been leading up to here is a rehash of teleology.  Time and causation truly run backward, if they run anywhere at all.  The past is constructed from the future, out of our 'memories'.  That's how we can have confidence in our future.  We couldn't have left home without it.  Immaterialism is materialism running backward, kind'a. 

Consider the dreamer and then the composer.  You are going through an elaborate dream about a romance in a clock store, when one of the clocks starts to malfunction, noisily.  As you reach over to fix it, you wake up realizing you are reaching for your alarm clock.  This sequence raises some problems for efficient causation.  More than one philosopher has recommended that, instead of final causation for the dream, we could simply say it all happened in an instant, but was experienced as a sequence.  If dream time is illusory, why not 'waking' time. 

Similar idea for the composer.  It has not infrequently been reported that the idea for an entire symphony has emerged into the composer's consciousness in just a few moments of time.  The composer may then spend the next several days turning that palpably memorable instant into a proper sequence.  More commonly, when the title of a popular song is mentioned, some holographic nugget of its entirety flashes to mind.  And here we are back to the problem of perception.  Without that 'holographic' assist, could we ever experience anything besides bits of raw sensory data?  Data bits which, you will recall, cannot even be defined. 

The Metanarrative has always existed as an eternal moment.  We creatures work it out, forwards, backwards and every which way.  The seamless, forward experience of it is an artifact of our overlapping psyches.  The director's cuts end up on our pillows at night.  Time and space need never exist outside of the eternal moment of the Metanarrative that can only be the best possible one.  

This is rough and ready.  Crude beyond reason.  But without a holographic scorecard, we'll never be able to follow the game.  I have to sneak that hologram into both of our psyches, catch as catch can.  This is real time for both of us.  I remain confident that it will work out.  If you want the finished product, just look ahead a few years!  If you are already chomping at the bit, well, have at it! 

---------------------------------

Allow me, please, to distinguish between photos and fossils.  In doing so I will also be distinguishing between history and pre-history.  Pre-history is an artifact of scientific materialism; or, by the same token, of our naturalistic aesthetic.  In either case, it is not something that is ever present to us.  Pre-history is a backdrop to history, just as surely as is the starry sky.  In fact, one could hardly exist without the other; certainly not with any semblance of coherence.  

Yes, the coherence of nature is a false coherence.  It is an end to quite another means.  It is the most aesthetic, nay, the best possible, countenance which may be put upon our necessary alienation from the Creator, and so, ipso facto, from our true selves.  Just because this is the BPW does not mean that it will hurt us to imagine all the other possibilities 'out there'.  We should always be considering the possibilities, regardless.  That is mainly how we earn our co-creaturely keep. 

So, where do we draw the line?  That's always supposed to be a tricky question.  How high is the sky?  It all depends on the context.  NASA's celestial context is a bit more expansionist (imperialist?) than mine.  I would like to distinguish between archeology and paleontology.  Come to think of it, dinosaurs are where I draw the line.  

I have spoken, however, of Jurassic Parc.  And there could as well be a Galactic Alley.  This is my hypothetical 'computer' simulator in the sky.  It's where we use a bit of cosmic smarts to circumvent those deadly dull 'billions and billions' of materialistic yawns that the scientists are ever so eager to foist upon the Creator.  Thanks, but no thanks!  Fossils are some of the blueprints that never got off the drawing boards at Jurassic Parc.  Walt Disney and the paleontologists have taken care of the rest of it.  As for the mechanics of it all, I'll leave that as an exercise to the reader for the time being.  Let me know when you have an answer!  I have no doubt that, between God and Pixar Studios, we can can work out an authentic dinosaur experience for you, if you'll just have a little patience.  Heck, you'll have the option of being the dinosaur, if you like.  Caesar, on the other hand, frequented these same shores, in real time.  If you wish to experience being Caesar or the Second Coming, all in due course.  I would submit that we already have, but have merely 'forgotten' it.  That's just my own opinion.  In dealing with the truly absent, past and future tend to meld together.  Notions of reincarnation are part of that melding.  

As we begin to accelerate into the shining eschatological presence, many lives and many psyches will begin to overlap.  The 'dear departed' will not have to claw their way out of their graves; they need only open up their minds to ours, as if they haven't already.  They are us, we will be them.  

[2/14] 

Have we made any headway against materialism?  

We do find that atoms could not serve as the foundation of materialism without the non-local relational properties conferred upon them by the Quantum.  Molecular properties are thereby irreducible to atomic properties.  Those properties may be predicted mathematically, but the electronic wave functions that are employed are themselves irreducible.  They are the irreducible basis functions for a particular representation of the 'matrix mechanics'.  Their complexity defies actual computation in all but the simplest cases.  In point of fact, the 'three-body problem' is theoretically unsolvable in either its classical or quantum versions. 

Our struggle with materialism then devolves to the question of mind independence.  This is tantamount to the objectivity of material objects.  I point out that objectification and identification cannot be disentangled.  The materialists' position then amounts to the claim that objects may exist without benefit of objectification.  

This latter claim technically runs afoul of the measurement problem.  The definite location of macroscopic objects is only the result of a yet to be understood, or even formally definable, transition from quantum to classical realms.  But I don't want to win this on a mere technicality.  It is too important.  We need an argument that subverts the admitted gut-level appeal of mind-independence. 

The Mars rovers provide a case in point.  The rocks they observe on the surface of Mars seem just as real as any rocks back on Earth.  Does this not point to the independent existence of material objects in general?  How can the rocks on Mars be attributed to our co-creational activity?  Will we not have to make a special appeal to the Creator?  Is this not similar to the problem of explaining stars and fossils?  

Do not these objects exist without benefit of ever having been objectified?  My fall-back position is to invoke the problem of Presence.  Is it legitimate to distinguish existence and presence (or presentability)?  This is possible only if we can distinguish between absence and non-existence.  It seems reasonably clear that this latter distinction is untenable. The latter then undermines the tenability of the former.  Recall, furthermore, the lack of formal distinction between presence and absence.  

We think we have a clear notion of existence.  But can we distinguish it from observability, about which we can only have a contingent and dispositional regard?  To distinguish between objectivity and objectification is one matter, but to distinguish between objectivity and objectifiability is another matter.  

Is it legitimate to posit the existence of anything that is logically unobservable or unknowable?  This even goes beyond the problem of the epistemic/ontic divide.  It is the counterfactual shadow of that divide.   

I am tempted to say that our gut disposition favoring mind independence is, ironically, nothing more than the overworking of our imaginative faculty.  Science surely offers not the slightest support for the reification of the unobservable.  To posit such entities is to negate the scientific method.  

Can we accept this conclusion?  Does it subvert our gut instinct?  Another test case involves SETI.  What is the ontic implication of ETI?  Giordano Bruno was burned at the Inquisitional stake for being an early advocate of ETI.  Immaterialism rules out ETI, but not UTI (ultra-terrestrial intelligence, e.g. God).  In this instance, immaterialism agrees with the orthodox ontology of intelligence.  For immaterialism, separate worlds entail separate creations, if not necessarily separate Creators.  The Creator(s) hardly have the option of 'physically' linked creations.  Therefore, a radio search would be logically futile. 

As a footnote, let me just remark that Hindu cosmology, certainly in its theosophical version, invokes the mind-independence of perpetual cosmic rounds, thereby confounding its general proclivity for immaterialism and even for monism.  My notion is that Buddhist cosmology is less inconsistent in this regard.  I don't see that pantheism could be compatible with mind independence, despite its decapitated monism. 

I am claiming to have provided the outline of an argument for the prima facie incoherence of mind independence.  I am not yet aware of an equivalent argument elsewhere.  Is there any life left to be beaten out of materialism?  What remains of it?  Only the occasionally nagging hangover.  The fact is that you cannot kill a zombie, but you can cut its power supply.  If it is cut off from all logical discourse and recourse, it can only continue to shrivel.  

I remain under the impression that materialism, dualism and pluralism are still being tolerated in academic circles where such shortcomings should be inexcusable.  This plain fact is perhaps the best testimony we have to the radical implications of the one coherent alternative to all of the above.  

--------------------------------

Materialism is a straw-man for science.  It is the ontology of scientism.  Science certainly strives toward objectivity, but only, legitimately, in the sense of intersubjectivity.  If ever it strives for objectivity, it surrenders to the facile 'metaphysics' of scientism.  To confer a metaphysical status upon materialism is to concede too much.  Metaphysics implies a minimal system of logic.  Mind independence cannot even pull itself up to that threshold.  Virtually by definition, there can be no discourse that could count for independence.  At the very most, one might construe a discourse that would end by pointing toward independence, but in that limit all argument must cease.  There exists no means for maintaining such a position.   The most it could be afforded is the occasional salutation. 

Splendid isolation from all discourse, perhaps that is an enviable position.  Is it not unassailable?  

Let us revisit the logic of the unobservable universe.  To avoid the metaphysically radical implications of the Anthropic Principle, materialists posit the existence of an infinite ensemble of universes, virtually all of which could contain no observers in principle.  The only implication of their existence would be to vouchsafe the contingent status of the remarkable hospitality of our own universe.  The implication is that there might have been no observability whatsoever.  

The question is sometimes posed: why is there something rather than nothing?  By appealing to the possibility of nothing, do not the materialists only serve to underscore the mystery of existence: a notion that is unsympathetic to any form of absolutism?  The objectivity of matter is contingent upon the possibility of there being nothing.  

The preclusion of existence is the least coherent of any possible ontic position.  Can such a position lend support to any other position?  But is it not the logical reductio of any reductionist endeavor?  I believe that it is.  Might there not have been nothing?  We can probably say that this is vastly more unlikely than that there be something.  Does not potentiality qualify as other than nothing?   In order for there to truly be nothing, we would have to preclude all possibility.  But is this possible?  It is not possible to appeal to the possibility of nothing, without thereby negating all possibility which is impossible.  If there were nothing to begin with, this would be no problem, but since there is something, it is impossible to argue back to something that precludes all possibility. 

Yes, frequently we romance the notion of non-being.  This is a favorite pastime of existentialists.  Then have I not gone too far with my counterargument?  Could this argument not be construed as an argument against individual mortality?  Certainly it is an argument against the cessation of mind.  Also it is an argument against the absolute distinction between individual mind and cosmic mind.  In that sense it precludes the obliteration of any aspect of mind. 

It is just the necessary mind dependence of all existence which affords substantiality to the world and all its aspects. Reductionism can only be self-negating.  It can lead only to an absolute nihilism.  Nihilism sounds scary, but, as we have seen, it is even less substantial than a paper dragon.  Nay, it is impossible, it is even inconceivable.  It is, at most, a symptom of the diseased and illegitimate language game that passes as 'reductionism'. 

------------------------------

It is possible that contingency is impossible.  If one thing is possible, then everything is possible, but that cannot be, because nothingness is not possible.  But if anything is possible, then there must be the best possible world.  But if contingency is not possible, then the BPW is the only world.  It is not possible that there could only exist the second best world. 

This sounds incredibly simple minded, but I believe that contingency must be part of the reductionist package.  It has no other use.  Once you let in one bit of it, it takes over the whole world, and then all the other worlds.  It is an all or nothing affair.  The only recourse is to opt for none of it.   

Coherence and many other things may turn our to be all or nothing propositions.  Coherence does not countenance contingency.  We will have none of it.  

Have we not wasted an incredible amount of time worrying about nothing?  Well, it was not possible not to worry!  Shoot me if I am being too simple minded.  But before you do, you had better check your own logic.  

Does this mean that the rocks strewn across the surface of Mars could not have been strewn any other way?  Well, it's just WYSIWYG.  It will never be any other way.  To posit another world may be inconceivably hypothetical.  You can't really blame me for that possible fact.  Materialists used to be determinists.  Perhaps they should have stuck with that thought.  

Would not the best possible world allow for free will?  It may be that free will need not entail contingency.  It may be primarily a subjective reality.  No one is in a position to claim to know the true nature of whatever it is that we believe in, when we believe in free will. 

[2/15] 

It does seem to me that possibility is predicated on the possibility of nothing.  So if nothing is not a viable possibility, then neither is possibility itself.  Does this make sense? 

Another strike against nothingness is the lack of an epistemic/ontic divide.  If there can be no epistemology associated with nothingness, then neither can there be an ontology.  

[2/16] 

In Hilbert space there are infinitely many mutually orthogonal vectors.  If we think of each vector as a narrational world, there could be infinitely many non-intersecting, non-overlapping worlds.  Actually, each point in Hilbert space constitutes a function, typically a quantum wave function.  More likely, each function could represent a life, and then a world would be a mutually consistent linear combination of these life lines.  As long as there were only finitely many lives in a world, there could still be infinitely many 'orthogonal' worlds. 

I am doing this as an exercise in nothingness: no creation, no worlds, no nothing. With just two (orthogonal?) creations, there are two worlds separated by...nothing?  By what are they separated?  They could be two ships 'passing' in the night -- no interaction.  This might make sense from the view of the creatures, but not in the view of the creators, if there be such.  Can there not be orthogonal gods?  Perhaps, but not orthogonal creators.  

The issue comes back to whether there can be non-relational existence.  Even for a non-relational system, such as materialism, we have to ask what would constitute the minimum possible world.  Could there exist an atom in isolation?  It could not be a physical atom or particle, because these must be embedded in a space-time manifold.  The minimal steady-state space-time manifold is infinite.  If we invoke Mach's principle, it would also have to contain an infinite dispersion of matter.  

Physical cosmology does presently countenance an indefinite number of non-interacting universes, be they finite or not.  They may emerge spontaneously from the background quantum potential.  This quantum potential is not unlike our Matrix.  As I have noted, almost all of these universes are assumed to be unobservable.  

One problem with unobservables would be their possible lack of properties.  There are many isolated and temporary features of this world that go unobserved, but we infer by continuity that these features exist.  If continuity does not apply, properties are less coherent.  If we do not know the physics, we have no basis to infer physical properties.  Physicalism provides no basis to infer existence in contexts where hypothetical properties may not accord with knowable physics.  How far may we extrapolate from the known to the unknowable?  This is turning out to be a largely subjective question.  Once again, the epistemic/ontic divide haunts our attempt to invoke mind independence.  The possibility of mind independence seems more related to epistemology than ontology. The harder the ontology is pushed, the closer it veers toward epistemology.  Yet, it is precisely the hypothesis of mind independence that is the basis for materialism.  Does that 'system' not have all the attributes of a house of cards?  

The concept of isolated existence is turning out to be highly problematic.  Material existence beyond this universe raises many more questions than it could possibly answer.  But I still do not have a handle on the possibility of an isolated creator or of an isolated matrix.  Previously I have only been able to invoke the Identity of Indiscernibles to limit such possibility.  If one Matrix is good, would two not be better?  I am wondering if orthogonal potencies are sensible?  Without apriori restraint, there is no sense in limited potency, but could there be separate omni-potencies, each eventually producing its own version of the BPW?  We could end up with innumerable BPWs.  What is to prevent such incoherence at the outset?  

If there were to be separate matrices, would there not have to be some basis for separation?  If relations are the natural basis of existence, as we generally maintain, separation would be unnatural and require explanation.  There would have to be an extra-matricial physics to prevent a potential infinity of matricies from 'bumping' into each other.  But then the question of source is just pushed back another step.  Such redundancy would vitiate any notion of the BPW.  In the non-denumerable set of matrices, it seems unlikely that no two could ever interact.  But if two could, then they all could and would, and we would suddenly collapse back to our singular Matrix, before the god of matrices could even blink an eye. 

The whole notion of redundancy is probably just a residue of the materialist mind set.  Eventually it will disappear of its own accord. 

Behind redundancy is the notion of non-relational existence.  This notion does not stand to scrutiny.  It is an illogical extrapolation from an incoherent basis.  That it is an endemic presupposition of science does not augur well for the thoughtfulness of that enterprise. 

The philosophical depravity of science provides an excellent counter-argument to pantheism.  There is, after all, no such thing as distributed intelligence.  There is no such thing as isolated intelligence.  Mind is all or nothing.  The alleged atomicity of our egos should be the most transparent of all illusions. 

I am also underscoring the fact that the best possible world is the only possible one.  The term 'possible' is retained for mainly pedagogical reasons.  Is the notion of Creator rendered otiose?  No more than is the notion of creature.  Both notions are strictly relational. 

--------------------------------

The fact that this is the only world, need not limit our freedom, nor the fact that no better world might reasonably be produced, nor the fact that I can know this beforehand.  None of this need count against our freedom. 

[2/17] 

Freedom is precious.  It is reserved mainly for the Author's creative freedom.  We participate in that freedom only in our alignment with the Creator's creativity.  Heretofore that alignment has been largely unconscious.  Freedom is not a feature of ego consciousness.  Our creaturely freedom is to be realized in the Millennium.  

Possibility remains an artifact of creative freedom.  It is an artifact of our dreams.  But there are no 'possible worlds' out there: WYSIWYG.  There is just this one.  Possibility down here is no more real than the nothingness from which it would have to be derived.  Exploring the possibilities is done on the drawing boards.  The Creator is paid to master the possibilities.  Has our freedom been stolen?  No, only our illusions. 

What does this have to say about our political economy?  What I see less of in the future is raw competition.  What I see more of is management by objective.  Society will be more organic.  There will be a continuing risk of shortcut reversions to tribalism.  Tribalism is not bad in itself, but it will have to be closely managed. I don't have any formulas for that off the top.  Such techniques will continue to emerge.  It will be more difficult to manage in homogeneous societies.  The world will have to reorganize itself around the Telos before our true creative freedom will emerge.  In short, I do not see any need for an external radical reform of democratic capitalism.  The only meaningful reform will come from within the individual participants.  Despotism of all varieties will continue to wither on the vine.  I don't feel too sad when the sway of some entrenched despots is deliberately cut short.  

[2/18] 

I'm going over the last few pages to see where we might head next. 

Naturalism in Question, noted previously, is to be released in May.  It should be worth the wait.  

John Leslie  discusses his book, Infinite Minds (2001).  I should not have missed this one. Here is the first chapter.  I am perusing it now online.  John has almost everything except the BPW.  So near yet so far!  

[2/19] 

John's book is important.  I recall having glanced over it at a bookstore.  I read with interest John's other book, The End of the World (1999).  In that one he makes the statistical argument that we must be near the end of human history.  

John calls himself a Spinoza pantheist.  He comes closer to theism than many pantheists.  He does attribute morality to the cosmic mind as an argument against the existence of perverse worlds, but like most pantheists he also embraces the apeiron.  He excludes the possibility of coherence by postulating an infinity of gods, each creating an infinity of non-perverse worlds.  Creation is haphazard, at best.  There is no metanarrative.  Despite his other book on the statistics of eschatology, there is no notion here of teleology or a Telos.  However, there is an extended argument for immaterialism.  I shall see what we may borrow from it.  I am also not seeing any explicit arguments against theism per se, only against the dualist versions of it -- a strange but characteristic omission, characteristic, that is, of non-sectarian intellectuals generally.  There must be a line in the sand between pantheism and theism.  It is as if the theologians are able to maintain a closed shop.  I am under the impression that virtually all theologians maintain sectarian identities.  This seems to conform to a self-imposed defense against gnosticism.  Yes, otherwise gnostic excess would be a real occupational hazard.  I ought to know!  Now, let me get back to the book. 

On p. 22 John misses an opportunity to take up the cause of Presence.  He implicitly dismisses it in favor of Einstein's (another Spinozist) non-relational, non-teleological relativity of time. Yes, his immaterialism is sorely lacking any significant relationalism.  He passes up Presence in favor of an infinite ensemble of 'nows'.  This is consistent with his embracing the 'many worlds' interpretation of anthropics.  Yes, John is consistent, almost obsessively, in maintaining his posture of incoherence.  Or is it anti-coherence? 

What John Leslie is calling the divine mind, I would call the Matrix.  There is no dialectic here and so no X.  There is hardly even a Z. 

In the next section, starting on p. 23, he takes up the problem of divine incoherence.  He is talking about the Matrix.  He does not envision the possibility that the Matrix is just the source of being.  He is an absolutist in regard to ontology; he does not understand that existence must be relative.  If immaterialism is not relational, then it can hardly be distinguished from materialism.  

On page 24 things get worse.  He refers to David Lewis' modal realism, which is not unlike Meinong's anti-relational, anti-contextual, anti-holistic realism, but observe this caveat in comparison with Plato.  Remind me to follow up on the fact that Ernst Mally of Ontology (Metaphysics Research) Lab fame was a Meinongian.  One does need a scorecard to follow this game.  As the card gets bigger, the plot gets thicker.  Here is John referring to Lewis, 'He accepts endlessly many gods, despite picturing our universe as entirely godless.' (p. 25).  Can't people see that this is a perversion of logic.  John seems unable to distinguish between his own and David's ontology.  What a shame. 

What I see John doing in the next few pages is laying out a detailed argument for the reductio ad absurdum of the 'many worlds' interpretation of quantum physics, anthropics, or of modal realism in general.  This makes me feel more comfortable with my position contra modality and possibility.  He finally, on p. 30, has to revert to aesthetics to defeat modal realism.  But is there any logic to limiting aesthetics anywhere short of the BPW?  The only reason to arbitrarily limit aesthetics is to avoid the obvious theological consequences of not doing so.  Can John not see this?  On pp. 33ff, he explicitly borrows from theology to refute modal realism.  On p. 35 he assumes that the human mind is based on matter, while the divine mind is not.  This is a bizarre form of dualism, particularly for a pantheist.  He is rapidly losing it.  He has gone off the deep end of the apeiron.  Omniscience is obviously a hobgoblin.  Consistency without coherence is no virtue.  This is becoming painful! 

It is clear that the only way that John can rescue pantheism from modal realism is by making explicit appeals to theism.  Until John started beating on this dead horse of modal realism, I did not realize what a significant skeleton it was in the pantheist closet.  Perhaps no one can save pantheism from its most conscientious or obsessive adherents.  

On p. 38, he begins what may be a significant appeal to holism.  Perhaps John's arguments against modal realism are serving as arguments against atomic or reductive realism.  Surely the quantum, at least, should save us from Maxwell's demon.  Is holism necessarily anthropocentric, or in the anthropos holi-centric?  

Well, I just reached my page limit on Amazon, but it is available at the local Borders.  I need to read the chapter 'Best & Infinity', where John discusses the best possible cosmos.  I'll report back ASAP.  

The book was not at the store.  I have to juggle computers to read more.  I am not terribly amused by this process.  If the academicians, theologians and any others want to participate in discussions that could determine the fate of the world, they will have to take full advantage of the Internet.  John is not doing this.  If he does not consider his ideas of sufficient gravity to warrant free access, then he need not expect others to take them seriously.  I will proceed, nonetheless, as best I can. 

There are much worse offenders than John.  Almost every theologian is a living indictment of rational discussion, not by their own doing, but because of the restrictive system in which they operate.  Not many of us have the good fortune to be able to do freelance theology.  

------------------------------------

With some judicious skipping of pages using another computer, I think I have gotten the gist of Infinite Minds.  Yes, he does discuss the BPW hypothesis, and even the Identity of Indiscernibles in regard to multiple Gods.  In each case he comes to conclusions that flatly contradict the ones obtained here.  We can't both be right. 

My biggest problem with Minds, however, is the 'so what?' question.  He states more than once that there is no phenomenological difference between pantheism and materialism.  If so, then what is the point?  Is it just an exercise in trying to feel better about the way things are?  Is it just an exercise in therapeutic psychology as is sometimes claimed even by the adherents of the traditional pantheist systems?  Perhaps I missed where he explains his motivation.  

It is painfully obvious that John exhausting his resources in trying to thread the needle between the Scylla of materialism and the Charybdis of theism.  

The pantheist God is the Hippocratic God: do no harm.  Lets call him Pan.  Pan evidently  has only sufficient skill to avoid creating morally repugnant cosmoi.  We should be grateful for small favors; but how many of us, if we had the choice, would choose such a lame duck?  

You and I have a definite advantage over Pan.  We have the power of imagination.  Pan does not.  Imagine that!  Recall, please, the curse of Midas' touch.  Everything he touched turned to gold.  The curse of Pan is infinitely worse.  Everything he imagines turns into a reality that some poor creatures like you and me will be forced to sit through, if not suffer through.  Are we really expected to pay forty bucks to vicariously suffer through this incoherent collection of creations?  Is this what half of the world actually believes?  99% of everybody facing a life and death situation, given the chance, will utter the name of a deity, even if it be as if in vain.  Heck, most of us will do so upon stubbing a toe. 

John is sincerely trying to do his very best to make sense out of what is patently intended to be nonsensical.  Many more of us might have failed to notice the logical death of this particular horse if it weren't for the well intentioned John Leslies of the world who regularly come along to beat on it: a noble service to the rest of us. 

Many Gods?  If God is good, then two Gods should be wonderful.  No?  If God is infinite, what is the point of having another?  The only point, it seems, is to eschew theism.  For all I know, there could be a Creation Committee, but I do know that there can only be one BPW.  Anything else is going to never make it off the drawing boards.  Stealth Creation?  Cheaper by the dozen?  Schismatic God?  These ideas hardly get off the ground.  Correction, I do know there is a Creation Committee, because we are on it! 

Pantheism ought to be a non-starter.  But, more to the point, it will be an easy act to follow.  It survives so long as it can avoid contention.  In the age of the Internet, that is not a good bet.  

[2/20] 

I had forgotten what a pushover pantheism would be for rational theism.  There are two things that are propping up pantheism: science and irrational theism, i.e. sectarianism.  The irony, or beautiful symmetry, is that science is in a very similar position to pantheism in this regard: it is also being propped up by irrational theism as well as by pantheism.  

Thus there is the ungodly troika of science, pantheism and sectarian theism.  In that triumvirate, pantheism and sectarianism are the weak sisters.  Once rational theism is able to rise above the general cacophony of the Internet, thoughtful people will start realizing that, as an alternative to materialism, it will be nolo contendere in favor of the BPW.  Then materialism will be in big trouble.  For the first time in its short life it will have a run for its money.  

Rational theism is rather simple, if not quite simple minded.  In retrospect, the most amazing thing is how it managed to stay hidden for so long.  Let's see about that. 

There is also a theistic troika: Judaism, Islam and Christianity.  Among these, the Christians have long prided themselves on being the least rational; and, superficially, they do seem to have a point.  But why the pride?  The pride goes back at least to Paul: 

1 Cor 1:17-27
17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel-- not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
19 For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."
20 Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.
22 Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom,
23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,
24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.
26 Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.
27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.
(NIV)

Paul is not mincing his words.  Ron Ritchie has this to say: 

To the Greek world of Paul's day, the word of the gospel seemed to be nothing but foolishness. The same could be said of our own world today. The gospel message is sneered at because it seems foolish. But that did not deter Paul, nor should it deter us. The gospel will always seem foolish unless the Holy Spirit is working in the hearts of those to whom it is being preached. I confess I have often felt foolish myself for preaching it. I have sometimes wondered how it could possibly penetrate hardened hearts. But that is the work of the Holy Spirit. Our job as Christians is to proclaim the good news.

It could well be that Paul is the prototype of the anti-intellectual.  Yes, the skeptics hardly have to go digging to discover the 'irrationality' of Christianity.  It is positively thrust in their faces: 'Take this, smarty-pants'! 

What is going on here?  Was Paul already fighting gnosticism?  That could only be part of it.  Ron has the larger part.  Until Constantine came along, Christianity was running purely on fumes.  It was the biggest charisma machine in history.  Those early Christians followed the simple dictum: don't bother talking or thinking while the flavor lasts.  Go with the spirit.  Who needs soldiers?  But, like death and taxes, the flavor runs out and the charisma gets routinized.  Only then do the rationalizations and the apologetics begin; and, in case those fail, the Christian soldiers suit up. 

The intellect is poison to the spirit?  That certainly remains a popular sentiment.  It is also well noted that the intellect is no friend of sectarianism.  

And, if I am not mistaken, the number two anti-intellectual in history was Martin Luther.  Surely we cannot dispute his anti-gnostic, fundamentalist credentials. 

For Christians, 'theo-logy' has always been an oxymoron.  I was surprised when I first discovered this in talking to a theologian.  The surprise wore off quickly.  'We don't need your dirty mind, we have our Holy Spirit.'  Ouch! 

And then along came Sophia, whispering 'sweet nothings' in my ear.  The rest of the story you see here.  Thanks, girl.  'Theology' is an easy act to follow.  It is hardly any act at all. 

Part of my thesis is that the anti-intellectualism of christianity became (by design?) a self-fulfilling prophecy.  The long pent-up gnosticism, when it finally burst forth into scientia, created a monster, scientism/materialism, which quickly turned upon its host, yielding deism and then the modern secular intelligentsia.  Only under the aegis of postmodernism can we begin to pick up the pieces and reconsider the gnostic roots of modern intellectualism.  In effect, we pick up where gnosticism left off, before it was decimated by the teachings of Paul and Luther, and by the fires of the Inquisition. 

-------------------------------------------

Permit me to read the Stanford Encyclopedia entries for panpsychism and pantheism.  I will compare them with John's treatment.  

[2/21] 

I have read the two articles, and I'm not seeing any major disagreements with John.  Modern pantheism, by now, is irrevocably committed to scientific cosmology.  It is a safe haven for scientists who have become disaffected with materialism.  It is also widely identified with 'deep ecology'.  I used to call myself a 'transcendental pantheist', which might be closer to Buddhism. In his article, Michael Levine points out that a distinctive feature of pantheism is its denial of personal immortality.  This, of course, enhances its compatibility with science.  

What is harder to discern are any significant departures from materialism.  The alleged unity of the world seems to exist in name only.  It could be seen as a language game serving to soften the hard edge of science.  How is pantheism to be distinguished from panpsychism?  Versions of panpsychism are compatible with emergentism and naturalism.  The only real issue between panpsychism proper and emergentism is whether the mental properties exist within quarks or between quarks.  It is not clear that there would be any observable consequences. 

I imagine one could construct versions of idealism that would also be indistinguishable from materialism.  Likewise for deistic versions of theism.  Even the BPW is indistinguishable from materialism until we enter the eschatological regime.  It is only in its eschatology that theism stands apart phenomenologically from all the other world views, setting aside issues regarding mortality.  

Michael takes pains to point out that pantheism does not have a social dimension, aside, perhaps, from its indirect links to ecological concerns.  It pertains mainly to the inner life of the individual.  Its ethical norms may vary greatly between individual adherents.  Pantheism has no practice.  The Taoist tradition is the one most closely aligned with pantheism, but even its sparse practices do not follow from any particular pantheist concepts.  

----------------------------------

We come back to the terribly simple assertion: no telos, no meaning.  Only theism offers unconditional meaning.  Only theism offers transcendence.  Some claim that Buddhism offers this as well.  Is it not more accurate to say that Buddhism offers escape?  In theism transcendence is often characterized as salvation, but this carries the negative connotation of 'saving from something'.  Whatever is the best possible outcome or culmination of existence, this is what is offered.  I could not pretend to tell you what this is, but it is not unlike love, and it is quite unlikely that anyone could be disappointed.  

Buddhism does not find value in existence.  Buddhism does not recognize a telos.  Buddhism sees all striving as pointless.  Theists don't accept that negative assertion.  We claim that life is not in vain.  We claim to be privy to the source of life and to that toward which it is drawn.  We finally do not and cannot refrain from placing an absolute trust in the vindication and vindicator of all being.  

Can we or should we settle for any other?  I cannot see how or why.  We continue to do so only out of ignorance.  We may, instead, anticipate the end of ignorance.  

The emptying of the mind can be a valuable exercise.  It is a preparation for mindfulness.  Mindfulness is of inestimable value. 

[2/22] 

I continue with Michael Levine's article on pantheism, starting with the section on divinity.  Here is the critical passage: 

Whatever criteria are decided upon as necessary for attributing divinity to something, one cannot decide a priori that the possession of divinity requires personhood without ruling out the possibility of the most typical types of pantheism (i.e. non-personal types). After all, theism is what pantheism is most of all trying to distance itself from. I am not sure the reverse is true-but theism does ordinarily strongly oppose itself to pantheism. In any case, Spinoza’s God and Lao Tzu’s Tao, for example, are distinctly non-personal, as are the governing principles of the Presocratics. It seems unwarranted, therefore, to suppose that a necessary condition of something’s being divine is that it be personal on the grounds that "Of all the modes of creaturely existence, personality is the highest and so the fittest to serve as an analogy of divine being" (Macquarrie 1984: 42). At least to do so begs the question against Spinoza, some of the Presocratics, Lao Tzu, probably Plotinus, as well as against experiential and socio-scientific accounts of divinity.

I'll reserve comment for now.  Let's move on to creation: 

In distinguishing between creation ex nihilo and emanationism as he does, Macquarrie (1984: 34-5) makes it easy to see why emanationism is often closely associated with pantheism. Emanationism is the view that "creation" is not a "making," but in some sense a "flowing forth" from God or its origin, as Macquarrie puts it. And, what "flows forth" "maintains a closer relation to [its] origin. It participates in the origin, and the origin participates in it." He says, "...emanationism does not necessarily lead to pantheism, but it does imply that in some sense God is in the world and the world is in God."

Amen.  I am big on emanationism, but I'm no pantheist.  I do not believe in creation ex nihilo.  That notion is a big mistake.  It has everything to do with deism and dualism.  The incarnation, X1, should have refuted the idea of creation ex nihilo.  Oh? 

Jesus is God & Jesus is human.  Jesus is creature -> Creature = Creator.  This is a very big deal, and is very irrefutable.  Christianity is undeniably a form of pantheism.  It is also undeniably theistic.  X'ianity is the best of both worlds.  Nay, it is the best of all worlds.  Those who hope to best X'ianity can only weep. 

Any questions? 

Assuming pantheism does require a doctrine or view about creation, what can be said positively about it? Pantheism has a range of options unavailable to theism since the theistic doctrine is extrapolated from scripture.

It is so extracted if you are a fundamentalist.  I am not that.  John is an emanationist.  If not, I'll eat my hat.  The Logos is all about emanation.  Jesus is the Logos.  

John 1:1-5
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 He was with God in the beginning.
3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men.
5 The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
(NIV)

John 1:14
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
(NIV)

You cannot get much more explicit than this, and I did not write this.  If this does not take all the wind out of the sails of pantheism, then there has been a big mistake. 

True, I do prefer the dia-Logos, but you get the picture.  I try to be heretical, but John makes that almost impossible. 

So far as Lao Tzu has a doctrine of creation it too is emanationist. "The Tao engenders one, One engenders two, Two engenders three, And three engenders the myriad things"

And this cannot be reconciled with John?  No problemo.  Show me something difficult. 

X engenders itself dialectically from the Matrix.  X is the dia-Logos.  This has got to be the singularly best engenderment.  Z & X conspire to create ouroborically.  This is also where Q, R & P come into the picture.  I do seem to be lacking a scriptural basis for Z, but, hey, I'm just an amateur.  

[2/24] 

The serpent appears to have been considered the most potent of our mythic symbols.  Much of the serpent's potency likely stems from its protean nature and its quality of latency.  It is frequently associated with wisdom and gnosis.  In Genesis the serpent is of the tree of knowledge, serving as the proxy of Satan.  On the Day of the Lord, He shall smite Leviathan, the serpent of the sea, along with the rest of the bad guys.  Its forked tongue connotes duplicity, and possibly dialogue.  

The serpent is naturally associated with fecundity, abyssal depths and with springs.  The magical power of Hermes is seen in his healing caduceus, a winged wand entwined with twin serpents.  The serpent is also depicted as coiled about the cosmic egg and the anthropos.  In that context it represents time and the aeon.  The serpent in the sky may be the zodiac, milky way or rainbow.  The ultimate syzygy, the solar eclipse, is the ecliptic serpent devouring the Sun.  Serpens and Scorpio sting the fleeing Virgo on the heel.  

Let us not forget Quetzalcoatl, feathered serpent, and major deity of meso-America: 

Quetzalcoatl was revered as the patron of priests, the inventor of the calendar and of books, and the protector of goldsmiths and other craftsmen; he was also identified with the planet Venus. As the morning and evening star, Quetzalcoatl was the symbol of death and resurrection. With his companion Xolotl, a dog-headed god, he was said to have descended to the underground hell of Mictlan to gather the bones of the ancient dead. Those bones he anointed with his own blood, giving birth to the men who inhabit the present universe. (Britannica 2001) 

In genealogical contexts the serpent denotes bloodlines.  In the ouroboric form it is seen as self-generating.  Yes, regarding its erstwhile potency, I don't think you could have beaten it with a stick.  Single-handedly the serpent represents nearly every pagan influence that the Yahwist tradition aimed to defeat.  

Is Serpens not the archetype of unity?  Against this unity the Yahwists cast their logos, and thus they initiated the dia-logos of the christos.  Serpens is Z.  Thus do we see the tension of AZO/X/QRP.  Recall the mathematical ouroboros, e^i*pi = -1.  Here the logos, Pi, restores the unity at a higher level.  To get to that higher level the symmetry of the perfect circle is broken into two foci.  The syzygys of the elliptic functions generate the Monster group, that mathematical Leviathan, which is finally tamed by the Anthropos.  The alchemy of the resulting technosis transmutes matter into information and finally into a cosmic gnosis, facilitating our eschatological resurrection.  

This very crude scenario is convoluted, nonetheless.  Behind the distractions of their religious strife, X & Z conspire in working through Q, R & P to complete our sojourn from the Alpha to the Omega.  Did history have to be complexified to the point of melodrama?  It may simply have been a question of stirring the pot: dig deep, God is at the bottom, in this, our new recipe for 'missionary stew'.  Yummy!  Superimposing X & Z yields a figure '8' or ouroboric symbol of infinity.  

[2/26] 

On occasion I refer to myself as a 'transcendental pantheist' if I wish to emphasize the participatory and monistic nature of my theism.  I would then be able to call myself a panentheist, were it not for the lack of a Telos in both pantheism and panentheism.  It seems to me that a Telos ought to be included in anything that is robustly transcendental.  The lack of a Telos in the modern 'process' versions of panentheism I would attribute to the attempt to shoehorn theism into a scientific cosmology.  Most pantheisms are considered acosmic, in and of themselves.  I will have to look further to explain the absence of a Telos in the more traditional versions of panentheism.  

In attempting to answer this last question, I have digressed into the history of theism and eschatology.  I need to get a better handle on the roots of Zoroastrianism, for example.  Clearly there are strong connections between personal and historical eschatology.  Devine judgment is often a common factor, but 'judgment' may be too narrow a term.  Every group has acceptable norms of behavior.  Deviation from those norms brings about corrective responses from the group.  In pre-modern times, social norms were rationalized by appeal to a larger context, which typically would be cosmological.  Non-conformity would either result in divine censure, or in a disturbance of the natural order that would then have to be restored. Our deviant actions usually would leave a negative trace on the soul, a condition, which, if left uncorrected, could have dire consequences for the individual.  

[2/27] 

Deviant actions may simply add weight to the human heart or soul, which may then, at the time of death, descend into hell, rather than ascend to heaven.  This sequence could be viewed as entirely natural or even mechanical, requiring no divine intervention.  

An example of the latter is the law of karma: 

In Buddhist teaching, the law of karma, says only this: `for every event that occurs, there will follow another event whose existence was caused by the first, and this second event will be pleasant or unpleasant according as its cause was skillful or unskillful.' A skillful event is one that is not accompanied by craving, resistance or delusions; an unskillful event is one that is accompanied by any one of those things.

On the one hand there occurs divine judgment, on the other hand there is a natural law.  I would like to know if one of these moral systems is derivative of the other.  Is there a natural history of morality?  

It was pointed out a long time ago that might does not make right, even if the power in question happens to be godly.  We look to super-human authority at least as much for moral inspiration as for specific rules of conduct.  To be effective, authority must inspire a sense of allegiance.  The first requisite of any religion is to inspire a sense of social solidarity.  Theism seems particularly suited to this end.  Was there ever a tribe without a tribal god, in its formative stage?  We see a dim reflection of this necessity in today's team mascots, but the modern army seems to need only the occasional battle flag. 

Let me reemphasize that pantheism, per se, is not a religion.  It seems rather to be a rationalization of polytheism, pointing back to a putative multiple emergence from the Matrix in Zodiacal fashion.  It was not Buddha's intention, but it was inevitable that he would achieve Zodiacal status amongst his followers. 

The Telos points to an ultimate future solidarity.  We identify with our Source.  In pantheism that source may be quite impersonal.  I could identify with the Matrix if I had to.  It is my ancestral home, after all.  Identifying with a deified tribal ancestor might be more inspiring, especially if the ancestor were known to be significantly involved in Creation.  Then we just have more spiritual options.  Pantheists don't have to give up their pantheism if they choose not to, so no sense in anyone feeling slighted.  

[2/28] 

Transcendental is virtually synonymous with eternal.  It is that which transcends space and time.  Pantheism refers to the unity of all things.  I cannot conceive how such unity could be entirely immanent.  Unity is not an empirical aspect of the world.  It is not something that is detectable within the space-time manifold.  It is not a construct of science.  Pantheism is distinct from materialism.  To the degree that it is distinct, to that same degree it must be transcendental.  I can only identify the singular source of being with what is here called the Matrix, which may also be called Brahman/atman: 

The holy or sacred power that is the source and sustainer of the universe. The single absolute being pervading the universe and found within the individual. The impersonal universal soul or self (sic), also found in each person. 

Pantheists see that (transcendental?) unity as the ground and source of being.  It is the goal of the pantheist to become aligned with the unifying harmony of and beyond the world.  This goal is often expressed as the escape from the eternal (sic) round of rebirth, the wheel of life.  

In the earlier Upanishads, the absolute, impersonal, eternal properties of the divine had been stressed; in the later Upanishads, on the other hand, and in the Bhagavad-Gita, the personal, loving, immanentistic properties became dominant. [...] 

On the other hand, Ramanuja, a prominent southern Brahmin who held to a qualified monism, argued strenuously against Sankara's dismissal of the world and of individual selves as being mere products of nescience. In place of this acosmism he substituted the notion of world cycles. In the unmanifest state Brahman has as his body only the very subtle matter of darkness, and he decrees "May I again possess a world-body"; in the manifest state all of the things of the world, including individual selves, are part of his body. The doctrine of Ramanuja approaches panentheism; he has certainly advanced beyond emanationistic pantheism. There are two aspects to the single Brahman, one absolutistic and the other relativistic. As in panentheism, the beings of the world have freedom. The only qualification is that, although it is Brahman's will to support the choices of finite beings, he has the power to prohibit any choice that displeases him. This power to prohibit indicates a preference for the absolute in Ramanuja's thought, which is reflected in many ways: although God is the cause of the world, for example, and includes the world within his being, he is never affected by that world, and his motive in world creation is simply play. In sum, since the absolutistic categories were given the greater emphasis in his thought, Ramanuja is representative of a relativistic monistic pantheism.

The presence in the Hindu tradition of both absolutistic and relativistic descriptions of the divine suggests that genuine panentheism might well emerge from the tradition; and, in fact, in the former president of India, S. Radhakrishnan, also a religious philosopher, that development did occur. Although Radhakrishnan had been influenced by Western philosophy, including that of A.N. Whitehead, later discussed as a modern panentheist, the sources of his thought lie in Hindu philosophy. He distinguishes between God as the being who contains the world and the Absolute, who is God in only one aspect. He finds that the beings of the world are integral with God, who draws an increase of his being from the constituents of his nature.  (Britannica, 2001) 

I didn't quite realize the extent to which the Britannica opens itself to ax-grinding!  OK, so the issue between pan- and panen- theism is simply one of personal freedom.  In as much as personal freedom requires a source, that source must be theistic, i.e. personal. 

Pantheism certainly has a personal, i.e. individual, eschatology and telos.  It is lacking any notion of cosmic Creation or Telos.  The eternal cycles can only be broken by the individual.  There is no creator, no redeemer.  There is no metanarrative beyond the cycles.  No one has power over Karma.  It is a law of nature, like gravity.  

Pantheism is the natural stance.  It is not, however, the rational stance.  Why suppose that reason has no source?  Why suppose that love has no source?  As a point of logic, could reason serve any other Telos than love?  It could not and still be coherent.  Given the Matrix, and given the possibility of love and reason, X is inevitable.  Why has it taken us so long to see the simple logic of it?  Why could the pantheists not have come around to this view prior to their encounter with the prophetic tradition?  Could we never have come to this understanding without an ad hoc divine intervention?  Did there have to be an incarnation?  Could there have been a metanarrative devoid of, or apart from the 'greatest story'. 

Yes, could there be a metanarrative devoid of passion?  Nowhere is there a greater dramatic tension between God's self-concealment and her self-revelation.  Can you launch a ship without breaking a bottle?  Does there have to be a face in order to launch a thousand ships?  If we had gotten too smart, too quickly, we might have ruined the plot.  But, still, even God cannot fool all the people all the time.  X2 is inevitable.  It can be relatively spontaneous, almost natural.  The present timing might, however, give one pause.  By that same token, the events of 9/11 might seem something less than spontaneous, especially given this possibly larger context.  

It may finally come down to a simple aphorism: it's not what you know, it's who you know.  If Sophia had not made my acquaintance twenty-five years ago, I would not likely be here today.  And twenty five years before that was my encounter with The Greatest Story.  Yesterday it was The Passion.  Love and reason are not divisible.  Love comes, then reason flows.  Only love can be the beginning and end of coherence.  Everything else is just analysis.  Analysis is reason without love.  Love is the great synthesizer.  It is the Dia-Logos: I and Thou. Is it true that the Sufis could not find love at home? 

The potency of love we drink with our mother's milk.  How quickly it is forgotten?  How do the pantheists and Islamists manage to so thoroughly abstract love?  Patriarchy must be involved, but have there not been matriarchal pantheists? 

The original I and Thou are X & M.  Out of the zodiacal pantheon, Z, it is X that becomes the center of self-organization.  This results in a meta-unity in juxtaposition to the Matricial unity.  But then, after Creation, it's almost as if X went and hid behind his mother's skirt, only coming out for his walk-on.  Was he simply respecting his elders? 

X is all about internalization.  All his relations are internal.  History is our story of internalizing the Matrix and X.  No amount of pedagogy can hasten our matriculation from our school of hard knocks, says the pedagogue.  But, rest assured, there will not have been one knock too many.  Synchronicity still rules.  It's as sure as e^i*pi = 1.   You can set your watches by the coming and going of the spirit, as if we hadn't already.  

This here is not pedagogy.  This is nostalgia.  Someone had to jog our memory.  Just hitting ourselves over the head is necessary, but not quite sufficient. 

------------------------------

Pantheism still represents a puzzle and a challenge for the theist.  What caused the pantheists to disregard the possibility of Creation?  

I have expressed the possibility that theism comes only as a package deal.  It is a deal that must somehow be mediated in a continuous manner.  It is not just an abstract proposition to either be asserted or denied outside of a social context.  Furthermore, if prophecy is a necessary part of the theistic package, it is an exclusive element. There cannot be two separately originating lines of prophetic transmission.  If redemption is part of the package, there cannot be two redeemers, nor, of course, can there cannot be two eschatons. 

A possible exception to the rule of exclusivity is found in Zoroastrianism.  It seems to have remained entirely independent of the Yahwist tradition.  It retains adherents in India. 

[...] his monotheistic concept of God has attracted the attention of modern historians of religion, who have speculated on the connections between his teaching and Judaism and Christianity. Though extreme claims of pan-Iranianism (i.e., that Zoroastrian or Iranian ideas influenced Greek, Roman, and Jewish thought) may be disregarded, the pervasive influence of Zoroaster's religious thought must nevertheless be recognized. (Britannica) 

[2/29] 

What then had Zoroaster tapped into?  Or, for that matter, what did Mohammed tap into?  What did the pantheists fail to tap into, and why did they fail?  

The alternative scenario of history would have been the unassisted triumph of X1.  There would not have been an X2.  There would not have been a triumph of science.  Jesus may have been under the impression that the Millennial kingdom of God was to have arrived immediately, end of story.  We could argue as to the worth of the two thousand year hiatus.  

Islam and pantheism each presents a counterpoint to the X1-event, and so does science.  Could the world have been complete without these digressions?  I, P & S each filled, what are in retrospect, obvious niches in our salvation ecology.  There have been many other niches filled more modestly in these last two millennia.  If this is the only world, then there is a very high premium here on diversity.  Correspondingly, the rent is very high here as well.  Speak now, or forever hold your peace.  Or have we just about heard it all, already? 

Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, Newton, etc., all filled important niches in the salvational ecology.  It is the role of X2 to fit the various pieces together into the most coherent picture.  One of us apprentices will suffice in our efforts.  If I am biased toward anything other than coherence, I shall certainly not succeed.  We may then debate whether X2 came too early or too late.  In that process we can hardly fail to consult the calendar. 

Look at it this way.  In all of history, three cosmic persona stand out: X, Y & Z, as the consort of M.  Z is the pantheon.  Y is the consummate tribal god.  After playing the field, Yahweh 'settles down' with the Israelites.  At some level, this has been prearranged with X.  X 'steals' that show.  It is Mohammed's role to transliterate Y's swan song.  Y did himself proud, and thereby, once again conspiring with X toward the inevitable X2.  On the subcontinent it is Buddha who incarnates M & Z, thereby earning himself a permanent residence in the pantheon.  

It might be said that Abraham was the incarnation of Yahweh.  We have, thus, just three historical incarnations: X, Y & Z.  Conspiring together, X & Y break the symmetry of the Zodiacal cycle, thereby causing the A/O space-time gap in that cycle.  Y is the Alpha, X(1,2) the Omega.  Has Buddha failed to tap into something?  I think he had his work already cut out for him.  He had to leave something for X2.  

Is this just too tidy, or what? 

---------------------------------

There are a lot of people out there who suppose that Jesus was a wonderful prophet and a nice guy to boot, but, sorry, he wasn't God.  Why not? 

They would have to maintain that God should never mix and mingle.  If I were God I would certainly want to make the acquaintance of my creatures.  If we are created in God's image, how better might this be proven.  Even most pantheists believe that Buddha was an incarnation.  If they can have ten of them, why can't the rest of us just have one, or maybe two counting Abraham?  There might be more than that; this would just be the bare minimum.  

And then there is the business of the sacrifice. Oh so many people have believed in the sacrificial king.  There is a very good reason for that.  Why deny that to the rest of us?  Too many people have put God and Jesus, etc., on a pedestal.  If they choose to get off that pedestal once in a while, then you have no right to deny that to them.  Then we could not be in their image.  Then we could not fully relate to them.  Then we could not be the protagonists of the cosmic drama.  It is simply incoherent of deny all of this.  If you choose the path of incoherence, you are choosing not to fulfill your human potential.  That is not a crime, but it would be wasteful if it were carried any further than sanctioned by the dramaturgy. 

If messiahs are OK, why not a savior?  And if we are going to be saved, why not by God?  If you wish to be self-saved, that is your prerogative, but please don't make things more difficult for the rest of us, unless you really have the need to punish us.  If you feel that need, then maybe your salvation needs attention. 

[3/1] 

In Buddha and Jesus there is a symmetry which remains unfathomed: surely the two great incarnations.  Both touched the void in an unmistakable, unforgettable manner.  Without either, the world would have been terribly impoverished.  Buddha did have to come before Jesus.  The sequence could not have been reversed.  

From a trinitarian point of view, perhaps Buddha incarnates the dialectic, as well as M & Z.  Instead of MDX, or MZX we could have MBX.  Buddha has very much to incorporate, and don't we see that manifested in his likenesses?  With Buddha there was a metaphysical deck clearing which may be fully appreciated only in the context of X2.  

What is left for Jesus to incarnate?  There is the teaming up of Y(1,2) & X(1,2) producing the space-time gap in Z.  You see that I am sneaking Mohammed into Y2, just for reasons of symmetry.  I have no desire to offend Islam by this abstract promotion.  We need not neglect the Patriarchy and its crucial role in history.  At this point, Buddha remains the disinterested bystander.  I suspect, however, given the unmistakable elements of pantheism being resurrected in X2, B & X have a duet in store for us.  No stepping on toes, please.  There even is a dialectical truth in B that is worthy of the holy spirit, whose advents then fully bracket X1.  

In the numerical trinity of e^i*pi, the dialectical iota adds a whole new dimension to the number line.  Only thus do we bring closure to the A/O of history.  It is B that holds Y & X, or A & O together.  History may be seen in Y & X.  The cosmos is seen in B, Y & X.  Each of BYX are acosmic, but put them together and voila.  Without B, Y and X would have been lost to scientific materialism, to technosis.  With B, gnosis is restored.  Y is the thesis, B is the antithesis and X is the synthesis, as realized in X2.  

--------------------------------------

Virtually every culture started out with a creation story, many of which invoked a recognizable Creator deity.  Only the prophetic tradition still retains such an account, but even it has been heavily influenced by scientific cosmology.  The pantheist traditions have largely become acosmic, accepting now scientific results for whatever phenomenological value they may have.  However, skepticism about creation stories took hold in pantheism well before the scientific era.  My hunch is that polytheism is generally conducive to skepticism about the conflicting conduct of its deities.  Siddhartha gave this skepticism full rein in his own teachings.  It is mainly in monotheism that metaphysical skepticism was kept at bay, even, in many contexts, up to the present.  It is interesting that the three main branches of monotheism remain adamant about the shared uniqueness of their historical origin.  Zoroastrianism, although prophetic in nature, is not considered monotheistic. 

[3/2] 

Creationism, despite its early appearances, could only be sustained within the single prophetic legacy.  Therein it remained dualistic, in keeping with that tradition.  

Within the monotheistic tradition, Judaism has always maintained its tribal and covenantal flavor.  It never aspired to evangelism.  Islam was able to spread its influence mainly under the aegis of various patriarchal theocracies, and often with a militaristic assist.  

Christianity has relied much more on the evangel than have its cousins.  This was true certainly up until the time of Constantine.  The Inquisition may fairly be seen to have been a tragic anomaly in an otherwise relatively voluntaristic movement.  In modern times, it has proven itself much more adaptable to secular, democratic modernism.  In fact, it may well have provided the unique social platform for the origination of modern liberalism, and for the launching of the scientific enterprise.  It has also shown itself to be somewhat less susceptible to fundamentalist excesses.  If any single factor can be held responsible for these characteristics, it would clearly be the incarnational core of its beliefs, as opposed to a primarily scriptural basis for the other two branches. 

Meanwhile, pantheism has shown itself to be socially ineffectual.  I am sure that many of its adherents would see that as a positive characteristic.  But these same folk are also likely to be (ineffectually?) skeptical of 'progress'.  There are ample reasons to be skeptical of progress, particularly of its materialistic, anti-spiritual excesses.  However, if it turns out that what we have called 'progress' may be seen to have been an integral part of a larger narrative of history, then there will have to be a major reassessment on everyone's part.  It is precisely at those who take upon themselves the task of reassessing 'progress' and modernity that these pages are aimed.  

From the perspective of postmodernism, most would say that modernism was an historical fluke.  The transhumanists and futurists would say that the temporary human participation in the inevitable cosmic triumph of technosis was a biological fluke on one planet.  The pantheists will aver that we have been here and done this, many times before, and will again.  The orthodox monotheists already see modernism as the last hurrah of the devil prior to Judgment Day.   

A few of us will look deeper for reasons.  That we even dare to look, could only be by the grace of Sophia.  Only one of us will need to get a convincing handle on the truth of our circumstance.  The rest will be history, or, may we more accurately say, the end thereof. 

------------------------------------

I continue to be impressed with The Passion.  I did not expect to be.  Its message is certainly visceral.  The substance of the movie is to be found in the expressions of the Marys.  It has only begun to register, the extent to which they were playing the role of the midwife, especially in the mopping up.  Was this the clear artistic intent?  The entire significance collapses into this one vignette.  How achingly certain that we are witnessing a rebirth.  A thousand sermons could never have conjured that one scene in my mind.  Is this the catholic truth that the protestants failed to retain?  From that painful birth, it has taken the church two millennia to reach the threshold of maturity.  Materialism has beaten our spirit as did the centurions beat the body.  How much we have wanted to climb down from that cross, but we have waited patiently 'til the appointed hour.  We have experienced the full measure of forsakenness.  Could anything less have sustained us?  How do others survive?  It is beyond me. 

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2/8/04

Angelic Doctor 

You might have noticed that on these pages I have assiduously avoided Dr. Thom (see, however, here and here).  Rumor has it that he is a panentheist.  My avoidance has come to an end.  

I was searching Google for the philosophy of being, and up comes St. Thomas Aquinas.  I lay my burden before the good Doctor.  If atoms are not the be-all and end-all of existence, then one must formulate a philosophy of being.  It seems that the good Doctor has maintained his lock on Being ever since 1257.  His only competition may have been Jean Paul Sartre, but I think Jean Paul was more into non-being.  Would one not sell one's soul to have an honorary doctorate in angelology from Harvard? 

If something other than atoms exists, what could it possibly be?  Don't think I haven't beat my head on this wall.  Perhaps I thought I could outsmart the Doctor.  I figured he must be a dualist, so imagine my chagrin as once again my professional ignorance is paraded in public. 

The pantheists seem generally to agree with Jean-Paul: atoms may not exist and neither does much of anything else.  Thomas is adamant that whatever exists besides God, exists through his willing of it.  Thomas is not a Matrician.  Thomas gets away with his idealism by being an absolutist about God.  I am rather more of a relativist or relationalist.  In practice, there may not be too great a gap between our positions.  For Thom, everything exists in God.  For me, everything exists in the Matrix.  It is the love of Christ that coordinates existence beyond the level of M & Z.  Existence is in the Matrix, coherence is in Christ. 

I struggle with being.  'Process' is not a satisfying answer.  It is a non-answer.  Recall our little discussion concerning panentheism and the Telos.  Clearly, Thom is no Whiteheadian concerning the Telos or lack thereof.  So 'panentheism' is setting the bar rather too low for Thom: he certainly is a transcendentalist as well as an eschatologist.  But, still, even Spinoza might not feel uncomfortable in a Thomistic, God saturated cosmos.  I'm wondering how great is the difference between Hegel and Aquinas.  Nor do I know who on the subcontinent came closest to Hegel.  I'm guessing no real competition for Georg from back East, although that was the source for some of his inspiration. 

[3/5] 

I came across chapter 1.54 in Thomas' Of God and His Creatures (c. 1260): 'That the Divine Essence, being One, is the proper Likeness and Type of all things Intelligible.'  This title struck my fancy: certainly a delight to monists' ears; if, hopefully, I interpret it correctly, and Thom and I are on the same wavelength.   As an idea emerges through the process of compositional(?) thought, it must wind up as something simple to be intelligible, i.e. coherent.  In that sense, a coherent idea, like a color or odor, does not have proper parts.  Even Beethoven's Fifth does not have proper parts.  Its four movements may be separately understood and appreciated, but there is also the being of the Symphony.  It can in no way be just an aggregation.  The parts must function together organically.  If you heard the different movements separately, unknowingly over a period of months, you would not have heard the Symphony.  

What then is the being of the Fifth Symphony?  Is there only one being that can ever be played, heard or understood?  Suppose something were added or omitted.  Some have claimed that, besides atoms, only living organisms may be said to exist unitarily.  What then of the mind or self? 

Consider a person.  Persons are usually supposed to be the prime candidates for the status of 'being', if such there be.  There is no doubt that persons change.  Often personal identification is vouchsafed by the posit of an individually created, immaterial, indestructible soul.  This is pure Platonism.  Thomas and I are more monistic.  In Thomas' case, he was more inclined to the Aristotelian polarity of form and substance, with whatever was the pre-scientific meaning of substance.  This was less idealistic than Plato, but only by degree. 

For me, being may only be understood in the context of M, D, X & Z.  For Thomas, the only context was his absolute God by whom all polarities are subsumed.  I am more inclined to the bootstrap, as mediated by the relational dialectic, D.  

We are social animals.  We exist in the context of the Metanarrative.  B5th is a bona fide part of the narrative.  Neither we nor it exist or may be understood outside of that context.  We and it are necessary components of the BPW.  Beethoven may not be known independent of his symphony.  As a child, Ludwig was still a potential being.  So are you and I.  The Metanarrative short of the resurrection is also a potential being.  Creator and creature are also not independent.  Thomas might disagree.  I would say that God, or rather Christ (X), is fully absorbed in Creation.  We exist only because all creatures are co-creators.  Everything exists sub specie aeternitas.  That we can have even the smallest of thoughts is due to our participation in the cosmic hologram.  Participation is a Whiteheadian Process, but it is a process with a Telos.  Plato did not understand process.  Neither do physicists when they think of an isolated atom.  

Rather than Forms, there are Norms.  Our deviation from the norm constitutes our individual identity.  Jesus is just the supreme deviant relative to the Matrix and most everything else.  Jesus pushed the envelope of the dialectic.  We strive to hear the deviation of the Fifth from the symphonic norm.  The Fifth may also substantiate that norm by no small measure.  Before the Fifth, our symphonic comprehension was correspondingly impoverished.  Each being is a piece of the puzzle toward whose comprehension we strive.   For Plato there was the Good, a kind of telos; but I think it was understood passively.  

[3/6] 

I have been remiss in not previously engaging with the good Doctor, but it is never too late.  I will now be in a position to make a detailed comparison between my cosmology and that of the pre-modern philosophers.  Of the modern philosophers, only Hegel and possibly Whitehead presently seem relevant.  

Thomas can be my stalking horse from the past.  His historical fortune should shed some light on the present situation.  Thomas' posthumous career was nothing short of meteoric; and, considering the primitive state of communication and publishing, it would almost have to be considered miraculous.   He was canonized in 1323, only fifty years after his death.  His philosophy became canonical forthwith.  Beginning in the next century with the Renaissance, however, there gradually developed a distinction between theology and natural philosophy, with Thomas stuck in the middle.  The split was not formalized until the Seventeenth century by Descartes' dualism of mind and matter.  From that point forward it has just been the case of religion v. science: the tale to two dogmas.  The fortunes of theology and philosophy have been in decline ever since.  It is sad to think that 1323 was the high-water mark of philosophy.  Seven centuries of decline presents to me both a challenge and an opportunity.  The deck has certainly been cleared. 

There was a Thomist revival in the latter part of the Nineteenth century, probably in conjunction with the brief ascendancy of idealism following Hegel.  But the much more steady ascendancy of scientific materialism could not be turned back.  Since the turn of the last century, it is just the acosmic philosophies of existentialism, phenomenology and the 'process philosophy' of Whitehead that have had any impact on what little remains of theology.  

The struggle for premodern dominance in philosophy was mainly between Plato and Aristotle.  This division was reflected in the contrast between Thomas and the Church Fathers, notably Augustine, who followed Plato.  Aristotle may simply have been too subtle for them.  It was the Spanish-Islamic philosopher, Averroes, whose Twelfth century commentaries reintroduced Aristotle to the West, thereby stimulating Thomas Aquinas and ultimately the European Renaissance.  Averroes was virtually the last flower of the earlier Islamic revival of classical learning.  The dark age of Islam has reigned since, or at least until the advent of the Internet.  Islam may not be able to survive its liberation from eight centuries of fundamentalism.  At the least, though, its collapse would produce a spiritual vacuum of unprecedented proportions.  This might present an opportunity for the BPW hypothesis, an opportunity unavailable elsewhere. 

My best guess at this point is that it was Thomas' lingering dalliance with a Platonic dualism between Creator and Creation that anticipated Cartesian dualism and the ultimate eclipse of Thomism.  It is hard to see how Thomas could have embraced monism and not been disbarred from the ecclesia.  Pantheists were being used as tinder in those days and right into the Renaissance.  It may be those smoldering ashes which continue to dampen monist enthusiasm in the West.  A teleological panentheism is what now awaits us.  Its summit rises only dimly out of the mists of history.  Perhaps in bio/semiotics we see the hint of a revival of a purer, monistic version of Aristotle.  Plotinus' (AD 205-270) neo-Platonism may be another horse to watch, if this race is ever to be restarted. 

In his 28th year--he seems to have been rather a late developer--Plotinus felt an impulse to study philosophy and thus went to Alexandria. He attended the lectures of the most eminent professors in Alexandria at the time, which reduced him to a state of complete depression. In the end, a friend who understood what he wanted took him to hear the self-taught philosopher Ammonius "Saccas." When he had heard Ammonius speak, Plotinus said, "This is the man I was looking for," and stayed with him for 11 years.

Ammonius is the most mysterious figure in the history of ancient philosophy. He was, it seems, a lapsed Christian (yet even this is not quite certain), and the one or two extant remarks about his thought suggest a fairly commonplace sort of traditional Platonism. A man who could attract such devotion from Plotinus and who may also have been the philosophical master of the great Christian theologian Origen, must have had something more to offer his pupils, but what it was is not known. That Plotinus stayed with him for 11 years is in no way surprising. One did not enter an ancient philosophical school to take courses and obtain a degree, but rather to join in what might well be a lifelong cooperative following of the way to truth, goodness, and the ultimate liberation of the spirit. (Britannica 2001) 

Interesting.  

[...] That a Greek philosopher, especially at this period, should be interested in Oriental thought is not extraordinary. Plotinus' own thought shows some striking similarities to Indian religious philosophy, but he never actually made contact with Eastern sages because of the failure of the expedition. Though direct or indirect contact with Indians educated in their own religious-philosophical traditions may not have been impossible in 3rd-century Alexandria, the resemblances of the philosophy of Plotinus to Indian thought were more likely a natural development of the Greek tradition that he inherited.

[...] Some members of his circle of friends were Gnostics (heretical Christian dualists who emphasized esoteric salvatory knowledge), and they provoked him not only to write a vigorous attack on their beliefs but to organize a polemic campaign against them through the activities of Porphyry and Amelius. Plotinus' reasons for detesting Gnosticism also would have applied, to some extent, to orthodox Christianity--though there is no evidence that he knew anything about it or that he had any contact with the church in Rome. Gnosticism appeared to him to be a barbarous, melodramatic, irrational, immoral, un-Greek, and insanely arrogant superstition. Plotinus' own religion, which he practiced and taught with calm intensity, was the quest for mystical union with the Good through the exercise of pure intelligence.

Well, excuse us, but it does seem that fortune has lately been smiling more on the Gnostics than on Plotinus.  I'm not clear about the dualism attributed to them, but imagine that it must be similar to Plato's.  Reportedly, though, it was a value laden version of Cartesian dualism: spirit - good, matter - bad. Perhaps I have been a bit liberal in my use of the term 'gnosticism'.  I am more concerned with gnosis than with gnosticism, per se.  However, if we recast the gnostic 'evil' world as that posited by materialism, then the dualism can still be instructional. 

Let me just note here that Plotinus' redactor, Porphyry (AD 234-305), also wrote an influential commentary on Aristotle. 

According to the Britannica, neo-Platonists posit a quasi-spontaneous emanation from the One.  Their One is not my Matrix, although they may be usefully compared and contrasted.  The sensory, and possibly atomic, world is the final emanation, and it may be seen as a positive reflection of the One.  The body, viewed in more negative terms, is a drag on the soul.  Through moral and intellectual effort the soul may reascend to the contemplation of the One.  Its original descent into a body may have been necessary, or simply a fall.  The material world is eternal, and possibly infinite.  There is only an individual eschatology.  

What saves the BPW from the excesses of neo-Platonic hierarchialism, is its insistence on relationalism for all its elements.   There is not a chain of being.  There is a network of being.  This relationalism is very amenable to the strongly social aspect of the entire prophetic tradition.  The words of the prophet almost always concern social action or lack thereof.  Is this just a residue of tribalism, or is it a reflection of the unfolding of the Metanarrative?  It is ultimately the dia-logos that is stressed. 

Neo-Platonists hold to a cosmology that is only somewhat more positive than that of pantheism generally.  Aquinas, however, stumbles on the dualism of both Plato and the Prophets.  He failed to fully grasp that the medium was the message in the X-event.  The Incarnation of God is the most radical act of monism that could be perpetrated.  That this message must await the X2-event for its full explication is the hypothesis being explored here.  

[6/7] 

With a little help from the angelic doctor, I think we have a pretty good handle on the metaphysical triumvirate of theism, pantheism and materialism.  All of our intellectual and spiritual history is the story of how we have mixed and matched these three primary colors into every combination except the right one.  Saint Thomas Aquinas came about as close as anyone to getting the right combination.  He was just about a dollar short and eight hundred years too early.  

Thomas had a lot of help from Plato, Plotinus and Aristotle.  Plotinus created the optimal blend of Platonism and pantheism, with his Chain of Being.  Thomas came close to panentheism, but could not quite close the gap between Creator and Creation.  He had everything else just about right.  So near, yet so far.  His should be an easy act to follow.  

There was a very big historical and intellectual disconnect between theism and pantheism.  There was a blind spot here, that I would have to say was deliberate.  This no-man's-land was God's own little preserve, set aside for the appropriate time.  If the appropriate time is not now, then I'll just have to eat my hat.  

The Incarnation should have given away the whole show, but it was such a big deal that it has taken us fully two millennia to digest it, so to speak.  How many of those crackers do we have to eat before we get the picture?  Plato must still be spinning in his grave at the very thought that billions of people every week are eating his Good.  This was not how he had envisioned it.  Plato was four hundred years too early.  What was Thomas' excuse?  Some of the neo-Platonist gnostics must have gotten the picture about monism, but then they either got burned or they forgot the resurrection or both.  Yes, that was the problem with monism back then.  They got too impatient to wait for the resurrection.  They wanted to have their cracker and eat it too.  

Can we be more patient now?  I truly believe so.  This time we will be just a bit wiser.  We have had a two thousand year education, we ought to be a little bit smarter.  And, lest we forget, we also have the Internet.  It was almost worth the wait.  We have eaten our spinach and now it's time to get on with the show.  It's time for us to put away our toys and take up the Kingdom.  This is not intended to be a new burden.  It is simply a matriculation. 

Yes, even the polytheists were right about a lot of things, but they missed the idea of Creation.  How could they?  It has proven all too easy to take the world for granted.  It has taken us three centuries of science to begin to appreciate the mystery of matter.  Everybody except some of the Incarnationists saw matter as something dirty, if not downright evil.  They just didn't take the time to look closely enough.  

There were exceptions.  Nay, evidently there was ever only one exception the filth theory of matter.  It was the Greek exception.  Gosh, is that true?  We had better check.  Were there no oriental elements?  No Chinese atoms?  Wu Xing: 

Most traditional cosmologies speak of four or five fundamental Elements. [...]

Whereas Western thought developed the idea of elements as substances, and Indian thought as emanations, Chinese philosophy conceived of the five elements, or Wu Xing, as dynamic states of change.

It was Plato, allegedly, who took the critical next step. He associated each of the five elements with one of the regular polyhedra.  This, however, was done in the spirit of Pythagoras who had lived nearly a hundred years before Plato.  This hypothesis of perfectly formed atoms was also in line with the Aristotelian view of the immanence of the the forms, and, ironically, quite contrary to Plato's own dualist view in which the forms did not inhabit the phenomenal realm.  Atomism was not a view that ever gained currency in pre-modern China.  Atomistic speculation arose in India at about the same time as in Greece, but there were no other renditions of Plato or Pythagoras. 

Scientific gnosis, if it came from anywhere, came from a melding of the Greek and prophetic traditions.  With his hypothesis of the immanence of the forms in this world, it was almost as if Aristotle, possibly following Pythagoras, anticipated the Incarnation.  If we could eat the mathematical forms, why should we not also eat the incarnation of the Platonic Good?  The Athens-Jerusalem axis became the fulcrum of the future.  It was a double singularity in world history.  

Greek style cosmological speculation could never gain currency in the pantheist East.  Yes, there were elaborate, even numerically based cosmologies arising in India; but there simply did not exist the Good.  The most basic premise of the BPW was never formed or even framed under pantheism or polytheism.  The Good could be nothing other than the universal Telos.  The notion of universals and archetypes could not arise under pantheism.  All was illusion.  

It would seem, however, that I am threatening to take some dangerous steps back toward pantheism.  This reversal makes sense, and is practicable, only in a postmodern context.  I am simply going to put the logical finishing touches on Thomism.  I intend only to render the good Doctor coherent.  We can have immanence and transcendence without resorting to dualism.  Is this not the best of all worlds?  As we finally come under the aegis of the Telos, it will be management by objective, rather than management by prophetic directive.  The dia-Logos will be fully realized. 

The Telos is seen now not as an abstraction but as the Hierogamos.  The ideal of romantic, chivalric love, as first embraced by the Cathari Troubadours, can hardly be, nor truly has been conceived in any lesser context.  The Incarnation was unquestionably a package deal, the dimensions of which we have only begun to comprehend.  

[3/8] 

Back to those Platonic/Pythagorean atoms.  No, not the formless abstractions of Democritus or Kanaada,  but rather the specific geometrical solids proposed by Plato.  But now I notice that the Britannica gives a more generous interpretation to Democritian atomism, while nowhere mentioning geometrical atoms.  

Democritus had declared quantitative differences to be intelligible, because they were subject to mathematical reasoning. Precisely this relationship between quantitative differences and mathematics made it impossible for Descartes (17th century) to think along the atomistic lines of Democritus. If the only thing that is clearly understandable in matter is mathematical proportions, then matter and spatial extension are the same--a conclusion that Descartes did not hesitate to draw. Consequently, he rejected not only the idea of indivisible atoms but also that of the void. In his eyes the concept "void" is a contradiction in terms. Where there is space, there is by definition extension and, therefore, matter.  (Britannica) 

I'm amazed that the Britannica fails to mention Plato's 'Theory of Everything' as expounded in his Timaeus.  Admittedly this falls outside the context of his usual dualism, but perhaps it manifests a later reconciliation with a Pythagorean style of teleological panentheism.  Only much later would this development be codified into neo-Platonism.  History might have been profoundly altered if this monistic side of Plato had been his dominant legacy.  

What was still missing back then was the idea of progress.  The irony is that when the idea of progress first became accepted it was seen mainly as an antidote to gnostic and millenarian enthusiasm.  As the idea of progress devolved into amillennialism and was then confounded with Darwinism, it became the handmaiden of materialism; and, now without a Telos, it has simply become incoherent.  Only with X2 may we recover the Telos.  And only in a postmodern context can the notion of a participatory progress be compounded with a transcendental Telos, finally bringing the Telos within our grasp, if not yet within our comprehension.  First, we now are given to comprehend the Incarnation.  We could not have believed any earlier that the proffered salvation was intended to be participatory.  

The choreography of the Metanarrative has not been easy.  Our spiritual and intellectual guidance has, until now, been placed on separate tracks.  The joining of these tracks in the context of X2 constitutes our dramatic inauguration of the Millennium.  Only now are the separate revelations of Athens and Jerusalem fully joined.  Only now can intellect and spirit finally be aligned.  The coming together of these elements might well be compared with the mixing of the elements of a binary explosive.  Only the Internet is designed to handle such a charge.  The 'irrational exuberance' of the Internet 'bubble' will now be rationalized and realized.  Forget 'new economy', we are now talking 'new world'.  Y2K becomes Y2C, i.e. X2.  Is this the dreaded New World Order, complete with Antichrist?  It may well be dreaded by those ensnared in the old dualistic paradigm.  This 'experiment' in spiritual alchemy will seem apocalyptic to those who fail to rise to the occasion.  The irony is that the Christian fundamentalists whose beliefs incorporate more of the BPW than anyone else's, may receive the greatest shock and offer the most resistance, simply because they are so close to ground zero.    

-----------------------------------

I champion the view that history is no accident in either a cosmological or local sense.  There is a real history of ideas.  Ideas matter.  One idea leads to another in some rational sequence that remains largely enigmatic, but is ultimately teleological.  Within this teleological frame, science and religion have interacted on many levels.  Their superficial antagonism belies a much deeper symbiosis.  

Fundamentalists can view science only with the darkest suspicion, if not in a outright conspiratorial light.  Liberal theologians hew to the dictum that good fences make good neighbors.  They leave the history of science to their secular colleagues who do not always return the favor.  We are left with anecdotal accounts of the connections, of which this is just one. 

We are left to compare and contrast the two poles of revelation: Athens and Jerusalem.  The singularity of the later may be more readily rationalized than the former.   One can almost sense the choreographic challenge being presented along this particular geographic and spiritual axis.  It is also a fault line into which many good intentions have disappeared.  I cannot fail to cast in my own lot.  

Although thoroughly pantheist in nature, Greece did not follow the pantheism of the rest of the world.  The term 'rational' is applied to ancient Greece as to no other culture.  I try to pin this down.  Plato stands out, of course, but there had to be many supporting actors.  What is the source here?  Delphi is practically synonymous with 'oracle', but what could those besotted priestesses have to do with reason?  Nonetheless, no oracular site compares.  Could the juxtaposition of Athens, Delphi and Jerusalem have been random?  Were Apollo and Yahweh conspiring?   Nowhere else in the world did the gnostic bug bite so effectively.  

The Greeks had a unique grasp of the universals.  Their tenacity distinguished them from all other pantheists.  They had the Logos in everything but the flesh.  Others might well point to Egypt with their hieroglyphs as the ultimate source of the Logos.  Perhaps it was the Socratic dia-Logos which finally sets the Greeks apart.  It was just the dia-Logos which gave the Greek logos its legs and its almost universal legacy.  Was Delphi not the global center for divine interrogation? 

And then there was the Good.  My goodness?  No, my Best, Plato's Good.  This is the ultimate gnosis.  It is only the Good which we dare to throw in the face of God.  Do You measure up?  We've got Your number.  We interrogate You, then we measure You.  On a stake?  How better?  ==>>>  Delphi, Athens, Jerusalem.  [6/18 - An 800 mile geodesic arc plotted from the Delphic Oracle to the Temple Mount falls 1.6 miles south of the Parthenon.]  

Do we get the picture?  Pantheism has its flavors: active and passive.  Passivity now rules that roost.  Evidently the Greeks caught the gnostic bug.  By now the virus has spread though the world, despite all pantheism and despite all orthodoxy.  We pose a question, we expect an answer.  The Greeks posed many questions.  Their answer finally arrived, just about eight hundred miles away, across the sea.  Later the Good Doctor put two and two together and came up with three.  We'll strive for four, at least. 

[3/9] 

Speaking of Athens and Jerusalem, two questions come to mind.  What is Truth?  What is Good?  We can, of course, answer these questions by providing particular examples, but does this suffice?  Hardly.  Lately I have been at pains to distinguish theism from pantheism, but the Greeks seem to fall into that divide.  Or, perhaps they attempt to bridge it with their Logos.  If Plato could, dialectically, achieve a gnosis of the Good, then what need would he have of the God hypothesis?  I am in a similar situation wrt the BPW hypothesis.  God can hardly fail to serve the Logos.  God cannot fail to create the best possible world.  In fact, we are here to do most of that for her, using our Logos gnosis.  So much for Athens.  So much for the Good. 

What is Truth?  Pontius did not get an answer, but we know what it is.  'I am the way, the truth and the light.'  Hold the phone.  We've just crossed wires with Athens on the other line.  This does not compute.  This is where the Good Doctor adds two and two and comes up a dollar short.  Plato could never have said or even imagined such a thing.  Who does this guy think he is?  Clearly we have come to a fork in the road.  Now, two millennia after the fact, it may be time to recompute.  Better place a call to Delphi.  

I think the problem has to do with the dia-Logos.  Did Hegel have the answer?  He must have come pretty darn close.  But right off the top, how can we get off with objectifying the Good, if that's what Plato was trying to do?  For one thing, we come back to the problem of universals, which has bedeviled philosophy from the start.  

The problem has a lot to do with Creation.  The Greeks, in keeping with pantheism, were not creationists.  The world was eternal, whether cyclically so or not.  Plato's Good was quite apart from the world.  It was never intended to incarnate.  It would ever only be occasionally and ineffably glimpsed by the philosopher.  

Then Thomas was confronted with an alleged incarnation.  Using Plato and Aristotle he took its measure and came to virtually the same conclusion.  The Good and God are ineffable.  We were left with the Logos suspended in mid air.  Yes, there was a Creation, but it too was suspended in air: it was ex nihilo.  

Next it was Hegel's turn.  He employed his own dialectic.  

------------------------------

I'm going to have to be even more cursory than my usual.  I'll be out of town for for ten days starting Thursday. 

Hegel: so near yet so far.  He became obsessive with his dialectic.  There was a madness in his method.  It became his own reductio. Besides, he was 200 years too early.  With all his metaphysical expertise, it seems that he totally failed to grasp the significance of the X-event.  Poor guy, Georg, without McCluhan how could he know that the medium was the message.  I don't think he even understood the Resurrection.  For Georg, the X-event was simply Ethics 101.  That Jesus got crucified was just a spot of bad luck.  

It becomes all too clear that Georg was a pantheist.  Instead of the Christos, we are given the Dialectic.  I have spoken of the triad of M, D and X, but D exists only in service to X and Creation.  It is a means to an end, hardly an end in itself. 

Speaking of ends, I have not seen an eschaton yet.  Heck, I'm not even sure he has a creation.  Except for the fact that his cosmos is anthropocentric, we don't see a cosmology.  He is concerned only with the anthropology.  

With the above considerations, should anyone have been surprised when Hegel's system was hijacked by the dialectical materialists?  Was it not inevitable?  That it also may have influenced the National Socialists is a whole other matter. 

It just seems that Georg managed to mechanize the Spirit.  In that sense his cosmos is deterministic in the manner of the Karma Machine we see in the East.  For me, the Telos is the anti-mechanism.  It is ultimately a spirit attractor.  It is the big charism in the sky.  Inevitability, yes.  Determinism, no.  And did God have a choice in creating the BPW?  Yes, and we're it. 

My whole style here could almost be characterized as anti-Hegelian.  There need be nothing ponderous about the Rapture.  The Spirit will never be routinized.  There is nothing routine about the BPW.  It is pure singularity. 

[3/10] 

The basic issue between theism and pantheism concerns the nature and provenance of the self.  I am on the theistic side of the issue, but leaning toward pantheism with my invocation of the matrix and my radical relationalism. 

X dialectically emerges from the Matrix.  It is a proactive bootstrap process of which Creation is the prime component.  In other words, X is not merely an emanation of M.  X is latent in M, but must realize itself through the proactive process of Creation.  The creatures more or less reflect X, with X being Creator and Anthropos.  The individuality of the human souls is vouchsafed by their participation in the Metanarrative.  The Metanarrative is co-authored.  The process is also somewhat like a symphony with X as the conductor and principle composer.  The individual souls are fully amalgamated into the Christos/Telos at the end of history.  This is the Hierogamos.  This is a far cry from pantheism and Hegelianism.  

Where Hegel primarily departs from pantheism is in his progressive view of history.  But this is mainly an anthropology and not totally a cosmology.  The eschaton is muted.  There is no Creator, and certainly not a personal deity.  His absolute One is comparable to Brahman and the Matrix.  Cosmic intelligence resides entirely in the collective intelligence of humanity.  The role of teleology here is minimized.  The dialectic of history may be seen as more of an efficient than final cause.  There is virtually no sense of dramaturgy or even aesthetics of history itself.  Both of these are stressed in the Metanarrative.  

In pantheism the individuality of the souls is stressed.  This is particularly true in the doctrine of karma and reincarnation.  In orthodox theism, the locus of individuality is in the personal eschatology of heaven versus hell.  As a universalist, I am not restricted in that regard.  The goal of the pantheist is ultimately to be reabsorbed into the impersonal Brahman.  In theism it is more like an 'amalgamation', a term that I using here for the first time.  Of course, Brahman is frequently personified in the form of Vishnu, Shiva, etc., but that is strictly optional, as in the way I could refer to the Matrix, somewhat generically, as 'mother'.  

The question of the soul arises mainly, if not entirely, for Humans.  It has to do with personal identity, which is necessarily correlated with the possession of a personal long-term eidetic memory.  It is the latter which distinguishes us from the rest of the creatures.  Other creatures have mainly skill type memories that could be 'explained' organically, but not so eidetic memory.  The easiest way to shoot down the whole BPW hypothesis would be to produce a material explanation for eidetic memory.  Why am I not holding my breath? 

The most pressing concern for many folks will be the canine soul. 'Will Rover greet me in heaven?'  Yes, Virginia.  However, the caveat is that the individuality of particular canine souls is strictly dependent on their particular relation with a particular person.  It is a 'parasitic' existence.  But by the same token, is not our existence parasitic upon the Christos?  It's not what you know, it's who you know.  The Christos is ultimately unavoidable.  So let us not cast aspersions on our furry friends, but do take note that the issue of the feline soul is hardly ever so pressing.  I'm only slightly biased here. 

-----------------------------------

For a minute there I thought that Hegel might give the BPW a run for its money, but that is not to be, evidently.  It is the Good Doctor who has come closest to this precinct.  Thomism, however, was unable to sufficiently extricate itself from the ecclesiastical orthodoxy of dualism.  It was never given the freedom to flirt with pantheism.  Yes, it is a dangerous liaison, but ultimately it only requires the courage of one's convictions.  Of course, not having the Inquisitor or the Monsignor at one's doorstep does wonders for one's courage.  I only ever had that acronymous agency to play with. 

Modern flirtation with pantheism occurs exclusively under the aegis of the scientific cosmos.  Extricating ourselves from that orthodoxy is evidently more difficult than from its ecclesiastical cousin.  This is not a measure of the relative degree of enforcement, but more a measure of the magnitude of the gestalt switch from materialism to immaterialism.  Such is the price of coherence.  Pantheism is oh so tolerant of incoherence.  Is it not the Big Easy?  Then we had better enjoy this Mardi Gras that some call postmodernism. 

Although pantheism is usually regarded as a metaphysics of immanence, the monism that it offers is, certainly in practice, strictly transcendental.  The monism of the BPW, by contrast, is immanent in the coherence and comprehensibility of the world.  This is part of everyone's daily experience.  That the coherence is not always obvious to us, however, does not argue for its absence.  Coherence is is to be finally and fully realized in a total eschatological Presence.  Nothing is left out of the eschaton.  There is no remainder.  This is just an aspect of universal redemption.  Every bit of coherence is a portent of our resurrection. 

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3/4/04

Solving the World's Problems

That the world has problems is hardly disputable, but that is just about as far as the consensus goes.  

That the world has problems and that they might be solvable is a relatively modern idea, but it does predate modernism, per se.  Historically, the twin notions of a human predicament and of human transgression are among our earliest attempts to grapple with our pervasive sense of dysfunction.  Is this not the well-spring of the religious impulse: there is something about existence which ought to be overcome.  Perhaps, more basically, this is simply the result of our seemingly unlimited propensity to distinguish 'is' from 'ought'.  

Virtually all mythologies point to a primordial state of equilibrium or grace.  Then there is some sort of transgression, human, divine or natural, that has inevitably led to the present state of depravity and suffering.  The natural solution to such a pervasive problem is just for the world to come to an end, at which point it might or might not be renewed or recycled in some fashion. 

This pretty much describes our pre-modern understanding.  With modernism came the notion of progress.  This was quite contrary to the idea of a primordial state of grace.  The more liberally inclined theists were, however, willing to envision material and political progress in the context of a progressive spiritual history of  divine revelation.  Hegel epitomizes this worldview.  The eschatology, herein, is only obscurely implied. 

Then along came Darwin and evolution.  We struggle to make any cosmological sense of it.  The scientific consensus is that there is no sense to be made of it: WYSIWYG.   There is nothing normal about evolution.  The past has no particular bearing on the future of evolution.  Evolution here has no particular bearing on evolution anywhere else in the universe.  The rest of us can only wonder.  In general, the notion of progress has suffered in our post-Darwinian world.  Postmodernism is just the measure of the failure of the idea of progress.  What little remains of the secular idea of progress has been taken over by the transhumanists.  Without progress, humanism is left without a rudder.  This is the meaning of the 'end of history'.  Without a clear and consensual vision, humanists are left in the mode of problem solving, usually of the most piecemeal sort, and which is often accompanied by the fervent hope that things won't get too much worse, too quickly.  Yes, postmodernism is underscored by a pervasive secular/sectarian apocalypticism.  Utopianism is the orphan of modernism.  Thus, today, outside of transhumanist circles, the phrase that is the title of this page may only be uttered with the utmost irony.  Can we hope to see beyond the irony?  In a word, yes.  Short of an apocalypse, postmodernism ought to be an easy act to follow.  

From a purely secular perspective, religion is very widely perceived to be high on the list of world problems.  There are many polarizing issues in the world, but surely religion ought to be counted as among the most divisive and gratuitous of these.  Religious passions are often seen to divide region, nation and family.  Secular and sectarian interests are often at variance.  My own introduction to the practical significance of religious beliefs came with my concerns relative to the detrimental consequences of population growth.  It was clear that religion played a crucial role in decisions effecting fertility.  

What secularists persistently fail to see is the other side of this coin.  Can our human potential be realized without evoking those passions which seem so amenable to religious arousal?  If the world's problems are simply amenable to solution by market forces, then perhaps the only human emotion required will be that of material greed.  That unbridled greed could be the answer to our problems seems oxymoronic.  Reducing humanity to its lowest common denominator might be preferable to constant religious strife, but even that trade-off seems highly questionable. 

What seems perfectly clear is that materialism fails to engage the human psyche in anything but the most superficial manner.  Scientific materialism has attempted to reduce every problem to technologically manageable proportions.  Specialists in every field of expertise stand ready to tackle each specifiable portion of our predicament.  Every special interest marshals its own experts.  That the resulting mishmash of conflicting interests is totally lacking in coherence is the problem of no one.  The result can hardly fail to exacerbate the underlying condition of alienation or anomie, which most observers would place high on the list of human problems. 

If then, in our search for answers to the human predicament, we were finally forced to confront the spiritual dimension of it, how might we possibly proceed?  It would seem that the historical solution to the religious problem has already been well established.  It is just pantheism.  Is not pantheism the religion that could have been designed by a committee of relatively disinterested observers?  It is certainly the most tolerant and most inclusive of all the traditions.  Has not pantheism already made remarkable inroads amongst those secularists who have become disillusioned with modernism and scientific materialism?  

My concern with pantheism is that it seems too much to be a watered-down theism.  By definition it has no solid core.  Most of its adherents have historically continued to embrace a devotional practice that takes the form of a limited theism.  Only the most austere of its intellectuals ever seem able to 'embrace' the impersonal Brahman.  Furthermore, the popularity of pantheism among our moderns seems to rest just on its refusal to place demands on their lives.  Pantheism is the solace of the private individual.  Its social dimension appears deliberately muted. 

Indeed, pantheism may well suffice in its newfound role as the spiritual complement to scientific materialism.  But that seems to be the extent of it.  It provides no greater vision or coherence.  In as much as our problems manifest a crucial social dimension, pantheism brings only the most limited resources to the table.  Pantheism has never been known for the reshaping of communities.  That has never been its function.  Pantheism seems deliberately designed not to engage the human spirit.  In contrast with the crusading excesses of monotheism, that may be a positive feature.  

Playing with spiritual fire is bound to entail risks.  Are these risks that we can afford not to take?  Perhaps yes, perhaps no.  Let me just say that if we are indeed creatures, then by continuing to ignore that fact we cannot possibly expect to address our creaturely predicament.  These pages on this site are intended just to explore our putative creaturely status and its possible entailments.  

[3/24] 

Long before science came on the scene, our creaturely status was left in doubt under the aegis of pantheism.  This I find curious.  It is difficult now to reconstruct the primordial myths of creation.  We cannot ascertain the degree to which the pantheist downplaying of creation was a departure from the primordial base line.  

I review Britannica's (2001) very concise summary of the basic creation themes.  I notice that I have, wittingly or not, borrowed significant elements from each of the basic themes.  In each of these elements I depart from the absolutist, ex nihilo view of the monotheist, prophetic tradition.  But, in upholding the coherence of Creation, I yield nothing to any tradition or myth.  I continue to be perplexed by the fundamental incoherence of traditional monotheism, and this incoherence is most emphatic in the dualism between the Creator and Creation.  We need to get to the bottom of that dualism in order to meliorate it.  The Incarnation event should have severely undermined that dualism.  That it did not is the greatest of historical puzzles. 

When it is stated that the supreme being created the world and that there was no primordial matter prior to his being, then the determination of the world is in the mind and will of the deity. This leads to distinctive conclusions regarding the destiny of the world and man. The end (and meaning) of the world is thus not determined by the primordial matter but by the deity who created the world. It is he alone who determines the preservation, maintenance, and end of the world.  (Britannica 2001)

This is the distinctive element of theism that I wholeheartedly endorse, with the caveat that our full participation in this scheme does nothing to detract from the value of the Creator.  Also, please note that the Matrix, while primordial, is in no way material.  Mind over matter is the core idea of the BPW hypothesis.  The only way to ensure this outcome is to give free-rein to coherence.  God is self-limiting only in respect to coherence.  Incoherence is of no benefit either to Creator or Creation, as if they could ever be truly distinguished.  

God emerges from the Matrix just in the act of Creation.  To deny the Matrix is actually to deny the power and being of God.  It is to deny the very possibility of the Incarnation.  My point is that God is self-created out of the Matrix.  To deny to God the power of self-creation is to deny almost everything.  The Matrix is not that.  Does God share the glory of the Matrix?  Does God become a demi-urge relative to it?  These are issues that do not need to be swept aside by anyone's fiat.  The Matrix underwrites the possibility that makes possible the best possible world.  Perhaps even God cannot fathom the end of that possibility. 

[3/25] 

If the X1-event could not persuade the monotheists of monism, what chance does X2 have?  Obviously science will have to play a role.  The Matrix is the logical ramification of the Quantum.  Monism is the ramification of the Matrix as it is informed by neo-Platonism in the context of a Pythagorean inspired mathematical physics.  

Was the Incarnation not, then, premature by two millennia?  Did it not fall on deaf ears?  No.  The Gnostics did get the message.  They paved the way for our gnostic detour through science.  The Alchemists saw divinity in matter.  The 'Al' in alchemy speaks even to the Islamic detour of this gnosis.  I do not claim to understand the ins and outs of the complex historical transduction of gnosticism.  The impetus it received from a Hellenically informed monotheism was, however, not to be duplicated.  This was the singular, oracular axis of Delphi and Jerusalem.  Monism was the perennial philosophy, which only now is set to show its colors.  Monism and the Millennium are virtually synonymous.  Monism is all about God's inevitable kingdom.  With the final and teleological advent of the Internet, the cosmic coherence of monism is no longer to be denied.  We have here the electrified Logos.  It comes upon the world in a veritable flash. 

The exclusionary dualism of the fundamentalists, in all of its unthinking obduracy, will be the greatest obstacle to our inevitable, teleological, universal gnosis.  Surely it will be their Antichrist.  It will also be their tar-baby, once they can no longer pretend to ignore it. 

Such is the inevitable solution to the otherwise intractable problem of religion.  The irresistible force of gnosis meets the immovable object of religion.  The dramatic potential could not have been lost on our dramaturgical Metanarrator.  If the problem of religion can be solved in a single stroke, can our other problems long remain problematic?  Will they not also have to give up the ghost?  

----------------------------------

Fundamentalism, literalism and bibliolatry are the scourge of the prophetic tradition.  The Incarnation is what saved Christianity from the worst excesses of fundamentalism that have, for too many centuries, stultified the mind and spirit of Islam.  Christian fundamentalism is, in large measure, the inevitable reaction to an equally intransigent scientism.  

The strict monotheists see Christianity as only christolatry.  This is just their charge against us.  Our excessively overworked trinitarian formulations do little to dispel this notion; nor, even, does the empty cross. 

On these pages, rather than its trinitarianism, I stress the monism of the Advent.  Yes, the cross, empty or not, is the stumbling block of the trinitarians.  It seems that their formulaics is meant only to put a distance between their absolute God and the messiness of the Christ event.  The cross is a scandal, even or especially, for the trinitarians.  One thing that we learn from the mythos is that Creation is just the self-sacrifice of God.  Trinitarians see Jesus as the substitute for God.  Substitutional atonement convicts us of christolatry.  

Not the monotheists, not the pantheists, not the Platonists could ever comprehend the 'mystery' of the Advent.  The meaning, however, is plainly stated in the mythos.  Creation is necessarily and deliberately a sacrificial act which can only be atoned in the Telos of the resurrection.  The resurrection is no gratuitous reward for good behavior.  It is the heart of the cosmic logos.  It is universal or it is nothing. 

Christolatry is a confusion perpetrated mainly by Christians who, ironically, downplay the full measure of the Advent.  No one fears monism to the extent of the monotheists.  We can bear to take our truth only in portions.  Are we finally prepared to bear the burden of Creation?  Only now is there no logical choice.  We are left with no way out. 

What then of the pantheist/polytheist avatars?  What of Krishna and Buddha, etc.?  Thus are so many of us instructed in our divinity.  Thus is monism comprehended.  The only thing missing is the oracular Telos: the axis or omphalos of Delphi and Jerusalem.  The avatars then are actors.  They are not the Metanarrator.  The truth was duly apportioned between East and West.  The alchemical recombination is just the final, universal advent. 

[3/27] 

I started off today with the NY Times review 'Is Terrorists' Hatred of the West the West's Own Bastard Child' of Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies.  This then led me to: 

    * save the world, or your soul, 
    * The Enlightenment- The Rise of Modern Paganism, 
    * Enemies of the Enlightenment- The French Counter-Enlightenment and the Making of Modernity, 
    * Civilization and Its Enemies - The Next Stage of History.  

Some useful ideas, these.  Are we the 'bastards' of the Enlightenment?  The Enlightenment was the deracination of the Western mind.  It was rationalism without coherence; surely one of the deadliest toxins ever.  It made the world safe for nihilism, fundamentalism, communism and fascism.  Democracy is nothing without the 'Created Equal' presupposition of the Constitution.  We were left with the bull-dozer of modernism, and now the cacophony of postmodernism.  Remind me to contrast paganism and pantheism.  

Here is a useful comparison: paganism and pantheism.  This leads to Creation Spirituality (1991) of Matthew Fox.  I have not given Matthew a hearing, yet.  Yet, are we to revere Creation without understanding the Creator and our role as co-creators?  The BPW is of scant value outside of the spirit that gave rise to it and with which it is imbued.  It seems that pantheism cannot escape its compulsive depersonalization.  Is pantheism a glorification of reductionism? 

[3/28] 

I think I'm still having a little problem with the intrinsic value of Creation.  It is still possible to be pessimistic about the world.  Both theism and pantheism traditionally support the negative view.  There is a human predicament which can only be overcome with either an individual or historical eschatology.  Does this not deprive the world of intrinsic value?  Would we not have been better off without Creation?  Could we not just have basked in nirvana, and skipped all the pain in the world?  Who would need samsara and salvation?  Only when we are on the brink of self-annihilation do we seem to harbor doubts about the negativity of existence. 

Now I could point out that without Creation, the world remains a figment of the imagination, but would that discretion not have been the better part of divine valor?  What was the compulsion to go through this exercise?  Why did Eve have to eat that apple?  What did all her gnosis accomplish?  Wasn't the real temptation just to have avoided the taste treat?  We can see the culpa, but where is the felicity?  Is the passion not masochism?  

Does it not finally come down to the fact that without creation the cosmos would be radically incomplete?  There is a higher aesthetic of the pleroma which overrides pain, regardless.  To say that this is the best possible world is not to say that it must be intrinsically pleasurable.  It is something that can best be appreciated in retrospect.  Is it only fear of death that prevents suicide?  There remains that vital impulse which is simply not to be denied.  Since it cannot be denied, we can only hope to minimize its often deleterious consequences.  The half empty cup, is still vastly superior to no cup at all.  Why do the traditions fail to make this point?  The point, I think is always implicit in theism, but not necessarily in pantheism.  But then in pantheism, is there not also the pagan impulse of a deep ecology, a valorization of nature that is much too often absent in theism.  Why can we not do Matthew's creation spirituality and embrace both the immanence and transcendence of life?  We do this instinctively, but then we argue about which is better.  We let ourselves into the logic trap of either/or.  The world cannot possibly be big enough for both immanence and transcendence.  Or can it be?  Does our salvation just consist of relinquishing our obduracy?  We cling to our agnosis just as we cling to life.  In some sense they are synonymous.  There is also an impulse to coherence that finally cannot be denied.  Matriculation is not always easy.  We have to give ourselves permission.  The salutation of God is almost always simply: fear not. 

The worst thing that we might say about this world is that it is a work in progress.  Does that place too great a burden upon ourselves?  Do we not measure up to the task?  Can we not rise to the occasion?  God's stick is pretty obvious.  The carrot may be less so. 

[3/29] 

I still struggle with trying to explain the dualism that is endemic to the monotheist tradition.  Several issues arise. 

Science might not have been possible without the Cartesian dualism that seems to have followed from the earlier dualism.  Is it the ex nihilo Creation that is responsible for the original dualism?  Why then ex nihilo?  Is it coincidental that the Big Bang hypothesis epitomizes this form of Creation.  

Strict monotheism implies that God must exist ex nihilo.  There can be no other being that is coeternal.  Creation then must be an act of pure will, but is this fact not more compatible with a mentalistic rather than a materialistic world.  It must exist as a mental construct, in line with the similar pantheist view.  

The traditional gnostics and pantheists generally agreed that the material world in general and the body in particular is a trap or cage for the spirit.  But both traditions also posit a pristine state of the world that runs down and/or is corrupted by human malfeasance.  It is human evil or karma that is set apart from Brahmin or deity.  Is matter then the corruptor or the corrupted?  There seems to be ambiguity.  Eve's partaking of the apple is the most concise statement of this conundrum.  The Garden of Eden was a pantheist's paradise up to that point.  God walked with us in the garden.  The ouroboric serpent had to be put asunder.  Procreation came into the picture.  It is almost as if the original sin was just our own act of self-identity.  That was our false gnosis that we would spend the rest of creation trying to overcome.  Objectification is the original sin, but how could that act be distinguished from the act of creation itself?  Being created in the image of God, we would necessarily recapitulate that act.  Analytical reductionism must play itself out to its logical nihilist conclusion, which somehow reflects the original ex nihilo act.  

How did the pantheists manage to overcome this metaphysical dualism, while the theists did not?  They did so only by neglecting creation and salvation.  Atomism seems unavoidable.  It must apply either to matter or to the soul.  The anthropocentrism of theism may also be a factor missing from pantheism.  

What I am struggling with here is the historical limitation of gnosis.  Is the limitation internal or external?  Either supposition is problematic.  Another factor here may be the dismemberment myth of Creation as seen in the Egyptian myth of Osiris, for instance.  This is part of the equation of creation and sacrifice, also seen in the Incarnation and in communion.  There is a semiotic nexus here that resists analysis, but which is the source of the analytic imperative.  It almost rises to the status of world knot.  Pantheism glosses over this knot, while theism practically smothers it.  

This knot may also refer back to the Freudian discontent of civilization that is acted out in the iconoclasm of the terrorist/nihilist .  Jesus was the ultimate iconoclast.  There is that irrational, anti-Hobbesian core of civilization which the rational theist must resolve.  The resolution is necessarily eschatological.  It has to do with the finitude of the BPW.  One wonders that there is not a mathematical analogy.  The Monster Group is perhaps an expression of it.  Was Girard the anthropologist who dealt with this?  Something about violence and the sacred....here is a website, here is the book, here an exposition.  

[3/30] 

Many years ago I read Rene Girard's Violence and the Sacred.  I note that its influence has hardly diminished.  It seems to have maintained a nearly cultic status in academic circles.  If anything, I am more disappointed now than I was then.  There are, however, some useful points.  Between Girard's mimetics and Dawkins' memetics, there is bound to be an interesting connection.  Furthermore, Rene's thesis certainly adds to my thesis concerning theism vs. pantheism.  However, as an 'explanation' of religion, could there be a more grotesque trivialization?  It may well be this gothic twist that provides the cultic cachet.  

With Rene & Co., does materialism not parody itself?  Chercher la corpse.  Where are the CSI boys and girls when we need them?  Did Rene miss the whole point of the non-extant corpus delicti?  What is the point? 

My point is: as above, so below.  This is a phrase that does not roll off the tongue of the materialist.  It all goes back to AZO/X/QRP, along with M & D, and now with the conspiracy theory, I have one-upped Rene as the plot thickens.  

It is strange how the pantheists even manage to ignore the pantheon or Z(odiac), that pillar of paganism.  I like these expositions of Chronos or Saturn.  Zeus (Jupiter, Thor, Thursday) usurps Chronos (Saturn, Saturday).  Perhaps I should stop here, but, heck, what is there to lose?  What about Friday?  Venus/Freya  intervenes between Zeus and Chronos.  Is it too great a stretch to assign X to Venus?  X breaks the Zodiacal cycle by conspiring with and/or tricking his neighbors, Zeus and Chronos, and history is created over his dead body.  They did not appreciate the trick, perhaps.  Eve eats the apple, and then tramples on the head of the zodiacal serpent/ouroboros.  It looses its grip on its tail.  Eve usurps its implied procreativity to fill the gap.  Mind the gap.  The whole story is in the mythos, the pieces just have to be rearranged.  Monotheism has to be a conspiracy, no way around it.  The violence and the sacred, the concealing and revealing are all bound up in this one gnosis or one apple, if you will.  The hermaphroditic ouroboros must await the hierogamos.  This is not rocket science, is it? 

Is it then the case that theism has attempted to conceal the conspiracy by adopting dualism?  Why should the concealment be worth that cost?  The pantheists also conceal the conspiracy and the sacrifice.  There is still something I'm missing here.  Is there still a part of mimetics that is missing?  Was X the zodiacal scapegoat?  The problem must have been cosmic.  What was it?  Why was it?  Creation was just scapegoat-ism carried to an extreme? 

---------------------------------

On my previous website I spoke on occasion about the 'inversion' of the cosmos, by way of its 'recycling'.  This was, mind you, only meant to be a one time event.  Here is a more recent reference.  To avoid discontinuity, the major portion of the inversion was done in the microcosms of our minds.  Thus could we avoid a 'naked' singularity, the bane of physical cosmology.  I'm not sure how this inversion would play out in the context of the Matrix (first mentioned here), which is more recent emendation.  I'm speculating there could be a link here to the concealment of sacrificial violence.  I recall various diagrams of circles being replaced by figure-eights.  X was the center of the 8.  The central intersection could be elaborated into a horizontal '8', with the two additional intersections being the Alpha and Omega.  The entire figure was composed of one continuous line.  The '8' was like the elliptical symmetry breaking of the circle that ultimately produces the Monster Group.  

[3/31] 

I start out with Britannica's exposition of sacrifice.  And until I read about it just now, I had been under the impression that sacrifices were meant mainly as food offerings to the gods.  Now, be honest, how many of you are laboring under this same impression?  Wrong!  Thus the true offering would be a cremation, with the food being delivered to heaven as holy smoke.  Not always wrong.  But here's the real deal.  It is the life that is being offered.  Thus does the primordial ritual of sacrifice almost always involve animals, with the animal's life generally seen as a substitute for a human life.  

For an eschatologist, this is an awkward admission of ignorance.  Is the eschaton not the harvest of souls?  Are we not the ultimate soul food?  No, the gods are not crazy, they're just hungry.  All of our sacrifices are micro-eschatons.  They are simply our feeble attempt to postpone our personal and historical eschatons.  

When did sacrifices stop?  At some point sacrifices became identified with paganism.  In the prophetic tradition, the transition probably coincided with the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD.  This marked the transition from the priestly to the rabbinical form of Judaism.  This was also when monotheism took on its universalist, absolutist ambitions.  Creator and Creation were separated, the latter becoming entirely gratuitous.  The eschaton was no longer a harvest, but simply a reward or punishment.  In the nascent Christian communities there was even a reversal of the sacrifice as seen in the communion rite. 

What has been thoroughly concealed by theists and pantheists is any semblance of mutuality between Creator and Creation.  The pantheists fall back on subjective idealism or illusionism.  The theists fall back on absolutism and either a Cartesian or sectarian dualism.  

Only the gnostics knew better, but they were ahead of their time.  How have they been contained?  It must have been more than just the Inquisition.  What was the cosmic censorship?  A good deal of their charism was diverted into the magical monism of technosis.  There was also the diversion of Millenarianism and utopianism.  The latter-day merging of technosis and utopianism is no small matter.  This combination is now the primary buffer between us and the eschaton.  

Hegel was the last of the gnostics.  As we saw, he followed Thomism, but with a considerable gap.  Following Thomas came the agnostic academic split between theology and (pagan/secular) philosophy.  This split remains unaccounted.  The Renaissance was very much a pagan phenomenon.  The pagans but not the gnostics avoided the Inquisitors.  Catholicism had long learned to accommodate pagans as beyond the pale.  The gnostics, however, were too close to home.  Paganism was another outlet for gnosticism in the interregnum between Thomism and technosis.  With the outpourings of Millenarianism, paganism, scientism, and finally pantheism, gnosticism remained, with the possible and significant exception of Hegel, an underground stream, biding its time.  It took every bit of Marx and Darwin to derail the Hegelians.  The fact that Hegel was an impersonalist (transhumanist?) constrained his attempt at coherence. 

That synopsis brings us back to the present.  The revival of the gnostic impulse is what is now at stake.  We could do worse than to try gnosis (241,000 hits).  Not too promising.  The Catholic encyclopedia is down again, so I fall back on Britannica.  A significant belief of the gnostics was the demiurge.  What is not clear is the precedence for my identification of that one with X.  Should that be any big stretch?  Consistent with the demiurge is that 'evil' (demiurge/Creation??) resulted from a break within the Godhead.  We are certainly barking up the same tree.  Sacrifice is both a reenactment and repair of this break.  

Eastern Gnosticism took a somewhat different course. Under the influence of traditional Iranian religion, the semi-Gnostic Manichaeism developed an absolute cosmic dualism between soul and matter. Moreover, it showed the enormous influence of Syrian asceticism, but it was equally rooted in popular Gnosticism and preserved its essential doctrines. (Brit.)

Too many people equate this quasi-Cartesian dualism with gnosticism generally.  We will have to fix that.  The deontic result is similar to that of traditional pantheism: get off the wheel!  The neo-pagan, naturalistic pantheists should have already made a big dent in this dualism.  Was the Eastern gnosticism non-eschatological? 

The world, produced from evil matter and possessed by evil demons, cannot be a creation of a good God; it is mostly conceived of as an illusion, or an abortion, dominated by Yahweh, the Jewish demiurge, whose creation and history are depreciated. This world is therefore alien to God, who is for the Gnostics depth and silence, beyond any name or predicate, the absolute, the source of good spirits who together form the pleroma, or realm of light. (Ibid.)

This sounds like pure pantheism to me.  So gnosticism gets diverted into pantheistic dualism.  How is this?  Were there no monistic gnostics?  Was it just ecclesiastical politics which maneuvered the gnostics into the dead end of dualism and mysticism?  It was Aquinas who took up the much more positive neo-platonic emanationism: the chain of being.  This was also taken up by the alchemists.  The Church maintained its  nearly exclusive hold on the redeemability of the world.  The alchemists were the only gnostics true to the BPW hypothesis, and we know what happened to them.  They were smothered by their mundane success.  Their future was not quite golden, but certainly plastic. 

The development of Christian doctrine was to a large extent a reaction against Gnosticism. The formulation of creedal symbols, the canonization of the New Testament Scriptures, and the emphasis on episcopal authority all were made necessary by the Gnostics' claims. Moreover, in some measure the Gnostics were the first theologians, and their systems prompted the systemization of early Christian thought. In addition, they kept alive the great issues of freedom, redemption, and grace, which for a time lost their emphasis among Christian writers. In a later period, the theology of Augustine owed a great deal to his early experience as a Manichaean. (Ibid.)

Are all the loose ends and loose canons accounted for?  

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia (1914), Gnostics....

held matter to be a deterioration of spirit, and the whole universe a depravation of the Deity, and taught the ultimate end of all being to be the overcoming of the grossness of matter and the return to the Parent-Spirit, which return they held to be inaugurated and facilitated by the appearance of some God-sent Saviour.

[...] The Gnostics, it is true, borrowed their terminology almost entirely from existing religions, but they only used it to illustrate their great idea of the essential evil of this present existence and the duty to escape it by the help of magic spells and a superhuman Saviour. Whatever they borrowed, this pessimism they did not borrow...

[...] This utter pessimism, bemoaning the existence of the whole universe as a corruption and a calamity, with a feverish craving to be freed from the body of this death and a mad hope that, if we only knew, we could by some mystic words undo the cursed spell of this existence -- this is the foundation of all Gnostic thought. It has the same parent-soil as Buddhism; but Buddhism is ethical, it endeavours to obtain its end by the extinction of all desire; Gnosticism is pseudo-intellectual, and trusts exclusively to magical knowledge.

There is in orthodox Christianity the core idea of a magical savior come to break the evil spell cast on the world.  The gnostics pushed this idea to a more radical conclusion.  With rational theism, the incarnation is reinterpreted.  

[4/1] 

Theodicy: 

(from Greek theos, "god"; dike, "justice"), the justification of God, which is concerned with reconciling the goodness and justice of God with the observable facts of evil and suffering in the world.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, in his Theodicy (1710), defended the justice of God in spite of the existence of evil. For him, God is almighty only in that he is able to do that which is logically possible. Certain factors may each be independently possible but mutually incompatible, and, because God created the world under these limitations, the created world is indeed "the best of all possible worlds." (Brit.) 

Gottfried, he's my boy!  He was only a few centuries ahead of his time; and, yes, those monads have got to go!  I never could understand them, anyway.  Other than that, he was on the money.  Why has this simple answer been so difficult for us to swallow?  Leibniz missed two key points: progress and participation.  Hegel (c.1830) added progress, along with the dialectic.  Participation?  That is implicit in the idea of progress. No?  The pantheists had, for at least a millennia, fingered ourselves as the demiurges.  

The only thing I can really add to all this brilliance, besides the eschaton, is a slight reinterpretation of the X factor.  The logical God is the best possible God, and is not going to be omnipotent, especially not as long as we are the demiurgic, best possible co-creators.  This renders the omnipotent God otiose.  An omnipotent God renders Creation otiose.  Jesus was the best possible God making the best possible sojourn.  X2?  The minimalist, coherent recapitulation.  

Why is this so difficult to swallow?  I don't think it will be.  We just have to permit ourselves to sit down and think about it for five minutes.  Then get up and discuss it calmly. 

Evil, problem of:

a theological problem that arises for any philosophical or religious view that affirms the following three propositions: (1) God is almighty, (2) God is perfectly good, and (3) evil exists. If evil exists, it seems either that God wants to obliterate evil and is not able to--and thus his almightiness is denied--or that God is able to obliterate evil but does not want to--and thus his goodness is denied.

The theological problem of evil can be solved logically by denying any one of these three propositions. Vedanta Hinduism, Christian Science, and Stoicism have sought to solve the problem by denying the existence of evil. They affirm that evil is mere appearance or is imaginary. The U.S. philosopher William James attempted to solve the problem by denying the almightiness of God. He regarded God as having great but limited power and as being perfectly good. Orthodox Christianity, however, has generally chosen to live with the tension involved in affirming all three propositions. Some, instead of denying the proposition that God is almighty, have defined the proposition to mean that God can do anything that is logically possible. The 17th-century German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, for example, stated that, because God is limited to that which is logically possible, the existence of evil is necessary in this "best of all possible worlds." (Brit.) 

They are, all of them, correct, of course.  But how were we so fortunate to get the best possible God?  We can chalk it up to teleology and a participatory, democratic cosmos.  OK, then, what about teleology?  I am tempted to say that it is teleology all the way down.  Another way to say it is that without teleology there would be virtually nothing, and teleology appears to be a problem mainly for us time-bound creatures. 

A curious historical footnote is that gnosticism is rampant amongst ufologists.  To put it another way, ufology is just a latter-day rendition of gnosticism.  The 'aliens' are the demiurges.  We are their victims.  I suspect they have the right conspirators, but the wrong conspiracy.  The powers-that-be are naturally wont to meddle where they shouldn't.  The angels provide a tad of prior restraint.  The rest is up to Google and the IAEC.  The Sarfattians amongst the ufologists search diligently for the magic salvific formula, after the fashion of technosis and the alchemists, but usually without the spiritual depth of the latter.  

Since the proposed solution to the religious problem is so straight forward and so easily accessible, one has to wonder at the seeming paucity of current exemplars.  We desperately clutch at our problems out of a natural conservatism based on maintaining our identities, and on our hesitation to revision the world. 

The present disturbances in the Middle East are surely playing a role, both positive and negative.  Yes, there is a clash of cultures.  This much is unavoidable.  It is mainly a materialist West against a fundamentalist East, or secularism vs. sectarianism.  Intransigence abounds.  The clash plays into the hands of extremists.  

The impending Millennium will surely be less secular and less materialist, but neither will it be theocratic.  There will be a big carrot and a small stick to move us off our duffs.  The Islamic militants are generously providing the stick.  As to what will constitute the best possible stick, I hesitate to speculate.  The ratio of psychological impact over actual suffering should be maximized.  The 9/11 incident seems to conform to that stipulation.  Will this cause more people to reconsider materialism and sectarianism?  Not directly, but 90% of the action will be below the surface.  We can afford to put some trust in the choreography and teleology.  Keep an eye on the radar screen for novel emergence.  I wait patiently for my first correspondent.  Is that asking for too much?  In the larger scheme, I trust that it is not.  

From the 'Philosophy of Religion' comes the following conclusion: 

Solutions to contemporary problems, social and intellectual, demand a multiple consideration by scholars from many disciplines of all the issues involved in the problem, a consideration set within a framework of faith and morality in which man is interpreted as distinctively human, characteristically a person. From such inter-professional, interdisciplinary groups may emerge a new metaphysics and a new theology linked with, but by no means prescriptive of, assertions in other subjects. In this way there may be created a new culture--scientific, moral, religious, and technological at the same time. To be involved in such groups would seem to be the main task of the philosopher of religion, as of the metaphysician, today. If he is successful and if these interdisciplinary groups are creative, the modern period will then take its place among those that have marked crucial turning points in the history of mankind and its culture. (Brit.) 

Well, any day now, folks. 

I have not spoken recently of Teilhard de Chardin nor at all, on these pages, of Sri Aurobindo.  They speak of the divinization of humanity.  I agree with them on that, but only in an eschatological, rather than in the evolutionary context they used.  Their acosmic divinization is incoherent.  Their attempt to abscond with Darwinism was never taken seriously by scientists.  Instead it is the transhumanists who have absconded with Chardin and Aurobindo.  In the proximity of the truth, there are many slippery slopes.  The footing can be treacherous. 

---------------------------------

I almost forgot about Rene.  It may be that the original (zodiacal) pantheon was less than paradisiacal.  Besides the general sense of incompletion, there may have been some interpersonal friction, perhaps related to the absent pleroma or fully realized network of being.  Thus there developed a 'fault' that could be tolerated internally only after the fashion of the oyster and the pearl.  We, of course, being the pearl of great price.  That X (Jesus/Freya) may have allowed him/herself, conspiratorially, to be scapegoated in the process, is a further possibility.  If this better reconciles me with the Girardists, so much the better.  As below, so above.  

Can we get the Monster Group out of the same pearl?  That would be convenient.  If we can get the Mandelbrot out of z' = z^2 + c, then we ought to be able to obtain the MG with a relatively simple teleological generation scheme.  What needs determining is the applicable aspect of the Telos.  It might simply be the 10^10 souls, or it could be something more subtle.  

[4/14] 

I am inclined at this point to attempt a return to basics.  Knowing the basis of the BPW, if any, would be significant.  My previous attempt involved the archetypes.  The archetypes were based on M, D & Z.  Then Q, P, R, A, O & X were thrown into the pot without too much ceremony.  

The dialectic, D, arrived somewhat late in the game.  It remains relatively undefined.  It is the basis of the vital force.  The zoo-psycho-morphic cycle, Z, is its primordial manifestation, along, possibly, with X.  For the time being, I wish to focus on Z.  My particular concern is the transition from Z -> R, the bio-cycle.  This transition presently constitutes the biggest conceptual leap in the cosmogenesis of the BPW.  It stands in need of 'analysis'.   

Without Q & R, i.e. atoms, we must contend with disembodied spirits.  Our Zoo is a ghost city.  I have nothing against ghosts, but I'm not sure I would want my sister to marry one.  This statement is loaded in the sense that I'm trying to understand the interface between efficient and final causation.  There can be only one vital cause. 

From the gnostic and pantheist perspective, bodies are a real drag, something that we would not want to drag to heaven.  Why must the BPW be weighed down with them?  The answer to this question would necessarily speak to the nature of our reality.  Why this massive incarnation?  Just because it will feel so good when we stop beating our heads against this wall? 

Can we do any of this without a clear view of heaven?  I doubt it, but I don't.  We are rebuilding this cosmic ship at sea.  We start with a raft.  Our raft is just Z.  M is the ocean.  

Z is a network of being.  It has its cyclical phenomenology.  There are centers of activity.  There is interaction.  The only frame is the Matrix.  Any notions of space and time are vague and even decentralized, at best.  There is mainly a relational and relatively incoherent presence mandated by the Matrix.  This is not the best possible world, but somewhere within that flux the BPW concept takes hold.  

[4/15] 

Our participation in Creation is not gratuitous.  It is essential to its integrity.  We creatures could not participate without the benefit of biological cycles.  Through these same cycles we also participate in the life and death of the Creator, that is in the incarnation and resurrection.  Every tradition has either denigrated or denied this participation.  This misapprehension is the great paradox of history.  This nescience has only very gradually been overcome through the outworking of our positive gnosis.  Our technosis finally culminates in the messianic spiritual breakthrough as we overturn materialism.  

Our immaterialist breakthrough is predicated upon our grasping the true provenance of atoms.  The atom embodies the unity of the cosmos.  It is the gear or fulcrum of our participation.  The Pythagorean gnosis implicitly understood this fact.  We have only to make it explicit. 

The simple fact is that the substantiality of atoms is not and cannot be mind independent.  This fact remains obscured by its attendant mathematical formalism.  It is obscured by our proclivity for a Platonic, dualistic, mind-independent interpretation of mathematics.  We fail to grasp the organicity of mathematics.  The numerical syzygys are the tell-tale signs of this organicity, and so is our occasional mathematical genius.   If Srinivasa were alive today, we could better appreciate this fact.  I am no Srinivasa, I must use other means.  I must appeal to a more general gnosis. 

[4/16] 

The best that I seem to be able to do with atoms right now is to relate their ontology to numbers.  Numbers are conserved while unobserved.  Numbers have spatial properties only indirectly, but then the Mandelbrot has its own spectacular spatiality.  Does this dissolve or compound the mystery?  It more evenly distributes the mystery.  Mystery loves company.  I do a similar distribution with God and Creation, a la pantheism.  The BPW is pretty heavily into the distribution of logic, a la Leibniz.  The least action principle in physics is a good example of this tactic.  We don't spend too much time worrying about how it works. 

The conceptual problem with these tactics is Descartes' simplistic dualism, following from Plato.  We need to better assimilate Plato's Pythagorean turn.  It was very Leibnizian.  By that token we may also benefit by better appreciating the bone that Newton and Leibniz were picking.  It was not just a question of priority, it was something deeper.  Was it not related to the ontology of infinitesimals?  Do we not have a similar problem concerning the ontology of atoms and numbers?  Will I have won this ballgame if I can prove capable of sustaining this filibuster indefinitely?  I have noted that we all share the burden of Scheherazade. When we run out of words, we run out of reality, a la Wittgenstein.  My only contention is that the materialists run out sooner. 

The archetypes are just the manner of distributing intelligence.  It all starts with Z, this problem of chunking the intel.  The Matrix must entertain itself somehow, otherwise things would get boring.  So what does it do after Creation?  That is just the problem of heaven.  Whatever it does it will not repeat itself, thanks to Leibniz' I. of I.  About eternity?  Surprise me. 

But, yes, the numbers are a big part of Creation.  If we could just understand 0, we would be know-it-alls.  What we don't know about numbers has a lot to do with their organicity.  It has to do with the personality of Pi, one of our favorites of the pantheon.  Pi rules over the syzygous chemistry of her sistren.  Srinivasa must have incarnated the Telos that is Pi.  Numbers cannot fail to participate in Agape.  There is no other excuse, no other ontos.  How's my driving?  Call 1-800-SHAHRYAR.  

0 has something to do with non-standard analysis.  Is that not what the Matrix is about?  The BPW is the Millennium of the Metanarrative minus one.  The Big Bang requires dark energy to sustain itself.  Is that not an egregious cheat?  Shahryar would never have stood for that.  Hot air is vastly superior.  Come to think of it, Shahryar, Pi and Scheherazade must have quite the little menage a trois.  It's about the logos and agape.  It is about X, Freya and Saturn.  

The pieces of our narrationally monistic cosmos are scattered about.  Descartes schism was just the final straw.  Numbers help to lead us back to coherence.  We are struggling with the numerology.  The Pythagorean proclivity of the physicists flies in the face of dichotomy.  We just need to give them an assist.  We don't understand the ontology of numbers.  

As Marvin Minsky once said, there is a 'society of mind'.  We just don't know the etiquette of it.  Agape rules the cosmic society, but we need to flesh that out.  Numbers are part of that incarnation.  Behind the internal relational symmetries of biochemistry lies the monster group, but we have had to dig very deeply.  You know, it may have been the MG that forced the hand of the Matrix.  That may be putting the cart before the horse, but it is a partial truth.  It is the pebble that was used to slay the Matrix, in a major role reversal.  The infinite virtual sporadics were like pebbles on a very special beach.  They come from the combinatorial symmetries of special sets.  For the Matrix it was just like counting sheep, until one got hung up on the fence.  But this is a shade too Platonic, is it not?  Even for the hypothetical virtual members.  

Proof theory is something organic, simply because there is no theory.  A proof is one of those things like a chair: you'll know it when you see it.  There is a functionality that defies formality.  Who could have anticipated Godel's proof?  But, yet, we knew it when we saw it.  Godel opened up a new branch of logical foundations.  How many other branches are there?  If math is organic then there must be a means of avoiding the Apeiron.  There must be self-containment.  Or does it meld back into the matrix when we push it far enough, like everything else?    

Creation was the Matrix' way of solving the Monster.  It is the monster pearl.  That's what the Pythagoreans sensed.  I just need to know how.  The MG is part of the conspiracy.  When we look at it too closely it looks inorganic, like the molecules in a cell.  We have to stand back to see its vital, semiotic functionality.  Locally, space is always Euclidean.  The general-relativistic self-containing, self-referring nature of the logic can only be seen from a hyper-Godelian distance.  We need to square the circle.  The metanarrative is coded in the digits of pi, if we know where to look. 

Can we not suppose that the size and complexity of the monster is related to the size and complexity of the world?  The problem is to explain the optimality of it all.  The geometric, as opposed to the algebraic, simplicity of pi signals the closure of the complexity.  There is only one robust way to break the symmetry of the circle.  We can have a two-dimensional periodicity, but not three.  The resulting theta functions provide the internal symmetry of atoms.  In a similar fashion there are spinors, quaternions and octonions, and nothing beyond.  

[4/17] 

Just now I contemplate the possibility of a systematic oversight.  Immaterialism is predicated on downward causation.  My tendency has then been to banish upward, efficient, or emergent causation in order to avoid the slippery slope back into materialism.  However, any participatory version of Creation will entail our navigation of this slope [see Jurassic Parc].  If creatures engage in upward causation, what about atoms?  How might we exploit atoms without succumbing to atomism?  I have spoken frequently about the distribution of intelligence.  Why should atoms not be on the distribution list?  Can this be done without objectifying them?  I want atoms to retain the insubstantiality of numbers.  This raises the issue of causation within mathematics.  

It is generally supposed that mathematics is devoid of causation.  This is certainly the view of the formalists and constructivists.  But what is the Pythagorean view?  Does not mathematical physics tell us that there is no way to compartmentalize causation.  Formal causes are necessarily extant and inseparable from efficient causes.  

The image of the 'society of mind' and of the efficacy of the unconscious also speak to upward causation.  Does mathematical genius not imply a passive or observational role for the mind.  Why would self-organization not apply to mathematical objects?  The notion of numerical coincidences, numerology, and the organicity of math, does demand a self-organizational capacity.  

I am suggesting that biological organization is similarly realized.  Thus do our archetypes of Q, R & P participate in Creation.  Atoms and numbers cooperate in attaining biological coherence.  Cooperation is too mild a term.  Atoms and numbers are ontologically indistinct.  

Is this atomism?  It is not, because atoms, like numbers, are not mind independent.  They are phantasmagoric, but only to a limited, contextual or relational degree, as is everything else.  The quantum speaks to this issue.  But there is no quantum for numbers.  Well, not unless we consider Diophantine equations and other rational constructions.  Perhaps it is the quantum of math which will finally allow us to square the circle.  It is the quantum of math which allows mathematical physics to instantiate the Anthropic Principle, which is another form of circle squaring, or, perhaps, circle/circuit closing.  

It is the task of the archetypes to distribute intelligence optimally regarding the telos of the BPW.  The telos of mind over matter must be constrained until the eschaton is materialized.  Q, P & R serve that end.  It is then that the nexus of causation will shift from Atom to Anthropos.  It is time for us to consider this eventuality. 

[4/18] 

My latest atomic gambit remains tentative.  I am trying to get a metaphysical grip on the little suckers, without their dragging me back into atomism, perish the thought.  They do have more in common with numbers than we generally suspect, but they also have their own modus operandi.  

They do, of course, have a much more intimate, dependency relation with space.  But, by the same token, quantum entanglement gives lie to the absolutist pretensions of space. The quantum also manages to drag the numbers into the spatial arena.  This occurrence is mediated by the linear and circular versions of e^i*pi. 

Atoms exist at the behest of cells, and cells at the behest of organisms.  Functionality is the key.  We should expect there to be a semiotics of atoms.  Atoms provide the link between the organic and inorganic worlds, between the biosphere and the geo-sphere.  

We easily forget how great was the surprise when Ernest Rutherford, in 1911, discovered the nucleus.  Until then, it had been supposed that atoms were something substantial.  The nucleus was easily compared to a fly in a cathedral, but, unfortunately, this cathedral had no walls.  How could those newly liberated electrons possibly support Westminster Abbey?  Well, there has certainly been a lot of earnest hand waving ever since, but permit me to suggest that we still don't know the answer. 

Whenever someone sits in a chair, every electron in the chair has to reposition its orbit in order to support the added weight.  It seems like a lot of busy-work.  And recall that the weight of the person sitting in the chair is partially the result of the individual virtual gravitons emanating from each electron of a hypothetical person residing in the Coma Cluster of galaxies.  How many virtual gravitons can dance on the head of a pin?  The infrared catastrophe remains catastrophic, but, nonetheless, this is how my erstwhile physics colleagues attempt to save the phenomenon of chair sitting.  I'm just a tad skeptical.  What is really going on here? 

Too many angels and too many gravitons spoil our phenomenal soup.  Ten billion is enough angels for me.  We do the heavy phenomenal lifting, and all those other angels and gravitons simply have cameo roles.  Yes, I'm just an occasionalist when it comes to physics.  And ditto for mathematics.  Finding an atomic nucleus is a bit like pulling a rabbit out of a hat.  The rabbit is real, alright, but it is mainly there for the show.  Who does the trick and why do they do it?  

It is sometimes said that consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.  Well, our minds must be really small, because there is a heck of a lot of consistency out there.  Or is it in here?  This is just the coherence theory of truth.  This is just the BPW.  Rabbits don't just materialize: they have to participate in the metabolic game like the rest of us.  We're just trying to see how the game works, which is about the same as understanding why it is the best possible game for here and now.  This is about gravitonic presence, or, more to the point, absence. 

Atoms are just the logical pump primers of our metabolic reality.  A given atom exists more or less like the number 3749263.  It's there when we need it.  When God is not watching the tree on the Quad, the tree does not pick itself up by its roots and walk away.  The tree and the number are functionally related to very many other things going on around the Quad, and in the mathematics building.  If the tree or number disappeared, we would have no choice but to fill in for it as we fill in for our blind spot.  Mathematicians and physicists happen to work overtime at that sort of thing, much to the entertainment and entrainment of the rest of us.  Let's face it, they each have their own charism.  It can be downright mesmerizing.  

Am I giving short shrift to the plight of the eighty thousand souls [4/19 - upwards of 400,000 including Nagasaki and the aftermath] who were caught short at the wrong end of E = MC^2?  How 'bout them angels?  Whose game is this, anyway?  And, for crying out loud, what is the point? 

[4/19] 

The way that I often push the envelope of immaterialism is to talk myself into a corner and then see if I can talk my way out again.  Each instance affords a learning experience.  This is my first foray, on this site, into thermonucleonics.  This raises several issues.  Did God have to create U235, and to what end?   In the BPW, should we not have avoided U235?  And speaking of thermonucleonics: is it physics or metaphysics, as asked by an occasional physicist? 

It could be instructive to compare a thermonuclear event with Krakatoa, from a phenomenological, immaterialist perspective.  These are events that fall well outside of anything that could be construed as cyclical.  Only the phenomenology of the Sun could come close. 

With Krakatoa, I believe that we are compelled to take a Gaian perspective.  It is part of a natural cyclical process for Earth.  In our distribution of spirit or intelligence, the Earth, along with atoms, is due her share.  That the phenomenology of Gaia should dwarf that of humans is a given.  We see it everytime there is severe weather.  Krakatoa should fit into that mold.  And by the way, volcanoes are the logical/natural result of U235's subterranean presence.  

Do we then blame Eniwetok on Gaia?  Yes, in part.  It was a joint operation of Sol, Gaia, and Anthropos.  The alchemy of mixing intelligences is a risky business.  It is a business that we will have to master.  It is exactly the business of eschatology.  Hiroshima was a premature piece of the eschaton puzzle dropped on our heads for instructional purposes.  We are still struggling with its catechism.  Pakistan's nuclear entrepreneur, Abdul Khan, is just our latest reprise.  

Even these 400,000 souls were a small fraction of the holocaust that was World War II.  The suffering of that World War is very likely going to be dwarfed by the fall-out of the single AIDS virus.  Our molecular threat overwhelms the atomic threat.  U235 + HIV is a chemical cocktail made in Hell.  And let us not forget that seemingly innocuous CO2.  The integrity and coherence of our world are being sorely challenged by these forms of atomism that appear to have run amok.  

If there is an atomic intelligence, it certainly has its dark side.  And so does all intelligence, all spirit.  The deepest shadows point to the brightest light.  I just don't think that pantheism can account for the depth of the shadows obviously present in the world.  The presence of superhuman evil is forcing us to realize our superhuman potential.  But are we so benighted that we can only be instructed by holocausts?  Whose creatures are we, anyway?  

We are the seeds placed in the Gaian soil.  God's plow furrows deeply.  The magnitude and quality of the harvest is thereby determined.  Who are we to second guess God's green thumb?  Besides being the harvest, we are also God's ultimate plowshares.  God has done the heavy lifting, it is time now for us to begin to pay attention to detail, to pick up every lost soul.  

Yes, our blood is on God's hands.  It is also on our own hands. 

It is at the X2 event that the reins are finally handed over to us.  And, ready or not, here it comes.  

[4/21] 

What I am struggling to say is that although a particular chair may be wooden, it is not accurate to say that the same chair is composed of wood.  I'm just cribbing from Aristotle.  The given chair is the product of material, efficient and final causes.  It is not simply a physical object, and ultimately we cannot separate these causes.  Chairs, like everything else, can exist only in the most robust possible relational context.  The final context can be nothing less the the BPW.  No other context is coherent.  No other context coheres.  

In a similar vein, it is not accurate to say that a block of wood is composed of atoms.  The atoms actually disappear into the wood.  The growing of the tree was a complex biological process which entailed atomic intelligence or logic.  The atoms exist only as abstracted from that logic.  There is no individuality to be ascribed to them, or to be had by them.  The wood is strictly a herd phenomenon, and in this case the herd has ontological priority over the animals that are supposed to comprise it.  

We, too, comprise a herd, of sorts.  Although we may value our individual identity above all else, that identity is primarily an abstraction, like the identity of the atoms in the piece of wood.  In our analytic passion we have come to fear our loss of individual identity above all else.  It is with this very same passion and fear that we cling to the alleged reality of atoms, as tokens of our own reality.  It is just this misguided passion that you and I must begin to overcome. 

Am I simply suggesting a 'quantum' theory of society?  Am I not then inflating the quantum beyond all reasonable bounds?  Rather I am suggesting that the quantum of physics is the reductio ad absurdum of the coherence of the world.  It is not the coherence that is absurd, but rather our reduction of it.  Obviously I have some explaining to do. 

[4/21] 

It is not fair to say that the quantum is absurd.  It does, however, remain a metaphysical enigma.  Most scientists and philosophers are content to live with this enigma.  Quantum physics is responsible for much of our modern technology.  Others of us suspect that the quantum enigma is symptomatic of a deeper problem with scientific materialism.  You'll just have to bear with me.  The struggle continues.  

Atoms per se are relatively unreal.  What is more real is an atomic intelligence that is invoked mainly in metabolic processes.  One might also think of it as a form of instinct.  This instinct or intelligence goes well beyond the limits of physics in as much as it is robustly contextual, functional and teleological.  It is a conspiracy between our Q, R & P archetypes, each of which are intelligences in their own right.  What is difficult to comprehend is that this atomic intelligence does not reside in the atoms, rather the atoms reside in it.  The same is true of us with respect to the Creative Intelligence.  Intelligence is not bounded by space and time.  With regard to true intelligence, the universe is Unobstructed.  That the quantum easily defies spatio-temporal restrictions is a reflection of the derivative nature of space and time.  Locality is just a figment of the Metanarrative.  Non-locality rules.  The eschaton is the breakdown of the illusory obstruction of space and time.  Atoms disappear into the wood.  We disappear into the high road of Creative Intelligence.  From then on, our reappearances, like those of atoms, are strictly optional.  

From the perspective of immaterialism, upward causation is not localizable.  It is strongly contextual.  Out of that context, it is possible to abstract or extract atoms, but only on a strongly ad hoc basis.  Individual Xenon atoms may be cut out of the herd for an 'IBM' photo-op, but understand that this is all by way of contrivance.  It is merely tautologous to say that technology is a contrivance.  But I am saying more than that.  I am saying that atomic ontology is derived from that contrivance.  What is more natural is the atomic intelligence which provides the logic of metabolism.  We must look at the world as a network of being and phenomena. My acquaintance with computer programming motivates me too see an analogy here with object-oriented programming.  Lower level functions are derived from and more specialized than the more general or inclusive levels of abstraction.  Atomic intelligence is an off-shoot of biological intelligence, which is a spin-off of cosmic intelligence.  

What the Pythagorean physicists have brought to this table is their 'Theory of Everything'.  There is a functional unity that ties together the atomic intelligences.  This is the intelligence that we label as Q and P. In a similar and related manner, there is a creative cosmic unity which ties together the various species' intelligences.  That the anthropic mind plays a special, or even central, role in this regard is a possibility that is not to be ignored.  The unity at the bottom strongly suggests a unity at the top, and this is a suggestion with which pantheism is inherently unable to cope.  The only thing saving pantheism at this point is the view that mathematics is something inorganic and mind independent, i.e. Platonism without the Goodness factor.   

Another way to grapple with atomic ontology is to compare atoms with photons.  A distinction is sometimes made between real and virtual photons.  This, however, is purely a semantic distinction.  I simply point out that the only real photon is a 'dead' photon, i.e. one that has been observed or absorbed and, so, no longer exists.  Extant or 'live' photons, are, by definition, just virtual or potential beings.  The same ontology may be applied to the reification of atoms in a cell.  The atoms of a cell are pinned down only in the process of 'fixing' the cell, i.e. killing it.  Yes, chemical processes may be studied in vivo, but that concerns only the functionality of the process.  The teleological aspect and even identity of such processes is inescapable. 

The same ontology can be applied to the cells in an organism, and then to organisms in an ecosystem, etc.   'But wait,' you say, 'aren't I real?'   All knowledge is based on the Cogito: I think, therefore I am.  But I am not the only one who begs to differ with Rene Descartes on this crucial point.  Show me the aboriginal mind that has ever entertained such a thought, and I will show you a heavily redacted modern contrivance.  I am not being an eliminativist when I point to the essential social dimension of mind.  My response to Rene is to point to the frame problem.  My claim is simply that any frame less comprehensive than the Metanarrative will ultimately prove incoherent.  Language is ineluctably cosmological.  In as much as cosmologies differ, communication breaks down.  Just read the headlines of the morning paper.  To believe in a coherent cosmology is tantamount to believing in our own survival.  That the only coherent cosmology is eschatological, is ironic only in a superficial sense.  

Next up is to give some account of the genesis of atomic intelligence.  I don't expect there to be any single or simple answer.  Atoms are part of the network of being, and so their existence and function will be determined by various aspects of the larger context.  On the one hand, there are metabolic considerations, on the other hand there are logical and mathematical considerations.  The relevant archetypes are Q, R & P.  We may presume that the genesis of atoms is closely related to our own genesis.  Without completely solving either problem, we may still progress in our understanding by letting one problem shed light on the other.  Any aspect of the cosmic network that can be discerned will help in a holographic fashion with all the other aspects.  We have to mind the whole picture while we investigate any part of it. 

[4/22] 

Permit me now to shift focus from atomic to species intelligence.  In doing so, I revisit Jurassic Parc.  Remind me to get a season pass.  Admittedly, this ersatz Garden of Eden is a weak link in the cosmogonic scheme of the BPW.  I would prefer a less ad hoc stratagem, and I will certainly be on the look out for one, but in the meantime JPc serves as a convenient half-way station for some still half-baked ideas.  Hopefully the final Metanarrative will not have to resort to such clumsy devices. 

Jurassic Parc is the playground or think-tank of the cosmic intelligences.  This is especially true for the species intelligences.  It is in this virtual world that the plant and animal intelligences thrash out and optimize their ecological strategies.  It is our device for short-circuiting biological and geological evolution.  It is a price that immaterialists should be more than willing to pay in order to forego Darwin and the Big Bang. 

Atomic intelligence plays a crucial role in the optimizing of the various metabolic strategies.  It is here that the reproductive strategies must be fine tuned.  Darwin may be short-circuited, but Darwinism is very useful when it comes to maintaining biological coherence.  The time dimension, however, is much more elastic than it is in our experience.  In some sense we are dealing with a four-dimensional playing field.  The genetic codings and linkages are worked out on-the-fly.  The metabolic, cellular and organismic evolutions may be run in parallel fashion, facilitated with strong doses of teleology.  The anthropic intelligence is crucial in this latter regard. 

The point is that ecological and metabolic coherence can be achieved in a very efficient manner by exploiting the distributed intelligence and final causation that is naturally associated with the Matrix and the BPW schemes.  The original zoomorphic/zodiacal network of intelligences is greatly ramified and differentiated in this virtual evolutionary process.  This differentiation of the cosmic intelligence may usefully be compared with the embryonic cellular differentiation studied in developmental biology.  In this context the Matrix acts as the stem cell.  There is then a gradual process of differentiation mediated by the Telos or the X factor.  This is then the blueprint of Creation.  This map becomes the territory as it is stretched to its optimal limit which entails the greatest coherent phenomenological diversity.  

-------------------------------------

Both theism and pantheism were developed back in the 'good ol' days' when life was nasty, brutish and short.  There was plenty of blame to go around.  The universal mythos was of a once pristinely bucolic world that had suffered mishaps as it had aged.  Not unlike you and I.  Besides, there were quarrels and treachery on Mt. Olympus, and, down below, human wickedness did nothing to improve the situation.  

We could deal with this problem either individually or collectively, depending on how we viewed the nature of the problem.  If the sorry state of the world was mainly the natural result of senescence, there was little to be done except to wait for its natural rebirth, or, more permanently, to simply remove ourselves back to the cosmic womb, the Matrix or nirvana.  

On the other hand, if it was evil that was responsible for the degradation of the world, then there was the possibility of a collective intervention.  The idea was to participate with the divine force of goodness in vanquishing the forces of evil. 

Once the concept of good and evil comes to the fore, monotheism becomes logically inevitable.  If not, pantheism is the result.  The BPW follows neither path.  Rather we follow Leibniz in his positing of metaphysical evil: evil is a necessary part of the best possible world.  Evil is not natural as in pantheism, but it is logical and rationalizable.  Evil is something to be overcome in the eschatological context.  We become the primary instruments in the vanquishing of both moral and natural evil.  It is this end that justifies our full participation in Creation.  This is the hope that logically attaches to theism.  Perhaps it is the moral dualism of monotheism that leads to the metaphysical dualism between the Creator and Creation. 

On the pantheist view of the natural senescence of the world, there is no intrinsic value to our participation in that inevitable decline.  We are part of the problem.  There is no solution other than our opting out.  

[4/23] 

If we may presume the operation of a (downward) dialectic within the Matrix, then we may expect to see the natural differentiation and symmetry breaking of the primordial psyche or intelligence.  To maintain coherence, there must be a Telos for this process.  X, with help from Q & P, provides the Telos.  The elements provide for the completion of the ouroboric circuit.  Agape, or X factor, is the upward dialectic or synthesis of Creation.  The resurrected X is the great attractor in the sky.  It is the object of the Hierogamos.  

Q & P both relate to the completion of the cosmic/anthropic circuit.  There is the quantum projective logic on the one hand, and the elliptical 'squaring' or rationalization of the circle facilitated by pi and its attendant monster group.  This completes the self-organizing, self-excited circuit that is our metanarrative.  

The monster group is the limit of the possible symmetry breaking.  It defines the structure of the micro and macro-cosms.  It provides the grand unified theory of physics.  Atoms are the phenomenal manifestation of the MG.  What is still missing is the metanarrational biography of Q & P.  As it stands, these archetypes drop out of the sky, fully formed.  Their role is not unlike that of the genetic material of a stem cell, but there must be some logical precursor that connects them back to MDZXR, otherwise there will be a glaring gap in our story.  The other intelligences have to mind their P's&Q's if they are to properly communicate on the microcosmic level.  On the other hand, it is likely that Pi relates to the megalithic culture with its archeo-astronomical and geodesic inclinations.  

Several times here Pi has been related to the logos, while Q may be related to the dialectic, yielding a variant on the trinity of MPQ.  It may not be too great a stretch to say that we may end up having to derive atoms from the trinity.  Certainly atoms have a lot to do with incarnation, i.e. the fleshing out of Pi, and that has to do with rationalizing the circle: removing it from the apeiron.  

[4/24] 

It would be nice to be able to pin atoms on the dia-logos.  That need not be such a terribly big stretch.  The MD-L trinity may be represented mathematically, as previously noted, by the ouroboric style coincidence of e^i*pi = -1.  This coincidence is just the basis for quantum wave mechanics.  We then have two cycles delimiting Creation: the zodiacal and atomic cycles.  All the metabolic cycles operate between these limits.  Also the analytical thrust of the dia-logos has to have a logical limit.  That is just the traditional conception of the role of the atom.  That limit must also serve as the medium of exchange for all the various metabolic processes. 

[4/26] 

When considering the provenance of atoms, it is assumed that a space-time background already exists.  Such an assumption is highly problematic for the quantum gravity theorists who have come up with various schemes for implementing a 'pre-geometry'.  From our more phenomenological perspective, there is much less need for such mathematical niceties.  The space-time background for our metanarrative is just a concomitant of its basic phenomenology.  What is of greater concern is the introduction of physics into that phenomenology.  

The mechanical properties of atoms is based on their mass and solidity.  These properties may be thought of as being inherited from the macroscopic forms of matter that may be gas, liquid or solid.  Accounting for solidity is a problem for materialists and immaterialists alike.  Materialists must resort to a microscopic explanation.  I'm suggesting another route for the immaterialists. 

Consider mechanical causality: Ben Johnson kicks a stone in his path.  This alleged incident remains the paradigmatic refutation of immaterialism; however, the quantum physical explanation of this incident is highly convoluted and even problematic.  I suggest that the only rational explanation is a relational explanation.  

There mere kicking of a stone has virtually nothing to say about the nature of reality.  What might be more revealing would be the disposition of the stone after the fact.  A materialist could confidently expect to retrieve said stone afterwards.  An immaterialist might have less confidence without, at least, some further reflection.  How might this reflection proceed? 

The immaterialist could easily imagine the stone to dematerialize in midair, a fate often suffered by castles in the air.  What is to prevent a similar fate for most ordinary stones?  Is it merely by social convention that stones do not usually behave in such manner?  

We could simply say that stones are not in the habit of dematerializing.  Admittedly, this is a quasi-animistic explanation, but animism is a logical concomitant of immaterialism.  There is a distribution of intelligence.  Such a distribution is implicit in the positing of internal relations.  But then how are the relations distributed?  Also involved here is a tension between the competing logics of upward and downward causation.  

Most of the stone's properties and relations are dispositional, contingent or modal in nature.  Modality is endemic to both materialism and immaterialism.  Its problems that are implicit in materialism are being made explicit here.  For the materialist, the modal properties inhere mainly to the atoms.  The bulk properties of materials are less easily explained.  Materials science remains largely phenomenological, as do chemistry and biology.  Quantum physics is just the science of dispositions.  This is where reductionism comes to a grinding halt.  Dispositions are entirely relational and contextual.  Where do the laws of physics and mathematics reside?  Where do social norms reside?  Merely in our heads?  What about in the events that instantiate them?  And what sort of reality do we ascribe to events? 

One place that intelligence appears to be is in cycles, both organic and inorganic.  Does it reside equally in the individual cycles?  More likely is the prospect of identifying the relatively indistinguishable cycles.  Instances need not always be individualized.  We might profitably explore the consequences of a more general lack of individuality among phenomena. 

[4/27] 

We have previously posited the zodiacal archetype, Z, as the mother of all cycles.  We may suppose that Z is self-exciting and self-differentiating.  In 'object oriented' fashion, all its progeny inherit its most general characteristics.  The problem we then have is to account for the interaction between cycles.  Can this be explained in anything other than a mechanical fashion?  We don't want to rule out mechanics, but we do want to be able to transcend it.  Can we have the best of both worlds?   We have not finished with Ben's stone.  Previously I was a bit hasty.  Consider where the shoe leather meets the wayward rock. 

Walking down a path does not seem problematic for an immaterialist.  This is an oft repeated cyclical motion.  There is the habitual balance between the force of gravity and the solidity of the path.  If the unwary pedestrian were to encounter a patch of quick-sand, the phenomenology would quickly change.  How may we salvage this new appearance?  Had there been a puddle in the path, there would be less of an issue.  The water is disposed to splash.  Can we identify the disparate splashes?  Is the materialist demon not in the details?  How may we exorcise this demon?  

One problem with splashes is their chaotic nature.  Perhaps we could make a direct appeal to a generically fractal solution without having to resort to atomic physics in each instance.  If you've seen one splash, you've seen them all.  Imagine dropping a glass of water on the floor.  There might only ever be a single instance.  The phenomenon would be grossly underdetermined.  Is that not also a fact of quantum life?  Think of all the wave functions that have to be collapsed, 24x7.  We surely don't know how that happens?  

Consider the plight of the animator.  Yet, each year the end product seems a bit more 'realistic'.  Could this trend have any bearing on the credibility of materialism?  Where do we draw the line between creation and animation, or between animation and animism?  How difficult would it be to program Ben Johnson splashing through a puddle?  Would this effort have influenced our erstwhile materialist?  Could the programming be done at the dispositional level? 

[4/28] 

Comparing the universe to a computer is hardly a novel idea (see 'information mechanics' and digital philosophy).  Furthermore, it is an idea which immaterialists need to entertain.  We are happy to make use of the canned routines, but spare us all the hardware.  Objects then are coherent collections of dispositions which may be deployed in contextual fashion.  The core dispositions are 'canned routines' from which particular phenomenal instances may be spun-off in an ad hoc manner.  But ultimately we need to wean ourselves away from conceptual dependence on objects.  Objects instantiate functionality in a teleological context.  The Anthropic Principle can play a large role.  Given incarnate psyches, the metabolic necessities and strategies will determine the environment, as much as the other way around. 

Jurassic Parc may include a Garden of Eden.  One advantage that Walt Disney has over us is that he does not have to feed his characters.  It is not clear how best to jump start that process.  The incarnation will require a concentrated use of imagination, until the individual psyches are gradually able to pick up the slack.  There will be pump priming, but then habit and the Telos take over.  The world will certainly start out in a dream-like state relative to both the Creator and creatures.  The canned routines may be very coarse-grained at first.  As the number of creatures multiplies and the survival instincts take over, the phenomenal resolution will naturally increase.  This increase occurs as part of the ego-centralization.  Also, at first, the sense of presence is quite diffuse, generally encompassing whole phenomenal cycles.  Memory is cycle-bound.  Creation then tends toward the holographic and analog, rather than the digital.  

In this immaterial creation process, incarnation tends to work mainly from the inside out.  It could even start out as a role playing game among our zodiacal set.  As the players become more involved, their imagination becomes more proficient.  The game takes over their psyches.  The storyline may then evolve simultaneously on many levels and scales.  Creation is simply a MUD with the rules made up on the fly.  The time dimension, however, is mainly a construct that is internal to the game, unlike the MUDs hereabouts.  So Creation is a MUD that took on a life of its own, as often happens down here.  X is the MUD master.  I apologize if I have been slow on this uptake.  This is not rocket science, nor am I.  It seems that I must have been blocking here.  It would not be the first, nor likely the last.  

[4/29] 

That's nice, but next let me try to establish a context.  We're dealing with a relational system.  The relations are presumed to be of a mental variety.  The relations may be conscious or not.  The ones that are conscious would presumably be associated with proto-selves.  These selves would primarily be conscious of their relations with other such selves.  This would constitute the prototype of direct perception.  The selves would necessarily be social in nature.  Co-dependency is the name of the game.  It is in this context that our primordial 'MUD' would arise.  Could I fail to point out that X would then be the Wizard of Ooze?  There need, however, be no single omniscience.  

We then have the problem of separating fact and fiction.  The zodiacal proto-selves are a mutual fiction supported by the matrix.  To paraphrase Anton Wilson, reality is whatever the zodiacal entities can get away with.  What is of particular interest here is the emergence of 'public spaces'.  At what point does there exist something recognizable as an agora?  Among the zodiac there would be the agoraphiles and the agoraphobes.  One might imagine the Star Wars bar scene.  Is there a deployment of 'avatars'?  This is one recourse for a meeting of the minds.  Would the avatars facilitate or inhibit the mind reading?  

Yet another angle here is that of Multiple Personality Disorder or Dissociative Identity Disorder (MPD/DID).  This disorder typically arises in connection with childhood psychological trauma.  In this case the personalities arise mainly to compartmentalize the painful memories.  In such a system, mind reading may be possible only after lengthy therapy.  We might wonder whether MPD would be conceivable, absent a larger social context.  

Omniscience might be the most natural state of affairs.  Concentration is unnatural.  We think of omniscience as a passive state.  An active state would involve concentration and communication.  Communication would arise only in situations of relative ignorance.  We're delving now into the origins of semiosis.  Semiosis arises as direct perception breaks down, but signaling could also be used to attract or distract attention.  Then we might ask how the distinction of self and non-self could arise.  There don't seem to be any easy questions at this level.  All of this to ascertain the provenance of atoms. 

If one self can arise spontaneously, then others would as well.  They could fall outside of any mutual purview.  Or one could inhabit the unconscious of the other, as in MPD.  In that case the hypothetical MUD master could take the role of therapist and attempt a meeting of the minds.  Without such intervention would there have been multiple Creations?  Is this disorder a reversion to a more primitive state?  In some sense these MPD selves must be mutually orthogonal, and then we might wonder as to the relevant dimensionality of the mental space.  It is not clear how the mechanics of codependency functions for the MPD experiencer.  Relative to human existence, the dimensionality of the Matrix must be high.  It is not clear if there are any intrinsic limitations of the Matrix in this regard, outside the limitations of the BPW.  

Communication requires representation.  Representation implies indirect perception.  In a system of direct perception, there can be no communication.  I'll have to think about that.  How do I communicate with a mind reader?  I would have to be able to point to particular thoughts, but pointing is a form of representation.  Would there be any reason for mind readers to communicate?  If I attend to my desire for water, would that not communicate my desire to my gifted interlocutor?  That is a form of pointing.  

Suppose I wish to read a book.  Could I not just tap into the author's mind at the time of the creation of the story?  How do I construct the correct sequence?  This could be cumbersome.  Can there be abstraction without language?  Is language compatible with direct perception.  Philosophers have often asked whether there must be or could be a private mental language.  The issue remains controversial.  Could a direct perceiver hope to do mathematics?  Can we combine direct and indirect perception without incoherence?  Is it possible that direct perception is impossible in any form?  How then do we perceive our own thoughts?  If there is a mental language, what does it represent?  On the materialist view, there are no thoughts, only words.  But how might our sensations of odors be cast into words?  Then there is the question of the degree to which our sensation of odor is subjective or objective.  

[4/30] 

I can directly perceive my own thoughts but not yours.  Yours have to be represented to me.  I may then recreate your thoughts in my head to some degree.  But recall that for the immaterialist there cannot be a strong distinction between telephony and telepathy.  Information is a peculiar thing.  Immaterialists have to be skeptical about it.  As presented by the materialists, information is something magical, quite alchemical, even chimerical.  The problem has to do with content, or lack thereof.  If there is no content, there is no problem, but does that not leave us empty headed?  When the materialists set out to prove that we are empty headed, they are p*ssing into a strong wind, otherwise known as the stream of consciousness.  They might start out by explaining odor, but they just don't seem to have the heart for it.  Mind is a gaping hole in the materialist enterprise.  It shows no signs of being filled in, only being papered over, again and again.  The rest of us grow weary just watching their Sisyphean labors. 

In light of their abstracted nature, I have compared atoms with numbers.  But in terms of their chemical properties we ought to compare them with words.  A cell is a paragraph.  An animal is a story.  Atoms point to content and substance.  They are abstracted essences.  They connote as well as denote.  They have intension as well as extension.  If we could understand words, we could understand the agora or the plaza, if you will.  As goes the plaza, so goes the world. 

When offered a penny for our thoughts, we are seldom at a loss to coin a phrase.  When the molecular biologist examines a cell, she is able to coin molecules.  Atoms are a bit like cash relative to the monetary supply, which is the true economic substance.  It may be convenient to have some in the pocket, but we immaterialists prefer plastic, thank you very much.  Some writers are adept at cashing out their thoughts, just ask J.K. Rowling. 

Our plaza and our world are constructed of atoms and words, so say the materialists.  We immaterialists are hankering for a return to the gold standard, if only we could put our finger on it.  The gold standard is telepathy over telephony.  It is direct perception.  It is the cure for the multiple personality disorder that we call the world.  To get there we need only to recreate the primordial plaza.  That is tantamount to recreating the first word.  Was it the OM, the Zim-zum or maybe Pi?  My hunch is the lattermost.  It covers the territory.  The plaza is the territorial imperative.  It is the omphalos, the pyramid.  The pyramid allegedly encoded pi and phi, and many other syzygys, zodiacal and otherwise.  We grasp for the Cipher of Genesis.  Somehow the content was trans-formed.  There evidently needed to be some sort of anchor for this process, a stationary point, as the mathematicians would say, where the content is the form and the form is the content.  Is Pi not the transcendental pi-vot between algebra and geometry?  The Cipher has been right under our noses the whole time.  Pi might conceivably serve as the tribal peace pipe for the primal zodiac.  Our world is their pi~pe dream.  Knowing Pi, it should be possible to derive the mass of the electron, don't you think?  This is in the spirit of e^i*pi.  Monstrous moonshine has more or less demonstrated that.  I would like to think that we are about over the hump.  It would be nice to be able to start coasting.  We have come a long way to find the path home.  Perhaps we will be seeing it for the first time. 

[5/1] 

Today, weather permitting, will be what has become my annual meeting with Ron.  He has had some interesting connections in the government, and has, in the past, shown some interest in my activities and ideas.  Also he has, on occasion, arranged meetings for me with people who might be sympathetic with some of the ideas expressed here.  I'm thinking it would be neglectful for me not to request another such a meeting.  There has not been one since I began working on this website.  Permit me then to use this space to collect my thoughts regarding this possible request. 

As I understand it, Ron's professional responsibilities at one time, anyway, included what he once referred to as 'phenomenology'.  This label was apparently being used more in its scientific rather than in its philosophical sense, i.e. he was dealing with 'uncorrelated' phenomena.  I realize that I am raising more questions than answering, but please bear with me.  This is a murky area, at best.  Let's explore a putative rationale. 

The bottom line rationale is presumed to be national security.  This is an open ended area of concern, and, to put it very succinctly, it would be Ron's responsibility to make sure that the concerns do, indeed, remain open ended.  How so? 

National security concerns itself with any threats not covered by domestic law enforcement.  It might even be construed to cover natural threats such as global warming, for instance.  Indeed, eschatology might well constitute an area of such concern, and if it does not already, perhaps it ought to.  But right away, you may appreciate the problem of trying to be open ended relative to questions of security. 

Here's a for instance.  My first contact with Ron was in connection with my personal interest in the 'crop circle' phenomenon back in the early fall of 1991.  It occurred to me that there ought to be some governmental concern about this peculiar phenomenon.  It took very few phone calls for me to get through to our erstwhile phenomenologist.  Part of his responsibility was to be open to outside information and ideas.  I made known my eschatological interests from the start.  He maintains that I was the first to use that word in his presence.  What followed was a considerable amount of communication up to and including 9/11/01.  Since then, contact has devolved to this annual custom.  Those communications covered a wide spectrum of interests and activities, and have undoubtedly exerted a subsequent influence on me.  Also I was not averse to broadcasting this connection, as you see here in retrospect, to the point that I was the de facto PR person for 'phenomenology'.  My first weblog was more liberal in its discussion of this 'liaison', if you will. 

With that background, it ought to be quite appropriate for me to press for a review of the BPW rubric, under the aegis of whatever might remain of the 'phenomenology network'.  Of course, and as always, the mixing of eschatology and national security is likely to be a ticklish endeavor, from any PR perspective.  My philosophy has been to grab this bull by the horns, and not worry too much about the bric-a-brac, but I am sure there are plenty of potential correspondents who would not be comfortable with such an MO.  

At this point, though, I am not intent on making waves.  My first concern is to find whoever might be the best person to critique the BPW hypothesis.  I would hope to avail myself of that input for some reasonable period, before attempting to generate any wider interest.  In that time frame, the web log would be focused on sharpening these idea and whipping them into a more presentable format.  I might draw the line, however, at undertaking anything as potentially distracting as publishing a book, for instance.  I would be happy to leave that chore to whomever, while I continue to keep my radar screen clear for all sundry of incoming, relevant thoughts.  Disrupting that established MO might be counter productive.  It is hard for me to imagine that in my not so many remaining years that the BPW hypothesis is likely to be other than a continuing work in progress.  In as much as I attempt to synthesize these disparate ideas, and, yes, make them more coherent, it would probably have to be in close collaboration with a critic such as mentioned above.  Well, wish me luck. 

The first step in this new 'Aquarium' initiative would be for me to write up a two-page proposal, under Ron's implied imprimatur, that would be sent out to some specific individuals in his general orbit.  It would be a request for suggested names of potential critics.  Any such could remain anonymous to the rest of the world, but at least portions of our correspondence should be available for posting here, following past protocol.  I would be happy to provide any ad hoc synopsis of these ideas as would facilitate this critique.  These synopses should easily benefit the on-going presentation here.  There could well be a sequence of BPW critics, with each new one having some responsibility toward a continuity of effort, up until a wider dissemination could either be effectively pursued or dismissed. 

[5/2] 

There is the old Aviary story of Ocelot & Co, periodically traveling to Los Alamos, perhaps to consult with a visitor, to determine if the time was right for whatever.  Well, the sense I got yesterday was that we may be getting a green light.  Many of us have been impatient for some action, but, once things start moving, most of us will be wishing it would slow down.  We'll be pining for the good ol' days.  We humans are hard to please. 

[2/6/05 - Here are some Aviary sources: 1, 2, 3, 4.]

Timing is a big issue, and mostly outside of our purview.  The Gregorian calendar was probably no accident.  It does mark millennia for those of us who are into millennialism.  And neither was 9/11 an accident.  The aquarium was maintained in a ready response mode until about 1999.  At that point things began to slack off.  It was as if there were growing confidence in Plan A, including the WTC.  Now that the dust has settled a bit, it seems timely to recommence where we left off.  That is my interpretation.  The aquarium agenda is to be readdressed.  Yes, the R & D show may have to go back on the road.  I spontaneously volunteered to make a proposal to pelican, humor us, concerning the above critiquing process.  It would be duly considered.  Permit me to elaborate on that.  In the meantime I hope that we can maintain this open channel, but that will be possible only if it is not abused, and that means YOU, dear reader.  Let us put aside our childish ways as we prepare to reenter the home stretch, only as the true children that we are.  Once again, excuse my prose, and keep in mind that minimalism is supposed to be the order of the day.  Obviously cryptography was never meant to be my strong suit. 

I recognize that the BPW is not ready for prime time, but perhaps this is good enough for government work.  My job is to be a pump primer.  There may be just enough juice here to prime somebody's pump.  Our real task is to locate that somebody.  I'm asking pelican to assist in that task.  Google and I cannot do it alone.  Frankly we need some muscle.  More than that we need a context, and lacking a context we need a pretext.  If R cannot generate an adequate pretext, then I am sorely mistaken.  

All I need is a final pitch. [a]  [5/8 -- I'm still struggling to put together my 'two page synopsis' of the BPW hypothesis.  I will be in the process of reworking this material on the following page.] 

There are many who are reluctant to admit it, but it may well be that with respect to the mind, materialism has run into a brick wall.  What then are our options?  Whither modernity?  The only thing for sure is that we cannot turn back the clock.  

The Aquarium contingency is just to explore the possibility of immaterialism.  To most people, particularly scientists, this might seem to be one of the least likely or least practical responses to the mind-body problem.  Be that as it may, that is no excuse for all of us to ignore it.  Every significant contingency must and will have its day in court.  I maintain that this one has not.  Not now and not up to now.  Its time will come.  I'm urging that there is no time like the present. 

Yes, there are plenty of pantheistic immaterialists out there.  There are even a few theistic ones.  All that I am doing here is to take the best parts of both of those worlds in order to construct the Best Possible World.  And then I maintain that this BPW is also, quite obviously, the only coherent world.  This is the only place on Google that you will find a coherent cosmology that includes the mind.  If you can find anything even approximating it, please let me know. 

Have I carried coherence too far?  That is the only relevant question.  I have carried it to its logical conclusion.  If someone thinks that coherence should be limited, they'll have to figure out how to do that in a way that is not totally arbitrary.  Good luck!  I have found no such way, and I have been working this territory for at least 25 years.  But don't take my word for it.  Appealing to coherence puts the ball back in the skeptic's court.  To what context or authority can they appeal?  Their final recourse is to appeal to our conservative instincts, hoping that coherence will just go away.  

I am bookmarking this section of my weblog to send to R.  We then have to figure who to approach and how.  I will now start working up a longer summary, following this, that could later be tailored to the given individual's situation. 

------------------------------------

In the story of coherence there is an arch villain: Rene Descartes.  He tried to put asunder that which God had joined, namely the mind and body.  This is the Cartesian dichotomy that made scientific materialism conceptually possible.  Now, three centuries later, we seem to be stuck with this legacy.  The more we struggle with the mind-body problem the more insoluble it appears to be.  I am not saying that we should stop struggling, but I am saying, that after three centuries, it is time for at least some of us to consider our alternatives.  What are they? 

I maintain that there is only one rational alternative to Descartes.  Science has only ever had one strategy for dealing with the mind: eliminate it.  Consciousness is just a subjective illusion.  It is our final self-centered illusion that science must overcome, the way Copernicus overcame our geo-centric illusion.  Unfortunately it is more than just consciousness that is to be put on the chopping block.  Reason itself is up for grabs.  How can science eliminate reason?  Isn't science supposed to be based on reason?  Well, that was yesterday, evidently tomorrow is going to be a brave new world.  

Some of us are not convinced.  Some of us are willing to wager that science has finally met its match.  There is even a general agreement amongst those of us on this other side of the philosophical fence that defending the mind against the predatory attentions of science will have to be more than piecemeal.  Anything piecemeal could only be a rearguard action.  The only logical or coherent way to defend the mind is to turn its defense into a cosmic issue.  If mind is not an accident of nature, if it is not a contingent fact about a material world, then it is scientific materialism that will have to be upset, even upended. 

It is one thing to come to this conclusion, it is another thing to act upon it.  At this juncture our ranks rapidly thin out, seemingly to the point of oblivion.  Instead we have the spectacle of postmodernism.  Rather than correcting Descartes, we ape him.  We just proceed to carve the world into ever smaller, incommensurable sub-domains of self-limiting methodologies and discourse.  Is this not the way the world is?  Or is incoherence becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy?  Coherence, if it ever existed, has taken a great fall.  How do we put it back together?  Certainly not one piece at a time. 

Before Descartes there was just theism and pantheism.  With theism, there was a more or less rational Creation.  With pantheism, there was no rationale for the world.  The lack of rationale was due mainly to our unwitting responsibility for its creation and recreation.  In clinging to the world we were actually just clinging to our own illusions.  As they say, East is East and West is West.  Or are they?  Is there really a disconnect here? 

Why can't we have the best of both these worlds?  We can and we do.  That is the rationale for the Best Possible World.  Should this have to be rocket science or brain surgery?  I say not.  With all the distractions of science and now of postmodernism, not to mention the acrimonious posturing by every brand of fundamentalism, we're left with nobody tending the cosmological store.  There's nobody here but us chickens, and they don't call me Chicken Little for naught.  

What is right with pantheism is the fundamental unity it ascribes to the world.  It is all the manifestation of a single underlying reality.  We are an intimate, integral part of all that is.  With theism there is a rationale, but we are here only as the invited guests.  Apart from our individual moral struggles, we are mere spectators when it comes to Creation.  Separately, neither of these views is coherent.  On the one hand we exist only by some unfathomable necessity, on the other hand we exist only by the mysterious grace of God.  May these two separate mysteries be rendered mutually coherent?  Yes. 

Theists do admit that we are created in the image of God, but this is much too weak.  Identifying with God, however, is quite another matter.  You are welcome to attend your local cinema to witness what happened to one such heretic.  The pantheists don't mind if we identify with God, as long as we realize that God is an illusion.  How have we managed to take one simple idea and create two incoherent distortions of it?  

Can we not have our cake and eat it, too?  Isn't that what the Christians are supposed to be doing on any given Sunday?  Why should communion be treated as such a mystery?  Isn't it the most obvious statement in the world?  Why can't we all be chips off the old block?  We are, so we'd better get used to it. 

Why in heaven's name would God not want to create the best possible world?  No reason whatsoever.  She did and it is.  So, are the theists then saying that in the best possible world the creatures will never be allowed to reunite with their Creator?  Show me the scripture which proscribes that most basic of all creaturely desires.  How did we arrive at this incoherent notion of a metaphysical dichotomy?  That is the only real mystery anywhere in this environs.  Perhaps Descartes knows the answer. 

But don't get me wrong.  I am not complaining about our state of ignorance.  Technosis could not have arisen were it not for our metaphysical agnosis.  Without our extended sojourn into materialism, nay, into 'matter', would there have been any history at all?  History is just the story of our emergence from ignorance.  That there might be this final twist in the plot should only help us to better appreciate the dramaturgic skill behind Creation.  If you think you could come up with a better story, please leave your idea in the suggestion box on the way out. 

-----------------------------------------

This is a nice story, but how could it ever be proven?  That is not my job.  My job is only to render it sufficiently plausible so that some small but adequate number of early adopters would feel empowered to move the story forward from the point at which I am able to turn it over to them.  The proof will ultimately be in that pudding. 

[5/3] 

I was off-line for most of the day with a power outage.  A small twister touched down at my in-laws last evening.  They have the adjoining property.  It traveled for about a mile uprooting trees but leaving no structural damage.  We were watching '10.5' at the time. 

[5/4] 

OK, here is where things get a little sticky.  In the best of all worlds, one might have thought that Google by itself could have led enough people to this BPW website so as to get the ball rolling toward this greater coherence for which the world seems to have so great a need.  Well, when the website first showed up on Google a few months ago there were a few nibbles, and then nothing.  It appears that I am being forced back into the Aquarium mode, a mode which seemed to have been foreclosed several years ago.   So here I am, coming back to Pelican with hat in hand.  Beggars can't be choosy. 

This puts P back in a difficult spot.  If he were to act upon my request, he would call up someone in his phenomenology network with academic connections and set up a meeting for me.  So far, so good.  This person would know the ropes and some of the Aviary history, but then what?  What is this person going to say to one of his naive academic colleagues who has not had this exposure?  There would be a lot of explaining to do.  Perhaps too much.  Most sane people would throw their hands in the air and walk away.  

OK, Plan B2: P talks to Jack S., fringe physics type, and suggest that he get me plugged back into that network.  Jack might balk, but would relent.  That fringe network could then serve as a buffer between P and the real world: academic, religious or otherwise.  This would probably be a more effective buffer than anything as serious or as official as the phenomenology network.  It should make things easier for P.  Hopefully this would be sufficient to prime the Internet pump.  Should I be confident that this is not too much to ask?  It depends on how much arm twisting would be necessary to get Jack & Co to take notice.  Too much twisting might set off someone's alarm.  Some of these folks might start overreacting.  Well, better sooner than later.  These folks have set themselves up to be guinea pigs for just this kind of eventuality.  Were they not asking for it?  Would this not be the best possible teapot for experimenting with tempest control?  [5/7 - I would hold off on this scenario until there has been at least one preliminary critique.  Jack tends to be a loose cannon.] 

And even if Google alone had been sufficient, this ball would very quickly have come back to P's court anyway, just based on my public record.  One might then ask, why the Aquarium in the first place?  It was either a bureaucratic fluke, or it was something more serious and more cosmic.  Maybe we'll begin to find out. 

Like I say, the ball is in your court, Mr. P.  Now where did he go? 

[5/5] 

Yes, we still have no response.  Later today I go back to DC to see about arranging for a second picnic.  I am reluctant to let this matter drop completely, once having had my chain pulled.  It may be that this is all just another distraction, or it is a door that is meant to be difficult to open.  In either case I have to be prepared to move on.  It is not as if I do not have my work cut out for me here in this metaphysical salt mine.  It would be nice to have a coworker or two, but that may not be in the cards.  It is a very slow slog through this uncharted territory.  It is about the cosmic psyche bootstrapping itself into the BPW.  What is the path of least metaphysical resistance?  

I remain convinced that there is potentially an issue here of global security.  Most any thoughtful person would have to admit that there is a great uncertainty with regard to the universal validity of scientific materialism.  There are very few who devote themselves to its global defense, and those few recognize they continue to have a decidedly uphill battle.  Still, this would not be a crucial problem if we could be confident that some form of spirit-matter dualism prevailed.  Modern secularism is well conditioned to continue to put the best face on that cosmic schism, on that otherwise disturbing piece of cosmic incoherence. 

However, and this is a big however, reality may not necessarily respect the cultural preferences or conveniences of modern secularism.  If modernity is vulnerable to being blindsided by a non-conforming reality, then we moderns are vulnerable indeed.  If modernity is built upon a false premise, and that is the whole issue here, then we could be in for some nasty surprises. 

It could well be that 9/11 is just one of those surprises.  I'm not accusing our camel-driving Al Qaeda brothers and sisters of metaphysical sophistication, but I'm also not confident that 9/11 was just a cosmic accident.  Certainly brother Ron, not to mention sister D., did his darndest to disabuse me of that comforting notion.  Modernism is all about the avoidance of cosmic paranoia.  The avoidance of paranoia is the prime component of our slumber of materialism.  If 9/11 was not our millennial wake-up call, then let's just roll over and hit the ol' snooze button.  Or not. 

A democratic society will be compatible with a theocratic cosmos, only if the electorate is much better informed about the facts of life.  If my hunch is correct, we are playing with very much less than a full deck in this game of life.   

The Aquarium has been doing its best to represent our one and only metaphysically coherent alternative, namely the BPW hypothesis.  This is the only hypothesis that stands a chance of appealing to humanity's sense of reason.  Our powers of reason may not be all that we could desire, but they are the only thing standing between us and totalitarianism.  There is a window of opportunity for exercising these powers in the service of something more than materialism.  Once this window shuts, we could be in for a very long, very dark spell.  Let us not render ourselves spell-bound. 

Materialism alone, and faith alone are not going to extricate us from the predicaments of modernity.  There is very good evidence that our mental powers transcend the material dimension.  If we continue to keep our mental powers chained to the Procrustean bed that is scientific materialism, we will have no chance of coping with what is almost certainly a larger reality.  

Perhaps the world is only partly coherent.  Even if that were the case, that would not relieve us from the burden of pushing that envelope as far as our human powers allow.  To not be true to ourselves cannot be acceptable on any premise.  But as we better understand the nature of coherence, we will likely come to realize that being partially coherent is rather like being partially pregnant.  It is simply not in the nature of that beast.  

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Topical Index

3/23/04

Agoraphilia 

Now where were we, before our fish tank got rattled?  Here we go, back to the metaphysical salt mine, on the lookout for the occasional flakes of gold. 

The premise was that our pantheonic denizens of Mt. Olympus have an essential need for an Olympic venue.  Agoraphilia is obviously a natural state of mind that is unlikely to remain eternally unfulfilled.  Our world is quite probably an example of its fulfillment.  The Big Bang would certainly be one means of producing an awesome agora, but it is also a rather cumbersome, even awkward form of Creation. 

If the idea is just to generate a plaza, a Cafe de la Paix, then the Big bang would be using a sledge hammer to swat a fly.  There are just two logical courses to follow, relative to Creation: monist or dualist.  No, sorry, I can see nothing logical in dualism.  How we in the prophetic tradition ever got suckered into this incoherent mode of thinking is quite beyond me.  Only God could have so successfully engineered this red herring.  Clearly Descartes did not manage it all by himself.  

If you're going to have a Cafe, you've got to have some coffee.  Unbeknownst to us, this coffee was decaffeinated.  It was just intended to put us to sleep.  Asleep that is to our own creation.  If the gods go to all the trouble of putting on an Olympiad, they are going to want us to keep focused on the Games.  They don't want us to keep being distracted by ulterior questions.  There is only room for so many mystics on so many mountains.  The rest of us keep our nose to the nearest grindstone.  

But if the gods aren't crazy, can't they be lazy?  Trying to save all the appearances of a natural, uncreated world ought to keep them all a lot busier than a bunch of one-armed paper hangers.  Instead, all they would need to do is listen to Steven Weinberg for the First Three Minutes, then sit back for next 12,000,000,000 years and enjoy the show.  It sounds like a good deal to me. 

It may sound good on paper, but I'm suggesting that God is much more of a hands-on type of Gal.  The only caveat is that we are her hands,...and eyes, ears, etc.  More importantly, we are her Imagineers.  Yes, God takes more than one page out of Tom Sawyer, but not because she is lazy.  It's because we and she are all just chips off the same Matrix.  

[5/6] 

The struggle continues.  Clearly we're not quite ready for prime time, but I maintain that I am ready for the sort of limited engagement that could be greatly facilitated by Ron.  I am operating in a vacuum here.  Part of that vacuum has been created by my public association with Dr. P.  In those pre-Internet days, Ron's phenomenology network represented the only possible outlet for my radical cosmology.  And, yes, I was strung along with that possibility dangling in front of me for several years, before reaching the glass ceiling by about 1998.  I can understand the historical necessity of 9/11, especially in the context of Y2K and Y2C (and ref. X2).  It is a psychological bench mark.  And I can understand the hiatus in the Aquarium initiative before and after.  The dust has to be allowed to settle.  But there is window of opportunity here, which cannot be neglected.  There must be a sunset provision for the R & D show, and I surely would not envy the person who had to reinvent it.  Redundancy is not built into the BPW hypothesis.  I recognize that breaking the glass ceiling of the Aquarium by Ron would likely be irreversible and be fraught with uncertainty, but it is not clear that continued inaction is a reasonable alternative.  So be it, and now back to the agora. 

What I am struggling with are the psychological origins of space and time.  This is the critical piece of any immaterialist cosmogony.  Somehow we transform semantic into spatial relations.  The Matrix is the singular, indivisible cosmic potentiality.  It is the ground of being.  To be is to relate.  The most related thing we know is the self.  The self is the primordial being.  The only selves we know are essentially social in nature.  There could not exist a singular self.  The primordial being is a pantheon.  The Matrix has undergone a spontaneous multiple personality breaking of its symmetry.  The Matrix has become a Mt. Olympus, or a Zodiacal pantheon.  This is the logical and inevitable pretext of any and all relational being.  However, any Creational progress beyond this bare beginning is going to require a quasi-conspiratorial, deliberate transformation of Mt. Olympus into an Olympiad, or, more precisely, a spin-off of the former.  The Olympiad is a Zodiacal folie a douze (12), if you will.  It is a Cafe de la Paix, a la Star Wars.  

Without the benefit of the symmetries and translational invariances of space and time, the number of beings that might be accommodated by the Matrix will be severely limited.  Upwards of hundreds of fragmentary personalities have been reported in extreme MPD/DID cases, but you can see the logistical problem of attempting to socialize such a menagerie without taking advantage of spatial relations and combinatorics.  

If space is a social illusion, the main problem will be its sustenance.  The simple solution is the ritualization of the sacred space.  This would involve astrology, sacred geometry and choreography, and these elements would optimally occur in a megalithic type of context.  All we have to do is fit these pieces into a mythic or cosmogonic narrative.  There ought to be considerable flexibility at this point. 

The choreography would likely involve sacred processions and team games particularly using a ball court, as is evidenced in the Mayan culture (Pokatok).  In some such manner do we manage to routinize the illusional charism of the sacred primordial space.  The next biggest conceptual hurdle is from a sacred space to a metabolic space, or from 'mythology' to zoology and ecology.  Biological reproduction would be the major sticking point.  The phenomenology of seeds would be crucial.  How might this be routinized?  Might fertility rituals provide any clues?  

Or perhaps we reconsider the MPD.  In this case it is usually a trauma that produces the cloning of the persona.  Then consider the myth of the sacrificial god or king often associated with fertility rituals.  There is the associated complex of sadomasochism.  The dialectic process of cloning, the mark of distinction, the Zim-zum, etc., may all be relevant.  

Numbers are relevant to all of the above.  Pi, phi and 'e' seem particularly so, along with e^i*pi.  Sequences and functions all have seeds or generators.  Pi & phi and syzygys of them are involved in the delimitation of sacred spaces.  Fractal geometries inhabit the interface between algebra and geometry, and they usually involve the seemingly androgynous iota.  The imaginary iota is a seed, par excellence.  Symmetry groups are intimately involved in space, cloning and combinatorics.  Most of mathematics and physics is directly related to the structure of symmetry groups.  The Anthropic Principle of physics and the organicity of mathematics both manifest the vital force that animates all being. 

It may be fair to say that spatial and metabolic inflation are both just the logically inevitable outgrowths of the vital or dialectical principle that is inherent to the Matrix.  The Matrix is that potency.  The only countervailing force to this promiscuous inflation is the relational restriction inherent in coherence and narrational semantics.  The cosmic mind cannot expand beyond the relational limit of self-coherence.  Creation will surely push that envelope, but it cannot be broken without abrogating the relational essence of all being.  That would be tantamount to the logically impossible cloning of the Matrix itself. 

The deliberative process of Creation is the subtle interplay between pure potency and teleological coherence.  It is this process that necessarily results in the BPW.  Rogue forces can only be self-defeating in the teleological context. 

Atoms are the coin of any metabolic realm.  They, along with their cipher cousins, are the necessary limit of all combinatorial and recombinatorial processes.  Atoms are the spatial analogs of the dimensionless ciphers.  Coins, atoms and ciphers are all materialized in the rituals of the green eye-shaded, pocket-protecting technocratic cult.  Our passage through this analytico-reductive fire is how our souls are ritually purified for the rapture of the hierogamos.  These are the scales of Ma-at, the Egyptian god of measures.  This is the singular cosmic regeneration.  

The relational robustness of atoms is sufficient for their substance to spill over into the substantiality of our technological enterprise, which is the cosmic pivot of our sojourn into 'matter'.  It is the esoteric logic of the quantum that also enables the same substantiality.  It is the perpetual interplay of the projective Q and shape-shifting iota which plays out this analytic limit of the vital dialectic.  

We seem to be approaching a mnemonic of sorts: 

   vital potency (M) + relational coherency (Dia-logos) ->  AZO/X/QRP =  BPW. 

This is the BPW cosmology in one sentence.  M + D -> AZO/X/QRP = BPW. 

All of this has been fleshed out to a degree.  Each time around this horn, I stop to reflect on what seem to be the largest remaining logical and narrational gaps, and then proceed to fill them in, connecting the various dots.  Our skeleton remains reasonably robust, and reasonably accessible given some personal assistance on my part.  At some point I will need to recompile a topical index to afford an unassisted accessibility to the stout of heart.  All said and done, the BPW is reasonably prepared for its first round of criticism, IMHO.  

From still another perspective, the irresistible force meets the immovable object, yielding, after due diligence, the BPW.  Each interested reader should feel encouraged to produce their own paraphrase. 

In the meantime: the immediate opacity and seeming intransigence of the world is just one aspect or condition of its teleological transparency and amenability.  All is well that ends well. 

[5/8] 

I have been living with these radical, speculative ideas for more than a quarter century.  I am constructing from scratch an alternative worldview.  The last known person to make such an attempt was G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831).  I do not wish to compare these efforts with his.  He was a ponderous scholar with that peculiarly German style of philosophical exposition.  In contrast I am just a gadfly.  I am the Yankee Doodle taking pot shots at the 'German mercenaries', i.e. professional scholars, from behind the trees.  

I aim ultimately for coherence.  Not, in the first instance, for a coherence of exposition, but rather for a coherence of the subject matter.  My cosmology is organic.  The phenomenological cosmos is a living organism, albeit an immaterial one, which I attempt to understand, not from an analytical or biological perspective, but from a biographical perspective.  The coherence toward which I aim is that of the 'metanarrative'.  But we live in the postmodern era.  It is the sworn duty of every postmodernist to disallow and deconstruct any such construct.  The BPW hypothesis, if it were ever to come to their attention, would be regarded as just an atavistic piece of intellectual hegemony -- something quite distasteful or even boorish.  Political correctness is to be found only in an absolute pluralism, oxymoronic though that may be.  

This is a powerful current to be swimming against.  It is a lonely struggle, even as measured on the scale of Google's global purview.  How can such an off-the-charts effort not be dismissed as that of a crank?   A good question, that one. 

My only defense against the putative label of 'crank' is my purported coherence.  Purported, I say, because, quite admittedly, the existing website is nothing short of disjointed.  The BPW hypothesis is and will remain for the indefinite future a work, hopefully, in progress.  I can hardly imagine that there will not be written more than one book on this topic, but don't be looking for my name on any of them.  I have my little thing going here with Sophia, and the last thing I need are the distractions of publication.  Every morning I can wake up to a clean slate in my blog, and that is how it must be. 

[5/10] 

Dear Diary, I have submitted an informal request for a review of the BPWH.  I await a response.  Without prejudging the outcome of the immediate request, it might be beneficial, nonetheless, for me to use this space to draft some follow-up material. 

My request addresses the problem of 'phenomenology'.  The putative reviewer is likely to have some background in that area of collection.  This approach does raise anew the issue of Aquarium protocol.  The subject of uncorrelated phenomena is controversial.  More than half of our citizens believe that the government has been less than forthcoming concerning this type of information.  My correspondent is the only official who has admitted responsibility for its collection.  

------------------------------------------

My understanding is that you have responsibility for tracking 'uncorrelated' phenomena. I gather that you do this on a very ad hoc basis. For the last quarter century I have been struggling with the theoretical side of this coin. The Aquarium has functioned as a kind of think-tank. I attempt to correlate the previously uncorrelated aspects of the world.

Before the Aquarium there was science, and before science there was religion. Each has in its own manner attempted to correlate human experience. Each of the previous attempts has failed in more or less obvious ways. Those failures, however, should not excuse us from continuing our effort to grasp what is the widest possible context for human experience.

The Aquarium effort is obviously on a very modest scale, and certainly on a modest budget. Yet, the very widespread post-modern mind-set has strongly favored philosophical pluralism and deconstruction. This 'zeitgeist' transforms even this modest constructive effort into something practically world-class, just by default.

Even this modest effort then deserves to be reviewed by someone cognizant of the phenomenology 'problem', if that is how it may be labeled. There is an issue here of global security. If the nature of reality is something significantly other than what is being assumed within science and/or religion, we are leaving ourselves vulnerable to being blind-sided by possible cosmic developments. The problem of eschatology certainly ought to fall into this category of possibilities. Eschatology has become something of a specialty of the Aquarium, and it is an essential feature of the BPW hypothesis.

If I had any direct responsibility for phenomenology, I would want to keep myself apprised of the state-of-the-art for any correlational effort. In the public realm there can be little argument that the Aquarium's BPW hypothesis is on the cutting edge of all such efforts. So, at the very least, perusing the BPWH would be a useful exercise in mind-stretching for anyone burdened with second guessing the phenomenology scene.

So, just what is the BPWH?

Besides science, there have only ever been two truly distinct flavors of cosmology: theism and pantheism. The BPWH purports to be the one possible coherent synthesis of these two predecessors, which also takes full account of the scientific enterprise.

Metaphysical monism is the key to the BPWH. This has also been the basis of pantheism. Theism, on the other hand, has too easily fallen into the logical dead-end of dualism. This dualism, as later developed by Descartes into a mind-body dualism, turned out to be very convenient and probably even necessary for the development of the scientific, materialist worldview. Convenience, however, is not a concomitant of truth. Nor can the convenience of science ultimately deter us from our age-old quest for truth and gnosis.

Creation then was never meant to be a spectator sport for us creatures. We are the full participants in this 'participatory universe'. We are its co-creators. The pantheists have known this all along. But, and this is a very big BUT, they disavowed assigning any rationale or intrinsic value to the world. The world could have intrinsic value only if it were the result of a moral act. That Moral Actor can only be the theistic Creator. We can participate in that act only if we may ultimately be identified with that Actor.

This excruciatingly obvious synthesis of theism and pantheism is the single most neglected truth in the world. The Aquarium has staked its existence on the exploration and promulgation of this singular, coherent truth.

The BPW website is a daily chronicle of my struggle to understand and explain the literally earthshaking ramifications of this one simple truth. This is a burden that I am all too willing to share. I hope that you will facilitate my sharing of this crucial task. It is not at all clear to me that your facilitation will not be necessary to reach this goal.

Unless there is some blatant inaccuracy in the preceding, this ought to be a sufficient justification for you and me to take the next step: agree on a designated individual to undertake a preliminary critique of the BPWH.

-----------------------------------------

Up to this point the Aquarium, with respect to the glass ceiling, has been functioning more as a terrarium.  Any positive action upon my request could be construed as abrogating that ceiling.  I would interpret it in that fashion, and I would probably not hesitate to inform others.  Without such action, however, it appears that the BPWH will continue to languish in obscurity.  Google alone is not able to stir up interest. 

The BPWH is radical to the point of being earthshaking.  It deals with issues that could impinge upon global security.  This fact would tend to overwhelm any individual interest or action in the absence of external sanction.  The Aquarium is stuck between a rock and a hard place.  The effort required to dislodge it would be like a swift kick to the sleeping dog that is phenomenology.  This rudely awakened critter might bite almost anything in sight.  

It is mainly a matter of timing, given any substance to the BPWH.  The timing of all this is outside of my bailiwick.  I'm just here to tell what I know.  When and if anyone else takes notice is another matter, but I will render an opinion, given the opportunity.  My opinion is always likely to be 'sooner rather than later'.  Can you blame me? 

Can any putative review of the BPWH not be strongly prejudiced by all of the above?  I doubt it.  This does vastly complicate the process.  Any content of the review is going to be overshadowed by the mere fact of it.  The provenance of the review has to be more significant than its outcome.  Should I be surprised that my request seems to have gotten lost in the mail?  Unfortunately, no.  Will I be able to damn the putative torpedo? 

[5/11] 

Yes, it does look as though the Aquarium will be remaining in this terrarium mode.  We'll have to continue to generate our own oxygen, with just about enough for one fish.  On the cover is the little sign, 'Break glass in case of emergency.'  Any day now, folks.  That leaves us outstanding in our new found agora. 

Permit me to elaborate on a previous thought.  My being given access to a limited number of people down stream in the phenomenology network would be unlikely to change outside opinion.  To achieve that end the review process would have to be networked into mainstream academia.  That could happen only with continuing input on the part of my correspondent.  It would then be a continuing struggle to keep attention focused on the BPWH, and not be distracted by the phenomenological questions implied by the apparent outside interest and influence.  Such practical considerations do complicate any possible compliance with the request that I have put forward.  

Whether the Aquarium pump could ever be primed without this kind of external input is problematic.  On the other hand, if the Aquarium cannot pull this off, who could, and under what circumstances that would not turn this whole affair into a circus?  Is there some larger scenario that is already in the works, or are we really expected to be flying by the seat of our pants?  These questions remain unanswered at my pay grade. 

But hold on a minute.  Previously I had spoken about networking away from my source.  Could that not be done effectively through an outfit like the 'Jasons'?  There could be provided access to a person with sufficient public authority to adequately buffer the link back to phenomenology.  Does this put us back on track?  It is still a long shot.  My specific request would be for a practice session preceding access to a Jason-type interlocutor.  This, in turn, would precede access to someone who could network to a more public venue.  

There is still the problem of handling the X-file aficionados.  Early on, they will want to get in on the act, and will be crying foul if they are rebuffed.  Who can read them the riot act?  Perhaps it has been the intention all along that they would be the canaries in this scenario.  Someone would have to do some hand-holding.  I'm not sure that my services in that department would be adequate.  Presumably there would be a concomitant increase in dissemination, spontaneous and otherwise. 

----------------------------

The agora remains a problem here.  However, it does appear to be the best encapsulation of the whole BPWH problem that I have come across to-date.  That is no small feat.  The emergence of the primordial agora is a set-piece puzzle.  Progress on this 'toy' problem could give us a handle on many of the larger issues.  Yet, it may turn out that further progress will have to be made on some of the more peripheral issues before this central one may be effectively addressed. 

The agora is our beachhead into the 'physical' realm.  Once secured, we can make further inroads.  All relevant tools will be brought to bear in establishing and maintaining the beachhead.  From what quarry will we obtain the megaliths?  My kingdom for a stone.  Where is Ben Johnson when we need him?  Sacred geometry must play a role.  How will it bootstrap itself?  At some point the zodiac is projected outward.  Rotational symmetry is established and broken in the same time frame.  Obviously this is a crucial step.  One might then wonder where the planetary wanderers fit into this scheme.  Mach's principle and the centripetal force warrant consideration.  The vertical dimension will have to be distinguished by gravity.  It is notable that several of these features could be tied together with a gravity pendulum; however, none such survives from antiquity, besides the bipedal figure itself.    

[5/12] 

Let me not forget that a primary tool of creation will be the telos.  In retrodicting the time-line for Creation, we need mainly to determine the path of least resistance between the already given Alpha and Omega.  NASA might have as much to do with the creation of space as do the players of Pokatok.  Materialism is a path of particularly low resistance.  That is why we have such difficulty extricating ourselves from this path.  There will come a turning point.  Coherence will not be denied indefinitely. 

It could have been that Mesoamerica was the cradle of civilization.  The strict timeline of modern archeology may only be a retrospective projection based on materialist presuppositions.  That timeline is superimposed upon the mythic dreamtime.  None of this precludes the possibility that origins of the different cultures were geographically separate at first.  Mesoamerica may simply have been the prototype.  Arising in a more compact region, the remnants may represent something more pristine.  Also I find the flat jungle setting to be more primitive and perhaps more conducive to a zodiacal interpretation.  The materialist interpretation can hardly do justice to the logical commonalities of the allegedly disparate origins. 

The megaliths were not just involved in the delineation of the local space, but more crucially were involved with a primordial geodesy.  The curious coincidence of the British and French measures is possibly a residue of an earlier global construct.  And keep in mind the light speed.  It will not be easy, and perhaps not even necessary to disentangle all these competing influences.  We may just appreciate the apparent overdetermination of both the Alpha and Omega.  The archeological attention to detail, the counting of every potsherd, impressive though it is, may be distracting us from a much more significant larger picture.  In a teleological world it may not behoove us to too readily succumb to a tyranny of the past.  

A jungle bound Pokatok court seems almost like a message in a bottle, indeed, a starry messenger washed up on these timeless shores.  Is it not something semantically irreducible?  The ball in question could only have been the Sun, being entertained and entrained in its nocturnal retreat.  Naturally there would be issues of death and resurrection, not to mention recreation.  

Next to consider is the origin of the megaliths.  I don't contest the existence of quarries.  Resorting to quarries will still require a non-materialist explanation of geology.  In the BPW scheme it remains an open question as to which came first, mega-Earth or megaliths.  Recall that the megaliths figured in the geodesy, i.e. geo-geny.  I'm just suggesting that the ceremonial rocks and the Pokatok players may have had a related and more teleological origin.  Every primordial ceremony is a cosmogonic reenactment.  And on this telic view, each enactment is a vital piece of the cosmic process.  Ritual failure has always been taken seriously, and often over someone's dead body. 

Speaking of which, body that is, there is a prevalent thesis, e.g. Schwaller de Lubicz, that body and temple are interrelated on various levels.  That their origins might be logically distinct would be contrary to the spirit of the Matrix.  Recall also that cosmogonic myths frequently involve dismemberment.  Is this a naive anthropocentrism, or is science a naive atomo-centrism?  Yes, we do have atomic bombs rather than mythic bombs, or is that how we need to redesignate the eschaton?  The peculiar choreography of Pokatok does seem to emphasize the individual body parts.  How better to embody and sanctify the temple than with a ritual, sacrificial ballgame?  What a sacrilege that would seem today.  Like everything else, our rituals have been compartmentalized.  The triune relation of temple, body and celestial zodiac ought to be instructive.  The maintenance of these ritual resonances is crucial to our ontogeny.  The ritual continuity between Alpha and Omega is maintained throughout history in a very eclectic, even promiscuous manner.  The network of being has its spatial and temporal projections.  In this connection recall also the concept of the 'chakras' and the sensory-motor body-map of the cortex.  Thus the primordial temple and constellations might be viewed as an exercise in phrenology.  Furthermore, the comparable schema for atom and solar system need not be coincidental, and may pertain to these other relations.  We are just attempting to locate the nexus for the network of being. 

The Pokatok ball-court was our cosmic beachhead.  This was our participatory, cosmogonic scheme.  Beyond the court was beyond the pale.  It was a jungle out there, psychological and otherwise.  Inside the court was a mythopoeic order, transpiring under the constellated heavens.  Hunting, gathering and planting emerged in due course.  

On second thought, we have established no metabolic course.  One can only imagine the relevant Corona beer commercial.  We'll have to do better than that.  At what point do our erstwhile ball-players break out into a sweat?  Where will be the nearest taproom?  Perhaps we'll first have to find out what is going on in that jungle out there.  At what point do we revert to Jurassic Parc?  Have will simply added a ball-court to the JPc scheme?  This might not be such a bad idea.  It's beginning to look more like Xcaret.  We may have to charge admission.  Somewhere the metabolic and spatial forms will have to meet.  That's what physics is about.  The Garden of Eden was pretty sketchy on metabolics and reproduction.  Our Cafe de la Paix is turning into a Rainforest Restaurant.  We are definitely on the slippery slope between upward and downward causation.  

[5/13] 

It looks like we're not quite finished with Pokatok.  Here's why.  Up to this point I have managed to avoid the topic of sex, but now may be the time to talk about the birds and the bees.  But I won't.  Sex is too important to leave to the birds.  I'm also thinking about the slippery slope.  More than that, I'm thinking about the dialectic.  If the dia-logos does not have a gender specific dimension, we are missing a good bet.  I am suggesting that sex has a lot more going for it than mere biology.  It has a cosmic dimension.  What else is new, you might ask.  The Matrix is too clearly gender specific to ignore that aspect of it.  Everything else must define itself relative to that.  

Biological sex is very useful when it comes to populating the BPW.  Genetic diversity would be impossible to rationalize without the double helix and the idea of assortment and recessivity.  The extended family is the basis of social structure.  

What do these considerations tell us about JPc/Xcaret?  They tell us that our Garden of Eden will necessarily be co-ed.  Our problem now is to make the necessary arrangements, while carefully balancing on the slippery slope.  For instance, does teleology give precedence to viviparity over oviparity, or do they represent parallel ontogenies?  

Meanwhile, back at the Pokatok court, we were looking for a way to jump-start metabolism.  Rather than invoke the 19th hole, I would invoke Rene.  The losers get checkmated and the winners get mated.  Nothing complicated here, and no one has to pay taxes.  It's death and resurrection right there on the center ball-court, by dawn's early light.  Of course, de rigueur, there will be a fifteen second spot for viagra.  Would this not also be a case of instant reincarnation?  After all, the show must go on. 

Would this be difficult to stage manage?  It might be easier than the ball-game.  The gestation process does not require the constant attention that must be devoted to Pokatok.  Its programming could be mostly object-oriented.  While the men-folk are watching reruns on sports central, their sisters, no doubt, are out planting the maize and malt, using the appropriate planting sticks: that oviparity logically paralleling their viviparity.  

Where does this leave us with JPc?  I trust we have made a little progress, but much work remains.  We may not be ready for prime time, but we are ready for the 6am Aquarium show.  Recall that Jurassic Parc was originally invoked just to deal with the dinosaur problem.  The rest of Creation was placed under the aegis of the archetypes, AZO/X/QRP along with M & D.  Now I am attempting to penetrate the fog surrounding Alpha, as a major part of constructing the metanarrative.  We are effectively adding an anthropic component to JPc.  This would now become the BPW's rendition of the Garden of Eden.  We might refer to it as Mayan Parc or MPc.  JPc would then be a logical derivative of MPc, as we gradually expand the envelope of floral and faunal diversity.  At this point, time is still purely cyclical.  Once the MPc phenomenology is firmly established, it would be comparatively straight forward to clone it into other climes and cultures, perhaps on an 'experimental' basis at first.  All of this is just the prelude to history proper.  

Given Alpha, we may wonder whether history proper starts with a bang or a whimper.  Clearly the is a major break in the cyclical symmetry of time.  Giorgio De Santillana, in Hamlet's Mill, points to an episode that is, at least, psychologically traumatic.  Prior to this episode there is a geodesic alignment of the various versions of MPc.  This is an archeoastronomical feat of the first magnitude.  The result was a prototype of our present terrestrial globe.  This much is fixed in stone.  Now forgive me my speculation.  There may have been a jockeying for 'pole position' among the candidate cultures.  If this competition got out of hand, there could have been a resulting 'pole shift', of popular vintage.  The losers would have been checkmated, e.g. Atlantis, etc.  The further result, nevertheless, is the ideal 23 deg. shift of the ecliptic, and a similar shift in the galactic plane.  The precession of the equinoxes is thereby set up to mark the historical Aeons.  I am merely demonstrating a good-faith openness to some populist dramaturgy.  Creation should not have to be boring.  There you have it, from Pokatok to Pole Shift.  The rest, as they say, is mere history.  It will require but a few more barleycorn syzygys to move us beyond history and into our Millennial alignment, hopefully without trauma this time.  

[5/14] 

Is a dream world possible?  It is if we can arrange for there to be dreams.  Dreams may or may not require a dreamer.  A dream world implies coherence which entails a cognitive subject.  A world also implies an intersubjective objectivity.  This then raises the issue of whether there must be a primary dreamer.  Is the cosmos a figment of the cosmic mind primarily, or is God just the foremost of the dreamers?  I somewhat dodge this question by positing a fundamental identity between dreamer and dreamee.  

[5/15] 

Hold that thought.  Here is something else.  

What is the most important question in the world?  It is the God question.  What is the second most important question?  I have no idea, nor, I submit, does anyone else.  In other words, there is no contest about which is number one. 

If there exists evidence that might have a bearing on our question, what would be the most likely repository for it?  Let me rephrase that.  If there were to exist evidence that favored the God hypothesis, where would it be?  The Vatican?  Well, if they had it, why would they not make it public?  What would be the next most likely place?  The CIA?  Yes, correct.  What would the third most likely place?  Again, I doubt that there could be any other consensus.  

If you were God and you wanted to arrange for limited gnosis, which venue would you prefer?  The answer should be pretty obvious.  What have we just demonstrated?  Not that a certain agency has any such evidence, but, rather, that it would be the most likely known venue.  We have reasonably established two significant facts.  First, what is the most important question; and, second, if there were an answer, where would it most likely be found?  But this is not the end of it.  Who then is the one known person who would be most likely to be able to corroborate any of the above.  I submit that there can be little doubt that it is Catfish, i.e. Mr. P.  Again, I am not saying he does know, but, rather, of all the known people in the world he would be the mostly likely to be able to shed any light on the subject.  Period. 

But this is still not the end.  What is the one venue in which Mr. P. has allowed himself to be openly questioned?  Right here in the Aquarium.  This is it folks.  What may we then conclude?  We may conclude only one thing: relative to the most important question, there is an incredible lack of demonstrable curiosity.  Is not 'incredible' the correct word here?  I can think of no more accurate adjective.  If you are reading these words, you are the second most curious individual known in the world.  Given a rational individual with access to the Internet, and some command of English, and a modicum of curiosity about the meaning of life, this would be the furthest that she could go on the Internet toward satisfying that curiosity.  The next step would be to email me about the continued pursuit of this issue.  That has not happened.  Not yet. 

If you were in this spot, would one test of your rationality not be to be feeling a touch of paranoia, or even more than a touch?  Would not the most rational response be to feel that the whole situation was a set up of some strange kind?  How else might this be explained?  To whom might I now turn to obtain a reality check?  The only one in the world seems to be Mr. P.  If this is a game, it is completely rigged.  It is curiously self-contained.  There is a notable lack of recourse.  One time I did attempt to consult a psychiatrist about this situation.  I think you could well imagine the response, or lack thereof.  This right here is the closest thing I have to a couch, or to a reality or sanity check.  

Why me, Lord?  Where is everyone else?  How do they manage to be so incurious?  Are they just pretending not to care?  Am I here on this spot just because of a ten minute encounter with Sophia some twenty-five years ago?  Why me, Sophia?  Enough about me.  

----------------------------------------

Back to dreamer vs. dreamee.  If the self is something essentially social, then there can be precious little distinction.  If we are created in the image of God, then God must be an essentially social being.  Does this contradict an essential aspect of monotheism?  Yes and no.  It defeats any absolutist rendition of monotheism.  The God of the BPW is the relationalist version of monotheism.  Within the pantheon, the Creator is readily distinguished: a very distinct personality.  This is just the X factor.  She is our Dreamer, we are her dreamees.  In a relational world, there can be no ultimate distinction.  Could there exist a non-relational world.  Sure.  Just ask the scientists.  They call it atomism.  

There you have it.  Dreamer, dreamee, it's six of one and a half-dozen of the other.  The only question is whether an immaterial self is possible.  The next question is whether a material self is possible. 

Frankly, I think you could shuffle atoms around for all eternity and never come up with a self.  In fact, if quantum theory demonstrates anything it is just that there can be no such thing as an unobservable or unobserved atom.  It is not at all clear that observation can entail anything less than a self.  Any evidence to the contrary is based entirely on the presuppositions of scientific materialism. 

Even if a material self were possible, that would not speak directly to the nature of our own selves or to the possibility an immaterial self.  It is only the functionalists who claim that science is presently in a position to explain the self, and functionalism overlaps with materialism only at that margin.  Functions are a far cry from atoms.  There exists no reductionist scheme for functions. 

Relationalism implies the existence of a singular Matrix, i.e. a source or ground of being.  Any resultant being then implies the existence of a non-contingent relational nexus.  That nexus can hardly be anything other than the socially creative self.  That is what I refer to as the Creator/Dreamer.  If we are anything more than atoms swerving in the dark, we must be chips off of that Block.  The BPWH flows directly from this excruciatingly obvious preamble.  What more could I or anyone else say about this whole matter? 

---------------------------------

The Zodiac arises out of the cosmic potentiality as a nexus of quasi-real relational nexi or quasi-selves.  To take their reality to the next level, these beings conspire to play games.  For that to transpire there must be an agreed upon set of rules with an appropriate venue.  An obvious suggestion is a minimalist physics in a limited space.  If we wish to make contact with our own reality, the Mayan ball-game of Pokatok presents itself as a suitable candidate.  Each of the zodiacal psyches would present itself in this game as one in a set of reasonably similar avatars.  The game would progress as a shared lucid dream.  It would be an excellent exercise is synchronized concentration.  I would further opine that the Pokatok game brings us nearly half way to the BPW.  Heck, it is even further than half way if you allow to include that gestational reincarnation addendum.  And this latter item ought not to be a big deal within the given context. 

Would not this simple scenario sound rather more believable to the ingénue as the basis of reality than would a quantum atom?  It is a presumption here that we may have outsmarted ourselves when we take the quantum atom to be an absolute basis of reality, rather than as one of many useful models.  I am just suggesting the most coherent alternative to the atomic model of reality.  And if you can grant me this much, the we are half way home already.  There should hardly be a contest between these two models.  What compels the former is the technocratic turn of our history.  If history is to take another turn, the BPW will be the leading, or perhaps the only coherent candidate.  Where is the competition? 

[5/16] 

Before trying to figure out the next step of Creation, let us recapitulate and check for missing links.  One area that may need more work concerns the ball playing avatars.  

[5/17] 

It appears that we may have touched on a sensitive issue here, and we're not even talking about the avatars.  Just consider the ball.  To what degree is there a reality that corresponds to the appearance?  Is there actually anything out there behind all those appearances?  It certainly does seem like it.  We can see a tree in the distance and then walk over to it and feel its bark, smell its blossoms and hear its leaves rustle in the breeze.  We may even climb up in its branches.  How much more real can it get?  

This self-presentation of the tree has to do with our spatial perceptions.  It is not that these perceptions are deceptive, but they may not be fundamental.  These perceptions are neither relational nor functional.  We generally suppose that our relational and functional understanding is derived from our spatial perception.  I suggest otherwise. 

The brain is supposed to act as a behavioral transducer.  It transforms the external picture into a functional map that our body is able to act upon in the appropriate proprioceptive manner.  As a mentalist, I contend that the 'internal' functional map is closer to reality than is the planar map allegedly projected upon our retinas.  Perhaps the projection actually works in the reverse direction.  The Pokatok ball exists functionally in the minds of the avatars.  The resulting 'synchronization' problem is not a problem when we recall that there is ever only a single source of all relational being, which can therefore never become asynchronous.  There is no asynchronous protocol for the cosmic web.  There is ever only one cosmic mind, which now has the illusion of being a multiple personality. 

Will this work?  We'll just have to see if and where we can poke holes in it.  After a hard days work, reality can often end up looking and feeling more like Swiss cheese, but by the morning it has usually managed to pull itself back together.  Which is the real world: inner functional or outer spatial?  

There has only ever been one Pokatok game: the first and the last.  Our world is just many variations on that one theme.  All the physical and biological cycles are derivative therefrom.  It can be our singular microcosm.  We have pushed that Pokatok envelope to its logical limits.  It is about time for us to start wrapping things up and getting our lives back in order for the finale.  

We'll have to work out the cloning process that allows us to do so much with so little.  We seem to be getting a lot of bang for our buck.  The dia-logos is our vital cloning process.  It appears most starkly in the planting scene outside the ball court, as mentioned above.  How big a problem will agriculture be for us immaterialists?  To what degree might farm and sport overlap in their metaphysical basis?  I have already suggested that floral and faunal reproduction should be closely related problems.  Human reproduction might even be given a logical priority in the ontogenetic scheme of the BPW.  

Can we institute a basic floral cycle without first having to implement every last metabolic detail?  How do we apportion this cycle as between final and efficient causes?  The more that we may appeal to teleology, the less work do we make for ourselves.  

Recall the high school chemistry experiment of growing those blue crystals out of a solution of copper sulfate?  For the immaterialist, it is a problem that is similar to growing a plant.  Must we invoke quantum physics to get these crystals started?  We take a crystal, dissolve it in water, let some of the water evaporate and then watch the crystal reform.  Then repeat.  How about that?  The phenomenology of dissolving is usually reversible.  Every substance will undergo some such process in the appropriate circumstance.  Glass melts, diamonds burn.  What is the teleology?  It has to do with entropy.  What is entropy for the immaterialist?  What is it for the BPW?  Do we chalk it up to planned obsolescence?  Is that not what mortality is about?  Here also is the logical basis of metabolism.  Here is the conservation of matter and energy.  Mathematical structures don't have this problem.  Or do they?  What if one is a constructivist?  Can construction exist without deconstruction?  Not according to the postmoderns.  

Finally, it may be simply a matter of time.  I don't mean abstract 'physical' directionless time, but phenomenal, directed time.  Without time, there is no history, no dramaturgy, no metanarrative.  Such time is not possible without entropy and atoms.  The mere fact of a narrational semantics requires the existence of atoms subject to quasi-reversible processes.  And, yes, the rest is history.  Or is it now just physics?  Physics does not come close to explaining phenomenal time, and I would argue that phenomenal time is inconceivable outside of a teleo-logic.  

Am I promoting semantics over physics?  Yes, indeed.  A semantic system relative to a physical system is like a monetary system relative to the cash system.  The latter is mainly for show.  It is the invisible hand that finally counts in the monetary system; it is the telos that counts in the semantic system.  Green eyeshades and pocket protectors are not strictly necessary in either case.  

The invisible hand in the semantic system is just you and me as the eyes and ears of God.  Yes, we are the normalizers.  Even the paranormal has its time and place.  Much more than that, however, threatens to upset the system, and before that it threatens our sensibilities.  We do keep the trains running on time.  The eschaton, after all, is just the caboose on our glory train.  Well, if you want to be technical about it, it is the engine! 

Is Pokatok irreversible?  Imagine trying to play it with a reversible memory.  Without entropy, how could the players ever decelerate?  At the least, they would need flywheels in order to do that.  Instead of using flywheels, they eat the breakfast of champions, which, conveniently, is being grown right outside the stadium.  

An important fact about the BPW is that it is a package deal, and not the kind that is put together with string and sealing wax.  The Matrix is the seal.  But the Matrix is not the point of maximum entropy.  It is the point of maximum potency.  The BPW is its permanent appendage.  The world is just the Matrix as refracted through the diffraction grating of our individual minds.  That requires work, our work.  The analytic tradition results in an increase in information and a decrease in entropy.  The molecular biologists are its latest, and probably its last installment.  We metanarrators are semantically repackaging the existing information, which technically does not effect the entropy.  

Strictly there was not a first planting or a first ballgame.  Their cyclical potentiality was gradually brought forth by the potency of the Telos.  But then at some point there was a psychological pole shift which managed to permanently break the cyclical time symmetry.  My only scenario at present is just the one given above. 

[5/18] 

Atoms still need some work.  They have to do mainly with biological cycles.  These cycles require the replenishment of information and energy.  They are not reversible.  

The chain of being, i.e. creator -> humans -> cells -> atoms, has to do with the distribution of intelligence.  The intelligence is found in the functional cycles logically entailing these forms.  Cycles are the phenomenal substance of the world.  

There is also the issue of multiplicity.  Could there be a participatory creation without multiplicative cycles?  The creational diversity inherent in the combinatorial possibilities is just the attraction of atomic matter.  This is just the logic of our sojourn into matter.  This is the central support for our bridge from Alpha to Omega.  We and the atoms are chips off the Matrix.  We are the droplets that make up the rainbow coalition of creation.  The cosmic holography could hardly function without the logic of atoms.  That is the logical envelope against which we may push the matricial potency to its limit.  

We have not yet minded our P & Q archetypes.  They must entail the input of the telos.  They balance the first and final causes.  They ensure and facilitate the anthropocentrism of the entire holographic process.  This is the p-IQ of the atoms.  Otherwise they would be inert.  The dynamic substantiality of atomic matter resides finally in the singularity of the Monster Group, which, in its turn, resides in the manifold symmetry of Pi.  This is how our rainbow coalition becomes the unbroken circle of the Omega.  This is the finality of Pi.  Every possible color of the Matrix is diffracted through it.  The MG is the invisible hand made visible.  Pi is the link between mind and the agora, i.e. between logic and space.  

Another aspect to be noted of the ballgame is its tendency to transform ritual or cyclical time into a functional or linear time.  This is a microcosmic symmetry breaking.  Temporal presence is thereby focused.  This microcosmic synchrony is followed up by the cosmic synchrony arising out of the symmetry breaking in the pole position contest.  There is probably a logical similarity between these primal 'contests' that is not yet visible. 

----------------------------

The revolutionary shift from materialism to immaterialism is the transformation in our understanding of the world from mechanical to functional.  The mechanical aspect of the world is then seen as merely one aspect of its functionality.  Atoms no longer constitute an absolute reality.  Quantum physics forced us, very reluctantly, to make a small step in this direction.  The BPWH requires that we leap across the remaining conceptual divide.  The phenomenology, fortunately, will be transformed in a much more gradual manner, as we better grasp the meaning of the various functions, instead of merely reacting to them.  We begin to comprehend the relativity of being. 

The problem we face right here is the inauguration.  On what formality do we stand, before we are willing to undertake this revolution?  Can it be a purely deliberative process, or must there be a coercive element?  Must there be a big stick?  Perhaps holistic health will provide an impetus sufficient to transform our metaphysical assumptions.  If this were to be the case, we would probably have to wait until molecular biology proves to be less of a distraction than it has been recently.  It distracts all of us from the larger, more functional picture.  The catch is that the balance between conventional and alternative medicine will be strongly influenced by our own perceptions and expectations.  The placebo effect speaks strongly to this point. 

It is apparently very difficult for even a few people to undertake such a large adjustment in their thinking merely on a contingency basis.  Immaterialism will still appear to most folks as a trackless wilderness.  It may require further years of concentrated effort here, before the next most motivated and properly positioned person may find these environs sufficiently surveyed so as to avoid a discomfiting disorientation.  A related problem will be to also get a better resolution on the messianic dimension of any such undertaking, but it is hard to see how this contingency might be resolved short of an actual transformation.  

My beef here is that although theism and pantheism have been with us since the beginning of recorded history, we have not previously attempted a coherent synthesis of the two worldviews.  Having noted this historical fact, what is it that now prevents us from pursuing this path?  Is this an opportunity that we can well afford to overlook?  On the scale of all intellectual endeavors, why should this one not be given a high priority?  Just on the face of it, should that not be the case? 

[5/19] 

We might wonder at this point if what we are confronting is a positive avoidance of coherence.  Coherence is simply taboo: 'forbidden to profane use or contact because of what are held to be dangerous supernatural powers.' [M-W Dict.]  This is, of course, true for paranormal phenomena.  Science, however, in regard to the paranormal has taken a different tack.  It denies the existence of all anomalous phenomena.  There is the presumption of normativity applied to nature.  Furthermore, there is a disallowance of any forces not sanctioned by physics.  Cases in point are vital forces and mental powers. 

Denial, however, is just an ontological form of taboo.  In practice the denial takes the form of a collective censorship of scientific speech and activity.  As with any human activity, there are implicit and explicit boundaries.  The theistic scientist crosses one such boundary frequently, which is acceptable as long as there does not occur a blurring of the boundary in the process.  Scientists advocating Intelligent Design must expect to find themselves under constant attack by the more established authorities.  This is all part of the fence building and maintenance effort.  Good fences make good neighbors.  

Postmodernism celebrates these fences.  The BPWH sees them as an obstacle to the larger truth.  This view consigns the BPWH to being subversive to the established order.  It is not a subject that may be taken up lightly.  There is an explicit threat to the historical order.  This is the eschaton.  The irony is that any order is either arbitrary or essential.  The BPWH points to a larger essential order that supervenes on all historical contingency.  With a stroke of the pen it legitimizes every historical fact, while at the same time it invalidates virtually every existing rationale or explanation for those facts by simply posing a rational Telos. 

-----------------------------------

I arbitrarily search on telos & cosmos (5,000 hits).  Near the top I find Narrative Telos- The Ordering Tendencies of Chance, a dissertation for English by Victoria Alexander, CUNY 2002. There are some other good selections as well, which I shall peruse: Against Philosophical Appeasement, Anthony and Mary M. (Maggie) Mansueto.  The others among the first hundred are less provocative.  The general effort is to append a telos to a material world, following mainly Teilhard.  One might as well pin a tail on a donkey. 

The Mansuetos make a provocative case against the nihilism of materialism and atheism.  Their Marxist oriented liberation theology also falls into the dualism of the Teilhardian cosmology.  Immaterialism would be pushing their Marxist envelope to the max.  I am looking at the back issues of Anthony's journal, 'Dialectic, Cosmos, and Society', for any idealist articles.  There is no indication of any such articles in the more recent issues despite the lack of any editorial prohibition of same.  

Victoria's thesis is billed as the most thorough explication of teleology to-date.  I don't doubt it.  It is written in a clear and provocative style.  She was mentored by a physicist at the Santa Fe Institute, James Crutchfield.  That this exposition of the largely scientific uses of teleology had to be written by a non-scientist is indicative of the scientific taboo surrounding this general idea.  I am about half way through this dissertation and am finding that it is world class.  I have learned more about teleology in the last two hours than I have in my whole life.  Our intellectual logjam relative to metaphysics is beginning to break loose.  If you are living down stream from the Aquarium, you might consider moving to higher ground.  

----------------------------

Permit me please to add yet another sidebar.  I refer frequently to the chain of being.  One version of this is God -> human -> cell -> atom.  From this sequence one might infer a possible analogy: cell is to human as human is to God.  These ratios do happen to involve one of my favorite numbers: 10^10.  I have long supposed that we might be thought of as the brain cells of God.  This has some strongly pantheist overtones.  I feel motivated right now to carry this analogy a bit further, with your patient indulgence.  Yes, there is a spatial relation between our neurons, but more importantly they are embedded in a neural network, which can easily be represented as a matrix.  My simple point is that you and I, relative to the cosmic mind are embedded in a very similar sort of subconscious telepathic network.  That is how we are embedded in the Matrix, a partial projection of which is God's mind.  Now hold on.  Amidst all of the electrical activity in our brains, and with only a modicum of very transient external input, we are magically able to reconstruct a remarkably stable worm's eye view of the 'world', which is phenomenally impressive.  Now I am saying that in God's mind there is an even more impressive and more stable functional 'representation'.  But the caveat is that it may not actually be merely a representation of the world.  It may just be the real world.  Yes, this is a vicious circle.  No, it is a sublime circle.  It is the reality behind what we naively refer to as the 'world'.  This metaphysical cycle circulates in both directions simultaneously.  This is the 'mechanism' of our participation in Creation.  Perhaps I should set this idea aside before I have second thoughts.  What is real and what is appearance?  This need not be an easy question.  

And here is your homework assignment: how do atoms fit in, what role do they play in this reality circuit?  If you come up with the correct answer before I do, you will go to the head of the class. 

[5/20] 

The atoms find themselves entangled in a non-spatial quantum matrix.  It is, however, controversial as to whether quantum phenomena play a significant role at the level of the electrical connectivity between neurons.  

There is another analogical ratio here.  Creatures are to cosmos as atoms are to cell.  Creatures and atoms participate in a similar peripatetic, interchangeable fashion in the information and energy economies of their respective spheres.  There is a functional, microcosmic similarity to their respective 'ballgames'.  There are two complementary microcosms: self and cell.  This cannot be a gratuitous fact about the world.  Likely it points to a yet to be discerned level of connectivity.  It is also likely that the archetypes of QR&P play a role here.  The MG may also be viewed as a kind of microcosm that could enter into this same context.  In this case there is yet another analogical ratio: group elements are to the Monster Group as cells are to the body.  This second analogy is structural rather than functional.  And let us not forget the planetary model of the atom.  In the sky it is the milky way that takes an ouroboric appearance.  The nodes of intersection between the lunar, planetary and galactic planes were often considered to be waypoints in the transmigration of the souls.  Pi inhabits the node of intersection between the logical and geometrical realms.  Q&Pi combine to constitute the node between the mathematical and physical realms.  X is the narrational node between cosmos and microcosm.  Let's see now, have I left anything out of this witches brew?  Dig deep, doggie in the bottom.  What we may have here is a recipe for the Adam Kadmon or Cosmic Anthropos that somehow constitutes our reality circuit, or else it is a Rube Goldberg contraption.  The previous question concerning atoms has now been blown out of all proportion. 

[5/21] 

The Creator is fascinated with her creatures.  We, scientifically speaking, are fascinated with our cells and atoms.  That fascination has temporarily blinded us to the presence of God, that is until we begin to stand back and ask the larger questions.  At the height of our infatuation with matter, we were unable to see the forest for the trees.  Now we have a carrot and a stick.  The carrot is the anthropic principle, the stick is the mind-body problem.  The universe is incredibly suited to life.  The brain is credibly unsuited to mind.  Then give these two facts a slight twist.  Matter is deployed in the extrinsic support of intelligence, and yet matter by itself is intrinsically unsuited to that task. 

Here we have a major conundrum.  We get a small break with the quantum.  It turns out that the process of observation is an essential feature of atomic reality.  Combining this fact with the previous facts, we then have confront the following fateful question which speaks directly to the meaning of life.  Is it the atoms that bring forth mind, or is it the mind that has brought forth the atoms? 

This seems like a difficult question so let me make it easier for you.  We have spent billions of dollars over the last half century building the most impressive machines on Earth, just to smash atoms.  Talk about fascination!  And what is so fascinating?  Behind the atom we find another reality.  This reality is composed of the improbably intricate symmetries of Pi, and the incredible complexity of the mathematical Monster Group.  And then according to the prescriptions of 'Monstrous Moonshine', these two features of the sub-atomic reality are intimately related.  To get a firm grip on these facts you would have to absorb many thousands of pages of mathematical proofs.  It seems that virtually all of mathematics may be brought to bear upon the makeup of a single atom. 

Am I making it easy for you?  What is nature trying to tell us here?  She is telling us in excruciating detail that atoms are nothing fundamental.  What is fundamental to the existence of every atom are the most abstruse and complex structures that the human mind has been able to produce.  There is just one remaining question. Which came first, God or the Monster?  This is a question with which I have struggled.  Here is my best answer, as of today.  Neither one.  The Matrix came first.  

Then came the ouroboric bootstrap consisting mainly of creator and creation intermixed in zodiacal, MPD/DID fashion.  The problem we then have is to be fruitful and multiply.  We will need to be able to do combinatorics, and in the process we will maximize the diversity of creation by pushing our symmetry breaking of the Matrix to its logical, coherent limit.  We deploy the chain or network of being to its fullest extent. At the far end of that chain, at the fourth level of being, is our fascinatingly abstruse atom.  That atom is the phenomenological stand-in for the Monster.  This bootstrap is indeed looking ouroboric.  Creator and Monster are two aspects of the head of the serpent.  The MG allows the ouroboros to swallow its atomic tail.  It is how the cosmic circuit is completed by minding the P&Q.  If X is the Creator, then the MG is the anti-X, almost eschatological.  This is how the Anthropic Principle works.  Mathematics is naturally anthropic.  It is necessarily a bio-logic, and the only logic is the dia-Logos.  Mathematics can exist only as a formalization of language.  It does not arise ex nihilo.  It is a social game par excellence.  The MG is the fulcrum by which the world is able to turn itself inside out.  As in Communion, we end up swallowing God.  

The mathematical syzygys help to give away this game.  They are where chance meets necessity, and where subjectivity meets objectivity.  This is a role that was formerly reserved to the quantum and the work of art.  Those syzygys are our own footprints on that distant shore.  They are our monogram.  The combinatorics of our life game is played to the max.  Therein resides 10^10.  The BPW rests in the balance.  10^10 is an aesthetic limit, and the MG enforces that limit anthropically.  The vital essence of the MG is visible mainly on this scale.  Its relational existence is a crucial part of the larger picture.  Mathematics is as essentially holographic and coherent as is the world in general.  

[5/23] 

Pelican remains upbeat about the Aquarium, but insists that it acquire a new name.  We're open to suggestions.  How about 'Fusion' in honor of our oriental restaurant venue near I & 17th where the Pelican's Geo broke down on the way to the Zoo?   That would make us the fuses, trying to prevent short circuits, or something.  Is this good enough for government work? 

[6/14] 

I have been hanging out on the Sarfatti list.  There was a useful exchange with KG, but that cannot go further without input from RP.  

Jack's fringe physics folks are in a logical trap.  They are forced to use UFOs to justify their questionable physics.  But then they have to explain why the visitors are not cooperating with us in a technology transfer.  They end up supposing that the visitors are largely of hostile intent.  But then where are the good guys?  Why aren't they protecting us?  

The best way to explain the standoffishness of the visitors is by supposing that they are preparing us for some public event.  This event would focus on the dissemination of non-technical information, presumably concerning our future.  It's content would be perceived by many as disturbing, and it could be socially disruptive if not transmitted cautiously.  This is where a 'fusion' group would come in handy. 

Any further advance of physics into the paranormal domain raises the issue of mind over matter.  There is the question of whether the laws of physics are unreasonably conducive to technical advancement.  At what point must we consider a cosmic teleology?   At some point we must consider a mentally bootstrapped cosmos.  This is where the weak goes over to the strong anthropic principle.  This transition is the point of my impasse with Jack & Co.  This is what stands between here and eternity.  Why don't I go back on the list and pursue this issue? 

---------------------------------------

[('misanthropic') WAP  ->  SAP] 

It is not clear to me why Jack and the others here are so hesitant to embrace the Strong Anthropic Principle, in contrast to its weak sister. Jack seems to hold Tipler and Wheeler in high regard, and they certainly embraced the idea.

The visitor phenomenon would be much easier to understand on the basis of the SAP rather than the WAP.

Everyone here subscribes to teleology and time warps. Why then can we not allow there to be teleology and a time warp on the cosmic scale? Would this not be the logical venue for such constructs, in the first place? Would not a teleological bootstrap be more scientific than having to posit an infinity of worlds? Would it not force us to look for explanations, rather than hide our ignorance behind an Infinity of Worlds Hypothesis?

Come on guys and gals, let's show some intestinal fortitude. The IWH is the end of thought. A dynamical bootstrap is a launch pad for further inquiry. Why not the dynamical model instead of a statistical model? Is not dynamics the whole point of physics?

Who's afraid of the SAP?

The SAP does not preclude the possibility of parallel universes. Not at all. It just means that we don't lean upon that unobservable infinity as an explanation for every last resort. Think of poor Occam!

And finally think of your fellow humans. Does not the SAP lend meaning to our lives, by the same token that the WAP robs us of significance? This should be a no-brainer for us!

Yes, this is a critical issue, alright.  

Of course, the SAP is my stalking horse for immaterialism.  Do these physics types subliminally sense that?  It is for a similar reason that Jack abandons his Bohmian determinism on the cosmic scale.  

Clearly the good guys, the Federation, the cosmic intelligence is going to participate in the bootstrap.  They are it.  

If I can get my foot in the SAP door, I'll be off and running with the 'Fusion' vision.  Just wait.  

---------------------------

[Berkant:] Sufi tales say there are seven earths and seven heaven..

I don't know what they exactly mean with seven earths.. maybe you have an idea to share with us..

IMHO some of the unfriendly "ETs" are from the "underworld".. so they are "earthly" not heavenly beings.

---------------------------

I would definitely prefer this sort of 'interdimensional' model for the ETs. Even if they lived in this dimension, they would need to travel via the others.

I have no problem with multiple worlds, as long as they are not redundant, i.e. as long as their existence functionally supports and enhances the organic whole. Our Earth would almost certainly be the main one. This would be the focus of the cosmic action. The ETs could be from heaven and hell, or the under-earth and over-earth. They are the supporting actors, are they not?

Also this interdimensional cosmology is much more in accord with an SAP-bootstrapped reality. Are there others here who share this POV??

------------------------------------

[Jack:] There is no contradiction between SAP and WAP. You can have SAP in SOME of the WAP Universes - no problem! WAP does not preclude SAP. Some WAP Universes are God-Universes others are not.

God means IJ Good's "GOD(D)" or Stapledon's "Star Maker". God need not be a Moral God, but can be.

There may be War of The Gods across different Universes in Hyperspace.

The Devil is also there if God is. It's Milton's Paradise Lost! 

-----------------------------------------

Hold on, Jack. Let's think about this. Being a Creator is a major responsibility. No Creator worthy of the name is going to start picking fights with other Creators out there in Hyperspace, thereby jeopardizing her own Creation, would she?

It would be the height of folly for there not to a Federation of Creators, would it not? Why must we always anthropomorphize our Gods by projecting the worst of our follies onto them??

Furthermore, I see no reason to suppose that being a creature would be involuntary. If you and I were going to be creatures, would we not want as our Creator a moral, loving God who would be a good citizen of the Federation of Creators??

Sure, there might be amoral Gods out there, but imagine how much trouble they would have recruiting their creatures. Don't you believe in the all volunteer Creation?

----------------------------------------

John,

I understand the entertainment value of science fiction, but need we make it into a philosophy and a religion? I hope not.

What most amazes me about the sampling of Sci-Fi that comes my way, is the incredible lack of metaphysical imagination that is generally manifested, present company excepted, of course. Instead of a horse opera, we have a space opera.

The WAP is the Mis-Anthropic Principle. This is the metaphysics of the space opera. What you never see in any space opera is the Strong Anthropic Principle. Frank Tipler, however, felt compelled to limit his SAP model universe to pure materialism, a limitation that should be obviously oxymoronic in this context.

Any self-consistent, coherent application of the SAP will have to include a mind-field as its essential element. Jack makes a stab at this with his psi-field, but then he retreats from the full challenge it presents.

Some of us will take up this challenge. It is the only way we will ever be able to explain the mystery of our phenomenal world. I grapple with this challenge on my website, and in this forum.

Rather than plunge into the daunting metaphysics of the 'spontaneous' symmetry breaking of the cosmic mind field, which I shamelessly call the Matrix, let me revert to the more familiar ground of cosmic politics, just one level removed from our beloved Space Opera:::

When I last had Jack on the line, we were discussing Jack's notion of Creator Wars in Hyperspace. I have a problem with this notion. Why should we model the Cosmos on Dodge City? Aren't there any better models? Need a better model be less exciting? I think not, but let's see.

The Gods, after spending a few Aeons of bashing each other's creations, get tired of all the cosmic mayhem, and decide to cooperate, even if only for once in their lives. This new found cooperation was not just their own idea. The creatures were getting tired of being hockey pucks on the cosmic ice rink. A Creator has a major problem when she decides to have a Creation and no creatures show up. The show gets cancelled for lack of participation.

The SAP, unlike the WAP, demands participation. Its implied bootstrap is made up of its co-creator creatures, they are just chips off the pantheonic block, after all. The Creator now become orchestra conductor, cum motivational consultant.

OK, so the Creators and Creatures finally get smart and put their collective heads together and decide to outdo themselves. They will make the best darned creation that can possibly be made.

To make a long story short, and not to give away the plot of my website, that's where we are.

But wait, you say, there must be some mistake. This can't possibly be the best possible world! A short answer to that is, you ain't seen nuthin' yet. A more thoughtful answer is: the best possible world will be chock full of diversity and surmountable adversity, a diversity that we are challenged to transform thru adversity into an organic unity: pantheon -> theon. The co-creator bit is no joke!

And then the visitors appear from stage-left. There is a rolling of the drums..........

Dan 

[6/15] 

[What price innocence?] 

Yes, Jack, this evidently is a political and not a physical question, so I guess I'll have to handle it.

I see in these environs many protestations of innocence in regard to many aspects of Creation. I see a great reluctance to accept the designation of co-Creator. Who, in their right mind, would wish to take responsibility for this mess? Politicians always get to blame the previous administration for the mess, up until the next election. As co-Creators we would not even be afforded that luxury.

I'm the bad guy, I'm here to dole out the responsibility. Shoot me, I'm a co-Creator!

Clearly you all cherish your precious innocence. How precious is it, and will we ever be willing to give it up?

Innocence must be precious indeed, because we have been willing to pay a very great price for it.

Now do you understand why the Visitors remain in hiding? Now do you see why they were so desperate to find another messenger to deliver this bit of bad news? Was I the biggest sucker to walk in the door, or what?

Yes, Jack, you have met the Aliens, you have met Satan. Look in the mirror, He is yours and ours, soon to be lost, innocence.

Surely you all have heard of that famous river, the River Lethe. Did you never wonder why it existed, and why all of us mortals must cross it to get to these shores?

This has to be something that is worth contemplating.

Mortality in the mantle we don to participate in Creation. It is also our innocence. Beneath that innocence is our immortality.

Every time we cross that great river, that great divide, we are granted the priceless privilege of being allowed and being able to reinvent ourselves. In fact, my friends, we have just hit upon the core purpose of Creation. We are just the means for God's self-reinvention.

For every Gandhi there is a Hitler? It seems that God has been willing to try everything once. The envelope of possibility has been pushed to its limits. Here in this garden of eden, in this vale of tears, God has played hide and seek with herself. But like all good games, even this one, the greatest game that will ever be played, must come to an end. Ole, ole, infree!

Sorry 'bout that, guys and gals. It's time for us to move on.

---------------------------------

From: Jack Sarfatti [mailto:sarfatti@pacbell.net]

Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2004 11:35 AM

To: Dan Smith

Subject: Re: What Price Innocence?

Dan is mainly concerned with theology and morality. Fine. I am focused on the "how", the physics, not the "why."  The planet is warming. Bush is ignoring that fact. The rank amateurism and incompetent post-invasion management of Afghanistan and Iraq of the Neo Con Cabal inside The Pentagon has not helped. I do note, however, that the rate of suicide bombing in Israel has gone down dramatically at a cost of almost 1000 American lives and at least 5000 American wounded out of a force of ~ 130,000. Eco-catastrophe is almost inevitable. I am Noah. It seem obvious that billions of people now living on this planet will die in a virtual Apocalypse. We have too many people on too small a planet. Only if we can make star gates for massive population transport to virgin Earths in the Universes Next Door in hyperspace do any of these people, including your children and their children have a chance of surviving.

-------------------------------------------

Jack,

Well, are we making any progress in integrating the how and the why, the science and the spirit?

If there is an essential moral component to the UFO phenomenon, then, at the very least you may have to install a plastic Buddha on the dashboard. It may be mandatory, and there may be more.

What I do notice is that you and most of your colleagues have rushed to a negative judgment of Alien morals, and then you use this judgment to justify your own disregard of all things moral and spiritual concerning you own proposed conquest of the Cosmos. It's might makes right, and to hell with the Golden Rule!

[If you will refer to my first message: we labor on these shores in the privileged state of cosmic amnesia, thanks to the waters of Lethe. I suspect that the visitors have no such privilege. They do, however, have a solemn duty to monitor our well-being. Furthermore, they are under a moral obligation not to disturb our amnesiac slumber. Thus must they refrain from the usual mundane formalities of informed consent, which otherwise I am sure we would not hesitate to grant. Perhaps, in their stead, it is I who has been granted the sublime honor of serving as your cosmic alarm clock. But do I detect just a tad of the 'Mondays', viz. 'Office Space' w/ Jennifer Aniston?]

I am not terribly concerned about this [disregard] because I have reasons to have faith in the moral character of the Cosmos. I am confident that the Federation will not tolerate your 'shoot first and ask questions later' methodology. Nor will they stand by while you or anyone else sets out to pillage and plunder. If there were not such safeguards, we would have been eliminated long ago.

What concerns me is that your one-dimensional, physicalist mind-set may be hindering a broader based approach to understanding what is almost certainly a multi-dimensional phenomenon. It may be that the visitors have a much less dualistic view about the world than you do. Your own formulas, you claim, demonstrate the unity of mind, body and spirit. But when it comes to implementing them, you act as if these dimensions have no connection. It's full speed ahead and damn the spirits.

But rather than sit here and argue about this, why don't we do an experiment? Why don't we see if a more unified approach to the UFO phenomenon will yield more information about it?

I'm thinking that we might be able to perform this experiment without leaving our chairs.

Dan

P.S. I have been hesitating to xmit this missive. What I imply at the end here is what Scott seems now to be insisting upon, i.e. dredging up old business. I am not the only ufologist or avian to have mixed feelings about any such dredging. But, if this has not been attempted in the last few years, perhaps we owe this much to posterity. Evidently there remain many loose ends.

Unfortunately, this puts the ball back in my court. I will have to take my own incautious suggestion under further advisement.

------------------------------------------------

To go further than this with Jack & Co., I'll need some additional input of the avian variety to better resolve either the Rick Doty or the 'phenomenology' problem.  I'm waiting now to get word back on this request. 

Persistent Transient Failure: Delivery time expired - Delivery last attempted at 16 Jun 2004 14:33:20 +0000

And so it goes............ 

[6/18] 

I've been reviewing my recent pages, preparing to get back to the blog. 

Previous examples of how the BPW is supposed to work:::  

    * We, operating as psychically connected units, stabilize the phenomenal world in a manner analogous to how our interconnected neurons are able to stabilize our individual perceptual worlds.  
    * Jurassic Parc + Pokatok Court  =  Garden of Eden (Mayan Parc) (and see Heliotropism)
    * The vital, archetypal equation for the BPW 
    * Atoms compared with currency, numbers, letters.  
    * Ouroboric bootstrap [siteSearch] model for our self-organizing, self-creating cosmos 
    * Teleology and Telos [siteSearch] and dream causality 
    * Upward vs. downward causation [siteSearch] 
    * Cycles, memes, normativity [s/S], functionalism [s/S] 
    * Network of being (see Relationalism and [siteSearch]) 
    * Spontaneous symmetry breaking of the Matrix (MPD/DID) (Zodiacal circuit [s/S]) 
    * WAP  ->  SAP (Anthropic Principles) 
    * Direct realism (anti-representationalism [s/S]) and telephones, photos, etc. 
    * Organicity [s/S] of mathematics, Mandelbrot  
    * Leibniz' PSR, II & BPW [s/S] 
    * Filling in the blind-spot 
    * Synthesis of theism, pantheism and telic science 
    * (note the last recap)  

It might be a useful exercise to try combining these items into a single exposition. 

[6/19] 

Sometime soon I should attempt another recapitulation of the BPW and how it works.  Before that, I need to assess the plausibility of the BPW hypothesis.  What are its weakest links?  Where is the explanatory coverage the thinnest?  What are the most difficult areas to justify? 

Stars, atoms, fossils and computers remain especially problematic.  Each of these concerns the problem of upward causation in its particular context.  My strategy for incorporating upward causation into immaterialism is to employ distributed intelligence in the form of archetypes and cycles.  This is a latter-day version of animism or panpsychism, and it fits in with the notions of relationalism, organicity and functionalism.  Mathematics, games and language provide examples of such schemes.  In each of these examples it is normativity which provides the stabilizing factor.  It is in this light that I compare the operation of normativity with physics.  The cycles and archetypes are rooted in the emergence of the primal Zodiacal circuit along with the Mayan/Jurassic Parc.  Linear time may result from a sudden, purely phenomenal 'pole shifting' or celestial symmetry breaking, but only very gradually does it disrupt the cyclical time frame and begin to accelerate us toward the eschaton.  

Naturalism is the primary rival of theism.  Naturalism may be accounted for in the following manner.  There are two epochs of processes that take us past the aboriginal confines of the M/JPc platform.  First there is an animist version of Lamarckism, which is attenuated through history.  Much later the scientific enterprise fills in the remaining phenomenological gaps with the projected normativity of its techno-logic.  This latter occurs mainly in the microscopic, astronomical and geological domains.  Finally a teleologically mediated metabolic and alchemical bridge spans both epochs.  Scientific instruments greatly extend the range of our phenomenal world.  That there is a coherent infilling of the resulting phenomenal gaps is a further outworking of anthropic coherence and Leibniz' PSR.  

Note that there is no explicit invocation of deity.  God must be invoked mainly to ensure the proper closure of the ouroboric bootstrap, and that is no mean feat.  The Matrix may supply the necessary condition for closure, but it is God who finally suffices, or, should we say, 'satisfices'.  There is a great deal riding on coherence, but that is just the manifestation of our monistic idealism.  God is the ultimate arbiter of meaning and being, but the emphasis is on arbitration.  Leibniz is wont to keep God on a short leash.  It is the X archetype that is the cosmic pivot.  That is a very short leash.  That is also the root of Pi, the cipher of closure. 

The preceding is a three paragraph synopsis of the BPWH, a bit shorter than I had in mind.  Elaboration may be the main remaining task.  Elaboration and system are not my strong suit is this arena, but there is not much choice for now. 

[6/22] 

In my ken, postmodernism dates to 1966.  That was the year of the Free Speech movement at Berkley, and the year I dropped out of physics.  That may also have been the high water mark for materialism.  The turning away from scientific materialism was marked by a turning inwards.  The emblem of the latter was Edgar Mitchell's Apollo 14 flight in 1971.  The irony of his sudden conversion from astronautics to noetics was not lost on my generation.  

The turning from outer space to inner space was marked by an upsurge in meditative practice, almost entirely of the Eastern variety.  The only theistic support for an open ended spiritual quest was to found in Sufism.  Although there was a parallel upsurge in Christian evangelical denominations, with many featuring 'charismatic' services, there was virtually no contact between these developments.  Nonetheless, the communalism of the early Christians and the communalism of Haight-Ashbury both had a distinctly millenarian outlook.  The inward quest is necessarily a solitary one.  It may have been the logistics of drug use among the 'hippies' that was a principle, if temporary, source of social cohesion.  It was their version of communion.  Sustained communal practice almost invariably involves a devotional dimension, viz. the Hare Krishna and many other such cults.  Even tribes must have at least totemic or ancestor worship.  

If there is ever to be a global village, there will have to be a common devotional basis.  The problem with refined monotheism is that it invariably becomes legalistic.  The sacred text becomes the primary cohesive element.  The sacred text cannot survive modernity, let alone postmodernity.  That leaves us with only Gautama and Jesus, or some future messianic figure.  I'm not aware that Gautama can hold a candle to Jesus in modern practice.  Where is the passion?  Will we ever outgrow our need for passion?  Could there be a Millennial 'kingdom' without it?  In terms of millennialism, there can hardly be a contest.  Social pragmatism, even in this utopian context, is the foundation of rational theism.  

Nevertheless, there will still have to be a messianic episode to initiate the epoch of the Millennium.  It is hard to imagine that the label of 'second coming' would not be prominently attached to this advent.  Could civilization survive without a millennial coda?  If we had the choice, would we really want to find out?  I don't expect there to be a real choice in the matter.  

I have produced this scenario just out of historical considerations.  There has been no allusion to the BPW.  That the coherence of the BPW's metanarrative demands a very similar finale to history is, however, no accident.  All paths of coherence must lead to the same Telos.  The Matrix can only sustain one ultimate point of convergence.  That we might be approaching a false summit, would not augur well for any relational metaphysic or coherent cosmology.  It's 'Pikes Peak or bust', is it not?  There won't be any rain checks or retakes.  This is where theism and pantheism must part company.  Could coherence get us that far and then fail?  The divine closure, noted yesterday, is our cosmic seal.  If the world were going to fall apart, it would have had ample opportunity prior to this. 

----------------------

A very practical question, needing a virtually immediate answer, is whether we could now revert to a sustainable human presence on the Earth without recourse either to a chaotic reversal, or to cosmic intervention.  In other words, from the clearly unsustainable growth curve on which we now find ourselves, could we muddle through to a long term equilibrium state and still be able to think of ourselves as civilized?  In more practical terms, this question might be rephrased as to whether we can confine the trauma of our inevitable growth slowdown to isolated or quarantined regions of the world?  That seems to be what we are in the process of doing now.  On the one hand there is continued globalization for the haves, and on the other hand is increasing isolation for the rest.  I suspect that these two trends cannot be sustained.  At some point, globalization would start to be reversed.  Without that liberalizing force and outlet for the developed world, there would be an escalating inward turning and protectionism.  Once these reactionary forces are set in motion, where do they lead?  Will it be to something we can call 'civilization'?  

[6/23] 

A principle ingredient of postmodernism is its denial of progress, whereas the notion of a universal progress has been essential to liberalism.  Globalization has been just one facet of the idea of progress.  This is to underscore that postmodernism is likely to be the harbinger of reaction.  A global deflation of economic and political expectations is a real possibility that we are now facing.  Reaction and depression are concomitants.  

Modern society is a complex and fragile construct.  Its psychological dimension is just as real as its material dimension.  When we lost our positive psychological edge in the last global depression, we were quickly delivered into a World War.  Once the fabric of modern society starts to unravel, we will be reminded of how far we have come and how far we have to fall back.  If the shock of that rude awakening is not sufficient keep us on the straight and narrow, then we will be in serious trouble. 

The last world war did unleash a technological advance that has sustained our economic growth through the last half of the century.  It is true that we have not completely used up our our technological potential, but the problem is that there is nothing equivalent to the earlier rise of atomic physics that is presently on our scientific horizon.  Nanotechnology and bioengineering are still exploiting the same physics that was discovered a century ago.  Instead, physics is treating us to the Theory of Everything, which is to say that it is no longer going to be a source of new discoveries.  Atomic physics was a one-time event.  That scientific envelope has been pushed to its logical limits.  

If we find a new source of energy, such as ZPE, and if nanotechnology begins to deliver on its promises, then, indeed, we could return to another few centuries of material progress, and a revival of modern liberalism.  But it is not clear that we should bet the farm on these two contingencies.  The way forward may not be such a straight line.  We may need to make an historically sharp turn.  That is where the BPWH comes into the picture.  It will deliver us a Millennium, but it won't come for free.  We have our work cut out for us. 

--------------------------------------

What I am thinking of just now is a Millennium Initiative, MI(1.0).  This would be a citizens' effort to publicize and/or privatize what has been the Government's 'phenomenology problem'.  A significant part of the problem is how to handle the potential overturning of the scientific materialist worldview.  The Aviary, Aquarium, Fusion -> MI(1.0), is looking to take up this challenge.  The first order of business would be to arrange for a meeting of the principals, which, hopefully, would be later this summer.  I have sent the first email in this regard.  

There is a ray of hope now that our little initiative may getting back on the track, but at a more modest pace than I might have wanted.  Before there is any breaking of any glass ceilings, there are quite a few loose ends to deal with.  More secure and dependable communication between me and my contact person are needed.  I am hoping to enlist a third party in this effort, someone known to both of us, who can help with continuity and background info.  Then there have to start being regular meetings.  None of this will be easy to coordinate.  

The Sarfatti group may still be a primary outlet, but I will need help to bring Jack into better compliance with some adequate protocol.  That there often seems to be a rivalry between the two of us has not helped matters. 

Perhaps it's time to reopen a discussion with Jack.  The topic I have in mind is downward causation.  Is this not the weakest point in the physicalist fortress?  I can also discuss with Jack any developments on the MI front.  

[6/24] 

The ray of hope is flickering.  Now, even my interlocutor is MIA, and Jack remains intransigent in his physicalism.  With the help of the former, I could probably deal with the latter, but let's reexamine physicalism now, anyway.  

On the practical side, I would argue with Jack, that if there were a purely technical solution to our problems, it would be easy for the good guys to supply that answer to us.  Shall I go back on the net to say this?  

-------------------------------------

Jack, et al.,

Yes, this is how Jack and his fellow traveling physicalists see the Universe. It is their private Tit. Getting between Jack and his Tit will invariably and understandably incur his boundless wrath.

Jack, by the age of 65, even most men have been weaned. You, however, are still hanging on to the Tit, for dear life. Like Peter Pan, you remain forever the Weenie.

Let's see if we can help you with your problem of arrested development.

Like most Weenies, Jack thinks all his problems will be solved if someone just gives him the right Formula. But even the Nestle Co. will not be able to help Jack in his predicament.

Yes, ZPE is the Great Tit in the Sky. It is being widely touted as just this. Shades of 1849, the great Gold Rush is upon us once again. Mammon is always just around the next bend in the river.

Why can a few of us afford to be skeptical? How can we bide our time?

Yes, if God had wanted us to be Weenies, She would have provided us with a Cosmic Tit. She would have provided us with ZPE. Like the Gnostical Knights of yore, the latter-day Physicalists search desperately for the Magic Key that will unlock Pandora's Box. Cornucopia is ours if we just recite the correct formula.

Like the crazed 'Miner, 49ers' before them, our ZPErs can exercise only tunnel vision in their headlong, headstrong dash to Eldorado. They are so anxious to reach their destination, they do not stop to think what they will find when they get there.

The Mammon will either be limited or unlimited. If it is limited, it will have already been used up by whoever got there first.

If the Mammon is unlimited whoever found it first will already have found a way to distribute it throughout Hyperspace. Unless we are the first to find the Mammon, it will already have found us. The game would already be over.

Subliminally, the Physicalist/ZPErs realize that in either case, their jig is up. If there is a Cosmic solution to the problem of existence, then we would already be existing under its Aegis/Aeon.

On the other hand, if there were not already a solution to the problem of existence, then it is extremely improbable that any life as advanced as ours would ever have been produced in the first place. We would simply be a miracle out of the blue.

Those of us who are not wearing cosmic blinders, those of us who can think outside the Gold Rush mentality, those of us who are not spiritual Weenies, who are older and wiser, can afford to bide our time. We can even enjoy the spectacle of grown men slobbering for the Big Tit.

Because we don't believe in miracles, we know that we are not here by accident. There is a plan and we can see it gradually unfolding in a remarkably orderly and rational fashion. In fact, in this spectacle of Latter-Day-Physicalism we see a clear omen of much bigger things in the offing. Yes, even eschatological things. It is not about Mammon, it is about the Matrix. There are similarities between the two, but there are also profound differences, differences which our Physicalist/ZPErs would find completely mind boggling.

Well, my little friends, prepare to be Boggled..........

Dan 

-----------------------------------------

Not too bad.  

[7/1] 

Lately I have been ruminating on the interface between biology and physics.  It is not clear how to handle this boundary from an ontogenetic or phenomenological standpoint.  This goes back to the game of Pokatok where the ball and the players seem to be of distinct provenance in this respect.  What to do?  What is the phenomenological origin of physics? 

One possibility is to use a discrete space-time as in the game of chess.  The rules of chess are an elementary form of physics, but then there is no connection with biology, which depends on a continuous space-time.  Are we going to have to animate the pokatok ball, as in object oriented distributed intelligence?  

As it stands, our ontogenesis has been oriented toward biological cycles.  I was hoping the physics could take care of itself, somewhat along the lines of metabolism, thus avoiding a heterogeneous ontogeny.  No such luck? 

Historically, and thus phenomenologically, the discipline of physics originated with our study of celestial phenomena, viz. Copernicus and Newton, etc.  However, I have suggested that ontogenetically, a cyclical heliotropism would be the more logical path to those phenomena.  It is even the case in the game of pokatok, with the ball representing the nocturnal sun, that this non-cyclical version of heliotropism could still be brought under that rubric.  But at some point, one will have to give classical physics or mechanics an independent standing.  The use of stones as weapons is a classical example.  I see very little biological precedence for such a phenomenon, but could the bodily mechanics of perambulation be extended to locomotion in general?  The phenomenon of gravity comes to the fore.  Jumping becomes complexly physical.  The bio-mechanics of gravity is also complex for both flora and fauna.  Perhaps gravity is our best bridge from biology to mechanics.  Besides heliotropism we also have gravitropism.  Perhaps these can be logically combined.  These two forces combine to determine much of the structure of the biosphere.  We might wonder, however, whether it would be possible to produce heliotropism without its being driven by photosynthesis.  But this would tend to push our ontogenetic sequence back in a Darwinian direction.  A minimalist, idealist version of Darwinism will be necessary to maintain genetic continuity.  This is part of the Jurassic Parc scenario. 

In attempting to solve the physics problem, the photosynthetic problem comes to the fore, where earlier it had been held in abeyance.  What's a body to do?  But this is a problem that should have been attended to earlier.  We have ourselves a classic chicken & egg problem.  Can we arrange for heliotropism without invoking every detail of photosynthesis?  Is there no room for teleology here?  

[7/2] 

It may be that I will, at the same time, have to confront the larger JPc problem, which also remains in abeyance.  Can we do JPc as a mind game?  By how much will the intelligence have to be distributed?  And how so?  All we need for now is a handle for this problem.  

[7/3] 

The only handle we have so far is Z -> JPc.  The other handle is the fact that JPc can exist outside of historical time.  It need not be situated within history.  There may be some confusion here because MPc was to serve as our Eden.  This means that Xcaret would mix the metaphors, i.e. Xcaret  /=  JPc + MPc.  One way to sidestep this problem might be to employ an expanding A/O loop.  There would be a core ring of coherence that would be expandable, and be multiplied, but the core remains outside of the ordinary phenomenal domain.  It is a reference loop.  Then we have Z -> Rf, where Rf is the reference version of our archetypal R, the bio-cycle.  A two step version of this would be Z -> Rf -> R.  This fudge might temporarily pull our irons out of the fire.  

When we equated X with Freya, we might have been touching upon this stratagem.  We have the lunar weekly cycle and the zodiacal monthly cycle.  We need to understand how the various cycles (1, 2, 3,) interact.  Also, which ones are primal or referential and which are derivative or phenomenal.  For now, it remains a puzzle.  

[7/4] 

We need to rationalize the transition from Z -> R, from psycho-cycle to bio-cycle.  We somehow transition from a psychic chain to the food chain.  The former may be reconstructed in light of the latter.  This could be the crucial link of the BPWH.  It could become the buckle of the bootstrap.  

We think of the psychic world as running on ZPE or zero point energy.  The potency of the Matrix is our ZPE.  Is there anything like conservation of energy in the immaterial world?  With total symmetry breaking, there can be nothing conserved.  Coherence, however, is a form of symmetry, and so it relationalism.  Might thinking not require energy, beyond its associated metabolics?  Symmetry breaking might require energy.  Would it come from the Matrix? 

In the past I have alluded to the idea that the cosmic self might be in the business of growing and consuming its created selves.  Is that why we sometimes feel paranoid?  This is cosmic agribusiness, it is the harvest of souls.  It is often reported that discarnates seem to be living off our psychic effluvia.  Can thoughts not radiate?  Does this render God to be a vampire?  Is the material food chain just a shadow of the immaterial one?  

Does the immaterial chain have the equivalent of a photosynthetic base, or are the selves the simplest actors?   What is the simplest self?  At the lowest biological level, the colony or species might constitute a collective self.  On the other hand, there might not exist robust long-term individual eidetic memories much below the level of human.  It is reported, nevertheless, that some fish can remember the social status of their peers over a lifetime.  Every entity must be minimally microcosmic. 

Does every material process have an immaterial analog or association?  

It may be that the material world serves mainly the purpose of minimizing psychic predation or parasitism, deliberate or otherwise.  Good fences make good neighbors.  Creation without a material 'substance' would perforce be a much more limited affair.  It is ignorance of the psychic world that is the main barrier to our abuse of it.  Once materialism starts to unravel, there will have to be cosmic intervention to minimize the resulting abuse.  We spend all our time exploiting matter.  Psyches between lives must be contained by  deactivation and compartmentalization.  

We might wonder if computer viruses provide a model for psychic intrusions.  We need to know the nature of firewalls that could function in various contexts.  Biological viruses might also be instructive in this regard. 

[7/5] 

If you are playing pokatok, you will not have time to attend to psychic affairs, and the discarnates will find it harder to intrude upon the more structured and independent egos.  Nowadays, we have pokatok as well as atoms and electrons to play with.  If metabolism does not keep us busy there will be plenty of other distractions.  Beyond mere distractions, our attention will begin to turn more toward coherence.  The discarnates are advised to do likewise if they do not want to get left out of the hierogamos, or I should be saying hieros gamos (33,000 hits) (1, 2,) or rapture.  God will be having us for the wedding feast.  It is important that our switch from analysis to synthesis be made cleanly so that there is not the effluvia, or the crumbs off the table, to attract the spirits.  Drug addiction provides a happy hunting ground for the shades.  They don't want to kill the hosts, but just keep us incapacitated.  Failed states are another happy hunting ground. 

The question does arise as to whether the Millennium is essential to the eschatology.  It may not be.  If it were not part of the story, that would go along way toward explaining the high resistance to an X2 event.  That event would no longer be pre-Millennial.  It would rather signal the eschaton.  Our rapture would then occur in real-time.  This rapid 'hatching-out' is a common strategy that a prey species uses to overwhelm its predators.  Witness last month's 17-year cicada event here in Maryland.  1970, 1987 and 2004 happen to mark significant dates for my sojourn in Maryland.  I first mentioned this possibility at Al's house on 6/26.  It had occurred to me just before then.  This amillennial eschatology was my first take on immaterialism, but then I gradually moved toward the less radical view.  That move may have been motivated more out of a sense of political correctness than concern for coherence.  However, superficially at least, the amillennialism does seem more in the spirit of the BPW.  Yet, concern for the table manners of the discarnates and several other considerations, including even the confrontation with my sister, played a role in this very recent shift in my thinking.  The previous MI(0.5) came just before 9/11.  The apparent failure of this last MI(1.0) got me rethinking the metanarrational possibilities.  

As I phrased the issue at Al's, are we going out with a bang or a whimper? 

I'll have to try out this amillennialism for a bit and see how it goes.  We'll have to see how the shoe fits.  

If the Millennium were possible, it would be hard to argue against its desirability.  It may just not be in the cards.  If we are meant to go out with a bang, the orchestration of the eschaton will be rather more demanding.  Will it not place greater demands on the putative X2 event, if that event is still in the revised narrative?  

It is a bit odd how we have managed to get from pokatok to the eschaton in one not very linear line of argument.  It is hard to see how anyone could argue effectively for an imminent eschaton without having a fairly detailed picture to offer.  This would also make it more difficult to minimize cosmic interference in the X2 event.  The problem of authentication becomes acute. 

[7/6] 

There must be a whole bunch of ducks to get lined up prior to any public awareness, besides the usual background of fundamentalist expectations.   May we expect to see a continuing run up in those expectations.  

The issue of universalism comes to the fore with this new, more dramatic scenario.  We would now have to contend with the likes of Hal Lindsey.  Rapture would be very low on the list of paranormal phenomena that one might expect on the run up to the eschaton.  The earlier than expected X2 event would serve the purpose of minimizing any such phenomenology, that is until we get a better collective or, hopefully, a universal handle on our situation. 

A governmental intelligence organization would then have to be involved in facilitating X2.  Their arm would have to be twisted by ET/UT.  There would be no hope of generating an Internet initiative without a triggering event or announcement.  There would at least have to be a handful of credible, independent witnesses to specific UT intentions and actions.  This would be enough to provoke global speculation of a public sort.  There might not have to be any further pump priming with regard to the concomitant phenomena.  Once the phenomena get into the media pipeline, they would quickly become self-generating, according to the immaterialist metaphysic.  The Internet would play a crucial but ancillary role.  The orchestration of these phenomena would also be crucial, and that problem would fall initially upon X2.  The Internet might be necessary for this full orchestration, and the rapid decentralization thereof.  There would likely be a natural sequence that would need some cybernetic adjustment.  What then has to play out would occur in just a few years before the calendar time would no longer be uniformly applicable.  There might be some temporary new types of symmetry breaking prior to the cosmic realignment.  

Our individual psyches are wound up tightly into our egos.  Once these start to unwind, the process is likely to produce a chain reaction, with much phenomenal fall out.  We will quickly have to get our bearings in this expanded reality of presence.  We should expect the flora and fauna to participate as we make a partial return to the primal dream-time.  

If the powers-that-be were to have their druthers, the Hieros Gamos would be postponed well beyond the global optimum.  Thus do we need some external intervention to maintain the BPW.  The idea of the Millennium is a good idea mainly in the abstract.  There is nothing wrong with the idea of God's kingdom on Earth; however, it might imply that we would have to be superhuman humans.  The new heaven and new earth might have similar implications.  No sense in dilly-dallying.  People will mainly want to get on with the show, once we have been apprized of it. 

With respect to the Garden of Eden, we have been there and done that.  Let's not wax overly nostalgic.  The HG is something else entirely. That is where all the action will be.  No one will want to miss that show.  Let's not short-change the HG.  The Millennium seems too much like Limbo.  

The only real question is who, when and where.  Does there need to be a run up to the X2?  What are we waiting for?  Upon what ceremony do we stand? 

[7/7] 

The question arises as to whether my knowledge of an imminent eschaton will make any difference in the run up.  Could I not have been informed at the last minute, prior to the final networking?  Is there something I am supposed to do with this new understanding?  Am I supposed to do a preliminary networking just on this basis?  Or am I just supposed to rework things here on the website?  Probably both. 

I need to figure out the best possible scenario for an imminent eschaton, and then be prepared to help explain and implement it.  I'll have to go back and tell folks that I was being too cautious about the timing of the big E.  It's going to be more like, 'Let her rip.'  

I have mixed feelings about this development.  I will need plenty of assurance that we will not miss the Millennium.  It is an awfully big item just to toss aside at the last minute.  I'll have to spend at least a month, if not a year on the rework.  Longer than this might put me out of commission.  I would go back into mothballs, a place that I have not actually been. 

How great will be our opportunity to put our house in order?  How serious will it be?  Can the Middle East be resolved without an eschatological context or pretext?  Certainly the Fundies think not.  How much flexibility do we get in the timing and the content?  

Will there not be greater resistance now without a Millennial buffer?  Will we not all be getting cold feet?  Will this not reduce our degree of participation?  Is this to be a spectator event?   The greater burden on X2 ought to be putting it well out of my league.  Is it?  When should I expect any feedback?  What's the hurry for now? 

[7/8] 

There are two related items to be concerned about relative to our now putatively imminent eschaton.  First there is the question of the proverbial apocalypse and/or tribulation, and secondly there is the issue of the judgment.  As an ameliorative  universalist, neither of these items sits well with me.  I have had endless, unproductive arguments with my other sister about these.  With this new and more dramatic end game, I will have to be paying more attention to these unwanted details.  There are a lot of fundamentalists out there who will be very disappointed if there is not going to be blood in the streets, and if that spilled blood is not constituted by that of a very substantial majority of their conspecifics.  It will be an uphill battle to get these items tabled for the duration.  Do we need yet another scapegoat?  Don't look at me. 

My hope is that an eschatological shot across the bow will be sufficient to awaken the vast majority from their present and various somnambulations.  That is hoping for a lot.  What is the need for punishment?  A lot of that is redirected guilt, and who doesn't feel guilty about something?  And besides, will we not all have an eternity to reassess our sojourn in time?  I suggest that we have already done this and have already forgiven ourselves, because we know that this can only be the Best Possible World.  It can logically be no other.  Have not one third of the Jews already forgiven Hitler, and this is without benefit of a BPW hindsight?  

We wish to punish our conspecifics, mainly because we think that God is not doing her job properly.  It is our only recourse for sanctioning God for her apparent failures. 

Those who are metaphysically incapable of overcoming their grudges against the world will find themselves clinging to it as it descends to oblivion.  This is the adequate object lesson.  Move toward the light.  That is all we ever need to know.  

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Topical Index

5/5/04

End Times & Apokatastasis

I have been doing a hasty review of the Christian take on this subject.  Needless to say, it is diverse. 

I continue to rethink my Millennialist position.  The traditional Christian Millennium had become the capstone of the BPW.  It does seem logical to have a Golden Age be the final chapter of history. But is it coherent?  Perhaps not.  This is what we must investigate. 

In the big picture, the Earth is a means to an end.  Creation was never meant to be an end unto itself.  Even the right to lifers would agree that life is not an end unto itself.  Creation is good, not by itself, but in the eyes of the Creator.  As co-creators we share in that vision. 

The goodness of Creation lies in its realization.  Its realization is in eternity.  All is well that ends well, stands, obviously, sub specie aeternitas.  History is the completion of the ouroboric circuit.  The Matricial Ouroboros is the realization of our Selves. 

The upshot can only be, I am now understanding, that we are meant to go out with a bang, not a whimper.  We'll have to admit that the Millennium is more than a bit wimpy.  It is certainly anti-climactic.  We were meant to go out with our boots on, not wearing ballet slippers, with no offense to George Balanchine. 

If this is correct, then we just might have to rethink our Millennium Initiative.  Are we now the Apokatastatists (5,100 hits) or maybe Apokatastasians, which are like the ecstatics, but a bit more rational?  Apocastasis is the restitution (salvation?) of all things in God.  This is clearly Universalist and BPW-ish.  Is this the position of Greek Orthodoxy, or only of its founders?  It was widely taught in that Church until it was condemned in 543.  

It is not surprising that the doctrine of restitution or restoration should be associated with eternal return, in which case it becomes a natural, rather than supernatural, process.  This argues against divine grace.  I have no desire to do that.  This is not easy stuff: Origen of Alexandria and apokatastasis ... -- Edward Moore.  

[7/10] 

In the doctrine of eternal return there is usually a repeated decline from an original state of perfection, somewhat as in the case of biological reproduction.  The repetition can continue indefinitely or until it is brought to a final conclusion or cosmic restitution.  It is the doctrine of Creation that this cycle need occur only once.  Redundancy may be natural, but also pointless.  God does not sanction meaninglessness. 

Is the doctrine of eternal damnation necessary to prevent repetition?  Is it the logically necessary complement to eternal grace?  It is curious that the idea of cyclic time is tantamount to the sanctioning of a background of linear time.  There is in this a disregard for the mystery of time.  This from the mystics! 

Linear time is a Godsend.  It has value, however, only in its finitude.  God is the timekeeper.  There is a pervasive feeling that we have been using up our allotted time.  The time draws nigh for a wrapping up.  The reconciling of our accounts is what some have taken as judgment, but it is only a reconciliation, a balancing and a closing of the books.  The finality of it is just the seal of its blessedness. 

How much 'time' will the wrapping up require?  Would it not have to fall within the lifetimes of most of those participating?  This would mean that the linearity of its time could not span more than a couple of decades of normal time.  The end cycle might be viewed as a Millennium, but this would be a stretch. 

More pertinent are the questions of apocalypse, Armageddon, tribulation and cleansing or purification.  I would suggest that all of these are mainly the psychological concomitants of the metanoia of reconciliation.  They will be onerous for those who have much to reconcile.  Apocalypse does mean only to uncover, not to destroy.  The only destruction is of our ignorance, our agnosis.  

Is it to be surmised that biological reproduction will cease in the end?  'Woe be unto them that are with child in those days.'  Is celibacy to be enforced in these days?  I would suggest that it will become self-evidently discouraged.  Might there be an increase in abortion?  Certainly of the spontaneous variety.  

What then are to be the signs of the times?  Can 9/11 not be one?  Can flying saucers and crop circles not be another?  An epidemic of mental aberration and discontinuity?  Anomalous phenomena?  Culture clashes of the mainly non-violent sort, etc., etc.?  I.e. more of the same?  Yes, a lot more! 

And, yes, my precious Millennium is being subsumed and overtaken by more dramatic events.  It will be there for those in dire need of a respite.  It will be the convalescent ward. 

Please note that from the purview of eternity, the Fall is nothing too unnatural.  It is rather its non-repetition that is unnatural.  The fall is the act of Creation, of quasi-spontaneous, but ultimately optimizable symmetry breaking.  It is reconciled and finalized in this End.  There is only one salvation.  Creation was no accident, but it does subsume all accidents that may be reconciled and rationalized.  Anything not so meliorated need not exist -- it is only apparitional in the end. 

Without a Millennium there can be no Earthly kingdom and no messiah.  There can only be a Reconciler.  I had been using messianics and the second coming synonymously, but that may no longer be technically accurate.  The Satan being loosed at the end is materialism and the many versions nihilism, disbelief and agnosis.  It is not too big a stretch to see that transhumanism, Marx and Hitler take the roles of antichrist.  Have we not already had sufficient tribulation of the physical sort?  From here on there will be the more psychic forms.  A constant threat of terror falls into this category. 

A major mundane concern will be the global economy.  How will it respond to a more definite perception of the Apokatastasis?  Will the Reconciler also have to keep the trains running up to the End?  There are so many things that can go wrong, what is it that can go right?  Relative moderation in all things will be the word for the latter days.  Let us not be breaking rank.  Let there not be a stampede.  

Will there be too much temptation to finally settle scores?  Justice is not finally a mundane matter.  Justice is one thing, reconciliation is another. 

What I am saying here is that the Millennium is to be overtaken by the Apokatastasis.  The big M becomes only a niche in the larger picture.  It will not be in the flow of the cosmic mainstream.  It is a matter of historical interest to see how the Millennium gained it notoriety in these latter days.  If there was a deliberate obfuscation, to what end?  Does this all go back to Cyrus Scofield?  The conspiracy buffs are quick to pass judgment: The Greatest Hoax!.  Is it all about the NWO, WTO and WTC?  I suspect we may have to parse through a bit of this stuff, speaking of the global economy.  Speculation abounds: see the Historicist website.  

[7/11] 

What was the Millennium all about?  Every other cosmology had put the pristine golden age at the beginning of the cycle, following the biological cycle of birth leading to death.  

This organic, animistic, polytheistic, pagan view of the world was decisively interrupted, rather late in human history, by monotheism.  The Jews, by about 1,000 BC are credited with this crucial invention, followed by Zoroaster, Jesus and Mohammed.  The monotheist impulse inserted a moral and creative element into the cosmos.  There was still the pristine primal state, the original golden age, followed by a degeneration, but no longer could there be a cosmic life-cycle.  Creation had to be deliberate, and redemption had to be final.   

Clearly there was a decisive abrogation, arrogation of nature.  The natural order was seemingly disbanded by fiat.  This arrogation has always been a tough sell, then and now.  It seems so obviously contrived.  The contrivance looms even larger as science delves further into the natural order, up to the point, at least, that anthropics rears its head.  Creationists, however, continue having to fight what seems like a rear-guard battle relative to the scientific Juggernaught.  

Nonetheless, given monotheism, what are we to do with nature?  Where does nature fit into the salvational scheme?  This depends somewhat on Armageddon.  Is there a battle to be fought?  As a universalist/apokatastasist I would think not.  The apocalypse is simply the final revelation of Creation.  The battle is over before it can be joined.  With the finish line in sight, who is going to throw themselves down in front of the glory train?  Who is going to play Ahriman?  

Is there a last minute battle for the control of Creation?  If we are the co-creators, there can only be a breakaway sprint to the finish.  Will this disrupt the peloton?  There may, at best be a tussle for Reconciler.  If so, where is it?  Has the breakaway succeeded?  Where is the yellow jersey? 

Creation has a plan.  We are already the BPW.  No Ahriman is going to take that away.  Not now, not ever.  Don't fight the system, don't fight city hall, not when we're doing cosmology.  There is no deus ex this machina.  There is no larger pond. 

There can be no stasis with apokatastasis.  Creation is wrapped up, tighter than a gravity-string.  The best and the brightest were well distracted by the many trees in this forest, but then the forest is pulled out from under us.  The curtain is lifted, the veil is parted.  The Millennium was supposed to be the final act, but the set is about to be disassembled.  The Millennium becomes redundant.  

To the victor go the spoils.  Bring on the wine and the seventy-two virgins.  Bring on the Elysian fields.  Where is the Millennium for us to celebrate our Conquest over Ahriman?  Don't miss Paradise 2, the sequel.  What is God good for if we don't get our just deserts?  

One day with God or a thousand years for humankind?  It seems that we are being given a choice here, but is it really?  We have to choose between paradise and heaven.  Paradise has three dimensions, and heaven has rather more.  God has had a hard time squeezing into these three dimensions.  Isn't it about time we gave her a break?  And I dare say, the same goes for nature.  We are about to experience a deep ecology.  The Matrix awaits us.  Are we not her prodigal sons?  Do we not have much to offer? 

Whose conspiracy was the Millennium?  Is it not a hold-over from paganism?  Is it not our security blanket, the last buffer between ourselves and the Matrix?  Paradise was to have been our training training ground  for heaven.  But then what have we been doing for the last ten thousand years?  Will sitting on our butts for another thousand years get us in better shape? 

Can't we at least get a respite?  Sure.  Limbo is not to be sneezed upon.  Any time things get too hectic, any time you want to stop the world and get off, this is the place for you.  Ramstein holds nothing over Limbo, when it comes to R&R.  Be sure to check out the spas, water courtesy of Lethe.  

Can we not just go home?  Well, I think you came to the right place. 

------------------------------

All of this does make the present situation a bit more fraught.  We are at a real jumping off point.  False signals are frowned upon.  Our take-off roll must be as smooth as possible.  Let's hope it can be a roll-off and not a blast-off.  Our check-list has to be thorough.  

Now we will have to contend with the survivalists.  For how long will the electricity and water keep flowing?  What do we do when the lights go out?  Does FEMA have an eschaton contingency?  This is the reason I have to worry about Ron & Co.  Why Ron has to worry about Ocelot & Ferret.  Where are the EBEs when we need them?  Who's got a plan?  

In the end, we're just going to have to go with the flow.  The Millennium was to be a staging area for the eschaton.  The elect would be able to get their ducks in a row.  Guess what?  We are the elect.  This is our stage.  As with the peloton, try to stay in the draft.  The Fundies will be screaming about false messiahs.  There will be disturbances in the ranks. 

We need a breakaway team on the Internet.  That will require external input of the phenomenological kind. We are back to the witness problem.  The breakaway team will not have much time to worry about the infrastructure.  We chart the metaphysical course, the physics has to take care of itself.  

At one or more points there will be panics, economic and otherwise.  They will have to play themselves out.  If the infrastructure begins to unravel, the process may have to accelerate.  It could get messy.  There may be blood in the streets.  What is the least mayhem we might reasonably hope for, without a deus ex machina?  Won't we have to assume there will be such at an early juncture?  But it cannot come too early without becoming an agent provocateur.  There will have to be a metaphysical docking maneuver at the appropriate time.  I doubt that we can or should try to predict the time and place.  There will have to be some practice dockings along the way, however.  Are we talking UFOs and portals, etc.?  Perhaps.  We shouldn't expect anything either too clichéd or too exotic. 

[7/12] [a,]

Another strategy is just to keep the eschaton card in our back pocket until a rainy day.  There are also objections.  There will come a point at which conditions on Earth will begin to deteriorate if we fail to adhere to the cosmic plan.  By waiting for a rainy day, we are likely to be extending our sojourn here beyond its allotted time.  On the other hand, we also do not want to cut our time short.  The timing question will be handled in a nearly spontaneous fashion, and that may be another reason why we can expect minimal input.  It is too bad that we cannot use the eschaton as a threat to hold over the high and mighty.  

However, if I am correct about the Jack Anderson column, there must be some political awareness.  At the time this was the most widely circulated column, subscribed to by upwards of 400 newspapers.  I circulated this item to a few people on the Sarfatti list last month. 

Washington Post
February 3, 1992
Edition: FINAL
Section: STYLE
Page: c12

Topics:
Index Terms:
GEORGE BUSH
CHARLES LEIGHTON
DENNIS YAMAMOTO
International trade
U.S. president
Column: JACK ANDERSON
CUFF LINKS AND TRADE DEAL COME UNDONE
Author: JACK ANDERSON
MICHAEL BINSTEIN
Article Text:

The balance of trade between Japan and the United States occasionally rests on something as inconsequential as a pair of cheap cuff links.

These particular cuff links were a gift from President Bush to his good friend Charles Leighton of Acton, Mass. Leighton treasured them just long enough to use them as a bargaining chip in a
multimillion-dollar deal with Toyota -- dangling them as evidence that he had entree to the White House. It was a good try, but the cuff links broke while in the possession of the president of Toyota. He was embarrassed. The contract later fell through, and Leighton learned that name-dropping is not enough to seal a deal.

Leighton is chairman of CML Group, which used to own SyberVision, the maker of pricey motivational tapes marketed to business people. Toyota was considering buying some of Leighton's tapes, 1 million copies of a Bobby Jones golf video to be used as part of a promotion for the sale of Lexus cars. The deal was worth $20 million to Leighton, so he pulled out the big artillery -- his friendship with George and Barbara Bush.

Sources close to Leighton say he occasionally boasted about the friendship. Then he put those boasts in writing in a letter to Dennis Yamamoto, executive vice president of International Consulting and Marketing Group Inc., Toyota's agent in the United States. The letter implied that Leighton could use his connections in the White House to make some points for Toyota.

In the letter, Leighton asked Yamamoto to pass on some items Leighton had received from Bush, to the "appropriate people at Toyota." According to the letter, Leighton said the items were a "way of letting {Toyota} know I will communicate to the Bush administration Toyota's purchase of SyberVision tapes and its importance to the balance of trade between Japan and the United States."

The items included pictures of the Leightons and the Bushes together, and the pair of presidential cuff links. The letter assured Toyota that these were not your run-of-the-mill White House souvenirs. Bush personally handed them over, Leighton said.

The cuff links were passed to the president of Toyota, in whose possession they broke, as did the deal.

The White House acknowledged that the Bushes and the Leightons are "good friends." Leighton and his wife, Debra, also contributed to Bush's 1988 presidential campaign, and our sources believe the friendship is really between Barbara and Debra.

We'll never know how Leighton planned to slip the good news to Bush that Toyota was buying American. Leighton refused to talk to us when he learned that our reporter Allison Hawes had obtained a copy of his letter. His spokeswoman said the cuff links were "inexpensive tokens" given out by Bush when he was campaigning, and Leighton merely thought someone at Toyota would find them interesting.

Leighton's spokeswoman said her boss wasn't serious about letting the president know personally that Toyota was buying American. She said the cuff links were a three-dimensional reminder to Toyota of the SyberVision deal, and more of a personal joke between Leighton and Yamamoto.
That's a joke Yamamoto may have missed. He wasn't laughing when we contacted him about the letter, and he refused to talk to us on advice from his lawyers.

Sources close to the deal say the letter was no joke, and that Leighton was eager to see that the lucrative deal went through, even if it took a little name-dropping.

Since the cuff link caper, CML has sold SyberVision, and is no longer trading in presidential memorabilia either.

Copyright 1992 The Washington Post
Record Number: 414766

One might wonder what the naive reader might have made of this story?  It would seem that this is much to do about nothing.  One might scratch one's head and pass on.  If these events actually transpired, would they be newsworthy?  Of all the items concerning international trade and the President, one might imagine that this would be about the least significant.  It appears that someone is intent upon embarrassing Mr. Leighton.  Perhaps someone is attempting to manipulate the price of CML stock.   Would a reporter of Mr. Anderson's reputation likely be willing to participate in such a petty scheme, much less dragging the President into it?  Questions were posed to the White House, but would not the folks there be curious as to the reason that Jack saw fit to have this item placed on the breakfast tables of millions of his readers?  Are we to imagine that the politically savvy folks at the White House might not smell something fishy?  What would be Jack's explanation?  

Jack turns a broken cuff-link into an international incident.  I turn it into a cosmic incident. 

'Debra' happens to be my older sister.  Does that make this any of my concern?  Perhaps.  

Here is my theory, along with some further information.  I would never have known about this column if Deborah had not told me about it, and then sent me a copy of it.  She was more angry with me about it she than she has ever been about anything else.  She said that the President was 'furious' and that she suspected that I had leaked the story to Anderson.   I was frankly baffled.  Even though I was already communicating with Ron, I had no specific reason to suspect a connection.  It was not until maybe a couple of years ago that I recalled this incident and began to suspect that it may well have been part of a bigger picture.  It was only a few weeks ago that I got this copy off the Internet.  

Let me cut to the chase.  Suppose there was a secret operation that had international implications.  You then wished to inform select segments of the international intelligence community as to the seriousness of this operation, but do so in a manner that other parties could not readily exploit or subvert.  We have here a very informal, 'analog' version of 'public key encryption'.  

But wait, why take this roundabout route?  Why not just send a cable to the relevant agencies?  There is the problem of 'false flagging'.  How is the information to be validated?  Someone with the relevant authority would need to personally vouch for the information.  There would have to be a direct communication between the intended recipient and the person with the authority.  The cable could be sent with the electronic signature of the author.  But then an individual recipient would have no way to verify directly that the information was not being targeted or tailored.  A more public venue is required, but this subverts the need for secrecy.  Thus the 'public key encryption'. 

There then has to be a second key, which together with the first one will open the particular box.  As I was struggling though this scenario just a few weeks ago, it occurred to me that I was the one who had sent out the second key.  I had sent it about four months prior to the Anderson column.  

It was in about my second telephone conversation with Ron in Sept. '91, that contact having been initiated by me, that he reported his intention to visit Los Alamos to 'hunt for Aliens'.  Quite naturally, I found this statement provocative.  I reciprocated with my own provocation.  I was, at that time, participating in the UFO Forum on CompuServe.  I put out my own little 'press release' to the effect that 'Ron at the CIA' was planning to talk to the Aliens.  I averred that this might not be necessary since I was the Holy Ghost and I could tell him what he needed to know about the end of the world.  Furthermore, 'If Ron lets the air out of my tires, I will have my big sister tell Nancy Ellis on him.'  

I had thought that this might put a crimp in Ron's MO, but it did not seem to.  When I ventured to call him back in two weeks, he said that his phone had been quite busy.  Even Whitley Strieber had wanted to know what was going on.  I did not think I needed to ask him if he knew who Nancy was.  She is the now former President's sister.  He did ask me, in the future, to not refer to him as in the previous paragraph.  Well, there has been much water under that bridge.  In effect, I had blown his cover.  None of his previous correspondents had done so, not to that considerable extent.  You understand that George W. faces a possible jail term for possibly having committed a similar offense.  Well, he is an officer of the government.  I am not. 

At the time of this incident, Ron was the head of the official interagency Phenomenology Group.  As such he would need to be in contact with many of his co-'phenomenologists' around the world.  There would have to be one or more global phenomenology networks among the mutually concerned parties.  In fact it was my interest in the Crop Circle phenomenon in Britain that provided my entrée to Ron.  It turns out that he was in close contact with a US citizen over there, in that 'field', who appears to be now, at least, a colleague.  Ron might not have been willing to be completely reliant on his colleagues in British Intel, not for something that sensitive. 

These are the bare circumstances of the transmission of my quasi-public 'key'.  What did Ron tell his correspondents?  My understanding is that the message was simple, 'Dan is crazy.'  But if Whitley had heard about my outburst, what about Ron's global network?  What were they told?  Move forward four months and substitute Barbara for Nancy.  Don't we then get a contrasting picture?  There are now two dots that could be connected.  

The next question is who might connect these dots.  Frankly, I am the only person I know to have done so.  Jack Anderson, based on some previous columns, would have been known to be in the 'phenomenology loop'.  His column would have been followed by others in that loop.  If something 'strange' like the above showed up, it would likely have been flagged for possible future analysis.  My previous transmission that caught the attention of Whitley and several others, would have also been noted by those in the loop, if for nothing else than instancing a then unprecedented level of exposure for Ron.  Two items flagged, one possible connection: Nancy Ellis. 

If you enter that name in Google, the fiftieth entry provides the correct middle name.  That is a stretch.  Only a major intelligence organization would have been able back then to connect these dots spontaneously.  However, anyone given a heads up, could do so, easily.  And that would be all that would be necessary for the above stated purpose of verification.  The President or someone near to the President would very likely be aware of the Ron&Dan 'show'.  It would have been a very small loop then, but very easily expandable to include others outside that loop, as you now may be witnessing.  Does that not mean the information could have been transmitted to people who might be motivated to act in contravention to the R&D 'operation'.  I am now contradicting my previous assertion that this 'encryption' would be relatively secure.  It would only take one bad apple to compromise it.  

Two points: the show goes on, and it was bound to be compromised sooner rather than later.  I was making a lot of noise about things, then as now.  The aviary/aquarium protocol is well dispersed.  My eschatological proclivities would not be assigned to mere lunacy by anyone who would take a few moments to consider the possible protocols along with Ron's ostensible continuing associations.  If there were any doubt then that this was a serious contingency, can there be any now, now that the Anderson column has been nailed to this door?  My sister will vehemently deny any connection.  She does not remember having spoken to me about it.  How then did I find out?  I had previously asked her to have someone at the White House check out Ron's bone fides.  She says that she never did so.  Is she also forgetful about that?  (I eventually had to go to Chris Straub, ranking staff member for the SSCI.) Why else might she have connected me with the column?  I understand now that the article was delivered personally to her in Boston by a Presidential assistant.  With her lawyer she wrote a response to the President.  Did no one ask, 'What is this tempest in a teapot?' 

I continue to twist in these winds.  Reality is a precious commodity in these precincts.  Do I grasp at straws?  This is one instance where anyone, now, may judge for themselves.  Should I now start to watch my backside?  Ron made a big point of introducing me to his 'bodyguard' last month.  Hmmm.  And so it goes. 

There may well exist an eschaton contingency, sufficiently serious to be deemed appropriate for briefings to heads of state.  How does my reputation fare as a designated source, when a major component of my scenario, touted for the last five years, is unceremoniously dumped after an argument with my sister?  This is hardly conducive to engendering confidence in the source.  Surely there must be a better source.  Could this visible component have been carried this far if there did not exist a reliable, covert reference source?  What purpose then could possibly be served by the R&D amateur hour?  Is this someone's idea of comic relief?  Where is the E Team?  Where is the Big Kahuna? 

If this is not a joke, then this is eschatology of the people, by the people and for the people.  Minimalism and spontaneity are for now and forever, if I have anything to say about it.  If I am to be a stand in, then the real actor is beginning to look a bit bashful.  Perhaps she has stage fright.  It can happen to the best of us.  If there ever were to be a paradigm case of WYSIWYG, would this not be a contender? 

[7/13] 

If George H. W. was briefed, has he behaved appropriately, with or without the Millennium factor?  That would depend upon with whom the President would be advised that he could discuss the matter.  This number would be limited, much smaller than the circle of policy makers.  In that case, the ramifications would likely be minimal.  There would be a lack of opportunity to integrate the information into the daily political grind, which would continue to progress with its own logic.  A single point of reference would not constitute actionable intelligence for the President.  There would be no encouragement for premature deviation or intervention on his part.  Just keep on holding things together.  The biggest departure from this line has been the invasion of Iraq.  Perhaps W. does have a better source, and I'm not necessarily referring to Wolfowitz or Condi.  There is the larger consideration of engagement, which is being played out in that arena.  I personally do not feel motivated to second guess all of those considerations.  I would not look forward to ever possibly having to do so.  Well, given that 9/11 was part of the run up to the larger drama, something like the Afghan/Iraq engagements must have been factored in to this picture.  That would have been a no-brainer.  Should any of this factor into the next election.  That would be pretty academic at this point.  The eschaton will most assuredly not be a political event.  The whole point of the clandestine preparation would have been to keep the politics out of the larger scenario.  Any high level briefings would be directed mainly to that end.  The political considerations are to be minimized.  The bigger the stick, the softer the walk.  Any political briefing would be mainly for the benefit of this effort, not for the enlightenment of the politician. 

Perhaps we can now better appreciate the nuances of the Anderson column.  Among other things, it acts as a tripwire relative to my general level of awareness, and also as a 'timed' release tablet.  I daresay this would have been pushing the envelope of human ratiocination.  One might wonder what Dennis or Charlie ever made of this incident.  I'm not likely to find out.  Curiosity can kill the cat. 

Next up, and on this topic, I need to discuss the meetings with Chris Straub.  This may shed more light on who knows what and why. 

Why am I now, for the first time here, delving into the details of past events?  It may have to with the recent change in my perception of these events relative to the Millennium or lack thereof..   Under the aegis of my former premillennial paradigm I did not fully appreciate the sensitivity of these events.  I would let bygones be bygone.  I had been turned loose.  We were going to let nature take its course.  No big deal.  But the recent interactions with Ron seemed to geared to jogging my memory.  In that process I began to realize that there was unfinished business, and the nature of this business did not fit well with my more recent turn toward laisser faire millennialism.  I don't recall when I got onto the Millennium track, it may have been more recently than five years ago, as stated above.  It was something I slid into.  This may have been my subconscious reaction to the apparent deactivation of the Aquarium.  That has been for about about five years. 

The abortive reactivation of the Aquarium around 9/11 seemed like a fluke, suspicious though it was.  It was a single data point.  Last month constitutes another data point.  When I draw a line through these latter two points, it seems to connect mainly back to the frenetic, more eschatological, early days of the R&D business, rather than forward to a Millennium scenario. 

I adjust my thinking accordingly.  This puts me back in something of a holding pattern, waiting for a third data point.  If that point fails to materialize, I will again slide forward into a millenarian posture, probably over a period of some months.  In the meantime there is an opportunity for recapitulation. 

[7/14] 

While I'm at it, and for the record, permit me to put down a cursory time line.  

I was a Sputnik baby.  Well, I was a very impressionable freshman in high school when Sputnik was launched.  But that was not quite my introduction to things scientific.  Perhaps I was more accurately a Menzel baby.   But then this takes us back to 1943 and the rocket baby or moonchild.  My father and I share a birthday, Nov. 20.  JPL and I share a birth date, 11/20/43, according to their website.  And we share the patronage of Amos Throop, as in Throop Polytechnic Institute, now Caltech.  JPL co-founder, Jack Parsons, had more than rockets on his mind.  He and L. Ron Hubbard were intent upon producing the Moonchild under the personal tutelage of Aleister Crowley.  

My father taught at the Harvard Business School, which during the War became the Air Force's Statistical School, which in turn gave rise to the Whiz Kids.  Dan, Sr. became involved in the planning for D-day, and served on the Academic Steering Committee opposite the Astronomer, Donald Menzel.  In 1943, Dr. Menzel raised the prospect of preparing the University for its return to peacetime.  My father knowing that VE day was still at least two years off, felt that this would be premature, but, of course, he could not apprise Donald of his proprietary logistical knowledge.  Nor, as it turned out later, could Donald apprise the committee of his knowledge of the Manhattan project which was scheduled to cut short the war in the Pacific.  My father was duly impressed by the ascendancy of astrophysics.  

My bedtime stories c. 1950 became the Harvard Astronomy Book Series, edited by Donald.  One of the first of which was Donald's slim leather-bound volume on Flying Saucers.  I remember being impressed by the juxtaposition of two photos: lights in the sky, and stick appearing bent in a glass of water due to refraction.  Clearly the great scientist had outsmarted the LGMs.  Is it an accident that Donald is the one scientist listed in the MJ-12 documents, brought forward probably through Rick Doty?  It is known that he participated in the tracking of UFOs for Navy Intelligence in the Pacific.  His laughably crude debunking of flying saucers would send two very different messages, depending on the state of one's knowledge of phenomenology.  The subtext is that phenomenology is taboo for science.  Phenomenology was to be pursued on another track.  That may be the track that has now devolved into the R&D business.  Another long-time associate of my Dad's was Laurance Rockefeller, who was briefed at the White House in 1993 by Ron concerning his long standing interest in these matters.  Laurance died this past Sunday.  

Back to Sputnik.  My interest in science accelerates.  In the summer of 1960 I participate in the NSF's regional institute for budding talent.  I charge through Stanford physics and on to Princeton, but there I run into what felt like a wall.  Burnout?  Yes, but possibly something more: a 'dark night of the soul'?  For most of three days I lay on my bed, virtually paralyzed.  Eleven years latter came tears of relief, also for about three days, right after the encounter with 'Sophia'.  

I migrate into metaphysics via the Anthropic Principle and the Quantum.  For several years I am a quantum dualist.  But then, by dint of coherence, and curiously under the spell of the magical drawings of Kit Williams' Masquerade (1983), I drop the dualism.  I quickly slide into immaterialism and then eschatology.  That is where I am by about 1984.  With this now more radical outlook, I give up on my previous attempts to network the metaphysics back into the academic and religious communities.  I do not attempt to resume the networking until under the aegis of Ron, which then comes to include the offices of Senators. 

It occurs to me, perhaps late in '93, that I could follow up on my failed attempt, though my sister, to check out my interlocutor's credentials.  Eventually I end up talking to Chris Straub, ranking staffer for the SSCI, and we have three meetings.  As we sit down at out first meeting I mention my concerns with eschatology and he states his familiarity with the topic.  He cannot go into specifics about Ron, but he states that I can be assured that I am dealing with some very competent people. 

Ron tells me later that Chris had to get a special briefing prior to that meeting.  It was a briefing that allegedly had already been given to some of Chris's colleagues on the Republican side of the committee, a briefing that he had not learned about until he attempted to check who Ron was.  Another, rather murky data point?  

But, now, fast forward to: 
NATIONAL DESK | December 7, 1998, Monday

Old Concerns Over Data Transfer to China Get New Attention
<http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/misc/spacer.gif>
By JEFF GERTH (NYT) words
Late Edition - Final , Section A , Page 20 , Column 1

DISPLAYING FIRST 50 OF WORDS - When a Central Intelligence Agency scientist visited the Hughes Electronics Corporation in Los Angeles in 1995 to learn more about China's missile capabilities, he became concerned that the satellite manufacturer might have helped improve Chinese military ... The worries of the scientist, Ronald Pandolfi, were not warmly received back at... [the CIA.....]  [I have to pay for the rest] 

Hmmm..............  Ron had warned on the weekend that he would be in the papers.  It does seem that there are some politics going down with Ron.  But what are they?  Is this just hawks vs. doves, Republicans vs. Democrats?  Through an 'acquaintance' of Ron's I learn that he is to attend a meeting later that week, a meeting that would seem to contradict the hawkish posture given above.  I query Ron about this meeting on my analog cell phone, heading back to Baltimore.  Ron is apoplectic.  The meeting is cancelled.  I get a digital phone, at his insistence. 

How might one connect these additional dots?  And let us not forget the 9/11 dot.  We have two news articles.  One involving trade with Japan, another involving a transfer to China.  Oh, yes, a Senator had called the above acquaintance to say that she should not be concerned about Ron's being outed, there was more to the story than could be published, the abortive meeting being a part of that, we might suspect.  Was it just by accident that I am being told these things.  Ron did remonstrate about this second 'leak' within a leak, as if to underscore its importance for me. 

Was Ron being deliberately outed to the Times by hostile colleagues?  I don't think that holds water.  Since when does the CIA spontaneously air its dirty linen in public.  There is here a major breach of protocol.  Is that an accident or is it possibly semiotic?  Does this not connect back to my outing of him on CompuServe?  The international signal is that another level of activation has been achieved.  The loop now is much bigger than the phenomenology network.  Every intelligence organization in the world could simply run his name against the Internet and immediately come up with the Aviary and Aquarium.  Might they not easily conclude that this otherwise inexplicable breach in protocol would likely be a signal relative to these other strange links?  Every intelligence agency in the world has now been put on notice.  

And then comes 9/11.  Ouch!  This is a tough one.  Or is it?  By now, should it not be a no-brainer?  On 9/1/01 Ron calls for an urgent meeting of the Aquarium to be held at the zoo on 9/16.  And it comes off, right on schedule.  And then there is Deborah on the tarmac at Logan at 8am on the day in question.  It does seem that someone is dabbling in more than just politics.  At what point does mere conspiracy morph into choreography?  How may they overlap?  And who is the Choreographer? 

Last month we are back again at the zoo, this time with a bodyguard, and I'm being told that my remarks on the previous occasion had been recorded via the security cameras and underground mikes.  It does give one pause. 

Does this feel like a run-up to the Millennium?  These bits of choreography do not seem to jibe with mere millenarianism.  It would seem that something more dramatic is afoot.  Was 9/11 just the whiff of grapeshot meant to sober us up?  Should we not be getting cold feet?  Where is Chicken Little when we need her?  Where is Sophia, for that matter?  Where are Ocelot and Ferret, and 'Charlene'?  Where is the next data point? 

How many Deborahs are out there, and how can they manage to maintain a state of total denial, even at the eye of the gathering storm?  What will become of them?  Where are the Unitarians when we need them? 

Is there any point in my trying to speed things up, or slow them down?  Is there any call for me to do more than what I'm doing right now?  Is my networking not deliberately dependent on the participation my interlocutor?  Or has it been left up to me to break the glass ceiling?  If so, could I not just create a disturbance as suggested elsewhere?  I am not presently motivated in that direction.  Will 'nature' not take its own sweet time?  

But what about all those other folks out there, who, as I speculate, have been put on notice?  Would not some of them be tempted to manipulate or disrupt these proceedings?  The apparent lack of such activity may constitute the strongest evidence against my speculation.  But what could they do?  Any disturbance would most likely just call attention to these speculations.  It is Ron's job to be keeping the pulse of the insiders, while I watch the outside.  

But it would also be easy for an insider to masquerade as an outsider, and act to prime the networking pump.  Does anything prevent this?  There could be thousands of people with just a smattering of inside information who could independently connect these same dots.  Who is to run herd on them? 

And what about the religious activists?  I know that Ron has connections in those circles, certainly on the Catholic side.  Would not some of them smell a rat, to put it mildly?  Would there not be more than a few raised eyebrows?  What about our Muslim brothers?  Do they not have vested interests in these matters?  What are they to make of these carryings on?  How anxious am I to find out? 

If you had asked me how to run the R&D show, I would not have come up with this strategy, not in a million years.  If it is working, I could not say how.  On the other hand, I see no other way to extend the run-up for this many years, i.e. thirteen and counting.  I can only see the tip of what must be an iceberg, if it is anything at all.  This is why I remain comfortable in this mainly spectator role, still the ingénue. 

[7/15] 

Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence, or so say the skeptics.  Let us consider this statement.  

This seemingly simple aphorism glosses over many deep issues of epistemology, issues which I have never seen addressed by those who are won't to employ it.  In defense of the skeptics, it should be noted that the targeted claimants very seldom challenge the premise of the statement.  And generally speaking, the claimants are in no position to do so.  

Almost by default, science has been accepted as the arbiter of reality.  Those people wishing to proclaim the reality of anomalous phenomena seldom question the arbiter status of science, and so they lay their claims at its doorstep.  They come as supplicants to the alter.  The fact that their entreaties are invariably rejected, never seems to deter the next supplicant in this endless parade.  One might suppose that after centuries of repeating the ritual beating of the head against the wall, the head beaters would, just for once, step back to examine the wall that confronts them. 

It has been a simple but profoundly effective game that science has played against nature and against its rivals: divide and conquer.  That is the game of reductionism, of deconstruction.  Once that strategy is fully engaged, there will be no stopping it, not until it has played itself out.  There is little to be gained by throwing your body in front of that Juggernaught.  The non-reductionists can only bide their time. 

Well, we can do a bit more than that.  We can begin to lay the groundwork for our eventual, inevitable return engagement.  That is what you see me doing here. 

What I believe that I can see more clearly than anyone else on the Google radar screen, is that when this table finally turns, it will be a 180 degree turn.  Yes, there are ample signs that science is slowly loosing its grip on reality, but this game is not science's to loose.  If we have to wait for science to completely loose its grip, we could be waiting for another century or two.  Long before that eventuality, there will be an end game.  The new arbiter of reality will arise in direct contention with science.  The end game will be decided, not on the preponderance of the evidence but on the nature of the evidence.  At some point, the reality rug will be pulled out from under science.  Science will continue to toil in its own garden, but then it will become evident that the garden was just a floating garden all along.  It is not atoms that are the bedrock of reality.  The ground of being is being, itself.  As the strategy of reductionism begins to falter, it can only be replaced by coherence.  

Just as there was an inexorable logic to reduction and analysis, there is also an inexorability with regard to coherence.  Once the table has been turned, coherence will quickly be pressed to its cosmic limit.  Yes, that limit may turn out to be illusory, but it will be tested with full determination.  

All that I have been asking on these pages is, if there is a cosmic coherence, what will be its nature.  Leibniz answered this question centuries ago.  This logical limit of cosmic coherence is simply defined by the concept of the Best Possible World.  There can be no other limit for coherence.  This will automatically be the prime contender for all possible schemes of coherence.  I have here a uniquely modern, postmodern grip on this simple truth.  

This is my one thesis that I nail to the door of science.  It presents us with a whole new ballgame concerning ontology, epistemology and the relation between them.  It will be the turn of science to twist in the wind. 

In the scheme of the BPW, eschatology is nothing extraordinary.  It is simply what comes 'naturally' as a logical component of the bigger picture.  It is only in this metaphysical context that the issue of choreography arises.  Any direct overlap between the generation of these metaphysical insights and the governmental monitoring of phenomenology could easily hold extraordinary implications for the future.  If there is any eschatological fire, it is certainly being entertained here in an unprecedented fashion.  Should we then be surprised by the strong indications given above, that a diverse collection of such folk has been made aware of this activity?  Would not these individuals simply be doing what we should expect of them: keeping an eye on the contingencies, without being unduly influenced by contemporary metaphysical fashions?  As for el Presidentes?  Well, you never know what they might think they have a need to know. 

[7/16] 

The points we need to keep in mind were addressed on 7/5 and 7/6, as we consider the shift from a premillennial to an amillennial footing.  With the greater overall time pressure, there will be more emphasis on the team work and coordination between the parallel tracks: inside and outside, organized and spontaneous.  There is some proprietary information on the inside.  There is the more spontaneous effort on the outside.  At some crucial point in the run-up the tracks may need to intersect so that we can be playing off the same sheet of music.  Then the orchestration begins in earnest.  The crucial question for me is, if this is going to happen, will it be in my lifetime, and will I be there?  However, for the purposes here, I have to continue assuming so. 

For an amillennial scenario, a real-time cosmic input must come early and strong.  How much more priming must there be for that to occur?  Where do I need to be for that to happen?  There is some suggestion to continue working on the Sarfatti list.  I was thinking that I had about done what I could there, with minimal results.  Those physicists can be tough nuts.  In order to move ahead I would at least need to resume the conversation with the other interlocutor. 

 Speaking of Jack, we may need to reconsider the deus ex machina problem.  It doesn't hurt to keep our eyes on the skies, but there are other places to look as well.  Thinking of Donald Menzel, astronomer in the Navy, we might consider Davy Jones' locker.  Thinking of the Pied Piper and the wee folk, we might also want to look underground.  In other words, Jack's propulsion problem may turn out to be a portal problem.  Our docking maneuver may already have begun, as per Rick and the EBE's.  If there is a sustained dock, it may be ensconced.  If I recall the whereabouts of Hal's 'UFO', was it not under Frog Mountain?  A strange place for a hangar.  

This is pure speculation, but it might provide a useful thought experiment.  We face a major logistical headache, given our tentative amillennial scenario.  We have an exodus problem.  In one sense, there is no exodus problem if we just continue to rely on natural attrition, all we have is a population problem.  But that is no insignificant problem.  We need to prime the exodus pump in a non-traumatic fashion.  We send people packing to Frog Mountain.  The rumors of disappearing folk begin to get around.  There are more volunteers.  My understanding of the EBE story is that this has already occurred in a very limited and usually temporary fashion.  We would just need to step up the pace and rumor mill.  Then what?  What happens when '60 Minutes' or Larry King picks up the scent?  That's when the rubber meets the road.  That is when the two tracks intersect. 

Would there not be a concurrent breakdown of the social order?  Would there not be a significant panic?  There would have to have been a very considerable and rapid run-up in our networking effort prior to this Disclosure Day.  It would take a virtually miraculous networking effort to mitigate the effects of D-day.  I would be skeptical about the success.  If we could possibly get over that hump, then the birthrate might begin to fall, and, by duplicating portals, we could begin to make a dent in the logistics.  

Of course there would have to be considerable two-way traffic at first.  There would need to be considerable tourism and day-tripping.  What might we expect to see in the brochures?  Will the eventual migration operate more by benefit of carrot or stick?  Right now, your guesses are as good as mine. 

[7/17] 

For the most part, and once we overcome our initial trepidations, we will want to move on to complete our extended journey through time, and reintegrate ourselves into the cosmic infrastructure.  I doubt that many of us could presently imagine how this reintegration will come about.  We will just be going with the flow. 

There will be stragglers.  They will not be able to return to the JPc/Eden.  A timeless Eden is one of the many mansions.  It is not meant for stragglers.  They will likely end up in a refugee camp of some kind, not something to look forward to.  Just the scene that is becoming so familiar.  Will those who are now in in the camps be staying there?  I would hope that the bulk of them can make the transition on their own.   The camps will be expanded, however, to include those who balk at the end. 

At some point the present infrastructure will be breaking down.  This will provide a major impetus to move on.  This infrastructure will be supplanted, but only for those who do not try to hang on to the fading present.  The infrastructure of the camps will just be temporary and makeshift. 

None of this will be particularly easy.  Heaven is not going to be wine and virgins. 

The next issue will be the manner of our bodily existence.  At best, what we now consider our bodies will become optional.  They will become decreasingly significant.  Bodily concerns are for those in the camps.  Moving beyond the physical is a major part of the transition.  

This is a very rough outline.  We will come know these things as the need arises.  Our main task is to be focused on the Presence, i.e. that which is beyond the mere present.  

[7/18] 

We have all heard of Doomsday and Judgment Day.  Do we wonder where these ideas came from?  Logically they derive from our attempt to model cosmology with biology.  The world is born and then it dies, presumably to be reborn.  

In nature, we see few signs of an aging world.  However, in social systems a biological model is more relevant.  Personal regimes tend to follow the biology of the leader.  Dynasties would follow the life cycle of the ruling clan, usually starting in a state of vigor, but then declining as the power of the clan gradually becomes corrupted and dissipated, until there would be a violent regime change.  The old regime may be held accountable for its failings.  Election cycles follow a similar pattern. 

Virtually all mythic world systems are cyclic.  None are static or evolving.  With a static system there is no story.  With an evolving system there is the problem of an ending. 

We might wonder at the concept of eternity.  The cyclic systems have endless time, but that is not eternity.  With the Hindu system one can escape the wheel of time to nirvana and Brahman.  In Einstein's general relativity, time is local to a given universe.  There is the implication of a timeless background manifold, an implication which is partially realized in the inflation scheme. 

Then comes the notion of a Creator.  The Creator must break the cycle, or she becomes absorbed into it.  The Creator is the author of history.  She must exist outside of history.  An unnatural element supervenes nature. 

Once again I have the opportunity to correct myself.  Norse mythology is not cyclic.  Time begins spontaneously, as with Einstein, but then ends in a paradisiacal eternity, as in the theistic systems, but only after most of the gods succumb in Ragnarok, a free-for-all or Doomsday version of Armageddon.  Odin is neither the first nor the last of the genealogical pantheon.  With Einstein, the Big Crunch is optional. 

If the world is to have meaning, it must be the locus of a project, a project that is realizable.  In the theistic systems, there is no project.  There is a fall and then a further decline, with a final battle against the forces of evil producing a small saved remnant.  There is in Judaism and Christianity an earthly messianic kingdom and Millennium, respectively.  These act as mere appendages to history.  They do not ascribe any meaning to it. 

There is finally the notion of progress, an idea that emerges surprisingly late in history, and only in a secular context.  This idea goes back only to the European Renaissance, contradicting the cyclic name of its origin.  Only when science was brought on board, did the idea of progress become robust.  We still struggle to find a logical connection between evolution and progress.  It is the postmodern view that there is no such connection.  Only the transhumanists and ufologists look to a universal progress.  Very few people are able to see a connection between technological and moral progress.  

It is a central thesis of the BPWH that progress, to be part of a meaningful world, must be a realizable project.  It is a project that must end in an apokatastatic eschatology .  This means, however, a decisive and final transformation from a material to a spiritual understanding of the overall project.  There is a final change in the gestalt of progress, from the technical conquest of nature, to the mental or spiritual conquest over matter.  This eschatology outstrips the the mythic and traditional worldviews.  Such an outcome would have been incomprehensible, and is prefigured only in the pantheistic system of Hegel.  

History is witness to our sojourn into the heart of the matter.  Only at the end of that journey, as presaged in the discovery of the quantum and anthropics, do we begin to realize that it is just our own footprints, along with the thumbprint of God, that we see in those metaphysical innards.  Thus do technology and science become our springboard to apokatastasis.  

Our errand into the wilderness has been accomplished.  We return with the pearl of great price.  We come to know ourselves, and God through us, in the mirror of Creation.  This is an eternal knowledge.  It need not be repeated.  There is no judgment, only gnosis. More accurately, judgment is subsumed in gnosis. 

Can we ask for anything more?  Should we expect anything less?  Is God's kingdom not in heaven?  When our mission has been accomplished, what need have we to tarry down here?  If there is a further mission, it would be for a clean-up crew: rather anti-climactic.  For you and me, it is onward through the looking-glass. 

The idea of a portal may seem intimidating.  There will be the opportunity for day trips, but I suspect there will be remarkably few of those.  The lines will quickly become too long for that logistic.  The way back will seem increasingly onerous.  We waiting upon our designated Pied Piper.  A few single men go first, soon to be followed by single women, then first come first serve.  Meanwhile the portals proliferate and expand.  Finally, the mothers with young children and the most elderly would bring up the rear, except for the closeout crew.  If you want to leave in a flying saucer, that would require a special arrangement, like an ambulance service. 

Gosh, I nearly forgot about our furry and feathered friends.  Somehow, I just don't see any real problem there.  Won't they be able to look out for themselves?  Will we need a latter-day Noah?  That will be more just a matter of quality.  Only with us humans, and our pets, of course, do the quantities really matter.  There will be 'ecosystems' on the other side, but not the metabolism.  Our bodies, such as they may be, will be morphing into those of avatars.  The 'economy' will not be based on production.  Time will quickly become passé.  

We might want to consider how our entrance into the other world will differ from our initial entrance here.  

First though is a minor technical difficulty.  How are our Stargaters going to breathe on the other side?  

The answer is fairly simple.  If angels can pretend to have bodies, then we can pretend to breathe.  It is the same idea, but working backwards.  It is the same way that anthropics works.  On the other side of the portal, reality is more fluid, the way things used to be here, back in the mythic dream-time, in the JPc/Eden. 

Our reality is a collective state of mind, or a very stable and compelling lucid dream.  The emphasis is on the collectivity of it.  On the other side of the portal is a collectivity of hyper-dimensional intelligences or angels concentrating hard on making their reality compatible with ours.  The portal may have existed since the beginning of time, and remained in more or less continuous use.  There is a resultant cross-socialization of the reality on each side, so that there is as little discontinuity as possible.  Everytime we go to sleep we get to practice with alternate realities.  Dream connections could become as important as the portals. They allow for more practice, and could serve as an emergency escape hatch if necessary.  We will have to socialize our dream state into a more effective conduit of communication.  The portals may just act as primers to that larger reality pump.  BYOB, bringing your own body, is optional at this party.  And we can hookup with our dear departed, at least temporarily, in an Earthly form. 

As we increasingly frequent other realities and states of mind, this reality will gradually revert to its original, more fluid state.  As our dreams become more lucid, our waking becomes less so. Perhaps that is why the EBEs made solitary visits, so that they would not de-socialize our reality prematurely.  The interrogators would have to be frequently rotated, so as not to be entrained to the other side.  Next up is the Pied Piper. 

 Don't get me wrong.  This is not going to be an easy or casual transition.  There will be foul-ups, and some people will get seriously discombobulated in the process.  We will have to act with deliberate speed, once the situation begins to get fluid.  

[7/19] 

What should be surprising to us is that there are not more holes in our world.  There would have been a deliberate effort to keep these to a minimum so as not to destabilize our world.  Instead there are angels, ghosts, flying saucers, etc., which act as mobile portals.  Since the dimensions on the other side are more fluid, one may use these portals as devices for, in effect, warping space and time.  You can walk into one portal and then walk out in another time or place.  Portals may also be accessed by various forms of psychic projection.  They may tend to be located in the vicinity of 'energy vortex' sites.  Associated with every type of portal are mutual, collective psycho-social protocols that are established over long periods of time.  These archetypes are tapped into when the portal is in use.  In as much as our psyches all tap into the cosmic psyche, every being is a virtual portal.  In some sense, all anomalous phenomena manifest a thinning or permeability of our normal reality boundaries.  Physics operates undisturbed away from the soft spots.  Keep in mind, however, that the starry sky serves as both a portal and a filter of cosmic phenomena.  It is the semi-permeable membrane of our reality. 

Portal phenomena are minimized through systems of taboos.  It was the responsibility of shamans and religions to maintain these taboos.  The scientific establishment takes upon itself the maintenance of a worldview that is antithetical to these phenomena.  In modern times, there is an effective double cover relative to the other worlds.  We have to exercise caution in the deconstruction of that worldview.  We don't want to let the air out too quickly, lest we all have trouble breathing.  The general bourgeois conservatism has become a significant part of the taboo structure.  The sometimes not so benign neglect of phenomena can be striking in academic and professional venues.  The social fabric and the fabric of reality are ultimately synonymous.  The omnipresence of technology reinforces this fabric; however, technology may also provide the leverage for its eventual deconstruction and unraveling. 

[7/20] 

Here is a follow-up concerning the article posted above: 

Steve, 

Thank you very much for this information. 

This has become a big issue for me. It may even have a bearing on my worldview. It certainly has a bearing on my seriously deteriorated relationship with my sister, Deborah, aka 'Debra'. 

Conceivably this is an issue pertaining to national security. This may seem like a very major stretch, but consider the circumstances. 

I beg your patience while I attempt to explain the context. 

First of all, I would like to know how you came across my concerns about the Anderson article. I certainly did not expect to get a response from such a knowledgeable source as yourself. 

I have posted this article to my website: [see above] 

I am assuming, however, that an enterprising person on the Sarfatti email list looked you up and sent you a copy of my correspondence, in an attempt to verify it. You needn't be ad hominem, but do, please, give me the generality of the contact, if you can. 

If you peruse the material on may website on the above page, and some of the material on the previous page, you should get a fair idea of the context I am talking about. 

Ron Pandolfi is my CIA contact person. He is well aware of the significance that I attach to this article, and he has not yet seen fit to disabuse my interpretation. Is this merely an oversight on his part? 

I see no gaps in the chain of events that you present. Do you have any reason to suppose that Deborah might or might not be aware of this sequence? I have to wonder why she failed to apprise me of it. Soon after the article was published she accused me of having been Jack Anderson's source. 

Unless I can come up with an alternative interpretation of the events you present, I will need to add a retraction on the website, and then apologize to Deborah. I will need to ask Ron why he did not offer a denial of my original interpretation. 

FYI: Deborah had already divorced Charlie by this time. He was also then being sued by one of his daughters on the allegation of abuse. The suit was settled out of court. A very sad story.

I can still wonder why Jack failed to mention the primary significance of this sequence of events: that both the Prime Minister of Japan and the high-level trade negotiations were involved. The article only implies such. 

And I remain impressed by the fact that someone took the time to track you down. 

Might you 'allow' me to entertain the notion that there could have been just a bit of 'cosmic' intervention in this rather impressive display of swift 'cosmic' justice? 

In any event, may I please post your comments to the website? Would you want to edit them for that purpose? 

I gather that you have managed to survive you unfortunate encounter with my former brother-in-law. So has my niece. 

Thank you and best wishes, 

Dan

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve DeVore [mailto:info@sybervision.com]
Sent: Monday, July 19, 2004 8:05 PM
To: dantsmith@comcast.net
Subject: Jack Anderson/SyberVision/ President Bush

Dan:

I read with interest your thoughts about the Jack Anderson column about Charlie Leighton, Mr. Toyota, and President Bush.

There was no conspiracy. Here are the facts: 

Back in 1989 CML was under a hostile takeover bid by Irwin Jacobs. He wanted Boston Whaler and was going to sell off the other CML companies, including SyberVision, to pay for the stock purchase.

Charlie panicked after Reader’s Digest backed out as a “white knight” to provide funds to fend off Jacobs.

As the founder of SyberVision, I was in negotiations with Toyota to sell them 1 million Bobby Jones tapes. This would have meant a $20 million profit to CML. As you may know, the Japanese work very slowly in business deals. Charlie asked me how we could expedite the order since he needed the money, he claimed, quickly. Jokingly, I told him nothing short of a presidential order could speed up the transaction. This was on a Friday afternoon when we had the discussion. On Monday, Charlie had sent off a packet to Mr. Toyota with the letters promising presidential intervention in the current difficult trade sanction talks going on at the White House concerning Japanese auto imports (Toyota in particular). He also sent along pictures of the Bushes with Charlie and Deborah as proof of his association, as well as the cuff links. 

Apparently, Mr. Toyota was greatly impressed. So much so that on the following Friday he gathered with his peers (including the Prime Minister of Japan) for a saki get- together at his country club. Sitting around the table, he showed the presidential cuff links he was wearing to his friends. He took one off and passed it around the table. Each of his guests rubbed the presidential logo on the link until one man rubbed and a decal of the logo came off in his hands. The cuff links were plastic. Mr. Toyota was greatly embarrassed and lost “face” among his peers. Needless to say, the deal was dead. 

After our contract with Charlie was over, he didn’t pay what he owed us ($20 million) so we had to resort to a lawsuit. The Wall Street Journal learned of the suit and ran a front page article with Charlie’s caricature. The article detailed how CML had ripped off many of its business partners (entrepreneurs who sold their companies to Charlie and Bob Tod)-SyberVision being the most recent one. 

This led to an interest by CBS “60 Minutes” who contacted me to do an expose about CML featuring what happened to us and the other entrepreneurs. I directed the producer, at the direction of my attorney, to the court documents that were public record. From those documents, the producer found a copy of Charlie’s letter to Toyota. They contacted Charlie and he denied even writing the letter. He didn’t know they already had a copy of it. This infuriated the producer and doubled her resolve to expose CML. 

Throughout this process, my attorneys told me not to communicate directly with 60 Minutes but to direct all questions from 60 Minutes to them. For some reason, 60 Minutes opted out of the show but the producer sent the letters over to Jack Anderson. 

I was contacted by Anderson’s office, refused to talk to them. They spoke to my attorneys who verified the veracity of the letter.

That’s how it happened. As to Anderson’s motive in writing the article I can only think it was for the sake of trivial humor-without thinking about the consequences of how it might hurt innocent people. Unfortunately, Deborah was hurt. I can imagine her embarrassment. I remember her as a nice and honorable person. I really liked her. She had no idea what Charlie did, I am sure of that. Charlie was desperate, didn’t think about potential consequences (who could have known) and tried to use Deborah’s friendship with Barbara Bush to save his hide. At one point Charlie told me he would do “anything” to defend, protect, and save CML. 

Hopefully, this has enlightened you. 

What has become of Charlie and Deborah. Last time I saw Charlie (1992) he appeared to have early on-set of Parkinsons. [The first I have heard about this] I hope they are well and happy. 

Give them my regards.

Steve DeVore 

SyberVision

On further thought, I am not convinced that the conspiracy issue has been resolved.  I don't know who is Steve's source concerning the crucial meeting.  It is curious that I do recall hearing that the Minister of Trade was involved, but no such official was referenced in the column, and I don't think Deborah went into any such detail, with me.   

Now I'm beginning to feel badly for Charlie, in this one instance.  For once in his life he would have been the victim!  He was clearly in a tight spot.  How many of us in his position might not have seriously considered doing what he did?  Think of all the employees and stockholders he had to protect.  That his previous business practices were not above reproach is not relevant to this incident.  When the President allows his picture to be taken with you, he wants you to hang it on your wall and brag about it to other people.  That is the whole point.  This is politics, my friends!  Ditto for any other memorabilia.  If you get into a jam, should the President be offended if you use his gift to help solve the problem?  What are gifts for? 

Who are the three people here who should actually be embarrassed?  The President, the Prime Minister and Mr. Toyota.  Why?  The President for giving shoddy gifts to deserving supporters.  The Prime Minister and Mr. Toyota should be embarrassed for having embarrassed the President of the United States, a person with whom they were in the midst of a very delicate trade negotiation.  Deborah, indeed, reported to me that the President was [alleged to be?] 'furious' about this incident.  Would he have been mad at Charlie?  I don't thinks so.  He would have been mad at the Japanese for turning a trivial incident into an international incident.  

The Japanese are reputed to be astute negotiators.  Would they be so stupid as to go out of their way to antagonize their negotiating partner?  

I'm sorry, there is still something fishy here.  If I were the President, the first thing I would do is fire the person responsible for the shoddy cufflinks.  Might this person not have gotten a big kick-back?  Who wears cuff-links?  Wealthy businessmen, people likely to contribute big bucks to the campaign.  Do you want to embarrass your biggest supporters?  Think of your supporters reading the Jack Anderson column and then throwing their personal mementos into the waste basket!  

But wait a minute.  Would the Toyota CEO and Prime Minister actually interrupt their party to ogle campaign trinkets?  Could they possibly be so naive?  Would they then go around advertising their naiveté?  

Have I said enough?  Too much?  Can the fate of the world hang in this balance?  I intend to find out.

Cufflinks there, eschatology here.

Might Steve not be in a situation similar to Deborah?  It is hard to believe that a major event in your life was simply not at all what it seemed.  It might cause one to start questioning the rest of 'reality'.  This is not easy to do, but we all have to start somewhere. 

Wait another minute.  Who at Toyota would send Charlie's letter to Steve, and why?  [OK, that might have just been Charlie, before the fact with a cc.]  And then who at Toyota would want to tell the world about their boss's subsequent embarrassment, and why?  And how did these details (' Each of his guests rubbed the presidential logo on the link until one man rubbed and a decal of the logo came off in his hands.') get back to Steve?  Is the devil in the details? 

I'm sorry to belabor this, but ultimately it is the 'reality' of the world that is up for grabs.  

[7/22] 

There has, at my behest, been some preliminary discussion about networking the eschaton.  In the next few days I will be meeting with two of the principals in this proposed effort. 

In my last meeting with Chris Straub several years ago, which Ron also attended, the conversation was mainly about saving the tigers.  As we were about to leave, I said that I had been wanting to also discuss eschatology.  Christ turned to me and said, 'Well, Dan, I guess you'll just have to surprise us.'  I now hope that we can do better than this.  I would like for there to be a serious, non-sectarian, open discussion of eschatology.  This is what I will be attempting to arrange for with the help of these other two individuals.  One of these is Ron, and the other shall remain nameless, per his request. 

The first effort will be directed toward the Sarfatti list.  I have attempted to introduce this topic there on several previous occasions in the last few years.  The general level of skepticism has prevented that from happening.  We'll be making this attempt once again, now in a more concerted fashion.  There will a team effort, at least to a limited degree.  

The frame for this discussion will be to construct a possible scenario based on a 'what if' proposition.  What if the world is a supernatural construct.  It was created, say, to serve in the self-discovery of God through the participation of us creatures.  Furthermore, this purpose, in the context of this world, is intended to be achievable.  That is to say that our task as creatures in this three-dimensional setting is intended to be completed at some point.  This is the meaning of our 'physical' existence.  

The question that is to be posed is simply, what would be the best way for us then, or now, to move on to whatever is to be the next phase of our existence, beyond the present space-time context, our purpose here having been carried out to its fullest possible extent, or at least to the point where additional costs can be expected to exceed the possible future benefits.  In other words, we need an exit strategy, and I need a focus group to hash this over, at least in a preliminary fashion.  The intention is to persuade Jack and his discussion group to temporarily take up this challenge.  In that process, there may emerge a subset of folks who would be open to a continuing and more in depth study of this issue. 

It may be that this is not actually just a hypothetical contingency.  This may not just be a test.  It could be leading up to an actual eschatological event.  We cannot know that now, but, until such time, we want this discussion to remain contained and containable.  We don't want or expect it to get out of hand.  If, in the future, new information emerges, then we would have to proceed on another track. 

What I think we can assume for now is that there is an actual 'phenomenology' problem.  There are known to exist phenomena that are sufficiently anomalous so that if they were to be publicly disclosed, our modern worldview might well be subverted or deconstructed.  

But the problem goes beyond just the question of epistemology.  Ultimately there is an ontological issue.  Reality may not be as solid or impermeable as we have come to expect.  The universe may be more like a great idea than a great machine.  It may be more of mental than a physical or mathematical construct.  The world is not a machine, it is rather a dream machine. 

Jack, of course, objects to any such characterization.  He is a physicalist.  Everything can be explained by physics, even anomalous phenomena.  You just have to be willing bend your formulas to whatever is the necessary extent.  But does he have a model for psychokinesis?  Is there any conceivable physical model for PK?  Consider spoon bending as an example.  Would there not have to be visualization and targeting?  Materialization would be another unphysical anomaly, and so would be remote viewing. 

I am saying that the ultimate issue is the relative ontic priority of mind vs. matter.  Anomalous phenomena are always directly associated with intelligence.  They are manifestations of the power that mind ultimately holds over matter.  Further, I'm claiming that these phenomena portend the primordial and final ascendancy of mind over matter.  There is simply no formula for Creation as there is none for the Omega.  Physics may be the means to an end, but it cannot be an end unto itself.  We have had materialization, now we need to arrange for our dematerialization.  How do we minimize the trauma? 

I speak of our participating in the self-realization of God.  This has been accomplished using the mirror of Nature.  Our related sub-task has been our sojourn into the heart of matter.  We have gone as far as we can in that direction.  With the quantum and anthropics, we begin to see ourselves reflected in Nature.  We now undergo the reversal of that sojourn.  The return journey is likely to be very much shorter in duration.  We come back home, bearing the pearl of great price: our wisdom and self-knowledge. 

Perhaps more accurately I should speak of the de-physicalization of matter.  The way to do this is to weaken the contextual relations that ordinarily keep the physical processes on track.  Transiting through a portal would be an example of this.  PK gets stronger on the other side.  It is not clear how it would be possible to reverse this process.  It is analogous to the notion of unraveling, with the quantum and mathematics acting as warp and woof.  We might wonder if there would be any distinction in this context between natural and artificial systems.  Imagine making the transit with a pacemaker and then returning.  

[7/23] 

Of course, I continue to have trouble explaining matter.  Something that might be related is the psychology of eating and drinking, etc.  What I need to ascertain are the psychic precursors of metabolism.  Is the primal circulation of the zodiacal energies not related to metabolism?  What is the metabolism of the mind? 

Does food not have psychic properties?  There must be a psychic ecology, or an ecology of the psyche.  This would have to do with relationalism and functionalism.  The same questions apply to numbers and words.  Where does the dynamics arise for these abstractions?   We're looking for the mainsprings.  

But wasn't Freud attempting to grapple with the metabolism of the psyche?  Are the appetites of the mind any less than those of the stomach?  The dynamics of reproduction come to mind.  Where is there a greater overlap of mind and matter?  Mate selection must reenact the primal dialectic.  I don't yet sufficiently appreciate the dialectic.  We have the imperative of symmetry breaking relative to the Matrix.  We are looking at the dialectic between heaven and earth, or mind and matter.  What aspect of the mind is dual to the atom?  What it the dialectic when projected onto matter?  Surely the quantum figures in here.  

I also wonder about the accounts of ghosts and ETs walking through walls.  At what point do they go bump?  Saucers are seen going into the water, but not into the ground.  The bumping into walls has to do with super-symmetry, which is an aspect of space.  Ghosts may bring their own space with them.  There is also the repulsion of energy levels and of the Riemannian zeros.  There is also the problem of particle identities and their coupling to the various force fields.  Identity is a very abstract concept, but it is crucial to physicality of physics. 

There may be two logical kinds of solidity: static and dynamic, or volumetric and ballistic.  How much do both of these depend on atomic stability?  To what extent that stability a brute fact, or is it a manifestation of an eco-logic?  As a relationalist, there can be no brute facts.  What then is the stability of the ecologic, and how does it relate to physical stability?  It must be something about the quantum that brings these together.  Is it simply the projection postulate, or something more complex?   How does a wall switch from being permeable to impermeable?  How do two particles switch from being identical to non-identical?  Where do the logics of heaven and earth come into contact, other than at a portal?   Should we go back to the pokatok court?  Is there a quasi-physics for heaven?  What is happening when we see a ghost?  How much is internal, and how would the internal overlap with the external?  As an idealist, though, I have to be careful about any such distinction.  One person may see the ghost, while another does not.  

[7/24] 

He is another way to approach the portal problem.  In transit, one enters into a lucid dreamlike state.  This does not present a problem until one attempts to return back to this world.  Only then would the state of one's body come into question.  If, for instance, a camera or other recording device were taken along, its state upon return would also be questionable.  There are various possible answers to these questions, few of which could be excluded a priori.  Such questions could only be answered experimentally.  The answers need not be the same in every case. 

A physicist would want to know whether mass would or could be conserved in this process.  The portal could not be treated as a black hole.  The mass would disappear from this world.  So it would not necessarily or obviously be conserved.  The portal would be seen as violating the laws of physics.  A gravimeter placed near the entrance would logically record a decrease in the gravitational mass of a transiting object.  Too bad.  Anomalous phenomena, almost by definition, violate the accepted laws of physics, if they are not simply hallucinatory.  The portal process would simply cover a wide class of anomalous phenomena, or many such phenomena could be explained in terms of portal processes.  

Psychic survival of death is the most widely acclaimed of all anomalous phenomena.  Death then is a one-way, immaterial portal.  There is a violation of physics in the posit of the psyche as a non-physical phenomenon.  There is thereby suggested a metaphysical dualism between mind an matter.  A portal that permits the transit of material bodies would, however, point very strongly toward an immaterialist, idealist metaphysic.  

Although theism, is generally conceived in dualistic terms, the concept of Creation, in as much as it deviates from physical cosmogony, implicitly entails idealism.  The Alpha and Omega, Eden and resurrection may both be seen as 'physical' portals between the temporal and atemporal realms.  Our pokatok scenario, is just an attempt to set up a portal to transit from the outside, to make the transition from the non-physical into a 'physical' realm.  Ultimately, both realms must be viewed as dreamlike, but a portal between them allows for a minimally discontinuous connection or transition between them.  The BPWH strongly suggests that mini-portals would play a crucial role in minimizing the trauma that might otherwise be associated with an amillennial eschatology, i.e. our imminent confrontation with the Omega portal.   A portal may be understood as a review of Creation and a preview of Omega.  

[7/26] 

There has been some barely perceptible progress.  My prime interlocutor will tell select individuals that I may not be crazy after all.  This pertains to the prospective Eschaton Focus Group.  He will privately tell select participants that he is favorably disposed to the existence of such a body.  To everyone else, the previous, long-standing protocol will continue to apply.  

I requested that he explain this new protocol as being motivated by the phenomenology problem.  He countered that any such admission would leave him open to too many follow-on questions.  Instead, he will be telling Jack that this part of a counter-intelligence operation.  He tried to explain this rationale to me, but I was unable to see any connections to eschatology.  I don't know that Jack will swallow this either.  Mr. P. may be best advised to revert to 'no comment' when questioned as to motivation. 

I'm not sure how Jack will countenance this new initiative.  He is certainly welcome to try his hand at portal physics, but beyond the green door, the physics gives way to metaphysics.  It is where heaven begins, it is hyperspace with a vengeance.  It is the lucid dream-world.  Jack is no fan of heaven, but what about the Matrix and virtual reality.  How can we agree to disagree on these matters? 

Jack may only countenance a portal as leading to a parallel physical universe, but this does not then count as being eschatological.  It could be billed as an evacuation to escape from a vacuum phase shift in this universe.  That may be about as close as he would be willing to approach to a full-bore eschaton.  There is also the God problem.  Is the putative phase shift simply a natural phenomenon, or could it be tied to a cosmic plan?  This would need to be sorted out before we try to get more people involved.  The others need not be exposed to a pissing match.  

We could just say that this other universe will be less physical.  It will be more susceptible to anomalous and psychic phenomena.  The dear departed may already have transited, by other means.  Maybe what is next door is an artificial universe.  The best that money and unlimited energy can produce.  

There is a meeting tomorrow with the secondary interlocutor.  There will need to be a discussion of the present state of the aviary.  Who can be reactivated and how, and for what purpose?  There may also be a discussion of the Illuminati, per his request. 

[7/27] 

Where I can be helpful to Ron and, hopefully, to others is in my temerity in grappling with the biggest issues.  The biggest of all is the God question.  I am not aware that this question has ever been addressed in its fullest generality at any time in recorded history.  On previous attempts there has always been an array of presuppositions which has sharply limited the scope of the assertions or discussion.  

Theology would be the logical venue for entertaining the God question.  That profession, however, has come to be polarized into either sectarian or secular denominated institutions.  The ball has been dropped.  If you asked me to name an author who has come closest to matching the above ideal, I would have to reference Augustine or Aquinas, but only with considerable reservation.  Here I attempt to pick up the ball for, perhaps, the very first time. 

There is now just one presupposition.  God is a semi-rational actor, and we are semi-rational beings, both to the extent that entails an overlap of rationality sufficient for a substantive discussion.  Without this assumption, we can go back to staring at the walls of our cave.  That is the starting point for these web pages.  

Rather early in any such deliberation, one encounters the issue of eschatology.  Here has been no exception.  This issue, if it cannot be properly set aside, will naturally acquire a high priority.  That is where this discussion presently resides. 

According to my theological reasoning, the best possible God will be self-limiting in favor of the creatures.  This is particularly the case in regard to any eschatological issues.  Creation is participatory to the optimal extent, and this includes the Eschaton.  What does this imply? 

The clear implication is that we creatures should be expecting to step up to the plate in a major way, come eschaton time.  How could this be arranged?  And what about the timing?  We examine the possibilities. 

I have not proven that there will be an eschaton.  I have not proven there is a God, nor that this is the best possible world.  Science, however, has demonstrated that the world is comprehensible, but that same science has no explanation for this paramount fact, and neither does pantheism.  Thus does science, very expeditiously, lead us right back to the God question.  Given an unnaturally coherent world, it is my reasoned contention that an (unnatural) eschaton is very probably entailed.  The timing then becomes the main issue. 

The simplest answer is that the Eschaton could come at any time.  It is our responsibility to be reasonably prepared for that eventuality.  There has never been any discussion outside of strictly sectarian confines on the issue of preparation.  What might such preparation reasonably entail?  That bring us to the proposed eschaton focus group.  That is our logical starting point.  The first step is to set an agenda for this group. 

[7/28] 

The networking with the former avians seems to be moving ahead.  There are now three of us in this new initiative.  There are three more critical players to get connected with.  There is much old business to rehash and attempt to resolve.  I will soon be away from the computer on a two week vacation.  By the time I return there should be a good indication as to the future of this initiative.  If the results are negative with regard to the phenomenological problem, there will still be significant information to be placed in the public domain, as a guide to any future investigation.  

If the results are positive, then there would be justification for briefing someone like Jim Woolsey, and others as well, including a legislator or two.  And then, of course, there would have to be a journalist or two.  

--------------------------

Now there is the matter of counterintelligence.  Sophia didn't tell me this was part of my job description.  I'm an idealist in every sense of the word.  I have no doubt that this is the best possible world, not just for today, not just for tomorrow, but forever.  We live here on the margin of forever, but there is nothing marginal about the meaning of every life.  

There is talk of Armageddon.  There is talk of division and dominion.  But whose plan is this?  Is this God's plan?  We hear a lot about scripture, but who has the script?  Certainly I do not.  I have just what everyone has, a mustard seed of faith.  And I have the sure knowledge that this faith is the cornerstone of our reality.  

[7/29] 

In other words, there are people who lack faith in God's infinite love.  I have been there and lacked that, too.  Only by God's grace does the mustard seed flower.  And so there are folks who take these matter into their own hands.  We all do, from time to time.  This is part of our participation in Creation, but it is supposed to be a partnership.  Sharing in faith, hope and charity is as far as the partnership is supposed to go.  Crusading and jihad have always been viewed as questionable forms of participation, at the best. 

The eschaton focus group might serve as a way to smoke out other groups who have more nefarious designs concerning the eschaton.  The introduction of Aliens or ultra-terrestrials contributes additional uncertainty to the mix, and might well give pause to some potential bad actors.  At the least, we could serve as a stalking horse.  

In order to create smoke, one does have to play with fire.  If the intent were to use the EFG as a kind of backfire, the plan could backfire.  The preventive measure could trigger the disease rather than inoculate against it.  This particular EFG initiative might be considered to be the least virulent form of the virus that could be constructed.  Better then to do a calibrated release than to wait for some more random event.  This is the minimal preemption of the eschatological force. 

How might Jack & Co. view this operation?  It will help to emphasize the physical aspects of it.  Jack already has a physical model for a portal.  The recent publicity given to the skepticism regarding the wormhole version of the portal might provide Jack's alternative with some extra visibility.  What is less obvious is the political angle.  Using Alien technology to put the kybosh on the Mossad's and the neo-cons' NWO would be a starter.  The EFG, if properly presented, could become a distraction to the Christian right-wingers, further undermining the neo-con designs.  We go back to the idea that the seeds of modern Millennialism might have been planted, in part, by the early Zionists, as a way of diverting attention from our ultra-terrestrial imperative.  Our job is to break the chains that bind us to the mundane.  Jack & I ought to be able to collaborate on this basis. 

The conspiracy theorists see the Global Cabal as collaborating with the bad ET's to keep us chained to the Earth.  This is similar to the Gnostic view that the Church was in cahoots with the demiurge, i.e. Satan, to that same end.  Their quest was to find the magic formula that would break the bonds of the planetary logoi.  Alchemy was just one spin-off of this effort.  Their quest was to overcome the symmetry breaking to return to the Monad or Godhead.  

The EFG appeals to the Visitors as our potential liberators.  Their portal technology is just the ticket we need to ride.  The Hieros Gamos need only be a step away. 

[7/30] 

I need to redirect attention from the sky to the ground.  This is more of a hollow earth notion.  Physicists will object.  If the portals are already in place, it becomes more a matter of politics than physics.  As Bill has pointed out, Jack has unfinished business and stuff to prove relative to his colleagues in physics.  It will be hard to redirect his territorial instincts. 

A counterintelligence angle comes with all those attempting to manipulate the eschaton and any associated messianics.  The EFG is an attempt to false flag any such 'competing' groups.  I'm not sure how Jack would view his own participation.  I would need to work with Hal in the same fashion, but Jack may not allow that.  Perhaps I need to go to Hal first, but neither Ron or BJ seem to be amenable.  That leaves me with Gordon. 

Will Jack buy into the eschaton as a way to evangelize his physics?  That is possible.  He has come close before.  He won't want to miss the action.  I need a road trip to Austin & SF.  Ron will have to help me with BJ.  Maybe Bill can help.  

If Ron is doing this stuff, then there must be other intels doing the same, whether or not they subscribe to the premise.  It's just another intel watering hole where every agenda gets its thumb in the pie.  It's a game that no one can afford to ignore.  With Ron, we can help to set a few of the agendas. 

Jack and I have to agree how to divide the work and divvy the 'spoils'.  If he won't give up anything, I'll be forced to take up with Hal and Gordon.  He works the physics while I work the politics and theology.  He seems to recognize the franchise I have with Ron, although he is wont to challenge even that.  Jack will have to make some choices and commitments. 

As for the eschaton itself, J & I can agree that there will be a general desire to leave the earth when it is possible to do so.  Then we will get into the problem of our destination, i.e. will the desire be prompted by material or non-material remuneration?  Does our destiny lie beyond space & time or not?  

JS would agree that our ultimate destiny is at least in a virtual reality, but could that be distinguished from a metaphysical domain?  And why not place that domain on the other side of the portal?  Would another sojourn in space-time, a repetition of our need to leave here be any positive inducement?  Is mere multiplication sufficient inducement?  John Leslie would argue against our being at the start of an exponential process. 

Jack's scenario just doesn't make sense.  If we're not the first ones, then where are we in the process?  What is our special story?  Have we not been left behind already?  But how can I bring these physics types around to the metaphysics?  How does their physics fit into the picture?  Is Hal part of the problem or part of the solution?  I'm going to have to cut them out of the physics herd, but that is the locus of too much of their identity.  They have no other means of self-expression.  We cannot just ignore the scientific enterprise.  It must have a deeper meaning.  There are some critical points that remain unconnected. 

[7/31] 

We may need to work parallel tracks through Jack and Gordon to other members of the aviary.  There must be someone besides Ron who suspects an eschatological angle.  At least they would suspect a social or religious angle that remains to be covered.  It is not all just a conspiracy to keep us away from free energy.  It is not just a technical issue.  This makes it imperative to get back to Rick.  

But how do we work the social side of this issue?  If there is no deadline for 'transmigration', how can we expect to expedite it?  There is no urgency.  It is not clear where BJ fits into this picture.  In this case I might just as well join a disclosure initiative.  That would be the only positive alternative. 

If Jack is given to believe that the EFG is only for counterintel proposes, he will not be able to treat it effectively.  

[8/25] 

Long time no blog.  

We were on vacation, and then were getting our son off to college.  Besides that I have been fairly busy in the Sarfatti email group.  If anyone perusing these pages wishes to join that discussion, you may contact Jack directly, or just drop me a line. 

A continuing issue for the EFG is to obtain the cooperation of the avians.  I regret that resistance on that front continues, but I have not given up yet.  

Without their cooperation, it will not be easy to maintain an effective eschatological discussion with Jack's folks who are mainly physics types.  They have been patient so far.  I would generally prefer to operate in dialog mode, and that will be my first priority, probably to the temporary detriment of this site.  Jack has archived some of those exchanges in the past.  There is a person who does that.  I may not get around to doing that here; it can be tedious. 

[8/29] 

Dear Diary, 

Bill says it's OK to blab here, because no one will read this, no one, that is, who would or could do anything public about what is written here. 

You may refer back to the 5/1 entry, when the current initiative began.  Yesterday there may have been the first break.  One of the principals claimed to have received a classified briefing relative to ufos.  I know of only one other person who has ever made that claim.  This has made a big impression on me.  I'm writing here to collect my thoughts.  Also doing it here because Jack expresses disinterest, and because Bill advises not to dribble this out in public. 

Is this going to be sufficient to set the world on fire?  I consulted with Gus Russo, the local author/investigator.  He says there would be very little he could do short of getting his own briefing.  The person who told me is certainly not willing to go public in the foreseeable future.  The next test will be to see what Mr. P. says about this development.  He has always maintained a posture of ignorance.  This will now be more difficult, which is not to say that he won't keep trying.  But will he admit that this is a possibly serious development, requiring follow up.  

I was beginning to get tired of once again being caught up in the usual aviary runaround.  P had gotten me back on the core story, which is mainly the Doty story which has been recounted on these pages, and in many places on the internet.  What I was trying to do was get Rick to recount to me the reason he was given for the withholding of the info.  I recall his saying something about potential damage to our cherished beliefs, but after centuries of the scientific deconstruction of our former beliefs, it's hard to imagine what beliefs might still be vulnerable.  

For what other reason might the non-hostile visitors and their human interlocutors be holding back on the rest of us.  About the only explanation that would make sense to me would be something of an eschatological nature.  This was the only angle on the Doty story that was of potentially great interest to me.  I got Rick on the line along with two other avians and started asking about this and he kept putting me off.  In exasperation I asked him to confirm what he had told me of his story on the phone several years back.  Still evasion.  Then I started after one of the others, just to confirm the barest outline of the story.  He in turn became very evasive, and this evasion began to register as peculiar and unnecessary.  So I kept pressing, and that was when the above claim was made, by way of excusing the reticence about information that ostensibly is in the public domain. 

Now what?  I need to get a feel from P as to whether this claim was intended to be a deliberate part of this new EFG initiative.  Or was it a fluke that everyone will now deny?  

If we move forward, I will have to begin shifting from dealing with these matters as something hypothetical, into another mindset, another m.o.  I'm not quite sure how easy that shift may or may not be.  Death is an abstraction up to the point of a terminal diagnosis.  It takes on a whole new meaning.  That's where I am.  It is not just my death that is at issue.  Sobering.  Perhaps I will not wish to venture further.  After all the years of impatience, I now may drag a foot.  Or not. 

How many folks have reached this juncture, knowing the eschaton was likely in the balance?  Who besides P and me?  Even all the members of the 'putative' MJ12 might not have had a need to know this.  They would know it by now, however.  P claims not to have known until after my arrival. 

[8/30] 

When did P know about the book?  My informant would have been briefed in the time frame of the Hennessy/Weaver meeting, i.e. c. 1990.  P would have been informed about then.  They had both managed to penetrate.  This would still have been fresh when I made the scene.  It would have given some urgency to the crop circle phenomenon.  This would have been when P disbanded the Phenomenology Group. 

P's early comment about going to visit the visitors, could have been relatively serious.  What about the other avians?  What about the Red Book and Dale.  That may have been what tipped off P.  He learned that Dale had been visited after the Ft. Huachuca incident.  But then why would Dale have been loose lipped, if Anthony was an MJ12 member?  The gossip would have been contained?  Dale and Rick probably would have seen the yellow book at about the same time, by c. 1985.  There was an upswing in activity about when Carter was finally briefed c. 1978.  There might have been thought of going public then, c. Rick's 1987 TV show.  Then again after the wall came down.  Then eschatology became a factor, at least by 1991, and that quieted things down for awhile.  Has John not been briefed?  Yes, but not on the eschaton.  Then we waited for the millennium and 9/11?!   This does make my 9/11 speculation more likely.  

How much have the avians compared notes?  Surely Bill and George W have been briefed.  About the eschaton?  Would they not find it on the internet?   Would they not have found out about Ron's special role?  Not about 9/11.  What about Straub?  He must have been briefed also, before we met.  He would have sussed the eschaton.  The republicans on the ssci would have been briefed possibly because of W.  Does this put Iraq in a new light?  Would Straub not have been briefed relative to Bill?  Maybe only his boss.  What about Dick D'Amato?  Ron would have been the youngest in the circle.  Ron could have briefed the Chinese in the time-frame of the Hughes 'incident'.  How do all these folks go on with their lives?  They don't need to take it personally.  Would Schnable not have suspected this? 

If visitors could not have come up with a better excuse for reticence, the eschaton would have come up in the early days.  When did it become more than a hypothesis?   P was reported to have said he knew stuff that the pres was not allowed to know.  This was by '98.  Something besides the time-line and 9/11?  Not the eschaton, however?  Recall that Billy Graham was in this loop, so was Nixon.  Surely Billy had a handle on the big e.  That could not have been withheld from any President since Ike.  There could hardly be a briefing that did not reference the big e, unless there were a major effort to spoof a bad alien presence.  But you could not maintain those compartments.  Leakage would be major.  The bad alien story was mainly for external consumption, for those who knew something but were not briefed.  

Still, a president would have to personally request a briefing.  Maybe W forgot to ask.  What about the VP?  What about Gorbachev?  Could the yellow book be transported overseas?  How would foreign officials have their information validated?  They would need a piece of the rock.  Former presidents would play a role.  Rick plays a crucial role in spoofing the story.  How about the Hollywood types? 

About now I will be attempting to track down Ron.  I may try to meet with Dale, in this area, before going out to see Rick.  If Ron is still on the boat, it will be difficult.  I'll call BJ, but he does seem a bit on edge. 

[8/31] 

XXX, et al.,

There is more to be said about our situation: 

In almost any persistent pattern of social interaction, there will arise issues of authority. Usually these issues are fairly well defined, and can be easily resolved. If not, then disputes will arise and there will exist various mechanisms that may be employed determine the legal or extra-legal authority.

We are here dealing with a very special problem of authority. Part of it is summed up in the clichéd cartoon of the space alien saying, 'Take me to your leader.'

In our case with the visitors, we may presume, that in some appropriate fashion, that request has been granted. If there have occurred any such interactions on US territory, then there would legally have to be some minimum of Presidential oversight. The protocols for those interactions would understandably have, at least, the tacit approval of whomever is the current President.

When someone tells me that they have not been authorized to divulge information related to the visitors, we may both assume that the authorization ultimately rests with the President. It should all be very straightforward.

Where do I fit into this picture? Well, consider the case of Susan Lindauer, as reported in this week's New York Times Magazine. Susan felt that our communications with Iraq had broken down. She took it upon herself to be a back channel of communication between Baghdad and DC. She did this over a period of several years with the partial knowledge of Andy Card at the White House, and also in partial consultation with a former CIA agent.

Sound familiar? Needless to say, Susan has been charged by the FBI with operating as an unregistered foreign agent. She is free on bail, facing a sentence of up to 10 years in jail.

Is there not here an object lesson? Perhaps.

I too feel that there has been a breakdown in communications, cosmic in this case, and I too am taking it upon myself to make amends, apparently in contravention of a duly constituted authority. That is the way that xxx presently views my efforts.

There is a major caveat here: the putative cosmic message may address matters that would generally, and even legally, be viewed as religious in nature. This would be the case if the message were eschatological.

If this caveat actually did apply, the President would be in a legal bind: constitutional separation of church and state. What's a Pres to do? Hand the matter over to the duly constituted religious authority? Unfortunately there is no such thing. I am willing to speculate, however, that, at the very least, Billy Graham and the Pope would have been apprised of, and consulted on this matter. I am aware that John and Victoria have made several trips to the Vatican, for instance. If the visitors had wanted one of these gentlemen to handle this matter, I don't doubt that they could have arranged for a copy of the Yellow Book to be delivered directly to the Vatican. And quite possibly, that has already been arranged.

Am I now not digging myself deeper into the authority hole? Am I not only questioning the implied authority of the President, but now also that of the Pope?  

My only direct knowledge concerning authority in this matter stems from my brief encounter with 'Sophia' c. 1977. After that encounter I was left with the distinct impression that I was being invited to operate under the authority of the 'Spirit of Truth', concerning whatever information was going to have to be revealed. BTW, I was not then an eschatologist. In 1991 this was the proposition that I put to Ron. It was several years later that Ron came back to me, in reference to the 'Aquarium', saying that 'everyone knew' that he was Catfish and that I was Sunfish. Do I need to review here the manner in which I have chosen to publicly interpret that remark?

These are the parameters under which I have chosen to operate. My only effective access to any duly constituted authority is Ron. Is this not also the case for each of us? It is only Ron who is clearly lodged in the secular chain of command.

I have argued and presented evidence to the effect that my interactions with Ron and my eschatological/spiritual proclivities have very likely come to the attention of the highest levels of not only our government, but of other governments as well. It may well behoove us to review the evidence and inference.

What I am suggesting is the likelihood that I am, through, Ron, operating as a contingent authority, i.e. we'll give the poor chap some rope and see if he can hang himself. I am just a part of a larger eschaton contingency plan and process.

Is it presumptive to suppose that if either the President or the Pope took serious offense to any of my actions, that the Ron & Dan show could not be very easily recalled and recanted? I think not.

Until such time as some better authority intervenes in this little soap opera, I contend that there is a strongly implied obligation for those already involved in this process to stay this course. Just by being where we are and when we are, we are the designated guinea pigs in this cosmic 'experiment'.

If you choose not to participate, my only recourse is a moral one. If you think I will not exercise that recourse to my utmost ability, and if you think my ability in that regard is lacking, well, shall we give it a try??

Dan

-----------------------------------

Bill and I are having trouble believing that the avians would never have gossiped about who did and did not get a briefing.  Ron has had to give his own (skeptical?) briefings.  How could he do that in good faith if he had not pressed this question upon his colleagues.  How could they suppose he did not have a need to know?  Should he not have been the first among them, after Rick to be briefed. 

I would be very reluctant to enter into a contract to no longer discuss these matters with most other folks.  I would have to be given a very good reason not to do that.  

I now recall a point in time that the person in question told me that he had to submit a list of people he would normally talk to (about these matters?), and that he had to cross off many of the names.  Ron and I were two of the remaining names, allegedly.  But then I heard very little after that.  I'm guessing this would have been around 1993.  Perhaps Ron and I were not actually on the list.  He was quite specific saying that he had not talked to Ron about it for the last 13 years.  But would that mean that Ron has still not been briefed?   Or, say, not until this past April?  Perhaps Ron held out on purpose, as I probably would.  Someone would have to brief the unbriefable, like me. 

The security ground rules would have to be spelled out before being required to sign anything.  That might give away a lot.  How many turn it down?  Ron would quickly surmise he had been left out.  He must have had a back channel source that would pertain to me and the eschaton.  He would actually have been in deeper.  

This person said that 'we don't say we believe stuff on one level that we would deny on the classified level'.  Thus they are not allowed to give out disinformation.  It might have been convenient for Ron and the other to have gotten their different briefings at about the same time.  But that would not quite square with his Los Alamos comment to me in '91.  It might explain why in our final meeting with Chris, that we could only talk about tiger protection.  Dick d'Amato would have been briefed relative to D, so why was I supposed to pester him? 

Now it seems that Linda Howe may have been Rick's primary outlet for the core story.  That would have been a decade before my time.  Rick has always claimed that he was authorized to release this info. 

But Rick is now claiming that he was not the source for some of what Linda allegedly attributed to him.  Are we back to the Doty clones?? 

Rick has said that Ron was hanging around with a couple of MJ12 types.  I doubt that BJ was. 

[9/1] 

OK, here is a synopsis of the briefing schedule or structure. 

Witness briefing -- You are a government employee and an inadvertent witness or perhaps a celebrity, and your talking too much could cause problems.  You are told that the situation is being handled, and that if you cause more problems you will have to be given the Bennewitz briefing.  You will be told more than you want to know, and your mental stability will be put in jeopardy.  10,000. 

AA briefing -- Alien Artifacts/Alien Autopsy.  You have a need to know something.  This is the lowest level.  The emphasis is on physical evidence.  You may be shown artifacts and/or films -- such as the Alien Autopsy film, which may have been a staged training film, with some degree of accuracy.  

Techie briefing -- You will be told about programs to reverse engineer artifacts.  You may be pointed to the work of Hal Puthoff.  This briefing may just be an extension of the previous one.  In both cases we learn that the aliens are non-cooperative.  They are withholding technology until we are prepared for it.  5,000. 

Yellow Book briefing -- You are given a synopsis of the history of visitor/human interactions.  There is more emphasis on the 'religious' content.  You are told that there is a message that we don't want to hear.  About one thousand people have reached this level. 

PE/Chicken Little briefing -- This is the Presidential Eschaton briefing, only for cabinet/senatorial level and up, but only very few of those, like the DCI and heads of intel committees.  Billy Graham often presided.  They may be warned about the R & D show, which they could also easily discover on their own.  100 at this level, not counting whomever has transited the portal.  This level likely connected with the Red Book.  BJ was not told  about this book.  Some foreign heads of state and DCIs have access.  Straub got this just before our meeting.  

TX11 briefing -- Too sensitive for the Pres.  Ron got this briefing c. 1998 when he told Susan that he knew stuff that the Pres could not hear.  TX11 was the 'eschaton code' I fed to Ron c. 1996.  Ostensibly it referred to the 1999 eclipse, but in retrospect it also referred to IX11, get it??  This level has to do with specifics of the time-line.  10 at this level, mainly coordinated by the visitors.  This may even be above MJ12. 

There you have it.  This is subject to emendation, of course. 

To go beyond the witness briefing you need a religious base or support group, or your own spiritual resources.  Otherwise, paranoia is the result. 

My guess is that BJ may have, for those 13 years, thought that he was above Ron's level.  Only now is he guessing otherwise.  From what Bill said at the time, I can now deduce that Hal may have figured out this structure when I met him at the SSE meeting in Charlotte, c. 1993.  

Security is maintained by graduated releases, such as with Rick and the AA film, not to mention the R & D show, and the rest of Hollywood.  Now the end game comes into play. 

The above is a grossly oversimplified schematic.  Every level of briefing is tailored to the situation.  There may always be gossip and speculation that blurs the levels. 

Is the Pres told there is another level?  Does the Iraq business fit into this other level?  How much input from this level goes into the White House, and in what manner? 

[9/13] 

In preparation for the first EFG meeting on Wednesday, I posed a counterintelligence problem: consider the possibility that the Aviary might be a pro-active, preemptive move against attempts at the hostile exploitation of phenomenology.   It could function as a backfire to contain and control the larger conflagration. 

Would this make sense even if there were no phenomena, or no visitors?  There are two problems.  Such an entity could quickly come to know the truth of the matter: if there were any core to the phenomena or to the exploitation of them.  Would it not then be able to stand down?  Has it done so?  

This leads us to the second problem: my own participation relative to the Aviary.  Up until last May, I could have said that 'we' had stood down.  Since then there has been an upswing in our activity.  Was there simply another outbreak that needed re-containment?  With my involvement, is there anticipated another outbreak of eschatological fever?  How then would the backfire strategy work?  Would it not backfire? 

The EFG simply does not fit into this counterintelligence rationale.  Is it preemptive messianism?  Preempted by whom and for whom?  We'll just have to find out.  Little doubt remains, however, as to the fact of oversight at the highest levels.  For instance, the message that the President was 'furious' had only one intended recipient.  Was the Anderson article a spoof?  I'd say it was too subtle to be that, yet, too obvious to be other than a signal.  The eschaton is not a toy.  I cannot imagine who might toy with it.  The Ron & Dan show is much too unlikely to be a mere plot.  It is more like a surprise that is still unfolding. 

Then there is the problem of the wire service.  There will have to be an artifact or a signed statement by someone in the chain of command.  We could arrange for an editor to have a visitation, and then print a background article that would include hints of eschatology.  This sounds about right.  It might already be in the works.  The editor would talk to GHW and then have an interview with Charlene.  Only the background story would be published.  There would be a stringer's name who would handle the follow-up questions.  This would get the internet heated up.  There is not much more that I have a need to know at this point.  Is there anything else to happen first?  After thirteen years, it wasn't going to take much to get me back up to speed.  Who else must be brought up to speed?  Who if not a journalist?  Possibly someone like Steve Bassett, but he is stuck with the ET scenario.  He could not extricate himself from that, politically.  Nor is there too much more that Jack could do at this point without sounding flaky, relatively speaking.  I could ask to bring a journalist to the next BJ&R meeting.  There may just be a built-in hold as in the Shuttle launches.  If so, they ought to be able to tell me.  The article would allude to phenomenology and the eschaton.  That would be sufficient to provide me with leverage on the internet.  It would contain some of my phraseology.  I would tell folks that it was coming.  That would be a big deal.  I could do a draft of it here.  I'll have to think about that. 

The article would have to include an interview with a former government official, possibly Woolsey.  There is a serious problem with phenomenology, which could impact our scientific worldview.  This would be sufficient for my purposes, especially if I were given advance notice.  This would also justify my consultation with philosophers and scientists.  That could be done as part of the EFG initiative. 

Would or could this article avoid any mention of ufos?  It would have to refer to a specific phenomenon.  Would the mere granting of the interview be a sufficient news hook?  

[9/14] 

I don't see how any mention of phenomenology can avoid the topic of ufos.  This would apply to any interview of Woolsey on the putative phenomenology problem.  Could that be limited to crop circles, for example?  What about dredging up remote viewing again, and say the case is not closed?  Just consider the Phenomenology Network.  Would it have to mention Ron?  Could Jim deal with it?  All we have to say is that the door cannot be closed on phenomenology.  And this would be apropos of what?  Some recent example?  Perhaps it could be given a postmodern slant.  

[9/21] 

It looks like the EFG is back on hold until the next meeting, which would not be before the middle of next month.  Presumably, with each visible step that I take, other less visible steps are required.  I shake the tree, and then others wait to see what falls out.  It can get tedious. 

In the interim I would like to get back to my perennial problem with atoms.  The problem is whether and how to ascribe upward causation to atoms.  Phenomenal cycles can carry much or most of the causal burden of atoms, but perhaps not all of it, at least not with the present understanding of such cycles.  I'll need to consider special cases individually.  One such is to explain the functionality of medicines.  To explain penicillin, one would first need to explain bacteria, which in its turn entails the explanation of cells in general.  This brings us back to the basic metabolic cycles.  If cells did not exist, we would have to invent, which we have.  

Given the hydro-cycle, atoms and cells fall into place.  One could say the same of germination..  That brings up the issue of evolutionary coherence.  This may also be a basic need which brings us back to Jurassic Parc and even Pokatok.  This brings us back to Aristotle & Plato.  By the way, there is a good article by Max Tegmark on parallel universes that contains a brief but significant discussion of A & P and the nature of reality, toward the end of the essay.  The question posed is whether reality is patterned more on words or formulas.  

Jurassic Parc could be greatly facilitated by implementing a goodly measure of Lamarckism, but it would be difficult to control or limit.  There is also genetic engineering, begging the question of materialism.  One would need an exit strategy for any experimental process.  How difficult is it too turn teleology on, and then turn it off?  Then consider the teleology of medicine, getting back to the original problem.  

[9/22] 

We have a division of labor between internal and external teleology.  To what extent may the Telos avail itself of human cognition, after the fact?  This would just leave us with a bootstrap problem to solve, but we already have that with the ouroboros.   This would also entail upward causation at the human level.  Could that process not be translated to the atomic level?  From whence would the atoms derive their substantiality, and would it not require consciousness?  This might tell us something about the aviary/MJ12 phenomenon that does seem to be critical in the in the interface between cosmic and terrestrial intelligence and counterintelligence.  It could be that mathematics is playing the role of Cs (actually more like instinct) on the atomic level.  In that case the Av/MJ might be the MGrp, the fearful symmetry. 

What then can be said of medicine?  Think of the shaman and his potions, a special dietician, using interspecies communication.  Certainly there are formulas.  Is the bomb just another potion coming out of the anthropic MG?  The physicists were the midwives, using formulas instead of forceps, to bring down the solar bambino, which is also CL and the Islam flag. 

If logic did not exist, could we have invented it?  Ditto for the electron.  It is how the chain of being becomes the ouroboros.  That brings us back to pi.  A tiger named Pi?  In many of these cases there is a potential chain reaction which can be eschatological.  We get to pick our potion? 

It is not clear how to apply teleology or the observer principle to math.  How do we bring Aristotle to bear on this subject?  Is not the BPW akin to the fixed Platonic Good?  What is the basic difference between instinct and logic?  If math didn't exist, either we or the electrons would have invented it.  Could there be any virtual sporadic groups, like Regge resonances?  The sporadic groups involve finite projective geometries and lattice packings.  There is an organic quality of math, for which Plato cannot account.  This quality may be perceived only by an organic being.  Relationalism abounds. 

[9/23] 

Today I meet with CF and a sometimes reliable source to see about connecting some aviary dots.  What did they know and when did they know it?  How many sources?  Why do some talk, and some don't?  Is anyone in charge?  Is Charlie?  Or is this a Matrix operation?  Just some basic issues.  I have to be careful about 9/11 with this chap.  Not sure how that might wash.  I don't think he sees a plan.  He sees us as being subjects of ET.  What about the Yellow Book?  How does he account for that?  He says they are here mainly to create more ETs out of us.  That 'hybridization' stuff can fit into an 'evacuation' preparation scenario.  Is there any other rationale?  Apokatastasis is not big on his list.  It's not clear whether GN wants to fight the ETs by stealing their technology, as with Jack.   
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Topical Index

7/9/04

More of the Same 

My poor neglected diary, but the more things change, the more they stay the same. 

The meeting with Gordon N. did not go well, in my estimation.  This guy is a great actor or entirely clueless in Las Vegas.  This is the Forrest Gump of assassinations and tape erasures.  He could stumble into MJ12 and stumble right out again.  

I demanded a meeting with CF on Friday.  He says I am too impatient with Gordon.  Be that as it may.  I'm not working for Central Casting.  

I did have three questions for CF.  With regard to the Woolsey briefing of GHWB, he tells me not to waste my time.  The presidents cannot be players.  You tell them what you have to tell them, and then hope you don't have to put them down.  Democracy and capitalism are not the be all and end all of human existence.  Was JFK dumb enough to get himself and his brothers sidelined?  Did they mean well, or were they trying to upstage Charlie and Sophia?  Headstrong, I think they call it.  They never knew what they were going up against until it was too late.  Now there are better safeguards in place.  

As for BJ's briefing in the desert, it had to do with reverse engineering.  There is some truth to that idea, but it ain't about saucers, Hon, it's about Creation, if you get my drift.  BJ is still POed at me and still on his code of silence.  Each to their own.  CF is bringing BJ back to the company in three weeks, but evidently he forgot to tell him, so I had to. 

Finally I asked him about the Anderson article.  What article, he asks?  Well, then, you've answered my question, says I.  Long pause......  Oh, that article, says he!  Typical.   

It does turn out that CF is buddies with Porter.  That could be interesting.  He may get a Bigelow on his floor, instead of the usual newspapers.  He did wonder about Bill doing a write-up on Gordon.  Bill has been thinking more about a reprise of the AAE article done with REG, but placing it with Tina Brown in a few months.  Do you think that we or she are ready for that?  That would really be humping the ol' timeline.  I'll have to ask 'Dr. Felini' about that.  Hey, that's a good one, Bill!  

Dr. F did manage to throw a curve, he always does.  This was an old curve, but with new spit.  It's about the missing source.  Seems like we did really have a 'five martini' source back in the 70s with Grillflame.  But it weren't Pat Price, and maybe not even Charlie.  Might it have been Sophia/Graff, without the Graff?  My response is that the source probably never went away, but just shape-shifted, as usual.  Witness TX11.  

I'll have to ask him next time about the missing money that Dick D'amato went chasing out in the desert.  How much is missing?  Is it just billions, or could it be trillions?  There aren't that many grains of sand out there.  How much would it cost to buy a doormat for the Green door? 

What next?  Who knows?  

There is still the question of how Gordon got hooked up with Hal.  This appears to have happened under the aegis of the LA Scientology chapter referenced on the previous page in connection with Parsons.  Dr. F. is not innocent of such a connection, either.  It is a small world.  

[9/29] 

It may well be that the timing of the activation of the EFG was partially geared to the election cycle, simply to remove that additional variable.  Related to this timing is the change of DCI.  That would indicate that the agency would be the focus of governmental shifting, rather than the administration proper.  

The Iraq business is just an extension of the cold war: a focusing distraction that also provides some cover, particularly on the intelligence side.  This would be adequate justification for a minimal loss of life.  The heightened clash of cultures and religions does provide a suitable backdrop for the EFG/Y2C.  

There is a second meeting today with BJ.  He has been the most vocal opponent of the EFG.  I would like to see some movement, but past experience argues against rising expectations.  How can he stand up to the JackA91 and John16?  Is the handwriting not on the wall?  Is it not a fait accompli?  

CF has pointed to the missing Source as being of greater intelligence significance than the visitation, per se.  Is this simply another pointer to the EFG, and its linkage to 9/11?   There were also the exchanges with BobbyK, NancyE and ChrisS that point to the 'take charge' phrase used on CompUServe, and underscored by JackA.   

BJ must understand that the sequestration had a sunset provision from the beginning.  It makes no sense and could not have worked otherwise.  It was an acclimation project from the beginning.  The EFG is the logical denouement of that project.  It was never just an addendum. 

Also there is the likelihood that Osama is at the PE/CL level.  Iraq leaves him undercover.  He would have a role to play in the EFG.  This would also relate to the 9/16 Zoo meeting.  Everything happens at the Zoo.   Does this mean there might be ~10K folks at this level?  Is that a stretch?  What can we expect, leading up to the election?  Any more 'surprises'?  

My next step might be to get cranked into the Arlington Institute.  I'll have to ask about that.  

OK, so the meeting turned into a phone call.  It went perfectly well.  He remains open to most ideas, and as long as we can communicate, that is the main thing.  Whatever reservations he has, can probably be worked around, and may be useful as points of discussion. 

CF had stated that the reverse engineering program is a fiction, useful or official though it may be.  I stated that I had never supposed that visitation and engineering had to be connected, but BJ stated that in his briefings they always were connected.  If CF had wanted to deny the visitation, which is my thing, he would have done so, but, no, he singled out just the engineering component for his skepticism.  

Also BJ had heard about the prospective promotion several months ago from someone he considered nutty.  This is in accord with my conclusion that this has been in the works for some time.  It is part of the main timeline. 

At this point I should switch back to email mode, but don't go away. 

XXX, 

Permit me please to burden you with some additional speculation.  You are encouraged to play the Devil's advocate here, if that role continues to suit you.

The major item on my plate is the putative promotion.  As you know, I have been waiting for the breaking of the 'glass ceiling' vis a vis the EFG.  This would be tantamount to that.  If CF becomes more visible, then so surely will the eschaton, and I'll wager that is the whole point of it, with all due respect to CF himself.

The fact that you may have heard about this several months ago does tend to confirm this view: that it is part of the main timeline and not just something fortuitous and ad hominem.  That would have been about the same time that Ron moved to reactivate the EFG, strong correlation.  All this goes back at least to the Anderson 1992 article, and probably much further.

This then raises the main issue between the two of us concerning my proactive stance relative to the alleged eschaton.  You are not discounting my eschatological speculations. BTW, what are your independent sources on the eschaton?

My views of it are heterodox in the extreme, by way of anticipating your questions.  I see us as the co-creators of this world, and, in fact, our participation in cosmogenesis, reaches a crescendo in the frame of the eschaton.  It will be a very deliberate and extended participation on our part, very different from the usual Rapture scenario.

It will largely be orchestrated by us and for us, speaking as a Universalist.  The whole visitation process has just been a run-up to this eventuality.  The eschaton baton was being passed to us from on-high.  The ball is now almost completely in our court.

[For the sake of argument, and to distinguish this from the Rapture, I like the Green Door hypothesis.  Charlie and Charlene came here by way of the GD/portal/stargate underground in area 51, say.  That is also meant to be our 'evacuation' route.  You may take it from here.]

The EFG has been groomed, rather carefully, to put a public face on this previously sequestered preparation.  That is just a continuation of what I have been doing from day one in 1991.  The Anderson article was a very significant early endorsement of this process.  But now it will have to become more visible.  I don't see the possibility of many more baby steps here.  At some point it will have to be like jumping into the cold shower, but it will be more like a hot stove.

If the CF and Dan show was ever going anywhere, then this is it.  He is riding shotgun, almost literally.  I get the fun part.  If I were God, this is how I would have planned it.  This is the best possible rapture in the best possible world.  I would be happy to argue this point with you and anyone else.  That's my job!

Let us converse about this.  But you do understand that this conversation will have to be expandable, sooner rather than later.  The conversation starts with you and me, but it cannot end here, certainly not in my estimation.  We will have to establish an expansion protocol ASAP.  No?

Dan

[10/05] 

I will be meeting with Steve Bassett this evening.  My advice will be to caution about fighting against city hall.  Among ufologists there is the presumption of connivance between the establishment and the bad aliens.  There is the further presumption that the good guys will prevail. 

This implies a very considerable myopia on the part of the bad guys.  It implies that they are deliberately picking a fight with cosmic intelligence.  Would this not be a very dumb move?  How many people in the world, if given a clear choice, would side with the devil?  This would be tantamount to nihilism.  If there are nihilists in the world, you would not find them ensconced in the establishment.  True, the establishment might attempt to resist an NWO, but not if it was a fait accompli.  More likely, the smart money would out in front on any NWO.  Capitalists are not genetically disposed to going down with the ship.  They would not be where they are if they were.  The visitors have the contrary problem of keeping their potential suitors at bay for as long as possible.  

How do the visitors manage to remain incognito for an indefinite period?  They can manage this only with an excellent rationale.   It would be hard to imagine a more adequate rationale than that of preparation for an eschaton. 

[10/7] 

Permit me to use this space to compose a message to Jack. 

Jack,

I have to wonder, then, whether there are any limits that can be placed on the power of the mind.

Is there anything that could prevent intelligent beings (IBs) from manipulating the laws of physics. For instance, are there any reasons why an IB could not create a universe with an arbitrary set of physical principles and parameters?

Are there any limits on the robustness of a simulated world that an IB could create?

Is there any good reason to suppose that our world is not one of these created or simulated worlds?

Is there any a priori reason to suppose that Platonic worlds would be favored over Aristotelian worlds, using Max Tegmark's terminology. Physicists like to assume that we inhabit a Platonic world with Aristotelian appearances, but we do not know that it is not actually just the reverse.

One problem here is that we do not know what is the ground or source of existence.

On Tegmark's view, all of the above are possible and, therefore, probable, and equally so.

We would have then complete ontological neutrality: there is no distinction between possibility and actuality.

If there is no distinction between possibility and actuality, then there is no source of being.  If there is only actuality, there is no possibility or potency, and so no source.  This is not in accord with the inflationary model of cosmogenesis.  It is in accord, though, if we take an trans-temporal perspective. 

If there is, however, an actual source of being, that totipotency is susceptible to being co-opted by a principle of vitality.  I suspect that is the case.  It would be like the thermophiles living as close to the vent as possible, and thus potentially regulating that source.  

Another avenue to the same conclusion is to adopt an observer principle: no unobservable worlds.  There is then a vital selection principle attendant upon the Source. 

---------------------------------

Jack,

Clearly your powers of imagination exceed those of Scott.

But the situation of Alien contact is a challenge that ought to truly stretch our powers of imagination to the utmost, assuming there are even any limits in that regard.

If there is ever going to be a motivation for us to think outside the box, then Alien contact ought surely to provide it.

This will certainly be the case if we are dealing with UTs rather than mere ETs. And we surely do not know yet which situation pertains. Are our visitors from Planet X or from Dimension X, or both or none of the above?

How do we know that they do not bring their own reality with them? How do we know that they are subject to our laws of physics, or to any laws at all?

Why is it that this situation, after all these years, is still being handled by intelligence officers and not by scientists?

Do you really suppose that the best minds in the world have not already been recruited to examining these data, probably being given more data than you or I have access to?

Do you suppose that Ron has not had to give briefings at the highest levels? Do you suppose that the possibility of a scientific explanation is not frequently raised?

I submit that the real data have a degree of strangeness that places them outside the physics box. As a physicalist, you may have difficulty countenancing that possibility.  Can you not imagine a phenomenon sufficiently strange or anomalous to place it outside the physics box?  It would only take one such event to blow your reality out of the water.  Do really you want us to bet the future of our civilization on the possibility that not such event has or will occur? 

MJ12 cannot afford to bring their biases and prejudices to their work.  They cannot afford to be constrained by metaphysical prejudices such as your notion of physicalism.  We pay them to consider all the possibilities, do we not?  You are singularly unwilling to do that. 

Is there no scientist in the world to whom you would be willing to submit your ideas and formulas?  Is there no physicist in the world who could peer review your work?  

If not, then what are the rest of us supposed to do?   Are we supposed to turn over the control of MJ12 to you, just on your word.  Imagine how much faith in you that would require of us.  And I thought you said there was no place for faith!  

What is left for us to do?  

[10/12] 

I am currently reading The Twilight of Atheism by Alister McGrath (2004).  It is given only 17 mostly unenthusiastic reviews (sales rank 9,255).  You may compare this with The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris ('04).  This has 123 mostly enthusiastic reviews (sales rank 33).   The reviewer for Salon, Laura Miller, writes: 

There's something inadvertently eloquent about the fact that Alister McGrath's "The Twilight of Atheism" and Sam Harris' "The End of Faith" have been published within a month of each other, as they so perfectly illustrate the triumph of heat over light in this debate. The first book is a semi-disguised crowing session about the subsiding of godlessness in the Western world, the second is a 336-page fulmination on the evils of religion and the urgent need to crush it before it kills us all.  [...]  It's enough to make you suspect that it's no longer possible to have a real conversation about religion.

From the reader response one may gather that Atheism is not riding quietly into the sunset.  There is a tone of stridency in the latter reviews, quite lacking in the former.  

My quarrel with McGrath is in his disavowal of any evidentiary basis for either view.  It then is a matter of taste.  The problem is that the scientific understanding of facts is incommensurate with that of a metaphysical understanding.  There are two types of evidence.  Is the choice between these two paths also a matter of taste.  I think not, simply because the metaphysical view can embrace the physical in a way that is not and cannot be reciprocated.  The metaphysical or spiritual view is capable of much greater comprehension and coherence, than is the scientific. Science may be universal, but metaphysics is cosmic.  Science works within a state of denial of anything metaphysical.  That denial is the basis of its methodology.  Spirit is all encompassing.  Science presumes only efficient causes.  Metaphysics accepts all causes.   Immaterialism can comprehend materialism to a degree that cannot be reciprocated or even countenanced by materialism. 

It is true, however, that I do still struggle to find a comfortable repose for efficient causes in the scheme of final causes.  Jaegwon Kim suggests that final and efficient causes are incompatible in dealing with mental phenomena.  I have yet to formulate an adequate response.  I continue to nibble around the problem.  I am not entirely confident that the elevation or reification of cyclical phenomena can measure up to the task.  

Physics does not recognize causes, nor even the directionality of time except in the phenomenology of thermodynamics.  In, general, science does not pinpoint causes except when dynamic equilibria are disturbed as in the phenomenology of disease, or in other catastrophic incidents.  Storms are not given specific causes, but are seen as components of a complex dynamic system.  In ecology, predators and prey are two components of a system and of an extended food chain.

Previously I have equated materialism with reductionism and so with atomism.  Presumably atoms do not countenance final causes.  Neither do the laws of physics.  You may only ask if a sequence of events is lawful or not.  

Atoms don't strictly exist for physics.  They are hardly even theoretical entities.  What exists practically are the mathematical methods for making predictions.  The methodology only speaks directly to observables or measurements.  Particles and fields are labels that, at best, may be attached to some symbols.  The predictions are only probabilistic.  

Where atoms figure more directly is in the phenomenon of evaporation.  How is an immaterialist meant to cope with this?  Do we merely need to point to the hydro cycle?  Elsewhere I have fallen back on the archetypes in the scheme of  AZO/X/QRP.  Given the hydro cycle and this scheme, something resembling water molecules ought to fall out or emerge without too much difficulty.  Does this credibly spell the end of materialism?  Optimistically, sure.  Without a backup team, this ought to pass first muster.  It should be suggestive of further research.  Presently I feel no pressure to extend this scheme by myself. 

It is one thing to have atoms emerge archetypically, it may be another thing to have them behave properly in all their multiplicity.  Do we need to confer upon them a substantial individuality?  Particles in physics actually have no individual identity.  They are perfectly exchangeable.  Identity, then, is something metaphysical.  It is this (and only this?) something extra that seems to cause the conceptual difficulty with immaterialism.  

From whence comes identity?  Does it not come from introspection?  Can that, or must that introspection be applied to pebbles and grains of sand?  Do they have any self-identity, or is it only conferred by sentience and memory?  When does a rock become a 'pet rock'?  A point to keep in mind here is that all identity is only ever probable, it is never absolute.  No identity is immune from loss or theft.  As something purely relational, actual identity cannot underwrite the necessarily absolute and metaphysical claims of materialism.  

My further claim is that physicalism, without the metaphysics of materialism, has no metaphysical basis of its own.  It is just a useful methodology as noted above.  Without its assumed objective materiality or physicality it is merely a mental construct that would be appropriately susceptible to a teleological override.  Need we argue this?  The least action premise of physicalism is well situated within our best possible world.  

[10/13] 

The Creator, X, conspires to break the symmetry of Z.  Alpha becomes the primordial game of Pokatok, and the Omega goes back to X again in an ouroboric manner.  The A to O is spanned by the QRP archetypes, the metabolic cycles, R, being the principal of these.  The ball court is part of a Jurassic Parc.  The primordial physical object is the ball itself.  I'm not sure what would be the most effective way to introduce the reproductive cycle, but it could be patterned after the ouroboros.  The Zodiacal cycle is the seed that grows into the A/O ouroboric cosmic circuit, as part of the dialectic bootstrap.  Seed production is a key step that remains obscure to me.  The archetype of Pi may come into play here in the form of e^i*pi.  Here we have a logic circuit, of sorts. 

Is there any way to rationalize the origin of the DNA code?  Science does not accept such a challenge.  It can show us a sequence of steps and say this is how it happened.  We are left to wonder about other possibilities. 

To introduce teleology is easier said than done.  Can a DNA code be worked out after the fact of reproduction, or must it be plugged into the process at the start?  How can we relieve the creator of the burden of complexity?  In some sense I am attempting to naturalize Creation with a reasonable use of teleology.  The Telos is in the details.  

[10/14] 

We may wonder as to the limits of complexity.  Perhaps these limits are to be realized only in the Eschaton.  That seems to be the way we are headed.  This complexity will be tantamount to organicity.  Speaking of which, we me wonder how biological complexity relates to social complexity.  The biological is likely a reflection of the social. 

Is there an optimal complexity?  Is complexity good?  Is it a case that everything that can go wrong will go wrong?  The greater the complexity the more we must rely upon the invisible hand to maintain the organic functionality.  

We might also wonder if the Monster Group will define the limits of mathematical complexity.  The Riemann Hypothesis may go beyond that limit.  But the RH also speaks to mathematical organicity, whose source still eludes us. 

We have also noted the physical complexity to be found in the static limit of the infrared catastrophe.  Every particle in every galaxy must contribute to the local fields.  Does this not place too great a burden on the ontology of physicalism, pointing us back toward teleology?  May we anticipate the complexity of a GUT? 

We might also wonder about the role of computers in augmenting or alleviating social complexity.  Could computers ever contribute to our organicity, to our Gemeinschaft?  Consider also the role of capitalism in that regard.  The two problems may be closely related.  Whither economics in these end times? 

Will there have to be any phase changes in the above systems in order to clear the way to the Eschaton?   Would we be able to view such phase changes as other than catastrophic, except in retrospect?  For instance, it might require a breakdown in the external infrastructure in order to jump-start its internal analog, such as from telephony to telepathy.  Any such sudden transition would likely entail enormous loss of life, and so be unlikely in my estimation, as not compatible with the BPWH.  We may anticipate the terrorist threat to remain mainly a threat, where it may well contribute to cohesion.  The nihilists contribute to social cohesion, the way a vaccine contributes to the immune system. 

Let me refer you to Andy Denis' 'The Invisible Hand of God in Adam Smith' (2005):  

Adam Smith is revered as the father of modern economics.  Analysis of his writings, however, reveals a profoundly medieval outlook.  Smith is preoccupied with the need to preserve order in society. His scientific methodology emphasises reconciliation with the world we live in rather than investigation of it.  He invokes a version of natural law in which the universe is a harmonious machine administered by a providential deity.  Nobody is uncared for and, in real happiness, we are all substantially equal.  No action is without its appropriate reward - in this life or the next.  The social desirability of individual self-seeking activity is ensured by the ‘invisible hand’, that is, the hand of a god who has moulded us so to behave, that the quantity of happiness in the world is always maximised.

Shades of the BPWH!  Also note Andy's thesis wherein he treats holism vs. reductionism in economics, Collective and Individual Rationality.

There are a number of remarkable passages and quotations in these works. 

At the level of appearances, Smith says, the world throws up phenomena which appear incoherent and therefore inflame the imagination.  This inflammation is to be regarded as a disagreeable sensation.  ‘When we first encounter anything that is nor familiar or expected, Smith argues, we are struck by the feelings we call Surprise and Wonder.  These are not welcome feelings.’ (Heilbroner, 1986: 15)  The job of a science is to soothe the imagination by suggesting connections between things, and by tracing the unknown back to the familiar, so that the observer may regain his tranquillity.....

[...]Or, more pithily, ‘it is the end of Philosophy, to allay that wonder, which either the unusual or seemingly disjointed appearances of nature excite’ (Astronomy IV.34).  We do not understand what we seek to explain by science, ‘but by categorizing things we come to be at peace with them … We draw the venom of Wonder by applying the poultice of familiarity’ (Heilbroner, 1986: 16). 

For Smith, therefore, it is just irrelevant to talk about the truth or otherwise of the findings of a science - what matters is its success or otherwise in ‘smoothing the passage of the imagination betwixt .... seemingly disjointed objects’ (ibid), it is this criterion alone which we should bear in mind when considering the sequence of schools of thought in a science such as astronomy:

Modernists would deny all such allegations.  Postmodernists would likely nod in agreement. 

(As an aside: it may be that my cycles and Descartes vortices are not unrelated.) 

A challenge is pointed to here: finding a way to reconcile Panglossian or Stoic conservatism with interventionist liberalism.  I suppose they may only be reconciled in the eschatological context.  Our participatory eschaton will be an enlightened intervention based on holism.  Wanting to take charge is ingrained in human nature.  That is a necessary ingredient of our apokatastasis.  Of course, it is the conservative entrepreneurs who are the most interventionist of all. 

I would like to get back to dealing with the origin of complexity per se.  Certainly diversity has intrinsic value, and there is a strong correlation between diversity and complexity.  The principles of relationalism and coherence render the complexity organic. 

But there are limits to diversity, particularly within species.  Evidently there is also a value to group identity.  This is particularly true for self-propagation and mutual protection.  This is the case for both organisms and cells. 

One explanation for the invisible hand that can operate on multiple levels is 'morphic resonance' as introduced by Rupert Sheldrake in A New Science of Life (1981).  It is similar to Waddington's notion of the chreode, a canalized pathway in epigenetic space.  His morphic fields entail only a cosmic memory and limited teleology or downward causation, but not intelligence.  They would operate in conjunction with evolutionary forces in the biological and psychological realms.  It is a frankly dualistic model on the biological level, the morphic fields being non-physical. 

To the extent possible, I wish to off-load the details of Creation onto the creatures.  The complexity uncovered by science may be attributable in part to the scientific enterprise itself, using a robust form of teleology.  I attempt to provide a plausible narrative for this process.  Molecular biology presents a major challenge.  The evolutionary appearances must be saved by all means available.  Evolution is the rationale for biological coherence.  Lamarckian processes could certainly be employed under the aegis of teleology.  I'm skeptical about using Lamarck on the cellular scale.  This would require a robust cellular intentionality, but this may ultimately be what the doctor orders.  The fact that I cannot imagine such a consciousness, should not be a real obstacle.  Are there suitable metaphors for molecular systems?   Could there not be molecular elementals?  We would end up with a molecular version of pokatok.  The elementals would represent the collective intentionality of the scientists as projected onto each component.  We are lacking a relational matrix.  Elementals may be a version of Leibniz' monads or Descartes vortices.  With or without windows?  

[10/15] 

I would like to be able to ascribe an elemental intentionality to the biological proto-cycles, as a way to jump start the biological details.  Anything to avoid material atoms and aeons of evolutionary time.  

With molecular biology, we have a problem similar to that posed by Berkeley's 'tree on the quad'.  What prevents the tree from walking away in the middle of the night?  The problem is exacerbated in the case of a  person attempting to return from a sojourn through a portal.  

With immaterialism, is there not the constant threat of dematerialization?  I am disposed to employ the Principle of Sufficient Reason.  Once the tree has been conjured, there is no good reason for it not to stay conjured.  If the tree is imaginary, then why would it not bee fleeting like our imaginal images usually are?  Or are they.  We can commit images to a long term memory, where they may always be recalled in context, and it is not even possible to remove them from a given context.  There is an inherent stability. 

I would like to push the PSR into a more proactive role, as in the filling of our blind spots.  In case in question, our blind spot is microbiology.  The blind spot is filled in gradually and logically or reasonably in the course of our researches.  The logical process of this particular filling in is context dependent to an elaborate degree, in particular it carries us back to the logic of Greek atomism and the necessities of metabolism.  

A counter case might be drawn with regard to Mars, and the observations of Percival Lowell.  Where did his canals come from and where did they go?   Certainly the Moon played a mediating role here.  Were there not similar episodes in the case of our microscopic 'discoveries'?  There may have been, but they cannot ultimately withstand the pervasive logic of naturalism.  The alchemists certainly had a fun time with alchemy, until the logic of chemistry gradually prevailed.  Eventually all of the dots have to connect.  But, with the Green Door, we are invited to step into another, presumably less natural, scheme of logic.  My question entails the problem of stepping back through the door.  How does the inter-logic function?  Those two dots are not easy to connect.  There must, however, be a path of minimal disturbance of the two logics.  Separation between realms is unnatural, it requires artifice.  

Another meeting is in the offing.  My concern now is with the reticence.  Do we understand the reason for it?  Is it permanent or is there a sunset provision?  Where did Jimmy Carter sit with this?  What about Dick D'Amato?  Is there no money trail?  Yellow book?  Eschaton?  Appointment?  Help or hinder?  Are we waiting for additional information or confirmation?  And my correspondent, where does he sit?  Who is responsible for reticence, or is it universal consent?  Can we dismiss BJ info, unless we have a better source?  That's what RD thinks.  Why are we concerned with Davenport?  Anything about which we are not skeptical?  I can only see two justifications for reticence.  The common one and mine, and they are not completely unrelated.  Am I missing a possibility?  Is it just embarrassment?  We think that is why the AF covered for RD?  Covering misdeeds and/or incompetence.  That would not explain universality.  Bill thinks that AID was involved.  Funny stuff in Brazil.  Even if it was all disinfo, there still have to be reasons.  Is there no problem with materialism?  Could it not become a crisis?  Might it not relate to other crises?   Has everyone done due diligence on all these matters?  Why did we change our mind about RD & GN?  How can I help?  What about Israel & Iran?  Oil reserves?  Any trend in popular sentiment?  Popular desire to let this dog sleep?  Just the occasional titillation?  Will this remain a political issue?  Do we decide it? 

[10/16] 

With all the reticence, one might suppose that we are waiting for something.  Do we know what for?  Is our crystal ball sufficiently clear that we can afford to play a waiting game?   Are we waiting for something good or bad?   Are we simply putting off 'til tomorrow?   What came between Jimmy (1977-81) and his promise of disclosure?  It must have been something specific.  No?  Should we not have a handle on this?  It does seem bizarre that Peter has not made an attempt to report.  Should we not know who is posing as having an official interest?  I don't see a rationale for our level of apparent inaction.  Any trend in inquiries from either in or outside the government? 

What did Jimmy do wrong?  Whom should he have asked?  BJ?  If not, would he not delegate someone to investigate?  Would he not pursue the phenomenology angle.  Where would Graff have fit into that picture?  Is the privatization an issue here?  Have we ever said that it was?  Perhaps in reference to Hughes and the Yellow Book.  We also have to consider the Anderson and Straub business, not forgetting Woolsey, D'Amato, Goss, or Billy Graham.   We also have the Rockefeller & Clinton initiative.  Even Bill L. got into that act.  And 9/11?  Have we not been able to connect these dots?  Over the years, has there been developed no methodology for dealing with these high level inquiries?   But we have already tacitly admitted to knowledge of these issues.  But that only brings the issue of reticence to the fore.  We are not denying that we have done due diligence w.r.t. the counterintelligence problem, which would cover most of the above, anyway.   We must assume that the presidents have some reasonable overview w.r.t. reticence.  We would have to know if this were a big or small issue.  Are we trying to make a big distinction between what is official and what is not?  That is just a continuing nuisance.  The public will not buy into that.  

What we have here mainly is the sleeping dog scenario.  Nobody wants to kick the dog.  Whoever does is sure to get bitten.  Even the presidents have seen this dog, and are quite willing to give it a wide berth.  Who are we to second judge or second guess?  Or is it also partly a sleeping beauty story, and we are waiting for prince charming?  We are waiting for the kicker/kisser, depending on your point of view.   The compromise in the sleeping frog.  Who is going to kiss the frog and into what will it turn?  Will it be a junkyard dog or a princess?  Who really wants to find out?  How may this issue be pressed?  Would an appointment not push this over the top?  Can Goss not have been informed? 

We are dealing with a sleeper issue.  The timeline is critical and it must have something to do with the nuclear and cultural issues.  Both of these latter issues are often seen in apocalyptic terms, anyway.  Some see the nuclear card as a way to draw out the joker.  I'm not sure we want to continue to play that game. 

There is pretty clearly a linkage between the visitors and the bomb.  There is a serious message in that fact.  We continue to ignore it at what peril?  Who is deciding?  Ocelot and Ferret?  The Ruskies were not playing the eschaton game.  With the Arabs and Israelis, not to mention the terrorists, it seems a different matter.  

Even if we don't know it, should we not treat the prospective appointment as related to the timeline, even though the eschaton may be presumed to be bipartisan?  How many people who are aware of phenomenology are not aware of its connection to the eschaton?  I doubt there could be many.   How many who know of CF are unaware of phenomenology?  

[10/19] 

xx,

I met with CF on Friday. Our principal topic was that of briefings.

Another instance of this had come up in regards to Peter Davenport, a private ufologist with a previous security clearance, who had been invited to DC where he was told by some folks who claimed to be representing the government that his UFO Hotline was a valuable tool, and that the problem was taken seriously by the government.

I asked CF about attempting to follow up on this information. His response was that he was already aware of dozens of such 'briefings', and that his previous attempts at follow-up, had been uniformly negative. In particular, his attempt to find connections between the known briefers failed. The leads were dead ends. Typically there would be a single, low echelon staff person at a given facility. The supervisor would claim to be unaware of the incident.

CF also mentioned that you had anecdotal knowledge of a number of ufo-type 'briefings', besides your own. I am not sure to what extent you may have previously shared this information with Ron, or to what extent you may have attempted your own follow-ups or informal analysis of these reports.

CF has raised the possibility that the uncorrelated nature of these briefing reports may be similar to the uncorrelated nature of the ufo reports themselves. His suggestion to me was that the sightings and the briefings might well be understood collectively as a kind of smokescreen or decoy operation. It is a screen that may be deliberately generated, and not necessarily or ultimately just by a human agency. We then have to wonder about the nature of the activity that is supposedly being concealed thereby.  CF averred that an eschatological connection could not and has not been ruled out.

CF did say that your interpretation of this type of data might well differ from his own. Could you possibly help us out here?

Dan

This was sent yesterday, and there has been no response so far.  CF has suggested another meeting before the election, and he also suggested inviting Joe S.  Joe said he could be down here on short notice.  Bill L. is not happy with this information about the briefings.  He suspects that there have been more substantial briefings, particularly in the early years.  Also this does not reference what might happen at a higher level.  Would a president be given the 'smokescreen' theory?  I would not want to suggest that abduction reports, for instance, are merely a smokescreen.  They reference a substantive interaction of some kind.  Is all this just about the UTs disguising themselves as ETs, to the point of arranging briefings about an alleged reverse engineering program?  

My correspondent also said that he has already done his own bi-static radar tests, similar to what Peter has proposed.  At whatever phase space he examined he would see uncorrelated targets.  He and Peter have both corresponded with a John Sars at U of W in Seattle concerning the techniques.  Thus the notion of a smokescreen.  Defense systems are typically designed to filter out anomalous targets.  

An agenda item for the next meeting would be the future of phenomenology, inside and outside of government.  Can we ignore the smokescreen, going forward?  Is there any reason to be looking for developments in that arena?  Has the smokescreen theory been discussed or disseminated?  Have BJ or Hal explained their reticence?   Let's suppose that eschatology cannot be ruled out, then what can we do about it?  Should we not be pushing harder on the EFG?  Networking?  Or do we this dog sleep?  Can we anticipate a trigger?  

I'm expecting a phone call from Steve.  Invite him to a meeting along with Ron & Joe?  He will also not be happy with the smokescreen rationale.  Will he see it as a copout?  Reference bi-statics.  What positive spin may be put on the rationale?  

There is typically a lot of noise in the atmospheric sigint, but not all of it is just noise.  It is target noise.  There is a related type of noise on the humint side, i.e. the briefings.  Neither of these correlate sufficiently to provide any actionable intelligence.  This is a specification of the phenomenology problem.  It does not provide a briefing rationale for the pres. (for a DCI?), unless you add the eschaton, which is probably too speculative.  This problem, by itself, does not explain the Anderson article or the Straub briefing.  Has the eschaton contingency been discussed in connection with this phenomenology problem.  CF states that there was correlation with nuclear programs, early on.  

Suppose the visitors did want to facilitate an eschaton.  What would be their leverage?  Threats would work better than actions.  There would need to be a special source such as discussed above.  

We could go back to the portal problem.  It seems to encapsulate several phenomenology problems.  This is the problem of rematerialization.  What is the path of least disturbance?  We have to worry about the physiology going in either direction.  How does this relate to the problem of atoms?  Can there be partial metabolism?  

[10/20] 

I sent this out today: 

What we know so far:

1.) There are dozens of semi-formal 'briefings', most of which could not have been arranged by any known source. They occur outside of any scheme of official secrecy.

2.) There is a reasonable degree of consistency in the content, which includes the 'core story' and some information about a non-USG technological R.E.P. [reverse engineering program].

Instant analysis:

3.) There exists a briefing coordinator. This coordinator would be very well networked with regard to collecting information on the targets and in the ability to task independent briefers.  

4.) However, from past experience, the coordinator is skilled at avoiding detection.

Points 3 & 4 seem contradictory. How does one do networking and avoid detection at the same time?

5.) No obvious motive may be assigned to the coordinator.

6.) Several possibilities present themselves:

a.) Disinformation program.

b.) Psychological testing.

c.) Recruiting & induction into a secret group.

This list of possible motives is not exhaustive nor are the items mutually exclusive.

We may then juxtapose the 'briefing phenomenon' against other anomalous phenomena often associated with the visitors. In doing so, a possible message presents itself:

"We are here. We have excellent stealth and penetration skills. We can, in a coordinated manner, manipulate your political infrastructure, to say nothing of your popular culture. Stay tuned for further information."

If the REP story can be dismissed, but the core store cannot be, then the metaphysical/ eschatological scenario does become an obvious alternative interpretation. To this end we have formed an EFG. The question then arises as to what role might reasonably be assigned to an EFG going forward.  Has there been an assessment of the level of activity that would be commensurate with the perceived challenge?  [Lacking an REP] does the EFG presently constitute the primary mode of our response?  Should the EFG view itself as an integral part of, or as an alternative to, the putative agenda of the visitors?

I am not quite sure where this briefing business is going.  It is not an actionable item.  I am not being encouraged to press for further information.  I have the feeling that this base has already been covered.  What is the point of inserting the false REP message into the briefing.  It would serve simply to forestall questions about our response to the visitor presence.  It would deflect the metaphysical issue.  

xxx,

It does seem that CF has been predisposed to an eschatological interpretation, at least from the time of my arrival on the scene.

I wonder how easy it is to discount the REP story? If it is as easy as CF indicates, then perhaps that element of the briefings is intended to raise doubts, but at the same time it forestalls immediate questions that might track toward the metaphysical and eschatological view.

In other words the briefings present the picture of a rational response to a 'conventional' ET visit. But this picture is time sensitive. It has a built-in obsolescence. The longer that the REP fails to surface or to deliver, the greater will be our suspicion as to what is really going on.

Early on we would wonder about a possible lack of cooperation between the ETs and the USG, pointing to conflicting agendas, or we could envision an evil conspiracy. But each of these scenarios is also time sensitive.  Maintaining security could only be a temporary expedient. The onset of the Internet should already have doomed such measures.  This leaves us with the alternative of a cooperative regime, not about technology, but still concerning a matter that is time critical. At this point our thoughts begin to turn toward matters religious.

For the most part, ufologists are still behind this curve. Is there a plan to bring them around? If I were running this informational initiative, I would see the ufologists as the prime targets for the next stage. They constitute a carefully prepared interest group that can act as a buffer between the visitors and the population at large. They represent a back channel of acclimation that allows 'us' to delay the very thorny problem of confronting the already highly conflicted sectarian interests.

'We' will have to single out a few key players in the ufo arena for a special briefing of our own device. This, I believe, is beyond the present capacity of the three of us. We would need more data and more credibility.  For instance, CF has spoken about bringing Jack to a meeting, soon, i.e. the one referenced below. Jack will not sit still for anything less than the full monty, i.e. rather more than anything you or I have seen. Do you not agree?

In fact, I could ask Jack what it would take for him to change his tune. He has shown some flexibility in the past, but too quickly reverts to his formulaic business as usual. I would pick Jack out of the crowd as an optimal test subject for the next stage: a difficult but not impossible customer. But I would need more backing from CF, even just to test the water effectively. Do we need to wait and see how the political cookie will crumble?

Dan

And so it goes.  Can we get back to the Green Door? 

[10/21] 

xxx,

CF's principle statement was an objection to the idea that there might exist a trillion dollar REP.

We might want to pin him down a bit more on the upper limits of what might be able to slip under his radar. When they say the program is private, that does not exclude USG contracts or grants being involved. It would be beg, borrow or steal. Correct?

They speculate that many of us would kill ourselves if the truth were to come out. It is hard for me to imagine what piece of information might have such a drastic effect, short of something eschatological.  Others have suggested that the 'truth' might include any or all of the following: they created us, they enslave us, they created our religions, etc.

I don't see any of these possibilities as leading to something as devastating as they suggest. Am I missing some other possibility, or do I underestimate the impact of those given?

They use the word "panic". That suggests to me only an eschatological scenario. Again, am I missing something?

They say that the persons in control are scientists and engineers. No theologians, psychologists, philosophers, sociologists, ordinary folk, etc., etc.? This seems to be a very narrow spectrum of controllers. 

If this were to be put up, secretly, to the Supreme Court, I seriously doubt that they would or could condone the constitutionality of whatever privatization process led to the present situation. Comments? Somehow, the word 'arrogance' springs to mind. Technically speaking, all authority here has been arrogated.

It does seem that you continue here to strongly favor the ETH over the UTH.  The ETH is the premise of the REP. The UTH would only entail a comparatively very modest engineering response.

My involvement here is premised almost entirely upon the UTH. No?

This discussion now needs some input from CF concerning his view of the relative merits of these two hypotheses. There would be no point of bringing anyone else into the picture without this issue being better outlined or contained.

You and I could discuss these merits, but that would probably require a greater commitment of time on your part than what you have previously indicated.

With regard to CF, there seems to me to be a very substantial problem of due diligence. The issues that we seem to face could well be earth shattering. I think we agree that CF does not seem to be acting accordingly. This leaves just two possibilities: either CF is in gross dereliction of 'duty', or he has much better sources of information on this subject than he has ever let on to us.

This is another issue that is pressing for clarification as we attempt to move forward, if, indeed, that is what we are attempting to do.

Dan

--------------------------

xxx,

The trillion dollar figure came from CF's extrapolating on the dozens of briefings at dozens of facilities, each focused in part on what was supposed to be happening at the location in question. After awhile, the various billions added up to a rather more substantial figure.

CF stated that you had also been informed about briefings other than your own. Is that not correct? It would be helpful if we could get our signals straight on this matter.

But, for just now, let us set aside the money and engineering problem, and focus on the core story: three guests in a sequence, a yellow book and a 'crashed' saucer.

Evidently they came here in a very deliberate fashion, and did so in order to impart some fairly specific knowledge.  I would like to know if their mission was a success. Would you not also want to know this, xxx?

It seems that there is now no effort to disseminate this knowledge. It is quite unclear if there has been or is expected to be any technological benefit to us.

Could we agree then that, on the face of it, their mission failed?

If these guests were friendly, as the core story implies, then they were trying to help us, but evidently they failed in this effort. Should this failure not be a cause for our concern, or even alarm? Did you never even think to pose this question to your briefers?

In this event, you are very much like Jack and most of the ufologists. You show no concern for the deeper issues. Your only concern over the years has been to collect physical specimens. You show interest only in the 'how' question. You show no interest in the 'why' of it all.

What's it all about, xxx?

Just on your own interpretation, these entities have been around for millions and maybe billions of years longer than we have. Thus they would be expected to know orders of magnitude more about survival than do we. Is our species not now facing an unprecedented challenge to our very survival?

Did you not ask if the 'yellow book' contained any information pertinent to our survival problem? Did their custodians never raise this question to the visitors? Would this not very obviously be the number one question on the mind of any reasonable person in such a situation?

Am I to believe that in the many dozens of briefings, that this number one priority question never once came up?

Do you gather, xxx, that I am getting more than a little exasperated by what appears to be the utter and egregious lack of perspicuity on the part of everyone involved in or previously knowledgeable about the briefing process.

Are you going to tell me that I am the first person ever to have raised the survival issue, relative to our visitation?

I'm still waiting for someone to even pretend to be serious.

Dan

[10/22] 

xxx,

You are reconfirming my initial suspicion that this considerable quantity of data on the 'briefing phenomenon' has apparently been treated in a cavalier fashion. 

Last Friday I suggested to CF that we ought to make a serious analysis of this mass of data. His response was that there now exist network analysis tools that could be brought to bear on this data, tools that were not previously available.

Fine. But before we plunge into a time consuming analysis effort, we should seriously consider CF's own off-the-cuff(?) analysis of this data: it is simply a decoy operation and/or a smokescreen.

My first point would be that it has been a very successful decoy operation, based on its considerable impact upon various segments of our population. 

We then have a glaring discordance in the data: we have a enviably successful decoy operation ostensibly pointing to a wretchedly failed mission.

Should that cognitive dissonance (failure/success) not make the hair stand up on the neck of even the most plodding of analysts?

The very next step in the chain of analytic logic would be to surmise that the enviably successful decoy operation pointing to a wretchedly failed mission, is in fact serving as a decoy for a (so far?) successful mission of a rather different nature.

xxx, are you still with me here? Are you keeping up with the bouncing ball?

Should we suppose that the Junior Analyst of our mutual acquaintance has previously been unable to master this 'sophisticated' chain of logic? Might not such an analysis, plus another source or two, much better explain his cavalier attitude toward this data, rather than our having to posit a dereliction of duty on his part?

Dan

I would hope that my correspondent is not too far away from seeing the light, if light there is to be seen.  You can lead a horse to the eschaton, but you can't make them drink.  It would be helpful to have a third member of the focus group.  There are a lot of people sitting on the sidelines waiting for some sort of signal.  They are not making themselves useful.  If BJ came around, the three of us could put on a show, even without much additional input from CF.  We still have to see what will happen with Goss.  BJ remains in correspondence with at least one of the briefers.  Could not questions be posed?  I'm not clear about what sort of meeting CF may have in mind.  Jack always seems to be hyperventilating over the latest piece of physics trivia.  He will not settle for anything less than a Nobel prize.  That is the only tree up which he is constitutionally fit to bark.  In one of his expansive moods, he will allow me a paragraph in his latest book.  His forum can only be of limited use while he is in this terminal state of mind.  I don't see any potential evangelists on the horizon.  That is a serious deficit.  Even if CF tried to bring Jack around, he would interpret it in a paranoid fashion.  This would leave only Hal.  If BJ could bring around a segment of the aviary, that might be of some use.  That would cause some ripples.  Otherwise, CF is going to have to turn over a new leaf.  He will have to change his stripes.  

----------------------------------

Then there is always the green door.  Easy to say, hard to figure.  It is virtually self contradictory, even though, on the surface it should not be such a big deal.  It does mess up the local relationalism.  We have to appeal to a more general level, but I don't know how.   There would be immediate problems with metabolism. 

As a test case we should transition from a physical to a non-physical regime, although physicality can only ever be a matter of degree.  We could take on a new body, but then have to dispose of the old one, leaving no way back.  We can't go home again if we burn the bridge.  It is true, however, that relationalism has to function non-locally.  Strings will be attached, entanglement will occur.  

Will there be air on the other side?  There will not be a vacuum.  There will also be a time problem, if time is less linear on the other side.  It might be a problem like deep sea diving.  If one comes back too quickly, one gets the bends.  There would have to be a point of no return.  After that point, any return would only be partial and temporary.  The original body would no longer be serviceable.  Or it would be too difficult to recondition it.  Is there not a tendency for one regime to leak or spill into the other, depending on the amount of traffic?  There would be a coattails effect.  In general relativity, this is referred to as frame dragging.  Not sure how this would effect inter-entity contacts.  We might wonder if a pregnant person went over.  'Woe unto them that is with child'?  

There would have to be a lot of yoga practice on the part of the tourists.  Very likely we would be visited by the dear departed.  There would be some bodily aspect of that, but it would be a shifting aspect.  Our mutual eidetic memories would come into play.  Another thing that might happen over there would be an age regression.  It would also be a remedy for those with weight problems.  On passing over we might be presented with alternative regimens.  The problem of getting reincarnated is another aspect of this interchange.  There must be considerable personal variation and subjectivity in all of these processes.  When it comes to eschatology, where there's a will, there's a way.  

Aren't the materialists lucky?  They have none of these problems to contend with!  

It is likely that the Earth will gradually lose its physicality in the process of the hundred year exodus.  The last thing to go will be the pokatok court at Xcaret.  Just a hint for any of you holdouts.  There could still be a remnant Jurassic Parc place.  Metabolism could persist there, and perhaps even reproduction, but all this would be rudimentary and provisional.  There are plenty of rough edges in all of this transitional metaphysics, and it will take time, and perhaps even experimentation, to smooth them out.  Please, bear with us.  The transition process will smooth out over time.  We will need volunteers to be the early adapters.  

Then we return to the problem of jumpstarting metabolism at the beginning.  When we did this before, I believe that I invoked variations on the theme of the vital ouroboric/zodiac/psychic cycle.  The phenomenology is gradually habituated into biology.  As we keep alternating between the alpha and omega, we gradually bring them into alignment.  

[10/27] 

Yesterday I met with my source guy.  We seem to be making progress.  I've always wondered about dealing with the presidents.  Since Lyndon there have been seven presidents with only Jimmy and Ronald being briefed.  In a similar time frame only Richard H. of the DCIs has been briefed. 

This is fewer than I would have suspected.  According to my take on the Anderson article, big George would have been told something about the eschaton, as would Straub and some other folks on the SSCI.  But it might not have been a full briefing.  

The point is that you don't brief a president unless there is a darn good reason.  Always try to let every sleeping dog be. 

My source was at the YB level, but I think he is coming around to accept PE/CL as the next level.  People at that level tell you something only once.  There is no discussion, and no question about about disclosure.  My source never heard from them or his briefers about eschatology.  There are three categories of people above his level: sincere, officious and whiners.  It was Richard who contacted him to say he took Rick's story seriously.  Richard died a couple of years ago.  My guy had been hopeful of learning more before that. 

We discussed the issue of money.  All of his briefings and the ones he heard about pointed to a relatively minor and unsuccessful REP, located at Los Alamos, and maybe a couple of private facilities.  This is where he disagrees with CF, who says that the briefings he knows of implicate a rather larger number of facilities and dollars.  CF uses this larger dollar amount, upwards of a trillion, do discount all such briefings.  I need to get this contradiction ironed out.  

We discussed some more of my philosophy and eschatology in very broad strokes.  We also discussed about moving forward.  We agree that Jack is a major obstacle to my networking on the Internet.  We doubt that CF can straighten that out.  Otherwise, I need to network with some science types with the help of CF.  These would be on the NAS or Jasons.  Nothing specific was mentioned.  Jacques Vallee was mentioned.  It was stated that he among the cognoscenti might be the most sympathetic with my views.  

That was about it.  I was mainly surprised by the low number of DCIs in the loop.  I may want to recalibrate my briefing logistic.  I did not ask about foreign folks.  They may pick up much of this by osmosis.  My guy was talking about detailed information.   A lot more people could get just the generalities, about like what you have here.  

Next I'll have to get back to CF, and see if the three of us should meet.  I can write a brief to him on the meeting with a copy to the source.  The election continues to loom.  Today I meet with paranormalist, SF. 

[10/28] 

No word back from CF on a prospective meeting.  It may have to wait 'til after the election. 

I did not mention that Richard identified himself to my source as being the Raven.  Will we now have to revise the history of the Aviary?  RH was the DCI from from '66 to '73, hired by Johnson, fired by Nixon.  He had worked for the Agency and OSS since '43.  

According to 'The Presidents UFO Website': 

Todd Zechel, then the Director of Ground Saucer Watch, a group formed to fight classification of UFO documents by the government, was also interested in the U.S. News story of a possible UFO disclosure by the Carter White House. He headed to Washington for a visit with his telephone conversation acquaintance, Arthur Lundahl, a former high ranking official with the CIA, and a person who reportedly had been a UFO briefer to at least three presidents.

Zechel had discussed the U.S. News report on the phone with Lundahl, and Lundahl had promised to check with " the boys." (Zechel assumed the boys to be former CIA Directors William Colby and Richard Helms, both close friends of Lundahl’s).

[10/29 - Don't let me forget that CF has pointed to a Mr. Anderson, the elderly UFO library guy, and friend of Gordon's as being a significant player.  I'm not sure what to make of this.  He lives in DC.]  

[10/29] 

Back to Creation.  We start with a bare Matrix, pure potentiality.  I see only one such.  There is no means of separation.  The potency is channeled, by a dialectic set of selves.  This is the primordial, semi-stable zodiacal group of cosmic observers.  All phenomenology must be channeled through this group.  Each self exists relative to the others.  There is a predominant circular structure.  Thus arises the archetype of Pi.  With 'e' representing the Matrix and 'i' the vital dialectic, we have the primordial 'trinity' of e^i*pi.  Pi is one of the Z.  

I then take Pi to represent the Creator figure, X.  This is the major step in analyzing and rationalizing Creation.  Pi leads to the anthropocentric symmetry breaking that is Creation.  

How so?  Pi, in its 'trinitarian' context, i.e. mother, spirit and son, points to the quantum atom, and thus to a metabolic homo-faber-erectus: five digits with opposable thumb.  Mammalian?  Yes, that goes with the neocortex.  Teleology is used liberally, but not excessively.  

The primordial symmetry breaking is a patricide.  This is the Oedipal story with Freya as Jocasta.  I equate Freya with the X-factor.  This apparent gender switch need not pose a problem.  The conspiring Jocasta begat history, and is finally the scapegoat of history, then in the role of Eve.  Thus we see the dynamics of AZO/X/QRP.  The apple Pi/X is the multidimensional pi-vot.  It is also Hamlet's Mill.  It is the squaring or rationalizing of the circle that gives rise to the numerical coincidences and the Monster Group of Anthropic fame.  

This symbolic nexus is dense, indeed.  The Creation plot may be underdetermined.  There may be converging paths.  X remains the focal point or transformational identity, and we may still hope to use this scheme as an investigative tool.  

[10/30] 

The previous synopsis of Creation does not include the Pokatok scheme.  The sacrifice of the losing team could have stimulated the reproductive cycle.  The solar connotation of the game ball may have simulated/stimulated the heavens.  The game was played at night.  The passing of the ball through the hoop is reminiscent of an eclipse, which may also have entailed sacrifice.  Once again there is a suspicious convergence of symbolism.  

[10/31] 

Now I'm being caught in a shooting match between two sources, the more and less credulous.  This is an old story, but now I get to see it up close.  I would think it should have been resolved back when.  Is it only about the money: using rumors of phenomenology to pull in the bucks?   We are back to the problem of due diligence.  

The theory is that the briefings and the para-scientific 'shakedown' are all being coordinated.  That is a grand conspiracy.  What more might it be capable of?  How might it tie in with other counterintelligence problems?   It seems to argue against my PE/CL level.  This racket would muddy those waters.  The higher level ought to be able to restrain this exploitation, unless it is a deliberate part of the cover.  CF does not act that way.  That could mean that he is stuck between the two levels, YB vs. PE, and is not sure which is the real one.  It is also the ETH vs. the UTH.  CF is also dealing with the null hypothesis, NH.  [11/4 - For simplicity, we may refer to this as the terrestrial hypothesis, TH.]  What is the symbiosis between these three hypotheses?  

Is the shakedown the primary motive, or is it parasitic?  Jack and I are being used to probe this issue.  Am I being naive to suppose that the monetary incentive is insufficient here?  Only Hal might know for sure.  Will I be afforded the opportunity to ask, or must I assume the answer and move on?  SF describes a similar situation with crop circles.  There is human involvement in all of them, but how is it coordinated?  Or is it?  What do I do in this case?  Am I only an observer?  We need to break this circle.  Does this relate to the primordial cycle?  How was that broken?  Was it pokatok or the X factor?  There is the temple and there are the money changers, etc.  

[11/1] 

The problem is imagining the scenario for breaking through the ambiguity.  How early in the process will that occur?  How much can be accomplished without CF being convinced?  That would require access to unambiguous evidence.  Would it help for the three of us to meet?  I doubt that it could have much impact at this late date.  Sources are no longer the issue.  There may also be the case of deliberate exclusion.  There would be a bias against skepticism.  Presently we are attempting to track down who attended the NRC meeting last week with the source.  If it was mainly just Murad, then we are back to square one.  What then?  I will need another source or correspondent.  The motivation for the reactivation may remain moot.  CF is not constituted to be proactive wrt phenomenology.  I doubt that any job change would effect that.  The next question is why this matter cannot be put to rest.  Is the C/I problem worth pursuing?  

CF is of the view that the 'soap opera' is not going away in the foreseeable future.  It will just continue to transform.  It can be reasonably monitored with minimal resources to avoid surprises.  

[11/2] 

I am inclined to suggest that we undergo a semi-formal debriefing concerning the briefing phenomenon and its impact.  I would submit a public report.  I could start writing the report now, and then solicit further information in an incremental fashion until some resolution is achieved.  It would be important to include Hal in this process. 

Joe Firmage has reappeared on the scene.  In an email today Joe speaks of the coming socio-economic crises culminating in a singularity of consciousness.  He refers us to Integral Naked.  At his own website I see no reference to this singularity.  

As of yesterday I have obtained free access to the EBSCO database through my public library where Debby works.  This enables access to the popular periodical literature, an important complement to web browsing.  These archives have been available for free for some time, I was not keeping up to date.  

What I presently find most surprising about the 'briefing phenomenon' is the lack of public discussion about it.  My source says that most of what he learned has been distributed in a semi-public fashion, but there has been no definitive statement as to the nature or extent of the dissemination (briefing) process.  CF may be trying too hard to minimize the significance of this process.  What has been the impact of it?  Does it speak to the UTH?  What do we surmise as to the lack of explanation for the process?   Does this not just compound the ufo mystery?  Perhaps what we see now is the residue of some earlier process.  Is there any visible trend?  These briefings should now be in considerable decline if they are only repeating stuff that has been made public, but that is not what the source indicates.  What did the source think that CF should do with this info?  If the government does not come clean on this, then will it not be culpable?  

[11/4] 

Off the top, I would think that intelligence types would naturally want to pursue and analyze the briefing phenomenon.  It might easily be deemed to represent a systemic vulnerability that would need to be monitored, if not neutralized.  Could it not be construed as a potential threat?  The fact that none of this has been done, or apparently even seriously considered, is, in itself, worthy of explanation.  Any serious ufo briefing would have to address this phenomenon.  One would need to estimate the degree to which this phenomenon contributes to the ufo ambience.  This would also come under the umbrella of phenomenology collections.  At best, it would constitute a benign form of socio-pathology. 

The phenomenon itself is not as significant as is the apparent lack of reaction to it.  The phenomenon represents an unprecedented potential for the subversion of this country's constituted authority.  The EFG, for instance, seems constituted to exploit that potential.  The seriousness rests entirely on the validity of the phenomenon.  Without that validity it is a soap opera.  The lack of reaction may be excused only by a known invalidity.  But then we are in a vicious circle: the validity can be known only by taking the phenomenon seriously.  How difficult can it be to penetrate the phenomenon?  Does CF understand this?  I think he is understandably reluctant to admit it.  What about in his work group?  What would he tell the new boss?  It is hard for me to picture the exchanges.  Again we encounter the Anderson article, and then the Hughes incident, etc.   9/11 would be very tricky.  I don't see how any of this could be avoided.  CF becomes the finger in the dike, it would appear.  It would require political shielding to an unreasonable degree.  There must be a significant logistic beyond my ken.  There would have to be more than meets the eye. 

[11/5] 

Is it possible that the new boss is unaware of phenomenology, eschatology?  CF maintains the posture of skepticism.  Has no one seen through that?  There is still the issue of the Straub briefing.  To what did that point?  There must be serious discussion of the c/I problem of phenomenology.  And what about the eschatology of religious extremism.  Religion and phenomenology are two primary targets for c/Intel, and eschatology covers both.  I'm not sure if there is any synergy between the hard and soft science tasks of CF.  Bi-statics and RE provide only a limited overlap.  Don't forget the IG investigation.  That would stand out in the file.  Then there is all the aviary/bigelow stuff and ufoguy@Masint.  There are several red flags waving.  Then how do I stay off the screen, or do I?  We come back to the visibility to other agencies and the public-key aspect.  Therein lies a reflective equilibrium concerning EFG status.  There is a fairly large context or a large arena in which the EFG is a small but significant player.  The ET v. UT hypothesis still has to be sorted out, but before that we must confront some real data.  The changing of the guard at the agency will cover the shifting of phenomenology.  If this timeline is correct it does seem to favor the PE/CL view: nukes, C/W, aviary, aquarium, 9/11, new guy.  The ETH would be relevant mainly to cold war secrecy, then we start the shift to the aquarium, with EFG coming after 9/11, then the politics.  It's all over, but the shouting.  I doubt that things could have gone this far without access to sufficient data.  Lack of data does not explain the soap opera.  That is better explained by c/I (non-mundane).  

[11/6] 

If there were a major uncertainty as to the validity of the core story, I doubt that CF would expend effort on the peripheral matters.  A serious investigator would be working the inside track, unless this were known to have been done already.  At some point in the past half century, a definitive investigation would have been commissioned.  The results would have to be available to a phenomenology group.  The extent of the briefing phenomenon underscores the necessity of such an investigation.  A knowledgeable person would not then stir the ufo pot unless there were a continuing c/Intel initiative.  However, keeping both the ET and UT stories alive would muddy any mundane c/I/disinfo effort.  This latter fact indicates a cover operation rather than pure disinformation.  There was a mission.  The issue is whether or not it failed.  The cover is that it failed.  

Only now with the Internet is the extent of the smoke coming into the public domain.  The smoke is steady over a period of vastly changing political and military conditions.  This constancy argues against any ad hoc screen.  The hoax hypothesis also does not hold up in this context.  

It is useful to compare ufos and crop circles.  Does the juxtaposition increase or decrease their legitimacy?  It is easier to see the CCs as mundane.  Is it just a copycat phenomenon?  It is a fact that no one has been exposed.  The phenomenon invites participation, but that does not negate it.  Its quantity and quality argue for a supra-mundane explanation. 

CF has stated that the briefing phenomenon is not traceable.  If so, it would represent a vulnerability that one might not wish to publicize.  When queried as to the methodology of the tracing, there is an insubstantial or even casual response.  This is part of the primary posture of skepticism, rather than additional information. 

In short, the phenomenology remains viable. 

[11/7] 

When it comes to Creation, I rely heavily on the archetypes to jump-start it.  Among these, Z & Pi are primary.  Z points to the proto-selves in their dialectical bootstrap.  X/Pi emerges out of these.  

[11/8] 

The adjoining of pi to X is controversial if not controvertible.  It is meant as only ad hoc and for the sake of argument.  It could be seen as a reductio ad absurdum of Pythagoras, but I intend it in the spirit of relationalism.  It is how I bring the observer principle to mathematics.  It is how I attempt to tame the Monster Group.  I am suggesting that pi is anthropocentric, X being the anthropos/christos.  

When it comes to numbers, I am not a (postmodern?) constructivist, but rather a conceivabilist.  There are no inconceivable mathematical objects, just as there are no unobservable universes.  There is no Creator without a Creation and no Creation without Pi.  It would be inconceivable.  X is the rationale of the cosmos.  Pi is the rationalizer.  Creation is the transcendental squaring of the zodiacal circle.  The necessary transcendental impulse is simply love.  The MG is involved in the dialectical/elliptical polarizing of the circle.  The quantum comes out of this, partly in the trinitarian form of e^i*pi, or MDX, i.e. mother, spirit, son.  The trinity is the teleologically realizing vision or observation, all bootstrapped on faith.  Therein lies the vital stability of the microcosmic atom and all the attendant bio-cycles.    

The Alpha and Omega are mutually reflective.  We may ascertain the one in the other, and so we have the AZO/X/QRP based on the MDX with Freya/X providing the transcendental impulse that breaks/squares the circle, in a triangle with Chronos and Zeus.  X is the pi-vot or sacrificial omphalos.  

[11/9] 

MDZ/X are the crucial components.  I need to determine the connection between Z and X.  Both exploit the vital dialectic force.  Z relates to ouroboric circularity and X to linearity.  X emerges out of Z using Creation as its bootstrap.  The dialectic force of creation includes love and faith.  I suspect that numbers also emerge mainly out of Z.  Z becomes the prototype of physical and biological systems; however, the X factor is involved in the stability of the atom.  This is due to the strength of the teleology that is required.  The atom is integral to Creation.  It must be fine tuned anthropically.  The same goes for gravity.  

It is still a long way from here to the atom.  The thing about the atom is its apparent independent existence, like the tree on the quad, except worse.  The atom is a place holder in space and time.  It holds the identity of substances.  This brings us back to the biological cycles.  It may not be sufficiently clear why we need metabolism.  

Without metabolism there would be nothing like nature, but I'm not sure what that means.  There would be no ecosystem.  There would be no materialism, technology or history.  No entropy.  Could there still be space and time? 

[11/10] 

The early Greeks sensed that atoms were a concomitant of space.  We may not sufficiently appreciate the logic of their 'speculation'.  It is very difficult to imagine a robust creation without the entailment of a spatial frame.  Our imaginative faculties seem quite adept at producing and manipulating spatial configurations without benefit of same.  At the same time, I'm not sure what to make of the relational view of space.  At some point the pokatok scheme will be brought into play, as a way to habituate spatial figuration. 

Which relations predominate in a relational view of space, and where does the quantum come into play?  I would suspect that the quantum is a necessary part of spatial relations.  This is what we and the Greeks have failed to grasp.  It is difficult to imagine mathematics without a space-time context.  The quantum has become the primary point of entry for most of mathematical physics.  

We wonder if number theory is spatial?  It is certainly sequential.  Time and space are not independent concepts.  We will then have to worry about the deconstruction of space-time at the Alpha and Omega.  We, too, must avoid naked singularities.  We then resort to a more digital and combinatorial point of view.  Pokatok brings us from digital to analog.  We anticipate a final reverse match.  

There cannot be space without exclusion.  Exclusion relies on exchange anti-symmetry.  Leibniz' Identity of Indiscernibles casts identical particles into space.  There could be zodiacal duplicates if they are relationally segregated.  I have not considered the problem of multiplicity at the zodiacal level.  If there is one Chronos, why not two?  Multiplicity may require an external observer.  There can only be one proto-self, which then divides dialectically.  

A robust combinatorics would require Galilean or translational invariance, and so we bring on the Poincaré space groups.  We are hereby broaching the subject of pregeometry (700 hits).  Spin networks are one solution to this problem.  

We cannot get far into the problem of pregeometry without a theory of relations.  My theory of relations is a form or relationalism, which is a species of idealism: relations exist only in the mind.  Relations are purely subjective: they entail a perspective.  On the other hand, to be is to be related: there is no isolated or atomic existence.  There is no acosmic existence.  The primordial existence is zodiacal existence relative to the Matrix of potentiality.  The Zodiac is our essential pre-geometric frame.  All its relations are internal.  Those relations are externalized in some scheme of pokatok.  

A perversion of relationalism is associationism: complex ideas are formed from simples by association.  This theory dates back at least to David Hume (1711-1776).  This has been a prime component of the analytic tradition, suffering its same fate.  It does, however, presuppose some kind of mental space, and it does point up the fact that the mind is nothing if not a relational engine.  

The atom remains a stumbling block in our traverse from mind to matter.  It's complexity is daunting.  We must wonder as to its source.  It does not strike one as fundamental, but nothing simpler could fit the bill, and it is a lengthy bill.  Interchangeability is the operative word of atomic alchemy.  The Monster Group lurks just beyond the atomic horizon.  All of mathematics is realized in the confines of a single atom.  Here, certainly, is a microcosm.  Have we not been amply warned about microcosms, but who'd a' thunk it?  We may look for remnants of the zodiac in the atom.  It is a micro pantheon, being somehow projected by X/pi.  We see the 'monstrous moonshine', but where is the still?  There is a projective function we have not yet grasped. 

Atom, cell and brain/mind are each likely to be reflective of the primordial zodiac/pantheon.  Each is a microcosm for a different aspect of the cosmos.  This would give Z a greater role in Creation, along with X.  The pantheon becomes us.  It does so by projecting itself through the structure of the atom, cell, brain, and perhaps even the MG itself.  

[11/11] 

Yes, I think we may need to ascribe a greater role to the pantheon/Z.  This is in line with allowing the christos/X/pi to be more of a coordinator, leading up to the X-event.  Z must project itself through the eye of the needle, which is Pi.  That is how the Anthropic Principle comes into play, along with the UEM, unreasonable effectiveness of math.  In that process the circular symmetry is broken in the fashion of the elliptical functions, which distill the Monstrous Moonshine (800 hits).  That is what is happening with Pokatok.  In that game the object is to pass the ball/Sun through the circular hoop in ecliptic/elliptic fashion.  Ceremonial death and fertility are the result.  Is there a Lamarckian fine-tuning on the playing fields of Xcaret/J-Parc?  The trajectory of the ball is elliptical with a focus conformally projected to infinity.  Astronomers later use this errant focus to bring down the heavens in the fashion of Chicken Little, thereby deconstructing the Rube Goldberg materialist cosmos with their dark energy, in a reprise of Copernicus who was oblivious to our postmodern moonshine.   

Pi is the pinhole of the magic lantern that produces our anthropocentric world.  There is a projective geometry at work.  There is also a seeding.  Pi is pinhole & seed.  Golgotha somehow encompassed both.  That must have been the eye of the cosmic needle.  It was the sacrificial symmetry breaker and the rebirthing via Freya.  Multiplicity comes via the trinitarian e^i*pi, MDX -> R/Z.  The atom is the pi-vot.  Golgotha is the Omphalos.  The event breaks the precessional symmetry of Hamlet's Mill.  This is done in conjunction the multiplicative DNA crystallization.  There may be something here of the aperiodic pentagonal (Penrose) tiling, bringing phi into the picture.  Somehow there is a crystallization of the Matrix, in the manner of a fractal.  There is now the Aqua Regia of the spirit that dissolves the crystal leading to apokatastasis.  I should point out that language is another kind of crystal.  The zodiacal pantheon is the first crystal.  In three dimensions we would have the five Platonic solids.  In order to ensure three spatial dimensions we might need the equivalent of a Penrose spin network, but I don't see a source.  We might also wonder how space-time emerges from an infinite dimensional Hilbert space.  It has to do with the projection or measurement operators.  Ecological networking in more than 3+1D may just be infeasible.  

Presently I am reading Hyper-science (F & L Hatem, 1994).  It is partly relevant to the BPW, but for the most part it manages to be exasperating.  What can I say?  It is all too French.  It is Being and Nothingness on steroids.  It is more Buddhist than Buddha.  It is more Taoist than the Tao.  It is the reductio ad absurdum of the principal alternatives to the BPW.  If 1 = 0 then everything is true and untrue, but don't take my word for it.  (BTW, I notice that the BPW is first on the new MSN search, while it has fallen to 16 on Google.  What does that mean?) 

[11/12] 

A problem to be considered is the introduction of size scales.  In the Matrix proper there are none such.  There is only zodiacal coherence shading off to incoherence.  We may suppose that quantity emerges before dimension.  Quantity implies a single dimension.  The problem is to obtain the second.  A network analysis of relations could produce multiple dimensions, but these would be ad hoc.  There ought to be a step or two before J-Parc.  Sizes, however, are only relative.  What could be the standards?  How do philosophers manage to avoid these foundational issues?  Mathematicians and physicists avoid them as well.  We might ask how we manage dimensions in the mind.  Our neurons do not have much problem.  There is probably a proprioceptive basis for mental dimensioning, which is a throwback to cell function.  The idea of containment might be prior to space.  Can the gods sequester their thoughts?  This is related to perception.  What is the basis of privacy and possession?  This goes back to identity.  Immaterial identity is a problem.  

Similar problems arise in trying to make sense of direct perception: visual experience may not be abstracted from total experience.  May we say that size is an abstraction?   Perception is based on functionality.  Then we need a non-biological source of function.  It is interaction between selves, plus internal actions or exercise of the will.  There is the issue of externality as with dreams and visions.  It is not clear if there is originally only one self.  I suspect so.  The primal self may be without awareness, which comes only in a social context.  It seems likely that infants dream.  If one self emerges, why not two?  But how would they find each other?  We could designate X to be the primal self.  The Matrix must include X.  But what is experience without time or coherence?  Do the blind have visual dreams?  msn: blind-people dreams?  I'm not satisfied with the standard answers, which assume indirect perception.    

[11/13] 

We have yet to embrace direct perception.  It then becomes a challenge to explain our apparent faculties of indirect perception, e.g. representational artifacts, and communications.  Truth comes natural, everything else has to be rationalized, e.g. when I shut my eyes, the world disappears.  

Indirect perception has to do with perspective.  It is the price we pay for the realization of space and time, for the cloning of God and the outsourcing of Creation.  This tells us that space and time begin with the dialectic and the zodiac.  

The Matrix then must be our proto-self, dialectically striving for coherence.  That striving is outsourced to the zodiac, and the rest is history.  Realization is a social enterprise.  Is it surprising that we forget our roots?  X maintains a special tie to the Matrix: apron strings.  The Mater blows a smoke ring: Z.  Omniscience is compartmentalized and condenses into matter.   Symmetry is broken.  A concentric set of Platonic solids are formed.  This is our spin net.  

We might wonder what happens at apokatastasis.  Are we back to scratch?  I doubt it.  Now we have to embrace eternity. 

Omniscience is something to be avoided.  Attention is to be focused, or there can be no action. Omniscience is the disease of direct perception.  Barriers to the mind are made to be broken.  The unobstructed universe is omnipresent.  What are we to make of imagination?  When do unicorns become real?  

[11/14] 

At another extreme we could take the the Matrix to be an omniscient being.  This would be closer to canonical theism.  What prevents this view?  There still needs to be a source.  Could God not have an subconscious?  Can God have attention and imagination?  How can mind come to be limited or segmented?  This has to do with the function of the dialectic.  

Perhaps a self is simply a center of ignorance.  It is a hole in the mind field.  Where does the BPW begin and the matrix leave off?  There is a filtering process.  This brings us back to time and memory.  This is also the problem of the microcosm: presentation without representation.  Omniscience and self-hood may be contradictory.  Where is the river Lethe, and what is it?   We can consider the problem of an eidetic memory.  This would conflict with a coherent memory which would be more teleologically oriented.  

[11/15] 

We need a science of nescience.  Dialectics may provide a starting point.  There could be logical barriers to knowledge.  It is a contest of coherences.  

Direct perception must take into account the relational nature of knowledge.  The episteme and the ontos must both be weighted toward the relational.  The selves are seeds for the relational crystallization of the Matrix.  This is preparation for the aqua regia of apokatastasis.  This logistic is a bit like the game of free-cell.  

Materialism and sectarianism are two sub-optimal forms of coherence.  They are about to be overtaken by something larger.  There is the apparent conflict and orthogonality of systems that is a barrier to the larger knowledge.  

Perception is filtered by coherence.  Most of the coherence is presently absent to us, it is subconscious.  Coherence is ordered by functionality and teleology.  

There is then the issue of emergence.  The selves must be able to draw new things out of the Matrix.  Things do not arise from the matrix unbidden.  There is no true chaos.  The imagination is our portal to the matrix.  Artifacts are our fishing tackle.  From whence did the self emerge, if not from the matrix?  It is the only thing that could bootstrap itself out of the matrix.  It has a logical priority.  Its imagination is not distinct from perception.  Does that first self know everything?  No, because multiple selves may spontaneously emerge.  They will emerge more easily if they are related to other selves.  How might they become so?  Would there not be innumerable selves?  Is there no filter on this?  Atoms may derive from these.  That may be correct.  Then what about the UEM?  That speaks to the relationality and rationality of atoms.  This also speaks to the construct of numbers and the MG.  Did I not get any of this before?  This is a restatement of personalism.  

The self is just a crystallized matrix, and so is the atom.  What is a number?  How do they relate to selves and atoms?  Is there a society of mind?  Numbers and atoms fill in our blind spots.  They are an extension of our collective memory, and a functional extension, at that.  An MG out of numbers is as likely as a living cell out of atoms.  There must be a telos in both cases.  The same one?  The teloi of atoms and numbers are inextricable, viz. e^i*pi.  How do the other coincidences come into play?  

But then we come back to the problem of not having any definite number of atoms.  How do we get the oceans to evaporate?  Is there a Jurassic Parc for atoms?  Gaia and the matrix may be similar.  Which came first, numbers or the MG?  

A review of Mandelbrot Mystery may be in order.  The Mandelbrot appears as a selfless, impersonal link into the Matrix, seemingly contradicting my statement three paragraphs above.  It resides on the boundary between coherence and incoherence.  

(I just got a new toy: Google's desktop search function.  It will help to facilitate the internal linking, over using site-search on all of comcast.net.  In the process of using it, I realize that the primordial dialectic and the zim-zum are very similar.) 

Zim-zum (and here): 

A term from Lurianic Kabbalah meaning the contraction of the Ain Sof to form a "space" into which all of creation would manifest. God still fills this space, like the fragrance of a rose lingers after it leaves the room. This is the first appearance of the "separation" between God and the Universe necessary for manifestation. In order for anything to become distinct and visible, something else must become invisible. A foreground is not visible unless there is a background. This is the first appearance of the Abyss and also of Knowledge (Daath). By the very act of separation God imposes ignorance or latency on Himself in order to create. This ignorance is simultaneously the birth of Knowledge.

Perhaps this is what F & L Hatem are referring to above in their Hyper-science.  

The Abyss is filled with numbers and atoms, etc.  The Mandelbrot is a model for the filling that becomes Creation.  We have come a long way from the pokatok court, and I wonder how we will get back to it.  With the Mandelbrot, there are no atoms, unless we arbitrarily limit the resolution.  If we switch models from math to language, we have letters, words and grammar in the place of organic chemistry.  

[11/16] 

We need to arrange for atoms to be present when we need them for the physics, but otherwise we don't want them to get in the way of the phenomenology or the teleology.   I don't want the atoms to take on an independent, objective, material existence.  The same is true for the stars and numbers.  Selves and atoms cannot exist apart from a telos.  Their function is to reify the virtual telos.  How many hydrogens and how many threes do we need to maintain the world?  One of each may be enough for the formalities.  How many Monster Groups does it take to run the world?  Its influence is as widespread as the particles it guides.  Must the MG be attached, as we often suppose our minds are, to a material substrate to be effective?  

How does a substance maintain its identity without the benefit of objective atoms?  Can we ask the same of pi or the MG?  For an emergent entity, the whole transcends its parts, rendering it less dependent on its atomic constituents.  The parts are there for our analysis.  

[11/17] 

It has finally occurred to me that the immaterialists should turn the tables on the materialists, relative to emergence.  It is atoms, numbers, words, etc., that are the emergent entities.  This thought stems from the zim-zum and the thunderwords of James Joyce.  The operative concept is articulation/distinction.  Language is the articulation of the logos.  Individual/ego consciousness is the articulation of tribal consciousness.  'Developing' societies continue to struggle with this articulation.  Their egos evaporate to emigrate to the developed countries wherein they recondense into our articulated socioeconomic structures.  (BTW, art-, ars derive from 'arm' of Sanskrit origin.) 

This thought has been dormant for some time.  It has been a struggle to articulate it.  I wonder where it has been previously articulated, beyond the crib notes I used for Finnegan.  Atoms are latent in matter until we articulate them with quantum measurement.  I have always figured that the spontaneous quantum collapses of the statisticians was just an artifact or a fudge to avoid the obvious teleology.  

This is truly about the deconstruction of atoms, again and, hopefully, finally.  The Matrix is the cosmic white hole, Ain Soph, Brahman, and the primordial selves are the prismatic articulators of it.  The X factor is the archeonic Coherentor.  Its dialectic co-focus is the Analyzer.  This is the engine of creation and we are the micro-engines.  This is the primal duality conspiring in creation.  Are we needing a name for the Y factor?  The christos incarnates a bit of the latter.  Y2X may have more of the Y.  I'm not sure how that works in the Z phase.  And where is the Pokatok?  The ball/sun is the precursor of the atom.  It is articulated by the team to place it through the ecliptic hoop.  

There is gradually constructed an analytic infrastructure which is guaranteed to produce atoms when it is employed.  This infrastructure is itself not necessarily analyzable.  It is non-local.  It consists of hardware and software, and it is cultural.  Instances of it are like a quantum measurement.  This does not quite tell us how the oceans evaporate.  Can evaporation be subsumed under metabolism and heliotropism?  The R of AZO/X/QRP brings a dialectical re/Creation into space-time via our newly appreciated atoms.  It is about the culturing of our Gaian crystal/chrysalis, a pearl of great price.  A seed is a microcosmic precursor of the atom.  Pi is the seminal seed of e^i*pi.  

It is not clear how we knew how much diversity we could wring from the atom before the fact of it.  This has to do with the preordained atomic limits of the BPW, but that may be a moot point.  These teleologically derived atoms can hardly stand in the way of the Telos.  We could also ask about the telic priority of the MG vs. pi.  I suspect that coincidences of pi are presaged in the complexity of the MG.  This information is also encoded in the Riemann Zeta.  The organicity of math and the world are written into carbon, as in a charcoal sketch.  The BPW is not contingent upon carbon.  It is vice versa.  There would be no carbon and no nothing without the BPW.  Even the Matrix is dependent upon us, in no small measure.  The felicitous zodiac sat around the ol' fishing hole, and now see what the feline dragged home, still dripping.   Are the atoms now tamed?  Surely el Telos Taurus is cracking a bit closer to their ears.  The properties of carbon are vastly overdetermined, but the quantum gap can more than accommodate all those analytic sins.  Do we have to worry that the ouroboros will not be sufficiently long and supple to grab its own tail?  Fear not!  That's like worrying that the Centurions might have run out of nails.  It's not the atoms that account for the stability of the world.  It's the other way around.  Nonetheless, the structure of all the atoms are accounted for with a very few parameters.  The fudging does remain well concealed.  There is a superficial simplicity.  

Back to the MG.  Was it pulled out of the ol' fishing hole fully formed?  I doubt it.  Like a pretzel, it had to be twisted into shape.  There was a logical vacuum that needed filling.  The relative simplicity of the atom is balanced by the complexity of the MG.  But aren't the genealogies of the elementary particles gratuitous?  Are they not just meant to keep the mathematical physicists off the streets for another few years?  The neutrino is not needed outside of astrophysics.  Why go to all the trouble just to save the celestial appearances?  The intricacies of stellar dynamics are quite gratuitous to a pre-Copernican cosmos.  Perhaps the MG has all the functionality of a gargoyle, not that that is to be underestimated.  Perhaps the Sun, though, is not as gratuitous.  Saving its appearance is more than academic.  Cosmic rays help to save the appearance of genetic mutation, no small savings.  And let us not forget the political significance of nuclear weapons in this age of culture clash.  Still, we could have gotten by with a few exceptional groups, without having to go full-bore for the sporadics.  It is our attempt to quantize gravity that puts us under the sporadic spell.  

We might also attribute the MG to the organicity of math.  This is no small matter, either.  This organicity may indirectly reflect upon physics.  The MG might also serve as a proxy for the organicity and complexity of the world.  That has been my generally unstated assumption.  I need to work out the significance of proxy-hood in this context.  It may just go with relationalism.  Math, like most things, exists as a microcosm.  It 'represents' the extremity of articulation in an organic world.  Complexity substitutes for organicity.  Numerical coincidences, however, point to the organic.  If human understanding is part of the teleology, and we have now discovered the most complex mathematical object, then this fact may have eschatological portent.  Only the Riemann Zeta may still stand between us and the Omega.  

[11/18] 

An outstanding problem for the BPW is the the placement of the Alpha.  Most idealist philosophies are simply acosmic and atemporal.  The BPW was born out of a theistic and eschatological concern.  It is unabashedly cosmological, and is necessarily theo/anthropocentric.  Linear, historical time is commensurate with human consciousness.  The primary departure of human from animal consciousness came with the development of language, which I speculate was contemporaneous with the appearance of eidetic memory, some fifty thousand years ago.  Prior to that time, there will be a marked divergence between materialist and idealist conceptions of the phenomenal world.  Materialists suppose that we can extrapolate the present phenomenology of linear time back to the big-bang, long before observation or memory.  Idealists may not be so casual in their extrapolations.  The Alpha is the point at which the biological creatures become the primary custodians of Creation.  I seem now to be contradicting the Pokatok scenario that has been useful up to this point.  Permit me to bracket that for the time being.  Since we cannot rely on atoms and physics prior to Alpha, we must remain circumspect in our use of them afterwards.  

There is a 'cheat' at this point.  To complement the use of 'physics' after Alpha, we can substitute physicists to fill in the record that appears to antedate Alpha.  This is admittedly a heavy reliance on creaturely mediated teleology.  But this epochal contrast is overstated.  What I mean to say is that memory and the historical record coincide in the latter but not the former epoch.  This too is misstated.  I do not appeal to memory, but to direct perception.  This is the case for the historical epoch.  What happens before is a matter of projection rather than perception.  In its turn, this duality between projection and perception is also being overstated.  It is true that language is very often a force for analytic rather than holistic thought.  The struggle for holism is an uphill battle with the conventions of language.  This fact points up the difficulty of this pedagogy.  

With idealism there need not be a clear distinction between interpolation and extrapolation, or between foreground and background.  It all originates with the same vision of the BPW.  I do need, however, to revamp my understanding of nature.  What I have so far is mainly just an excuse for nature.  This is a negative explanation.  I need a positive explanation.  Previously I have attempted to outsource nature to Jurassic Parc.  That is simply a restatement of the problem.  Can we incorporate the appearance of nature into a rational process or creation?  Can we have nature without naturalism?  Can we get by with an ersatz big-bang, or do we have to go all the way?  We have made some progress with the emergence of ersatz atoms.  Cannot the big-bang emerge in a similar fashion, and then we can ditch the Parc?  

A big-bang would be the only 'natural' source of atoms.  The two are logically co-dependent, along with evolution.  What is the cost of all this 'naturalness'?  Need it be more costly than an ad hoc Creation?  One may be sorely tempted at this point just to posit an actual big-bang, but this leaves us with a very tricky exit strategy, plus an excessive degree of ad hoc intervention along the way.  

When we go digging, go stargazing, go microbe hunting, go atom smashing, we are going to have to find something.  We cannot just fall off the edge of reality.  Phenomenology, just like nature, abhors a vacuum.  All blind spots are filled.  I suggest that the 'natural' filling in may be the path of least psychic resistance.  This is the path of greatest coherence and of the least cognitive dissonance.  It may seem that God has allowed the phenomenology to go too far in this direction, making it harder to extricate ourselves from the path of materialism.  If there were more dissonance, my life would be easier.  That's alright.  I do my job, and God does her job.  

The big-bang and evolution provide a 'false summit' of sub-coherence.  As soon as we reach that summit, the true summit will loom into view.  It will look a lot like an eschaton.  The false summit is the scientific telos, or the unified theory of everything.  That unification of phenomena is the path of least action for the Creator.  We seem only to figure out the scheme of unification after the fact.  But, from the perspective of cosmic intelligence, facts are always theory laden.  It is the condition of relational existence.  From the bias of temporal existence we discover the theory after the facts, but that bias is just our illusion.  

We 'discover' the Earth to be round, after failing to fall off the edge.  We suppose the Earth to be objectively round.  But if the Earth were flat, someone would have to shape an ad hoc set of edge effects.  Lacking that special someone, the Earth cannot fail to be round.  The world is that much simpler.  Bill Occam is glad.  The same goes for evolution.  Without that principle of coherence, biological phenomena would have to be jerry-rigged.  The phenomenal pieces would all be gratuitous.  The whole point of phenomenology is that it abhors a vacuum, and that entails that there can be no rough edges.  This should tell us something about the eschaton.  It is not an edge for us to fall off of.  It is rather an apokatastasis, a restitution.  

May we revisit the Monster Group?  What would Bill think about it?  

[11/19] 

Off of what edge does the Monster prevent us from falling?  On the early maps of the world, in the blank areas, terra incognita, it was customary to depict a monster or two.  It kept the explorers guessing.  

In explaining the MG we can hardly appeal to simplicity.  The MG seems the archetype of extravagance.  What we seem to be missing is a phenomenology of math.   There seems to be nothing natural about the MG.  

It is math that keeps us from falling off the edge when we come to the quantum.  It is only with the quantum that mathematical physics comes into its own.  This has to do with the greater level of abstraction introduced by the probability wave functions and the concomitant projection operators.  With the quantum we fall into the infinite dimensional Hilbert space.  At the same time we are forced to take onboard the theory of complex numbers.  These abstract spaces open us up to issues of symmetry.  It is the MG that connects for us the discrete and non-discrete symmetries, having to do with the 'moonshine' conjecture and string theory.    

It is these symmetries which hold the atoms and particles together.  They cannot be smashed, they can only be transformed from one symmetry state to another.  There is a process of self-containment and closure that can be expressed only with mathematics.  This logical closure is the basis of our ontic stability and identity.  This same closure is responsible for the melding of the ontic and epistemic in physics.  

If we project back in time or out in space, it is the big-bang that saves our appearances.  If we project down in scale it is math that saves the appearances.  It is the MG, in its coverage of the discrete and non-discrete, that melds these disparate projections.  The smoothing out of the rough edges of reality is of more than academic concern.  It has to do with the ouroboric/bootstrap nature of reality.  Coherence cannot be a local phenomenon.  It is cosmic or nothing.  Tying together all the loose ends requires a knot of Gordian proportions.  The Langlands and Erlangen programs of mathematics speak to this coherence.  It is about the rationalization of math, the squaring of the circle.  

The discreteness of the atom allows us to combinatorially fill every ecological niche.  This metabolic combinatorics accounts for the continuity of nature.  The logical closure of nature is what grounds and redirects our transcendental impulse leading to the eschaton.  The MG is the Anthropos in mathematical dress.  It is our jumping-off point to eternity.  It is our Cartesian pineal gland.  The UEM is just a manifestation of the ouroboric principle.  The MG expresses the finitude of the Anthropos and Gaia, and so it ensures and may even codify the eschaton.  

It does appear, to me at least, that the BPWH has been significantly consolidated this time around, by bringing closer together the principal loose ends.  Outstanding from above is the conflict in the placements of Alpha.  The acquisition of language is spread out over time and space, whereas the introduction of certain ceremonial sports is more easily specified.  It could be two stages of a single process.  We allow Alpha to be segmented or articulated.  And so may be the Omega. 

The aesthetics of mathematics (beauty & mathematics - 950,000 hits) provides another handle on the organicity of mathematics.  Combine this with the UEM and the Ramanujan phenomenon and we see the ouroboric principle operating on all levels of reality.  My point is that a world without a robust mathematics is inconceivable.  The most direct line of progression here is metabolism -> chemistry -> quantum -> math.  Another similar progression is ecology -> evolution -> big-bang -> math.  Leaving out any one of these steps would result in a logical hole in the world.  Its coherence would be radically reduced.  To be is to relate.  Without the relational power of mathematics, being would be impoverished.  Without this mathematical extension nature would be at loose ends.  The Grand Unified Theory may be a false summit of coherence, but that does not negate its contribution thereto.  Dualistic thinking about mind and matter has spilled over into a perceived dualism of math and matter.  That duality is artificial.  There is then nothing unreasonable about the effectiveness of mathematics.  

[11/20] 

Stars and fossils remain challenging for the idealist.  We have to arrange for filling in the background of deep time and deep space.  

Stars could fairly easily fall under the aegis of Sol.  Sol is then the main challenge, and we can subsume that in the metabolic frame heliotropism.  Given a round Earth and gravity, it is not a big step to placing a primary energy source.  The physical details of the Sun are emergent properties along with atoms.  The Sun is a spin-off of the big-bang. 

The fossils are a different challenge, but it would be strange if there were no 'record' of the evolutionary phenomenology.  The Earth needs to be antiqued.  This need not, however, require any very special provisions beyond what we have for atoms and the big-bang.  This is following the path of least intervention.  

Given a spatial frame, the logic of atoms is inescapable, just ask the Greeks.  We invoke an anthropic Telos as our final cause, which then elicits a chain of being out from the background of atomic logic.  The big-bang is the logical anchor that is projected out from the Alpha end of the chain.  All the rest of the chain, including stars and fossils, is just a path of least phenomenological resistance.  

Need this be implausible?  We underestimate the degree to which plausibility is socially conditioned.  In short, we will very easily get used to it, if we have the slightest motivation to do so.  The scientists will cry crocodile tears.  Poor dears! 

Yes, Virginia, there is a Chain of Being.  That it appears as natural as it does is a matter of an aesthetics which may best be ascribed to cosmic convenience.  The X-factor can be as Zen-like as the best in that tradition.  No unnecessary action or disturbance in the cosmic flow.  The cosmic Santa relies mainly on us elves to keep the phenomena on the designated track.  It's only as we approach the Omega that we experience trepidation.  Up to now it has mainly been combinatorics.  That's what space is for.  

Let me summarize the logical sequence: 

   Forms/zodiac -> diversity/separation -> combinatorics -> space/atoms -> eco-metabolics -> chain-of-being -> big-bang -> sun-stars-fossils.  And the rest is history. 

These are the logical organizing principles that guide the phenomenology.  This logical guidance of the phenomenology works in a manner similar to what we suppose is the mathematical guidance of physics in the quantum realm.  Collectively, we mediate the logical guidance, and we often do so in a teleological fashion.  

May we now discard Jurassic Parc?  Well, the challenge we have now is to turn the logical sequence into a temporal sequence focused on Alpha.  This is the articulated creation.  I am prone to discard the fifty-thousand year mark, and head back toward the pokatok/megalithic frame.  Prior to that would have been a timeless or time-optional J-Pc.  This would have been a test-bed for the basic cycles and functions, with pokatok as an occasional sideshow.  

[11/21] 

In worrying about J-Pc, we can go back to here.  We are looking for the 3-D seed crystal that will include the R archetype in a significant fashion.  It is not easy to jump-start the reproductive cycle.  Which came first, chicken little or the Omega?  To what extent can R be related to the dynamics of Z?  What are the metaphors/analogies for R?  From whence came the idea of the seed?  Bring on the dialectic.  

[11/22] 

Earlier on this page it was suggested that there might be a link between the ouroboros and the reproductive cycle.  Another point to recall is the normativity of biological cycles.  

[11/30] 

I realize that I don't yet have an explanation for fire.  My thoughts turn to Gaston Bachelard and his Psychoanalysis of Fire.  Notice also his Poetics of Space, etc.  Have I been neglecting Gaston in my phenomenological efforts?  Where and how does fire fit into the BPW?  Is it mainly logic or aesthetics that explains fire?  Gaston points to the Promethean and social aspects of fire.  I would sooner point to the technology of fire, being the smith that I am, but that is implied by Prometheus.  The sun empowers vegetation.  We bring the sun down from the sky and empower ourselves.  The domestication of fire is lost in pre-history, a history to which I ascribe a derivative reality.  Still we may wonder as to the relation between fire and language in our domestication and socialization, and how these features relate to, or might be included in, the J-Pc/creation scenario.  As Gaston points out, the concept of the hearth is crucial in many ways that we can barely appreciate in the age of microwaves.  The hearth is the heart of our domiciles.  In cooking, we are all alchemists.  He further points out that fire is seen as a link between matter and spirit, as in the case of ceremonial sacrifice.  Imagine the role of fire in bringing us down from the trees.  Consider the role of 'fire water'.  Fire is another kind of evaporation and portent of atomicity.  Oxidation distinguishes animals from plants.  We are the two sides of the carbon cycle.  Consider the role of CO2 emissions in our eschatological sensibility.  The consideration of fire could cast a more psychological light upon the J-Pc.  There remains, however, a phenomenal and logical gap between metabolism and pyrolysis.  

[12/1]

With fire, the demands on atomicity are greater than before.  It may help to put more emphasis on the numerical ground of atoms.  With evaporation we may invoke aqua/heliotropism, but with fire there is no relevant tropism, beyond our own fascination.  Forest fires, lightning and volcanoes are a mixed bag.  They do seem to have a mind of their own, and they are atomic mainly in theory.  

[12/2] 

Psychologically, we may not speak of fire without also speaking of ice.  That combo has had an enormous impact on the human diaspora.  Was that combo a positive creation, or was it a logical spin-off of the main show?  The peculiar negative thermal expansion of water near freezing indicates the former case.  This observation puts us well beyond Gaston's analysis.  It is not clear to me what were the self-imposed limits of his analysis. 

In this context I am looking at John Fraim's website.  It provides a useful contemporary compendium of symbolism.  My contention with Gaston is his embrace of the claustrophobic going back to the womb(/matrix?).  Cosmology is not in his lexicon.  

We must not forget that the polar thermocline is the Carnot engine of meteorology.  Ice limits the organic stress imposed by the thermocline.  Atomic substances must have at least two phases.  The middle phase is ruled by water. 

Cartographic diversity -> meteorology -> thermocline -> ice -> fire. 

Does this sequence gives us a better handle on atomism?  

Don't forget that CO2 is necessary for plants.  What was its supposed primordial source?  The primordial atmosphere was nitrogen and methane?  

Then we come back to lightning and volcanoes.  Were these deliberate?  And consider the role of cosmic rays in triggering lightning.  Plate tectonics is a rationalizing of cartography.  Volcanoes are a residue of this rationalization.  That brings up earthquakes.  It is hard to find something positive there, but they are a lot less deadly than the mosquito or virus.  The virus is a residue of genetics.  The game of ecology is serious, and not totally anthropocentric.  Nature should not be kept on too short of a leash.  No shorter than our leash. 

What is the role of the fear of God in the above?  Is that a legitimate component of the BPW?  We must be reminded that we are on a leash. 

How closely related are lightning and electricity in the telos?  Is there a psychology of lightning, or is it just its role in the carbon/nitrogen cycles.  Is there an overdetermination here?  The exact mechanism of charge separation remains obscure.  Does it depend on ice?  The lightning bolt is the preeminent phenomenon of nature, beyond the eclipse.  Did it spark our fascination with fire? 

I need to reconsider the four elements: air, earth, fire and water.  How do they relate?  Then I need to get back to the eschaton, and how that fits into the BPW scheme. 

Air and water are essential to transport, particularly of the atomic variety.  The combinatorics of metabolism is essential to the combinatorics of space.  Space is the way to avoid the limits of Leibniz' II.  What becomes of that combinatorics in the eschaton or beyond the portal?  In short, what becomes of us.  Will there be stages of recombination?  Can space gradually become more relational?  Cyberspace will be a part of that.  Virtual pokatok is a step beyond and back.  Halo is of that ilk.  RPGs may be truer to form.  Metabolism enables self-maintenance.  This goes with our territorial/homing instinct.  The RPG moves us toward a more functional and group perspective.  We have reached the apogee of ego development, and we are reluctant to move beyond that point, despite the pressures and inducements of modern society.  Society has learned how to harness the egos to its own, more organic, ends.  This is the hidden hand of economics.  Forced collectivization is a vision of the past. 

[12/3] 

Atoms maximize the self-organizing combinatorial possibilities allowed by spatial symmetry.  The R cycles are the means of realizing those possibilities.  

MDX -> Z -> AO -> QRP. 

DX is the Dia/logos.  It breaks the Z symmetry into AO.  Space/time is formed with QRP.  Q expresses the normativity of R and P, and re-expresses the Dia/logos with e^i*pi.  The J-Pc corrals the cloning Rs.  The J-Pc may also be the primordial gap between A&O.  It is a timeless Xcaret, a Camelot.  History then encircles that Mt. Meru or axis mundi.  The J-Pc leaks out and gradually the core removes itself from the mainstream.  It goes off the mass-shell like a virtual particle.  It is the mother of all seeds.  That's one speculation, anyway.  

[12/4] 

The digestive and reproductive cycles may be viewed as tandem challenges in the combinatoric scheme.  Fire, especially in the guise of internal combustion, is digestion in extremis.  Plants operate on external combustion.  Ideas don't burn, do they?  How will we ever get people to believe that ideas burn?  If people can believe that, they will believe just about anything.  And isn't that the whole point?! 

[12/5] 

The conservation of energy in locomotion is a burning issue.  This is a space-time symmetry.  Why not telekinesis?  That symmetry is necessary for combinatorics.  In order for ideas to move, they must also be combustible.  What is the downside of telekinesis?  It would be abused?  Or we can't ordinarily break the symmetry?  Are continuity and causality separate issues?  I have not looked at these.  Atoms must be related to both.  They are centers of causality and manifest the limits of continuity.  That is how Q is kept small.  Combustion manifests both.  Does combinatorics require these?  Atoms are a distributed intelligence.  But does that bind mind too tightly to matter?   No, it is just the minimal localization of same.  We cannot attend to atoms, and so they attend to themselves, when necessary.  They are foci of habituation.  Some of this is true of numbers.  When it comes to continuity we have to think globally and act locally.  It's difficult not to take space-time for 'granite'.  The jump-starting of atoms and chemistry remains a challenge.  How much of a jump-start is Creation?  This is the problem of the J-Pc.  The problem of cosmogony is genealogical.  That is what all the biblical 'begats' are alerting us to.   The photons are the stretch marks of space.  Does this sound too much like the big bang?  They are our communion.  UFOs may function in a similar, coordinating fashion.  There was no first baby.  We are all still babies struggling for the first breath.  There is the symbolism of 2001.  

[12/6] 

Atoms are the logical foci of habituation and physicality.  Q is the fudge factor that mediates the conflicting teleological/functional demands that we place on atoms.  Do the atoms determine the cycles, or is it the other way?  There are trade-offs and conflicts between atomism and teleology.  How is the balance maintained?  The relation between atoms and numbers remains tenuous.  

[12/7] 

Optimizing the combinatoric possibilities in time and space is the primary thrust of Creation.  How important is Nature for this?  Is it merely the logical backdrop for the human drama?   Is there not a more positive role?  I raise this question back here.  In other instances I have stated that God uses nature to hide behind, but that is nothing positive.  It was a major deal to go with nature.  It was an all or nothing decision.  To what degree is nature just an obstacle to be overcome by us?  Or is it just to balance the carbon cycle?  Could there be an Earth without Gaia?   It would simply be incoherent.  There could not be flora without fauna.  

Ecology is an all or nothing game, and it cannot be played without giving much autonomy to the atoms.  This is why materialism has such a hold on us.  The space-time combinatorics must begin at the atomic level, but then the atoms must be kept on a short ontological leash.  That requirement remains to be fleshed out.  This must relate to Q, but Q is not something that is added to atoms.  Atoms emerge from it.  That misunderstanding may explain the quantum enigmas.  The dialectics of e^i*pi must come into this.  Fleshing out Q may be the next priority.  It is the least determinate of the archetypes.  

[12/8] 

That matter emerges from Q, whatever it may be, has not yet been appreciated.  e^i*pi is only a small aspect of Q and P.  (Physics students must understand that these are not the anti-commuting quantum variables of the same names.)  A point to consider is the relation between matter and memory.  Also consider that this problem is a bitch, along with the Nature that it is.  We are just trying to see what makes matter substantial.  Certainly the physicists have not a clue.  Substance is just something that metaphysicians used to worry about.  The relationality of it is hard to compute.  How can there be a virtual substance?  Substantiality is largely qualitative and normative.  QRP are also of this stripe.  Yes, even P/pi is grounded in normativity, I would claim.  It is not just another number.  It is a very special number, and its singularity is ultimately a matter of judgment and perspective, embedded in the depth and coherence of mathematics.  Atoms are the manifestation of QRP when projected onto space and time, which in their turn may also be seen as projections.  The normativity of space and time has been widely noted, particularly with regard to time. 

[12/9] 

Our concern for the reality of atoms could be extended to the reality of bytes, letters, etc.  There is a similar contextuality and normativity.  Misplaced bytes and atoms are of dubious ontic status.  Consider the rise and fall of 'sense data', or the status of a stray neural firing.  Can signal noise be parsed with any effect?  Substance is holistic or nothing.  It is relational.  We don't have a good handle on the glue.  We can't put a finger on it.  All substance is ultimately subjective.  There is a genealogy of substance that is entangled with that of  the self.  Analysis requires effort and infrastructure.  It is not natural.  There is a story of atoms.  We live that story, and their substance is entangled with it and us.  Does this explain solar neutrinos and the other exotica of science?  All of that is a spin-off of the functional core of phenomenology and QRP.  Does any of this help us to reconstruct the Creation scenario?  

[12/10] 

One does find seashells by the seashore.  Are they misplaced?  What is their ontic status?  Some are valuable and wind up in collections.  They may become currency, wampum, having a social metabolic function.  Otherwise, like fallen leaves, they are cycled back into the earth where we all end up, more or less.  Each one of us can become a stray sheep, without a shepherd.  But can we?  Can anything?  Truly?  Consider the fractal and apokatastasis.  Can there be any leftovers?  Between cycles there is a no-man's land.  Or is it?  There are typos and there are spell-checkers.  There are culture clashes.  Terrorists get caught in the middle.  In ecology, the carcasses pile up.  Detritus.  If oxygen gets too high, fires bring it back down.  

Is it not possible that we are having experiences that will not be apotheosized or restituted?  Some experiences take on greater portent than others.  There is repetition.  Will we be able to point to waste?  I am skeptical that it will be a lasting issue.  By creating new contexts, we create new experiences, be they social or technical in nature.  The Internet is a case in point.  

How did the starry sky get filled?  Partly by fractal, partly by coherence.  Did it ever have a different look?  Who shaped the Andromeda galaxy, or Orion?  There may have been various final causes that were over-determining the shape of the heavens, not the least of which were zodiacal.  Z could have been a component of a Lamarckian J-Pc.  

The Alpha need not be jumpstarted.  It is lost in the mists of time.  At some point history merges into the J-Pc, and J-Pc has an eternal component as discusses on 12/3.  It is a nexus and highest common denominator of our consensual imagination.  It may be fleshed out with our dreams. 

We have to keep looking for gaps in the BPW, and hope that in filling them we don't have to make gross adjustments.  At some point there will be sufficient confidence in the model to enable a divestiture.  The least integrated facet at this point is the numerical.  This is surprising for an immaterial model.  Their provenance remains obscure.  Their appearance in mathematical physics is exotic.  With computers, they become more functional.   Perhaps, though, it is in combinatorics that numbers and symmetries find their most natural home.  It is on the atomic level that these symmetries become the most robust.  Numbers and atoms are mutually reified, and somehow our minds partake of same.  We don't yet have an observer principle for math.  Our minds are combinatoric machines relative to thoughts.  Our intuitions of the MG and the Ramanujan phenomenon go far beyond the basics.  An axis mundi must be involved.  If there were to be a breakthrough, this would be a likely venue.  There must be a strong connection between the observer and anthropic principles.  That connection may be the basis of substance.  It is the Q that comes in here.  It is the connection between micro and macro.  Music and aesthetics may be involved here.  

[12/11] 

The organicity of the numerical coincidences is our best pointer, but to what end?  Where would we be without numbers, or without their coincidences?  Where would we be without Mozart, or without the Golay code and the Monster?  The geometry of all the sporadic groups is based on that of the Leech lattice, or optimal packing in 24 dimensions.  We might link mathematics to aesthetics, but then what is the function of aesthetics in the BPW?  Why music?  It has an abstract coherence like math.  Why abstractions?  Why words?  They have to do with the combinatorics.  This is where music comes in: combinatorial coherence and aesthetics.  Aesthetics must be an aspect of love and of normativity.  Consider synaesthesia, poetry, abstract vs. representational art, color vision, rhetoric.  Why then does this have to show up in the quantum domain in the form of math.  What is the linkage between the several aspects of math? 

[12/12] 

It would seem that between aesthetics and anthropics, the math structures would be overdetermined.  How can we arrange for both to be fulfilled?  Somehow there has to be a link.  Where could that be?  And how does the epistemology work?  The episteme comes from the same place that our spatial perception comes.  This may speak to the proprioceptive construct that is space.  Aesthetics must be closely related to coherence, which is alignment between micro and macro cosms.  Science provides a sub-alignment.  This may be a spinorial/relational view of space.  This may be where the virtual pokatok model runs into trouble.  It assumes a perceptible space.  The zodiac then is a kind of pre-space, or a projective pre-geometry, which then gets cloned according to some proto-symmetries.  What is the primal spinor?  What is its psychic basis?  It must have to do with the dyadic dialectic.  The dialectic must be multidimensional.  That is a trick.  The zodiac is an expanding spin-net that becomes space.  What is the basis of orientation, the primordial dimension or polarity?  Then we need a pokatok for spinors.  It sounds like foosball!  Yin-yang could be a primal dyad, but how do we get from the qualitative to quantitative dimensions.  By way of numerology?  Hasn't this been worked out somewhere?  

[12/13] 

Permit me to set aside aesthetics momentarily, to deal with the construct of space.  I need a link between the anthropic and aesthetic aspects of math.  It has something to do with combinatorics.  The combinatorial view of space has long been championed by Roger Penrose, in a solitary battle.  His views were motivated by Mach and Leibniz.  According to Mach, the conventional view of space depends on an infinite background of particles.  What if we start off with a finite number, wondered Roger?  Then you have to consider Leibniz, and employ a quantum spin network.  Space is constructed in a purely combinatorial and relational fashion.  

Yesterday I had been watching Brian Green's Elegant Universe.  The hero of the movie is Ed Witten, the fellow who in 1994 rescued string theory with his M (monster) theory.  It seems that Ed has now taken up the cause of Roger's twistors.  I haven't yet seen whether Ed's interest is also Leibnizian.  My cohomology theory is regrettably weak.  Ed follows the diagrammatic path of Andrew Hodges.  

I'm now looking at John Baez' discussion of how Euler's discovery that 1 + 2 + 3 +..... =  -1/12 has led to modern string theory.  I'm not sure I buy this, Leonhard, that is.  This is also the formula that launched Srinivasa's career.  What is the sense of this, we might wonder?  John shows that the 26 dimensions of bosonic string theory is directly related to this result of -1/12.  What is the aesthetic of obtaining the finite from the infinite?  Is it not the aesthetic of the microcosm?  This may be where the microcosm impinges upon the cosmos, or where the mutual alignment is realized.  And now looking at Conformal Infinity, another of Roger's ideas.  A good discussion of the philosophy of divergence is here.  Euler's discovery hinges on the unappreciated strangeness of negative numbers.  

[12/14] 

I refer you to A note on divergent geometric series by Kevin Carmody.  He points out that if 

    * x = 1 + a + a^2 + a^3 + ....  then x/a = 1/a + 1 + a + a^2 + ..... = 1/a + x.  
    * Thus x = 1/(1-a), except for a = 0, 1.  
    * Then for a = 2:  1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + ... = -1.  

This fact is used to store negative numbers in computers by using their two's complement.  You can see why the ancients were so wary of these negatives.  

Having studied mathematics for many years, I am surprised to be surprised by this so late in the game.  It is turning out, however, that the substantiality of the world is based precisely on similar renormalizations of divergences.  The deeper we get into mathematical physics, the more sophisticated become our renormalization schemes.  The entire quantum apparatus might be viewed as just one such scheme.  Now I'm reading John's Renormalization Made Easy.  Also take a look at Pierre Cartier's, A mad day's work: from Grothendieck to Connes and Kontsevich - the evolution of concepts of space and symmetry, Bulletin of the AMS, 38 (2001).  Alexander Grothendieck draws parallels between semantic and physical spaces.  He pioneered the constructive view of spaces.  Epistemology replaces ontology, in the limit.  Perhaps he can help us to understand how space emerged or was projected from the Matrix, as an alternative to the pokatok scheme.  

Somehow, atoms must serve as proxies for our episteme.  Must we anthropomorphize atoms and numbers?  This is merely an extension of animism or vitalism.  It is pantheism, and so we see why the theists are wary.  Atoms, like us are chips off the old block, but this can also lead us into materialism.  Materialism is pantheism without the 'theo', and without the possibility of apokatastasis.  The restitution of numbers seems more logistically feasible than that of atoms.  Mathematical physics ought to help level the playing field.  It ought to expedite the relativization or deconstruction of atoms and space.  We do this using the music of the spheres.  Atoms and numbers are a medium for the telos.  There is the not so spontaneous symmetry breaking of the Matrix by the dialectic.  There is the sundering of synaesthesia.  

Then there is Dennis E. Hesseling's Gnomes in the fog: The reception of Brouwer's intuitionism in the 1920s, as reviewed by Edward Nelson.  Edward speaks of the formalist 'enlightenment', soon to follow, in which all semantics is superceded by syntax, pure syntax being the requisite of axiomatics.  This prescription underscores the degree to which real mathematics, especially as practiced by physicists, departs from the ideal of formalism.  By that much it must be animated, if you catch my drift. 

Mathematics consists of reasoning and computation, and of the two, computation is the more fundamental. Aristotle, Leibniz, Boole, and Hilbert each took a big step towards realizing the vision of reducing reasoning to computation.

Thanks, but no thanks!  I wonder how many formalist 'gnomes' are still around.  Does the analytic vision still survive on the margins of mathematics?  The mainstream shies away from philosophy.  Does computationalism still survive in the philosophy of mind?  Haven't we gotten over that?  Did we forget to tell the formalists?  If you want to know about computationalism, just talk to Srini.  He'll give you an earful!  Long live semantics! 

[12/15] 

I'm still lacking the proper metaphor for mathematical physics.  What is the attraction of pure math, and why does it spill over into physics?  How does the math migrate from atoms to brains?  Is it all built into our construction of space?  It may have to do with Rene Thom and his 'catastrophes'.  Atoms and organisms are just 'defects' of space, or, rather, space is the sum of all its defects.  This is scant support for combinatorics.  Must there not be multiple dialectics operating on the Matrix to produce a stable weave?  Or is Z the only stability?  What was the precursor to the atom?  The primordial catastrophe might be the atomic knot, then the alchemy.  

I am just learning about clathrates and warming (3,300 hits) from an op-ed piece in the Baltimore Sun by John Atcheson.  The global extent of these methane trapping hydrates only began to be appreciated in the early 90's.  They range from the arctic tundra to the deep ocean sediments, and contain at least double the known coal and oil reserves.  A prior rapid release of these unstable methane deposits may have contributed to a sudden warming episode 55 million years ago: Methane hydrates stir tales of hope and hazard (Science News 11/9/96).  We may have to double the magnitude and halve the time scale of the expected global warming.  Even with the Internet, news can travel slowly. 

[12/16] 

Usually it is the space lattice that gives rise to the defects, but we may need to reverse that sequence.  Space may be a crystallization or sublimation of defects arising from the Matrix.  Could the ego be such a one?  What can twistors tell us about this?  Do we wish to have space-time emerge independently of the creator?  That might be putting the cart before the horse, almost literally.  Should we look at Z as some kind of knot?  

For more on twistors see M Theory Visionists and R. Penrose, F. Hadrovich. 

[12/19] 

What we don't know is whether the Matrix is primarily analog or digital, i.e. continuous or combinatorial and discrete, in terms of whatever potentialities may emerge from it.  In my thinking so far, Z and D are some of both.  The answer to this has a bearing on the types of pre-geometry that may be anticipated.  Might any of the tools of field theory, e.g. symmetry operations, be usefully applied to Z or D?  We could ask the same questions of mental states.  How far removed is the Matrix from the symmetry of space and atoms?  Will the answer be mainly epistemic or ontic?  How big a role will logic play?  It favors discrete entities.  How heavily does relationalism favor continuity?  Cognitive science deals mainly with discrete functions.  This may be true even for perceptual systems.  Which do we prefer, digital or analog?  We'll take both, if we can.  This issue also touches upon free will.  Do we want to gives numbers a foothold in the mind?  We deal with the cause and effect of thoughts.  Are numbers going to help or hinder the teleology of the mind?  From person to atom may be too big of a step.  The single cell is a logical intermediary.  That makes it harder to trace any mathematical continuity.  The best we can do at this point is to check back with Rene Thom and his topological singularities in biological phase space.  

[12/26]

Presently I am reading Temple Grandin's Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior (2004).   Ms. Grandin invites us to use her autism as a bridge from human to animal consciousness.  Now all we need are bridges to atomic and zodiacal consciousness.  Horse whispering is a natural talent for the autistic. 

A problem we face is that if atoms do not partake of selfhood, we will not be able to relate to them.  Every cognizable entity must do so, and there are none other.  This should tell us something about universal function, telos and apokatastasis. 

[12/27]

What then is the relation between the selves and the ideas they entertain?  Episteme always implies mutuality.  This is the essence of animism.  This is Srini's secret.  He has intercourse with numbers.  He is a number whisperer.  There are no numbers, only number.  Egos are the atoms of God.  Atoms are God's alter egos.  There are only states, be they mental or atomic.  Sam's stone is a degenerate, unformed self.  Politics is alchemy.  Primality (of numbers) is something functional and ultimately only probable.  I am my ideas and my ideas are my facets.  There is no other context.  Scheherazade must die when her story runs out.  That is our fate.  Every moth has its flame.  The autist flies too near the flame, and is touched.  Would we, wont we, all.  Hiroshima was touched.  It brought down the gauntlet.  The skids are greased.  Prometheus and Siva, meet Pandora.  This is a restatement of the chain of being and its ouroboric character. 

[12/30]

If the the self didn't already exist we would say it was impossible, but nothing else can exist without it.  However, there must be relative degrees of selfhood, but can any partial self exist without an ultimate self?  Is it then incorrect to suppose that a primal self emerged from from the Matrix?  The Matrix and primal self may have to be identified, which would force a reinterpretation of MDX&Z.  Can there be a difference between the primal and ultimate selves?  The A&O are already seen as just two facets of one being. 

[12/31]

If God is eternal, and if Creation is an essential aspect of God, then Creation is eternal, but then calling it a 'creation' would be a misnomer.  No?  One might then suppose that Creation and the MG have the same provenance.  It is the eternal Telos.  Then we have to deal with the flow of time in relation to the eternal Presence.  We may already be beyond the point of the maximum linearity of time.  If Creation were not essentially eternal, it could not relate to the rest of the cosmos, or to the MG.  If physics were not logically necessary, there could be no mathematical physics.  How then may we restore creatorship to God?  Much of this has to do with the puzzle of presence, which is also about direct perception.  Is Mozart a creator?  The value of a creation is related to its endurance thru time.  Mozart then is a transcriber of the eternal.  His composition is not unlike the discovery of the MG.  The idea is not to appreciate God by deprecating Mozart.  God is the realizer of eternity.  Her presence underwrites Presence. 

[1/1/05]

Perhaps God is simply a virtual attractor, which is also the Telos.  This is the God of the eternal future, who is finally present.  It is our temporal egos that struggle to relate to the eternal self.  It is the prophetic tradition which attempts to bridge the gap.  What is our equivalent of the MG?  There are the genetic generators and the resultant structures. 

[1/2]

Creation is a collective process of which God is the coordinator.  But is not everything pre-coordinated?  Nonetheless, our struggles are real, and are essential to the process.  It is the tension of the suspension (bridge).  Ours is the optimal tension.  God is the glue.  The tension and the dialectic are related.  They are both involved with symmetry breaking.  We need to determine how God, egos, cells and atoms participate in the tension/dialectic.  And what about numbers?  How do these various beings rise to their many varied occasions?  How do we manage to exist all at about the same time and share in the same mutual presence?  Or is that strictly illusional?  Time must be derivative of presence.  Time and space are simply the mediators of presence.  They often override direct perception.  The problem of the mutuality of the present arises only when we treat time quantitatively or as derivative, or view being as non-relational.  Do numbers share in this problem?  Lack of simultaneity is a problem for relativity theory.  There is the related problem of the directionality of time that enters into entropy and into the collapse of the quantum wave functions. 

[1/3]

The great preponderance of what we think of as reality is based only on our counterfactual expectations.  How are these expectations constructed and maintained, presumably in the collective subliminal mind?  Is this the ground of materialism, the source of mathematical physics?  Or do atoms have a distinct subliminal realm?  To what extent might our expectations be able to steer events, and when do they fail to do so?  Find the telos of the tsunami that can override so many expectations.  There are cycles and then there are 'relaxation oscillations.'  Some things bend and some don't.  There must always be fault lines. 

[1/4]

By and large, reality manages to abide by our expectations.  Where it does not, scientists work to revise our expectations.  Falling stars are an example.  The timing of aperiodic events is left open.  One might wonder how our varied expectations are mediated.  How is the global coherence maintained?  We suppose that it is the atoms that do so.  Or are the atoms merely proxies?  It may be the decoherence that is harder to explain.  Atoms could also be the foci of decoherence.  There are very few free atoms.  They come in bulk, with standard bulk properties, be it a gas, liquid or solid.  Consider storms and volcanoes.  They all manage to be idiosyncratic.  Are atoms to blame?  Do they have minds of their own?  A storm ravages a beach.  Are the grains of sand to blame?  Grains of sand seem to qualify as neither bulk nor atomic.  There are many instances of such interstitial phenomena, i.e. the interaction of otherwise categorical phenomena.  With a purely atomic metaphysic there would be none such.  Can we deploy proxy atoms without falling into dualism?  What might be the logistical distinction between atoms and dust?  Consider Brownian motion.  From dust to dust.  And what happens in between? 

In her book on autism, Ms. Grandin points out that 'animals and autistic people don't have to be paying attention to something in order to see it.'  Things just pop out at them.  Humans are more likely to see only what they are expecting to see.  Her conclusion is that despite all the appearances, our normal consciousness is mainly verbal in orientation.  Vision is brought under the control of the 'left brain' (pp. 51ff).  On pp. 55ff  Ms. Grandin points to the neo- or associational cortex.  Autistics and animals have much less of, or have less functionality in their associational areas.  We end up seeing mainly our own generalities.  Also, as a result, normal adults are much more subject to ambivalence than are animals, autistics and children (pp. 88ff) whose emotions tend to be more compartmentalized.  We might wonder whether atoms and dust can be conflicted.  Does this have something to do with the quantum?  Atoms are Nature's way of resolving her conflicts, as are we with respect to God.
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9/26/04

The Heart of the Matter 

Indulge my infrequent optimism concerning the imminent resolution of the metaphysical problems of immaterialism and the BPW.   Taking our cue from Ms. Grandin, let us suppose that matter is the means to the resolution of cosmic conflict. 

------------------------------------

Before venturing further, however, allow me to acknowledge another member of the idealism club.  This is an excerpt from the NYTimes 1/4/05, "God (or Not), Physics and, of Course, Love: Scientists Take a Leap: Fourteen scientists ponder everything from string theory to true love:"

Donald Hoffman

Cognitive scientist, University of California, Irvine; author, Visual Intelligence.

I believe that consciousness and its contents are all that exists. Space-time, matter and fields never were the fundamental denizens of the universe but have always been, from their beginning, among the humbler contents of consciousness, dependent on it for their very being.

The world of our daily experience - the world of tables, chairs, stars and people, with their attendant shapes, smells, feels and sounds - is a species-specific user interface to a realm far more complex, a realm whose essential character is conscious. It is unlikely that the contents of our interface in any way resemble that realm.

Indeed the usefulness of an interface requires, in general, that they do not. For the point of an interface, such as the Windows interface on a computer, is simplification and ease of use. We click icons because this is quicker and less prone to error than editing megabytes of software or toggling voltages in circuits.

Evolutionary pressures dictate that our species-specific interface, this world of our daily experience, should itself be a radical simplification, selected not for the exhaustive depiction of truth but for the mutable pragmatics of survival.

If this is right, if consciousness is fundamental, then we should not be surprised that, despite centuries of effort by the most brilliant of minds, there is as yet no physicalist theory of consciousness, no theory that explains how mindless matter or energy or fields could be, or cause, conscious experience.

Now from the first chapter of his book: 

But wait.  If you construct all you see, then since you see this book, you construct it as well.  And if that's so, then why should you buy it and why should I get royalties?  What right have I to copyright your construction?

This question has more than passing interest to me as an author, and I shall have to raise a distinction to rescue my royalties.  [...] 

The except from Amazon leaves us hanging, and I could not get the search function working to retrieve more pages.  I would like to hear more. 

----------------------------------

Ms. Grandin points out that 'normal' humans are uniquely prone to ambivalence, apparently in the furtherance of our quest for coherence.  I happily construct a cosmology on this simple observation.  The doctrine of apokatastasis posits restitution in the future.  Various fundamentalist eschatologies rather posit Armageddon and division at the Omega.  Let me suggest that they have made the common mistake of transposing the Alpha and the Omega.  The paradisiacal zodiacal circuit is broken.  It requires atomic metabolism and the human proclivity toward concrescence and coherence to make restitution.  We finally internalize the predator/prey dynamic. 

There is the primordial rupture: felix culpa.  It has something to do with the primal sacrifice and subsequent theophagy as reenacted in the X-event.  Sexual dimorphism is one small part of this cosmogonic event.  We have had to eat and, yes, fornicate our way out of our predicament.  We have grown so acclimated to our via metabolis that we can scarcely contemplate its abeyance, not quite the same as abstinence.  Are not our own cells quite beyond copulation?  Now we partake as if there would be no tomorrow: not an unreasonable posture under the circumstances.  

Does this help in our understanding of atoms?  Where would we be in our miscegenation without our recombinant DNA?  Please note that organicity does not imply homogeneity.  It is about the rainbow coalition.  DNA, for all it's worth, need be little more than the logical detritus or our morphogenetic proclivity.  Logic and love are our only glue.  We come to the point where pure imagination can bridge the remaining gap in our cosmic circuit.  Behold the spark gap.

Logic begins with the primal 'mark of distinction'.  We can come home again, but only via the Riemann Hypothesis.  It has been a struggle.  Nothing will be wasted, not even our squeals. 

A critical mass was exceeded.  We are the fallout from the chain reaction.  Atoms are the retarded cores of the primal circuit. 

[1/6]

Keeping with the spirit of the quantum, it could have been a 'measurement' event which precipitated the rupture.  We may still be in the throes of realizing that event, of reifying the possibilities. 

[1/8]

Another way to look at cosmogenesis is in terms of a phase change within the matrix being precipitated at some critical juncture.  That precipitous phase change is Alpha, involving a separation.  From Alpha up to Omega, the cosmic partition is internalized within the microcosmic egos.  This gradual historic process of internalization leads up to the final restitution that is completed within a couple of generations.  I doubt that we have yet entered this final stage, but I would expect that the Internet will play a significant role in the initial phase of the apokatastasis.  The Y2X event will signal its commencement.  This website is intended to facilitate that event.

Does this sound too mechanistic?  Well, no point in having God do busy work. 

[1/9]

Suppose we switch from beach to forest.  Fallen leaves replace sand.  The trees are each teleological, and so are the blades of grass in the lawn.  How do these differ from the sandy beach?  Only in the associated teleology. 

[1/11]

With the forest we can still tell the trees, if not the leaves.  On the new mown lawn, there are only blades and grains, very similar to the beach.  How may we move seamlessly between the two?

But we can tell the forest for the trees.  It and the lawn are essentially systems.  But then there is the petrified forest turning into a beach.  Whose system is that in our young earth scenario? 

We need not inherit the hobgoblin of Plato and Descartes: that true ideas must be clear and distinct.  This shibboleth is a procrustean bed for relational, systemic thought.  However, we must not belittle the individuality of each and every blade of grass.  Each is a microcosm like ourselves. 

What of the individuality of the archaeopteryx?  Did her heart never beat?  I have said that it is we who personify nature.  I may have to stick with that.  It is we who individuate.  We do that because we are individuated chips off the cosmic block.  We do this to numbers, as none others can.  Numerology is not something gratuitous, juxtaposed against mathematics.  It is the heart of the matter. 

How do personification and abstraction coexist for us?  Are they not antinomies?  There must be combinatorics involved, but there is also integrity.  Integrity is no abstraction, it is our soul.  This may be where we come back to Temple Grandin.  She points to the links between animal and human consciousness that are adumbrated by autism.  Is Ms. Grandin lacking in integrity?  Certainly not in honesty.  Her refreshing honesty shines through every sentence.  Is she lacking in humanity or personality?  Perhaps she is correct in her self-diagnosis of lacking in cosmic ambivalence or multi-valence?  The personal and cosmic are two poles of the chain of being.  The world is suspended betwixt them.  They are the Alpha and Omega in a slightly shifted perspective.  Music is a link.  It ties into both our emotions and abstractions.  This is something lacking in animals.  Temple has little to say on this score.  Pythagoras had more to say.  Temple says that we and the whales are latecomers to the musical scene (p. 278).  

Is there nothing abstract about emotions?  Is there nothing emotional about numbers.  What would Srini say?  Is there not a music of the spheres?  How great can be the difference between the mental lives of Wolfgang and Srini?  How far can either be removed from God?  Did not Jesus have perfect pitch when it came to the Golden Rule, and how far is that removed from the Golden Section?  Abstraction, microcosm and our social nature come intact.  These come together in our linguistic skills. 

There was nothing clear and distinct about atoms until we came along.  Now we know the limits of distinction.  There are phenomenal regularities that seem to require atomic action.  No, we did not invent the atom, but someone conceived it.  We partake and amplify that conception in a crucial way.  We are a cog in the wheel.  We internalize the wheel.  The petrified jungle grows in our dreams.  We and it are the essence of the Creator.  The graininess of the beach, the atomicity of the ocean are equally essential. 

[1/12]

Organic teleology is limited by individuality.  Does that individuality require atoms, or can it be subsumed under the dialectic?  Persons are more than combinations. 

[1/13]

We have here a reprise of the Newton incident.  What happens when the apple falls from the tree?  Yes, gravity, but what else?  Can we make the teleology seamless?  How do we survive so well on our pseudo distinctions?  From whence do they come?  Even the symmetry breaking must have a telos.  At what point does the apple detach from the telos of the tree to become a statistic, and what does that mean? 

What kind of phenomenology is this?  How does it differ from that of Husserl and Heidegger?  Theirs is a species of psychology.  This is cosmology.  The emphasis is on the system. 

Perhaps the first phenomenologist was:

OETINGER, FRIEDRICH CHRISTOPH (1702-1782), German divine and theosophist, was born at Goppingen on the 6th of May 1702. He studied theology at Tubingen (1722-1728), and was much impressed by the works of Jakob Böhme. On the completion of his university course, Oetinger spent some years in travel. In 1730 he visited Count Zinzendorf at Herrnhut, remaining there some months as teacher of Hebrew and Greek. During his travels, in his eager search for knowledge, he made the acquaintance of mystics and separatists, Christians and learned Jews, theologians and physicians alike. At Halle he studied medicine. After some delay he was ordained to the ministry, and held several pastorates. While pastor (from 1746) at Waldorf near Berlin, he studied alchemy and made many experiments, his idea being to use his knowledge for symbolic purposes. These practices exposed him to the attacks of persons who misunderstood him. " My religion," he once said, '' is the parallelism of Nature and Grace."

Fred was a student of the 'divine system of relations'.  I couldn't have put it any better. 

What is the phenomenology of death, be it of you, me, apple or mountain?  Plato's ideas are eternal.  That is the burden of distinct ideas.  Ours are purely relational and nodal, always dynamic, and nothing if not.  Can numbers die?  Where do they go when they fall out of use?  No wonder that mathematicians are Platonists to the core.  No wonder that I fear the Monster!  The mountain goes down to the beach, but the beach goes back to Shell Mountain, all in the eternal divine system of relations.  Sand is the spawn of mountains.  Binary digits and neural pulses are the spawn of meaning.  All things are one at the atomic level and in the Telos.  Plato could never tolerate shells on his mountains, nor craters on his moon.   

Deadly and Yet Necessary, Quakes Renew the Planet, By WILLIAM J. BROAD, January 11, 2005:

But despite such staggering losses of life, said Robert S. Detrick Jr., a geophysicist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, "there's no question that plate tectonics rejuvenates the planet."

Moreover, geologists say, it demonstrates the earth's uniqueness. In the decades after the discovery of plate tectonics, space probes among the 70 or so planets and moons that make up the solar system found that the process existed only on earth - as revealed by its unique mountain ranges.

In the book "Rare Earth" (Copernicus, 2000), which explored the likelihood that advanced civilizations dot the cosmos, Dr. Peter D. Ward and Dr. Donald Brownlee of the University of Washington argued in a long chapter on plate tectonics that the slow recycling of planetary crust was uncommon in the universe yet essential for the evolution of complex life.

"It maintains not just habitability but high habitability," said Dr. Ward, a paleontologist. (Dr. Brownlee is an astronomer.) Most geologists believe that the process yielded the earth's primordial ocean and atmosphere, as volcanoes spewed vast amounts of water vapor, nitrogen, carbon dioxide and other gases. Plants eventually added oxygen. Meanwhile, many biologists say, the earth's first organisms probably arose in the deep sea, along the volcanic gashes.

"On balance, it's possible that life on earth would not have originated without plate tectonics, or the atmosphere, or the oceans," said Dr. Frank Press, the lead author of "Understanding Earth" (Freeman, 2004) and a past president of the National Academy of Sciences.

The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away, but who can take back the MG?   

We are God going to seed.  Our Creation is her recreation.  We are God's spawn.  Atoms are a necessary part of the recombinatoric ouroboric circuit.  In some essential way, God must be both mortal and immortal, and so must we.  No individual tree is immortal.  A given tree does not have an individual soul, the Wye Oak being a possible exception.  Souls are not Democritian atoms.  They, like everything else, have only a relative existence. 

And will the Monster be restored to God?  I have little doubt that it can be unraveled into the fabric of love, into the synaesthesia of God.  What we know of it now is a pale shadow, a merest skeleton.  It will be subsumed into the cosmic system in a far more robust manner than we could presently imagine.  A world without the Monster and without the Wye would be flawed.  The only possible and the best possible are not the same here.  They came through a sacrifice that we also cannot imagine.  It was not the only possible sacrifice.  That datum is about a sure as any can be.  It is like asking if I am the only possible Dan Smith.  That question takes us well beyond our depth.  Possible worlds exist only to the degree necessary, keeping in mind that necessity is nobody's mother.  We think of the MG as something fixed.  Only in God will it come to life.  We are seeing a projection of it: a shadow on the wall.  Its apparent fixture is another measure of our ignorance.  We could say the same of the petrified forest.  It comes to life not in the eon, but in the Aion.  Don't be confused.  We don't trifle with the cosmic semantics. 

[1/15]

In the divine system of relations, what is the relation of the atom to the Monster, and how do they both relate to us and God? 

Permit me to explore a cellular analog of the matrix.  In this analog the microtubular cytoskeleton, along with the genetic material, plays the role of mathematical logic.  We must understand that the role of math may be changed between the Alpha and Omega.  We might also wonder about the structuring of our ideas that leads to coherence.  Are ideas transported the way organelles are, on tubular networks. 

[1/16]

Coherence is something rooted in biology and teleology.  The cytoskeletal matrix that supports biological coherence, generally remains out of sight.  I wonder what supports coherence in the psyche.  The neural net may point to something more metaphysical.  Certainly logic and symmetry are part of the skeleton.  If logic is the hardware, then ideas and feelings are the software, and ultimately this distinction is transcended.  There are atoms in the phonemes, sense data and letters, but these are not generally attended to.  It is the functionality that counts, and functions are strictly relational.  The data bits aid in the communicative metabolism of thoughts.  Atoms exist no more definitely than do sense data, and the latter have fallen out of favor.  Neural pulses and atoms may not be the bedrock of reality.  Analysis does not come naturally.  It is something that we impose on the world.  Something that comes with its own costs and benefits.  There is a logic of atoms.  Those two constructs are mutually supportive.  They cannot be separated, as the quantum demonstrates.  It is less clear how atoms are necessary for logic.  It might have to do with reversibility and other symmetries. 

[1/17]

Space, time and atoms are mutually dependent.  Numbers are not conceivable without space and time.  Numbers and atoms are equally dependent upon the concepts of space and time, and this puts them into a logical proximity.  Atoms, number, space and time play a major role in the coherence of the world.  The idealist will want to turn this dependency around so that the former emerge form the latter.  Should this direction of emergence be problematic?  I would think not.  Causality, entropy and evolution can emerge in a very similar fashion out of the primal coherence.  This is to say then that the Zodiac is numerically indefinite outside of this support.  Z may be the nexus of the emergence.  The dialectic is instrumental here. 

The Matrix may be supposed to harbor a primal state of virtual coherence from whence the world is realized, under the guidance and instigation of a Creative intelligence.  Our dreams may be the stuff of which the world is made.  Our dreaming may constitute the making of it.  The world emerges as our collective dream.  The source of the real world is the dream world.  That realm is the connecting link between us and the Matrix, between the real and the virtual. 

The main strategy for the creation was to foster a self-sustaining process, i.e. biological reproduction, and various other cycles.  Coherence is translated into networks of mutual dependency. 

[1/18]

It is not clear whether the phenomenology of bodies should be taken as logically prior to the existence of atoms.  The relations between atoms and bodies is likely to be complex.  Consider the phase changes between ice, water and vapor.  This phenomenon could well be regulative of the properties of atoms.  What is the metaphysics of ice?  Ice, per se, has a diminishing climactic role.  Life can get on without it, but not without the related peculiarities of water, such as its high surface tension, boiling point and heat capacity, and its role in the many organic hydrates and biological solutions, etc.  Water is the basis and mediator of all biological systems.  Bodies and atoms are mutually stabilizing, as in the manner of homeostasis.  Biological bodies/systems necessarily maintain a state of dynamic (non-)equilibrium, e.g. see Ilya Prigogine and his 'dissipative structures'. 

There is the mutual exclusion of solid bodies to explain.  Is this necessarily mediated at an atomic level?  It is an electro/quantum force, based on atomic rigidity.  That same rigidity must give way to chemical reactions and recombination.  Atoms are the sole carriers of properties, determining the genus of each physical substance. 

There is no unalterable physical substance.  This distinguishes the physical and abstract realms, and does promote a dualist metaphysics.  But atoms have mainly abstract properties, that are open to recombination.  The same may be said of our ideas.  Atoms are the logical link between the two realms.  Mental and physical substance find a common ground in the atom, as they must, despite the fact that atoms are not directly perceivable.  Or it could even be because of their imperceptibility! 

Then we have to deal with the corruptibility of the flesh, and the incorruptibility of the spirit.  I can only refer back to the atom.  This is part of our genetic immortality.  That leaves the eschaton unaccounted for. 

The atom mediates between the physio- and teleo- logics.  As the physics presumably drops out in the restitutional phase, where does that leave the atom?  We might suppose the observational effects to increase, without modifying the relative value of q.  It may be a case of out of sight and out of mind, and we do not wish to disrupt the physio- or techno- logics prematurely or at all.  It is no mean feat to arrange for the physics to quietly fade away.  The ending of metabolism can hardly be painless.   'Woe be unto them that is with child'?  This is where I have felt the need for a 'stargate' or 'portal' (see 7/16ff) style of 'transmigration'.  That was an attempt to localize the dislocations.  'Alien abduction' is a case in point, and so may be lucid dreaming.  The question is narrowed to the mechanics of in- and out-of-body effects.  The body becomes something of a phantom limb that we drag along for the ride.  It is peculiar, however, that the abduction accounts often contain instances of perceived physical trauma.  What's a body to do?  We are then left to offer a rational account of 'survival'.  What will full restitution look like, if, indeed, it will look like anything.  Where is Dante Alighieri when we need him?  Our guidance in this area is singularly lacking, but not for no good reason, we have to presume.  The rationale for our ignorance might be as good a place to start as any. 

Yes, we remain on a need to know basis.  The need in this case is to simply argue in favor of the logical possibility of an alternate reality, which can stand beyond our historical reality, and, yet, remain an integral part of the BPW.   For this purpose, we do not need clairvoyance, but simply an imaginative use of logic.  A major challenge is to incorporate a non-linear time scheme.  At least as important is the future of the ego.  The dependence of the ego on linear time will certainly relate these two issues.  Clairvoyance concerning the eschaton would be tantamount to an eschatological event in itself.  It might not be inducive to the gradualism espoused for the BPW.  Clairvoyance is not something that should be dropped upon us.  It is something for us to work up to in an organic fashion. 

Allow me to note that the demands of the BPW may easily overdetermine the physics.  How far can the rules of physics be bent to accommodate the telos?  The bending of the rules is expected to be greatest in the proximity of the Alpha and Omega. 

When we go to the other side we are reverting to the conditions of the pokatok court and Jurassic Parc.  These are simplified realities where that status of atoms is less relevant.  That world is the lucid dream of the Zodiac.  I don't recall if there was a scenario for bootstrapping metabolism.  How do we ensure that our Xcaret becomes a self-sustaining dream world?  What is the big attraction.  How much do the zodiacal angel investors have to put up for 'seed money', before we can go to the IPO? 

[1/19]

The virtual 'Xcaret culture' does not become historical, in the sense of acquiring a linear time scale, until it goes megalithic and global.  That would be c. 4-2,000 BC. 

I may have hinted at it before, but let me say more explicitly that our metabolic bodies could be very effective homeostats for the properties and logic of atoms.  This is a variation on our already reversed anthropic principle in which our proactive consciousness rides herd on reality.  The feedback from our consciousness is a primary element in the bootstrapping and maintenance of the world.  After all, the world is our folie a deux.  Now our bodies may be added into that loop.  Catching a cold may also serve for debugging the universe.  The makers of antibiotics are a partial addition to that loop, as are scientists and engineers in general, as well as we consumers thereof.  The white knuckled airline passenger is holding up more than just the airplane.  Much of our homeostatic exertions somehow become vested in the atomic logos.  Where better to be vested?  As such, we also become the usually unwitting conduits of the Telos.  This is the atomic suspension bridge holding up history.  As we approach the distant shore, the atomic logos gives up the ghost.  Our autopilot is turned off.  Reality becomes more fluid and lucid.  All of these effects will be greatly magnified in the vicinity of portals, up until the Omega, at which point the entire world becomes our portal. 

Consider our investment in language, and then the influence that language has on our world, particularly on our social reality.  The focused attention of the alchemists shaped our eventual chemical reality.  Note the explicitly spiritual telos in much of their opus. 

Direct perception and direct realism (also 1, 2, 3, etc.) have not been considered for some time.  These ideas are tied up with the notions of presence (see 2/12/04) and gnosis (1/12/04).  We perceive things directly in terms of their functionality, i.e. the Telos supports all of our perceptions.  With misperceptions there is always a reason, as per the PSR.  With an autoimmune disease there is a biological misperception. 

[1/20]

It seems that all we directly see are surfaces, but vision and perception need not be the same thing.  Vision is optical, and it is hardly the end of perception.  Also we do not ordinarily read minds, but we do make inferences.  Inferences are corrigible and are frequently modified.  It is a cumulative kind of perception.  Inferences have duration and durability.  They are highly functional. 

Vision is essential to our spatial orientation, but we tend to overrate its epistemological significance.  Our perception of facial expressions is almost entirely inferential or intuitive.  The autistic person does not generally have this ability, despite perfect vision.  Directness has to do with presence, which is something more profound than temporal immediacy.  Intuitions tend to be immediate and direct. 

Our retinal images, if taken by themselves, present only a chaotic jumble of colors.  The stability and functionality of our world 'image' is what points to our real powers of direct perception.  This perception may well include metaphysical dimensions, although we need not always be conscious of them.  Our ocular kaleidoscope is simply some frosting on the cake.  We idealists need hardly begrudge it. 

Next we take up the perception of atoms.  We directly perceive the logic of atoms, the way that Srinivasa perceives the logic of numbers.  The Greeks and other natural philosophers had an intuition for atoms, long before science came on the scene.  The logic was there all along, whether or not we chose to consciously recognize it.  I would now say the same for the logic of God and the BPW.  We will kick ourselves afterwards for not having recognized it sooner.  On the surface we are social/political animals.  Deeper down we are gnostics, one and all.  We keep our gnosis on a short leash. 

So much for the epistemology, what about the ontology?  That is if we are able to make the distinction.  What I seem to be getting at here is a variation on the notion that to be is to relate.  Our conscious knowledge covers mostly the periphery of the network of being.  This is where knowledge seems more indirect.  As we probe deeper in the ground and potency of being, we come into a more direct contact with the Ontos.  It is as if Srinivasa were personally acquainted with the living organism that is vital substance that is know to the rest of us only by its shadows.  This sounds like an Aristotelian coloring of Plato. 

We used to have a more collective and functional or pragmatic understanding of the ontos, before we became individuated to the degree we are now.  Now we can look forward to achieving a more consciously or deliberately integrated gnosis.  Thus do we take on a more cosmic perspective.  We thusly transcend our primordial street smarts. 

[1/21]

The core of being remains beyond the reach of our ego consciousness.  That is a stretch that we will be taking sooner rather than later.  The ground or core of being is the cosmic self.  In that case our factual or analytic knowledge resides at the base of a pyramid, with the cosmic 'I' at its peak.  Our modern materialist picture of the world is about to undergo an inversion.  Is the atom then a mini me?  I would have to say it is a reflection of the cosmic self, reflected in the base of the pyramid, giving the impression of an inverted pyramid resting on the atom.  This is the scientific view.  Their confusion is understandable, and must be a major factor in the plan of history.  The atom is God as reflected on the wall of our material cave.  It is time for us to look and move toward the source.  Mathematical physics is actually leading us part way back to God.  The MG is God's skeleton.  Srinivasa's muse was able to put some flesh on those bones.  As God's resurrection, it is up to us to breath life back into that body.  We shall be doing so in a nonce, with some help from our heavenly host.  It remains to provide a better rationale for this ontological scheme.  The scheme needs to be related particularly to the circumstances of the Alpha and Omega.  The plane of reflection needs to be better specified.  That mirror could be human consciousness itself.  Which are the active and passive elements?   Where does the math come in?  And while we're at it, what does the sky reflect?  And what about the Zodiac?  How does this relate to JPc, or to biological cells?  The notion of the microcosm is crucial, but it has not been developed.  Can anyone imagine a world without atoms, i.e. one based solely on phenomenal cycles?  What we strive for is atomic logic without physical atoms.  The 'cloning' of God into egos, does not stop at that level. 

[1/23]

I wonder if there might be someway to apply the above notion of metaphysical 'cloning' to a non-biological system such as atoms?  Does the reproductive cycle of a cell make it any more or less real than an atom?  Organisms participate in ecological systems.  Their metabolic regimen ensures this outcome.  This is their network of being.  I am attempting to construct a network for atoms, without benefit of metabolism.  But can we not just subsume the ontology of atoms into the existing metabolic framework.  Maybe I'm making this problem too difficult.  Metabolism makes no sense without them.  Were physics and biology conceived of separately, or were they all of a piece?  How do we avoid over-temporalizing this conceptual/creative process? 

[1/26]

It is at about this point in my thinking that I have become stuck on previous occasions.  It feels as though there is a particular idea that I am not quite able to grasp.  Permit me to take a slight detour and come at this 'problem' from a different angle.  I put 'problem' in quotes because I have not yet even been able to specify upon what it is that I become stuck, but whatever else it is, it feels like it is close to the heart of the matter. 

My detour is to Peter van Inwagen and his book, Material Beings (1990 Cornell).  Here is a review.  He admits that the philosophy he presents is a strange one.  I gather that he is some kind of materialist.  He takes persons seriously, but only as living systems, so he takes bacteria just as seriously.  What he dismisses is the objectivity of all non-living objects, apart from atoms (actually he specifies quarks and electrons).  His thesis is that only simples exist, and the only simples, i.e. irreducibles, are either (living) beings or atoms.  Only in retrospect does he take up the problem of relative identity, that is the view that (two?) things can be both the same and distinct, depending on one's perspective.

I am sympathetic with Peter, to a certain extent.  His systemic view of existence goes only as far as his materialism allows.  I push his systemics well beyond that point.  We are both left with an atomic residue. 

Atoms stick in my throat.  They are hard to swallow, and harder to spit out. 

I am intrigued with Van Inwagen and the Possibility of Gunk (Theodore Sider).  Where do I stand on 'gunk'?  In some sense, the BPW is an irreducible hunk of gunk.  That is especially true of the Matrix.  The partitioning of the BPW/Matrix is a very functional illusion.  Atoms are the logical bedrock of that illusion.  Necessity is the mother of all things atomic.  Atoms are the tail-end of the network of being.  We just don't want that tail to wag this dog. 

Atoms conform to the Monster Group (MG), and the MG conforms to the BPW.  More directly, atoms conform to vitalism.  Atoms are pliable to the optimal degree.  Atoms exist only to the necessary degree.  Otherwise they are out of sight and out of (the cosmic) mind.  It is the master phenomenological cycles that count.  Atoms are merely their virtual counters or logical tokens.  This goes back to my organic view of math.  Numbers exist because of the telic property of the MG.  The MG is not an accident of numbers.  Numbers are the logical detritus, the tokens of the MG.  I believe the the Riemann Hypothesis will have more to say about this.  We could play poker without the chips, but who wants to bother?  Atomic being devolves from our laziness.  Scientists suppose that the atoms have mutinied, that they have turned anarchic and nihilistic. 

But we should not look down our noses at the atoms, for we too are the mere tokens of God.  It is all smoke and mirrors, but, by that same token, it is the only show in town.  Did God have to conjure the atoms?  Did she have to conjure us?  When it comes to Creation, God is the 'chairman of the board', and we are all the vice presidents.  She was not stingy with the vice. 

Is this the heart of the matter?  The point seems to be that the BPW is not a slam dunk.  It will grow on us as we have grown on it.  However, from a more popular perspective, there will come the straw that breaks the back of materialism and dualism, and all their ilk.  I can only hope to live to see that day. 

What stands in our way are all the absolutes to which we feel compelled to cling.  The foremost amongst these is our own absolute identity.   We have trouble discerning God in the briar patch of relativity.  Rather than follow Brer' Rabbit, we sit on our log and get tarred. 

[1/27]

The quantum paradoxes should be weaning us away from our compulsive absolutism.  They have, but only to a barely perceptible degree. 

Yes, we are trapped in our own language games.  Our verbally dominated, left hemispheric brains, are much too susceptible to artificial categorization.  Words, we can't live with them, nor without them.  They are our stepladder to the higher reality.  At some point we will have to transform or transcend them.  That is a feat almost impossible for us to imagine.  We can use words to point to, but not to grasp, a larger reality. 

What remains problematic is our ability to recruit our virtual atoms to do our own heavy lifting when it comes to maintaining the natural order.  There is still much to be explained or rationalized. 

It could be said that the atoms are not doing any work.  Their work has been done in logically coordinating the initialization of the phenomenological cycles, which then proceed on their own mimetic inertia.  This same rationale could be applied to the artifactual cycles introduced through technology.  Again, I have in mind the MG.  The numbers had to do their work only once, but not at any definite time.  It is our own, mostly subconscious, monitoring of the phenomenology that keeps the world on track.  The scientific enterprise has extended the range of the phenomenology to which we attend.  But this extension does not differ in kind from the continuing discoveries of mathematicians.  I suspect that the we are, in this eschatological epoch, reaching the end of the discoverable mathematical and physical phenomena.  As the novelty of math and physics wanes, our attention will inevitably turn toward the metaphysics.  That is certainly what happened in my case.  I had the available resources to strike out on my own.  My less fortunate colleagues will have to contend with the political inertia that will continue to keep them on a shorter intellectual leash, until such time as comes the final straw. 

The atomic logic helps to ensure that the vital, telic force acts as a very widely distributed intelligence.  Sufficiently so as to remain off of our analytic radar screens.  Our experience of it is only subjective.  Subtle are the ways of God, and that subtlety in ensured by the atomic logic.  No matter how closely we inspect the atoms, we will not see a living cell.  No matter how closely we inspect the individual numbers, we will not see the MG.  The MG is pulled out of our mathematical intuition, rather like Athena from the head of Zeus, and its demonstration comes then through deduction, not induction.  This is the trick the we must perform with God.  We must allow her to spring from our forehead.  She will not do so unless properly courted.  That is all I can attempt here.  A cattle prod will not suffice. 

Another problem to consider is the interaction between the cycles.  Materialists suppose that these interactions are all mediated at the atomic level, thus producing the observed unlimited variability of the resulting phenomena.  One alternative is to make liberal use of fractal structures as a simulation of atomic chaos. 

Considerable progress has been made in the use of meteorological models on a global scale.  Adding a fractal dynamics at the fine scale could go a long way in verisimilitude.  However, I do not want to advance the notion that we are living inside a cosmic computer.  That would in no way ameliorate the problems of materialism.  It does suggest that we do not need to rely on atoms in order to produce weather on an ongoing basis.  The hydrological processes therein can simply be reproduced from the combination of medium grained cycles.  We can operate on a purely phenomenological level. 

Another place to distribute intelligence would be to the phenomena, on the generic level, but then we need a scheme to apply the generic intelligence to the specific cyclic interactions.  This need not be a great problem if we consider the relative simplicity of the effective models now in use.  They work well on a coarse grained three dimensional grid, each node with its specific set of rules and nearest neighbor interactions.  This would not account, however, for the phenomena of specific clouds.  I am tempted to treat clouds and storms as organisms.  This tack runs afoul of the work of Peter van I.  Next we would have to account for the babbling brook. 

Perhaps there is not such a need to distribute the intelligence.  Is that not acceding too much ascendancy to the space-time manifold?  Here is an opportunity to apply direct realism.  What Peter doesn't quite get is that the world behaves as a super-organism.  Behind the phenomena there is an ecos.  Our dialog with the ecos unfolds it into a global ecology within history.  The intelligence only appears to be distributed.  It is all a reflection of the one Telos.  The Ecos is one part of the Telos and it is our job to unfold it in a seamless manner.  The seamlessness is not fortuitous, however.  It reflects the monism of the Matrix.  The intelligence then resides in the dialectic between us and the Matrix.  Thus must the final restitution occur through us.  May we not suppose that the intersubjective consistency of our experience also owes itself to the monism? 

[12/28]

With the Zodiac in mind we can think of the world as a folie a douze.  The Zodiac is a dialectical reflection of the one intelligence.  With the Matrix, unity is more natural than plurality.  There is an effort to maintain a degree of separation.  That effort is aided by the conception of space, along with its concomitant time.  Unity remains in the overarching Presence/present, but they and we become mesmerized by the kaleidoscopic possibilities, which we pursue with abandon.  We become ensnared in our own collective illusion and mind games. 

Metabolism and the concomitant atoms seal the lid on our self-imposed cage.  It keeps us off the cosmic streets and out of worse trouble while we pursue our individual and collective lessons.  The atoms is the seal affixed to our box.  We cannot break that seal without deconstructing the atom.  That is what I have been attempting here.  Our atom smashers have been of assistance in this regard.  They have led us to the Monster Group which casts its shadow on the super-strings and M-branes.  To expedite its deconstruction, I attempt here to recapitulate the construction of the atom. 

The atom is primarily a logical construct.  The exigencies of any spatial combinatorics and even a rudimentary anthropics, gives rise to it.  Atoms do seem to come to us with their own paleological pedigree, i.e. an astrophysics complete with a starry sky, wherein there also resides the shadow of the Zodiac.  We might think of the sky as something like an x-ray diffraction pattern of the primal zodiac. 

In immaterialism, rationale replaces mechanism.  This is difficult to get used to.  We forever attempt to rationalize our lives and the world.  Our failures in this regard are not an indictment of the world, rather they result from the incompleteness of our understanding.  Atoms derive simply from the coherence of mind.  They are its most significant manifestation.  From whence derives coherence?  That may not be answerable.  What are its limits?  Does the BPW represent that limit? 

This is a relatively simplistic explanation of atoms.  We must see how it will stand up. 

Coherence becomes the most powerful force in the world.  It plays the role of Atlas in holding up the world.  God is its source.  Hers is the face that is upon it. 

[1/29]

Coherence is another expression of relationalism.  Relationalism is a necessary property of mind.  Relationalism expresses the necessary subjectivity of mind.  By that I simply mean that there can be no experience without an experiencer, no thought without a thinker, no feeling without a feeler.  This grounding of the mind is so pervasive and profound that we sometimes find ourselves overlooking it.  Materialism provides numerous excuses for overlooking what ought to be excruciatingly obvious.  Mystics are also intent upon the path of denial.  This comes well after they deny the existence of atoms.  My point is that atoms are not entirely optional or dispensable.  The self is dispensable only vis a vis its grounding in the Matrix.  The Matrix, however, is not the nirvana of the mystics.  It is, rather, pure potency, something very different. 

Atoms are indispensable to the coherence of life, and so to Creation and the BPW.  Be very clear that what we need of atoms is not their objectivity, but rather their anthropic logic, particularly their manifestation of the MG.  The MG and the RH may represent the limits of coherence as alluded to above.  Am I placing a limit on the intelligence of God?  No, this is a self-imposed limit, it is the best of all possible limits.  By the same token it becomes virtually necessary.  I am also saying that it is not possible for numbers to be hiding a complexity that is beyond the limit of comprehension.  There cannot exist unobservable complexity.  That is a basic aspect of relational existence, of which numbers constitute the purest example.  This statement might be construed as implying the existence of a largest prime number, contrary to the 'plain facts'.  But hold on.  Beyond a point, primes become probabilistic, while their density decreases.  Their existence becomes increasingly virtual.  As individuals, they loose relationality.  The become hypothetical tokens of the Riemann hypothesis.  Their complexity is purely quantitative rather than qualitative as with the MG and RH.  These are subtle points that need fleshing out. 

Prime numbers provide another model to aid our understanding of the virtual, relational existence of atoms and distant stars.  Primality becomes increasingly abstract and subjective, once we stop to think about it and are willing to set aside our Platonic compulsions.  When I take a Bayer aspirin to alleviate my headache, it is not a gesture toward the objectivity of atoms, but a gesture toward their subjective relationality, as is ultimately the nature of the headache itself.  Should we be good Christian Scientists and dispense with medical treatment?  Like other potentially good ideas, it should be employed in moderation and with a firm grip on the pragmatic side of cosmology and eschatology.  Is that a quibble?  I say that we can celebrate the coherence of atomicity without idolizing atoms.  The celebration will ultimately obviate the idolatry.  I am suggesting that we are simply in the protracted process of thinking our way through materialism.  We thought our way into it, we can think our way out of it.  We need only allow ourselves to aspire to coherence.  It is there for the asking.  There is plenty to go around. 

It is not so difficult to understand forests, or treeness, from an immaterial perspective, but how do we explain unique peculiarities of every individual tree, without resorting of objectivity?  There are random internal processes which can be covered by generic fractal models.  Otherwise there are systemic interactions, i.e. interactions between individual systems.  Those interactions necessarily have specificity as between predator and prey.  The fox eats a specific rabbit, the caterpillar a specific leaf.  As with an individual organism or system, there are variable patterns of interaction.  We get into the issue of cause and effect and the PSR.  The creation of the pattern need not differ from the creations of a painting, representational or otherwise.  Each stroke is accounted for, and once applied, need not be actively sustained. 

Cause and effect and the PSR need not and should not be associated with materialism.  In a dream state these principles are loosened considerably, if they weren't it wouldn't be a dream.  In our social waking state, the principles become tighter.  Is the relative tightness a warrant for materialism?  I suggest it is simply a warrant for coherence. 

Creation is the way of maximizing coherence up to the optimal point of the BPW.  Coherence is finite, and our world defines that limit.  It is our job to push that envelope.  Let us hold in abeyance the issue of an eschatological realm.  There may be a tendency for us to overestimate its role in the cosmic scheme.  It might be more of a vestigial organ: a safe house for us creatures.  

[1/30]

In the formation phase, coherence acts something like gravity.  The greater the relational charge the stronger the attraction.  The cosmic self takes center stage.  The total 'mass' increases up to the limit as the potentialities are realized and integrated into the expanding network of being.  As the limit is approached, there occurs an eschatological phase change.  This might be something like the formation of a black hole.  The sky falls as the space-time manifold is finally dissolved or deconstructed.  Elsewhere I have spoken of the space-time manifold as our cocoon, and then the eschaton is a metamorphosis.  It has been some time since I have examined this latter model.  It was never brought under the larger rubric of coherence.  The separation of the stages does not lend itself immediately to the relationalist perspective.  Our egos represent the individual cells as they redistribute themselves in the chrysalis.   The primal Zodiac is our larval (tribal?) stage.  Linear history is the crystal/chrysalis/pupal stage.  This is where atoms and biology predominate.  It is a time of seeming anarchy and chaos.  We have to integrate this seeming discontinuity into the cosmic coherence.  How much weight can we give to the biological metaphor?  Why do we have to endure this stage of cosmic decoherence. 

The old explanation for the decoherence, which may have dated back to my first website, envisioned a more chaotic style of matrix, more like a quantum potential.  I spoke of human consciousness as like a seine net cast upon those waters.  That may not be in keeping with my more organic, or self-centered matrix. 

[1/31]

I may be overdue for a reevaluation of my ouroboric/metamorphic/microcosmic model of cosmology.  If there does exist a transcendental realm beyond space and time, why do we need to take this detour through materialism?  Can we not short-circuit or bypass the present stage?  What is the point of stages, if the temporal dimension is only an artifact in the first place?  Is it from here to eternity?  Then let's skip the 'here' part.  If the measure of all things is coherence, why mess around with all the decoherence implied by the space-time manifold? 

I have spoken often of the microcosm, without having bothered to justify it in the BPW scheme.  An appeal to the microcosm seems to be an appeal to quantity over quality.  Why bother with all the replication when we can go for the gold?  If the Matrix is self-organizing, why does it need our help?  Why does it need to mess with all this combinatorics, when it has all the potency?  If we take mere diversity and sheer quantity as ends in themselves, does that not compromise the BPW rationale?  Why do we need all these mean streets, why not just masterpiece theater?  Recognize that another reason for this excursus is to develop a rationale for heaven, if such there be. 

I'm inclined to simply point out that when it comes to heaven, half the fun is getting there, especially if the Telos is a 'do it ourselves' proposition.  However, if there were not such an expansive Creation, we would not be around to have any preferences. 

It is hard to imagine a creation without a material/physical aspect at all.  Would that not be impoverished from almost any perspective?  The only reasonable complaint concerns the quality and/or quantity of that aspect.  Is it not possible that quality was sacrificed for quantity?  But is this not an egregious case of Monday morning quarterbacking?  Well, not if it is the very fact of Creation that is ultimately up for grabs. 

If materiality is supposed to be so important, why then should so many of our fellow creatures be materially impoverished?  If all this is just meant to impress upon us the relative merits of matter vs. spirit, then are we not entitled to say, 'Alright, already!'?  There must be something more fundamental at stake, and I suspect that it does have to do with coherence.  It is our perspective that is lacking. 

What is being suggested here is that the BPW might more plausibly have consisted of a spiritual paradise with a more modest material appendage.  When it came to creating the Earth, maybe God carried a good idea a bit too far.  Or was it our fault?  All 10^10 of us were just dying to get in here, and God didn't have the heart to turn us away, as if God had no control over the length of the queue.  Is there some qualitative aspect of 10^10 that we don't appreciate?  Perhaps 10^10 is the limit of coherence.  Coherence may not be fully realized if its limits are not tested, but is that not contrary to the notion of optimality, which rather suggests a golden mean?  The human situation now has the aspect of extremity.  Birth pangs may be essential to metamorphosis.  God is not one for half measures.  It is of its essence that Creation be an all out affair.  If we, altogether, only go around once, we go with gusto, and this is one gutsy world.  No one will deny that.  What it lacks in creature comforts, it more than makes up for in many other ways, drama being a major component.   

I think we may well suppose that there cannot be coherence without incoherence.  There must be an optimal balance.  If that is the case, then every bit of seeming incoherence that we experience here is a portent for the coherence that lies beyond space and time. 

[2/1] 

Yes, I am Chicken Little, but it is not often that I get to play the part, so here goes: the sky is falling!  I even have a picture for you.  There is a heliocentric anomaly in the cosmic microwave background (CMB).  I am not aware of any more cosmologically deconstructive piece of evidence since Copernicus deconstructed the Ptolemaic cosmology.  Is it time to head for the hills?  I doubt it.  Materialism will be a tough nut to crack.  We may not hear more about the CMB until another WMAP is launched, but don't let anyone tell you that the hand is not writing on the wall. 

And while we're at it, how about them birdbrains?  Does the discovery of avian intelligence(/consciousness?) put a hole in our anthropocentrism?  Is it no skin off our backs?  It helps to underscore the universality of mind, and the ability of mind to find accommodations in many different forms.  When will we realize that the brain is just a docking station, not to give it too dualistic a slant?  There is more than enough mind to go around.  It is not a zero sum game.  The eschaton remains our baby. 

I keep wanting to think of the microcosm, e.g. the human self, as a test-bed for cosmology, but that is detracting from the overarching potency of the Matrix.  The BPW has an eternal potency within the Matrix.  It could be, though, that it is the role of the microcosm to serve as and manifest the potency of the Matrix.  Creation and the Matrix may be two sides of the same coin, but don't ask me what that coin is.  OK, then, the Matrix is to Creation somewhat as Creation is to the microcosm.  One relation is the inversion of the other.  This ought to help explain the Ouroboros, but don't ask me how.  Only when we realign our microcosms will the Matrix be rejoined, and only then can Creation be unraveled.  Until then it is unrivaled.  In such fashion does Creation dissolve back into the Matrix.  The Matrix has turned itself inside out via the microcosm, and don't ask what that is good for, but it must be an aspect of the cosmic coherence.  At that point we may revert to the zodiacal state, or to a kind of Adam Kadmon.  The circle is unbroken.  And will we not come this way again?  Will we not revisit Creation?  That may not be the right question to pose to the Matrix.  Creation can at once be both temporal and eternal, without actually repeating itself.  Dimensionality is not something that our egos may readily transcend.  Eternity is with us always in the shining present/Presence. 

I'd like to know what will happen to the 10^10 of us when we revert back to the 'twelve'.  Such numbers can live on in the MG.  There is coherence in the many scales of 10^10, such as the number of neurons in our brains.  It is hard to know what to make of this circumstance.  It likely has something to do with an optimal complexity.  Given a finite world, it is very important to know how far to push the finitude.  The MG probably has something to do with that, but otherwise it may be a rather subjective matter.  There are likely to be functional considerations that would apply mainly to the eschatological regime, which would be very difficult for us to fathom. 

If one were going to err with this crucial number, would one aim high or low?  Would there be anything like right to life considerations?  To what degree might we be willing to compromise on quality here in deference to quality there?  We should suppose that there are many conflicting demands and constraints to be placed on this master quantity.  The AIDS epidemic ought to tell us something about this issue, or at least about its complexity.   That epidemic argues to the point that God is motivated by considerations other than political correctness concerning the meaning of human life.  Does this imply a devaluation of life, human or otherwise?  I hardly think so.  It rather implies a cosmic perspective, which is not likely to correspond with our more parochial views. 

[2/2]

Presently I am reading Apology for the proof of the Riemann hypothesis by Louis de Branges de Bourcia (6/10/2004), a paper which I found through the archives of Science Daily, a source I commend to you.  The proof is supposed to be contained in the companion paper: Riemann zeta functions, but I have not found any discussion as to the merits of this 'proof'', beyond the skepticism generated by his initial claim.  [2/3 - Here is a prior critical comment on Louis' method of proof.  Louis fails to mention this critique in his recent publications.  See also here.  Refer to an earlier page concerning the possible significance of the RH.]

[2/3]

With regard to the network of being, there cannot be a major divide between the mundane and supra-mundane.  There can be no unobserved phenomena.  But what does that mean?  There also can be no isolated observations.  Our eidetic memories must be eternally stored, and not just passively.  They must be coherently incorporated into the cosmic self or zodiac or whatever.  That is the whole point of the network.  Our notion of private experience is something oxymoronic. 

Undoubtedly our personal memories contain much overlapping and redundant material, so that what is eternal is not just the sum of mundane experience.  It is, at once, both more and less than that.  It may be more like the interference pattern from all the individual experiences.  As with a hologram, the individual experiences can be reconstructed from the whole pattern.  We might then suppose that some lives are virtually redundant.  I can only imagine that such a view implies a limitation of our mundane perspective. 

These considerations must also speak to the source and being of atoms.  There surely is a redundancy in our materialist perspective of them.  We appeal to the higher powers to minimize that redundancy.  There is finally one world and one self.  The self is grounded in the world, and the world in the self.  It is all in service to the Dialectic, MDX/Z. 

I can observe a unique pattern of cracks in the pavement.  Must this pattern be registered for all eternity?  What is the source of the pattern?  Would it not be simplest just to blame it on the atoms.  Can the atoms not just keep track of their own processes?  All they have to do is act naturally.  But things get more complicated when we introduce the quantum.  Then we have a non-local accounting system to attend to.  The non-locality includes the effects of countless virtual gravitons from the most distant galaxies.  Can we not just make approximations?  We can, but the whole point of materialism is that atoms don't approximate.  With them, reality is all or nothing. 

With immaterialism, I am an observer in a functional loop of interacting processes, all of which have a timeless aspect.  The combinatorics will have unique instances.  I have a memory of that pattern which seems to be eidetic, but if I were to attempt to reproduce it, I doubt that it would be accurate.  Or I could have taken a picture of the pattern and posted it to this website. 

I am observing aging and an increasing entropy from the telic origin of the road as it reverts back to a chaotic state.  This is another form of metabolism.  But then suppose we are talking about the crack in the Liberty bell.  The crack itself becomes the icon.  It loses any semblance of being a generic property. 

Processes that do not contribute to the coherence do not get recorded in the cosmic or akashic memory.  The road will continue to crack and break up until it is repaved.  That process has no reason to violate the PSR.  Non-violation of the PSR is simply one aspect of the Telos.  The anti-teleology of deconstruction is an essential part of a metabolic system.  Still the road has to decide when and where to crack, without direct input from individual atoms.  This is not a problem if the anti-telos is implicit in the telos.  My own aging is equally essential to the larger scheme.  A related issue is that of fire that was discussed on the previous page on 11/30/04 &f. 

[1/4]

Progress here continues.  It is a question of tying up the loose ends, and tightening up the arguments.  It will be necessary to indicate how this progress may be continued in a systemic fashion, without the prospect of encountering insurmountable obstacles. 

When one line of thought is temporarily exhausted, I pick up what seems to be the next loosest end and pursue that.  What comes to mind now is photosynthesis.  This phenomenon may be treated under several rubrics, e.g. cycles, metabolism, heliotropism, symmetry and atomism.  Permit me to start over in attempting to locate the foundational issue.  I will take a tack that may, in part, go back to the previous incarnation of this website. 

A likely point of departure is Ilya Prigogine, but keep in mind some skepticism.  He speaks of irreversible processes and dissipative structures far from equilibrium.  This is what metabolism is about.  What then is the role of energy conservation and dissipation? 

But let us take a step back and have a look at metabolism.  It is about the metamorphosis of matter and energy.  This is just where immaterialism is likely to encounter its most serious challenge.  Metabolism provides the basis of the interactions that make up ecosystems.  Its processes determine the rules of the 'game' of life. 

Why rules?  Rules provide for coherence.  The interactions become intelligible.  Cycles can be maintained.  Over on the other side, it is supposed that rules are less prevalent and rigid.  They are more likely to be merely conventional.  Coherence comes about more by consensus.  There are fewer independent actors. 

Down here we creatures are self-reproducing.  Our interactions tend not to be morally constrained.  Other constraints are required that will be conducive to cooperative behavior. 

Given the natural symmetries of space and time, energy will be a conserved quantity that is a measure of matter in motion.  There will then be ergonomics.  There will be sources and sinks of energy.  As in any economic system, sources tend to be monopolized to the extent possible.  One way to restrain monopolistic behavior is to arrange for a remote source of energy.  The sun fits that role quite nicely, thank you.  Many ecological niches are made available for heliotropes, herbivores and carnivores.  The possibility of visual optics creates more opportunities.  Empty space becomes the ultimate sink for the solar energy. 

The point here is to provide a rationale for the given phenomenology.  The next step it to minimize our reliance on the physics.  I would just as soon have photosynthesis without the photons, as we have striven for matter without atoms.  The atoms are there, but only in a virtual and logical sense. 

I am partial to the logic of photons, but reluctant to commit to the mechanics of it, and thus become mired in dualism or materialism.  The idea with atoms is to have atomic phenomenology available as needed. 

It is not immediately apparent how we can maintain the rules without the mechanics.  I appeal to logic, math, PSR, cycles, memory, habits, socialization, teleology, etc. 

[2/5]

It might seem that the objective particularity of atoms and photons would be essential to the conservation of matter and energy.  The classical theory of electromagnetic fields, however, does not require photons in order to conserve energy.  Photons were invented only in order to account for the phenomenology of 'black-body' radiation.  But what then of chemistry?  How can we ensure the conservation of matter undergoing chemical transformations, without resorting to the objectivity of atoms?  I appeal mainly to the metabolic cycles.  The chemicals are recycled indefinitely without sources or sinks.  The overall conservation need only be appropriate to the phenomenological situation, keeping in mind the PSR.  Matter and its elemental constituents will not appear or disappear without sufficient reason.  Atoms are the phenomenal tokens of the necessary logic of metabolism.  Metabolism rests on the phenomenal continuity of its cycles.  It is discontinuity that demands special circumstances and explanations.

Back to photosynthesis.  Most plants are able to grow and reproduce by transforming solar energy into chemical processes.  If the sunlight is removed, their metabolism will be interrupted, and they will eventually die.  The same will occur if certain chemicals are depleted.  Consider water.  Cacti will hoard what little water they can get.  That water is conserved with great biological assiduity.  Otherwise we rely on a relatively constant sea level to provide our phenomenal determination of conservation. 

Animals require food, air and water.  A few minutes without oxygen and it is all over for us.  Why does breathing have to be such a big deal for us?  Why such a stringent chemical dependency?  It is just an intrinsic part of metabolism.  Oxidation is our source of energy, but oxygen is highly toxic to cells.  Carbon is the primary food for plants.  The habitat of plants would be greatly restricted if carbon, water (and sunlight) were not widely dispersible and available.  Respiration and atmospherics is the simple solution to these metabolic constraints.  Life is the phenomenal conservator of these materials: no conservation, no phenomena. 

Instead of sunlight, we might imagine manna falling from heaven.  Would not the resulting ecosystem be radically impoverished?  I should think that this design would be a non-starter, but don't let me discourage anyone from ruminating on this possibility. 

We often consider the constraints of metabolism to be a great hindrance.  One of the big attractions of heaven has been the lack of such constraints, with death being high on that list.  The science of ecology and the anthropic principle have given us a much greater appreciation for the many hidden virtues of metabolic systems, and impressed upon us the notion of Rare Earth.  Now our biggest concern might well be that Rare Earth is going to be a hard act to follow.  How rare will heaven be?  What will be the systematics that will keep heaven running on an even keel?  Eternity is a long time for contending with a design failure.  Once you get past the golden gates and the seventy-two virgins, the literature on this subject is very short on specifics.  Perhaps the Creator put all her energy into Creation.  Heaven might be an afterthought.  I spend a lot of time touting relationalism, but I hardly have a clue on the relation between heaven and earth.  Am I in a state of avoidance?

My point on these many pages is that the cosmos can be self-organizing, and that mind is a more logical basis for that organization than is matter.  Given a minimal starter system, on the order of the JPc, the remaining rules of Creation will naturally fall into place more on the basis of (teleo-) logic than mechanics.  Mind provides an excellent feedback system for the maintenance of ecologic and metabolic order, better than atoms ever could, even as in the dreams of the materialists. 

But so what, you are quick to ask.  So, mind over matter.  Yes, and then what?  Then everything.  There is something decidedly unnatural about the human mind.  The same may be true for the minds of the other creatures, but we are not in as good a position to pass judgment.  The upshot with humans is that we are increasingly, and mainly by choice, dependent upon unnatural environments.  Most of us spend our time in places from which 'nature' is barely accessible.  When we do venture into the wilderness, we are very well equipped.  Very few of us aspire to the special skills of a John Muir.  We humans are homo faber, the great fabricators.  We are also the great imaginators.  Put together these two primary traits, and see how unnatural it would be for us not to aspire to heaven.  Heaven is the Telos of mind and spirit over matter.  The natural goal of immaterialism is that telos.  John Muir speaks of the eternal beauty of a nature undisturbed by homo faber.  Yes, it will be a hard act to follow.  Imagine a wilderness without mosquitoes. 

Are we then the primary link between heaven and earth?  We bring with us a pot-load of unrealized ideas.  They should keep us occupied for the first few days of eternity.  Let me hasten to add that eternity is meant to be a qualitative state rather that a quantitative one.  If I had to choose one descriptor it would be gemeinschaft or community.  One might think of something tribal or clannish, but both of these have metabolic foundations.  Perhaps the closest historical model would be the communalism of the early christian church, but one in which the lion lies down with the lamb.  The anti-metabolic aspect of that picture points to our challenge. 

Here is a caveat concerning that model.  It was a decidedly eschatological community.  Its coherence was based on a set of shared expectations and aspirations concerning the eschaton.  It was forward leaning.  How might this translate into a post-eschaton aeon? 

[2/7] 

I'm wondering whether in the best possible world, this website would be blocked from searches.  Within the last month or two, all but one page, the one titled 'Crisis', have been removed from the Google data base.  Every page has been removed from the MSN data base.  Alta Vista seems to have been unaffected, but how many people do we know who still use that search engine?  Am I supposed to imagine that this is all for the best, or am I being goaded into intervention?  How long do I wait before calling Ron on this?  [not long at all.]  I cannot imagine that any self-respecting intelligence organization would not retain a preemptive ability to arbitrarily block certain types of sensitive information.  Now, I am not claiming that as the reason in this case, but I would be very naive not to wonder about it.  In any case, that same department would surely know how to remedy this little problem.  Back to our little stairway to heaven.  Who ever may have been assigned to monitor these scribblings, please take note!  I have been told that there are folks who do pay attention, believe it or not. 

OK, I have spoken with another individual about this problem.  Here is an innocent explanation, which once pertained to the organization for which she works: the Google web crawler happens to hit your server when it is down, maybe if that is only for a few minutes, then the site (server?) is dropped.  She said that this happened to them, and it happened with more than one search engine at the same time.  I am having some problem with this explanation.  Comcast is one of the biggest servers in the world, people would immediately start screaming from all over, the oversight would be easily corrected within hours.  Am I to believe that Google and Microsoft are using the same crawler?  That would be a virtual collusion. 

So let me try another search on the Comcast site.  I try 'site:home.comcast.net money' and get 16,000 hits.  Well, does that shoot down that theory, or does the (universal?) crawler look for different websites on the same server at different times?  I have gone ahead and resubmitted my URL to Google.  It may take them 6-8 weeks before they can schedule another crawl.  In the meantime, am I not to be vouchsafed a modicum of paranoia? 

[2/8]

Growing and building things is not much of a problem for the immaterialist.  There is plenty of direct and indirect teleology at work.  It's when things fall apart that there may be more difficulty.  To some degree the thanatos (anti-telos) is built into the telos, but in general this latter stage seems much more arbitrary and mechanistic.  Is the mechanistic devil in the details of the thanatos?  I would much rather take on the burden of explaining incoherence than having to explain coherence.  I would much rather have an immaterial cosmology based on the telos, than a material one based on thanatos. 

The materialist would have us suppose that the entropic 'heat death' is the most natural state of affairs.  It is the final equilibrium for any closed system.  Life is an embarrassment to the materialist.  Death is an embarrassment to the immaterialist.  That is one reason for heaven.  If this is not the heart of the matter, then I don't know what is.  Death is supposed to be the transition from a state of low probability to a state of higher probability. 

I want to fall back on the PSR, but I'm not seeing how to do that.  It needs to be expanded.  If I drop a glass on the floor, the PSR tells me that it will break, but does not provide any details.  In principle, materialism could provide an analysis of the breakage, but that is seldom realized.  Destruction is mainly a random process.  That randomness is supposed to be traceable back to its basis in atomic chaos.  We are not afforded that fallback. 

Even within physics, however, there is a problem of providing a fundamental explanation for irreversible processes or for the directionality of time.  Irreversibility is strictly a macroscopic phenomenon.  No microscopic explanation exists.  Once again we see the 'benefit of the doubt' being afforded to materialism, but not to immaterialism.  It is partly my job to turn that table, and provide a more level playing field, at least for anyone who is seeking the truth of the matter. 

Our best explanation for irreversibility may simply be that it is an essential part of any metabolic process, now with the sense of metabolism extended beyond the merely organic realm to include cyclical processes in general.  That is our extension to the PSR.  This puts us ahead of the physicists in terms of providing a fundamental explanation for thanatos. 

This high level explanation still leaves me feeling uneasy about those cracks in the pavement.  It is probably these gut feelings, more than any intellectual problem, that stand between us and immaterialism, and it is those feelings that are the most difficult to address.   

Water pipes break.  They do so where the pipe is the weakest and the stress is the greatest.  Wherein resides that particular information, and how is it applied to the phenomenon?  Here we seem to be talking about cause and effect.  Once again we are dealing with a macroscopic concept which has no place in the terminology of modern physics.  The concept of cause and effect is certainly amenable to the PSR.  Causes and effects never ceased, they just went over to immaterialism. 

The breakage must reside in the concept of the pipe and its support structure.  These items are 'designed' and prepared to meet certain limiting criteria.  If the design limits are exceeded, the pipe will fail.  This is true for both organic and inorganic systems.  Who watches the limits?  No phenomenon is real unless observed.  But what counts as an observation?  It need not be direct, and there's the rub.  Reality is a network of phenomena and observations, while not taking this distinction too seriously. 

Are we dealing simply with planned obsolescence?  That is a thought that could use some analysis, but hold on to it for now.

[2/9]

Part of the telos of paving is just the prevention of cracking.  The design of the materials and structures keeps that in mind.  Indeed, this is where a notion of planned obsolescence arises.  As we study the biology of ageing, we see evidence of similar 'planning' or programming in organisms. 

OK, we know its going to crack and we'll have a pretty good idea of when, but not where.  That will depend on any structural faults and on the history of insults.  An analysis of the pavement would indicate stresses and strains that portend fractures.  This is all part of materials science.  We are still dealing with a generalized teleology.  With proper design, as in safety glass, the fractures will be jagged, and in as random a manner as possible.  The pavement acts also as a primitive recording device, in that it retains a partial record of the incidents that impact it.  It is not designed specifically to do this, but it comes as no surprise.  The fracture patterns, when they finally do appear, will have no further intrinsic meaning.  They will not be memorable, unless there are additional circumstances as with the Liberty bell or the 'Abraham Lincoln' french fry.  Once the random pattern appears, the PSR tells us that it will tend to retain its shape while the process of ageing continues.  The only surprise would be if the cracks did not appear. 

We are delving here in to the realm of noise, while the PSR is concerned mainly with signal.  When the noise takes over from the signal, as it does in ageing processes, we may then usefully employ the mathematics of fractals.  This is the science of 'fractures'.  It will provide for us a range of examples of fractures that we are likely to encounter in varying circumstances. 

So here we have a nearly complete science of materials, without resorting to materialism.  The test will be to see if this line of reasoning will suffice to ameliorate my uneasiness when I next go jogging on the 'payment'.  I'll be sure to report back here.  

Noise happens, but we want to make sure that it can live comfortably alongside the PSR and the Telos.  How does noise fit into the big picture?  Noise is logically integral to metabolism.  Metabolism relies on fluidics, and that circumstance brings Brownian motion to the fore.  Those motions are quintessentially fractal.  The diminutive size of the atoms speeds up that thermal motion and leads to an efficient metabolic transport of molecules. 

The cell serves as a microcosm for the combinatoric processes occurring on much larger scales.  Many social and economic phenomena have the appearance of stochasticity.  Stochastic interactions are the primary function of our three-dimensional world. 

Then there is synchronicity and serendipity.  One function of the stochasticity is to conceal the synchronicity.  Why conceal?  This is partly how we are able to maintain our exaggerated estimations of our free will.  This is how the vital hidden hand is able to remain hidden on all phenomenological scales.  The vital and divine forces are able to operate effectively below the noise level.  The stochastic dice are loaded.  Subtle are the ways of God.  The noise is what gives us and God room to maneuver.  The noise acts almost as a lubricant for (the reconstruction of) the signal.  The stochasticity delivers to us the pieces of the puzzle which we reconstruct to form the Telos, which then becomes our own.  The virtual Telos is thus realized. 

Without its fractal patterns, nature would not be natural.  These fractal patterns are very easy to program into virtually any system.  What we see phenomenally are seldom the pure fractals, but fractals that have been modified or constrained by their interactions with other processes. 

[2/11]

How does matter maintain its identity without atomic objectivity?  Water vapor mixes in with the rest of the air, but at the condensation point the water is able to reaggregate itself.  How do we explain this without appealing to individual molecular identities? 

If matter were, in general, not conserved, life would certainly not be possible.  It would not be possible to observe such an unruly world.  Atomicity bears directly on this issue.  The problem is highlighted by the quantum fluctuations.  All of physics would collapse if such were the case.  This is somewhat like asking why the prime numbers are conserved.  Otherwise there would be a collapse of logic and math.  It is just the relationality and rationality of being which holds this 'physical' world together. 

[2/12]

Numericity and atomicity are of the same ilk.  That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.  I don't think this is the first time I've made this observation (see above, at least); however, I do note that 'numericity' is new to my spell checker.  This may be the crux of my story.  We'll have to look into it. 

Atoms are physical; numbers are abstract, or so we are told.  This dichotomy has been greatly exaggerated in the course of our sojourn into materialism.  The early Greeks certainly did not adhere to this dichotomy.  It is just this artificial dichotomy that leaves us so puzzled by the 'unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics'.  Why have we become so resistant to seeing this linkage?  It is the supposed dualism of mind and matter, the very foundation of modernity, that leaves us so susceptible to every possible incoherence.  And why have we fallen, so unwittingly, into the incoherence trap?  Has science been the cause or the effect?  Or did it have something to do with monotheism? 

Why is it that we have come to regard God as an artisan rather than an artist?  Monotheism has come to be antagonistic to monism, which has become the province of pantheism.  This is not the first time I have raised this issue.  Why are we so intent upon separating ourselves from God?  Is this not the basis of all duality? 

Without atoms, there could be no numbers.  Without numbers, there could be no atoms.  Does this imply that neither exist in heaven?  Perhaps.  Is this the heart of the matter? 

How did we come to suppose that there could be a Creator without a Creation?  Is not creatorhood an essential attribute of God?  In the MDZ scheme, I have set M&D above Z, and the Zodiac is a far cry from being monotheistic.  X is the basis of my claim to monotheism.  I hold onto a Quaternity.  Otherwise there is a slide into pantheism. 

The greatest duality in the BPW scheme appears to be that between Earth and Heaven.  To get into heaven, we have to forget the multiplication table.  There may be more to this than meets the eye.  Down here it's atomicity, up there it's organicity.  Atoms, get 'em while they last!  What then is the analog of metabolism?  It is something like D & Z and the ouroboric/psychic circuit.  That is from whence we came and whither we shall go.  We will have progressed from tail to head, from tribal to communal. 

It is noteworthy the extent to which abstractions hold sway in this supposedly 'physical' realm.  We may suppose that they will be less prevalent elsewhere.  Our adherence to duality is a measure of our ignorance of metaphysics.  It is part of the separation mandated by Creation itself.  The duality is temporary and epistemic, rather than ontic. 

I suggest the Deus faber came from Homo faber, which in turn came from the industrial revolution, or culminated therein.  That economic reality, along with monotheism, was the main source of the dualistic impulse of modernism.  It is only with postmodernism that we begin to overcome that dualistic worldview. 

[2/13]

A question to consider: why is the complicated end of math, e.g. the MG, connected to the simple end of matter, i.e. the 'elementary' particles?  Is there something ouroboric about this?  Does this imply that simple math attaches to the complicated matter?  In a sense, it does.  Counting can be a very sophisticated feat.  Something that animals decidedly do not engage in, nor would gods without access to atomic brains.  Only the most complicated material structures can support simple numericity.  Is there something passing odd in these juxtapositions of the simple and complex? 

[2/14] 

There seems to be something oddly ouroboric about these juxtapositions, but I'm having difficulty in providing any further specification of it.  It is not making sense.  The ouroboros does not make a whole lot of sense.  It pushes rationality to the limit, something that is bound to happen when rationality attempts to chase its own tail. 

It requires a great deal of abstraction to specify a simple logic.  The simplest logic rests on the most complex of grammatical constructions.  The very process of abstraction remains shrouded in mystery.  OK, here is a possible analogy: mating act vs. mating ritual.  Having the former without the latter is considered the most serious violation of the social order.  This analogy might bring us back to the provenance of the Zodiac.  There are involved here the profound issues of identity, along with the problem of the microcosm and of part vs. whole. 

There is the simplicity of Fermat's last theorem vs. the complexity of its proof.  It is in the self that the simple and complex are united to an unprecedented degree.  This unification is the basis of all coherence, even of all being, with only the potency of being in the Matrix that is left unaccounted. 

These juxtapositions are reminiscent of the self that is at the heart of the matter.  Each of the other juxtapositions is a reflection of the self.  If we understand one, we understand all.  That would be something, indeed.  The best understood conjunction is that of the FLT and its proof.  First we might wonder if the proof is essential to the FLT.  It might have been unprovable, and so could have been treated as an independent axiom, like the continuum hypothesis, which becomes a mere appendage to the mathematical corpus.  This may well be the fate of the Riemann hypothesis, although the smart money says it won't be.  This is certainly not how we envision the role of the cosmic self. 

What is the 'proof' of the self?  Well, the proof is in the pudding.  The proof of anything is in the coherence that it brings to the world.  The FLT, CH and RH combine to amplify the coherence of mathematics.  The self is a concept of proven social utility.  So too was the concept of the tribe, in its time, but has that construct not outlived its usefulness? 

Creator and creation is another juxtaposition of this type.  It is generally supposed that downward causation also flows from the simple to the complex, as teleology is translated into functionality.  And then came love.  What sort of juxtaposition have we there?  It is a vital and creative force.  All this seems far removed from the FLT: a^n + b^n /= c^n for n>2.  Evidently the FLT serves as an organizing principle.  It is also telling us that sporadicity is a rare feature.  The MG and its finite family may be the only examples.  The powered triple has either infinitely many solutions or none.  Having a finite number would violate some version of the PSR.  That the proof is so convoluted is pointing to the profundity of sporadicity.  The BPW is sporadic.  It is the organicity of the number system that ensures this.  And there is a trinitarian component to this organicity as witnessed in the power of the elliptic functions.  Between the quadratic and the cubic lies all of creation. 

Then there is the self-referential quality of the construction used by Godel in his incompleteness theorem.  I doubt that the meaning of the construction could be recognized by any mechanistic system: it does not compute.  This construction has become a mainstay of logic.  Embedded in math is a rudimentary concept of self. 

There cannot be identity without identicality, and there cannot be identicality without a finite quantum basis with built-in space-time symmetries.  Observation and  self-reference are intimately involved, as we have seen.  The numericity of identicality will not be supported without sufficient metabolic complexity.  The ouroboric circuit is closed with complexity of the MG matching the metabolic complexity.  What qualifies this as the optimal degree of complexity remains undetermined.  God's self-referential identity depends on this outworking or outsourcing, if you will. 

[2/15]

The juxtaposition of the simple and complex may be a manifestation of the microcosmic construction of the world.  Even the most simple items, e.g. numbers and particles, must reflect the complexity of the world.  This is the basis of relational being. 

The FLT may be interpreted as a statement of the fractal dimensionality of the world.  This is a bit like Bekenstein's holographic bound for entropy, which also gives space a fractal dimension.  Fractality does epitomize the juxtaposition of the simple and complex.  Recall that the Mandelbrot set is generated by z' = z^2 + C.  The notion of the microcosm is holographic in spirit.  This is also the statement that the world is a projective construct.  The particles generate the MG, and the MG projects the particles.  The holograph provides a bootstrap.  I'm not sure how the observer fits in. 

The Creatures have to hold up their end of the Dialectic.  Then how does the dialectic enter into the other juxtapositions?  Can anyone see a dialectic component of the Mandelbrot?  There is at least something very compelling about the Mandelbrot.  There is an aesthetic component to it which resists mathematical analysis.  Fractals have been very effective in lending a natural quality to virtual realities. 

[2/16]

There is something organic about the Mandelbrot.  There is a peculiar aesthetic unity to the beast.  It seems to possess a kind of ecological or functional coherence, while every piece of it retains a unique identity.  At the same time, each piece contains a microcosmic recapitulation of the whole.  The natural and unnatural, the simple and complex reside together in a perfect harmony.  Then there is the mystery.  From whence did this beast come?  What is its provenance?  But once we finally see it, we begin to recognize it everywhere.  I claim that the mystery reigns.  There is more than pantheism in the Mandelbrot.  There is also coherence.  Coherent pantheism = theism.  The Mandelbrot is one very high resolution snapshot of God, caught in the act of creation.  It is a vector to the higher intelligence.  It is a cairn on the path of transcendence.  Materialists claim our world is flat in some mechanistic sense, but with the Mandelbrot, we come to the end of mechanism and keep on sailing.  Imagine finding this gem in the midst of a computer.  Never discount the divine ubiquity. 

But how is the Mandelbrot something other than merely self-generated (sua sponte! Fenn)?  How does it connect?  How do we defend monotheism in light of the Mb?  The Mb is born of God, as are we.  Ergo, we do not need to be baptized.  Suggesting otherwise is the sin of the Christians.  Has Jesus not saved us?  I say that Jesus is the lynchpin of our salvational/eschatological economy.  He does his job, we do ours.  You may take that for what it is worth. 

How then does God manage to intervene in the Mb generating formula: z' = z^2 + C?  How does God manage to intervene in any conception?  It is coherent vitalism.  It is the dialectic in action.  As I pointed out on the Mb page, using the term 'generator' is a misnomer.  It is more like an aperture that is allowing the vital coherence to shine through.  One could argue about whether there is a finite or infinite amount of information contained in the Mb, but no doubt it is vastly greater than the information in the 'generator'.  What then are we to surmise concerning the provenance of that information?  Perhaps I have misspoken.  Could not the origin have been the Matrix?  With minimal coherence in the Mb, only a minimal participation of God is required for the Mb.  The MG is another matter.  The anthropic principle requires more coherence on the part of the MG.  Perhaps the generator is to the Mb as God is to the world.  God places the optimal constraints on the natural effusions of the Matricial potency.  One of God's tools in this process is the MG.  We creatures are the other 'tool' of Creation.  We are simply the co-Creators. 

[2/17]

Beatrix Murrell:

Benoit Mandelbrot, one of the world's mathematical giants on fractals, said that "fractal shapes of great complexity can be obtained merely by repeating a simple geometric transformation, and small changes in parameters of that transformation provokes global changes."  In essence--through a predictable, orderly process the "simple iteration appears to liberate the complexity hidden within it, thus giving access to creative potential."

Thus, in that misnomer called chaos theory, mathematicians and physicists have discovered an *underlying order, a kind of memory operating in non-linear, evolving systems. Fractal geometry illustrates that shapes have self-similarity at descending scales. In other words, the form, the *information,* is enfolded--already present in the depths of the cosmos. So this is reminiscent of the Implicate Order. Iteration liberates the complexity hidden within it. It is not dissimilar to Bohm's law of holonomy: a "movement in which new wholes are emerging."

Ostensibly, our brains also provide an aperture into that 'implicate order', referred to here as the Matrix.  This may be particularly the case if one is under the influence of an hallucinogen. 

[2/18]

Speaking of apertures, there was a time when I subscribed to a 'quantum aperture'.  This was back in the early days of my metaphysical sojourn, 1975-'84, when I initially adopted a Cartesian/quantum dualism of mind and matter.  Lately, the idea of a quantum aperture has gone mainstream under the rubric of the quantum mind (19,800 hits).  On this view, instead of Descartes' suggested pineal gland, it is the non-local strangeness of the quantum realm that provides a connecting link between our minds and bodies.  Now that I have adopted the much greater coherence of monistic immaterialism, I see the quantum as just another symptom of immaterialism, rather than having any direct functional role.  It is now ours and God's creative love and rationality which is the aperture between the Matrix and the rest of Creation.  Under the influence of drugs, or in some other altered state, we individually confront an unfiltered Matrix. 

Where does this place us with regard to the Mandelbrot?  There is still the question of how there could be an external influence upon the seemingly closed system described by the Mb generator. 

[2/19]

The Mandelbrot lies on the tenuous boundary between structure and chaos.  This is the same borderline inhabited by living systems, and so the Mb exhibits its organic quality.  Novelty reigns in its interacting patterns as one form mutates into the next.  There is much replication, but it is never exact.  It is themes and variations.  A good symphony or poem has these qualities.  One wonders if there is any conceivable pattern that could not be discovered in the MB or one of its cousins.  I don't believe that anyone has discovered anything resembling a face.  Prove me wrong!  Invertebrates are represented almost to the exclusion of us vertebrates. 

Here is a worthy attempt at rationalizing the Mandelbrot.  Significantly the site is maintained by an extropian, shades of transhumanism.  (This is one of the best, aesthetic, Mb Explorer.  (This one computes externally, most of the others are applets.)  Beware, though, that it rounds off the edges as compared with this explorer, rendering it of dubious analytic value!) 

[2/20]

It is noteworthy that there are many claims concerning the infinite complexity of the Mandelbrot (420 hits), and I see no attempts at refutation, beyond those implied by Robert Munafo noted above.  There is no doubt that there is an (uncountable) infinity of patterns contained in the Mb, none of which is derivable from the others.  And what are we to make of this?  Here is Robert Curry's suggestion:

I do not know exactly how to convey the degree to which this entire harangue utterly fails to impress anyone who has ever taken time to explore a few portions of the Mandelbrot set, which is a mathematical model of infinite complexity derived from a simple (one might say "mindless") recursive process.

Mathematical proof is less disputable and far more reliable than the ravings of any creationist lunatic: complexity can and does derive from simplicity, just as simplicity can and does arise from complexity.

The issue is one of self-organization or autopoiesis vs. externality.  There seems to be no way for there to be non-physical or non-mathematical influence upon objects of biological or mathematical provenance.  The mere existence of the mind, however, ought to cause us to think twice about this issue. 

[2/21]

Here is an excellent Mandelbrot show and tell.  Be sure to see this analytic (lemniscate) approach to the Mb.  The point is that ultimately the Mb, for all its depth of structure, is neither analyzable nor computable.  Are we left to contemplate our navels?  There is no mechanism to point to an explanation.  There was no forewarning when we fell into this monster.  There was this much warning: Gaston Julia.  (More fractal art.)  Here is an applet showing the iteration process for the Mb.  A more erudite collection of pages may be found by searching on Fatou & Julia & theorem (4,300 hits).  THE MANDELBROT MONK is a must see:

While Udo himself is little-known, one of his works is far more familiar. This 13th century German monk was the author of a poem called Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi (Luck, Empress of the World) in the collection of mediaeval underground verses now known as the Carmina Burana.

[...] In Salus, Udo describes how he used these numbers: "Each person's soul undergoes trials through each of the threescore years and ten of allotted life, [encompassing?] its own nature and diminished or elevated in stature by others [it] encounters, wavering between good and evil until [it is] either cast into outer darkness or drawn forever to God."

When Schipke saw the translation, at once he saw it for what it was: an allegorical description of the iterative process for calculating the Mandelbrot. In mathematical terms, Udo's system was to start with a complex number z, then iterate it up to 70 times by the rule z -> z*z + c, until z either diverged or was caught in an orbit. [*4]

Below the description was drawn the first crude plot of the Mandelbrot, which Udo called the "Divinitas" ("Godhead"). He set it out in a 120x120 frame he termed a "columbarium" (i.e. a dovecote, which has a similar grid of niches) and records that it took him nine years to calculate, even with the newly imported technique of ‘algorism', calculation with Arabic numerals rather than abacus.

"It tends to be taken for granted," Schipke says, "That the Mandelbrot is too calculation-intensive to be done without computers. What we have to remember is the sheer devotion of the monastic life. This was a labour of faith, and Udo was prepared to work for years. Some slowly-converging pixels must have taken weeks."

This anecdote ought to give us pause.  [2-25:  Yes, indeed!  Although the story is still being carried by ABC News, it is apparently too good to be true.]

[2/22]

Here is a further iteration of the lemniscate approach to the Mb, taking N to 25.  (Here is a another iteration scheme.  On this one you can set the iterations from 5 to >500K.)  Is this the closest we can get to an analytic version of the Mb?  How much does it give away?  To what degree is the Mb an artifact?  How do nature's versions of it differ from the computer's in terms of the generators?  Robert Munafo provides a synopsis of the computing algorithms.  (Yet another viewer, about the best general viewer. ) 

(Pardon me while I note an area w/o structure:  -0.7528656865, -(+?)0.0418538316i from this last viewer.  The size is 10^-8.)  Usually it is possible to recognize even a minimal pattern.  This seems to be a dead zone between patterns.  There should have been a four-fold pattern with the usual minibot, but it was split in three parts.  It took me about an hour to relocate this section.  It's just on the other side of the lake, not quite one width east of the upside-down minibot.  The bulb on the right points to it.  There are at least two similar areas just to the north and east.  Each non-pattern has a minibot near its center of gravity, and there is some repetition at smaller scales.  Across each of the eight lakes surrounding the central minibot are similar areas of confusion.  This area is repeated, along with the central minibot, on repeating unit of this large spiral deep in seahorse valley.  On a sister spiral, several clicks above, there are similar areas surrounding the central minibots. 

[2/23]

What seems to be happening in these ill formed areas is that there is a prominent minibot nearby which is robbing these neighboring sites, where you would usually expect to find a minibot, of sufficient coherence or symmetry to produce one.  Instead the area is split into three dissimilar areas, and there is a much smaller minibot in the central region.  This three-fold non-pattern is repeated as you go to smaller scales. 

The canonical pattern may be seen near the minibots out in front of the Mandelbrot along the negative real axis.  Each one is found at an apparent cross-roads with a fourfold symmetry.  It is not a real cross-road because the filaments cannot intersect, they can only branch out.  This has to do with the fact that the Mandelbrot set is simply connected.  This is related to the fact that we are dealing with a flow system in 'complex dynamics' (q.v.).  Your arteries never intersect, they only branch out.  If you look along the 'crossing' filaments, you will see 'S' curves, with two main branches on each side.  This is what gives rise to the threefold symmetry observed above.  There is a confusion between the three and four-fold symmetry.  The same confusion is seen in the threefold Mandelbrot, the cardioid portion having two halves, at the intersection of the real and imaginary axes.  What I am coming to here is a rationalization for the Mb.  Its generator, z' = z^2 + C has a quasi-fourfold symmetry.  The generator would like to twist the Cartesian axes into an 'S' curve, but that is not allowed, and the result is the Mandelbrot.  The cardioid is performing the function of the heart in attaching the arterial to the veinal system.  Also, recall what I said above about the ritualization of the intersection of the sexes.  All of this is being recapitulated chez minibot.  A critic would say that I am using the Mandelbrot as a Rorschach.  Perhaps it is a cosmic or zodiacal Rorschach. 

It is said that the Mb is a connected set.  That is true, but only in a technical sense.  A primary connecting 'link' is a non-link.  It is the ubiquitous infinite inward double spiral.  The two arms of the spiral never meet, yet there is no topological way to separate them.  It then becomes a mathematical convention to suppose that the two parallel arms meet at infinity, like the two parallel lines.  It would be more intuitive to say that the Mb is inseparable.  The suggestion is that the Mb has a microcosmic aspect. 

Here is a ubiquitous feature of the minibots.  As you step down in scale each succeeding generation tends to dissolve into own lace work of veils.  There is an apparent trend toward self-censorship of the successive generations.  I was able only to go out to the fourth or fifth generation before reaching the 10^14th magnification limit of Neal Ziring's explorer.  To see this effect, simply pick up the filamentary thread in any spiral or lattice structure.  Because of the simple connectedness, there will be bottlenecks/bridges through which the single filament must pass.  It is near the center of such structures that you will find a minibot.  But then within each bottleneck, by self-similarity, there will be several smaller bottlenecks/bridges of perhaps one-tenth of the width; however, the central minibot in these substructures will be orders of magnitude smaller relative to that bottleneck.  Is there any larger significance to this fact?  Can it be rationalized? 

[2/24]

There are significant trends to observe on venturing into seahorse and elephant valleys.  The seahorse valley/canyon walls are studded with minibots.  With each minibot is a associated an increasingly dominant triplet structure consisting of two distinct objects.  One of these is a spiral and the other is a circular lattice also decreasing inward, let's call it a 'millipede'.   On one side of the canyon there is a millipede sandwiched between two spirals, with the reverse arrangement on the other side.  In elephant valley there is, on both the floor and ceiling, a looser triplet structure consisting of a relatively large minibot with a spiral on one side and a millipede on the other. 

With the disappearing minibots noted yesterday, they seem to be attempting to turn themselves into millipede, without a central structure.  This trend is seen continuing down to a magnitude of 10^25 in the series of snapshots taken by Bengt Månsson.  Please forgive me if I now give in to the temptation to try my hand at deep zooming.  The main issue is the degree to which novelty appears at the deeper levels.  Or will it just be variations on the established themes.  I suspect the latter. 

Using Fractint, the next smaller generation of minibots that I could locate was at a magnification of 10^23 employing a 28 decimal floating point precision.  This was the first minibot I could find in the vicinity of its much larger parent.  This tend to confirm my suspicion about the disappearing minibot.   Fractint runs mainly in DOS mode, with marginal graphics, but it can calculate up a storm.  The final image took about half an hour to generate at 1.5 gig. 

[2/25]

 Yesterday I gave up on the DOS running of Fractint, and have since been using an evaluation copy of Ultra Fractal, which is easily worth its sixty bucks.  What a relief!  So now I'm eyeball to eyeball with the Mandelbrot. 

(Udo of Aachen may be a fiction, but I suspect the hoax will outlive its author.  Do I then have to give credit to Ray Girvan?) 

The Rorschach test continues.  I am not the only one to be fascinated by the Mb.  What is its psychological charm?  Clearly it is something more than a mathematical tool.  There is a game of hide and seek.  The minibots are quite clever at hiding.  In the process of looking for them in all the strangest places, it is hard not to get the impression that there is some kind of intelligence behind the game. 

[2/26]

Yesterday my nephew, Toby, discovered a whole new class of bots.  His first one was at the center of what looked like a spiral from a distance, but at high magnification the spiral split apart, with a bot between its two branches.  For some spirals, then, the two arms are connected well short of infinity.  Now we have more places to look.  I'm calling these bots the 'missing links'.  This class of bots evolves from a linear triplet of minispiral-bot-minispiral that gets sucked into a master spiral, and in that process, the two companions effective rotate around the bot, swallowing it, while they in their turn are swallowed by the main spiral.  Now I am using 'mini-spiral' to designate both the canonical spirals and its cousins that I have variously called amoebas or gopher holes. 

 What is there to be learned?  Toby's discovery bolsters the cosmic interpretation of the Mandelbrot.  The minibots' effectively being swallowed by the Mandelbrot is very much in keeping with our old acquaintance, the Ouroboros.  The Mb is being both head and tail, Alpha and Omega.  In the process, it is turning itself inside-out. 

In parallel with the above action there is the more visible bot 'parade' out of elephant gulch and back into seahorse canyon, with considerable mutation and evolution along the way. 

[3/1]

Here are some good Mandelbrot pedagogy sites: Mb vs. Julia Set applet using iterations, an iteration of the Mb boundary (the previous applet can also do iterations), Julia star trip, Math World, Wikipedia.  Be sure to see the Julia star trip on the Ibiblio site. 

[3/3]

There is astonishing detail in the Mb.  It is coordinated as far as the eye can see.  From whence does the order come?  Is the PSR at work?  Can we speak of causation?  Is it upward or downwardly acting?  Is it just one darned iteration after another?  What might the appearance of this order tell us about the world, keeping in mind the difficulties we have in explaining the spontaneous emergence of order. 

Outside the Mb the Julia set is disconnected.  It is at the points of disconnection of the JS where one finds the minibots in the Mb.  As one progresses toward greater detail, the minibots grow more hair, while become smaller relative to their corona of filaments.  The central ordering feature of the Mb is to be found in those minibot halos.  The halos have either circular or polygonal shapes in powers of two, alternating without any obvious sequence.  How these larger structures are formed out of the microscopic filaments is the issue here. 

Relative to the filaments, there are sources and sinks.  If the minibots are the sources, then the spirals are the sinks.  The filaments retain the option of spontaneously ending in thin air, this being their most common fate.  Thus are the coiffures maintained.  The spirals, however, will consume whatever comes their way, including even the most smartly tonsured minibots.  Any measurable segment of filament includes an infinity of minibots. 

A very significant source of order is the singly connected attribute of the Mb.  There are no holes.  The filaments can only branch outward, or die-off, but they can never reconnect with anything.  This restriction ensures considerable regimentation.  In other words, there are no puddles in Mandelbrot land.  All the convoluted 'streams' must flow into the ocean. 

The proof of single-connectedness relies on the over-arching principles of complex variables.  Almost all mathematical proofs are deductive in nature.  The four-color map theorem was a notable exception in that it relied on a computer to perform an exhaustive tabulation of all possible configurations.  Such a negative requirement is a long way from providing a positive account of the complexity.  In exploring the Mb, one finds clusters of minibots of similar size.  There is no reason to limit the complexity of these clusters as one progresses to greater detail.  The computing power limits Ultra Fractal to a magnification of about10^33on present-day pc's.  The dimension of the visible universe is about 10^28 cm.  If the Mb were the universe, our viewer could discern the period at the end of this sentence.

[3/4]

My interest in the Mb lies in its microcosmic aspect.  Mb is the Creator.  The minibots are the creatures, and the external portion represents the rest of the world.  This demonstrates how the creatures act as the co-creators.  What is outside represents what is inside.  The world is elicited from the cooperative effluence of the creatures.  It demonstrates how an overarching coordination could be obtained in a relatively democratic fashion.  Is this the BPW?  Well, it is the mother of all fractals.   There is also the ouroboric quality, with the spirals serving as the tail of the cosmic serpent.

(Permit me to speculate that the M-bulbs represent the Zodiac, in which case the Cardioid is the Matrix, and the primary bulb is the X-factor.  Each bulb is a perfect circle, and this shows the place of Pi in AZO/X/QRP.  The Mandelbrot is then the archetype of archetypes.  The unit circle and triune syzygy, e^i*pi = -1 (and here &ff), is implicit in the complex construction.  It appears that the fictional 'Udo of Aachen' may have the last laugh.)

In an immaterial, holographic world, every part necessarily represents the whole.  The generator, z' = z^2 + C, creates a blank space or vacuum that can only be filled by the cosmos, in accord with the PSR.  This should be no more controversial than pointing out that every number is a microcosm of mathematics, with Pi holding the place of pride.  This, in turn, is a recapitulation of Quine's holism.  We stir in the anthropic Monster Group (MG), and we have the primordial Matrix soup.  We are left to wonder how the multiplication of two numbers can have cosmic significance.  Is this not the same problem of how the mind can emerge from atoms swerving in the dark?  Where is the hidden hand?   We might even settle for a 'God of the Gaps' if there were any gaps.  What could have fewer gaps than the multiplication table? 

How then do we explain e^i*pi = -1?  If we didn't know any better, we would never guess that the multiplication table could generate the Mb or the MG.  Then again, the Pieta was carved out of a block of marble.  The microcosm of numbers, syzygys and all, is laid bare by an indefatigable process of chipping away at the |z| < 2 block.   What is left is the coherence of the syzygous numbers.  These are the numbers that have stable orbits under the fundamental operation.  So does the solar system carve itself out of the primordial dust cloud. 

[3/5]

Mathematics, generally, is a testimonial to the complexity hidden in the multiplication table.  As to the provenance of this complexity, we have no explanation.  Mathematicians merely catalog it.  Srinivasa had an unsurpassed numerical intuition, but asking him about the source of that intuition would be like asking a fish about the source of water.  The Mandelbrot is one more demonstration of that hidden complexity. 

Should we suppose that the source of mathematical beauty differs from that of truth and beauty generally?  Is it an accident of nature?  Did it evolve?  Do we ascribe to a correspondence theory of truth or a coherence theory?  The coherence of the Mb is evidence against the former.  The anthropic principle and the role of mathematics in it, should already have settled this argument. 

The skeptic would argue that it is we who have carved coherence out of the numbers, but this explanation falls far short of explaining the Mb or the MG and mathematical physics generally.  In retrospect, we need not have been surprised by the Mb.  We can see now that it fits the cosmic pattern.  And is this not the heart of the matter?  Platonism is inescapable.  Theism is then just a fact of the living, shining Presence of the Forms.  When it comes to incarnation there are only three historically viable choices.  The first two are the Buddha and Mohammed, and neither of them claimed to be that.  This is not rocket science or brain surgery.  This is waking up and smelling the coffee. 

How can even the simplest of integers not be integral to the cosmic coherence?  Integers can only reflect the integrity of the world.  This is not a play on words, it is integral to the cosmic play.  Think about it, my friends.  Think about one and zero and e^i*pi = -1.  Is this the AZO/X/QRP, or what?  Does the Mb not incarnate the AZO/X/QRP?  Does anything else come so close?  How could the cosmic coherence fail to fill that void? 

We don't need to invoke a deus ex machina, or a God of the gaps to explain the Mb.  It is rather the hidden hand of mathematical coherence.  It is the same as the order of the seemingly random prime numbers that is exposed by the Riemann hypothesis.  It is the hidden intricacy of Fermat's last theorem, exposed in Wiles' proof based on elliptic analysis.  All of this intricacy had to be incarnated for the world to witness.  That is an essential aspect of the observer principle.  And what better place?  What better raison for our computer technology?  It is all wrapped up in the strangely familiar beauty of the Mandelbrot: Exhibit B! 

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.  Is there a better explanation?  The only alternative is for us to poke out our eyes like Oedipus.  But we, unlike Oedipus, are able to know that we are forgiven.  It goes with the territory of truth and beauty.

--------------------------------

How does the observer principle work with the Mandelbrot?  This seems now to be the biggest issue.  Is there any way the observancy can be incarnated within the Mb?  I would guess that it has something to do with the single connectedness of the mini-Bs.  I suppose, also, that the notion of the microcosm is tied up with observancy.  This, in turn, has to do with direct perception.  We can perceive only that which is of us.  We are God perceiving herself.  And there is only one God, as there is only one Mandelbrot, and it is the best of all possible such. 

The optimality is reflected in the simplicity of the generator.  What would be the optimal such?  Would it be simple or complicated?  It would be the simplest non-linear generator, which is what we have.  And there is nothing that is not contained herein.  Anything more complicated would be our arbitrary imposition on God's, and on our own, freedom. 

[3/7]

My experience with the MG and Mb leave me suspecting that there is something basic about numbers that we are missing.  This something has to do with the problem of perception and anthropics.  Counting is deeply imbedded in our observational and linguistic capacity.  This capacity may most simply be described as labeling.  Labeling brings to mind indirect perception and representationalism.  This may be the point at which our epistemology has gone astray.  The map becomes confused with the territory. 

With mathematical physics and computers, we take numbers to be the the substratum of reality, with language and mind being epiphenomenal.  The Platonic forms become divorced from our lived world, and the Cartesian dualism of matter and mind, quantity and quality raises its specter. 

Yes, I am attempting to regress from quantity to quality, and, of course, this will take me uncomfortably close to the hazards of numerology.  We have been there before.  We are acquainted with numerical coincidences and sacred geometry.  This is why the archetype of Pi figures prominently in the AZO/X/QRP(i).  I am suggesting that the relational qualities of Pi are ontologically prior to its quantity.  The irony is that we depend on the mechanism of the computer to demonstrate the organicity of the Mandelbrot. 

Pi has an ouroboric quality, especially in the context of e^i*pi.  The ouroboros has a lot to do with observancy.  This quality of the ouroboros and the Mb is captured in the observance of the reflections of multiple mirrors and in paintings of paintings.  It has to do with Godelian self-reference.  We should not have been surprised by the Godelian construction.  Is there evidence for any of this that can be found in the multiplication table?  How is it imported into the Mb?  How is the spark of life imported into the chaos of the primordial soup?  An immaterialist does not have to play that game, but we do have to play the Mandelbrot game.  How can the multiplication table be viewed as a microcosm, and not as a pure artifact?  Perhaps we should be looking at the dialectic embedded in the imaginary i = sqrt(-1).  Perhaps there is more to the iota than mere quantity.  Can the iota sustain such an ontological burden?  Perhaps only in its natural (sic) triune context.  The Mandelbrot is the imago dei, especially in the triune form of the latter.  Does this quasi explanation of the Mb smack of circularity?  Well, welcome to the real ouroboric world!  Mathematicians, for all their jadedness, have not quite outgrown the magic of the iota.  And where would any of us be without Iona?  They just neglect to stop and smell the flowers.   The iota merely adumbrates the (observancy?) magic inherent in numbers.  It is the salt in our primordial soup. 

The iota is the magic mirror that we can hold up to the numbers to bring out their self-referential quality.  The Godelian self-referential construct has a similar effect, but it is much more cumbersome.  It should be no surprise that the iota is an essential ingredient for quantum physics, where it appears necessarily in the all-important commutation relations between complementary variables like position and momentum. 

Our basic ontological dynamic is MDX(/Z), which is reminiscent of e^i*pi, also of the mother, spirit and son, if you are a reformed traditionalist.  The iota here is something of the shape-shifting Trickster.  It is the cosmic wild card.  It mediates between mother and son, and this role captures its Dialectic quality.  It is the basic mechanism of the bootstrap.  The Zodiac, as a psychic circuit, bootstraps itself out of the Matrix.  The X, with the help of the Trickster, sacrifices itself to break the circuit to form Creation between the Alpha and Omega.  Thus the cardiacal cleavage in the Matrix, with the Zodiacal procession emanating from and returning to the nearly cleaved Matrix.  Pardon me while I free-associate on the Imago Dei. 

[3/8]

The dialectic is our biggest mystery.  It is the primal generator of form.  If the iota can shed any light on it, then more power to the iota.  The sqrt (-1) is not just imaginary, it is impossible.  Yet, it is easily the most powerful agent in mathematics.  The iota provides an extra dimension to the real numbers, making visible their hidden structures, as in the Riemann Hypothesis relative to the distribution of the primes.  The iota elicits hidden structure.  The iota is to the reals as the dialectic is to the matrix.  Is it fair to say that the functionality of the iota is dependent on the participation of an observer?  It is an observational tool or operator or artifact, not unlike the projection operator in quantum physics. 

Recall that the dialectic juxtaposes a thesis with its antithesis to produce a higher order synthesis.  It is all about transcending the box.  That juxtaposition implies an external agent.  Pi bootstraps itself out of 'e' using the iota.  The Mb recapitulates this process, somehow.  e^i*pi is the generator of the numerals, somewhat as the primary bulb in the Mb seems to generate the lesser ones.  The same bulb also seems to generate the prime minibot on the negative real axial filament.  That creature is the Adam Kadmon of Creation.  Like the Mb, it is apparently hermaphroditic, being in the Imago Dei.  The cleaving of the cardioid/female component of the Mb was aboriginal, as in the zim-zum.  (BTW, the Mb should have reminded me of the polyandrous cosmic model that appeared on my first website.  The Mb is more monotheistic.) 

Another point needing clarification is the relation between the logos and the dia-logos.  The latter seems to be a conflation of D & X.  In e^i*pi, it is the iota that bends the inflating 'e' into something cyclical.  The Pi is the measure of those cycles.  It projects the cyclical onto the lineal.  It is the iota that may be responsible for the cleaving of the cardioid and the emergence of the first bulb; however, that point is censored, even mathematically.  It is lost in the cusp singularity at (1/4, 0i).   In general, the formula for a cardioid is r = 1 - cos(theta), deriving directly from e^i*pi.  The Mb cardioid is exact, as is the circularity of the primary bulb.  The other bulbs depart slightly from circularity, with only a fractal pattern for those departures.  And, yes, we are talking about the heart of the matter. 

[3/10]

In the MG and the Mb, numbers seem play two very different roles: ontological and epistemological, respectively.  Proper names speak to individuality.  Nouns and numbers speak to commonality and identity.  Individuation precedes categorization.  Before that there is a shining present, and perhaps a stream of consciousness.  Enumeration is founded upon the experience of space and time.  Then come the Cartesian coordinates and the physics that flows therefrom.  That physics turns out to be derivable mainly from symmetry, which is based on identity.  The Mb is the most complex object in mathematics.  The Monster Group is the most complex of all mathematical groups.  We have complexity with a vengeance.  Do we not see that complexity reflected in the world?  The BPW puts a premium on that complexity.  The implication is that what we have is the optimal complexity.  Anything more or less would be suboptimal.  Is it possible to have too much of a good thing?  Yes, but not in the BPW. 

On the other hand, I supposed the Mb to be infinitely complex.  I was about to say that there could be no non-cognizable complexity.  Do we now have to posit an infinitely intelligent deity?  Is there no limit to the discoverable coherence in the Mb, using now a more specific definition of complexity?  In this case, either the Mb cannot be a microcosm, or the world is infinitely complex.  The Mb is part of the world, so its level of complexity becomes that of the world.  We then need to consider the ontology of that complexity.  Is it actual or merely potential?  How might it figure in the eschatology.  Might not this conundrum force us to separate ontology and epistemology in the usual Platonic fashion?  That would push the theism back toward deism.  Can we posit an objectivity for the Mb that is less than that of the MG?  Can the role of one be less fundamental than the other? 

Consider that there are vastly more genetic combinations than there will exist humans.  Does this unrealized human potential create an ontological problem?  We don't normally associate any object with that unrealized genetic pool.  Perhaps the Mb has less claim to objectivity than the MG.  There are also many poems that will never be written.  We don't usually suppose that there is a Platonic heaven for unwritten poems.  That are mathematical hypotheses that will never be decided.  Riemann's could be one of them.  Are there hypotheses that will not be hypothesized?  That need not be an idle question.  Even in the BPW, the greatest symphony might never be composed or performed. 

Does the Mb fail the microcosmic test?  Or is its incompletion essential to it and us?  Will there be no undiscovered dinosaur fossils?  Is that any  more or less certain than the undiscovered minibot?  The Mb forces us to wrestle with the immaterialist ontology.  Is there life on other planets, other suns?  Are there other planets?  What actually constitutes discovery and existence?  The existence of the Mb can only be relative, like all else.   The reality of the Mb and its parts will finally be optimal.  What coheres, lasts.  The minibots are like everything else, you find them when you need them.  If your presidential reprieve is lost in the mail, so be it.  The celestial host are there when we need them, and they need not be from another planet. 

Is the Mb infinitely complex?  Potentially, yes, but actually it is optimally complex, the same as the cosmos.  That optimality will be determined largely by us. 

[3/11]

I was attempting to enlist the Mb into the BPW cause, but then it threatened to take over the cosmology by dint of its potentially infinite complexity.  We had to beat it back with the stick of relativity.  Where does that leave us?  I have made a case for the microcosmic status of the Mandelbrot set, but the case remains open.  The larger problem is the role of anthropics in mathematics.  Such a role runs against our deeply ingrained Platonic view of numbers.  It may be the additional role of the Mb to help disabuse us of that illusion.  This may be why mathematicians are reluctant to fully engage this beast.  It is just too obviously organic/holistic.  On the other hand, mathematical Platonism runs up against the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in physics.  This is especially true in regard to the MG and its kin.  I have previously remarked that the more we discover about math, the more we have to appreciate its interconnectedness.  This fact ought not to keep surprising us, but no one is keeping score.  Platonists tread softly around the problem of relativity.  We physicists had to learn these things the hard way.  Mathematicians want to be the last of the Mohicans.  They fail to appreciate that the BPW will be the eschatological hurrah of Ionia.  Plato was just an Ionian backslider.  He tried to put his cart of absolutism before the Ionian donkey.  Ionian truth did not need a Platonic pedestal.   Socrates knew that truth would have to be hashed out in the Agora.  Cosmology would ultimately be consensual.  The Mandelbrot smacks of the Agora.  It is the Agora of the minibots -- too much democracy for the Philosopher King.  The organicism is sua sponte.  The Pythagorean harmony of numbers was subverted into a Platonic mausoleum.  Plato had certainty.  It will take a hundred Godels and a hundred Mandelbrots to wean us away from the comfortable lap of certainty.  That, or perhaps one more Srinivasa Ramanujan. 

Can we extend the minibots' democracy to their numerical cousins?  Let the hidden hand have its way.  How do we go about this?  Will the minibots divulge their secret?  What have they in common with numbers?  The mini-b's wear their auras on their sleeves.  The numerals are much more discrete: 'there ain't no moss on us'.  The moss is hidden in the elliptics.  There lie the filaments.  The elliptic is the cardioid.  The numerals are the nearly circular bulbs.  We just can't quite see the deviations that portend the greater harmony.  Harmony is seen in the syzygys.  It is seen in the RH.  Recall (and here) the nearly integral values of the elliptically generated Ramanujan constants of the form e^pi*sqrt(n).  We suppose mathematical complexity is derived from simplicity, but that may not be the case.  This is the analytic illusion.  By the same token, we used to think that the perceived world was generated from sense data.  Quine began the deconstruction of this illusion.  Much deconstruction still lies ahead.  Numbers, like atoms, must be emergent entities.  The same goes for logic.  We haven't quite understood the measurement problem for numbers.  Physicists speculate about pre-geometry.  We need to speculate about the pre-numerical.  Pre-geometry is usually thought to be a logical network of discrete entities.  This may be too analytical.  According to Leopold Kronecker (1823-91), 'God created the integers, all else is the work of man.'  We have to turn that around.  Let us recall Watkins, in this regard.   

[3/12]

What does the Mandelbrot teach us of holism?  It tells us about the microcosmic and relational nature of existence.  This is the logical foundation of holism.  In contrast to holism, there is atomism.  Holism comes naturally; it is grounded in the shining present.  Atomism we have to strive for.  It is the end product of our analytic skills.  It is based on the making of distinctions. 

The ultimate distinction is between nothing and everything, between the void and the plenum.  Buddhism is the religion of non-distinction.  Buddhists identify the void with the plenum.  It is nirvana.  All problems are solved, all distinctions are dissolved.  One could do a lot worse.  Could we possibly do any better?  The answer is a definite 'maybe'. 

I am a bigger fan of the plenum than of the void.  I say, 'Give the plenum a chance.'  If there is going to be a plenum, it ought to be the best possible one, and so we have the Best Possible World (BPW).  Why settle for less? 

I make the case for the BPW.  How do we get from atoms to the plenum?  We consider distinction.  The primal distinction is between nothing and everything.  In numerical terms, this is the distinction between the null and the infinite.  They are reciprocals: 0 = 1/infinity.  Infinity = 1/0.  That is the mathematical proof of Buddhism.  To arrive at the BPW we have to look at this distinction more carefully.  We can go step by step in a temporal sequence.  The logical starting point is unity.  From the previous construction we see that unity is the half way point or the mediator between the null and the infinite.  Unity is the numerical emblem of monotheism and the prophetic tradition.  It describes the ultimate state of grace or apokatastasis/restitution wherein creator and creation are reunified: the theistic nirvana. 

There is a dualism implicit in the unity.  Under the operation of multiplication, unity is the dividing line between the null and the infinite.  If we start with, say 1.000...0001, repeated multiplication will eventually take that number to infinity, whereas its infinitely close neighbor, 0.999...999 will be sucked into the void.  The numerical unit becomes the mark of distinction between the plenum and the void.  In the next breath we will be speaking of heaven and hell, but let us not go there. 

We continue with the mathematical foray.  It is the operation of multiplication, x' = x*x, that leaves us with three distinct elements: 0, 1 and infinity.  Yes, this could be one version of the Trinity.  The Trinity is the simplest way to defeat the dualism inherent in monotheism.  Recall from high school algebra the parabolic function y = x*x or x^2.  Its general form is y = a*x^2 + b*x + c.  What can we do with that?  About the only thing we can do is to simplify it by finding its two roots: y = (x - r1)*(x - r2).  Recall then that r(1\2) = (-b +\- sqrt(b^2 - 4*a*c))/2*a.  This notorious 'quadratic formula' confronts us at once with three earthshaking 'realities': negative, irrational and imaginary numbers.  The capitalist system is based on our acquiescence to the notion of (+\-)$.  Greek rationalism was wrecked upon the irrationality of sqrt(-2).  Quantum uncertainty is founded on the fact that the 'commutator' of [position, momentum] = sqrt(-1)*(Planck's Constant), which simply tells us that position and momentum cannot be determined simultaneously. 

But this is not all.  A fourth shaking of the earth comes from the quadratic.  We generalize it to z' = z^2 + C, where z = x + i*y, with i = sqrt(-1), is a 'complex' number made up of real and imaginary parts.  The single unit no longer serves as the boundary, under multiplication, between the finite and the infinite.  The complex values of C lying on the new boundary in the complex plane define the Mandelbrot set, the most complicated object in mathematics. 

[3/13]

I have not yet run across an explanation of the most basic fact about the Mb: how it manages to replicate itself.  Mandelbrot & self-similarity (22,600 hits).  Self-similarity is a defining property of fractals, but this hardly constitutes an explanation for the case of the Mb.  In this case we are dealing with quasi-self-similarity.  I note that the minibots or 'mu-atoms' occur at places where the filaments appear to intersect orthogonally, as with the real and imaginary axes intersecting the main body.  They never occur at the branch points of the filaments where there exists only an infinite regression.  One can get a feel for this property by seeing how the Julia set becomes disconnected near the apparent junctions.
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Topical Index

1/5/05

 

The Mandelbrot Revisited

[Please note that this discussion is a continuation from the previous page, and from an earlier page.]

The most obvious thing about the Mb is that it must be symmetric about the real axis.  The next most obvious thing is that it is very asymmetric about the imaginary axis.  It is intuitively obvious that there must be a filamentary process far enough out along the negative real axis, complemented by a channel on the positive side.  One could then do worse than attempt to sketch the first few lemniscates. 

One could note the connection between the Mandelbrot and Julia sets, and sketch a few of the Julia sets along the real axis.  This would underscore the asymmetry along that axis.  The general periodicity of the iterations could also be inferred with a minimum of calculation.  (See here and here.) 

At some point our intuition about fractals would kick in.  We could easily speculate that the fractality of the main body would involve replications of the bulb processes, and that each bulb, by simplicity, would be as close to circular as possible.  We could next infer that there would be points of discontinuity, such as where bulb touches bulb or filament touches bulb.  The only way to handle such points would be to resort to infinite regress. 

Next would come the problem of connectedness.  It would not be difficult to discover that there are just two basic kinds of Julia sets: connected and disconnected.  We might then wonder if the Mb could be composed of both kinds of sets.  We could also speculate as to how the Julia set undergoes its transition between these two very distinct phases, i.e. from solid to gas.  The only possible places where this could occur would be at branching/connecting points, and so there would have to be infinitely many such points, or, more technically, the branching points would have to be 'dense' in the set. 

The next inference is that the Mb would be on the borderline between being connected and disconnected.  It is only regressively connected, i.e. you cannot define a disconnecting set, but that it is not 'pathwise' connected.  This latter point has not been proven, but I suggest that it may readily be inferred by inspection and intuition. 

If I'm correct in this line of speculation, the Mb presents us with a mathematical reality, most of whose truths are open to intuition, but not to analysis.  It this not a fundamental demonstration of Godel's theorem?  I believe that this is a fundamental truth about our world in general.  This is the whole point of emergent phenomena, downward causation, microcosms and Leibniz' Principle of Sufficient Reason.  What analysis must leave incomplete, only God can complete.  Each idea is very adequately represented here in what is at once both the most simply generated and the most complex acting of non-linear systems.  How could the Mandelbrot be other than the Imago Dei, as posited by our beloved but fictional monk, Udo of Aachen?  Here I gladly plant the flag of theism.  Would anyone care to mount a challenge?  If we can hold this beachhead on the motherland of analysis, to where can it retreat?  Is this not the heart of materialism?  Is it not the heart/cardioid of the matter? 

At every juncture of reason we have only two choices: fall into an infinite regress of analysis, or look for the microcosmic mu-atom that is the Alpha and Omega of reason.  We have dissolved the Mandelbrot Mystery.  We either analyze it to our death, or we crank it up a few notches, recognizing that there is ultimately only one Mystery. 

What can we do for an encore?  This could well mark the end of our sojourn into matter.  Materialism goes out with hardly a whimper.  It just gives up the ghost in its machine. 

-----------------------------------------

It would be nice to get some idea of how the Mb mug shot was taken.  Alright, here we go. 

The Matrix abhors a vacuum.  The Matrix is strongly biased in favor of the plenum over the void.  Given downward causation, the highest possible cause has priority.  The vacuum in question here is the failure of analysis, even in principle, to grapple with the overwhelming complexity.  That leaves an opening for emergence.  Yes, this is an emergence in the gap of analysis. 

Given the fact that analysis fails almost everywhere in nature, should not the Imago Dei be plastered almost everywhere?  You know what they say about faces in public places?  My answer is that it is and isn't.  For instance, you, me and the dung beetle definitely partake of the Imago.  On the other hand, seldom do we see recognizable BVM's in the clouds.  Clouds are functional fractals.  Their job is mainly to rain on the plain.  Taking on the shape of a the Pieta would be far beyond their job description, and would very likely interfere therewith.  Here we use the PSR for a null result.  When it comes to clouds and the formation of raindrops, atomism does very well, thank you.  This same functional reasoning covers virtually all of the fractals to be found in nature. 

Why then is not the Mandelbrot just some version of Cantorian Dust?  That is what the Julia set becomes outside of the Mb.  The beauty of the Mb derives in no small measure from its borderline status between the connected and disconnected forms of fractality.  This makes possible an extreme richness of texture.  Upon this richness we need to impose the universal condition of quasi-self-similarity.  We have your basic cardioid with its attendant infinite set of circles, each with a filamentary process making up its beaded necklace of mu-atoms.  This is the least constrained of all fractal systems.  It becomes the mother of all fractals.  Its infinite collection of Julia sets is just a drop in that bucket. 

The Mb is to mathematical fractals what the Matrix is to natural fractals.  You, me and the dung beetle are the mu-atom pearls on Indra's necklace. 

What stands out above all is the coherence of the Mb.  It is a territorially based coherence, rather like an ecosystem.  There are spheres of influence.  Each mu-atom and each individual type of spiral has its sphere of influence.  There is nothing that falls outside.  Most every locus comes under the influence of multiple spheres.  Every location may be uniquely identified.  How are the potential conflicts and confusions mediated?  Can we hope to reveal the hidden hand?  Aren't there way too many cooks here?  Is there a Darwinian survival of the fittest to fall back upon? 

I submit that the Mandelbrot is forcing us to reexamine our conception of mathematical reality, just as the mind is forcing us to reexamine our conception of material reality.  The results are bound to be related.  In each case we must resurrect the notion of Pythagorean harmony, in partial contravention of the Platonic forms.  To borrow political labels, the Pythagoreans are metaphysical populists, while the Platonists are the corresponding royalists.  I come down on the side of hidden hand populism, with just a whiff of messianism. 

In deference to the mind, I have railed against the idea of physical atomism.  In deference to the Mandelbrot (Mb) and the Monster Group (MG), I rail against logical atomism.  Logical atomism cannot hope to explain these objects, any more than physical atoms can explain the mind.  

Is it not true, however, that there exists an analytic proof for the existence of the MG, laid out in 15,000 pages of equations?  We shall see. 

The Mb may be likened to a language.  No word of the language may be understood outside the context of the whole language, and no language may be understood outside of how it functions in the whole world.  Logic and numbers can only be understood inside a linguistic context.  The Mb may also be likened to a grammar.  Despite everything we are taught in school, there are no rules of grammar.  There are, for the most part, only uncodifiable guidelines.  There are also uncodifiable universal generalizations which allow every child potentially to become a fluent and intelligible speaker of every language, able to form intelligible constructions which she has never even heard before.  I am sure to be guilty of more than a few such constructions, intelligible or not, on these pages.  Intelligibility is not and cannot be idiosyncratic.  Pace Wittgenstein, there is no such beast as a private language. 

How then did language evolve?  The same way that the Mb evolved: in short, it didn't.  The longer answer is that it evolved in lemniscate fashion through a process of the gradual refinement of its primal/cosmic core, i.e. the Dialectic. 

But wait, there is a perfectly analytic, finitely iterative procedure for separately calculating every point in the Mandelbrot.  That is just the problem: how does this object of seemingly coherent beauty emerge from such a random process?  Is the Mb a cosmic accident, or does it portend a deeper order?  Fractals are supposed to be the exemplifiers of noise, disorder and chaos; and here we have the mother of all fractals, and yet it seems that its attributes are anything but.  Is there not some explaining to do? 

[3/15]

It is fair to say the the Mb is only semi-connected or disconnected.  There is no procedure, not even an infinite one, that would connect or disconnect it. 

If the Mb were subject to downward determination, then it would be overdetermined, since it is also subject to an analytic determination.  This is the same problem we have with mind & brain.  At some point, the physics has to be overridden.  Or is there a middle ground?  There is if the downward factor could be built into the analytic process, as if there were something like the quantum/observer effect. 

One problem is our modern proclivity to think of the integer 8 as synonymous with 8.0000....  On the other hand,  the computers that carry out the calculations can scarcely attend to questions of ontology.  An uncertain computation is not to be tolerated in computer land.  There ought to be, however, some Godelian self-reference effect that requires an observer in the loop.  Perhaps the Mb/mind is just that.  The Mb could be a telos that is operating for the whole number system.  In that role it would be complementary to Pi and MG.  We have noted that Pi is embedded in the Mb.  Is it not possible that the Mb is embedded in Pi?  In addition to the canonical value of Pi, there would be an infinite number of small variations on that number occurring throughout the Mb.  Could it be that the Mb records the emergence of Pi from within the Matrix.  This appears to be the significance of the zodiacal procession of the quasi-circular bulbs leading from and returning to 'elephant gulch' in the cardioid, and culminating in the perfect circle on the negative real axis.  The Mb is the primal context of Pi.  Pi is its pearl of great price.  It seems to be telling us that Pi should be related (also here and here) to Fibonacci's Golden Ratio, phi.  This page describes how the dwell times of points in the cusps are related to pi.  A simple explanation is given here, relating the phenomenon to Euler's equation: e^i*pi = -1.  Pi is the escape parameter for the Mb/Matrix. 

[3/16]

If this is true about the escape parameter, this does shed a new light on the role of the Pi/X archetype.  X leads us out of the Matrix into God's kingdom, which is what we approach now.  Then the eschaton involves our return to the Matrix.  This is hardly the orthodox view of the salvation economy.  Does this then motivate us to reinstate the Millennium?  We shall see.  It is orthodox to suppose that Jesus was saving us from the world, but this Mb model suggests that he is saving us into the world.  He then is our philosopher king.  Pi indicates the perfection of the economy.  It is a perfection, however, that is necessarily finite in time, being delimited by our eschatological return to the Matrix, cosmic womb or nirvana.  That would tend to put our Srini2, Y2C, X2 event/factor more into the logical role of the anti-X within the cosmic dialectic.  Or perhaps we should say that X is the anti-Matrix, while Y2C is the synthesis.  That might make more sense.  This scenario is closer to Owen Barfield's three stages of participation.  It adumbrates the positive side of history, something that distinguishes theism from pantheism, but which the theists are usually quick to downplay. 

The bootstrap and dialectic are ideas that we need to be reconsidering at every opportunity.  And certainly more must be said about how the Mb comes under a teleological influence.  It may go back to numerology, and the peculiar notion of the evolution of numbers.  Just about now, the skeptics out there ought to be thinking that the Mb will be my tar baby, but I'm thinking 'briar patch'! 

[3/28] 

Pi could be the pre-spatial telos of the Mb, which, in turn, is the telos of the number system.  However, none of the structure of the Mb is visible on just the real axis.  We need to consider the holism of the Mb, and how that holism is reflected in numbers generally.  We could look at the Mb as the primal numerical object: a zim-zum, etc.   

[3/29]

It would be helpful to explain the branching process for the Mb.  To what does it relate? 

[3/30]

I may have missed something previously when I reported a dearth of professional interest in the Mb.  The question of branching led me to the topic of Hubbard trees which play a significant role in the phenomenology and taxonomy of 'complex dynamics', and from there to 'experimental mathematics' (here and here).  The Mb is a recurring structure in many types of 'complex' systems.  'Complex' here refers mainly to the presence of iota, but also to the sheer complexity.  The Mb is the touchstone for an important and expanding branch of mathematics.  No wonder and much wonder. 

After Douady and Hubbard, Robert Devaney appears to be the primo professional focused on the Mandelbrot and its kin.  There is some analysis mixed with much phenomenology, and most of the analysis comes directly from D & H.  Let us not overlook John Milnor.  Then here it is that Gregory Chaitin makes his argument against Leibniz' PSR: 

And here is where the concept of algorithmic information can make its surprising contribution to epistemology, to the philosophical discussion of the origins and limits of knowledge. What if we can find mathematical facts that are true for no reason, where would that leave our philosophy, what would it do to us?

Yes, what indeed?

[3/31]

I'm not sure what to make of these unreasonable or brute facts.  How does this relate to the Mandelbrot?  How might they be reconciled with holism?  Are these atomic facts just swerving in the dark as some suppose of their physical counterparts? 

Is this not just additional support for a constructivist view of math and physics?  Are we not unnecessarily falling victim to what Whitehead sees as our proclivity for misplaced concreteness?  Are we not being frightened by our own shadow, i.e. by our own abstractions?  Does not the Mb demonstrate the taming of randomness?  There is ever only a pseudo-randomness, and it is ever only of our own making.  The same may be said of the quantum when we factor in the observer principle. 

Is not experimental math founded on construction and intuition?  Gregory's use of absolutism is an ill-founded justification for construction.  Kurt Godel's defeat of Hilbert's absolutist agenda was purely constructive.  Now Gregory seems to be returning to absolutism via the back door.   Our Platonist/absolutist proclivities die hard.  It is our final idolatry. 

The Mb exhibits aspects of the halting problem, relating to its bounded and unbounded orbits, given a finite cut-off.   

We are still being thrown back on the question of how the vital/bootstrap/dialectic manages to infiltrate the computer logic, if that is what the Mb points to.  There is here a stark contrast of mechanism and organicism.  Computation cannot be an absolute.  But neither are we looking for a god of the gaps.  We can only settle for a holistic God.  How do computation and mechanism take holism onboard?  Where is the leverage? 

I can only think that habituation trumps logic and idealization.  The vital principle enters the system through this process.  The only other consideration is numerology, and this probably amounts to the same thing.  It is in the difference between 8 and 8.000....  Are we just talking ordinal vs. cardinal vs. nominal?  Pi and the Mb become the de facto touchstones of computation.  Without their tangibility and specificity, computation is mere abstraction. 

The good news is that we evolve.  The bad news is that so do numbers.  The good news is that Pi and the Mb provide road maps for that mutual evolutionary path.  This is how the world hangs together.  It can do none other.  This is the foundation of the BPW: ergo, the eschatological telos.

Yes, Gregory, Pi and the Mb are brute facts.  They are the brute facts of existence and life.  Any other facts are figments of our imaginations.  We might just as well wonder that they can be computed at all.  Small miracles in a bigger miracle, like e^i*pi = -1.  If we can believe that tri-unity, we ought to be able to believe all the rest. 

Teleology rules, in the depths of matter, and in the bowels of our machines, simply because it is the logical alpha and omega of all being.  That is the most brute of all facts.  We had best get used to it.  We'll never get over or beyond it.  Asking how teleology works is a bit like asking why 1 + 1 = 2.  It is the only way that being can be. 

Does this make the job of Y2C any easier?  Pi and the Mb can lead us to the water, but they cannot make us drink.

Facts: united they stand, divided they fall. 

[4/1]

This is my day: a fool for God! 

Looking back at the original mention of Mandelbrot on these pages, I notice there was a context of functionalism.  I take my functionalism in the spirit of Leibniz' PSR. 

Functionalism is just relationalism from a teleological perspective.  Things are functional because they are related, and they are related because they are functional.  This could be the first law of holism.  Numbers, logic and computation are no exception.  Functionality we take to be the epitome of mundane existence, in all its slimy, greasy glory.  This seems just the opposite of Plato's supra-mundane habitat of numbers and forms.  But in that exclusivity, Plato was abrogating the spirit of the Pythagorean harmony of being.  Descartes followed Plato's felix culpa, but the mathematical physicists are trying to bring us back to Pythagoras. 

Numbers exist to function, thus the UEM, the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics.  Numbers could not exist without the Telos.  They cannot and do not exist in the splendid isolation of Plato's heaven. 

Being the mother of fractals, the Mb is the logical venue for numbers to most freely display their functional organicity.  And do they ever!  Bless their little cardioids. 

One glance at the Mandelbrot ought to cure the most cold hearted of us of our reductionist, deconstructionist, absolutist proclivities.  That it has not yet done so, only indicates that the Mb lacks its proper champion.  Can the Y2C/X2-event fail to fill that role?  I've been looking high and low.  Is there a better candidate for Exhibit A?  Should it not suffice?  Mandelbrot & God (36,900 hits).  I'm not the only fool out here today!  Imagine if we ever got our act together.  Let the good times roll! 

The Mb, how can it be?  Nay!  How could it fail to be?  We must allow that explanatory burden to be shifted.  The organicity of the Mb is the alpha and omega of numericity.  We should be teaching our kids to appreciate the Mb before teaching them to add and subtract.  What surer way to set our materialism on its head?  It is the irreducible building block that has been sorely neglected by modernity.  Where are those tie-dyed t-shirts of the '70's?  

And how does the seemingly singular, solitary perfection of Pi/X emerge out of that Pandora's box?  Somehow through the operation of the cardioid.  What the X-bulb points to is the holistic perfection of the of the whole organic creation, without which, Pi/X would not exist.  All is in harmony.  Every hair is numbered.  Why are we so slow to grasp this?  When we use our analytic skill to calculate Pi to billions of digits, we are short-circuiting Creation.  With the Mb, Creation bites back. Everything in its proper place and time.  Our most strenuous efforts to thwart creation only play into its ever loving hands.  Won't it be a marvel when we stop beating our heads against all fate?  We realize that God's love can know no bounds.

The Mb is a hard act to follow....

Perfection and imperfection are all relative and all in the eye of the beholder.  The perfect eye can only see perfection.  All our eyes can and will be perfected in the Telos.  They are already perfect in their context, it is the context that will shift.

God said to the Numbers, 'Be fruitful and multiply.'  And Lo, the Mandelbrot!  In point of fact, it was likely the Mb that taught the numbers their multiplication tables.  It is the primordial/universal multiplication table. 
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Topical Index

3/14/05

 

Foreseeing the Second Coming

The Second Coming must be a touchstone for any spiritually inspired vision of the world and its history.  It is unavoidable even for non-Christians. 

A spiritual vision of the world must be coherent and comprehensive.  It must be a theory of everything.  As such, it would be an understatement to say that it would constitute a revelation of biblical proportions, because it would necessarily transcend the Bible and every other previous revelation.  It would have to be the seal of the prophets.  And even that is not quite enough.  The vision would also have to encompass all previous knowledge: spiritual, philosophical and scientific. 

Virtually every tradition has its prophets, messiahs and avatars, past, present and future.  Every one of them is strongly associated with the revealing of knowledge.  I believe that it is not at all unfair or improper to include science among these traditions. 

The next issue is whether we might not rather anticipate a partial revelation, something that falls short of a theory of everything.  All I can do is give you my thinking on this matter. 

It has been a long time since there has been a world-class prophet.  There is a threshold that must be passed.  I am only suggesting that at this late date we are in a situation of all or nothing, with respect to prophecy.  For instance, neither the bible nor the Koran lend themselves to partial revision.  Any emendation to those instruments would have to be perceived to be taking place in a apocalyptic or eschatological context.  Buddhism and Hinduism are more flexible in this regard since they do not have a tradition of a closed cannon. 

One might contemplate a vision that would bring the prophetic, theistic tradition around to a more pantheist and mystical viewpoint.  This is partly true of the vision being put forward on these pages.  I further suggest, however, that there is a reason for the less flexible posture of the prophetic tradition with regard to its various cannons.  The simple reason is that the prophetic, theistic tradition has always been and is necessarily eschatological.  This fact is not so easily rationalized, but it is perfectly evident historically.  For there to be a partial vision with a global impact, it would have to successfully deconstruct or radically immanentize or psychologize the eschaton.  By doing so, however, the vision either renders itself acosmic, which effectively leaves cosmology in the hands of the scientific materialists.  This is exactly what the pantheists have been doing.  But this sets us back to the Cartesian and gnostic vision of world divided between spirit and matter.  The pantheists' can maintain their monism only by declaring matter to be a negative illusion, i.e. something opposing spirit.  The very idea of Creation and Incarnation then become an anathema.  At that point, any hope for a dialog with the theists runs aground. 

The vision presented here purports to surmount this barrier by taking onboard pantheism's monism, universalism and immaterialism, while, at the same time, discarding the notion of an absolute or omnipotent deity.  Does that bring me too far in the direction of pantheism for the theists to be able to follow.  I believe not, but that remains, perhaps, the single biggest issue for the BPW vision.  Theists fear letting go of their absolutism, because all they can see is a slippery slope into pantheism.  Much of the challenge here is to show how that fear can be overcome; that the slope is not as slippery as most people think. 

If that challenge can be met, then the BPW vision is on its way to something beyond just biblical proportions.  However, its place in the pantheon of prophecy is, I suggest, best seen as being associated with the Second Coming.  The next most logical association would be with the advent of the spirit of the truth as briefly described in John 16:12ff.  This latter view was my original stance, but I now see that as being something of a spiritual cop-out! 

Of course, it is not terribly unusual for people to have and harbor solitary cosmic visions.  I submit, however, that a solitary prophetic vision borders on the oxymoronic.  If the BPW vision wishes to avoid being an oxymoron, then it must have legs.  In fact, it is my recently raised estimation of the suitability of the Mandelbrot set to serve as one of these 'legs' that brings me around to this recapitulation of the prophetic gambit.  Indeed, I presently see the Mb as a necessary and sufficient pedagogical segue from matter to spirit.  That puts the Mandelbrot out in front.  Next would come the anthropic principle, and then I propose we take a leap to Srinivasa Ramanujan.  As if that were not a big enough leap, our next and final touchstone may just be the Incarnation.  Permit me now to outline this sequence of pedagogical steps, as a partial test of their suitability. 

The Mandelbrot set has been covered extensively on the the last two pages.  In the last couple of weeks, my informal demonstration of it to two small groups that had not been previously exposed to it indicate that, when presented in a suitable context, it can be a powerful visual stimulus toward rethinking the nature of mathematics, and, more importantly, about the possibility of emergence and holism in the physical world, from a non-Darwinian perspective. 

The next logical step would be to raise the issue of anthropics, which has been frequently mentioned here, and which is extensively and cogently treated in a theistic context on other websites.  With some additional work on linking the Mb with anthropics, there could be a significant pedagogical synergy. 

If needed, there are plenty of other matters to raise, all which cast doubt on the enterprise of scientific reductionism.  These could be readily added to suit the occasion.  The primary issue to be raised, in this regard, is, of course, the mind-body problem, but, in the present context, I'm thinking that Srinivasa presents us with an excellent case study to this end.  At the same time, Srini maybe our best segue to the ultimate issue of incarnation.  I'm thinking very pragmatically here about future 'evangelical' possibilities.  I have in mind informal presentations to small lay groups.  The aim would be to achieve a maximum impact in a single sitting.  That limits us to about two hours, which would only provide about half an hour to each of four major topics. 

The point raised by Srinivasa is the issue of genius.  It may well be that Srinivasa is the greatest known exemplar of this attribute.  When taken in the context of the Mb and anthropics, his genius adds very significantly to the pedagogical synergy.  These points have been already been treated here.  If there is an intelligence behind anthropics, Srini demonstrates the astonishing degree to which the human psyche can attune itself to that cosmic, mathematical intelligence.  This evidence favors theism over pantheism with regard to the cosmic intelligence.  This also provides an opportunity to introduce the real possibility of immaterialism.  I need to elaborate on this latter point.  This will definitely be stretching our thirty minute window.  The most difficult segment remains. 

Is incarnation really necessary?  Yes, and for many reasons.  The main point is that all of us are incarnations, and by 'us', I am referring to creatures generally, but mainly to humans.  Jesus may simply be seen as the primary exemplar.  That there is divinity in all of us is not controversial except for a materialist.  That Jesus could have a special and astonishing genius for performing his central role in a salvation economy is made more plausible by the special case of Srinivasa. 

Besides the materialists, the main objections to the special divinity of Jesus come from Islam and Buddhism. 

Many religionists and non-religionists object to the participation of divinity in what is ultimately such a violent act.  Such folk would prefer a more remote, dignified, impassionate deity.  How is this not a reversion to human sacrifice?  Have we not transcended that need?  I believe that this objection has been more than adequately answered by many very articulate theologians.  We need only to outline these long standing arguments.  The genius of Michelangelo's Pieta provides the best single response.  I appreciate Mel Gibson's genius, but I give precedence to the greater universality of the Pieta. 

Islam has a special objection to the issue of idolatry.  It is not clear, however, that their objection is not mainly technical, and so is shared in the Protestant convention of the empty cross.  I see only a matter of degree.  Among Buddhists, only the purist practitioners of Zen Buddhism can object to the nearly universal notion of the Avatar.  There are matters of degree here, but not of kind. 

Here it is that I put forward the least orthodox aspect of my theology.  This is simply a reworking of the Trinity: mother, son, spirit.  In this context the son is the creative logos, and this brings us back to the Mandelbrot.  The further point is that the creative logos maximally pours itself into the Incarnation.  Thus does the notion of the Death of God, take on a real significance.  In the apokatastasis, or universal resurrection, Jesus becomes the first of equals as we all participate in the body of Christ, and we complete our universal participation in the entire Creation, by maximally recreating God, keeping in mind that this temporal process, can occur only in the context of eternity.  That sentence was a mouthful!  Can we meet the two-hour deadline, without throwing out the Bambino? 

The situation does not call for perfection.  If we can simply enable folks to imagine an idealization of the generic presentation, we can reawaken the possibility and potency of a cosmic Evangel.  That potential is our passion, not to coin a phrase.  This process will certainly be a collective effort, BUT, if it is ever to take on a global dimension, the notion of a Second Coming is too thoroughly embedded in the prophetic tradition too allow for even the semblance of coyness.  Ooops!  Speaking of which, I have overlooked the eschaton!  The idea of a Y2C/X2-event logically implies the eschaton.  It should only take a very few minutes of additional hand-waving to bring the eschaton to the fore.  Most of the groundwork will have been laid. 

By putting it out in front, a large expository burden is placed on the Mandelbrot.  If we put so many eggs in that one basket, we'll have to watch it carefully.  Debunkers will likely see it as the weakest link.  I can only hope that it will become their tar-baby.  Come to think of it, the Mandelbrot looks like nothing if not a tar-baby! 

What is left besides some embellishment and the location of a suitable flagpole?  I was sufficiently lazy to hope to dispense with the pressing of the flesh, in lieu of pushing a few buttons.  Road trip, anyone? 

4:42 - Arrivederci, il Papa....

[4/3]

Have four legs, will travel: BPW with the Mandelbrot, Anthropics, Srini and Jesus.  This is not the only viable configuration, but we can hope for the best, and know that the best will suffice.  We are certainly not here to impose a Second Coming, but, gosh, what better vocation can there be?  The view is that the earthly Christ is an office.  Is that not the meaning of Anointment?  The first was meant to be an easy act to follow.  Let's not make it any more difficult on ourselves than necessary.  One might then wonder how the returning Christ relates to the risen Christ.  The biblical statement of the Second Coming is a coming down from heaven in glory.  The popular view is to take that quite literally.  That, however, is hardly in keeping with the divine minimalism in all things other than Creation itself.  There is still the Prime Directive of non-interference, which, in this case, is minimal interference.  God is not here to hit us over the head, no matter how much we might wish to see that bestowed on our brothers and sisters.  The Eschaton is about the continuity of Spirit.  We can let our ouroboric nature take care of itself.  It might also be noted that the Jewish concept of the Messiah was always something much more mundane.  Impatience is seldom a virtue.

The Second Coming is a process.  But, it is a process that will be given a human face, ultimately because it is our process.  It is of the people, by the people and for the people.  If you know a better way, now is the time to speak up. 

It just occurs to me that we might want to adjust the sequence.  What about Mb:Srini::Anthropics:JC/X2?  It might flow better.  The Srini genius is a logical segue from the Mb to anthropics.  That underscores the Pythagorean harmony of Creation, recapitulating the Mb, and the point that the anthro in anthropics is no accident.  How could we have learned to count without our fingers?!  Yes, this is a definite improvement.  It points toward our implicit involvement in the UEM.  It is we who are the link between spirit and matter, via the UEM.  Therein lies much of our co-creative role.  The Mb is mind from number.  Srini is number from mind.  How does matter come into the picture?  We now have Ouroboros, MDX/Z, AZO/X/QRP & Mb:S::An:X.  There is some mnemonical/archetypal integration ahead of us. 

The two foci of matter in the above are R&J.  We might then wonder about the role of elliptics, and, perhaps, dialectics.  What is the deep and abiding dialog between matter and spirit?  How does matter finally yield to spirit?  Everything speaks to this issue, as does the Mb.  With the Mb there are the mu-atoms whose proliferation is suggestive.  There are the space time symmetries that make matter possible.  There is the 2/3/4-fold symmetry of the mu-atoms.  There is the ubiquitous paradox of the iota.  We have a temporary covenant with matter.  Matter is a frozen logic.  Let us not forget e^i*pi.  Do we need an analog of the big bang?  The MG is also present, along with QED.  On the other hand, in a truly monistic system, the specificity of matter might emerge gradually, right along with the psyches, memory, space and time.  In dealing with the sun, I spoke of heliotropism.  Might it have some special association with the matrix.  Keep in mind that there is no such thing as bare or unqualified matter.  The question in the previous paragraph needs to be reframed.  The Mb might say something about the relation between Z and R in terms of their analogs of the bulbs and mu-atoms.   Z/R should have something to say about mind/body.  In going from Z to the mu-atoms, we go from the plenum to the space of the atoms and egos.  That space is rather stringy, we might add.  The bulbs on the positive cusp may relate to both Alpha and Omega.  The apparent symmetry needs to be broken in the interpretation, with the X-bulb/spear serving as the pivot of the story.  One is reminded of Hamlet's Mill.  What is the meaning of the singularity of the cusp?  Is that our big bang? 

[4/4]

The Mb is a cosmic Rosetta stone or mathematical fossil that will stimulate us to reconsider our temporal interpretation of the physical fossils, and, hopefully, we will begin to see them in a supra-temporal light.  It may also be that the Mb provides and/or indicates a link between mind and matter.  It does demonstrate how an external pattern can supervene on an otherwise closed mechanical process.  If the Mb cusp is meant to be an analog of the big bang, that would help to provide additional linkage between the physics and the metaphysics, but then we'll need to grasp its metaphysical import. 

[4/5]

Please bear with me while I try this experiment in technology:  The Second Coming. 

This is the bare beginning of a power-point presentation.  Forgive me, Lord. 

[4/6]

Jack Sarfatti tells me that, with his iMac, he is unable to access p-pt file in its present 'mht' format.  We'll need something more compatible.  Here is the 'ppt' version of the above presentation, and here is a power point viewer from Microsoft.  I don't know if this will help for an iMac.  I may have to convert this to Adobe 'pdf' format.  Here finally, for now, is the 'rft' version, lacking the ouroboric graphic.  When the presentation is actually presentable, it will be at least several dozen 'slides'. 

But there is a larger problem looming, now that I'm confronted with the ouroboros in all its serpentine glory.  How am I to reconcile this animistic beast to theism?  Funny how I have managed to dodge this bullet up to now.  Is it back to the drawing boards?  It's time for some heavy-duty rationalization. 

I doubt that this beast is avoidable.  It is also clearly reminiscent of the Taoist yin-yang symbol.  It speaks to the Alpha and Omega, but also seems to be sliding into a cyclical/reincrantional view.  The serpent is the symbol of the Devil in the Bible.  It is also the symbol of healing as in apokatastasis.  I am told by my Sufi guru, Bob Clark, that the primary and unique role that Islam assigns to Jesus is that of world healer. 

It is odd then that this primal archetype seems to refer more to Jesus than to the Matrix, particularly in its logos-like pi and circularity, which is where we find X in the Mb.  And we are just scraping the surface of the ultimate mystery that must underlie even the most coherent possible system of being.  X supersedes Matrix, X emerges from Matrix.  This is the profound paradox of eternal origination. There is an ultra dimension 'beyond space and time' (thank you, Jack), that eludes the dimensionality of our more mundane minds.  This warns us not to take too literally any particular set of archetypes, leading us only to idolatry.  Forewarned is fore-armed.  That is the best I can do for now, folks. 

[4/7]

I'm still working on The Second Coming: for all us dummies: (formats: PDF, MHT, PPT, RTF).  I may be working on this for some time, yet.  [a]   The most up to date version will usually be the PDF version.

[4/11] 

Memo for a talk to be given by H.:

It has been my privilege to witness first hand the triumph of the human spirit over many very significant challenges and adversities.  I see many more challenges ahead and yet I have every reason to maintain my faith in human nature and our continued ability to prevail. 

My own participation in the events of history is nearing its conclusion, and so I come before you today in what may be a last role on that stage.  Admittedly, this is something of a departure from what you may have come to expect from me, but I do ask you to bear with me nonetheless. 

Over many years, I have observed with interest two dimensions of our humanity.  When freed from our most immediate needs, again and again through history we turn our attention  on the one hand to our objective understanding of the world, and, on the other hand, to our more subjective understanding of our relation to this world.   These pursuits are among our highest callings and both have directed our historical progress. 

The challenges of poverty and limited resources will continue to mount in the foreseeable future.  All of us here have an abiding concern with these challenges.  These are our immediate needs.  Without wishing to distract you from that urgent task, I urge you not to neglect our responsibility to remain faithful to the higher pursuits I mentioned earlier. 

I have noticed a significant dwindling in our expectations concerning fundamental developments in our understanding of ourselves and the world.  Could we really be facing diminishing returns in these pursuits?  Do I have any reason to counsel you otherwise? 

Over the years I have had opportunities to delve into this question. 

[4/12]

Memo (2nd draft of the above):
It is not infrequent that people in positions like those I have held are privy to information that we are expected to take to the grave with us.  I did not, until very recently, expect to be personally and partially exempted.  It is then with some trepidation that I come before you today, near the end of my sojourn here, to impart just a few words to you. 

I was made aware some decades ago that there were solid reasons to believe that my adopted country would have a special role to play on the world stage.  This was something beyond the very high expectations that so many oppressed peoples have held for my country, from its inception, as a guiding light to freedom. 

There are two parts to the freedom equation: freedom from and freedom for.  The first part of that equation has always been manifest to those seeking shelter on those shores from tyranny abroad.  And so, we have been blessed by an unprecedented spectrum of talent that has found a safe harbor in my country, over the centuries.  Yet, it is all too seldom that we have a real opportunity to reflect upon why we may have been called together in this unique fashion. 

As all of you know so well, we face unprecedented challenges regarding the environment and our wisest use of every resource.  We can expect very significant developments on this score, but there is more. 

We know that the very foundation of freedom is the freedom to communicate.  It cannot be an accident then that the same country that has served as the primary source of freedom, should also be at the focus of a global communications revolution that continues to expand apace. 

If we were then to permit ourselves to speculate, we should wonder that, if there were some higher purpose in play within history, there might not be a significant piece of information to be imparted to the world from those shores.   

Or, so I have heard, and so I have come to believe. 

Furthermore, along with the freedom to communicate there is a responsibility to use our minds to their best advantage in order to use our freedom most wisely.  Certainly we have been the guiding force behind the scientific revolution that continues to shake the world.  Perhaps less appreciated in these circles, is the evangelical zeal that has also been empowered in no small part by this new-found freedom and technology.  And where does that leave us?  What more is there to communicate? 

It is with that question that I must leave you today.  Be assured, however, that this gathering and this seemingly foreshortened message will not go unnoticed or be forgotten.  The members of this forum have some very special responsibilities with regard to all of the above and to that which is here foreshadowed. 

God be with you.

[4/13]

Now that things have settled down again, permit me to try to recap some recent events, here for the 'public' record.  This might help to explain something about the above memo for H.  [a]

On my side, there were two precipitating factors: the Mandelbrot, and the usual 'spring is in the air' bit.  One more thing was that Sam decided to attempt once again to launch a small, open ended discussion group.  First we met with Gus R. to discuss the reopening of his Kennedy/Oswald investigation with the help a German documentary group.  Significant new leads had been uncovered into the Cuban intel links between Lee-Harvey and Bobby.  There was one high-level agent in particular who had contemporaneous contacts with both up until Dallas.  This ought to be sensational, but there has been a lot of water under that bridge.

The three of us met with Dennis R. who recapped for us his investigations into the claims of various polar explorers, and of Ptolemy, and how these efforts put him at odds with significant portions of the academic community.  The following week Sam included a producer from WYPR-FM.  It was then that I invited myself into a discussion with Dennis concerning the merits of his evident atheism, and the discussion was 'frank'.  The subject of the Mb came up, and I did not hide my surprise that mathematician Dennis had not heard of that object.  By this time I was already launched into the previous page.  This incident helped me to conclude that the Mb might, indeed, help to put this BPW pedagogical project over the top.  It is a strong visual aid that is conveniently located at the crux of many of the archetypes.  The use to which I could put it would be novel.  At our next meeting I tried it out and met with some success.  This then got me thinking about using it as part of a power point presentation as noted above.  Sensing something of a pedagogical breakthrough, I decided to get back to CF, with whom I had barely spoken since last summer, and he readily agreed to a meeting.  In the meantime I was getting a positive response from Jack S. and some of his group, which was unusual. 

Then came the meeting with C just this last Sunday.  After a quick review of the presentation we talked shop.  It seemed that there might be an opportunity to get a message through to H, who could then convey it to a significant group of folks in a few weeks.  I was to do this in collaboration with Jack and Gordon, the latter of who was owed a favor by Adnan K, a friend of H.  I was not to mention the particulars to Jack.  Jack did not seem to get the point, and so I concocted the above memos, that later of which was sent to C, J, G, S & A.  It took Jack awhile to sus out the particulars.  It turned out that C and G were not on the same wavelength.  G thought he was simply requesting a meeting with H.  When I went back to C with this confusion, he supported G's version.  That left my participation up in the air. 

The next topic with C was his changing job status.  His career is now at a point where there is very little that can be discussed about it.  Needless to say, one might think that, especially now, he would have better things to do than stir up the muck in these waters.  I would like to conclude that it was for some higher purpose.  Last year at about this time, C & I were getting together again for the first time since just before and after 9/11.  Eventually, after a couple of months it became very important for Gordon and me to meet.  It turned out that neither of us had the faintest idea of why we were meeting, and it was a real blowout.  This agenda-free meeting scenario is not uncommon with C, but that and one other miss-cue, was the end of our communication. 

This time around, at least G and I were meeting in the same ballpark, but I was in right field and he was in left.  And mercifully, it only took us a couple of days to reach an impasse, rather than a couple of  months.  Last year there was never even a specific target.  This year the target as described to me was emphatic, and definitely over the top, relative to jumpstarting the BPW/EFG business, sufficient to convince me that my work was virtually over.  So here we are back at square three.  It could be that a plan proceeds, with me now spared the details. 

That other miscue might be revealing.  It involved finding a job for a mutual acquaintance, B.  On Sunday I was given the definite impression that B has had a job all along, and they were having a bit of fun at my expense.  End of story?  Not when you are dealing with C.  The pretense(?) of joblessness had been so elaborate and unremitting, and seemingly almost entirely for my benefit, that I am still left wondering, which is apparently where I am supposed to be.  [4/15 - B takes strong exception to C's information concerning a job.]

At this point, I am wondering about a possible encore.  This is the first time in our thirteen years that C has taken our little story over the top.  Where can the story go next?  Are we then to assume that this is the logical end of the story time?  Your guess is as good as mine. 

And there you have it. 

Oh, one last loose string.  I am informed by an independent(?) source that Adnan has a personal interest in the paranormal, and has, like Bigelow, been into the funding of it.  G has only ever displayed a mercenary interest in the mechanical side of it, even more so than Hal and Jack.  Another point is that Jack does seem to be displacing Hal on the political side.  Does this mean that Hal is being moved up or out?  As to the first point, several parts of the H & G story do not make sense.  Assuming that it was not out of whole cloth, I proceeded in the memo on the only version of it that might make sense.  (BTW, C's reaction: 'I don't know what this is but it certainly is well done!'  Now I ask you, is this our tax dollars at work?!  C had better bone up on his signatures intelligence.)  But when you compare the stories of G & B, are we not left wondering whether many of these same players are quite aware of the charade of the mechanics, etc., even including Gordon.  If so, my hat goes off to them.  It would be way beyond my ability.  It is on my high school record that I failed at playing a dead person in Our Town.  Was that part of my bone fides?!

------------------------

So where were we?  Something about 'The Way Forward?' 

[4/14]

Here we go again!

Memo for a meeting (of ???) to address the future of energy: 

There are dire projections concerning our energy future.  Demand continues to grow, supplies continue to dwindle, prices continue to rise as a result.  There is a growing body of opinion suggesting that within the next very few years, certainly less than ten, the global production of carbon based fuels will reach its peak, and then decline thereafter. 

There are alternatives to carbon.  These range from wind power to fusion power.  We must push ahead with these, much more seriously than we have in the past. 

Even under the most optimistic scenarios, however, there will be drastic dislocations to the global economy, starting any day now, as a critical mass of people wake up to our very uncertain energy future. 

What we wish to bring to your attention are two related perspectives on this imminent crisis, which, while treated separately in the past, we feel can be combined into an effective strategy for the future. 

We are not saying that this scenario is ready for public consumption, but we are suggesting that it now deserves more serious attention from policy level people than it has received so far. 

The first part of this bi-perspective is fairly straight forward.  It includes the field of free or zero-point energy.  It is likely that this source of energy is already being observed in the so-called 'cold-fusion' experiments, which are being aggressively pursued by an international network of professional scientists.  Other more radical approaches are being investigated theoretically and experimentally on an ongoing basis, and that includes scientists in our own smaller network. 

Those of us on these further shores of the energy crisis, as we push on the envelope of physics, find that we can hardly ignore the cosmological ramifications of our equations. 

An obvious consequence of nearly any form of breakthrough physics is that it will make possible radical changes in the modes of space-based transport and communication.  At present, our perceptions of interstellar communication are based entirely on conventional physics.  When it comes to SETI investigations, we may be looking for signs of cosmic life in all the wrong places.  Very likely, we are much less lost in space than the conventional wisdom would have us believe.  The handling of the energy crisis, ought to provide ample motivation for us to put more of our intellect into rethinking our place in the cosmos. 

Since the inception of science, scientists and theologians have been searching for a common ground.  We have early indications that out of the energy emergency, there will emerge a much broader field of thought that will afford science and religion much more room to realign themselves in common cause.  Will this positively impact the global sectarian strife?  It is hard to believe that could be poised here on this watershed of history if it were not part of a cosmic plan.

[4/19]

There have been some further twists and turns in this latest political initiative.  It all tends to confirm my long held suspicion that ufology is being used by cosmic and central intelligence as a cover for eschatology.  The need for such a cover in the early political phase ought to be abundantly clear.  I'm waiting to see if Jack agrees with this assessment

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Topical Index

4/2/05

 

End Game?

(For background information look here, etc.)

This page is going to be a departure from the past, at least in terms of its title.  This is to signal what appears to be a new departure on the political front.  There was certainly an intimation of this new departure at the end of the previous blog page.  This page appears to be a reversion back to the more politically explicit style of the original 'Aquarium' website which has just been reposted online here. 

The only previous time that politics became a focus on this website was last spring and summer: starting on 5/1/04, picking up again on 5/23, 7/11, and finally fizzling out on 11/6.  That was a longer run than I had remembered. 

Was that a fire drill?  In retrospect, yes.  There has been significant water under the bridge since that short time ago. 

In order to explain the present situation, and how it may be different, I will have to be more explicit about the names.  I have already forgotten some of the pseudonyms that I used last year.  This raises some protocol issues.  I am deciding to revert back to the more explicit stance of the original website.

The information now is more sensitive.  In the run-up last year, I believe it was, Ron instructed me to maintain established protocols at all costs, and I agree.  Certainly he is!

Let's cut to the chase.  Ron has informed me that he is 'in charge of' MASINT.  Technically that would put him at the level of Deputy Secretary of the DNI.  The other three sections are HUMINT, SIGINT and IMINT.  That would put him at the level of a Presidential appointee.  I would be skeptical about that.  If I were he, as a career officer, I would want to stay below the level of political appointee.  That would be for an outsider, like when my Dad took a leave from the HBS in 1952 to become eventually the Deputy to the Secretary of the Treasury in charge of tax policy, under Eisenhower.  Keep in mind that in the intel business, inside knowledge is everything. 

Already I might be causing a problem for Ron with his putative political boss, but, hey, I'm just following protocol.  I don't think Ron would have told me that, if it were not quite deliberate.  Ron is not given to casual bragging.  That is not in his job description.  His wife once told me that Ron had, perhaps in a fit of pique, told her that his job was more important than the President's.  Recall in this context that W's aunt is a long-time friend of my older sister.  If you have been attentive to my own ramblings, you will know that I can easily endorse that view of reality.  Nay, I have to endorse it.  Recall also that it was he who informed of my own place in the present scheme.

Here is a technical note.  Recall the incident with Google and MSN.  I complained to Ron about it.  About a week later there was a partial, and only a partial, restoration of service.  In the last few days the principals in the present initiative were experiencing significant disruptions of our email service.  Very early on, I informed Ron that if I ever discovered that my communications were not being monitored, I would hold him in dereliction of duty.  The point is that I am relying significantly on people who are better informed on such matters to monitor the traffic here to make sure that I am not speaking out of turn.  Only if and when push came to shove would I be likely to be more proactive about protocols.  The question before us is whether we have already come to that.

Another instigating factor here is an email purportedly from Ron that was forwarded to me yesterday:

Knights at large,

Normally I would not comment on an early draft so as not to dissuade others from offering independent contributions, but I think Jim caputures the issues so well that additional contributions would be of little value. I think we all share Jim's view that Gordon is the only legitimate leader of the RAM. He served his time, independently derived the circuit, and developed a plan to build a technology, industry, and new world order. But Dr. K. will want to know why he has been singled out for the briefing, what evidence the Knights will provide, and what they will expect in return. These are issues that I think should be discussed only within the inner circle. Therefore I suggest the dialog terminate within this outer circle by 16:00 EST Saturday. Please forward any additional comments or suggestions to Jim and John.before the deadline. Not discussed yet is how and where to bring this to fruition. I included on distribution those few individuals that I think have the intellectual and technical capacity to apply the circuit to make dumpsters fly. As the good Dr. Green pointed out, the demo may be key to acceptance by those outside the outer circle.

Lord of Oversight and Stewardship

I just about had Gordon convinced that this must be bogus, when Ron popped up on his other line to confirm his authorship!  Well, knock me down and call me stupid!  It's obviously high-time to look at the other side of this coin, before there commences the citizens' inquiry into the management of the DNI.  Have I been provoked, or what?

The public principles this time around appear to be Gordon Novel, Jack Sarfatti and myself.  Jack and I go back to around '97.  His particulars are easily available on the web (9,000 hits).  I (190,000 hits!) introduced Jack to Ron (only 232 hits!), early on.  I also introduced Gordon Novel to Ron soon thereafter.  But I had been hearing about Gordon from Ron, for several years before that.   

Gordon Novel (1,680 hits): what more can we say?  Gordon says that Jim Marrs is presently working on his biography.  I hear that he grew up (presently 67 years) on the wrong side of the tracks in New Orleans, and fell in with an 'aryan' bunch.  He is sometimes rumored to have been the 'umbrella man'.  He says he heard about, but did not meet Fred Lee Crisman in N.O.  He admits to having helped break up the Garrison investigation while under the purview of the White House.  He was arrested by the FBI, not long thereafter, while installing an off-the-books electronic security system at the White House. His mentor for many years has been Ramsey Clark, for whom he was the principal investigator, particularly at Waco.  Note that Ramsey is presently defending Saddam, another FOR.  Speaking of which, Ron transferred to MASINT because he could find no WMD in Iraq up to thirty days before the invasion, according to his (unpublished?) NIE. 

Anyway, Gordon has always been a speed freak, and that was how he fell in with DeLorean in Bonneville when Gordon was all of 15 and John 27.  They pushed the speed mark above 400 by using nitro, early on.  It was about 1989 that Gordon started investigating UFOs, another of his boyhood passions.  Knowing Gordon, and knowing about the rest of the ufologists, it is no surprise that he left them all in his dust, literally.  

That brings us right back to the above email. 

Gordon says, and I think rightly so, that if the results of his investigations do not represent reality, then he has been the victim of the greatest hoax of all-time.  According to one recent estimate, the UFO budget over the years approaches 100 billion: 10 for the 'research' and 90 for the cover & security. 

For all his street smarts, doesn't Gordon see that the above email is way over the top?  But who am I, 'Sonfish'(!), to point fingers?I ask you!  We are all subject to the same FOR syndrome. 

So here we are, three musketeer FORs: Gordon, Jack and Dan, I'll drink to that.  We're all dressed up with no place to go now except possibly to visit Henry Kissinger who is due to make a presentation to a special meeting of the Bilderbergers.  On Monday I was on a conference call with Gordon, Robert Shaheen(?), and Leon Lespona(?).  Robert, out of the four of us, sounded entirely sane.  He was well known to the Agency, and now to Ron.  He is also an associate of Adnan Kosiggi and Henry.  He is the designated go-between.  Ron has met Henry three times, but he did not say how recently. 

Whassup??  Well, Henry has long been rumored to be MJ1.  According to one story, it was he who turned the MJ national franchise over to the Bilderbergers. 

How close does this put us to the point of no return?  How do we know this isn't another fire drill?  From Ron's perspective, it would have to be rather awkward to have to restart this operation, another year or two down the road.  Here we are: new DNI, new MASINT, new four-year term of a tested administration, and, lest we forget, a new Pope.  I remain convinced that 9/11 was a definite marker for this time line.  Just now, that dust is beginning to settle.  Can we afford to take our chances further down the road?  None of us are getting younger, certainly not Henry. 

If no one else, Ron has invested a lot of effort in this little project.  I can surely attest to that.  If he were going to blow this off, he certainly should have done it a year ago.  You know what they say about carrying a joke too far. 

Given that we have finally reached the jump-off point, here is my little prognostication.

But first, let us review the end game.  There should be a bunch of internal links here, but I can't think of a good handle.  The ufos portend the Millennium.  Their appearance was triggered by the advent of nuclear weapons.  This forced their hand, and brought on this minimalist abrogation of the Prime Directive.  Ok, 'Herod' was the word I was looking for:  here, and don't ignore here.  I know I have said more than this, but maybe not here. 

The ufos came to neutralize the bomb and the modern Herod.  They needed a clandestine base on earth to work behind the scenes.  The CIA was a likely spot.  They would co-opt the agency into being their collaborator.  The Millennium plot would be hatched there.  Thus could the violation of the PD be minimized and hidden.  All of this came at the inception of the new agency, as now comes this new phase with the DNI/MASINT. 

The Cold War had to be resolved before the public phase could start in earnest.  Note the '89-'91 time frame for Gordon and me.  Then the Mideast had to be partially stabilized for this next phase. 

The first assignment for MJ12 was to help obfuscate the origins of the visitors.  An ultraterrestrial/metaphysical phenomena cloaked itself as an extraterrestrial/physical phenomenon.  There are two levels to the 90B cover-up.  First it is a psycho-social attack on witnesses until they have been marginalized to a fringe group.  If you get beyond that level, you come to the physical level.  Gordon was the first civilian allowed into that level, and he was fed a lot of info and disinfo.  Jack is mainly working on that level, on the theoretical side.  However, he also authored Beyond Space and Time, which got me started back in '75.  He and I need to get our physical/metaphysical act together, as in a two-part book that is supposed to ready in a few months. 

I can see a 2 1/2 stage disclosure.  Henry's talk to the Bilderbergers comes in a few weeks.  A few weeks after that, rumors get to the news media.  Fingers will then point to Gordon as the culprit.  He will not be able to produce physical evidence.  The initial buzz quiets down, until Jack starts things up again, on a smaller scale, with his showmanship and fancy equations and inside stories.  This will go on for awhile longer until Jack starts pointing at me.  My 'man bites god' story starts a whole new round of speculation and rumors, leading here, among other places.  Then something else, I'm not sure what, will blow the lid off of the bigger story, and the rest will be the end of history. 

There you have it, rather highly abbreviated.  The next couple of weeks should determine if the Henry initiative is really going forward.  I am leaning toward attending the Gaithersburg Expo this weekend where, with a couple of drinks, I would be capable of spilling these guts.  Big whoopee!  Joe Stefula will be my body-guard.  Better watch out!  He's an ex Air Force MP.  Tomorrow I'll be escorting a visiting cousin whose mother is going to the hospital. 

Have I left anything out?  And what if this leakage gums up the works?  Well, it's all about protocol.  And, if this is real, nothing can get in its way now.  It's all over, but the shouting. 

[4/21]

Well, you'll have to admit, that was quite a mouthful yesterday.  Meanwhile, of course, my sources have grown quiet.  Can anything happen before the HK initiative is resolved?  Jack and I may have to team up on Gordon and Ron.  Jack will have to find room for God behind his equations.  I may have to lecture him on the Mb.  Those two have played their aces.  If their plan A does not soon come to fruition, Jack and I need to be ready with a plan B.  I will need some more assistance to bring Jack into alignment.  Eschatology may be the key issue for Jack. 

In the process, J & I need to smoke out G & R if their mission fails or goes quiet.  What was Ron's motive?  Why was he pushing these buttons?  We will mainly go after Gordon.  There is Al Kehs 27th annual Spring party on May 7.  Ron and I have attended the last five of these.  If he does not show up, it will not go over well. 

Worst case scenario is that everyone just clams up.  That would be difficult for Gordon.  He would be our weak link.  We might need to get Hal and Kit involved.  That would not be easy with Jack in tow.  I may need to take this little show on the road.  We can press Gordon on whether he has a plan B. 

The big issue would be if we can eventually press on Ron.  He would have known that plan A was bogus.  He must have another plan.  Perhaps this faux HK deal was just intended to be his Avian swan song.  Bye, bye Birdie!  He'll then go hide behind John N. at DNI. 

Here's another scenario.  Ron has been working on Gordon's case ever since I first knew him in '91.  He wanted to crack open that part of MJ12.  He has already cracked open everything else.  He wanted to go after Gordon's sources.  It became a do or die thing.  He may also need to smoke out HK.  This may all be for internal reasons that the rest of us will never divine.  We will not know the results.  Ron will then take himself out of circulation, as above. 

One problem here.  What is to become of phenomenology?  Will cracking MJ12 get rid of the phenomenology problem?  Will all phenomena suddenly disappear?  I would be very surprised.  Will MASINT not still be responsible for phenomenology?  Let's face it, Ron or his immediate subordinate will still be left with a big bag to hold.  Phenomenology, as Ron has astutely recognized, has a very large public venue.  It cannot be effectively monitored without maintaining a public presence.  It was just the Aviary presence that would have enabled Ron to crack MJ12.  Will there never be another MJ12-like entity?  Ron is not in a position to dismantle the presence that will have to continue to feed MASINT.  Believe it or not, phenomenology is bigger than Ron.  In short, a swan song is the least likely bird song we might be hearing. 

Heck, even if the phenomena went away, will God go away?  Are Ron and MJ12 to render God's last judgment?  Don't hold your breaths, all you junior aviators!

If I have learned anything about intel, this HK operation is not a serious inside job.  It is pure performance.  Ladies and gents, the Show will go on. 

[4/22]

This will temporarily serve as a continuation of the discussion on Synthesis of physics and metaphysics from the last slide of Dummies. [a]  It is a fact that Ron has been pushing for a joint publication project since last year.  Only since Dummies, do I feel ready to move on it.

There is the idea of the BPW as a Self-exciting circuit.  Where can this fit into Jack's picture?  Into his emergent gravity?  How might this relate to the 'emergence' of the Mandelbrot, or to portals?  The portals are like the Mb filaments.  The vortexes are like the Mb critical points.

[5/2 -- This in now being taken up as the Physics-BPW PDF (0.2a).] 

News flash:  As of a couple of hours ago I am the proud owner of bestpossibleworld.com/.net/.org.  So there, all you search engines, go stuff that in your algorithm!  My cousin, Charles E. Hamilton, is the owner of chcs.com, my new webmasters, based in Seattle.  By sometime tomorrow it should accessible.  My original Aquarium site was @clark.net, owned by Sam's cousin.

[4/24]

I have been at the X-conference for the last couple of days.  It was confirmed that Ron is indeed reactivating the remote viewing program, as suggested in Jon Ronson's book.  This is no small deal.  Ron is widely reviled in the remote viewing community for having helped shut the government's program in the '90's, in which I played a small part.  The rationale for this reactivation is stipulated as being related to the problems of loose nukes.  If you are like me, you may not be totally reassured by this development. 

It has been stipulated that the proper placement of one such item could wreak havoc on our economy, at the least.  Every time I hear a distant rumble, this thought comes to mind.  

There was an additional item.  We are picking up signals out there.  That is about all that I was told.  So now we have three items, given in the same context: RV, nukes and signal.  I asked Dick Farley to help connect these dots.  I was unable to disambiguate his rambling response.  We ended up discussing the distinctions between Kissinger's and Rice's versions of globalism, and to what degree this this was similar to the socialist/capitalist distinction. 

So it goes.

Perhaps I should pass this tidbit along to Jack and Gordon.

[4/27]

Jack, [a]

I certainly applaud your sincere efforts to save the soul of Steve Greer and his minions. However, when I last checked my horoscope, that was supposed to be my job. No?

The two highest priority souls on my list right now are yours and Gordon's. That is the list that was handed to me by Ron two weeks ago. No? We are supposed to be the three (public) horsemen of the eschaton. You have a better understanding of that function right now than does Gordon.

But Gordon does have a problem with you, and that is a significant part of why he is being our reluctant cowboy. In order to patch this up, you need to understand that physics is not in the driver's seat here. That might help Gordon to understand that technology is not in the driver's seat either.

It was Aristotle who put his 'Metaphisis' after his 'Physis'. I go last, I get the last laugh, I'm the fat lady in this little horse opera. Gordon is slated to be the first out of the gate. You go second.

If I am missing any of my cues here, Ron will be sure to correct me in his own sweet time. Agreed?

If this rubber is not meant to be hitting the highway at this time, then, once again, knock me down and call me stupid. Until such time, it is my way and it is the highway.

The message I got yesterday from Joe Stefula, by way of Bill LaParl, was two-fold. MASINT has become so desperate about the loose nukes that we are making a major recall of the best and brightest psychics in the world, and doing so in the public light. Can you imagine what is the tolerance for error in that ball-game? Do you understand the meaning of ZERO?

At the very same time, and for the very first time, Ron is now admitting publicly, right here, that we are attending to uncorrelated signals from 'out there'. Jack, do you understand the meaning of cosmic trigger?

This is what the Eschaton Focus Group is about. Are you with us?

Dan

This was sent on Monday, and it did make a few waves in a small pond. 

There have been some developments in the last few days coming out of the conferences that Jack and I attended over the weekend. 

It now appears that it is Jack, rather than Gordon, who will be the first to meet with H.K., sometime in June. 

I gave my little presentation to Michael Heiser at the X-conference.  It seemed to fall well within his normal stride.  The main issue between Michael and Father Balducci of Vatican/UFO fame, who also spoke at the conference, concerns good vs. bad ETs.  This is a hot button, especially among abductees, as you might well imagine.  The issue touches upon the nature of the pantheon, or what I would call the Zodiacal realm of the demigods. 

Catholic orthodoxy tells us that the chief of the fallen angels was Satan, and that he and his minions all fell to Earth, and somehow, that was closely related to the subsequent fall of Adam and Eve.  In fact, was it not Satan who appeared as the Serpent at the tree of knowledge.  One point is that you can be bad, but if you don't eat the apple you are not  being willfully bad, and so not evil, and so not in need of salvation.  All the sinners in the cosmos are right here on Earth.  This is the only planet of choice.  It is only we humans who stand in need of salvation.  I can go along with this, to a considerable extent.  

Michael gave a public and private talk about this, but I'm still not sure what his take is. 

My take brings us back to the apokatastasis.  The fallen angels will be restored, and mainly by the Logos.  Both Michael and Father B. get into trouble by falling under the anti-anthropic spell of Copernicus, Galileo and Bruno.  Can it be possible there is no sin or satanic influence on Planet X?  Exobiology is not a forte of the Vatican.  It was only a few years ago that the Pope exonerated Galileo.  With the BPW, Galileo is unceremoniously escorted back to the dog-house.

But now there is other pressing business.  Madison Avenue meets the BestPossibleWorld.com via Google adWords.  As of Monday, I am now the proud and nearly exclusive owner of eschaton, eschatology, teleology, rationalism, cosmology, immaterialism, idealism, coherence, Leibniz, absolutism, relationalism, and the list is growing as we speak.  This could almost be fun!  The intellectual establishment is about to experience a rude awakening.  No?  It may not take too long for some folks in academia to wonder what is going on. 

I now need to create a 'landing page' for those out there in Google land who pay attention to the right-hand column.  Does academia have too many lefties?

Ok, we seem to have that part in hand.  I'm looking forward to getting my first email from a click-through customer.  How many weeks will I have to wait?  As it is, I am busily clicking away on my own ads just to keep the Google mercenaries happy.  There has got to be a better way to save the world!  But this is almost as much fun as eight hours on the you know what.  We aim to please! 

The HK initiative is moving forward cautiously.  I understand that a meeting is now set for June 16 in NYC.  I do have a suit that I have only worn once.  I wonder if I will get to wear it again?  Perhaps Henry has already been saved.

What next?  The main technical thing is for CHCS to bring up an onsite search function.  On Friday there will be a meeting in DC with my webmaster, webartist, webshaman and webpsychologist.  Don't you wish you could be there?  There is a possible issue here about the word of God.  I am no fundamentalist, but I do want to tread carefully in these waters.

Then what?

Maybe I need to do something about the cosmology diagrams on the old aquarium site.  I thought I had already linked to them.  Here is one link.  You will see some diagrams mentioned down towards the bottom of the page.  The Mandelbrot is our most recent cosmology diagram.  Most convenient!  Then there is this, and this. 

[4/28]

I'm still struggling with father B. and Michael H.  Yes, there are principalities, but Earth is the only planet that we could recognize as such.  It would be  more accurate to call it the only Principality of Choice.  That would put us in Satan's principality, but I am not happy with that.  I am reasonably confident that this is Jesus' Principality.  We are the only BPW.  The BPW necessarily includes free-will, and even free-willfulness!  The other principalities are more or less deficient in that regard. 

Now we have to deal with Satan.  Am I correct in supposing that Satan is more of a Catholic, and perhaps fundamentalist, problem, than he is a protestant problem?  I see nothing wrong with wanting to personify the miasma of banality that certainly does pollute the Earth's pneuma-sphere.   However, it certainly does run against the grain of our newfound Mandelbrot cosmology.   And does it not run smack into the spirit of Christianity?  Deontology can seemingly benefit from the Devil, but the theology has always been a non-starter.  You have to go back to Zoroaster to find a stark dualism. 

Ultimately every creature is an agent of the Creator: humans, ETs and Hitler alike.  There must and will be restitution.  Jesus ministered to the Damned, and it weren't for nothing.  Judgment day has not yet come.  Let us not preempt the Creator. 

Cousin Charles pointed out to me something interesting about the idea of the Only 'Planet' of Choice.  Given the choice, would we choose to go anywhere other than to the BPW?  Having made that first choice, would we then want to renounce that freedom to choose?  So, BPW = OPC on several levels of meaning.  What choice does the Creator have??  In what sense did Jesus choose to be crucified?  Are we into S/M here?  I doubt that the two perspectives are totally divorced.  Felix culpa?  We do approach the ultimate mystery of being.  Even the very idea of 'best' is nonsensical outside the realm of subjective freedom, as is the idea of 'reason'.  Subjectivity is nothing if not free.  In its freedom comes its transcendent universality. 

We are also struggling with potentiality and actuality.  Could there have been no actuality, even no potentiality?  Is there any reason to suppose that freedom, subjectivity, potentiality and actuality could ever be disentangled?

[4/29]

I met today with Judi, Eduardo, and Judi's student Thomas who hopefully will be the resident BPW artist.  We plan to meet on a weekly basis to bring together the art and the concepts.  He has already completed some preliminary sketches, including one sketch that is entitled The Atomic Reincarnation of the Earth.  We'll post it here as soon as we can get to the internet. 

Meanwhile back at the ranch, I have not heard back from Jack about his prospective meeting with HK.  Coming up next weekend is a prospective meeting with Ron.  I hope to get a better feeling from him as to whether there is a larger plan afoot, and whose plan is it anyway?  Am I slated to attend the other meeting, or do I have to make my own path here, like 'gate crashing'? 

Charles will be working on the navigation system here when he gets back to Seattle.  And so far the Google AdWords campaign has been a dud, but still a useful experiment.  I don't mind the free 'impressions', but Google is not happy.  I may let it wither away for now.  If Jack and HK get together, it would hit the internet rumor mill in a hurry, and I would hope to pick up some of the crumbs off that table.  Now I'm attempting to return Gordon's call. 

I have talked to Gordon.  He will be sending some correspondence.  I think Ron is trying to tell the three of us, including Jack, that no one of us has the crown jewels, but that if we can put our resources together, we'll come a lot closer.  Why can't he just come out and say it?  That allows me to be the mediator, which is significant in itself, and should be symptomatic.  It might be tempting for two of us to gang up on the third, but that would not be productive. 

So perhaps I should put this idea to J&G.  Supposedly, G is under pressure from Kit about not being able to produce anything truly convincing, and so is J, probably.  Neither one wants to admit it.  Each is hoping that Ron or HK will pull their fat out of the fire.  I doubt that will happen.  That does not conform to the prime directive.  There is a wall between them and us.  We do need a ménage a trois. 

At first Ron was pushing for this meeting, but now he and Kit seem to be backing off.  I have no idea if this was a ploy or if something intervened.  Why stir things up in the first place? 

[4/30]

I have sent a message to Ron, Jack and Gordon.  It is upbeat about moving quickly on the phenomenology front.  I propose an early meeting of the four of us. 

Here are the preliminary sketches of Thomas J. Codrick.  We'll meet again Wednesday. 

Well, both of my correspondents are now up in the air about any meetings in NYC.  I had to make some phone calls to track this down.  The best bet then is to work on a book project with Jack.  I might go out there week after next.  In the meantime I need to work out where Ron is headed. 

[5/1]

With the Henry initiative now in abeyance, the next step is to fall back to the book idea, with my going to SF week after next.  I need to get back on that -- maybe work up some slides (see 0.2a &ff) for Jack. 

[5/2]

I'm scheduled to visit Jack in SF on 5/25-28.  Jack suggests sharing facing pages of a 120 pg book.  On 5/22-24 I'll be with the family in Cleveland to see Orioles play and go to the Rock&Roll museum. 

Try out this one: The Just So Story of the Universe (0.2b).  Will Jack be able to live with this? 

[5/5ff]  See Comments. 

[5/9]

Jack,

The Omni is on California at Montgomery. It should be convenient.

Should we not be having dinner with your Dad at some point? Where would he like to go?

When Ron did not show up at Al Kehs' picnic, I made a house call. It was Erica's fifteenth birthday. Also Ron had slipped a disk while gardening and was laid up in bed.

He did point out that the Lone Ranger and Tonto never had a showdown.

I had my thinking cap on last night. Here are the gleanings:

It is pretty obvious that somebody was hunting for the Moon Child back there in the '50s. Jack Parsons and L Ron, as the story goes, were more proactive in their 'hunting'. Also, recall that the Dalai Lama was in this mix back about then, and he should be an expert in this regard.

Another point is that the Doty story emphasized three high level visitors. Does that not fit the supposedly apocryphal story of the three kings bearing gifts from afar? Way out, man!

This does steer our little story a bit away from the LR&T theme.

It appears that if you are not particularly anxious to do the passion bit, you are entitled to two stellar roles: Saul & John. Have you had experience playing two parts simultaneously?

Just a thought....

N.B., Ron cannot be blamed for any of this!

Dan

No harm in trying, right? 

Should this be put into a story, or just played out as a California street drama?  Kinda like the OC, but different.  Who will get the copyrights and screen credits?  What about the 3 Kings trademark?  Is that already taken? 

How do we soft-pedal the story?  This genre has already been played out.  The Grail Quests, too.  Do it as a straight philosophical piece?  That would not be Jack's style.  He's the one who insists on jazzing up the story.  What other way to go with this? 

[5/10]

Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2005 8:02 AM
To: 'Jack Sarfatti'
Subject: KGB virgin takes Jack out behind the woodshed....

Yes, Jack, the 25th, and I'll be departing when my job is finished. And apparently you also missed another message. This little misplacement provides me with yet another opportunity to basically ask you, politely, to pull your head out.

The Lone Ranger idea was just a test, and you fell for it.

With excruciating obviousness, it does not suffice.

There is only one thing that has ever gone on between you and me. It is a reprise of the Passion Play with you playing the role of the Philistine.

I know that you wanted the part of Caesar, but that is not to be. That is Ron's part, you dummy.

More specifically, you have been assigned the role of Saul/Paul.

You have spent the ten years of our acquaintance in avoidance and denial of what really ought to be obvious, certainly by this very late date.

On the other hand, Jack, I have been listening very carefully, biding my time. I have you now right where I want you: out behind the woodshed.

You can go crying to Ron, but it will avail you of naught. Your jig is up. Your ship has come in, and guess what? I'm it.

I know that you wanted a flying saucer, rather like Gordon, but this is going to be Ron's best offer to you, until you learn how to listen properly.

This time I am bringing proof. It is my message in the bottle, straight from God. It is the Mandelbrot set. The building block that the scientists rejected becomes the cornerstone of a whole new world. That is what I will be waking you up with. That is what I will be waking you up to: your whole new world...the one that you rejected as so much pot smoke back in '75. Thank you. You cannot now say that you have not been afforded every opportunity.

I read with some amusement you little correspondence below. Both you and Jake have good advice for the other.

What you evidently fail to grasp, however, is that Jake is deliberately couching a spiritual message to you in scientific jargon. I think it must be deliberate on his part, because it is too good a job to be a mere coincidence. Here, and two weeks from now, I am not using jargon. I am speaking to you directly.

Jake, and I have no idea who he is -- it could as well be Ron, is prophesying to you about our imminent meeting.

Since Santa Fe, the universe has been slapping you around pretty good, just to open up your way too thick, Philistine-like skull.

This is not about the physics, stupid. This is about your rendezvous with God. For your sake, I get to represent God. And, as it appears increasingly evident, I will be doing so for everyone else as well.

Jack, this does put you in the cat-bird seat. It is not exactly the seat you had in mind, but, hey, it is not to be sneezed at, and ultimately it is not in your repertoire to refuse to be lead support in the greatest story ever told. Now is it?

Are you going to go crying to Ron, or are you going to take it like a man? Mano a Mano!

Capische?

And, yes, I am expecting to have dinner with your Dad.

Sincerely yours,

Dan

-----Original Message-----
From: Jack Sarfatti [mailto:sarfatti@pacbell.net]
Sent: Monday, May 09, 2005 7:58 PM
To: Ron; Dan Smith
Subject: Fwd: Jack meets Olga & Marina from Moldova & Kiev at Jake's & Dan

Just in case I disappear fyi - but what a way to go! Three Muses and everyone a virgin! :-)

Dan, you coming on 25th or 26th? Remind me. Your original message is on my other laptop back in SF. I am in La Jolla. You are coming on Wed May
25 and leaving on Sat right?

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Jack Sarfatti <sarfatti@pacbell.net>
> Date: May 9, 2005 4:53:58 PM PDT
> To: d14947 <d14947@gmail.com>
> Cc: CLSF4@cs.com
> Subject: Re: Jack meets Olga & Marina from Moldova & Kiev at Jake's
>
> Olga and Marina and third Russian girl Nadia are coming tonite to me,
> Jagdish & Shawn at Csaba's.
>
> On May 9, 2005, at 2:44 PM, d14947 wrote:
>
>> The disinfo machine is in full cry.
>>
>> On 5/9/05, Jack Sarfatti <sarfatti@pacbell.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> Cool, but who the hell are you? Did you send the two 20's-something
>>> beauties Olga and Marina last night at Jakes On The Beach in Del Mar?
>>> More curious linguistic coincidences. Gavorita pa Ruski? Nimnoga?
>>> ;-)
---------------------------------------------------------

Gee, it does sound kinda like an end game.  It's gonna be show time with Jack.  And what do I have to show besides the Mandelbrot, Ron and the three kings?  For Jack that might be enough, but what about for the other folks?  All I need is for Jack to facilitate a chain reaction cum skull session, 'Listen up folks, we need to know this.'  When the heavies weigh-in, I'll need some backstopping from Ron. 

It's just about postmodernism vs. coherence.  The message is that simple. 

I am thinking about taking this back to Sam's 'oil group' again.  It is time to get down to business and to practice what I preach, and preach what I practice.  I finally have to place my bets.  Will there be a better time to save the world?  Do we really want to wait and see?  What else are we waiting for? 

[6/20]

Dear Blog,

Gosh, it has been a while, and what have we to show for it?  Are we any nearer to the end?

First I'll  have to collect my thoughts.  The main news yesterday was that Gordon is to meet Jack in S.F. in about a week.  It's not quite clear whether or not I have an invite to this gala event.  Jack may have just wanted some hand holding.  Before that I was informed by Bill that Gordon's material may have derived the the channeling of a Yogi in London in the early 1920's relative to the Hindu vimanas.  Gordon may now be regrouping his forces.  If Jack and Gordon gang up on my metaphysics, I'll need more input from Ron and/or Kit.  Ron suggested he might help Kit out with Julian Nall, formerly the NIO for Science and Technology, with whom Kit once had an 'interesting' interaction.  His name is listed in my old notes without any context.  Need I hold my breath?  Jack met with the glitterati in NYC, but no HK.  The mailbox now languishes. 

I've been catching up on the 4400 with some prodding from my son.  It has definite possibilities.  In yesterday's NYTimes is a review of Robert Laughlin's new (first) book: A Different Universe.  It is a rather good treatise on anti-reductionism from the perspective of the quantum theory of solids.  There are no fundamentals is his world, rather there is the omni-presence and universality of various phases of quantum criticality.  Are our egos made of such stuff, analogically speaking?  With the Riemann Hypothesis, we might imagine that the integers are a critical phenomenon with the long range order of the Mandelbrot. 

My latest argument with Jack and Gordon took up the premise that any breakthrough in propulsion would, from a physical perspective, be concomitant to a comparable breakthrough in military technology, and so would necessitate a meta-universal hegemonic control system (MUHCS) so as to avoid a mutually assured destruction (MAD).  Such a cosmic power would hardly be distinguishable from that of a God, and that would presumably include the power of Creation.  Thus it might behoove us to consider our options from a more creaturely perspective. 

[6/21]

Gordon is trying to recruit Jack into his 'Kismet' meeting plan.  I am urging a more broad based approach, i.e. one that would include metaphysics. 

[6/27] 

Let us reflect back upon the zodiac and its role in Creation.  In accord with the Mandelbrot model, each member of the pantheon produces a 'sub-creation', in accord with polytheism.  There is, however, a singular creation associated with the primary bulb.  This circular bulb and its attendant cardioid and straight line are the only perfect figures in the set.  This is what I refer to as the BPW, as taken in the context of the Mb. 

[6/28]

Yesterday I was failing to recall the latest PDF file: On Being Focused.  Evidently I have not properly integrated it with my core operating vision.  Here is the coda of that piece:

    * It is just thus that the creative energy of the Matrix and pantheon is focused through love into the BPW.
    * This is my hypothesis and the governing principle of whatever coherence I possess.

Well, I think that was a bit of a stretch.  I have some  more explaining to do here, but this is the core problem, after all.   

One missing connection is that between geometric perfection in the Mb and this notion of love.  Both notions allude to the transcendental or infinite.  Love and perfection are our connections to eternity.  The BPW is what mediates between the finite and infinite.  The transcendental is uniquely inherent in this one locus of Creation.  This perfection is the eternal soul of the creation and is the essence of our imago dei.  This also is suggestive of the apokatastasis.  The creative focus is also seen on the positive axis or 'elephant ravine'.  The ouroboric connection between the positive and negative axis is strongly suggested. 

However, every part of the Mb is holographic, but this is a given.  It is the symmetry of the Mb that also suggests its creative focus onto the 'BPW'.  It was a big step in our alleged evolution to go from radial to lateral symmetry.  That was for locomotion which then produced a fore and aft asymmetry, as with the Mb.  The ouroboric form is a restoration of symmetry. 

This focus should be viewed relationally.  There cannot be coherence without a focus.  Without coherence, the world is incomprehensible and so is unobservable.  The self is about focus.  This is what distinguishes theism from pantheism.  This logic can be further explicated. 

There can be no reality without the cyclic aspect, and all of the above is implicated therein.  Pantheism cannot contain cycles?  Their use is strictly illicit. 

I then need to add this to the PDF.  This could also be the title of the next page. 

Pantheism stresses the role of illusion, but there can be no illusion without selves.  The Buddha is the fundamental self.  The eternal cycle of illusion is centered on the Buddha.  There is nothing else that is comprehensible.  In some sense the Buddha must create or maintain  the Cycle, but strictly they would be inseparable.   Pantheism has always been a source of inspiration for idealism. 

A pure zodiacal cycle cannot exist without an observational asymmetry, which may be identified with Creation.  There is no such thing as a pure cycle, other than as an abstraction.  It is like perpetual motion.  Atoms are not observable unless they are disturbed by photons. 

Numbers exist only through the act of counting, which is also cyclic in nature, but it cannot be a pure cycle because it would be perpetual.  There must be something like an escapement on a pendulum clock.

The NY Times today has a feature article on the paradoxes of time and time-travel.  Implicitly it is pointing to the meta-physicality of time?  Why should time be more metaphysical than space? 

The intensity of the focus must be proportional to the complexity of the network it supports.  Creation must have a meta-focus.  Otherwise it loses coherence.  It becomes epiphenomenal.  What is the limit on the intensity? 

Coherence is to be found in functional and aesthetic diversity.  Creation will be optimized when the cosmic intelligence is focused upon it, not when there is random conflict.  Vulnerability would lead to coalition formation.  The stable/eternal state would be a single coalition.  This is what we see with the Mb.  There is a diverse coherence. 

Based on the primordial tradition of ultra-terrestrials, there is communication between distinct creations and realms.  There is separation mainly at the phenomenal level.  It follows that cosmic intelligence and coherence transcends these realms.  Out of this coherence comes a personal focus of creative love, and this results in the BPW, of which we are the nexus.  This is based in part on the notion that we are the only planet of choice, i.e. focused on free will.  This is the densest planet and the great attractor.  The other creatures will arrive here to share in the universal salvation or apokatastasis entrusted to us.  They may arrive by incarnation and other means.  This is one reason why we need not be overly exercised about the population problem.  We don't want to be a bottleneck in the salvation economy. 

The notion of a singular Matrix need hardly be speculative.  Potentiality is one of the least differentiable ideas.  This is just where the identity of indiscernibles should be most applicable. 

[6/29]

The Newtonian-Cartesian absolutist view of space-time is abstract and deist in the extreme, but once planted in our brains it is very hard to extricate.  It implies an omniscient Creator, with the creatures being epiphenomenal.  It works great for aiming artillery, but what else is it really good for?  Machines are dumb.  They must have rules.  The cosmos obliges our mechanical penchant with its Platonic seeming physics.  But physics can only be epiphenomenal to the relational system of things.  Modern physics is an endless revision of the Newtonian hubris.  There is no way to sneak vitalism in the back door, try though we do. 

[6/30]

Signed an NDA for Gordon's RAM, and saw War of the Worlds with son and nephew.  I was told another new RAMer is also an eschatologist.  I guess we'll see about that. 

And here is an email composed this morning in response to an inquiry from Sam concerning Robert Laughlin's A Different Universe: Remaking Physics from the Bottom Down, noted on 6/20:  [a]

Yes, I did notice this book, and then explored Laughlin’s website.

A phrase that springs to mind about Robert’s treatment of emergence is ‘damning with faint praise’.

The other message is: OK folks, you needn’t worry your pretty little heads about emergence, because we scientists have it under control. We’ll tell you what you need to know about it, when you need to know it.

As Robert admits, scientists despise philosophy and philosophers, with a passion. The outstanding divisive issue between science and philosophy since the inception of science has been precisely the issue of reductionism. Now, Robert assures us, scientists are finally getting religion!

Pardon us, if we are more than a little skeptical.

Much too little, much too late! The hand of holism has been writing on science’s reductionist wall for the last three centuries. Scientists of much greater stature than Laughlin have deliberately been ignoring this Ghost at their mechanical Banquet, because they had the wisdom of Louis XIV, ‘après nous, la deluge!’

If Robert really believes that science has its thumb in the flood gates of emergence and teleology, well, he should have a little chat with the person who is in charge of phenomenology at the Dept. of National Intelligence. He would then be directed to their consulting eschatologist. He would then realize that his key phrase, Bottom Down, makes no sense whatsoever, unless you have already stood the world on its head. Voila la Deluge!

I’m afraid that all of this will make the Oil Peak look rather like a molehill.

[7/2]

What's a Creator to do after Creation, I mean way after?  Do you eventually just leave it go? 

An obvious option would be to recycle it, but this would be counter to the BPW hypothesis. 

The last option is redemption.  That's apokatastasis.  That's the eschaton. 

The only question is when.  The only answer is, at the best possible time.  Which is? 

Which is when we have done just about everything we can possibly do down here.  When we are physically prepared to leave the planet.  When we are able to destroy the world, but before we actually do.  When the secret of Creation can no longer be kept.  In other words, right about now, folks. 

The next question is whether it is possible for there to be a creator.  This would seem difficult to deny, especially if we take mind seriously.  Instead of a primordial material stuff, why could there not be a primordial mental stuff, i.e. Matrix, with at least as much self-organizing potential as this alleged material stuff? 

The next question is how many creations.  In an immaterial, monist, relational world, there is no rational alternative to the BPW hypothesis.  Any network of being would be self-centered.  There would be an organic functionality.  Chaos, to exist, would be parasitic upon that organic network.  At most, there would be a functional network of realms, much as we see with the Mandelbrot, with everything in its place.  There is every indication that our world is spiritually the densest world, i.e. the center of spiritual gravity. 

(The above material has been appended to Being Focused.) 

The final chore is the reconstruction of the scientific cosmology.  Given immaterialism, we rationalize the manifest material image in terms of its contribution to our spiritual gravity.  The depth of creation is measured by the compelling depth of the image.  We are mesmerized by an image, to which we have unwittingly contributed to a very substantial degree.  In the depth of physics we see our own logic reflected back to us in mathematical structures that we can more or less intuit. 

Even starting from a materialist premise, the various futurist scenarios point toward an ultimate hegemony of mind over matter, as if to defeat the original premise.  Why should we suppose that we invented the mind?  What else could reside beyond the bounds of space and time, nature being the natural buffer between Creator and creatures?  

--------------------------

Yesterday, Sam asked how I would deal with the sectarianism of the second coming.  My suggestion is that we see it as the completion of the first coming, which would simply be its universalization. 

Christianity has long prided itself on its exclusivity, and deemed universalism to be a heresy.  That is one reason why it hews so closely to mystagoguery.  By rationalizing the X-event along with its content, we will have universalized it.  Will this is anyway detract from the notion of a personal Savior.  Hardly!  It turns out that the Savior is also our personal Creator. 

Will non-Christians be offended?  Probably no less than traditional Christians.  Sectarianism, even what we think of as organized religion, will be no longer.  The spirit is eternal, it is just the politics that changes.  We can get through the politics.  We never get through with the spirit.  Once reason has been liberated from its analytic/materialist cage, it will all be over but the shouting. 

----------------------

What next?  I have been instructed to stand down for the next few weeks, pending Kit's meeting w/ Julian.  I'm not holding my breath for BJ to be born again.  BJ and Hal have circled their wagons against any metaphysical interpretation of our Visitation, and in particular against the biblical redaction of it as being the previously apocryphal Three Wise Men. 

Mainly I still need an interlocutor/debriefer.  I admit that would not be as easy to arrange as it might seem. 

------------------------------------

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Smith [mailto:dantsmith@comcast.net]
Sent: Saturday, July 02, 2005 4:19 PM
To: 'Jack Sarfatti'
Subject: RE: Quantum mechanics and the time travel paradox

Jack: << The religious implications are profound of course.>>

 Well, then, you and I, at least, should be doing a podcast with RU Sirius to announce the imminent messianic event. 

 The BPW version of the Y2C ought to be sufficiently anti-authoritarian even for the likes of Goffman. 

 All we need is a little script.  I can still hop on a plane, although I do believe that the phone company has facilities to patch through hi-fi.

 Yes, no, maybe? 

 It might, however, take a few days to iron out the script, and who would get top billing, etc.

 Just a thought.....  

 -----Original Message-----

From: Jack Sarfatti [mailto:sarfatti@pacbell.net]

Sent: Saturday, July 02, 2005 2:08 PM

To: Dan Smith

Subject: Re: Quantum mechanics and the time travel paradox

 Dan, I already said that in 1973. Saul-Paul has it on tape with Hal Puthoff & Russell Targ near SRI. Saul-Paul Sirag wrote an opera based on it produced in Berkeley I think in 1974. The religious implications are profound of course. R. Gott has the idea in his Time Travel book ~30 years after I first suggested it.

 On Jul 2, 2005, at 10:50 AM, Dan Smith wrote:

> According to the Best Possible World hypothesis, our whole world is just such a self-consistent, i.e. coherent, ‘quantum’ loop.  This is just the least action principle extended to the cosmos.

> And, gee whiz, who was it who said, “I am the Alpha and the Omega”?  Have we not all done our homework on the cosmic Ouroboros?

> If not, feel free to consult, for example, page 13 of

>    http://www.bestpossibleworld.com/TheSecondComing.pdf

> From: Jack Sarfatti [mailto:sarfatti@pacbell.net]

> Subject: Re: Quantum mechanics and the time travel paradox

> Thanks, I suggested this years ago. Not new. I think Deutsch has this, also Novikov, Thorne et-al.

>  

> On Jul 2, 2005, at 4:37 AM, Gary S Bekkum / SSR wrote:

> http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0506141

> Quantum mechanics and the time travel paradox

> Authors: David T. Pegg

> Comments: 18 pages, 3 figures

> Journal-ref: D. T. Pegg, Times' arrows, quantum measurement and superluminal behavior (eds. D. Mugnai, A. Ranfagni and L. S. Schulman)  (Consiglio Nazionale Delle Richerche, Roma, 2001) p. 113

> The closed causal chains arising from backward time travel do not lead to paradoxes if they are self consistent. This raises the question as to how physics ensures that only self-consistent loops are possible. We show that, for one particular case at least, the condition of self consistency is ensured by the interference of quantum mechanical amplitudes associated with the loop. If this can be applied to all loops then we have a mechanism by which inconsistent loops eliminate themselves.  

 --------------------------------

[7/10]

Last night I listened to Robert Merry on BookTalk: Sands of Empire (2005).  Bob contrasts the optimistic and pessimistic views of history.  On the one side are Hegel, Fukuyama and Freidman, on the other are Spengler, Huntington and now Merry.  The one is the linear, globalist view, the other is the cyclical, cultural view. 

From the POV of the BPW, they are both right and wrong.  What they miss is the gnostic/prophetic/salvational view of history, the concealing and revealing Creator.   Material 'progress' finally gives way to an eschatological spiritual rebirth or rapture.   

[7/11]

On Saturday I met with a person contracting to review some related documents.  In describing the BPWH, I was reminded that immaterialism is a particular sticking point.  This affords an opportunity to review that subject. 

There is still the jaw dropping reaction when I confess to a skepticism concerning stars.  I have not learned how to soften that shock.  How has the modern mind been so completely possessed by the idolatry of matter?  That is a tough nut to crack.  How came to western mind to be so contrary to the eastern mind on the matter of illusion?  Ne'er the twain shall meet? 

There must be a connection here with the dichotomy between theism and pantheism.  How easily we forget that the nature of reality is a perennial metaphysical issue, but only, it seems, in the mind of the philosopher.  There must also be a connection with egoism.  Egoism demands a solid platform for the ego.  Thus do share the dismay of the mariner stranded on the desert island, who wakes up one day to discover that his island is swimming away.  There is the sense of disorientation bordering on the quality of a mental breakdown.  The eastern mind, being more relational, is less susceptible to this manner of disorientation. 

That egoism finds its justification in theism, should be perfectly logical.  That theism is associated with absolutes and dichotomies of many varieties, is also perfectly natural.  That we then, in modernism, proceed to manipulate these absolutes, while neglecting their origin, should be no surprise.  The residual psychology of the absolute is our blind spot. 

Mathematical Platonism is one of the last repositories of the modern absolute.  The Mb and the MG have opposing implications in this regard, but perhaps less so when we include anthropics with the MG.  It is hard for us to explain the teleology of either object, or how the two might relate.  Then we need to find the logical connection to stars and dinosaurs.  This is if the eyes of our interlocutors have not already become terminally glazed!  Obviously we need an anti-glazing strategy. 

We seem to be terminally committed to the mechanical manipulation of matter, as the basis of our reality, as well as to the great depth of time and space.  The relativity and quantum theories, have only been like minor fender benders, in this larger context.  Mounting a frontal assault on Newtonian absolutism, seems not to be effective.  The self-coherence of science is impressive, superficially, at least.  And we don't want to become ensnared in a 'god of the gaps' argument. 

The mind-body problem is not something that troubles people outside of the philosophical arena.  Anthropics is too readily countered with many-worlds.  These anomalies resist concatenation in the imaginations of even the most thoughtful people.  The problem of the Ptolemaic style complexification of modern cosmology does not weigh heavily on the modern mind.  It does not count much against the more subjective sense of scientific coherence.  Postmodernism has done very little to shake these foundations. 

The problem of emergence and the non-reducibility of scientific knowledge counts for little against our collective commitment to the individual reality of atoms.  Somehow, we must be equating atomic reality with egoic reality.  The atoms are our bastion against all metaphysical assaults. 

The interdependence of ontology and psychology is something we choose not to dwell upon. 

The antipathy between theology and phenomenology, leaves the phenomenologists with nowhere to turn but to pantheism and paganism. 

The ontological infrastructure of materialism has been most resilient to normal wear and tear.  It is hard to imagine that it would be vulnerable to anything short of a major phenomenological shock.  One might hope for a straw that would break its back, but there is very little evidence to support such a scenario.  This observation counts against the possibility of a minimalist version of a messianic event. 

The last option is to keep the R&D show on a steady advance.  Perhaps this is the favored option.  Gradually we get more folks on board, up until either the fundies and/or a reporter latch onto the game.  Anything wrong with this picture?  Might the ufologists catch the drift of it first?  What about Jack and Gordon?  That would depend on BJ and Owl.  That sequence might turn this scenario into a domino scenario, which could be more dramatic. 

I'm once again asking Jack to give his rationale for the cover-up of the alien presence, and his own role in the matter.  This should be a major problem for him, despite his ability to deflect discussions. 

[7/22]

There has been continuing correspondence with Sarfatti list, and new correspondence with the exopolitical list.  I was introduced to this latter list by Ed Komarek, the same person who originally introduced me to Jack's list.  It may have been Don Allen, a ufo BBS operator in Florida, who linked me with Ed in the early '90s. 

The issue presently being pursued with four correspondents on these two lists is nature of our destiny.  The fact of a destiny is undeniable to quite a range of folks, especially with those who are future oriented, of course. 

With respect to the visitors the issue becomes how many destinies are there and how are they interlinked.  Are they mutually supportive or mutually antagonistic?  And how so?  Would we not, at the least, expect there to be a cosmic ecosystem in this regard, i.e. a salvational economy on the cosmic scale? 

[8/4]

There was on Monday a dinner meeting with BJ in DC.  Here is an excerpt from a follow-up message I sent to him.  There has been no reply:

Something I meant to ask you was whether anything was said to you concerning the alien agenda for coming here, and more specifically whether any non-technical information was delivered.   

For instance, it is hard to imagine that they would give us advanced technology without any suggestion as to how we should use it.  Or, perhaps, why it would be given to us and not to the Chinese, if that were the case.    

It is also very hard to believe that the topic of God or life after death would not have been broached over the years of contact.  If it had not been covered in the briefings, then, given you other interests, would it not have been your top priority question. 

This is why I remain skeptical about a categorical statement portraying a purely ‘nuts and bolts’ exchange. 

Rick Doty was adamant in speaking to me that the reason for the non-disclosure primarily had to do with the disturbing message that was conveyed to us in the contact.  He refused to further characterize this message.  You have held Rick’s information in high regard, but now there is this singular discrepancy? 

If no cogent answer is forthcoming, I will have to get back to Ron about it.  Allegedly, this person has had conversations with several Presidents and DCIs on the topic of the visitation.  It is hard to believe that the metaphysical issues never came up.  His categorical statements concerning the purely 'nuts and bolts' aspect of the visitation just don't compute.  Then he goes on to claim that everything to do with UFOs, other than this core story is simply delusional.  Are we dealing with a deeply irrational individual, or is this story merely a construct, intentionally disinformational, or both?  This will have to be straightened out before I can move forward.  Or is this simply meant to be an obstacle to progress?  I have sent a strongly worded note to Ron threatening to go outside with my questions and concerns about this particular matter.  He is the one who 'owns' the clearances for the individual in question. 

----------------------

I'm supposed to meet with Ron tomorrow about BJ and his problem.  BJ is alleged to be deeply disturbed about something to do with the visitation.  It must have something to do with information that was conveyed to us in some convincing fashion. 

It is fair to say that an eschatological warning fits into the visitation scenario and its cover-up better than any other type of warning. 

If this were the case, this would have been the primary purpose of the visit.  There would have had to have been a reasonably imminent time-line, along with action items for us, including a suggested disclosure process.  There would necessarily be a tie-in with the prophetic tradition, and so some messianic event would have been indicated for facilitation. 

I would suggest that this scenario be the subject of the next Aquarium meeting.  The meeting would be early in September.  Who should be invited?  Who not invited? 

How many are aware of the eschatological version of the visit?  Are there factions within this number?  What is the politics? 

What are the action items?  Where are we on the time-line?  What does the President know?  How many Senators know?  Chris Straub?  How many other countries are involved?  Where does this tie-in to 9/11? 

[8/14]

It seems that there is more than one version of the bj/jn meeting.  Naturally, one is a bit more provocative than the other.  jb is probably not happy about being excluded from something.  He may not realize that he is being diverted to something else having to do with cl.  We might wonder about his being held in reserve up to this point.  Did the meeting go as planned?  Or was there a misstep by our guy?  Is there a breakdown, as suggested.  Perhaps there is a third version, even more provocative, that was disturbing.  Early recovery may be optimistic, and then what?  How critical is he?  Why so anti-communicative?  He is a major test subject.  Difficult to replace.  What is my input supposed to be?  Something had been going on with s for a year prior.  What about mp and dd? 

Where is the action item in all of this?  Who do I go after next?  How many more prelims?  Where is the chase?  Who has the plan?  I'd settle for a visible green light.  Visible to whom?  Message to jb?  And to Jack.  Then wait.

[8/26]

We have come to another impasse.  BJ still refuses to cooperate, even after a direct request from P.  This is a carryover from last summer.  It is hard to see how this obstacle can be ignored going forward.  It has become an major issue between us.  One might wonder if this was the intention.  The additional information about the meeting with JN that was indirectly relayed, was to the effect that he was in the loop.  Still no clue as to what may come next, if anything.  I don't see any advantage to pushing any more than I have already.  This is nothing about individual control. 

The bi-static radar or software defined radio, SDR, may provide an analogy as to how we receive cosmic signals.  It is a collective effort with multiple inputs.  The emphasis is on the coordination method.  There must be various forms of triangulation.  This is what we would do for the eschaton.  There would be various checkpoints such as 9/11.

--------------------------------

After talking to Joe, the plan is to go back to Bill and then to P with the second version of the meeting.  If they deny it, then I would be inclined to go to Jack for dissemination.  That would be the most I could do.  There would be as much detail as possible.  Would this burn the bridge?  That is possible.  I can do this right here and now, just leaving out the names.  All I need is A-F. 

A is a high level intelligence officer.  B is a former mid-level officer, who used to work for C.  B asks A to arrange a meeting with C.  A tells me that he will do so and expects that this favor will persuade B to be more forthcoming with me.  B is chagrined when I pass this back to him. 

The meeting takes place in July.  Included are B, C and D who is a friend of A.  In an email to A and me, B briefly describes the meeting.  B does most of the talking, providing C with a recap of the information he has gathered, mainly over the last two decades, particularly in various briefings, with an emphasis on what he learned just in the last year.  B also tells C that he has had face-to-face conversations on this topic with 5 DCI's, 3 Presidents and many General Officers.  C then tells B to be more circumspect in the future.  In a subsequent dinner with me, B reiterates his determination to provide me with no further information on this topic. 

A then calls E and provides him with an additional piece of information about this meeting.  The purpose of the meeting was for B to petition C that he be given greater access to inside information.  C refused the request on the basis that his particular expertise was not presently needed.  E passed this information to F, who, in turn, passed it to me.  I then asked E if he had recently spoken with A, and he denied having done so.  A did volunteer to me that B did not make a very good case to C about the visitation.  B provided C only with his direct experience, without attempting to paint a broader picture.  This approach would make sense, however, in the context of the subsequently revealed purpose of the meeting. 

The above content has been sent privately to Jack and Bill.  Wherein I state that, In my estimation, this is the most provocative, specific and possibly actionable piece of information that we presently possess concerning ‘official’ knowledge and involvement with UFOs. 

In response, Jack evinces a conceptual grasp of the situation that may not be adequate to sustain his participation here.  The bigger picture of the visitation continues to elude him, in part due to its failure to support his own scenario. 

[8/27] 

Jack was a bit more amenable on the phone last night.  Now I need to check with Bill.  People still want a meeting, but that depends on BJ, it would seem.  He is holding out for a promotion, but what will he bring to that table?  It is not the science or biology that is lacking.  Why need he be such an ingrate?  It is possible that he was partly read into the R&D show, and now is stalling for more time or info. 

The core story is now being recirculated through Jack.  We may have to strike while that iron is still warm.  Ed is then a problem with good celestial humans and his bad grays.  The CHs are the absentees.  They left no infrastructure. 

[9/4] 

Ed K. has been keeping me posted on Bill Hamilton & Co.  It claims, in effect, to be a second aviary.  Their posting rate has ramped up considerably just in the last few weeks.  The hypothesis is that there has been a split over disclosure on the inside.  The story goes that there is a Committee of the Majority composed of some 32 international Masonic/illuminati types, of unknown ethnic persuasions.  This is an umbrella group with some sway over various specialized subgroups, the first of these being MJ12 with scientific and technical expertise.  Presumably there would be other subgroups in the political, economic and religious areas.  Where the Aviary might fit in is anyone's guess.  Dan Burisch is supposed to be a conduit from the disclosure faction. 

The story, allegedly from Dan, is that there are splitting timelines due to future trauma on Earth c. 2012.  Denizens of the various timelines use time portals to come back and manipulate us according to a variety of agendas, including intervention in the genetic and prophetic areas.  I still prefer the BPW, Mandelbrot parallel-worlds, Powers & Principalities cosmology with overlapping and non-linear timelines. 

There are natural and artificial portals here.  The artificial ones can be problematic.  They could contribute to the 2012 debacle in which they suddenly expand to Earth dimension and there is the primary time split between the few lines leading to the Celestial Humans and the many lines leading to the 'underground' Deros/ETs that are dead ends.  We have a potpourri of UFO legends, but this is much closer to the BPW scenario of geocentricity among parallel worlds, along with an eschatology, rather than to the original astronaut version of the ETs.  

[9/11]

Jack states that by adding a non-linear term to QM, he will account for most paranormal phenomena.  Those that cannot be so explained will be taken to be mental projections.  That this can pass for physicalism ought to be an embarrassment. 

The typical paranormal phenomenon exhibits intelligent control, i.e. mind over matter.  That this single non-linear term can first account for mind and then for its control over matter is simply incredible. 

In another area, the split remains between the old and new aviaries.  Collins and Hamilton remain at each others throats.  This does not bode well for progress on the disclosure front.  Then BJ remains uncooperative.  This lack or progress may spell the end of this year's initiative that began at the beginning of this page, back in April.  The question then is what it might take to resume the process at a later date, and whether I should attempt a unilateral effort.  Both Jack and BJ would need a concerted external push to produce any movement. 

On the research front, I have not given much thought to reestablishing priorities.  The marginal returns will be lower for the time being. 
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4/20/05

Immaterialism on the Web 

On several occasions here I have stated that the Internet could be decisive in facilitating public interest in a coherent world view, i.e. the one being presented here.  It is high time to attempt an assessment of this possibility.  I'll be doing this in the form of a continuing, informal guided tour of the Internet.  

As the most likely starting point on this tour, I would suggest the topic of immaterialism.  The intellectual leap from materialism to immaterialism represents the single biggest obstacle on the path to coherence.  

Let's see what we have.  Google provides 1,500 hits for 'immaterialism'.  Not too bad for a start!  But now we have to cull through them.  

The very first hit is a diatribe against immaterialism posted on a Mormon website and written by an LDS official.  Curious, but not sufficient to warrant further notice now.  The second hit is a brief summary of Bishop Berkley's account of this topic, he being the originator of the doctrine in its 'modern' guise.  Next there is a 'Neoist'(?) text on 'Dialectical Immaterialism' which goes right over my head, and which should not be confused with a former rock band of the same name. 

Further on down is a book listed on Amazon concerning the 'Physical Basis for Immaterialism.'  This is the only book listed on this topic on Amazon, other than those on the good Bishop, or out of print, or both.  It receives favorable mention from a Vedic scholar, and the charge of 'incoherence' from a reader.  Clearly the publishing industry is not presently bent on overturning materialism. 

Following are numerous items focused mainly on the history of immaterialism and idealism.  Coinciding with our fin de siecle resurgence of interest in the mind is an increased interest in non-materialist philosophies.  The new metaphysical material confines itself cautiously to the mind-body problem, per se, and the more expansive historical worldviews serve only as proxies at best.  This speculative caution is well advised in professional circles whose secularism is being jealously guarded against any possible sectarian encroachment or subversion.  

Next (web assessment) --> 

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Index

7/10/02

Mind -- on the Web 

In contrast to the 15 hundred hits on 'immaterialism', 'mind' yields 26 million.  Not surprising, really.  But consider the uphill battle for those philosophers and scientists who wish to eliminate all reference to the mind as being scientifically illegitimate.  They face a gargantuan job of censorship!   Take the very first item: CIA Analyzes Mind of Iraqi Leader.  What would be the scientifically correct rendition of this news item, I wonder?  How about 'CIA Analyzes Cognitive Content of Saddam's Brain'?  But does that not directly imply that Saddam's brain is in a vat in Langley?  OK, so one could 'speculate about' the cognitive content of his brain, but there is still the implication that an analysis of the physical brain might, at some point, be relevant.  How would we then make a distinction between Saddam as biological specimen and Saddam as political agent?  Would that not be a necessary distinction for our government to make?  If the brain scientists expect us to forego all thought (sic!) of agenthood, the ramifications multiply endlessly.  

Conveniently there are on-line repositories for scholarly discussions of the nature of mind.  Online papers on consciousness maintained by David Chalmers is the principle one of these.  Numerous other relevant web resources have been compiled on the same site.  

It is not difficult to get the impression that this topic has been picked over rather thoroughly in the last decade or so, and that after some initial progress the discussion has bogged down.  One is hard put to find significant changes in the positions of the participants.  If one side or the other were to win the debate at this point it would be the result of sudden professional attrition.  There is no neutral party that is keeping score.  Each side is adept at spinning the results in its own favor.  

What seems to be the case is that the 'mentalists' have all the mental evidence while the materialists have all the material evidence.  Each side imagines that its own evidence is conclusive.  I do not see a prospect for the breaking of this intellectual logjam, other than by an external influence. 

On the Web: 

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7/10/02

Postmodernism on the Web 

Postmodernism is well represented on the Internet.  Yahoo and Google provide excellent starting points: Postmodernism and Postmodernism, resp.  

'Pomo' mainly bills itself as a deconstructive method of criticizing art and literature.  I have yet to see its deconstructive tools applied to modern cosmology.  There have been occasions where it has critiqued individual scientific disciplines from the perspective of their alleged cultural relativism.  The notorious Sokal hoax (q.v.) was supposed to have been a cultural critique of quantum gravity theory.  

To put it succinctly, postmodernism provides only a retail method of cultural criticism.  To mount a wholesale critique it would need to venture its own worldview, something which is constitutionally proscribed to it.  The last such was mounted by Karl Marx.  

Of some relevance to our purposes is the sectarian response to postmodernism.  A Google search on 'christian & postmodern' yields a mixed bag.  On the superficial side are various responses to the latest in pop culture.  On the more serious side is a nostalgia for the simple bipolarity of religion and science that marked modernity.  The fear is that the postmodern anti-foundational fragmentation of truth is already facilitating the further fragmentation of the Christian evangel.  There is the awareness that postmodernism is a game being played by a staunchly secular intelligentsia, whose take on religion vs. science is a curse on both establishments.  

A thoughtful assessment of the sectarian dilemma may be found in Beyond Foundationalism....  In this article Grenz claims that the history of philosophy and theology rationally entails an eschatological coherentism, a view with which I can hardly argue.  I notice that his writing is featured by the mainstream evangelical InterVarsity Press.  The immaterialist metaphysic behind such a view remains implicit.  He simply does not foresee the earth shaking paradigm shift that I do.  

But on the note of this positive finding, let us move along to the next web topic, leaving a more detailed examination of postmodernism for later. 

On the Web: 

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7/11/02

Eschatology on the Web

There is no shortage of material here.  Google and Yahoo have directory pages devoted to eschatology and end times, respectively.  The sites covered are all in regard to Christian fundamentalist interpretations of biblical end time prophecies. 

It is fair to say that its eschatology is the feature that most clearly distinguishes fundamentalism from the rest of Christianity.  It is a belief that fundamentalists happen to share with the earliest Christian communities, according to the historical record, but there remains some controversy as to whether Jesus was a direct source of that concern.  Eschatological beliefs permeate the entire prophetic tradition, almost by definition, but it does appear that Christians are not to be outdone in the degree to which they have elaborated upon this one theme. 

Otherwise the subject of eschatology is virtually taboo.  My criticism of the traditional prophetic eschatology is for its unnaturalness.  Armageddon, apocalypse and Judgment feature prominently in the teachings.  The eschaton is the mark of a wrathful God.  Only a faithful remnant may be spared the full brunt of this wrath.  

Such views hardly conform to the philosophy of the Best Possible World .  What is at work here are the remnants of dualistic thought going back at least to the good and evil ones, Ahura and Ahriman, of Zoroastrianism.  The Gnostics attributed evil to matter and even to nature, setting aside any rationale for creation.  It was God's duty to destroy evil in the end, which He would do with relish. 

On the immaterialist view, the coherence of the temporal world implies the finitude of its temporality.  Obsolescence is a natural and logical part of our world.  The realm of eternity is another matter, of course.  The only question for theodicy is the optimal duration.  We will be partly responsible for this determination as part of our Millennial preparations for the Omega, in close consultation with God.  

On the Web: 

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7/11/02

A Hard Core of Truth Seekers? 

I would like to think of myself as one of these.  I was a Sputnik 'baby' to the world of physics.  My father had been impressed by Donald Menzel's involvement in the Manhattan Project, and his astronomy books were read to me at an early age.  Sputnik and Manhattan Project sound more like power than truth, but power and truth are more than tangentially related.  Recall the coda of the Lord's prayer, for instance.  Truth may be more a matter of what you know, and power of who you know, but these lines are often conflated.  A nuclear weapon may convey the notion of 'fear of God' even to a materialist.  And what of God do we fear more, the power or the truth? 

I would naturally look to my former colleagues in physics, and particularly among those who have evinced an interest in the mind, as potential comrades in the seeking of truth.  An interest in the mind has come late to the physics community, and it remains muted.  It has never been able to get a handle on the mind, slippery beast that it is.  The closest thing to a handle is the quantum, yet the possible quantum-mind connection shows no sign of fruition.  

In David Chalmers' list of online papers I recognize the names of several physicists in the Consciousness and physics and Metaphysics of consciousness sections.  I have had just a few communications with Henry Stapp over the years, and that is about it.  These are professionals interested in a decidedly fringe and speculative area.  Frankly they have to be careful to maintain their professional status.  The sorts of speculations in which I engage would be several orders beyond what might be tolerated by their colleagues.  Public association with the likes of me or my ideas would be problematic at the least. 

About the only way I can envision engaging such folks would be by the creation of a sufficiently public discussion that they could comment upon it from a professional distance, rather than appearing to be personally involved. 

A point to be taken here is that professionalism is, at best, conducive only to those truths that might fall within its historically defined purview.  Thomas Kuhn recognized this as a potential inhibition on truth seeking some time ago.  In science, as in most endeavors, revolutions come from out of the blue.  They are never the result of 'normal' scientific research. 

Kuhn's followers viewing this history from a postmodern perspective suggest that any number of intellectual revolutions need not add up to the truth.   It could be an endless circling, or there could be no objective reality to begin with.  

As I have stated before, the scholarly mind-matter debate has made waves and rocked a few boats, but seems now to be bogged down.  The physicists are in a better position than most to recognize the cosmic implications of a foundational approach to the mind.  But even the most astute of them have difficulty seeing it as being much more than an intellectual puzzle.  They don't see any need to dial 911.  That's our job.  I hope I have dialed correctly. 

[later the same day...]  

From a search on "intellectual revolution" let me recommend the following Bonus chapter on nutty quantum theories by John McCrone.  Quoting from Christof Koch, "...the physicists expect to find the secret of consciousness in some grand, fundamental twist on the laws of nature. In keeping with the great breakthroughs in the basic sciences, they believe the answer should have a deep and beautiful simplicity."  But this could be permitted only to come from within the mathematical framework of theoretical physics.  Anything that might transcend that framework has no purchase with the physics profession.  It would be allowing the tail, mind, to wag the dog, physics.  The physicists have been doing the wagging for a long time, and they don't wish to get wagged, thank you very much!  

On the Web: 

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7/13/02

Funda-Mental 

The physicists in the consciousness movement have been trying very hard to find a link between the mystery of the mind and the mystery of the quantum.  The most suggestive link is in the measurement process.  For instance, the focus of attention on a particular process in the brain might in a bootstrap fashion influence the selection of the states being recorded in our minds.  Obviously there is a mismatch in scale between the higher order thought processes involving intentionality and the sub-molecular quantum processes.  The problem of maintaining quantum coherence on any reasonable scale is a severe constraint on such speculation.   

The mere presence of the quantum does not account for any of the qualities of subjective experience.  At best the quantum could serve as a link between the qualitative realm of mind and the quantitative domain of physics.  We would still be left with a 'quantum dualism', where the quantum replaces the pineal gland in the Cartesian version of the mind-brain duality.

Despite the absence of any solid results, the speculations of the quantum physicists provide a very important scientific cachet for a resurgence of popular interest in vitalism.  We should pause to try to appreciate the extra-scientific motivation for this interest. 

It would appear that what molecular biology has taken away from us, the quantum is giving back: that is our ability to believe in a life force.  Is our desire for a life force greater even than our need for God?  Or is it serving as a politically correct substitute? 

I believe that the definitive characterization of this needed force comes from Yoda of Star Wars: 'May the Force be with you.'  Notice the personalization of it.  What Darwin took away, a quantum savvy Yoda gives back.  The 'Force' represents the bottom end of the Great Chain of Being.  God is the top end.  Each can do double duty.  In either case we are not the accidental tourists in an uncaring universe.  We are not an epiphenomenon of atoms swerving in the dark.  There is something Fundamental about our Being.  We are rooted in the very nature of reality.  We are not a superfluous flash in the cosmic pan.  So reads our deepest longing. 

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7/14/02

Funda-Mental (part 2) 

Let us explore our 'deepest longing' on the Internet, allowing Google to strut her stuff:  vitalism (7400), panpsychism (1700), pantheism (35000), animism (30000), holism (28000), 'conscious universe' (2300), etc.  These figures, or course, only show that certain terms are being bandied about on the web.  

But consider this data from the point of view of our apocryphal atomistic, mechanistic reductionist.  That poor gal might feel besieged.  She might feel like road kill on the highway to postmodernism and beyond.  

Consider holism: Holism in Artificial Intelligence?, for example.  This doesn't sound very touchy-feely, now does it?  Is this icon of the New Age being appropriated by the mechanists?  

"In the discussion on semantic holism it has been claimed that A.I. is almost entirely holistic. In this paper I show that some of the main lines of research in symbolic artificial intelligence are not holistic...."  

Hmmm...  What?

As best as I can make it out, this holism is the positing of a relationalism in regard to the meaning of words and sentences.  Context dependency is a part of it.  At first blush it is a promotion of structure or form over content or substance.  If this is a retreat from semantics to syntax, it is a reductionism.   Or is it?  We still have those relations to account for. Are they internal or external?  There's the rub.  Obviously I'm going to have to brush up on my syntax, maybe on the next page, or so.  Relations are generally taken to be in the eye of the beholder, or are they in the mind's I of the computer?  If the orange is ten inches from the apple, someone has to be able to verify that.  There have to exist measurement standards, etc.  And are the identities of the relata not thereby irreducibly entwined?   The deepest metaphysical proclivities of at least some of the meaning holists, such as Willard v. O. Quine, remain notoriously opaque, if I'm not mistaken [but see Quine's Holism].  May the Force be with you, Willard?  Later....

Even if it is not with Willard, there are, as you may see, a plethora of other willing subjects out there in Web land. 

We are then left to wonder whether this hypothetical, vital, Funda-Mental Force (or glue?), could be blind, given all that it must accomplish by way of evolution and watching out for Luke Skywalker.  As at least implied earlier, I have much difficulty conceiving of a non-transcendental panpsychism.  Does there not have to be a coherent source or potency beyond space and time?  Some great minds have propounded an atheistic pantheism, but are they thereby coherent?  And if the pan-Psyche is incoherent, how could we come to comprehend that of It, without at least personalizing Her?  Is the babbling brook incoherent?  Am I in a questioning mood today? 

On the Web: 

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7/14/02

Quine's Holism 

You know the drill: Quine & Holism. 

It is fair to say that Quine was a pivotal figure in 20th Century philosophy.  A single slim volume of his at mid century managed to wreak havoc with the Anglo-American analytic tradition.  Its repercussions provoke lively debate into this next millennium, even on the Continent. 

 Yet, Quine was no subversive, anarchist or visionary.  He was a Harvard don.  He just wanted to set the record straight.  He and Niels Bohr were nevertheless the progenitors of what is the single most characteristic concept of our postmodern world.  

And what is this concept?  Does this have something to do with the $40 billion holistic health industry?  What does context dependency have to do with ginseng tea? 

It has to do with non-localized, distributed meaning.  There may be a private mental language, but words are not thoughts.  It is all representation and context.  The meaning is not in the sound, it is in the silence between the sounds, to give it a Zen twist.  The only real meaning is in what we can live and feel.  Fear is in the pit of the stomach, as they say.  It is in the shadows.  

[7/16/02] 

I have been reading Ernest Lapore's Conditions on Understanding Language (c.1995) [listed on Philosophy of Language Links], an attack on the behaviorist, functionalist reduction of semantics to linguistics and syntax.  On his view, Quine is one of the reductionists.  He cites agreement with Fodor and Dummet in his own metalinguistic, metaphysical approach to a purely mental semantics. 

It appears that I will need to review Fodor.  According to Christopher Green, Review of Jerry Fodor's 'In Critical Condition', Fodor is a reluctant defender of innate ideas.  The fact that Fodor is also a proponent of strong 'computational functionalism' in no way inhibits his thorough going criticism of his 'colleagues'.  Innate ideas are not good news for materialists.  

Using Fodor as the icon, we may be able to locate a coterie of conscientious objectors to the program of the materialists and reductionists, who nonetheless can speak directly to them.  There remains the hope that an argument will emerge that is sufficiently cogent to cause a public rethinking by the intellectual community.  If rational theism is to emerge in some rational fashion, this would be its best opportunity.  

I'm starting with Fodor's Doing Without What’s Within.  

I'll have to return to holism a bit later....

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7/16/02

Jerry Fodor & Co. 

In his Doing Without What’s Within..., Fodor's topic is 'nature vs. nurture.'  Generally speaking, rationalism and nativism are pitted against empiricism, naturalism and associationism. 

Fodor is quite amenable to having his nativism be explained by a genetically inherited computational functionalism, much as Chomsky has been with his innate grammar.  I am not aware that either of them has ever spoken favorably of idealism.  But both of them are realists concerning ideas, and that is a big step beyond mere materialism.  

Once Fodor calls himself a reductionist [but only at heart, too many other things going on] which might square with his computational functionalism, but more frequently he speaks of his rationalism, something not normally considered mechanical or naturalistic.  He does repudiate naturalism.  It would seem that Jerry is trying to hang out on a slender, multidimensional pinnacle, requiring considerable philosophical dexterity.  There is no solid high ground here.  His sympathetic colleagues watch mostly form a safe distance as he performs his aerial jousting. 

One alternative to computational functionalism is connectionism.  It seems to be generally accepted, however, that connectionism is much too mushy in its general construct to be even slightly amenable to the compositionality that is a fundamental characteristic of our thought processes.  There is no physical basis for the sequentiality of thought.  Another alternative is associationism, going back to the origins of empiricism.  It is a recurring glimmer of an idea that has never been able to acquire substance. 

One problem facing the computationalists is to explain how their mental tokens can be both representational and causally efficacious at the same time.  It seems rather like a preordained harmony.  Is this not also the problem of intentionality in general? 

Fodor is a long time defender of mentalese or the language of thought hypothesis (LOTH).

[Later: see The Language of Thought Hypothesis -- Murat Aydede. Excerpts: 

(A2 ) Representational Theory of Thinking: Mental processes, thinking in particular, consists of causal sequences of tokenings of mental representations."
(B1) representations of the system have a combinatorial syntax and semantics: structurally complex (molecular) representations are systematically built up out of structurally simple (atomic) constituents, and the semantic content of a molecular representation is a function of the semantic content of its atomic constituents together with its syntactic/formal structure, and

(B2) the operations on representations (constituting, as per (A2), the domain of mental processes, thinking) are causally sensitive to the syntactic/formal structure of representations defined by this combinatorial syntax.] 

When we think to ourselves we tend to do so in our native tongue, but at a deeper level there is often thought to be a private system of symbols, physically realized in the brain.  Many others find the very idea of a private language to be oxymoronic.  However, the more widely accepted notion of a universal grammar might also provide a foundation for subliminal symbol processing, if the symbols could be given a more universal aspect.  Some aspects of sign language are now being touted as a possible precursor to spoken language. 

[Later: It was said that Fodor has been moving toward the functionalism of Dennett.  I'm not sure how this should be taken.] 

[8/26:  but see From Intangibles to Memes]

As you can see, the field of cognitive science remains in a nearly complete disarray, even after much initial promise.  It is a scattered collection of half-baked ideas in need of a foundation, and I don't mean the charitable kind.  If idealism could make any substantial offer, the cognitivists would hardly be in a position to refuse, and the AI crowd would be likely to take up arms at a moments notice.  It would be exciting.  

Aren't we in need of a top-down, teleological process?  How might that be demonstrated?  How could ideas not be associational and teleological at the same time?   A monadology of ideas?  A mathematical analogy?  Ideas vs. numbers.  Perhaps all we need is a better search term for Google.  Invariably my best ideas are scooped by the web.  That's the scoop, throops. 

It appears that cognitivism is in a late Ptolemaic phase, and does not know where or how to look for a new sun. Epicycles of the mind.   

On the Web: 

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7/17/02

'Naturalism in Question'

Please excuse my plagiarizing the title of an alleged to be forthcoming publication of the Harvard University Press.  HUP does not publicly acknowledge that this book is in gestation, so I'll take the word of Huw Price and keep my 30+ bucks in my pocket.  [And now it is almost here.] 

It is my fervent hope that naturalism will be questioned.  According to Quentin Smith, in his 'Metaphilosophy of Naturalism', it was Alvin Plantinga's God and Other Minds (1967) which laid the groundwork for the resurgence of of an intellectually respectable theism.  Quentin claims that as of the new millennium fully one-quarter to one third of the philosophy professors are avowed theists, and that philosophy of religion is the largest category among the philosophy titles of the Oxford Press. 

Gosh, maybe I missed something.  Perhaps the Millennium has already arrived.  I'm not quite convinced.  The last time I checked, religion and science were still keeping each other at arms length, and Quentin acknowledges that:

"... the great majority of naturalist philosophers react by publicly ignoring the increasing desecularizing of philosophy (while privately disparaging theism, without really knowing anything about contemporary analytic philosophy of religion) and proceeding to work in their own area of specialization as if theism, the view of approximately one-quarter or one-third of their field, did not exist."

As it stands, the return of theism to the academy is, so far, just another symptom of our postmodern pluralism.  Yes, naturalism has been and is being questioned by some of the best minds available, but evidently not in a manner that has forced a direct response from the naturalists in question. 

From my, perhaps limited, vantage on the web, what I see is, for example, 'Deconstructing the Mind' by Stephen Stich (c.1995).  In a section called 'Deconstructing a Deconstruction' he forthrightly confesses to the error of his former eliminativist position regarding the mind.  Naturally it is only a very subtle error to which he is willing to admit, but sufficient for this significant turnaround, and Stephen was a senior statesman among the eliminativists.  I have not been able to assess the impact of his defection on the rank and file, no one is keeping score in public.  I am not even aware of a single other instance at this point. 

Nonetheless, the hand is writing is on the wall: 'Naturalism is under the gun.'  But which gun is it? 

On the Web: 

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7/19/02

A de facto Dualism

Plantinga and his followers, e.g. the Plantigapage, put their main emphasis on our personal knowledge and experience of God.  This follows in the Protestant, existential, I - Thou tradition.  There is plenty of analysis, in the modern genre, but little in the way of systematics and virtually no cosmology beyond fairly cursory examinations of the Anthropic Principle.  

Our theistic philosophers are focusing on rebutting the backlog of analytical arguments against our putative knowledge of God.  Once again, it's possible, to believe in God and still be considered rational.  

Is it thereby irrational not to believe in God?  No.  I know of no instance where these theistic philosophers attack the tenets of materialism, beyond alluding to what is already being debated on the mind-body problem.  There is no active theistic angle in that debate.  They are sticking to the epistemology, and questions of metaphysics and ontology are avoided. 

As long as the traditional Religion vs. Science duality is respected there will be no real confrontations.  Earlier I have alluded to the 'Intelligent Designers'.  They remain an intellectually isolated, minuscule faction of evangelical scientists who, I believe, are barking (loudly!) up the wrong tree. 

My belief is that this duality is unstable.  It was unstable before Darwin, and is more so now.  However, there will be no new movement until the metaphysical dualism behind the Religion vs. Science duality is questioned.  The mind-body debate should provide the opportunity to raise this question, but it will not happen from a global or cosmological perspective until the God question is brought into that debate. 

It would then not take much to rock this boat.  From my outsider perspective, I can't tell yet what is the source of this remarkable restraint against boat rocking. 

[Later:]

One job now would be to go through the Plantinga related sites looking for anyone who might be contemplating any of the of the boat rocking stratagem being outlined here: Google: Plantinga & ??. 

It should be noted that , in his 'Metaphilosophy of Naturalism', Quentin Smith, a naturalist, does claim that modern naturalism has been defeated: 

Due to the typical attitude of the contemporary naturalist, which is similar to the attitude expressed by Searle in the previous quote, the vast majority of naturalist philosophers have come to hold (since the late 1960s) an unjustified belief in naturalism. Their justifications have been defeated by arguments developed by theistic philosophers, and now naturalist philosophers, for the most part, live in darkness about the justification for naturalism. They may have a true belief in naturalism, but they have no knowledge that naturalism is true since they do not have an undefeated justification for their belief. If naturalism is true, then their belief in naturalism is accidentally true. This philosophical failure (ignoring theism and thereby allowing themselves to become unjustified naturalists) has led to a cultural failure since theists, witnessing this failure, have increasingly become motivated to assume or argue for supernaturalism in their academic work, to an extent that academia has now lost its mainstream secularization. 

He, too, is wondering why this news does not get around. 

On the other hand, please note that Quentin is the editor of the Philo journal, now in its fifth year: 

Philo is the only professional philosophy journal devoted exclusively to criticisms of theism and defenses or developments of naturalism. To facilitate discussion and debate, Philo also publishes defenses of theism and criticisms of naturalism. The interest in naturalism extends to the relevant branches of naturalist philosophy, such as naturalist metaphysics, and especially naturalist ethics.   

Obviously we do not have a total blackout.  Along these same lines I would also note THE SKEPTICAL THEISM WEBSITE.  This site is rather less pessimistic about the state of naturalism. 

And also, just from Google: Plantinga & Quentin, there is Scientific Materialism, Intelligent Design, and the Cosmological Argument. 

Let's see if the boat is at least heeling just a bit.  

[continued on next page]

 

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7/19/02

Mind-Body & God

What is most noticeable on these pro & con theism sites is the reluctance to take up the mind-body problem:  

Google: Plantinga & Quentin & mind-body: 18 hits, including: 

Darwin, Mind and Meaning  -- Alvin Plantinga 

Furthermore, the probability that our cognitive faculties are reliable (i.e., furnish us with a preponderance of true beliefs) on Darwin's dangerous idea is either low or inscrutable (i.e., impossible to estimate). But either gives the devotee of evolutionary naturalism a defeater for the proposition that his cognitive faculties are reliable, a reason for doubting, giving up, rejecting that natural belief. If so, then it also gives him a reason for doubting any beliefs produced by those faculties.

The Argument from Consciousness Refuted -- Conifer

Many Christian philosophers (e.g., Richard Swinburne) advocate a theistic argument which has begun of late to garner considerable popularity in the literature. The argument is one from human consciousness, i.e., it appeals to the phenomenon of human consciousness as its main premise. That phenomenon, so the argument goes, is somehow unlikely or perhaps even impossible on the assumption of atheism (or naturalism).

This latter quote sounds promising: 

The Evolution of the Soul by Richard Swinburne (1997 rev.)

Oxford Professor of Religion Richard Swinburne defends substance dualism, a philosophically unpopular account of the mind as far as contemporary academic philosophy is concerned. The so-called "mind-body problem" provides the groundwork for this old philosophical argument, once shared by most of humanity before the secular age emerged. Simply put, substance dualism holds that the brain and the mind are separate entities regularly and causally interacting with each other.

OK, but it is a throwback to a very traditional form of dualism.  I'm looking for something more open to new possibilities. 

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7/19/02

Theistic Idealism 

I am deservedly embarrassed to say that I have just, finally, focused on a significant blind spot of my own.  How many others do I have?  The founder of the church I attended as a child was the leading light in this defunct movement that I am straining now to see revived.  Our sister parish in Pasadena was founded by an ancestor who also founded a well known scientific university that used to bear the family (both sides!) name.  The juxtaposition of science and transcendentalism was endemic at that time.  Somehow, until I just confirmed it in the Britannica, I was not clear that transcendentalism was just a species of idealism.  Another American denomination founded in Boston, Christian Science, was, I used to think, the only ever existing sect of theistic idealism. 

The sinister cabal, at least a significant part of it, that conspired to eliminate immaterialism from our collective psyche lies buried in the family plot in Mount Pleasant.  Small world!  Is not the truth usually hidden in plain sight?  It is also to be found in Boston's 'Metaphysical Club', a misnomer if ever there was.  What gives?  How and why did we drop this ball?  Was there too much California Dreamin', or, thinking of Cal Tech and Cambridge, was there not enough?  The lion sleeps tonight. 

Google: Theistic Idealism (40 (+ 1?) hits). Our work is cut out for us. 

Pragmatism (132,000+ ) is the name of the conspiracy.  Something funny happened on the way to our manifest destiny.  We became the 'gold mountain,' beacon to the aspiring.  Are we surprised?  Disappointed?  Not really.  Have faith.  It's just another part of the plan.  A sometimes tender trap. 

Charles S. Peirce (6,040), whose grandson [well, nephew maybe?] was a grade school classmate of mine in Concord, or so I still like to think, was the brains behind the conspiracy, or so we are told.  Perhaps we should pick his brain.  

But I already know the story behind the story.  It was a very short walk across the Charles River Bridge from the college to the 'B' School, that my Dad soon took, awestruck by the Bomb, and the soon to be Best and Brightest, some of whom he would be mentoring there.  And while we're into small worlds, you may recall my Dad's 'Manhattan' colleague, Donald.  Both he and Charles' Dad specialized in lunar occultations at the nearby Observatory.  If that sounds occult, well, you ain't heard nuthin' yet.  

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7/21/02

Charles S. Peirce 

After working with his Dad on the occultations, Charles became an expert in the logic of relations.  How could he possibly have missed relationalism?  Or did he?  I think we're about to find out. 

Moving right along, allow me to use an extended quote: Charles Sanders Peirce | Philosophy- The Integrating Science:

Since, action in the world is so crucial to human life, Peirce was concerned to find the best way to move us from a state of doubt to a state of belief. He outlines three methods that have been used for this purpose: tenacity, authority, a priori rationalism.

The method of tenacity (e.g. faith) is the method of clinging to a belief in the face of contrary evidence, of putting one's head in the sand. The method of authority (e.g. state censorship) is the method of using the power of the state to force people to stay committed to the "correct" belief. The method of a priori rationalism (the legacy of Descartes) is the method of simply deducing from idea to idea, through single threads of inference, without reference to evidence.

These methods, Peirce notes, have problems. Tenacity gives way to the re-evaluation of one's beliefs when confronted with the conflicting opinions of others. Authority, though practically superior to tenacity (because if everyone's beliefs are identical, one is less likely to encounter differences of opinion), cannot rule out that people will compare their beliefs to those of other cultures and eras, and form new doubts. Rationalism, while more respectable and intellectual than the other two methods, makes beliefs a matter of philosophical "fashion". Peirce notes that the history of philosophy is characterized by a pendulum-like swing back and forth between idealism and materialism [italics mine].  People will notice this fact, and -- since their ideas seem to be determined by the "taste" of the era, and not by what is really true -- they will begin to doubt their beliefs.

The main problem with these three methods, Peirce diagnoses, is that the beliefs they lead to are unstable, i.e. they quickly lead to the reappearance of doubts.

"[I]t is necessary," Peirce writes, "that a method should be found by which our beliefs may be determined by nothing human, but by some external permanency -- by something upon which our thinking has no effect." This method is the scientific method, the best method of eliminating doubt. It leads in the long run to the most stable beliefs. One forms hypotheses based on the objective facts and performs experiments to test these hypotheses. One's conclusions are made known to the community of thinkers who can then judge them and, if necessary, offer revisions of them. This process, if fully carried out, is fated ultimately to bring out the absolute truth on all questions.

Ah, yes.  Another casualty on the Cartesian road to Certainty.  Far more have been killed on this road than any other in history.  How could the Best and Brightest be so dense!! 

Next topic?  As to that 'pendulum', well, whoever swings last, swings longest.  Spoken as a true eschatologist.  

Did Charlie not notice the oxymoronic flavor of his pragmatic absolutism?  What was in that transcendental water in New England?  The Bomb and the dinosaur bones do make immaterialism a little hard to swallow, even with full glass of transcendentalism.  Absolutism is an occupational hazard for any transcendentalist.  The only safeguard in history (just ask our Islamic friends, etc.) has been the incarnation, that very untranscendental (almost obscenely so) irruption into history.  With Y2C we have just a necessary reminder of that X-event, and don't you forget it. 

The, oh so, modern materialist may honestly plead total ignorance of her transcendental roots.  

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7/21/02

C. S. Lewis ('Jack' to his friends, I'm told)

Following a little further down our 'conspiracy' path, we must cross another river from Cambridge, not the Charles to the 'B' School, but over the Cam and through the woods to Jack's idealist Christian cabal at Oxford on Thames. 

I guess we're about to find out how in one generation we got from a hot bed of idealist Christians to the trash science of Richard Dawkin's selfish genes and memes.  For the love of Christ!  Some heads will roll. 

Jack is the exception that proves the rule.  But what is the rule here? 

My guess is that it mostly hinges on the Bomb, and those funny bones.  But where was the fear of God?  All I've heard from that direction was a fear of Shiva and of Joe, Stalin that is.  Was U235 part of the plan?  If it were, then we must be some real ornery customers.  

Why not just use a deus ex (saucer) machina?  Wouldn't that be a lot friendlier, more in keeping with the BPW scenario -- fewer heads rolling?  If anyone knew the answer to that it would have been 'Manhattan & MJ12 (Saucer)' Don the Harvard don, and my Dad's erstwhile buddy on the Steering Committee.  It's fair to say that I spent the last ten years pursuing that lead, and here I am, still wondering.  It was the Bomb that expedited the Internet, in how many different ways?  Perhaps we were running a few years late for Y2C, and still are, for that matter.  Bomb + Internet >= better than Saucer?!  Why, you ask?  

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7/21/02

Bomb + Internet >= better than a Saucer?!

If this is correct, then C S Lewis would have been a threat to the plan.  If his Christian cabal had infiltrated across the river and across the pond, our Cambridge Pragmatists, the 'B' schoolers, ARPA, and even the Internet bubble, would have been a very different story.  The Bomb kept a lot of things under a lid.  The Bomb, sans Lewis, planted a very firm wedge this last century between two increasingly influential groups in this country -- the secular, technocratic intelligentsia vs. the fundamentalists .  With a Lewis clone on this shore and no Bomb, the Y2C (i.e. second coming) would have had to have been mediated by a Saucer, rather than by this minimalist, 'prime directive' respecting Internet method.  Sure, this is a big stretch, but a little cosmic 'pronoia' can go a long way in this game. 

[Later: I think I'm trying to say that another Lewis, over here, back then, sans Bomb, might have led to a much less dramatic, more evolutionary paradigm shift toward theistic idealism.  The dramatically punctuated shift possible right now is more in harmony with the eschatological drama of the prophetic tradition and with the original X-event.  Otherwise we might have needed a deus ex machina to pump up the drama.] 

Wouldn't the Saucer have been more fun?  You know, the one that the Guy in the white robes gets out of, on the White House lawn, under the TV lights.  Blinding!  (Like the Greeks used to do in their dramas.)  But, no, not more fun, think about it.  

We're adults now, not little kids at a cosmic circus.  This is the Best Possible World.  We are about to be treated to participatory eschatology.  Internet spells 'participation'.

The pendulum does swing between materialism and idealism.  It has already swung back from materialism almost now to the middle, but it has considerably further to go.  We can just pick up with theistic idealism, where we left off about a century ago.  We just have to keep nudging that pendulum.  The bursting of the economic bubble, the clash of civilizations, there will be plenty of drama.  But the real drama will be right here, even on this site, or on one not terribly different.  There will be the default immaterialist eschatology 'blog'.  Opportunity is knocking.  May the best bloke win.  Someone will be able to talk to the Fundies and the Eggheads at the same time.  No mean feat.  A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court? 

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7/21/02

Idealist Cosmology 

Over the years I have come to accept that mine was a lonely struggle against enormous odds, but when a few minutes ago I entered "immaterialist cosmology" into Google and obtained the portentous result of zero hits, even I was taken aback.  Google covers, I believe, at least two billion pages.  Even a monkey on a typewriter would have done better than that, as a simple calculation ought to show.  As of now I am the first person to type that phrase on the web. 

If this is not a cause for 'pronoia' I don't know what else could be.  This seems reminiscent of an 'ovoid' model of revelation.  The truth, like an ovum, has a membrane barrier, and only one sperm is destined to penetrate.  That is how the cosmic communication channel is kept optimally noiseless.  This also had something to do with the Aquarium's peculiar interaction with the CIA.  There is a minimal cosmic conspiracy behind this mini-messianic, second coming, and our friendly spooks at that acronymous agency had to be minimally involved so that history would not repeat that sordid business with Herod and Pilate & Co.  Otherwise lightning would strike from the NSA as soon as I hit the Front Page publish icon.  I'll try it right now just for the heck of it.  Don't switch the dial....

There, see, what'd I tell you.  No lightning.  Obviously Catfish has done his job.  Good work, Ron! 

But back to business.  Let's try "idealist cosmology" -- four big hits, and I know one of them personally, Amit Goswami, that is, nice fellow.  He is or was a physics professor at Oregon (U?) at Eugene, and was visiting family back in DC a few years ago.  

There is just a slight problem.  Like almost all of our immaterialist colleagues, he suffers from the Blavatsky syndrome.  I was a virtual member of theosophy for a few years, but I realized that out of at least subliminal opportunism, Helena P. had compromised the central tenet of coherence, in capitulating to the materialist cosmology.  She would have had to have been a saint not to have done that, and, as they say, she weren't no saint!  If you don't have coherence, what the heck have you got??  Does this make me a saint?  No, just one plucky spermatozoa, looking over his shoulder at the 800 pound gorillas in the wings, and the rest of us six billion beautiful swimmers. 

Then what?  Do I just sit here on this lonely cloud waiting for the Internet to gestate, gastrulate and what ever else it's supposed to do?  Probably not. 

There are a few other folk in here, I think.  The only almost contemporary, just off the top, was Owen Barfield (1898-1997) (a must see site!).  I should do some pages just on him.  And don't they also say, at least in Rome, and probably also at McClean, the only good saint is a dead saint!  There should be ample opportunity to ponder that little question.  Just for now, please note, that before he came over here, Owen was a close friend of Lewis' at Oxford.  There was a CS Lewis 'clone' over here, a stealth one compared to his friend Jack.  The only weak link may have been the eschatology, but do see his 'final participation.'  Also, I guess, he just didn't have that physics chutzpa.  There is something about becoming overly familiar with nuclear physics and cosmology that can cause one to grow impatient with the literati.  That's my excuse, anyway, for the 'buck has to stop somewhere' mentality.  

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7/23/02

Holographic Universe 

I almost forgot another recently departed 'saint', Michael Talbot and his 'Holographic Universe' (1991).  On the Internet "holographic universe" yields 4,100 hits. 

The bottom line for Michael and me is the "return to dreamtime," the final chapter of his book. This phrase comes from the Australian Aborigines, but it is a concept prevalent in shamanism, and in the pantheist or eastern tradition.  He points out that the idea that creation is an illusion or Maya is even present in the Jewish tradition.  If the world is God's dream then we can't return to the dreamtime because we are already there.  What the shaman are referring to is the time when even our waking world was more dream-like.  The world is a 'coagulum spiritus', from the alchemical tradition.  This would also be an aspect of Barfield's 'final participation'.  We take pains to point out that this in not a return to primitive or tribal existence.  This is part of the global mind or 'noosphere' leading up to the Omega Point of Teilhard. 

According to Michael, the return to dreamtime could be as minimal as a punctuation in the continuing evolution of human consciousness.  

Unfortunately, when I search on "return to dreamtime" there are only 18 hits, and none of particular substance.  The message from Michael has not penetrated our waking consciousness. 

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7/23/02

Teilhard's Omega 

"Teilhard & Omega" yields 2300 hits.  I have to take issue with Teilhard de Chardin's (1888-1955) mind-matter dualism.  At the Omega Point the transcending human spirit leaves the earth behind, rather like a used-up cinder.  His spiritual Omega was simply appended to the scientific cosmology without regard for coherence, and so we are left with this unfortunate disposal or perhaps recycling problem.  Nonetheless, half an eschaton is probably better than no eschaton at all.  Let us see how well the word has gotten out. 

All too well, it might seem!  It appears that Teilhard's Omega has been hijacked by the technophiles, not a very difficult feat considering Teilhard's infatuation (or was it just a flirtation?) with matter and cosmic evolution.  Dualism always threatens to revert to materialism. 

The theme of accelerating biological and technological evolution converging on a singularity of some kind is widely entertained: Frank Tipler, Ray Kurzweil, Terrance McKenna, transhumanism, etc.  

Just to give you a flavor of our coming attractions I quote from one of my favorite singularity sites: 

"We are at far more of a "turning point" than even the one Capra envisions; in possession of far more of a "web of reinforcement" than Baines could hope for; the morphogenetic-field potential is far higher than Sheldrake predicts; the groundswell documented by Ferguson is about to become a tsunami, with a capability to take the planet off hold and close the "vision gap" in a way that is perhaps more comprehensive than conceived by Barbara Marx Hubbard."

It is Terrance's view that the singularity involves the spawning of the psychedelic mushrooms who just use our brains to help them build intergalactic transportation for their own fungal genes, a decidedly comic twist of fate from Dawkin's selfish gene.  No doubt the fungi have a more generous complement of DNA than do our own, recently discovered to be, impoverished chromosomes.  

Our technotopians have less sense of humor.  These cosmic Spinmeisters have taken our worst dystopian nightmare of a mechanized future and given it a sugar, or is that a silicon, coating.  Our computers steal our souls and take off for the big Omega in the sky.  Quite frankly I would prefer to have my DNA hijacked by a toadstool, than to have my soul stolen by an adding machine on steroids.  The former is much more romantic, not to say, psychedelic.  The mushrooms are more likely to keep us around for company, and at least we share a carboniferous ancestry.  

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7/24/02

Tipler's Omega

If you care to see the best possible secular future, you can piece it together out of these, and take a look at the sponsor too, curious.   

But, of all the secular futurists, Frank Tipler stands out, and, incidentally, he and I had the same advisor in graduate school.  His vision is the most radical, and, yet, it is only a logical extension of that of his futurist colleagues.  He is also the leading expert on Anthropics.  

If you follow the anthropic argument to its logical conclusion, you will actually end up in the Aquarium.  Frank did not quite manage to take the last couple of steps, or he just did not put 2 and 2 together.   

The strong Anthropic principle, as he defines it, states that observers are a necessary aspect of any actual universe.  Consider this rationale, which is my own adaptation: 

It comes down to the quantum measurement problem.  No event is a real event, unless it is observed.  Observed by what?  There must at least be a record of it.  But can this record be temporary?  If it is merely temporary, who is to say that it ever existed, when it no longer exists?  All physical records are necessarily temporary, because they will eventually be destroyed by entropy.  There has to be an external, eternal observer, which is non-physical by definition.  In as much as we are aspects or reflections of the cosmic mind, we are that.  A major bit of evidence is the lack of any physical explanation for the endurance and accessibility of our seemingly limitless, long-term memories, but we needn't dwell on that just now. 

All existence has the teleological imperative to be observed.  This should be viewed as a corollary of relationalism.  At the Alpha beginning of the universe we have the fine-tuning of the physics.  At the Omega end we have the universe being uniformly populated by technologically enhanced observers.  Everything of significance is recorded in the cosmic computer which experiences an infinite subjective existence.  In fact all of us are 'resurrected' [sic] in the guts of that machine.  That is the silicon version of the eschatology of the prophetic tradition, as Frank is anxious to point out. 

[7/26 --  Note that just now we have switched back to Frank's merely physical, computer simulated observers.] 

In fact, we have no way of knowing whether this now is a real existence, or merely one of those simulated existences.  And with only a modicum of reprogramming we could ensure ourselves of the Best Possible (simulated) World. 

But then why do we have to bother with all that silicon?  Once we realize that the mind-matter balance can tip either way, there is very little need for Frank's materialist story line.  In a relational, idealist world, and what other kind can there be, cosmic coherence comes for free.  The necessary eternal Self has only to manage to pour its subjective essence into its creaturely reflections.  It is no mean feat, but it needs to happen only once in eternity.  

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7/25/02

Blood in the Water? 

In this age of the Internet, the saving of the world may come down to just pushing the right buttons.  A case in point is my catching the scent of blood in the water.  I had been using Chalmers and Google to follow the debate on naturalism, but I wasn't entering the right search terms in Google until the day before yesterday.  This is when I entered 'naturalism & physicalism'.  I began to notice a new tone in the recent postings.  I also noticed the absence of response.  

I had been relying too much on David Chalmers' listing of online papers on consciousness, and, as I have said before, it was appearing that the debate was getting nowhere.  His so-called 'hard problem' was turning out to be a red herring, or perhaps it is just too hard.  The real problem was the concomitant dismissal of the 'easy problem', his characterization of which had been too readily accepted by his partisan followers.  I too was not paying sufficient attention to the real debate over naturalism.  

The real problem with focusing too much on consciousness, from the present perspective, is that it deals only with qualities or 'qualia', and these qualia do not lend themselves to analysis, and thus they do not foment debate as readily as does the linguistic side of our mental capacities.  

I am only now beginning to re-scan the first 200 items in the Google search given above.  The general tenor of the arguments is that 'folk psychology' is turning out to be a tougher nut to crack than the naturalists had been assuming.  The coherence of natural language depends crucially on the presuppositions of folk psychology.  To undermine those presuppositions is to undermine the logical foundations of language.  The naturalists have been caught trying to saw off the limb upon which they, and we are sitting.  The more they try to argue these points, the deeper they dig themselves into this logical hole.  

As Quentin Smith has indirectly pointed out, the naturalists are realizing that they are playing a losing hand in this poker game, and so they try to leave the table.  They endeavor to return to their more traditional, piecemeal analyses.  What seems to be new in just the last few years is that their theistic colleagues, about whom Quentin warns, are picking up the scent of a possible major intellectual victory.  For the first time in literally centuries, the intellectual shoe is on the theistic foot. 

Is this not a tempest in a teapot?  Yes, it is, so far.  But it does threaten to spill out into the public arena.  Right now it is as if the theistic philosophers, those newly hired, junior faculty members, are not quite able to believe the enormity of the victory that seems to be about to fall into their laps.  

This situation goes far beyond the issue of the intellectual liberalism and tolerance of the post-modern ethos.  It is now looking as though that liberal stance may have just been a deliberate ploy on the part of the rear guard of the secular intellectual establishment in anticipation of their impending downfall.  The crude scientism that still undergirds the superficial posturing of the postmodern' liberals' has never had an ounce of tolerance in its blood.  

I am predicting that academic heads will roll.  There will be a bloody intellectual battle.  The reverberations of which will shake the global psyche in a manner that will recall of prophecies of old.  Obviously, the proof can only be in the pudding. 

[Later in the day:]

Not until the theists return to the philosophical idealism of the transcendentalists will there be any motive to question the scientific cosmology in toto.  Merely sliding back into traditional western dualism will not signal a dramatic shift. 

The conservative Christians are far from considering immaterialism, but if their Intelligent Design gambit continues to falter, then a few of them might consider something more radical and comprehensive than metaphysical dualism.  That would be a start.  Perhaps the sterling credentials of C. S. Lewis will be instrumental in persuading some to take another look at idealism.  

[7/31] 

I had some success with the 'naturalism & physicalism' search combination, and now I need to find the magical combination that will pick out those on the cutting edge of immaterialism.  That would be a major breakthrough for me, and it would seem to be a relatively straightforward task, but the goal eludes me, nonetheless.  

From Intangibles to Memes 

In a few days I'll be leaving for a couple of weeks, so I will have to cover several topics even more briefly than usual. 

Where were we?  I last spoke of intangibles and teleology.  The connection was that intangibles were most likely to enter into the causal matrix under the guise of final or teleological causes.  

The topic of intangibility came up in connection with searching for the cutting edge of immaterialism.  If the materialists are unable to eliminate abstractions from reality, then idealism will have its big toe in their door, and the materialists will have to take a much more defensive strategy.  

Where abstractions are their most potent is in the phenomenal power of communication and language.  One can hardly broach the topic of linguistics without running into Chomsky.  His concept of a special human faculty for language that encodes a Universal Grammar is a concept that does not sit well at all with the Darwinists.  A major counter offensive against the idea of a language organ has been mounted by the Darwinists, being led by Dennett and Dawkins.  Their banner is the 'Constructivist Manifesto'.  

As mentioned earlier, Jerry Fodor is the leader of the 'New Rationalists' with his nearly Platonic view of innate ideas.  Dennett, in Darwin's Dangerous Idea, sees Fodor, Chomsky and Gould as traitors to the cause of scientific progress.  He sees them as being fellow travelers with the creationists.  Fortunately for Darwin, the creationists are being very slow to jump into bed with these luminaries.  Until Dennett outed these crypto creationists, their subtlety was effective.  

Thinking of Fodor's innate ideas got me onto the topic of Dawkins' 'memes'.  Considering the source, I had been reluctant to embrace them.  The idea of memes seemed to be the antithesis of innate ideas, and to be a reductionistic answer to idealism.  But now I am having second thoughts.  Perhaps memetics is taking on a life of its own.  I understand that Dawkins is becoming wary of his promiscuous intellectual progeny. 

Here's the scoop.  On the reductionist side one can look as memes as just glorified computer viruses.  But that view holds very little water.  In the final analysis memes are not strings of code.  The consensus view sees no real distinction between memes and ideas.  Does this mean that they descend upon us from a Platonic heaven?  Yes and no.  

I don't mind seeing memes as the atoms of pantheism.  Susan Blackmore, in 'The Meme Machine' shocked her academic colleagues by declaring that all of us are just collections of memes.  Why not let ideas live?  Why follow Plato in supposing that the only good idea is an embalmed idea?  Let my ideas live free, again!  Our brains are a living colony of neurons.  I trust it is not a penal colony.  Maybe the Creator is trying to tell us something.  The religious establishment likes us to think that we are a penal colony, but maybe we are the colony of God, as every mystic insists.  

There is some fundamental logistics to work out here.  Let me sleep on it. 

[8/9]

During my meme hunting I again landed on Kheper.  I particularly recommend The Divinisation Of Matter.  It contains some useful eschatology that I would like to return to later.  

My being a collection of memes may not be such a bad idea as long as there is an optimal stability and there is a goodly mix of transcendental memes, whatever they might be.  Our personas change in significant fashion over a lifetime and over lifetimes if that is applicable.  If we allow memes to take on a monadic, microcosmic, holistic, holographic intelligence of their own, that might expedite many things.  This would be like object oriented programming and distributed intelligence on a cosmic scale. 

The principal logistics issue would be cloning.  Do you and I share the same intelligent memes?  And how do memes transform themselves?  How much of a meme's identity is carried in its external vs. internal relations?  How do our individual mind spaces overlap with the universal space of memes?  Our individual minds are supposed to be an illusion, after all.  We need a mereology of memes.  

We are mutually shifting vectors in the Hilbert space of memes.  We exist in entangled superpositions that are mutually observational.  The cosmic love telos of the rapture is a grandmother meme.  They don't get much bigger than that.  

[Later:]

We need a morphogenetic theory for memes.  From a holistic point of view, they cannot be given discrete identities.  There is a meme or a mind field.  We then also need a perspectival theory for them.  Each meme will see its partners differently.  These monads will have windows, no?  If one changes they all change, but then there also has to be an atemporal perspective.  Each meme would have an interactive time-line.  

How does relationalism work in memedom?  For the memes, its not what they know, or their content that counts.  It is how they relate to the rest.  But there must be some substantive content or structure, nonetheless.  

How does the concept of Maya play out in memedom?  Despite the windows, there must be a lot of mirroring that goes on.  How does memory work, or how can it be represented here?   How can time be represented?  Perhaps there are memes for time and space.  Perhaps the monadology would be helpful here.  I'm presently reviewing the Stanford entry on Leibniz. 

[8/10] 

Are memes real?  Are patterns real?  Only in a holistic, relational sense. 

Genes contain real information only in a particular biological context.  Memes are much more contextual and holistic.  

Are relations real?  Mechanical relations are real for a mechanist.  Functional relations are real for a functionalist.  

Is distributed intelligence real, as in 'Six Characters...'?  Is it all parasitical, like memes?  It would help if we knew how that worked.  

[8/11] 

It is said that memes are reductionistic.  But are they reducible, and if so, to what?  Has anyone ever seen half a meme?  How many memes are there?  Where are the chemical formulas?  

Has there ever been a reduction?  Even 'bachelor' has not been reduced.  Every word is context dependent.  That must mean that there is a substantial manifold of meaning.  It is a manifold with a partial life of its own.  We are all just parts of it.  That is our reduction.  This manifold also has its holographic and microcosmic aspects. 

But can a thought have meaning outside of a thinker?  How are thoughts and memories stored?  How communicated?  Each idea might just be a perspective on the cosmos.  But then there is still a percept and perceiver distinction.  Even the lowliest thought has some independence of the thinker.  Are we not just the shepherds of our thoughts?  And God is our shepherd. 

How do we overcome the distinction between perception and projection?  There would likely be circularity in the form of feedback.  Each thought or being is a temporary node in the stretching of the separational matrix of creation.  The stretching relaxes in the frame of the eschaton.  

On the Web: 

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Topical Index

8/8/02

The Observation Factor 

Part of the motivation for this page comes from Allan Randall's Computational Metaphysics.  Allan concludes his metaphysical excursion in a strangely truncated form of idealism based on Strong AI and the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.  All of this because he has forgotten about Wigner's Friend, I believe.   

Wigner's Friend is an extension to Schrodinger's Cat thought experiment.  It simply raises the question of who observes the observers.  This is a question that has famously been left unanswered.  Somewhere else on the Internet it must have been stated that no one short of God can observe the observers.  (Actually I find one example of "observe the observers" & quantum, and there is ample mention of God and everything else.  Remind me to peruse it later.) 

It remains the standard view that the observer role in QM may be satisfied by virtually any registering mechanism, which need not be artifactual.  The moon has very adequately registered the impact of asteroids, or so it is generally surmised.  

More technically, a registration process is supposed to be any trace of an event, where 'trace' is a disturbance in a medium, such as the ionization path of a cosmic ray.  The wave function of a neutrino from the Sun spreads out uniformly until it interacts with another particle deep in the Earth, for instance.  Its wave function has been collapsed by the interaction.  This is fairly straight forward.  But what about the molecules in the air?  How spread out are they?  Supposedly this is only until they collide with the next air molecule.  But now we have no trace.  At best we can observe the gross diffusion of pollutants.  Otherwise the measurement process becomes anti-entropic or Maxwell demonic, i.e. physically impossible.  So an air molecule can spread out to the moon and beyond, if it so chooses.  Who is to stop it?  The measurement process has become lost in the interstices of quantum statistics, where there is no trace of the individuality that defines any actual measurement.  

Let us now stand this problem on its head.  To measure a quantum system there must be an external 'classical' system.  Suppose, however, that the quantum system in question is the universe.  What would it take to collapse the wave function of the universe?  This is a notoriously open question in cosmology, especially relative to the quantum fluctuation origin of the Big Bang.  How do we know that our universe is not merely a virtual quantum universe that could at any moment dissolve back into a sea of probability?  

Think of those infinitely(?) many other uninhabitable, unobservable quantum universes.  Do they or can they be assigned any physical reality?  Do they exist only in the imagination of the quantum cosmologists, like a herd of unicorns?  Physicists, by professional necessity, are most adept at sweeping the quantum problems under the rug.  Or perhaps they are passing the quantum buck.  If so, where does the Quantum stop? 

Before attempting to answer that, we might well wonder why the Quantum in the first place. 

 Next -->

Topical Index

9/7/02

The Observation Factor (part 2) 

Why the Quantum?  Classical physics would be impossible without the Quantum.  Solid objects could not exist, atoms could not exist without something very much like the quantum laws we have.  And certainly life would be impossible without the metabolic process made possible by quantum chemistry.  

What about the measurement problem?  Metabolic process are enzymatic.  An enzyme process is paradigmatically a microscopic measurement process.  It is anti-entropic because it is not statistical, because it robustly involves individualized molecules.  The principle recordings of all these quantum measurement events are our healthy, negentropic bodies.  

In general, quantum physics deals only with ensembles, while our ordinary experience refers only to particulars.  There could be no experience without converting the quantum probabilities into experienced actualities.  That is exactly what the measurement process is stipulated to accomplish.  This is collapse of the wave function.  

But what about our minds?  Could we not just be content quantum zombies?  Why do we go around creating, imagining, communicating and all the other strange things that we do with our minds?   

A remarkable aspect of our minds is our memory.  That, combined with our natural curiosity and our tool making abilities, has enabled us to cooperatively compile a comprehensive portrait or record of a significant portion of the observable universe, including especially of ourselves.  This is far beyond the ken of zombiedom.  

Is this just a very peculiar accident of nature, or might it actually be understandable as an extension of the observer principle, i.e. no phenomenon is real, unless observed?  Any particular reality is garnered only by collapsing or bootstrapping itself through observation.  And when we speak of a universe, we cannot just be referring to microscopic phenomena.  One enzyme reaction record hardly constitutes a phenomenal world.  To bootstrap a phenomenal world would require world observers.  A record without a context is no record at all. It could just be a statistical fluctuation.  Context implies coherence and coherence implies rationality.  But where will that context be when the dying Sun incinerates the Earth?  Where will the bootstrap be then, or where was it before the Earth was born?  Is there a less fragile extraterrestrial connection?  

To maintain logical consistency, something of an external nature must be posited.  Why then do cosmologists, at least in public, generally refuse to entertain the stunningly obvious notion of a cosmic observer?  Can they honestly say they have no need of that hypothesis?  It certainly appears that the need is all but inscribed on the Quantum slate.  

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9/7/02

Materialism  

What is it and does it make sense?  It is a reductionistic or atomistic account of existence, and, no, it doesn't make sense. 

At the most basic, logical level there is the problem of modality.  Consider the property of mass.  Mass is resistance to force.  Mass is not strictly a fact.  It is a counterfactual concept.  It makes sense only in the hypothetical, ideal context of theoretical physics.  It is not something superficially given.  It is not an atomic fact.  It is a highly interpreted conceptual handle.  

Am I saying that mass is not material?  Is it not physical?  No, it is not physical because it is *P*hysical.  It is not a sui generis thing.  It is a theoretical construct taken out of the discipline of Physics that has only very indirect observational effects.  And so is everything else that we can refer to scientifically.  This is simply the problem of holism.  A scientific theory does not depend on or refer to any individual facts.  It is an interpretation of a very ill-defined collection of facts.  

Could we not resort then to a plain language sort of materialism or naturalism?  Well, sorry, but a language has only that much more theoretical and historical baggage.  This baggage cannot get us any closer to the noumenal reality that is supposed to be the 'raw' or 'naked' material world.  

Why do we even bother to suppose that such a world exists, when it has no support from science or from common sense?  My answer is a question.  Have you ever known anyone to espouse materialism for other than ulterior motives?  This is not to say that metaphysics isn't always so burdened.  It is simply to point out that materialism is about as far as anyone can get from being an exception to that rule.  The fact that any materialist has ever pretended otherwise is perhaps the biggest strike against them.  

So do we just throw metaphysics into the dustbin of history?  Don't get me started, but that is a whole other piece of the intellectual blood sport that frolics under the innocuous label of (anti-) 'metaphysics', and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. 

There is only one alternative to all the blood-letting, figurative and otherwise, and that is coherence.  When was the last time anyone checked to see if the world could possibly be coherent?  Was it less than a century ago?  Not to my knowledge.  What's the matter?  Not enough blood, yet, sacrificed to the gods of incoherence?  Any time now, boys and girls. 

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9/7/02

Coherence II

Coherence remains the central idea of our cosmology.  Coherence is how the disparate parts of the world relate to each other.  Many types or coherence are commonly known to us: 

    * self, organism, organization, ecosystem, religion, work of art, field of study, game, etc

All of these types of coherence compose our world.  I am claiming, however, an overriding, cosmic coherence.  This coherence comprises the substance of our immaterial world.  Leading up to the eschaton, this cosmic coherence becomes comprehended by us.  The temporal boundaries of our history, the Alpha & Omega, figure prominently in its ultimate coherence. 

The coherence of the world derives from its status as a creation.  We, as co-creators, play a greater part in the creation as we begin to comprehend our role in the eschatological context.  We consciously align ourselves with the cosmic plan or the will of God.  This is how we become one with God as the ultimate aspect of coherence.  

From the eschatological perspective we will begin to see how the A & O combine teleologically into a singular eternal presence.  Creation is a work in progress mainly in its details, which is the level on which our own lives play out. 

From one perspective all creation is just a glimmer in the eye of God, as might be a symphony in the mind of the composer.  After that it is a working out of the details.  We are just those details.  The logically necessary fact of creative optimization is another aspect of the coherence of creation. There may be grades of symphonic creation, but this is not the case for our world.  There is a necessary singularity of coherence and consciousness, and our world is by no means peripheral to that.  There is an unmistakable centrality of the spiritual gravity hereabouts which is the consequence of our proximity to that singularity.  

Polytheism is fundamentally incoherent.  Cosmogony is not the work of a committee, as is no other work of art.  The potential potency of a cosmic self is the substance of creation.  That absolute potentiality is necessarily self-realizing, unless you happen to be able to demonstrate the logical impossibility of God. 

By the logic of immaterial, relational, coherent existence, there can be no secondary substances or creations, unless they are functionally integral to the one absolute potency.  

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9/8/02

Dan Hutto 

I had encountered Dan on the web before, but without having to pause.  He obviously warrants some consideration here.  Now I am better focused on Donald Davidson's crucial role in the defense of physicalism.  Previously I was too much in the thrall of David Chalmers' approach to the mind-body problem to fully appreciate Davidson's 'anomalous monism' ['Mental Events' (1970)],  although that phrase was familiar to me from my second stint in graduate school. 

Dan Hutto's essay, Davidson's Identity Crisis (c.1999), is a standardly dense philosophical piece.  He criticizes Davidson's attempt to defend a non-reductive physicalism and then recommends idealism in its stead.  To my present knowledge this essay defines the state of the art of current critical (non-speculative) idealism, and as such is a useful yardstick.  To follow up on Dan, I recommend you go to his book forum.  

Along these lines you should also consider Mark Rowland's Two Dogmas of Consciousness.  This piece provides a further example of the convolutions surrounding physicalism.  The tracking down of physicalism seems rather like the hunting of the Jabberwocky, or perhaps of the Snipe.  At present there appears to be no outstanding defender of physicalism or materialism.  Dennett and Dawkins are the best known popularizers of materialism, but neither of them figure in the current academic debates. 

While following up these leads I came across Hugh Mellor and Tim Crane who jointly authored 'There is No Question of Physicalism' in 1990.  

"We examine the various definitions and defences of physicalism that have been offered in recent philosophy of mind, and argue that no nontrivial version of physicalism is true. Physicalists need to define the physical in a way that (a) excludes the mental and (b) shows why physical sciences have an ontological authority that psychology and other non-physical sciences lack. Physicalists have used the following notions in attempting thus to define and defend physicalism: reducibility to physics, causation, laws and supervenience. We show why all these attempts fail."

This article was reputed to be the definitive refutation of physicalism.  I have not yet been able to locate the article nor any extended discussion of it on-line.  

Then I notice a new book by David Papineau, "Thinking about Consciousness" (OUP 2002).  (Note that a complete draft of this book is presently available.) 

"The relation between subjective consciousness and the physical brain is widely regarded as the last mystery facing science. David Papineau argues that there is no real puzzle here. Consciousness seems mysterious, not because of any hidden essence, but only because we think about it in a special way. Papineau exposes the confusion, and dispels the mystery: we see consciousness in its place in the material world, and we are on the way to a proper understanding of the mind."

The beat goes on.  The two sides pay attention to each other only when they are locked in the same room, which happens infrequently.  

[9/11] 

I continue to focus on the four books and the discussions of them that can be found on the SWIF page.  This is the best single source for the current mind-body debate that I have come across so far.  I hope to provide a summary here soon.  

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9/9/02

Mind-Body Debate 

I have spent several hours reading over the book discussions on SWIF.  I see little progress over previous discussions besides the dubious distinction of their being more convoluted and jargon laden.  

There remain two sides to the debate: materialist and non-materialist.  Both sides agree that our experiential intuition strongly favors the non-materialists.  This fact forces the materialists to take the offensive, but there are only a very limited number of logical moves open to the materialists. 

    * dwell on the allegation that non-materialism subverts the scientific enterprise  
    * rationalize or deconstruct the counter-intuitive nature of materialism
    * construct a theoretically plausible physical model for the mind

Let's take the last item first.  No such model existed until Alan Turing proposed the concept of a universal computing machine in 1936.  The possibility of Artificial Intelligence has been with us ever since.  The mind-body debate closely parallels the debate on natural vs. artificial intelligence.  The hypothesis that there is no fundamental distinction is labeled 'Strong AI'.  

Despite occasional reversals of fortune, the lay advocates of Strong AI remain active, many of them under the banner of Transhumanism.  There are many gradations of transhumanism, up to and including aspects of theism, eschatology and immortality.  Needless to say, the philosophical or academic materialists do not engage in such speculation.  

[9/13] 

In this current discussion, two models of the mind are considered: representationalist and functionalist. 

[9/14] 

I have spent some hours lost in the discussions of representationalism, while not able to grasp the relevance to the mind-body debate.  However, I have just come across Naturalism Without Representationalism by Huw Price.  By page five he seems on the verge of addressing the larger issues.  

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9/12/02

Huw Price 

Apparently I had run across Huw's paper, Naturalism Without Representationalism (c.2002), back in July, but made no direct reference to its content.  (The HUP still does not acknowledge the existence of the book in question.) 

His paper comes closer to direct refutation of naturalism than anything of which I am presently aware.  Interestingly it is couched in naturalistic terms, but I would claim that his 'subject naturalism' verges on oxymoronicity, and is tantamount to a reductio ad absurdum for naturalism. 

What Huw claims to prove is that the only way to save naturalism from its own internal contradictions is to turn it into a language game, a la Wittgenstein.  These contradictions turn on the problem of representationalism, under which term this paper was listed fourth. 

The naturalist is confronted with a problem of self-reflexiveness.  If the issue of reference or representation is an empirical one, as it must be to conform to naturalism, then the existence of any represented entities remains open, including the concept of semantic reference itself.  Thus there is no unequivocal foundation from which to launch the enterprise of philosophical naturalism.  There is no uncontested bootstrap.  Naturalists are left with no warrant to leap from language to the world.  The only partial recourse is 'subject naturalism', which tries to put the best possible face on the prospect of an endless language game.  This can hardly be a desirable outcome for our erstwhile naturalists. 

It does appear that naturalism is very much in question, and from the inside.  This very recent, unpublished paper is tantamount to a logical self-refutation.  What will be the response? 

What we seem to be witnessing is that the disputations among materialists are gradually forcing all of them further into the very few remaining logical dead ends, from which they seem unable to extricate themselves.  In the logical equivalent of quicksand, the more they struggle, the deeper they sink.  

The pluralism of postmodernism is the recognition that there are no unquestionable foundations for any systematic or constructive philosophy.  Since they all live in glass houses, the philosophers are reluctant to throw stones, and so we witness the nearly interminable end game of materialism.  

[9/15]

I am presented with yet another opportunity to advertise my ignorance, this time of Berkley's argument against representationalism: (appeared in a Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, 1710)

    * We do not and cannot perceive physical objects directly. 
    * Objects are perceived only as mediated by our mental representations of them. 
    * In order for an idea to represent an object, however, it must resemble that object in some manner.  
    * Yet, that which is perceptible has no properties in common with that which is imperceptible. 
    * Thus representationalism is self-contradictory. 

This simple argument may well explain the prevalence of non-representationalism as is found principally in functionalism, which is an outright denial of all mental properties.  Functionalism is a hybrid of behaviorism and pragmatism.  It has no metaphysical pretensions concerning the nature or existence of an external world.  But then how 'bout those putative functions?  Is not the functionalist committed to representing allegedly objective functions?  How can we coherently discuss that which we cannot perceive?  How can we communicate that which cannot be represented?  

Perhaps this is why functionalism is not considered to be a fundamental piece of philosophy.  It is considered a language game, pure and simple.  I am not aware that Dennett has any higher aspirations for his enterprise than as a temporarily remunerative pastime.  Should we suppose that he has an impractical bone in his body? 

Berkley, on the other hand, evidently had higher aspirations, but then he was just another of those impractical idealists. 

(Let me just note here that the running battle between the computationalists and the connectionists among the proponents of AI hinges precisely on the existence or not of mental representations or symbol processing.  It may behoove us to take look: Representation)

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9/14/02

Atomism & Transhumanism 

Materialism is tantamount to atomism.  Atomism, of one form or another, is the logical foundation for every deconstructive enterprise.  The primary target of any such enterprise will, of course, be God.  Next in line is the concept of humanity.  Naturalism, ironically, is just the view that there is no such thing as human nature, or any other nature for that matter.  There are no essences, nor anything essential.  There are even no natural kinds.  There is no meaning.  At most there may be an ad hoc, pragmatic functionalism.  And who decides what are to be our functions?  Whomever, or whatever has the power to do so, of course. 

And what is our function?  Our function is to remake the world, atom by atom, or to turn the atoms loose to remake the world in their own image.  We wipe the slate clean of all the accumulated historical, natural accidents, including ourselves, by the way, and start in from scratch.  Atom by atom we reconstruct the human genome and every other genome.  Or, better yet, atom by atom we construct nanobots, provide them with artificial intelligence and turn them loose upon the world, that is upon ourselves and the rest of nature.  Their task is to reconstruct the world.  

This is the vision of Transhumanism.  It is the perfectly logical end of any deconstructive world view.  If the End is not nihilism, then it is a totalizing, absolute reconstruction.  Is this a vision, or is it the ultimate anti-vision?  In whose image do we reconstruct the world, and to what End?  The Transhumans are perfectly silent on this score.  They see no End, only an endless means that is totally self-justifying in its necessary inevitability.  Along the way, if these self-organizing atomic beings develop the capacity to create new universes, more power to them.  

The only possible limiting factor might be the existing laws of physics.  However, given that physics is just another accident of nature, anytime a new universe is created, the laws of physics could be re-initialized, and reset to any desired combination or pattern, one might logically suppose. 

Does this train of thought not lead us into a conundrum?  This (non-) vision is meant to be a strictly linear one.  But isn't there a logical circularity, or a vicious circle hiding in here somewhere?  What happened to the inevitable problem of self-reflexivity?  If it is possible to create a world, any sort of world, then how unlikely is it that we would be the very first creatures to ever initiate such an inevitable process.  Is it not much more probable then that we exist rather far downstream from any such inevitable origin of a (deliberate?) cosmic creation process or chain?  This is a view that is strongly muted in the glossy brochures of Transhumanism, but which haunts almost every literary fiction of that genre.  

Deconstruction leads either to nihilism or reconstruction.  Given reconstruction, is it more likely that we are the reconstructors or the reconstructed?  Creators or creatures?  How can we begin to find out, if we don't begin to ask?  

Would it be fair to say that we might just be afraid to ask?  Let us not underestimate the psychic paralysis of this most primal of all fears and its every subsequent denial.  

On a perfectly pragmatic note, the Transhumans may say to themselves, 'Well, we'll just go on minding our own business until someone or something demonstrates otherwise.'  Fair enough.  Stay tuned for the mini-messiah. 

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9/15/02

Representation, etc. 

[continued from Huw Price]

The best expose of current thinking on the problem of representations that I have come across is this position paper, Does Representation Need Reality? appearing in Understanding Representation in the Cognitive Sciences -- A. Riegler, M. Peschl & A. von Stein (eds.), 1999.  

After describing the lack of relevance of computational symbol processing or expert systems, i.e. purely representational systems, to real world cognition, the authors go on to describe the other end of the spectrum found in 'connectionist' models: 

Not only has symbolic cognitive science come to a dead end (in the context of the effort to explain cognitive processes). The euphoric days of the new possibilities of connectionist networks, including the simulation of cognitive activities and learning, have passed, too. It seems that cognitive science has returned back to -- in Kuhn's sense (1970) -- "normal science" or to "puzzle solving". As an implication of this development, connectionist cognitive science has almost lost itself in (technical) details, such as learning factors, minimal adjustments, and optimizations in learning algorithms or activation functions, and so on. In tackling only these technical "micro-problems", it seems to have failed to address the really interesting, pressing, qualitative, and "big" questions about cognition. 

My guesstimate here is that cognitive science has fallen victim precisely to the conundrum that was presented by George Berkley in 1710.  Cognitivists cannot live with representations and cannot live without them.  What are we to do? 

On a purely subjective level our linguistic and visual cognition is highly representational, presumably of an external world.  However, when we attempt to computationally simulate symbolic processing, there is no semantic grounding for the symbols other than as mediated by external observer.  

On the other hand, when we construct more biologically realistic systems of the neural connectionist variety, we find no stable objective structures corresponding to our subjective representations.  

Cognitive science was supposed to be providing a conceptual bridge between the objective and subjective worlds, but after a half century of 'progress' we seem no closer to constructing that bridge.  And we are not even talking here about the touchy-feely qualia of the 'hard' problem.  We are just talking about the most basic abstract competencies of cognition.  In fact there does not even appear to be any conceptual progress in attempting to embed a symbol system in a connectionist system (see below).  This seems to be the most likely form that such a bridge might take. 

There simply appears to be no piecemeal method for constructing that mainly unconscious background of natural intelligence, which the phenomenologists speak of as being the necessary platform for any particular, conscious cognitive process. 

[9/18]

A good summary of the representation problem appears in this article on connectionism (see also systematicity).  We see there the controversy between the symbolists and the connectionists.  The symbolists can manipulate symbols computationally, but they provide no internal semantic grounding for their symbols.  The connectionists could conceivably provide a semantic grounding for symbols by embedding them in a closed behavioral network, but then they are unable to systematically or logically manipulate those symbols which are effectively wired into the network.  Thus there appears to be a logical impasse between the manipulating and the embedding of symbolic representations.  

(The robust, distributed embedding of a symbol is resistant to its individual accessibility.)  (The notion of the brain as a 'syntactic engine' is relevant here.) 

To be effective in any mental sense, a symbol has to be abstractable and groundable at the same time.  These twin constraints seem physically contradictory.  This contradiction then argues against any physical implementation of the mind.  Note that this aspect of cognition was once alleged to be the 'easy' problem.  One moral is that the global unity or potency of the mind subverts even this crudest attempt at the compartmentalization of its powers. 

Connectionism may also be seen as a throwback to the long discredited associationism of the original empiricists.  

News flash: it is now purported that dynamical systems theory supplants both symbolicism and connectionism.  But, alas, it seems only to be a subspecies of connectionism. 

Chris Eliasmith provides further critiques and yet another hybrid physical model of his own. 

Then, while searching on neurosemantics I came across SINBAD Neurosemantics: A theory of mental representation.  This seems to be the state of the art for neural modeling of cognitive functions.  I will peruse it and report back. 

[9/19] 

Alas, it appears that SINBAD is just a resurrection of the concept of the 'grandmother cell'.  A hierarchy of pattern recognition processes in the brain culminates at its highest level in cognizable constructs and models of the world.  The firing of a particular cell represents a detection of 'grandmother' and corresponds to our cognition of said individual. 

This presents certain logistical problems.  First, how do we come to sense the firing of any particular cell or group of cells?  Secondly, how do we recognize the semantic significance of any particular cell or group thereof?  It would seem that the cells would have to be labeled in some fashion, and that we would then need a label reader.  (Back to homunculism.)

Of course we could program a robot using these pattern recognition processes so that it would say 'grandmother' upon any successful instance of grandmother detection.  We could do that now with a simple fingerprint matching device.  Would this be an instance of natural cognition?  Would this justify the publication of yet another paper in 'neurophilosophy'?  I would hope not.  But what is the logical or philosophical significance of the quantitative difference in complexity or sophistication between two levels of computational pattern recognition?  Claiming that a thermostat is conscious of the temperature does not seem to shed much light on natural cognition.  It is useful only as an eliminativist gambit.  

The wiring of 'grandmother' into the brain hardly seems conducive to the notion of concept formation and manipulation.  Again we face the physical contradiction between symbol grounding and symbol use.  There ought to be a convenient designation for this problem.  I'm just not aware of it.  

[Later]  I am finding this paper, Radical Connectionism: Thinking With (Not In) Language, to be a good introduction to connectionist concepts of representation. 

[9/21] 

Neurophilosophy is currently the label of choice for the popularizers of naturalism and materialism.  It is worth glancing at some of their books: 

Neurophilosophy : Toward a Unified Science of the Mind-Brain -- Patricia Churchland 

The Engine of Reason, The Seat of the Soul : A Philosophical Journey into the Brain -- Paul Churchland 

Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are

The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life 

etc., etc.... 

The only philosophy visible in the books typical of this genre is eliminativism.  Metaphysical innocence is the order of the day, as the writers launch into guided tours of the flora and fauna in the not quite tamed neuronal jungles of our brains.  There are occasional rest stops were we are treated to quickie seminars on the wonderful 'illusions' of the mind such as the self and free-will.  If this is the last frontier of science, Colonel Sanders would feel right at home.  Speaking of which, has America been entertained by such as the Churchlands since the days of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans?  Am I being catty?  I spent 30 minutes spell-bound by a 56kps video of Patricia.  Obviously metaphysics is lacking in charisma, so it is just too bad that Patricia is playing for the wrong team.  The mini-messiah is going to need all the help she can get.  

Where are the metaphysicians when we need them?  This is pseudo-science raised to a fine art.  Apparently, all that one has to do is throw around bits of scientific jargon to become fully absolved of all metaphysical responsibility.  It is a brave new world, this neurophilosophy. 

Amazon has a plethora of new books touting materialism, and I don't even see where to look for the rejoinders.  It appears that the non-sectarian non-materialists have been brow beaten into silence.  This is sad.  And considering the state of the world today it is emphatically dangerous for there not to be a single visible intellect proposing a transcendental, ecumenical rationalism.  Has God forsaken us? 

On Amazon the non-materialist field is dominated by John Searle.  No other author comes close.  But John is very far from theism or idealism, the last I checked.  He is simply a conscientious objector to the vocal horde of eliminativists.  Otherwise, the intellectual ground between the secular and sectarian is a no-man's land.  

However, there are other contrarians, as can be seen on these lists: 

Listmania!  Essential Free Will 

[9/22] 

Listmania!  The Philosophy of Consciousness.  This list is thorough and even-handed. 

Listmania!  Academic books on consciousness and science.  This brings in some of the quantum thinking. 

Listmania!  Consciousness in Physics.  And some more contrarian physics.  

And the lists go on.  I'm going to check these out a bit.  

The writers on the side of neurophilosophy have a coherent cosmological story to tell.  They are even anticipating the logical end of science as it successfully conquers the mind, its final frontier.  It is the masterful wrapping up of the story that began being told with the rise of the secular Enlightenment almost three centuries ago.  The only thing missing from this story is a subject, that is the subjective self.  Neurophilosophy is the end of the line for objectivity.  Beyond this point you have to consider the human self, and then, almost certainly, a cosmic self. 

But that last logical step is a big hurdle for anyone trying to think outside the sectarian box.  Materialism has become a crutch and a conditioned reflex for anyone trying to break out of the sectarian mold.  For those who wish now to think outside the box of scientific materialism, there is approximately zero guidance.  The only lamp post is a trans-objective coherence.  It is necessarily eschatological.  If you don't believe that, then just try thinking about it for two minutes, although most people would find that extraordinarily onerous.  There is a final coherence out there that is trying to find a voice.  Where is the fat lady when we so desperately need her? 

But I promised to check out the lists. 

Everyone agrees that there has been an explosion of interest in the mind, and mostly within the last two decades.  I don't see a consensus explanation for this upsurge. 

All the coherence is on the side of the materialists.  They have a linear story to tell, albeit, one without a subject or a resolution.  No?  Aren't our feeble, genetically burdened organic brains about to be engulfed by a tsunami of silicon?  The neurophilosophers, however, are strangely silent on the future, even though their hind-sight is 20/20.  They must all be aware of the transhumanist eschatologies, but we are left to speculate as to how discomfited they might be by these nightmarish apocalypses.  Their silence ought to be deafening to anyone with even half of an organic brain.  But the typically glowing reviews consistently hear no, see no and speak no apocalypse.  Someone ought to formally introduce the neurophilosophers to the transhumanists.  They might even have to change their tune. 

The conscientious objectors to neurophilosophy and transhumanism are scattered all over the map.  Even individually they have no consistent story to tell.  At best they can marvel in the multi-disciplinary diversity of the topic.  A few make allusions to the mystical tradition or to modern phenomenology.  That's about it.  There is no sense of urgency or sense of any imminent new worldview.  Postmodern pluralism is the consensus ethos of these semi-non-materialists.  Vision, anyone?  What is that?? 

The cream of this crop may have been Fritjof Capra and Ken Wilber, but they have had nothing new to say for decades.  It is mysticism all the way down.  If we experience as much as a very ill-defined Turning Point we'll have to consider ourselves lucky bums. 

---------------------------

But, stop the press and take a look at Gilles Fauconnier.  Is this fellow a non-reductionist or what?  How about those mental spaces?  And what's all this blending business?  Has froggy phenomenology been unleashed upon our hallowed shores of analytical atomism?  What hath God wrought?  Just when we surmised forsakenness.  Is this a wolf in sheep's clothing or a sheep in wolf's clothing?  I can hardly wait to find out. 

There may be a pot load of constructivism chez Gilles, but, modulo the constructivism, has there not got to be something more than atoms swerving in the dark, or 'neuronal group selection'?  Speaking of which, I can't resist quoting an example quotation in 'Blending As A Central Process of Grammar' (1996) that Giles uses to illustrate the blending of mental spaces: 

I claim that reason is a self-developing capacity. Kant disagrees with me on this point. He says it's innate, but I answer that that's begging the question, to which he counters, in Critique of Pure Reason, that only innate ideas have power. But I say to that, what about neuronal group selection? And he gives no answer.

This is getting right down to the nitty-gritty!  I detect more than a tad of continental ridicule in the choice of this pretentiously reductionistic, un-continental exemplar.  

I can't help feeling, despite the heavy patina of constructivism and even of mechanism, that Gilles is leaving the neurophilosophers to choke on his astutely framed phenomenological dust.  We are revisiting structuralism, an idealism dressed in a mechanic's coveralls. 

It seems that cognitive science is bifurcating into micro (neuronal) and macro (conceptual) components, and that there is scant to nil correlation between the components.  If this split becomes formalized it will provide powerful evidence for non-reductionism. 

I'm reminded of Roger Shepard's mental rotations (1971) experiment.  Not easy for connectionists to explain 

[9/23]

If there is going to be a metaphysical fault-line in the life sciences, one place that it might occur is between biosemiotics and neurophilosophy.  The conceptualism inherent in biosemiotics is evidently irreducible, but this stark fact, if correct, is not being advertised.  One has to wonder about the political considerations that may lie behind the downplaying of this incipient fault-line.  I am now just attempting to document it. 

This is reminiscent of the age-old debate between nominalism and realism.  Abelard's conceptualism was supposed to have been the compromise position, but it is not clear that there ever can be a compromise.  The ontological issue is unavoidable, and trying to shift it around is just a shell game.  The political hegemony of postmodern pluralism largely hinges on its ability to downplay any and all ontological issues.  It is a shell game of truly massive proportions.  Postmodernists have a deathly fear of Being and Substance.  They are all trying to hide behind Abelard, but the biosemioticians are finding this more difficult.  Questions concerning Being strike too close to their home.  In any case, the uncovering of the ontological fault-line among practicing, politically aware scientists may prove to have all the delights of a snark hunt.  

[aside...THINK ABOUT HONKING IF YOU LIKE CONCEPTUALISM]

As I read about the debate I am struck by the explicitly materialistic bias of nominalism.  Evidently something does exist, but the nominalists would argue that all existence is reducible to accidental, temporary configurations of matter.  But then what about those atoms?  I would suggest that where nominalism is most starkly at variance with physics is with the concept (sic) of the photon.  As a result of spending their lives with such entities as photons the number of nominalist physicists can be counted liberally on one finger.  There are many more nominalist mathematicians, even, than there ever will be physicists.  I don't think the biosemioticians are in an intellectual position where than can blithely ignore the collective wisdom of such an influential group of scientific colleagues.  As the Sokal affair so amply demonstrated, there is surely a fault line between postmodernism and physics.  The biosemioticians are trying to negotiate that line.  Lots of luck, fellas! 

It is fair to say that in modernity it is the Physicists who are the keepers of the Sacred Ontos.  Postmodern iconoclasts resent and fear that office.  But what they should really fear are the escaped and wandering ontologists, such as your correspondent.  Some of us are not entirely satisfied with mere photons.  Our sights are set a bit higher on the Chain of Being.   

Quoting now from the good Dr. Ess: 

BUT -- thought out more carefully, the Neoplatonic version of realism (the primary "version" of realism available during the so-called "dark ages") in fact lands its defenders squarely in a position which, judged from the standpoint of Christian "orthodoxy," must be considered heretical.

That is, Neoplatonism's insistence on the ultimate reality of "the One" (and thus, on both the ontological and epistemological primacy of "the One" -- i.e., it is both the most real entity and the entity which makes knowledge of all subordinate entities possible) further issues in pantheism. Simply, there is only "the One" and the rest of reality as an emanation of the one. While the rest of reality (including human beings) are in some sense "less real" than "the One" -- in an equally important sense, they also are identical with "the One." In short, all things are God ("pan/theism" = "all/God-ism").

This belief, as a logical consequence of the Neoplatonic version of realism, runs squarely against the doctrinal insistence in "Orthodoxy" on God's transcendence -- i.e., on the irreducible difference between God and God' creation.

Like I often say, I am definitely a heterodox Christian, but I'll wager that's a lot better than nothing at all.  You can see why Christians have a deathly fear of Ideas.  You let one in and it takes over the whole neighborhood.  The Idea is their Eschaton, and mine.  C'est la vie, and hasta la vista. 

-------------------------------

When I search on biosemiotics & neurophilosophy there is but one substantive hit: Cognitive Sciences In the Perspective of a Unified Theory of Information.  It gives a credible account of the conceptual divide between the naturalists and the phenomenalists, with the biosemioticians falling toward the latter.  I would have to assume that Fauconnier and his followers should be included in the biosemiotic camp, but they avoid the term.  

Hofkirchner makes reference to Capurro's Trilemma: (from a trialog)

[Capurro]: Your conclusion or "solution" of this trilemma is: we go back to the etymological roots (information as "giving form") and we take an evolutionary perspective where qualities can emerge. I call this solution "dialectical informatism", considering it to be a new version of dialectical materialism. 

Yes, dialectical materialism is a doctrine of emergentism, and it certainly comes down on the side of realism and objectivism against nominalism.  But, again, biological emergentism has to confront the Platonism of Physics.  And what is the ontological nature of those emergent entities?  How do they relate to and inform matter?  In a fashion similar to the laws of physics? 

Is there any possibility of a unified theory of information which includes "Capurro's trilemma" as a constituent element of it, and not as something to be eliminated or "solved"? Well, this is a difficult question. Maybe we should take a look at the metaphysics of Leibniz. Leibniz considers reality to have two aspects, namely "monads" and matter. There are no monads without matter (except God), and vice-versa. Monads and matter are folded into the different levels of reality in an infinitely complicated way. This means that it is not possible for us to have a "true" view of all the "steps" faced by unfolding (or "evolution"). This means, roughly speaking, that we are faced with infinite concepts of information, something which cannot be overlooked by any kind of theory.

Now there's a leap from dialectical materialism.  Those Continentalists sure are light-footed.  How could an Anglo hope to keep up?  Or just some intramural gymnastics...[let us not forget Stoppard's 'Jumpers'.]

Dear Rafael [Capurro], in a somewhat pejorative manner you have described the concept of information which Wolfgang and I discussed in "Informatio Revisited" as "dialectical informatism".

....a friendly slap of the text. 

I think it constructive to look for information from this perspective, and to work out the differences/similarities between the causality of information processes and that of physical processes. The advantage of this perspective is the unfolding of larger range of analysis than is permitted by physics. It allows for the inclusion of completely different causal relations which cannot be viewed by the natural sciences.   

....and then a left hook into the Scientific spleen.  Ouch!  Do we catch the scent of Blood in the Water?  Where is Sokal when we need him? 

Information, on the other hand, is able to mediate between cause and effect without having to obey the Laws of Conservation as such. There is no need for uniqueness of the effect. More than that, not even the type or quality of the effect needs to be predictable. One of the main differences between physics and information sciences can thus be seen here. While physics is oriented towards forecasting effects based on some explicated premise, information sciences have to deal with the structure of the unpredictable. At first glance this seems to be a very fuzzy enterprise, but it is in fact the complement of the unique predictability of the physical world. The new cannot be grasped theoretically by physics. If everything were uniquely predictable in a physical environment, no development of the world would be possible.    

A second difference can be found between physical and informational processes. Physical units (in particular in classical mechanics) are based on the metaphysical principle of some factor (like mass, force, energy) while the substantialism gets lost in the realm of information. Information in its reified aspect is like a symbol, a metaphor. It is more a pointer to some kind of interpretation process than an object per se. It does not always point to any object of so-called reality. If there is some conscious process needed to interpret the pointer, and thus to create a new piece of reality, the substantiality of information is no longer needed. By the same argument, uniqueness of interpretation is no longer assured; on the contrary, in information processes there must be freedom of choice, on some level there must even be unpredictability, there must be the opportunity for creativity, and producing something new. Here Leibniz's monads could come into the picture. They could be interpreted as an early concept to explain the half of the world which was left out by mechanical materialism, such as processes of the human mind, the soul and creativity. In my opinion there is no need to stick to Leibniz's interpretation of the monads as being divinely created. The concept of information processes would allow for a materialistic [sic? naturalistic? or maybe you're smoking something? Leibniz is turning over in his grave!] explanation.    

I've been following the informatics scene for some time, but have not heard them speak quite so forthrightly.  Is this something new under the Sun?  Does it go back to Johnny von Neumann? 

[Capurro] Dear Peter, I am glad that the pejorative undertone of my criticism has become an incentive for, not an obstacle to, our dialogue. 

....what a gentleman! 

My question is "Where are the limits of such an information science?"

......

Metaphysics also made a distinction between two forms of immanent causality: a "transitive" immanent causality, where a cause can change or even disappear in the process of (in) formation, and another immanent causality where the cause remains the same although changes may take place. The latter is the case for e.g. human or animal souls. The transcendent cause must be "higher" than immanent causality.    

And this trialog progresses from there.  It was an email discussion dating back to 1997. Capurro is openly theistic in his comments.  This is my first experience of a philosophy of science discussion where the God question is treated matter-of-factly.  I need to get a better handle on where Capurro is coming from, and where he might be headed?  None of his metaphysics sources are contemporary, nor do I see evidence of any comrades in arms.  It is difficult for me to imagine a similar discussion taking place on these shores.   

R. Capurro, What is Angeletics? (2000): 

Angeletics is different from angelology in that its purpose is to study the phenomenon of messages, independent of their divine origin, or, in other words, it studies this phenomenon within the boundaries of the condition humaine. This does not mean that studies relating to the fields of religion and natural sciences are excluded, but its specific focuses are on messages and human messengers.

....there is another neologism for you.  

German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk pointed out that we live in a "time of empty angels" or "mediatic nihilism", in which we forget what message is to be sent while the transmission media multiply: "This is the very 'de-angeling' of current times" (Sloterdijk 1997). The word "de-angeling" stands out, in contrast to "evangeling", the empty nature of the messages disseminated by the mass media

Information science has come a long way, Cherubim. 

[9/24] 

Biosemiotics confronts materialism: 

Levels, Emergence, and Three Versions of Downward Causation by Claus Emmeche, Simo Køppe and Frederik Stjernfelt (2000). 

 

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9/17/02

Who's Keeping Score? 

I have been actively searching the web since July, and I am still having difficulty seeing the forest for all those trees out there.  

One surprise among many is the lack of scorekeepers.  There are many catalogs of sites, but precious few commentaries that aim below the surface.  For all the sound and fury, there must be some discernible trends.  If so, they are not being well reported. 

What I can say here is a highly speculative personally biased travelogue or web log.  

In the 'end' it will come down to the gnostics vs. the agnostics.  The gnostics will have all the momentum and will win hands down, but for the foreseeable future, the agnostics dominate.  They remain the relatively silent majority, except when they are on a mission of deconstructing some gnostic's sacred cow.  

In intellectual circles the dominant gnosticism is still materialism.  Materialism has been brought down several pegs by the continued sniping of the postmodern agnostics, but now it is pretty much a standoff.  I gather that the postmoderns go easy on the materialists because of their shared concern for a reactive resurgence of intellectual theism.  Indeed, it has been noted that the philosophy ranks are being significantly infiltrated by junior faculty theists.  If this is the case, these new kids on the block are wisely keeping a low profile.  They are tending to their knitting, probably in the peripheral areas of ethics and the like.  They are not ready for, and probably cannot even imagine a direct confrontation with the scientific-materialist establishment. 

In the meantime, the materialists are being permitted what is likely to be their last hurrah: neurophilosophy.  Neurophilosophy is mostly smoke with very little scientific or metaphysical substance, and so presents very little challenge for the skilled deconstructors.  In neurophilosophy there is not much neuro- and even less philosophy, but it does make a good read for the armchair materialists.  Along these lines, sociobiology presented more of a challenge to the agnostics, and that challenge has largely been met.  Neurophilosophy is considered a relatively harmless spin-off.  

Just from the last extended page I am picking up the notion that the principle challenge to materialism is now coming from the continent.  The continental phenomenologists feel less inhibited by the fire breathing fundamentalists that inhabit these fair shores.  They can talk about God without setting off a general intellectual alarum.  Lines have not been drawn over there nearly to the extent they have been drawn here. 

What we are also seeing is a continuation of the centuries old demarcation between British empiricism and French rationalism.  There has been a lot back and forth, and strange bedfellows, but still the demarcation is there.  The latest resurrection of this rationalism is in phenomenology and more recently in semiotics.  These kinds of rationalism are seen as relatively harmless in Anglo-American circles because of their staunchly truncated, decapitated form.  Atheistic rationalism is like a carriage without a horse, but this concoction goes back to the rabidly anti-clerical Philosophes of the French Enlightenment.  Think Voltaire and Rousseau.  Now it is relatively tolerant of only the most muted, existentialist elements of theism.  Think Kierkegaard.  And don't bother looking for froggy eschatologists. 

So, is everything under control?  Well, that can be hard to say.  

Then there's 9/11.  When someone throws a monkey wrench its hard to know the consequences.  The allegedly underlying clash of civilizations is being reexamined on many levels, and I am sure that most of it is well below the surface of what one can discern on the Internet.  

Certainly, the mutual line drawing among the gnostics has been exacerbated, but the folks to watch are the agnostics.  Surely, postmodern pluralism is feeling more than a bit besieged by these developments and what it may perceive as gathering intellectual, cultural storm clouds.  The postmoderns are the hot-house flowers of modern civilization.  If the heat gets turned up even more, they are susceptible to wilting.  

In times of trouble, messianic expectations rise.  People may be less tolerant of intellectual cacophony.  Coherence may move upmarket, uptown.  Most folks will turn to their mainly prophetic traditions for coherence, but the locally visible global clashings will bring a few thoughtful ones to look beyond the traditions.  It will take every ounce of web connection and amplification for the disparate thoughtful ones to find a higher coherence and bring it to the attention of the rest of us.  It will be nip and tuck, but surely in the best possible world, the highest possible Gnosis will prevail in the end.  Coherence is a mirage if it does not include that necessary reality.  Our ultimate concerns will demand nothing less. 

Or not.  Or naught? 

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9/25/02

Coherence Theory 

Here is another subversion of materialism that I have been overlooking.  

It stems from the problem, as partially explicated by Berkley, of representation wherein our perceptions and beliefs are supposed to represent or correspond to facts about an external world.  The inherent dualism of representationalism and its attendant correspondence theory of truth, ensure their entanglement in the Cartesian problem of the connection between mind and matter.  This problem has been a primary motivation for immaterialists and functionalists.  

Although functionalism is usually presented as a species of naturalism, its metaphysical foundations are ambiguous to non-existent, and, rather as its name implies, it is seemingly open to a philosophical pragmatism that is far from naturalism.  This is why Dennett's functionalism is eschewed by serious philosophers.  Serious naturalists are thus left to struggle with increasingly convoluted theories of representation.  

The only alternative to representationalism is some form of coherentism.  In its crudest form, coherentism could be seen as a form of associationism as found in Anglo-American empiricism.  Coherentism is a more direct descendent of Quine's semantic holism.  With a therapeutic dose of rationalism and phenomenology, the holism of Quine can be exported to the Continent where, as coherentism, it is the epistemology of choice.  The idealist and transcendental proclivities inherent in coherentism are kept in check by the Continental ambience of deconstruction.  

It is the Continental semioticians who pick up the baton for coherentism.  A break might come if the Continental semioticians connect with the Anglo-American informationalists.  Coherentism would receive an added impetus, and it would be under less deconstructive restraint.  

(I should note that epistemologists generally are being forced to turn to coherentism as the replacement for representationalism which remains entangled in its possibly intractable foundational problem, see for example: Coherence: The Price is Right.  In fact the Computational Epistemology Lab at Waterloo has a series of articles mainly on the analytic side of coherence, but some verge off into a more robust phenomenology.  Signs of creeping coherentism.) 

In our postmodern milieu, coherentism is seen mainly as a lesser evil with respect to the foundationalism of materialism or the nihilism of deconstruction.  In this negative manner, coherentism slips in the back door of postmodernism, but for how long can its natural expansionist tendency be contained?  At what point will a robust rationalism return?  The very limited coherence of existentialism and Marxism has been pretty well played out on both sides of the Atlantic.  

[9/27] 

In recent years philosophy has experienced an increased interest in things epistemic.  I would suggest that this trend is partially in reaction to an increased scientific presence in other traditionally philosophical fields.  Epistemology appears to be less susceptible to a naturalistic deconstruction.  This is also true of ethics and aesthetics, of course, which remain active, but epistemology deals more with foundational, metaphysical issues and so it can serve as something of, at least, a defensive outpost against the prospect of a total scientific hegemony over human knowledge. 

Perhaps surprisingly, the tone of the epistemological discourse is not particularly defensive.  The continued, rather noticeable failure of AI and cognitive science to even get their feet in the epistemological door, after these many decades, is leaving the traditional epistemic community feeling relatively secure against such deconstructive encroachment.  

And what is now beginning to appear in, say, the last ten years are signs of a nascent counter-offensive.  It is, perhaps deliberately, muted, but still unmistakable to anyone who cares to observe.  I suspect that the scientific community is blissfully oblivious.  There are more than a few philosophers who are tired of being bullied by an imperial science on the one hand, and subverted by their deconstructive colleagues on the other hand.  It is fair to say that these hard-core structuralists or phenomenologists are doing some retrenching and retooling in the shelter of epistemology.  With coherentism now serving as a weapon and a rallying banner, they appear to be making forays into the wider intellectual arena. 

But, there is a major caveat.  Not many of these phenomenologists could be ignorant of the historically recent strong association of coherentism with radical idealism.  When the scientific community is finally woken from is dogmatic materialist slumber, it will be screaming bloody murder, to be perfectly candid.  I am sure that the some of these phenomenologists are being most cautious in their anticipation of this inevitable reaction.  

And yet again, this coherentism is inherently, unboundedly expansive and probably already is taking on a life of its own that will override the best discretions of its practitioners.  The thing to attend to now are signs of early reaction from the potential opposition.  One can imagine the innocence of the counter-response, 'Coherentism made me do it'! 

[Later]

It is worth noting that Alvin Plantinga, a heavy-duty theistic philosopher and epistemologist, takes a dim view of coherentism, despite his being a prime contestant of foundationalism.  Let's check it out. 

I attempt to follow Scott Oliphint's critique of Plantinga.  Plantinga argues that both foundationalism and coherentism are open to skeptical attack, and most everyone agrees.  But rather than take on the skeptic, Plantinga attempts to dodge him by proposing a novel and weak argument for theistic belief.  He merely wishes to show that theism is no less warranted than certain other common beliefs, such as our belief in other minds.  Perhaps by maintaining this lower profile, the theist can be less provocative to the skeptic, and hope to get along more amicably with her atheist colleagues.  This is not quite your grandmother's theism.  Oliphint suggests instead the much more provocative presuppositional position in which God provides the only sufficient ground for both nature and reason.  God is the necessary and sufficient presupposition for any form of foundationalism or coherentism.  

OK, Scott, I'll buy that.  God serves as corner stone or cosmic glue, depending on the context.  In the postmodern context, however, I would argue that glue is more needed than stone. 

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9/26/02

Aristotle Gets Real 

This is the headline I imagined upon seeing Michael Esfeld's article ARISTOTLE'S DIRECT REALISM IN DE ANIMA.  Philosophers have been attempting to act upon this injunction for several millennia with but limited success, as is widely acknowledged.  Michael may hereby have uncovered the source of all our difficulties.  

It was a simple misunderstanding.  We just misread Aristotle.  Think of all the hassle we could have saved if only we had realized that Aristotle had already gotten real.  

If you recall your school days, you may remember Plato and Socrates.  Socrates got whacked, and Plato, his student, got whacked out on Ideas, and so he had trouble consummating his love. .  Then along came the level-headed Aristotle to straighten everyone out with his Concepts.  Concepts were like mini-Ideas, and more down to earth.  They just lived in your head, and not in heaven.  

Well, it turns out, according to Mr. Esfeld, that Aristotle wasn't so level-headed after all.  A closer reading of Aristotle reveals a closet Platonist.  Fortunately I have not read Aristotle nor Michael, so I can render my own, unbiased and spontaneous account, as I am won't to do. 

Like you, I'm sure, and like Berkley, too, I was always bothered by concepts.  How is a Concept supposed to be different from an Idea?  What happens to an unconceived concept?  Like the poor bereft and unperceived tree on the Quad, doesn't it or can't it go to heaven?  Is St. Peter going to slam the gates?  Need heaven be quite so exclusive?  Just because a concept is intangible does not mean that it has to be immaculately conceived every time it pops into someone's head.  Is a little cosmic telepathy going to kill us?  Eat your heart out, Ma Bell.  

To sum up, concepts, like ideas are either real or not.  When push came to shove, Aristotle got real about concepts.  

So, given telepathic concepts, why do we have to go to school, and where does that leave the tree on the Quad?  Chomskian innate universal grammar and English grammar are not quite the same, so we end up declining Latin verbs.  Go figure.  

And about that tree.  Next time you hug a tree, be more respectful.  Please address it as 'Your Treeness'.  Or are you so stupid as to think there are no trees in heaven?  How do I know?  Because I know that by elementary logic and reason that this has got to be the BPW.  So this is almost heaven and we have trees here so go figure.  Being only slightly less catty, I could quote Michael to the effect that the direct realism of our perceptions commits us to a conceptual structure of the world.  Which is to say that atoms are concepts before we manage to reify them, as we are won't to do.  Too much tree hugging and there are bound to be tree bambinos.  We are just not quite cognizant of our powers of creation, but then we do have divine assistance.  

Any questions? 

I hear that John McDowell is outstanding in the direct realism field.  Let's go see.  

Well, his profile on the net is not real high.  Check out Mind and World.  He has managed to keep his essays off the net.  Do we have to buy the book?  

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9/29/02

Representation, Reduction, etc. 

OK, sports fans, it looks like we are closing in on the quarry, at last: the remaining core of the debate between materialists and the rest of the world.  I had started this search in the ontology arena, but the action appears mainly in epistemology. 

Representationalism had been the leading epistemic theory at least since Descartes.  But now it is about dead in the water.*  Although the diehard materialists will continue beating on it indefinitely, there is just no life left in its poor bones, as is obvious to the wearied onlookers.  Where does that leave us? 

That leaves us with coherentism, direct realism and connectionism as the only paths forward.  Connectionism is the last gambit for the materialists, but they appear less than happy with its prospects.  Conceptually, connectionism is totally opaque.  Even if it were the answer, we would never be able to know it.  On the other hand, our own minds are conceptually transparent to a miraculous degree.  This gross mismatch in conceptual impedances is what has the connectionists in a funk.  Reverting to the concept of the 'grandmother cell' is a non-starter.  

It is a given that as long as the AI people get funded, they will continue make insubstantial claims while ducking out of every philosophical discussion, along with their camp followers, the transhumanists.  Intellectual conversation about the mind is left with no alternatives besides dualism and idealism.  

Direct realism is compatible with both Cartesian dualism and idealism, but as long as the coherentists can keep a glove in the ring, they will exert a strong pull toward the latter.  And right now, direct realism is getting the most attention.  Its proponents admit that it has a distinctly miraculous tinge, but then whoever said that the cutting of the world-knot would not invoke higher powers.  With immaterialism the miraculousness can be more evenly distributed in a panpsychic fashion.  It then becomes less add hoc.  I doubt that any of the direct realists are unaware of their immaterialist option, they just don't want to raise too many red flags at once.  They are content to be the stalking-horse for the anti-materialists generally.  

After spending most of the last century being beaten over the head by the materialists, the anti-materialists can be forgiven for just wanting to savor the turning of the tables that direct realism represents.  But before long they will have to move on to something more positive, and very likely that will be a version of coherentism, leaving the Cartesians relatively isolated.  However, when they get around to reading this web site, or anything remotely like it, they will have an opportunity for more than a few second thoughts, I'm sure.  

For us, for now, we consider the prospects for participation, or at least for a more creative lurking, and that entails an examination of the status quo and the dispositions of the players. 

---------------------------

Of immediate interest is the presence of a theological dimension to the discussion of epistemology.  It is a rather modest presence, highlighted by Plantinga's early attack on coherentism.  There have been only minor theological counterthrusts.  If Plantinga's authority is allowed to prevail, it will significantly diminish theological participation in this important anti-materialist discussion. 

Behind the theological concerns is the intuition that theology must have a foundation.  Coherentism looks too much like the shifting sands in the desert, too prone to fashion and other human interests.  There are thoughtful theologians who see coherentism and immaterialism as the way to move beyond the fundamentalist mindset, but they do not have the intellectual weight of Plantinga.  Susan Haak's 'Foundherentism' (c. 1993) has received little theological notice.  We'll remain watchful, but this is not where the action is now. 

[10/1]

* My announcement of the death of representationalism may have been a tad premature.  It is now doing business as 'intentionalism'.  In particular see Alex Byrne's defense of it.  According to Alex, it is still the biggest debate in philosophy.  I haven't figured out if the alleged opponents of intentionalism, qua representationalism, have a positive position or not. 

Now I'm looking at Benj's response to Alex. 

[10/2] 

I am not finding anything substantially new with Byrne.  Intentionalism is the weakest form of naturalism with respect to the mind.  It is the lowest common denominator of representationalism and all the concomitant varieties of naturalism or physicalism, be they functionalist, computationalist, connectionist, etc.  On top of that, the only intentionalism being actively defended is a 'weak' intentionalism which does not attempt to explain the phenomenal character of imagination, among other obvious oversights.  But even in this most diluted form of naturalism that still has any substance, its counterintuitive quality remains blatant. 

The intuitive bottleneck of intentionalism is its claim that the fullness of experience resides entirely in the thoughts that allegedly comprise that experience.  Our intuition is that phenomenal experience causes thoughts rather than being comprised by them.  This is more than an intuitive bottleneck, it is a logical contradiction, unless one is willing to engage in the lifework of chopping that logic, which appears to be the case with the remaining handful of active intentionalists.  

How can one explain this dogged tenacity of these intentionalists?  What is the dog that is wagging this intentionalist tail?  The dog is plainly the scientific establishment and all those who partake of its worldview.  The vast majority of these folk remain blissfully unaware of this intentionalist structure on which their vast enterprise rests so uneasily.  If the handful of intentionalists were tomorrow to throw up their hands in defeat, would the dog even notice its missing tail?  It could perhaps just be seen as one more postmodern deconstructive encroachment.  But the desperate tenacity of intentionalism's defenders argues for something more intellectually dramatic.  Intentionalism represents the last claim that science has for presenting a coherent and complete worldview.  By default, intentionalism has become the logical corner stone of that world.  

This is my opinion.  I wonder, though, why this putative fact is seldom remarked by either side of this debate.  Am I entirely misconstruing its potential historical significance?  Perhaps the participants and small audience no longer see the possibility of, nor harbor a desire for, any substantive resolution.  As long as the beer flows, this intellectual wake will persist, even whilst the deceased waxes aromatic. 

-------------------------------

If there were to be a turning point in this debate, it would come as a combination of internal and external factors.  

On the inside would be an arbitrary but significant shift in the conceptual terms of the debate.  It would be sufficient to motivate some of the observers to finally get involved.  This would include one or more prominent philosophers, and an ample number of concerned laypeople, such as ourselves.  The public scrutiny would be sufficient to bring the diehard materialists to their senses, or to bring the opponents to declare victory and move on.  

However, this scenario has had opportunities to play out in the past, and I believe there has to be one important additional ingredient.  There must be an attractive intellectual alternative, either to the debate or to the naturalism being debated.  Desultory though this debate on intentionalism may be, it is the biggest show in philosophy.  That alternative would almost surely include elements of immaterialism, rationalism and theism.  The locus of the debate might shift from between materialism and dualism, to one between dualism and immaterialism.  Without such an alternative, the debate would eventually fragment and dissolve into the wider postmodern cacophony.  This last possibility is what most observers would likely predict.  

[10/3]

According to Frank Jackson the beer is still cold and flowing: 

Most contemporary philosophers given a choice between going with science and going with intuitions, go with science. Although I once dissented from the majority, I have capitulated and now see the interesting issue as being where the arguments from the intuitions against physicalism-the arguments that seem so compelling-go wrong.

Here is the problem that these materialist philosophers face, even supposing they might possibly be right.  There is a strong correlation between intuition and language.  To go against intuition is to go against language.  The whole intuition of the incorrigibly subjective nature of experience is more deeply embedded in our language than any other intuition.  In order to promote the pure objectivism of science, one must attempt to drive a wedge between language and intuition by redefining a very large portion of that language.  Materialists concede that this is an uphill battle of unprecedented magnitude and that they are making very little headway.  

Philosophy, perhaps more than any other discipline besides poetry, is a verbal discipline.  To attempt to do battle with a radically diminished verbal armamentarium ought to be a debilitating handicap.  One gets a sense of almost tragic heroism in the challenge that these philosophers are taking upon themselves.  But for what cause?  Is this a 'truth' that is worth dying for?  Does not materialism leave our formerly transcendental notions of truth almost unrecognizably mutilated?  Rather I suspect that what is at stake here is professional identity.  This is more like Custer's last stand of 'rationalism' against, well, perhaps primitivism, on their view.  

The is a similar sense of besiegement on the part of scientists attempting to combat various popular beliefs in the paranormal.  And I don't think we can understand the philosopher's predicament outside the context of modernism vs. traditionalism, setting aside the whole postmodern issue.  Ironically we have the spectacle of self-defined 'naturalists' attempting to deconstruct human nature.  And they pretend to be surprised by the resistance they encounter.  

The materialists might have supposed that their battle had been won at the Scopes trial.  Why then is there still this opposition and why is it coming mainly from among their own colleagues, rather than from the hinterland? 

----------------------------

But so much for social psychology, now back to Frank's philosophy.  Why are our compelling intuitions so wrong? 

Here is the crux of Frank's argument [also see this paper]:  he compares redness with squareness.  I can experience squareness without entailing the existence of anything that is square, either internally or externally.  (This seems like a throwback to the adverbial critique of the sense data theory.  I don't have a red sense datum, I am rather just being appeared to redly.)  The squareness is an intensional property of experience, not an extensional nor an instantiated property.  It is a conceptual or functional property as well, perhaps.  If the materialist can justify this intensionalism, not to be confused with intentionalism, then she is off the ontological hook.  Redness is a kind of process, presumably physical, and not some extant being, presumably non-physical.  

I am still having difficulty identifying the key non-materialists in the debate on representationalism.  [Much of the anti-representationalism is just coming from the connectionist direction.]  Donald Davidson is a leading opponent of both representationalism and the correspondence theory of truth.  

[10/4] 

The main philosophical critique of representationalism is coming from the Continental phenomenologists, and it was Hubert Dreyfus who imported the criticisms of  Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty: 

For even if, with Dreyfus, we reject the proposition that all successful action requires deliberatively attended-to mental direction (in the form of, e.g., rules recited or a meditation on the specific conditions the agent's behavior must meet), we still need to explain how it is that the capacities associated with G[estalt]-Intentionality are afforded. Such an explanation would seem to require that our action, no matter how absorbed, be underwritten by some kind of mechanism that -- because it deals in highly abstract content -- ultimately is representational.

This sounds rather like the dispute between connectionists and computationalists: not much metaphysics.    

But check out Representationalism and Anti-representationalism - Kant, Davidson and Rorty.  

On the contrary anti-representationalists like Davidson and Rorty do not need mediation between "minds and the world", between beliefs, sentences and the world. Rorty thinks with Davidson that mind and human being are continuous with the world, we could even say, both philosophers ontologize the interwovenness (the impossible distinction) of scheme and content.

Plenty of fodder for immaterialism here. 

There are two characteristic and important figures in the analytic philosophy, who prepare the overcoming of the Cartesian and Kantian epistemology and make possible Rortyan anti-representationalism: Quine and Davidson.

--------------

Following the holistic path of Quine, Davidson proposes that analytic philosophers give up the idea, that knowledge should be grounded "on something that counts as an ultimate source of evidence".  He says "A major reason ... for accepting a coherence theory is the unintelligibility of the dualism of a conceptual scheme and a 'world' waiting to be coped with."  Davidson proposes a coherence theory of truth, where belief systems should not be verified by correspondence-seeking confrontational methodologies.

----------------------

As I have briefly shown, Quine, Davidson and Rorty give up the Kantian idea of epistemology which was central for analytic philosophy and which in Continental context was given up by Hegel.  But as it is mostly the case, philosophical systems not only bear the possibilities and hints of their overcomings, they "bear" also their "overcomers" with the result that philosophical systems which are left behind, leave their traces, their "genetic codes" in the "overcomer" philosophies. 

We can complete this argumentative circle by pointing back to the previous pages on Huw Price and representationalism.  These assorted arguments appear to put representationalism in a small box.  What is surprising is that no one else out there is keeping track of this larger non-materialist case against representationalism and connectionism.  Is this not the last possible stand for materialism?  Why aren't more folks paying attention?  Where are all those alleged new theistically minded philosophers?  

Some sort of phenomenological coherentism seems like the only alternative to this boxed-in materialism.  Biosemiotics is moderately active, but its phenomenological vision is limited to cognitive science.  

We have pretty well scoped out the current materialist debate.  Coherentism is the only comprehensive alternative, and we have a pretty fair grasp of the radical developmental potential of that new opening.  Where are our fellow explorers?  

------------------------

Searching under coherentism & representationalism I find a useful survey of the various epistemological options from an foundationalist, direct realist point of view. 

----------------------

Before this is all over, we're gonna have to check out informationalism.  This fella, Floridi, is the best I have seen yet.  Information theory is an excellent test-bed for the various epistemic theories.  It seems to me that there is a consensus among informationalists that information cannot be defined without a semantic agent.  As of now, no artificial agency is foreseen.  Where does this leave the strong AI folk?  With the rug pulled out from under.  

Here is an excerpt from one of Luciano's essays: 

Because information is a multifaceted and polyvalent concept, the question "what is information?" is misleadingly simple, exactly like "what is being?". As an instance of the Socratic question "ti esti...?", it poses a fundamental and complex problem, intrinsically fascinating and no less challenging than "what is truth?", "what is virtue?" "what is knowledge?" or "what is meaning?". It is not a request for dictionary explorations but an ideal point of intersection of philosophical investigations, whose answers can diverge both because of the conclusions reached and because of the approaches adopted. Approaches to a Socratic question can usually be divided into three broad groups: reductionist, antireductionist and non-reductionist.  Theories of information are no exception.

Not too shabby for a computer nerd, huh?   Luciano classifies himself as a non-reductionist.  (I actually had a job once as a low-grade programmer, well, I was using object-orientation early-on.) 

Reductionists support the feasibility of a "unified theory of information" general enough to capture all major kinds information (from Shannon’s to Baudrillard’s,....).

Now how many US computer jocks have ever heard of Baudrillard?  Am I digressing?  Have I ever heard of Baudrillard, the famous Czech composer? 

[10/5] 

There is an important article by Ellen Ullman in the October issue of Harper's, which unfortunately is not available on the Internet.  It is a several page article entitled "PROGRAMMING THE POST-HUMAN".  It is easily the hardest hitting indictment of materialism and Strong AI that I have ever run across.  

Following computer science’s quest to create a sentient machine, Ellen Ullman, a former software engineer and a novelist, is prompted to explore what it means to be human. Considering emotions, consciousness, reproduction, and nutrition, alongside computer science’s dismissals and rebuttals, Ullman arrives at "recognition of our own kind" as the quality that defines human life. "We are creatures whose brains are formed by learning; that is, through experience and social interaction. We don’t merely send out signals to identify ourselves; we create one another’s identity."

This brief summary does not do her justice.  She skillfully captures the personal cynicism motivating too many of the AI researchers, a cynicism that is usually kept just below the surface.  She accuses them of seeing humans as nothing more than 'bags of tricks'.  They are holding nothing over Richard Dawkins besides the express desire to eliminate their own species in favor of the much greater efficiency and rationality of programmed silicon brains.  

Why have we had to wait this long for someone to throw down the gauntlet?  After reading more than my share of dry as dust philosophical argumentation, this was a fresh breeze, indeed.   The AI materialists have been intellectually coddled for much too long in their publicly funded ivory towers.  

The question before us now is whether this mainstream publication was an anomaly, or something more deliberate and political.  If I were in the scientific materialist establishment I would be feeling more than a bit uneasy just now.  Is this a call to battle?  Who is pushing this very visible button?  This virtual arena has every potential to get interesting quickly.  If it progresses too quickly for me to keep up, well, more power to Ellen & Co.  At one point she even feels it necessary to deny any theistic agenda.  And what will happen when the theists catch the scent of blood?  It may not be real pretty.  Some 'sacred' cows will be gored. 

[10/7]

The reaction to the the 'transhumanist' attack on humanity is slow in coming, but I doubt that Ellen's reaction will be the last.  

Anne Foerst has a rather different approach to the same general topic: 

At the AI-Lab, she served as the theological advisor for the Cog and Kismet Projects, two attempts to develop embodied, autonomous and social robots in analogy to human infants which might learn and develop more mature intelligences. She also initiated and directs "God and Computers," a dialogue project initially between Harvard Divinity School, the Boston Theological Institute and MIT and now to be continued at St. Bonaventure. In this function, she has organized several public lecture series and public conferences on Artificial Intelligence, computer science and concepts on personhood and dignity.

Would I be capitulating to cynicism to wonder if her presence represents an awkward bit of CYA on the part of the AI crowd? 

Here is a hostile reaction to her work: 

Anne Foerst's perverse convolution of AI and Christianity is disturbing, to say the least. Mixing one of mankind's greatest goals with the myth of the Fall and concepts of sin and estrangement is more than just an attempt to endow AI with Christian meaning. It is an attempt to sully the grand vision of AI itself and the "hubris" of those who are working to attain that vision. The myth of the Fall (the Edenic myth of Adam and Eve, who fell from God's grace upon eating from the tree of knowledge) is Christianity's declaration of war on science. Nietzsche's analysis of this myth is dead-on: "Science makes [us?] godlike - it is all over with priests and gods when man becomes scientific. The moral is that science is forbidden as such; it alone is forbidden. Science is the first sin, the seed of all sin, the original sin. This alone is morality."

This writer's hyperbole is clear, but he probably captures a popular sentiment, nonetheless.  Invoking Nietzsche does nothing to dispel or soft-peddle the transhumanist 'grand  vision' of Strong AI. 

[10/8] 

I had not done a search on reductionism for awhile and I was pleasantly surprised by the results.  There are not many folks publicly advocating reductionism.  

Noteworthy is Gregory Chaitin on the subject: The Decline & Fall of Reductionism in Pure Mathematics.  I had not previously encountered an anti-reductionist interpretation of the crucial Godel and Turing results.  The incompleteness of formal systems implies that important theorems may be improvable and so must be treated as irreducible axioms, much the way new phenomena in physics may be explained with new laws.  Mathematical systems are made more powerful by being extended with optimally chosen axioms.  There need be no limit to this process of extension.  This quasi-empirical process is a version of transfinite constructivism, often motivated by computer experiments.  This constructivism highlights the increasingly subjective aspect of pure mathematics, in that the choice of axioms becomes an exercise mathematical aesthetics.  The demonstrable facility of the human mind with such irreducible intangibles lends considerable credence to its supra-natural character.  Who is volunteering a biological explanation for our ability to hypothesize the transfinite Riemannian distribution of the primes?  Its likely improvability only adds to the mystery. 

[10/9]

Psychoneural Reduction - The New Wave.  This the quasi-non-reductive wave came ashore without leaving much of a trace: Eliminativist Undercurrents in the New Wave Model of Psychoneural Reduction.  

The state-of-the-art of reductionism is surveyed in Physicalism and Its Discontents (2001, CUP), and here is a review of it.  The upshot is very little progress to report in the last several years: "There is a tone of battling programs here rather than detailed argument and reply."  In other words, the physicalists have given up talking even to each other.  The burden, of course, falls on the reductionists.  If they cannot convince each other, what chance do they have with the skeptics? 

Bare reductionism never even got off the ground.  What we see are continuing attempts to compromise with reductionism in ways that would bring it into some resemblance of the mental phenomena it is meant to explain.  These compromises with physicalism, however, are invariably found either to be unphysical or to fall well short of the target phenomena, and so it's back to a very cluttered drawing-board for the would-be neo-physicalist. 

Here we linger until we summon sufficient courage to tackle immaterialism.  No one seems able to muster the will or the authority to call an end to this exercise in futility.  But then there's Mary: 

Nature's Imagination: The Frontiers of Scientific Vision (1995, OUP) takes the gloves off the reductionism debate, thanks, in part, to its coeditor Mary, Mary, quite contrary:   
Mary Midgley, aged 81, may be the most frightening philosopher in the country: the one before whom it is least pleasant to appear a fool. One moment she sits by her fire in Newcastle like a round-cheeked tabby cat; the next she is deploying a savage Oxonian precision of language to dissect some error as a cat dissects a living mouse.

.....With two other [books], Science And Salvation, and Evolution As A Religion, she staked out a territory all of her own, examining how science comes to function as a substitute for religion, and how very badly it does the job. 

"It was Lucretius," she writes, "who launched the notion of science as primarily a benign kind of weed killer designed to get rid of religion, and did it in great rolling passionate hexameters which gave it a force it would never have had if it had been expressed in unemotive prose.

She believes that philosophy matters, perhaps especially to the people who think it is merely a garnish on the brute facts of life - "like the bed of tulips in front of a nuclear power station",

Love that Brit wit.  Unfortunately, no ensuing vivisections have been reported.  

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Topical Index

9/30/02

Nature & Plato, etc. 

Perhaps the most difficult challenge for the naturalists is the naturalizing of epistemology.  It appears that epistemology has an irreducibly normative aspect, and although norms can be naturalized to a degree, normativity per se entails an irreducible rationality. 

The deeper worry is that even if naturalized epistemology can account for what makes one normative standard better than another, it provides a model of the human agent that cannot make sense of how there can be responsible active users of norms at all.  It cannot make sense of normativity.  This charge underlies Davidson’s anomalous monism: our practice of thinking and evaluating through the use of propositional attitudes is subject to a ‘constitutive ideal of rationality’ which cannot be fully explained in naturalistic terms.

There is also the slight problem of providing a naturalized epistemology of mathematics.  [Indeed, see the work of Zalta, et al. at the MRL, noted below.] 

Christopher Hookway, the author in question, reports that as of 1990, Quine had converted from his radical epistemic naturalism to Davidson's anomalous monism: 

What does Quine say about this ‘anomalous monism’?  He insists that there are ‘irreducibly mental ways of grouping’ events: ‘grouping a lot of respectably physical perceptions as perceptions that p, and grouping a lot of respectably physical belief instances as the belief that p’. (Quine, 1990, p, 71). Moreover there is ‘no dismissing’ this way of talking since it ‘implements vital communication and harbors indispensable lore about human activity and motivation, past and expected.’

 [10/11] 

Then we have Laurence BonJour, In Defense of Pure Reason: A Rationalist Account of a Priori Justification (1997, CUP). 

'Although he has been thinking and writing about these issues for many years, the publication of his book is a part of a widespread resurgence of interest in rationalist ideas, from the foundations of logic, through epistemology to moral philosophy, and anyone interested in either the rationalism or the resurgence will need to read In Defense of Pure Reason.'  Times Literary Supplement

Yeah, man, show me s'more a that there resurgence stuff! 

In all of this Internet sleuthing, I would like to think that we are closing in on what will turn out to be the decisive argument in the final defeat of materialism, but we may just be going around in circles like everyone else at this fin de siecle. 

And then we have a reissued anti-empiricist, coherentist tome: Groundless Belief (1997, 1999 PUP).  Naturally there are idealist excursions herein.  

On a lighter note, you may wish to consider the following: 
Pew Workshop -- The Metaphysics of Human Persons, September 5th - 8th, 2002, Princeton, New Jersey: 

    * Galen Strawson, "What is the Relation Between an Experience, the Subject of the Experience, and the Content of the Experience?"  (Related documents: "'I'" and "'I'-diagram")
    * Peter Unger, "Demystifying the Physical"  (Related document: "A Humanly Realistic Philosophy")
    * Howard Robinson, "Sellars's 'Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind'"
    * Robert Adams, "A Spiritual Universe"
    * Godehard Bruntrup, "Liberal Naturalism and the Causal Efficacy of Phenomenal Properties"
    * Trenton Merricks, "Split Brains and the Godhead"

It does seem that we are turning a rather sharp corner hereabouts in philosophy.  Will the materialists be able to hang on?  Are they just eating dust about now? 

And although this was sponsored by the IDers, it encompassed an impressive diversity: 

THE NATURE OF NATURE: An Interdisciplinary Conference on the Role of Naturalism in Science: April 12-15, 2000

Back to more serious stuff, consider:  Naturalized Platonism vs. Platonized Naturalism (1995).  This is a candidate for the smoking-gun paper.  Have the materialists not been able to refute these claims?  We'd better check. 

[10/12] 

Here are Linsky & Zalta: 

In this paper, we argue that our knowledge of abstract objects is consistent with naturalism. Naturalism is the realist ontology that recognizes only those objects required by the explanations of the natural sciences. But some abstract objects, such as mathematical objects and properties, are required for the proper philosophical account of scientific theories and scientific laws. This has led some naturalists to locate properties or sets (or both) in the causal order, and to suggest that philosophical claims about properties and sets are empirical, discovered a posteriori , and subject to revision. We call this view Naturalized Platonism, and in what follows, we contrast it with our own view, which we call Platonized Naturalism. 

Platonized Naturalism is the view that a more traditional kind of Platonism is consistent with naturalism. Traditional Platonism is the realist ontology that recognizes abstract objects, i.e., objects that are non-spatiotemporal and outside the causal order. The more traditional kind of Platonism that we defend, however, is distinguished by general comprehension principles that assert the existence of abstract objects. We shall argue that such comprehension principles are synthetic and are known a priori . Nevertheless, we claim they are consistent with naturalist standards of ontology, knowledge, and reference. 

I just realized that this article is the center piece of the program at the The Metaphysics Research Lab, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University.  [At this point I had already forgotten about the Computational Epistemology Lab, mentioned earlier.] 

The considerable irony is that this metaphysical smoking gun is being constructed by the computer jocks at Stanford.  It must be a cold day in hell when the materialists are getting it in the behind from these guys.  I always thought that the 'M' in MRL was a joke.  I should have been paying closer attention.  'What the heck does a computer care about metaphysics,' I wondered.  Well, it looks like the joke is on me.  I'm just the last person in the world to realize that materialism was a joke.  I've been taking it much too seriously.  But isn't the last guy out supposed to turn off the lights.  It's so dark in here I can't even see the light switch.  Help, Lord!  

I am finding this quite strange.  Zalta doesn't seem to get the joke.  He just tends to his knitting.  And how is this going to affect the programming of computers, pray tell?   

This article does get very abstract and analytic.  I look at Ed's home page and I see that he may never have laid a hand on a computer.  But these formal ontology projects are strictly for AI type stuff, I thought.  Maybe these computers are smarter than we think.  Should we worry?  

I'm trying to find the publication page again.  Here it is.  I was struck mainly by the conference title: 

"A Common Ground and Some Surprising Connections", Southern Journal of Philosophy, Volume XL, Supplement, 1-25. (Keynote lecture delivered at the Spindel Conference entitled Origins: The Common Sources of the Analytic and Phenomenological Traditions, September 2001, University of Memphis, Philosophy Department) 

No wonder I'm perplexed.  Am I gonna have to read this?  [10/14 -- I have read it without yet determining a relevance.  It is nice to have a formal ontology, but I suspect that the world is not so wont to stand on ceremony.  Formality does not comprehend rationality, and rationality does not comprehend the aesthetic implied in the BPW.  Cosmic love is just bound to be trans-rational.  The world is optimally rational.]  

[10/13] 

It looks as though I may have to render some sort of opinion about the competing theories of abstract objects that these latter-day, techno-ontologists love to fret about.  In general I would say that their disagreements may be attributed to an overly analytical approach to ontology.  They each assume that existence is an all or nothing proposition.  This is a major mistake.  They don't want to conceive of existence as relative.  There is a good reason for this.  It's part of our self-preservation instinct.  Each of us wishes to exemplify an absolute existence.  But on a relational perspective there can, at most, be only one absolute.  My more immediate concern is as between the particular and the universal.  I have spoken of cosmic love.  Do we envision that as a universal or a particular?  Do we embody or exemplify that property?  I'll have the answer in one hour, so keep your pants on. 

Yes, this is what I think is going wrong here, Ed is trying to construct a computer friendly ontology.  And he has fallen into the trap of thinking it's not who you know, it's what you know.  Well, this is a trap that is more difficult for an x'ian to fall into, if you catch my drift, not to say that Ed is not such at heart, but that is somewhat beside the point, or is it?  Someone that analytic has got to be just a tad insecure, and one's x'ianity is directly correlated with one's existential security.  It's just that simple.  But I'm no expert, just an amateur. 

And, here's the real catch: to know me is to love me, or, really, vice-versa, and how many of us could ever say that, even about ourselves.  No one said that existence, or really just love, is easy.  The only reason we continue to exist is because of God's continuing love.  Even God is not absolute.  The absolute is the creator-creation love feast, or the hierogamos, to be technical.  Is that a universal or a particular?  Obviously it is more than the sum.  It has got to be the best possible love feast.  Does that mean we are going to die?  No, that means don't ask stupid questions, if you catch my drift.  Does that completely answer your question concerning existence?  I hope so, 'cause that's all I can think of right now.  

And I almost forgot: what about 'holier than thou'?  As a wannabe second comer, am I just looking out for numero uno?  You got it, sister!  Oh yeah, and that's a priori, if you catch my drift for the last time.  And do I know what I'm talking about?  Not really, if you catch........  I'm a lot like you, I just work here, if you........ 

And that segues us right back to Ed & Bernie (Linsky): 

Indeed, from a naturalist perspective, how can there be synthetic a priori truths like the comprehension principle? The answer is that there can be such truths if they are required to make sense of naturalistic theories, that is, if they are required for our very understanding of those naturalistic theories.

.....As the final step to our argument, we claim that it follows from this conclusion that the comprehension principle and logic of encoding are required to make sense of any possible scientific theory, i.e., required for our very understanding of any such theory. So our Principled Platonism is consistent with naturalism because it is required by naturalism.

I would also point out that I can think of nothing more universal than gravity.  But is the universality of gravity not essentially Platonic?  And without this Platonism there would be no nature, nay, there would be no naturalists.  Nature is not self-sufficient, not even the Creator is self-sufficient.  Did you ever see a Creator without a Creation?  You could have an ex-creator with an ex-cre(a)tion, but let's not go there! 

The comprehension and identity principles present us with an ordered realm of objects that looks more like a formal garden than a jungle.

Well, guys, there's the mistake.  We didn't promise you a rose garden.  It's just mean streets out here in the BPW. 

A principle asserting the existence of a plenitude of abstracta meets this standard, for a plenitude is not arbitrary.  There is no need to explain why some abstract objects exist while others don't.  A Platonized Naturalist, however, operates in the spirit of this standard by pointing out that for objects outside the causal order, there is no way to discover or explain our connection to them on such a piecemeal basis.  There is no good reason to suppose that abstract objects are sparse.

The plenitude can only be of, by and for cosmic love.  How many more millennia to get this right?  The love is gonna getcha!  (The Ravens just lost, but we're still tied for first in our division.) 

I gather from Bernie & Ed [and see Hookway, above] that Willard Quine was, in effect, the first and last naturalist philosopher.  He was the first self-professed naturalist philosopher, and yet his naturalism was amended with a 'limited Platonism'.  No naturalist since has been able to refute this peculiar epistemic appendix to nature.  A great deal of effort has gone into the attempt to naturalize Plato, but these authors argue effectively that it is a lost cause, and the only recourse is now to Platonize nature.  This is not your grandmother's idea of nature.  

Willard's refutation of the analytic-synthetic distinction has been touted up one wall and down the other, but not so for his refutation of the Cartesian dichotomy of idea & matter.  This is far more significant historically, in my humble opinion.  We have spent about half a century trying to restore nature's conceptual virginity, and now it's time to face this fact of life: 'Do not put asunder that which God hath brought together.'  'Anomalous monism', indeed. 

[10/14]

There are several contemporary philosophical discussions that bear upon our putatively imminent gestalt switch to rational theism.  I have been surveying them in these last few pages. 

Now that we have witnessed the partial rehabilitation of Plato in contemporary philosophy, let us return to the consideration of rationalism. 

(Just as a sidelight, here is an account of rationalism vs. empiricism in economics: In Defense of Extreme Rationalism- Thoughts on Donald McClosky. The Rhetoric of Economics.) 

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Topical Index

10/10/02

Rationalism vs. Naturalism and other Orthodoxies

[10/15] 

Rationalism and idealism are not two sides of a coin; they are simply one coin.  Of course, the scientific establishment is constantly attempting to recruit rationality to its own cause.  The next time a scientist makes an appeal to reason, ask her if anyone has ever observed one of them there reasons.  

The Fallacy of Epistemological Idealism: 

Modern philosophy seems to be a maze of contradictory theories which have arisen in a relatively short period of time.  --------

On the surface, there appears to be nothing but intellectual chaos. Viewed from a broader standpoint, however, by far the majority of these theories and systems will be seen to be more or less alike. They reveal a common parentage and show a common kinship. As such, then, they possess a uniform trait, a fundamental doctrine identical in them all, which underlies all the variants and forms the root-idea from which they derive their origin and then develop into different philosophies. This uniform trait is idealism, and the root-idea is the idealist postulate.

Here, here!  Nothing worse than all these half-baked idealists!  A dime a dozen. 

How, then, can the mind perceive things at a distance, or how can things get into the mind? It does not seem to solve the difficulty by referring to the stimuli (light waves, airwaves, etc.), which are supposed to leave the objects and impinge upon the sense-organs; because then we should perceive these stimuli and not the objects from which they come. That, however, is not the case: we perceive apparently objects and certainly not stimuli.

Yes, I always did wonder about that. 

The foregoing criticism shows that idealism arises out of the ego-centric predicament and that its arguments involve a faulty logic. This, of course, does not prove than extra-mental reality actually exists; it merely shows that idealism has not disproved the existence of extra-mental objects. The question of the existence of such objects must be solved, not by any a priori, but by an a posteriori method. Facts alone, together with their proper interpretation, must settle the issue; that is the only scientific and philosophic procedure which can lead us with safety to a definite conclusion.

Yes, Mam, just the facts, please.  Our survival depends upon sticking to the facts.  But to whose facts do we stick?  Where is our authority?  Nay, where is our Author? 

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA- Rationalism: (speaking of authority...)

The term is used: (1) in an exact sense, to designate a particular moment in the development of Protestant thought in Germany; (2) in a broader, and more usual, sense to cover the view (in relation to which many schools may he classed as rationalistic) that the human reason, or understanding, is the sole source and final test of all truth. It has further: (3) occasionally been applied to the method of treating revealed truth theologically, by casting it into a reasoned form, and employing philosophical Categories in its elaboration.

Not exactly a rousing cheer for rationalism from this authority, and I can readily sympathize with their cautions...

But in his method of proof of the authority of Scripture recourse was had to reason, and thus the human mind became, logically, the ultimate arbiter in the case of both. Supranaturalism in theology, which it was Wolff's intention to uphold, proved incompatible with such a philosophical position, and Rationalism took its place. This, however, is to be distinguished from pure Naturalism, to which it led, but with which it never became theoretically identified. Revelation was not denied by the Rationalists; though, as a matter of fact, if not of theory, it was quietly suppressed by the claim, with its ever-increasing application, that reason is the competent judge of all truth.

They are not quite denying that our presumably God given, supra-natural power of reason is not the final arbiter.  (Am I sounding too Protestant?)  What else can be?  On what other basis can there be an interfaith dialog, or an apologetics? 

I am finding the remainder of this article most helpful, and I urge you to view the source.  

As has been noted in the preceding paragraph, German Rationalism had strong affinities with English Deism and French Materialism, two historic forms in which the tendency has manifested itself. But with the vulgarization of the ideas contained in the various systems that composed these movements, Rationalism has degenerated. It has become connected in the popular mind with the shallow and misleading philosophy frequently put forward in the name of science,....

Amen, to that. 

[10/16]

Consider this conceptual triangle: 

Sometimes a distinction is made, as it has been in different ways by Frege and Popper, between three kinds of real things (three 'realms' or 'worlds'). The first contains material things....  The second contains psychological things....  The third contains abstract things....  Philosophers have tended to treat these three realms ... as lying in a triangle, so that the rejection of one was compatible with accepting either or both of the other two. Materialists strictly speaking say that only matter exists, but in modern times they have tended to direct their fire primarily against believers in the second realm, and some of them (e.g. Armstrong) accept at least a moderate realism in connection with the third realm. But this was not always so. Plato, with whom so much of philosophy began, was primarily concerned to assert the existence of the third realm....

If the rationalists/idealists have established anything it is that realm of numbers cannot be reduced to material entities.  Given the reality of this 'third realm' then it follows naturally that the realm of the psyche must also have an immaterial aspect in order to make contact with the realm of numbers.  

The existence of consciousness is very hard to deny, as materialists must, but its existence cannot be demonstrated objectively, as they insist.  The materialists have the rest of us in a bind, demanding an objectification of non-objects, i.e. abstracta.  'Abstract' may be a poor word because it implies a logical dependency, but, in any case, abstraction, per se, is a purely psychic act. 

------------------------------

Opposing rationalism is empiricism, which is most narrowly equated with materialism.  More broadly conceived, empiricism becomes naturalism, which is more loosely defined, so loosely, in fact, to be possibly lacking in coherence. 

Next, we look at naturalism.  Is it a coherent set of beliefs? 

What it insists on is that the world of nature should form a single sphere without incursions from outside by souls or spirits, divine or human, and without having to accommodate strange entities like non-natural values or substantive abstract universals. But it need not reject the phenomena of consciousness, nor even identify them somehow with material phenomena, as the materialist must, provided they can be studied via the science of psychology, which can itself be integrated into the other sciences.

Off the top, psychology is very, very far from being a science.  Every psychologist has a different theory of psychology.  In these latter days, even the physicists are getting into the pluralism act.  Every theoretical physicist has a different conception of what the final Theory of Everything is going to look like.  This simply means that the frontier of any science will be 'unscientific'.  Political, aesthetic, intuitive and subjective considerations become dominant.  This is about charisma at its highest level.  Only when this charisma has been thoroughly routinized are we back in the realm of science.  

From an historical perspective we can think of alchemy as, at one time, being the frontier of chemistry.  Alchemy was a thoroughly charismatic affair: it reflected intensely personal and creative participation.  As an immaterialist, I would go even further than this.  During this charismatic stage of science, reality is being defined.  There is a give and take between the subjective and objective realms.  It is like a lengthy process of negotiation where the protocols of transaction are being worked out so at to achieve the greatest harmony as part of the Best Possible World.  Science is not simply a process of discovery.  The human intellect and the cosmic intellect are working out an ultimate accommodation which is mediated by and through nature.  

Psychology is still very much at the charismatic stage as represented by alchemy.  The transactional and transference protocols of psychology are intensely personal, and the results of which will ultimately define how we become one with the creator.  That is the 'science' of eschatology; that is what psychology is gradually working up to.  The eschatological psychology will be barely recognizable from what we know today.  It may even become more charismatic than it is now, but that will not prevent it from also taking on some significant aspects that represent a continuity with the methods of today's science.  

But we were supposed to be discussing naturalism.  We have simply explained why the epistemological form of naturalism is sometimes referred to as 'psychologism'.  It was Frege's reaction to the 'psychologizing' of mathematics, late in the 19th century, which lead to contemporary rationalism.  

It appears that the academic debate that is of most practical relevance to rational theism is the debate between rationalists and naturalists.  It is also true that this area of discussion is as active as any in philosophy. 

[10/17] 

One of the foci of this discussion is the 'naturalistic fallacy': 

The naturalistic fallacy is a metaethical theory proposed by G. E. Moore (1873-1958) in Principia Ethica (1903) that the notion of moral goodness cannot be defined or identified with any property. Moore argues that "goodness" is a foundational and unanalyzable property, similar to the foundational notion of "yellowness," and is not capable of being explained in terms of anything more basic.

This has a slightly different thrust than the more commonly stated version of this fallacy as consisting of the attempt to infer 'ought' from 'is', and going back at least to Hume.  

Here is another take on the fallacy: 

Small wonder, then, that faith in Nature is hard to reconcile with the rationalist philosophers' critique of the naturalistic fallacy. Environmental ideas of Nature are often based on a scepticism about the power of reason, and a willingness to put faith in spontaneous order precisely because one knows the limits of one's own knowledge about the working of the system.

This points to the divide between naturalistic philosophers, who align themselves with science, and naturalists simpliciter.  Is there anything in the world more unnatural than science?  Natural science should be an oxymoron.  These matters are further complicated by the once prominent religious notion of Natural Law.  And finally, the concept of human nature is about as contentious as any in the modern world.  

James Boyle continues with his review: 

In 'Contested Natures' Phil Macnaghten and John Urry take up these questions. They argue that we have not one but many Natures, "constituted through a variety of socio-cultural processes from which such natures cannot be plausibly separated." Their argument, if I understand it correctly, is that three things will happen once we realise that the concept 'Nature' is neither 'natural' nor unitary. First, we will stop believing that we can get objective science about Nature. The reason is almost Heisenbergian; the observers are in the frame, not outside of it. We are part of Nature, part of many Natures, and scientific analysis must always begin by assuming some pretheoretical orientation towards one of those 'Natures.' 

These preceding observations bring us back to the question I posed yesterday: can anything posing as 'naturalism' be coherent?  I am not the only skeptic on this matter.  Naturalism is the de facto, ad hoc fall-back position for the rag-tag remnants of the once ascendant materialists.  As we speak, they are discovering that this encampment is not rationally [sic] defensible, and they encounter a lack of sympathy among the natives.  

Now I could be proven wrong in this prognosis, and certainly I am not specifying a date by which the 'naturalists' will have folded their tent.  I am not holding my breath, but I am, right here before your eyes, maintaining a vigil.  I am supposing that a properly conceived vigil will expedite the folding of that tent. 

And, of course, I am doing rather more than that.  I am attempting to give shape to the tent that will come.  As the naturalists get a better handle on what exactly they are holding out against, it may well increase their resolve.  So be it.  What could be the more logical contender to naturalism than a rational theism, with its attendant BPW supposition?  They may well realize that their best strategy is to fight every strawperson and ignore every real person.  When they are no longer able to ignore rational theism, the game is over.  

-----------------------------

Now I search on rationalism & naturalism.  There are over 5,000 hits.  

It is disappointing to see how many people using rationalism in its particular historical and non-philosophical sense that is now covered by naturalism.  The scientifically inspired attack on religious authority came way back in what was naively billed as the Age of Reason by self-styled Rationalists.  This confusion means that a lot of people are missing what is now the principle argument against naturalism.  Of course, naturalism is also a misleading term, chosen perhaps deliberately by those defensive materialists. 

Here is the first substantive hit.  (Note that 'empiricism' is used in place of 'naturalism'): 

....the Rationalist holds that some or all of what is true knowledge is in-nate to us, it is literally inborn with us; the Empiricist believes the opposite: all of our knowledge arises from our perceptual experiences in the world after we are born. The name of the school of Rationalism obviously derives from the word 'rational' which itself goes back to the Latin, 'ratio' meaning 'calculation'. This in turn goes back to another Latin word, 'ratus', which is the past participle of 'reor', meaning "think', 'deem', 'judge'. What runs through all of these is the emphasis on mind, an emphasis retained in most of the modern associations connected with the word 'rational' as well: rationalise, rationality, and so on.  'Empiricism' derives from another English word, 'empiric', meaning, 'derived from experience' (this itself going back to Latin and Greek words for experience also). So in the plainest language possible, the Rationalist places the origin of our knowledge of reality in the powers of the mind, whereas the Empiricist places it in our powers of perception.

As John Mullarkey points out later in this article, it is also the distinction between deduction and induction.  But in a contemporary cultural sense it is the distinction between the Analytical and Continental schools of philosophy.  So if I'm so big on rationalism, why don't I just move to France?  Well, the French still see rationalism as opposed to both religion and nature.  They are still back in the Age of 'Enlightenment'.  Hegel's stab at a rational theism was stopped dead in the water by many converging historical forces.  Those deconstructive catholic atheists show not the slightest inclination to revive it. 

[10/18] 

By the way, I hit on the following article that is apropos of the interface of faith and reason: The Opening of the Evangelical Mind: 

If there is a threat to academic freedom, it comes from what he calls "dogmatic rationalism." Naturalism, the belief that everything that exists in the world has a natural origin and can be explained by laws of nature, "becomes dangerous when, like the dogmatists of old, it declares its way of knowing to be the only legitimate one and then seeks to disenfranchise other voices."

Notice that even the editors of the Atlantic Monthly are disposed to equate rationalism with naturalism.  The whole religion-science debate may hinge upon the distinction. 

Continuing on with the rationalism & naturalism listing, I find the most complete statement of the anti-naturalist view of the mind: Mind and the World of Nature by Steven Horst.  He is still drafting some of the chapters.  I have not run across any defense of naturalism that is nearly as comprehensive.  The 'neuro-philosophy' tomes we looked a earlier simply do not address many of these basic philosophical issues.  The papers that do address these issues do so in a piecemeal fashion. 

Now here is a revealing article by a secular humanist: Evolutionary Naturalism: the Philosophical Foundations of Humanism.  Pat Hutcheon reads the Darwinian riot act to his fellow humanists: 

Do you assume that human beings cannot know anything beyond nature, nor can they know anything by any means beyond the use of the senses and the application of reason to experience? Do you consider that any sound understanding of reality must begin with a bottom-up, empirical search for cause and effect relationships -- rather than with a priori axioms and a top-down process of deductive rationalism?....

Do you assume that language is merely a tool evolved within our species of primate and that the terms we apply to categories of experience do not carry within them any "essence" of the reality they serve to symbolize? Are you skeptical of holistic approaches to knowing, or to healing, with their grand designs for social change -- or total harmony of being -- that can be neither analyzed nor tested? Do you refuse to devote time and effort to a search for the underlying meaning and purpose of life, and for your own role in some universal cosmic plan?....

All of which was prompted by the following observation: 

Many European humanists -- because of deeply embedded cultural tendencies toward romanticism and Kantian transcendentalism [and Rationalism?] -- have never really adopted the evolutionary world view implied by modern science. For them postmodernism is an all-too-easy out. It allows them to have their cake and eat it too. They can avoid facing up to the implications of evolution for human behavior. They can say that, yes, science is one way of comprehending reality; but there are other, equally legitimate modes of knowing. "Most of us here are not in the least interested in Darwinian evolutionary ideology", I have been told a number of times by humanists in Europe. Indeed, I am beginning to suspect that the "postmodern" point of view, which sees all approaches to knowing -- including the scientific one -- as equally ideological in nature, is rapidly becoming the prevailing philosophy among humanists in many parts of the world.

Yes, those Continentals are a subversive bunch.  And Pat is right about having to draw a line in the sand.  One, well aimed, immaterial stone could bring down the whole glass house that is materialism.  The Continental mysticism is a pragmatic defense against the immanent, logical collapse of scientific materialism.  They don't want to be taken down with that edifice.  They don't want to have to ride shotgun for Science as do their Analytical colleagues over here.  The Continentals hope that only one end of the secular boat will sink. 

This rather obvious point about Freud vs. rationalism had not occurred to me: 

One of the strongest blows to classical rationalism did not come from the crisis of its bulwarks at the turn of the century (applied non-Euclidean geometry, logical conventionalism, etc.), but rather from Freud's attack on the crystalline transparency of self-consciousness. In effect, Chomsky's neo-rationalism in linguistics adopted from the start the ‘opaque’ character of language universals.

No wonder that neo-rationalism is an uphill battle.  This is from a footnote of Alberto Peruzzi in 'From Kant to Entwined Naturalism'.  I'm attempting to discern a possible Continental flavor to naturalism, hopefully it will be spiced up a bit.  I am reminded of Linsky & Zalta's Naturalized Platonism vs. Platonized Naturalism discussed on the previous page.  In the present case, Peruzzi is using the mathematical theory of categories to Kantianize Nature.  Again, this is not grandmother's idea of Nature, but scientists have been mathematizing Nature from the beginning.  Also Peruzzi reminds us that logic and math are normative sciences rather than descriptive.  Is this how we can smuggle intentionality into Nature?   Are the Continentals going to help the naturalists get off the materialist hook by making irreducibility more scientifically palatable?  Let us see.  I suspect, however, that this is another foot in the door for rationalism, and that by giving it these few inches, it will not be difficult for rationalism to take the whole nine yards.  But am I the only one who respects the potency of the rational?  Has Freud reduced the ratio to the libido?  Obviously the cosmic libido respected the rationale of the Monster Group or we would not have Physics.  Creation is about the entwining of the Life force and the Logos to produce the BPW.  A real neat trick! 

But then why am I calling this 'rational theism' and not 'libidinous theism'.  I may have just been taking the libidinous part as a given, as in, 'give us a break!'  On the Trinitarian scheme does the Force reside more with the Son or the Spirit?  It will be on your next quiz.  

Science, in its transactions with Nature, recognizes neither the vital force nor the logos. The logos of mathematical physics is a significant exception.  

[10/19] 

While reading Peruzzi, I notice the next essay on the Google list, rationalism & naturalism, is 'THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN CHRISTIAN THEISM, METAPHYSICAL NATURALISM AND RELATIVISM: HOW TO PROCEED IN SCIENCE?' by Jitse van der Meer (1995).  It has been posted on the ASA website.  The American Scientific Affiliation espouses a more academically respectable version of creationism with God working through nature, more or less, but it is more demanding of scientific openness than anything you would find at the AAAS, for instance, although I am sure that many scientists who are also evangelical belong to both out of professional necessity.  Van der Meer is emphasizing the intellectual tension that must exist between naturalism and theism.  This is a tension that I have found to be notably lacking among the more nominally, or non-evangelical theistic scientists, who see science as another job.  They just work there, so to speak.  It is not part of their job description to wax metaphysical, and they'll be damned if anyone tries to make an issue of it, as Jitse does here. 

[Incidentally, the Intelligent Design/Irreducible Complexity advocates do not appear to have a presence in the ASA.  I'm not sure how closely affiliated the IDers are with the reactionary creationists.] 

I then suggest that science needs to expand its methodology beyond the current confines. This expansion consists of accepting non-material causes in scientific explanations, and using broader criteria for theory choice. Instead of explanations that use material causes only, science needs multi-dimensional explanations that admit the causal efficacy of purpose and intent. Not only is the pursuit of several different explanations more adequate for a multi-dimensional reality, but it also provides a way of limiting one-dimensional explanations including those developed in terms of matter alone. This is an hermeneutical approach to explanation in the natural sciences which emphasizes "understanding" and sees explanation in material terms as one form of it.

This is not an unreasonable suggestion, but it will not be taken up without a 'struggle', our without a major shift in public sentiment and understanding.  It will not be taken up until rational theism is more widely appreciated. 

Methodological materialism is important because it acknowledges the materiality of creation.

Well, there just went the whole ballgame.  There's a throwaway line for you.  Can anyone out there tell me why the prophetic traditionalists are knee-jerk dualists?  I keep trying to understand this dogmatic dichotomy of Creator and Creation, but cannot quite fathom it.  Are not human souls part of creation?  Are they not immaterial?  Ergo, Jitse is in a blatant self-contradiction.  His obliviousness to this blinding inconsistency is endemic among theologians.  Will someone please clue me in?  What is going on here? 

[10/22] 

I've spent the last couple of days perusing reductionism & mathematics.  I am finding no defenders of reductionism.  Dawkins remains the primary advocate of materialism; however, his 'memes' are decidedly immaterial entities, rendering him anomalous.  After him comes Dennett, but his 'functions' are neither physical nor reducible. 

There are quite a few philosophers who are 'non-reductive materialists', but I am not the only one who sees their position as self-contradictory.  And these latter-day materialists seem motivated primarily by the desire to avoid Cartesian dualism.  Their monistic predilection may put them in the forefront of idealism when its turn comes again.  Their colleagues have too readily surrendered to the blandishments of pluralism.  

Materialists lately refer to themselves as 'physicalists'.  However, if you ask a physicist what physics reduces to, they will likely respond with 'mathematics'.  If you ask a mathematician what mathematics reduces to, my perusal of the above list tells me that you will not get a definite answer.  A century ago, the answer might have been 'logic', but that aspiration has long vanished.  Are there any irreducible mathematical objects to which one may point?  There are many objects that seem quasi-reducible at best.  My favorite remains the Monster Group, which many believe has physical ramifications, along with its more diminutive siblings.  It does contain many of the smaller sporadic groups as subgroups, but as the largest of that class, it is technically irreducible to them.  It is not just the sum of its parts, because its group structure specifies a unique set of relations amongst all its elements.  One might claim that the Monster is reducible to the coding of its existence theorem.  However, the fact that this putative theorem has never been assembled in one place, is not fully understood by any one person, and is estimated that it would fill some 1,500 pages [3/10/03: wrong, it was 15,000 pages compiled by some 50 mathematicians between 1961 and 1980 (additional reference)], renders this form of reduction less than compelling.  Surely, the existence proof of the Monster is already contained cryptically somewhere in the decimal expansion of Pi, along with Shakespeare's sonnets, but specifying its location therein might require many more than 1,500 [15,000] pages.  But the Monster group is not physical, per se. It can exist only as an idea, and not as an isolated idea, but only as part of a seemingly unspecifiable, holistic set of ideas embedded in an intelligence having considerable overlap with human intelligence.  Reductionism seems only able to lead us into irreducible logical circles.  Its would-be defenders have been left in disarray.  

Where does that leave the rest of us?  That leaves us as if suspended on the edge of reality.  Suddenly our world is populated by many new and mysterious objects.  What are we to make of this new landscape? 

Whatever else might be said of this landscape, intelligence is not an epiphenomenal aspect of it.  Can concepts exist without conceivers, or experiences without experiencers?  By definition, intelligence is structured to render the world minimally intelligible.  Given the existence of immaterial, irreducible intelligences, it would seem unnatural to confine higher intelligence to a purely dependent existence.  Especially so if we come to suspect, as many have, that the peculiar abstractions of space and time are dependent constructs of mind.  In that case, our own immersion in space and time is an integral aspect of a cosmic construct to whose intelligibility we are prime witnesses.  

[10/23] 

It is revealing to read Steve Weinberg's comments, REDUCTIONISM REDUX, on the reductionism symposium at Jesus College in 1992.  His arrogance is equaled only by the shallowness of his discussion.  I have not read the proceedings, but there does appear to have been a dearth of philosophical reflection in a discussion dominated by scientists throwing barbs at each other, a technique easily mastered by Steve.  Steve's now 'Standard Theory' combining weak, electric and strong forces may well have been the last hurrah of reductionism, or as he calls it 'grand reductionism'.  Steve's 'grand' project was already being 'sneered' at even before the ink on his awards had dried.  What role is left for him but curmudgeonhood?  

There is another reason for some of the opposition to reductionism, and specifically to the perspective provided by grand reductionism. It is that this perspective removes much of the traditional motivation for belief in God.

Now there's a bit of candor.  One almost has to wonder if Steve is concerned about his historical spot in the cosmic pecking order.  By the same token, any significant shortfall in the grand project is evidence for cosmic purpose. Check out his defense of the 'meaningless universe'.  With both Dawkins' and Dennett's reductionism suspect, Weinberg might have to be given the top spot on reductionism's hit parade.  His motivation seems to lack personal conviction; what I see instead is a literal reductio ad absurdum of  his professional role playing.  

Steve's equation of modernism with 'grand reductionism' is correct, and so is its adversity to theism.  The postmodern refusal to grapple with either rationalism or theism is its defining characteristic.  It is a deliberate lacuna that is consigning its practitioners to instant irrelevance.  The cottage industry of theological apologetics for science should be a scandal.  Steve and the fundamentalists have the correct assessment.  Pluralism is a desperate ploy to curtail thought and discussion of anything foundational.  Anti-foundationalism has nowhere to stand.  

Meanwhile the evidence against reductionism is mounting.  It is strongest in the areas of epistemology and linguistics, areas that traditional reductive science abjures.  The subtle arguments of its practitioners are lost beneath the furious controversy concerning human nature.  Piaget's and Chomsky's structuralism was much too easily subsumed under biological genetics.  Their 'genetic epistemology' was never intended to be about DNA, and the public ignorance of their subdued protestations to that effect only underscores the pervasiveness of the modern reductive hegemony.  

The starkly theistic implications of any anti-reductionism, as touted by Steve, pose a great intellectual and political barrier to its academic proponents.  They must toil amidst the unobtrusive details, leaving the obvious speculations to us outsiders.  Even the growing cadre of theistically committed philosophers is slotted into areas of ethics.  It is true, however, that there is a major overlap between ethics and epistemology.  It is in that obscure venue that we might keep an eye out for an anti-reductive theistic initiative.  Epistemology represents the soft underbelly of scientific materialism. 

Plantinga's Reformed Epistemology is certainly a move in a parallel direction, but it does not focus specifically on reductionism.  Alvin is just looking to construct a new branch of epistemology, a safe harbor for theism, rather than provoke a general confrontation.  The neo-theists are following his lead, to the relief of their secularist colleagues.  That the reformed and evolutionary accounts of epistemology can much longer avoid a confrontation is doubtful, however.  

-------------------------

Let us look at "reformed epistemology" & reductionism.  An interesting article, 'The Relationship between Philosophy and Theology in the Postmodern Age' (1999), is on the al-Islam website.  This is an important essay.  It provides a comprehensive introduction to contemporary philosophy of religion; actually, it is the best I have seen on the Internet to-date.  

While philosophy in the U.S. has been dominated by analytic thought throughout, most of the twentieth century, over the last ten or fifteen years, continental thought has come to play a prominent role in American philosophy. What is emerging is a "world philosophy," but one from which the Islamic world is largely excluded. The reason for this exclusion is not because of some conspiracy to suppress Islamic thought, but because we Muslims have not seriously attempted to enter the discussion. If we are to enter the discussion, we must beware that it takes place in what is often hostile territory, in the context of expectations, presuppositions and standards of reasoning many of which are quite foreign to those found in the Islamic sciences. 

What a breath of fresh air from Dr. Muhammad Legenhausen.  

Consider, for example, the role of the principle that an actual infinity of causes is impossible. A number of Western philosophers, physicists and mathematicians have come to doubt this principle. In defense of the principle, an important book has been written in which some of the ideas of Muslim philosophers are given attention: William Lane Craig's The Kalam Cosmological Argument (New York: Harper & Row, 1979). This is one of the rare cases in which ideas from the Islamic tradition (particularly those of Abu Humid Ghazali) have been the subject of discussion in the contemporary philosophy of religion.

I'll bet you didn't know that. 

Other defenders of the Christian faith have argued that the doubts raised by Hume (1711-1776) and Kant (1724-1804) about the rationality of religious belief can be answered through an examination of the standards of reasoning employed in the natural sciences today, which are far from what Hume and Kant imagined.

Amen, Brother.  Is it peculiar or not that the best summary of Christian philosophy comes from Islam? 

The theologian provides the philosopher with the doctrinal setting in terms of which reports of mystical experiences are understood, and the philosopher provides a critical analysis of both doctrine and report in order to place mystical experiences within the framework of a broader epistemological theory.

Dr. Muhammad is getting me in trouble.  I may be violating Federal Law with more than 'fair use' of his article. 

[10/24] 

Here is another helpful summary: 'An Evangelical Theological Response to Postmodernity'.  (This essay, as noted, was cached by Google from an inactive site.  Unfortunately, no other information is available.)  I agree with the notion of a global ethic: 

Many of the issues which have fostered the development of postmodern thinking are primarily ethical, causing Grenz to comment on the growing concern for a community-based ethic of being.164 

In the postmodern world we are becoming increasingly aware that every ethical proposal - even ethics itself - is embedded in an interpretive framework which in the end comprises the shared belief structure - the theology - of a community. In short, every understanding of the ethical life is ultimately derived from a community-based vision, which links the personal life with something beyond.165 

Grenz believes that the hope for a global ethic, which originally arose out of the modern pluralist ethos, is even more workable in a postmodern communitarian climate.166 

I am most sympathetic with the teleology: 

Through the cultivation of a proleptic [i.e. anticipatory] consciousness of the yet-to-be consummated whole of reality, we can gain an awareness and anticipation ahead of time of the future whole, 111 based on Gods promise and faith in Gods faithfulness. The gospel of Jesus Christ promises a destiny - the new creation, which means reality is future-oriented. Only with the fulfillment of this promise does reality become a whole and the true nature of all the parts, including ourselves, is revealed. In the life death and resurrection of Jesus, we see ahead of time what this nature is.  

He examines the notion of Gods creating as a continuous act,  drawing implications for modern cosmological ideas, and introducing the concept of proleptic creation. God creating from the future, not the past, means that it is the continuing divine work of future-giving that is the source of life and being. For Peters, Gods creative activity within nature and history derives from Gods redemptive work of drawing free and contingent beings into a harmonious whole. 114 

[10/25] 

In this last, anonymous essay, mention is made of Wolfhart Pannenberg (1928 -).  This is a name that I have not run into in years.  My bad.  He is an advocate of 'systematic theology'.  I am wondering if he may exhibit coherentist and idealist tendencies.  Stanley J. Grenz, an American follower, provides a review: 

In contrast to the classical tradition, he declares that truth is not found in the unchanging essences lying behind the flow of time, but is essentially historical and ultimately eschatological. Until the eschaton, truth will remain provisional and truth claims contestable. Therefore, theology. like all human knowledge, is provisional. It simply cannot pack into formulas the truth of God. The future alone is the focal point of ultimate truth. As a result. all dogmatic statements are hypotheses to be tested for coherence with other knowledge. This, he claims, is in accordance with the Scriptures, which declare that only at the end of history is the deity of God unquestionably open to all-an event. however, that is anticipated in the present.

OK for coherentism, and we get the eschaton as a bonus.  I am embarrassed not to have remembered Wolfhart much sooner.  This indicates a lacuna in my Internet search strategy. .  

[10/26] 

While missing Pannenberg, I also have missed the lasting Hegelian and German idealist influence on modern theology.  In previously picking up on Anglo-American theistic idealism, I was mainly seeing an offshoot of the former.  However, after WWII, French existentialism and scepticism became dominant on the Continent, and theistic idealism toiled in relative obscurity.  

Pannenberg's influence may be expanding in the US, of late, despite a pervasive anti-idealist undercurrent which remains characteristically inchoate.  It seems to be an opposition mainly directed against subjective idealism. 

I need to focus on this trend, and particularly in its eschatological form.  For all I know right now, Pannenberg is the only exponent of this form.  My speculation is that Wolfhart is an amillennialist: all the drama is focused on the eschaton.  In contrast, I am a pre-millennialist: there is a dramatic overturn of materialism that ushers in the Millennium.  If this is true of Wolfhart, I don't know his rationale, but, again, let me speculate.  For Wolfhart, the eschaton lies in the distant and otherwise unforeseeable future, thus the concept of an historical Millennium would be a relatively minor addendum at best.  

Carl Henry is perhaps the premier orthodox Christian theologian.  Here is a review: Carl Henry's Reasoned Apologetic: 

Henry launches his metaphysical inquiry in these works by asserting the supernatural reality and objectivity of God against a tradition of dialectical and existentialist [and idealist] theology whose roots are traced to Kant and Kierkegaard, current manifestations he believes are the subjectivizing tendencies of Barth, Brunner, and Aulèn, as well as Tillich and Bultmann. Thus the author returns to the emphasis in earlier volumes on Scripture's univocal propositional knowledge as juxtaposed to the non-cognitive [sic] personal encounters attributed to neo-orthodox theology, or to the ambiguities of the analogical language as defended in the tradition that runs from Aquinas to Mascall. The future-oriented theologies of Moltmann and Pannenberg also come under criticism for casting doubt on the present reality of deity and the lack of adherence to scriptural testimony about the incarnation. 

---------

These doctrinal errors are all finally traced to a reliance on philosophical conceptuality rather than biblical revelation.

The last sentence sums up the perennial objection to reason.  One might wonder if human rationality were the work of Satan.  Carl is our articulate, literate bibliolater.  He can't see Jesus for all the Christianity.  Rationalism and coherentism struggle to obtain a foothold in the no man's land between science and religion. 

I would argue that Henry's incoherent, legalistic literalism is the same one that informs scientism as well as analytic philosophy.  [and see below] 

[10/27] 

How 'bout that eschaton!  Let's listen to Bob Russell, Founder and Director, The Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, Berkeley, 1981-present, speaking from his important meta-library: 

According to Wolfhart Pannenberg, all Christian theology depends on the future coming of God.  Eschatology thus involves “one of the most obvious conflicts between a worldview based on modern science and the Christian faith.”  John Macquarrie, too, wrote that “...if it were shown that the universe is indeed headed for an all-enveloping death, then this might seem to constitute a state of affairs so negative that it might be held to falsify Christian faith and abolish Christian hope.”  Are these conclusions avoidable?

Good question, Bob. 

The only alternative is truly radical: to pursue the possibility that a commitment to eschatology will lead to an alternative scientific [sic] cosmology. 

Tipler and Pannenberg have engaged in an interesting and constructive interaction to which Drees, myself and others have replied.  Meanwhile, Tipler’s scientific claims have been attacked aggressively by other scientists while both Dyson’s and Tipler’s theological proposals and their reductionist assumptions have been widely criticized by scholars including Polkinghorne, Barbour, Peacocke, Clayton and Worthing.  

If this alternative is not to be taken, what options are left?  [Immaterialism, anyone?]  Polkinghorne is representative of most theological views when reminding us that “an ultimate hope will have to rest in an ultimate reality, that is to say, in the eternal God himself, and not in his creation.”  Such hope is not in the survival of death of a purported soul, since we are a psychosomatic unity. Instead it is in our resurrection: God remembering us and recreating us in a radically new environment. God will create the world to come through a transformation of the universe.

Maybe, Bob, just maybe, we get to participate in this recreational transformation of our already immaterial universe.  A radical recreation implies a radically sub-optimal creation.  It wasn't a Big Bang, it was a Big Boner!  I don't think so, Bob. 

Worthing has proposed that we take up Pannenberg’s distinction between theological and scientific apocalyptic visions. Rather than equate the parousia with the remote future end of the universe, Worthing suggests we understand it as a renewal or transformation of the universe as a whole. The Biblical ‘end’ is not a cosmic end, since it “allows for a bodily resurrection and creation of a new heaven and new earth.  ”This, in turn, shifts the discussion from the end of the world to the concept of eternity as the real issue in relating science and theology. We are led to consider “the future of the universe...(as) taken up into the eternality of the Creator --- an eternality of a decisively different order from that which the physical universe could potentially possess...”.

Exactly what does this mean, Bob?  Why do you insist on this incoherent dualism? 

Ted Peters writes from just such a perspective, developing the Trinitarian theology of the 20th century with particular attention to the implications of Big Bang and quantum cosmology. What we need is “temporal holism” in which the cosmos as a unity of time and space is both created proleptically from the future and redeemed eschatologically by God’s future initiative which we know proleptically in Jesus Christ.  Prolepsis ties together futurum, the ordinary sense of future resulting from present causes, and adventus, the appearance of something absolutely new, namely the kingdom of God, the renewal of creation.  The creation, from alpha to omega, will be consummated and transformed into the eschatological future which lies beyond, but which will include, this creation as a whole. “The eschatological future is the key that opens the gate to eternity.” Peters, too, is ruthlessly honest about the challenge from science. “Should the final future as forecasted by (scientific cosmology) come to pass...then we would have proof that our faith has been in vain. It would turn out to be that there is no God, at least not the God in whom follows of Jesus have put their faith.”

Amen! 

I believe the approaches suggested by Pannenberg, Polkinghorne, and Peters are particularly promising, but I also want to underscore the challenge of making them intelligible in detail in light of scientific cosmology as it currently stands. If we are to engage in a genuinely mutual interaction, a more complex methodology is called for. I will make preliminary suggestions about such a methodology in Part III: F. 

Don't hold your breath, folks: Part III: F, seems no longer to exist.  Should we be grateful to be spared the 'more complex methodology'?  Only by God's grace do some of us refrain from 'methodology'!  I did meet Bob once: a theological apparatchik.  But what else could he be if he chooses not to rise to the messianic occasion?  All the more for the rest of us.  Thanks, Bob.  

There you have the bleeding edge of academic eschatology.  

----------------------------------

Now we need to check out that German idealistic theism, tracing its genealogy to the present. 

Starting with idealistic theism, the first entry is On the Rationality of Theism, right up our alley.  It starts out as a critique of Ayn Rand.  Scott Ryan surmises that her incoherence stems from her emotion laden atheism.  He then matriculates to his own cosmology. 

I hope it is clear that classical theism is "idealistic" in this sense, i.e., it maintains that reality consists fundamentally of a single absolute mind and, less fundamentally, of the objects created by that mind's activity.

This is not rocket science.  How then are so many theologians still hung up on Cartesian dualism, three centuries after the fact?  What a waste of mind.  

Unfortunately, Scott does not manage to put Ms. Rand behind him for long.  I have yet to comprehend either the positive or negative fascination with this person.  Shades of Blavatsky?  Charlatan? 

But hear his concise defense of idealism: 

Now, beyond the claim (made earlier) that there simply are no fully "external" relations, I can suggest at least two further powerful reasons for thinking that the relation between thought and object is not external in the other direction either. One is that the object of thought must be such as to be "thinkable." Thus, if (as we have suggested) everything which exists can, in principle, be present to and instantiated in thought, then to say that something is "real" is to make essential (though not necessarily explicit) reference to thought.

The other is that even on the most strongly "materialist" or "physicalist" view (I emphasize with Grayling that these are not the same), it still seems to be the case that the "material" or "physical" universe gives rise, in a causal manner, to the existence of mind. If the cause-and-effect relation is also a logical relation, so that causes logically entail their effects and (arguably) vice versa, then the material or physical universe does logically entail the existence of thoughts "about" it.

So it appears that we cannot strictly conceive of any "external" reality that is so completely independent of thought as to be related to it externally even in one direction. Thought is not "external" to its object if (a) that object is such as to be "thinkable" and therefore composed of the sort of stuff that can be instantiated in our thoughts, or if (b) the cause-and-effect relation between "matter" and "mind" involves logical entailment, so that "mind" was a causal potentiality always logically, and thus eternally, present within "matter." Either of these points suffices to establish that "external" reality is not logically independent of mind in any meaningful sense.

I appreciate Scott's fresh restatement of classical arguments.  

[10/28] 

From theistic idealism, I find an excellent source (Britannica? What else?) on its modern provenance.  

And here is a lengthy, vitriolic rebuttal to Scott Ryan by Greg S. Nyquist.  Greg does capture much of the current popular sentiment against idealism.  I'm not aware that Scott has responded.  Greg frequently alludes to the 'absurdity' of idealism.  I gather that he is generally and implicitly referring to what Ralph Barton Perry called the 'ego-centric predicament', but I don't think this alleged 'predicament' has had a lasting impact.  Rand had her own kind of ego-centric predicament.  What is shared in Johnson's, Nietzsche's, Rand's and popular critiques is a rather crude, unthinking, anti-idealist machismo.  

This visceral reaction likely shares something with the orthodox reaction represented by Carl Henry.  One illuminates the other.  Henry is in partial denial of his own idealist influences:  

The most influential figures on Henry’s thought are Gordon Haddon Clark and Edgar Sheffield Brightman. Ronald Nash summarized Clark’s thought as following: (1) the epistemological bankruptcy of any form of philosophical or religious empiricism; (2) the indispensability of Divine revelation to human knowledge as a whole; (3) the shortcomings of any attempt to remove the cognitive and propositional element from the content of God’s revelation; (4) the importance of refusing to separate faith from reason whether this separation be a humanistic attack on faith, an existentialist critique of reason, or a Thomistic segregation of the two into different realms of human knowledge;....

Also Edgar S. Brightman who was Henry’s professor in the studying period at Boston University is one of significant figures of Boston Personalist tradition. Brightman’s personal and theistic idealism influenced to Henry. He argues that whatever exists must be an element in the experience of a conscious mind. Hence, everything will exist as an element either in some finite mine or in God’s mind. Also for him, personality is the highest kind of conscious life.

We need to follow-up on Carl's conflicted thought.  

Something to note about the orthodox is their taboo on God.  God may reach out and touch us, but we are not meant to return the favor, on pain of being struck by a divine thunderbolt.  This is true.  Once we act upon the divine mutuality implied by rationalism and idealism, we are setting in motion the eschaton and whatever apocalypses may attend upon it.  The popular anti-idealist machismo thinly disguises a deep, collective fear of our Maker.  Only such a reversal could explain its visceral vehemence.  This same fear motivates the attraction of materialism and Cartesianism.  Don't touch God!! 

All such tribal taboos are meant to reinforce perceived cosmic dichotomies.  Any violation is dire.  

---------------------

One might, however, be instructed by Mr. Nyquist's interest in Santayana, 'last century's greatest philosopher.'

Santayana may be the original naturalist.  From the Britannica: 

Scepticism and Animal Faith (1923) conveys better than any other volume the essential import of his philosophy. It formulates his theory of immediately apprehended essences and describes the role played by "animal faith" in various forms of knowledge.

"The realm of essence," in Santayana's system, is that of the mind's certain and indubitable knowledge. Essences are universals that have being or reality but do not exist. They include colours, tastes, and odours as well as the ideal objects of thought and imagination. "The realm of matter" is the world of natural objects; belief in it rests--as does all belief concerning existence--on animal faith. Naturalism, the dominant theme of his entire philosophy, appears in his insistence that matter is prior to the other realms.

This quibble about essences is at the bottom of the incoherence of all attempts at a non-reductive materialism: mind is epiphenomenal relative to matter, and essences are epiphenomenal relative to mind, so they don't exist, but they're real.  The notion of real non-existence smacks of purest sophistry.  If one could penetrate the rationale for this sophistry, one might be further instructed.  I'm of the impression, though, that Santayana has little residual clout among professional philosophers. 

Then there was Bertrand: Russell's The Problems of Philosophy: 

Russell was a realist on two key issues, universals and material objects. In both cases he was opposed to much of nineteenth century idealism.

Bertrand was a 'neutral monist'.  That would be a more accurate appellation for 'naturalism'. 

Once again we are back to the question of reductionism.  I am not aware that there has been a global or thorough-going reductionist.  Who will be the last materialist?  I cannot name a contemporary philosophical materialist.  Such a person would have a technically argued global thesis of physical reductionism.  I don't know that there has been an extreme and reasoned materialism presented in modern history.  Holbach's Systeme de la Nature (1770) may have been the first and last such thesis.  

We then have to explain the existence of knowable irreducible entities, even if there were only one.  Partial reductionisms abound: there is no consensus as to the primary candidates for irreducibility, yet no one is claiming there are no such entities.   

At the very least, there must be material atoms, along with some form of informational or perceptual atoms, whether the latter might comprise numbers, logical atoms or sense data of some kind.  A perceptual atom might exist only in individual experience.  Even if consciousness were an illusion, there would still be the fact of information transfer, and so there would have to be informational atoms or bits.  The bits may be physically instantiated, but they must also be abstractable by the communicating agents.  Bit patterns have a computational or functional significance that supervenes on the physical pattern.  By definition, there can be miscommunication, but miscommunication has no purely physical analog.  There are no mistakes in physics.  Physics always just keeps on happening, regardless of anyone's protocol.  Informational 'noise' is not a physical construct.  I am not aware that anyone has ever claimed that information does not exist.  Even if one eliminated mind and consciousness, materialism would be strictly incoherent if there existed no information about matter.  

Informational bits, although physically instantiated are not physically reducible.  Indeed, instantiation is not a physical construct.  It is nowhere represented in the extensive terminology of physical science. 

With the advent of quantum physics, many physicists are espousing various forms of metaphysical 'informationalism', and there are, of course, informational/physical dualists, but none who deny information, per se, to my knowledge.  

Where do genetic DNA sequences fit into this picture?  Are they physical or informational?  I would have to say they are an indeterminate hybrid, or proto-informational.  I'm sorry not to be more informative.  Be informed, however, that the idealist's notion of genetics strays very far from that of the materialist.  Be grateful that I have been sparing you all the 'scare quotes' on 'atoms', 'DNA', etc.  Your computer may run on bits, but mine runs on 'bits'.  If 'you' do not believe 'me', just wait until 'we' are all 'using' 'quantum' "bits"! 

Could not one be a strict nominalist about information?  Names carry information.  There is no way to duck that bullet.  But if anyone does know how to duck it, please communicate that information to us. 

If these last few paragraphs do not constitute the reductio of reductionism, nothing will.  We cannot shed any more tears over its demise.  Our next stop is the Eschaton.  There is no other end for non-reductionism.  If I can't prove that, the messiah will.  

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Topical Index

10/15/02

What Is There? 

My claim is that any systematic attempt to answer this question will land us on the doorstep of God and the Eschaton.  Let me provide you with a rough outline of how this comes about.  We will then have all the time in the world to refine our answer.  

Our main guide will be William of Occam and his infamous 'razor'.  That is, we seek ontological parsimony.  How is the parsimony to be measured?  Let me just say that quality will count for quantity.  In other words, coherence will be a necessary component of any strategy of parsimony.  Am I thereby giving away the game?  That is debatable. 

The reductionistic answer used to be 'arbitrary configurations of atoms.'  Well, I know of no one who still takes that answer seriously.  There are no longer any materialists, per se.  There are physicalists and naturalists.  If you ask a physicist about physicalism, she will most likely speak in terms of information and probabilities or potentialities.  No phenomenon is real until measured, and the results of measurement are strictly informational.  Even physicalism is being outmoded, by informationalism, among those who are supposed to know. 

Another place to look for reductionists is among the AI professionals.  There used to be two camps: the connectionists and the computationalists.  For a brief time, connectionism was in ascendancy.  All information could be contained in dynamically weighted feedback networks variously elaborated.  To make a long story short, there was a slight problem.  It was the communication problem.  Information is not of any use if it cannot be exchanged.  Information is rather like money: its only value is its exchange value.  

To exchange information, it has to be chunked.  On the lowest level, it is often digitized, but then there also have to be higher level patterns or chunks.  The specification of those higher levels becomes very elaborate, very quickly.  Protocols abound.  Then comes transcription, translation and interpretation.  The high end of the AI spectrum consists of competing ontological strategies.  There we are, right back on Occam's doorstep.  We have seen an example (smoking gun?) of these neo-ontologists speaking of the 'naturalizing of Platonism' at the Stanford Metaphysical Research Lab. 

We then have to wonder what opinion the naturalists have of Plato these days.  Platonism and naturalism are the opposite ends of the metaphysical spectrum.  It would seem that Plato is coming back to haunt them.  It must be scary, and this just two days before Halloween.  Are there ghosts out there in the ecosystem?  The serious naturalists speak of deep ecology and Gaia, and that is just for starters.  Our targets though are the armchair, philosophical naturalists.  At the minimum they have signed on to the ontology of the sciences.  Most physicists that I know are, at least, mathematical realists, i.e. Platonists or Pythagoreans, and that's before you get them started on informationalism.   

In short, this is not the high water mark for reductionism.  There has been a lot of water over that dam, to amend the metaphor.  There is now a veritable spillway.  

Where does that leave the rest of us?  Struggling to stay afloat on the rising ontological tide.  Where is Occam when we need 'im?  Unfortunately, Occam is no longer with us.  Where are the ontology police?  It looks like we will just have to deputize ourselves.  All we need is a post-reductionist strategy. 

Our postmodern sistren and brethren have thrown up their hands in ontological surrender.  For them, any ontological strategy is simply a power-trip.  It could also be a truth-trip, but, for the life of them, they can discern no difference.  Someone will have to try.  

We are left to appeal to emotion and reason.  I appeal to both.  A rational strategy will start with reason and acknowledge emotion when it is unavoidable.  

---------------------------

The first big question concerns monism.  Pluralism is, by definition, incoherent.  Pluralism is tantamount to a surrender to emotion.  We will end up there, that is more or less what the Eschaton is about: ecstatic rapture.  But before then we will attempt to exhaust the natural(?) human capacity for reason.  Coherence, with Occam's blessing, dictates monism.  Materialism has been retired, we are left with immaterialism.  Immaterialism is tantamount to idealism, taking into account the pragmatic dictum that what is unknowable or unperceivable won't hurt us.  

OK, take a deep breath.  The only coherent idealism has ever only been theistic.  By the same token, the only coherent theism has ever only been idealistic.  

That's all folks.  There you have my rough outline of ontology, sans Eschaton.  The appeal to the Eschaton is simply the acknowledgment that any unbounded history is incoherent, again virtually by definition.  The same goes for the concept of the Best Possible World, of which the Eschaton is a very significant component.  

As I keep saying, this in not rocket science.  Why are so many of us so reluctant to engage in this most basic of thought processes?  If it's not rational, it must be emotional.  The Eschaton, et al. are emotion laden.  We must deal with that. 

----------------------------

Now for the refinements.  What is the weakest link in my argument?  I submit it is the appeal to coherence.  That is the next topic. 

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Topical Index

10/29/02

Coherence 

(At some point in the following, you may wish to refer back to Coherence Theory.) 

It is remarkable that there are knowers in the world.  It is only slightly less remarkable that there is so much for us to know.  

We speak of the knowledge explosion.  We speak of the mysterious comprehensibility of the world and even of a Theory of Everything.  

Did the world have to be so knowable and with so much to be known?  We are finding this coherence despite our lack of expectation that there should be any.  Is it just an illusion?  Appeal is made to the controversial Anthropic Principle and to the appearance of a cosmic design, by way of explanation.  Did the world have to be thus?  Is all this just the luck of the draw?  

Appeal has also been made to the Principle of Sufficient Reason.  Nothing happens without a reason, or at least without a knowable cause.  When there is an 'accident' we try to ascertain the cause, and seek to avoid it in the future.  When there is sickness, we expect to find a toxic agent or some malfunction.  

In biology there is an almost overwhelmingly pervasive appearance of teleology.  We refer to it as teleonomy, and chalk it up to natural selection, but there would be no biological science without it.  

The still very young science of ecology finds, wherever it looks, an almost unimaginable relational intricacy in the entire system of nature.  The web of life is a living coherence.  

We find similar situations in the human sciences.  Linguistic semantics is a case in point.  There was once the expectation that the meanings of words could be analyzed or reduced to logical atoms and sense data.  After almost fifty years of failure, we realized that meaning is holistic.  This realization spelt the effective end of analytical philosophy.  The repercussions are still being felt.  The end of analysis marks the beginning of postmodernism.  

Meaning holism is part of what lies behind the expanding gap between what we know of natural and artificial intelligence.  

It would seem that the very remarkable external coherence is mirrored in the mysterious coherence and irreducibility of natural intelligence.  This could all just be an accident.  But ought we not wonder about the cause?  Some see a cause in natural selection.  That may be a necessary part of it, but is it sufficient?  Can it be considered a natural, scientific cause if there are no known or knowable limits on what its ultimate power might be.  Such indefinable power and potency seems much closer to what would reasonably be ascribed to a deity.  Ascribing it to nature is only to deify nature.  Where then might one draw the line between natural and supernatural?  If there is no longer a logical distinction, then what is the sense of calling oneself a naturalist?  

Under the aegis of naturalism, coherence is a gratuitous mystery.  With immaterialism it is a logical necessity.  With materialism, everything is alleged to be contained within a space-time receptacle.  With idealism there is no such container.  Instead of a container, we need a glue.  Coherence is nothing more nor less than the cosmic glue.  

With materialism, existence is absolute, all or nothing, atoms in the void.  With immaterialism, existence can only be relative or relational. To exist is to relate.  This is just cosmic holism.  We have excellent models for this kind of existence in the holistic domains of mathematics and language.  

Is it any great surprise that the potency of nature is bursting the arbitrary, artificial seams of materialism and naturalism?  Why should not coherence be considered perfectly natural?  It is, just as soon as we bring God into the picture.  With idealism, God is the natural and logically necessary centerpiece of its attendant coherence.  Is God anti-nature?  Does not human nature reflect divine nature?  Are we not each just a microcosm?  Are we unnatural?   

Idealist coherence certainly violates every Fundamentalist taboo against our relational intercourse with God.  This intercourse culminates in the ecstatic rapture of the Eschaton.  One might think that this would be right up the Fundamentalists' alley, but any expectations pertaining to Fundamentalist rationality are wishful indeed. 

This segues us to the not insubstantial matter of the Eschaton. 

----------------------------------------------------

I'll have to admit that the Eschaton seems to violate every intuition of what is natural, but I'm going to argue that this is actually the fault of Nature.  Am I not digging myself into a logical hole here?  

Is the Eschaton not the rupture of Nature?  No, it is the rapture of Nature. 

Please recall that creation implies an act of separation between the Creator and her Creation.  The dualists are right about that.  In a relational cosmos, that separation is very unnatural.  What we glibly call 'Nature' is actually just covering the void of that most unnatural separation.  (Oh good, now I can dig myself even deeper into this hole.)  'Evil' and ignorance are also the manifestations of the unnatural separation of Creator and Creature.  Our fallen state is the result of, not the cause of, that separation.  That was just a minor theological misconception.  The Eschaton pierces the veil of Nature, and returns us and the cosmos to its more natural, fully relational state.  The Puritans thought of the wilderness as Godlessness, not as the Ansel Adams Sierra Club poster, which represents mainly a postindustrial, almost postmodern, attitude.  

Does this mean that the NRA Bambi Bashers are on the side of God?  I hardly think so.  But hunting is a rather primitive form of relationalism, after all.  

Are the deep ecologists going to miss the Glory Train?  Hardly.  The clouds of glory that we will be rapturously streaming will significantly comprise their spiritual regeneration of Nature in the new Heaven and new Earth.  Admittedly this is not a role that they presently envision for themselves, but we will all have a thing or two to learn over the next thousand years.  There will be no bit parts in that final drama.  

--------------------------------

Is everybody happy?  Am I making this too easy?  Would you like this exposition to seem more like brain surgery?  Have a little faith.  We will each be presented with the appropriate challenge, right up to our full capacity.  If things seem too pedantic now, there will be days when it will be anything but.  And then again, we can always hurry up and wait.  

OK, what is our next loosest end? 

[10/30] 

What remains most pertinent are the loose ends of reductionism.  Has the failure of reductionism been universally accepted?  I see no evidence to the contrary; however, people are not standing on line to give their testimonials to this failure.  There has been no anti-reductionist initiative, except in the form of pluralism.  With pluralism, it is just pre-reductionist business as usual, as if nothing had really happened.  For starters, I am advocating an overdue 'postreductionism' which is something rather different from postmodernism.  

First we must highlight the irreducibles.  From whence do they come?  A minimalist irreductionist would be a conceptualist.  This would be like the alleged view of Aristotle versus Platonism.  However, as we have seen: Aristotle Gets Real, when push came to shove, even Aristotle had to confess to a Platonic realism.  What gives? 

Is there a difference between a concept and a Platonic Idea?  If a concept is irreducible then every time it comes to mind is it being created anew, ex nihilo?  This does not make sense.  Certainly Occam would not approve.  

Conceptualism presupposes mind and an intercourse between minds.  Can we then revert to a nominalist explanation of this intercourse?  Is the concept disassembled in the first mind and reassembled in the next?  This is reversion to reductionism.  It is hard to kick the reductionist reflex.  

The only real difference between conceptualism and Platonism is the unwarranted positing of multiple minds.  Occam disapproves.  There is scant evidence and no rationale supporting the atomic mind theory, once we surrender the brain-mind identity thesis. 

Well, there is the slight problem of personal identity with its attendant Newtonian mechanics of the soul.  I'm sympathetic with identity, but I don't think that we must thereby revert to the atomic thesis of minds swerving in the void.  This was Leibniz' only real sin: monadology.  We have Freud to thank for the overthrow of the 'mind in the void' view.  That void became his Unconscious, and then Jung saw the logical impossibility of attempting to quantify or enumerate the unperceivable.  We are islands of consciousness in this cosmic ocean, with partially partitioned memories.  

Only thus does even the minimalist irreductionism of conceptualism make sense.  

Show me one irreducible concept, say 'banana', and I will show you the Cosmic Mind.  It's that simple, folks.  Why, in Heaven's name, have we made this so difficult for ourselves?  That's just par for Creation, even for the best possible creation.  

Given the cosmic mind, we then have less than zero need for a physical universe.  The concept of a physical, space-time universe becomes an atavistic addendum to a failed reductionism.  Get over it!  Just say, 'No'! 

My Kingdom for a horse?  No.  My Kingdom for a banana! 

---------------------------

While I'm on this hobby-horse, let us reconsider those Platonic Ideas.  Again, aren't we seeing an incipient problem of the void.  Those Ideas cannot just be swerving in the void.  Thus must we have recourse to a plenum of holism and coherence.  Holism might seem a rather passive concept.  Coherence is much less so.  Nothing can be coherent, absent a comprehending subject.  Holism may be interpreted objectively.  Coherence has no objective measure.  

We have gone one step further.  You show me a 'banana', and I'll show you the cosmic Self.  The concept of 'banana' cannot exist is a void.  It can exist only in a cosmic mind that coheres upon a cosmic Self, of which our own selves are intimate reflections or reverberations.  

Is this a leap of logic or of faith?  This is hardly more than a baby step.  Consider the prolonged history of reductionism, and contemplate the logical gymnastics and contortions that we performed, all in the avoidance of the excruciatingly obvious.  What an exercise in self-deception!  What an excursion into sophistry! 

This excursion might only begin to make sense as a shadow of the Eschaton.  

---------------------------------------

In giving up reductionism we must also give up inductionism.  (N.B.  This is not to give up either reduction or induction, only to give up their globalization.)  

An irreducible entity will be left dangling on a skyhook if it is not incorporated into a larger scheme.  This larger scheme, no matter how holistic, must have a deductive aspect.  In a purely relational scheme, the deductive process would logically proceed from the more to the less relationally entangled nodes.  

It seems that the most entangling of relations known or knowable to us is love.  Therefore, any globally deductive scheme would focus on the concept of 'cosmic' love which in its turn would presumably be focused on the relation of Creator and Creation.  Any hypothetico-deductive scheme must proceed from some such guesstimated origin.  If you have a better guess, feel free.  One would be remiss not to note that the origination of this particular guesstimation harkens back just about two thousand years.  Too much hypothetico-deductionizing can land one in a heap of trouble, it seems. 

-----------------------------------

The principal version of skyhookism is 'emergentism'.  Does emergentism make any more sense than skyhookism?  Well, it might if it is considered in the context of Rupert Sheldrake's theory of Morphogenesis.  On Rupert's hypothesis, the cosmic mind is a blank slate.  Evolution writes on this slate, and the results are propagated non-locally, as the mind is wont.  Thus we have such things as the 'hundredth monkey' syndrome, or the alleged fact that English school children can learn Japanese nursery rhymes more readily than similar juxtapositions of nonsense syllables.  

I was once a staunch proponent of Morphogenesis.  But that was back in my days of quantum dualism.  Once I graduated from space-time containerism, I recognized that Morphogenesis was much too dependent on our very parochial notion of the strict linear directionality of time.  Every Podunk universe that came down the pike would be reinventing this same wheel.  Morphogenesis would get old very quickly and demand habeas corpus sub specie aeternitas.  (Will someone please turn off the Latin!)  This is just about the time for God to get in the act.  Morphogenesis might have played a role in a hypothetical primordial, quantum-like chaos of potentialities far, far beyond space & time.  This might be something for God to be concerned with, but not for us to bother our pretty, pre-eschatological heads with.  

So, even in its most charitable, Morphogenetic interpretation, any non-trivial emergentism quickly collapses into a minimal, pre-established cosmic coherence.  

-----------------------------

Then there are the philosophers, bless their hearts, who worry about the 'carburetor' problem [and a more recent take].  Is there not a place in Heaven for the Platonic essence of carburetorhood?  Yes and no.  There are a lot of other folks in our little four dimensional world who could not get to temple on Friday to express their cosmic love were it not for carburetorhoodornament and and other such essences.  It's definitely a part of our pre-eschatological cosmic ambient holism.  Its essentiality differs only in degree from that of a lung, say.  They are both significant parts of the necessary, level-playing-field, atomo-metabolic schema of our four dimensional best possible creation.  That is saying a mouthful, but we have been over this metabolic ground before.  Will there be a post-eschaton carburetorhood?  I'm thinking, 'Let it be a surprise!'  

-------------------------------

The next topic is looking to be downward causation.  This ought to be relevant to issues of coherence and theism. 

Draft Project Proposal- Self-organization- a conceptual analysis -- Menno Hulswit: 

My paper consists of three parts. In the first part, I will provide an analysis of the concept of downward causation as used in recent scientific and philosophic literature. I will show that it is a misleading concept, which entails a disguised reintroduction of the (Aristotelian) concept of final or formal causation.

Next, I will argue that self-organization is indeed a teleological concept, and that it must therefore be explained in terms of final causation.

Finally, I will argue that, whereas Aristotle’s substance based theory of final causation is hard to combine with contemporary scientific insights, a (Peircean) process approach to causation may be useful in explaining what goes on in self-organization.

I'd like to see the paper. 

I should have done my homework on downward causation before launching the latest foray into reductionism.  This topic may be the focus of an actual anti-reductionist initiative that I was despairing of earlier today. 

Looking through the first hundred hits on "downward causation" I am not seeing anything new that has not been alluded to here in other contexts.  Jaegwon Kim is the principal contender and he defends physicalism.  Instead of an anti-reductionist initiative, I see mainly the reductionists retrenching at this last line of defense.  

Here is a puzzle of evolution: if traits or functions did not entail downward causation, then on what basis could they be selected?  I don't recall the source for this puzzle, but it is often mentioned with regard to consciousness: the alleged epiphenomenality of consciousness ought to preclude its biological selectability.  

I recall that 'general systems' theorists, following Bertalanffy (c.1940), also speak of autonomous levels with downward causation. 

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10/29/02

How to See 

Doesn't just about everything depend on our ability to see, or to perceive?  We must be in dire straights then, because, as we have been seeing (sic), there is considerable confusion about what we are seeing, if anything. 

Perhaps this confusion is only a symptom of reading too much philosophy.  Perhaps.  Philosophers get paid to make sense of the world, and evidently it is rough going.  Their job is to make explicit the implicit assumptions that underlie our perceptions.  If you pay them a little extra, they may even venture an opinion on those assumptions.  Philosophical confusion is likely to be a reflection of a more endemic confusion. 

For awhile, with the ascendancy of reductionism, we thought we were getting down to the nitty-gritty of reality.  We were hoping that, by reducing things to their lowest common denominator, we would be increasing our common understanding of what there is in the world and perhaps even about what makes it go around.  

I was once in training to be a part of that effort.  I was training to be a particle physicist.  I dropped out.  Then a few years later Congress refused to pay the 100+ billion dollars to build the Super Collider, to be the world's most powerful microscope.  It seems that reductionism had about played itself out, without much result.  The much anticipated Theory of Everything remains a glimmer in the eyes of the handful of mathematical physicists who are able perceive the exceptional algebras of eleven-dimensional manifolds. 

But life goes on, and so does philosophy.  

As an ex-reductionist, I have been searching diligently for a post-reductionist initiative.  I remain disappointed.  Here you see my attempt at a one-person post-reductionist initiative.  I may fail, but, for the life of me, I don't see how It can fail, not if We are to survive our state of global confusion and often militant contention concerning what there is and is not. 

Yes, there is postmodernism: a sometimes militant refusal to speculate or allow others to speculate about what there is or is not; or, at least, to do so in a public venue. 

Then along came the Internet and Google.  Never has the opportunity or need for a public coherence been greater.  There should be no doubt that more than a few people will be rising to this historically unprecedented occasion.  

You don't believe me?  Well, just watch us! 

And this postreductionism is not going to be rocket science or brain surgery.  One will not need to know the exceptional algebras of eleven-dimensional manifolds.  One will not need the library card for a million+ volume research library.  One will not need access to a 100+ billion dollar microscope.  

One only needs to know how to see; how to perceive.   

-----------------------------------

Ooooops!  Pardon my Physics chauvinism.  But in this holographic world of ours, one can see the macrocosm reflected in every microcosm, if one looks with sufficient care. 

There were two other places where reductionism was ascendant, but now has also played itself out, in a rather timely fashion: Artificial Intelligence and Biology.  We have been seeing, right here, with Google on the Internet, that those on the frontier of AI are turning their efforts now to metaphysical and ontological research, and they are not kidding about that, as I had at first assumed. 

Meanwhile, the Human Genome Project has finished its task, under budget and ahead of schedule!  Now that they have all the molecular pieces strung out on their lab bench, they have no choice but to try to put that poor Humpty Dumpty back together again.  That might not be quite so easy as taking it apart, do you think? 

So, yes, post-reductionism is in the air.  We can all see it. 

-------------------------------------------

But where do we start with our post-reduction seeing?  How about seeing that 'the cat is on the mat'?  That's getting pretty ambitious, already.  But, heck, we gotta' start someplace. 

Can we actually see the cat on the mat?  Or are we just inferring that there must be a cat on the mat?  That is no small issue.  In some sense, everything rides on it.  Those of us in the minority who claim to actually perceive the cat on the mat are 'direct' realists.  I have not taken a poll, but most of those realists are thereby, at least, latent idealists; and show me a latent idealist, and I'll show you a latent theist.  Give me two hours with a latent theist, and we will be deep into a very serious discussion about the Best Possible World and Millennial Eschatology -- all because of that poor little kitty on the bitty.  

Yes, we critical realists have a God problem.  Everyone else?  They have a Reality problem.  Ultimately, as we shall see, these two Big problems are the same.  

If you are not a realist, you are a reductionist, a skeptic or a mystic.  Let's look at the reductionist. 

Are not the reductionists also realists?  Yes, and no.  They are wannabe realists.  Their problem is that they are not sure what to be real about.  They wanted to believe that atoms were real, but then along came quantum physics and now they are not so sure.  Atoms are just probabilistic configurations of quarks, and quarks are..., well, they're waiting for Congress to shell out $100 billion to see if quarks are real.  

And that is only the beginning of their problems.  What about the cat on the mat?  OK, a photon leaves the Sun and hits the cat and then bounces into your eye and is focused on the retina.  After that, things start getting complicated.  Then there is a miracle: that objective physical complexity is converted to a subjective sensual complexity.  Then there is another miracle:  that sensual complexity is converted to the abstract conceptual understanding that there probably is a cat on the mat, unless......!  Or, perhaps there is no subjective sensing at all; because, 1. there are no real persons, 2. there is no mind or consciousness, 3. we merely speak as if there were persons and minds, and we talk that way so much that we end up with those erroneous 'beliefs'.  

Where does that leave our poor chat? Sur la mat?  Maybe.  But is it not also quite likely that both we and the cat are the simulation products of a not so distant future Metaphysical and Artificial Intelligence Research Lab, probably in some parallel universe?  Which all sounds to me rather like the God problem, which is what I anticipated a few paragraphs back.  The skeptic and the mystic would tend to agree that the world is indeed illusory. 

So much for philosophy?  Must we all become skeptics or mystics?  That is an option which an increasing number of thoughtful people are taking.  

But life goes on and we are faced with many other choices, some of which will determine our survival as a civilization or even as a species.  

The other option is reconstruction: the reconstruction of a coherent worldview that would inform us as to whence we come and whither we go. 

This would be a true miracle!  Yes and no. As we begin to appreciate the miracle or our being able to perceive the reality of the cat on the mat, we will realize that it would not be that much greater of a miracle for us to see the essential nature of that reality and what it all means for us.  

------------------------------------

Once again, where do we start?  

We start by suspending our skepticism and our mysticism. 

We see, as if for the first time, the cat on the mat.  But how do we avoid those doubts that keep intruding?  We roll with those doubts, we don't try to fight back.  Fighting back is to demand certainty and objectivity, but as we have seen, the pursuit of certainty and objectivity, while always on the lookout for the bed rock of an absolute....something, leads us down endless blind alleys.  The postmodernists throw up their hands in defeat.   

This pursuit of certainty was not wasted.  If you can read these words, it is partly because, evidently, there was some light at the end of at least one of those tunnels.  

But why was there this pursuit to begin with?  It had to do with our egocentric predicament.  Julian Jaynes speaks of the 'breakdown of the bicameral mind.'  Very early in our mythic, dreamtime development, we had some sort of proto-verbal, intuitive, psychic umbilical cord to some collective, proto-conscious intelligence.  Something happened, suddenly or gradually.  The umbilical cord atrophied.  Like it or not we were being weaned.  We were thrown out and back onto our meager, individual, egocentric resources.  We floundered within an ambience of increasing alienation.  With religion we tried to replace that primordial cord.  Success was elusive.  The Scientistic quest for an objective, absolute certainty, was a quasi-religion pursued by other means.  

We are left with bits and pieces of truth, broken on our lab benches, burnt on our altars.   

So the cat is still on the mat, we know.  We accept that knowledge as given to us, really as a gift of unknown provenance.  We know that if we try to pry open and look into the horse's mouth, we may learn a lot of things, but we will find no ultimate answers.  We will neither banish doubt nor escape our egocentric predicament.  

[11/1] 

Realism, of the sort we take up here, is radical.  This is also direct or critical realism.  When I perceive the cat, there are not thereby two cats: one on the mat and one in my head.  There is not even a representation of the cat in my head.  Radical realism is not representationalism.  How can this be?  It's very simple.  The cat and my knowledge of the cat are of a piece.  There is nothing intermediating between me and the cat.  The void, the photons, the retina: what about them?  Are they not real, too?  They have a derivative, relative reality.  Everything is relative.  Relative to what?  That's a good question. 

Radical realism is very strange, seeming to us moderns.  The best analogy we have is that of authorship and dramatis persona.  The lazy author and playwright do not actually have to do any work.  All they have to do is invite the characters to take up residence in their minds and let them do all the scripting.  The characters become their own muses.  You can see where this is going.  You can see there is no logical gap between radical realism and idealism.  

But wait!  The cat may be all in my head, but where am I?  You, my friend, are in the mind of your cat, or of whomever.  But then aren't we back where we started, with multiple copies, and won't Occam disapprove?  Yes, he would.  The only way to keep Occam happy is to realize that, logically, there can only be one mind.  There can only really be one author, and that is the big Author in the sky.  Like I said: show me a realist, I show you an idealist; show me an idealist, and I show you a theist.  End of story?  Yes, that's the Eschaton!  Is this rocket science?  It's make believe, writ large, taken seriously.  And it is not just our lives that depend on the outcome.  

In the cosmic mind, how do we keep everything form happening all together, all at once?  We don't, it does.  That is the aspect of eternity.  Your dream happens in no time.  There is a knock on your door.  As you awake, the knocking pulls a temporal plot line out of your slumber in a seemingly teleological fashion.  The knock becomes the final cause of your dream.  The Eschaton is the final cause of this dream from which we are awakening.  (I'm reminded that the British sometimes refer to this particular manner of awakening as of one's being 'knocked up'.  I suppose it might have something to do with the ecstasy of it all, don't you think?  Or does it just mean that we're f***'ed?)  

Is this straining your credulity (and your good humor)?  Do you prefer the cat on the mat plus the puss in the head?  That's fine, but then try explaining to a six year old how it is that you are able to see the cat in your head?  The six year old can see perfectly well that your eyes open outward.  Are you telling him that you have another set of eyes inside your head?  The child will not have to know Occam to know that this sounds crazy.  Why doesn't it sound crazy to us adults?  Well, we have been housebroken by modernism.  Our spirits have been broken, too, almost.  But now the Eschaton is knocking and its time to awake.  

It's high time for us to open our eyes and see the radically real world.

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10/31/02

Alice Through the Looking Glass 

How did we come to believe that there had to be two cats: one on the mat and one in our head?  It wasn't too difficult.  We might, rather, ask first why we would not always have thought there were two cats. 

That should be simple.  You see one cat.  I see one cat.  There is but one cat.  There is not the cat that you and then the cat that I see.  We both just see the same cat, but maybe from different angles.  

It was, perhaps, the invention of the mirror that started getting us confused about how many cats there were.  With the mirror there now seemed to be two cats: one on the mat and one in the mirror.  With mirrors, we started thing about optics and about perspectives.  Then our paintings changed from being depictions to being perspectival representations.  

Originally, if we thought about it at all, we thought of our sense of vision as operating in an active manner, just like our sense of touch.  With our eyes we could reach out and caress our beloved, etc.  If we were all blind and without mirrors, representationalism would never have occurred to us, not in a million years.  If we had invented radar before mirrors, the eye would have been thought of as an active radar. 

But history had another think coming.  We took the optical path, figuratively and literally.  And it was no accidental journey.  We were not accidental tourists in our Looking Glass World.  We came to see ourselves as merely the mirrors of nature.  Perspectivalism run amok puts us on one side of a mirror and the world on the other side.  This is representationalism.  We are cut off from the world as if in a hall of mirrors in a fun house.  This was also Cartesian dualism.  All the life and quality was drained out of the world, and left floating like phantasms in our subjective, epiphenomenal consciousness.  Only then could Science take over and have its way with the 'REAL' world, measuring, quantifying and abstracting it, almost to death, and leaving us existentially isolated in our phantasmagoric, egocentric predicament.  

To escape from our egocentric predicament, we will, like Alice, have to step back through the mirror, back into the real, live, sensuous world.  This is a big step for any person; it will be a much bigger step for humankind.  I stood staring at that mirror for about five long years, before I realized there was no other rational choice but to take that plunge back into radical reality.  Come on in, the water is great!  If I can make the plunge just a little easier for you, and you for the next person, very soon we will all be swimming again.  

------------------------------------

Does this leave Science stranded high and dry.  Yes and no.  Science is all part of the Big Game, all part of our cosmic Drama.  

Earlier today, on the previous page, I alluded to the 'lazy author'.  You didn't have to be overly perceptive to realize that I was committing a, perhaps, not so minor blasphemy. (Last time I checked, anyway, 'lazY doG' was not one of the 99 Official Names of God.)  A little iconoclasm goes with this territory.  Show me a prophet who was not also an iconoclast and I'll show you a demagogic fraud. 

Haven't you seen the paintings of God with his protractor, measuring out the foundations of the world?  No, no, no!  That's not the God that I know.  The God whom I know invented the Scientist and let the scientists invent the protractor, and then measure the world.  But even that is an underestimation of God's laziness.  

God is the Alpha and the Omega.  God keeps them apart, kind of like the not so bright, muscles for brains, Atlas, and also strings them together with one silver cord, or is it a chord?  That is the way one builds a suspension bridge.  You plant two posts, and fly one skinny cable between them.  Then you call the Steel Workers Local.  It's that simple.  God didn't really have to invent Scientists, she only had to invent humans, who happened to like to play dress-up: in funny white coats and other costumes.  

Come to think of it, she didn't even have to invent humans.  All she had to do was look at herself in an imaginary mirror, and the rest is, well, Herstory.  In looking in that mirror she may well have experienced a prefiguration of our alienating egocentric predicament when we, more or less, imitated that act.  She is as anxious as we should be, for all of us to step back through that mirror.  

The closest thing to a god with a protractor may have been those megalithic archeoastronmical Pythagorean Priestly Masonic Architects, who actually did lay the foundations of the world and even may have helped to set the Heavens in their course.  Is this far fetched?  It all depends which side of the mirror you're on.  

Our modern scientists have taken over from those priests and with their modern alchemy they whip Nature into shape so that you and I may freely and easily exchange ideas on from whence we came and whither we go.  Yes, Nature has felt the lash.  Nature, too, is ready to be rapturously reenchanted as we step through that looking glass.  Now we have to pay $40 a month for broadband.  Then it will be, well, a lot cheaper and a lot broader.  I did finally sell all the Microsoft.  Better late than never!  I think I'll go wireless.  Direct realism is kind of like Direct PC, but without the satellite dish and, well, without the PC, too!  

If I'm supposed to be the prophet of direct realism, why won't God let me go 'wireless' right now?  That's a good question.  I'll have to put that to her, for sure.  It might save on the jawboning and the carpal tunnel. 

Ooooops!  Hey, Big Mama in the Sky, you don't think I really meant that thing I said about you, do you??  And while I have you on line, what about this Direct Realism thing?  No, scratch the DR!  I was wondering about those 72 Virgins.  Do you think you could make that 77?  Just checking!! 

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11/1/02

Direct Realism 

As they say, better late than never: direct realism. 

Ah, yes, I can remember why I hesitate to plunge into this topic.  Why I am more of a radical realist than a direct realist. 

Here is the Wikipedia: 

A theory of perception that claims that the senses provide us with direct awareness of the external world. This is contrasted with indirect realism or representationalism, which claim that we are directly aware only of internal representations of the external world. Direct realists sometimes claim that indirect realists are confused about conventional idioms of perceptions. Perception is an exemplar of direct contact with something. Examples of indirect perception might be seeing something in a photograph, or hearing a recording of a voice. Direct realists often argue, contra representationalists, that the fact that one becomes aware of a tree in perception through a complex neurophysical process does not argue in favor of indirect perception. It merely establishes the method, undoubtedly complex, by which direct awareness of the world is secured. Arguing that perceiving a tree directly requires a magical, acausal mirroring of the tree in the mind is akin to arguing that traveling directly to grandmother's requires that one magically appear at her doorstep. The inference from the fact of a complex route to indirectness may be an instance of the genetic fallacy.

I'm not so big on sensations.  I believe more in telepathy than telephony.  And now I remember why we don't need to wait for God to give us free broadband service, because we already have it.  We just don't realize it; we go along with the Ma Bell version of reality because being a 'lineman for the County' has its diversions, not to mix electrical metaphors.   

Consider wireless, phonic conversation.  We don't really listen to the words, we perceive the ideas directly.  You are simply giving me a guided, telepathic tour of your mind, which is not really separate from my mind, anyway.  Words, letters, bits and the like are to communication, what atoms are to metabolism.  They are logically necessary props or epiphenomena of deeper and direct communication processes.  Materialists say that ideas are epiphenomenal and idealists return the favor. 

But then what is the point of communication, anyway.  If it's all just one big mind, why bother?  What is the point of shuffling ideas around, when there is really just one big Cosmic Omniscience?  

Good point!  I think it must have something to do with creation.  We make babies.  Why?  Because they're so cute, among other reasons.  Why are they so cute?  Because they act like ignorant little blank slates that we can cram full of our precious wisdom, among other reasons.  But how many of us really think that babies are that stupid?  Isn't it more like amnesia?  Remember how our souls have to swim across the River Lethe?  That is the real trick.  I sure don't know how it works, but it is usually pretty effective.  Every once in awhile, though, some smart ass soul does get through, just to keep us parents humble.  

Where were we?  Communication?  Disseminating and inseminating our precious seeds of wisdom.  Let's face it, we are all wannabe prophets, authors, artistes, etc., but we couldn't be that without the selective amnesia. Without the circulation of ideas, there would be no cosmic economy.  So there has to be planned scarcity.  Our holographic, microcosmic crystal balls have to be a bit cloudy to keep those ideas circulating.  

But there is more to it than that.  

[11/02] 

There is only one Creation, as far as anything that we could imagine being called that.  There is no practice.  We and God learn on the job because that is the best possible, and really the only way to learn.  

Everything has to get sorted out right here, on the spot.  Everything that can happen will happen right here, and will be put in its proper place, as we move on up on the curve of history to the Eschaton, our final cause, our awakening. 

We have all sacrificed for this day, and for this End.   Everything we sacrifice we gain back many times, including God, her Son. Whoever tells you that God has not suffered is being criminally obtuse. 

Every bit of ignorance we endure, we gain back in knowledge by much more than a million-fold. 

This is the game of Creation.  It is the greatest show in the Cosmos; it is the only show.  God and we do not need to reinvent this best possible 'wheel'. 

-----------------------------

Atoms, words, sense data all have a logical role to play in the game of Creation.  They are real only in that logically derivative sense.  They are props along our way to the Hierogamos.  As soon as they have done their job, they will be set aside.  Now we see through this glass darkly.  As soon as we are ready we will see clearly and directly.  That is direct realism.  It is here now in all its potency.  God is always totally present.  It is only our own illusory historical properties or baggage that ever come between us.  Telephones, books, paintings all point us toward the ultimate.  They are also crutches, ready to be set aside.  As we live and breath in that certain knowledge, we are becoming Real. 

Any 'realism' less real than this is incomplete and incoherent on its face. 

-------------------------------

And back to the list, direct realism: 

Let us recall:  ARISTOTLE'S DIRECT REALISM IN DE ANIMA -- by Michael Esfeld: 

Aristotle can be read as proposing a direct realism instead of a representationalism: a causal medium notwithstanding, perception and thought are directly about qualities, things, or events in the world. The received sensible or intelligible forms are instantiated in the acts of perception or thought. I argue that this direct realism presupposes Aristotle’s ontology according to which the world has a somewhat conceptual structure: our percepts and concepts are qualitatively identical with the very forms of the things themselves. In conclusion, I point out that contemporary positions of a direct realism are committed to a conceptual structure of the world too. Thus, the challenge for a direct realist is to either accept such an ontology or to show how a direct intentional relation of thoughts to the world is possible without such an ontological commitment.

As stated earlier, Aristotle appears to be more of a realist than his earlier interpreters were claiming, bringing us all closer, hopefully, to a consensus on ultimate reality.  

------------------------------- 

With the above two exceptions, and having skimmed through the rest of the first seventy items under 'direct realism', I have to report a failure to link, in general, direct realism with idealism, latent or otherwise.  The 'realism' is generally taken to imply that the 'external' objects of perception are mind-independent or material objects.  This view is sometimes, even more ambiguously, called 'naive' realism.  It is a view that is alleged to be experiencing some revival.  Taken in this apparently dualistic sense, I am not able to comprehend it.  As long as mind and matter are taken as distinct then there is going to have to be some form of problematic mediation between the two.  There is no logic supporting direct perception.  I'll give the benefit of my incomprehension, however, to these struggling neo-realists, and hope to gain comprehension later.  

In support of incomprehension: Andrew Chrucky, "Critique of Wilfrid Sellars' Materialism", 1990: 

The global problem of materialism for Sellars is to combine, if possible, the Manifest and the Scientific Images-of-Man-in-the-World. He argues, however, that these Images are incompatible, and are, therefore, impossible to combine.

The Manifest Image includes the view of Direct Realism, which holds that physical objects have such continuous (homogeneous) secondary properties as colors. For example, a common sense table has a continuous brown surface; while the table as described in microphysics is a gappy, colorless swarm of molecules. Which table is real?

I wonder, too. 

Then, further down the list, we have 'Experience and the Mind: An Essay on the Metaphysics of Perception', by Robert Alva Noë, arguing for his version of direct realism: 

In Chapter One I argue that the content of experience (how experience represents things as being) is the same as the content of the judgments we would make on the basis of experience, were we to take experience at face value. The representational content of experience, like that of judgment, is fully conceptual. In Chapter Two I examine and criticize the view that experience has, in addition to representational content, irreducibly subjective, nonconceptual, phenomenal content.

The upshot of these discussions is that experience is an epistemic notion. To have an experience is not just passively to have sensations; it requires the exercise of understanding. The relation between experience and reality is not causal, but normative: to have an experience is to take things to be some way or other, and how things are gives us reasons for taking them to be that way. In Chapter Three I argue that the Causal Theory of Perception misdescribes the place of causation in an account of perception and that it relies on an unsatisfactory conception of experience.

OK, I can sort or understand this, but this is a highly nonstandard view of perception.  This seems to be a move toward the conceptual (direct) realism that Esfeld ascribes to Aristotle, above. But Robert, instead, goes on to take up computationalism.  

Is it not fair to say that these dualistic theories of direct realism are desperate attempts to avoid the obvious problem of regression that is inherent in any form of indirect or representational theory of perception?  These are then versions of the Higher Order Thought (HOT) theories of perception which are taken up by the AI community, as evidenced by Robert's computationalism.   

Does direct realism not distinguish between the ascription of quantitative and qualitative properties, in contrast with indirect realism?  

Larry Hauser, 'Don't Go There': 

What the direct realist denies is not intervening media of transmission between the distal object and visual experience thereof.  What she denies (at the very least) is any intervening medium of  pictorial representation....

Jerry Fodor, 'A Science of Tuesdays', 2000: 

Disappointingly, however, neither Putnam nor anybody else in his direct realist pantheon is prepared actually to offer an account of how perception works. Rather, 'in my opinion, "direct realism" is best thought of not as a theory of perception but as a denial of the necessity for and the explanatory value of positing "internal representations" in thought and perception.'

Is there any clear distinction between non-idealist direct realism and any of the varieties of eliminativism?  I don't think there is any cognitive difference.  That is why the AI crowd supports it.  Why are they being let off the reductionist hook? 

Thomas Reid, an 18th-century exponent of direct realism, says that 'the knowledge which I have of things past, by my memory, seems to me as unaccountable as an immediate knowledge would be of things to come; and I can give no reason why I should have the one and not the other, but that such is the will of my Maker.' There's nothing I admire more in philosophy than a well-bitten bullet.

;- ).  Fodor goes on to speculate that the argument over realism is really more about meaning than about perception.  The non-idealist direct realists are typically also eliminativist about meaning, along with the postmodernists.  They, consistently enough, wish to eliminate both mind and meaning.  They might say that words connect directly to (material?) objects rather than to meanings or to representations. 

[11/3] 

A reasonable person might think that the bizarre quality of the arguments over non-idealist realism would be forcing the disputants into the arms of idealism.  I think that is probably happening, quietly.  Once people fully grasp the futility of the arguments, they drop out, and turn to other pursuits, one of which might be idealism.  Realism then comes more or less for free.  The interesting questions then do not concern analysis.  There is a visible weariness with these arguments that have been recurring at least since the time of Descartes.  There is a steady attrition among the disputants, simply through aging, if nothing else.  

Non-idealist realists are up against the wall.  The disputants will have to decide which is more important to them.  Realism or materialism.  They can't have it both ways.  

Postmodernist ranks are filled with those who have taken the implicit third option: anti-realism and, by the same token, anti-rationality.  This is clearly the most popular reaction to the futility of analytical reason: an anti-rational pluralism. This also describes much of what now passes for 'naturalism'.  

Some of us have taken the fourth option: pursue a speculative, synthesizing rationality.  This is just the pursuit of coherentism which leads quickly and inevitable to rational theism.  This is a big leap for those raised in the culture of secular philosophy.  The neo-theist philosophers who are trickling into the profession are evidently eschewing cosmological speculation.  They stick to quasi-analytic studies of mainly ethical concern.  Taking up cosmology would likely force them into the midst of the Creationist-Darwinist circus.  Not a career move.  

There is no fifth option of which I am aware, or which is even logically possible.  Back a ways I was able to count just 'two and a half' options: materialism, rationalism and mysticism.  That's just about what we have here.  

Where does that leave us immaterialist cosmologists?  It leaves us beyond the pale, but with lots of room for maneuver.  We can carry out raiding parties and maintain forward observation posts, with the impunity of invisibility.  At some point we will begin showing up on the Google radar screen, and then, well, God knows! 

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Topical Index

11/1/02

Do Ideas Count? 

And the next question is, 'Should they?'  

The point I want to make is that if ideas count at all, then they should and probably do account for almost everything.  

According to materialism, ideas don't exist, except maybe in our imagination or in our speech, which don't amount to much of anything either.  

Almost everyone agrees that materialism is wrong.  There is precious little agreement, though, on how, or by how much it is wrong.  Since it was invented, in ancient times, there have been endless attempts to improve it, to make it less obviously false.  I say that this was throwing good reason after bad metaphysics.  

Why have we invested so much thought in a system which makes the claim that thoughts don't exist, which claim is, in itself, just another non-extant thought?  Has this whole effort not been incoherent on the face of it?  What could possibly explain such bizarrely irrational behavior on the part of what were alleged to be some of the best 'minds' in the world?  That's hard to say, and with each passing year, as materialists dig their hole deeper, it gets harder to explain.  

There are rational alternatives.  Aren't there?  Maybe not.  Maybe that's the problem.  I've been arguing that there is only one rational alternative.  What if I'm right?  That would be the end of philosophy as we know it.  It would likely be the end of a lot of other things as well, up to and including the eventual end of the world -- as we know it?  Nay, even as we can possibly imagine it.  That sure prospect is the only rational explanation for all the irrationalism abroad in the land.  

Based on this 'analysis' it would be fair to say that materialists' behavior is most readily explained as 'ideophobic'.  They realize, consciously or not, that if you give ideas an inch, not only will they move into your neighborhood, but very quickly they will take over the whole world.  Not just any old ideas, mind you.  We're talking and they're fearing the One Big Idea.  The Perennial Wisdom, if you will, that is knocking on their door; that already has its foot firmly planted in their door.  They won't believe it is only my foot.  They are sure it is an 800 pound gorilla.  But it's a friendly gorilla.  It has to be, or it could not possibly have already won the battle of ideas.  It would not be here if it were not teleologically based.  But even the best destiny in the world has a degree of finality and that does take some getting used to.  We humans are world class, cosmic level procrastinators.  We wouldn't be here if we weren't.  The irresistible force meets the immovable object.  We're going to have to learn a new trick. 

[11/4]

I'm still working on the direct realism list, up to 300.  I had not been considering direct realism from a relationalist point of view as suggested by one of the articles.  My direct perception of something constitutes my relation to it.  All relations are perceptual.  

As part of a coherent non-materialist direct realism, there must be eternal essences.  Every being partakes of such essences and is perceived as a special composition of them.  These eternal essences are not prohibited from containing a temporal aspect, which would include their dynamical and historical relations in a teleological fashion.  One could even call these 'super-essences'.  Individuals would be identified with subsets of the super-essential relations.  There would be a quasi-hierarchy of essences, up to and including theocentricity. 

Percepts and concepts comprise and, in turn, are comprised of these essences and their relations. 

As the cosmos is populated with conscious beings, theses essences become stretched out to their maximum degree of individuation and detail of resolution.  This maximum of particularity corresponds with the ascendancy of materialism.  Then comes the coherentism which begins to reverse this particularization. 

[11/5] 

Essentialism surely has a mixed press, and much baggage.  In other words, it should be fun. 

I doubt that ideas and essences could ever be fully distinguished, and certainly not idealism from essentialism. 

At the opposite end of the spectrum would be the anti-essentialism of nominalism and behaviorism.  

Perhaps the most significant issue of essentialism concerns the existence of the soul, and closely related to this is the question of personal identity. 

It should be noted that Physics has a very strong essentialist bent of a Pythagorean sort.  

Not to be abstemious, let me hit on the soul, up front.  The reality of the soul derives directly from the reality of God.  The reality of God derives from the reality of love.  There is a cosmic pecking order.  The soul is fairly high on the list, but our essential being or presence is to be found in love.  That is the one source of all being.  It is conceivable that my soul might come between me and love.  In that case the soul has got to go, and it would be the last thing to be jettisoned.  People speak of the 'cleansing' of the soul.  A cleansed soul is a transparent soul. A transparent soul is a non-existent soul.  Cosmic love is the ultimate soul cleanser.  It is the singular essence of everything. 

All essence and identity derives directly from the requisites of love.  Nothing else would make sense, not in a million years. 

It's that simple sports fans.  Whatever you have learned that does not support this necessary, singular truth is less than worthless.  It's what puts everything into a coherent perspective.  If you truly understand this, you will never have to understand anything else.  Indeed, there is nothing else that can be understood. 

Oh dear!  Now that I have said everything that can be said, what is there to do?  It's all just picking up the pieces: cleaning up around the Ranch, from here on.  

-----------------------------------

Gyula Klima, in the final section of Contemporary "Essentialism" vs. Aristotelian Essentialism, provides a strong defense of essences.  All it takes is one essence to destroy materialism, even if that sole essence happens to be material.  

Contemporary materialists are wont to point out that there is no such thing as life, no vital essence.  But should we not infer then that it is impossible to die?  One could believe that, if one chooses to be absurd.  Much too much of our valuable time has been spent playing games with skeptics, usually on their irrational terms. 

I like this one: Topological Essentialism, Casati & Varzi. This gets down to the nitty gritty of parts vs. wholes and holes, too.  It does make the whole (sic) notion of atomism seem more than a bit silly.  If we each had a nickel for every stone placed on the grave of materialism we would all be millionaires.  No, we would inherit heaven. 

Perhaps, historically, the last political hurrah of materialism will be situated in the 'anti-essentialist' social critiques of some feminists, homosexuals, etc.  A prevalent undercurrent of this sentiment is in evidence in this list.  This is a misguided, myopic way to confront essential (sic) social problems.  There is also some evidence of a corrective response: 'A Critique of Social Constructionism and Postmodern Queer Theory' by Rictor Norton :  Essentialism.  Let us hope that the cooler heads prevail.  In this regard, note The Blank Slate- The Modern Denial of Human Nature by Steven Pinker.  Be treated to spectacle of a materialist defending essences.  True, Steven is allegedly just talking genetic 'essences' and he does still believe in qualia according to one reviewer.  Many strive for coherence, few succeed.  It is also eminently debatable whether Darwinism eliminates natural kinds.  OK, perhaps this is the next topic. 

[11/6] 

We'll come back to essentialism soon, and in the meantime take a look at 'Why are natural kinds supposed to stay fixed?' to see some alternatives to Darwinian anti-essentialism.  

I want now, however, to consider mental essentialism or conceptualism.  This is the part of essentialism and idealism that is the most difficult to refute.  It might also be called meaningism.  What I believe is fundamental is felt meaning.  This is a decidedly holistic view of meaning.  The whole problem with Plato was that he had an atomic view of essences.  I don't know why.  This atomism has been a tremendous drag on idealism since.  These atoms of meaning were the seeds of idealism's self-destruction.  Hegel's dialectical method should have corrected the atomism, but is was not until the post-reductive holism of Quine that things begin to turn around.  It is feeling and reasoning that account for the coherence and holism of essences, not to mention teleology.  

This looks like a good introduction: Nominalism, Realism, Conceptualism.  Notice especially the incarnational critique of Platonism. 

From one perspective, conceptualism is a form of representationalism.  How does this relate to reductionism?  Are both concepts and representations taken to be reducible?  

Realism, Nominalism, and Conceptualism provides a more concise exposition than the one above, and it deals more explicitly with the reduction issue. 

Conceptualizing often entails abstracting.  From a subjective point of view, the process of abstraction is generally found to be implicit.  It seldom explicitly involves verbal analysis.  The resulting concepts are holistic and open ended.  Dictionary definitions fall far short of capturing our ability to elaborate even simple concepts on the spur of the moment.  

More comprehensive is 'Meaning and the Problem of Universals, A Kant-Friesian Approach'.

If a representation or concept is reducible to something else then we need an explanation of  how we recognize or process it.  

If there is no representation then we have 'direct' realism which, with a bit more candor, would be called magical realism, owing to its explicit lack of explanation. 

[11/7] 

It should be noted that the modern version of conceptualism is synonymous with the Higher Order Thought  Theory of consciousness (HOTT).  On the other hand, direct realism is used as a proxy for the connectionist theories of mind. 

The question then is whether the HOTT can be given a reductionist interpretation.  The fact that the HOTT is prevalent in the AI community would seem ensure its reductionist pedigree.  However, the increasingly ontological and metaphysical cast to AI might suggest otherwise.  The processing of concepts requires a comprehensive ontological schema.  Is such a schema reducible?  

Let's get to the nitty-gritty: ontologies & reductionism (523 hits).  

What species of reduction would be accomplished in the competent computerized processing of concepts?   

Another question is the anti-reductive pedigree of holism.  Has it not also become a proxy for connectionism? 

[11/8] 

I find this to be an interesting paper: Ontological Progress in Science by Burian & Trout.  Superficially they make a very modest claim.  It is simply that the theoretical entities of science have causal powers.  In as much as some of these entities may not be elementary particles, then, by just that much has reductionism been defeated.  

1. The ontology of science is intensely compositional and hierarchical.

2. Although much of science is reductionistic, the reductionism in question is generally not eliminative.

--------

We shall utilize this framework of theses to suggest some preliminary responses to the sceptical arguments of such philosophers as Larry Laudan and Bas van Fraassen against the idea that there is ontological progress in science. There is not space on this occasion to attempt a proper rebuttal of the arguments they employ to undercut scientific realism, but the general line that we would pursue in constructing such rebuttals will become clear in the course of this paper.

We have been greatly influenced by many recent writings attacking and defending scientific realism [1]....

Boy, have I been dumb or what?  I never thought of using scientific realism to defeat scientific reductionism and materialism.  How could I have been so dense?   What is the date of this paper?  Who is winning now?  Some times my obtuseness takes my breath away.  How many times have I conflated scientific realism with scientific materialism?  At least twice a day for the last thirty years.  I doubt that I'm the only dummy.  Has there been a communication breakdown here?  I even took a philosophy course that included scientific realism at Maryland in 1977, and I sure don't recall the issue of reductionism.  What is going on? 

Richard M. Burian and J. D. Trout, "Ontological Progress in Science." The Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 25 (1995): 177-202.

This is Richard's only publication listed as online.  Same goes for Jack, but he does have four books listed, all more or less on topic of realism.  

Now I am understanding that this realism is the thesis of Naturalism and distinguishes it from Physicalism.  It also opposes itself to the reductive Unity of Science thesis.  

Take a look at CONTEMPORARY MATERIALISM: A READER Edited by Paul Moser and J.D. Trout (Routledge, 1995).  An interesting lineup. 

Yet another nail in the coffin of materialism.  How much does the cadaver have to stink before we adjourn this wake?  Haven't we run out of beer yet?  

On the Unity of Science question, undoubtedly people are (deliberately?) conflating the methodological and metaphysical issues. 

Burian & Trout put considerable stock in Ian Hacking.  Let's look at his book review articles.  Sorry, I guess we won't.  You have to pay.  Am I the only one getting the feeling there is a bit of a blockage here?  

Take a look at The Social Construction of What by Ian Hacking (HUP 2000).  This reminds me of the Science Wars with physicist Alan Sokal: physicalism -- good, psychologism -- bad!  Scientific realism is not allowed to trespass beyond the boundaries carved out by the dictates of the American Physical Society ('We invented the BOMB, or did we discover it??  Don't upset us, and definitely don't confuse us!').  Are those boundaries "physical", Alan?  And what about mathematical physics?  Is mathematics a "construct", or what?  

I feel like I've been missing out on some fun.  Nothing like playing catch-up! 

Here's a review of Ian's book:  'Phony Science Wars'  by Richard Rorty:  

Philosophers like Latour and Kuhn, wary of the idea that reality has an intrinsic nature that scientific inquiry is destined to reveal, are inclined to say that science might have done as good a job if it had never come up with either quarks or genes. As they see it, scientific progress is like biological evolution: no particular life-form is destined to emerge, and lots of different ones might have turned out to be equally good at survival.

A useful description of constructivism.  And now at length: 

....In this view, scientific theories are tools that do a job. They do it well, but some other tools might perhaps have done the same job equally well.

As Hacking says, many scientists find this view absurd. He himself is dubious about it, but he is inclined to be even more dubious about the idea that reality has an intrinsic structure that science accurately describes. These latter doubts are aroused by the notorious, persistent, seemingly insoluble perplexities to which the notion of "intrinsic" gives rise. The most familiar of these is the question How can we ever hope to compare reality as it is in itself, naked and undescribed, with our descriptions of it? Many philosophers have given up on the notions of "intrinsic" and "in itself," as a result of their failure to answer that question.

The stalemate that Hacking brilliantly describes but does not try to break is between many scientists' intuition of the inevitability of quarks and many philosophers' suspicion that the claim of inevitability makes sense only if the idea of the intrinsic structure of reality makes sense. This teeter-totter between conflicting intuitions is, Hacking rightly says, a genuine intellectual problem.  Which answer one gives to his third question -- about the source of the stability of the most reliable bits of science -- is likely to be a matter of which side of the seesaw has most recently descended.

These alternating intuitions have been in play ever since Protagoras said "Man is the measure of all things" and Plato rejoined that the measure must instead be something nonhuman, unchanging, and capitalized -- something like The Good, or The Will of God, or The Intrinsic Nature of Physical Reality. Scientists who, like Steven Weinberg, have no doubt that reality has an eternal, unchanging, intrinsic structure which natural science will eventually discover are the heirs of Plato. Philosophers like Kuhn, Latour, and Hacking think that Protagoras had a point, and that the argument is not yet over.

The most vocal and inflamed participants in the so-called science wars are treating the latest version of this fine old philosophical controversy as a big deal. In the very long run, perhaps, it will prove to be one. Maybe someday the idea of human beings answering to an independent authority called How Things Are in Themselves will be obsolete. In a thoroughly de-Platonized, fully Protagorean culture the only answerability human beings would recognize would be to one another. It would never occur to them that "the objective" could mean more than "the agreed-upon upshot of argument." In such a culture we would have as little use for the idea of the intrinsic structure of physical reality as for that of the will of God. We would view both as unfortunate and obsolete social constructions.

Rorty does not mince words here as to his own Protagorean proclivities:  I am also on this teeter-totter, tilting toward theism, but realizing that without a Creation you don't got no Creator.  

------------------------------

This has been an interesting discursion, but where does it leave us with reductionism?  Obviously reductionism is being given short shrift in the Science Wars, but I submit that it lurks in the arena.  

First, we must revisit the divide between the Anglo-American and Continental traditions.  I think it's fair to say that the Continental tradition is older, more multicultural and perhaps even 'wiser', certainly more tolerant.  Pluralism is its stock-in-trade.  Their closest approach to absolutism was in Hegelianism.  Descartes was opinionated, but also managed to make the world safe for both Science and Religion.  Britain bequeathed us Newton and Darwin, not to mention Hume.  The Anglo-American version of pluralism is a dichotomy between scientific absolutism and philosophic skepticism.  Yes, we do have a streak of Pragmatism, and now an imported Postmodernism.  The Continental pluralism naturally favors phenomenology and existential subjectivism.  We Anglos, though, want to be more objective and tough-minded, either in our realism or in our skepticism, but not subjectivism.  The frontier spirit of man into the wilderness was part of this tough-mindedness.  John Wayne just doesn't make it as a phenomenologist.  I can understand from whence John cometh. 

[11/9] 

Yes, I'm having some difficulty finding the proper focus, but please bear with me.  This is not a trivial pursuit.  There are uncharted waters here that run deep.  

We have discussed the Anglo-American experience in the history of ideas, but there is also an American (US) angle.  On the questions of 'creationism' and 'right-to-life' there is a unique US experience.  In both cases there is a widespread, emotion laden, political confrontation between contrasting metaphysical views.  This dualistic, dichotomous type of division has a long history that has somehow been exacerbated here.  Some of that dynamic and psychology may be relevant to the issue of reduction and its ultimate resolution.  My gut feeling is that if something does transpire around this issue, there are likely to be some historical parallels; although, if there is a line in the sand, it will have a different direction in a different location. 

In the preface to The Social Construction of What Ian Hacking points out that the Science War of Sokal's provenance has generated two very different responses: here and elsewhere.  Here it has been blood in the streets, elsewhere it is 'bemusement'.  

Also relevant here is the nascent issue of Intelligent Design.  This thesis represents a marked advance beyond Creationism, moving somewhat in the direction being suggested in these pages.  But still there is an obvious materialistic, or mechanistic emphasis of ID that sets us apart.  Their notion of irreducible complexity ought to be suggestive, however.  Whether there may ever be a direct intellectual link between that mechanistic irreducibility and this metaphysical irreducibility remains to be seen.  It might seem a small step, but it could turn out to be a giant leap.  Naturally, I will be paying close attention to the former, to both its substance and its form. 

I have been pointing to several related issues and intellectual trends.  The question for us is where will the reduction question most likely come to the surface.  Somehow the Science War is just missing this mark.  How could it come so close without a direct hit?  

In the Science War the issue is between social constructivism and reductive realism.  The closest thing to our non-reductive realism is found in the neo-rationalism of Fodor and the 'genetic' epistemology Chomsky and Piaget.  As noted previously, Dan Dennett has already accused Jerry of providing ammunition for Creationists.  I'm not sure how Jerry and his fellow neo-rationalists are reacting to this accusation.  I would like to see the Creationists eventually take up this issue, but I'm not holding my breath.  It would be preferable to initiate an intellectual discussion, as on these pages, before involving the sectarian interests.  Let me reiterate that the heterodox theology involved in immaterialism and neo-rationalism is going to be a major obstacle for any sectarian, and that is probably just as well. 

I would rather see the life-science community take up non-reductionism first.  However, their escalating confrontation with the sectarians over 'irreducible complexity' may already have rendered that scenario unlikely.  Our potential arena is correspondingly small.  This has advantages as well as disadvantages. 

---------------------------------

Sometimes I forget about Marx, but do recall that I have addressed the Canton branch of the Society for the Study of the Dialectics Nature.  Fred Engels was staunchly non-reductive about his materialism.  Yet he managed to avoid Platonism.  Yes, he was an emergentist but he also believed in the inevitability of history.  So there was an element of teleology.  How did he avoid the chain of being?  What about Darwin?  There were supposedly some smart Marxists.  But there is a fundamental irrationality here.  Does that mean there were a lot of smart people who were blinded by emotion laden ideology.  You bet'chya'.  Are scientific materialists and non-reductive postmodernists similarly blinded?   Well, you tell me: 

      [I'm doing anti-reductionism, for those of you keeping score] 

Emergent Representations: Dialectical Materialism and the Philosophy of Mind -- Joe Faith, 2000 

Philosophically speaking, Darwin solved two key problems. He not only naturalised functional explanation in biology but also naturalised normativity, i.e. he found a way of deriving normative properties from non-normative properties - oughts from is’s. Darwin explained why hearts beat and also why hearts ought to beat. He found a way of determining what made a heart a good heart.  

In the last chapter I argued that Marx discovered a mechanism underlying social evolution that is analogous to the mechanism that Darwin discovered underlying natural evolution; and showed how we can use this to naturalise functional explanations in sociology. In this chapter I explore whether it is also possible to use the same theory to naturalise social norms, such as our criteria of truth, goodness, and beauty. 

If Joe is right, God is wrong.  Place your bets, sports fans! 

[11/10] 

I'm still trying to get a handle on Joe's view of reductionism.  So far he is leaning toward Strong AI, which would suggest that any emergence would have to be purely epistemic, which would not even qualify for conceptualism.  

[I'll have to break here for Ravens v. Bengals.  Don't go away.]

[11/11] 

I'm not getting far with Mr. Faith.  He obdurately eschews metaphysics.  The representational emergentism that he advertises is left dangling.  He, of course, rules out skyhooks, but then the existential status of the floating representations is not specified.  His realism is strictly pragmatic.  I'm under the impression that Engels was metaphysically less timid with his dialectics of nature.  

The upshot is that robots stand to acquire conscious minds, given the properly pragmatic engineering input.  Joe is down on 'East Coast' theorizing about symbol systems.  This puts Joe in the Transhumanist circle and in flagrant violation of any human ethic, worker or otherwise.  Is this befuddlement of Marxist thought just sloppy thinking, or another example of intellectual anti-rationalism, as if more of same could possibly serve a purpose. 

At best, Joe is a holistic mechanic.  I believe that Engels was a bit more ambitious than this. 

-------------------------------

Reductionism redux: downward causation.  This is good: PHYSICALISM, EMERGENCE AND DOWNWARD CAUSATION -- Richard J. Campbell & Mark H. Bickhard (2001): 

The critical point is that quantum field processes have no existence that is independent of their configurations: quantum fields are processes, and can only exist in various patterns. Those patterns come in many sizes, of many different physical and temporal scales, some as large as a human person, or a social institution - but they are all equally patterns of processes. There is no ‘bottoming out’ level in quantum field theory - it is patterns of process all the way down, and all the way up.  

That is the rub. To be a reductive physicalist (or an ‘eliminative materialist’) at all, is to believe that ‘higher-level’ entities are nothing other than complex configurations of lower-level entities, in such a way that the higher-level properties and powers are explicable in principle in terms of the properties and powers of the lower-level entities (or at least, determined by them). Consequently, some entity is reducible just in case it is a configuration of lower-level entities. But now the supposed base-level entities are nothing but configurations of process as well! If there is no ‘bottoming out’, there are no bases to which all other phenomena can, even in principle, be reduced. Our reductive physicalist has lost the ground on which he wants to stand. If being configurational makes a property or power epiphenomenal, then everything is an epiphenomenon. That is the reductio ad absurdum of this position.

This is an intelligently provocative restatement of the non-locality of QM.  It makes Steven Weinberg's contrary statement in Reductionism Redux (NYRB, 1995) appear disingenuous, to put it euphemistically.  Steven certainly knows better.  His professional colleagues who silently tolerate such blatantly biased editorializing will not escape censure, either. 

Back to Richard and Mark: 

Reductionist physicalism is false precisely because there are no elementary physical particles that can serve, in the required sense, as ‘emergence bases’. Since everything is an organization of quantum field processes, more complex organizations of processes can yield emergent properties and powers, but it is the higher-level organization itself that is doing the work, not whatever might be its ‘constituents’. (That is why we earlier emphasized Kim’s invocation of relations and configurations.) Any field view destroys the seduction into a micro-particle reduction because configurational and organizational properties make differences in causal power, not just in the working out of lower-order causal power. 

This may be valid, but it needs to be fleshed out.  What may be even more significant is their exposure of Jaegwon Kim as favoring at least one substantive form of emergence, and they cite another author with the same opinion.  If this holds up, it is the most damaging case against reductionism, yet.  Kim is the most thoughtful and conscientious of the reductionists of which I am aware.  A far cry from Steve. 

I hasten to point out that Richard & Mark claim to be non-reductive naturalists.  I would like to find just one paper that exposes the oxymoronicity of non-reductive naturalism.  If Darwinism is not reductive it looses most or all its force, I believe.  This is being pointed out by the IDers with their irreducible-complexity argument against Darwin.  For instance, if any aspect of consciousness is irreducible, then we are faced with the pre-existence of mind and intelligence, obviating the Darwinian thesis.  

I have mentioned before that the only way around this anti-Darwinian conclusion is by means of a Sheldrakian 'mechanism' of spontaneous morphogenetic resonance. Such an anti-mechanical mechanism, just in itself, however, would be a large foot in the door for all kinds of teleological mischief.  Give us an inch; we take a mile.  That's exactly why the wizard's of scientific secularism, Weinberg & Co., are being so hardnosed about reductionism.  Don't the 'naturalists' get it?  By the way, my singular meeting with Rupert was in a crop circle.  Need we say more? 

How the non-reductive naturalists avoid this realization is the mystery of the moment.  Has no one bothered to clue them in?  There must be a reason for the divide between physicalism and naturalism; a reason that is being downplayed, evidently.  Why is reductionism so much debated if it does not have far reaching consequences?  The naturalists are naturally reluctant to speculate as to how far reaching these consequences are.  What then is their motivation relative to the reduction issue?  They may think that they are merely are supporting scientific realism, particularly as it applies to the life sciences.  But at the very least this makes them vitalists, and even panpsychists.  How many inches between these and pantheism, and then..., you know what?  

I recall more than a few theistic authors complaining about scientific reductionism.  Is it only ideology which prevents a joint tactical anti-reductive effort? 

Back to search mode.  Or is it head-scratching mode? 

As if in answer to my question, my next click was on Downward Causation by Claus Emmeche [Danish Biosemiotician], et al., of nonsectarian demeanor.  But, then go to the Amazon listing, and what do we see?  It is paired with a book by Dembski, a ringleader of the neo-Creationists, but with no explanation for the selection.  Evidently, I am not the only one anticipating a tactical fusion of anti-reductive interests.   

And it appears that Naturalism : A Critical Analysis (Routledge Studies in Twentieth Century Philosophy, 2000) by William Lane Craig (Editor), J. P. Moreland (Editor) might answer some of the above questions.  It includes this article: 'The Incompatibility of Naturalism and Scientific Realism' by Robert C. Koons, 1998.  But this latter turns out to be one of the most opaquely argued pieces I have come across in recent memory.  Too bad.  [But here I am in a more congenial mood.] 

[11/12] 

I am presently reviewing Claus's homepage.  I notice that he maintains links to Radical Constructivism (Austrian site, Heinz von Foerster, et al.) as well as to the Creationism debate, quite eclectic.  Radical constructivism has strong immaterialist tendencies, with ties to biology and cybernetics.  Notice the link to Stephen C. Pepper.  Stephen's root metaphors and world hypotheses have been influential for me, from early on. 

Clearly biosemiotics is important for us, and Claus appears to be the most eclectic thinker in the field.  Gilles Fauconnier is another person on this fringe, yet to be reckoned with. 

I have yet to find a point of direct confrontation between biosemiotics and reductionism.  There is not the deliberate provocation that we find with Richard Campbell above.  I notice that Richard has considerable background in the philosophy of religion.  For an academician to stick her neck out in this arena requires more than a little fortitude and experience with the big picture.  Being on the verge of retirement is another likely factor.  Unfortunately, this is Richard's only publication presently on-line.  

I'm reading Alexei Sharov's personal philosophy relative to biosemiotics.  He emphasizes his pragmatism, but note the priorities: 

Religious experience has proven to be useful for billions of people. But other people may not need it. Because people have different Umwelts they cannot come to agreement on whether the God exists or not. But this disagreement does not prevent them to communicate using overlapping portions of their Umwelts. It is not the goal of science to prove that God does not exist; science has other more important [sic] goals.

----------------------------------

Biosemiotics is rather close to evolutionary epistemology in the following aspects. It considers knowledge as a natural phenomenon which can be studied using the evolutionary theory. Biosemiotics is a descriptive science and rejects normative epistemology and normative ethics.

However, most people who develop evolutionary epistemology are realists, including the founders (Campbell, Lorenz, and Popper). Popper thought that scientific language has fixed meaning, and therefore scientific knowledge is objective and absolute. I think that there is no absolute (observer-independent) knowledge. However, there may be levels of "objectivity" depending on the scope of usefulness of knowledge (how large is the group of people who apply this knowledge and how successful this application was in the past). In this sense, scientific knowledge is more "objective" than superstitions. 

I see a peculiar (politically correct?) form of quasi-realism at work -- constructive realism?  The unaddressed issue is conceptualism.  What is the ontology of our concepts?  How does semiotics obviate semantics?  What is the ontic status of a sign?  Why not 'biosemantics'?  This might be worth pursuing.  Are semiotics and constructivism both reductionistic?   Are they just neo-materialist?  But wait, what about informatics?  Is there a distinction between informatics and semiotics?  What is the ontology of the former?  

Is the avoidance of ontology deliberate?  How long can it persist?  Without a realist ontology, science will quickly slide into idealism.  With a realist ontology the slide will just be a little slower!  Either way, we see that science and realism are on a collision course.  Thus the avoidance and denials of the inevitable show down.  

OK, back to Google: semiotics & reductionism: and right back to Claus: 'Modeling life- on the semiotics of emergence and computation': 

Artificial Life may help us to see that the idea of universality of the fundamental principles of life may be a presupposition, a metaphysical prejudice with a questionable basis. 

The dualism between structure and process, form and function, part and whole, inheritance and environment, contingency and necessity, holism and reductionism, vitalism and mechanism, energy and information, concept and metaphor. The construction of Artificial Life may help to dissolve some of these dualisms, or maybe combine or re-invent them in more fruitful ways, and inseminate new ideas about the nature of living beings. In this perspective Artificial Life can be seen as a new way of `reading' the science of biology. Using a metaphor from literary criticism we may call it a deconstructive reading: Alife actuates a deconstruction of the Good-Old-Fashioned-Biological Life. 

Oh dear, I'm disappointed with Claus.  I would say he is putting too much stock in Artificial Life, whose main function is simply to help us avoid and deny the problem of reductionism.  

------------------------

Let's try again: 'The cybersemiotic model: An evolutionary view on the threshold between semiosis and informational exchange', Soren Brier: 

The present paper discussed various suggestions for a philosophical framework for a trans-disciplinary information science or a semiotic doctrine. These are: the mechanical materialistic, the pan-informational, the Luhmanian second order cybernetic approach, Peircian biosemiotics and finally the pan-semiotic approach. The limitations of each are analysed. The conclusion is that we will not have to choose between either a cybernetic-informational or a semiotic approach. A combination of a Peircian -based biosemiotics with autopoiesis theory, second order cybernetics and information science is suggested in a five -leveled cybersemiotic framework . The five levels are 1 ) a level of First ness, 2 ) a level of mechanical matter, energy and force as Secondness, 3 ) a cybernetic and thermo dynamic level of information, 4 ) a level of sign games and 5 ) a level of conscious language games.  

Well, we shall see.....

But Peirce's semiotics is a very good non-reductionistic framework to start from since it takes its point of departure in semiotic mind.

The conception - especially of Maturana and Varela and also von Foerster - also comes close to Jacob von Uexkülls Umweltslehre. It is a kind of bio-constructivism. Unfortunately it tends to be rather idealistic, sometimes even solipsistic in certain formulations while, at the same time, it insists on the material reality of a biological observing system. Von Uexküll is a declared vitalist, who sees living systems as species, stretching theory Umwelt bauplans through time eternal. This makes him an anti-Darwinist. But Lorenz, on the other hand, used part of Uexkülls theory to found ethology. He fitted it into a neo-Darwinian paradigm,....

In Peircian semiotic philosophy these levels can be bound together by Synechism, Tychism and Agapism combined with the evolutionary view of the interaction of Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness. The view of Firstness as a blend of mind and matter qualities and as containing qualia and living feeling with a tendency to take habits is crucial to understand the self-organizing capabilities of nature and how, what seem as dead matter, through self-organization in evolution can become autopoietic and alive with cognitive/semiotic and feeling abilities.

The ontology is all over the map.  Claus and Alexei reject all ontology; Soren accepts all ontology.  I'm not sure that there is any practical difference. 

The term quasi-sign suggests an answer to the question whether there can be semiosis in a machine of the kind which Peirce knew. A quasi-sign is only in certain respects like a sign, but it does not fulfill all criteria of semiosis. While some criteria of semiosis may be present in machines, others are missing.

Well, this is something.  

When information theory attempts to encompass the area of meaning and semantics it passes and destroys the semiotic threshold too, but now in the other direction blurring the difference between informational and semiotic processes, and thereby between mechanical signal manipulating or quasi-semiotic systems and living systems. This produces all sorts of simplistic theories about intelligences that are not able to grasp the cognitive processes special for embodied living systems, not to speak of conscious socio-linguistic systems. 

.....and better still.  I suspect that the upper echelons of Semioticians continue to respect these ontological distinctions, in keeping with their Continental phenomenology.  It is the worker bees who may try to cut these ontological corners in order not to upset the mainly Anglo-American scientific establishment, which confronts Creationism on a daily basis.  

Peirce's view that we cannot with any good reasons split the concepts of mind and matter from the beginning, is very sound and a profound basis. I do not see any good reason why the inner world of cognition, emotions and volition should not be accepted as just as real as the physical world as well as our cultural world of signs and meaning. 

Finally to both the spiritualist and the materialistic, embodied life, even with only one cell as the body, has to be a basic part of, or a component of constructing a reality. We are thinking in - or maybe even - with the body. The psyche and its inner world arise within and between biological systems or bodies. With Peirce one may say that there will always be some kind of psyche in any kind of biological autopoietic and code dual system. Still, a partly autonomous inner world of emotions, perceptions and volitions, only seems to arise in multi-cellular chordates with a central nervous system. Lorenz (1973) argues that such a system with emotions and experiences of pleasure is necessary for animals to have appetitive behavior, searching for the objects or situations that can elicit their instinctual behavior and release the motivational urge built up behind it. This is qualitatively different from how reflexes function on a signal, which is a proto-semiotic informational level. Instincts sign function is on a genuine semiotic level.

.....to be perfectly frank about it.  

SEMIOSIC BODY-MIND (THE) -- Jesper Hoffmeyer:

20th century life sciences have been characterised by two major trends. One trend is molecular and genetic reductionism. This trend is well known and need no further comment. Beginning as an undercurrent to this trend, however, another much less noticed but in the long run just as important trend has gradually been unfolding: The semiotisation of nature.

.....and in the other corner, Semiotics. 

While it is understandable that biology as a profession prefers to base its understanding of basic life processes on a concept of information having been developed in the safe world of physics, this way of saving the life sciences from the muddy waters of interpretative processes nevertheless seems increasingly illusory the more we learn about the true subtleties of those processes.

There can be no doubt that reductionism in the life sciences has been healthy considered as a research strategy, and it should be pursued as such. But when it comes to theory, it seems that reductionism and the dualism on which it is justified, has run into serious problems. To explain life as 'nothing-but-interacting-molecules' leaves out a whole dimension of life, which the reductionist research strategy has itself helped digging out, the dimension of semiosis.

....not to mince words.  

A semiotic cosmology 

"We must understand our world in such a way that it shall not be absurd to claim, that this world has itself produced us" (Prigogine and Stenger 1984). With this statement Prigogine and Stenger want to remind us to the logical problem implied by a traditional scientific world view: If our physical theories explain nature as a stupid thing, how come that this 'thing' was as a matter of fact capable of creating us? Creativity cannot logically grow out of a non-creative world. Ironical as it is, traditional science therefore needs miracle (or alternatively it may of course eliminate creativity by claiming absolute determinism - but that leads us into the absurdity of believing that we couldn't possibly have believed other than what we believe, which is then not a belief but a kind of mental spasm).

Jesper keeps getting better.  This is nice!  When will creationism discover semiotics?  There is probably already a Creationist Establishment which sees Semiotics as a threat to its job security, no doubt. 

What I suggest, then, is that the development of individual intentionality in clever animals was preceded by the development of an evolutionary intentionality (which itself was preceded by a cosmic quasi-intentionality (Hoffmeyer 1998)). Rather than excluding unminded bodies from the kingdom of semiosis by applying the rigid criterion proposed by Eco I suggest we accept the idea that semiosis is itself an evolutionary phenomenon exhibiting different degrees of freedom. Evolution might then be seen, as Gregory Bateson suggested, as itself a kind of mind process, and by implication all bodies in the world are in a way minded bodies. As I have suggested earlier one might even say that the unfolding in our universe of increasing semiotic freedom is what evolution is all about. 

....teleology, anyone? 

'Has Biosemiotics come of age?' -- Marcello Barbieri (2002): 

The third paper, by Frederik Stjernfelt, begins with the announcement that "Jakob von Uexkull's theoretical biology is a main contribution to the developmental, or epigenetic, trend in the biology of recent centuries, a lineage involving scholars like Goethe, Saint-Hilaire, von Baer, d'Arcy Thompson, Spemann, Driesch, Waddington, Brian Goodwin, Rene' Thom and Stuart Kauffman". This lineage has been the historical antagonist of the 'mechanistic' approach of Galileo, Descartes, Newton, Lamarck, Darwin, Mendel, James Watson, Francis Crick and Jacques Monod, an approach which has produced what is still the main paradigm of modern biology. This special issue, in short, not only presents a revolutionary idea of biology, but also announces that such a revolution comes from the heirs of the historical opposition to mechanism. And this is no isolated announcement. 41 distinguished academics from 15 different countries have produced a 828-pages-long volume with papers on history, philosophy, theoretical biology, ecology, linguistics, arts, literature and computer science, and all come, by varying degrees, to similar general conclusions. The volume owes in fact its remarkable overall unity to this ideal convergence, and there is no doubt that its aim is to strike at the very heart of the life sciences.

----------------------------

Mainstream organicists and qualitative organicists may well be responding with enthusiasm to the "United against mechanism?" rallying question that Malte Herwig is launching from this special issue, but I am not. The best chances to solve the new problems of life are still likely to come from where all our solutions have always come in the past: from good, rational, old-fashioned machine-like models.

It sounds like a confrontation to me. 

Unfortunately, only two other publications of Marcello's are available on-line.  His promise to reduce semiotics to mechanics remains just that.  Nor have I found any other mechanists willing to debate the semioticians. 

[11/13] 

There is no question that semiotics in general and biosemiotics in particular are anti-reductionistic.  Semiotics, simpliciter, also has an anti-naturalistic aspect.  Should we check that out? 

Semiotics & naturalism: and it would appear that we have a date with Robert S. Corrington, Prof. of Philosophical Theology: A Semiotic Theory of Theology and Philosophy (CUP, 2000): 

Reviewer: Elena Vishnevskaya from Madison, New Jersey USA

In this beautifully written and concise book, Professor Corrington presents to the reader the capstone of his six previous books as they have developed his unique perspective of ecstatic naturalism. This form of naturalism, while rooted in classical Euro-American forms of naturalism (think of Dewey and Buchler here), makes a decisive break with the past by arguing for the primacy of the unconscious dimension of nature and for the reality of the potencies that enter into the world often when they are least expected. In order to frame his general philosophy, he engages in an ongoing respectful dialogue with psychoanalysis (especially that of Jung, Reich, and Kristeva), semiotic theory in the Peircean tradition, and a universalistic religiosity apparently shaped by his encounters with Hinduism and American Unitarianism.....He has an almost mystical sense of the presemiotic ground of nature and sees it as the birthing ground of the potencies (taking this word from Schelling). The other dimension of nature natured is explored in terms of an evolutionary semiotics that is bold enough to see sign usage in all of the prehuman order of the world. 

This may not be supernatural, but it sounds like Supernature to me. There is certainly nothing here that a scientist, qua scientist, would recognize.  Clearly we have to be on the lookout for pantheists attempting to purloin the banner of Naturalism, and, by the same token, be on the lookout for crypto-pantheistic 'naturalists'.  'Evolutionary semiotics' merits examination.  Semioticism appears bound for cultic status. 

Concerning semiotics and reductionism: Britannica 2001: Semiotics: 

This interest in the structure behind the use of particular signs links semiotics with the methods of structuralism , which seeks to analyze these relations. Saussure's theories are thus also considered fundamental to structuralism (especially structural linguistics) and to poststructuralism. 

....and Structuralism: 

Two important points arise here: first, that the structural approach is not in principle restricted to synchronic linguistics; second, that the study of meaning, as well as the study of phonology and grammar, can be structural in orientation. In both cases "structuralism" is opposed to "atomism" in the European literature. 

----------------------------

Little work on semantics has been done by structural linguists because of their belief that the field is too difficult or elusive to describe.

Did no one apprise the AI community of this latter result? 

SEMIOTICS:  

Center for Semiotics

U N I V E R S I T Y O F A A R H U S

Semiotics has always been both an inquiry into the nature of signs and-since signs convey meaning-a philosophical field of rational reasoning on world- and meaning-related questions, such as the following: Is meaning part of the world? Or is it the human mind’s own pure invention and therefore not part of the world? 

--------------------------------

There are, however, many different versions of this semiotic ‘naturalism’:  

One is Thom’s and, roughly, Lakoff/Johnson’s: there is a macro-physical, or ‘pheno-physical’, domain of objectively given spatio-temporal and causal states and processes; these have given formal properties that our minds pick up and interiorise, if they significantly affect our bodily interaction with them; this interiorisation is schematism. The gap separating ‘physis’ and ‘meta-physis’ is thus bridged by ‘pheno-physis’. The rest is metaphor. The rest includes affect, notional meaning, deontic values, linguistic and otherwise semiotic behavior.  

Another is Talmy’s and Fauconnier/Turner’s: there is a neurally specialized mental function which can make incoherent, or partial ‘ceptions’ (perceptions, conceptions) into coherent meanings by filling in from a stock of mentally available ready-mades that language helps us store as ‘fictions’; the result is an ongoing process of creative construction that blends the fictive and the referential ingredients into homogeneous, meaningful semantic wholes (a semantic "kitchen"). The central assumption is that there is a mental "cooking-pot", a cognitive mechanism of conceptual integration that neutralizes the difference between semantic domain addresses, modal values, provenances etc. of the ingredients and treats them all alike. The mind is generous.  Here, the gap between physicality and meaning is bridged by a neuro-semantic integration; metaphor is just a special case.

Notice the scare quotes on 'naturalism'.  This is a very phenomenological version of nature as opposed to scientific.  And mind the 'gap', please.  

'Semiotics this side and the other side of structuralism: the connection between modern and postmodern, structuralism and poststructuralism' -- Roland Posner, Technical University Berlin (1993)

In the beginning of the 20th century, structuralism has responded to the materialism, atomism, historicism, and naturalism of academic research by introducing a theory of its own, built around the dichotomies of signified and signifier, paradigm and syntagm[?], diachrony and synchrony, langue and parole. Poststructuralism did not reject this theoretical apparatus in favor of a new one, but explicated the paradoxes behind the structuralist dichotomies and tried to overcome them by undermining the first concept of each pair and emphasizing the second concept.

....in case you were wondering, and recalling the seminal relation of structuralism and semiotics. 

I had not been sufficiently aware of the anti-reductive motivation for structuralism. 

I would speculate that there is already a transatlantic, anti-reductive symbiosis between semiotics and our own computational epistemology. 

In regard to semiosis vs. reduction, I am reminded of Wilfrid Sellars's dichotomy (c.1962): 

His most explicit account of the central task confronting contemporary philosophy aligns it firmly with the modernist project of achieving a rapprochement between our humanistic understanding of ourselves as free and rational agents, at home among meanings and values, and the thoroughly "disenchanted" picture of the world being painted by an increasingly comprehensive natural science. Sellars thematized this contrast as a confrontation of two "images": the "manifest image" whose primary objects are persons, beings who can and do conceive of themselves as sentient perceivers, cognitive knowers, and deliberative agents, and the "scientific image", whose primary entities are some sophisticated version of "atoms in the void". "The scientific image," Sellars wrote, "presents itself as a rival image. From its point of view the manifest image on which it [methodologically] rests is an ‘inadequate’ but pragmatically useful likeness of a reality which first finds its adequate (in principle) likeness in the scientific image."

Research Project: Rationality and Non-Reductionism (van Tilburg University, NL): 

The program takes issue with two trends in the philosophy of science and epistemology: relativism and reductionism. While relativism undermines the rationality of science, reductionism undermines the ontological status of the subject matter of the so-called special sciences and hence their autonomy.

----------------------------------

Emergent properties (15,000 hits):

The biosemiotics of emergent properties in a pluralist ontology -- Claus Emmeche: an excellent summary of the many possibilities. 

[11/14] 

Emergent properties & causal (2,300 hits): 

Here is an outline of Kim's "Epiphenomenal and Supervenient Causation" (1984).  He argues against macro or downward causation. 

CARL GILLETT was a student of Fodor's at Rutgers.  He is a critic of physicalism.  Only abstracts of his papers are available. 

Henry Stapp is a person to watch.  I first met him about twenty years ago.  He is a physicist at Berkley.  Here is a lengthy excerpt from a letter (1997) of his: 

So in this austere quantum ontology there is an element of reality associated with each alternative possible entire classical world. This includes realities associated with each alternative possible state of my entire brain. So we now have some realities that can reasonably be imagined to correspond to the complex structure of human thoughts. 

But this complex reality, rich as it is, is only part of the quantum reality: something that lies outside and beyond that physical ontology is needed to complete the full dynamical description. A fair description of this extra thing would probably be to say that it is something like "the mind of God", because it must do such high-powered things. 

In each of the various quantum ontologies that has been proposed the other realities must do important things. I will stick here to a Bohr/Heisenberg/vonNeumnn/Wigner interpretation. 

The extra reality must do three things: 1. select a question (choose a basis) 2. answer that particular question (actualize one of the basis states) 3. bring the physical state of universe into concordance with that answer. 

Most importantly, insofar as we know today, each question must be a question about what some human experience will be, and the answer must bring the state of the brain of that human being into correspondence with that experience. This is the way the theory is set up, in order to account for *all* phenomena, including phenomena adequately described by using the classical approximation. 

Although only events associated with human experiences are required by the theory, the theory allows similar events not associated with human beings. But no evidence for their existence has yet been uncovered. 

This completes my explanation of why I reject the classical-physics ontology, and how our conscious experiences fit into a quantum-physics ontology.

There is some tension here between a mere quantum physicalism and a full-blown theism.  In most of his writing, Henry hews close to the former, conservative position. 

'THE NATURE OF AUTONOMOUS AGENTS AND THE WORLDS THEY MUTUALLY CREATE' -- STUART A. KAUFFMAN, (1996): 

I point out that "downward causation" is utterly non-mysterious. The last trilobite jumped the wrong way when some starfish caught it for dinner. But with the extinction of the organism - the trilobite - the earth lost its unique molecular species. Hence the extinction event, due to actions and effects among whole organisms, has changed the molecular unfolding of the biosphere. Causes run upward and downward seamlessly.

We'll be hearing a lot of this from the 'anti-mysterians'. 

Self-organization & downward-causation (254 hits). 

[11/15] 

Weak emergence (128 hits): 

Weak Emergence -- Mark Bedau (1997; his phrase first referenced in 1995): 

An innocent form of emergence - what I call "weak emergence" - is now a commonplace in a thriving interdisciplinary nexus of scientific activity - sometimes called the "sciences of complexity" - that include connectionist modeling, non-linear dynamics (popularly known as "chaos" theory), and artificial life.  After defining it, illustrating it in two contexts, and reviewing the available evidence, I conclude that the scientific and philosophical prospects for weak emergence are bright. 

'Toothless' would be a more accurate description. 

'Varieties of Emergence' -- David Chalmers (2002): 

We can say that a high-level phenomenon is strongly emergent with respect to a low-level domain when truths concerning that phenomenon are not deducible even in principle from truths in the low-level domain. Strong emergence is the notion of emergence that is most common in philosophical discussion of emergence, and is the notion invoked by the "British emergentists" of the 1920s.

We can say that a high-level phenomenon is weakly emergent with respect to a low-level domain when truths concerning that phenomenon are unexpected given the principles governing the low-level domain. Weak emergence is the notion of emergence that is most common in recent scientific discussion of emergence, and is the notion that is typically invoked by proponents of emergence in complex systems theory. (See Bedau 1997 for a nice discussion of the notion of weak emergence.)

Yes, it is important to note that the Complexity Gang at the Santa Fe Institute has done a professional job of hijacking the once philosophically respectable and objective notion of emergence and trashed it with their postmodern subjectivist spin, to be perfectly frank.  How long would SFI's NSF grants have held out if their 'emergence' had not been defanged? 

'Strong emergence' clearly separates the foxes from the hens.  Any serious anti-reductionist active since '97 would be sure to reference 'strong emergence'.  The fact that there are less than 71 distinct entries above, strongly limits the field of us foxes.  I am not yet amongst those, and there may be others like me, still not on the radar.  We shall soon see. 

Here's the list of active anti-reductionists, extracted from weak emergence: 

   1. Gregg Rosenberg 
   2. John Collier 
   3. Carl Gillett 
   4. David Chalmers and see his list of 15 online papers by others on reduction and emergence. 

And that's about it, unfortunately.  Next I'll take a look at Chalmers' list:  

   1. Mark Bickhard 
   2. Claus Emmeche 
   3. Tim O'Connor 
   4. John Post 
   5. William Seager 
   6. Larry Shapiro is sitting on an interesting fence. 
   7. Michael Silberstein, only one paper is online. 

This gives a cumulative total of eleven active anti-reductionists.  Except for Gregg, they all hold academic positions.  The non-academicians may be harder to identify, but they ought to show up on Google.  Claus and John C. are the only two not located in this country.  This present bias needs correction. 

If there were to be a paradigm shift away from scientific materialism, some of the above would be on the front lines.  Each one is anticipating some such shift.  

This list represents the bottom-line of my Internet sleuthing since 7/10/02.  It will be important to maintain and hopefully expand it.  One practical question is whether there is any collaboration amongst the listees, or even any sense of solidarity.  

Anyone on the lookout for the big shift need only access a few of these websites periodically to check its status.  

And moving right along, here are three people to watch from Larry's page: Colin Allen, Malcolm Forster and Valerie Hardcastle.  Like Larry, each is on her own fence.  

Thanks to Bill: Postmodernism R.I.P. No other relevant links. 

I notice that John P. has wide ranging interests. 

Clause maintains a lengthy list of possibly relevant people that will have to be perused.  Off the top we must add Howard H. Pattee.  Howard was first recommended to me about 25 years ago. 

Mark has an interesting biographical sketch.  Sound familiar? 

Carl has collaborated with Barry Loewer. 

John C. links to Semiotics, Evolution, Energy, Development Journal which contains a possibly useful article, 'The Status of Biosemiotics', and to this mailing list, Organisation, Complexity, Autonomy List Archives.  

There are some interesting leads from the above lists, but there is a dearth of cohesion, just in case any were expected. 

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Topical Index

11/3/02

A Semiotic Answer? 

The title of this page derives from the article, 'The Status of Biosemiotics', mentioned at the end of the last page.  Semiotics provides the closest thing to cohesion on the anti-reductive front.  But the answer is not to be found in the article. 

[updates to this subject: 12/3/03] 

[11/16]

So far I'm not having much luck with semiotics.  I'm continuing to peruse the Semiotics, Evolution, Energy, Development Journal.  Like the complexity theorists over here, the semioticians are under much pressure to hew to the established reductionism. 

Will Claus come to our rescue? 

The Chicken and the Orphean Egg: On the Function of Meaning and the Meaning of Function -- Claus Emmeche (2002): 

The traditional paradigm in biology which encompasses a number of experimental methods, normal scientific working procedures, neo-Darwinism and its mathematical population models, etc. alone is not and cannot be sufficient to answer the following key question: How did meaning originate in biological systems? And what is it (if not meaning, i.e. the creation of signs, and semiotic processes in general) that makes biology something special, something that on certain points fundamentally differs from the types of systems studied, for example, by physicists and chemists?

--------------------------------

(1) biosystems (organisms) contain genetic information;

(2) biosystems (organisms) have functions.

The former, of course, is a cryptosemiotic concept, for even here biologists admit indirectly that it is necessary to use semiotic concepts to describe biological systems. It is just that biologists do not attribute any particular significance to this: after all, they typically say, ‘genetic information’ is just a metaphor for certain molecular processes that are organized in a certain way. Here the biosemiotician steps in and interprets the occurrence of such metaphors more realistically,....

Here is the critical point for biosemiotics.  How do we parse this difference between metaphor and reality?  Is this where we transgress reduction? How do we do it? 

In physics the assertion or question of function (such as the one mentioned above) can be rewritten without loss of meaning to the purely causal question of direct cause-and-effect contexts in the traditional classical mechanical sense, in which a cause precedes an effect in time, but both cause and effect exist on the same ontological level, i.e., they are of the same nature, as in the example of the relationship between the sun and the earth’s climate.  This is a matter of material physical processes on the macroscale. As shown by the past 30 years of discussions on the concept of function in the philosophy of biology it is far more complex to state the connection between causality and functionality in biology. 

Essentially, the reason for this difficulty is that in biological systems there is an inner connection between the informational (which, without hesitation, we will call here the semiotic aspect of a living system) and the functional aspect. This is a connection that has been largely overlooked in the past and we will examine it in greater detail now.

Inner connection??  An essential internal relation?  

The material elements of the system have a certain agency of their own, or a local semiotic capacity to act, if you will, and consequently the cell’s molecular system of signs is self-organizing and self-interpreting, i.e., these signs are characterized better by the Peircean concept of sign as sign action than by the Saussurean concept of sign as an abstract system of differences. To a great extent, the cell is an interpretation system that is controlled by what Peirce called ‘final causation,’ the type of causation in nature that has to do with organization, habit formation, memory phenomena, information, appropriateness and purposefulness, evolution-all phenomena of the category of Thirdness (Santaella Braga 1999).

And where or how do we cross the line between the epistemic and the ontic?  If it is ontic then it is vitalistic.  

The crux of the matter here is that the relationship between the parts of an organism and the whole organism is a mereological relationship of a particular specific nature: it is also an ‘intrinsic semiotic relationship,’ that is, it is in its very nature semiotic. And, it should be noted, its semiotic character is not merely something attributed to it, just as our consciousness is not just due to the fact that other people attribute consciousness to me, but I am actually conscious and it is part of the concept’s sine qua non that being conscious is not derived from anything else. Apart from this formal similarity, the intrinsic semiotics of the cell has nothing to do with consciousness in the human sense.

'Not merely attributed'??  I'm still not getting the crucial cross-over, do you? 

If at first we don't succeed........

Code Duality Revisited -- Jesper Hoffmeyer (2002): 

In 1991 Claus Emmeche and I suggested that ‘the chain of events which sets life apart from non-life.... needs at least two codes: one code for action (behaviour) and one code for memory-the very first of these codes necessarily must be analog and the second very probably must be digital.’ This principle of code-duality played a major role in our initial ideas on biosemiotics. 

The hen is in all of her behavior, her physiology and her anatomy, as much a message of an eventual egg as the egg is a message of an eventual hen. As a hen the egg is just figuring as an analog coded physical continuous and sensually appealing message. It was exactly this dimension of nature, its swarming plenitude of messages, which natural science eliminated by taking dead nature (the nature of physics) as a model for living nature (discussed in Hoffmeyer 1984)). Logically enough we thereby have ended up being threatened by a ‘silent spring.’ 

Looking back it strikes me that the concept of code-duality was from the beginning linked to the idea of life as a chain of codings and recodings, i.e. life was not seen as an organismic property but rather as a property of chained codes. Or to say this in other words, the view of code-duality implies that the organism cannot be the privileged unit in biology and neither can the genome. Life is a semiotic process carried forward in time by the lineage in its interaction with changing environments. 

It is no wonder that a theory which sees the organisms as causal dead ends in the evolutionary process would sooner or later give rise to the idea that the organisms are in fact just instruments for the strategies of the genes. This was the essence of the well-known theory of the selfish genes proposed by Richard Dawkins (Dawkins, 1976). In Dawkins' conception the individual organisms are nothing but survival machines or vehicles which serve the genes in their attempt at being carried on to the next generation. We thus get the distinction between vehicles and replicators....

As Sterelny and Griffiths put it in their thorough analysis of gene selectionism "if genes are just arbitrary DNA sequences, then most of them will have no more systematic relation to the phenotype than an arbitrary string of letters has to the meaning of a book" (Sterelny and Griffiths, 1999: 79).

We must always divide the world into two parts, the one being the observed system, the other the observer . . . . That this boundary can be pushed arbitrarily deeply into the interior of the body of the actual observer is the content of the principle of the psycho-physical parallelism-but this does not change the fact that in each method of description the boundary must be put somewhere, if the method is not to proceed vacuously. (von Neumann (1955), quoted in Pattee, 1997). 

Now maybe we're getting somewhere, thanks to a bit of physical intuition.  

The point is that the function of measurement cannot be achieved by a fundamental dynamical description of the measuring device, even though such a law-based description may be completely detailed and entirely correct. In other words, we can say correctly that a measuring device exists as nothing but a physical system, but to function as a measuring device it requires an observer's simplified description that is not derivable from the physical description. The observer must in effect choose what aspects of the physical system to ignore and invent those aspects that must be heeded. This selection process is a decision of the observer or organism and cannot be derived from the laws (Pattee, 1997). 

Since not only human beings but living systems at large are fundamentally engaged in observations or measuring processes it follows that: "we must define an epistemic cut separating the world from the organism or observer. In other words, wherever it is applied, the concept of semantic information requires the separation of the knower and the known. Semantic information, by definition, is about something" (ibid). And thus according to Pattee in all living systems we must have one part of the system operating in a linguistic and time-independent mode (i.e. the DNA) and one part operating in a dynamic and time dependent mode (i.e. the protein system). 

I apologize for these unending quotes, but there has got to be the germ of this idea somewhere. 

Pattee underlines that he is not suggesting a Cartesian dualism here but only a ‘descriptive dualism,’ for although a measuring process depends on choices which cannot be derived from laws, such choices are seen by Pattee as functions coded in DNA and ultimately generated by natural selection.  

But this appeal to natural selection as the mechanism for bridging the Cartesian dichotomy between knower and known is not convincing. How could a purely mechanical process like natural selection possibly push non-knowing dynamical systems across the logical gap separating such systems from the realm of measurement and knowledge? Many people apparently entertain this illusion of natural selection as a mysterious bridge across the Cartesian Divide. 

Rather than taking refuge in such powerless ideas of what for every one of us is life's deepest and most real content, I will suggest that we give up the ontology of natural law by following the lead of Charles S. Peirce who recommended that we see natural laws as themselves a result of a cosmic evolutionary process. "This supposes them not to be absolute, not to be obeyed precisely" and they cannot therefore be expected to explain exhaustively our world. In the Peircean vision nature's tendency to take habits comes first and explains the growth of all kinds of regularities in our universe such as those regularities which we account for by natural laws. Since a habit is essentially an interpretation it follows that in the Peircean vision semiosis has primacy and acts by guiding efficient causation. 

As Peirce himself observed: the formation of a habit implies that an event will (nearly) always provoke the same response, so that therefore the response is not just accidental but must be related to the event. Habit formation thus is the core of semiosis.

This is a rather sharp turn toward idealism.  

Code-duality transgresses the Neumann-Pattee thesis by claiming that the linguistic or symbolic mode and the dynamic mode are both fundamentally semiotic modes. The distinction does not separate a semiotic mode from a non-semiotic or dynamic mode but rather posits two different kinds of semiotic coding. Thus semiotic processes characteristic of the ‘linguistic mode’ are based on digitally coded symbols, while the semiotic processes characterizing the dynamic mode are indexical or iconic and analogically coded. 

And so is this.  A mere panpsychism would not strong enough to cover this, IMO. 

Smoke refers to fire and enzyme refers to protein.  Is the latter referral more intrinsic than the former?  Is functionality the key?  Is there also any measurement? 

Obviously, analogic codes may eventually become digitized by becoming part of higher order digital codes. In itself, for instance, a drawing of an owl is usually just an icon but in ancient Egypt such a drawing when presented in the context of hieroglyphs came to signify the phonetic value ‘m.’ Or a painting may become part of an exhibition and thereby become digitized into a representative for a given artistic epoch or style of painting so that its reference is now determined primarily by the setting of the exhibition and only secondarily by its original iconic power.

-----------------------------

Considered from above, what happens is that the concentration of cAMP has become a switch by which the cell can turn on and off its energy consumption. In the course of evolution, as the bacterial systems eventually learned to use cAMP, it became more and more detached from its original biochemical setting, namely as a release mechanism for specific transcription processes which provide mRNA strands for a series of enzymes needed for metabolic pathways involved in the degradation of non-glucose sugars.  

As pointed out by the Danish biochemist Mogens Kilstrup, cAMP in this case is both an icon (as a specific molecular conformation), an index (for ATP), and a symbol for glucose starvation (Kilstrup, personal communication).  

The transformation of analogic codings to digital codings through the evolutionary formation of new contextual settings is probably involved in many or all cases of biological emergence. 

-----------------------------------------------------

It was one of Gregory Bateson's greatest contributions to show that human or animal communication systems are deeply dependent on paralinguistic or paralogical settings. The concept of code-duality was meant as a tool for conceptualizing this theme as a general theme for evolution. The perpetual accumulation of new mutations in the genomes of the species of this world is of course necessary for the evolutionary process to proceed, but code-duality points to the necessity for a semiotic contextualizing of the process. Following Pasteur's famous saying that ‘only the well prepared will profit from good fortune’ I should like to suggest that evolution is not at all a result of blind mutations, but is caused rather by those semiotic integrations which allowed biosystems to profit from the eventual appearance of ‘lucky’ mutations. 

I would gladly continue quoting from Jesper, but unfortunately this is the end of the article.  Am I liable for unfair usage?  Not whilst visitation is zero! 

-------------------------------------------

People certainly are groping for something.  One ought to be able to reach out and touch it.  Touch what? 

A recurring theme is the primal distinction.  I am reminded of Spencer Brown's 'Laws of Form' with is 'mark of distinction'. 

There are no purely physical distinctions.  Distinction comes only with function and information.  We are so embedded in semantics that we can imagine neither a pre-semantic nor even a proto-semantic state.  That super-imagination is what the semioticians are groping for. 

The whole point of theism is that this quest is futile.  There is no such thing as half of a meaning.  There are no demi-gods.  The mind of God is indivisible.  The closest thing to a proto-God is a toti-Potency.  The toti-Potency is the proto-Creator.  As creatures it is logically impossible for us to imagine a creationless Creator, except as the ultimate mystical state of empty bliss: the Alpha and Omega of all distinction.  And it's all down hill from there!  Mostly kidding. 

The 'Holy Grail' of Semiotics is exactly the Holy Grail.  Sorry 'bout that!  Realizing that is the hardest thing we will ever have to do.  The Eschaton will then just be an anti-climax.  Upon realization, our first act is to kick ourselves for not realizing it sooner. 

Semioticians are looking for God in all the wrong places.  They strangle themselves in words, trying to avoid the obvious.  It is a painful but necessary exercise.  Theirs is lesson well learned. 

[11/17] 

What I just said from yesterday raises an obvious issue.  To what extent is semiotics purely intellectual, as opposed to being, let's say, 'extracurricular', e.g. political, emotional, etc.? 

Europeans tend to be more subtle about a lot of things, but particularly about religious matters, we may suppose.  Even with that caveat, the fact that I have not yet encountered any theism in the semiotic context seems remarkable.  The other European philosophies of existentialism, phenomenology and idealism, all have strong and explicit theological dimensions. 

Perhaps the structuralist provenance of semiotics is partly to explain this.  Structuralism was intended as a quasi-mathematical theory of language and ritual.  It was meant to be purely descriptive in the fashion of, say, mathematical physics.  But semiotics is definitely pushing that purely clinical(?) envelope, to the extent that metaphysics comes to the fore, and with that must come all the usual metaphysical suspects.  That they don't come is perhaps due to a European version of a Gentleman's Agreement.  Well, us 'Amurricans' have a tad less couth.  And I think I noticed a similar lack on the part of the Muslims in this same context.  Perhaps the Europeans are overplaying their role, or is it just their parole, so to speak.  The Europeans allegedly learned their subtlety at the wrong end of a Hundred Years war.  Now that we are headed for another one, perhaps we should all be their students, a development that would certainly meet their expectations.  In other circumstances, this might be good advice, but there is the small matter of the Eschaton and its disposition.  I continue to labor under the impression that its disposition is at least partly up to me, until such time as I am relieved of said task.  The semiotical evasions are not helping, quite frankly. 

Having said all this, thank you very much, I do now recall Raphael Capurro with his angelical semiotics.  How could one forget?  I guess we'll have to ascertain the degree of Raphael's anomalousness.  [5/21/03 - I just received a brief note from Raphael acknowledging my acknowledgment of his work.  This would not be terribly noteworthy were it not the first spontaneous communication I have received in reference to these pages.  May I conclude that Google has finally stumbled upon my humble abode?  Raphael points out that more of his work is available, including some in English, here.  I will be investigating further, but now I must resume with photo-realism lest I lose that thread.  I can only wonder if Raphael garnered a clue as to what transpires hereabouts.] 

From Robert Corrington I notice this article: "My Passage From Panentheism to Pantheism," The American Journal of Theology and Philosophy," Vol. 23, # 2, May 2002.  Too bad it's not available, but I'm not sure that was a good move, though. 

Along these lines I was struck by the following: 

Philosophy -- based increasingly since the last century on theories of language -- has begun, in people like Eco, to shift its position in order to encounter a post-modernist scepticism and irony which has not always proved fatal to theism. Eco's notion of irony is profoundly creative and liberating: in The Name of the Rose, it is God who has the last laugh. For who are they which survive the apocalypse? Against all odds, Baskerville and Adso emerge from the intended death-trap: the first, to become Holmes' great-great ancestor, the other to chronicle the human condition faced with the mysteries of the cosmos: we can not know, yet we continue to hope, and to believe.

It is important to note that William of Baskerville is no sneering ironist himself, but a faithful Christian monk and priest, devoted to the "poverty of Jesus" in the Franciscan order to which he belongs. While he questions, doubts, expresses dismay over the lostness of the Church in some of her ways, at no time does he mock. An interviewer writes, "I ask Eco -- a lapsed 'militant Catholic' -- about the notion of an absent deity that haunts his writing. Laughing, he offers only the mischievous retort, 'God hides because He doesn't want to appear in Vogue!'"21 In Foucault's Pendulum, the Eco-character, Caussabon, pronounces tellingly on those who would love secrets more than faith in a possible truth:

"Hadn't Agliè spoken of the yearning for mystery that stirred the age of the Antonines? Yet someone had just arrived and declared himself the Son of God, the Son of God made flesh, to redeem the sins of the world. Was that a run-of-the-mill mystery? And he promised salvation to all: you only had to love your neighbor. Was that a trivial secret? And he bequeathed the idea that whoever uttered the right words…could turn a chunk of bread and a half-glass of wine into the body and blood of the Son of God and be nourished by it. Was that a paltry riddle? And then he led the Church fathers to ponder and proclaim that God was One and Triune and that the Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son, but that the Son did not proceed from the Father and the Spirit. Was that some easy formula for hylics? And yet they, who now had salvation within their grasp…turned deaf ears. Is that all there is to it? How trite…The mystery of the Trinity? Too simple."22

To laugh is not to mock; Eco so loves humour, and attributes great health of mind to seeing the humour in any given situation, that even his most technical textbooks on semiotics manage to produce a smile now and then; yet the dignity of certain subjects is never sacrificed to humour. And this is because it is precisely the "sense of the sacred, of limits, questioning and expectation", which provides the basis for his profound humanism. He writes:

"Accept for a moment the hypothesis that there is no God: that man's appearance on earth is the result of an unfortunate mistake, that not only is he consigned to his mortal condition, he is also condemned to be aware of this, and is thus the most imperfect of creatures… -- he achieves, in the fullness of time, the religious, moral, and poetic power to conceive of the model of Christ, of universal love, of the forgiveness of enemies, of a life offered in human sacrifice for the salvation of others. If I were a traveller from a far-off galaxy and I found myself facing a species that had been able to offer such a model, I would fall down in admiration of such God-creating energy; yet discovering it to be responsible for so many atrocities, I would deem it pathetic and despicable and would see its redemption only in the fact that it had succeeded in wanting and believing its story to be the Truth… but let us admit that if Christ was only the subject of a great story, the fact that this story was imagined and desired by immature fledglings who knew only that they knew nothing, would make it every bit as miraculous (miraculously mysterious) as the fact that the son of a true God was truly incarnate."23

Not bad for a lapsarian, huh!  Is not Umberto arguably the best known semiotician?  It was in regard to him that I recall first hearing this word mentioned, maybe only ten years ago.  This lengthy passage and quotes are from 'God, Truth, and Meaning, in the Post-modernism of Umberto Eco' by Niki Lambros, [I've seen a lot on the web, but this is something else...] and let me not stop here: 

Philosopher Paul Ricoeur has called Marx, Nietzsche and Freud, "masters of suspicion1;" yet he also notes that though they sought to undermine traditional ideas, they were able to "clear the horizon for a more authentic word, for a new reign of Truth, not only by means of a 'destructive' critique, but by the invention of an art of interpreting2". In a similar way, Umberto Eco can be seen as both a post-modernist sceptic and a champion of truth and meaning. From a Christian point of view, one must be very suspicious of a post-modernist philosophy that will not allow the possibility that God, truth and meaning can exist: in a conversation sponsored by the Cambridge University Faculty of Divinity last year, Rowan Williams and George Steiner noted that the "suspicion" or scepticisms of Derrida and Foucault are not suspicious enough for this reason: they do not allow themselves to suspect that truth may indeed exist. We must read Eco in the light of just such a suspicion; while Eco is sceptical of simply accepting traditional religion or modernist conclusions, he yet shows himself to be even more suspicious of philosophy which does not seek truth and meaning, but is content with nihilism and the void. The "art of interpreting" or, "deduction" in Eco, still leads a careful reader, if not to an absolute knowledge, at least to hope; and Eco sees a profound meaning in hope.

Damn! 

Then, of course, there is Charles Saunders Peirce, the mere father and Godfather of semiotics and pragmatism, providing some interesting gleanings besides the above: 

Favorite Quotations -- Kevin Jessup: 

"Shortly before he died, Carl Sagan wrote to say he had reread my 'Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener' and was it fair to say that I believed in God solely because it made me 'feel good.' I replied that this was exactly right, though the emotion was deeper than the way one feels good after three drinks. It is a way of escaping from a deep-seated despair. William James's essay 'The Will to Believe' is the classic defense of the right to make such an emotional 'leap of faith.' My theism is independent of any religious movement, and in the tradition that starts with Plato and includes Kant, and a raft of later philosophers, down to Charles Peirce, William James, and Miguel de Unamuno. I defend it ad nauseam."
        -- Martin Gardner   

The following is from William James: 

A glance at the history of the idea will show you still better what pragmatism means. The term is derived from the same Greek word [pi rho alpha gamma mu alpha], meaning action, from which our words 'practice' and 'practical' come. It was first introduced into philosophy by Mr. Charles Peirce in 1878. In an article entitled 'How to Make Our Ideas Clear,' in the 'Popular Science Monthly' for January of that year [Footnote: Translated in the Revue Philosophique for January, 1879 (vol. vii).] Mr. Peirce, after pointing out that our beliefs are really rules for action, said that to develope a thought's meaning, we need only determine what conduct it is fitted to produce: that conduct is for us its sole significance. And the tangible fact at the root of all our thought- distinctions, however subtle, is that there is no one of them so fine as to consist in anything but a possible difference of practice. To attain perfect clearness in our thoughts of an object, then, we need only consider what conceivable effects of a practical kind the object may involve--what sensations we are to expect from it, and what reactions we must prepare. Our conception of these effects, whether immediate or remote, is then for us the whole of our conception of the object, so far as that conception has positive significance at all. 

This is the principle of Peirce, the principle of pragmatism. It lay entirely unnoticed by anyone for twenty years, until I, in an address before Professor Howison's philosophical union at the university of California, brought it forward again and made a special application of it to religion. By that date (1898) the times seemed ripe for its reception. The word 'pragmatism' spread, and at present it fairly spots the pages of the philosophic journals. On all hands we find the 'pragmatic movement' spoken of, sometimes with respect, sometimes with contumely, seldom with clear understanding. It is evident that the term applies itself conveniently to a number of tendencies that hitherto have lacked a collective name, and that it has 'come to stay.'
'Glory Met in Unspeakable Flux: A Critical Comparison of the Semiotics of Religious Experience in the General Theory of Signs of Charles Morris, the Semiotic of Charles Sanders Peirce, and the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms of Ernst Cassirer' --  Paul Burgess (Burgess as in Burgess batteries). 

The title says it all?  ---

In the years since then, and especially since the early 1960's, the field of semiotics has undergone considerable development. Thomas A. Sebeok distinguishes three major strands in this course of development, which he designates the biological, the philosophical, and the linguistic traditions. The first tradition is rooted in medical practice and diagnostic methodology; Baltic biologist Jakob von Uexküll brought this approach to explicitly semiotic form in his study of animal behavior and perception between the two world wars. The second tradition leads from Plato and Aristotle through Augustine and the medieval scholastics via Leibniz, Locke, and others to thinkers such as Peirce, "the real founder and first systematic investigator of modern semiotic." The third tradition in its overtly semiotic form leads from Ferdinand de Saussure to writers such as Louis Hjelmslev, Roman Jakobson, and Roland Barthes. Although there has been creative borrowing among these traditions, Sebeok notes a continuing tension between more linguistically oriented and more philosophically oriented semiotic approaches.

Charlie's theism, whatever it may have been, has left an interesting paper trail, or provides a major cross-link in many such trails. 

-------------------------

Given all of the above, how are we to explain the studied, silent agnostics of someone like Emmeche?  How can he dig this deep without hitting pay-dirt?  What is this game?  Oh, yes, now I recall something about radical constructivism and shamanism.  What do those two danglers add up to, pray tell?  Claus does neither, it would seem. 

So I guess the ball is back in his court: 'Closure, Function, Emergence, Semiosis and Life' (Emmeche 2000): 

The aim of this brief note is to consider partly hidden ideas about theoretical biology and its subject matter, living beings, organisms in their ecosystems -- which means beetles, cows, worms, bacteria cells, green algae, and dinosaurs, their history and interactions, their development and evolution, their structure and function, their origin, self-organization, the extinction of individuals as well as species, and the genesis of higher modes of life. In other words, an extremely multifaceted subject. First, however, recall an observation on the fate of general systems theory, which in the 1960s and 1970s had the ambitious goal of synthesizing the general fields of cybernetics, information theory, operation analysis, and specific fields, such as evolutionary theory and thermodynamics. That goal was not achieved and various reasons may be given for the failure, but an important factor might have been a too high level of theoretical generality in accounting for the highly different types of systems included in the ambitions of systems theory [1]. With this in mind, we could ask for the possibility of facing a similar situation with respect to the current trends in systems thinking.

Or, perhaps there was insufficient generality, insufficient to point to or include anything transcendental. 

EXPLAINING EMERGENCE (Emmeche, 1997):

We argue that what is needed is an ontological non-reductionist theory of levels of reality which includes a concept of emergence, and which can support an evolutionary account of the origin of levels. Classical explication of emergence as `the creation of new properties' is discussed critically, and specific distinctions between various kinds of emergence is introduced for the purpose of developing an ontology of levels, framed in a materialistic and evolutionary perspective. [...] Recent research in self-organizing non-linear dynamical systems represents a revival of the scientific study of emergence, and we argue that these recent developments can be seen as a step toward a final `devitalisation' of emergence. 

Am I the only one confused?  Claus is a shamanic, non-reductive materialist?  Whatever! 

....let us as an example look at Friedrich Engels and his so-called dialectical materialism. According to Engels, it is not possible to reduce complex objects of one level to less complex objects on a lower level. Each level contains materialistic entities, but of different sorts, and being created at different times during an evolutionary process beginning from the physical entities. What controls this evolutionary process is not a vitalist immaterial principle, but the famous dialectical laws. The only teleological principle in these dialectical laws is the idea that evolution as such is not able to regress - you cannot "develop backwards", - but only forward, that is, the union of complex entities will always synthesize into more complex units. At a certain point in the evolutionary process, the dialectical development will cause quantitative elements to synthesize into qualitatively different elements.

Are you suggesting, Claus, that you're not one?  Dialectical materialism remains the only non-reductive alternative to theism.  Do you have another idea?  A devitalized, disenchanted, materialized semiosis is precisely that.  So sorry!  And, by the way, were not the Marxists social realists?  Does that not mean that they believed in the downwardly causal, historical efficaciousness of allegedly objective entities like capitalism and communism?  If this were not the case, what would have been the point of advocating a workers' revolution? 

As far as we can see, there is only one possibility if constitution of a level presupposes higher levels with boundary conditions - and that is an idealistic ontology, where every level and every entity are potentially existing and exerting attracting influences downward in the level system (the organism as attractor for the cell). We think this idealistic concept of potentiality can be refused on ontological grounds; we do not hereby want to refuse every sort of potentiality, but only in this holistic level-constituting sense.

As can be seen, any evolutionary theory presupposes this kind of potentiality (as in the Darwinian case: the host of species extinct or unrealized at various steps of development (from zygote to ecological niche) which we can never know as actual but must be posited as a potential to explain the selection of the known species.

This water is getting even more muddy. 

My impression is that Emmeche is a very weak emergentist.  Although he gives lip service to ontology, he is only doing epistemology.  I have yet to see him reference Jaegwon Kim who argues effectively against the coherence of non-reductive physicalism.  There is no downward causation with Claus, and, without that, talk of emergence is palliative.  I can see no daylight between Claus and the Complexity Gang in Santa Fe.  Did I say that Claus was an agnostic?  I think I'll have to retract that: shamanism -- shmamanism. 

There has got to be a biosemiotician out there who will take exception to Claus's palliation.  Where shall I find this person? 

My intuition is that mere epistemological emergence is self-contradictory.  Intuition?  Nay, logic: If I can rationally entertain the concept of a cat, then that concept is logically irreducible; because, if my rationality is not illusory, then that individual, indivisible concept must causally participate in my cognitive processes.  And, furthermore, if there is any possibility of scientific realism, then the actual cat must partake of some very similar, and, thus, a causally irreducible felinicity.  Is this Rocket Science?  Has no one else ever thusly confronted these so-called 'emergentists'? 

[11/18] 

This last anti-reductive argument is indirect, relying on the holistic notion of rationality.  It would have no impact on an advocate for Strong AI.  I would like an argument that appeals directly to biology. 

One such argument uses the idea that irreducible traits are a necessary underpinning for natural selection.  Selection could not operate without an objective substrate of real traits that are downwardly causal.  Traits must be ontological and not just epistemological.  A species is a super-trait, and so this is an argument for the ontology of cats, for instance.  

Another type of argument starts with the very basic idea of personal identity or ontology and then proceeds to include a wider range of identities.  Personal identity must serve some evolutionary role and so it must be downwardly causal or it could not have been selected.  This same argument is more frequently applied to the ontology of consciousness.   Presumably, rationality also has a survival value, and is a selectable trait like consciousness, bringing us back to our original argument.  Would this cut any more ice with the AI people?  Intentionality is a functional illusion, they are wont to say.  But such a deep-seated, widespread illusion must have some evolutionary significance.  [Setting aside, of course, for the time being, and, as will be the case with all such arguments of mine, that, as a radical idealist or immaterialist, I put very little stock in this whole Darwinian, materialist worldview, to begin with. [That was just nine commas [,'s] by my count!  It still may be a new personal record.  Would anyone care to check?]  But sometimes you do have to play in order to win.]  It would be very peculiar, and be a definite setback for evolutionism, if evolution were found to play no role in what are evidently the most distinctive and significant features of our species, illusory or not.  Illusions can play a causal role, regardless of their ontic status.  Imagine the poor chap in the desert crawling a mile to an illusory lake.  That illusion would have a dubious survival value, but still be causal.  [And, yes, I realize that this is an externally generated illusion, but you get the point.]  Let me hasten to point out, as many have before, that the entire notion of causation has a decidedly idealist, non-physical aspect.  A cause is just an event or a state of affairs, a strongly emergent property.  To say that an asteroid impact caused the dinosaur extinction is a flagrant exercise in rhetorical arbitrariness, from a purely physicalistic point of view, but it also represents the epitome of rationality.  Rationalism and physicalism have been antagonists from the git go. 

Downward causation is necessarily teleological, and thus vitalistic and definitely anti-physical.  [By the same token, dialectical materialism is an oxymoron, but, of course, that did not prevent cadres of intellectuals from devoting their lives to it.]   This is to say that Claus's weak emergentism is a non-starter.  It is a verbal palliative.  Jaegwon Kim's arguments should have put all this to rest years ago.  These weak emergentists are like the Energizer Bunny.  The founders of Structuralism and Semiotics took a decidedly metaphysical turn, but now their biosemiotic followers are opting for Scientific Correctness.  Is there no shame? 

Biosemioticians, like the Systems Theorists before them, wonder why the scientists pay them no heed.  The reason is that these philosophers expend most of their energy apologetically aping them, rather than actually engaging the scientists in serious argument. 

What is the excuse for all these anti-rational materialists?  It's all a part of the larger eschatological, teleological drama.  The only real lesson is that if you don't take cosmic intelligence seriously, you will surely be its dupe.  It also shows that intellectualism and common sense often get their wires crossed.  There is no substitute for old-fashioned wisdom.  

Another point is that the philosophers have been spending most of the last century simply tidying up around the scientific ranch.  This is normal philosophy.  As they clean up the little problems, the bigger problems become more glaring, but, unfortunately, the cleanup crew does not have in its armamenta the industrial strength cleanser that is now needed.  What is now required is vision on a cosmic scale.  That can only come from whence all visions come: out of the telic blue.  The only possible precedence is likely to be found in the prophetic lineage. There is, however, some difference of opinion as to the date of the last such vision.  If I'm in the right ballpark, the well known incident in the seventh century was anachronistic in that it seems to have been mainly an updated recapitulation of the Old Testament lineage.  The prior intervening incident was notoriously interrupted, due largely to its radical nature, and, was, accordingly, self-proclaimed as teleologically incomplete.  From what we can see now, its completion would logically have to wait for a postmodern venue.  Am I being sufficiently diplomatic about this logistics problem.  I trust that no one will take offence at this quasi-non-linear historicity.  Think of that other incident as having been an artistic intermezzo.  And the more recent 'mishap' might not otherwise have been possible, and, again with much due apology [biosemioticians not being the only ones skilled in this sometimes fine art], to say that this most recent piece of physical drama was world-class might be an understatement, in my Monday morning estimation, and by way of further apology.  Is the price of all this theater rather too high, you might well wonder?  Well, consider then, if you will so kindly, the price of Creation.  That Show goes on.  [I can see room for ambiguity in the designation of events, but let that be, and the more general point still stands.]  

--------------------------

We might wonder if there is no downward causation in the case of a computer running some specific program.  There is the ample intentionality of all the users and programmers, but what beyond that?  

I would say that there is nothing essential to the machine other than what we impute to it or design into it.  I would be reluctant to say that of a biological organism.  The ontogenesis of any organism or organ, and then the maintenance of it surely involves downward causation, if anything does.  So too would its proper continued functioning, that is, at the very least, within the holistic psychosomatic, immunological system of the organism, if we are speaking of a specific organ.  

-------------------------

The last paragraph was not well conceived.  Let me try something else, please.  

The downward causation of interest is teleological.  I have suggested before that Creation has proceeded from both the Alpha and the Omega, and primarily from the latter.  The existence of our world is due mainly to its final cause, the Eschaton.  The Alpha is a mere shadow of the Omega.  In a similar fashion, matter is the shadow of mind.  Final causation is most evident to us in the ontogenesis or ontogeny of biological organisms.  So I would reverse the the evolutionary dictum to say instead that phylogeny recapitulates ontogeny.  

Ordinary efficient causality is the habituation of the mind.  Mathematics is one means by which nature fills in the gaps between our visions and intentions, yielding physics.  As we ascend the chain of being, final cause gradually replaces efficient cause.  We use our artifacts to amplify the final cause, the Internet being but the latest example, by which means and through efforts like this, the Final Cause will be made the explicit source of our intentionality, thus further accelerating our historical denouement.  As telephony gives way to telepathy in the final eschatological stage, teleological acceleration will be more than impressive: mind supplants matter, downward causation supplants all else. 

Final cause is so hard to detect instrumentally, because it is so pervasive in the organic realm.  Removing it would be like removing the head from a body: all systems grind to a halt.  Nay, all systems vanish.  Matter is the shadow of mind.  The organism is the shadow of its spirit or essence.  God and spirit clone themselves organically.  

What medicine accomplishes with chemicals is but a shadow of what will be accomplished with spirit.  Between chemistry and spirit resides alchemy.  A neo-alchemy will provide the historical continuity, as it already is in undetectable fashion.  

Biosemiosis when freed of its materialist shackles will be the wave of the future.  Emmeche & Co. have a reasonable fear of the unknown.  To them the immaterial future is remote and faceless.  Someone will give it a face and render it immanent.  That presence is the second coming.  As we anticipate we emulate and as we emulate we become.  There is no other resolution.  

Scientific instrumentation will not be instrumental in detecting the telos.  That is the purpose of the mind, no, the telos is the essence of the mind.  As matter shadows mind, so does mind shadow the Telos.  

You see why Emmeche and the biosemioticians are having trouble.  They peer into every corner for a sign of the Telos, when, in Truth, it is about to swallow them whole. 

[11/19] 

If we are going to actually see the vital force objectively it would likely be by inferences based on measures of biomolecular efficiency, such as with enzyme efficiency.  Part of this putative excess molecular efficiency may be attributable to quantum computing effects.  If performing a cellular function may be compared to computation, then we know that quantum superpositional effects may be employed to boost computational efficiency, and so one would expect to find similar boosting effects in vivo; while, admittedly, we are setting aside the not inconsiderable decoherence problem.  

Quantum physics, you may say, is still just physics.  Maybe yes, maybe no.  Delayed choice and observational effects are supposed by many knowledgeable folk to overlap with mental processes.  The quantum domain could well provide a loophole in the physics, sufficiently large to give vitalism and consciousness a foothold in the otherwise sterile Newtonian desert of classical physics.  This gives rise to a quantum dualism, where the quantum loophole plays the connecting role between mind and matter that Descartes speculated might be played by the pineal gland.  It was through this same loophole that I was able to carve out a quasi-rational path of migration from materialism to immaterialism.  A quantum vitalism might well provide a similar stepping stone for our befuddled biosemioticians, presently suffering a failure of imagination, along with a subliminal stage fright.    

For a quantum immaterialist, such as myself, the Cartesian duality between mind and matter is replaced by a dichotomy between quality and quantity.  When one conceptually passes through the quantum loophole into the metaphysical realm of pure felt meaning, one looks back at the physical side and can see only abstractions, mainly of the mathematical kind, among which the Monster Group stands out like a Rock of Gibraltar.  (If we are ever able to quantize gravity, it should then be possible to 'quantize' the Monster, and so render it more amenable to our subjectivity.  Just a thought. And, speaking of which, here is a sight for sore eyes: Fotini Markopoulou Kalamara.  You don't suppose she's related to Calamari?  Bet she could turn you into one, though.  If I were the Monster, I would be very afraid.) 

Now where were we?  Yes, there seems to be a major conceptual divide between Semiotics and Biosemiotics, between the imaginal, semaphoric reach of an Umberto and that of a Claus.  How do we close that gap, without having to teach them, and everyone else, quantum gravity a la Kalamara?  That is doable, but there must be an easier way.  (I wonder if the semioticians could borrow any ideas from memetics.) 

Here is another thought:  Idealism suffers considerably from the Platonic Carburetor Syndrome (PCS), in which ideas are taken to be individually written in stone in some Platonic heaven, or taken to be like those windowless Leibnizian atomic monads.  Let us get some relief by taking some memetics and Quinine water.  Memetics focuses of the dynamic quality of the memetic manifold.  Quine focuses on its holism.  Unfortunately the Quinine holism is too easily interpreted in a purely structural, formal, syntactic fashion by the AI types.  With all that holistic form, where's the content?  Are our minds just syntactical engines?  I don't think so.  Where does all that (illusory?!) felt meaning come from?  If not from the atoms, it must come from the manifold.  Was it Jim Maxwell who prematurely revived the Ether, soon to be shot down by Mike & Mo?   Perhaps we need a Platonic memetic ether.  The Hindus call it the Void or nirvana, the Great Emptiness.  Tim & I call it the Big Bliss.  Somehow and dynamically, the virtual atoms of meaning create themselves out of the Big Bliss.  Yes, we concentrate the energy, like some atom smasher, and that concentrated gamma energy is Comptonically and dialectically converted to idea and anti-idea.  Was it not said that the opposite of every great idea is another great idea?  (Uh, oh, where is the anti-Creation?  The Eschaton is our recombination?)  We're still just talking a kind of Feynman-diagrammatic syntactics.  For the electron to acquire content or mass, we must invoke the Higgs vacuum bosonic mechanism.  (Am I beginning to sound like Alan?  I swear, this is not a hoax.  Please excuse me!  My parents had to pay big bucks for all that physics, this is the least we could do.)   Somewhere in the Rig Veda you are bound to find a Higgs reference.  Please let me know when you do.  In the meantime, I invoke it to explain how we smuggle semantics into our little syntactic noggins.  (Any more questions?  Just ask Dan, the Science Man, or, better yet, ask Fritjof.  And, besides, no one is paying me enough to be serious about all this stuff!  Haven't I used up my nickel yet?  Help, Lord!)  

-------------------------

Is it not reasonable to suppose that the semantic manifold has a holographic and fractal structure?  Our individual minds are like the repeats of the core pattern in the Mandelbrot Set, just chips off the old block.  Most every pixel of that set contains a whole universe.  The Mandelbrot still invokes a spatial manifold, even though it is complex-imaginary.  Imagine an infinite dimensional, Hilbertian manifold, if you will....  I'm running out of mathematical metaphors.  One does when confronting raw meaning.  All of math is contained in three words: 'one', 'zero', 'and'.  

Consider the Mandelbrot generating formula: z' = z^2 + C  (C -> M when z remains 'small').   Something as basic as this could have been the Cosmic Logos: Thus Spake Zarathustra.  What would 'C' and 'z' actually represent in such a case?  Even God might not know for sure.  She sure wouldn't be able to explain it in English.  Maybe in Swahili, but not English.  Then again maybe 'C' stands for love in Swahili, that's Amore!  

---------------------------------

Back to downward causation, and looking at contributors to Claus Emmeche's book: Downward Causation: 

Peder Voetmann Christiansen is a Quantum Semiotician.  He is attempting to rectify Peirce's logic with quantum physics. 

Alvaro Moreno: Downward Causation at the Core of Living Organization: 

In this paper we argue that biological systems cannot be explained only in terms of physical laws, but that their organization also depends on the action of informational records which control the construction of the organism's phenotypes. This information is shaped by natural selection through a collective and historical process. By controlling the lower level of molecular interactions, information acts as a kind of explicit formal cause which restructures matter according to a given pattern. As the construction of informational patterns is an open process, essentially organization, independent of the dynamics of their material support, information exhibits compositional capacity which, besides allowing open-ended evolution, constitutes the main difference between formal and physical causation. 

Should a computer exhibit downward causation? 

Alvaro has also contributed to a Special Issue of BioSystems: The Physics and Evolution of Symbols and Codes: Reflections on the Work of Howard Pattee. 

Special Issue on "The Quantum of Evolution" may be of interest. 

[11/20] 

Teed Rockwell is someone to reckon with: A Defense of Emergent Downward Causation: 

Troubles with Functionalism........

However, the view of scientific progress revealed by the New Wave reductionism of Bickle, Hooker, and Churchland seems to indicate exactly the opposite i.e. that belief in emergent causation is not only compatible with modern science, but may be the only thing that can save it from skepticism. If we believe that the entities described by the reduced discourse are genuinely real ontologically, and yet not reducible in the old tough sense produced by elimination or identity, an inevitable consequence of this is that the reduced and the reducer are to some degree ontologically independent of each other. The only way we could eliminate this ontological independence would be to say that these blurs are apparent, rather than real, and that everything that occurs at the macroscopic level is actually identical to something at the microscopic level, even if we don't know what it is. Given that the newest work in history and philosophy of science reveals that we have never found such identities, and probably never will, we therefore have a choice between accepting the partial ontological independence of each layer, or claiming that reality has an essential nature that science will probably never reveal. If we accept the latter alternative, however, we can no longer use scientific realism as a way of dismissing emergent causality.

Yes, I do believe that the functionalist view is essential to science, and is essentially irreducible to physics.  Natural selection could not operate without functional properties to select.  I'm still not sure how this argument applies to machines.  And how do we distinguish the epistemic from the ontic?  Cannot machines be adequately explained by classical mechanics?  James Garson's reply to Teed raises these same questions.  It is not easy to find a firm footing in all this scree.  Yet, we must try.  

Perhaps machines are not adequately explained by mechanics.  This had never occurred to me.  Mechanical engineering is not strictly a science, if you think about it.  Consider the genius of invention.  We would not need a Patent Office if design were a science, if it could be mechanized.  But, given a machine, its functioning is purely mechanical.  No?  Well, this may not be so obvious.  'Functioning' is a peculiar word.  Notice that another, necessary word has been omitted from the previous statement.  I should, more precisely, have said: its proper functioning is purely mechanical(?).  Now we have a clear contradiction.  We have introduced normativity.  Physics and normativity are logically disjoint concepts.  Normativity is essential to the concept of a machine, but not to mechanics.  Machines fail, mechanics doesn't.  Physics or mechanics alone cannot describe the propriety of anything, and particularly not of a machine.  So, what is going on here?  How do we distinguish the semantics from the physics?   

Machine = physics + function. 

Otherwise it is a hunk of metal, or a doorstop, if you will.  But does this mean that machines violate the laws of physics?  No, but it does mean that they must transcend physics.  Physics alone cannot describe or explain a machine.  So where is the problem?  

This conceptual problem is more serious with evolution and natural selection.  Functionality emerges.  [Realize that I am winging this....now and always.]  An organism is a functioning collection of molecules.  It is a molecular machine.  Is this not also just: Chance + Necessity?  Atoms in the Void?  No, because that explains nothing, and the function of science is explanation.  Physics is able to explain atoms and the void, and it does so in functional terms.  Well, certainly in counter-factual terms.  But, yes, with the quantum we must employ the concepts of measurement with all its explicit and implicit intentionality.  But forget the quantum.  Counter-factuality employs the concepts of events and causality, both of which transcend physics proper (sic).  At the very least we are talking non-reductive naturalism, rather than reductionistic physicalism. 

And don't forget all the abstractions, mathematics and realism that is employed in Physics.  And where can we draw the line between Physics the discipline and the physics that is its subject?  Where do we draw the line between the noumenal physics and the phenomenal Physics?  That is the precisely the issue of Metaphysics.  As an idealist, I say there is no line.  You disagree?  Then show it to me! 

All of the blatant, notorious metaphysical problems of quantum physics are already latent in the essence of classical physics and mechanics.  It is just that there is no rug left down there, under which the problems may be swept. 

This is nail number what, in the coffin of materialism?  Are we not losing count?  What is that unpleasant odor? 

How do Teed and his correspondents resolve this mess? 

---------------------------------------

Let me first say that in these discussions of ontology, much is made of the distinction between ontology and epistemology.  This may be a valid distinction under some metaphysical suppositions, but it is not valid for idealism.  In this latter case there is no dichotomy between the subjective and objective realms.  I recognize that at present we see through the glass darkly, but most of that obscurity is due to our confusion with materialism.  As soon as we remove those blinders, the vista will open before us. With idealism we have direct realism.  It is then a vision problem and not a knowledge problem.  The notion of perception by representation is coming between us and our being truly and directly present in the world. 

------------------------------------------------

Back to Teed.  I notice that his reply page for the discussion of his downward causation essay remains blank.  I believe that this was also the case when I last checked several months ago.  We move to consider the several responses listed. 

As already noted, Jim Garson insists on a strong distinction between epistemological and ontological emergence, thereby foreclosing the discussion. 

Robert Kane, like Jaegwon Kim, finds the concept of downward causation incoherent.  The paradigm case of downward causation is telekinesis.  Is that incoherent?  If it is incoherent, why are most people able to grasp the idea?  For a somewhat less controversial example, what about lucid dreaming?  Is that incoherent?  Let me not fail to mention the most common example of all: psychosomatics.  Has psychosomatics never been cogently discussed in the medical profession?  If I have correctly characterized Robert's concern, it is very reminiscent of Daniel Dennett claiming that the concept of consciousness is incoherent, or the logical positivists unilaterally declaring all metaphysical statements vacuous.  As an immaterialist, I am sometimes tempted to declare all physical statements vacuous, but usually I manage to restrain myself.  Just don't get me started on telephony!  Such a non-response is a tried and true rhetorical device, or perhaps just tired.  One more try, Robert: is Creation incoherent?  

Am I being unfair here?  Please, somebody, help me out!  But this leaves us with U.T. Place, and poor Google thinks I'm looking for Salt Lake City.  But anyway, Utah Pl. is critiquing some other paper of Teed's.  Just a slight displacement of URL's, I suppose.  There you have it, then, for the state of the known (to me) art of downward causation, which is arguably the issue that is now the most pertinent to everyone's future, given even the remote possibility of an eschatological denouement.  It may be a long-shot, but very likely it will be our only shot. 

[11/21] 

Here's a thought: if concepts were reducible then why have we not reduced any?  May not the concept of 2 be reduced to 1 + 1?  Not really.  Not without additional information and constraints.  Not without a considerable formal apparatus.  Dictionaries perform word reductions only to a very limited degree.  For instance, bachelor and unmarried man can, and usually do, have very different nuances, differences that will depend on context.   

Cannot the complete thought expressed by a sentence be successfully decomposed into its individual words?  The meaning is then lost.  Each sentential composition of words might as well be its own ideogram.  This ideogram can be decomposed into words with not much more success than a word can be decomposed into letters.  

An AI person might argue that a sentence can be syntactically and grammatically reduced without any semantic residue, and then be reconstructed in another language.  This is how machine translation is supposed to work.  

But there are the problems of holism, context and levels of meaning.  A given sentence could have vastly different meaning depending on its function in a particular story.  And there is no upper limit to the hierarchy of levels.  The same story could have very different meanings or functions in different cultures, and for each individual listener, as well.   

Consider the irreducible nature of songs.  If I were a better connoisseur of music, you could read me a list of say 100 musical compositions and I would be able, almost immediately, to attach some distinctly recognizable feeling or meaning to each one, almost as if each were a sort of ideogram.  Are these musical ideograms decomposable?  Not without loss of essence.  There are notes and there is a tune.  A tune can be decomposed into notes, but clearly there is a very complex relational pattern that constitutes a tune.  And these are not self-contained patterns.  The recognition of a tune or story entails the triggering of countless associational significances, without the essence of the tune devolving into incoherence.  These associational meanings are not external or incidental to the essence of the song, but somehow contained therein.  

A machine can perform the function of pattern 'recognition', in an apparently decomposable fashion.  It could be programmed to accurately recognize excerpts of a hundred different tunes.  It could be programmed to perform that function in many logically distinct ways.  Would anyone thereby suppose that this artificial process had any essential similarity to the mental process?  One would have to, at least, simulate an integrated human intelligence before we might reasonably entertain the notion of actual musical cognition.  

But what would it mean to construct an integrated human intelligence?  Would this mean to simply add more recognition modules, and then add more memory modules?  There would then have to be a master recognition module, to somehow integrate and make sense of the outputs of the sub-modules.  At what point and in what manner might this increase in the quantity of information be transformed into something that might resemble a natural coherence?  

Does the lower level information not have to be patterned and sequenced in some particular manner at a higher level to make it coherent?  But then we are just starting a second level of patterning.  It would be like patterning sentences into a coherent story.  In Turing Test fashion, the computer could take a musical input and convert it into a coherent and relevant verbal output, let us suppose.  Have we thereby effectively reproduced a instance of human-like musical cognition?  A behaviorist might be impressed, but what about the cognitivist?  

The cognitivist would need to open up the black box and inspect the functional and/or connectional architecture.  She would find many logical subroutines and network patterns, and could trace the flow of information and activity patterns, as might some super-MRI scanner, all the way from the musical input to the verbal output.  But where in that convoluted process might we locate anything even functionally resembling a recognitional episode?  

A human auditor could be expected to produce a virtually unlimited variety of coherent, relevant verbal outputs for any given musical input.  And, yes, we could build a randomizing associational module in our musically adept android.   The point is, however, that the recognitional episode occurs quite independently of any particular output, or, indeed, of any output at all.  

But, here's the rub.  Recall that the conversion from a musical tune to word-like symbols or patterns was originally intended to be a part of the internal recognitional process or episode, as simply a specific instance of a mental process.  Yet, the recognition cannot be captured by any sort of a pattern.  A musical pattern is converted to some other sort of pattern, as in a stimulus-response experiment, but here it is an internal response.  There will be a chain of these internal patterns, with each stimulating the next until some actual output pattern occurs.  But to what steps in  that logical or functional sequence can we assign recognition?  At the least, one would have to stipulate something to the effect that recognition proper occurred mainly between steps M and M+N.  But that sequence of N patterns could be taken to be a single pattern just in itself, or under some other processing regime.  At best, one could say that this internal pattern somehow represents the initial musical pattern.  But that does not get us one step closer to the explanation of recognition, per se.  If we look inside any system, all we see are patterns, we can nowhere point to recognition.  No one, yet, has attempted to postulate a self-recognizing pattern at the logical end of the sequence.  It is just more patterns all the way up or down. 

We were attempting to construct a hierarchy of recognition modules, with a master recognizer at the top, rather like the notorious 'grandmother-cell', which allegedly lights-up in our head when we see Granny.  But what you have just seen is all that we can get out of any such construct. 

----------------------------

Each definable pattern is causally related to the input, and each represents that input in some fashion, but at what point in the process may it be said that I recognize Granny?  It might be at the point when I am first disposed to say to myself, 'There's Granny!'  But what exactly might this disposition entail?  More pertinently, how would I recognize the disposition, without falling into an infinite regress?   A brain surgeon wielding a 'cerebroscope' might be able to recognize my brain pattern, and say to me in my groggy state, "You are now disposed to say, 'There's Granny!'"  But, normally lacking such a cerebroscope, how am I to know my own disposition, without, say, hearing myself actually utter the words?  That utterance would just be another pattern in dire need of recognition.  

But, yet, at the very least, there is a strong subjective illusion of actually having recognized Granny.  How does one explain that illusion?  Just calling it an 'illusion' does not explain it, nor make the experiential reports of it go away.   How can one deconstruct an illusion?  And don't we have a causal conundrum?  Is it the 'illusion' causing the disposition, or the disposition causing the 'illusion'?  The is an objective disposition, and there is an actual illusion.  Are these entities identical?  There is an objective dispositional brain state and an objective 'illusional' brain state.  Are these the same state logically?  

I notice someone walking in the room.  I recognize that it is Granny, and this recognitional event, or illusion thereof, then causes me to be disposed to react in various ways. Would the cognitivist not have to recognize this causal sequence?  Something must cause the dispositional state.  The cause must precede and be able to account for the effect.  The changing of dispositional states is the effect.  What could cause me to make the transition to a Granny-recognitional disposition or mode other than an actual recognition of Granny?   Can a neuroscientist legitimately switch from nominalism to realism in the middle of this causal sequence?  Can she be a nominalist about the recognition and then be a realist about the subsequent disposition and still remain coherent?  I'm thinking, 'no'.  Can this alleged inconsistency be further analyzed, or be restated with greater clarity?  How significant is it?  [In the paragraphs below, which were actual written just prior to the last several above, I take the Complexity people to task for a similar metaphysical switch.  Are we establishing a significant and endemic pattern of inconsistency?  Has this pattern been duly noted previously?]  

The Granny-recognitional disposition is at least as objective as any other cognitive dispositional state.  There is no logical way to characterize this dispositional state other than as being Granny-recognitional (period!).  What else then could possibly be said to be the cause of this particular disposition other than the recognition of Grandmother?  Is there a need for any further qualifications or for the deployment of scare quotes?  I think not.  Is there any way to deconstruct this bit of 'folk' psychological realism without deconstructing most of cognitive science at the same time?  

This seems an almost trivial exercise in semantics.  It could just be another straw in the wind, or it could land on the overstressed back of some poor camel.  

-------------------------------

But then, like the Complexity folk, we are forced to postulate self-organizing systems.  So I was wrong when I stated three paragraphs earlier, that no one had postulated a self-recognizing pattern.  This is, in effect, what scores of Complexity theorists do for a living.  So, couldn't we say that any act of cognition is fundamentally an act of self-organization on the part of the brain?  Is this coherent, however?  The Complexity folk point to innumerable instances of inorganically and spontaneously generated patterns in nature and under laboratory conditions.  Life and mind are natural extensions of this purely physical tendency.  I wonder.  Take the primordial soup, stir in some self-organizational potency, and voila!  

Somehow this natural potency became exponentiated in our brains, and that is our homunculus, nay, that is us, to make a long story short.  I still wonder.  How does this differ from panpsychism?  I see nowhere to draw that line, nor do I see any particular desire on the part of Santa Fe folk, etc. to draw any such line.  Is it not in their professional self-interest to encourage themselves and the rest of us to believe that there is such a stairway to heaven and that they are already on the Nth step?  Why not?  But is it coherent, I wonder. 

Having accomplished the Democratesian dream of atomistic deconstructionism, the Complexity people have set about the daunting task of reconstruction.  They will need a great deal from that self-organizing potency.  But is this potency for real, or is it just an illusion?  Where are their deconstructive, nominalistic instincts now?  Is not the shoe of realism now on the other foot?  Are they not playing both sides of El Camino Real?  And should we let them get away with this leger-de-pied?  Let me think about that, hmmmmm...............No way, Santa Fe!  Let us see how they like the Alameda de las Pulgas, all too familiar to many a weary idealist.  

[11/22] 

An example often cited in the literature as counting against mental (or historical) realism is that of 'England declaring war on France'.  Which argument I am unable to locate presently.  It presumably raises the issue of reductionism and of upward vs. downward causation.  To what extent are particular events just paradigmatic (nominal) or actually causal (real).  A state of war is largely dispositional.  What causes that state? 

The event of recognizing something cannot logically be reduced to a physical state, or can it?  When a smoke detector detects smoke it is disposed to buzz.  Does that make me just a Granny detector?  And how might this relate to the 'declaration of war' example?  One difference might be the formality of it: putting on fancy clothes and signing a piece of parchment.  No smoke detector can do that!  But that's not quite the point.  Recognition is a formal or abstract concept that is used to describe events in which it may or may not be instantiated or play a causal role.  There is nothing significantly abstractable about a Granny detector, beyond the abstract physics, but there is presumably about a Granny recognizer.  

But wait.  Now we are back to the issue of whether a machine is mechanical.  The proper functioning of the detector is just as formal (Platonic) as that of the recognizer.  Without that normativity the concepts are incoherent.  In a word, there cannot be real detectors (material) without real detection (formal).  Otherwise, science, engineering,..., human activity lose all coherence.  But this is just what the skeptics and cynics have been saying all along.  So what else is new?  Without the concept of detection we cannot design or become detectors?  But lions became effective zebra detectors, presumably without benefit of the concept.  Now we are getting down to the nitty-gritty.  We either have to bite the skeptical bullet, or promote our mere concepts to Plato's Formal (Granny, Carburetor, Smoke Detector?) Heaven.  We can perform the latter promotion coherently only in an immaterialist world: Plato's Heaven may be an illusion, but then so if everything else, my friends. 

It is a exquisite fact of life that humans are most reluctant to bite either of these bullets!  Fence sitting is the best defense up to a point.  Until what point?  Until we are willing to consider the price of incoherence. 

-----------------------------------------------

But speaking of 'mental realism' consider: 

The Mind Paradigm - a Unified Model of Mental and Physical Reality (Introduction by Eric Carlson, Foreword by Huston Smith) -- KEITH CHANDLER (2001) 

The Mind Paradigm dispels with finality the specter of the Cartesian Dualism. Descartes, along with Newton and others, bequeathed his successors an irreconcilable dualism between mind and "matter" which saw the universe and everything in it, including life, as soulless, mindless machinery completely incapable of affecting or being affected by everything most important to the human heart and soul: consciousness, ideas, beauty, purpose, values, spirit, love. The Mind Paradigm argues that the Cartesian dualism was a fraud from the beginning and puts in its place Mental Realism, a worldview in which the universe is a thought process of a Cosmic Mind and the world of conscious experience a diffraction of the pure, infinite consciousness of the same Mind through models it creates in the brain. The book describes the new paradigm that is emerging in every area of science from cosmology to cognitive science and is restoring purpose and value to our models of the universe. Finally, it shows why science and mysticism share such a deep complementarity and why each has a place in the single world view of Mental Realism. 

-------------------------------

All I can say is wow! Your book looks very impressive and well researched and cuts to the quick in dealing with the materialist-dominated view of consciousness by thoughtfully showing the fallacy of such a viewpoint. I would say this is necessary reading for anyone interested in a complete overview of the relationships of science, consciousness and spirituality.

Fred Alan Wolf, author of The Dreaming Universe (1995) and The Spiritual Universe (1998)

And I have been a fan of Fred's from the time of The Dreaming Universe.  You see what mental realism can get you into. 

And while we're still onto mental realism: 

The Dimensional Structure of Consciousness: A Physical Basis for Immaterialism -- Samuel Avery (1995): 

The Dimensional Structure of Consciousness is a radical interpretation of modern physics. Rather than consciousness existing in space and time, it is suggested that the strange phenomena associated with quantum and relativity physics are better understood if space and time are structures within consciousness. Light is vision itself. Matter does not exist outside of consciousness. Mass is a second time dimension.

Here is a useful review of semiotics from a metaphysical point of view: 'Semiotics and Cognitive Science: The Morphological Turn' -- by Jean Petitot.

 

<-- Prev      Next -->

El Camino Real 

Stairway to Heaven? 

(I know my Spanish is from the Alameda de las Pulgas, or was it Eastwood(?), but grant me this indulgence.  Besides, I was running out of parchment for that last page and had to come up with something.) 

Let's see how reality is faring these days: Mental realism (122 hits), mental causation (2,600 hits), downward causation (1,200).  No too bad.  Now, on with the mental realism list: 

'CONSCIOUSNESS AS EXISTENCE' -- Ted Honderich (from a book in progress, post 9/11): 
This paper is owed to a common conviction among philosophers, that the Philosophy of Mind, as distinct from the science of the mind, is on the rocks and going nowhere, and that something different  is needed. It is certainly different.

A little honesty and innovation might get us off to a good start on the royal road. 

'CONSCIOUSNESS AS EXISTENCE AGAIN' -- by Ted Honderich: 

The account is in part similar to direct realism -- in the account, perceptual consciousness is intrinsically made a matter of something not in the head. It will thus be apparent that it is open to something very like the long-running objection to direct realism, this objection also being an argument for a representative theory of perception. The long-running objection and argument is essentially that in perception we cannot be aware of physical objects, since hallucination, where there are no such objects, is indistinguishable from perception. What we must therefore be aware of in both cases is objects internal to ourselves.   

These direct realists are quite convinced they are not on Plato's royal stairway.  We'll have to see how they come to this conclusion.  

In my opinion, the best defence against all such objections, which certainly are troublesome, is an attack on the views being argued for, representative theories of perception.

Well, it looks like Ted is not quite up to the task of illumination.  He is clutching desperately to the solid(?) rock of an external space-time container.  He would much rather be lost in space than lost in the mind of God.  Who will volunteer to break the bad news to him?  This is rock-solid Existentialism: majorly Agnostic: the naturalist version of direct realism. 

Then check this out: 

International Conference:
“FOUNDATIONS AND THE ONTOLOGICAL QUEST. PROSPECTS FOR THE NEW MILLENNIUM” JANUARY 7-10, 2002, Rome, Pontifical Lateran University, Piazza San Giovanni in Laterano, 4. 00120 Vatican City. 

The Church is sure to keep an iron in this fire.  I just hope it doesn't get too hot in the Pontifical kitchen. 

IV SECTION: "ONTOLOGICAL CONNECTIONS"

    * BERNARD D'ESPAGNAT -- Quantum physics and the ontological problem
    * JOHN POLKINGHORNE -- The new physics and opportunities for ontological initiatives
    * BASARAB NICOLESCU -- Levels of reality and the sacred
    * HORST SEIDL -- About the ontological foundations of natural sciences

My, my!  Will it be a hot time in the Ol' City tonight?  Better check those 'connections'.  Is it who you know, or what you know?  Now, if this were a Mormon Church there would be a concealed trapdoor in the ceiling to facilitate the Second Coming.  Just a thought. 

[11/23] 

Well, they say you should not look a gift horse in the mouth.  But coming as this is from the horse's mouth, itself, I could hardly resist. You'll be my witnesses that if there are teeth to find, I will, but, so far, I've found nary a one.  Are we surprised?  

The poor Vatican is stuck between a rock and a hard place with ontology.  They know they must rein in the postmodern nihilists, but without providing ammunition for us ontology freaks in the hinterland.  Let us be content with the gesture.  I'm beginning to wonder if the Protestants even know what ontology means.  It is not a word that springs to the lips of any fundamentalists. 

With respect to ontology we have had the extravagant Platonic thesis, and then the exceedingly Spartan, Steven Weinberg, antithesis.  What is going to be the synthesis, if not actually Hegelian?  That is the question which the Vatican is naturally hesitant to address.  When that trapdoor finally opens, the Keeper of the Faith knows that he will have to take his iron out of the fire and pack his bags.  Will there even be a golden parachute? 

-----------------------

I was about to quote from BERNARD D'ESPAGNAT -- Quantum physics and the ontological problem, on the question of 'radical idealism' which begins on page eight, but the Keeper of the Faith has other ideas.  You'll just have to suffer my paraphrasis.  Suffice it that Bernie's not big on idealism.  He recommends an 'open realism', which reminds me of a baseball story: the count stands at 1-1 as a fastball sizzles across the corner of the plate.  'TWO!' screams the ump.  'Two what?' enquires the batter, 'yeah, two what?' growls the equally intimidating catcher.  'Too close to call,' mumbles the umpire.  

Yes, it's tough being in the ontological trenches. Bernie begs for an MIR, 'Man-Independent-Reality'.  [N.B. Bernie is not saying it's Mind independent!]  If this is not meant as a pleonasm, then we are falling back on dualism, because surely there is also a dependent reality, i.e. 'Existence'.  

But wait, here is from another, auto-translated source: Abbaye Saint Paul de Wisques:

Bernard of ESPAGNAT defends, as for him, the idea of the existence of another level of reality beyond space and of time. He decides for a kind of Platonism where the prevalence of the ideas would not make pour the thought in the idealism, but would lead to the design of a veiled Reality, "a reality independent, remote, probably not located in the space time" (B of Espagnat, an atom of wisdom, 1982). This reality, we perceive a kind of projection in fact imperceptible. It is this buckled Reality which gives its direction to our level of reality. The vision of Bernard d' Espagnat is very a indeterminist, it leaves a broad place to the mystery of the world that certain theologists, impressed by science materialist, had wanted to evacuate.

And Bernie is sticking to his quasi-Platonic guns back here at the Vatican.  So, sharpening my pencil: "But I wonder if, then, it [this conception of reality] would not be of such a nature as to give rise to a revival of interest for the deep and basic debates on the relationship of God and Mankind that, in the XVIIth [how Romantic!] century, involved Spinoza, Malebranche, Fenelon[??] and others.  And it would be remarkable indeed if such a revival were inspired by contemporary physics!" 

Yes, I wonder about that, too.  I ain't no Spinoza, but, heck, I've got TWO masters degrees, BOTH in physics, no less!  Is it OK, Bernie, if I give it the old college try?  Then the only thing I'll need is someone to hack into Google, hint, hint.  Better watch out, Joe!  But I just had a horrible thought.  Doesn't the Vatican treasury hold stock in Google?  They'd better grab up a few more shares, quick.  Remind me to ask Ron about them apples. 

-----------------------------

All we have to do is synthesize pragmatism and Platonism.  And functionalism points the way.  We ran smack into functionalism on the last page with our Granny detector.  Yes, we need a transcendental Functionalism.  Creation is a Function, is it not?  Along with our Functionalism, comes a divine Conceptualism, almost gratis, not too mention major Teleology, as we follow Bernie far beyond the 'sensibility' of space and time.  

Doesn't that just about wrap it up?  With regard to Functionalism, all we have to do is ask ourselves 'WWGD', what would God do?.  The only sensible answer is the BPW, best possible world.  Then, as regard to the Eschaton, it's not a matter of whether, but when.  And, once again, there is a perfectly sensible answer.  This is not Rocket Science, Bernie, it's not even Quantum Science!  It's just what any reasonable person would come up with, when Steve and Joe are looking the other way.  We're all just chips off the Ol' Block.  You don't believe that?  Do you believe atoms in the void?  (I'm not talking to Bernie now, I'm talking to YOU!!)  Well, forget it, that nonsense just isn't flying anymore, and, come to think of it, it never did fly in the first place.  Atoms were ever and only a lousy excuse for us not to have to think about what makes the world go 'round.  Once that excuse is ripped from our death-grip, we have to wake up and smell the ontology.  QED. 

I rest my case.  Strike me dead, Steve & Joe!

--------------------------------------------

Speaking of Ron, I can't help but notice the breaking news this morning: 

Newsweek [Isikoff] said, however, the FBI uncovered financial records showing payments to the family of al-Bayoumi from a Washington bank account held in the name of Princess Haifa Al-Faisal, wife of the Saudi ambassador to the United States and daughter of the late King Faisal.

I had a series of rather interesting communications with Ron between Sept.1st and 16th of 2001, including extended meetings on each of the specified days.  The general nature of these interactions led me, in accordance with my long established 'Chicken Little' protocol, to, subsequently and publicly, raise the issue of prior knowledge.  No one, even including myself, took this terribly seriously.............until now???

What would be the point of such a possibility?  There are larger reasons, mainly taking into account the various Eschatological logistics and scenarios, whereby it would be both necessary and mutually advantageous for there to be intercourse[!] between the Cosmic and Central intelligences.  You may recall my previous apologetics in this general regard, which may now be coming home to roost.  Better keep an eye on that Ron.  No comma[,] and no further comment.  

But why this awesomely unsubtle paper trail?  A royal snafu?  Just bread crumbs in the forest, my dears, on the way to Granny's house! 

And what about Ron's golden parachute?  I think he'd better talk to Joe about them apples. 

[By Michael Isikoff And Evan Thomas
NEWSWEEK Dec. 2 issue

Interestingly, Osama Basnan showed up in Houston last April when Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah came to town with a vast entourage en route to President George W. Bush’s ranch. According to informed sources, Basnan met with a high Saudi prince who has responsibilities for intelligence matters and is known to bring suitcases full of cash into the United States.....]

-----------------------------------------

Do functions exist?, we'd like to know. 

E.g., does reproduction exist in any ontic or Platonic sense?  Is this even a coherent question?  

Reproduction, like all functions, is normative just by definition.  Where are these norms?  They are somehow immanent in the reproducing entities, whose existence depends upon the existence of those norms.  How many such norms could there be?  This may not be coherent.  Normality is a quality, something not to be quantified over.  There is an input and an output, and there is success or failure, with occasional ambiguity.  

Consider mutation, in its most inclusive, even spiritual sense.  How do we classify a mutated reproduction?  To a considerable extent that will depend on the progeny.  Is it a dead-end, or the cornerstone of a whole new world?  As with all functions, the teleology suspends judgment until, well, Judgment Day.  There can be no real functions then, or, for that matter, a real anything, without an eschaton.  But we're not talking about any old eschaton.  Logically there can only be one such, given history.  Anything more or less would render the Telos unintelligible, taking all meaning down with it.  There is just one norm, the Norm of the Telos.  All else is relative.  That is why it is called Judgment Day.  

You see why philosophers have such a struggle with meaning.  It is surely not amenable to analysis.  There can be only one Meaning, like the one Norm, that does not dissolve into relativity. 

------------------------------------

It had not come to me quite so clearly until today that ontology, logically and coherently, has got to be an all or nothing affair.  There is no middle ground with ontology.  It is everything, or nothing.  Ontology is necessarily relational with grades of total relatedness.  A creator would be of the highest grade.  With ontology there can exist nothing beyond the pale.  The convergent teleology of functionalism helped to bring home this message.  

The analysis of functions is a method of very limited use, especially outside of engineering.  Engineering is no small consideration, but overemphasis on it has had an unbalancing effect on the rest of culture.  Control without wisdom is ultimately fatal. 

These ideas are pervasively implicit, but they do need to be made explicit at this time in history. 

The gestalt-like quality of ontology is impossible to demonstrate in a piecemeal fashion.  It cannot be ladled out.  There is a leap.  Very few, indeed, will not make this leap.  The personal drama of it is not incidental to the meaning of our existence.  Life is always an all-or-nothing affair.  The holism of the wisdom of life simply underscores this truism.  Future generations will find it nearly impossible to conceive of the present degree of the fragmentation of human knowledge which has reached its nadir at this turning point.  The resulting pain and confusion would almost instantly kill anyone who was acclimated to any other existence.  The individual human psyche has been forged in this hellfire for reasons that, of course, we cannot presently imagine. 

Let me say that the more mystical traditions have attempted to strike a balance between the all and the nothing, thereby reducing, to an extent, the tension of modern existence.  Those on this path may still anticipate a leap.  No one will be immune, regardless.  No one can avoid history.  It is certainly not an intellectual exercise, nor can it be a strictly individual process.  It will be historical.  I can talk about it, many can, but what do any of us truly know now?  We all breathe the same air. 

I am, let's be clear, talking about the spiritual transitions that will lead us up to the Eschaton, still generations hence. There is no need to storm heaven.  We still have all the time in the world to get our house in order.  That is what we are here for.  

[11/24] 

The only ontology that can count is functional.  Functions are essentially relational and normative.  Normativity is determined through agency.  Agents, at minimum, are self-organizing entities.  But agency, too, is essentially relational and open-ended.  Agency is essentially microcosmic, as in the case of the nuclear family.  The agency of any 'primitive' cannot be assessed other than in a tribal context.  Tribes always and everywhere maintain an essential, self-organizational microcosmic mythology, by way of defining and conferring agenthood.  There is literally no existence for such 'primitives' beyond that pale. 

Then there are organisms.  Organismal identity is essentially ecological.  Existentialism is unknown in the world of ecology, as in the tribal domain.  Would it be unfair to say that existentialism, indeed Existence, is essentially a literary conceit? 

Then there are atoms.  Yes, atoms are self-organizing, but atomic identity can only be chemically instantiated.  Plus, the metaphysical exigencies of the Quantum loom large in this microcosm.  Without a Bohrian-type Quantum mythos, identifiable atoms would only inhabit the dreams of Democritus.  Individuated atoms exist only at the behest of observational protocols, which are essentially normative, and so are semi-permanently subject to revision, with an emphasis on the vision.  

This is ontology in a nutshell.  This is El Camino Real.  Ontology is essentially an open book.  It is an unfinished story: an unfinished vision.  The existence of the merest atom is relative to the protocol of the Eschaton.  The cosmic Ecos is contained in that Telos.  It is only in the Telos of the Eschaton that the wave function of the probable potency of the Cosmos finally collapses.  If that is not Judgment Day, then what could it be, pray tell?  

---------------------------------------

And what is the only extant, non-nihilist alternative to El Camino Real (~4,000 hits)?  It is the camino of self-organization (243,000 hits). 

It appears that El Camino Real is the Hinayana, while the camino of self-organization is the Mahayana of postmodernism. 

I used to have a brother-in-law who was wont to say he was a 'self-made man'. I wondered about that then, and I wonder about 'self-organization' now.  Are they not perhaps symptoms of a similar mindset? 

Clearly, self-organization is rampant today.  To what do we owe this phenomenon?  What is its provenance, etc.?  Has anyone bothered to look this Gift Horse in the mouth, I wonder?   

Off the top, self-organization presents a mixed bag.  Most generally it is presented as the essence of evolution.  It might even be more accurate to say that self-organization is thought to be the quintessence of evolution.  I use that word advisedly: 

The Quintessence: 

From the Golden Casket of Benedictus Figulus comes the following wisdom: "For the elements and their compounds in addition to crass matter, are composed of a subtle substance, or intrinsic radical humidity, diffused through the elemental parts, simple and wholly incorruptible, long preserving the things themselves in vigor and called the Spirit of the World, proceeding as it does from the Soul of the World. This is the one certain Life filling and fathoming all things, so that from the three emanations of sentient beings (Intellectual, Celestial, and Corruptible), there is formed the One Machine of the Whole World. This spirit by its virtue fecundates all subjects natural and artificial, pouring into them those hidden properties that we have been want to call the Fifth Essence, or Quintessence.

If you can find a more historically apt precedence for the 'self-organizational' ethos than the 'quintessence' of alchemical romance, please bring it forth.  There is even the same naively robust, often explicitly Luciferian, animistic hubris.  This is the same breathtaking hubris that we previously encountered in Transhumanism (here, here, etc).  

We must also recall vitalism.  If you can see daylight between the vital principle and the principle of self-organization, your powers of discernment are greater than mine.  

The scientific and intellectual core for the ethos of self-organization is usually alleged to be at the Santa Fe Institute.  The, hot off the press, centerpiece of the Institute's effort appears to be:  

Evolutionary Dynamics Exploring the Interplay of Selection, Accident, Neutrality, and Function -- Edited by JAMES P. CRUTCHFIELD and PETER SCHUSTER (OUP, 9/20/02): 

This book is an assessment and review of the recent progress in integrating evolutionary modeling and computation, molecular and developmental evolution, and nonlinear population dynamics into evolutionary theory. It brings together a wide range of eminent researchers in evolutionary dynamics in order to formulate a comprehensive theory that builds on nonlinear mathematics and physics. The text is divided into four sections: macroevolution; epochal evolution; population genetics, dynamics, and optimization; and evolution of cooperation, each containing several in-depth chapters and discussions.

As is evident on his home page, Jim has irons in several fires of interest.  But I'm having difficulty locating an intellectual core or vision, amidst the many detailed and descriptive excursions.  There are many ducks, but no particular alignment.  I see no overarching thesis or integrating principle.  I felt somewhat less adrift in the domain of biosemiotics: at least they have the SIGN.  With self-organization must there not be a principle of the SELF?  How can there be a discipline based on 'self-organization' with no coherent concept of the self?  Is this an unfair question? 

If I recall, it is Stuart Kauffman (mentioned previously) who is generally considered to be the elder statesman of Self-organization & Complexity.  His most recent and only online publication: INVESTIGATIONS: THE NATURE OF AUTONOMOUS AGENTS AND THE WORLDS THEY MUTUALLY CREATE (1996).  Here is his most recent book: At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity (OUP 1995).  In what is often alleged to be a burgeoning field, might we not expect an update from the master?  The following is the unusually brief preface:
We live in a world of stunning biological complexity. Molecules of all varieties join in a metabolic dance to make cells. Cells interact with cells to form organisms; organisms interact with organisms to form ecosystems, economies, societies. Where did this grand architecture come from? For more than a century, the only theory that science has offered to explain how this order arose is natural selection. As Darwin taught us, the order of the biological world evolves as natural selection sifts among random mutations for the rare, useful forms. In this view of the history of life, organisms are cobbled-together contraptions wrought by selection, the silent and opportunistic tinkerer. Science has left us unaccountably improbable accidents against the cold, immense backdrop of space and time.

Thirty years of research have convinced me that this dominant view of biology is incomplete. As I will argue in this book, natural selection is important, but it has not labored alone to craft the fine architecutres of the biosphere, from cell to organism to ecosystem. Another source---self-organization---is the root source of order. The order of the biological world, I have come to believe, is not merely tinkered, but arises naturally and spontaneously because of these principles of self-organization---laws of complexity that we are just beginning to uncover and understand.

The past three centuries of science have been predominantly reductionist, attempting to break complex systems into simple parts, and those parts, in turn, into simpler parts. The reductionist program has been spectacularly successful, and will continue to be so. But it has often left a vacuum: How do we use the information gleaned about the parts to build up a theory of the whole? The deep difficulty here lies in the fact that the complex whole may exhibit properties that are not readily explained by understanding the parts. The complex whole, in a completely non-mystical sense, can often exhibit collective properties, "emergent" features that are lawful in their own right.

This book describes my own search for laws of complexity that govern how life arose naturally from a soup of molecules, evolving into the biosphere we see today. Whether we are talking about molecules cooperating [sic] to form cells or organisms cooperating to form ecosystems or buyers and sellers cooperating to form markets and economies, we will find grounds to believe that Darwinism is not enough, that natural selection cannot be the sole source of the order we see in the world. In crafting the living world, selection has always acted on systems that exhibit spontaneous order. If I am right, this underlying order, further honed by selection, augurs a new place for us---expected, rather than vastly improbable, at home in the universe is a newly understood way.

A word from the wise: as I was told in graduate school, whenever 'search' appears in the title of a scientific paper, you may automatically insert 'unsuccessful' in front of it.  Is this then an example of hubris, just plain chutzpah, or the dream of an ageing scientist?  

It is far from me to hold a brief against dreaming, but when a scientist does it, does that make it Science? 

At this point I was about to compare Kauffman with his non-reductionist colleagues the Intelligent Designers.  But let's listen in on Dembski himself: Alchemy, NK Boolean Style: 

Appropriately modified, the joke about Rudolf Carnap can be retold about Stuart Kauffman and the scientific method he employs in At Home in the Universe. According to the modified joke, Kauffman's method is to begin any scientific investigation with the statement "Consider an NK Boolean network." Indeed, throughout At Home in the Universe just about every real-world problem gets translated into a toy-world problem involving NK Boolean networks. As with Carnap's formal languages, NK Boolean networks have the advantage of complete logical precision. But they also suffer the disadvantage of losing touch with reality. And it is this disadvantage which ultimately proves the undoing of Kauffman's project.

[.......] Indeed, Kauffman admits that he is searching for laws he has yet to find. An obvious question therefore arises: Whence Kauffman's confidence that such laws even exist?

Kauffman's confidence rests in an analogy. In the non-linear dynamics of physics and the simulations of computer science, Kauffman finds self-organizational scenarios that are suggestive of what might have happened in biology. Kauffman's project therefore is to use non-linear dynamics and computer simulations to massage our intuitions, make the search for laws of self-organization seem plausible, and ultimately facilitate the discovery of such laws. And of course, the main analytic tool for carrying out this project is his NK Boolean networks.

Before considering the details and merits of Kauffman's project, it will help to understand the motivation behind it. Throughout his book Kauffman makes very clear that he is after a non-mysterious account of the origin and development of life. For Kauffman such a non-mysterious account is one that appeals only to natural laws and is devoid of any reference to a "master choreographer" (p.208). Appeals to intelligent design are therefore ruled out from the start.

All the same, Kauffman is not wholly without a sense of mystery and the sacred. At the end of his book Kauffman encourages us to "reinvent" the sacred. Indeed, a religious impulse underlies Kauffman's rejection of strict Darwinism, with its exclusive dependence on mutation and selection. As Kauffman sees it, strict Darwinism makes the universe a giant test tube within a stochastic chemistry lab. To reinvent the sacred, Kauffman needs the universe to be more than a test tube--it needs to be our home. And for the universe to be our home, our place in the universe must be assured. Laws of self-organization hold such a promise. Thus Kauffman will write, "I would rather life be expected in this unfolding since the Big Bang than that life be incredibly improbable in the time span available" (p. 304).

Let us now turn to the details and merits of Kauffman's project. To strict Darwinists like Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, Kauffman's project will seem thoroughly misguided. Indeed, what is the point of positing unknown laws of self-organization to explain biological phenomena when these same phenomena have already been adequately explained in terms of mutation and selection? Kauffman's project casts doubt where there ought to be certainty. Kauffman's project problematizes what ought not to be a problem. For the strict Darwinist, laws of self-organization are leeches whose only effect is to sap a perfectly good theory (i.e., the neo-Darwinian synthesis) of its vitality.

----------------------------

Or consider Kauffman's ubiquitous NK Boolean networks. An NK Boolean network is a set of N nodes, each of which is assigned a value of 0 or 1, and which in being reassigned values depends functionally only on the values already assigned to K fixed nodes (K < N). No doubt, Kauffman's NK Boolean networks are capable of exhibiting many interesting behaviors. But to call the nodes "genes," as he is wont to do, and then take what he interprets as self-organizational behavior by the Boolean network as evidence for self-organization in the formation and development of life is utterly gratuitous.

Nowhere does Kauffman even attempt to establish a correspondence between the mathematical models he runs on his computer and the actual processes matter must undergo to form a biological system. I find this omission unconscionable, for it represents a descent into mysticism worse than any Kauffman claims to avoid. Kauffman will write, "it is not implausible that life emerged as a phase transition to collective autocatalysis once a chemical minestrone, held in a localized region able to sustain adequately high concentrations, became thick enough with molecular diversity" (p. 274).  This is not science, but alchemy (cf. p. 277 where Kauffman actually uses the word "alchemy" to describe what he is doing). 

I could not have said it better myself.  Are there any articulate defenders of Kauffman, we might wonder?  However, this purloined description of NK networks reminds me of something more recent: 

A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram (2002).  What I have previously gathered from the reviews is a mathematics considerably advanced over Kauffman's, but equally lacking in connection to the real world. 

We might wonder if Complexity Theory, for lack of a generally applicable theory, is running out of steam?  What might supplant it in the minds of our neo-alchemists?  

Would it be fair to say that the Complexionists are running into problems similar to those of the Connectionists?  I suspect as much.  They both get very bogged down in the notorious intractability of networks.  Attempts to render them natural, seem only to contribute to that intractability.  

The complexity site listed second on Google features this essay: Neo-Transcendentalist Philosophy[!]:  

It is characterised by taking the best aspects from spiritual thinking, adding the down to earth approach of science, merging with the creative flexibility of mind and then stirring the whole with the lure of a better future via evolutionary choice. This is not Utopian, it is not Other Worldly, nor is it Materialistic. It transcends those static categories and offers a dynamic, complexity related, way of thinking that treats the whole not the part, one eminently suitable for the 21st Century.

As you can see, the New Age has gotten its teeth into Complexity and is not about to let go.  It is not clear that Kauffman & Co. would find this even slightly embarrassing.  

Whether we take the philosophical idealist stance that the world doesn't exist outside such thought or take the realist version that the world itself gave rise to the thought matters less that the recognition that such abstractions are instrumental in determining how we behave. They themselves do have reality and are causally effective, but at a higher level than material objects, and are what we call in complexity thinking 'emergent properties'.

Eclecticism is the order of the day.  I know of no postmodernists who would have problem with this. What I see is simply a non-reductive naturalism with a pinch of Transhumanist utopianism.  Another name for this might be Scientific or Natural Pantheism.  Another term of choice among the Complexity people is 'autopoiesis': 

THE ONTOLOGICAL FOUNDATION OF AUTOPOIETIC THEORY -- Kent Palmer, Ph.D: 

Philosophizing on the basis of an avowed ignorance of even the rudiments of Western philosophy is common. Another factor is the prevalence of nihilistic and extreme schools of thought within philosophy itself, such as Analytic Philosophy, Deconstructionism and other related Post-modernist movements. Most of these lines of thought are repugnant to scientists and reinforces their distrust of philosophy. However, without philosophy the meaning of scientific theories and facts remain obscured. And many of the implicit philosophical positions within science are just as nihilistic as the philosophical schools that cause folks that think of themselves as scientists to blanch. In fact the Krisis that Husserl pointed out in Western Science is still in full swing. Science has become detached from the lifeworld and teeters on the abyss of meaninglessness and nihilism through this disconnection from the consideration of meaning and the rise of instrumentalism. What we need to do is bring the best insights of recent Continental philosophy to bear on our scientific practice and use that as a context for understanding the phenomena that are addressed by autopoietic theory and its extension into the social realm.

This brings us nearly full-circle to Biosemiotics. 

-----------------------------------------

There is a widespread desire and need for some sort of macro-realism.  Mathematics has been critical in establishing a micro-realism (modulo the quantum, of course).  But the attempts to use math to extend realism to larger scales, notably the attempts of Thom, Kauffman, Wolfram, etc., have had very limited success.  The inadequacy of mathematics opens the door to semiotics, and other more speculative initiatives, this being one of those.  

The simple fact is that meaning is holistic.  There is no way to compartment it.  When Quine discovered the holism of meaning he failed to follow up on it, certainly not in the grand manner suggested herein.  Existentialism attempts to compartment meaning to individual human existences, e.g. to you and me, separately.  

[11/25] 

The Self-organizing, Autopoietic Complexionists wish, in effect, to extend Existentialism to cover any individual system.   The idea is that ontology, meaning, emergence, functionality, rationality, etc. can be individually compartmented within each given system.  The news of the Millennium may be that this compartmentalization is not possible. 

Each special science and discipline would like to have its own autonomous ontology and epistemology.  This is what pluralism is about.  This is the American Way, is it not?  Perhaps, but it may not be the way of reason.  

There is the issue of holism.  Consider the holism of mathematics.  The integers, for example, are a logical whole and cannot be ontologically partitioned.  The even numbers cannot be understood apart from the odd numbers.  This seems trivial, but neither may the integers be understood outside the context of the rationals, nor the rationals apart from the real continuum.  But did not the early mathematicians manage quite well in ignorance of the irrational numbers?  True, but they also missed a great deal in their understanding of the integers because of that ignorance, as modern number theory testifies.  

Similarly the subjects of algebra and geometry were once treated as quite separate disciplines, but now we have trigonometry, algebraic topology, etc.  In modern mathematics there are still specialists, of course, but the greatest strides have come in discovering deep homologies between the disciplines.  Thus the structural knowledge of one mathematical discipline can be imported wholesale into another, leading to remarkable cross-fertilization and an explosion of knowledge.  And don't get me started on mathematical physics.  We may be under the impression that we are managing quite well in our pluralism, but what are we missing? 

Imagine attempting to do mathematics without the concept of infinity.  This is just what the mathematical constructivists attempt to do, and by all accounts it is a very ineffective method by comparison.  The inductive approach of science may be equally ineffective, and it would be impossible in many areas without recourse to the deductive power of a robust mathematics.  

It is likely to turn out that the notion of the transcendental is to our general knowledge of the world, as the notion of infinity is to our mathematical understanding.  The reductionists, like the mathematical constructivists, argue that we have no proof of the infinite or the transcendental, and so any reference to it is illegitimate.  The difference is that no one pays attention to the constructivists.  

-----------------------------

There is much indirect evidence that the transcendental is the foundation of our intelligence.  Not many years ago it was being said that metaphysics was a 'disease' of language.   The point is that language is irredeemably holistic and metaphysical: intentionality be a hallmark of the latter.  Like their constructivist colleagues in mathematics, the analytical reductionists hoped to put language on a crash metaphysics-free diet.  A century these ambitions have vanished without a trace.  

The reductionists next took on the seemingly less onerous task of being the ontology police of Science, using Occam's razor as their disciplinary whip, if you will.  But with the proliferation of ontology laden special sciences, the outcome for them is appearing no less dismal.  The reductionistic physicalist is becoming an endangered species, if not already extinct.  I keep a careful watch for this rare bird, and I cannot report a single sighting in, say, the last five years.  If you know of one, I will gladly put out a 'rare bird alert'. 

The very last bastion of those folk of a reductionist persuasion is now, as we have seen, under the banner of 'naturalism'.  The naturalist shtick is simple: only establishment scientists are allowed to play the ontology game.  The rest of us are encouraged to go and, well, play with ourselves, not to give it too fine a point.  

One might suppose that the theologians would feel left out, if not downright offended.  Well, think again.  The message from the naturalist to the theologian is: 'Après moi, le deluge.'  The theologians are most receptive to this dire warning.  They know, as well as any, that we natives, we ontology freaks, are restless.  The scent of 'gunpowder' is in the air.  There is a line being drawn in the sand.  There is a siege mentality on the part of the secular Intellectual Establishment.  Their professional sectarian colleagues, seeing the storm clouds, are keeping a low profile.  The Intelligent Design contingent may think they are storming these barricades, but, in truth, they are seen as little more than a nuisance.  What then is the focus of their trepidation?  Surely, it's not yours truly.  No, but these folk are sufficiently wary of the metaphysical instability to know that the bullet that hits them is the one they wont see coming.  Here's my prediction: the bullet in question is the demystification of the Eschaton.  Nothing less focused nor less forceful will pierce the veil, and nothing less can account for the irrational anguish of the besieged.  Suffice it to say that this observation was not made from an armchair. 

------------------------------

Enough of social psychology, it's back to naturalism.  

It is still a big leap from non-reductive naturalism to eschatology, and that's putting it mildly.  As the naturalists would have it, the only ontological furniture in the world is that which emerges spontaneously: the mind being everyone's Exhibit A.  Is the mind natural?  This might be more palatable if we had only the possibility of animal minds to consider.  The significant problem comes rather closer to home.  

There were those, of course, who would deny us our minds, but their odd gambit has lost its traction.  Radical connectionism appears to have been their last hurrah.  The real battle has shifted now to the ontological definition of the mind.  At this point I can't resist the urge to mangle another metaphor by suggesting that the mind is the soft underbelly of naturalism.  Persuading psychologists to toe any ontological line presents as inviting a prospect as herding cats.  Here the naturalists are going to have to maintain the barricade themselves.  This is become a fulltime job: the neuroscientists and AI people presumably have to struggle to keep their day jobs.  

Now it may be that the very success of science is turned against its self-styled defenders.  In delving into the realm of the mind, epistemology is transformed into ontology.  With the blurring of that distinction, the scientific knowledge explosion becomes a major ontological headache.   

[11/26] 

To the holistic nature of language, we may add the apparently irreducible nature of our innate grammatical sensibility.  Our universal mathematical proficiency is another, quite probably undeconstructible talent, among many others.  

Then there is the developmental psychology that is our epistemic foundation.  There is an extraordinary, innate proclivity for the acquisition of new talents that is the source of all our remarkably diverse and constantly expanding repertoire of abilities. 

All of this actual and latent ability comes under the rubric of natural intelligence.  Is it not fair to say that the more we learn about natural intelligence, the more stark becomes its contrast with artificial intelligence?  There has not even been an attempt to define the limits of natural intelligence.  Even its qualitative outline remains obscure. 

Nonetheless, even just a perceived threat from the ranks of strong AI has, in the past, kept a lid on the metaphysics of the mind.  However, the split in the AI community between the connectionists and the computationalists, may have radically diminished that perception.  There is no longer even the perception of a coherent program emanating from that direction.  Their respective strategies are strongly incommensurate, and each one postures itself on the all too obvious weaknesses of the other.  Are we not in the terminal phase of a mutually assured destruction?  At this point the AI people are literally on their knees praying for a divinely inspired breakthrough.  Can I stand here and swear to you that God will not answer their earnest entreaties?  No.  Would God have given us the Quantum if she did not want us to build a Quantum Computer?  No.  I would be among the last to deplore such a development.  Why will it not exacerbate the rampant metaphysical speculation already engendered?  The Quantum is already a metaphysical nightmare for the materialists.  Nay, it has turned into a metaphysical tar baby.  The actual process of attempting to tame the Quantum is showing no prospect of diminishing its metaphysical stickiness.  It continues to maintain the upper hand.  

In metaphysics there are no guarantees.  God is not going to write us a contract.  There will always be an extra mile.  And, most significantly, there will be an irreducible, indestructible element of faith.  Faith is an essential core, if not the actual essence, of human nature.  I doubt that the Creator would, or even could, ever deny that to her creatures.  What proof there is, is ever only in the pudding. 

[12/2] 

I was out of town for a few days, so let's recapitulate.  There is a continuing struggle with realism.  My insight from last night was in the form of an increased emphasis on the holistic and relational nature of realism [i.e. its gestalt quality, as noted above].  There are different possible starting points for realism, and then one proceeds to construct a coherent web of reality. 

One idea from last night was that our mathematical ability would be a logical starting point.  It is very difficult to account for mathematics from a biological point of view.  There is a minimal required intersubjective conceptualism.  The precisely rational manipulation of mathematical structures provides a robust basis for conceptual realism.  This realism includes a downward or final causality for these concepts.  

I then would like to extend this realism back down the evolutionary ladder, and see how far we can reasonably go in that direction.  This is toward the general notion of biological functionalism.  For the previous several days I had been trying to make the case for biological pattern recognition for something as basic as enzymes.  Following Pattee, I believe, one could argue that enzyme activity involves the Quantum measurement  problem, bringing in metaphysics and ontology through that back door.  But this is too big a leap from conceptualism.  Thus I reverted to the general problem of nutrient acquisition, or just hunting, from a higher perspective.  

A more general rubric would be mental modeling.  Survival entails the predator and prey in a mutually escalating competition of anticipatory modeling.  (One should be reminded of the basic ability of 3-D mental rotation studied by Shepard.  Conceptual realism was surprisingly vindicated thereby.)  One would expect some such modeling ability to extend rather far down the food chain. At the highest end of that chain we would have the the imaginative power of writers to create realistic characters with quasi-autonomy, which in turn, carried to a pathological extreme, would constitute a multiple personality disorder.  This is just self-organization or autopoiesis carried to the next higher power.  The web of realism is already well extended. 

Linguistic capacity is a form of mental modeling.  Words must be endowed with an irreducible causal efficacy if we are to take seriously our communication skills.  

Given this tentative foothold for realism, the next extension of it might be organismic ontogeny.  This is the realm where biological reductionism most severely strains our already overtaxed credulity.  Ontogeny provides a possible bridge between mental and biological ontology, or between conceptualism and vitalism: a material based autopoiesis at its most impressive.  Once the balance starts tipping away from reductionism and toward holism, that reversal of fortune is soon to become dramatically irreversible.  No longer will mere atoms tyrannize our spirits.  That day has been a long time coming.  No need to be other than cautious and deliberate. 

[12/3] 

Yesterday I neglected to mention biological traits as prime candidates for realism.  How else could they be selected?  Notice, however, that they are not completely objective nor precisely defined, but evidently they are sufficiently real for all natural purposes.  

On the issue of realism, the life sciences are caught between the vitalists, broadly construed, and the skeptics.  Most scientists evidently feel that they can go about their business while ignoring the ontological issue.  We point out to them that there can be no science without ontology.  (A nominalistic science is tantamount to idealism.)  The scientific status of an organismic biology is then the same as that of psychology or sociology.  This is hardly shocking.  Mathematicians are seldom exercised about the ontology of their subject matter.  

The only folk who care about ontology are those of a religious persuasion.  Theirs has always been an uphill battle.  They should take heart from the ontological ambiguity of the sciences, but, so far, that comparison has not had much practical benefit.  

And what about the ontology of meteorology?  History?  Persons? 

Are persons real?  Why are we not exercised about this?  This may be the crux of the reality issue. 

Consider the ontological vs. the legal status of persons.  The abortion debate is just one facet of this issue.  There is a liberal conservative divide as to whether the locus of reality is with the person or the society.  Nature vs. Nurture, etc.  Do persons make history or are we its products?  What are the various causes of history?  Biological and economic determinism are closely related issues.  Of course, the ontological status of persons and souls are closely correlated. 

The status of persons is also at issue between the prophetic and mystical or pantheist traditions.  In general, the mystics are the great skeptics about many things, including especially gods and persons.  On the other hand, even the atheist existentialists take persons, and their angst, seriously.  Personal angst may be the only thing they take seriously. 

A peculiar and remarkable facet of modern existence is the degree to which Physics has co-opted ontology.  This is not particularly the doing of the physicists, is was mainly a role that was thrust upon them by outsiders with ulterior motives.  I don't doubt that some aspects of this role have been manipulated in a a political or even conspiratorial fashion, but the great bulk of it has been simply the modern ethos, the zeitgeist (real?), if you will.  The historians will not have an easy time explaining the ascendancy of the idea (sic) of materialism.  It may well be the most difficult fact they will ever have to explain. 

But how about meteorology?  Are storms real?  Is this a coherent question?  How might the ontological status of meteorological taxonomy differ from that of its biological counterpart, for instance?  Is it a matter of degree or of kind?  Are storms a natural kind the way species are?  Most planets and stars have (recognizable) storms, but only one is known to harbor species, setting aside the BPWH (hypothesis).  

The physicalist would argue that storms are reducible to physics, like everything else.  But are they not, more accurately, (strongly?) emergent bulk phenomena?  Is there not a bona fide phenomenology of storms. (By the by, did you know that Physics is replete with phenomenology?  I had almost forgotten this little skeleton in Physics' ontology closet.)  The status of nuclear physics wrt to Physics is virtually the same as that of meteorology.  It is difficult to deny the reality of nuclear weapons or of hurricanes, but that is not quite the issue.  We're talking final causes.  Nothing is real without a final cause, including, especially the world, ergo, eschatology.  Formal and final causes may be identified for this larger, historical purpose.  Does an electron have a formal cause?  That may depend on the 'transworld' validity of Steve's Standard Theory of Physics.  The formality of the electron is guaranteed only by the BPWH.  

I should note that the reality of storms is not just an academic question for us idealists.  Idealism does not rule out the possibility of upward causation, and the logical conflict between upward and downward causes in idealism could be a sticky issue.  How much control might God have over the weather, and how might that control be exercised?  Physics is a legitimate aspect of creation.  Physicalism has a role, but just how limited is that role?  That is something we'll need to deal with, at our early convenience:   

The concept of the Alpha and Omega, and creation as a suspension between these pillars may be relevant.  Take Alpha as the efficient cause and Omega as the final cause, and one has a model for balancing the upward and downward causes in a given time slice.  These two, quasi-orthogonal, dimensions of causation could be the warp and woof of Creation.  I'm struggling here folks, help me out! 

The TV Weather lady doesn't need the BPWH, presumably. 

[12/4] 

Let's face, there wouldn't be so much physicalism if God did not love the physicalists.  I was one once, myself, and but by the grace of we know whom, there still goeth yours truly.  

But when it comes to obstructing El Camino Real, the postmodern skeptics are more effective than the remnant physicalists.  It is political correctness, more than physical correctness that is the obstacle.  Rationality has always been at a disadvantage relative to politics.  And this politics has been severely polarized by the political excesses of the right-wing 'christian' crowd.  A polarized polity bodes ill for rationality.  Will the Muslim excesses just exacerbate the irrationality?  There are limits to irrationality.  Modern Cartesian irrationality has about played itself out.  There is a latent demand for coherence.  The radical nature of immaterialism is the remaining barrier to a postmodern coherence.  El Camino Real beckons. 

We are seeing the last hurrah of fundamentalism.  Its superficial literalness was always the servant of the demagogue.  It does not serve the spirit.  The spirit hungers.  The spirit will be served in the end.  

Fundamentalism was merely a creature of modernity.  It will not stand to the corrosion of postmodern scrutiny.  As fundamentalism self-destructs, there will be a demand for coherent alternatives.  People, though, are not yet spiritually prepared for the singular shock that awaits us on this front.  To some it will seem that we are jumping from the frying pan into the fire, and they will not be entirely mistaken! 

 

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11/22/02

Gospel of the Real

El Camino Real is the high road.  It is ours.  These are glad tidings!  

Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.  Build a better road and the world will not have to beat a path to your door.  There is simply now the Gospel of the Real.  

So where is the world in its regard of the Real?  How do we find out?  Will Google work its magic?  

The coherent gestalt of the Real is not easy to pin down.  The point of greatest general concern ought to be the reality of persons.  This would be the point on which Science would diverge most radically from public sentiment.  Philosophers argue mightily over the status of folk-psychology.  The status of persons is what is at stake.  

I am not aware of any concerted postmodern view on the matter of persons.  One might think that they maintain an embarrassed silence and just look the other way.  Phenomenology is the intellectual bastion of personhood.  I suppose that postmodernity maintains an uneasy alliance with phenomenology.  Semiotics may be the wild card in this intellectual stalemate.  Humanistic psychology and existentialism also provide safe harbors for persons.  

Semiotics vs. AI might be the point of greatest cognitive dissonance with regard to personal identity (130,000 hits) [previously mentioned here, here (w.r.t. the politics of human nature) and here].  Not bad.  Let's investigate.  Adding 'reductionism' yields only 1,200 hits: 

'Parfit, and the problem of personal identity in two philosophical traditions':

It is, therefore, refreshing to find two significant new books treating persons and personal identity from the perspectives of philosophy and Buddhist Studies, respectively, that defy convention and intellectual taboo each by nodding in the other's direction. Derek Parfit's Reasons and Persons and Steven Collins' Selfless Persons are concerned not only with personal identity, to be sure, but because it is a central theme in both books and also their point of intersection, it will be the focus of this essay. Reasons and Persons represents the radical elaboration of a theory of persons derived ultimately from Locke, which holds the facts of personal identity to be wholly explicable in terms of continuity and connectedness, while Selfless Persons is a remarkably thorough analysis and interpretation of the themes relating to the concept of persons in Theravada Buddhist discourse. 

------------------------------------------

[Parfit] asks that you consider in what sense, if in any, you are the same person after a tele-transporter beams you to Mars. Your terrestrial brain and body are destroyed and an exact replica appears a few minutes later on the Red Planet. The replica has your memories, intentions, habits, and tastes. He will carry out your projects, care for your family, and so on. In short, he is continuous with you in all relevant respects. But have you survived your tele-transportation? Parfit argues that "this kind of continuity is just as good as ordinary continuity," and that, on certain criteria of personal identity at least, "my Replica .... would be me". 

Derek's analysis ought to constitute a reductio ad absurdum for any insubstantial view of persons.  

The most familiar sort of Non-Reductionist View is represented by the Cartesian doctrine of spiritual substance; but there are other versions as well, for example, the Further Fact View, which maintains that "though we are not separately existing entities, personal identity is a further fact, which does not just consist in physical and/or psychological continuity. 

Rational agency and rationality proper are founded on personal identity.  There is no coherence outside of personal coherence.  Theism and personalism are logically inseparable.  All identity is necessarily founded on personal identity.  

Take note of Chalmers' list of sources. 

I'm being sidetracked now onto The Identity Theory of Truth.  It  sounds not unlike direct realism. 

[12/5] 

I have not yet found a focus in the battle for the reality of the self.  There is a broad line of demarcation between humanistic and behavioral psychology, but no real battle is in evidence.  The two sides manage to ignore one another.    

Parfit, Lewis, and Sperry on Personal Identity -- Eugene Marshall: 

Imagine a person, John, will be subjected to a fission operation where each hemisphere will be transplanted into the empty skull of a new and different body.  John’s body is disposed of afterwards.  We will call the resulting bodies John1 and John2.  The problem, as Parfit raised it, is this: how can John1 and John2 be identical with John, but not with each other? 

Aren't those philosophers clever?  Analysis (surgery) is used to defeat identity.  I have a bit more faith in integrity.  Let me point out that the integrity of the self is transcendental: Self & Love being the ultimate organizing principles of the cosmos.  This matter was broached in the context of autopoiesis and multiple personality disorder.  We are the multiple personalities of God, but that does not reduce God, just as Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn do not reduce Samuel Clemens.  If you wish to perform experimental psycho-surgery on God, well, good luck! 

If personal identity is the foundation of reality, it would seem that reality inhabits a slippery slope.  That is the whole point.  There is a chain of being, but certainly not in any biological or Darwinian sense.  The holistic nature of being eludes all analysis and gives comfort to skeptics and nihilists.  That is the price one pays for this stairway to heaven.  What about the spiritually challenged?  Is there no handicapped entrance?  Not to worry, salvation is universal.  So when you look around and notice that you are the last one at the nihilists' keg party, just be sure to turn out the lights before you leave. 

On this same analogy, physicalism serves as grease on the stairway to heaven.  It can expedite passage in either direction, depending on one's frame of mind.  The chain of being is then not a stairway or even a chain with discrete links.  It is more like a fire pole.  It is physics that fills all the gaps.  And it is God, too.  How they manage this joint effort is perhaps our Gordian knot.  Surely the Monster Group gets into this act, but don't ask me how, or from whence It came. 

Reality does not provide us with a spiritual crutch.  Believing in one's own self is a struggle, as it was meant to be.  Believing in God makes that struggle rather more manageable in the long haul.  The abyss is an ever present reality.  People do fall off the edge of the world, every day.  Fear does play a constructive role.  The abyss is like the wolf prowling on the edge of the herd.  She keeps us on our toes.  

------------------------------------

Because of ontology's notorious slipperiness, the professionals have, with good reason, largely abandoned these slopes.  Now we have amateur hour on the slopes.  We are enjoying the ski party.  How long will it last?  The party will last until things get serious.  When will that be?  At about the time when the Eschaton starts making noises off-stage.  I'm trying to make all the noise I can, but Google is not cooperating, is she?  Does this make me a party pooper?  If you think this is a party, well, you ain't seen nuthin. 

Speaking of which: slippery ontology (1,200 hits) [and recall Computational Epistemology]: 

Some Organizing Principles For A Unified Top-Level Ontology -- Nicola Guarino (1997): 

....it shows an open-minded attitude towards the subtle distinctions of philosophy and the slippery issues of natural language and commonsense. The philosophical field inspiring this trend is that of formal ontology, which has been defined as "the systematic, formal, axiomatic development of the logic of all forms and modes of being". As such, formal ontology is a recent expression of traditional ontology, intended as the branch of philosophy which deals with the a priori nature of reality. In its current shape, formal ontology can be seen as the confluence between a school of thought which has addressed metaphysical problems within the mainstream of analytic philosophy, and another school more closely related to phenomenology, in the tradition of Brentano and Husserl. 

Ain't the beer cold!  The AI folk cannot stand on ceremony.  They have to go out in the trenches and wrestle ontology with their bare hands.  

Hanjo Glock, University of Reading, Title: Does Ontology Exist? (COLLOQUIUM SERIES
THURSDAY, MARCH 29, 2001) 

Many early analytic philosophers regarded ontology as a branch of metaphysics that is either trivial or meaningless. But from the fifties onward, attitudes changed. Instead of having a good laugh about Heidegger's 'The Nothing noths', analytic philosophers took up ontology themselves, and with a vengeance. The war cry that philosophy should concern itself with things instead of words, with reality instead of concepts, has gained wide currency......

Quine, who has been the main inspiration behind analytic ontology. Quine's naturalistic ontology purports to help science in drawing up an inventory of the world. Through logical paraphrase it seeks to identify and reduce the ontological commitments of our best scientific theories. Against this programme I shall argue that Quine's conception of ontological commitment is inadequate, and that his logical paraphrase cannot contribute to the exploration of reality, but at most to the clarification of our conceptual framework .

So the analytical folk preceded the AI folk.  And, yes, it's time to put those neo-ontologists in their place!  

Ontological commitment (2,700 hits): 

Ted Sider is not shy about his ontological commitments: Trenton Merricks, Objects and Persons (2001): 

Many otherwise reasonable philosophers are impatient with ontology. These philosophers will probably have little time for Objects and Persons, which claims that while there do exist "atoms arranged statuewise", there do not exist statues; while there do exist atoms arranged tablewise and atoms arranged chairwise, there exist no tables and chairs.

Yes, I believe that chairs exist, but only as cosmic furniture: only in virtue of their cosmological function in fulfilling God's love.  So that make us God's tools? Yes, and so is God ours.  And, to some non-negligible degree, I am the tool of my chair.  This is just functional relationalism; basic to any dynamic idealism.  But does this entail a downward causation relative to chairs?  Yes.  Chairs are subjects of and to all sorts of causation, as are we. 

Nihilist philosophers of Merricks' ilk [except for atoms & humans, as noted below] forcefully remind us that any ontological commitment at all is not a casual, piecemeal affair.  If chairs exist then as clearly as night follows day, so must God exist.  Are you able to resist this logic?  Perhaps, then, you need some remedial logic.  

Merricks makes an exception to his causal overdetermination argument for human beings.  In addition to atoms arranged human-wise, there also exist humans. On its face, this exception is theoretically unsatisfying, all too convenient, and even tender-hearted. But Merricks’s justification for the exception is interesting: humans have causal powers beyond the causal powers of their micro-parts. Indeed, the property consciousness, instantiated by human persons, does not even globally supervene on microscopic physical properties, and it conveys distinctive causal powers.

Vitalism and psychism are not about to go away. 

I need to consider 'scientific realism'.  Does it imply an ontology broader than physicalism?  I gather that scientific realism is equivalent to naturalism in its commitment to the ontology of the theories of science.  There may be degrees of commitment to particular ontologies, but this is not spelled out.  My question is the degree to which scientific realism is anti-reductionist.  

But see The Incompatibility of Naturalism and Scientific Realism.  Koons does not consider reduction, per se, but he points out that scientific realism necessarily entails an irreducible normativity that is incompatible with naturalism.  A good point.  [Apparently my neurons have grown more tolerant of Robert's pedagogy.]

Let me mention again the Research Project: Rationality and Non-Reductionism (van Tilburg University, NL).  Remind me to investigate this project.  One participant is Dr. M. V. P. Slors.  Like the other participants , Slors struggles mightily to placate both the emergentists and the reductionists.  They are of the school that all differences can be analyzed away.  This, in itself, constitutes a reductionist outlook.  Is this philosophy or is it arbitration?  I think the latter.  On second thought, I am also a monist.  We believe that all differences will be resolved in the end.  Instead of downward reduction, I anticipate and upward reduction which is the hierogamos.  

[12/6] 

Continuing with "scientific realism" & physicalism (400 hits): 

I am finding no one remarking on the logical incompatibility of scientific realism and physicalism.  Are the philosophers asleep at the switch?  At the vary least, scientific realism entails the reality of universals, beyond those entailed by physics.  

The Deep Problem of Physicalism -- Bryan Wesley Hall: 

   Many philosophers of mind attempt to “explain away” the mental via the physical.  This explanation has had many permutations over the years. Barbara Montero, in her recent article “The Body Problem,” makes the point that all of these physicalist explanations require that one have a consistent and coherent definition of the physical.  If one does not have this definition, then any attempt at explaining away the mental in terms of the physical is questionable. 

-----------------------------------------

Hempel’s Dilemma: this dilemma has two horns.  The first horn of the dilemma states that if one defines the physical using contemporary microphysical entities, then physicalism is probably false.  In every likelihood, the contemporary posits of microphysical science will seem as abstruse to physicists one hundred years from now, as aether, phlogiston, or Aristotelian elementals seem to us today.  The second horn of the dilemma states that if one defines the physical by reference to a yet-to-be-completed microphysics, then our definition of the physical is conceptually vacuous but trivially true. 

After several decades, Hempel's dilemma still stands.  Physicalism remains logically vacuous.  Why then does its ghost still haunt the philosophy of science?  It is because Scientism is still alive in the land.  Where is the silver spike that can be driven into the heart of this Zombie?  The Postmoderns have made a go at Zombie killing, but their own notorious metaphysical indulgences (i.e. incoherent pluralism) render any such attempts highly suspect. 

A Kantian Critique of Scientific Realism -- also by  Bryan Hall: 

Our purpose is to revisit the scientific realist debate from a Kantian perspective.  Kant was certainly not this kind of scientific realist, and if his theory is shown to be damaging to the scientific realist’s cause, then I believe the whole history of philosophy that fell out of the scientific realist position becomes highly questionable.  This is particularly true of scientific essentialism.  The purpose of this paper is not to challenge scientific essentialism per se, but rather to challenge the thinking that led up to the advent of scientific essentialism, namely, scientific realism.   

Neither physicalism nor scientific realism stand up to scrutiny.  Isn't it time to look elsewhere for coherence and rationality?  In the meantime, the postmoderns are content to wallow in their own quagmire.  

I am reminded that Physics is replete with abstract mathematical constructions and universals.  Also, like any realism, physicalism has to invoke normative standards.  If norms and abstractions are irreducibly entailed by physicalism, then on what basis may anything of a mental nature be excluded, even without appealing to the Quantum?  How any version of materialism ever achieved a status above that of moonshine will be the enduring mystery of modernism. 

Naturalism : A Critical Analysis (Routledge Studies in Twentieth Century Philosophy) by William Lane Craig (Editor), J. P. Moreland (Editor).  Have I not already noted this title [here]?  It is reviewed here by the 'Infidels': Review of- Craig, William Lane, and Moreland, J.:

Of course, it can hardly be denied that there are enthusiastic naturalists who fit the characterization offered by Craig aThe next chapter illustrates the widespread confusion or conflation of scientific materialism with science. Machines are described in anthropomorphic terms which are then re-applied to human beings. Wallace gives examples from journalistic articles and textbooks, but reserves his main analysis for the philosophical conflations of John Searle, who does nevertheless reject some of the more crass materialistic approaches to consciousness but cannot finally extricate himself from its assumptions. This leads into the final chapter on scientific materialism as an ideology, which begins with a masterly statement of the overall view. If you disagree with this you must be either ignorant or irrational! However, as Wallace repeatedly observes, the astonishing thing is not materialism itself (as Crick maintained) but the fact that people 'so enthusiastically embrace an unconfirmed speculative theory that utterly denies the validity, even the very existence, of their personal, inner life' (p.161). The ethical implications of such a view have proved disastrous in the past and may do so againnd Moreland. Moreover, it is true that those naturalists are enemies of theism. However, even if the collected essays manage to land some effective blows on those naturalists, it does not follow that the cause of theism has been advanced in the least.

Really, now!  I'm certainly relieved to know that the Infidels are not enthusiastic about naturalism.  They have excellent reasons not to be.  The naturalists must be hurting if even the infidels are keeping them at arms length! 

[12/7] 

Still on the topic of "scientific realism" & physicalism:

The Taboo Of Subjectivity -- B. Alan Wallace, Oxford New York, 2000, Reviewed by David Lorimer: 

Subtitled 'Towards a New Science of Consciousness', this is a landmark book in consciousness studies in the grand tradition of William James. Indeed it is the kind of book that James would have written had he been updating his writings 100 years on. 

A section on the ideology of scientific materialism unpacks the key assumptions in a way not unlike the manifesto contained in this issue: objectivism, monism, universalism, reductionism, the closure principle and physicalism. While these may hold up for the world of scientific materialism, they are lead to an impoverished understanding of reality as a whole.

More generally, the sceptical approach of science is not applied to its philosophical assumptions as these remain for the most part unconscious.

The next chapter illustrates the widespread confusion or conflation of scientific materialism with science. Machines are described in anthropomorphic terms which are then re-applied to human beings. Wallace gives examples from journalistic articles and textbooks, but reserves his main analysis for the philosophical conflations of John Searle, who does nevertheless reject some of the more crass materialistic approaches to consciousness but cannot finally extricate himself from its assumptions. This leads into the final chapter on scientific materialism as an ideology, which begins with a masterly statement of the overall view. If you disagree with this you must be either ignorant or irrational! However, as Wallace repeatedly observes, the astonishing thing is not materialism itself (as Crick maintained) but the fact that people 'so enthusiastically embrace an unconfirmed speculative theory that utterly denies the validity, even the very existence, of their personal, inner life'. The ethical implications of such a view have proved disastrous in the past and may do so again....

In his conclusion, Wallace suspects that consciousness may be the cloud on the horizon at the end of the 20th century, comparable to the ultraviolet catastrophe [physicists take note] at the end of the 19th. From a contemplative perspective, the current scientific world-view is fundamentally flawed since it has failed to take into account the role and significance of consciousness in nature. He sees contemplation playing a mediating empirical role between science and religion as they overlap in the mind itself.

The natives are getting restless. 

Nicholas Rescher appears on the list.  He is one of less than a handful of senior professional philosophers in this country pursuing contemporary idealism.  From his incredibly voluminous list of publications, not a single one is posted as being online.  This is a major handicap.  He does have a list of 94(!) books on Amazon.  What little I have seen of his work, I find murky.  I have not been able to discern any narrative of a world view.  Lack of any narrative sensibility goes with the analytic territory.  But even an Umberto Eco can only project his continental hermeneutic skill onto the past.  The future remains a blank slate for us non-materialists.  I remain convinced that it is the Eschaton that lurks beneath this deceptively placid surface.  The Eschaton is the telos of all narration.  The closer that one approaches to the metaphysical foundation of the Eschaton, the deeper is its shadow.  No narrative of less than biblical proportion can illuminate that shadow.   This is the eschatological barrier to all narration of the future.  The breaking of that barrier entails a Parousia.  It's that simple.  The coherence we struggle for here is simply the Logos, in all its historical singularity.  While the Cat is away, we mice have no choice but to keep on playing. 

Nicholas Rescher, Objectivity- The Obligations of Impersonal Reason Reviewed by Scott Ryan: 

Nicholas Rescher, probably the single most prolific [!] author among contemporary philosophers, here provides a sturdy defense of objectivity based on the primacy and inevitability of practical reason.

Objectivity hinges on rationality -- as a matter not simply of logical coherence, but also "of the intelligent pursuit of circumstantially appropriate objectives." From its requirements follows a sort of "rational economy," the principles of which are very obviously objective and universal although they may (and do) have different applications in different situations.

On this foundation, Rescher takes on a host of contemporary critics of objectivity -- anthropologists, historicists, sociologists of knowledge, personalists, feminists, Marxists and class-interest theorists, post-modernists, and social activists. He finds that each attack on objectivity involves a misconstruing of what it is all about, and devotes the remainder of the volume to showing why this is the case.

A 'rational economy' outside of a cosmological, eschatological context would be throwing good money after bad.  Coherence is not sold retail. 

As always, Rescher's presentation is clear and cogent.

You recognize, of course, that my use of 'murky' for someone of Nicholas' provenance is being relative in the extreme.  He is fighting the good fight.  I'm just not sure that he is aware of Godzilla in the wings.  The awareness of that Presence must entail a new gestalt.  How can he be so close, and yet be so far?  The only clue may lie in the compulsive nature of his publishing, as if to keep the Monster at bay.  I am only two feet on the other side of that fence. 

Now!, from the Helsinki Metaphysical Club (at the University of Helsinki, 'an open discussion and study group, which is primarily focused on the investigation and advancement of Peircean philosophy and sign theory'), we bring you: 

EMERGENCE THEORIES AND PRAGMATIC REALISM -- Charbel Niño El-Hani & Sami Pihlström, Draft version, February 2002. Comments welcome. Please do not quote. (Shhhhhh........)

The re-emergence of the emergence debate is related to the great development of the sciences of complexity, interdisciplinary fields of research concerned with the complex properties of life and mind, in the 1990s (Emmeche 1997). Another reason for the strong comeback of this philosophical doctrine lies in the collapse of positivistic reductionism and the related ideal of an unified science since the 1970s. We can think of the fortunes of reductionism as inversely correlated with those of emergentism, and, thus, the fading away of reductionism and the enthronement of non-reductive materialism as a new orthodoxy would simply amount to the resurgence of emergentism (Kim 1999:5). The revitalization of the emergence debate is also related to a number of emergentist hypotheses about mind and consciousness that have been proposed (e.g., Sperry 1969, 1983, 1991; Searle 1992; Baas 1996). The very term ‘emergence’ and its derivatives have become popular in the context of computer models of non-linear dynamical systems, complex systems research, Artificial Life, consciousness studies etc. As the concept of emergence is increasingly used, it becomes more and more important to keep the exact meaning of the central ideas involved clear. Moreover, it is crucial to discuss in detail what kinds of metaphysical commitments [?] are necessarily involved in emergentist thinking, inasmuch as many scientists and philosophers still think that emergentism is incompatible with basic metaphysical commitments of the current scientific discourse. In fact, there are now at least two different research programs dealing with the notion of emergence (or, at any rate, using the term ‘emergence’), one which is clearly materialist and naturalist, and another which aims at the alleged synthesis of science and religion that some classical emergentists, as Lloyd Morgan, dreamt about (Blitz 1992). Several examples of papers affiliated with this latter research program can be found in Zygon, a journal devoted to the examination of the relationships between science and religion (e.g. Polkinghorne 1991; Peacocke 1991, 1993, 1994, 1999; Ashbrook 1996; see also Hasker 1999).

'Metaphysical commitments'?  Eschatology, anyone?  

In view of the difficulties faced by supervenience physicalism as a non-reductive stance, we have to search for alternative paths to the middle road between substance dualism and reductionism that many philosophers find attractive. In this connection, it is worth investigating if a combination of supervenience and emergence might fulfill the double requirement of dependence and determination, on the one hand, and non-reducibility, on the other.

'Middle road'?  Is this metaphysics or arbitration?  Is it the thesis of pragmatism that truth is arbitrated? 

Here we are getting close to what might be labeled pragmatic pluralism regarding different approaches to the human mind.

If you are going to be pluralistic you will have to include theism.  With God and Physics we have the irresistible force and the immovable object.  May the best One win!  Atheistic pluralism in oxymoronic.  Sorry 'bout them apples, fellas.  Mark my words, in the End it will be idealism versus materialism. 

....reminding scientists that the mind remains psychological [...] even when its capacities are neurally or physiologically explained.

Sure, Hani, as long as you are willing to eliminate all essences, you may think whatever you please.  

For some purposes it is better to employ the standard physicalist notion of effective causation; for some others one may adopt an ‘Aristotelian’ variant; for still others one might prefer a non-causal account. This pluralism liberates us from the dilemma to which Kim has led us, although, admittedly, some tensions do remain between the positions we propose. 

Good, then.  On Sundays we can believe in God, and on the other days we can be materialists.  Will God cooperate?  If She doesn't, will just have to put Her in Her place.  We'll keep Her in the kitchen for the rest of the week.  I wonder if God's love is always quite so pragmatic.  The mystics might be dubious on this score.  

And then there was murkiness.  And more murkiness.  

Perhaps I'm forgetting though, that, despite or because of all their Pragmatism, James are Peirce are generally considered to reside in the idealist camp.  Pragmatism then serves mainly as a smoke screen for their idealism:    

The tradition of pragmatism, in particular, has strongly emphasized the practice- and discourse-embeddedness of the real world and its properties that we take our discourses and theories to be about. It is meaningless to speak about the reality of emergents absolutely independently of human theories and conceptualizations. 

Yes, keep your eyes on the shell with the pea.  

This is not to deny that emergence is, primarily, an ontological notion; rather, it is to say that ontology is not clearly separable from epistemology, because it concerns a humanly structured conceptualized reality. 

If it walks like an idealist and talks like an idealist,.....

It is from Putnam that we adopt the pragmatist idea that ontological commitments depend on the conceptual frameworks within which they are made, frameworks which in turn depend on the human purposes and interests they serve. 

And which framework is God's, pray tell? 

Well, are we getting the idea?  

According to this pragmatist approach, not even basic ontological notions such as existence have one fixed metaphysically privileged meaning or use (see, e.g., Putnam 1990:96-97). Our language and mind "penetrate so deeply into what we call ‘reality’ that the very project of representing ourselves as being ‘mappers’ of something ‘language-independent’ is fatally compromised from the very start". What counts as ‘objects’ or as ‘properties’ is as much up to us as it is up to the world, partly depending on how we use these words in the language-games within which our ontological structurings are created.

This sounds like a fun game.  Can God play, too? 

[12/8] 

The convoluted issue of emergence has effectively blurred the boundary between ontology and epistemology.  Scientific realism and naturalism are thus beholden to the normativity and functionality essential to epistemology.  This is a big step toward idealism.  Pragmatism, as we have been shown, is a significant waypoint on this path. 

----------------------------------------

The Biological Notion of Self and Non-self by Alfred Tauber: 

Without pursuing the ramifications of the cognitive approach to immunity, it is still evident that this turn in the language-“perception,” “memory,” “learning”-are in service to a more elusive “knowing entity.” Thus hidden within new formulations, the self still resides, reflecting a deep struggle over the character of biology, one that has its roots in Bernard's original understanding of autonomy, and now linked to our own more complex ecological views of agency and determinism.

I just wanted to underscore the ontological travails of the biologists.  A travail which, evidently, they share with the organisms they seek to know.  

It is possible that biology will become the primary battleground of contending metaphysical projects.  

[12/9] 

Presently I am listening to Nancey Murphy's presentation, 'Physicalist Anthropology and Resurrection: How Much Can we Know?' at the Berkeley Eschatology, Immortality, and the Future of the Cosmos conference (2001).  Her limited web page at Fuller Theological is accessed only through their search page: 

Nancey Murphy joined the Fuller faculty in 1989. She is highly sought as a speaker at nationwide conferences on the relationship between theology and science. Murphy also serves on the boards of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences at Berkeley, and is a member of the Planning Committee for conferences on science and theology, sponsored by the Vatican Observatory.....  {She] is an ordained minister in the Church of the Brethren. 

I would use Google: Nancey Murphy. 

'Nancey Murphy, Supervenience and Causality' -- abstract by Lindsay Cullen

Nancey Murphy argues in Beyond Liberalism & Fundamentalism, that a post-modern approach to metaphysics, based on a non-reductive physicalism, will allow a fruitful bridging of the gap between interventionist and immanentist views of God's interaction with the world. This is achieved through her contention that there are causally significant 'higher level' laws which can affect interactions and which are neither constrained by, nor reducible to, lower level laws (such as the laws of physics). Whilst her aim is to be applauded, her methodology is somewhat flawed. In particular, her scientific defence of a non-reductive view is shallow and unpersuasive, and her use of the philosophical concept of supervenience is both eccentric and unhelpful. Thus her argument regarding higher-level laws founders, taking with it her basis for a rapprochement between 'liberals' and 'conservatives' on this particular topic.

To call herself a 'physicalist' distorts that term beyond recognition.  Why Nancey hangs onto that term is mainly to disclaim the dualism to which her theological colleagues continue to maintain despite its incoherence.  The contrast with Cartesian dualism is why 'non-reductive physicalism' remains current despite Kim's refutation of it as physical.  Non-theists of a non-reductive persuasion may call themselves naturalists.  Non-dualist theists, not willing to take the immaterialist leap, are left with a serious problem of nomenclature, not to mention logic.  

A Brief Examination of Nancey Murphy's Nonreductive Physicalism -- By Sean Choi 

This paper will briefly examine Nancey Murphy's "nonreductive physicalism" as she presents it in the book Whatever Happened to the Soul? (Fortress Press, 1998). After presenting her view, I will argue that Murphy's position is caught in the horns of the following dilemma: either the mental causally overdetermines the physical, or the mental is causally inert with respect to the physical. Since Murphy desires to save mental causation, her nonreductive physicalism gets impaled on the horns of this dilemma.

Yes, it's that simple.  All of her disregard of logic just to avoid idealism.  When the philosophical barrier to idealism is broken there will be a flood.  Yes, it will be an eschatological flood of biblical proportions. 

In terms of the distinctions drawn above, Murphy's "nonreductive physicalism" is a physicalist view in the philosophy of mind which accepts ontological reductionism, but rejects causal reductionism and reductive materialism. In her own words, "it denies the existence of a nonmaterial entity, the mind (or soul) but does not deny the existence of consciousness (a position in philosophy of mind called eliminative materialism) or the significance of conscious states or other mental (note the adjectival form) phenomena."

Her distinction between ontology and causality is remarkably incoherent.  If you're an anti-dualist and an anti-materialist, there ain't much choice. 

In summary, I have argued that given Murphy's nonreductive physicalism and her desire to maintain mental causation, she is stuck between the rock of causal overdetermination and the hard place of mental epiphenomena. I tentatively conclude that since neither of these positions are acceptable to her, it might serve her well to reevaluate her nonreductive physicalism.

Well, Nancey, when are you going to bite the bullet?  It looks like your physicalism has got to go.  Let's see then, non-materialism & non-dualism = immaterialism.  No?  It looks like it's time to bone up on Berkley, Nancey.  Berkley (CTNS) is the Big Game rival of Stanford, but this is more important.  

CiS-St Edmunds Lecture series - MENTAL CAUSATION - Nancey Murphy 

John Taylor: Response to Professor Murphy's paper: Now, a non-reductive physicalist is in some sense seeking to avoid the problems of dualism and yet not veer towards a strongly reductionist position and one way in which the intuition behind that gets going is the thought that mental properties, even though they may be properties of a physical thing, are of a different kind.

But if you're a non-reductive materialist, what are you going to say about the causal efficacy of mental properties: do you want to say that the mental can, in some sense, make an intervening difference to the physical level. If you say that it seems that you've gone down the route that the dualist goes down.

This is quite an acute dilemma which has been pushed in a different variety of contexts in philosophy of mind literature.

....do we really get round the problem, the epiphenomenal question, by introducing the distinction between structural and triggering causes? 

Nancey Murphy: The concept of structuring causes was employed in order to talk about how the brain gets structured so that causal sequences realize or instantiate rational sequences. 

Nancey has taken a page from the book of Alexander: How to solve the Gordian Knot. 

All I really intended to do tonight is to work on one tiny piece of the puzzle, how can you reconcile rationality with causality. You've asked the big question about consciousness, which I don't attempt to deal with. I think it's got to be left for farther down the road when we know more about how the brain works. I am convinced, as a physicalist, that somehow or other the activity of our brains gives rise to consciousness, but I'm not at all sure that we'll ever have much subjective sense of understanding how that happens.

I think that your interlocutors would settle for some objective sense. 

So all those questions are extremely important ones; they've got to be worked on in the future but the fact that I can't answer them now does not detract from the validity of the tiny little first piece that I've done.

A tiny step for Nancey, a cosmic leap for humankind.  Nancey has the best intentions in the world of smoothing over the rough spots, but the Eschaton is not quite in her league. 

I believe that the notion of self-transcendence is extremely important for understanding how we avoid neurobiological determinism. 

Janet Soskice: Every aspect of our reality is created reality, and the big contrast in theology is not between mind, spirit and body but between what is created and the One who creates, that is the fundamental distinction and it is far more absolute than `things that go bump in the night'. 

What early theologians had to contend with was various kinds of neoplatonists who did argue for an immortal soul and indeed which participated in the divine - a chip off the divine block. Christianity and Judaism did not believe that because they believed that the human being was totally a creature,

But you need to emphasise creation: spirit is created, soul is created, body is created; in one sense you could say they are all material realities, that would be a direction you could take and be consonant with historical Christianity.

Nancey Murphy: I think that adopting physicalism is a very healthy thing for Christians because it establishes the ontological dividing point just where it should be, which is between God and everything else, rather than half way up the great chain of being.

This last exchange explains a whole lot about just what us idealists are up against, w.r.t. professional theologians.  They would rather burn us monists at the stake, than have to grapple with the foundations of the world.  Can we blame them? 

[12/10] 

What we see happening with Nancey Murphy (2,100 hits) may constitute a genuine phenomenon.  Just off the top, it may be a preliminary mainstream Christian reaction to the Tucson Consciousness phenomenon of David Chalmers (8,700 hits) provenance.  

The mystics were effectively monopolizing the ample spiritual dimension of the academically oriented consciousness movement, so I use the term 'reaction' advisedly.  The mystics are exploiting the intellectual concern with consciousness to work their monistic magic.  The Christian dualists are beginning to react, finally. 

The orthodox Christians have always felt extremely threatened by the various monistic and pantheistic heresies that perennially threaten their orthodoxy.  It is fair to say that this conservative reaction was a primary motivation behind that other phenomenon: the Inquisition, which, in its turn, gave rise to Cartesian mind-body dualism and thus to the worldview of Scientific materialism.  But now that the Scientific materialists are threatening to engulf the mind in their materialist maw, the non-materialists are forced, with no small trepidation, to enter the fray. 

The first out of the blocks were the mystics.  They are an independent lot, some of whom are willing to tilt at any given windmill.  Our orthodox prophetic brethren and sistren are rather more corporate and reactionary in their modus operandi.  Why?  Well, they are carrying a heavy prophetic burden.  Theirs is the Eschaton.  It's not walk softly and carry a big stick.  It's carry a big stick, and therefore you darn well have to walk more cautiously.  That is unless you have designs on the second coming.  

But when the prophetic types see that the mystics are, against all odds, actually scoring points in the Mind Wars, they have to respond.  Their almost knee jerk response is to throw their lot in with the naturalists, promoting a non-reductionist panpsychism as a stopgap against the dreaded pantheism.  This is where Nancey is.  She is leading the troops in this reaction.  

Where then are the theistic idealists?  Total silence?  One may trace this movement up from the ashes of the Inquisition into Germany, England and then on to our fair, transcendental shores.  Since the first War, the transcendentalists have either vanished or become speechless.  The Twentieth Century was not at all kind to idealists of any stripe.  Will the Twenty-first be any more hospitable?  I guess we're about to find out. 

My fervent hope is that Nancey & Co. will smoke out my fellow theistic idealists, just as the pantheists succeeded in smoking out the theists.  Will Google work its magic through all this smoke?  Will that radar show any blips as my co-idealists find their stealthy way into this nascent arena?  

--------------------------

Perhaps Wolfhart Pannenberg (1928- ) (3,400 hits) can shed some light on the matter, taking my cue from Dramatic Theology as a Research Program.  Wolfhart emphasizes holism and hermeneutics as a bridge between the sciences and humanities including theology.  

For Pannenberg, the question whether the entire history makes sense or whether there actually is a comprehensive totality of meaning or truth is identical with the question about God.

Show me a coherentist and I'll show you a theistic idealist.  

Therefore time is the condition and the measure of the infinite's appearance in the finite, since the difference between future and presence veils the barrier of the present and lets it shine in the full light of the infinite, as long as its time lasts.  Therefore a definite manifestation of God is not possible until the end of history.

Furthermore, show me a coherentist and I'll show you an eschatologist. 

In the context of this understanding of science and the world, it is important for Christian theology that Jesus acted in an apocalyptic horizon, i.e. that he anticipated the end of the entire history of mankind and the resurrection of all the dead. Only in this context could he talk about God as a reality determining the entire history. However, since Jesus did not appear at the end of the world, but could only foresee the totality, his proclamation remained only a subjective anticipation and consequently problematic and hypothetical.

Pannenberg actually has - almost as the only theologian - got involved in Hume's criticism in an open and honest way. [...] As the bases for determining all concepts are completely different in Hume's and Pannenberg's theory, both systems cannot be directly compared with each other in Murphy's view: they are incommensurable. [...] Moreover, Pannenberg's methodology is unworkable since it finally follows an evolutionary view. In this way one could always describe afterwards only how things have actually developed and there are no clear criteria which theory should be chosen and preferred for the future.  

In our view, Murphy's criticism of Pannenberg is not convincing in important points. First of all, the anticipation of the end of history is no longer a merely abstract or even abstruse claim in our days. [...] Finally the epistemology of Pannenberg is not incommensurable to Hume's epistemology, but just more comprehensive, since it is not only "past-entailing", but "past"- as well as - "future-entailing".  

After her criticism of Pannenberg, Murphy proposes an alternative method for theology and refers to Imre Lakatos in this context.

"Neuro-Science and the Soul" -- a talk given by Dr. Nancey Murphy, reviewed by Norman Hall: 

She warned her audience that she would make no hard distinction between mind and soul, but would discuss the long-standing question of the mind/soul as a single or dual entity.  Most philosophers and scientists, she admitted, are monists, now that neuroscience has completed the Darwinian revolution, attributing mind to the brain, and not to any immaterial entity.

So the resolution [according to Murphy] of the problem posed by these multiple levels of description is not to be found in the identity of the phenomenon described, but in "supervenience," which preserves both a non-reductionist description of the person, and allows for divine action in the world of mental events.  

To relate what she was saying to other trends in modern theology, Murphy invoked the theology of Arthur Peacocke, who places theology at the top of a hierarchy of sciences, calling it the most encompassing of the sciences.  Peacocke's position is not pantheistic (wherein there is said to be but one reality, consisting of God identified as world), but is one of "panentheism," wherein the world is in God, but the divine reality must include more than the world.  This, she says, fits her "supervenience" concept, where there is more to the mental than brain, that irreducible "more" being found on the social level.

I am pleasantly surprised that Nancey looks with favor on panentheism. 

Nancey Murphy should be ashamed of herself for trying to pull such an obvious piece of bait-and-switch flim-flam as she did in her formula for the defeat of reductionism. 

At least she has raised the ire of the 'godless' scientists.  

The question for Nancey is that if it is OK for the mind-soul to be supervenient on the body, is it OK for God to be supervenient on the world?   If not, does this not place God entirely beyond our reach, and is that dualism the purpose of her 'physicalism'?  The answer appears to be, 'yes'.  But this is not the thesis of Panentheism of the world in God.  

'Is Science Good for the Soul? Then sings my psychophysical somatic unity!' -- Matt Donnelly (Christianity Today): 

In recent years, Murphy has been saying that human beings do not have a soul, at least not in the way that soul has traditionally been defined-"the spiritual part of a human being that is believed to survive death,"....

....throughout the history of the church, philosophers have carried on esoteric debates about the precise nature of soul that had little impact on believers in the pews. So what's new? What really matters is that, as believers in Christ, we know that when we die, our souls will not perish. [...]  Right?  Not exactly, says Murphy. 

...."while Christians are mostly consumed with opening yet newer rounds in their century-and-a-half-old war with Charles Darwin, they have scarcely the faintest idea that the new consciousness enthusiasm"-that is, the broad consensus represented by secular thinkers such as Dennett, Pinker, and Patricia and Paul Churchland and Christians such as Murphy and Jeeves-"is by far the greater threat to the integrity of Christian belief." The case against dualism, Guelzo suggested, has by no means been definitively made.

What is the case is that Nancey believes in the resurrection: we stay in the grave 'til Judgment Day.  But since she is an irrationalist about the future, allegedly in deference to Darwinism, she can disavow all discussion of this topic.  This is a bizarre spiritual cocktail that Nancey is brewing.  All this to avoid what?  A little coherence?

There is a great desire to protect the mystery of God.  Any transgression of the veil of God would be apocalyptic.  Yes, that is my point.  All of this irrationality is by way of a spiritual filibuster.  But the show must go on.  

While talk of conscious robots or cloned humans may sound like science fiction, Christians must be prepared to engage this brave new world by articulating a vision for the future of humanity that combines scientific knowledge with biblical wisdom. The world is watching. It remains to be seen how Christendom will respond.

Yes, it does remain to be see.  

Books & Culture Corner: "Daddy, What Is the Soul?"  Does the church have an answer? 
By John Wilson 12/10/2001 (Christianity Today): 

The same period has seen an explosion of scholarly interest in "consciousness." There is a vast and steadily growing literature in the field of consciousness studies,..."  Oddly, while all of this has been going on, the church hasn't paid much attention. Sometimes it seems as if everyone but the church is talking about the soul.

Perhaps the theologians are waking up and smelling the coffee.  

'The Methodological Equivalence of Design & Descent: Can There Be a Scientific "Theory of Creation"?' by Stephen C. Meyer - Reprinted from The Creation Hypothesis, ed. by J.P. Moreland (InterVarsity Press, 1994)

Most scientists who are theists also accept this same conception of science. As Raymond Grizzle wrote in a prominent evangelical scientific journal recently, "God cannot be part of a scientific description. . . . [Further], any description that implies a creator will probably also be looked at as improper by most scientists." Nancey Murphy, a philosopher and Fuller Seminary professor, agrees. She wrote recently in the same journal: "Science qua science seeks naturalistic explanations for all natural processes. Christians and atheists alike must pursue scientific questions in our era without invoking a Creator. . . . Anyone who attributes the characteristics of living things to creative intelligence has by definition stepped into the arena of either metaphysics or theology."

However Christian intellectuals might go about defending methodological naturalism, secular defenders of the principle assure us that the prohibition against invoking God or creative intelligence is anything but arbitrary. Instead, they assert that good independent reasons exist for the conventional exclusion of such notions from all scientific theories. Theories of design or creation do not, they say, meet objective standards of scientific method and practice. Such theories do not explain by reference to natural law, nor do they manifest a host of other features of true scientific theories such as testability, observability and falsifiability. 

Here we see a creationist taking on the theistic defenders of naturalism.  An intra-theistic debate on metaphysics cannot hurt the cause of rational theism.  Idealism finds itself somewhat in the middle of this argument.  The creationists take materialism rather too seriously.  We are confronted with contending dualisms: mind-body, and Creator-creation.  The creationists have so far avoided the mind-body problem, but they are not taking the Deistic path of Murphy & Co.  This may be my final accusation against Nancey: she is a deist.  Her strict dualism allows no other view.  Her favorable mention of panentheism does not jibe with her other beliefs. 

[12/11] 

If truth be known, I'm not enamored with the soul. I am glad that Nancey is sticking it to the theologians about the obsolescence of this, their pet concept.  

The soul, incongruously, has been the mainstay of both mysticism and Cartesian materialism.  Within those opposed systems the soul constitutes the main barrier against coherence.  Thus is the soul the great enemy of idealism.  If process philosophy has taught us anything, it ought to be that the soul, along with God, is a process.  We and God are all creatures of the overriding process of love.  

At most, the soul is a repository of potential energy, like a spring, a spring weighted down by its accumulated karmic memories.  Like a compressed spring, it is inherently unstable.  In its relaxation, it returns to and is consumed by love.  That is our salvation and our ecstasy.  God holds the key to our forgiveness.  We cannot work it our by ourselves, no matter how many lives we might spend.  That is the key to the Kingdom, and I would not be particularly surprised if it had something to do with the cryptographic potential of the Monster group.  That extreme mathematical object is essentially the memory, or 'soul', of the material aspect of the world, which must overlap with each of our individual memories.  Topologically, all of Creation along with the Creator is held together as a virtual chain of stitches.  This is also reminiscent of the coiling of the cosmic serpent.  When the trumpet sounds....., well, you get the picture.  

This topological, non-atomic analysis of the soul is possible only in a system that is monistic and coherent.  This is also in agreement with the holographic and fractal nature of reality.  Our souls are the product of a lengthy, historical process of symmetry breaking, as we see in the physics of field theory.  In the eschatological regime, we witness the reversal of that symmetry breaking.  These mechanical metaphors are only to be used as analogical, conceptual aids.  The actual processes are metaphysical in nature.  

The idea of an atomic soul is like a 'zeroth' approximation used in calculating a physical process.  As we move to higher order approximations, the symmetry and topological continuity are restored.  Theologians, not surprisingly, are working with this 'zeroth' approximation of the soul.  They will have to be nudged repeatedly to get them off this mark, and onto a more refined and coherent model of metaphysics.  The first step is always the most difficult.  After that first big step to the next higher approximation, all the other steps will come rather easily.  

The postmodern anti-foundationalism is necessary to deconstruct our atomic concept of the soul, so that a more coherent reconstruction of it may begin.  

-----------------------------

Time out for a little idealism: it's always worthwhile to check the latest sources:  

Pluralistic Idealism- Only Mind, Many Minds -- Alan Anderson (1997).  He provides a synopsis of modern idealism.  Alan participates in the New Thought Movement, allegedly based on idealism  

The Personalist Forum is another bastion of contemporary idealism.  

Borges, the Apologist for Idealism: Marina Martin argues that Hume was an implicit idealist, and traces a complete lineage. 

Current Issues in Idealism,  eds. Paul Coates and Daniel D. Hutto (1997): just this blurb: 

This collection of original papers, the only current anthology on twentieth century idealism, shows the debate between idealism and realism to be as important now as it was at the beginning of the nineteenth century. It brings together an exciting range of views by some of the most distinguished writers in the field.

Focused on the idealist/realist dispute, contributors also discuss the relation of idealism to ethics, metaphysics and epistemology. The volume also deals with the distinction between ontological and conceptual forms of idealism, the place of idealism within the analytic tradition of philosophy and the coherence of the idealist/realist distinction.

The contributors include: Donald Davidson, Timothy Sprigge, Tom Sorrell, Phillip Ferreira, Leslie Armour, Michele Marsonet. 

Not exactly a ground swell, not yet.  Nicholas Rescher is not a contributor, and none of his many articles is listed as online.  That Davidson is an idealist would be a surprise to me. 

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ANGLO-AMERICAN IDEALISM At the Olympic Centre for Philosophy and Culture and the Municipality of Pyrgos of Elia, Greece, 20th-25th August 2003.  It sounds nice.  Includes a long list of participants.  

....and (iii) a discussion of the continuation and revival of Anglo-American Idealism in the work of Dorothy Emmet, Errol E. Harris, Rex Martin, Peter P. Nicholson, Nicholas Rescher, Timothy Sprigge, and others.

The first two listed are no longer with us.  Still no groundswell.  I see no linkage between this list of idealists and our previous list of anti-reductionists. 

Despite the paucity of these lists, I'm under the impression that, of the philosophically active theists, most are also idealists of one sort or another, and vice versa; Nancey Murphy being a very conspicuous exception.  This important fact of philosophical life has not registered with the theistic community. 

'Mereological Considerations in Vasubandhu's "Proof of Idealism"' by Matthew Kapstein, University of Chicago, for the Studies in Yogacara Buddhism seminar of the American Academy of Religion (1998): 

Vasubandhu, the founder of Buddhist philosophical idealism, has been the object of considerable philological research since the latter part of the 19th century. Historical data alone justify the efforts that have been made, for, with the translation of his works into Chinese, Tibetan and not a few other languages, Vasubandhu's thought became, from about the 6th century onwards, a dominant force in central and east Asian intellectual life.

It is instructive to ponder the considerations which led Aristotle to shun idealism in favor of his continuity-theory, and which led Vasubandhu to make just the opposite move. For the Stagirite, the notion that a body might be "nothing but an appearance" is patently absurd, and is tantamount to maintaining that ". . . its constituents are nothings, .. . . it might both come-to-be out of nothings and exist as a composite of nothings."  If we agree that this is not possibly correct, and reject atomism at the same time, then we have no choice but to seek, with Aristotle, an alternative theory of matter.

Vasubandhu, on the other hand, aims to demonstrate that the atomic theory is both false and necessary: ". . . atomic distinctions must be supposed; and there can be no simple atom." Wherefore, matter is naught but ideal. Vasubandhu, if he is to make his case, must demonstrate the truth of the premises of a simple modus tollens argument: (1) If material things exist independently of the perceptions in which they are given, then they must be atomic in composition. (2) But they cannot be atomic in composition. Therefore, (3) material things do not exist independently of the perceptions in which they are given.

[12/12] 

My contention in these pages is that anti-reductionism entails idealism.  The arguments of Vasubandhu appear to be supporting this view.  But let's continue: 

At this writing, I am not at all certain that Vasubandhu's four counterexamples can be made to do the work demanded of them, i.e. demonstrate that, on the assumption that matter is real, atomism necessarily follows. They do, however, underscore several of the difficulties which must be resolved by the continuity-theory, if it is to be made capable of fully expressing our commonplace intuitions with respect to parts and wholes.

Vasubandhu sought to prove idealism by demonstrating, like Kant, that our concept of composite material wholes necessarily entails there being simple, atomic substances; and that atomism is false. In so doing, he, no less than the latter, underestimated the potential strengths of the continuity-theory, and of the point-particle theory. It may be asked: would even a fully successful argument of this type be sufficient to demonstrate the truth of idealism?

It looks like I have to bone up on my Yogacara.  I'll be using materials from the above mentioned seminar. 

I should have been investigating eastern idealism before this.  I was not aware of the analytic aspect of that tradition.  As a coherentist, I am not keen on the analytical; however, putting an analytical nail in the coffin of materialism may prove very useful. 

A major issue with Buddhism will be the reality of persons.  I am not an absolutist about souls.  They exist in God's 'memory'.  We'll see how that works out with our Buddhist buddhies. 

'External Objects Do Not Exist' by Dan Lusthaus, Florida State University (1997): 

Maatra ("only"), according to this interpretation, acts as an approving affirmation of mind as the true reality. However, the Yogacarin writings themselves argue something very different. Consciousness (vijñaana) is not the ultimate reality or solution, but rather the root problem. This problem emerges in ordinary mental operations, and it can only be solved by bringing those operations to an end.

Sounds like eschatology.  Perhaps there are two minds: mundane and not so mundane. 

That the term vijñapti-maatra has been valorised while no one would dream of valorizing the other -maatra compounds is perhaps a testament to the pernicious persistence of bhaavaasava, the compulsion to assert something existent to which one can cling. That is one of two extremes from which the middle way is designed to steer us (nihilism is the other). Yogacara is deeply concerned about the human propensity to posit things we can appropriate.

Yogacara tends to be misinterpreted as a form of metaphysical idealism primarily because its teachings are taken to be ontological propositions rather than epistemological warnings about karmic problems. The Yogacara focus on cognition and consciousness grew out of its analysis of karma, and not for the sake of metaphysical speculation. Two things should be clarified in order to explain why Yogacara is not metaphysical idealism: 1. The meaning of the word "idealism" and 2. an important difference between the way Indian and Western philosophers do philosophy.

OK, let's get down to business: 

Tellingly no Indian Yogacara text ever claims that the world is created by mind. What they do claim is that we mistake our projected interpretations of the world for the world itself, i.e., we take our own mental constructions to be the world.

Are my buddhies drawing a line in the sand?  Didn't someone already say, 'A world is a world is a world.'  Is there some other world that I missed?  If I were to save the world, which world would I be saving?  I can only do one.  Is the world an illusion?  Of course, but it sure as heck ain't our illusion.  It is God's.  Only a slight emendation.  Of course, we are God's helpers: like the elves at Christmas.  

The arguments Yogacara deploys frequently resemble those made by epistemological idealists. Recognizing those affinities Western scholars early in the twentieth century compared Yogacara to Kant, and more recently scholars have begun to think that Husserl's phenomenology comes even closer.

But there are also important differences between those Western philosophers and Yogacara. The three most important are: Kant and Husserl play down notions of causality, while Yogacara developed complex systematic causal theories it deemed to be of the greatest importance; there is no counterpart to either karma or enlightenment in the Western theories, while these are the very raison d'être for all Yogacara theory and practice; finally, the Western philosophies are designed to afford the best possible access to an ontological realm (at least sufficient to acknowledge its existence), while Yogacara is critical of that motive in all its manifestations.

'Yogacara Buddhism in China' by CHEN-KUO LIN: 

Unhappy about some scholars, 'mainly from the Anglo-Saxon cultural sphere', having challenged the Yogacara 'idealist' ontology of 'nothing but cognition', in his paper entitled 'On the Problem of the External world in Ch'eng wei shih lun', Lambert Schmithausen vigorously argued that 'the existence of "extra-mental" material (or other) entities' is rejected not only as objects of cognition but also as such without any qualification. Although he might not have the final word, Schmithausen's paper can be seen as one of the most significant responses to the dispute initiated by Alex Wayman in the 1970s and espoused by many scholars since, including Dan Lusthaus, who strongly challenged a non-idealist interpretation.

[...] As expected, a sort of anti-idealist stance is clearly demonstrable in Lusthaus' hermeneutics.

Yes, all this is just a bit confusing!  Back to you, Dan: 

In contrast to the cognitive karmic dimension, Buddhism considered material elements karmically neutral. The problem with material things is not their materiality, but the psychology of appropriation - desiring, grasping, clinging, attachment - that permeates our ideas and perceptions of such things. It is not the materiality of gold that leads to problems, but rather our ideas about the value of gold and the attitudes and actions we engage in as a result of those ideas.

The mind doesn't create the physical world, but it produces the interpretative categories through which we know and classify the physical world, and it does this so seamlessly that we mistake our interpretations for the world itself. Those interpretations, which are projections of our desires and anxieties, become obstructions preventing us from seeing what is actually the case. In simple terms we are blinded by our own self-interests, our own prejudices (which means what is already prejudged), our desires. Unenlightened cognition is an appropriative act. Yogacara does not speak about subjects and objects; instead it analyzes perception in terms of graspers and what is grasped.

This sounds like a preachy version of Kant.  How 'bout that Noumena?  The Noumena is the Unconscious.  No?  Let's not complicate things.  Dan does not say what the world is, all by its lonesome.  Someone terribly more crass than myself might say, 'Put up or shut up, Dan!' 

'Conceptions of the Absolute in Mahayana Buddhism and Shinran' by John Paraskevopoulos:

In closing, I would like to reiterate the great importance of an adequate and satisfying conception of the Absolute as being indispensable to the Buddhist path.  In a climate of increasing scepticism and reductionism, especially in certain Buddhist scholarly circles in the West, it is imperative that one does not lose sight of the fact that without such concepts as Dharmakaya, Suchness, Nirvana, Sunyata etc. being grounded in a true and existing reality which both transcends and suffuses all things, Buddhism is left without any foundations and stands on nothing, thereby losing all sapiential and soteriological efficacy.  In the attempt by some to make Buddhism more fashionable by denying that it has anything much in common with views of ultimate reality in other spiritual traditions, it does itself a great disservice in failing to recognise clear parallels where they exist - parallels, indeed, which should not surprise anyone.  To speak of all these terms to describe the Absolute as ‘symbolic’ in an attempt to somehow downgrade the reality of the ultimate object of aspiration is sheer folly - of what exactly are they symbols ?  To be sure, these terms do not exhaust the fathomless depth of the reality to which they refer but, on the other hand, neither are they empty symbols created by us in order to fulfill some kind of nostalgic and delusory quest for the Infinite which has no basis in the true nature of things. A spiritual path which cannot offer any deliverance from that which is finite, imperfect and illusory, to that which affords eternal blessedness and liberation from suffering and the painful clutches of samsaric existence, is simply not worthy of the name.

Soteriological?  Now we're talking!  Yes, those reductionists are wont to run roughshod over almost everything.  But what can they do about those atoms?  Those atoms are tough titties. 

'The Theory of Evolutionary Process as a Unifying Paradigm' by Frank Barr, MD

As Alfred North Whitehead (1929) has facetiously pointed out: "Scientists, animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless, constitute an interesting subject for study."

Nirvana and Samsara Are Not the Same: Adi Da Samraj

But both of these great conceptions have frequently been reduced to popular ideas or beliefs and conventional ideals of the beginner's mind and the earlier stages of life. Indeed, the larger tradition of the Mahayana was specifically oriented toward this popular reductionism, because it intended to be a popular religion rather than a "hard school" reserved exclusively for those who were capable of the most mature and advanced kind of practice. It is this aspect of the Mahayana that represents a tendency to decline from the original attitude of the Buddhist tradition, and it is this will to popularize Buddhist institutions that is the seed of the false views or conventional reductionism I have just described. Indeed, the pressures created by the needs of a popular institutional system are what have created the greatest problems for all esoteric and Transcendentalist traditions. The will to "save" everyone (or to reduce the profound disciplines and intuitions of the Way of Truth to a path that is acceptable even to those who have neither the time nor the inclination to submit themselves to the Truth) is the cause of all the most devastating compromises in philosophy. Of course, the intention to serve and Help others also has undeniable merit, and so all Teachers and traditions must struggle to serve humanity and yet retain the authenticity of confinement to Truth.

Is Universalism that bad?  

 

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Topical Index

12/4/02

East is East & West is West

[(12/17)  This started out to be a contrast of the prophetic vs. pantheist traditions, but I was soon distracted with the metaphysics of existence, until the last paragraphs.  My plan this morning is to again take up this contrast, but now in the context of Creation, on the next page.] 

And now the twain will meet.  (And once again, as you see, I ran out of parchment.)  

Yes, I have given lip service to the immaterialism of the East, but the next step is, as usual, well past due.  Not being under the Inquisitional pall that has dogged the prophetic West, the East is more like a Rorschach inkblot. You cannot peer into that multifaceted pattern without catching at least a glimpse of your own reflection.  I am making no claims as to objectivity, that is not my shtick, anyhow.  Objectivity is not the Eastern shtick, either. 

The linking of the immaterialism of East & West will finally push immaterialism over the top, and it may happen in our lifetimes.  It will also be the death of that Inquisitional step-child, fundamentalism, scourge of the prophetic tradition. 

It is true that reductionists of various shades have found comfort in the metaphysics of the East, but, trust me, we immaterialists will be finding ammunition.  The East was way ahead of the West in deconstructing God and Self.  And that is always a useful exercise in anti-absolutism.  But unlike our materialists, they long ago moved beyond reductive nihilism.  Those moves will be most instructive to us postmoderns. 

Does the East have anything to learn from the West, besides building bombs?  Yes, they will be learning about the Second Coming and the BPW, yes, and Singularity.  And it may go easier for them, not being trapped in orthodoxy to our extent. 

'Buddhist reductionism' -- Mark Siderits (1997): 

There has been much recent discussion concerning the relation between Parfit's Reductionism and the view of persons to be found in early Buddhism and Abhidharma. Some have claimed that Parfit is wrong to see in the Buddhist position an important anticipation of his own view-since the Buddhist view is not, as he supposes, Reductionist, but rather Eliminativist.  Others suggest that while certain of the Abhidharma schools might have held a Reductionist position, early Buddhism may defensibly be interpreted as Non-Reductionist in character. 

Parfit distinguishes between two versions of Non-Reductionism: the view that persons are separately existing entities (such as Cartesian Egos) and the view that while we are not separately existing entities, the existence of a person involves a further fact, over and above the "more particular facts" of the existence of a brain and body and the occurrence of a series of interrelated physical and psychological events.

I think we can settle these disputes by realizing that we exist in the mind of God and vice versa.  But what about atheists, animals and atoms?  How do they exist?  Parasitically.  Parasitism is the whole game: nothing is exempt.  It is not fair to say that people are a cancer on the world.  With monism there is a coherent spectrum, and perhaps a Wilberian spectrum of consciousness, too.  Nothing is subtractable from or addable to the singular BPW, and everything in its own time and place, including revolution.  Just as we become God, so does God become us.  The singular cosmic cycle is one big revolution.  Am I a singularity nut?  No, just a monist nut.  Am I opposed to diversity and ultraterrestrial civilizations?  What is ultimately coherent is what we get.  That's all.  The only thing missing are the square circles.  However, it may be possible to square the circle using the Monster group, along with a non-standard analysis of some kind.  Never say Never. 

Personal identity, like a flame, is a process.  We can relight the candle at any time, especially when we realize that both candle and flame are figments of the cosmic imagination.  And we can always play it again, Sam.  You and I could be instant replays.  Everything is play and replay.  Does that violate singularity?  The exceptions prove the rule.  Past, present and future, memory and anticipation are not as distinct as we pluralists sometimes like to think.  

The doctrine of the two truths distinguishes between what is called conventional truth and ultimate truth. [...]  This device allows us to resolve the seeming contradictions in Nagasena's position. When he claims that adult and infant are neither the same person nor distinct persons, he is stating what he takes to be an ultimate truth. Since persons are conceptual fictions, any claim concerning the identity over time of a person must be ultimately false. His assertion that adult and infant are the same person he takes to be only conventionally true.

No.  This is not coherent.  Persons and concepts of persons are not distinct.  The world is a fiction.  It is literally a cosmic narrative.  The ontic and epistemic are no more distinct that the analytic and synthetic.  Holism is the only game in town. 

Distinctions are fictions.  They are useful pedagogical devices.  Just don't take them too seriously.  Should we take the world seriously.  Yes, some of the time, because it's the only one we'll every really get. 

------------------------------

But let's go back to Vasubandhu with Matthew, and some free association.  It does not make much sense to say that a perceived object is composed of invisible atoms.  A silver atom does not conduct electricity, but silver does.  A chariot is more than the sum of its parts.  Each part of a chariot has an irreducibly functional existence.  Can we distinguish between the chariot and our concepts of it?  How?  But what about the Earth's molten iron core?  Or that distant supernova?  The fact is that the iron came from a supernova: one logically entails the other.  But does logic exist apart from reason?  But what about simple causality?  Causality is contextual to a high degree.  So is existence.  Does anyone claim that relational contexts are mind independent? 

But surely there are unobserved supernovas and planets.  Yes, but only as a logical background to the actuality of our experience.  That which is superfluous to experience is as inconceivable as a square circle, and with no more claim to existence.  The larger context is the Best Possible World.  The BPW  and idealism are mutually dependent. Anything else is inchoate.  Contexts cannot be inchoate.  Existence is relational, but the whole of it is all or nothing.  Existence is complete.  Existence and meaning are practically synonymous and they share a thoroughly holistic nature.  

A question in my mind concerns the decentralization of causation.  Coherence and the Principle of Sufficient Reason might seem to invoke a single source of causation.   With the Big Bang theory there is a single cause, everything else is mechanics.  Can we invoke some of that mechanics and not conflict with the PSR?   In our case it is an idealized mechanics that facilitates the equitable distribution of agency throughout Creation.  This has to do with the idea of the level playing field amongst the creatures, where the action is metabolically constrained.  What is the nature of those constraints in the case of immaterialism?  Can we substitute logic for physics, or is there even a difference?   Can we not invoke logic in the manner that Physics invokes mathematics?  

Also at our disposal are memory and habit to serve as constraints.  And, of course, there are atoms, which exist in the appropriate circumstances.  But atoms are no longer the sole, or even the primary mediators of action, even in the inorganic realm.  Nature is replete with habitual, cyclical processes in which the creatures participate.  

How does non-atomic water learn how to behave?   Who takes it to school, and where?   But first, let it be noted that we do not have an atomic theory of water.  Starting from quantum physics, no one has derived the vital bulk properties of water.  Non-physicists would be shocked to find out how irreducible are virtually all the physical processes in the world.  They all come under the rubric of 'phenomenology'.  95% of physics is not derived from basic principles.  Actually make that 99.9%.  Even at the level of elementary particles, 95% of the 'Physics' is phenomenological, and that's being conservative.  It takes the most powerful computers in the world hours to make even crude estimates of one quark hitting another.  And as for 'string theory', we don't even have the algorithms to put into the computers.  Has any one ever wondered how the heck the particles know how to behave?  Is there an even bigger computer in heaven?  The whole idea of materialism and reductionism is so absurd, it is easily the biggest put-on in history.  It is a conspiracy so vast and effective that only God could have pulled it off, thank you.  If you think I'm kidding, well, ask your neighborhood physicist.  We need some fresh ideas. 

Back to water.  If quarks don't explain water, then what does?  The story starts with God dreaming about going for a swim.  Is this being too crude?  In the not so long-run, it will provide a more robust understanding of water than quarks can ever hope to.  God likes the concept of water.  So let's work it into history, and see how our characters respond.  Shall we say that the creatures go with the flow?  

But wait, how is God able to dream without a brain?  I could ask you how you are able to dream with a brain, but I'm too nice of a guy to ask rhetorical questions.  The point is that since we have not the slightest idea of the nature of the causal relation between mind and matter, it is totally arbitrary to suppose that one is logically prior to the other.  But regardless of the logical precedence, the main problem of explaining the world comes with having to explain self-organization.  Am I being biased in suggesting that the concept and functions of selves is much more amenable to the realm of mind than it is too matter?  

But why should brains exist if they are not necessary for experience?  What does the PSR say about this?  Any 3-D game requires 3-D objects of various kinds.  Animated sensory agents would be essential for most such purposes.  Having sensory organs that are correlated with sensory capacities would seem pretty reasonable.  Does that mean that God had to sit down and design eyes and ears?  I would doubt it.  God just imagines the main contexts and then lets the protagonists work out their own optimizations.  It is self-selection, operating at the level of the self, not the DNA.  That is what we are here for.  The chemistry would work itself out later.  Even Darwin would not feel terribly slighted.  Continuity of forms is a major aspect of coherence. 

[12/14] 

Despite the lack of any known causal or logical connection between mind and brain, neuroscientists do find a high degree of correlation between the two realms.  How do we explain such correlation if it is not causal?  

The materialists go about explaining everything from the bottom up.  They have no other choice.  Materialism is simply the rule of atoms.  We immaterialists have more choice.  With our panpsychism, we can invoke upward and downward causation.  With only one direction of causation permitted to the materialists, they can explain only half of the world, and it is the half that, by definition, is unobservable.  What a shame! 

Mind-body correlation is simple for us immaterialists.  On the 'zeroth approximation' it's all in the mind: the cosmic mind, that is.  But for the benefit of the creatures we need higher levels complexity.  On the first level, we invoke bodies to be the foci of individual creaturely minds.  One body, one mind.  The body could be marionette, or a computer sprite that we move around on the world stage by remote control, but that would be artificial and clumsy.  Consider the concept of natural continuity and integration of mind and matter.  This is the only reasonable way to proceed with Creation.  How much of the design work does God have to do?  I think, not much.  

Obviously mind is a powerful organizer.  It can organize upwardly and downwardly.  Upwardly through voluntary cooperation, downwardly by individual will-power.  We can profitably remain agnostic about the pre-creational state of the cosmic mind, particularly as to the degree of its integration.  In other words, the primordial level of entropy remains indeterminate.  Primordial self-organization could have taken many forms and operated on many levels before the BPW began to take shape.  This multi-level action would proceed into the domain of Creation proper, involving the BPW.  The cooling down of the mental entropy leading to multifaceted symmetry breaking would have occurred on many levels, with just the minimum necessary coordination from on high.  There would always be an ecology of mind.  The symmetry breaking represents the formation of the interdependent ecological niches.  There would, in effect be a self-speciation of mind, with the attendant bodily forms being gradually optimized through habituation.  The potency of an evolutionary-style chain-of-being would play a major role in coordinating this process.  It is through this back door that Darwinism enters the picture.  The molecular details of the genetics can work itself out in the fullness of time.  Very likely the Genome projects are, in a quantum-like or even alchemical fashion, forcing the molecular arrangements into their definite states, as we speak.  If this sounds too teleological, well, that is the whole point of the Eschaton, so we had better get used to it. 

During this whole ecological self-organizing process the integration of body and mind proceeds by all means on all levels.  A seamless integration that we call Nature is the result.  The further we probe the brain, the greater the resolution that we will find.  But what will that prove?  Not much. 

[12/15] 

Evolution is a great and compelling story.  But is it the whole story?  On its own terms, yes, it is.  Do we have reason to suspect those terms?  Our primary reason for suspicion has to do with the existence and nature of the mind.  There are significant aspects of the mind which seem superfluous to the scheme of evolution.  But if mind does seem profligate, we readily acknowledge that it is not evolution's only seeming profligacy.  There being no objective measure of profligacy, we are left with anecdotes.  

The primary feature of the mind is its organizational ability.  This is also, of course, the primary feature of evolution.  The issue of the completeness of Darwinian evolution obviously hinges upon its capacity to account for the natural order, not just in its details, but in toto.  The Darwinists are comforted by the lack of any organizational measure.  Natural selection could well suffice.  Surely it accounts for some of the order, so why not all of it?  Why drag in other speculative causes?  Where is the compulsion to do so?  

What is the rationale to consider alternatives to Darwin?  The human mind is naturally speculative, why thwart it?  Yet there is palpable resistance to such speculation.  There is certainly no institutional support for the sort of fundamental speculation you see on these pages.  And one does not have to be a brain surgeon to understand why.  

Civilization has always been a precarious balance of competing forces, as is all of nature.  Just ask Darwin.  New ideas can and have disrupted that balance.  Ask any scientist, politician or theologian.  In fact, the outstanding standoff, the one that actually defines modernity, is the balance between science and religion.  That armistice is based on one speculative metaphysical idea: the Cartesian dichotomy of mind and matter.  

It is true that many scientists and philosophers are being paid to nibble around the edges of that dichotomy.  The result of all that nibbling seems only to have been a reinforcement of Descartes' original intuition.  Not too surprising considering the sponsors.  Nonetheless, the apparent intractability of the Cartesian gap is a thorn in the side of evolution.  A thorn not diminished by time.  

The amazing and accelerating progress being made in molecular genetics across the entire spectrum of evolution, is serving to highlight the Cartesian gap in our understanding of the natural order.  There has also been considerable progress in neuroscience, but none that speaks directly to the Gap.  There has been comparable progress in Artificial Intelligence, but that too has provoked no new insights into the Gap.  There is no discernable research program that directly addresses the issue.  No such program has even been suggested that has been endorsed by anyone beyond its original proponent.  Behaviorism and functionalism are the apparent exceptions, but the wide consensus is that they are failed stratagems aimed primarily at ignoring the problem. 

David Chalmers' characterization of this Gap as the toughest intellectual challenge ever, has been widely touted.  No one has offered a cogent demurral of this characterization.  

At some point we will give up nibbling at this problem.  There are already clear signs of fatigue on the part of even the most conscientious nibblers.  If nibbling won't suffice, there is but one reasonable alternative.  Swallow the problem whole.  Such a strategy can only be based on an essentially non-reductive metaphysic.  But what is that? 

There is plenty of talk these days of emergence.  What is that?  It is non-reductive metaphysics.  If it is the answer, what sort of answer is it?  The basic issue is whether the term 'non-reductive naturalism' is oxymoronic or not.  Is it fair to say that modernity hangs in this balance?  Almost certainly.  

By definition, emergence cannot be explained from the bottom up.  It is non-reductive.  But what would a natural explanation look like?   There seems only to be the hope that a lot of little gaps will add up to the big Gap.  Voila, the big Gap is reduced to little gaps, and modern life proceeds: business almost as usual.  

There is a slight problem.  No one agrees on how even to begin to carve up the mind.  The mind has no agreed upon joints or seams.  This fact does not bode well for naturalism.  How do we begin to explain the mind if we cannot begin to analyze it.  If nibbling doesn't work, people will try gobbling.  But there is no evidence that anyone has even gotten their teeth into the problem.  Non-reductive naturalism appears to be a non-starter, when it comes to dealing with the problem it is intended to solve.  If nature tolerates one indigestible entity, the next entity in line will be the whole mind.  

But wait.  Is there not clear evidence that mind evolved?  Yes, as long as we don't make the additional Cartesian assumption that all other animals are insentient.  There is no clear reason for assuming that the snail's mind is not some fraction of ours. So there!  We just have to figure out which fraction it is.  And there's the rub.  How can we speak intelligently of any scheme of fractionation without penetrating the mind in question?  And, yet, even with all the benefits of language, to what extent can we penetrate our own individual minds or those of our closest acquaintances?  We have another non-starter.  

[I have a theory that snails are smarter than humans.  Snails exist almost entirely in their collective unconscious, which ought to be rather more capacious than our individual consciousness.  QED.] 

Anyone for brain surgery?  That is where we are with neuroscience: reasonably sophisticated brain maps, correlated with a spectrum of subjective experience.  Those brush strokes are so broad that we cannot even distinguish between the connectionist and computationalist aspects of the mind, except to realize that neither model nor any combination of them is making sense or even getting us to square one with natural intelligence.  Is there some new breakthrough model out there just waiting to be discovered?  If it is non-computational, non-connectionist, non-reductive, non-local, non-verbal, non-mechanical, etc., aren't we running out of possible metaphors?  This is why, in our desperation, would-be cognitivists turn to the strangeness of the Quantum in what appears to many as a last resort of naturalistic(?) speculation.  But the Quantum is a decidedly mixed bag for naturalists.  Its paradoxical reliance on observational processes and openness to unobservable processes renders it rife for dualistic speculation.  But that is why it is so attractive to its proponents.  

I'm not suggesting that naturalistic research be terminated.  The naturalists should be given more than enough rope to hang themselves.  We non-naturalists can afford to be generous in that regard.  History indicates that research programs almost always implode from within (pleonastically?).  What I am suggesting is that, Golly, maybe we should think about alternatives to naturalism.  And, Gosh, what might those be?  Let me think.  Non-naturalism?  How about something with a bit more of a ring to it? 

But never mind.  Heck, I kinda like being the only (Is it a fact?) non-naturalist speculator on the Web.  It's a conversation piece at cocktail parties or a great pick-up line.  And enough of this frivolity! 

[12/16] 

East & West?  This was supposed to be the topic.  

I have remarked previously on the seeming unfairness of the prophetic tradition.  Prior to the advent of the electronic media, prophecy was a decidedly local phenomenon.  'Accidents', speaking colloquially, of birth and history would be paramount in determining who had access to what traditions.  However, given Universalism, these 'accidents' are rectified in the end.  

One of these 'accidents' was the compartmentalization of the prophetic and pantheist or immaterialist traditions.  Had there not been this compartmentalization, there would not have been the opportunity for a dramatic convergence of the theist and pantheist traditions, attendant upon the exhaustion of materialism: a dramatic turn toward theistic idealism providing an intellectual revolution that would be integral to a messianic or parousiac event.  The working out of the mutual completion of those two traditions would be nearly universally accessible in real time.  Everyone could participate in one manner or another.  

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Topical Index

12/13/02

Topical Index

11/15/02

Creation & Maya 

[A brief summary appears at the end of the page.] 

I have previously broached the subject of Creation on several occasions.  Here I hope to look at it particularly from the contrasting views of the prophetic and pantheist, or Eastern and Western, traditions.  

My second favorite Creation story is that of Vishnu dreaming up the world.  This has always made a lot more sense to me than the various other creation stories that generally depict God as an artisan rather than as author or inventor.  A typical example is the story in Genesis of God creating Adam out of clay.  I recall that there are two separate creation stories in Genesis, and the one referenced is the second, and perhaps earlier one.  But probably the most 'primitive' of known stories, and my all-time favorite, is from the Australian aborigines where there is simply a reference to the primordial 'dreamtime'.  I don't recall that there was any specification of a particular dreamer.  The implication is that it was all beings.  This is even closer to my immaterialist, participatory view of the matter.  Obviously I will need to brush up on my Creation stories, and I like to think that able assistance will be on the way, once Google wakes up and smells the BPW, but I may just be dreaming! 

Several things need remarking.  Hinduism is generally regarded as atheistic, so the popular myth above that casts the Vishnu as Creator confirms the pluralist tolerance of the East.  Nonetheless, it is peculiar how the contrasting stories of dreamer vs. artisan so clearly demarcate the monism and dualism of the East and West respectively.  Hopefully we can eventually get a handle on which came first: the metaphysical ethos or the creation narratives.  I wouldn't put is past the Creator to have planted the respective narrative seeds, just with the immanent dramatic convergence of the parousia in mind.  Or it could be that the Aborigines have been the most conserving of the one aboriginally planted story, out of Africa: the rest being various ad hoc emendations.  Further historical research is clearly indicated. 

With these preliminaries behind us, it's time to Google on Creation (12,000,000 hits).  I guess we'll have to be a bit more specific: 

Aboriginal Dreamtime (4,500 hits).  Vishnu’s dream (23 hits).  (The more orthodox Hindu view of the origin of the world is maya or illusion (48,000 hits)). 

Hinduism by Joseph Campbell: 

Hence, we are all one in Vishnu: manifestations, inflections, of this dreaming power of Vishnu; broken images of himself rippling on the spontaneously active surface of his subtle mind stuff. Moreover, this sleeping god's divine dream of the universe is pictured in Indian art as a great lotus plant growing from his navel. The idea is that the dream unfolds like a glorious flower, and that this flower is the energy-or, as the Indians say. the shakti or goddess-of the god.

[12/18] 

The following are extended excerpts taken from seven sources on the maya & illusion list.  These are mostly for my own record.  Following the excerpts will be a discussion of them.  You are invited to skip ahead several screens to the discussion, and then refer back to the excerpts as appropriate.  

Maya- The Grand Illusion:

Maya or illusion is a very potent instrument of the Divine Prakriti, the Primal Nature. Through the force of illusion, It holds the beings under its sway. 

The beings under illusion cannot see the Invisible God and so they cannot correctly comprehend Him. They cannot see Him in all and all in Him.

It is possible to overcome the influence maya by following the teachings of Lord Krishna taught to Arjuna in the middle of the battle field. By following the Gita, one can develop stability of the mind, through the control of the senses and desires; become a humble devotee of God,

MAYA AND ILLUSION -- Swami Vivekananda

Much later on, in one of the latest Upanishads, we find the word Maya reappearing, but this time, a transformation has taken place in it, and a mass of new meaning has attached itself to the word. Theories had been propounded and repeated, others had been taken up, until at last the idea of Maya became fixed. We read in the Shvetashvatara Upanishad, "Know nature to be Maya and the Ruler of this Maya is the Lord Himself." Coming to our philosophers, we find that this word Maya has been manipulated in various fashions, until we come to the great Shankaracharya [Sankara (c.700-750 CE)]. The theory of Maya was manipulated a little by the Buddhists too, but in the hands of the Buddhists it became very much like what is called Idealism, and that is the meaning that is now generally given to the word Maya. When the Hindu says the world is Maya, at once people get the idea that the world is an illusion. This interpretation has some basis, as coming through the Buddhistic philosophers, because there was one section of philosophers who did not believe in the external world at all. But the Maya of the Vedanta, in its last developed form, is neither Idealism nor Realism, nor is it a theory. It is a simple statement of facts--what we are and what we see around us.

Thus we find that Maya is not a theory for the explanation of the world; it is simply a statement of facts as they exist, that the very basis of our being is contradiction, that wherever there is good, there must also be evil, and wherever there is evil, there must be some good, wherever there is life, death must follow as its shadow, and everyone who smiles will have to weep, and vice versa. Nor can this state of things be remedied.

Thus the Vedanta philosophy is neither optimistic nor pessimistic. It voices both these views and takes things as they are. It admits that this world is a mixture of good and evil, happiness and misery, and that to increase the one, one must of necessity increase the other. There will never be a perfectly good or bad world, because the very idea is a contradiction in terms.

Attempts have been made in Germany to build a system of philosophy on the basis that the Infinite has become the finite. Such attempts are also made in England. And the analysis of the position of these philosophers is this, that the Infinite is trying to express itself in this universe, and that there will come a time when the Infinite will succeed in doing so. It is all very well, and we have used the words Infinite  and manifestation  and expression, and so on, but philosophers naturally ask for a logical fundamental basis for the statement that the finite can fully express the Infinite. The Absolute and the Infinite can become this universe only by limitation. Everything must be limited that comes through the senses, or through the mind, or through the intellect; and for the limited to be the unlimited is simply absurd, and can never be. The Vedanta, on the other hand, says that it is true that the Absolute or the Infinite is trying to express itself in the finite, but there will come a time when it will find that it is impossible, and it will then have to beat a retreat, and this beating a retreat means renunciation which is the real beginning of religion. Nowadays it is very hard even to talk of renunciation. It was said of me in America that I was a man who came out of a land that had been dead and buried for five thousand years, and talked of renunciation. So says, perhaps, the English philosopher. Yet it is true that that is the only path to religion. Renounce and give up. What did Christ say? "He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." Again and again did he preach renunciation as the only way to perfection. There comes a time when the mind awakes from this long and dreary dream....

We see, then, that beyond this Maya the Vedantic philosophers find something which is not bound by Maya; and if we can get there, we shall not be bound by Maya. This idea is in some form or other the common property of all religions. But, with the Vedanta, it is only the beginning of religion and not the end. The idea of a Personal God, the Ruler and Creator of this universe, as He has been styled, the Ruler of Maya, or nature, is not the end of these Vedantic ideas; it is only the beginning.

http://www.totallyok.com/secret/056r.htm:

Sankara says with senses there is no possibility to know whether the thing confronting you is real or unreal. And if there is no possibility to know whether it is real or unreal, Sankara calls it MAYA: it is illusion. Illusion doesn't mean unreal. Illusion means an impossibility to decide whether it is real or unreal -- remember this.

In Western languages MAYA has been translated very wrongly, and it gives the feeling in Western terms that "illusion" means "unreal." It does not! "Illusion" means the inability to decide whether the thing is real or unreal. This confusion is MAYA.

Try to understand this: I may dream in the night that I have become a butterfly, and I cannot decide in that dream whether this is real or unreal. In the morning I may be puzzled like Chuang Tzu whether instead the butterfly may have been dreaming. These are two dreams, and there is no way to compare which is real and which is unreal.

But Chuang Tzu is missing one thing -- the dreamer. He is thinking only of dreams, comparing dreams and missing the dreamer -- the one who dreams that Chuang Tzu has become a butterfly, the one who is thinking that it may be quite the reverse: that the butterfly is dreaming that she has become Chuang Tzu. Who is this observer? Who was asleep and is now awake? You may be unreal, you may be a dream to me, but "I" cannot be a dream to myself, because even for a dream to exist a real dreamer is needed. Even for a false dream a real dreamer is needed. Even a dream cannot exist without a real dreamer. So forget dream. This technique says forget dream. The whole world is illusion, you are not. So don't go after the world, there is no possibility to gain certainty there. And now this appears to be proven even by scientific research.

If the whole world is unreal, then there is no shelter in it. Then you are moving after, following shadows, and wasting time and life and energy. Then move inwards. One thing is certain: "I am." Even if the whole world is illusory, one thing is certain: there is someone who knows this is illusory. The knowledge may be illusory, the known may be illusory, but the knower cannot be. This is the only certainty, the only rock on which you can stand.

This technique says look at the world: it is a dream, illusory, and nothing is as it appears. It is just a rainbow. Go deep in this feeling. You will be thrown to yourself. With that coming to one's own self, you come to a certain truth, to something which is indubitable, which is absolute.

Maya: 

Thus the world of experience the world of discernment is an illusion. For nothing in it has a real or separate existence in its own right. Ultimately there is something behind the world that cannot be perceived by the eyes or the senses. It is knowledge and discernment of its elements that generates maya the world of illusion. Of course this illusion itself comprises also the perceiver which makes things even more difficult. For the perceiver has to - not only free themselves from the illusion of the world that appears to be around them but also from the illusion of the existence of themselves as separate egos -individuals. This is compounded by the fact that even the desire to free them selves of this illusion becomes part of the illusion. The need to achieve to grasp at understanding the problem is also maya.

Maya: 

Maya (Sanskrit: "wizardry," or "illusion") is a fundamental concept in Hindu philosophy, notably, in the Advaita (Non-dualist) school of the orthodox system of Vedanta.

Maya denotes the power of wizardry with which a God can make human beings believe in what turns out to be an illusion; by extension it later came to mean the powerful force that creates the cosmic illusion that the phenomenal world is real.

Maya, as per Hindu thought, is illusion, and what mankind understands to be reality is in fact the dream of Brahma. Brahma is the creator and great magician who dreams the universe into being. The dream itself is maintained by Vishnu, the Preserver, who uses maya to spin the complex web that we know as reality.

It is not that the world itself is an illusion, only our perception of it. Whereas we suppose the universe to be made up of a multitude of objects, structures and events, the theory of maya asserts that all things are one. Rational categories are mere fabrications of the human mind and have no ultimate reality

Advaita & The Bhagavad Gita --  SWAMI B.V. TRIPURARI:

Sankara differs principally from the other schools of Vedanta in that he does not acknowledge the ultimacy of the personhood of Godhead. For Sankara, all is one, and there is no difference. The individual soul is illusory, as is the appearance of God, and the world. Although speaking of a personal God (isvara) and soul (jivatma), Advaita Vedanta in the final analysis denies the existence of both of these truths at the 'paramarthik' (ultimate) level of reality. According to advaita, the material world is also unreal. It exists only as a dream of the imaginary jiva, who can realize that he himself does not exist as an individual or as anything definable (neti neti) by meditating on the illusion of a personal God (isvara, Krsna). As silly as this sounds, Sankara has amassed considerable logic and scriptural references to support his conception. However, unless one has heard at least his basic logic and scriptural twist before hand, it is impossible to arrive at his conclusion from straight forward reading of the Bhagavad Gita. An unbiased reading of the Gita leaves one with God, soul, and real material world, with devotion as the means to liberated life, and the liberated expression of that life. 

At times Sankara associates maya with a power of Brahman, by which he makes the rope of the undivided reality appear as the snake of the manifold world. Brahman is said to engage is this magical act for the purpose of creation, thereby making himself available for the salvation of his devotees. 

It should be obvious that Sankara's explanation of maya creates further problems. To whom or what does Brahman present the illusion of maya? Furthermore, if Brahman is simplisticly one, as defined by Sankara, how can an illusion which is by definition different from Brahman in nature exist at all? If there is no other, as per Sankara, how can Vedic revelation such as the Gita have any meaning, when it presupposes a difference between seeker and that which is sought?

Sankara's explanation of this sutra is his own invention and it departs radically from the text of Badarayana's, in which there is absolutely no mention of anything remotely resembling the notion of a two tier Brahman in the entire treatise. Here Sankara is guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt of attaching his own doctrine to the Vedanta Sutra in order to make the sutras themselves, Vedanta, appear compatible with his own doctrine of advaita!

Concept of "Maya": Vedantic and Shaivistic points of view by Prof. K. N. Dhar

In the earlier Vedas-the first book of Humanity-'Maya' has been used in the sense of supernatural or extraordinary prowess attributed to the pantheon of gods. In more ancient Vedic hymns it is praised as 'world sustaining power'. But the later Vedic literature comprising the upanishadic lore, it began to convey the sense of illusion, though in subdued tones. So, this philosophic content relating to this word, had already been spelt out in the time of Upanishads. The later philosophic treatises in the classical age of Sanskrit must have taken a cue from the meaning attached to this word in the Upanishads and have remarkably kept its intonation in tact.

The logical Realism (Nyaya) of Gautama a virtual reaction against Buddhist scepticism has no concern for this word 'Maya', but substitutes it with the appellations Doubt (Sanshaya), fallacy (Hetuvabhasa) and Error (Mithya Jnana). To speak precisely, doubt is wavering knowledge, Fallacy is inconclusive knowledge and Error is defective knowledge. All these three attributeo of knowledge definitely provide the base on which the superstructure of 'Maya' was installed later on.

As regards Maya, Shankar's [Sankara's] premise is that it is an antithesis of Brahma because of being inextricably connected with the world (Jagat). Brahma is real (Satyam) while world is transitory or unreal (Mithya). It is definitely part and parcel of Brahma-the very basis of creation. As nothing can be created out of a vacuum, in the same way Brahma being the only eternal entity, the world does emerge out of it only. At this stage Ignorance (Avidya) intervenes to confuse the human mind and intellect by mistaking the Finite form of Brahma with its Infinite form. Therefore, ignorance is the progenitor of Maya (Illusion), unreal seeming as real. "Since Maya is deceptive in character, it is called 'Avidya' or false knowledge, it is not mere absence of apprehension but positive error." Toys and pots made of clay, though bearing different names and shapes from each other, are nothing but clay; similarly this 'Maya' through 'Avidya' gives rise to plurality without scanning the inherent unity. When Brahma projects itself into myriad forms and names, or transforms itself into the world; this kind of activity inherently of Brahma is called Ishwara with relation to the world and the power to procreate is alluded to as Prakriti. (Ishwarsya MayaShaktih Prakriti). Therefore Maya is the energy of Ishwara, His inherent force by which He transforms the potential into the actual world." It has no separate identity, it is in Ishwara as heat in fire. Maya through the machinations of false knowledge (Avidya) or erroneous perception (Mithya Jnana) exhibits its modus operandi (Vyapara) in two ways of concealment (Avarna) and misrepresentation (Viksepa). It hides the truth and at the same time mis-represents it.

Non-discrimination (Aviveka) has been explained by its commentator KshemaRaja as follows: "Paramartha Svarupasya Aprathana Svabhavah." The nature of non-projection of the highest form of Truth.

This would clearly denote that the stage of non-projecting or non-extending of the supreme spirit is 'Maya'. In other words, it would connote the inability of the supreme consciousness (Samvit) to transfer its consciousness to the objects around. This kind of non-perception and subsequent non-identification between the self (Atman) and the objects (Padartha) will precisely convey the purport of Maya in shaivistic thought: shaivism has treated maya as shakti (Energy), even the primeval Energy or Nature (Mula Prakriti). It is identical with the immanent form of Shiva; His transcendental form is unaffected by it.

This very approach of shaivas marks their fundamental difference with the vedantists. The shaivas take Maya as an inevitable aspect of Shiva when releasing His shakti (Energy) from His fountain-head. Even though He is universe incarnate (Vishvarupa), yet He feels the urgency of creating a universe, so that His shakti (Energy) can have full play. This Maya is called a veritable screen which conceals the real form of things (Tirodhanankari) deluding us into believing the multiform of universe, which in essence is uniform. The moment, the realizer through his perceptive cognition (jnana), takes the blue (neela) and the yellow (peela) as one, and only one entity, the Maya stops her machinations. Therefore shaivas treat Maya as not as unreal but momentary. As against it, the vedantists proclaim that Maya is unreal (Ayathartha), coinciding squarely with their thesis that universe is unreal (Jagat Mithya). Shaiva scholars are at pains to argue that this whole creation is a reflection (Abhasa) of the Super-self which is real, omnipotent and self-dependent (Svatantra): therefore, the relation between the world of appearance ( Vishvamaya ) and that of Transcendence (Vishvoteerna) is that of the reflected object and the reflector. If the reflector is real, how can an object, its reflection, be unreal; since the reflected object has no separate entity from its reflector. Hence Maya has to fulfill her role in transmuting transcendence into immanence. It is thus a veritable hide and seek between the primoridal and subliminal aspects of the same force which is Shiva. Vedantins taking Maya as a perennial deluding force, treat this world as unreal, illusory, but shaivas do not subscribe to this view. As argued earlier, they take this world as real-an image of superconsciousness (Chaitaynam) which to all intents and purposes is self-dependence (Svatantrva) incarnate. Hence shaivas invoke Maya as the progenitor of the world of objects as a whole (Sakala Janani), or as Casual Matrix (Amba). The attitude of shaivas towards the concept of Maya is positive, affirmative in the sense that as long as the equation between shiva and shakti is disturbed, it has to be there. As against this, the vedantins treat Maya as negation of vidya (Avidya).

Shaivas contend that a realizer can attain emancipation while living (Jivanmuktavastha) in this world, that is when his coalition (Jnana) is complete and does not waver in seeming diversity around him, he can attain bliss of unity, being in perfect health, mentally as well as physically. The line of thinking adopted by vedantins is that life being false needs to be abjured, while shaivas treat enjoying life (Bhoga) as a preamble to meaningful renunciation (Yoga). In this context Abbinavagupta has asserted emphatically that this world is essentially Truth. Therefore, in vedantic school of philosophy we come across with a galaxy of ascetics having renounced all earthly concerns (Sanyasins), but in shaivism we are confronted with spiritual guides (Acharyas) who have owned life and also have risen above it; with them matter is as important as the spirit.

Hence the conception of Maya as outlined by the vedantists is above the average quotient of intelligence possessed by an ordinary man. Shaivism, on the other band, has given a straight and simple definition of Maya, in consonance with the average intelligence obtaining in an ordinary mortal.

Even though vedantins and shaivas are at variance with regard to the conception of Maya, yet their destination is same-ennobling human intellect and awakening human spirit. This is exactly the rhythmic jingle of the heart-beats of Indian mind from times immemorial. 

Discussion of the previous seven sets of excepts: 

Toward the end of the last set of excerpts, Prof. Dhar states that the more pessimistic, vedantist view of maya is reserved for the intellectuals, while the more optimistic, shaivist view is more suitable for the masses.  A similar polarity is often noted and even touted in the West, as between the atheist intellectuals and the theistic masses.  There is a twist however.  The secular intellectuals in the West tend to be positive about human nature, while the sectarians see human nature, when not imbued with divine grace, in negative terms.  Science, of course, provides no rationale for any value judgment concerning human nature. 

The original meaning of maya was 'magic'.  It referred to the magical act of creation on the part of one or more deities.  As in the West, and with the disenchantment of the world generally, magic became synonymous with illusion.  There are many holding the view that theism is the last modern remnant of this atavistic strain of primitive animism.  On that same scientistic view, the pantheism of the East is less objectionable in that it does not personify its metaphysics.  As a practical matter, however, theism has been rather more hospitable to science than has pantheism.  

The modernists who look upon theism as irrational are making the large and unjustified assumption that intelligence is reducible.  They are betting the world on Artificial Intelligence.  Implicitly they endorse a Transhuman, i.e. non-human, future.  Oh, there may be some token humans, but their fate will be in the hands of the self-reproducing, self-evolving robots.  

They may be right.  However, the combined postmodernist and fundamentalist reactions to the cyborg futurism are holding those scientistic ambitions in check.  And, perhaps more to the point, the diminishing returns in the AI arena are instilling a greater sense of caution in the materialist rank and file.  Finally it is the bare facts of non-reductionist life that are giving pause to the overweening reductionists. 

It is finally on the issue of reduction that theism, pantheism and materialism confront each other over Creation. Only theism offers El Camino Real.  Correction: there are no longer any reductionists [an exception]; it is the question of emergence that has come to the fore.  Stated most bluntly: is naturalistic emergence an oxymoron?  Can emergence replace Creation?  Can emergence replace the 'sky hook', the downward causation, the teleology that is explicit in Creation? 

On the issue of emergence, it appears that the pantheists and postmodernists side with the naturalists in their non-reductive materialism.  

Naturalists believe that emergence is entirely spontaneous.  From the view of complexity theory there are 'attractors' that pull errant system trajectories into their domains under specified conditions of instability, as the system hunts for a new 'dissipative structure' one step further removed from the primordial chaos.  Presumably there exist a non-denumerable infinity of such attractors and structures.  Evolution is the random, stepwise selection of some finite sequence of these potential structures. 

[12/19] 

It appears that Hinduism has been set aside temporarily in deference to complexity theory and dissipative structures (5,000 hits).   But prepare again for a lengthy set of excerpts, mainly for my own benefit.  Once again you are invited to skip ahead to the comments. 

'Existence Itself: Towards the Phenomenology of Massive Dissipative/Replicative Structures' by David M. Keirsey.  I also excerpt from another page of David's. 

There are very few scientists that would admit to being reductionists, but we all are, to a large degree, inheritors of Newton's brilliant mistake [Rosen 91].  But, besides lamenting the sins of reductionism [Rosen 91], [Goodwin 96], [Oyama 86] and pointing out its weaknesses, there needs to be a methodology for going beyond the criticism and helping to generate new ways of understanding and building conceptual models which include the both the characterization of context and the "system" of complex phenomena.

There are many ways to define the word "complexity"[5]. And there many connotations of the word "complexity" deriving from the work trying to answer some basic scientific questions, such as computational complexity, algorithmic information complexity, logical depth [6], thermodynamic depth[7], and effective complexity [4]. All of these usage's are valid and useful for understanding nature, but these usage's of the word "complexity" are sophisticated in ways that are difficult to directly relate to naturally occurring "entities" such as elementary particles, atoms, molecules, cells, and organisms as we know them in the world.

Part of the problem with using the concept of complexity is the problem of defining exactly what consists of "the system" or the entity which encompasses the complexity. We will argue that some delineation's of systems are more natural than others for understanding how the complex things arise, such as living organisms.

'Dissipative structures' by Cosma Rohilla Shalizi: The following is skeptical report on the attempts to analyze or explain emergent structures.  

Ilya Prigogine (NL) coined the phrase, as a name for the patterns which self-organize in far-from-equilibrium dissipative systems. He thinks they're unbelievably important, and says so at great length in his books. Some of us physicists believe him; some are skeptical; I am leaning towards skepticism.

And then there is the matter of [Prigogine's] scientific peers --- not the systems theorists and similar riff-raff, but the experts in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics and pattern formation. One of them (P. Hohenberg, co-author of the latest Review of Modern Physics book on the state of the art on pattern formation) was willing to be quoted by Scientific American (May 1995, ``From Complexity to Perplexity'') to the effect that ``I don't know of a single phenomenon his theory has explained.''

This is extreme, but it becomes more plausible the more one looks into the actual experimental literature. For instance, chemical oscillations and waves are supposed to be particularly good Dissipative Structures; Prigogine and his collaborators have devoted hundreds if not thousands of pages to their analysis, with a special devotion to the Belousov-Zhabotisnky reagent, which is the classic chemical oscillator. Unfortunately, as Arthur Winfree points out (When Time Breaks Down, Princeton UP, 1987, pp. 189--90), ``the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reagent ... is perfectly stable in its uniform quiescence,'' but can be disturbed into oscillation and wave-formation. This is precisely what cannot be true, if the theory of Dissipative Structures is to apply, and Winfree accordingly judges that ``the first step [in understanding these phenomena], which no theorist would have anticipated, is to set aside the mathematical literature'' produced by a ``ponderous industry of theoretical elaboration''.

Somewhat more diplomatic is Philip W. Anderson, one of the Old Turks of the Santa Fe Institute, and himself a Nobelist. I refer in particular to the very interesting paper he co-authored with Daniel L. Stein, ``Broken Symmetry, Emergent Properties, Dissipative Structures, Life: Are They Related'', in F. Eugene Yates (ed.), Self-Organizing Systems: The Emergence of Order (NY: Plenum Press, 1987), p. 445--457. The editor's abstract is as follows: 

The authors compare symmetry-breaking in thermodynamic equilibrium systems (leading to phase change) and in systems far from equilibrium (leading to dissipative structures). They conclude that the only similarity between the two is their ability to lead to the emergent property of spatial variation from a homogeneous background. There is a well-developed theory for the equilibrium case involving the order parameter concept, which leads to a strong correlation of the order parameter over macroscopic distances in the broken symmetry phase (as exists, for example, in a ferromagnetic domain). This correlation endows the structure with a self-scaled stability, rigidity, autonomy or permanence. In contrast, the authors assert that there is no developed theory of dissipative structures (despite claims to the contrary) and that perhaps there are no stable dissipative structures at all! Symmetry-breaking effects such as vortices and convection cells in fluids --- effects that result from dynamic instability bifurcations --- are considered to be unstable and transitory, rather than stable dissipative structures.

Thus, the authors do not believe that speculation about dissipative structures and their broken symmetries can, at present, be relevant to questions of the origin and persistence of life.
Some quotes from the paper itself: 

``Is there a theory of dissipative structures comparable to that of equilibrium structures, explaining the existence of new, stable properties and entities in such systems?''

Contrary to statements in a number of books and articles in this field, we believe that there is no such theory, and it even may be that there are no such structures as they are implied to exist by Prigogine, Haken, and their collaborators. What does exist in this field is rather different from Prigogine's speculations and is the subject of intense experimental and theoretical investigation at this time.... [p. 447]

Prigogine and his school have made a series of attempts to build an analogy between these [dissipative far-from-equilibrium systems which form patterns] and the Landau free energy and its dependence on the order parameter, which leads to the important properties of equilibrium broken symmetry systems. The attempt is to generalize the principle of maximum entropy production, which holds near equilibrium in steady-state dissipative systems, and to find some kind of dissipation function whose extremum determines the state. As far as we can see, in the few cases in which this idea can be given concrete meaning, it is simply incorrect. In any case, it is clearly out of context in relation to the observed chaotic behavior of real dissipative systems. [pp.454--455]

'The Self-Made Tapestry: Pattern Formation in Nature' by Philip Ball: reviewed by Shalizi: 

In particular, Thompson made a point of not invoking natural selection, indeed of leaving any kind of history out of the story. ``A snow-crystal is the same today as when the first snows fell'': so, too, the basic forces acting upon organisms, so why bring history into it? The early years of this century are littered with biologists with little use for natural selection; they are now almost all deservedly forgotten. Thompson owes his continuing influence to the fact that his alternative doesn't beg questions at every turn.

Since Thompson's day, then, there has been a tension in the study of morphogenesis between evolution and (other kinds of?) self-organization, and this is one of Ball's themes, though not the leading one. Partly it is an argument about logical and theoretical questions --- what is natural selection competent to explain? what features of organisms could not be modified by selection? to what extent is self-organization unavoidable? --- and partly it's about where the balance between self-organization and evolution lies in actually existing organisms.

The case for the self-organizers can be put very strongly, at least for multicellular organisms, for metazoans. These are not bloated sacks of protoplasm but (as the biologist say) ``differentiated'' --- there are different chemicals in different parts of the body.

So there has to be some particular differentiating influence. It cannot be the genes (on which natural selection acts), since genes only encode information about proteins, i.e. about what chemicals to make, not where to put them. So it would seem that differentiation, morphogenesis, must be due to some internal process, some reaction of the proteins and their associated chemicals which sorts out what goes where; but this is to say that there needs to be spontaneous pattern formation, that development must be self-organizing.

It may, admittedly, look like we're in trouble with some obvious facts, that this argument leaves genes and natural selection with no purchase at all on morphogenesis. But not even the most enthusiastic of the self-organizers, the ones with the least use for Darwin (e.g., Brian Goodwin) goes that far. [...]  The genes twiddle the knobs, so to speak, and then let self-organization do its voodoo.

This is a pretty convincing line of argument; at least, I'd like to think so, since it convinced me for years. No longer; let me try to say why with a fairly concrete example.

The experimental study of biological development is more than a hundred years old now, and advances in it fill scores of fat journals every month. In all this vast wealth of detail, there is not a single case where a kind of self-organization proposed by theorists has been confirmed (though there are a few likely-looking candidates), and many cases where self-organization is definitely known not to take place. As the old joke says, ``If it's slimy it's biology, if it stinks it's chemistry, and if it doesn't work it's physics.''

This doesn't mean, of course, that the whole exercise has been a waste of time, much less that there is no role for theory in developmental biology, that the current find-a-gene-sequence-it-and-move-on mania is the last word on the subject. Between the DNA and the extra fingers there are a whole host of biophysical problems from the shapes of molecules to the mechanical properties of muscles which we need to solve before our knowledge of morphogenesis will be reasonably complete. As a theoretical physicist interested in biology and anxious about long-term employment, I find this comforting.

Shalizi is a self-avowed reductionist working out of the Santa Fe Institute.  His pessimistic outlook on his own field of physicalistic explanations of emergence warrants consideration.  He has not given up on reductionism, but he is not hopeful that anyone will find the formula for self-organization.  

Evidently there are dynamically stable structures in the world, but very few of them show promise of physical explanation.  Where does that leave the naturalists?  It leaves them uncomfortably near to their vehemently disavowed vitalist forerunners, but still on the lookout for strange attractors (102,000 hits):  

Complicity and the Brain- Dynamics in Attractor Space -- Peter Henningsen: 

Section 2 builds on the book ``THE COLLAPSE OF CHAOS'' by Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart, who bring a refreshing new perspective to bear on the science of complexity. They complement the standard paradigm of reductionism that explains the behavior of a system through the interaction of its parts with a view that takes into account constraints imposed on a system by its interaction with other systems. Similar complementary views of the process of self-organization were developed by Ilya Prigogine, who pursued the bottom-up, reductionist approach, and Hermann Haken, who focused on how global attractor states constrain the possible dynamics of subsystems. Cohen and Stewart make a good case that the reductionist approach to complex systems is one-sided, and try to map out the territory from which a paradigm complementary to reductionism might emerge. They introduce some useful new terms, such as features and complicity, for which we give a short introduction here.

It appears that I will need to become familiar Robert Rosen's work: 

ROBERT ROSEN: THE WELL POSED QUESTION AND ITS ANSWER-WHY ARE ORGANISMS DIFFERENT FROM MACHINES?  by Donald C. Mikulecky

2.1.4 Final cause and anticipatory systems

With a little more imagination we can construct interesting descriptions of systems this way in which, as in the example of the house above, final cause carries a connotation of anticipation with it. This idea is highly developed as a characteristic of complex systems by Rosen. It is important for this discussion to note the way in which causes become mixed in a complex system. This is in distinction to the way they stand separate in simple mechanisms (Rosen, 1985, 1991). The way that final cause and anticipation are realized is in the ability of complex systems to incorporate a model of their environment into their behavior. This allows them to anticipate future events and to also correct their behavior as new information sheds light on the anticipatory process. One simple example of such a system at the level of metabolic processes has a mechanistic realization that has been examined in some detail (Rosen, 1985, pp 349-354; Mikulecky, 1993; Prideaux, 1995)

Another facet of final cause being acknowledged is the recognition that future events can cause present behavior. In the case of final cause and anticipation, the causality flows backwards so to speak. What would have once sounded like mysticism becomes perfectly reasonable in a dynamic system. The nature of causality introduces this new directionality in time in a way that the Newtonian Paradigm made impossible.

2.2.3 The [Metabolic, Repairing] system as a relational model of the organism

The History of relational models goes back to a seminal paper by Nicholas Rashevsky wherein he made a radical change in his approach to living systems (Rashevsky, 1954). After pioneering most of the mechanistic models we know about today, including reaction-diffusion systems and artificial neural networks as far back as the 1930s, he took stock of what he had learned and realized that he was not any closer to understanding what living systems were all about. He then decided to take an entirely new direction. His goal was to keep the organization of the living system while basically throwing out the physics. His tool for this was topology.

[...]  The concept of analytic models that do not reduce to synthetic models captures this formally. The task then is to formulate an analytic model of the organism that captures the organization even if it must sacrifice the physics. For this task, category theory is the method Rosen saw as capable of doing exactly what he wanted. He applied category theory to the (M,R) system to answer the question of why an organism was different from a machine.

More information on Robert's ideas is available at Robert Rosen - Understanding Life and Physics, and Anticipation.info. 

Rosen, Moltmann, and the Anticipatory Paradigm  -- DAVID C. COTTINGHAM (1990): 

This article begins with discussion of Robert Rosen's  Anticipatory Systems, outlines the concept of biological modeling processes, and connects the notion of anticipatory model with the notion of psychological archetype. The Great Mother is given as example. Rosen is cited on the distinction between teleonomy and teleology. Jurgen Moltmann's theology is referred to, in particular his idea that the universe is an anticipatory system.  Telos is proposed as a unifying term. The paradigm is then applied to biblical hermeneutics, with typology seen as anticipatory progression; the raising of archetypes into succession of new contexts. The conclusion ties the three approaches together. 

On semiosis, Umwelt, and semiosphere -- Kalevi Kull: 

A cognitive turn in biology can be foreseen very soon. At least, this is an impression readers of Jesper Hoffmeyer's (1996) book on an approach to biosemiotics may get. The term 'cognitive turn' in this context is taken from psychological thinking a couple of decades ago, when the prevailing behavioristic approach was to a great extent replaced by another model of research, allowing methods and criteria which would not be accepted by behaviorists as 'scientific'. Since then, developments in psychology have been very stormy, paradigm changes became a common thing in the science of mind. In biology, the situation has been much more stolid and unexciting. The sound achievements of molecular biology have met with little enthusiasm among true theoreticians. The Darwinian view, in its neo-Darwinian versions, dominates in universities all over the world. The proponents of the power of natural selection have developed its logical consequences in regard to society and ego (e.g. in sociobiology by E.O. Wilson, or gene-ethics by R. Dawkins), and this has cemented the Darwinian monolith. Opportunistic voices have been rare, and have mainly been restricted to continental Europe and Russia (e.g., the nomogenetic view of L. Berg, A. A. Lubischev, S. V. Meyen in Russia, and its parallels in the West - cf. Brauckmann, Kull 1997). However, only a few of these voices have been based on a belief in the methods developed in the humanities, which have been applied to the solution of biological problems via the epistemic renewal of methods.

We're waiting, too.  A big question to my mind is when will the people in the consciousness movement take this 'cognitive turn' and realize that their compartmentalization of the 'hard problem' can only result in dualism. 

[12/20] 

Back to the lists:  Robert Rosen & biological (580 hits): 

Review of Incursive, Hyperincursive and Anticipatory Systems - Foundation of Anticipation in Electromagnetism by Daniel M. DUBOIS: 

The main purpose of this paper is to show that anticipation is not only a property of biosystems but is also a fundamental property of physical systems. In electromagnetism, the anticipation is related to the Lorentz transform. In this framework the anticipation is a strong anticipation because it is not based on a prediction from a model of the physical system but is embedded in the fundamental system. So, Robert Rosen's anticipatory systems deal with weak anticipation. Contrary to Robert Rosen's affirmation, anticipation is thus not a characteristic of living systems. Finality is implicitly embedded in any system and thus the final cause of Aristotle is implicitly embedded in any physical and biological systems, contrary to what Robert Rosen argued. This paper will review some incursive and hyperincursive systems giving rise to strong anticipation. Space-time incursive parabolic systems show non-local properties. Hyperincursive crisp systems are related to catastrophe theory. Finally it will be shown that incursive and hyperincursive anticipatory systems could model properties of biosystems like free will, game strategy, theorem creation, etc. Anticipation is not only related to predictions but to decisions: hyperincursive systems create multiple choices and a decision process selects one choice. So, anticipation is not a final goal, like in cybernetics and system science, but is a fundamental property of physical and biological systems. 

Is this a neo-reductionism or something more transcendental?  It may be in the eyes of the beholder. 

Robert Rosen argued also that anticipatory systems are characterized by finality and connected to the fourth final causation of Aristotle. So, scientists believe that the finality of anticipatory living systems deals mainly with cognitive sciences in relation to language, intention and conscious. I will show that final conditions are implicitly embedded in any mathematical models and are related to the Maupertuis least action principle in Newtonian mechanics and quantum relativist physics. 

Yes, and shades of Leibniz.  It would be amusing if mechanics were found to be irreducible in this fashion.  Any formal system is, almost by definition, unnatural and unphysical to a significant degree.  This has to do with the irreducibility of any semiotic system, including language, mathematics and logic.  This semiotic irreducibility is at the heart of failure of Analytical Philosophy and Artificial Intelligence.  It is synonymous with the irreducibility of reasoning.  That mechanics is unnatural should not be a surprise.  The bottom line, however, is that Nature must be unnatural in some very significant sense.  How could this be?  It pertains, at least in part, to the impossibility of distinguishing between the epistemic and the ontic, rather in the fashion of Quine [and here].  This despite Quine's compulsive posturing as a naturalist.  

What Daniel is doing here is old news to physicists, as he readily acknowledges.  The 'absorber theory' of radiation goes back at least to Wheeler and Feynman in the 1940's.  Why has it taken this long to make the connections?  One reason is that the Absorber Theory was always considered an embarrassment to Physics, because of it's obvious 'unnaturalness'.  The same is also true to a degree of the least action principle.  One could say that Leibniz went off that 'deep end'.  This is all about the BPW, etc.  The time for the rest of us to take the Leibnizian leap is drawing nigh. 

Along these lines I recommend you peruse the following seminar outline: Phenomenological Foundations of Cognition, Language, and Computation organized by Terry Winograd. 

Then check out CYBERNETICS & HUMAN KNOWING A Journal of Second Order Cybernetics, Autopoiesis & Cyber-Semiotics.  

http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/humanmarkup-comment/200203/msg00002.html

I know what you have said to be true. The motivation of the true founders of Topic Maps clearly had a grounding in the social and cognitive realities of what should be, but is not, regarded as the nature of "ontology" by the IT standards folks. 

The point that I have for so long suffered the TM community with is that the market forces distort the original intent of anything that is properly having of a "epistemic" gap between one complex subject (a human) and the computer world. We forget about the Nash equilibrium theorem, and a whole host of other "stratification" considerations. We forget about Wittgenstein and Whorf. We forget about Robert Rosen and Roger Penrose. We forget about all cognitive science except that fringe that cow tows to the IT influence lobby at NSF/DARPA and to the strong AI Dream (that a machine can think and that a machine is the proper model for studying biological intelligence.) Write the AI Dream in you NSF proposal and get funded. But flip this, and write that IT should more deeply adopt the biological model of intelligence and you are wasting your grant writing time. Yes?

Tell me about it!! 

The notion of an non-addressable subject is the notion that the problem of ontology is not reducible to what exists in the machines. yes? The insistence in no way changes the reality that the topic map was supposed to have the nature of a mental event. Late binding of scope is the core technical issues that can not, in theory, be resolved. Wow, a unsolvable problem. And one that we can define a cottage industry around!!!

The work on visual abstraction can be viewed at: http://www.ontologystream.com/SLIP/index3.htm where we have free software for research purposes. The export of formative ontology into a Topic Map with HyTime rendering of actionable affordance is reasonable; but would take anyone who worked on this away from the demands of these powerful social forces (such as the CIA representatives etc.) intent on reductionism. Someone needs to hit them folks over the head and tell them that their view of the world is a national security vulnerability. Other systems of ontology representation in Russia, for example, is specifically open as a conscious attempt to over come the Western IT infrastructure in time of a great war. (This goes back to the very large programs funded in since the 1960s). These systems have not been economically viable for reasons that have to do with the selection of which innovation school gets funded by capitalists.. so the deep struggle between capitalism and socialism is a root cause of the vulnerability. 

Capitalism may lose on this one. 

Nature does not and will not take sides on this one. Scientific and methodological reductionism linked to capitalism and then put in control of our democracy defines the vulnerability, and there is simply no relationship between Paul Prueitt and the fact that this vulnerability has existed and will continue to be a problem for the Nation.

Love that politics!!  Somewhat less demagogically, this has more to do with Descartes than with Capitalism, per se.  Capitalism is really just along for the ride.  What the capitalists don't know is just about everything.  They just work here.  The only reductionism they can grasp is just the bottom line. 

Ontology Based Document Understanding -- Paul S. Prueitt, PhD: 

Differential ontology aids text summarization and generation systems as well as text translation and situational modeling. The theory of process compartments, each compartment having its own ontology, provides a means to ground differential ontology to compartmentalized network dynamics. A mathematical framework based on weakly coupled oscillators illustrates the variety of structural outcomes from differential geometry. If ontology is associated with a compartment, and multiple compartments are possible, then the theory of process compartments provides a means to understand why some concepts are easily translated while others might not be translatable without significant effort. However, the assumption that multiple compartments exist is not justified easily. 

The nature of paradox, complementarity and emergence have physical correlates that are studied at the quantum level by physicists. It is not too much to expect help from this community. Quantum physics is a mature science that has faced a number of hard problems of this type. We can borrow some of the formal tools, developed to study elementary particle interaction, and extend quantum mechanical analytical methods to address the hard problems found in computational document understanding. First, we borrow the notion that a finite and quantal distribution of possible interpretations is driven by an underlying, and knowable, organization of the world. This enables the disambiguation of meaning, in most cases. In cases where novel emergence must occur in order to find an appropriate container for representation; then we hope to use the notion of entanglement and the formation of a new compartments through complementarity and observation. 

Dmitri Pospelov identified, in the early 1960s, a flaw in modern control theory based on formal systems. Independent Western researchers, like Robert Rosen, have also identified this flaw. Formal systems require a closure on what can be produced from rules of inference about signs and relationships between signs. This means that the formal system, no matter how well constructed, will not always be able to perfectly model the changes in a non-stationary world. Biological systems, however, are capable of constructing new observables through a process of perceptional measurement. How is this accomplished? 

Mind: a site dedicated to exploring.  This one covers some familiar bases. 

And one may wonder if the AI freaks will ever come around: Living Machines: Overview -- Rodney Brooks:

Perhaps we are missing something fundamental and currently unimagined in each of our various models of behavior, perception, cognition, evolution, natural selection, morphogenesis, etc. If this turns out to be true, then we will need to have some new ways of thinking about the issues of living systems if we are to make progress. This would be disruptive to all the sciences of living systems. 

---------------------------------

Summary: 

Its getting time to wrap up the page.  Has anything been learned?  

We have learned that Hindu metaphysics comes in many varieties, including theistic and atheistic.  One of these two has a more positive, constructive outlook.  Is there doubt as to which that is? 

In the East, idealism is implicated primarily with the concept of maya.  The Hindu philosopher most closely associated with the concept is Sankara who espoused a non-theistic Advaita (non-dualist) Vedanta.  His teachings were part of the Hindu reaction to the once dominant Buddhism.  His reaction against the Buddhist idealism left the concept of maya somewhat obscure, at least to my thinking.  

India's closest approximation to pure idealism is to be found in the Yogacarin Buddhist teachings of Vasubandhu who lived in the fifth century CE.  Clearly our sojourn to the East remains far from complete, but being able to focus on these two names should expedite our next expedition. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I am gaining further appreciation of the increasing incursions of semiotics and old-fashioned rationalism into the former bastions of AI.  The one-time reductionists are taking up the cause of biosemiotics with vigor.  Rodney Brooks' Living Machines project is a case in point: a decisive departure from what used to be Artificial Life.  Attempts by the Complexity Theorists to short-circuit the biological aspects of emergence are proving futile.  The specter of vitalism is readily apparent.  With his teleological interpretations of physics, Dan Dubois is giving Biophysics a whole new meaning.   Seemingly, the Stagirite is poised for a dramatic return; a development which would not surprise his many loyal and patient adherents.  

------------------------------------------

Where does this leave Creation?  It is still in the balance.  

What may be most pertinent is the collapse of the venerable distinction between epistemology and ontology.  Is not this collapse implicit in the ascendancy of semiotics?  If this is correct then the entire phenomenon of emergence can only be regulated by some form of intelligence.  I suspect that the Advaitin non-dualism of Sankara and Vasubandhu may speak to this issue.  If beyond mere emergence, we still find an overriding nomos or logos, then we will have to consider a teleological or eschatological theism.  The logos entails the telos which entails the theos.  The short-circuiting of the logos in the East may not be unrelated to the tension between Sankara and Vasubandhu, between Hinduism and Buddhism. Otherwise, we might have ended with a semi-prophetic Creator, i.e. no messianic second coming, per impossible?  We'll have to consult with Leibniz on that one.  

 

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Topical Index

12/17/02

The Epistemic/Ontic Divide

(So here's the next topical list: epistemic & ontic (980 hits).)

The first hit is on the Islamic Finance Net: The Epistemic-Ontic Circular Causation and Continuity Model of Unified Reality -- Dr. Masudul Alam Choudhury (1994).  My reputation must have preceded me: Masudul is not allowing me to copy anything.  Please, someone, try to understand this essay and explain it to us.  Only skilled typists need apply! 

But I refuse to let Masudul shame me.  My very next opportunity to cut & paste comes from B. G. Montero -- The Epistemic/Ontic Divide (2002).  I must be incorrigible.  Bless you, Barbara Gail!  But, oh dear, even amongst us C&Pers there is honor.  We will not copy w/o cutting, but in this case that may not be possible.  If so, this would be a first.  What greater testimonial?  ....  It turns out that I am spending considerable time with Barbara's essays on various aspects of the mind-body problem.  If she has a definite position on the matter, it is too subtle for me to pick out; however, her characterizations of the physicalists and naturalists as either vacuous or self-contradictory are as cogent as any I've seen.  Her sympathies are certainly not with the dualists.  I gather that she regards the mental as something primordial with the world and not separable from the rest of the world.  Indirectly, then, her arguments count against the Divide.  The essay referred to above considers how the alleged epistemic and ontic gaps figure together in the mind-body debates. 

One place where the epistemic and ontic seem necessarily inseparable is in the close relation between conceivability and possibility.  This fusion, if not confusion, comes out in the arguments over the possibility of zombies.  With this in mind I should once again attempt to comprehend Chalmers' papers on modality.  Last time I got lost in the intricacies of two-dimensionalism.  What will I do when we go to three-dimensions?  A similar lack of separation appears in the 'ontological' proofs of God, and in understanding the import of Aristotle's conceptualism.  

Don't let me forget the Quantum domain, where the entanglement between what there is and what we know remains unresolved.  The ontic status of the collapse of the wave function is the crucial issue.  Associated with the quantum problem is the ontic status of probabilities in general.  

Then we have complexity theory and emergence.  The whole issue of scientific realism hinges on the ontic/epistemic divide with respect to reduction, bringing us back to the mind-body problem.  Further complicating the reductionism issue is the question of direct vs. indirect realism.  

With the ascendance of information theory, once again we are confronted by where to place the divide. Semiotics is a further elaboration, or perhaps a survival course on how to live without the separation. 

And then there was Quine: Philosophical Dictionary: 

analytic / synthetic

    Distinction between judgments or propositions. A judgment is analytic if the concept of its predicate is already contained in that of its subject; if the concepts of its subject and predicate are independent, it is synthetic. Alternatively, a proposition is analytic if it is true merely by virtue of the meaning of its terms or tautologous; otherwise, it is synthetic. For example:

    "Golden retrievers are dogs." is analytic.

    "Dogs enjoy chasing squirrels." is synthetic.

    Empiricists generally suppose that this distinction coincides with the a priori / a posteriori and necessary / contingent distinctions, while Kant held that synthetic a priori judgments are possible. Quine has argued that no strict distinction can be maintained, since the analyticity of any proposition can be denied, with suitable revisions of the entire system of language in which it is expressed. 

The Analytic-Synthetic Distinction- A Critique and an Alternative Hypothesis -- Diana Hsieh (1997). 

Through all of Kant's philosophy, his most enduring legacy has surely been the analytic-synthetic distinction. Disputes over what particular statements are analytic or synthetic aside, most philosophers today accept the distinction, in some form or other, as legitimate. Quine's influential attack on the distinction in "The Two Dogmas of Empiricism" has reportedly had little impact on Kant scholars. Regardless of present-day philosophers' acceptance of the analytic-synthetic distinction, it is clear that it lies at the heart of Kant's transcendental idealism. Without it, his attempt to ground metaphysics in synthetic, a priori principles becomes a meaningless project. But more importantly, criticism of the analytic-synthetic distinction brings Kant's basic views about the nature of concepts and relations between them into question. This examination could be far more devastating, or illuminating, to Kantianism than a simple elimination of the analytic-synthetic distinction.

Remind me to follow up on this. 

-------------------------------------------------

Between Chance and Choice -- Edited by Harald Atmanspacher and Robert Bishop (2002): 

Atmanspacher in his contribution distinguishes between determinism and determinability using a distinction between ontic and epistemic states in physical descriptions. Lombardi, using this same distinction, addresses Putnam’s notion of internal realism in the context of physics, arguing that there is no single, pre-given ontology because the questions we ask, both theoretical and experimental, “cut into” reality in a way determining much of the chosen ontology. What is ontic and what is epistemic depends on the questions scientists ask.

Iceberg Epistemology -- David Henderson and Terence Horgan (c. 2000): 

We suggest thinking of the epistemologically relevant cognitive processes in terms of the metaphor of an iceberg -- the accessible and articulable states that have been the exclusive focus of much epistemology must comprise only a proper subset of epistemologically relevant processing, even as only a part of an iceberg is exposed to view. When one focuses on the interaction of accessible states and articulable information, the structure of epistemic justification looks rather like what has been called structural contextualism.  It might also be called quasi-foundationalist.  Yet, given the sort of creatures we are, in attending to our epistemological tasks we must rely on processing that is sensitive to information that we could not articulate, that is not accessible in the standard internalist sense.  When one focuses on the full range of epistemologically important processes, the structure of what makes for justification may be rather more like that envisioned by some coherentists. 

----------------------------------------

If the separation between the ontic and the epistemic is too great, we fall into skepticism and irrealism.  If the separation is too small we fall into idealism.  Philosophers in the West generally manage to stick to the middle ground, but more than a few, particularly in the East, have strayed into the depths of skepticism and idealism. 

With postmodernism, the middle ground has been widened, under the aegis of a consensual ethos of pragmatic pluralism.  

[However, it is in the nature of pragmatic consensi to be ephemeral.  Under stress, perhaps due to the clash of cultures, there is a tendency toward polarization.  Such forces could not fail to impact metaphysics.  Neutral ground becomes scarce, being replaced by a slippery slope.  In the case of our metaphysical divide there would be a slippery slope from idealism to skepticism.]  This may be true, but it sounds more like a threat than a promise.  Let us stick to the positive.  

Frankly, I expected to find more useful material on the epistemic-ontic list, but the first 200 hits have been pretty sparse.  

How about: mind independent reality (700 hits)?  Noumenal produces 6,300 hits. 

[12/23] 

I will be using the Kant & noumenal list:  

Kant's error by Titus Rivas: 

The author shows that there is a common epistemological basis for Kant's rejection of rational psychology and contemporary identity theory in the philosophy of mind. He shows that Kant was mistaken about his claim that the distinction between noumenal and phenomenal reality would also apply to the conscious mind.  This implies that the identity theory can no longer be upheld, since it rests precisely on such a mistaken Kantian distinction.  The only viable ontologies for contemporary philosophy of mind thereby turn out to be dualism and idealism. 

There's a thought.  Perhaps, more than any, Kant and Descartes are the culprits of modernity, bless them.  Descartes turned rationality against coherence by setting up his mind-matter dichotomy.  Kant then turned against rationality by multiplying the dichotomies to include the analytic-synthetic distinction and the epistemic-ontic divide.  These further dichotomies are alleged to follow from his various 'antinomies of pure reason'.  Rationality never recovered.  Modernity is the triumph of unreason and incoherence.  We have only to look around us to see the Kantian imprint.  If the parousia takes the form of a Platonic 'philosopher king', then Kant would be high on the list of antichrists.  Kant, almost single-handedly, killed philosophy.  It was damnation with his Germanically ponderous, faint praise.  His work may go down in history as the pinnacle of the art of obscurantism.  Most of the ills and excesses of the modern intellect may be laid upon his obfuscation of reason.  Philosophy since his time has run rampant with pettifoggers who rush to hide behind the ample Kantian skirts whenever reason or coherence have attempted to reassert themselves.  Postmodernity is Kant's last hurrah.  And, of course, it was also Kant who wrecked theology.  But without his antichrist as the foil, there could have been no parousia.  It is a small price to pay.  Hegel made a brave, but historically premature, effort to extricate himself from the Kantian morass, and half of his struggle was with that same oppressive language.  I'm surely biased; however, the German language lacked the singular genius of Shakespeare.  The fact that these words can be written and understood universally is owed almost entirely to that one incisively brilliant wit.  In contrast, Mozart was a mere consolation prize.  Billy was God's answer to Babel.  It all went down at the Globe. 

OK, Manny, what the heck did you do with our Imago Dei?  Cough it up, please.  There's a boy! 

Kant's intellectual blow torch, directed against reason, cleared the way for modern atomism.  All we have to do now is pick up the pieces.  

One of the main lessons Kant wants to teach his readers is that, contrary to common metaphysical doctrines, we have absolutely no knowledge of noumenal reality. For example, we don't know if anything noumenal corresponds to the phenomenon of matter. And if there is indeed something which corresponds to it, we have no way whatsoever to find out what it is. Similarly, what phenomenally appears as mind, might in noumenal reality be something entirely different. 

I hope that the epistemological correspondence between this Kantian position and the modern position about the ontology of mind called identity theory, is clear immediately.  Both Kantian and modern identity theory distinguish between mind as it appears to us, from a "first person perspective" ("by acquaintance"), and mind as it is in in itself. Mind can be considered both subjectively and objectively according to both positions. It is hardly surprising therefore if Karl Popper (1977) traces the identity theory back to Kant via Schopenhauer, Clifford, Schlick, Feigl and Russell. 

However, there is an important difference which should not be overlooked. Kant clearly states that one can never know the true nature of mind, only mind as it appears to us. On the other hand, identity theory usually is certain that the true nature of mind is material, that mind seen from an objective ("third person") perspective is precisely the brain or part of it. Kant would doubtlessly characterize the identity theory position as a groundless metaphysical claim of rational psychology. 

Still, the identity theory would be nowhere if Kant could be shown to be wrong in his general rejection of rational psychology. There is something paradoxical about this, because if Kant is right about rational psychology, identity theory would be a form of groundless speculation, as any other type of philosophy of mind would. However, if Kant is wrong about rational psychology, that would mean that we do directly know something about mind as it is, from our private first person perspectives, so that the distinction between phenomenal and noumenal underlying identity theory would collapse. Either way, within the context of an evaluation of the Kantian critique on rational psychology, immediately it becomes surprisingly clear that identity theory isn't viable. 

Philosophy letters- Margaret (4) -- Geoffrey Klempner: 

On Kant's 'Refutation of Idealism': The important thing here is that, despite what he says, Kant is not arguing against Berkeleian immaterialism. (Don't be surprised that Kant misunderstood Berkeley: misunderstanding each other is something that philosophers do all the time, and the 'great' philosophers do most frequently.) 'Dogmatic idealism' the target of his attack is the theory I call naive or 'unrefined' subjectivism; a far cry from Berkeley. The naive subjectivist makes the fundamental error of thinking that one could have a coherent notion of a 'subject' or 'self' without a correlative notion of 'world'. If there is nothing to judge or say but how things subjectively are, then there is nothing to judge or say, period. You can't piece together a self that makes judgments without the notion of correct/ incorrect memory. But the notion of correct or incorrect memory presupposes an account of personal identity or continuity, which in turn presupposes a theory of a world within which the continuing self is located.

The theory of phenomena and noumena is a very different kind of 'rejection of idealism'. Here Kant is rejecting Berkeley, but his reason for doing so is that while Berkeley rightly recognises the necessity of a distinction between our perceptions and what those perceptions are ultimately of (for Berkeley, the mental 'archetypes' or blueprint in the mind of God) where Berkeley goes wrong is in supposing that we can have positive knowledge of such 'things in themselves'. For Kant, noumena are not 'material' or 'mental': we cannot know what they are (or what it is: as Schopenhauer later pointed out, even talk of number is unjustified here).

The difficulty reading the Critique of Pure Reason is partly accounted for by the fact that it was patched together in six months, then hastily revised for the second edition. Apparently, German philosophy students prefer the English translation by N.K. Smith to the German original, with its page long sentences!

Tony Bellotti- Essay 3

The characteristics that Kant placed on noumena leads ultimately to the question of how we can justify a belief in them. Kant argued that they must exist because phenomena are appearances, thus they must be appearances of something, and that something must be noumena. But surely we are not justified in calling them appearances a priori. [....] There is no essential property of phenomena which make them appearances. Ultimately, Kant's noumena are unknowable and, as Russell pointed out, 'the "thing-in-itself" was an awkward element in Kant's philosophy, and was abandoned by his immediate successors'. 

Kant was aware that the external world was limited by our understanding, and noumena are introduced partly as proof of this (i.e. noumena are the limits of human understanding). It is the noumena that play the role of independent existences beyond the thinking subject. They have ontological objectivity (in contrast, for Kant we do not stand in any relation to them, as the very notion of a relation cannot be applied to them). As such it is noumena that Kant needs to defend against charges of idealism, in addition to empirical reality. As they are 'unknowable', it is difficult to know how this defence can be made.

Essay 4

Since "intuition and concepts constitute the elements of all our knowledge" [2; B74], it follows that if object is in neither of these, it must fall outside knowledge. If the object is outside knowledge, then Kant possibly intended it to be the thing-in-itself. So, when I look at my chair, what I am seeing in sensation and conceiving in my mind is mere representation of the chair, which as an object is beyond this representation, and exists as a chair-in-itself. According to Kant, however, beyond our knowledge of the world there is no form or structure, since space and time are properties of mind used in understanding the world. Thus, any thing-in-itself must lack such form and structure. The very idea of a chair-in-itself is nonsense following this reasoning. In general, by "object" we mean some individual thing that exists spatially and temporally in relation to all other objects. So Kant's notion of object cannot be the thing-in-itself after all. As it is not representation and not outside representation, Kant's object seems to be in a kind of limbo.

On Peirce's Four Incapacities of Man -- John F. Sowa: 

So it is best to read the paper on the "Four Incapacities" as a rejection of some of Kant's basic assumptions. One of Kant's distinctions was between the observable phenomena and the "things in themselves", which Kant called the "noumena". Kant claimed that the only things that could be known were phenomena, and the noumena were absolutely unknowable. Peirce called that claim Kant's greatest mistake. His rejection of the "absolutely unknowable" should be viewed as a rejection of Kant's concept of noumena, which Peirce believed is a useless appendage to Kant's theory. In short, it has no explanatory value whatever.

Is there anyone out there defending noumena?  I have yet to encounter such a one. 

Gardening the numinous: 

noumenon (pl noumena) ‘Thing-in-itself’, contrasted with appearance or phenomenon in the philosophy of Kant. Noumena are the external source of experience but are not themselves knowable and can only be inferred from experience of phenomena. Although inaccessible to speculative reason, the noumenal world of God, freedom, and immortality is apprehended through man’s capacity for acting as a moral agent.
[Pan (1979) Dictionary of Philosophy]

Hyponoetics - Glossary:

The intelligible world of noumena is known by pure reason, which gives us knowledge of things as they are. Things in the sensible world (phenomena) are known through our senses and known only as they appear. To know noumena we must abstract from and exclude sensible concepts such as space and time.
(Ted Honderich: The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, Oxford University Press 1995)

Philosophical Critiques- Why Kant is Wrong

Is it not strange that a man of Kant's undoubted intellectual gifts did not notice here an absurd contradiction? Why, he has just finished explaining to us, in great detail, the whole nature of the human mind; and now he concludes that we cannot know the nature of anything!

We merely mention the "antinomies" because we discern in them an element of materialism in the heart of an idealistic theory. This materialism was to appear in full form in later philosophies which took inspiration, at least in part, from the doctrines of Immanuel Kant.

Kant's philosophy is fundamentally wrong and is one of the major contributors to the intellectual insanity which we see today.

I sincerely apologize to anyone who came here thinking they would have an opportunity to personally beat up on Manny K.  You will just have to take a number and wait your turn.  Patience is in order.  

-----------------------------------

Down through the ages philosophers proposed many ways to carve up the world.  Descartes and Kant were the outstanding exemplars of this tradition which culminated in the analytical movement that dominated the first half of the last century.  Analysis finally reached its limit with Quine's holistic thesis.  No division of the world remains credible today.  

A moderate panpsychism or neutral monism is the least radical successor to the analytic, reductionist worldview.  Such a view provides the only common basis for a postmodern, pragmatic pluralism.  

Even a minimal panpsychism is not compatible with naturalism.  Naturalism is an ill-defined, ad hoc position.  It is not unfair to characterize it as incoherent.  I am aware of no detailed definition or comprehensive defense of it.  It is simply a label being deployed to cast a positive light upon what could otherwise only be seen as a disorderly retreat of ex-materialists.  

The label of 'naturalism' conveniently points to what may be the final barrier to be broken: that between the natural and the 'unnatural'(?).  Let me think.....'sub-natural', 'extra-natural', 'quasi-natural', preternatural?  We need a word with more of a ring to it.  Any suggestions?  Why does a certain word stick in our throats?  

What will happen when we finally summon the courage to pronounce this word?  Will the sky fall on our heads?  Will lightning strike?  There is only going to be one way to find out.  After you, Alphonse! 

[12/25] 

My contention is that the failure of analysis leads to the breakdown of all metaphysical barriers and distinctions.  The crucial, and nearly direct consequence of this failure is panpsychism.  This is simply because, with the failure of the analytic movement founded by Descartes and Kant, Kant's notion of a mind independent reality is no longer logically supportable.  That leaves us with panpsychism.  With the advent of panpsychism, naturalism goes by the boards, leaving us to contend with supernaturalism.  

The postmoderns succeed in ignoring this logical consequence of the breakdown of the analytic dichotomies.  How they manage to do so, so blithely, is the mystery that goes with their territory.  It is the skeleton in their family closet.  It is mainly Kant's anti-metaphysical skepticism that is preventing the neo-rationalists from spreading their gospel of coherentism.  From our last Google list it appears that Kant's unwarranted, anti-rational skepticism is serving as a rallying point for a spectrum of rationalists.  How many of these are rational theists remains to be seen, but unless I am badly mistaken it is a very slippery slope from an unadorned anti-skepticism to theism and beyond.  Once people start sliding down this slope, the pace of metaphysics will pick up rapidly.  It is ironic that Kant, in all his negativity, may end up as the point of departure for a cooperative constructive venture.  Being able to see this historical departure in real-time is no small privilege.  The idea of possibly participating in such a venture is not easy to assimilate. 

[12/26] 

I am still using the Kant & noumenal list. 

Kant and the Question of Noumenal Ontology: A Critical Assessment of Kant's Antithetic of Pure Reason in View of his Denial of a Metaphysical Proof for the Existence of God by Mario Derksen

Nothing is more repulsive to a scholastic spirit than an antinomy of pure reason. Throughout the middle ages, philosophers inspired by the Platonic and Aristotelian traditions were convinced that the proper use of reason could lead the intellect to the attainment of the highest and profoundest metaphysical truths. With the advent of the 18th-century British skeptic David Hume, however, this position seemed no longer able to be justified. A radical empiricist, Hume proposed to demonstrate that non-trivial knowledge is in fact impossible. Intimidated by the devastating epistemological conclusions of Hume’s seemingly air-tight logic, the critical idealist Immanuel Kant saw only one way out to save knowledge from utter destruction-by limiting it immensely, basing it on a revolutionary hypothesis, which proved to have a fatal outcome as far as the most important kind of philosophical study-metaphysics-was concerned: it made metaphysics, at least as it had been traditionally understood, impossible, reducing it to mere unverifiable and therefore meaningless speculation.

This forlorn outcome of Kant’s critical philosophy was, though originally unintended, a slap in the face for those metaphysicians who immediately preceded Kant, such as Wolff, Locke, and Leibniz, but it also would have met with serious criticism in the ancient and medieval days of Aquinas, Averroës, Aristotle, and Plato. In fact, throughout the middle ages, metaphysics was considered the “Queen of all the sciences,” and to hurl against it, as Kant did, the charge that it yields only paradoxical conclusions and therefore mere nonsense-at least as far as true knowledge is concerned-would have been the height of impudence for the great scholastics, most notably St. Thomas Aquinas.

It shall be the purpose of this paper to examine Kant’s accusations against traditional metaphysics in light of two of his four “antinomies of pure reason” to see how they, if valid, nullify pre-Kantian metaphysical claims. I shall also attempt to offer a possible neo-scholastic critique of Kant’s antinomies to show a way to rehabilitate the pre-Kantian conceptions of metaphysics at least to a limited extent.

Though Kant himself asserted that he “found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith,” it is important to emphasize that the Christian scholastics would have seen his “faith” as a pure fideism, a distortion of faith, and radically different from that faith which has to rely on divine revelation to come to the knowledge of those truths which reason alone cannot attain, e.g. that God is a Trinity.

Henceforth, science was to be the only path to indisputable knowledge.  However, the postmodern turn would not leave science exempt from a similar skepticism.  This latest development forces us to either capitulate to nihilism or to undertake a complete reassessment of epistemology and ontology.  The only move against nihilism is to shift to a coherence theory of truth, and one that does not exclude teleology, as no complete system can.  There is still ample room for the play of faith, but metaphysical skepticism is no longer ceded the pole position in our quest for truth.  

There are really only two ways to demolish Aquinas’ teleological argument: (1) by claiming that design doesn’t need a designer but could be the result of chance; or (2) by claiming, as Kant did, that there is no design in the world, that it is something merely imposed by the mind.

When the first moon rocket took off from Cape Canaveral, two U.S. scientists stood watching it, side by side. One was a believer, the other an unbeliever. The believer said, “Isn’t it wonderful that our rocket is going to hit the moon by chance?” The unbeliever objected, “What do you mean, chance? We put millions of man-hours of design into that rocket.” “Oh,” said the believer, “you don’t think chance is a good explanation for the rocket [hitting the moon]? Then why do you think it’s a good explanation for the universe? . . ."

[...] Kant asks us to think about how reality might be while at the same time insisting that the only way in which we can think about reality is in terms of transcendentally imposed order and design-which, a priori, eliminates the very possibility of thinking of reality as undesigned and chaotic.

[12/27] 

Let us conclude with Mario: 

However, an attack on Kant’s antinomies is not the only nor perhaps even the best way to critique him, of course. Catholic phenomenologist Dietrich von Hildebrand points out that Kant’s entire epistemology is problematic from the bottom up:

Kant dissolves the authentic meaning of knowledge as the grasping of a being such as it is objectively . . . by replacing it with the notion of the construction of the object. We must stress again and again that this implies an immanent contradiction . . . in the interpretation of knowledge. . . . In claiming to reveal to us the real nature of knowledge, Kant presupposes the notion of knowledge which he denies in the content of his thesis.

Why is it, then, one may wonder, that Kant’s Copernican revolution has found such wide appeal? Why was it so influential? I believe the answer to this is simply that most people thought and continue to think that the only way out of Hume’s dilemma is through Kant, which, however, is not true at all. The true answer to Hume has always laid in the abandoned scholasticism, which seemed obsolete and dry to the moderns, and which, for that reason, they never deigned to look upon or search through in order to find answers. Now it is up to them and to their successors to deal with the Kantian legacy.

I would give Kant a bit more credit.  Metaphysics cannot be the same after him.  There was much room for improvement in the medieval scholasticism.  Hume and Kant force us now to make those emendations. 

--------------------------------------

Here are some significant dates: Descartes: Discourse (1637); Leibniz: Monadology (1714); Hume: A Treatise of Human Nature (1740); Kant: Critique of Pure Reason (1781).  [Hegel: The Phenomenology of Mind (1807); Kierkegaard: Fear and Trembling (1843).] 

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Significant portions of Aristotle and Leibniz will turn out to be our main legacy from the traditional Western metaphysics.  There is a neo-Thomist, Catholic community which is an important cultural artifact, but which is too conservative to contribute to speculative metaphysics.  Otherwise we are faced with a Protestantism that has never been open to philosophy, and, partly as a result, is now mired in controversies over fundamentalism.  Speculative metaphysics is left practically devoid of concerted theological input.  Individuals are free to pursue metaphysics, with very little institutional competition or concern.  By their nature, institutions cannot foresee radical alternatives to the status quo.  

Any sort of intellectual revolution requires an individual charismatic vision.  This is the only manner in which the prophetic tradition has ever been able to renew itself.  This is the singular dynamic element of the West.  Renewal in the East has usually been indirect: Buddhism being the significant exception.  Even with Buddhism, there has been a remarkable lack of coherence in the vision.  Coherence of vision is necessarily a call to action.  It is necessarily evangelical.  Buddhism remained on the contemplative side of metaphysics, mainly by its rather arbitrary renunciation of theism.  I'm not aware of any concerted effort to explain this renunciation.  It was almost surely related to the greater social stratification in the East, but any causal relation is unclear.  

The prophetic phenomenon logically can be universal only in its final phase.  Up until that point, the coverage will be spotty.  We find ourselves on the verge of that final phase.  Many people seem to sense the imminence of some such development, but, of course, the vision awaits the visionary. 

[1/6/03] 

I am wondering about reductionism in relation to math, logic, computer programs, or even individual integers.  An article of possible relevance is: 

Subject Reduction of Logic Programs as Proof-Theoretic Property -- Pierre Deransart and Jan Georg Smausy -- February 6, 2002

It is surprising that this question (of ultra-simple reduction) is not more frequently discussed, or has not already been settled.  There may be a definitional problem for 'reduction'.  Such a problem would constitute a self-refutation: Is the term 'reduction' itself reducible?  Probably not.  There is a continuing philosophical debate as to its meaning.  What is the distinction between ontic and epistemic reduction? 

Is '12' reducible, and, if so, to what?  Pretty obviously it is not.  Certainly 'pi' and sqrt(2) are not reducible.  A configuration of two atoms is not reducible to singletons, because the new relational facts (relative position, velocity, etc.) have to be included. 

- (-1) is not completely reducible to +1.  Is it?  There is some extra semantic (operational?) content to the former expression.  There would even be a semantic distinction between +1 and plain '1', depending on various contextual considerations.  This brings us back to the problem of holism, the problem of the semantic horizon, and even the (impossible?) distinction between syntax and semantics.  Is there such a thing as a purely syntactical system, and what does that mean?  

Are algebraic expressions reducible, or only simplifiable.  There is much difference.  The same distinction holds for formal or functional expressions, programs, models, proofs, types, orders, etc., etc.  There is no question of reduction, per se.  The broader the horizon, the greater or deeper is the potential, irreducible semantic content. 

Considerations such as these should make us wonder that the analytical movement was simply ill-conceived.  Do we understand the real motivation.  It may have been just a filibuster against the inevitable rise of idealism.  Darwin may have been the principle inspiration.  

An analysis of any given expression presupposes what, and is supposed to result in what?  Analysis may turn out to have been a kind of aesthetics: ultimately very subjective in form.  It should be amazing that ecology came as a surprise to most of us.  

How can there be learning without conceptualizing, or conceptualizing without real, irreducible concepts? 

How close did Kant, with his semi-constructivist synthetic a priori, come to Aristotle's Platonic version of conceptualism?  The notion, deriving from Kant, of mind independence is either vague in the extreme, or is simply incoherent.  The recognition of this Kantian failure signals the end of the ontic-epistemic divide, and, concomitantly, the end of naturalism.  

It's all gone, folks.  Three centuries of intellectual effort to eliminate metaphysics has ended by demonstrating its essential, irreducible nature. 

The only remaining question is whether there is any logical or practical alternative to a thorough going coherentism.  The practical implementation of a coherentist initiative ought to be self-organizing, if it is not to be self-refuting.  However, this initiative does seem to be slow in starting.  This hesitation may well reflect the implicit messianic quality of any such initiative.  Once that signal is given and received, there can be no turning back. 

--------------------------------

The reductionism of choice is physicalism.  How may we apply the above points in this case?  Physicalism implies exactness and formality.  Otherwise it is self-contradictory.  

[1/7 --  I was struggling to say something here.  In as much as Physics is formal, it is unnatural, i.e. it is mathematical and conceptual.  However, if it is treated as informal or natural, then it remains open to vitalist influences due to its natural(?) imprecision.  This natural informality of physics overlaps to some degree with the probabilistic quantum realm.  The Quantum is a metaphysically strained attempt to formalize the natural informality of physics.  There is the formal, conceptual or epistemic 'Physics', and then there is the informal, natural or ontic 'physics'.  Non-reductive 'naturalists' are concerned with 'physics'.  Physicalists are concerned with 'Physics'.  Physicalists like to think that Physics is monotonically converging upon physics, but I would suggest that this convergence is only in the manner, that we now see was pure artifice, that the Ptolemaic epicycles were once thought to be so converging.  That was before the Copernican revolution.  We are overdue for an encore.  These pages attempt to outline and expedite that encore.]

[1/7 (cont.) -- Between Physics and physics there is somewhat the distinction as between phenomenon and noumenon.  Kant with his constructivism and conceptualism was struggling with approximately this same problem.  His anti-scholastic politics prevented his taking up the rational coherence proposed herein.  His sophistic anti-rationalism quickly lead to every form of nihilism under the Sun.  That was our darkest hour.  Kierkegaard's Lutheran based anti-rationalism was no small part of this trend.]

Arguments against Reductionism, Materialism and Epiphenomenalism -- Sean Robsville.  This provides some good summaries.  It is written from the point of view of Kadampa(?) Buddhism.  

I am following physicalism and presently re-reading PHYSICALISM, EMERGENCE AND DOWNWARD CAUSATION -- Richard J. Campbell (and here) and Mark H. Bickhard. 

In effect, Kim has identified a reductio ad absurdum of physicalist metaphysics in general. Clearly grasping why physicalism is untenable, however, opens the logical space for a fecund notion of genuine emergence. 

Mark has an interesting list of publications focusing mainly on emergence.  

[1/7]

My objection to Richard and Mark's paper is that they are putting too many eggs in the quantum basket.  I see the quantum as merely symptomatic of immaterialism, but the implication of their focus on it is to make it the basis for a dualistic ontology.  Elsewhere I refer to this as 'quantum dualism' (also here), an important stepping stone toward a robust coherence. 

[See insert above.] 

Why Physicalism and Constructivism Will Never be Able to Understand the Mind -- Riccardo Manzotti (2002): Commentary on Principles of Cognition, Language and Action: Essays on the Foundations of a Science of Psychology -- Nini Praetorius (2001).  (a) 

The book is a sort of epistemological version of the 'naked king' fable. The role of the king is played by the problem of the nature of mind (and therefore of language, meaning, truth). Current scientific or objective epistemology correspond to the esteemed burghers of the city pretending that the naked king was dressed in all his regal finery. Professor Nini Praetorius doesn't share all this admiration and develops an impressive attack on the principal strongholds and tenets of the current theories of mind, semantics and language. First she argues that the old division between materialism and idealism is still alive albeit disguised under the clothes of physicalism (naturalism) and constructivism. Yet, as she claims, even if "we had a much more detailed picture of the intermediate stages of the processes than Locke, we are still struggling with the problems which for Descartes' and Locke's critics were the stumbling block, namely how physico-chemical processes in the organism, no matter of what type, can possibly give rise to the experiences of the every-day world of objects which occur in our consciousness.

[...]  Praetorius looks for a starting point. She finds it in what she defines the principle of the general correctness of cognition and language, called the "Correctness Principle". She claims that we have to presuppose, that we have knowledge of reality and a language which may be used to say something about reality - or of whatever we talk - which is true or correct. If we did not so presuppose, we would not know what we were talking about when we talk about reality, nor about description or propositions about reality which may be true or false. After all, this is a reasonable claim that corresponds to the classic reply against solipsism. If we could say nothing true about reality and ourselves, nor determine the correctness of what we say or know about reality and ourselves, we cannot say anything more, not even about what we do not know.

I am spending time with Riccardo's other publications, hoping to find a convenient summary.  

Intentionalizing Nature -- Abstract for Tucson 2000 (deadline 15 October 1999)

In this paper an attempt to found reality on intentionality is presented. Instead of trying to naturalize intentionality we try to intentionalize nature. That is to develop a framework in which intentionality is the most elementary component of reality and nature derives from it.

Several solutions have been proposed to fill the void left by the mind (emergent properties, functional states, linguistic entities, information processing, and material objects among the others). Unfortunately, it can be shown that it is impossible to define such entities without falling into some kind of dualism or without adding new ontological ‘realms’ (as Frege did). Besides, these entities require conscious observers in order of being meaningful. As a result, the separation between the ontological and the epistemological problem has been one of the main sources of controversies by producing several apparently unsolvable problems, including the mind-body problem and the related problem of how it is possible to naturalize intrinsic intentionality, and inasmuch, to explain representation (in the sense of Kantian phenomenon) in a purely extensional world.

Given these premises, we argue that, although it is impossible to naturalize intentionality, the solution is to intentionalize nature (equal to reality). Reality, as it is experienced, is the result of what we are and of what we are in relation with. Nothing can be said of being without being in relation with something . . . To represent this fundamental reality, a new unifying principle called intentional relation, capable of being the foundation of epistemological and ontological framework, is introduced.

By using the intentional relation it is possible to produce a constitutive theory of the self by reconsidering fundamental concepts like reference, meaning, causation, subjective experience, objective knowledge. Because mind is, at the same time, a ‘piece’ of reality and a representation of reality, mind is the natural place in which the question about what there is and about how we know what there is must converge.

Being an event is a condition of existence. It is impossible to be, in any meaningful sense, without being an event too. It is impossible to divide the property of being from the property of being an event, which is something that provokes effects on the rest of the world.  Things are thus derived from events. Further, these last considerations bring us to the natural conclusion that being is being in relation with.  

If this is true in a strong sense, there must be some kind of basic relation between events that must precede any possible attempt of description in terms of objective entities (which should be entities belonging to the ontological dimension limited to those entities describable by the objective side of the epistemological dimension). Besides, if all that matters about the true being of something is its being in relation with, the power of this copula is strengthened to its maximum. It would mean that being is identical with being in relation with. A natural consequence is the introduction of a label to identify this elementary relation. We call it the intentional relation, ...

In other words, causation is the perceived intentional relation between two basic events.

This is simply relationalism.  I find it difficult to distinguish relationalism from idealism, and I'm not aware of anyone who so claims, aside from the Platonic tendency to treat ideas atomistically, which is incoherent.  Riccardo's attempt to discover a universal elementary relation seems ill-conceived.  Relations are not likely to be compositional in any useful sense. 

I see that Riccardo does not conceive of a primordial self.  The self is alleged to be derivative.  It will be useful to understand his rationale for the avoidance of the logical primacy of the self. 

Papineau, David, Thinking about Consciousness, (OUP 2002}, previously mentioned here.  Another of his books: Philosophical Naturalism (1993). 

[1/8] 

As I continue to peruse the physicalism list I am struck mainly by the fragmentation.  It seems to be a case of dog eat dog in the metaphysical arena of mind vs. matter.  There are barely any identifiable research programs.  Even the same authors reserve the right to frequently change their minds on basic issues.  If there is some combination of ideas that has not been touted by someone, it is not for the lack of trying.  

Is this just the perennial disarray of philosophy or are we witnessing a significant interregnum?  I opt for the latter.  A little bit of coherence could go a long way amidst the rampant incoherence.  

Physicalism and Its Discontents, eds. Lower & Gillett (CUP 2001) (reviewed here by Bernard Linsky), gives as coherent an account of the current scene as any.  Its title accurately captures the ambient malaise.  Here's Bernie: 

One prominent variant is to argue that while mental properties are distinct from physical properties, they nevertheless supervene on them. This might be because the physical properties are the “realizers” of the proper functional role or in some other way constitute the higher level states. The greatest number of the articles in this book criticize these alternatives, claiming that supervenience is somehow untenable, or that in fact it is [in?]compatible with physicalism. The less popular alternative to physicalism is to argue that there is simply no contact between mental properties, attributed by psychological theorizing, or “folk psychology”, and the properties of physical theory. The other part of the defense of physicalism, then, is to attack this view. These defenses of physicalism are generally sweeping, handling several sorts of resistance at one time, lumping them together a bit more than one would like. 

Part II, titled “Physicalist Discontents”, contains defensive replies to physicalist arguments, insisting that functional or other higher level properties might well enter into causal relations and be legitimate parts of the physical world, without having to be seen as reduced or reducible to lower level physical properties. There are no Cartesian dualists, and indeed only the faintest hint of epiphenomenalism. Everyone in this section pays some lip service to physicalism, yet still resists. Perhaps the book would better be titled Reductive Physicalism and Its Discontents.

There is a tone of battling programs here rather than detailed argument and reply.

The physicalists continue to gerrymander physics into impossible contortions in attempting to force it through the burning hoop that is the mind.  They would much rather reside in this frying pan than leap into the fire of immaterialism.  

But now let's get back to David for a moment.  He has two theses: the historical inevitability of physicalism, and his message to its army of in-house critics: 'get over it.'  There is the not very subtle sub-text: 'It's Us or Rust.'  Yes, there is much to be discontented with in physicalism, but this is where history has brought us, and you will not undo physicalism without overturning history.  This is rather in keeping with the eschatological tenor of rational theism, wouldn't you say? 

David is pleading for an end to the debate: not on any rational grounds, but purely out of respect for the sweeping course of history.  This has indeed been a long march into materialism.  David only covers 300 years of it.  This sojourn could as well be projected right back to the dawn of history.  

If there is any light in the spirit, then surely we look for a new dawning.  For what does David look?  He is simply marking the territory that is the end of reason, and, perforce, the end of history.  There is no pot of gold at the end of his rainbow.  Is there one at ours?  Well, either faith and hope are God given, or they are not.  According to David, les jeux sont fait.  

 

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On the Side of Reason

Perhaps a few years from now, we will be willing to agree that David Papineau may be afforded the singular distinction of having had the last word for materialism.  There is the expression, 'It's all over, but the shouting.'  Well, David's ought to be and can be the last shout. 

David did not even have to shout.  He had only to, very candidly, admit that materialism spells the end of reason.  Ever since materialism raised its head at the dawn of philosophy, there have been few illusions about its ultimate hostility to reason.  So what is new with David?  

Here's what: history.  David clearly senses an historical precedent.  Everyone agrees that the mind itself is the last frontier of materialism.  David has only to side with the 'mysterians', which he does in a muted fashion, and then to put this position into its proper historical context, which is also done in a low-key, but, nonetheless, unmistakable manner.  The resulting eschatological message is almost subliminal; it may not even have been deliberate, but is better transmitted for not having been so.  This is pure, totally innocent, eschatology, and so it may be seen as such only when viewed in retrospect.  

End of story?  No, just the beginning of the end.  Only the Millennium now stands between us and God.  David's message ought to be the signal that frees us to turn our minds and hearts to the imminence of the Millennium.  If I am unable to act accordingly, it will just be another one of probably many missed opportunities.  It will then only signal, once again, my lack of faith. 

------------------------------------

Where to, with the Millennium?  Nowhere for now.  I have said most of what I can say.  I just keep hanging out here waiting for some action.  I can only wait for more people to opt for coherence.  The world will beat a path to whomever can spell out the most reasonable and coherent cosmology.  Google should make it easy for us coherentists to cohere.  I am not the only one who senses the materialist blood in the water.  Materialism will be an easy act to follow.  Many would-be visionaries hang out their shingles on the Internet.  One of us will be the first to break though the noise and skepticism.  This may already have happened, but I have not spotted it.  I may be looking in all the wrong places, but there are only so many words that a radical coherentist can avoid using, and that Google can miss.  If I don't have a decent handle on that venue, then I have surely missed a calling.  

Every morning is a new day.  Every time I put a search term into Google, I know that it could be my last blind search.  It may not sound like much, but I do have that much faith.  It would not take many of us to turn the Internet around, and to light the lamp of reason that will never be extinguished.  It is a new day in a new year,  and my patience persists.  For what more could anyone ask? 

----------------------------------------

Perhaps the next step is to give a synopsis of rational theism.  What is its motivation and what are its consequences?  

[1/9] 

In a seemingly paradoxical fashion, it is the rise of science that may be most closely correlated with the decline in our regard for human reason.  As already pointed out, Kant is the pivotal figure in this reversal of fortune.  But to get a better handle on Kant we must consider his intellectual milieu, the Enlightenment: 

Bernard de Fontenelle, popularizer of the scientific discoveries that contributed to the climate of optimism, wrote in 1702 anticipating "a century which will become more enlightened day by day, so that all previous centuries will be lost in darkness by comparison." Reviewing the experience in 1784, Immanuel Kant saw an emancipation from superstition and ignorance as having been the essential characteristic of the Enlightenment. [Britannica 2001, here & ff] 

Before Kant's death the spirit of the siècle de lumière (literally, "century of light") had been spurned by Romantic idealists, its confidence in man's sense of what was right and good mocked by revolutionary terror and dictatorship, and its rationalism decried as being complacent or downright inhumane. Even its achievements were critically endangered by the militant nationalism of the 19th century. Yet much of the tenor of the Enlightenment did survive in the liberalism, toleration, and respect for law that have persisted in European society. There was therefore no abrupt end or reversal of enlightened values.

The perceptions and propaganda of the philosophes have led historians to locate the Age of Reason within the 18th century or, more comprehensively, between the two revolutions--the English of 1688 and the French of 1789--but in conception it should be traced to the humanism of the Renaissance, which encouraged scholarly interest in classical texts and values. It was formed by the complementary methods of the Scientific Revolution, the rational and the empirical.  Its adolescence belongs to the two decades before and after 1700 when writers such as Jonathan Swift were employing "the artillery of words" to impress the secular intelligentsia created by the growth in affluence, literacy, and publishing. Ideas and beliefs were tested wherever reason and research could challenge traditional authority.

The scholars of the Enlightenment recognized a joint inheritance, Christian as well as classical. In rejecting, or at least reinterpreting, the one and plundering the other, they had the confidence of those who believed they were masters of their destiny. They felt an affinity with the classical world and saluted the achievement of the Greeks, who discovered a regularity in nature and its governing principle, the reasoning mind, as well as that of the Romans, who adopted Hellenic culture while contributing a new order and style: on their law was founded much of church and civil law. Steeped in the ideas and language of the classics but unsettled in beliefs, some Enlightenment thinkers found an alternative to Christian faith in the form of a neo-paganism. The morality was based on reason; the literature, art, and architecture were already supplying rules and standards for educated taste. 

[...]  The philosophes knew enough to be sure that they were entering a new golden age through rediscovery of the old but not enough to have misgivings about a reading of history which, being grounded in a culture that had self-evident value, provided ammunition for the secular crusade. 

"The new philosophy puts all in doubt," wrote the poet John Donne. Early 17th-century poetry and drama abounded in expressions of confusion and dismay about the world, God, and man.  [...]  The method expounded in [Descartes'] Discourse on Method (1637) was one of doubt: all was uncertain until established by reasoning from self-evident propositions, on principles analogous to those of geometry. It was serviceable in all areas of study. There was a mechanistic model for all living things.

A different track had been pursued by Francis Bacon, the great English lawyer and savant, whose influence eventually proved as great as that of Descartes. He called for a new science, to be based on organized and collaborative experiment with a systematic recording of results. General laws could be established only when research had produced enough data and then by inductive reasoning, which, as described in his Novum Organum (1620), derives from "particulars, rising by a gradual and unbroken ascent, so that it arrives at the most general axioms last of all." These must be tried and proved by further experiments. Bacon's method could lead to the accumulation of knowledge. It also was self-correcting. Indeed, it was in some ways modern in its practical emphasis. Significantly, whereas the devout humanist Thomas More had placed his Utopia in a remote setting, Bacon put New Atlantis (1627) in the future. "Knowledge is power," he said, perhaps unoriginally but with the conviction that went with a vision of mankind gaining mastery over nature. Thus were established the two poles of scientific endeavour, the rational and the empirical, between which enlightened man was to map the ground for a better world. 

Reason has never recovered from the debacle that followed the Enlightenment.  Was this the failure of reason?  No, it was the arrogance of reason.  The failure of the Enlightenment stands as a great lesson concerning the evil that can result when reason denies its own source.  

Human reason does not naturally deny its source.  It has to be provoked, and mightily provoked it was by the sectarian history that preceded the Enlightenment.  

Until the final revelation, the prophetic tradition stands on the authority of God, as defined by its prophets.  Recognizing its own prophets was the major challenge facing this tradition.  Another problem is that all prophets cannot be equal.  If history is to have meaning or value, then it can only be in the context of a progressive enlightenment of humanity.  This observation can even be inverted: the very idea of a universal history originated in the prophetic context.  

It is only with the Enlightenment that the notion of a progressive history became self-conscious.  If only the Reformation and the Enlightenment could have conspired, might not much of the evil of the past two centuries been avoided?  If this were, indeed, the Best Possible World, would that not have been the scenario of choice?  Why was this hope seemingly held out to us and then taken away?  Why could not this final revelation have come at least two centuries earlier? 

The real question thus becomes, Why couldn't history have ended at least two centuries earlier?  That question becomes much more difficult.  It is tantamount to asking, Why history?  Why creation?  The final revelation answers that question. 

But there is a caveat.  History is the story of our separation from and then our rejoining with God.  This is the fundamental premise of all prophecy.  It has never been a secret.  The function of the final revelation is to convince the world that history is coming to its logical conclusion.  The subsequent Millennium is just that reasonably protracted concluding phase.  It is the grace period in which all our unfinished business is finished.  All our debts are settled.  A thousand years should be considered as a reasonable upper limit for this denouement and rapprochement. 

The final revelation makes sense of history and creation.  In this regard, there is just one little secret that is not really a secret, but which, nonetheless, must be officially 'revealed'.  Creation is not gratuitous.  As I will continue to emphasize, without a Creation there is no Creator.  Even God cannot ignore that simple, analytic tautology.  Indeed, creation is the primary function of any self-respecting god, nay, of any god. 

But there is more to this non-gratuity than mere tautology.  There is the pantheist insight that Creation is the essence of God.  In some sense, God = Creation.  Having achieved this mystical insight, pantheists, much too often, go on to devalue creation, history, life, God.  They set their spiritual sight on a realm beyond the tangle of Creator and Creation.  How many of us have never contemplated the trading of life for nirvana?  One can hardly blame them.  N.B., however, mystics are much less inclined to suicide than the general population.  That should tell us and them something.  The life of the mystic is about as far from being absurd as one can get.  No small paradox, that! 

Hinduism had its combined Reformation and Enlightenment in Buddhism.  It was, like our own Enlightenment, eventually rejected.  Why?  I'm afraid that the answer was all too mundane.  Buddha was unable to overcome the Caste system.  (Has Jesus fared better?  You'll have to be the judge of that.) 

But was that Buddha's fault?  No.  You will have to blame it on the system, the system of Creation, not Caste.  Buddha somehow had to play the logically scripted role of the non-prophetic prophet.  This might actually have been a greater spiritual challenge than anything on the other side which was naturally meant to be more straight forward.  Just ask me about straight forward! 

Creature and Creator are essential to each other.  Why have the authorities always gone to such lengths to obfuscate this simple fact?  The authorities take it upon themselves to intervene between creature and Creator, a role that is not entirely at odds with the prophetic process of mediation.  Thus we have the 'divine mandate' of popes and kings.  The Cabots speak only to the Lowells, and the Lowells speak only to God.  That is not supposed to be a two way street, we think.  We like to have our kings be kingly and our presidents be presidential.  If today the President called you to ask for your advice on Iraq, how would you feel?  You might feel just a bit put out.   Then imagine if it were God on the other end of the line.  Let the preachers preach so that the rest of us can mind our own business, thank you.   

The final revelation is that we are all in this little boat together, and I do mean 'little'.  Creation may not be perfect, but it is the best one possible, and I do mean 'one'.  There is no second best creation.  There is no second best creator.  Secondness is the beginning and end of all incoherence, nay, of all absurdity.  The Savior and Santa Claus are not the same.  Santa Claus has to jump down every chimney.  The Savior has but one.  Ours was it.  Despite the superficial materialist appearances, there is no spiritual redundancy in the Cosmos.  There is only that supposedly mysterious second and final coming that we are about to witness in all of its down-to-earthiness.  The final coming is meant precisely to break the seal of Creation.  The key is in our own, oft-maligned minds, hidden in plain sight.  It is just our universal power of reason -- a reason that knows only one authority -- love.  That is our ticket to heaven.  

Do you feel less than convinced?  Well, don't take my word for it.  Go talk to David.  His is the last word for materialism.  Does that spell the end of reason?  No, that is just the beginning of a universal reasoning no longer cowed by the specter of atomism. 

[1/10] 

Since at least the time of Bertie Russell, The Analysis of Mind (1921), folks have turned to 'neutral monism' as a means to avoid the incoherence of materialism and dualism, without having to embrace the dreaded immaterialism.  

David Hume, an 18th-century Scottish skeptic, developed a theory of knowledge that led him to regard both minds and bodies as collections of "impressions" ("perceptions"), the primary data of experience. Bertrand Russell, a 20th-century British logician and philosopher, called the neutral entities "sensibilia" and argued that mind and matter are "logical constructions." William James, the American pragmatist, held that the neutral primary stuff is not a series of atomistic perceptions but is a "booming, buzzing confusion" that he termed "pure experience," with mind, or consciousness, and body as names of discernible functions within it.

Neutral-monist theories have been criticized as inadequate in their account of either mind or body. Hume himself said (A Treatise of Human Nature) that his concept of mind as a bundle of perceptions inadequately accounts for the identity and simplicity of the mind. Others have criticized the notion that physical bodies comprise some sort of primary experience as implicitly idealistic. Hence, the central problem for neutral monism is seen as that of specifying clearly the nature of the neutral stuff without qualifying it in an exclusively mental or physical fashion. [Britannica 2001]

Neutral monism has taken a variety of forms, but mainly those of phenomenalism and, more recently, informationalism.  This latter form covers David Bohm's 'implicate order' by which he attempted to provided a 'hidden variables' interpretation of the Quantum.  Even the standard Copenhagen interpretation is virtually a neutral monism.  I would submit that panpsychism and pantheism, when not purely immaterialist, are versions of neutral monism.  Kant's noumenal realm is yet another version.  

More to the point, naturalism and even non-reductive physicalism strongly overlap with neutral monism. Unless one is able to pretend that there is a very strict epistemic/ontic divide, then one is bound to deal with some form of neutral monism, at the least. 

Let's see now.  We are left with naturalism and, of course, supernaturalism.  Off to the side is immaterialism.  Supernaturalism is, to most folks, the same as dualism.  If we shuffle these three cards once again we get neutral monism, dualism and idealism.  The theistic dualists hold the incoherent wild card.  If they ever saw the light of coherence available in idealism, our premillennial game would be over.  Most theologians verge on idealism, but they will not confront the scientific establishment.  The Creationists do that, but they are wedded to their dogmatic dualism .  Without foreseeable support from the non-rational theists, we immaterialists must be the ones to confront the naturalists with their own incoherence.  That is the only opening for rational, ideal theism.  [Confrontation?  Maybe just a nudge in the right direction.] 

The naturalists fall back on the limited coherence of the scientific cosmology.  Their weakest link is in explaining the evolutionary emergence of the mind.  Except for the few remaining non-reductive physicalists, most naturalists assume a neutral monism that is tantamount to panpsychism.  

It seems to me that it is a very slippery slope from naturalism to vitalism to panpsychism to pantheism to panentheism to a monistic theism.  Where the naturalists find themselves on this slope is not something they are wont to advertise.  No thoughtful naturalist could be unaware of this slope and of the non-existence of any logical retaining wall on their side of theism.  They just see no reason to brag about the logical tenuousness of their position.  Darwin and the Big Bang are their fortress.  It seems a formidable fortress until one inspects its foundation. 

There are mountains of evidence supporting the scientific cosmology.  Those mountains may be shifted with one's little finger.  This is accomplished by yanking the materialist rug out from under the scientific edifice.  The smallest amount of panpsychism may then provide the grease to set that edifice adrift.  It might as well be floating in mid-air, which is exactly the claim of immaterialism.  It's all in the mind, be it cosmic mind or whatever.  

Is there no alternative to panpsychism for the naturalist?  What about all those dissipative structures and spontaneously emergent properties of the complexity theorists?  The issue we found there was whether there can be non-trivial self-organization without a non-trivial self.  

Biology is replete with apparently non-trivial emergent properties.  But, by definition, an irreducible property is unexplainable scientifically.  It cannot be explained by physics.  The realm of the irreducible, should it not then be identified as some sort of projection of Kant's noumenal realm?   

All of the emergent properties of which we shall ever have cognizance will pertain to living systems.  If their noumenal source is other than some kind of vitalism, we could never know it.  Naturalism tends naturally to vitalism.  Do the naturalists deny this?  Not to my knowledge.  They simply don't brag about it. 

But now it gets worse.  There are a plethora of irreducible emergent properties with which we happen to have more than a nodding acquaintance.  These are the states of our own psyches.  It is often suggested that this acquaintance is so intimate that it is, at the least, unimpeachable.  No one can vouchsafe our own mental states.  Indeed, our own mental states may not even exist outside of our experience of them.  Thus do we see how vitalism naturally and easily spills over into panpsychism.  

There are caveats.  We have to consider unconscious mental states, as well as the possibility of an artificial intelligence. 

---------------------------

[from the PDA, not wanting to break the natural (sic) flow]: 

Friday, January 10, 2003

6:05:51 PM

·         [@GreenSpring Courts]

·         There are caveats.  We have to consider unconscious mental states, as well as the possibility of an artificial intelligence. 

·         [from 'On the Side of Reason' page.]

·          

·         These two considerations may be related. 

·         The computationalists like to think that our uCs is where the bulk of our information processing takes place.

·         It is only our HOT's ['higher order thoughts'] that become conscious.

·         Once again we find a possible venue for Kant's noumenal realm.

·         Naturalists can avoid vitalism only if connectionism or computationalism can take up a significant amount of the noumenal gap. 

·         There are strong indications that these approaches are mutually negating.  Only if some unknown amalgamation of them can be concocted, is there a way out of this logical dilemma.

-------------------------------------

My claim is that 'strong' AI is the only thing that stands between naturalism and vitalism or panpsychism.  Thus is strong AI  the last retaining wall on the slippery slope from naturalism to theism.  

Once theism is back on the intellectual radar screen, immaterialism will then have its entrée onto that same screen.  And once theism and immaterialism can no longer be intellectually dismissed, rational theism, as herein specified, will come into its own.  This will complete our premillennial phase.  

This is the most likely foreseeable course of events.  The timing is now the last unknown.  Within this decade?  How about 2012 as the drop dead date?  Let's give the Mayans their due.  Why not?  If we can bring it all in before then, well, so much the better.  (And how many would-be cosmologists can say that only their ol' man knew D-day?  Crypticism was never my strong suit.) 

--------------------------------------

Here's a page for the record; this was on the neutral monism list: Neutral Monism & the Mind/Body Problem.  This page is from the Holoweb.  It belongs to Keith Choquette.  Notice the similarities and differences between our two sites.  So near yet so far?? 

[1/11] 

Let me attempt to recapitulate yesterday, as well as some earlier material.  I think there has been some progress in my assessment of the tenuousness of our scientific grip on reality.  

A significant factor is that the materialists have run out of ideas.  The more thoughtful and candid amongst them, Jaegwon Kim and David Papineau are conspicuous examples, have admitted as much.  They have run out of new arguments without making any significant dent in our natural, non-materialist intuitions concerning the nature of our own minds.  The philosophical ball is now officially in the court of the non-materialists.  And this is just for starters. 

The complexity theorists are also running out of ideas for explaining the emergence of novel properties in complex systems, despite the tremendous advances in our computational ability to model such systems.  As if to add insult to this injury, the Artificial Intelligentsia is now picking up the cause of ontology that had been dropped by the philosophers.  They are looking at the minimum, irreducible ontologies that must be posited so that we can move ahead with our knowledge enhancing systems.  Philosophers ought to be taking notes.  

The philosophers who are taking note are the Continental semioticians.  The phenomenology minded semioticians are effectively ganging up with our own computational ontologists to roll back the Anglo-American initiative in analytic philosophy that dominated our academies in the last century.  

Lacking any analytical alternatives, philosophers are reluctantly being pushed toward logical synthesis and metaphysical emergence on a number of fronts.  Notions of vitalism and panpsychism are being reconsidered with what some might consider alarming regularity by our workaday philosophers.  

For the modern non-materialists, the metaphysical battle is now theirs to lose.  Barring some totally unforeseen change of fortune, the momentum is increasingly and very perceptibly shifting away from materialism.  Looking back, with 20/20 hindsight, one can almost pinpoint the turning point as having occurred at mid-century: W. V. Quine (and herein) (1908-2000), 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism' (1953).  Did Willard sense the magnitude of what he had wrought.  Only privately, if at all.  He was no evangelist and surely no eschatologist.  All the more for the rest of us! 

[1/12 -- Many folks would place the discovery of the Quantum, at the turn of the last century, ahead of any philosophical development in helping to reverse the fortunes of materialism.  There is a cottage industry of Quantum Minded physicists, formerly led by David Bohm, and now by Sir Roger Penrose and Henry Stapp.  Keith Choquette's  Holoweb site provides an excellent synopsis of these developments occurring on the fringes of Physics.  His book, The Holonomic Paradigm: Biophysics, Consciousness and Parapsychology (2002), goes into much greater detail.  I take exception.  Yes, me, with my two master's degrees in Physics, beg to differ with some of the greatest minds in that field.] 

This turning point came despite, and, one is tempted to speculate, almost because of a continuing wave of startling advances on the scientific and technological fronts.  Only now, at the bi-millennium, is this wave beginning to dissipate.  A thoughtful person could have anticipated that science might be working itself out of its own job.  Either science would naturally find its own limitations, or the worst nightmares of transhumanism would quickly be descending upon us.  Oh, yes, there are plenty of self-styled 'futurists' out there who keep the transhumanist faith, and you are very welcome to do the comparison shopping, but I don't think you have to be a brain surgeon to sense that their faith rings hollow.  The human intellect and spirit are restless.  If the 'futurists' cannot offer us new nourishment, we will be, and we are, moving on to other pastures, other futures. 

-----------------------------------

I just got a response from Keith inviting me to peruse his material.  Here are some excerpts from his Overview and the succeeding pages: 

Ilya Prigogine, the Nobel prize winning chemist, is a colleague of Pribram's and has written on the relevancy of chaos theory to Bohm's physics. In his work on chaos theory, Prigogine described the spontaneous reorganization of far from equilibrium systems. The emergence of correlations far from equilibrium due to fields that were ineffective in a less chaotic system is the same principle that Bohm appeals to as the basis of effects from hidden variables of the holonomic order. Subtle fields impose an unexpected order on chaotic systems through a top down constraint upon the system. Bohm refers to the emergence of correlations between electrons in superconductive material at very low temperatures as one example. Pribram also describes the holoscape as a chaotic system, susceptible to the same sort of top down constraints.

[...]  Much as Copernicus taught us that the earth is not the center of the world, the holonomic paradigm indicates that the world manifest to our senses and our instruments is not the whole world but only a corner of a vast reality beyond what has been imagined.

[...]  Based upon that assumption and the data of recent studies, Puthoff has gone on to describe basic properties of matter such as mass, inertia and gravity in relation to this zero-point field. Others have suggested that the hidden energy of the vacuum develops a pronounced coherence in living organisms and bears upon life processes in important ways, even as the basis of consciousness.

[...]  Consciousness is a fundamental part of reality in Walker's theory. There can be nothing physical according to Walker, without consciousness to complement the physical potentialities and bring them to actual physical states. Does this mean that there was no physical reality until the evolution of conscious observers? Not according to Walker, because consciousness was always present in the world, right from the big bang

[...]  Consciousness does not emerge from the physical forces recognized in the standard model. Rather consciousness is a hidden variable necessary to accommodate the data of physics....

[...]  Pribram argued for a pluralistic monism in which "informational structure" remains neutral to the apparent distinction between mind and matter. He goes on to note that the implicate order Bohm described introduces such information structure in the hidden variables of the implicate order, beyond the material system.

[...]  Yet when one looks back to the dawn of the scientific age and the presentation of Newtonian physics, it is easy to understand how the enthusiasm of the scholars of that time fueled new hope that everything about the physical world would be comprehensible to human reason. The age of enlightenment ensued and the match between a rational world and the rational observation of it seemed perfect. Einstein once said "The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible". The holonomic paradigm suggests that what can be comprehended is really just a small corner of a vast reality reaching beyond the stars, forever hidden behind the veil.

-------------------------------------------

Keith, 

Please excuse this open response.  I will post your reply only if you desire. 

Why the pessimism?  I agree that reality vastly transcends the built-in limitations of any purely objective science.  But this deeper, implicate order to which you and many others expectantly refer: what is its nature?  Is it not much closer to the nature of mind than of matter?  You say that the implicate order is responsible for the self-organizing potential of matter.  Is it not likely or conceivable that much or even most of our own mental processes are embedded in the implicate order, beyond the structures of space and time?  Is not such a collective mental field necessary to explain the data of parapsychology, not to mention psychology and biology?   

The fact that we cannot drag our scientific instruments into this domain, is hardly cause for despondence.  Our most powerful instrument of discernment is already ensconced in the heart of that noumenal world.  For what more could we ask?  Is it not the birthright of everyone of us to have a ringside seat under the noumenal Big Top?   

I need not point out to you, of all people, that our puny little egos are not the biggest show in the cosmic mind field.  Surely the spontaneous organizing potential of the implicate order has realized mental powers that transcend our own.  In fact, it may well be that our present egos relate to the cosmic mind rather as the mental power of an individual neuron relates to you and me.  Is this cause for pessimism?  Only if we can't figure out how to put our heads together.  Does not the Internet serve as a prime accelerant in this inevitable process of global coherence?  Here we are reasoning together about from whence we have come and whither we shall go.  Our intellectual weblogs may or may not converge.  Those that do converge and cohere are likely to set the pace and tone for what is to come.  

Only a minimal faith in the universal power of reason, as amply demonstrated in mathematics and other fields, is necessary for all of us to win the cosmic mind game.  For what other reason could we have possibly come this far from out of the primordial chaos? 

If that is not good enough, we can always cheat.  A little clairvoyance can go a long way in the teleological field of the implicate order.  If we are not chips off the old block that is the cosmic mind, then someone is trying hard to fool us. All we have to do is collectively remember from whence we came. 

Am I being too optimistic? 

Dan

[1/12] 

I am taking exception to the Quantum Mind brigade.  I have several times favorably mentioned my own experience with what I call 'quantum dualism' (also here and here, etc. I just realized, though, that 'quantum' appears in none of my page titles.  This oversight will have to be corrected.).  I recognize that the main intent of the Quantum Mind people is precisely to avoid Cartesian dualism, and one can only applaud their efforts to this end.  But, as with Bohm, we are left with the explicate and the implicate orders, reminiscent of Kant's phenomenal and noumenal domains.  These domains cannot be treated as ontological equals, despite Descartes' supposition that we could have the equal reality of both mind and matter.  The nascent scientific enterprise was quite happy to grab and run with their half of the ontological loaf.  Only in the last half of the last century did that establishment dare attempt to complete their ontological heist.  

That is water over the historical dam.  The Quantum brigade is resorting to a partial roll-back of the materialist juggernaut, rather in the spirit of postmodern pluralism, i.e. let sleeping dogs lie.  It is my intent to demonstrate that any such partial measure is too little and too late.  We cannot now turn the clock back toward dualism and pluralism.  There is a global need and desire for coherence on all levels.  

But, I will hardly have to lift a finger.  I have only to point to the slippery slope.  Give the psyche an inch and it will take a mile.  If there is an ontological domain for the human psyche in the implicate or noumenal realm that has little or no regard for the limitations of space and time, then surely there is room for supra-human intelligence in that same realm.  

We then have a stark choice to make.  What shall we take to be the primary ordering principle for the cosmos?  Will it be the space-time manifold, or will it be the mind.  Kant and Bohm and many others, including other physicists, have realized that space-time could only play a derivative role.  There had to be a 'pre-geometric' or noumenal order.  Surely the mind, conscious and unconscious, human and supra-human, is a part of this order.  We then need only choose between pessimism and optimism.  The pessimist supposes, with Kant, that the noumenal order is a primordial chaos, almost totally opaque even to the supra-human mind. 

The optimist finds this notion of cosmic incoherence hard to swallow, especially after three centuries of progress in the mind's penetration of nature.  There is an ordering principle, alright.  Darwinism is surely not sufficient.  The is also an Anthropic principle at work.  Then there is the 'unreasonable effectiveness' of mathematics within physics and beyond.  Does the mean that the supra-human intelligence is limited to mathematics?  Is there not always a close correlation between mathematical and musical aesthetics?  Witness the creations of Mozart.  

Science has led us to see virtually to the end of nature.  We now confront the noumenon.  It is either an alien domain or it is our one true source and home.  Our ecos, our logos, our telos.  Is not pessimism just born of the desire to avoid our inevitable time of reckoning with our own destiny?  

 

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Topical Index

1/8/03

Messianism 

My last major excursion into the issue of messianism was last August.  Then, as now there was a bit of a provocation: failed communication.  [To set the record straight there has been a subsequent communication in the latter instance].  When communication fails, one is not generally afforded an explanation.  One can only surmise.  I claim, in no casual manner, to be a reasonable person.  When I get into trouble in communicating I can only surmise that it is due to the fact that I intentionally carry or push reason to its limits.  It is my nature to be persistent, and I simply persist with reason beyond what most others might consider to be reasonable, politic, or even just polite.  

Am I then a trouble maker?  Perhaps, in the sense that moderation in all things is often held out as the prescription for avoiding trouble.  Can one be too reasonable or too rational?  I would say that it depends on the context.  I think it is fair to say that our world is in as precarious a situation today as at anytime in its history, and there is the live prospect that things could get much worse before they get better.  

Is there a better way?  If there is, we will discover it only by reasoning together.  And there is the catch:  human reason has been much maligned, now as much as ever. 

Human reason has been caught between a rock and a hard place.  For the last several centuries, the power of human reason has been demonstrated mainly in the domain of science.  Science, however, has been unable to discover the source of human reason, beyond speculating that it exists merely as an outdated(?) survival mechanism.  The defenders of reason are left defenseless against modern and postmodern cynicism concerning any and all human motivation.  Cynicism becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as the technology spawned by science, lacking more inspired or humane application, is diverted wherever possible to its basest and most dangerous uses.  

Down through the ages, when faced with seemingly insurmountable problems of their own, people have appealed to higher sources.  This has been seen in both the prophetic and mystical traditions.  Is that happening today?  The aggressive and nihilistic materialism that lies just below the surface of modernism has seemingly created its own evil twin in the upwelling of reactionary, fanatical fundamentalism now seen around the world.  The voices of reason on the spiritual and theological side of the modern world have been virtually silenced by the centuries of systematic brow-beating that they have endured at the hands of the secular intellectual establishment.  There is no sign of a reasoned institutional response to the rising chorus of secular cynicism and sectarian fanaticism.  These, indeed, are the rock and hard place between which human reason is now skewered. 

I see one hope for reason.  That is right here on the Internet.  Only here might it be possible for individual voices of vision and reason to coalesce into a force to be reckoned with by all the other forces of unreason.  Coherence is the name of this game.  It will be up to us to come up with the vision of light and reason that can overcome the tide of darkness.  

We can put this much trust in our reason only if we can believe that it has a source beyond the material dimensions of the scientific cosmos.  Together, we can and must reach for that higher source.  Thus this effort necessarily transcends material survival, as it takes on the character of a quest for our own salvation.  

We who expect to find a coherence in accord with a higher source of reason can only do so effectively in the context of a salvific cosmology.  The mystical and prophetic traditions, wherever they eschew pessimism, open themselves to a messianic drama from within history.  Can we ignore that history, that metanarrative of all the human traditions?  

------------------------------------------

Here's the next list: messianism &  (Moshe) Idel (192 hits). 

MESSIANIC MYSTICS -- Moshe Idel (Yale Univ. Press 1998): 

From Booklist:
A running controversy with fellow Judaic scholar Gershom Scholem drives Idel's wide-ranging argument about the relationship between messianism and mysticism. Scholem sees the two as incompatible, but Idel offers substantial evidence that they can coexist and, for a number of important thinkers, have coexisted. Idel is particularly interested in opening investigation of cabala (esoteric Judaism) to a rainbow of messianic models. One effect of that interest is the shifting of messianic ideas from a distant, apocalyptic future to a transformative present. Moreover, discussion of tikkun (cosmic repair) as completion of the deity is relevant not only to Jewish messianism, Idel notes, but also to a range of mystical traditions in Judaism, Christianity, and Buddhism. The conception of every moment as a gate that may admit messianic transformation of the world imparts a seriousness to everyday action that belies popular perception of mysticism as otherworldly. Idel's treatment of a most intriguing subject will stretch nonspecialist readers but richly reward them, and his thorough documentation points out excellent avenues for further exploration.

'From Celebrities to Zionists, Kabbalah an Endless Source of Solace' -- New York Times/March 20, 1999 , by Edward Rothstein

In a major new book, Messianic Mystics, Idel expands a project he began more than a decade ago, questioning his mentor's views on almost every major issue. The arguments are complex, but they have important implications for understanding Jewish history and popular religious belief.

The notion of messianism is central to these disagreements. For Scholem, the Kabbalah after the 13th century developed a new system for making sense of the trials and exiles that scar Jewish history.

Just as the human body was created in God's image, these mystics believed, so every human act had its counterpart in the divine realm; earthly history was but a reflection of the history of the Godhead; both realms were riven by alienation and exile.

A cabalist, by properly performing ritual, could begin to heal not just the mundane universe but the spiritual one as well. This mythology, a version of which is incorporated into contemporary pop Kabbalah, made Jewish history and personal experience part of a grand theological drama of exile and restoration. 

But what happens, Scholem asks, if a savior, a Messiah, promises to complete this process of repair and reparation, bringing the drama to an end? Scholem argued that such a figure would be revolutionary, not evolutionary. A Messiah would shatter the tradition (as indeed, the figure of Jesus did when his disciples founded Christianity). Scholem called messianism a "theory of catastrophe."

In a magisterial essay, "Redemption Through Sin," Scholem described such a catastrophe in the 17th century, when a mentally unbalanced man, Sabbatai Zevi, declared himself the Messiah. Sabbatai engaged in bizarre and provocative acts, even instituting a new blessing praising "that which is forbidden."

[...]  But eventually, Scholem suggests, it caused a widespread crisis that undermined the foundation of Jewish faith. Only the spirit of national and spiritual yearning remained, a yearning that led to the Enlightenment and eventually to Zionism.

[...]  Scholem sees messianism as dangerous and catastrophic; Idel sees it as a part of ordinary mystical expectations. Scholem says the sense of exile was central to much cabalistic thought; Idel, rejecting traditional views of Jewish history, disagrees.

Scholem stresses the importance of ideas; Idel emphasizes the nature of experience and the mystic's drive toward union with God. Idel values variety and diversity over unity and coherence. (He even wonders if he is being too post-modern.)

One might hope that somewhere between these two scholars there may lie some truth. 

And where, you might ask, do reason and mysticism come together?  

[1/15] 

The following is an edited excerpt of a recent communication. 

[------], 

Yes, there is a whole new world opening up. It is a world that appears to be more amenable to what you frequently refer to as a 'top-down constraint'. 

There are, of course, the 'holonomic constraints' of classical physics which, in a purely formal, or 'nomological' manner, recognize macroscopic, i.e. mechanical causation.

Both of us (many of us!) are looking for less mechanical types of causation that would be open to psychological and parapsychological application. And, almost certainly, the quantum, implicate, noumenal and/or pre-geometric realms are less resistant to mental causation than is the classical domain. And, furthermore, from a non-dualist perspective, we would expect any sort of implicate order to have a strongly mental component.

Jack [Sarfatti] and Henry Stapp both see 'qubits' as having a mental nature. Jack uses the hidden variable interpretation of Bohm, while Henry follows von Neumann and Wigner in focusing on the dynamics of the 'collapse'.  (I am already rusty regarding Jack's ontology. I will need to consult his new books @ http://www.1stbooks.com.)

Any move toward making physics more hospitable to our minds will, of course, make it more hospitable to all minds. There is likely to be some natural, spontaneous self-organizing, on the part of the cosmic mentalities, into a structure that might have some attributes relevant to theology.

Given some probability of a theo-physiscs, I am naturally inclined to take my questions and concerns right to the top. People engaged in the more traditional brand of physics, even possibly including Jack, see this as a shameless cheat. It is more akin to speculative philosophy (dare we mention it!) than physics.

The bottom line is that I try to take the perspective of the Big Gal upstairs. Unless I were totally incompetent as a creator, there would be certain optimizing strategies that I would endeavor to employ, especially including a maximal participation in the Creation on the part of the creatures, along with certain security measures, of course: viz. Ron P. (I'm embarrassed to admit that I have just run across the notion of 'tikkun' ("Repair of the World") which is the cabbalistic take on Wheeler's 'participatory universe'.) 

Jack was my original metaphysical mentor via his first version of Space-Time & Beyond (1975). Now that Jack has returned to physical sanity, he rues his contribution to a generation of metaphysical delinquents, including yours truly.

But, glancing at his recent missive copied to you, there may be some hope of a latter-day collaboration between sanity and insanity. 

[...]

Dan

--------------------------------------------------

And yet another missive: 

Jack,  [ also see http://www.1stbooks.com (Sarfatti)]

Sure, I can meet you in DC.  If you would like Ron's participation, you had best make a personal entreaty.

 By the way, I have a bit of a Sufi connection, myself.  My sometime guru's guru is a Sufi elder who officiates at the dome of the rock.  There might be some strategic value there: Location, location, location.   

>>I now think I understand both consciousness and gravity and how they connect as physical processes. How they connect is how the UFOs fly.  Remember for me physical and material not equivalent. Mentality is also physical. It's Wheeler's IT - BIT distinction. There is a physics of information and meaning that is not purely subjective. Our inner experiences are physical phenomena in the broader sense.  I could be wrong, but let's see how my concepts and equations hold up in the normal science process. I will be presenting at APS meetings now.<<

You and I differ mainly in the tail vs. dog department.  In the natural, primordial state there is a great mixture of the mental and physical, or subjective and objective.  The mental dimension is able to exercise active voluntary coordination and thus is able to overpower the more passive 'physical' dimension.  However, when it comes to creation, the mental-physical tables must be turned so that our creaturely egos have a relatively stable and level playing field on which to freely and individually interact.  This is ensured by a strictly enforced physics based on the Anthropic principle.  

Only as we work out our interpersonal relations, and communication technology, are we able to coordinate our minds on a global scale sufficient to where we can help inaugurate a Millennium devoted to 'tikkun' or cosmic repair, leading to the hierogamos of creation and creator, closing the teleological loop that is history.  

Nothing here is particularly original, nor even deep.  If I can bring anything to the messianic table it is perhaps a peculiar post-modern bed-side manner that may go with the territory, at the same time as being able to attend to certain academic subtleties, when not hounded by security guards.  Also, being able to defer most moral and spiritual issues to an illustrious predecessor is a major leg up on the prophetic incline.

>>The problem is to avoid the creation of new UFO Death Cults like Heaven's Gate. I saw that possibility in Joe which is why I reacted so strongly to try to leash him in. His phrase that he was ready to die for his cause raised my alarm.

Well, I may have managed to involve myself in that mini-eschaton by passing a potentially incendiary piece of info from Rick Doty to Richard Boylan who then broadcast it.  Live and learn.

>> It's important you read Stephen's book "The Two Faces of Islam". I need to connect up again with Robert Dickson Crane. His trip is similar to Steve's. I did not know he had been a personal advisor to Richard Nixon when I dated his daughter Maiti 20 years ago.

>>[Later] Read Stephen Schwartz's "The Two Faces of Islam" for some deep enlightening connections on the broader cultural stage that is your main interest beyond the physics

>>Basil Hiley on his webpage http://www.bbk.ac.uk/tpru/BasilHiley.html discusses the "non-mechanical" in depth. Stephen Schwartz and I are relating this to Sufi Metaphysics.

Osama & Co., bless their hearts, are giving us a 'crash' course in postmodern ecumenism.  The saber rattling and fence building can go just so far -- at some point we will have to learn to talk to these folks.  The Sufi connection will have to be the primary channel.  The Christians and Jews will need to demonstrate more than lip service to Allah.  It is difficult to believe that 9/11 did not have some cosmic significance.  The shouting and shooting will wind down.  The cosmology will heat up.  Some of them, 'the other face of Islam', are more serious about cosmic matters than we are.  We will get more serious, or else....

>>This is beyond ordinary micro-QM and corresponds to Antony Valentini's "avoidance of sub-quantal heat death". Brian Josephson first pointed this out in his "Biological Utilization of Nonlocality" with Fotini Pallikari. Bierman's teleological "presponse" is built in. See also Colonel Robert Hickson's piece in my "Destiny Matrix".

(I'm impressed that you got on with Robert.  He did not like my presentation last time -- I may have had more than my share of the wine bottle, but I might still get another chance.)  The "philosfawzers" are just beginning to wake up and smell the non-local, 'emergent', irreducible, teleological properties.  The general acceptance of just one such property at the biological or psychological level might well do as much harm to the scientific cosmology as a fleet of ufos, IMHO.  We may differ on this point.  

But, one way or the other, the sky is going to fall on the heads of some intelligent folks.  This, especially under the gun of 9/11, is likely to set off a significant intellectual panic.  You and I, and just a few others perhaps, have most of their options covered.  Coming to us would be like one stop shopping.  We would be making it easy for them and us.  All we have to do is act naturally.  

Dan

 -----------------------------------------

Aren't I a busy little correspondent! 

[1/16] 

And more of same...............

Jack,  

I may be wrong or you may be wrong, but we cannot both be wrong!  That is the beauty and the 'spirit' of the Jack-Daniels Show.   

You have a lot of self-organizing being referenced in your message below [not presently supplied], but I don't see any selves, except after the fact, as a finished product.  The Self is Johnny Walker (Wheeler?) come lately.    

I would suggest to you and Bohm, and quite a few others that there can be, and logically must be, primordial, virtual, potential selves, wherein resides all the discretionary cosmic potency, because were else could that potency reside?  

Your flow of information goes mainly from the objective to the subjective.  This may be fairly accurate in our present situation as creatures in the pre-Millennial, pre-Tikkun phase of History.  BUT, with the Creator and and with us creatures in the Millennial, Tikkun, psychokinetic, cosmic restitutional phase, that flow of informational bits is increasingly going to be reversed and be flowing from the Subjective to the 'Objective'.  That reversal accelerates us beyond the event horizon of the Eschaton.  That is one model for the Hierogamos.   

If you attempt to work out an eschatology without appealing to an informational ebb and flow as just described, then there is no closure, no cosmic bootstrap.  Some such loop is embedded in every mythos known to us.  Without some self-containment and self-consistency there can be no cosmic significance.  You are left with the Apeiron, dreaded by the Greeks.  I am suggesting a basis for the Logos.  The transcendental infinities and potencies lie in the subjective-qualitative dimension, not in the objective-quantitative dimension.  

Again it comes back to the primordial dog and tail, or chicken and egg problem.  I am suggesting to my former physics colleagues that Anthropics and the 'unreasonable effectiveness' of mathematics are a sure sign that our physics is at least one big step removed from the true primordial, chaotic Apeiron.  What comes between us and the Apeiron is the potency of a virtual Logos or cosmic Self.  Creation, thus, is the self-realization of the virtual Logos.  The eschaton is the completion of the creation and the restitution of creation to Creator.   

Like I say, we can't both be wrong!

Dan

[1/21] 

This email exchange with Jack Sarfatti continued for several days:   

Jack,  [1/19]

I'll grant you that one of us is confused.  Let's see who it is.  

You say that I make a category confusion.  Well, the game of metaphysics is all about categories.  I challenge your categorizing, particularly in regard to mind and self:

I believe I have explained consciousness as a physical phenomenon within the laws of nature in the paradigm of modern science better than any of my peers in the field (Stapp, Penrose et-al).

I challenge your categorization of the mind as a natural phenomenon.  That is the whole point of our discussion, Jack. 

The theory of emergence bottom->up is given by PW Anderson. The theory of Bohmian downward causation is given by Basil Hiley.

This is where your 'naturalism' crashes on the rocks...::: 

There is on Basil's website just one online paper that references the mind: .  It nowhere contains the word 'causation', let alone the phrase 'downward causation'.  

In your two books, 'causation' appears just three times, each time in reference to 'future causation'.  The word 'emergence appears only once in a quote from Anderson.  

It would appear, Jack, that you have not been doing your homework.  If you would like to begin understanding the issue of emergence and downward causation I would suggest that you start with my page on Creation and follow the hyperlinks therein.  What is still the most frequently cited paper on the topic is by Jaegwon Kim, a philosopher of physics at MIT.  Here is a review of his paper: PHYSICALISM, EMERGENCE AND DOWNWARD CAUSATION -- Richard J. Campbell and Mark H. Bickhard.  Jeagwon has demonstrated that the idea of emergence and downward causation is incompatible with any scientific notion of law-like behavior.   

You should also check Google: "downward causation" (1,200 hits) and  "emergent properties" (16,000 hits).  Together these now constitute the single biggest topic in the philosophy of science.  Much of the substance of the Sokal 'Science Wars' concerned this issue.   

If you have something useful to say on this topic, you are guaranteed a large and attentive audience.  I would suggest, however, that you first put your ideas down on paper, and be sure to include the appropriate references and footnotes.   

But let me see if I can save you and others some time by providing a synopsis: this is not meant to excuse your own study.  The major issue here is scientific realism.  What is real?  That is the basis of my challenge to you, to name just one real thing.   

You claim to be physicalist:  the only real things in the world for you are just those things are necessarily referenced in the laws and theories of physics.  This is to say that all of the other sciences and all the rest of human discourse makes reference only to entities of social convenience.  For instance, if I speak of a 'heartache', well, there is nothing real being referred to, nothing objective.  But even if a surgeon speaks of a 'heart', that too exists only according to the arbitrary functional conventions of anatomical discourse.  The heart does not exist as a thing in itself, i.e. it is not an independent causal entity.  The heart may be reduced to and explained entirely in terms of physics.  There are no vitalistic or downward causal forces pertaining specifically to an objectifiable 'heart' entity.  Such is your system of belief.  Correct me if wrong.  

The developing consensus among philosophers and many scientists is that physicalism is simply wrong, and possibly even incoherent.  Atheistic philosophers no longer refer to themselves as materialists or physicalists, but rather as 'naturalists'.  They believe in irreducible, spontaneously emergent properties.  

The rest of us question this notion of 'spontaneity', especially as it applies to the mind.  Spontaneous is simply defined as unlawful.  There is no rhyme or reason to the emergence, it is all accidental.  Once having emerged, Darwinism presumably takes over.  Naturalists, however, have to spend much of their time defending themselves against the charge of 'vitalism'.  How else can they explain the downward causation that constitutes real emergence?  They point out, in their defense, that Darwin was also a vitalist just because natural selection could not function unless there were real, downwardly causal biological traits upon which natural selection could operate.  In other words, the phenotype has to be just as ontologically real as the genotype, in order for genetics to make sense.   

In claiming to explain the mind, Jack shares the ontological problem of the naturalists.  There must be special (ad hoc?) biological laws and forces in addition to the laws and forces pertaining to the inorganic realm.  Where do these laws and forces come from?  If they don't come from 'below' then they must come from 'above'.  And where is this 'above'?   

However, if we are to consider ourselves responsible moral agents, then you and I are partaking of this vital downward causation, every time we act.  This is just the emergent, causal reality of the human self or soul or spirit.   

What Jack and many others fail to comprehend is the necessary unity of any truly emergent phenomenon.  He fails to comprehend the staggeringly obvious idea that consciousness does not and cannot occur in an ontological vacuum.  There is no floating consciousness.  There is no unattached mind.  Jack supposes that consciousness is just another thing, like electrons and muons, independently, objectively existing.  Jack egregiously ignores the most basic fact that consciousness exists only for someone.  There is nothing in the realm of physics that has this peculiar attribute of existing only for something else.   

Jack has totally neglected to address the dual problem of intentionality.  The one distinctive feature of all mental phenomena is that they exist only for someone and only about something else.  Nowhere in the realm of physics can Jack point to anything that has these basic attributes.  Failing to explain what is the very essence of the mind is failing to explain the mind, period.   

Jack, you have mesmerized yourself with your formulas.  It is time for you to think about what you are doing.  If you just want to be a saucer mechanic, fine.  But if you want to explain to us the meaning of life and mind, well, that involves categories like intentionality, of which you do not yet appear to have any knowledge or interest.  

Dan 

---------------------------------

Jack, [1/20]

Here's the funny thing, though.  You may turn out to be right about Bohmian-style physics, but for all the wrong reasons.  The Copenhagen Interpretation looks about right for someone who is a either a latent or a blatant Cartesian dualist about mind and matter.  But for us monists, however, be we physicalist like you or metaphysicalist like me, the Quantum leaps and collapses, and all the dice rolling, just don't wash.   This may be the only thing about which we can agree.

Bohm, and you too, are visionaries after your own fashion.  You look at the envelope of physics and figure just how far you can push it without being considered clinically whacko.  And that is just about how far you push it.  And me?  Well, that's another story.  

I look at the preponderance of the evidence, and I notice something peculiar about it.  I notice that it is a movable target.  I notice that how one sees the evidence and how one weighs and balances it, depends almost entirely on what sort of worldview one brings to the table.  This is pretty much the observation that Thomas Kuhn made almost forty years ago when he wrote about the incommensurability of paradigms.   

You are the revisionist, I am the revolutionary.  The revisionist may attract more scorn from her colleagues, simply because she shows up on their radar screen.  I'm practically invisible.  I plant my banner right in the middle of no-man's land, at the empty intersection of every previous worldview.  Everything is off of every chart.  Messianism??  Well, ho hum, what else is new?  

My premise is that every significant worldview must contain some element of truth.  But all of them thus far have failed to find the Whole Truth.  Everyone so far has been looking for truth in all the wrong places.  Then I notice that there exists a logical intersection of all the previous worldviews, an intersection that, almost miraculously, has been totally overlooked.  It is the only remaining possibility, and darned if it doesn't make a lot of sense.  

Then I see you.  You're looking at approximately the same piece of logical real estate, but you're looking at it through the wrong end of the telescope.  I am struggling to get you to see this simple fact, or actually feel it, but it keeps slipping off your peripheral field of vision.  It remains subliminal relative to your physicalist instincts.  If I had a better grasp of it myself, there would not be this problem.  I need one of those interstitial, connecting ideas, but it is hard to pin down. [Or maybe not!] 

Amazingly, we both agree that there are emergent properties that may exert 'downward causation' on the 'physical' substrate.  And furthermore that you and I as humans individually instantiate just such an emergent property, exerting downward causation as for instance when we act as deliberate moral agents.  

So far so good.  This is saying quite a lot, really.  But where's the 'but'?  

The 'but' comes with the question of design.  I am suggesting that downward causation does not end with us.  I am looking at your teleological 'future causation', which, yes, again(!), is a form of downward causation.  This is the 'quantum computer in the sky' that once spoke to you.  Do you realize that you are not the only one with a computer in the sky?  Frank Tipler, a student of John Wheeler, has his Omega Computer as the cosmic endpoint of a Transhumanist evolution.  His Omega operates in something of a quantum bootstrap (shades of Geoffrey Chew) fashion.  It is teleologically responsible, at least in part, for the apparent Anthropic elements of physics.  It is almost literally our Transhumanist God of the Future.  

Evidently the Godelian (shades of Douglas Hofstadter) Omega Device (G.O.D.) can exert no inconsiderable influence over our direction of evolution, almost surely including genetic manipulation.  Thus do we secure both G.O.D.'s future and our own.  This fulfills much of Wheeler's vision of a participatory cosmogony.  

So, when it comes to downward causation, is it not logically possible, and perhaps even logically necessary to include G.O.D. in our cosmic creation bootstrap?   

The view that I have just presented to you should fit well within your cosmological specifications.  It it not quite up to my expectations; however, it may be good enough for government work!   

My emendations would focus more on the Anthropically inspired manipulations of the emergent properties, as compared with genetics.  I am suggesting to you that the possible and actual emergent properties are not randomly arrayed within physical phase space.  There is a pattern to their alignment that particularly impacts the mental aspect.  For instance, G.O.D. would be able to influence our consciences in ways that promote our social and future well-being.  G.O.D. probably also makes possible or enhances the emergent properties that pertain to technology, both present and future.   

And don't you say that your 'cosmic consciousness' does indeed shape the primordial gravitational fields??  

This is about as far as your physics may allow you to travel.  G.O.D. conveniently provides the connecting vision referred to above.  Having gotten this far, it should be much less difficult to then turn your ontological telescope around.  That would be the next course.  

Dan  

P.S.  

I should have noted in this previous message that the notion of G.O.D. described herein, is at least functionally similar to Bohm's idea of the downwardly causal Super Implicate Order.  Is it not? 

------------------------------------

Jack,  [Later yesterday]  

Well, gosh!  What then do we disagree about?  Perhaps I was not giving you enough credit!   

What then about the BPW?  With all this possibility of a G.O.Dly design & guidance shouldn't we expect that this world, if not yet perfect, is, at least, perfectible, and mainly by us.  We simply combine our previous knowledge of upward causation with our new knowledge of downward causation.  Thus could we complete our cosmic sojourn from the Alpha to the Omega, fulfilling our part of the cosmic bootstrap bargain in this BPW.   

You and I might disagree on the timing of the Omega point.  What time do you prefer?  

And then we just have the small matter of the messianic logistics to work out.   We simply see about getting a better mesh between your mathematical formulations and my verbal formulations.   

Anything else?  We need to see if we can sell any of this to the Sufi's.  That would be helpful in the short run.  We ought to run this by R. H. again.  And check with A. P. in the meantime.   

Dan

---------------------------------------

And there it stands.  I don't know to how big a list Jack was copying his replies, but typically it is several dozen. 

A lukewarm response from Jack. 

I have suggested that he, Alan and I work on a proposal to Robert H., Stephen S., Ron P. and Kit G.  I expect to have to do most of the arm twisting. 

I might as well put it together here.  Need to finesse a couple of things, starting with the physics. 

[1/26] 

Here are the rest of my messages to Jack: 

Jack, [1/23] 

Sorry for being a little slow on the uptake here. I'm just collecting my thoughts.

Here is my very modest proposal, along with some background.

Among your physics colleagues you have demonstrated an unusual degree of willingness to not only talk about things that touch on the spirit, but also to do something about them, from within a Physics context. This rare trait is something worth encouraging by those of us who are more metaphysically inclined, particularly if we do not subscribe to the notion of the Cartesian or Quantum dualism of mind and matter that is espoused by those many folk of the Copenhagen persuasion with whom you do frequent battle, as well as by most theologians.

[---] and I are not the only ones in these environs, it seems, who share this interest. So perhaps we can widen this conversation, hopefully on a more permanent basis than what we have experienced in the past.

The three of us seem to agree that the events subsequent to 9/11 do lend some greater urgency to deliberations of this nature. The clash of cultures is upon us. Whatever science may offer, directly or indirectly, to promoting reasoned discussions between folk of differing spiritual outlooks is to be commended and actively pursued.

There are many discussion topics that come to mind. Comparing and contrasting the spiritual and technological perspectives on our future would certainly be germane.

But, no, I don't see this as being a debating club. The urgent need is for something more proactive and visionary. That is what we need to be working on.

I suggest a preliminary round of discussion between the three of us, as we hammer out our similarities and differences. We maintain a very informal, evolving position statement, or perhaps just talking points, that we then use to foment a wider discussion. It will be important to maintain a sense of progress throughout, and to keep people on, at least, a parallel set of tracks.

Before this interlude, you and I were discussing 'upward' and 'downward' causation. This may well be where the spiritual rubber meets the physical road. This might be as good a point of departure as any.

You are the main mail-list person amongst us. It will be mainly up to you to manipulate the lists, if you are so inclined.

At an early point we should approach Hickson and Schwartz. I'll be happy to enlist Ron to further facilitate our interaction with Robert.

I look forward to replies and rejoinders from both of you.

Dan  

-----------------------------------------

Jack,  [1/24]

This is a good start.   

In my mind there is a collaboration here between the physicist and the metaphysicist.  The implied duality is no longer between mind and matter (a la Descartes), or between observer and observed (a la Bohr).  Now the duality is between downward causation and upward causation, also between the explicate and implicate orders, and this is thanks mainly to your buddy, Bohm.  

So now, since there is no longer a logical discontinuity between the two realms, there can be a real collaboration between the upward and downward perspectives.  This is where you and I come in.  We may, if we so choose, be the originating collaborators.  If this collaboration is instrumental in bringing about the final paradigm shift, i.e. introducing the gnostic saving knowledge, then we would be playing a messianic role.  Or we are the original participators in a universally participatory messianic denouement to history.  Someone has to get this show on the road, or on the net, as the case may be.  

We are the Laurel and Hardy of messianiacs (sic).  This will not be a difficult act to follow, because everyone will be able and invited to do so.   

We just need to try it out in various focus groups to get it down pat.  For right now we are privileged to have Alan as our focus group.  Why don't we see how he likes our act so far.  Where are we weak, where are we questionable.  If we can pass muster with Alan, then we're half way to the moon.  Next we ask Robert and Stephen to join our little focus group.  

It's that simple, Gaston.  

Dan

-----------------------------------------

Jack, [1/24]

Before there is a workshop, you and I would need to agree on a protocol.  I see dialog between interested parties, as the starting point, and perhaps even the end point.  This is more of a participatory scheme.  This is tied to the envisioned scheme of salvation.  It is also well suited to the Internet.   

If you and I are serious about our messi-mania, then we must bring a sense of urgency to the timing.  The end of this year is a long time away.  We have our dialog and Internet work cut out for us here and now.  Who needs to stand on ceremony?  

Besides, you already have your physics books.  This is something quite different, certainly less didactic.  

Dan

----------------------------------

There has been no response from Jack since this last message.  

I'm thinking about what will be the next topic:  Destiny (another look at eschatology), Downward Causation, ...? 

Downward causation and reduction are still the biggest topics vis a vis the naturalists.  No one other than Jaegwon Kim has made a major issue of the evident conflict between naturalism and non-reductionism.  Since Kim, naturalism should be considered incoherent.  Kim simply pointed out that a non-reductionist could not be a physicalist.  The next logical step would have been to point out that non-reductionism is inherently unnatural.  Thus, even the phrase 'natural kind' is a virtual oxymoron if the phrase is meant to have any ontological significance. 

Maybe it is time for some more Google.  Note that essence carries some of ontological significance of natural kind or irreducible property.  'Psychological essentialism' is an interesting subset.  'Theory of categorization' is a related subset. 

What I have found nowhere is the observation that a single irreducible property  will cause the sky to fall on materialism and naturalism.  If people believe otherwise, then there ought to exist arguments to the contrary, which I have not seen.  Jaegwon has barely touched on this larger issue. 

There is the epistemic-ontic issue of water as a natural kind, whose essence is sometimes alleged to be H2O,  or as something more observable.  Here essence might be conflated with substance, but then is water reducible in the usual chemical sense?  An idealist, of course, cannot be a substantialist, or can she?   No, because an idealist does not respect the epistemic-ontic divide.  The concept and substance may not radically differ. 

Griffiths, Paul (2002) Is Emotion a Natural Kind?:

[...] natural kinds are categories about which we can make scientific discoveries.

Does this definition imply irreducibility or downward causation? 

Fortunately, it is easy to generalize the idea of a law of nature to the broader idea that statements are to varying degrees ‘law-like’ (have counterfactual force). This broader conception of a law-like generalization allows a broader definition of a natural kind.

Many law-like statements apply generally and exclusively to humans, for instance.  Does counterfactuality have any sort of ontological implication?   'If I drop a glass, it will break.'  Does this say anything about the ontology of glassware, or about the property of fragility?  This question also, obviously, involves issues of mereology.  

The communicability of concepts must speak to their compositionality, or rather their lack thereof.  (Collections vs. sets?)  With mere resemblance, then everything can resemble everything else.  A manifold of meaning need not subvert the real particularity of meanings.  How do we deal with the interstices?  Meanings tend toward the analog rather than the digital.  So what?  Is Plato the subverter of analogical ideas?  This is just a restatement of semantic holism. 

[1/27] 

[---],

Jack has not responded to this request just to continue the present conversation. Instead, as you have seen, he is holding out for an advanced payment on some vague idea for a workshop.

I am focusing back on my website and recollecting my thoughts. It is my contention that the materialists, and naturalists have dug themselves into a conceptual hole in regard to the issue of irreducible properties, emergence and downward causation. Once the implied teleology is confronted, the evident coherence of phenomena is no longer amenable to naturalistic explanation.

I am in the process of fleshing out this basic idea on the website, and in a few days I may be ready to confront Jack. In order to do this over Jack's evident non-cooperation I may need to put together an independent cc. list.

Jack is sufficiently perceptive to see that once this conversation comes around to theological issues, most of his alien technology shtick will go by the boards.

I'll let you know when I think have an appropriate 'manifesto'.

Dan

------------------------------------

Rather than atomic meanings, as prior to Quine, there is a manifold of meaning.  How that manifold is verbally dissected is arbitrary.  There is a spectrum of meaning.  The primary colors are arbitrary.  We do not have meaning perceptors per se, except, perhaps, in the case of some 'felt meanings'.  There are some instinctive emotions, no doubt.   Certain instinctive felt meanings provide the psychic anchors for a multidimensional spectrum of verbalizable, abstracted meaning.  

It is this manifold of meaning that is the basis of epistemic and ontic coherence.  This manifold must logically have a primordial potency.  It is the life force, if you will.  And, as Jack might say, it is our 'destiny matrix', looking at it historically, teleologically and eschatologically. 

It is this manifold that is the basis of idealism and which is missing from all materialist accounts.  

Mathematics has the character of a logical manifold, and is thus a sub-manifold which may provide structure to the larger space of meaning, and provides the symmetries of the spatial dynamics, i.e. physics.  The logic manifold provides filler for the numerous gaps or blind spots in the space of meaning, as occur particularly under the 'alchemical' aegis of science.  Logic has much to do with the process of abstraction. 

There is scant room for epistemic or ontic dualisms in this space of coherence.  But is there not the duality of internal and external relative to the psyche: a duality of micro and macrocosm?  This could be handled in some holographic fashion.  It might, at most, indicate a doubly connected cosmos as is often signified with the gnostic ouroboros.  

[1/28] 

Using the list: "natural kinds" (5,300 hits): 

Commentary on Tom Radcliffe and Carolyn Ray's "A Conceptualist Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics" by David V. Ward.  This is a worthwhile essay. 

But let's get back to the 'manifold of meaning' concept.  What I see now is a functional segmentation of this manifold, as in a jointed skeletal structure.  There is an increasing refinement of this structure up toward the end, until there is a total and vital plasticity, with a merging of the macro-micro-cosms, which are the ontic and epistemic domains, respectively. 

If this is mostly correct, then what?  We need to work out the connections between micro-macro-cosms. This is tough to visualize.  How does the feedback work, and how do we minimize the implied duality?  

The manifold takes on the shape of an ouroboric Adam-Kadmon (4,600 hits), which is also a projection of the primordial human onto the tree of life.  

Adam Kadmon- Primordial Man: 

The symbol of Primordial Man, the first being to emerge with the creation of the cosmos is common to a number of religious and philosophical traditions. The Upanishads describe a primal man composed of the very elements which were to become the world. According to the Upanishads this "gigantic divine being" is both infinitely far and deposited near the innermost recesses of the human heart. Indeed, in the Hindu tradition, the Primordial Man is identified both with the entire Universe and the soul or essence of all things.

In the Nag Hammadi text, the Apocryphon of John, we learn that this anthropos is the first creation of "knowledge and Perfect Intellect" and the first luminary of the heavens. This Anthropos becomes the heavenly model through which the demiurge forges an earthly Adam. Other Gnostic sources relate how the "archons" (conceived of as female demigods corresponding to each of the seven planets) formed an earthly Adam to fulfill their sexual desire for the heavenly anthropos who was beyond their spiritual reach.

Now we need to give A-K a holographic & toric or ouroboric twist.  Still not sure how to divide & connect the noumenal and phenomenal parts of the semiotic manifold.  

[1/29] 

Articulation ought to be a useful word in the above context.  Cosmogony involves the articulation of a semantic, thought-like manifold.  The genesis of language and of the cosmos are thus interrelated.  In this regard I have spoken previously of the cosmogonic/apocalyptic role of the 'thunderwords' of Joyce in Finnegans Wake.  This is a modern version of the logos (also see Zim-zum, syzygy, etc.). 

[1/30] 

I'm getting set to start a new page.  I have mainly been taking notes off-line.  I want to address the metaphysical problem of mereology & the articulation of manifolds, and the connections between the semantic and the spatial. 

My only mention of a primordial chaos on this website was here.  It appears that we may have to 'bother' ourselves with it, after all.  This chaos played a major role in the cosmology described on my previous website, but now, in the context of the BPW and of coherence, its role has been diminished.  However, its presence on the fringes of reality cannot be neglected. 

The stricture of relationalism as applied to the semantic manifold, or mind field, demands coherence.  Random sense data or percepts do not exist in isolation.  There must be a perceiving self, and there must be a coherent context or background.  Also, Leibniz' Identity of Indistinguishables works to minimize random, isolated sensa.  And, as with colors, there may be only a finite number of primary sensa.  

'Before' Creation there is a primal manifold, Ain Soph Aur, 'divine light' or cosmic potency.  Creation is the process of analysis and re-synthesis of this manifold.  We articulate the cosmic potency.  We realize the Adam-Kadmon, or Anthropos. This is done through a prism-like analysis or decomposition of the pure light into every conceivable combination of primary sensa which we then reconstruct in a teleological fashion into the tapestry of the Metanarrative.  Our individual dreaming is the private phenomenal part of this process.  Our waking lives are the public part. 

The creatures are the articulation of the cosmic self.  Atoms are the limit of the articulation.  The spatial manifold is logically necessary to support this articulation.  That is the raison d'etre of space and time.  Physics is the rationalization or habituation of the space-time articulation.  It is the semantic manifold that is the locus of coherence and which predominates in the proximity of the Alpha and Omega.  

I am reminded of the Ichneumonidae wasp.  It lays its egg on an orb weaver spider.  While living off of the vital fluids of the spider, the wasp larva instructs the spider to weave a cocoon where it will take up residence when the spider is depleted.   I suspect that our relation to God is not unlike that of the larva to the orb weaver.  Our dreams are the flesh of God -- this much has been imputed to certain fungi.  The world is our cocoon.  The omega is our metamorphosis.  And so on.  The more we understand, the more we will see nature as metaphor.  The role of weaver may be reversed.  It may be God who instructs us.  There is also a greater mutuality in the dependencies.  Since this is not a repeated cycle, all the mutuality must be present in a bootstrap manner.   Analogies are meant to stretch the mind, not limit it. 

[1/31] 

I need a way to bring together the macro and micro-cosms.  Functionality is the key connecting factor.  On the smallest scales we have bio-functionality.  On the largest scales we have anthropics and teleo-history.   This functionalism is the basis of coherence.  This is the basis of the upward and downward causation.  

The point to get across is that functionality exists only in a cosmic context.  This is its one rationale.  There cannot be partial functions.  Functions can exist only within a rational telos.  This is the basis of the cosmic self.  The epistemic meets the ontic at the function.  Downward causation exists only if the irreducible property is intelligible.  These properties must comprise a coherent network.  Has this not been the assumption all along?  Perhaps it was not sufficiently explicit.  

The epistemic and ontic meet in the coherent network.  This argues against spontaneous emergence.  This is where the 'skyhook' comes in, and there can only be one hook.  This is what Kim argues against.  He sees that downward causation implies coherence.  How do we argue this against the naturalists?  Whitehead's processes may speak to this issue.  Can the above material on articulation help?   Articulation is the substitute for evolution.  

You just cannot escape meaning.  This is how Aristotle tried to correct Plato's disjointed forms.  Ari looked to the manifold of life.  This is what panpsychism is about.  

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Topical Index

1/14/03

The Force is with Us 

The secret is out: I'm an optimist.  This is not a great day for an optimist.  Yes, we are about to go to war for umpteenth time in the last century, but this is not the real problem.  This is about as close to the problem as I can see right now: 

'Conflicts rage across the globe' by Christy Oglesby, CNN, Friday, January 31, 2003 

(CNN) -- Iraq and North Korea have dominated the world's attention in recent months, yet in countries and regions around the globe, strife smolders with sporadic notice.

Civil war. Mutilations. Threat of nuclear deployment. Human trafficking. Starving babies. Those are some of the seeds and harvest of conflicts in Africa, Asia, Europe and South America.

And, no, I don't think we are going to muddle through this one, but it won't be for lack of trying.  We are, after all, the paragon muddlers.  There is a light at the end of this tunnel, but we won't see it until we see it.  I claim to see it.  More than that, I claim to be able to point to it.  There are not many people on the Internet today who are making such a claim.  Let's see if I can back it up. 

The point is that we are not here by accident, and we will not depart this scene until we have finished our business here.  We have much unfinished business, just now.  Don't you agree? 

The light at the end of this tunnel is not a 'smoking gun', fortunately.  The force that is with us is something all-pervasive.  It is sometimes referred to by economists as the 'invisible hand'.  They just don't realize how invisible it actually is, to them.  They speak of subtle 'market forces', as if they had their finger on that pulse.  They are won't to give themselves Nobel prizes for writing the formulas for market stability, etc.  They had better think again.  

The tiniest tip of this 'iceberg' is the Anthropic Principle, and how many economists ever worried their pretty little heads about that?  They have not the foggiest notion of what makes this world tick.  And ditto for almost every other intellectual presently pontificating.  These same ones speak so knowingly of the 'dark ages', as if they could see the light!  It has never, and will never be darker than it is today.  That is my promise to whomever can read these words. 

The invisible hand is far from idle.  It has no time for the Devil's work.  It is God who is in these details.  Life is the one monument to the life force, as if that were not sufficient!  

Exhibit A, which just recently came across my screen: "Protein Interaction Networks" (975 hits).  

It is almost amusing to peruse this pages.  The scientists speak so confidently of their understanding of these 'PINs'.  Give it a name and it belongs to us!  Who was the last person who got a grant of money from any source for professing ignorance?  Not in our lifetime! 

Just one little caveat.  ............

---------------------------

[Shuttle and crew lost -- terrible.......]

[2/2/03] 

I sense a contest today between my chutzpah and NASA's hubris.  I will win.  We will all win this one for the Gipper. 

Yesterday was the end of the space age.  Yesterday, true to my words, was the darkest day of that our darkest age, launched by the one who may have been our darkest President.  The words above were written just before Debbie called me with the news, upon leaving the gym at 9:45 am. 

Unless my orbital physics and armchair psychology is all wet, those astronauts would have been saved were it not for NASA's hubris, and its last ditch effort to save the space shuttle program. 

The administrators could probably guess that an inspection of the shuttle from the space station would have resulted in its permanent docking (tethering, this one had no dock) right there.  The crew would had to have been off-loaded with shared suits and brought back to Earth in the embarrassingly (to NASA) trustworthy Soyuz.  That would have been the end of the Shuttle anyway.  Deep in the communal subconscious of the Agency was just one thought:  Let's go out with a bang! 

Yes, this was the day of infamy.  It will be the turning point which we have all been expecting. 

This marks our very dramatic turn to inner space, where our attention finally belongs. 

The Space Shuttle Must Be Stopped  -- the only thing left to fly at NASA will be recriminations.  Never again will Texans have to awaken to retrieve body parts from their front lawns. 

------------------------------------

My attention turns back to complexity.  It is in complexity that we will discover the force that is with us, and, yes, within us. 

The limit of natural complexity is our own brain.  The limit of artificial complexity is this net.  The materialist minded complexity theorists run their spontaneous self-organizing principle up against the primordial human self.  I will prove them wrong, ultimately, by replacing Google on the Internet with the authority of a cosmically inspired sense of coherence.  That is the long and short of it.  Against this chutzpa, NASA's hubris will hardly hold a candle. 

Now, back to my 'caveat'.  I was about to say that 'proteomics' (270,000 hits) is perhaps the newest science; it was not in the ms-dictionary.   It is not easy to trace the history of proteomics before 2000, when so much attention was being focused on genomics.  The decoding of the human genome in 2001 was the last hurrah of materialism.  It was a brief swan song.  After that it is complexity all the way down.  'Proteomics' is a convenient label for this unending vista of complexity.  The only way out will be upward -- all the way up.  There will be no half-way point.  A few of us are pointing to the telos.  One of us will break through the noise.  

Yes, there is limit to how much complexity materialism can carry before its back is broken.  I'll bet that proteomics is the final straw.  It is just a question of when will come this break.  I'm thinking two years, just off the top.  One of us will be ready.  

With proteomics there is so much to be organized.  What is the organizing principle?  Where does it reside?  To what could it possibly be reduced?  The known complexity of cells has been doubling on the average of about once a year since when?  Since 1665?  Just about!  Our ability to explain the coordination of this complexity has been falling further behind for these last three centuries.  At some point we will invoke a coordinator.  The necessary ultimate singularity of this coordinating agency will not be difficult to appreciate, once we start thinking about it.  When will we start?  Will we have to wait another three centuries before we get off our reductionistic kick?  I'm doubting it. 

Yes, there are subtle forces.  But they are not all that subtle when we confront them in the deepest recesses of our being.  Sometimes our conscience can be every bit as subtle as a brick bat!  Wake up, people!  The only thing we have to lose is our incoherence. 

It could well be the Columbia that starts this snowball rolling.  At some point it will find its direction, and that cannot happen spontaneously, or even naturally.  We'll know very well when and how it happens.  We will also know who.  What greater monument to the seven heroes? 

For now, we just need to find those who are questioning the spontaneity of all this complexity.  These days, with everyone questioning authority, who is questioning the alleged non-authority of the complexity?  Who dares question its 'naturalness'.  Yes, there are the 'irreducible complexity' folks, but they only question its origination, not its coordination.  A small difference in emphasis, but a gaping chasm in perspective.  'Vitalism' is not in their dualist lexicon.  Vitalism smacks of animism and paganism in their mechanistic view.  They care only for the 'watchmaker', while the nature of the watch eludes them. 

Biological complexity (4,900 hits). 

SYSTEM-LEVEL GENETIC CODES: AN EXPLANATION FOR BIOLOGICAL COMPLEXITY by John F. McGowan. 

[2/3] 

I have been perusing the above list.  Here is the bottom line on biological complexity: there is no bottom line. 

What I mean to say is that with complexity of any kind we confront our now almost familiar friend: the epistemic-ontic divide, or, rather, the lack thereof. 

With the early completion of the genome project, complexity theory is coming into its own, with a vengeance.  The only problem is that there is no theory.  There is an expanding plethora of theories, yes, but there is no encompassing theory to integrate the field.  Thus there is no single measure of complexity in general or of biological complexity in particular.  

Bottom line: complexity is complicated, and no one is in a position to say just how complicated it is.  

After genomics (788,000 hits) comes proteomics (272,000 hits), metabonomics (1,080 hits), metabolomics (3,600 hits), transcriptomics (2,600 hits), etc...???  And, yes, it gets even better: Omes Table.  This table lists a number of 'Omes' (and see 'Ome Sweet 'Omics-- A Genealogical Treasury of Words by Joshua Lederberg and Alexa T. McCray) along with their Google and Pubmed counts, and the first year in Pubmed.  Twenty-four Omes are listed, including the Secretome, Pseudome and Unknome.  I kid you not.  Are they kidding?  I'm afraid to ask right now: 'To add new and innovative Omes to the list email: dov.greenbaum@yale.edu.'

Is my point taken?  What is my point?  What is their point?  Biologists are able to poke fun at themselves, but there may be a more serious issue behind this professional humor.  

The genomic reductionism apparently contained the seeds (sic) of its own deconstruction.  Before the final, dramatic decoding of the human genome, biological complexity was a theoretical abstraction best left to those Santa Fe odd-balls.  But now this complexity is exploding in all of our faces.  Biologists and mathematicians are just beginning to try to pick up the pieces.  We don't wish to rush to judgment do we?  Yes and no. 

I believe that I may be under some possibly 'cosmic' pressure to look ahead, to look at certain kinds of contingencies, as is pretty well covered here.   

The 'Ome explosion' may be an omen.  It may signal a public and consensual breakdown of the very traditional epistemic-ontic divide.  This straw, nay, this haystack will break the back of materialism.  Am I shifting from my contingency voice to my prophetic voice?  I, personally, don't see how it can fail to have this effect in the almost foreseeable future.  By that, I mean within this decade, and that is being optimistic relative to the half-life of materialism.  More realistically, as speculated above, I give materialism a half-life of about two years from Columbia day.  Its breakup will be even more spectacular, and will be carried live.  

There are many now, and will be many more in the months ahead, who, when asked, will say that I am beating an already dead horse.  They may be correct.  Perhaps I should be speaking of materialism's wake.  It will be more like a party, really a celebration, as all good wakes are supposed to be (see, again, Finnegans Wake -- talk about prophetic, I'm just the amateur in this neck of the woods). 

This will be a universal wake.  Attendance, nay, participation will be virtually mandatory.  I will not be the party-pooper.  This time I will be the party-planner.  Just recall that this is the before-party.  We are talking pre-millennialism.  I am the wedding planner.  I'm the Hierogamos guy.  The Columbia crew got to celebrate their nuptials just about a thousand years early, those lucky stiffs.  The Heaven's Gaters don't really count: they were party crashers; although, on second thought, and to be perfectly honest, I was standing at that gate.  

-----------------------------------------

How exactly will the 'Ome explosion' subvert the epistemic-ontic divide?  Without a central theory of complexity, without a Grand Unified Theory of complexity, there can be no coherence in the mushrooming Omic fields.  There will be no single measure of complexity -- no single definition of it.  Complexity will necessarily be an ad hoc science, a pragmatic science.  Complexity will have to be defined in terms of ad hoc, pragmatic and functional considerations.  These consideration are all strongly subjective in nature.  The now exploding science of complexity will be the first objectless science.  Epistemology and ontology will be officially reintegrated.  

Is not psychology already an objectless science?  Yes, but just for that reason, most scientists did not consider it to be scientific.  But now with biology teetering on the brink of objectlessness, with the entire medical system hanging in the balance, the scientific establishment is going to have to do a public soul-searching concerning the nature of science.  Just when it seemed that the biological sciences were poised to switch from 'soft' to 'hard' science, the ontological rug has been pulled out from under them by the 'Ome explosion'.  As biology slides back into the softness of the soft sciences, it will threaten to pull the rest of science with it.  There will be last-ditch resistance from the hard-core scientists.  The (Sokal) 'Science Wars' will re-ignite.  This time the hard-core objectivists will find that their end of the stick will be much shorter than it was just a few years ago.  Thus will end objectivism and the epistemic-ontic divide. 

----------------------------------------
On complexity and emergence -- Standish, R. K.

Numerous definitions for complexity have been proposed over the last half century, with little consensus achieved on how to use the term. A definition of complexity is supplied here that is closely related to the Kolmogorov Complexity and Shannon Entropy measures widely used as complexity measures, yet addresses a number of concerns raised against these measures. However, the price of doing this is to introduce context dependence into the definition of complexity. It is argued that such context dependence is an inherent property of complexity, and related concepts such as entropy and emergence. Scientists are uncomfortable with such context dependence, which smacks of subjectivity, and this is perhaps the reason why little agreement has been found on the meaning of these terms.

[2/4] 

How much complexity is too much for biology?  That depends on how much can be explained. 

There will only ever be one natural explanation for biological complexity: natural selection.  How great is the explanatory burden which natural selection can bear?  The good news is that we do not know the limit.  The bad news is that we do not know the limit.  In other words, we have no idea as to the explanatory power of natural selection.  The saving mantra of the naturalists is that there is no alternative explanation.  How long can they maintain this stance in the face of the explosion of complexity?  I guess we'll find out.  So far, they are putting a brave face on it -- keeping a stiff upper lip. 

Occasionally it is suggested that natural selection can explain virtually no complexity.  How often do the naturalists have to remind us that there is no direction to evolution?   They readily admit that there is nothing in natural selection to suggest a secular or temporal increase in complexity.  Complexity is not a trait, per se, which would ever be selected for.  Complexity might augment adaptation, or it might not, depending on the particular circumstances.  This is just another aspect of the objectlessness of complexity.  The objectlessness of traits is another matter. 

Certainly in engineering it is simplicity that is golden.  There was an overriding imperative to simplify the functional designs of our artifacts until, it would seem, we came to the computer age.  There has, subsequently, been an explosion of complexity that is frequently compared with biological complexity.  Does this artificial complexity provide any explanation for its biological counterpart?  It hardly seems so.  In fact, it is just the 'bioinformatics' (992,000 hits) being made possible by computers that is mainly responsible for our exploding awareness of biological complexity.  

Is there a biological limit to complexity?  Is there any way to predict how much more complexity we may be discovering?  Will our ability to discover biological complexity be limited only by epistemology?  Were any biologists ten years ago predicting the explosion of complexity we have witnessed in the past ten years?  I seriously doubt it.  

Was there not a general impression among biologists that biological complexity must be limited by the amount of information that is contained in the genetic code?  What has happened to this notion?  Is the current explosion not seriously threatening any such limitation or linkage, if it has not already overrun it?  Is there not emerging a very serious information gap between the cell and the gene? 

It will be more than curious to watch the impact of the biological complexity explosion on Artificial Intelligence.  It is now requiring supercomputing power simply to delve into the complexity of just few aspects of a single cell.  Where does that leave us with regard to simulating the the brain power of the interactions of 10^11 of such cells?  Does this not foreshadow an indefinitely widening gap between natural and artificial intelligence, just when the pundits were predicting that we were on the brink of having our carbon rendered obsolete by silicon.  

Nowhere is the genetic information gap greater than when it comes to explaining biological or natural intelligence.  One can almost do the calculation on the genetic side.  The human genome carries less than 40,000 functional genes, with an average of 72,000 base pairs each, and they are >~99% identical to those of chimpanzees.  The difference in native intelligence between the chimps and us is to be explained by no more than something on the order of a megabyte of code.  Imagine that!  When I last checked, Windows XP was 500 megabytes.  Are to we believe that blind and random natural selection is so much more efficient and direct than 30,000 Micro-softies hammering diligently at their keyboards?  And besides, at every conception of a new human, how much of that one megabyte total for our IQ code is being randomly scrambled by the natural process of genetic recombination?   Imagine what would happen if we were to randomly recombine my binary code for XP Home with my wife's binary code for XP Professional (Library Edition).  What would be the IQ of the resulting mish-mash?  I think our son would have been institutionalized long ago.  

This is hardly rocket science, is it?  But where else on the Internet is anyone keeping score for materialism and naturalism?  The only other articulate skeptics are the Intelligent Designers.  But they are much more mechanically minded, in their very narrow pursuit of Design, than even are their naturalist opponents.  They are more genetically minded even than the geneticists.  Their view of Creation is every bit as clunky as that of the UFO-nauts with their alien breeding stories.  For the Creationists, the notion of vitalism is as welcome as Witchcraft.  (Forget Harry Potter!)  Their God is the one painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and they don't even have the gender right! 

There is a stonewall of silence when it comes to a holistic and substantive critique of the Scientific worldview.  That barrier of silence will be broken, right here on the Internet.  

---------------------------------

There is an apparent information gap between the genes and the rest of biology.  This is not unlike the 'missing mass' or the 'dark matter' that is believed to comprise almost ten times as much mass as the visible matter in the universe.  In biology we have missing information.  Where is it?  Is it in the genome, the proteome, the metabolome, etc.?  It is manifested in all of these places, but resides in none of them.  Consider how much information is contained in all the laws of physics.  Where does that information reside?  Certainly not in each one of the elementary particles.  Like organisms, the elementary particles exhibit many law-like traits, but we do not suppose that these traits are coded in their genes.  It may be that the genetic information simply serves to trigger and amplify an information that is much less particulate or even physical. 

It may well be that there is holistic, informational 'mind' field.  It may have holistic properties rather like language.  The eight letters of the word 'elephant' certainly do not contain all of the information of the word.  The information is to be found in the relational properties or associations of that word with all the other words of the language.  Thus it is with genes and proteins, etc.  

What about the Mandelbrot set?  How much information is contained therein?  It would naively appear to be infinitely complex, and yet it can be generated simply by the formula of its 'genetic' kernel z' = z^2 + C, which contains, at most, a few bytes of information.  Is there not a similar disconnect between the manifest infinite complexity of the Mandelbrot and its simple genetic formula? 

I would suggest that the Mandelbrot exhibits the holographic-like complexity of the entire number system.  Every number is a holistic construct, having no meaning in isolation.  There is only a number field.  There is a similar biological field, with a potentially infinite holographic complexity.  The genome operates within and upon that field.  Unlike the number field, the biological field has teleological properties that are manifested particularly in our mental states as an intentionality.  

---------------------------------

At this point it is no great stretch to postulate several intimately related fields or manifolds which contain or carry a spectrum of meaning and functional information.  These would be the mental, biological, mathematical, and linguistic manifolds.  We should not forget the space-time manifold which manifests the symmetries and laws of physics, and which seems closely associated with the mathematical manifold.  Each one of these manifolds has its peculiar ontic and epistemic aspects.  The quantum, entropy, anthropics, relativity and the directionality of time all seem to conspire to introduce a strongly epistemic quality into the alleged objectivity of the space-time manifold.  If we knew the deeper relations between these several manifolds we would hold the keys to the kingdom.  We will have plenty of time to work this out.   

In the meantime, we only need to appreciate that reintroducing aspects of vitalism into the semiotic flux of biology would be a very natural step when seen in this larger context.  The remaining resistance to vitalism is just the death rattle of materialism. Let us respect its senescence while we plan for its wake.  Also realizing that the misguided Creationists may, ironically, be the final source of resistance to vitalism.  The force will be with them, too. 

[2/5] 

To underscore that last point consider: 

CAN FUNCTIONAL LOGIC TAKE THE PLACE OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN?  A RESPONSE TO WALTER THORSON  by William A. Dembski (2002): 

Thorson's methodological naturalism leaves room for teleology in nature, though a teleology that falls short of full intelligent agency.

For Thorson, getting the scientific community to admit the reality of this functional logic and to make that logic a fundamental focus of scientific investigation would constitute the sort of paradigm shift in science with which he would be entirely happy. He sees Michael Behe's work on irreducible complexity as feeding into such a paradigm shift inasmuch as Behe's work shows that a functional logic pervades biology all the way down to the molecular level (below which biology gives way to physics and chemistry). Nonetheless, Thorson is not willing to follow Behe to his conclusion of intelligent design. Why is that?

The problem according to Thorson is that any sort of designing agent responsible for that functional logic in biological systems would be a scientific surrogate for divine agency. Indeed, from a Christian perspective it is hard to see what a designing agent responsible for biological complexity could be other than the Christian God. Intelligent design, if it could be developed as a scientific theory applicable to biology, would thus have immediate theological implications, not the least being that God's handiwork in nature was empirically detectable and therefore not inscrutable.  

But this for Thorson is theologically unacceptable. Following Karl Barth and a theological tradition that places a premium on divine inscrutability, it is unacceptable to Thorson that God's agency in the world not be completely shrouded in mystery. In addition to Barth, Thorson cites Austin Farrer, who argued that the metaphysical joint at which divine agency intersects the created world is fundamentally inscrutable. Thorson concludes that "divine agency is essentially mysterious at every level."  

I've long ceased to be impressed by claims of divine inscrutability. Whenever I'm confronted with such claims, I invariably recall G. K. Chesterton's epigram, "We don't know enough about the unknown to know that it is unknowable." To be sure, it might serve certain theological interests to keep God, and divine agency in particular, inscrutable. But the claim of divine inscrutability, just as any other controversial claim, needs an argument if it is to be judged in the market of ideas.

I'm going to have to investigate Thorson on my own.  His functional teleology seems closer to a rational theism than does Dembski's watchmaking Mechanic.  Why Thorson sees functionalism as favoring the inscrutability of God is presently inscrutable to me.  Unfortunately, Thorson's article is not yet available on the ASA website.  

What I do notice from perusing biological complexity is that the IDers are continuing to rock the scientific boat.  Even though their mechanistic conception of creation is wrong, their boat rocking could well create an opening for a more metaphysical view.  I do notice some polarization between the IDers and the ASA contingent.  The ASA might provide a platform for a less mechanistic account, as they did for Thorson.  Their journal is not posted to the web until one year after publication.  If they want to participate in the premillennial politics, they will have to be more expeditious than that.  However, they probably will not wish to associate with someone with my radical view of spiritual politics.  Once again, we'll have to pray to the Google gods! 

Here is the latest scoop: 

DARWIN AND DESIGN: A debate about the latest defense of intelligent design. -- William A. Dembski and H. Allen Orr (12/02).  

The primary attack on Dembski concerns his mystagoguery.  I agree with that criticism.  Bill will never be able to squeeze any rational coherence out of his Cartesian dualism.  

Dembski refers to James Shapiro (Univ. Chicago) associated with ISCID: 

The International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design (ISCID) is a cross-disciplinary professional society that investigates complex systems apart from external programmatic constraints like materialism, naturalism, or reductionism.

That sounds promising! 

A 21st Century View of Evolution by James A. Shapiro: 

Molecular genetics has amply confirmed McClintock’s discovery that living organisms actively reorganize their genomes. It has also supported her view that the genome can "sense danger" and respond accordingly. The recognition of the fundamentally biological nature of genetic change and of cellular potentials for information processing frees our thinking about evolution. In particular, our conceptual formulations are no longer dependent on the operation of stochastic processes. Thus, we can now envision a role for computational inputs and adaptive feedbacks into the evolution of life as a complex system. Indeed, it is possible that we will eventually see such information-processing capabilities as essential to life itself. 

Had I not been forewarned, I might have missed Jim's still implicit anti-naturalism.  What he may say in private to Bill is another matter. 

There is now a burgeoning field of 'evolutionary computing' (27,000 hits).  I am not aware of any pervasive anti-naturalist sentiment in this field.  Most of the workers seem to feel that they are actually exploiting Darwin, not refuting him.  Where Jim and the ISCID part company with this nascent industry needs investigation. 

Genome Organization and Reorganization in Evolution: Formatting for Computation and Function by James A. Shapiro (2001): 

Molecular discoveries about mechanisms of DNA restructuring show that cells possess the Natural Genetic Engineering functions necessary for evolutionary change by rearranging genomic components and reorganizing system architectures. The concepts of cellular computation and decision-making, genome system architecture, and natural genetic engineering combine to provide a new way of framing evolutionary theories and understanding genome sequence information. 

This is a bit more explicit.  This seems rather like the functionalism that Dembski was just criticizing in Thorson.  Jim continues:

The most profound, and most challenging, new aspect of thinking in a 21st Century fashion about evolution will be the application of information-processing ideas to the emergence of adaptive novelty. A major problem, often cited by religious and other critics of orthodox evolutionary theory, is how to explain the appearance of complex genomic systems encoding sophisticated multicomponent adaptive features.  The possibility that computational control of natural genetic engineering functions can provide an answer to the problems of Irreducible Complexity and Intelligent Design deserves to be explored fully. Contrary to the claims of some Creationists, these issues are not scientifically intractable. They require an application of lessons from the fields of artificial intelligence, self-adapting complex systems, and molecular cell biology. 

[...]  One philosophical question that has proved extraordinarily contentious concerns the respective roles of design and chance in evolution. This topic is so heated because it touches on fundamental differences between materialistic assumptions and religious faith. However, I argue that molecular discoveries about cellular information processing, epigenetic modifications of the genome, and natural genetic engineering place this issue in a new (?) naturalistic perspective. We can now postulate a role for some kind of purposeful, informed cellular action in evolution without violating any tenets of contemporary science or invoking actors beyond experimental investigation. It remains to be established how "smart" cellular networks can be in guiding genome reformatting and sequence reorganization towards adaptive needs.

Say what??  We have here a 'naturalistic' 'purposeful' action!!  On previous occasions I have resorted to using the word 'oxymoronicity'.  I think here the phrase 'Oxymoron City' would be more apt.  George Orwell could take some pride in this exemplar of Doublethink.  Am I being too tough on Jim?  That remains to be seen.  Perhaps his use of 'new' needs further examination. 

From ISCID: 

James Barham asks important questions on design, teleology and the considers the notion of "thinking matter" ... [more]

[...]  No doubt, most readers will assume that empirical science passed a negative judgment on this idea long ago. They will feel that today thinking matter is at best a bare possibility, not a live one. Certainly, the proposition that a certain kind of matter has an intrinsic power of thought flouts the spirit of the Mechanistic Consensus. However, I shall argue below that the Mechanistic Consensus is mistaken in each of its main theses: (1) present-day physics and chemistry do not provide the conceptual resources for a complete understanding of how living things work; (2) natural selection does not provide an adequate ground for naturalizing the normative teleology in living things, which is no mere appearance, but rather objective reality; and (3) thinking is not just a matter of computation, nor does the normative character of thought have anything to do with brains per se. The upshot of these negative arguments will be that living matter is special. Finally, I will conclude on a more positive note by briefly reviewing some ways in which we might begin to understand this specialness scientifically. 

Now we're getting down to the nitty-gritty.  Is this what Jim S. was talking about?  Jim B. continues: 

A term like "second messenger," they say, is a metaphor that, while not strictly necessary, is useful in order to avoid intolerably verbose descriptions of the mechanistic interactions that underlie the appearances. Such a façon de parler is a promissory note redeemable in the hard currency of physics and chemistry. But like any IOU, this promise issued by molecular biology is only as sound as the other sciences backing it up. If they cannot make it good, then the note is worthless. Therefore, it behooves us to take a closer look at the conceptual solvency of the Mechanistic Consensus. 

[For later reference: BACK TO THE STOICS: Dynamical Monism as the Foundation for a Reformed Naturalism (Talk Delivered at Calvin College, May 25, 2001) JAMES BARHAM.  'Reformed naturalism'?  OK, that's what Jim S. must have been alluding to above.]  Now continuing from 'thinking matter':  

To say that a chemical compound "survives" or that a crystal "reproduces" itself is to employ metaphors that obscure the point at issue. The very thing we are trying to explain is how it is possible for an organism to direct energy in a way that promotes its self-preservation, and not in other energetically equivalent ways. Thus, the notions of survival and reproduction already contain the normative feature of striving to achieve particular preferred states. They are far from the unproblematic mechanistic concepts that a successful reduction would require. Rather, they demarcate the boundary between the living and the nonliving, and so constitute the very heart of the problem of teleology.

Yes, I meant to say that earlier! 

However, this does not mean that we are forced to accept the Intelligent Design conclusion. We may just as well reject the premise, instead. In that case, we may say that the "design inference" (Dembski, 1998) constitutes a reductio ad absurdum of the proposition that organisms are machines. If we drop this premise, then we are free to view organisms as active and fully integrated systems, in which a change in one part leads to appropriate changes cascading throughout the system in accordance with functional logic. In this case, evolution begins to make sense from a physical point of view. But now Darwinism has forfeited all of its reductive power! We have simply assumed the functional organization of the cell, which is the very thing we claimed to be able to explain by means of the theory of natural selection.

Darwinians often complain that such criticisms are based on a misunderstanding. It is not chance, they say, that bears the explanatory weight in their theory, it is the selection principle.  Natural selection is said to act as a ratchet, locking into place the functional gains that are made, so that each new trait can be viewed as a small incremental step with an acceptable probability.  But what Darwinians forget is that the way a ratchet increases probabilities and imposes directionality is through its own structure. In the present context, the structure of the ratchet is simply the functional organization of life. Darwinians are only entitled to claim that the explanatory burden of their theory lies on the selection "ratchet," thus avoiding the combinatorial explosion problem, provided that they also acknowledge that the structure of this ratchet consists precisely in the intrinsic functional correlations among the parts of the organism. But now they have merely assumed the very functional organization that they claimed to be able to explain, thus sneaking teleology in by the back door.

Has it really taken us a century and half to finally articulate these most basic facts of life?  The Darwinians have been having a free logic lunch all these years.  When these chickens come home to roost, it will be a hot time in the coop.  Did I say 'two years' from Columbia day?  I'm being very generous! 

[2/6] 

It appears that ISCID (International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design) could be an important resource.  It is more open to metaphysical speculation than are the IDers.  It does not have a theological agenda, as do the IDers, despite their frequent protests to the contrary.  I will be looking out for connections between ISCID and the biosemiotics groups previously discussed.  I can't recall having seen this site before now.  I may have confused it with one of the many ID sites.  I'm going to be looking over the rest of their material.  James Barham appears to be the most relevant for me.  I gather that the IDers are ambivalent about ISCID.  They simply don't know what to make of it.  Wait 'til they grok on biosemiotics.  The fields of biosemiotics, informational ontology, and complexity theory seem to borrow in part from cybernetics and systems theory (see here, here, etc.(12,000 hits)).  I am a bit rusty in this area.  The whole game is about transcending the epistemic-ontic divide.  It is a very tricky business. 

I am struck by Barham's take on reproduction.  If he is correct about its being irreducibly normative, that puts normativity at the center of Darwinism.  Notice Rex Kerr's response, posted on 2/4: 

But by using words like "normative" here, we're immediately in danger of being misled. Does present-day physics and chemistry have the conceptual resources for a complete understanding of how living things work? Yes, as far as they go. It is inconvenient to use the language of physics and chemistry to describe systems of such complexity, though, so we use additional language. Barham seems to be implying that our use of additional language imposes some deep philosophical burden upon us.

Yes, that is precisely Jim's point.  Jim's respondents don't quite appreciate the depth of the burden.  Perhaps it could stand further explication.  I was missing this simple point myself until Jim's remarks hit me over the head with it yesterday. 

Biological reproduction is an open ended, indefinable concept. It greatly transcends even the basic concept of copying, which is itself fraught with ambiguity.  Just look at the concept of 'copy'.  It is an almost entirely normative in meaning, unless taken in a purely abstract, digital context.  And if taken in its most abstract form, you would then have to contend with the deep metaphysical issues surrounding Leibniz' Identity of Indiscernibles.  

Does that mean that biological reproduction is metaphysical?  Yes and no.  Any particular instance of it could be perfectly physical or mechanical.  But Darwinians are not talking about instances.  They do and must appeal to a universal concept of reproduction.  Evolution is not an instance of anything.  If it is anything at all it is a very general pattern of inheritance.  

Darwinians assert that reproduction, along with mutation, is the basic 'mechanism' of evolution: 

Reproduction + mutation --> (cause) evolution?

But is reproduction a causal entity?  Is it fair to say that hurricanes cause destruction?  It is fair for a layperson to say that, but that does not make it a scientific statement.  Hurricanes happen and destruction happens, and there is some correlation between the two, but that is not science: it is not cause and effect. 

Darwinians claim to understand evolution.  Biologists claim to understand reproduction.  Let us grant that biologists do have a good grasp of many of the particulars of 'reproduction'.  The problem comes when you subsequently attempt to employ 'reproduction' as an ontological or causal entity.  

The most that Darwinians can legitimately claim is that reproduction happens and evolution happens, and the two processes seem to be correlated.  Who knows where the causality resides? 

I am a teleologist.  From my perspective evolution causes and comes logically prior to reproduction. It is the primordial, metaphysical necessity of the Telos that causes and ultimately explains the emergence of biological and reproductive phenomena. 

My teleological claim is just as much justified by the observed correlation between evolution and reproduction as is the Darwinian claim. 

Darwinians appeal to our mechanistic and materialistic sensibilities.  Evolution is alleged by them to be reduced to reproduction and mutation, both of which may or may not be further reducible.  They postulate a hierarchy of phenomena where all the causation is mechanistic or 'upward'.  

Is their claim just a 'facon de parler'?  I think not.  I think that they think they have worked it all down to the 'brass tacks', to the 'nuts and bolts'.  There is nothing in the phenomenon of evolution to suggest whether the causes are upward or downward or both.  The only thing to suggest otherwise is the Darwinian appeal to an illegitimate ontology of 'reproduction' and many other emergent entities which are every bit as much epistemic in substance as they are ontic.  As such they are neither physical nor mechanical and may not legitimately be appealed to as if they were, or even might be!  

James Barham is pointing out that the Darwinians need to get serious about their logic and ontology, after a century and a half of very loose talk. 

[The substance of the above argument is posted on the ISCID site.]

----------------------------------

Now may be the time to look at 'evolutionary computing'. The implicit and sometimes explicit claim is that by using the technique of 'natural selection' we can spontaneously produce artificial and perhaps even  natural intelligence.  Thus might evolutionary computing demonstrate the truth of Darwinism.  This could also go a long way toward substantiating the tenets of Transhumanism.  Perhaps the force is not with us.  It is with artificial life.  We had better take a look before it is too late!  [This is postponed temporarily in favor of the ISCID forum.] 

[2/9] 

The conversation on the ISCID forum continued through yesterday.  I invited Mark Szlazak to compare and contrast his views with those of Gregg Rosenberg, whom Mark has quoted several times.  Gregg shows up on a list of active anti-reductionists that I was putting together back in November.  

While waiting for Mark to respond, I might as well attempt my own assessment of Gregg's work.  I have only briefly reviewed his book, so first, by way of placing his work in an historical, intellectual context, let me start with some general comments on the status of anti-reductionism.  

Active anti-reductionism presently exists in three principal areas.  Two of these are driven mainly by philosophical considerations.  On the Anglo-American side there is the continuing fall-out from the several failures of the analytical enterprise that arose near the beginning of the last century, which in its turn was an attempt to ground philosophy with a few simple and self-evident truths, rather in the spirit of Descartes and of axiomatic mathematics.  Striking form within its ranks, Godel and Quine had managed to effectively derail this enterprise by mid-century.  Since then, analytical philosophy has lived on, mainly as a style of thinking and writing.  Several people on the above mentioned list pursue their anti-reductionism in the analytical style.  Gregg is one of them. 

On the 'Continental' side there is a different philosophical story.  There it was Kant who set the stage, and it is a more complicated story.  Kant's strategy for dealing with Humean skepticism was mostly one of containment.  According to his 'critical idealism', only Science could be protected from Hume's skepticism.  The attempts to rebuild metaphysics after Kant had to borrow heavily from the few glimmers of his idealism that he allowed to shine through his critical armor.   Out of this reconstruction came the doubly contrary Dialectics of Hegel and Marx.  What survives now is Phenomenology, which is a curious amalgam of Kant and Descartes.  Semiotics has spun itself off from the phenomenological and structuralist traditions.   Lacking any firm attachments, it threatens to drift in the analytical direction.  This is particularly true of its youngest sibling: biosemiotics.  

The third front in anti-reductionism is being driven, ironically, by the Artificial Intelligencers.  As noted previously the practical demands of knowledge based systems are forcing its practitioners to take up the ontological enterprise eschewed by their philosophical colleagues.  Surprisingly they are launching into this task with some gusto, and even performing some metaphysical peregrinations of their own. 

It is no secret that these anti-reductionist efforts are singularly lacking in coherence, both individually and as whole.  The is only the strongly implied hope that their patient labors in the analytical trenches will, as it seems to have with their scientific colleagues, reward them eventually with a full blown cosmology that can stand up to, and ultimately surpass that of science.  These workers see themselves mainly as revising, reforming and extending the awesome scientific edifice.  For now, they labor, barely noticed, in its deepest shadows. 

I am skeptical of any analytical effort to resurrect metaphysics.  I believe that it is self-defeating.  The best that can result is a papering over of the numerous antinomies of materialism and analytical philosophy, along with the grafting of some ungainly appendages.  This reformist mentality is not taking seriously the notion of a Kuhnian paradigm shift, and the resulting incommensurability between old and new paradigms.  It is somehow hoped that the now bloated analytical apparatus of the old system can be imported, more or less, intact into whatever is to be the new system. 

With a new paradigm, we will have to make a new start.  The task appears daunting.  How could we ever hope to compete with, or even significantly influence, our colleagues on the other side of the metaphysical divide, without strongly emulating their now traditional enterprise? 

There is, I believe, only one strategy that is even modestly inviting.  This is to appeal to a coherent, comprehensive rationality.  One might suppose that this would be a fairly obvious and well-trodden path.  However, as my search for fellow sojourners on this path continues in vain, I can only conclude that it is the necessarily radical nature of the resulting rationale that keeps the mere voyeurs at bay.  Furthermore, the resulting coherent rationale cuts right across the major metaphysical schools of the past.  Someone who is even moderately comfortable within any one of those schools, will not have sufficient desire to venture out across the various metaphysical no-man's-lands that are the gaps between the traditional systems.  

Furthermore, one has to also be willing to take on the prophetic and proselytizing burden that goes with any such radical departure from historical norms.  This is not merely an intellectual journey.  It is a metaphysical journey in the full sense of that word. 

[2/16] 

Several days later, and the conversation on the ISCID forum still continues.  I'll use this space here to collect my thoughts and look ahead.  My part of the conversation is with a physicalist and a naturalist.  I will try to persuade the physicalist to retreat to naturalism.  The next real sticking point will likely be the MIR (mind indep. reality) in view of the apparent depth of time and space, relative to human consciousness.  But I would argue that is just a subjective matter of relative degree, as between oranges and apples.  Why would it be more difficult to reject the MIRH just given the phenomenal existence of another person, as compared to that of another galaxy?  How much more difficult? 

In fact, I would argue that our intuition primary intuition of an MIR comes from other people.  It is then to the rest of the world that we extend that notion.  This is a fact of epistemology.  

Suppose that one were a King of Shangri La, with a virtually static history.  Where then would the be the MIR?  The concept of possible worlds is not live. 

[2/22] 

I was removed [r] from the ISCID forum last night.  That means I am no longer allowed to post a message there.  The topic to which I was posting 'thinking matter' was closed at the same time.  The postings, however, are supposed to remain in their archive.  This was only my second attempt at participating in a forum, not counting the Sarfatti mail list.  The last time was eight or nine years ago on the CompuServe UFO forum, which ended in a similar fashion.  I doubt that as much time will elapse before I make another such attempt.  Each time is a learning experience.  Permit me now to collect my thoughts, and rethink my strategy. 

Off the top, it appears that I have very little difficulty in significantly stirring an already controversial pot, but how does one poke around a hornets' nest and not get stung?  It's not that I am opposed to being stung per se, but in the process of getting stung one usually looses the thread of the discussion, both figuratively and literally in these cases.  It is distracting for all involved.  It's also like a high-wire act: the balance will always be precarious. 

I need to be aware of the 'politics' involved.  How much of the politics will simply be reflex reactions, and how much will be deliberated?  I need a technique for sounding out the 'political' tendencies of the various parties, to anticipate the optimal point balance.  This is not easy when deeply controversial issues are involved, as they are bound to be in the case of religious beliefs.  In such cases the participants will harbor many unconscious motivations.  A mere sounding-out may trigger the unwanted reactions.  

How does all this relate to the Eschaton?  I would say that things remain on track for the imminent messianic introduction of the Millennium and subsequent eschaton.  Not many more forays like this should solve any problems relative to Internet visibility via Google, and the like.  At the same time, in the process of sharpening my rhetorical skills, I can use the intermezzos to tighten up the presentation of these topics here, which still leaves much to be desired.  By getting a better feel for the relevant psychology and spiritual politics, I can be more discerning about the optimal targeting of the eschatological message.  So I will probably use the next few days here to work out a better outline of my ideas, and then contemplate another testing of the waters.  

In the meantime I'll be taking in the Gods and Generals movie -- four hours of it, I am told. 

[2/23] 

Norms are an inescapable core of reason.  They are stronger than mere convention.  There have functional and teleological aspects.   Thus are norms inescapable in both the physical and life sciences.  The normativity cannot be disentangled from the objectivity; and, furthermore, objectivity itself is normative.  Mathematics is similarly invested with the norms of reason.  The normative methods cannot be removed from the results.  There is nothing natural about math.  All abstracting is normative.  

The normativity of science is reflected in its use of counterfactuality.  Modality is essentially normal, and vice versa.   Normality is about modality.  Causality is both normal and modal.  

How are norms unnatural?  They are intentional, aesthetic, pragmatic and you name it.  They make it possible for us to analyze, reflect and 'objectify' the world.  They are often universal. Norms are built into every artifact.  They cannot be formalized, but every formality is normative. 

Thought cannot escape from its own norms.  If there were a non-normative, mind independent reality, we could not know it.  Both quantities and qualities are ineluctably normal.  Reductionism and analysis are essentially normal.  There is no mind independent nature.  It would be inconceivable.  But are the monster group and big bang normal?  

What does the normality of reason imply about AI?  Normality comes out of thought; but it cannot be put back into it, certainly not in any piecemeal fashion.  Norms like thoughts and language are holistic.  Like functions, they cannot be analyzed.  They are self-referential.  

But what of the BB & MG?  Are they not both MIRs?  How could they not be?  Are they convenient, theoretical fictions?  

The past is a fiction.  I can be effective only through the present.  Time is surely a fiction, especially in its directionality.  All events are fictions, especially in their causal aspect.  But especially is the luminous (specious?) present a fiction.  Consider presence and absence. 

-------------------

Why, historically, was there never a non-prophetic theism, and ever only one of the other?  Rational theism must contend with that history.  How do we rationalize around that singularity?  There are devotional mysticisms like Krishna consciousness, but there is no story or codification.  Historical theism is singular.  The prophetic and historical elements must be inseparable.  Why only one chosen people?  Only one contract?  One savior?  One God of history?  How can full theism be considered rational if it is so rare?  

Consider the subjectivity of presence.  Also of relationality.  But what is reality w/o relations?  Even the concept of the real is subjective and modal.  It implies an unreal.  

If we were so wrong about an MIR, how can we not now be skeptical of God?  It is a question of logic and reason.  We reason to a source. 

Relations are ineluctably normative.  

God is just the ultimate norm and normalizer.  There must either be an ultimate subject of object.  Either God or universe.  God is just the BB of norms.  All Hubble 'norm' shifts point back there.  It is a simple triangulation with norms.  

After the big Norm, then we're off to the BPW and eschaton races.  

How are norms normally deconstructed?  That is not possible with holism.  

--------------------

Non-reductionism.  Any irreducibles would be normative.  These also point to a Source, using the self as a stepping stone. Norms, coherence, relations and self are all inseparable.   Relations are irreducible and immaterial.  

The self is the necessary purveyor of coherence.  Those two functions are inseparable. 

The imminent deconstruction of science.  Ironically it will hinge upon scientific realism.  Can we drop back to instrumentalism and conceptualism?  

The pragmatics of complexity is forcing us to reconsider ontology.  

Why?  From the unreasonable effectiveness of math, to that of science and language.  The notion of progress is problematic as well.  

The incoherence of reductionism.  Science has never been comfortable with it.  

But there are no isolated irreducibles.  Holism reigns there, as well.  There is only functional and telic alignment.  These point to a supra-mundane telos: a source of coherence.  

It may seem like a great stretch, but it could be that the MG is responsible for our psychological projection of the MIR.  It could even be associated with a primordial fear of some kind. 

All the anomalies of materialism are beginning to come into coherence.  We needed to be able to look at the world, modulo atomism.  

 

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Topical Index

2/1/03

Unreasonable Coherence 

Unreasonable coherence (0 hits).  Are we surprised?  Only mildly.  By contrast, unreasonable effectiveness has 1,740 hits.  This stark contrast of counts indicates to me a curious unwillingness to move from one very promising idea to the next in what ought to be a logical progression.  Let us not fear to tread where none have trod, at least not within range of Google.  [For more background on this topic please see the pages listed under relational metaphysics.] 

My takeoff point is the Coherence Theory of Truth (1,500 hits).  But let's back up one more step: Quine & holism (1,700 hits) and see my Quine page and here, etc.  It has been just 50 years since 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism'.  (In the idiom of the 1930's, I am tempted to say that the interim has been a 'three dog night'.  We'll see if we can't warm things up a bit.)  

------------------------------

Despite all our efforts, linguistic, scientific, logical, political, etc., to chop up reality, everything still hangs together to a remarkable degree.  What holds the world together?  From whence cometh coherence?  I have the temerity to suggest that coherence is not merely a human artifice, no more than is the mathematical coherence of physics.  

I suggest that there is a strong correlation between the coherence of the world (175 hits) and the unity of consciousness (2,800 hits).  If the unity of consciousness is not a total illusion, as many used to allege, then its source is something that we often refer to as the self.  If there is indeed an irreducible, immaterial self, then we must look for an irreducible source for the self.  And so, logically, we must consider the possibility of a world soul (12,000 hits) which would be the transpersonal source of the self and its cohering world.  I submit that this logical progression is now and forever the rational basis of all theism.  

The closest approach to a rational theism is to be found in Platonism, and in the closely related Thomism.  Hegel made a last ditch, pre-Darwinian effort to resurrect a rational theism.  It has fizzled.  It is curious that nothing approaching Platonism is to be found further east.  The crowning irony is that it is the pantheist traditions of the East which stress a monist metaphysics.  The West, despite its rationalism, has been more friendly to dualist and pluralist ontologies.  Rationality begins logically in the carving up of the world.  If the carving up is not restrained, however, it ends in the reductionistic nihilism that has engulfed modern culture.  At some point we have to confront the task of reconstruction.  That task has no recourse other than in the logical progression leading to rational theism, as outlined above.  

This is the one thesis that I nail to the door of Modernism.  

Darwin, more than any other individual, is responsible for modern nihilism.  Darwinism remains a powerful force in the world.  It embodies a simple minded logic that is compelling to the point of coercion.  Its logic leads inexorably to the graveyard of reason, if not of life itself.  There is only one way out of this hole that we have dug ourselves into.  That is my thesis. 

-------------------------

Now I need to find a likely door for my post-it note.  Google has a list of about 50 philosophy forums.  About a dozen of these are likely prospects.  

[2/25] 

Peter Suber also has a list of philosophy forums on his Guide to Philosophy on the Internet.  Here is a listing of online religion forums using Google, but I'm finding few if any that would be suitable.  The coherence of the world listing yields little of substance.  For coherentism (1,700 hits) there are a number of useful links.  The standard alternative to coherentism is foundationalism.  

[2/26] 

I continue to be impressed by the Monster Group (see here).  The best source for 'monstrous moonshine' is John Baez (also see Tony Smith).  No other object in mathematics appears to function as a greater relational nexus or irreducible source of coherence than does the Monster.  Thus in mathematics it plays a role similar to the self in relation to the mind in general.  It is only somewhat speculative to say that the Monster is also the primary source of coherence in physics, in as much as it is likely to be intimately involved in any final theory.  Once again, I point to the polarity between the cosmic self and the Monster (see also e.g. here).  Where would the Creator be without the Monster?  Who created It??  I wouldn't want to meet that person in a dark alley! 

According to John (and see week 193), the octonions, which have a special quantum, projective role, also have a special role in the exceptional groups.  The octonions might thus be a link between the Self and the Monster, given the 'high octane' (E8xE8) observational aspect of QM.  In this same week, John also compares 'classical' and 'exceptional' beauty.  

[3/1] 

Comprehension is a universal value.  We comprehend that which is coherent.  There are two types of coherence: formal and substantive, or syntactic and semantic, or objective and subjective.  Objective, syntactic or formal coherence is rule drive.  Subjective coherence remains undefined, and is often considered to be a matter of aesthetics.  

Coherence taken to its limit is cosmology, which correspondingly comes in two extreme flavors: scientific and theological.  There is no doubt that scientific cosmology is a crowning human achievement.  There is also little doubt that it is, by and large, an already completed endeavor.  

The one very significant question facing scientific cosmology is the outcome of evolution.  There is only the general consensus that in the long-run, life in this universe will cease.  Of great practical and immediate concern to our own species is the technological prognosis.  There are widely diverging prognoses, but again there are two easily recognized extremes: technophilic and technophobic.  

And just at this point in our very brief synopsis of the human situation, we confront irony and even predicament or paradox.  The issue concerns the 'limits to progress'.  Here rises, potentially at least, a cognitive dissonance between science and teleology.  How do we describe it?  

From a purely parochial, and short term perspective there is no great issue.  Science proposes, politics disposes.  The deeper issue arises only when we ask the larger question.  How far can or will technology go; or, again, what if any are the limits to progress?  

The closest that science comes to providing an answer is to be found in its treatment of the Anthropic Principle.  This principle deals with the suitability of the cosmos with respect to the evolution of life.  To make a long story short, there is the considered opinion that this suitability is remarkable to a degree that warrants an explanation.  The forthcoming scientific explanation invokes the notion of an ensemble universes.  Implicit, however, in this simple proposition are deep issues of logic, probability, and even objectivity and reflexivity.  With this caveat, the closest thing to a scientific prognosis is the doomsday hypothesis.  The dissenting, 'scientific' view is to be found in Frank Tipler's Omega hypothesis.  

The doomsday scenario reflects the non-teleological, scientific view that evolution is non-directional.  There is no natural guarantee of 'progress'.  What progress we see is only a reflection of an anthropic bias, and it must therefore be ephemeral on the cosmic scale.  On the other hand, Frank sees in the quantum observational reflexivity a cosmic mandate for observers, and thus is lead to a strongly teleological and technophilic conclusion.  A transhumanic, universal progress is wired into the laws of physics.  In these wildly diverging prognoses lies a fundamental paradox of science: its own unnaturalness; its own unreasonable effectiveness.  All of this lies behind the notion of 'unreasonable coherence'. 

Science is content, and very candidly has no recourse, but to let this matter rest.  At the end of the day, what can it say besides, Que sera, sera?  I believe, however, that this fundamental agnosis will not stand.  Science reflects an essential human urge toward gnosis.  It is not in our nature to be left in the dark, especially not after coming this far in our quest for knowledge.  The show must go on.  Can we possibly restrain our powerful collective proclivity?  A crucial historical observation to make at this intellectual juncture is that gnosis and religion have never been compatible.  The last several centuries of antagonism between science and religion are but one chapter in a dramatic, historical dialectic.  With that major caveat, let us continue our exposition of coherence.

Coherence would be much less unreasonable if we were to take a more substantive view of the world.  I use the word 'substance' advisedly.  Substance encapsulates the pre-scientific notion of substantiality.  It hinges on the twin ideas of being and presence.  It looks at existence from a non-abstract, phenomenological point of view.  Science is the great abstractor.  It has abstracted substance beyond all recognition.  In science the pursuit of substance has devolved into an arcane mathematical discipline of theoretical physicists, in which the most likely being is the 'Monster group'.  One does not have to be an unregenerate skeptic to imagine that something of being has been abstracted out.  We can, however, take a very useful lesson from the Monster: substance is something irreducible, the Monster is the awesome epitome of mathematical irreducibility.  I will go a step further: substance and being are the essence of irreducibility.  

Permit me to elaborate briefly.  Science attempted to analyze substance.  Scientific materialism was the result.  We are left with atoms in the void.  But these are not just any old atoms, mind you.  Standing behind the atoms is the Grand Unified Theory of physics, and behind that theory, as just noted, appears the Monster group.  Comprehending the Monster is a task for only the most accomplished mathematicians.  It is the epitome of irreducibility, yes, and it is more.  It is also, and even more strangely, almost paradoxically, emerging as the epitome of mathematical coherence.  This last observation remains controversial even amongst its connoisseurs.  I look to it not as a foundation, but merely as a potential pointer to a far greater coherence, that is truly the foundation of being.  The Monster poses as the Gordian knot of mathematics.  Many lesser puzzles of that discipline hinge upon its convoluted structure.  This is decidedly contrary to common sense.  On would expect that such a 'freakish' entity as the Monster would be self-consigned to a mathematical hinterland, but such seems remarkably not to be the case.  It seems more to stand as the nexus of manifold complexity.  But we need not and should not dwell on mere speculation.  We have more substantive issues.  Merely observe that motivation for aspects of our perennial gnosis can arrive from the most advanced fringes of the scientific gnosis.  If we peer deep enough into the cosmos, are we not, fancifully, reputed to see the backs of our own heads, or at least our own tracks?  What kind of reflection do we see in the 'Monster' that holds together the atoms and lends its coherence to the physical world? 

My proposal for substance is at once radical and logical.  Certainly it is phenomenological.  In a phrase: to be is to relate.  Existence is purely contextual.  To posit an unknowable, unobservable existence or noumenon is to take the illogical, ill founded step of reifying the inconceivable.  This proposed relationalism is tantamount to coherentism: all relations are internal or essential to the being in question.  This is antithetical to what superficially is the scientific downplaying of relations by taking them to be external or accidental.  

Let us consider further the contrast between internal and external relations.  It was Isaac Newton's absolute reification of space that transformed what, up to then, had been a much more organic view of reality.  Living as we are in the 'space age', it is at least as difficult to conceive of a non-absolute space as it was for Einstein's contemporaries to conceive of the curved space of general relativity.  In particular, the odd notion of being lost in space was inconceivable to anyone before Earth was displaced from the center of the world.  But even the now seemingly quaint geocentric view was a wild abstraction for the pre-Columbian mind.  For the Aristotelian mind, there was not space, but rather places.  Everything had its proper place in the world.  For things to be misplaced in the world was a symptom of organic distress, disorientation and disease.  Alienation was not a concept that would have sprung readily to mind.  

Am I now suggesting that Copernicus and Newton were wrong?  That Giordano Bruno got his just desserts?!  No, but I am sure that there will be those who will want to caricature a postmodern, relational sense of space in this pre-modern fashion.  

I have already suggested that, with the Columbia disaster (truly the 'displacement of a star'), we are witnessing the end of the space age.  No longer can space hold the personal promise and fascination that it once held for those of us who came of age with Sputnik.  Coming to an end is external exploration.  The pundits may lament an 'inward turning', but was not the essential vision of the space age not just the Gaian vision of the Spaceship Earth?  Ironically, it is ecology that is our psychic inheritance of the space race.  Our burgeoning sense of ecosystems and general systems portends our postmodern conception of an organic world.  Thus does space return to its more proprioceptive, functional sensibility.  The Internet plays no small part in this conceptual shift.  The essential metaphor of postmodern space is just cyberspace.  

This might sound like the end of the story, but it is a bare beginning.  

[3/2] 

The antithesis of coherence is reductionism.  Reductionism is our legacy from scientific materialism.  The first step of our long journey back to coherence will be to roll back reductionism.  This first step has already be taken countless times in the last half century, but for some reason the lesson has not sunk in.  Reductionism is still considered a live option by far too many of us.  Reductionism seemingly has nine lives.  I would contend that it is already on its ninth life.  Is there not just one more straw to find in order to break its back?   

No, that will not be my strategy.  That is the implicit rationale of postmodernism.  Postmodernism seemingly wants to keep all options open, including that of reduction.  Its vast stockpile of irreducibles are like so many Lilliputians against the Gulliver that is the residual coherence of materialism.  Reductionism may be contained, but it is still very much kicking.  It is not more Lilliputians that we need.  What we need is a wooden stake.  

Coherence is a vastly underestimated force.  Or perhaps not.  Postmodernism may only be truly understood as a loose but resolute coalition against coherence.  Whence the resolve?  Whence the intransigence?  Like all intransigence, it is founded in fear.  And, yes, fear of coherence.  

The only way I know, or any one knows, how to deal with fear is to confront it.  Naturally, we are doing anything but.  Instead, on the few occasions where the issue of coherence has surfaced, there is denial backed by scorn, etc.  The fear remains inchoate.  

What gives?  In the 'good old days' we gnostics were simply dispatched at the stake.  No muss, no fuss.  Now it is not quite so easy.  Nonetheless, the cacophony of postmodernity has served to keep the ambient noise level well above the threshold of any nascent vision of coherence.  That calculus, however, disregarded the Internet.  The simple logistics of the Internet provides an almost clear channel for coherence.  The ball is in the court of coherence.  A little bit can go a long way in cyberspace.  In cyberspace the shortest distance between two points is the coherent line.  The self-organizing phase change from chaos to coherence should be virtually spontaneous.  A butterfly flaps a wing and the currents of coherence are set in motion.  The butterfly is a virtual, virtuous handful of truth seekers who overcome their fear.  If there is a comprehensive, comprehensible truth out there, and half a dozen people are able to discern it, it will be all over but the shouting, thanks to WWW.  Chaos and ignorance are on notice.  

 So, yes, for the last fifty years, the very worst kept secret is that there is more under the sun than 'atoms in the void'.  That materialists now call themselves (non-reductive) 'naturalists' serves as exhibit A.  The final guise of reductionism is not to deny the undeniable plethora of irreducibles, but rather to deny their coherence.  The reductionists' cooption of the label of 'naturalism' is as explicit as they need to be concerning their fears of whatever monstrosity might conceivably exist beyond mere nature.  For instance, we have already met the 'Monster', and I maintain that it is but a shadow.  Whose shadow?  Ultimately it is our own collective shadow, and that is quite naturally our greatest fear.  Aren't all of our fears 'just' the projection of our own inner darkness?   Yes, and we have ample, justified reason to be sore afraid of our own demons, collectively multiplied and magnified. 

-----------------------

Indulge me, however, while I say a few more words while on this subject.  The original and residual strength of reductionism was never predicated on its merits.  In over a century now, there has not been one single successful, uncontestable instance of anything ever having been reduced to any other thing.  The closest such case, and the one most often cited, has been that of thermodynamics being reduced to molecular kinetics.  Let me just say that thermodynamics contains mysteries that remain at the forefront of physics research.  The directionality of time and the loss of information are still among the greatest puzzles in physics. 

The real problem lies with non-reductionism.  By the same token as above, I can point to nothing that is incontestably irreducible.  I submit that these twin failures are two sides of the same coin.  The coin of the realm, the only legal tender is coherence.  The substantiality of coherence is unanalyzable.  You cannot, to the great frustration of the atomists, carve out a piece of coherence and place it under a microscope.  In contrast, one can, famously, manipulate atoms under a microscope to spell out 'IBM', proving the reality of atoms?  True, but only if physics can be identified with metaphysics, which is the whole issue from the start.  Should theologians be surprised that God has not appeared in our telescopes?  

Thus do the reductionists think they have succeeded when they place any, more or less tangible, piece of reality in their analyzer and proclaim that after exhaustive analysis that there is nothing left but tinier bits of reality.  That is true, and it is notoriously true of the analysis of biological organisms, but there is a catch.  The analysand never survives the analysis. 

The portent of coherence lies in the very 'success' of analysis.  The more we analyze, the greater is the 'complexity' that we discover.  I only need aver that complexity is in the eye of the beholder.  In the realm of  complexity, the barrier between the epistemic and ontic becomes fully transparent, or should I say, totally permeable.  Complexity theory is, on its own merit, the antithesis of reduction.  

--------------------------------

The reductionists claim the self to be an illusion.  I agree.  But, it is only a relative illusion.  It is only an illusion relative to the reality of the cosmic monad.  Otherwise, our own self is the most enduring reality we can possibly experience.  It is simply the one nexus of all our experience and knowledge.  Remove that nexus and what do you have?  One blathering idiot.  In this age of alienation, our lives all too often seem to disintegrate before our eyes, 'in real time', as we are wont to say.  My only claim is that what little of coherence we are able to salvage from our lives can only be attributed to our beleaguered personal monad.  The intellect is not everything, but it stands to reason that an intellectual appreciation of the greater coherence of the world would serve to ameliorate our alienation from it.  Who knows, an integration of the psyche might be taken to heart. 

I am just saying that coherence, if given any benefit of any doubt, can easily seem to overflow the strict confines of scientific cosmology.  And I am not here to beat you over the head with coherence, but I do ask you, if you were never to give coherence a chance, how would you know what you had missed?  

----------------------------

The gossamer of coherence lies in the ubiquity of relations.  No one will vouchsafe that relations are all that we can ever know of the world.  Things are merely a rational construct of their interactions with other things in general, and their interactions with us in particular.  The reductionist maintains that relations are all spatial and temporal accidents.  The coherentist demurs.  Space and time, she avers, are merely abstracted from the essential, functional relations that comprise reality.  The coherentist is a functionalist.  We can never know anything outside of a larger functional, systemic context.  Even, or especially, in a mechanistic context, nothing is left to chance.  The place of everything is preordained in a cosmic causal context.  The only idea that the coherentist needs bring to the mechanist's feast is that the universe may be more like a great thought than a great machine.  Certainly, most, if not all, of the gears of Newton's clockwork universe have long since been replaced by the mental constructs of mathematical physicists.  

From the view of developmental psychology, space and time are hardly innate concepts, but only develop very gradually out of conceptual generalizations of our functional, proprioceptive interactions.  Contemplate the incomprehensibility of a simple map to a pre-modern mind.  The Cartesian division of reality into the extensional and intensional or intentional is a nearly incredible conceptual leap, yet materialism is its legacy.  How strange that our modern sense of substantiality came to be founded upon such a leap of the mind.  How much stranger that we can hardly, anymore, grasp its utter strangeness.  How do we find our way to disentangle ourselves from our own abstractions whose once very fashionable functionality we have already outlived?  It will take some getting used to.  Let us not, please, allow ourselves to be ground down by our own abstractions. 

[3/3] 

Enough of the fluff, right?  Let's do the nitty and the gritty.  What holds the stars in the sky?  Where is Atlas when we need him?  And how about mother Nature? 

I take atoms seriously, but just not quite as seriously as my former physics colleagues.  And I take the Monster group more seriously than most mathematicians.  So here's the deal: 

Ultimately I blame it (the starry sky, etc.) on logic, more than on God.  There is no point in overworking God.  Let's let God off the hook, as much as possible.  In the BPW, there are ample reasons for a minimalist take on the big girl upstairs.  Sua sponte, as they used to say in grammar school: it's up to us.  I hold nothing against Mom, but let us not always hide behind her skirts.  

Our two points of departure are Anthropics and the Quantum, and don't they just about amount to the same piece of logic, anyway?   It all comes back to Wheeler's tautology: no phenomenon is real unless observed.  Reality, then, is, practically by definition, egocentric.  I recognize that this sentiment flies in the face of modernism and even postmodernism.  Where is the humility?  Should I not apologize?  Not on your life.  Instead I bite the bullet, the messianic one, that is.  The above logic compels me to go the full distance.  Copernicus was big.  Whoever can overthrow Copernicus will be bigger, and we're talking biblical proportions.  You get the picture.  The logical coherence of our fin de siecle context demands that our would-be Copernicus II give obeisance only to JC.  But that is not all.  Crank in the previous observations concerning a minimalist theology, and realize that the 'Death of God' might be something more than a clever turn of phrase.  Jesus was not the Son.  Jesus was the sacrificial remnant.  If that does not scare the Bejesus out of you, then, by God, you are not paying attention.  Egocentric?  Better call it Christocentric.  In short: Copernicus2 = JC2.  (I was always a big fan of indexicality!)  The ultimate cosmic irony is that Jesus, in claiming to be merely the son of God, was committing a virtual prevarication, simply to help preserve our sanity and sense of cosmic security for another two millennia.  But now the truth is out.  Science has just been an acting out of this same cosmic charade, but not anymore, folks.  It's no longer atoms.  It's no longer God.  It's just you and me, sister.  And I'll do my messianic best to make that stick, right here at WWW.  What do they say, 'Give it the ol' messianic try'?  You and I know that this is mostly just a formality, but in this little formality lies a big chunk of history, and history is for keeps, after all is said and done.  

Does any of this help to explain the starry sky?  It is all part of the one big coherent picture.  The best possible picture of the best possible world.  There is, and will be no World2.  The logic of the stars is simply teleo-logic, backed by the Monster.  It is the Monster that disciplines our cosmic dream.   We did not invent the Monster, nor it us, but we make the best of what we've got.  The Monster might have been bigger, or maybe smaller.  But where would we be without it?  What if it were not the optimal size?  Would this still be the BPW?   Einstein wondered if God had any choice in creating the world.  God wonders if Einstein had any choice in inventing general relativity.  Just how coherent is our Monster friend?  

As I have noted before, you can forget your pretty little starry sky, the Monster is the closest thing to an MIR that we are ever likely to encounter in this vale of tears.  Close, yes, but no cigar.  Nonetheless, it surely is the Cosmo-logical knot.  There is a paradox in the combined mindfulness and mind independence of mathematical objects.  How can something be so mindful and 'mindless' at the same time?  The Monster is a stand-in for the final world enigma.  Does it not cast its shadow on our little Millennial festivity here?  Medusa could barely hold a candle to this mother.  We might do well to employ the ruse of Perseus in avoiding eye contact.  And where are those constructivists when we need them?  

[3/5] 

I have not yet declared defeat in my role of Perseus/Alexander/George vs. Gorgon/Gordian/dragon. 

I remain desirous of resolving the apparent conflict between Anthropics and the Monster.  Here are some points to consider: 

    * math genius
    * number theory
    * ellipses -> eccentricity -> modules -> exceptionals, 
    * TOE <-> Monster 
    * observer problems 
    * *numerical 'coincidences' (e.g. e^pi - pi ~= 20, etc.)
    * Godel 
    * 'organicity' of math

Are the above just a dustbin of mathematics, or something more?  The numerical coincidences smell fishy.  There is no explanation for most of them.  The other points may or may not be related to this problem. 

I want to show how the Monster might have been created, but is it not also nice to have a true MIR?  There is ambivalence. 

There were bound to be exceptional groups; and, perhaps logically, there was bound to be the largest one.  These exceptionals would figure in the various mathematical exotica, and possibly in math genius.  Primality is primal.  

Math genius may pick up on the resonances of the near misses.  With no miss, there is no resonance.  Quantum computing could do likewise.  There could, on further speculation, even be an optimal observer bootstrap loop; and that, of course, would be the crux of the matter.  Could there be an irresistible force hereabouts to move our favorite immovable object?  

There may be virtual, shadow, 'imaginary' monster-like 'resonances' (an infinite number of them?) of even larger dimension.  We see now just the largest 'real' one.  We're talking imaginary 'roots' of some larger system.  It may be that our world exists 'off the mass-shell'. It is reified teleologically, and the reification of the monsters or exceptionals is related to that.  More or less!  This speaks to the putative organicity of mathematics.  Math, as a purely mental construct, cannot be exempt from hylozoism. Can it?  Could we conceive a logic incompatible with our existence?  

There is an optimal size for the largest real exceptional group.  That's the one we observe.  That is no coincidence.  That is a logical necessity.  Logic is not absolute, nor is the resultant math.  There is a 'gravitational' warping of the logic.  Any extant logic space must be closed epistemologically.  Math is not exempt from the necessary epistemic-ontic connections.  This closure is just the foundation of coherence.  This is the source of the 'unreasonable' coherence of the world.  

How and where does this hylozoic 'warping' of logic operate?  It operates on the fringes of our cognitive abilities, and it operates there with sufficient coherence to be virtually undetectable.  It operates in the realm of genius, which remains the foundation of mathematical truth.  It is the universal resonance of genius.  It will be as elusive as vitalism to detect.  Consider the dog that chases its own tail!  It can only be seen coherently or holistically.  

e^pi - pi ~= 20?  Does this not just compute, mechanistically?  Is the circle warped?  Yes and no.  Forgive me if I point out that 'e' is the number of life, and pi is the number of closure.  How could there not be this near closure of life?  Is this too spooky?  (JC2 = 20C AD as the closure of history, but don't complain to me, I just work here!)  This latter is only meant as semi-serious, but it does point to something truly serious: the organicity of the world and all its 'abstractions'.  

Could we conceive of e^pi as anything else?  How did we fudge these numbers?  No, they fudge themselves.  This is a true panpsychism, just as advertised.  Is this not a gross overdetermination?  And what else is new in the BPW?  Even the numbers conspire, for they could do none other.  The natural logarithm is a vital, organic concept.  It must resonate, and e^(i*pi) is only the mother of all resonances.  Better stop me before I commit any worse crime of numerology.  But do recall the antagonism between the decimal and the duodecimal forms of 'closure', as apocryphally pointed out by the Jews to the heliophantic Egyptians upon the occasion of their exodus, with the first ever 'recorded' street gesture, and this despite their more traditional Davidic semiotics.  Thus we do not have a mod of 24 as might have seemed more 'natural'.  10^10, it turns out, is more natural or organic than 12^12.  The logic of numbers appears fixed just because of our fixation with it.  C'est la vie, mon amour.  Is Pythagoras turning in his grave?  If he is, it is to a 5/6 rhythm. 

I recognize that I am terribly far from the semblance of an explanation; but do, please, recall that this is an exercise in minimalist messianism, and so: sua sponte, my friend.  Your work is cut out for you.  I'm just the entertainer here.  I'm the one with the squeeze box, when I last checked on Google.  

----------------------------

I'm surprised to find only the above reference to the e^pi coincidence.  It was not even reported until 1988, which seems rather late in the game.  I can only conclude that mathematicians must find it somehow embarrassing.  A less peculiar coincidence involving the sqrt (163) has at least 50 references, probably because there is an 'explanation' involving the 'j-functions' that are related to the Jacobi elliptic functions [see the Heegner numbers].  [3/11: I'm still not seeing the 'explanation'.  Does anyone else?]  [9/1:  There is an ambiguity as to whether the e^pi coincidences determine the j-function or vice-versa.  The 'rationality' of the 'j' is the issue.  From whence does it come?] 

[3/10] 

I don't usually take up the Pomo cause, but here is an exception: 

CONSENSUS AND COHERENCE IN MATHEMATICS - HOW CAN THEY BE EXPLAINED IN A CULTURALISTIC VIEW?  by Susanne Prediger, PoME journal 16, July 2002

[3/11] 

To posit mathematics as cultural, as Susanne virtually does, is simplistic.  Yet how much less cultural than chess is it?  I would venture that math is more 'cultural', given the greater rigidity and simplicity of the rules of chess.  The concept of 'proof' is notoriously vague and controversial, as are the various axioms of logic.  The various treatments of infinity and the calculus are cases in point.  The role of conjecture is absolutely essential to its advancement.  

Does any of this consign the Monster and e^pi to the status of artifact?  Yes and no.  Suppose we speak of a cosmic artifact?  Does this present another picture?  Is 'e' not an artifact of some culture?  It emerges from the culture of calculus.  It is an article of that culture's coherence.  Is not 'pi' an epitome of some kind of culture?  Both depend upon controvertible notions of infinity.  

I would say further that mathematics has no choice but to be optimally coherent.  We're talking FLT (Fermat) type coherence.  We don't yet fully appreciate the psychic status of 'deep' math, any more than we do of deep ecology.  Maybe we do see the back of our own head, after all -- no longer quite so 'fanciful' -- coherence is the only thing left unbounded (Universe as Doughnut: New Data, New Debate) [Dr. Spergel added, "If the universe were finite, then this would rule out inflation and require something new." [...] Moreover, the idea that dimensions could be curled in loops occurs naturally in theories that try to unite gravity and particle physics, several physicists pointed out.  (Micro/macrocosm!)  Anyone for coherence?  All this harks back to the Greek abhorrence of the Apeiron.].  Until we understand the deep ecology of math, we cannot dismiss the 'coincidences' of e^pi.  Numerology and astrology are not wanton.  One could hardly imagine a culture without them.  Coherence resides in those shadows.  Was Ramanujan (1887-1920) not just the ultimate numerologist, much to the chagrin of many of his less well endowed colleagues?  

Gosh, I was thinking I had already made ample reference to the Ram, but spell-check tells otherwise.  He is surely exhibit A, but for what crime?  Whodunit?  Hedunit.  There is a very peculiar resonance between our deep psyches and deep math.  The three journals devoted to the ram-ifications of his thought processes are a small testimony to that....deep coherence?  Should he not be ensconced in any prophetic pantheon?  He is already in mine.  The Ram has put the genie back in genius.  Case closed?  Math is no less optimally coherent than ecology.  The BPW is the notice of a cosmic ecology, nay, a cosmic teleology.  Gaia is written on that wall.  

Can we Ramify Jesus?  It is a similar idea, but different orders of magnitude and quality.  It is also about being in the right place at the right time.  Tell me about that! 

Mathematicians are sitting on a metaphysical goldmine, or is it a time-bomb?  They keep quiet about it lest they upset their hard-nosed, scientifically established colleagues.  The unreasonable effectiveness of math is forcing the issue on the larger community.  The larger community looks askance.  The larger community dreams of the genome and then the proteome and the unknome raise their heads.  Complexity knows no bounds, other than those of an ultimate coherence.  

The deeper we look the more we confront an irreducibly organismic (unreasonable?) coherence in math, physics, psychology, biology, etc.  Where is the epistemic/ontic divide?  When will we admit there can be none?  

Have I slain the Monster?  No, but I have tamed it.  To everyone's satisfaction?  Not quite yet.  

Does the rational theist wish to tame God?  Do I wish to place God in the traces of our telic ambition?  The cosmic self has a mind of its own.  We would not be here to extol it, had it not.  God will be tamed only to the optimal degree.  And whose optimum is that?  That is just love's maxim.  And if you think love will be tamed, well, do I have news for you!  This truly is news from nowhere and now here. 

----------------------

Back to Susanne: 

In short: coherence in mathematics emerges, because mathematicians immediately search for solutions to level inconsistencies whenever they appear. In consequence, inconsistencies do not exist in mathematics, because they are not tolerated.

By the way, 'coherence in mathematics' yields only 31 hits, and all but this one deal only with math education.  Unreasonable coherence is unreasonably unattended.  

The Pomoists miss the bigger picture.  They scarcely distinguish mathematics as one among many cultural artifacts.  I suggest its role is crucial.  It is the most direct probe of the universal psyche.  Indeed it points to that universality, as nothing else can, abstractly and outside of religion. Am I positing the quantitative nature of the psyche?  No.  I am positing the unique, qualitative nature of mathematics.  I posit the emergence of sheer quality out of sheer complexity.  Complexity is the Rorschach, mathematics is the test.  Mathematics is the end of complexity.  The Riemann hypothesis and the classification theorem point to that end.  There is a closure to complexity.  The unboundedness of love is a singularity unto itself; the rest of the world is its shadow.  Mathematics circumscribes that shadow as nothing else can. 

Ultimately, of course, coherence cannot be analyzed.  Mathematics comes as close as possible.  Beyond that, coherence can and will be celebrated.  It will be lived.  It is our magic carpet: the genie of our genius and genus. 

The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics is owed to its logical circumscription of chaos, of the Apeiron.  We see its tracks in the micro/macrocosm.  It is the testament to the logical confluence of ontology and epistemology.  Mathematics has tamed the noumenon and placed it in the traces of love.  Sorry, but there is no more analytical way of stating it.  

[3/13] 

From whence comes math? 

Consider all the mathophobes.  Is math really necessary?  Couldn't the BPW be mathless?  I can sympathize.  I consider math to be a sometimes entertaining spectator sport, along the lines of chess, but that does not mean I would ever want to spend more than a few minutes at a game.  

I submit that, indeed, it is games that are the ontological source of math in the world.  Why games?  They are entertaining.  It is often hard to distinguish between life and sheer gamesmanship.  Darwin took this basic insight and turned it into a reductio.  We need not go there.  

Games entail rules, and rules entail logic and randomness generators.  Where would the game of life be without the laws of physics?  Metabolism is a major part of that game.  

It may be that in heaven there is no metabolism and no physics to speak of.  Why not just skip all the restrictions under which we operate here?  It comes back to spiritual gravity.  There has to be a place where the risks and stakes are high.  Again, there is no way to avoid this sort of game talk.  Heaven may defy gravity, but it has to wait upon the game down here.  Otherwise the world would not be serious.  It would resemble a joke, even more than some claim it does now.  There is something about truth and consequences that we cannot ignore.  

There is another possible consideration relative to the necessity of math.  In the quantum world, math enters in a more fundamental fashion than in the Newtonian world.  This has to do with the discreteness of observations and the entailed probability distributions.  The stability of matter depends on these rules of observation.  If there were not a rule concerning minimum photon energies, the world would implode in a microsecond, a very warm microsecond.  If there is to be a coherent microphysics, quantum-type rules will come into play, and so will the attendant mathematization.  

With quantum systems, one has to deal more directly with system states.  Such states have formal observational classification schemes, which entail sophisticated mathematical structures, and there is no getting around it.  Such schemes do have game theoretic overtones, although I am not aware of any formal analysis of this nature.  

In classical mechanics, the formalization is something that may be appended to the underlying dynamics, often in an arbitrary fashion.  With quantum physics, however, the formal aspects are right there in your face.  There is no way to define such a system without being explicit about the mathematical machinery.  With the quantum realm, the epistemic-ontic divide is explicitly overturned, and it is done so in a necessarily rule driven, mathematical, computational fashion.  Quantum logic is virtually a pleonasm, whilst Newtonian logic borders on the oxymoronic.  

The rule driven nature of games makes them eminently suitable to computerization, up to and including the simulation of the contestants themselves.  But how do we get from the normative character of games to the inviolable nature of physics?  Probabilities likely play a role in this transition.  And what plays the role of the computer in this informational mechanics?  How are the rules enforced? 

There is something about the natural discreteness of information that should be considered.  Is information more naturally digital than analog?  

[3/14] 

To come to grips with my questions about the place of mathematics in the natural order, I need to appeal to creation.  Is there any logical order of emergence outside of the Darwinian model?  

Perhaps the most primitive of all systems is just the cycle.  I would submit that the lineal logically emerged from the cyclical.  The myths of cycles appear to be the most primitive.  The cycle combines key semantic, semiotic, physical and mathematical concepts.  It is a root dynamic.  A crucial aspect of the cycle is the resonance, which combines space and time in fundamental fashion.  

In considering the semiotics of resonance one can hardly miss the nearly universal presence of OM: 

OM, like Amen and Ahmeen means the Divine which manifests as all that is. OM is the "word" as in; "in the beginning was the word" which means primal sound or vibration from which all other names and forms arise and to which we all return. OM is the Alpha and the Omega.

In theses senses, OM is logically prior to the more lineal prophetic logos, or the Zim-zum of the Kabbalah.  

Pi is the measure of the cycle, but, a much more self-contained and dynamical representation of the cycle is e^i*pi.  The imaginary unit (i = sqrt(-1)) is a resonance within a resonance.  e, i, and pi are a virtual trinity for the discipline of mathematics, not to mention for physics, and especially for quantum physics.  No other quantities can match their power or ubiquity in the most basic and esoteric realms of math and physics.  The cycle cannot be considered to exist independent of these quantities.  They exist together at the most primitive of all ontological levels.  If there is a confluence of psyche and physis, mind and matter, or quality and quantity, it would be here.  

It is the magic of the Zim-zum or lineal logos to break, temporarily, out of the cycle.  That temporality becomes our history.  Six is the circular number and five is the lineal number.  I would equate the pentagram with the Zim-zum.  The peculiar decimal syzygy of e^pi - pi = 19.999099979... cannot be ignored in any such context.  If this syzygy does not point to the breaking-out nature of the Zim-zum, then someone is trying hard to fool us.  There is a semantic necessity here which overrides mere numerical necessity in a manner which is reminiscent of the Anthropic role of the Monster group.  The coherence of mathematics and the world hang precisely in such a delicate balance.  Is any of this unreasonable?  No more so than the coherence to which it gives rise.  The implicit numerology is just a minimalist version of panpsychism.  At the end of the day, numbers cannot and will not alienate themselves from the mind from which they arise.  One can no more remove numbers from the mind than one can remove mentation from the numbers.  Should this logical reciprocity not have been more obvious to us?  What mental block led to the modern epistemic-ontic divide, especially with regard to numbers, of all things?  

[3/15] 

There is in the world a ubiquity of cyclical phenomena.  The numerical quality of cycles is essential to them.  The cycle is apriori irreducible, both quantitatively and qualitatively.  Nowhere are the epistemic and ontic more closely conjoined.  The simple cycle should have been a sign to those who so glibly sought to put asunder that which is logically indissoluble. 

Can there not be cycles beyond our ken?  Does that not depend on 'our'?  The notion of a cycle is conflated with the notion of self-identity.  Most everything else is trivially or tautologically self-identical, but not a cycle.  Its self-identity is non-trivial and essential to its existence as an irreducible, emergent property.  One such property is frequency.  Frequency is not an arbitrary measure.  Frequency is essentially and physically relative.  Frequency is essentially observational.  Could we not say the same of extension or duration?  I submit that frequency is more basic than either.  This fact is formally recognized in the designation of the metric standard in terms of wavelengths of light.  Length and duration are both derivative relative to a standard frequency.  The absolute nature of the velocity of light speaks to this same logical and physical relativity.  And through Einstein, even mass is reduced to frequency.  The reduction of energy to frequency forms the basis of quantum physics.  

[4/21] 

Well, gentle folk, you may have wondered at my absence.  Among other things, I have been wondering whether, if I were to be shot, the hole in my head would be caused by the bullet, or would be psychosomatic, and how I would know the difference.  This might seem a far cry from the e/pi syzygy, and it is.  I think it is easier to explain the starry sky, given the likely necessity of a sunny sky, than a hole in the head.  Cycles are certainly more obviously involved with Sun and stars than with bullets. 

I have taken about 100K of notes on cycles and stuff, off-line on my PDA, but I have nothing that is sufficiently succinct for these pages, yet.  To wit: 

Friday, April 11, 2003 

9:33:13 AM

    *

      ·         creation may be like rebuilding a society such as Iraq
    *

      ·         a society is composed of ring structures built out of ring psyches as a magnet is built out of individual spin atoms
    *

      ·         the will is the direction of the spin
    *

      ·         alignment is the problem
    *

      ·         cloning of spins, and then a reproduction cycle
    *

      ·         social space v. phys space
    *

      ·         sexual repro is a trick
    *

      ·         that is about the biggest leap from the pure psychic realm
    *

      ·         what is the prototype?
    *

      ·         repro has a lot to do w/ atoms
    *

      ·         can we do a Feynman ring diagram for repro, and have it connect w/ atoms?
    *

      ·         s-repro is a way to prevent cloning
    *

      ·         what is the primal prototype?
    *

      ·         primal seeds?

See!  Take my word for it.  Talk about bullets....

A problem that is inverse to the bullet hole problem is that of walking, or not walking, through walls, which reminds me of the 'bullet hole house' in Concord, but that is another story.  Normality is more of a challenge for immaterialism than is paranormality.  They don't shoot ghosts, do they?  How do we invoke the Pauli Exclusion Principle, without invoking atoms?  I don't mind atoms too much, we can derive them from cells, as cells are derived from organisms, given some sort of scheme reminiscent of 'object oriented programming' with inheritance and the like.  But is that too much of a stretch?  Speaking of stretches, how many people are aware that the PEP depends on fermi statistics, which, in their turn, depend upon, I believe, something like PCT symmetry, and don't ask me what that derives from?  Sometimes physicality is not quite as physical as some of us might like to think.  Nothing like a little physics to disabuse one of physicalism.  

Looking at it from another perspective, we normally avoid the superposition of heads and bullets, but doing so is usually related to the problem of Schrodinger's Cat.  Who observes the hole in my head?  Is it the same Gal who observes Berkley's tree on the quad?  And how does the shooting of bullets relate to the chucking of spears?  How many spears would a....?  I don't mean to make lite of the silver bullet-hole problem, but what else can a body do?  

When I get serious, imagine that, I get serious about the continuity of cause and effect.  Given the A&O and the BPW, everything else has to fall into place, a la the PSR.  The manifold of reason is quite continuous.  You can stretch it out, and the Lord knows we do, but you can't break it, anymore than you can break a gluon string.  Can we not work the superposition problem as well from the top-down as from the bottom-up?  Perhaps even better if we have to invoke the indefinable notion of observations and record keeping.  It might be easy to make a record, but not so easy to keep one.  Just ask the IRS, but please don't tell them I sent you. 

Reasons are manifold.  Less often are they manifest.  Does not a reasonable world become grossly overdetermined?  But that overdetermination is just what keeps the roulette wheels in Monte Carlo honest, honest!  Sure there is psychokinetics, and there are also casino bouncers.  Being discrete is not an option down here, it is the best possible law.  I need the PSR like I need a hole in the head.  We all have holes in our heads, it's just that they are hard to observe.  Well, they would be easier to observe, if we weren't so darn persnickety about them!  It's not necessarily God that keeps the trains running on time, it is more likely our own insecurity.  That good ol' 'invisible hand'.  And that is what the Omega is (not) about.  It is just about homeland security, if you catch my drift.  If you shoot me in the head I will die, but not out of necessity.  Out of insecurity.  It's like the evil eye, only more so.  And if you ask me no more questions....  It must be time for another vacation, or another war.  The telephones don't really work, its just the commercialization of telepathy, to slightly oversimplify the matter.  Have you noticed that when the wife calls, the ringer is practically superfluous?  It's only the telemarketers who really need phones.  You mean you didn't know that communists don't use phones?!  Shame on you!  Or was it the Amish?  Anyone for a little shoo-fly pie?  How about a telepathically telemarketed shoo-fly pie?  You see the problem, don't you?  So, will the glory train be running on time?  Yes, if it runs on Internet-Google time. 

[4/22] 

And what about SARS?  Is it eschatological?  Is it another embarrassment for immaterialists?  

As you may have noticed, I am not easily embarrassed.  Not by nature, just by profession.  Will this be the Big One?  How will it play in the hinterland?  Will it genetically combine with HIV?  Well, yes and no.  Be scared, but fear not.  Will we be robbed of our Millennium?  What do you think! 

There is talk that SARS may take down the Beijing regime as effectively as the Marines took down Baghdad.  That would not terribly displease us, if we can contain the loss of blood, minimize the looting.  It is possible that SARS could be restricted mainly to China, where there could still be millions of deaths, and perhaps Africa, where the HIV recombination would be almost foregone.  There would at least be a behavioral transformation on the Sub-continent, if not in the Third-World.  The cost is great.  What is the reward?  Is this the price of the Millennium?  Are those the ashes from which the Millennium must rise?  We will shape up or ship out.  

Along with Beijing, Islam, as we know it, may be another casualty of SARS/HIV/terrorism.  Kim Jong's days are numbered.  He is the wrong person playing the wrong game at the wrong time.  He might not last out the year.  

What then of idealism?  Will there be a break or a new opportunity in this game of global dominoes?  Will there be a new crack in the pall of materialist orthodoxy?  I can't yet place it.  

-----------------------

And why SARS?  

Could there be symbiosis without parasitism?  Could there be biology without symbiosis?  This is what ecology is about. 

 

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2/24/03

Creation vs. Evolution 

It has only been a few months since the last foray into Creation.  That last attempt turned out to be a two pronged attack on the subject.  The first prong was an attempt to recruit pantheism to the cause of creation.  Creation is hard put to find a point of repose within the pantheist schema, or lack thereof.  Furthermore, the western shoe has a hard time connecting with the mayan tires.  The fact that maya has no tires to kick, may exacerbate the problem, if you see what I mean.  Think of one shoe tapping.  Never mind. 

Kickable tires were more available when we turned to the problem of emergence.  Emergence is the evolutionists' answer to Creation.  Strain though they do, nothing notable or non-biological has yet to emerge from the exertions of the emergentists.  They simply cannot forego the skyhook of teleology and downward causation.  Anytime that a physicalist departs from the Lucretian picture of atoms swerving in the dark, she is asking for metaphysical trouble.  One trouble is that any emergentist ontology is bound to collide with epistemology.  The epistemic/ontic divide is insufficiently robust to withstand the cross-currents of biosemiotics, the 'Ome explosion', and the like. 

Failure of one's opponent is one matter, one's own success is another.  How are we to ward off Samuel Johnson's fateful kicking of the stone, in refutation of immaterialism?  A mere dream atom is altogether insufficient.  

Sam is distracting me.  This is not a stone kicking contest, this is about Creation.  Ex nihilo is our problem.  It would seem that a symphony can be created ex nihilo, but can a stone?  Why should it seem so much more difficult to create a stone than a symphony.  Mozart was a mere genius, while Sai Baba is a spiritualist for all his alleged siddhi.  A symphony is created out of the mind, a stone out of atoms.  With the 'dream atom', I wished to suggest that atoms had a similar provenance, but tell that to Sam.  Sam never met the big Baba, and neither have I.  

The emergentist would contend that given atoms, symphonies are bound to follow.  I contend quite the opposite.  

Here's the problem.  Creation and evolution are two extremes.  Many of us seek a golden mean, but that is not so easy if you are not a dualist or a deist, as are the Intelligent Designers, for instance.  An IDer sees God as a literal micromanager.  I beg to differ, but the IDers do have a point: where would Mozart be without a flagellum?  And I'm sure that Sam would agree.  

Why didn't God just commission Gabriel to create the 'Jupiter'?  Who needs Amadeus with all his flagella?  That is such a good question that I probably don't have an answer, but you know me, I'll give it the ol' messianic try.  And I don't have to answer every question that comes down the pike.  All I have to do is give the skeptics a run for their money. 

God need not be a micromanager.  Once she gave the BPW process a kick-start, she could kick back and watch us sweat the details.  Serves us right, huh?  I'm sure there is a hole in the heavenly fence for the angelic sidewalk superintendents.  God did not create the parasites.  God created creation.  God created ecology.  Nature has its cycles, we have our norms.  Our norms complete the ouroboros. 

Two details come spontaneously to mind: Amadeus' flagella and Sam's stone.  I would blame both of them on 'ecology', rather than on either God or evolution.  This is about relationalism and the manifold of (felt) meaning.  And let me not forget cycles.  That's what I was using my PDA to cogitate upon during this last intermission.  

What's with a cycle?  This goes back to the e/pi syzygy.  Nowhere do epistemology and ontology become more conflated than in mathematics.  I suggest that the lowly cycle is the inheritor and manifestor of this amalgam.  In the game of reductionism, I replace atoms with cycles.  The cycle is the common denominator of all emergence, from the ouroboric A&O cosmic cycle, down to the orbital atom and the spinning flagellum.  There are many cycles, but only one cyclicity.  There is an irreducibly vital, even panpsychic core to the phenomenon of cyclicity.  There is no such thing as an objective cycle.  There is a normative recursion and even self-identity at the core.  Counting is one such vital cycle at the heart of mathematics.  

Does not cyclicity obviate the whole problem of Creation?  It would seem so, according to the pantheists.  But then they hardly appreciate the singularity of the BPW.  That is precisely where the theism is irrevocable.  

Relationalism in a global context is a web of cycles contained in cycles.  The space-time manifold is constructed of such a relational web in the style of Penrose' 'twistors' or 'spin-nets'.  The cycles become aligned into a cosmos rather in the fashion that our neural nets are aligned into a conscious self.  Is it magic?  Yes, there is always a bit of that: enough to keep everything interesting.  The world wide web is another manifestation in another space.  

Flagella and stones are nothing if not ensconced in a relational web.  'Being kicked by Sam' bespeaks a web of startling proportions.  No cycle is an island.  

[4/25] 

I would understand if you were to compare my authorship of these pages (un)favorably to that of a monkey supplied with an electric typewriter, knowing that no disrespect for our simian foremothers was thereby intended on your part.  Nonetheless, watch out, as with the apocryphal conspiracy theorist, some day, some theory may turn out to have been correct. 

What I wish to say about immaterialist creation is that we can have our immaterialist cake and eat it too.  Both George Berkeley and Samuel Johnson will turn to have been correct.  In keeping with the spirit of the BPW, we can have the best of both their worlds, and of all worlds, for that matter.  Our dream atoms will turn out to be eminently kickable. 

How do we arrange to have our BPW and eat it too?  By using evolution, of course.  But not exactly as the Darwinians are wont to understand it.  It is notorious that some of my Christian sistren are down on Darwin, and I sympathize.  It is no secret that Charles harbored the most serious reservations regarding his own theory.  A monkey on a typewriter is capable of vastly more moral and aesthetic motivation than are the cosmic rays that are alleged to help rearrange our DNA codon letters.  

Unlike the cosmic rays, God has a plan.  That plan includes Amadeus' flagella, but not directly.  God dreams up evolution, rather in broad outline, but then, using teleology to its utmost, is able to implement it mostly in reverse order.  That's cheating!  Well...., all's fair in love & Creation.  But what if a Kim Jong Il, just as a for instance, were to come along and nuke it?  Wouldn't that mess up the plan?  Well, that's a pretty big 'if'.  The way I reckon it, that's just not going to happen.  Either a Bush, a Bubba or a Baba would intervene.  But, hey, don't take my word for it.  Let's just wait and see.  

You question whether it would be possible to reverse engineer evolution, Kim Il or no Kim Il.  I'm telling you that where there's a will, there's a way.  If the reverse engineering of evolution would keep Samuel, George and maybe even Charles, happy, well, God would just outdo herself.  The big payoff is that with the overarching evolutionary schema providing an enormously cohesive coherence, our dream atoms become, as I have earlier remarked, eminently, relationally, kickable and, yes, eatable, potable, and otherwise functionally promoting of cosmic intercourse.  The only downside is that with all the kicking going on, we kickers are also wont to kick the bucket.  But, hey, just how much of this lovely cake can one person possibly eat?  You don't want to get a BPW stomachache, do you?  And, besides, how many proms can a parent put up with? 

[4/26] 

The only thing that anyone of any metaphysical persuasion could find wrong with the idea of evolution is the materialism implied by it.  What is right about it is its internal coherence.  Who is to say that we cannot have the coherence of evolution without all its materiality?  There is nothing wrong, and almost everything right with natural spontaneity.  Why go through the labor of an arbitrarily imposed, top-down creation, when there exists a schemata for a 'natural' creation?  Why should God not let 'nature' do what nature can do best?  

It is my contention that the BPW entails an optimal balance between God and nature.  I see absolutely no reason to believe that this optimal balance is not being achieved, considering especially that we now stand at the threshold of the Millennium.  

The obvious way for God to empower her Creation is to exploit natural spontaneity to its utmost.  An evolutionary style of coherence is the ideal agent of that spontaneity.  Thus are we able to achieve an optimal balance between the creative push of spontaneous adaptation and a teleological pull.  We and nature push, while God pulls.  In the process we are also exploiting the positive powers of vitalism, panpsychism and pantheism, while avoiding the incoherence of dualism and deism.  And who is to say that such a BPW is not possible?  Why should we suppose that we are not its living testament? 

The only problem with evolution is evolutionism, i.e. the granting of metaphysical exclusivity to matter and chance.  The extraordinary properties of mind and consciousness ought to give lie to evolutionism, materialism and naturalism.  All to obviously, there are more things than atoms under the Sun.  

Outside of the 'fundamentalist' or 'hard core' ranks in both science and religion, almost everyone is willing to accept the compatibility of science and religion.  Belief in a teleologically directed evolution provides the basis of the alleged compatibility.  This is a minimalist teleology.  It is a residual teleology that is left after granting everything else to scientific materialism.  

I take strong exception to any minimalist teleology.  There can't be a teleology without a telos, any more than there can be an expanding universe without a Big Bang.  Teleology entails an Omega.  Teleologists don't deny the Omega, but they take pains to postpone, downplay and ignore it.  Gradualism and a strong distaste for any millenarian enthusiasm are the benchmarks.  

Appending an Omega or Telos to the Big Bang cosmology borders on the incoherent.  It becomes a deus ex machina.  Yes, one can imagine a universally convergent evolution, but converging on what?  Surely not just on a Tiplerian or Transhumanist computer in the sky.  At some point there would have to be a Teilhardian spiritualization of matter or at least a separation of the two.  The cosmic logistics of the Teilhardian Omega would be prodigious and unseemly, at best.  The main problem would the unreasonableness of of any temporal coordination.  Would every potentially life bearing planet have to wait for upwards of billions of years for the very last planet to reach its Omega, or would each planet just go popping off on its own Omega like so many spiritual supernovas?  

If each planet were to converge on essentially the same Omega, this would seem to transform a spiritual process into a virtual assembly-line.  The planetary redundancy would then serve no qualitative purpose, unlike the multifarious communion of souls within a given world.  With a virtual infinity of worlds, no world is essential.  Any given world is spiritually expendable.  

One might try to imagine that there are more than the apparent four levels of being, i.e. atom, cell, self, God.  We might be to our planetary god as she is to a cosmic being, and so on.  This (unlimited?) polytheism has no conceivable rationale.  It would remain logically incoherent to us.  There would be no coherent end of the possible levels.  Salvation would ever only be partial and provisional.  The story would have no conclusion.  We would feel just as lost and disoriented in that spiritual infinity as we feel now in our spatial infinity.  Even the concept of the BPW would become incoherent.  Without an overarching rationale, every conceivable world exists, and there is no longer any essential meaning for creator or creature.  

Polytheism, pantheism and atheism become indistinguishable, according to our non-prophetic sisters and brothers.  An essential God is a singular God with a singular salvational economy.  Only that one God ultimately speaks to us, and only to that one God do we ultimately answer.  That Being is our Creator and the Creator of our one best world.  That is the Alpha and Omega of coherence.  That is the one light.  All else is merely a shadow. 

A personal and loving Creator is necessarily self-containing and all-containing.  Such is the best possible Being.  If you can conceive of a more sublime being, this would be an auspicious time to reveal it to the world.  

Thus may the Telos and the Logos be identified.  The evolutionary schema that we call nature exists to serve the Telos.  Nature can be fully comprehended and appreciated only in its teleological, eschatological context.  In that sense, nature is a pure creation.  We are the creatures who increasingly identify with the Creator.  The evolutionary schema underlies the coherence of the world.  God is the author/conceiver of that and all other schema and rationales.  

[4/27] 

Much of the above has been a roundabout rationalizing of what most, even semi-educated, people would consider a giant leap backward, reverting to a pre-Copernican worldview.   There is no point in trying to soft-peddle this mind-boggling conclusion.  

Regarding the impending immaterialist implosion and inversion of the scientific worldview, atoms and evolution come off relatively unscathed, but the stars....well, they've gotta go.  Isn't that a bit like the dentist telling her patient that his teeth are OK, but the gums have to go?  Sorry, about that....about the bad joke, but not about the stars.  I've been warning NASA all along that they're going to have to do some serious retooling.  Ultimately we have to choose between inner space and outer space.  Metaphysics cannot treat them as equal without succumbing to a complete incoherence.  Even the most rabid Creationists would hardly contemplate such a radical inversion of the modern worldview.  I am simply following the path of immaterialism to its logical conclusion.  I can do no other, without doing violence to the power of reason.  

Our mission, should we choose to accept it, is to pick up the pieces of the shattered materialist cosmology, and begin the reconstruction of its immaterialist successor.  I will not be offering anything like a finished product, rather I will apply some very broad, preliminary brush strokes to a work that is going to be in progress for the duration of the Millennium.  

-----------------------------

But what are the pieces that are pickupable?  A ubiquitous feature of the scientific world are its cycles, yet cycles lack a definite ontological status.  The inference is that they might serve as a bridge between materialism and idealism.  It's worth investigating. 

Very often the notion of cycle and process are interchangeable, and I would commend to you Whitehead's Process Philosophy.  Even several years ago, when I attempted to study PP, much of it was beyond my ken.  Do not blame Alfie for any significant part of what may follow. 

I contend that non-trivial cycles, and almost all are, are irreducibly phenomenological.  Even the swinging of a simple pendulum can be far from trivial if it is not grossly abstracted.  I have already attempted to rhapsodize on the metaphysical depth of cyclic phenomena.  The organic world is composed almost entirely of such processes, and the inorganic world is hardly innocent of same.  Organic cycles cannot be identified without consideration of their functional context.  The biological cycle is the basis of biological holism and, yes, vitalism.  Let the reproductive cycle be a case in point, and then recalling how ontogeny tends to recapitulate phylogeny helps to underscore the unbounded scope of even the most basic of cycles.  

Quite simply, biology is not a science of objects, it is a science of processes.  There is an unbounded, relational network that is truly cosmic in scope.  Given this relational, process oriented perspective, even physics gives up the ghost of its abstracted linearity.  Causality and functionality can hardly be disentangled on any level.  That entanglement, mathematically formalized in the quantum domain, is pervasive.  Organic and inorganic, epistemic and ontic are distinctions that lose their thrall under the aegis of any pragmatic concern. 

The otherwise mind-boggling move from materialism to immaterialism may be greatly facilitated by focusing on the lowly cycle as a point of reflective equilibrium, while the rest of our world is stood upon its head. 

-------------------------------

Let us shift our gaze back to the stars.  Recall poor Ptolemy.  His epicycles have become the icons of an obsolescent worldview, the objects of our sophisticated derision.  Yet, our literally exploding cosmological models seem on the verge of self-deconstruction.  No longer do we have to contend with mere epicycles, now we confront epi-cosmoses.  The only way to avoid the functional implication of the Anthropic Principle is to multiply our Big Bang hypothesis ad infinitum.  'Many Worlds' are breaking out all over: in modal theory, particle theory, in astrophysics, quantum physics, etc.  It would seem that we have leapt from the Ptolemaic play pen, into a seething cauldron of exploding, inflating, laminating cosmoi.  Goodbye Cosmos, hello Apeiron.  

With 20/20 hindsight, perhaps Cardinal Bellarmine should be attributed more than a bit of metaphysical prescience.  I am not suggesting that we renounce the history of science.  I am merely suggesting that science has its own internal agenda and Aparat.  Consider the possibility that human destiny may transcend those and any other particular strictures, including especially any implicit ones of my own. 

The bio-cycles could, without great difficulty, subsume the epicycles, in so far as we can lend ontological credence to Anthropics.  Your basic terrarium with 24x7 fluorescent lighting might be a nice place to visit, but who would want to live there?  Your more sophisticated models will have built-in light, tidal, climatological and even astroidal impact cycles, etc., etc.  Everyone of these cycles may add enormously to a dynamic, hierarchical network of ecological niches.  The Terrestrial, multi-cyclic model of terrarium is world class, is it not?   Perhaps it may turn out to be the best possible terrarium. 

Perhaps God did dream up the Sun, but how do we explain sunburn?  An Eskimo could dream of the Sun all winter long and still turn out peaked in the spring.  Sunburn is a process.  It is a spin-off of a plethora of much more functional processes, most of them cyclic in nature.  Heliotropism is observable throughout nature, not just on Pompano Beach.  So which came first, Helios or the Heliotrope?  For the immaterialist, that is just another chicken-and-egg type problem with, I would submit, a similar, and even quasi-evolutionary answer.  It's just cycles all the way down, ma'am! 

In the beginning there was just the Alpha and the Omega, and before that there was just the Om.  The cosmic, phenomenological symmetry breaking is virtually all cyclic in nature.  Call it cycle inflation, if you will.  Cycles beget sub-cycles.  Species beget subspecies.  The more sub-cycles you cram into the Krebs cycle, the more metabolic bang you get for your citric or photosynthetic buck.  That is just thermodynamics if you are into physics, and it is also information explosion if you are into metaphysics.  Information multiplies and mutates in the dissipative economy.  

[4/28] 

At least to a first approximation, the linking of cycles into a network requires nodes of intersection and interaction.  At that point the network takes on the appearance of an extended Feynman diagram: the points of interaction are connected by 'propagators' into a lattice structure.  If the interactions are strictly binary, as in the Feynman case, the lattice will be two dimensional, but that is not the case biologically.  

Reminiscent of projective geometry, there is an approximate duality in networks between the loops and their intersections.  This partial duality helps us to avoid an unnecessary ontological commitment to the particles in lieu of the loops.  Materialist, analytic thought reifies the particles at the expense of the process.  Relational thought focuses on the network.  On the relational view, the particle nodes serve as accounting tokens for the vital, underlying processes they represent.  The processes are teleological and subjective.   The particles are purely objective, or so our thinking has gone.  Quantum theory forces us to consider the interactive cycles as being essential to the observational protocol of QM.  A chemical cycle is a minimal self-measuring and recording system.  As such, it is the minimal building block of a quantum world.  Quantum theory and ecology are gradually nudging us toward a more relation view of the world.  

The logic and raison d'etre of particles is just their atomicity: their supposed independent, objective existence.  A persistent cycle, however, must be part of a dissipative system which must include an energy source, ultimately of a solar variety.  This brings us back to helios and heliotrope.  The heliotrope is a node in a vast ecosystem.  That entire ecosystem, including helios, could be logically reconstructed in holographic fashion from the information that is explicit and implicit in that one organism.  The same is not true of the Sun.  In an atomic world, the Sun is the ultimate atom.  In a relational world, the heliotrope is a paradigmatic node.  

In a cycle based, panpsychic world, heliotrope holds sway over helios.  In the great thought that is the universe, the phenomenological ecosystem is virtually self-spawning, self-reifying and ramifying.  The solar logos emerges as a coordinating nexus of the various metabolic nets.  This evolution is circular and teleological.  Its linear chronogram lends only one, highly abstracted, distorted, perspective, which is not representative of the cosmic system taken as a whole.  Or understandable bias toward the prophetic breaking of temporal symmetry leaves us mesmerized by a singular arrow of time.  As we approach the apparent Alpha/Omega ouroboric discontinuity, we will become more cognizant of the non-linear dimensions of time.  We too easily view time as just another objective fixture of the world, brushing over its paradoxical and subjective nature.  Only in the fullness of time does its supposed linearity become less imposing. 

Sun and atom, S&A, are the very useful cognitive spin-offs of our cosmic cycle.  In as much as those abstractions serve the larger order, we attend to them.  When they threaten to subvert that order, it is time to rebalance our thinking and restore them to the larger context.  That process is just beginning.  It has no conclusion short of the eschaton itself.  

[4/29] 

Sun & Atom are two primary nodes in our relational network.  They define our spatial manifold in the way that A&O define the temporal.  S&A/A&O are the anchors of our space-time physical reality.  Every microcosm, every cycle reflects these four nodes.  The Sun is the organizing nexus for the sky, as is the Atom for the earth.  A&O organize history.  

Who is the Atlas who holds up the sky and Sun?  And how is it so held?   God, as the author of our BPW terrarium, has scripted the four anchors of our reality in broad outline.  We creatures work out the details that will necessarily reflect the Anthropic Principle.  Our habit formation, our memories gradually flesh out the broad outline given to us.  The principles of object oriented programming, OOP, may be reflected in the process.  

Coherence is necessarily maintained throughout.  Logic cum mathematics provides the analytical skeleton of the coherence.  Logic and math are flexible to a degree, and they too become optimized in and through the process of habituation.  The mathematical structures such as the Monster Group are upheld in our collective memory.  

I have not given much emphasis to the role of memory.  This is not an oversight.  It reflects the trepidation I have in tackling such an enormous, convoluted issue.  Suffice it to say that I conscientiously abstain from all materialist rationales for memory.  Show me where the laws of physics are stored and I'll show you where your memories are stored.  Even the physicalists throw up their hands in despair.  

As a teleologist, I contend that memory and anticipation are two sides of the same coin.  Creation, to an optimal degree, works backward as the reification and final cause of our memories.  As a direct perceptionist, I don't make any hard distinction between the world and our collective comprehension of it.  That object/subject amalgam is the basis of coherence.  Creator and creatures are the partners in the amalgamated coherence.  The S&A/A&O/MG (monster group) are the cornerstones of our coherence.  Exactly how that works, the cosmic 'mechanics' of it..., my guess is about as good as yours.  Relationalism is the fact of cosmic existence.  Which fact strongly implies that nothing more nor less than the BPW can logically exist.  It exists in the eternal potency of its self-organizing logic and, yes, its love.  Nothing else can compete.  Everything else is a mere shadow.  As the Sun is the organizing nexus of the sky, so is God of love.  God writes the book of love.  The Sun is a significant prop.  How much more than this will we need to know in preparation for the eschaton?  Our need to know is part of the coherence, and curiosity is, of course, a legitimate need. 

On further thought, I suggest as a sixth anchor the reproduction cycle.  Thus we have: 

     A&O/Repro/S&A/MG as the Big Six. 

This may seem a mixed bag of tricks, but such is our diversity.  A would-be creator must pay special attention to the interaction and integration of these primary components.  As for the seventh component, I haven't a clue at this point.  

With just these six components, one is well on the way to the creation of the BPW.  Is this too easy?  It's not rocket science or even brain surgery, but it is a very extended exercise in staying focused.  

[4/30] 

I have been on the lookout for a Creation scheme from the beginning of this metaphysical quest.  The individual six items listed above have been prominent in my mind for much of that time.  The Monster Group is the most recent addition, and that has been a focus for a year or more.  The A&O scheme coincides with my shift to eschatology some fifteen years ago.  Atoms are a holdover from my years in physics.   The Sun is the granddaddy of cyclical phenomena.  Reproduction is, well, inescapable. 

The six items segregate conceptually into groups of three, perhaps as two interlocking triangles in the fashion of a star of David.  The two triangles are logically connected mainly between the reproductive and atomic vertices.  One may consider reproduction as the primary biological cycle, and, as such, it represents all metabolic phenomena.  Metabolism, in its turn, provides the primary rationale for the existence of atoms. 

The atom may be depicted as a miniature solar system, and thus may it partner with the Sun as the twin organizers of the large and small.  Deciphering the mechanics of the solar system has been the primary impetus behind mathematical progress since the beginning of recorded history, up until the last century when its role in that regard was supplanted by the atom.  The solar and atomic mathematics is essentially represented in the singular structure of the Monster Group.  

The above six aspects of creation are the ones which demand the greatest attention on the part of the creator.  If these can be implemented, somehow, by hook or by crook, the rest can be filled in, to a larger extent, by us creatures.  You might well object that the above list ignores the most important part of creation: the creatures.  If there is a special creation on the part of the human, it would be mainly as in the image of God.  That then would not qualify as a separate creation as in the other six items above.  The imago Dei is more to be seen as part of God's self-creation, a matter that I have alluded to from time to times in these pages.  

Besides any special human spirit or consciousness, there is the question of speciation.  I am suggesting that speciation can best be subsumed under the category of reproduction, and I will attempt to justify that logical dependence in what follows. 

From the perspective of the creator there is a six-point plan of creation.  Let us attempt to divine how this plan might best be implemented.  

[5/1] 

Please allow me to recapitulate some basic points: 

Lest there be any doubt as to what I'm doing here, let me remind you that it is speculative philosophy, with the indicated emphasis.  There is a widely held opinion that the materialist worldview is due, at the least, for serious revision.  I am among those who are skeptical of the prospects of any mere revision.  I am reasonably convinced that the mind-body problem is sufficiently severe for materialism so as to warrant the adoption of an immaterialist system.  That is the work in progress on these pages.  

Obviously the human mind has a capacity for reasoning and rationalizing.  Every cultural system including the modern and postmodern ones provide frameworks for the deployment of our reasoning abilities.  Down through the ages it has been the myriad versions of rational theism and/or gnosticism which have provided the widest latitude to the reasoning impulse.  I propose the immaterialist BPW scheme as the logical culmination of this tradition.  

I believe that the materialist tradition has been a necessary and useful phase in the evolution of human thought.  The problem of the mind, however, presents not just another puzzle for science to solve.  It appears to be presenting an ontological challenge of the highest order.  We have to ask ourselves, which is the cart and which is the horse.  I am suggesting that materialism has put the cart before the horse.  I proceed here to restore the horse to its proper position, and examine the consequences.  If immaterialism is to be more than an exercise in mysticism, it must make a strong appeal to rational theism.  The concept of the BPW provides, I submit, the necessary foundation for any rational scheme of Creation.  

Evolution is a powerful ordering principle, indeed, it is the primary rationale behind the entire modern worldview.  Postmodernism, for all its sound and fury, has hardly dared to even ruffle the feathers of evolutionism.  What I propose here is an immaterialist, idealist version of evolution.  The world is a great thought rather than a great machine.  Let us see how that thought evolves.  Let us see how the phenomenology of evolution may be explained and exploited from an idealist, theistic perspective.  And that is what we have been doing.  I am not here to challenge evolution, I am here to repossess the phenomenality of it on behalf of the Creator.  

That rational theism is a minimalist theism can hardly be overemphasized.  This is not going to be the Hollywood, special effects version of Creation.  This is the Tom Sawyer version.  This is the Anthropic version.  God sets the minimal stage and then lets the actors run the show.  We are the mainly unwitting actors.  

The minimalist 'props' or organizing principles for Creation might consist of the six items I suggested yesterday.  This is simply a first approximation.  It is a very rough sketch meant only to stimulate further thought.  Let us proceed in that spirit. 

----------------------------------------

How might these 'props' be deployed?  The primary organizing principle for Creation is simply the historical narrative.  God is responsible for the A&O as well as for the significant prophetic events.  To the extent possible, we actors are then left to our own devices.  The extent of our freewill is a factor to be balanced in accord with the BPW concept.  The creation of the narrative proceeds in a manner not unlike the creation of an author setting out to write the Greatest Story Ever Told.    

A reproductive cycle serves multiple purposes.  Each life history is a partial reflection of the cosmic history. The parent-child relation reflects the relation between Creator and creature.  Sexual reproduction and mutation ensures maximum diversity and novelty, with minimal divine intervention.  A universal genetic schema maximizes the continuity of 'nature'.  How is the reproductive cycle implemented?  I submit that it is implemented in the process of creating even the first creature.  Creation and Creator are a reflection of each other that comes about through a (deliberate?) cosmic symmetry breaking between primordial (cosmic) self and other self.  This same symmetry breaking is partially manifested in the distinction between Alpha and Omega.  Time is a product of the symmetry breaking as manifested in the ouroboric, A/O cycle.  There is a reciprocal temporality between Creator and Creation.  The existence of one complements the other.  God pours herself, even sacrifices herself, into the Creation which then completes the cosmic reality.  Sub specie aeternitas, there is but one singular spirit.  To put it most succinctly, the reproductive cycle is but the logical spin-off ouroboric cycle. 

Given a reproductive, genetic schema, the existence of an evolutionary tree could almost be an afterthought.  It would be a waste not to exploit the logic and rationale of evolution to flesh out nature in as spontaneous a manner as possible.  That does not mean than evolution is to be taken as a literal fact, but rather as a narrative device.  I would suggest that dinosaurs, for instance, existed in a parallel 'prehistoric' virtual sub-world unto itself, a kind of Jurassic Park if you will, whose logical overlap with Creation proper is witnessed in the fossil 'record'.  Thus permit me to suggest that the quasi-linear phenomenological time as we now experience it covers a period not much greater than that of recorded history.  We're talking something on the order of the time frame of the mythologically crucial equinoctial cycle of ~ 25K yr.  The details of nature are filled out by us creatures in teleological, Anthropic fashion, somewhat in the reverse order of history.  Creation can then operate on the assumption that all's well that ends well.  According to one well-known theory of dream psychology, our dreams are created in a similar retroactive fashion in the process of awaking under a particular stimulus.  Dream time is purely subjective in that case.  The eschaton is simply the awakening of us into God.  Like I say, this is nothing more than the roughest of sketches.  If you are hereby provoked to compose a more credible rationale, my mission will have been accomplished. 

Notice that here and throughout, I am not drawing a hard distinction between the why and the how of creation.  Given a primordial cosmic will, no prior constraints on the operation of this creative will need be, or even can be, posited beyond the internal ones of self-consistency.  And perhaps the alleged optimization scheme is best regarded as but a part of the internal consistency.  Logically Creation has no seconds, and so the matter of choice is moot.  

[5/2] 

To my way of thinking, the most difficult thing to create, setting aside God's self-creation, would be the Sun.  This is the most objectively physical item on our list of six.  The Sun is our source of light and energy.  It cannot be conceived as just another component of the ecosystem.  It is clearly a dominating object.  

Conceptually, light and energy are very different things, and it is not at all obvious that they should be combined electromagnetically.  Our dreams are illuminated, evidently without benefit of the Sun or any other particular source.  Why should our waking illumination have such a specific source, and how is that source put in place, etc.?  And how about all that photoelectric and thermodynamic stuff? 

The idea of a Sun would take the Creator rather far into the realm of physics.  Solar dynamics just about covers the physical waterfront.  This is a major deal.  Heliotrope is one thing, Helios is quite another.  That is a very asymmetric relation.  Where does one start? 

We're modeling creation as something of a divinely organized lucid dream that is being shared with various proto-creatures, which participate in it on various levels.  God has to get the ball rolling and then arrange for the creatures to pick up the slack and fill in the details.  Availing ourselves of teleology, this is a push and pull exercise.  

Illumination is a funny thing.  Think of the light bulb over the head of the cartoon character, or the halo on the religious icon.  They represent a deep mystery about thought, consciousness and their distinction from the unconscious.  Can we think without any audio-visual-tactile imagery?  Consciousness is phenomenal, or it is nothing.  That phenomenality can only involve the known sensory modalities: the ones engaged by the external world.  Can we entertain abstractions without phenomenality?  I have been partial to felt meaning over pure meaning, although I would be at a loss to describe the feeling of 'constitutional government'.  

Where do thoughts and memories go when they are not being thought or remembered?  There are many thoughts that we hash over, put aside, and then take up again.  Then there are those occasional thoughts that seem to spring to mind, unbidden and almost fully formed.  There must be mental processing that is unaccompanied by phenomenality.   

Panpsychism is the notion that the mind pervades the world, I submit it is the world the pervades the mind.  I am not a fan of representationalism where there are two worlds, the real one and the mental one.  An idealist has no need to posit two worlds.  There can be different perspective without there being different worlds.  The world is a great idea which exists in the collective consciousness and unconsciousness.  On the day side of the Earth the Sun is conscious, on the night side it is unconscious, more or less.  My train of thought is usually precariously balanced between the literal and metaphorical, and don't ask me to tell which is which. .  

Given a three dimensional world, there is bound to be something like optics.  Surfaces will convey or broadcast information in a more or less lineal fashion.  This is true even for sonar.  But why and how do we have independent sources?  If everything is already in the mind why bother with optics and all the rest.  Why not just have a memory like access to the whole world: kind of like remote viewing, but all the time?  There would be no communication or transportation problems.  Things might work like this in heaven, if there is such a place, but, evidently, not down here.  I would suggest it has something to do with metabolism, i.e. with reproduction and the like.  There must be a connection between the Sun and reproduction.  Did I mention Pompano beach? 

[5/3] 

Metabolism demands the conservation and sequestration of energy, which in turn require that there be discrete sources of energy.  Furthermore, consideration of communication bandwidth calls for an optical-visual type of channel.  And so does the consideration of discretionary communication, as opposed to a more intrusive or telepathic mode. 

Optics, however, is not feasible without there also being a distinction between sources and sinks.  Otherwise there could be no flow of information.  Consider, for instance, the structure of the eye and the camera obscura.  With optics as with energy, there is a logical requirement for discrete sources.  In as much as optics involves the flow of information, it must also entail a flow of energy.  Given then, two disparate requirements for energy sources, we might wonder about their possible relationship. 

Here is a further consideration: in order to minimize the number of sources and maximize the area of dispersion, it behooves us to employ remote sources, very remote.  Thus do we come to embrace a single, combined and remotely placed optical-energetic source.  Furthermore, we need a 2 + 1 dimensional configuration to maintain separation of source and sinks.  For a dynamical system there will have to be a constant force field to maintain a vertical segregation.  If we then wish to avoid external supports, we are on the brink of reinventing a planetary system, and along with it a Newtonian dynamics.  Furthermore, photo-energetics will require a rationale for balancing the two.  There will have to be photo-metabolic pathways and reactions.  This entails a photo-electric effect of some kind, which, in its turn entails a Planck relation between the energy and the cyclicity or frequency.  These considerations put us on the verge of reinventing the Bohr model of the atom with its planetary electrons, solar nucleus and discrete energy states. 

What we have witnessed in the last several paragraphs, and in previous pages, is a redeployment of the Anthropic Principle in a more fundamental fashion than how it was originally introduced.  Originally, the anthropic principle was intended to start with the physical world as a given, and then see to what extent this world is constrained by the consideration of biology.  Here, in keeping with our immaterialist bias, we deploy the anthropic principle in a more phenomenological and thoroughgoing fashion.  

Coherence becomes a primary consideration.  Given a phenomenal ambience, how would that ambience be structured or organized to optimize its coherence.  And why coherence?  Coherence, Creation and Cosmos are all of the same stamp.  They imply a subject/object polarity, but not a dichotomy.  To avoid the dichotomy, the polarity is conveniently made circular or reciprocal.  The creator/creation polarity is made reciprocal in some kind of Alpha/Omega schema.  There must also be a macro/micro reciprocity as between creator and creature.  

Reciprocity is impossible without coherence and vice-versa.  Reciprocity and coherence imply mutual and universal comprehension.  But reciprocity also entails a dynamic cyclicity of comprehension.  Coherence is not a stasis.  There need be a dialectic circuit in the broadest sense.  A dialectical, evolutionary, reciprocal scheme is what the doctor ordered.  The optimal such would be a singular 'recycling' of the spirit.  Gnosis and agnosis are thus complementary and dialectically dependent.  Continuity must also be juxtaposed with discontinuity on all levels, and thus do we come to the consideration of an eschatological/salvational/revelational scheme that invokes the Alpha/Omega discontinuity of the ouroboric sort.  

The prophetic tradition incorporates these dialectical structures in a relatively pure fashion.  Pantheism falls rather short in taking advantage of any spiritual dialectic.  It is a reflection of a gratuitous cosmic pessimism and even despair.  Any step beyond materialism will entail theism or pantheism.  Why settle for the inferior product, when its complement is freely offered?  In the end, can there really be a choice? 

[5/4] 

How do we sit now with the Sun?  I show that the Sun is the minimal logical nexus of various considerations.  Further, it is my contention that in an idealist system, logical necessity is tantamount to ontological prescription.  It stands to reason that the how and why will not be disparate questions as they are in a dualist system.  It is not just that the Heliotrope begets Helios, but rather that heliotropism, it its widest possible sense, begets and maintains Helios.  And I certainly include the Pompano sunbathers and the Egyptian solar worshipers as significant elements in the phenomenology of heliotropism.  God is responsible to load the dice of nature in a heliotropic fashion.  Then the anthropically stabilizing, concretizing elements kick in.  I have no doubt that more than a few of the actual exigencies of this bootstrapped creation process my be found recorded amongst our various creation myths. 

The BPW does not have to be the most difficult world to create.  To the contrary, considering the great reciprocity of the bootstrap model we employ, it may even be the easiest, if not the only world that may be created.  This is not to deny anything of Creator or Creation, but rather to keep them in the proper relational, reciprocal, dialectical context. 

Have we solved the creation problem?  Indications are that we are headed in the right direction, and that is what counts.  Once we take off our materialist blinders, new vistas open up.  In short order we will have moved to take up intellectual and spiritual residence in these wide open spaces.  Breaking down the artificial mental barriers is all that is required.  All we have to do is break the ice of materialism, then we discover the ocean of the spirit, which is our rightful home, our promised land.  

What finally can we say of the Monster Group, our remaining sixth element of Creation?  The MG is to math as the Sun is to metabolism.  It is an organizational nexus.  I have already indicated that the MG should not  be treated as something independently given.  Mathematics is no more immune to relationalism than is anything else in our relational world.  

Do the axioms determine the MG or vice-versa?  I submit the latter.  Teleology can operate in mathematics as elsewhere.  We are told that there exist only 26 sporadic groups, of which the Monster is the largest.  I suggest that we will discover an infinity of virtual sporadic groups.  We will find logical spaces in which there are infinite analogs of the sporadic family.  Furthermore, we will discover among the 15,000 pages of proof of the 'classification theorem' that there are hidden assumptions which speak to the admixture of simple axiomatics along with much more subtle anthropic-style biases.  Am I needlessly sticking out my neck on this seemingly esoteric matter?  Is this just another example of a postmodernist-style of critique run amok?  Rather, I submit that an anthropo-theocentric idealism will turn out to be the one vital justification of the entire postmodern endeavor.  

The above matter has to do with the 'unreasonable' effectiveness of mathematics in the 'real', physical world.  Members of the sporadic family play a very significant role particle theory.  No, I mean to say it is the exceptional groups that play this role.  And guess what?  I don't know the difference.  I must have missed that class.  It's back to the drawing board, sports fans.  

OK, Richard Borcherds points out in his moonshine lecture that there are indeed intimate relations between the sporadic and exceptional groups, having to do with the geometry and string-theory physics of 26-dimensional spaces.  He also points to the syzygy problem, which he says may not necessarily be related to the moonshine, but I would be willing to speculate that it rather points to some super-moonshine.  The point of moonshine is the unreasonable coherence of mathematics.  It is more organic than anyone could have supposed naively.  The MG turns out to be a core feature, or a nexus of a significant part of the organicity.  The unreasonable effectiveness of math indicates that the coherences of mathematics and the rest of the world, are, in some manner, mutually supportive.   It would be hard to imagine that this mutuality could be accidental, even if we were not idealistically biased.  

It is also difficult to think of math in vitalistic terms.  There must be another dimension of mathematical 'time' in which the organism can live.  The math we know is just one optimized slice of that organism.  In that larger dimension of mathematical gnosis there could be an infinity of sporadic groups.  

[5/5] 

There must be many undiscovered relationships between the sporadic groups.  Some of those relations must be extensible to a continuing sporadicity in some significant sense.  

I invite you to inspect the Proceedings of the Organic Mathematics Workshop, as well as Complex Zeros.  Also recall the Ramanujan phenomenon.  What these considerations point to is that panpsychism is likely to entail a panmathism, which is just the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics along with our ability to ascertain and entertain same.  

We think of panpsychism as being a touchy-feely phenomenon comprising a manifold of vital felt meanings.  But now we suspect that this same manifold includes a vital, organic panmathism.  The touchy-feelies and the mathematics complement each other in a fashion that escapes our present understanding.  Undoubtedly, the comprehension of this super-coherence will entail a whole new understanding of understanding.  

Consider the discoveries of Neptune and the Omega particle.  How does our enhanced panpsychism help to explain such developments?  The Omega, per se, is fairly straight forward in that it completed a fairly obvious grouping of the elementary particles based on their quark composition.  The quarks, however, bring us to the threshold of the MG.  That particle accelerators should be able to tap into our Ramanujan style collective unconscious is a bit more esoteric.  Particles have to have properties, and those properties will cohere in an optimal anthropic fashion.  Particles push reality beyond the limits of feeling and meaning.  Beyond those limits, the only source of coherence is math and the MG.  Relationalism demands that any available source of coherence be used to the utmost in any phenomenal setting.  Quantitative organicity is a logically necessary offshoot of the qualitative, panpsychic manifold.  Panmathism might be viewed as being the exoskeleton of the qualitative manifold.  It couldn't not exist and be accessible in instrumental and psychological fashion. 

Neptune presents a somewhat different picture.  Telescopes are a logical off-shoot of our energy-optical system.  We were bound to turn them on the starry, planet filled sky.  From a purely metabolic point of view, only the Sun and Moon play a role.  All the rest is gratuitous.  The fossils are a direct product of the evolutionary logic lying behind the ecological context of biology.  There is nothing so anthropic for the stars.  They are window dressing in a rather pure sense.  

Suppose there were no stars.  It would be, well, quite unnatural.  Nature abhors a vacuum.  A blank sky would be a psychic vacuum.  Evolution would be incoherent without a cosmic context.  

What could that context be?  The cosmic background could either be a steady state or not.  The Big Bang phenomenology lends itself to considerably more coherence than does the steady state.  Well, all of its incoherence may be ascribed to a single singularity.  It is tidy that way.  

That is the why of the stars, what about the how?  The Sun, in all its glory, as we discussed earlier, is closely tied to the heliotropism that pervades nature.  Given a fair nudge in the heliotropic direction, the ecological web ought to be able to snare itself a Helios, rather like our own phenomenological Sun, without undue difficulty.  The Pompano sunbathers would hardly constitute a critical component of the nearly universal heliotropism.  

Such is not the case for the stars.  The logically prior presence of the Sun and Moon will certainly help to prime our ontological star pump, but we may need some additional input of the Pompanic variety.  What I am groping for here is an astro-archeo-mythological system.  This astro-tropic system will be a substitute for the less anthropocentric heliotropism employed above.  Star worship may not be quite as gratuitous as Sun worship.  The fact that the entire megalithic culture was laid out on a foundation of astro-geodesy is noteworthy.  Sacred geometry, calendri, feng shui, etc. were all a part of the ancient, high cultural wisdom.  The ancient hierarchy, with divine collusion, did hold the stars and planets to their appointed rounds, using every psychic, projective power at their disposal. 

The enchanted, vital, zodiacal, mythopoeic sky, was gradually devitalized, perhaps in a metamorphic-pupal fashion.  Yes, that original sky was our psychic cocoon, shielding us from all the other things that might have gone bump in the night.  Our psychic boundaries were ever so much thinner and more fluid back then.  Now we may be seeing a bit of a reversal.  Is not the Hubble now helping to revitalize the sky, awakening us to a more organic worldview?  

All of this just to set the stage for Neptune?  Did Neptune not arise out of that same ocean of unconsciousness?  But first things first.  Among the first things seen as the telescope was pointed heavenward were the four Galilean Moons of Jupiter.  Surprise? 

Those moons didn't have to be there.  There might have been only three.  How did they get there if the Big Bang didn't put them there?  As I've said before, it was magic.  Idealism is no foe to magic, so you may as well get over that scruple.  And on the same subject, how 'bout those Saturnine rings?  God truly outdid herself.  

The Jovian moons and Saturnine rings I would chalk up to a Jurassic Park type phenomenon.  Somewhere God has a creation park or virtual alchemical laboratory, if you will, in the dim recesses of her mind.  Genetic and fluidic experiments abound.  Randomness is given a freer reign.  Whenever a sapient creature stumbles upon a blank stretch of Creation, Creation Park is accessed in an alchemical fashion that will maximize the aesthetics and minimize the incoherence.  Novelty will be a factor.  A bit of Xerox Parc will add to the flavor.  Add in a strong dose of teleology, pop it in the oven for a few minutes and presto-kazzam, you've got yourself a world class Creation system. 

Is any of this less credible than a Big Bang cum Darwin?  That is a very subjective judgment, I would submit.  You pays your money and you takes your choice.  I say that a little cosmic intelligence might go a lot further than a Big Bang.  I don't expect any hard core materialists to be persuaded.  But there are people sitting on many different ontological fences, and if even a few of them feel the sweet breeze of cosmic reason, my mission is accomplished.  And then even God gets to rest sometime. 

[5/9] 

Some progress has been made, but each bit of progress points up the distance remaining.  There are still significant gaps in the coherence.  There is also the need to find a way to balance upward and downward causation.  Idealism should not be forced to take the opposite extreme from materialism in this regard.  The emphasis on cycles was meant partly to offset this tendency.  Besides the reproduction cycle in the Big Six, there are also included the Sun and atom as a means of facilitating upward causation.  

Part of this upward causation initiative is the Jurassic Parc strategy.  The JPc is intended as a way to short circuit evolution in an ouroboric fashion.  It is a combination of Jurassic Park and Xerox Parc, or biological cum intellectual incubator.  Yes, perhaps this is just a slight, experimental extension of the Garden of Eden strategy.  If we go that route, there is then the problem of interfacing the mental realm with the JPc/GoE.  This is the residue of dualism that is still present in the tension between upward and downward causation.  I need to reduce or rationalize this tension.  This may also be related to the problem of rationalizing the effectiveness of mathematics. 

One of the problems associated with downward causation is the achievement of dynamical stability.  The mutually stabilizing influences of the Big Six were chosen accordingly.  The MG provides a form of downward causation mainly in regards to the atom.  Cyclical processes are perhaps the principal stabilizing influence.  

[5/12] 

Next to explaining the Sun, the atom is the biggest challenge for the immaterialist, and it may even be bigger.  We will at least have to bring out the big guns. 

Materialism and atomism are virtually synonymous.  Atoms rule.  Atoms make the world go 'round.  A great explanatory bulwark has been erected upon the diminutive atom.  How can immaterialists tap into that bulwark without becoming mere atomists?  Clearly we will need to make the best of the immaterialist ingredients in quantum physics.  However, a primary reliance on QM would make us overly reliant on atoms.  

It appears that vertex algebra may be a connecting link between QM and several areas of mathematics, including Fermat's theorem and the MG.  Riemann's hypothesis has its own links to QM via quantum chaos.  There must be a quantum connection between the physical effectiveness of math and the observer participation.  These multiple links are part of the explanation for the coherence of the world.  Atomic physics is an exercise in working out the implications of the observable symmetries.  

Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On 

I wish to argue that dreams inevitably lead to atoms.  It may be a long way from dream stuff to a nuclear weapon, yet that is where the logic of the BPW does lead.  In the dream state the 'why' and 'how' become naturally intermingled.  Coherence requires atoms.  Without an 'atomic logic' our dream world would dissolve.  

No one questions our ability to dream of atoms, but they do question the efficacy of those dream atoms per se.  How does a mere dream impart that efficacy?  What is the force of coherence?  I claim it is the most powerful force in the world.  It is the only force.  Correction: coherence and the life force are the only ones.  

[5/13] 

And did I hear anyone mention love? 

But today it is atoms that are the main challenge.  I am still inclined to assign metaphysical priority of atoms over the stars, i.e. the Sun, but it remains an open issue of perhaps more than academic import.  

I believe I have mentioned the close association between atoms and cycles: a primary cycle being of the chemical type.  Consider also the hydrological and meteorological cycles.  Water is the substance of life as we can either know or imagine it to be.  Life without water remains inconceivable and possibly even incoherent.  As the basis of life, water must have uniformity.  It must have elemental and formal properties.  It must be capable of transport in at least two phases.  It is the formality of water which speaks to its necessary atomicity. 

More accurately, it is the characteristic formality of water which underlies its evident atomicity.  Evaporation is an essential form.  Logically that form is nothing if not atomic.  When we dream of clouds and rain, we are dreaming of atoms at work, even if our individual dreams are not sufficiently lucid to make this internally obvious.  And it is, fortunately or not, only a small logical step from singing in the rain to nuclear Armageddon.  

Clearly there cannot be just one substance.  With other substances to account for, something like a periodic table is called for.  If you would like to invent a better periodic table than the present one, be my guest, but don't expect me to hold my CO2. 

Evidently I am attempting to conflate logic and ontology.  Formality is the main bridge.  Is Plato the key?  How do we bring the forms from heaven down to Earth?  How do we incarnate them?  Who is our Prometheus?  I can and do say that the forms reside in our collective unconscious, but then what?  

Formality is a very significant aspect of coherence.  Logic is or concerns the formality of forms.  What gives logic its dominion?  What gives rules their rule?  Is there not a computer in the sky?  Where is the engine of logic? 

Contradictory thoughts will eventually cancel out, but coherence is more than the logical residue of random thoughts.  There is a vitality of thought.  Coherence does grow in creation.  Which came first, coherence or forms?  Forms are the atoms of thought.  Atoms are the forms of substance.  But how do we get from thought to substance?  The spontaneity of individual, creative thought must somehow give way to the formalized collective thought structures that make up our world.  These two layers of mental reality replace the traditional mind-matter dichotomy.  Atoms and logic constitute significant connections.  I would also draw parallels between memory and substance.  If long-term memories are not just stored in molecules, as seems quite unlikely, then there is likely to be a close connection between them and the world they are supposed to represent, a kind of retroactive direct perception. 

Our spontaneous thoughts gradually condense upon the requisite collective forms, and form a collective memory that is the world.  Our individual memories tend to be time slices.  Our collective memories that make up the world are functionally segmented into the likes of Chevy's and Fords.  Atoms are just the logically ultimate segments.  But I can't drive around in my memories, can I?  Not except in my dreams, and that is just what we do in the Big Dream we call Reality.  And why do we need to rustproof our dream mobiles?  How to explain those fender benders?  That is where the atoms come in.  After all, the bent fender is a memory in its own right.  It certainly is a recorded observation, quantum or otherwise.  It is the logic of atoms that forms the basis of these 'externally' or collectively recorded memories that we call History.  

Can we thus atomize our history without becoming atomists?  It is at this juncture that we turn to the quantum.  It is the quantum that ensures the effectiveness of mathematics.  By nearly the same token can it ensure the atomic effectiveness of our memories.  There is, for one thing, a very definite downward causation and even teleology involved in quantum physics, entailing the macroscopic measurement process in its innumerable forms.  Whence derives this quantum logic?  QL ensures the coherence of our perceptions.  QL transforms the probable into the actual, according to the consensus interpretation.  But it could work the other way, as well, with the logical atom serving to balance the upward and downward causes.  Is this still not giving too much independent reality to the atom, as Samuel Johnson conferred upon his well kicked stone?  

Independence is the nub of it.  Entanglement is the game; rare by the materialist view, but the rule here.  Super-entanglement is only indirectly observable.  Even on the classical determinist view, there is no independence.  Perhaps Sam was anticipating the quantum when he waxed prosaic over his pet rock.  Super-entanglement looks ahead to the post-quantum not back to the pre-quantum.  

With super-entanglement, all observers participate in every act via the collective side of the mind.  The world memory is the sum of all entanglements.  When you add final causation via the Omega, the individual atoms give up their individuality, as if they ever had any to begin with, to the primordial cosmic atom, call it Atom-Kadmon.  

[5/14] 

Quantum entanglement remains a mystery.  Idealism exploits a similar process in its relationalism.  I should not be held more accountable than the materialists in explaining the entanglement.  The idealist rendition of atomic physics relies on this relationalism.  

Avoiding superposition of objects and other contradictory perceptions is a major task in any metaphysical scheme.  Even dream states are usually free of such perceptions.  A relational system, however, may automatically avoid such contradictions.  The Pauli Exclusion Principle is necessary in standard atomic physics to avoid spatial superpositions.  It derives from the anti-symmetry of the Dirac equation for Fermi particles.  Photons have no such restriction. 

Fender bending, as referred to above, does seem to favor an account that is upwardly causal.  Relationalism and its attendant downward causation seems, naively at least, to be too convoluted to account for such direct, instantaneous phenomena.  Perhaps our linear concept of time is to blame for this material bias.  The putative time reversal suggested by dream recall might alleviate this problem of simultaneity.  And this is where we may have to leave the matter.  The subjectivity of time is a major part of any idealist scheme.  Then we need to account for the universal, shining present.  I would submit that the universal presence is much more compatible with idealism than with materialism.  One just appeals to the universal consciousness.  Voila.  We're talking about the intersubjectivity of time.  

Realize then that there are no accidents, despite all those fender benders.  But is it not a stretch to appeal to the PSR for every little bender?  Statistics do not argue against idealism.  Accident avoidance and the lack thereof, can be subsumed under the rubric of universal telekinesis.  God does not have to play traffic cop.  But have we now rendered atoms to be superfluous?   How does Atom-Kadmon enter into this new picture?  

Can we say that Atom and Adam have comparable roles?  On the Feynman view there exists but one electron traveling back and forth in time.  This is notably teleological, and not unlike the absorber theory of radiation.  Still, how does that ever loving fender know how to bend, without the brute participation of those atoms?  Are there Platonic forms for bent fenders?  Heavenly fenders are not supposed to bend.  

I suggest that we can work out the basics of fender bending from a few bulk phenomenological parameters of materials science.  These are the only 'forms' we need in the vast majority of real-life situations.  Atomic physics, per se, does not exist outside of very specialized, ad hoc, laboratory settings.   

Can matter be conserved on other than an atomic basis?  Evaporation is not strictly a bulk phenomenon.  Who is going to count the atoms?  Is there a teleological, relational way to conserve matter?  Can we appeal to the hydro-cycle.  Just because atoms don't individually exist does not mean that they can misbehave in particular situations.  We can still think in terms of bulk vapors rather than particulate gases.  I am aware that Pierre Duhem took a similar path almost a century ago.  Can we still arrange for PV = kT?  This latter is adequately formulaic, is it not?  

[5/15] 

Perhaps what I am trying to suggest is that the cosmic Atom serves as a teleological form relative to the other formal material processes.  As such, the Atom serves to coordinate these processes and thereby render them mutually coherent.  In other words we have replaced the atoms at the bottom of the causal chain with an Atom near the top of the chain.  The causal power of the Atom has been changed from mechanical to formal.  All of the forms are endowed with an innate intelligence in keeping with their particular roles.  In the final analysis there is only one cosmic intelligence.  

Another way to construe this problem is in terms of the classical philosophical tension between universals and particulars.  As with any idealist system, there is a shifting of emphasis from the particular to the universal.  Particularity is primarily the province of the creatures.  The world they inhabit is furnished mainly with universals, which are particularized relative to the individual creatures.  The creatures are a particularization of God's consciousness.   The spreading web of creation is contained by the expanding ouroboric cycle.  It expands to its optimal dimension.  In that cosmic process the microcosmic cycles are optimized relative to the creatures until everything has settled into an optimal ensemble.  This is the world dream that we experience as if in lineal sequence upon our eschatological wakening toward the Omega.   

There may be a problem here as we attempt to flesh out creation in a more or less logically continuous fashion.  What are the logical steps?  With the six items mentioned earlier, we have a starting point.  Many steps remain.  

[5/16] 

Here's my problem at this juncture.  Early in the process of moving from the universals to the particulars, one must specify the some things about the ultimate quantities involved.  How much of the creation can be carried out while focusing on the universal qualities before having to take up the multiplication problems?  As much as possible we would like to leave multiplication to the creatures, as in 'be fruitful and multiply'.  But then we have the usual problem of reconciling the bottom-up and top-down aspects of creation; or, in other words, the efficient and final causes, or, perhaps, the Alpha and Omega.  How far can idealism go in employing efficient causes without reverting to materialism?  To what extent and by what means can Creation be decentralized without reverting to atomism?  I seem to be running into a no man's land between idealism and materialism.  At the very least I'll need some heavy-duty panpsychism.  How smart do the atoms have to be here?  Do they have to be individuated.  That can occur only through the agency of personal consciousness.  No?  

[5/17] 

The problem of creation is not unlike a programming problem.  I have pointed to object oriented programming on several occasions.  I wonder if we can have cycles residing inside of each other, and, if so, how can their intelligences be coordinated?  Certainly we want to use the notion oop's notion of inheritance.  What would be the substrate for an object oriented phenomenology?  Would it have to be computational?  

The global memory bank, if non-atomic, should be usable.  Can we give memories intelligence, like an object oriented data base.  Certainly if we run creation partially backward from the Omega, we want the memories to be actively summoning or recruiting their way back to Alpha.  We can run the qualities backward and the quantities forward.  The memory substrate just needs to be activated in some fashion.  The apparent passivity of our memories is likely to be misleading.  

If it weren't for photos, this would be a breeze.  Just a minor obstacle, photos are.  Just a fly in the idealist jam.  It may be that photographic records are more of a theoretical problem than a practical one.  Painting would not be much of problem for the teleologist, but security cameras, that is another thing.  Cameras cannot be construed as intelligent or imaginative.  What is the psychological role of photos?  Their purpose is to jog memory.  

[5/18] 

It is not clear to me that there is any real distinction between idealism and teleology, although photo realism does tend to focus on the latter.  One thing to remember about teleology is that all means only point to an end.  Photos point to an independent past, but are those photos independent?  There is no great distinction here between photos and fossils; it is a matter of quantity, at most.  The top of Shell mountain looks like the photo morgue of a city paper.   

The photo problem is not unlike the measurement problem.  It's not the record that matters.  It's the record of the record that counts.  It's like Wigner's friend.  With the eschaton in the wings, it's like the big eye in the sky.  The Big O is a black hole for all records: all information.  Moving forward we generate more information, but where does it all end up? 

And let us not forget eidetic imagery.  I contend that this condition must actually be a disability, considering the regressive manner in which it is distributed.  And I suspect further that this disability is peculiarly human.  Photography is an eidetic extension.  We non-eidetics have to function more like painters in using imagination and mnemonic devices like cosmology and metaphysics to organize our minds.  

There is direct perception of the past in lieu of memory.  But that is not right.  The past is the aggregation of our memories and records, which, in turn, are the disaggregation of the telic, qualitative vision of Creation.  Creation is realized teleologically through the memories of the creatures.  All records are ancillary to that basic, eidetic process.  

What happens to the present?  Only the present ever shines.  The present waxes omnipresent like God.  It is God: the cosmic Presence.  Does this solve the problem of the family album?  Is Grandmother created out of faded tinctures?  Who created the Mona Lisa?  Each creature and creation is its own telos, but it is all coordinated, obviously.  We are as much the products of our children as of our parents, and they represent only a portion of the picture.  The Alpha and Omega become omnipresent through every one of us.  We are each the capillaries of that circulation.  None of these explanatory issues can be or need be settled at once.  Things fall into place on their own accord, just as do we creatures, just as does Creation.  Everything in its own sweet time.  Everything is already here now, we are just gradually awakening to that one simple fact.  

[5/20] 

In the above attempt to rationalize photographs I forgot to include cycles.  Cycles can solve quite a few problems for us idealists.  Much of the world is rationalizable thereby.  All of it is if we include the cosmic cycle.  

With robust cycles, record keeping may be subsumed under ritualization or just habituation.  The information of records is all redundant.  There may exist very complex, ritual based societies where records are virtually non-existent, and that used to be the norm.  What is our modern infatuation with information?  What is this I hear about a Digital Age?  Is this really necessary? 

I put considerable stock in Julian Jaynes' 'Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind'.  Back in the old days consciousness was different.  It was clan based more than ego based, nor was there our sense of asymmetry between past and future.  When you are completely embedded in a robust tribal cycle there is very little need to distinguish past and future.  All sense of time is ritualized to a high degree.  The cosmic cycle is included in the tribal mythos.  There is just an all inclusive sense of presence.  This was our Garden of Eden.  

Why couldn't God leave well enough alone?  What was it about that apple?  The Tree of Truth?  Give us a break!  Well, it does have something to do with the Internet, I believe.  Yes, and also something about a global village or was it a brain?  

The Garden of Eden was the qualitative Alpha state.  We have to include the global scale of quantity if we are to complete the cycle to Omega.  It is a big leap from the clan to the globe.  There had to be a major symmetry break to go from the qualitative vision to the quantitative world.  There was bound to be history.  History is not everyone's favorite subject.  Couldn't God have left out that chapter, skipped that subject?  If not, why not? 

In a word: diversity.  If you go to all the trouble to make a creation, one clan just won't do.  There really needs to be more than one clan.  So at some point there is going to be a clan clash, and the rest is history.  At what price?  My only advice is don't sell history short if you haven't seen the end of it.  We may be that lucky, and I'm not implying anything premature, either. 

[5/22] 

The historical information explosion does seem to preclude teleology, but I'm not convinced it must.  My argument is that the amount of information we produce, enormous though it may be, is ancillary to our own eidetic memories.  These memories are not separate from the world they depict, the omnipresent one.  There is ultimately a total access to the one eternal BPW reality.  Any experience can be reexperienced, although that may be an academic point.  I am impressed by the 'reincrantional' type of memories that some people claim, although I would chalk it up more to a telepathic like process.  

I don't think we need to make too big a distinction about whether a particular experience is first hand or not.  Experiences are not owned, since there is ultimately just one owner of all experience.  The rest of us here are just subletting our lives, illusory egos that we are. 

I have been reading The Matrix and Philosophy in which several of the essayists try to make something out of fate vs. free will.  Again, I am not convinced.  Free will and the BPW need not be incompatible.  Free will is a necessary aspect of consciousness.  Consciousness would be nothing were it not floating in a sea of possibility.  The depth of consciousness is tantamount to the depth of possibility.  Remember, the best possible world cannot, by definition, be the only possible world.  True free will is not is not something atomic.  There are no atoms of anything, pace Democritus and Epicurus.  Freedom is relational, unless it is just nothing more to lose. Freedom is necessarily more convoluted, much more.  It is neither a simple, nor a simpleton.  Freedom must be informed.  Total freedom is totally informed.  Thus omniscience and freedom, far from being contradictory, are mutual necessities.  Ignorant freedom is just the illusion of spontaneous randomness, not unlike that of a radioactive nucleus.  

The existentialists posit ourselves as willful atoms tossed into a meaningless universe.  It may be an interesting literary device, but that is about the extent of it.  Intuition is the basis of human freedom.  Intuition is our fallible pipeline to omniscience.  We follow our hunches, ultimately, knowing intuitively that we all end up in the same place, somehow.  Is this fate?  It is the logic of the game of life.  It is the Alpha and Omega.  Freedom is everything in between.  It is the ocean of possibility.  When the game is over, we will have tested almost every possibility, in almost every possible state of consciousness, certainly on the micro scale.  Even the eschaton is a possibility that is open to relativization.  The Alpha is the Omega.  We are still much too ignorant to speak with authority on the subject of freedom.  In the meantime we continue to follow our hunches.  

Is Grandmother born out of photographic tinctures?  Yes and no.  Grandmother is an aspect of the eternal Matrix we call life.  Is she your Grandmother?  Yes, and also mine, ultimately.  Photos are just another, often deceptive, mirror of reality.  We can experience photos in our dreams.  Those may be more real in their ontological representation than the ones on our desks.  We don't ever really experience a photograph, we can only experience memories.  We don't see memories either.  We just experience the world as it always is, and is coming to be, as we finally wake to our own omniscience.  

So much for the teleology of photographs and fossils. 

------------------------

Having rationalized historical records to a degree that is, hopefully, reasonable for the time being, we must revisit history itself.  Yes, we can identify the Alpha with the Omega, but that is only on the backside of this reality loop or pump.  The front side remains history.  

From the perspective of heaven, or even of the Millennium, history appears as a rather long and bleak stretch.  Some even prefer to think of it as a vast wasteland.  Has history been a waste?  Why couldn't we just proceed directly to the Millennium?  Why all the preliminaries?  

I gather that the Millennium must be rooted in some fashion, and the historical fashion turns out to be the best possible one.  No, I think I mean the evolutionary fashion.  Is history ancillary to evolution, which in turn is ancillary to the coherence of a universal metabolism and ecology?  That is a partial answer.  

With ecology there is the diversity issue again.  Ecology and 'evolution' are a clever way to maximize diversity and minimize divine interference, both prerequisites for our BPW.  History, as we know it, is a spin-off of the evolutionary appearing phenomenology.  It comes almost gratis.  If the Millennium were just floating in a vacuum, reality would be greatly lacking in depth.  I doubt that we are presently in a position to truly appreciate the quality of the depth that our reality has inherited.  It is still mostly buried in our psyches.  Much of the meaning of the Millennium will hinge upon the, almost literal, unearthing of the omnipresent relational totality of our theocentric cosmos.  This is the completion of history.  Nothing is wasted.  Can you believe that?  You won't have to believe when you see.  

We have grown so accustomed to our heavily filtered memories, that the prospect of removing the filters may seem daunting if not downright terrifying.  We have grown comfortable in our tiny egocentric cocoons.  Like the prisoners on Bastille day, we turn away from the greater light.  That terror is the one remaining shadow before our dawn.  We can only face that light together, and we surely will.  It is our only destiny.  

So much for history. 

[5/28] 

I still struggle with the issue of free will, and no small issue it is.  I doubt that it can be fully resolved short of the Omega, but struggle we must. 

In the best of worlds there is an optimal balance of freedom and security.  But in the best world can we still be free to mess things up?  There must be limitations on our freedom.  How severe must these be?  Is the best world predetermined, even on the personal level?  Sure we can make mistakes, but we can only make the best possible mistakes.  This is beginning to sound paradoxical.  Can we avoid paradox?  

The quality of the BPW depends on the capabilities of its creator and creatures.  Can there be any logical limits on God's creative capability?  There cannot be an absolute distinction between creator and creatures.  If God is perfect, the creatures must be perfectible, at least in total.  There are layers of mind each with its own version of will.  We are by no means presently aware of all these levels. 

The egocentric version of will in ordinary consciousness is likely to be largely a social construct or a figure of speech.  But this is a far cry from the prospect of our being mere automatons.  We struggle, usually, to do the right thing.  This struggle is real.  We try hard to do our best.  That is who we are.  We are not self-made creatures, however.  Our lives are shared with many.  We cannot avoid being judgmental or finding fault.  Life is surely a learning process.  

Creation goes around and comes around but once.  This is no carousel.  Conceivably Creation could have been less than it is, but it could not have been anything more.  It is infinite in its qualities.  There are levels of historical consciousness that we cannot plumb with our present egos.  That is where most of the action is.  The infinite, all consuming present and presence still lies in our relative future.  That is a given.  That point of completion is unavoidable.  All our freedom is relative to that singular determination.  Our freedom is consumed thereby.   All reasonable possibilities are realized therein.  That is its fullness.  No stone is left unturned.  Freedom is a spectrum of possibility, imagined or otherwise.  That spectrum is our final rainbow.  No experience is wasted or untasted.  No soul is untried.  We are all that.  It is you and me, and in the end it is us, it is God.  

Should we just lean back and enjoy the show?  Yes, we can and will do that when appropriate.  We will know when.  We are not foolish.  Much of our present anxiety and alienation is rather superficial.  No need to belittle our present distress, but we will see the omnipresent light and come to a full understanding, ASAP.  We will not then disown our present limitations.  We will appreciate and appropriate them as never before.  Do not be in a hurry at this juncture.  As we learn to savor every aspect of our lives, we gain our gnosis.  

[5/29] 

It is quite likely that historical determinism leaves ample room for individual free will.  The caveat would be that individuals in some types of historically sensitive roles would be less able to exercise free will than would most others.  The trajectory of a life may be pieced together from different sets of experiences.  The same experience might be lived from various perspectives.  Memories would be interchangeable to a degree.  The fate of each experiencer would be determined after the fact.  Life episodes may be multiply experienced from many seemingly unrelated perspectives and trajectories.  The sense of it all is worked out in due course.  Everything evens out in the end, from the perspective of the omni-presence.  

This is far from a final rationalization of free-will and historical determinism.  There are undoubtedly many ways to skin this particular cat.  Its ramifications and relations to other phenomena are widespread.  A seeming overdetermination of almost every aspect of our world and existence is to be expected.  No one said that the BPW would not be convoluted.  It goes with this cosmic territory.  Let us simply try to maintain a maximal metaphysical flexibility.  

Atoms fit into this seemingly overdetermined scheme only in a greatly abstracted fashion.  We have atoms without the accidents.  Cyclical phenomena, and that includes almost every phenomenon, greatly reduce our our dependence on the particularity of atoms.  Atomicity provides the rationale that logically links the innumerable variations on the cyclical themata. Averages over ensembles of atoms are what is needed in most cases.  These averages can be worked out in a relational manner without resorting to ontological atomism.  The intelligence resides in the cyclical networks and not in the putative individual atoms.  This is the BPW version of panpsychism.  

Can the logical consistency of all phenomena and experiences be maintained at an intermediate, panpsychic level without overburdening either God or atoms?  This is an area of metaphysics that still requires much effort.  Creatures must play a significant role in this regard.  Our collective conscious and unconscious is the primary domain of the necessary panpsychism.  There must be both centripetal and centrifugal forces at work in the cosmic consciousness.  Their balance demands explanation.  It demands intelligence.  

The identity of indiscernibles in the experiential domain may be the primary centripetal factor.  This should operate in an automatic fashion, and ought play a significant role in our Omega episode.  Coherence becomes its own self-gravitating force.  Decoherence may require more intelligence.  Virtual accidents could be exploited, but there would have to be considerable oversight.  

There are a limited number of universal cycles which are individuated ad infinitum by the interactions of the creatures.  The reproductive/metabolic scheme provides quantitative and aesthetic limits on the general proliferation.  Individuation comes about as the individuating creatures press upon the envelope of Creation.  Fertility is a prime force in this regard.  So are imagination and creativity.  

[5/30] 

I have been taking a defensive posture vis a vis the information explosion.  This is inconsistent with my upbeat account of communication technology.  This is flirting with incoherence.  The alternative is something more radical in the way of coherence than what I have entertained to date.  

I have given lip service to the notion of an eschatological resurrection or recreation of the past, although I don't presently recall where.  This is certainly the implication of an ultimate, all inclusive presence.  Perhaps I may have to venture further down that path to avoid the casting of aspersions on the family photo album.  

I need to dig up some previous references: Gospel of the Real,....  Whoa!  Stop right there!  Resurrection of the dead??  Isn't this a bit much?  Young Earth is pushing the envelope of credulity, but now the 'night of the living dead.'  Golly!  Well, logic and coherence are stern taskmasters.  Mine is to reason why and then do and die.  I can't turn back now.  

Here's another reference: Millennium & Eschaton.  One of my favorite postcards depicts the mayhem of this judgment day.  Let us calmly recapitulate the path that led us to this seemingly comic book ending.  

It has everything to do with relationalism.  We're talking ancestor worship and Mormon genealogy.  Yes, relationalism begins at home.  

[5/31] 

There is, of course, the question of heaven and survival.  There is also the question of memory.  If memory is not stored in our individual atoms, then it is out there in the universal, etheric or akashic record.  There is thus no particular reason to expunge individual, eidetic memory upon death.  

The overriding issue is presence.  In a relational scheme, relations are not accidental or ephemeral.  Relations are essential and eternal.  They are internal.  There is a cosmic gnosis or omniscience or ultimate Presence that we realize as the all inclusive Omega.  This is the universal resurrection or hierogamos.  Everything that lives, lives there in that eternal presence.  All historical trajectories converge therein.  It is the white hole of consciousness: the one source of spiritual light.  

Photographs are one manifestation of the akashic record.  The Internet, besides its real-time instant messaging type of connections, is also functioning to make present all records in a more or less coherent fashion.  This, like the telephone, will gradually transform into a 'wireless' or telepathic form.  We are becoming more wired to our past.  At some point those wires will give way to clairvoyance or to a universal eidetic memory.  Photographs and telephones are the material tokens of an eternal Presence.  They do not compete with that Presence.  They are its portents.  

The past, then, is just a shadow or projection of the eternal Presence. This is what I mean by saying that Creation is a final causation.  It is teleological, primarily.  Our real past lies in our future.  The Alpha is subsumed by the Omega.  This hierogamos is our resurrection and rapture.  It is the end of agnosis.  

Gnosis is awesome and awe-full.  Some will cling tightly to their egocentric agnosis.  They will need a full Millennium to prepare for gnosis.  The rest of us will move on through.  

The past is a trawling net whereby we troll for souls.  Every last one is caught up in its seine.  History has a very fine mesh.  If you think you can slip the traces of a cosmic, Mormon-style genealogy, well think again.  The accounting may be greatly facilitated by the reckoning of some 10^10 souls.  This being the anthropic, BPW ratio.  

All this simply to provide an immaterialist rationalization of the family photo albums!  These are not, then, the epiphenomenal detritus of a materialism run amok.  They are the self-gravitating, self-cohering subversion of all atomistic schemes.  Mater is transformed, thereby, into an in-form-ation which is self-consuming in an eschatological 'potlatch' of the gnostic kind.  Some may think of it as the nasty kind, but they do know better.  

[6/2] 

I was hoping I would not have to learn how to take teleo-Photos, but there may not be a free choice.  If coherence becomes self-gravitating, then the Omega will be a black hole of coherence.  Gee, maybe I should be more worried about the eschaton.  There will be no 'hair', as the cosmologists are won't to say.  The Alpha would be the corresponding white hole, perhaps.  Maybe that's why we should worry more about globalization in its possibly eschatological context.   

It remains difficult to perceive the family photo album as finally caused, with or without Mormonics.  That is why we will need the Alpha-Omega suspension stretch if we wish to go the teleological route.  We will hope to get a before and after the fact version of a dream-like free will.  I hope this is not getting too convoluted, but the BPW is very likely to be overdetermined, and then some, so we may as well get used to it. 

There would have to be a plethora of symmetry breaking, coming back from the Omega.  I'm not real sure how that would be managed.  It probably reflects the symmetry breaking going forward from the Alpha.  Getting the first and final causes to properly interface in the middle is going to be a trick.  That may have something to do with JC1 and the symbolism of the cross. 

I have virtually no idea of how this is supposed to work.  Some prophet am I!  In constructing suspension bridges, we do one strand at a time, and perhaps the JC1 event was the crux of the first strand.  That would have been a stretch, cross or no cross.  That event would be a natural focus for a great deal of final causation. 

We may well ask ourselves what sort of free will might possibly be involved in such a crucial event.  Overdetermination does not an automaton make.  It increases the stress of the moment.  The many modalities of reenactment feed into the force field of the event.  There are elements of Being John Malkovich involved in the production.  And, thankfully, this was before CNN, although they probably would have missed it anyway. 

----------------------

Any given event may be experienced from many perspectives, and many are.  Every experience of an event may contribute to its overall meaning, but the specifics of that experiential process are beyond our present understanding.  There is no logical reason why each 'vicarious' experiencer could not contribute to the the willed component of the event.  Nor is it clear that each experience of the same event need have a diminished input into the outcome of that event.  If there is a sum rule relevant to free will, it is surely not linear.  

A principal point is that free will need not be only applicable to instances of forward or effective causation.  It could operate under various non-materialist causal regimes, and especially in teleological contexts.  The whole point of will power is to effect the final outcome.  Just because a final outcome is known, does not mean that it was not caused by an act of will.  

[6/3] 

It may not always be clear that omniscience and determinism are quite distinct issues.  The knowability of  my future actions does not remove from me any performance or moral burden.  Indeed the knowledge of a favorable outcome ought to improve our morale and abet our performance.  It is only the detailed knowledge of one's own future that would cause consternation. 

Now back to those pesky photos once more.  For now I put phones and photos in the same bin as being necessary for priming the telepathic and eidetic pumps respectively, in an eschatological context.  Does this make sense?  I'm not sure, but it's the best I can do for now.  If I am negligent in the photo album department will my family miss out on the Rapture?  This could be unfortunate!  No, the beauty of teleology and the BPW is that all of these interface (interfaith?!) problems work out in the end.  Keep the faith, baby, and keep the kodachrome handy, just in case.  It's all in the One mind.  

Technology cannot be gratuitous.  Information and communications seem to cause a problem for immaterialism unless they can be internalized to the larger scheme, as in internally related to it.  The global mind will need priming via the global brain.  That is the big transition problem.  Technology is integral to that process.  There is a push and pull aspect to technology.   It pulls us into the uttermost aegis of materialism, and then spits us out on the other side.  It is the active, self-subverting aspect of materialism.  Without it, materialism would be but a pale shadow of the almost vital force by which we are presently enthralled.  Being enraptured by technology is a prerequisite for the Rapture.  Imagine when we are first able to see through the veil of technology.  My understanding of this business is mainly theoretical.  It is not fully internalized.  It won't be until it is socialized.  

Any more questions on this subject? 

 This started out as creation vs. evolution.  How did we get hung up on the photo album?  Perhaps I need a recap.  I seem to have set a new record for parchment usage on this page.  My apologies. 

After looking at Creation is some detail, I settled upon the Big Six.  These were the logical anchors for our BPW.  If these could be implemented then we were well on our way to the BPW.  In retrospect it is Atomics that carries most of the burden for the materialist appearance of our immaterial world.  Much of the atomics can be subsumed under various types of natural cycles, cycles that could be evolved and habituated in reasonable fashion.  It is the technological side of atomics that seems to break the natural cycles.  But by the same token, nature must be 'broken' if we are to implement the cosmic cycle.  Now I'm in hot water with the ecologists!  There has to be a tension between God and Nature.  We can be theocentric or naturo-centric, but not both.  These centrisms point respectively to immaterialism and materialism.  Pantheism is not a coherent alternative.  The information and communication explosion are how we bend the Atom of nature to its own subversion in a (quasi) cosmic 'quantum measurement' process.  The eschaton is our 'delayed choice.'  The Alpha is subsumed by the Omega.  Being 'wired' is an integral part of the suspension bridge that closes the ouroboric circuit.  

This is by no means intended as a final explanation, but if it allows us to move along, it will be justified.  

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4/23/03

Omega 

I recognize that I have been a bit neglectful of this topic, a topic which should be of utmost importance in this immaterial, teleological cosmology.  I am looking back at my pervious attempts on this topic.  One can readily determine that my neglect of this topic has been thoroughgoing.  I have alluded to the eschaton in almost every context, but I have been very short on specifics.  Evidently I have been following the advice of Wittgenstein: about that which we are ignorant, it is best to remain silent.  Now I attempt to break that silence.  Caveat emptor. 

It would be quite natural to suppose that the best ending would be no ending at all.  I don't quite agree.  I do struggle to make the Eschaton warm and fuzzy, but still it is The End.  If this medicine is too strong, you are welcome to seek solace in the philosophies of eternal return.  Incoherence may seem a small price to pay for foregoing the Eschaton, but I disagree.  I am long on coherence. 

Here is what I can offer by way of warm and fuzzy.  The eschaton concerns history.  History is primarily the sojourn of our egos.  The Eschaton concerns the end of Ego, and what remains?  The eternal self is what remains.  But if you and I were to run into the Eternal Self on the sidewalk, we can be sure that we would not recognize Her.  This is what is most frightening about the Eschaton.  It is far from being transparent to our ordinary ego consciousness.  As far as our egos are concerned it might as well be a brick wall.  Well, the Millennium is our ego cushion. 

It is at this point that the Eschaton is inevitably politicized.  Let's face it, there may be more than a bit of communalism in the eternal self.  The idea of Communion is hardly extraneous here.  Neither is the Hierogamos, or hieros gamos (2100 hits).  I notice six previous 'hierogamos' references in these pages, and also in this post of an exchange with Sarfatti.  In its most abstract form the hierogamos can be represented by the seal of Solomon, and here perhaps even as the Big Six.  

The millenarian communalism of the early Christian communities was something of a prenup, and was later politicized by Marx in his Manifesto.  The comic style Rapture scenarios of conservative evangelicals and Hal Lindsey are another take on the hieros gamos, and they are correspondingly more preservative of our precious egos.  

Is there anything that an immaterial BPW can bring to the wedding feast?  I'll stick by the Big Six as an important ingredient.  The Solar & Atomic elements thereof recall the primal mythos of the hieros gamos of Sky & Earth, Geb evidently has his own prostrate version of Atlas.  The latter event gives rise to a Chicken Little (etc.) scenario of a falling of the sky, poor Geb. 

To my way thinking, the falling of the sky might best be taken as representing an information 'implosion.'  The present explosion of information will either create an information overload, or it will be countered by a self-gravitating coherence.  If there is a cosmic coherence, then, in the almost foreseeable future, a website, not totally unlike this one, will trigger an implosion into the coherence of an immaterial BPW.  Thus do we begin our Millennial awakening to our Eternal Self.  It was We who placed the stars in our holographic sky.  This is the idealist inversion of our Copernican/Darwinian cosmology.  

At this point I can only encourage the skeptics to remain skeptical as to who authored the constellations.  Clearly if our eternal self had wanted to win over the skeptics at an early stage, the constellations could have been arranged in a more orderly fashion.  Or she could have arranged for a more gifted raconteur on the net.  One would hardly advance toward the eternal self by not being true to one's skeptical self, if that is one's natural inclination.  Everything in its own time and place.  

[6/6] 

A major weakness in the materialist facade is time.  On second thought I would posit three major weaknesses: space, time and mathematics, and that is not counting its biggest problem: the mind.  Space, time and math collectively constitute the decidedly immaterial foundation of scientific materialism.  Each is an intangible relational system.  Each can only be indirectly measured and perceived.  The alleged objective or mind independent existence of each of these entities remains controversial.  Modern physics has further eroded the substance and foundational nature of space and time, but even the classical view was fraught with paradox.  I have alluded to these problems on numerous occasions here, and I should devote a full essay to the topic, but for the purpose of eschatology, time is of paramount importance. 

I wish to argue that the objectivity of a linear time frame is logically insupportable.  What is not controversial is that time and space as we can either know or imagine them had a beginning.  Until quite recently the scientific consensus expected there to also be an end to space and time.  The fact that there might not be such an end is now the primary mystery or paradox confronting conventional cosmology.  In any case, the notion of an absolute space and time became outmoded almost a century ago.  Space and time are constructed internally to conform to whatever is the cosmological model in question.  An idealist metaphysics must also give an account of space and time.  

It is not surprising that modern idealists do not choose to confront science directly concerning cosmic issues.  Thus do phenomenologists, existentialists and postmodernists focus their attention on the microcosm of egocentric perceptions.  To do otherwise would be to incur the opprobrium of the intellectual establishment.  What may make these pages unique in this regard is that I have nothing to lose except my coherence.  Juxtaposing a mental microcosm with a material cosmos cannot result in anything other than the view of life as an absurdity in a meaningless universe.  Every religious tradition has its proprietary answers to the challenge of absurdity.  I also eschew the religious establishments.  I simply follow the dictates of reason all the way to the end of the BPW.  It is often supposed that the distinguishing feature of we humans is our occasional rationality.  That these few pages are apparently unique in their thoroughgoing exploitation of our rationality is the only aspect of this website that ought to boggle the mind. 

If space and time are not primordial aspects of reality, what is their source?  I have recently been focusing on the cycle as the logical source of space and time and everything therein.  I posit a primordial ouroboric cycle as the source of all phenomena, call it Alpha.  The specific character of this 'original' cycle is probably well beyond our present ability to imagine.  Its own existence attests to a process of symmetry breaking of a dialectical and synthetic nature which progressed from the ancient mythos to the modern scientific logos or cosmos.  The final synthesis of this dialectical process is just the anticipated Telos or Omega.  This would be the end of space and time as we historically have come to conceive of them.  Thus would end our linear history.  

A pressing issue is the time scale from Alpha to Omega.  The most basic fact that idealism brings to cosmology is that the cosmic scale cannot transcend the bounds of the mind.  The only way to maintain the scientific measure of the cosmos would be to invoke a cosmic mind quite distinct from created mind.  This logical dichotomy of Creator and Creation is the dualism which deservedly brings the verdict of irrationality upon the prophetic tradition.  To restore reason is to posit just one mind of which our egos are a temporarily fragmented reflection.  That nature appears to break the bounds of this mutual sentience, can only be an appearance.  But by the same token, it is nature which allows God to prolong Creation by postponing her final revelation.  The self-revealing God is the self-concealing God, and nature is just the instrument of the latter. 

To put it quite simply: it is a given that we will eventually see through nature.  The scale of Creation is measured by the opacity or apparent seamlessness of nature.  That nature is seamless to us is largely due to its being projected by us.  The illusory quality of nature can never be empirically demonstrated outside of specific magical episodes.  The Creator comes to light generally, only by the power of empathic reflection.  These pages are devoted to that end. 

If we could look back toward the Alpha we would see time curling up upon itself, not unlike the curling up of the extra dimensions in the higher dimensional models of physics.  We may expect a similar occurrence as we move toward the Omega.  

[6/9] 

This Omega business is not going to be easy.  This is the whole tamale when it comes to an idealist cosmology.  To better understand the Alpha and Omega, we need to know how they relate to the present.  And what is the present? 

The image of the present that is the main competitor to the religious views is existentialism.  This is the image of detached egos lost in space, as if we had been thrown into the world.  I can agree with this up to a point.  One point of agreement is the implicit view that once we were attached to something.  We have not always just been floating in space.  The existentialist might contend that this attachment is simply referring to our prenatal condition.  But I would suggest that, even for the existentialist, something more metaphysical is implied.  After all, the theistic and atheistic versions of existentialism remain close cousins.  It is hard to understand one without the other.  

The idea of being 'thrown' into the world implies that our parturition from wherever was haphazard.  Lately, as we know, this view has been challenged by the Anthropic Principle.  We may have been ejected from something, but there had to have been some care in the process, or we surely would not have survived.  It is not as if we were spawned into the abyss.  The more we learn about the world, the more it appears as a receptacle.  And what can we say about the nature of this receptacle?  

[6/13] 

From the point of view of teleology and eschatology we must depart from the materialist view that our receptacle is, relative to our own existence, permanent.  The best we could manage with a permanent world would be an arbitrary attachment and then detachment between it and anything non-material.  This is the incoherence of dualism.  

Our material world then must be impermanent, and its existence must be closely correlated with the existence of mind.  In order for there to be a correlation between mind and matter, there must be an 'evolution' from one to the other.  One must be spun-off from the other.  For the immaterialist, matter must be spun-off from the mind.  This is directly contrary, I readily admit, to almost every appearance.  The appearance of a material evolution is the one major obstacle to idealism.  It is formidable, yes, but is it insurmountable?  That depends on our motivation. 

I claim that surmounting materialism is the only way to go.  We have sojourned nearly as far into materialism as is logically and spiritually possible.  Progress, measured in almost any conceivable manner, would grind to a halt or worse, if we do not keep exploring and pushing on the boundaries of our world.  As the material aspect of our existence has taken center stage, the mental and spiritual dimensions of our world have received negligible systematic, rational attention.  The only way forward now is to construct an immaterialist cosmology, as a counterweight to materialism.  There is nothing else to do now intellectually in order to transcend the increasingly rigid strictures of materialism as well as the decreasing marginal returns of the collective effort we have to put into it.  The sense of coming to a material dead-end may still be subliminal for most of us, but it is pervasive.  We have intellectually neglected the non-material dimensions for so long that we hardly know where or how to start.  We will fumble along in the dark for a while longer, but then the light will begin to shine.  

It is time to focus our powers of reason on an immaterial understanding of the world.  We don't have to look further than Darwin to see where our work has been cut out for us.  How may we transcend Darwin?  We simply have to focus on the immaterialist logic behind the materialist facade of Darwinian evolution.  Why, in heavens name, would there be this apparently egregious contradiction to immaterialism?  The simple answer is that I, and perhaps you as well, can think of no better design plan for this world.  Any other plan would be egregiously arbitrary and incoherent.  This is the greatest irony we will likely have to face.  Materialism is indispensable for achieving a cosmic coherence.  

Let me put this another way.  It is not logically or coherently possible to have just a little bit of materialism.  Clearly materialism has its benefits, just a a system of existence.  For the sake of argument, let us grant that in the BPW the costs of materialism can be offset by its benefits.  

And yet another way: if materialism is to be more than a sideshow, it will be virtually all-encompassing, at least from a phenomenological perspective.  Another caveat of the BPW is that it be taken seriously.  If it is going to entail materialism, it will have to do so in a serious fashion.  The material aspect of the BPW must not be perceived as superficial or as an appendix.  There must be a thoroughgoing adaptation between the material and mental aspects of the world.  Certainly the phenomenology of Darwinian evolution fits this bill.  Is there any other means to this end?  We are probably not in a position to be able to conceive of such an alternative, and, lacking such, we must explore the norms, aesthetics and functionality of materializing the mind in an adaptive regimen under the guise of Darwinism.  Anything short of this would have to be considered a feeble attempt at creation and materialization.  

And that brings up another point.  I guess what I am struggling to say in the above paragraphs is that creation and materialization are practically synonymous.  If God is to earn her stripes as a Creator, she will have to take several pages from the book of Darwin.  Exactly how she sets about doing that, remains to be understood, but I have made a few stabs hereabouts at figuring out the 'mechanics' of materialization.  

But why not, then, just crib all of Darwin?  Why be cute about it?  Why not just let the Big Bang rip, and then sit back and enjoy the show?  

[6/14] 

The Big Bang scenario implies a dualism which puts God on the spot and correspondingly would leave the creatures in a much more passive role.  Following Darwin  would place the onus directly on the Creator to work out the connections between mind and matter.  Evolution on each planet would have to be directed, and still there is no guarantee that there would be the necessary mutuality between the material and immaterial evolutions.  Putting them together would be arbitrary and after the fact.  This is the incoherence of deism. 

With theistic idealism, creation is maximally participatory.  A direct realism of perception is built into the more distributed and participatory Creation.  Having an immaterial participatory Alpha, greatly facilitates the logistics of the Omega, which then has considerable symmetry with the Alpha.  

The necessary materialization aspect of Creation is then worked out by means of the Big Six, in conjunction with the related cycles.  Our task on this page is to use the built-in symmetry to get a handle on the Omega.  Now we can speak of a dematerialization.  

-----------------------

Of fundamental importance for Creation is for there to be a graceful exit.  For Creation to be meaningful, there must be a purpose, a teleology, a telos.  The telos must be an integral part of the complete process.  Completeness and wholeness are thereby ensured.  An endless Creation is incomplete.   Such incoherence does not recommend itself to the concept of the BPW.  In large measure, the Omega must reciprocate the Alpha.  

[6/15] 

Spinning down the world is a large part of what the Millennium is about.  The cyclic processes are closely associated with our materialization of the world.  We have spun up the world into its present atomistic state.  This is a non-analytic notion at this point, but one that needs pursuit.  To complete the cosmic cycle we need to relax on the sub-cycles.  OK, there is the picture of the spinning figure skater.  Our ego consciousness is like the twirling figure with her arms pressed to her sides.  When she extends her arms back out the spinning is reabsorbed into the cosmic cycle or cosmic consciousness.  We may assume there is an energy and information increase in this reciprocal process.  

Herein lies a conundrum. The faster the microcosm spins, the more linear becomes its space-time manifold.  Spin down the microcosm and the space-time frame will curl up.  Does this make sense?  Don't be too analytical about it: use peripheral vision.  

I should be able to give examples, but I suspect that there is a lot of subtlety and even cosmic censorship in play here.  If this process were too obvious we would be jumping all over it and probably throwing it off its track.  We will be jumping on it only when the time is right.  Nascent trends and processes have to be protected.  This site would be no exception.  Camouflage is in fashion as we stealthily and steadily approach the Millennium and Y2C.  Its OK to rock the boat as long as you don't upset the passengers.  Hiding things in plain sight is a proven tactic.  

After considering the cycles, there is the Big Six and its undoing.  We transcend the cycles and their common points of reference.  From the perspective of the Omega we have the Big Three: Sun, atoms and reproduction.  The solar cycle governs all cycles short of the cosmic one.  The life cycle is the microcosm of the A&O cycle.  Atoms provide a common anchor for most of these cycles.  

[At this point I evidently diverge from the topic of Omega, to be continued later.] 

It may be, however, that the Monster Group does play a role in the 'decycling' of the cosmos, and this accounts for some of the subtlety of the process.  We may have a situation reminiscent of the ancient concern with squaring the circle.  The problem now is the 'rationalization' of mathematics, a feat in which the MG is likely to play a significant role.  In the process we revisit the syzygy of e & pi.  It was that coincidence that lured us into cycles and then to the Big Six.  Come to think of it, that coincidence, when properly understood, may turn out satisfy most of our ancient concerns about the squaring of the circle.  The ancient fear of the Apeiron was, I suggest, a premonition of our fall into the incoherence of materialism.  In the Millennium we struggle back to coherence.  The starting point for that struggle may well be something as subtle as the rationalization of e & pi.  Evidently we will need to study the j-function which is related to the 'near integers' and the Monster, which latter must, in turn, play a role in Anthropics.  It is turning out to be a small world out there in Mathland.  We will tame it on the way to the Omega.  

What I may be struggling to say here is that the observer principle (in this context) must be extended from physics to mathematics.  There is a three way reciprocity between physics, math and reason.  This is a theistic version of mathematical constructivism.  This also figures in the rational 'deconstruction' that we may associate with the Omega.  Cosmos coheres from Chaos.  Mathematics is something like the fossil record of this evolution of coherence.  As we reflect upon the mathematical record of the cosmic coherence, we will achieve coherence to the Nth power.  Our inner coherence will subsume the external coherence going into the Omega.  Just don't ask me to draw a picture of it.  

[6/17-19] 

Some references for the rationalization of mathematics:   

    * Some Contemporary Problems with Origins in the Jugendtraum -- Robert P Langlands 
    * Where stands functoriality today? -- Robert P Langlands 
    * Langlands program -- Wikipedia
    * Fermat's Last Theorem After 356 Years -- Wm. F. Hammond 
    * Fermat's Last Theorem -- Charles Daney 
    * BOOK REVIEW -- KA Ribet  (Rational points on elliptic curves, by Joseph H. Silverman and John T. Tate.)
    * Ideal class group -- Wikipedia
    * The Hilbert problems 1900-2000 -- Jeremy Gray
    * e^{pi*sqrt(163)} -- Roy Williams 
    * On the History of Hilbert's Twelfth Problem -- Norbert Schappacher 
    * The Riemann Hypothesis -- J. Brian Conrey (RH <-> Langlands Prog. p.8) 
    * The Riemann Hypothesis -- Matthew Watkins 
    * WWN notes on the Riemann Hypothesis 
    * THE RIEMANN-SIEGEL FORMULA AND LARGE SCALE COMPUTATIONS ...
    * John Baez's Stuff  
    *

      Tony Smith's Home Web Site  
    * Surprising connections between prime numbers and physics -- Matthew Watkins 
    * P-adic numbers, Topological Geometrodynamics, TGD. -- Matti Pitkanen

And some general math bookmarks for future reference: 

    * Arithmetic Algebraic Geometry network
    * Mathematics ArXiv 
    * Math World 
    * Number Theory Web
    * AIM Workshop Website Network 
    * Mathematical Topics
    * The Internet Mathematics Library
    * The Mathematical Atlas
    * American Mathematical Society
    * The MacTutor History of Mathematics archive 
    * Clay Mathematics Institute 
    * Mathematics -- Open Directory Project 

After reviewing the above sites, I would be hard pressed to provide persuasive evidence for the increasing coherence of mathematics.  I am not sure if this is the fault of mathematics or of mathematicians.  There is a natural tendency  for professionals to carve out niches for themselves, and it is evident that mathematicians are no exception.  Good fences make good neighbors, as a poet once said.  The bulk of our Millennial task will be the removal of fences.  We need only find the proper motivation.  

Ferdinand Toennies (1855-1936) distinguished Gemeinschaft (community) from Gesellschaft (purposive, professional association).  Owen Barfield provides a third and future category of human existence: 'final participation,' a must see.  Egoism or existentialism is the incoherent compromise between materialism and idealism.  This is what passes for rationalism in this dark age between the Alpha and the Omega.  Our least stressful means to transcend ego consciousness would have us rely strongly on our intellectual capacity to see the wholeness of the world and our proper function as its co-creators.  The spirit would then follow up and subsume the intellect.  

The intellectual path to a holistic cosmology will have to include mathematics in a significant manner, and after the fashion of Plato and Pythagoras.  The coherence of physics has come about through its mathematicization.  We now need to rationalize mathematics, but in a theocentric rather than egocentric fashion.  The existence of the Monster Group should motivate us to look beyond our puny egos to a cosmic genius.  

I still seek that elusive observer principle (and here and here).  Godel's self-reference program is part of that picture.  His constructions remain controversial.  

[6/20] 

I'm looking at Matthew Watkins 'Prime evolution notes.'  He raises the intriguing possibility that the equal spacing of the integers derives from the exact placement of the primes, popular opinion notwithstanding.  There is at least a mutual evolution between primes and integers.  I would like to know how this might relate to the more obviously necessary evolution of the Monster (and here, here and here).  An observer principle must be at work.  

Matti Pitkanen -- TOPOLOGICAL GEOMETRODYNAMICS AND P-ADIC NUMBERS - Chapter 1.2.2:

Why this is the case, became one of the key puzzles and led to a number of arguments with a common gist: evolution is present already at the elementary particle level and the primes allowed by the p-adic length scale hypothesis are the fittest ones.

[6/21] 

Savant for a Day: this story appears in this weekend's New York Times Magazine.  It describes the possible temporary benefits of transcranial magnetic stimulation, featuring Allan Snyder's work.  If the results hold up under continued scrutiny, it does not bode well either for Darwinism or mechanism.  Being able to squeeze more performance out of the brain with such crude interference just does not fit our material conception of the world.   There will hand waving attempts to make it so, but some of us will still have to chuckle.  

[6/22] 

Here is a quote from J. Brian Conrey, The Riemann Hypothesis (3/2003): 

There is a growing body of evidence that there is a conspiracy among L-functions-a conspiracy which is preventing us from solving RH!  The first clue that zeta- and L-functions even know about each other appears perhaps in works of Deuring and Heilbronn in their study of one of the most intriguing problems in all of mathematics: Gauss’s class number problem. [...]  We begin to suspect that the battle for RH will not be won without getting to the bottom of this conspiracy.

L-functions provide a connection between FLT and RH: as described here and here. 

Goldston and Yildirim's 'proof' concerning the distribution of primes as indexed on Google....  

[7/3] 

Status/hiatus report: 

The re-enchantment of mathematics is the most likely trigger for the Millennium, IMO.  I may not have stated it quite as succinctly, but it is a bush that I have been beating around since last year.  I pick math over physics or psychology.  Those would be the next most likely sources of a paradigm shift.  Mathematics, however, remains the soft underbelly of materialism.  

Immaterialism will have to hit materialism where it hurts and where it is vulnerable.  Psychology is peripheral to fortress materialism.  Psychology has never been considered scientific by 'real' scientists.  They do not consider it to be their concern.  Physics is the key to physicalism, obviously.  The cutting edge of reductionistic physics is high energy physics, but it has been running out of money, and energy.  The bastion of reductionism has thus shifted, of necessity, from the experimental atom smashers to the pencil and paper crowd of theoretical or mathematical physicists.  The crunching of the Riemann Hypothesis has become of greater concern to hard core science than has the smashing of quarks, in my political/psychological estimation, at least.  

Let's look at Riemann, or at least at the primes.  If materialism is correct, the prime numbers are random.  So take a look here (and here, here and here (here!) (explanation?), and recall this, etc.) [Ulam Spiral].  To what extent can patterns such as these be deconstructed or reduced?  This may be the biggest skeleton in the materialist closet.  Will such pictures trigger the Millennium?  Certainly not by themselves.  

The space telescope and supercomputers reveal cosmological and numerical patterns, respectively, that strain our modern credulity in reductive explanation.  So does biology.  But it is in the mathematical realm that our intellectual attention can be most readily concentrated and guided.  We would eventually like to know if mathematics is a science or an art. 

[7/4] 

I seem to be hearing contradictory statements about the primes.  

There is a general agreement that there is a deep connection between the distribution of the Riemann zeroes and the primes.  It is also agreed that the distribution of the zeroes can be fully explained or modeled by the distribution of the eigenvalues of random hermitian matrices.  Yet we have the phenomenon of the 'jumping champions', Odlyzko, et al, 1997.   The 'explanation' for this jumping phenomenon turns out to be heuristics based on a conjecture.  

Quoting from Odlyzko: 

Conjecture 1.  The jumping champions are 4 and the primorials 2, 6, 30, 210, 2310,.... 

[...]  There seems to be little hope of making any progress towards a proof of Conjecture 1 without assuming at least a quantitative form of the k-tuple conjecture.  However, as we will show, even assuming the strongest form of that conjecture that seems reasonable in view of our knowledge of prime numbers, we are still left with formidable obstacles that prevent us from obtaining a complete proof of Conjecture 1. 

We have certainly come a long way, thanks to Godel et al., from Hilbert's strictures on decidibility at the turn of the last century!  But my issue here is the compatibility of the Odlyzko conjecture and the alleged randomness of the primes.  I have yet to locate a discussion of this question.  

Check out Lehmer's Phenomenon, and then: An improved bound for the de Bruijn-Newman constant, A. M. Odlyzko, Numerical Algorithms, 25 (2000).  Andy is hot on the trail of something, and this is just his hobby:  

The lower bounds support the conjecture of Newman that L >= 0.  This conjecture says that if the Riemann Hypothesis is true, it is barely true, in that even small perturbations to the zeta function lead to counterexamples.  

[7/22 -- here is another reference.] 

Thoughts on the Riemann Hypothesis -- Gregory J. Chaitin, IBM Research (2003). 

Of the authors of the above four books on the RH, the one who takes Gödel most seriously is du Sautoy, who has an entire chapter on Gödel and Turing in his book. In that chapter on p. 181, du Sautoy raises the issue of whether the RH might require new axioms. On p. 182 he quotes Gödel,* who specifically mentions that this might be the case for the RH. And on p. 202 of that chapter du Sautoy points out that if the RH is undecidable this implies that it's true, because if the RH were false it would be easy to confirm that a particular zero of the zeta function is in the wrong place.

[...]  The traditional view held by most mathematicians is that these two assertions, P /= NP and the RH, cannot be taken as new axioms, and cannot require new axioms, we simply must work much harder to prove them. According to the received view, we're not clever enough, we haven't come up with the right approach yet. This is very much the current consensus. However this majority view completely ignores* the incompleteness phenomenon discovered by Gödel, by Turing, and extended by my own work on information-theoretic incompleteness. What if there is no proof?

I am certainly not a randomness freak like Gregory, but I do agree that the public attention being focused on the RH will force mathematicians to depart from their business as usual and deal with the more foundational and philosophical issues raised by the uncanny precariousness of the RH.  It has the character of a syzygy.  What does this mathematical fragility say to us?  Is this another manifestation of an 'invisible hand' at work?  What is the nature of the conspiracy that is present?  Perhaps the new thinking is already out there: we need only locate it.  If not we must anticipate it.  

[7/5] 

What is the significance of the RH?  So what if it fails? 

The RH is not just about the randomness of the primes.  Clearly they are not.  The Ulam spiral and the de Bruijn constant testify to structure that is hidden between zeta and the primes.  

The RH has become a cornerstone for a significant portion of the mathematical edifice.  There is no visible architectural substitute.   Number theory would become chaotic for at least awhile if the RH were toppled.  But even if it does not fail, we must contend with the slimness of its validity.  It is as if the realm of numbers were being deliberately maintained at a critical point on the boundary between order and chaos.  

[7/6] 

Searching on "prime numbers" & chaos: 

Quantum-like Chaos in Prime Number Distribution and in Turbulent Fluid Flows -- A.M. Selvam (1999): 

The model concepts enable to show that the continuum real number field contains unique structures, namely prime numbers which are analogous to the dominant eddies in the eddy continuum in turbulent fluid flows.

Finite Temperature Strings -- Mark J. Bowick (1992) 

We hope that the above exposition has given a flavor of the important connection between arithmetic gases and multiplicative number theory. Much remains to be understood for the case of statistical systems that arise from string theories and conformal field theories. 

Continuing the speculation of Matthew Watkins from above: we could add something to the view of Leopold Kronecker that "God made the natural numbers; all else is the work of man."  If God wished to make the integers wholesale, she could start with a quantum chaotic system with the approximate statistics of the zeta zeros and take the Fourier transform to produce the primes and then fill in the composite integers, making sure that the distributions of the zeros would iterate to produce the equally spaced natural numbers.  Just a thought.  Would it not be undignified for God to have to count that first time with her fingers and toes?  This is just a fanciful way of restating the holographic principle that every bit of the world reflects and contains all of the information in its internal, essential relations with the rest.  

[7/7] 

A consistent idealism envisions a participatory universe, all aspects of which are essentially and internally related.  The strong anthropic principle already pushes the envelope of what science can tolerate along these lines.  We must go further.  Idealism and immaterialism will necessarily contain strong elements pantheism, panpsychism and vitalism as part of their monistic repertoire.  A materialist science cannot tolerate such elements.  So much for materialism.  

In a monistic and participatory universe there will necessarily be elements of parapsychology, alchemy and astrology.  This is simply how an immaterial world manages to hang together.  These are logically entailed by a holographic, holistic and, yes, a rational view of reality.  

What I have been entertaining on these pages since at least last year is an idealist version of numerical participation.  Critics will wish to label it 'numerology.'  Well, it was not I who first pointed to the 'unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics.'   

There is a possible conflict between this unreasonable effectiveness and the anthropic principle.  Given the supposed inalterability of mathematics and the mathematical basis of physics, particularly w.r.t. exceptional structures such as the monster group, did God ever have a significant choice in Creation?  

To put this point more succinctly, which came first: mind or math?  If the materialists have all become Platonists in their embrace of mathematical physics, where does that leave us idealists?  We have been elbowed out at the banquet table.  

We will have to take a stand somewhere.  The Riemann Hypothesis looms too large now for us not to have an opinion about it.  Mathematicians and materialists both wish to see it proven expeditiously: business as usual.  The looming presence of the RH could prove embarrassing if not otherwise proven.  How so?  

There is apparently a considerable resistance to treating the RH like the Continuum Hypothesis.  In the case of the CH, it's validity was proven to be independent of the other axioms of set theory, and so we were free to take it or leave it.  The clear consensus was to adopt the CH as an additional axiom.  

With the RH, however, the feeling among mathematicians is that it ought to be provable.  It is too closely integrated to the realm of number theory to be considered, or be proven, to be independent of that body of knowledge.  Failure to prove it would be more like the albatross on the neck: not easy to ignore.  It would raise issues of epistemology and ontology.  It must be real, but we can't know it.  We have to take it on faith!  This recasts the Riemann Hypothesis into the mold of the God Hypothesis.  This would not sit well with the materialists, one can imagine. 

Here is another angle.  You may have heard of the Skewes number, weighing in originally at 10^10^10^34.  This is many more zeros than there are atoms in the universe.  Even if you could turn the universe into a roll of leger paper, you would not be able to write it out.  It has since been trimmed down to a very modest 10^371.  This is the number before which the prime count must first exceed its asymptotic form as given by the prime number theorem, and given the RH.  Even at this modest size, we might never have a computer big enough to actually calculate this first crossing point.  There are known to be an infinite number of such crossings further out. 

If the RH fails, there will be that first zeta zero which falls off the critical 1/2 line.  The first 440 billion zeros @ ZetaGrid as of today are right on the money.  And it took several days to calculate the first fifteen zeros back in 1903.  It does not appear that the Bruijn-Newman constant is in jeopardy of being forced positive by these new results, but I would like to see a plot of its more recent values based on the close zeros data.  The record for closeness is well over a year old now.  There ought to be an alarm bell for the next record.  This effort might be compared with SETI@home.  Which is more likely to have a positive result?  

Although SETI presently has garnered much greater interest on the Internet, in the BPW the ZetaGrid ought to be the way to go.  It could be more ambiguous and thus more insidious, but the eschatological significance would ultimately point to the same Omega.  It has taken awhile for me to get back to the page topic, but there it is.  Think about it.    

There would be considerable irony in such a Y2C event.  Jesus was supposed to come back in white robes on a flying saucer, shades of SETI.  With ZetaGrid, Jesus comes back on a Pentium (R) chip, so to speak.  It would be a much more subtle and less disturbing advent.  But how could we link JC to Lehmer's Phenomenon?  Well, that's one way!  

The first non-Riemannian zero would be the most significant number in mathematics, just short of pi, perhaps.  We could make something of it.  And, unlike pi, its provenance would be much more open-ended.  There is not a closed formula to calculate any of the zeros.  In holographic fashion, each zero contains information about every prime number.  There are various computing tricks to obtain approximate information about their locations.  

THE RIEMANN-SIEGEL FORMULA AND LARGE SCALE COMPUTATIONS OF THE RIEMANN ZETA FUNCTION by GLENDON RALPH PUGH B.Sc., University of New Brunswick, 1992 

Here it gets a little tricky.  Find theoretically or computationally the first non-conforming zero and start computing its deviation from the critical line.  This computation will be an open ended process requiring additional theoretical progress.  I would guess that in this extended process additional coincidences such as that of e & pi would show up.  We would gradually be lead to a more organic or vitalistic view of mathematics, a perspective from which we could understand how the existence and physical role of the Monster Group could be compatible with the Anthropic Principle.  In effect, we would see that mathematics in all its Platonic glory is not exempt from the teleology that governs our macro and microcosm.  

This increase in our understanding of the coherence of the world could come about without the intervention of a deviant zero, but let us afford ourselves just this minimal bit of drama or external stimulus.  If there is an eschatological teleology of mind over matter, there will have to be some such minimal numerological component.  To increase the level of the drama, it could probably be arranged for there to be a more conventional, or SETI style, message somehow embedded within the numerical coincidences.  This much to placate Hollywood.  

One might as easily arrange for there to be a message embedded in the positions of the galaxies, say, and meant to be viewed by the Hubble telescope.  Perhaps, but this would have nothing to say about astronomy per se.  It would necessarily be more epiphenomenal than what might be possible in exploiting a mathematical medium.  It would be too much like just exploiting the SETI medium.  God is known to be arcane. 

[7/8] 

Numerology is an almost lost art.  It is due for revival.  Ramanujan was the last great numerologist.  He had a direct knowledge of numbers that was unencumbered by layers of analytical education.  Numbers have been disenchanted to become mere labels, no longer having intrinsic meaning.  We turn away from the e & pi coincidence as we might from seeing a ghost.  Mathematical physics has demonstrated that numbers are bound up in the atoms.  How do they leap from the atoms to the mind of a Srinivasa?  Such genius is possible only if the world is a hologram, waiting for us to comprehend the coherence of the micro and macrocosm.  

Riemann's zeta function and the monster group are just two slices of that hologram.  Each number comes alive inside every other number as part of the universal resonance.  That resonance manifests most dramatically as our Omega.  'e' and pi taken separately are just labels.  Taken together they possess a harmony that even Srinivasa could not completely decipher.  We can and will cultivate that genius once we understand its natural necessity.  It will take something like the drama of a 'misplaced' zeta 0 to trigger our deeper curiosity.  That 'misplaced' zero would act as the irritant forcing us to bend our minds toward the reestablishment of the larger harmony.  If this is not sufficient to set us on course to the Omega, then something else will be.  

We understand the significance of 'little' alpha, the fine structure constant, with a value of ~ 1/137.  We know that if it differed by more than one or two percent, carbon based life would have been impossible in this universe.  This is just a piece of Anthropics.  We don't know how it came to have this magical value.  Some suppose that it is merely a random number in each of an infinite set of universes.  It is what it is because we are here to measure it.  That is weak anthropics.  I am a strong anthropicist.  There is just this one BPW in which everything is held together in optimal coherence, this despite the apparent and superficial pre-Millennial incoherence.  

I suggest that Srinivasa II will find a 'formula' for alpha in terms of e & pi, and then will be able to explain it to the rest of us, along with the meaning of the misplaced zeta 0.  Such a 'formula' would summarize the holographic involution of mind and matter.  No small order, this.  

[7/10] 

I'm perusing the class number problem.  This relates to the near integral value of the Ramanujan number:  e^(pi*sqrt(163)).  This might shed some light on e^pi ~= 20 + pi, or it might not. 

Uniform Distribution of Heegner Points -- V. Vatsal, 2001. 

HEEGNER ZEROS OF THETA FUNCTIONS -- Jorge Jimenez-Urroz and Tonghai Yang 

[7/11] 

Rational points: 9800 hits. 

It is clear that mathematicians are into rationalization in a big way.  The study of rational points on elliptic curves is major.  But I can't tell you what it is about.  I may be dense, however, there is a dearth of background explanation as the mathematicians go busily about their work.  Are they concerned about rational points just because of the intrinsic challenge, or is there an ulterior motive? 

Why do I care about rational points?  It goes back to the natural and venerable impulse of wanting to square the circle.  It is a desire for closure.  That is the point of reason, not to play on words.  The materialist impulse has been taking us precisely in the opposite direction: embracing the Apeiron that was anciently abhorred.  Is it too late to put the Apeiron back in the tube?  Certainly that would be the consensus view if anyone bothered to ask.  Yet there is this residual interest, whatever its provenance. 

For instance, take a look here: Rational Points on Elliptic Curves.  It is as though someone were trying to refute Fermat's last theorem: A^3 + B^3 /= C^3.  But no word of explanation: quite peculiar.  Maybe I should mind my own business and not poke my nose in other folks playpens.  

But then go here: Overview of "Mathematician's Secret Room".  I am being reminded that number theory is about numbers, after all, not about those nasty irrationals (sic).  It was a terrible day for the Platonists and Pythagoreans in 500 B.C. when Hippasus of Metapontum (Hyper-bridge?)

used geometric methods to demonstrate that the hypotenuse of an isosceles triangle with legs of length one (i.e., sqrt 2, sometimes called Pythagoras's constant) cannot be expressed as a ratio of integers. A number of this type is now called an irrational number.  Legend has it that Hippasus made his discovery at sea and was thrown overboard by fanatic Pythagoreans.

And can you blame them?  Ever since, there has been a tension in mathematics between the rationalists and irrationalists. The rationalists remain stranded in number theory while their irrational colleagues help to explore the, no longer rational, heavens.  Leonhard Euler attempted to bridge this chasm back in the 18th century with his invention of analytic number theory.  His goal remains elusive.  

One answer to the above question is simply: the computer or the information explosion.  This is the commercial motive behind the revival of number theory and the renewed, but still in the closet, interest in squaring the circle.  Yes, Pythagoras dream of the harmony of the spheres was reawakened first by digital music.  We often refer to mathematical physicists as Pythagoreans, but the true Pythagoreans would have thrown them overboard right along with Hippasus.  Only Roger Penrose might have been spared from among them. 

All that we rationalists are asking for is an ouroboric closure.  We will even grant you the Apeiron, but it must be the best possible Apeiron, and is must serve the Ouroboros.  

Number theorists continue to strive mightily to contain the inherent wildness of the primes.  Theirs is truly a mission unto the wilderness.  Among other treasures they bring back is the Euler-Mascheroni constant (~0.111^1/4).  Imagine if it turned out rational.  That possibility could well be related to the disposal of the RH.  

New Math Formulas Discovered With Supercomputers: (p.7) 

In April 1993, Enrico Au-Yeung, an undergraduate at the University of Waterloo, brought to the attention of Jonathan Borwein, his professor, the curious fact that:

[a double sum over inverse integers ~= 17*pi^4/360] 

based on a computation to 500,000 terms. Borwein was skeptical of this finding -- if there was such an identity, why hadn't the theory behind it been discovered by mathematicians centuries ago? Borwein tried computing this sum to a higher level of precision in order to demonstrate to the student that this conjecture really did not precisely hold.  Surprisingly, in subsequent computations by Borwein to 30 digits and by myself to over 100 decimal digits, this relation was upheld. Needless to say, it is rather unlikely that a mathematical relation could hold to such high precision and yet not really be true.

Then see Integer-Relations.  

My objection to this approach is that it sacrifices rationality for precision, which is what got us into our analytic fix in the first place.  This approach would miss the near integers, for instance.  Heegner's insight would be lost. 

[713] 

Integer relations (632 hits): 

Experimental Mathematics and Integer Relations by Jonathan M. Borwein, 2002: 

Mathematicians increasingly use symbolic and numeric computation, visualisation tools, simulation and data mining. This is both problematic and challenging. For example, we mathematicians care more about the reliability of our literature than other sciences. These new developments, however, have led to the role of proof in mathematics now being under siege. 

[...] Many of my favourite examples originate in between mathematical physics and number theory/analysis/knot theory and involve the ubiquitous Zeta Function, of Riemann hypothesis fame.

One thing they do at CECM is attempt to distinguish between algebraic and transcendental numbers.  On a related issue see Is Visualization Struggling under the Myth of Objectivity?  Also see Euler sums in Math World, and Visible Structures in Number theory -- Peter Borwein.  

Let us note again the j-function.  It is responsible for the near integers associated with our e&pi syzygy, and for the structure of the MG.  This is taking us back to moonshine (and here). 

week173 -- John Baez: 

The dimensions of the irreducible representations of the Monster are closely connected to the coefficients of an important function in complex analysis, called the j-function - this connection is known as Monstrous Moonshine.

week66: 

[...] what interests me most about this stuff is the whole idea of "exceptional structures" - symmetrical structures that don't fit into the neat regular families in classification theorems. The remarkable fact is that many of them are deeply related. As Geoffrey Dixon put it to me, they seem to have a "holographic" quality, meaning that each one contains in encoded form some of the information needed to construct all the rest! It thus seems pointless to hope that one is "the explanation" for the rest, but I would still like some conceptual "explanation" for the whole collection of them - though I have no idea what it should be.

[7/14] 

Modular Form -- from MathWorld: 

Modular forms satisfy rather spectacular and special properties resulting from their surprising array of internal symmetries.

Langlands program. 

Modular Forms and Elliptic Curves: Taniyama-Shimura 

For a particular elliptic curve, the number of integer solutions in each clock arithmetic forms an L-series for that curve.

A modular form is defined by two axes, x and y, but EACH axis has a real and imaginary part. In effect it is four dimensional (xr, xi, yr, yi) where xr means real part of x, xi means imaginary part of x, and similarly with yr and yi. The four-dimensional space is called hyperbolic space. The interesting thing about modular forms is that they exhibit infinite symmetry under [modular] transformations....

Richard E. Borcherds by C. S. Rajan 

Even before the monster group was proved to exist, hints of its intricate connections with the theory of modular functions began to appear. It was observed by Ogg that in a certain naturally occurring sequence {Sn} of modular curves, Sp has genus 0 (namely it is the Riemann sphere) for a prime p if and only if p divides the order of the monster group. McKay and Thompson found interesting connections between dimensions of vector spaces with irreducible representations of the monster, with the coefficients of the Fourier series expansion of the elliptic modular j-function.

[...]  An example of a vertex operator algebra is given by the Fock space of a string propagating on a torus. The moonshine module is obtained by combining a twisted as well as an untwisted vertex operator module associated to the Leech lattice, and amounts to a theory of a string propagating on an orbifold that is not a torus.

week 95 -- John Baez 

[...]  Well, in dimension 24, there are 24 even unimodular lattices, which were classified by Niemeier. A few of these are obvious, like E8 + E8 + E8 and E8 + D16+, but the coolest one is the "Leech lattice", which is the only one having no vectors of length 2. This is related to a whole WORLD of bizarre and perversely fascinating mathematics, like the "Monster group", the largest sporadic finite simple group - and also to string theory. I said a bit about this stuff in "week66", and I will say more in the future, but for now let me just describe how to get the Leech lattice.

[...]  However, Conway doesn't seem to explain *why* the Weyl vectors have this ascending form. So I'm afraid I really don't understand how all the pieces fit together. All I can say is that for some reason the Weyl vectors have this ascending form, and the fact that the Weyl vector is also light-like makes a lot of magic happen in 26 dimensions. For example, it turns out that in 26 dimensions there are *infinitely many* fundamental roots, unlike in the two lower dimensional cases.

Just to add mystery upon mystery, Conway notes that in higher dimensions there is no vector v for which all the fundamental roots r have r.v equal to some constant. So the pattern above does not continue.

I find this stuff fascinating, but it would drive me nuts to try to work on it. It's as if God had a day off and was seeing how many strange features he could build into mathematics without actually making it inconsistent.

Re- The Monster and the Leech -- John Baez 

In dimension 26 we get infinitely many fundamental roots forming a Dynkin diagram with one node for each point in the Leech lattice, and edges in a pattern that depends only on the distances between these points in the Leech lattice.

[7/15] 

Information in the Holographic Universe:  This article from the current issue of Scientific American points to a problem with most scientific speculation.  In short, it is too little, too late, too superficial and too literal.  It contrasts unfavorably with the more meaning based, metaphorical 'holographic' speculation of John Baez excerpted above.  It would be nice if there were a clear path from physics to metaphysics via quantum information, but there is not.  Quantum information is much too atomistic.  Meaning, on the other hand, is fundamentally irreducible.  The path from materialism to immaterialism must pass through coherence and monism.  It must first recognize the irreducible unity of all being.  Short of that realization, scientific speculation is likely to be counterproductive, as is true in this case.  Cosmic intelligence is to be neither quantized nor quantified. 

It is this problem that has motivated me to look to mathematics as the soft underbelly of materialism.  The physical quantum in this context is largely a red herring.  It is a symptom of the underlying, overlying immaterialism, not its source.  At best it is a doorway from physics into the realm of math.  The Baezian 'holographic' unity of math is much closer to the cosmic 'holography' of the BPW than is the quantum of physics.  

What is the meaning of 'exceptional beauty'?  At this point, no one really knows, but we can take a stab at it.  The crux of the matter lies here with the interdependence of the exceptional structures.  Naively we might suppose that mathematical complexity is epiphenomenal, that it only lies on the periphery of that domain.  This is the impression given by chaos theory, where a very few commonalities are overwhelmed by the innumerable profusion of possibilities.  Such is not the case with exceptionality.  Exceptional complexity is truly sparse, and rather than inhabiting the periphery of the subject, it resides at its core, or so we are being lead to believe.  How do we account for this surprising development?  What does it mean, and how might it relate to the BPW hypothesis? 

These exceptional structures are what appear to account for the organicity of mathematics.  These form the vertebrae of the subject, held together by an underlying 'functoriality'. 

Representation theory - its rise and its role in number theory -- Robert Langlands (1989).  This review is a bit more accessible from a physics background. 

Where Stands Functoriality Today? -- Robert Langlands (1997).  This is a mildly pessimistic assessment of the field.  

[7/16] 

Endoscopy and beyond -- Robert Langlands (2000).  Robert finds this endeavor more hopeful than functoriality. 

[...] my goal is rather to persuade the younger, more vigorous members of the audience, that the path to a successful treatment of the number theoretical problems to whose solution functoriality promises to contribute may very well lie through the trace formula and that they had best be prepared to master it; it is not to discuss in any serious way the arguments that enter into the complete treatment of the formula. That would be a task not for a single lecture but for a year’s seminar.

Dimension of spaces of automorphic forms -- Robert Langlands (1963).  His early work on the trace formula. 

"Trace formula" & endoscopy (102 hits). 

"Trace formula" (6100 hits). 

Selberg trace formula and zeta functions -- Matthew Watkins: 

"On a compact (i.e. closed and bounded) two-dimensional surface of negative Gaussian curvature the classical motion [of a point mass] takes place on the geodesics, and it is as chaotic and nonintegrable as possible (being Bernoullian). On this surface there exists also a well-defined quantum dynamics, where the Laplace-Beltrami operator (the invariant Laplacian) acts as the Hamiltonian in the Schrödinger equation. A limiting procedure, exactly parallel to the semiclassical tradition in ordinary quantum mechanics, takes the quantum theory into the classical one when the energy E becomes large, E-1/2 playing the role of Planck's constant... If in addition the curvature is constant, this semiclassical transition is even understood in a certain sense, exemplified by the Selberg trace formula. This formula, which was motivated by Riemann's zeta function, relates in an exact way the spectrum of the quantal motion on compact surfaces of negative curvature to the classical motion. The so-resulting mathematical literature has deep connections with manifold theory, automorphic functions, number theory, etc..."

-- A. Voros and N.L. Balasz, "Chaos on the pseudosphere", Physics Reports 143 no. 3, p. 112.

The resemblance between this formula [Selberg's trace] and the Riemann-Weil explicit formula is such that the N{P} correspond to the prime numbers, and the r(i) on the left-hand side (which are directly linked to the Laplacian spectrum of the surface) correspond to the nontrivial zeros of the Riemann zeta function. Consequently, the resemblance is a major source of support for the spectral interpretation of the Riemann zeta function. Put very simply, the spectral interpretation argues that "the nontrivial zeros of the Riemann zeta function are eigenvalues in some setting".

Selberg zeta function and trace formula for the BTZ black hole -- PETER A. PERRY & FLOYD L. WILLIAMS (2001) 

A Selberg zeta function is attached to the three-dimensional BTZ black hole, and a trace formula is developed for a general class of test functions.  The trace formula differs from those of more standard use in physics in that the black hole has a fundamental domain of infinite hyperbolic volume. Various thermodynamic quantities associated with the black hole are conveniently expressed in terms of the zeta function.

Peter A. Perry: 

Research Statement: Inverse spectral geometry is the study of the geometric content of eigenvalues of the Laplacian on a compact surface or the scattering resonances of the Laplacian on a non-compact surface. These problems model more realistic problems such as target identification through the scattering resonances of the target.  [...] 

Note that inverse (scattering) problems generally have a holographic basis. 

[7/17] 

At this point I am stuck on the math, trying to find the thread that leads to organicity, so lets bring in the big gun, which in our case is the Big Six: AORSAM.   

The connecting theme appears to be the cycle, and recall that it was the e&pi syzygy that triggered the present tangent in an effort to resolve the apparent contradiction between anthropics and the MG.  We were then led to consider the cosmogonic role of the cycle.  

For a cycle to be cosmogonic it must break its essential circular symmetry.  It does so by becoming eccentric, i.e. elliptic.  It is precisely the elliptic functions that are at the core of our 'exceptional beauty', or so we are told.  I can barely make out the thread.  

Before the elliptic functions came the circular functions.  These are the good old sine and cosine functions that dominate much of math and physics, particularly on the engineering side.  The next step in complexity beyond the circular functions are the elliptic ones, and these dominate the rest of math and physics.  Between them, the circle and the ellipse have a firm grip on much of our scientific or material reality.  

The specific connection between elliptical functions and exceptional beauty is to be found in the modular form: 

Modular forms satisfy rather spectacular and special properties resulting from their surprising array of internal symmetries. Hecke discovered an amazing connection between each modular form and a corresponding Dirichlet L-series. A remarkable connection between rational elliptic curves and modular forms is given by the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture, which states that any rational elliptic curve is a modular form in disguise. This result was the one proved by Andrew Wiles in his celebrated proof of Fermat's last theorem. 

The circular functions are periodic.  The elliptic functions are doubly periodic.  There can be no triply periodic functions, according to Jakob Jacobi.  In some significant sense, the ellipse defines the limits of complexity.  Let us see, therefore, how direct is the path from the 'simple' ellipse to the monster group.  Need we look any further than the j-function: 

It turns out that the j-function also is important in the classification theorem for finite simple groups, and that the factors of the orders of the sporadic groups, including the celebrated monster group, are also related.

For the explicit modularity of the j-function see Klein's absolute invariant, J, by which it is defined: 

Every rational function of J is a modular function, and every modular function can be expressed as a rational function of J. The Fourier series of J, modulo a constant multiplicative factor, is called the j-function.    

And recall that the j-function is also probably related to our syzygy via class field theory, the class numbers and the Heegner numbers: 

The Heegner numbers have a number of fascinating connections with amazing results in prime number theory. In particular, the j-function provides stunning connections between e, pi, and the algebraic integers

The lowly ellipse has certainly managed to keep the mathematical pot boiling.  Is there a Chef stirring this pot?  What sort of seasoning has been added to come up with the recipe for the BPW?  I continue to speculate that the answer may lie in our double syzygy: e^pi - pi = 19.999099979....  Here we have a transcendental  manifesting as an almost rational to the second degree.  In that numerical hiccup must lie a tale.  Do I dare plug this into Integer-Relations?   19.999099979189475767266442984669 ==>>.  I ask it to find the minimal polynomial and it returns two very large coefficients.  I plug it into the Simon Plouffe - P&J Borwein inverse symbolic calculator, and sure enough it recovers the above formula.  Then I hit the browse button....  Here are the names that come up:  Thue-Morse and Lehmer.  In the other direction appears Fibonacci and Bessel.  Arbitrarily switching a digit, i.e. 1997909997918947, yields similar results.  I see nothing yet that grabs my attention.   

What does catch my attention is the browser itself.  I had no idea!  Imagine what Srinivasa could have done with this baby!  I'll wager there's a Srini II out there right now, hot on the grail trail of the organic math.  Me?  I'll just trip through some tulips.  

If I plug in plain pi, the nearest hit is ln (Parking + Madelung).  When I try e, the nearest hits are bunch of sums of different integer sequences.  I wonder what the story is there?  With e^pi, I don't see anything striking, but shouldn't I have gotten another 'Parking' ticket, or is my slide rule busted?  It may be due to a shifted decimal.  This could be addictive, however.  Does it do horoscopes?  

There must be an innocent explanation for all those sequences near to e.  It must be rounding errors of some kind.  Otherwise someone is really missing something.  OK, it seems to be hitting on all the nearly sequential sequences of integers, i.e. e = S (n/n!).  Perfectly innocent!  Well, another Fields Medal gets away.  Somehow I think Srini wouldn't have fallen for that one!  Just checking.  

There ought to be a way to filter through these symbol sequences to pull out significant hits and misses.  Has this not been done?  Is this the best we can come up with?  Surely we are missing something.  I'm still wondering if Renyi ever met Madelung before they bumped into each other here at pi?  Are they trying to stir up trouble, or are they just passing the time?  Is there no cop on this beat? 

One might choose to compare the elliptic generator with the Mandelbrot generator.  Both are superficially simple and yet they both yield a nearly unbounded complexity, but is there any doubt as to which is more essential to math?  The ellipse is in a class of its own.  I don't think we fully understand its rationale.  The area of an ellipse is pi*a*b.  The perimeter is something else.  One of its most elegant approximations is pi(a+b)(1+3h/(10+sqrt(4-3h))), due to Srinivasa.  He calculated it on the toes of his left foot.  Imagine pulling that out of the blue, and this is perhaps the simplest formula to appear is his notebooks.  

[7/18] 

This has to do with symmetry.  A circle has too much, a blob too little.  The ellipse rules symmetry, certainly in two dimensions.  The symmetry at higher dimensions is a shadow of what happens down here on the flat.  Those extra dimensions can only buy so much.  Beyond twenty-six, the action seems to fall off.  If there is a higher dimensional version of the Leech, it is unable to cast any longer shadow, certainly not onto anything arithmetical, and arithmetic is the ultimate arbiter when it comes to numbers.  

There is a similar thing going on with the octonions.  These eight dimensional matrices define the limits of matroid complexity and symmetry.  What exactly are the lines between elliptic, octonion and Leech symmetry and complexity is not within my present purview, but who is to doubt that those lines have been drawn?  

Numbers are what we have been talking about these last few months, and it is Riemann who still owns them, as much as anyone else.  The ellipse, octonions and the Leech, if they are to give up their secrets to anyone, it will be to the RH.  Will there ever be another RH?  Perhaps not.  After the RH, math will be puzzle solving.  It will be picking up the pieces.  What will we know then?  I'm suspecting we will know something more Godelian than Godel.  We will begin to know the secret lives of numbers, and how we fit into their picture and they into ours.  

Can we not proceed on this not so minor assumption?  Do we have a choice?  Besides, I'll be on a short break here, and need to tidy up around the ranch.  

Along with the RH will go the quantum gravity enigma.  Both are pushing complexity to what appears to be its logical limits.  Both will have to reckon with the Monster Group, and both will have to confront our lowly syzygy.  That latter item might even be the toughest challenge.  

This intellectual chore of tying up our numero-logical loose ends is a principle prerequisite to the Millennium.  Yes, the Omega does cast its shadow upon the Monster, and not the other way around.  The numero-logical key to the Omega and the Monster is almost within the present the purview of the Symbol Calculator.  We just need to know where to start looking.  The syzygy is trying to tell us where and how.  I just don't have the musical ear for it.  Not here.  Not now.  Will Srini II have to be up to speed on the Omega?  Yes, there will have to be some such eschatological motivation and insight to clear this final hurdle, to put it all into perspective. 

It occurs to me that there must be something about Heegner that I'm not getting.  It is this insight that will help to resolve our problem of the numerical coincidences.  I have to remind myself that the same elliptical j-function that generates the almost integers also generates the Monster.  e and pi cast their shadow on the Monster via j.  e^i*pi is only the circle.  Remove the i and we get the j or the ellipse, more or less.  Someone is trying to tell us something here, but they'll have to speak up. 

[7/19] 

It is clear that e and pi are the most overdetermined numbers in mathematics.  The are definitely overworked.  What is their provenance?  What is their progeny?  What is their prodigy?  We'll have to find out. 

One of their progeny is i.  It has been noted that e^i*pi = -1 is the most remarkable formula in mathematics.  It is hard to imagine how sqrt(-1) could have existed before e and pi.  It is this foundling that has done more to tame mathematics than any other numeral.  It figures hugely in Riemann's strategy to tame the primes.  Clearly it keeps e and pi on a short leash.  Take away that iota and we get the Monster.  Their iota-less syzygy at 20 is the shadow of the one with i.  

Mixed up in all of this is the j.  According to John McKay, Charles Hermite (1822-1901) invented the j in his transcendental solution to the quintic.  The pentagon, by the way, yields up the golden ratio as nature's premier numeral.  You gotta love Charles' general solution to the quintic in terms of Jacobi's elliptic exponential or theta functions.  

Thus do we see the elliptic j figuring in the differential cubic and the algebraic quintic.  Nothing beyond the three and the five seem to figure in mathematical complexity.  Note that the thetas are 'quasi-doubly periodic'.  Just what does that mean?  What should the 'quasi' signify in this context?  I see the formula, but it doesn't tell me anything.   

The Jacobi theta functions satisfy an almost bewilderingly large number of identities involving the four functions, their derivatives, multiples of their arguments, and sums of their arguments.

What are all these quasi-symmetries?  From whence do they come; whither do they go?  They have to do with the limitation of complexity.  Complexity is bounded by the j.  Why did Srinivasa have to invent a mock theta?  I notice that his name appears in 249 entries at Math World.  Gauss: 277.  Riemann: 308.  Euler: 547.  Jacobi: 225.  Fermat: 249.  Newton: 225.  (Not counting Lie, Abel/Abelian, etc.)  Who is missing from the >200 club? 

The optimization of mathematical complexity must be related the the observer/anthropic problem.  If there were a bigger Monster, might we not have been eaten alive?  We could not have tamed it.  Do not the primes define and contain all complexity?  A bigger or lesser Monster might have rendered mathematical physics less amenable or less fertile, respectively.  There may be limits to diversity.  We may be pushing that envelope.   There may be moral considerations.  

[7/20] 

Modular functions: 

Here is a excellent exposition of the j-function, emphasizing its uniqueness: 

On the Modular Function and Its Importance for Arithmetic --  Paula Cohen (2000).  She refers to a proof  by Chudnovsky of the algebraic independence of pi and e^pi.  What does this imply about our syzygy?  Might we infer that there are other folks out there beating around this same numerical coincidence?  They are being mildly stealthy about it. 

In the same volume of lecture notes is another interesting paper, Algebraic Dynamics and Transcendental Numbers  -- M. Waldschmidt. 

[7/21] 

week125: John speaks of the '12-ness' of elliptic curves. 

Harald Cramer and the distribution of prime numbers -- Andrew Granville (1995). 

Unexpected irregularities in the distribution of prime numbers -- Andrew Granville (1994): primes are not purely probabilistic, e.g. mind the gaps.  Taming the primes is no simple matter.  RH not true?  Are the prime numbers independent of each other?  Their peculiar gappiness indicates otherwise.  

The distribution of the primes seems deeply implicated in the core structure of mathematics.  They are part of its alleged organicity.  This is how they are related.  This relatedness should then be manifested by the failure of the RH.   At present my optimal Y2C scenario would be for a theoretical disproof of the RH to be quickly followed by heightened awareness of math's organicity.  Via mathematical physics and the Anthropic principle, immaterialism and the BPWH would finally become established, along with their eschatological implications.  I can imagine no more subtle or benign way to introduce the Omega.  I am suggesting an incompatibility between a fully self-reflexive, organic math and the RH.  This might not be necessary, but involving the RH in this historically consummate turn-around would be my concession to a minimalist drama.  

A failure of the RH would, at first, strike many mathematicians as a blow against mathematical coherence.  I submit that the studying of the manner of that failure, however, will lead them toward a much deeper sense of the coherence between math and the BPW.  The breakdown of the RH would be part of the vital loophole that allows the abstractions of math to be 'cognizant' of, or commodious to, life and mind. 

The 'unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics' is part of an ontogenetic bootstrap.  It is a bootstrap in which the cosmic mind must participate, and we as well, through that mind.  

It is indisputable that conjecture is playing an increasingly vital role is the advance of mathematics, particularly in number theory. This may be as much a symptom as a cause of the organicity of math.  This reliance on the conjectural approach does render mathematics more unstable and more amenable to changes of philosophy.  It is as if mathematics were approaching a critical point antecedent to a phase change in its structure.  We just don't realize yet how we will be fitting into this larger picture. 

[7/22] 

A question that has struck me as significant is the relation between the prime numbers and the Monster Group, or, more succinctly, the connection between the zeta function and the MG.  The shortest path between zeta and the MG is probably the 'moonlit' one, i.e. the modular elliptic j-function.  Is there an elliptic aspect of the zeta?  In 1937 Erich Hecke showed (also see the above) that if the Fourier coefficients of a modular cusp form are plugged into a Dirichlet L-series, then that series can be uniquely factored into an Euler product, i.e. a generalized zeta function.  It was mainly Taniyama who connected the elliptic and modular functions, and his result was used by Wiles to prove Fermat.  The moral of this moonlit excursion is that mathematical complexity has an ultimate source: be it the primes, the Monster, the j, or something beyond all of them.  That source is vital to our 'physical' existence via anthropics.  

The primes are not random, as we have seen above with Ulam, Odlyzko, de Bruijn, the 'conspiracy', etc, but presently I am rereading Conrey.  Much of the zeta problem comes down to finding elliptic curves with many rational points (see p. 352 in Brian's article). 

[7/23] 

This is the last gasp before leaving for Ireland this pm.  Our connecting flight to Newark was cancelled yesterday due to thunderstorms, which are expected again today.  

Brian's article is the best I have seen as an overview of the RH.  His main thesis is to demonstrate how convoluted the effort to prove the hypothesis has become.  I am still struggling to absorb his cogent comments.  

Here are some leads from Brian: 

    * Don Zagier: I am not finding a list of his publications; however: see his Periods (2001). 
    * An occasional collaborator is Fernando Rodriguez Villegas: Constructions of plane curves with many points, with Zagier (2000). 
    * Henryk Iwaniec -- no publication list.  Four of his books are listed on Amazon.  

On p. 351, note the connection between the Dirichlet and zeta zeros.  And on p. 353: 

The conjecture of Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer asserts that the multiplicity of the zero of the L-function associated with a given elliptic curve is equal to the rank of the group of rational points on the elliptic curve.

That's about it for now.  Sorry to leave in the middle of this unresolved conspiracy. 

[8/7] 

I would like to attempt a better resolution of the above items, but first I must recall some old business.  This is from way back when I first got into 'numerology', from 3-84 to 2-86. 

The only specific items that might presently be salvaged from that excursion involve the metric-English conversion.  According to my notes it was not until 1959 that the U.S. defined the inch as 2.54 centimeters.  I do not know the situation in Britain.  [But see 8/12 on the next page.]  Once again we are confronted with a possible 'conspiracy' when considering the following additional points: 

   1. The Measure of All Things: The Seven-Year Odyssey and Hidden Error that Transformed the World -- Ken Alder, 2002.  
   2. 100/2*1.27 = 39.370... inches/meter.  (3937 = 31*127) 
   3. 2*31*127^2 = 999998 
   4. c = 299792458 meters/sec. 

One has to wonder if the French also had influence from across the channel, and to what end?  And for the record, from the same notes: 

   1. e/phi   =    1.67999005... 
   2. pi/phi^2   = 1.199982...  
   3. pi*phi^1/2 = 1.9990...^2 
   4. gamma^2  =  0.9996.../3

and from before

    * e^pi - pi = 19.999099979... 

If mathematicians are not becoming a bit paranoid, perhaps they are not paying attention.  Someone somewhere has been working overtime to square the circle.  Was a member of the French Academy privy to this rationale?  If there were such a rationale it would explain much of the ancient wisdom as captured in the sacred geometry of the megalithic kind.  The megalithic masons were operating on an intuition not unrelated to that of Srinivasa.  

The key to these coincidences is still missing.  If there were a convenient way to search for similar coincidences on the Internet, we might be close to putting 2 and 2 together, but see numerical coincidences (358 hits):  

   1. fine structure constant  alpha = [31 x (PI)^6 ] / (21^5) (2 parts/million) 
   2. Cosmic Numerology -- Ivars Peterson 
   3. Stonehenge- Key to the Ancient World -- Richard Heath 
   4. Re- Path-Integrating over Differentiable Structures... -- John Baez 
   5. Numerical Coincidences --  Bill Debuque, et al.  

Let's pause here.  Bill points out that the e^pi coincidence is related to the fact that (pi + 20)^i ~= 1.  I think this was also pointed out on Math World, but the formulas have become illegible (conspiracy?).  I just checked this page again and the formulas are now more legible. [9/1 -- It is apparently only my browser that is failing.  Finally, I fixed this problem by deleting my Internet cache.]  The latter source now yields: 

    * 163*(pi - e) = 68.9996644... 
    * 163/ln163   =  1.999999984...^5 

The presence of 163 in these coincidences may point to Heegner.  

 

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Topical Index

6/4/03

Numbers

My diversion into 'numerology' on the previous page was extensive; the most extensive since my two year numerical engagement.  Laying on the floor beside my chair are several hundred pages of handwritten notes from that period.  I have mixed feelings about that effort and how it relates to the present one.  On the one hand there was an almost obsessive desperation to find the 'key', looking for relations between sacred geometry and astronomical data.  Yet, I am certainly not the only one to have been bitten by the Pythagorean bug.  The line between 'monstrous moonshine' (and see here) and outright numerology is a thin one.  Professional mathematicians and physicists are very wary of this occupational hazard.  They are not at all comfortable with the Ramanujan phenomenon.  

Pythagoras has been a constant companion on my sojourn from materialism into immaterialism.  I cannot belittle or forsake that presence.  Implicit in the Pythagorean mysticism is a numerical vitalism or even animism.  What are these numbers that are both alien and familiar at the same time?  From whence cometh the Monster Group, and why does it cast such a long shadow over mathematics and physics?  How could we expect to rationalize the world without rationalizing the Monster.  This rationale must be a vital one.  Therein lies the key to Creation if there be such.  

Numerical vitalism and holism are decidedly contrary to the analytic impulse that still pervades the intellectual arena.  There is strong evidence that we are being led into a mathematical holism despite all analytical resistance.  Every new discovery leads to new and unexpected connections.  The challenge of the Riemann Hypothesis is the case in point.  With every passing day there is more at stake with the RH.  It provides a focus for much speculation.  Any serious immaterialist can hardly avoid participating.  

I am speculating that the resolution of the RH will necessarily involve more than mathematical business as usual.  It will require a much more robust acknowledgement of the organicity of mathematics.  In particular it will involve getting a better handle on some of the numerical coincidences considered previously.  This in turn would entail at the least a greatly expanded version of the Heegner type of phenomenon.  This new vision would incorporate important elements of the ancient numerical intuition, some of which may be gleaned from the annals of archeo-astronomy. 

My most outlandish speculation pertains to the evolution of numbers.  Mathematical structure comes about through the 'self-organization' of the number system.  This might be thought of as an extreme from of mathematical constructivism or intuitionism.  Where it differs from these ontologies is in its explicit appeal to teleology.  The teleology of numbers is contained in the overarching teleology of the BPW.  The convolution of these two teleologies is crucial for the overall coherence.  

The eschatological aspect of this 'numerology' comes with the ultimate devolution of this system as it reverts to its primordial organicity.  In this process the numbers will be reenchanted along with the rest of the world.  All of Creation will participate in the reenchanting resurrection or rapture.  I am inclined, quite ironically, to see mathematics as on the cutting edge of this reenchantment.  It is furthest along in recognizing the organicity of its subject matter.  

We have considered the holistic turn in twentieth century philosophy.  The result of this turn, however, has not been an upsurge in coherentism.  Postmodernism has been, rather, a celebration of pluralism.  Coherentism necessarily implies theism.  Professional philosophers are not paid to turn their collars.  Their theological colleagues, in turn, are not paid to engage in the millenarian messianism that would implied in any fundamental turn to coherence.  There are historical, political and intellectual obstacles to a philosophical embrace of anything like the ancient wisdom.  My speculation is that mathematics is much less prone to such considerations.  To the contrary, Pythagoreanism has always been the Achilles' heel of scientific materialism.  

If there is to be a minimalist 'Y2C' event, mathematics represents its optimal venue, IMO.  This is the rationale of my mathematical excursus.  Where I may be able to contribute to such a turn of events is in the elaboration of this rationale and in the collation of its putative mathematical ingredients.  To be the metaphysical point person in such fashion would be no mean feat.  That this role might have historical ramifications should remain an interesting possibility for all of us who are so inclined. 

Let such considerations not prevent us, however, from continuing to pursue this same goal on other fronts as the occasion may demand. 

[8/9] 

Please permit me now, retrospectively at least, to attempt to justify my previous diversion from Omega to numbers.  In the last three pages we have traversed from Creation to Omega to numbers.  This would seem to imply that numbers may provide a connecting  link between the Alpha and Omega.  Recall further my admittedly somewhat arbitrary designation of the Big Six, relative to Creation and Evolution:  A&O/Repro/S&A/MG.  There was the Monster Group dangling, not too gracefully, off the end.  Even a rough perusal of these pages would indicate that the Monster has been bugging me from early on.  On the last two pages I have been attempting, fitfully, to turn the tables on the Monster.  I am attempting to exploit the numerical coincidences in rationalizing it.  I recognize that by doing so in such a cavalier fashion, I am going beyond the 'moonshine' protocol and into an almost blatantly 'numerological' stance.  Well, all is fair in love and eschatology.   

Let's focus on the number connection.  I guess my contention here is that it is love and numbers that constitute the keystone in the A/O arch/ark of Creation.  Love by itself is not quite enough.  It needs structural support in the form of logic and its ramifications into a mathematical, anthropic style physics.  It is numbers, along with love, that help to smooth out the gaps and rough edges of Creation.  Numbers and their organicity are essential in bringing about the phenomenal depth of Creation.  The Darwinian-style, global organicity of metabolism, which I crudely lump into the 'Repro' slot in the Big Six, is the other inducer of depth in Creation.  I have yet to fully appreciate how Darwin and the Monster may be mutually rationalized.  This Creation business is a holographic puzzle: any solution will be holistic.  We can only hope that something like the Big Six will provide an apt nexus for our focus.  

What concerns me here is the Logos of Creation.  Logos includes both meaning and logic.  Meaning is the meat and logic the skeleton of Creation.  The natural languages focus on meaning whilst the artificial languages such as mathematics and computer programs focus on logic.  The problem of Creation is to put the meat on the bones, not to be overly elegant about it.  The observer principle may be crucial here.  

The failure of scientific materialism has been just its attempt to put the meat on the bones.  This is also its attempt to squeeze mind and meaning out of atoms.  As we have seen on these pages, this attempt has been abandoned and postmodern pluralism has risen up in its stead.  So perhaps I have misstated the problem of Creation.  Perhaps it should be seen as putting the bones on the meat, again stating it as crudely as possible.  

In the modern view, numbers and atoms are meaningless, per se.  The meaning must be added on after the fact.  This is just a slight realignment of the Cartesian dualism, with numbers now being relegated to the side of atoms and matter.  Thus have we developed mathematical physics to such a fine art for describing pure matter.  

The ancient holistic wisdom has been effectively defiled in the horoscopes of our daily newspapers.  Astrology, numerology and alchemy are pale shadows of what evidently was once a vital art, and which provided much of the rationale for our early civilizations.  The Enlightenment and the Inquisition may be seen as a kind of shadow boxing with the pale remnants of this wisdom.  The Ramanujan phenomenon provides a very narrow and distorted glimpse of the potential power of this intuition.  

The Omega is not about turning the clock back to the 'good old days'.  It does, however, entail a thorough understanding of from whence we come.  The Omega will be like the Phoenix rising out of those inquisitorial ashes.  Without those ashes there could be no Phoenix, whatever may be the consolation of the martyrs.  

Modern mathematics is a fossilized remnant of our onetime wisdom.  It is not easy to reconstruct the vital animal from the lifeless remnants.  We will have to do some serious cribbing. 

Just as a for instance, consider archeoastronomy.  

[8/10] 

A lot can and has been done with the sundial.  Then what?  

Next is the moondial.  There are no moondials, but there are lunar calendars, the Chinese being the best known of these, but so were the Greek and Julian calendars, among others.  (Significantly the Greek word for moon, mene, is the root of both mensuration (metrology) and menstruation.)  Why the moon?  Well, because it is there, of course.  But that is a bit too simple.  Behind the fascination with the moon lie two sets of syzygys: the Meton and Saros cycles: 

Meton: 19 yrs * 365.2425/29.53059 = 234.997 lunar synodic months. 

Besides the synodic month there are also the lunar draconic and anomalistic months, as measured by nodes and perigees, respectively.  The latter two are 27.21222 and 27.55455 days.  This last period is due to the elliptic nature of the moon's orbit.  .

Saros:  

242 * 27.21222/27.55455 = 238.99345988... 

223 * 29.53059/27.55455 = 238.99216... 

223 * 29.53059/27.21222 = 241.998689... 

Should these simple facts not add a celestial dimension to our nascent numerical paranoia?  To tell the truth, I had never seen these numbers together until I calculated them just now.  How could one not be impressed?  What did the ancients know, and when did they know it?  How impressionable were they?  

(And that is not the end of it: 223 * 29.53059/365.2425 = 18.0299980... years.  I have no idea what this is about, or even if it has been previously remarked. 18.03 & Saros (80 hits) yields no such remark.) 

Furthermore there is the coincidence of the apparent diameters of the sun and moon, giving rise to spectacular solar eclipses, the most awesome spectacle afforded by nature.    

The moon is unique in our solar system for its large size relative to its host planet.  This fact is sometimes mentioned in the context of Anthropics and in the speculation about the frequency of life in the universe. The simple fact is that estuaries played an important, if not crucial role in the evolution of life.  Tides play an important, if not crucial role in the estuarine biology.  Go figure.  

My contention is that we are very far from being sufficiently paranoid about the mathematical and celestial coincidences that seem to defy mere probability.  My speculation is that they have a common source: the observer principle, not unlike that of quantum physics with Schrodinger's Cat and the rest.  

Of course, none of this makes sense within the restrictions of materialism.  Materialists shun coincidences as if they were being confronted by Banquo's ghost at the banquet.  The shadow of the Monster looms, however, in an utterly unmistakable fashion.  It casts its shadow upon physics and Anthropics.  Might the Monster also be lurking in the lunar shadow?  

Permit me to summarize the 'observer principle': there can be no unobservable universes.  This is partly a tautology, partly a quantum necessity, partly a relational requirement.  It has a theistic, or at least a panentheistic implication.  We suppose that both Creator and creatures are included in this principle.  A principal role of the creatures is that of proxy cosmic observers.  Thus do we have a 'participatory universe', that being the only possible (kind of) universe.  Indeed, with the BPW hypothesis, it is the only universe.  

Even, then, within the rubric of conventional physics and cosmology, the observer principle cannot be limited to the micro scale.  And now, with mathematics playing an increasing role in physics, we have to consider how the observer principle also applies to that whole field.  Thus does our problem devolve to that of the relation between the observer, the moon and the Monster, to put it most concisely.  None is possible without the others, or so we surmise. 

Our friend the syzygy seems to be in the thick of this conspiracy: always showing up at the scene of the crime, as it were. What are these numerical coincidences trying to tell us?   Quite crudely: someone's thumb is on the scala natura.  The thumbprint is remarkably like our own, considering its frequent decimal or digital nature.  Yes, despite Bohr's protestations, God does not play dice with the universe.  The die, at least, have been loaded and we are her proxies in this cabal.  Les jeux sont fait.  

Something that I am definitely not suggesting is that the above coincidences are any sort of quantum effect.  Let us dismiss the possibility that they could be due to a quantum observational bias, as with the watched pot that is not supposed to be able boil, due to that effect.  As an immaterialist, I am after bigger fish, or at least a bigger pot in this case.  Let us remain focused on the Big Six.  The solar/lunar syzygys say something about the provenance of A&O/Repro/S&A/MG, I suspect.  Recall the purported mutual dependence of heliotrope and helios.  That the moon might act as the mensurational companion of the sun is a hint concerning our immaterialist cosmogony.  The moon provides us heliotropic/anthropic co-creators with some extra needed leverage vis a vis the solar cycle; besides its purely, and not to be underestimated, aesthetic role.  It is our handle on the otherwise overwhelming solar dynamic.  By looking for other such handles on Creation and the Big Six, we might find similar syzygys, in which case things might begin to get interesting around here.  Such handles shed light not only on the Alpha, but, more importantly on the Omega, I believe.  The process of spinning up the world will have some connection to its spinning down.  

[8/12]

This began as an addendum to the to the material from day 8/7 on the pervious page.  I attempt to find an answer to the origin of the remarkable exactness of the ratio of the inch to the centimeter which involves the equally remarkable pair of integers: 31 and 127.  One finds peculiar stories from both sides of the channel:  (My speculation proceeds below.) 

From the Amazon book review: 

[...]Mechain, remarkably scrupulous even in his doctoring of the data, was driven in part by his conviction that the quest for precision and a universal measure would disclose the ordered world of 18th-century natural philosophy, not the eccentric, misshapen world the numbers suggested. Indeed, Alder has placed Delambre and Mechain squarely in the larger context of the Enlightenment's quest for perfection in nature and its startling discovery of a world "too irregular to serve as its own measure." --  Reed Business Information, Inc

Well, perhaps the jury is still out!

and from the Internet:

It may also be noted that in 1964, an agreement was reached between the U.S. and Britain to define the inch as 2.54 centimeters.  Prior to 1964, the inch was defined in the U.S. on the basis that a meter was exactly 39.37 inches long, which led to the inch being about 2.540005 centimeters long, and in Britain the inch was 2.539997 centimeters in length.

Pray tell, from what hat did the Brits pull their strange approximation?

From another source: 

Even as late as the middle of the 20th century there were some differences in UK and US measures which were nominally the same. The UK inch measured 2.53998 cm while the US inch was 2.540005 cm. Both were standardised at 2.54 cm in July 1959...

Who has the straight story? 

Wikipedia: 

Later development of the British system continued by defining the units by law in the Magna Carta of 1215, and issuing measurement standards from the then capital Winchester. Standards were renewed in 1496, 1588 and 1758. The last Imperial Standard Yard in bronze was made in 1845. 

Pioneer of Precision  ~  Curated by Julian Holland, 1997  (Below are placards from the museum's exhibit:)

Largely forgotten today Captain Henry Kater (1777-1835) conducted pioneering researches in England in the early 19th century to improve the precision of weights and measures. Associated with this was the development of the reversible pendulum for gravity measurements.

[...]  A seconds pendulum is one where the beat (half period) of the pendulum takes exactly one second. It was thought that the length of a seconds pendulum (from the point of suspension to the centre of mass) would provide a basis for reconstructing the yard measure. Using this pendulum Kater determined the length at London to be 39.13929 inches.

[...]  The report of the Commission led to the Weights and Measures Act of 1824 which introduced Imperial Standards. Subsequently numerous copies of the new standards were required, in which Kater worked closely with several of London’s leading instrument makers. [...]  This bar is stamped with the numbers of inches from 0 to 40, but the only precise basis of measurement is provided by fine lines engraved next to ‘0’ and ‘36’. A hand-written label in the lid of the case states: ‘Value from 0 to 36 inches by means of 3 sets in different years - 35.998803 inches of the Imperial Standard Yard’. This is signed by Kater and dated 10 June 1830. The bar seems to have been constructed in the mid 1820s.

[...]  The primary standards of weight and length in England were preserved at Westminster. When the Houses of Parliament burned down in 1834 - an event dramatically captured in two paintings by Turner - these standards were destroyed and new primary standards had to be prepared. Forty bars were cast in 1845 of which one was selected as the primary of the Imperial Standard Yard. Number 18 was supplied to the New South Wales Government in 1855 as the primary standard of the colony. The yard is measured between fine lines marked on a gold pin in the well at each end of the bar. Kater’s work on standards of length in the 1820s provided a significant basis for reconstructing the primary standard.

If plot there be, thick it is. 

Nautical mile. British, Canadian and American inches -- John H Harland

[...]  That law regarded metric units as the fundamental and internationally-accepted standards for the United States. It was this law that formally defined the inch based on the conversion factor of 39.37 inches = 1 metre as stated in the Act of 1866. This ratio gives an inch approximately equal to 25.400 05 mm. In Britain the National Physical Laboratory made comparisons of the Imperial Standard Yard to the International Metre, which yielded differing values for the inch over the years. The 1922 value of 25.399956 mm per inch was arbitrarily selected for use in calibrating the most precise measuring devices. 

Numerical Constants: 

-- 39.37 "US survey" inches to the meter :  "US Survey" inch.  (1866, 1893)

This equivalence is now obsolete, except in some records of the US Coast and Geodetic Survey.  The International units defined in 1959 are exactly 2 ppm smaller than their "US Survey" counterparts (the ratio is 999998/1000000).  [i.e. 2.54 cm/inch = 39.370078740... inches/meter]

Did nobody then or now wonder about the origin of this (25.4) coincidence?  Was it purely an accident of history?  Were there no thumbprints on those meter or yard sticks?  Do the metrologists sense no ghost in this closet? 

Here is my present speculation.  All the stuff about inches and barleycorns (1,250 hits) is just so much John Barleycorn (15,300 hits) nonsense: humor for the ignorant.  There was something much more serious going on in the metrology closet, something to do with the ancient wisdom.  Since when did 3 barleycorns amount to 25.399956 mm.?  Did this not have more to do with the fact that 2*31*127^2 = 999998?  If the French Academy was truly interested in a decimal system, well, there it is, along with much else.  If you suppose the ancients could not count that high, then consider the Saros.  

There has been a rash of recent books about the history of metrology, but they generally evince a terrific historical chauvinism or nearsightedness.  It is as if the sun had first risen with the Enlightenment and everything before was darkness.  What happened was that analytic thought overtook holistic thought and then became jealous and arrogant concerning its own power and priority.  The barleycorn stories are not woven out of whole cloth, but, really, has not a single historian actually looked at this number: 25.399956?  How could one pass over it without wondering?  Whatever happened to our natural curiosity?  What untold tale of history lies in those three not so innocent nines?  [8/31 -- Is it the three (five) nines or the three barleycorns that truly explain/define the inch?] 

It is not easy to get good information about pre-Enlightenment metrology.  There is surely an academic aversion to the subject which has been exploited by amateurs not unlike myself.  One must read multiple sources and sort though multiple theories and agendas.  Still, it is very hard to come away from the subject without being impressed by the amount of concern and effort that must have gone into the many aspects of archeo-astronomy and geodesy from megalithic times onward.  If those three nines, and the attendant five nines, do not in some manner reflect and even punctuate that ancient punctiliousness, then very strange accidents do happen.  

--------------------

To round out our story we head back across the channel.  

http://www.sizes.com/units/meter.htm -- 

The Assembly approved the proposed unit on March 26, 1791, and work began on realizing it. To replace the hated “royal foot” until the results of the survey were in, a provisional meter was defined, two of which equalled 6 pied, 1 pouce, 10 22/25 lignes of the toise du Perou.

[...]

The toise was the primary unit of length in France prior to the introduction of the metric system.

    * toise du Grand Chatelet
    * toise de l'Académie, also known as the toise de Perou
    * toise in the System Usuelle, in France between December 10, 1799 and January 1, 1840, = 2 meters

toise du Grand Chatelet:

established in 1668 and said to have been based on half the width of the inner gate of the entrance to the Louvre.

toise de l'Académie:

A French unit of length introduced in 1766 to replace the toise du Grand Chatelet, about 1.949 meters (about 2.1315 yards). It was often called the toise de Perou, because it was used by the Academy's meridian-measuring expedition to Ecuador (at that time Ecuador was part of the Spanish Empire's presidency of Peru). The toise de Perou prototype was an iron bar made by La Condamine in 1735.

toise de Système Usuel

A decree of February 1812 carried this accommodation much further, and established the système usuel.  While calling for the teaching of the "système legal," that is, the metric system, and its continued use by officials, the decree authorized use of  traditional names but now with values much closer to their traditional ones. For most units, defining such values required the use of common, not decimal, fractions of the metric base units, thus breaking a fundamental principle of the metric system.

[...]

On November 28, 1798, the French convened an international meeting of experts from friendly powers and puppet states. One of the meeting's committees consisted of four persons, each of whom independently calculated the length of the meter from the measurements made by Delambre and Méchain (and from certain assumptions about the shape of the earth). Their calculations agreed. The meter was established at 0.144 lignes of the toise de Perou shorter than than the provisional meter.

The story now comes down to the discrepancy of '0.144 lignes.'  But, wait, the story is not over yet. 

Since 1795 the former royal jeweller had been producing bars of platinum 4 mm thick, 25.3 mm wide and about a provisional meter long, with plane parallel ends. The lengths of these bars were compared with the length of the meter as determined by the survey. The one nearest that length (at 0°C) was deposited in the National Archives on June 22, 1799, and has since been known as the Mètre des Archives. The metric system itself was legalized on December 10, 1799.

The Mètre des Archives was, by definition, a meter long, from end to end. Metrologists call such a standard an end measure. End measure standards are not a good idea, because any simple way of measuring their lengths requires touching the ends, which causes wear and shortens the standard. A much better form for a standard of a unit of length is a pair of scratches on a metal bar, because the lines' locations can be determined visually. Such a standard is called a line measure.

International interest in the meter and the French proselytizing spirit led to two international conferences (Commission Internationale du Mètre) in 1870 and 1872 to discuss international standardization of the meter. The attendees favored replacing the Mètre des Archives with a new prototype which would be a line measure and made of a harder, platinum-iridium alloy (10% iridium, to within 0.0001%). They also suggested that the meter be taken as the length of the Mètre des Archives, “in the state in which it is found,” without reference to the quadrant of the earth.

In 1875, twenty countries attended the third conference. Eighteen subscribed to a treaty (the Convention du Mètre), which set up the Bureau International des Poids et Mésures. Production of the meter standard, however, proved very difficult. Besides having an extremely high melting point (2,443°C), iridium had not yet been produced in purities greater than 50%. The bars from the first casting of the alloy, in 1874, were rejected in 1877, and the problem was turned over to the London firm of Johnson, Matthey and Co. They succeeded, and one of the resulting bars was made the provisional standard, even though it was 0.006 mm shorter than the Mètre des Archives. In 1882 France ordered thirty more bars, one of which (No. 6) turned out to be, as nearly as could be ascertained, exactly the length of the Mètre des Archives. This bar is the standard which was declared to be the International Prototype of the Meter by the First General Conference on Weights and Measures (first CGPM) in 1889: “This prototype, at the temperature of melting ice, shall henceforth represent the metric unit of length.” The International Prototype continues to be preserved by the BIPM.

(Oh dear, 100 F in Paris with a blackout last night: bring on the ice brigade!  All the more reason for the French to sneer at W.) 

In 1812 the ligne was defined as 1/432 meter.  Then the discrepancy of 0.144 lignes from above is exactly a decidedly non-decimal 1/3 mm.  (I was going to let that 144 = 12^2 pass, but then I saw 4*108.  Don't get us archeo-metrologists started on 108!)  How, convenient and agreeable of the four 'independent' committee members.  

But let us recall that the speed of light, c = 299792458 meters/sec.  The new Delambre meter was 1/3000th shorter, and that made the speed of light 1/3000th 'faster', or the present 299792 km/sec rather than the 299692 km/sec that it would have been with the longer provisional meter.  Just think if he had shaved off one mm rather than just 1/3 mm.  Then this coincidence would have been impossible for the historians to simply ignore.  Or, couldn't we have arranged for the Earth to be just a tad smaller?  

[8/13] 

Yes, one can easily imagine a third or fourth nine having emerged out of this intricate choreography.  The back of our historical apathy would have been broken years ago, and all of us would have been born into a brave new world.  So, yes, bring on the cosmic subtlety, and let us work for our keep.  It is more fun this way, don't you think?  God is not going to force the truth down our throats.  We have to go 'Good Will Hunting.'  (Does anyone else out there have a father-in-law who is such an intrepid Good Will hunter?)

Yes, again, we have to use our own heads and imaginations to put two and three together to come up with five.  

All these nines floating around here, isn't it a bit like a Chinese water torture?  Without our missing key, this is all just recreational, and possibly frustrating as well.  (Is someone playing a game with us?)  What could this putative key possibly look like? 

[9/1] 

Provenance of the j-function. 

The j-function appears to reside at the overlap of our concerns with those of many mathematicians.  

John McKay: (1/6/03) 

We hear a lot about Klein's work on the quintic - perhaps because of his being a good self-publicist (see The Icosahedron - available in German, Japanese, and English) ... BUT Hermite is not getting the press he deserves. In Comptes Rendus, 1858, vol. 46, Sur la resolution de l'equation du cinquieme degre, he solves the quintic using the modular equation, Phi_5(j(z), j(5z)=0, just as one today solves the cubic using the relation between cos(t) and cos(3t).

By the way, I am involved in writing up the history of the j-fn from elliptic integrals to present day replicable functions. If anyone has pointers or feels they may have some contributions to make, don't be shy in contacting me! 

We'll see about that....

On Math World one can trace the j-function back through Klein's invariant and the elliptic lambda to the Jacobi theta functions: 

The Jacobi theta functions are the elliptic analogs of the exponential function...

I believe that these are the same theta functions that are used to express the spherical harmonics of angular momentum in quantum physics, and so are doubly(?) periodic on the sphere (torus?).    

It seems to come back to the mother of syzygys: e^i*pi = -1.  What is the rationale of this?  Sure, we can all see the algebraic identities, but is there nothing more to say?   e & pi were discovered independently and long before this identity was discovered.  Did there have to be such an identity?  Does this question even make sense? 

The issue is the connection between e and the trigonometric functions.  e is the main link between geometry and algebra.  It shows up particularly in the Fourier transform, wherein arbitrary functions are expanded as waveforms.  This brings us to the underlying oscillatory aspect of nature.  Often such oscillation is the result of of interaction between exponential processes.  Which came first, the cycle or the exponential?  In Math World it is pointed out that e is minimally transcendental, and so we might suppose that it is more primitive than pi, corresponding to the just mentioned intuition.  In fact, pi has the highest irrationality measure of the listed constants.  The circle is a sophisticated abstraction of natural cycles.  Pi must be constructed from e.  This is what the syzygys are trying to tell us.  

Then why 163?  This simply tells us that pi is related to e through the spherical harmonics of angular momentum.  That is from where the j-function derives, and the rational point (163) of the j-function connects e & pi.  The circle may seem primitive, but only to the abstracted mind.  Creation is not an abstraction.  It is not a mind game.  Creation is about the Big Six, and the opening to the telos.  The Monster Group is part of the rationalization of e & pi through the j-function.  That function expresses the multiple resonances or spherical harmonics of e & pi.  The Monster comes from e through pi and j.  These intuitions are telling us something about how mathematics became realized in physics, or was it vice versa?  We have to develop a feeling for it.  All this comes in time. 

[9/4] 

Presently I am reexamining Tony Smith's a site wrt several mathematical issues raised here. 

[9/5] 

I am also reviewing the websites of Matthew Watkins, Matti Pitkanen, and Henry Stapp.  

Here is the present situation.  Over the past few days I have been communicating with two individuals.  The first of these (A) is also my first sustained contact through the website.  He and two of his acquaintances have had experiences that appear to be relevant to a messianic dynamic.  There is now a question of whether either of the other two individuals would care to join our discussion.  I have not requested permission to post any of our conversation.  

My second correspondent (B) also prefers anonymity, an occupational hazard in these parts, it seems.  I have corresponded with him on occasion, over a period of several years.  We came in contact through the Sarfatti list.  Tony and Matti are also (former) Sarfatti listees.  'B', Tony, Matti, Henry and I all corresponded several years ago, but I don't recall the specifics. 

If I wish to pursue the present mathematical inquiry, it would behoove me to make my interests known to these individuals.  Even after reviewing their websites, I have almost no knowledge of their theology, if any.  I continue to look for an entrée.  On the other, hand, if there is a renewed exchange with A & Co., that would tend to distract from the math.  We'll see which way this path forks. 

[9/6] 

On not hearing anything yet relative to plan A, I would like to proceed with plan B in the following manner: 

----------------------------------- 

An open letter: b 

This is in the form of an informal open letter to the three above named mathematicians.  For the sake of argument and pedagogy please permit me to speak as if Tony, Matti and Matthew were Pythagoreans.  I don't know this to be the case, but I don't think it will fall too far off the mark. 

In these last two pages it seems that I have been developing an argument against strict Pythagoreanism.  This a line of reasoning and evidence that would favor a looser interpretation of that view that might tentatively be labeled as theistic Pythagoreanism.  

This comes back to the question most famously posed by Einstein: Did God have a choice in creating the world?  The strict Pythagoreans would like to be able to answer:  No, God has to follow the numbers.  

This general issue was addressed just a few days ago in the New York Times: One Cosmic Question, Too Many Answers By DENNIS OVERBYE (9-2-03).  

Any theist, as I am, should be gratified that recent trends in mathematical physics seem to be favoring the Anthropic Principle, and thus leaving the door open to a designing Creator, unless we follow the materialists in positing all possible worlds.  Correspondingly, the Pythagoreans are alleged to be chagrined.  

But, on these last two pages, I have been taking a taking a somewhat different path.  I am taking this occasion of an informal open letter to Tony, Matti and Matthew to perform a reality check concerning this path.  First, has the soon to be described view ever been seriously considered before?  If not, why not?  Secondly, is there not any significant cogency to this path?  

From the perspective of the above article, what I am attempting here might be viewed as a strategy to pull the Pythagorean iron out of the fire, and then enlist their support in a combined effort to defeat the Many Worlds argument being proposed mainly by the scientific materialists.  

It is no secret around here that I favor the Leibnizian logic that ultimately there can be just one world and that it must be the best possible world, hence the title of this site.  

Now here is the twist that I am attempting, and which I now bring to your attention: 

At first blush, it might appear that I am reverting to numerology or a numerical animism, if you will, and, in fact, I am, to a first approximation.  I am in the early stages of exploring a holistic or organic interpretation of numbers and mathematics.  It is only at a higher approximation that pantheism or a theistic Anthropics would reenter the picture. 

So where's the beef?  If you quickly scan these last two pages you will see that I am trying to make something out of various types of numerical coincidence.  Moreover, I am attempting, tentatively, to bring these various coincidence under a single rubric. This is necessary.  Without an overarching explanation, even the best of coincidences rapidly dissolve into just so many curious accidents. 

[9/8 -- open letter continued] 

Yes, obviously there is a resonance of numbers, or, more accurately, of structures of numbers.  These resonances are capable of being sensed by the most sensitive of minds and are part of the explanation for mathematical prodigy.  There is also a self-organizing, organic aspect to this phenomenon of numerical coincidence.  This numerical intelligence is an important part of the cosmic intelligence and accounts for the success of Pythagoreanism.  This self-organizational ability is manifested particularly in a singular structure like the Monster Group, and accounts for the 'unreasonable effectiveness' of mathematics in general and of the Monster in particular. 

The numerical coincidences in mathematics, metrology, astronomy and physics point up the fact that numbers have a mind of their own and actively participate in phenomena, and are not just passive or abstract descriptors, after the fact. 

Human and cosmic intelligence actively participate in the self-organizational, organic quality of numbers.  This accounts, in large measure for the Anthropic Principle, and for the fact that the observer effect must be extended from the quantum physical realm to the mathematical realm.  It does not suffice simply to say that God is a mathematician.  There must be a Godelian type of self-referential capacity that transcends any particular formal system.  This ground of being is what accounts for the possibility of cosmic coherence and meaning, and the fact that we could inhabit the best of possible worlds.  Thus does God come in from the cold of a purely mathematical world.  

This is my first stab at making sense of numerical coincidences.  I doubt that it will be the last.  Through this open letter I am inviting others, with similar concerns to partake of a more concerted effort, if such seems appropriate. 

---------------------------------------------

[9/13] 

Here is a follow up on the above letter: 

 Matthew Watkins is the sole respondent, to date.  His response is encouraging and we are exploring the possibility of a continuing dialog.  He has academic responsibilities that limit his time.  I am suggesting that we produce a joint communiqué to post here and send to the four non-responders.  No other publication protocol has been advanced.  Matthew has suggested including others in the conversation. 

At this juncture I have had time to read Richard Vitzthum's v Materialism (1995), and here is his online summary.  It was time well spent.  The most remarkable thing about this book is its existence.  By general acknowledgment, it is the first treatise on materialism in well over a century.  The lack of any such recent treatise had simply not occurred to me.  But now that I have read this latest (last?!) one, I can understand the hiatus.  

As Richard readily acknowledges, the rug has been pulled out from under this philosophy.  To paraphrase the witty dentist: the philosophy is fine, but the matter has got to go.  Ouch!  Such is the legacy of 20th Century physics.  But never-you-mind, even without any 'teeth', Richard is going to keep on whistling the tune. 

The disappearance of matter or substance from the scientific lexicon is not news around here.  But it is instructive to see a true believer trying to cope. 

An innocent bystander might wonder that the continued debate over materialism, on which we have dwelt here at length, is just beating a dead horse.  Yes, and no.  If materialists had any horse sense they would at least roll over and play dead.  I just hasten to point out that having this much sense is too much to expect of the true believer. 

We are really talking here, at the BPW, about a coup de grace.  Yes, I have that much sympathy for their terminal agony, but there is a larger purpose, in which they are intended to be the unwitting accomplices.  Materialism exists now as virtually a museum piece in the menagerie of 'philosophies' that constitute postmodernism, or, at least, that is what the postmodernists would have us believe.  But if you look more closely at PM, you will notice a remarkable lacuna: no cosmology.  It is all just variations of existentialism.  The Metanarrative is eschewed. 

In its cosmology, materialism casts a long shadow over postmodernism.  That cosmology is the 800 pound gorilla in the wings, preventing the resurrection of the metanarrative.  The BPW is nothing if not a metanarrative.  If this story is ever to be told, it will have to upstage that cosmological gorilla.  Postmodernism is, most simply, the label we attach to our despair of ever getting out of that shadow.  The despair is ubiquitous, wherever you scratch the superficial bonhomie.  We could put up with being lost in space, as long as our space ship was humming along.  It seems no longer to be humming, or hadn't you noticed?  

Synchronicity (serendipity?) is surely the most prevalent of all 'paranormal' phenomena.  According to the materialists, is not life itself purely serendipitous?  Yes, on the scale of the universe, life is certainly abnormal.  But according to the materialists: sh*t happens.  The Anthropic serendipity is lost on these good folks: they can just postulate an infinite ensemble of random universes.  And they do! 

Such is not the case with mathematics.  If serendipity permeates mathematics, well, yes, that might be a bit of a shock.  It might even stun an 800 pound gorilla. 

Am I suggesting that one simple fact, e^pi - pi ~= 20, is going to overturn three centuries of scientific cosmology?   Isn't this like the flea floating downstream and demanding that the bridges be raised?  

Yes, mathematics could be that subversive to the entire materialist edifice.  And if it isn't?  We'll just have to give it a little push, wont we? 

Richard Vitzthum is already a bit wary of mathematical physics.  Instead of any material substance, or even any spatial void, all we have now are mathematical symmetries that somehow give rise to force fields, when they are broken (somehow). 

But what is all this coziness between math and physics?  We have come a long way from those atomic billiard balls swerving in the dark.  Recall that much of modern physics might be derived from the (astonishing?) fact that e^i*pi = -1.   Is this serendipity, or what?  What multitude of symmetries lie hidden therein?  

I'll just have to quote from Richard (p.220): 

In other words, the formula [Area = pi*r^2] doesn't exist except as vacuous markings or noises outside an intelligence capable of recognizing it. 

That gorilla is looking a bit woozy.  In attempting to steer clear of Pythagoreanism, Richard has (unwittingly?) smacked right into mathematical intuitionism.  Yes, it can be a minefield out there in philosophy land.  Is not any and all symmetry in the eye of the beholder?  And what is physics based upon, other than symmetry?  Is any phenomenon a real phenomenon if not observed?  

Gosh, isn't the universe trying to tell Richard something?  Is he having trouble hearing his own words?  I can hear him, loud and clear. 

Am I making a mountain out of a molehill?  You bet'chya!  That is just how the Creator operates around here in the BPW.  Whenever you see a wagging dog, always look to the tail.  

If there is a plenitude of symmetries buried in e^i*pi = -1, then how many more than that are manifested in e^pi - pi ~= 20?  That little squiggle covers a transcendental degree of possible symmetries.  How do I know?  Let's just call it my mathematical 'intuitionism'.  

It was Steve Weinberg who once said, 'seen one electron, seen them all.'  What truths are uttered from the mouths of babes!  I wish I could have said it first.  But first, let me say, 'seen one number, seen them all.' 

This latter remark could be taken as a paraphrase of axiomatic (Peano?) arithmetic, but look how easily it spins.  This is also the axiom of any holographic, holistic system, is it not?  Imagine the ship-loads of human creativity that have gone into, and are still going into, the evolving meanings in the pair {0,1} of numbers.  The intellectual history of the human species could easily be contained as a footnote to this simple(?) binary.  The boom and bust of the 'dot.com bubble' would be a footnote to a footnote.  This is all that Matthew and I are trying to say, 'seen one number, seen them all.'  

Sorry, but I just couldn't resist this little addendum as the dinner bell rings (and I may be the cook!): 

An electron may be represented by its spin vector or 'spinor', (0,1).  The fact that this spinor transforms into -(0,1) under an e^i*2*pi rotation (fermi statistics) is the 'reason' why you and I won't dissolve into gamma rays in the next microsecond.  But, keep your fingers crossed, sometimes those physicists get their signs wrong!  Just a heads-up. 

[9/15] 

e^x ~ sum x^n/n!. 

sin x ~ sum (-1)^n*x^2n/2n!.  And we might note that sin (pi/n) has only two rational points: at n = 2, 6.  Recall that the j-function has rational points only at the Heegner numbers (-1, -2, -3, -7, -11, -19, -43, -67, -163). 

Comparing these expansions yields e^ix = sin x - i*cos x, and e^i*pi = -1.  

I am wondering this morning if their might be some significance in the above identities that the professionals may be overlooking.  We all loose our capacity for astonishment at an early age, which may be to our detriment.  

An important related similarity between the exponential and trigonometric functions is their reflexivity under differentiation.  This implies an essential self-similarity.  This is, of course, what the cycle and circle famously exhibit.  

Life would be nothing without its reflexivity and cycles.  How much of life must be contained in e&pi?  More than a little, considering how e&pi are caught up in the Monster and anthropics.  The organicity of mathematics is necessarily focused on e&pi.  Their mutual syzygys simply reflect this fact.  The organicities of math and life must reflect each other in an essential manner that we don't quite grasp.  The observer principle must be built into math the way it is built into quantum physics.  Quantum physics very much revolves around e&pi&i.  Let us not forget i = sqrt (-1).  I recall that Spencer Brown made much of the peculiar reflexivity of i, not wholly unlike its bigger cousin, I.  Recall that the syzygy of e^pi exhibits an essential decimal signature.  Then recall that the golden ratio, phi, is based on the root of the semi-decimal.  The further decimal syzygys of e, pi and phi should not surprise us. 

Mathematics is nothing if not reflexive, even if it was not until Godel that this was logically demonstrated.  Because of this it must be a resonant structure focused on e, pi & i.  

What I am trying to say is that the Pythagoreans and Anthropists are natural allies in the greater scheme of the BPW.  If we can stick together we will show that the Many Worlds gambit of the latter-day materialists is an otiose sham.  We will tame the monster.  We are only lacking Srinivasa II.  And in so lacking, we must anticipate, and in our anticipation is the reality.  This is the Millennial strategy of Y2C.  

It is the imaginary 'i' that bridges (rationalizes) the gap between analysis/dynamics (e) and geometry (pi).  The culmination of complex analysis is the Riemann Hypothesis.  The RH is related to the quasi-modular (doubly periodic) nature of the sum (n^-s) or prod 1/(1 - p^-s).   How do the two sums, x^n & n^x, relate to each other and the larger scheme? 

One question facing us is how this structure might have evolved, apart from the mundane historical perspective.  On the strictly Pythagorean view, evolution is not an option.  We anthropocists are looking for the logical bootstrap which includes cosmic intelligence.  Spencer Brown's 'Laws of Form' includes an implicit evolutionary scheme.  I might have to replace my lost copy of this book.  That imaginary 'i' could be a key element.  Is it not an essential part of the measurement scheme in quantum physics?  The anti-commutator [x,p] =  i*h.  This is just the basic statement of the uncertainty principle.  Position and momentum are dynamically related.  

That 'i' is essential to to q.m. is frequently noted, but has not been intuitively explained, to my knowledge.  In physics, intuition and math are supposed to be separately compartmented.  The essential role of conjecture in both math and physics ought to argue otherwise.  One might argue that 'complex' numbers are merely a convenient formality, which could be replaced by vector notations.  The formalist would say this about every mathematical entity: there is no intrinsic meaning or substance.  It's all a game played with tokens.  Pythagoreans are not impressed by the platitudes of the formalists.  

Our iota is a primary distinction between classical and quantum physics.  As in complex analysis, it is largely responsible for the opening of quantum physics to the dimensions of symmetry.  The merely classical symmetries pale in comparison.  Riemann surfaces or covers of the complex plane are a significant component of physical symmetry.  One of the biggest advances in mathematics was the realization that the real and imaginary roots of algebraic equations could be treated on an equal basis.  The ensuing expansion in our recognition of algebraic symmetries was the main incentive for the invention of group theory to study the new symmetries.  [Could the Monster Group be far behind?]  Also, it is fair to say that fractals essentially exploit the complex plane.  The many connections between the Riemann Hypothesis and quantum physics also depend on this analytic continuation.  

None of these many aspects of the iota seem to speak directly to the observer principle, beyond what is contained in the uncertainty principle.  It may ultimately come back to the label of 'imaginary' that was fortuitously placed on the iota.  A Pythagorean may well ague that this designation was serendipitous.  When, in 1572, Rafael Bombelli introduced complex numbers (not to mention the minus sign as well!) to the world, mathematics crossed its Rubicon.  That single leap from the real to the 'imaginary' on the part of an entire profession remains historically unprecedented.  One may argue that real numbers are an MIR, mind independent reality, but the sqrt (-1)?  Yet, does not the above quantum anti-commutator place the iota squarely back into the MIR?  Are not atoms an MIR?  Well, not according to the 'wonderful' folks of Copenhagen.  The essential role of the iota in the atom, underscores the 'mystical' Copenhagen Interpretation of the quantum.  Most physicists quickly become jaded on the wonder of the quantum.  Theirs is not to reason why!  

I would argue with the Pythagoreans that the imaginary numbers ought really to convince us that all of mathematics must exist in a Platonic realm.  The Platonists, however, were dualists concerning the corruption of the mundane world.  Not so the true Pythagoreans and myself.  We are monistically inclined toward the singular BPW.  Those same Pythagoreans, as we have seen, were reluctant to embrace the irrational, imaginary and transcendental within 'modern' mathematics.  These latter artifacts imply a personal touch.  Finding them, however, fully embedded in mundane physics should instead provoke us to the realization that great minds think alike.  The cosmic mind and the human mind must be mutually reflective, and this does not apply just to Srinivasa I & II.  All of us are invited to bask in the greater glory.  Furthermore, the BPW does not end with mathematics, fantastic and transcendental though it is.  That is just the beginning of the story.  That is just our aperitif.  

Did God and we merely discover the imaginary iota?  I suggest not.  It was the dynamic resonance of life and creation that spun off e, i & pi.  With the materialization of e, i & pi in the observer based physical resonance of creation, the fate of the Monster was sealed.  The Monster Group is indeed the tail-end of the Big Six.  In this case, it is the five that wag the sixth, and not the other way.   There would be no monster without the vital syzygys or resonances of e, i & pi.  There would be no e, i & pi outside of the cosmic creative intelligence.  We are simply taking mathematical constructivism or intuitionism to its logical cosmic end.  It is there that these many philosophies converge.  Let us not tarry in the hinterland.  The Alpha and Omega beckon. 

[9/16] 

Dan struggles.  See Dan struggle. 

Don't we all love the constant juxtaposition of idiocy and sapience in our lives.  Its all a part of the aesthetics.  

One might think that, like Scheherazade, I filibuster the eschaton.  That may be, but it is not my conscious intent. 

What I struggle with is the juxtaposition of stark simplicity and utter complexity, in math as everywhere.  In this holographic world, math is a microcosm.  We might think that with math, we are beginning to see the limits of complexity.  That, at least, is one of my hypotheses.  

Is complexity limited in the BPW?  Here are some reasons.  Complexity is not an end in itself.  In the BPW, everything serves the greatest good which is love.  Love is the one thing of which there might never be enough.  For everything else there is an optimum degree.  Complexity is no exception.  Creation cannot be more complex than what can ultimately be comprehended by the creatures.  Every creature must be able to find its way back to the Creator.  This is what coherence is about.  The salvational economy hinges, of course, upon us sinners.  Salvation is mainly our show.  We set the pace for nature.  Coherence and love are our only guides.  Srinivasa II or Y2C are about our recall of coherence.  

In our sojourn into complexity, we have forgotten about the coherence.  We just need to remind ourselves that coherence is possible, that complexity is necessarily limited by the salvation economy.  We can only sojourn half way into these woods.  After that we are on our way home.  

With e, i & pi we see the juxtaposition of simplicity and complexity.  Like three children, separately they are little angels, but together they can create untold mischief, up to and including the Monster.  Their various syzygys or couplings are the path to the monster, but they are also our clues to its taming, to recasting its complexity into the service of love.    

Unlike for e, there are a plethora of formulas for pi.  This probably has to do with its greater complexity or irrationality measure.  Yes, perhaps, I misspoke.  Pi has been able to stir up a pot-load of trouble just on its own.  e & i are responsible for recruiting pi back into the service of the simple cycle, as in e^i*pi = -1.  It is almost a right of passage into the mathematics club to come up with a new and clever formula for pi.  New discoveries in math frequently lead to more such possibilities.  e is easily the most ubiquitous, utilitarian constant, but it is relatively forthright in its appearances.  Pi tends to rely more on stealth and cleverness in its frequent cameos.  e is definitely blue collar, pi is strictly top-hat.  But put them together and add just an iota, it is a whole new ballgame.  The j-function and its modular cousins are quickly recruited to the cause.   

The Monster Group, by its definition, defines the limits of quantitative or 'classical' mathematical complexity.  With the syzygys we are looking ahead to a qualitative, organic, entangled or quantum-like complexity.  In a similar fashion, the genome defines the limits of quantitative biological complexity.  The proteome looks ahead to a qualitative complexity.   This shift from quantitative to qualitative complexity portends our shift from a materialist to an immaterialist understanding of the world.  It signals our return to coherence.  Coherence is how we finally tame complexity.  In order to resolve the Riemann Hypothesis, I believe that we will have to come to grips with this qualitative side of math. 

What will the Pythagoreans make of this shift from quantitative to qualitative complexity?  Will they still be able to say that God is a mathematician?  We may have to redefine what constitutes mathematics.  In the last century, mathematics paralleled philosophy in its shift from the analytical to the holistic.  As far back as 1931, Godel's incompleteness theorem dashed the hopes for a purely axiomatic or algorithmic program for math, even before the computer came on the scene.  Mathematician could not be synonymous with computer.  But now, with this new understanding of the qualitative nature of complexity, mathematics is being removed from its pedestal or intellectual compartment.  The role of conjecture and intuition will have to expand to be more in line with that of other disciplines.  What this indicates is that mathematical intelligence cannot exist apart from a general or natural intelligence.  For instance, the aesthetic correspondences between music and math will have to be taken more seriously.  

What I am pointing to is that, whatever else cosmic intelligence might be, it cannot be considered to be strictly impersonal.  We will have to take more seriously the alleged correspondences between cosmic and microcosmic intelligence.  To be more specific, the shift to qualitative, coherent complexity is a shift not just to immaterialism, but also toward personalism rather than to the impersonalism of the mystics and materialists.  In other words, the coherence of the BPW is necessarily of, by and for persons.  

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Topical Index

8/8/03

Symmetry

[...]
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

-- Wm Blake (late 1700s)

In my initial foray into immaterialism I postulated a chaotic primordial state: everything that could happen, would happen without benefit of time or place.  Of late, I have turned more toward a primal symmetry.  

The symmetry is totipotent.  Actuality is realized in the breaking of the symmetry.  The breaking could be spontaneous; however, an observable coherence would more likely be self-sustaining, and thus be the dominant process.  That this coherence would include an 'aesthetic' dimension would only enhance its observability and so its self-perpetuation.  That perception/conception is proactive in all processes has to be a given for any fully relational system.  

And why couldn't we have left well-enough (Nirvana?) alone -- end of story?  Only a fool would be so naive as to feel tempted by such a question, so just give me time. 

It is, of course, impossible for us to conceive of pre-temporal or multi-temporal 'processes,' but, hey, what's a body to do?  And, besides, I just work here. 

'Early on,' numbers are entrained in the symmetry breaking.  Numbers are a significant product of the process.  The prime break might be abstracted as {0,1}, with all else contained in the [0,1] interval.  Is this not the A & O?  Conceivability implies a prime persona, even manifesting as a 'prime mover.'  The splitting persona (my poor head!) arrays itself into various configurations, and the resultant relational networks (in terms of small and not so small group dynamics) are the source of all logically subsequent mathematical physics.  Such cosmic numerology is the force underlying our Pythagorean world.  And if primal symmetry breaking is a rip-off of the Big Bang, well, our hats off to our physical cosmology colleagues.  Cosmogony makes for strange bedfellows.  Or was it the other way around? 

[9/24] 

'Originally', psychology, math and physics are virtually indistinguishable.  We are now witness to their separate appearing niches, although our continued probing into their foundations provides ample evidence for their primal unity.  

Primal symmetry breaking may be viewed as asymmetric cloning or partial mirroring.  I can't really define the 'mirror' beyond a general self-reflexiveness of the prime unity, tantamount to mentation.  The symmetry breaking must be self-generated, there being no externality to begin with.   We are not talking dialectics here, either.  At best, this process might be seen as a reverse dialectic.  Does this imply that the Omega would be a forward dialectic?  Well, OK, if that would keep our Marxist colleagues pacified.  

Clonings can give rise to cyclical network dynamics.  There is a reproduction cycle, which may be short on metabolism.  Perhaps numbers could serve as proto-atoms in a primal metabolic scheme.  Atoms, cells and numbers might be indistinguishable in our primordial alphabet soup.  They would provide a common currency.  More accurately, they would be the necessary product of a relational, circulational network that requires lowest common denominations.  Does this imply an economy?   Heaven forbid?  Problems of conservation and memory arise, but from physics we know that conservation and symmetry go hand-in-hand.  There must be countervailing trends of increasing and decreasing symmetry.  The '1' of the primal unity is somehow replaced by the '0' or symmetric void of the space-time background.  This is surely a trick: like pulling a hat out of a rabbit.  Projective geometry and spin-nets might come into play, not to mention holography.  Does anyone else feel like there are a few too many balls in the air at this point?  A lot is up for grabs in our brave new world.  

While all of this is going on, we must not neglect the A/O split, giving rise to our experience of a linear history.  It is the sum over relational paths leading from the A to O.  Each person represents a partial trajectory.  Together we manage to optimize, with quantum-like constructive and destructive interference, the possibilities of our collective trajectory.  Interpersonal dream work could be a significant part of this dynamic.  

You may have noticed that while carrying on about Creation, I have had little to say about the Creator.  My hunch is that our BPW Creator, while being a maximalist wrt Creation, is a self-minimizer.  Besides, we are the resurrection of the primal unified persona.  No point in getting in our way or unnecessarily interfering in what is a fairly 'natural' salvation economy.  It happens even, or especially, while we sleep. 

What I seem to be struggling for now is a sense of the creative logos.  Yes, we may wish to know, how did the word become flesh.  The new testament speaks of a pre-existent logos, sometimes identified with sophia or the christ.  The logos mediates creation.  This is an odd theistic admission, one might think, but still commensurate with a trinitarian scheme.  Am I then to surmise that our friendly Monster was indeed coexistent with the creator, and later to be identified with Jesus?  I'm not real sure we want to go there.  That is just what I have been trying to avoid.  

Rather, the logos must refer to a 'proto-logic' where word and number could be identified.  Notice that with words we are still in the realm of indivisibility.  Atoms, or literally particles, are logical remnants of the primordial unity.  As such do they carry their essential holographic charge.  By such do they participate in the telos.  The logos mediates both the alpha and the omega.  It would indeed carry a salvific charge and so be identifiable with the charism.  How then could we distinguish the second and third members: charism (christ?) and spirit?  This may have something to do with the bios, specially linked to #2.  Quantum entanglement is just the very most superficial aspect of the teleological or even eschatological charism.  The quantum mystics have a point, but they have neither the logos nor the eschaton. 

Does any of this help us to pin down the logos?  The logos may be the closest we come to an external irritant provoking the primal break: the seed for the pearl that is creation.  It is the key to the A&O.  It would be the essence of cosmic mystery, partaking of the mystery of the cross.  Speaking of crosses, we shift to syzygys and the mysterious couplings of e&pi; all part of the warp and woof of creation. 

There are some in the wisdom tradition who identify the logos or creative spark with the overflow of God's love, leading to creation.  In such manner we may avoid externality, but how far can we get with the logic of love? 

[9/25] 

Words are the prototypical exemplars of the logos.  I wish to extend that designation to various other significant entities.  In the interest of continuity it would be worthwhile to identify the logos as the source of the Big Six.  More generally it is the source of the differentiation of the totality.  In that sense it may be identified with Spencer Brown's 'mark of distinction.'  Note that I have previously identified the logos with the Zim-zum and the syzygy.  The logos is rapidly accumulating baggage.  We'll have to sort things out a bit.  

Of most immediate concern is how mathematical physics may have emerged out of the operation of the logos.  This, of course, is the primary point of contact between the logos and the physical or material world: the Pythagorean imperative.  The important point is that the operation of the logos must be reversible.  The symmetry breaking can be restored, but only after the logos has taken us to the limit of atomization and analysis.  The ultimate reversal probably also invokes the third member of the trinity.  I am tempted now to identify the third person with the charism of philo-Sophia.  Philosophy was intended to be the flip-side of analysis.  That philosophy became identified with analysis in the previous century is one of the profound ironies of history.  The dramatic turn by which philosophy regains its true identity would signal the advent noted in John 16:12&ff.  It is part of the Aquarium protocol that this first advent be identified with the second, sometimes designated here as Y2C.  This would be our own little syzygy: logos meets sophia.  

The logos is not a dead letter.  It is not mere logic chopping.  It is the proactive, vital process of creative distinction.  It is the only way in which the totality may circulate, recycle itself through a total reflexivity.  We are the pivots of that reflection, not the passive mirrors.  Astronomers now deploy active-array mirrors: that's us when you add in quantum-like observer effects.  

It is a point of fact that mathematics' primary purchase on the physical is mediated at the quantum level.  This is where symmetry is given a free reign.  The governing structure here is just the e^i*pi = -1 coincidence, or perhaps the numerical mother or seed of all (physical) a/symmetries.  When we carve out e&pi, we are carving out a very significant part of the logos.  This is a probe into its operation.  This little syzygy, as previously noted, captures (or even generates) much of the mathematical corpus through its various ramifications.  It is also implicated as a logical source of the observer effect.  

Clearly e&pi is no accident.  Its reflexivities are crucial to the whole shebang.  If e & pi didn't already exist, God would have had to create them, or did she?  Therein lies the secret of the logos, or even of the trinity, for heaven's sake. 

Am I being too farfetched here?  Yes and no, but I'm not finished.  One does not have to be a mystic to see some analogies.  Pi stands for the totality or matrix, 'e' for the ramifying logos, and 'i' for the charism of the elusive spirit that ties everything back together.  Is this 'ana-logos' purely fortuitous?  Or is it the necessary projection of the trinity onto the realm of pure quantity?  But it is just our numerological contention that there is no such thing as pure quantity.  Quantity and quality are ultimately inseparable.   We are trying to see how to realign and reunite them, as a significant part of the new philo-Sophia.  This is also along the line of taming the Monster. 

Quality conceives its own reflection in quantity.  This is just the Pythagorean mystique.  This is mathematical intuitionism raised to a new level.  Quantity must be born out of quality, and we are beginning to see how.  The numerical syzygys are the fossils of this birthing or evolutionary process, pace Darwin.   

Let's go back a third time to the apparent jumping-off point for this present excursion: this time for the OM, completing the cycle, as it were.  In the primal potency all things exist in a virtual state.  The primal syzygy is the circulating resonance, often manifested as the OM.  If we project this resonance into the virtual realm of quantity, the static duality of e & pi are set into motion by the essential ambiguity of the iota that now connects them.  Which came first: the OM or the e^i*pi?  The point, rather, is that they are symbiotic.  Reification in this case is a bootstrap.  The OM is the quality of motion 'before' the quantity of time.  The OM is the seed of the Alpha & Omega 'cycle' whose asymmetry manifests the historical linear time of our Metanarrative.  This logos is the logical source of physics.  The 'numerological' or Pythagorean aspect of it was primal.  

[9/26] 

I need to be patient here.  If this e&pi business has any merit we will need to extract as much information from it as possible.  It could be our best handle on a very obscure dynamics. 

The above distinction between quality and quantity is facile.  It is just that distinction that I am trying to understand.  I am trying to understand or justify Matthew Watkins notion of an evolving number system.  An organic, evolving numerical system may actually not be anti-Pythagorean, but it is very un-Platonic.  That numbers constitute a mind independent reality (MIR) is deeply ingrained, but it becomes a primary obstacle for monism.  

There is not, then, simply a projection from quality onto quantity.  It should be more like an extrusion of quantity from quality.  This extrusion has something to do with symmetry, and it must go far beyond mere enumeration.  

Two candidates for the ur-symmetry are the reflective and the cyclic.  The former provides a basis only for enumeration.  It is the cyclic symmetry that requires attention.  Given a relational network of virtual mutually reflective psyches, there will be many possible circuits....  Sorry, but this still is not getting to the crux of the problem.  The observer principle must be included explicitly.  Now the observer is only implicit as in providing the (mental) basis of the relational network.  

In quantum theory the observer is covered by the projection postulate, or by the collapse of the wave function.  Looking back again, note the role of the octonions.  Hold on while I take another look.  

With reflective symmetry, I was using the mirror as a simile for consciousness, but, in fact, mirrors imply the prior existence of Euclidean space, an assumption which hardly conforms with immaterialism.  Closer to our needs and assumptions is projective space.  It probably is still too closely related to Euclid, but it is a step in the right direction. 

[9/27] 

It's time to toss a few more ideas into the pot, stirring vigorously.  The strategy seems to be to work both ends, quantity v. quality, against coherence in the middle.  

An 'early' state of creation is a growing, neurally networked, psychic pantheon.  It needs to be shaped into a lattice and then into Newtonian space, along with bodies and their reproductive cycles, a la A&O.   

We need a sequential circuit of psyches, a la the zodiac.  This latter is just the metanarrative of the A&O written in the sky.  This is the original reproducing cycle, somehow resonating and entraining the rest of the neural net.  This is the big Om.  In 2-D it would likely start with the circle of six, going to the 12 'pack' in 3-D.  

In going from the finite lattice to infinite space we progress through the 17 quasi-exceptional space groups up to the final jump-off point at the sporadic monster.  In the process we set up, evolve, the primes and integers by fixing 'e' and pi out of fractional dimensions of space and time(s).  Transcendental pi determines translational space.  Minimally transcendental 'e' determines directional time.  Also, in passing from phi (1.618...) (Fibonacci's rabbit sequence) to 'e' (2.718...) we pass from lattice time to continuous time.  (e/phi   =    1.67999005... (= 2*3*7/5*5) for what it's worth.) 

There is your basic dog's dinner, all I need now is an industrial strength blender.  Where are Black&Decker when we need them?  Just about a half-mile up Goucher Blvd, if they haven't moved to Bermuda.    

OK.  phi : e = x : pi  ->  x = 1.870006... (= 11*17/(2*5)^2).  In other words: 3*7*11*17/2*5^4 = 3.1416.  Then what?  Somebody wants to square the circle via Fibonacci.  A strange game here. 

9/28 

If any meaning may be attached to this further coincidence relating pi to 'e' and phi, it indicates a deeper connection between circles and exponentials.  We should have already known this from our 'mother' of syzygys: e^i*pi = -1; a fact which we have yet to understand, but of which there are many reminders.  We found this reflected in the 'Ramanujan' constant, e^pi*sqrt163, which pointed to a connection between the largest finite group, MG, and the largest uniquely factorizable algebraic discriminant, 163, via the j-function, based on the elliptic generalizations of the e^i*pi circular function, i.e. the functions of quantum angular momentum.  The j-function was discovered in the process of factoring the quintic equation.  As the cubic is solved by the trisection of angles, so is the quintic, by a five-section.  Phi, of course, is the pentagonal number.  Pentagonal crystals are quasi-periodic, reminiscent of various other objects of mathematical interest. 

In the deck of numbers, the five-spot is more than a bit on the wild side.  The power of the decimal system may be one result.  Otherwise we would have been duo-decimalists, following the Solar cultists. This goes back to our metric related syzygy of 2*31*127^2 = 999998, and why the inch is exactly 2*1.27 cm .  And note that pi^2 ~= 10, and pi^3 = 31.006..., and while you have your calculator handy, try the windows' one with the 'scientific' view, 2*31*127^2 = 9.999996666663888885...^6.  Do we think we understand exactly what is going on with these decimals, or are they just playing around?  And how could we forget that e^pi - pi = 19.99909998...?  I wondered about that pattern of 9s, didn't you?  It turns out, after some experimenting motivated by the previous pattern, that 99.982^1/2 = 9.99909996....  Exploiting this fact gives us a recursive formula for pi = ln (pi + 10 + (100 - .018)^1/2).  Starting with, say, pi = 3, this formula rapidly converges on pi ~= 3.1415926527....  Pi = 3.1415926535....  The closest memorable competitor is 113\355 = 3.14159292....  You are invited to comparison shop at Math World.  This is the simplest, least arbitrary of the bunch.  Furthermore, it seems to beg of a functional meaning, as well as underscoring the decimal essence of pi.  

But let us wax intuitive.  'e' and phi alone are mere exponentials.  Those of us who attend to Malthus have often wondered how to tame these exponentials.  Long ago it was discovered that the wildness of the 'iota' (sqrt -1) would do the trick.  Now we see a less imaginary way, using the more subtle wildness of the pentacle.  'e' and phi together are able to tame each other.  Phi ~ sqrt 5.  The above recursion for pi implicitly, but crucially, entails the root of five.  Thus does phi entice the exponential to chase its own tail in recursive, ouroboric fashion, yielding a circle as perfect as there are souls in the cosmos: 1 : 10^10.  And thus will the pentacle help us to complete the A&O 'cycle', right on time.  Can't you just see the teachers handing out tarot decks in math class?  What is this world coming to?  Srinivasa might understand. 

[9/30] 

I ask myself, what is it with numbers that could cause/allow them to be so amenable to both humans and physics.  From whence derived their evident organicity? 

The transition from 'classical' to 'quantum' numbers was very significant.  Therein we go from just real 'Newtonian' numbers to complex/quaternic/octonic matricies with an explosion of potential symmetries, along with all the projective implications associated with measurement.  From an 'evolutionary' perspective one might imagine this sequence to have been reversed.  These complex, higher dimensional, Hilbert-like spaces, or 'twistor' like networks, may have been the breeding ground for what we naively think of as the God-given integers.  The integers, especially the prime ones, were somehow the product of a massive, Big-bang-like, observer coordinated breaking of a high-dimensional primordial symmetry.  (see Matthew Watkins' animation of the evolution of the prime counting function.)  First phi then 'e' and finally pi and would have taken the role of a quark-triplet in alchemically forming, through their numerical coincidences or resonances, the 'periodic' table of the indivisible prime elements. 

Admittedly this is a vague and counter-intuitive notion of numbers: the zeros of the Riemann zeta function forming as the discrete spectrum out of an unstructured state.  The Monster Group might have formed 'early in the sequence.'  The sporadic and exceptional groups, and modular-type generators, could have been the earliest surviving/replicating condensates out of our proto-logical soup, their general structure and functional context preceding the delineation of their individual elements or products.  Srinivasa was somehow able to regress his mind to see this evolution and the scribble down some of its fossil remains.  The Anthropic principle or observer imperative ensured that the physics had the proper teleological conformation in its co-evolution. 

[10/3] 

Somewhere on Peter Borwein's organic math website was a quote to the effect that mathematics is something we never really understand, it's just something we do.  The idea of organic math is to restore understanding.  

I'm still trying to understand e^i*pi = -1, the purported mother of all coincidences.  The underlying formalism consists of infinite sums of the form sum (x^n/n!) and sum (-1^n*x^2n/(2n)!).  The above identity is formally obvious in these terms, but does it make sense?  Can it make sense?  The Greeks turned away from any such infinite constructions as being unnatural, irrational and reflections of Chaos, like the square root of two.  

Elementary geometry is a model of rationality.  Algebra, however, pushes us toward the irrational with its 'radicals' and unsolvable equations.  Even with algebra, though, there is, at least, a formal containment.  

If, however, we go back to the simple geometric circle and attempt to solve it as an algebraic construction, we fail.  It is true that a circle is represented algebraically as x^2 + y^2 = r^2, but if we attempt to find its circumference, we confront a formula with infinitely many parts.  With pi we have passed from the algebraic to the 'transcendental' side of mathematics.  'e' shares the same fate, with a similar formula as indicated above.  The only known way to rationalize 'e' and pi is to combine them with the imaginary 'iota' as shown.  No other combination will do.  We are left to wonder why the two numbers reflecting growth and circumference respectively end up sharing this particular fate, and why, in that one particular combination they then undergird so much of math and physics.  Much of the organicity of math and mathematical physics appears now to already be latent in this unique combination.  This simple fact, true though it may be, has not elsewhere been remarked.  To the professionals, this would be like a fish noticing the water.  And such was gravity until Newton was hit on the head.  One might wish that the recursion of pi = ln (pi + 10 + (100 - .018)^1/2) could play the role of Newton's apple, but it will take more than just another formula to unlock this mystery.  We will have to intuit something more substantial about the connection between quantitative and qualitative organicity.  

By way of taking up this challenge, there is another item on Peter's website to be noticed.  I call your attention to 'Sum 12' in his paper, 'Strange Series and High Precision Fraud'.  It is an infinite series of the form sum (e^(n^2/10^10) and it provides an approximation for pi that is correct to 42 billion (!) digits before it fails.  Surely this should blow mine and every other approximation for pi right out of the water.  It is a trick, but it is a subtle one, based on the elliptic extension our e^i*pi coincidence in a fashion similar to that for the 'Ramanujan' constant.  As such, it cannot tell us anything more about pi than its special role in modular functions, something that we already know.  Or do we?  Even the 10^10 that appears in Peter's 'fraudulent' formula is entirely arbitrary.  These facts strongly emphasize the extremely robust role of pi (along with 'e') in these modular functions which now dominate much of math and physics. The singular robustness of pi may even indicate that it is the pivot and 'e' is the lever that moves and structures the quantitative world as seen from an 'evolutionary' perspective.  The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics is apparently based on just these two numbers.  It is this amazing pair that holds the whole shooting match together.  From whence did they come? 

You know what I am almost reluctantly being forced to verbalize here is the possible sexual character of our dynamic duo, the yin and yang of mathematics.  The gender of pi seems straight forward, and while e's gender may be more ambiguous, its reproductive nature is not.  Consider this as reflected in the Big Six.  Perhaps we are just beginning to see the connection between the MG and the reproductive cycle.  Monstrous Moonshine (867 hits) may be just the libidinous lubricant that we need to get Creation rolling.  Do 'e' & pi have something to tell us about the birds and the bees, or is it the other way around?  

[10/4] 

Numbers entered the human psyche via the calendar.  The earliest calendars were lunar, although it was the solar days that were being counted.  The role of the sun & moon in the formation of our most primitive systems of enumeration is not unlike the role of 'e' & pi in modern math.  Elaborate arithmetic was necessary to harness the celestial cycles; numerical coincidences pointed the way.  Modern mathematics has developed around the interactive dynamics of 'e' & pi, exploiting their coincidences.  This analogy may be a stretch, but we will have to stretch our minds in order to grasp the cosmic coherence. 

The gender of sun & moon are virtually universal, even in matriarchal contexts; but can we relate this fact to their numerical cousins?  To a degree.  Pi, with help from the iota, is the more subtle pivot around which the 'explosive' force of 'e' is entrained.  The 'Ramanujan' coincidences of 'e' & pi logically point to the elliptic functions, as the Saros coincidence points to the ecliptic cycles.  And, yes, was not the draconic cycle our introduction to the ellipse?   As the solar eclipse is the mother of all celestial syzygys, so is e^i*pi wrt the mathematical realm, each with their own intimations of fertility.  As above, so below.  

Might we not also compare the sequential discovery of the sporadic groups to that of the outer planets?  Subtle 'gravitational' effects were the tip-off in each case.  

With idealism we seek to reverse the roles of epistemology and ontology.  The challenges for idealism in the celestial and numerical realms will be similar.  We may suppose that lessons learned in one realm will apply to the other.  

[10/5] 

What we are lacking in the case of numbers is the analog of the evolutionary coordinating role associated with gravity, in the sky.  Yes, we do have logic, but I am looking for something beyond that to explain the supra-logical organicity.  I am also looking for the numerical analog of the Anthropic principle.  It has been suggested that quantum symmetry provides a coordinating link between numbers, physics and observers.  But perhaps we need look no further than the coordinating influence of e & pi.  Can we tease a telos out of this odd couple? 

The Monster Group is the point of 'crystallization', a Jupiter size 'snowflake', for all of the 'exceptional' symmetries, as mediated through the elliptical modularity produced by e & pi.  This model might even suggest a a pre- or supra-symmetric state out of which our structures of logic and symmetry condense.  This  crystallization would have been mediated by an anthropic telos.  Previously I had thought of this primordial state as one of chaos, but this in not in keeping with the Big Bang analog as now understood through the concept of 'inflation'.  It is the quantum principle which helps to sort out the symmetry breaking of the early universe into an orderly sequential process mediated by the quantum based energy-temperature relation of the radiation background.  But just because we may choose to exploit the mathematical analogies latent in the Big Bang model of cosmogony, this in no way commits us to accepting its ontogeny as veridical for any purpose other than the mere 'saving' of the present celestial appearances -- not, of course, to belittle those appearances! 

Perhaps the telos of e & pi is hiding in plain sight.  It may well be, even must be, inherent in the concept of the circle.  But is not the circle much too innocent to be carrying so much metaphysical baggage?  Is it not our geometrical ingénue, if this is not being too gender specific?  

Let me attempt to remove some of that sweet innocence.  I am reminded of the story of the wealthy prospective patron who demanded proof of an artist's credentials, only to be presented with a freehand drawing of a perfect circle.   The very idea of the perfect circle and the straight line seem deeply embedded in our psyches, well beyond the explanatory regime of neural dynamics or cultural artifacts.  This pair is also the 'pi & e' of geometry, no?  In keeping with our gender awareness, note that sunlight, in contrast to moonshine, is the prime source for the rectilinearity of shadows and optics.  Recall that the sun is visible as a circle only in the event of a total eclipse!  The natural symbol for the Sun is the cross, in its many variations.  

Perhaps the psyche and the circle are not accidental associates, as a dualistic reading of Plato might suggest.  It is to the emphatic monism of Pythagoras that we must turn.  Yes, I think we can blame Plato's dualism for the estrangement of mathematics from life, and ultimately, then, for the disenchantment of both.  Descartes' version of Plato's dualism further established the dichotomy, only to meet its comeuppance in the Pythagorean revelations of the high energy physicists.  

Perhaps the circle is not just an abstraction from some Platonic heaven.  It is alive and well at the core of our being, nay, of all being.  The living perfection of the circle may well be the living symbol of our Best Possible World which, in turn, is the embodiment of the Alpha-Omega cycle.  It is only in Creation that the circle can finally be rectified.  She may do more than just represent the telos of that Creation.  

In some sense I am identifying the Circle and the Matrix.  They cannot ultimately be separated.  The solar cults were, in part, a confused attempt to steal the circle from the moon.  

In algebra we see the attempt to analyze geometry into 'mere' numbers.  But a particular one of those numbers, pi, has evidently seen fit to harness algebra to its own higher and very organic purposes.  Am I forgetting that poor, dowdy 'e'?  Let's just say that 'e' seems to exist mainly to serve pi, in several manners of speaking.  

The observer principle is seen to be latent, and all but forgotten, in the circle.  In the recursiveness of the circle perfection and normativity play a singular, inseparable role.  Nowhere else is symmetry omnipresent.  The only perfect circle in nature exists in the atom where it resides in the form of e^i*pi, under the aegis of the quantum.  Does this mean that every atom has to be observed?  Let's be careful here. 

Is the quantum normative in any strong sense of that word?  Modality enters explicitly into quantum physics, while it remains only implicit elsewhere.  It enters into the projective nature of every quantum operator.  The complexified, infinite dimensional quantum Hilbert space is nothing if not projective.  The projection operation is simply a measurement, and the conundrum of the quantum is precisely the 'measurement problem'.  Therein resides its normativity.  Measurement is nothing if not normative.  Measurement must be more than a mere process.  It is irreducibly a procedure.  Every quantum operator may be defined only in terms of such a normative procedure. The action of any operator can be understood only in those terms. 

We have ventured into normativity before, with respect to: cycles, quantum, biosemiotics, scientific realism, etc.   The entire scientific enterprise is replete with norms.  For it to then turn around and present us with a normless nature is being entirely, if unwittingly, disingenuous.  A normless nature is, in a very strong sense, a formless nature.  Does this mean a snowflake cannot exist unobserved?  

For the time being, I will avoid answering that question directly.  I will be a bit more devious. 

So let us consider uncertainty.  It shows up in many forms.  Certainly it shows up in the positions of particles.  The location of a particle may be ascertained only at the cost of imparting to it an unknown momentum.  The concept of position, however, implies an absolute background of continuous space that in no way enters into the interactions.  This, however, is only an approximation.  Quantum gravity forces space to enter into every physical process, and so physicists search for a pre-geometric, relational concept of space that would be logically compatible with quantum physics. 

Allow me then to bring up another issue: indeterminacy in mathematics.  Unless one is a committed Platonist, the value of pi is indeterminate.  Would this uncertainty not also come to the fore in the same manner that absolute or continuous space has come to be questioned?  This does point to a further logical inconsistency in the quantum formalism, with uncalculated consequences.  Because the quantum formalism, so far, produces accurate results, we need not press the issue.  Our concern, however, is not with accuracy, but with validity.  Scientific pragmatism, i.e. materialism, is the issue. 

If mathematics were absolute, and isolated from the rest of reality, then the existence of mathematicians and mathematical physics would be problematic.  Of course, both of these should be problematic for the materialist and the Platonist, but we modernists have been willing to cut them a lot of slack in that regard.  

There is detectable, however, an ill-formed anxiety about such issues.  Yes, there is even anxiety about pi.  It is said that the main reason for the computations of billions of digits of pi is a pragmatic one: the testing of computer hardware.  I would suggest, though, that there is a specificity and compulsion in this effort that speak to a more inchoate metaphysical anxiety.  The notion of a vital mathematics that might, somehow, rise up from its deep slumber, is a ghost which could only haunt the deepest recesses of mathematical consciousness.  

In an increasingly uncertain world, is not Pi the very last vestige of unassailable certainty?  Is there no wonder that we desire to grasp it as firmly as possible?  Who am I to look askance at such a desire? 

Mathematicians may attempt to sidestep Platonism by disavowing the existence of a perfect circle, and instead say modally of pi that it would be the circumference of this circle were it, counterfactually, to exist.  Or, from an empiricist or constructivist perspective, pi could be posited as the (ideal?) limit of a sequence of increasingly accurate constructions and measurements, not to mention calculations.  Does this resolve the ontological issue, or does it just shift it?  What then would be the actual value of pi?  Is it the outcome of the last, most exhaustive calculation, or is it a hypothetical average taken over some 'standard' or normative usage?  The first answer is the one that seems to beg no further questions.  All such calculations are based on collections of hypotheses which can hardly be placed beyond doubt.  And can it be that usage has no ontic significance?  Can one simply point to an unused dvd of pi's digits and declare it to be 'pi'.  The disk might have been scratched or altered unbeknownst to the subject. Try as we might, we are bound to fall back on, at least, a covert Platonism if we do not appeal to norms of some practical kind.  Norms invariably change.  What will be the value of pi when our civilization no longer exists?  Do we then appeal to a hypothetical normative civilization?  Or will our appeal finally be to Plato?  After four thousand years of philosophical debate, the only thing we seem to know for sure is that there are no absolute answers.  Computers may compute until the end of time, and still not resolve the basic issue. 

Or else?  Or else there is the BPW.  What, pray tell, would be the best possible value of pi?  Is this not a normative question?  On its face, yes; but in the BPW, norms may ultimately become ontic.  That is the point of it.  That is the telos.  

In the BPW pi is precisely what we most (coherently!) desire it to be.  End of story?  Not quite.  Without fear of immediate contradiction I can simply say, 'See!'  Yes, it would be very difficult (impossible?) to imagine a better value than the one it seems to have.  The value it seems to have is the one that best holds the world together, teleologically speaking.  Where does this leave Plato's perfect circle?  I would say that it brings Plato and his forms down to Earth, where all the best possible action is.  

Was not Plato just following the dictum to not store his treasure on Earth where the moth and rust do corrupt?  Some folks are thankful that God did not follow this dictum when she sent her greatest treasure to us.  We have done our darndest to corrupt it, but apparently we failed. 

Given this new found power over pi, should we not be afraid that we will corrupt it?  I'm not losing sleep over that.  The only thing I lose sleep over is trying to understand and explain how pi can possibly manage to be as wonderful as it seems to be.  Yes, there is a note of animism in that remark.  We can put our faith in pi to do its very best thing.  We can even hold it up, as I surely have tried, as a portent of the potency of the BPW in bringing the light of coherence into all Creation.  Not even Plato's farthest heaven can escape that light.  Pi can reflect that light better than any other number.  I challenge you to find another.  It is surely the first among equals.  Should we begrudge its singular brilliance?  Not when we realize that everything can and will shine with that same light when the coherence is complete.  It then was merely a shiny pebble along the path.  

Finally then, did God have a choice in creating pi?  How can it be the best possible and the only possible?  The same question could be asked of the BPW.  If there is a coherent answer, it will be the same for both, and for all.  In the BPW, to be is to relate.  In that regard, Pi just seems to have more than its fair share of being.  And can there be too much of that?  Will there not be more than enough being to go around? 

We attempt to resolve only the thorniest issues.  If you do not feel encouraged and challenged to surpass my feeble effort, I will have failed. 

[10/6] 

I seek coherence.  Coherence is everywhere; it can be found everywhere.  To the extent that it can be ascertained, and mainly in relation to the information available on the Internet, my efforts, as demonstrated on this site, remain unique in their scope and depth.  That simple fact must then be incorporated into the picture that I present to you.  Generally I choose to interpret it in the context of the prophetic tradition. 

I claim, with scant fear of reasoned contradiction, that the coherence of the world and our understanding of it will be a growing factor in our survival and well-being.  There are, of course, competing claims.  I find none of them persuasive, certainly not in comparison to mine.  The most recent comparable attempt at coherence goes back to Hegel in the early 1800's.  I am not even aware of a comprehensive contemporary critique of his work.  There have been a plethora of dissections of it over the years, all in service to much more limited agendas.  But no one until here and now has attempted to surpass his effort; and only in that context, the quest for a greater coherence, can any previous efforts be fairly criticized.  But not to worry, Hegel is not a significant part of my present concern.  Wittingly and unwittingly I have incorporated some of his ideas into my own, those few which I have found truly accessible.  Otherwise, I have not been terribly impressed.  Perhaps I have missed something important.  If such an item from Hegel, or anyone else for that matter, has been overlooked, then please bring it to my attention, ASAP.  In the meantime, I unabashedly rely on Google to scour the Internet for relevant ideas.  This is where the contest of ideas is increasingly being played out.  If there are important ideas from the past which have not yet been recounted in plural contexts accessible to Google, then they may very well pass into oblivion; having to be reinvented if necessary. 

Of late, at least since 2/26, I have paid considerable attention to numbers in general and Pi in particular.  Let me attempt a recapitulation.  

I am aware that most people have a positive distaste for numbers.  I share their antipathy for the degree to which, in this digital age, we are being distracted and annoyed by the ubiquity of numbers, which otherwise seem so alien to our personal interests, unless it happens to be the numbers on our paycheck. 

And, yet, even at the height of our annoyance, there has been a spate of books, nay, even Hollywood movies, aimed at the general public concerning the affairs of numbers and those who study them.  There is ample evidence in history of our ancient fascination with numbers, a fascination which remains not so far below the surface.  One has only to look at the probably horrendous number of person-hours devoted to the deliberate choosing of lottery numbers to realize that they cannot be all that alien to us.  

In my case, I have come back to numbers, from my long ago academic foray into mathematical physics, with much hesitation and even trepidation.  I left that field, for the second time(!), almost thirty years ago feeling burned-out.  

Science is an essentially quantitative pursuit.  That is what is supposed to distinguish it from all other human endeavors.  Any critique of science will also have to be a critique of its quantitative nature.  The typical such critique is done from the standpoint of both innumeracy and the antipathy noted above.  The result, of course, is superficiality.  That is not to be the case here. 

I am going to be much more devious.  I intend to turn the (multiplication?) tables on my former mathematical colleagues by accusing them of insufficient regard for their own subject matter.  Their disregard has two main sources.  Either they are jaded by routine overexposure, or they have come to treat their subject as a mere game to be played with symbols.  

I am confident, however, that their disregard is ultimately superficial.  In the books I mentioned above, there is ample evidence of a high regard for the mysterious potency of numbers, even if it may be a very dim reflection of the outright reverence for numbers evidenced in the constructions we now associate with archeoastronomy or sacred geometry.   

But, no, I am not here to either preach or practice sacred math.  I would consider that idolatry.  I leave that to the Pythagoreans, a surprising number of whom, I suspect, still roam these precincts.  

Rather, I take up numbers as a case study in the coherence of the world.  It so happens that I have come to see numbers not as a source of that coherence, but as one manifestation of it.  It is even possible that they will provide our most persuasive port of entry into the whole matter of cosmic coherence.  This is an important possibility when it comes to addressing a scientifically literate audience as is my intention here. 

How do I intend to pursue this possibility?  WYSIWYG: long on words and short on formulas.  I am neither able nor willing to meet the professionals on their own terms.  I intend, rather, to spin a verbal web around their subject, which they may find more difficult to break out of than it might seem at first glance.  They are potentially a very important captive audience.  I wish to be the captor.  My failings in that regard should not put them off their guard.  Much greater minds than mine are and will be headed down this path.  Consider this a mere whiff of grapeshot.  My goal is simply to reawaken their original sense of awe and to then give it a specific spin.  

Like everything else with which science comes into contact, numbers have been stripped of all essence.  I attempt to restore some of that essence by viewing them in a larger context.  The larger context is simply that of being.  To exist is to partake of relational being.  Numbers ought to be prime examples of this essence, but they have been so stripped down that it will take some effort even to restore a minimal degree of their true identity.  

Quite simply, numbers have been reduced to mere quantities.  They have lost their individual identity.  To make amends I take my cue from some recently popular books on numbers, and pick up from where they tend to leave off.  

Clearly Pi is a number already standing out from the rest.  What are we to make of this?  What do its recent publicists make of it?  Not nearly enough, I claim.  

Typically they point out the historical fascination with Pi, and the fact that we now spend thousands of computer hours calculating billions of its digits.  I don't see any real attempt at this level to explain the interest.  One has to scrounge through the Internet to come up with even a few hints as to any underlying continued fascination.  I attempt to bring those together here in a coherent fashion, and use them as a point of departure for some informed speculation.  

Pi is anyone's exhibit A in proving that not all quantities are equal, in the most qualitative sense of that term.  If this be the case, then we have at our disposal a tool of great power to undermine what has become the intellectual fortress of scientific materialism.  Indeed, Pi then becomes the perfect Trojan Horse in our anti-materialist armament and assorted bag of tricks.  Pi has been sitting quietly at the foundations of that fortress from its very inception.  We have only to give it the proper tweak, and the fortress is in extreme jeopardy.  But keep in mind, we are in no way inclined to demolish science.  We wish only to plant therein the flag of a higher truth, and call it our own. 

We are concerned with the truth of all being.  If Pi is real, then it must partake of the universal, relational being.  If there even exists such a thing as mere quantity, and I would argue to the contrary, then, if any number can, Pi rises above that paltry level of existence.  If Pi can do that, then so to can anything and everything we can put our minds to, and that includes especially our own selves.  

Yes, Pi has been ground down by that relentless leveler and deconstructor that parades as scientific materialism.  And much more tragically, so have you and I.  Are we not just meat machines powered with genetic drives?  In coming to understand the true identity and power of Pi, we can begin to regain our own true identities, all the while putting the lie to materialism. 

The case that Pi is not merely a quantity is excruciatingly simple.  I have already made it and I will reiterate.  The much more significant question is why have we not already made a 'federal case' of this fact.  Why is it not being shouted from the roof tops?  Frankly, I'm perplexed.  On this simple fact may well rest the fate of humanity.  There must be a lot of people out there who should know better, but who, for various reasons, are looking for truth in all the wrong places.  I just hope that Google has a better nose for truth than several busloads of Professors.  It may just be professional courtesy not to rock the boat and not to piss in each other's soup.  In that case, please forgive my French.  

Here's the scoop on Pi.  No.  Stop.  Let me quote from one of my favorite professors, in one of his more candid moods: Ramanujan, modular equations, and approximations to pi (1996) (sec 2: The state of our current ignorance):

In part we perhaps settle for computing digits of pi because there is little else we can currently do. 

This from the foremost calculator of those digits!  Nowhere have I seen more clearly distinguished the quality vs. the quantity of any number.  Emphatically the elusive identity of Pi is seen to transcend any mere quantity, to no matter how many billions of digits we may choose to know its quantity.  But is my contention not then trivial?  The mere fact that a given number can be calculated indicates that we must possess a generating algorithm that represents that number, quite independently of any digits that it may generate.  

OK.  Then is any number completely identified by the algorithm which generates it?  Yes, but be careful.  Identity and identification are not the same thing.  I am not my driver's license, now am I?  

An algorithm is a mechanism.  As such it is necessarily normative.  A machine is not a machine unless there is someway to vouch for its proper functioning.  Propriety is necessarily teleological, and that is an issue that can be addressed only by an authoritative agent that transcends mechanism.  It may be that our goal orientation is illusory, but then so is everything else, and that is then the end of scientific realism, as well as scientific materialism.  

Pi is the circumference of an ideal circle, relative to its diameter, as one among many other roles or functions with which it may be identified. An understanding of its functions allows us to agree on various methods for calculating it.  We are not terribly surprised when the resulting calculations of the variously derived algorithms are in agreement.   

[10/7] 

For any given mathematical constant, there exist an indefinite number of ways to calculate it.  Each correct algorithm does identify the number, but even all of them taken together cannot exhaust its identity.  Thus does the ratio of the circumference to diameter of a circle specify a quantity.  But the specification is not bi-directional.  The quantity does not specify the entity.  No sequence of digits can identify anything besides itself.  

Mathematicians use two kinds of equal sign.  One stands for equation or equality, usually meaning quantitative identity, as in 1/2 = 2/4.  The second sign is logical identification or simply definition, usually printed as three bars, but let me use # to represent this sign.  One may not then say that 1/2 # 2/4, because only one of the fractions has been reduced.  Thus one could write that Pi = algorithm(k), but it would be incorrect to write that Pi # algorithm(k).  

In this case, only rational numbers may be quantitatively defined: R # n/m, where the fraction has been properly reduced.  Sqrt (2), however, cannot be identified with anything other than itself.  

But is this not a trivialization of my metaphysical or meta-quantitative claim?  How might this meta-quantitative distinction be carried over into science?  

In science, the distinction I am making is tantamount to scientific realism.  That is realism about its theoretical entities.  This realism is taken in contrast to empiricism or phenomenalism.  Unless they are formalists or constructivists, mathematicians are realists about Pi, as physicists are about atoms or electrons.  When confronted about the nature of their realism, scientists take pains to downplay its obvious metaphysical implications.  And we cut them that philosophical slack.  

Mathematicians are generally much less bashful about their realism.  Constructivism seems barely to get off the ground when confronted with the phenomenon that is Pi.  Formalism gets hardly any further, and it then has to contend with Godel's overturning of Hilbert's formalistic thesis.  

I have to be careful here, myself.  I often speak of myself as a relationalist.  Radical relationalism posits that only the totality is real.  Any attempted subdivision of the totality generates only illusion.  I have to admit a degree of sympathy with that view, at least as a last resort against Platonism.  Besides, I am an internalist  regarding relations, which is the only coherent possibility for the radical version.  Pi is real in as much as God resides therein; in as much as God chooses to be manifested in that fashion.  This may sound extreme, but there is no other way to make sense of it.  Pi may only be understood as a particular rational or teleological projection of cosmic intelligence.  

One conclusion to be drawn from the foregoing is the advisability of allowing Pi to stand in for the Monster Group in the Big Six, which then becomes AORSAP.   Among other things, this tends to place more emphasis on the metaphysical importance of cyclicity, which on the cosmic scale is taken simply as the closure of the A&O.  Hereby are we afforded considerable simplification.  

A fuller appreciation of the supra-quantitative nature of Pi allows me to emphasize a previous point.  Pi is not a quantity.  Whatever quantity we choose to assign to it is going to be arbitrary as to its precision.  That precision is determined only by the contexts of its best usage, which are various and variable.  No other assignment is sensible or even feasible. 

What then of the idea of Pi; is that not fixed?  No, again.  It is certainly not fixed in our minds.  Its meaning evolves with its usage and expanding relations to other entities.  But is there not some final, teleological form of Pi to which we may refer?  In the teleological context, Pi becomes embedded as an actor, or an aspect of cosmic intelligence, in the metanarrative, even as one among the Six.  This is not something to which we could presently refer in any mathematical sense. 

Numbers have both qualitative and quantitative aspects, and each aspect evolves toward a greater coherence.  The fate of every aspect of Creation is increasingly seen as intertwined.  Pi must partake of that teleology.  Thereby does its normativity and functionality come to the fore.  It can hardly be accidental that we come to know Pi in this context.  Pi, along with everything else, exists to be known as a significant and integral part of the BPW.  It will turn out the the meaning and function of Pi will be the best that we could possibly imagine. 

Since Pi is such a key player and so relationally entangled, we can expect that there will not be much slack in its functionality.  So although it has an aspect of freedom, that aspect will not be a significant feature, relative to some other entities.  However, we can think of Pi as being the primordial prima donna of all mathematical entities.  From that vantage, its intelligence would have had much wider scope, even freer reign, as it spun the web of mathematics and even physics about itself.  I offer this as just a very crude and preliminary vignette. The pi of modern thought is a very pale shadow of its complete metaphysical self.  If it still has any substantiality at all, that is its source.  Being the measure of circumference may turn out to be an almost incidental aspect of its greater functionality and meaning.  

Pi is also turning out to be our tool of choice in taking on the fortress of scientific materialism.  It would be ironic if, in the future, we come to think of the function of Pi as more akin to an eschatological Trojan Horse than to mere circumference.  It may be the string we have to pull to unravel this piñata that we like to call the world.  But, on second thought, if it were our aim to depants the world of scientific materialism, what better item on which to pull, than its belt? 

Having made some inroads with regard to Pi, our next item of the Six could be the Atom, but for pedagogical specificity, permit me to temporarily substitute the electron.  What does Pi have to tell us about the nature of the electron?  

As Pi is hardly just a quantity, the electron is hardly just a hunk of matter.  From almost any vantage, it takes on the shape of a formal, ideal, functional entity; very much like its mathematical counterpart.  Note carefully that physicists choose to refer to this entity with the definite rather than the indefinite article.  Should this not, from the very start, raise a red flag concerning the materiality of the Electron?  Where does the Electron leave off, and mere electrons take over.  That ontological issue remains entirely mute.  And according to one, almost mainstream, theory there is only one electron anyway.  We are just seeing the same one shuttling back and forth in time. 

As with Pi, how can we avoid considering its primordial, anthropically oriented progenitor?  What was original with it was simply the sense of metabolic functionality.  With metabolism there would have to be some form of chemistry.  Energy bearing, interchangeable particles would be required.  Stability would require that the energy levels be quantized in some fashion.  This is precisely where e^i*pi enters the picture.  Atomic stability comes from the mathematical symmetry of the electron wave functions.  And that statement begs many a metaphysical question.  How could electrons wrap themselves in mathematical symmetry, if they were not of the same stuff?  And, indeed, they are, according to the super-symmetric theory of elementary particles.  Yes, Mam, its mathematical symmetry all the way down.  And how better to connote that symmetry than with with our circular Pi?  Indeed the lowest energy level of the simplest systems is the shape of a perfect sphere, the only such instance in nature.  It is the vast array of Pi's relations which has led us from circular symmetry to elliptic and modular symmetry all the way to the monster group.  Plato would roll over in his grave if he knew that his ideal forms inhabited every speck of dirt piled thereon.  

The elementary particles might be considered as spin-offs of the multifarious structures latent in the functional promiscuousness of PI.  Is there a hint of moral turpitude in the reflected profligacy of our Matrix?  Well, she is not called Mother for nothing. 

[10/8] 

OK, it is a bit of a trick to get the whole world out of one number, as seems to be the gist of the last few day's scribbles.  But, in a holographic world, no matter where you look, you will see the implications of everything else.  My pedagogical strategy for getting a handle on this convoluted situation is to single out a few special pegs on which, hopefully, we will be able to hang the rest of Creation.  And, with even more luck, we may thereby hit upon a possible strategy for Creation.  In focusing especially on Pi, I am attempting to co-opt the venerable  Pythagorean tradition, which remains very much alive in mathematical physics.  And replacing the Monster Group with Pi is helpful from both a functional and aesthetic point of view. 

In all candor, the power of Pythagoras remains a principle cosmic enigma.  I do not expect to be able to slice this world knot with a single stroke, rather I am looking for a strategy to unravel it in piecemeal fashion.  The idea of the Millennium is to afford us ample time to complete this task, both theoretically and practically.  Thus do we tame the eschaton, to whatever extent that is desirable and feasible.  All I'm trying to do here is get this ball rolling.  I just hope I'm not trying to roll it up hill. 

There is ample evidence this ball is already rolling at a fair clip.  In googling on 'world knot' I came across a book of that title by David Ray Griffin, and then discovered that he is a principle contributor to the Counterbalance Meta-Library.  This used to be the Meta-Reference Library.  It explores the boundary between science and religion by collecting the works and ideas of various intellectuals on the topic.  They do hit hard on the Anthropic Principle; this is their strongest suit.  Otherwise they are lukewarm, an occupational hazard of academia.  CML follows the very moderate line of the American Scientific Affiliation, an organization of mainly Christian oriented scientists, who otherwise choose to remain in the mainstream of their professions.  Although the ASA takes on board much of the Intelligent Design philosophy, it eschews their more confrontational tactics.  And if you really want to get down and dirty, then just head on over to Creationism.  In as much as the ASA has an official philosophy, it would be along the lines of Alvin Plantinga and Process.  Process, in its turn, is a lukewarm idealism, which also means it is incoherent.  It attempts to combine scientific cosmology with idealism.  This is an oxymoronically futile effort, but it is also quite conducive to gaining academic tenure: no small thing, in many circumstances.  Unfortunately, I don't have the time to frequently peruse these climes, so if something radical were to pop up, I might have already missed it.  I am hoping that someone will keep me current with this potentially important and potentially cultivatable and captivatable audience.  Back to the business of immaterialist cosmogony. 

When I speak of unraveling, I may sound like a rabid deconstructor.  This may be in keeping with my eschatology, but keep in mind that I am primarily a reconstructor of God.  That is our telos.  The A&O circuit is just the 'recycling' of God.  Yes, there is a linkage between the Gotterdammerung (Ragnarok) and Creation; a linkage which I have not systematically explored, other than in its obvious connection with the Christ event.  While on this subject, the following has occurred to me in comparing the Norse and Persian (Zoroastrian) traditions:  the Earth is supposed to be the locus of the battle of good and evil, but it is also a struggle between the God that was and the God to be, i.e. the Alpha and Omega aspects of God.  Obviously this temporal polarity can be very confusing for the monotheistic sects.  Trinitarianism might be seen as a partial resolution, while Unitarianism, and the like, are a deliberate attempt to ignore the problem. 

Now with Pi on board with the Six, there is a clearer emphasis on circuits and cycles (&ff) (more cycles, and here, here, here, here, Here, etc.).  Everything fits into that groove, more or less under the tutelage of Pi.  Are we in a position, then, to attempt a serious back-engineering of the Creation?  I hope so.  We'll have to see. 

I am placing a heavy metaphysical and ontogenetic burden on the circuit and cycle.  Is it justified?  

 

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9/23/03

Bootstrap  

Bootstrap is a term that has appeared frequently on these pages.  (In this last link I am using the Google site search, which necessarily includes all of comcast.net.  I encourage anyone to make liberal use of this feature, but please note that my address is changing from http://mywebpages.comcast.net/dantsmith/ to http://home.comcast.net/~dantsmith/.)  [6/18/04 - Please note that I often use ouroboros (ext. ref.) or ouroboric circuit as being nearly interchangeable with bootstrap.  (Google still references the old address.)] 

At the end of the previous page I was about to launch into a discussion of cycles, but upon further reflection I have decided to include the bootstrap in that discussion as an important addition.  I would first like to review some other uses of this term, particularly in physics. 

It was Geoffrey Chew who introduced this term to physics in 1968.  Geoffrey's interesting anti-materialist attempt to eliminate the notion of elementary particles from physics, quickly ran afoul of the ascendancy of quark theory.  From a purely technical perspective the theory attempted to use only the self-consistency and symmetry requirements of the quantum scattering matrix to derive the properties and interactions of all the strongly interacting particles.  But from a more philosophical perspective, Geoffrey's vision included a strongly relational cosmology which included consciousness as a fundamental part of the universal bootstrap.  Fritjof Capra's The Tao of Physics (1976) made liberal use of this idea to support a Zen based model of physics.  

John Wheeler's Participatory Anthropic Principle (1983) carries the bootstrap idea further in the direction of the BPW hypothesis, but it maintains an otherwise physical cosmology in a curious dualism: 

The early multiverse can perhaps be thought of as a massively parallel quantum computer which explored all of possibility-space until it was able to generate a living body, which became the habitation of an observing, sentient being. At that moment the multiverse collapsed into the actuality of that one alternative environment.

A more mainstream version of the bootstrap idea in physics refers to the duality of particles and forces in the inherent symmetry of Richard Feynman's diagrammatic formalism.  Here the swapping of the space and time coordinates appears to switch the roles of forces and particles, especially if one is not too particular about the fermi-bose distinctions.   

In general, duality principles (3,500 hits) play a very significant role in math and physics.  There is an inherent dialectical aspect to them, which in its turn may suggest an underlying bootstrap process as we see with Hegel.  It is along these lines that I would like to include the bootstrap idea in a generalized concept of circuits and cycles, especially when they are viewed from an ontogenetic perspective. 

[10/11] 

While on the subject of circuits and bootstraps, I can hardly avoid mentioning Doug Hofstadter's 'strange loop' (33,400 hits).  Here is the Math World entry: 

A phenomenon in which, whenever movement is made upwards or downwards through the levels of some hierarchical system, the system unexpectedly arrives back where it started. Hofstadter uses the strange loop as a paradigm in which to interpret paradoxes in logic (such as Grelling's paradox and Russell's paradox) and calls a system in which a strange loop appears a tangled hierarchy. 

Douglas Hofstadter, in Gödel, Escher, Bach (1979) and several later books, uses this esoteric concept mainly in service to materialism.  His intention was to resolve the mind-body problem, in favor of the material side of the dichotomy, using this device.  Daniel Dennett, Consciousness Explained, collaborated with Hofstadter in Mind's I (1981). 

The Godelian aspect of the strange loop is a non-starter for Doug's purpose of bootstrapping consciousness.  Godel's self-referential arithmetic construction presupposes a self-aware interlocutor, but should not be construed as contributing to that awareness.  Also it is strange that Doug discounts the quantum observer loop as having any relevance to his strange loop.  His commitment to the classical computing paradigm seems to be a marriage of convenience.  

From a more qualitative, less technical perspective, there are aspects of the level shifting, tangled hierarchy which name the larger issues that any systematic cosmology will have to address.  There is also a digital version of Pythagoreanism here which warrants our attention.  Such a scheme might also be called 'information mechanics', but Doug's version is irreducibly loopy.  To this significant extent does Hofstadter depart from materialism and even physicalism. 

[10/12]

Those of us on the Microsoft side of the world are all too familiar with rebooting.  Recall that the booting being referred to here is not a swift kick to the hard drive, but, rather a bootstrapping process of first loading lower level and then higher level components of the operating system to the active memory.  Thus does the computer wake itself up in stages when it starts from scratch.  Can any of this simple process be related to the problem of Creation?  Probably not, but it's worth keeping in mind. 

Probably what most people have in mind with bootstrapping is a spontaneous process of self-organizing emergence.  As far as I am aware, the most complex, non-biological system that we know to exhibit this feature is the Belousov-Zhabotinsky oscillating chemical reaction.  As long as chemical energy is pumped in, the reaction continues to oscillate around an equilibrium point.  This is a long way from even the simplest of Manfred Eigen's hypercycles: 

In addition, his name is linked with the theory of the chemical hypercycle, the cyclic linkage of reaction cycles as an explanation for the self-organization of prebiotic systems, which he described 1979. 

Living systems are replete with such autocatalytic networks (5,400 hits), but I see no reference to any that exist in vitro.  Actually, this is a potentially important piece of evidence against the materialist thesis, and warrants further checking: autocatalytic bootstrapping occurs only in vivo.  The only exceptions seem to involve computerized systems of 'artificial life': shades of digital Pythagoreanism and information mechanics. 

We have covered the related territory of complexity theory and self-organizing systems at considerable length on previous pages: here and here.  The upshot was that what was once thought to be a very promising avenue of research has gotten bogged down while shedding very little new light on the nature of life. Strong emergence and vitalism remain unscathed by the best and brightest of science.  

Instead we find that the proteomists and biosemioticians are exploring what for them is the brave new world of scientific non-reductionism, or, simply, scientific realism, i.e. realism about the irreducible existence of their theoretical entities.  

In examining the idea of the bootstrap I am attempting to locate the essential element of Creation.  This has the potential to be deconstructive of our notion of the Creator, but I don't think you need to hold your breath on that score.  I am rather trying understand the relation between the numerical and vital aspects of Creation, using the 'bootstrap' as the possible missing link.  What I think is mainly missing from our notion of the bootstrap is its necessarily teleological nature.  

Teleology ('mywebpages' url) is frequently mentioned on these pages, but nowhere is it discussed at length.  It is anathema to the scientific establishment.  It is a conversation stopper.  There is very little to be said about it, other than to opine on its existence.  The teleological explanation is widely considered to be simply a non-explanation.  Nonetheless, any hint of irreducibility must be considered as a possible manifestation of final causation, if there is to be any cause at all.  

A less inflammatory substitute which may be applied to individuals is 'intentional'.  Daniel Dennett has made a career out of deconstructing intentions: The Intentional Stance (1989).  Another substitute is 'downward causation', which I have examined (and here) at some length.  

[10/13] 

With this hasty review of bootstraps behind us, we can readdress the original intent.  That intent was to focus on cycles and circuits, with the bootstrap concept as a late addendum.  The renewed focus on cycles was motivated in part by the replacement of the Monster Group with Pi in the 'Big Six'.  The Big Six constitute the main logical hurdles in our attempt to understand Creation.  Outside of science, two models of Creation present themselves.  The irony is that the 'mystical' model of Creation seems more rational than the theistic version.  In fact, the pantheist version is just a bootstrap model.  

In some sense, I am attempting a synthesis of the theistic and pantheistic cosmologies, by way of rationalizing the 'mystery' of Creation as it is viewed prophetically.  The purpose of the Millennium is to allow us to prepare for the Omega.  In that preparation we will be taking advantage of the A&O symmetry to better choreograph our participation in the Omega event of our metanarrative.   

I am exploring the possibility that Pi could have played a key role in Creation.  We are now simply trying to square the circle of Creation, and to that end we can recall, among other things, our formula.  

Previously I have speculated that the logical origin of numbers might be tied to the symmetry breaking inherent in the 'small group dynamics' of the primordial cosmic intelligence.  Thus they would be a part of the creative logos.  Thus there is at least a symbolic rationale for equating Pi with the quantitative aspect of the logos. 

Pi could even play the role of the Zim-zum: it is the number of the diametrical fission in the primordial symmetry of the cosmic self-potency.  This could also by symbolized by the transition from unipolar circle to bipolar ellipse.  The only problem then is to upgrade the numbers from a representational to a functional status.  

One thing we are lacking is the discrete precursor that we have in the transition from the discrete exponential, phi, to the continuous form of 'e'.  There is no particular number to associate with the polygonal approximations to the circle.  We will have to make do with the three-way comparisons between e, pi and phi that we have already introduced, and again here in an attempted transition from network to space, or here in analogy with quarks.  At another point I suggested a trinitarian analogy for e^i*pi.  

After reviewing these last two pages, I'm inclined to think that our focus on Pi suggests its role as that of a logical bootstrap.  It may be the logical key to the coherent substance of our world.  But I would have to go further than that.  Pi could only have evolved into that role.  Its precursor would have been a vital aspect of the cosmic intelligence, indeed, one of the primordial pantheon.  I doubt that even science fiction has ever ventured into such a fantasy.  Only thus does Pythagoras make sense.  We need not let ourselves be forced into numerological extremism.  I only want to tentatively put forward the obvious proposition that, even according to Occam, we ought not to make a logical distinction between our notions of a pantheon and the Big Six.  Why should these groupings be logically distinct?  Animism is not likely to run and hide just because I raise the scepter of rational theism.  Why not simply invoke a Solar deity or logos, along with a Pi logos, as a logically necessary stage of Creation.  Extreme monotheism is inherently incoherent, and may be blamed as the logical precursor of analytical materialism.  We have gone merely from trinitarianism to sexagenarianism which is precisely where I will be one day next month, perish the thought.  In retrospect it is almost amusing how long it took me to make this logical connection.  So much for the Protestant abhorrence of the flesh of its Gods, despite the overwhelming evidence of its own tradition.  Yes, when we get out our Pi enhanced calculators we may as well be passing around the communion wafers.  So let's forget the Tarot deck and send out for the crackers.  The gods aren't crazy, they're just fully occupied.  They took their work so seriously that you can no longer distinguish them from the product of their labor. 

You are witness to my honorable attempt to avoid animism.  May we now get on with the program? 

This is a large step here.  If we want to stick with it we will have to hash it over a bit.  Already I was in the process of identifying A&O with the past and future aspects of God.  That seems relatively uncontroversial.  And surely there might be a god of fertility standing in for our reproductive cycle.  That just leaves us with math and physics to account for: SAP, i.e. sun, atom and pi.    

Sun and Pi stand out in their respective categories.  Not so, for any atom.  We can easily, however, revert to the elementary particles, which I believe was the intent all along, and relate these to certain numbers as we have already done.  This could be seen as precursor of associating particles with symmetries.  Not a great leap.  

That leaves us with the Sun as a unique case among the Six.  We'll need a solar strategy in our animation scheme.  We'll, let's see... haven't we all heard of the person with the sunny disposition?  A bit of a stretch, but we have to start somewhere.  But now I am reminded of heliotropism.  How do we fit that into our animation?  

You see that each time we come up with a new aspect of cosmology we have to test, and then adjust it against all our other components, and, hopefully, achieve a more coherent configuration.  This is an iterative process which ought to converge on the BPW if we're lucky, darned lucky! 

If nothing else, our helios-heliotrope causal loop is a bootstrap, par excellence.  Where resides the 'animus', or animating spirit, more formally speaking?  Are we going to have to invent a god of the bootstrap?  Already, Occam is looking askance.  

But timeout.  I am being reminded that even in monotheism, the creative logos need not be singular, and so we have the logoi as the intermediaries between God and Creation.  In Christianity, Jesus, as Logos, is just the first among the archangelic logoi. It appears that my attempted paganism may be short-lived. 

[10/14] 

One might well wonder what one would have to avoid doing if one were not desirous of ending up as an atom.  Reincarnating as an atom would have to be about the bottom rung on the hierarchy of being.  On the other hand, ending up as every atom might not be such a bad fate.  How might one go about arranging this more auspicious outcome?  Surely we will face a prodigious cloning. 

We wish to combine pantheism and Pythagoreanism in a logical manner so as to produce respectable atoms.  In this case it is metabolism that acts as our telos.  Helios and heliotrope would be side show, with photons serving as the metabolites, and in both cases we'll have to do some serious bootstrapping.  

Numbers seem to have little difficulty with cloning.  They are able to rely on logic for their reproductions.  It's not a bad trick if you really need to get around.  How might atoms follow suit?  Words are noted for a similar ability, with much less reliance on logic.  Words are characteristically seminal.  That is their charism which we try to capture with the Logos.  Is the message in the medium?  Is it about currency?  How does one set about becoming a medium of exchange? 

OK, again.  The tack I am pursuing here is simply personalism.  The logos and logoi are just that: persons, one and all.  Reality is of, by and for persons.  Recall also that Leibniz, with his monadology, was an early advocate for personalism and panpsychism, and so I will need to review the connection of that with his BPW hypothesis, later.     

How are atoms unlike words, with an organism likened to a text?  Organisms occupy space-time, while a (spoken) text occupies time.  Individual words come to the fore only in the parsing or analysis of the text.  There is no Galilean symmetry of spatial translation that leads to a conservation of atomic mass.  Nonetheless there is a contextual conservation of the function or meaning of a text, independent of particular verbal content.  There is a similar contextual continuity which preserves organisms.  In the study of memetics there are further attempts to draw out this analogy in a Darwinian direction.  

The point with words is that they exist in the gray area between mind and matter, between subject and object.  My intent is to exploit their ambiguous status to create the slippery slope on which atoms will be seen to be capable of sliding, with a little nudge, over into the realm of mind.  The ontological status of persons is ambiguous likewise, and it may be possible to exploit that ambiguity in a similar fashion, bringing us back to the usefulness of the concept of the logos.  The thesis of personalism is that the substantiality of atoms and everything else is derivative from the substantiality of persons.  This simple point warrants emphasis. 

There is nothing else in the world with which we can have more direct contact than with our own personal identity.  No other identity can be more substantial to us.  The closest contender for some of us might be our automobile, which might be thought to be more tangible than anyone's persona.  Tangible, perhaps.  Identifiable, certainly not.  

How about which one is more real, me or my car?  Is this just a semantic issue?  Yes, indeed.  My point is that reality logically has to begin somewhere, and that somewhere has to be at home with the self.  Only a few centuries of scientific abstraction might convince us otherwise, but where then does the scientific reality begin?  There seems no longer to be agreement on this point, if ever there was.  As we have seen, scientific realism has become a very thorny subject. 

Reality begins with persons.  If we wander too far beyond that simple truth we are liable to get into a whole lot of trouble: witness Descartes.  This observation is the beginning and end of personalism.  Thus do atoms and numbers become persons?  Quantum theory might best be interpreted as a big reminder that we cannot take the observer out of the quantum loop.  Does the observer have to be a person?  This is more controversial, and certainly remains open.  This is just to say that reality is relative to observing persons.  

A car in my dream could seem every bit as tangible as in waking.  Thus is mere tangibility not a good measure of substantiality.  Let's face it, reality is a contextual game, which none of us can avoid playing.  No one else can play it for us.  Of course, our cultures have a great propensity to school us in 'reality', but you and I would not be here if that were the end of the story.  In the prophetic tradition, it is we prophets who must take our cultures to school and then to task.   

If reality were not a relational network of, by and for persons, then what could it possible be?  Atoms and numbers show little propensity to escape from this network.  This is not to say that I am liable to be reborn as an atom.  It is to say that we own the very idea of atoms, and if you try to take our ideas out of the atom, you sure won't have much left over to show for your trouble.  

Atoms and numbers are integral to the logical fabric of existence.  They behave as they do, because otherwise the fabric would threaten to tear, and that is not logically possible.  Paranormal phenomena can occur only on the fringes of that fabric.  Yes, this is a social reality, but it goes much deeper than we are won't to imagine.  

There is a mutuality between us and our atoms.  There is a mutual habituation.  It is not wrong to think of atoms as the teleologically projected idea of a society of atomic physicists.  Only in the end will this society own up to its creative role.  This is a scary thought because that very same teleology also entails an eschatology.  We have only to remind ourselves to fear not.  

As a teleological social construct, we should expect that Pi will have much to tell us about ourselves.  It is just one of us in a peculiar extremis.  With patience we may see our own history reflected in its structure and its functional relations.  

[10/15] 

There must be something holding mathematics together.  This something appears to be Pi.  This is not the only entity doing so, but it appears to be the preeminent one.  If that were the case then it would be fair to say that the role of Pi among other such objects reflects the role of the traditional God in the pantheon that is cosmic intelligence.  This pantheon might, in turn, be considered the polyandrous consort of the Matrix.  I put this forward merely as a talking point at this time. 

The hope of procuring such insights is just the reason that we engage in this multilateral approach to cosmology.  

[10/16] 

It would be of considerable interest, and not terribly surprising, if mathematical structures reflected cosmological structures.  Thus might mathematics work on both the micro and macro levels simultaneously without logical conflict.  I'm suggesting an extended structuralism that would mediate the vital primordial processes.  One could also imagine a universal grammar at work.  Do the structures and grammars have a common source?  One suspects that sacred geometry and archeoastronomy point to such a source.  

From the Britannica: 

[...] Levi-Strauss adopted the so-called distinctive feature method of analysis, which postulates that an unconscious "metastructure" emerges through the human mental process of pairing opposites. 

So, we are looking for the metastructure that is the source of the metanarrative.  That it would also be the source of logic and math is a more speculative extension.  Logic could not be psychologically fundamental, it is much too abstract.  We seek the Ur-logic, the pre-geometry, etc.  We are hardly alone in that endeavor.  In doing so I am running up against the many venerable objections of the positivists and behaviorists to holding mental contents to be real, and not merely abstract.  This is the alleged 'fallacy' of psychologism as stated by Frege and many others: Keeping psychologism in mind -- Anthony Newman (MIT).  

[10/17] 

It is a far reaching claim that the explicit structures in the world reflect deeper implicit structures.  This claim must include mathematics, especially.  Otherwise we are saying that the Monster Group comes from nowhere, which is less than credible.  Saying that the MG may be derived entirely from a handful of axioms is a statement  that, I gather, is widely held, but it is also a statement that has not been critically examined from any global perspective.  This constitutes a curious lack of wonder on the part of, what may be, an overly professional establishment.  

Roughly speaking, I am asking if there can be anything new under the sun.  I am also asking about the information explosion.  Consider then: conservation of information (1500 hits). The first entry is from that digital mechanic, Edward Fredkin, but his most recent publication deals only with microscopic phenomena.  The third entry asks about the source of biological information.  There is also the issue of the objectivity of information.  The plain fact is that information remains incompletely defined.  There is the issue of quantity vs. quality.  Can there exist either unobserved or unobservable information?  But even these topics do not touch on the information content or source of mathematics. 

The discovery of the Mandelbrot (demo) set was a big surprise for mathematicians.  I am not aware of anyone who has attempted to measure its information content, or speculate as to its source.  Does it not remain an object of great mystery?  I suspect that it does point to the holographic, holistic nature of all information.  As I mentioned before, even a partial understanding of the meaning of the binary set {0,1} would require a PhD. in the history of ideas.  The Mandelbrot is just one possible manifestation of the information contained in that construct. 

Many of the entries indicate that it is only the Intelligent Designers who have the temerity to make an issue of the problem concerning the conservation of information.  It is not considered a polite question by the establishment.  We hear a lot about the limits to knowledge, but perhaps the more basic question concerns the existence of a limit to our ignorance!  Frankly, I wouldn't bet on it. 

[10/18] 

The generating formula, z' = z^2 + C  (C -> Mandelbrot if z' remains 'small' after many iterations), gives no hint of the complexity contained therein.  What is the explanation for this complexity.  Let us look at this question from both a theoretical and a sociological perspective. Here is a useful starting point: Investigating The Mathematics of Complexity.  The Mandelbrot may serve as a microcosm for the larger issues being raised here. 

Karen points to Robert's Fractal Geometry of the Mandelbrot Set.  In past years I have spent some hours playing with the Mandelbrot.  I had also heard of the Julia sets, but not until a few minutes ago did I realize they were intimately related: Exploration #3.  In fact the Julia sets are just an infinite ramification of the underlying Mandelbrot.  Go to Julia Set Applet to see for yourself, and see Exploration #4, and The Julia Set Computer.  With the Mandelbrot, I thought I had seen everything, and now I am blown away again.  What are we to make of this?  Julia published his work in 1918, making a brief sensation, but then it was forgotten until Benoit started his computer explorations of it in the late '70's.  Note how the Fibonacci shows up in the Mandelbrot.  

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10/10/03

Mandelbrot Mystery  

[Note that this discussion of the Mandelbrot began on the previous page, and it pick up again here.]

If you don't mind, I'd like to do an experiment, as a follow up to yesterday's exercise.  Here goes nothing and everything: 

Mandelbrot (217,000 hits).  That is a lot of web pages referring to a single mathematical object.  A couple of hours ago it occurred to me that I might be able to take possession of this object, that is if no one else chooses to claim it.  I will not even have to take it away from Benoit; just hear me out. 

Mandelbrot & mystery (3,600 hits).  So far so good.  What does this tell us.  It tells us that 98% of the websites dealing with this object do not recognize it as a mystery, nor, in fact does Benoit in a lengthy interview on his alleged baby.  If he cannot proclaim what it is, then his possession may be in jeopardy, after all. 

I will attempt to make the case that the Mandelbrot is the biggest mystery in the world.  If that were the case, then it would be very strange that at least 98% of the sites dealing with it neglect to mention its most important feature.  In that neglect and its reversal may lie the salvation of the world.  Do I exaggerate?  Perhaps. 

It may be more than a coincidence that my very first foray into a real-time mystery was with the crop circles, and that one of the best examples thereof was the Mandelbrot formation.  Was it perpetrated by Cambridge math students?  Perhaps. That coincidence, I notice, accounts for several of the first hits.  Let's look at the rest. 

I have glanced at the first 100 of the 3,600 sites mentioned.  I see nothing that is quotable.  So now it is my turn. 

There is no explanation for the Mandelbrot set.  I do not even see the beginning of an explanation.  It is surely the most surprising and one of the best known of all mathematical objects.  One might suppose that this object would be the very best way to pique the interest of students in mathematics.  Yet, my son, a senior in high school, has never seen it before.  The websites mentioned yesterday are excellent and are aimed at high schoolers, yet, Robert fails to remark upon the lack of explanation.  

Is there a lack of explanation, or should the Mandelbrot be taken to be just one more brute fact?  Let us compare Mandelbrot and Darwin.  The complexity of the world was claimed by Darwin to be explicable in very simple terms.  It was due almost entirely to the process of natural selection or survival of the fittest organisms.  This remains today the primary argument against God.  Almost one hundred years later we are confronted with a single object which exhibits complexity which almost seems to rival that of nature itself.  One might think, naively, that the proponents and opponents of Darwinism would be joining in argumentation as to whether the Mandelbrot set had any relevance to Darwinism, either pro or con.  

Mandelbrot & Darwin (2,800 hits).  Of the first 100 sites listed, the most relevant is Fractal Evolution, but I am unable to grasp the author's point.  Perhaps someone can help me out. 

Here is my point.  Should not the Mandelbrot set be used by the evolutionists as a demonstration that complexity can be sourceless.  You can generate an infinite amount of complexity by following the simplest of rules.  Indeed, the folks at the Santa Fe Institute are betting their careers on this alleged fact.  

There is a problem, however.  The Mandelbrot set did not evolve.  It sprang into the world fully formed, like Athena from the forehead of Zeus.  The Mandelbrot set, like the Monster group, is prima facie evidence for Platonism. Perhaps this explains why complexity theorists and evolutionists are reluctant to use Mandelbrot to support Darwin.  It is a sword that could cut both ways. 

Fractals abound in nature, reminiscent of the Monster group's ubiquity in physics.  

[10/20] 

What does this tell us about nature?  That nature is random?  It tells us that there is self-symmetry and scale invariance.  This is something far removed from the simple randomness of, say, a random dot pattern.  

There is much more.  There is a plethora of patterns.  The patterns are not randomly located, but may be seen to be contiguously located so as to appear to 'evolve', one into the other.  Symmetry abounds, yet none of it is exact.  

Fractals do appear in the inorganic world, but the patterns in the Mandelbrot also exhibit a strongly organic and coherent quality.  People can play games based on this quality.  One player displays an odd pattern and then the others attempt to find it.  One gradually develops an intimate familiarity with the 'logic' of the Mandelbrot, and, yet, there also seems to be no end to the surprises.  

The Mandelbrot appears to be a self-organizing system, not unlike biological systems, and, yet, there is no self that need be postulated.  There is only the simplest of generating formulas.  What could be more impersonal?  Self-organizing should then be seen as nothing special, but rather as a ubiquitous aspect of a thoroughly impersonal world.  That, at least, is the Santa Fe creed.  Is that not also the creed of the pantheist: God without God?  It is the creed of the supply side, hidden hand, free marketing capitalist.  

I wish to differ.  I see something more.  I see 'holism' at work.  And if I ever wished to use 'scare' quotes, then this is the time to be scared.  'Holism' may just be my biggest stick.  Pantheists do attempt to water down God, but do they succeed?  That is our question.  Just because God is everywhere, it does not logically follow that God is nowhere.  Yes, God is now here. 

My thesis is that there is intelligence in the Mandelbrot.  It is a chip off the block of cosmic intelligence.  And so are we. 

Here is another way to put it.  Here is the lesson of the Mandelbrot.  That which is not forbidden is inevitable.  And, finally, there is only one thing that is forbidden: the sub-optimal world.  

Consider again the ontogenesis of the Mandelbrot.  Consider z' = z^2 + c.  Does that generator cause the Mandelbrot?  I maintain not.  That generator permits the Mandelbrot.  The awesome beauty that emerges is our latter-day rainbow.  We can and should take it as a sign from God that, indeed, this is the one and only BPW.  Am I betting the farm on this?  We'll see.  If I'm correct, it is mine, is it not? 

Let me, then, reiterate my claim from above.  Besides you and me, the Mandelbrot is the most important demonstrable mystery in the world.  It cannot be explained without explaining you and me and God.  

There is a creativity, a vitality and even a playfulness in the Mandelbrot that could not be excelled by any human artist working abstractly.  

Our ability to aesthetically appreciate the Mandelbrot, its ability to speak to our sensibilities indicates a common ground and source between it and us.  It is a direct manifestation of the Matrix.  So are we. 

Is there any less profound explanation for this object?  I sure don't see it.  Instead, what I see is a lot of intelligent people, particularly at the SFI, studiously ignoring God's handiwork plastered all over their walls.  They have been left speechless.  They may even be afraid.  They should be.  I am here to loosen their tongues, to assuage their fears. 

On a more 'mundane' level, the Mandelbrot should help to explain the Monster.  Pray tell.  

The axioms of mathematics are like the above mentioned 'non-generator' of the Mandelbrot.  They create a special kind of logical vacuum into which Nature or the Matrix is invited to pour itself.  And that it does.  There is also some filtering that goes on.  There are boundary conditions to be met.  The quantum arena presents a similar challenge to nature.  In both cases, we end up with the Monster Group.  Should we be surprised?  

[10/21] a 

I am trying to rationalize both the Monster Group and its role in physics.  I am comparing the Monster and the Mandelbrot, claiming that neither one is causally explainable in terms of generators or axioms.  The source of their complexities is the Matrix.  Each is a boundary conditioned snapshot of the unlimited organicity of the Matrix.  Each of the non-linear fractal 'generators' acts as a special lens which allows us to peer into the Matrix.  Such fractals appear throughout nature.  Nature is the outward manifestation of the Matrix, which is the inward toti-potent Being.  

The Monster Group is a specialized projection of the Matrix.  The Monster is a more highly conditioned form of fractal.  Its symmetries are exact.  It has a finite and discrete structure.  

Ultimately the MG is conditioned by the cosmological anthropic principle.  The MG is an important part of that cosmological bootstrap.  On the other hand, it seems that the MG is to the cosmos as the Julia set is to the Mandelbrot.  The Julia set is not constant the way the MG is, but it is relatively constant over significant parts of the Mandelbrot.  It is not yet clear how to combine these two observations.  There are probably still several missing links.  

Maybe it is time to bring in the big guns: AORSAP.  I would further speculate that, probably in some accord with the Kabbalah, the pantheonic, AORSAP, consort of the Matrix creates an asymmetric vacuum, via the Zim-zum, which is filled in some sort of Mandelbrot fashion, with the MG serving as the Julia set in providing local, physical symmetry.  Pi serves as the numerical arbitrator, and helps to determine a local Euclidean geometry.  

Actually, allowing a virtual MG to vary as Julia does might be useful in a bootstrap situation.  There could then be a self-tuning of the MG into an optimal state for the various physical cycles.  We don't want to make things too easy for the Creator, but no point in busy work, either.  

[10/22] 

Permit me, please, to excerpt a recent communication: 

There is a big difference between myself and the mathematical physicists. They are Pythagoreans. They put numbers first. You see that Saul-Paul wishes to build mind out of numbers:

> I would even say that Muses's speculation that consciousness  should be modeled via hyperdimensional mathematics is on the right track.

Thus would numbers be the 'roots of consciousness' and of all being.

On the other hand, I am putting the Matrix first. This is the vital potency, the womb of Creation, the fearful symmetry.

The closest I come to numerology, so far, is with the Big Six, AORSAP, which happens to include Pi as one of its members. This is the pantheonic consort, seminal seed, to the ovoid Matrix. It functions in Creation like the Kabalistic Zim-zum which starts the process of breaking the fearful symmetry of the Matrix. Recall that the Zim-zum is also the Logos or Sophia/Christ for the Christians.

The seven-fold spirit is probably a deeper aspect of the Matrix than is the Six, which would form later in the Creation. Thus would the Six be a later, more explicit, version of the Seven. There is obviously nothing very subtle about the Six.

The whole motivation for my excursion into numbers has been to defeat the Pythagorean program of mathematizing reality. My main challenge is to tame the Monster group. Let it be clear that the Monster is the created tool of God and not the other way around. My exhibit A is the Mandelbrot. That provides a relatively unfiltered peek into the Matrix, and the Monster is just a more highly structured and filtered projection of the Matrix.

All of mathematics is just the Anthropically filtered, numerical projection of the Matrix, which, in turn, is the ground and source of all being.

Mathematicians like to think of their subject in Platonic terms. It is a very orderly abstract construction, evolving from clear and simple axioms. The Mandelbrot is then a great embarrassment. They see it only as an aberration. I see it, rather than the axioms, as the source. The axioms are just a latter-day, feeble attempt to rationalize the Matrix.

What we see being practiced by Jack and Saul-Paul is the Patriarchal, sanitized version of mathematics that has come down to us from Pythagoras and Plato. They see mathematics as a way to root out the evil Apeiron, which was the Greek term for the fearful symmetry of the Matrix, or prima materia. They are simply denying the Mother.

Christianity may be seen as a step toward a balance between the male oriented prophetic tradition, and the feminine mystique of the East. I am attempting to give that balance a more rational, coherent basis. No mean feat.

This by way of providing background information for the present excursus.  

[10/23] 

I suggest that the Mandelbrot serves as a microcosm with respect to our scientific investigation of the world, with the computer serving in place of our scientific instrumentation and infrastructure.  There is complexity, coherence and continuity wherever we investigate.  One thing missing is a time dimension, but that need not detract from the analogy.  Admittedly this bare analogy needs to be fleshed out.  In both cases the Matrix has its work cut out for it. 

This analogy pushes us further in the direction of comparing the world to a virtual reality in which fractals would play a major role.  The problem would then be to create a virtual reality with distributed intelligence, as with parallel processing and object oriented programming.  The time dimension would be largely taken up with cycles operating on all scales.  

Our world may then be likened to a Mandelbrot set projected from the Matrix and shaped by the pantheonic AORSAP.  The A&O cycle expands to include the reproductive cycles (R) of the 10^10 distributed human intelligences that participate in the creation and maintenance of the world.  The foundational Matrix ensures coherence throughout.  The sun, atom and pi (SAP) are the more explicit, pantheonic, sources of coherence.  

[10/24] 

I have been referring to the Six as a pantheon.  A more conventional term would be 'archetypal'.  I suggest then that the archetype to be associated with Pi is the ouroboros.  In that case, Pi represents the Matrix among the Six.  Previously I have associated the ouroboros mainly with the A/O cycle, and it could also be associated with the reproductive cycle (R) in general.  Now, however, with Pi in the loop, it may be advantageous to consider the feminine trinity of Pi, Matrix and ouroboros, along with our mathematical trinity of e^i*pi.  Pi may be seen as the nexus or distillation of the cyclical character of Creation.  Pi, especially in conjunction with 'e' and the iota, may also be viewed as the seminal seed of mathematics, thereby representing the Six in that realm.  The Six taken as one, Pi in this case, are also Matrix-like.  From a strictly numerical view, {0,1} are also seminal to mathematics, but they do not fit this broader context. 

Taken by itself, Pi does not seem to manifest the duality or dialectical property that is usually associated with the ouroboros, as in its Janus or yin-yang guise.   I suggest that this duality is to be found in its qualitative vs. quantitative aspect.  Thus will Pi serve as the primary bridge between these realms, and become the primary source of psychism in the mathematical domain.  The modern equivalent is Godel's transformation of arithmetic syntax into semantics.  

[10/30] 

I am working on a postmodern Just So story for Creation.  In particular I examine the primal personification of the archetypal Six, AORSAP.  The Six emerge from the relatively undifferentiated Matrix through a process of psychological individuation and projection.  This process is only partially spontaneous.   The potentiality of the BPW exists in a background state that is gradually materialized or substantiated in the manner I am attempting to describe in metaphorical and quasi-mythic language.  Even the notion of temporal sequence must be taken as metaphorical in this pre- or supra-temporal regime.  Time comes about in a bootstrap fashion with the metanarrational asymmetry of the Alpha and Omega.  The present attempt to download the metanarrative into real time is one part of the teleological Creation process. 

The emergence of Pi will be one of the more difficult parts of this story to recreate.  Pi might even be the crux of the story: it sits at several significant crossroads.  It has to be our main bridge from quality to quantity.  In that capacity it is also the foundation for the 'unreasonable effectiveness' of mathematics, which is what keeps our trains running on time, so to speak.  It is the warp and woof of our physical infrastructure.  Pi may just be the buckle of our bootstrap.  We shall see. 

As a for instance, the Mandelbrot cardioid is the second order distortion of the complex unit circle defined by e^i*x (0 < x < 2*n*pi).  As we have seen, the Mandelbrot set is a numerical/geometrical projection of the Matrix, noting that Pi is also a bridge from the numerical to the geometrical and spatial systems.   Its role in cyclical process indicates that it is instrumental in relating or even generating space and time.  

In myths we see the personification of the archetypes.  The logical and psychological regime of personification exists in proximity to the Alpha and Omega, which, in turn, have their own archetypal personification.  

Pi also sits at the crossroads of the macro and micro cosms: between the Sun and the planetary Atom. It helps to define the wave-like character of atomic physics.  In so doing it lays the foundation for the metabolic cycles that make up the all-important, archetypal Reproductive cycle.  Thus does Pi quantify and reify the ouroboric nature of the world from the A&O to the Atom.  Pi is seen to embody the primary projection of the Matrix.  We need to explore the (social) psychology of this projective Creation.  This is of more than academic interest.  This is our ticket to ride the eschaton.  This is where the rubber meets the road, to once again invoke an aspect of Pi. 

Pi is the prime Logos, the Zim-zum, the Dialectic, the Om, the seed, the Matrical/metrical mirror of Creation.  No mean feat.  We are simply asking for the source of the seed.  A seminal, Zen-like question, this.  In other words, what was Pi before it became Pi? 

[10/31] 

A recent communiqué: (a) 

The Matrix is the relatively undifferentiated ground of being. It is potentiality.

Only by self-limitation can it create. This is spoken of in the Kabbalah, I believe. Pi is and represents the self-limiting, 'mark of distinction' (N.B. the ouroboric logo). Pi yields the unit circle in the complex plane. A projective mapping can either carry the infinite plane into the circle, or the other way around. The Mandelbrot set is an actual image of the Matrix under the aegis of its self-limitation by Pi. 

But Pi does more than this. It is also the self-projection of the Matrix into the realm of quantity and logic. Therein Pi acts as the glue and the seed for the entire system of mathematics. It is the 'fermentation' of this Pi 'yeast' that results in the 'Monstrous Moonshine' for which Richard Borcherds recently won the Fields Medal. The resulting Monster Group contains all the symmetries to be found in particle physics, it is, in fact, the 'M' in M-theory. 

I think it is not difficult then to relate the dynamical unfolding of Pi to the dynamics of the X-event, i.e. the Incarnation. We see there the same dialectic of self-limitation and self-transcendence, do we not? This dialectic is perhaps best represented in the symbol of the Ouroboros. That same dialectic is present in the self-replicating figuration of the Mandelbrot. Christ stands at the crossroads of the cosmos and microcosm. He is the Alpha and Omega, etc. He is the Six (AORSAP) in One.

I don't think there is any lack of material here that might beneficially be explored.

Explore it we will. 

An important item that comes to light here is the historical misconstrual of the trinity.  The Catholic church attempted to balance the gender of the trinity by appending its Mariology, yielding a quaternity.  This is awkward, and is not even good numerology.  The trinity must be mother, son and spirit.  Feminists were on to this early on, well B.C.  The matriarchy never actually disappeared.  Father and son are redundant from a cosmogonic perspective, viz. Oedipus.  I have mentioned the e^i*pi = -1 trinity.  Therein I switched the roles of 'e' & pi.  All too glibly, I assigned to pi the female role.  Euler's natural logarithmic constant 'e' best represents the relatively unformed fecundity and potentiality of the Matrix.  Pi is the quintessential form.  Pi projects and transforms, in Mandelbrot fashion, the Matrix into mathematical structure.  'i' retains its ghostly, hermetic essence. 

Christ/Pi then is the first fruit of the Matrix.  Thus we have the Christ/Adam connection.  The Anglic homophone, Adam/Atom, may not be an historical accident.  I have already alluded to the Pi/Atom connection.  Most of chemical physics can be read right off of the spherical symmetries and harmonics latent in e^i*pi.  In that capacity Pi stands to become the buckle of our Anthropic bootstrap, in a manner which I am attempting to grasp.  I need to relate the observer principle specifically to Pi.  The historical foundation for all our mensuration is to be found in the lunar/solar syzygys.  Only now has the atom taken precedence for measuring time as well as space.  In every cycle there is a connection drawn between space and time.  

A cycle necessarily involves self-similarity, constituting a primitive sort of recurrent self-measurement.  If one were to postulate panpsychism, cyclic processes would be of particular interest.  Or, from the perspective of  immaterialism, cyclic processes might even constitute a suitable ground of being.  As much as any quantity can, Pi incorporates this notion self-similarity and total symmetry.  This is a significant aspect of the Matrix.  It should not be a surprise that Pi is intimately involved in defining and limiting the complete spectrum of symmetries that comprise group theory, and even the finite groups up to and including the Monster. 

Pi represents an ideal form, as no other number can.  It is the numerical incarnation of both ideality and of the Matrix.  

[11/1] 

I have been pressing the case that Pi incorporates ideality, and so perhaps intelligence, in a unique fashion amongst numbers.  If this be true, then so also do the important structures of math and physics, quite apart from arguments pertaining to the quantum observer principle.  Since Pi is the seed for much mathematical structure, that structure is not mind independent.  Does this explain our anthropic bootstrap? 

Yes, it does explain the bootstrap, provided that we understand the link between math and physics.  The quantum is the obvious link.  The quantum does double duty by linking both math and the observer to physics.  The quantum and Pi have to compete to be the buckle of our anthropic bootstrap.  We have noted the connection between the two in the context of quantum 'wave mechanics' where e^i*pi plays a primary role. 

Admittedly there has been an immoderate amount of hand-waving leading up to this point.  However, the conclusion, if it can subsequently be strengthened, justifies all the hand-waving in the world.  We have undertaken nothing less than an explanation of the anthropic principle without resorting either to many worlds or to an omnipotent deity.   Simply by ascribing a suitable source to the evident organicity of mathematics, we can gain considerable insight into the logic of Creation.  We take Pi to be a principle one of the six archetypes associated with our world.  It dominates the quantifiable, measurable aspect of nature.  The replicable, replicating patterns of nature must maintain a teleological coherence.  Pi is the de facto, and allegedly the de jure, nexus of that intelligent coherence.  Its relational, rational power ensures that the psyche is the alpha and omega of nature.  It is the organizing center of mathematics, and thus for much of nature.  It supplies the patterns that are the physical and logical basis of life.  The Mandelbrot set is an example of its implicit powers.  Pi encapsulates the holographic principle within mathematics.  We cannot understand math without understanding Pi, and vice versa.  

Pi is the proxy for the psyche, for the Matrix in the physical domain.  It portends the symmetries of the Monster Group, the symmetries that provide the adequate, logical basis for life.  

[11/2] 

A significant monist thesis is that numbers and nature are not disparate.  On a dualist or pluralist view, the evident effectiveness of mathematical physics can only be seen as anomalous or 'unreasonable'.  On the one hand, we have Platonic dualism; on the other hand, we have the more monistic views of Pythagoras and Aristotle in which the Platonic forms are actively present in our world.  The upshot is that nature is more formal and the forms are more natural than we had once imagined.  The increasingly evident organicity of mathematics is just the flip side of the increasing mathematicization of physics.  You can't have one without the other, and it is all part of the underlying holistic nature of reality. 

The organic, holistic nature of the world can only be the result of its self-organizing ability.  This is neither a top-down nor a bottom-up process.  It is rather an ouroboric, bootstrap dynamic.  We seek to obtain a handle on the bootstrap.  That is the purpose of the six archetypes, AORSAP.  The archetypes are the primary organizing principles of our world.  We have been focusing on the last one of these, Pi.  Pi is taken to be the organizing center for the system of numbers, i.e. mathematics.  Pi is the ultimate source of order within mathematics.  

I have said very little about the source of the Six, except to point to a psycho-social cosmogonic dynamic.  Admittedly this was only intended as a suggestive labeling of what remains a formidable mystery.  The strategy herein, in keeping with the cosmic structure itself, is circular.  As we repeatedly traverse the cosmic circuit, it is to be hoped that the spiral will gradually tighten up, so as to direct our attention to the key organizing principles, and then to see how they hang together within the ultimate source, or Matrix.  

The focus on Pi has been motivated, in part, by the fact that mathematics is the best understood among the fields of knowledge.  Understanding the organizing principle of mathematics should be instructive elsewhere.  If our Six have been properly selected, then they should be mutually supportive, epistemically as well as ontologically.  

Perhaps our best handle on the psycho-social dynamic is to be found in e^i*pi.  Referring to this as a 'trinity' (and here) was intended to be more than just a figure of speech.  Comparing Pi to Christ might easily be seen as being grossly sectarian, grossly sacrilegious, or both.  In any case, it is not a matter that I take up lightly.  Rational theism is indeed a rationalization of God.  Theists guard their deity jealously.  I am proposing here a postmodern gnosis.  While I don't expect to be immolated as were my pre-modern colleagues, neither do I expect to be embraced by my relatively 'agnostic' fellow theists.  I can only point out to them that clearly we have not seen the end of God's self-revelation.  The only issue then is one of truth.  Pity be upon those to whom truth becomes a threat.  History has never smiled on such folk. 

Christianity is properly considered to be a heresy against monotheism.  On that score it is an idolatry.  The fact that 18 GI's were killed today in Iraq is not totally unrelated to our being viewed as idolaters in most of the world. My thesis is that Christianity was a very big step from monotheism to monism.  The Trinity is essential to monism, not to monotheism.  Many lives have already been lost in the confusion between the Father and the Matrix.  Many more will be, before this is resolved.  I strive to hasten that resolution.  If I am correct about the Pi/Christ connection, then we have just made a significant step toward that resolution.  On the lighter side, Robert Mapplethorpe came very close to a world shaking revelation, it's just that he mistook pi for pee.  I'm glad to be able to set the record straight. 

The social psychology, or small-group dynamic, of the trinity is the best handle we are likely to get on our cosmogenesis.  The issue before us then is the transformation of the Three into the Six.  Our numerical trinity may, hopefully, provide a clue.  On the simplest level it is just a case of boxing the compass, if the compass is the complex unit circle implied by e^i*pi.  The zodiacal pantheon does a similar job, as a form of celestial psychology and small-group dynamic.  

Time and space are effectively defined by the foursome of AOSA: first/last & big/small, respectively.  That leaves with the archetypes of R & P, reproductive cycle and pi.  

[11/3] 

At this point we bring on the ouroboros and e^i*pi, with the hope of connecting R & P to each other and to the other four. 

The reproductive cycle is the primary bootstrap for nature.  The r-cycle is similar to the A/O circuit, and it employs atoms for its metabolic base, with pi as the cyclic number.  This leaves out S, the Sun.  In mythology the celestial sun is often juxtaposed with the spiritual sun, which may be likened to the trinitarian Son.  That is a very roundabout link between S & P, substituting e^i*pi for the trinity.  Another trinity to consider in this context is earth, sun & moon, in which case the moon would replace the iota as the hermetic link between earth and sun.  Using peripheral vision one may barely distinguish yet another trinity by judiciously pairing the Six: A/O, S/A & R/P, taken as matrix, son and Hermes/spirit, respectively; or as time, space and cycle.  Any cycle entails both time and space components.  Thereby, however, pi is then linked closer to spirit than to son.  Such blatant shape shifting should not be unexpected as we delve back into the Matrix.  That is a condition of monism. 

Right now, pi is most abstract of the Six.  There is an abstraction gap.  The atom is the next most abstract.  If we made the substitution quantum -> atom, this would provide more balance, yielding AOSRQP.  Writing this as SAORQP would take us from least to most abstract.  We have, however, lost the pairing noted in the previous paragraph.  If we try to put this into a circular form, there is a discontinuity between S and P.  

[11/4] 

The circular form of SAORQP may be of some interest.  Cycles and circuits are then predominate in the archetypal structure, and so is the son.  Previously we have seen the second member of the trinity identified with Sun and Pi, as well as the Alpha and Omega.  The Six then manifest a structure similar to the A/O circuit.  On this circumstance, Pi would be the new god consuming Sol, the old god, making use of the ouroboric form.  What are we to make of this strange figuration?  

If we distinguish two threesomes, SAO/RQP, there is a juxtaposition of the macro and microcosms, with the latter somehow representing the new order.  There is also the semblance of a contrast between low and high tech.  This does not fit with my previous understanding of a Millennial order.  Are there shades of transhumanism here?  Perhaps we had better check the archetypes again.  Or will we have to take Ray Kurzweil more seriously?  Before jumping to conclusions, we might compare this Six with Gurdjieff's Nine, the enneagram.  Let us also not forget the I Ching, Sephiroth and Zodiac.  

[11/5] 

Archetypes: 

Where do the archetypes come from? In his earlier work, Jung tried to link the archetypes to heredity and regarded them as instinctual. We are born with these patterns which structure our imagination and make it distinctly human. Archetypes are thus very closely linked to our bodies. In his later work, Jung was convinced that the archetypes are psychoid, that is, "they shape matter (nature) as well as mind (psyche)". In other words, archetypes are elemental forces which play a vital role in the creation of the world and of the human mind itself. The ancients called them elemental spirits

For now, I'm not obtaining any new insights from the traditional archetypes.  Let us then continue with the trinitarian themes.  With the macrocosm, AOS, we might have mother/father, son and lux/spirit.  With the microcosm, RPQ, we could have mother, son and spirit; while with e^i*pi, it was mother, spirit and son.  The archetype of the trinity is our most persistent one.  RQP and e^i*pi are closely fitted.  ASO does not seem to fit as well.  If we were to replace sol with zodiac, however, it might fit better: AZO.  This leaves us wondering about the then putative Q <-> Z connection.  How much of a stretch is this?  Is there not a temptation to try another sequence, QRP, then R and Z are more obviously connected.  The ambiguities being encountered here are part of the shape-shifting endemic to monism.  Q would take on the role of matrix in its threesome.  The fact that quantum physics used to be called matrix mechanics is, unfortunately, beside the point.  

The quantum is the Pandora's box out of which the microcosm emerges into a definite form, Pi/Atom/Adam/Christ, when mediated by the reproductive cycle, R, within the A -> O evolutionary circuit; which in its turn is mediated by the celestial cycles and precessions, as we proceed to the telos, O.  There seems to be ample flexibility built into this archetypal system to allow for future evolution.  We may recall the evolution of these archetypes: SAAO -> SAAOM -> AORSAM -> AORSAP -> SAO/RQP -> AZO/QRP.  I had been assuming that the Sun would have been the first created celestial orb.  These modifications suggest otherwise.  This does exacerbate the problem of the initial and final celestial appearances.  You'll notice that I am not rushing out to tackle this one.  The outlook remains hazy. 

I should note that biological enzymatic cycles, ~R, function as efficient quantum measuring devices.  The juxtaposition of QRP suggests that the telic anthropos, i.e. us, could be the outcome of a prolonged 'delayed-choice' quantum 'measurement', with pi serving as our psychic proxy in this case.  This suggests that Adam and Eve might better be associated with the Omega than with the Alpha, as given in Genesis. That our mythos might contain such anachronisms is not a surprise.  Zodiac-style zoomorphisms might better be associated with the Alpha.  The iota, sqrt(-1), in e^i*pi, shows a similarly ambiguous identity.  Morphogenesis could be substituted for Darwinian evolution.  All of this remains most speculative, of course.  

[11/6] 

The bottom line with the archetypes is phenomenology.  Eventually we idealists must produce a coherent phenomenology for the Alpha and Omega regimes.  We have inhabited the middle regime for millennia.  The Millennium brings us into Owen Barfield's 'final participation' (and here, here).  Using Owen's terminology, 'original participation' or 'alpha thinking' is followed by 'beta thinking', or ordinary ego consciousness, in the middle regime where we are still stuck.  In original and final participation the archetypal forms flow and come alive.  Panpsychism becomes explicit.  In order to participate, we must anticipate the resurrection of the forms.  In the Millennium we will, to a degree, be back-engineering the Creation.  We must understand the system of archetypes in order to properly modulate the flow of events so as to effect our optimal participation in them.  

Of immediate significance is the nature of the initial departures from ordinary physicalism and from the ego consciousness associated with it.  It is possible and even likely that aspects of the 'new age' movement portend such developments.  Need we mention lucid dreaming?  We should make note of any new developments in holistic health.  Even the rise of autism could be a negative premonition, and there may be more than a few such negativities.  Drug fads may partially mask deeper, spontaneous psychic shifts.  The varied phenomenology of 'close encounters' deserves attention in this regard.  The reenchantment of the world will be a bumpy road, and it will behoove us to anticipate or quickly recognize the more significant of the bumps.  

Science, more or less wittingly, will necessarily participate in the phenomenology.  Consider the opening in the heavens rendered by Hubble.  It would be quite premature to say that astronomy is not currently involved in finding its way back to some of its archeo-astronomical roots.  The Internet and virtual reality are among the modern technologies that seem to be playing into and guiding our shifts in consciousness away from 'beta thinking'.   

By the time we awaken to the above developments, we may realize that they are already far advanced.  It will be very difficult, even impossible, to effectively distinguish between subjective and objective elements of a shifting phenomenology.  That difficulty will only make us more keenly aware of the monistic nature of the world.  The shifting norms of epistemology quickly subvert purely ontological schemes. 

[11/7] 

A notable feature of AZO/QRP is the pervasive duality with respect to linear and circular.  A&O mark the end points of our linear time frame, while Z represents cyclical time and a spherical sky/earth.  Pi, of course, is the ratio of line to circle.  The quantum, Q, evolves in linear fashion until a measurement, e.g. R, is performed.  What I'm lacking at present is a psychological analog for this duality.  I would note, however, that causality is usually taken to be linear unless a specific feedback mechanism is introduced, as in the case of self-organizing systems.  Non-linearity is the natural state for most processes.  On the other hand, cyclical process are the mark of biological systems. 

[11/8] 

I'm thinking there is a missing link.  We have a micro and macrocosm, but no mesocosm.  In esoteric studies the mesocosm is usually identified with the anthropos, or the primordial or universal human.  In the prophetic tradition this is Adam/Eve, or Adam Kadmon in the Kabbalah.  However, from the pervious discussion (1, 2, 3), it might make more sense to take this archetype as the alleged incarnation.  We then have the following scheme: AZO/X/QRP.  The missing element now is the Matrix.  It remains as the source of being.  The third member of the trinity also remains implicit in this particular representation.  We'll have to see if this move from 6 to 7 buys us anything.  

[11/9] 

I wish to explore the pantheistic, or, more accurately, the pantheonic aspect of AZO/X/QRP.  Z is just a pantheonic version of the zoomorphic zodiac.  The second person of the trinity is often referred to as the Alpha and Omega.  However, the Alpha can also be seen as the Creatrix or Matrix, or as the Father.  R may be seen as the microscopic clone of Z.  It represents the various biochemical cycles.  Both Q and P partake of the dialectic or ratio between linear and non-linear or circular.  This renders them more ouroboric.  As the most formal or formed element of the Six, Pi may be positively compared with X.  Relative to the Q, however, and in the terminology of the Sephiroth, it would be on the pillar of 'severity', along with the father.  There is a bit of the paper/rock/scissors type of contextuality here, lending itself to the cosmic ouroboric psycho-dialectic.  

The contention is that the Seven may be seen to have spontaneously evolved in a bootstrapped, psycho-dynamical manner within the Matrix.  The teleological constraint is the overall optimization leading to the BPW.  Thus do I attempt to rationalize Creation.  

Ouroboros: 

[...] the infinite circle of its body is a boundary between what is and what isn't. To the Egyptians it represented the end of time when Ouroboros, the creator god, turned back on itself.

Stated explicitly here is the duality of the ouroboros: it is the symbol of both continuity and discontinuity.  [also see 12/3] 

[11/10] 

It is the nature of the psyche to be both inclusive and exclusive.  The ability of the ouroboros to express this duality impressed Carl Jung.  Also expressed in the same symbol is the self-reflexivity, self-organizing power of the psyche.  

The first and last threesomes of what are now our seven archetypes of cosmology, AZO/X/QRP, strongly incorporate the power of the ouroboros.  This quality provides an adequate basis for panpsychism and, then, immaterialism.  The anthropos, X, and the ouroboros cover the macro, meso and microcosms.  The anthropos is necessarily the buckle of the ouroboric bootstrap.  

Even the cellular nature of biology should be implicit in QRP.  The cell is to the organism as the anthropos is to the cosmos.  R expresses the metabolic imperative of life.  Q & P express the symmetric and atomic basis of any metabolic system.  The organizational hierarchy of the cosmos then follows, which is to say its microcosmic and holographic structure.  Is this to say that the psyche is necessarily embodied?  Only in general.  The psyche is nothing if not creative.  There cannot be a Creator without a Creation.  Creatio and Imago are not the same.  The Creation is nothing if not creaturely and participatory.  It is intensive while the Imago is just extensive.  

I cannot claim to comprehend the intensivity of creation.  It seems to be intensive approximately to the degree that it pushes the envelope of monism.  The BPW is as pluralistic as the law of monism possibly allows.  The pushing of that envelope may have something to do with the objectifying of pi. Our seemingly endless fascination with that quality/quantity may not be epiphenomenal in this scheme of things.  Pi comes as close to mind-independence as one can get.  In the context of e^i*pi it is a proxy for the mind-independence of atoms.  The logical fact that it cannot fully exercise that proxy is a crucial statement of monism. 

It appears, however, that Pi is more than a proxy for the mind.  Well, wait.  It is the philosopher's stone in the universe of quantity.  It provides the organizing principle for most of mathematics.  It is, then, equally the proxy for mind in math and for math in mind.  In linking math and mind it replicates the function of the anthropos in linking creator and creation, and in linking macro and microcosms.  The observational and normative/functional quality of Q & R, respectively, completes the close assimilation of QRP to X. In much the same manner the metanarrational A & O are also assimilated to X, leaving us with Z.  

Z manifests the dynamic equilibrium of the psyche.  Z is our constant ouroboric link back to the Matrix.  It is the necessary proxy (and metronome!) for the still remote A&O archetypes.  The dual function of Z in both linking us to, and separating us from, the Matrix is stunning in its extremity, I readily concede.  It pushes the same envelope and to the same extent as is pushed by Pi.  Our understandings of the organic abstractions of Z & P should be mutually reinforcing.  The sky was to be the first frontier of our minds and the final frontier of our materialism.  It was long anticipated that our fascination, and then familiarity, with matter in all its forms would finally bring us to glimpse our own reflection in the reflective potency of the material world.  We would finally grasp the significance of the Six and then see ourselves as the Seventh.  We see through the glass darkly.  

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Topical Index

10/19/03

Tar Baby 

Is Uncle Remus about to go the way of Aunt Jemima?  Let's hope that we can preserve the best and move on. 

Science and religion, over the centuries, have grown much too comfortable in their mutual neglect.  The few lackluster exceptions help only to prove the rule.  The same habit of neglect now carries over into their lack of regard for Postmodernism and the New Age movement.  Holistic health, in the latter case, however, is a more substantial exception.  

How much further to the Millennium, us kids in the back seat would like to know.  The foundations of materialism seem as strong as ever.  The two main cracks in that facade, mind and the quantum, can continue indefinitely to be treated as mere puzzles, it would seem. 

Any cosmology requires its epicycles.  Hindsight will show that materialism has acquired far more than its share.  Even the truest believing Ptolemaist would have to blush at the sight of it.  Will this Rube Goldberg system collapse under its own weight?  If it were going to, it already would have, and long ago.  It just keeps on trucking. 

We can only borrow a page from the book of Copernicus.  A little coherence can go a long way, especially if there is no competition.  Our minds thrive on patterns and stories.  We are witness to a mushrooming plethora of each.  There is, however, no meta-pattern, no meta-story.  The lack of any such cohering center has led to rampant intellectual and spiritual fragmentation.  This fragmentation is no healthier for society than it is for the psyche.  The depth of our anomie can hardly be fathomed.  There is nothing present to which it may be compared.  We have no choice but to slog on. 

The only coherent world is the best possible world.  There is no coherence in being second best.  My own little contest is to remain near the top of Google's BPW heap.  That is my 'tar baby' strategy.  

With each long page, coherence comes one page closer.  In this age of exploding fragmentation the number of loose ends to gather up is nondenumerable.  With sufficient patience, however, a new pattern gradually asserts itself.  It takes on a life of its own.  The new cosmos emerges out of the miasma of its disintegrating predecessor.  If it is anything at all, it will have to become remarkable.  And then, one fine day, Brer Fox will no longer be able to ignore it.  Well, you know the rest of that story.... 

------------------------------

Our work on the archetypes is far from finished.  It's hard for me to believe that it began here, in explicit fashion, over six months ago.  If there is progress to be made in this endeavor, we have made some.  Immaterialism is a very slippery beast, and any handles to be found on it are invaluable.  We may have seven of them.  This exercise is as much epistemic as it is ontological.  We can judge the archetypes only by the fruit they bear.  Their relative consistency, though, is a prime consideration, and we have already explored this to a fair degree.  Settling on a stable set of archetypes brings us a long way toward rendering plausible the fact that we do inhabit the BPW.  

As with any puzzle, the addition of each piece renders the rest of the pieces that much easier to fit.  Of course, there will be misplacements, requiring significant backtracking.  But even significant mistakes can be informative.  

[11/11] 

Something mentioned frequently in these pages is the 'unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics' (UEM) (note the old URL).  It's source remains obscure.  Let me attempt to shed some more light on it.  

A closely related issue is the source of mathematics.  I have discussed the Pythagorean vs. Platonic views of the matter.  (Hold the phone!  I have just discovered Amazon's new search feature, and I'll test it here.  Oh dear, it does appear that one can use this feature to read through the book in stepwise fashion.  The publishers may decide there will be too much cheating.  It's nice while it lasts.) 

As with any new gimmick, it is easy to get sidetracked.  While looking up UEM on Amazon, I got sidetracked by Michio Kaku's discussion of reductionism vs. holism in theoretical physics.  Remind me to come back to this later.  

The unity of math and physics depends largely on symmetry principles, all of which have specific mathematical expressions.  That just pushes the question back a step: from whence comes symmetry?  In a recent page on this topic I simply posited an 'initial' state of total symmetry.  This is begging the question.  Will every possible symmetry be realized?  Can there exist unknowable symmetries?  This parallels the posit of unobservable worlds. 

[11/12] 

In the present scheme of things, mathematics is ontologically overprivileged.  In too many people's minds mathematics represents the highest level of existence.  This is the view of Pythagoras, Spinoza, Einstein, etc.  I have been at pains to present a more holistic or integrated picture of mathematics relative to the rest of the world. 

Mathematics may be seen as one of many human skills.  As such, it is correlated with diverse skills whose origins remain obscure: verbal, artistic, moral, aesthetic, pattern recognizing, game playing, technological, social, etc.  It is an integral part of what we call 'natural intelligence', as if there might be any other.  

There are many normative and aesthetic aspects of math that cannot be formalized.  Even the nature of proof remains informal, not to say, entirely elusive. Above all, mathematicians pride themselves on their consistency, and, yet, that factor seems to have as much to do with aesthetics as it has to do with logic. 

Given an immaterial world, are we surprised to find a mathematically describable order?  Yes, and no.  Let's face it, our world is 'unreasonably' coherent.  Mathematics comprises a significant part of that coherence, but that statement can in no way be quantified, or even well qualified.  

Atoms and humans are generally law abiding, atoms rather more so.  But, with the advent of the quantum, who is to draw any logical distinction.  Observation, only ever normatively defined, is not epiphenomenal to any quantum phenomena.   And what are these laws of physics?  Nature is lawful to a surprising degree.  There is no logical way to distinguish the lawfulness of physics from the lawfulness of nature.  And are we not all part of nature?  

We cannot imagine a world that has no logic, or is not quantifiable.  If ours were not so, and to such a considerable degree, then, probably it would not be compatible with any form of intelligence.  The non-intelligible world is just a non-world.  Is our world minimally intelligible?  No.  It is optimally intelligible, according to my informed opinion. 

Biology and technology (is there a real distinction?) both rely on the quantifiably predictable nature of the world.  If the laws of nature were not sufficiently formalizable, there would be no nature to speak of.  Yes, nature does stand on formality.  Don't we all?  Just don't ask me or anyone else to formalize the formality.  

The world is a surprising place, and optimally so, I would say.  Living without a constantly evocable sense of awe is simply not living.  Mathematical effectiveness is awesome, and so should be everything else.  (Should we expect anything less from our BPW?)  And, by god, we ain't hardly seen nothin' yet. 

Fine, but how does it actually work?  We are in the process of finding out how the world works.  Scientists presently think they know much more about that than they actually do.  Their sense of awe has been singularly suppressed, in a manner that would be criminal if it weren't so naive.  The only thing that scientists really understand is the formalism of their own formalities.  What they like to think of as their success is a pale shadow of where we are all headed.  If such a severely straightjacketed mind can be so 'successful', then we know nothing of success.  

Math works because it has to?  To fully understand why, is also to understand how.  That we distinguish the why and the how is just another reflection of our abysmal ignorance.  We are merely taking a few faltering steps toward reintegration.  The disintegration of the world is 98% in the eyes of its beholders, not to belittle that residual 2%.    

The main problem for us immaterialists posed by atoms is the apparent independence of their existence.  They seem to do just fine on their own, to the degree that we may wonder why they ever bothered to produce us creatures.  The fact, however, that the world has not disintegrated and that we are still here, may indicate that atoms are not as quite independent as the materialists would like us to believe.  On the contrary, it is not difficult to get the impression that there is more than a bit of atomic conspiracy taking place behind the scenes. 

What's an atom to do?  How does an atom come to know what it's supposed to be doing in any given circumstance?  Atoms are moved by forces, or course.  Every particle is acted upon by every other particle within the visible universe.  They do this by exchanging virtual quanta of each of the four known force fields.  This is a mind boggling mess of interactions to be sorting out for every instant of every particle's existence.  I just don't think that Occam would be happy with such an extravagant picture of microscopic existence.  There must be a simpler way to run the world. 

[11/13] 

It's not going to be easy to wean ourselves away from atoms.  They have a beguiling simplicity.  Unfortunately they are too simple to explain the world.  We have then only two choices.  We can work from the bottom up, in a step-wise fashion, or we can go the other way. 

Science has chosen the former path.  It is arduous, a quality recommending itself to our residual puritanical inclinations.  It also promises to be minimalistic: to be maximally sparing in our ontological commitments.  We remain committed to reductionism, only accepting as irreducible those items that have been forced upon us, and about which we think we have a thorough understanding.  That is the way science is supposed to work.  

The practice of science is something else.  In practice it is only the physicists who are given ontological license.  They are relatively free to invent elaborate structures, but only of a mathematical variety, and only in support of their hoped for Grand Unified Theory.  Everyone else is only granted provisional, ad hoc license.  All the other sciences proceed phenomenologically.  Given any complex system, they apply labels to persistent or recurring phenomena and hope to be able to quantify and formalize them to some degree.  There is virtually no attempt to explain or predict these phenomena on first principles, i.e. starting from the basic laws of physics and working back up.  Only thus does the spirit reductionism maintain its iron grip on ontology.  It must always be given the benefit of the doubt.  Reductionism has actually never completely explained anything, not even in physics.  But by the same token, it has never been demonstrated that there is any phenomenon that is irreducible in principle.  

Reductionism is an all or nothing commitment.  There is no such thing as partial reductionism.  It is a thumb in the dike situation.  If one irreducible property is permitted, then there is no longer a logical defense against an ontological flood.  This is a precarious situation.  The reductionist status quo is maintained so carefully in science just because it is so precarious.  There is no logical middle ground.   Non-reductionism necessarily entails downward causation.  With downward causation there is no limit in the upward direction.  In other words, there must be a finality to final causation, a Telos for teleology.  Naturalism is just the attempt to formulate an atheistic non-reductionism.  It is simply a new form of panpsychism, pantheism and, inevitably, mysticism.  Nothing to recommend itself to the spirit of rational inquiry. 

Here you see the only other path.  We trade reductionism for coherence.  Unfettered coherence necessarily entails cosmic intelligence and the Best Possible World.  Easier said than done.  It will be a long slog from materialism to immaterialism.  As in any long journey the first step is the most difficult.  Given the present unstable equilibrium in our postmodern world, the taking of one convincing step toward metaphysical coherence could hardly be anything less than earth shaking.  Look, Ma, no atoms....!

The archetypes are nice, but can they do the job?  Heretofore, archetypes have been introduced only in an implied dualistic context, as something to be appended to the physics.  The singular step to coherence will be to show how the physics may be appended to the archetypes.  Physics becomes epiphenomenal. 

The primary tool at our disposal will be the principle of sufficient reason: nothing happens without a cause.  Most simply, this is just the obverse of mysticism.  Here the quantum is on shaky ground.  What are we to do with spontaneous events?  We may invoke hidden variables, Probability, or a strong observer principle.  Beyond this fly in the ointment, the PSR is good to go, with all us rational folk.  Things get sticky only when one speaks of final cause or downward causation.  Speak of it we will. 

To cut to the chase, the shaking will come when we can derive QRP from AZO.  

Starting with a totipotent, toti-symmetric Matrix, I posit a symmetry breaking, thereby taking my cue from the physical cosmologists.  Here, however, the primordial symmetry breaking is not spontaneous.  It is self-sustaining as a deliberate departure toward cosmic self-realization.  There is a cosmic schism into a pantheon of 'personalities', a cosmic MPD, if you will.  It would involve a daisy-chained, ouroboric, bootstrap dynamic.  This is the primal psychic circuit 'emerging' from the Matrix, but beyond all space and time.  I label this as the Zodiacal archetype, or just Z. 

The metanarrative that we call Creation emerges as the dominant gap between the 'head' and 'tail' of the Ouroboros.  This is just our Alpha and Omega.  The symmetry breaking discontinuity (spark gap?) between the A&O becomes our historical time frame.  So much for AZO.  We now have to confront the actual 'mechanics' of this bootstrap process. 

Previously I have speculated about the 'cloning' of the Z cycle.  Well, no.  The Z already is the potential for every cycle.  According to Leibniz' other great principle, the Identity of Indistinguishables, there is ever only one Z.  It is tantamount to the Matrix itself.  What happens to Z is more akin to spectrum analysis.  It is self-analyzed into is logical constituents.  It is the mutually compatible and supporting cycles that are sustained.  In symbiotic fashion they reintegrate into mutual coherence.  Our space-time frame is defined and fleshed out in this manner.  

For example, there have been some spectacular solar flares in the last couple of weeks.  To grasp this phenomenon we may appeal to atoms or to the PSR.  Provisionally assuming a more or less heliotropically explained sun, we go on to consider its details.  First of all, why the details?  Why not just place a nice round sunlamp in the sky, and leave well enough alone?  There are two reasons for the details.  No, make that one reason: aesthetic.  God and the Devil are in the details.  The fascination of this world is in its details, in its photo-realistic quality.  Painters and animators  have their work cut out for them, not to mention the scientists.  

The aesthetic of nature lies simply in its naturalness.  It all hangs together in a self-contained cosmic PSR.  It does not appear artifactual.  Is not the avoidance of artifice the first and last measure of great art?  Surely then, God has outdone herself, just ask your friendly local atheist!  It is the bible thumpers who are exercised with God's subtlety.  It makes their job so much more difficult.  

So did God just say, let the sun be natural; let it have eruptions?  Where then, we might wonder, is the model of solar naturalness?  Where is the Jurassic Parc?  No, Virginia, there is no model.  There is no Garden of Eden.  This is it.  It's all happening right here, right under our noses, or, perhaps, behind them.  

Next to the PSR, holography is our touchstone.  If you have seen one physical phenomenon, you have seen them all.  If not, then you weren't looking closely enough.  Holography is a manifestation of the GUT, and vice versa.  But does that mean that someone has to calculate the dynamics of a solar flare starting from first GUT principles.  I hope not.  I'm not volunteering.  God is not a workaholic, certainly not in that slide-rulerish fashion.  With God, if you have done one calculation, you have done them all, as with the Z-cycle.  With all our super-computer calculations and simulations we are only gilding that lily.  None of our calculations is wasted, it's just that we may not fully comprehend the reason for them.  

With that warm-up, here is my solar narrative.  It may not measure up to Rudyard, but it could still suffice.  Fluid dynamics is ubiquitous.  To chug-a-lug a brew is to get a pretty good feeling for it.  The art of imbibing is a fine art.  I won't, wouldn't, couldn't, say how God discovered/invented this art, but, obviously, it was much too good to be missed, even hard to be missed, given metabolism and all.  And, given the demand, it sure helps to have a goodly supply on hand, and so we quickly get into oceans and atmospheres, you know, the hydro-cycle.  With nature it's as below, so above.  Storms down here, storms up there there, and, presto, you have your basic solar flare, after figuring in some textbook style magnetohydrodymanics, love that word.  If one were to dream up a sun, then chances are pretty good that it would have a few flares, fifteen at least.  Now there is just a minor logistics problem.  We must arrange for the flares to be where the astronomers can see them.  For some folks, the logistic is the whole problem.  I can say, folie a deux, and you can say, no, pinch me and I'm awake.  Admittedly, this is not quite a sequitur, but I'm counting on you to catch my idiomatic drift, nonetheless. 

[11/14] 

Folie a deux: a madness or fantasy shared by two.  If I'm correct, ours is a fantasy shared by several billion, not counting our furry and feathered friends.  

From All-Experts: 

         F24 -- Induced Delusional Disorder:
    A rare delusional disorder shared by two or occasionally more people
    with close emotional links. Only one person suffers from a genuine
    psychotic disorder; the delusions are induced in the other(s) and
    usually disappear when the people are separated. The psychotic illness
    in the dominant person is most commonly schizophrenic, but this
    is not necessarily or invariably so. Both the original delusions
    in the dominant person and the induced delusions are usually chronic
    and either persecutory or grandiose in nature. Delusional beliefs
    are transmitted this way only in uncommon circumstances. Almost
    invariably, the people concerned have an unusually close relationship
    and are isolated from others by language, culture, or geography. The            
    individual in whom the delusions are induced is usually dependent
    or subservient to the person with the genuine psychosis.

This 'rare disorder' is precisely the basis of our reality and all reality.  It seems to fit very snugly  into our monistic context.  Every religion, every cult, and even science also fit this mold to some considerable degree.  So, yes, there can easily be fantasies within fantasies.  No one doubts that the mind is fertile, but very few suspect how fertile.  I am here to raise our suspicions.  God is the great Inductor.  We are her unwitting co-conspirators.  

The hermetic alchemist mixes together two chemicals that have never been mixed before.  Something will have to happen.  The PSR will fill in the blank with a teleological turn, it has nowhere else to turn. After that, our collective expectations can be given full power.  One may willingly deviate from those expectations only with considerable force of mind.  That deviation may be labeled as either madness or magic.  It all depends....

Galileo turned his new instrument to the sky.  He saw the Mandelbrot we call Nature in greater detail.  It was a surprise, but it also fit the larger pattern.  The Hubble does the same.  But now we see a surprising organicity emerging.  Does it not compute?  Does it reveal any brush strokes?  Not unless you have a scorecard; something which I attempt to provide.  

Does the Mandelbrot not compute?  Is it truly a mystery?  How could it be so precisely replicable if it does not precisely compute?  

Here's the deal w/ computers, and everything else.  Computers aren't real.  Mind is real.  Minds are a bit less so.  The multiplicity of mind is illusory, but it is a very functional illusion, come Creation time.  Bodies are very important appendices to certain kinds of minds, but are still epiphenomenal relative to the latter.  Going on down the scala natura, mind wanes, illusion waxes.  If computers had a mind, they'd be real too, but, alas alak, strong AIers chaseth after the wind. 

There is in Plato's heaven something resembling Alan Turing's universal computer.  It never crashes.  Our pc's down here struggle to emulate her.  We test them down here by giving them Riemanns and Mandelbrots to chew on.  If they don't chew properly they are casteth upon the junk heap.  The Mandelbrot we know and love is the survival of the fittest.  The generating function, z' = z^2 + C, is a bit like the alchemist's empty retort.  The Matrix abhors the vacuum, and pours herself in.  You cannot do more than five zooms on the MB without seeing something no one has seen before or ever will again.  Yet, there she is in perfect harmony.  It is a piece of heaven dropped into just your lap.  The perfect detail surpasses any dreamt phantasmagoria.  You pinch yourself and you are awake.  

Take one pixel on the screen and calculate its iterations by hand.  If you are careful you will get just the right color.  Where is the magic?  As I keep trying to say, it is everywhere, which need not entail that it is also nowhere.  It is just that our minds become surfeited if we are not careful.  

By the same token, telepathy preempts telephony, but don't tell that to Ma Bell or she will put static on your line.  Telephony is a functionally restricted form of telepathy, along with a few extra bells and bills.  How else are we to share thoughts in the mental cacophony we call modernity?  With the wireless Internet, we are moving toward a less restrictive medium. 

One may more easily imagine the Matrix impressing herself upon a quantum computer, but the digital domain should be too restrictive.  By the same token there could be a soul hiding in every pc.  Determinism, however, is not the issue.  

[11/15] 

What I may be running into here is the problem of self-similarity.  This is the type of symmetry manifested by the Mandelbrot.  Self-similarity is ubiquitous in nature.  It also relates to the problem I was getting at earlier concerning virtual quanta.  Permit me to divert back to that problem and see if we can make any connections. 

You may not have heard of the 'ultraviolet catastrophe'.  I am not referring to the ozone hole, but rather to a fundamental problem of theoretical physics.  It has to do with the self-energy of the electron.  

By symmetry, the force field around any point source will vary as the inverse square of the distance from the source.  As you approach an electron, it's electric field tends toward infinite strength.  A static electric field is a form of potential energy.  The energy density is proportional to the square of the field strength, so it will vary as the inverse forth power of the distance.  The total energy is proportional to the volume, which, for a sphere, varies as the distance cubed.  Within any sphere centered on the electron, the energy of the field inside that sphere will always be greater than the inverse of the distance.  Thus the self-energy of any point source would be infinite.  From special relativity we know that mass is proportional to energy, and so the electron would have an infinite mass.  One way to avoid the infinity is to posit a finite radius for the electron, thereby placing an upper bound on its mass. I have just stated the problem using 'classical' physics, but the same problem occurs in the quantum theory of the electron, but in this case the field energy is quantized into virtual photons.  The cut-off then takes the form of an upper bound on the photon energy, which is colloquially referred to as the 'ultraviolet cut-off' thus avoiding the 'ultraviolet catastrophe' for the self-energy of the electron. 

 The more technical term for the limitation of the self-energy of point particles is 'renormalization'.  This was always one of the most contentious areas of physics up until the invention of 'string' theory, which effectively eliminated the problem of point particles by replacing them with strings of finite radius.  

[11/17] 

Part of my tar baby strategy in these pages is to reawaken our sense of the mystery of the ordinary.  The strategy of materialism, in contrast, is just to put us to sleep, as in the 'slumber of materialism'.  Materialism accomplishes this death of the spirit by means of a 'thousand cuts', i.e. by its analysis and reductionism.  To resist the atomization of the spirit requires an act of deliberate naiveté.  In keeping with the present context, let us reconsider Newton. 

Newton was astonished and mystified by his own theory of gravity.  Gravity, it turns out, is at once the most mundane and most exotic piece of physics.  Imagine trying to explain gravity to a premodern.  The hardest part would be to convince them that it even existed.  How does one do that?  We do that by playing ontology.  The first move in any ontology game is analysis.  It is like cutting the calf out of the herd.  Before that time, the calf and herd were inseparable.  Only by gross intervention against that natural order do we accomplish our objectification of the calf vis a vis the phenomenal herd.  Look at this process subjectively and historically.  Consider our long hard slog from tribal mind to ego mind.  

Imagine trying to explain the concept of self-interest to the primitive tribesperson.  Even the concept of self would be utterly alien.  There would be virtually no such thing as self-consciousness.  There would be no comprehension of abstraction.  Even today, we are fascinated by Robinson Carusoe.  To the primitive mind, separation from the group is identical to death.  There is literally no distinction between death and banishment.  Now, to us moderns, self-consciousness is something that we have to struggle to overcome. 

Only to those of us immersed in the space age, is gravity truly objectifiable.  Newton was simply the first citizen of space.  Or perhaps it was Descartes who objectified space with his coordinate analysis of it.  Be that as it may, the objectification of gravity, space and time went hand in hand, and together they constituted an enormous, and now almost unimaginable, mental leap.  We are trying to look at one part of that leap. 

The problem for Newton was the 'action at a distance'.  How was it that the earth and moon, separated by thousands of miles, could exert a force on each other?  Now we know the answer.  It is by means of a force field.  We simply put a label on the mystery, and it is no longer mysterious, we think.  The fact is, though, that centuries later, the explanation of gravity remains the biggest challenge in physics.  Only by invoking the Monster Group, the biggest mystery in mathematics, do we even hope to 'explain' the biggest mystery in physics.  Our attempted objectification and reduction of gravity is actually turning out to be the reductio ad absurdum of reductionism itself.  

What is a force field?  It is what we now call a 'counterfactual', i.e. a sometimes useful conceptual fiction.  Let us attempt to analyze 'counterfactual'.  In order to do so, we must invoke modal logic, a very controversial metaphysical concept itself.  To make sense of modal logic we must invoke the concept of 'possible worlds'.  Uh, oh!  Now I'm in trouble.  Am I not about to deconstruct my precious BPW?  I would do that gladly, in order to prove my point. 

I wish to reconstruct or reenchant gravity.  To do so, I must deconstruct its prior scientific deconstruction or reductive analysis.  This is a two-step process.  First we return gravity to its Newtonian-style, singular, mysterious objecthood, and then we nudge it back into the holistic phenomenal subjectivity of our one and only BPW, i.e. back into the primal 'dream-time'.  I am not thereby turning the clock back, but rather advancing it into our Millenarian act of 'final participation'.  

If the apple were to become detached from the tree, it would fall, under the influence of the gravitational field, and strike Isaac on the head, thereby propelling him into knighthood.  Such is modal logic.  How innocuous is it?  We analyze modality by the reification of the non-denumerable set of all possible worlds.  There are actual forces and possible forces.  A force field is just the sum of all possible forces associated with a given source.  My charisma is just such an attractive force field.  It is the potency or potentiality of my charming presence.  It is my magical aura.  Is the gravitational aura of a given body any less magical?  Certainly it was not to Isaac and his contemporaries.  Only now can its familiarity breed our indifference to its mystery.  

How do I work my attraction?  How does a body work its gravitation?  By influence.  By sympathy.  I vibrate, you resonate.  Our spirits are moved to want to come together.  If the earth and moon are spiritless, then how are they moved?  

In science text books, force fields are reified by drawing in the lines of force, like so many little strings.  It is as if the earth had the moon tethered by means of these lines of force.  Force may be transmitted by an intervening substance, e.g. a rope.  In our case, there is only the intervening emptiness of space.  But this can be fixed.  We posit the 'ether'.  The ether is posited simply as an otherwise undetectable medium with the sole purpose of transmitting gravitational forces and electromagnetic waves.  Case closed?  Yes, for awhile.  

The ether was subsequently deconstructed by Michelson & Morley, and Einstein.  Or was it?  One explanatory fiction was being replaced by another.  Instead of the ether, we now had the space-time 'manifold'.  Was that not progress?  After all, both space and time are independently and objectively measurable.  The deconstruction of the ether, logically, could only be had at a price.  The price was the reification of space and time.  Prior to Einstein, and going back to Descartes, space and time were independent absolutes.  They could be reified only by bringing them into the physics arena where they would logically fall under the sympathetic influence of every other physical entity.  And so, notoriously, they did.  Instead of two independent abstract entities, we now had a single physical 'manifold' subject to every physical influence. 

With Descartes, space and time were the frame of physics, but now the frame had been sucked into the action.  The consequence would inevitably be dire.  Overnight, our supposedly eternal universe became unstable to self-eradication.  There could no longer be a gravitational balance.  Now the space-time manifold could and would collapse as if under its own weight.  Albert, in a desperate attempt to save the apparent cosmic stability, introduced his 'cosmological constant', and thereby committing, by his own later admission, the 'greatest blunder' of his life.  As it turned out, the cosmic appearance would soon be saved by a very much more extravagant device: the notorious Big Bang, in whose shadow we now, oh so, contingently, and, yes, mysteriously, exist.  End of story?  Not on your life!  But I cannot leave Albert unvindicated.  Ironically, even the mind blowing extravagance of the Big Bang, it turns out, is not sufficient to save the celestial appearance.  Oh, no!  Albert's constant has now officially been exhumed, much to his posthumous, but now embarrassing, vindication.  

Now begins the fun.  It turns out that the physicists have not been able to leave bad enough alone.  Things get worse, much worse.  Do I chortle?  Only with dramatic license, but I do sincerely admonish.  There are lessons yet to be learned, even, and especially, by the most learned amongst us. 

Matter bends space and time, but how?  How does the space-time manifold know how much it is supposed to bend?  That information must be communicated, somehow.  Communication implies a transmitter and a receiver.  Each elementary particle must be able to bend the entire universe, or else none will.   

[11/18] 

It seems that the choice is yours, and it is obligatory.  You will get stuck to a tar baby, and there are only two around.  There is the one made of atoms, and the other made of coherence.  You pick up on one and let the other ride.  All else is mere cacophony.  

The materialists are stuck with the atomic baby.  The more they struggle to overcome its incoherencies, the stickier it gets.  I have spoken of the ultraviolet catastrophe or incoherence.  We avoid an infinite mass for the electron by using the topology of supersymmetric non-Abelian gauge theory to turn the electron into a string of finite dimension, all eleven of them!  No mean feat! 

Next comes the infrared catastrophe.  This is just the flip side of the UV problem.  If I recall my history, the IR catastrophe was invoked prior to the advent of strings in order to explain quark confinement.  That was about its only ever useful attribute.  Otherwise, it spells nothing but Trouble.  Physicists like to brag about how they finally solved the UV problem (2,500 hits), but they are pretty quiet about the IR problem (400 hits). 

I see from the UV list, however, that I woefully neglected a major point.  The cousin, or actually grandfather, to the UV catastrophe is the UV cut-off in the black-body radiation spectrum.  

The Ultraviolet Catastrophe: 

The first crack in the edifice of classical physics came with attempts to explain the colour of hot objects using classical physics and electromagnetism. The light from these objects is a mixture of different frequencies (colours). Observations reveal that such objects have a distinctive spectrum (pattern of energy distribution at different frequencies). However attempts to explain this in classical terms failed abjectly - they predicted instead that the amount of energy would tend towards infinity at the high-energy (violet) end of the spectrum - an ultraviolet catastrophe.

It was Max Plank in 1900 who 'solved' this problem by introducing the Quantum of light.  Talk about the Big Sticky! 

The UV problem turns out to be almost single-handedly responsible for the shape of modern physics.  It is not subtle.  The IR problem is more subtle.  It is still sneaking up on us.  The UV problems provoked most of modern physics; the IR problem provokes only hand waving.  The UV problem is a photonic energy problem.  The IR problem is just a photonic, or, as in the following example, a gravitonic population problem.  It is also emblematic of the incoherence of atomism.  

Let us return to our communication problem.  Consider galactic superclusters.  Our Milky Way galaxy belongs to the Virgo supercluster.  Our local Andromeda group orbits within it.  The superclusters can be hundreds of millions of light years in dimension, and contain upwards of a hundred thousand galaxies, all moving under a mutual gravitational attraction.  Using high-school physics one may easily calculate a typical gravitational force exerted by the supercluster. 

Moving on to graduate level physics we would say, following Einstein, that the gravitational force is transmitted by the bending of the space-time manifold, i.e. it is a bulk property of the manifold.  Thus we have explained the phenomenon of supercluster gravitation.  Should we not leave well enough alone?  Perhaps we should have, but it is too late to turn back now.  This is the atomic tar-baby in action.  

The human mind seeks coherence, and this is true even for atomists.  They did achieve an enormous success with the Grand Unified Theory of Howard Georgi and Sheldon Glashow, based on SU(5) symmetry.  There was then, however, an irresistible temptation to quantize gravity.  There was no way that the atomists could have walked away from this challenge.  Only in retrospect might it be seen as leading to their undoing.  The intellectual juggernaut of scientific materialism was not about to stop on a dime.  And, besides, mere matter no longer mattered.  It was the mathematically besotted Pythagorean physicists who would now lead the materialist parade to the brink, like so many Pied Pipers.  Resistance was muted.  Could their followers not see the looming Monster?  There must have been great ambivalence inside the intellectual fortress of materialism, or was it hubris?  The atomic tar-baby was now disguised in a mathematical garment of ravishing elegance. 

Should we have been surprised by this turn of events?  

[I return to gravitons briefly below.] 

[11/19] 

Indeed, what might we have expected from science with some educated hindsight?  

Certainly the existence of atoms should have been no great surprise, having been anticipated for more than two millennia.  Predicting the existence of rudimentary chemical reactions forming molecular compounds from the elemental atoms was equally a no brainer.  

But could we have anticipated technology?  Certainly not in the first instance, but let us examine the question further.  If we had set out as materialists, in the footsteps of Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretius, etc., and not been distracted by Cartesian dualism, then we could have anticipated significant aspects of the Anthropic problem.  That is, without being able to appeal to a Creator or to an immaterial mind, there was going to be a lot of explaining to do.  There would be placed upon matter a heavy explanatory burden.  Without a Creator, there would have to be a gradual evolutionary process providing for the emergence of biological forms.  There could then be a partition of the explanatory burden between evolution and its physical base.  

Only gradually, over the course of science, has the enormous complexity of the world impressed itself upon our minds.  There are two domains of complexity: the physical and the biological.  Our understanding of the complexity in each of these domains has grown in an independent but parallel fashion.  In the process of attempting to explain one fact, more facts requiring explanation come to light.  As our technology evolves, our increasing observational acuity provides us with an ever more detailed picture of nature, with most every one of those details needing to be explained.  As the scope of our knowledge expands, there is an exponential increase in the possible correlations in our data, many of which manifest significant patterns.  

One of the potentially most significant correlations to be drawn is between biological and physical complexity.  To what degree may the biological complexity be taken to be independent of the physical?  Logically there must be some dependence, and the preliminary investigations of the anthropic problem indicate there could be a strong dependence.  It certainly should not be surprising that there would be.  

As our investigative tools become increasingly complex and sophisticated, the measurements they produce will be increasingly removed from and devoid of normal sensory experience.  The patterns produced will  correspondingly be recalcitrant to verbal description.  The abstract nature of the data, and the desire for greater precision, require the quantitative collection and treatment of it.  The resulting patterns will then only be amenable to mathematical treatment.  

We then have to inquire about the complexity of mathematics, and particularly concerning its correlation with biological and physical complexity.  What of our capacity for mathematical cognition?  A universal computer or Turing machine is, conceptually, an exceedingly simple device; yet, such devices are able to perform enormously complex feats of calculation and analysis.  Their complexity resides almost entirely in the software.  Mathematics could be an entirely learned skill.  The only issue would be the nature of our learning capacity.  The consensus is that our learning capacity is strongly correlated to the complexity of our nervous system. 

[11/20] 

It occurs to me that I may have been asking improper questions.  I have, for instance, asked how it is that mathematics and physics come to be related to each other.  That is not a proper question for an immaterialist.  The proper question is how did we come to think of them as being somehow separated.  Was it merely an accident of our intellectual history that we came to regard mathematics and physics as separate entities?  

The impropriety of this question came to light in the above discussion of complexity.  In the primal context there would not be separate types of complexity.  Ur-complexity, like the ur-cycle or Z-cycle, emerges from the Matrix all of a piece.  It is later that we come to see it as existing in diverse contexts.  Complexity is the entanglement of diversity.  A diverse Creation will necessarily be complex.  The complexity will appear in a holographic or holistic fashion.  Only as we analyze the holograph does the complexity takes on its analytic guises.  It could then appear in the form of the Mandelbrot, the Monster Group, proteomics, string theory, neuroscience, etc.  Complexity arises as we extract, or abstract the QRP from the AZO.  The emphasis here is on 'we'.  'We' designates the cosmic intelligence of which we humans may represent the greater part. 

This shift in emphasis from the part back to the whole may signal a significant shift in, or perhaps a tightening up of, our explanatory and narrational strategy, and that would certainly be the case with regard to the scientific aspect of the story.  It simply appears that I was not being sufficiently consistent in my storytelling.  I was too easily backsliding into the analytic, atomistic mindset.  Does this mean, however, that it will be more difficult to speak to the scientists?  That remains to be seen.  Inconsistency, though, is seldom beneficial, and especially not when communicating difficult ideas.  There will be some reshuffling here as our ducks get a realignment. 

It is the math/physics separation that we should be discussing, not the connection.  In regard to our strategy, perhaps a Piagetian approach to a developmental cosmic psychology would be appropriate.  On second thought, my dialectical, transactional, constructivist, structuralist approach to developmental cosmic psychology may be closer to that of Lev Vygotsky.  But let's drop the name dropping for a bit. 

The archetypes emerge in constructivist fashion, first AZO, then QRP, with the latter emergence being mediated by X.  The separation of Q & P is at issue, with their representation of physics and math, respectively.   Together, and along with the bio-cycles, R, they are, 'following' AZO, emerging from the Matrix.  It is the zodiacal transactions that do most of the pushing.  The incarnational aspect is being mediated by X into R, which then differentiates into physics and math.  

[11/21] 

I'm getting into even deeper water than usual.  I struggle, I flounder, but can I turn back?  

The zodiac speaks to phylogeny.  A, O & X speak to regeneration.  With R we have a reproductive ontogeny on the macro side of the bio-cycle.  X & Q speak to incarnation and the bridge between mind and matter.  Now we just have to take these, along with Pi, and spin a yarn, but I'm still missing the primal constructs for Q & P.  

Q & P are both involved with cycles, projections and symmetries, and let us not forget the quantum 'trinity' of e^i*pi.  But I still don't see a yarn.  Z & R are cycles, simpliciter.  A, O, X, Q and P are crucially and disparately involved in the completion of circuits.   P may be a stand-in for X in the mathematical domain.  The lack of full symmetry here may be crucial to the dynamic; however, Q & P may be related to A & O, respectively.   The Matrix, A and Q express potentiality, and exhibit indefiniteness.  They are sources of being.  Under the influence of Z, O, X, P and R, Creation is played out on various levels.  P operates through Q to enable R.  X, P, Q and R are strongly involved with anthropics and incarnation.  Pi, particularly in the form of e^i*pi, and operating on M & Q, generates the symmetries that are subsequently broken.  These symmetries include those of atomic and particle physics.  

[11/24] 

I will be away for a few days, and in the meantime I have been reviewing the role of memory.  I am further inclined to discount memory in favor of direct perception of other times.  Our singular Creation is forever.  Access to it is restricted to various modes.  Time asymmetry is subjective.  

I was going to say that the substance of atoms was related to memory, but that it too restrictive, by the foregoing atemporal hypothesis.  Now I can only reiterate that being is relative, mainly to the cosmic self.  This is the omnipresent cosmic self, of which we are the reflective agents.  Our participation in that presence has been greatly attenuated, but now it will becoming less so, as we gain in our gnosis.  Technology facilitates this change, but only at the behest of the spirit.  Our sense of temporality is a measure of the attenuation of our perceptions.  The archetypes should remain unscathed by this continued downplaying of the temporality of Creation.  The logical role of the Logos is unaffected by this issue.  The cyclical or circuitous nature of being is emphasized thereby. 

[12/2] 

Still struggling to line up my loose ducks.  The time away has left me with a desire to return to the basics of mind and matter, leaving alone the archetypes, for the nonce. 

Meanwhile,  I must note the recent review of Simon Conway Morris's new book, Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe.  It is a surprise to see Morris's explicitly theistic resurrection of a Lamarckian style of teleological convergence, even being neutrally reviewed in the NY Times.  He digs up many not previously collated examples of convergent evolution.  The Darwinians are accused of treating this evidence with a not so benign neglect.  The personal conflict between Darwin and Lamarck has left its scars on the history of biology.  Morris points to the 'self-congratulatory atheism' of many modern Darwinians.  He takes pains, however, to distance himself from the creationists. 

One reviewer takes Morris to task for not giving sufficient credence to the self-organizing ability of matter.  We are entitled to wonder anthropically, however, about the extent to which this ability must be based upon the intricacy of the mathematical symmetries which actually comprise what we so glibly refer to as 'matter'.  Where would biochemistry be without the Monster as its platform? 

A notable link between mind and matter lies in the notion of complexity.  The epistemology and ontology of complexity must be closely correlated.  Mathematical complexity resides on this divide.  Scientific realism pushes us to the side of ontology, even at the expense of forcing us to embrace Pythagoreanism.  Why so much complexity in the world?   Is there an optimal complexity?  How does the value of diversity weigh into this equation?  Are our seven archetypes sufficient to account for the complexity?  

[12/3] 

I find this abstract (Complexity International, 2001) useful, coming from a pickle maker, no less, Russell Standish: 

Numerous definitions for complexity have been proposed over the last half century, with little consensus achieved on how to use the term. A definition of complexity is supplied here that is closely related to the Kolmogorov Complexity and Shannon Entropy measures widely used as complexity measures, yet addresses a number of concerns raised against these measures.  However, the price of doing this is to introduce context dependence into the definition of complexity. It is argued that such context dependence is an inherent property of complexity, and related concepts such as entropy and emergence. Scientists are uncomfortable with such context dependence, which smacks of subjectivity, and this is perhaps the reason why little agreement has been found on the meaning of these terms.

And from the same paper: 

Emergence is that other area of complex systems study that has experienced controversy and confusion. Its importance stems from the belief that emergence is the key ingredient that makes a system a complex system. Putting things colloquially, emergence is the concept of some new phenomenon arising in a system that wasn’t in the system’s specification to start with. There is some considerable debate as to how this happens, or whether emergence can truly happen within a formal system such as an agent-based model Rosen, 1999; Funtowicz and Ravetz, 1994.

These references lead me to a Virginia locale (VCU, VT (N.B. the ouroboric logo)) for biosemiotics.  This might provide us, over here, with a counterweight to Santa Fe.  A site search at Santa Fe for biosemiotics comes up empty handed.  This is more than a bit odd, more than just an oversight.  

The ouroboros is used above as a symbol of semantic closure.  What is the simplest system exhibiting this property?  According to Godel, it is just the arithmetic system.  This is not quite accurate.  

According to Alexei Sharov: 

Biologists may ask why to use semiotic terminology in simple population models? In particular, why to talk about semantic closure instead of self-reproduction? "Self-reproduction" seems to be a convenient term that does not have uncertainties associated with signs or semantics. But this simplicity is illusive; self-reproduction includes the word "self" which comes from the field of semiotics rather than physics or biology. In the process of self-reproduction, an organism defines itself; in other words, self is what is preserved in the process of self-reproduction. Self-reproduction is simultaneously a process of self-measurement, self-interpretation, and communication from parents to offspring.

Semantic closure entails the big R, as in AZO/X/QRP.  The minimally complex system exhibiting self-referential symmetry in a metabolic context would entail QRP.  

But what is communication and what are signs? We are used to these terms because we use signs in our everyday life. But is it possible to define a sign without referencing to humans? I am going to show that this is possible using the conception of semantic closure (Pattee 1995). 

I demur: thus X.  The simplest 'autonomous' system would include X/QRP.  And why metabolism?  The quick answer invoked symmetry.  The only way to go much beyond the complexity of Z is to use the ordering principles of space-time.  Relationalism in this context is enforced through metabolic constraints, as in R.  The aesthetics of naturalism quickly lead to anthropics and then to MG and so back to Pi.  I am just reminding myself of the BPW aspects of complexity.  There would be no need for greater complexity unless we wanted to go beyond our allotted 10^10 souls.  There are ample aesthetic reasons to restrain ourselves in this respect. 

Back to mind and matter.  Does complexity entail mind, or is it spontaneously emergent?  As Alexei proposes, might we have semantic closure without X?  Even the most radical biosemioticians, at best, seem only to invoke a diluted panpsychism, not unlike the quantum mind crowd.  I must show that panpsychism is incoherent.  Of course, I have been arguing this all along.

Let's see what Howard Pattee has to say, Artificial life needs a real epistemology (1995): :

Life is peculiar, said Jeremy. As compared with what? asked the spider. 

When a problem persists, unresolved, for centuries in spite of enormous increases in our knowledge, it is a good bet that the problem entails the nature of knowledge itself. The nature of life is one of these problems. Life depends on matter, but life is not an inherent property of matter. Life is peculiar, obviously, because it is so different from nonliving matter. It is different, not so obviously, because it realizes an intrinsic epistemic cut between the genotype and phenotype. Our knowledge of physics, chemistry, molecular biology, genetics, development, and evolution is enormous, but the question persists: Do we really understand how meaning arises from matter? Is it clear why nonliving matter following inexorable universal laws should acquire symbolic genes that construct, control, and evolve new functions and meanings without apparent limit? In spite of all this knowledge, most of us still agree with Jeremy.

A good statement of the problem. 

Metaphysical questions, like whether reality is material, formal, or mental, are empirically undecidable, but nevertheless, discussion of these concepts are an important part of scientific discovery. Historically we have seen concepts of reality shifting ground and new horizons discovered, especially with the advent of quantum theory, computation theory, and cosmology. The question is: Can artificial life add some new ideas to the problem of knowledge and the epistemic cut or will it only increase the confusion?

Ditto.  My quarrel with the biosemioticians is that they do not take relations and holism with sufficient seriousness.  My contention is that the minimal semantic (ouroboric) closure is just AZO/X/QRP.  Attend to the singularity of the BPW.  There can be no lesser worlds than the BPW.  Even I had been wondering if God would need to intervene to abort lesser (spontaneous?) creations.  I think not.  They would be self-abortive.  Relationally, they could exist only as appendages to the BPW.  Their only identity would be in their functional relevance to the BPW, e.g. certain angelic orders.  Otherwise any contingently incorporated selves are welcome to join the big metabolic party.  Such subsystems exist mainly in the cosmic imagination, e.g. Jurassic Parc.  The BPW is unanalyzable.  Our AZO/X/QRP mnemonic is just that, a mnemonic. 

Occasionally Pi threatens to detach itself from our metabolic party, in some Platonic fashion.  Not to worry, God keeps Pi on a short leash, or, at least, in a small boat.  In short, the BPW is its own relational tar baby.  You can't live without it.  It would be like taking a fish out of water, or a materialist out of a space-time manifold.  

It seems as if the world could fall apart at any minute.  The more realistic concern is that it might fall together.  But neither is truly possible.  All things in due course, i.e. according to script.  If you wish to see an atomized God, just look in the mirror.  

Speaking of atoms, perhaps I should reiterate the graviton problem.  How does it differ from the photon problem?  What is the difference between seeing stars and being gravitationally attracted to them, from a purely (fictitious!) physical perspective?  The retina can do a sum over photons to allow perception of the dimmest stars.  Not too big a deal.  Photonic emission and absorption are strictly a surface phenomena, and they involve putatively real photons.  Gravity is a volume phenomenon involving putatively virtual gravitons.  There is no emission to speak of, or even to think about.  The gravitons hang in the air, probabilistically.  Who calculates the probabilities?  That's my problem.  Strictly, this is not different for photons, but it underlines the problem in the most emphatic manner possible.  

One can do the mathematical physics of a sand pile, without seemingly having to invoke any notion of micro-computation on the part of the individual grains.  They just do their physical stuff.  But in speaking of quarks and virtual gravitons, we must appeal to much more abstract symmetries.  Each potential interaction necessarily invokes the whole of the Monster Group, which, recall, is quite as bulky as Jupiter.  The number of potential types of interaction at any instant is then the bulk of Jupiter times the bulk of the Super Cluster emission volume, measured also in quarks.  If you think that Times Square is busy, well, think about what is going on in the micro space of every single quark in your body, 24x7.  This is panpsychism with a terrible vengeance.  Imagine trying to describe this to a child.  Would she not think you were pulling her leg?  By God, somebody around here is doing a lot of leg pulling, and if you think it's me, well, better check again!  Can no one else see that this King is naked?  Here endeth the graviton story.  

But we must go beyond panpsychism.  Three centuries of science have been expended in removing the psyche from nature.  Its success remains controversial.  The psyche is slippery.  It keeps slipping back in.  It seems to haunt every dark corner, and some corners that aren't so dark.  It keeps being swept under the rug, but soon it piles up, for all but the doggedly oblivious. 

Nature has been carved into myriad specialized fields.  None of the fields logically overlaps.  On every boundary accumulate the leavings of the psyche.  The apparent messiness of the academic situation is simply an artifact of the analytic process, pushed well beyond its design limits.  We proceed to trace the leavings of the psyche, attempting to track it into its lair. 

The fact of the matter is that we can define neither complexity nor computation objectively.  They are ineluctably functional and normative.   Thus the biosemiotic loop must include the subject.  Panpsychism does not fit this bill.  It is not sufficiently relational or holistic.  The Telos may not be deconstructed.  It is an all or nothing proposition.  We cannot look our gifted, ouroboric Telos in the mouth.  All cycles are a spin-off of Z.  Every one is functional and contextual; none can exist beyond the orbit of the Big Seven.  That is truly beyond the pale.  

The biosemioticians would like to take their holism in measured doses.  Someone will finally convince them that immaterialism is not a twelve-step program.  There is an emphatic gestalt switch here which may not be avoided.  You either get it or you don't.  When it comes to breaking the habit of materialism, you just have to go cold-turkey.  

Why does our millenarian script have to include this quantum jump of the mind?  Frankly it makes for a better story, IMO.  We have to turn over a new leaf.  This was meant to be a dramatic cosmos.  And it is.  Even the most refined of equilibria must be punctuated on occasion.  This is one of those.  This will be our paradigmatic asteroid, out of the blue.  

Will this trauma be too much for the collective psyche?  It will push the envelope of our 'sanity' to its limits.  That is just how it was designed from the git go.  We are given the opportunity to clear the pipes of our psyches.  This is an opportunity we will not wish to refuse.  Waking up from the slumber of materialism will require more than a gentle tap.  But we must be confident that the only violence will be to our misconceiving egos.  There will be no call for, or tolerance of, any other duress. 

What about the more colloquial or mundane adjuncts of materialism?  I would like to have more to say about the cultural aspects of the Millennium, but I am not feeling disposed to transgress my metaphysical calling, for whatever it may be worth.  Once we see the general direction we're headed, the path will be relatively easy to discern. 

In the terminology of Howard Pattee, if the epistemic cut is arbitrary, then we have no business making it at all.  The incoherence of the epistemic cut is simply the incoherence of Cartesian dualism.  The further we push that cut into matter, the more we must appeal to a unifying cosmic psyche. There is no such thing as half a psyche.  Even the dimmest of psyches must partake of that logical whole.  Only its access is limited.  

Semantic closure must finally be all inclusive.  The many sub-loops can convey only partial or tentative meaning and information.  The further that any loop becomes detached from the totality, the less becomes its coherence.  This all inclusiveness is just the hallmark of natural intelligence as opposed to its artificial interlopers.  Accept no substitutes. 

[12/4] 

Howard Pattee, Evolving self-reference: matter, symbols, and semantic closure (1993): 

A theory of emergent or open-ended evolution that is consistent with the epistemological foundations of physical theory and the logic of self-reference requires complementary descriptions of the material and symbolic aspects of events. The matter-symbol complementarity is explained in terms of the logic of self-replication, and physical distinction of laws and initial conditions. Physical laws and natural selection are complementary models of events. Physical laws describe those invariant events over which organisms have no control. Evolution by natural selection is a theory of how organisms increase their control over events. A necessary semantic closure relation is defined relating the material and symbolic aspects of organisms capable of open-ended evolution.

Howard was considered courageous among biologists just for attempting to delve into these murky issues.  I now have to refute his bold effort. 

[...] self-reference that has open-ended evolutionary potential is an autonomous closure between the dynamics (physical laws) of the material aspects and the constraints (syntactic rules) of the symbolic aspects of a physical organization. I have called this self-referent relation semantic closure (Pattee, 1982) because only by virtue of the freely selected symbolic aspects of matter do the law-determined physical aspects of matter become functional (i.e., have survival value, goals, significance, meaning, self-awareness, etc.). 

I have emphasized in many papers (e.g., Pattee, 1969, 1972, 1982) that the matter-symbol distinction is not only an objective basis for defining life but a necessity condition for open-ended evolution.

Like all dualisms, this must be incoherent. Is not a symbol just about the least objective thing in the world?  

Biologists call this matter-symbol distinction the phenotype and genotype. Computationalists call this the hardware-software distinction. Philosophers elevate this distinction to the brain-mind problem. What is not as well known is that even in the formulation of physical theories a form of matter-symbol distinction is necessary to separate laws and initial conditions.

Nice try, Howard.  

For my argument here, I will mean by matter and energy those aspects of our experience that are normally associated with physical laws. These laws describe those events that are as independent of the observer as possible, i.e., independent of initial conditions. The laws themselves are moot until we provide the initial conditions by a process of measurement. Laws and measurements are necessarily distinct categories. Laws do not make measurements, individuals make measurements. Measurement is an intentional act that has local significance and hence involves symbolic aspects usually in the form of a numerical record. This is the physical basis of the matter-symbol distinction.

You have just begged the whole issue, Howard.  Since when is a measurement physical?  In that sense, initial conditions are not physical, they are normative.  Laws are also symbolic and normative.  Where is the distinction?  Where is the physics?  If there is any physics, which I doubt, it must be a Kantian noumenon.  Everything you speak of is phenomenal.  The initial condition for the cosmos must be something like our AZO/X/QRP.  Nothing less will ever fly.  Nothing less could have semantic closure.  There is no epistemic cut.  Everything is episteme.  The only substance to the world is its relational coherence.  That coherence is the present noumenon and then the ultimate phenomenon, as it is finally, eschatologically revealed.  

From the origin of life and evolutionary perspective the most difficult problem is how material structures following physical laws with no function or significance were gradually harnessed by syntactical rules to provide function and significance as symbols (e.g., Pattee, 1969; 1992). I will not say much more about the origin problem here. For several reasons, one of which is its difficulty, the origin of symbols is not considered one of the central problems in any area of philosophy or science. Another reason is that for most scientific models it is not necessary to know the nature or origin of symbols. Natural language, logic, mathematical symbol systems, and computers are most commonly treated simply as well-developed tools, and for most models there is no need to ask how they originated.

Thank you for your honesty, Howard.  But is this not throwing in the towel?  Are you not then whistling in the dark?  How will you know if you are looking at the problem backwards, upside down and inside out? You are ripping out some of the scraps, treating them entirely out of context, all in the name of scientific progress.  Why not just give coherence a chance? 

[...] Material reductions are certainly one necessary type of model for understanding symbol systems.

However, I am not a reductionist in the sense of those who claim that symbols are "nothing but" matter. "Nothing but" implies that the only model that is required to understand symbols is a complete materialist or physical law model. Reductionists are generally happy when they have discovered the material correlates of higher level behavior. My position is that no complete physical description of these material structures, although correct in all details, will tell us all we need to know about their symbolic function.  

[...] I will only elaborates on the well-established value of using complementary models without entering into the undecidable metaphysical issue of which model represents reality. Complementary models are well- known in physics. Particle and wave, microscopic and macroscopic, deterministic and stochastic, coarse and fine grained, reversible and irreversible models are necessary for fully understanding any complex system. Rosen (1977) has usefully defined a measure of system complexity by the number of models that we require to adequately under stand its behavior.

Well, somebody will eventually have to address the metaphysics.  To assume that you can do the physics without the metaphysics is to presuppose a non-contextuality.  This is just to prejudge the whole ball game. 

Symbols are difficult to define in any simple way because symbols are functional, and function cannot be ascribed to local structures in isolation. The concept of symbol, like the more general concept of function, has no intrinsic meaning outside the context of an entire symbol system [...] 

The concepts of closure and entirety are virtually synonymous.  Gnosis and coherence are all or nothing.  We are able to survive on scraps of knowledge only because the noumenal coherence acts as our invisible hand, on all levels of our existence.  We put up with ignorance only because we can imagine no alternative. 

The reason that laws cannot describe symbol function, or any function, is because we specifically restrict physical laws to describe only those properties of matter that are, by principles of invariance and symmetry, as independent of observers and individual measurements as possible, as I stated in Sec. 2. This is necessary to achieve the characteristic universality of laws. Symbols, by contrast, are generated with few physical restrictions but are eventually selected for their contribution to the survival of individual units in a local environment.

Is the contradiction in these two sequential definitions of symbol not perfectly stark?  For Howard, contextuality seems entirely fungible.  Survival is sometimes a local issue.  Evolution, by definition, cannot be.  By not paying attention to the metaphysics, Howard loses the thread of any logic.  Without a compass, you are bound to walk in circles.  

Of course if one believes that everything is a computation, or that by improving simulations they will eventually become realizations then one sees no matter-symbol problem (Pattee, 1988). At the other extreme there are physical reductionists who see symbols only as an illusion, like phlogiston and the ether, that will be unnecessary when an adequate material description of symbolic behavior is found (e.g., Churchland, 1981; Crick, 1993). 

From Complexity to Simplicity: Nature and Symbols, Arantza Etxeberria & Alvaro Moreno (1999): 

The question is: do control constraints arise spontaneously? Many researchers expect that the science of the future will explain the evolutionary transition leading to closed organizations solely by means of physical, dynamical theories, such as self-organization. Although this may seem to be the ideal kind of explanation, Pattee’s work, in fact, aims to show that such explanation is not possible, because there are in principle problems to reconstruct the causal sequence leading to the production of a control hierarchy and its typical interactions. 

I'd like to see someone pick up on this point.  It is not clear from this statement whether the problem is only epistemological or is actually ontological.  Is Pattee alleging that the origin of constraints is a case of 'strong emergence'? 

Once again I find that biosemioticians are masters in the avoidance of metaphysical commitment.  The state of the art of this avoidance may be witnessed in a collection of essays noted just one year ago.  This avoidance is in the venerable tradition of the 'linguistic turn' in philosophy where the strategy is to talk every problem to death.  Is this not what semantics is for: Rhetoric? 

[12/5] 

Organicism, functionalism and biosemiotics are non-reductive in a similar fashion.  They take emergent properties seriously, while downplaying their ontological commitments.  They must all, however, deal with with the problem of closure.  It is here that they stumble.  Howard Pattee emphasizes closure more than the others, and yet he fails to do it justice.  Closure is a more emphatic instance of holism.  It embraces coherence.  

The bone I must pick is with the notion of partial or local closure.  There is the local pluralism of Pattee & Co., or there is the global monism of the BPW sort.  When Quine introduced semantic holism to the philosophical community, it was not of the partial or local variety.  Anything less than a complete holism ought to verge on the oxymoronic, one would think.  Yet, somehow, the problem of completeness has eluded the biosemioticians.  The reason must be that they remain committed to evolution.  They see biological holism or organicism as an emergent property.  It is something that can reemerge and operate in a local context.  

More directly put, the biosemioticians remain anti-teleological.  In like manner, they eschew vitalism.  To do otherwise would be to invite a confrontation with the biological establishment, a development that this already fringe group could ill-afford.  Into their silence, we must venture. 

Naturalism is the defining term here: 

Naturalism, as a larger category than materialism, can give a more credible account for moral realism than the narrower thesis of materialism. Naturalists that allow for essences and teleology can account for morality as part of human flourishing and natural properties of the universe, but this requires a pluralist ontology. Naturalism in a classic sense of this word (ala Aristotle) is a "thick" naturalism that holds that things have natures and essences. Value is irreducible to physical properties. Value, such as moral properties, can be found in natures; fact and value are linked, and morality flows from this view. It is metaphysically and normatively rich.

The teleology (a) mentioned here must be highly restricted: a minimalist teleology.  This 'thick' naturalism is what the biosemioticians are attempting to reintroduce, as a pluralistic counter to reductive, monistic materialism, or simply physicalism.  That there is a slippery slope from naturalism to supernaturalism is evidenced by the wariness with which the materialists treat these back-sliding neo-naturalists. 

Let us reconsider Quine's language model.  Natural language is the model of a complete, holistic system, and, yet, supposedly, it did evolve ex nihilo.  It is an entirely emergent system.  Or is it?  Once again, I must demur.  

I submit that natural language could have evolved only in the context of a organismic or holistic natural intelligence, only in a society of conscious agents.  I apply the same model to the 'emergence' of biology.  I do not accept the notion that language and thought are synonymous.  There must exist archetypes of the form of AZO/X/QRP well beyond the confines of space and time, as the necessarily anthropic context of Creation.    

Jaegwon Kim's critique of non-reductive physicalism still stands, but his 1989 'Myth of Non-reductive Materialism' is not available online.  Instead, we may examine William Hasker's How Not To Be A Reductivist, (2003): 

"Non-reductive" accounts of mentality are relatively common these days; it is widely recognized that certain kinds of reductivism should be avoided. However, on closer examination it often turns out that these accounts are reductive after all in a way that undermines the significance of mentality - and, it will be argued, results in a position that is in the end simply untenable. Not being a reductivist requires going further in the other direction than a great many philosophers are willing to go. 

Bill has an interesting thesis, but first I must apologize for missing an important book: The Last Word by Thomas Nagel (1997).  Check out the last chapter, "Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion," by searching on 'religion':  

My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about life, including everything about the human mind. Darwin enabled modern secular culture to heave a great collective sigh of relief, by apparently providing a way to eliminate purpose, meaning, and design as fundamental features of the world. (p. 131) 

And this coming from a staunch anti-theist.  Then referring to Charles Peirce's fervent naturalism: 

The reason I call this view alarming is that it is hard to know what world picture to associate it with, and difficult to avoid the suspicion that the picture will be religious, or quasi-religious. . . . Even without God, the idea of a natural sympathy between the deepest truths of nature and the deepest layers of the human mind, which can be exploited to allow gradual development of a truer and truer conception of reality, makes us more at home in the universe than is secularly comfortable. (pp. 129-30)

[...] I suspect there is a deep seated aversion in the modern "disenchanted" Weltanschauung to any ultimate principles that are not dead -- that is, devoid of any reference to the possibility of life or consciousness. (p. 133) 

But as Mark Johnson has said to me, if one asks, ‘Why is the natural order such as to make the appearance of rational beings likely?’ it is very difficult to imagine any answer to the question that is not teleological" (p. 138 n.).

Thomas is not pulling any punches here.  Certainly there is a refreshing honesty coming from the academic heartland, a turn that I had almost discounted.  

[12/6] 

As effectively as anyone, William Hasker and Thomas Nagel have described the awkwardness of academia's attempt to disentangle itself from the centuries of its deconstructive reductionism.  The slipperiness of the reconstructive slope is what makes this incipient back-sliding so problematic for the otherwise thoroughly secular mind.  Once you let the teleological genie out of its bottle, God only knows what havoc may be wrought.  

In grappling with teleology you are, very simply, grappling with a tar-baby.  My entire thesis is just that there can be no teleology without a singular Telos, which, quite logically, is precisely the BPW.  It is not particularly controversial to point out that virtually any form of non-reductionism is latently, if not patently, teleological.  Thus it is impossible for the materialists to retreat into a 'thick' naturalism without finding themselves falling under the influence of the Great Attractor that is the Telos.  Kim and Nagel acknowledge this fact reluctantly, Hasker enthusiastically.  The rest of the intelligentsia?  They remain stoically silent.  Something will break their silence, and not long hence. 

We ought to wonder where are William's theological colleagues.  The paper to which I have referred has been published by ISCID &ff., ironically an organization with which I recently interacted.  Perhaps we can trace Bill's theological connections through it.  Two of his books were previously published by IVP, and two others by Cornell.  This is hardly a low profile theologian.  Here is a critique of his 'emergent dualism'.  Let me examine the ISCID journal for any other traces of the Great Attractor.  

The first paper in the same issue as William's is Timothy O'Connor's Groundwork for an Emergentist Account of the Mental.  He defends an ontological account of emergence in place of the more prevalent epistemological accounts.  As for the reason for the disparity: 

(I have the impression in discussing this matter with other philosophers that many think that if there were emergent properties, they would be ubiquitous in nature, appearing at many or all importantly unified levels of natural organization. This strikes me as a groundless judgment.) More generally, the commitment to micro-reducibility, particularly among philosophers, is partly an overreaction to the now falsified crude conception of levels of nature propounded by early emergentists, one based in a much simpler picture of higher-level phenomena than we have at present.

Well, pardon my 'false crudeness'.  So much for coherence!  On the last two pages of the paper, Tim grapples with the emergence of selves:  

Taking the phenomena of freedom of choice seriously brings yet further difficulties. It appears to involve the idea of a fundamentally personal causal capacity to initiate behavior for the sake of reasons. If there is such a capacity in normally-functioning, mature human beings, one should be able to determine the precise underlying properties on which this distinctive capacity depends. Conversely, what structural transformations in the human nervous system would result in long-standing (or permanent) loss of this capacity? 

Is there to be a recognizable personal self in Tim's ontology?  If so, is that not a folksy or 'crude' kind of emergence?  He seems to waffle on this point.  If one admits a unified human self, have not the worst fears of the materialists and secularists very nearly been realized? 

In the third paper in this issue, Functionalism Without Physicalism: Outline of an Emergentist Program, Robert  Koons defends his own 'neo-functionalism': 

There are two critical differences between Functionalism and Neo-Functionalism. First, as I have said above, Neo-Functionalism rejects the causal closure of the domain of first-order physical states. Neo-Functionalism embraces genuine, emergent downward causation, causation that makes an ineliminable difference to the objective chance of physical events. Second, unlike Functionalism, Neo- Functionalism is not committed to denying that mental states lack any intrinsic character. For Neo-Functionalism, higher-order, mental and other teleological states are first-class citizens of the ontology, not an ontological free lunch. These higher-order properties have instances in their own right -- they are not merely instantiated by virtue of the instantiation of other, first-order properties.

It would be hard to be more ontologically committed than this.  

In fact, in Realism Regained, I gave several arguments for thinking that it is effect-tropes that necessitate their causes, and not vice versa.

Can anyone be more blatantly teleological?  Robert goes on to employ the Principle of Least Action (LAP) in physics as a model for mentally mediated teleology.  This is his TPE, Teleological Propensity Enhancement, model.  Darn, why didn't I think of that?  Indeed, our BPW may be viewed as a ramified LAP/TPE on the cosmic level.  I had better flesh this out, in due course.  I do speak only semi-facetiously of God's laziness, or, more accurately, her minimalist proclivity w.r.t. Creation.  This is just the Tom (Becky?) Sawyer model of Creation.  

I'm getting a clearer picture now of why my rear end got canned over at the ISCID forum back when.  There is some pretty direct competition going down here.  They promote a piecemeal paradigm shift.  I'm holding out for a piece of prophetic drama, i.e. millenarian revelation.  You takes your choice and you places your bet.  Where's Jimmy the Greek when we need him?  Les jeux sont fait? 

Robert may just be my most formidable competition in this moderate crowd.  But where does he sit w.r.t. the BPW?  His evolutionary ontogeny ('emergent dualism'?) is pretty much in the mold of the moderate ASA.  When the IDers latch onto this Neo-functionalism and TPE business, they are more likely to make a federal (cosmic, cosmogonic) case out of it.  They're not going to like the BPW metaphysics, but it won't be so easy for them to avoid it, especially not if I have anything to say about it.  Are they not already out sniffing in these precincts? 

[12/7] 

The ones who are missing in action are the Christian idealists, i.e. Jack & Co. at Oxford, not to mention Owen.  Have they left no remnant?  Even the Christian Science immaterialists have fallen on hard times.  The closest to such a remnant, outside of the pantheist tradition, may be the New Thought Movement of 'religious idealists'.  It now seems to include some process theology as well.  Actually I'm impressed with this NTM home page.  What's going on here?  Has the action picked up since their Bicentennial conference?  I notice, however, that Alan's featured New Thought Alliance links (Clearwater, Scientology??) are inactive.  At present, the NTM seems to exist mainly in Alan's mind.  It would take some sleuthing to find another focus.  And while on the subject of Christian idealism, consider this review of a critique of Jacob Böhme.  It may be that transcendentalism remains the primary refuge of theistic idealism.  My hometown of Concord, MA, was once its radical source on these shores.  However, transcendentalism seems to have devolved into a diffuse literary movement whose main successor was theistic existentialism.  

Consider, however, American idealism (3,700 hits).  Here is an excellent set of reviews (August 2003) (mostly from the British perspective) of this Anglo-American tradition.  The roster is impressive, and one can catch a sense of excitement in many of the abstracts.  Clearly there is a sense of movement and anticipation.  Let us not disappoint.  We need to get hold of these papers.  It almost seems to have been a revival meeting!  Leslie Armour is a contemporary (Canadian) idealist of note.  The dearth of U.S. participation here or the lack of an equivalent domestic collection may be significant.  

I will need to review McTaggart: 

J. M. E. McTaggart would readily qualify as a personalist on the grounds that he held that ultimate reality consists of a society of persons. But his personalism is deflationary since he does not recognise the necessity for one controlling Person. He recognises the Absolute, but this Absolute is not a person. It is a unity of persons but not a personal unity. Second, an attempts is made to point out that J. M. E. McTaggart is negative on the idea of a personal , creative God. To affirm the reality of a creative God would mean to affirm the reality of time - and this is something that he rejects.

One can see why evangelicals are wary of idealism.  My effort to resolve these potential contradictions remains to be tested.  My absolute is the Matrix, a proto-person.  Now there's an ugly expression!  

In the meantime, and in parallel, I am reexamining Thoughts on Thinking Matter by James Barham, the self-same paper that got me into trouble on the ISCID forum.  Is the gap between biosemiotics and idealism conceptual or just professional in nature?  

The Anglo-American version was the last refuge of the continental Idealism that focused on Hegel.  This refuge, however, was wasted by the World Wars.  It seems that the fates of Idealism and idealism are closely related.  Can the former be revived in the midst our anti-idealist zeitgeist.  That is the trick.  And you must see Thomas Friedman's American Idol on this latter.  

A connection between Robert Koons and the IDers is Robert's lengthy review of William Dembski's book, No Free Lunch (2001): 

As new data about the specified complexity pours in, especially from computer-driven analyses of the functional regions in the configurational space of proteins, the informational challenge to Darwinism should soon reach a critical level. At that point, even the best efforts by the biological establishment to squash this challenge through name-calling, bullying, and stonewalling (which have already been so much in evidence) will be doomed to failure.

There is no doubt of Robert's creationist sympathies.  His espousal of their cause is not reciprocated, however.  The IDers and creationists pay scant attention to the more subtle philosophical issues being raised by Koons & Co.  The IDers posture themselves as hard-nosed scientists and wish to engage in a direct confrontation with their materialist colleagues.  From their perspective, philosophy just muddies the waters.  I have noted on previous occasions that the creationists are emphatic Cartesian dualists.  Their God is the big Mechanic in the sky.  The Matrix is the very last thing they want to hear about.  So, no, I don't think we should hold our breath waiting for the creationists to become born again immaterialists or non-dualists.  We'll have to look elsewhere for co-conspirators.  

[12/8] 

We might wonder whether there are any other non-dualistic creationists on the Internet: 

non-dualistic creationist OR non-dualistic theist OR non-dualistic theism OR non-dualistic creationism (0 hits).

Not yet, evidently.  What will it take to turn this situation around?  

It is one of the great, if not the greatest, historical ironies that (Western) rationalism bases itself on the irrationality of dualism, while it is the 'mystics' who have adopted the coherence of non-dualism as the basis of their mysticism.  It is as if there were an historical conspiracy to avoid, until the propitious time, the only possible foundation for coherence and rationality: non-dualistic theism.  It must be part of the script of our self-concealing, self-revealing, dramaturgical God.  

The Hindu creation story comes closest to what I have in mind.  Here is a quote from Joseph Campbell: 
Vishnu is pictured as the divine dreamer of the world dream. Vishnu sleeps on a great serpent, whose name is Ananta [ouroboros, no doubt], which means “Endless.” The serpent floats on the universal ocean, called the Milky Ocean. But this Milky Ocean and the Serpent and the sleeping God: these are all the same thing. They are three inflections of the same thing, and that thing can be thought of also as the subtle substance that the wind of the mind stirs into action when the universe of all these shifting forms is brought into being. Vishnu, the God, sleeps, and the activity of his mind stuff creates dreams, and we are all his dream: the world is Vishnu’s dream. And just as, in your dreams, all the images that you behold and all the people who appear are really manifestations of your own dreaming power, so are we all manifestations of Vishnu’s dreaming power. We are no more independent entities than the dream figures in our own dreams.

Howard Abrams then appends his own thoughts: 

Do I really think we are nothing more than God’s dream? Perhaps. There are plenty of rabbinical and mythological references to God who dreams, thinks, or speaks, and the things come to be. Not much different, I suppose. I know, that is not the unsettling question here- Do I think we are not substantial, like a dream? Perhaps. Would explain a bit, don’t you agree?

But I like to put this myth on its sleepy head… is this world just an expression of our own dreams? A figment of our imagination. Clearly, our perception and interpretation is nothing more than cerebral projections on the stimulation of our senses. But this idea doesn’t diminish their worth!

I’ve always been a big fan of science fiction that alters our perception of reality. And it is nice that movies are trying to render those ideas, like that Truman Show or The Matrix. Does questioning reality, make it any less real? Perhaps. But it certainly makes it richer. 

I agree.  The only problem with the mystical tradition is that it eschews the obvious logic of the BPW.  Only the prophetic tradition posits a unique Creation, which by implication must be the best possible world.  The only problem with creationism is that it has become the exclusive domain, simply by intellectual default, of the very literal minded fundamentalists.  Their literalism forces them into a dualistic, almost mechanistic interpretation of Creation.  Theirs is the 'watchmaker' God.  It will be a struggle to wrest Creation from their very tight grip.  No, it will be a stealth operation, carried out right under their noses, here on the Internet.  I know that I cannot be the only one in the world who is willing to gamble everything on coherence.  I just keep blogging away here until that someone else shows up.  Then I can retire.  Right? 

Vishnu & dream & world (17,000 hits).  This is hardly an obscure idea on the Internet.  So why does no one else in the prophetic tradition see this as the ticket to avoid our three-century-long struggle with the antinomies of Cartesian dualism?  Does not everyone agree that the mind-brain problem is the unparalleled conundrum of modernism?  There must be some great psychological barrier standing between us and coherence.  Is it an unconscious fear of the eschatological implications concerning a final cosmic revelation?  Anything less could hardly account for the magnitude of our aversion to what would otherwise be the most obvious of ideas. 

[12/9] 

I'm thinking further about the historical irony concerning monism, dualism, mysticism and rationalism, and especially about the choreography thereof. 

Of all the spiritual luminaries in history, two personalities stand out: Buddha and Jesus.  Have I not forgotten many other outstanding spiritual leaders: Mohammed, Moses, Lao Tse, Zoroaster, etc., etc.?  Yes, and no.  I'm just looking at the body count, or, more specifically at the effigy count.  After Buddha and Jesus, who has the most effigies?  I frankly have no idea.  But this is unfair, you say.  An Islamic effigy is a sacrilege.  We could say that Mohammed was a modest being, but then perhaps, to paraphrase Winston, he had much reason for modesty.  What were his reasons?  Really just one reason: he was, by his own repeated admonition, just the messenger.  Such was not the case with our dynamic duo.  In both instances the medium emphatically was the message.  

Reconsider our 'lazy', or least-action principled, optimizing Matrix.  The dramaturgical nature of M is manifested in Z, the zodiacal cycle of psyches.  We, along with our feathered and furry friends, are the incarnation of Z.  Is that not enough drama?  No.  There has to be a plot line, a story, a metanarrative, a beginning, middle and end, if there is to be coherence.  What then is the story, and who has the speaking parts?  To a first approximation there is just the Hero.  Between X and B, that figure is clearly X.  What then of B and Mo, etc.?  They have the supporting, conflicting roles.  They provide the romantic-gothic twists and turns and flourishes.  

What then is our hero?  That depends on the optimal story-line.  Can there be a better line than the soteriological one?  We're still open to suggestions, anyone?  Lacking such: hero = savior.  This is not brain surgery, now is it? 

And where do we place our protagonist: beginning, middle or end?  Should X not have been at the end?  Admittedly, this does get a bit tricky, but, to make a long story short, X goes in the middle, with the caveat of a another, final appearance.  X is then bracketed mainly with B and Mo.  To understand the convolutions of history, we had best start with this peculiar seeming bracketing.  

The bracketing is mainly in the furtherance of diversity.  With only this one BPW, we will need to work overtime to squeeze every last drop of diversity out of it.  Does this not contradict the LAP?  Yes, and no.  Consider the gothicity of the Mandelbrot (z' = z^2 + C).  Our mandel-braided world optimizes diversity and simplicity at the same time, using the generating formula of AZO/X/QRP.  Ma(tricks) does not have to worry her pretty little head with the details, if she just gets the generating formula right.  And Ma does give herself a cameo, that is just B, as I propose for the sake of argument.  And Mo?  Mo, dialectically would be the antithesis of B, in order, at least, not be be the antithesis of X.  After that, history can pretty much take care of itself.  In fact, that is what you and I are doing right here, just taking care of business, just wrapping things up, or is it just rapping? 

I look toward the optimal reappearance of the hero.  In the style of dialectics, this would be, finally, the antihero, or the anti-X.  Perusers of these pages will know that my rap does not quite end there.  I am an observer in the postmodern, quantum tradition.  I know that mere observation is impossible.  It is with no small relish that I attempt to make that point.  The rest will just have to be history, or the end thereof. 

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Topical Index

11/10/03

Cosmic Dialectics 

By now both of us realize that the titles of these longer pages are not meant to be either descriptive or prescriptive, but are more for the benefit of Google than for anything else.  This site has become, in this last year, primarily a philosophical diary or 'blog'.  Instead of titles, I just use markers. The markers tend to reflect whatever was the last subject on the previous page.  Nonetheless, permit me a very brief embellishment. 

I owe more to Hegel than I know.  What I do know of his work comes third hand, mainly from people with very different agendas from my own.  I'll wager that much of my substance will find its precedence therein.  My dialectical predilections certainly will.  

The dialectic is the primordial cycle or bootstrap.  It is the original breaking of the Matrical symmetry.  It is also the Tao, with its yin and yang.  Hegel was rather less the personalist than myself.  I am more into the I-Thou dialectic of Martin Buber.  The I-Thou precedes the I-It.  Georg was more the absolutist, but I don't know that his absolute was any more or less objectifiable than my Matrix.   Martin's dialectic was more relational than Georg's. 

Moses and Mohammed are the antithesis of the Matrix.  Jesus (X) is the synthesis.  Then there is the Alpha and Omega.  History is their dialog.  X is the dialectical nexus or cross-roads of the cosmos and of history.  The Matrix is the dialectical source.  

I attempt to synthesize the prophetic and pantheist traditions.  Previous syntheses, e.g. Hegel's, have tended to be weighted toward the pantheist, impersonal side.  This leans heavily the other way.  

The dialectical juxtaposition of thesis and antithesis will help to maximize diversity.  It is our job here to leave no stones unturned.  We exercise every option.  

Now that was short and sweet. 

[This topic is continued below, and is taken up again on 1/3/04.] 

[12/12] 

Not to change the subject or anything, but how 'bout that there intentionalism?  As I scanned the previous topics, this one seemed most in need of a review, and hopefully a brief one. 

A mental monist has no perception problem, and, to a first approximation, no problems of any kind.  Well, the only problem is to create problems.  Somebody must have done a good job of manufacturing problems, since we seem to have no lack in that department.  Problems are created by conflict.  A conflict is an obstacle between me and my desire.  It is a separation of subject and desired object.  Or it may be that one desire gets in the way of another.  The BPW thesis is that our problems are optimal. 

The materialist looks at our limited forms of separation and surmises that atomism is the natural state of affairs, and that relations are epiphenomenal.  Holding the world together is the main problem.  For the mentalist it is just the reverse. 

The materialist is gradually being coaxed into the perspective of the mentalist.  Now we are both faced with the problem of explaining symmetry breaking, which is not unrelated to the separation problem. 

Dialectical materialism is another example.  The thesis creates its antithesis.  This is a symmetry breaking separation.  How does this happen?  The formation of the thesis, or a distinct idea, would be the hard part.  The BPW thesis may be the first and last.  God thinks to herself, 'If we are going to do anything at all, let's do it right.'  But there must be a prior self to have the thought, then the BPW becomes the antithesis of the primal self.  Logically prior to the self is the toti-potentiality of the Matrix.  The realizing self is it's antithesis.  The primal self could be X.  'Why hast thou forsaken me?'  This is the primal separation.  M & X come 'before' the AZO/QRP.  X then is the prototype of Z, and it is X that gets pulled into the spark gap, or head-tail, A/O (history) gap of the ouroboros or primal Zoo-cycle.  That is the dynamic of the incarnation.  Every time I do genesis, it will be a variation on the theme.  Self-realization is the A&O of Creation.  X is that.  We are the preamble to X.  History is its parturition.  

All of this is in the one gnostic presence.  There is no agnosis, no knowledge problem, until there is absence.  Absence is local.  Holism is global.  All systems are maximally entangled.  Freedom derives from the symmetry of 'redundancy'.  Metabolism/atomism is the measure of our removal from the boundary conditions of optimality.  

[12/17] 

I am enjoying the Music of the Primes by Marcus du Sautoy (2003).  It gives a good account of the prime politics, but I must reiterate my objection to Platonism.  Plato gives a bad name to idealism.  His is a non-relational idealism.  His forms just seem to float free in the void, unattached.  This is not how it works.  Sautoy quotes Hardy: 

"317 is a prime, not because we think so, or because our minds are shaped in one way rather than another, but because it is so, because mathematical reality is built that way." (G. H. Hardy, A Mathematicians Apology, 1940)

This is just silly.  Great minds can and do so easily talk themselves into absurd corners.  What is 317?  It is scratches on a paper, in the first instance.  It also refers to a place in an abstract sequence.  The most important point is that no members of that sequence can exist outside of that sequence.  A number is the epitome of contextuality.  Where does that sequence exist?  That sequence exists only in the context of its normative usage.  

Objection?  A computer may be programmed to test for primality.  It will usually print out '317' in the appropriate context.  But what is a computer?  Yes, I have one sitting in front of me, which could instantiate a universal Turing machine, albeit with finite memory.  However, it is still just an artifact existing only in a normative context.  If it began to fail, only a teleologically motivated, socially embedded agent could ultimately determine its lack of propriety.  

Objection:  physical processes instantiate many mathematical forms, including, arguably, primality.  We would never have evolved if primality had not previously been physically manifested.  But does this not beg the question of Creation?  Mathematical physics is just one necessary part of the greater coherence of the world.  It is a manifestation of the inherent relationalism of reality.  The relationalism may only be grounded in the mind-like ambience of the Matrix.  The relations are internal and, as such, may exist only in a larger teleological context.  

[12/18] 

Marcus draws our attention to two species of cicadas, often found together in the woods, having life cycles of 13 and 17 years, respectively.  He points out that the relative primality of their cycles has selective advantages.  We are left to infer the usual reductive explanation: numbers & atoms (i.e. selected DNA) are all we need to understand.  It does seem rather straight forward, but I must not succumb to such blandishments.  Permit me then to object. 

Is this natural phenomenon not reducible to mathematical physics, at least in theory?  I'll be the naysayer.  I detect teleology.  What I see happening in those woods is a microcosm that cannot be isolated from the macrocosm, and I'm not talking ecology.  I'm talking ontology.  

But here, possibly, is an additional piece of evidence for the Platonists: predator-prey dynamics readily generates prime numbers.  Thus do we have a natural prime number calculator.  However, the notion of a 'natural calculator' is illegitimate.  To speak of cicadas as calculating would be to anthropomorphize them.  

Suppose, instead, that one of our physical constants turned out to be a prime number, for reasons comparable to those given here.  Would this not vindicate a Platonic interpretation of mathematics?  Or would this attribution be another form of anthropomorphism?  I could rather argue for the evident unnaturalness of physics.  It might well constitute further evidence for panpsychism.  

[12/20] 

Neither quantity nor quality may be adequately naturalized.  That leaves the very concept of nature without proper reference.  Numbers are the individuation of quantity.  They are our attempt to anthropomorphize quantity.  But where would quantity be without numbers?  It would seem that natural intelligence must come before nature.  Ironically, physics, imbued as it is with mathematics, is turning out to be the least natural aspect of nature.  

The crux of the unnaturalness of physics lies in the centrality of the e^i*pi = -1 syzygy.  This coincidence remains our exhibit A for panpsychism.  The problem of primality is an off-shoot of this.  All of this, in turn, lies in the archetype of Pi, which relates significantly to all of the abstract structures and symmetries of the world.  It is Pi that holds together the ouroboric dialectic of the cosmos.  Pi and X are the seeds of cosmic intelligence and the BPW within the Matrix.  We have already considered the dialectics (and here) of the Archetypes.  Such dualities play a fundamental role in every religious and spiritual tradition.  Pi is the ultimately abstract distillation of the Matrical potency.  Abstract, yes, but an abstraction that also happens to provide the foundation for physics, in an elegantly holographic fashion.  

This brings us back to the Music of the Primes.  Is it proper to refer to the primes as the 'atoms of arithmetic'?  It is this reductionism which causes us to be surprised at every new manifestation of the organicism of mathematics, the Riemann Hypothesis being the case in point.  To understand the primes, we must first understand pi, and to understand Pi, we must understand the Archetypes.  One may stare all day at the printed notes without hearing the symphony.  Ramanujan could hear the symphony, but could not rationalize it.  We attempt the rationalization, in dialectical fashion.  Mathematics exists only in a cosmic context.  We attempt to describe the context. 

[12/21] 

I originally got mixed up with numbers on these pages in an attempt to rationalize the Monster Group.  I counter the alleged Platonic or mind independent nature of the Monster with the organicity of mathematics.  The organicity of mathematics is evidenced particularly in the ubiquity of Pi and the centrality of Riemann's Hypothesis concerning his zeta function.  It should be noted that Pi, along with 'e' and 'i', plays a critical role in the zeta function.  

Previously I have contrasted (and here) Platonism and Pythagoreanism.  Scientists favor Pythagoras' monism while philosophers favor Plato's dualism.  I see Pythagoras as a stepping stone first to immaterialism and then to the BPW.  Plato and Spinoza are obstacles.  They both discount the coherence of the world: Plato because of his dualism, Spinoza because of his mystical atheism.  Both would probably subscribe to Kant's impenetrable, mind independent Noumenon.  In the cosmic Presence of the Eschaton, I would suggest that the residual noumenon is absorbed into the phenomenal, eternal Present.  This is gnosis with a vengeance. 

Return now to Hardy's alleged independent reality of '317', but that is not quite what he claims.  He says that 317 is a prime, regardless of what anyone else might think.  Or, as we noted previously, some cicadas are likely to have prime numbered life cycles, human conventions notwithstanding.  Both true.  But wait.  Wherever 317 exists, it will be a prime, but that does not entail that 317, per se, is mind independent.  One might even imagine a cicada with a 317 year life cycle.  Would that not prove Hardy's point?  I will argue no. 

We simply return to the notion of a cycle.  A cycle is irreducibly normative.  The counting of them is necessarily conventional.  This is the whole point of positing R & Pi to be Archetypes of Creation.  The normativity of logic and math is inescapable.  Does this entail that mathematical truth is relative to human convention?  No, but it does entail that mathematical and human normativity have the same source.  Thus are we unable to avoid the posit of a cosmic normativity, which is logically ascribed to a self-reflecting cosmic intelligence.  Morality stands to reason only to the degree that it may reflect this self-same Source.  Are we hereby conflating mathematics and morality?  Yes and no.  They differ only in the type of logic involved, but not in their desired universal teleology.  

The 'Pythagorean' scientists pull a cheap shot, even if it is usually unwitting.  They are much too quick to justify their mysticism vis a vis scientific materialism by a usually gratuitous appeal to a Spinoza style of atheism, thereby departing from the more coherent gnosis of the Pythagorean and neo-Platonic tradition.  It would appear that Pythagoras stands to be rescued from these neo-Pythagoreans, but we need not divert to historical ad hominems.  

Math and morality are equally grounded in the Matrix.  Their full realization is mediated only through the teleology of history.  '317's' claim to existence is, along with everything else, relative to that Telos.  The telic 317 may only be barely recognizable relative to Hardy's 317.  Only time can tell.  The personality of every number and every human is subject to teleological revision. 

The singular existence of mathematics is just a shadow of the singularity of the BPW.  

The Monster Group need be no more or less teleological than a biological cell.  As in the case of the cell, I do not have to point to any particular part of the MG in order to argue cogently for its global functionality.  

The problem for the materialists might now be to point to something that is not normative.  I'm not presently aware that they are able to do this.  This becomes a big problem.  Should we feel sorry for them in their logical predicament?  No, I think the rest of us should take this opportunity to move ahead with our lives.  We should feel much less restricted by their obsolete absolutism.  Our argument then must focus on the incoherence of the postmodern pluralists.  We must ask them to justify their incoherence in light of the modern pandemic of alienation and nihilism.  Should we not give meaning a chance?  For how long must must we refuse to ask ultimate questions? 

It was James Barham who first impressed upon me the normativity of the reproduction cycle.  This is a simple but profound observation.  Is there any observation that points more clearly to the logical necessity of panpsychism?  Is any other observation more crucial to the inevitable ascendancy of immaterialism?  If there be such, then consider the case closed.  All we need now is to find an articulate materialist with whom to discuss this point.  Are there any left?  Where is Jaegwon (and here, etc.) when we need him?  Pragmatically, I doubt that he would want to be entangled in the politics of the BPW, but there don't seem to be any other physicalists of his evident ability.  

Fear of the political ascendancy of fundamentalism (and here, here, here, here, etc.) greatly inhibits the long overdue intellectual debate between materialists and anti-materialists.  The fundamentalists have managed to reduce this discussion to its lowest denomination.  Vociferous bad thinking and narrow thinking drives out the rest.  However, when this inhibition is finally overcome, as someday it must, it is likely then to burst forth in a more dramatic fashion than it would have otherwise.  This drama will surely play into the prophetic type of scenario being outlined here.  In that case, we need not wax impatient with the historical choreography.  A good drama is always worth the wait, even when the wait may be longer than a lifetime.   

[12/23] 

I have been reading Robert Brandom's Modality, Normativity, and Intentionality (c. 2000).  It is an excellent overview and modern history of these topics going back to Kant.  From Robert's list of publications, we may surmise more than a passing interest in idealism.  Any idealism, however, is well covered here by his attention to linguistic detail.  His point is, nonetheless, that M, N & I are inescapable in any type or level of discourse.  Early in the last century there were attempts to reduce M, N & I to the purely descriptive and extensional language of logical empiricism.  But Kant had already demonstrated the illegitimacy of any such attempt at 'naturalism' even, and especially, in scientific discourse.  It seems that if our philosophical colleagues had properly done their Kantian homework we might have been spared a century of analysis.  Robert certainly underscores James Barham's thesis.  I trust, however, that we managed to learn a thing or two on our analytical junket.  

May we then infer idealism from Robert's rendition of Kant, or are we merely reestablishing the rules of our language game?  We return, yet again, to the allegation of an Epistemic-Ontic Divide.  There is such a divide just in the case of a robust intrusion of Kant's noumenal realm.  Only thus did Kant attempt to shield us from what is about to transpire by way of a radical, and probably BPW style of, immaterialism.  Well, Manny, you gave it the old college try.  

The uncovering of the noumenal is just the task of any final revelation.  The physicists were pinning their hopes on a final TOE, but they appear to have succumbed to the non-trivial blandishments of the Monster Group.  They have failed to appreciate the esoteric, holistic and intensional potency of Pi.  We step into this breach by picking up on Pi along with AZO/X/QRP, and thereby attempt to steal the show from under their noses.  All the while we remain in stealth mode, under the academic radar, protected by the Fundamentalist/Creationist cloud of chaff, reinforced, perhaps, by a bit of acronymously (qv) and anonymously generated fog.  Never discount the cosmic choreography. 

Am I rushing things just a bit?  Is my impatience showing?  It must be that time of year. 

[12/26] [a] 

A correspondent picks up on Mere Words: 

Your thinking on words caused me to combine your thoughts with some of mine. You may be amused, or perhaps some new thought may occur. Who knows 

A word is a sound or a combination of sounds, or its representation in writing, that symbolizes and communicates a meaning. 

Words have context, dictionaries list definitions along with examples of actual usage.  These definitions and examples demonstrate the external relations or contexts in which a word may be properly used.  

But, what about the words content?  Words contain information, but where is it?  The only information explicitly contained in a word is in its letters or its sound pattern.  

We are subject to the impression that words have an intrinsic individual content or essence or something intrinsic that we refer to as their meaning.  But we cannot point to a meaning, the same way that we point to a definition.   

What seems intrinsic to words is their ability to refer to or direct our attention to other things.  

Referring is not a physical process, referring is an act rather than a process.  Action, as opposed to process, requires an acting agent.  It is the agent which determines the act of reference. 

The agent is our attention or our soul current. 

Words meanings are used to associate -- to connect or join together. 

The mantra words are used out of context. 

Thus the mantras are simply used to associate the disciple’s attention with a particular inner region and to the ruler of that region the Master who gave him those words. 

Any word would do, provided that it was given by the Master, that is the key. 

Thus the process of meditation is one of associating or connecting our attention (our soul current) with that of the Master. Thus we are intrinsically connected to him. 

But, by the same reasoning words are used to connect our attention to objects of the world. So going inside is just a matter of letting go of one connection? 

This is where the Wing-Walker’s Law comes in: Never leave hold of what you've got until you've got hold of something else.

And I respond with my own version of free association: 

Master/mantra/disciple is a microcosm. In the macrocosm it would be Matrix/logos/humanity. The logos is also the primordial set of archetypes, possibly AZO/X/QRP . With John, the logos is identified more specifically with X. X is the anthropos, Adam/Kadmon, or Christ. Christ is the Christian mantra binding us back to the Matrix, which is the Source of being and substance, or the Tao. 

The logos is also the Zim-zum , the Om, the ouroboros, and the ten thunders of creation. It is the initiator of the cosmic dialectic of the I-Thou, yin-yang. And it would also, in the end, be closely related to the Telos. 

With the Omega, there is a letting go, going to the Christ or cosmic soul within. Immaterialism is the intellectualization of this mainly spiritual process of turning ourselves and the cosmos inside-out. Christ just seems to be the easiest handle for the most people, very convenient, and something very personal, tangible and user friendly. 

----------------------------------------------

In such a fashion must we reinitiate the creative dialog.  In our analytic sojourn, we have lost all sense of context.  That context must now be reestablished in a concerted oracular fashion as we prepare for the Millennium. 
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Topical Index

12/10/03

Atoms

I had three days of discussion with Jack in San Francisco, which were helpful.  I have a better idea of the central role of the strong anthropic principle vis a vis science.  This is where Jack has shown the greatest flexibility.  It is a point of leverage. 

In a few days there will be a meeting with CF and two others on the topic of the briefings.  I will press the point that the fact of the briefings presents a major counterintelligence vulnerability, which must have already been resolved, and so let's move on to the discuss the most likely resolution, i.e. that there is an unresolved problem about the visitors, probably relating to the 'disturbing' message.  CF will strongly resist this shortcut.  I hope there is not a stalemate.  I speak of 9/11/08 as a deadline for disclosure.  D-day could come this winter if we put our minds to it.  We just have to arrange that the eschaton cart is firmly harnessed to the disclosure horse before the barn door is opened.  That should be fairly easy if CF & BJ are the prime sources.  They just don't want to have there necks out too far.

If the CI vulnerability could not be closed, each side of the cold war would have been exploiting it.  Probably they did.  The paranormal exists as a black hole in any intel organization.  What would be the covert function of a ufo hoax?  It is just a game of bored people like dungeons and dragons.  No one can obtain the authority to stop it.  Someone would have to enforce the rules.  And what about the lights in the sky?  Why would we now be abetting the game by extension?  This would not end it.  How much money might it consume?  Some serious people would have to be seriously involved.  I would like to see the analysis of these scenarios.  Would CF have permission to dabble without some real motive? 

While in SF I discussed with some folks about getting professional assistance with this website.  It is much needed, and will not be cheap.

Back to the atoms.  How do we get from the zodiac to atoms?  Atoms are the end point of a long process of objectification. 

Atoms are a logical necessity given disparate substances that are able to interact in a logical fashion.  They are particularly important in biological processes.  The question arises as to the mutuality of substantiality and atomism.  From a relational and functional perspective, there must be interactions of many kinds.  Atoms render these interactions local and reduce the need for programming. 

Substantiality comes from the habituation of cycles.  There is a mutuality of cycles and time.  Linear time comes from the breaking of cycles.  Atoms and the zodiac are the limit cycles.  The problem of normativity is inherent in cyclic phenomena.  Does this prove that the phases of the moon are mental?  There is the problem of identity in difference. 

[10/23]

The identity problem is exacerbated by the fact that there are no exact cycles even in the physical realm due to the linearity of time and other peripheral changes.  The cycle has to be distinguished from the background, and this calls for normativity.  It is this collective normativity that is integral to the anthropic principle.  Counterfactuality is another form of normativity.  This relates to the functional directness of our perceptions.  The perception of absence points to the pleromic quality of reality.  Even absence is functional.  The manifest image is not gratuitous.  The perceived and the perceiver cannot be finally distinguished, and this is made clear in the quantum atom.  Atoms may not be ontologically distinct from letters.  Note that we can see a sentence without seeing each letter. 

Is electronic equivalence normative?  It may be when we consider its purely mathematical basis.  Mathematics is unavoidably normative.   The relation between spin and statistics is part of the Anthropic Principle.  This goes along with the Monster and the Mandelbrot.  These are the essence of atoms. 

We have the network of being.  Now we are asking a question about the internal structure of that network.  How are some of its nodes connected?  The AZO/X/QRP archetypes are supposed to provide the overall structure.  X is the nexus and the atom and zodiac/ouroboros have to reflect each other.  Not sure how the math and zodiac connect. 

[10/24]

I recall that Monstrous Moonshine was related to the Golay code and the Leech lattice.  Coding theory might provide another connection between mind and atoms.  Perhaps Godel's coding comes in here.  I may have to read up on combinatorics.

I'm looking at the stability of atoms and the world and how that might arise from anthropics.  It is not apparent that coding theory has any special philosophical significance.  There is also the distinction between discrete and continuous mathematics.  The twentieth century saw the ascendancy of discreteness in math and physics.  The discreteness of the mind is hardly a given. 

Meanwhile the meeting is shaping up.  Will there be an innocuous reason given for starting an investigation so late in the game?  Is it not too little and to late to impact the mythos?  If it were a Soviet or a money making plot, it would have caved long ago.  All the initial plotters would be long dead.  If it was anti-Soviet, same deal.  There are many people still keeping oaths.  Is it to protect the technology?  That is weak.  What will CF say?  How much will BJ cooperate.  This cannot just be a history exercise.  It does not look like damage control.  What does the Schnabel book tell us?  His Dark White is recommended.  This is a skeptical view of abductions.  Same as BJ.  Jim states it is not an ET phenomenon.  I can agree with that. 

[10/25]

Dark White focuses on Bud Hopkins and Linda Napolitano.  Jim Schnabel's debunking technique for crop-circles and abductions, for whatever it was worth, would not be effective against the core story.   The main issue is going to be BJ's cooperation.  How could it be obtained?  How forthcoming will be CF on his investigation of the other briefings?  How was he tasked or motivated?  Are we beating a dead horse?  Response to Collins' book?  How is that justified? 

I would argue that this is the government's first official step toward disclosure.  How would CF know that the story was a hoax?  If there were not already certainty about this, the the proposed investigation would be sufficiently risky to require a high level of sanction.  What could account for that certainty, and why did it take this long to arrive?  If not certainty, then the establishment would want to leave bad enough alone.  There does not seem to be any new degree of public concern about this issue. 

Recall that it was alleged that BJ did not make much of a case for UFOs in the earlier meeting.  It was mainly a personal account.  What could he have been his intent?  A second version makes more sense, and a third makes even more.  It would be very difficult to prove a negative at this late date, especially w/o the aviary being aware. 

The first order of business would be for SG and MP to question me, but before that I should question P.  We do not have our signals straight for this meeting.  Should I make an issue of that?  I'll go through the motions only if we have a definite plan.  His naiveté will have to be challenged early on.  We both knew this day would come.  Why pretend to fool each other?  I don't think it is useful to spend time lending weight to the N&B version of the core story.  How many times has P told me that satisfying curiosity has no place here?  That is not in the job description of Intel.  This can only be a public relations effort.  To which end?  Can I in good faith be a party to any such?  The whole point of my being here is to cut through the fog.  I cannot suddenly suspend that trait.  Can I afford to opt out of this political process?  Who then will hold my coat?  Can I be cut loose this late?  Perhaps this is a test.  If I'm expendable here, then I'm in the wrong place.  I should have put my foot down sooner, but better late than never. 

He would have to have some educated guesses about my place in the larger scheme.  I sat through too many tiger meetings to be able to carry on in that mode.  Keep silent as a protest.  This feels to me like another tiger meeting.  I see too clearly that we are going though the motions.  I am nothing without my candor and my insights.  This hits too close to home, for me to sit still.  He's got my number.  He'll call if he needs me.  I don't need any more tigers.  My tiger is dead.  If and when it become necessary to address the eschaton, I'll be available.  Seek ye the message.  That will not drop out unbidden. 

[10/26]

A note was sent this am to two participants, and this may allow me a bit of an opening tomorrow, i.e. let's drop the charade. 

I find Maldecena's article 'The Illusion of Gravity' in this month's Sci Am to be provocative.  This is the first I have seen of this principle as an 'explanation' of gravity, how did I get so far out of this loop?  These ideas are definitely evocative of some thing I am trying to say about the illusion of space and time coming from Stan Tennen's bounding singularity.  I'll be giving it some thought.

[11/08]

I'm waiting now for the interlocutor to come up with a list of briefees.  Not sure if SR will be available next week.  There were protestations from TF who had surveillance at the meeting.  He complained about noisy and nosey fish.

What I wish to say to Jack is that he is the poster boy for Aspergers.  In the age where we can push a button to blow up the world, why can't we save it the same way, or a least save ourselves? 

Jack wants to build an escape machine, a transcendence machine that will solve all our problems with the push of a button.  The Magi tell us that it will involve the whole person.  It will require total commitment.  It will require a new level of interpersonal communication and trust. 

So why am I preaching to the Aspergers?  Initially they/we are the most vulnerable.  The problem of modernism lies with the scientists.  Does this mean that we turn against technology?  I am against transhumanism where technology is transformed from a means to an end in itself.  There is a place for technology, but for to many of us it has become an idol.  Time is running out for the ascendancy of the technicians and technocrats.  My background in physics is not incidental to my migration into metaphysics.  There underlying discipline is similar. 

In this still premillennial regime there is a tendency to revert to tribalism in the forms of fascism and fanaticism.  The main shift will be from Gesellschaft to Gemeinschaft, or from society to community.  These communities need not be geographic.  Each community will have an organic function within the whole.  The early Christian eschatological communities are a good model.  Ours will now be apokatastatic communities, which would be more oriented to the universalism of the latter. 

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Topical Index

10/21/05
Physics & the BPW
Café Trieste, here we come!
5/1/05
http://www.bestpossibleworld.com/index06.htm
Synthesis of physics and metaphysics
• If Jack and I were to collaborate on a book, what would be its
coherence?
- How will I wag the dog?
• This presentation is a preliminary outline for my part of it.
- As with Aristotle, the metaphysics comes after the physics.
• In his case, ‘meta’ meant ‘after’..
• The BPW is a resonance phenomenon in the mind of X.
- It is ‘self’ exciting as long as the Self includes the primal X.
• I weigh in with the eschaton.
- ‘Eschat’ is the ‘tail’ in Greek that here wags the dog.
- Or what about the portal idea?
• These would be virtually synonymous
• The portal is a literal segue to the eschaton
• Would this be subverting too much of the physics?
- I’m not sure Jack could live with this.
- How can we help him out?
• Need to work out the eschatological transition from physics to
metaphysics.
- How do we transition through the portal?
• How does the QRP break down?
• It could only do so in a holistic fashion.
Why Physics?
• Level playing field
- Allows for combinatorics of all kinds
• This is as close as God gets to rolling the dice.
• Coherence of nature
- Ontic: TOE
- Epistemic: PSR (Leibniz)
• Symmetries
- Cycles, energetics, etc.
• Anthropics
- Metabolism, ecology & technology
• Disciplining the spirit
• Metanarrative
Why math?
• Logic of coherence
- Link to language
• Godel’s theorem
• Universal grammar
• Link between mind and matter
- Exploits organicity of math
• Universal ‘language’
- Enhances cosmic intercourse
- Language of the gods
• As in Mb
• Symmetries
- Geometry
• Computation
- Combinatorics
- Cosmic computer
Organicity, coherence of math
• Unity of math
- Langland’s program, ‘moonshine’,
coincidences, Mandelbrot,
- FLT, Riemann,
- Algebraic geometry, complex analysis,
• Pythagoras vs. Plato
- Music & math
• Math genius: Srinivasa
Mathematical Physics
• ‘Unreasonable’ effectiveness?
- It is the A&O of reason.
• Noether?
• Harmony of the spheres
- Would the spheres sing if no one listened?
• Organicity of math
- Points to relationalism
• And to intelligence and subjectivity
• Could not exist w/o intel.
- Math fills in the gaps when primordial coherence/presence is broken.
• Observational blind spots
• Gaps in Cs are filled w/ background intel.
• Observer principle
- Is math essential here?
• Godel
• Holography helps
• Microcosm
- Need for ouroboros
• Mandelbrot reflects this
- Observer is built into math.
• Language w/o observer?
Origins of physics
• Dream logic
- coherence, lucidity
- Synchronicity
- Breakdown of bicameral mind
• Game of the gods
- Start, conceptually, with virtual, ceremonial, ‘sacrificial’, zodiacal Pokatok
- Coordination of consciousnesses in space and time
• Sacred geometry
- Megalithic geodesy
- Archeoastronomy
• Archetypes
- Celestial
• Zodiac - it sets a precessional time scale
- Symmetry broken by Freya/X
- Mathematical
• pi, Mandelbrot, Monster group
- Atomic
• Alchemy - Jung
What to tell Jack
• Math-phys implies a pan-psychism
- So does anthropics
- The language of the cosmos is math.
• Math is abstracted from the physics
• The quantitative, formal intellect just scratches the surface of the qualitative,
informal intellect.
- The Mandelbrot patterns provide an example.
- Math genius cannot be formalized.
- The forms are abstracted
• They work on a statistical basis.
• They do not account for teleology
• Why should the cosmic intellect be restricted to the formalism of mathphys?
- This is the error of Plato in contrast to Pythagoras and Aristotle.
- Platonic forms are mental but they do not account for the organic quality of the
mind.
• Plato’s God could only do combinatorics.
• The Anthropic Principle ought to clinch the organic side of the cosmos.
- Jack’s transhumanism pushes anthropics further.
• Does it not imply a teleology?
- Especially in the possibility of creating new universes.
• Why suppose we are not created?
• To what end?
• Are we not slated to become gods?
(Cont.)
What to tell Jack (cont.)
• He does not sufficiently appreciate Jacques Vallee’s thesis:
- The ‘high strangeness’ and ‘associative’ nature of the encounter
phenomenon.
- The visitors are not operating within our mindset; rather, they appear to
be operating upon it.
- It appears that we are dealing with a collective phenomenon
- The visitors are much more in touch with the panpsychism.
- In short, we are dealing with a metaphysical phenomenon.
- As much as anything, they are intent upon broadening our conception of
reality.
- To understand their agenda, we need to take a cosmic perspective.
• Jack is pushing the boundaries of physics well into the realm of
metaphysics, still following a bottom-up approach.
- My role is to pursue a top-down approach.
- We meet at the portal to the here-after.
• In contrast to Jacques, Jack and I see us approaching an historical
juncture.
- Jack sees this in terms of a scientific and technological breakthrough of
unprecedented proportions.
- I see it in terms of an historical gestalt switch in an eschatological
context.
===================================
The Second Coming:
for all us Dummies
For more detailed explanations of what follows see:
http://home.comcast.net/~dantsmith/index06.htm#BPW
Why not Come?
• God belongs in heaven.
- But can’t she go wherever she darn pleases?
• God ought to have better things to do.
- Being a Creator is a big deal for God.
- She has put a lot of eggs in her Creation
basket, and she will attend to it carefully.
• There is no God.
- Ok, hold that thought, and we’ll get back to
you in a jiffy.
Why come?
• If you were the Creator, would you not
want to participate in your Creation to a
maximal degree?
- If Creation were truly important to you, would
your not want to pour yourself into it as fully
as possible?
But why should we seriously consider the
God hypothesis in the first place?
• Modern science and technology are here to
stay.
- And so is postmodernism
• Postmodernism provides only an incoherent
pluralism.
• Many of us seek a higher synthesis in order to
bring meaning and coherence to our world.
- The pluralists rightly criticize any such move as being
likely to foster theocratic and totalitarian tendencies.
• There is only one way out of this bind:
- A rational, coherent synthesis of the various
worldviews
A Rational Synthesis?
• Most everyone scoffs at this possibility.
- Fact is they have never tried.
• The last serious attempt was by GHW Hegel
(1770-1831).
• But how will we know if we don’t even try?
- This dummy rushes in where angels fear to tread.
• Here is the result of a thirty year synthesis, and
the longer I work on it, the simpler it gets, q.v.
A Logical Synthesis: Step by Step
• First comes a switch from the correspondence theory of truth to the
coherence theory of truth.
- This is the single most important and far reaching step.
- If you can grasp this, everything else will follow rather easily, and it is
actually very simple, even though its ramifications are earthshaking.
• Correspondence theory of truth:
- Reality is simply a collection of facts.
- The facts need not cohere or have any other pattern except by accident.
• Coherence theory of truth:
- There is no such thing as an isolated fact, just as there is no such thing
as an isolated meaning.
- In as much as reality is cognizable, so must it be coherent.
- Epistemology and ontology cannot ultimately be separated.
- There is a reason for everything.
• This is true for physics, as well, with the possible exception of the initial
conditions, e.g. the Big Bang.
• The next step?
- There is no next step.
- Everything else is just an elaboration of this one grand departure.
- And what is the ultimate coherence?
• Can it be anything less than love, truth and beauty?
Putting all our Eggs in one Basket?
• The main point is that we didn’t put them there: they were already
there.
• This is best seen from the perspective of mathematical physics.
- In physics, this coherence is known as the Unreasonable Effectiveness
of Mathematics.
- This is why physicists can cogently speak of a Theory of Everything.
- This fact motivates us to seek a higher coherence.
• The main thing missing from the prospective physical coherence is
the mind.
- Our theory of everything must include the mind.
- The mind/brain problem is universally regarded as the greatest mystery
in the world.
- It was over three hundred years ago that Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
announced the separation of mind and matter.
- This act of great intellectual convenience triggered the Scientific and
Technological revolutions and made Democracy possible by also
separating the Secular from the Sectarian realms.
- We can easily see why the Postmodernists are so reluctant to even
reconsider Descartes’ serendipitous act.
Damned if we do, damned if we
don’t
• The postmodernists would like to see the
present state of pluralism continue indefinitely.
• In a world being shrunk by a rapidly expanding
communication technology, all our disparate
ideas and traditions are being thrown together
into a disorienting, alienating cacophony.
• How can we hope to survive together on this
crowded and shrinking planet if we have no
common ground for communication, no common
worldview?
A Quantum Leap to Synthesis?
• Nothing less than a quantum leap, an
unprecedented gestalt switch, could now
bring coherence out of the present chaos
of ideas.
• Nothing less than a cosmic vision will
suffice.
• Let us consider the visions of coherence:
Visions of Coherence
Hindu Creator: Vishnu
Yin-yang of Taoism
Buddhist mandala
Kabbalah: Sephiroth
‘Tree of life’
Leonardo’s Virtuvian Man
with sacred geometry
More visions
Michelangelo's Pieta
Ouroboros
Before the fall
Pythagorean visions of coherence
Mandelbrot set
One of hundreds of formulas to be found in Ramanujan’s note books
Archetypes of Unity
• Ouroboros (Orb)
- Primal psychic circuit, zodiac, bootstrap
- Later it will be argued that X & Orb are closely identifiable.
• MDX/Z
- Matrix (primal potentiality), Dialectic, Logos/zodiac
- trinity of :: Mother, Spirit, Son(s)
- e^i*pi = -1
- Mandelbrot
• AZO/X/QRP
- Alpha, Zodiac, Omega/Logos/Quantum, Reproduction, Pi
- Macrocosm/microcosm connected by the Logos
• Mb:S::An:X
- Mandelbrot set : Srinivasa Ramanujan :: Anthropics : Christos
The role of the archetypes
• In the first instance, the archetypes and the
previous ‘visions’ are meant to guide our
imaginations toward coherence.
• In immaterialism the archetypes replace atoms
as the foundation of reality.
• The first thing to recognize is that coherence
demands an organic unity of the archetypes.
- We aspire to a Pythagorean harmony rather than a
Platonic absolutism.
- This is essential to teleology and restitution.
The ‘emergence’ of the archetypes
• The organic unity of the archetypes is ensured by
keeping in mind their essential relations to each other
and to a common source or ground of being.
• The Matrix is that Source.
- It is potentiality.
- The BPW is the one rational realization of that potentiality.
• The Best Possible World also conforms with the One World
hypothesis (see later).
• The dynamic element is the dialectic.
- It is the source of multiplicity.
- It is the cosmic bootstrap, which we also experience as love.
• The christos/logos is the original thesis and archetype.
- It is necessarily the Alpha and Omega, Creator and Telos.
- In some strong sense, the symmetry breaking of the Creation
event is the antithesis, and the eschatological restitution of
Creation, i.e. apokatastasis, is the cosmic synthesis.
AZO/X/QRP
• This is the macro and micro-cosm connected by the
logos.
- In other words, it is the cosmic and mundane circuits that are
thus connected.
• The Ouroboros (Orb) is represented in part as the
zodiac. The Alpha and Omega are the head and tail of
the cosmic serpent.
- It is X that breaks the circular symmetry in the act of Creation.
- One could say that X is the primal observer, taking the measure
of itself and the Orb.
• That is one reason to identify pi and the christos.
• QRP is the projection of the broken cosmic circuit into
the linear dimensions of space and time.
- Out of this comes the Monster Group that determines the
Anthropic attribute of physics.
Mb:S::An:X
• These archetypes demonstrate a relation between the personal and
impersonal side of God.
• The Mandelbrot is the image of the cosmos/god as imbedded in the
number system.
- All spiritual traditions agree that god/cosmos is reflected everywhere.
- Srinivasa (S) Ramanujan, more than anyone in history, was able to
project the pure mathematical logos out of his mind.
• The other side of this coin is seen in the second pair.
- This is the personal side of god/cosmos.
- The Anthropic (design) Principle is largely contained in the Monster
Group, second only to the Mb in complexity.
- The personal logos/christos, X, is reflected in the organic nature of
math.
- It is further reflected in the organicity of the microcosm.
• Perhaps these are two sides of a larger circuit.
- On the one hand there is math coming out of the mind, and on the other
the mind emerges from the math.
- It is the christos that encompasses the whole dynamic of Creation.
- Thus may the X and the Orb be closely identified.
X & Orb
• This brings us near to the ultimate mystery of
being.
• The primal trinity of MDX/Z are coeternal.
- Taken together they are the Ouroboros: Orb of being.
• In breaking the symmetry of the Orb, X is
effectively sacrificing itself on behalf of Creation.
• Resurrection, restitution and apokatastasis
inevitably follow, as the symmetry is
reconstituted.
Ugly Facts?
• "The great tragedy of science -- the slaying of a beautiful
hypothesis by an ugly fact."
- Thomas Huxley (1825-1895)
- Perhaps the theory in question was not sufficiently coherent.
• Yes, we do have to tough it out.
- One needs a mustard seed of faith and confidence.
- Cosmology is not for the faint of heart.
• Scientific materialism has been on a roll for more than
three centuries.
- There are many signs, however, that its grip on our imaginations
is waning.
• We can sit on our hands, or we can start figuring out how
to transcend its increasingly obvious limitations.
• Will it be revisionism or revolution, i.e. a gestalt switch?
The Way Forward?
• No point in rolling back the clock into dualism.
- We’ve been there, done that!
• The only way forward is into a non-material monism.
• This quantum leap forward will necessarily have a
spiritual content and so will impact every religious
tradition.
- As such, it will come as a revelation of ‘biblical proportions’.
- There will surely be a significant messianic component.
- This vision will not emerge from a committee.
- Once again, the faint of heart need not apply!
- Fools rush in? Yet, according to Google there are not many who
are rushing down this particular path.
Immaterialism
• This is a hard pill to swallow, especially for us in the
western tradition.
• We have taken matter more seriously than others.
- Ironically, this is due in no small part to the Incarnation.
- Materialism, in a dualist context, is almost a part of our
catechism.
• How can we give up that absolutism without devaluing
the world and our lives?
- This is too often the case with pantheism.
- We replace pantheism with coherentism.
- Then we replace atoms with archetypes, taking care to treat the
archetypes as part of a Pythagorean harmony, and not as
Platonic absolutes.
Dinosaurs and Stars
• If we can choose the archetypes to be robust, the rest of
Creation will spin itself off.
- God does not have to place every hair on every head, or every
star in the sky.
- The same is true for the Mandelbrot.
• It operates under its own internal logic and coherence.
• God sets the example.
- The example is to love and to strive for perfect understanding
through time, knowing that perfection is never absent.
• Mainly it is in this sense that time is an illusion.
• It is mainly our understanding of perfection that is to be perfected.
• The Second Coming triggers the final quantum leap in our
understanding.
- God calls the tune. God is the tune.
- Creator and Creation are mutually essential.
• We cannot understand the part without the whole, nor the whole
without the parts.
• One hair cannot be disturbed without disturbing the rest, as with the
Mandelbrot.
Omega
• The critical idea here is apokatastasis.
- This is the restoration/restitution of all things in God.
- This is universal salvation.
- It is now considered heresy.
• Originally it was the orthodoxy of the Orthodox church.
- All dualisms and paradoxes are transcended.
- It is the temporal completion of Creator, Creation and
history.
• It is the reconstitution of the broken symmetry.
• The Omega is the beginning of eternity.
- Eternity is not endless time.
- It is the dimensions beyond space and time.
- It is a timeless ending/beginning.
- It is the ouroboros in its entirety.
The One World Hypothesis
• Rationalism demands a teleology.
• Teleology requires a OWH.
• Teleology is a concomitant of monotheism.
• All four of these concepts should be
treated as virtually synonymous.
• All of these are essential to Coherence.
• Can this One World be anything other than
the Best Possible World?
The Millennium
• The BPWH envisions pre-millennialism.
- The Best Possible World hypothesis envisions the completion of
God’s salvific, sacrificial errand into Creation.
- This enables the establishment of God’s eschatological kingdom,
traditionally to last a thousand years.
- The actual time frame is likely to be substantially shorter rather
than longer.
• And what may we expect of the Millennium?
- It is a period of realignment between our hearts and intellects,
after the long drought of materialism.
- We finish our business here and prepare to transcend the
barriers of space and time.
• This may include the return of unprepared souls.
- There will be a gradual breaking down of barriers between our
individual egos, and between our separate states of
consciousness.
- Codified society gives way to organic community.
Relationalism: into the Millennium
• Relationalism is the foundation of Coherentism
- To be is to relate.
- The most real is the most related.
- Rather than a chain of being, there is a network of being.
• Permit me to anticipate criticism from the conservatives, legalists and
absolutists.
- I say relationalism.
- They hear ‘relativism, contextualism, situationalism’, i.e. ‘everyone does their
own thing’.
• The Millennial Aeon is a ‘gathering of the tribes’..
- The structured, stratified, codified order is replaced by the organic and
communal, if we dare use that word.
- The exemplars here are the early Christian communities.
• These were extended, mostly non-biological, families.
• They were mainly urban.
• Utopianism?
- Legislating or codifying the Millennium is oxymoronic.
- God’s kingdom grows only from the inside out.
• The true kingdom is always within.
- We evolve into the body of Christ.
• That is the eschaton.
Second Coming?
• By all accounts the prophetic tradition remains unfulfilled.
• Even the pantheist traditions envision a nadir of
spirituality followed by a return to a golden age
inaugurated by an avatar.
• The fulfilling of the prophesies is the prerequisite of the
Millennium.
• The christocentric/incarnational hypothesis is essential to
cosmic coherence and to its concomitant of an
eschatological restitution.
- The illogic of a dualistic monotheism had its historical purposes,
but now we are poised to transcend dualism.
Immaterialism & physics
• Materialism and immaterialism are antithetical.
• In contrast, physics and the BPWH have
Pythagoras in common.
- This is the notion of a cosmic harmony based on the
mathematical attribute of cosmic intelligence.
- The only issue is which is God and which is the tail.
In the BPW, the mathematical attribute is the tail.
- The Anthropic Principle demonstrates that it is the
personal side of God that is dominant.

================================
The Just So Story of the Universe
Jack’s & Dan’s Little Book of Wonder
aka: Pomo’s Metanarrative
5/2/05
Contents
• Introduction
- What if….?
• How the web got its spider
- Indra the dream weaver
• The gods who played Pokatok
- Earth divers
- Our gnostic sojourn
• How the sky got its stars
- The song of the spheres
• How the numbers were made
- The story of Pi
• How the quantum got its observers
- No math w/o intellect
- Microcosmic atoms
• How the physicists learned to dance
- They’re doing the Monster Mash
• Destiny Matrix’ Child
- Mandelbrot mystery
- Message in a bottle
• How the sky does fall
- Pomo’s metanarrative
- What hit chicken little on her head?
• Starships and wrinkles in time
• All’s well that ends well
- Apokatastasis
Introduction
• A big ‘what if’
- What if the universe were more like a great idea than a great
machine?
• It has been said that the language of the cosmos is
mathematics.
- Human intelligence has nearly mastered that language, but that
is not the end of our intelligence.
• Should mathematics be the end of cosmic intelligence?
- Is not our mathematical intelligence wired into the cosmos?
• What about the other aspects of our ‘natural’
intelligence?
- Might that not also be plugged into the cosmic mind?
• How else are we to make sense of Anthropics?
• What better way to grapple with the profound mystery of the mind?
(cont.)
Introduction (cont.)
• The upshot is that mathematical physics need not mark the end of
our ability to commune with the cosmic intelligence.
- Have we been remiss in not taking better advantage of this opening?
- We have been mesmerized by science for several centuries.
• Only now are we recovering our higher sensibilities after our
scientific/materialist binge.
• It is not surprising that there is a great reluctance to venture down
the path of reason and, yes, ultimately gnosis.
- We are not just being invited to become more fully acquainted with God.
• We are being invited to be one with God.
- Scientists wish not to make any concessions to religion.
- Religionists don’t want any external meddling in what they regard as
solely matters of doctrine and faith.
- Secularists are cautious about anything that could undermine unfettered
pluralism.
- Our natural conservatism holds us back from the leap ahead.
- But in the end, what can possibly restrain our spirits?
How the Web got its Spider
Indra the Dream Weaver
• For us monists, Indra’s web of existence comes for free.
- There is only one source:
• Matrix, mother, cosmic womb,
• Try as we might, we can never completely separate ourselves from
our source.
• It is impossible to sever the umbilical.
• Our problem is Indra herself.
- Creatrix, logos, christos, dream weaver
• Here is my explanation for her:
- Existence is relational
- To be is to relate
- The most related is the most real.
- Coherence is the key to existence.
- Our spider is the source of coherence.
(cont.)
Spider (cont.)
• Can there be too much coherence?
- Are creator and creation not infinite?
- Only qualitatively, not quantitatively
• See Mandelbrot
- This is where theists and pantheists part company.
- We have in mind the concept of Apeiron.
• The Matrix is the Apeiron in its potency
• Plato went too far in his disavowal of it.
- He was not a relationalist
• Coherence demands an external closure
• Coherence is necessarily subjective
- The creators are subjects/persons
- How many creators?
• see Mb.
• An infinity of creators only potentially
• Here, too, there is a social cohesion and closure
• In a relational world there is bound to be an optimal coherence.
- This is the BPW <-> coherence theory of truth
- Given even the possibility of a web there will inevitably be a real spider
The gods who played Pokatok
• Here is a more corporate view of creation
- A recreation of the gods becomes our
creation
• Who was the Tom Sawyer who organized
the game and got the fence painted?
How the sky got its stars
• First in the heavens are the Sun and Moon
- The Sun/Earth is necessary to provide an open
access source of energy
- Plus there is a natural optimum of eco-diversity
• Tidal estuaries add a vital component
• Heliotropism keeps the Sun in its place
- Quasi-archetype
- PSR minimizes deviations
- Phenomenal cycles
• Ritualism
• With stars we appeal to the moon and zodiac
How the numbers were made
• The ontology of numbers and stars are similar.
- Thus can they be mutually supportive in our relational system.
- Thus ultimately astro-physics
• In the Mb we see how numbers reflect the cosmos.
- Another sign of mutuality
• In their organicity they reflect life and language
• See the ‘bpw-phys’ pdf
- Numbers relate phenomena
- They provide ‘matter’ with its coherence and consistency
- As with the Mb, there is an optimal ecology
- They are the tokens of symmetry
- They help to fill in the unobservable gaps.
• Numbers arise out of numerology and astrology
- As chemistry arises from alchemy
- In both cases we refrain from the arbitrary separation of ontology and
epistemology
- The primal psychic circuit of the zodiac is the origin
• Thus the compartmenting, or literally the constellating, of our psyches
- Thus do numbers fall from the sky.
- Math genius is a recapitulation of these origins
How the quantum got its observers
• The quantum is a little piece of the Matrix
- Part of the bootstrap
- X is to the Matrix as we are to the quantum
• The quantum allows math/mind to connect to matter.
- Unlike classical phys.
- No math w/o intellect
• Atoms are microcosms
- Atoms contain all the math
• They pick up on the logical resonances as did Srinivasa
- We are the mesocosm
- Atoms are always entangled in the functional cycles
• They disentangle only if we need to take their picture
- They are particularly entangled in living systems.
• Where they behave like Mb-atoms
- The DNA, for example, is actually a functional archetype.
• That’s one way that the quantum ensures its observers.
How the physicists learned to dance
• Matter is all form and no substance
- In the first approx. the forms are Platonic
- Finally they are Pythagorean
• Even Aristotelian

=================================

The Lone Ranger & Tonto
High Noon at the ET Saloon
Lone Rnager
Contents
• Introduction
- Parallel lives
- Then a strange convergence
• Contact!
- A quarter century apart, but it’s still news from nowhere
• Space-Time & Beyond
- Fork in the path
- Physics vs. metaphysics
• Exopolitics
- MJ12 - Aviary
- Birds of a feather
• Dan and Jack mix it up on the Internet
- A fist-fight in heaven?
• Showdown/Showtime
- ET vs. UT
- Jack pushes physics to the brink
- Danny pulls an ace out of his sleeve
- It’s getting ugly at the ET Saloon
Introduction
• Here we take a biographical approach to
confronting the question of the ages.
- Don’t we all want to know what makes the world go
around?
• Six years apart in age, but we were both Sputnik
babies.
- Well, we were born on two sides of the tracks, and we
are now on two sides of the ‘green door’.
• Trust us, it’s all part of the plan.
(Cont.)
Where Do We Come From?
Who are We?
Where are We Going?
Paul Gauguin
1897
Introduction (cont.)
• Jack was contacted in1952
- It was a computer onboard a space ship from the future. The voice was
metallic.
• Danny had to wait 25 years.
- Sophia was warm and fuzzy.
• It was worth the wait.
• This is the story of the lab raised chimps
- One chimp has a cold wired surrogate mother
- The other has a warm and fuzzy surrogate mother
- Guess which one is more exploratory?
• It’s Danny Boy who ventures off the deep end of space-time.
• Jack stays closer to the physics establishment
(cont.)
Introduction (cont.)
• Anthropic Cosmological Principle
- This is a major part of Jack’s first book.
- Danny is deep into this concept when he encounters Sophia in
1977.
- This encounter has a decidedly theistic flavor.
• Prior to this Danny was a self-styled transcendental pantheist.
• Next comes the exopolitics…
- Here again Jack has all the seniority.
• Child prodigy - contactee
• Could Uncle Sam ignore such a one?
- But Danny is not going to be left out
• He had another experience in 1991
- Shouldn’t he call 911?
• Thus do we encounter the ‘weird desk’.
• A couple of years later Dan is introduced to Jack by a ufologist
• Dan introduces Jack to Ron
• And so we come to MJ12 and the Aviary.
Space-Time & Beyond
• Jack sticks his neck out, metaphysically
- This is the early Jack, in his hippie mode.
- Jack sobers up
• He returns to work within the system, pushing the envelope of
physics
• Danny Boy, having once given up on physics, also
returns to push the boundaries.
- Finding them unyielding, he strikes out on his own into the
strange world of metaphysics.
• Where will they meet again?
- On opposite sides of the ‘green door’ in Area 51!
• This is the gateway to the stars and beyond
• Will they be able to open the door?
Published 1975
Jack instigates it all.
Danny takes it all in.
Exopolitics
• The story of phenomenology
- Uncle Sam keeps his eyes on the skies
• Not only do you track the phenomena, but also the people associated with the
phenomena
- Jack & Dan?
• Jurisdictional issues
• Aviary & the phenomenology network
- Two intertwining concerns
• Physical & metaphysical
- The radar doesn’t always work
- Remote viewers get into the act: ~1980
» Military vs. scientific
- Going public
• Desert games
• ‘MJ-12’ documents
• TV disclosure
• ‘Pelican’ & the ‘weird desk’
- ‘high strangeness’
- Non-linear phenomena
• MJ-12 & the Visitors
- And the verdict is:
• Biggest hoax?
• Strategic cover?
• Global psy-op?
- Visitation: How? vs. Why?
• It’s about the hardware, stupid.
• It’s about the software, stupid.

============================
Parousia by the Bay
Conclave of The Knights Extemporalis
Café Trieste
May 25, 2005
Summary
• Introduction
• Microcosm & Cosmos
- Cells, particles, words, music & numbers
- Plato vs. Pythagoras, Aristotle, Socrates, etc.
- Genius - coherence - observer
• S. Ramanujan
• Holism, coherence
- TOE/GUT
- UEM, Anthropics, MG
- Archetypes, teleology
• Lessons of the Mandelbrot
- The phenomenology of numbers
- Organicity of all things
- Mother of the archetypes - AZO/X/QRP
(cont.)
Summary (cont.)
• Network of being
- Coherence theory
- Cosmic intelligence
• Bootstrap dynamics
- Self-excited circuit
• Wheeler, Feynman, etc.
- Ouroboros
- Channeling the Matrix
• Chaos vs. order
• PSR, Rational Theism
• Cloning, microcosmics, combinatorics
• Into the BPW
- AZO/X/QRP
(cont.)
Summary (cont.)
• Creation/creator
- Morpheus to metamorphosis
- Self-sacrificing Creator
- Earth/cocoon
• Anthropics to anthropo-/geo-centrism.
- Pearl divers
• Grail quest
- Magic formula vs. M-brot
» Jack vs. Dan
• Parousia, Millennium, Eschaton
- Rationalizing the X-event
- Rationale for Y2X
- Visitors/Magi : Majic12 : Aviary : Aquarium : EFG
• Ron, Dan & Jack show
• DNI: Humint, Sigint, Imint & Masint
• ‘Phenomenology’ and high strangeness
- Trinity site to 9/11 to 2005
- Portals to the eschaton
Talking Points 1
• I see three overlapping meta-themes or issues. There will be much
bouncing back and forth.
• Teleology - Jack vs. Dan
- Anthropics -- weak vs. strong
- Eschatology - implicit vs. explicit
- Physicalism vs. immaterialism
- Dan introduces the mysterious Mandelbrot, exemplifying the Telos at
work
• ET encounters - two scenarios
- Jack: mainly hostile ET version - competitive
- Dan: mainly benign UT version - cooperative
- Both versions will include MJ12 and Aviary developments
- Disclosure & disinformation -- Jack vs. Dan
• Metanarratives
- Transhumanism vs.
- Best possible world
- In both instances we are at an historical juncture
- When and how will these issues be resolved?
(cont.)
Talking Points 2 (cont.)
• Saving the world
- From what?
• For whom?
- What is our responsibility?
• Let the BPW take care of itself?
• No consequences?
- BPW = min necessary consequences
- Were there consequences for Xian vs. Islam?
- Not BPW for Muslims?
• Why should Jack's people care?
- Why should physicists care?
- Responsible for Bomb
• Make amends
• High Strangeness
- Idiosyncratic, dreamlike
- Explains why most physicists ignore ufos
• BPW should be a no brainer
- Problems with Darwinism
• Social Darwinism
- Meaninglessness, alienation
- Scientific deconstruction has not been challenged in a global context.
- responsibility of cosmologists
• Mind over matter
- Ufos permit a rethinking of the world
• Ignore opportunity?
- Go for coherence and synthesis
- tell the most uplifting story possible
(cont.)
Talking Points 3 (cont.)
• Why are Jack and I still talking?
- What is Ron’s involvement?
- What would be the goal of a publication?
• Who has more room for maneuver?
• Paradigm/gestalt switch
- Opportunity for more than just technological change
• How will metaPh inform phys?
- About the eschaton
- About a creator
• This is where the futurists fall down
• They ignore the recursive aspects of their own scenarios, where we become
our own creators.
• Even a modicum of teleology will amplify itself
• Bootstrap applies mainly to intelligence
- About portals
- About archetypes
• Mandelbrot
• I don’t know what Jack will say about archetypes
(cont.)
Talking Points 4 (cont.)
• Past discussions
- Can there be mind w/o an archetypal self?
- Once you let a self in the door, it is hard to shut it
against all sorts of metaphysics.
- Jack is the mad inventor: Back to the Future.
• Strategy
- Not allow metaPh?
• Many will be turned away
• Very few physicists will notice
- If allowed?
• Yes, it will tend to take over. Can’t be helped.
• Scientists are worried about the slippery slope.
• Ufologists have a history of neglecting the weird.
• Ron knows better.
Trieste
Book project
• Do we need a sceptic?
• What other role?
• John, Paul, trickster,
• What will we need from Ron?
• Anthropics
• Start off with an irreducible self
• Why could do a hypothetical mind physics
section
• we need this for portals
• Portal is mini-eschaton
• Area 51 -- Dreamland
• How do we script the breakdown of physics?
• Opposite of pokatok portal
• Immersion VR
• Higher self waits on us
• Why did ufology never pick up on the R & D
show?
• They were not supposed to.
• Portal is like changing states of
consciousness
• This includes the collective Cs
• The switch has to be slow
• In which state is the higher self?
• Like changing cycles
• Emergence of physics in pokatok
• Is there programming?
• UEM? @ pokatok
• Gravity would be the first place
• Expectations abound
• Air friction?
• Damping of fluctuations
• PSR -- min deviations
• what about the gravity on the moon?
• How did that get determined?
• Sun came first
• Solar phys and orbital dynamics
• Isaac Newton
• 1/r^2
• So what?
• Counterfactuals
• Newt's laws >> LAP
• Min arbitrariness
• Phys removes busy work
• How does phys get done?
• Math and PSR are syn
• PSR = TOE
• BPW = LAP
• All these go together
Introduction
- (adapting material from the BPW-Physics presentation)
• Plato vs. Pythagoras
- I’d like to find a lest abstract lead-in.
- Plato’s static forms continue to dominate scientific thought
- Jack introduces Pythagorean and Aristotelian concepts back into
physics.
• Mind, teleology, information, pilot waves, ODLRO, etc.
• The quantum field serves as God’s sensorium.
• Jack hesitates to once again venture out Beyond Space
& Time.
- But if we want to commune with cosmic intelligence, we must be
prepared to stretch our own minds to the limit.
• UFO phenomena should stretch our imaginations
- Jack’s firm grasp on physics makes him the go to guy for one
such as myself who needs a bridge from metaphysics back into
the scientific community.
- Designing such a bridge provides the context for this gathering.
- Welcome to the Jack & Dan show, celebrating its first decade.
Jack waiting for his ship to come in
He likes to take the big gamble. Dan is the minimalist
====================================
On Being Focused
Creation Strategy
The BPW Hypothesis
A Personal Creator
• From a creationist perspective, the creatures must reflect
the image of the Creator.
- What other image could they reflect?
• God is focused on creation.
- We are focused on procreation.
• Does God procreate?
- She does, but he does not.
- Therein lies the essence of Creation.
• The pantheon is spawned by the Matrix.
• As goes physics, so goes Creation.
- Creation is about coherence.
- Coherence entails some sort of least action principle.
- The BPW reflects that principle.
- The pantheon channels the potency of the Matrix into a BPW.
- The X factor is the prime ingredient, which we suppose is love,
as in the ideal of procreation.
The Impersonal
• Pantheism is an ode to the impersonal cosmos.
• The personal cannot exist without the impersonal.
- An important and more subtle point is the converse.
• Art is the struggle between these two elements.
- It records the mastery of the one by the other.
• Pantheism is the apotheosis of polytheism.
- It is the Aqua Regia of metaphysics.
- It is hardly gratuitous in the realm of spirit.
- Surely it should be celebrated, and it is.
• Pantheism is the religion of tolerance, peace and stability.
- There is no utopianism, and not much enthusiasm or evangelism.
- It is the passive aspect of spirit.
• The impersonal is what we abstract from the personal
- Atoms and numbers are such
- Each abstraction retains its holistic potency as we see with DNA and the
Mandelbrot.
- It connects and separates persons, as well as the creatures from the
creator.
- The Matrix is the animist ground of being.
• It is the proto-personal; the cosmic protoplasm.
Self-organization
• The ouroboros is the cosmic bootstrap and
proto-self.
- Any cycle is in that image.
• Wherein a self-identity is implied.
• Each must have a head and tail
- With the Mb, those are the mu-atom and filament.
• The cycle is a primitive organism.
- It is a channeling and focusing agent.
- Such is the dialectic.
• Indra’s necklace, the network of being is a
functional alignment of cycles.
- All in service to a personal telos.
The Governing Principle
• As it stands we have just one Matrix, which spawns a pantheon of creators.
• It would be natural to suppose there would be a plethora of independent creations.
- This is the Many-World hypothesis.
- This is certainly the way creativity functions down here.
- But there is a caveat concerning self-independence. There is no such thing.
- Every known self is a social self. There is no such thing as self-identity. This point is barely
controversial.
- The zodiacal pantheon associated with the Matrix can hardly constitute an exception.
• Another way to look at this is that immaterial existence can only be a relational
existence.
- The same is true for ‘material’ existence, it is just less obvious.
- To exist is to relate.
- Non-cooperative selves simply cease to exist.
• In a neutral sense, the ultimate organizing principle is survival.
- The next rung on the organizing ladder would quite logically and simply be something akin to
what we call ‘love’.
- This is what I refer to as the X-factor.
- This factor transcends the pantheon and Matrix.
- But there is another caveat.
• We tend to think of love only in interpersonal terms.
• Exceptions: self-love and agape.
• Since there is no such thing as abstract existence, any coherent pantheon must provide for the
embodiment of love.
• Thus do we have both Cupid and Christ among many other examples.
• It is just thus that the creative energy of the Matrix and pantheon is focused through love into the
BPW.
• This is my hypothesis and the governing principle of whatever coherence I possess.
Addendum -- 7/2/05
• By way of a summary of the BPWH -
• (w.r.t. focusing, see the last question)
- What's a Creator to do after Creation, I mean way after? Do you
eventually just leave it go?
• An obvious option would be to recycle it, but this would be counter to the
BPW hypothesis.
• The last option is redemption. That's apokatastasis. That's the eschaton.
- The only question is when.
• The only answer is, at the best possible time. Which is?
• Which is when we have done just about everything we can possibly do down
here. When we are physically prepared to leave the planet. When we are
able to destroy the world, but before we actually do. When the secret of
Creation can no longer be kept. In other words, right about now, folks.
- The next question is whether it is possible for there to be a creator.
• This would seem difficult to deny, especially if we take mind
seriously. Instead of a primordial material stuff, why could there not be a
primordial mental stuff, i.e. Matrix, with at least as much self-organizing
potential as this alleged material stuff?
- The last question here is how many creations.
• In an immaterial, monist, relational world, there is no rational alternative to
the BPW hypothesis. Any network of being would be self-centered. There
would be an organic functionality. Chaos, to exist, would be parasitic upon
that organic network. At most, there would be a functional network of
realms, much as we see with the Mandelbrot, with everything in its
place. There is every indication that our world is spiritually the densest
world, i.e. the center of spiritual gravity.
=================================

Antipodes 

Mind and matter are the mutual antipodes of our metaphysical deliberations.  The tension between them shows no sign of resolution. 

In the same vein, the Big Bang is the antipode of God.  The Big Bang is writ large across the heavens.  God, apparently, is rather more bashful, or is on a major Sabbatical.  

On a microcosmic scale the atom is the logical antipode of the self.  The atom is tangibly omnipresent, while the existence of the self remains problematic.  

The thesis of immaterialism is that these appearances are deceptive, but only for a very good reason.  If there is deception here, it is certainly on a grand scale.  

Given a creative deity, then surely there would be creatures and a story line.  Is not the scale of our world perhaps overdoing it?   But first things first. 

Why should we even suppose that a creative mind could exist without a brain of some rather elaborate sort, like ours?  If a body is not necessary for the creator, why should it be necessary for the creatures, unless, perhaps, we are the body of the creator?  After the fact? 

One point is that the brain seems to have much more to do with the body than with the mind.  There is a strong logical connection between body and brain.  We can hardly conceive of one without the other.  Yet there is no such stricture between brain and mind.  Disembodied spirits are a staple of every culture.  It is simply that thoughts seem to have no internal spatial coordination or identity whatsoever.  The is no conceivable relation between mental and physical space. 

Although a thought might exist without a body, we can hardly imagine a thought without a self.  An unperceived thought is nonsensical, as is perception without a perceiver.  Neither could there be a perceiver without perception.  

If our most serious minds can imagine a spontaneous Big Bang, why do they seem to have difficulty imagining a spontaneous self?  Can you and I? 

A major hurdle is the space-time barrier.  All of the selves we know and imagine exist in space and time.  We try to imagine God existing in eternity, with scant success.  Our spontaneous, self-organizing self will be responsible for its own spatial and temporal orderings.  We are told that the Big Bang is quite capable of manufacturing its own space-time manifold out of God knows what. 

In a few billion years matter has organized itself into selves, under formidable circumstances, we are told.  Imagine what those spontaneous selves might dream up in an eternity.  This is not to be flippant about anything, it's just that we must constantly struggle with the language in these realms.  But don't underestimate the ultimate, creative power of the Logos.  We are told that God did not. 

A very important question is the multiplicity.  Cosmologists have no trouble imagining an uncountable infinity of spontaneous universes, each in its own possibly infinite space-time cocoon.  What about our spontaneous selves?  What would be the ground rules of their cosmic intercourse?  

Gods will be Gods.  If intercourse is possible, it is inevitable.  And how could it not be possible?  Where is the supply of cosmic condoms?  Where are the communication barriers.  Indeed, their might ever only be one spontaneous self.  Its actualizing potency distorts the cosmic virtual potency in an unmistakable fashion.  

Regardless of whether the other selves were spontaneous or cloned in some fashion or both, from then on, the only conceivable ground rule of intercourse would be love.  To put it the other way, the bad seed is ostracized.  I think we can presume that cosmic ostracism has its instructive aspect.  I don't think any of us would be here if we had not somewhere failed in love.  Even Her Spontaneous Selfishness must have had her lapses.  We all participate.  We all partake.  If She had not 'failed' at Self-love, we wouldn't be here, would we?  [An cynic might suppose we are a cosmic social disease, but that would be most unfair!]

I do ramble, but there is a lot of territory and not an abundance of signposts.  I am just about as much along for the ride here as any reader might be, trust me! 

Antipodes II

Topical Index

7/9/02

Antipodes II

So we have Antipode 1 and Antipode 2:  the Big Bang and the Big Spontaneous Self.  On the face of it, is not the former much harder to imagine than the latter?  Imagine how much scientific and technical discipline and effort have gone into the 'discovery' of the Big Bang.  But every time any person engages in a conversation, say, that person is automatically creating a mini-self in her mind to represent her interlocutor.  Big Bangs happen.  Selves happen.  Then what? 

Does our existence as consciously minded, embodied beings somehow represent the accidental impingement of these two antipodal Spontaneities?  Or what? 

Accident shmaccident!  Or are we to suppose that God sits around like a Cosmic Cuckoo waiting for a suitable nest to spontaneously appear before dropping Her egg on an unsuspecting Mother Nature.  This is tantamount to what the modernized creationists are suggesting when they attempt to marry the Bible with the Big Bang, resulting in a Big you know what!  

If we insist on this antipodal equal opportunity, the only thing we guarantee is incoherence.  How much longer are the materialists and the dualists going to bang their heads on the Big Bang?   Certainly for as long as their paychecks hold out.  What will it take to get them to unshackle the mind from all of their arbitrary and artificial constraints?  What will the rest of us do about it?  If we are incapable of breathing a breath of fresh coherence into the mostly vacuous cacophony of the Internet, what will be our excuse?  Will we just let Google take its course?  

Antipodes

Topical Index

7/9/02

The Intangibles

In the modern world, we love to draw distinctions.  I don't know the history of this predilection, but it must be ancient and honorable.  Now how do we move beyond it? 

Well, OK, I do know a few things of distinction.  Descartes was its modern master; his mind-matter distinction being the mother of all distinctions.  Ever since Rene, there have been conscientious objectors to this never-ending process of analysis.  Holism is a cottage industry nowadays, but it continues to be an uphill battle.  Panpsychism is the most frequently raised alternative to this Cartesian pananalytic compulsion.  The modern basis of panpsychism is to be found in John Wheeler's remark that no phenomenon is real unless it is observed.  His remark gives voice to the quantum measurement problem. 

It should be noted that to distinguish is to abstract, and abstractions are first among intangibles.  If abstractions are unreal then so is everything else that you can put your finger on, because the very idea of putting one's finger on something is just another, well, idea.  Tangibility is a concept.  There would be no tangibles if there were no concepts, so there is a vicious circularity or logical regress at the bottom of this and every other distinction that has ever been made.  And what do we make of that?  Merely another indication of the flimsy flim-flam that passes as modernism. 

Consider thirst.  Is thirst tangible?  Is it causal?  If not, then what causes one to crawl a mile across the burning sands to an oasis?  Hydro-depletion?  Folk psychology meets neuroscience in the middle of the desert.  The neuroscientist supposes thirst to be a mere concept, something to be eliminated from any scientific inventory of the world.  But what, pray tell, is science if not a humongous pile of concepts?  

Thirst is not locatable in space.  It is not extended.  But neither is an electron, nor is a synaptic event locatable, other than by gross generalization, or, should we say, by abstraction.  And what is space if it is not the mother of abstraction?  Space had not the slightest pretense to physicality until Einstein attempted a (re?)habilitation of it in his theory of General Relativity.  Imagine that!  The only recourse that space has to tangibility is totally dependent upon the notions of Riemannian topology.  

Clearly the game of analysis is logically and physically bankrupt.  And does anyone dispute this?  No one that I can find on the Internet is disputing this.  The analysts keep on analyzing merely because they don't know what else to do.  There is a viable analytic establishment.  There is no holistic establishment.  

I take that back.  There are holistic establishments.  They are called religions.  It was their ligaments that used to hold the world together, until Rene hit the scene.  With postmodernism, we are collectively marking time before the establishment of some new set of ligaments.  Only then could a spiritual body take shape.  Are the analysts sore afraid?  Anyone who does not fear God is whistling in the dark. The mother of all gods is sitting in the wings. 

<-- Prev      Next -->

Topical Index

8/4/02

Teleology 

How did I manage to avoid teleology for this long?  Just a minor pedagogical oversight. 

What is thirst if it is not teleological?  Biologists have eliminated vitalism if they can eliminate thirst.  I'm not really thirsty, it's just that my molecules are screaming about their hydro-deficiency, as a result of which my muscles act to decrease my hydro-abstentia.  Fair enough?  Like all is fair in love and war?  The only way I know how to eliminate thirst is to provide water.  This is especially true with regard to the spirit. 

If abstractions are causal, they act as final causes.  Consider numbers.  Are number causal?  Ask a mathematical physicist.  Numbers participate in every causal process upon which she may place her slide-rule.  The physical sciences are not science if they are not quantitative.  

Causality does not function outside the framework of events.  Events cannot exist outside of a functional, i.e. teleological, matrix.  And, by the way, when was the last time you saw a quantitative event?  

Aristotle realized that the cosmos must be pan-tellic. Why else would we or could we get up in the morning? 

Ah, but universals are mere family resemblances.  Does this explain a Peacock's tail?  Would not the Mr. Peacocks be the laughing stock of evolution were it not for all those potential Mrs. Peacocks?  What do the Peacocks know of universals?  Perhaps nothing more than Marilyn Monroe.  But if Marilyn is not an exemplar universal then who is?  Is Marilyn a family resemblance?  Well, if truth be known, She does not particularly resemble anyone in my family, but maybe we should ask 'Jumping' Joe. 

[Later:  Is 'electron' a family resemblance?  How do we account for the fact that electrons don't merely resemble each other, but are numerically, physically identical?  The lowly electron is the ultimate exemplar of an absolute universality.  It only requires a few years of mathematical physics to understand why electrons must obey fermi statistics and thus ensure the stability of material objects.  Without this underlying mathematical universality there would exist nothing that could be called matter.  And yet we are daily confronted with the spectacle of otherwise intelligent humans touting the unreality of universals.  What sort of a joke is this?] 

My job is not to defeat analysis.  It is to motivate those who will.  When I mention Marilyn, it is only in the time honored tradition of the bait and switch, and if sex is not the mother of baiting and switching then who is? 

What is the purpose of life if not to discover and/or invent the universal Telos.  The problem with the Telos is that it is not a bait and switch.  It is the Mother of all mothers.  It is not a game.  It is Finality.  

Well, our little teapot of water is heating up.  When will we decide to jump out?  When will we decide to stop playing games? 

[Later....]

The astronomers look through their telescopes and cannot see God.  The biologists look through their microscopes and cannot see Life.  Perhaps we need a new Spectacle, or perhaps we just need to stop and think, for a change.  

<-- Prev      Next -->

Topical Index

8/4/02

History & Nature 

Within the monism of immaterialism there is a duality between history and nature.  History is the foreground, nature is the background.  Nature exists as a sub-narrative to the Metanarrative that is our history from Genesis to the Eschaton.  That latter span is the extent of real or linear time.  That span is significantly less than the mythical cycle of the equinoxes.  

The primary story line of the Metanarrative is our long march into materialism.  This is an unnatural move away from the cosmic spirit.  It is our nearly completed separation from God.  By our own efforts we have stretched the spiritual spring out too its maximum extension.  In the Millennium we are able to simply coast back home, as it were. 

The very unnatural stretching of the spirit is made possible by Nature.  Nature exists in two virtual  dimensions of nearly unlimited space and time, which complement the relatively real and more modest dimensions of our earthly sojourn.  Nature comes with its own coherent sub-narrative that is our scientific cosmology.  Nature is the frame on which history is stretched. 

The nearly complete harmony of History and Nature comes about through their shared Telos and as part of the Alpha/Omega bootstrap.  This includes the scientists who diligently and naively weave the illusory depths of space and time out of the depths of their own spirit, and also with their wielding of spades and grinding of lenses.  Thus is God spared the Easter Bunny role of planting fossils, etc.  It's not that she is lazy, she rather goes along with that flow of 'male' inquisitiveness.  Will the scientists be aggrieved to learn that they were 'tricked' into feathering their own nests?  I think they'll get over it, mainly because their hard won talents will not be peripheral to our encounter with the eschaton.  They'll just have to learn how to turn their telescopes around.  It's part of that little gestalt switcheroo. 

Creation is not a trick, so there was no need for a cover-up.  The Alpha/Omega loop is complete cycle.  The supporting spokes of which exist in our unconscious dream work, and other interdimensional channels. We don't have to understand every last detail of creation in order to navigate the eschaton, which is our first order of business. 

God has been concealed mainly by our own attention to detail.  This is not wrong.  It is nearly the whole plot.  We have the whole Millennium now to put everything back in order.  The role of the revealer is correspondingly easy.  It's just to turn a little valve to begin to reverse the flow of spirit. This is what the intellect is for.  

The continuity of the world is maintained automatically in a relational metaphysics.  The work of the scientists is involved in the pushing of the necessary continuity to is logical, atomistic limits.  Our approach to comprehending the logical completeness of the infrastructure of nature is a portent and aperitif of the ensuing spiritual completion. 

<--  Prev.      Next  -->

Index

7/7/02

Introduction to God 

Wouldn't it be nice if none were needed.... introduction, that is!  

But this is not your father's God, and probably not even your mother's.  My father was an atheist,  but this would probably not have been the God that he did not believe in.  But we'll have to ask him sometime. 

This God is bound neither by stricture nor scripture.  It was not just by an oversight that Jesus did not have a stenographer.  Jesus is the word made flesh, and that is not the Bible.  All you legalistic, literalistic Pharisees out there, listen up.  I may not feel disposed to repeat this.  If you don't catch the spirit of what I say, you have caught nothing but hot air.  You are not a computer to be programmed.  Your only program is to become one with God.  You will come to know God in the biblical sense, not in the literal sense.  That is our eschaton, our rapture. 

So whose God is this, anyway?  I'm afraid I'm not enough of a scholar to provide you with a list of historical precedents, but I'm sure they're out there.  My job is not to be original, it's just to be in the right place at the right time.  [7/6 -- Oh, and also to keep my ear to the ground, I'm just not sure what ground....] 

Clearly there is a healthy dose of pantheism and panentheism (q.v.).  This goes with the immaterialist territory.  You dualists will just have to lump it.  But there is a much bigger dose of coherence.  The coherence of God in not unlike the coherence of our own selves, there is just a lot more of it, a lot more than the sum of ours.  

Neither is God a thing.  God is a part of the living dialectic of love, or cosmic agape.  God is the eternal cosmic potency of love.  There is no other potency that is not totally dependent on this singularity.  You and I have no existence outside of the ambience of that light. 

One could go on.  I have and will, but I trust you catch the drift.  

Introduction to God (part 2)  -->

Topical Index

Index

7/5/02

Introduction to God (part 2)

Let us recall some of the previous metaphysical arguments, particularly the Antipodal ones.  There and elsewhere a case is gradually being assembled: once the intellectual fortress of materialism is breached, it is a very slippery slope from there to a radically different worldview.  Once we have established the reality of any one conceivable immaterial entity, the entire bulwark of materialism is vulnerable to being subverted, of actually being sublimated, by this other nascent, immaterial realm.  That is according to the inherently unstable nature of the mind-matter duality.  We, oh so knowledgeable moderns, are just living in a house of cards.  There is a fundamental incoherence to that world of nothing but atoms swerving in the dark.  A mustard seed of coherence, immaterial though it may be, threatens to turn that wasteland into a mustard jungle, or perhaps even into the Best Possible World. 

In thousands of years, under the intense scrutiny of the best minds in the world, we have been unable to conceive of a logical link between matter and mind.  It is almost the case of the immovable object and the irresistible force.  One of these two notions has got to give.  The mounting conundrums of quantum physics are surely pointing the finger at matter.  Once we loosen our death grip on our absolutist conception of matter, we will have a difficult time imagining how we ever managed to fall under the thrall of materialism in the first place.  

If there is an immaterial realm, relationalism will be its foundation.  In contrast with atoms, we no longer have the convenient receptacle of space for storage and configuration.  The closest equivalent is the mind, and we can hardly conceive of a mind that is unaccompanied by a perceiving agent, or simply a self.  The self is the relational nexus or matrix of mind.  

In the biological realm, the relational foci are the cell and organism.  Certain primitive organisms of the fungal class have phases of cellular dispersal.  The common underlying theme of mystical experience is that our ordinary individual minds are but the dispersal phase of a cosmic mind that may be experienced in those mystical states.  And, again, even from a strictly biological perspective, are our own selves not the constructs of the neuronal colonies that constitute the human brain?  Given any sort of mental realm, it would be more than a bit odd if our individuated selves represented the limit of its organizational capacity. 

If there is any reality to the self, and what could be more real to us than our own selves, it would be difficult to conceive of a prohibition on the existence of a mental matrix that included a supra-self. 

Given the logical polarities of atom and cosmic self, we cannot automatically assign a metaphysical priority to the atom.  Indeed, does not the weight of reason push the logical priority in the other direction?  

It is only by an almost incomprehensible fluke of intellectual history that we have come now to the threshold of this stark and dramatic choice of cosmic gestalts.  I doubt that I am the only one who is being drawn by the portents and prospect of this drama.  The rest of history already pales by comparison.  Are we not already feeling the organizational force of the matrix of the supra-self? 

<--  Introduction to God

Topical Index

7/12/02

Introducing the Metanarrative 

Scientific cosmology is a great story in its own right.  I just don't like the ending.  I hope that you like this ending a little better, even though it may not be totally original.  If it's not the best possible, however, please let me know. 

Talk about your self-fulfilling prophecy, that is pretty much the idea here.  The Metanarrative was the original blueprint of the cosmos.  We are the primary carriers of that blueprint.  Our beings and its being are not really distinguishable.  Is this predestination?  Well, where this comes and we come from, there is no pre- and post-.  The Alpha and the Omega are two sides of the coin of that realm.  Its like our universe and its super-symmetric, m-brane twin, they may only be separated by a plank's length, and if you don't know how skinny a plank is, you probably don't want to know.  But, see, I did learn a couple of things in grad school, both of them, schools that is.  Go Terps, go Tigers, go Cards, too!   

Up to this point I have been pretty vague about the logistics of the eschaton.  Its not that I'm being coy about it, I just haven't sat down to work it out, yet.  I guess I'd better get to work on it before I get scooped by the troops.  Set that aside for the moment. 

Come to think of it, the Alpha part is not in much better shape, either.  Oh well, maybe there is still some job security here, after all.  What other security do I have? 

What you see in the topical and chronological lists are some thoughts on stratagem and messianism.  The messianic part is a detail of the larger strategy, one, however, which may be closer to home.  Messianism is the lazy person's road to salvation, of the world, that is.  The only real question is who that lazy person will be.  If you prefer a more difficult path, well, you are welcome to complain to the management.  Me, I just keep on trucking.    

I'm hoping that we can pretty much work things out on the Internet.  If that doesn't work, I don't have a Plan B, unless we revert to the 'Aquarium' mode (q.v. via Google).  I can't honestly recommend that at this point.  

Topical Index

Index

7/5/02

Millennium 

The Millennium is the wrapping up or rolling up of history almost like a carpet into the vortex of the eschaton.  The stretched spiritual spring of our materialist sojourn is relaxed along with its frame that is Nature.  Linear time turns back to cyclical time.  We return to the dreamtime from whence we came. Its allotted thousand years may be shortened by the diligence of our preparations.  

Once our respective tasks become clear to us, it will be relatively smooth sailing.  There will be the inevitable initial jockeying as we revision our situation.  Let no one fall into the easy trap of allowing cosmic ends to overwhelm human means.  Let the role of the mini-messiah be an object lesson in the power of cosmic minimalism.  Go with the flow of the spirit. 

If there ever was a time for management by objective, as opposed to management by directive, this will be it.  The metaphysical, extraordinary nature of the eschaton will simply be a challenge to everyone's imagination.  Every one will rise to the challenge.  We were born to boogey, as they say. 

My poor imagination is being taxed in just these few pages and paragraphs.  You all will be leaving my imagination in the dust, pronto.  Just don't look back.  And don't look down. 

Let me just say a couple of words on logistics.  As I look back, I do recall a concern with demographics, and not for naught.  It may be that right about now is our demographic max.  It does seem that we have, as suggested, gone forth an replenished the earth.  Eschatology brings us to a new regime.  We replenish heaven, but certainly not with anyone's blood.  We redirect our fertility to the quickening and fruition of the spirit.  Perhaps the sutras will play a role. 

There are about 10^10 souls associated with earth history.  There is no other history nearly as populated as ours.  They may participate in that history by the sharing of lives and memories whenever and wherever they need or want.  No problem.  There will be ample opportunity to experience the Millennium.  As they complete their desired experience they can become observers.  There will be sufficient persons to complete the wrapping up drama.  That is the end of linear experience.  We will all  have been there and done that.    

I don't foresee any particularly difficult political problems that would require anything more than this sort of minimal, mini-messianic intervention.  Even at the end of this pre-millennial regime, we are close to being able to muddle through.  Once this gestalt switch begins to percolate through the world, the remaining obstacles will disappear.  In other words, there is no big blueprint for this period.  The spirit freed from the intellectual shackles of materialism will carry the day. 

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Index

7/7/02

Messianic Gambit? 

Guess what happened on my vacation?  I had a close encounter of a Rabbinical kind while hiking in the Northern Canadian Rockies.  A member of our small hiking group (see The World Outdoors) turned out to be an almost rabidly anti-messianic Rabbi.  Peter is a fulltime networker for a consortium of Reformed congregations around the country.  For a messianic wannabe to be in close proximity with such a one for several days was something of a test for both of our composures.  Let me hasten to say that this is nothing personal about Peter.  A long-time friend of mine is a Methodist minister, who I imagine would have responded in a very similar fashion under similar circumstances.  Nonetheless, I am still feeling the provocation of this encounter.  

An acquaintance of Peter's studies messianic movements domestically.  I inquired as to the attitude of this person toward such movements.  Peter's response was that like any other rational person, he would be opposed to such movements as being irrational. 

There are several presuppositions of modernism contained in this view.  One is that a belief in God cannot be rationally supported.  It must be a matter of faith alone, a faith that can only be supported subjectively or traditionally.  

Another presupposition is that any messiah would have to fit into the historical mold of the prophet.  The prophet hears the voice of God and reports it to her charismatically entrained following.  Part of this charisma would necessarily include miraculous phenomena as evidence of supernatural involvement. 

In short, modernism presupposes the oxymoronicity of rational theism.  The postmodern theologians have been able to demonstrate, to the satisfaction of many, that theism is no more irrational than any other existing belief system.  The next step, that of proving the rational superiority of theism to any other belief system, would constitute an intellectual achievement of messianic proportions, would it not? 

This final messianic step cannot occur in the context of our modern Cartesian dualism.  You cannot embed reason in an irrational frame.  The only alternative frame is a monistic immaterialism, i.e. idealism. Whoever can effectively initiate a global turning toward an idealist based rational theism should, by almost any account, fit the messianic profile.  I certainly make no secret of my own aspirations in this regard.  The best way to learn to recognize a potential messiah is in attempting to emulate such a one.  A minimalist, rationalist, messianic event has the potential to appeal to both the secular and sectarian audience.  And how else are we to avoid the clash of sects and civilizations?  

Messianic Initiative: 

  Next -->

Topical Index

8/26/02

Breaking the Barrier of Materialism 

The main obstacle to a messianic initiative involving rational theism is the radical nature of the gestalt switch that is involved.  

Most philosophers and even most people have been and always will be idealists at heart.  Modernism and Cartesian dualism have had a long and ultimately futile struggle against that natural state.  Most people, and that includes the philosophers, fail to be rational about their idealism, that is they fail to be thoroughly coherent about it.  The simple reason is that coherence is so fundamental or radical that it could not occur other than in an eschatological and messianic context.  Historically the person who came closest to realizing this potential for idealism was Hegel.  His main fault may simply have been that he was too far ahead of his time.  It was still a century before scientific materialism would be reaching its full potential, and even longer before the idealist implications of postmodernism would begin to be felt.  In this context, Hegel has to be seen as a pre-modern thinker.  Darwinism was barely at his doorstep and modern cosmology was still an apparition. 

Most 'rational' folk may easily suppose that the combination of Darwinism and modern astronomy present an impossible barrier for a coherent, radical idealism to penetrate.  Even for the theistic opponents of Darwinism, the idealist alternative is barely a blip on their radar screens.  One and all, they underestimate the personal power of coherence.  

The full power of coherence is something to be felt more than seen.  It is even supra-rational.  I was able to feel the force of it many years before I had any idea of its rational outline.  This is the personal power of the Spirit of Truth.  I can see the rationalists shaking their heads at this point.  'So much for rationality,' they will say.  But this personal coherence is just the charism of truth.  Without this charism, truth is a dead letter.  Converting this charism into a spiritual movement will be the magic of the Messiah.  This is how the barrier of materialism will be broken.  

Messianic Initiative: 

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8/26/02

On the Verge of God 

The first rational step in breaking the barrier of materialism is the recognition of the actual creative potential of the mind.  Creativity is an essential property of the mind. 

What are the limits of this creativity?  No one honestly knows, and thereby we can put the materialists in a bit of a bind.  Materialism continues to have considerable sway over our minds simply because of its imagined potential for continued 'progress', i.e. for its creative potential.  What are the limits for the creative potential of science and technology?  If there were none, then we would be well on our way to becoming or producing god-like creators.  This gives rise to the distinct possibility that we are the product of such a creator.  Science fiction is rife with such possibility.  And is this not also the thesis of every religion? 

On the other hand, if there are perceived to be physical limits to the creative potential of our technology, then this fact in itself would substantially tarnish the luster of materialism.  It is just this skepticism in regard to the future potential of materialism that accounts for much of the seeking of alternatives that we see in our postmodern world.  Whether materialism is limited or unlimited, it ultimately leads us to reconsider the possibility of higher powers or cosmic intelligence.  

The above considerations apply most poignantly to the technology of artificial intelligence.  AI is either possible or not possible.  If it is possible then all the ambitions of 'transhumanism' come to the fore including its almost religious sounding eschatology such as we have seen with Tipler's Omega. 

On the other hand, if AI turns out to be infeasible, this would raise important issues.  We are back then to Fodor's thesis on the irreducibility of reason.  If this is the case, then the source of reason is not to be found in nature itself.  We have to look for one of Dennett's 'skyhooks', i.e. God.  Once again, we end up either with God or something very god-like. 

This is all by way of saying that it borders on irrationality not to take seriously the God question.  This is tantamount to the Creation question to which we now turn. 

Messianic Initiative: 

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8/26/02

Creation 

If God had a choice about the method of creation, it should be fairly obvious that she would prefer an immaterial over a material creation.  Why so? 

1.  An immaterial creation lends itself to coherence.  There will be no mind body problem with which to deal. 

2.  The creation process will be much more natural.  The creatures can and will directly participate in the process. 

3.  The eschatology process will also come about more naturally and continuously. 

The difficult part is to understand how and why the prophetic tradition got itself off onto a materialist tangent, in contrast to the eastern traditions. 

But let us back up.  There may, nonetheless, be some advantages to a matter based creation.  If God is clever, there is no reason why we creatures should not be treated to the best of both types of creation.  After all, should this not rationally be the best of all possible worlds, involving the best of all possible creators and creations?  In that case, the preferred creation would be an immaterial one, that would take on a material appearance to an optimal degree.  

It might be easy to think that God must have outdone herself in regard to the material or natural appearance of our world.  Was it really necessary for her to fool so many of us for so long?  But again, this is not difficult to rationalize, particularly considering that given its immaterial basis and the participatory nature of its creation, it is mainly the case that we creatures were simply allowed to do a bang-up job of fooling ourselves.  And did we ever! 

Off the top, I can think of two forms of rationalization for the deceptively material appearance of our ideal, little dream world.  Let's make that three... 

1.  Atomization and democratization are not accidentally linked. It has to do with the concept of the level spiritual playing field that is made possible by atomistic metabolism, and all that.  We were going to have to be shuffling the spiritual deck many times in our sojourn from the Alpha to the Omega, and the genetic shuffling was no small part of that.  It is a bit like the game of solitaire.  We have to sort through the cards any number of times before they are aligned for the rapture where the last become the first, or did someone else already figure that out? 

2.  Homo Faber.  That's us.  Keeps us busy and out of trouble.  It requires a lot of cooperation and raw matter.  Talk about planned obsolescence.  We are able to continue the process of creation, seemingly on our own.  We can almost think of ourselves as self-made demi-gods.  And we are able to set things up, communication-wise and otherwise, for the pre-millennial drama. 

3.  Drama!  Can we imagine that God is not a dramatist?  Are we not all suckers for the surprise ending, for the big finale?  Will we be disappointed?  I think not.  Our self-deception around the concepts of materialism are a major part of setting up the grand finale. 

And what I have just described may also be the easiest method of creation.  Who said that God should not learn a trick or two from Tom Sawyer's method of fence painting?  Nothing like cajoling your creatures into taking on the more onerous tasks of creation.  Why should God have to do all that bean counting when she has so many willing volunteers such as us scientists, etc.?  Just add a dollop of teleology, and presto, you're in the creation business, big time.  

Why are we scientists so dense about the possibilities of our own self-deception?  Why are we so naive?  Well, if God didn't love fools she never would have made so many of us! 

Messianic Initiative: 

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Topical Index

8/27/02

Glass Ceiling 

Any sort initiative is eventually going to run into resistance.  A messianic initiative is certainly no exception.  The question is whether this one has gotten far enough along to encounter even a little friction.  Just with respect to this second web site, the answer is no.  It may be some additional time before this one even shows up on Google's sensitive radar, but, as I have hinted, there has been more water under this bridge than just what you see here.  For instance there was an earlier version of this web site dating back to 1997.  At some point I might resurrect a copy of it, but even though that site was covered by Google, I did not receive more than handful of inquiries.  

Then there is the 'Aquarium'.  What can I say?  Isn't this more than a little fishy, or just a very small fish in the sea?  That is hard even for me to know.  Even Ron may only be able to guess.  In connection with the Aquarium you will see his name bandied about.  He is the closest thing that I have to a reality check, and, considering his reputation in the trickster department, that may not be saying much.  

When I first came across him, just over ten years ago, one of his designations was the 'keeper of the weird' at a certain acronymous agency.  He has also spoken of an informal 'phenomenology network' which deals with 'uncorrelated' phenomena.  His real jobs tend toward the more conventional and analytical, through which he maintains an upper middle profile in the 'gummint'.  He resides in an actual chain of command.  But it was on the topic of 'crop circles' that we first crossed paths.  

I won't try even to summarize what little material may still be available on the net, but let me try to give you an update.  From its inception, the 'Ron & Dan show' seemed calculated to raise eyebrows among a rather select audience of insiders and knowledgeable outsiders.  And that was about the extent of it.  For instance, there are surely other 'phenomenologists' like Ron in friendly and not so friendly intelligence agencies around the world who have access to the internet.  To suppose that they have not also raised their eyebrows at the Aquarium would be to vastly underestimate human curiosity and foreign intelligence.  If Ron were to travel abroad he has said it would have to be incognito.  I still travel naively and cognito.  Which of us has their neck stuck out further is a more than academic question.   

Messianics can be a touchy subject.  Just ask a random person on the street.  That anyone in the gummint would be playing with that sort of fire, especially in 'public', would naturally be of some interest.  There came a point when Ron and I could no longer meet in public and when he had to deny publicly certain things he told me privately.  This is the glass ceiling for the Aquarium version of messianics. 

Messianic Initiative: 

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8/27/02

Trickster 

In the context of Creation, I have spoken of our self-deception regarding materialism.  It is as if God were hiding behind the veil of Nature.  Now the self-concealing God is also bound to be self-revealing, but this can be problematic if one does not wish to give away the whole show inadvertently.  In the breach between Creator and creation, there must be a hermetic messenger figure.  This figure necessarily has many guises.  One of those guises is the Trickster which also has many guises.  

The book, to which I have just referred you, was written by George Hansen, who happens to have been a de facto member of the Aquarium nearly since its inception.  George's connection with the Aquarium stems from his interest in the 'Aviary', some of whose members he discusses under the topic of 'government disinformation.'  Thoughtfully, George does not directly mention Ron who was a full-fledged bird person, and who garnered some considerable interest on George's part. 

Can we then explain the Aquarium phenomenon or the Ron & Dan show as just another species of disinformation?  Perhaps, but of all the possible forms that disinformation might take, the Aquarium would have to be one of the most peculiar and potentially the most sensitive.  

For what it's worth, here is my own speculation about the Aquarium phenomenon.  

Suppose you were God and wanted to stage a postmodern prophetic event.  How might it differ from previous such alleged events?  The main novel concern would be dealing with the mass media.  If this event were to be world class, it would certainly have to come to the attention of the media, sooner rather than later.  This makes things more than a bit tricky, and so we have the Trickster.  

Messianic Initiative: 

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Topical Index

8/27/02

Trickster  (part 2)

So here we are.  God with a message and the media looking for a story, as usual.  One does not need much imagination to see how there might be a divergence of interest, depending on the nature of the message.  For the sake of argument, let us assume that what you see on these pages bears some resemblance to the desired message.  

If we wish to optimize the human participation in the eschatology then that participation must be voluntary and relatively spontaneous, and so the message itself must not be couched in a coercive context.  Multiplying the fish with an audience of 5 thousand would not be qualitatively the same as with an audience of 5 billion, say.  And still we have the problem of dealing with the powers-that-be.  Looks like a job for the Trickster.  Bring on Ron and the 'Visitors'. 

Ron you already know.  The visitors are known by that emblematic alien face that has managed to infiltrate the popular media, not to say, the mass psyche.  More than a few people, even some who are well placed in various sects, fully expect the visitors to play a direct role in an imminent messianic event.  

I would prefer for them a less direct role vis a vis the public, along the lines of minimalism.  But I would suggest that they may have needed to be more assertive in their contact with key elements of the powers-that-be.  To avoid a repetition of an event of the Herod type, they might have had to read the riot act to those key people, and it probably would have involved more than just reading.  The most tangible evidence of such an intervention for public consumption would be something of the nature of the Ron & Dan show, were it ever to transcend that glass ceiling.  

Just a speculation. 

Messianic Initiative: 

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8/27/02

The Messiah Contingency 

World-wide expectations around the imminent emergence of a messiah of some sort may never have been greater than at present, and they are showing no signs of diminishing.  The nascent clash between Muslim east and Christian west does nothing to mitigate those expectations.  

It is not only the believers who are attentive to such emotions.  Two related incidents were brought to my attention by Ron.  First there was a large scale Christmas time AWOL incident within the ranks of the South Korean military precipitated by a local cult figure claiming ties to Jesus.  I was told that a couple of plane loads of US advisors were hurriedly dispatched to the scene.  

Later came the Falun Gong phenomenon in China.  Ron has always expressed a concern for the emerging Chinese military threat to the US.  It was no great surprise when he asked me to get in contact with the local Falun Gong chapter.  I did so, but the results were desultory.  With Ron's approval I sent a letter to the Chinese embassy, including his name and requesting a meeting with their Science attaché to discuss parapsychological issues.  Again, no response.  

Clearly there was a build up of spiritual expectation around the turn of the Millennium.  And, by way of example, I inadvertently played a not insignificant role in the Hale-Bopp incident by circulating a piece of speculation concerning the visitors that was passed to me by a member of the Aviary.  Another case of disinformation having unintended(?) consequences? 

It was not too surprising that as we got closer to Y2K, and things appeared to actually be settling down that my ten year interlude with Ron was evidently placed on a back burner.  I was mildly surprised then when he called me on 9/2/01 to say that something had come up and there was a pressing need to reactivate the Aquarium.  Imagine my greater surprise and curiosity on 9/11.  Needless to say, this curiosity remains unsatisfied. 

Messianic Initiative: 

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8/28/02

How to Save the World 

A prophet is one thing and a messiah is another thing.  We have considered how God might extend the prophetic tradition into our present postmodern context, hopefully without further destabilizing an already unstable situation. 

Back in the 'good old days' prophets were a dime a dozen, it would seem.  Modernity has, by definition, been prophetless, 'lo these many years.  To now stage a prophetic event, even of the minimalist version outlined above, would, at the very least, bring postmodernism out of the academy and thrust it into the mainstream, along with the media attention that would necessarily be entailed.  This could not help but rock every secular and sectarian boat.  What message might God have for us that could possibly justify such world-shaking 'minimalism'? 

It is no secret that the long-term survival of anything deserving the name of civilization has been very much in question for at least the last half-century.  If at this critical juncture there is to be any divine intervention, it would surely have to address the question of survival that is on everyone's mind.  When the question of survival gets raised to this metaphysical level, we are no longer talking mere 'survival', we are talking salvation.  The bottom line is quite simple:  forget the prophet, at this late date, nothing less than a messiah will suffice.  It may be the minimalist version of the Messiah, but it will be a messiah nonetheless.  For a Christian, this would have to be the Second Coming.  After all this time and grief, we have a legitimate right to say, put up or shut up!  

This is a rather tall order, but its all part of the one coherent cosmic story including the Alpha and Omega that is writ large and small on our world wherever we truly care to look.  

Messianic Initiative: 

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Topical Index

8/29/02

How to Save the World  (part 2) 

This time around it simply has to be all or nothing.  Half measures are not called for, and will not suffice.  Surely, our little Danny-boy is not up to pulling off this stunt, Trickster or no Trickster.  

Yes, and no.  God does have one final trick: the Spirit of the Truth.  This is the personal Charism of a coherent cosmic truth.  If it is anything at all, it is already written on everyone's soul.  Just a quarter-century ago, almost to the day, I was given the privilege of feeling, almost touching, this Truth.  I could not then grasp it with my nascently rational mind, but I knew that I would find it if I just followed my nose, persistently.  There has been more than a little water under that bridge.  I continue to wrestle with this eight-hundred pound gorilla.  I know it is in here, even more than I know my own identity.  

Daily on these pages and in my own mind I interrogate this Truth.  I do my best to make an accurate transcription.  I invite everyone to join in this transcribing, continually consulting our respective souls and consciences.  The Whole will be much greater than its parts and greater than us.  The Internet will be our witness.  There will be no turning back. 

Will this Truth be our salvation?  If it is not, what else possibly could be? 

Messianic Initiative: 

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8/29/02

  0.2e  [5/29]  And here we have Fred Alan Wolf, d.b.a Dr. Quantum, of What the Bleep do we Know, along with Jack and myself.  To view this file, open a QuickTime player v. 6 or later, and insert [http://bestpossibleworld.com/fredgod2.mp4 this file was taken offline on10/21 due to its size] into the place where it asks for a URL.  The mp4 file is 66 meg.  It will stream only intermittently, because the download is longer than the 20 min. runtime.  Jack has it compressed down to a 10 meg 3gp file, but that is supported only with QT v. 7, which is available only for the Mac.  We'll try to do better next week.  The film was taken on Thursday morning, 5/26, at Fred's home in the Pacific Heights section of San Francisco.  Consider this the Blair Witch Project of eschatology.  Parental guidance is suggested.

BPW -- Contents 

(chronological up to 7/3/02) 

Index

Topical Index 

0.  The Best Possible World Page  

    * naturalism vs. supernaturalism
    * possible worlds and their selection processes

1.  The Nature of Mind

    * the deconstruction of mind and reason
    * the search for mental atoms

2.  Taking Stock 

    * only two-and-a-half worldviews 

3.  A Turning Point? 

    * intellectual and spiritual void 
    * deus ex machina?  

4.  Post-Reductionism 

    * emergent entities 
    * the only claim to existence of these immaterial forms lies in their perceptibility

5.  Naturalism 

    * atomism vs. holism
    * an immaterial realm that is of material consequence?

6.  Beyond Naturalism? 

    * why not imagine an emergent intelligence beyond our own individual emergent selves?
    * why the secular philosophers have already jumped through virtually every hoop in order to avoid even one actually emerging entity....

7.  Post-Theology and-or Pre-Millennium 

    * if the intercosmic Genii is so smart why are we so stupid? 
    * But all is well that ends well. 

8.  Creation? 

    * the power of creation is almost certain to emerge somewhere
    * when it does there is a powerful bootstrap mechanism in place 
    * creation is likely to be the predominant source of all life

9.  Something Wrong with this Picture? 

    * If the creative impulse is not to run amok there will be sources of restraint.
    * [page to be omitted?] 

10.  So Bring on Chicken Little! 

    * the fragility of materialism
    * about popping the balloon that is materialism 
    * and bringing down the Newtonian sky 

11.  Behind the Void 

    * A Newtonian reality still undergirds the entire apparatus of modernism.
    * relationalism 
    * turning the world inside out and standing it on its head

12.  How Many Buddhas? 

    * According to Leibniz, there can be but one void and one absolute.

13.  How Many Worlds? 

    * Who needs a sub-optimal world? 

14.  Recap -- Metanarrative 

    * striving for plausibility, not proof at this point
    * The Metanarrative is the only coherent alternative to materialism

15.  Best World for Whom? 

    * best for everyone
    * This world is the center of spiritual gravity.

16.  Our Dramatic Cosmos 

    * a dramatic finale
    * the teleology thereof 

17.  Only One Show? 

    * History goes around once.
    * But it can reexperienced if necessary. 
    * We are all artifacts of the one, absolute experience. 

18.  Explaining Science 

    * The microcosmic alignment of the Metanarrative replaces Darwinism. 

19.  Explaining Science (part 2) 

    * distributed intelligence 
    * metabolic atomism 

20.  Dream Atom

    * The 'atom' is merely a stand-in for a mathematical superstructure...
    * e.g. the Monster group 
    * the teleology of atoms

21.  Concealment

    * Nature is the veil of God. 
    * We would have to be weaned from the parental God.
    * this alpha/omega bootstrap process

22.  Concealment (part 2) 

    * We were so busy tracking dinosaurs and planets... 
    * the image of God planting dinosaur bones, like so many Easter eggs... 
    * The material Alpha of paleontology, and astronomy, embodied in the almost tangible Atom, will be amply reflected in the spiritual Omega that is our Eschaton. 

23.  Eschaton 

    * In the popular mind, eschatological doomsaying is the favored cliché for depicting fundamentalist irrationality and radicalism. 
    * Its allotted time is determined by the parameters of its teleological creation. 
    * 'Let's get this show on the road!' 

24.  Pre-Millennialism 

    * Is there anyone out there who would not agree that there has never been a more auspicious time for the Millennium? 
    * The fact that the primary result of all our technology has been the wiring of our global brain may not be incidental in the larger scheme. 
    * In the best possible world our demand for truth will subvert the materialist Juggernaught well before it pushes us further into tribulation. 
    * I would suggest that it could all come down to Google. 
    * Does anyone have a better plan? 

25.  Revelation 

    * From an epistemic point of view, separation entails ignorance and concealment.  
    * This is the primary source of 'evil' in creation. 
    * It is the function of the pre-millennial messianic event to overcome these historical accidents and biases. 
    * I am looking to the Internet.  

26.  Millennium & Eschaton 

    * The concept of the Millennium has been integral to the prophetic tradition since its inception nearly thirty-five hundred years ago with Zoroaster. 
    * The notion of supernatural armies clashing in the heavens is replaced by the clash of paradigms.  
    * The potency of the Internet implies that the final messianic trigger could be the merest of 'butterfly' effects. 
    * Our sojourn into the limited dimensions of matter will be completed. 

27.  Genesis 

    * Every engineer knows that a bridge needs two anchor points, and in our case they are the Alpha and the Omega. 
    * The Alpha Anchor is to be found in Angkor and in Giza. 
    * The actual time span of creation is framed in the stars. 

28.  Christocentric? 

    * If we take teleology quite seriously, Jesus has not existed yet. 
    * The X-event was the death of God.  This was the necessary self-sacrifice. 
    * The X-event is to the geodesics of of the Spirit, rather as Angkor, Giza, etc., are to the geodesics of the Earth. 

29.  Hanging by a Thread 

    * The idea of a coherent cosmos has simply fallen through the political and logistic cracks of academia.  
    * A dozen people knowing the truth and using the Internet can easily take this world away from the materialists. 

30.  Mere Words 

    * We do seem to posses an innate grammatical ability that is not reflected in any of the brute force procedures used to instruct machines in the use of language.  
    * What seems intrinsic to words is their ability to refer to other things.  
    * The fact is that there is nothing physical about referring. 
    * Any act of reference must transcend a purely causal nexus.

31.  Straw Man 

    * The previously mentioned deconstructors of the mind will be our straw man until the warm bodies appear. 

32.  Strategy 

    * Divine minimalism in history is exemplified in the prophetic tradition. 
    * In our case the Internet should minimize the problem of disseminating the message, and thus we have the concept of the mini-messiah.  
    * ... nothing other than the dictionary definition of salvation. 

33.  Saving the World 

    * You will notice that I am taking a recognizably Tom Sawyerish approach to this salvational fence painting. 
    * Publish or perish....

34.  Hot Topic? 

    * If materialism is going to implode, this would be ground zero for that event. 

35.  The 'Competition' 

    * They are letting the materialists choose the battlefield, and set the terms of the engagement. 
    * Meanwhile, the theists are implicitly letting the pantheists continue their hegemony over immaterialism. 

36.  Never Mind? 

    * A very important lacuna among theists is the mind. 
    * Rationalism has almost never found fertile soil in either the east or the west. 

37.  Rational Theism 

    * Imagine the bloke who first figured that out.  
    * Would it not be much more difficult to prove that it is impossible for God to exist? 
    * What is to suppose that accessibility to universal mathematics is not a condition of existence? 

38.  The Ecology of Existence 

    * We cannot understand the meaning of one word without, potentially at least, understanding the meaning of every other word.
    * The history of science is a steady progression in our appreciation of the complexity and interdependence of all existence. 
    * Given the apparent holographic, relational, bootstrapped nature of all existence, it would be incomprehensible that any part of creation or existence could be isolated from the creator....

39.  The Level Playing Field 

    * Knowing God and having a buck seventy-five will get you a cup of coffee in Times Square. 
    * Any physicist will tell you that space is something awfully contrived. 

40.  An Idle Question? 

    * Why is there something rather than nothing? 
    * There must be a lower limit of some kind on what it means to be a world. 
    * If the principle of sufficient reason is possible, non-optimal worlds are impossible.

41.  Is Mind Possible? 

    * All relations are ultimately subjective. 
    * Not only is mind possible, but it is the generator of all possibility. 
    * Is a kitten excluded from all contact with the Monster group?
    * God can never be further from us than our own reason and feeling. 

42.  Coherence

    * The most mysterious thing about the world is its comprehensibility. 
    * The basis for existence is the process of relating. 
    * Where's the substance, if it is not in the matter?  The substance is in the coherence. 
    * Coherence exists only in relation to a subjective pole. 
    * The atoms, while they are current, provide a centrifugal balance to the centripetal subject.
    * In the eschaton, the centrifugal force is overcome. 

43.  Distinction

    * Spencer-Brown's Laws of Form
    * The Kabbalah speaks of the Zim-zum
    * 'seven thunders' that also play a central role in Joyce's Finnegan's Wake
    * witnessed within history as the syzygy 
    * the stem cell of language
    * this historical process is reversed and accelerated

44.  The Relational Self

    * Somehow the pantheists miss the nodal structure of the world.
    * There is the even more fundamental dialectical dynamic
    * As in the monadology, every node is a microcosmic hologram.
    * The preordained harmony is the agape betwixt the Alpha and Omega 

45.  Pantheism 

    * Pantheism has served as a bit of a strawperson in these pages
    * those pantheists are not real strong on rationalism, nor on the Metanarrative
    * And remember there is no substance. 
    * The megalithic Angkor sailed right by them. 

46.  Islam 

    * If the modern materialist establishment needed a thorn in its side...
    * [They] seem a bit impatient with my Metanarrative, bless their hearts.
    * Without McCluhan how could they have known that the message was in the medium?  

47.  Emergence

    * If physics is unable to reduce itself...
    * no one can point to any vital force 
    * but all the correlations in the world will not explain the existence of what is at least a very fortuitous dual aspect of matter. 
    * It is not for nothing that people are reluctant to rock the intellectual boat that is modernism. 

48.  Relations

    * If numbers can exist then certainly relations can. 
    * Is the past real?  If it is, it is only in relation to some actual present. 
    * If science is teaching us anything about the world it is the almost unlimited functional intricacy 
    * The isolated object, fact or word mean virtually nothing without regard to its relations.

49.  Relatedness

    * The degree of existence, however, is not something that can be directly observed. 
    * Physics works because it is so totally insinuated into our lives.
    * And it is so insinuated just because it does its work.  Is this circular? 
    * As long as astronomers are able to keep pushing the telescopic limits, they will not run into any cosmic or logical brick walls.
    * In like manner, the PSR implies the BPW hypothesis as Gottfried was able to deduce several centuries ago.

50.  Recap

    * The poor reader may be getting a bit dizzy from going around in these circles.
    * I am not writing a thesis. 
    * I am casting a loopy net into this vast ocean. 
    * Like those fair maidens of yore, I just keep on spinning. 

51.  Immaterialism

    * Down thru the ages, immaterialism and idealism have always been prevalent in philosophy and religion. 
    * The successes of science have managed to keep a heavy lid on idealist speculation 
    * We should wonder why the theists cannot find their way to the high road of idealism. 

52.  Immaterialism (pt. 2)

    * For almost five years I struggled to find wholeness within a quantum dualism of mind and matter. 
    * Once one has opened the door to the possibility of mind on a cosmic scale, all the qualities are drained out of matter
    * I realized that my leap from science to immaterialism was a luxury that my fellow scientists could ill-afford. 

53.  Rationalism

    * Part of the rationale for irrationality is the scientific view that mind is an accident of nature 
    * Deep ecology, fundamentalism and postmodernism are the disparate responses.  
    * Historically, rationalism has been based in theism. 
    * In practice, however, the religious establishments have never been comfortable with the political possibility of free thought. 
    * along came science to provide a tremendous outlet for a sustained but restricted intellectual endeavor 
    * Now with the advent of the Internet, will the authorities find another stratagem to keep human reason in check? 

54.  [Some introductory pages came here chronologically.  They are in the Topical Index.]