< Back Ovid & Identity David Cowles Feb 14, 2026 “The self is the absence of all forms, the negation of ‘form’ per se. Alternatively, self is what all forms have in common.” When Jesus of Nazareth was still a boy, the Roman poet Ovid was putting the finishing touches on his “book of changes”, Metamorphoses. Long after Homer and Hesiod, but just one generation after Virgil, Ovid contributed the 4th and ‘final’ epic in the series of Greco-Roman origin stories…final that is until Joyce revived the genre (Ulysses) a century ago. Ovid consciously strings together mythical material from multiple sources to produce a coherent narrative. His esteemed predecessors used mythology to tell their stories, Ovid uses those stories to tell the uber-story of mythology itself. Admit it: the first 10 times you read Homer’s epics, you asked, “What did these people really think was going on in these stories?" Ovid sketches an answer. His artful retelling of the ancient myths reveals an ontological thread that gives consistency and significance to these myriad fables. Ultimately, he wrestles with the same questions we do, 2000 years later: “Who am I? What makes me, me ? How is it that I am me and not you ? (Am I me and not you ? Or am I both? Or neither?) What about me is essential and what accidental? How is it that I retain my identity irrespective of my form, and when (if ever) are accumulated changes of form sufficient to destroy that identity and/or to constitute a new one?” In another essay on this site, we talked about Ovid’s ontology using an onion as our model. We are required to systematically remove layer upon layer of ‘form’ to reach the ‘core’, the onion’s Identity. But an onion is not an apple (Vidalia’s ad campaigns notwithstanding); an onion has no tangible core. When all the layers of identity are peeled away, we’re left, appropriately, with nothing (Sartre’s Neant ). The self is not just ‘another form’; the self is the absence of all forms, the negation of ‘form’ per se ; the self is what is left when all forms have “dissolved into thin air” ( The Tempest ). Or the self is what all its forms have in common, the form of forms . When it comes to modeling our identity, apples and onions are apples and oranges . Let’s start with the easy stuff, the outermost layer: I am not what I seem. I am agnostic as to form. I can be male or maid, vegetable or beast, a tree, a grove, a waterfall, a heifer or a crow. In all these guises, I am ever and forever only me! This is Ovid’s bedrock insight. Ovid is no phenomenologist, much less a nihilist. He does not abandon the notion of identity. But for Ovid, identity lies below the superficial dichotomies of form: blond or brunette, animal or plant, animate or inorganic. Ovid throws down his marker early. His version of Genesis 3, the creation of human beings, makes his project crystal clear: “By the ‘great mother’, the earth is meant, and ‘bones’ I think mean stones…and they throw the stones behind them as they go, and yes…the stones began to lose their hardness; they softened slowly and in softening changed form…one could see the dim beginning of human forms…quite soon the stones the man had thrown were changed to men and those the woman cast took women’s forms.” (1: 18) Perhaps surprisingly, Norse mythology contains a similar version of human evolution: “Ymir lived on four rivers of milk that came from a cow who fed herself by licking the salty lime stones found in Ginnungagap . As she licked the stones, sculptor-like, she began to uncover a human form latent in the rime-stones…(soon) there was a complete man.” ( Prose Edda ) A generation after Ovid, Matthew the evangelist quotes Jesus: “Out of these stones, God can raise up children of Abraham.” (3: 9) Outside of the academy, there is a persistent anti-Platonic tradition: Identity > Form. The scope of Ovid’s metamorphoses is clear: Great Mother, Earth, bones, stones, men and women – all ‘just’ forms. As I transition among various Platonic forms, what if anything, survives? What are our essential qualities, if any? What constitutes my Identity? A subjective Sense of Self (Recursion) An objective, inherited, and shared Past (Memory - Freud, Facticity - Sartre) Qualities & Values (Free Will) These are what constitute Identity ( per Ovid), not forms, be they frozen or forever flowing! Understand Ovid is as the ‘anti-Plato’ . Philosophy’s 4 th BCE GOAT gave pride of place in his ontology to forms, i.e. species . Ovid regards form as the equivalent of costume . Finally…and ironically, Ovid’s full throated exposition of Greco-Roman polytheism may have ploughed intellectual furrows into which the seeds of a new Weltanschauung - I mean of course, Christianity - could fall, germinate, take root, and grow. By rejecting the arid rationalism of Plato and Aristotle (geniuses though they were), Ovid restored mutuality and personality to ontology and cosmology. The grandfather of Western philosophy, Anaximander (6th century BCE), grounded identity in dynamic mutuality; Plato grounds it in static form. Ovid grounds cosmology in naked identity. For Ovid, Identity is the universal substructure! For example, Ovid’s pantheon reserves a prominent place for Bacchus, a controversial, late breaking deity. Bacchus falls in the tradition of man-gods, mixing divine and human parentage. The ‘status’ of such demi-gods is a controversial topic in both the hearth and the forum. Like the coming Jesus, Bacchus is more humanly relatable than Jove or YHWH. The evolving notion of deity, from tyrant to fellow-traveler, is simultaneously evident on both sides of the Bosporus and in both Hellenic and Semitic cultures. Ovid merges these two great traditions. His gods are consequential; but at the same time, they are wholly relatable. If Jesus kicked off the Age of Pisces, then John the Baptist was his Semitic prophet and Ovid was John’s Greco-Roman avatar. *** Image: Stepping In by De Es Schwertberger depicts a humanoid figure whose body appears carved from fractured stone, emerging with quiet awareness and deliberate motion. The cracked, geological surface of the figure suggests that consciousness itself has arisen from the earth, as if the planet has formed a living being through time and pressure. The painting symbolizes awakening and transition—representing the moment when inert matter becomes aware, crossing the threshold from lifeless stone into conscious existence. 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 How is Government Like Soft Serve Ice Cream? David Cowles Jul 5, 2022 Democracy, Oligarchy, Monarchy, Tyranny, even Anarchy, are means of government, not government itself. How is government like soft serve ice cream? – that’s easy! Government comes is just two flavors: Theocracy & Plutocracy. Democracy, Oligarchy, Monarchy, Tyranny, even Anarchy, are means of government, not government itself. God rules…or $$$ rules, period. “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Mammon (money).” (Mt. 6: 24) The story goes that Benjamin Franklin, upon leaving the Constitutional Convention, was asked by a by-stander, “What kind of government have you given us, sir?” Franklin replied, “A Republic, if you can keep it.” I imagine God having a similar conversation with Moses: “Lord, what kind of government are you giving us?” – “A Theocracy, Moses, if you can keep it.” ( Spoiler Alert : Moses did keep it and passed it on to Joshua and the Judges who followed; but in the end Israel did not keep it!) “I will be your God and you will be my people.” (Gen. 17: 7 et al.) This same covenant formula is reiterated over and over again in the Old Testament. It is Israel’s political constitution …and therefore ours as well. God’s intentions are clear. He wants to rule Israel (his people, us) directly but through the agency of the people themselves: “Government of the people, by the people…” (Lincoln) According to this view, the purpose of ‘government’ is to execute the will of God, period. There is no ‘legislative branch’ because there is no legislative function . All law has already been written for all time (Torah); from here on, it is ‘simply’ a matter of interpretation. Yahweh’s lament : “I created heaven-and-earth and endowed it with freedom. Out of Egypt, I husbanded you across Sinai into Canaan, the Promised Land. I gave you 613 statutes (Torah) guaranteed to bring you strength, health, long life, fertility, and prosperity. Knowing you’re not always the best students, I created some study aids for you, and I encouraged you to use them, even though some would call that cheating. (It is your life’s work to reopen the gates of Eden…so do it by any means necessary!) I wrote the answers on the blackboard…and on the cuffs of your shirt: I emblazoned my will across the cosmos (Nature) and I planted it in your hearts (Conscience), and yet…” In the Saini, God’s rule was mediated by Moses and Aaron and later by Joshua. After the death of Joshua, Theocracy evolved into Anarchy – but that’s not a bad thing! In fact, it was a necessary step toward rule by God through his people collectively . Without the leadership of God’s hand-picked patriarchs, a new social structure took root. To “provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare and secure the blessings of liberty,” Judges rose from the ranks. Frequently, a Judge emerged to confront a specific crisis. The Judge’s mandate to govern came from three sources: (1) the Judge’s oath to uphold God’s law (Torah) and (2) the people’s consent to be ‘judged’ and (3) the urgency of the crisis itself. This style of Theocracy worked well (for the most part) for approximately 250 years (1250 to 1000 B.C). Plutocracy, on the other hand, is defined as the rule of wealth . Wealth and power have a symbiotic relationship. Money is fungible. Wealth can be traded for power, and power can be used to amass great wealth. This is the paradigm of a ‘vicious circle.' Look around you! So, to riff on Lincoln: “ All government is government of the people, some government is government by the people, but only Theocracy is government for the people.” Theocracy is not a respecter of persons. Only from God’s vantage can we see that people are not only created equal, but are equal and will always be equal. From God’s perspective, whatever appears to us to be a ‘difference’ is “Vanity!” (Eccl. 1: 2) “Do you know who I am?” – yes, I do; you're dust and ashes. Next… We are all ‘babes,' born of the self-same womb, but in the eyes pf the world, that begins to change almost immediately. Disparities of genetic programming and social circumstances lead to differentiated levels of wealth & power; but in God’s eyes, nothing changes, ever. ‘Equality’ is eternal! Therefore, God and only God is qualified to rule. Only God can rule for the people , all the people because it is only before God that we are truly equal. To paraphrase Deuteronomy, “I set before you Theocracy and Plutocracy; therefore, choose Theocracy.” Few do! Thoughts While Shaving is the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine ( ATM) . To never miss another Thought, choose the subscribe option below. Also, follow us on any one of our social media channels for the latest news from ATM. Thanks for reading! Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

Editor’s note: It’s that time of year when many readers attend ‘summer theater.’ If Shakespeare is on the bill, you may find this essay relevant. Don’t leave home for the theater without reading this first! < Back Shakespearean Nihilism David Cowles Jul 13, 2022 Editor’s note: It’s that time of year when many readers attend ‘summer theater.’ If Shakespeare is on the bill, you may find this essay relevant. Don’t leave home for the theater without reading this first! Machiavelli, Nietzsche, Duchamp, Camus, Ionesco, Beckett – these are names that come to mind when we think about nihilism…not Shakespeare! Not the poet who wrote, “But thy eternal summer shall not fade nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st; nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade, when in eternal lines to time thou growest, so long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, so long lives this and this gives life to thee .” Yet, according to renowned Shakespearean actor Anthony Sher, the ‘Tomorrow Soliloquy’ in Macbeth is “the most nihilistic speech imaginable.” But let’s not start there; let’s start with The Tempest, where Prospero shares this conclusion with the audience: “Our revels now are ended. These, our actors, as I foretold you, were all spirits and are melted into air, into thin air; and—like the baseless fabric of this vision— the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the great globe itself, yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, and like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff as dreams are made on…” Now back to Macbeth . On the nihilist spectrum, can anyone possibly top Prospero? Macbeth, like Prospero, seems to step out of the play itself and address the audience directly. But “the most nihilist imaginable” (above)? Let’s see if it lives up to its billing: “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle. Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Oh, yeah, it lives up to its billing…and then some! Macbeth’s ‘ Tomorrow Soliloquy’ stands in radical contrast to Virgil’s famous line (reflected in Shakespeare’s sonnets), “No day shall erase you from the memory of time .” The contrast pivots, of course, on the concept of ‘time.’ For Virgil, time, aided perhaps by art, is universal and perpetual memory. This well fits the ‘Shakespeare of the Sonnets.’ For ‘Shakespeare of the Play,’ however, time is not our friend. It is not perpetual memory; it is perpetual loss. Time erases everything that ever was and everything that might yet be. Two views could scarcely be more dissimilar. For Virgil, time is memory; what is, is, and always will be. Time makes events immortal (immortal, not eternal; for more on this distinction, check out Eternity vs. Immortality in Issue #1 of ATM). For ‘Shakespeare of the Plays,’ however, time does not just limit the scope of events (mortality); it erases those events (a-mortality)! To paraphrase a current meme: ‘No lives matter’ to time. “For now I (time) have become death, the destroyer of worlds.” – The Bhagavad Gita While Virgil offers ‘always will be,’ Shakespeare offers ‘never was, is not now, never will be.’ Quite a contrast! What ever happened to ‘here today, gone tomorrow?’ So, are events immortal, mortal, or a-mortal ( nihil est )? Can we settle this dispute? Can we determine who’s right, Virgil or Shakespeare? Surprisingly, it seems that we can! And if we can and to the extent that we can, the winner is…Shakespeare! (Sorry, Virgil.) In Virgil’s day, many believed that the universe had always existed and would always exist (Aristotle), that it was now more or less the same as it always had been and always would be. Against this philosophical background, it is easy to see how someone could believe in “the persistence of memory” (Dali). Shakespeare knew little more than Virgil about the real workings of the universe. His conclusions regarding time and the meaning of life can only be attributed to his personal experiences and reflections. (The reader will recall the tragic death of his beloved son, Hamnet, at age 11.) We have an advantage over both Virgil and Shakespeare. We know, or think we know, that disorder (entropy) is constantly increasing in our world. Memory (indeed mind itself) is a species of order and, therefore, must disappear over the course of time. Consider the aging process. Memories fade and eventually vanish. Well, phylogeny recapitulates ontogeny! My death prefigures the heat death of the cosmos. We also know, or think we know, that the universe did not always exist and will not always exist. In fact, time itself, to the extent that it is even real, apparently comes to be and ceases to be at a singularity. Therefore, it would be difficult for a person today to entrust life to time with the expectation of eternity, or even immortality. Or would it? Folks often say things like, “I lived my life; now it’s ending, but no one can take that life I’ve lived away from me.” Oh really? Turns out they can take it, they will take it, and they have taken it! So, is this Shakespeare, whom we thought we knew and genuinely loved, really a nihilist? Nihilism is rooted in the notion that there are no objective values. That was Nietzsche’s great insight in Twilight of the Gods . But in Shakespeare’s plays (unlike Beckett’s, for example), there is not an absolute absence of objective values. Even in Macbeth , the villains at various times question their actions…and even regret them. In the play’s final scene, for example, Macbeth encounters Macduff, whose wife and children he has put to death. From the depths of his depravity, Macbeth blurts out: “But get thee back. My soul is too much charged with blood of thine already…I’ll not fight with thee.” But of course, he does fight with Macduff: “Lay on, Macduff, and damned be him who first cries, ‘Hold, enough!'” So, values do exist in ‘Shakespeare World,’ but their influence on events is never quite strong enough to influence actual behavior. Does this sound at all familiar by any chance? Far from being ultimately real, in Shakespeare, values flicker in and out of consciousness but exert no real influence on the course of the world’s events. Like Kant, Shakespeare believes that a world like ours ought to have transcendent, objective, and operative values; he bitterly laments that it does not. 20th century nihilists, on the other hand, seem to relish the absence of objective values; it fits in with the agenda to ‘God-proof’ the world. Not so, Shakespeare! If Nietzsche was a nihilist out of conviction (‘it cannot be’), Shakespeare is a nihilist out of disappointment (‘it should have been’). In Shakespeare, the values we associate with justice and kindness compete on a level playing field with ‘anti-values’ associated with greed, lust, and power. Shakespeare is a dualist. Compare his views with the views of monastic philosophers from Augustine to Whitehead. In their models, the only values are positive values, values associated with beauty, truth, justice, and kindness. Anything else is simply an absence of values. Such objective values (‘eternal objects’ per Whitehead) become operative in the world through the agency of God, the primordial ‘actual entity.’ Now, values do not just influence the unfolding of events, they ultimately determine the import of those events. The story of the world is the story of the realization of objective values in actual events; everything else, whatever its dramatic potential, is just noise. I am reminded of a line from a medieval Irish hymn traditionally attributed to St. Dallan: “Naught is all else to me, save that Thou art!” Compare Macbeth with the Old Testament Book of Job. Both focus on pervasive injustice; but while Macbeth ultimately surrenders to that injustice, Job comes to a completely different conclusion: “I know that my vindicator lives and that he will at last stand forth upon the dust.” Inaugurating the tradition that runs through Augustine to Whitehead, Job celebrates the reality of objective values, values that are even incumbent on God. (Check out The Riddle of Job in Issue #1 of AT Magazine. ) In the end, we are like a jury, passing judgment on the cosmos. Like jurors, we must ultimately choose between two possible verdicts. We all listen to the same testimony, but (like Macbeth and Job), we may draw different conclusions. Why? Why do different people draw different conclusions from the same data? We write essays (like this one), or give lectures (podcasts), trying to convince our fellow jurors that our own interpretation of the evidence is correct. “…Singing songs and carrying signs, mostly saying ‘Hooray for our side.’” – Buffalo Springfield. Ultimately, however, it comes down to one juror, one vote. Einstein once said that the single most important question is whether the universe is benign. I would reword that slightly. For me, the single most important question is whether or not there are objective, transcendent values operating in our world. If your answer is yes, your catalog of values cannot differ much from the traditional Judeo-Christian catalog found in Psalms and in the teachings of Jesus. Plus, your explanation for how transcendent values came to exert immanent influence in our world must include something akin to the agency of God and, perhaps, even something akin to the Incarnation itself. Of course, you need not use the language of Judeo-Christian theology to describe your model, but in the end, it will pretty much have to perform the same functions. On the other hand, if you deny the immanent influence of objective, transcendent values, it is hard to see how you can avoid some version of nihilism. At one point in our lives, we believed that there was a virtually limitless number of potential world views, self-consistent models that account reasonably well for the experiences of everyday life. As time goes by, however, we see that most of these models contain logical fallacies or lack heuristic power. Those that remain all say much the same thing, just using different words. In the end, like jurors, we have a choice to make. In the words of Deuteronomy : “I set before you, Life (objective values) and Death (nihilism); therefore, choose life.” (30: 19) Image: The Chandos portrait (held by the National Portrait Gallery , London David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com. Share Previous Next Do you like what you just read? Subscribe today and receive sneak previews of Aletheia Today Magazine articles before they're published. Plus, you'll receive our quick-read, biweekly blog, Thoughts While Shaving. Subscribe Thanks for subscribing! Click here. 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< Back The Mass Shooting Epidemic David Cowles Jun 14, 2022 People who perpetrate mass shootings are searching for answers, for meaning in life… June 12th’s edition of Face the Nation included an interview with Dr. Jillian Peterson and Dr. James Densley: “Yeah, I think a lot of people are searching for a profile of a mass shooter…Who are these perpetrators? So, we built a database that includes 180 perpetrators, who killed four or more people in a public space, going back about 50 years. And we coded each of them on over 200 pieces of life, history, information to try to look for patterns in the data…And we, instead, saw a pathway to a mass shooting, and we outlined that pathway in our book called The Violence Project … Mass shooters are in crisis. These are individuals who are not living their best selves, they are questioning their place in the world…people who perpetrate mass shootings are searching for answers, [for] meaning in life… ” Sometimes we make light of folks who say, “I don’t know who I am. I’m trying to find myself,” but we do so at our peril. According to Peterson and Densley, the people most likely to engage in mass shootings are people who feel a lack of personal identity, purpose, and meaning in their lives. In Man’s Search for Meaning (1946), Victor Frankl drew on his personal experience in Nazi concentration camps to argue that ‘purpose and meaning’ are essential elements in a healthy human psyche; they provide the spiritual foundation we need if we are to survive life’s disappointments, minor and major – from being ghosted by a BFF to being unlawfully and unjustly imprisoned. In days gone by, the culture provided folks with a sense of personal identity, purpose and meaning, but to our post-Enlightenment ears, these values sound “churchy,” and we can’t have that! (I had a good friend who would not listen to any classical music for just this reason.) At the end of the first millennium A.D., belief in God (theism) was at the foundation of all intellectual activity; by the end of the second millennium, atheism (or at least agnosticism) had replaced theism as the price of admission to the academy. Truth be known, over the past 400 years, we have been involved in a collective effort to ‘God-proof’ our world. Intellectual activity, once aimed at ‘proving God,’ is now dedicated to ‘God proofing.’ Of course, I am not suggesting that folks who do not believe in God are destined to become mass murderers; I am saying that the ‘God Hypothesis’ entails three corollaries relevant to this discussion: identity, purpose, and meaning. And what of culture? Well, it’s been pretty well ‘God proofed’ too. From Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, to Wittgenstein and Ayer, to Camus and Derrida, modern philosophy has been dedicated to ‘de-mystifying’ existence. We are all ‘ontological democrats’ now. We don’t need to think about ‘bigger issues.’ Any thoughts we might have on those issues have been pre-labeled, “meaningless, childish, old fashioned, anti-scientific, etc.” But suppressing humanity’s innate thirst for meaning comes at a price. Langstone Hughes (1951): “What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore – and then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over like – like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it sags like a heavy load… Or does it explode?” ( Harlem ) Thoughts While Shaving is the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine and is published every Tuesday and Thursday. Subscribe today in the option below and never miss a single Thought. 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 Fractal David Cowles Sep 7, 2021 Mythology exists in the space between cosmology and psychology. It is consistent with the modern notion of Being as a fractal: it reveals the same patterns on every scale. Ancient Norse cosmology begins with Yggdrasil, the ‘Tree of Life’. It is the center of the cosmos and all else exists around it. It includes the Nine Worlds, each one inhabited by a unique ‘ontic entity’, for example, gods, elves, wolves, humans, etc. Mythology exists in the space between cosmology and psychology. It is consistent with the modern notion of Being as a fractal: it reveals the same patterns on every scale. Ancient Norse cosmology begins with Yggdrasil, the ‘Tree of Life’. It is the center of the cosmos and all else exists around it. It includes the Nine Worlds, each one inhabited by a unique ‘ontic entity’, for example, gods, elves, wolves, humans, etc. Two of those worlds are Niflheim, a region of intense cold, and Muspelheim, a region of intense heat. They are separated by Ginnungagap, the primal void and the locus of creation itself. It is from Ginnungagap that we get ‘objects’, ‘things’, etc. In that sense it is analogous with the Jewish notion of Sophia and the Greco-Christian notion of Logos. I’ve recently discovered that my own life includes a personal Ginnungagap. I find myself now on the southern rim of the ‘Gap’. Looking across the abyss, I see myself clearly on the northern rim. What I don’t see so clearly are the contents of the abyss itself. This suggests to me a 3 stage model of human life: (1) Preparation (0 – 25?), (2) Procreation (aka Production) (25 – 65?), and (3) Reflection. During the first and third stages we are focused on ourselves (microcosm); during the second stage we are focused on the other (macrocosm). 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 Does Consciousness Precede Life Itself? David Cowles Apr 17, 2025 “If confirmed, it…would literally overturn most of the last 500 years of science and philosophy.” As part of my work at Aletheia Today , I scour the latest newsletters, searching for the latest ideas in science, technology, culture, theology and philosophy for you, our dedicated readers. Today, I came upon a post with mind bending implications. Let me share excerpts ( SL ) with you along with my observations ( AT ). The author is Susan Lahey and the publication, Popular Mechanics (4/7/2025). SL: Every six years, an asteroid by the name of Bennu passes by Earth.  Bennu …formed nearly 4.6 billion years ago. Recently, scientists accomplished an unprecedented feat, sending a spacecraft billions of miles to the asteroid and back to collect 121.6 grams of material from Bennu for study at an Arizona State University lab…for clues to the nature and origins of life. Tantalizing evidence in the Bennu sample suggests that the asteroid contains constituents of the “primordial soup” that scientists believe likely led to life emerging on Earth. But that’s not all. It could also contain particular molecules that could have formed crystalline formations that some scientists believe are key to  consciousness . These formations may have been present among organic molecules (molecules containing carbon atoms) for a hundred million years before genes (much less DNA) existed, enabling the earliest forms of decision-making and self-organization into life . AT: On its face, this is an astonishing suggestion. If you assume DNA, or something very much like it, is necessary for life, then the Bennu sample suggests that consciousness precedes life itself. SL: The prevailing theory of  consciousness  is that humans manufacture it inside the brain—that it boils down to a computation. Yet, Dr. Hameroff and his collaborator, Nobel Laureate and physicist Roger Penrose (just to drop a name) have argued for decades that consciousness made the world and not the other way around. AT: In my opinion, Roger Penrose may be the smartest human being alive today. I won’t compare him to Davinci, Shakespeare, Bach, Einstein, Joyce, or Picasso…but if I did, Roger would not come off badly. A long time colleague of Stephen Hawking, Penrose is a true polymath. He has turned his attention to numerous topics in science and philosophy and, beginning in middle school, he’s revolutionized every field he’s explored. Just pray he doesn’t come calling at your place of employment any time soon. SL: They (Penrose & Co.) believe that it (consciousness) is not manufactured in the brain but only processed there, via an external quantum wave function sweeping through the universe that interacts with tiny protein tubes. AT: Whaaaat! If confirmed, it is hard to imagine a scientific development more earth shattering than this. It would literally overturn most of the last 500 years of science and philosophy. Karl Marx is said to have stood Hegel on his head; this thesis, if substantiated, would turn us all upside down. SL: These microtubules form the cytoskeleton of living cells and are especially plentiful in brain cells… Quantum activity in the brain could take place in these microtubules… AT: Experiments have confirmed that quantum effects can occur in these micro-structures. SL: Here’s where Bennu comes in. The asteroid is made up of carbons — the molecules that form the basis of all life. Researchers found that the samples include 14 of the 20 amino acids that life on Earth uses to make proteins. The bits of rock also contain all five nucleobases used to store and transmit genetic instructions in more complex biomolecules, such as DNA and RNA… But what about signs of consciousness? Bennu also could contain the structures that allow the kind of quantum resonance…needed for  consciousness . These are organic ring molecules whose extra electrons form electron clouds that exchange photons, as in fluorescence. Organic rings…become quantum oscillators that are able to support consciousness… AT: So, the molecular precursors of life and the structures of consciousness existed in tact before the Earth as we know it was even born. If so, consciousness precedes life itself! SL: It’s these quantum oscillators in our microtubules that give us our conscious experiences. Neurons are incredibly complex. Each neuronal cell comprises billions of microtubules that are oscillating, or passing electrons back and forth, at the astonishing speed of 10^15 times per second . AT: The clear implication is that the universe was somehow conscious of itself before anything was ‘alive’. Note : Even if it turns out that life emerged in the universe before it emerged on Earth, that wouldn’t change the fact that the ‘population’ of Bennu included the structure of consciousness but not of life itself. SL: …Japan’s National Institute of Material Sciences  found  that there are, in fact, three bands of frequencies that conduct electricity at the neuron level; three bands of higher frequencies at the microtubule level; and three bands of even higher frequencies at the level of tubulin—the material microtubules are made of. Within each frequency another three bands of frequencies operate: a triplet of triplets . AT: If the idea that consciousness preceded life itself is not mind-bending enough for you, this corollary (above) should be. Cutting edge cosmology views the Universe as a giant fractal in which the same ordered patterns recur at scale across 60 orders of magnitude (the ratio of the observable universe to the Planck metric). The new ‘Penrose Theory’ of consciousness incidentally confirms that supposition. Triplets within triplets. To paraphrase Stephen Hawking, “It’s triplets all the way down.” To paraphrase the Nicene Creed, “Three persons, one God.” SL: They believe this ‘triplet of triplets’ pattern of resonance is a fundamental pattern of the universe… These polyaromatic ring molecules might have organized themselves to increase opportunities for conscious quantum experiences. AT: In other words, life itself could be a by-product of consciousness, a series of molecular structures evolving to protect, preserve, and intensify conscious experience. Consciousness then would be its own reward and the driving force behind the evolution of all living organisms, behind the emergence of life itself. Cosmology then would be the process by which the universe wakes itself up! *** Image: "The Creation of the Birds" (La creación de las aves) is a 1957 oil painting on masonite by Spanish-Mexican surrealist artist Remedios Varo . This work is housed in the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City. 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 What Happens in the Dark? David Cowles Feb 18, 2025 “Everything important that happens, happens in the dark.” We are mesmerized by media. Whether it’s smart phones, tablets, TV or God forbid, newsprint, we can’t take our eyes off the ‘news’. Yet every day we complain, “There’s nothing new.” But somehow our lives keep changing. There’s an explanation for this: Everything important that happens, happens in the dark. A watched pot never boils, a televised revolution never changes things (The Who). Let’s look at just a few concrete examples: ‘God’ invented solar power in 1954 (the date of the first solar panel). In 2023, the world installed more solar panels in one year than had been installed from the invention of the solar cell in 1954 through 2017: 1 year > Σ (1954…2017) For many years alternative energy sources (wind and sun) were controversial. Will they work? If they do, will they make a difference? Do the economics make sense? Will the hardware (turbines and panels) negatively impact the environment? Will Quixotic ‘Giants’ threaten the aesthetics of our landscape? These questions were never entirely answered, at least not to the satisfaction of all parties. But a tipping point was reached, escape velocity was achieved, and our countryside became La Mancha overnight. And we are better for it! Next up : Americans were justly proud of landing a man on the moon in1969. An incredible achievement from a standing start just 10 years earlier. All the more remarkable considering that the onboard computers were less powerful than a 1980’s Commodore or Atari. But nothing breeds contempt like success: “The whole thing was staged in an airplane hangar in Houston, why are we spending money on space when we have hungry people to feed on Earth, who has time for this when there’s a war to stop and civil rights to gain?” Space exploration was in trouble even before the Challenger disaster; after 1986 conversations about ‘space’ were limited to suburban lot sizes and closets. Now, look up! The sky is crowded with satellites launched by dozens of countries and private firms and every few months a new deep space probe takes off. Soon China and the US will be returning ‘men and women’ to the Moon. And no one’s talking about a ‘visit’ anymore; future trips will focus on building a ‘space-base’ and ‘Making the Moon livable (again)’. Next stop, Mars…and soon! Farming, generating water, replenishing Mars’ depleted atmosphere, establishing a New Jamestown colony (if the indigenous Martian life forms will allow it). Where was the global debate? The popular referendum, the democratic consensus? Never happened! An oligarchy of global leaders, not just politicians, ‘decided’ that it was time for humanity to leave the confines of Planet Earth. A more cynical person might ask, “What do they know about the future that we don’t?” Finally AI, the staple of comic books, cartoons, and low budget TV shows. But when 2001 finally arrived, HAL 1000 was nowhere to be found. Traditional approaches to AI development ran up against unexpected practical and theoretical barriers. Plus, despite our fascination with robots, there was broad popular distrust of ‘artificial intelligence’ per se : “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.” Now less than 25 years on, AI is proliferating at a break neck pace. It will certainly transform every aspect of our lives in just the next few years. It is quite possible that AI poses a more serious threat to humanity than either nuclear weapons or climate change, yet it is spreading through the Technosphere like a nasty corona virus. But did we want these changes to begin with? And who decided to take us down this path anyway? Does AI pose an existential threat? You bet…but in my view that’s a risk worth taking. As a species, we are unable to abide status quo ; we are, therefore we search. Eve was bored, even with Paradise; she wanted more, and she risked everything for it. And according to Judeo-Christian theology, we’re still paying the price, and reaping the benefits, of Eve’s curiosity: ‘O happy fault!’ No surprise here. In today’s culture it is impossible to do anything in the open. Democratic political process has frozen solid. In its place, we are now governed by public demonstrations, journalistic sensationalism, and a perpetual cascade of never resolved litigation. Public policy is held hostage by a species of non-violent domestic terrorism. This has nothing to do with ideology or partisan politics. Disruption can come from the right, the left or the technocratic center. It’s just how politics is done now that constitutional processes have broken down. And it’s not just in the US. The same seems to be afoot on every inhabited continent. 21st century Political Science has turned 20th century Physics on its head. According to the laws of Quantum Mechanics, nothing happens unless and until it is observed; according to 21st century Political Science, nothing happens if it is observed. And according to centuries of folk wisdom, ‘a watched pot never boils’. 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. 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< Back Liberty and Virtue David Cowles Jun 25, 2024 “How do Liberty, Justice, and Virtue fit together?” In an earlier TWS, we spoke about Barry Goldwater and we quoted from his iconic acceptance speech to the 1964 Republican Convention: Extremism in the defense of Liberty is no vice… Moderation is the pursuit of Justice is no virtue! Which raises an interesting question: how do Liberty , Justice , and Virtue fit together? We define Virtue as the pursuit of Good, manifested as Value (e.g. Beauty, Truth, Justice). But according to Jean-Paul Sartre, there is only one Value and that’s Freedom ! For Sartre, virtue is what protects and extends freedom; vice is what erodes or restricts it. Is it possible that Goldwater and Sartre disagreed about something? Only everything! Sartre was an atheist, a Marxist, a self-proclaimed Communist, while Goldwater…was not. They disagreed about almost everything…but not this. Virtue is the intentional pursuit of Value (e.g. Beauty, Truth, Justice) and Liberty is a prerequisite for all intentionality and therefore for Virtue. Without freedom of choice, none of our exertions, by themselves, rise to the level of Virtue. In the public forum we are most often concerned with the value of Justice. An actor freely choosing to promote Justice is virtuous. Values are the lures (Whitehead) that motivate events. They are responsible for what we call intentionality . Every ‘novel event’ (all events are novel) seeks what is Good by applying a unique constellation of values to the Actual World. Every event selects, combines, and applies values differently, but there are no events without values motivating them. Goldwater’s proclamation was interpreted as an eye-poke by the party’s so-called ‘liberal wing’. Nelson Rockefeller led a delegate walk-out which effectively doomed Goldwater’s candidacy. He would never fully recover from Rocky’s ‘Cow Palace Putsch’. But what’s interesting here is not so much the vagaries of presidential politics, but the unstated, yet clearly implied, message sent by the peripatetic delegates: Liberty should be defended, and Justice should be pursued - but with moderation. Other values may take precedence. For example, Order, Civility, and Machiavellian Pragmatics. According to this ethic, ‘Liberty and Justice’ are not absolute imperatives; they are merely goals which, all things being equal, we ought to pursue. But in targeting these values, we must balance them against competing values like security, stability, and tranquility. So what’s wrong with that? In the ‘normal course of events’, a free actor compares the Ideal (Value) to the Actual (World). If that actor responds by working to bring the Actual closer to the Ideal, we call that Virtue. To whatever extent Liberty is restricted, Value is camouflaged, and Virtue undermined. Virtue, and the triumph of Value, can only occur in the context of Liberty! In 1964, there were no Patrick Henry’s (“Give me Liberty or give me Death”) in Rocky’s corner. But what’s important here, IMHO, is that important public figures in the US signed off on Rockefeller’s platform. It followed closely on the heels of Better Red than Dead , a European movement advocating unilateral disarmament in lieu of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. For a significant percentage of Americans, ‘domestic tranquility’ now trumped liberty and justice in their hierarchy of values. Scary! Liberty and Justice, along with Beauty and Truth, are Divine Values. They constitute God’s essence. They’re what it’s like to be God. While these values are often compromised in our everyday lives, such compromises can never be ‘justified’. Call them what they are: ‘accommodations contravening the interests of God and humanity’. 1964 saw the public proclamation of a new American anti-ethic. Post WWII, Liberty and Justice were ‘reclassified’ as preferred states rather than absolute imperatives. They are two factors, along with many others, to be considered in the formation of public policy. ‘Liberty & Justice’ (Goldwater ’64) is fine and dandy, but not at the expense of ‘Peace & Prosperity’ (Eisenhower ‘52). Is this ringing any bells? Does it call to mind any other times in the life of the nation when demands for Liberty were considered ‘too extreme’ and true Justice could only be pursued ‘incrementally’? How about the Abolitionist movement of the 1850’s? Or the Civil Rights movement in the 1960’s? Today, we are so obsessed with the vilification of all things ante-bellum that we miss some key points. Pro-slavery politicians weren’t necessarily against either Liberty or Justice per se – far from it! They simply believed that these Values needed to be ‘understood in context’ and that any reform of the status quo should take place ‘gradually’ and ‘organically’…and we need to be sure it’s ‘sustainable’. Where have you heard all this before? True, we cannot reasonably expect total Liberty or perfect Justice prior to the Eschaton. However, that does not relieve us of our responsibility to advocate for those values and to defend them without waiver. There is no Scriptural or Constitutional sanction for compromise. Some band-aids just have to be ripped off! 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 Nature, Nurture, or Bacteria David Cowles May 23, 2025 “Without them (bacteria, viruses, fungi, and archaea), we wouldn’t be who we are.” For decades, scientists have debated the issue: Are we who we are because of our Nature (e.g. DNA) or because of our Nurture (e.g. upbringing, life experiences)? Both sides have their points. Now it turns out there’s a third player, a variable that includes none of our DNA and is only very indirectly impacted by our parents’ pedagogical choices: the independent micro-organisms that inhabit our ‘gut’. To whatever extent we buy into this new thesis, we accept the notion that we are Zombies, that our apparently intentional acts are at least influenced, if not controlled, by organisms that are biologically unrelated to us. Our biomes consist of independent organisms that ‘choose’to live symbiotically in our stomachs and intestines. Defendants in criminal cases now have a new defense. In addition to… ➢ “My genes made me do it,” ➢ “My childhood made me do it,” ➢ “Alcohol made me do it (I was overserved),” or ➢ “The devil made me do it,” I can now rely on something new: “My biome made me bad!” This argument may be the most persuasive yet. I have to deal with my genetic inheritance and my childhood traumas in everything I do. I can choose to get drunk…or not, and the court may not believe in the power of Satan. But who can deny compulsion from an independent, outside source? For example, if someone put a gun to my head and said, “Mug this man!” I would probably not be held liable for my actions, assuming the threat to my safety was real and imminent. I am acting under the orders of another and disobeying those orders would put my life in jeopardy. How much more so if the ‘gunman’ consists of trillions of invisible microbes occupying space within my body and continuously exchanging ‘information’ (instructions), i.e. electrical and chemical signals, with that body! As kids we fantasized that we were inert action figures being manipulated by a more advanced race of ‘children’ living in dimensions imperceptible to mere mortals. We were like characters in The Lego Movie , where the choices and actions that seemed so real to Emmet were actually the choices and actions of Finn, a 10 year old boy living in a dimensional reality unknown to our hero. “They directly affect your nervous system, shaping your mood…the trillions of microbial residents in your gut (bacteria, viruses, fungi, and archaea) also communicate with your brain. Without them, we wouldn’t be who we are.” - Manasee Wagh, Popular Mechanics (5/16/2025) This last sentence, seemingly innocuous, has profound philosophical implications. “Without them, we wouldn’t be who we are.” “Who R U?” - Alice in Wonderland . You are not your genes, you are not your life experiences, you are not what you eat (or drink), you are not Lucifer’s lackey…and you are not your biome. Who are you then? According to Buckminster Fuller, you are a verb. According to Alfred North Whitehead, you are process. According to Jean-Paul Sartre, you are neant (nothing). They are all on to something but, bad news, none of them will get you acquitted of first degree murder. We live in a world where we are surrounded by ‘existents’: sugar and spice, snails and tails, terra firma below, firmament above. But we are none of these things, Neti Neti (‘not this, not that’). We are the negation of what is ( neant ), the transformation ( verb ) of what was, the becoming ( process ) of what will be. Since we are nothing that has ever been, is now, or ever will be, we are truly nothing (neant): “My name is Nemo” ( Odyssey , Book 9)… and that’s a good thing. Because I am ‘nothing’, I can be anything. In the context of what I have inherited, I can be whatever I choose to be. (I can’t be a pro basketball player because I inherited a 5’ 9” frame and a pot belly…but I can be anything else!) There are guardrails but within those boundaries I can do and be absolutely anything I want to do or be. My motto is ‘Don’t dream it, be it!’ ( Rocky Horror Picture Show ); but once you are it, realize that you are not it . I am free. More than that, I am ‘freedom’ itself. Freedom is ‘my nature’ and my ‘freedom’ is the total absence of any nature. It is through me (and every other ‘me’) that freedom enters the World. I am the negation ( neant ) of what is, I am the transformation ( verb ) of what was, and I am the becoming ( process ) of what will be. I am who I was at birth (or before), I am who I will be at death (or after), and I am who I was every moment along the way. Like Parmenides’ Aletheia , “…ungenerated and imperishable, whole…complete…all together, one, continuous… ” I am the immobile pivot at the center of a perpetually turning wheel (‘The Great Mandala’). So I am not my DNA, or my life experiences, or my biome. Each of these is important but only as part of the guardrails. They leave my essence, my freedom, unscathed. They are not who I am…because my name is Nemo ! *** Fernand Léger’s The City (1919) is a large, vibrant canvas that captures the dynamism and complexity of urban life just after World War I. Using bold blocks of color, overlapping geometric forms, and fragments of signs and machinery, Léger evokes the rhythm of crowded streets, modern architecture, and industrial growth. The painting celebrates the interconnected energy of a bustling metropolis, where people, technology, and movement form a single, pulsing organism. 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 There Must Be Something Before There Can Be Nothing David Cowles Jan 2, 2022 From Aristotle to Whitehead, from Sartre to the 20th century ‘quantum mechanics’, there is a broadly held view that Being at its core is Pure Potential. Potentiality is selectively converted to actuality through the agency of something other than pure potentiality itself. That agency is called ‘Creativity’ by Whitehead, ‘Le Neant’ by Sartre, or ‘Collapse of the Wave Function’ by Schrödinger. In none of these cases, however, does pure potentiality alone determine its own actuality (that would be Determinism and would negate the concept of ‘potentiality’ entirely). Something other than pure potentiality itself must convert what could be to what is. The Apostle John expressed the same idea: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him and without him nothing was made.” (Jn 1: 1 – 5) According to John, “the Word of God’ (Christ) is what converts potentiality to actuality. Everything that is comes to be through that ‘Word’ and without that ‘Word’ nothing comes to be. In final analysis, I think that all the world’s ontologies (philosophical, theological, or scientific) fall into one of these two camps: (A) Some sort of Determinism (where the ‘actual’ is ultimately embedded in what is falsely called the ‘potential’) or (B) some sort of Indeterminism (where potentiality is selectively converted to actuality through an agency that transcends pure potentiality per se). Group A would argue that there must be nothing before there can be something; Group B would reverse it: there must be something before there can be nothing. From Aristotle to Whitehead, from Sartre to the 20th century ‘quantum mechanics’, there is a broadly held view that Being at its core is Pure Potential. Potentiality is selectively converted to actuality through the agency of something other than pure potentiality itself. That agency is called ‘Creativity’ by Whitehead, ‘Le Neant’ by Sartre, or ‘Collapse of the Wave Function’ by Schrödinger. In none of these cases, however, does pure potentiality alone determine its own actuality (that would be Determinism and would negate the concept of ‘potentiality’ entirely). Something other than pure potentiality itself must convert what could be to what is. The Apostle John expressed the same idea: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him and without him nothing was made.” (Jn 1: 1 – 5) According to John, “the Word of God’ (Christ) is what converts potentiality to actuality. Everything that is comes to be through that ‘Word’ and without that ‘Word’ nothing comes to be. In final analysis, I think that all the world’s ontologies (philosophical, theological, or scientific) fall into one of these two camps: (A) Some sort of Determinism (where the ‘actual’ is ultimately embedded in what is falsely called the ‘potential’) or (B) some sort of Indeterminism (where potentiality is selectively converted to actuality through an agency that transcends pure potentiality per se). Group A would argue that there must be nothing before there can be something; Group B would reverse it: there must be something before there can be nothing. 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 Mirror, Mirror On the Wall David Cowles Aug 27, 2024 “Reflexivity is built into the fabric of the cosmos itself. Universe is its own mirror! Without reflexivity, the cosmos would be inert, mindless, and without meaning.” Consciousness – the Hard Problem, per David Chalmers. What is it? Who has it? How does it work? What’s it ‘like’ to be conscious? Is it the sound of one hand clapping? As we learn more and more about the structure of the human brain and the perceptual capabilities of non-human life forms (organic and otherwise), the long felt need to find a consensus model of consciousness is growing more urgent. There is a tendency for models to grow more complex with each new iteration. Something like that is happening right now in the fields of cosmology, particle physics, and biology. The steady complexification of theory is often, usually in fact, a clue that the theory itself is somehow ‘wrong’. Remember Ptolemy’s geocentric model of the universe? Hello Galileo! Typically, when we build a model, we start by following the architect’s blueprint for the Tower of Babel , one story teetering on top of another…until suddenly the whole edifice collapses like a house of cards. So we welcome the fresh air of heliocentricity, relativity, and quantum mechanics! Perhaps in the case of consciousness we can avoid this painful odyssey. My preferred model for consciousness is a simple mirror, or to be more precise, reflexivity per se . A mirror, as Lewis Carroll taught us ( Through the Lookingglass ), has no intrinsic content. Likewise, while mirrors come in all sizes, shapes and designs, the ‘mirror-part’ is the same in every case. Reflection is reflection and that’s all there is to it. Not that I envision a cosmos full of disembodied shards of silver backed glass floating in space. Rather I suspect that reflexivity is built into the fabric of the cosmos itself. Universe is its own mirror! Reflexivity is characteristic of any non-orientable topology, e.g. a Mobius strip. If, as I suspect, our universe is locally orientable but globally non-orientable (see below), then reflection (mirroring) may be a local manifestation of global reflexivity. The recent discovery of Rondeau Time Crystals (RTC) is relevant here (Moon, et al., Nature Physics , October 14, 2025). An RTC consists of two ordered states ( Alpha & Omega ) separated by a chaotic state ( Delta ). The two ordered states relate deterministically but their topology is non-orientable. The elements in the Omega state are ‘reciprocals’ of those same elements in the Alpha state. The chaotic, intermediary Delta state is where we live and here events appear orientable. All mirrors are identical, but no two mirror images are ever the same. A mirror reflects what is reflected. Likewise, consciousness – a reflector reflecting. Without reflected content, a mirror cannot reflect and so is not a ‘mirror’ at all; it’s just silver backed glass. Without reflexivity, the cosmos would be inert, mindless, and without meaning. Meaning is reference between two distinct classes of phenomena, e.g. a map and a territory, an object and its image, symbol and signified. Object and image, for example, are ‘mutually transcendent’ – that’s a pre-condition for meaning . Even before syntax, language has meaning, e.g. an object and a word that denotes that object ( Namo ). Of course, words can be objects and objects can be words, but not in this context. We are strictly speaking of words as symbols and objects as what words symbolize. In one respect, language is ‘objective’ and therefore part of the world; but in a more important sense, it is ‘symbolic’ and therefore transcends the world. Likewise, consciousness may, or may not, be dependent on certain structures, neural or otherwise, but it is not those structures per se . Again, these ‘structures’ are part of the world that consciousness reflects…and transcends. When we speak of ‘consciousness’, we are not referring to whatever physical structures may support it. In fact, it appears that wildly different physical configurations may support consciousness. This lends further support to the idea that a universal potentiality for consciousness is woven into the fabric of the cosmos itself. How is consciousness like a mirror? A mirror has no intrinsic content. It acquires 100% of its content from what it reflects. Every mirror, in so far as it reflects, is the same. I am conscious and someone in Tibet is conscious. We share few life experiences, but to the extent that we are both conscious, we are identical …not merely congruent. Consciousness is a single phenomenon, manifest in multiple environments and circumstances. No two manifestations of consciousness are the same but consciousness per se is identical everywhere and everywhen. What a mirror actually reflects is light. Without light, a mirror has no content, i.e. no image. When an organism dies, the ‘mirror’ associated with that organism goes dark; it no longer reflects light (an image). It ceases to be a ‘mirror’; therefore it is no longer conscious . Its physical properties no longer support conscious experience. However, this does not necessarily resolve Hamlet’s dilemma: “To die, to sleep; to sleep, perchance to dream – ay, there’s the rub.” In the language of AI, could it be that our dark and imageless reflexivity will yet ‘hallucinate’? (After all, we know that AI ‘hallucinates’; why not ‘NI’ - natural intelligence?) Perhaps, it is still too soon to award the laurel wreath to Horatio! But there is a ‘silver’ lining to all this! Because chaotic Delta is strung between highly ordered Alpha and Omega , Delta inherits its fundamental topology from its boundary conditions. Think of a hammock strung between two trees. Per se , it has no shape but because of the trees it assumes a catenary shape, the only ‘minimal surface’ in nature (other than a plane). It's the natural shape that forms when a rope, chain, or fabric hangs freely between two points. Note that the trees do not cause the hammock to assume the characteristic shape. Nothing about the trees gives the hammock its curve. Rather, it is the natural shape assumed by whatever hangs freely between two terminals. Delta ‘hangs freely’ between Alpha and Omega and therefore it inherits a very specific, and very fortunate, topology. That topology permits islands of spatiotemporal order to form spontaneously (bootstrapping?) in Delta ’s otherwise chaotic medium. In Moon’s terminology, the two end states ‘fine tune’ the intermediary ( Delta ) state without compromising its essentially chaotic nature. These islands of order enable the cosmos to encode information. We live on (actually, in) such an island; we are pure information. Information is a pattern. Alpha and Omega are the pattern of all patterns. A pattern (island) in Delta may resonate (harmonize) with a pattern in Alpha/Omega . In which case that pattern is immediately bilocated, in Alpha/Omega and in Delta . Marcel Proust provides an analog in Remembrance of Things Past . The sensation of cobblestones in France recapitulates a similar sensation felt years earlier in Italy. Immediately, the resonance bilocates Proust in France-now and Italy-then. In an identical manner, when a pattern in our lives ( Delta ) resonates with a pattern in Alpha/Omega , we are bilocated: our temporal existence merges with atemporality ( aka eternity). The Christian doctrine of Incarnation tells of the merger of atemporal divinity with temporal humanity. Rondeau Time Crystals reverse the process: temporality is absorbed in eternity. So for those of us who aspire to eternal life, to leaving a permanent mark in the cosmos, ‘all we have to do’ is create patterns in our own lives that are in harmony with patterns in Alpha/Omega , i.e. in the ‘Garden’ and the ‘Kingdom’, i.e. in God. But how on earth do we do that ? Easy! God is Good . Beauty, Truth, and Justice are good. Therefore, they are found among the patterns in Alpha and Omega ; they are part of God’s essential nature. Therefore, whenever we foster beauty, truth and/or justice, we create a pattern in Delta that resonates in Alpha/Omega , and we assure ourselves at least a modicum of eternal life. 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! 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< Back Descartes David Cowles Oct 29, 2025 “To be conscious is to be aware of being oneself and to be aware of being oneself is to be aware of oneself as a potential object of another’s awareness.” Cogito ergo sum , ‘I think therefore I am’ - possibly the best known meme in all of Western philosophy. Who has not marveled at its simple wisdom? And welcomed the comfort of a stable launching pad for further philosophical speculation? It answers so many questions…especially when you’re in middle school. But like most easy answers, it’s flawed; and like most flaws, the devil is in the language. I think…I am. Simple. But the ‘I’ is deceptive. It suggests that the ‘I’ that thinks is the ‘I’ that is; it isn’t! ‘I think’ describes an action. It discloses an agent, and it makes some sense to call that agent, ‘I’. I mean, what else would you call it? Agency is an ‘I-experience’. We can impute agency to other subjects but the only agency I can ever experience directly is my own; only an ‘I’ thinks and knows that it thinks. The authors of the Book of Job understood this c. 3,000 years ago: “I know that my redeemer lives, and on the last day he will stand upon the earth, and after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes him – I, not another.” (19: 25 – 27) Only first person experience counts, Alfred North Whitehead notwithstanding. This discloses something unexpected about the meaning of ‘I think’. I think only if I am aware that I think. Computers think…but as far as we know they are not aware that they think. This is not the ‘thinking’ Descartes has in mind. The ‘I’ of his cogito is not the ‘I’ that thinks. It is the ‘I’ that knows that it thinks. What Descartes called ‘thinking’ ( cogito ) is more like what we mean by ‘being conscious’. ‘I think’ discloses ‘I’ to Descartes, not because Descartes thinks, but because Descartes knows that he thinks. The Descartes that knows that he thinks is the Descartes that is ( sum ) and that is not the Descartes who merely thinks. Sum (I am) describes a state, not an act. There is no agent so there is no warrant to invoke the ‘I-word’ in this context. A better presentation of the existential reality would have been cogito ergo est (‘I think therefore it is’ or ‘I think therefore something is’). Alternatively, we can retain the ‘I-word’ ( sum ) if we remove it from the cogito : cogitator ergo sum (‘it is thought therefore I am’). That an entity thinks and knows that it thinks means that being has a subject after all and that subject is what I call ‘me’. When I say, “I think,” I am both the stated subject and the implied object of the act. Thinking, as Descartes uses to term, is an inherently recursive process. Being, again per Descartes, is not. Thinking and being are not the same thing…not by a long shot! Bottom line : what is essential is that we scrupulously respect the ontological (not just semantic) distinction between the ‘I’ of cogito and the ‘I’ of sum . But there is more. Being conscious is a process and, like all process, it is trinitarian: (1) I am aware of x (not-me); (2) I am aware that I (me) am aware of x (not-me); (3) since x is and x is not me, I must assume that x may be aware of me as I am of x. I cannot assume that I am ontologically special, much less unique. What goes around may come around! You may say, “I don’t believe that x is aware of me.” Ok, so what? First, I don’t care what you believe; second, I don’t care whether x is aware of you or not. The real nature of x is unimportant. To be conscious is to be aware of being oneself and to be aware of being oneself is to be aware of oneself as potentially the object of another’s awareness. Consciousness does not require the existence of ‘other’ minds; it requires the possibility of ‘other’ minds. It requires me to harbor a model of the ‘other’ inside my model of myself, like an incubus . I cannot be aware of x unless x is distinct from me. Otherwise, x is just part of me and my awareness of it is just an awareness of myself. But if x is distinct from me, then I must concede that it may be a copy, a reflection, of me and that would mean that x could be aware of me. I am aware of x-not-me. I am aware of me being aware of x-not-me. If x is x-not-me then x is ‘me minus me’ (equality, not identity). From the point of view of x, I am x’-not-x. I am ‘x minus x’. The idea that The Other is a fundamental category of ontology goes back to the birth of Western philosophy with Anaximander (6th century BCE). Anaximander apparently (evidence is fragmentary) believed that Being was inherently ‘mutual’ – I come to be by ‘letting’ another come to be. We are all monkeys with our hands stuck inside our own personal bottles. (Apologies to my Simian cousins.) We are only free to become ourselves if we are willing to let go of the prize we’re clutching. Who among us can let go? We can only become by letting another be. It’s counter-intuitive and counter-instinctual but it is the origin of Love and, by extension, of all Virtue. *** Maurits Cornelis Escher — Hand with Reflecting Sphere (1935) Escher’s self-portrait shows him gazing into a polished glass sphere held in his own hand, where the entire room — including himself — curves and folds within its reflection. The image explores the act of perception itself, merging the observer and the observed into a single, infinite loop of awareness. It perfectly captures the Cartesian idea of consciousness reflecting upon itself — the mind as both subject and object in the search for truth. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.