< Back Future Past, Past Future David Cowles Oct 19, 2023 “When we experience past events via memory, it is much like watching a B-movie in which each of us, naturally, is our own star.” We take it for granted that the past is different from the future, but Newtonian physics says otherwise. According to that model, past and future are symmetrical segments of the timeline, bracketing the infinitesimal point known somewhat bizarrely as ‘the present’ (‘bizarre’ because ‘the present’, by definition, has no ‘presence’, i.e., it has zero duration). But this is not how we experience the world. To our pre-scientific eyes, the past is radically different from the future. For one thing, past events are thought to be immutable, while future events are nothing if not mutable. Past events ‘feel’ different from future events. The past feels heavy, it presses on your chest, it compromises your ability to breathe, it’s enough to make Houdini claustrophobic. Except it usually doesn’t feel that way at all. When we experience past events via memory, it is much like watching a B-movie in which each of us, naturally, is our own star. Come to think of it, it’s much the same as what we experience when we imagine future events. Memory and imagination, two faces of one phenomenon! You may object here if you wish, “Imagination is mutable, and memory isn’t.” Really? Repeated studies have shown (I won’t make my AI Bot retrieve them) that our memories are ‘flexible’ – meaning that they often diverge massively from ‘objective records’ of the events themselves – much like our ‘dreams and dreads’ of the future. But you might say, “The memory of a past event is not the same thing as the past event itself.” This time, you’d be right! Nor is an imagined future event the same thing as the event itself. Memory and imagination, if not clones, are at least kissing cousins. Events themselves are another species of res vera altogether. Experiment : Recall a somewhat unpleasant event from your childhood. Perhaps, it’s a Saturday in June. All week long, you’ve suffered in a stiflingly hot classroom, sustained (barely) by your expectation of spending today at the beach with family and friends. Instead, it’s raining cats and dogs, and you’re stuck inside the house for the entire day with no one to play with and nothing to do. An unpleasant memory to be sure. If this didn’t happen to you, you can still imagine what it must have felt like. Memory and imagination, flip sides, one coin. ( Note : This must have happened before 1,000 channel cable TV, smartphones, and PlayStation. Today, children have no painful experiences, do they?) Now imagine that you’re actually 8 years old again and have to relive that awful day, moment by moment, without the benefit of your current ‘adult’ perspective. Hours sitting at the window, lonely, bored, clinging to the ever newly frustrated hope that the skies might yet clear. OMG! Can you even breathe? A memory, a dream, a night at the opera – different phenomena, cut from the same cloth. Actual experience on the other hand…that’s a horse of an entirely different color; in fact, it’s not a horse at all, it’s more of a T-Rex. Fantasy (past or future) is made palatable by the knowledge or expectation that we will survive it; real life comes with no such guarantee. At its core, every agony derives its horror from the fear that we might not be able to bear it. Then what? Memory and imagination are like the event horizon (surface) of a black hole; they are two-dimensional projections of a higher dimensional whole. Experience is the black hole itself, including the inevitable singularity (death) with its constant tug; by contrast, the surface is finite but has no singularity and no boundary. How is it that fantasy differs from reality? Memory and imagination are experience, outside-in. You’ve trudged through the garden, and now you’re standing ankle-deep in potting soil, staring through the window, into the well-lit ‘living room’ of someone’s life. Perhaps you witness a child being tortured, and you feel sympathy…from your detached perspective. Experience is a bit different. Now you are in the living room, and you are the child being tortured. You feel nothing but agony and panic. This is experience, inside-out; it’s not the same thing as fantasy…not at all. What’s different is that ‘you are there’ in one case and not in the other. And who R U? In this context, you are the reflective self, aware of itself, aware of its world, and aware of itself being aware of its world. U R the Wicked Queen’s sentient mirror from Snow White . Just like mirrors in a carnival Fun House, you add another dimension to reality; you add depth. Like any mirror, you will in your time reflect many images…but you will remain the same. You are mirror! You harbor no images per se ; that is what makes it possible for you to reflect every image, no matter how gruesome. Per Parmenides (c. 450 BCE), the father of Western philosophy, you are unchanging Aletheia , perpetually reflecting the ever-changing kaleidoscope of Doxa . So what makes you so special? Nothing! You’re not special. Reflexivity is a hardwired feature of reality; it’s part of the topology. It is an indispensable aspect of everything that is. In fact, it is what makes ‘it is’ be. How we experience this reflexivity is another matter. Human neural networks have evolved in such a way that we can be perpetually conscious of events in our world. How other entities, organic or inorganic, tap into reflexivity is a subject for another day. 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 The Lottery “The state lottery is just about the only financial vehicle that offers some folks a realistic opportunity to materially impact their economic circumstances.” David Cowles We all love to gamble, most of us anyway; but why? If we know the rules of the games, we know that we are unlikely to walk away a winner; and unless we have a problem, most of us gamble for the fun of it. When we go to Vegas, we don’t expect to come home with life changing riches – casino limits make that a virtual impossibility. If we’re smart, we expect to come home slightly poorer than when we left. We gamble because we enjoy the games themselves. Plus, it is an undeniable thrill to “beat the house”, even if only to a modest extent and for a short period of time. Bottom line : for most of us, gambling is not a financial planning strategy. Or is it? 60 million Americans play state lotteries every year. In states that have lotteries (44) the average adult invests more than $300/year in numbers, scratch cards and other proposition bets. While it can be fun at first to scratch a card looking for winning numbers, after a while it can get tiresome. Yet we still do it. Why? Simple, we do it to get rich! “Whoa, I thought you just said that you couldn’t get rich gambling.” That’s right, I did say that, and it’s true…in casinos! Lotteries are a completely different kettle of fish. Here’s how they work: In the better games, approximately two-thirds of the proceeds go back to the players as ‘winnings’ while the state retains the other one-third to cover costs associated with the games and to fund budget items like education, transportation, or healthcare. Of the portion that goes to the players, about half is distributed in ‘small’ prizes after each draw; the remainder goes to fund the ever accumulating Jackpot. Take Jackpot heavy Powerball. One third of the proceeds go to fund the Jackpot; if no one claims the Jackpot on the first draw, that unclaimed amount rolls over to the next draw. In any sequence of draws the Jackpot begins at around $20 million, not a bad haul. But if no one wins, the Jackpot will at least double on the next draw. There is no theoretical limit to how high the Jackpot can get but we know it can at least reach $2 billion IRL (100x the Draw #1 prize). Many politicians and economists have noted that lower income people spend a higher percentage of their assets on state lottery tickets than do higher income folks. Of course they do! High earners are able to save money systematically; they have the option to participate in HSAs, IRAs, 401(k)s and other tax advantaged accumulation vehicles. They can even “play the market” and pick the next Amazon. A dollar invested in the DJIA 15 years ago is worth $10 today. $1 invested in Apple on the same day is now worth $100. Beats any savings account I’ve ever had! (Of course, you have to know what to buy and when to buy it; but we enjoy thinking we can outsmart the experts…and occasionally we do…just as we occasionally beat the house in Vegas...or win the Lottery.) Unfortunately, though, many Americans do not have ready access to equity markets. So here’s the fundamental question: does playing a ‘good’ state lottery constitute a viable financial planning strategy for someone of modest means? The answer, surprisingly, is yes! The state lottery is just about the only financial vehicle that offers certain folks a realistic opportunity to materially impact their economic circumstances. What’s the magic? A state lottery takes a little from the many and delivers a lot to the few. Sounds like the worst form of ‘robber baron capitalism’, doesn’t it? And it is! Except you are the robber baron. Where’s Bernie Sanders when you need him? But wait! The ‘few’ in this case are ‘selected’ randomly. You don’t need to be rich to win the lottery. You don’t need to have attended a posh prep school; you don’t even need an Ivy League education. Nor do you need to be born a genius…or work 60 hours a week. The lottery is a way, often virtually the only way, for many ordinary Janes and Jims to change their circumstances. Here are questions you will not be asked by a licensed lottery agent: Where did you go to school? What is your race, religion, gender preference or sexual orientation? Are you living in the United States legally? Have you ever been convicted of a felony…or been in prison? What’s your credit score? Still not convinced! Scared off by the 300,000,000 to 1 quoted odds? Perhaps you should be, but let’s dig deeper into the economics of investing your life savings in Lottery tickets: If you buy one ticket, you have one chance in 300 million of winning the Jackpot on the next draw. But depending on where you are in the cycle, that winning ticket could be worth anywhere from $20,000,000 to $2,000,000,000, a swing of 100x. Obviously, buying tickets is a better deal when the payout is $2 billion than when it is $20 million. But I promised to break it down. You bet $2.00. $0.67 of that goes to the state to fund various public services, $0.66 cents is returned to the players after each draw in the form of ‘small prizes’ and 66 cents goes to fund the ‘progressive’ Jackpot. So how much did you invest? Not $2 because 66 cents is returned to the players after each draw. So at the most, your net investment is $1.34. But that assumes you attribute no value to the various public programs that the Lottery supports. If you believe those funds are spent efficiently and that you share proportionately in the benefits of those programs, then your net investment is only 66 cents. But let’s not get carried away. Let’s use the most conservative figure: $1.34. Now that $1.34 could win you as much as $2 billion…except it doesn’t. That advertised $2 billion payout is spread over 20+ years. If you elect a lump sum, which you will, the payout is more like $1 billion…still enough to pay the rent and have some left over for a vacation to Jamaica. So the return on my $1.34 investment is about 750 million to 1. But the odds of my winning are 300 million to 1. So my return is $2.50 per $1.00 invested. Not many fund managers can match that sort of return. In fact, by the time the advertised payout is $800 million, the state’s advantage has disappeared entirely. Beyond $800 million, you’re playing with the house’s money. Arguably, it is the paradigmatic example of ‘doing well by doing good’. I buy a lottery ticket every week…but I never win. Bummer! But some of the money I lose comes back to me, and others, in the form of lower taxes and/or enhanced public services. Additional funds come back to the players in the form of small prizes. Or maybe I do win, maybe I even win big! Then money well spent, I’d say. According to American political folklore, we ninety-nine percenters are supposed to spend our days wringing our hands, stomping our feet, resenting the one-percent. For the most part, we don’t do that! More often, we take whatever steps we can to improve our economic lot; one of those steps may be the judicious purchase of state lottery tickets. David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Return to our Spring 2023 Table of Contents Previous Next

< Back Veni, Vidi, Vici David Cowles Aug 23, 2022 Who’s the hero now, Julius Caesar…or you? Last week we met the Piraha , a tribe located in the Amazon Rainforest. We saw how different their language is from ours, and we explored how that language influences the way they experience the World. We will spend some time with the Piraha in upoming issues of TWS and ATM. We study cultures like the Piraha to help us see our own cultural influences more clearly. Knowing the Piraha’s view of the world is shaped by their language will help us understand how our language shapes (or distorts?) our own world view. We know about the Piraha because of the work of several anthropologists who lived with the Piraha for years at a time. Like all contemporary anthropologists, these pioneers paid close attention to Star Fleet’s Prime Directive . Those of us who were once children will recognize it instantly: “Look but don’t touch!” In other words, do not disrupt the culture you’re studying…any more than absolutely necessary. Most of us have never visited the Amazon and probably never will. Still, there are opportunities for us to learn how culture, especially language, influences our perception of the World. If you’re over the age of 60, you probably learned some Latin somewhere along the way. If so, you may have started your classical career with Julius Caesar’s Gallic Wars . The Latin is relatively easy – as easy as any Latin can be! And the swashbuckling tale of Caesar’s military campaigns is supposed to appeal to tween and teenage boys. For those of us exposed to Latin, it was our ‘first contact’ with a civilization other than our own. And, cool beans, since time travel is not a thing yet; we don’t need instruction on how to behave from Captains Kirk and Picard. We already know how to behave in Rome: “Do as the Romans do!” Nonetheless, this early experience of ‘first contact’ will prove valuable when we meet the multiple civilizations running rampant in Andromeda. Instead of learning about our contemporaries, the Piraha, third hand, we can eliminate the ‘middleman’ (sic) when we study the Ancient Romans. We meet them directly through works like Caesar’s. Consider the difference: in Caesar’s Gallic Wars , a Roman tells us, and shows us , how Romans think. In the case of the Piraha, we are dependent on the testimony of anthropologists who are not themselves members of the Piraha community. So, Hail Caesar! But what do we learn from his Gallic Wars ? Utter nonsense! Veni, Vidi, Vici – I came, I saw, I conquered. Even if you don’t know Latin, you may know these three words. Now imagine you’re a hormonal 12-year-old and this is your introduction to how another culture views the world; wow! If you entered adulthood expecting such a ‘Caesarean experience’, you were probably very, very disappointed. According to Caesar, we amble onto life’s stage at will, we assess the situation with clear eyes, and we immediately and confidently take change. Sound familiar? I didn’t think so. Truth is, you didn’t come, you were ‘thrown’; you didn’t ‘see’, you were impressed upon; and you certainly did not ‘conquer’. At best you might be able to say that you were not conquered. Help me out here, classicists! What’s the Latin word for ‘I was not conquered?’ Remember the words of John’s Gospel, “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” (1: 5) Approaching the world with a ‘Caesarian attitude’ is a recipe for disaster…for you and for the world. The truth is, you were thrown into the world half-blind; you groped your way around in it; and so far at least, it has not destroyed you. So, who’s the hero now, Julius Caesar…or you? Image: Libby, Alexandra. “Julius Caesar” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue , 3rd ed. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and Lara Yeager-Crasselt. New York, 2020–. https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/julius-caesar/ (accessed August 23, 2022). Thoughts While Shaving is the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine ( ATM) . To never miss another Thought, choose the subscribe option below. Also, follow us on any one of our social media channels for the latest news from ATM. Thanks for reading! Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Christian Astrology? David Cowles Mar 27, 2025 “Can anyone be an orthodox Roman Catholic and not believe in astrology?” Can someone be an orthodox Roman Catholic and still believe in astrology? Surprisingly, and controversially, the answer is ‘Yes’, at least according to Marsilio Ficino (d. 1499), philosopher, theologian, priest, and magus (‘magician’, in the tradition of the Magi). Writing in Florence at the climax of the Middle Ages, Ficino was part of a group of late Medieval intellectuals who unwittingly prepared the way for the coming Renaissance by reviving interest in Classical culture and by celebrating the human condition (Humanism). Balancing Greco-Roman wisdom with Judeo-Christian theology proved challenging. Sadly, the great promise of Ficino’s Renaissance was soon hijacked by secular pragmatists; 500 years later, we are still struggling to awaken from our Machiavellian nightmare. At first glance, Classical paganism and Judeo-Christian monotheism would seem strange bedfellows, but Fincino & Co. imagined that a bridge could be found in a shared reverence for Nature. Paganism finds divinity in Nature while Judeo-Christianity grounds Natural Law in the divine. Judaism is particularly clear on this point. God communicates the Law in two ways, through Written Torah, contained in the first five Books of the Judeo-Christian Bible, and through Oral Torah, manifested as the processes of Nature. There are not two Torahs, only one; but that one Torah is expressed in two very different media. Divination in general and astrology in particular play major roles in Classical cosmology. Christianity, for its part, rejects as ‘gnostic heresy’ any suggestion that human affairs are governed by the positions and momenta of celestial bodies. A philosophical rapprochement between the two ideologies would seem impossible; but Ficino found a way forward. The key lies in our understanding of the relationships between Humanity, Nature (‘stars’), and Divinity (God). ‘Lumpen astrology’, the sort found on page 2 of your local ‘rag’, suggests that the stars directly control, or at least influence, our fate. This Ficino rejects. Such ‘astrological determinism’ encroaches on God’s sovereignty, depreciates the role of Justice in the unfolding of events, and compromises our Free Will. Instead Ficino suggests that everything that is reflects the mind of God. That includes both celestial mechanics and human sociology. Since both reflect the mind of God, they may be treated as reflections of each other. So we can use the ‘science of astrology’ to help us decode the panentheistic ‘pattern of divinity’. As such, Ficino’s astrology is an extension of the Mosaic tradition of supplementing the study of Scripture (Written Torah) with the study of Nature (Oral Torah), and vice-versa. Christianity continues this tradition via the all-inclusive doctrine of logos . Specifically, Christ is the logos through whom all things come to be and without whom nothing that comes to be comes to be (John 1: 3). Ficino makes it clear that logos is not a mechanical process divorced from its end product. Rather logos ‘infuses’ its external expressions ( panta ) with its own eponymous pattern. Everything that is, is Imago Dei . To be is to be ‘God- like ’. To the extent that something is , it is (God-like); to the extent that it is not, it is not. Perhaps Ficino’s complex and controversial position on matters astrological is best captured in the title of one of his essays: “Divine law cannot be made by the heavens but may perhaps be indicated by them.” Unfortunately, Ficino’s syncretism did not win the day. In fact, Ficino may be the last great European philosopher to suggest that the study of Nature and the study of Scripture were complementary paths to Wisdom. Rather, the ethos of the Renaissance-Enlightenment called for the study of Nature specifically in order to debunk Revelation. Our insatiable compulsion to rid the world of God hijacked both science and philosophy and held them captive for 400 seemingly interminable years, the true Dark Age of Western civilization. It was not until the 20th century that thinkers would again look to the stars to probe the mind of God. This recovery crystallized in the work of James Joyce. Early in Ulysses (1922), he writes about ‘the signatures of all things I am here to read’. Translation: Nature is an Urgent Owl with a coded message from God! In fact, Joyce’s entire corpus is just that. Joyce maps Homer’s Odyssey , Roman Catholic liturgy, Shakespeare’s Hamlet , et al., onto ‘events’ in Dublin on June 16, 1904. This fractal-rich world reproduces patterns ( logoi ) everywhere, everywhen, across all scales (all 60 orders of magnitude). How then could the events of any day not harmonize with the music of the spheres? While Classical cosmology might be reconciled with Christian theology, Machiavellian ethics (“the end justifies the means”) could not. The grip of our Machiavellian Captivity has recently loosened , but we still see its remnants in the press inflamed pseudo-conflict between Science and Religion. Many of the major issues for contemporary civilization live on the border of science and spirituality. For example, we need science to show us ways to manage climate change, but we need spirituality to motivate us to act. So our initial question might have to be rethought. Instead of asking, “Can someone be an orthodox Roman Catholic and still believe in astrology?”, perhaps we should be asking, “Can anyone be an orthodox Roman Catholic and not believe in astrology?” Image: Van Eyck, Jan. Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and His Wife. 1434, oil on wood, 82.2 × 60 cm. Main Collection, National Gallery, London, NG186. Like Ficino’s astrology, which seeks hidden divine patterns in nature, The Arnolfini Portrait is filled with symbols—each object reflecting deeper theological, philosophical, and even astrological significance. The convex mirror at the center of the painting, reflecting the unseen, echoes the idea that celestial mechanics and human affairs are interconnected reflections of the divine mind. Much like Ficino’s belief in the signatures of all things, van Eyck’s meticulous realism reveals a world where every detail is imbued with meaning, suggesting that nothing in nature (or art) exists by accident. 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 Job is My Superhero David Cowles "No one has taken a bigger risk than Job, and no one has faced longer odds; and yet, Job has taken God to court and won!" Where can you find a superhero when you need one? In a Marvel movie perhaps…or a DC comic? You probably wouldn’t think to look in the Bible, and certainly not in the Old Testament. Too bad! The Bible is chock-full of superheroes, especially the Old Testament. I mean, Abraham gives up a cushy upper middle-class lifestyle to become a nomad. Moses organizes a rebellion of Hebrew slaves and leads them on a 40-year trek across the wilderness to a new homeland. You get the picture! My personal favorite is Job. The Book of Job was written a mere 2,500 years ago, but the story itself is probably much older than that. Ok, granted, Job’s not your everyday superhero. In fact, on the surface, he’s anything but. We don’t meet him on a mountain top or at the head of a vast army; we meet him lying in the dust, his skin covered with sores, his family gone, his wealth wiped-out and his reputation in tatters. In those days, if you had a streak of ‘bad luck’ (like Job), people assumed that God was punishing you for sins you’d committed. Proof was not required. If you were suffering, then you must have sinned. Case closed! “What need have we for witnesses?” I am reminded of the judicial system in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Lookingglass : The sentence comes first, then the verdict, then the trail, and last of all, the crime itself. Imagine living like this. In our lives, we all have periods of relatively good fortune… and not-so-good fortune. Imagine your so-called friends ghosting you whenever your luck runs dry. Or imagine suffering their unjust accusations and their cruel taunts on top of your grief, your illness, and your poverty. With friends like these, who needs enemies? Certainly, not Job! When he hits rock bottom, his wife tells him to “curse God and die!” His ‘friends’ gather, supposedly to comfort him, but actually to tease him, to shame him, to blame him for his own suffering. Mrs. Job wants him to give up and die. His so-called ‘comforters’ want him to acknowledge his sins and beg God for forgiveness. But Job has other ideas. He won’t give up, and he won’t plead guilty to crimes he did not commit. He’s a superhero, remember? Job’s idea of God is very different from his friends’. Job’s God is not uncaring or cruel; he is just and merciful. Even more importantly, Job’s God is not above the law. In your catalog of superheroes , who else has the chutzpah to do such a thing? Using an ancient Middle Eastern legal formula, Job summons God, and much to everyone’s surprise (except Job’s) God complies with Job’s summons; he appears. At that time, the cornerstone of the law was God’s covenant with his people. Today we would call such a covenant a contract or even a constitution . God authored the covenant and Job expects him to follow it…and he does. From here on, Job’s comforters sit in stunned silence. What manner of man is this that even God obeys him? But God is not obeying Job. God is simply honoring the terms of the covenant. God is obeying God. Even more fundamentally, God is being God. All the characters in this ancient drama see God as fierce and unpredictable, all except Job! Like Abraham and Moses, Job ‘knows God’. He knows that God cannot behave unjustly because he is Justice. He knows that God cannot stop being God. So to recap, Job summons God and God appears. Is this the happy ending we’ve been hoping for? Not even close! The action’s just beginning, so buckle up! Were you expecting God to appear as a meek little lamb, ready to submit to the will of the court, putty in the hands of the plaintiff (Job)? Then you were wrong! God is furious! He has better things to do with his time than hang out in some District Court, answering Job’s impertinent charges. I mean, there’s a universe to run, for cryin’ out loud! God appears, but he’s not happy about it, not one bit. He addresses the court “out of a whirlwind." It’s undoubtedly an eye-catching performance. I mean, you don’t see that every day, do you? Admit it: you’d probably pause your remote to watch such a spectacle. Who could pass up a chance to walk down memory lane with God, exchanging war stories and listening to his tales of creation? Job could, and he does; he ignores God entirely, but then, Job is a superhero after all. He keeps his eyes fixed firmly on the prize (‘judgment for the plaintiff’). God mounts a spirited defense, “Where were you when I laid earth’s foundations? Have you ever in your days summoned daybreak? Have you ever reached the sources of the Sea and walked on the bottom of the Ocean?” God’s strategy is clear. He will overpower Job. But notice, God’s arguments are off point. They are more a product of frustration than careful legal reasoning. They have nothing to do with justice in general, and even less to do with Job’s particular complaint. God is blurring the line between might and right . Plus, this is not an episode of Law and Order . For one thing, God is both the defendant and the judge. We would never agree to such an arrangement today. We’d call it a ‘conflict of interest’, and for anyone but God, it would be. If you were your own judge, you’d probably find yourself innocent most of the time…ok, all the time. We all would…but not God. He alone can build a true firewall between God-the-Defendant and God-the-Judge. Job ignores God’s bluster. He does not take God’s bait. He won’t be drawn into a school yard game of one-upmanship; he will not show his NFL highlights reel next to God’s. Job hangs tough, “I have spoken once - and I will not repeat. Twice - and I will no more!” Job smells blood. He is going for a directed verdict of not guilty…and he’s going to get it, too - if only he can keep his cool. But not before God takes one last desperate shot: “Can you pull out the Leviathan (a sea monster) with a fishhook? Can you toy with him like a bird? Who has ever confronted him and survived? Even gods live in fear of his majesty; they’re in terror of the ruin he wrecks.” In other words: If you’re not afraid of me, perhaps you’ll be afraid of my creatures. But, of course, God’s threats are empty, and his words fall on deaf ears. Job has the last word: “I am fed up; I take pity on dust and ashes.” Translation: If I can’t get justice, no one can! Today, Job might be held in contempt of court for such a remark; but God lets him slide. Now on to the verdict. The whole cosmos is of one mind: Job will be found liable and further punishment will be imposed. The whole cosmos…that is, except Job. Job knows he will be acquitted. He knew it from the beginning. Job knows God! God moves from the plaintiff’s chair to the judge’s bench. He puts on his legal robes and prepares to rule. But first, he has a word for Job’s fickle friends: “You did not speak about me honestly, as did my servant Job.” And now…the verdict! God finds Job “not guilty” on all charges and restores to Job all that he had lost and more. What makes a hero? The willingness to do what’s right, to defend one’s values and beliefs, despite overwhelming opposition and with no realistic hope of success. Then what is a superhero? A hero who succeeds, who wins out in the end after all. In the entire history of literature, mythology, and religion, no one has taken a bigger risk than Job and no one has faced longer odds; and yet, Job has taken God to court and won! So, Job is my superhero. David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Previous Next

< Back Existential Psychotherapy David Cowles Jun 13, 2023 “We cannot make our problems go away by wishing. We have to make them go away!” In previous articles, we have explored the roots and branches of today’s mental health crisis , a pandemic that seems impervious both to traditional ‘talk therapy’ and to our trendiest pharmaceuticals. Diagnosis complete, it is time to work on a treatment plan. Serendipitously, such a therapeutic regime already exists, hidden away on dusty shelves in the back room of your university library. Sartre called it Existential Psychoanalysis , Carl Rogers called it Client Centered Therapy , Rollo May, Eric Fromm, and Victor Frankl referred to it as our Search for Meaning . We previously identified three root causes of today’s malaise : the loss of Identity, the lack of Belonging (Isolation), and the loss of Potency (Impotence). But we resisted the temptation to plug up the leaky dike with facile pseudo-solutions. Instead, we bravely noted that, in fact, we have no Identity, we do not Belong, and we are not Potent! Dangerous thinking! But we cannot begin the climb to Paradise until we’ve stared into the proud eyes of Satan as he languishes on the lowest rung of Dante’s Inferno. We cannot make our problems go away by wishing . We have to make them go away ! We cannot expect the world to hand us a ready-made identity as if it were a passport. We cannot expect the cool kids to invite us to sit at their table. We cannot rely on Marvel’s superheroes to fight our battles for us. If only life were that easy! Sadly, contemporary culture encourages us to place our faith in such externals. Our jobs, our friends, our support systems are just so much cotton batten intended to insulate us from the blows of life. Tragically, this strategy does not work! It doesn’t work for two reasons: one historical, the other existential. History first! We live in a time of unprecedented social mobility. Children no longer aspire to their parents’ careers; 40 years and a gold watch just don’t cut it any more. And I so wanted that watch! Friendships are hard won and fleeting in an age of lockdowns and social media; support systems erode in the face of social unrest, political instability, and the explosion of new technologies. It’s a shame we don’t believe in God anymore because the Judeo-Christian tradition fed us amply from all three food groups: Who am I? I am a child of God, created to know, love, and serve him in this world and in the world to come. Where do I belong? Among the community of the faithful now (Church) and in the Kingdom of Heaven later. How do I make a difference? By discerning and obeying the will of God, by partnering with him in the creation and redemption of the world, by building the City of God (Augustine), the City of Dioce (Pound). Ok, cool, now I can get on with my life…except I can’t. Most people today won’t accept these three easy answers to life’s dilemmas. If we can’t look to society for the answers and if the traditional answers are inconsistent with our current metaphysical disposition, where can we turn? Radical idea : how about turning to yourself? You have no identity. Ok, try telling that to a serf in Tsarist Russia. You have the freedom to fashion your own identity. Freedom is your identity! You can be whoever and whatever you want to be (subject to certain objective limitations). Don’t let fear of the unknown paralyze you. You are free to be all that you can be, whatever that might be. “Don’t dream it, be it!” ( Rocky Horror Picture Show ) If Tsarist Russia doesn’t resonate with you, try the Ante-Bellum South. Much blood was shed so that all men and women in the US could be free, free to be whatever they want to be. Don’t flee from that freedom; don’t indenture yourself to anxiety and/or drugs! You don’t belong? So what! Why should you? Invite others to join you. Start your own cool kids’ table. Live a life that others will want to emulate. Jesus did. St. Francis did. Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela, all did…why not you? Lead the way, fellowship will follow. You have the power; you are in control! You act, but nothing changes; you speak, but no one is listening. You are impotent! Ok, forget about global hunger, peace, and climate change. Impact something closer to home. Launch a fund raiser, folks will contribute. Paint your house, neighbors will get the idea, etc. Do one thing; others will follow! Looked at from this perspective: the three I’s (Identity, Isolation, and Impotence) turn out to be just one ‘I’ and that one ‘I’ turns out to be ‘U’! ATM’s Summer Issue (6/1) included an article on Paul’s Letter to Ephesians (2:10) . Let’s quote it here: “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.” (2:10) God or no God, Jean-Paul Sartre, who much preferred ‘no God,’ tells us that the world is nothing but a system of obstacles and tools, levies and levers. That said, it stands to reason that there would be many identities we could assume, many groups we could form or join, and many missions we could undertake with respect to that system . We are not called upon to fix the world immediately or by ourselves. Let’s fix just one thing. The options are many and the choice is ours! And that should be a source of joy, not anxiety. 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.

“Following the science, LP assumes that the same act, performed under the same conditions, will always produce the same result…it’s true, precisely 0% of the time!” < Back Logical Positivism David Cowles Dec 1, 2023 “Following the science, LP assumes that the same act, performed under the same conditions, will always produce the same result…it’s true, precisely 0% of the time!” It’s October 2023, and Norwegian novelist and playwright, Jon Fosse, is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. In naming Fosse, the Nobel Committee cited “ his innovative plays and prose, which give voice to the unsayable.” But isn’t that the function of all literature? Of all language even? According to Heidegger, art is what empowers us to see the world in new ways. As a certain poet (Keats) once said, “Beauty is Truth and Truth Beauty.” Language is ‘saying’. If language says it, then it’s said, and therefore obviously was never really ‘unsayable’. When I was in college, Logical Positivism (LP) was the philosophy du jour . It presented a view of the world that was embraced by academic philosophers on both sides of the Atlantic. The justly renowned Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote LP’s Bible ( Tractatus )…before he repudiated it years later in Philosophical Investigations . According to LP, propositions (sentences) have meaning if, and only if, they are subject to ‘falsification’ via the scientific method. Undoubtedly, such propositions do have a special semantic character, but they represent a tiny fraction of the things human beings yearn to say to one another about their lived experience. According to the tenets of LP, propositions that cannot be falsified are just meaningless strings of words. ‘To be’, Hamlet, is to be consequential . There is no being without consequences. If we cannot identify the consequences of an Act, why should we assume that there was an Act in the first place? Where there’s smoke, there isn’t always fire! We are rewriting Descartes: “I am, therefore I am engaged; I am engaged, therefore I am.” In elementary school, we were taught that sentences are meaningful if and only if they link words selected from a culturally shared lexicon according to patterns that conform to a culturally shared syntax. Later in life, we learn that such rules are arbitrary. New words are coming into our language all the time from all sorts of different sources. Also, strings of words can often be meaningful even if they don’t conform perfectly to ‘the rules of grammar’. Only the most conservative critic would argue that James Joyce’s two great novels, Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake , are meaningless, even though the former includes copious neologisms, and the latter is barely recognizable as English. And then there’s ‘poetry’! When a writer uses language ‘poetically’ (in the broadest possible sense of the word), no hard and fast rules apply… ever . The author and the reader come together virtually, of course, and agree on a vocabulary and grammar that are meaningful to them . If you find my writing gibberish, and many do, that’s ok by me, as long as ‘ some of my readers are able to tease some of my meaning out of some of my articles’. (Pseudo-Lincoln) I think most of us would agree that the most of the important propositions we’ve encountered in life would not pass LP’s Turing Test : I love you; thou shalt not kill; this sunset is gorgeous. Superficially, LP might be appealing. After all, if a proposition claims to be true, why shouldn’t it undergo rigorous verification? Why should I pay any attention to assertions that cannot be verified? It’s 2023—we ‘follow the science’ — now! The exclusion of so-called ‘slang’ and ‘poetry’ from the semantic universe is a heavy price to pay for scientific precision, but it is far from LP’s deepest flaw: Propositions refer to events. Every event is unique. If an event were not unique, it would not be an ‘event’. Following the science , LP assumes that the same act, performed under the same conditions, will always produce the same result…that is essence of science, and of course, it’s true, precisely 0% of the time! Repetition is an approximation. An experiment creates ‘information’ only to the extent that the results deviate from expectations. Every event has something in common with every other event, but no event has everything in common with any other event. So, is this the ultimate irony or what? LP is based on the truth criteria of science, which in turn rely entirely on the usually unstated but always false ‘axiom of repeatability’. A little reflection will likely lead you to conclude that it is precisely those ‘excluded propositions’ that embody the real content of our lives. The thrill of contemplating a remarkable sunset is for most of us a more important aspect of life than the satisfaction of calculating the precise boiling point of water. According to LP, ‘meaningful propositions’ are propositions that can ultimately be reduced to algorithms of the form, ‘if x, then y’. Conceivably, every such ‘verifiable proposition’ could be programmed into a relational database and then downloaded onto a mechanical platform (e.g., a computer). While such a result might be beyond our current capabilities, the project itself is certainly conceivable. That would make ‘living life’ a superfluous exercise. At the very moment when we are discovering that reflective consciousness is liberally distributed throughout the biosphere (and possibly beyond), LP comes along and says we don’t need reflective consciousness after all. ‘We don’t need no lived experience.’ (Pseudo-Pink Floyd) We can know everything that there is to know algorithmically. Can you stand another twist? This is beginning to sound like an episode of Big Brother (CBS). In fact, we know that the assumptions underlying LP are falsifiable! For example, LP was supposed to rescue the concept of Truth from the machinations of skeptics and nihilists. LP allowed us to answer Pontius Pilate’s dismissive question, “What is truth?” It’s simply the set of all verifiable propositions (above). The only problem with this is that we know that no algorithm can generate the set of all true propositions (Godel). Far from rescuing Truth, LP is incompatible with it! Likewise, we know that no two events are ever identical; if they were, they would be one event. Sure, events can closely resemble one another, and that may be good enough for government work, but it doesn’t satisfy us philosophically. The soul of the scientific method is repeatability, but no real-world event can ever be repeated. Finally, we increasingly suspect that the fundamental building blocks of Universe are not objects or even events but patterns. Contrary to what we said above, patterns can be congruent. So, have we rescued LP after all? ‘Fraid not! Congruent patterns are not identical patterns. Congruence may be serial or scalar: (1) ‘serial congruence’ refers to identical patterns that have different locations in spacetime; (2) ‘scalar congruence’ refers to patterns that are identical but on different scales. Examples: (1) a box of ball bearings; (2) atom, cell, or solar system. BTW, did you hear the one about the atom, the cell, and the solar system that walked into a bar? The bartender couldn’t tell them apart. That’s scalar congruence. To the extent that Universe displays scalar congruence, we say that it has a ‘holographic structure’ and consists of ‘fractals’. 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 Yuletide 2023 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 Genesis Wins Nobel Prize David Cowles Traditionally, Nobels are awarded only to ‘living recipients’ and only for work completed in the preceding year. In its statement, the committee said it felt an exception was needed in this instance “in order to right a grievous wrong.” Stockholm, Sweden – October 2030 . The Nobel Committee has just announced the winner of this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics. The prize has been awarded posthumously to the authors and editors of the Old Testament Book of Genesis in recognition of Genesis’s groundbreaking contribution to our understanding of the origin and evolution of the universe.’ Traditionally, Nobels are awarded only to ‘living recipients’ and only for work completed in the preceding year. In its statement, the committee said it felt an exception was needed in this instance “in order to right a grievous wrong.” ***** In 2000, Pope John Paul II apologized for the Church’s 17th century mistreatment of Galileo Galilei. Today, the Nobel Committee reciprocated by acknowledging that throughout the period known, ironically, as ‘The Enlightenment,’ the scientific establishment systematically misread Genesis. Science banished Genesis from the ‘academy;' but like all events, this event turned out to be a double-edged sword. There is no doubt that religious faith was undermined…but so was faith in science. Enlightenment science (were I in a more cantankerous mood, I might have written, ‘enlightenment science, an oxymoron,’ but I’m not) split our world in two. In place of the traditional consensus that both science and theology have something to contribute to our understanding of Being, we now have two ‘armed camps’ (in some cases, quite literally) – one composed of people who dismiss theology, and another composed of people who dismiss science. Often the science that wins a Nobel Prize is so complicated and arcane that only a handful of experts can understand it. Not this time! The ideas contained in Genesis can be understood and appreciated by almost everyone: “… God said let there be light and there was light.” We recognize this as the event we call the Big Bang: the emergence of energy (waves) and massless particles (photons). “God then separated the light from the darkness.” Prior to the Big Bang, ‘universe,’ if you can call it that, was a state of maximal entropy, which Genesis aptly described as: “…without form or shape with darkness over the abyss and a mighty wind.” Does this conflict with the Judeo-Christian doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, that the universe was created out of nothing? It does not! The Big Bang is the birth of order, and order is what being is. What else could being be? ‘To be’ or ‘not to be’ - ‘that is the question’ and the primal distinction; it is the foundation of all order. Later, the Gospel of John reprised Genesis by explicitly linking being and order through the concept of logos. You could read the first chapter of John as a commentary on Genesis. Without order, there literally is nothing (nihilo). Creation is the creation of order. Therefore, all creation is ex nihilo… it has to be! There isn’t any other way for it to happen. Any process that is not ex nihilo is not ‘creation.’ Creation requires a Tabula Rasa (‘a blank slate’). To create is not to modify, not even to ameliorate; to create is to bring a thing into being ex nihilo. Creating is not rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. To create is to bring into being de nuovo the chairs, the boat, the ocean, the planet, the cosmos – all ex nihilo – all from nothing. True ‘creation’ is always creatio ex nihilo. At the Big Bang, maximal entropy (chaos) becomes minimal entropy (order). That’s what Big Bang is! A phase change – the emergence of order. Instantly, maximal disorder (entropy) becomes maximal order (negentropy). The Big Bang begins the process of distinguishing order from chaos, light from darkness. The sudden reduction in entropy manifests as energy, i.e., light. Residual entropy is what we call darkness. The distinction of order (negentropy) from disorder (entropy) is the primordial distinction, the first step in the evolution of a universe that has given us such wonders as the Grand Canyon, Disney World, and the Big Mac. On to Step Two in the ‘genesis’ of the cosmos: “Evening came and morning followed – the first day.” Entropy tends to increase over time. Stephen Hawking suggested that entropy might even be time. Time is Duration (present) plus Sequence (past, future). Sequence, states of lower entropy following states of higher entropy, is the substructure of time. From sequence comes ‘interval’ and ‘duration’ which Genesis designates jointly by the word ‘day.’ B happens after A and before C. The gap between A and C is their ‘interval’ and that interval is the ‘duration’ of B. Sequence, interval and duration are inextricably linked. After temporal distinction (sequence, interval, duration, ‘day’) comes spatial distinction. Space is a rotation of time. According to current cosmological theory, there can be only one temporal dimension, but there may be an unspecified number of spatial dimensions. The emergence of space is both caused by and required for the emergence of mass. Turns out, mass and space are synonymous (Higgs). No mass, no space; no space, no mass! In the Genesis account, ‘massive particles’ manifest as dry land, earth, sea, vegetation, and animals, including conscious life forms such as human beings. Now, compared to a college textbook on cosmology, this account might seem a bit ‘spare.’ Certainly, there are things we know today about Cosmogenesis that even the celebrated and now properly, if belatedly, recognized authors of Genesis did not know. But consider this: for 2,500 years, Genesis was our most comprehensive and plausible theory of Cosmogenesis. So, congratulations to the Nobel Committee: job well done…if long overdue! David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com. Previous Next

< Back The Estates General in America David Cowles Mar 11, 2025 “The true constitution of a nation begins where the absolute power of the Crown leaves off.” Prior to the French Revolution, the government of France was an absolute monarchy…or so we’ve been led to believe. True, the French state was represented by a succession of Kings and Queens, some of whom had power that could almost be called absolute …but not all. In fact, the power of the monarch varied widely as a function of (1) the monarch’s personal charisma, (2) the immediate political, economic and technological state-of-affairs, and (3) the monarch’s degree of control over the levers of public power. According to Hegel, it is proper for every state to have a Head, the ‘Crown’ ( Keter ) so to speak. The Crown always represents the nation symbolically if not always politically. Hegel’s politics is reflective of his Christian theology . God, the universal Father and the Creator of heaven and earth, does not necessarily restrict in any way the free agency of his creatures . Hegel thought to model his Ideal State after the ‘Judeo-Christian Cosmos’. To the extent that all political power is concentrated in the ‘Crown’, the society is question does not have a constitution. The constitution of a nation begins with the circumscription (not necessarily the decapitation) of its Head. A constitution, written or oral, is a schematic illustrating the distribution of political power in a particular society. In England, for example, the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215 confirmed limits on the authority of the Crown and set that nation on the path to Constitutional Monarchy. Likewise, the first public exercise of the constitution of the Ancien Regime in France occurred in 1302 when Philip IV (Philip the Fair) convened the first ever session of the Estates General. This body included representatives of the clergy (First Estate), the nobility (Second Estate), and a very limited number of folks culled out of gen pop (Third Estate). The 14th century turned out to be the heyday of the Estates General in France, meeting 30 times over 100 years. As European culture transitioned from Medieval (14th century, Savonarola) to Renaissance (15th century, Machiavelli), France’s monarchs became more powerful, and they relied less on the Estates. Ultimately the institution was abolished as part of the French Revolution and replaced over time by a variety of marginally successful consultative and legislative bodies. Were the interests of the French people better represented by these later deliberative bodies than they were by the 14th century Estates General? It is tempting to think of the Declaration of Independence as an American version of England’s Magna Carta . Perhaps that would be on point had George III not refused to accept its terms. “I knew King John (at least from stage and screen) and you, George, are no King John!” and that’s saying something. Extending the analogy, the U.S. Constitution of 1789 with its justly famous ‘balance of powers’ can be viewed in the light of France’s Estates General. Recall that those Estates included representatives of the clergy, the nobility, and the people. Can we find vestigial organs of the Ancien Regime concealed in the U.S. Constitution? Imagine the President as Constitutional Monarch, Keter . A President’s power is partly structural and partly a function of personal charisma, but it is carefully circumscribed by three other institutions: the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the Judiciary. The many members of the House, elected to relatively brief 2 year terms, were expected to represent the immediate thoughts and interests of the broader citizenry. Members of the Senate, fewer in number and elected to longer 6 year terms, were expected to represent an American version of nobility. This is where the voices of the socially and economically powerful could be heard and taken into consideration. Ideally, the Senate would temper the enthusiasm of the House and/or the hubris of the Executive in the light of social and economic reality: “That simply won’t work!” Finally, the Judiciary. Like the First Estate (clergy) in France, the Judicial Branch is meant to reach beyond social, economic, and political trends, ensuring the nation will stay on course, remaining true to its founding principles. Just as the clergy, and ultimately the Pope (RCC), is responsible for keeping the Church grounded in Scripture and Tradition, so the Judiciary according to the Constitution. This suggests that ‘1776 and all that’ is a secular version of the ‘founding mythology’ that is at the heart of most religions. Justices are appointed for life according to a deliberative process that involves both the executive and the legislative branches. They are unelected and only subject to removal in cases of serious personal misconduct. This independence is essential if our judges are to perform their ‘undemocratic’ duties. Frequently, they are called upon to insert themselves between the immediate ‘will’ of the Executive and/or Legislative branches and the enduring ‘principles of the Republic’. We are reminded, of course, of Sophocles’ great tragedy, Antigone . Oedipus’ brother, Creon, has become ruler in Thebes following the former’s exile and ensuing civil war between his sons. Both are killed (by each other) in battle. Creon orders one brother’s body to be buried with the full trappings of a state funeral. The other brother, left unburied, is to be consumed by dogs in violation of the religious beliefs and cultural norms of the people of Thebes. Antigone, Oedipus’ daughter, betrothed to Creon’s son, Haemon, defies Creon and covers her brother’s unburied body after reciting the traditional funeral liturgy; for this act of sedition she is sentenced to a cruel death, despite her royal lineage. In reaching her decision, Antigone sweeps aside various arguments based on practicality, proportionality, and personal consequences. Right is right! The order of the Universe requires her to proceed according to divine will and local custom; she buries her brother and pays the ultimate price for her ‘treachery against the state’. Antigone suggests that Thebes has a constitution, i.e. the will of the gods and the traditions of the city, that places limits on the authority of its tyrant du jour . As with many characters from Greek tragedy, Antigone is not just a mythical figure out of the mists of 2nd millennium (BCE) Greece. She represents the principle of constitutional law (vs. despotism). Sophocles anticipates the political ideology of the Christian Era. According to the Church the will of God, revealed through Scripture and Tradition, is the ultimate source of all political power, imposing strict limits on the caprice of ad hoc rulers. According to this social philosophy, all societies are ‘constitutional’ whether or not they like it, embrace it, or even acknowledge it. According to a steady stream of Christian commentators, especially Thomas Aquinas and Pope Leo XIII, the ‘form’ of secular government (e.g. constitutional monarchy, democratic republic, or dictatorship of the proletariat) is less important than its ‘substance’, i.e. its recognition that all political power is subordinate to the Will of God and its willingness to govern within the constitutional limits imposed as a result. And what is the Will of God? Beauty, Truth, and Justice. 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.

You may be thinking, “WHAAAT? That’s impossible! Who could live without numbers? If they don’t have them, then they must invent them, right?” But you would be wrong. < Back Prepare to Be Shocked David Cowles Oct 15, 2022 You may be thinking, “WHAAAT? That’s impossible! Who could live without numbers? If they don’t have them, then they must invent them, right?” But you would be wrong. What shocks you? A scary movie? A failing grade on a math quiz? Your favorite sports team coming from behind at the end to score an upset victory? Well, maybe, but keep reading, there are much bigger surprises ahead. When I was very young, one of the first things I learned to do was count. “One, two, three…” When I could finally count all the way up to 10, it was a big deal! It was even bigger when I learned that I didn’t have to stop at 10 but could go on counting… forever . I was a big shot…until I discovered that all my friends could count forever too. Of course, I didn’t know it at the time, but it has always been taken for granted that all human beings learn to count forever, and that no other species can count at all . A nice, neat way to package the world to ensure that we come out on top. Except that this picture is totally wrong! So…prepare to be shocked: Shock #1 : Many animals can count. Monkeys and apes can count. So can birds, especially parrots, crows, and ravens. Fish can count as well as some reptiles. Some members of these species can even do arithmetic . Shock #2 : Some members of some species can count and do math better than you…or at least better than you when you were very young. Are you struggling with math? Perhaps a pet parrot could help you with your homework. (We know that some parrots help other parrots learn arithmetic. Who knows, perhaps the first student teacher was a bird.) Shock #3 : While it is true that some animals perform better than some humans in some situations, not to worry! You’ll come out ahead in the end. Animals learn to count quickly and at a very early age, but as far as we know, their math skills are limited. Most can’t count beyond the number 9. Apparently, they will never know what you and your friends learned early on: counting is forever. Shock #4 : Not all human beings count. They can count, but they don’t. Their languages have no words (or very few words) for numbers. Imagine English without ‘one, two, three…’ or Spanish without ‘uno, dos, tres…’ Because they have no words for numbers, they don’t learn to count, and they certainly don’t learn to do math. Who are these lucky kids who don’t have to learn arithmetic? As you know, human beings live all over the world, in almost every nook and cranny, but for the most part, we’re all connected, linked to one another by roads, airplanes, telephones, television, internet, etc. Counting spreads! Most human beings are connected…but not all. Some live in small, close-knit communities called tribes. Some of those tribes are still almost totally isolated from the rest of the human world, and not all of these tribes count like we do. It turns out that many of the world’s smallest cultures have no numbers beyond three (e.g., 1, 2, more than 2); some have no numbers at all ! You may be thinking, “WHAAAT? That’s impossible! Who could live without numbers? If they don’t have them, then they must invent them, right?” But you would be wrong. They don’t have numbers, and they don’t invent words in place of numbers because they don’t want numbers; and they live quite nicely without them, thank you. Now, perhaps you’re thinking, “Gee, this doesn’t sound so bad after all. Maybe I would like to live in such a tribe. Better than taking math quizzes every week!” Before you say goodbye to your parents and purchase a one-way ticket to the Amazon Rain Forest (or some other remote location), why not live without numbers for just a single day? Try it: no counting, no arithmetic. (I suggest you pick a day when you don’t have to be in school.) Don’t worry, you’ll mess up. We all do! We’re so used to numbers that we often use them without thinking about it. Just notice when you do. If you want, you could keep a journal. Write down the things that happen to you, the problems you overcome, and the times you mess up and let a pesky number sneak through the back door. You can have fun playing this game on your own, or you can play it with a sibling or some friends. Here are the rules; they’re pretty simple: (1) you can’t use numbers of any kind: no 0, no 1, no 2, no 1st, no 2nd. (2) you can’t use words that take the place of numbers. For example, you can’t use words like all or some . These words are just numbers in disguise. Don’t be fooled! It’s ok to say that something is big or small , but don’t say that something’s bigger or smaller than something else. See why? Are you game? Give it a try it and let us know how it goes. Would you have any use for $50? (I know that’s a number, sorry.) No problem! Just send us an email saying that you tried to live ‘number free’ for the day and describe your experience. You’ll be entered into a drawing for a $50 cash card, which will take place on Halloween night; do we need to allow more time? Would this be an interesting extra credit project for a grade school class? Send all entries and suggestions to editor@aleteheiatoday.com . Put “Number Challenge” in the subject line. Good luck! 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 Polytheism David Cowles Jul 25, 2023 “The centralization of political power in Rome killed polytheism. Will the decentralization of intelligence spark its return?” Judeo-Christian theology begins with the Torah, including the First Commandment of the Decalogue: “I am the Lord your God…you shall not have other gods beside me.” (Exodus 20: 2) Imagine instead a world in which virtually everything is animated by its own god or demigod. Every new phenomenon calls into being its own animating spirit, its own god…or vice versa. We’re not talking pantheism or even panentheism here; this is good old-fashioned ‘pagan’ polytheism! Such a cosmology leaves little room for a Supreme Being. Akhenaten introduced monotheism to Egypt…epic fail! Likewise, polytheism offers narrow scope for human agency. As Homer demonstrated in the Iliad , human beings may act as they will, but macro results are determined on another plane. Paraphrasing an old maxim, “Humans propose, gods dispose.” When we try to map European polytheism onto Semitic monotheism, we end up with some strange bedfellows: Zeus playing the part of YHWH, for example. Talk about miscasting! Notify SAG-AFTRA. Zeus is more of a gang leader than a Supreme Being, more El Chapo, less El Shaddai. Each of the gods has its own patch, its own ‘ministerial portfolio’ so to speak. Got an issue with the sea, see ‘The Secretary of Seas’, Poseidon. At least that’s what it says in the official Visitor’s Guide to the Parthenon . In fact, however, a cabinet meeting on Mount Olympus makes the PM’s question time in the House of Commons seem like an episode of Mister Rogers. Underneath the neatly drawn org chart, the world is seething with god sown turmoil. Gods’ domains overlap, ensuring conflict – and that’s if the deities color inside the lines, which they rarely do. Several gods might have legitimate, if conflicting, interests in the fate of a certain ocean voyage, but that doesn’t mean that other gods won’t stick their oars in as well. At times, things resemble the food fight in Meatballs . When the Olympians took over from the Titans, they turned to Zeus, their wartime hero, their George Washington, to be lawgiver . Bad choice! Zeus was a wartime consigliere, ill-suited to leading the world during a period of peace. If only they’d had James Madison to advise them on constitutional matters! Fortunately, most executive decisions aren’t made on Mt. Olympus! ‘Command and control’ is decentralized. Some gods roam the earth, others take possession of a single tree, whirlpool, or water fall. Either way, they direct the course of human events from their chosen vantage. For the most part, the gods are more powerful than their human clients, but they are far from omnipotent, omnipresent, or omniscient. Gods move faster than we do; faster even than our latest supersonic jets – but still well below the speed of light. Bottom line : even a god can’t be in two places at once! At least not then … (Stay tuned!) Like most religions, European Polytheism is concerned with ‘why bad things happen to good people’? One answer offered by Judeo-Christianity is the doctrine of Original Sin (Adam, Eve, Serpent, Apple). European Polytheism attributes the origin of mischief to the gods themselves! Take Oedipus, for example; he is guilty of patricide and incest, but unknowingly, he is simply following a script (fate) written by amoral gods. He has no nefarious intent, far from it, and yet he must be punished. State of mind has no place in this ethical scheme. No wonder! In contrast to Judeo-Christian theology, the gods in Greek mythology are not governed by any transcendent moral code. Beauty, Truth, Justice, Kindness, and Mercy, perhaps desirable in themselves, are nonetheless entirely optional, so intent is not relevant to morality. Compare the Book of Job with the Odyssey . Citing natural law and a transcendent moral code, Job summons God to stand trial for ‘wanton acts of injustice’. Worse luck, Job draws YHWH as his presiding justice. Even so, Job wins! Can you imagine something like that happening in Homer’s Greece…or in America ? As Imperial Rome absorbed the Greek city states, and everything else in the process, the notion of distributed power, human or divine, began to seem out-of-touch with reality. Semitic monotheism, in its various forms, spread quickly post-Augustus. The idea of distributed intelligence staged a bit of a comeback during the Middle Ages, but that spark was snuffed out by the Renaissance. From 1500 to 1900, the name of the game was Central Intelligence ; its crowning achievement: the Industrial Revolution. Then the wheels came off. The intellectual (not political) history of the 20 th century belongs to proponents of distributed intelligence. Chaos Theory , first outlined by Henri Poincare (c. 1880), removed ‘locality’ from ‘causality’. Now, a butterfly in Borneo can impact the weather in Chicago. Forget about Lake Michigan! This is polytheism on steroids. In 1964, John Bell took matters even further with his famous non-locality theorem. Bell showed that events on opposite sides of the universe can be correlated (not controlled)! The speed of light is no longer a barrier to divine intervention. Now, gods can be two places at once! During this same period, biologists, physiologists, and neurologists were discovering that intelligence per se is ‘distributed’, if only throughout an organism’s nervous system. Recently, polytheism (‘distributed intelligence’) has made its mark in the world of information technology as well. Out of PCs and Smartphones came Blockchain, a technology capable of performing the most remarkable feats of leger demain without employing any central computer. Instead, a single blockchain consists of thousands of independent processing nodes, linked like the Beer Snake at sporting events. The 1 st century centralization of political power in Rome killed polytheism. Will the 21 st century decentralization of intelligence spark its return? 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 . 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< Back Extra! Extra! David Cowles Jun 16, 2022 “Do I really have to wait three months for more ATM?" No, you do not! We’ve decided to add a special issue (7/15) to our 2022 publication schedule. Here's what we have planned... As you know, Aletheia Today (AT) published Issue #1 of our quarterly periodical, AT Magazine (ATM), on June 1. We had high hopes for this first issue, and so far, the results have exceeded our expectations. Since announcing on 5/1 our plans to publish AT Magazine (ATM) Issue #1 on 6/1… Our site has had 1,000 visits, From 750 unique visitors, Who viewed an average of 6 pages per visit. Plus, we now have almost 400 subscribers! One of our new subscribers commented, “Do I really have to wait 3 months for more ATM?” No, you do not! We’ve decided to add a Special Issue (7/15) to our 2022 publication schedule. ATM Issue #2 will be released on 7/15. Our regular schedule will resume with Issue #3 to be released on 9/1 as planned. We’re calling Issue #2 our ‘Beach Issue.’ In the spirit of the season, we are adding some ‘lighter’ fare this time around; the focus is on fun! Articles already queued up for Issue #2 include: How to Coach an Undefeated Football Team The life lessons of a 4x winner! Teaching Physics in the 21st century Using the Yellow Submarine as the text. The Sultan and The Sea A Sufi tale retold for readers 8 to 80. Jesus is Badass A reexamination of Jesus’ life. For our summer theater aficionados, Nihilism in Shakespeare . Original poetry and Haiku. New Challenges for readers of all ages. Look for ATM Issue #2 in your inbox on July 15. Meanwhile, be sure to keep reading Thoughts While Shaving , published every Tuesday and Thursday throughout the year. P.S. We have already received more than a dozen inquiries from independent authors who are interested in writing freelance for ATM. We are still accepting inquiries and submissions for both upcoming issues: Issue #2 (7/15) and Issue #3 (9/1). Interested in advertising in AT Magazine ? Contact editor@aletheiatoday.com . We are also open to reciprocal links. Thanks for your loyalty! Let us know what else we can do to meet your needs. 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.