< Back Everybody's Autobiography David Cowles Is it possible to write an autobiography of everyone, to somehow incorporate the wildly varying events of different people’s lives into a single story? Absurd, right? But not so fast! Gertrude Stein once wrote, “Anyway, autobiography is easy. Like it or not, autobiography is easy for any one, and so this is to be everybody’s autobiography.” ( Everybody’s Autobiography ) Is it possible to write an autobiography of everyone, to somehow incorporate the wildly varying events of different people’s lives into a single story? Absurd, right? But not so fast! When we talk about ‘wildly varying events’ we implicitly admit that there must be a common substructure upon which these ‘variations’ occur. Ok, if not absurd, then at least impossible. You will grant me that much, right? Sorry, no again! Compared to what Joyce and Pound were attempting, Stein’s project is child’s play. When Stein wrote Everybody’s Autobiography , Joyce had already written and published his Ulysses and Pound was well into his Cantos . (In fact, some of the early Cantos had already been published.) These works are very different from each other and both are very different from Everybody’s Autobiography . Joyce and Pound did not share a common style or even a common medium ( Ulysses is prose, Cantos poetry) but both wanted to write a ‘universal history’ – a history of tout le monde , the whole world. But they approached their project very differently. Joyce chose to telescope the world’s history into a single place (Dublin) and a single time (June 16, 1904, now called Bloomsday after the book’s hero, Leopold Bloom). Like all of us, Stephen Hawking included, Joyce stood on the shoulders of giants. He recognized two previous attempts to write a universal history: Homer’s Odyssey and the liturgy of the Roman Catholic church ( Mass ), and he incorporated both into Ulysses . Joyce meticulously mapped the world’s events (historical, mythological, and liturgical) onto the imagined events of Dublin on Bloomsday. Joyce discovered what today we would call ‘the fractal nature of reality’…long before Benoit Mandelbrot. Pound took a radically different course. He attempted to catalog all the world’s events, but he used a different device to avoid writing a 'million volume novel’. He picked only those events that he judged to be richly emblematic of other events. All the events described in Cantos are paradigms. Stein takes a third direction. She records the minute details of her life with Alice B. Toklas, but she chooses to include only those life events that Gertrude and Alice had in common with everybody else. They got up; they went places; they saw things; they engaged in conversations; they ate food; and they drank wine, etc. In this, their lives were no different from my life or your life or anyone’s life. Stein discovered the common substructure of all human life. Previous Next

Some people's search takes them to Fatima or Lhasa or into Outer Space. Mine took me to the dentist. < Back Systematic Philosophy David Cowles Oct 15, 2022 Some people's search takes them to Fatima or Lhasa or into Outer Space. Mine took me to the dentist. "Systematic Philosophy," makes you think of Plato and Aristotle, Augustine and Aquinas, Kant and Hegel, Heidegger and Sartre... The urge to understand the world we live in persists, but is academic philosophy the only approach? Or even the best approach? And what does it mean to understand ? We understand something in terms of something else . In other words, we find the relevant 'pattern' to explain the 'event.’ The cosmos is our 'territory' (event); we spend our lives searching for, or inventing, the best possible 'map' (pattern) of that territory. The collected works of each of the philosophers mentioned above constitutes 'maps,’ but are we limited in our search to such 'weighty tomes?’ (No, I am not speaking metaphorically. I mean 'weighty' - I challenge you to pick up all eight volumes mentioned above with one arm! Try it on TikTok or YouTube.) The Homeric epics, for example, also constitute a map. So does the fictional prose of James Joyce ( Ulysses ) and the epic poetry of Ezra Pound ( Cantos ). The music of Bach is a spectacular map ( Brandenburg Concenti ) ( Read ATM’s “The Meaning of Music.” ), as are the paintings of Kandinsky ( Read ATM’s “Is This Really All There Is?” ) The list goes on...and on. According to the Book of Job , the greatest tragedy that can befall a human being is to die 'without knowledge,’ i.e. without a satisfying map; but since by definition no map can ever perfectly reconstruct its territory, the search is never-ending. That said, I did not expect my search would take me to my dentist's office. (Some people's search takes them to Fatima or Lhasa or into Outer Space. Mine took me to the dentist.) It is often said, "No one ever wants to go to the dentist." I can confirm that by my own experience...except for now. I cannot not wait for my next cleaning, filling, extraction, etc. A trip to the dentist means a chance to get another look at the tapestry art pictured above. Ok, it's 'pretty,’ I guess, but that's not what attracts me. For me, it's part of the great quest (above). It's a map of the cosmos, every bit as compelling as anything Plato ever wrote, more detailed than anything we're likely to get from the Hubble. How so? It is both varied and uniform, dynamic and stable, undulating and rectilinear. It embodies the same paradoxes that make all of reality so difficult to decipher. Alfred North Whitehead, the last of the great systematic philosophers (not listed above...but just as unhoistable), illustrated this paradox when he quoted a traditional Anglican hymn: Abide with me, Fast falls the eventide. It is impossible, of course, to capture in mere words what is compelling about this quilted fabric. If it were possible, we wouldn't need the fabric, would we? On the other hand, I have never seen a piece of fabric that tells the story of The Timaeus . Reality is a mighty citadel. It takes all the weapons at our disposal to breech its towering walls. The verbal, the visual and the tonal - we need them all, and none can take the place of any other. That said, I feel compelled to try to tell you what it is that I find so compelling in this piece. The right thing for me to do would be to point and cry out, "Ecce rem' - Behold the thing! But of course, I have no intention of doing the right thing. So, caveats in place, here we go: The substructure of the piece is uniform but dynamic. We see it 'at the border' (on the 'frontier' so to speak), and we catch glimpses of it 'between the rain drops.’ Of course, it's a matter of gestalt . The ubiquitous pattern I'm seeing as background could just as easily be seen as the figure. What's figure, what's ground? That's in the eye of the beholder! Proceeding as if the pattern were background, our attention is drawn to the monochrome figures that sit atop it: white triangles and blue parallelograms (diamonds). They are organized into an alternating sequence of undulating and pulsating ribbons, a dynamic version of the red and white stripes on the American flag. Is this a New England quilt...or some Big Easy jazz? One thing for sure, the piece has both melody ('undulating') and rhythm ('pulsating'); but for me, the most interesting aspect of the work is its architecture. The disparate elements are not arranged sequentially or in monochromatic layers; rather, they are 'put together' in a distinctive and infinitely repeating pattern. This is how I imagine brains work, not as tiny lumps of neurons with hardwired functions, but rather as vast neural networks, capable of all sorts of mental gymnastics: factual memory, communication, counter-factual dreams. etc. This is more or less how information is stored in a computer (or on a hard drive or disk). On vinyl, the placement of the needle determines the output; on a CD, it is the address of the data. Also, the pattern of shapes on the quilt is fractal-like. It repeats with changes of scale as well as position. Plus, it has a focus, a great mystical rest, a Sabbath of the Land. Do you see it? Once you do, it's almost impossible to move your eye off from it. A recent breakthrough in mathematics may be helpful here. Imagine a three-dimensional lattice consisting of 100,000 points (or nodes). Now imagine injecting electricity into the lattice. Your job is to model the state of each node, n, at each moment of time, t. It had been assumed that it would take 100,000 equations to accomplish this task. Recently, a team of mathematicians demonstrated that it only takes four equations to do the job. Would you rather owe me $4 or $100,000? How can four equations describe 100,000 data points? Easy: it’s just a matter of seeing the patterns. At Aletheia Today, patterns are what we're all about. 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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Every day is Halloween…Every day I get to make the decision anew: who am I going to be today? < Back I Wasn't Anything David Cowles Oct 15, 2022 Every day is Halloween…Every day I get to make the decision anew: who am I going to be today? When my world was still magical (ages 6 through 11?), Halloween was the most important day of the year. Thanksgiving and Christmas were great fun, and we benefited handsomely from each, but Halloween was our holiday. We got to make our own fun! Plus, it was the only night of the year when we were allowed out after dark, with friends, and, in those days, without any adult supervision. By the time I was eight years old, Halloween season stretched from October 1 through November 2 (All Souls' Day in the Roman Catholic Church and the day the candy ran out in our house). There was no time to spare. The logistics were daunting. Who’s in my wolf pack this year (for Trick-or-Treating)? What streets will we hit and in what order? And, most importantly, what will we be ? Now I am a grandfather 10 times over, and one day I made the mistake (sadly, one of many) of saying to a grandson, “I hear you’re dressing up as Captain America this year.” Crestfallen, he managed, “No Grandpa, I am Captain America.” I had forgotten! Choosing our Halloween ‘character’ (‘avatar’ today) was not a matter of putting on a costume for a few hours or experimenting with an alternate identity for a day. It was more like choosing, or being chosen by, a totem animal. Your Halloween character is ‘who you are’…until the next Halloween rolls around. “Who should I be?” That is the question! “And how should I be it?” Store-bought costumes are sleek and shiny, but they are usually made from some sort of plastic material that makes noise when you walk and has a faint chemical odor. A home-made costume, on the other hand, could be much better…or much worse. It affords more room for novelty, but that is tricky. How ‘novel’ do you want to be at eight years old? Plus, you’ll need Mom’s help, and that means surrendering some creative control. You’re eight; you’re not used to making life or death identity-determining decisions, and this is the most important decision you’ve made in a year; and it will be another year before you have a chance to do it again. There is no margin for error. And yet, I erred. The decision was of such monumental significance that I simply couldn’t pull the trigger; I procrastinated. Sure enough, Halloween morning came, and I was still not settled. Over breakfast, Mom nudged, “Do you know what you’re going to be yet?” And again, after school. Finally, around 4 o’clock I turned to her in desperation, “Mom, what can I be?” “Well, you could be a mummy. I could wrap toilet paper all over you and tape it.” I wasn’t happy, but it was too late to be anything else. “Mummy me up please, Mommy!” It wasn’t anywhere near as bad as you’re imagining. In fact, it was ‘kinda good.’ I hit the streets in high spirits, and everything would have turned out ok, except for one thing: after about an hour, it started to rain, not hard enough to disrupt our mission but enough to soak us to the skin. I’ll let you put two and two together. Suffice to say, I returned home at the end of the evening, a rain-drenched child with wet toilet paper hanging all over him. I couldn’t hold back my tears, “Mommy, I wasn’t anything!” I didn’t get over this disappointment quickly, and it was many years before I appreciated the momentous lesson of these events. The words still ring in my ears today, “I wasn’t anything!” and that realization, that experience ended up forming the cornerstone of my later adult thinking. (Freudians welcome!) “I wasn’t anything!” Of course, I wasn’t. I wasn’t anything on Halloween night; I wasn’t anything six months later, and I’m still not anything today. Neither are you, neither is anyone. The day I become something , is the day I no longer am . But it goes even deeper. What I am is precisely that I am not anything. Neti, neti – not this, not that! For human beings, being is a matter of not being what we’re not. Is this surprising? How could it be otherwise? If I truly was Captain America, then I wouldn’t be me, would I? And if I am me, how can I be anything else? I am neither Captain America, nor a Pirate, nor a Mummy. Neither am I an eight-year-old boy…nor an 80-year-old man! I am what nothing is and what nothing is. So… So…everything! On the one hand, I don’t have to waste time “finding myself” because there is quite literally nothing to find. But that reprieve comes at a great price. I am nothing, but I am nothing in the context of the world. In myself, I can be nothing, but I cannot be nothing in the world. If I were, then I wouldn’t be in the world at all, would I? So, it’s back to Halloween night after all. Because I am nothing, I am free to make myself anything I choose. My identity is not dictated by my genes, by my socioeconomic class (sorry Karl), by my upbringing, or by my education. “I know who I am, and I know that I can be whatever I want to be.” But with such freedom comes an awesome responsibility. I don’t have the luxury of living life on the sidelines. I cannot pass through life as a spectator. I see the world as it is, and I must decide who I wish to be in this world. I might choose to be a recluse, but that, too, is a choice, and being a recluse is still being something vis a vis the world. At eight years of age, there are three sentences that you long to hear:  “Daddy’s bringing home a puppy (or a pony).  “School’s out…forever.”  “Every day is Halloween.” Well, I never got a pony or a dog (strike one), and I did get a college education (strike two), but, good news, every day is Halloween. Home run! Every day I get to make the decision anew: who am I going to be today? 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. Return to Table of Contents, Winter 2023 Issue Return to Table of Contents, Holiday Issue Return to Table of Contents, Halloween Issue Return to Table of Contents, September Issue Return to Table of Contents, Beach Issue Return to Table of Contents, June Issue

< Back The 60-Minute Bible David Cowles Jul 8, 2025 “…If you could digest the entire Bible in just 60 minutes, might that be of interest?” In our unchurched world, there is a growing hunger to understand the Judeo-Christian world view. “What is it that has everybody in such a lather?” Of course, you could ask a Rabbi, Priest, or Minister for help, but that would likely lead to instruction in one particular ‘faith’ while you’re looking for the broadest, most inclusive possible overview. When I was 14, I determined to read the entire Bible over the summer, book by book, from Genesis through Revelation . Yup, while you were at the beach, I was in my room, busy studying. In the end, I settled for an ‘extensive sampling’, but 50 years later a business associate told me his New Year’s resolution was to read the entire Bible, end to end, before the end of that year…and he did it! I doubt many folks would be willing to commit to such a project today. But what if I could make the task a little less daunting? Instead of an entire year, or summer, what if you could digest the entire Bible in just 60 minutes? Might that be of interest? I’m not talking about a summary; I’m talking about actual Bible verses, quoted verbatim, with minimal contextual notes in between. I have selected 24 short passages from the Judeo-Christian Bible that I believe offer the sort of overview people are seeking. At a minimum, I hope you’ll come away saying, “Ah, so that’s what all the noise is about.” So enjoy! And as for the 99 hours I just saved you? You’re welcome! Most gods of the 2nd millennium BCE created the universe merely by willing it, reducing our world to the status of a wholly owned subsidiary of God, Inc. Not so YHWH, ‘God’ in the Judeo-Christian tradition: Genesis 1: 1 – 4 (Creation) Our world is not just a figment of some god’s imagination. Marx was right! The material world is real. YHWH created this world by ‘letting it be’, ‘seeing that it was good’, and then ‘separating (e.g. light from darkness) and gathering’ (e.g. water into seas). YHWH follows that pattern through all 6 stages of creation. Long before Charles Darwin, the authors of Genesis 1 produced their own, remarkably accurate, theory of evolution. We encounter YHWH again in the calling of Abraham (Abram), the Patriarch of Jews, Christians and Muslims alike and, by extension, of us all. Genesis 12: 1 – 3 (Covenant) Abraham is the Bible’s first existential hero. Responding to God’s call, he leaves family, friends, and an upper middle class lifestyle to become a nomadic immigrant in a strange land. In recognition of Abraham’s faith, trust, and courage, YHWH establishes an eternal Covenant linking Abraham and his descendants (and ultimately all human beings) to God. We resume our story on the slopes of Mt. Horeb. The Hebrew people are now slaves in Egypt. Moses, himself ‘fostered’ by members of Egypt’s extended royal family, encounters YHWH in a perpetually burning bush. Exodus 3: 1 – 6, 13 - 15 (Moses) These verses may be the most important in the entire Bible because this is where God formally introduces himself to us. He meets us in history and in the context of daily life; he tells us who he is and even lets us know his name. From here on, we’re on a first name basis with Divinity. The first 5 books of the Bible constitute Torah (The Written Law). It includes the Ten Commandments, made famous by Cecil B. DeMille and Charlton Heston. But the crux of the new Social Contract is buried in an obscure text: Leviticus 25: 1 – 13 (Jubilee) The social contract outlined here is by far the most radical social program ever conceived: a completely egalitarian re-distribution of productive wealth (Capital) every 50 years! Marx could only dream… This ‘Jubilee’ theme plays a significant part in Jesus’ ministry and in the Constitution of the early Church. Joshua entered the Promised Land with all the swagger of a newly minted presidential front-runner. Armed with a party platform developed during 40 years of wandering in the wilderness of Sinai, the Hebrews were ready to conquer Cannan, by persuasion if possible, by force if necessary. At that time, the walled city of Jericho was the unassailable ‘capital’ of Cannan. The city’s rulers were so confident that they regarded Joshua’s military maneuvers outside its walls as mere entertainment. And yet, Joshua captured the city in just 7 days and with nary an arrow fired. Joshua 6: 1 – 5, 15 – 16, & 20 (Jericho) Joshua’s weapon of choice was liturgical dance, spelling out the details of God’s ‘plan’ for Cannan! But this was only the coup de grace ; it followed a period of espionage, infiltration, agitation, and a heightened class consciousness. The Liberation of Jericho was perhaps the first recorded instance of a successful proletarian revolution. Would that the revolutionaries of 1776, 1789, 1848, 1871 and 1917 had paid more attention to Joshua. The Fall of Jericho began a 250 year period known as the time of Judges. There was no permanent or centralized government. Imagine ‘there’s no state’, John Lennon! Charismatic leaders arose ad hoc when circumstances required and were confirmed in office by popular consensus. Otherwise, YHWH ruled directly through the 613 mitzvoth of Torah and the consciences of individuals. Judges 21: 25 (Theocracy) Not that the temptations of political and military power were not everywhere. After a string of military victories, the people clamored to make Gideon their King. But in a Sherman inspiring moment, he declined: Judges 8: 22 - 23 (Theocracy) But the people were not satisfied for long. Surrounded by strong, centralized monarchies, they pined for ‘their piece of the pie’. Samuel, the last of the great Judges (his sons were disasters), delivered a passionate defense of YHWH’s rule: I Samuel 8: 10 – 18 (Theocracy) We might just as well be reading Benjamin Franklin. Unfortunately, Israel did not heed God’s warning. They chose a king, first Saul then David, and the rest, as they say, is ‘history’: Israel was divided, conquered, and exiled. “Who’d a thunk it?” ( Hairspray )… other than Samuel, and of course, YHWH. Fortunately, history had a Track B: Wisdom . By rejecting Theocracy, Israel was abandoning not only the Covenant but also the cosmology of Genesis . In its place, Israel developed a rich, proto-existentialist philosophy: Ecclesiastes 1: 1 – 11 (Wisdom) Am I reading Solomon…or Sartre? History also had a Track C: Prophesy. Covenant theology did not suddenly disappear; it remained underground, kept alive by an archipelago of prophets, speaking truth to power: Isaiah 42: 1 – 9 (Prophesy) Many of the prophets pair a searing indictment of the status quo with a utopian vision of the future, modeled on the Garden of Eden. Who were their political consultants? Anyhow, much of their teaching focuses on the coming of a Messiah and the restoration of Theocracy: Jeremiah 31: 31 – 34 (Covenant) During the tumultuous first century CE, Judaism was fractured. Numerous ‘sects’ and ‘parties’ - the Essenes and the Zealots, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the Scribes and the Sanhedrin - all competed for the hearts and minds of the faithful based on their differing interpretations of the prophets’ message. Into this cauldron stepped Jesus of Nazareth. He offered a new interpretation of Torah that built on the Wisdom and Prophetic traditions and that ultimately transformed his branch of Judaism into a separate religion, Christianity. Jesus’ public ministry begins in his hometown synagogue (Nazareth). A young man by Rabbinical standards, Jesus (age 30) has just returned from 40 days in the desert. He rises to read from Torah and infuriates his bougie audience by proclaiming a Jubilee (above), i.e. the immediate and total redistribution of all productive property. Luke 4: 16 – 21 (Jubilee) The foundational principle of Christianity, The Great Commandment, is not a Christian invention. It is simply a juxtaposition of two verses from Torah – a pairing already in circulation before Jesus’ time. Matthew 22: 35 – 40 (The Great Commandment) The Great Commandment is deceptively mundane. This is no Categorial Imperative (Kant) nor is it the Golden Rule. Jesus uses this meme to proclaim congruence among each of us, our neighbors (‘as yourself’) and God (‘like it’). Elsewhere, however, Jesus does offer a fresh interpretation, application and extension of Jewish theology, cosmology and ethics. His teachings are summarized in two lengthy New Testament passages: The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5: 1 – 7: 29) The Last Supper Discourses (John 14: 1 – 17: 26) But if you’re following the 60-minute plan, you can settle for: Matthew 5: 3 – 12 (Beatitudes) Matthew 6: 9 – 13 (Lord’s Prayer) John 15: 9 – 12 (Last Supper) The story of Jesus’ passion, crucifixion and resurrection is widely known. It is unnecessary to retell it here. However, a few things stand out and call for our special attention: Luke 22: 14 – 20 (Eucharist) Like each of us, Jesus is an historical phenomenon: one and done! But Christ also exists outside of spacetime: everywhere, all the time, all at once! Christ is both the locus of history and an event within that history and Eucharist is a physical manifestation of this reality. Jesus is fully divine and fully human, not half and half, but all and all. Being human does not mean merely physical suffering. It also entails ‘the dark night of the soul’, the overwhelming sense of despair and isolation that comes over all of us at one time or another as we stand on the edge, peering into the dark and silent abyss. This is the terrible price we pay for the total ontological freedom spelled out in Genesis . Matthew 27: 46 (Despair) Critics of Judeo-Christianity often base their views on the so-called Problem of Evil: “Why do bad things happen to good people?” Jesus’ crucifixion, despair, and death answer that argument. The ontological freedom of the created world is so complete that even God, incarnate in the world, must hit rock bottom . Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances get considerable attention in all 4 Gospels and elsewhere in the New Testament. However, one event in that narrative is particularly powerful and provocative: Luke 24: 13 – 35 (Resurrection) As suggested above, the early Church embodied Marx’ notion of ‘permanent revolution’ in the form of ‘perpetual Jubilee’, the on-going redistribution of wealth: Acts 2: 42 – 57 (Jubilee) Ultimately, Christianity is focused on the end times, the Eschaton, the Apocalypse, summarized first by St. Paul and later by John of Patmos: I Corinthians 15: 19 – 28 (Eschaton) Revelation 1: 8 & 22: 13 (Eschaton) In the end, God is all in all. Christology, the theology and cosmology of Christianity, is magnificently summarized in two brief hymns: John 1: 1 – 5 (Christology) Colossians 1: 15 – 20 (Christology) So that’s it! Did I keep my 60 minute promise? Thanks for taking this trip with me. I hope you enjoyed yourself and I hope you feel your time was well spent. Should your plans call for future air travel, I hope you’ll once again consider flying Aletheia Today . Thank you! 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.

The following is a collection of entries marking time and the curiosities of David Cowles, philosopher, lover of language, science seeker, and admirer of the divine plan. Aletheia Journal 03/18/2022 And then? What comes next? After 50 years of doing everything for everybody, you can do things for yourself…to the extent that you’re able–to the extent you’re not able. You must now learn to let other people do things for you. More later… -David Read More 03/17/2022 What does a person do who is no longer learning to live, no longer learning to be ‘people’, no longer living other people’s lives? Such a person ‘reflects’…she reflects on what she’s learned, on how she’s lived, and on who she’s been. Does she have something to say that hasn’t already been said by countless others? Does she have something to do that hasn’t already been done? After 75 years, you’ve earned the right to make your own unique contribution to civilization. Now if I could just figure out what that unique contribution might be… More later… -David Read More 03/16/2022 So for 25 years you do nothing to anyone or for anyone; everyone does everything to you and for you. Other people feed you, clothe you, shelter you, teach you, play with you, hurt you, etc. Then, for the next 50 years, you do everything to and for others: you feed them, clothe them, shelter them, teach them, play with them, yes, hurt them. More later… -David Read More 03/15/2022 For 25 years, give or take, you learn to live. My mother called it ‘learning to be people’. “David,” she would say, “You’re just not people!” And she was right; I wasn’t. Then, after 25 years of learning to live, of learning to be ‘people’, you finally are ‘people’. Now at last, you can begin to live…other people’s lives. You’ve learned to be ‘people’, but the people you have learned to be are ‘other people’. So congratulations, you just spent 25 years of your life learning how to be someone you’re not…and be really good at it! That’s what we call ‘culture’: learning to be ‘people’, other people, and learning to live other people’s lives. If the purpose of acculturation is to limit behavioral variety across a species, I’d say ours is working very nicely, thank you. More later… -David Read More The following is a collection of entries marking time and the curiosities of David Cowles, philosopher, lover of language, science seeker, and admirer of the divine plan.

< Back I am the Walrus David Cowles “Popular music after World War II is a treasure trove for the philosophically curious… Paraphrasing Ecclesiastes, there’s a time to wind and a time to unravel, and now is the time to unravel.” Unraveling the ‘inner meaning’ of popular lyrics can be a full-time job…and a half. And then there’s the question of whether you ultimately accomplish anything worthwhile. Some folks say, “It’s just music; enjoy it.” Others, “The lyrics are the lyrics; they mean what they say they mean, and that’s all there is to it.” (This group is channeling Archibald MacLeish: “A poem should not mean but be.”) Finally, “Who are you to say what the artist meant? What was on her mind? What was his intent? I’ll only believe it if I hear it from the artist herself.” In summary, the majority of folks believe that our work is a waste of time…or worse; and yet we labor on: “There has to be a pony at the bottom of this pile of…” Popular music after World War II is a treasure trove for the philosophically curious. Paralleling contemporary developments in art and literature, lyrics began to resist ‘ordinary language’ interpretation. That’s a polite way of saying, “They don’t make any sense!” At least not on the surface! Paraphrasing Ecclesiastes , there’s a time to wind and a time to unravel, and now is the time to unravel. But perhaps no popular song has more successfully resisted our deconstructive efforts than the Beatles’ classic, I Am the Walrus . One reason, it opens with just about the last thing you’d ever expect to hear: a full throated exposition of Christology that is as crisp and clear as anything you’ll find anywhere in the New Testament: I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together… Is this Buck Mulligan intoning the words of the Eucharistic rite while standing atop the Omphalos? Or the liturgical hymn that begins Paul’s Letter to the Colossians ? Or the opening lines of John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God?” ‘I’ (the walrus), of course, is Christ. He is one with his father ( I am he ), as are we ( as you are he ); we are also one with Christ ( as you are me ) e.g., in the Eucharist; and we are all together as Christ’s Mystical Body, as Church, as the Kingdom of Heaven. Ok, seems like we may be on a roll here… but we’re not! What follows next is a bunch of ‘dream imagery’, possibly intended to parody the ‘less transparent’ parts of the Roman Catholic Liturgy: See how they run like pigs from a gun; see how they fly; I'm crying. Sitting on a corn flake, waiting for the van to come, Corporation T-shirt, stupid bloody Tuesday, man you've been a naughty boy, you let your face grow long. Ok, not so simple after all. Any attempt at an ‘interlinear translation’ of the entire text is doomed. But that does not mean that the lyrics are nothing more than the Chef’s signature Word Salad . There’s plenty of ‘dog whistle’ philosophy woven into the rest of the text. First, there is a profound contempt for ‘civil authority’ (the police) and its client and principal beneficiary, ‘corporate culture’; then there’s a nod to the ‘nun-of-this-and-nun-of-that’ morality of the Decalogue and the rest of the Torah. The Beatles are on their way to identifying a new Great Commandment, specifically developed for our era, replacing the ‘outmoded’ Mosaic commandment quoted to great effect by Jesus in the story of the Good Samaritan. (Matthew 22: 34-40) Perhaps not surprising for our time, the new commandment is gender-specific. In the 1960s, boys were still expected to assume society’s leadership roles. ‘A long face’ was the first sign that a boy might not be adjusting to society’s expectations. Ditto ‘crying’. ‘Fake it ‘till you make it’ might have been our motto growing up. Remember, “You better not pout, you better not cry…” and there’s a whole lota cryin’ goin’ on in this song. Feeling adrift? Not to worry. The chorus will get you back onside: I am the egg man. They are the egg men. I am the walrus. As clearly as the opening verse expounds Christology , the chorus expounds Ecclesiology . The ‘egg man’, of course, is Jesus and the ‘egg men’ are his disciples, specifically his 12 apostles, the cornerstone of his church. But why ‘egg man’ specifically? Just as an egg is the ‘incarnation of chicken’, so Jesus is the Incarnation of God. Also, the egg is a potent symbol of rebirth (resurrection), of a new generation (church), of a ‘new age’. Remember, according to the astronomical and astrological communities, Jesus ushers in the Age of Pisces. And then there’s that other ‘egg man’, you know, Mr. Dumpty. Like Humpty, Jesus was fragile. Humpty fell, Jesus was pushed (i.e., crucified), but like Humpty, he broke. But whereas “all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again”, Jesus rose intact (‘body and spirit’) from the dead! Mister City policeman sitting, pretty little policemen in a row. See how they fly like Lucy in the sky, see how they run; I'm crying. The earlier symbols reappear. From the beginning, Christianity has had a love/hate relationship with civil authority. On the one hand, “my kingdom is not of this world,” but on the other hand, it was civil and ecclesiastical authority that crucified Jesus and martyred all the apostles save one (John). Bottom line : civil authority is fine, just as long as it doesn’t conflict with divine authority, but I doubt if the antics of the UK police in 1967 met this criterion. On the contrary, celebrating the police ‘running’ is a bit on the revolutionary side for the Beatles. After all, we’re not talking Barry McGuire here! Yellow matter custard, dripping from a dead dog's eye, crabalocker fishwife, pornographic priestess, boy, you've been a naughty girl, you let your knickers down. Of all the controversial themes embedded in Walrus , it was this verse that got the song banned by the BBC. In Puritanical London, the only thing more compulsory than male privilege was female propriety : ‘Keep your knickers on, girlie (sic)’. Yet there was one thing even worse than male sloth and female promiscuity – gender ambivalence . In the immortal words of Archie Bunker, “Girls were girls and men were men”… on both sides of the Atlantic! Here the chorus repeats, once again clawing us back from the edge of a semantic abyss; and then… Sitting in an English garden, waiting for the sun. If the sun don't come, you get a tan from standing in the English rain. “Waiting for the sun” is the lot of every English man and woman…and of every Christian. Intentionally or not, Jesus left the early Church with an expectation of Apocalypse Soon , i.e., the Second Coming of Christ. Christians have come to terms with the elongated time frame by recognizing ‘anticipation and patience’ as salvific in their own rights. English men and women have come to terms with their weather by paying close attention to their tans. The Beatles anticipated the Rolling Stones by 2 years: “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find…you get what you need.” A body tan, meant to be a souvenir of ‘fun in the sun’, has become an end-in-itself, devoid of the associated process and experience. The separation of ends from means is a hallmark of our civilization. The chorus returns, but this time with an added twist: I am the egg man (now good sir) They are the egg men (a poor man, made tame to fortune's blows) I am the walrus (good pity). The chorus now has a chorus of its own. In the background, someone is paraphrasing text from Isaiah (the ‘Suffering Servant’) or Shakespeare ( King Lear ). Expert, texpert choking smokers, don't you think the joker laughs at you. See how they smile like pigs in a sty, see how they snide, I'm crying. The first 4 words of this verse sum up the entire human condition at the end of the Industrial Revolution: fragmentation of labor, technocracy, industrial pollution, and our own unhealthy strategies for relieving stress (e.g., smoking). The Joker, of course, is none other than Satan himself; and why shouldn’t he laugh? An entire culture is effectively discarding God’s gift of life in pursuit of vain pleasures and empty honors. I’d laugh too…if I wasn’t one of those people. Semolina Pilchard, climbing up the Eiffel Tower; elementary penguin singing Hare Krishna, man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allan Poe. I’ve saved the worst for last! Referring just to this final verse, John Lennon himself called it gibberish . Reportedly, he was trying to thwart folks like us who tend to over-analyze his lyrics. Perhaps we should take Lennon at this word. Others, however, have found meaning in these words. Pilchard might be a reference to Sgt. Pilchard of the London Met, famous for his drug raids carried out against rock and roll celebrities. ‘Semolina’ (wheat flour) could be a disparaging reference to ‘Whitey’, but it could also signify a kind of anti-Eucharist, ‘the Eucharist of the anti-Christ’. References to the Eiffel Tower, penguins, and Hare Krishna signal Lennon’s desire to extend the message of Walrus beyond the geographical and cultural limits of ‘Christian England’. And the alleged ‘kicking’ of Poe, quite possibly at the feet of the UK police (above), is emblematic of how post-industrial civilization treats its artists. Like the egg men before him, Poe is the victim of ignorance and intolerance. Satisfied? Ok, maybe, but does anyone think this is really what Lennon had in mind when he wrote Walrus ? How should I know…and does it make any difference anyway? MacLeish (above) says that a poem should ‘be’. I agree. But if it ‘is’, then it has a life of its own, apart from the artist who created it. In any event, this is how Walrus lives in me! 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 Beach Read 2023 Table of Contents Share Previous Next

< Back Four Noble Truths David Cowles Jan 14, 2022 A dear friend of mine recently responded to an email I had sent. I loved this response and wanted to share the relevant parts with you: A dear friend of mine recently responded to an email I had sent. I loved this response and wanted to share the relevant parts with you: “I certainly recognize that we all have our own individual frame of reference. Like you, the lens through which I have spent most of my life looking through is the Judeo-Christian one as well. I do feel myself fundamentally in that lineage, my prayers and recitations come from that space however rather than limiting myself there, I have recognized through many studies and self-reflection that Buddhist philosophy offers me an ability to self-correct for me. If my intentions are misaligned with goodness and light, I do create Karma. If my thoughts betray or harm me, I am causing my own suffering. Looking from life with the honoring of the Ten Commandments, The Beatitudes, the Psalms, the Lord’s Prayer and commitment and honor to Mary has provided me so much moral backbone and understanding, however, understanding the Four Noble Truths: The Truth of Suffering, the True Causes of Suffering, both the end and paths to the end of suffering has given me some solutions to my own suffering. “Just this morning I was gleaning over different parts of my own life. There will always be things and events that come to us from external sources: accidents, injury, illness, the leaving of people in our lives by whatever means. I have found that in many of the situations in my life where I seem to have suffered a disconnect with my spirit/soul have been from my own mind in overthinking, over-analyzing, putting myself in a place of want for things or people that were not for my highest good. As I have had the power to create those situations, so I have the power with the help of my faith and desire to change to alleviate my own suffering.” 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 Why The World Needs More Polymaths Bechem Ayuk "Just as the ocean's waves weave tales in their dance, polymaths craft stories of innovation by seamlessly blending knowledge from diverse domains." A few days ago I set foot on a beach for the first time. It was as if I had stumbled into another world. The vast expanse of shimmering sand met the endless body of water, stretching beyond the horizon. The beauty and terror of it all left me in awe. Each wave was a story in itself. The way they curled and unfurled, like a graceful dancer in a cosmic ballet, was a spectacle to behold. It was as if the ocean itself were breathing, inhaling and exhaling with the tides. And so, as I stood on that shore, mesmerized by the ceaseless dance of the waves, I couldn't help but draw a parallel between the nature of the ocean and the essence of polymaths. Just as the waves continually adapt and transform, drawing from the depths of the sea, polymaths are individuals who embrace a multifaceted existence, their knowledge and skills ever-evolving and interconnecting. In the world of polymaths, as with the waves, there is a harmonious blend of depth and breadth. They delve deeply into their chosen domains, just as the waves reach profound depths before returning to the shore. And, much like the waves' ability to bridge the gap between the land and the sea, polymaths possess the remarkable capacity to bridge the gaps between disparate fields of knowledge. The beach, with its ever-shifting waves, served as a powerful reminder that the world needs more polymaths who can navigate the complexities of our time, just as the waves navigate the intricacies of the ocean. In this edition of The Value Junction, we will explore the multifaceted nature of polymaths and how they are uniquely equipped to address the multifaceted challenges of our modern world. Like the waves, polymaths are a force to be reckoned with, shaping the future with their endless adaptability and relentless pursuit of knowledge. The Shift From Broad to Specialized Education For centuries, education took a markedly broad approach. Classical education traced back to ancient Greece and Rome emphasized developing well-rounded citizens versed in topics like philosophy, rhetoric, mathematics, and physical education. The likes of Leonardo da Vinci, a true polymath, emerged during this era. Da Vinci wasn't confined to a single discipline; he was a painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, and scientist. His ability to seamlessly merge the arts and sciences is a testament to the power of polymathic thinking. This model continued through the 18th century, when universities mandated studies across disciplines including sciences, humanities, and arts. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the rapid growth of knowledge led to increasing specialization. The Morrill Land Grant Acts funded specialized agricultural and technical colleges in America focused on practical subjects like engineering rather than classical liberal arts. Over time, secondary schools also transitioned to subject-specific curricula. Today, the educational pendulum has swung far towards hyper-specialization, particularly in higher education. Undergraduate students now typically declare majors immediately and take narrowly focused coursework tailored to their field. However, this laser focus on one discipline restricts exposure to different ways of thinking that spark creativity. Education scholar Sir Ken Robinson noted that the lack of interdisciplinary learning in our system leads many students to "become specialists in one area before they've even become a generalist" . This prevalent early specialization can deprive students of the intellectual versatility valued throughout history. To tackle complex issues in an interconnected world, students need both deep expertise and the ability to bridge disciplinary perspectives. Returning to a more polymathic model can better equip graduates with this agile, comprehensive mindset. The rigid division of education into categories stifles creativity and innovation. We need minds that can connect the dots between silos. The Benefits of a Polymathic Approach Adopting a polymathic approach that blends interdisciplinary learning with specialized domains has many advantages. As polymathic thinkers like Aristotle and Goethe demonstrated, synthesizing diverse ideas and experiences can yield revolutionary insights and innovations. Key benefits of a polymathic model include: 1. Fostering Connections Between Disciplines Polymaths are adept at identifying parallels across different fields that spur creative ideas. Polymathic architect Christopher Alexander found inspiration in poetry and mathematics to pioneer new architectural patterns. Interdisciplinary thinking enables the cross-pollination of concepts that drive discovery. In a world where many of our challenges require multidisciplinary approaches, polymaths excel. They can speak the language of different fields, facilitating collaboration and understanding. For instance, Temple Grandin, a polymath in animal science, psychology, and engineering, played a vital role in revolutionizing the treatment of livestock and advocating for more humane and efficient methods. Her work demonstrates how a polymathic approach can drive substantial change. “Innovation emerges when we connect experiences.” - Steve Jobs 2. Enhancing Creativity The breadth of knowledge across multiple domains cultivates creativity. A study of patent holders found those with interdisciplinary expertise produced over 30% more creative innovations than specialised inventors(Lévesque, 2022). Exposure to arts and humanities also boosts scientific creativity. Proponents of early specialization argue it allows students to fully immerse themselves and excel in a field. However, this study shows interdisciplinary learning enhances critical thinking, problem-solving, and cognitive flexibility. Exposure to diverse disciplines promotes connective insights and transferrable skills vital for innovation. 3. Solving Multifaceted Problems Real-world problems like inequality and global health require integrative solutions across disciplines. Polymaths with mastery in diverse domains are better equipped to develop holistic solutions by connecting the dots between specialities. Several longitudinal studies on interdisciplinary college programs confirmed these benefits. Students who blended natural sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities showed greater gains in critical thinking, complex reasoning, and intellectual flexibility compared to disciplined-focused peers. How to Encourage Students to be Polymathic One of the primary avenues for nurturing polymathic thinking is our education systems. To encourage students to be polymathic, we must reevaluate and reform how we teach and learn. 1. Embrace Interdisciplinary Learning : Encourage schools and universities to develop cross-disciplinary courses that allow students to explore connections between various subjects. For instance, a course that combines history and science can provide students with a more holistic understanding of the world. Educators should explicitly highlight connections between different subjects and areas of knowledge. Using an interdisciplinary lens in lessons demonstrates how diverse domains intersect to solve real problems. 2. Promote Project-Based Learning : Project-based learning that challenges students to tackle open-ended, real-world problems is a powerful way to build critical polymathic skills. Rather than memorizing facts and formulas, project-based learning encourages students to synthesize knowledge across disciplines to imagine and implement solutions. For example, students might be tasked with designing sustainable housing solutions that integrate engineering constraints, aesthetic design, and socioeconomic considerations of a hypothetical community. They would need to conduct research, collaborate across teams, and iterate on ideas - learning key lessons in adaptability, communication and making interdisciplinary connections along the way. Other projects could challenge students to develop business plans for eco-friendly products, combining science, business, and ethics lenses. Or students may be asked to analyze works of art through both aesthetic and mathematical principles, blending right- and left-brain strengths. STEAM education exemplifies project-based polymathic learning by organically integrating concepts from science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics. For instance, students can use programming skills to create video games that educate players on climate change. Such projects enable students to flexibly apply knowledge across traditionally segregated subjects to solve multifaceted problems. The open-ended nature of projects teaches students creative agility since there is no single right answer. Having to work through ambiguity fosters the same critical thinking skills used by transdisciplinary polymaths in the real world. Passion-driven projects give students autonomy over their learning process, which further motivates polymathic exploration. With the right scaffolding and guidance, project-based learning develops core competencies for cross-domain thinking and innovation. 3. Encourage Extracurricular Exploration: Beyond core academics, schools should actively nurture student participation in diverse extracurricular activities. Exploring varied pursuits sparks passion and builds real-world skills. Rather than a bullet point list, schools can encourage this in several ways: Offer a wide array of affordable on-campus clubs and programs. From arts to athletics, academies to gaming clubs, provide on-ramps to different interests. Schedule flexibly to allow students time for activities. Avoid overloading with homework that restricts exploration. Spotlight extracurriculars at assemblies and events. Recognize student participation and achievements to motivate engagement. Collaborate with community centres and experts to run stimulating programs on campus. Bring in artists, scientists, and builders to instruct. Host "passion fairs" for students to discover local opportunities from nonprofits, companies, and colleges. Connect interested students. Train teachers as activity advisors. Compensate them for this added guidance of students' development. Exploration leads to engagement, keeping students invested in their own lifelong learning. 4. Socratic Questioning: The Socratic method of teaching through questioning helps students develop critical thinking skills and intellectual versatility. By asking a series of thought-provoking, open-ended questions, teachers can: Guide students to think more deeply about assumptions and consider alternative perspectives. For example, asking "What might we be overlooking?" or "How could this issue be viewed differently?" pushes them to examine ideas from multiple angles. Encourage students to identify and challenge biases. Asking "What evidence supports that conclusion?" or "Is there a conflict of interest?" prompts objective analysis. Stimulate imaginative solutions by asking "How else could we approach this problem?" and "What if we changed the constraints?" Divergent thinking stretches cognitive flexibility. Foster connections between disciplines by asking questions like "In what other domains might this concept apply?" and "Where else have we encountered similar patterns or issues?" Transferring insights across subjects exercises integrative thinking. Teachers can further develop critical thinking by having students generate their own Socratic questions on course material. The act of formulating probing questions builds creative problem-solving skills. Students can collaboratively discuss answers, practising respectful dialogue while exercising intellect. In a Nutshell At first glance, one might assume that specialization is the most efficient way to progress. The prevailing assumption is that in a world of increasing complexity, we need specialists who can delve deeply into specific areas. This idea is grounded in reason – specialists have indeed driven many of the incredible advancements we've witnessed. However, the world's challenges, from inequality to healthcare, rarely come neatly packaged in a single discipline. They are intricate, interconnected problems that demand multidisciplinary solutions. Consider the case of Steve Jobs. Widely regarded as one of the most innovative minds of our time, Jobs wasn't just a tech genius; he was a polymath. He seamlessly blended technology and design, understanding that creating transformative products required more than just technical know-how. It demanded a multidisciplinary perspective that drew from the arts, the sciences, and the humanities. The result? The iPhone; a device that revolutionized not just the tech industry but also how we live and communicate. This brings me to my central argument: the world needs more polymaths because they are uniquely equipped to navigate the intricate web of modern challenges. They are the individuals who can bridge the gaps between seemingly unrelated fields, drawing inspiration and knowledge from diverse sources to innovate and create. The future belongs to versatile innovators like Elon Musk and Naval Ravikant who can complement specialized expertise with the ability to integrate insights across domains. Graduating polymathic students equipped with this agile mindset is critical for raising a new generation of creative problem-solvers ready to tackle the complex issues ahead. The time has come to reimagine education and unleash a wave of boundary-pushing polymaths once more. **This article is a direct republish without changes from The Value Junction . Bechem Ayuk is an award-winning EdTech consultant, a web developer, and the author of The Value Junction. Newslette r . Return to our AI Issue Table of Contents Previous Next

< Back Antonyms David Cowles Antonyms. No such thing! Not-X includes the shadow of X. Example: ‘Pretty’ and ‘Ugly’. ‘Pretty’ refers to the totality (gestalt) of a person, place, or thing. ‘Ugly’ refers to those elements of the aforementioned that are not consistent with a ‘pretty’ whole. ‘Pretty’ and ‘ugly’ appear to be antonyms…but they’re not. In fact, they operate on two entirely different syntactic levels. ‘Ugly’ actually derives its meaning from the concept of ‘pretty’. Therefore, we can say ‘ugly’ includes “the shadow of ‘pretty’”; but not so the other way around. Antonyms. No such thing! Not-X includes the shadow of X. Example: ‘Pretty’ and ‘Ugly’. ‘Pretty’ refers to the totality (gestalt) of a person, place, or thing. ‘Ugly’ refers to those elements of the aforementioned that are not consistent with a ‘pretty’ whole. ‘Pretty’ and ‘ugly’ appear to be antonyms…but they’re not. In fact, they operate on two entirely different syntactic levels. ‘Ugly’ actually derives its meaning from the concept of ‘pretty’. Therefore, we can say ‘ugly’ includes “the shadow of ‘pretty’”; but not so the other way around. Another example: Good and evil. Antonyms, right? Not so fast. Evil is the absence of Good. But Good is a synonym for Being itself. Therefore, absolute Evil cannot ‘exist’, only ‘relative’ evil. Absolute Evil is simply non-existence. My grandson says that “everything exists”…and he’s right. In fact, the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, dominant in scientific circles today, states that anything that can be is, has been, or will be. But evil/nothing/non-Being stands outside the domain of ‘everything’. So, when I said that there was no such thing as an antonym, I was wrong! ‘Evil/nothing/non-Being’ is in fact the universal antonym, the common antonym of every thing. ‘The common antonym of everything’ actually has a name: “Entropy”. It is the inexorable process of increasing disorder in the cosmos that will eventually lead to a state of universal non-Being, which of course is no state at all. One is reminded of the Vacuum Cleaner Monster in the Beatles’ movie, Yellow Submarine: he first swallows everything around him, then the universe itself, and finally he swallows himself. Therefore, entropy is its own antonym. Previous Next

< Back The Paradox of Childhood David Cowles “…We treat children…as pets, slaves, snuggle bunnies and proto-adults”. Children are chronic ‘not-yets’. Not yet walking, not yet talking, not yet reading. Not yet matriculated, not yet graduated. Not yet a crime boss, a hit woman, an investment banker, a butcher, a baker, or a candlestick maker. Not yet! Children are exactly like us, only smaller…they are us, only ‘not yet’. They are proto-parents, proto-doctors, proto-miners (those who spend their working lives in mines, extracting ore – in case you don’t remember what a ‘miner’ is), proto-cubes (those who spend their lives working in cubicles, extracting data). Children are entirely unlike us. They are curious; we are either bored or overwhelmed or both. They have boundless energy; we’re already looking forward to our next nap. They cry at the drop of a hat; we don’t show our emotions. Children cannot be controlled, and it takes an elaborate complex of rewards and punishments, emotional and physical, just to ‘manage’ their behavior; and yet… “Girls are sugar and spice and everything nice; boys are snakes and snails and puppy dog tails.” Maybe, but we treat children of all genders as pets, slaves, snuggle bunnies… and proto-adults. Of course, children are none of these things! How hard must it be then for them to play all these roles at once…and without a single acting class? Up for a ‘thought experiment’? Who’s your favorite 8 year old? Ok, now replay the hackneyed movie plot: switch bodies (ridiculous, of course). Imagine that now you’re living your life as an 8 year old…for a year. What fun! Who wouldn’t want to be a kid again? No responsibilities, no bills to pay, spending half your waking hours ‘just playing’. Not quite so much fun when the giants you live with hurt you, demean you, berate or belittle you. You’d like to make them happy, but it’s not as easy as they would like us to believe. “Just be Good,” but HOW when the constellation of expectations shifts inexplicably from circumstance to circumstance? My father was an Eagle Scout. When I was 12, I followed in his footsteps and joined the Boy Scouts. One night I came home excited. I had just passed my first test. I was a tenderfoot now, and I couldn’t wait to tell my Dad all about it. He was furious. Something about my story, something I’d said, something I’d done, I still don’t know what, rubbed him the wrong way. Needless to say, that ended my brief flirtation with BS. Not quite so much fun when you’re forced to idle in school for 6 hours a day. Sadly, we have found a way to make the process of learning boring and its contents nonsensical – not easy to do in a world as wonderous as ours! We’ve figured out how to transform boundless curiosity into unrelenting boredom. We have become death, the destroyer of worlds. (Oppenheimer) Did you imagine your year would be all fun and games? You’re in a world where everything is either threatening or meaningless, terrifying or boring. Your year will be one of physical fear, social anxiety, and, did I mention it, crushing boredom. Parents, teachers, cops, bullies, pit bulls, bees and bed…and you 4’ 6” and 85 pounds soaking wet. Did your tween/teen ever yell at you, “This house is a prison?” That’s because it is! “But my children love me!” Ok, but have they also learned to ‘go along to get along’? And be honest – isn’t that exactly how you’ve raised them? “My boy is just like me; he’s grown up just like me.” (Harry Chapin) Nothing is worse than being a child…unless it’s being an adult. You want nothing more than to be a kid again while you kids want nothing more than to be… you . I mean, just exactly how crazy is that? Do things have to be this way? Clearly not. In ‘less civilized’ societies, for example, things are often different. Take an Amazonian tribe, the Piraha as an example. They impose no expectations on their children and make almost no effort to regulate their behavior. Punishment of any sort is virtually unknown. Of course, there’s a trade-off. Pirahanese children are quite literally ‘out-of-control’ all the time…but they are never malicious. Why would they be? They have nothing to rebel against ! As a 50 year old, you might not choose to live the Pirahanese lifestyle; but as a 5 year old, you’d love it. We take our children to Disney World. Pirahanese children live in Disney World. By current Euro-American standards, Pirhanese children are neglected; but by the standards of the Pirhana, they are simply respected. Euro-American adults cannot wait to have children. They’ll spend tens of thousands of dollars to treat infertility issues in hope of a single live birth. But once our angelic children are born, we can’t wait for them to grow up and ‘act like adults’. We have goals for our children: sleeping through the night, weaned, toilet trained, etc. To Pirahanese parents, the idea that these eventualities should be viewed as ‘goals’ seems non-sensical. All these things will happen organically, in their own time, without any adult intervention. Much worse, we plan our children’s lives for them before they know there’s anything to plan. “Sally’s going to be a teacher, I’m sure, and she’ll be good at it; she loves to explain things to other kids, and Skip? Well, he’s our budding little MD. I mean, ‘gag me with a spoon’!" Everything is upside down. The kids are trying to fashion a personality and a character; they are deciding, how, where, if at all, they want to be part of the social fabric. And us? Well, we are constantly getting in their way. Tell me, do you see a happy outcome here? Keep the conversation going! 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. 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< Back Life Imitates AI “We trained our bots to imitate us and now, voilà! We are imitating our bots.” David Cowles Back around the middle of the 20th century, there was a lot of talk about whether art imitates life or life, art. As I recall, most of us settled for the safety of a cop-out, “It’s a two way street.” Not wrong but a bit facile. Obviously, art imitates life. Life is the painter’s primary model - people, places and things, their juxtapositions, their relationships, their interactions. Just as crucially, if not as obviously, life imitates art. Every work of art is a ‘proposition’; as such it functions as a lure. If a proposition is ‘meaningful’, it invites those who view it to live their lives differently. How so? First, it shatters sacred taboos. Second, it offers a glimpse of alternative solutions to existential (or everyday) problems. Art motivates us to behave differently and , crucially, it gives us permission to do so. More recently, much is being written about the possibility that cheap AI knockoffs will crowd out genuine works of art. I doubt it. In some respects Art and AI are antithetical. Art is ‘art’ only if it shows us something novel and unique about the world and our place in it. This is not something that AI can do today. If AI is ever able to tell us something hitherto unknown about the fabric of existence, it will have passed its final Turing Test. It is in our ability to create de novo that we demonstrate our ‘likeness’ to God; so if AI is ever able to do the same... On the other hand, the very structure of AI, its anatomy so to speak, works against this possibility. AI can only know what is known, what it’s ‘trained on’, as my Bot ceaselessly reminds me. But who knows what epistemological structures may be emergent? In any event, I am not concerned that AI will start producing work at the level of Van Gogh, Cezanne, Picasso or Matisse (if only!)…at least not in my lifetime. What AI generated art I’ve seen so far is not only not museum worthy, it’s objectively hideous. The symmetries are tortured, the contrasts oversharp, the spatiality is muddled. AI ‘Art’ seems unable to blend or fade its colors; it is incapable of irony or whimsy. It wears its algorithm on its sleeve. So in my view, the idea that AI will replace true art anytime in the foreseeable future is inconceivable. Except that it’s happening right now! But not in the way that the doomsayers predicted. AI has so far failed to imitate genuine art; but instead, art has begun to imitate AI. More and more, paintings generated by mere humans are starting to resemble AI generated images. AI has made artificiality acceptable. It has given us permission – permission to be lazy, permission to live our lives inauthentically. “Make a live action movie that ‘looks like’ a cartoon!” Once upon a time, to say that something looked like a cartoon was understood to be pejorative…but today? Whether or not we are seeing a real change in the underlying cultural aesthetic, AI is corrupting culture in a way that was not anticipated. The problem was driven home to me by a recent article in Scientific American ; specifically: “Language generated by ChatGPT and similar AI chatbots has been appearing more frequently in recent scientific literature, raising questions about whether AI is used for analysis and not just wordsmithing…” This reaction is predictable…but quite possibly wrong. The assumption is that the occurrence of language suggestive of AI influence is evidence that AI is directly responsible for some of the text. Maybe, maybe not! Researchers have shown that AI created documents use certain phrases more frequently than other documents do. The incidence of such phrasing could be evidence of AI generated text. But just as possible, and much more disturbing - academics may unconsciously be enfolding AI-isms into their everyday speech. “Walk like an Egyptian, write like a robot.” We trained our bots to imitate us and now, voilà ! We are imitating our bots. No surprise! Our parents teach us their language, but we learn our language from our peers. “You can take the girl out of the Valley, but you can’t take the Valley out of the girl.” Beyond language acquisition, all of us develop our own unique writing styles by copying (mostly unconsciously) the writing styles of authors we admire. If I look at something you wrote, will I find traces of Henry James or Hemingway or the New York Post ? Does this suggest that your ideas are plagiarized? Of course not! Image from left: Leonardo da Vinci, The Mona Lisa (digitally retouched to reduce the effects of aging; the original painting has darkened over time), c. 1503–1506, perhaps continuing until c. 1517, oil on poplar panel, 77 cm × 53 cm (30 in × 21 in), Louvre, Paris; The Mona Lisa, created by artificial intelligence. 2024. Keep the conversation going. 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. Share Previous Next

“Cosmologists cannot rely on science any more than astronomers can rely on religion. There can be no successful TOE (‘Theory of Everything’) without both. ….” < Back Is Christology a TOE David Cowles Sep 1, 2024 “Cosmologists cannot rely on science any more than astronomers can rely on religion. There can be no successful TOE (‘Theory of Everything’) without both. ….” “It doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you’re ‘a good person, kind to others and respectful of the environment’. At the end of the day, that’s all any religion can ask, and you don’t need religion for that .” I’m guessing that the majority of Europeans and North Americans agree with this proposition, even if they don’t say so publicly. But we ask a lot more of our religion than that! While we ‘trust’ science to tell us how the Universe came to be as it is, we rely on religion to tell us why . For 300+ years, we have imagined that science and religion were enemies, that their models of reality were incompatible. Nothing could be farther from the truth. They address completely different questions, and they desperately need one another to fill each other’s gaps. In the words of Ezra Pound, “The grove needs an altar.” Cosmologists cannot rely on science any more than astronomers can rely on religion. There can be no successful TOE (‘Theory of Everything’) without both. The specific ‘facts’ uncovered ( aletheia ) by science need to be positioned in an overall conceptual framework ( logos ) that science alone cannot provide. Phrases like ‘Big Bang’ and ‘Negative Vacuum Pressure’ cannot satisfy our deepest longings. If the question, why is there something rather than nothing? has meaning…and an answer…that answer can only be found in Metaphysics, religion’s first cousin once removed. Science tells us that we , I mean our ‘bodies’, each consist of 30 trillion independent life forms called cells . By comparison, only 8 billion human beings are alive today. Likewise, a total of 100 billion human beings have lived since homo sapiens evolved. By normal life expectancy, 100 trillion cells will have participated in forming your ‘body’. These cells are the direct descendants of a single unicellular life form (bacterium), powered by a single DNA molecule that evolved on Earth some 4 billion years ago, shortly after the planet was formed. As far as we know, life evolved on earth only once…once! Why then? Why there? Why? Are we alone? Or has life also evolved in other places in the Universe? If not, might it still? If not, why not? The Universe is 14 billion years old and encompasses at least a trillion galaxies. Our sun is just one of 100 billion stars in just one such galaxy, the Milky Way. The notion that this is all just an accidental ‘one off’ will never satisfy us…even if it turns out to be true. As Carl Jung said, “Man (sic) cannot stand a meaningless life.” We are aware of ourselves, and we are aware of the world around us, and we are aware of ourselves being aware of the world, all at the same time. We call this a unit of consciousness. Uncannily, it follows the contours of dialectics: Thesis – Antithesis – Synthesis , all at once! Science is attempting to work out how this works and in recent years great progress has been made toward that goal. Human beings have a complex nervous system, including the cerebral cortex and extending throughout the body. These ‘brain cells’ express your unique DNA in a particular way that is specifically suited to their function. So far so good! Except, it seems as though all (or most) life forms are conscious, right down to unicellular bacteria and including each of the 30 trillion cells that make up our bodies. Yet most of these life forms lack any sort of physiology that we’d recognize as a brain. So efforts to reduce consciousness to a particular physiology seem doomed from the outset. You are conscious at the level of the organism. The 30 trillion cells that make up your body cooperate to generate that single fact of self-awareness lovingly known as ‘you’. Yet each of these constituent cells is also conscious. Is there any overlap between consciousness at the cellular level and consciousness at the level of the organism? In other words, is the content of consciousness at the level of the organism in any way dependent on or reflective of the content of consciousness at the level of the cells? There is no reason to believe so but, frankly, who knows? And that’s not all. Could there be intermediate levels of consciousness? For example, is the heart conscious? My poor, abused liver? If so, do the contents of such consciousness relate in any traceable way either to consciousness at the level of the cell or to consciousness at the level of the organism? On the other end of the scale, are there conscious entities that include the human organism in the same way that the human organism includes the cell? Might consciousness emerge on the level of social groupings? Families, communities, nations? How about the species level? The level of the biosphere? The planet (Gaia)? The galaxy? The cosmos? Again, we currently have no way of making such determinations. Finally, if the Universe as a whole is conscious, is that a manifestation of what we call ‘God’? Here materialism, realism, and empiricism must give way. We need to situate mundane phenomena in the context of a more general model of reality. Such an uber-model is the subject of Religion (formerly known as Mythology, currently known as Metaphysics). A complete understanding of Universe requires an all-encompassing conceptual framework (religion) and a swarm of verifiable data points (science). St. Paul's Letter to the Colossians (the congregation at Colossae, east of Ephesus in Asia Minor) includes a very old Christological Hymn (1: 15-20), possibly the earliest liturgical Christology extant. Perhaps it offers the conceptual framework we need to understand Universe as a whole. Check it out: "He (Christ) is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation , for in him all things were created… “All things were created through him and for him. He is before all things and in him all things hold together … “He is the beginning, the first-born from the dead . For in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile all things for him…" Can we peel back the leaves of this artichoke? First, God is insensible, but Christ is the sensible image of God. Creation (Genesis and/or Big Bang) is the moment of minimal entropy (maximal order) – it would be, wouldn’t it? Christ is maximal order, the ordering principle in fact, as well as order itself ( logos ). Christ is universal and eternal. Therefore, Christ conditions everything that comes to be. Christ is the locus of whatever is (was or will be). He is the origin of whatever is (efficient cause) and its destiny (final cause). Because all things (events) share a common origin (Christ) and a common destiny (Christ), all things hold together; but because Christ is also the locus of all events (above), all things hold together in him. Death is the moment of maximal entropy, minimal order; it would be wouldn’t it? You can’t be any deader than dead! Whatever emerges from maximal entropy must (by definition) manifest an incremental increase in order , so whatever emerges from a state of maximal entropy (death) manifests Christ resurrected. Christ is not just the sensible image of an insensible God; Christ is God. ("In him all the fulness was pleased to dwell.") Entropy in the spatiotemporal world steadily increases due to conflict. Outside of spacetime (i.e. in Christ), reconciliation (through Christ) transmutes (for Christ) order-eroding conflicts into order-enhancing contrasts and ultimately into cosmic harmonies. Christ is not just the sensible image of an insensible God; Christ is God. ("In him all the fulness was pleased to dwell.") Entropy in the spatiotemporal world steadily increases due to conflict. Outside of spacetime (i.e. in Christ), reconciliation (through Christ) transmutes (for Christ) order-eroding conflicts into order-enhancing contrasts and ultimately into cosmic harmonies. David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at dtc@gc3incorporated.com Return to Table of Contents Share Previous Next Click here. Do you like what you just read? 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