< Back Comfort for Clumsy Believers: What the Disbelief of the Disciples Means for Us Deidre Braley "There is evidence that, in the backs of the disciples' minds, there was always the glimmer of the same question that shimmers on my frontal lobe today: 'But what if we’ve gotten it all wrong about him?'" Every quarter or so, I have an existential crisis. It’s not something I typically bring up in conversation; it turns out that questions like, “What if everything we’ve believed about God and the universe is wrong?” tend to dampen the overall mood of dinner parties and coffee dates. Plus, it just isn’t polite Christian talk. Nobody wants to hear the late night doubts of a so-called believer—least of all me . These questions are unwelcome; these doubts, disturbing. But I’ve found comfort as of late in the recountings of Jesus’ death and resurrection in the Gospels. For the first time in all of my rereadings, it’s striking me that the disciples really didn’t understand the entirety of what Jesus was up to and who he was. There is evidence that, in the backs of their minds, there was always the glimmer of the same question that shimmers on my frontal lobe today: “But what if we’ve gotten it all wrong about him?” How have I missed it until now? How did I not see that these men—just like me—grappled with the pesky whispers that poked and prodded at the foundations of their faith, their security, their eternal futures ? I’ve always assumed that since they knew Jesus personally, it was a given that they also understood he was really the Son of God. That every moment they were in his presence, his essence of saving grace would be so palpable that they’d know for sure who they were dealing with. That there would be no way they could touch and see, eat and banter with Jesus himself and still hold on to any shred of disbelief that mumbled, “Maybe he’s just a really good guy. A stellar prophet. Ten out of ten, as far as leaders go.” The Disbelief of the Disciples But looking around at Jesus’ closest handful of friends in the days surrounding his death and resurrection, we see a group of people thrown into the confusing waters of uncertainty, fear, and doubt. Judas acts a traitor. Simon Peter denies knowing him. The disciples in the upper room refuse to believe Mary when she tells them Jesus has left the tomb. The men on the road to Emmaus can’t even see past their discouraged hopes to realize that Jesus himself is walking alongside them. In short, even though they knew Jesus and he’d told them exactly what would happen, they still couldn’t seem to bring themselves to the point of certain, unwavering belief. Doubt is often seen as a character flaw. Society loves the certain. But maybe certainty is such a hot commodity because it’s what we all actually lack, addled by our own human condition. The disciple, too, were humans, and I see now that they each struggled with varying degrees of disbelief. What is significant to each of their stories does not turn out to be their level of dubiety, though—it is the way they end up responding to their natural predisposition to doubt. Judas, for example, is consumed by his disbelief. I have always wondered how he possibly could have betrayed Jesus, knowing he was the Son of God. Because honestly, how did he think that was going to work out for him? But now it strikes me: he didn’t know it, not really. If he had, he never would have traded him for thirty pieces of silver. He would have understood he was making a preposterous exchange (a bagful of coins for the Savior of the world) and that his treachery would have eternal consequences. My theory is that it wasn’t about the silver at all; it was about the fact that he heard the crowds all around him saying, “He is not who he says he is,” and allowed them to feed the doubts that niggled there in his soul. You can almost hear the snake in the Garden whispering the same lie in Judas’ ear that worked with Adam and Eve: “Did he really say that?” Judas justified his betrayal by shaking his head alongside the others, letting the disquiet of his disbelief overwhelm even the intimacy, miracles, and teachings he’d experienced in his close walk with Jesus. It isn’t only Judas, though, who questions the truth of Jesus’ words. Before it happened and on multiple occasions, Jesus himself had explicitly told his disciples that he would be mocked and shamed, beaten and killed, and then would rise on the third day. But it is written, “...they understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said” (Luke 18:34). This proves to be true, for on the day of Jesus’ resurrection, when Mary and the other women burst in to tell the eleven that the tomb was empty, Luke says, “these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them” (24:11). And when a disguised Jesus meets the two men on the way to Emmaus and asks why they look so sad, they respond, “...we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:21). The unspoken implication is obvious here: But he wasn’t. It is clear that belief and doubt had done battle in their souls; their belief had told them that Jesus was the Messiah, while their doubt had told them he was just a man. In his death, disbelief had won, and the men succumbed to despair. A Closer Look at Simon Peter Simon Peter was not immune to doubt either. He walked on the water to Jesus, yes, but he also began to sink the moment he saw the wind and the waves. And later, his three denials of Jesus are evidence that he did not have enough faith to stand against the enormous fear mounting within and around him. And yet, throughout the Gospels we see Simon Peter among the first to surrender to belief. At Caesarea Philippi, Simon Peter confesses that Jesus is “the Christ, “the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). On the mountain with Jesus during the Transfiguration, he is the one to (albeit awkwardly) embrace the seemingly-impossible fact that Moses and Elijah are there too; he offers to set up a tent for each of them (Matthew 17:4). When the other disciples balk at the notion that Jesus has risen, Simon Peter dashes from the room and arrives in breathless wonder to see the folded linens for himself (Matthew 24:12). And when the resurrected Jesus later appears on the beach where they are fishing, he is the first to recognize him as Lord and jump in the water in his haste to get to him (John 21:7). Simon Peter is not set apart in these stories because of his absence of disbelief or his stunning quality of character. In fact, he seems like a bit of a hothead—rash and impulsive and imperfect as any of us. But now I see that his superpower is his utter willingness to surrender to belief and, like a clumsy jump off the high-dive, to submerge himself in holy mystery. It’s not always pretty and he doesn’t always stick the landing, but he does keep jumping. Comfort for Clumsy Believers I’m comforted to know that those who walked with Jesus—who heard things of heaven directly from the Master’s mouth—also struggled against insidious doubt. I’m even more comforted by Jesus’ response to their clumsy attempts at belief. On the road to Emmaus, he admonishes the two disheartened men, saying, “‘O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?’” (Luke 24: 26). But he doesn’t leave them there; he goes on to interpret “to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (v.27)—starting all the way back at the beginning as if to gently lead their analytical minds into the territory of total belief. And to Thomas who says, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe” (John 20:24), Jesus appears and lets him do just that, as if to say, “I know this handicap you’re working with—humanity—is a tricky, finicky thing. Come, let me lead you to belief.” He helps his friends believe with their minds and their physical beings, appealing to wherever the incredulity has laid siege. He encourages them to touch, think, and feel. He helps them do whatever it takes to clear the shared hurdle of humanity: a quizzical nature. I have to believe that if there was grace for them, there is also grace for us clumsy believers—the ones who are troubled with unwelcomed doubts as we lay awake at night, and who sometimes tremble under the weight of our own existential crises. But let’s also take inspiration from Simon Peter. He was sifted by the devil and, like so many of us, heard the echoes of the original lie reverberating in his eardrums. But instead of letting disbelief win out, he still jumps out of the boat. He still lunges toward his Lord. When the enemy and all the world cry, “Is he really who he says he is?” Simon Peter waves them off as if to say, “Yes—he is I AM. And I am here for it.” Jesus responds to his friends’ varied degrees of doubt with tenderness and grace. He is not surprised by their disbelief, nor does he turn away because of it. But as Thomas puts his fingers into his wounds, Jesus does say, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe” (John 20:29). Remember—it is not our disbelief that defines our faith, but rather how we choose to respond to it. So the next time we find ourselves in the turbulent waters of late-night doubting, we needn’t give in to despair, nor chastise ourselves for having questions. Instead, we can consider ourselves normal, and then remember that our response is what drives the narrative. Judas had doubts and betrayed the Savior of the world. Simon Peter had doubts, and Jesus gave him the keys to the kingdom. The difference? Judas leaned into disbelief of what he couldn’t see, while Simon Peter leapt into the mystery. Let us be followers who, addled with doubt though we are, choose to keep jumping from the boat, to keep lunging toward our Lord, and to keep on believing what we can’t see. It is our willingness to surrender to belief that will ultimately define our faith. Deidre Braley is a freelance writer and editor. She lives in Maine with her husband and two children, and most days can be found savoring an overly cheesy bagel or drinking a second cup of coffee while working on her weekly newsletter, The Second Cup . She is a strong believer in the power of poetry, picking roadside flowers, and blowing past small talk at all costs. Follow her on Instagram @deidresecondcup or on Facebook — she loves meeting new friends. Return to our Holy Days Table of Contents Previous Next

What do our readers have to say to our editorial staff about essays written for Christians who believe in science and scientists and philosphers who believe in God? Add your comment to the conversation. Readers React Continue the conversation. Let us know what you think about an ATM essay or a "Thoughts While Shaving" blog post. *Under website name, please include the name of or link to the essay or "Thought" about which you are commenting. Your name and email address will not be visible to website viewers. Want to chat with other readers, start a discussion, or pen a renga cycle? Join the ATM Forum! What are our readers saying about Aletheia Today Magazine? Read below. Just in the Nick of Time Commenting on "Science and the Yellow Submarine Part I" So, you have reborn your magazine just in the nick of time given the state of the world… Beginning with Yellow Submarine, of course; didn’t I see it multiple times back in the day? So, I felt I was on firm ground … This notion of people seeing the same movie is a joke. I left the movie feeling - the colors ! Dave walked out thinking, “Yellow Submarine is a cosmogenic cookbook.” Can you all spot the difference? Beginning with Yellow Submarine, you made me look up ‘ontological.' Undeterred, I read on straight into, “Picasso was painting in a Cubist style before Einstein conceived General Relativity." I believe that’s correct. Later in the article, you warn us, “more Whitehead to come.” Now, that’s some summer reading. And, by summer, I mean the whole summer. Back to saving the world cuz Time is running out, you know ? Every lively magazine needs critics, cantankerous readers who write in provocative comments causing your loyal supporters to take umbrage all over the place, provoking more offenses- creating a buzz. That’s the world right now. By the way, is umbrage a great word or what? "Hey Honey, did you remember to bring your umbrage with you?" So, a buzz is what’s needed here ... --John O’Brien Keep Me on Your List! Commenting on our June 2022 Issue Great reading. Keep me on your list! --Anonymous from Geneva, IL His Way, Not Mine Commenting on "Prayer For Resting in God's Timing, Ways, and Rhythm" Amen! His will, not mine. Thank you for this beautiful prayer. --Patti Burkett What a Lucky Guy! What a lucky guy to have found this vehicle! Of course, all the pieces came into his life with perfect timing. His concert experience when he was 14-years-old triggering his whole life in music leading to inner peace. --John E. O'Brien Commenting on "Drumming to Inner Peace"

For centuries, many Christians have found support for their faith in the accounts of miracles worked by Jesus, and following Jesus, by various apostles, saints and martyrs. Others, however, have rejected these accounts as ‘impossible’ and therefore ‘unbelievable’ and this judgment has led them to dismiss all accounts of Jesus’ life and teachings as ‘suspect’. Robert Frost, Quantum Mechanic Robert Frost This article offers the best overall introduction to Frost and his contribution: Robert Frost was Wrong So woods-walking Frost finds himself at a crossroads. Like each of us 100 times every day, he must make a choice. But what is the nature of ‘choice’ per se? The Road Taken Frost’s poem can be viewed in light of the more recently developed Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI) of QM. We argue that what Frost proposes is not MWI…but better! Janis Joplin and Robert Frost Finally, we examine Frost’s contribution to the ‘Freedom vs. Values’ debate and include perspectives from Joplin, Nietzsche, Sartre, and…wait for it…Pope Leo XIII. The Frost Diamond We expound on the ontological implications of Frost’s model, comparing its structure to that of a liquid, suggesting parallels with Heraclius (everything flows): Readers React What's the buzz about? Our readers' reactions to Aletheia Today... Additional Reading Can't get enough of Aletheia Today's content? Check out the books that inspire our magazine.

< Back Marcel Proust David Cowles “Who has not dreamed of reliving a cherished moment, not through the ghostly shadows of mind but, like Job, in the flesh?” Remembrance of Things Past (‘RTP’) is widely regarded as the most influential novel of the 20th century (lie quiet, Joyce). It is also, IMO, one of the most thoroughly misunderstood. The fault lies both in a failure of imagination…and in a failure of translation. Proust called his seven-volume masterpiece, Recherche du Temp Perdu , better rendered as Search for Lost Time . Appropriately, Proust named the 7th volume of his tome, Time Regained . Bingo! He prayed to St. Anthony… et voilà ! French has perfectly good words for ‘memory’ ( memoire ) and ‘remember’ ( souvenir ), but Proust does not use these terms. Instead, he chooses a derivative of chercher , to search. Memories are the ‘stuff’ of RTP but ‘memory’ per se is incidental. Proust is not remembering; he’s recovering and reliving. The goal is not to reminisce but to resurrect! Who has not dreamt of reliving a cherished moment, not through the ghostly shadows of mind but, like Job, in the flesh? RTP is a map to such a past – not to our ‘remembrance’ of the past, but to the past itself. The things we do to preserve our past! We take snapshots, we make videos, we curate (and then liberally ‘edit’) memories, and we revisit scenes of past triumphs (real or imagined) – all to no avail. We are trying to get to the center of the earth by moving across its surface. Unless we’re poets, we tend to ignore events themselves. We pay more attention to the connections between events: causality (science), synchronicity (magic), etc. We don’t ask, “What is it?” We ask instead, “Where did it come from? How did it get here? Where is it going? What does it do? What’s it worth? How can I make it? How can I make it better? How can I make it cheaper? And how much can I charge for it?” We care about our cherished past, and we anxiously await our uncertain future, but we ignore, or at least marginalize, the present. Proust proposes a totally different approach. Like Rand McNally, Proust provides us with a ‘road atlas’. However, Proust’s routes do not connect Past and Future through an insignificant truck stop known as the Present. They are not part of the Federal Highway System…their maintenance does not require tolls, or a bloated gas tax. Rather, they run perpendicular to Interstate Route 90. They conflate the Past and the Future in the Present moment . They allow us to be in Istanbul and Constantinople simultaneously, all while sipping hot coffee and downing chicken fried steak at our favorite roadside diner. Proust suggests we surf our way through life. He’s the OB² (Original Beach Boy). But Proust did not surf waves; he surfed qualia - philosophical jargon for ‘what’ something is, its attributes, its characteristics, its Wassein (not its Dasein ), its essence (not its existence). This is round, red, and squishy ( qualia ). Incidentally, it happens to be a ball. So what’s more important? The position of the ball relative to other entities in spacetime? Or the qualities manifest by the ball itself? Obviously, it depends. If the ball is hurtling toward you at 75 mph, the position of that ball in spacetime is paramount, but if you’re rolling the ball back and forth with your favorite toddler, how it looks and feels might take precedence. According to Proust, the sound of a spoon striking porcelain can connect you instantly to another event manifesting common qualia , no matter how separated the two events may be in time and space. The shared qualia constitute a wormhole. Mere memory is greatly overrated; lowly bacteria have memory. Memory is a pale substitute for ‘the real thing’ and, above all else, RTP is a ticket to what’s real. RTP is commonly understood as a novel about ‘memory’; it isn’t. It is a polemic against memory! Proust has plenty of memories; they fill all 7 volumes of RTP. But memory is manifestly not what this book is about! “There is a vast difference between the real impression that we have had of a thing and the artificial impression of it that we form for ourselves when we attempt, by an act of will, to imagine it…” (i.e., to remember it). Anyone can reminisce; not everyone can resurrect. In the early first century CE, there was no shortage of ‘Messiahs’, but not every wannabe could raise the dead. Might we not say the same of 20th-century novelists? Proust, Joyce, Stein, and…who else? Perhaps as much as any Francophone author, Proust knew his way around words. He did not choose his titles carelessly. When he called his final volume Time Regained, it was likely because he believed he had indeed recovered ‘Lost Time’. If so, RTP presents us with brand-new cosmology! Let’s hear what Proust himself has to say on the subject: “It was Venice…the sensation which I had once experienced as I stood upon two uneven stones in the Baptistry of St. Mark’s had, recurring a moment ago, been restored to me, complete with all the other sensations linked on that day to that particular sensation…” Proust does not remember; he relives. And when he relives, he does not recall selected, superficial qualia associated with a prior event; he recreates the event itself, and he re-experiences all its qualia …not from outside-in as memory but from inside-out. “…the past was made to encroach upon the present, and I was made to doubt whether I was in the one or the other… The moment to which I was transported seemed to me to be the present moment…” Normally, we experience at Time A an event that occurs at Time A. The experience leaves us with a bouquet of cherished (or despised) memories. Then, at Time B, we recall our memories of Time A: we reminisce! This has nothing to do with Proust! Proust does not ‘remember’ A from the security of B. He is not Wordsworth, recollecting emotion in tranquility. Proust conflates A and B. There is only one experience, only one event, and that experience happens at Time A and at Time B - not once at A and again at B, but once …at A and B. Wait a minute! Does this sound at all familiar? Isn’t this a perfect description of Quantum Entanglement (QM)? But that can’t be, can it? I mean, John Bell didn’t even discover ‘quantum entanglement’ until 1964, so… With QE a single event can be bilocated and its two loci can be far apart. Jesus was ‘sacrificed’ only once – but that sacrifice occurred on Calgary c. 33 CE and daily thereafter in Eucharist. Redemption, in the Christian tradition, is a WORM : “Write once, read many times!” Remember when you went to Venice? Afterward, you bored your friends to the brink of inebriation with your endless slide shows (yes, plural). It was not a good look. But you were one person experiencing Venice at two different times, in two different places, and in two very different ways (experiencing & remembering). One man, two events . When Proust went to Venice, the only camera packed was his mind. Years later, when he ‘revisited Venice’ in the tranquility of his garden, he was a different man but reliving the same event. Two men, one event . That’s the difference between Proust…and you. We imagine the world as four-dimensional graph paper. In this scheme, called Spacetime, there’s a place for everything, and everything has its place. We’re very familiar with experiences structured according to spacetime relations. It’s been drilled into us from the moment our moms first positioned mobiles above our cribs. It’s our ‘Mercator Projection’ of real life…and it can be very useful. Useful, for example, if you’re trying to assess the strength of certain physical forces at certain distances…or land a probe on Titan. For other purposes, however, this Cartesian framework is less relevant. Enter Proust! He suggests the possibility that experiences could relate altogether differently, e.g., according to their qualia . A red napkin sits atop a blue tablecloth. Across the room a gentleman sports a red pocket square. In ‘Proust space’, the ‘remote’ pocket square may be ‘closer’ to the napkin than the ‘tangent’ tablecloth on which it lies. Under the right circumstances, pocket square and the napkin can be experienced as a single event, shattering the tyranny of spacetime. What if we situated all phenomena, not according to time or place, but according to their qualia ? Suppose we treat the color red (above) as a wormhole connecting all things red? What if we mapped all the phenomena of the universe, not according to time and place, but according to the wave lengths of their reflected light? “…What we call reality is a certain connection between these immediate sensations ( qualia ) and the memories that envelop us simultaneously…” No mention of nasty objects ! At the time RTP was being published, Bertrand Russell was exploring the possibility that only qualia are real. Curiosity Corner : Spacetime and Qualia are two competing logoi , each connecting all the events that make up the World but connecting them differently according to different algorithms. Are there other logoi that could perform the same function? As noted above, Proust proposed a non-local cosmology 40+ years before John Bell applied the concept to QM. Did Bell have RTP in mind? Qualia are the agent and the outcome of entanglement. My red ball and your red wagon are ‘entangled’ via their ‘shared redness’. How are we to understand a world that is both extensive and entangled? Think of ‘reality’ as a multiplicity of inherently unrelated events. Like molecules in a gas, these events interact with one another randomly (Brownian Motion). Each event is sui generis . In the process of autogenesis, it creates positive and negative relations along multiple parameters with every other event in its Actual World. Philosophers and physicists often treat the phase space of these events as a Block. Each parameter gives rise to a unique logos , a web linking each event to every other event in the Block according to a specific parameter. Each such logos is an n-1 dimensional surface of the Block. Nerd Nook : An n-dimensional Block houses an infinite number of n-1 dimensional surfaces . Spacetime is one such surface; it’s the superposition of all surfaces that order events according to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics (entropy). There are innumerable surfaces that satisfy this condition. Each such surface corresponds to an alternative path that events may elect to follow. They define the range of choices available to me in life. What are the implications? First, note that free will is scrupulously preserved, but we exercise that will by choosing among an array of potential paths. We do not create these paths, as is commonly supposed; we choose them (St. Paul - Ephesians 2:10). But not to worry – our options are innumerable, and functionally, choosing a path is no different from creating one…except maybe a tad easier. Spirit Center : Our choice of path does not alter that path, or any other path, or the Block itself. On the other hand, the path we choose, once chosen, determines how we experience the Block, and how we experience the Block is how the Block experiences itself. So yes, we matter! Whatever path we choose for our worldline, we have the comfort of knowing that God made the journey before us…and makes it again with us. He blazes our trails… and he is the ultimate ‘fellow traveler’: we never have to feel alone again! (Psalm 23) Proust’s ontology resolves the dichotomy of free will and determinism. The inventory of all possible paths is determined (Schrödinger, St. Paul). Our choice among those paths is totally free and unconditioned in any way (Sartre). Note: this is neither a restriction nor a limitation. Beyond these paths…nothing is! Proust anticipates Hugh Everett’s Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics . Whatever can happen ‘does happen’…on some surface. He respects Richard Feynmann’s Sum over Histories . Insofar as events can be regarded as ‘determined’, what is determined is the sum (overlay) of all possible paths. Yet we actualize just one such potential path: e pluribus unum . C.S. Lewis wrote about this phenomenon in The Great Divorce . We are all already living in Heaven or Hell. But the location of our residence is not assigned by lottery or determined by merit. We can live anywhere we choose…but we do have to choose: no dachas , no time shares, no pieds-à-terre . With this model, Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken rises to the level of Scripture. The slight unevenness of the paving stones in Proust’s garden, Derrida’s différance , resonates with a similar sensation years earlier at St. Mark’s in Venice. The quantum of difference between two stones constitutes a portal that allows Proust to be in two places at once (France & Italy), literally. We do not save the world; we are saved by the world. Experience ( esse est percipi ) outside of time creates perceiving subjects outside of time: “A minute freed from the order of time had recreated in us, to feel it , the man freed from the order of time.” With this, Proust places himself in an august, if ‘sparsely settled’, philosophical tradition. In a word, the subject does not create the predicate – the predicate creates (or distills) the subject. Anaximander, the grandfather of Western philosophy, and his sidekick, Heidegger, believed that ‘Being happens’ ( being is a verb) when two potential beings ‘self-actualize’ by giving each other ‘reck’. St. John wrote that beings come into being as a function of a relational grid ( logos , the Christ). Martin Buber wrote that relationship is substructural. R. Buckminster Fuller said, “I seem to be a Verb,” and The Beatles sang, “All you need is love.” Who have I missed? Bill Gates once said that the key to a successful business is creating a product that everybody wants and then making sure they can’t get it anywhere else. Proust takes it for granted that everyone wants eternal salvation . (He might be surprised to meet some of today’s ists : anarch ists , nihil ists , human ists , hedon ists , existential ists , commun ists …I could go on!) However, Proust does take time to assure readers that his is the one and only path to such redemption. For example, he refers to “…our inherent powerlessness to realize ourselves in material enjoyment or in effective action.” That alone takes care of more than a few of those ists. It’s fun to travel. I loved visiting the Colosseum, but I didn’t relive the experience of a 1st century Christian (fortunately), nor did I expect to. I enjoy occasional visits to the ‘haunts’ of my youth, scenes of my imagined past triumphs, but I do not then become a late ‘60s urban warrior. As Proust put it, “…(What) had reawakened in me had no connection with what I frequently tried to recall to myself…with the help of an undifferentiated memory…those quite different images that preserve nothing of life… (and) I knew that Lost Time would not be found again on the Piazza of St. Marks…” We rediscover the past, not by remembering it, and certainly not by ‘going on location’, but by fully experiencing the present and engaging the past through that present. Catholics experience something like this every day in the Sacrament of Eucharist. They engage substantially with the Body and Blood of Christ, ubiquitous, eternal and born c. 0 CE in Palestine, under the appearance of ordinary bread and wine. Proust offers a similar vision. He presents the world as ‘sacrament’ but without specifying a particular metaphysical context. He does not contradict Christian cosmology but demystifies it and potentially broadens its appeal. Merci, Marcel! 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 Spring 2024. Share Previous Next

< Back The Meaning of Music David Cowles We pray the Psalms hoping to conform our minds, our values, our wills to God’s. Remember, God is his essence; we, on the other hand, are each free to create our own essences. Unfortunately, most of us are making a hash of it! Music elucidates the pre-verbal, non-phenomenal structures of the real world. Its meaning is not subject to logical analysis, scientific verification, or mathematical proof. The only test of music’s validity is its beauty. (This essay is dedicated to Gary Crispell, who taught me everything I know about music.) “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” (Hamlet) Shakespeare doesn’t give us many details, but we may infer from the context that Horatio was a naïve realist. Were he alive today, his vanity license plate might read ‘WYSIWYG:’ What you see is what you get! The ‘linearity’ of Horatio’s world view is undoubtedly a product of the vocabulary and syntax of his native language: objects, qualities, and actions, i.e., nouns, adjectives, and active/passive voice verbs. Combining these elements allows Horatio to say a whole lot. In Horatio’s mind (like A. J. Ayer’s), by ‘using his words’ he can say anything that there is to say. Anything he can’t say that way isn’t worth saying: it’s either meaningless, trivial, or false. Horatio lives his entire life between the initial capital letter and the final period of every sentence. Does that make Horatio the first Logical Positivist? The first Ordinary Language Philosopher? Perhaps it does, although Horatio doesn’t claim this title for himself; Hamlet awards it to him! Hamlet, of course, knows better! He knows that there are ‘more things in heaven and earth’ than Horatio has dreamt of. Verbal language, while it enables meaning, also functions as a kind of intellectual and emotional straight jacket; it severely limits Horatio’s universe of discourse. (Of course, he doesn’t realize that…but Hamlet does!) All that has been said, is being said, will be said or could be said in ‘ordinary language’ only scratches the surface of what might be said if we somehow had access to ‘a broader palette.’ Music is just such a palette. It is a window on exactly those things that are not dreamt of in Horatio’s philosophy – things that are non-linear by nature, things that cannot be expressed easily, if at all, using nouns, adjectives, and verbs. Meaning is the relationship between a set of ‘signifiers’ and a set of "signifieds." We say that the signifier means what it signifies. The signifier and the signified are mutually exclusive; they cannot have any elements in common. Each must utterly transcend the other. Of course, the same item may be a signifier in one context and signified in another, but it cannot properly be both in the same context. Therefore, nothing can ‘be its own meaning’ (nothing can ‘mean itself’). To suggest otherwise would be to misuse the word ‘meaning.’ ‘To Mean,’ by definition, refers to something beyond the signifier itself. Otherwise, it would not be ‘meaning’ but ‘being.’ Archibald MacLeish famously wrote, “A poem should not mean but be.” Taking MacLeish at his word, poems, at least his poems, do not refer to anything outside themselves. They are ‘self-referential;’ therefore, they mean nothing, but they are something: they are what they are, period! But this is not the case with most uses of language. When we speak, we usually want our speech to refer to something in real life (IRL) and, perhaps, influence it. “Take out the trash” has a clear ‘meaning,’ but its ‘being’ is trivial. A set of signifiers ‘means’ a set of “signifieds.” Language is a set of signifiers; it is often used to describe patterns that occur IRL. We say that such language is meaningful to the extent that it elucidates real-world patterns in a way that resonates with us as true. (If a particular sentence appears to refer to something IRL but does not resonate with us as ‘true,’ it has no meaning beyond itself. Without a ‘truth function,’ it cannot refer to anything IRL. Following MacLeish, it ‘is,’ but it does not ‘mean.’) Le degree zero of meaning is denotation: words strung together in well-formed formulae (WFF), such as sentences, to indicate some specific real-world feature. Sadly, for most of us, this is all we ‘mean’ when we talk about ‘meaning.’ Fortunately, however, such spare communication is the exception rather than the rule IRL, at least outside the realm of science and engineering. In ordinary speech, the connotation of words and phrases is often at least as important as their denotation, but even that only scratches the surface of how words can mean what we mean them to mean. In the hands of creative writers, especially poets, the sounds of words and the images they conjure up may be more meaningful than their denotations, or even their connotations. Combined with gesture in drama or tone in song, words can convey meanings far beyond anything found in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). Of course, we’re still in the realm of words, but why stop there? Words are not the only ‘signifiers;’ what about the visual image in a painting? What about the melodies, harmonies, and rhythms in a piece of polyphonic music? Metaphor is meaning and mythology is metaphor writ large…but music is metaphor writ even larger. The patterns of sounds in a piece of music are metaphors for various internal states of mind (thoughts, emotions, etc.) and for various patterns that lie beneath the surface of what we call “real life.” Any pattern that elucidates another pattern and resonates with us as true is a signifier. We are immersed in a sea of signifieds and signifiers. It has even been suggested that this state of immersion is what human life, or at least, human culture, is. Yet, for most of us most of the time, language is simply a tool we use to get by in the world. We use it to convey how we feel and what we think; we use it to get done what we want done: “Take out the trash!” In our hands, language is just a species of technology. Yet, many of us are not satisfied with this. Like Hamlet, we feel that there is more to life than ordinary language can uncover. In fact, the ancient Greek word usually translated as ‘truth’ (aletheia) literally means ‘uncovering.’ We sense that the vocabulary and syntax of our language only scrapes the surface of patterns IRL. We sense that there are deeper, more complex patterns at play in the world. For the most part, these deeper patterns lie below the level of sense perception – but not below the level of intuition or feeling. Those of us who find ourselves in this dilemma look outside the limits of ordinary language to satisfy our hunger. Narrative, poetry, drama, song, all make use of language but strive to transcend language’s inherently linear structure to elucidate the non-linear patterns we experience IRL. But we also need to look beyond verbal language entirely. I am reminded of the Beatles’ song “Yellow Submarine” and the eponymous movie that followed. One of the song’s verses is particularly relevant to this article: “And we lived beneath the waves...” At first encounter, nothing seems especially exciting about this line; but its true significance takes center stage in the movie. The world ‘beneath the waves’ is the noumenal world that underlies the phenomenal world of sense perception. “Yellow Submarine”, the film, combines visual imagery, song lyrics, and a bit of dialog to make manifest this world beneath the waves, i.e., the deep structure of Being. This is what the movie is about! The Beatles present the world as a hierarchy of ‘branes’ (or ‘seas’ as they call them) that connect the phenomenal world of Liverpool, England, with a utopian paradise called Pepperland. Spoiler Alert: Toward the end of the movie, we realize that Pepperland and Liverpool are one and the same place, seen from different perspectives. (Check out Science and the Yellow Submarine, a feature article found elsewhere in this Issue of AT Magazine.) But back to music! Polyphonic music is inherently non-linear; it is ideally suited to the exploration and expression of those aspects of reality that, like the Nile in springtime, necessarily overflow their banks, in this case the banks of ordinary language. Of course, from pop tunes to operas, music often incorporates language and further extends the expressive power of that language. But then there is music that does not intersect with language at all, non-choral, instrumental music, and especially that music we call ‘classical music.’ Like language, music has a kind of vocabulary (e.g., tones) and a sort of syntax (e.g., musical keys). But most, and certainly the best, classical music does not use those tones or keys to represent any object, action, or quality IRL. In the best non-choral music, there is no denotation at all. So, then, how can there be meaning? When I say that a sentence has meaning, I mean that it refers to some state-of-affairs IRL and expresses that state-of-affairs using a pattern that elucidates the ‘target pattern’ and resonates with it in a way that strikes me as ‘true.’ This is exactly what music does! Music consists of patterns of sounds (melodies, harmonies, rhythms); a musical composition is an uber-pattern, a pattern of such patterns. Music reflects on the ‘real world’ (but not necessarily just on the phenomenal world) and makes a model of that world based purely on sound. For the most part, it is not about theory, perception, experience, or narrative. Rather, it is about the deep structure of Being, what lies below what can be perceived by the senses and expressed in ordinary language. As mentioned above, elements of this ‘deep structure,’ while inaccessible to sense perception, may yet be accessible to intuition, to feeling. This is the wellspring of the composer’s inspiration. Compare music with mythology. Metaphor is meaning, and mythology is metaphor writ large. All great mythology aims to tell the complete story of Being, it aims to be a Theory of Everything (TOE). Likewise, every major musical score attempts to tell the story of Being. Like a comprehensive myth, it, too, strives to be a TOE. Why then so many scores (so many TOEs)? Not all TOEs are created equal. Some TOEs seem accurate and comprehensive, but most fall far short. Yet, composers and performers never give up their pursuit of this Holy Grail. A Theory of Everything has been the goal of science from Einstein on; it has been the goal of non-choral music from Bach on. Plus, every TOE must model the real world from a particular perspective. When we approach Being, we are like the blind monks who touched an elephant. Each of us touches a different part of the elephant (ear, trunk, leg, tail, etc.) and each of us comes away with a different image of what an elephant is – all correct, all consistent with one another…but each is incomplete by itself. Unlike us, God only needs one TOE (his sophia, his logos) to exhaustively comprehend Being and everything that exists or could exist through it. His sophia (wisdom), his logos (word), does nicely. We’re not so lucky! We may need an unlimited number of TOEs and still not reach God’s level of comprehension. Or maybe we are lucky after all! God doesn’t need Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms to comprehend the universe. Fortunately, we do. O happy fault! We need the entire canon of classical music, and then some, to get anywhere near God’s ‘uber, uber-pattern.’ There is always something new to be discovered about an elephant and, likewise, there is always something new to be discovered about Being. We cannot translate music into philosophy. If we could, the music itself would be a superfluous diversion. Instead, the best music utterly transcends the expressive power of language. So, what do I mean when I talk about patterns IRL that music may have the power to elucidate? One such pattern might be the nature of identity and diversity; another, the process of change. These are deep structures IRL that ordinary language has struggled to express. Music to the rescue! When and how does one melodic theme become another, when does one rhythmic pattern morph into another? How far can something (i.e., a pattern) be stretched before it becomes something else? How do musical patterns relate to one another within a single work? Sequentially as melody, hierarchically as harmony, cyclically as rhythm, all simultaneously. Music is perhaps the medium best suited to the exploration of the deeper dimensions of Being. Through music, we may get a glimpse, dare I say it, of the mind of God. Earlier, we said that ‘meaning’ occurs when a set of signifiers elucidates and resonates with a set of signifieds. When does that happen? It happens when, and to the extent that, the signifier is beautiful (resonant) and true (elucidatory) with respect to that which is signified. Beauty and Truth (along with Justice) are God’s primary values (at least according to most Western theologies); and God’s values, i.e., his essence, constitute what we sometimes call “the mind of God.” 20th century British philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead, had just such an understanding. He assigned God’s values to his Primordial (conceptual) Nature rather than to his Consequent (physical) Nature. Recall that self-proclaimed atheist Jean-Paul Sartre, said insightfully: “God is the being whose essence precedes his existence.” In other words, God is his essence; God is Beauty, Truth, and Justice, even before (logically before, not temporally prior) God is. We pray the Psalms hoping to conform our minds, our values, our wills to God’s. Remember, God is his essence; we, on the other hand, are each free to create our own essences. Unfortunately, most of us are making a hash of it! Music elucidates the pre-verbal, non-phenomenal structures of the real world. Its meaning is not subject to logical analysis, scientific verification, or mathematical proof. The only test of music’s validity is its beauty. As Keats famously wrote, “Beauty is truth and truth beauty; that is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know.” When we listen to a gorgeous composition, we are not just entertained, we are enlightened. We have a ‘meaning-full’ experience. And when the beauty of a particular performance or a particular score utterly overwhelms us, is it too much to hope that we are experiencing the world as God experiences it, i.e., that we are glimpsing the mind of God? *Editor's Note: For the role of music in the life of one artist, be sure to read Drumming to Inner Peace in this Issue of AT Magazine. David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com. Share Previous Next

< Back Stein Time David Cowles Sep 8, 2022 “That’s why Tom Brady can’t retire!” One of Gertrude Stein’s signature revelations came early. “We are all to ourselves, always young men and young women.” She noticed something that anyone could have noticed…but didn’t: although our bodies (including our minds) go through incredible transformations from infancy through infirmity, we ourselves never change. Identity is conserved over time. To ourselves, we neither grow nor wither: we are always young men and young women. Stein understood the phenomenology of being human. She realized that most children want to be older than they are. ‘I can’t wait to grow up’ means ‘I can’t wait for what I am (my mind/body) to catch up to who I am (my identity)’. Most adults, on the other hand, wish to be younger than they are. They move heaven and earth in a series of futile attempts to keep what they are from diverging any further from who they are (in their own minds). Much of the angst we associate with childhood and old age is the result of our insistence on always being something we’re not, i.e., young men and young women. There is a disconnect between how we see ourselves and how society sees us. That’s why Tom Brady can’t retire. On the other hand, much of the alienation we experience is the result of society’s devaluation and mistreatment of its younger and older members. We have been spending time in TWS and ATM with the Piraha, a small tribe in the Amazon Rainforest. Among their many unusual cultural traits, the Piraha have no concept of childhood or seniority. Neither are considered superior or inferior to any other stage of life. Of course, they understand that younger members of society need more care and that older members have a greater inventory of experiences, but that’s as far as it goes. The elderly are expected to hunt and gather just like everyone else; if they are unable to do so, they might get a free meal here or there, but for the most part, they’re left to their own devices, whatever the consequences. On the plus side, children are almost never punished, no matter how outrageous their behavior, and the corporal punishment of children at any age for any offense is a serious social faux pas , roughly equivalent to spanking your eight-year-old in the middle of the Mall of America today…with a belt. For all our recent liberal pretensions, we are not the Piraha! And we pay a price for that. Of all the tribes in Amazonia, the Piraha have proven to be one of the most resistant to cultural imperialism. With only 300 native speakers and a language that bears no resemblance to any other language, living or dead, Piraha is still not on the list of languages in danger of extinction. The Piraha experience no alienation; therefore, they see no reason to change. They are happy; they see nothing in our culture worth emulating. Stein was a keen observer of the human experience, but it took a philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, to carry her insight (and/or his own) to its logical conclusion. Who are we? Well, we are not what we are, and we are what we are not . So, we must be nothing, precisely nothing. We’re not 8 or 80 or anything in between. We’re ‘nothing,’ and being Le Neant , we are fundamentally ageless. In fact, we are outside of time entirely. ( See TWS 9/6/22 .) You, for example, are eight-years-old, but not so in your own mind. I, on the other hand, might be 80, but again, in my own mind, I’m a lot younger. It’s not that we don’t realize that we are our respective ages – of course we do. It’s just that we don’t feel our respective ages. Test it out. Watch a football game with a tween grandchild. If you’re both honest, you’ll admit that there are moments when both of you see yourselves making tackles, throwing blocks, catching passes, or running to daylight…even though there’s no one on the field younger than 20 or older than 40 (except Tom Brady). So, who are we? We are not who we think we are, nor are we what society thinks of us. In fact, we are not anything, Sartre labeled it, “ Le Neant ,” nothingness. We are literally nothing . That’s our precious ‘identity.’ Is this supposed to be a good thing? You bet it is! Because it is only by shedding our attachment to spatiotemporal pseudo-identities (e.g., age) that we can embrace our true eternal identity. Image: Gertrude Stein, 1934. Photographer: Carl Van Vechten Thoughts While Shaving is the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine ( ATM) . To never miss another Thought, choose the subscribe option below. Also, follow us on any one of our social media channels for the latest news from ATM. Thanks for reading! 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 I Am...You Are! David Cowles Apr 2, 2024 “Empathy is all well and good; nevertheless, your being burned at the stake, no matter how richly you deserve it, feels different to me than my being burned.” Stop me if you’ve heard this before! The observable universe, all we know and all we can ever know, is more than 14,000,000,000 years old; you are eight orders of magnitude younger. You are the product of prebiotic organic molecules that once upon a time formed a single DNA (or RNA) molecule. That molecule in turn went through about 3,500,000,000 years of mutation, replication, and selection until some descendant exhibited the coding we associate with homo sapiens . In turn, you are the product of two human haploid cells (sex cells) forming a single diploid cell. That cell divided and differentiated until, voilà , the you we know…and have come to love! It all looks very neat and orderly. It should. We crafted language, logic, and mathematics to make it look that way. You may be forgiven for being confused. You imagine that you are an epiphenomenal consequence of a single cell. What else could you think? You were thrown into an utterly alien world; you were given no training and no information other than a few scattered fragments of code in your genes. You were given no superpowers; on the contrary, you came into the world ignorant and defenseless. As a newborn, 60% of your caloric intake was directed toward building your brain and making neural connections. (In adults, those same activities consume only 2%.) In Judeo-Christian theology, God is usually considered to be omnipotent and omniscient by nature. You, on the other hand, are born with neither power nor knowledge. You are the ‘anti-God’…or so it seems. The words of the Psalmist (reprised by Jesus on the Cross) are apt: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22) Why indeed? We are all forsaken…at birth! You are a baby! You are lying on your back, limbs flailing, defecating in your diaper. You don’t need any additional lessons in humility (“As soon as you’re born, they make you feel small” – John Lennon) …but you’ll get those lessons anyway, every day, for as long as you live. The Intellectual History of the West is the story of Universe’s aggrandizement and your miniaturization. You were born ‘tiny’, and every day you learn just how tiny - that's the function of education! In 1500 CE, it was still possible to conceive of the Universe in the form of the human body: Adam Kadmon , Leonardo da Vinci. Now, “all we are is dust in the wind.” (Native American Poem) We are “like the morning mist, the early dew that disappears, chaff swirling up from the threshing floor, smoke escaping through a window.” (Hosea 13) Dire straits! But we do have one thing going for us, if only we’d notice it—first-person experience. Empathy is all well and good; nevertheless, your being burned at the stake, no matter how richly you deserve it, which feels different to me than my being burned. In Jerusalem, c. 33 CE, three men were crucified on a Jerusalem hilltop. Each one experienced his crucifixion personally. Those gathered at the foot of the crosses experienced crucifixion, but from the ‘luxury’ of box seats. Death is like that. As far as we can tell, everything that lives, dies. We say it’s the one sure thing. It isn’t! There’s only one sure thing, and it’s the opposite of what you think: you will never die; you may see death, but you will never taste death. Death is a third-person experience; it does not exist in the first-person world. People die, to you ; you die, to them ; but you never die to yourself . We all know this, even if we sometimes need to be reminded, but do we really know it? Hello! It’s a clue ! A big, fat, Greek wedding-style clue. How could we have missed it? We have convinced ourselves that we are a tiny hole in the fabric of the World. And so we are. But that hole turns out to be the whole . I am a sub-visible pinhole in the cosmic fabric, but one hole can unravel an entire garment. In 1900, Max Planck discovered a ‘hole’ in the EM spectrum; Physics unraveled. The World as we are taught to see it goes like this: Cosmos → Galaxy → Solar System → Planet → Me. And that’s third-person accurate, but so is its first person reverse: Me → Planet → Solar System → Galaxy → Cosmos. It is as true to say that I contain Cosmos (where else would it be?) as it is to say that Cosmos contains me (where else could I be?). In the third person, I am the expression of a single DNA molecule; in the first person, the universe is an expression of me. Why do we value one mode of experience over the other? We call third person experts, scientists ; we call first person experts, lunatics . But it’s all just third-person bias! I am not of this world…obviously. (My mother said, correctly, “You’re just not people!”) Consciousness, awareness of self and others may depend on a material substructure, but it will never be reduced to that substructure. Can Ho Chi Minh City be reduced to a popsicle wrapper? My physical dimensions are insignificant - less insignificant than yours, I’m sorry to say—but insignificant nonetheless. But what I’ve learned to call ‘me’, my body, is just the tip of a dimensionless funnel. We all agree on that . I am here; see my ‘tip’ (body), poke me, prod me; but it’s not about the tip, it’s about the funnel. Does my funnel open to the observable universe only to re-focus at a singularity? Or does it open to something much more wonderful? Keep the conversation going. 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. 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< Back Where the Time Goes “I need have no fear of time, that ‘great eraser’. I don’t live because of the past or for the future. I live by and for the present.” David Cowles “Hello.” ( Psst : It’s the 5 th century BCE calling.) “How can I help? Ok, understood, and thanks for checking in.” Some guys from Ancient Greece just called. They want to know how we’re coming along with their ‘problem’. They’ve certainly been patient, so I didn’t have the heart to tell them that it’s been almost 100 years since anyone seriously looked at their issue. It seems that 2,500 years ago a bunch of guys (sic) began asking, how is it that there is both motion and rest in the world, change and continuity, novelty and tradition, etc. The last person to take a serious look at this was British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead. Process and Reality , Whitehead’s magnum opus and a crowning achievement of Western systematic philosophy, quoted a popular verse from the Anglican hymnal to illustrate the paradox: “Abide in me/Fast falls the eventide.” After Whitehead, the matter lay mostly dormant…until the ‘60s. (Of course… the ‘60s! Nothing slept through the ‘60s.) English folk-rock singer and songwriter Sandy Denny and American music icon Judy Collins expressed the problem this way: ‘Who Knows Where the Time Goes?’ Let’s listen in! Across the evening sky, all the birds are leaving . But how can they know it’s time for them to go? With this opening verse, Denny and Collins introduce what will be a master class in Time . Their song will reference four competing concepts of time: (1) linear time, (2) duration, (3) rhythm, and (4) atemporality, the total absence of time, i.e., eternity. We seem to be immersed in linear time . Things that are not come to be and things that are come to be not. Heraclitus: “You can’t step in the same river twice.” Lewis Carroll: “All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again” (i.e., couldn’t reverse linear time). Most often when we refer to ‘time’ in conversation, we mean linear time: I’m getting older by the minute! But that is only one side of the story. There are three other perfectly valid notions that fit securely under time’s conceptual umbrella. (1) Linear time is like a straight line, bidirectional and infinite, or perhaps a ‘ray’, unidirectional and infinite. (2) Duration is like a ‘line-segment’. It has an origin and an end point, and we are mainly concerned with the distance in between. (3) Rhythm is like a circle, or a spiral, or a sine wave: what goes around, comes around. Karma. Nature’s cycles: the seasons of the year, the tides, the phases of the moon, the precession of the equinoxes. (4) Eternity is like a point: it’s real, but it has no temporal extension. If things that are ‘eternal’ have any internal structure, that structure unfolds along a dimension other than spacetime. Denny and Collins begin with linear time. The birds are leaving. Somehow, “they know it’s time for them to go.” It is, and they do. Nature demands it…and the birds play out their appointed role in the cosmic dance. Before the winter fire, I will still be dreaming ; I have no thought of time. Contrasting herself with the birds, the artist lives in a dream-like state. While the birds “know it’s time for them to go”, hers is a state in which there is “no thought of time”, just as there is no concept of time in the pre-conscious mind. Sidebar : One of the defining criteria of art is that the artist is in close contact with ‘what is’ (e.g., nature) with minimal mediation and distortion from ‘civilization’. We sometimes refer to people in close contact with ‘what is’ as being ‘in the zone’. By contrast, for the engineering mind , everything is bound up with space and time. ‘To be’ is to occupy a defined region of the spacetime plane. According to the logic of linear time, things that are not come to be and things that are come not to be. But where do these things come from in the first place, and where do they go when they are done being ? (And what does a question like that even mean?) Because no one knows ‘where the time goes’, and because the phenomenal world seems hopelessly time-bound, no one knows what becomes of such entities and events once they are no longer present. In the 1950s, a TV show called Howdy Doody was a big part of ‘kid culture’ in the US. The show would always begin with the emcee (Buffalo Bob) calling out, “What time is it?”; and kids lucky enough to be in that day’s ‘Peanut Gallery’ would dutifully respond in unison, “It’s Howdy Doody Time!” ‘Howdy Doody Time’ meant that time was suspended. For 30 minutes, a kid could descend into the timeless, preconscious world of make believe, free of ‘real-world concerns’ like homework, chores, and parental nagging. So, “What time is it?” Today’s adult version of yesterday’s Peanut Gallery might respond, “It’s Present Time!” (Ram Dass: “Be Here Now!”) What other time could there be? We think and talk a lot about the ‘past’ and the ‘future’, but we never actually experience either (except as shadows in the form of memories, dreams or inertial momenta). We always and only live in the ‘present’. Sidebar : A defining characteristic of a ‘shadow’ is that it is not the thing itself. So, where does the time go? It doesn’t go anywhere. If it isn’t here and now, it just isn’t. And if it isn’t now, it’s not going to pop up at some other time in some other place. Being is one and done. It’s a single shot: you either are or you are not. Being takes place only at the buzzer. If you are, you are here, now; and if not… Events bound to the flow of linear time may also be assumed to go nowhere . Once no longer present, it is just as though these things never were. That’s what makes time the great eraser, the mortal enemy of life, of being, of purpose, of meaning. Sad, deserted shore, your fickle friends are leaving . Ah, but then you know it’s time for them to go. Nature is not perturbed by the processes that unfold within it. It depends upon them. There is no sense of loss. Everything is as it is, as it should be, ‘just right’. One is reminded of words from Ecclesiastes (popularized in the 1960s by The Byrds ): “There is an appointed time for everything… A time to give birth and a time to die; a time to sow and a time to reap… A time to scatter stones and a time to gather them… A time to seek and a time to lose; a time to keep and a time to cast away.” Sidebar : Notice how the wisdom-poet converts the passive voice process of loss (“a time to die…a time to lose”) into the active voice process of “casting away”. We cast away so that we may seek; we lose so that we may find. But I will still be here, I have no thought of leaving. I do not count the time. The artist does not ‘think of leaving’. To ‘think of leaving’ is to position oneself inside time and to bind oneself to time’s peculiar linear progression…and so to self-immolate. If we are to be (i.e., not erased), we must not ‘think of leaving’. Sidebar : Not all artists paint, write, compose, etc. Be the artist of your own life. Live presently! “The Bali have no art; they do everything well.” And I am not alone while my love is near me, I know it will be so until it’s time to go. I am not a bird; I am not the deserted shore. Am I then doomed to be merely an isolated observer of natural processes? A lonely scientist? A frustrated anthropologist? Fortunately, no! There is ‘process’ that is naturally appropriate for us humans: It’s not thought, but love! Love is the antithesis of time. Time is the great eraser, but love dissolves time. Rock-Paper-Scissors. It has often been said that love makes time stand still. More accurately, love does not impact time directly; love is a process that occurs outside of time. When I love, I go on autopilot. I give myself over to nature’s timeless rhythms. And so for me, too, eventually it will be ‘time to go’. But I will not discover that using a watch or a calendar; it will discover me and take me entirely unawares. The birds know when ‘it’s time for them to go’, and as far as we know, they don’t mind . I don’t know either, but if I did, I’d ‘rage, rage against the dying of the light’. Love binds us to one another; it blots out linear time…'until it’s time to go'. Love knows only two states: ‘here/now’ and ‘time to go’. Is this ‘time to go’ what we call ‘death’? Yes and no. It’s not the terrible annihilation that may be the fate of time-bound entities but the peaceful fulfillment of nature’s purposes. So, come the storms of winter and then the birds in spring again, I have no fear of time. For who knows how my love grows? And who knows where the time goes? In the arena of time, things appear and disappear, wax and wane; but do they ever just simply ‘be’? In time, things are past…or future…but never present. The present is at best an infinitesimal point. Therefore, present events must have vanishingly short durations, durations many, many orders of magnitude below the duration required for conscious awareness. And yet, I believe I am conscious. I am even conscious of being conscious. In timeless nature, on the other hand, everything that exists, exists in the present (and only in the present). As long as it exists, it is its own present; and as long as it is present, it exists. There is no waxing and waning, but there is process; process in the present is called ‘growth’. Therefore, love, which is always and only present, grows. Growth replaces waxing and waning. And what grows endures. Because my love grows, I need to have no fear of time, that ‘great eraser’. I don’t live because of the past or for the future. I live by and for the present. Love has no cause; it is sui generis . Likewise, it is its own end ( telos ). It exists because of itself ( causa sui ) and it exists for itself ( pour soi ). It is its own raison d’etre . In his First Letter to the Corinthians , Saint Paul writes concerning the Eschaton (the end of time): So, three things remain: faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love. Faith is the shadow of the past experienced in the present. Hope is the shadow that the future casts on the present. But love is the present; it is experience; it is being. It has no past or future. While it is, it just is. It is where the time goes. Love is a conservative force. It brings time to a standstill. It creates entities of indefinite duration. Yet love is also revolutionary . “It stands in the hallway; it blocks up the hall” (Bob Dylan). Love rebels against life’s ‘getting and spending’ (Wordsworth), against the inexorable process of ‘growth and decay’. It undermines every established structure including the uber-structure of spacetime itself. In a world where change is the steady state, permanence is rebellion. Ever been in love? Were you anxious for things to change? Didn’t think so! You wanted it to last forever and for a time at least, it seemed as though it would do just that. Love is the pinnacle of life. It’s all downhill from there. So be the King of your Castle, not an Eddie Haskell. David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Return to our Spring 2023 Table of Contents Share Previous Next

< Back James Bratt Contributor James Bratt is professor of history emeritus at Calvin College, specializing in American religious history and especially the connections between religion and politics. Starting in Fall 2016 he took a break from blogging on The Twelve to teach in China and on the Semester at Sea, which venues afforded him some welcome distance from the USA’s descent into its current mortal illness. But now he’s back in the States, looking for hope. His most recent book (which he edited and completed for the late John Woolverton) is “A Christian and a Democrat”: Religion in the Life and Leadership of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Growing Into Pentecost

< Back The Trajectory of AI: Balancing Promise and Caution Magesh "Placing faith in AI to originate creations like art and music may lead to disillusionment. Ultimately, the true creator is a higher force." In recent times, the media has been awash with discussions about the potential impact of AI. The looming questions surround its effects on us, its potential to replace us in the workforce, and even the idea that it might become akin to a new faith. While I am undoubtedly enthusiastic about technology, particularly when it enhances our daily lives, I believe it's crucial to delve into the challenges that arise when we invest our trust in something as enigmatic as AI. With a successful musical career spanning decades, I've witnessed firsthand how technology has upended the music industry on multiple fronts. One early instance that impacted me personally was the advent of the drum machine. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, drummers enjoyed abundant session work. However, the emergence of technology that claimed to replace drummers on records and CDs triggered panic among my fellow musicians. They feared this innovation would render us obsolete. In response, I reminded them that while drum machines could replicate our sounds, they lacked the soul that defined us. Some argued that these machines were "perfect," but I countered that only the divine could claim such perfection. This experience underscores the notion that although technology can simplify tasks, it doesn't necessarily equate to improvement – a pattern I anticipate repeating with AI. A recent media uproar ensued when a prominent website declared its intention to replace human writers with AI-generated content. The site churned out machine-created articles, initially basking in newfound cost savings. However, issues arose when the AI struggled to distinguish fact from fiction on certain topics. The website's blind faith in the machine's capabilities came crashing down as it became clear that AI, despite its veneer of knowledge, was not infallible. This situation brought to mind Romans 11:33: "Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God." It serves as a reminder to be cautious about placing unwavering trust in unproven technologies, especially those without a track record of consistently producing miraculous outcomes. As someone who embraces technology, I've experienced how my musical career benefited from advancements such as receiving music via MP3. This convenience accelerated my learning process. In contrast, the laborious process of recording on tape and sending it via mail was immensely time-consuming. These instances showcase technology acting as an assistant. However, there's a distinction between that and the push to make AI the master. Placing faith in AI to originate creations like art and music may lead to disillusionment. Ultimately, the true creator is a higher force. Ephesians 3:8-11 eloquently captures this sentiment: "To make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things." Our belief in our intrinsic abilities should hold greater value than any computer program. A recollection from years ago underscores this point. I was asked to record drums for a reality show star with limited vocal experience but abundant charisma. Despite their appealing image, the singer's vocal talent fell short. Frustration mounted as the producer witnessed flat notes and off-key performances. The singer was scheduled to re-record the next day. During the studio downtime, a young engineer introduced us to a computer program called Pro Tools, capable of correcting vocal imperfections with ease. Witnessing this tool's transformational abilities left me astounded. However, I couldn't help but wonder if these technological interventions were masking the need for genuine practice. This tool proliferated throughout the music industry, converting mediocre performances into polished gems with the click of a mouse. Yet, the question remains: At what cost? If artists had faith in their inherent abilities, they wouldn't need to rely on a computer program. I believe a similar trend is unfolding with AI on a larger scale. It is vital to remember where to place our faith and how to use technology as a means of support rather than allowing it to dominate. In conclusion, while the promise of AI is undeniable, it's essential to approach it with a balanced perspective. Just as the introduction of the drum machine disrupted the music industry, AI is poised to reshape various sectors. However, we must remain cautious about overestimating its capabilities and remember that our trust should ultimately reside in our own potential, guided by a deeper source of wisdom and creativity. Magesh has written for “Lessonface,” “Aeyons,” “The Modern Rogue,” “Euronews,” “The Roland corporation,” “Penlight,” and “Elite Music.” He writes several monthly publications on music education. In the past, Magesh has written for parenting, humor, mental health, and travel websites as well. Return to our AI Issue Table of Contents Previous Next

< Back Being and Becoming David Cowles Aug 11, 2021 In the context of a conversation about Being and Becoming, a friend of mine asked, “Is eternal becoming possible?” My first reaction was that the concept of becoming was inherently dependent on time and that time is the antithesis of eternity. But then I got to thinking… In the context of a conversation about Being and Becoming, a friend of mine asked, “Is eternal becoming possible?” My first reaction was that the concept of becoming was inherently dependent on time and that time is the antithesis of eternity. But then I got to thinking… 20th century British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, generally regarded as the founder of ‘Process Philosophy’ (although many of his ideas show up in the works of Nicholas of Cusa 500 years earlier), believed that the world consists of atomic acts of becoming (he calls them “actual entities”) and that time is suspended during each such atomic act. For Whitehead, time is characteristic of the relationship among actual entities but absent from the process of ‘concrescence’ that takes place within each actual entity. So, according to Whitehead, eternal becoming is not only possible, it is the way the world works. So, I was wrong and my friend was right; thank you, John! 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 Consciousness and/or Free Will David Cowles Jul 16, 2026 “Consciousness is an artifact, not a catalyst... but that doesn’t make Caesar any less…responsible for the atrocities he committed in Gaul.” 1400 words, 6 minute read It all seems pretty simple. My cue ball strikes the 8 ball at a particular angle, imparting a particular momentum and a particular spin et voila , the 8 ball drops into the corner pocket. Ignoring pesky details like the origin of the game of pool, the construction of this particular table, and the source of my cue ball’s momentum, this scenario does not require consciousness…or free will. How is it then that we place so much emphasis on aspects of experience that seem to be superfluous? *** Various surveys have identified more than 100 different models of consciousness, each of which must account for the experience of volition (value + agency) and the experience of constraint (facticity, causality, or compulsion). To date none of the proposed models has proven persuasive. But it turns out that almost all of them share structural elements that might explain why no one theory has been able to distinguish itself from the pack. According to prevailing wisdom, consciousness (C) experiences the universe (U), evaluates it (V), wills a change (W), and acts to effect that change (A). We imagine a process diagrammed like this: C ↗ ↘ U U’ …where Consciousness is the product of Valuation (V), Will (W), and Agency (A): (V → W → A) = C But what if that’s wrong? (The model confuses Will with Consciousness.) What if the process is actually more like this: C ↗ ↖ U U’ ↘ ↗ X …where X is Will (W) and Agency (A) projecting Values (V) into U’ : X = ( W → A → V) What if the conscious faculty (C) has an ‘observe only’ license? What if it lacks agentic power (A)? Without the active participation of consciousness (C), how is there any room for free will (W)? To answer this we need to define more clearly what we mean when we say an action is a function of will. I propose that two and only two criteria must be met: (1) the act cannot be predicted from a previous state with an acceptable level of reliability or accuracy and (2) the action amplifies selected values and projects those values back into the universe. Note that there is no requirement here that the organism be conscious of selecting a particular set of values or devising a particular series of actions. We imagine that choosing requires consciousness. In fact, each of us makes choices every day without awareness. We’re just ‘stayin alive’ and that doesn’t normally require consciousness. Actions require motives and motives disclose values. What we call personality, character, habit and instinct is in fact the set of universal values, weighted by us to function as a lure to action, i.e. as a goal. These values drive our actions even though we may not be conscious of them. How can unconscious values drive action? Well, have you ever read a novel (or watched a movie)? Characters are regularly motivated by values of which they are dimly aware…at best. Decoding a character’s unconscious motives is a reader’s guilty pleasure. *** Consciousness – David Chalmers’ hard problem ! What is it anyway? IMO, Consciousness is the phenomenal manifestation of noumenal recursion; English please: “I am an object of my own actions, what goes around comes around, karma is a female dog.” I am aware of X, and potentially I am aware of being aware of X (X’), and I may be even aware of being aware of being aware (X’’)… ad infinitum , as if I lived in a Hall of Mirrors . Such ‘second order’ self-awareness (X’’) is an often reported consequence of mediation (or prayer), psychedelic drug use (e.g. LSD, psylocibin), and space travel (zero gravity). Like the princess and her pea, the infinitesimal differance (Derrida) between the primary experience and its derivative (or the sum of its derivatives) creates a quantum of discomfort. One is reminded of Proust balancing on uneven floor tiles. Consciousness fills the infinitesimal gap between primary experience and its echoes: “The music is not in the notes, it’s in the silence between the notes.” (Mozart et al.) Every alternative model turns out to be either a reductive monism or a solipsistic dualism. The challenge is to account for an exchange of information ( aka communication) within a single, uniform medium (monism) or between two disjoint media (dualism). Our model addresses this challenge by separating consciousness from agency. The organism gathers sensations and transforms them into perceptions. The Will reacts to such input by applying a curated set of Values and then projecting that value weighted input back into the organism and through the organism (Agency) back into the Universe. I am aware that I am doing these things but in no sense am I making a conscious decision to do them. I am observing the free but unconscious decision that I as organism have already made. This is consistent with recent studies showing that the brain makes decisions before the mind registers them. I have decided on French vanilla even as I scan today’s list of 31 flavors. *** As I take my first sip of this morning’s Bloody Mary, I make a face, take my lips off the straw, and reach for my water glass, all in one highly choreographed and well-practiced gesture. In the shadow between straw and tongue, Value (pain avoidance) converts perception (spicy), via volition (Will), into evasive and remedial action (Agency). None of this requires or benefits from consciousness. Independently however, I am acutely aware (consciousness) that this particular Bloody Mary is too spicy for my taste, and I am dimly aware of the steps I’m taking to remedy the situation. My perception of my drink’s spice level and my ‘decision’ to remove my lips from the straw occur before I am conscious of my discomfort or of my evasive maneuvers. According to this model, consciousness is an artifact, not a catalyst. But after the fact, my conscious experience becomes part of the Universe (U’) going forward and therefore serves as a data point for future unconscious decisions. My legacy is three pronged: that I chose (W) vanilla, that I ate (A) vanilla, and that I am conscious (C) of having chosen vanilla. *** This new model, should you choose to accept it, introduces new uncertainty re the nature of personal responsibility. To wit, are we responsible for our actions even though we are only conscious of them after the fact ? In my view, the answer is yes. We freely choose the values we wish to project into the world and we freely design the actions we undertake to do so. We ourselves make those determinations, not God, not Fate, not Causality (Determinism); the Devil didn’t make me do it! Then if not us, who or what is responsible for our acts? The only alternative is to construe all behavior as random and that does not seem compatible with actual experience. We are each one of Pavlov’s dogs. We choose an action, albeit unconsciously, and we are rewarded, or punished, accordingly. But as any parent knows, rewards and punishments do not determine behavior; at best they condition it. The element of free choice can never be entirely eliminated. By definition, any ‘decision’ must be free, even if it is unconscious. Otherwise it would not be a decision . We make that decision, we formulate an action, we will it, and we execute it, all unconsciously. When that action and its immediate consequences become conscious, our underlying values are reinforced, positively or negatively. *** Among other (more important) things, this new model will require us to rewrite every secondary school Latin textbook. Apparently, Julius Caesar was misquoted. Instead of “Veni, Vidi, Vici”, he must have said “Veni, Vici, Vidi” but that doesn’t make Caesar any less worthy of the honors bestowed upon him nor any less responsible for the atrocities he committed in Gaul. 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.