< Back The Shmita Year David Cowles Jul 19, 2021 Someone sent me this and it’s so good I had to reproduce it in Thoughts while Shaving: “The beginning of Deuteronomy is filled with promises about taking possession of the land of Canaan. But…remember that our ancestors lost possession of that land and went into exile. The Torah teaches that the way to live long in the land and avoid exile is not by having the strongest army, but by fulfilling the covenant of the Torah. And it tells us that one mitzvah is most important for making this happen: the Sabbatical or Shmita year, when the land rests. Someone sent me this and it’s so good I had to reproduce it in Thoughts while Shaving: “The beginning of Deuteronomy is filled with promises about taking possession of the land of Canaan. But…remember that our ancestors lost possession of that land and went into exile. The Torah teaches that the way to live long in the land and avoid exile is not by having the strongest army, but by fulfilling the covenant of the Torah. And it tells us that one mitzvah is most important for making this happen: the Sabbatical or Shmita year, when the land rests. “The Shmita year is a prescription for living sustainably upon the earth. Not only does the land rest every seventh year, but the year following every seventh Shmita year — the fiftieth year of Jubilee — every family returns to the land it received when the land was first distributed among the Israelite tribes. “That means that in a world where Shmita is observed, poverty can never become permanent, the land is always renewed, and justice becomes the foundation of relations among human beings and between the people and the land. Harmony reigns in a tripartite covenant between God, the people, and the land.” – Rabbi David Seidenberg 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.

Editor’s note: It’s that time of year when many readers attend ‘summer theater.’ If Shakespeare is on the bill, you may find this essay relevant. Don’t leave home for the theater without reading this first! < Back Shakespearean Nihilism David Cowles Jul 13, 2022 Editor’s note: It’s that time of year when many readers attend ‘summer theater.’ If Shakespeare is on the bill, you may find this essay relevant. Don’t leave home for the theater without reading this first! Machiavelli, Nietzsche, Duchamp, Camus, Ionesco, Beckett – these are names that come to mind when we think about nihilism…not Shakespeare! Not the poet who wrote, “But thy eternal summer shall not fade nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st; nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade, when in eternal lines to time thou growest, so long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, so long lives this and this gives life to thee .” Yet, according to renowned Shakespearean actor Anthony Sher, the ‘Tomorrow Soliloquy’ in Macbeth is “the most nihilistic speech imaginable.” But let’s not start there; let’s start with The Tempest, where Prospero shares this conclusion with the audience: “Our revels now are ended. These, our actors, as I foretold you, were all spirits and are melted into air, into thin air; and—like the baseless fabric of this vision— the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the great globe itself, yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, and like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff as dreams are made on…” Now back to Macbeth . On the nihilist spectrum, can anyone possibly top Prospero? Macbeth, like Prospero, seems to step out of the play itself and address the audience directly. But “the most nihilist imaginable” (above)? Let’s see if it lives up to its billing: “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle. Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Oh, yeah, it lives up to its billing…and then some! Macbeth’s ‘ Tomorrow Soliloquy’ stands in radical contrast to Virgil’s famous line (reflected in Shakespeare’s sonnets), “No day shall erase you from the memory of time .” The contrast pivots, of course, on the concept of ‘time.’ For Virgil, time, aided perhaps by art, is universal and perpetual memory. This well fits the ‘Shakespeare of the Sonnets.’ For ‘Shakespeare of the Play,’ however, time is not our friend. It is not perpetual memory; it is perpetual loss. Time erases everything that ever was and everything that might yet be. Two views could scarcely be more dissimilar. For Virgil, time is memory; what is, is, and always will be. Time makes events immortal (immortal, not eternal; for more on this distinction, check out Eternity vs. Immortality in Issue #1 of ATM). For ‘Shakespeare of the Plays,’ however, time does not just limit the scope of events (mortality); it erases those events (a-mortality)! To paraphrase a current meme: ‘No lives matter’ to time. “For now I (time) have become death, the destroyer of worlds.” – The Bhagavad Gita While Virgil offers ‘always will be,’ Shakespeare offers ‘never was, is not now, never will be.’ Quite a contrast! What ever happened to ‘here today, gone tomorrow?’ So, are events immortal, mortal, or a-mortal ( nihil est )? Can we settle this dispute? Can we determine who’s right, Virgil or Shakespeare? Surprisingly, it seems that we can! And if we can and to the extent that we can, the winner is…Shakespeare! (Sorry, Virgil.) In Virgil’s day, many believed that the universe had always existed and would always exist (Aristotle), that it was now more or less the same as it always had been and always would be. Against this philosophical background, it is easy to see how someone could believe in “the persistence of memory” (Dali). Shakespeare knew little more than Virgil about the real workings of the universe. His conclusions regarding time and the meaning of life can only be attributed to his personal experiences and reflections. (The reader will recall the tragic death of his beloved son, Hamnet, at age 11.) We have an advantage over both Virgil and Shakespeare. We know, or think we know, that disorder (entropy) is constantly increasing in our world. Memory (indeed mind itself) is a species of order and, therefore, must disappear over the course of time. Consider the aging process. Memories fade and eventually vanish. Well, phylogeny recapitulates ontogeny! My death prefigures the heat death of the cosmos. We also know, or think we know, that the universe did not always exist and will not always exist. In fact, time itself, to the extent that it is even real, apparently comes to be and ceases to be at a singularity. Therefore, it would be difficult for a person today to entrust life to time with the expectation of eternity, or even immortality. Or would it? Folks often say things like, “I lived my life; now it’s ending, but no one can take that life I’ve lived away from me.” Oh really? Turns out they can take it, they will take it, and they have taken it! So, is this Shakespeare, whom we thought we knew and genuinely loved, really a nihilist? Nihilism is rooted in the notion that there are no objective values. That was Nietzsche’s great insight in Twilight of the Gods . But in Shakespeare’s plays (unlike Beckett’s, for example), there is not an absolute absence of objective values. Even in Macbeth , the villains at various times question their actions…and even regret them. In the play’s final scene, for example, Macbeth encounters Macduff, whose wife and children he has put to death. From the depths of his depravity, Macbeth blurts out: “But get thee back. My soul is too much charged with blood of thine already…I’ll not fight with thee.” But of course, he does fight with Macduff: “Lay on, Macduff, and damned be him who first cries, ‘Hold, enough!'” So, values do exist in ‘Shakespeare World,’ but their influence on events is never quite strong enough to influence actual behavior. Does this sound at all familiar by any chance? Far from being ultimately real, in Shakespeare, values flicker in and out of consciousness but exert no real influence on the course of the world’s events. Like Kant, Shakespeare believes that a world like ours ought to have transcendent, objective, and operative values; he bitterly laments that it does not. 20th century nihilists, on the other hand, seem to relish the absence of objective values; it fits in with the agenda to ‘God-proof’ the world. Not so, Shakespeare! If Nietzsche was a nihilist out of conviction (‘it cannot be’), Shakespeare is a nihilist out of disappointment (‘it should have been’). In Shakespeare, the values we associate with justice and kindness compete on a level playing field with ‘anti-values’ associated with greed, lust, and power. Shakespeare is a dualist. Compare his views with the views of monastic philosophers from Augustine to Whitehead. In their models, the only values are positive values, values associated with beauty, truth, justice, and kindness. Anything else is simply an absence of values. Such objective values (‘eternal objects’ per Whitehead) become operative in the world through the agency of God, the primordial ‘actual entity.’ Now, values do not just influence the unfolding of events, they ultimately determine the import of those events. The story of the world is the story of the realization of objective values in actual events; everything else, whatever its dramatic potential, is just noise. I am reminded of a line from a medieval Irish hymn traditionally attributed to St. Dallan: “Naught is all else to me, save that Thou art!” Compare Macbeth with the Old Testament Book of Job. Both focus on pervasive injustice; but while Macbeth ultimately surrenders to that injustice, Job comes to a completely different conclusion: “I know that my vindicator lives and that he will at last stand forth upon the dust.” Inaugurating the tradition that runs through Augustine to Whitehead, Job celebrates the reality of objective values, values that are even incumbent on God. (Check out The Riddle of Job in Issue #1 of AT Magazine. ) In the end, we are like a jury, passing judgment on the cosmos. Like jurors, we must ultimately choose between two possible verdicts. We all listen to the same testimony, but (like Macbeth and Job), we may draw different conclusions. Why? Why do different people draw different conclusions from the same data? We write essays (like this one), or give lectures (podcasts), trying to convince our fellow jurors that our own interpretation of the evidence is correct. “…Singing songs and carrying signs, mostly saying ‘Hooray for our side.’” – Buffalo Springfield. Ultimately, however, it comes down to one juror, one vote. Einstein once said that the single most important question is whether the universe is benign. I would reword that slightly. For me, the single most important question is whether or not there are objective, transcendent values operating in our world. If your answer is yes, your catalog of values cannot differ much from the traditional Judeo-Christian catalog found in Psalms and in the teachings of Jesus. Plus, your explanation for how transcendent values came to exert immanent influence in our world must include something akin to the agency of God and, perhaps, even something akin to the Incarnation itself. Of course, you need not use the language of Judeo-Christian theology to describe your model, but in the end, it will pretty much have to perform the same functions. On the other hand, if you deny the immanent influence of objective, transcendent values, it is hard to see how you can avoid some version of nihilism. At one point in our lives, we believed that there was a virtually limitless number of potential world views, self-consistent models that account reasonably well for the experiences of everyday life. As time goes by, however, we see that most of these models contain logical fallacies or lack heuristic power. Those that remain all say much the same thing, just using different words. In the end, like jurors, we have a choice to make. In the words of Deuteronomy : “I set before you, Life (objective values) and Death (nihilism); therefore, choose life.” (30: 19) Image: The Chandos portrait (held by the National Portrait Gallery , London David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com. Share Previous Next Do you like what you just read? Subscribe today and receive sneak previews of Aletheia Today Magazine articles before they're published. Plus, you'll receive our quick-read, biweekly blog, Thoughts While Shaving. Subscribe Thanks for subscribing! Click here. 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< Back Antonyms David Cowles Antonyms. No such thing! Not-X includes the shadow of X. Example: ‘Pretty’ and ‘Ugly’. ‘Pretty’ refers to the totality (gestalt) of a person, place, or thing. ‘Ugly’ refers to those elements of the aforementioned that are not consistent with a ‘pretty’ whole. ‘Pretty’ and ‘ugly’ appear to be antonyms…but they’re not. In fact, they operate on two entirely different syntactic levels. ‘Ugly’ actually derives its meaning from the concept of ‘pretty’. Therefore, we can say ‘ugly’ includes “the shadow of ‘pretty’”; but not so the other way around. Antonyms. No such thing! Not-X includes the shadow of X. Example: ‘Pretty’ and ‘Ugly’. ‘Pretty’ refers to the totality (gestalt) of a person, place, or thing. ‘Ugly’ refers to those elements of the aforementioned that are not consistent with a ‘pretty’ whole. ‘Pretty’ and ‘ugly’ appear to be antonyms…but they’re not. In fact, they operate on two entirely different syntactic levels. ‘Ugly’ actually derives its meaning from the concept of ‘pretty’. Therefore, we can say ‘ugly’ includes “the shadow of ‘pretty’”; but not so the other way around. Another example: Good and evil. Antonyms, right? Not so fast. Evil is the absence of Good. But Good is a synonym for Being itself. Therefore, absolute Evil cannot ‘exist’, only ‘relative’ evil. Absolute Evil is simply non-existence. My grandson says that “everything exists”…and he’s right. In fact, the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, dominant in scientific circles today, states that anything that can be is, has been, or will be. But evil/nothing/non-Being stands outside the domain of ‘everything’. So, when I said that there was no such thing as an antonym, I was wrong! ‘Evil/nothing/non-Being’ is in fact the universal antonym, the common antonym of every thing. ‘The common antonym of everything’ actually has a name: “Entropy”. It is the inexorable process of increasing disorder in the cosmos that will eventually lead to a state of universal non-Being, which of course is no state at all. One is reminded of the Vacuum Cleaner Monster in the Beatles’ movie, Yellow Submarine: he first swallows everything around him, then the universe itself, and finally he swallows himself. Therefore, entropy is its own antonym. Previous Next

< Back The Problem of Waste “(Theology) will have to account, not just for the evil in the world, but for something much worse in modern eyes…the inefficiency of the world.” David Cowles The world is a terrible place! War, famine, pestilence, child abuse, human trafficking…I could go on…and on. We have no idea how much suffering may be in store for each of us, individually, between birth and death, or for all sentient beings, collectively, between Big Bang and Big Chill (or Big Crunch). It is widely believed that suffering on this scale is incompatible with ‘Triple-O-Theology’, i.e., with belief in the existence of a God who is Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnibenevolent. Even staunch religionists like Rabbi Harold Kushner ( Why Bad Things Happen to Good People ) consider that the three O’s might need some modification. The Problem of Evil (‘POE’) is the #1 reason folks give to explain their disbelief. Even the great Bertrand Russel based his most widely read book, Why I am Not a Christian , on this argument. And, of course, the argument is irrefutable…as far as it goes. Embedded in POE, however, are a number of under-analyzed assumptions: That the world could be better than it is. ( Leibniz argued that this world, horrible as it may be, is as good as any real world ever could be; in other words, we already live in the best of all possible worlds.) That we sentient beings, collectively, are not somehow ourselves responsible for the deplorable condition of things. (The doctrine of Original Sin says otherwise.) That we sentient beings, collectively, are not somehow able to correct the condition of things. (Many post-Enlightenment political ideologies say otherwise.) That we can all agree on the criteria to be used to measure the goodness of things; or if not, that we can at least agree that such criteria exist. That we can all agree on a methodology for measuring the incremental goodness of one state of affairs vs. another. That we have a broad enough view of space and time to enable us to measure the ultimate ‘value’ of any event. Against all this sophistry, the heart piercing cry of a hungry child! James Joyce famously said, “That is god – a shout in the street!” Then is ‘a crying child’ the absence of God? It is a classic Gestalt Is ‘evil’ the donut? Or is it the hole? In spite of the intense feeling on both sides of this issue, it is not objectively resolvable. But if you’re still in the mood to go God-hunting, there is an even better weapon than POE – I call it POW! (the Problem of Waste): Say what you will about the Universe, it is incredibly wasteful. For example, the Cosmos is 14 billion years old. Planet Earth has existed for just four billion of those years. Apparently, it took the Cosmos 10 billion years just to ‘cool off’ after its Big Blowout. Once Earth formed, life appeared almost immediately, give or take a few hundred million years. That said, we are now only 10,000 years into the Anthropocene , a newly proposed ‘geological’ era during which living organisms (us) began purposefully transforming their environment. Let’s put this in perspective: since homo sapiens evolved, only 100 billion people have ever lived (eight billion are alive today). Sound like a lot? Consider this: over the course of an average lifetime, each person is made up of 100 trillion cells, independent living organisms that somehow cooperate to generate the coordinated patterns of behavior ‘formerly known as’ You . Each of you then is three orders of magnitude more complex than human civilization . Bach and Beethoven notwithstanding, we have precious little to show for 14 billion years. I mean, let’s summarize: Big Bang…10 billion years…Earth/Life…four billion years…You! Of course, it may turn out that the universe is teeming with many civilizations, some vastly more complex than ours…but that is appearing less likely every day. So, moving on… Let’s talk DNA, the building block of all life as we know it. You and I each have DNA made up of 46 chromosomes. Many species of fern have over 1,000 chromosomes. Now, I know you and I have had our differences over the years but still, I’d put you up against a fern any day of the week! (No need to thank me.) What we have here is massive inefficiency, aka waste! By this standard, government is a well-oiled machine. If I can be made with just 46 chromosomes, why would someone need 1,000 to make a lovely, fragrant, oxygen regenerating, but presumably simple minded, fern? Shout out to my green friends everywhere…no offense intended. Then again, maybe you’re not so great either. Even at 46 chromosomes, you’re a bit of a bloat. I can make you cry with just six chromosomes; meet Mr. Mosquito. I can drive you crazy with 12 (Housefly). But the Jack Jumper ant beats all: God named that tune in just two notes (two chromosomes)! Now none of this has anything to do with Good, Bad, Better, Best . Whether you think the World is a Garden of Eden or a wallpapered over Inferno, it’s inefficient. Mind-bogglingly inefficient! Which is problematic at a time when ‘efficiency’ is the new Summum Bonum of the age (Jacques Ellul, La Technique ). I am not an atheist. I am not completely convinced by POE or POW. It is the latter, however, that keeps me up at night. Like it or not, we are all engaged in a collective search for new ways to understand God and God’s relationship with World. The bearded old man on a cloud, an image inherited from Canaanite religion 3,000 years ago, isn’t getting it done. I don’t know how Theology will evolve over the rest of this century, but I can make one prediction: it will have to account, not just for the evil in the world , but for something much worse to modern eyes…the inefficiency of the world . 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

Where does artifical intelligence and Chat GPT fit into philosophy, theology, and science? Aletheia Today is the magazine for believers in God and science. Process philosophy, scripture study, and critical essays bring science and faith together with western philosophers like Alfred North Whitehead and Jean-Paul Sartre. Deep dives into the meaning of the Old Testamant, the New Testament, and where the Bible fits into modern-day society. Is God real? Does Heaven exist? Inside Our Special AI Issue Philosophy Chatting With C.S. Lewis “It is the very mark of a perverse desire that it seeks what is not to be had… As long as you are governed by that desire, you will never get what you want.” AI for Healthcare “Boka, is it true you used to drive 10 miles to see a doctor once a year and called that healthcare?” Do Bots Know Beauty? “I…propose…that we make this the test, not Turing’s, of whether a bot is conscious." Neurotech Challenges Mental Privacy: New Human Rights? "Advances in neurotechnology do raise important privacy concerns. However, I believe these debates can overlook more fundamental threats to privacy." Theology ChatGOD "ChatGPT can be smart, but it can never be holy. In being an e-being, precisely because its intelligence is artificial, it is necessarily alienated from the Divine. It can only be 'as if,' never truly as." Navigating the Nexus of AI "Imagine if AI had its own commandments, like 'Thou shalt treat all data equally.' Encouraging ethical principles in AI programming can keep its decisions in line with virtues like fairness, justice, and empathy." Culture & The Arts Divine Connection or Digital Dalliance? "Prayer, for many, is more than just a laundry list of requests. It's a profound act of opening oneself to the divine, a dialogue between the mortal and the eternal." Wilber’s New Wife: A Theatre Odyssey©2023 "The evolution has begun, and I believe that the arts are going to be a very important partner for technology. Could this be the beginning of the next Golden Age? Absolutely." How ChatGPT Robs Students "When AI does our writing for us, we diminish opportunities to think out problems for ourselves." The Ease of Burden "Writing is not like Athena, springing fully formed from Zeus’ forehead. Writing is like all of Zeus’ other children, where he has to relate to someone for creation (and boy, does he relate). To create things, we need other people. It takes two to tango, two to make a child, and around 12 to make a sitcom." AI - Our New Frenemy AI and the Human Quest for Love AI - The Next Big Test of the Human Soul "The longing is powerful. Perhaps because this is the longing for unconditional love and acceptance with which every human being is born." AI and the Quest for Humanity’s Answers "AI will virtually obliterate the barrier between what can be known and what is known." Spirituality Call Me a Dinosaur, I Won’t Use ChatGPT "The fact of the matter is, we will never be like God, nor will we ever be able to create a system that knows everything, is capable of anything, and controls all things." The Trajectory of AI: Balancing Promise and Caution "Placing faith in AI to originate creations like art and music may lead to disillusionment. Ultimately, the true creator is a higher force." Readers React What's the buzz about? Our readers' reactions to Aletheia Today... Additional Reading Can't get enough of Aletheia Today's content? Check out the books that inspire our magazine.

“Hamlet was right: you either are…or you are not. There is no disembodied ‘being’ walking abroad, seeking an ‘identity’. King Hamlet’s ghost is not real!” < Back Why R U, U? David Cowles Sep 1, 2024 “Hamlet was right: you either are…or you are not. There is no disembodied ‘being’ walking abroad, seeking an ‘identity’. King Hamlet’s ghost is not real!” Cogito ergo sum . Decartes was trying to ground philosophy on the most basic and incontrovertible proposition possible, short of a tautology. He did good! But I have another candidate: U R U ( you are you ). Surely this is tautology at its worst! But no. The appearance of tautology is just an artifact of our language’s limitations. You are you but ‘you’ is not ‘You’. Hint: we are using one word (you) to express multiple concepts. First, there’s the ‘you’ that was born in Richmond, VA in 1972, graduated Summa Cum Laude from Yale, yada, yada, yada. Then there’s the ‘You’ that ‘knows’ you’re an academic snob engaging with me now through the medium of this article. There’s ‘you’ the image and ‘You’ the reflection of that image. Does it matter which is which? Might not the relationship be reciprocal: A reflects B reflects A? Save that one for a rainy day. This ‘marriage’ of you and You is one of the great mysteries. “Why am I, I?” It’s a multi-part question: First, why is there such a thing as an I in the first place? Then, how is it that there is this particular I? And why do I reflect this I (me) and not that I (you)? And not a rice farmer in the Han Dynasty? And not his ox? And not a flea living luxuriously on ox hide? Or the unicellular animal about to be lunch for this flea? I could go on…and on (yes, I know , I can do that). You play the role of the subject and the indirect object of every event in your life. Like, ‘I gave myself a rose’? Exactly! However, once again, language fails: “I see myself a rock? I feel myself a pain?” are ugly…but you get the point The probability that you are you is ‘absolutely minimal’ and I don’t use those words lightly. According to conventional wisdom, being itself vanishes when temperature reaches Absolute Zero (0° K). Theoretically, 0° K is the limit of an infinite series of temperature reductions; one can get ‘infinitely close’ to 0 without ever reaching it. But there’s a problem with this! Being is not a continuous function. You either are…or you are not (1, 0) (+, -). Intuitively, we recognize an infinite gulf between something that is and something that is not. Counterintuitively, we’ve discovered that between the ‘smallest possible positive real number’ and 0, there are an infinite number of hyperreal numbers that can be collectively represented by the symbol ε, the infinitesimal. Nothing is less probable than something that is minimally probable (ε)…except something that is infinitely improbable, aka impossible, like 0° K. So the lowest possible temperature is not 0° K but ε° K. Likewise, the smallest possible unit of Being is you . Every you has the same probability of being, ε. The 20th century deconstructionist, Jacques Derrida, applied a similar concept to language. He distinguished ‘difference’ from ‘ differ ȧ nce ’, a jeu de mot in French. Differ ȧ nce is the space between the least possible real difference and ‘identity’. Differ ȧ nce is a quantum of difference; it is naked differentiation. You are, then, a quantum of otherwise undifferentiated (i.e. potential) being! (Sartre?) It is estimated that the known universe consists of 10^80 bits (0 or 1) of information. Therefore, there are (10^80)^80 possible combinations of bits, i.e. states of the known universe. That’s all she wrote! You are one of those ‘infinitesimally probable’ combinations. So am I, so is the rice farmer, so is his ox… Why do we say, “infinitesimally probable” rather than “highly improbable” or “infinitely improbable”? If P = 0, then you don’t exist at all (0/n); and even if P is as small as possible, the numerator will change as a function of any change in the denominator (1/2 = 5/10). We say that the phenomenon known as ‘you’ is infinitesimally probable because the numerator is always 1 no matter the denominator (1/n). You are a ‘one-off’; they really did throw away the mold. The question of why you are this particular you is now obviously ridiculous. There are at least 10^160 potential ‘yous’. You can only be one of them; if you weren’t one of them, you wouldn’t exist at all. So, Hamlet was right: you either are, and then that’s who you are, or you are not. There is no disembodied ‘being’ walking abroad, seeking an ‘identity’. King Hamlet’s ghost is not real after all. Horry for Horatio! Being is binary. “Is you is, or is you ain’t…?” There are no intermediate or medial states. But every ‘you’ is ‘you’ in exactly the same way that ‘you’ are you. In this sense then, you are the undifferentiated minimal unit of being. You’re what’s left when you can’t be dissected any further…without ceasing to be you (i.e. alive). Remember high school chemistry? You are like an element, e.g. carbon. The smallest unit of carbon is one C atom. You can divide that atom further but then it’s not ‘carbon’ any more, is it? Same with you. You are indivisible! (I didn’t say indestructible or indomitable.) In another sense though, “You are everything and everything is you.” (The Stylistics). ‘You’ are whatever you, or anyone else, could ever possibly be. It has been suggested that every unique you is paired with a unique You; ridiculous! Poor Occam! Being is not wasteful like that. One You is all it takes to realize innumerable yous . How many Yous do you need to change a light bulb? There is only one You. You-ness is a singular phenomenon, like alterity (otherness), like differ ȧ nce . 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 dtc@gc3incorporated.com Return to Table of Contents Share Previous Next Do you like what you just read? Subscribe today and receive sneak previews of Aletheia Today Magazine articles before they're published. Plus, you'll receive our quick-read, biweekly blog, Thoughts While Shaving. Subscribe Thanks for subscribing! Click here. Return to Table of Contents, Winter 2023 Issue Return to Table of Contents, Holiday Issue Return to Table of Contents, Halloween Issue Return to Table of Contents, September Issue Return to Table of Contents, Beach Issue Return to Table of Contents, June Issue

< Back The SETI Paradox David Cowles Aug 28, 2025 “We’ve been searching for our reflection. I suggest a team of three to five year olds to help us imagine how ET might really look and act.” Historically, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has taken place between two rather bizarre guardrails: first, an almost religious faith that life must be abundant throughout our universe (lest we be thought of as special ) and second, a superstitious expectation that any such life will closely resemble life on Earth . A toxic cocktail by any mixologist’s standards! Where did we get such strange ideas? Surprisingly, these seemingly contradictory assumptions spring from the same shared fallacy: the myopia of the familiar . The argument for a ‘biotic universe’ is based on the observation that life evolved on Earth, i.e. on one planet (out of 10?) in one solar system (out of 100 billion in the Milky Way alone) in one galaxy (out of 100 billion in the observable universe). We couple this with an infamous maxim of illogic called the Why Me Principle . More technically known as the Scandal of Particularity , it is a refusal to accept the notion that we could somehow be special, much less unique. But this ignores the obvious. We are special, not because there is anything special about us , but simply because we’re the ones making the observation. In that sense everything is special in the sense that it is unique. Known as the Anthropic Principle , this maxim holds that ‘somebody had to do it so it might just as well have been us’. Recap : We exist. We know that we exist. Others may exist but we don’t know that. All we know is that we exist and, as far as we know, only we know that we exist. But we refuse to allow for the possibility that we might be special or unique. Therefore, we conclude that there must be life elsewhere. I am looking at the reverse side of a deck of playing cards. I draw one card. It’s the Ace of Spades. It is possible that this is the only Ace in the entire deck; it is also possible that every card is an Ace of Spades. A sample of one tells us nothing about the probability of two, absent other assumptions. Still, we make a fetish of what we know at the expense of what we don’t. A friend of mine is fond of saying, “ All people think thus and so” or “ all men feel like this”. Of course, he is simply describing his own thoughts and feelings. He is a chronic victim of ontological myopia . The same pathology leads us to the further assumption that all of this abundant inter-galactic life must be more or less exactly like life on Earth. As a result, we are searching the cosmos for carbon based life forms with cellular architecture, governed by a self-replicating mega-molecule (like DNA), breathing oxygen (or carbon dioxide), immersed in water, and behaving intelligently…at least sometimes. Talk about a lack of imagination! We have set up a diabolical chain of reasoning: There is life on Earth. We are not special or unique. Therefore , there must be life elsewhere in the universe. And if something has happened more than once it has probably happened more than twice. Life is life and therefore all life is like life on Earth. Therefore, ‘life like ours’ must be abundant in the universe! We have balanced the self-deprecation inherent in the ‘Scandal of Particularity’ with an overdose of hubris. On 6/18/2025, Mark Thompson, making a similar observation, wrote in Universe Today : “Scientists are revolutionizing the search for extraterrestrial (ET) life by challenging our somewhat Earth-centric assumptions about where and how life might exist in the universe. A new review argues that we must embrace the remarkable diversity of exoplanets discovered over the past two decades and consider a much broader range of environments that could potentially host life…” The assumption that all life is like ours ignores the role environment plays in evolution. There’s no reason, for example, to assume that life forms will be less varied than their climates. That said, with 10^22 stars, each with an unspecified number of planets and moons, we should expect variations that will test our imaginations. So, we should anticipate a similar diversity among life forms…but we don’t. Take Earth, for example. As far as we know, all life evolved from a single primordial DNA molecule. From that one, very specific cell incredible biodiversity has evolved. Life inhabits almost every nook and cranny of land, sea, and sky. We find life on mountain tops and in ocean trenches, in the artic regions and in the mouths of active volcanoes. We breath oxygen, I mean CO₂, I mean methane. If ‘God’ makes it, someone will breathe it. Imagine what evolution might do on a planet like Venus, or a moon like Europa. Or in a galaxy far far away. Check it out: how different is a sponge from a mushroom, a velociraptor, a Quaking Aspen, or an orca? Expect orders of magnitude more diversity in the universe! If, and that’s a huge ‘if’, there’s anything out there at all, what makes us think that we’ll even recognize the ET forms we do encounter as alive . Let’s listen to Thompson: “The traditional focus on finding ‘Earth twins’ orbiting Sun-like stars may be too narrow, given…the incredible variety of planetary environments that exist. “The research highlights how adaptable life on Earth really is. Bacteria can survive and thrive in atmospheres rich in gases like hydrogen, helium, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide, conditions once thought hostile to life. These extremophiles, organisms that flourish in physically or chemically extreme conditions, demonstrate that life's requirements may be far more flexible than previously assumed. “Perhaps most intriguingly…life might exist without any solid ground beneath it. In so-called ‘cloud biospheres’, life could potentially float in the atmospheres of planets where rocky surfaces are too hot to support traditional life forms. These aerial ecosystems might exist in the thick atmospheres of super Earths, in the cloud layers of gas giants… “The researchers also consider life in alternative solvents beyond water, and in hypothetical planetary global oceans where entire worlds are covered in (a non-aqueous) liquid (e.g. methane). “The shift represents a fundamental change in astrobiology from asking ‘Is this planet like Earth?’ to ‘Could this planet support any form of life we can imagine?’’ Any form of life we can imagine – Ah, there’s the rub: how much are we capable of imagining? How much will we let ourselves believe is possible? I suggest putting together a team of 2 – 5 years-olds to help us imagine what ET life forms must look and act like. “With thousands of known exoplanets showcasing remarkable diversity in mass, size, and orbits, this broader approach significantly expands our chances of detecting life beyond Earth.” No it doesn’t! First, the probability of our detecting ET life is entirely dependent on the existence of that life. Second, it is unlikely that any ET life form will resemble life on Earth. Third, if there is ET life and we do encounter it, there’s no guarantee we’ll know it when we see it. “As we stand on the brink of potentially discovering biosignatures in alien atmospheres, embracing this diversity may be the key to finally finding life in forms we never expected, in places we never thought to look.” Like Alice , we have been searching for our own reflection…we may find something unexpected on the other side of the glass. It may be as unlike our world as the Red Queen’s is unlike Alice’s; but it is just as likely that we will find that there is nothing there at all…once we too have traveled Through the Lookingglass . *** The Ambassadors, Hans Holbein the Younger, 1533, National Gallery, London. The painting illustrates how the familiar and the measurable coexist with the unexpected and unrecognizable, echoing the SETI Paradox’s challenge to assumptions about extraterrestrial life. 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.

Philosophy, theology, and science merge in Aletheia Today, the magazine for people who believe in God and science. Process philosophy, scripture study, and critical essays bring science and faith together with western philosophers like Alfred North Whitehead and Jean-Paul Sartre. Deep dives into the meaning of the Old Testamant, the New Testament, and where the Bible fits into modern-day society. Is God real? Does Heaven exist? Find your answers to life's questions at Aletheia Today. Inside This Issue Philosophy Where the Time Goes “I need have no fear of time, that ‘great eraser’. I don’t live because of the past or for the future. I live by and for the present.” Morals and Values “Don’t our morals reflect our values?... Yes, they are related…they are antonyms!” Mythology Now! “Mythology is common to all ages. There is no theology, philosophy, or science without it.” I Seem to be a Membrane “My so-called inner world, the ‘I’, contains nothing; it is simple. It admits no change…there is no inner world.” Theology Mary Magdalene, The Witness "That Christ ushered in this new era of life and liberation in the presence of women, and that he sent them out as the first witnesses of the complete gospel story, is perhaps the boldest, most overt affirmation of their equality in his kingdom that Jesus ever delivered." Matzah of Hope--Passover Part One "This matzah, which we set aside as a symbol of hope for the thousands of women who are anchored to marriages in name only, reminds us that slavery comes in many forms." Growing Into Pentecost "In any case, Pentecost turns out to be a big deal after all. Reformed folk can join with those claiming to be a “full-gospel church”—maybe even remind the others of some overlooked elements in that mix." Harriet Tubman Joins Six Women of Courage in the Exodus Story--Passover Part Two "Let us follow these biblical women and Harriet Tubman’s unflinching courage. Let us be agents in our time in the political arena to support and stand with all who struggle for freedom here in America, in the Middle East, and around the world." Converge This! Football and Quantum Mechanics “This is what we do on Sunday nights and Mondays during football season: we play 'what if' and 'if only'.” How Moses Saved Egyptian Civilization “…Walk through the streets of Jerusalem, through the marketplace at Mahane Yehudah, and find distinctly Judaized foods, dress, music, and customs from every part of the world.” Culture & The Arts The Resurrection Promises More Than Heaven "So much of Easter focuses on conquering death itself, but overlooking the freedom that the resurrection offers this life skips over a sizable chunk of the miracle." May Day “This one day converges mythology (Norse), cosmology (Pagan), theology (Christian) and ideology (Marxist) with ancient fertility rites. And for my next trick…” Messiah Redux “Were Handel and Jennens dog whistle revolutionaries?... It is one thing to criticize the secular State, yet another to call for dashing it to pieces.” Spirituality My Breastplate Tantum Ergo Readers React What's the buzz about? Our readers' reactions to Aletheia Today... Additional Reading Can't get enough of Aletheia Today's content? Check out the books that inspire our magazine.

< Back Ephesians 2:10 David Cowles “In this one verse…St. Paul proposes a radically new model of what it means to be a human being.” (Paul’s enigmatic verse opens a window onto a whole new cosmology, suddenly made surprisingly relevant by the last 100 years of physics: Many worlds, Block universe, Quantum entanglement, etc.) “For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus, for the good works that God has prepared in advance that we should live in them.” (Eph. 2: 10) Who needs Freud, Jung, or Adler when we have Paul? In this one verse (above), albeit dense and enigmatic, St. Paul proposes a radically new model of what it means to be a human being. Of course, Paul’s verse could be interpreted as merely another expression of some sort of divine determinism, but that would directly contradict the overall Biblical consensus that we are ‘intentional creatures’, endowed with ‘free will’ and ‘responsible for our actions’. Opposing determinism, divine or otherwise, is the view that we create our own lives out of whole cloth. We are blank slates with freedom to make decisions and with responsibility for the outcome of those decisions. Meet Jean-Paul Sartre! Beats determinism but it’s still not the whole story. Sorry JP! Either way, our interaction with the world takes the form of a unidirectional vector. Determinism points that vector toward us; freedom points that same vector toward the world. According to this later model, everything begins with me and radiates outward. The world is my canvass, and I am surrounded by brushes and tubes of color; so start painting! Now I just have to wait for inspiration. St. Paul affirms that we are free agents, responsible for our own choices. But he also suggests that we are not the sole authors of our destinies. There’s something more going on in Paul’s cosmology! The essence of God is the Good, and in our world, we experience the Good as Beauty, Truth, and Justice. I call these the divine values , and God is all about divine values! So Being presents us with a paradox. The world (us) is radically free to do as it will, while God is hyper-focused on bringing that world in line with his values and merging it with him in the Kingdom of Heaven . The history of religion is the record of our attempts, tortured at best, to resolve this conflict. What if Paul gave us a solution two millennia ago, even if we have not recognized it? A precocious 12 year old wants to go to Harvard. There are many ways she can make that happen. She can become the valedictorian of her high school class; or she can grow into a sought after athlete; or she can write a play, prove a theorem, found a company, start a charity, etc. Of course, nothing is in stone. She could do any, or all, of these things and still not get in to the college of her choice. Conversely, she could do none of them and rely on a killer interview, essay, or test score. Bottom line: she can do as she pleases and let whatever happens happen. Society, however, has provided our 12 year old with a number of semi-guaranteed pathways to success, should she choose to follow one of them. According to Paul, this is how the whole world works! It’s 8AM and you and I have only the vaguest notion of how things will be at 4PM. Not so God! God sees the world (us) as it is now, and God knows the world as it will be at the end of time ( eschaton ); in fact, God is the eschaton ! The terrain between now and eschaton is our domain but, as history has amply demonstrated, human beings are sub-cretinous. So, what’s a good God to do? It is not in God’s nature to direct the course of events in our world. Such intervention would violate his Covenant with us, and it would vitiate the radical independence of the world he created. Is there a way around this impasse? I am tempted to credit Paul with the ‘discovery’ of a solution, but that solution was already present embryonically in the opening verses of Genesis . Paul just recognized it…and brought it forward. Consider the role of God in the creation story: God sees the world as it is: “without form or shape, with darkness over the abyss and a mighty wind sweeping over the waters…” God says, “Let there be…” and “there was…” “God saw that it was Good…” (divine values) “Then God separated…” “God…rested…” Hardly an active voice, indicative mood description! This is not Deus Magus ! God is not some want-to-be ‘Merlin’, pointing a wand and creating a frog. God is AAA; he provides us with a map that offers multiple routes to a single destination, pocked with landmarks, signage, and ‘helpful hints’. And still we get lost! I am in New York, and I need to be in LA. There are innumerable routes and modes of transportation available to me, some fast, some scenic, some frantic, some relaxed, some costly, some budget friendly, etc. Of course, not all roads from New York lead to LA; in fact, most don’t. More than once, I’ve found myself on a train out of Penn Station…headed to Boston! (Perhaps I was ‘over served’.) God’s ways are not our ways. We rigidly distinguish the map from the territory. Not God! God’s map is the territory. But God’s task is a lot easier than I’ve made it sound. All good works lead to God. Assessing the gap between where the world is and where it must get to, God prepares a catalog of good works for me to choose from. When I was accepted into college (tuition was $2,000/year), the first thing I received was a catalogue of courses…hundreds of courses. I don’t doubt that every single one of those courses was educational; but I was only required/allowed to pick four. I didn’t need to take every course my college offered. Likewise, I don’t need to perform all the good works that God has prepared for me. Just one! Doesn’t matter which one. I can try to do more than one but to do that I would have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time and experience tells me that’s not likely to happen. Single task complete, God now prepares a new catalog of good works for me to evaluate. God’s world is an interactive novel; everything I do is a choice and every choice I make triggers an avalanche of new options. Divine Intelligence (DI) is the precursor of Artificial Intelligence (AI); God is the ultimate LLM. GPS-like, God is forever re-calculating my optimal route(s). I am the frog (above) and my world is a network of disconnected lily pads (being) floating on the surface of a pond (the abyss). My mission, should I choose to accept it, is to hop my way from pad to pad until I reach the opposite shore. Of course, I may not accept my mission. I may think I know better than God: “Who needs all these pads? I’ll just swim across the pond on my own.” So I’ve made my decision. I’ve decided to ignore all the options God has placed before me. I’m choosing a different path instead – something I am perfectly free to do, BTW. Am I damned? Don’t be daft! I’ve just moved to Philadelphia, that’s all, and, gossip notwithstanding, God lives in Philly too! After I visit the Liberty Bell and frequent the bars and restaurants around Rittenhouse Square, God will present me with a new map with new good works for me to choose from. All I have to do is step into one of these works and I am back on track, my Philly detour forgotten. I can always jump onto the nearest available lily pad and make things right with God. On the other hand, I could choose to board a train for DC. Rinse and repeat! Life is long and anywhere along the way I can choose to step into a good work that God has prepared for me to live in…or I can decide I know better and fend for myself. Whenever I am on a pad, I’m on track, and my past indiscretions are forgotten. Water washes away all vestiges of the route taken. God has no reason to harbor a grudge. God is concerned with one thing only: the divine values and, what amounts to the same thing, the redemption of the world. So, the road to Heaven is not nearly as narrow as we’ve been led to believe. God is not a tough negotiator. He’s prepared at any time to accept anyone and everyone onto his team. All I need do is look around, find a good work that God has prepared for me that I should live in it…and then ‘just do it!’ David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Return to Groundhog Issue 2025 Previous Next

< Back Vanity David Cowles “Every day for 80+ years, we imagine ourselves to be someone we are not, and we work tirelessly, and fruitlessly, to become that person. 'That' is Vanity.” “Vanity, vanities, everything is vanity.” So begins Ecclesiastes , a book of Old Testament Wisdom literature, traditionally attributed to Solomon but probably written many centuries later. The text simply lists the author as ‘Koheleth’ (The Speaker). ‘Vanity’ is one translation of an Aramaic word ( havel ) that also denotes ‘absurdity, futility, emptiness’. In the languages of the ancient Middle East, it was customary for one word to support several related but distinct meanings. The meaning of a particular word is like a chord in music: multiple notes produce a single sonic impression; multiple meanings, a single semantic expression. In this way, Jewish scripture presages James Joyce and various other 20 th century wordsmiths. Words are deliberately chosen, not for their specificity, but for their ambiguity. Like chords in a symphony, words are heard vertically as well as horizontally. All the acceptable ‘meanings’ are experienced together, as overtones. Reminiscent of Janus, the two faced god , Vanity and Idolatry are two aspects of the Void. They are examples of what Alfred North Whitehead called, “the fallacy of misplaced concreteness.” We fall prey to this fallacy whenever we mistake a map for its territory or a phantom for what’s real. “It’s life’s illusions I recall, I really don’t know life at all.” (Joni Mitchell) Well said! If we treat these illusions as ‘life itself’, we succumb to Whitehead’s fallacy. Idols are paradigmatic examples of ‘misplaced concreteness’. We invest them with ‘ultimate reality’ when in fact they are ‘utterly empty’: Birthday piñatas without the candy; hype without hope! To quote Wendy’s (and Walter Mondale): “Where’s the Beef?” Vanity is the B-side of Idolatry , that chart topping hit single from The Void . We are ‘vain’ to the extent that we idolize ourselves : Narcissus. The idol and the idolater become one. When we confer ‘absolute reality’ on what is ‘totally vacuous’, we empty ourselves in the process. We become T.S. Eliot’s ‘hollow men’ (sic). In the words of George W. Bush, we’re “all hat, no cattle!” How so? You have heard it said that we are made “in the image and likeness of God”. But if our God is the Void, and we are made in its image and likeness, then… In the music industry, A and B-sides sometimes get inverted. Take the Beatles, for example: Strawberry Fields , which changed popular music forever, was supposed to be the B-side of Penny Lane , which didn’t. Likewise, we imagine that Vanity is a product of Idolatry, while the reverse is true! What we know about the world is what we know through personal experience - first, second or nth -handed. There is an objective world, but what we think we know about that world is a function of what we do know about ourselves. It appears that all living organisms have some sense of an ‘external world’. We may even wish to designate such a sense as one of the criteria for being considered ‘alive’. Each adult human body consists of 30 trillion eukaryotic (nuclear) cells; on average, each such cell contains about 1,000 prokaryotic (non-nuclear) mitochondria, descendants of ancient bacteria that have elected to take up residence within the cell, becoming permanent, reproducing participants in cellular ecology. In addition, each adult human body houses about 100 trillion ‘freestanding’ bacteria - ‘fellow travelers’ in 20 th century neo-Marxist terminology. Unlike the mitochondria, these ‘free riders’ elected not to join the Party (i.e., the cell); nonetheless, they make critical contributions to the organism’s overall success. Quadrillion cells (10^15) - each one a living, breathing, eating, sensing and reproducing organism, each with its own map of the external world, extrapolated from its ‘personal experience’. Wow! According to Heidegger , each of us is unexpectedly ‘thrown’, tiny, defenseless, and afraid, into an utterly alien world. From our first cry in the delivery room to our last gasp in hospice, we never stop searching for an identity, a niche - a way to feel safe, to fit into the world, to have purpose. “ What’s it all about, Alfie? ” Every day for 80+ years, we imagine ourselves to be someone we are not, and we work tirelessly, and fruitlessly, to become that person. That is Vanity! As an adult, I’ve imagined myself to be an intellectual, an educator, a gang leader, a revolutionary, a politician, an entrepreneur, a theologian, and (now) a writer – to single out just a few of my cherished personae . Of course, I am not now, nor have I ever been, any of those things. My grandfather said it best, “I’m not the man I used to be…and never was.” QED Children, of course, do not have the option of playing Cock Robin; but that only makes it more difficult for them to curate an identity, to create a niche. Kids see the world through the prism of family, so they see the stability of the family as Job One. A family is like a mobile. A new arrival must position itself so as not to disrupt the balance of that mobile. To that end, we make ourselves the uber-responsible first child, the mischievous Malcolm-in-the-middle, the adored prince or princess, the helpless ‘baby’, etc. This is why children invariably feel themselves to blame when families fall apart. In their minds, they are to blame; they failed. They did not do their duty, they did not maintain the family’s integrity, its balance. So, is everything Vanity? Well, if your God is the Void and all things are empty (idols), then yes, “everything is Vanity and a chase after wind”, including you. We don’t like things to be either/or, black or white; we live in the epoch of gray, the color of indeterminacy. But Torah sets things straight, “I set before you life and death, therefore choose life…(for) I am the Lord your God, you shall not put other gods before me.” 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 Next

< Back The Ease of Burden Erin Gruodis-Gimbel "Writing is not like Athena, springing fully formed from Zeus’ forehead. Writing is like all of Zeus’ other children, where he has to relate to someone for creation (and boy, does he relate). To create things, we need other people. It takes two to tango, two to make a child, and around 12 to make a sitcom." God lasted seven days without a writers’ room. Why would we subject the Writers Guild of America to the same thing? From Genesis 1:1 through 2:4, God is alone. Well, mostly alone; he has all the fish of the sea and the birds of the air. But on the eighth day, the world is barren, for “there was no one to till the ground.” So God does what any sensible deity would do — he gives himself some company. Of course, this company also has chores to do. Thus, God has created the first writers’ room. What a legacy. Many, many days later, the Writers Guild of America has gone on strike, essentially to prevent themselves from becoming chapter 1 of Genesis. Among the many issues the WGA is negotiating, two of the landmark ones are a minimum staffing requirement for writer’s rooms and thorough regulation of Artificial Intelligence for Guild projects. The Guild argues that minimum staff requirements are necessary for sustainable production and growth, and that AI in its present form represents an existential threat to the profession as it exists today. The AMPTP, the group of studios that produce the vast majority of the entertainment we see, has consistently responded with the legal equivalent of “neener neener,” which is very difficult to negotiate with. As a writer, I’m not particularly worried about AI. I’ve seen 2001: A Space Odyssey, so I have a healthy distrust of computers and outer space, but I’m not hysterical about it. So far, what we’ve seen has been a substandard aggregation of information, which is often incorrect, lacking nuance, skill, or voice. I’m not concerned. I also sometimes lack nuance, skill, and/or voice, but at least I can compensate by buying donuts for everyone. What I am worried about, in line with the Guild, is that the studios have become so enamored with the ease of AI that they get cartoon dollar signs in their eyes, and a cash register noise plays when they blink. What AI is — and it’s important to note that I’m talking about AI in its current, publicly accessible form — is an advanced aggregator. It scrapes every bit of data from the internet and constructs a relevant answer to the prompt. It amalgamates; it doesn’t create. As of now, most AI-generated content has been published in the digital media sphere and is notably riddled with factual errors. If media companies wanted to publish things that were incorrect, they might as well hire me to write about advances in particle physics. Another job I’ve lost to a computer. The worry is that the studios have such a low bar for the art they produce, lowering the bar even further by referring to it as “content,” so that an amalgamation, quickly, easily, and incorrectly produced by a computer, is preferable to the handpicked fruit of human labor. I guess if it comes down to it, using AI to write this article would actually be easier than doing it myself. In fact, in the course of getting this far, I have eaten a lot of very tiny tacos, spun around in my desk chair and gotten dizzy enough that I almost lost control of those very tiny tacos, read several theories on the ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey, delivered an impromptu TED Talk in my living room about the flaws in the AMPTP’s negotiation strategy, done the dishes, and engaged in some shoe shopping that I can absolutely not afford. Then I looked at the draft that I had, decided I didn’t like it at all, and started over. I called my dad, bounced some ideas off of him, texted two friends, bounced some ideas off of them, and now we’re here, together. I’m full of mini tacos (and a little queasy), and I hope you are also full and not queasy. What the studios hope to eliminate with those dollar signs in their eyes is exactly what I just did. Writing is very hard. Most of the time spent writing is not actually spent writing the thing you read. A lot of it is eating and doing the dishes. A lot of it is writing and then deleting, and then going through the document history and putting back what you deleted. And a lot of it, very notably, is talking to other people. The Bible is not just about God. It has God; it has quite a lot of Him. But only 35 verses of the first book of the Bible feature just God. He lasted seven days before he needed someone else. The key to creation, at least after the first week, is relationships. Writing is not like Athena, springing fully formed from Zeus’ forehead. Writing is like all of Zeus’ other children, where he has to relate to someone for creation (and boy, does he relate). To create things, we need other people. It takes two to tango, two to make a child, and around 12 to make a sitcom. AI supposedly simplifies that. It makes the process far easier than the previous model of having writers work alone. It takes the burden of creation — the picture of the tortured writer sitting alone, banging their head against the writer’s block and falling into a bottle of gin — and makes that process simpler, faster, kinder. More humane, ironically enough. AI relieves the wrong burden, though. The burden of creation is not sitting alone, banging your head against the writer’s block and falling into a bottle of gin. That happens sometimes, sure, although I think those individuals would probably be alcoholics anyway. Writers, especially those that fall under WGA representation for TV and screenwriting, rarely write alone. Even if the work is done alone, there are phone calls, workshops, writer’s groups, and traded PDFs over email. There are editors and beta readers and reluctant partners who would rather be doing something else. Working alone isn’t the burden of creation; working together is. As Jean-Paul Sartre said, “hell is other people.” Clearly, he was observing my Intro to Playwriting class. Working collaboratively is hard. That’s the real burden. Sometimes, collaboration looks less like writing and more like a cattle auction. But there’s a reason that TV has writers’ rooms, screenwriters often have partners, playwrights like me have working groups and workshop cohorts. Other people may be hell, but they are also key to creation, whether it means working on one thing together or the constant revising that comes with feedback. The first play that I ever wrote was seven pages long. Over a year before I would even consider myself a writer, I was texting with a friend, and we created the character of an old man who refused to die. A hitman showed up at his home, and he simply said, “no thank you,” and went about his day. I told my friend to give me 20 minutes, and I came back with a 7-page play called Shel and Lenny. I wrote that play alone, but I didn’t create it alone. For other plays, I created them alone, but I had directors, actors, dramaturgs, sometimes just people passing by, who helped, who shaped them, who annoyed me so much with their feedback that I eventually made the play even better just to shut them up. Even when I am alone at my desk, I have partners. Even when I am alone in my room, I have a writers’ room, although it’s sometimes better known as cold-calling my friends and leaving very long voicemails. Multiple voices, multiple perspectives, multiple stories, make work better. When you have unchecked inspiration from one person, you get a poor man’s version of David Foster Wallace. No one wants that. Not even David Foster Wallace (RIP). For balance, for growth, for the sustainability of the profession, there have to be writers’ rooms. Some rare writers may work fully alone; I commend them and do not want to be like them. Writing is listening and disagreeing. Writing is compromise. Writing is translation of one idea into another voice. Writing is connection. After all, if we’re going to connect with our audiences, don’t we have to connect with each other? If we want that connection — something most of us desire, though perhaps not the studios — you need many writers. Multiple people are expensive, hard to wrangle, and nearly impossible to get a cohesive lunch order for. It’s a burden, an expense, and time lost. But without that burden, we don’t work. Without that burden of creation, the inspiration that comes when you’re arguing, the realizations that come when you’re critiquing feedback… without those, writing doesn’t happen. The studios think that’s a burden that needs to be lifted, and they believe AI will do it for us. All that pesky relating to each other and collaborating can be eliminated with a computer that spits out a substandard facsimile of what you and eleven other writers would have come up with. They want AI to take us to the Genesis 1:1 version of writing — a solitary writer drinking themselves to death in an attic in front of ChatGPT. This is preferable, they want to tell us. Look at how little work you have to do! You don’t need those noisy rooms; you don’t need those arguments; you don’t need to talk to anyone else. We’ve freed you from your burden of creation, see? By lifting this burden of creation, it brings us back to a model that is and has always been barren. No one truly works alone. Even when Henry David Thoreau claimed he was all by his lonesome on Walden Pond, his mother was dropping by every Thursday to do his laundry. Writing isn’t easy. I spent an hour and a half on the phone trying to figure this out, not to mention the time I spent avoiding both the phone call and the writing. But no one does this because it’s easy. We do it because we have stories to tell; because if we didn’t do it, we’d feel some sort of metaphysical constipation. There are no spiritual laxatives that can fix that. We do it because it’s hard; because the struggle is worth it; because the struggle is a perverse kind of fun. But just because writing isn’t easy doesn’t mean that's a problem to be fixed. Nowadays, there's a compulsion for everything to be convenient. Some things are difficult. Some things take time. Some things are worth the effort. We don’t need to automate the writing process to make it easier, taking the act of creation away from the individual. Not all burdens have to be eased; sometimes they just have to be shared. God needed someone to till the field, and I need someone to tell me that we can’t have half the stage on fire for the second act, no matter how much I want it. The studios should be grateful that the need for collaboration is what I’m taking from the Bible, and not what Jesus said about rich men seeing Heaven. Erin Gruodis-Gimbel is a playwright, author, and fact-checker based in New York. She is currently pursuing her MFA in Dramatic Writing at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. You can find her writing at Beyond Belief, JAKE the Mag, COPY, and on post-it notes and legal pads scattered around her like a semi-intellectual aura. You can find her at eringruodisgimbel.com and erinxgg on Twitter. Return to our AI Issue Table of Contents Previous Next

< Back Satan, Mary, and ‘Da Judge’ “Satan glorified political power for its own sake. He defended the socio-economic status quo…Jesus’ mother proclaimed a political and economic revolution...” David Cowles There’s nothing like a good old-fashioned barroom – you know…that place ‘where everybody knows your name’. Sadly, this Anglo-American institution is in decline on both sides of the Atlantic. We love to complain about socio-economic inequality and yet we are quietly witnessing the demise of a great leveler. The bar is where landlords and tenants, shop owners and wage earners, lawyers and tradesmen, bankers and borrowers have traditionally sat side by side, enjoying ‘a pint of the best’, and sharing their perspectives on the sorry state of the world. I love a good bar; you never know who you’ll meet and, if you shut up for a second, you can eavesdrop on the most interesting conversations. In my younger days, I frequented a bar where the ‘regulars’ included the owner of a rival bar, a pre-school teacher (and Stalin scholar), a florist, a contractor, a biology professor, a municipal employee, and an attorney. My best story, however, concerns a lazy summer afternoon with me sitting alone on my usual perch in my then favorite watering hole. Unexpectedly, two men and one woman walked in, already deeply engaged in animated conversation; they sat down right next to me. I had been going to this same bar for years, and as far as I know, none of the three had ever been there before. But of course, I recognized them immediately! Have you even been in a public space when suddenly and unexpectedly you encounter somebody famous? How do you react? Do you tell them how much you appreciate their ‘work’? Do you ask for their autograph? Or do you totally ignore them? I have adopted an intermediate strategy. I nod knowingly in their direction (sometimes they nod back) and I leave it at that. But not this time! On this occasion, I sat frozen on my stool, eyes forward, watching my bar mates only out of the corner of one eye and then only as reflected in the huge mirror that hung over the bar’s display of bottled spirits. And speaking of spirits, my drinking companions that day were none other than Mary, the virgin Mother of God, Lucifer (aka Satan), and ‘Judge Gudy’ (Gideon). In my experience, the only subjects worth talking about in a bar are religion and politics and this afternoon’s guests had apparently settled on politics as their topic du jour . Satan boasted proudly of his accomplishments in the field of politics. He reminded Mary that he had offered her son, Jesus, “all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence.” (Matthew 4: 8 - 9) Of course, Mary reminded Satan that Jesus had turned him down flat, but she did not challenge his boastful claim that he could in fact deliver ‘all the kingdoms of the world’. Clearly, this is political power way beyond anything Boss Tweed or Mayor Daley could have imagined. Then Mary lectured Satan on the terms of God’s own political praxis: “He has thrown down rulers from their thrones but lifted-up the lowly. The hungry he has filled with good things; the rich he has sent away empty.“ (Luke 1: 52 – 53) Clearly, we were in for a good old-fashioned 19 th century donnybrook. Satan glorified political power for its own sake. He defended the socio-economic status quo. His platform did not include even a single mention of ‘justice’; but he confidently asserted the corrupt malleability of ‘all the kingdoms’ (not some, not most… all ). Nor did Jesus contest Satan’s ability to deliver absolute political power. It was taken for granted. On the other hand, Jesus’ mother proclaimed a political and economic revolution the scope of which would have made Marx and Lenin cringe. The argument might have gone well into the evening, “Who’s driving?” I thought, had ‘Judge Gudy’ not intervened, “May I tell my story?” “3 millennia ago, give or take, I was threshing wheat in a winepress to hide the grain from the Midianites who were occupying our land. Suddenly, almost as if I’d been confronted by an angel, I thought, ‘You’re a brave man, and the Lord is with you’. I thought, If not me, who? If not now, when? If it’s going to be it’s up to me! “But of course, bravado gave way to skepticism and caution. “If the Lord is really with us, why has all this happened to us? Did I really receive a message from God or was I just daydreaming…again?” I prayed, “Give me a sign!” And I got one. “So that night, I engaged in my first act of revolutionary violence. I overturned the altar of Baal, tore down its ridiculous ‘pole’... a symbol of status quo and social hierarchy. Instead, I built on that same site an altar dedicated to YHWH and, using the wood from the pole, I sacrificed a whole bull. I even gave the altar a name, ‘Jehovah Shalom’, which means, ‘God is wholeness’. “Of course, I got caught, but I was the beneficiary of a ‘woke’ wave of ‘selective prosecutions’ and let go. I realize now that the destruction of Baal was just an initiation ritual; God was testing me to see if I was ready for bigger things. For better or worse, I passed the test. “Great for God, not so great for me! The cops (and my dad) had put the fear of Baal in me; I didn’t relish another bout with the law. But also, I didn’t want to turn down God, so I asked for another sign. And then another. No way out now! “So, I raised an army of 32,000 to take on 135,000 occupying soldiers. Farmers and craftsmen against Midian’s professional military. God or not, I couldn’t face the prospect of inflicting such carnage on my own people. So I decided to send 31,700 soldiers back home to their families. I would fight Midian…but with just 300 of my best . “I blush when people call me ‘the Father of Guerilla Warfare’. I was no military genius; I was just scared. I was willing to serve God, even if it meant martyrdom, but I was unwilling to sacrifice any more lives than absolutely necessary in the process. Besides, what was I going to do with 30,000 untrained soldiers? Better to rely on my best and brightest . And so, ya da, ya da, ya da … we won. With the help of God, and a lot of good luck, we drove Midian across the Jordan and out of Israel. "My only thought then was to get home to my father and my pastoral life. Surely my dad will let me drink wine now that I’ve defeated Midian in battle, or maybe not! Anyway, no more fighting for me. But my neighbors had other ideas. They insisted on making me King. "No way! As the leader of a victorious army, I was in a position to lay down the law… and this time I didn’t need to wait for a sign: 'I will not rule over you nor shall my son; the Lord will rule over you.” And so it was that “for 40 years the land was at peace...'” Silence followed. Slowly, Mary and Satan paid their tabs and Mary picked up the bill for Gideon. Satan left quietly followed a few minutes later by Mary. It seemed as though Gideon might hang out a while but, tab paid, he too left the bar. At that moment it occurred to me that the intellectual history of the 19 th and 20 th centuries had just played out in front of me. Satan advocated for secular pragmatism, democratic capitalism, the new world order. Mary argued for the overthrow of the existing socio-economic order to be replaced by a benign version of Marx’s Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Gideon argued for nothing. He lived his ideology, a fine blend of devotion to God, compassion for his fellows, and dedication to purpose. He had no desire for political power; he was content to let God rule Israel directly, without interference from permanent political institutions. He demonstrated the spirit of what today we call Anarchism . 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 Previous Next