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.
5/21/02