< Back Self, Inc. David Cowles “You’re the CEO of Self, Inc…What’s your mission statement?” You can’t open a business today without a Mission Statement. Before you manufacture a single widget or serve a single burger, you have to tell the world all the good things you’re going to do for it: “Our mission is You , our customer, so we will always deliver a quality product at a fair price. We are committed to maintaining a healthy environment through sustainable business practices and a carbon neutral footprint. We cherish diversity. We offer all members of our business family a competitive, living wage, a generous package of workplace benefits, and opportunities for personal and professional growth.” How’d I do? Around the turn of the century (yes, we can say that now and mean 2000, not 1900), it was fashionable for self-helpers to proclaim, “You are the CEO of Self, Inc.” It’s not wrong. So, M/M CEO, what’s your mission statement? “I just want to be happy, And I want my life partner to be happy too. I want my kids to have happy childhoods, And satisfying adult lives. And, of course, I deserve to be happy too.” Well, sorry, but I won’t be buying any stock in your IPO. Apparently, you didn’t get Life’s memo. I think you should sit down for this. Ready? “No one is happy…and no one is ever going to be happy!” It’s not that life is so terrible (unless it is); it’s because happiness is not a thing. For the most part, life is just life. And life doesn’t make anyone happy. It’s not supposed to! That’s not what life is; that’s not its purpose. Does water make a fish happy? Or does it just enable it to be a fish? When you were very, very small, someone whispered in your ear, “The purpose of life is happiness.” Unlike other whispers, this one took. I mean, why not be happy? As if! No one chooses to be truly miserable, yet all of us are miserable, at least some of the time. Then what is happiness? The absence of misery? Ok – but do we require something more – like ecstasy (not the drug) or euphoria or contentment…? So according to your mission statement, the purpose of life is your happiness. When you say that, do you mean that’s the purpose of all life…or just your life? All life? Then you’re a megalomaniac. Just your life? Then you’re pathetic. Sorry, but you’ve been given the great gift (grift?) of life…and you plan to spend it, How? Crouched in a corner, wrapped in cotton batten, mumbling, “Please don’t hurt me,” until it’s all mercifully over? I’m not on board. If Happiness is my Summum Bonum and if Life is what makes me happy, then “Woe is me!” Life ends, so Happiness must end, and ‘ Bonum ’ must vanish. Good that vanishes certainly can’t be Summum Bonum . If your goal in life is your own personal happiness, then either (1) you are unhappy today, or (2) you are afraid of being unhappy tomorrow. Either way, your happiness is incomplete; so the search for personal happiness is in fact a symptom of unhappiness . I’ve just arrived at Heathrow. “Sir, what is the purpose of your trip? Business or pleasure?” “Business!” I answer, it transforms my restless wandering into an arrow headed trajectory. Now a purpose accomplished can undoubtedly generate a sense of self-satisfaction akin to happiness; but it was not the purpose of my trip. The purpose of my trip was to do business; happiness might be my reaction if the business goes well. Suppose I had answered, “Pleasure!” instead. Pleasure is me drinking real ale on the lawn of a pub called, “The Apple and the Butterfly”, eating steak and kidney pie with a glass of port at lunch, visiting the Tate Modern, and strolling Kew Gardens. Would these pleasures make me happy? “Of course,” you say, automatically. But maybe not! Pleasure and happiness do not always go hand in hand, do they? Happiness is a measure of my success in accomplishing my purpose, but it cannot be that purpose. The instant we make our happiness our purpose, we manifest our unhappiness. Happiness then is a one word oxymoron. Say it, “Happiness!” There, you did it, congratulations, now you’re an ‘Oxy Moron’. Put that on a T-shirt! Purpose does not emerge over the course of an event (it may self-modify); it wraps around the event. Purpose must be present ab initio . There are no purposeless acts, no matter how much we’d like to convince ourselves otherwise. Ultimately, the success of any event, its ‘satisfaction’, is a measure of the degree to which the event fulfilled its purpose. Purpose motivated the event, organized the environment, and energized the action; now it measures the outcome. In the terminology of Alfred North Whitehead, happiness is a subjective form that may accompany an event. It’s not the event itself; it is not the purpose of the event; it’s not the event’s subjective aim . It is not any part of the event itself, nor is it part of the event’s superject (its ‘objective immortality’). Essentially, it’s a superfluous artifact of consciousness, much like the appendix in human physiology. Jack and Jill went up a hill to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and wore a frown, but Jill was filled with laughter. Was the water fetched? Check. Did Jack and Jill both perform as expected? Check. Then how do their moods figure in? Every event has a unique purpose that entails a novel mix of Beauty, Truth, and Justice. So now at last, the sales pitch you’ve been waiting for: Will you hire me to rewrite your mission statement? I was thinking of something along these lines: “Make me a channel of (your) Peace, A conduit of Beauty, Truth, and Love.” Let me know what you think. Or have you heard something like this before? 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. 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“Some folks are ‘happy’ living their lives on a beach; others need a boardroom; some need a bar.” < Back Happiness David Cowles Mar 1, 2024 “Some folks are ‘happy’ living their lives on a beach; others need a boardroom; some need a bar.” In the Yule 2023 Issue of Aletheia Today Magazine (ATM), we pointed out some issues with the doctrine known as Utilitarianism , popularized in modern Western philosophy by the liberal John Stuart Mill and the socialist Jeremy Bentham. Classically, philosophical Utilitarianism has been based on an ethical imperative, usually formulated as ‘the greatest Good for the greatest number’. In our earlier article, we avoided the temptation to weigh in on the nature of the Good itself. Instead, we discussed issues related to the generation and distribution of that Good according to the utilitarian formula. According to Mill, happiness is ‘the Good’, the Summum Bonum ; we know this because no one would ever choose to be unhappy rather than happy. Some people choose chocolate over vanilla (no idea why), but no one ever chooses to be unhappy rather than happy, do they? Of course they do! They enter monasteries, they go on fasts, and in extreme cases, they even self-flagellate (figuratively…or literally). The problem with this counterargument is that these apparently unpleasant practices do, in fact, make their practitioners ‘happy’. In rare cases, we’re talking masochism; in most cases, we’re talking about a willingness to endure ‘superficial’ unhappiness (pain) in service of some ‘deeper’ happiness, ‘beyond the Pleasure Principle’. This semantic ‘trick’ makes it impossible for me, or anyone, to refute Mill…but it also robs Utilitarianism of its heuristic power. If I do X, then by definition, doing X must be calculated to make me happier than not doing X. Therefore, every time I do anything , I substantiate utilitarian theory: I always choose the option calculated to make me happiest. Otherwise, why would I choose it? And so in reality, I substantiate nothing. If that makes you uncomfortable, as it does me, you may ‘phone a friend’ for assistance. Patched into a gathering of Logical Positivists , in Vienna (1925–1935), you will hear that no proposition is meaningful unless it can be falsified. The basic premise of Utilitarianism, GGG#, cannot be falsified: it is impossible to imagine any objective, empirical data that would disprove it. How would I go about proving that some people choose to be unhappy rather than happy? What sort of instrument would I need to measure the quantity (not to mention the quality ) of someone’s happiness ? Let’s test this hypothesis with two examples from opposite ends of the spectrum: First, when I was barely yet a tween, I recall my grandmother going on about all the ‘sacrifices’ she made each day for the good of our family. She did a lot, no doubt! But cheekily, I countered, “You do what you do because doing it makes you happy.” Unwittingly, I was channeling Mill…at 10. No big deal: an even younger Mill channeled Plato…in the original Greek! The things she did, admittedly often repetitive and strenuous for a person her age, nevertheless gave her purpose and her life meaning. Watching TV game shows, hanging out in bars, or engaging in prostitution would probably not have made her happy. She would have been much less happy had she chosen not to do the things she did. None of which makes her any less virtuous! My second example requires us to travel back a bit in time. You may not remember it, but I was once burned at the stake, by John Calvin, no less (not to drop a name). Make no mistake, it hurt…a lot, but it came with the satisfaction of knowing that I had been true to my beliefs. Had I recanted and been spared, I would have had to endure a lifetime of shame, self-doubt, and regret. I chose the option that made me less unhappy …no matter how painful. All of which begs the question: “What is happiness anyway?” Is it a positive state that one can aspire to and even work to bring about? Or is it merely the absence of unhappiness? Consider the example above: “Recant or burn!” Neither will make me happy ‘happy’ but, I suppose, one might make me ‘less unhappy’ than the other. Reading Mill, you get the immediate sense that you are measuring unhappiness (e.g., poverty) rather than the much more elusive quantity known as ‘happiness’. It is the avoidance of penury that makes one happy, not a surfeit of riches. We are often reminded, correctly, that money does not buy happiness, but the myth of the ‘happy hobo’ is just that…a myth. As human beings, we are much better at defining what makes us unhappy than what makes us happy. We know what we don’t want; we have a harder time deciding what we prefer instead. But rest assured, whatever we choose to do, we will have chosen the option intended to make us happiest…always, every time, 100%. In the earlier article, we argued that the utilitarian formula for the distribution of Good was vacuous; now we’re arguing that the utilitarian definition of Good is itself meaningless, and beyond even that, that the concept of happiness itself has no meaning. It is as if we added the words, “…and it makes me happy,” to the end of every declarative sentence. Because we add this meme to every available utterance, it is utterly meaningless. It is impossible to devise a set of circumstances in which it doesn’t apply. Some folks are ‘happy’ living their lives on a beach; others need a boardroom; some need a bar. What makes each person happy is not the venue; what makes them happy is the conviction that they are doing ‘what they ought to be doing’ at the time. Don’t let that ‘ought’ scare you! I’m not talking the 613 mitzvahs of Torah here. At any point in time, you have a sense of what you ought to be doing, or at least what you ought not to be doing. We are not here proposing any objective criteria for ‘ought’. In fact, this is where the concept of happiness becomes relevant after all. We are happy at those times when we’re doing what we feel we ought to be doing. But BYOO – Bring our own ‘ought’! It won’t be my ought…but so what? Be an Old Testament judge: Do what is right in your own eyes (Judges 21:25). But laying such analysis aside, Mill still faces insuperable hurdles. How does one define ‘the greatest good for the greatest number’? Is it a simple matter of arithmetic? Ʃ A+B+C…Z. In that case, a solution in which one person monopolizes 100% of the Good is at least conceivable. Of course, that is not what the liberal Mill or the socialist Bentham had in mind. They assumed some sort of distributive calculus – which is all well and good, but not part of Utilitarianism per se . Sidebar : If the meaning of life is ‘42’, then perhaps we can say the sum of all possible Good is ‘10’. Our job as philosopher-monarchs is to determine the distribution of that Good among, say, 10 beneficiaries. Turns out, the Utilitarian test, greatest good for the greatest number , can be satisfied using any distribution formula whatsoever, provided that 10 units of Good are distributed over 10 potential beneficiaries. Literally no one thinks this! And that fact alone demonstrates the absolute vacuity of Utilitarianism. Every practical version of Utilitarianism conceals another value (or set of values) which is the real driver. For Bentham, that value might have been ‘equality’, for Mill it might have been ‘liberty’ (including opportunity and the pursuit of happiness); for someone else, it might be ‘monopoly’, and for yet another, ‘productivity’ (whatever distribution of goods will generate the most total value). These are real driving values. The utilitarian formula is the veneer that attempts to clothe these values with invisibility, to hide them under the transparent mask of irrefutability. Mill and Bentham did not appreciate the full significance of the Industrial Revolution. Quantities are not fixed. They can grow (or diminish). A workable economic system needs to be concerned with the aggregate quantity of ‘goods’ as well as the just distribution of those ‘goods’. A professor of mine, John Rawls ( A Theory of Justice ), made a valiant attempt to reconcile Mill and Bentham and rescue Utilitarianism in the process. He proposed a system under which everyone would be guaranteed a certain minimal quantum of ‘happiness’ (goods), with the balance allocated among the beneficiaries in the way most likely to generate the greatest aggregate quantity of goods. The effort is valiant and no doubt correct, as far as it goes, but does it have any real content? Basically, Rawls states that there are three ‘goods’: (1) liberty (personal, civic); (2) prosperity (economic sufficiency); and (3) opportunity (economic freedom, the pursuit of happiness). I didn’t need to spend $250,000 on an Ivy League education to know this much. In fact, I can fit it on a bumper sticker for my next presidential run: “Liberty, Prosperity, Opportunity”. Curious to see what my opponents come up with! Would “Slavery, Poverty, Despair” be too much to hope for? 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. Previous Next Share Do you like what you just read? Subscribe today and receive sneak previews of Aletheia Today Magazine articles before they're published. 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< Back Is Hell Empty? David Cowles Mar 17, 2026 “You are bolted to the choices you made during your lifetime, not as punishment but as a projection of who you’ve chosen to become.” 1750 words, 8 minute read Dante’s Inferno is like Tokyo at rush hour. Souls are stacked across 9 levels as if God had followed the blue prints for a modern Supermax…and as usual there’s a long queue at the River Styx, souls patiently waiting for their chance to ‘abandon all hope’. Does this sound like Theater of the Absurd? Something from Ionesco perhaps? Or Beckett? And BTW, Estragon, what’s your rush? Eternity isn’t going anywhere; it’ll still be waiting, whenever you get there. According to a popular eschatological model, the souls of the departed appear before a heavenly tribunal where their past sins are reviewed and rewarded (or not) as appropriate. That is not Dante’s vision! Dante subscribed to the views of Thomas Aquinas: each soul effectively chooses its own fate. All sin is idolatry – the placing of something ahead of God. We’re all guilty of it from time to time. We cut a corner, put ourselves ahead of a neighbor, seek joy in overindulgence. What’s your Higher Power? Is it God (Beauty, Truth, Justice)? Or Mammon (Wealth, Power, Fame, Lust)? When all else has failed, where do you turn? What’s your last resort? What’s your ultimate concern ? ( Tillich ) According to Dante & Aquinas, anyone living may choose to follow a new Higher Power at any time. Death bed? No problem! ‘St. Dostoevsky.’ Once dead, however, that plasticity is gone and you are bolted to the choices you made during your lifetime, not as punishment but as a projection of who you’ve chosen to become. You are exactly the person you always wanted to be. Congrats on that, BTW! *** In Hades’ Supermax each tier is associated with a particular subset of sin. For example, Tier 4 is reserved for the greedy. Very thoughtful of God! This arrangement ensures that inmates will have things in common with their neighbors. I mean, Paradise isn’t Paradise unless you can share the experience with someone else (just ask any Parrott Head) and Hades is Paradise for those entombed there. During your lifetime you rejected communion with God (a foretaste of Paradise) in deference to lust, gluttony or… Therefore in Hell, you will find yourself in the cell block that affords the most faithful realization of your highest value. Imagine a Hogwarts where ‘student choice’ replaces the Sorting Hat. Dante stated poetically and masterfully what I will now attempt to describe clumsily and in prose (apologies in advance): Being is Information. “It from bit.” (Wheeler) “A difference that makes a difference.” (Bateson) The Universe consists of information and information is encoded in patterns. “It’s patterns all the way down, Dr. Hawking.” Each quantum of Being, each ‘event’, has a unique pattern associated with it. Think QR code. That’s it’s handle…forever, and it encodes whatever values the event instantiates. God is an event, a quantum of Being, the quantum of Being that is key to decoding all other quanta. God is the universal Rosetta Stone. God is Good. Primordially, all possible patterns reside in potentia in God…but only to the extent that those patterns are consistent with God’s Nature, i.e. with the Good . You are a ‘society of events’ (Whitehead), events related to one another according to a particular logos that constitutes your identity, your persona . Each event encodes its own specific mix of values. To the extent that those values form a pattern that resonates with patterns encoded in God’s Primordial Nature, sympathetic vibration transfers that pattern from our mortal plane to God’s eternal realm. The values we instantiate ‘on earth’ are substantiated ‘in heaven’. ( Lord’s Prayer ) Whatever we do in spacetime we do eternally, provided it is consistent with God’s values – i.e. the building blocks of Paradise. Dedicated followers of Aletheia Today will recognize this phenomenon as a ‘ Rondeau Time Crystal’ , a quantum of being that includes both a spatiotemporal and an eternal aspect in a single event. *** Imagine the heavenly tribunal (above): The soul of the departed approaches St. Peter, trembling (that’s the soul trembling, not the saint). “Relax, you have nothing to fear. You’re in charge here.” Peter can be very reassuring as he escorts you into the hermetically sealed projection booth. “I’m going to show you two versions of Eternity. The first (A) includes all your contributions, all your actions; the second (B) erases those actions from the record. Now let’s be clear. Your actions had consequences IRL, some intended, most unintended, some known, most unknown. This is not about them; they remain the same under either option. It is just your actions per se that are subject to review here, not their effects. You can’t change the flow of history, but you do have one last chance to determine the role you play in that history. “Examine both scenarios, take all the time you need, then you decide, and whatever you decide, that will be so. Just please remember two things: (1) whichever option you choose, you are choosing that option, not just for yourself today, but forever and for everyone; and (2) if you choose Option B, it will be as if you had never existed, i.e. you will have never existed! Effectively, you will be expunging yourself from the universal record, from Being itself…but the choice is yours. Like I said, you’re in charge.” *** I interviewed St. Peter for this article. He explained that he was proud to have processed his 100 billionth human soul. “So,” I ventured jokingly, “Has anyone ever chosen Option B?” Peter looked up at me in amazement: “Everyone chooses Option B!” You could have knocked me over with a fly swatter and, obviously, Peter noticed. “When they see how glorious the world is without them in it and compare it with the horror of their actions in the world with them, they cannot bear to immortalize the latter. Invariably, they take the hit. “Often times they’ll add an explanation: e.g. ‘I wouldn’t want to live in a world I’d lived in’, or ‘when I see who I could have been and what I could have done and the mess I made of the opportunity, I see now that Option B is the only just scenario’.” “Everyone enters the world with a determination to create Beauty, to discover Truth, and to institute Justice: that’s God’s universal gift; but not everyone follows through. When a soul realizes that it has destroyed Beauty, concealed Truth, and corrupted Justice, the revulsion is overwhelming.” “So,” sez me, trying to recover a bit of standing in Peter’s eyes, “Then heaven’s empty.” I paused for effect, “Every soul’s in Hell.” Again, Peter is disbelieving. Could I possibly be this clueless? Or was I just pulling his leg? I can see he’s considering a sarcastic response but his better angels triumph and he decides on civility instead: “A decision by a soul,” he begins slowly, speaking in measured tones, controlled and without affect. “A decision by a soul to self-immolate is the ultimate act of self-sacrifice, of charity, of love. It constitutes a ‘perfect act of contrition’ and reflects obedience to the Great Commandment: Love God…and your neighbor as yourself. “How could any soul capable of such an act be anywhere other than in Paradise with God? No, my friend, Heaven’s not empty, Hell is.” *** Ok, so now I get it, I think, at last, maybe: “No one is so evil as to wish himself on others.” Sartre famously said that Hell is other people ( No Exit ); he was wrong. Hell is not ‘other people’, it’s ourselves. My conversation with St. Peter caught me by surprise…but it shouldn’t have. Herman Melville ( Moby Dick ) pointed out that this is precisely the message of the Old Testament Book of Jonah . Jonah is tapped by God to save the sinful city of Nineveh by calling its citizens to repent. Jonah refuses and books passage on a ship bound for Gibraltar. Jonah resorts to the ‘geographic gambit’ in his chess match with God…but to no avail. God catches up with Jonah just east of Tarshish. He threatens to destroy the ship and drown its crew. Knowing that the crew’s fate is in his hands, Jonah offers himself as a sacrifice. With surprising reluctance, the crew assents and Jonah is cast into the sea. But God notes his repentance and his sacrifice, forgives him and saves him in the belly of a whale until he can be coughed up onto friendly shores. The example of Jonah, who had no expectation of salvation, should give us faith that we will make the same decision when it’s our turn (and make no mistake about it, it will be our turn). Salvation is a Catch 22 …inverted! We all sin but faced with the reality of inflicting the consequences of that sin on others, we invariably get cold feet, proving beyond doubt that a spark of Good (i.e. God) remains in each of us: that spark ( Shekinah ) precludes us from entering Hell. Sorry, Charon. So hop on the Express Train bound for Glory! But wait, we’ve got to shed some baggage first. In your case, a hat box; in my case a semi. As Peter explains, “You have to leave your sins behind. Sin does not resonate with any of the patterns that reside in potentia in God’s nature. Therefore, nothing sinful can cross the body-spirit barrier into Paradise. But you, i.e. whatever’s left of you, are most welcome.” Whatever’s left of me? Hmm, I knew it was too good to be true! Now let’s just hope I have been associated with enough good in my life for it to be worth saving. Turns out, you can take it with you after all…but only insofar as you have it in the first place, i.e. only insofar as it is good. *** Rothko’s Black on Maroon evokes a vision of hell not through flames or demons, but through a suffocating atmosphere where color itself becomes a form of spiritual confinement. The dark, hovering rectangles feel like thresholds that never open, suggesting a state of eternal suspension or inward collapse. In this reading, hell becomes an emotional condition—an endless, silent room where the weight of darkness presses in from all sides. 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 Plato, Socrates & Time Crystals David Cowles Nov 26, 2025 “The climax of the Phaedo is a debate between Socrates and Simmias on the nature of the soul… but now we know the answer!” In the 4 th century BCE, Plato, Athens’ leading philosopher, wrote a series of dialogs allegedly based on his first and second hand encounters with Socrates 25+ years earlier. (Gospels : Jesus :: Dialogs : Socrates?) Perhaps the most famous of those dialogs is known as the Phaedo : it recounts the last hours of Socrates’ life, spent in conversation with his devoted disciples. One is reminded of Jesus’ Farewell Discourses recorded in the Gospel of John . The climax of the Phaedo , however, is a debate between Socrates and Simmias on the nature of the soul. According to Plato, Socrates gets the better of his interlocutor (as always), but most philosophers feel that neither argument is totally persuasive. But now we know the answer! Simmias introduces the topic by proposing a popular model: soul : body :: attunement : lyre. A lyre, of course, is a musical instrument made of ‘wood and wire’. As such, the lyre has no significant use or value (except perhaps as an antique); but when the strings are ‘tuned’ in a particular way, the instrument ‘springs to life’ and suddenly acquires the potential to produce music (Beauty & Truth). Simmias suggests that the soul is similarly an ‘attunement’ but this time of the ‘blood and bones’ that constitute a body. When the components of our body are properly ‘tuned’, we say that the body has life ; that ‘attunement’ is what we mean by soul . Now this model is instinctively appealing, but it has a major drawback: once the lyre falls into disrepair, or even out of tune, it is no longer able to produce great music. According to this analogy, the soul survives only as long as the parts of the body remain properly aligned. Death is misalignment. That means that the soul is mortal and co-terminal with the body. This is something that Socrates, on the day of his impending execution, can understandably not accept. So he proceeds to develop a model that supports his preferred conclusion (immortality). Sartre would doubtless accuse Socrates of bad faith ; but we should be more charitable…at least until we’ve spent our own time on desolation row . (Dylan) Socrates begins his refutation of Simmias from the premise that the soul must be immortal because the contrary would imply that “the soul, though more divine and lovelier than the body, may still perish before it, being a kind of attunement.” Indeed, a lyre is likely to go out of tune before the instrument itself is physically destroyed. He also considered the status of ‘virtue’ under the attunement model . Are we to equate ‘the Good’ with a ‘finer attunement’ of the strings? All life is attunement; is what we call ‘evil’ nothing but a relative loss of tonal quality? “Do you believe in life after death?” That’s how we muggles artlessly introduce the subject of the soul. Prior to 2025 CE, we had no better answer to this question than those offered by Simmias and Socrates. But now we do! On October 14, 2025, Leo Joon Il Moon, et al. published a paper in Nature Physics detailing the discovery of a new phase of matter they’re calling Time Rondeau Crystals , aka Rondeau Time Crystals (RTC). You’re familiar with crystals. The rock on your finger is one. So is the hunk of quartz that’s holding down papers on your desk. And, of course, so is each flake of snow that is falling just now outside your window. We are surrounded by crystals, space crystals that is, and our lives are better for them. A space crystal is a pattern of molecules that endlessly repeats in an appropriate extensive medium. Imagine if we could create a time crystal , a pattern of events that endlessly repeats across time? Wait! I saw that movie, Groundhog Day . A beauty! And two dozen years later, Eureka! We found it – the first time crystal . Who says science doesn’t imitate art? Didn’t the Quantum Mechanics imitate the Cubists? But for all the hoopla , the discovery of time crystals wasn’t the breakthrough we’d hoped for. Process within a time crystal, i.e. the cycle of events, is 100% determined. Therefore, the time crystal was useless as a model for processes that include an element of indetermination, from mere randomization to conscious agency (free will). Until now! Discovery of Rondeau Time Crystals changes everything. The cycle of events in an RTC has three phases. The Alpha and Omega phases are fully determined, as above. However, they are separated by a third phase, I’m calling it Delta , that is entirely indeterminate, i.e. chaotic. Indetermination and determination are not incompatible after all. Free will does not preclude causality. Kaos does not undermine Logos : “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:5) Rather, order propagates non-locally…and stochastically. Just as quanta remain entangled over vast stretches of (relatively) ‘empty’ space, so the ordered phases of an RTC exhibit entanglement across a chaotic gap. But it gets even better! First, the Omega state, though co-determined with the Alpha state, can be slightly skewed with respect to Alpha . Think of the inversion of an image along a Mobius Strip or of the aperiodic tiling of a surface: difference need not entail disorder. Second, the so-called Delta state, while incurably chaotic, can be ‘fine-tuned’ (there’s that phrase again) in a way that permits local islands of temporary order to emerge epiphenomenally without compromising Delta’s globally chaotic state. Think of the hammock in your backyard. Strung between two trees, it assumes a catenary shape; that is its topology. It lets you nap in it. But that shape is not a function of the trees or of the hammock; it is a function of the entirety. Likewise, RTCs. Think Shakespeare’s Tempest : “… the baseless fabric of this vision— the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the great globe itself…shall dissolve, and…leave not a rack behind.” “Leave not a rack behind” – so Simmias was right after all. The soul is an attunement of the body and it vanishes like scenery once the set is struck. Not so fast! An ephemeral pattern arising in the Delta phase may evoke a sympathetic (harmonic) response in the pluripotent and eternal Omega phase. In this way, freely formed but transient patterns in Delta may be eternalized in Omega . But there is a catch…ultimately, a happy catch. Each attunement is unique. It appears in indefinitely many media, but it is one and the same attunement in each. So, if Delta and Omega both manifest the same attunement, that one attunement must reconcile and exhibit the ontological features of both media. In the same way, Jesus is both fully human ( Delta : Mortal) and fully divine ( Alpha/Omega : Eternal). He differs from us only in that he is free from sin. His humanity must not conflict with his divinity. God is eternal presence . Because any pattern in Omega is eternal, it must be compatible with God’s essential nature ( Alpha ), i.e. the Good. Therefore, patterns arising in Delta only elicit an echo in Omega if and to the extent that they are ‘good’ as Good is manifest in Delta , i.e. as beauty, truth or justice. This disposes of Socrates’ second argument, i.e. that evil must be more, or less, than ‘poor tuning’. In fact, whatever is less than ‘good’ in Delta will find no resonance whatsoever in Omega ; it will die in Delta . And where does this leave you ? Your sense of self, your identity, your consciousness? British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead constructed a much more elaborate scheme and concluded that there was no place for personal identity in God’s Consequent ( Omega ) Nature. Whitehead was wrong! To whatever extent a pattern in Delta is reproduced in Omega , all aspects of that pattern will be conserved. If a pattern in Delta includes consciousness as part of its subjective form, there is no reason to suppose that it will lack consciousness in Omega . To argue otherwise would be to claim that consciousness per se is incompatible with God’s essential nature. So where does this leave us? Both Simmias and Socrates are wrong…and right! The soul (life itself) is an attunement and it does perish with the body. However, to the extent that the patterns generated in Delta are ‘good’, those patterns are eternally resurrected in Omega . This is the eschaton, the so-called ‘last things’, Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell. Death is the loss of attunement; Judgement identifies those patterns in Delta that are consistent with God’s essential nature ( Alpha ). Those patterns enjoy ‘eternal life’ in Omega , i.e. Heaven ; other patterns evaporate without a trace. That’s Hell . *** Paulina Peavy’s I Am Alpha and Omega (c. 1937–1970s) blends mystical symbolism with visionary abstraction, presenting the cosmos as a living, spiritual continuum. The painting reflects Peavy’s belief in cyclical time and divine evolution, using layered forms and luminous color to evoke the eternal “beginning and end.” Through its fusion of text, sacred geometry, and celestial imagery, the work portrays Alpha and Omega as both a cosmic force and a guiding spiritual presence. 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 Proving Parmenides David Cowles Jul 9, 2026 “Advances in science and philosophy allow us to say now with confidence: Parmenides QED.” 2000 words, 8 minute read “…What-is is ungenerated and imperishable…whole, single-limbed, steadfast, and complete; nor was it once, nor will it be, since it is now, all together, one, continuous…Thus coming-to-be is extinguished and perishing not to be heard of…it is not right for what-is to be incomplete; for it is not lacking, but if it were, it would lack everything…Therefore, it must either be completely, or not at all.” Parmenides’ epic poem, On Nature , is the oldest substantially extant text in all of Western philosophy; it dates from the middle of the 5 th century BCE. Before Parmenides, only bits and pieces survive. In the fragment (#8) quoted above, the father of Western philosophy describes Being in the realm of Aletheia (truth, uncovered, revealed, Sanskrit = Brahman ). But Parmenides goes on to describe what it is to exist in the alternate realm of Doxa (appearance, seeming, Sanskrit = Maya ): “To come to be and to perish, to be and not to be, to shift place and to exchange bright color…” Earlier, in an often underappreciated fragment (#1), Parmenides described the relationship between the two realms: “It is right that you should learn all things, both the steadfast heart of persuasive truth ( Aletheia ) and the beliefs of mortals ( Doxa )…how things that seem had to have genuine existence, permeating all things completely .” Our stated preference for so-called ‘truth’ over ‘mere’ appearance has led almost all commentators to imagine that Parmenides was advocating Aletheia at the expense of Doxa . Clearly (#1 above), this was not Parmenides’ intent. That said, Parmenides’ fundamental all or nothing proposition has proven controversial…highly controversial…until now. Advances in science and philosophy allow us to say now with confidence: Parmenides QED . *** At about that time, but 1500 kilometers to the south, the Book of Job , including some of the oldest texts (2 nd millennium BCE) anywhere in the Bible, was getting its final makeover. Aletheia Today has written extensively about Job ; mercifully, we will not repeat that here. Suffice to say, the epic ends with God and Job locked in furious debate over the process of creation and the nature of justice. Heady stuff! Their debate introduces two astonishingly 20 th century ideas. First, Job contends that God must be subject to the same ethical imperatives as humans. God does not transcend the Law, God is the Law ( Torah ). He must exemplify the law (Whitehead) and cannot contravene the law. Amazing! But God’s response is even more surprising. In his best imitation of a 1970s American hippie, God shouts, ‘Ecology! Ecology!’ at his accuser. One can only imagine him waving a ‘little green book’ like the Maoist Cultural Revolutionaries of the 1960s. Essentially, God argues that his ecological responsibilities take precedence over his duty to act justly. God’s argument is somewhat persuasive…at first; but later, under Job’s deft ‘no-cross cross’, God admits that his concern for the environment is at least in part a function of his subjective preferences. God reveals his vulnerable underbelly in a way that is not replicated anywhere in Judeo-Christian scripture, setting the stage for Job’s historic legal triumph . Let’s listen in on God’s testimony: “Who cleaves…a path for the thunderstorm to rain down on land without people…spreading grassy growth? “Who endowed the ibis with wisdom and gave understanding to the cock? “Who provides rations to ravens when their children cry out to El (an ancient name for God) as they wander without food? “Who sends forth free the wild ass...who scorns the city’s clamor, hears not the cries of a driver?” God cannot be overly concerned with the complaints of one individual when there is an entire Universe needing to be managed. Ingeniously, God turns the tables on Job: If you think it’s possible to do better, go ahead and try…but don’t hold me to a standard that you yourself are unable or unwilling to meet. “If you have an arm as strong as El’s…look for the proud and lay him low and crush the wicked where they stand.” But then God goes off the rails. He defends his ‘creative choices’, but he also confesses a personal attachment that undermines the objectivity of his argument. The balance of God’s testimony concerns two of his creatures, Behemoth (Hippopotamus) and Leviathan (Sea Monster). “Behold Behemoth whom like you I created….Behold the strength of his loins, the power in his belly’s muscles…his bones like an iron rod.” And Leviathan? " Of all that's under heaven, he is mine . I cannot keep silent about him, the fact of his incomparable valor…Even 'gods' live in fear of his majesty; they're in terror of the ruin he wreaks…He has no match on earth, who is made as fearless as he? …Over beasts of all kinds he is king." (41:43-26) God’s ecologically motivated care for the Cosmos is laudable; his Nietzschean amorality, less so. God reveals a touch of Narcissism here. He is ‘crushing’ on his creatures. Still, God has made an important point: the Cosmos is not a collection of creatures; it is creation itself, whole, entire, and of a piece. In order to sustain human life, it may be necessary to foster ‘grassy growth’ in uninhabited regions of the planet. *** In his opening speech (3: 3 - 5), Job offers to remove himself from the equation: “May the day disappear, the day I was born, and the night that announced, ‘a man has been conceived’…let darkness expunge it.” Job makes it clear to the ‘cosmic court’ that he is prepared to put at risk not just his present life and future prospects but his existence per se - past, present, and future, the whole enchilada, never to have been, never to become, never to be. From Job’s perspective, we can divide the biosphere into organisms that live, lived or will live. But from the cosmic perspective this is a distinction without a difference. Presumably, everything comes to be, is, and then is not, so what’s the difference? From the cosmic perspective, entities can be divided into two classes, those that ‘be’ (past, present or future) and those that ‘be not’ (past, present and future). The class of entities that do not experience being is a boundless, undifferentiated void: Bobby Kennedy’s ‘things that never were’…and never will be, Whitehead’s set of all unrealized propositions. In a cosmic game of Texas Hold ‘em, Job has just gone all in on God. He has called God’s bluff. The whole universe is waiting for God to wipe out this annoying pipsqueak, but God double clutches, he cannot call. He doesn’t have the cards. In a stunning reversal of fortune, the creator of heaven and earth folds, and Job walks off with the entire pot (quite literally in this case). *** Parmenides and the Job-poet faced the same problem, how to juxtapose becoming (and un-becoming) with being, and they came to the same conclusion: it can’t be done! Being and becoming are not opposites. Being is Being, period, regardless of whether it is mortal, immortal, or eternal. Becoming and perishing are ‘accidents’ of Being; they describe the contingent experience of being but not its necessary essence. This is where ordinary language trips us up. Properly speaking, the verb to be should only appear in the present tense, indicative mood. I mean, that makes sense, doesn’t it? What can you say about being ? It is, or it is not, (0 or 1); anything else is a corruption. Was and will be , might and should be , are forms of to be highjacked to express not being . (Of course, these pseudo-forms are extremely useful in everyday life, even if, like geometric forms, they don’t correspond to anything material.) If something is, it cannot not be. It is, or it is not, period. You cannot meaningfully say, “It is and it is not.” If it is, it is, and if it’s not, it’s not. Of course, from a subjective perspective within fluid spacetime, things are coming to be and ceasing to be all the time. But from an objective perspective beyond spacetime, they are…or they are not. *** “…Nor was it once, nor will it be, since it is now…Thus coming-to-be is extinguished and perishing not to be heard of.” “…It is not lacking, but if it were, it would lack everything…It must either be completely, or not at all.” What would it mean to expunge a quantum of being, any quantum of being, from the cosmos? To flip a bit from 1 to 0, from being to not being? To be expunged is never to have been. An ‘expunged event’ never occurred; it never set in motion any of the falling chains of dominoes that intersect it. Every interaction of one quantum of being with another triggers waterfalls of dominoes in all different directions. It’s like a particle collision at CERN. Come to think of it, it is a particle collision (just not at CERN). Every time one quantum of being (call it ‘A’) interacts with another quantum (‘B’), both are irrevocably altered by the event (entangled). If the interaction of A and B expunges B (so that it never existed), everything around A changes too ( It’s a Wonderful Life ); and in almost no time ( Six Degrees of Separation ) the effects of that change have radiated out into every nook and cranny of the anthroposphere. And not just prospectively. Presumably B was a node in many intersecting causal chains (e.g. X, Y, Z). If X → B, Y → B and Z → B and if we allow A to preclude even the possibility of B, then our three causal chains (X, Y, Z) would need to disappear (also expunged) or be irrevocably altered. In the first instance, it is easy to see that the annihilation would cascade through the universe at the speed of ‘the propagation of influences in the medium’ (e.g. the speed of light in a vacuum, c). In the second instance, where causal chains survive but in altered form, those alterations would cascade, inevitably annihilating certain entities in their path. Eventually, the process would run out of phase space, causal chains per se would vanish, and total annihilation would ensue. Annihilation in the second instance would likely be orders of magnitude slower than in the first. But would we even notice the difference? But total annihilation is impossible! The Universe exists, it is not a node on any causal chain, it cannot be annihilated, and since the Universe consists of its elements, those elements would be safe from annihilation as well. Are you getting the picture? It’s an all or nothing proposition! To the extent that your physical being is an effect , prior states of affairs would need to be altered to eliminate that effect (i.e. you). If a particular chain of causes terminates organically (e.g. in natural death), that termination will have been part of the causal sequence itself. On the other hand, if the termination were ad hoc , then the causal chain itself would have to be rebuilt, retroactively, to eliminate you from the catalogue of its effects . Effects are not optional. Causes are not capricious. It is a major fallacy to imagine that you can preclude a certain effect without thereby altering its causal chain…in both directions! Therefore, every quantum of being is modified if just one quantum is modified. Every quantum is annihilated if just one… Adjusting for rate limitations on the propagation of influences, the effect of any local modification would be immediate and universal. And if a single quantum of being were to be expunged? The Cosmic fabric would unravel and the universe as we know it would exist only as a pile of thread, now and forever: “ Formless and empty with darkness over the abyss.” (Gen 1: 2) “Therefore, it must either be completely or not at all.” QED Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? 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< Back “ It was God who made Pharaoh obstinate." (Ex-9:12) What is our excuse? Deborah Kornfeld Apr 4, 2023 "...despite the few drops of wine, what do the plagues have to teach us?" I always look forward to the plagues. That part of the Haggadah recited in a singsong ritualistic manner is accompanied by the small thrill of putting my finger into the wine cup and marking my plate. It carries with it a memory that despite the power and might and Technicolor special effects accompanying our redemption, we need to be mindful that the Egyptians suffered. In the exquisite theatre of the Seder, every participant has an active role in this custom. To make out seders lively and fun for the children, we often decorate our table with frogs and beasts and lice- a real table-top menagerie. Yet despite the few drops of wine, what do the plagues have to teach us? Consider the first plague- “blood”. The Torah reads: “God said to Moses,” Tell Aaron to take his staff and extend his hand over the waters of Egypt- over their rivers, their canals, their reservoirs, and every place where water is kept- and the water shall turn into blood. There will be blood throughout all Egypt, even in wooden barrels and stone jars. Moses and Aaron did exactly as God had instructed, and Aaron held the staff up and then struck the Nile’s water in the presence of Pharaoh and his officials. The Nile’s water was transformed into blood. The fish in the Nile died, and the river became so polluted that the Egyptians were no longer able to drink the Nile’s water. There was blood everywhere in Egypt…. The Egyptians dug around the Nile for drinking water, since they could not drink any water from the river. After God struck the Nile, it remained that way for seven full days (Ex 7:19-231). They could have certainly applied for extra aid and qualified as a national disaster. It must have been horrific. People and wild life must have died. How could Pharaoh have been so stubborn and entrenched in his way of thinking? How could he have ignored this beginning of such a great wave of suffering? Now the answer regarding Pharaoh is found in Exodus 9:12-“It was God who made Pharaoh obstinate." There are many explanations and interpretations concerning the plagues. A midrash suggests that the Egyptians were punished measure for measure for the cruelty and indifference to the suffering of their Israelite slaves. Rav Kook explained that God brought the plagues upon the Egyptians in order that they should understand the essence of God’s presence in the world. His influence over everything. His intimate relationship with His world and His ability to do anything.” Another modern scholar explains the plagues as emblematic of our greatest fears. Shai Zarhi, an Israeli Educator, writes: “The plagues Gode visited on the Egyptians in Egypt seem to be a parade of people’s greatest fears. They are a mythological show of the power of the living vs. primal fear. Starting from the blood of birth and of death, through primal human fears of small creatures (lice) and large ones (wild beasts), fear of financial ruin (locusts), fear of the dark (losing direction and meaning), we face the greatest fear, the fear for our children’s lives-loss of the future. Tonight, a night to commemorate the past, we see the mercy of God’s protections, look out from our places at a world full of fears and dangers and pray for another quiet year.” The term used to describe Pharaoh’s indifference in the face of these disasters is “Kaved Lev “which is translated as meaning obstinate, stubbornly refusing to change his opinion or course of action despite the attempts to persuade him to do so. We are told in the Torah that God made Pharaoh obstinate so that this redemption would be spectacular with an abundance of special effects and everyone involved would know that it was God himself who orchestrated this redemption. In the time of the Egyptians, many of the plagues were reversible. The bloody Nile was returned to clear potable water, the boils disappeared, and the frogs went away. We are not so lucky with our man-made plagues. When we pollute the waterways or impact on our climate or waste precious resources simply because of greed and/or indifference, we cannot always reverse the consequences of our actions and the consequences might endanger our most precious commodity, that being our future. This year when I dip my finger into my wine cup as we recite the names of the Biblical plagues, I will remember that these plagues did have grave consequences on the Egyptians, but I will also see each stain on my plate as a promise of action to protect the next generations. Unlike Pharaoh, I can’t blame God, this time it is in our hands. This is a republication with permission from The Jewish Pluralist . The author of this essay, Deborah Kornfeld, is a retired pediatric occupational therapist, aspiring climate and social justice activist, occasional essayist, shul chesed coordinator, loving mother, and safta. 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 Time for a New Turing Test “…This modified Turing Test is designed to root out ‘Carbon Privilege’, the unstated but nearly universal assumption that carbon-based life forms are somehow ‘better’ than their silicon siblings.” David Cowles The current shock wave of progress in Artificial Intelligence (AI) has given new energy to the ancient ‘problem of other minds’: How do we know whether other entities have ‘minds’ that function like our own? Originally, the focus was on you ! How can I know whether you are ‘real’ or not? I assume that I am ‘real’; actually, I define what real is! Are you humanoid? You don’t (always) look humanoid. Perhaps you are a robot designed to look human and programmed to behave accordingly; or perhaps you are a zombie: perhaps your behavior is entirely unconscious. Not for any lack of trying, the ‘other minds' problem’ remains an open field of inquiry, but that ‘field’ has recently expanded from the dimensions of a squash court to those of a Canadian football field. Now I am less concerned with you and more concerned with a bevy of other organisms and pseudo-organisms clamoring for protection under the pending Most Favored Species Act, currently held up in the Senate by Rand Paul. Maybe I’ll concede that you are at least sentient…for purposes of this essay only, of course. Big of me, I know! But what about Timmy’s Lassie? Pirates’ Polly? Poe’s Raven? What about the 30 trillion cells that make up my body? Or the trillions of symbiotic bacteria thriving in my gut? And what about all the life forms we’re about to discover on the many ‘ exoearths ’ crammed into our presumably life-teeming universe? Finally, what about our machines? Hal 9000, R2D2, Deep Mind ? Alan Turing, the Enigma-cracker, is credited with developing an eponymous test to determine whether a given ‘machine’ possesses a humanoid mind, e.g., whether it is conscious. Here’s how Turing’s test works: ‘A’, presumably an able-minded human being, is our examiner; ‘B’ is our examinee. Neither can see nor hear the other; they communicate only via a series of written messages passed back and forth between the two. If A cannot distinguish B’s responses from those of a human being, B is judged to be humanoid. What could be more ridiculous! Imagine your favorite TV cop show adopting this format. Detective A has just arrested ‘usual suspect’ B, presumably with probable cause, and charged B with a capital crime. Now, it is up to A to question B and then, based solely on B’s answers, to judge B guilty…or not. No witnesses, no forensics, allowed! A is subject to no oversight and B is entitled to no legal representation; there is no right of appeal. Detention, interrogation, adjudication, and execution often take place on the same day. I doubt that show would last a full season. How often do you think B would walk away scot-free? Why? What’s to stop A from finding B innocent? Well, for one thing, A made the arrest, so we may presume he has a vested interest in the verdict. Plus, A knows B’s record; she must’a dun’it! But isn’t this exactly what happens with a Turing Test? A actively questions B; B answers, passively. We know upfront that A is a carbon-based life form, a human being, unaided in this instance by any mechanical intelligence; B’s ontological status is undetermined. In fact, A knows ab initio that B is suspected of the crime of being ‘artificial’; but can he ‘prove’ it? So, the test is biased by design, but that’s not the half of it. Put yourself in A’s trainers. If B is human and A says ‘machine’, everyone gets a good laugh; but if B is machine and A says ‘human’, A loses his job. In any case, the pressure is on A to find the revelatory flaw in B’s pattern of communication. In the cosmic game of hide and seek, we humans tend to find whatever we’re looking for…whether it is there or not. (“Seek and ye shall find.” – Matthew 7: 7-8) The problem is that we’re all flawed: human or not, carbon or not, we all screw up. Imagine if you were sent to the ‘scrap heap’ every time you said something nonsensical or illogical…like you were when you were a child, for instance. Would any one of us survive a single day? There are two possible versions of this test. In one version, A knows that B is a machine; the only question is whether the machine exhibits humanoid intelligence. In the second version (Searle’s Chinese Room), B could be a machine or a human, or a human pretending to be a machine or a machine pretending to be a human, or a human pretending to be a machine pretending to be a human or a machine pretending to be a human pretending to be a machine, or… Got it? Now, say it back to me, so I can be sure. Translation: it’s a mess! The Turing Test was intended to expand our horizons; instead it demonstrates just how constricted those horizons are…and it reinforces those restrictions. We are conditioned by our modern Indo-European language to reduce the world to nouns (subjects and objects) and verbs (active and passive). Sadly, the Turing Test fits in perfectly with this fallacious model of reality. A is the subject, B is the object, and the test itself is the active voice verb that connects them. As a result, the ‘relationship’ between A and B is a vector; there are no feedback loops. Now imagine the same test designed differently: There are 6 hermetically sealed booths: 3 contain human beings, 3 contain machines. The booths are sorted into the following configuration: H-H, H-M, M-M. Of course, neither the subjects nor the experimenters know which pair is which. In fact, there are neither examiners nor examinees. Each participant (human or not) is charged with identifying the ontological status of its partner. A test ends when all 6 participants have signaled to their controllers that they have reached a conclusion (or when an agreed upon period of time has elapsed). Of course, the test can be rerun as many times as you wish to confirm the results. Compared to the original Turing Test, this modified design is more methodologically sound; it also models more closely real life experience. After all, it is rare that the relationship between two nominal entities can be adequately described by a simple vector. Relationships are feedback loops, and verbs that properly model such relationships are neither active nor passive; they require the largely extinct middle voice ! This modified Turing Test is designed to root out ‘Carbon Privilege’, the unstated but universal assumption that carbon-based life forms are somehow ‘better’ than their silicon siblings. Our new test creates a level playing field. It lets machines evaluate us as we evaluate them based on the same criteria. Who knows, maybe our silicon siblings will discover new and better criteria or procedures. And there is an unintended bonus! The new design will show how machines evaluate each other, for example, how I evaluate you , my precious little bucket of bolts. 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 Harvest Issue 2023 Share Previous Next

< Back Existential Threats David Cowles Oct 8, 2024 “The risk of all-out war is greater today than at any time in the past 50 years, and it is reasonable to imagine that such a war might amount to ‘game over’.” Nobody wants to focus on the downside, certainly not Aletheia Today! We are committed to a vision of the future that includes global peace, space exploration, galactic colonization, the eradication of poverty, and the exponential expansion of economic and intellectual opportunities worldwide. Technological progress over the next 100 years could easily dwarf the accomplishments of the previous 10,000…or it could destroy Planet Earth and/or Homo Sapiens as we know them. While continuing to focus on the positive, it would be a mistake to ignore these risks. Among the existential threats we face, global war must rank #1 . The scope of the catastrophe, and the likely inability to course-correct once a tipping point is reached, place it at the top of our list. Plus, the risk of all-out war is greater today than at any time in the past 50 years and it is reasonable to imagine that such a war might amount to ‘game over’. In a rare display of bipartisanship, a specially appointed Congressional Committee (Commission on National Defense Strategy) recently released a chilling report on the risks of global war; it would be irresponsible not to reprint its most important findings and conclusions: “The threats the United States faces are the most serious and most challenging the nation has encountered since 1945 and include the potential for near-term major war. The United States…is not prepared today. China and Russia are major powers that seek to undermine U.S. influence. “The 2022 National Defense Strategy (NDS) recognizes these nations as the top threats to the United States and declares China to be the ‘pacing challenge’, based on the strength of its military and economy and its intent to exert dominance regionally and globally. “The Commission finds that, in many ways, China is outpacing the United States and has largely negated the U.S. military advantage in the Western Pacific through two decades of focused military investment. Without significant change by the United States, the balance of power will continue to shift in China’s favor…Russia possesses considerable strategic, space, and cyber capabilities and under Vladimir Putin seeks a return to its global leadership role… “China and Russia’s ‘no-limits’ partnership, formed in February 2022 just days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has only deepened and broadened to include a military and economic partnership with Iran and North Korea, each of which presents its own significant threat to U.S. interests. “This new alignment of nations opposed to U.S. interests creates a real risk, if not likelihood, that conflict anywhere could become a multi-theater or global war. China (and, to a lesser extent, Russia) is fusing military, diplomatic, and industrial strength to expand power worldwide…. “An effective approach…relies on a coordinated effort to bring together diplomacy, economic investment, cybersecurity, trade, education, industrial capacity, technical innovation, civic engagement, and international cooperation… “The Commission finds that the U.S. military lacks both the capabilities and the capacity required to be confident it can deter and prevail in combat. It needs to do a better job of incorporating new technology at scale; field more and higher-capability platforms, software, and munitions; and deploy innovative operational concepts to employ them together better… “The Commission finds that the U.S. defense industrial base (DIB) is unable to meet the critical minerals and goods needed to run the U.S. economy and build weapon systems. They could also hold at risk U.S. space assets, which underpin much of our daily lives… “The U.S. public is largely unaware of the dangers the United States faces or the costs (financial and otherwise) required to adequately prepare. They do not appreciate the strength of China and its partnerships or the ramifications to daily life if a conflict were to erupt. They are not anticipating disruptions to their power, water, or access to all the goods on which they rely… “The consequences of an all-out war with a peer or near peer would be devastating. Such a war would not only yield massive personnel and military costs but would also likely feature cyberattacks on U.S. critical infrastructure and a global economic recession…” While we’ve chosen to focus on the threat of global war, it is certainly not the only existential threat we face. Climate change, rogue AI, and genetic engineering cannot be ignored. The biggest risk of all, however, is collective myopia. If we refuse to face these threats as real, we make them more likely to occur and the consequences more catastrophic. People like you and me, people who seek peace, are particularly dangerous at times like this. Confirmation bias keeps us from seeing that not everyone in this world shares our values or our sensitivity to the consequences of bad policy. Remember 1930’s England? The leaders could not imagine World War II…until they were in it. We are tempted to think, “Who would launch the world on such a trajectory!” And when we think that, we make it more likely that we will find out. Keep the conversation going. 1. Click here to contact us on any matter. How did you like the post? How could we do better in the future? Suggestions welcome. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. 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< Back Prayer For Resting in God's Timing, Ways, and Rhythm Deborah Rutherford My timing can lead to stress and striving, but God says not so fast, my daughter. Am I striving, then causing friction and confusion? This is when I slow down to rest in God's timing, ways, and rhythms -- to repent and return to Jesus, the One who carries. His will, not mine. Dear Abba, oh Father, thank you for your tender-loving kindness and mercy. Forgive me when I rush ahead of you, when I strive, push, and wander away. Oh, let me rest in you, your timing and ways, and slow down to stillness with you, where I hear your lovely voice. My day is yours as you lead me through the most beautiful dance of life. My road is your beautiful, peaceful one. Please, help me stay on your narrow road of joy and peace, love and light, heading to the forever of ever with you, our love eternal. Thank you, I am humbled by your love, in Jesus's name. Amen. Slow down to the incredible life God has planned for you by resting in His timing, ways, and rhythm, the endearing moment by moment of God's love. I have to remind myself to slow down often, that God is growing me in His timing, not mine. My timing can lead to stress and striving, but God says not so fast, my daughter. Rest in His timing, ways, and rhythms. Hi. I am Deborah Rutherford, a Christian wife, passionate about Jesus and her family. I am currently a writer, makeup artist, and sometimes singer. You can find me on my blog at www.deborahrutherford.com. Previous Next

< Back Life is GPS David Cowles Aug 31, 2025 “GPS will point out the optimal route…and keep pointing it out, even as that route changes along the way.” I am heading out this morning for my first face-to-face meeting with Robert, a long time internet interlocutor. His home town is what passes for ‘rural’ in Massachusetts. I expect to see lots of stone walls and wooden fences, perhaps some family farms, and more than a few roadside produce stands. Covered bridges, dirt roads, cows and horses, lions, tigers, and bears – not so much! I need to travel about 50 miles Northwest of my Boston suburb and there are a myriad of routes I could follow. But I’m unfamiliar with the roads in Robert’s neighborhood, so the first thing I do, of course, is enter his address in my GPS. For the next 90 minutes, every move I make, every turn I take, will be scripted. All I need to do is sit back and follow instructions. But sometimes that’s easier said than done. I miss a turn, then there’s road work ahead that my GPS doesn’t know about and then several temporary detours. (Highway reconstruction is 24/365 in MA.) But all is not lost. Each time I fail to execute a directive, for whatever reason, GPS calculates a revised optimal route based on my new ‘current location’. A new set of instructions follows. The ideal continually adjusts to the actual. Who could ask for anything more? Whether you believe in God or Gaia , Fate, Destiny, or Chance, ‘we though many throughout the earth’ and possibly ‘across the universe’, all have a common destination and there exists a unique, optimal route for each of us to reach that destination from our disparate present locations. Of course, we are free to follow that route…or not. We think we know better: “We’ll follow our own path, thank you…and make a few unscheduled stops along the way.” No problem! Or we try to follow the instructions to the letter but ‘error and infrastructure’ continually force us off route. Western philosophy has been dominated by the free will/determinism dichotomy. We’re so used to this debate that we find it hard to imagine that other models might be possible. For example, few would argue that events occur randomly. A periodically persistent alternative, on the other hand, holds that there are a variety of pre-set paths available to us and that we are totally free to choose among them. This idea shows up in strange places; to name just a few: Parmenides of Elea ( On Nature ) - the father of Western phil. Paul of Tarsus ( Ephesians ) – much of Pauline and Johannine literature harks back to the ideas of the pre-Socratics. Robert Frost ( The Road not Taken ) Jean-Paul Sartre ( Being and Nothingness ) – We are 100% free; freedom is our essence, but it can only be exercised within limits established by the material world. Hugh Everett ( Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics ) – Every ‘possible’ road is not only permitted…but taken! Robert Frost, meet Jean-Paul Sartre. In On Nature , Parmenides (5th century BCE) wrote about “the much speaking path of the goddess that carries everywhere unscathed the man who knows.” Much speaking ? Parmenides is anticipating James Joyce ( Ulysses ): “signatures of all things I am here to read.” Paul extends Parmenides’ concept of one optimal path to include multiple acceptable paths, “prepared by God so that we may step into them.” Frost follows Paul. Sartre goes further. We create our own paths, and everything is available to us, subject to the restrictions imposed by the material world. Finally, Everett brings the snake full circle. He is the head of the ouroboros . According to Everett everything is not only permitted but realized: the universe follows all possible paths in parallel. Hence, his ‘many, many, many worlds’ - too many for many tastes. “Along this route there are many signs that what-is (e.g. YHWH, Exodus 3: 14) is ungenerated and non-perishable.” The grid, aka the logos , is eternal. “Nor was it once, nor will it be, since it is, now, altogether, one, continuous.” (Parmenides) These cosmologies intersect in the technology of GPS. A web of highways and byways constitute our available paths and we build more as needed. We are totally free to pursue any route, but GPS will point out the optimal route…and keep pointing it out, even as that route changes along the way. The opening line of the Gospel of John nails it: “In the beginning (or at the foundation) is the logos .” The ‘grids’ of Parmenides, Paul, Frost, Sartre and Everett are all built on the pre-existent order of things, the logos that makes GPS possible. So welcome to the newest version of the world’s oldest technology! *** Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Allegory of Good Government (1338–39) spreads across Siena’s city walls as a web of ordered streets and winding roads, an early vision of the civic ‘grid’ that anticipates how GPS embodies the eternal logos guiding us through chaos. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back The Lego Movie and John Stewart Bell David Cowles “This movie includes a huge twist with cosmological implications.” It begins as a typical children’s movie: a struggle between good and evil with characters trying to overcome personal insecurities to ‘be all that they can be’; there’s a love triangle of course, some witty, adult-oriented repartee, and lots and lots of action. But The Lego Movie is much more than this! This movie includes a huge twist with cosmological implications. But first, the story: As the film opens, we see characters existing in a world built entirely out of Legos; they are Lego pieces themselves and everything they do is done with Legos. There is every reason to believe that this World is entirely self-contained, that it is a universe . As the film progresses, we learn that Lego World has many realms, including Old West, Viking’s Landing, Pirates’ Cove, Middle Zealand and Cloud Cuckoo Land; but most of the action takes place in Bricksburg, a thriving metropolis dominated by a spirit-crushing culture of conformity. The dominant ethic of Bricksburg could be summed up on a bumper sticker: “Follow instructions!” Under the influence of ‘Lord Business’, construction workers, micromanagers, robots, and cops work together to nurture and enforce the conformist ethic. Yes, cops! The Lego Movie follows the classic Marxist line: police are an extension and a tool of the ruling class. But under the radar, a tiny group of Master Builders harks back to a time before Lord Business when Lego World was free and full of possibility. In Bricksburg, almost everyone builds according to plans, blueprints, etc., but not the Master Builders! They build free form. Even better, they build their creations quickly and in real time to confront immediate, real life challenges. They are society’s artists and magicians. Only Master Builders can introduce true novelty into the world, thereby impacting the course of events. It is the existence of Master Builders that protects ‘the free world’ from mindless determinism. Lord Business ( aka President Business) has diabolical plans for Bricksburg. Lord Business plans to unleash a fully weaponized Kragle on Taco Tuesday to end the world as we know it. ‘Taco Tuesday’, a typical government program of bread and circuses designed to co-opt and distract the populace, is cover for President Business’ plan to activate the super weapon (Kragle), which will freeze Bricksburg, effectively destroying it. The central theme of the movie is the Master Builders’ struggle to derail Lord Business’ scheme. Because of a prophecy from the blind wizard Vitruvius (Homer’s Teiresias? ), they believe that their success depends on finding the “Special”, a savior foretold by Vitruvius who will locate the “Piece of Resistance” ( pièce de résistance ), the one ‘piece’ that can disable the Kragle and use that piece to thwart Lord Business’ plans. When we are introduced to the Piece of Resistance, it is quite unassuming. An elongated cube, open at one end, it looks slightly out of place in Lego World…and it is (but more on that later). The Special is simply the most important, most talented, most brilliant, most interesting, most extraordinary person in the universe…at least according to the prophecy. But surprisingly, the Piece of Resistance is found accidentally by a construction worker named Emmet, a paradigm of the mindless conformity that dominates Bricksburg. As the Master Builders learn more and more about Emmet, they trust him less and less. Even if he is the Special, he lacks the skills necessary to complete the mission. He is not even a Master Builder, and he shows no hint of creativity. Something is terribly wrong, but what? Emmet gets a chance to plead his case at a gathering of Master Builders “in the secret realm of Cloud Cuckoo Land.” Princess UniKitty welcomes the Master Builders to Cloud Cuckoo Land and explains its unique social order to Emmet: “We have no signs here, no rules, no government, no bedtimes, no babysitters…And there’s also no consistency.” Emmet introduces himself to the august assembly: “…I may not be a Master Builder…I’m not all that smart. And I’m not what you’d call a creative type. Plus, I’m generally unskilled. I know what you’re thinking. He’s the least qualified person in the world to lead us. And you are right.” “What is the last thing Lord Business expects Master Builders to do? Follow the instructions! You’re all so imaginative and talented. You can build things out of thin air. But you can’t work together as a team. Just imagine what could happen if you work together. You could save the universe!” And so Emmet proposes a ‘third way’. In contrast to mindless conformity or anarchic creativity, he suggests a middle course: conscious, intentional, voluntary cooperation. For the remainder of our adventure, this is the strategy that Emmet and the Master Builders adopt in their crusade to derail Lord Business’ diabolical schemes. To make matters worse, we learn that Vitruvius made up the prophecy in the first place “because I knew that whoever found the piece could become the Special because the only thing anyone needs to be special is to believe that you can be.” Sap! But perhaps Vitruvius was right after all. In the course of leading the Master Builders against Lord Business, Emmet does indeed become a Master Builder himself. A Master Builder “sees everything”; he understands that every piece has the potential (actually, is the potential) to participate in the creation of more complex structures. Master Builders share the vision of Aristotle (matter is pure potentiality) and Alfred North Whitehead (every being is potential for a new becoming). So far, we have a good story with some interesting philosophical and sociological insights but nothing more…yet. Then something amazing happens. Separated from the Special by Lord Business, the Piece of Resistance falls out of Lego World entirely. Who knew that was even a possibility? Who knew Lego World had borders or that there was anything beyond it? The Piece of Resistance is gone…and now all is certainly lost! But Emmet refuses to give up. He follows the Piece of Resistance right out of Lego World. He allows himself to free fall toward all but certain annihilation; but amazingly, he lands instead in another world , a world far, far removed from any of the many realms of Lego World. He finds himself in the basement of a house where a boy named Finn is playing with a gigantic Lego set that nearly fills the room. Then we hear Finn’s father’s footsteps ominously descending the cellar stairs. Finn’s father is “the man upstairs” we’ve heard references to throughout the movie; we discover that he is using these Legos to create a model for a major real estate development project. He has repeatedly instructed his son not to play with these Legos…but with no effect. At the beginning of the movie, perhaps before Finn was even born, Vitruvius issued another prophesy, “He is coming. Cover your butt.” It seems likely that ‘ancient’ prophesy referred precisely to just this moment. A confrontation between the boy and his father ensues, and in the process, the movie is decoded. It’s Tuesday night and Tuesday night is Taco night in Finn’s family (‘Taco Tuesday’). But Dad ( aka Lord Business) has a tube of Krazy Glue (Kra-Gl-e, i.e., Kragle) and tonight is the night when he plans to superglue all the Lego pieces together. Once the superglue takes hold, Lego World will be frozen solid forever. Throughout the movie, we are told that Lord Business plans to “end the world”. Now we understand what that means. What is a Lego piece but the potentiality to participate in the formation of novel, complex structures? But once Lord Business ‘freezes’ Lego World with his weapon of mass destruction (Krazy Glue), all potentiality will vanish. The Lego pieces will no longer be actual entities (beings) and Lego World will effectively cease to exist. We’re talking Heat Death here, folks! The temperature of Bricksville is about to drop…all the way to zero (zero degrees Kelvin, that is). We assumed that the Special would need to overcome Lord Business by force and use the Piece of Resistance to destroy the Kragle. Now we realize that we have misunderstood the true mission of the Special. It is not to overcome Lord Business by force of arms; it is to persuade him by force of argument to abandon his plans to destroy the world by freezing it. The Piece of Resistance turns out to be the cap to the Krazy Glue tube, and it must be voluntarily re-attached by Lord Business himself if Lego World is to be saved. Finn argues that it is totally unreasonable to expect a boy his age not to play with a huge Lego set in his basement. “We bought it at a toy store,” and he points out that the instructions on the box read, “Ages 8 to 14”. Through Emmet, his less vulnerable intermediary, Finn is empowered to say: “You don’t have to be the bad guy. You are the most talented, intelligent, extraordinary person, capable of amazing things. You are the Special…and so am I. The prophecy was made up…but it’s still true. You still can change everything.” At that moment Lord Business walks toward Emmet and gives him a hug…just as Dad walks toward Finn and hugs him. Finn/Emmet succeed; Dad/Lord Business decides to use the Piece of Resistance for its intended function, to cap the tube of superglue. Lego World is saved. Thanks to this surprise ending, a good story becomes great. But how are we to understand the ontology that makes this outcome possible? What is the relationship between Finn’s World and Lego World? One is tempted to say, “Simple! There is no ‘Lego World’ per se. It is just a part of Finn’s world. Lego World has no independent reality. Thoughts, words, actions ascribed to the Lego characters are really just Finn’s thoughts, words, actions.” This is certainly the Classical view…but it is not the position of the film itself! According to the Classical view, events in Lego World are entirely dependent on events in Finn’s world. There can be no conflict between the worlds because there really is only one world, Finn’s world, and Lego World is just part of it. In the language of pre-20th century philosophy, we would say that events in Lego World are completely determined by events in Finn’s World. In the language of mathematics, we would say that Lego World is a proper subset of Finn’s World. All consciousness, all awareness resides in Finn (and his dad). The Lego characters have no independent mental activity. Therefore, there can be no displacement between Finn’s consciousness and the consciousness of the characters he creates and directs. For the most part, the movie does not contradict this view. In most scenes, the apparent consciousness of the Lego characters can easily be understood as a mere projection of Finn’s consciousness. But unfortunately for the Classical view, there are exceptions to this generalization…more than enough exceptions to invalidate the hypothesis. For example, looking back through the movie, we see that there were several early clues that Lego World might be embedded in some larger reality. But because these clues pointed to things far beyond the experience of the Lego characters, and because at that point we were experiencing events solely through the eyes and ears of those Lego characters, we missed those clues. There was Vitruvius’ initial prophesy: “He is coming, cover your butt!” A warning undoubtedly intended for the future Finn but the Lego character who overhears the warning, a guard, merely says, “Cover what?”…and looks around, confused. The warning has no meaning in the context of the guard’s own experience. (Lego characters apparently don’t get spanked.) At various times in the movie, President Business (Finn’s dad) speaks in a manner that seems intended to resonate across worlds…but with slight differences of meaning for each. For example, he says, “Let’s take extra care to follow the (my?) instructions, or you’ll be put to sleep (bed?).” Emmet hears (or mishears) the warning and reacts: “Wait, did he say ‘put to sleep’?” But he gives it no further thought; the warning makes no sense in Emmet’s world. (Lego characters apparently don’t get sent to bed early, either.) According to the Classical model, warnings directed at Finn would be perceived by Finn and only by Finn, and only he would have understood them. But that is not what happens. Instead, we see that the information is spread between Finn’s World and Lego World and is understood differently, and incompletely, in each world. The two worlds share information but in the process of sharing, meaning is diluted. A new ‘uncertainty relation’? Bricksburg includes a collection of odd items that belong to Lord Business, items that seem out of place in Lego World. The Lego characters understand them as purposeless ‘relics’ of some unknowable ancient era, but we later come to understand that they are human artifacts, detritus of the organic world (Band-Aids, golf balls, etc.), that have somehow made their way into the Lego complex. The ultimate relic is the Piece of Resistance itself, a superglue cap that is certainly out of place in Lego World (as we noted earlier); but the anomaly is unappreciated by the Lego characters. The Lego characters have an awareness of these relics but because the relics are completely foreign to their experience, they cannot appreciate their significance or understand their purpose or their origin. For example, they mistake the Krazy Glue cap for some kind of WMD. Toward the end of the movie, when he falls out of Lego World into Finn’s cellar, Emmet is genuinely startled. He sees Finn but does not understand his relationship to the boy: “What in the world is that? It’s adorable.” Later, Emmet refers to Finn (in contrast to his dad) as “smaller creature”. Finn, of course, recognizes Emmet immediately and welcomes him by name, completely bewildering Emmet. There is an imbalance in their relationship caused by an asymmetrical distribution of information. Most convincingly, Emmet remains completely conscious even though he is outside Lego World and, initially at least, even outside of Finn’s awareness. In fact, Finn is so totally unaware of Emmet’s presence in his basement that he actually steps on him. There is no way to account for this if Lego World is merely a proper subset of Finn’s World. Emmet’s consciousness is clearly independent of Finn’s. He has a life of his own. In fact, it is now Emmet who takes control of events in Finn’s world. Emmet endeavors to get Finn’s attention and direct that attention toward the Piece of Resistance that is lying, previously unnoticed, on the basement floor. The asymmetrical distribution of information between the two heroes now favors Emmet. There is no way to account for this if Lego World is merely a projection of Finn’s consciousness. Finn notices Emmet’s gesture, reunites Emmet with the Piece of Resistance, and inserts Emmet back into Lego World: “It’s up to you now, Emmet.” So we have two worlds, related to one another yet independent of one another. Clearly, some information is shared by both worlds; just as clearly, each world has information that the other world lacks. Yet in the end, when the story line demands a single result, they both arrive at exactly the same conclusion at exactly the same moment in time. (Like Robert Frost’s ‘two paths’?) What kind of universe can account for these strange features? This one! In 1964, the great Irish mathematician, John Bell, asked about the information content of a simple system consisting of 2 ‘entangled’ quantum particles (e.g. two quantum particles with a common origin). He knew that measuring the state of one entangled quantum would give us reliable information about the state of the other quantum. But if the particles are distinct and independent, why should this be, and how could it be? Bell considered various classical explanations for this phenomenon but found that they did not precisely account for the phenomena he sought to model. He then developed an alternative, non-classical theory that did account for the phenomena in question. He reasoned that a pair of entangled particles must possess a finite amount of information. While that could be any amount, for our purposes, let’s ‘normalize’ the quantity and call it 1. So let “1” be the total information content of the system, denoted as “T” in the equation below: T = A + B (where A and B represent two quanta -Finn & Emmet) Now, if T = 1, then A and B must add up to 1. So, for example, A could equal 0.5 and B could equal 0.5, and that would be a perfectly valid model so long as A and B are entirely independent of one another. But that model doesn’t fit the data for entangled particles…or Lego movies. The model allows for no sharing of information and therefore there should be no significant correlation between measurements on A and measurements on B. But in fact such a correlation exists, so this model contradicts the demonstrated facts of Quantum Mechanics. So Bell constructed an alternative model (Bell’s Theorem) that he believed would better model the experimental results. For that model, he turned to a very simple formula called the “Sum of Squares”. (Most of us first encountered the Sum of Squares as the “Pythagorean Theorem”.) T² = A² + B² Now if T = 1, T² = 1 as well. Then A² + B² must also equal 1. Suppose A² = 0.5 and B² = 0.5. What does that mean for A and B? A = .7 and B = .7 (approximately). Now if we add A + B we find a combined information content of 1.4 (which also happens to be the square root of 2). But that’s also a problem because how can the information content of the parts exceed the information content of the whole? That would contradict the assumption that information is always conserved. So Bell came to the only possible conclusion. The extra 0.4 quantity of information is actually shared by the two particles; it exists in two places at once. So A has its own information content equal to 0.3 and B has its own information content equal to 0.3 and A and B share information content equal to 0.4. 0.3 + 0.3 + 0.4 = 1 Between them, the particles alone account for 70% of the total information content of the system, but because 40% of the total information content of the system is shared information, the total information content of the system remains equal to 1. Because information is shared by two particles separated by an indefinite distance, the universe modeled by Bell’s Theorem is called non-local. Events in such a universe do not happen in one place at a time. Instead, events happen in at least two places at a time, and those two places can be as far apart in space as you wish. What does Bell’s Theorem have to do with The Lego Movie ? Just everything! The movie’s narrative assumes, illustrates, and instantiates Bell’s Theorem. It is built on a non-local ontology. Bell’s phenomenon is exactly what we experience when we watch the film. The total information content is distributed between Finn’s World and Lego World. But it is not neatly divided, like a candy bar. Instead, some resides in Finn’s World and some resides in Lego World, and some resides in both places at once. Here’s how it works in our example: of the total information content, 30% resides solely in Finn’s World and 30% resides solely in Lego World but 40% resides both in Finn’s World and in Lego World. It’s no wonder that both Finn and the Lego characters misunderstand so much of the information they are given; each sees only 70% of the total picture. Bell’s Theorem is the best approach to understanding The Lego Movie . This is confirmed at the end of the film. Both Finn and Emmet attempt to influence Dad/Lord Business. Initially, their efforts are independent and follow different tracks. Gradually, however, the two approaches converge and ultimately, they merge completely. There is no way to be certain what the outcome will be…but it is absolutely certain that it will be definite…and the same in both worlds. In Quantum Mechanics, when it is no longer possible to maintain several possible outcomes at the same time, we say that “the wave function collapses”. That is exactly what happens in The Lego Movie . Finn’s World and Lego World offer radically different accounts of the same events and, so long as that persists, the outcome is undetermined. But once an outcome is required (by measurement, i.e., by the story line), the wave function collapses, and the two worlds become one. The predictions made by Quantum Mechanics (QM) are more accurate than those of any other theory in the history of science. That QM works is virtually beyond dispute; but why and how QM works is still a bit of a mystery. As a result, there are many different “interpretations of Quantum Mechanics”; here, we will quickly deal with just three: Quantum Mechanics interprets data using probability theory. Just as there is a probability that a craps player will roll a 7 and a reciprocal probability that she will roll some other number, so there is a probability of finding an electron at point A and a reciprocal probability of finding it someplace else. This interpretation gave us the paradox of Schrödinger’s Cat. The cat is locked in a box inside a hermetically sealed room; no contact with the outside world is possible. The cat’s life (or death) is dependent on a subatomic event that has a finite probability. Is the cat alive or dead? We can’t know without opening the box and according to this interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, the cat is both alive and dead until such an observation is made. Hugh Everett took Schrödinger’s theory even further. His “Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics” suggested that the cat was alive in one world and dead in another. At every quantum junction, the world bifurcates into two (or more) worlds corresponding to different outcomes. Everett’s bumper sticker reads, “Whatever can happen does happen, somewhere!” The third interpretation comes from Richard Feynman’s Sum over Histories . Like Schrödinger and Everett, Feynman proposes that the electron does indeed exist in all possible states at all times but that the final result is the sum of all such paths weighted by the relative probability of each. With Feynman, we keep ‘one world’ but that one world reflects contributions from all possible paths or outcomes. Which of these interpretations underlies our film? In The Lego Movie , there were two possible outcomes, either one of which might have occurred, but only one of which actually did occur. Bricksburg could not be both glued and unglued. So Schrödinger’s model doesn’t work. Likewise, we have already seen that Lego World and Finn’s World, while different, and not totally independent; throughout the movie they influence one another, however subtly. Ultimately, the two worlds actually merge, so Everett’s interpretation doesn’t work either. Feynman’s Sum over Histories is the QM model that The Lego Movie relies on. Separate but related events occur in the two worlds, but the outcome is simply the sum of the histories of these two worlds. If there was only one world, Lego or Finn’s, the end result would almost certainly have been different than it was. Neither Emmet nor Finn could have swayed Lord Business/Dad alone. It is because the unique histories of both worlds converge that the movie gets its triumphant finale. Image: The Lego Movie (2014), Warner Bros. Pictures, and John Stewart Bell, CERN, 1973. 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 Previous Next