< Back Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc David Cowles Jul 20, 2023 “Thank God we don’t really live in a world like that! Fortunately, it’s all just a bad dream, a media special effect, a trick of language. Now…if only I could just wake up!” We are mesmerized by the concept of causality. I cry - and someone feeds me, or changes me, or hugs me. Cool beans! Later, I learn that causality has a downside as well. “If you touch the stove, you get burned.” Not so cool after all. It seems as though everything has a cause and everything in turn causes something else, so perhaps we can be forgiven for concluding that there must be a causal link between what has been, what is now, and what will come to be. If B comes after A, then surely we’re entitled to infer that A causes B. We are content; the world makes sense. Then, sometime during high school, middle school if you’re ‘posh’, we are introduced to a memorable Latin phrase: Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Translation: After that - therefore because of that. (Everything sounds better in Latin, doesn’t it?) Perfect. Our intuition is validated! Except it’s not! ‘Post hoc ergo propter hoc ’ is introduced to us, not as a logical premise but as a logical fallacy : just because something comes after something else doesn’t mean that it was caused by that ‘something else’…or so we’re told. I shot Cock Robin, but I didn’t cause his death. He died months later from smoke inhalation as he tried to warn the family about a kitchen fire. I am not responsible! So, if we’re planning to continue our love affair with causality, we’ll need to find a more specific link between events than mere sequence, but that turns out to be more difficult than it seems…so difficult in fact that eminent Scottish philosopher, David Hume, threw up his hands in frustration. He denied the doctrine of causality per se , at least as it is conventionally presented. Instead, Hume developed an account of ‘perceived regularities’ that relies on concepts like repetition, memory, habit, consistency, coincidence, conjunction, and correlation. Unfortunately, Hume was ‘slightly ahead of his time’. He needed Chaos Theory to complete his model, but he died 100 years before Henri Poincare formulated the earliest version, 150 years before Alfred North Whitehead systematized it, 200 years before Benoit Mandelbrot elaborated it, and 250 years before ‘New Agers’ popularized it. Were Hume alive today, he would be in his glory. In 1964, John Bell proved that events with no possible causal connection could nonetheless be correlated. Today, we believe that correlation is a more general feature of nature than causality, the latter being at most a special case of the former. Of course, that leaves open the question of whether it is useful or meaningful to retain causality even as a concept. Today, we are all either full-Hume or ¾-Hume. Per Whitehead (above), when any event occurs, it occurs in the context of a World (W) that it inherits. That World begins as mere Multiplicity (M), a ‘jumble’ (that’s a technical term in physics) of all prior events in Universe, unordered. The upsurge of an event can only take place in the context of an ordered inherited World (W); but since M is, by definition, entirely disordered, it is the emerging event itself that must inject that order. Of course, this is a reversal of how we conventionally understand ‘process’; but as we’ll see below, the conventional understanding of process is actually a misunderstanding based on bias embedded in our language. For now, it is sufficient just to note that a revised notion of process is a necessary consequence of our contention that all events are sui generis . That said, every event incorporates influences from every event in the Multiplicity (M). In M, events relate to one another chaotically. There are no gradations of relevance. An entity’s transformation of Multiplicity into World injects a logos of graded relevance into M: every W forms a crystalline endoskeleton, which enables novelty and order to co-exist. The cause of any B (to the extent that we even wish to retain the concept of ‘causality’) is never any one ‘thing’ (A) or any selective group of things; it is always the entirety of things in M as those things are ordered in W. Every W is a unique expression of M and every event is a unique expression of W. In the end it’s ‘one world, one event; one event, one world’! So determinism? No, anti-determinism! Remember, it is the emerging event that confers order (W) onto chaos (M), not the other way around as Laplace would have had it. The process by which an event forms and uploads its World is organic, never mechanical (determined). It’s hard to talk about, isn’t it? That’s because of that darned Tower of Babel (a Biblical metaphor for linguistic dysfunction)! It is only possible to model ‘the process of becoming’ using verbs in the Middle Voice , but that voice that is no longer functional in most modern Indo-European languages. Middle Voice is the voice of reciprocity, of co-evolution, of granting others ‘reck’, of respecting lebensraum , of wishing ‘Shalom’, but we are forced to work just with verbs in the Active or Passive Voice – these are the voices of traditional causality…and of war, imperialism, tyranny, persecution, you name it… Thank God we don’t really live in a world like that! Fortunately, it’s all just a bad dream, a media special effect, a trick of language. Now…if only I could just wake up! Keep the conversation going! 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. 4. Aletheia Today Magazine (ATM) will be devoting its entire fall issue (released 9/1/23) to artificial intelligence (AI). What are the philosophical, theological, cultural and even spiritual implications of AI powered world? If you’d like to contribute to the AI Issue, click here . 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 Teaching Physics in the 21st Century David Cowles Schools will soon be reopening with kids returning to begin a new school year. Now is the time to begin thinking about the fall curriculum. In this article, we outline a 10-unit physics curriculum for grades four through eight, all based on The Yellow Submarine. (Editor’s Note: ATM Issue #1 included a feature article, Science & The Yellow Submarine – Part I . As promised, Part II will be published in ATM Issue #3 (9/1/2022). In the meantime, schools will soon be reopening with kids returning to begin a new school year. Now is the time to begin thinking about the Fall curriculum. In this article, we outline a 10-unit physics curriculum for grades 4 through 8, all based on the Yellow Sub.) “Physics is too hard…and it’s oh so boring! Besides, when will I ever use it?” Sound familiar? These are the same complaints we’ve heard from students for generations. Heck, I probably said the very same things myself when I was in high school. 125 years ago, lack of formal training in the ‘hard sciences’ was no obstacle to understanding, appreciating, and participating in the world. After all, science still more or less accepted the tenets of ‘naïve realism’: i.e., the world for the most part is the way it appears to be. High school dropouts and Ivy League professors shared this same basic world view. The principal task of scientific inquiry during the Enlightenment (1700 – 1900) was to explain how it is that things are the way they are and to explore how those things could be put to work for our benefit. It did not ask why because the assumption from the start was that there is no why; what is just is! Although he probably didn’t realize it at the time, the physicist Enrico Fermi blew the top off this Newtonian world view in 1900 after conducting a series of rather arcane experiments. Fermi asked how so-called ‘black bodies’ emit radiation. Commonsense suggests that radiation emitted by a black body should be made up of a continuous spectrum of wavelengths. Fermi’s experiments showed that commonsense was wrong. ( Side bar : At the time this conclusion was startling. Today, we would just say, oh well, commonsense is wrong again – as usual!) Fermi discovered that radiation emitted by a black body is emitted, not across a continuous spectrum of wave lengths, but at one of just a few discrete wavelengths. Radiation might be emitted with a wavelength of X or a wavelength of Y but not with a wavelength somewhere between X and Y. Of course, the scientific establishment’s initial reaction was to doubt the experimental results, and failing that, to tweak the Newtonian model as little as possible to accommodate the new data. The ‘academy’ responded in just this way to every new scientific breakthrough. First reaction, “there’s something wrong with the data”; and when that argument collapses, “how can we tweak the prevailing model as little as possible?” Prior to Galileo, and even afterwards in some quarters, each new astronomical observation was shoehorned into the Ptolemaic model, tweaking that model as little as possible to accommodate the new data points. Awful, right? Wrong! The scientific community is doing just exactly what it should be doing: responding to new data, first with healthy skepticism, and then by ‘minimally modifying’ its current models to accommodate the vetted new data. We wouldn’t have it any other way! Think of it as an extension of Occam’s Razor. But sometimes, this conservative strategy breaks down. Galileo and Copernicus, for example, realized that the new astronomical data could not be reasoned away or neatly folded into the Ptolemaic model. Sometimes, as the Cars pointed out in their hit song, Drive , “You can’t go on thinking nothing’s wrong!” Sometimes, revolution is the only option. Who among us, sitting on his recliner, drinking a beer, and watching the game on TV, is anxious for revolution? But it happens, and when it happens, Katie bar the door: it’s open season and there are no sacred cows; the entire corpus of scientific ‘knowledge’ is opened to scrutiny. That’s just what happened, beginning in 1900. A year earlier, few scientists, if any, thought that Newtonian cosmology would ever be replaced by a different framework. Who could even imagine what such a framework might look like? The validity of Newton’s scheme seemed unassailable; today it lies in shambles! 20th century scientists painstakingly dismantled Newton’s model, unraveling the entire ball of yarn that was 19th century cosmology. First, Einstein showed that space and time, assumed to be ultimate physical constants, were in fact ‘relative’ to one other and to mass and to motion. Then another gaggle of geeks built a fresh model of the universe based on Fermi’s findings. The new model included discrete packets of energy (quanta) in lieu of a smooth spectrum of continuous values. It would not be too much of an exaggeration to say that pretty much everything we thought we knew in 1899 about the structure of the universe was wrong! So far, so good. It is entirely appropriate that new scientific paradigms should replace older theories and their retreads. But still, ‘something’s wrong.’ In 1899, a high school dropout had about the same view of the universe as a member of Harvard’s physics faculty. Today, only a handful of non-specialists understand the latest developments in theoretical and experimental physics, and this is a problem. Given a test, I wager that 95% of American adults would describe the universe in essentially Newtonian terms. Outside of science fiction (thank God for sci-fi), Relativity and Quantum Mechanics have for the most part not yet spilled out of the academy into the streets. As a result, we live in a world whose workings are understood by just a handful of people. “Danger, Will Robinson!” This state-of-affairs threatens the fabric of society. A tiny cadre of cognoscenti presides over the intellectual life of the planet. You might describe today’s scientifically educated as ‘Oligarchs of Information.’ In a democracy, ignorance itself can be dangerous. We ask our electorate to guide the ship of state; well and good, but are we entirely comfortable with this arrangement knowing that that guidance will likely be based on 300-year-old notions of what is real and what isn’t? For us as religious educators, the problem is even more acute. How do we teach young people about the majesty of God and the justice of his Kingdom when they are working with a mechanical model of reality? I believe the Beatles’ classic movie, Yellow Submarine (1968) can be a powerful teaching tool for students, especially for students in grades four through eight. “I know your game, Dealer! I know you’re using all this cool music and all these cool graphics just to get our kids hooked.” You’re absolutely right! That’s exactly what I’m doing. And let me tell you, if you are going to get a kid hooked on science, this is your chance! But how do we hook a kid on science if we can’t find a way to make it interesting? Not by teaching the properties of pulleys and inclined planes, that’s for sure. Fact : Science is fascinating! Young people instinctively love it. Idea : Instead of teaching science from the bottom-up (“Don’t worry, you’ll get to the interesting stuff in college”), let’s try teaching from the top down. Expose as many students as possible, as early as possible, to the mind-bending ideas of 20th century physics; then see what happens! This is the age when kids are most likely to be interested in comic books and graphic novels, and Yellow Submarine is the ultimate graphic novel (ok, film)! Are you ‘on board’ (pun intended)? Then take a look at this basic outline of a 10-unit lesson plan that turns the movie, Yellow Submarine , into a physics textbook no student can put down. ( Note : I have no preconception regarding the length or spacing of these ’10 Lessons.’ Each lesson could last an hour…or a lot longer. Each lesson could be taught in succession, one day one lesson. Or each lesson could be spaced over several class periods so that it would take 10 weeks to complete the program. The good news is, ‘It doesn’t matter!’ Any of these formats will work!) Welcome aboard! Lesson #1 : Welcome to the Yellow Submarine Introduce the Beatles, the film and the '60s culture. Watch the film together, if possible, otherwise in small groups or at home. Question: “Do we live in Pepperland? How so? How not?” Question: “Ok then, do we live in Liverpool? How so, how not?” Note students’ initial responses to both questions and compare them with what they have to say at the end of the course. Lesson # 2 : The Pier Question: “How is life on the Pier different from the life we’re used to?” Introduce the basics of Hugh Everett’s Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics: roughly, whatever can happen does happen… somewhere (i.e., in some ‘world’). Introduce concepts from Stephen Gould’s book, It’s a Wonderful Life : roughly, species are the way they are, but they could just as well have been very different. Could there be more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy? Question: “What happens to the world when we’re not looking at it?” Does it just continue on as is? Does it continue on, but not as is? Or does it simply vanish until we look again? How do we know? Lesson # 3 : The Sea of Time Question: “What is time?” Introduce the basics of Einstein’s theory of relativity. Question: “Can you imagine a world without time?” What would it be like? Would you like to live in such a world? Question: “Ok then, can you imagine a world with time but where time somehow works differently from the way it does here?” How could time be different? Can you design a world you’d like to live in? Introduce examples from Einstein’s Dreams Introduce the topic of time travel: what are the main problems? Question: “If you could travel in time , where (what year or era) would you most like to visit? Why?” Question: “If you could move back and forth in time, what age would you choose to be? Older? Younger? Or the same age you are now? Why?” Lesson # 4 : The Sea of Science (Space) Introduce basic concepts in Topology. Question: “Can you describe the topology of our world?” Question: “Can you imagine a world with a different topology? What would it be like to live in such a world? Introduce the Platonic Solids Introduce the Holographic Principle The information content of a space is proportionate to its surface area, not its volume. Lesson # 5 : The Sea of Monsters Introduce concepts from D’arcy Thompson’s On Growth and Form . Revisit concepts from Stephen Gould’s It’s a Wonderful Life . Design a life form that incorporates organs from more than one species. Design a life form that incorporates both organic and mechanical features. In what ways have we already begun to break down the barriers between species and between the organic and the mechanical? Transplanting a pig’s heart into a human Installing a Pacemaker Installing an Artificial heart Lesson # 6 : The Dreaded Vacuum Monster (VM). Question: “Why is the Vacuum Monster ‘dreaded?’ Review the actions of VM: the sequence, e.g. Introduce the concept of Entropy. Question: “How is the Vacuum Monster like Entropy?” Introduce the concept of an ‘ouroboros.’ Question: “Is our universe an ouroboros? Is it fated to consume itself?” Question: “Why does VM consume itself?” Question: “Is anything left after VM does its worst? If so, what?” Question: “Why does the Submarine and its crew survive?” Introduce Jeremy Hillary Boob, PhD. Lesson # 7 : Dr. Boob. Introduce the concept of Information: roughly, the difference between what is and what could have been. Analyze Dr. Boob’s dialog: “Do you speak English? ‘Old English, Middle English, a dialect pure.’ But do you speak English? "You know, I’m not sure.” Question: “What’s the difference between useful and useless information?” Question: “Does information need to ‘know’ itself to be useful?” Question: “Why do they call Dr. Boob, ‘the nowhere man?’” Question: “How does JHB go from being a ‘nowhere man’ to being a ‘somewhere man?’” “What makes someone be a somewhere person?” Lesson # 8 : The Foothills of the Headlands Question: “What would life be like if you had a mind but no body?” Question: “Would you rather be ‘embodied’ or ‘disembodied?’ Would you rather live in RL or in VR?” Question: “How is a mind different from a body? Can you have either one without the other?” Supplemental material: Max Headroom (TV Series), The Matrix (Films), Alice in Wonderland (The Cheshire Cat). Lesson # 9 : The Sea of Holes & the Sea of Green Introduce the concepts of ‘figure & ground,’ ‘being & nothingness.’ Introduce the concept of a ‘cosmic membrane,’ an ‘event horizon.’ Question: How is the Sea of Green like an event horizon? Question: “Why do you think the Beatles included a ‘Sea of Green’ on the way to Pepperland? What does it do? Why is it important?” Question: “Why do you think the Beatles made these two seas the last two seas on the journey?” Lesson # 10 :Pepperland at last! Question: “What are the main features of Pepperland? Question: “How is Pepperland like Liverpool? How is it different?” Question: “Would you want to live in Pepperland forever if you could? Why? Or why not?” Question: “Now that you know all about life in Pepperland, do you feel better or worse about your own life?” Repeat the questions from Lesson #1: “Do we live in Pepperland? How so? How not?” “Or do we live in Liverpool? How so? How not?” “Or both? If both, how both?” Let’s talk about the trip we’ve just taken: “Did you have fun?” “Along the way, did you learn anything about the world you live in?” “Can you use anything you learned from the trip to make your life better?” Provisional thesis : Like all great works of art, there will never be a ‘definitive interpretation’ of Yellow Submarine . That’s the beauty of masterpieces: they speak to everyone in every era, but they also say different things to different people – all of them valid, all of them true. My own, personal and, and totally tentative understanding? There is only one world: Pepperland, Liverpool and wherever your classroom happens to be located. Liverpool is the spatiotemporal aspect of reality; Pepperland is the eternal aspect of the same events. The branes (seas) are layers of reality (time, space, body, mind, information, le neant ). Both Pepperland and Liverpool can be broken down into these component branes. David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com. Previous Next

“The reason most people don’t believe in God is that they haven’t fully considered the alternative.” < Back God is a Bother! David Cowles Jul 15, 2024 “The reason most people don’t believe in God is that they haven’t fully considered the alternative.” I must reject the ‘God Hypothesis’. Fortunately, I live in a culture that is only too willing to help me do just that. I can take comfort in the fact that ‘nobody believes in God anymore’ anyway. Plus, the very idea that there is a God makes no sense. Where is he? Why doesn’t he step out of the shadows and show himself? And if he really is benevolent and omnipotent, how is it that the world is such a disaster? (I sound a lot like impatient Job, don’t I?) To protect ourselves against the concept of God, we have constructed an atheistic mythology that would have made the Greeks and the Vikings jealous. First, we accept the fact that we are mortal. You are not, then you are, then you aren’t again. What’s the matter with that? It’s true of everything, isn’t it? Yes, it does seem so…for everything outside me, everything in my ‘external world’, that is. This does not necessarily mean that it’s true of ‘me’, of my internal world. We define entities in our external world in terms of what they are. Sartre called it ‘ etre en soi ’, being in itself. A rose is a rose. It’s not a caterpillar. It’s not undifferentiated ground. It’s a figure; it’s a rose. ‘No rose → Rose → No rose’ is the cycle of life! And you? Well, you have no experience of ‘No you’…and you never will. What were things like for you before you were born? What do you think they’ll be like after you die? Hamlet notwithstanding, we have no a priori reason to imagine that the ‘afterlife’ will be any different from the ‘forelife’. For us, internally, there’s just ‘life’. We intuit a beginning and an end but we can have no experience of either. Your internal world is just you . For you, life just is. What you experience changes constantly, but you do not change at all…ever. You experience everything; but you, yourself, are not like anything you experience. You are the still point at the center of a circle. Relative to entities in the external world, you are nothing . Put differently, you exist in the eternal world ‘for others’ but not ‘for yourself’. Everything in your external world is what it is and is not what it is not. You, on the other hand, are not what you are and are what you are not. So what? Look, I had a life, on the whole, a good life. Why should I be afraid of death? Everything comes to be, everything perishes, I’m no different. Anyway, we’ll always have Paris. We sometimes wonder how the Greeks could have believed that a lecherous and incestuous extended family of gods, camped out on a mountain top, controlled the world’s affairs. Why wonder? We subscribe to a mythology that is every bit as fantastic – no, more so! The Greeks at least believed in ‘what is’. We are, gods are, things happen! Once our shadow (shade) has crossed the Styx, mythology, the 'maker of heaven and earth’ and ‘all things bright and beautiful’ - clearly, God, if he existed, could not be ignored. And that’s a spot of bother for us 21st century sophisticates. I am used to being the captain of my own ship. I fought with my parents for 18+ years just to secure my ‘right to self-determination’. I’m not about to surrender that to some invisible ‘spirit-in-the-sky’. We’re just getting revved up. We believe in ‘what is not’. Our mythology begins at the riverbank (Dante). So it all comes back to Paris. What else? It always does. Either we never had Paris, or we once had Paris, or we’ll always have Paris. Well, we certainly had Paris! How do I know? I remember it. But also, it has shaped all the subsequent events in my life, and it will continue to do so as long as there are ‘events’ in my life to shape. But what happens to Paris when I die? Well, of course, you couldn’t know this, but the city will levitate 250 feet into the air and begin to rotate…or it won’t. One thing for sure though, I won’t have Paris anymore because there will be no me to have anything, no me to remember anything, no me to be shaped by anything. When I am nothing, my experiences will necessarily be nothing too. Unless you think that my experiences somehow survive me…which would make you a budding theist. No offense! But since I no longer have Paris, I must conclude that I never had Paris. To assume without evidence that a phenomenon known as Paris somehow occupies space within The No Paris Continuum would violate Occam’s Razor. I have absolutely no warrant whatsoever to affirm the prior existence of something that has no current trace or consequence. I might as well believe, like some modern physicists, that the Universe hatched from ‘a goose egg’. To assert otherwise would be to posit the survival of some sort of ‘experiential self’ after the moment of physical death. If you go down that rabbit hole, I’ll have you reciting the Nicaean Creed before dinner. The reason most people do not believe in God is that they haven’t fully considered the alternative. Death cannot be understood as ‘turning out the lights’. The lights are ‘off’ only if there’s someone who remembers their being ‘on’. ‘Off/on’ implies that there is a light; if there’s no ‘off/on’ then there’s no light…and there is no Paris and there never was. In my view, such nihilism is a necessary corollary of a secular, atheistic world view. But in that case, non-existence is the best possible outcome. Actually, it’s the only possible outcome; right? Yes and no. As regards the external world – yes; as regards my internal world – uncertain. Prince Hamlet: “Ay, there’s the rub. For in that sleep of death what dreams may come…must give us pause.” We know the world, but we do not know that ‘undiscovered county’ beyond it. The world, as we think we know it, may or may not exist; God, as we think we know him, may or may not exist. But I am. I exist, and ‘I am’ is what is. (Descartes) According to Exodus 3:14, ‘I am’ is God (YHWH). That means I must be an image, a likeness or a reflection of God. But if there is no God, what then does it mean to be ‘I am’? According to this model, any sort of consciousness or self-awareness, however ubiquitous in the biosphere, could only be an accidental by-product of something more fundamental. If you’re not terrified right now, then you don’t understand what you’ve just read. Let’s get caught up. You exist. God and the world may or may not exist, but you exist. If there is no Providence, no God, the quality of that existence is entirely undeterminable. Concoct your worst terror; there’s no reason to believe that will not be your fate, eternally. Either there are eternal values and a benevolent God who embodies them and leaves his impress on the Universe…or there aren’t. If there aren’t, then Being is amoral, there are no objective values, and anything physically possible may happen, no matter how horrific. Surveying the world, there is every reason to believe that without God, things would be unremittingly horrific. Anything may happen and over time what may happen must happen. You have no protection, no avenue of appeal, no one to whom to plead your case. You are Job…without the Whirlwind. Kay sera, sera! – and there’s nothing you or anyone else can do about it. What’s that you plead, “I am a good person. Surely this will not happen to me.” Yes, it will! You are not a ‘good person’, not because you’ve done anything wrong, but because in this Universe there is literally no such thing as Good …or bad; there just is! Good, bad; God, no God. It’s all the same. It all just is. Belief in God is not a choice; it’s a compulsion, a survival mechanism – a compulsion, of course, that can be overcome, but to do so is to accept an absolutely unbearable level of doubt and dread. Without God, no ‘good’ outcome is possible (because there’s no such thing as Good). In a universe where Good is at home, it is easy to recognize and perhaps contain Evil. But without Good… Theology is the study of what could be in a Universe that supports Value (Good). If the Universe does not support Value, there is no God and theology is without content. There is only what happens ; and that is pretty scary! 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 . purpose and devotion. Return to our 2024 Beach Read Share Previous Next Click here. 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< Back 1500 CE David Cowles Apr 3, 2025 “Machiavelli became the Godfather of a pretty unsavory crime family…to which we all now belong!” Historians love to shoehorn events into discrete periods of time they call ‘ages’: Classical, Medieval, Renaissance, Enlightenment, Modern, and of course, Post Modern, for example. As if everyone wakes up one morning and cries out in unison, “ Today a new age has dawned!” (Well, something like that did happen in my lifetime…if you’ll allow me to count as ‘one morning’ the decade between the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (8/10/64), which ended one era of American history, and the Fall of Saigon (4/30/75), which began another. But abrupt changes are exceptions to the norm.) More often, one day bleeds into another, and another. Sure, things change over time, but not in unison and not in ways that permit precise demarcation. Of course, we can invent demarcations to our hearts content. I’ve done it! Perhaps I just did (above). But that doesn’t make those lines real. The year 1500 CE might be another, much neater, exception. A strong case can be made that 1500, give or take, marked the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance. Most historians would set that date much earlier, as early as 1300. They are eager to document the first green shoots of the Renaissance while I am just as eager to preserve the last sere leaves of the Middle Ages. We’re both wrong, of course. We’ve allowed our conflicting ideologies to influence our critical judgment. In fact, the Middle Ages had no end and the Renaissance no beginning. It’s all just history ! Even so, 1500 was a watershed. In fact, the entire last half of the 15th century was an especially volatile time, politically, culturally, and philosophically, in the cradle of the Renaissance, Florence – from the deaths of Fra Angelico (1455), the last great painter of the Middle Ages, and Cosmo de Medici (1464) to the proclamation of a Theocratic Republic by Fra Savonarola (1494) and his subsequent execution (March 1498). Two months later, Machiavelli, the great prophet of the Renaissance, became Secretary of the now secularized Florentine Republic (May 1498). Two years later (1500) Leonardo returned to Florence, kicking off the visual eruption we now know as ‘Renaissance Art’. Da Vinci was quickly followed by Michelangelo, Titian, Tintoretto, Raphael, Correggio, et al. But the greatest achievements of this fraught half century were not in politics or art but in philosophy. The last three great Medieval philosophers wrote, taught, and generally dominated intellectual life in Florence up to 1499. Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, and Fra Savonarola were friends and sometimes allies and they shared some common philosophical perspectives. Consistent with the Middle Ages, their philosophies were theocentric; but steeped in Classical culture, they drew ideas and illustrative material from a much wider spectrum of periods and cultures than most of their predecessors. But now fast forward to 1498. In March of that year, Savonarola, the last great philosopher-stateman of the Middle Ages, was executed by the citizens of his city. In May of that same year, Machiavelli, the first ‘great’ philosopher-statesman of the Renaissance assumed the position of Secretary of the Republic. In a period of less than 60 days, the entire orientation of Western ethics was turned upside down. Savonarola’s career marked the last gasp of ‘right for right’s sake’ morality. Instead, Machiavelli introduced Europe to ‘the ethics of instrumentality’, encapsulated in his famous meme, “The ends justify the means.” It is the nature of the historical process to veer ‘from one extreme to another’. If Savonarola went too far, the ‘ethical wasteland’ of the past 500 years seems a tad of an overreaction. Somewhat surprisingly, Machiavelli seems to have admired ‘the great Savonarola’, as he called him. ‘Seems’ because Machiavelli’s writing is often ironic, and it is sometimes difficult to determine whether his expressions of exuberant praise for various cultural figures are sincere or facetious. His only issue with the friar seems to be the latter’s failure to build a military force capable of defending his cultural revolution. Machiavelli, the anti-Gandhi, thought of ‘non-violent revolution’ as an oxymoron. That said, Machiavelli supported militarism only as necessary and only as a means to a better end. In 1508 he wrote a hilarious epic poem describing the chaotic and violent fortunes of the Italian city states from 1494 - 1508. His flair for the absurd presaged the styles of some 20th century authors, e.g. Ionesco and Beckett. The same ethical ambiguity clouded his political views. He understood that a Republic was the best form of government for Florence, but he believed a Republic could only succeed if it followed a period of tyranny. Freedom and Democracy could only prosper if they were imposed, harshly if necessary: You will be free, you will self-govern, whether you like it or not! Buoyed by the prospect of a coercive modern state, Machiavelli willingly built his utopia on a most fragile foundation: “…the people are by nature variable; to convince them of something is easy; to hold them to that conviction is hard. Therefore, a prophet must be ready, when they no longer believe, to make them believe by force.” He cites the careers of Moses, Cyrus, Theseus, and Romulus in support of this thesis. We are a long way, historically and philosophically, from Locke, Mill and the founders of American democracy, but I am reminded of Benjamin Franklin's quip in response to a citizen asking, “What sort of government have you given us?” – A republic, if you can keep it! Wait, where have I heard that before? Oh yeah, at my Marxist-Leninist day camp. A dictatorship (of the proletariat) must precede the withering away of the state and the ultimate triumph of pure communism. Some Marxists even out did Karl. George Sorel, Franz Fannon, and Uncle Joe (Stalin), for example, like Machiavelli, believed that violence was a necessary spiritual purgative if a revolution was to have any hope of lasting success. And where did they hear that? From the pens of Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety ( aka the French Revolutionaries). However brilliant his mind and however benevolent his intent, Machiavelli became Godfather of a pretty unsavory crime family (not the Medici)…to which we all now belong! Image: Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Detail of Allegory of Good Government, 1338, fresco, Gothic art, Sienese School, Palazzo Pubblico, Siena. Fondazione Musei Senesi. 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 Wonder School “Learning begins with curiosity and children are nothing but question-boxes.” David Cowles 1250 words, 6 minute read Would you send your child to a school that didn’t teach reading, writing or arithmetic? Suppose that same school had a track record of producing PhD’s too young to toast their own success? It’s a wonder that anyone in our society learns anything at all. We have turned the whole process of education upside down. We begin by teaching abstract tools, the three Rs, before we give students any sense of how to use these tools IRL. We have modeled our educational system on ‘machine learning’. We educate our children as if they were LLMs (AI for you muggles) and they’re not! This is not how humans work. We set goals, guided by transcendental values such as Beauty, Truth, and Justice, and then we design, assemble or manufacture tools to help us achieve those goals. Our education system reverses the process. We drown our children in tool making exercises, long before they have any inkling of why they might want such tools. To paraphrase Jacques Ellul, we suppress curiosity and purpose in favor of La Technique , technical skill. Only children who manage to swim up through the swamp’s tangled undergrowth to reach the surface are allowed to climb onto lily pads and contemplate the stars. Those who do not make it to the surface, the majority as it turns out, are considered just so much collateral damage . Even those who do make it are often ‘changed’ by the ordeal. Some no longer have any interest in lily pads or stars; they are content to gorge themselves on the lavish buffet spread out on the swamp’s surface. Others are just grateful for the relative security of the pad. They are content to live out their days in sloth, never bothering to raise their heads (“Don’t look up”). Not satisfied with the severity of ‘kill or be killed’ natural selection, we have added an arbitrary layer of cultural selection. Brilliant! We apply the same logic to the education of physicians. Day One, the med school class is full of young idealists, anxious to devote their lives to the wellbeing of humanity generally and the welfare of their own patients specifically. We soon put an end to that! Suppose you’re the evil overlord of some hostile alien civilization (R U?). Your job is to stifle intellectual development on Planet Earth. How do you do that when the planet is covered with 2 and 3 year olds, chirping like hungry chicks in a nest, asking their never-ending questions. Your predecessor in this job, Herod the Great (c. 0 CE), came up with a clever solution: Slaughter all 2 year old ‘boys’ (sic)! But how did that work out? Now you’ve been sent to come up with a more effective, and possibly less abhorrent, solution. According to the Handbook of 20th Century Atrocities , when you cannot eradicate some social phenomenon by force, the next best thing is to co-opt it. And so you did! You designed an education ‘system’, powered by curiosity, but virtually guaranteed to extinguish that curiosity. You’re a marvel! Would you mind if I put your name in the hat for a Nobel? Or would that be an anti-Nobel? Your genius was to insert a layer of technique (the legendary 3 R’s) between the questions and their answers. “I’d love to answer your questions, Susie, but first you need to master trigonometry. Let me know when you’ve done that, and then I’ll be glad to help you.” Learning begins with curiosity and children are nothing but question-boxes. Why wouldn’t they be? They are thrown naked, ignorant, and defenseless onto an alien shore (Earth). They can’t afford to be bored…yet; their survival depends on figuring things out…quickly. From their first cry in the delivery room to the last gasp on their death bed, they are collecting data points for their own personal Mappa Mundi . Perhaps a future generation of extra-terrestrial overlords will see some value in Earthlings’ insatiable curiosity. In anticipation of such an eventuality, I propose a pilot project, a test market. Let’s set up a small chain of magnet schools; we’ll call them Wonder Schools . Our motto: “Today’s question is tomorrow’s Nobel!” So if my Wonder Schools are not going to teach the 3 R’s, what will they teach? The curriculum will grow out of the specific interests of the students and their teachers. No two schools, no two grade levels, no two semesters will be the same. To accommodate the wide range of students’ curiosity, we’ll need to ‘stock’ our schools with enthusiastic, creative teachers who have multi-disciplinary interests. Our curriculum will emerge from the ground up, student directed. If this sounds a bit like 4th/5th century (BCE) Greece, or 9th century (CE) monastic Europe, or 15th/16th century Italy (Renaissance), I’m ok with that. Traditional miseducation introduces new subjects to students as they mature biologically. We will not do that! Our pre-K curriculum will mirror our Grade 12 curriculum…but at a very different level of depth, obviously. We will teach Quantum Mechanics to toddlers. Geometry will be non- Archimedean . Topology will be non-orientable . Set theory will be taught without Bertrand Russell’s precious Axiom of Foundation . We understand learning as a lifelong spiral, not a straight line. Of course, students will not study every subject every year; but neither is it ‘one and done’. Older students will often choose to re-explore, at a deeper level, subjects that they were exposed to at a younger age. And what about those pesky 3 Rs? Can you do university level work without the ability to read or do arithmetic? Of course not! So we’ll have special skill workshops . When a student wants to learn to read or write or do math, we’ll have resource rooms available for them…but the impetus to learn must come from the students themselves. And of course our schools will be full of musical instruments and art supplies to enable students to be creative in multimedia. James Joyce ( Ulysses ) described the world as ‘signs we are here to read’. The Wonder School takes Joyce seriously. We trust our students to pick out the signs; we’ll help them read them. David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Click the cover image to return to Holy Days 2024. Previous Next

< Back When All Is Not So Merry and Bright Donna Bucher "Hidden grief whispers loud among us, especially at Christmas, as we navigate losses too often dismissed or unacknowledged—but even in the pain, there’s a gift waiting to be unwrapped." The simple task of writing Christmas cards usually fills me with joy as I pour heartfelt words onto each glitter-edged card. But this year, like a sudden cloud blocking the sun, sadness lingers over my desk. The hidden grief that surfaces at Christmas reminds me that not everything is merry and bright. Grief, in its many forms, visits countless homes during the holidays. Some mourn the absence of loved ones lost to death, their places at the table empty and deeply missed. But another kind of grief—a quieter, often unacknowledged one—settles in many hearts. This is disenfranchised grief , a sadness that goes unnamed and unvalidated, leaving its sufferers struggling to understand or express their pain. Disenfranchised grief often arises from losses that society dismisses or deems less significant because they aren’t tied to death. Losses like the death of a pet, divorce, estranged relationships, miscarriage, health challenges, or job loss carry the same weight of sorrow. Yet those who experience these losses often receive little support, their pain unseen. At its core, grief is a natural response to brokenness in all its forms. But when left unacknowledged, it becomes a hidden burden, silencing its sufferers and forcing them to pretend all is well. Pen poised in hand, I pause. My thoughts drift to Christmases past—filled with carols, laughter, and joy. Yet the present feels heavy. Empty places at the table, missing names in my address book, and the deep clefts in my heart overshadow my attempts to write. Hidden grief, like the ghost of Christmas past, casts a shadow over the season’s promises of joy and togetherness. This grief is not limited to death. It includes the silent sorrow of wayward children, broken relationships, or the sting of health and financial struggles. These hidden losses are just as real, and the pain they bring is just as profound. My training in grief counseling helped me recognize hidden grief, both in others and in myself. Acknowledging and naming this grief gave it meaning, allowing healing to begin. I learned that to heal, I first had to validate my own sorrow—something no one else could do for me. When I brought my hidden grief to God, I discovered His ability to redeem even the deepest pain. Embracing grief meant seeing it from His perspective, as part of a greater story. Like unwrapping a beautifully wrapped gift, I had to tear through the layers of pain to uncover the treasure within. The holidays often heighten the longing for beauty, harmony, and joy. When life feels fragmented—when relationships are strained, health falters, or finances fall short—it’s as though graffiti has been scrawled across the perfect picture we imagine for Christmas. But even in these moments, God meets us. The same God who chose to enter our broken world through a lowly birth and a life marred by rejection understands grief intimately. Isaiah 53:3 describes Jesus as “despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” Though we often associate this verse with His death, it also speaks to His birth and life. Born into circumstances surrounded by shame and gossip, Jesus bore the weight of grief from the very beginning. In the same way, our hidden grief often carries a sense of shame—whether from wayward children, divorce, or financial struggles. But God sees beyond these labels. He understands every sorrow, even when others do not. If your Christmas feels broken, joyless, or incomplete, remember that God holds you in your pain. Just as torn wrapping paper reveals a gift, suffering often reveals something valuable. Embracing grief allows us to see what remains with fresh eyes: the love we shared, the memories we cherish, and the hope for what lies ahead. Here are some ways to navigate hidden grief during the holidays: Acknowledge your grief : Recognize that grief is a natural response to loss and brokenness, whether tied to death or not. Allow yourself to grieve : Even if others don’t understand your sorrow, give yourself permission to process your feelings. Accept the loss : Whether it’s the loss of a relationship, independence, or health, grief cannot heal until the loss is acknowledged. Say goodbye : Create rituals to honor what you’ve lost. Write a farewell letter, display a meaningful photo, or journal your memories. Cherish hearts over presence : For those grieving relational losses, hold onto love in prayer, memory, or small reminders, even if the person is absent. Invite God into your pain : Though grief often feels isolating, God fully understands and wants to meet you in your sorrow. Ultimately, grief—no matter how hidden—can be a pathway to greater intimacy with God. By embracing it, we allow Him to transform our perspective, helping us cherish what we’ve lost while holding loosely to earthly treasures. Through grief, we learn to hope again. Donna is a passionate creative, writer, poet, speaker, retired missionary, CASA volunteer, experienced counselor and hospice and palliative care support personnel. Founder of Serenity in Suffering blog, and author of the Serenity in Suffering newsletter on Substack, where she shares articles, resources and counseling designed to help readers grow personally and find spiritual intimacy with Christ; ultimately finding purpose in the trials they face. Return to Yuletide 2024 Previous Next

< Back Faith and Art David Cowles Feb 20, 2025 “Anything that helps anyone recognize the Good in their lives can ultimately lead to an awareness of Christ.” I was raised on the Baltimore Catechism, the Nicene Creed, and carefully curated tales from the New and Old Testaments. Few kids in the Euro-American world have this experience today. And that’s a good thing! Since 313 CE, Christianity had been the quasi-official religion of the Western World. Persecutions, heresies, schisms, and ‘reformations’ notwithstanding, the language of Christianity was the Lingua Franca of Western culture.…until c. 50 years ago. The architects of Vatican II recognized that the Christian message was no longer resonating with the modern world. This Second Ecumenical Council sought to address this disconnect through a series of magnificent encyclicals and well intentioned liturgical reforms. Sadly, it didn’t work. If anything, Vatican II only deepened the epistemological divide separating the secular from the sacred. Baby Boomers were the last generation of children to be ‘churched’ in the traditional sense. Christianity is no longer the ideology of the Western world; it has been replaced by Secular Materialism. But for the most part, this message has not reached the Vatican. Ironically, the things the Church has done over the last half century to reclaim its relevance have mostly backfired. The harder the Church works to define and broadcast its message, the further it distances itself from the ambient culture. The problem is not a matter of faith but of language. Faith is alive and well. Young people today are just as hungry to find meaning and purpose in life as we were…or as the early Christians were. The problem is that the formulas of Christian doctrine no longer satisfy that hunger. As they evolved to meet the needs of an increasingly technocratic society, our Indo-European languages lost their ability to communicate the Christian worldview. Today, we speak the language of Babel , and we use that language to help us build our own 21st century towers. Our culture no longer seeks the Transcendent in the depths of meditation and prayer but in the construction of skyscrapers and the launching of missiles meant to carry us to the edge of the cosmos. We laugh at the foolishness of the Babylonians as recounted in Genesis , but we are the new Babylonians. The almost infinitely expressive language of Homer, et al. has become the medium of emails, text messages, power points and instruction manuals. A recent conference of Catholic artists and intellectuals, held in Rome, suggests that some corners of the Church may be beginning to recognize Christianity’s current predicament, and, more importantly, to diagnose its cause and propose a way forward. In the 4th century, Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire; that, and a bag of denarii might have bought you a loaf of bread, a dish of olives, and a carafe of wine. Much of the Empire remained ‘barbarian’ and many of Rome’s citizens remained devout pagans. To make matters worse, Europe was about to face a series of challenges (e.g. climate change) that ultimately led to a sharp decline in prosperity and literacy. The groundbreaking philosophical stylings of John, Paul and the Patristics were of little use in evangelizing a world that no longer read, or even spoke, Greek. Fortunately, the early Church was creative in its response. To replace the largely indecipherable language of the faith’s founding documents, new forms of art and music took its place. Eschewing the naturalism of Roman art, Christian art depicted Biblical figures and events in an iconic style meant to capture the spiritual core of people and places. Art no longer strives to be representational, but neither is it abstract; early Christian art is symbolic and spiritual. This is neither Rembrandt nor Pollack; it calls to mind Van Gogh’s portraits, figures from Picasso’s Harlequin and Blue Periods, Rouault’s icons, and Henry Moore’s sculptures. A bit later, a deeply meditative musical form, Gregorian Chant, joined iconic art to create a wall to wall, multisensory Christian experience. It worked. It sufficed to carry the Christian message until Monasticism and the Carolingian Renaissance made the world safe for theology again. Today, once again, we find ourselves living in a post-literate age. If Christianity is to flourish now, it must find new media to carry its message. Stephen Callaghan, a playwright and director of the Archdiocese of Glasgow Arts Project: "The arts are about exploring what it means to be human, and the incarnation of Jesus Christ changed that forever…" Amen. According to The Pilot , Boston’s Catholic newspaper (2/18/2025), Callaghan said the church should not shy away from expressing its values through the arts, and he pointed to ways culture can become a bridge to evangelization." The church is not a moral watchdog on the arts -- it is the custodian of truth, beauty and goodness, and it is therefore of the utmost importance in restoring hope," he said. This is crucial! Beauty (the Way), Truth, and Justice (the Life) are ways the Good manifests in our realm and God is that Good. Therefore, anything that expresses these values points to God. Art does not need to be didactic in order to be Christian. Anything that helps anyone recognize the Good in their lives can ultimately lead to an awareness of Christ. Image: Rembrandt van Rijn, [The Storm on the Sea of Galilea] , 1633. Oil on canvas, 160 × 128 cm. Whereabouts unknown since 1990. Keep the conversation going. 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back The Autumn of Our Own Existence Omid Safi "A lot of people celebrate fall season with pumpkin pie, sweaters, and taking in crisp mornings. I love all of those, but mostly fall is a season to meditate on colors, death, and divine presence." I’ve been blessed to live in places where the time of fall is magical. In upstate New York, North Carolina, and Iran, I’ve gotten to see streets paved gold and red, with leaves crunching under my feet. As a kid, I used to love to dive through piles of raked leaves. (OK, that was this week.) A lot of people celebrate fall season with pumpkin pie, sweaters, and taking in crisp mornings. I love all of those, but mostly fall is a season to meditate on colors, death, and divine presence. Before becoming a scholar of religion, like every Muslim student at the university, I studied medicine. I remember learning in a botany course about the reason that a deciduous tree’s leaves turn colors. The reasoning astonished me then, and I have since come to see more and more spiritual wisdom in it as I enter the autumn of my own life. Leaves are usually green because of chlorophyll. It is chlorophyll that gives leaves their distinctive green color, and it is (along with sunshine) the key ingredient in the magical, life-producing process of photosynthesis. The hidden secret of fall: the leaves don’t actually “turn” colors. With the winter season coming, and the process of photosynthesis being without the key ingredients of warmth and sunshine, trees begin to break down chlorophyll. With the “green” gone, the other colors that have been there all along — the magical reds, golds, and oranges — begin to express themselves. That’s the secret: there is no turning, no changing. There’s only the death of what has been masking the colors inside. The beauty has been there all along. And we as human beings are like this. Each one of us contains hidden jewels inside. Every breath of your life’s breathsis a jewel.Every new atomis a guide towards God. —Farid un-Din Attar, The Conference of the Birds Each of us contains “colors” inside, which remain hidden by our mere humanity. I see the colors as being different divine qualities that are present inside each of one of us at all times: compassion, justice, kindness, forgiveness. Most of the time these divine qualities are masked, covered up, hidden by our ego self. Greed, lust, anger, selfishness mask these divine qualities. What masks the divines qualities (the colors) is not our humanity, something I see ultimately as a reflection of God but rather our ego, our tendency to see ourselves as a mere terrestrial creature. We see ourselves a mere flesh creature, cut off from God, cut off from one another, cut off from the natural cosmos. The hidden mystery of the fall season is that when one “life” dies, the colors inside are on display. And there is something similar that happens inside us when we let go of this ego self, of selfishness, of being cut off and isolated. To put in a religious language, we have to “die” to our ego, to our selfishness before we can become “born again” in a bigger, more interwoven, more compassionate, more divine reality. The Qur’an hints at this in a lovely, mysterious verse: (We take our) color from God,and who is better than God at coloring? —Qur’an 2:138 This fear of letting go of our notion of a limited self is real. We are all afraid of death. Any death. All death. Letting go of this earthly life is frightening. Letting go of any prejudice, any preconceived notion, any notion of identity is a form of death. As more wise sages have told us, we come into this world covered in feces, urine, and blood; we leave it naked covered in a cloth. The mere reflection on our own mortality frightens us. Most of us spend our life in denial, pretending that we are eternally immortal. What beauty there is in letting go and accepting. What wonder there is in embracing the colors inside. What loveliness there is in the death of one color, and the shining through of all the divine colors. How lovely is this human creature when the divine colors of compassion, kindness, mercy, justice, and forgiveness shine on through. It reminds me of the poem of the great, incomparable Rumi. I died as a mineraland became a plant,I died as plantand rose to animal,I died as animaland I was human.Why should I fear?When was I less by dying? Yet once more I shall die as human,to soarWith angels blest;but even from angelhoodI must pass on:all except God doth perish.When I have sacrificed my angel-soul,I shall become what no mind e’er conceived.Oh, let me not exist!for Non-existenceProclaims in organ tones,‘To God we shall return.’—Rumi, Masnavi 3: 3901-03 Why fear one “death” when every death has revealed something more colorful, more luminous, more beautiful. The references to “mineral” and “animal” in the poem below is a reflection of the old Islamic (also Greek) philosophical insight that each of us contains within us the souls of all the beings. There is a level in us that corresponds to the mineral soul, an animal soul, a human soul, and so on. This Islamic model of evolution is not so much the evolution from shared biological ancestors, but a mythic, poetic notion of cycles of ascension into embrace of all the Divine qualities within. Bring on the sweater. Bring on the crisp morning. Bring on the pumpkin pie. And bring on the death of that ego self that masks those glorious, divine colors within. As I enter this autumn season — and the autumn of my own existence — I am growing slowly more comfortable with the becoming less and less, so that more and more can be revealed. Bring on this Autumn of the soul. Welcome these colors shining through. This piece is republished in its entirety from One Being . Omid Safi teaches online courses on spirituality through Illuminated Courses, and leads spiritual tours every year to Turkey, Morocco, and other countries, to study the rich multiple religious traditions there. The trips are open to everyone, from every country. More information is available at Illuminated Tours. He is a professor of Islamic Studies at Duke University. He specializes in the study of Islamic mysticism and contemporary Islam and frequently writes on liberationist traditions of Dr. King, Malcolm X, and is committed to traditions that link together love and justice. He has delivered the keynote for the annual Martin Luther King commemoration at the National Civil Rights Museum. He has written many books, including Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender, and Pluralism; Cambridge Companion to American Islam; Politics of Knowledge in Premodern Islam; and Memories of Muhammad. His most recent book is Radical Love: Teachings from the Islamic Mystical Traditions and has a forthcoming book on the famed mystic Rumi. Omid is among the most frequently sought out speakers on Islam in popular media, appearing in The New York Times, Newsweek, Washington Post, PBS, NPR, NBC, CNN, BBC, and other international media. He can be reached regarding speaking engagements at omidsafi@gmail.com . Return to our Harvest Issue 2023 Previous Next

< Back AI and the Quest for Humanity’s Answers Josef Flintlock, AT responses by Editor-in-Chief David Cowles "AI will virtually obliterate the barrier between what can be known and what is known." The dawn of the artificial intelligence era has cast a spotlight on the tantalizing prospect of discovering answers to humanity's most profound questions. As ChatGPT and other AI technologies advance, the question arises: will these digital marvels truly hold the keys to unlocking the mysteries that have puzzled philosophers, scientists, and thinkers for centuries? AT : It is unlikely that AI will move the border separating what can be known from what is fundamentally unknowable. But AI will virtually obliterate the barrier between what can be known and what is known. This essay embarks on a journey through the realms of knowledge, humor, and philosophy to explore whether ChatGPT and AI are destined to become the ultimate oracles of wisdom. In a world where Google knows our favorite pizza toppings before we do, the allure of ChatGPT having the answer to every question is both mesmerizing and hilarious. AT : The centuries old mystical doctrine of Kabbalah distinguishes Understanding (Binah) from Wisdom (Hokhmah). Understanding shades over into knowledge (Malkhut) so I expect AI to vastly expand our understanding of most everything; whether it will demonstrate or confer wisdom is something else again. However, even in the age of AI, the notion that these digital entities will hold all answers is akin to believing that wearing a cape will make us superheroes. AT : What would make us superheroes? The complexity of human inquiries, infused with nuance, context, and cultural intricacies, presents a challenge that even the most advanced algorithms struggle to master. AT : True today, but the attraction of AI is the possibility that it will eventually be able to mimic humans’ capacity for nuance and that it will adequately integrate context and cultural norms into its process. While AI might provide extensive data-driven insights, it remains an evolving tool rather than a universal panacea. The Dance of Subjectivity and Philosophy Imagine asking an AI to resolve the age-old question: "What is the meaning of life?" ChatGPT might earnestly reply with an eloquent response, citing philosophical treatises and scientific theories. However, the beauty of this query lies in its subjectivity—a concept that AI struggles to encapsulate. AT : If AI is to fulfill its promise, it must be able to mimic human subjectivity. Pre-AI, algorithms are objects. The challenge for AI is to behave in a way that convinces us that it is its own subject. (Turing Test) Re the meaning of life, it’s true, I wouldn’t expect much from today’s AI. But then again, how well has Non-artificial Intelligence (NI) done with this question? The multifaceted nature of existence, tinged with personal experiences, emotions, and interpretations, evades AI's binary world. AT : Is there a world that is not at some level binary ? A motion picture is made up of static frames. Could the same not be true of every apparently continuous phenomenon? Calculus was supposed to have proven the ‘reality of continuity’; in fact, it only provided us with a tool that allows us to ‘treat’ stochastic phenomena as though they were continuous. In this dance between the objective and the subjective, humans stand as the choreographers, utilizing AI as a partner to enhance the performance but never completely define it. The Comedy of Errors In a whimsical twist, the comedic potential of AI attempting to provide definitive answers to humanity's grand questions cannot be overlooked. Picture an AI offering advice on matters of the heart or rendering artistic critiques—it's like asking a potato to compose a symphony. AT : I have no doubt that AI could do a better job for the lovelorn than either Dear Abbie or Anne Landers! Whether AI can recognize and/or create Beauty is an open question addressed elsewhere in this issue. Hot Link And in defense of our much maligned spuds, please don’t overlook the Lyonnaise Polonaise . The inherent limitations and occasional misunderstandings of AI can lead to responses that are hilariously off the mark. AT : Yup, “Kids say the Darndest Things” (Art Linkletter) That’s how we learn…and how AI will learn too. While AI's missteps are a source of amusement, they also emphasize the uniqueness of human cognition and the importance of embracing imperfection. AT : Perfection is a myth (at least in spatiotemporal systems) and unhelpful as a measure of value. An element of ambiguity is what makes the strongest algorithms what they are (‘fuzzy’) – and that’s how our minds work as well…especially after a night spent drinking ‘adult beverages’. The Uncharted Seas of Discovery As technology progresses, AI's role in uncovering insights cannot be denied. AI's capacity to sift through vast amounts of data and identify patterns has contributed to scientific breakthroughs and innovative discoveries. AT : Our brains have been curated by natural selection for over a half a billion years; as a result we are pattern generation and pattern recognition machines. That said, AI will soon blow past us…if it hasn’t already. Patterning has conferred enormous selective advantage on all sentient life forms and AI will take this to a whole new level. Some contemporary cosmologies understand the Universe as nothing other than a hierarchy of patterns: e.g., fractals, holograms, The Matrix . Yet, the act of seeking answers extends beyond factual information—it encompasses the exhilarating pursuit of knowledge, characterized by curiosity, experimentation, and the thrill of the unknown. In this regard, ChatGPT and AI can act as guiding stars, offering directions in a limitless universe of exploration. The notion of ChatGPT and AI possessing all the answers to humanity's greatest questions tantalizes us with visions of a digital sage with boundless wisdom. AT : Is there nothing new under the sun? How about the Oracle at Delphi? Hal 9000? However, this vision is a blend of comedy and philosophy, highlighting the intricate interplay between AI's capabilities and the uncharted depths of human inquiry. As we navigate the landscape of knowledge, we find that while AI augments our journey, the thrill of discovery lies not in having all the answers but in the pursuit of questions that lead us to new horizons of understanding. AT : AI can save us from the tedium of data determination and interpretation (Binah, Understanding); will it free us up to focus on the meta-patterns (Hokhmah, Wisdom), the meaning of it all. So, let us welcome AI as a companion on this profound expedition, embracing the laughter, the wisdom, and the mysteries that lie ahead. A connoisseur of both AI technology and the intricacies of human inquiry, Josef’s writing seeks to bridge the realms of science and philosophy in a way that both informs and entertains. When not penning essays, you can find him lost in a book or simply enjoying the laughter that accompanies life's absurdities. He has written for Honeywell, Medium, and Elephant Journal. 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 . 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< Back Matriarchy and Mitochondria David Cowles Aug 7, 2025 “Going forward, you might want to tone down that male machismo, just a bit.” If there is a single underlying theme across American TV sitcoms, it may be the proverbial ‘Battle of the Sexes’, or as we might say today, ‘Gender Wars’. Who rules the American family…and by extension perhaps, the rest of society? Is it the ‘perpetually puffed up patriarch’ or his ‘mild mannered but manipulative better half’? Channel surf late night cable stations (the preferred leisure time activity of my fellow insomniacs and me) and you’ll get a graduate level education in gender politics. Typically, a blundering man is skillfully managed by a wily woman. As with Peacocks, the man is all feathers! “Full of high sentence but a bit obtuse/At times, indeed, almost ridiculous/Almost at times, the Fool.” (Eliot) Or you might just put your clicker down and get to know your Mitochondria . These tiny organelles, found exclusively in the cytoplasm of animal cells, reinforce the social prominence of gender. Their rendition is less humorous than the sitcoms they inspire, but it delivers an intriguing and frankly inspiring model of social organization. Who knew that a bunch of degenerate bacteria had so much to do with our survival and timely death? Who knew they had so much to teach us? An article by Jennifer N.R. Smith, published in the June 2025 issue of Biology, literally blew the lid off. Let me summarize her relevant insights, using her own words whenever possible (quotation marks below indicate text from the article) and adding a few comments of my own along the way: “Biologist Lynn Margulis postulated in 1967 that mitochondria descend from a single bacterium that was engulfed by a larger ancestral cell about 1.5 billion years ago. Instead of consuming this tidbit, the larger cell let it continue living within: endosymbiosis .” The emergence of a eukaryotic cell (cell with a nucleus) was a watershed moment in the evolution of our terrestrial biosphere…and it may have happened only once. The eukaryotic cell is the basic building block of all complex multi-cellular organisms. The ‘evolutionary leap’ from prokaryotic bacteria (no nucleus) to eukaryotic slime molds (nucleus) was huge compared to the more modest step from sponges to homo sapiens . Wrap your head around that…if you can! So, if on balance you’ve had a good life, you owe a debt of gratitude to a single enterprising and compassionate cell that treated its prey with respect and offered partnership on generous terms. And if not, now you know who to blame (and it’s not mommy and daddy)! (Had the allied nations treated Germany half so well after World War I, the 2 nd World War and the slaughter of 6 million Jews might have been avoided.) The ‘prey’ became the nucleus of the cell, determining most of the cell’s characteristics, housing its precious DNA, and guiding much of its behavior. Perhaps the oldest fragment of philosophical writing in Europe comes from Anaximander (6 th century BCE). If I read it right (per Heidegger), it states that actual beings ‘emerge’ when and only when virtual beings ‘grant each other reck’, i.e. respect, consideration, etc. When I step back and allow you to be yourself and when at the same time, with no expectation of reciprocity, you do the same for me, we emerge from the fog of potentiality and become ‘who we are’ – and we are neither rock nor island, no matter how much we might wish otherwise. A similar insight is prominent in the New Testament and in the works of Martin Buber, drawing on his familiarity with Hasidic Judaism. Once the phenomenon of endosymbiosis was established, why stop with just a nucleus? Why not invite another cell to join the eukaryotic enterprise? And so a certain eukaryotic cell, a descendant of the primordial eukaryotic cell, spread its wings and absorbed another, entirely independent bacterium, et voila , Earth’s first mitochondrion! And again, it only happened once! Your body is made up almost entirely of eukaryotic cells, 30 trillion of them at any one time, each with anywhere from 100 to 1,000 mitochondria. So all animals have three unique ancestors in common: the eukaryotic cell that curated the first mitochondrion, the prokaryotic cell that curated the first nucleus, and the primordial DNA/RNA molecule that synthesized only once (on Earth). Mitochondria incessantly grant reck, to each other, to the cells that house them, and to the organisms formed by those cells! They are a tangible manifestation of Anaximander’s concept of ontogenesis . They knew 1.5 billion years ago lessons in cooperation that we’re struggling to learn today. So, let’s get to know our own mitochondria. Keeping to our theme, Matriarchy , it’s important to note that we inherit our mitochondrial DNA exclusively from our mothers. The nucleus needs a dad , but the contents of the cytoplasm are all mom . “Mitochondria (in human cells) have their own DNA, which consists of only 37 genes, compared with the thousands of genes in the spiraling chromosomes (DNA) inside the cell nucleus.” Mitochondria build and support community in two ways via two different media. First, they communicate; second, they share resources and respond to calls for help. They not only talk among themselves within a cell, they also talk with their mates across cell walls. They form Trotsky’s ideal International – members communicating with one another in local cadres and then with members of other cadres, ultimately forming a truly global, yet decentralized, communications network. No wonder the biological revolution on Earth was so successful! Intercellular communication is prerequisite for the evolution of multicellular organisms like your own tired self. Unlike contemporary millennials, communication plays an absolutely essential role in the social life of mitochondria: “Mitochondria communicate, both within their own cells and among other cells…Mitochondria from different parts of the body talk to one another, using hormones as their language…The mitochondrial collective operates as a mitochondrial information-processing system, or MIPS. “This bioenergetic state then leads to the production of secondary messenger molecules that are intelligible to the nucleus…The nucleus of your cells can read the environment through the MIPS that surrounds it…They reach out to one another to help their community to thrive and also to support one another in times of distress.” Unlike the familiar double-helix residing in the cell’s nucleus, mitochondrial DNA forms a ring typical of prokaryotic cells. “This ring of mitochondrial DNA, or mtDNA, is sheltered within two membranes. The outer shell, shaped like the skin of a sausage, encases the mitochondrion and selectively allows molecules to enter or exit. The inner membrane is made of densely packed proteins and has many folds, called cristae , which serve as a site for chemical reactions… “…Even when mitochondria looked unhealthy (overall), their cristae looked healthy at places where the mitochondria touched one another…The cristae line up…(they) formed parallel ribbons undulating across mitochondria. “Could mitochondrial junctions and aligned cristae operate like neuronal synapses with the resulting mitochondrial collective behaving essentially like an intracellular brain?” Today, we are breathlessly searching for consciousness beyond Homo Sapiens . Most of us are now willing to grant ‘most favored species’ status to certain other humanoids and primates and to some marine mammals. Many are willing to include certain species of birds, insects, and cephalopods in the big tent. But what about organisms that lack a traditional brain? How could such an organism be conscious? Ms. Smith suggests that networks of mitochondria could constitute an intra- cellular brain, or perhaps even an inter-cellular one! Mitochondria give a whole new meaning to phrases like ‘social consciousness’ and ‘distributed intelligence’. Imagine what our world would be like if we humans shared our brains with other members of our species? Or with members of other species? The Sci-fi potential is unlimited! Supporting this hypothesis is the realization that mitochondria use the same mechanism for communication as neurons in the human brain: microtubules. “Mitochondria send thin tubular structures out toward one another, like feelers that some solitary cells use to search for a more hospitable environment or a healthy fellow cell…” People whose mitochondria are unhealthy have more of these nanotunnels than usual. This suggests that these unhealthy mitochondria might be reaching out for help. “Healthy mitochondria can donate intact mtDNA to mutant mitochondria. In conditions of scarce energy supply, mitochondria fuse with one another into long strands to share mtDNA.” “Interestingly, brain mitochondria have receptors to sense both stress and sex hormones. So we have a population of mitochondria in the adrenal glands that signal directly, via the blood, to mitochondria in the brain. (They talk to each other through their isolating cell walls.) “…Mitochondria show all the features of social beings—a shared environment inside the cell or body, communication, formation of groups or types, synchronization of behavior, interdependence, and specialization in the tasks they perform. “Rather than having supplementary roles like those of battery chargers, mitochondria are more like the motherboard of the cell. Genes sit inert in the nucleus until energy and the right message come along to turn some of them on and some others off. Mitochondria provide these messages… “…Mitochondria not only are involved in integrating information but also give orders. They dictate whether the cell divides, differentiates or dies. Indeed, mitochondria have a veto on cell life or death. If the MIPS deems it necessary, it triggers programmed cell death…a form of self-sacrifice for the greater good of the organism.” Can the wisdom of the mitochondria inform our own debates re end of life care and euthanasia? On the one hand, mitochondria are all about the procreation and preservation of life: They care for the other mitochondria in their cell, as well as mitochondria in nearby cells. They share their healthy DNA with less well-endowed mates. They share energy resources with sick or starving compatriots. They form networks for processing and communicating information within multicellular organisms. They are chemical stash houses, supplying most of the energy that powers their host cells. On the other hand though, they know when to quit, when ‘enough’s enough’, No Mas! and Nature has empowered them to make that ‘life or death’ call for themselves, for their host cells, and for the uber-organism they support. They go ‘all in’ for life, but when the time comes, they do ‘go gentle into that good night’. (Thomas) Do we have something to learn here? We are as we are thanks to the mitochondria our moms passed on to us. Of course, their moms passed it on to them…all the way back to ‘Eve’. So going forward, you might want to tone down that male machismo , just a bit! Chicago, Judy. The Dinner Party. 1974–79, Brooklyn Museum, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, New York. Chicago’s iconic installation reclaims feminine legacy and power, much like mitochondria—passed exclusively through mothers—redefine our understanding of biological and social authority. 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< Back Meggie Gates Contributor Meggie Gates is a freelance writer living in Chicago, Illinois. In the past, their work has appeared in the Chicago Reader , Southside Weekly , and Vulture Magazine . You can find more of their work or what karaoke bar they're singing at this weekend here. How the Saints Taught Me Feminism

< Back A Brief History of Motion “Zeno exploited the continuity of Real Numbers to show…that motion is incompatible with Arithmetic.” David Cowles Motion. We take it for granted. Today, we are all card carrying followers of Heraclitus: ‘everything flows’, ‘change is the only constant’, ‘this too shall pass’, etc. It is surprising then to recall that ‘motion’ per se was once a hot topic of debate among philosophers and scientists; they struggled just to account for it. You see the 5th century BCE Greek philosopher, Zeno of Elea, had concocted 5 so-called ‘paradoxes’, reductio ad absurdum proofs, demonstrating that motion is impossible. Not surprisingly, philosophers since Zeno have been at great pains to prove him wrong; but ultimately their efforts have failed. Thomas Aquinas (c. 1250 CE) was perhaps a ‘closet Eleatic’. Unwilling to sacrifice the concept of motion, but also unwilling to reject Zeno dishonestly, invoked the hand of God to solve the dilemma. Aquinas found it necessary to posit the existence of an Unmoved Mover to account for motion. Without God, Aquinas’ universe would have been static - Heraclitus’ famous river would be frozen solid with predictably devastating consequences for its inhabitants, i.e. us. Today, we no longer feel the need for an Unmoved Mover. In fact, we don’t feel any need at all to account for motion. It just is. It’s the nature of things: they move. ‘To move’ is part of what it means ‘to be’. But the popular notion of a universe where everything is buzzing around all the time, like in an episode of the Jetsons , also turns out to be something of an over-simplification. But that’s for another day. In the 5th century BCE, Zeno of Elea came up with a series of paradoxes that apparently prove the impossibility of any motion whatsoever. To the everlasting shame of his critics, his logic is unassailable; but the pill that comes with that logic is a bitter one for us to swallow. How can I deny the reality of motion when I am rushing headlong to catch a flight to Athens? For 2500 years, philosophers have been selling their souls to combat Zeno and rescue motion. They have pretended to find flaws in Zeno’s reasoning where there are none. But that emperor wears no clothes, and a few thinkers at the apex of Western philosophy have bravely acknowledged both the obvious reality of motion and the incontrovertible validity of Zeno’s arguments. In the 20th century, two leading lights of British philosophy, Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead, rescued Zeno…without denying the reality of motion. These two thinkers set out to construct a coherent system for all Mathematics. In the course of their work they discovered several previously unnoticed anomalies (e.g. ‘the set of all sets’). One such discovery brought them back to Zeno. Zeno’s arguments assume the validity of ordinary, everyday, elementary school arithmetic. When that system failed to account for the phenomenon of motion, Russell and Whitehead did the brave thing: they concluded, not that motion was impossible, but that the axioms of arithmetic were ‘wrong’. Motion and arithmetic are incompatible, something every 3rd grader knows intuitively. Unlike their predecessors, Russell and Whitehead were willing to sacrifice arithmetic rather than motion. That’s why so many elementary school students wear T-shirts with Whitehead’s image on the front. Mathematicians and philosophers had devoted 2500 years to attacking Zeno, implicitly defending arithmetic in the process. Russell and Whitehead concluded that the axioms of arithmetic, especially the Axiom of Completeness, were inadequate to model events in the real world. What’s the problem? Well, remember the Real Number Line? It’s a continuous sequence of infinitesimal points. We do all our adding and subtracting on the number line; it’s the substructure of Arithmetic. The arithmetic model rests on the continuity of real numbers; but the real world is not continuous! It’s lumpy, like grandma’s mashed potatoes. As far back as the 4th century BCE a minority of thinkers (e.g. Democritus) advocated an atomic (or quantum) model of reality. It was once thought that Newton and Leibniz, co-inventors of Calculus, had stuck shivs in Zeno and Democritus on their way to the prison commissary. Rumors of Zeno’s demise swept across the ‘yard’, but they were only rumors. Zeno is alive and well, albeit still keeping a low profile. Bertrand Russell pointed out that Calculus did not defeat Zeno but bolstered him. Calculus is a mathematical tool that allows us to treat discontinuity as if it were continuous. As such, it purports to extend arithmetic’s domain but in fact it is acknowledgement of the fundamental discontinuity of the real world events it seeks to model. What Newton and Leibniz imagined to be the checkered flag of victory turned out to be the white flag of surrender. It was they, not Achilles, who lost the race. Looking back, we now see that Max Planck (1900 CE) proved, once and for all, that the real world is discontinuous (quantized); but the cosmology of Quantum Mechanics traces all the way back to Democritus and ultimately to Zeno. Zeno exploited the continuity of Real Numbers to show that the great Achilles could never catch up to a common tortoise in a road race, that an arrow shot into the air could never reach its target, that no motion whatsoever is possible in a world governed by Arithmetic. For millennia, philosophers, beginning with Plato, thought that Zeno had genuinely denied the actuality of motion. But that was never his point. Zeno meant to prove that motion is incompatible with Arithmetic, and he succeeded! Keep the conversation going. 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. Share Previous Next