< Back Descartes David Cowles Oct 29, 2025 “To be conscious is to be aware of being oneself and to be aware of being oneself is to be aware of oneself as a potential object of another’s awareness.” Cogito ergo sum , ‘I think therefore I am’ - possibly the best known meme in all of Western philosophy. Who has not marveled at its simple wisdom? And welcomed the comfort of a stable launching pad for further philosophical speculation? It answers so many questions…especially when you’re in middle school. But like most easy answers, it’s flawed; and like most flaws, the devil is in the language. I think…I am. Simple. But the ‘I’ is deceptive. It suggests that the ‘I’ that thinks is the ‘I’ that is; it isn’t! ‘I think’ describes an action. It discloses an agent, and it makes some sense to call that agent, ‘I’. I mean, what else would you call it? Agency is an ‘I-experience’. We can impute agency to other subjects but the only agency I can ever experience directly is my own; only an ‘I’ thinks and knows that it thinks. The authors of the Book of Job understood this c. 3,000 years ago: “I know that my redeemer lives, and on the last day he will stand upon the earth, and after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes him – I, not another.” (19: 25 – 27) Only first person experience counts, Alfred North Whitehead notwithstanding. This discloses something unexpected about the meaning of ‘I think’. I think only if I am aware that I think. Computers think…but as far as we know they are not aware that they think. This is not the ‘thinking’ Descartes has in mind. The ‘I’ of his cogito is not the ‘I’ that thinks. It is the ‘I’ that knows that it thinks. What Descartes called ‘thinking’ ( cogito ) is more like what we mean by ‘being conscious’. ‘I think’ discloses ‘I’ to Descartes, not because Descartes thinks, but because Descartes knows that he thinks. The Descartes that knows that he thinks is the Descartes that is ( sum ) and that is not the Descartes who merely thinks. Sum (I am) describes a state, not an act. There is no agent so there is no warrant to invoke the ‘I-word’ in this context. A better presentation of the existential reality would have been cogito ergo est (‘I think therefore it is’ or ‘I think therefore something is’). Alternatively, we can retain the ‘I-word’ ( sum ) if we remove it from the cogito : cogitator ergo sum (‘it is thought therefore I am’). That an entity thinks and knows that it thinks means that being has a subject after all and that subject is what I call ‘me’. When I say, “I think,” I am both the stated subject and the implied object of the act. Thinking, as Descartes uses to term, is an inherently recursive process. Being, again per Descartes, is not. Thinking and being are not the same thing…not by a long shot! Bottom line : what is essential is that we scrupulously respect the ontological (not just semantic) distinction between the ‘I’ of cogito and the ‘I’ of sum . But there is more. Being conscious is a process and, like all process, it is trinitarian: (1) I am aware of x (not-me); (2) I am aware that I (me) am aware of x (not-me); (3) since x is and x is not me, I must assume that x may be aware of me as I am of x. I cannot assume that I am ontologically special, much less unique. What goes around may come around! You may say, “I don’t believe that x is aware of me.” Ok, so what? First, I don’t care what you believe; second, I don’t care whether x is aware of you or not. The real nature of x is unimportant. To be conscious is to be aware of being oneself and to be aware of being oneself is to be aware of oneself as potentially the object of another’s awareness. Consciousness does not require the existence of ‘other’ minds; it requires the possibility of ‘other’ minds. It requires me to harbor a model of the ‘other’ inside my model of myself, like an incubus . I cannot be aware of x unless x is distinct from me. Otherwise, x is just part of me and my awareness of it is just an awareness of myself. But if x is distinct from me, then I must concede that it may be a copy, a reflection, of me and that would mean that x could be aware of me. I am aware of x-not-me. I am aware of me being aware of x-not-me. If x is x-not-me then x is ‘me minus me’ (equality, not identity). From the point of view of x, I am x’-not-x. I am ‘x minus x’. The idea that The Other is a fundamental category of ontology goes back to the birth of Western philosophy with Anaximander (6th century BCE). Anaximander apparently (evidence is fragmentary) believed that Being was inherently ‘mutual’ – I come to be by ‘letting’ another come to be. We are all monkeys with our hands stuck inside our own personal bottles. (Apologies to my Simian cousins.) We are only free to become ourselves if we are willing to let go of the prize we’re clutching. Who among us can let go? We can only become by letting another be. It’s counter-intuitive and counter-instinctual but it is the origin of Love and, by extension, of all Virtue. *** Maurits Cornelis Escher — Hand with Reflecting Sphere (1935) Escher’s self-portrait shows him gazing into a polished glass sphere held in his own hand, where the entire room — including himself — curves and folds within its reflection. The image explores the act of perception itself, merging the observer and the observed into a single, infinite loop of awareness. It perfectly captures the Cartesian idea of consciousness reflecting upon itself — the mind as both subject and object in the search for truth. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Time Crystals and the Lord's Prayer David Cowles Jan 18, 2026 “The Lord’s Prayer is structured like a Rondeau Time Crystal.” 1250 words, 6 minute read Plain, ordinary crystals, the Hope Diamond for example, consist of molecules arranged in a fixed pattern that repeats over and over again in space . What if we could do something similar with a pattern in time ? Instead of a structure reproducing itself indefinitely in space, could we identify a process that reproduces itself indefinitely in time? Frank Wilczek theorized the existence of such ‘Time Crystals’ in 2012; in 2016-2017 actual Time Crystals were created in a lab for the first time. In a Time Crystal patterns repeat over time in a regular cycle always returning to the same home position(s), over and over again. It's perpetual motion at the quantum level. But behavior in Wilczek’s Time Crystals is entirely deterministic and this turns out to be a huge limitation on the usefulness of his discovery. For example, the concept is useless for modeling indeterminate behavior, such as random sequence, probability, quantum decoherence, intentional agency, or free will – in other words for anything interesting. Then, j ust ‘yesterday’ (October 14, 2025, Nature Physics ) a team of scientists headed by Leo Joon Il Moon announced the discovery of a new state of matter they’re calling Rondeau Time Crystals ( rondeau for the musical form called a ‘round’). These crystals are characterized by the presence of an indeterminate, chaotic ( Delta ) phase between two perfectly determined bookends ( Alpha & Omega ). Between Alpha and Omega , the Ginnungagap of Norse Mythology, Kaos prevails: “…the earth was without form or shape, with darkness over the abyss and a mighty wind sweeping over the waters.” (Genesis 1: 2) However, this disorder is ‘tunable’, permitting local islands of virtual order to emerge within the chaotic Delta phase and endure for ‘short’ periods, subject always to the inexorable vicissitudes of entropy. We call such islands ‘entities, organisms, events’. The states of perfect order that bookend primordial chaos do not control the timing or the details of the ordered events. However, the Alpha and Omega points do embody certain essential organizing principles that work to ‘fine tune’ what comes in between, creating perhaps a bias toward Being rather than not-Being and therefore a bias toward Beauty, Truth and Justice, the ‘divine values’. The World as we know it is a chaotic state, poised between two states of eternal perfection. Whatever happens in Delta must ultimately unite Omega with Alpha . The Lord’s Prayer (below) enjoys the same fundamental organizing plan as Moon’s Rondeau Crystals . It consists of three stanza, two timeless states of affairs, Alpha and Omega , and one spacetime, entopic, undetermined state, Delta . Let’s dive in: Our father, Who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name! This is the Alpha State. It defines the initial position of the system: immanent father, transcendent God, holy (unique) name. It describes the situation from the first person perspective of the one who prays. At the other end of the process of Being, the Omega State, the ultimate position of the system, is co-incident with the Alpha State but with its orientation reversed: Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven! This is the eschaton; it is God’s response. Essentially, he recognizes our initiatory act and promises to reciprocate by delivering the Kingdom of Heaven. But it is a long way from Galilee, or Gotham, to God’s Kingdom. While the Alpha and Omega states are hard wired, how we get there from here, the Delta state, is entirely undetermined. Give us this day our daily bread, And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, And lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil, Amen! Jesus emphasizes three aspects of spatiotemporal life that are essential elements of the Alpha Omega Bridge Tunnel: Survival, Reproduction, and Independence. We begin with Survival, our daily bread. We pray, not for untold riches, but that our baseline needs may always be met, i.e. that we may live. But ‘man (sic) does not live by bread alone’, or better stated, ‘human beings do not thrive in isolation’. I thrive only in the context of community and community comes to be only when you and I grant each other ‘reck’ (recognition), i.e. when we forgive each other’s trespasses. We grant reck when we sublimate our own interests to those of another. I ‘make space’ for you and, hopefully you make space for me and so, voila , community! But there’s a catch. The mutual granting of reck may not be transactional or reciprocal; it cannot be tit-for-tat. Each granting of reck must be a spontaneous, voluntary expression of love with no expectation of gain. The opposite of ‘reck’ is ‘trespass’. Instead of making room for you to emerge and grow, I impinge upon you, stunt your growth, and perhaps even abort your arrival. We ask God to overlook, to overcome, to forgive all such trespasses, i.e. all the times I suppress others’ coming to be. “As we forgive those who trespass against us.” God operates in the world through the world. God desires to forgive all sins; when we forgive, we operate in loco Dei . We realize God’s eschatological objective in a concrete context. “But lead us not into temptation.” Human beings cannot reach their full potential unless they are free. In that context, we have to oppose all forms of physical slavery. But such institutions are the tip of the iceberg. In fact, we are all enslaved by something much more powerful than Pharaoh. Every day, we voluntarily indenture ourselves to a menagerie of inanimate objects: sex, drugs, wealth, status, adulation, fame, and power, just to name a few of life’s traps. These become our idols, our gods, our matters of ‘ultimate concern’ ( Tillich ). We are motivated by Good but we are tempted by the semblance of good . Seeking nothing but Good, we settle for what is not-so-good and when we treat the not-so-good as Good, we commit the sin of idolatry, the substitution of the relatively good for the absolutely Good. “But deliver us from evil.” In the Lord’s Prayer, evil assumes three forms: mortality (death itself, nihilism ), selfishness (withholding reck, solipsism ), and misplaced attachment (willful ignorance, idolatry ). Consider the Ten Commandments. Each one prohibits at least one of these forms of evil; each one mandates the preservation of life (#5), the granting of reck (#1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8), and/or the shedding of unprofitable attachments (#6, 9, 10). Jesus was merely explicating what was already hard wired in Torah . Sidebar : We don’t usually think of the Lord’s Prayer as a teaching on the nature of evil (sin) because Jesus was drawing on a much more sophisticated and nuanced understanding than most of us harbor today. We reserve the term ‘evil’ for a select class of wrong doers: drunk drivers, pedophiles, polluters, and internet scammers, e.g. Suffice to say, Jesus and his followers had a much broader view of the role of Evil in the World. ‘Deliver us from evil’ then is a summation of the three previous petitions (re death, selfishness, and attachment). It encapsulates the Delta phase but more than that, it instantiates the Alpha and Omega phases: ‘Thy will/done on earth/as in heaven’. Then Libera nos a malo becomes the meme sown into our flags for the personal and collective crusade against ‘the evil one’. The Lord’s Prayer is structured like a Rondeau Time Crystal . It describes a World with two perfect, eternal, wholly determined phases ( Alpha and Omega ) and one entirely indeterminate phase ( Delta ). In other words, it describes a Time Crystal. *** The main dome of the Pammakaristos Church features a powerful mosaic of Christ Pantokrator , depicted gazing downward while blessing with his right hand and holding a closed Gospel book, symbolizing his authority as ruler of the universe. Created in the early 14th century during the Palaiologan period, the mosaic’s gold background and solemn expression emphasize Christ’s divine presence and theological centrality within the Byzantine worldview. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! 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< Back Purpose, Meaning, Value David Cowles May 15, 2026 “The beautiful…floats imperceptibly above the surface of the painting and underneath the gaze of the connoisseur - in the realm of pattern (logos).” “Does it have any purpose, any meaning, any value?” Isn’t this approximately the first question we ask whenever we encounter anything novel? Notice I say ‘question’, not ‘questions’ – because these three ‘questions’ are actually the same question expressed in different contexts: (1) Can this entity further my projects? Can I put it to some use? Can I find a purpose for it? Techne . (2) If not, does this entity have a message for me? Does it contain information? “The signatures of all things I am here to read.” (Joyce) Gnosis . (3) If not, does the entity have value per se , in its own right, apart from any possible utility? Logos . Unexpectedly, these ‘contexts’ reflect three facets of the Divine Nature, i.e. of the Good, manifest in the World as Beauty ( logos ), Truth ( gnosis ), and Justice ( techne ). Purpose, Meaning, and Value (PMV) are vectors; they point beyond mere materiality. Purpose refers to the techno-sphere, Meaning to the noosphere, Value to the logo-sphere, three layers of Being that template the purely material ( physis ). They are what-is caught in the process of becoming what-is-not. They are what-is transcending itself. PMV refers to an aspect of things that is not immanent in the things themselves: “This painting is beautiful.” Heads nod in unison. But where does that beauty come from? From the eye of the beholder? Or from the physical painting itself? Or from values that transcend the painting, the artist, and the critic? If the beauty lies with the beholder, then it is no more significant than my grandchild liking peppermint stick ice cream: nice to know…but end of! If beauty lies in the painting itself, then it is inseparable from the particular pigments and brush strokes used. But if that is the case, how is it that a second painting with exactly the same range of color and acumen of craft is butt-ugly? The beautiful is grounded in the canvass and appreciated by the connoisseur but it exists in its own realm: it floats imperceptibly above the surface of the painting and underneath the gaze of the connoisseur - in the realm of pattern ( logos , see below). Against all of this, there’s Nietzsche: “One is necessary, one is a piece of fate, one belongs to the whole, one is in the whole – there exists nothing which could judge, measure, compare, condemn our being, for that would be to judge, measure, compare, condemn the whole… But nothing exists apart from the whole!” ( Twilight of the Idols ) This 19 th century proto-existentialist recognized that PMV transcends the material world but he denied that anything transcends ‘the whole’ and therefore he denied the possibility of any meaningful valuation. Note : “I like it,” is a valuation of sorts but it is not yet meaningful; it is the semantic equivalent of a sigh. It refers to the painting, and it refers to the critic, but it makes no appeal to the transcendent. However, anything beyond ‘I like it’ or its equivalent invokes values that do not reside either in the critic or in the craft. So, checkmate! PMV is how we ‘judge, measure, compare, condemn’; therefore, they cannot exist in a flat (linear) Universe such as proposed by Nietzsche and implicit in today’s reigning ontological paradigm, Scientific Positivism . Unless, of course, Nietzche is wrong! Much as we admire Nietzsche’s take no prisoners style of philosophizing, few of us live our lives as Nietzscheans. The twin ‘illusions’ of agency and hierarchy are just too strong. I have to choose, coffee or tea, and I can’t reconcile myself to the idea that my choices are random, determined algorithmically, a matter of habit, or a product of fate. Agency sets me apart from the World. Phenotypically, the distinction of not-self from self is our first exposure to the non-linearity of Being. Through me, the World experiences and acts on itself; ego is the vehicle and first fruit of recursion. But Agency (self vs. not-self) is a specific example of the more general phenomenon of hierarchy . Remember Nietzsche, “Nothing exists apart from the whole?” But I do , I am of the whole, but I am also apart from the whole. Philosophers love to split a hair, pick a nit, but there’s no splitting or picking here! Either Being is flat (linear) or it’s hierarchical (recursive). If it’s flat, nothing transcends anything else and PMV is an empty concept. However, if anything has purpose, meaning, or value, then Being per se is non-linear and everything has at least the potential to be useful, informative, or enervating. That potential is what defines an ‘entity’ in a non-linear world. To be is to have the capacity to convey influences. There is a crucial ethical dimension to this. If the World is flat and without transcendent value, then we are free to use (abuse) our environment as we see fit. If those uses are unsustainable or inhumane, so what? We cannot be judged. But on the other hand, if entities have purpose, meaning, or value, they transcend mere materiality and that severely constrains how we may relate to them. Perhaps the most developed ethic in this vein is that of the Eastern European Hasidim . According to this Orthodox Jewish sect, every entity contains a divine spark, a fragment of Shekinah , YHWH’s Presence in the World. Our mission is to release those sparks so that they can reunite, ultimately constituting the ‘Cosmic Messiah’ (as envisioned by Teilhard de Chardin et al.). Here Asian and European philosophies overlap. Anaximander, the grandfather of Greek philosophy, taught that Being itself is the product of two potential or virtual entities granting each other ‘reck’ (respect) and thereby constituting each other as ‘actual entities’ with the potential to convey influences. We fulfill our mission when we treat everything we encounter with that respect, when we grant ‘reck’, when we let everything around us ‘be all that it can be’ (US Army), i.e. when we transform daily living into a sacrament (“The grove needs an altar” – Ezra Pound). Consider also Native American spirituality. It expresses respect and gratitude to the animals and plants that must be hunted and gathered to sustain human life. Bottom line, I may not arbitrarily exploit or co-opt other entities solely to further my projects or satisfy my desires. Instead, I must meet every person, process, or thing on its own terms, using it according to its best purposes, respectfully, though not always deferentially. Upon encountering a new entity, I must not ask what it can do for me; I must first ask what I can do for it (JFK). And it is by treating others with nurturing respect that I release the well-hidden spark within myself. In fact, care of others is care of self because your neighbor is yourself. ( Great Commandment ) By the grace of God, you save yourself by saving others: ‘Forgive us…as we forgive!’ ( Lord’s Prayer ) And who is my neighbor? Well, you are, of course, dear reader, but also the stranger, the sojourner, the refugee, and the outcast. And the coral reef, the bumble bee, the quaking aspen and the wood wide web; Gaia , kosmos , ‘Brother Sun, Sister Moon’. (St. Francis) The Torah may be read as the user’s manual for Planet Earth - 613 ‘DIY hacks’ for dealing ethically, and effectively, with the world of persons, places, and things. I only come to be in the context of you, the other: you individually (reader), you collectively (society), you transcendently (God). The network precedes the nodes. Therefore logos cannot be an emergent property of physis (sorry Muster Mark…Karl). Logos must be substructural. “It from bit.” (Wheeler) You’ve heard of the Higgs Boson, the newly discovered particle that gives matter its mass? Well, it is logos that gives entities purpose, meaning, and value . But if anything has purpose, meaning or value, then everything , every entity, is potentially a signifier and therefore everything we do, however local, however trivial, has cosmic implications. Every thing is in every thing (Anaxagoras Hot Link ) and we are called “to see a world in a grain of sand.” (Blake) If every entity is potentially purposeful, meaningful, or valuable, does the Cosmos as a whole, Being itself, also have significance. Is what’s good for the goslings good for the goose? According to academic logicians (e.g. Bertrand Russell Hot Link ) the answer is ‘no’: no set can be a member of itself, and the set of all entities, the Universal Set (U), is not itself an entity. But this is obviously just a convention. For example, the set of all mathematical objects is itself a mathematical object. Of course, we’re free to define this relationship any way we want but to say that no set can be self-referential seems a bit silly and makes the whole enterprise suspect. On the other hand, not every set is a member of itself. The set of all horses, for example, is not a horse. So which is it? Is the set of all entities (U) an entity in its own right, and therefore its own member, or is it merely an inert, purely conceptual, collection? This is perhaps Cosmology’s most important question. It is a fundamental tenet of this site that concepts, if valid, should apply across all scales. There is not one rule for a quantum and another for a queen; the fundamental structure of the Universe must be scale-agnostic. The so-called Universal Set (U) goes by many names: Cosmos, Universe, World, Being, God. What’s your Ultimate Reality? Regardless of labels, the question is the same: Is Reality, at the level of ultimate generality (U), a real thing or just an idea? To answer this question, we need Gregory Bateson! So many phenomena can be defined by applying his catch-all criterion - a difference that makes a difference. The nexus of all entities is certainly different from any subset of those entities and from the mere multiplicity of the elements themselves. So, different? Check! But is it a difference that makes a difference ? For that, we need to take a step back. What would it mean for the Universal Set (U) to make a difference? It can’t make a difference to something outside itself since by definition there is nothing outside it. So if it makes a difference, it must make a difference to itself and that means it must make a difference to at least one of its members (elements). But if it makes a difference to one member it makes a difference to all members (Principle of Solidarity). Of the world’s major religions, Christianity is perhaps the most explicit in its doctrines surrounding the reality and efficacy of the Universal Set: “In the beginning was the logos and the logos was with God and the logos was God and…the logos become flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1: 1 – 3, 14) Translation : the Universal Set is an actual entity and so it is a member of itself. U є U; Incarnation! So we find ourselves in the position of the residents of Jerusalem c. 500 BCE, hearing the Book of Deuteronomy read out for the first time: “I set before you life and death; therefore, choose life.” (30: 19) I set before you everything ( panta ) and nothing ( nihil ); therefore, choose everything. Either the universe is an unimaginably huge pile of steaming excrement ( nihil )… or it is thoroughly saturated with Purpose, Meaning, and Value ( panta ). And if panta , then U itself is an actual entity that makes a difference in the careers of every other member, every other actual entity. In my view at least, there can be no middle ground. “Mademoiselle, may I take your order? Will you have Panta or Nihil today?” Image is from Jackson Pollock and its called: One: Number 31 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 What We Want for Our Kids David Cowles Jan 7, 2025 “Who are we to impose our life choices…or, more likely, our life accidents…on anyone else, much less on those we purport to love?” Every parent dreams of having a mini-me. Ok, maybe not every parent…but most. Maybe not a carbon copy…but close. It’s weird because these same parents often aren’t that happy with themselves or with their own lives. Why would they wish the same on someone else? “Misery loves company,” doesn’t seem appropriate when talking about one’s kids! According to American mythology, prior to some unspecified date near the end of the 20th century, every parent wanted their children to be more than they were. If they worked in a mine, they wanted their kids to work in offices. If they rented, they wanted their kids to be homeowners. If they didn’t make the high school football team, they wanted their sons to play in the NFL. So we don’t want our kids to be like us after all? We want them to be more than we were. But we want them to be a better version of ourselves – not the best version of a self they choose for themselves. My grandfather had a great expression: “I’m not the man I used to be…and never was.” That’s what kids are for! They are there to be the person we wanted to be but never were. We want them to be what we were…just better at it! If we measure our lives by what we didn’t earn, we want our kids to be prosperous. If we measure our lives by what we didn’t own, we want our kids to be landed gentry. If we measure our lives by our failures, we want our kids to be superstars. We raise children as if they existed to continue…and complete…our dreams. Whether you want your daughter to be a lawyer because you were, or a Supreme Court justice because you weren’t, you’re still aiming to fashion her life in the image and likeness of your own. How dare we? Yes, I said ‘we’ because I’ve been guilty of this too! Not many heterosexual coal miners want their sons to be drag queens and not many ‘daily communicants’ want their daughters to be exotic dancers. But why not? Who are we to impose our life choices…or, more likely, our life accidents…on anyone else, much less on those we purport to love, especially when they are young, defenseless, and impressionable. With great hindsight, my spouse and I would probably say something like, “We want our kids to be good people, to be kind, etc.” It would be hard not to hope for that. And yet, who are we to impose even those values on them? Shouldn’t we let them find their own way, adopt their own values? Of course we should project our values into the world, always by deed and, when appropriate, by word. That’s what it means to have values. And it’s ok, like Kant, to imagine that some folks, including our children, may witness our lives and voluntarily adopt some of our values for themselves. But if they don’t, do we have any right to be ‘disappointed’? As we shuffle out of the spotlight and into the wings, we may decide that the things we thought very important in midlife are not so important after all. No matter how aggressively we distanced ourselves from our neighbors in our ‘prime’, we may come to realize that we all share a common fate. We face the prospect of aging, and ultimately of death, just as everyone else. We may come to define our lives, less in terms of our public triumphs, and more in terms of private moments spent alone or with another. At the end of the day, it all comes down to one question, “ What’s it all about, Alfie ?” Lest you think I am pretending to have made a discovery, I direct you back to the Book of Job . Here was a man familiar with the vicissitudes of life! Unless you have been on the cover of Forbes , you have not tasted his heights; and I pray to God that none of my readers ever tastes his depths. Yet Job begins his opening soliloquy with a surprising conclusion: No greater calamity can befall someone than to die ‘without knowledge’. Spoiler alert : 40 chapters later, Job attains knowledge, but whether that’s the knowledge he’s been seeking and whether it satisfies him remain open questions. Either way, according to the book’s first commentary, included in the final text as Epilogue , Job resumes the lifestyle of the rich and famous…and once again graces the cover of Forbes ; but I digress. The problem is not what you want for your children; the problem is wanting anything at all. You say, “I want them to be themselves.” They will be! They will be what they will be. But that’s not what you meant, is it? You were talking about some intrinsic ‘self’ that supposedly lies buried in them that they are struggling to discover and express. News flash : There is no such self! And thank God for that! You are free to make yourself whoever you choose to be…and so are your children. Of course, you can’t make yourself be an NBA player, but you can make the most of being 5’ 5” and a total klutz. For better or worse, you will be yourself because you will make yourself the person you become. Who else could you be? Who else could your children be? Celebrate it! 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 Joseph’s Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat David Cowles Nov 6, 2025 “Jacob’s gift of a robe is symbolic of Joseph’s special status in the ancient line of mystical succession.” The Book of Genesis is many, many things. It begins with a Hymn of Creation (1:1 – 2:4) and continues with a Prologue (2:5 - 11:32) reprising various Middle Eastern myths (e.g. the Flood), reinterpreted a millennia later in the light of now fully developed Jewish theology. From there Genesis moves onto the proto history of the Hebrew nation (12:1 – 36:41). These are the stories of the Patriarchs (Abraham, Issac, and Jacob) and they represent a transition from myth to legend. (Think King Arthur.) The final 14 chapters contain the story of Joseph, son of Jacob ( aka Israel). They form a bridge connecting the legendary Patriarchs with the historical Exodus and they introduce another dimension to our narrative: the mystical . Mysticism here refers to a fabric of super-ancient spiritual practices, woven across cultures, irrespective of boundaries, topological or political. It would appear that this wisdom precedes the development of religions per se . Let’s listen in: “Now Israel (Jacob) loved Joseph more than any other of his sons…and he made him a long sleeved robe ( aka a ‘coat of many colors’). When his brothers saw that their father loved Joseph more than any of them, they hated him… (Then) Joseph had a dream and they hated him still more.” Jacob’s gift of a robe is symbolic of more than just parental favoritism. It is a recognition of Joseph’s special status in the ‘ancient line of mystical succession’. In the 1st Book of Kings (19: 17 – 21), Elijah passes the prophetic mantle to Elisha in a very similar ceremony: “ So Elijah…found Elisha son of Shaphat. He was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen, and he himself was driving the twelfth pair. Elijah went up to him and threw his cloak around him. Elisha then left his oxen and ran after Elijah… He took his yoke of oxen and slaughtered them. He burned the plowing equipment to cook the meat and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out to follow Elijah and became his servant.” Interpretive Notes : The coat and cloak are the veil of maya , the woven garment (shroud) covering noumenal reality (Kant), i.e. Aletheia ( Parmenides ). The 12 yoke of oxen are the signs of the Zodiac, signifying the cosmic dimension of mystical initiation, corresponding to Joseph’s welcoming the 12 tribes of Israel (his brothers) to Egypt. The Electro-Magnetic (EM) spectrum (Joseph’s colors ) is an alternate way (vs. signs of the Zodiac/yoke of oxen) of representing entirety, i.e. kosmos . In the spirit of the New Testament Letter of James , both Joseph and Elisha give expression to their faith by ‘feeding the people’ (see below). Jesus picks up on this critical theme by feeding first 5,000 and then 4,000 hungry followers . We are indebted to Kings . It’s only that light that we can confidently interpret Jacob’s ‘anointing’ of Joseph as a sacrament in the Mystical tradition. It is unclear (intentionally so?) whether the bestowal of the robe is an acknowledgement on Jacob’s part that Joseph has a special connection with the divine or whether the gift itself confers new powers on the son. I am reminded of Mary Poppins : “ What I want to know…is this: Are the stars gold paper, or are the gold paper stars?” (Jane Banks) In each case, of course, the answer is both ! The world is maximally recursive. What goes around comes around. IRL, all verbs need to be Middle Voice (vs. Active/Passive). The Jacob stories are nothing if not down to earth. Neither Jacob nor Joseph model what we would call virtue . Joseph is a right Eddie Haskell ( Leave it to Beaver ), a goodie-two-shoes intent on currying his father’s favor by ‘tattling’ on his older brothers. Joseph is only too eager to lord his advantage over his senior siblings. Shamefully, he exploits his spiritual gifts to tease and demean them; his behavior is so egregious that even the doting Jacob is offended: “Must we come and bow low to the ground before you, I and your mother and your brothers?” “His brothers were jealous of him, but his father did not forget.” Like all marks of social distinction, Joseph’s coat inspires jealousy, and even hatred, in those less favored (e.g. his brothers). Any modern day parent could have written this script. Out of 13 siblings, one is ‘the favorite’… and treated as such. What could possibly go wrong? Pity Jacob that he did not have Dr. Spock to advise him! The Hebrew phrase translated as ‘many colors’ in the Septuagint is obscure. That said, much is baked into the traditional panchromatic symbolism. First, of course, there is allusion to the rainbow, bridge to Me Pot o’ Gold , nature’s symbol of harmony and peace, token of YHWH’s covenant with creation. On an even deeper level, the rainbow represents the essence of all Process, i.e. Being per se , described by Alfred North Whitehead as the creative flux of one into many and many into one. The noumenal EM spectrum becomes the phenomenon of white light which in turn refracts to give us that rainbow. As Genesis comes to a close, the Hebrews (descendants of Jacob), the Edomites (descendants of Esau), and the Ishmaelites (descendants of Ishmail) have all carved our successful niches in the Middle East. Our origin story is poised for a happy ending…but of course, human frailty ( aka sin) soon intervenes. Following his angry confrontation with Joseph, Jacob sends his chosen one to accompany his brothers ‘in the field’. Was this intended as punishment? Or was it Jacob’s attempt to toughen up his pampered offspring? Or was it done in the vain hope that sibling rivalry might be resolved? In any event, it was yet another miscalculation by the hapless Jacob; he certainly did not anticipate, much less intend, what happened next: “Seeing him approach from a distance, the brothers immediately conspire to do away with this Lord of Dreams .” Fortunately, Reuben commutes Joseph’s death sentence and instead they arrange for him to be sold into slavery. Soon Joseph is in Egypt where holds a series of administrative posts and earns his Pharoah’s respect and trust: “…The Lord is with Joseph and gives him success in all things.” While managing various offices of state, Joseph continues to interpret dreams. Pharoah dreams of seven fat cows followed by seven lean cows who proceed to devour their more corpulent predecessors. Based on that narrative, Joseph predicts seven years of ‘feast’ followed by seven years of ‘famine’ in Egypt. Pharoah acts on Joseph’s intelligence: he stores surplus during the fat years to cover the needs of the realm during the lean years to follow. As a result of God’s favor and Pharoah’s wisdom, Egypt alone prospers during an historic, region-wide famine, recorded simultaneously throughout the Middle East. The Book of Genesis is many things. It is history, legend, mythology, anthropology and ethics. But going back to the Hymn of Creation , Genesis also has a cosmological dimension. Pharoah’s dream allows the narrator to introduce a theory of time crucial to the later development of Judeo-Christian cosmology. Ask most people how they would describe time and you’re likely to hear a lot about beads on a string, buds on a branch, birds on a wire, Xmas lights on a strand. Why not? It’s a natural way to think of the succession of events that constitute our lives. But it is not the Judeo-Christian way. Genesis uses the story of Jacob’s sojourn into Egypt to propose a radically different way to imagine ‘sequence’. The Future does not follow the Past, it consumes it! A perpetual Present projects what has been into what is coming to be. It’s the Blob of cinematic fame (1958), consuming everything it touches. It confers eternal life, or at least potential immortality, on what is no more substantial than a “mist” (James 4:14), i.e. our mortal lives. We see this model displayed again and again throughout Judeo-Christian scripture and practice: YHWH is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; he is the God of the living , not to the dead. The Patriarchs (above) are consoled knowing that their descendants will be numerous as grains of sand on a beach or as stars in the sky. King David is promised that the Messiah will be from his house . At the Transfiguration, Jesus reveals Moses and Elijah, ‘alive’ in him. Roman Catholics, et al., consume Jesus in Eucharist and are simultaneously ‘uploaded’ into his Mystical Body. The fat cows don’t become lean, nor do the lean cows simply succeed their plumper forebears. Nope! In a stroke that would have made another Josef (i.e. Stalin) blush, the lean cows devour the fatties. Pity the bourgeoisie! Incredibly, you have just entered the Twilight Zone , i.e. the bizzarro world of 20 th century mathematics. Welcome to the non-Archimedean (non-A) universe. Here, all events are either embedded in one another or disjoint . Events B and C are inert quanta until they are uploaded (embedded) into Event A. In A, B and C ‘interfere’ and that interference, X, in turn interacts with and modifies both B and C. Reality is on a perpetual, non-linear loop. B and C do not interact, but they do interfere…in A. Each contributes to A (in the form of X, their interference pattern) and through the intermediation of X, A modifies B and C. In this model, A corresponds to the future, B and C to the past, and X to the present. X is what we call History (or Process). So no, Dorothy, we’re definitely not in Kansas anymore! To find out more about this world where we actually live, check out: What’s the Matter with Archimedes? Archimedes and Christianity But in the meantime, bear one thing in mind: This is the real world. This is how things actually work. Deal with it! *** Diego Velázquez — Joseph’s Tunic (1630) depicts the dramatic moment when Joseph’s brothers present his blood-stained coat to their father, Jacob, leading him to believe Joseph has been killed. Velázquez uses strong chiaroscuro lighting to heighten the emotional intensity, illuminating Jacob’s grief and the brothers’ tense deception. The painting exemplifies Velázquez’s early mastery of psychological realism, conveying profound human emotion through gesture, light, and shadow. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? 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< Back Is It Time for Really New ‘New Math’? David Cowles Jun 3, 2025 “1 + 1 can be more than 2 or less than 2 but it can never equal 2…Jam yesterday (< 2) and jam tomorrow (> 2) but never jam today (= 2).” Remember the ‘old math’ - ‘rithmetic, taught with a (hopefully metaphorical) hickory stick? Meet the ‘new math’ (scourge of Gen Xers) – same as the old math! ( The Who ) Boomers can at least make change, albeit with ‘fear and trembling’, while Xers just shrug and say whatever ! In this article, I hope to demonstrate that the purported differences between new and old math are superficial at best, imaginary at worst, and that neither has any applicability in the Real World. Today’s math, new and old, is based on premises that I contest. Let’s start with something simple: 1 + 1 = 2… not! 1 + 1 can be more than 2 or less than 2 but it can never equal 2. In fact, 2 is the only value for 1 + 1 that we can exclude ab initio . As in Carroll’s Looking-glass World, there’s jam yesterday (< 2) and jam tomorrow (> 2) but never jam today (= 2). Of course, according to the system known as old/new math, 1 + 1 = 2 just because we say so in our best imitation of a 1950’s parent. And we’re perfectly entitled to do just that! And we have built a magnificent intellectual edifice based on it! And that’s A-Okay, as long as we don’t imagine we’ve created anything relevant to anything real. Math (old or new) is Minecraft! So what’s wrong with 1 + 1 = 2? How could any sane person even question it? (Please don’t answer that, at least not until you’ve read what’s coming.) First, ‘one’ is not a number; it’s a way of referring to an atomic entity, i.e. a quantum of the Real World. It’s roughly equivalent to ‘that’ or ‘this’. There’s nothing in the Real World that corresponds to the number one in math. How could there be? There’s no such thing as a being in isolation, not even (trinitarian) God . Think about quarks in a sub-atomic particle. They cannot exist in isolation. “Three quarks for muster mark.” (James Joyce) And even if an isolated unit of being were possible in some real world, which it is not, ‘1’ would still not properly belong in any number system with aspirations to apply to real events. Case in point : an Amazonian tribe, the Piranha , have no math…and they do not have the concept of one . Instead they use demonstrative pronouns and adjectives (like this or that ) to designate real entities. The concept of ‘number’ only applies once two or more atomic entities are considered as a group . We can measure such ‘groups’ by their size, i.e. by the number of elements in each group. So it’s possible to imagine, again ab initio , that a group might have a value of ‘2’ if it groups two atomic entities together. R. Buckminster Fuller was fond of saying, “Universe is plural and at minimum two;” but as we shall see, even ‘2’ is not a stable state. To make our so-called ‘number system’ work, we postulate that a group can have a ‘value’ (size) of 1, or 2, or 0, or even ø, but there are no such groupings of elements in the Real World. Math, old and new, is based on the premise that atomic entities, even if they are totally unrelated, can nonetheless be grouped together without impacting in any way the contribution of each element to the ‘size’ or ‘measure’ of that group. Of course, this is impossible in any real world. Any real process of ‘grouping’ must impact the value of the group’s elements. If it doesn’t, there’s no process and there’s no group. Why? The real world Law of Recursion : Every ‘process’ (by definition) must alter the values of its elements. The definition of a ‘process’ is an act that modifies the values of its constituents. Of course, here is where professional mathematicians will part company with us, and that’s ok, so long as they don’t expect us to believe that their ‘ice cream castles in the air’ have anything to do with the Real World. If ‘grouping’ is real, then it must be a ‘process’ applicable to real elements and it must then alter the values of those elements. Therefore, 1 + 1 could never equal 2. Here we are borrowing a concept from Gregory Bateson and extending it: A ‘difference’ is a difference only if it makes a difference! The process of grouping two elements must impact those elements in some way; otherwise ‘the process is inert’, meaning that the ‘alleged process’ is not an ‘actual process ’ at all. I can fantasize about a grouping of 2 or more entities where the process of grouping has no impact on the elements grouped…but that’s exactly what it is, a fantasy. Once grouped, the elements co-modify one another. So the process of recursion is self perpetuating and interminable. Fortunately, however, the process tends toward a limit. But what limit? When two atomic elements are grouped, they interact until they result in a stable, concrete value, a ‘steady state’. That interaction can take either of two forms: Fission or Fusion. (No, this is not a category in Jeopardy .) In the case of fission , the grouping of two atomic units automatically generates a third: 1, 1, and (1, 1). (In Trinitarian theology, the Holy Spirit ‘proceeds from the Father and the Son’; likewise, (1, 1) proceeds from 1 and 1.) So the minimum quantitative value of a group assembled via the procession of fission is 3. ‘3’ is a fundamental unit of quantity – ‘1’ and ‘2’ are not. But what of groups created by the process of fusion ? If Trinity is a model for ‘grouping by fission’, Quantum Entanglement (John Bell) is the model for‘grouping by fusion’. When the solution of 1 + 1 < 2, 1 and 1 are grouped by fusion. According to Bell’s Theorem of Non-Locality, two independent entities, ‘entangled’ by fusion, have the quantitative value we know as √2. The process of fusion eliminates ‘redundancies’ inherent in the concept of two . The resulting ‘simplest possible quantity’ is neither 1 nor 2 but √2. We can think of such a ‘complex unit’ as akin to ‘heavy hydrogen’, deuterium. While ‘normal’ hydrogen consists of 1 lepton (electron) and 1 hadron (proton) and ‘normal’ helium consists of 2 leptons (electrons) and 2 hadrons (protons), heavy hydrogen consists of 1 lepton and 2 hadrons (proton + neutron). To summarize, ‘one’ does not exist in any real world and ‘two’ is inherently unstable. Any two entities must either collapse into a single, complex entity with a quantitative value of √2 or they must generate a third, resulting in a single entity with a quantitative value of 3. In biology, the 30 Trillion cells that make up your body are all descended from a single cell that merged with another cell and formed a symbiotic relationship (cell + nucleus). The resulting organism is clearly ‘more’ than a single prokaryotic cell but ‘less’ than two completely independent cells. Similarly, in math one entity and another entity merge creating a single entity with a ‘heightened value’. As noted above, in the Real World, all process, including the process of grouping, is recursive. Therefore, there are no linear equations. Mathematics begins with equations that have at least two solutions, e.g. √2x or 3x. Note that we seem to be relying still on ordinary ‘natural’ numbers like 1, 2, and 3 to tell our story. But these, obviously, as just placeholders. To avoid massive confusion, we’ll need two new symbols to represent our two quantitative minima. I suggest Δ for the fundamental unit of fission and ꓦ for the fundamental unit of fusion. We also need symbols to represent the two basic arithmetic processes, fission and fusion, replacing addition and multiplication. Instead of + and * from linear arithmetic, I propose ↗ for fission and ↘ for fusion. And for the inverse operations, currently represented by – and /, I propose ↙ and ↖. Armed with these basic symbols we can now build a new algebra. Note that the familiar identities of linear arithmetic 1 + 0 = 1 and 1 1 = 1 disappear since + and are processes and no process in the Real World leaves its elements unaltered; the result of a process can never be the same as any of its elements (except perhaps in a rare case of accidental coincidence). Counting works quite differently in the new new math. There are two different counting systems depending on whether we’re in fusion or fission mode. In fusion mode, instead of n = 1, 2, 3, 4… we count like this: n = 2^((n-1)/n) < 2. I’m looking forward to playing a game of hide and seek with my great grandchildren (my grandchildren have aged out) and asking the cherubs to count using new new math in fusion mode. Where a muggle-child might begin “1, 2, 3, 4…”, my great grandchildren would say “2^(0), 2^(1/2), 2^(2/3), 2^(3/4)…” In muggle-speak that corresponds (approximately) to “1.0, 1.4, 1.7, 1.8…” Bonus : I’ll never have to worry about being found because in the entire history of the cosmos, they’ll never even get to 2. I think a little frustration can be character building, don’t you? Plus, I can head into the house and make up a pitcher of margaritas, no salt…for me, of course, not for them. (They’re still counting, remember?) But take heart, children. Counting in the fission mode is a bit easier…at first; but it gets progressively harder as we climb the number ladder (rather than slither along the Real Number line). Instead of n = 1, 2, 3, 4, we count “Δ^1, Δ^2, Δ^3, Δ^4…” Again, in muggle speak, we’re talking 0, 0, 3 … 9 … 27 … Wait, there’s already a name for these numbers; they’re called p-adic . Obviously, I am limited by space and by ability to this simple outline of new, new math principles. You, dear reader, are better qualified to expand this sketch into a full algebra and to explore the nooks and crannies of this system and I, for one, look forward to the results. 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 Official Launch of Aletheia Today Magazine David Cowles May 31, 2022 Your exclusive look at the all-new magazine for believers in science and God! Tomorrow, June 1, is a landmark day for Aletheia Today (AT). Tomorrow, we publish Issue #1 of AT Magazine (ATM, Summer 2022). Our first issue includes a total of ten feature length articles spread over four departments: The Great Convergence: Science in the 21st century Philosophy Theology Culture Features contributed by AT staff writers and independent contributors include: Science & the Yellow Submarine Eternity vs. Immortality Jesus meets Mr. Spock In the Tween & Teen section of ATM Issue #1 we have two articles: Vacuum Monster (from Yellow Submarine) Quark Soup Our Education, Evangelization, & Prayer section includes prayers, poems, and short stories written by contributing writers to AT Magazine. We want to engage with you, our readers, in every way possible. We encourage you to send us an email ( editor@aletheiatoday.com ) to leave comments on any of our articles, or to contribute something of your own for publication in a future issue. In order to promote engagement, Issue #1 includes two Reader Challenges . We encourage you to participate in those, as well and share them and any other article and essay that you find interesting with others. Finally, as a loyal reader of “Thoughts While Shaving,” we would like to offer you a chance to begin reading ATM Issue #1 right now , one day ahead of its official publication date! Click here for a peek at our first issue. Let us know what you think. - David Cowles, Editor-in-Chief, Aletheia Today 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 God Does Yoga! David Cowles Aug 10, 2023 “We engage in spiritual practices and so does God…we both seek the Unity that underlies Plurality…but so does everything else!” Have you ever taken a Yoga class? Then you may have run into God doing warm-up stretches along with the rest of the yogis and yoginis. Didn’t notice? No problem. He doesn’t stand out. He usually keeps to himself. (He’s reputed to have something of a temper, but I’ve never seen it.) Anyway, he wouldn’t be wearing Lululemon ! I only just learned about God’s interest in yoga. I was reading Zen and Hasidism - not exactly where you’d expect to find a meditation on the Trinity, and yet… Contributing author, R. Shatz points out that God has the same spiritual ‘problem’ as the rest of us: how to experience Unity ( Parmenides’ Aletheia ) in the midst of Plurality ( Doxa ). Have you ever tried to meditate (often part of the practice of yoga)? What happened? Was your supposedly ‘blank mind’ flooded with thoughts? Did those thoughts sometimes take the form of an audiobook, a steady stream of inane babble? You want to shut it down, but you can’t find the off switch. Makes you want to scream! Well, don’t beat yourself up too badly; you’re in good company. God has the same problem. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is One!” So begins the day for every observant Jew around the world. Help God discover his Unity. Christians might do well to adopt this practice: God is three, Trinity, but also one, Unity - one substance ( ousia ), three persons ( personae ). ‘The Father’ is God’s ‘executive persona ’: God being ‘God’, the first among equals, the unifying principle. In the person of Father, God creates, gives laws, negotiates covenants, and intervenes in history. ‘The Son’ is God’s ‘projective persona ’: God speaking ‘God’, the Word, logos . Through the person of Son, all things that come to be, come to be. (John 1: 3) ‘The Spirit’ is God’s ‘reflective persona ’: God thinking ‘God’. The Spirit is the relationship, the eternal dialog, between Father and Son and by extension between us and God. The Spirit is the searcher of hearts who prays to the Father for us and through us in ‘inexpressible groanings’ (Romans 8: 26-28). God is, in fact, God is Being. God does ; in fact, God is Doing. God reflects, in fact, God is Consciousness. We are by our participation in Being (God); we act by our participation in Doing (God); we reflect by our participation in Consciousness (God). We live by our participation in Trinity (God). We are like God…and we are not like God. Like God, we have executive, projective, and reflective functions, but none of these functions is fully and completely us. They are aspects of who we are, not who we are. God has no aspects (no ‘parts’). Whatever God is, he is always and completely. God’s functions are his personae , but each persona is ‘true God’. Unlike us, God does not perform his functions; God is his functions. “I am what am.” (Exodus 3: 14) God poses a standing challenge to us: “Don’t dream it, be it!” ( Rocky Horror Picture Show ) We engage in spiritual practices, and so does God. Without forfeiting our aspects or God’s personae , we both seek the Unity that underlies Plurality…but so does everything else! Any Universe consists of a multiplicity (M) of events or Actual Entities . M is a measure of Potentiality. For example, in a baby Universe consisting of just 10 events, those events can be configured in more than 3,600,000 different ways. Extrapolate that! Novelty ‘begins’ when an emerging Actual Entity (AE) constitutes M as its unique Actual World (AW); this is its executive function . ( Note : the use of temporal language here is metaphorical; there is no temporal dimension within an AE. Spacetime is what connects AEs.) Each AE reflects on its AW by comparing the values manifested by that AW to Values (e.g., Beauty, Truth, Justice) that are transcendent (i.e., normative for every AE). This is the initial application of AE’s reflective function . The objective of every AE is to transform its AW into an AE that perfectly manifests these Transcendent Values (V). Here the projective function kicks in. An AE ‘proposes’ a different arrangement of the elements in its AW: it generates a ‘proposition’, a plan. Using that proposition as its blueprint, the emergent AE preserves and intensifies certain elements of its AW and dismisses or diminishes others. But novelty does not spring full-grown from the head of Zeus; the concrescence of an AE is a process – an iterative process of trial and error, guided all along the way by the reflective function . Ultimately, each AE becomes a settled matter of fact and achieves Objective Immortality (OI). As OI, that Actual Entity enters M and becomes part of the AW of every future AE. So it’s not just you and God that practice yoga. Every event (AE) is engaged in the process of finding Unity (OI) amid ‘naked’ Plurality (M). But it’s not easy. In fact, since every AE is novel (unique), only one AE can achieve the universal objective of perfectly manifesting the Transcendent Values; we call that AE, ‘God’. Every AE manifests V, but only one does so perfectly! Meanwhile, we are busy, busy, busy, executing, projecting, reflecting. “Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.” (Wordsworth) We strain to experience the Unity behind Plurality; we struggle to find the pearl hidden in the bale of hay. That’s why none of us can afford to miss Yoga class, not you, not me, not a quantum fluctuation in deep space, and not God. So, armed with these insights, I plan to open a chain of Yoga Studios all across the Galaxy. Can I put you down as Member Zero? 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 Revolution Number 9 David Cowles Jan 25, 2026 “Beatles’ lyrics, despite the Fab Four’s suspiciously overzealous denials, are rarely without meaning, albeit often esoteric and obscure.” 1,500 words; 7 minute read The Beatles are not shy when it comes to including enigmatic lyrics in their hit songs. I am the Walrus is a classic example; but Revolution 9 takes it to a whole other level. Listening makes you feel like you’re hearing words from an Edward Lear non-sense poem . But regardless of your take on Lear, Beatles’ lyrics, despite the Fab Four’s suspiciously overzealous denials, are rarely without meaning, albeit often esoteric and obscure. Like that other Lear’s Fool, the Beatles embed difficult, controversial, and politically incorrect messages in language that allows them plausibly to deny such intentions, turning the spotlight instead on their critics, aka their accusers, in the process: “Of course we didn’t mean that . Why would you think that? What a perverse imagination you must have!” Revolution 9 lives in the White Album (1968) along with the much better known Revolution 1 . The latter takes an equivocal but largely conservative approach, well-crafted for public viewing, but then Revolution 9 comes along and blows the lid off. Bottom line : the Beatles are understandably skeptical of a merely political revolution rooted in ideology; instead they call for a much more radical ( radix = root) cultural revolution. This situates the Mop Tops’ social philosophy in a long tradition, for example: Jesus of Nazareth – “I have come to set fire to the world and oh how I wish it was already burning…render unto God the things that are God’s.” Mao Tse-Tung – "Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend.” Revolution 9 lyrics are a mash-up; they beg to be excerpted and quoted…but not necessarily reproduced in toto. In that way, they are very much in the tradition of the holy trinity of 20th century English language literature (Pound, Eliot, and Joyce). Check it out: “Then there's this Welsh Rarebit wearing some brown underpants…” An absurd juxtaposition of images introduces us to the genre with a sidelong allusion to the high priest of cognitive revolution, Lewis Carroll. “About the shortage of grain in Hertfordshire.” A snippet from a radio broadcast, a political stump speech, or perhaps the PM’s question time in the House of Commons. “Every one of them knew that as time went by, they'd get a little bit older and a little bit slower but it's all the same thing, in this case manufactured by someone who's always…” Someone…who? Always…what? We’re left to guess. “I sustained nothing worse than/Also for example/Whatever you're doing/A business deal falls through/I informed him on the third night/When fortune gives…” A mash-up of everyday memes and phrases, taken entirely out of context. Memes have a life of their own, divorced from context, denotation, reference, and meaning. “With the situation/They are standing still/The plan, the telegram/A man without terrors from beard to false/As the headmaster reported to me/My son, he really can try as they do to find function…” Ah, to ‘find function (as they do)’ – that’s the pre-eminent virtue in the ethical pantheon of the bourgeoisie. (And BTW, who is this they ?) Now there’s nothing wrong with being Useful per se but consider the ‘old fashioned’ virtues it’s crowding out: Kind, Honest, Brave, Nobel, Creative, Compassionate, Loving, et al. Sidebar : Children’s literature was forever changed by Thomas the Train , a multi-media franchise built around Thomas’ obsessive desire to be ‘a really useful tank engine’. “ His head was on fire, (but) his glasses were saved...which enables him to move about.” Reminiscent of Kafka’s Metamorphosis , the catastrophic is buried in the mundane. The practical obscures the existential. Techne trumps bios , but…and this is key…we mistakenly credit technology (e.g. glasses) with things accomplished organically (e.g. mobility). “So the wife called me and we'd better go to see a surgeon/Or whatever to price it yellow underclothes/So, any road, we went to see the dentist instead/Who gave her a pair of teeth which wasn't any good at all.” Notice his head was on fire, but she got the teeth. What a cock-up! He had no need of new glasses so she got new teeth , which presumably she did not need either, leaving the inconvenient matter of the flaming head unaddressed. Faced with a major but difficult problem, we tend to create smaller, imaginary problems that we could solve more easily…but don’t. We spring into action, but our actions (1) ignore the real need, (2) deliver the wrong solution and (3) deliver it to the wrong person. It’s a perfect Trifecta. Place a tenner with the Cream Cookie (‘bookie’) for me…and box it! Paraphrasing and expanding on St. Paul, ‘I do not do what I intend to do, but what I do not intend, that I do, and what I neither intend or not, God does through me’. We are men (sic) of action, but our acts are radically alienated from our intentions and from the problems at hand (e.g. a flaming head). And yet reality, dream-like, leaves a trace: she gets ‘a pair of teeth’, suggesting ‘a pair of glasses’, which of course would have been no help either. “So instead of that he joined the fucking navy and went to sea/In my broken chair, my wings are broken and so is my hair/I'm not in the mood for whirling…” Faced with an absurd and dysfunctional reality, we seek a way out: we run away from home to join the circus, or the French Foreign Legion, or our country’s armed forces. We also give up our precious mobility in the process, yet our head’s still smoldering. But back to functionality: “Dogs for dogging, hands for clapping, birds for birding and fish for fishing, them for theming and when for whamming…” We are what we do and we do what we’re told (i.e. what society demands of us). Dogs do doggie things, fish do fishy things, etc. Note #1 : ‘Dogging, clapping, birding, and fishing’ are not things dogs, hands, birds or fish do ; they are what we do to them, e.g. by turning ‘wolves’ into household pets. Note #2 : They do not exist to be them ; we turn they into them . From our privileged perch, we turn subjects into objects. Dogs are not for dogging; they are not for theming! “Only to find the night-watchman/Unaware of his presence in the building…” Exactly! If ‘finding a function as they do’ accomplished something, it might perhaps be defended…but it doesn’t. The person whose one and only ‘function’ is to guard a building is completely unaware that an intruder is already inside. It’s the plight of the middle class: we trade freedom for security and get neither. “Onion soup/Industrial output/Financial imbalance/Thrusting it between his shoulder blades/The Watusi/The twist/Eldorado/Take this brother, may it serve you well…Hold that line! Hold that line! Hold that line!” Our chants become memes, endlessly cycling though our pre-conscious minds. “It's quick like rush for peace is/Because it's so much/It was like being naked/It's alright, it's alright, it's alright/If you become naked.” Revolution is immediate and opportunistic; no time to dress the part. It may catch you naked. “Block that kick! Block that kick! Block that kick…” Sports culture taps into our brain at its most primitive, reptilian level. With Revolution 9 , we have a sense that we’re eavesdropping on random conversations, always cut short. It is as if we were gradually circulating at a posh cocktail party or slowly turning an old fashioned AM Radio dial. The result is weird snippets of language and odd juxtapositions of words and phrases. Language is divorced from its usual denotative function. ‘Spoken word’ is treated the same as output from any musical instrument, appreciated solely for its sound and emotive associations. Specifically, Revolution 9 is reminiscent of Leopold Bloom’s soliloquy near the end of Ulysses . Joyce captures Bloom’s thoughts, becoming progressively less discursive as he drifts off to sleep: “Sindbad the Sailor and Tinbad the Tailor and Jinbad the Jailer…” Which leaves one last question: Why the number 9 (rather than, say, 42)? Nine, 3 x 3, captures an important and yes, revolutionary, aspect of things: Being is essentially fractal (self-similar at all scales) and trinitarian (three in one). As such a case can be made that 9 is fundamental, even substructural. “No Stephen, you misheard me. It’s not ‘turtles all the way down’, it’s ‘triplets’, triplets all the way down, triplets embedded in triplets across 60 orders of magnitude.” Does this seem like a stretch? Of course it is…but I’m not alone in my obsession with this number. The Lord’s Prayer is a fractal consisting of triplets in a triplet. The Enneagram ( Ennea = 9) is a mainstay of certain Roman Catholic spiritual traditions and Kabbalah consists of 9 sefirot (plus Keter, the ineffable whole). Revolution 9 is no more a collection of random ravings than The Waste Land (Eliot), and the Beatles’ revolutionary street cred is no less genuine than Bakunin’s . *** Dean Martin in Some Came Running (1990–1991) by David Salle is a large postmodern painting in oil and acrylic that exemplifies his characteristic layering of disparate imagery and cinematic juxtapositions, executed with three inset panels on the canvas. The work’s title references the 1958 film Some Came Running starring Dean Martin, while the painting itself combines historical tapestry motifs, modern figures, and fragmented visual elements to create a complex, non-narrative visual “chorus” typical of Salle’s style 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 Pre-existing David Cowles Jan 6, 2022 In my last post, I reflected on the idea that all the world’s ontologies (philosophical, theological or scientific) fall into one of two camps: (A) Some sort of Determinism, where the ‘actual’ is ultimately embedded in what is falsely called the ‘potential’ or (B) some sort of Indeterminism where potentiality is selectively converted to actuality through an agency that somehow, in some way transcends pure potentiality itself. In my last post, I reflected on the idea that all the world’s ontologies (philosophical, theological or scientific) fall into one of two camps: (A) Some sort of Determinism, where the ‘actual’ is ultimately embedded in what is falsely called the ‘potential’ or (B) some sort of Indeterminism where potentiality is selectively converted to actuality through an agency that somehow, in some way transcends pure potentiality itself. Group A would argue that there must be nothing before there can be something; Group B would reverse it: there must be something before there can nothing. At first glance, Group A might seem to have the better of the argument. After all, doesn’t it make sense to move from ‘nothing’ to ‘something’? But there are two problems: (1) No one has been able to explain successfully how nothing can give birth to something without reference to some pre-existing actuality (e.g., chaos, virtual particles, negative vacuum pressure) or some transcendent agency (e.g., a probability function, the fundamental laws of physics) (2) The notion of Nothing, by itself, has no denotative meaning. No-thing implies ‘thing’ and there are no pre-existing things in this ontology. On the other hand, if one posits Something then the notion of Nothing emerge 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 God & Time Crystals David Cowles Dec 13, 2025 “Value forms the basis of the judgments that motivate the islands of order we call events. 1750 words, 8 minute read For centuries (Aquinas), if not millennia (Cicero), philosophers have struggled to prove the existence of God. According to most logicians, they have failed, either because God does not in fact exist or because the existence of such an entity is not within the universe of propositions subject to proof. Christians believe that the existence of God is revealed in Scripture, in the life of Jesus, and in prayer. Roman Catholics believe that the existence of God can also be adduced via experience and reason alone ( aka science); and now we have important new confirmation of this premise. According to Christian cosmology, the universe not only has a beginning (the Alpha point) but also an end (the Omega point). Call it Eschaton, Parousia , Kingdom of Heaven…or whatever. Science agrees! Call it Big Crunch, Big Freeze, or Heat Death; the universe has a sell by date. Genesis ( Alpha ) and Apocalypse ( Omega ) do not occur within time. They happen outside of time ; they are to time as bookends are to literature. My choice of decorative bookends for my library contributes nothing to the content or quality of the books I place between them. They are of a different logical order entirely. So it is with Alpha and Omega . The transition from Genesis to Apocalypse occurs in what we call ‘time’. In fact, this ‘transition’ is time. But where we regard time as a line segment or ray, it is seen as a single point from the perspectives of Alpha and Omega . It is as though they see the timeline rotated 90°. They look at it from its end points. Therefore, from their perspectives, spacetime is a dimensionless point…and the same point in both cases. But if Alpha sees the ‘first point’ on the line and Omega sees the ‘last’ point, how can we say that they both see the same point? Because all of the structure at all of the moments in time is visible from either end. Imagine looking through a kaleidoscope from both ends: same pattern, different perspectives. That’s Alpha & Omega ! Both Alpha and Omega are perfectly ordered states. They are what ‘order’ is. They define it. And between these two ordered states? Chaos , spacetime, i.e. where we live. Our temporal realm is globally disordered; however, local islands of order can and do emerge, to wit: this dialog we are having right now. This ‘local order’ is imperfect and transient. It inevitably dissolves back into the flux. That’s what we mean by entropy : “Islands in the stream, that is what we are.” (Kenny Rogers, et al.) How is it that order can emerge out of Chaos ? How come ‘islands of order’, if any, don’t just flicker in and out like virtual particles? In fact, pockets of order, when they do occur, seem to be auto-reinforcing. They are homeostatic, recursive, and they have a ‘dissipative’ relationship with the chaotic background. Which brings us to the fundamental question of cosmology, if not philosophy itself, “Why (or how) is there something rather than nothing?” The recent discovery of a new state of matter/energy called a Rondeau Time Crystal provides a relevant physical model. This entity cycles perpetually from an ordered state ( Alpha ) through a disordered state ( Chaos ) to an ordered state ( Omega ). Rinse and repeat. This is not a purely mathematical concept. It’s a physical reality. But how is it that local order emerges and endures in the midst of global chaos? While a theist might credit God ( Alpha & Omega in this context), a secularist might posit some property of being itself (e.g. negative vacuum pressure). Turns out, both are right! To be clear, causality vanishes at the shoreline of Chaos . Whatever order emerges out of Chaos is sui generis and causa sui . However, the fact that Chaos is suspended between Alpha and Omega ‘shapes it’ or ‘fine tunes it’ in a way that allows for the emergence of independent islands of local order. Again, there are physical analogies. Imagine a hammock strung between two trees. The trees contribute nothing to the hammock other than potentiality . However, the strung hammock automatically assumes its signature catenary shape which defines the hammock in the universe of Platonic forms. The ‘islands of order’ that populate Chaos do not emerge accidentally. If that were the case, they would be fragile and extremely short lived, flickering in and out like fireflies. In fact they are remarkably resilient and enduring. What’s the half-life of a diamond? “Diamonds are forever” (DeBeers); well, maybe not forever forever but still… Events are homeostatic, dissipative, and recursive. They struggle heroically against inexorable entropy. Their raison d’etre appears to be being itself…and that’s half true. They devise incredible strategies in pursuit of that goal, for example, reproduction . We take it for granted that things want to be : one example, the so-called survival instinct , another, surface tension . But not everything ‘wants to be’. Cells practice apoptosis , people commit suicide. So the survival instinct can’t be primal. Entities that ‘want to be’ must want to be for an even more fundamental reason. That reason is what Whitehead called their Subjective Aim . For most of us, survival is a necessary condition for the furtherance of our aims. But for some cells in some circumstances, apoptosis is a more appropriate strategy. The concept of Aim implies the existence of Value . We ‘aim’ for what we consider ‘good’. Robert Browning: “A man’s reach (aim) should exceed his grasp or what’s a heaven for.” In the Gospel of John we read, “No one has greater love than to sacrifice their life for another.” (15: 13) And what parent would not risk their own life to ensure the survival of their child? Good trumps all, even life itself! But where do we find this Value , this Good? Not in our chaotic realm! Nietzsche: “…One belongs to the whole, one is in the whole – there exists nothing which could judge, measure, compare, condemn our being, for that would be to judge, measure, compare, condemn the whole… But nothing exists apart from the whole!” ( Twilight of the Idols ) The Gospel of Mark quotes Jesus: “Why do you call me ‘good’? Only God is Good.” (10: 18) In Nietzsche’s realm (i.e. our own) things are ‘good’ relative to one another but Good per se characterizes God and only God. Good is God. Nietzsche was right : “…One belongs to the whole, one is in the whole – there exists nothing which could judge, measure, compare, condemn…the whole.” Nietzsche was wrong : “But nothing exists apart from the whole!” Yes, it does! Value exists apart from the whole. Robert Browning says so! The whole exists as it is, but Value (Good) allows, impels, the whole to pass judgment on itself (and on each of its parts). My wife says I’m judgmental. Damn straight! But judgment does not preclude tolerance or mercy; in fact, it is their prerequisite. Aim is the culmination of a multistep process, beginning with the requirement that the universe pass judgment on itself (conceptual recursion). Ordering (physical recursion) is the active consequence of that judgment. Just as ‘faith’ is not true faith unless it leads to works ( Letter of James ), so judgment leads to execution . In the context of Value , execution is the inevitable consequence of judgment: identify and optimize! But in our chaotic world, “nothing exists apart from the whole.” Nothing except, non-thetically, Alpha and Omega . Of course, these are states of maximal order and value per se . Value (i.e. Good) defines Alpha and Omega and so ‘shapes’ the Chaos (as trees shape a hammock): Value gives Chaos its topology - that is how Value is felt in the midst of Chaos . Value forms the basis of the judgments that motivate the islands of order we call events . Of course, these local manifestations of order are ephemeral; they are bound to be reabsorbed into Chaos . “… 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.” (Shakespeare, Tempest ) But order has a definitive signature. The strings of a lyre can be ‘tuned’ continuously within a range. When each string is tuned to a particular frequency, the lyre is capable of producing a series of pleasant, harmonious tones which we can identify, record (musical notation), and remember – e.g. a melody. Local islands of order are like a few bars of Brahms heard over the cacophony that is Lower Manhattan. Fortunately, the vibrations of a string can be reproduced via ‘sympathetic resonance’ in other strings so long as those ‘other strings’ are tuned to a compatible frequency. When a string vibrates, it creates sound waves that travel through the air. If these waves encounter another object that naturally resonates at the same frequency (or a harmonic of that frequency), they can set that second object in motion. The second object "responds" to the vibration because the incoming frequency matches one of its naturally resonant frequencies. Strings are like AM radios, tuned to sound, rather than EM, waves. In this analogy, melodies are manifestations of the Good that resides in both Alpha and Omega . When a melody emerges out of the chaotic medium, it resonates with that same melody in Alpha & Omega . The two become one. The temporal realm and the eternal realm merge. A melody is a melody regardless of the medium. The Ode to Joy is the Ode to Joy no matter who (competently) performs it, whether it’s on paper (musical notation), on tape (recording), or in concert. It has its own unique identity (signature) regardless of context or medium. Likewise, the local islands of order that emerge within Chaos , to the extent that they manifest Good, resonate with the perfect order eternally resident in Alpha & Omega . But it is the same ‘melody’ whether in a state of perfect, eternal order or transiently emerging out of Chaos . It is both temporal and eternal. Here I’ll take the wisdom of Yogi Berra over that of Bill Clinton: Whatever is, is ! *** Henri Matisse’s The Joy of Life (1905–06) presents a radiant pastoral scene where nude figures dance, recline, and play music within a boldly colored, flattened landscape. Rejecting realistic perspective, Matisse uses intense, non-naturalistic color and simplified forms to convey emotional harmony rather than physical accuracy. The painting celebrates sensual pleasure, freedom, and a utopian vision of life, marking a defining moment in the development of Fauvism. 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 High School David Cowles Sep 14, 2023 “In place of the general knowledge you somewhat willingly soaked up in primary school, information is now noxiously technical and specialized.” “Latin, when am I ever going to need to speak Latin. Or French! Everyone speaks English anyway. Biology? Like I’d ever be a doctor! Extra school, student loans, and blood – no, thank you! Trig? Seriously? Do you see a pocket protector; is there a propeller on top of my beanie? And don’t get me started on the calculus !” A new school year has begun and we’ve all been there. The prevailing view is that these are just adolescent rantings. Supposedly, adulthood brings an appreciation of knowledge for its own sake - an understanding that knowledge is fungible: it can come in handy at times and in ways you could never anticipate. So who’s right, the hormone rich adolescent or the ‘sober’ adult? Actually, both! There’s no doubt that general knowledge can make life more interesting, and a broad educational background can open doors. On the other hand, people can lead perfectly successful and fulfilling lives without ever learning a foreign language, understanding biochemical pathways, or calculating the height of La Tour Eiffel – oops, French! Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad for all the bits of irrelevant information I was made to learn – and I wish I’d had the self-discipline to learn a lot more. General knowledge comes in handy when you find yourself editor-in-chief of a bleeding edge online magazine. On the other hand, knowledge is not a set of isolated facts. It is a pattern, continually expanding while filling in detail. Novel facts become relevant when they are linked to something that is already meaningful. Imagine instead reciting a poem in an entirely unfamiliar language (how’s your Finnish?) with no clue as to its content or tone. No information is created or communicated. That’s high school! You’re the VP of a local bank. Congrats, BTW. As an adult, how often have you used trigonometric functions to solve a real-world problem? What, never? So, you spent 9 months of your life learning something that you had no interest in at the time and that you’ve never used since? Really? The ‘best knowledge’ is knowledge rooted in inquiry. When I ask a question, there is at least a 50/50 chance I will pay attention to the answer. Knowledge thrives in a semantic community; it atrophies in isolation. Fortunately, life is endlessly interesting. Every day, we ask questions about the world. But how often do those questions refer to things we learned in high school? Everyone jokes about young children being ‘perpetual question machines’. Of course, they are! Everything is new to them…and interesting. The simple rhythm of ‘ask and answer’ fascinates them. Some of their questions may sound silly to your ears, but how does a toddler know what’s silly and what’s profound? Baby Einstein asked, “Bupe, why is time different from space?” Not so silly, was it? When my children and grandchildren were young, they asked the most amazing questions, and often came up with incredibly creative and insightful answers. So what happened? Nothing! My teenage grands still ask great questions…and they’re never ‘silly’. But their questions are about things addressed inadequately, if at all, in their classrooms. Faced with an impenetrable and seemingly irrelevant curriculum, high school students look for other ways to make their 4 years of drudgery meaningful. Some of these ‘extracurricular’ activities are constructive, some harmless, and some extremely dangerous. For example: Drama, clubs, choruses, etc. After school and summertime jobs. Volunteer work in the community. Sports. Reckless behavior. Addiction (screens, alcohol, drugs): Mind-numbing escape from mind-numbed boredom. Delinquency. Self-harm. Wouldn’t it be marvelous if the organic process of growing-up was engaging and relevant enough to make such auxiliary activities optional, unnecessary, or undesirable? “I can’t get drunk tonight; I’m working on a really cool science experiment.” I’m willing to concede that most of what we learn in Grades 1 – 5 is useful. It may not always be pleasant, but generally speaking, the more you learn at that age, the happier you’ll be, both immediately and down the road. But sometime between Grade 5 and Grade 9, something happens. It may be gradual…or abrupt. In place of the general knowledge you somewhat willingly soaked up in primary school, information is now noxiously technical and specialized. It no longer speaks in any way to your native curiosity…or life experience. This article is not meant to be a How-To manual; but may we suggest a few guiding principles? Education is an activity. People learn by doing. That doesn’t have to mean Industrial Arts, though it certainly can. It can mean any activity that a person finds engaging, from birdwatching to star gazing. Challenge : many teens have already lost the sense of engagement itself; they no longer know what interests them. Education is ‘client centric’. It springs from a person’s native curiosity. Adolescents are people too. They observe patterns, ask questions, imagine answers, make tools, accomplish projects – just like Homo sapiens . Welcome, aliens; won’t you join us? Life is not Jeopardy ! Real education does not flow from answers to questions; it’s the other way around. People learn from other people, not from just books. Competence and enthusiasm are attractive…and contagious. We need to recruit teachers who are passionate about their subject matter if we hope students will become passionate as well. Life’s a banquet! Classrooms are ‘resource centers’ led by charismatic subject-matter experts. Teachers offer traditional classes (like Oxford lectures), meet with small groups of students with similar interests (seminars), and work on projects with individual students (tutorials). Ok, you caught me! None of these ideas are new. At best, we’ve given this ‘tired but untried’ agenda new urgency and broader purpose. Hope so! Because it’s necessary. 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! 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