< Back Kabbalah and Thomas the Train David Cowles “Children and tank engines are not so different from the rest of us. They crave meaning! They only settle for pleasure when…they lose hope.” How plugged in are you to the five-and-under crowd? Not so much? Ok, try this for an icebreaker: ask your favorite neighborhood terror to name his or her favorite character from movies, TV or books. Expecting Winnie the Pooh or Paddington Bear? You may be in for a surprise. Ask that question of any properly aged, English-speaking child on either side of the Atlantic, and you’re likely to learn a lot more than you ever cared to know about Thomas the Tank Engine and his Friends on the Island of Sodor in the UK. Created in 1945 and popularized in 1979, Thomas represents a very different take on the ‘childhood hero.’ Thomas is not mischievous; he is not introspective; he is not filled with existential angst; he’s not even heroic, and he certainly has no superpowers. Thomas defies the stereotype of childhood as fantastical, hedonistic, self-indulgent, and anti-social. His sole goal in life is to be “a really useful tank engine.” In this sense, he is the anti-Pooh. Thomas wants to earn the respect of his boss, Sir Topham Hatt, and the friendship of his fellow engines and rolling stock. He wants a sense of identity; he wants to belong. Unfortunately, young and inexperienced as he is, Thomas makes mistakes, each of which he feels deeply. He finds himself at times teased, ridiculed, ignored, criticized, and even disciplined – like any child his age. But he never loses his good humor; he never stops trying to ‘be all that he can be,’ and from time to time, he has well-recognized successes. Thomas may be sad, angry, or frustrated, but he is never depressed. His only response to adversity is to try even harder to be the tank engine he knows he was ‘born’ to be. Anything less is out of the question. So what’s so revolutionary about this? Defying the West’s philosophical consensus, Thomas puts zero weight on personal happiness . He evaluates himself by one and only one criterion: is he being useful, and, if so, is he being as useful as he could be? It turns out that children and tank engines are not so different from the rest of us. They crave meaning! They only settle for pleasure when, like The Great Gatsby , they lose hope: “Living well is the best revenge!” Pleasure is the graveyard of hope and a poor substitute for purpose. Imagine, children have an innate desire to be useful! Who knew? But we systematically frustrate that desire and divert it into self-centered pleasure seeking. Not you? You never offered a child a bowl of ice cream to ‘make up for’ some disappointment? Yet we marvel, “What’s the matter with kids today?” Answer: Look in the mirror! We do things to and for and occasionally with children, but we’re terrified to let them do anything on their own. We need to be needed, and we’re happy to exploit the children in our orbit to satisfy that need. “You will be dependent on me…or else!” A baby is born! Hallelujah! But somewhere along the way, no later than age seven, usually much earlier, we encase that ‘caterpillar’ in a chrysalis until its 18 th birthday when it is expected to emerge, fully formed and beautiful, as a butterfly. It’s a dangerous reproductive strategy, one that frequently goes awry. Yet with each hiccup, we double down. Like any species caught in an evolutionary cul-de-sac , we insist on making our adaptations work, empirical evidence notwithstanding. Crystlle Medansky creates children’s literature from the tradition of Kabbalah – an ancient school of Jewish mysticism related to, but not identical with, Hasidism. In one story, A Droplet , she tells the tale of a single drop of water, aptly named Dewy. Dewy lives in the sea but the experience is unsatisfying. Vast, undifferentiated water is not very interesting, and by itself it reveals nothing about the nature of Dewy, the ocean, or the world. So Ocean agrees to send Dewy on a quest of self-discovery; it begins with Dewy’s evaporation and resumes with his eventual recondensation. Dewy’s goal is to return to Ocean, newly enlightened about the world, the self (Dewy) and the other (Sea). It is the paradigm of all life-experience. The soul of any such quest is the journey itself, not the destination. After all, when all is said and done, we end up right back where we started. Oh, but the adventures we have along the way! Dewy is anxious to complete his quest by returning to the ocean of his birth, but he does not place himself and his interests on a pedestal. Along the way, Dewy encounters various fellow creatures who need his help. Despite the urgency of his own mission, Dewy does not begrudge others the help they need to complete their own life journeys. First, a stalk of wheat needs hydration. “I’m in a hurry, but if you need my help, I will stay.” And Dewy stayed with the wheat until it had ripened. Then a stream needed Dewy’s help to wear away enough rock to create an unobstructed pathway to the sea. Again, Dewy responded generously. Next, Dewy encountered a boat that needed a wave to push it out to sea; Dewy selflessly delays his own reunion with Ocean in order to accelerate the arrival of his ‘fellow traveler .' At last, just as Dewy can hear the roar of the ocean ahead, a young mother calls to him from the embankment: “Can you help me take care of my little child?” Of course I can! Quest complete, Dewy finally reunites with the source of his being, the ocean. We don’t know what Dewy’s expectations were when he embarked on his quest, but it’s doubtful he expected to be gone for so many years. Still, it’s a small price to pay for the Pearl of Great Price, aka Enlightenment. Dewy’s quest allows him to realize that the meaning of life is not mystical union with the sea, but the helping hand he can lend to others on their own personal quests. Life is what happens while you’re waiting to begin living. Dewy was waiting to complete his quest so that his enhanced life with Ocean could begin. Instead, he discovers the real meaning of life lies in the projects of the others he encounters on his way. After an experience like this, Dewy will not be satisfied with the simple pleasures of frolicking with Ocean. Dewy, like Thomas, has discovered purpose…and nothing else will ever satisfy him again. 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 Summer 2023 Table of Contents Previous Next

< Back Catastrophe David Cowles Apr 20, 2023 “Humanity had better hope there’s a God who is relevant, benevolent, concerned, engaged, eternal and omnipotent because otherwise…” Once upon a time, I was affiliated with a company that conducted twice annual business retreats for its staff. Each conference ended with this: “We have just spent two days analyzing in detail opportunities and risks ahead for our business. But are there broader, more general risks that we have not addressed that could take us down?” Pity the newbie who answers, “No.” Aletheia Today is focused on ‘opportunities and risks’ pertaining to philosophy, theology, and culture (science). But are there broader, more systemic risks that could bring the curtain down at any moment? I think so! May I suggest three? Thermonuclear War Bioengineering Artificial Intelligence Each one of these catastrophes has the power to end the ‘human experiment’. But notice what’s not on my list…three boogeymen (sic) of times gone by: Overpopulation Climate Change Alien Invasion Overpopulation turned out to be an ideologically motivated scare-tactic, supported by ‘selective science’. Back in the 1960s, Buckminster Fuller was already crying foul ( Utopia or Oblivion )! Turns out, many countries are wrestling with the problem of underpopulation, and it is estimated that Earth’s population could eventually drop below 6 billion (vs. 8 billion today). Once we’re finally ready to start building space colonies, will we be able to spare enough folks to populate them? Climate change , on the other hand, is real …but it’s not going to take us down. This is a problem we can solve by combining effective public policy with fast-tracked investment in new technology. It may be costly, and it may be painful, or not, but as long as we can ‘rescue life on Earth’, and I am confident we can, does anyone seriously doubt that we will…eventually? Nor am I kept awake at night by fear of invading aliens … because there aren’t any! Folks who assume the existence of complex life forms unrelated to us anywhere else in the universe, underestimate the mind-boggling improbability of intelligent life ever-evolving anywhere . We’re already an anomaly. We are not entitled to assume another. Plus, if I’m wrong, and I might be, then where are our alien non -cousins? We are beaming all sorts of sophisticated messages into space (Bach’s Concerti , for example) but all we’re hearing are the cicadas outside our observatory, serenading the inanimate stars on a moonless night. While I don’t have a shred of evidence to support this theory, I suspect it will turn out that we need every second and every cubic inch of our universe, now 92 billion light years across and 14 billion years old, just to create a high enough probability that conditions necessary for an Earth-like biosphere will evolve somewhere. So, I must be sleeping soundly – no Ambien for me! Except I’m not. I hardly sleep at all. And while insomnia has many roots, the state of the world is certainly in the mix. So, what does keep me up at night? Well, Schrödinger’s cat for one. Hiroshima ‘let the cat out of the box’ once and for all, and it has resisted our best efforts to re-cage it. After WWII, Europe was awash with calls for something akin to unilateral disarmament . Slogans du jour: Ban the Bomb Better Red than Dead Slogans, placards, marches, and demonstrations are great, but by themselves, at least, they do not disarm hostile nations. Two other strategies have been marginally more successful: Non-Proliferation Treaties Strategic Arms Limitation Agreements (SALTs) But this is Century 21, and gradually, but inexorably, more nations are acquiring the expertise and resources needed to produce nuclear weapons. Can anyone doubt that there will be dozens of nuclear states by the end of this century? So what? At least 10 countries have the bomb already, why not make it 50? The countries currently seeking membership in ‘the nuclear club’ (e.g., Iran) are probably not high on your list of destinations for next year’s family vacation. As our club opens its books to third and fourth-world nations, it is possible that some of the new member states will have governments less stable, borders less secure, and cybersecurity less robust than most current members. But this, of course, is just another ‘tip of the iceberg’. Can you not imagine a world in which private corporations, NGOs, political organizations, and even wealthy individuals all have access to the bomb? (Does the Second Amendment apply to nuclear weapons?) What then? Mind Bet : What’s the over/under on the date the first ad for a nuclear weapon will appear on the dark web; and will it qualify for free delivery if the buyer is an Amazon Prime customer? Moving on, can you believe it’s been only three decades since we decoded the human genome? Already we are using this discovery to enable sex selection, to eliminate certain ‘undesired’ genetic anomalies, and to resurrect extinct species. Recently, the world was brought to its knees by a mutant virus (COVID-19), accidentally released from a lab engaged in modifying organisms into bioweapons. Finally, we are proposing to use CRISPR to ‘improve’ our species by inserting the genes of certain non-human organisms into human DNA. What could possibly go wrong? And then… … There’s AI, perhaps the crowning achievement of human technology. Homo Sapiens , ‘the one who knows’, is on the cusp of outsourcing its hallmark ability to a network of machines. “No more rulers, no more books, no more teacher’s dirty looks.” Life is about to get very, very comfortable. But at a horrible price! Studies suggest that the human brain is already shrinking , presumably as a result of fewer external threats. The sci-fi chestnut of a universe taken over by machines is not at all far-fetched; the process is well underway. So no, I’m not getting much sleep these days. How about you? I’ll leave you with this: humanity had better hope that there’s a God who is relevant, benevolent, concerned, engaged, eternal and omnipotent because otherwise… Keep the conversation going! 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. 4. Aletheia Today Magazine (ATM) will be devoting its entire fall issue (released 9/1/23) to artificial intelligence (AI). What are the philosophical, theological, cultural and even spiritual implications of AI powered world? If you’d like to contribute to the AI Issue, click here . Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! 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< Back Adam and Eve David Cowles Jan 20, 2022 In one respect at least, The Book of Genesis and the Book of Job are mirror images of one another. In Genesis, mankind (Adam) finds itself in Paradise with all its needs met; yet ‘Adam’ chooses to sin. In Job, a man (Job) finds himself in the most dire straights possible; yet he continues to practice virtue and he defends both God and Goodness against the relentless taunting of his wife and 3 (or 4) so-called “comforters”. While Adam put his ‘significant other’ (Eve), the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (apple), and even the serpent (Satan) ahead of God, Job never waivers in his monotheism: “For I know that my redeemer lives and that he will stand on the earth on the last day, and though after my skin (is gone) worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh I will see God, whom I shall see for myself, and mine own eyes shall behold, and not another’s.” (Job 19: 25 & ff) In one respect at least, The Book of Genesis and the Book of Job are mirror images of one another. In Genesis, mankind (Adam) finds itself in Paradise with all its needs met; yet ‘Adam’ chooses to sin. In Job, a man (Job) finds himself in the most dire straights possible; yet he continues to practice virtue and he defends both God and Goodness against the relentless taunting of his wife and 3 (or 4) so-called “comforters”. While Adam put his ‘significant other’ (Eve), the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (apple), and even the serpent (Satan) ahead of God, Job never waivers in his monotheism: “For I know that my redeemer lives and that he will stand on the earth on the last day, and though after my skin (is gone) worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh I will see God, whom I shall see for myself, and mine own eyes shall behold, and not another’s.” (Job 19: 25 & ff) 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.

“Value permeates every nook and cranny of the World. God is Value… No values – no world...” < Back Proof of God: The Ontological Argument David Cowles Jun 1, 2024 “Value permeates every nook and cranny of the World. God is Value… No values – no world...” In the Middle Ages, the most attractive ‘proof’ of the existence of God was what’s now called ‘The Ontological Argument’. It is most often attributed to Anselm of Bec (c. 1100) but it pops up here and there all across the theological landscape of the late Middle Ages. The ‘proof’ is as follows: God, by definition, is a perfect being. In such a ‘God’, all perfections must subsist…and they must subsist perfectly, i.e. to the greatest degree possible, so it is impossible to imagine any being more perfect in any way than ‘God’. Hamlet notwithstanding, ‘to be’ is better than ‘not to be’; apologies to Sartre, but ‘being’ is better than ‘nothingness’. If God, as we define ‘God’, did not exist it would be possible to imagine another being, the same as ‘God’…only existing . That God could beat up our God! In that case, our ‘God’ would not be God. Only a ‘God’ that exists can qualify as God. Therefore, according to the Ontological Argument, God, the perfect Being, must exist! Clever. Somewhat convincing perhaps in the context of Nominalism…not so much in the Days of Deconstruction . I won’t reproduce the counter argument here. I don’t have to. We can sense intuitively that there is something wrong with this version of the ‘Ontological Proof’; it just doesn’t pass ‘the smell test’. But might there be a way to formulate the argument that would command our super sophisticated 21st century attention? Let’s see… When we say ‘God’, we mean a being in whom all perfections subsist to the max. According to Nietzsche et al., there are no ‘perfections’ and therefore there are no gradations. There are no ‘values’, period. And did I mention, there is no God? Nietzsche is gloriously consistent, his successors, not so much! If Nietzsche is right, the World is flat; sorry, Columbus. There are no ‘values’; things just are , and they are the way they are. So-called Historical Process is just Fate. Nothing is better, or less good, than anything else; everything just is. To say otherwise would require ‘evaluation’ and that would require us to entrust the power of ‘valuation’ to some region within the World (like ourselves)…or to some entity beyond the World (like the verboten God). Nietzsche understood that to bifurcate World into ‘evaluator’ and ‘evaluated’, even if those designations were fluid, would disrupt flatness and create hierarchy. In that case, the evaluator, whether understood as part of, or separate from, the World, would in fact transcend the World. Evaluation is a species of recursion: the World sees itself and/or the World acts on itself. The subject is the same as, but different from, the object. A flat (linear) cosmos cannot be recursive (non-linear). There is no subject, there are no objects. But what if we stand Anselm on his head? What if we follow the lead of the 6th century Irish poet, St. Dallan? What if we begin, not by defining God but by provisionally asserting God’s existence. “Naught is all else to me save than Thou art!” If God exists, what can we say about him? First, God transcends World. That’s by definition; it’s what we mean by ‘God’. Going further, we can say that God is Transcendence per se . What transcends the World is God…again, by definition. In Genesis, God begins the process of creation by separating darkness from light. But there must have been a prior step, only implicit in the text: the distillation of immanence out of transcendence. To transcend the world is to judge it, explicitly or implicitly, just as to judge the world, by definition, requires us to transcend it. Judgment discloses Value; all judgments refer to values. The application of Value is what judgment is. So the theoretical question of God’s existence comes down to the empirical question of whether ‘values’ are operative in our World. Of course they are! Right now, I’d love a nap, but I judge it more important to keep writing. I value B over A. Later today, I will choose a TV program to watch, a book to read, a snack to eat – all driven by the application, however trivial, of Value. How does God fit in? Does God prefer Law & Order to Seinfeld ? Kafka to Faulkner? Corn chips to popcorn? Of course not. But God is the well-spring of Value which enables us to make such choices for ourselves. 20th century philosophy begins in the 19th - with Nietzsche. Nietzsche alone in the modern era challenged the doctrine of Transcendence ( aka Godhead, Keter ), the root concept behind God and Value. Fundamentalists honor God over Value; humanists honor Value over God. Nietzsche had no use for either. Unfortunately, few if any of Nietzsche’s successors remained faithful to his core. Could there be two more different thinkers than A.J. Ayer (the British analytic) and Albert Camus (the French existentialist)? Both were affirmed atheists. Both denied the objectivity of Value. But unlike Nietzsche, both allowed values to ‘corrupt’ their thinking… sneaking in through a back door carelessly left ajar. After thoroughly debunking the concept of Value and declaring the World to be absurd, Camus provided a laundry list of identities that folks might coherently assume. The list is extensive. One suspects that Camus may have been moonlighting in the job placement office of some university. But don’t assume that Camus’s list is value agnostic. He dismisses any sort of asceticism (e.g. monasticism) as ‘incoherent’. He praises those who live lives full of variety and intensity , both values. Ultimately, he applied his own, quite detailed, value-based filter ( logos ) to the World. Ayer took a different tack in his break with Nietzsche. He boils the ethical imperative down to a single value, Kindness . Unfortunately, he offers no justification for this ethical choice. Is it possible that he fails to see that Kindness also is a value? Sidebar : Remarkably, the world is full of books that begin by stating a proposition and then proceed, unwittingly, to demolish that proposition. I am thinking, for example, of Something from Nothing , which begins by stating that the world we know can ‘naturally’ emerge out of ‘nothing’…and ends by inadvertently disproving that thesis. Who says that kindness is better than cruelty? Is it just a personal preference? Can we find no objective distinction between Mother Theresa and the Marquis de Sade? Can we find no objective criteria to underpin our condemnation of Adolf Hitler? If rejecting belief in God means placing Mother Teresa on the same ethical rung as Hitler, then I’m proud to have you call me a Theist ! Sticks and stones you know… Personally, I doubt that it is possible for anyone to live a single day without allowing ‘values’ to color perception or motivate behavior. The closest approach to such would be the lifestyle of the contemplative, the mystic. Yet this is precisely the lifestyle choice that Camus disallows. The traditional Ontological Argument assumes that manifestations of Value can be ordered by degrees relative to perfection . Then we have proven the existence of God only if we have proven that a perfect being must exist in order to account for various degrees of value in the world. But the Middle Ages set the bar too high. We don’t need to prove perfection ; we only need to demonstrate gradation. Of course, the experience of gradation may lead us to belief in perfection; but it doesn’t have to. The existence of gradation alone is sufficient to demonstrate the existence of God. Anslem moved from value to existence; we propose to move from existence to value. If God did exist, what would the World be like? Without God, could the World still be the way it is? Far from being flat (Nietzsche), the world is riddled with values. The phenomenon of Value is literally ‘universal’, as the Baltimore Catechism affirmed (c. 1955): “Where is God? God is everywhere!” The Nominalists and the Scholastics attempted to deduce the existence of God from first premises. How logical of them! We have attempted to infer the existence of God from observation. How empirical of us! Value permeates every nook and cranny of the World. God is Value, the source of all values, and all values inhere in God. No values – no world (as I know it). No God – no values! The unmistakable detection of Value in the World, not perfection but gradation, is empirical proof that there is a God. We can certainly imagine someone saying, “I don’t believe in the existence of anything perfect .” It is more difficult to imagine anyone saying, “I don’t believe that anything is any better than anything else.” Then to say, “I have satisfied myself that some things are better (e.g. more beautiful, more true, more just) than others,” is to say, “I have proven the existence of God.” Easy-peasy, but I await your rebuttal, dear reader! 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 Summer 2024 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! 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“Western philosophy is the history of our effort to understand the silence of Parmenides, or to break it.” < Back After Parmenides... David Cowles Feb 1, 2025 “Western philosophy is the history of our effort to understand the silence of Parmenides, or to break it.” (Western philosophy is often taught as a tug of war between its Mosaic and its Platonic roots. In fact, however, the core concepts of both traditions converge in the teachings of the Pre-Socratic philosophers ‘after Parmenides’. ) Parmenides of Elea is generally regarded as the Father of Western Philosophy. Of course, he had precursors (e.g. Thales, Pythagoras, Anaximander), but our knowledge of their teachings is sketchy at best. From what we do know, it seems as though these OGs were narrower in their focus than Parmenides…somewhat like philosophers today. Indisputably, Parmenides was the dominant intellectual influence in the 5th century BCE Greece. He did not win that honor by default. He lived in ‘interesting times’, sharing the intellectual stage with political leaders (Leonides and Pericles), playwrights (Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides, and Aristophanes), and fellow philosophers (Xenophanes, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, Empedocles and Zeno). We can say this much for sure: the oldest substantially in tact work of systematic philosophy in the Western World is Parmenides’ ontological poem, On Nature . Happily, the Father of Western Philosophy did not pussy foot around; he asked the big questions: What is reality, really? How is it that appearances appear? How are what-is and what-seems-to-be related? First, a short prologue; then Aletheia (Truth); finally, Doxa (Appearances). The prologue sets the poem in a narrative context and makes it clear (to me if not to all) that no account of the World as it is can be complete without its complementary aspects ( Aletheia and Doxa ). Aletheia models the noumenal world, Doxa the phenomenal. For Parmenides, the goddess served as the bridge between these two worlds. But what of us? What bridge can we find consistent our ‘post-Classical’ mythology? There are roughly 20 intact fragments of On Nature , each independently preserved by ‘a trusted source’, such as Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, Cicero, Simplicius, Clement, and Eusebius – just to drop a few names. But beware, Parmenides’ editors (above) are only too happy to tell us what Parmenides obviously intended . However, in their zeal to correct Parmenides’ so-called oversights, these philosophers have left a trail of breath taking ideas that constitute what we study today whenever we study Western Philosophy. 20th century philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead, wrote that Western philosophy is a series of footnotes on Plato. Whitehead was half right. Western philosophy can be read as footnotes on Plato but only if Plato is read as footnotes on Parmenides. No doubt, Socrates’ disciple is Parmenides’ best known editor and commentator; but he was far from the first…or the last…or the best. In fact, Plato’s grasp of pre-Socratic philosophy was ‘incomplete’. (I could say more…but I don’t wish to appear impolite.) Three philosophers of the late 5th century BCE should be credited with continuing Parmenides’ work; they are Anaxagoras, Empedocles, and Zeno. All three preserved the spirit of Parmenides in their work. I’m not sure he would have endorsed all their formulations, but I think he would have recognized them as elaborations of his own thought. Speaking of which, in Fragment #1 , the goddess tells our pilgrim, “It is right that you should learn all things, both the steadfast heart of persuasive truth and the beliefs of mortals…how things that seem had to have genuine existence, permeating all things completely.” Interpretations that deemphasize sense data ignore this verse! For this ‘persuasive truth’ we turn to Fragment #8 : “…What-is is ungenerated and imperishable, whole…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. Nor is it divisible since it is all alike.” But regarding ‘the beliefs of mortals’, Fragment #8 continues: “To come to be and to perish, to be and not to be, to change place (motion), and to exchange bright color.” This is the realm of Doxa . If order is your thing, you’d have loved the Big Bang. That is the moment when order in the Universe was at its maximum. Not so surprising when you consider that all energy was concentrated at a singularity, i.e. a dimensionless point, or perhaps in a Planck-sized space. Entropy (S) is how we measure disorder. S was at its cosmic minimum at Big Bang and it will be at its cosmic maximum at Heat Death. Knowing this, you might be less surprised when I share my view that European philosophy reached its pinnacle in the 5th century BCE… before Socrates, Plato or Aristotle. Each of the major pre-Socratics contributed a unique perspective to the burgeoning science of cosmology. Heraclitus, for example, is known for Panta Re (“everything flows”). Anaxagoras is known especially for his trademarked meme, Pan in Panti . Anaxagoras’ universe begins as the undifferentiated entirety – ‘pure energy’ according to the Big Bang model. Nous (mind/soul) injects a quantum of rotation (spin?) which propagates throughout the whole. This circularity could be understood as the first flicker of recursion, the basis and precursor of consciousness. Gradually, this rotation triggers opposing waves of centrifugal and centripetal force. The undifferentiated mass begins to separate, like attracts like, and sub-regions emerge, each with its own signature mix of elements: “…signatures of all things I am here to read.” (Joyce) Eventually, these sub-regions will become what we know as ‘events’, i.e. actual entities. Anaxagoras’ genesis is different from that of other philosophers. Each actual entity retains a trace of every element. Entities are distinguished, not by their elements, which are the same in every case, but by the signature variations in the concentration of those elements in each entity. If Parmenides was the apostle of stability and Heraclitus the prophet of change, Anaxagoras was the oracle of solidarity. He understood that a stronger bond among entities was needed to preserve the integrity of Universe. When it comes to Universe, the problem is not so much explaining its diversity as it is accounting for its ultimate unity. Anaxagoras achieves the requisite solidarity in two ways. First, as noted above, everything interpenetrates and shares elements with everything else. In fact, each entity contains the ‘seeds’ of all other entities. Theoretically, if the entire biosphere were reduced to a single organism (cell), genesis could resume with barely a pause for a breath of methane rich air. This model is remarkably close to the modern science of genetics. The RNA/DNA molecule may have synthesized only once on Planet Earth. It is likely that every cell contains genetic material descended from that original DNA molecule. But DNA is as inefficient as it is powerful. Likely, it is so powerful because it is so inefficient! The genome of a common fern is 50 times longer than the human genome…and you are no fern! On the other hand, some bacterial genomes are 5,000 times shorter than human DNA. Size doesn’t matter! Less than 2% of our genes code for proteins (the primary function of DNA) and less than 20% of those proteins are ‘expressed’ in any one cell. We are a warehouse of redundancies and superfluities. The inefficiency of genetics is precisely its genius. Another triumph for ‘distributed intelligence’ over Lenin’s ‘central planning’. However, unused genetic material is not useless; it can be accessed at a later date if environmental changes favor a different combination of phenomenal traits. Tens of thousands of years of evolution can be bypassed by visiting ‘the stacks’ in the vast and ancient ‘library’ of your DNA . As climate change gets real, we may be glad of our inefficient genome. Second, Anaxagoras’ universe is scale agnostic. Patterns repeat up and down the ladder, from the infinitesimal to the infinite. We are mesmerized by scale. The vastness of it! There are c. 60 orders of magnitude from Planck scale to Cosmic. But Anaxagoras shows that scale is a comparative phenomenon only. It has no denotative meaning. From a global perspective it just endlessly repeats, and it is impossible to distinguish any one stage from any other. Scale is a relative measure, not an absolute one. Ultimately, scale is an ingenious technique cooked up by cosmogenesis to maximize the number of patterns (information) that can intersect with each point in ontological space. So Anaxagoras could be known as ‘Father Fractal’. In an Anaxagorean universe every macro pattern is made up of congruent micro patterns. Each macro pattern is in turn a micro pattern in an even larger macro. And, of course, every micro pattern is a macro with respect to other micros. Pan in Panti. Every entity includes the ‘seeds’ of every other entity and is in turn included as a ‘seed’ in each of those other entities. As with our DNA model, the entire entity is encoded in the seed. Every entity is a pattern which reflects the patterns of the micro entities that constitute it and which is reflected in the macro entities it constitutes. This odd cosmic topology is not found only in Anaxagoras. Are you familiar with the New Testament? Part of the genius of early Christianity is the doctrine of Incarnation – the idea that God, Being per se , origin and locus of Universe, is incarnate as a quantum being (Jesus) in that Universe. That’s solidarity! Pan in Panti . But neither is this topology limited to the Incarnation per se . Every day, it is repeated in the celebration of Eucharist. Jesus, human and divine, body and soul, under the appearance of bread and wine, is consumed by the communicant who is immediately ‘uploaded’ into Jesus’ mystical body. Pan in Panti . In Romans (8: 26), Paul tells us that when we pray to God, the Holy Spirit (God) searches our hearts and intercedes with God on our behalf via ‘inexpressible groanings’. In First Corinthians (15: 24-29), he tells us that all creation flows up to Christ who hands it on to the Father ‘so that God may be all in all’. Pan in Panti . In the so-called Age of Reason, Leibniz resurrected Anaxagoras for his Monadology . Briefly, Leibniz’ universe consists of monads each one reflecting all others: Pan in Panti . In the 20th century, Alfred North Whitehead created what may be the last great philosophical system of our era. Process and Reality is full of ideas that would have felt at home in 5th century BCE Greece, for example: The universe consists solely of one class of ‘things’, i.e. ‘actual entities’ ( aka events). Each actual entity configures the common Multiplicity of past events into its own unique Actual World. Each actual entity executes judgment on that actual world (‘the gods of Egypt’ - Exodus 12: 12) as it ‘prehends’ all other actual entities (or to use Whitehead’s terminology, ‘as it feels them’) and acts to bring the elements closer to the ideal pattern. In Whitehead’s model, every ‘trajectory’ connects God’s Primordial Nature (conceptual values) with God’s Consequent Nature (concrete entity). As with his contemporary, Robert Frost , Whitehead’s ‘roads diverge’…but end up at the same destination. Whitehead’s model sets up a kind of universal reflexivity. Every event is ‘in God’ and God is in every event; therefore, every event is in every event. Every event is even an element of itself. How’s that for recursion? All of which ultimately leads us to Bell’s Theorem (1964) and the phenomenon of quantum entanglement: Pan in Panti . With so many dimensions of interpenetration how is it that the solidarity of Universe does not result in paralysis? For that answer, we needed to wait for Jacques Derrida near the end of the 20th century. Every event includes itself as an element. A’ є A. But A’ is not strictly speaking equal to A. A and A’ are separated by what Derrida called differance , an infinitesimal difference. Differance is the origin of process and consciousness, Proust’s uneven cobblestones. Every event consists of the same members, uniquely configured. The cosmos, then, is God’s Kaleidoscope . A limited number of elements generate innumerable unique patterns…and we have the pre-Socratics to thank for this insight. This essay is an updated version of its original iteration, published on June 1, 2023, as shown below. What doesn’t belong and why? Philosophy, Science, Literature, Social Studies? Philosophy, of course. In the other disciplines, new information and new interpretive schema are constantly emerging, endlessly enriching their subject matter. Not so, philosophy! In fact, here the reverse is true. Arguably, philosophy’s greatest achievements lie in its most distant past. Parmenides of Elea is generally regarded as the Father of Western Philosophy. Of course, he had precursors (e.g. Thales, Pythagoras, Anaximander), but our knowledge of their teachings is sketchy at best. From what we do know, it seems as though these OGs were narrower in their focus than Parmenides – somewhat like philosophers today. Indisputably, Parmenides was the dominant intellectual influence in the 5th century BCE, the golden age of Greece. He did not win that honor by default. He lived in ‘interesting times’, sharing the intellectual stage with political leaders, Leonides and Pericles, playwrights, Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides, and Aristophanes, and fellow philosophers, Xenophanes, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, Empedocles and Zeno. We can say this much for sure: the oldest substantially in tact work of systematic philosophy in the Western World is Parmenides’ ontological poem, On Nature . Happily, the Father of Western Philosophy did not pussy foot around; he asked the big questions: What is reality, really? How is it that appearances appear? How are what-is and what-seems-to-be related? Can you honestly say that we’ve moved beyond these issues 2500 years later? Parmenides divided his poem into three sections: First, a short prologue; then Aletheia (Truth); finally, Doxa (Appearances). The prologue sets the poem in a narrative context and makes it clear (to me if not to all) that no account of the World can be complete without accounting for its dual aspects of Aletheia and Doxa . Aletheia models the world as noumenal, Doxa as phenomenal; and regarding the relationship between the two…silence, uncomfortable, enigmatic silence. Western philosophy is the history of our effort to understand that silence, or to break it. First, there are those who deny the silence: “Parmenides must have spelled out his ideas; we’ve just lost that portion of the manuscript.” Then, there are those who have graciously offered to ‘correct’ Parmenides’ oversight. i.e. to fill in the blanks . Present company excepted, few have been willing to take Parmenides’ silence at face value in an effort to understand it. There are roughly 20 intact fragments of On Nature , each independently preserved by ‘a trusted source’, such as Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, Cicero, Simplicius, Clement, and Eusebius – just to drop a few names. From these fragments, it is possible to reconstruct a coherent text. It is ludicrous to assume that Parmenides’ curators somehow failed to retain the one fragment of text that would have explained the entire work and unlocked its hidden meaning. So we can turn our attention to Parmenides’ editors – well-meaning folk who have volunteered to add what Parmenides obviously meant to say to what he actually did say. Thanks…but no thanks! However, in their zeal to correct Parmenides’ oversights, these philosophers left a trail of breath taking ideas that constitute what we study when we study Western Philosophy. 20th century philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead, wrote that Western philosophy is a series of footnotes on Plato. Whitehead was half right. Western philosophy can be read as footnotes on Plato but only if Plato is read as footnotes on Parmenides. No doubt, Socrates’ disciple is Parmenides’ best known editor and commentator; but he was far from the first… and not the best. In fact, Plato’s grasp of pre-Socratic philosophy was ‘incomplete’…at best. (I could say more…but I don’t wish to appear impolite.) Three 5th century philosophers should primarily be credited with continuing Parmenides’ great project: Anaxagoras, Empedocles, and Zeno. All three played at ‘fill-in-the-blanks’ but in their defense, what else is a neo to do? On the plus side, their emendations preserved the spirit of Parmenides’ work. I’m not sure that he would have endorsed all their formulations. but I think he would have recognized them as extensions of his own thought. Speaking of which, in Fragment #1 , the goddess tells our pilgrim, “It is right that you should learn all things, both the steadfast heart of persuasive truth and the beliefs of mortals…how things that seem had to have genuine existence, permeating all things completely.” Interpretations that denigrate sense data ignore this verse! For this ‘persuasive truth’ we turn to Fragment #8 : “…What-is is ungenerated and imperishable, whole…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. Nor is it divisible since it is all alike.” But regarding ‘the beliefs of mortals’, Fragment #8 continues: “To come to be and to perish, to be and not to be, to change place (motion), and to exchange bright color.” This is the realm of Doxa . If order is your thing, you’d have loved the Big Bang. That is the moment when order in the Universe was at its maximum. Not so surprising when you consider that all energy was concentrated at a singularity, i.e. a dimensionless point, or perhaps in a Planck-sized space. Entropy (S) is how we measure disorder. S was at its cosmic minimum at Big Bang and it will be at its cosmic maximum at Heat Death. Knowing this, you might be less surprised when I share my view that European philosophy reached its pinnacle in the 5th century BCE… before Socrates, Plato or Aristotle. Someone sharing my view of Intellectual History might think that Hebrew theology peaked with Torah and Christian theology with the writings of John and Paul. It is certainly possible to understand the balance of the Old Testament as ‘commentary on Torah ’ and all of Christian theology as ‘commentary on the Old Testament’. So, why not treat the corpus of Western philosophy as commentary on the pre-Socratics? Each of the major pre-Socratics contributed a unique perspective to the burgeoning science of cosmology. Heraclitus, for example, is known for Panta Re (“everything flows”). Anaxagoras is known especially for his trademarked meme, Pan in Panti (‘everything in everything’). Anaxagoras’ universe begins as the undifferentiated entirety – ‘pure energy’ according to the Big Bang model. Nous (mind/soul) injects a quantum of rotation (spin?) which propagates throughout the whole. This circularity could be understood as the first flicker of recursion, the basis and precursor of consciousness. Gradually, this rotation triggers a wave of centrifugal force. The undifferentiated mass begins to separate, like attracts like, and sub-regions emerge, each with its own signature mix of properties: “…signatures of all things I am here to read.” (Joyce) Eventually, these sub-regions will become what we know as ‘events’, i.e. actual entities. Anaxagoras’ genesis is different from that of other philosophers. Each actual entity retains a trace of every element. Entities are distinguished, not by their elements, which are the same in every case, but by the signature variations in the concentration of those elements in each entity. If Parmenides was the apostle of stability and Heraclitus the prophet of change, Anaxagoras was the oracle of solidarity. He understood that a stronger bond among entities was needed to preserve the integrity of a universe in flux. When it comes to universe, the problem is not so much explaining its diversity as it is accounting for its ultimate unity. Anaxagoras achieves the requisite solidarity in two ways. First, as noted above, everything interpenetrates and shares elements with everything else. In fact, every entity contains the ‘seeds’ of all other entities. Theoretically, if the entire universe were reduced to a single organism (cell), genesis could resume with barely a pause for a breath of methane rich air. This model is remarkably close to the modern science of genetics. The RNA/DNA molecule may have synthesized only once on Planet Earth. It is likely that every cell contains genetic material descended from that original DNA molecule. But DNA is as inefficient as it is powerful. Likely, it is so powerful because it is so inefficient! The genome of a common fern is 50 times longer than the human genome…and you are no fern! On the other hand, some bacterial genomes are 5,000 times shorter than human DNA. But size does not matter! Less than 2% of our genes code for proteins (the primary function of DNA) and less than 20% are ‘expressed’ in any one cell. However, unused genetic material is not useless; it can be accessed at a later date if environmental changes favor a different combination of phenomenal traits. Tens of thousands of years of evolution can be bypassed by visiting ‘the stacks’ in the vast and ancient ‘library’ called your DNA . As climate change gets real, we may be glad for our airconditioned library. Second, Anaxagoras’ universe is scale agnostic. Patterns repeat up and down the ladder, from the infinitesimal to the infinite. We are mesmerized by scale. The vastness of it! There are c. 60 orders of magnitude from Planck scale to Cosmos . But Anaxagoras shows that scale is a local phenomenon only. From a global perspective it just endlessly repeats, and it is impossible to distinguish any one stage from any other. Scale is a relative measure, not an absolute one. So Anaxagoras could be known as ‘Father Fractal’. In an Anaxagorean universe every macro pattern is made up of congruent micro patterns. Each macro pattern is in turn a micro pattern in an even larger macro. And, of course, every micro pattern is a macro with respect to other micros. Pan in Panti. Every entity includes the ‘seeds’ of every other entity and is in turn included as a ‘seed’ in each of those other entities. As with our DNA model, the entire entity is encoded in the seed. Every entity is a pattern which reflects the patterns of the micro entities that constitute it and is reflected in the pattern of the macro entities it constitutes. This odd cosmic topology is not found only in Anaxagoras. Are you familiar with the New Testament? Part of the genius of early Christianity is the doctrine of Incarnation – the idea that God, Being per se , origin and locus of Universe, is incarnate as a quantum being (Jesus Christ) in that Universe. That’s solidarity! Pan in Panti . But neither is this topology limited to the Incarnation per se . Every day, it is repeated in the celebration of Eucharist. Jesus, human and divine, body and soul, under the appearance of bread and wine, is consumed by the communicant who is immediately ‘uploaded’ into Jesus’ mystical body. Pan in Panti . In Romans (8: 26), Paul tells us that when we pray (to God), the Holy Spirit (as God) searches our hearts and intercedes (with God) on our behalf ‘with inexpressible groanings’. In First Corinthians (15: 24-29), he tells us that all creation flows up to Christ who hands it on to the Father ‘so that God may be all in all’. Pan in Panti . In the so-called Age of Reason, Leibniz resurrected Anaxagoras for his Monadology . Briefly, Leibniz’ universe consists of monads each one reflecting all others: Pan in Panti . Finally, in the 20th century, Alfred North Whitehead created what may be the last great philosophical system of our era. Process and Reality is full of ideas that would have felt at home in 5th century BCE Greece, for example: The universe consists solely of one class of ‘things’, i.e. ‘actual entities’ ( aka events). Each actual entity configures the common Multiplicity of past events into its own unique Actual World. Each actual entity executes judgment on that actual world (‘the gods of Egypt’ - Exodus 12: 12) as it ‘prehends’ all other actual entities (or to use Whitehead’s terminology, ‘as it feels them’) and acts to bring the elements closer to the ideal pattern. In Whitehead’s model, every ‘trajectory’ connects God’s Primordial Nature (conceptual values) with God’s Consequent Nature (concrete entity). As with his contemporary, Robert Frost , Whitehead’s ‘roads diverge’…but end up at the same destination. Whitehead’s model sets up a kind of universal reflexivity. Every event is ‘in God’ and God is in every event; therefore, every event is in every event. Every event is even an element of itself. How’s that for recursion? With this topology, how is it the Universe does not just seize-up at birth? For that answer, we needed to wait for Jacques Derrida in the latter half of the 20th century. Every event includes itself as an element. A’ є A. But A’ is not strictly speaking equal to A. A and A’ are separated by what Derrida called differance , an infinitesimal difference. Differance is the origin of process and consciousness, Proust’s uneven cobblestones. Every event consists of the same members, uniquely configured. The cosmos, then, is God’s Kaleidoscope . A limited number of elements generate innumerable unique patterns…and we have a pre-Socratic to thank for this insight. 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 ress, Literary Journal Spring 2023. Return to Harvest 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. 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In the Harvest Issue, Aletheia Today brings together philosophy, theology, and cultural reflections to explore the deeper meaning of the harvest season. This issue features scriptural studies on sowing and reaping, theological discussions on the cycles of life and spiritual growth, and philosophical essays that question how the concept of harvest shapes our understanding of purpose and fulfillment. Readers will also find cultural perspectives on how communities worldwide celebrate the seasons. Inside Harvest 2024 Philosophy Anaxagoras “We are part of this universe; we are in this universe, but perhaps more important…the universe is in us.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson The Secret Life of Things “The secret life of things is nothing less than the life of God.” Zeno's New Paradox “Achilles is still sulking, humiliated by a…tortoise; but at least we have a universe and…we can be assured that its ultimate trajectory is toward Good.” The Probability of Nothing “Divinity is a language unto itself, or as a five-year-old grandchild once explained to me, ‘God is outside the numbers’.” Theology World Without God Amen “God is dead, and we have killed him…who will wipe this blood from us?” (Nietzsche) How Matthew Spins Mark “The same facts can take on different ‘meaning’ depending on how they’re presented. Culture & The Arts Robert Frost Was Wrong “Waiter, bring me one order of everything on the menu and when I’ve finished, I’ll pay for whatever dish I liked best.” The Seven Pillars of Wisdom “Kabbalah kept the pre-Socratic tradition alive until it could be born anew in the Age of Aquarius.” Spirituality The Sacred Pause of Autumn "In our spiritual rest, we draw near to God and bask in His presence in prayer, our Bibles, and His beautiful creation." Why We Must Pray "It is our prayers that will, God willing, save the world and our souls because God will know us." Readers React What's the buzz about? Our readers' reactions to Aletheia Today... Additional Reading Can't get enough of Aletheia Today's content? Check out the books that inspire our magazine.

< Back 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 Does Spacetime Have Memory? David Cowles Jan 9, 2026 “What if the universe is a copy of itself? Redundancy built-in, perfected…spacetime saves now save spacetime.” “The map is not the territory.” How often have you heard that old saw? We pay lip service to the meme…but then we go right ahead and ignore it. Take memory, for example: A family member once told me that the ‘meaning of life’ is making memories . He confuses the memory with the experience and perhaps the experience with the event: the map with the territory. Memory, as we typically use the word, refers to certain neuronal patterns in the brain that encode certain experiences (sensory, emotional, kinetic). Unless my family member holds a traditional Christian view of life after death (he doesn’t), his metaphysics makes no sense, IMHO. First of all, memories are just code that refers us to another place and time. The picture is woefully incomplete, often lacking in detail, and sometimes just plain wrong. Furthermore, at best ‘making memories’ works “in the living years” but if memories are stored in neurons, it doesn’t work for the long haul. Quite simply, memory likely vanishes upon the death of the organism. Unless Florian Neukart, the Chief Product Officer at Terra Quantum AG, and a Professor of Quantum Computing at Leiden University, is right! In an article dated June 16, 2025, Dr. Neukart proposed that spacetime itself has memory. Dr. Neukart: “To understand my idea, you first need to know that I assume from the start that space-time isn’t a smooth, continuous fabric…but is instead made of extremely small, discrete cells, like an invisible grid at the deepest level of reality.” This is a version of the ‘foam model’ of spacetime suggested by Planck. “This isn’t an entirely new idea in itself…but I build on this by describing how each of these space-time cells can act like a memory unit…The key is to realize that modern physics describes all particles and forces as excitations in quantum fields – mathematical structures that span space and time… “There is also a more emergent kind of quantum information at play that describes the relationship of each cell to the others – this isn’t held in any one cell, but in the sprawling network of relationships between them… “This is where we return to black holes… Even when a black hole finally evaporates, its imprint on the space that surrounded it remains. Information doesn’t vanish after all – it’s just been stored somewhere we hadn’t thought to look… This mechanism allows space-time to store the information that falls into a black hole … “My collaborators and I began to refer to this idea as the quantum memory matrix (QMM) framework… If space-time truly has a memory-like structure, then it should be able to store information from any of the four fundamental forces of nature… “We aren’t postulating new hypothetical particles or unseen dimensions, we are simply taking what we already know about quantum information and packaging it in a new structure…” Of course, physicists are rightly skeptical of theories that cannot be tested. At first glance, QMM would seem to fall into that category. But not so fast… “Such a test can at least be simulated in an existing quantum computer… We began by taking a qubit, the quantum equivalent of a computer bit, in a known starting state and letting it evolve over time. This evolution was designed to simulate the way a cell of space-time would be imprinted with information as quantum fields wash over it. The question was: could our imprint operator accurately describe the qubit’s evolution? “To test this, we measured the state of the qubit after it had evolved and then applied a reverse version of the imprint operator to see if this would describe the original state. We found that it did indeed do so , with an accuracy of about 90 per cent. “This wasn’t just a theoretical toy model. The imprint and retrieval protocols were grounded in QMM’s mathematical structure and translated directly into executable quantum circuits, validating the idea that memory-like behavior is physically modellable… “The curvature of space-time in general relativity is influenced by mass and energy. In our framework, there is an extra ingredient that should also contribute to that curvature: the weight of information woven into space-time… “Astronomers already know that the gravity of many galaxies seems to be stronger than would be expected based on their mass and rate of rotation alone. Lacking an explanation, they have invented a substance called dark matter to account for the difference. “However, no one knows what it might be. But perhaps my collaborators and I have stumbled upon the answer: could dark matter be information, stored across space-time in a way that generates gravitational pull?” Dark matter is the 21st century version of the 19th century’s aether – everyone assumes it exists but nobody knows what it is or how to find it. If the phenomena currently attributed to dark matter can be explained more simply via information theory, it would be a big step forward for Cosmology. But the implications of QMM go far beyond ‘the matter of dark matter’. What if the universe is a copy of itself? Redundancy built-in, perfected. An heir and a spare. What if everything that has ever happened is preserved ‘forever’ intact in the structure of spacetime? O Death, where is your dreadful countenance now? Obviously, there is work to be done here. But superficially, QMM seems to be compatible with the idea that the universe is a hologram or that its underlying structure is fractal . It also conforms to the Gaia hypothesis, i.e. that the cosmos itself must be regarded as a whole (perhaps even as an organism) exceeding the mere sum of its component parts. Of course, in a sense QMM just kicks the can down the road. It’s a very long road…but still, it leads to Rome . We have ‘saved’ individual events by encoding them in spacetime, but we haven’t saved spacetime (Rome) itself. According to most current cosmologies, spacetime had a beginning (everywhen) and it will have an end (everywhere). And what happens to our cherished ‘memories’ then? Of course a number of general ideas, ranging from the purely physical to the richly theological, immediately come to mind. Incredibly, after realizing how ingeniously spacetime is engineered, I have confidence that we’ll find a context in which immortality (memory encoded in spacetime) becomes eternity (spacetime saved). Maybe it’s time for a new bumper sticker: Spacetime Saves now Save Spacetime! *** Wassily Kandinsky — Several Circles (1926) presents a dark, cosmic field punctuated by floating circles of varying size and color, evoking planets suspended in space. Kandinsky uses pure geometry and color relationships to suggest harmony, tension, and movement without reference to the physical world. The painting reflects his belief that abstract forms could express spiritual creation and the underlying order of the universe. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! 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“Satan glorified political power for its own sake. He defended the socio-economic status quo…Jesus’ mother proclaimed a political and economic revolution...” < Back Satan, Mary, and ‘Da Judge’ David Cowles Oct 15, 2023 “Satan glorified political power for its own sake. He defended the socio-economic status quo…Jesus’ mother proclaimed a political and economic revolution...” There’s nothing like a good old-fashioned barroom – you know…that place ‘where everybody knows your name’. Sadly, this Anglo-American institution is in decline on both sides of the Atlantic. We love to complain about socio-economic inequality and yet we are quietly witnessing the demise of a great leveler. The bar is where landlords and tenants, shop owners and wage earners, lawyers and tradesmen, bankers and borrowers have traditionally sat side by side, enjoying ‘a pint of the best’, and sharing their perspectives on the sorry state of the world. I love a good bar; you never know who you’ll meet and, if you shut up for a second, you can eavesdrop on the most interesting conversations. In my younger days, I frequented a bar where the ‘regulars’ included the owner of a rival bar, a pre-school teacher (and Stalin scholar), a florist, a contractor, a biology professor, a municipal employee, and an attorney. My best story, however, concerns a lazy summer afternoon with me sitting alone on my usual perch in my then favorite watering hole. Unexpectedly, two men and one woman walked in, already deeply engaged in animated conversation; they sat down right next to me. I had been going to this same bar for years, and as far as I know, none of the three had ever been there before. But of course, I recognized them immediately! Have you even been in a public space when suddenly and unexpectedly you encounter somebody famous? How do you react? Do you tell them how much you appreciate their ‘work’? Do you ask for their autograph? Or do you totally ignore them? I have adopted an intermediate strategy. I nod knowingly in their direction (sometimes they nod back) and I leave it at that. But not this time! On this occasion, I sat frozen on my stool, eyes forward, watching my bar mates only out of the corner of one eye and then only as reflected in the huge mirror that hung over the bar’s display of bottled spirits. And speaking of spirits, my drinking companions that day were none other than Mary, the virgin Mother of God, Lucifer (aka Satan), and ‘Judge Gudy’ (Gideon). In my experience, the only subjects worth talking about in a bar are religion and politics and this afternoon’s guests had apparently settled on politics as their topic du jour . Satan boasted proudly of his accomplishments in the field of politics. He reminded Mary that he had offered her son, Jesus, “all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence.” (Matthew 4: 8 - 9) Of course, Mary reminded Satan that Jesus had turned him down flat, but she did not challenge his boastful claim that he could in fact deliver ‘all the kingdoms of the world’. Clearly, this is political power way beyond anything Boss Tweed or Mayor Daley could have imagined. Then Mary lectured Satan on the terms of God’s own political praxis: “He has thrown down rulers from their thrones but lifted-up the lowly. The hungry he has filled with good things; the rich he has sent away empty.“ (Luke 1: 52 – 53) Clearly, we were in for a good old-fashioned 19 th century donnybrook. Satan glorified political power for its own sake. He defended the socio-economic status quo. His platform did not include even a single mention of ‘justice’; but he confidently asserted the corrupt malleability of ‘all the kingdoms’ (not some, not most… all ). Nor did Jesus contest Satan’s ability to deliver absolute political power. It was taken for granted. On the other hand, Jesus’ mother proclaimed a political and economic revolution the scope of which would have made Marx and Lenin cringe. The argument might have gone well into the evening, “Who’s driving?” I thought, had ‘Judge Gudy’ not intervened, “May I tell my story?” “3 millennia ago, give or take, I was threshing wheat in a winepress to hide the grain from the Midianites who were occupying our land. Suddenly, almost as if I’d been confronted by an angel, I thought, ‘You’re a brave man, and the Lord is with you’. I thought, If not me, who? If not now, when? If it’s going to be it’s up to me! “But of course, bravado gave way to skepticism and caution. “If the Lord is really with us, why has all this happened to us? Did I really receive a message from God or was I just daydreaming…again?” I prayed, “Give me a sign!” And I got one. “So that night, I engaged in my first act of revolutionary violence. I overturned the altar of Baal, tore down its ridiculous ‘pole’... a symbol of status quo and social hierarchy. Instead, I built on that same site an altar dedicated to YHWH and, using the wood from the pole, I sacrificed a whole bull. I even gave the altar a name, ‘Jehovah Shalom’, which means, ‘God is wholeness’. “Of course, I got caught, but I was the beneficiary of a ‘woke’ wave of ‘selective prosecutions’ and let go. I realize now that the destruction of Baal was just an initiation ritual; God was testing me to see if I was ready for bigger things. For better or worse, I passed the test. “Great for God, not so great for me! The cops (and my dad) had put the fear of Baal in me; I didn’t relish another bout with the law. But also, I didn’t want to turn down God, so I asked for another sign. And then another. No way out now! “So, I raised an army of 32,000 to take on 135,000 occupying soldiers. Farmers and craftsmen against Midian’s professional military. God or not, I couldn’t face the prospect of inflicting such carnage on my own people. So I decided to send 31,700 soldiers back home to their families. I would fight Midian…but with just 300 of my best . “I blush when people call me ‘the Father of Guerilla Warfare’. I was no military genius; I was just scared. I was willing to serve God, even if it meant martyrdom, but I was unwilling to sacrifice any more lives than absolutely necessary in the process. Besides, what was I going to do with 30,000 untrained soldiers? Better to rely on my best and brightest . And so, ya da, ya da, ya da … we won. With the help of God, and a lot of good luck, we drove Midian across the Jordan and out of Israel. "My only thought then was to get home to my father and my pastoral life. Surely my dad will let me drink wine now that I’ve defeated Midian in battle, or maybe not! Anyway, no more fighting for me. But my neighbors had other ideas. They insisted on making me King. "No way! As the leader of a victorious army, I was in a position to lay down the law… and this time I didn’t need to wait for a sign: 'I will not rule over you nor shall my son; the Lord will rule over you.” And so it was that “for 40 years the land was at peace...'” Silence followed. Slowly, Mary and Satan paid their tabs and Mary picked up the bill for Gideon. Satan left quietly followed a few minutes later by Mary. It seemed as though Gideon might hang out a while but, tab paid, he too left the bar. At that moment it occurred to me that the intellectual history of the 19 th and 20 th centuries had just played out in front of me. Satan advocated for secular pragmatism, democratic capitalism, the new world order. Mary argued for the overthrow of the existing socio-economic order to be replaced by a benign version of Marx’s Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Gideon argued for nothing. He lived his ideology, a fine blend of devotion to God, compassion for his fellows, and dedication to purpose. He had no desire for political power; he was content to let God rule Israel directly, without interference from permanent political institutions. He demonstrated the spirit of what today we call Anarchism . David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Return to our Harvest Issue 2023 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. 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< Back Is 70 the New 14? David Cowles Feb 7, 2023 “For 70 years you’ve practiced the ways of others; you have been a loyal member of team Homo, but now it’s back to reality, to yourself alone.” At age 14, your whole world view abruptly changes. (Ok, for you it might be 13 or 15.) Anatomically, you’re now an adult; sociologically, you’re still treated very much as a child. For the first time, the world that seemed so comfortable and safe seems, well, absurd . This is the time when you question everything…and rightly so. Is there really a God? Who made your Neanderthal parents the boss of you? Why do I have to study all this stuff I’ll never use? And then, of course, the cherry on top: are all these ‘people’ around me really real? Are they just like me? Or are they Zombies? Aliens? Robots? Lizards? Figments of my imagination? Computer simulations? Could I be all alone in my own universe? Am I in a Truman Show sequel? Sound familiar? Usually, this crisis of faith does not last long. A year tops, more likely a few months, possibly just a long weekend. Then life sucks you back in! Some crisis, some temptation, some opportunity and suddenly the world is real again and all your ‘nonsense’ is forgotten (or at least filed under “U” for useless). The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge tells a story of himself at 12 or 13, proudly declaring that he no longer believed in God and earning himself the cane in the process. According to Coleridge, he never questioned the existence of God again. He’d been sucked back in, and he didn’t even get a long weekend out of it. Like Coleridge, we all get sucked back in, possibly minus the cane, and we stay that way until we hit age 70! (Ok, for you it might be as early as 68 or as late as 72.) Of course, if your college studies had you reading the existentialists or attending plays by Beckett, you might have suffered a brief relapse in your early 20s, but for the rest of us, after 14 it’s “70 or Bust!” The ‘loneliness of the long-distance swimmer’ – you pick your head up once at 14 to get your bearings, and you needn’t do so again until it’s time to look for land at age 70: is there really a God? Who made my Cherubic children the boss of me? And then, are all these ‘people’ around me really real? Are they just like me? Or are they Zombies? Aliens? Robots? Lizards? Figments of my imagination? Computer simulations? Could I be all alone in my own universe? Nihilism, skepticism, solipsism – the three-headed Cerberus propping open the gates of Hell, welcoming the weary traveler: “There is nothing, I know nothing, there is no one.” But what if there is something, I know something, and there are others? But what if every such ‘other’ is ontologically distinct from me? Come again! Ok… totemism is, among other things, the belief that we can meaningfully map individuals or small groups of individuals onto other species. The Clan of the Cave Bear becomes the Chicago Bears . Not Smokey - the Chicago Bear, but the Chicago Bears! An entire species has been mapped onto a 50-person roster. Totemism at its core is the belief that I am no more like you than bears are like lions (Detroit Lions). Beyond the sports analogy, we laugh at Totemism…but we follow its practices every day of our lives. Our company names, Apple, our logos, Meta, even our national symbols, the Eagle, are all expressions of Totemism. So, let’s flip the matter on its head: what if Totemism is right after all? What if other people are not just other members of Homo sapiens – what if each one is ontologically unique? Crazy, right? Or is it? God says, “My ways are not your ways.” What if that’s not only true for God but for each of us as well? For 70 years you’ve practiced the ways of others; you’ve been a loyal member of team Homo, and you’ve used that membership to accumulate assets, acculturate progeny, and leave a legacy. But now it’s back to reality, to yourself alone. It’s time again to heed the caterpillar’s question (“Who R U?”); now, for the first time since birth, it’s, once again, safe to ask the question: who are all these people around me? For almost all of my 70 years, I’ve assumed that everyone I meet is just like me. They are my neighbors, and it is a core tenet of Judeo-Christian culture that I am to love these neighbors as myself. Well and good. Of course, we should treat others with charity and respect…but we could apply the same standard to a pet dog or a loyal ox. What if my so-called ‘neighbor’ is no more like me than the robin on my windowsill? We are entertaining a corollary of Hugh Everett’s Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics. Not only does the universe bifurcate with each ‘event’ but our species bifurcates at every birth. To me, the world appears more and more as ‘me and you’, not as ‘I and thou’, and perhaps you’re having the exact same experience. To me, you are a member of the genus other . To me, that genus is homogeneous: ‘you’re just like all the others!’ Except you’re not! From your perspective, I am in the genus other , and it is you who is unique. Following that logic, of course, every one of us is unique, everyone a universe unto herself. Hmm, something to think about… Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

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

< Back 03/15/2022 For 25 years, give or take, you learn to live. My mother called it ‘learning to be people’. “David,” she would say, “You’re just not people!” And she was right; I wasn’t. Then, after 25 years of learning to live, of learning to be ‘people’, you finally are ‘people’. Now at last, you can begin to live…other people’s lives. You’ve learned to be ‘people’, but the people you have learned to be are ‘other people’. So congratulations, you just spent 25 years of your life learning how to be someone you’re not…and be really good at it! That’s what we call ‘culture’: learning to be ‘people’, other people, and learning to live other people’s lives. If the purpose of acculturation is to limit behavioral variety across a species, I’d say ours is working very nicely, thank you. More later… -David For 25 years, give or take, you learn to live. My mother called it ‘learning to be people’. “David,” she would say, “You’re just not people!” And she was right; I wasn’t. Then, after 25 years of learning to live, of learning to be ‘people’, you finally are ‘people’. Now at last, you can begin to live…other people’s lives. You’ve learned to be ‘people’, but the people you have learned to be are ‘other people’. So congratulations, you just spent 25 years of your life learning how to be someone you’re not…and be really good at it! That’s what we call ‘culture’: learning to be ‘people’, other people, and learning to live other people’s lives. If the purpose of acculturation is to limit behavioral variety across a species, I’d say ours is working very nicely, thank you. More later… -David Previous Next