“…The spacetime world of matter and energy, 14 billion years old and almost 100 billion light years across, is not the final word.” < Back Eucharist David Cowles Jul 15, 2023 “…The spacetime world of matter and energy, 14 billion years old and almost 100 billion light years across, is not the final word.” The sacrament known as Eucharist is the cornerstone of Roman Catholic (RC) spirituality. The accompanying theology maintains that in Eucharist Jesus Christ is substantially present, body and spirit, human and divine, under the accidental appearance of bread and wine. RC Eucharistic Theology holds that the consecration of bread and wine (the specie ) during a proper liturgy actually changes the substance of that specie into the Body and Blood of Christ. Appropriately, Catholics refer to this process as transubstantiation . Much of RC Theology can be (and has been?) dumbed down and/or sugar coated to be more appealing to our modern intellectual tastes…but not Eucharist! Here, there is no wiggle room. Believe me, we’ve tried everything over the past 2,000 years – but to no avail. Eucharist does not symbolize or signify Jesus’ body and blood; it is Jesus’ body and blood. Nor are we saying that Jesus’ body and blood co-exists with the bread and wine; it doesn’t! Substantially speaking, after consecration, there is no more bread or wine. There is the appearance of bread and wine but not the substance. Nor are we saying that Jesus is only ‘provisionally present’ in Eucharist. His presence is not dependent on the moral virtue of the celebrant nor on the faith of the congregation or of the individual communicant…nor on the grape or vintage of the wine. Hints of leather and tobacco are strictly optional! See what I mean? No wiggle room! I’m holding a baseball in my hands. It’s a baseball! It doesn’t matter who made it or what that person’s state of mind was at the time; it doesn’t matter whether I enjoy baseball or even understand its rules. Being a baseball does not depend on context; it’s a matter of substance. Of course, there is one difference: the baseball not only is a baseball, it appears to be a baseball as well. Not so Eucharist! It is the body and blood of Christ, but it appears to be bread and wine. Needless to say, few non-Christians share this belief. In fact, most non-Catholic Christians hold a different view of the Sacrament. It is only slightly more surprising (Pew, 2019) that a majority of self-identified ‘Roman Catholics’, and even some practicing Roman Catholics, do not accept the Church’s teaching on this matter. Frankly, the wonder is that anyone accepts so bizarre a doctrine as this. Today, we share an understanding of physics, chemistry and biology that would seem to rule out anything even remotely resembling transubstantiation. It sounds more like Alchemy than Sacrament. But that is precisely the point! Transubstantiation is incompatible, superficially at least, with ‘the hard sciences’. Modern science has given us a compelling model of the physical world, and we have no quarrel with that. However, what science has modeled is, obviously, the world of appearances, attributes, qualities, accidents – Kant’s phenomena - not the world of substance, his noumena . In the Beatles’ iconic movie (1967), Yellow Submarine , Jeremey Hillary Boob famously instructs the Fab Four, “Be empirical, look!” Exactly! And when we do, we see the accidents, bread and wine; we don’t see anything that we would recognize as body or blood, thank God! In this respect, Eucharist is a symbol, not of Jesus, but of Universe. To be clear, Eucharist is the body and blood of Christ, but it is also symbolic of Universe. How so? Eucharistic Theology suggests that the spacetime world of matter and energy, 14 billion years old and almost 100 billion light years across, is not the final word. There is something more fundamental. Christians believe that that ‘something more fundamental’ is God. The world we live in appears to be continuous, flat and inert. We do not need complicated mathematics to plot a trip from Boston to Cleveland; a simple road map, unfolded on the passenger seat, will do just fine. We can ignore contributions to our trajectory from relativity, quantum mechanics and the earth’s curvature. Likewise, modern science has given us a map of Universe that allows us to accomplish just about anything we want…except to understand that universe. Hasidic Rebbe Schneerson spoke of “…t he concept of oneness within the microcosm of the human being—which serves as an analogy and example of the true oneness of the macrocosmos.” He concluded, “All that exists is spiritual. Yet further, everything is divine.” According to modern cosmology, the foundation of the material world is a ‘void’; according to Rebbe Schneerson, it is a ‘person’, aka God. We see the personhood of Universe reflected in the ‘souls’ of things that exist in that universe. According to the Rebbe Yitzchak Luria, even a rock has a soul as evidenced by its self-identification, by its cohesion, and by its discontinuity with the environment. Rabbi Schneur Zalman, founder of the Chabad school, wrote that a rock must have a soul ( persona ) because it exists. Being is an activity. “I seem to be a verb” (R. Buckminster Fuller). Using Eucharistic terminology, Universe is accidentally space and time, matter and energy; but it exists, so substantially (obviously not accidentally), it is the will of God. David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Return to our Beach Read 2023 Table of Contents Share Previous Next Click here. Do you like what you just read? Subscribe today and receive sneak previews of Aletheia Today Magazine articles before they're published. 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If Zeno can defeat his teacher, the whole class wins! Zeno today, me tomorrow! < Back Achilles and Tortoise David Cowles Oct 15, 2022 If Zeno can defeat his teacher, the whole class wins! Zeno today, me tomorrow! The students in Mrs. Dooley’s 5th grade math class are scratching their heads. According to Mrs. Dooley, someone has challenged the great Achilles to a foot race. But what makes this particularly puzzling is that the challenge is coming from a tortoise. Now, Achilles is the fastest runner in all of Greece and tortoises are, well, tortoises. This can’t end well for Tortoise, can it? Fortunately, though, Achilles is a generous man. He’s agreed to give Tortoise a head start. Achilles will begin the race at the start line, but Tortoise will begin halfway to the finish line. Still, Tortoise has a problem. As soon as the race begins, ESPN measures the speed of both runners, and Achilles is running four times as fast as Tortoise. Remember, though, Tortoise has a head start. Achilles must cover twice as much ground as Tortoise, but then again, Achilles is running four times as fast. Mrs. Dooley asks the class, “Do you think Achilles can catch up to Tortoise and win the race?” All the students nod their heads. All except one, Zeno! “You don’t agree, Zeno?” Mrs. Dooley asks, as the class groans impolitely. Zeno has a reputation for coming up with contrary answers and weird arguments. One time the banter between Mrs. Dooley and Zeno became so intense that the class was two minutes late for recess. Zeno’s classmates were not pleased! But Mrs. Dooley is always polite. “Ok, Zeno, how do you see it?” “Well,” the boy began. “Achilles can’t win the race unless he can catch up to Tortoise. He must catch Tortoise before he can pass him. Right?” “Ok,” Mrs. Dooley agreed, warily. “But obviously, Achilles can never catch up to Tortoise!” Zeno asserted confidently, as though their argument was over and the matter settled. Expecting more, but not getting it, Mrs. Dooley kept going, “Why not, Zeno? Why can’t Achilles catch Tortoise. After all, Achilles is running four times as fast and only has twice as far to go.” Mrs. Dooley was sure she’d got the better of Zeno this time, but Zeno was just annoyed. After all, Mrs. Dooley was supposed to be his teacher, and now he was going to have to teach her. With a slight air of condescension, Zeno continued. “Before Achilles can pass Tortoise, he has to catch up to Tortoise, right?” “Yes.” “So, the first thing Achilles has to do is get to the halfway marker where Tortoise began the race,” Zeno explained. “Ok,” Mrs. Dooley replied, still not understanding where the argument was headed. Zeno, by now a little exasperated, continued, “Well, by the time Achilles gets to the halfway mark, Tortoise isn’t there anymore, is he?” “No, I don’t suppose he is.” “Well, Achilles can’t beat Tortoise unless he can catch up to him and so far, he hasn’t done that, has he?” “No, but the race isn’t over yet, Zeno. Achilles will catch Tortoise later on.” “No, he won’t, Mrs. Dooley: the race is over. Achilles can never catch Tortoise.” Mrs. Dooley has a puzzled look but, strangely, Zeno’s classmates are suddenly listening intently. If Zeno can defeat his teacher, the whole class wins! Zeno today, me tomorrow! And this time, Zeno seems to be on to something. “Whenever Achilles gets where Tortoise was, Tortoise has moved on again.” “Of course.” “Well, Mrs. Dooley,” Zeno concluded, trying, unsuccessfully, to remain as respectful as possible. “Don’t you see that this same process will repeat over and over again? No matter how many times Achilles gets to where Tortoise was, Tortoise won’t be there.” “So, Zeno,” asked an exasperated Mrs. Dooley. “Who wins the race?” At that moment, the bell rang for lunch, but guess what? Something magical happened. The whole class sat motionless. Their attention was focused on Mrs. Dooley…and Zeno. Next to recess, lunch was the high point of the day, but believe it or not, the students in Mrs. Dooley’s class were willing to give up lunch if they could get to the bottom of what their whispers were already calling “Zeno’s Paradox.” Hungry herself, Mrs. Dooley thought to ‘tap out.' “So, then Tortoise wins the race, right Zeno?” Well, Zeno almost fell out of his seat, laughing. He couldn’t stop himself, “Of course, Tortoise didn’t win the race; everyone knows Achilles smoked him. Tortoise ate dust!” The class exploded in laughter, and Mrs. Dooley could not have been more annoyed. Speaking sternly, she pressed Zeno, “Explain yourself, Zeno. First you said Tortoise won the race, now you say Achilles. Are you just messin’ with us?” Mrs. Dooley didn’t often use slang with her students. Yup, she was angry; Zeno would soon find out just how angry! Sensing disaster, Zeno made one last futile effort to repair the situation, but, of course, it only made matters worse. “Mrs. Dooley, I never said that Tortoise won the race. I said Achilles couldn’t win the race…not according to the rules of arithmetic anyway. We all know that Achilles won the race. The point is that according to the rules of arithmetic, he couldn’t have won, could he? So, the rules of arithmetic must be wrong.” If only Mrs. Dooley had left it there, but she couldn’t help herself. “So if the rules of arithmetic are wrong, what are the right rules, Zeno?” And of course, Zeno couldn’t help himself either. “Aren’t you the teacher?” Class dismissed…for an abbreviated lunch, but now Zeno had become the class hero. Kids even offered him their hard-won desserts. And what of Zeno? He’s home now, writing 100 times, “I must not disrespect my teacher,” and he has never been happier in his whole life.” Image: Achilles during the Trojan War, polychromatic pottery painting, 300 BC. Public Domain David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com. Share Previous Next Do you like what you just read? Subscribe today and receive sneak previews of Aletheia Today Magazine articles before they're published. Plus, you'll receive our quick-read, biweekly blog, Thoughts While Shaving. Subscribe Thanks for subscribing! Click here. 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< Back The Comedy of Job David Cowles “Failure to appreciate the comic elements in Job has resulted in an almost universal misreading of the text.” Comedy? I’ve heard the Book of Job described as tragedy, wisdom, and history, but never as comedy. How can the loss of one’s family, property, health, and social standing possibly be funny? Talk about ‘dark humor;’ but trust me (or don’t), it’s hilarious! The banter between Job and his so-called ‘comforters,’ even between Job and God, is as funny as any modern sitcom–no, funnier. The best way to show this would be to recast the epic poem as a stage or screen play. But where are Aristophanes, Shakespeare, Ionesco, and Beckett when we need them? Absent a master’s touch, would you at least let me point out some of the funniest snippets of the epic? This is not a sterile exercise in literary criticism. Failure to appreciate the comic elements in Job has resulted in an almost universal misreading of the text. As we shall see, proper recognition of the comic element sets things right. The Book of Job consists of 42 chapters, 40 of which contain a magnificent epic poem, every bit the equal of Homer’s diptych. The poem is nestled between a prose Prologue and a very brief prose Epilogue. For various reasons, we will focus only on the poem itself (95% of the total text). That said, I will also ignore the 6 chapters devoted to the input of a younger comforter, Elihu. These chapters are of dubious provenance and sit inert in the middle of the text. They contribute nothing to the discussion and neither Job nor God, nor the other comforters even refer to them. The epic proper begins with Job lamenting the day of his birth. Nothing funny about this. But Job has the added misfortune of being surrounded by (false) friends, three so-called ‘comforters’, cold comfort indeed! Eliphaz speaks first. Like a pre-pubescent boy in a schoolyard, Eliphaz responds to Job’s genuine suffering and heartfelt reflection with a taunt: “It is you who have fortified the trembling, and limp arms, you have strengthened. The stumbling would your words raise up, and buckling knees would you stiffen.” Eliphaz is, of course, being facetious. He applies to Job attributes usually reserved for God. “But now that (calamity) has come to you, you cannot (bear it). It touches you yourself and you are shaken…Call out now! Does anyone answer you? ... Rather, I would seek out El (God), before Elohim (also ‘God’) I would lodge my complaint.” 21 st Century translation: “If you don’t like the way God’s treated you, sue him.” Eliphaz is urging Job to do what he himself wouldn’t dream of doing: “Let’s see if I can goad Job into doing something so stupid that God will punish him even more! How much fun would that be!” But as we shall see (much later), Job turns the tables on Eliphaz and the other comforters. He does sue God…and he wins. Eliphaz and the other comforters are properly chastised and shamed. The story of Job has a happy ending, but the road to that climax is long and tortured; and in any event, I’m getting way ahead of myself. For now, Job must be content to banter back: “Thus have you now become naught (to me); you see a terrifying sight (me) and you are seized with fear.” Like most bullies, Eliphaz’ behavior is grounded in his own insecurity…and Job knows that. Foolishly, Job continues. Does he really think we can get through to these bullies? Now a second comforter, Bildad, joins the circle of torment: “(How long) will the words of your mouth be a massive wind? …(Suffering) is the fate of all who reject El.” Of course, this is ironic, since Job alone ‘knows’ El and keeps his commandments. But what miscreant doesn’t love it when a goody-two-shoes (Job) gets his comeuppance, even when it is undeserved. Job pretty much ignores Bildad’s noise; he is still mulling over Eliphaz’s suggestion: “If one wanted to press charges against him, not once in a thousand (times) would he respond…Even in the right, I would get no response…I do not trust that he would hear my complaint…and who can convene such a legal proceeding?” As with anyone in Job’s predicament, there is an inevitable undercurrent of despair: “The earth is handed over to the wicked. He covers the eyes of its judges; if not he, then who? …I will be found guilty, so why should I strive in vain.” Now a third comforter, Zophar, joins in, “A hollow man (Job) will be filled with intelligence when a wild ass is born to a human.” In other words, when pigs fly, Job! Here, Job loses his famous patience! There’s no reasoning with these taunters. He decides to call them out, “Truly you are people of intelligence and with you, wisdom will die! …Rather ask Behemoth (hippo) and it will instruct you, or the fowl of the sky – and it will tell you. Or converse with the earth…and the fish of the sea.” Job challenges the over-intellectualized theology of his tormentors. He suggests they return to basics. In the immortal words of John, Paul, George and Ringo ( Yellow Submarine ), “Be empirical, look!” Like Heidegger and others, the Job-poet calls for a theology rooted in phenomenology, i.e., personal experience. “I would rather speak to Shaddai (another name for God); it is an argument with El I desire. But you, you are smearers of lies, false physicians, all of you. If only you would keep silent – that would be wisdom for you !” Well said, Job, but unfortunately these bullies don’t get the message. They never do! Eliphaz jumps back in: “Does ‘a sage’ utter such windy speech and fill his belly with an east wind?” To which Job answers, “Futile comforters are you all. Is there no end to (your own) windy speech?” Throughout Job’s dialogue with the comforters and later with God, the interlocutors throw each other’s words back and forth. They repeat others’ words but put them in different contexts that give them different meaning. ‘Wind/windy’ is a good example. Job is the first to use the word, “Do you regard (my) words as just wind?” A classic victim’s mistake! A modern-day Maimonides needs to publish A Guide for the Bullied . Item #1 : Don’t give your tormentors anything they can use against you. Job flunks Victimology 101. “Do you regard my words as just wind?” is translated by the tormentors as “My words are just wind!” Wind is wonderful for word play; its various meanings run up and down the semantic register. Job is into the game now: “Futile comforters are you all: is there no end to windy speech?” On one hand, “windy speech” could mean, facetiously, “spirit inspired”…or it could refer to a disorganized and meaningless blast of air. It could apply to a verbose orator, but it can also refer to a certain noisy and often smelly bodily excretion, aka a fart! After a second lame attack from Bildad, Job goes on offense . In the most famous lines in the entire poem, he succinctly summarizes his theology and warns Bildad of impending doom: “I know that my Redeemer lives, and he will testify on earth. From behind my skin I look out, while in the flesh I’ll see Eloah (God). Something I myself will view - what my eyes, not a stranger’s, will see…you (Bildad) had better fear the sword…you had better beware of demons.” Job is digging himself into an ever deepening pit. There may be no recovering from this; Job may need to change schools. Now Zophar joins the circle of torment, but Job cuts him short: “After I speak, you may (continue to) mock yourself ” (i.e., blather on). Yet, Job uses his tirade against Zophar to score a major point: “Should I not lose patience over evil?” The comforters are apologists for evil; they excuse God for that which is evident to their senses. Here, Job throws down the gauntlet: Evil is evil and there’s no excusing it, period! In other words, even God must be good. Today, people debate “Good without God?” Job asks a much more interesting question: “God without Good?” From our 21 st century theological perch, it is hard to appreciate how controversial this was at the time. Suffice to say, it only served to further isolate Job as a minority of one. Sidebar : There is a modern analog. In 1964, Presidential nominee, Barry Goldwater, addressed these words to the Republican National Convention: “Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice and moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue.” One third of the delegates walked out! Evidently, they too were willing to make peace with slavery and exploitation. Not Job! The Book of Job reads like a textbook of modern political theory: any correspondence between rhetoric and reality is entirely co-incidental. Now Eliphaz jumps back in with a tactic worthy of his 21 st century (CE) heirs. He accuses Job of precisely that crime of which Job is most innocent: exploiting the poor and neglecting their cry. It is a fabrication made from whole cloth, but hey, you can fool some of the people…, right? Like any skilled debater, Job does not give Eliphaz’ nonsense the honor of a reply; he’s already on to other things: “If you would let me know how to find him (God)…I would lay before him my lawsuit.” After a variety of legal maneuvers worthy of OJ’s Dream Team , God answers Job's summons and appears before him in a whirlwind. From the outset, God is contemptuous of his opponent and his remarks are dripping with sarcasm: “Who is this who obscures good counsel, (using) words without knowledge? ...I will ask you, and you will let me know…Tell me – if you truly know wisdom.” From here on, God’s speech consists primarily of a game of Have you Ever , punctuated with a few Double Dog Dares from A Christmas Story . He challenges Job to compare CVs with him: “Have you ever in your days summoned daybreak…Have you ever reached the sources of the Sea? ...Tell - if you know all of this. On what path dwells the light? ...You must know, for you were born then, your number of days is so many.” God is furious; he cannot contain his anger at Job’s effrontery. His words are venom tipped arrows. But notice what God does not do! He does not ‘smite Job with the jaw bone of an ass’ nor does he withdraw from the legal proceeding itself. Job is unfazed. Like Moses and Elijah, Job has anticipated God’s bluster and knows he must remain impassive if he is to get through it. Think Menelaus holding on tight to the shape-shifting Proteus. Eventually, God runs out of steam, “Should Eloah answer an accuser?” After all the ink and tears that have been spilled over this, now God questions whether he should even have responded to Job in the first place: “Maybe I should have taken the fifth…or drank a fifth.” Too late now, God, that horse is long since out of that barn. God’s rhetorical question creates an opportunity for Job to get a word in edgewise, finally, and Job makes good, but laconic, use of the opportunity: “Lacking respect, how can I answer you? My hand I place over my mouth. I have spoken once, and I will not repeat – Twice, and I will no more.” For millennia critics have taken Job’s words as an apology; how could they? At the most, this is the unfelt, sarcastically toned apology of a teenager. At the very most! Ask yourself, “Who’s disrespecting whom?” Either Job has disrespected God, and so forfeited the right to answer him, or God has disrespected Job, and forfeited the right to hear Job’s answer. In the first instance, Job’s words must be understood facetiously; in the second instance, as sarcasm. Job has apparently ‘rested’ his case. God now has one last chance to make a convincing argument. Wisely, he chooses a different tack: “Will you go so far as to breach my justice? Accuse me of wrong so that you are in the right? If you’ve an arm (as strong as) El’s…crush the wicked where they stand…Then I myself will praise you.” In other words, “Just do it!” Enough with the rhetoric, Job, if you can do better, go ahead; I won’t stand in your way and the whole world is anxious to see what you can accomplish. Bill Clinton is famous for saying, “It’s the economy, stupid.” In other words, stay on message. Job is famous for saying something like, “It’s justice, stupid,” and sticking to it. He must not, and he will not fall prey to God’s distractions. God closes with the tired reminiscence of an old man regaling the rest of his nursing home gang with tales of his past exploits: “I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker.” (Eliot) God spends his last 13 verses lionizing his creatures, Behemoth and Leviathan. One can imagine him thinking, “Yes, they are fierce, but at least they don’t talk back like you, Job.” God’s final stanza is nothing but sad, “He (Leviathan) has no match on earth, who is made as fearless as he. All that is haughty he’s got in his view; over beasts of all kinds he is king.” Job has previously stated something akin to the swami’s famous line in the Beatles’ movie, Help : “I will say no more!” But like the swami, he will say more. He cannot resist ‘the last word,’ and on that ‘word’ rests the whole meaning of Job, the foundation of Judeo-Christian theology: “I have known you are able to do all; that you cannot be blocked from any scheme. (God’s defense is not responsive to Job’s complaint.) Who is this revealing counsel without knowledge? (God.) Truly, I have spoken without comprehending - wonders beyond me that I do not know. ‘Hear now and I will speak! I will ask you, and you will help me know’ (not) . As a hearing by ear I have heard you, and now my eye has seen you. That is why I am fed up; I take pity on ‘dust and ashes’ (human beings).” Doesn’t it make you just want to reach out and slap him (Job that is, not God)? Oh, to be back in the 1950s! Any reader who has ever parented a teenager can put herself in God’s shoes, and any superannuated child can sympathize with Job. It’s the age-old battle of the generations, played out on the grandest of all scales. How can anyone have missed this? How come almost everyone has missed it? Answer: the incredible power of popular superstition. “God cannot be wrong, not even in an allegorical fable because he is God. What need have we of evidence…or even legal reasoning?” Theology 101 should begin with the Book of Job…and with the much older story of Job. It is a searing indictment of top-down theological reasoning. As Heidegger said, genuine philosophy (and by extension theology) must begin at the level of first person experience. We need to take ourselves more seriously…and less! We need to see the humor behind our entire endeavor. We need to eschew Sartre’s Spirit of Seriousness . God laughs at our efforts to understand him, but I hear that laughter as good-humored (not like that of Job’s comforters). We need to take a page from God’s book: lighten-up and know that I am God. **Calling all playwrights! Do you wish you’d written Waiting for Godot ? Or even Hamilton ? Now’s your chance to write a play that will leave these two triumphs in the dust. Your Comedy of Job will keep the Broadway lights on for what will seem like forever.” ** David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Return to our Summer 2023 Table of Contents Previous Next

< Back Harvard/Stanford David Cowles Apr 22, 2025 “There’s a reason why lawyers often tell their clients not to testify in court; frequently, such witnesses end up hanging themselves.” You don’t have to be a MAGA Republican to realize that something is terribly wrong with the academic establishment in the United States. In ‘my day’ almost everyone aspired to be a college graduate. Not everyone succeeded but most at least paid homage to the goal. Not so today! When a 14 year old grandchild recently announced, “And I am not going to college,” barely an eyebrow was raised. Today, everyone knows that there are multiple paths to a fulfilling life and not all of those paths run through ivy. It was a bit eye-catching, however, when a major international defense contractor, Palantir Tech, announced that it was offering prospective employees a $100,000 signing bonus if they promised not to go to college. Stunning! Clearly, our universities have long since abandoned their mission of educating Americans to live meaningful, examined, and productive lives. Today, major universities have become gigantic money mills, insatiably fueled by confiscatory tuition, crippling student debt, misguided donations, and government grants. Case in point: over a decade ago we learned that now Senator Elizabeth Warren had been paid a $300,000 annual salary by Harvard University…to teach a single class. Who says teachers are underpaid? In lieu of fulfilling their educational mission, our institutions of higher learning are now focused on so-called ‘research’. Some of that research is no doubt meaningful and promises to deliver benefits in the medium-to-long term. Universities should be free to pursue their research without government interference. (Exception: when national security is involved.) The problem comes when they expect us to pay for that research without our having any control or any ownership interest in the results! The reaction of academia to the Trump administration’s efforts to rebalance this equation tells us everything we need to know. There’s a reason why lawyers often tell their clients not to testify in court; frequently, such witnesses end up hanging themselves. And so… Lawrence Summers , the former Treasury secretary and former president of Harvard, and ironically, ‘one of the good guys’: “Removal of Harvard’s 501(c)(3) status, which won’t happen because we are a nation of laws, would, if it did happen, devastate progress in medical and scientific research, the maintenance of American and Western values, opportunity for the next generation of Americans and an important magnet for the United States in the world.” Universities value their ‘academic freedom’ and rightly so but that does not mean that they are entitled to tax payer financing. Currently, the federal government subsidizes unregulated university activity in three ways: Direct grants Lost tax revenue on tax deductible donations The cost of publicly financed tuitions, aka Student Loans, that enable universities to squeeze more money out of their customers (students) than would be possible in a free market. This state-of-affairs is nothing short of a human rights violation…on two scores: The diversion of public funds for private purposes over which the government has no control is a form of taxation without representation. Didn’t we fight a war over that? Perhaps as much as 40% of income tax revenue comes from households with annual incomes less than $250,000. Using those receipts to bail out cash rich universities amounts to a massive income redistribution scheme that further benefits the already more fortunate. In terms Robin Hood would relate to, we are robbing the lower middle class and giving the proceeds to the upper middle class. Is it time to fire up The Hague? As troubling as all this is, the self-important arrogance and sense of entitlement displayed by spokespersons for university interests is even more dazzling. According to Larry Summers (above), the withdrawal of public financing from private institutions would… “ Devastate progress in medical and scientific research (Undermine) American and Western values (Compromise) opportunity for the next generation of Americans (Sacrifice) an important magnet for the United States in the world.” Really, Larry? That’s all? And BTW, re #4 , whatever happened to ‘Truth, Justice, and the American Way’? Guess that went out of vogue after the ‘50s. The icing on this cake came in a letter of support for Harvard University from the President and the Provost of its west coast academic rival, Stanford. “America’s universities are a source of great national strength, creating knowledge and driving innovation and economic growth… This strength has been built on government investment but not government control. The Supreme Court recognized this years ago when it articulated the essential freedoms of universities under the First Amendment as the ability to determine who gets to teach, what is taught, how it is taught, and who is admitted to study.” Wow! Would you send your child to be taught by these geniuses? Yes, universities are entitled to First Amendment protections. But did the Supreme Court also state that they are entitled to tax payer funding? I think not! I attended college in the turbulent ‘60s. Among my professors were men (sic) of genius and integrity like John Rawls, Willard van Orman Quine, Hilary Putnam, and H. Stuart Hughes. Today apparently, anyone can say anything, no matter how foolish, and be taken seriously, so long as they have the proper initials after their name. One more time: “America’s universities are a source of great national strength, creating knowledge and driving innovation and economic growth… This strength has been built on government investment but not government control.” Let’s unpack: First, if America’s universities really are a source of ‘great national strength, creating knowledge and driving innovation and economic growth’, then they should do just fine…without public financing. Second, “government investment but not government control” is a politically attractive way of saying, “free money, taken from the less fortunate and given to the more fortunate, with no strings attached”. Civics 101 : There is no such thing as ‘government investment’; there is only ‘taxpayer investment’ but that investment takes two forms: (1) actual taxes paid, (2) inflated prices driven up by government borrowing to fund deficit spending. The taxpayer pays twice and gets nothing back except a promissory note: “We’ll educate your children, provided they are in the most gifted 5% and can come up with at least $250,000 in non-deductible tuition.” How generous! Criticizing the American economic system is a favorite pastime of “writers and critics who prophesize with your pen” (Bob Dylan). But there is no injustice in that system greater than forced taxpayer funding of elite private institutions. Image: René Magritte’s 1929 oil painting The Treachery of Images is housed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles. Keep the conversation going. 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back The Multiverse David Cowles Nov 14, 2024 “Now I feel like I’m standing at the counter of a Baskin & Robbins, answering my server’s first question…” One Sunday at dinner, an eight-year-old grandchild casually asked, “Boka, have you heard of the Multiverse.” I had. Among the many blessings I’ve enjoyed in my life is a rasher of grandchildren, any one of whom can engage me in thought-provoking conversation at the drop of a fork. There’s rarely a sit down dinner without talk turning to biology, cosmology or theology. But this Sunday’s topic made me realize that I had not given the concept of ‘Multiverse’ enough thought. The idea is simple: we live in a universe, dah! So, couldn’t there be other universes as well – places where we don’t currently reside? Of course, the answer is, “Yes!” But now I feel like I’m standing at the counter of a Baskin & Robbins, answering my server’s first question, “Can I help you?” “Yes, you can,” but I better tell you how you can help me, or we’re going to be staring at each other for a very long time and the line of potential customers behind me might become a bit unruly: “Three scoops please, Jamoca Almond Fudge, German Chocolate Cake and of course, Pralines & Cream.” Yup, those are flavors of ice cream, unrelated to candy, pastry or beverages of any kind. Like ice cream, the concept of Multiverse comes in flavors. Of course, our standard model of cosmology is built around the idea that we live in a single, unique universe, finite in space and time. In other words, not a Multiverse! Cosmology is a lot like public opinion polling. We only have access to a tiny percentage of the potential data points – because of cosmic expansion, most of the universe ‘created’ at Big Bang has already crossed the event horizon and is no longer even potentially detectable by us. Lewis Carroll notwithstanding, there’s no reason to suppose that physics ‘through the looking glass’ is any different from physics here and now. If that assumption is correct, then (1) polling will accurately predict the outcome of the next election and (2) there’s no need to posit a Multiverse. But Hugh Everett (1957) had a different idea. He thought that every event, every choice, every bifurcation ‘created’ its own unique universe. Instead of ‘many events in one universe’ Everett gave us ‘one event in one universe’. His ‘Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics’ (MWI) delivers the ultimate Multiverse – an Omniverse made up entirely of discrete universes. To be clear, most of us think of Universe as something like ‘the set of all astronomical phenomena’; Everett thinks of Universe as the set of all universes. Between ‘No Multiverse’ and ‘Only Multiverse’, there are a number of hybrid positions. Lisa Randall, for example, posits multiple self-contained universes (called ‘branes’), sharing common borders ( ergo ‘membranes’). Each universe is self-contained, probably erupting at its own Big Bang and continuing to its own Heat Death. But there’s a leak somewhere in the system. Something must cross the ‘Brane/Brane Barrier’ (BBB) or our universe would be unaffected by the others; we would have no way to detect them and no reason to want to. Our prime suspect in Leakgate is Gravity – possibly a solution to the ‘missing mass’ dilemma, perhaps preferable to the ‘dark matter’ fix. These various scenarios have more in common than you might think. For example, they all assume that the omni/multi/uni/verse is finite in space and time. Absent a transcendent creator, I find this counterintuitive. Defenders of these models struggle mightily with the 5 W’s: What, Where, When, How and Why? Finitude per se is its own mystery. Aristotle, on the other hand, didn’t worry about silly adverbs. He proposed a universe infinite in both space and time. But introducing the notion of infinity sets off its own cascade of problems, some scientific, some philosophical. For example, in an infinite universe there would be an infinite number of data points, each point assuming every possible value at least once. But in an infinite universe, every possible value of any data point will occur an infinite number of times. Plus data points form patterns. To the extent that events are independent of one another, the number of patterns they can form is infinite, and each such pattern would repeat an infinite number of times. So our universe would consist of every possible state-of-affairs repeated an infinite number of times. Ugh! Now, if I have a Universe defined as everything that could possibly happen, happening an infinite number of times, and forming an infinite number of patterns, each recurring an infinite number of times…do I have anything at all? Or have I just found a clever way to say, “Nothing!” Not a Multiverse, not a Universe, Nothing. Remember Gregory Bateson’s ontological criterion: a difference that makes a difference . In an infinite model, nothing is different (unique) and therefore nothing makes any difference per se ; everything that can happen, does happen, and it happens an infinite number of times, in an infinite number of contexts, regardless of whatever may have happened before. So the unique universe you and I grew up in, unthinking, has challengers now. MWI has introduced the concept of an Omniverse, Lisa Randall et al. have sketched the outline of a true Multiverse, and finally, Aristotle gave us what is the functional equivalent of an Anti-verse. So yes, I have heard of the Multiverse…but so far, I’m not sold. Keep the conversation going. 1. Click here to contact us on any matter. How did you like the post? How could we do better in the future? Suggestions welcome. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Official Launch of Aletheia Today Magazine David Cowles May 31, 2022 Your exclusive look at the all-new magazine for believers in science and God! Tomorrow, June 1, is a landmark day for Aletheia Today (AT). Tomorrow, we publish Issue #1 of AT Magazine (ATM, Summer 2022). Our first issue includes a total of ten feature length articles spread over four departments: The Great Convergence: Science in the 21st century Philosophy Theology Culture Features contributed by AT staff writers and independent contributors include: Science & the Yellow Submarine Eternity vs. Immortality Jesus meets Mr. Spock In the Tween & Teen section of ATM Issue #1 we have two articles: Vacuum Monster (from Yellow Submarine) Quark Soup Our Education, Evangelization, & Prayer section includes prayers, poems, and short stories written by contributing writers to AT Magazine. We want to engage with you, our readers, in every way possible. We encourage you to send us an email ( editor@aletheiatoday.com ) to leave comments on any of our articles, or to contribute something of your own for publication in a future issue. In order to promote engagement, Issue #1 includes two Reader Challenges . We encourage you to participate in those, as well and share them and any other article and essay that you find interesting with others. Finally, as a loyal reader of “Thoughts While Shaving,” we would like to offer you a chance to begin reading ATM Issue #1 right now , one day ahead of its official publication date! Click here for a peek at our first issue. Let us know what you think. - David Cowles, Editor-in-Chief, Aletheia Today Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Should I Vote? David Cowles “What if there was an election where everyone was eager to vote…but nobody cared who won? It’s happened!” Today (1/15/2024) marks the official ‘opening’ of the 2024 Presidential Election season. It’s the night of the Iowa Caucuses! If you are a US citizen, even if you don’t live in Iowa, sometime in the next few months you will be called upon to make a decision: “Should I vote in my state’s Presidential Primary or Caucus?” Well, why would you? To demonstrate your support for democracy? To ensure that the best (or better) candidate is elected? To advocate for a particular set of public policies? Heck no! These all ‘sound’ like good reasons to vote…but none of them makes any sense! Dictatorships hold elections too. In some countries, folks are required by law to vote in elections. It confers an aura of legitimacy (often where none is deserved) while simultaneously ensuring that the votes of any one person or group are maximally diluted. Saddam Hussein ‘eked out’ a win…with just 99% of the vote. You’re told, “Every vote counts!” But pro-democracy propaganda notwithstanding, no one vote ( your vote) ever elected anyone ! Sure, very occasionally, the ‘official’ tally may reflect a difference of a single vote, but long before we get down to that one ballot, the process has become judicial rather than political. Just ask Al Gore! At some point, the counting of ballots has to stop (e.g., on 12/12/2000) so that judges can take over. A two-word summary of Bush v. Gore : “Stop counting!” You’ve been told that every vote counts; in fact, no vote counts! Voting is one way to communicate a political position – but the signal is usually drowned out by the noise. You don’t get to explain your vote. Maybe you voted for candidate A because she is a staunch defender of personal liberty, or maybe you voted for her because she is a racist. No one will ever know which message you meant to send. “To…to…to,” is it precisely that purposefulness that can make voting meaningless? What if there was an election where everyone was eager to vote…but nobody cared who won? It’s happened! “This is a book about…people who have come to believe that voting is meaningless and useless because politicians or those who influence politicians are corrupt, selfish, and beyond popular control.” – Murray Levin, The Alienated Voter . No, Professor Levin’s book is not about the current national political landscape…though it certainly could be. Rather, it’s an analysis of a local election that took place 65 years ago, in Boston! Boston is famous for many things, baked beans, cod, and crème pie, for example. Not to mention Ted Williams, Larry Bird, and the GOAT (Tom Brady). But these Boston icons fade compared to a certain Massacre (1770), Tea Party (1773), and Midnight Ride (1775). After all, Boston was home to the Shot Heard ‘round the World …twice as it turns out, once in 1775 and then again in 1959! If you were a fan of Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher, perhaps you owe their success to ‘the strange events’ that happened in Boston in 1959. The self-proclaimed ‘Hub of the Universe’ heralded the start of a multi-generational political epoch in the US and beyond. This is what Professor Levin chronicled in his 1960 book. Let’s set the scene. Boston’s popular incumbent mayor (John B. Hynes) is not running for reelection. The runner-up in the previous mayoral race, State Senator John E. Powers, has been designated ‘mayor presumptive’ by the Boston media. Nevertheless, five candidates have entered the non-partisan primary. Perhaps the least well-known is the Registrar of Deeds, John Collins. As expected, Powers won the primary easily, with more than a third of the votes cast. Surprisingly, Collins finished second, but with less than a quarter of the total vote. Powers scored 50% more primary votes than Collins – an insuperable gap to close in just six weeks. Accordingly and appropriately, the Boston media promptly declared the election over and promoted Powers from ‘mayor presumptive’ to ‘mayor elect’…but someone forgot to tell Collins. Still, the outcome of the final election was never in doubt. Every poll, every pundit, told the same tale: “Powers Landslide!” until about 8:45 PM on the evening of November 3. The media pundits had been right all along. The election was not going to be close, not even close to close. Only one problem: the ‘wrong’ candidate had won! Final tally: Collins 56%, Powers 44%. Let’s put this in perspective: FDR averaged 56% of the vote in his four election victories; Eisenhower averaged 56% of the vote in his two campaigns against Stevenson. No US presidential candidate has won 56% of the vote in 40 years - not since Ronald Reagan defeated Walter Mondale in 1984. What’s that you say? “So an underdog won a race: big deal; upsets happen all the time!” No, they don’t! Not like this one. Both candidates received more votes in the final election than they had in the preliminary. Powers doubled his primary vote total, and Collins quadrupled his. The Primary voters split 3 to 2 for Powers; the ‘new votes’ split 2 to 1 for Collins. Powers received 50% more votes than Collins in the preliminary…and 20% fewer votes than the same man just 6 weeks later. A stunning turnaround! Most astonishingly, 10% of those who voted for Collins in the final had voted for Powers in the preliminary. Expressed another way, one of every six of Powers’ primary voters switched to Collins sometime during the six weeks leading up to the general election. What had happened to cause such a shift? Nothing! No scandal, no gaff, no new policy proposals, just politics as usual. The verdict of Boston’s voters was loud and clear: “We’re mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it anymore. Power elite, take us for granted at your peril.” A few pundits predicted Brexit’s 2016 victory in the UK and a handful predicted Trump’s election, but nobody predicted Collins victory in 1959, not even this overly precocious pro-Collins 12-year-old. Nobody! Sidebar : My father was away on business. He called me from the road. “Who won?” Collins…in a landslide. “No, seriously, tell me the truth.” Collins. “Boy, you are in big trouble when I get home.” I told the truth…but the truth was unthinkable. On the weekend after the election, Professor Levin and his team interviewed 500 Boston voters, drawn from all across the city. Levin’s study showed that religion, income, and ethnicity played no significant role in the election’s results. Collins won the votes of Catholics, Protestants, and Jews, high and low-income residents, Irish, Italian, Yankee, and African American voters. Somehow, a consensus emerged without anyone (not even Collins) calling for it. It happened under the radar, at bus stops and in barrooms, and it cut across the city’s fiercely independent neighborhoods. Today, Boston is Yuppie Paradise, and neighborhood identity has by and large vanished, but in 1959, things were very different. At that time, East Boston High (Italians) played South Boston High (Irish) in an annual Thanksgiving Day football game that always ended in a West Side Story rumble. People walking through unfamiliar neighborhoods were routinely assaulted, only to be told that it was their own fault for ‘playing away from home’. These were just the facts of life in Boston in 1959. It turned out that Boston voters had something in common that was strong enough to overcome their past and future animosities, rooted as they are in religion, class, ethnicity and race. According to Murray Levin, that mysterious X factor was ‘political alienation’. May I ask you a question? The last time you voted in an election, did you think your preferred candidate would do a better job in office than their opponent? Not necessarily a ‘good’ job, but at least a ‘better job than the alternative’. Of course, you did…unless the last time you voted was in Boston in 1959. Professor Levin’s most astonishing finding was that the majority of voters in Boston’s Mayoral election that year did not think their chosen candidate would be a better mayor than his opponent. This tendency was especially prominent among Collins voters! And so, ‘wave voting’ was born…in Boston, the Cradle of Liberty! Folks voted for Collins, not because they believed he’d be a better mayor, but because they refused to be taken for granted. Voters didn’t care who won the election; they cared about sending a message. “ This is our chance to poke the power elite in the eye.” And so they did! Where does that leave you? Are you going to tonight’s caucuses…or not? Voting is an existential act. It’s the moral equivalent of a ‘tush push’ or a ‘goal line stand’ in football. It’s not about electing a certain candidate; it’s not even about advancing a certain policy proposal. It’s about drawing a line in the sand: “ No Mas! This far and no farther!” Voting is a matter of taking a stand. It’s about joining a crusade, putting your shoulder to the wheel, ‘taking your place on the great mandala’, (and apparently) compiling an encyclopedia of clichés. R U Blue…or Grey? R U Collins…or Powers? How you answer defines who you are . That’s why you might choose to vote, not just to elect the lesser of two losers! If you decide to vote, don’t do it with your head down; do it waving your arms in the air! (Is that why they call it ‘wave voting’?) And if you decide not to vote, make sure everyone knows why! David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Click above to return to Winter 2024. Previous Next

< Back A Very Brief History of Monotheism David Cowles Oct 14, 2025 “Once again, civilization has descended into a version of polytheism, and we are all poorer as a result.” Monotheism is an intellectually attractive representation of the ‘God’ concept. It stands behind such great works as the Torah and the New Testament ; it is the soul of Israel’s Judges and Prophets, and it was inspiration for Augustine, Aquinas, Maimonides and Avicenna. But politically, it’s a tough sell. The enigmatic pharaoh, Akhenaten (d. 1370 BCE), was one of the first recorded advocates for the one-God (‘Aten’) hypothesis in the Western world. He is loosely, perhaps mythologically, associated with the Hebrew Exodus and the growth of the ancient Greek settlement at Thebes. It is certainly attractive to imagine Moses (c. 1250 BCE) as heir to Akhenaten’s monotheism, but intellectual history is rarely quite so neat. In any event, Akhenaten’s attempts to reform the Egyptian belief system did not end well. Upon his death, his social reforms were quickly unwound…and the monotheism he was selling? No one was buying it! (Except perhaps the Hebrew slaves.) The details of Akhenaten’s demise remain unknown – suspicious in itself for a society that kept such good records and typically treated its dearly departed pharaohs to a ‘divine’ send-off. Akhenaten’s body was never placed in the tomb he had built for himself. (Is an empty tomb to be the common fate of all great monotheists?) To this day, his remains have never been reliably identified. Plus, in a manner reminiscent of a Stalinist purge, all public reference to the reformer ceased upon his death. Of course, the fact that he was succeeded by his much more famous son, Tutankhamun (‘King Tut’ to you), a staunch polytheist, could not have helped. One thing for sure, Tut’s flair for pomp more than made up for his father’s more austere style of statecraft. So, what did happen to Akhenaten? The most probable hypothesis is that he was deposed, assassinated, and buried in an unmarked grave (or, possibly left unburied, like Polyneices in Sophocles’ Antigone ). Following Akhenaten’s fall, the Egyptians were only too eager to restore the many gods of the Pantheon to their rightful status. Which leads us to Moses. Irrespective of his origin, there is little doubt that the Hebrew Exodus brought monotheism to the Near East, but again, not without a terrible struggle. Not long after their historic Exodus from Egypt under the leadership of Moses and his brother Aaron, the rank and file were caught smelting a Golden Calf to replace the existential YHWH ( I am who am ). And once secure in the Promised Land Israel’s leaders constantly, and often in vain, struggled to keep the people from worshiping the local Canaanite deities (the Baal). Fast forward 1500 years. Judeo-Christian monotheism is finally gaining the upper hand in its struggle with Greco-Roman paganism. What a film! YHWH vs. the Olympians ! Polytheism sure dies hard. How come? What’s the attraction? The concept of God shared by the People of the Book (Jews, Christians and Muslims) is relatively abstract. We even apply terms such as ‘transcendent’ and ‘ineffable’ to describe God’s relationship with the world. The Pagan gods of Europe, in contrast, intervene much more obviously in the mundane events of everyday life…and they are apt to do so capriciously. They are quick to anger, slow to forgive. Their concept of Justice is Draconian, more so even than ancient Talionic Law (‘an eye for an eye’). The Greco-Roman gods are motivated by pride, lust, and jealousy…like us. They can be manipulated, even tricked, like us. We like to think of ourselves as ‘made in the image of God’; but the Olympians are clearly made in our likeness. They behave like we do. They are more akin to the Marvel Superheroes of modern mythology than they are to St. Paul’s abstract, “unknown” God. ( Acts 17: 23 – 31) Now skip ahead another 1,000 years to Florence, Italy toward the end of the 15 th century CE. The first shoots of the Renaissance are visible everywhere. And what is it that is being reborn? Athenian democracy? Spartan heroism? Roman jurisprudence? Of course not! What is being reborn is, you guessed it…polytheism (passed off as a revival of Classical culture)! But not without a fight. In the tradition of Akhenaten, Moses, and the Fab Four (John, Paul, Mark and Jesus), one man makes one last attempt to overcome ‘modernism’ by putting Christendom on a more secure anthropological footing. The man’s name: Savonarola. The death of Lorenzo de' Medici (1492), the French invasion of Italy and the subsequent expulsion of the Medici from Florence (1494) created a power vacuum into which Florence’s ‘spiritual leader’ was prepared to step. Preaching that Florence could become a “New Jerusalem”, he established a theocratic republic in the city. Perhaps anticipating the Protestant Reformation, the friar advocated for broad reform in the Church, condemning papal corruption and the practice of simony. “The People’s Government” did not last long. By 1497, the reactionary forces of status quo ante were gathering strength. Arrested in April 1498, he was tried for heresy and schism, convicted and sentenced to death. On May 23, 1498, he was hanged in Florence's Piazza della Signoria, his body then burned, and his ashes scattered in the Arno River, presumably to prevent his followers from collecting relics and visiting his tomb. The republican form of government continued in Florence until 1512 when the Medici family returned to prominence. However, following Savonarola’s execution, a new constitution, eliminating the theocratic elements of the 1494 republic, was adopted. The ‘Reign of God’ had ended once and for all in Europe. The tumultuous events of 1498 created a second vacuum which was quickly filled by the younger, more secular and more pragmatic Machiavelli. The author of The Prince did not advocate polytheism, but he did advocate divorcing ethics from politics. Just imagine how popular he would have been in today’s world! Machiavelli’s rise to power, politically and intellectually, kicked off a 500 year period of ‘rational pragmatism’. The material quality of life improved markedly. Now that God was ‘out of the way’, folks could pursue economic advantage unencumbered by eschatological angst. “There’s an app for that!” The magical, mystical world of the Middle Ages was suddenly transformed into a tangled web of levers and pulleys. “Press here and receive a reward.” Our new gods reside, not on the top of Mount Olympus but in La Technique – the tools and processes of the material world. Once again, civilization has descended into a version of polytheism, and we are all poorer as a result. *** Julie Mehretu’s Stadia II (2004) transforms the architecture of stadiums into a vast, abstract swirl of color, line, and form that evokes both celebration and chaos. Layers of transparent marks and vector-like arcs suggest flags, maps, and digital interfaces—symbols of modern life’s speed and multiplicity. The painting captures the tension between collective energy and information overload, turning the visual language of globalization into a meditation on the complexity of contemporary experience. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Memes About Animal Resistance Are Everywhere Alexandra Isfahani-Hammond "Nonhuman animals do, in fact, engage in resistance, even if their defiance is futile. The will to prefer life over death is a primary act of resistance, perhaps the only act of dissent available to animals who are subject to extreme forms of control." Memes galore centered on the “orca revolution” have inundated the online realm. They gleefully depict orcas launching attacks on boats in the Strait of Gibraltar and off the Shetland coast . One particularly ingenious image showcases an orca posed as a sickle crossed with a hammer. The cheeky caption reads, “ Eat the rich ,” a nod to the orcas’ penchant for sinking lavish yachts. A surfboard-snatching sea otter in Santa Cruz, California has also claimed the media spotlight. Headlines dub her an “ adorable outlaw ” “ at large .” Memes conjure her in a beret like the one donned by socialist revolutionary Ché Guevara. In one caption, she proclaims, “ Accept our existence or expect resistance … an otter world is possible.” My scholarship centers on animal-human relations through the prism of social justice. As I see it, public glee about wrecked surfboards and yachts hints at a certain flavor of schadenfreude . At a time marked by drastic socioeconomic disparities, white supremacy and environmental degradation, casting these marine mammals as revolutionaries seems like a projection of desires for social justice and habitable ecosystems. A glimpse into the work of some political scientists, philosophers and animal behavior researchers injects weightiness into this jocular public dialogue. The field of critical animal studies analyzes structures of oppression and power and considers pathways to dismantling them. These scholars’ insights challenge the prevailing view of nonhuman animals as passive victims. They also oppose the widespread assumption that nonhuman animals can’t be political actors. So while meme lovers project emotions and perspectives onto these particular wild animals, scholars of critical animal studies suggest that nonhuman animals do in fact engage in resistance. Nonhuman Animal Protest is Everywhere Are nonhuman animals in a constant state of defiance? I’d answer, undoubtedly, that the answer is yes. The entire architecture of animal agriculture attests to animals’ unyielding resistance against confinement and death. Cages, corrals, pens and tanks would not exist were it not for animals’ tireless revolt. Even when hung upside down on conveyor hangars, chickens furiously flap their wings and bite , scratch, peck and defecate on line workers at every stage of the process leading to their deaths. Until the end, hooked tuna resist, gasping and writhing fiercely on ships’ decks. Hooks, nets and snares would not be necessary if fish allowed themselves to be passively harvested . If they consented to repeated impregnation , female pigs and cows wouldn’t need to be tethered to “ rape racks ” to prevent them from struggling to get away. If they didn’t mind having their infants permanently taken from their sides , dairy cows wouldn’t need to be blinded with hoods so they don’t bite and kick as the calves are removed; they wouldn’t bellow for weeks after each instance. I contend that failure to recognize their bellowing as protest reflects “ anthropodenial ” – what ethologist Frans de Waal calls the rejection of obvious continuities between human and nonhuman animal behavior, cognition and emotion. The prevalent view of nonhuman animals remains that of René Descartes, the 17th-century philosopher who viewed animals’ actions as purely mechanical , like those of a machine. From this viewpoint, one might dismiss these nonhuman animals’ will to prevail as unintentional or merely instinctual. But political scientist Dinesh Wadiwel argues that “even if their defiance is futile, the will to prefer life over death is a primary act of resistance , perhaps the only act of dissent available to animals who are subject to extreme forms of control.” Creaturely Escape Artists Despite humans’ colossal efforts to repress them, nonhuman animals still manage to escape from slaughterhouses . They also break out of zoos , circuses, aquatic parks, stables and biomedical laboratories . Tilikum, a captive orca at Sea World, famously killed his trainer – an act at least one marine mammal behaviorist characterized as intentional . Philosopher Fahim Amir suggests that depression among captive animals is likewise a form of emotional rebellion against unbearable conditions, a revolt of the nerves . Dolphins engage in self-harm like thrashing against the tank’s walls or cease to eat and retain their breath until death . Sows whose body-sized cages impede them from turning around to make contact with their piglets repeatedly ram themselves into the metal struts, sometimes succumbing to their injuries . Critical animal studies scholars contend that all these actions arguably demonstrate nonhuman animals’ yearning for freedom and their aversion to inequity . As for the marine stars of summer 2023’s memes, fishing gear can entangle and harm orcas . Sea otters were hunted nearly to extinction for their fur . Marine habitats have been degraded by human activities including overfishing, oil spills, plastic, chemical and sonic pollution, and climate change. It’s easy to imagine they might be responding to human actions , including bodily harm and interference with their turf. What is Solidarity with Nonhuman Animals? Sharing memes that cheer on wild animals is one thing. But there are more substantive ways to demonstrate solidarity with animals. Legal scholars support nonhuman animals’ resistance by proposing that their current classification as property should be replaced with that of personhood or beingness . Nonhuman animals including songbirds, dolphins, elephants , horses, chimpanzees and bears increasingly appear as plaintiffs alleging their subjection to extinction, abuse and other injustices. Citizenship for nonhuman animals is another pathway to social and political inclusion. It would guarantee the right to appeal arbitrary restrictions of domesticated nonhuman animals’ autonomy. It would also mandate legal duties to protect them from harm. Everyday deeds can likewise convey solidarity. Boycotting industries that oppress nonhuman animals by becoming vegan is a powerful action. It is a form of political “counter-conduct,” a term philosopher Michel Foucault uses to describe practices that oppose dominant norms of power and control. Creating roadside memorials for nonhuman animals killed by motor vehicles encourages people to see them as beings whose lives and deaths matter , rather than mere “roadkill .” Political scientists recognize that human and nonhuman animals’ struggles against oppression are intertwined . At different moments, the same strategies leveraged against nonhuman animals have cast segments of the human species as “less than human” in order to exploit them. The category of the human is ever-shifting and ominously exclusive . I argue that no one is safe as long as there is a classification of “animality.” It confers susceptibility to extravagant forms of violence , legally and ethically condoned. Might an ‘Otter World’ Be Possible? I believe quips about the marine mammal rebellion reflect awareness that our human interests are entwined with those of nonhuman animals. The desire to achieve sustainable relationships with other species and the natural world feels palpable to me within the memes and media coverage. And it’s happening as human-caused activity makes our shared habitats increasingly unlivable. Solidarity with nonhuman animals is consistent with democratic principles – for instance, defending the right to well-being and opposing the use of force against innocent subjects . Philosopher Amir recommends extending the idea that there can be no freedom as long as there is still unfreedom beyond the species divide: “While we may not yet fully be able to picture what this may mean, there is no reason we should not begin to imagine it ”. This is a republish in its entirety through permission from The Conversation . Alexandra Isfahani-Hammond works at the intersection of critical animal studies, decolonial studies, and comparative race and slavery studies. Above all, she is interested in troubling the human/animal divide, anthropocentrism, and the entanglement of animalization with racialization. Her publications include the book chapters, "Dogs without Masters: Astray with Akbar and in André Alexis' Fifteen Dogs" (2022), "A Pale Shade of Violet: Animals and Race in Machado de Assis" (2022), “Haunting Pigs, Swimming Jaguars: Mourning, Animals, and Ayahuasca” (2020), and "Slave Barracks Aristocrats: Islam and the Orient in the Work of Gilberto Freyre" (2014). She has also authored articles such as "Of She-Wolves and Mad Cows: Animality, Anthropophagy, and the State of Exception in Cláudio Assis's Amarelo Manga" (2011) and “Akbar Stole My Heart: Coming Out as an Animalist” (2013), as well as the monograph, "White Negritude: Race, Writing, and Brazilian Cultural Identity" (2008), and the edited volume, "The Masters and the Slaves: Plantation Relations and Mestizaje in American Imaginaries" (2005). In addition to her scholarly publications, she has contributed to various media outlets, including The Advocate, The Conversation, CounterPunch, Ms. Magazine, Persianesque, the Folha de S. Paulo, and Truthout. Return to our Harvest Issue 2023 Previous Next

< Back Origin of Cannibalism? David Cowles Jun 26, 2026 “This discovery pushes back the evolutionary timeline for certain functional behaviors by 400%.” 1100 Words, 5 minute read Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) recently discovered a microscopic organism, Euplotes Gigatrox (EG), that can change size, shape, and behavior to hunt and consume their genetically identical relatives. In other words…cannibals! Under specific conditions, a small number of cells in clonal EG colonies ‘spontaneously’ develop into super-giants more than twice the length of normal cells, with a broader body shape and a larger mouth. These altered cells become predators, capturing the now smaller clonal relatives and swallowing them whole, at a rate of roughly one prey every ten minutes. Beyond the obvious horror involved in this practice, this phenomenon demonstrates that single-celled organisms are capable of complex behavior previously studied only in multicellular animals. EG has discovered a feedback loop that allows it to continuously optimize a colony’s population density in response to ever changing environmental conditions. Imagine no more famines and no more one child policies! (Of course, these gains come at an horrific price!) EG ’s discovery raises more questions than it answers. How does the colony control the behavior of its individual members so that the aggregate result is optimized for the survival and procreation of the colony? How is it decided which organisms will transform (predators) and which will remain in their natural state (prey)? How does the colony know when the concentration of super-giants is optimal and how is that determination communicated among the individual organisms so that no additional cells convert to super-giant status? Likewise, how does the colony know when the crisis has passed and the concentration of super-giants must be reduced, ultimately to zero. How are individual super-giants instructed to revert to their normal state? The RPI team sequenced single-cell transcriptomes from (1) normal cells, (2) super-giants, and (3) cells that had recently reverted back to ‘home base’ from a super-giant state. The results showed that super-giants are a distinct developmental stage, with widespread differences in gene expression including cell cycle regulation, protein production, and membrane organization. I am reminded of the Caterpillar whose genetic material completely reorganizes during its metamorphosis into a Butterfly . Cells that revert from the super-giant state also carry a distinct molecular signature that appears to temporarily suppress the pathways driving transformation. Populations started from recently reverted cells produced new super-giants more slowly and at lower overall rate than populations started from normal cells, regardless of external conditions . This makes perfect sense! If the initial population adjustment overshoots the mark, it makes sense that the colony would be more restrained in the future. Somehow, this colony of single celled organisms ‘learns’ from experience and adjusts its future behavior accordingly, a feat not always duplicated in humans. Super-giant formation tends to occur following periods of rapid population growth, especially when alternative small prey are less than abundant. Formation continues only while alternative prey remains scarce. Importantly, super-giants never exceed about 5% of the population. 5% appears to be a universal tipping point for all EG populations. A concentration of super-giants in excess of 5% almost always results in depletion of the population below safe levels. Unlike most gluttons (present company included, non-cannibalistically of course), EG knows its limits. This itself is a puzzle. How can a species learn not to ‘extinct itself’? After all, we’ve been told that ‘extinction is forever’: you don’t come back from an extinction event so how can you learn from it. Arguably at least, Homo Sapiens (HS) is struggling with a similar paradox right now. The existential question: Will we be as successful as our unicellular cousins? There are two fascinating aspects to this discovery. First, it offers a clear model of population (vs. organism) centric evolution. Second, it bridges a long supposed gap between unicellular and multicellular organisms. The evolution of life on Earth traces an interesting, and I think somewhat unexpected, timeline. Give or take a few hundred million years, but who’s counting, the sequence of events looks something like this: 4.5 billion (years ago) Earth takes solid form 4.0 billion First self-replicating molecules (RNA) 3.5 billion First cell (DNA powered) 2.0 billion First eukaryote (nucleated cell); e.g. EG 1.0 billion First multicellular organism 0.5 billion First animals; e.g. sponges .05 billion First primates; e.g. HS This discovery ( Euplotes Gigatrox) pushes back the evolutionary timeline for certain functional behaviors by 400%. It’s as if we just found out that George Washington was not born 400 years ago but 1600 years ago, before the Fall of Rome. Or that Bill Gates invented the Windows operating system during the War Between the States. Unsettling. Yet somehow these unicellular organisms are able to carry out all the functions of both a cell and an entire organism within a single membrane. According to Ben Larson, a member of the RPI research team, “Most of what we know about development comes from animals. We now have a system where we can study those same fundamental questions, as analogous developmental processes play out in a single-celled organism on a completely different branch of the tree of life’.” Fascinating…but so what? Well first, perhaps we can learn something from our unicellular ancestors: how to prioritize population survival over individual success. But second, this is another example of the incredible collapse of the Tree of Life that is taking place in our own time. Just a few generations ago, HS was the star atop the Tree of Life. It was the purpose of the tree, its raison d’etre . It was the entirety of the tree compressed, i.e. the business end of an ontological telescope. The rest of tree, from baboon to bacterium, had no intrinsic importance and only functional value. In my lifetime alone, the Tree of Life has transformed from a formidable redwood to a cute bonsai. The only question now is, “When will this process end?” The discovery of Euplotes Gigatrox suggests that we still have some way to go. What a time to be alive! What a time to be alive? Photo Source : Ben Larson and Samuel Lord: Euplotes Gigatrox cell, imaged by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), published on the cover of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) . Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Chatting With C.S. Lewis “It is the very mark of a perverse desire that it seeks what is not to be had… As long as you are governed by that desire, you will never get what you want.” David Cowles Proponents of AI, of which I consider myself one, assure me that soon I will be able to hear a debate between Karl Marx and Pope Leo XIII, ‘live’. I can’t wait; I will pay through the nose for this ticket. But I also believe that AI was not invented last night; it’s been around at least since the dawn of written communication. For example, here’s the edited transcript of a conversation I had with C.S. Lewis (d. 1963), thanks to an old-fashioned version of Artificial Intelligence (books). Enjoy! CSL: (In a passage) from Tolstoy, the young second lieutenant, Boris Dubretskoi, discovers that there exist in the army two different systems or hierarchies. The one is printed in some little red book… The other is not printed anywhere…You discover gradually, in almost indefinable ways, that it exists and that you are outside it; and then later, perhaps, that you are inside it. AT: So, if I understand you, you’re talking about identity here; you’re saying that people derive ‘identity’ from their ranking on some sort of socio-economic Tennis Ladder? Or to use your terminology, a series of ever tightening concentric rings ascending in an inverted cone, like Dante’s Paradise. Each ring is inside some rings and outside others. So everyone is outside, outside of what? CSL: From outside, if you have despaired of getting into it, you call it “That gang” or “they” or “so-and-so and his set” or “The Caucus” or “The Inner Ring." AT: I think that perhaps because of differences in our age (50 years) and nationality (the Pond), we are saying similar things using slightly different vocabularies. For example, where you say ‘ring’, I might say ‘rung’. In 21st century U.S. we certainly have our ‘inner circles’ but we also have our justly infamous ‘socio-economic ladder’. CSL: I believe that in all men’s lives at certain periods, and in many men’s lives at all periods, between infancy and extreme old age, one of the most dominant elements is the desire to be inside the local Ring and the terror of being left outside. AT: Being British, it’s natural for you to think in terms of groups; being American, I’m afraid I think in terms of individuals or, better yet, Groups of One . For us, it’s about the compulsion to be someone and the dread of ending up as no-one . Life is a giant game of Musical Chairs; there’s always a chair for everyone…except one. Ultimately, there’s only chairs enough for one. One winner…all the rest, Losers! Being someone might mean being part of an inner circle, as you put it, but it could also mean celebrating some sort of personal triumph (e.g., becoming CEO or earning a million dollars). CSL: People who believe themselves to be free, and indeed are free, from snobbery, and who read satires on snobbery with tranquil superiority, may be devoured by the desire in another form... An invitation from a duchess would be very cold comfort to a man smarting under the sense of exclusion from some artistic or communistic côterie. Poor man—it is not large, lighted rooms, or champagne, or even scandals about peers and Cabinet Ministers that he wants: it is the sacred little attic or studio, the heads bent together, the fog of tobacco smoke, and the delicious knowledge that we—we four or five all huddled beside this stove—are the people who know . AT: The cognoscenti . What you’re describing sounds like a 21 st century, pardon me, 20 th century, version of Gnosticism. Being a member of an Anarchist cell is just as much an identity as being CEO of General Motors. Of course, here’s where our terminologies converge. The revolutionary’s cell is every bit as much an Inner Circle as those exclusive country clubs that welcome only the movers and the shakers . CSL: Men tell not only their wives but themselves that it is a hardship to stay late at the office or the school on some bit of important extra work which they have been let in for because they ‘and so-and-so and the two others’ are the only people left in the place who really know how things are run. But it’s not quite true! It is tiring and unhealthy to lose your Saturday afternoons: but to have them free because you don’t matter, that is much worse. AT: Are you familiar with Victor Frankl? He’s a holocaust survivor who argues that the defining quality in life is ‘having a purpose’. If you don’t matter, you can have no purpose. You are quite literally no-one. People make the mistake of thinking that Being Someone is the same thing as Having Purpose . Being someone is just about self ; having purpose involves others. But shifting gears: would the dreaded adolescent ‘peer pressure’ also fit your model? CSL: I wonder whether, in ages of promiscuity, many a virginity has not been lost, less in obedience to Venus than in obedience to the lure of the caucus. For of course, when promiscuity is the fashion, the chaste are outsiders. They are ignorant of something that other people know. They are uninitiated. AT: Good one! Here, of course, we are talking about ‘to know’ in the Greek sense of gnosis but also in the carnal ‘Biblical sense’. CSL: The number of people who first smoked or first got drunk for a similar reason is probably very large. I must now make a distinction. I am not going to say that the existence of Inner Rings is an evil. But the desire which draws us into Inner Rings is another matter. A thing may be morally neutral, and yet the desire for that thing may be dangerous. Let Inner Rings be unavoidable and even an innocent feature of life, though certainly not a beautiful one: but what of our longing to enter them, our anguish when we are excluded, and the kind of pleasure we feel when we get in? AT: Identity is idolatry! CSL: …This desire is one of the great permanent mainsprings of human action. It is one of the factors which go to make up the world as we know it—this whole pell-mell of struggle, competition, confusion, graft, disappointment, and advertisement… Unless you take measures to prevent it, this desire is going to be one of the chief motives of your life, from the first day on which you enter your profession until the day when you are too old to care. AT: That’s me, “too old to care”, but seriously, what you’re saying is incredibly sad. You’re saying that the irresistible desire to be somebody is precisely what ensures that you will never be anybody , that you will forever be nobody , the very thing you dreaded in the first place. Perhaps we’re hoping that by ‘being somebody’ we can escape death. We’re hoping to project our frail and mortal humanity into some quasi-permanent physical or social structure. Ozymandias, King of Kings! But by fleeing from our humanity, we shun the gift of being human, the gift of being itself. CSL: That will be the natural thing—the life that will come to you of its own accord. Any other kind of life, if you lead it, will be the result of conscious and continuous effort. If you do nothing about it, if you drift with the stream, you will, in fact, be an “Inner Ringer.” I don’t say you’ll be a successful one; that’s as may be. But whether by pining and moping outside Rings that you can never enter, or by passing triumphantly further and further in—one way or the other, you will be that kind of man (sic). AT: So the CEO is just ‘going with the flow’, doing what comes naturally in our culture, while the contemplative monk, the one who seemingly does nothing, is, in fact, the one who is acting, the one who’s swimming against the tide, the one who’s doing something. Thomas Merton, for example, believed that contemplative prayer is what holds the universe together. CSL: Over a drink, or a cup of coffee, disguised as triviality and sandwiched between two jokes, from the lips of a man, or woman, whom you have recently been getting to know rather better and whom you hope to know better still—just at the moment when you are most anxious not to appear crude, or naïf or a prig—the hint will come… and at the word “we” you try not to blush for mere pleasure… AT: “We” – the most powerful word in the English language. We pharisees, we band of brothers (or sisters), we police, we mafiosi, we tenured professors, we senators, Sein Fein . CSL: And you will be drawn in, if you are drawn in, not by desire for gain or ease, but simply because at that moment, when the cup was so near your lips, you cannot bear to be thrust back again into the cold outer world… It may end in a crash, a scandal, and penal servitude; it may end in millions, a peerage and giving the prizes at your old school. AT: We tell ourselves that we do what we do for wealth, for security, for comfort, but in fact we do what we do for prestige, for power, for status…in other words, for identity. CSL: The torture allotted to the Danaids in the classical underworld, that of attempting to fill sieves with water, is the symbol not of one vice, but of all vices. It is the very mark of a perverse desire that it seeks what is not to be had. The desire to be inside the invisible line illustrates this rule… AT: To be inside the event horizon of a black hole… CSL: …As long as you are governed by that desire, you will never get what you want. You are trying to peel an onion: if you succeed, there will be nothing left. Until you conquer the fear of being an outsider, an outsider you will remain. AT: I’m working on an assembly line, but I desire to enjoy the prestige and the perks of being foreman. I am a professor, hoping to be department head. I am a Senator, working to become President. How high is up? How deep is in? CSL: This is surely very clear when you come to think of it… If all you want is to be in the know, your pleasure will be short-lived. The circle cannot have from within the charm it had from outside. By the very act of admitting you, it has lost its magic. AT: “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.” – Groucho Marx CSL: Once the first novelty is worn off, you will be looking for another Ring. The rainbow’s end will still be ahead of you. The old ring will now be only the drab background for your endeavor to enter the new one. But your genuine Inner Ring exists for exclusion. There’d be no fun if there were no outsiders. The invisible line would have no meaning unless most people were on the wrong side of it. Exclusion is no accident; it is the essence. AT: Yikes! So no club is worth joining unless it mercilessly excludes the others ? The quest for a unique socio-economic identity automatically creates classism, racism, jingoism, even slavery. And yet, there is no such ‘identity’, we are clutching at a phantasm…at the expense of everyone else…and at the expense of ourselves. CSL: The quest of the Inner Ring will break your hearts - unless you break it . But if you break it, a surprising result will follow. If in your working hours you make the work your end, you will presently find yourself all unawares inside the only circle in your profession that really matters. You will be one of the sound craftsmen, and other sound craftsmen will know it. This group of craftsmen will by no means coincide with the Inner Ring or the Important People or the People in the Know. AT: You are describing the ‘Master Builders’ in the 21 st century film, The Lego Movie . Honors and accolades are indeed often disconnected from quality, creativity, and productivity. CSL: To a young person, just entering on adult life, the world seems full of “insides,” full of delightful intimacies and confidentialities, and he desires to enter them. But if he follows that desire, he will reach no “inside” that is worth reaching. The true road lies in quite another direction. AT: Amen! * C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) was Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University and a Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge. His remarks (above) come to us by way of “The Inner Ring”, the Memorial Lecture given at King’s College, University of London, 1944. David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Return to our AI Issue Table of Contents Previous Next

< Back Trickle-Down Economics David Cowles Aug 1, 2024 “Forests have turned ‘trickle-down’ economics, literally, into an art form. By sharing resources, trees ensure that the tide will raise all boats.” Economists, politicians, ideologues, and demagogues all love to disparage trickle-down economics . The phrase itself is pejorative. On the other hand, if someone says, “A rising tide lifts all boats,” we’re ok with that. Denotatively, they are saying the same thing; connotatively, they are expressing polar opposites. Dispensing with the aquatic metaphors, the real issue here is the relationship between the health of the economy as a whole and the well-being of its individual members. We are still living in the shadow of Karl Marx. We like to pretend that economics is a zero sum game and that one player’s gain must come at the expense of other players’ losses. But economics is not poker. The game has a wide range of possible outcomes in which the total wealth available for distribution is variable just as is each player’s share of that wealth. For example, let’s assume we have an economy with just 10 participants. Our job is to divide the wealth in 10 ways. For the sake of the arithmetically challenged (me), let’s assume that the estimated total wealth is $55. We could just give every player 1/10th of the total. That’s socialism. Or we could give 9 players the minimum ($1) and direct all residual wealth ($46) to the one remaining participant. That’s robber baron capitalism. Between these two extremes there are more than 8,000,000 possible ways to divide up a $55 pot so that every player receives a whole dollar amount (no pennies). To make matters worse, or better, there is no guarantee, indeed no likelihood, that the total pot will be the same under different distribution scenarios. Economies are organic. We believe that distribution impacts production. One distribution scheme will produce more aggregate wealth than another; we just can’t agree on which one gets us to the max! Experience has taught us that neither of the two extremes (socialism or robber baron capitalism) is likely to maximize the pot. We imagine that there is a sweet spot somewhere between these 2 extremes; finding that sweet spot is what keeps economists employed. Not that ‘more’ should be the only criterion! Justice is at stake here as well. But once again, we don’t necessarily agree on what’s just. Is it ‘just’ that everyone gets the same regardless of their relative effort and contribution? Or is it ‘just’ that some players get only the ‘minimum’, even if their contribution is marginal? There’s a lot to consider. One branch of economics concerns itself solely with production. What is the distribution formula best calculated to maximize production? Another branch looks at the social implications of the distribution scheme. What is the cost of strict meritocracy? We rely on professional economists to quantify our alternatives but we alone, acting through our chosen political representatives, can balance values to make the final decision. Not sure? Need help? Let’s ‘phone a friend’. Does it matter that our friend is a fungus? Homo is not the only civilization on this planet. Single and multi-species ecosystems are all around us. The Serengeti has settled on a different distribution formula than the Mariana Trench. Each has worked out its own algorithm for maximizing production subject to its unique set of ‘ethical’ constraints. Our forests (plants and fungi) offer a particularly successful example of a non-human economy. Vegetation covers most of the habitable zones on Earth. Absent human intervention, trees can live hundreds of years, fungi thousands. While forest life is not conflict free, sorry Snow White, it comes close. How does it work? Fungus runs the show. The ‘wood-wide-web’ links trees of the same and different species in a resource and information sharing network. Are predator insects in the area? News travels from one end of the forest to the other, quickly and efficiently, so that trees can deploy their chemical armor. Are we in for a drought? Or a blizzard? The entire forest prepares together. Does a particular tree ‘look’ a bit peaked? The fungal network will divert water and life saving minerals to that member. If nature favors a particular tree with great height, exposure to sunlight, and a healthy root system, that tree will seek out opportunities to share its wealth, first to its ancestors and descendants, then to the entire forest. How come? Is fungus better than us? Maybe, but the forest has also run its own algorithms. It has determined that an unhealthy forest is an existential threat to even its most robust members. Likewise, every plant, every fungus is most likely to flourish in a healthy environment. Forests get what we often don’t – we’re all in this together! Forests have turned ‘trickle-down’ economics, literally, into an art form. By sharing resources, trees ensure that the tide will raise all boats. Next time human society faces an economic dilemma it would do well to ask, “WWFD?” (What would the forest do?) Keep the conversation going. 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. Keep the conversation going. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.