< Back Tarot David Cowles Oct 6, 2025 “Tarot can be seen as a paradigm of Judeo-Christian spirituality. So deal me in…please!” It is hard to pick up a deck of Tarot cards without triggering associations with ordinary playing cards : the time you won big at the Black Jack tables in Vegas, the time you lost a game of strip poker at camp. Playing Cards are such a fundamental part of our culture that it is hard to imagine a time without them. And yet they were not introduced to Europe (from the Islamic world) until late in the 14th century CE. 100 years later, the first Tarot decks emerged, like seemingly everything else, in Northern Italian city states like Milan. Disney Movie : DaVinci, Machiavelli, and Savonarola are playing cards with members of the Medici family in Florence; the stakes: Middle Earth (Europe). Spoiler alert : Savonarola lost more than his clothes! Tarot modified the original deck to give it a distinctly European and Medieval character and to open up the possibility of applications beyond mere games of chance. Sidebar : History is fraught with ‘false flags’. Take the Renaissance, for example. Supposedly, it marked the rebirth of classical culture; actually, it killed it. Tarot has a similar biography. It turned Medieval Culture into a 15th century version of a Marvel comic and it confined Christendom to a pavilion at ‘Epcot Firenze’. All this 100 years before Cervantes’ great ‘Requiem for the Moyen Age’, Don Quixote . So ‘this is the way the Middle Ages end, not with a bang but a snicker ’. But there’s much more to Tarot than this! A standard Tarot deck consists of 78 cards. They are usually divided into 56 cards of the Lesser Arcana and 22 cards of the Major Arcana. Cards in the Lesser Arcana vaguely resemble the playing cards we inherited from Islam, the cards we knew and used to love…until that last trip to Atlantic City. They’re grouped in 4 suits (Swords, Wands, Cups, and Pentacles) of 14 cards each (vs. our standard 13), including 10 cards in each suit with associated numerical values (A – 10) and 4 additional cards in each suit corresponding to personages in a paradigmatic medieval court (King, Queen, Knight and Page). Completing the Tarot Deck are the 22 ordered cards of the Major Arcana, forming what’s called the Fool’s Journey – a metaphorical path of physical and spiritual development. Two analogies spring to mind: the Via Crucis or Stations of the Cross and El Camino de Santiago , aka The Way. We might view Tarot as ‘polite penance’ or ‘posh pilgrimage’ – spiritual practices well suited to the less devout and more affluent leisured classes emerging in Renaissance Italy. And speaking of journeys through life’s stages, fast forward to the mid-20 th century and meet Erik Erikson, a psychologist who divided the human life cycle into 8 stages, beginning with Infancy (0 to 18 months) and running through Seniority (Age 65+). Erikson associates each stage with a specific emotional dichotomy and a particular developmental milestone. For example, for children ages 6 through 11, the emotional challenge is Industry vs. Inferiority and the milestone is Competence . But back to Tarot: the very first card in the Major Arcana is a tipoff that we’re not in Vegas any more. The card is numbered 0 (rather than 1) and the ideogram on the card is known as The Fool – not the most auspicious way to begin a journey… or is it? My reading of the Major Arcana is that they divide life’s course into 4 rather than Erikson’s 8 stages with every journey beginning at the same spot, Ground Zero , i.e. with The Fool (#0), i.e. ‘everyman’ (sic). This is not King Lear’s Fool. This is you and me and every other sentient being in our own personal state of nature – each of us, fresh out of the womb, experiencing the world with no pre-conceived categories to guide us. The first stage takes us through puberty, and it consists entirely of our introduction to the category of the Other, i.e. other people. In our initial encounters, the Other assumes the forms of Magician and High Priestess, emphasizing the Transcendence of the Other in the experience of a newborn. Sidebar : There’s a world, there’s me, and now there’s another ‘me’ who is not me ? One of my favorite games with < 1 y.o. grandchildren is to show them their image in a mirror and watch them trying to figure out what’s happening. Of course, we are all surrounded by mirror images of ourselves 24/7, no reflective surface required. 20+ cards later this still seems magical to me! Stage One ends when we encounter the Other as our peer partner in a relationship of romantic Love. In between we meet the Other in more secular guises: Empress (mom), Emperor (dad), Hierophant (teacher, guru, mentor). Stage Two corresponds to adolescence. It poses three challenges: Mobility (Chariot), Strength, and Interiority (Hermit). Before puberty, we are weak, we rely on others for our movements, and we wear our hearts on our sleeves. With adolescence we need to assume responsibility for our own actions (Chariot), develop a quiet self-confidence (Strength), and experience the beginnings of an inner life (Hermit). With adulthood, we enter Stage Three, the realm of Industry, Commerce and Procreation. Like the Christmas elf, we place our inner Hermit on the shelf. We are immersed, if not submerged, in the realm of Chance (Wheel of Fortune), Responsibility (Justice), Consequence (Hanged Man) and Mortality (Death)! Finally, we’re ready for Stage Four, the atemporal Eschaton (Parousia, Apocalypse, Eternity). Stage Four is reminiscent of the Tibetan and Egyptian Books of the Dead . It consists of milestones ‘on the silk road’ from Immanence to Transcendence. Step one, let go of our attachments (Temperance); step two, confront evil (Devil); step three, overcome pride (Tower, Babel?); step four, reject Narcissism (Star); step five, smash idols (Moon). In truth, these 5 steps are all forms of iconoclasm. We have ‘misplaced concreteness’ (Whitehead), mistaking things that are immanent for Transcendence. With step six, we embrace sensuality and joy (Sun), a foretaste of the Transcendent. At step seven, we pass judgment on ourselves and our world and we are ready to let ourselves be judged by others in turn (Judgment). The final card in the deck (World) completes stage four; but it is also the climax of the entire journey. And what a journey! We all start off as the Fool - tiny, defenseless, and bald (no hair, Hawking) - a quantum of being. Ideally at least, we all end up with the same reward, i.e. The World. Not too shabby! Sidebar : The Old Testament Book of Job outlines a similar trajectory. Job is living a successful and virtuous life (Immanent), but he loses everything and is brought back to the state of nature (#0). He is Fool-again ( a la Joyce) – so ‘foolish’ in fact that he dares to confront God (Transcendent) face to face, judging and submitting himself to judgment (#20). As a result, he inherits the World (#21). Orthodox Christianity has for the most part taken a dim view of Tarot. At worst, it is ‘magic, demonic, and wicked’; at best it is a dangerous but frivolous distraction. Even so, the climax of the Fool’s Journey must have come as a bit of a shock: the final reward is not Paradise (Heaven) but the World. On the one hand, the Book of Revelation does speak of a New Jerusalem, so there is room for a new World in orthodox eschatology. However, Tarot’s utter lack of any reference to Heaven, or to Hell for that matter, must have been disconcerting to some. We cannot resist the temptation to see this aspect of Tarot as an omen. Machiavelli is about to turn Christian ethics upside down (‘ends justify means’). Out of Machiavelli’s head will spring the full bouquet of isms characteristic of the our Enlightenment era: Capitalism (Smith), liberalism (Locke), utilitarianism (Mill). socialism (Bentham), communism (Marx), pragmatism (James), fascism (Mussolini), secularism, and moral relativism. Of course, pockets of resistance persist: Existentialism (Sartre), Organism (Whitehead), and Hasidism (Buber) to name just three; but there is no denying that Mechanism ( La Technique – Ellul) is the dominant Spirit of this Age. But to blame that on Tarot is a bridge too far. At most, Tarot is a sign and harbinger of things to come. That said, we can embrace the profound human insight and the ultimately optimistic eschatology of Tarot without sacrificing any Judeo-Christian principles in the process. In fact, Tarot can be seen as a paradigm of Judeo-Christian spirituality. So deal me in…please! *** Image: Agnes Pelton — Awakening (Memory of Father (1943 Agnes Pelton’s Awakening (Memory of Father) (1943) is a luminous abstraction expressing a mystical experience of loss and transcendence. Soft radiating light rises from a central form, suggesting the soul’s ascent and a bridge between earthly grief and spiritual renewal. The painting embodies Pelton’s vision of awakening consciousness—where personal memory transforms into a universal, serene illumination. 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 Applied Camus David Cowles Aug 7, 2026 “I think Camus gets himself into some serious trouble here…he lets dreaded ‘objective values’ slip back into his system.” 1750 words, 8 minute read In an earlier post, Camus , we explored the philosophical reasoning behind the philosopher’s vision of the Absurd including rejection of concepts like ‘the future, consequences, and transcendent and/or objective values’. With no objective values and no concern for the future, we are left to live life entirely as we wish. “Everything is permitted.” (Nietzsche) Of course, that does not mean that we must behave as libertines. Each of us is free to fashion a code of ethics for herself. But we must not imagine that these private codes have any objective justification or that they constitute a ‘categorical imperative’, i.e. that they are in any way binding on others…or even on one’s self: Ethics is however I am choosing to behave at a given time. Hmm, sounds like me in the ‘60s…or now! That said, Camus devotes the second half of The Myth of Sisyphus to sketching styles of life that might be consistent with living out the implications of the Absurd. I think Camus gets himself into some serious trouble here…he lets dreaded ‘objective values’ slip back into his system; for example: “I cannot conceive that a skeptical metaphysics can be joined to an ethics of renunciation… I must say that what counts is not the best living but the most living …A man’s rule of conduct and his scale of values have no meaning except through the quantity and variety of experiences he has been in a position to accumulate …For on the one hand the absurd teaches that all experiences are unimportant, and on the other it urges toward the greatest quantity of experiences.” Sheer gobbledygook, am I right? Let’s enumerate the errors: (1) “I cannot conceive” – who cares what Camus ‘can conceive’ if we are all independent actors responsible for our own lives; (2) “What counts” – value judgments are not discarded, they are front and center here; (3) “Values have no meaning except through the quantity and variety of experiences” – so values do have meaning after all, as long as they are ‘Camus approved’; (4) “All experiences are unimportant” – except that the quantity and variety of those unimportant experiences is what gives life meaning: (∞*0) ≠ 0. First, Camus dismisses the possibility that asceticism and the Absurd could be compatible. This seems strange. If there is no objective value in the world, why mightn’t someone renounce that world (short of suicide), relish his solitude, and focus on his ‘inner self’? Practitioners of Taoism and Zen, well acquainted with the Absurd, often follow this practice. Even more disturbingly, Camus substitutes ‘quantity’ and ‘variety’ of experience for the forbidden ‘quality’. But aren’t quantity and variety themselves a kind of quality? Is ‘large’ a quality or a quantity? Quantity on my home scale, quality putting on a suit of clothes. If, as Camus asserts, more of some things is better than less, doesn’t quantity then become a value (a quality) in itself? One recalls a particularly crass expression from the 1980s: “Whoever dies with the most toys wins,” as well as Gatsby’s famous exclamation: “Living well is the best revenge”. Perhaps not our loftiest ideals…but values nonetheless, and values apparently considered objectively binding by Camus. The philosopher further explains that the quantity of our experience replaces any consideration of quality only so far as we are conscious of those experiences: “For the mistake is thinking that that quantity of experiences depends on the circumstances of our lives…To two men living the same number of years, the world always provides the same sum of experiences. It is up to us to be conscious of them…A sub-clerk in the post office is the equal of a conqueror if consciousness is common to them. All experiences are indifferent in this regard.” So ‘quantity’ is not a variable after all? Are you dizzy yet? Camus now introduces a new ‘transcendent value’: consciousness! Not the abstract phenomenon of consciousness but the act of being conscious of a particular experience. Conscious experience is certainly different, qualitatively, from ‘unconscious experience’ (whatever that might be). But is this not precisely the goal of Taoists, Zen Buddhists, and cloistered monastic orders? Is it not the case that many have renounced the world precisely in order to become more conscious ? To immerse one’s self in the hurly-burly of life may not be the best way to heighten consciousness. “Getting and spending we lay waste our powers.” (Wordsworth) Camus continues, “To the absurd man a premature death is irreparable. Nothing can make up for the sum of the faces and centuries he would otherwise have traversed.” Where are these faces, where are these centuries, where is this sum? They can’t be in the future because, as we show in our earlier essay, Camus rejects the category of ‘future’ entirely. And what about death? Doesn’t that bring us all back to zero? And doesn’t 0 = 0, whether it’s (3 – 3) or (300 – 300). Either way, 0 = 0 and it doesn’t matter how you got there! Arithmetic is a Markov Chain. Earlier, Camus referred to experiences as ‘accumulated’. What suggests to Camus that experience can be totalized in this way? Death is not an experience that you ‘add’ to other experiences. In fact, death is not an experience at all. Death is the absence of experience and, even more viciously, the annulment of all experience. So how are we to live in such an absurd world? Camus details several options, but he makes it clear that this does not constitute an exhaustive catalogue of possibilities. First, Don Juan. “Don Juan” is a collector of experiences. He seeks a long, varied and intense life: “Don Juan has chosen to be nothing”, i.e., to lose himself in himself. In fact, as we shall see, all of Camus’ absurd heroes choose to be nothing. This seems odd. What is choosing to be nothing but suicide…or at least renunciation…the two options vehemently rejected by Camus (above)? Second, the Actor: “The actor has three hours to be Iago…Never has the absurd been so well illustrated…There is no frontier between being and appearing… In those three hours he travels the whole course of the dead-end path that the man in the audience takes a lifetime to cover.” Third, the Conqueror. This is the man of action, but Camus acknowledges that the project of the conqueror is ultimately futile: “Nothing of the conqueror lasts, not even his doctrines.” Ozymandias : “Nothing beside remains.” (Shelley) As Camus repeatedly points out, death is inconsistent with objective values. If death is the final reality, then values are meaningless. On the other hand, if meaningful values are a reality, then death must be odd man out. (John Donne) Camus suggests that death is not merely the absence of value but the ‘exaltation of injustice’. Here he’s right: of course it is! It’s the primordial injustice. But this observation is revealing because ‘injustice’ implies ‘justice’. By acknowledging injustice, Camus has once again let the camel’s nose of objective value into the tent of the Absurd. What is Justice if not a transcendent value that gives meaning to existence? Finally, Camus turns to art and the artist. He proposes an ‘absurd aesthetic’: “An art in which the concrete signifies nothing more than itself… The absurd creator…must give the void its colors.” Dada? Rothko? Pollock? Camus is to be praised for his analysis of the Absurd. His description of the human condition takes a back seat to no one’s. Yet his project, in the end, fails. Try as he might, he cannot escape the need to let values seep into his scheme. This raises a question: Is it possible to talk about the world in any non-trivial way without making reference to Value? And if not, does that mean that values are indeed real or is this merely an invitation to remain silent In the course of our lives, we are confronted with facts we think we know, people we think we meet and judgments we think we make. From these nearly universal experiences, three great philosophical questions organically emerge: What is the nature of ‘knowledge’? What is the nature of ‘the other’? What is the nature of ‘value’? These questions form the basis of Philosophy’s Big Three : epistemology, ontology and ethics/aesthetics. They also give rise to the three great ‘null hypotheses’: skepticism, solipsism, nihilism. Camus incorporates the null hypotheses: “The method defined here acknowledges the feeling that all true knowledge is impossible. Solely appearances can be enumerated…” Here he is channeling Parmenides’ contrast of Aletheia (Truth) with Doxa (Appearances) . “In one of its aspects, eternal nothingness is made up precisely of the sum of lives to come which will not be ours…” Camus is anticipating Hugh Everett’s Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics . Or is he summarizing Robert Frost’ s The Road Not Taken ? In either case, the World consists solely of possibilities: ‘pure potentiality’ ( Aristotle), ‘the wave function’ (Schrödinger), ‘the sum over histories’ (Feynmann). When we actualize any one potentiality, when we collapse the wave function, we consign the alternative paths to ‘eternal nothingness’. “Now I am become Death, Destroyer of Worlds. (Oppenheimer…misquoting the Bhagavad Gita .) So life as we know it, like monogamy, consists of actualizing one path and forsaking all others. By actualizing one reality, we destroy all potentiality. E sic pluribus solo unum – is that the real absurdity of life? “In an absurd world, there can be no scale of values, no value driven choices or value based preferences.” In that case Camus’ world cannot be absurd after all, littered as it is with value based preferences. So give Albert an A in Ontology but, sadly, a D in Ethics, or as Sister Martha Mary used to write at the bottom of my report cards: “Needs improvement.” 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 “…And the Pursuit of Happiness.” (The Declaration of Independence, 1776) David Cowles Mar 25, 2022 We honor ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ as inalienable human rights, but not all of us can say with assurance that we are always on the side of ‘life’ and ‘liberty’. Sometimes we can’t even agree on what these words mean, and we certainly don’t agree on how these rights should be applied in specific situations. (For example, many of the men who wrote the Declaration themselves owned slaves. We don’t always see ourselves through the eyes of civilization or the lens of history.) We honor ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ as inalienable human rights, but not all of us can say with assurance that we are always on the side of ‘life’ and ‘liberty’. Sometimes we can’t even agree on what these words mean, and we certainly don’t agree on how these rights should be applied in specific situations. (For example, many of the men who wrote the Declaration themselves owned slaves. We don’t always see ourselves through the eyes of civilization or the lens of history.) But the ‘pursuit of happiness’? Now that–that–we’ve got down! That’s something we know something about, something we know only too well in fact. Some might say that Americans invented the pursuit of happiness. No matter that we all have different notions of what constitutes happiness! Whatever it is, we’re pursuing it vigorously and nonstop. But do we ever get there? Are we any closer today than we were years ago? Or, are we hamsters, mindlessly running on a wheel-to-nowhere, locked in a cage? In Jewish tradition (Kabbala), two virtues can be mirror images of one another: Netzach, for example, refers to restlessness, while Hod refers to gratitude. It is the restlessness of Netzach that makes us want to leave the world better than we found it, while it is the gratitude of Hod that allows us to find perfection in the here and now! I am reminded of Molly Bloom’s famous soliloquy at the end of James Joyce’s Ulysses . It begins with “Yes…”, and 1600 lines later, it ends with the very same “…yes.” It has been called literature’s Great Amen. Joyce balances a keen eye for folly and a sharp ear for suffering, with an overwhelming sense of the ‘rightness’ of it all. Christians sometimes refer to this dichotomy as ‘the Kingdom already’ verses ‘the kingdom not yet’. Spirituality calls us to get comfortable with this apparent contradiction. In the famous Serenity Prayer, we ask our higher power for “the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Successful living needs this balance. If we cannot recognize the immediate presence of ‘the kingdom already,’ then we cannot dream of the future presence of ‘the kingdom not yet’. 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 Worth Knowing David Cowles Sep 29, 2021 “A World Worth Knowing” is the title of a new series on The History Channel that features William Shatner. But is its premise, that we live in a world “worth knowing”, true? After all, ‘the standard model of contemporary cosmology’ holds that the universe arose, uncaused and with no purpose, from nothing and that it will inevitably return without a trace back to nothing. Why would such a universe be “worth knowing”? “A World Worth Knowing” is the title of a new series on The History Channel that features William Shatner. But is its premise, that we live in a world “worth knowing”, true? After all, ‘the standard model of contemporary cosmology’ holds that the universe arose, uncaused and with no purpose, from nothing and that it will inevitably return without a trace back to nothing. Why would such a universe be “worth knowing”? Out of the Hasidic tradition of Judaism, renowned author Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907 – 1972) offers an answer: “I’ve come to sow seeing in the world – To unveil God – who has disguised himself in the world – And wait to give the first cry: ‘It’s becoming light!’” According to Hasidic tradition a divine spark resides in everything that is – every person, every animal, every plant, and every inanimate object; and it is the same spark, regardless of where it resides. Our task, each of us, is to uncover the divine spark that is in all things and to enable that spark to reunite with God, thereby bringing the temporal world and eternal world ever closer together. This is the antidote to entropy, to mortality, and the origin of ‘purpose’ which the ‘standard model’ precludes. 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 Why The World Needs More Polymaths Bechem Ayuk "Just as the ocean's waves weave tales in their dance, polymaths craft stories of innovation by seamlessly blending knowledge from diverse domains." A few days ago I set foot on a beach for the first time. It was as if I had stumbled into another world. The vast expanse of shimmering sand met the endless body of water, stretching beyond the horizon. The beauty and terror of it all left me in awe. Each wave was a story in itself. The way they curled and unfurled, like a graceful dancer in a cosmic ballet, was a spectacle to behold. It was as if the ocean itself were breathing, inhaling and exhaling with the tides. And so, as I stood on that shore, mesmerized by the ceaseless dance of the waves, I couldn't help but draw a parallel between the nature of the ocean and the essence of polymaths. Just as the waves continually adapt and transform, drawing from the depths of the sea, polymaths are individuals who embrace a multifaceted existence, their knowledge and skills ever-evolving and interconnecting. In the world of polymaths, as with the waves, there is a harmonious blend of depth and breadth. They delve deeply into their chosen domains, just as the waves reach profound depths before returning to the shore. And, much like the waves' ability to bridge the gap between the land and the sea, polymaths possess the remarkable capacity to bridge the gaps between disparate fields of knowledge. The beach, with its ever-shifting waves, served as a powerful reminder that the world needs more polymaths who can navigate the complexities of our time, just as the waves navigate the intricacies of the ocean. In this edition of The Value Junction, we will explore the multifaceted nature of polymaths and how they are uniquely equipped to address the multifaceted challenges of our modern world. Like the waves, polymaths are a force to be reckoned with, shaping the future with their endless adaptability and relentless pursuit of knowledge. The Shift From Broad to Specialized Education For centuries, education took a markedly broad approach. Classical education traced back to ancient Greece and Rome emphasized developing well-rounded citizens versed in topics like philosophy, rhetoric, mathematics, and physical education. The likes of Leonardo da Vinci, a true polymath, emerged during this era. Da Vinci wasn't confined to a single discipline; he was a painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, and scientist. His ability to seamlessly merge the arts and sciences is a testament to the power of polymathic thinking. This model continued through the 18th century, when universities mandated studies across disciplines including sciences, humanities, and arts. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the rapid growth of knowledge led to increasing specialization. The Morrill Land Grant Acts funded specialized agricultural and technical colleges in America focused on practical subjects like engineering rather than classical liberal arts. Over time, secondary schools also transitioned to subject-specific curricula. Today, the educational pendulum has swung far towards hyper-specialization, particularly in higher education. Undergraduate students now typically declare majors immediately and take narrowly focused coursework tailored to their field. However, this laser focus on one discipline restricts exposure to different ways of thinking that spark creativity. Education scholar Sir Ken Robinson noted that the lack of interdisciplinary learning in our system leads many students to "become specialists in one area before they've even become a generalist" . This prevalent early specialization can deprive students of the intellectual versatility valued throughout history. To tackle complex issues in an interconnected world, students need both deep expertise and the ability to bridge disciplinary perspectives. Returning to a more polymathic model can better equip graduates with this agile, comprehensive mindset. The rigid division of education into categories stifles creativity and innovation. We need minds that can connect the dots between silos. The Benefits of a Polymathic Approach Adopting a polymathic approach that blends interdisciplinary learning with specialized domains has many advantages. As polymathic thinkers like Aristotle and Goethe demonstrated, synthesizing diverse ideas and experiences can yield revolutionary insights and innovations. Key benefits of a polymathic model include: 1. Fostering Connections Between Disciplines Polymaths are adept at identifying parallels across different fields that spur creative ideas. Polymathic architect Christopher Alexander found inspiration in poetry and mathematics to pioneer new architectural patterns. Interdisciplinary thinking enables the cross-pollination of concepts that drive discovery. In a world where many of our challenges require multidisciplinary approaches, polymaths excel. They can speak the language of different fields, facilitating collaboration and understanding. For instance, Temple Grandin, a polymath in animal science, psychology, and engineering, played a vital role in revolutionizing the treatment of livestock and advocating for more humane and efficient methods. Her work demonstrates how a polymathic approach can drive substantial change. “Innovation emerges when we connect experiences.” - Steve Jobs 2. Enhancing Creativity The breadth of knowledge across multiple domains cultivates creativity. A study of patent holders found those with interdisciplinary expertise produced over 30% more creative innovations than specialised inventors(Lévesque, 2022). Exposure to arts and humanities also boosts scientific creativity. Proponents of early specialization argue it allows students to fully immerse themselves and excel in a field. However, this study shows interdisciplinary learning enhances critical thinking, problem-solving, and cognitive flexibility. Exposure to diverse disciplines promotes connective insights and transferrable skills vital for innovation. 3. Solving Multifaceted Problems Real-world problems like inequality and global health require integrative solutions across disciplines. Polymaths with mastery in diverse domains are better equipped to develop holistic solutions by connecting the dots between specialities. Several longitudinal studies on interdisciplinary college programs confirmed these benefits. Students who blended natural sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities showed greater gains in critical thinking, complex reasoning, and intellectual flexibility compared to disciplined-focused peers. How to Encourage Students to be Polymathic One of the primary avenues for nurturing polymathic thinking is our education systems. To encourage students to be polymathic, we must reevaluate and reform how we teach and learn. 1. Embrace Interdisciplinary Learning : Encourage schools and universities to develop cross-disciplinary courses that allow students to explore connections between various subjects. For instance, a course that combines history and science can provide students with a more holistic understanding of the world. Educators should explicitly highlight connections between different subjects and areas of knowledge. Using an interdisciplinary lens in lessons demonstrates how diverse domains intersect to solve real problems. 2. Promote Project-Based Learning : Project-based learning that challenges students to tackle open-ended, real-world problems is a powerful way to build critical polymathic skills. Rather than memorizing facts and formulas, project-based learning encourages students to synthesize knowledge across disciplines to imagine and implement solutions. For example, students might be tasked with designing sustainable housing solutions that integrate engineering constraints, aesthetic design, and socioeconomic considerations of a hypothetical community. They would need to conduct research, collaborate across teams, and iterate on ideas - learning key lessons in adaptability, communication and making interdisciplinary connections along the way. Other projects could challenge students to develop business plans for eco-friendly products, combining science, business, and ethics lenses. Or students may be asked to analyze works of art through both aesthetic and mathematical principles, blending right- and left-brain strengths. STEAM education exemplifies project-based polymathic learning by organically integrating concepts from science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics. For instance, students can use programming skills to create video games that educate players on climate change. Such projects enable students to flexibly apply knowledge across traditionally segregated subjects to solve multifaceted problems. The open-ended nature of projects teaches students creative agility since there is no single right answer. Having to work through ambiguity fosters the same critical thinking skills used by transdisciplinary polymaths in the real world. Passion-driven projects give students autonomy over their learning process, which further motivates polymathic exploration. With the right scaffolding and guidance, project-based learning develops core competencies for cross-domain thinking and innovation. 3. Encourage Extracurricular Exploration: Beyond core academics, schools should actively nurture student participation in diverse extracurricular activities. Exploring varied pursuits sparks passion and builds real-world skills. Rather than a bullet point list, schools can encourage this in several ways: Offer a wide array of affordable on-campus clubs and programs. From arts to athletics, academies to gaming clubs, provide on-ramps to different interests. Schedule flexibly to allow students time for activities. Avoid overloading with homework that restricts exploration. Spotlight extracurriculars at assemblies and events. Recognize student participation and achievements to motivate engagement. Collaborate with community centres and experts to run stimulating programs on campus. Bring in artists, scientists, and builders to instruct. Host "passion fairs" for students to discover local opportunities from nonprofits, companies, and colleges. Connect interested students. Train teachers as activity advisors. Compensate them for this added guidance of students' development. Exploration leads to engagement, keeping students invested in their own lifelong learning. 4. Socratic Questioning: The Socratic method of teaching through questioning helps students develop critical thinking skills and intellectual versatility. By asking a series of thought-provoking, open-ended questions, teachers can: Guide students to think more deeply about assumptions and consider alternative perspectives. For example, asking "What might we be overlooking?" or "How could this issue be viewed differently?" pushes them to examine ideas from multiple angles. Encourage students to identify and challenge biases. Asking "What evidence supports that conclusion?" or "Is there a conflict of interest?" prompts objective analysis. Stimulate imaginative solutions by asking "How else could we approach this problem?" and "What if we changed the constraints?" Divergent thinking stretches cognitive flexibility. Foster connections between disciplines by asking questions like "In what other domains might this concept apply?" and "Where else have we encountered similar patterns or issues?" Transferring insights across subjects exercises integrative thinking. Teachers can further develop critical thinking by having students generate their own Socratic questions on course material. The act of formulating probing questions builds creative problem-solving skills. Students can collaboratively discuss answers, practising respectful dialogue while exercising intellect. In a Nutshell At first glance, one might assume that specialization is the most efficient way to progress. The prevailing assumption is that in a world of increasing complexity, we need specialists who can delve deeply into specific areas. This idea is grounded in reason – specialists have indeed driven many of the incredible advancements we've witnessed. However, the world's challenges, from inequality to healthcare, rarely come neatly packaged in a single discipline. They are intricate, interconnected problems that demand multidisciplinary solutions. Consider the case of Steve Jobs. Widely regarded as one of the most innovative minds of our time, Jobs wasn't just a tech genius; he was a polymath. He seamlessly blended technology and design, understanding that creating transformative products required more than just technical know-how. It demanded a multidisciplinary perspective that drew from the arts, the sciences, and the humanities. The result? The iPhone; a device that revolutionized not just the tech industry but also how we live and communicate. This brings me to my central argument: the world needs more polymaths because they are uniquely equipped to navigate the intricate web of modern challenges. They are the individuals who can bridge the gaps between seemingly unrelated fields, drawing inspiration and knowledge from diverse sources to innovate and create. The future belongs to versatile innovators like Elon Musk and Naval Ravikant who can complement specialized expertise with the ability to integrate insights across domains. Graduating polymathic students equipped with this agile mindset is critical for raising a new generation of creative problem-solvers ready to tackle the complex issues ahead. The time has come to reimagine education and unleash a wave of boundary-pushing polymaths once more. **This article is a direct republish without changes from The Value Junction . Bechem Ayuk is an award-winning EdTech consultant, a web developer, and the author of The Value Junction. Newslette r . Return to our AI Issue Table of Contents Previous Next

< Back How to Coach an Undefeated Football Team David Cowles “Team is not a collective noun; it’s a verb: to team.” (Dedicated to my grandfather, J. Leo Foley) My grandfather, J. Leo Foley, was Athletic Director and Head Football Coach at The Roxbury Latin School for over 40 years. He led his football team to 4 consecutive undefeated seasons. He was nicknamed “the Fox”, allegedly because of his stealth play designs and unexpected play calls. He was recruited for a college coaching job by none other than Hall of Fame Head Coach, Robert Zuppke (University of Illinois, 1913 – 1941). Whatever I know about football, I learned from my grandfather. What I don’t know, he didn’t teach me; or rather, he taught me, but it went in one ear and out the other. Imagine if I had known at age 10 that I would be writing this article at, well, let’s just say ‘a considerably more advanced age’; perhaps I wouldn’t have thought that running after the ice cream truck was more important than learning the intricacies of the single wing. The ethos my grandfather taught produced winning football teams. But it occurred to me much later that this same ethos is a prescription for winning in all facets of life. Here are few of his guiding principles. If you’re a head football coach, you may find them helpful ; if not, you may find them indispensable ! Every play should score a Touchdown. If properly designed and flawlessly executed, every offensive play should result in 6 points. Every team should be Undefeated. It takes just as much energy to lose as to win…so why not win? To paraphrase the Old Testament Book of Deuteronomy, “I set before you winning and losing. Therefore, choose winning.” “Do your Job!” (before Bill Belichick) A successful football play is not about 11 players performing at the peak of their abilities: it’s about 11 players doing their assigned jobs flawlessly. Don’t just do your Job! A player who repeatedly fails to do his job is not a good player; but neither is a player who only does his job. On every snap from center, each player has a primary responsibility; but once that responsibility has been met (or not), a good player immediately begins to look for other ways to be productive. Good players can complete at least two ‘football moves’ every play, one scripted, one improvised. Great players often complete three. The two biggest causes of failure on a football field are (1) players who don’t do their jobs and (2) players who only do their jobs. “Everything Flows.” (Heraclitus c. 450 B.C.) Of course, Heraclitus was referring to the cosmos, not the football field. And yet, there is no better illustration of his principle than what happens between snap and whistle. A football play is more like an organism than a mechanism. Sure, football begins with designed plays and set formations; that’s a play’s DNA. But like snowflakes, no two plays ever turn out the same. Even if you ran the same play on every snap, no two plays would ever be identical. Because every play unfolds in a unique way, every player not only needs to do his job, and not just his job, but he also needs to react to the play itself as it evolves. Like most important things in life, football is recursive! Don’t be Square! Most of the time we think in straight lines…and that’s a good thing when we’re working on a blueprint. That’s when we need straight lines. But there are no straight lines in football (except the yard lines)…or in real life. A football play is just like any other ‘event’ (or ‘actual entity’). Each play starts from a unique Actual World: the position of the ball, the score, the time remaining, the X’s and O’s. The Actual World of a football play is strictly linear: line-ups, formations, diagrams, etc. It includes everything that happens before the ball is snapped, but not the play itself. Once the ball is snapped, linearity goes out the window. Now everything, literally everything, impacts everything else. So don’t be square, be non-linear ! “Stayin’ Alive”. (The Bee Gees) What is the goal of a football play? For the offense, it is to score a touchdown. But as with all living things, achieving its goal is not its primary motivation. Its primary motivation is survival - keeping the play alive. You can’t achieve your goal (touchdown) once your play has been whistled dead. The longer the ball is in play, the better your chances of scoring. So ideally, keep the play going for as long as it takes to reach your goal…without taking foolish risks, of course. Ultimately, you are not playing against your opponent’s defense; you’re playing against the referee’s whistle. The longer the ball is in play, the more likely it is to result in 6 points. So keep truckin’! “Be all that you can be.” (U.S. Army) ‘Synergy’ is a buzzword these days. It describes a whole being greater than the sum of its parts. But that’s not what we’re talking about here! True, teamwork can amplify the skills of each player leading to a positive result that could not have been predicted simply by looking at stat sheets. But we’re not only talking about a ‘team’ playing better; we’re talking about each player on that team playing better than his norm. The secret? Other players. As a player, I know that other players can make me look good…or bad. They can help me perform at a higher (or lower) level than I’m used to. As a coach, I not only want my players to do their best; I want them to help my other players do their best as well. This is easier said than done. It is much more than just ‘gang tackling’. It means coordinating two separate skill sets in a way that optimizes both. This is hard to teach; it cannot be diagrammed. It requires instinct…and ethics: Humility . I am just one of 11 players on the field at any one time. “If it’s to be, it’s not just up to me. It’s also up to you…but maybe I can help.” Generosity . It’s not all about how I look; it’s about how you look. In these days of high school recruiters and multi-million dollar pro contracts, generosity is a difficult virtue to cultivate…but it is essential to producing an ‘undefeated team’. A collection of superstars will win games; but they won’t win every game. When you think of history’s greatest pro franchises, Ruth’s Yankees, Russell’s Celtics, Jordan’s Bulls, Brady’s Pats, etc., first and foremost you think ‘team’. Who has not player for, or at least rooted for, a basketball team where the MVP is 5’11” and rarely breaks double digits in scoring or in rebounds? Team is not a collective noun; it’s a verb: to team . With my team behind me, I should be able to play better than I could play on my own; and when I play better, I should enable the players around me to play better too. It’s a Virtuous Circle ! When in doubt, help out! They say two heads are better than one. If so, then 4 arms should be better than 2. If it is not immediately obvious what you need to do next, help a teammate. Assume that the players around you need your help: blocking, tackling, covering a receiver, etc. They do ! Penalties = Turnovers. Penalties are not nuisances; they are serious business. They are not ‘just’ about field position; in fact, they are not primarily about field position. Penalties are about possession…and possession is about scoring! A penalty can make the difference between a very makeable 3 rd and 2 and a much less makeable 3 rd and 7 or 3 rd and 12 or even 3 rd and 17. A ‘nuisance penalty’ may well lead to a change of possession on the very next snap. Myth : superior talent is sufficient to overcome penalties. Reality : no team is talented enough to win all its games if it is frequently penalized. Penalties ‘randomize’ the game: they give weaker teams a chance to out-perform…and win! The underdog’s prayer : “May the opposing team be penalized as much as they deserve!” Tackle! Whenever possible, all tackling should be gang tackling. A player should never say, “Oh, he’s going down”. Every player should help make sure he is down (without drawing a penalty, of course). Gang tackling prevents “second efforts”. It also increases the chances of a fumble… and the chances that your team will recover any such a fumble. Block! You did your job. You threw a great block. Good work. Job done? Not a chance! There’s always another player, and yet another, who need to be blocked as the play unfolds. Run! You’re not down until you’re down. This is not touch football. The play is not over when a defensive player touches you. As Yogi Berra might have reminded us, “The ball carrier is not down until he’s down.” The proximity of an opposing player is not an invitation to take a ‘turf nap’; it’s an opportunity to step up your game, literally. Run harder, bring your knees up higher. The goal is to run through the tackle. (If your opponent is good, this may not always work; but hint, most football players are not very good tacklers.) If the opposing player does not bring you down right away, firing the after burners upon contact can extend a gain by as much as 10 yards. Less frequently, you may even break free, adding further yards to your gain – and who knows, you might even score a touchdown. Be the Ball! When you’re lucky enough to have the football in your hands, you need to think of it as part of your body. Would you let a tackler remove your right arm? Then why allow him to remove the ball? You and the ball must become a single organism. Be bionic! Suggestion : carry a regulation football around with you during the day and sleep with it at night. Who knows, the football might even replace the stuffed animal you still sleep with. Eventually, with any luck, you’ll start to feel weird, incomplete, when you’re not carrying a football. Catch the Ball! Coach has designed a pass play and you have an assigned route. Run that route; it’s your job. But not all pass plays happen as designed. Receivers are covered, the QB is under pressure, the play must change on the fly. Your job now ? Get open! Alter your route to give your QB a better chance to see you. Or find an open space on the field and squat there; trust your QB. “But I’m not the target on this play, I’m just a decoy.” No, you’re not! You’re never merely a decoy. You’re the target receiver on every pass play. Every eligible receiver is the QB’s “target”. He’s looking for you , so get open! Once a ball is in the air, there are no receivers, there are no defenders. Every forward pass is a ‘jump ball’. The offensive player and the defensive player have an equal right to that ball, so in truth both are playing offense. But both players are also responsible for making sure that their opponent does not make the catch. Therefore, they are both playing defense too. Visualize It’s off season. Or you’re stuck in chemistry class. Or you’re in bed and can’t fall asleep. Or your parents bundled you off to overnight camp for the summer (and they don’t even have a football program there). Bummer! Wherever you are now, you’d rather be honing your football skills…but you can’t. Ugly circumstances have gotten in the way! Or have they? The fact is, you can work on your game at any time, 24/7/52 – heck, maybe even in your sleep! Right now, you can’t practice…or lift weights; but there is something you can do: you can visualize! Depending on the position you play (or want to play), imagine yourself: Blocking a defender to protect your QB Creating a hole for your RB Taking a hand-off from your QB and hitting a hole Making cuts in open field to avoid defenders Completing a forward pass Or catching that same pass. If defense is your thing, imagine yourself: Tackling a ball carrier in the open field Breaking a block to sack the QB Busting up a double team Covering a receiver; staying with him as he makes his cuts Knocking down a pass Intercepting a pass When you visualize, it’s important to do so in slow motion. Slow it down! Relish every detail, every nuance. Fully experience every move your avatar makes. Create muscle memory…even in your sleep! Final Thoughts But what if you don’t play football, have never played football, don’t want to play football? What if, God forbid, you don’t even like football? Did you just waste 15 minutes of your life reading this ‘how to’? Not necessarily! If football is nothing else, it is a metaphor for life. The values of determination, responsibility, teamwork, flexibility, and focus apply to every aspect of life, not just football. This is a formula for success on a football field, but it is also a formula for success in life. Heck, you can visualize yourself performing in a concert or acing a math quiz or accepting a Nobel Prize. No matter what we do in life, we are responsible for being ‘all that we can be’, and we are equally responsible for helping others ‘be all that they can be.’ Follow this game plan…on or off the field. Have an undefeated season…have an undefeated life. 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. Previous Next

< Back Logos (not Legos) David Cowles Jun 9, 2026 “If Being is an organism, logos is its skeleton; if it’s an edifice, logos is the foundation and the frame.” 1500 Words, 7 minute read Do you like riddles? Give these a try: (1) What do people fail to comprehend before and after they have heard it? (Heraclitus) (2) What is shared by everyone but acknowledged by no one? (Heraclitus) (3) What separates us from what is closest to us? (Heraclitus) (4) What was before all things, through which all things came to be? (St. John) (5) What scatters all things and gathers them together…simultaneously? (Heraclitus) (6) What is with God (spirit) outside history and with us (flesh) in history? (St. John) (7) How do we know that all things are one? (Heraclitus) Each of these riddles has the same answer and, you guessed it, the answer is logos . But that doesn’t help very much, does it? What is this logos and how can it be all things to all people (as above)? Logos is an ancient Greek word, of course, whose meaning has evolved. The original concept was that of a weir or net, useful for example in fishing. Logos first emerged as an organizing principle in the philosophy of Heraclitus, a 5 th century BCE pre-Socratic from Ephesus , modern Turkey. After a stint with the Stoics, logos resumed center stage with Heraclitus’ fellow Ephesian, the Apostle John (c. 80 CE). It is no exaggeration to say that John’s Gospel is Christianity’s founding philosophical document (vs. biographies, letters, diaries, sermons, exhortations, hymns, etc. elsewhere in the New Testament). Today, logos is typically translated as ‘word’ – not wrong, but certainly the semantic minimum . Odd too, because John uses a completely unrelated term whenever he’s referring to a unit of speech. If we’re sticking with the language metaphor, then logos is more like syntax than word . More broadly, logos suggests order, i.e. the way uniform spacetime accommodates non-linear concentrations of energy such as subatomic particles, atoms and molecules, objects and organisms, galaxies and their clusters, to wit the way it helps me catch a fish. If Being is an organism, logos is its skeleton; if it’s an edifice, logos is the foundation and the frame. On the other hand, logos is nothing like an architect’s drawing. Blueprints specify a building’s details down to the positioning of fixtures in the bathrooms. Logos , on the other hand, is ‘detail agnostic’. It does not care how spacetime clumps, only that it does so inexorably and spontaneously: “Light appeared in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1: 5) It is as if your contractor said, “Here is the house’s footprint; it’s non-negotiable. But you can break up the interior space (rooms, corridors, etc.) anyway you wish. One great room, 100 tiny cells, it’s up to you.” *** “Cold enuf 4 ya?” (What, you don’t speak New England ?) If it is, then pour some water in a bowl and watch it freeze. Fascinated? Well, it’s better than watching paint dry! Ok, so do it again…and again. Each time, you begin with a liquid and end up with a solid. But the process is not instantaneous; phase change takes place over time, and the specific sequence of crystallization never repeats…exactly. Did you make videos? Then note that while no two crystallizations are the same, there’s no way to distinguish one pattern generation (in space and time) from another…except point. The most we can say is, “They look different.” The territory is the map. Or we could say that the crystallization patterns (in space and time) differ from one another infinitesimally. Therefore the difference between any two patterns is the difference between every two patterns. We could say the ‘difference’ is really a differance (Jacques Derrida). “Cold enuf 4 ya?” No worries, I’ve got a Markov Blanket that will keep you warm (below). *** Logos is a rich philosophical concept, an abstract model of physical process. Recently, however, developments in math and physics have identified concrete correlates. For example, in 1995 Michael Talegrand conjectured that given any unspecified number of points scattered across an unspecified number of dimensions, it is always possible to connect some of these nodes to form a convex surface that divides the space asymmetrically into a compact, self-contained interior and its exterior template. Unexpectedly, Talegrand’s conjecture was recently proven (with some help from AI) and is now a theorem. It basically states that the tendency of spacetime to self-organize is endemic. Logos is what Being is. Order is neither imported nor injected; it emerges naturally. This tendency of chaotic elements to self-order ( logos ) is what distinguishes fecund Being from sterile Void. Logos is Being and Being logos . That is how there is something rather than nothing. The Book of Genesis outlines the process. Beginning with that inert Void, the primal separation of light from dark kicks off a process (crystallization?) that results in the World as we know it today. Genesis , of course, attributes the process to divine agency but there is no reason, at least not initially, to accept that conclusion. *** The bifurcation of spacetime creates a non-linear gradient that distinguishes inside from out . In living organisms (cells), this gradient takes the form of a semi-permeable membrane, an organelle responsible for the structural integrity of the organism and for its long term survival in an ever changing environment. To achieve this dual mandate, the membrane must enable, but censor and ultimately limit, the exchange of energy/matter/information between the interior and the exterior of the organism. This limited exchange of elements across a non-linear gradient is characteristic of so-called dissipative systems . When spacetime self-orders, it does not break into inert monads, forming a multiverse. Solidarity is always preserved by logos . Here Aquinas was right, “Being is one!” And so Riddle #7 is solved. Congratulations, BTW. I beg your pardon: I promised you a Markov Blanket (above) and so far all I’ve delivered is a semi-permeable membrane. You must be freezing! What gives? Well, turns out our membrane includes a Markov Blanket, so it’s everything I promised you…and more! (With a track record like this, I should run for public office.) To the extent a Markov Blanket is in place, interior and exterior are isolated. Nothing inside can communicate with anything outside, or vice-versa, without the intermediation of the Blanket: I → MB → O and O → MB → I but never I ↔ O. In living organisms, a Markov Blanket is one function of a membrane. It preserves the integrity of the interior. It functions like Big Brother (TV show or novel); like a prison warden, it reviews all communication between inmates and the outside world; it mediates all communication…until it doesn’t. Communication is one thing. Food and Waste are something else again. The warden does not monitor the daily delivery of food nor the continuous discharge of waste. These functions are organic to a prison. The membrane allows order to be concentrated and conserved in convex regions of spacetime known variously as ‘insides, interiors, figures, or bubbles’, even as the whole (inside/outside) obeys the 2 nd Law of Thermodynamics, i.e. even as entropy increases inexorably. This remarkable existential feat is known as homeostasis , a complex of self-regulatory mechanisms that allow a figure to maintain its integrity (order) against an entropic ground for an extended period. In the case of living organisms, e.g. cells, homeostasis requires a regulated exchange of particles/energy between the interior and exterior of a cell. These exchanges serve solely to maintain the character and the integrity of the Bubble. They do not satisfy Gregory Bateson’s ontological criterion: they do not constitute ‘a difference that makes a difference’. In other contexts, figures can act intentionally to modify their grounds ( techne ); this is not that! Here the exchange of energy occurs only to suppress change, i.e. to propagate the status quo . It has no informational value. Other than homeostatic noise, no direct communication occurs between interior and exterior . All communication is mediated by the membrane functioning as a Markov Blanket. Information generated internally impacts the Blanket and, if appropriate, the Blanket impacts the exterior. Likewise, information generated externally… The natural tendency of spacetime to bifurcate into convex shapes, sustained by homeostatic processes but otherwise segregated from their exteriors by a Markov Blanket, is direct, experiential evidence of the operation of logos at the heart of Being. So back to our riddles: (1) What do people fail to comprehend before and after they have heard it? logos. (2) What is shared by everyone but acknowledged by no one? logos. (3) What separates us from what is closest to us? logos. (4) What was before all things, through which all things came to be? logos. (5) What scatters all things and gathers them together…simultaneously? logos. (6) What is with God (spirit) outside history and with us (flesh) in history? logos. (7) How do we know that all things are one? See above, logos. 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< Back Jericho David Cowles “Some of us were waving copies of Mao’s Little Red Book; we all should have been clutching copies of the Old Testament.” Have you ever read the Book of Joshua? It’s the first book of the Old Testament, following the 5 books of Moses ( Torah ). It begins where Deuteronomy leaves off. Moses has died, God has appointed Joshua as Moses’ successor, and now the Hebrew army sits on the border of the Promised Land. Next stop, Jericho! Jericho is a massively fortified walled city, seemingly impregnable to attack. The city’s rulers are little troubled when Joshua’s rag tag army shows up at their gates. But rulers beware! Joshua has no intention of launching a frontal assault. Instead, he cleverly exploits the inequity of Jericho’s social structure to orchestrate a revolution from within. In the history of urban planning, center-city locations have been prized (easier access to the engines of government and commerce); it’s true today (Mayfair), it was true of the Medieval ville (the proto-cities of the Middle Ages), and it was true of ancient cities like Jericho. The poorest residents “lived in the wall” at the edge of the city; they would be the first to die if the city were attacked. But who cares? They’re poor after all, they’re expendable…right? Not according to Joshua! He was committed to the ideology of social equality hammered out in the Sinai wilderness. He also understood that what made Jericho’s ‘wall flowers’ vulnerable in the event of an attack made them powerful in the event of a revolution, an eventuality unanticipated by the Jericho’s resident urban planners. Joshua also understood that being poor and marginalized (quite literally as it happens), these outliers might be less loyal to the existing order and more willing to consider something new. And boy, did Joshua represent something new! How about the egalitarian redistribution of all of Jericho’s ‘means of production’, i.e., its wealth generating assets? Joshua promised more than any politician ever has, before or since. The promises of Marx and Lenin pale by comparison. Yet, Joshua delivered! He fulfilled his promise. And what was that promise? Simply to export the nascent Israeli constitution to Jericho and other cities of Canaan. Sidebar : In the 1960s, the United States was involved in a bloody war with North Vietnam. In its early years, the war was broadly unpopular on college campuses but just as broadly supported in the working-class neighborhoods that furnished soldiers for the US military. The course of the war shifted when, in the later years of the decade, college campuses emptied and student radicals spilled into the neighborhoods, spreading the anti-war gospel. We were so proud of ourselves. We didn’t realize that we had simply rediscovered a tactic that Joshua had used more than 3,000 years earlier. Some of us were waving copies of Mao’s Little Red Book ; we all should have been clutching copies of the Old Testament. We were following Mao and Marx when we should have been following Moses. When Joshua was preparing to cross into Canaan, his first act was to send two spies into Jericho to reconnoiter and to build rapport with its disadvantaged residents. In support of these fifth columnists, Joshua, at God’s direction, staged a massive demonstration, not of Israel’s military might but of its socio-economic constitution. “The Lord said (to Joshua)…have all the soldiers circle the city, marching once around it. Do this for six days with seven priests carrying ram’s horns ahead of the Ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times and have the priests blow the horns…The wall of the city will collapse...” (Jos. 6: 1 – 5) And so, for seven days, Joshua’s entourage engaged in a series of militarily ineffectual maneuvers outside the city’s ramparts. Did Joshua invent the concept of liturgical dance? The city’s rulers were mesmerized. They had no hint of what was coming! Jericho’s rulers did what we all do; they attempted to shoehorn novel experience into familiar categories. They did not understand that Joshua was bringing new wine, and we all know what happens when you try to put this spring’s Beaujolais Nouveau into last year’s skins --- the skins explode! (The ‘skin’ of an ancient city is its wall…and the walls of Jericho were about to explode.) It’s Day 7 of Joshua’s so-called ‘siege’. Everyone’s attention is riveted on the strange liturgical performance happening just outside the city’s gates. A brilliant media mogul, Joshua has built suspense. He has tantalized his audience, and now at last it’s time for the big reveal. According to Nielsen, on Day 1 Joshua’s antics earned him a market share equal to 40% of Jericho’s households. By Day 6 it was up to 70%, but Day 7 is what everyone was waiting for…and it did not disappoint. ‘The Joshua Show’ enjoyed an audience share of 93%. Eat your heart out, Super Bowl! Joshua was not just an ancient version of Fellini; he was also an avatar of Ronald Reagan. He was a ‘great communicator’. While the rulers of Jericho saw ineffectual military maneuvers, the city’s dispossessed, coached by Joshua’s spies, understood that Joshua was acting out a coded message for their benefit. Through liturgical dance, the Hebrew army acted out the constitution of the emergent Jewish state…"and the walls came tumbling down." The first six trips around the city wall symbolized the first six days of creation, the six days between Sabbaths, the six years between Sabbaticals, the six Sabbaticals between Jubilees. The seventh day’s ‘performance’ incorporated the other six and added one more. It symbolized the seven days of creation, the seven-day Sabbath cycle, the seven-year Sabbatical cycle, the seven-Sabbatical Jubilee cycle (7 x 7 + 1 = 1). The Constitution ( Leviticus ) of the Jewish state included a complete redistribution of productive wealth every 50th year, i.e., during the Jubilee. Just as Jesus of Nazareth (whose name means ‘Joshua’ too, ‘Joshua two’) proclaimed a Jubilee throughout the land on the first day of his public ministry (Luke 4:21), so Joshua proclaimed a Jubilee for the residents of Jericho upon his arrival in the Promised Land. What happened? A divine miracle, a feat of magic, or a David Copperfield illusion? None of the above. Nothing so ‘extra-terrestrial’. Do not expect God to resort to a flood when a rain drop will produce the desired result. Do not invoke the miraculous when the historical will do just as well. Sidebar : We are proposing here a new Razor to sit beside Occam’s on the vanity: Events follow a path of least resistance; they will alter the ‘actual worlds’ they inherit as little as possible, consistent with each event achieving its unique objective. Being is conservative as well as revolutionary. Please don’t underestimate God. He’s got mad skills; but send an army into a battle they might not win? No way! God is no Pickett. Dissolve the walls of Jericho with the wave of a wand or a sprinkle of pixie dust? Not his style! Those are the kinds of desperate measures that a third-millennium deity (BCE) might employ…but not our third-millennium God (CE)! Our God knows his Marx. He knows that a Kingdom created and sustained by a slew of miracles will not endure. Real change has to be rooted in the hearts and minds of the people. The rulers are mesmerized, but the marginalized members of society, ‘the people of the wall’, are energized. Why? Because they understand the meaning of Joshua’s choreography. They know the code. Joshua has presented what is possibly the ‘first political platform’ in Western history, and it is drawn entirely from the Old Testament Book of Leviticus . If Moses led the West’s first ‘nationalist’ rebellion against Pharaoh, Joshua orchestrated its first ‘socialist’ revolution against the economy of Jericho. Image: BATTLE OF JERICHO. The walls of Jericho falling. Fresco at the Vatican by Raphael or his school, 1508-1524. 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 . Previous Next

< Back The ‘O Antiphons’ David Cowles “We are asking Christ to come… to teach us, rescue us, shine on us, free us and, repeated three times, to save us.” Can you imagine an Advent Season without the ‘O Antiphons’? If so, perhaps it’s because you don’t recognize them in the famous Christmas carol, O Come, O Come, Emmanuel ? At least since the 8 th century, these seven antiphons have been an important part of Roman Catholic liturgy. Each antiphon is built around a title given to the Messiah in the Old Testament. O Wisdom ( Sapentia ) of our God Most High, guiding creation with power and love: come to teach us the path to knowledge (understanding). The first antiphon captures the first three sefirot of the Kabbalah: Crown (Godhead), Wisdom and Understanding (knowledge). Christ (Logos) is the Wisdom (Sophia) of God. O Leader ( Adonai ) of the House of Israel, giver of the Law to Moses on Sinai: come to rescue us with your mighty power. This antiphon links three contrasting concepts: Leadership, Law, and Liberty (‘rescue’). While secular laws may be enslaving, God’s Law (Torah) is always liberating. It rescues us, not only from our enemies, foreign or domestic, material or spiritual, but it also frees us from ourselves…from our addictions, our attachments, our idols. Law is necessary, but it is never enough. Even after giving the Law to Moses, YHWH continued to govern the House of Israel directly through a sort of Constitutional Theocracy (The Book of Judges). O Root ( Radix ) of Jesse’s stem, sign of God’s love for all his people: come to save us without delay! Christ is descended from King David, but Christ is also the root from which David’s father, Jesse, sprang. True God and True Man, Christ fuses the temporal and the eternal, history and the Kingdom of God. Only Jesus can justly sing that ole country standard, “I am my own great-great-great Grandpa.” O Key ( Clavis ) of David, opening the gates of God’s eternal Kingdom: come and free the prisoners of darkness! We’re all living our lives in supermax. Our bodies are mortal, our minds are shrouded in impenetrable ignorance, and we are randomly subject to hideous physical and psychological torture at any time. O Radiant Dawn ( Oriens ), splendor of eternal light, sun of justice: come and shine on those who dwell in darkness and in the shadow of death. At the moment of conception, each of us is sentenced to death. Execution may take place immediately…or 100 years later…it depends on how good a lawyer you can afford. But in the final analysis, it doesn’t make much difference; we all end up in the same place eventually. It turns out that life is the shadow of death. O King ( Rex ) of all nations and keystone of the Church: come and save us humans whom you formed from dust. Christ is King, King of the Universe. All secular authority is a reflection of divine authority, and it is valid only so long as, and to the extent that, it projects Christ’s values into the world. Ideally, the Church is society reimagined, i.e., with Christ as its cornerstone. O Emmanuel ( Emmanuel ), our King and Giver of Law: come to save us, Lord our God. The O Antiphons are prayed along with Mary’s Magnificat on the seven days leading up to the Vigil of Christmas. Built around seven Messianic titles from the Old Testament, the antiphons take pains to connect those titles to the babe who is about to be born historically in Bethlehem and reborn eternally in liturgy. Interestingly, the first letters of the Messianic titles (in Latin, of course), E mmanuel, R ex, O riens, C lavis, R adix, A donai, S apientia—spell out ‘ERO CRAS’, meaning, "I will come tomorrow!" Were these antiphons the inspiration for Annie : “The sun will come out, tomorrow?” We must not get lost in the beauty of these antiphons; we need to remember that they are first and foremost prayers. We are asking Christ to come… to teach us, rescue us, shine on us, free us and, repeated three times, to save us. But as we pray, so we believe. T he O Antiphons embody a comprehensive theology: Sapentia connects the Power and Love of God with human Wisdom and Knowledge. Adonai celebrates the liberating Law of God given to Moses in the Sinai. Radix reveals Christ as the origin (root) and destiny of all things. Clavis reveals Christ as ‘keeper of the keys’: the key that unlocks our mortal prison and the key that opens the gates of heaven. Oriens reveals Christ as the ever-recurring and eternal Light that overcomes darkness. Rex pays tribute to Christ as Ruler of the World. Emmanuel sums it up. God is not just over us; God is with us. The Incarnation turns the Universe inside out. The whole becomes part of itself; therefore, the whole (God) is with all of us (fellow parts), individually as well as collectively. 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 Yuletide 2023 Previous Next

“Things are the way they are simply because they are the way they are.” < Back Super-Determinism David Cowles Apr 15, 2024 “Things are the way they are simply because they are the way they are.” In Thoughts While Shaving (3/26/2024), we introduced the notion of a Block Universe ( BU ) . According to this model, Universe is best represented as a static block. People used to write about the Block Universe but now we know that there are multiple models of BU . Each of these models has a different look and feel. However, it remains to be seen which of these various ideas, if any, are denotatively distinct. We explored two models of BU : Classical Determinism ( CD , Laplace) and Many Worlds ( MW , Everett). We’ll briefly recap these two models and then explore some other possible Block cosmologies, ultimately focusing on our title topic, Super-Determinism . The principle of Classical Determinism is well known. If we could specify the location and the momentum of every element in the Universe, we could calculate the state of the Universe at any time, past or future. Maybe so…but we can’t do it! Turns out that location and momentum are not entirely independent, so it is never possible to measure both at once without there being a certain amount of ‘fuzziness’ in the data (and fuzzy is fatal when it comes to determinism – I mean, one flap of a butterfly’s wing can throw all our plans and predictions into a cocked hat: no picnic today!) In fact, if we could know location with the precision required for a deterministic calculation, it would come at the expense of any knowledge whatsoever concerning momentum. Fortunately for us, the relationship between location and momentum is not linear. There is a ‘sweet spot’ where we have enough information about location and momentum to make informal, imprecise, predictions re the evolution of affairs. No picnic…but probably no asteroid collision either. Hugh Everett salvaged the picnic. He posited that any event that can happen (even a picnic) does happen…but in its own universe. We no longer need to rely on knowing position and momentum to predict the future: whatever can happen does happen! Predictions can be made with 100% certainty and 100% accuracy. No predicted event has ever failed to materialize…nor will it…ever. Riddle : If a prediction is guaranteed in advance to be correct, is it a ‘prediction’? Many Worlds is irrefutable, but not very useful. It’s really just a device to get around the paradoxes of Quantum Mechanics. The inventory of ‘worlds’ explodes super-exponentially and there is no way to prefer one universe over any other: they’re all just happening! Question : Is ‘everything happening’ the same as ‘nothing happening’? If everything occurs, does anything occur? When do we start saying silly things like, “I know it’s happening but is it really happening?” Laplace or Everett , either way your experience is the same; you live in just one world – because either that’s all there is ( CD ) or, what amounts to the same thing, that’s all there is for you . Your actual trajectory is unique according to either model. No matter what choices you appear to make, which alternatives you seem to choose, Everett-World will still be your world, and therefore phenomenally indistinguishable from Laplace-World . CD and MW describe the same World. In both cases, actuality is singular. CD brings us back to Shakespeare: “To be or not to be.” And to Looney Tunes : “That’s all folks!” One and done. It either is or it is not. If it is, it is what is! Welcome to Hell – but don’t worry, it’s all-inclusive . Many Worlds relieves the boredom of CD … but at a price: chaos! According to MW , there is a universe in which I ordered lasagna and a universe where I ordered fish. Some wedding…lucky me! Well, not really. I only know from fish or pasta – like meat and dairy, I can’t experience both at the same time if I’m keeping a kosher diet; I can’t combine the two. In another universe, somebody ate lasagna, but not me; I only got to taste fish. Rats! Of course, the bifurcation of reality does not stop at wedding menus. Everything you do functions as a node, a bifurcation point…you and every other human being…you and every other living organism…you and each one of the 30 trillion independent cells that make you up…you and… A person could lose count! It’s possible, I suppose, that one of these models ( CD , MW ) might be correct. I’ll concede that there’s probably no way to ‘falsify’ either one, i.e., to prove it wrong. One reason these models can’t be falsified is that they don’t tell us anything very useful. As a result, they fail out of the gate because they don’t account for the world as we actually experience it. Turns out, MW and CD are the same! In both models, what happens just happens. There is no causal contingency. There’s nothing recognizable as agency , and of course, there’s no free will . Wait! According to CD , ‘only one thing happens’; while according to MW , whatever can happen does happen. How can the two models be the same? Thanks to Bill Clinton, we can resolve this paradox: it all depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is. MW applies ‘is’ to all possible pathways; CD applies it to just one actual pathway. On 3/26/2004, I proposed a modification to Everett’s Many Worlds model. Call it ‘Many Worlds Modified’ ( MM ). Suppose ‘the world tree’ ( Yggdrasil ) is convergent as well as divergent. We know from Botany that roots and branches can converge and reconnect; why not divergent ‘world lines’ as well? If we treat the World as a computer simulation, made up entirely of 1’s and 0’s, it is easier to see how two different number streams could settle at a single shared value. According to MM , the inventory of ‘worlds’ grows, but as a linear function of time…a big improvement I think you’ll agree. Speaking of Yggdrasil , according to Norse Mythology 3 norns (Macbeth’s witches) weave the World (Fate) from 3 skeins of yarn. How Trinitarian! MM is consistent with Norse cosmology. The textile, aka the World, accretes arithmetically over time. No stasis , no kaos , just logos . But am I too late to the party? 75 years ago, renowned physicist Richard Feynman created another theoretical framework that offers to bridge CD and MW . Like Everett 25 years later, Feynman takes ‘can happen, does happen’ as his starting point. But he treats ‘does happen’ in terms of mathematical probability rather than physical process. “Does happen” means “ happens with a probability greater than 0 but less than 1”. Simplistically, with Laplace there is never any ‘event’ per se , with Everett there are inconceivably many ‘events’, while with Feynman there is exactly one ‘event’ per region of spacetime. Ah, fresh air! Feynman integrates many virtual (probabilistic) events into one actual (physical) event: the path integral . As with Schrödinger’s puss, at some point the Universe has to declare itself: “Is you is, or is you ain’t, my baby?” That actual, real declaration is a function of the probability of each of the potential, virtual declarations. But that’s only the beginning of Feynman’s genius! He went on to suggest that, while the probabilistic wave function does collapse into the specific actual event that we ‘see’, ALL the virtual pathways that ‘sum’ to that event pass on intact to the future. Such influences are transmitted noumenally, rather than phenomenally, according to Feynman’s model, which he appropriately called Sum Over Histories ( SH ). The result is a world that is ‘loosely causal’ – remarkably like the ‘real world’ of our everyday experience. Even though neither Laplace nor Everett can be debunked mathematically, their models are not very satisfying. One is totally rigid; the other wildly chaotic. One is fixed, the other grows super-exponentially. The problem is that neither remotely resembles the World we experience. Our World is stable but not frozen, dynamic but not chaotic. SH to the rescue! According to SH , all potential pathways influence the world-line noumenally, but the intensity of each influence is in direct proportion to its probability. What we experience, dubiously, as ‘phenomenal causation’ is just a gross approximation of ‘noumenal causation’. SH is much richer than my paltry effort ( MM ). However, it introduces complexities from Quantum Mechanics that are not strictly necessary. MM is like an n-1 dimensional sketch of SH . All of which brings us back, finally, to various schools of so-called Super-Determinism ( SD ). SD duplicates the rigidity of CD but dispenses with the illusion of causation. A secular version of SD states that the Universe just is and is as it is. There’s no time, no space, no causation, no process, no true becoming or perishing. Connections among events are real…but they are not causal. Things are the way they are simply because they are the way they are. Other versions of SD invoke a transcendent agent, e.g. God. The Universe is the way it is because God made it that way…end of! SD comes in a variety of ‘transcendent’ (theocratic) versions as well as the one ‘immanent’ (secular) version outlined above. Theocratic SD often takes the form of God’s Will or Divine Providence or Best of all Possible Worlds (Leibniz). SD , secular or otherwise, is an intellectually honest version of CD . It applies Occam’s Razor Strop to Laplace. ‘Time’ and ‘causation’ are superfluous terms, so SD eliminates them. But then the world where SD applies is removed even farther from the world of everyday experience. ‘It is what it is’ begs the question, “Why? Why is what is, the way it is?” Of course, the theocratic model answers that, “It’s God’s will;” but that just kicks the can down the road. It begs the further question, “ Why is this what God wills?” And presto , we’re back into the world of transcendent values. The Five Books of Moses (Torah), indeed the entire Old Testament (OT), affirm our right, as value driven human beings, to question God’s judgment. We are God’s conscience, his Jiminy Cricket. The Book of Job explicitly asserts ‘the right of disputation’. Job takes God to cosmic court and wins! According to OT, God is powerful and benevolent but ‘morally confused’. Riddle : How is God like my grandmother (as described by her teacher)? He means well but he doesn’t always do well (at least not as we see things). SD , secular or theocratic, needs to address three questions: Why aren’t things better than they are? (The Problem of Evil) Why are things as good as they are? ( The Problem of Good ) Why are things as inefficient as they are? ( The Problem of Waste ) The world we experience seems riddled with Value; arguably (Whitehead), it is only Value. Yet SD is a world without even a category for Value. What is, is – don’t judge, deal! Can such a model shine any light on the world as we experience it? 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 the cover image to return to Holy Days 2024. Share Previous Next Do you like what you just read? 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< Back 03/17/2022 What does a person do who is no longer learning to live, no longer learning to be ‘people’, no longer living other people’s lives? Such a person ‘reflects’…she reflects on what she’s learned, on how she’s lived, and on who she’s been. Does she have something to say that hasn’t already been said by countless others? Does she have something to do that hasn’t already been done? After 75 years, you’ve earned the right to make your own unique contribution to civilization. Now if I could just figure out what that unique contribution might be… More later… -David What does a person do who is no longer learning to live, no longer learning to be ‘people’, no longer living other people’s lives? Such a person ‘reflects’…she reflects on what she’s learned, on how she’s lived, and on who she’s been. Does she have something to say that hasn’t already been said by countless others? Does she have something to do that hasn’t already been done? After 75 years, you’ve earned the right to make your own unique contribution to civilization. Now if I could just figure out what that unique contribution might be… More later… -David Previous Next

< Back Genesis Wins Nobel Prize David Cowles Traditionally, Nobels are awarded only to ‘living recipients’ and only for work completed in the preceding year. In its statement, the committee said it felt an exception was needed in this instance “in order to right a grievous wrong.” Stockholm, Sweden – October 2030 . The Nobel Committee has just announced the winner of this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics. The prize has been awarded posthumously to the authors and editors of the Old Testament Book of Genesis in recognition of Genesis’s groundbreaking contribution to our understanding of the origin and evolution of the universe.’ Traditionally, Nobels are awarded only to ‘living recipients’ and only for work completed in the preceding year. In its statement, the committee said it felt an exception was needed in this instance “in order to right a grievous wrong.” ***** In 2000, Pope John Paul II apologized for the Church’s 17th century mistreatment of Galileo Galilei. Today, the Nobel Committee reciprocated by acknowledging that throughout the period known, ironically, as ‘The Enlightenment,’ the scientific establishment systematically misread Genesis. Science banished Genesis from the ‘academy;' but like all events, this event turned out to be a double-edged sword. There is no doubt that religious faith was undermined…but so was faith in science. Enlightenment science (were I in a more cantankerous mood, I might have written, ‘enlightenment science, an oxymoron,’ but I’m not) split our world in two. In place of the traditional consensus that both science and theology have something to contribute to our understanding of Being, we now have two ‘armed camps’ (in some cases, quite literally) – one composed of people who dismiss theology, and another composed of people who dismiss science. Often the science that wins a Nobel Prize is so complicated and arcane that only a handful of experts can understand it. Not this time! The ideas contained in Genesis can be understood and appreciated by almost everyone: “… God said let there be light and there was light.” We recognize this as the event we call the Big Bang: the emergence of energy (waves) and massless particles (photons). “God then separated the light from the darkness.” Prior to the Big Bang, ‘universe,’ if you can call it that, was a state of maximal entropy, which Genesis aptly described as: “…without form or shape with darkness over the abyss and a mighty wind.” Does this conflict with the Judeo-Christian doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, that the universe was created out of nothing? It does not! The Big Bang is the birth of order, and order is what being is. What else could being be? ‘To be’ or ‘not to be’ - ‘that is the question’ and the primal distinction; it is the foundation of all order. Later, the Gospel of John reprised Genesis by explicitly linking being and order through the concept of logos. You could read the first chapter of John as a commentary on Genesis. Without order, there literally is nothing (nihilo). Creation is the creation of order. Therefore, all creation is ex nihilo… it has to be! There isn’t any other way for it to happen. Any process that is not ex nihilo is not ‘creation.’ Creation requires a Tabula Rasa (‘a blank slate’). To create is not to modify, not even to ameliorate; to create is to bring a thing into being ex nihilo. Creating is not rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. To create is to bring into being de nuovo the chairs, the boat, the ocean, the planet, the cosmos – all ex nihilo – all from nothing. True ‘creation’ is always creatio ex nihilo. At the Big Bang, maximal entropy (chaos) becomes minimal entropy (order). That’s what Big Bang is! A phase change – the emergence of order. Instantly, maximal disorder (entropy) becomes maximal order (negentropy). The Big Bang begins the process of distinguishing order from chaos, light from darkness. The sudden reduction in entropy manifests as energy, i.e., light. Residual entropy is what we call darkness. The distinction of order (negentropy) from disorder (entropy) is the primordial distinction, the first step in the evolution of a universe that has given us such wonders as the Grand Canyon, Disney World, and the Big Mac. On to Step Two in the ‘genesis’ of the cosmos: “Evening came and morning followed – the first day.” Entropy tends to increase over time. Stephen Hawking suggested that entropy might even be time. Time is Duration (present) plus Sequence (past, future). Sequence, states of lower entropy following states of higher entropy, is the substructure of time. From sequence comes ‘interval’ and ‘duration’ which Genesis designates jointly by the word ‘day.’ B happens after A and before C. The gap between A and C is their ‘interval’ and that interval is the ‘duration’ of B. Sequence, interval and duration are inextricably linked. After temporal distinction (sequence, interval, duration, ‘day’) comes spatial distinction. Space is a rotation of time. According to current cosmological theory, there can be only one temporal dimension, but there may be an unspecified number of spatial dimensions. The emergence of space is both caused by and required for the emergence of mass. Turns out, mass and space are synonymous (Higgs). No mass, no space; no space, no mass! In the Genesis account, ‘massive particles’ manifest as dry land, earth, sea, vegetation, and animals, including conscious life forms such as human beings. Now, compared to a college textbook on cosmology, this account might seem a bit ‘spare.’ Certainly, there are things we know today about Cosmogenesis that even the celebrated and now properly, if belatedly, recognized authors of Genesis did not know. But consider this: for 2,500 years, Genesis was our most comprehensive and plausible theory of Cosmogenesis. So, congratulations to the Nobel Committee: job well done…if long overdue! 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. Previous Next