< Back Fifth Grade Slump, Eighth Grade Cliff “We must surrender the notion that adolescence is a dress rehearsal for adulthood. It’s not; it’s real life! David Cowles If you are a regular reader of Aletheia Today , you know that I am not a fan of childhood. Children, Si! Childhood, Non! Recent studies of tweens/teens have reinforced my thinking. For me, 1960 was a watershed year. I entered as a 12 year old (7th grade) trolling near the bottom of my class. and left at age 13 (8th grade) newly engaged in the enterprise of life. What happened in the middle of that fateful year, I would describe as my ‘discovery of agency’. Like most children, I chafed at the impotence of childhood and literally dreamed of making an impact in the adult world. In 1960, I found my first ‘real’, if minimal, outlets. Politics was my game. At age 9, I rang neighbors’ doorbells and asked them to vote for Ike; then I stood at a local polling station, unauthorized by any campaign, handing out election day fliers for candidates I’d barely heard of. In answer to your question, yes, I had some sense of how ridiculous I was…but that was not enough for me to curtail my activities. Better ridiculous than impotent! My thirst to play an adult role, to impact however slightly the course of history, was just too strong. 1960 was the year things changed. I got appointed by the Johnson for President organization as an official ‘volunteer campaign worker’ for Boston. More impressively, I managed to get myself named co-chair of Youth for Saltonstall (a U.S. Senator) for my ward. Finally, I was making a mark, however trivial, on the ‘real’ (i.e. adult) world. Ok, I was an odd duck…and I knew it. But it didn’t matter. That fall, I bought time on a broadcast radio station to promote my (unsuccessful, wonder why?) campaign for Class President and I was in the audience of a controversial nighttime radio talk show. Finally! Only much later did I discover that I was not alone. Apparently, most 8th graders yearn for adult status, respect, and real world relevance. Our greatest fear? You guessed it – being patronized by adults. Over the past couple of decades neuroscience has dramatically changed our understanding of the structural and functional changes in the brain during adolescence. Studies emphasize adolescents' concern with status and respect, their evolving sense of self in relation to the wider world, and their need to contribute to society, i.e. to have a purpose. Being told that they are ‘in training for adulthood, still at least a decade away’, is uniquely unhelpful. You’ve lived 10 – 12 years and now, just as you’re discovering your need for independence and your hunger for purpose, you’re told that you must wait another 10 – 12 years. I don’t think so! Is it any wonder that teenagers engage in risky, almost nihilistic, behavior? Put yourself in their shoes! Wait, you have been in their shoes? Oh, yeah, I forgot! So you have… and how did you survive? Unscathed? Recall the story of Jacob in Genesis . He is forced to work 14 years for his father-in-law-to-be, Laban, before marrying the spouse of his choice and gaining full economic independence. If you were fortunate enough to be ‘churched’, I’ll bet you were outraged by this story. Well, consider this: You are Jacob! We are all Jacob. We all face an enforced, involuntary, 12+ year incubation period between childhood and adulthood. “We are Spartacus.” Scarry! How did we get ourselves into this pickle? Evolution has designed our bodies to mature in the 12 to 15 year old window. And for many millennia society recognized this fact. This is the window for Bas-Mitzvah and Bat-Mitzvah, it is the time of the sweat lodges. Malatesta (c. 1450 CE) entered the army as an officer at age 13, working his way up to commander-in-chief at 15. And don’t get me started on Joan of Arc. Today, when adolescents are untimely forced to play adult roles, the results are usually less heroic: trafficked slaves, exploited workers, child soldiers. In the later half of the 1960’s I lived in a community that had hit upon a unique, if imperfect, solution. The ‘children’ were infantilized through the age of 15 but on their 16th birthdays – exactly – everything changed. Yesterday, you were treated like an 8 year old; today you’re like a 24 year old. In this subculture, you were effectively emancipated at 16. You were instantly free to drop out of school, get a permanent, full time job, rent an apartment, drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, drive a car, own a gun, engage in sex, and (soon) join the army. Not all these behaviors were strictly legal, but they were the cultural norm in that enclave. It wasn’t ideal but it wasn’t a total disaster either! For better or for worse though, this system was already crumbling when I left in the early ‘70s. For decades much of the research on adolescence focused on its dark side. Not surprisingly, it often brings alarming increases in rates of accident, suicide, homicide, depression, alcohol and substance abuse, violence, recklessness, eating disorders, obesity and sexually transmitted disease. But a different interpretation of adolescence is possible. Neuroscientists have shown that puberty ushers in a period of exuberant neuronal growth followed by a pruning of neural connections that is second only to the similar process that occurs in the first three years of life. Adult brains vary in their patterns of neural connections, whereas children's variations are much less distinctive. Differentiated patterns of connection begin in adolescence. This is when you become thee and I become me . No wonder children have an easier time making new friends than adults do. All eight-year-olds are the same; they are virtually interchangeable. But no two 88-year-olds have have anything in common. From an evolutionary perspective, much of adolescents' behavior pushes them to leave the safety of family to explore the larger social world—a step on the way to becoming independent adults. Biblically speaking, we are all Abram, we are all Ruth, we are all Mary, we are all John. But we don’t live in Biblical times. Still, research shows that modern adolescents retain a need to contribute to society and that doing so makes them feel valued and can safeguard against anxiety and depression. Learning how to contribute to the social world is Job One for the adolescent. As I found, it is the time when young people first become capable of making consequential contributions. Unfortunately, we’re not buying what they’re selling. We cling to a vision of adolescence as a kind of unpleasant apprenticeship for adulthood. As guardians of our young people, we are concerned with their educational achievement, career preparation, etc. These are not, instinctively, the priority concerns of most teenagers. Are you familiar with ‘the fifth grade slump’ or ‘the eighth grade cliff’? Disengagement with education starts slowly c. age 10 with a dip in grades and participation. This often accelerates so that those same students are failing three years later. We’re not entirely insensitive to the problem. We’ve given our teens a few secondary outlets. For example, we allow them to participate in the school play, to play sports on the school’s teams, to hold down a part-job, to volunteer in the community. These outlets may be helpful, they may release some steam from the pressure cooker, but do not lose sight of the fact that these are merely an extension of the childhood concept of ‘play’. These ‘make-do’ activities cannot compete with stealing a car or selling dope on the corner. They also cannot compete with more constructive achievements: a published poem, a play performed off, off, off Broadway, a movement started, a business founded, etc. So, what to do? First, beginning by 5th grade, if not earlier, all education needs to be self-directed, managed by a tutor, assisted by a personal AI Bot. Our schools must become ‘centers of learning’-- Wonder Schools . Children have questions. It’s part of their existential condition. Let them ask. See where they lead. Provide resources for kids who decide they need to learn French, or Trig, along the way…but don’t require it. Remind me, what’s a ‘secant’ anyway? Second, we must search for ways that adolescents can make genuine marks on the world. Lord knows, as a society, we have a lot of needs and, if we’re honest, many of them can be met just fine by an empowered 15 year old. Call it building the City of Dioce ( Ecbatan ) or the Kingdom of God, tweens and teens have tons to contribute. We need to facilitate their contribution, empower them, and step aside. But first, we must surrender the notion that adolescence is a dress rehearsal for adulthood. It’s not; it’s real life! 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 Previous Next

< Back The Big Bang David Cowles Mar 28, 2023 “We imagine Big Bang as though someone switched on a torch in the middle of a dark room; but of course, there is no flashlight, there is no room.” “Daddy, when was the Big Bang?” “About 14 billion years ago.” That was surprisingly easy, wasn’t it? Thank goodness Junior didn’t ask, “Why is the sky blue?” or “Where do babies come from?” Surprisingly easy – or should we say, ‘deceptively easy’? Something just doesn’t feel quite right, does it? So let’s dig a little deeper. (“Sorry, Junior, Daddy can’t play right now; he has to think about the Big Bang.”) We live in time. We count forwards and backwards. We can keep counting back until we get to zero, et voilà , Big Bang. But all this is from the perspective of here and now. What if we look at the same problem from the perspective of the Big Bang itself? That’s going to be a problem. Time originates with Big Bang. Time is a function of Big Bang. Next time Junior asks his fateful question, just say, “Big Bang is not a function of time.” See how easy that was? (Hopefully, Junior has a degree in Mathematics.) It is tempting to think of a universe before Big Bang, a void, chaos, negative vacuum pressure, whatever. We imagine Big Bang as though ‘someone’ (sic) switched on a torch in the middle of a dark room; but of course, there is no flashlight, there is no room. The ‘moment of the Big Bang’ is not a ‘moment’ at all. Big Bang is the origin of moments. Ultimately, it is ‘the set of all moments’; but it is not itself a moment. Those who advocate for a divine role in creation frequently ask, “Why did the Big Bang happen when it did?” The answer’s easy: “It didn’t happen!” In the ‘60s we were fond of saying, “Whatever happens happens.” Like any stopped clock, we were right – this time! All ‘happening’ takes place in time. The set of all ‘happenings’ is time-bound; each ‘happening’ is time-dependent. The Big Bang is not a ‘happening’ so it didn’t ‘happen’! (The ‘60s were good for something, after all.) But that doesn’t make Big Bang any less real. Big Bang doesn’t happen, it just is . Apparently, there is more to being than spatiotemporal happening. Big Bang is real, it ‘exists’; but it exists outside of space and time. The implications of this simple realization are literally ‘astronomical’. The premise of ‘bootstrapping’, the notion that Universe is causa sui , is defeated. Cause is a temporal concept; the idea itself presupposes sequence ( aka time). Universe has no cause. It just is. A cause is necessarily distinct from its effect. But nothing is distinct from Universe; it is, by definition, every thing. This is not a tepid rehash of Aristotle’s failed notion of an infinite universe. Infinite time is still time. We are proposing a Universe that exists outside of time entirely. Note : Initially, I wrote, ‘a Universe whose origin lies outside of time’; that’s wrong! It’s not the origin of Universe that is outside of time; it’s the Universe itself! While the constituents of Universe are time-bound, Universe itself is not. Surprisingly perhaps, this meditation has nothing to do with God or Creation. Those are other matters for other days. All we can say about Universe right now is, “It is! It just is.” We imagine that the primary function of intelligence is to discover what’s true; alternatively, the primary function could be to identify what’s false. We’re talking The Iconoclasm of Everyday Life (lie quiet, Freud) here. Peel away the layers of the onion. Break the first six seals ( Book of Revelation ); only then can you discover what the 7 th seal conceals . A major, if unstated, goal of 20 th Century physics was to develop ontological/cosmological models that do not require the existence (or agency) of ‘God’. Without prejudicing in any way the final answer to the God Question , we can say without qualification that these efforts failed. Every theory of cosmogenesis , to the extent that it masquerades as ontogenesis , is ultimately doomed to fail. Genesis offers a theory of cosmogenesis; it also falls short! It posits a state before fiat lux : “the earth was without form or shape, with darkness over the abyss and a mighty wind sweeping over the waters.” But of course, there can’t be anything before fiat lux . We can allow Genesis some poetic license here, but Roman Catholic doctrine has explicitly glossed this text to emphasize the fact that absolutely nothing existed prior to Creation ( creatio ex nihilo ). “It is! It just is.” Who thought this…before us? Oh yeah, the father of Western philosophy thought it. Parmenides believed this about Being (which he called Aletheia or Truth): “…what-is is not-generated and imperishable…whole, single-limbed, steadfast, and complete, nor was it once, nor will it be, since it is, now, all together, one, continuous… Thus, coming-to-be is extinguished and perishing, not to be heard of… And what need could have impelled it to grow later or sooner, if it began from nothing?” In a way Parmenides could never possibly have imagined, the detection of CMB in 1964 finally validated his 2500 hundred-year-old hypothesis. Speaking colloquially, it ‘proved the reality of eternity’. Of course, in our era, the concept of ‘eternity’ is fraught. Best think of it as a-temporality, the absence of time. Then we can say without reservation that spacetime is a subset of eternity, a ‘special case’. Eternity is not the sum of all events; it is the precondition of events per se . “No eternity, No time!” Thanks for this, Big Bang! 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 Janis Joplin and Robert Frost David Cowles Jun 12, 2025 “The relationship between Freedom and Value is complex…and remains unresolved.” Robert Frost is a B-list poet. He’s an American icon who spoke at JFK’s inauguration, but he is not normally included in the Pantheon . There’s no shame in that. As a D-lister myself, I am in awe of Frost; but the A-List is hard to crack. Among Anglophone poets alone, you’re competing with Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Yeats, Hopkins, Eliot, Dylan and Dylan. That said, Frost’s The Road Not Taken is one of the most important poems ever written in any language. It touches on themes ranging from Quantum Mechanics to Human Psychology…and unifies them. It addresses issues like teleology vs. causality and free will vs. determinism. “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” is one of Janice Joplin’s most quoted lyrics. In context ( Me and Bobby McGee ), Janice may be referring to the fact that one is ‘free’ when one is no longer tethered to a significant other. But her meme suggests a much larger philosophical question: What is the relationship between Freedom and Value? Perhaps Janice is channeling Nietzsche : “…One belongs to the whole, one is in the whole – there exists nothing which could judge, measure, compare, condemn our being, for that would be to judge, measure, compare, condemn the whole… But nothing exists apart from the whole!” ( Twilight of the Idols ) Nietzsche recognized that the concept of Value requires a hierarchical model of Being – an idea he abhorred. So, intellectually honest to a fault, he rejected the concept of Value outright. Choice presupposes ‘evaluation’ and e valu ation implies Value . Merely random selection is not choice ! So per Nietzsche, Freedom and Value are mutually exclusive. According to Ole Nietzsch’, we are ‘free to choose’ precisely to the extent that we understand that Choice is a meaningless concept. (He prefers Fate .) Choices, to the extent they are motivated, are not ‘choices’ at all. Or rather, they are not our choices; they are choices the Universe makes for us . That’s what ‘motivation’ is – cosmic concerns impinging on one’s personal, amoral agenda. My parents tried to ‘motivate’ me to do better in school. I had other things in mind for my precious 10 th year of life. Doing well in school was their concern, not mine, but I was the one who experienced the motivation . All motivation is extrinsic; it’s one way I feel the presence of ‘(the) other(s)’ in my life. It is the underside of my Subjective Aim , i.e. what I wish to be - for me. The distinction is subtle, but real, and crucial. Motivation is passive (‘I am motivated’) vs. ‘I aim’. I become is passive. What I ‘become’ is logically prior to the ‘me’ who becomes it. I inherit what I become. One becomes an astronaut; one does not become an artist, an inventor, an entrepreneur. ‘I come to be’ is active; I am logically prior. I create what it is that I come to be. Janice offers a kinder, gentler version of Nietzsche. She does not deny the existence of real Value, far from it, but she sees pursuit of value as a voluntary sacrifice of freedom. It’s a trade-off. For Nietzsche, ‘Doing Good’ is simply an illusion; for Joplin on the other hand, Doing Good is good , but ultimately, it’s also suicidal. I become less so that others may become more; like Jesus, we sacrifice ourselves for others: “Greater love hath no man (sic) than this: that he lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15: 13) “Unless a seed falls to the ground and dies, it remains a kernel. But if it dies it bears much fruit.” (John 12: 24) At the other end of the spectrum, Nietzsche’s contemporary, Pope Leo XIII, came to the precisely opposite conclusion: Freedom and Value are inseparable. According to Leo, one is free only when, and to the extent that, one maximizes value. Leo argues, convincingly, that no ‘sane’ person would ever choose less value over more unless she were constrained to do so. I am in a bar with a tall pour of scotch in front of me. I know that my ‘best’ choice is to leave the scotch unsipped and walk home; but I drink it anyway. I am constrained or motivated by my alcoholism to choose the lesser value, immediate gratification, over the greater value, good health. Leo is normally thought of as the anti-Marx …and not without reason; but perhaps he should also be known as the anti-Nietzsch’ . Between Nietzsche and Leo, but perpendicular to the almost Christian Joplin, we find Existentialism (e.g. Sartre): by the act of choosing we assign value. We can map these disparate views as follows: Sartre ∕ ∖ Nietz Leo ∖ ∕ Joplin We do not choose in consideration of inherent value; we create value when we choose: “Ye are gods !” (Psalm 82: 6) Well, actually, ‘Ye are Frosts’! We make choices, often willingly, sometimes enthusiastically, even though there are no objective criteria guiding those choices, but once made, those choices become moral imperatives. They thereby acquire value. We make life changing decisions in the same way spectacle-rich New Yorkers decide which MLB, NFL, NBA and NHL teams to root for, subjectively, arbitrarily. We live in New England. Some of us have never been West of the Mississippi (heck, some of us haven’t been West of the Hudson – our insularity can be a source of pride). Yet we love the Cowboys and hate the Raiders… We can introduce conflict when none exists…and we can become passionate about it. Let’s drop in on Frost during his famous ‘walk in the woods’: “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood…long I stood and looked down one as far as I could…then took the other just as fair…Both that morning equally lay…I kept the first for another day…I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” The poem is deceptive. So much so that it is almost universally misunderstood. Like an all-pro NFL running back, it feints right before it cuts hard, to the left. Frost is confronted with a binary choice. Either choice will lead him equally well to his destination, so his choice has no extrinsic consequences. The only consequence is intrinsic: his experience of the journey itself. And about this he can only conjecture; he had no actual information. He is flying blind. I have to fly…to Seattle. I am weighing two alternatives. I can fly coach, change planes in Philly and reach my destination in 10 hours for $500. Or I can fly direct to Seattle, business class, in just 6 hours for $1,000; both get me to my destination in plenty of time for my meetings the next day. My decision has no extrinsic consequence; but the intrinsic consequences are significant. Objectively speaking, Frost’s ‘choice’ is not a choice at all. Either way, he will reach his destination, and his choice is not informed by any useful information about either of the two alternative paths: “both that morning equally lay.” Frost’s choice, no matter how he dresses it up, is effectively a coin toss; but there’s no ego reward in that. So, he creates his own rationale to justify his choice and reinforce his precious self-image. Frost imagines himself an explorer, an adventurer, a taker-of-risk and so he paints his groundless decision in just those colors. Doing so, he guarantees himself a smug and self-satisfied old age. According to the Dogma of 20 th century Existentialism, the greatest sin, the sin against the Holy Spirit, the sin that cannot be forgiven, is the sin of ‘bad faith’. We are guilty of bad faith whenever… (1) we act, but do not accept responsibility for our actions, or (2) we act, and pretend, to ourselves and others, that our actions are motivated by objective considerations rather than subjective preferences. But the case of Frost v Frost presents us with an unusual twist. Does Frost ‘pretend’ to himself and others that his actions are extrinsically motivated? The answer is: Yes! “I shall be telling this with a sigh…I took the one less traveled by.” But Frost is fully aware of what he’s doing; he calls himself out! So is he guilty of bad faith…or not? Frost’s complex psychological motivations seem incongruous with his homespun literary style. The dichotomy is what gives the poem its tension and makes its straightforward interpretation so challenging. It screams one thing while it actually says the opposite. Faced with a similar dilemma (paths, woods, a CNN film crew broadcasting it all live from the tree tops), some folks would be content just to flip a coin: they would willingly subcontract their existential freedom to the vicissitudes of pure chance. Not Frost! Being human, Frost is intent on giving his ‘choice’ meaning, whether or not such meaning exists in any objective sense. He cannot not choose, but neither can he tolerate the idea that his choice is random. He feels compelled to invent ‘significance’…even if there isn’t any. Like Einstein, Frost cannot accept the idea that God spends his evenings at the Craps table whenever he visits the Bellagio . (But unlike Einstein, Frost knows he does, because he often plays right alongside him at the high rollers’ table – apparently science and the arts pay better than we’ve been led to believe.) So Frost invents a value scale that reinforces his somewhat adolescent self-image – we are not far from armored knights hunting dragons in Celtic forests – and he uses that scale to give his random decisions a veneer of intentionality, and therefore meaning. It is his act of choosing that designates the road chosen as ‘the one less traveled’, even though there is no objective evidence that that is the case. He then defines himself as someone who follows less traveled pathways, and he concludes: “…that has made all the difference.” He has manufactured a value system out of whole cloth, and he uses the resulting gradations to label his randomly chosen path ‘less traveled’, which translates into ‘better’ in Frost’s private language. So Frost begins (or continues) his lifelong project: the construction of a narrative that will come to be known as his life : “I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence: two roads diverged in a wood and I, I took the one less traveled by...” The meaning of Frost’s choice comes entirely from the ‘subjective form’ (Whitehead) he gives to his actions. My Life is nothing but a series of stories I tell myself about myself to myself (and others) based on an essentially random sequence of events. The subjective aim that I attribute to my actions becomes the thread of the My Life narrative (Rob Lowe has contracted to play me in the movie version.) Barely 40, Frost had already outlined his autobiography, written his epitaph, and delivered his eulogy – not bad for someone who lived well into his ‘80s. So the relationship between Freedom and Value is complex…and remains unresolved: According to Nietzsche, Value and Freedom are incompatible, even anathematic. We are free; because there is no Value! Joplin agrees that Value and Freedom are incompatible, but she permits them to coexist on a continuum; we sacrifice Freedom when we pursue Value. According to Frost, neither Freedom nor Value are objectively real. We imagine we are free when we are in fact making random choices and arbitrarily conferring value on those choices. Finally, Pope Leo: Far from being incompatible, Value and Freedom are inextricable. We are free to the extent and only to the extent that we pursue Value. And you, dear reader, what say you now? *** Image: Hopper, Edward. Automat, 1927. Oil on canvas, 28 inches by 36 inches. Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa. Edward Hopper’s Automat captures the still, inward tension of individual isolation and the quiet gravity of decision-making. The lone woman seated in the café evokes a moment of introspection, possibly in the wake of a choice, or just before one is made. Like Robert Frost’s walker in the woods, she is poised between paths, caught in the suspension of meaning that emerges only after the fact. The painting offers no narrative resolution, only the weight of interiority, similar to our essay’s argument that the consequence of a choice lies not in its external impact, but in the subjective meaning we assign to it after the moment has passed. 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.

“In the absence of God, or any transcendent reality, the meaning of life can only be death, oblivion, and the total absence of meaning – aka the Absurd.” < Back The Meaning of Life David Cowles Apr 15, 2024 “In the absence of God, or any transcendent reality, the meaning of life can only be death, oblivion, and the total absence of meaning – aka the Absurd.” I am a sucker for any book written by an avowed ‘non-believer’ who claims to have found a meaning to life that does not require God…or any transcendent reality. Friedrich Nietzsche (c. 1880) ‘proved’ that no such meaning is possible; but that doesn’t stop me from following-up on every credible claim to the contrary. I’m like the Patent Office clerk assigned to evaluate Perpetual Motion Machines! For example, I followed breadcrumbs left by A. J. Ayer and Albert Camus …right into the witch’s oven. Recently, I was persuaded to try again. Michael Ruse is a philosopher, born in 1940; in 2019, he published A Meaning to Life . I just spent two enjoyable evenings exploring Ruse’s take on evolution in general, natural selection in particular, and on the boosters and critics of both. His book begins inauspiciously enough: “You are born. You live. Then you die.” But believe it or not, it’s all downhill from there! In fact, it isn’t until page 158 (out of 171 pages), that we even get to the subject of meaning ! No judgment! This is how we all write today. We experience a blast of insight – a meme that would be at home on a billboard or a bumper sticker or in a Chinese fortune cookie. Then we write an entire book leading up to and celebrating that insight. “Hooray for me! I own a Magee!” (1950’s advertising slogan) According to Ruse (spoiler alert), three things give life meaning: Family: “An eternity without Lizzie (spouse) is too awful to contemplate.” Friends: “…The only truly happy person is the person giving to others.” Mind: “I cannot imagine a life without Charles Dickens.” I’m disappointed, but not surprised. I should have listened to Nietzsche; I’m always sorry when I don’t listen to Nietzsche. Ruse was born in Birmingham , England. He earned his undergraduate degree and his doctorate at the University of Bristol . He has 4 honorary doctorates and published more than two dozen books and articles. He taught at the University of Guelph in Ontario , Canada for 35 years, and after that at Florida State University where he is currently a full professor. But back to the meaning of life. Ruse cites family, friends, and mind as his three logoi . I’m happy for Michael; but hasn’t he totally missed the point? An eternity without Lizzie, friends, or Dickens is just exactly what he does have to look forward to, as do all the rest of us. If these are the things that give life meaning, then Hello! Unlike most ‘secular seekers’, Ruse seems to allow the possibility that he might in some way be conscious of his loss. He talks of a residual consciousness which he likens to “dreamless sleep”, perhaps thinking of Eliot’s “patient etherized upon a table.” If this was intended to help, it didn’t work. I am with Hamlet on this: nothing is more terrifying than the thought that consciousness might somehow persist post mortem . Turns out, Ruse’s 2019 book has absolutely nothing to do with finding life’s meaning; it answers a very different question: In the light of certain oblivion, is there any way for rational human beings to salvage a modicum of ‘happiness’ in their lives? Ruse concludes that there is, and he lays out his not so very revolutionary recipe; of course, it’s ‘Family, Friends and the Life of the Mind’. Come to think of it, that’s exactly what Ayer and Camus did (above). It’s also what Wally Shawn’s character proposes in My Dinner with Andre . What’s this thing between philosophers and ‘happiness’ anyway? People are unhappy! Maybe, God forbid, even you. Deal with it! Not all people all the time, but most people some of the time and some people most of the time. And if someone is not unhappy at this particular moment, it doesn’t mean that they are deliriously happy either. Truth is, most of us are guided by other concerns (needs, duties, responsibilities, urges, etc.); happiness barely enters in. After 25, who has time to worry about being happy? Most of us would trade ‘happiness’ for ‘satisfaction’. Of course, satisfaction can make us happy, but that insight threatens to turn Ruse’s proposition into a tautology: ‘I am happy because whatever I choose to do I do because it makes me happy’. But what if happiness is my ‘ultimate concern’ (Paul Tillich meets J. S. Mill)? Am I entitled to make the purpose of my life be my own personal happiness - happiness that perfumes portions of an 85 year life span, and then evaporates, unremembered, at least according to the Standard Model of Ontology? Fleeting happiness is a poor substitute for eternal Value. Is Ruse channeling Gatsby: ‘Living well is the best revenge’? But what if I made the happiness of others the purpose of my life? Better? I suppose, but now haven’t I just kicked the can down the road? If my happiness is not a valid purpose, is someone else’s? Thought experiment : On my way home from work I swing by my favorite French bakery to pick up a warm baguette to enjoy with my dinner. As I leave the shop, I see someone obviously homeless and hungry on the sidewalk. What should I do? Proceed home and eat hearty (makes me happy); give my unfortunate friend passes to a local cinema (makes him happy…maybe); or give him my baguette (meets his needs…and perhaps secondarily makes one or both of us happy in the process)? In the absence of God, or any transcendent reality, the meaning of life can only be death, oblivion, and the total absence of meaning – aka the Absurd. Then the meaning of life is that it has no meaning and the meaning of ‘anything’ is literally ‘nothing’. That makes more sense than might seem. A can mean B only if A ≠ B and ∉ B; the only thing not equal to anything is nothing . Is there any way to ‘make peace’ with such a fate? Is there any way to extract value from a world that is apparently value free ? Nietzsche thought he had resolved this question once and for all. His argument is elegant and, I believe, irrefutable: There is only this world, B; there is no other. A can ‘mean’ B only if A ≠ B and ∉ B. But if B is the whole world and there is no other, then can Ǝ no such A; therefore, Ǝ only B and its elements and therefore B can have no meaning. Are you getting nervous? Are you afraid I’m going to ask you to say the ‘G word’? Relax, the G-word is optional. What’s not optional is the ‘T word’ – Transcendence. In Genesis, Jacob wrestles with God, mano a mano . But The Book of Job takes a different tack. Job recounts in painful detail a contest of minds between God and his ‘servant’. First, Job battles God’s self-selected proxies (so-called ‘comforters’); then God himself tags-in! For millennia, the Book of Job has stumped commentators. After 40-plus chapters, it seems like we should know who won the argument. But the text is ambiguous. After page upon page of soaring rhetoric and intricate argument, the author decides to get cute with the verdict. But maybe that was the point? Like some sort of avant-garde 20th century novel, the ending is left up to the reader. Most commentators, wrongly in my view, give God the victory on points; others, myself included, have Job winning by TKO. Job gets the trophy , but God gets a nice ‘participation ribbon’. In the story, God huffs and puffs about how great he is, but what really makes God great in this story is that he agrees to participate in the legal process and abide by the verdict…whatever that might be. Is this God acknowledging his own Higher Power, Value (e.g. Justice)? Is this recognition a precursor to Incarnation? The omnipotent God becoming a helpless infant, a suffering servant , a human sacrifice. So, the real winner here is Justice! In Job , Justice triumphs, even over God’s will. But Justice is a transcendent value (lie quiet, Nietzsche). You can’t buy a cup of Justice at Starbucks; nor can you use Justice to pay for your latte. Justice is not fungible. Like gravity, Justice shapes events, but it’s also a yardstick by which we measure and judge those events. It’s non-linear, i.e. recursive. Justice evaluates the world…and then it evaluates itself. It recapitulates God’s creative process in Genesis: “Let there be…saw that it was good.” It is Values (e.g. Justice, Truth, and Beauty - ‘JTB’) that give meaning to life. But these values are not a function of the spatiotemporal world (STW). Values are universal and eternal; they apply in all places, at all times, in this universe or in any possible universe. STW is made up of events, related to one another via shared qualia (values). Values are general , related to one another via shared events ( Proust ). Values have no home in STW…and so they are at home everywhere in STW. They are logically prior to any ‘when’; they form the logos , the glue between beings that ultimately constitutes Being itself. JTB are values that the noble Nietzsche foresaw but that accommodationists imagine they can tease out of STW. IMAHO, Ruse made mistakes in his effort to find meaning. First, he wrote a book about ‘meaning’ that had nothing whatsoever to do with meaning ; that’s a bit of a bother. But he also made a critical error regarding Sartre’s doctrine of human nature. According to Sartre, there is no human nature beyond the non-thetic, non-essential, existentialist exclamation: “I am (and therefore I am free); I am free (and therefore I am).” Being and Freedom are synonymous. Descartes on steroids! It stands to reason, doesn’t it: if you’re not free, what are you? Perhaps you’re inert; your actions have no consequences IRL. Or perhaps you are just mechanically executing the will of others. In either case, you can lay no claim to Being . To bastardize Gregory Bateson, ‘Being is a difference that makes a difference’. In these scenarios, either you are not different, or you make no difference. Either way, you fail…loser! BTW, this is the paradox of determinism. If everything is determined, then nothing is …or only one thing is (the initial state). Everything else is just a mechanical unfurling of that one thing. In light of this, determinists who are revolted by the notion of a world created and influenced by an all-powerful deity might want to give their position a bit of a rethink. Ruse disputes all this. He believes that human beings do have a specific, identifiable nature. For example, he says that our desire to give to others is part of that nature. In this, he falls prey to what Alfred North Whitehead called , The Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness . Of course, there is such a thing as ‘human nature’ and yes, it includes an eleemosynary component, and yes, it’s written in our genes. But our genes are not us ! Our genes are part of the objective, material world we inherit and inhabit. That world is mediated to us through our genes, our senses, our bodies, our brains, none of which is us. We are a product of our DNA; so is a tree. In fact, we share more than half of our DNA with trees. Of course, we experience the world differently than a tree does and ultimately that different experience is a function, at least in part, of our different DNA. That said, we are not DNA, nor is a tree. We permeate the experiences that genes, bodies and minds mediate, not as passive observers or mechanical operators, but as perpetually active negators . We selectively negate what is in order to bring about what might yet be. In Sartre’s terms we are the Neant (nothingness) that gives Etre (being) meaning. While Etre is many faceted (like Parmenides’ Doxa ), Neant is simple, featureless (like Aletheia ); it haunts you and me and Sherwood Forest. It’s neither one nor many: not ‘one’ in contrast to many nor ‘many’ in contract to one. It’s simple; it simply is. And so it is in you just as it is in me and just as it is in every sentient being. Neant is no respecter of species. Meaning defines a relationship between two distinct entities. The signifier cannot be coincident with the signified, nor can it be an element of the signified. What ‘means’ must transcend what is ‘meant’; otherwise the phenomenon of meaning is impossible. If Life is to have meaning, we must search for it, not ‘among the living’ but in eternity. David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Click the image to return to Holy Days 2024. 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 AI - Our New Frenemy AI and the Human Quest for Love AI - The Next Big Test of the Human Soul Hadassah Treu "The longing is powerful. Perhaps because this is the longing for unconditional love and acceptance with which every human being is born." When I grew up and even as a mature adult, I was fascinated by Isaac Asimov's books about robots. Asimov is the one who invented in his books the so-called Three Laws of Robotics. These instructions are not scientific laws, but they are built into every robot in his stories to prevent dangerous malfunctions. According to the first law, robots must not cause harm to humans or allow humans to be harmed by not taking action. However, the laws underwent an interesting development because the robots themselves added a 4th law, the so-called Zero law. In "Robots and Empire," the robots Giscard and Daneel devised a law that put the needs of humanity first before the needs of the single individual. The Longing for a Perfect Companion These books thrilled my imagination, and they also sparked a powerful longing in me. I was longing to have somebody by my side, somebody like "Daneel." The robot had a human-like appearance, beautiful and perfectly resembling a human. He was available 24/7 and possessed superhuman strength, intelligence, and access to limitless information. The positronic robot Daneel Olivaw was something between a superhuman and a faithful servant. Who didn't want to have a perfect friend like this? Asimov wrote six novels about robots and a lot of short stories. In these novels, he explores different scenarios of the robot-human society, whereas the ratio and the role of the robots in society differ. It is noteworthy that all robot-human societies developed dysfunctions, eventually leading to humanity's extinction. This was, for example, the case on the planet Solaria, described in the novel "The Naked Sun." A tipping point in Asimov's robot stories was when one robot (Giscard) gained telepathic abilities. Namely, he gained the ability to read and influence minds. From this moment on, he gradually took on the role of a god, changing events and decisions throughout society. In fact, he took responsibility for the whole human race! AI Is Our New Reality Nowadays, surrounded by artificial intelligence (AI) in our daily life and sitting on the brink of a technological revolution, I can't help but think about Asimov and his robots. AI is not a sci-fi fantasy. It's reality. AI is everywhere, and it has become an integral part of our daily lives; it doesn't matter whether we recognize it or not. AI is on our smartphones, the chatbots, and the virtual assistants, on social media feeds, not to speak about Alexa or generative AI like ChatGPT. But we always need to remember that technology is a tool. And as a tool, it is our responsibility how to use it. We can't define it as good or bad because it doesn't have a moral value, but we can use it for good or for evil. We also need to remember that even as a tool, this technology is extremely valuable and powerful. So, we have to train ourselves not only to have a balanced and realistic attitude but also how best to interact with this technology. The output we will get from our interactions is largely based on the input we are feeding. Most probably we will need such jobs shortly like AI whisperers and prompt engineers, fact-checkers (yes, AI can give misguided and untruthful information – remember the input!), and creators who will co-create with AI. But most of all, we will need some kind of ethical guardians and voices of the societal conscience who will spur us to act with integrity and ensure the proper development of the human-machine relationship. Is AI Really Our New Best Friend? Is AI like us? Why do we have such a longing for a relationship with artificial intelligence? Artificial intelligence is a type of nonbiological intelligence. Machines are given instructions to complete tasks using a set of rules. Because it's nonbiological, AI can be copied and reprogrammed and can be very flexible. AI has no conscience like human beings, and it lacks emotions, beliefs, and desires. However, research shows that even though machines and computer programs don't have sentience, the people interacting with them, give the machines human characteristics—like feelings, beliefs, desires, and understanding. This is dangerous because we begin to trust them and treat them the way we treat other people. This is exactly what happened in the robot novels of Azimov – the robot Daneel (although lacking emotions) was treated by the main hero, detective Elijah Baley like a human, like a friend. When we talk, for example, with a generative AI like ChatGPT, we can get a good imitation of what a human might say. However, we need to remember that AI lacks real feelings, empathy, or awareness. So we need to approach every AI output with an open but critical eye. Another substantial difference is that as a machine, AI looks back to gather information. Unlike humans, AI can't have visions, imagine futures and outcomes, invent things, or even plan. These are high-level skills that still belong only to humans. People are forward-thinking, and machines are retrospective. And yet… The longing is powerful. Perhaps because this is the longing for unconditional love and acceptance with which every human being is born. Disappointed and disillusioned on the quest for love, struggling with intense loneliness in an overpopulated world, where does the human soul turn next? A new study explains that robots with artificial intelligence can help fight people's loneliness. These mechanical companions could help isolated people by reducing the potential health risks that come with chronic loneliness. Researchers claim that interacting with a robot can have the same impact on humans as interacting with a person. So, companion robots can alleviate stress and loneliness and provide a promising "quick fix" to the problem of making new friends in adulthood. However, despite how promising this sounds, the issue with the moral and trustworthiness of such mechanical companions remains. The Big Temptation Are we tempted to treat AI as more than a tool? Definitely, yes. This is dangerous ground because AI has the potential to influence our theology and become our new idol. We should be careful not to become too dependent on AI but use it wisely and with caution. Part of this process is to admit the fact that AI influences us and even changes us when we use it. It expands our possibilities as humans. It opens for us new opportunities to live, work and create. So, AI is a powerful change agent. The question is, will it sparkle good and positive changes or not? Ultimately, it is our responsibility to use AI for the glory of God and the good of society. Perhaps you guess the end of Asimov's robots saga… The robots Giscard and Daneel chose to be humanity's saviors and concluded that the only way to help humanity advance was to break free from the robots. What was meant to be humanity's aid has turned into an obstacle. The strength has turned into weakness. The friends have turned into enemies. What they meant for good, brought evil. Is this where we are heading to? Hadassah Treu is an international Christian author, blogger, and poet, and the Encouraging Blogger Award Winner of 2020. She is passionate about encouraging people in their journey to faith and a deeper walk with God. Hadassah is a contributing author to several faith-based platforms and devotional and poetry anthologies. She has been featured on (In)courage, Living by Design Ministries, Thoughts About God, Today’s Christian Living (Turning Point), and other popular sites. You can connect with Hadassah at www.onthewaybg.com. Return to our AI Issue Table of Contents Previous Next

< Back Moses, Derrida, and Proust David Cowles Feb 13, 2024 “Christians make a lot of death – which is ironic since their faith precludes it!” Strange bedfellows? They are our fellow travelers, perhaps our spirit guides, in the universal search for meaning. Jacques Derrida (d. 2004) came last but contributed the unifying concept, Différance , a ‘quantum of difference’, the semantic correlate of Planck Scale. ‘Difference’ is continuous; it maps onto the Real Number line. Différance is stochastic, the finite version of difference…the infinitesimal without the infinite. Although Derrida’s concept was groundbreaking, he was clearly channeling a philosopher 2500 years his senior: the much maligned and underappreciated Zeno. The latter’s famous paradoxes prove that the world we live in cannot be continuous. Newton and Leibniz papered over Zeno with the Calculus, but fundamentally, Zeno’s arguments remain unanswered. Achilles beats the Tortoise, and an arrow hits its target, only if space is quantized. Moses encountered différance in Genesis 3. A burning bush catches his eye. It’s on fire, but it’s not being consumed by the flames. There is a quantum of difference ( différance ) separating the perpetual fire from its leafy fuel. Normally, flames consume fuel, but here, différance insulates one from the other. What is, is, and never ceases to be. Moses was seeing fire per se , not as it participates in various hybrid, historical events. Out of this, YHWH addresses Moses: “I am who am.” I am différance ; I am the quantum of difference that allows Being to be. I am eating at my favorite restaurant, but one of the table legs is ever so slightly shorter than the others. If this is not fixed, I shall go mad before the fish course. I am standing in queue on a pair of cobblestones that are slightly uneven. I stumble out of line and hobble off to my chiropractor’s. We tolerate difference; in fact, we thrive on it. But we cannot get passed différance. The world is almost imperceptibly out of focus, creating a region of uncertainty that enables materiality . Différance is the source of L’Absurde – the 20 th century’s unique contribution to philosophy. Spacetime is a rupture in the fabric of eternity. In Exodus 3, YHWH reveals himself as “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” All three synoptic Gospels provide a common gloss: “He is not God of the dead but of the living” (Mk. 12:27), and Luke adds, “For to him all are alive” (Lk. 20: 38). Of course! The very concept of God (Judeo-Christian) is inconsistent with the Dogma of Death. Job said it 3000 years ago: “I know that my redeemer lives…and from my flesh I will see God: I will see for myself; my own eyes, not another’s, will behold him.” (Job 19: 25-27) I mean, could things be any clearer? God 1, Death 0, end of. How could God even be God if things that were ceased to be on his watch? This is the nucleus of the famous Problem of Evil . Christianity can survive ‘evil’…but not ‘death’. Christians make a lot of death – which is ironic since their faith precludes it! Différance , the quantum ‘gap’ between actual entities (events), demolishes the Dogma of Death once and for all. Things don’t transition; they are, or they are not. To be is to be eternal (not immortal). As the Tortoise found out, to his chagrin, spacetime is not continuous. Along the way, we encounter Marcel Proust! As laconic as scripture is, Proust is prolific…and thank goodness for that! He devoted 7 volumes, essentially (and literally) his life (he died with 3 volumes still unpublished), to his gloss of Moses. The result is a masterpiece of literature and of philosophy, Search for Lost Time , brutally mistranslated as Remembrance of Things Past . Proust applies the wisdom of Exodus 3 to such mundane events as the taste of a madeleine dipped in tea, the feel of uneven cobblestones (I ‘borrowed’ it), and the sound of a fork inadvertently striking a piece of china. ‘Qualia’ is the technical philosophical term for what we see, hear, feel, taste, and smell. Qualia are not dependent on space or time for their identity. In fact, they cut across spacetime. They link events otherwise separated. They constitute an alternative, non-Cartesian logos, mapping the wormholes that permeate our World as if it were a slice of Alpine Lace. Once upon a time, folks imagined a pre-existent ‘vessel’ (spacetime) into which energy and matter were poured. Now we think of spacetime as somehow ‘emergent’ from the energetic events that constitute cosmos. Spacetime situates ‘actual entities’ (events). Makes sense: whenever we hear that something has happened, we immediately want to know when and where. Coordinates are a key part of an event’s identity and significance; location contributes to context. In 1964, John Bell discovered an alternative logos : Quantum Entanglement. Distant events can be instantaneously linked. There is a way to order events that disregards spacetime. Bully for Bell, but Proust beat him to it…by 40 years! We are awash in logoi . According to St. John, Christ is the logos ; according to Descartes, it’s spacetime; Bell, quanta; Proust, Qualia. For Proust, the perception of a certain shade of red, under certain conditions, can transport someone to an event far distant in spacetime but characterized by that same shade. To appreciate the revolutionary significance of Proust, note that he is not talking about 'jogging one’s memory’; he is talking about connecting actual physical realities. At the precise moment of tangency, you are as much in your five-year-old’s bedroom (you never left it) as you are in your 80-year-old’s hospital bed (you’ve always been there). Le Temps Retrouve (literally ‘Time Recovered’) is the apt French title of Proust’s final volume. Proust is like a kid who has just discovered what he believes to be a treasure map ( logos ): X marks the spot! And as every faithful Sesame Street viewer knows, “ Logos is brought to you by the color Red”…and Blue…and Pink. Keep the conversation going. 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Vittorio Bufacchi Contributing Writer Vittorio Bufacchi is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at University College Cork, Ireland. His main research interests are in contemporary political philosophy, especially theories of social justice; human rights; political violence; and the idea of injustice. He has also published in the methodology of applied philosophy; rational choice theory; democratic theory; socialism; Jane Austen; and Italian politics. His book 'Everything Must Change: Philosophical Lessons From Lockdown' was published by Manchester University Press in 2021. He is also the author of 'Violence and Social Justice' (Palgrave) and 'Social Injustice' (Palgrave). Twitter: @BufacchiV Lord of the Flies Shows Humans Are Hard-Wired to Help Each Other

< Back Returning to Andromeda David Cowles “What sort of God would throw candy wrappers on a pristine beach? I mean, burning someone at the stake, well maybe, but littering, no way!” It’s time for me to return to my home planet in the Andromeda Galaxy. For over a year now, I’ve been researching intelligent life on Earth and documenting suspected occurrences. I think I’ve done good work here, but I know my superiors are going to want a lot more from me than just a collection of anecdotes. They’ll want to know what intelligent life forms on Earth think about themselves and Universe and their place in that universe; and frankly, I’m at a loss to know what to tell them. Got a minute? Can I explain my conundrum? Maybe you can help! For the most part, Earthlings agree on the ‘data’, what happened and when, but the way they interpret that data sorts them into two possibly irreconcilable camps. First, the data: At the birth of time itself, an event occurred which everyone affectionately calls ‘Big Bang’. Then in the first fraction of a nanosecond, that universe ‘inflated’ by a factor of 10^26…to the size of a small marble. Over the next three seconds, all the forces of attraction and repulsion and all the known subatomic particles, in other words all the building blocks of the universe, precipitated . The Universe cooled from 10^32 degrees Kelvin all the way down to a chilly 10^9, still 100,000 times hotter than Earth’s Sun, but below its own ‘dew point’; and below its dew point, the universe rains fermions and bosons. Crazy, right? Well, hang on, we’re just getting started. As you know, the universe is incredibly fine-tuned. It depends on dozens of apparently unrelated parameters; a variation of less than 1% in the quantitative value of any one of these parameters would have aborted the universe sometime during its first three seconds. Over the next 14 billion years or so, the universe ‘gradually’ expanded to its current size (45 billion light years across); the subatomic particles and their related forces combined to form elements, then molecules, then galaxies, and finally, black holes. The first three seconds were incredibly eventful! Then, nothing much happened for the next 10 billion years. Oh, galactic sheets formed along with stars, planets, and moons; new, heavier elements emerged, and together with hydrogen, combined to form an inconceivably vast array of molecules, exhibiting many bizarre and unexpected properties. In other words, yada, yada, yada… Then came the next Big Day! I call it ‘Big Bang 2’. A little less than 4 billion years ago, precursor molecules (organic) combined to form the first (and only) living organism; et voila, biogenesis. Biogenesis happened almost as suddenly as cosmogenesis. One day lifeless, next day life! No wonder Earthlings are dizzy! At least as far as Earthlings know, reproductive ‘life’ can only occur in the presence of DNA, a single molecule painstakingly assembled from a ‘string’ (actually a ‘double helix’) of molecules. DNA is made up of just 4 molecules, bases, arranged ‘vertically’ in triplets and ‘horizontally’ in pairs. No big deal, right? Except that an average DNA molecule consists of three billion base pairs. A change in the composition or position of a single base pair may (or may not) impact the phenomenal characteristics of the host organism. So, kind of a big deal, after all! So far, so good, right? But here’s where things start to get interesting. Some Earthlings believe that ‘life’ arose independently on many different planets and moons across many different galaxies; they tend to underestimate the nearly incalculable precision required to generate a single living organism. Others believe that life evolved only once…on Planet Earth; they tend to underestimate the vastness and variety of the universe. Of course, Earthlings have no access to any real evidence either way. Here’s where you’d like me to step in and give my ‘study subjects’ additional information that might help clear things up for them but, of course, I can’t do that: I am prohibited by the Prime Directive from sharing any information with Earthlings that they have not already discovered on their own. I’m told, “Lose lips implode galaxies!” So my lips, unfortunately, must remain sealed. So this welter of seemingly disconnected ‘facts’ forms what Earthlings call their ‘Standard Model’ (of cosmogenesis and of biogenesis). These ‘models’ are widely accepted; but their interpretation is an entirely different matter. Sidebar : While most Earthlings accept the Standard Model , some prefer a version of that model that telescopes the entire process down to 7 days. Potato…potato! Now things get interesting. Consensus turns to conflict, sometimes armed combat, once the discussion moves from science to philosophy. So far, we’ve focused on the ‘what and when’ of things…that’s the easy part; but now that we’re starting to look at the ‘how and why’, it’s a very different story. Here, seemingly, the human population splits into two apparently irreconcilable camps. One crowd takes the science at face value. It is what it is. There’s no need to look further. Universe just is! WYSIWYG: What you see is what you get. We’ve pushed the envelope to the limit of its elasticity. In the language of Earth’s scholastic philosophers, Universe is causa sui . It has no proper cause; it is the product of no agency. You are your own grandmother. Shut up and enjoy! Or not, suit yourself. Perhaps this is the only possible universe (the Anthropic Principle), or perhaps it is the best of all possible universes (Leibniz), but in fact, no one knows, and no one can know, and no one could do anything about it if they did know. So all you can say is: This is how it is! The other camp takes a very different view of the same data. “ Causa sui …phooey!” Obviously, something as complex as Universe must be the result of an intentional act by a supremely creative intellect. Earthlings usually refer to this ‘creative intellect’ as ‘God’. The ‘God Hypothesis’, as I call it, is potentially useful; but perhaps it raises as many problems as it solves. Who is this God, and why did he exercise his creative intellect in just this way? If this impossibly intricate universe is the product of a creative intelligence, why is everything so messed up? That question splits itself into two versions. The first is the age-old Problem of Evil . As I write this report, tens of thousands of human beings have just died horrible deaths as the result of an earthquake in Turkey. Many were crushed to death, others smothered, others buried alive. The ‘lucky’ survivors had to wait to be rescued, immobilized and without food or water for as much as a week. If Universe is the intentional act of a creative intelligence, is that intelligence malevolent? As in Earthlings’ Book of Job , should God be brought to the dock to face charges of Crimes Against Humanity? (If you’re interested in the outcome of this ‘trial of the millennium’, I recommend an article in Issue #1 of Aletheia Today Magazine , " The Riddle of Job .") But I don’t want to get into the ‘Problem of Evil’ right now. If you’re interested, check out " The Problem of Good ." also in Issue #1 of Aletheia Today Magazine . In any event, it is the less challenging version of our problem. The second version is of much greater concern. If God is benevolent and created Universe, why did he do such a lousy job? I’m passing over God’s alleged crimes against humanity so that I can focus on a much more serious crime, cosmically speaking, the crime of Littering. What sort of God would throw candy wrappers on a pristine beach? I mean, burning someone at the stake, well maybe, but littering, no way! Sidebar : What’s happening to me? Have I spent so much time on Earth that its values (or lack thereof) are rubbing off on me? What does it say about me that I condemn careless inefficiency over intentional cruelty? Anyway, according to the Standard Model, genesis is nothing but a bunch of wrong turns. It’s like a stopped clock – it’s only right twice a day. 24 hours of noise gets you two bits of information! For example, genes mutate randomly. Almost all such mutations are harmful to the host species and therefore do not pass on to future generations. Once in a great while, a particular combination of mutations works to produce a new phenomenal characteristic that confers a selective advantage on its host species. Such mutations may be conserved and passed on. The universe as is cannot possibly be the intentional product of a creative and benevolent intelligence… unless that intelligence has done a brilliant job of covering its tracks. But if so, for what purpose? Just to fool the already cognitively impaired members of Homo sapiens ? So, I am faced with the fact that Earthlings understand the common data in two diametrically opposed ways. The Standard Model, by itself, is hardly convincing, and it’s anything but beautiful. Some Earthling once wrote, “Beauty is truth and truth beauty.” If that’s so, goodbye Standard Model! Where’s Occam’s Razor when you’re so desperately in need of a shave? At first glance, the so-called ‘God Hypothesis’ looks more appealing. For one thing, it allows for the operation of real, objective values (e.g., Beauty, Truth, and Justice) in the creation and maintenance of Universe. It allows Einstein to claim, rightly or wrongly, that Universe has a built-in bias toward Good . For another thing, it solves the problem of ‘particularity’ – how is it that something as precisely tuned as the cosmos and the biocosm came to be just the way it is? The answer is simple, “God made it that way.” But if so, why does it look like it came about by blind chance? As if this were not enough, I have another problem! Earthlings have a useful epistemological principle that could apply here; it takes various forms: “Actions speak louder than words; by their fruits you shall know them," etc. In other words, don’t tell me what you believe; show me! Is Universe the product of spontaneous generation, i.e., a random, purposeless accident? Or is it the brainchild of an intelligent, powerful, benevolent Creator? Naively, one would expect that people in Camp #1 would behave somewhat differently from those in Camp #2 – and so they do…but only on the margins. There are living members of genus nihilist, as there are of genus credulous . The problem is, there are only a few of each. The actions of the vast majority of human beings don’t betray an allegiance to either ideology. Some label themselves ‘theist, idealist, spiritual’; others prefer ‘atheist, materialist, secular’. Can you tell me who is in which group by examining the way they live their lives? I can’t! Avowed theists are capable of unimaginable cruelty. Avowed atheists are capable of incredible charity. Absent, the one-percent at either end of the spectrum, people don’t seem to care one way or the other about these issues. They deny the existence of God but behave like Mother Theresa; or they affirm the existence of God but behave like Josef Stalin. To the extent they care at all, human beings seem to wall off their cosmological ‘beliefs’ from their terrestrial ‘duties’: Church is for Sundays while business…is ‘just business’. Or do I have it backwards? Should I have said, ‘cosmological duties’ and ‘terrestrial beliefs’? Either way, there’s a disconnect. I am particularly intrigued by older Earthlings, many of them retired from what they call ‘the daily grind’. As far as I can tell, most of them are spending their final years perfecting their golf swings, travelling to exotic destinations, or seeking out hidden culinary gems. Few see ‘financial freedom’ as an opportunity to turn their attention from the ridiculous to the sublime. Recently, many have taken to enshrining their post-retirement activities in the form of something they call a bucket list , a compendium of things they hope to experience before... You’re 75 years old and now you want to see the Grand Canyon? Why? To check it off some imaginary list? To say you’ve seen it? After all, you’ve lived on Earth for 75 years. How can it be that you haven’t even seen the Grand Canyon, or eaten a meal in Paris, or shopped in a Kasbah! What a waste of a life…or not! The best explanation I can come up with is that Earthlings regard their lives as ‘works of art’. Prior to age 25, they are priming the canvass. From 25 to 65, they lay in the broad strokes. After 65, it’s time to add the finer details. To what end? Have they even read their own poets? “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings; look upon my works ye mighty and despair…nothing beside remains.” (Shelley) What is the purpose of this finished product humans call ‘a life’? It’s not for God, they’ve ruled that out; and it’s not for others, obviously. People seem hell-bent on making themselves for themselves . The competition characteristic of the commercial realm spills over into the existential. I am ‘better than you’ if I have ‘more’ experiences than you. But what does it mean to ‘have more experiences’ than someone else? Longer life? (Is life an endurance contest?) More variety? (Is life a travelog ?) Greater intensity? (Or should I say, “Cheap Thrills” ) ? I heard one person describe life as making memories : but memories for what? Making memories, some no doubt painful, that will shortly be erased? Is life a punishment? (A ‘bad boy’ is made to write 25 humiliating sentences on a blackboard, and then later that same day is made to erase them.) I am told that once upon a time, things were different: humans regularly devoted their later years to prayer, study, and various spiritual practices. Well, no more! Teenagers talk freely about ‘the meaning of life’, but not seniors! In fact, it is considered déclassé for an older person to raise such concerns, even in casual conversation. It is considered morbid, a memento mori for a society that has effectively lost sight of its mortality. So, I must report that human beings are split into two diametrically opposed factions when they consider ‘the ultimate question’: what’s it all about, Alfie? (Title of a movie from the 1960s.) But must I also report that they don’t really care about the answer? For the most part, they live their lives as they want to live them, with no regard for where those lives fit into the totality of things. Curious, don’t you think? This is the spot where you’re wondering if I know something that you don’t. Come on, admit it! Well, maybe I do and maybe I don’t, but either way, as you know, I can’t tell you. I am prohibited by the Prime Directive from sharing any information that might prompt folks to change their behavior. So I’m afraid you’ll have to figure things out for yourselves…if there’s anything to figure out…and I’m not saying there is! BTW, I appreciate the hospitality you’ve shown me throughout my stay. I’ll find a way to muddle through my report. In the meantime, my thanks to all of you…and good luck with your quest! Image: Perseus and Andromeda (1720). Hendrick Jacob Hoet (c. 1693–1733). Credit: The Bowes Museum. 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

“Popular music is a treasure trove for the philosophically curious.” < Back I am the Walrus David Cowles Jul 15, 2023 “Popular music is a treasure trove for the philosophically curious.” Unraveling the ‘inner meaning’ of popular lyrics can be a full time job…and then there’s the question of whether you’re actually accomplishing anything worthwhile in the process. The majority of folks believe that our work is a waste of time: “It’s music, man, just enjoy it,” or “Lyrics are lyrics, they don’t mean anything,” or “Who are you to tell me what the artist means?” Literary criticism has fallen on hard times in this age of radical subjectivity and cultural relativism. And yet we labor on: “There has to be a pony at the bottom of this pile of…” In my view, popular music is a treasure trove for the philosophically curious. Perhaps no popular song has more successfully resisted our deconstructive efforts than the Beatles’ classic, I Am the Walrus – in part because the Beatles themselves denounced efforts to analyze its lyrics. But there may be a deeper reason. These lyrics are just about the last thing you’d expect from the Beatles: a Christology that is as crisp and clear as anything you’ll find anywhere in the New Testament. After all, John Lennon himself would later write, “Imagine there’s no heaven…and no religion too.” Stunningly then, Walrus opens with a ‘translation’ of John 14: 20, “I am in my father, and you are in me, and I am in you:” I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together… Newly elected Pope Leo XIV has reprised this theme with the motto he chose for his coat of arms: In Illo Uno Unum (“In the One, One.”) Walrus also channels James Joyce, another ‘atheistic theologian’. We are immediately reminded of Buck Mulligan intoning the words of the Eucharistic rite while standing atop the Dublin Omphalos at the opening of Ulysses . ‘I’ (the Walrus), of course, is Christ. He is one with his father ( I am he ), as we are one with the Father ( as you are he ); we are also one with Christ ( as you are me ) e.g., in Eucharist; and we are all together as Christ’s Mystical Body, as Church, and in 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. Again one thinks of Joyce: “Rite words in rote order.” ( Finnegan’s Wake ) Clearly, any attempt at an ‘interlinear translation’ of the Walrus text is doomed to fail. But that does not mean that the lyrics are nothing more than a chef’s signature word salad . There’s plenty of ‘dog whistle’ philosophy woven into these verses. 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. In the 1960’s 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…” but 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 represents 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 a chicken’, so Jesus is the Incarnation of God. The egg is a potent symbol of resurrection, rebirth, and regeneration (the Easter Egg). It is an apt symbol for the dawn of a ‘new age’. Remember, Jesus is said to usher in the Age of Pisces . It’s 0 CE, it’s springtime in the Zodiac. And then there’s that other ‘egg man’, you know, Mr. H. 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 in tact (‘body and spirit’) from the dead! And ‘the egg men’? Jesus’ apostles, of course. Why ‘egg men’? Because they followed the Big Egg and like the Big Egg, they were martyred (except for John…and Judas of course). 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 the apostles. According to Thoman Aquinas, civil authority is A-Okay as long as it doesn’t conflict with God’s Values: Render unto God what is God’s . I doubt if the antics of UK police c. 1967 met this criterion. Still, celebrating the police ‘running’ is 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 petulance and female promiscuity and that’s gender ambivalence . In the immortal words of Archie Bunker, “Girls were girls and men were men”… on both sides of the Atlantic! Of course, the Egg Man and his Egg Men (sic) sublimate all such division in unity. No more male privilege, no more female propriety, no more rigid segregation (by gender…or anything else). “In the One (Christ), we are One.” – Leo XIV 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. It hasn’t happened…yet! (Although current events do give rise to speculation that it may be closer than we think.) Christians have come to terms with this elongated time frame by recognizing ‘anticipation and patience’ as salvific in their own right. In the same way, English men and women have come to terms with their weather. 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.” 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 has a chorus of its own. In the background, someone is paraphrasing text from Isaiah (the ‘Suffering Servant’)…or is it from Shakespeare’s King Lear ? Or are they reimagining the conversations that took place at the foot of the cross on Good Friday? 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 Allen 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 Eifel 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? Archibald MacLeish said that a poem (song) should not ‘mean’ but ‘be’. I agree. But if it ‘is’, then it has a life of its own, apart from the artist who created it. There are two ways that something can exist. It can ‘exist’ in reference to other things, in which case we say, “It means;” or it can exist by, in, and for itself, in which case we say, “It is”. If Walrus is, then it must be free to mean whatever it comes to mean, and then this exercise in literary criticism is not in vain. 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 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

"I would like to be an intellectually honest spiritual seeker, a warm and loving and dynamic wife and mother, a supportive friend; but at the end of the day, I look in the mirror, and see an annoyed and tired dish rag, and all I want to do is have a cup of coffee and a bar of chocolate. Warm dynamic spiritual seeker aside, anyone who stands between me and my mug is in for it." < Back A Jewish Approach to Cognitive Dissonance Shalvi Waldman Jul 15, 2023 "I would like to be an intellectually honest spiritual seeker, a warm and loving and dynamic wife and mother, a supportive friend; but at the end of the day, I look in the mirror, and see an annoyed and tired dish rag, and all I want to do is have a cup of coffee and a bar of chocolate. Warm dynamic spiritual seeker aside, anyone who stands between me and my mug is in for it." Chabad.org invites the readers of Aletheia Today to read this article in full by following this link . Return to our Beach Read 2023 Table of Contents Share Previous Next Click here. 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! 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, Fall Issue Return to Table of Contents, Beach Issue Return to Table of Contents, June Issue

< Back A Brand New Razor David Cowles Jan 26, 2023 “You’ve heard of Occam’s Razor… Occam gives disheveled, often bloated philosophy a good shave. But not good enough!” You’ve heard of Occam’s Razor . According to William of Ockham (c. 1340), given a choice between two equally accurate models (of reality), the simpler model is preferred . Occam gives disheveled, often bloated philosophy a good shave. But not good enough. Occam leaves stubble. I propose to give philosophy an even closer shave using a brand new ‘ ATM Razor’: “When a phenomenon can be modeled by two or more equally elegant and spare ( Occam ) hypotheses, the model that posits (or requires) the fewest fixed entities is to be preferred .” All models distort the events they model. That’s the nature of modeling. But using the ATM Razor we can minimize the pressure exerted on process in the modeling process. All living Indo-European languages break down the perceptual field according to a more or less common ontological grid. In English, we talk about nouns (including pronouns) and verbs and the adjectives and adverbs that qualify them. 20 th century British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead characterized all western philosophy by lifting a single verse from an Anglican hymn: “Abide with me, fast falls the eventide” – the interplay of stability and flux. In so doing, Whitehead was doing no more than sampling Parmenides, the father of western philosophy, who spoke 2,500 years ago of two realms of Being: Aletheia (Truth) and Doxa (Appearance). Being in the realm of Aletheia is monotone, motionless, unchanging and without space or time. Everything else is located in the realm of Doxa : qualities, motions, changes, and spatiotemporal relations. Whitehead has contributed many important ideas to western philosophy. His ‘Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness’ is a philosophical reformulation of the first commandment of the Decalogue, the prohibition against Idolatry. Put simply, whenever human beings break down a perceptual field, there is a danger that they will over-seed those fields with nouns: ergo “misplaced concreteness." Example: as we ‘watch’ the process of evaporation and precipitation, we ‘see’ clouds of water vapor, but we call them ”ice cream castles in the air.” That is a paradigmatic example of misplaced concreteness, our tendency to over-nominalize. Nouns stick…and ultimately stink. Verbs don’t. Once you’ve named a phenomenon, you have conferred upon it a kind of immortality. In many cultures, the name (noun) of something is an acceptable substitute for the thing (or person) itself. Absent the application of some outside force, we expect our ‘nouns’ to endure...and rot. Want proof? Go to bed! After a bit of tossing and turning you’ll find yourself in a world where ‘named entities’ are much less durable. We don’t expect the people, places, and things we encounter in our dreams to maintain a fixed identity or even to endure once our imagination (attention) has moved on. In the dreamworld, at least, unobserved trees do not fall in unobserved forests and if they do, they don’t make unheard sounds. Dreamland is a cool place to visit for a few hours every evening…but I wouldn’t want to live there. If I did, you’d medicate me… or lock me up. Apparently, society cannot tolerate the complete dissolution of our nominals (i.e., the smashing of our pumpkins, aka idols). Verbs, on the other hand, are more forgiving. One size fits one! There’s a process and we ‘name it’ (or describe it) using a ‘verb’; but we don’t automatically assume (1) that that process will continue after we’ve moved on or (2) that we will encounter that exact same process elsewhere in other contexts. When we use verbs to model process, we are being more ‘data dependent’ (in the words of the Federal Reserve); we are being more faithful to experience. When we use nouns, we force ourselves to fit our perceptions into a fixed, enduring structure. We turn events into objects so we can better manipulate them. Mapping the perceptual field onto a Cartesian grid, we can call one axis ‘nominal’ (say, X) and the other axis ‘verbal’ (say, Y). We are interested in evaluating various models of P (‘perceived process’) where X and Y are variables, but the sum of X and Y is always constant. More X less Y, and vice versa. In such a world, absent other, overriding considerations, we should always favor the model that gives us the largest Y-value (and, therefore, the smallest X-Value). That’s our new ATM Razor. Any questions? 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 Science & the Yellow Submarine – Part II In this issue of ATM, we will finish our journey. We will visit all the remaining “seas” (I promise), plus Pepperland itself. So, hang on tight! David Cowles Science & the Yellow Submarine – Part I explored the scientific implications of the Beatles’ iconic 1968 film, Yellow Submarine , a treasure trove of cosmological insights made to order for the 21 st century convergence of Science and Theology. We watched as the Beatles (or their writers) deconstructed our ‘Universe’ into a system of ‘branes’, called ‘seas’: Seas of Time (time), Science (space), Monsters (things), Headlands (thoughts), Holes ( Le Neant ), and the enigmatic Sea of Green. We set out on a voyage that will take us through each brane on our way to a place (or state of mind) called, Pepperland . We didn’t get far! In fact, we only made it through one sea, the Sea of Time…but oh what a ‘time’ we had there! In this issue of ATM, we will finish our journey. We will visit all the remaining “seas” (I promise), plus Pepperland itself. So hang on, tight! Note to Readers : In this essay I use ‘Pepperland’ to refer to Pepperland Proper, the last stop on our journey, and ‘ Pepperland ’ to refer to reality in its entirety, i.e., Liverpool, Pepperland Proper, and the Yellow Sub itself. When our journey ends, we will discover that Pepperland, Liverpool and the Yellow Sub are just three different manifestations, three different personae , of one reality. In the end…it’s all Pepperland ! So, next stop: the Sea of Science! If the subject of the Sea of Time was Time (“it’s time for time”), then the subject of the ‘Sea of Science’ should be Science, but it’s not! It’s Space. (Perhaps the editors didn’t like the sound of ‘Sea of Space’.) This sea is characterized by its rectilinear grid and the Platonic solids that populate it. It’s ‘Plato meets Descartes’. Against this background, various waveforms undulate. This sea can’t seem to make up its mind whether it’s a 2-dimensional surface or a 3-dimensional solid. Figures emerge out of a flat background and enclose a volume, only to undergo further deformations that turn them back into 2-dimensional surfaces. Years after Yellow Submarine , it was discovered during the study of black holes that there is no difference between 2-dimensional surfaces and 3- dimensional spaces. They both encode the same amount of ‘information’. A hologram, for example, is a 3-dimensional image generated from 2- dimensional film. For that purpose at least, the 3rd dimension is superfluous. Now the voyage to Pepperland moves from ‘time and space’ to ‘things and thoughts’; we are entering the Sea of Monsters, followed by the Foothills of the Headlands. The first two branes probe the world as we experience it (spacetime); the remaining branes explore us as the ones who experience that world. The ‘Monstrous Sea’ is populated, well, by monsters. The occasional dragon notwithstanding, we hardly ever see monsters in Liverpool anymore; or if we do, we don’t recognize them. We Liverpudlians have done a pretty good job of purging ‘monsters’ from our immediate vicinity…but only our immediate vicinity. Believe me, monstrosity is alive and well in our world, as the Beatles were only too well aware! The Sea of Monsters is populated by a variety of creatures that exhibit some physical traits similar to ours but others that are very, very different. Most striking is the wide combination of ‘organs’ that ‘Beatle-Biology’ allows. In Liverpool, we are still just experimenting with Bionics. In the Sea of Monsters, most creatures exhibit a combination of organic and mechanical features. D’Arcy Thomas in On Growth and Form found parallels between biological and non-biological patterns. R. Buckminster Fuller did something similar in his two-volume work, Synergistics . Ultimately, technology and biology are not incompatible: if a form works in one realm, there’s no reason it might not work in the other as well. Yellow Submarine is an example of ‘ontological democracy’: it treats organic and mechanical forms as equals. Form is form and that’s an end to it. Organic vs. artificial is a false distinction. Our jealously guarded ‘ontological categories’ are reduced to ‘ontological soup’. One of the creatures in this ‘monstrous sea’ is the ‘dreaded vacuum’. Like a black hole, this creature sucks into itself everything in its environment. “We’ll be sucked into oblivion…or even further,” says Young Fred, the newly appointed admiral aboard HMS Yellow Submarine; and sure enough, they are! The ‘dreaded vacuum’ not only sucks up all objects in its path, including our yellow sub and its crew, but it also sucks up the fabric of spacetime itself. Ultimately, it even sucks itself, tail first, into oblivion: The Beatles’ universe is an ouroboros . The vacuum leaves us with precisely nothing, nothing that is except Jeremy Hillary Boob, PhD (JHB). But that’s ok because the Boob is ‘nothing’, quite literally, as expressed in this formula: 1 + (~1) = Boob At the time Yellow Submarine was produced, it was generally believed that black holes annihilated information as well as objects, fields, etc. Years later, Stephen Hawking suggested that information was not destroyed by black holes, but was conserved after all, albeit in a form that renders it useless for any ‘work’. Astoundingly, Yellow Submarine proposed the exact same theory, 6 years earlier. JHB is Hawking radiation! That’s what the Boob is! Information without order. If Stephen Hawking got his ideas from the Beatles, he should have given them proper credit…and maybe he meant to do just that when he famously said, “We stand on the shoulders of giants”. After the vacuum has done its worst, we are left with JHB. Jeremy consists of all the information that existed in the universe prior to its implosion. As Hawking proposed, information is conserved but disorganized in the Boob. Take this snippet of dialog for example: “Do you speak English? “Old English, Middle English, a dialect pure. “But do you speak English? “You know I’m not sure.” But back to our journey. We need to pick-up the pace if we’re to reach Pepperland by nightfall. The first three ‘physical seas’ have been wiped out by the vacuum monster. The ‘physicality’ of Liverpool served us well through the Seas of Time, Science and Monsters but it won’t be much use to us going forward. ‘Physicality’ itself has vanished. What remains? Information (Booby)…and the sub itself. Even though the submarine was sucked up by the vacuum monster, it avoids ‘oblivion’ because, turns out, the sub is the Eternal Present that we’ve been looking for at least since the days of Ponce de Leon. Therefore, the sub can never be erased, annulled, or destroyed. As long as there is anything that is, it is. Next stop: the Foothills of the Headlands. Do people tell you that you “live too much in your own head”? Or do you sometimes wish that you could live life ‘virtually’ rather than physically? Either way, this is the sea for you! Headlands is the domain of pure thought. It takes the form of transparent heads unencumbered by functioning bodies. In the Headlands, thoughts lack orientation, consistency, coherence, purpose, and effect. (Hmm, sounds like we’re ‘inside the Beltway’!) In the Headlands, we see the consequences of an ‘all-in-the-mind’ ontology (e.g. Philosophical Idealism) and believe me, it’s not pretty. Bottom line: “mind matters but mind matter” - another bumper sticker to buy as a souvenir of our trip. After the Headlands…the Sea of Holes! We’ve passed through bodies & ideas, forms & concepts; what’s left? Nothing…but that’s a good thing. In Beatle-World, something and nothing have a complementary and dialectical relationship. Now we are passing into the realm of ‘negative space’. The usual relation of figure and ground is reversed. The sea itself is the ground and the holes in that sea (ground) constitute the figure. Nothingness ( Le Neant ) has now become concrete…so concrete that Ringo is able to put a ‘hole’ in his pocket, quite literally. The Sea of Holes is the inflection point in our journey. The ‘figure-ground’ relationship has reversed; for the rest of the voyage, it’s ‘ground-figure’. Something similar happens in Dante’s Divine Comedy . There, the travelers (this time, Dante & Virgil), having reached the lowest rung of Hell (Inferno), witness Satan, encased in ice. Dante begins the ascent of Mount Purgatory, but when he looks back, he is surprised to see that Satan is now hanging ‘upside down’ in his block of ice. The topology of the Sea of Holes is radically non-orientable. There is no consistent sense of directionality, no spatial ordering. It’s like an Escher drawing on steroids. In fact, the Sea of Holes is a paradigmatic example of non-orientability. Any system ( Pepperland ) that contains a ‘locally non-orientable’ component (like the Sea of Holes) must be ‘globally non-orientable’ as well. It turns out that the orientable universe familiar to us muggles is just a special configuration within a sea of non-orientability. In a non-orientable universe, there are no privileged vantage points, no privileged directions. In fact, there are no beginnings, middles or ends at all. However, every ‘point’ has two distinct and opposite orientations (like ‘up and down arrows’ on a Mobius strip). “Go for a walk?” Ok, where do you want to go? “Doesn’t matter just head out.” Pretty soon we get to our ‘destination’ but there are a couple of problems: our journey has brought us right back to where we started except that now everything is somehow inverted or reversed. In the Netflix series, Stanger Things , they call this ‘Upside Down World’. “So, what now? Turn around and head back?” No need, just keep walking ahead. Sure enough, we’re soon back ‘home’ and this time everything is back to normal. We are in ‘Right Side Up World’ again…and ready to cross into Pepperland at last…if only we could find it. First, we must pass through one more sea, the Sea of Green; but there’s a catch: out of a seemingly infinite array of holes in the Sea of Holes, only one hole connects the Sea of Holes to the Sea of Green…and on to Pepperland. This is a problem for our Argonauts! As we know from the study of Black Holes, all holes look the same so we can’t examine the holes for clues. How about the surroundings? Any helpful signs there? Nope! Remember, the ‘surroundings’ are ‘nothing’. There is only one possible way out: stochastic trial and error…which has an infinitesimal likelihood of success. Infinitesimal…but not quite zero. Fortunately, our Argonauts do find the one and only hole that functions as a passageway to the Sea of Green, but the Sea of Green is not like the other seas. It’s merely a featureless, ultra-thin membrane separating the other branes from Pepperland. So full speed ahead! Once the Beatles arrive, they discover that they bear an “uncanny” resemblance to four of its permanent residents, “the originals”, Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Of course, we later learn that the Beatles are the Sergeant Pepper band! Initially, “the originals” are separated from the rest of the Pepperland by the dome of a “big glass bowl”. It is as if the cosmos were censoring itself. If the Beatles are Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, then both ‘copies’ cannot coexist. The ‘big glass bowl’ maintains the ‘cosmic order’. But that order is about to be shattered! Remember, Ringo has a ‘hole’ in his pocket (from the Sea of Holes). Ringo applies the hole to the side of the “big glass bowl” and through the medium of nothingness the ontological barrier dissolves and the two realities merge onto the same extensive plane. Just as the branes connect Liverpool with Pepperland, so Ringo’s hole (anti-brane?) connects the temporal Beatles with their eternal alter-egos. Is this an illustration of the Christian doctrine known as Resurrection of the Body – the ultimate unification of ‘heaven and earth’? Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is the Beatles under the aspect of eternity (Parmenides’ Aletheia ) while the Beatles are Sergeant Pepper’s Band under the aspect of history ( Parmenides’ Doxa ). When Ringo’s hole connects the two realms, we learn that the division of Universe into ‘temporal’ and ‘eternal’ rests on a false distinction. Temporality and eternity are complementary aspects of a single phenomenon. So it turns out that Liverpool and Pepperland are really the same place! We never left the Pier after all. Liverpool is the spatiotemporal aspect of Pepperland and Pepperland is the eternal aspect of Liverpool. Nothing that happens in Liverpool stays in Liverpool. Whatever happens in Liverpool happens in Pepperland and vice-versa. In the language of John Bell (Bell’s theorem, 1964), Liverpool and Pepperland are ‘entangled’. In the language of Jesus of Nazareth, ‘on earth as it is in heaven’. And what about the sub itself? That also is Pepperland …in its aspect of Presence: Spacetime (Liverpool), Eternity (Sub), and Presence (Pepperland), the 3 faces of reality, Pepperland . If we were writing in the 4 th century CE style of the Nicene Creed , we might say that the Yellow Submarine ‘proceeds from Liverpool and from Pepperland’. The sub (Present) never leaves Liverpool…or Pepperland for that matter. Nevertheless, it continually shuttles between them. In any event, the ontology of Yellow Submarine is overtly ‘Trinitarian’. I hope you enjoyed our two part voyage to reality’s core. I apologize if the music and the graphics are not up to the Beatles’ original. But I hope my marginalia may have made your trip worthwhile. I hope to see you soon on our next all-inclusive cruise. 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