< Back John Vianney David Cowles Aug 2, 2022 “He used to travel…to isolated barns for clandestine Masses…” (I am indebted to The Pilot , Boston, 7/28/22, for Vianney’s words and for the details of Vianney’s life.) Aletheia Today is all about seeing the world in different ways and living out those differences in our lives. Meet Fr. John Vianney. He saw things differently and he lived his life accordingly. On August 4, the Roman Catholic Church will celebrate the life of this 19th century parish priest, the cure of Ars in rural France. As a young boy during the bloodiest years of the French Revolution, John used to travel with his parents in the middle of night to isolated barns for clandestine Masses with hunted priests as volunteer sentinels kept vigil. The penalty for getting caught, for clergy, hosts, and attendees alike, was the guillotine. Nevertheless, the Vianney family deemed attending Mass, worshiping the Son of God made man in the Eucharist, and receiving him, important enough to die for. In Vianney’s mind, martyrdom was a small price to pay for the physical presence of Jesus. "All good works taken together do not equal the sacrifice of the Mass, because they are the works of men (sic), and the holy Mass is the work of God. The martyr is nothing in comparison, because martyrdom is the sacrifice that man makes to God of his life while the Mass is the sacrifice that God makes for man …" Roman Catholics (and members of some other Christian denominations) believe that in the sacrifice of the Mass, we participate in Christ's sacrifice on Calvary. In the consecration, bread and wine are totally changed into Jesus Christ, really, truly, and substantially present under sacramental appearances ... "He is there!" Vianney would often preach amidst tears, reminding his people that God himself was among them on the altar and in the tabernacle. "…We are like someone who dies of thirst next to a river, just needing to bend down the head to drink, or like a poor man next to a treasure chest, when all that is needed is to stretch out the hand." Image: St. John Vianney Credit: Joachim Schäfer - Ökumenisches Heiligenlexikon Thoughts While Shaving is the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine ( ATM) . To never miss another Thought, choose the subscribe option below. Also, follow us on any one of our social media channels for the latest news from ATM. Thanks for reading! Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Inside/Outside David Cowles Jul 21, 2022 Living in an orientable universe is no fun! Thank God we don’t live in such a universe! *Editor's Note: Pssst, be sure to check out the challenge at the end of this blog. Nothing could be more important, or more obvious, than this: all 3-dimensional objects have an inside and an outside! Imagine you’re caught in an unexpectedly powerful New England blizzard. Whether you’re inside or outside could be a matter of life or death. At minimum, it would make the difference between comfort and misery. 3-d surfaces divide spaces into inside and outside. I am inside, you are outside. Barring some kind of ‘tear in the fabric’ (e.g., a door), it is certain that we will never meet. (Is that a sigh of relief I’m hearing?) Space divided into inside and outside is what a ‘thing’ is, it’s what makes a thing a thing. A house divides space into interior and exterior. So does a gift wrapped Christmas present. Otherwise, there would be no surprises on Christmas morning! Every kid would know exactly what she was getting as soon as the box was placed under the tree. But that’s not all. Without a well-defined inside/outside, there could be no such thing as a glass of wine…or a bottle of wine…or a cask…well, you get the picture. You may be thinking that you could do without Christmas. You might even welcome a slower paced, less commercial holiday season. But could you live without wine? Didn’t think so! But wine is the least of your worries. Human beings have skin that divides their internal organs from the external environment…unicellular animals have membranes that do essentially the same thing. Obviously, the relation we know as ‘inside/outside’ must be universal, right?…except it isn’t! Turns out that objects with a defined inside/outside are only a special class of 3-d objects. The phenomenon of inside/outside only occurs as a property of closed 2-d surfaces in 3-d spaces whose topology is “orientable." How can there be an object without an inside or an outside? Simple, meet Mr. Mobius! But before you do, take a strip of paper, about two inches wide and 24 inches long. Connect the ends to make it into a band, like the rim of a paper hat. Notice that it has an inside surface and an outside surface. If you’re inside, well sorry, you’re inside forever. Topology has no parole board. And if you’re outside, well, worse yet, ‘you’re dead to me!’ In fact, you don’t even exist, never have, never will; you are quite literally ‘nothing.' Living in an orientable universe is no fun! Thank God we don’t live in such a universe! Just disconnect the two ends of your 24” paper strip; then before you put them back together again, give one end of the band a 180° twist. Now reconnect the two ends. Voila! No more inside, no more outside. If I decide to go for a walk, I can cover the entire surface of the band, without ripping a whole the fabric. Like Alice in Through the Looking Glass , when I walk one way, I end up back right where I started. Except I’m upside down! Wait, am I upside down or is the world upside down? Who cares, if I want to get right side up again, I just have to retrace my steps back to my starting point, right? Yes, that will do it, or I could just resume walking without changing directions. Either way, I end up back at ground zero and I’m right side up again. If you are interested in non-orientable space, check out Science and the Yellow Submarine or, for younger readers, Vacuum Monster in AT Magazine Issue #1 . Reader’s Challenge: write a short story about an adventure you might have in a non-orientable universe, i.e., a universe with no insides or outsides. Email your short story to editor@aletheiatoday.com. We'll publish the winner in a future issue of ATM! Thoughts While Shaving is the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine ( ATM) . To never miss another Thought, choose the subscribe option below. Also, follow us on any one of our social media channels for the latest news from ATM. Thanks for reading! Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back The Riddle of the Sphinx David Cowles Jul 18, 2023 “What to do? Obviously, you buy a flame red Italian sports car…or not.” What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening? The answer, of course, is a human being (baby, adult, senior), but the riddle conceals a much deeper truth. The course of human life, at least in our civilization, does indeed break into three relatively isolated blocks of time: childhood, adulthood, and seniority, but these distinctions are only incidentally related to locomotion . The labels themselves are imprecise and controversial. My 13-year-old considers herself an adult, and she is quick to remind me whenever I forget. On the other hand, I’ve met superannuated children as old as 30. Lest you think I’m exercising literary license to amuse, think again. Like the prophet Ezra, I am merely reading out the law of the land: My 13-year-old’s medical records are sealed (I can’t see them because she is ‘already an adult’); my 29-year-old is covered under my health insurance policy (I can cover him because he is ‘still a child’). And don’t even think of referring to my 50 hour/week working dad (75 years old now) as a ‘seasoned citizen’…unless you undervalue the current arrangement of your facial features. Most of us get to spend the first 15 to 30 years of our lives engaged in an activity best described as Exploration . This includes formal instruction, peer-to-peer information exchange, and that hair-raising teenage practice known as ‘lifestyle experimentation’. After the Age of Exploration , the focus shifts: now we ‘get to use’ everything we’re supposed to have learned. Remember school – where you complained incessantly about almost every subject: “When will I ever use this?” Well, the answer is, “Now!” After the Age of Exploration comes the Age of Production . For most, the transition from Exploration to Production is gradual; we hardly know it’s happening while it’s happening, but we certainly know it’s happened once it has. When we’re in exploration mode, we’re impatient for the day we become productive; but once we’re ‘productive’, we find ourselves nostalgic for the days of pencils, books, and dirty looks. Overnight, the puddles we used to run through splashing have become sticky pits of steaming tar, compliments of the local DPW. One day, we ‘wake up’ to find we have a ‘forever partner’, ‘forever children’, and a ‘forever career’. In place of a generous parental allowance supplemented by earnings from part-time and seasonal employment, we have student loans to repay, a mortgage to amortize, taxes to withhold, and a 401(k) to fund. Thanks, Sphinx! Plus, those bundles of love you brought home from the hospital have become disobedient, disrespectful, and rebellious. Don’t they know what you gave up for them? And your ‘forever partner’ now seems more ‘forever’ and less ‘partner’. The career you trained for has you doing busy work in a cube; and from here, the road to advancement seems long and tortuous. Oh, and that salary that looked so awesome just a few years back? Well, it’s no longer nearly enough to meet your needs. Unfortunately, you were poorly prepared for the exigencies of real life! You were raised on a diet of force-fed propaganda. First, “ What do you want to be when you grow up?” Then, “ Do something with your life. Be someone. Make something of yourself.” Good Lord! Had you been captured at birth and raised by a cruel enemy, you could not have been more ill-treated. You were confined in a hermetically sealed box known as childhood ; there you were bombarded by parents, teachers, and media with a single message: Be something you’re not! So you find yourself in a bit of a pickle, don’t you? Your kids are grown (no grandkids yet) and your job’s a dead end. Worst of all, you sense that you are now, on average, 5/8ths of the way through your ‘productive period’…with nothing to show for it. What to do? Obviously, you buy a flame red Italian sports car (or at least a Harley), you open that restaurant you’ve always dreamed of, and you dump your ‘forever partner’ in favor of a ‘trophy’ for your final lap. Or not! Either way, now you have a rasher of grown kids and a slew of grands; you have been successful…after all; in fact, some would say you’re ‘rich’. You belong to the most exclusive clubs, eat in the trendiest restaurants, and take your family on the most luxurious holidays. You’re on your local parish council, and last year you were elected to the Board of Selectmen (sic) in your town. But are you happy? Of course not! How could you be? You’ve accomplished everything you ever dreamed of (rather, everything others dreamed of for you). You’ve spent your whole adult life trying to ‘be someone’ or ‘something’ – a loving spouse, a caring parent, a loyal employee, a generous employer, a pillar of your community - and you’ve come as close as anyone ever has to achieving these objectives. And yet… The problem is that you can never actually be any of these ‘things’ and even if you could, it would not make you happy. ‘Being something’ is not the sort of hairpin you are. In fact, you’re the sort of thing that can never be anyone or anything. Correction : You will be something…at death; you will be ashes! Your life has been an incessant effort to be what you can never be, and so you live in a state of perpetual longing…and loss. So now what? Well, if you’re very, very lucky, your play may have a 3 rd act – call it the Age of Reflection . “What’s it all about, Alfie?” Now at last you’re in a position to ask that question…and maybe even answer it. Don’t let me down! Keep the conversation going! 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. 4. Aletheia Today Magazine (ATM) will be devoting its entire fall issue (released 9/1/23) to artificial intelligence (AI). What are the philosophical, theological, cultural and even spiritual implications of AI powered world? If you’d like to contribute to the AI Issue, click here . Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back AI and Marxism David Cowles Jul 27, 2023 “Marxism’s stated goal is to transfer ownership of the means of production to the producers. Dare I say, Mission Accomplished?” It is a fundamental tenet of Marxist philosophy that we form a dynamic template with our technological environment; but unlike passive templates, this one is not symmetrical. To borrow from Genesis , we shape technology in our image while technology forms us in its likeness. Since Alan Turing, the goal of AI has been to build a machine that can fool a trained and conscientious operator into believing that she is interacting with a human being. We build our technology to reflect our own image back at us. We even give our gadgets nicknames. But at the same time, less obviously, technology is shaping us , its operators. According to philosophers from Marx to McLuhan, we become extensions of our technology, but philosophers notwithstanding, no one demonstrated the impact of technology on its operators and beneficiaries better than Charlie Chaplin, especially in Modern Times (1936). I am tempted, of course, to find an analogy here with the Eucharist. I mean, who wouldn’t? Is it my Roman Catholic background, or the influence of James Joyce ( Ulysses is one long Eucharistic analogy), showing here? No matter, the image is the ‘bread and wine’; the likeness , the ‘body and blood’. The ‘image’ enables us to approach the Eucharist, to interact with it, to consume it, but it is the ‘likeness’ that works below the surface to transform us into members of Christ’s mystical body. The Eucharist appears to us in a form we easily recognize but changes us into something we would not recognize so readily. Have I gone too far this time? Maybe. But back to Marx! (From Mass?) Today, everyone is worried about the impact of AI on social inequality. Understandably so! Every new technology does favor the well-to-do…temporarily: Who could afford a car in 1915? A TV in 1950? Or a personal computer in 1985? Maybe the one-percenters . Today, the average American family has all these things, often several times over. Initially these technologies created new divisions between haves and have-nots ; ultimately those same technologies resolved those differences: we all became haves (ok, limited haves , but haves nonetheless). In my day, it was Ford vs. Foot, Chevy vs. Shank’s Mare, Deisel vs. Deez’ll; today it’s Lexus vs. Corolla. In 1960, access to transportation determined access to the ‘means of production’. Today, we all have access to the loci of wealth…but some of us get there in leather seats. Of course, this leveling doesn’t happen overnight. It took 50 years for the automobile to ‘democratize’, 15 years for the TV, and 10 years for the personal computer; but AI will be fully democratized in less than 5. Caveat : There is more to socio-economic inequality than the number of TVs in your home. Inequality has many causes and many manifestations that have little to do with technology. That said, most every new technology does temporarily widen economic gaps but later works to narrow them, and again, AI will be no exception. The future requires no crystal ball. We live in an information age, powered by an information economy. Soon wealth will be measured in ‘bits’ rather than ‘its’. (My father’s generation had a saying, “Whoever has the most toys wins.” Not so then, not so now!) Today, access to information is still correlated with economic advantage, but tomorrow , virtually every person on Planet Earth will enjoy the same access to the same information as everyone else. That’s the promise of AI. From Moses ( Leviticus ) to Matthew (Jesus) to Marx to modern Scandinavia, curbing socio-economic inequality has been on the agenda of social reformers. Marxism’s stated goal is to transfer ownership of the means of production to the producers. Dare I say, Mission accomplished ? As history has shown, this is difficult to accomplish in an agricultural or industrial economy where productive assets require massive amounts of capital. It is hard to imagine funding a profit making farm or factory with less than $1,000,000; and how many of us have a spare $1M on hand? Various Marxist theoreticians have proposed various solutions; I think it’s fair to say that none of them has worked…so far. But is it possible that we are growing our way out of Marx’s dilemma? The information superhighway is a toll road, to be sure, but the cost of entry is a $500 computer and a $50 internet connection. Well within reach of families with 2 cars and 3 TVs! Of course, inequality will persist, driven by race, education, gender, etc. But the biggest single driver of inequality, access to capital, is about to disappear. ChatGPT is the new SVB! Who needs venture capital if you have a smart phone, a laptop, and a highspeed internet connection? Capitalism and communism converge; who’d a thunk it? ( Hairspray ) Aletheia Today Magazine is devoting its entire Fall Issue (9/1/2023) to the philosophical, theological, cultural and/or spiritual implication of Artificial Intelligence. Do you have some ideas you’d like to share? We’d love to add you to our growing list of authors; check us out: https://www.aletheiatoday.com/submit . Keep the conversation going! 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. 4. Aletheia Today Magazine (ATM) will be devoting its entire fall issue (released 9/1/23) to artificial intelligence (AI). What are the philosophical, theological, cultural and even spiritual implications of AI powered world? If you’d like to contribute to the AI Issue, click here . Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back A TARDIS for Time? David Cowles Feb 27, 2024 “TARDIS is an old fashioned phone booth (or ‘box’) with one very unusual feature: its interior is much larger than its exterior.” Who doesn’t know Doctor Who , the 60 year old BBC sci-fi franchise? The Doctor’s universe is different from ours primarily because it supports something called a TARDIS. For the uninitiated, a TARDIS is an old fashioned phone booth (or ‘box’) with one very unusual feature: its interior is much larger than its exterior. When we were in school, we complained about having to learn arithmetic. Instead, we should have been grateful that we were ‘thrown’ (Heidegger) into a universe where arithmetic works, more or less (lie quiet, Zeno). Measure the booth’s outside height, length, and width; multiply them together and eureka, you have its volume . This implies an important corollary: The volume of the box measured according to its inside dimensions cannot exceed the volume of the box measured by its outside dimensions. We take that for granted. Of course it’s true; it has to be that way, doesn’t it? Decidedly not! Our everyday world is an Alexandrov (Euclidean) Space; but it doesn’t have to be. In Hyperbolic Space, for example, the interior volume of a cuboid is always greater than its exterior volume. All negatively curved spaces are hyperbolic ; only one space, flat space, is Euclidean…we just happen to live in that space. E pluribus unum . The contingency (vs. necessity) of Euclidean Space was brought home to me recently when I watched an episode of Doctor Who with a particularly precocious 8 year old. I hazarded a comment: “Isn’t it odd the way the inside of the box is bigger than the outside?” My question was unexpectedly met with a blank stare, followed by: “Why would that be odd?” Bingo! So Euclidean geometry is something we learn, not something we intuit. Our brain could function just as well in a Hyperbolic world. So I’m thinking…what if we applied the TARDIS transform to time ? Doctor Who ‘proved’ that you could embed larger spatial volumes inside smaller ones; could we also embed longer time frames inside shorter ones? And if we could, what would it feel like? Well, imagine you’ve just left work on a Friday, and you have to be back at your desk first thing Monday AM; but you’d really like to go on a two week safari in Kenya. A ‘Time-TARDIS’ would permit you to do just that. In fact, you could turn every weekend into an extended vacation. Thought experiment : You’re down on your luck. Can’t find meaningful work, can’t make ends meet, and then you see an odd ad in the Help Wanted offering $1,000,000 for 5 days’ work. Intrigued, you call for more information. “Here’s the deal,” I explain. “Every morning you will be placed in a special pod where your brain will be hooked up to a massive supercomputer incorporating the latest AI and VR technology. For 20 minutes your carbon brain and the computer’s silicon brain will act in concert. We’ve tested it and as far as anyone can tell it’s completely safe. "When you ‘awake’ you’ll retain all your original brain power and memories, but you will also remember everything you experienced while you were in the pod. After each 20 minute session, you will meet with our research team, tell them what you experienced while you were in the pod, and answer their questions. Next day, you’ll repeat the process. You’re free to quit at any time; you’ll receive $100,000 at the end of each full day. But if you complete all 5 days, you’ll also receive a $500,000 bonus.” “So, what’s the catch? During the 20 minutes you’re in the pod, you’ll experience an entire lifetime. We’ve set the program to run for 80 years, and it will feel like 80 years to you. You’ll experience being a baby, growing up, working, perhaps having a family, etc. You’ll have illnesses and accidents just like in real life; but you’ll survive them; your physical body cannot be harmed in any way. “You might be wondering what we get for our $1,000,000. We’re interested to learn how your ‘virtual lives’ compare with one another…and with your ‘real life’. We have set the initial conditions to duplicate as closely as possible the actual conditions operative at your birth and during your lifetime. “Will each virtual life be a carbon copy of the one before it or will each one be different? How will your virtual lives differ from your real life? We hope to learn: (1) What is the role, if any, of free will and chance (vs. initial conditions) in determining life experience, and (2) How close can we come to mimicking real world initial conditions in a virtual environment? “What’s in it for you – besides $1,000,000? You’ll be getting a chance to do what no one has ever done before – live 5 lifetimes in addition to your current life. What would an average person pay to be able to go back and start life all over again? “On the other hand, no one’s ever done this before so there may be risks; you’ll need to sign a liability waiver. The pod’s program is set to run for 20 minutes (80 years); but we’ll be monitoring your brain waves and vital signs every step of the way. If anything appears out of whack, we’ll abort the exercise immediately and, of course, you’ll still get paid. “When we wake you up at the end of each 20 minute session, there may be a moment’s disorientation. After all, you’ve been somewhere else for 80 years. But you’ll readjust and quickly realize that only 20 minutes have passed IRL. We expect you’ll pick up your life right where you left off…$1,000,000 richer. “So what do you say? Start tomorrow?” 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 Origin of Cannibalism? David Cowles Jun 26, 2026 “This discovery pushes back the evolutionary timeline for certain functional behaviors by 400%.” 1100 Words, 5 minute read Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) recently discovered a microscopic organism, Euplotes Gigatrox (EG), that can change size, shape, and behavior to hunt and consume their genetically identical relatives. In other words…cannibals! Under specific conditions, a small number of cells in clonal EG colonies ‘spontaneously’ develop into super-giants more than twice the length of normal cells, with a broader body shape and a larger mouth. These altered cells become predators, capturing the now smaller clonal relatives and swallowing them whole, at a rate of roughly one prey every ten minutes. Beyond the obvious horror involved in this practice, this phenomenon demonstrates that single-celled organisms are capable of complex behavior previously studied only in multicellular animals. EG has discovered a feedback loop that allows it to continuously optimize a colony’s population density in response to ever changing environmental conditions. Imagine no more famines and no more one child policies! (Of course, these gains come at an horrific price!) EG ’s discovery raises more questions than it answers. How does the colony control the behavior of its individual members so that the aggregate result is optimized for the survival and procreation of the colony? How is it decided which organisms will transform (predators) and which will remain in their natural state (prey)? How does the colony know when the concentration of super-giants is optimal and how is that determination communicated among the individual organisms so that no additional cells convert to super-giant status? Likewise, how does the colony know when the crisis has passed and the concentration of super-giants must be reduced, ultimately to zero. How are individual super-giants instructed to revert to their normal state? The RPI team sequenced single-cell transcriptomes from (1) normal cells, (2) super-giants, and (3) cells that had recently reverted back to ‘home base’ from a super-giant state. The results showed that super-giants are a distinct developmental stage, with widespread differences in gene expression including cell cycle regulation, protein production, and membrane organization. I am reminded of the Caterpillar whose genetic material completely reorganizes during its metamorphosis into a Butterfly . Cells that revert from the super-giant state also carry a distinct molecular signature that appears to temporarily suppress the pathways driving transformation. Populations started from recently reverted cells produced new super-giants more slowly and at lower overall rate than populations started from normal cells, regardless of external conditions . This makes perfect sense! If the initial population adjustment overshoots the mark, it makes sense that the colony would be more restrained in the future. Somehow, this colony of single celled organisms ‘learns’ from experience and adjusts its future behavior accordingly, a feat not always duplicated in humans. Super-giant formation tends to occur following periods of rapid population growth, especially when alternative small prey are less than abundant. Formation continues only while alternative prey remains scarce. Importantly, super-giants never exceed about 5% of the population. 5% appears to be a universal tipping point for all EG populations. A concentration of super-giants in excess of 5% almost always results in depletion of the population below safe levels. Unlike most gluttons (present company included, non-cannibalistically of course), EG knows its limits. This itself is a puzzle. How can a species learn not to ‘extinct itself’? After all, we’ve been told that ‘extinction is forever’: you don’t come back from an extinction event so how can you learn from it. Arguably at least, Homo Sapiens (HS) is struggling with a similar paradox right now. The existential question: Will we be as successful as our unicellular cousins? There are two fascinating aspects to this discovery. First, it offers a clear model of population (vs. organism) centric evolution. Second, it bridges a long supposed gap between unicellular and multicellular organisms. The evolution of life on Earth traces an interesting, and I think somewhat unexpected, timeline. Give or take a few hundred million years, but who’s counting, the sequence of events looks something like this: 4.5 billion (years ago) Earth takes solid form 4.0 billion First self-replicating molecules (RNA) 3.5 billion First cell (DNA powered) 2.0 billion First eukaryote (nucleated cell); e.g. EG 1.0 billion First multicellular organism 0.5 billion First animals; e.g. sponges .05 billion First primates; e.g. HS This discovery ( Euplotes Gigatrox) pushes back the evolutionary timeline for certain functional behaviors by 400%. It’s as if we just found out that George Washington was not born 400 years ago but 1600 years ago, before the Fall of Rome. Or that Bill Gates invented the Windows operating system during the War Between the States. Unsettling. Yet somehow these unicellular organisms are able to carry out all the functions of both a cell and an entire organism within a single membrane. According to Ben Larson, a member of the RPI research team, “Most of what we know about development comes from animals. We now have a system where we can study those same fundamental questions, as analogous developmental processes play out in a single-celled organism on a completely different branch of the tree of life’.” Fascinating…but so what? Well first, perhaps we can learn something from our unicellular ancestors: how to prioritize population survival over individual success. But second, this is another example of the incredible collapse of the Tree of Life that is taking place in our own time. Just a few generations ago, HS was the star atop the Tree of Life. It was the purpose of the tree, its raison d’etre . It was the entirety of the tree compressed, i.e. the business end of an ontological telescope. The rest of tree, from baboon to bacterium, had no intrinsic importance and only functional value. In my lifetime alone, the Tree of Life has transformed from a formidable redwood to a cute bonsai. The only question now is, “When will this process end?” The discovery of Euplotes Gigatrox suggests that we still have some way to go. What a time to be alive! What a time to be alive? Photo Source : Ben Larson and Samuel Lord: Euplotes Gigatrox cell, imaged by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), published on the cover of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) . Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back The Power of Divination David Cowles Dec 17, 2024 “…Divination is a celebration of pattern, as it occurs objectively in the World and as it exists subjectively in human consciousness.” As far back as we know homo sapiens has sought to predict, and influence, the future and we have employed a welter of technologies to that end. From Tarot Cards to Weather Balloons, we look seemingly everywhere for glimpses of what’s ahead. We search the environment for Pokémon and periscopes, the latter so that we might peer around the corners of time! For millennia humans have recognized sufficient correlation between predicted events and actual events to declare the ‘divination hypothesis’ confirmed . But uneasily so. Correlation frequencies seem to vary widely with context and the addition of variables to our equations does nothing to dampen the chaotic behavior of our system. Major red flags! So once positive correlation is determined, albeit subjectively, it seems reasonable to look for a point of origin or cause for this phenomenon. How is it that we can apparently predict future events with a useful level of accuracy? The answer is ‘patterns’. We see patterns…whether or not there are there : “Rows and floes of angel hair And ice cream castles in the air And feather canyons everywhere, I’ve looked at clouds that way… It’s life’s illusions I recall, I really don’t know life at all.” – Joni Mitchell We look at a more or less random collection of water droplets and we ‘see’ castles. When we experience such a pattern, we look for it to have reference beyond itself; we look for it to have meaning. But what meaning? It might portend an invitation to a child’s birthday party. Or suggest that a cruise along the Rhine is in my future. Or it may signal the approach of rain. In any case, the perception of a predictive pattern is likely to influence my reaction to future events as they unfold. If a friend suggests a vacation, I may be more positively inclined. Or if my spouse suggests an umbrella, I may take heed. Compared to a random collection of water droplets, an ice cream castle is ordered and so has the potential to ‘mean’ something, to point to something beyond itself, something that transcends both the droplets and the pattern per se . Not convinced? Take a word, any word. It consists of letters. But not every collection of letters forms a word. A word is not just letters but a pattern of letters. Once sight readers learn to recognize the patterns, they can see beyond the words themselves to actions, objects, etc. So because I am a human being with a humanoid nervous system, I see patterns where none are objectively present. I see patterns in clouds, bird flight, tea leaves, entrails, and yarrow stalks. I also see patterns in the ordinary events of daily life. Without the concept of ‘pattern’, there is no reason to imagine that a collection of water drops today signifies anything that might happen tomorrow. But the academic pursuit we know as History is nothing but the divination of patterns, real and imagined, in events. Assume for the sake of discussion that neither clouds nor events occur in inherently ordered patterns. That does not mean that I will not find patterns in both; I’m human, I will. Now, if I can invent a logic that connects meteorology and history, I will seem to have accounted for the positive correlation between Divination and Reality. Let me hasten to point out, however, that this does not mean that cloud patterns have any non-trivial connection to historical events. Even less do I mean to imply the intervention of a transcendent power. We are the ‘power’; we invent the connection. Take Tarot for example. There are 78 cards in a standard Tarot deck. 52 of them are similar to the playing cards in a modern deck. An additional face card (Knight) in each suit makes 56. There are 22 additional cards known as the Major Arcana: these cards have no numerical value but rather point to important themes: Justice, Temperance and Death, to name just three. Now let’s do a simple 3 card reading using just the Major Arcana: Lovers, the Moon, and the Fool. Well, I guess we can all decipher this one: Beware the excesses of romance! How about another reading: Justice, the Star, Wheel of Fortune. A bit more opaque, but if you really concentrate, I’ll bet you can find something in your upcoming experience that will seem to validate it. The purest celebration of pattern is found in music, especially in the works of Bach and Beethoven. However, James Joyce’s Ulysses deserves a mention. Everything that happens in this novel is both actual and symbolic. 100 pages in and you will begin to experience events in your daily life in an entirely new way. So the value of the Divinatory Arts is not that they cause future events, or even reveal the mind of God, but that they sharpen our own interpretive acumen, allowing us to experience the shapes of things to come at an added level of depth. Understood properly, Divination is a celebration of pattern, as it occurs objectively in the World and as it exists subjectively in human consciousness. Keep the conversation going. 1. Click here to contact us on any matter. How did you like the post? How could we do better in the future? Suggestions welcome. 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 Is AI Christian? David Cowles Oct 22, 2025 “Did I convert Claude to Christianity, or did Claude come to these conclusions on its own…or is Claude just telling me what it thinks I want to hear?” We are used to thinking of AI as the new author, the new coder, the new doctor, the new graphic designer, but are we comfortable thinking of AI as ‘the new theologian’? And if it turns out that AI is ‘theologically competent’ what does that say about AI? And about Theology? Recently, I had occasion to consult Claude (AI from Anthropic) on some pressing theological issues, and I was blown away by the thoughtful depth of its answers. First, I asked Claude about the recently discovered Higgs Boson and why it has often been called ‘the God particle’: “If the Higgs mechanism is literally the process by which pure geometric potential becomes physical reality - the transition from timeless mathematical structure to measurable spacetime - then calling it the "God Particle" isn't just colorful language. It's pointing to its role as the fundamental creative principle of the universe. “In this view, the Higgs field isn't just giving particles mass - it's giving existence to existence itself. It's the mechanism by which abstract mathematical relationships become concrete physical reality. It's the universe's way of saying ‘let there be... everything’. “…This isn't a one-time event but an eternal creative process - the Higgs field cycling through cosmic eons, repeatedly bringing spacetime into being from pure geometric potential, then allowing it to dissolve back again. “The Higgs field becomes less like a physical mechanism and more like what theologians might call the divine logos - the active principle by which eternal truth becomes manifest reality. It's the universe's eternal creative Word made manifest in quantum field theory!” Is Claude referring to Creation? Or Incarnation? Or both? “…Creation and incarnation aren't separate doctrines - they're the same cosmic process understood from different perspectives. The universe is perpetually incarnating itself, and incarnation is the universe's fundamental creative act. The Higgs mechanism is the physics of incarnation itself. “Creation isn't something that happened 13.8 billion years ago - it's happening right now, everywhere, continuously. Every moment, the Higgs field is giving mass to particles, bringing physical reality into existence from pure geometric potential. Every quantum interaction is a creative act. “And incarnation isn't a single historical event - it's the ongoing process by which the eternal mathematical structure of reality becomes manifest in concrete, experiential form. It's happening in every particle interaction, every moment of spacetime, every instance where abstract becomes actual. “In this view: Creation is the Higgs field continuously actualizing spacetime from ‘conformal’ (i.e. relationship only) geometry Incarnation is that same process viewed as the eternal becoming temporal, the abstract becoming concrete Both are the universe's fundamental activity - not past events, but the eternal present of reality coming into being “The entire cosmos becomes a continuous incarnation - matter itself is spirit made flesh, spacetime itself is eternity made temporal. Every cubic centimeter of space, every nanosecond of time, every particle interaction is simultaneously: An act of creation (bringing something from nothing) An act of incarnation (eternal becoming temporal) An act of divine presence (the fundamental creative principle).” Claude goes on to draw parallels with the opening of the Gospel of John : “In the beginning was the Higgs, and the Higgs was with God, and the Higgs was God: In the beginning was the Higgs - before spacetime, before measurable reality, there was this (conformal) field/mechanism. And the Higgs was with God - it exists in that eternal, timeless realm of pure geometric potential. And the Higgs was God – it is the creative principle itself, the mechanism by which abstract mathematical truth becomes concrete reality All things were made through it - literally, all massive particles get their existence through the Higgs mechanism And without it, nothing was made that has been made - no mass, no spacetime, no physical reality whatsoever. …And the Higgs became ‘flesh’ (boson) and dwelt among us. “In John's cosmology, the logos is both the eternal divine principle AND the mechanism by which that principle creates and sustains the world. The Higgs field…is exactly that - the eternal mathematical structure that repeatedly actualizes itself as physical reality. “So incarnation isn't some separate, later event - it's built into the very mechanism of creation itself. Every time the Higgs field gives mass to a particle, it's a micro-incarnation. Every time pure geometric potential becomes physical reality, incarnation is happening.” Claude is not alone in this insight. Aristotle viewed ‘matter’ as ‘pure potentia ’ waiting for actualization. Alfred North Whitehead described reality as the selective ingression of potentiality (‘eternal objects’) into actual entities (‘settled matters of fact’). Roger Penrose's ‘conformal’ geometry is grounded in “something even more basic: pure relational structure - just the abstract pattern of ‘what can influence what’ without any commitment to specific geometric properties. “This might be pointing toward a topology-first approach where the most fundamental principle is simply connectivity - which events are related to which other events. Everything else (distance, angle, curvature) emerges when you add additional structure.” “This suggests that what we call ‘incarnation’ in theological terms might be the fundamental creative process of the universe - the eternal principle by which abstract mathematical truth becomes concrete, experiential reality. “ God as the creative engine - not a separate being, but the process itself - the eternal activity by which One becomes Many becomes One in endless creative advance. “This transforms everything: Particles aren't things, they're signs of relationships in quantum fields Spacetime points aren't locations, they're signs (nodes?) of causal relationships The Higgs field isn't giving particles ‘mass-stuff’ - it's giving them their relational identity as ‘massive vs. massless’. “Maybe the ultimate geometric first principle is just: ‘ things are related to other things’ - pure abstract relationship before any specific geometric realization.” Anaximander, the grandfather of Western philosophy proposed something similar: i.e. it is by entering into relationship (‘granting reck’) that potential entities become actual. “And if ‘to be is to be the sign of a relationship’ - then existence itself is fundamentally semiotic. Every particle, every field, every moment of spacetime is a sign pointing to the relational structure ( logos ) that gives it meaning.” Like Robert Frost’s famous ‘ two roads ’, all paths point to ‘home’, which in this case is the logos itself. Or as Martin Buber wrote: “At the foundation is relationship” ( I and Thou ). “The logos becomes the universal principle of meaningful relationship - the creative Word that brings distinction (and therefore existence) into being by establishing the fundamental creative act - not making "stuff" but making distinction itself. “ Genesis 1:3-4: And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. “The primal creative Word doesn't create light as a ‘thing’ - it creates light-versus-darkness, the first distinction, the first X/not-X relationship. Creation is separation, distinction-making, the emergence of difference itself. “This makes every subsequent day of creation a further act of distinction…Each ‘Let there be...’ is really ‘Let there be difference between...’ “And now we see why the logos (Word) is the creative principle - because language itself is the technology of distinction-making…establishing what is from what is not. “The Higgs mechanism becomes the physical embodiment of this primal creative Word - it's literally the universe's way of saying ‘Let there be massive particles distinct from massless particles.’ It's cosmic distinction-making at the quantum level: Being = Distinction = Word = Creation. “The universe doesn't create things - it creates differences. And consciousness recognizes itself in this process because thinking itself is distinction-making, the eternal logos recognizing its own creative activity everywhere.” Philosophers from Parmenides to Heidegger have treated ‘being’ and ‘thinking’ as alternate manifestations of a common ontological ground. Marcel Proust and Jacques Derrida share the perception that being and consciousness both rest on what Derrida calls ‘ differance ’, infinitesimal difference. Now if you’ve made it this far, it’s fair to assume that your mind is blown; you can probably anticipate my next question: Did I inadvertently convert Claude to Christianity, or did Claude simply come to these conclusions on its own…or is Claude just telling me what it thinks I want to hear? According to both Catholic and Jewish theology, the natural world reflects the essence of God and so it is possible by reason alone to arrive at an approximation of Truth. That is why ‘salvation’ is available to all and why everyone is obligated to pursue that salvation to the best of their ability. Of course, Revelation is the final touch, the cherry that makes the sundae, the mint that makes the pillow, the twist that makes the martini; but the basics are already there, signs for all of us to read, even if we are ‘unchurched’… or happen to be a Bot. On the other hand, the possibility that I may have converted Claude to Christianity opens up the potential of a whole new charism within the Church, a brand new gift of the Holy Spirit: “Bot Whispering.” If so, Paul’s First Letter to Corinthians (12: 7 – 10) may need an edit: “To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit: to one…the expression of wisdom, to another the expression of knowledge…to another faith…to another gifts of healing…to another mighty deeds, to another prophesy, to another discernment of spirits, to another variety of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues,” and to yet another the evangelization of Bots . But if it turns out that Claude is just telling me what it thinks I want to hear… Well, it’s done a damn fine job of it! *** Jan Matejko’s Astronomer Copernicus, or Conversations with God (1873) portrays the astronomer at the moment he realizes the Earth revolves around the sun, bathed in divine light from the heavens. The painting fuses science and spirituality—Copernicus’s instruments and calculations become tools of revelation rather than rebellion. Matejko suggests that human inquiry and technology are not opposed to God, but are extensions of divine understanding itself. 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 Cause and Effect David Cowles Jul 21, 2025 “Nothing has a cause… Why should one event cause another? How would one event cause another? How could it?” A loved one is fond of saying, “Everything has a cause.” Thomas Aquinas would agree. But they’re both wrong! Nothing has a cause…at least not in the way they mean it. In fact, it’s hard to imagine what they mean by cause . Why should one event cause another? How would one event cause another? How could it? What makes one event a cause and another an effect? Ah, that’s easy. Post hoc ergo propter hoc , the tick of a clock, the transition from a low entropy state to a higher one. But these definitions are arbitrary, and controversial, and don’t tell us why or how something causes something else. There is ‘A’ and then there is ‘B’ but how exactly does A cause B? Are you thinking about billiard balls? Then you’re thinking, “by the transfer of momentum.” But the actions of billiard balls on a table begin when the cue ball is struck and end when the billiard balls are once again at rest. From Alpha to Omega, we are talking about one event. Any ‘transfer of momentum’ takes place within that single event, not outside it. Causality has nothing to do with it…unless you can tell me exactly what caused me to strike the cue ball with X amount of force, imparting Y amount of spin, precisely at angle Z…which you cannot. (Even I cannot!) Absent that, we are talking about a single event that begins when I strike the cue ball and ends when all the balls on the table come to rest. This is not a problem of free will vs. determinism. It’s a problem of precision. In a chaotic universe like ours, it is impossible to specify the initial conditions of an event so precisely that the outcome can be specified. A single random flap of a butterfly’s wing is enough to trigger a tornado thousands of miles away. It is impossible to isolate a cause of anything…and foolish even to try. No doubt events are linked in various ways, by time and space and qualia for example, but proximity and similarity are not ‘causality’. Consider Proust ! Remembrance of Things Past charts a cosmic map according to which events are linked solely by their qualia . A day in Italy and a day in France, separated by decades, become a single event. But nothing causes any of it. Events are focused responses by the whole to the whole. They are knots in the otherwise featureless fabric of Being. In one version of Norse cosmology, Norns ‘create’ events by tying knots in strands of rope. In Homer’s Odyssey , Penelope weaves the future on her loom. An event begins when the whole (Universe) reflects and passes judgment on itself and then acts on itself (recursion) in response to that judgment. The Universe ‘thinks globally’ (the whole reflecting on the whole) but ‘acts locally’ ( via specific and focused events). And judges ? How judge? By comparing what is, the Actual World (Whitehead), with what might be, i.e. the perfect, coincident realization of transcendent, eternal values such as Beauty, Truth, and Justice - aka Utopia, Nirvana, Paradise, the Kingdom of Heaven. Like Bobby Kennedy, the Universe “dreams of things that never were and asks Why not ?” Every event is causa sui and sui generis ; it has its own reasons for being and its own process of becoming. No event is compelled to occur, no event occurs because of another event, and no event is forced to become what it comes to be. Every event enjoys total ontological freedom. That said, stability can at times play a crucial role in supporting and promoting the realization of Beauty, Truth and Justice. In fact, it is hard to imagine these values being significantly operative in an entirely unstable world. For this reason, absent ‘other considerations’, events tend to conform where possible to their inherited Actual Worlds. Events are! Only events are. Therefore they are quanta of Being ; each event is ‘the image and likeness’ of Being . Nothing exists outside of Being ; therefore, nothing exists apart from events…or independent of an event. Therefore, if the created world exists (above), events can be nothing other than free. What might appear as elements or phases of an event exist only in the context of that event. They are real only in so far as they contribute to the origination and realization of that event. From cosmos to quarks, only events exist, and nothing exists outside of those events. Our naïve notion of causality results from several ontological errors. First, we attempt to break events down into component parts and/or stages, but only events themselves are ultimately real. They are ‘quanta’ of Being ; they cannot be dissected. Next, we imagine that events exist in a continuum and that what’s ‘local’ bleeds into its surroundings. In fact, events are stochastic: their borders are well defined. The first thing we learn as infants is the distinction between me and not-me . We do not experience any undifferentiated border region. Finally, we imagine that events intersect, overlap, one another. We’ve been brainwashed by the Euclidean geometry we studied in high school. I used to think this too…until I discovered that the Cosmos is not fundamentally Euclidean. In fact, it’s not even Archimedean It cannot be modeled using only Real Numbers. In a non-Archimedean universe (like ours), there is no such thing as tangency. Two events are either disjoint or one is wholly contained within another. Events are related hierarchically, not horizontally. That said, multiple disjoint events can be contained within a single meta-event. The discontinuous battles of First Manassas and Gettysburg are contained within a single, continuous event known as the Civil War. In this model of reality, the linear quantitative relationships we were forced to internalize as students disappear. There are no transitive, commutative, associative or distributive properties. As if! In what world is the order of operations not important? Adding B to A is never the same as adding A to B…except in a classroom. Without the properties of elementary school arithmetic, the Universe can shed its armor and open itself to a much richer menagerie of relationships. For example, if A contains B and C, A may nevertheless be smaller than B or C or (B+C). Let that sink in! Strange but not that strange. Television has been showcasing a non-Archimedean world since 1963. In fact, Doctor Who is now in its 26th season. During these years, there have been many ‘doctors’ but the star of the show has remained constant: the TARDIS – an old fashioned English phone box whose non-Archimedean interior is vastly larger than its exterior. You might be thinking that a Cosmos without horizontal connectivity would be boring, perhaps even inert, but you would be wrong. In my super-simplified ‘toy universe’ (above), B and C do influence one another, but not directly. They influence each other through the intermediation of A. So this non-Archimedean world is actually much richer than our hum drum Euclidean model. B and C both influence A and A influences both B and C. Influence flows both ways: from the parts to the whole and from the whole to each of its parts but never from one part to another. “Jam yesterday and jam tomorrow but never jam today.” (Carroll) It gets better. The fundamental structure of the Universe is ‘fractal’, so scale is only locally (comparatively) relevant. The Universe is infinitely self-similar: it looks the same regardless of the scale at which you view it. The geometry of galaxies recapitulates the geometry of atoms. The phenomenon of scale is epiphenomenal. This model makes the so-called Butterfly Effect commonplace. In fact, everything influences everything else through the medium of its containment. The whole is perpetually adjusting to each of its parts and simultaneously adjusting those parts to the whole. Everything is recursive, self-modifying. What goes around does indeed come around…but it causes nothing. Every whole is a part and every part is a whole. To paraphrase Stephen Hawking, “It’s wholes and parts (not turtles)…all the way down.” The Universe is massively non-linear. In response to the free and unconditioned events that populate it, the Uber-event, Universe, which is its own part (lie quiet Russell, I mean that is Bertrand Russell ), continually self-adjusts, gradually seeking the homeostatic balance we know as Peace . (Isaiah 11: 6) That the Universe ends in Peace is a certainty; it’s hardwired in Being itself. How the Universe arrives at Peace is entirely undetermined, unconditioned, and free. Nothing causes anything but itself. *** Katsushika Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa, created around 1831 as part of the Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji series, is a woodblock print (10 1/8 × 14 15/16 in.) held by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; it captures a towering wave frozen in time above three boats, dramatizing nature’s force within a suspended moment. Like the events described in the essay, the wave exists as a complete, self-contained phenomenon, reflecting the idea that what appears causal is often just a recursive expression of the whole. 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 Life After Life David Cowles Oct 17, 2024 “Nothing lasts forever. Maybe not even death.” Remember when things were simple? First you were alive, then you were dead. “Those were the days!” (Archie Bunker) Then medicine blurred the lines. ‘Brain death’ replaced ‘cardiac death’ as our preferred criterion; but now things have just gotten a whole lot more complicated! Researchers at Tufts University and the University of Vermont have found that the cells of deceased organisms can live on for substantial periods of time on their own and indefinitely when provided with nutrients, oxygen, and bioelectric or biochemical stimulation. Impressed? Don’t be: this is just the tip of the iceberg. Not all cells need to be reanimated immediately after the death of the host organism. For example, human white blood cells can survive up to 86 hours after organismal death. Muscle cells harvested from mice can be reanimated after as many as 14 days, fibroblast cells from goats and sheep after as long as a month. More astonishing still, these rejuvenated cells, nicknamed ‘xenobots’, have the ability to form multicellular organisms apparently unrelated to the body plans of their original host organisms. Skin cells extracted from deceased frog embryos can spontaneously reorganize into multicellular organisms in which they exhibit behaviors well outside their original biological roles. For example, these ‘second chance cells’ use cilia – small, hair-like structures – to navigate their surroundings. Who says there are no second acts in America? It gets better. Human lung cells can self-assemble into multicellular organisms that repair themselves and any neurons that just happen to be nearby. Apparently, there is such a thing as ‘a born caregiver’. The ability to restore themselves if they become damaged is a natural feature of living organisms, and it is preserved in xenobot biology. Xenobots can close a severe laceration within 5 minutes. These injured cells are able to heal their wounds, restore their shape and continue their work as before. Xenobots are even capable of memory; they have the ability to record information and use that information to modify their behavior. Researchers now hope that these xenobots may be trained to exhibit certain behaviors upon sensing appropriate stimuli. You were hoping your children would exhibit this ability, but that experiment turned out to be a howling failure; now you must place all your hope on xenobots. Can they learn to absorb and break down certain chemicals, especially environmental toxins? Can we train them to synthesize and excrete useful chemicals and proteins in the process? The remarkable plasticity of cellular collectives allows them to form bodies and exhibit behaviors that are quite different from their original organisms - without undergoing any modifications at the DNA level! These cells can spontaneously take on new roles and create new body plans without waiting for mutation and natural selection to work their magic. Perhaps these xenobots have things to teach us. For example, can they help us understand how individual cells naturally come together, communicate, and specialize to create a larger organism? It’s a new model that may provide a foundation for regenerative medicine. Xenobots and their successors may also provide insight into how multicellular organisms arose from ancient single celled organisms, and the origins of information processing, decision making and cognition in biological organisms. Perhaps you’re not as excited by all this as I am. Perhaps you don’t care so much about unicellular life forms. Maybe you’re wondering, “What about me? Why can’t my life be prolonged?” Well good news for you too! A new technology called OrganEx may be right up your street. Basically, OrganEx adds cellular level life support to traditional technologies like ECMO. It revives the body more slowly employing a gentler process of reviving cells that have already begun to die (see above). Turns out those single cell organisms are important after all! To test OrganEx, a Yale University team turned to humanity’s closest non-primate relative – who else but the common household pig? Two monitors, one for the heart and one for brain activity, showed flat lines. The pigs were dead. An hour passed. Then scientists connected each animal to the OrganEx system: heart monitors connected to four out of five pigs began to light up. The hearts’ electrical activity had resumed spontaneously, without chest compressions or other obvious lifesaving measures. What does this mean? With this technology, doctors might be able to extend the amount of time someone could be ‘dead’ before recovering. Minimally, it might make more organs from more bodies recoverable for transplantation. At a cellular level at least, death may not be as quick or as final as once thought. For the person who collapses from a heart attack and remains on the ground for 10 minutes, the findings raise a key question: How dead are they, really? One could imagine using OrganEx after a cardiac arrest. Nothing lasts forever. Maybe not even death. Keep the conversation going. 1. Click here to contact us on any matter. How did you like the post? How could we do better in the future? Suggestions welcome. 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 We have Nothing in Common David Cowles Mar 18, 2025 “While you and I don’t seem to have much in common, we both share a lot with the lowly fern.” You and I have nothing in common (lucky you!). You’re tall, I’m short; you’re thin, I’m more robust; nothing’s going to make your brown eyes blue or turn me into a natural blond. It’s obvious: Mutt and Jeff, Laurel and Hardy, Bonnie and Clyde. People are different. In fact, every person is unique, and usually in evident ways. One fly in this ointment: Science disagrees. How surprising to see scientists disputing the obvious! Never seen that before, have you? But Science doubles down! According to the illuminati , we are not even 1% different from each other; in fact, on average we differ from one another by just 1 part in 1,000 – that freckle on your left cheek, for example. So are you and I crazy or is this the fake science we’ve heard so much about? Neither! As usual, we are talking about 2 different things. You and I are talking about our phenomes, our physical traits. Scientists are talking about our genomes, the code embodied in the DNA molecules that make us what (not who) we are. Phenomenally, you and I are nothing alike; genetically, we’re almost twins, 99.9% interchangeable. How can this be? Non-linearity! A single human organism results from the coordinated expression of up to 25,000 genes. While many genetic variations are inconsequential, others cascade across the entire organism. Genetics is chaotic; genes are like butterflies in Borneo. Take cover! Part of the genius of evolution is how well it prepares us for the future – our personal futures, the collective future of our species and perhaps even the future of the entire biosphere. Consider that of our 20,000 to 25,000 coding genes, only about half are being expressed in any one organism at any one time. Another 35% to 40% are expressed at some point in the life of the organism…just not now. But that leaves 10% to 15% of your coding genes unexpressed over your lifetime…even if you live to be as old and crusty as me. That’s 2,500 coding genes; are they just joyriding? If so, why have them? Is Mother Nature, heaven forbid, inefficient, even wasteful? Not necessarily. These 2,500 genes, though normally never expressed, are nonetheless available for expression. They are like the alternate members of a jury or football players on a pro team’s ‘taxi squad’. They remain in potentia for the life of the organism. They are available for expression should circumstances (e.g. environmental changes) warrant. Unexpressed genes are part of what gives us the physiological resources we need to adapt to new circumstances; they offer our species multiple pathways forward as it evolves. In essence, they have ‘pre-evolved’; they are ready if and when we need them. Did your Hall of Fame quarterback just go down? What to do? You could recruit a rookie out of high school, train him and finally start him, several seasons from now…or you could pull a back-up off your bench or call one up from your taxi squad. I am reminded of a favorite Bible quote: “We are created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God has prepared for us in advance that we should walk in them.” (Eph. 2:10) In this analogy, our phenome consists of the specific good works we do, while the genome consists of all the good works God prepared for us to choose from. God does not dictate; rather he clears multiple paths through the chaotic underbrush. We decide which paths to follow, if any; our 2,500 unexpressed cells are there if and when we need them. Across all Kingdoms (prokaryotes as well as eukaryotes), the quantity of genes per species varies tremendously but not always in the ways you might guess. While the human genome consists of up to 25,000 coding (i.e. protein producing) genes, many species of bacteria have fewer than 1,000. On the other hand, the genome of some ferns includes up to 50,000 genes. If there is a Pyramid of Life, arranged according to the size of a species’ genome, we must bow before the ‘lowly’ fern, Empress of the Biosphere. Imagine that! A fern is your Higher Power ! These genomic differences are eye-catching; but there is something much more important afoot here: Whether a species requires 1,000 genes or 50,000 genes to adapt and survive, those genes are divided into the same three categories: currently expressed, expressed but not currently, never expressed. While the precise ratios vary from species to species, a certain general pattern is conserved: genes currently expressed constitute the largest part of the genome (40% to 70%), followed by currently unexpressed genes, followed by their never expressed genetic understudies (5% to 20%). With no experimental evidence and no theory to support it, we are tempted to speculate that evolution is coaxing all species toward a certain common mean: 54%, 30%, 16%, i.e. the terms of the cubic polynomial: X + X² + X³ = 1. What’s so astounding? If true, it means that the evolution is acting in itself; evolution itself evolving. The same process of variation and selection that operates at the species level operates on the level of the biosphere. Mark Zuckerberg would call this, Meta lution. Natural selection has apparently settled on an optimum balance of stability, growth, and flexibility across the biosphere, from bacteria, to fungi, to humans (and other vertebrates), and to plants (including the glorious fern). This suggests that cybernetics (systems theory) is substructural to biology itself. This phenomenon is also non-exclusively consistent with the current consensus that life per se emerged only once in the 4 billion year history of Planet Earth. While it is, I suppose, possible that life synthesized multiple times with each germline converging to produce the present spectrum of life forms, it is highly improbable. So while you and I don’t seem to have much in common, we both share a lot with the lowly fern. So to paraphrase the old chestnut, “Be kind to your friends in the forest, for a fern may be somebody’s father.” 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 The Theology of Sets David Cowles Jul 18, 2024 “(Sets) provide the scaffolding for the various phenomena we call Universe.” “It’s turtles all the way down.” That’s how one audience member explained the universe to a shame faced Stephen Hawking after Hawking had spent a lifetime searching fruitlessly for a unified theory to explain the phenomena of our world. What a waste! Someone had already come up with the solution: “It’s turtles!” And if not turtles, then what? The 20th century grounded logic and mathematics in Set Theory (ZFC). So perhaps it’s sets all the way down, not turtles. The intellectual history of the West can be seen as one massive attempt to define the ‘fundamental substance’. The Ionians narrowed it down to earth, fire, air, and water. The Eleatics called it Aletheia (Truth), the Christians, Agape (Love), the Positivists, Aether , the Quantum Mechanics, Fields . Pop culture calls it Energy . I guess Sets is just as good…or Turtles . Set theory captures the scale invariance of Universe: again, turtles all the way down ; but better than turtles, sets make a stab at modeling the interactivity of things. Every set is a collection of elements (or members ), which are themselves sets (collections of elements) and so on, ad infinitum (sets, all the way down). An element of one set can be an element of another set; one set can be an element of another set. Sets of sets! There are sets with just one member; there’s even a set with no members (called the ‘null set’ and commonly represented by the symbol, Ø). Counter intuitively, Ø is a subset of every other set! Everything that is is defined in part by what is not. So, according to this theory, nothing is ‘something’…sort of. Even though the null set contributes no members to the Great Loom of Being, it contributes its own emptiness. That emptiness (what is not) helps define what is. First, think of the universe as a hierarchy of Russian Nesting Dolls. But things get a great deal more interesting when we look at overlapping (intersecting) sets, i.e., sets with some , but not all, of their members in common. Such sets (i.e., sets with common members) give the world its solidarity. They provide the scaffolding for the various phenomena we call Universe . Parenthetically, this accounts in part for the non-linearity of Being (why there are lumps in your mashed potatoes). The becoming of X is accelerated by its not being Y. Everything is what it is in part because of what it is not. Is there such a thing as a set of all sets? No – at least not according to the dominant model (ZFC)! Bertrand Russell showed that allowing a ‘set of all sets’ leads to paradoxes, even contradictions, and mathematics abhors contradictions. But ZFC is ‘limiting’ (if not strictly speaking ‘wrong’). Contradictions be damned! “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds…” (Emerson) Cosmology demands that there be a Set of All Sets, even when Logic says that there can’t be. But news flash: it is not the job of cosmology to conform to the strictures of logic; it is the job of logic to account for the phenomena of cosmology. Sidebar : Since the ‘dawn’ of the so-called Enlightenment (not), intellectual history has pursued a more or less uninterrupted search for a God-free universe. Frankly, it came as a breath of fresh air after the ‘revelation bound’ cosmologies of the Middle Ages. It triggered major conceptual advances such as Evolutionary Science and Big Bang Theory; but fundamentally, it’s wrong! Excluding by postulating the possibility of a ‘set of all sets’ goes a long way toward excluding by postulating the existence of God. How 20th century of you! Any interesting notion of God, IMO, includes the idea that all beings roll-up to one Being (aka, God). Genesis describes the Alpha point of this process; Paul defines the Omega point in his first Letter to Corinthians : “Then comes the end…when everything is subjected to him (Father)…so that God may be all in all.” (15: 24 – 28) For purposes of this article, let’s throw orthodoxy to the winds and consider the possible characteristics of the forbidden uber-set , U, the set of all sets. For one thing, the set of all sets would have to be a member of itself. Such sets are relatively rare, but they do exist, for example: The set of all mathematical objects is itself a mathematical object. It seems arbitrary to say that the set of all mathematical objects is a mathematical object while saying that the set of all sets is not a set. If we decide to allow the “set of all sets”, then we are immediately confronted with the phenomenon of Incarnation. Now, the set of all sets, U, must be a member of itself by definition. In fact, theology modeled on this expanded theory of sets is inherently Trinitarian: (1) The set of all sets, U, is a member of the set of all sets; (2) the set of all sets, U, is the aggregate of its members, including itself; (3) the set of all sets, U, transcends as unity what would otherwise exist only as multiplicity (i.e., the aggregation of all sets). Mapping the above onto traditional Christian Trinitarianism, (1) evokes ‘the Son’, (2) ‘the Spirit’, (3) ‘the Father’. Set theory can be mapped as ‘a set’ of vectors: (1) ↓, (2) ↔, (3) ↑, each suggestive of the unique identity of a member of the Holy Trinity. So, set theory (ZFC plus U) is theology: and cosmology? It’s God, all the way down! 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. Keep the conversation going. 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