< Back Cordoba 999 David Cowles Dec 6, 2022 “…the city had 260,000 residential units, 80,000 shops, 13,000 looms, 5,000 mills, and 4,000 open air markets… the central library contained over 400,000 volumes (allegedly more than the library at Alexandria before the conflagration.)” It is customary to trash the Middle Ages (500 – 1500 CE). Historians used to refer to this period as the ‘Dark Ages’, and when we wish to describe an incident of extreme violence, we call it going medieval . There is some truth to this characterization, but as we shall soon see, not much . For example, it is true that both the per capita GDP and the literacy rate declined precipitously after the Fall of Rome (476). But these things did not happen in a vacuum. The last 100 years of the Roman Empire had been a ‘feeding frenzy’ as Northern tribes broke through Rome’s defenses, invaded Italy, and sacked Rome, denuding her of her wealth. The economy of the late Roman Empire was undoubtedly bloated. It was a ‘bubble economy’, based in large part on plunder and slavery. It was unsustainable. To make matters worse, the period from 500 to 800 CE was a period of ‘climate change’; drought ravaged the agricultural economy. Then, the advent of Islam in the 7 th century closed the Mediterranean to ‘international’ commerce and put military pressure on Europe’s southern borders. A perfect storm! The meteoric rise of Christianity didn’t help…at least not at first. These pesky goodie-two-shoes were uncomfortable with slavery, had little taste for war, and failed to place ‘personal wealth’ on its proper pedestal. They were, in a word, more concerned with the economy of heaven than they were with the economy on earth. What’s the Federal Reserve to do? All in all, it was undoubtedly a tough 300 years! “A great time to visit, but…” By the coronation of Charlemagne in 800 CE, however, Europe was once again in growth mode, and with growth comes opportunity. The world is being reborn; get in on the ground floor! This is going to be bigger than Microsoft and Apple combined. So begins a 700-year period of progress: social, economic, and intellectual. This was the golden age of Middle Earth, before the Twilight of the Gods , Götterdämmerung ( aka Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment). Shorn of Roman authority, society clearly needed to reorganize, top to bottom, to reflect the new facts on the ground. The resulting feudal system is a work of ‘cosmic genius’…but that’s not the subject of this article. Hint : stay tuned to ATM and TWS for more! Sadly, this cannot be a complete account of the achievements of the Middle Ages; but rather than risk ‘damning with faint praise’, I will limit myself to a single data point: Welcome to Cordova, 999. It is widely assumed that urbanization was a late and ‘imperfect’ development in Medieval history, so let’s just test that hypothesis. Take the money you saved by cancelling your first-class ticket to Lhasa and travel in coach to Cordova, Spain. (Cordova is a more expensive destination because to get there, you need to travel more than 1,000 years… as well as 5,000 miles.) The year is 999, the midpoint of feudal society’s ‘middle age’. Are you expecting a sleepy village with pack animals roaming the streets and residents lounging in precious shade? Disabuse yourself! In 999, Cordova had a population of at least 500,000. To put this in context, that’s more people than live right now in Miami, Atlanta, Cleveland, or St. Louis. To serve this massive population, the city had 260,000 residential units, 80,000 shops, 13,000 looms, 5,000 mills, and 4,000 open air markets. Lest you think this teeming metropolis neglected public works, Cordova had 300 public baths, wide, paved streets, lit every evening by oil lamps, an underground sewerage system, and raised sidewalks to facilitate pedestrian traffic. Farmers relied on irrigation and crop rotation to optimize yield. Nor did Cordova neglect the life of the mind. It has been said that books were more highly prized there than jewels; the central library contained over 400,000 volumes (allegedly more than the library at Alexandria before the conflagration.) “Ok, this is amazing. How come everyone doesn’t know about it this?” It is said that history is written by the winners. True, but more than that, history is written by the would-be winners. The first spin-doctors were historians. The primary purpose of ‘History’ is to provide the now current social order with an appropriate ‘origin story’, one that explains and justifies the world that is . History is first and foremost Mythology. Marx said that the purpose of Philosophy is not to explain the world, but to change it. He might have said the same of History. History has a dual function: to justify the world that is and to shape the world to come. History is Propaganda! 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< Back God-Proofing the World David Cowles Apr 11, 2023 “Just as World War I made the world safe for democracy (not!), so the Enlightenment made the world safe from theology.” The historical period known as The Enlightenment (c. 1700 – 1900 CE) gave us many things, some quite fortunate, others less so: the Industrial Revolution, Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, Nationalism, Militarism, Electoral Democracy, Civil Rights and Modern Science, to name a few. But the Enlightenment’s proudest achievement is God-proofing the world. According to the illuminati of our age, the Enlightenment made it impossible for any rational person ever again to believe in God, at least in the Judeo-Christian sense. Just as World War I made the world ‘safe for democracy’ (not!), so the Enlightenment made the world ‘safe from theology’. How do we know that something is true? We deduce it, or we demonstrate it. When we say we’ve ‘proved’ something, we mean that we have deduced something from other somethings that we believe to be true with an extraordinarily high degree of certainty. A proof’s chain of reasoning goes back to a very small set of ‘self-evident’ principles (axioms) and ‘undefined’ terms. When we say that we have ‘proved’ that something is true, we mean that it is true in any world where our axioms are true and our undefined terms operative. On the other hand, when we say that we’ve ‘demonstrated’ something, we are referring to certain patterns exhibited by empirical events. Beginning with hypothesis, we proceed through experiment, measurement, repetition, confirmation, peer review, and publication in Nature (or another universally respected academic journal). The existence of God cannot be proved by logic or demonstrated by science. Too bad, because the concept of God would have been very convenient. It could have helped us answer some of life’s most difficult questions: ➢ Why is there something rather than nothing? ➢ Why is there order rather than chaos? ➢ What does it mean to be ‘me’? But convenience is not the same thing as truth. Just ask Al Gore (An Inconvenient Truth). So, let’s come at this problem from the other end. What must we believe if we assume that the world is real, but that God is not? First, we must believe that a cosmic epoch, characterized by spacetime and energy, spontaneously came into existence with more than 90 ‘mission critical’ physical constants (e.g., the relative masses of the subatomic particles) in tow. A variation of less than 1% in any one of these quantities or ratios would preclude the existence of the universe as we know it. So far as we can tell, the values of these essential constants are not dependent on one another. A is not correlated with B, A is not caused by B, but without both A and B, no universe! Remember Bayes’ Theorem: if the probability of A is 0.01 and the probability of B is 0.01, then the probability of A and B is 0.0001. Now imagine carrying out this same calculation but with 90 such variables, each with a probability of less than 1%, each absolutely mission critical to project universe. How many zeros can you write before your hand cramps? Second, we must believe that our universe came to be without the existence of any transcendent values. Either the universe operates without objective values or objective values emerge in the ordinary course of events. Novel events (e.g. Big Bang) occur, apparently spontaneously, for no reason, and without any goal, purpose, or meaning. Without objective values, we have no criteria with which to judge those events. We can choose to call A ‘good’ and B ‘not so good’, but the distinction is subjective, if not arbitrary. And on what authority can we say that A is normative? Rebuttal #1 : “Values don’t need to be transcendent to be objective or normative.” Sez who? Which values? Were values operative at the moment of Big Bang? If so, they are transcendent by definition. If not, if values emerged out of the course of events, how can those values be normative for all events, including Big Bang, and even including the emergence of those values per se? A deadly circularity? Rebuttal #2 : “Values can be objective, normative and transcendent without God.” First, we define God in terms of Values; in fact, we define God as Value. God is the Summum Bonum. According to Jean-Paul Sartre, God is the one being whose essence (values) precedes existence. Second, even if values could be both transcendent and free floating, how would they enter into the universe and become relevant to the events that constitute universe? On what authority can we say, ‘values are relevant’ and move on? No doubt, this debate could go indefinitely, but to what end? Nietzsche ended the argument once and for all in 1882: “There exists nothing which could judge, measure, compare, condemn our being for that would be to judge, measure, compare, condemn the whole...but nothing exists apart from the whole.” Nietzsche stands out from other intellectuals of the Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment eras for having the unflinching courage of his convictions: No God, No Values, end of! No event can be objectively any better, i.e. any more beautiful, true, or just, than any other. Without transcendent values, there is no objective way to distinguish Mother Theresa from Adolf Hitler. It’s all just a matter of ‘personal values’, aka taste. Oh, how convenient it would be if only there was a God! But we can’t prove that there is. We can only say that those who preclude the existence of God a priori have “a lot of ‘splainin’ to do”. ( I Love Lucy) 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 Heresy, Now and Then David Cowles Aug 8, 2023 “The Illuminati prefer their 19th century ideologies to science’s 20th century discoveries… the ‘sin’ of heretics, then and now, is narrowness of vision.” A single thread runs through the Intellectual History of the Western World. It occupied the Pre-Socratics in the 5 th century BCE; it dominated Christian theological speculation in the first centuries CE; and it is a major concern of non-analytic philosophy and theoretical science today: How can we account for the Unity of Universe and the Plurality of ‘things’ (e.g. events) that constitute it? Alfred North Whitehead (c. 1930), the last great systematic philosopher in the Western tradition (Plato through Hegel), grounded his magnum opus, Process and Reality , on this observation: “Creativity, many, one are the ultimate notions.” According to Whitehead, the World is a process (creativity) by which many become one and one becomes many. Whitehead’s project, the conciliation of unity and plurality, is no longer a focus for most philosophers but it has become an obsession for many scientists: The relationship between the Quantum Wave Function and its discrete measurements. The distillation of elementary particles and forces from the Big Bang singularity. The phenomenon of non-locality (Bell’s Theorem, 1964). The hypothesis of Dark Matter/Dark Energy. ‘Cutting edge’ is what’s happening at MIT, not Harvard, at Cambridge, not Oxford. (Ok, a gross overgeneralization…but you get my point!) Bad philosophy, bad theology, and bad science share one feature in common: they cannot accept the radical implications of their own discoveries (viz. Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman ). John Bell, Edwin Hubble, and the early Quantum Mechanics were subjects of the most vitriolic attacks. They had shamelessly shunned Empiricism & Rationalism, the twin pillars of modern Western thought. The reaction of the philosophical and scientific communities made it clear that the Illuminati prefer their 19th century ideologies to science’s 20th century discoveries. Even Einstein weighed in, “God does not play dice!” Sez who? Of course, he does; in fact, he’s a Craps Master . His picture hangs over the pit at Bellagio . Despite a century of effort by “the best minds of my generation” (Ginsberg, Howl ), not a single shred of evidence has been adduced to debunk any of these counter-intuitive models (above). “It’s yesterday once more!” (Carpenters, 1973) We’re back in the early centuries of the Christian Era. The Council of Nicaea (c. 325 CE) has just put the final stamp of orthodoxy on the Cosmology implicit in New Testament scripture and in the writings of the early Church fathers: “I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth…I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages…true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father… By the Holy Spirit (he) was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man…I believe in the Holy Spirit…who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified…” The theological heretics of that age, like scientific heretics today, could not accept the implications of the orthodoxy that alone can account for our everyday experience of unity, plurality, and creativity. St. Hilary of Poitiers, writing c. 350 CE ( De Trinitate ), called out several heretics by name: ‘On Valentinus, Manichaeus, Sabellius, Hieracas, on Arians, Dasher, Donner and Blitzen’. These men (and deer), much as they disagreed among themselves, all rejected orthodox Christology as defined at Nicaea. Specifically, they could not get their heads around the relationship between God the Father and God the Son. I will not take you through the details of each heresy. Collectively (but not uniformly), these heretics could not accept (1) that Father and Son could both be wholly God, (2) that the Father could beget the Son with no diminution of the Father’s divinity, (3) that the divinity of the Son did not compromise in any way the divinity of the Father, (4) that a Son could be born of the Father and of Mary and yet be co-eternal with the Father, and (5) that Father and Son could be two distinct persons sharing a single substance ( ousia ). The Church is right to condemn these heresies with extreme prejudice. Had any of them prevailed, Christianity would not be the intellectual force it is today. And the heretics themselves? Burn them, of course? Not so fast! Orthodox Christology is a tough sell to any crowd. As Muslims are fond of saying, “God forbid that Allah should have a son.” Hilary’s heretics share a common, dysfunctional ideology: 1 + 1 ≠ 1. When anything (even Godhead) is shared, it must be diluted; when something is one, it cannot be two or three. Similarly, if A is in B then B cannot be in A: ‘a mouse in the house’, not ‘a house in the mouse’. These reservations seem reasonable, and they may indeed apply within a certain range of experience; but the cosmology they represent is inadequate to account for the entirety of that experience. Similarly, Euclidean geometry and Newtonian physics ‘work’ within a certain range but do not constitute viable models of Universe. Ultimately, the ‘sin’ of heretics, then and now, is narrowness of vision. Infinity (∞) is, well, infinite, so ∞/2 is still ∞. The Son is the Word ( logos ) of God: “All things came to be through him. Without him nothing that is came to be.” (John 1: 3) But the relationship between God and Universe cannot be vectored (→); it must be reciprocal (↔): covenant, not just commandment. “In the beginning was the Word…and the Word was God… (and) The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1: 1, 14) The Eternal had to ‘happen in spacetime’ so that whatever happens in spacetime might be eternal. Perhaps Hilary’s ‘heretical five’ should be forgiven for not fully understanding this…but that makes the achievement of Nicaea all the more astonishing. Image: The Pharisees and the Sadducees Come to Tempt Jesus. Opaque watercolor over graphite on gray wove paper. Created by James Tissot (1836-1902). Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York. 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 Look in My Eyes… David Cowles Jun 10, 2025 “In this moment, the problem of other minds is solved and our concerns about mortality disappear.” “The eyes are windows on the soul” – a pithy turn of phrase traditionally attributed to William Shakespeare. He never said it…or anything like it. The man who gave us a Scottish power couple, a petulant Danish prince, and an Anglo-Saxon king was much too smart to fall for such claptrap. No, contrary to popular belief, when his beloved Globe Theater burned down in 1613, he did not turn to Hallmark to supplement his income while the venue was being rebuilt. He did pen a few pieces for J. Peterman , but I digress. If you want to know about eyes , avoid Hallmark and head directly to Jean-Paul Sartre ; he nailed it. Sartre understood that interpersonal experience begins when we become aware that we are being observed by another consciousness. (Of course, vision is not strictly required…but it makes for a convenient metaphor.) Le regard , the ‘look’, is what tells us that we are not alone in the universe. Folks who have a fear of public speaking often say, “I get very self-conscious when I know other people have their eyes on me.” Of course you do; you’re supposed to. Being aware of someone being aware of you is what self-consciousness is : seeing yourself as an object rather than solely as a subject. It is that self-consciousness that convinces us that ‘the other’ is real. How so? As usual, we can find all we need to know in the first 80 lines (3 chapters) of Genesis . History began when Adam & Eve ate the infamous apple: “Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew they were naked, so they sewed fig leaves together and made loin clothes for themselves. When they heard the sound of the Lord God walking about in the garden…(they) hid themselves… The Lord God then called to the man and asked him, ‘Where are you?’ He answered, ‘I heard you in the garden and I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid.” Eating the apple, they became aware of each other’s gaze. For the first time, they became aware of themselves as objects as well as subjects. They truly experienced what it is like to be seen by another and so for the first time, they felt shame, a familiar reaction to the unexpected presence of the other , i.e. another Intentional being, at an ‘inconvenient’ time. Has anything changed? On my nightstand, I have a snow globe and a gorgeous cactus. Perhaps I am doing something I’m not especially proud of; still I probably don’t feel shame. A snow globe is not an intentional being in most ontologies. And my cactus? Probably not either. But then my cat enters the room. Do I feel shame now? Maybe. Later on, my landlord walks in without knocking; Oops! Shame is an instinctive response to ‘being seen’ by another , i.e. by an ontological equal. The snow globe is not my ontological equal; but my landlord is! My plant? My pet? Maybe. But my snow globe notwithstanding, please don’t make a fetish of biology! The ‘look’ from a supposedly inanimate object can cause shame. Examples, please! Sure : how about a child’s stuffed animal ? How about your favorite LLM Chatbot? And according to Hasidic Judaism, any Shekinah infused ‘object’ can be intentional. Bottom line, ontology does not recapitulate physiology. When your eyes accidentally meet mine, there is a moment of ‘mutual shared discomfort’. Beyond that, I see the color of your contact lenses, the dilation of your pupils, and the ill effects of last night’s bender. Now look into the eyes of a baby. Really stare and let yourself be stared at. There’s no discomfort here, just love…and peace. Is there any doubt that the Whole (Universe? Gaia? God?) is looking at you through those eyes? And seeing you, sees the world of which you are a part? Likewise, you experience the Whole in the other’s gaze. In this moment, the problem of ‘other minds’ is solved and our concerns about ‘mortality’ disappear. Descartes famously wrote, Cogito ergo sum ; Sartre might have written, Me pudet ergo es (I am ashamed therefore you are). You might add, paraphrasing St. Dallan , Es ergo sum . Beyond the baby making age? Not to despair. Pre-school children retain that same innocence…when they’re not crayoning frescoes on your newly repainted living room walls. After the age of 6, in our culture at least, things get a bit blurry. Gradually, the divine gaze is occluded by skill acquisition, etc. We are beginning to become conscious of ourselves to the exclusion of the other . We are making ourselves an uncomfortable habitat for the Whole. Another opening can occur during early adolescence (ages 10 through 14) but making contact at this stage requires a HazMat suit. After the age of 14, our connection with the transcendent goes into hibernation. There are grades to earn, colleges to cajole, bosses to impress, families to feed, 401(k)’s to fund. If you’re lucky, and most aren’t, you may reawaken sometime in later life, perhaps after your 70th birthday. Then you’ll look back bewildered, not necessarily regretful, but certainly dumbfounded: “Who was I? Where have I been? What have I done?” With one exception: Love! It conquers all, they say…even middle age. Most of us will truly love no more than a few people during our adult lives…if we’re very lucky. But in those moments, we are once again aware that we are being seen by the Whole and that that whole is seeing itself through us. In fact, however, anyone at any time can become a channel for the Look . Can, and must , if we hope to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. (Mt. 18: 3) The structure of ‘seeing and being seen’ is Trinitarian. I am seen by the Whole through your eyes; you are seen by the Whole through my eyes; through us the Whole views itself viewing itself. This is the structure of universal consciousness; it is endlessly self reflective, ceaselessly recursive. World without end, Amen! Image: Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa, c. 1503–1506 (possibly continuing until c. 1517), oil on poplar panel, 77 x 53 cm, Louvre Museum, Paris. 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 Road Taken David Cowles Mar 12, 2024 “We don’t have many worlds; we have one world with incredibly many facets and one such facet is our ‘road taken’.” Robert Frost’s most famous poem ( The Road Not Taken ) owes its popularity, in part, to its universality: I mean, who has not stood at a crossroads, literally or figuratively, and wondered, “Which path should I take?” 100 times a day every day! Arguably, choice is the paradigmatic human experience. Bewilderment is the essence of who we are. Frost knows where he is and where he’s going; but he has reached a fork in the road. Two paths lie before him, both going to the same destination. He can’t change where he is, and his destination is predetermined; but everything along the way is up for grabs. ‘Along the way’ – that’s what we call ‘life’, isn’t it? We are en transit . Yes…but not so fast. It’s what most of us call ‘life’; but that’s by no means set in stone. Today, we are all about the journey; we read the Odyssey . In times past, folks were more into origins and destinies. They read the Iliad . IRL? Your status at birth used to be the principal determinant of your identity and value. First born son or third born daughter? Under the sheets…or atop them? Noble or peasant? Bourgeoise or proletarian? College Course or Industrial Arts? Fortunately, less so today. Or your status at death! Fame, legacy, progeny. “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings. Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair.” (Shelley) “He who has the most toys wins.” (My parents’ generation) Plus, the fate of your immortal soul was not settled until your final breath. “…At the hour of our death, Amen.” ( Ave Maria ) Only then could St. Peter label you sheep or goat, grain or chaff. Everything was about the finale. All of this seems rather strange to us today. Now, we regard birth ( Alpha ) as a lottery and death ( Omega ) as the inevitable outcome of playing Russian Roulette. An aficionado of the Ancien Regime might chime in, “Yes, but in those days the path from Alpha to Omega was less eventful, more of a straight line, varying little from trip to trip or from traveler to traveler. The journey didn’t matter so much; it was more noise than information, more obstacle than path; it was just a means to an end”: A ↓ Ω A friend once captured this spirit in me: “For you, a car is just a means of transportation.” Exactly! Call me old school. My trips derive their meaning and value from their launch (purpose) and their landing (result). Everything on the way, the way itself, is wandering. Robert Frost offers a different, but still simple, alternative: A ↙ ↘ x x’ ↘ ↙ Ω “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood…and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” Origin and destiny are hardwired. It’s the chosen path that is undetermined, that generates information. We cannot change our A or our Ω, but we can control, or at least influence, everything in between. That’s called agency , or free will . You bristle! “What do you mean, my origin and destiny are hardwired? And how can you say my freedom consists of nothing more than the choice between two pre-set paths? What kind of freedom is that?” Fair points! But it’s the ‘free’ kind of freedom…by which I mean, it’s all there is, it’s all there ever could be. How so? First, every choice, no matter how broad, can ultimately be reduced to a finite number of binary choices. Frost’s poem models just one such choice; other decisions could involve hundreds of binary choices. In any event, each binary choice is one quantum of freedom. Second, “There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done!” (Beatles) Here we need an assist from Sartre: I am always totally free! I can order any flavor of ice cream I want at Baskin-Robbins; or I can decide to forgo ice cream altogether. But I cannot order a muffaletta sandwich, “Sir, we’d like to accommodate you, but we don’t have the ingredients.” I can only do things that are physically possible. In the context of Frost’s poem I cannot hack my way through the underbrush with my pocket knife. Freedom ultimately comes down to a finite number of choices between possibles. Finally, my origin is hardwired; I have to start from somewhere. So is my destination but this is trickier. Those of you born before 1990 might remember a contraption called a ‘pinball machine’. The origin is a compressed spring, the destination is a hole at the bottom of the ‘field’, but the route from origin to destination is infinitely variable. It is the ‘topology’ or ‘tilt’ that makes the outcome inevitable but how you get from A to Ω, how long it takes to get there, and how many points you rack up along the way are totally undetermined. You are 100% free…within the physical limits imposed by the underlying structure. Ditto real life! Because a World exists (Descartes), we know that that World must be infinitesimally biased toward certain outcomes, i.e. faintly conditioned by Values known collectively as ‘the Good’. (Aquinas et al.) In infinite time, the outcome is inevitable; in finite time we are free to keep playing, and adding points, for as long as we are ready, willing, and able. Christian theology provides a similar model. The Parousia , the 2 nd Coming of Christ, is inevitable…but the date and form of that Coming is entirely contingent on the freely determined course of events. All trajectories originate at a common point (Creation, Big Bang) and ultimately converge at a singularity (The Kingdom of Heaven), but the trajectories themselves are otherwise unconditioned and entirely self-determined. Absolute freedom does exist, as an essential quality or value, but it exists physically only in the context of a given concrete structure. Physically, freedom can be absolute but only with some given mise-en-scene . IRL, there are usually a great many intermediate steps between A and Ω and it may well be that there are more than 2 alternative paths converging on each node. Choice along the way is what gives life spice, variety and intensity. Perhaps, however, we can treat Frost’s ‘diamond’ as a web of quantum processes . It may be that the incredibly complex web of options and choices that form the infrastructure of life can be broken down into Frost Quanta . So, it might be useful to see how Frost’s model evolves in slightly more complex situations. This is nowhere near robust enough to mimic real life, but it may help us conceptualize what such a model might look like. Consider the following: A ↙ ↘ x x ↙ ↘ ↙ ↘ x x x ↙ ↘ ↙ ↘ ↙ ↘ x x x x ↘ ↙ ↘ ↙ ↘ ↙ x x x ↘ ↙ ↘ ↙ x x ↘ ↙ Ω Every node (actual entity, event) is an inflection point. In fact, a node is defined as any point at which two or more paths converge and/or diverge. This is not a Many Worlds Theory! Sue and Sam may begin their journeys with flights from Boston to two different connecting cities, but they will meet again in Seattle and there is nothing to preclude their meeting up for a cocktail at a common hub along the way. In this model, as IRL, chains of events converge as well as diverge. For that reason, we don’t have many worlds (Hugh Everett); we have one world with incredibly many facets and one such facet is our ‘road taken’. 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 Power of Intuition David Cowles May 26, 2022 I love to say, “I know.” Be honest, so do you! We all love to say it – well, all of us except Nicholas of Cusa (1401 - 1464), who preferred to say, “I don’t know.” But that’s another story for another day. Knowledge is the recognition of information. Information happens whenever: (1) things in the world are such and such, and (2) things could have been other than such and such. When I say, “I know,” I mean that things are such and such in the world (objective knowledge) or that things are such and such in my mind (subjective knowledge), or that things are such and such in the world and in my mind in a way that cannot be deduced logically from a set of self-evident assumptions or verified experimentally via the scientific method (intuitive knowledge). So, we use ‘I know’ in three different ways…but only one of these ways is correct! When we say we know something through deduction or experimentation, we know nothing...or at least nothing new. Information occurs only when (1) things in the world are such and such, and (2) things could have been other than such and such. When something is deduced from self-evident assumptions, that something cannot be other than it is, given those assumptions. That is the nature of deduction. The information content of the event resides entirely in its assumptions and the rules of logic, not in the conclusion itself. Likewise, given the parameters and proper execution of an experiment, the result could not have been other than it was. That’s what ‘verification’ means. The information associated with that experiment lies entirely in the experimental apparatus and procedure, not in the result itself. What we call subjective knowledge, on the other hand, is not ‘knowledge’ at all. It is merely the reporting of a mental state. True, a mental state is such and such and could be other than such and such; the problem is that subjective knowledge is knowledge about itself (mind) not about the world. There is a third option. I may believe that something about the world is true, but I may not be able to prove it logically or verify it experimentally. If, in fact, what I believe to be true is true, then we have a genuine ‘information event,’ Things could very well have been other than they are. Being children of the 20th century, most of us would opt for objective knowledge over subjective or intuitive knowledge, but let’s not be hasty; we’ll circle back to this question at the end. If you want to say something about the external world, and neither deduction nor experimentation can get you where you want to go, you must rely on intuition. I know something to be true via intuition if it asserts something true about the world that cannot be deduced by logic or verified by experiment. ‘Counter-intuitively,’ only ‘Intuitive’ knowledge is knowledge. Neither deduction nor experimentation generates information; they simply display it. The purpose of a deduction or an experiment is to display (often to ourselves as well as to others) information that pre-exists its manifestation. The information content of a deduction or an experiment pre-exists the event itself. Ok, so let’s push the curtain back. Logical assumptions and experimental procedures are themselves part of event chains, and those event chains have to begin somewhere, but where? Event chains cannot begin from objective or subjective knowledge because these modes of ‘knowledge’ are not knowledge at all. Event chains must spring from real knowledge and that can only mean intuitive knowledge. Turns out, all actual knowledge is at its core intuitive; objective and subjective knowledge are simply degenerate cases of intuitive knowledge. 20th century epistemology began with Logical Positivism (experimental knowledge) and ended with Artificial Intelligence (algorithmic knowledge) – both dead ends as it turns out. Welcome to the 21st century…its time for a breath of fresh air. 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.

Aletheia Today is a magazine for those who believe in both God and science. It blends process philosophy, scripture study, and critical essays, featuring thinkers like Alfred North Whitehead and Jean-Paul Sartre. The magazine explores the meaning of the Old and New Testaments and their place in modern society. Addressing questions like "Is God real?" and "Does Heaven exist?", Aletheia Today fosters a dialogue between faith and science. Inside Our Summer 2024 Issue Philosophy The End of History “Fukuyama proclaimed ‘The End of History’ with a celebratory flourish. But be careful what you celebrate!” Playing with Blocks “Everything I needed to know about cosmology, I learned watching my grandchildren play with blocks.” Some Thing or No Thing “Whatever is, is self-aware, and what is self-aware, is!” The Living and the Dead “1,500 years ago, we didn’t have these problems. We knew all that we needed to know about life.” Theology Proof of God: The Empirical Argument “Because God is not perfectly manifest anywhere in our World, we perceive that God is present everywhere…” Job Verses God: The Trial of the Epoch “Job verses God is the Marbury verses Madison of theological law.” Proof of God: The Ontological Argument “Value permeates every nook and cranny of the World. God is Value… No values – no world...” Jesus Christ Revolutionary “He cured the sick and fed the hungry…because it was the right thing to do, here and now, and because it demonstrated what might be possible, universally, in a time to come.” Culture & The Arts The Beatles’ Commentary on the Gospel of John “Both Johns looked out their respective windows and saw their worlds on fire. Both Johns situated their profound and ultimately hopeful message in that apocalyptic context.” Norman Lear Neo-Talmudic Sage of Democracy and Good Times "Nobody wins democracy. It's not a possession, but a continuous process that requires everyone's participation." Spirituality Embracing the Sacred Season of Summer: Who Will You Be at the End of Summer "Summer is a season for resting and relaxation but also renewal and transformation." A Bird Teaches Humans a Lesson of Compassion, Bravery, and Love "This black-crowned bird truly taught me three lessons today – compassion, bravery, and love. It’s a lesson I will cherish in my daily life." Readers React What's the buzz about? Our readers' reactions to Aletheia Today... Additional Reading Can't get enough of Aletheia Today's content? Check out the books that inspire our magazine.

< Back Coming Attractions David Cowles Sep 1, 2022 “We’ll ‘listen’ to a performance of Handel’s Messiah and then ‘fly’ to London to take a look at Henry Moore’s iconic sculpture, Nativity. No, this is not going to be another ad for ATM (our sister publication). Our Issue #3 did drop this morning, and it’s already creating some buzz…but moving on, I wanted to take this opportunity to talk about Aletheia Today’s plans for the future . Our next issue of Aletheia Today Magazine (ATM, Issue #4 ), scheduled to be released on October 15, is our annual Holiday Issue - devoted to ‘that time of year’ starting with Halloween and ending on the Feast of the Epiphany . We are hoping to ‘spice up’ our usual menu of philosophy, theology, and science with some candied apples, oyster stuffing, and eggnog. Already on tap: we’ll ‘listen’ to a performance of Handel’s Messiah and then ‘fly’ to London to take a look at Henry Moore’s iconic sculpture, Nativity . Much more to come! ATM is organized into ‘subject matter departments,’ but we are launching various memes that we hope will cut across these department walls and cross-pollinate these too often sclerotic disciplines. It is these ‘cross-cultural memes’ that will demonstrate, and perhaps even effectuate, the Great Convergence that Aletheia Today was formed to foster. Here are some memes that are already in our cauldron, simmering: Pop Culture: Science and the Yellow Submarine Part II The Concept of Time: The Nature of Time We are not alone: Speaking Piraha The 3 J’s: Genesis, Job and John: The Riddle of Job Calling all writers! ATM is looking for contributions from independent writers. Click here for our Writers’ Specs. Holiday-themed copy can be accepted no later than 10/1. In addition, we are planning a special issue, some time this winter, on the concept of time . If you have a time-related essay, we’d love to read it. What’s more? If it fits our tone and style, we’d love to publish it! Please note: young t ime has a curfew – it’s 11/1/22 for its special eponymous edition. Enjoy us, engage with us, share us, join us! 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 Motion David Cowles Aug 25, 2021 Everything that is is in motion. As Thomas Aquinas pointed out, that ‘motion’ can take at least two different forms: (1) the growth and subsequent (or simultaneous) decay of an entity itself; (2) a shift in an entity’s position in space and time relative to the other entities in its frame of reference. (Ultimately, these two forms of motion may turn out to be one and the same – but that’s not what I’m thinking about today.) Everything that is is in motion. As Thomas Aquinas pointed out, that ‘motion’ can take at least two different forms: (1) the growth and subsequent (or simultaneous) decay of an entity itself; (2) a shift in an entity’s position in space and time relative to the other entities in its frame of reference. (Ultimately, these two forms of motion may turn out to be one and the same – but that’s not what I’m thinking about today.) Everything that is moves, constantly. Surprisingly though, everything that moves moves at exactly the same speed, c – the speed of light. So, a photon in otherwise empty space is moving at c, as is this couch potato, yours truly. But I am no photon. The difference between me and a photon is simply this: a photon moves almost entirely in space while a couch potato moves almost entirely in time. (When I’m on a plane to LAX, I’m traveling in space as well as in time but, of course, my travel in time still almost totally predominates.) Point to ponder: if all things are moving at exactly the same speed relative to one another, how is that different from them not moving at all? 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 Rethinking Democracy David Cowles Jan 23, 2025 “It is important we remember that ‘democracy’ is ‘authority’ by another name, employing other means, in response to different circumstances.” “Democracy! Democracy!” Everybody loves Democracy. But what is it? Is it a New England Town Meeting? A Russian Soviet? Or Pericles’ Athens? ‘Democracy’ (Greek) – Rule of the People. But what does that mean? Proposed : a regime or state is ‘democratic’ to the extent that its policies are sensitive to, and reflective of, the interests and opinions of its citizens. If you find this definition intuitively appealing, you might want to give it another thought! Otherwise, you might find yourself stumbling over some very disturbing implications. For example, an elaborate electoral and legislative superstructure does not necessarily translate as ‘democracy’. Think Venezuela. On the other hand, my grandfather’s fondest wish, a ‘Benevolent Dictator’, would qualify. The ‘will of the people’ could theoretically be discerned through any of the following: a process of consensus formation (e.g. Soviets) the leadership of a Vanguard (e.g. PRC) direct participation in the legislative process (e.g. referenda) elected representatives (e.g. Parliament) the intuition of a well-meaning ruler ( Old Testament Judges) the benevolence of oligarchs, clergy, and or nobility the consolation of philosophers (Plato, Augustine/Aquinas Hobbs/Locke/Rousseau, Bentham/Mill, Marx/Lenin, Rawls) the application of algorithms designed to produce ‘the greatest good for the greatest number’ ( aka Economism/technocracy) the revelation of a divine authority (e.g. Torah). The casting of yarrow stalks (I Ching). Nor can we rely uncritically on the self-reported identity of nation states. For example, 7 countries currently include the word ‘Democratic’ in their name: Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) Democratic Republic of the Congo Lao People's Democratic Republic (Laos) Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal People's Democratic Republic of Algeria I will leave it to you, dear reader, to decide whether these nations, true to their name, are especially good examples of Democracy in action. Almost all nation states today pay at least lip service to the idea of Democracy . It remains to be seen whether any state’s commitment to Democracy is absolute. Consider contemporary Europe and the recent rise in right wing sentiment: In Germany, for example, the AfD already has 77 members in the federal Bundestag and their share seems likely to grow. But this poses a problem for a Germany that considers anti-fascism to be an existential imperative. Accordingly 37 centrist parliamentarians are moving to have the AfD outlawed as a political party. Democratic? Carmen Wegge, a lawmaker with the center-left SPD argues, "In Germany, democracy has already once been abolished by democratic means, and our continent was plunged into ruin." Perhaps unwittingly, Wegge defines the dilemma. What happens when Democracy itself becomes anti-democratic? When the will of the people is that ‘the will of the people’ not be allowed to interfere with the determination of policy or the conduct of affairs of state? Most nations are willing, if not anxious, to let the camel’s nose of public opinion into the decision making tent. Some because it is ‘the right thing to do’, some because it will produce the ‘best’ aggregate result over time, some because they realize that engagement is an effective means of control. But the extent of that incursion varies from regime to regime. Few nations, for example, allow citizens to work toward the overthrow of the government by extra-constitutional means, even if such efforts would be popular. The closest thing we have to an exception comes from late 80’s Eastern Europe. The nations of the Warsaw Pact, one by one, allowed their recognized governments to be overthrown by various popular movements. Nary a shot was fired. These regimes either did not have, or elected not to deploy, a ‘kill switch’. It was an amazing example of the peaceful, extra-constitutional transfer of political power. It has not been repeated since. At about this same time, pro-democracy demonstrations were occurring in the PRC. At first it seemed that leaders there might be willing to compromise with the demonstrators; but then things took a turn, resulting in ‘Tiananmen Square’. China slammed the door on Western style democracy and the rest, as they say, is history. Bottom line, there is a consensus abroad in the world that some amount of popular political input is a good thing, but different nations have vastly different strategies for tapping, channeling, and ultimately, controlling that input. Few nations, for example, are willing to allow that input to pose an existential threat to the regime itself: “However, it is important that passengers on this cruise ship know that they are free to rearrange the deck chairs anyway they choose.” So what really defines a political system is not the style or extent of its democracy but the limitations it imposes, de jure or de facto , on democratic input. Presumably, every political system draws a line somewhere. If not, the Anarchist ideal would have been realized long since. In analyzing any regime, the key is to identify the limitations it imposes on democracy, the tactics it uses to enforce those limitations, and the point at which such limitations are triggered. As we self-adoringly navel gaze, It is important we remember that ‘democracy’ is ‘authority’ by another name, employing other means, in response to different circumstances. 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 Election Special 2024 David Cowles Nov 5, 2024 “It’s not that we’re somehow less benevolent than we used to be; it’s that one bad (or even careless) actor can wreak a lot more havoc than ever before.” I am old enough to remember when Dwight Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson were their parties’ nominees for President. Heck, I can even remember Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. Safe to say, this is not then…or even then. But the whining time is over! It’s election day. If you have not already voted, today is momentous. Not that your one vote will decide the outcome…it won’t…not even if you live ‘on the Main Line’ (PA). But this is your opportunity to take your place on the Great Mandala, to situate yourself in history, if not to change it. Perhaps this is also an opportunity to look beyond the immediate partisan divide and consider issues from a deeper perspective – e.g. from the perspective of civilization itself. Democracy is on the ballot . Everyone says so! But no two people agree on what that means. Is it just a matter of universal suffrage, unimpeded ballot access, and fraud free vote tabulation - or is there more at stake? Does a properly functioning Democracy require popular access to sources of at least semi-reliable information? Something that is in short supply today! We seem to be impaled on the twin horns of rumor and propaganda. In his 1966 book, Improvised News: A Sociological Study of Rumor , Tamotsu Shibutani, a detainee himself, wrote “the Japanese interned in (WWII) relocation centers…sometimes referred to their unsettled way of life as ‘dema-kurashi’, literally ‘existence through rumors,’ …but pronounced ‘democracy’.” But in our well-intentioned effort to improve reliability we risk imposing limits on free speech that transform all communication into propaganda. ‘Jacques’ Ellul and Derrida would argue that this is already the case…and has been for some time. The quality and flow of information is always a challenge in so-called ‘free societies’…never more so than today! Humanity is on the ballot . It sounds trite, but the World really has never been at greater risk. It’s not that we’re somehow less benevolent than we used to be; it’s that one bad (or even careless) actor can wreck a lot more havoc than ever before. Nuclear War, Climate Change, Bioengineering and the Zombie Apocalypse ( aka AI), to name just a few, all threaten our survival as well as our prosperity. It’s not just the economy, Stupid! On the other hand, the same technologies that threaten our survival also offer an unprecedented opportunity for meteoric and broadly distributed gains in health and wealth. 50 years ago, R. Buckminster Fuller wrote about this moment in his aptly titled Utopia or Oblivion . So did the Deuteronomist, 2500 years ago: “I set before you life and death; therefore choose life.” (30:19) Civilization is on the ballot . I do not believe that there is any ‘one best way’ to manage our social problems; and if there were, I do not believe we could know it with any degree of certainty. The links between cause and effect in our social world are much too loose for us to be able to exert any control over the future. Consequently, any social ethics rooted in imagined results (Machiavelli, Mill or Marx) is delusional. We act and the universe reacts; we propose, and others dispose. Marxists believed they found a way to game the system. They called it dialectics: Thesis provokes Antithesis which leads to Synthesis. No doubt! However, there is no evidence that this process can be brought under the control of an intentional agent (us). Instead, it is often invoked to provide cover for otherwise unimaginable atrocities. Can you say, ‘Cultural Revolution’…or ‘Pol Pot’? Nothing is so evil that dialectics (or mechanism or liberalism) cannot redeem it. To its credit, Marxism correctly diagnosed the alienated state of the material world. Sadly, it failed to discover a praxis for harnessing or controlling that alienation. All we can do is, “Do the Right Thing!” (Spike Lee) But what’s that? Well, it’s not genocide; that’s for sure. Nor is it slavery in any of its multitudinous forms. If you want peace, practice it; if you value prosperity, share it. We cannot control the long term consequences of our policies, but we are responsible for the policies themselves…and that includes their immediate impact. Now go vote…or not…as you see fit! 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! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back St. John’s Time Crystal David Cowles Feb 2, 2026 “Order and freedom can and do coexist in a single entity.” 2100 Words, 10 Minutes Who discovered the Rondeau Time Crystal (RTC), aka Time Rondeau Crystal, Leo Joon Il Moon (2025 CE) or John the Evangelist (c. 80)? Hint : Dr. Moon applied for a patent only to be told by the U.S. Patent Office that his idea had been in the public domain for almost two millennia. A Crystal (think diamond, quartz, et al.) is a state of matter in which a particular pattern repeats indefinitely in space . They’ve been around for at least 4 billion years. A Time Crystal is a state of matter in which a particular pattern repeats indefinitely in time . Time Crystals were discovered in 2012. A ‘Rondeau Time Crystal’ is a type of time crystal that consists of three phases: Alpha and Omega phases, which are co-determined, separated by a Delta phase which is entirely indeterminate ( aka chaotic). RTCs were discovered by Dr. Moon’s team in 2025. Who cares? We do, all of us! At least since the dawn of the so-called Enlightenment, physicists, philosophers, and theologians, strange bed fellows they, have been wrestling with a common problem: How can we reconcile free will with causality? Innumerable solutions have been proposed but none has achieved anything approaching consensus. Many exclude free will entirely (Laplace); some exclude causation (Hume). Others have suggested ways to package the two without slipping into the intellectual quicksand of dualism (Sartre). But frankly, it’s a bit of a mess. Now the Moon Team has suggested that determinism (causality) and indeterminism (chaos, freedom) might co-exist in a single entity. But they have done more than just suggest; they have demonstrated it IRL! (In my view, this is the most important scientific breakthrough in 60 years, i.e. since John Bell proved mathematically that the universe is non-local and Alan Aspect demonstrated it experimentally a few years later.) In an RTC, the determinate phases recur, oblivious to the chaotic Delta phase, while Delta , whose content is wholly undetermined, is nonetheless ‘shaped’ by its position in-between Alpha and Omega . How so? Remember that Summer when you decided to take life easy for once? You ordered a hammock from Amazon, and when it arrived (next day), you left it in a heap on your lawn. As a pile of rope and canvas, it had no defined shape. But when you strung that material between two trees as directed, voila , it suddenly assumed a mathematically well-defined shape: catenary . The hammock acquired its signature (and oh so welcome) topology (shape) from its position between two trees, and it is because of that topology that you were able to spend the summer sipping gin & tonics and chipping away at your multiyear sleep deficit. Likewise, in an RTC the content of the Delta phase is wholly indeterminate, but its topology is strictly a function of its position between Alpha and Omega . Importantly, Delta’s shape turns out to be conducive to the formation of short-lived local islands (yes, I’m aware I just ‘three-peated’) of low entropy, i.e. relative order as measured by the absolute order characteristic of Alpha/Omega . But what could any of this possibly have to do with John the Evangelist? John’s Gospel includes events in the life of Jesus that the other three evangelists (MM&L) skip over. Understandably so! John’s Gospel addresses a different audience and serves a different purpose. John is more focused on theology, less on biography, than his predecessors. By the time John put pen to paper, the story of Jesus was well known, at least in certain circles. The challenge now was to articulate the meaning and significance of that story. Appropriately, John records in detail Jesus’ final teaching to his apostles, delivered at the Last Supper and during their post prandial procession to Gethsemane. The so-called ‘Farewell Discourses’ (FDs) occupy four chapters (13 – 17) in John . Here the evangelist presents a cosmology whose structure, as we’ll see below, prefigures Dr. Moon’s RTCs. The FDs mainly concern relations among three entities: (1) God the Father (YHWH), (2) God the Son (Christ), and (3) the World, beginning with the 11 faithful Apostles. Jesus describes the Father-Son relationship in language suggestive of the Alpha and Omega phases of an RTC with the World as its Delta : “I am in the Father ( Alpha ) and the Father is in me ( Omega )...” (14: 10) Alpha ↔ Omega “…And you in me and I in you.” (14: 20) Delta ↔ Omega “…I in them and you in me.” (17: 23a) Alpha → Omega → Delta “…You love them as you loved me.” (17: 23b) Omega ← Alpha → Delta “…So that the love you had for me may be in them and I may be in them.” (17: 26) Delta ← Omega ← Alpha → Delta This is a paradigm of the differance (Derrida) that is the foundation of consciousness. Delta experiences Alpha directly and then again through the mediation of Omega . This slight displacement, which applies in varying ways and degrees to most experiences, creates the ‘gap’ which consciousness bridges. This gap is what consciousness experts mistake for a Global Workspace or for the site of Information Integration . Sidebar : This also explains why consciousness seems so widely distributed among living organisms, even those that lack any sort of brain or central nervous system (e.g. bacteria). Basically, any organism capable of both direct and mediated experience is at least dimly conscious (Whitehead). *** “He who dwells in me and I in him will bear much fruit for apart from me you can do nothing. He who does not dwell in me is like a withered branch thrown into the fire and burned.” (15: 5-6) Applying a formula first proposed by Gregory Bateson, Being consists of ‘babies having babies’ – i.e. differences making a difference. Whatever occurs only in spacetime is finite; by definition it makes no ultimate difference, so it is not (and never was). Things are just as they would be if nothing had ever happened (nothing ever did happen). . An event isolated in Delta is like a withered branch consumed by fire… unless that event can somehow be eternalized . (Stay tuned) “This is my father’s glory , that you may bear fruit in plenty…” (15: 8) Alpha ← Delta → Omega Glory is a deceptively simple concept. We think of it as some sort of spectacular theophany, preferably accompanied by fireworks, but the Hebrew root suggests something more mundane, like gravity . Glory shapes spacetime as two trees shape a hammock; it’s closer to a cause than it is to an effect. “…Through them my glory has shone…that they may be one as we are one.” (17: 10-11) Delta exists only in the context of Alpha/Omega and while the latter does not determine the content of the former, it does exert some subtle influences as noted above. Those influences may be summarized as God’s Glory , i.e. God’s gravitational influence . *** I am reminded of Deuteronomy (30:19): “I set before you life and death, blessing and curse, therefore choose life.” Of course, this is not a choice at all because Option B cannot in fact be chosen…it runs afoul of the Grandfather Paradox . To cease being is never to have been at all: Is you is or is you ain’t? But if you had never been, you would not be on hand now to choose Option B. So choosing Option B precludes you from choosing Option B. Clever… So there is only one option, Option A: Live long and prosper! Choose life and be! Virtual events in Delta vanish into the oblivion of never having happened… unless they are somehow able to transcend spacetime by co-locating in Alpha/Omega . *** “As the Father has loved me so I have loved you. Dwell in my love.” (15: 9) Alpha → Omega → Delta “This is my commandment: love one another as I have loved you.” (15: 12) Delta ↔ Delta ← Omega → Delta ↔ Delta “If you heed my commands, you will dwell in my love, as I have heeded my Father’s commands and dwell in his love.” (15: 10) Delta ↔ Omega ↔ Alpha So how do I, in Delta , co-locate with Christ in Omega ? This simple question summarizes the entirety of Christian spirituality and ethics…and not just Christian. In the end, it is the existential question, the only question that matters. If I fail to solve this riddle, at least intuitively, I lose everything. Bumper Sticker : Co-locate or Be Not! YHWH makes this clear at the outset of his first intervention in human history, the Exodus: “I am who am.” (Ex. 3: 14) Billboard : Want to be? Go through me! When I heed a command, I conform my behavior to the will of another; I perform physically what another has willed intellectually. God’s sole command is that we love one another. When we do so, we conform our actions to his will ( Omega ) and our will to his values ( Alpha ). God is primordially and essentially co-located ( Alpha and Omega ). His acts and values resonate, they share a common wavelength, they are mutually reinforcing. When we act in concert with God’s will (i.e. when we love), we are co-located as well but accidentally , not essentially. Still, we share the common wavelength and our acts resonate with God’s values and will. Sidebar : Resonance is pattern and pattern is information and information (bit) trumps infrastructure (it): “It from bit” (Wheeler). When patterns resonate, they merge and become one pattern across many structures. The epiphenomenal figure (pattern) becomes the substructural ground. When patterns merge, they co-locate, so one pattern may, and usually will, appear in all three phases ( Delta , Omega and Alpha ) simultaneously. Events in the World ( Delta ) are undetermined; they are sui generis and causa sui , free to conform, or not, to God’s will and values. By obeying God’s command (‘love one another’) we freely choose to conform our actions so they resonate with God’s will and values and co-locate in Alpha/Omega - a union of act, value, and will. Fortunately, God is omni potentia . Alpha defines his nature (Values) but Omega consists of every possible state-of-affairs that is not inconsistent with those values. The ‘way’ is not narrow after all; it is exceedingly broad. We do not have to guess at God’s will. We’re not required to pick THE right answer; we just need to avoid wrong ones, i.e. ones that are incompatible with his values ( Alpha ). “In my father’s house there are many mansions.” (14: 2) “We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus, to do good works that God has prepared for us in advance that we might step into them.” - Paul’s Letter to Ephesians (2: 10) The set of good works God has prepared for us includes whatever is not incompatible with his values. Here God’s Providence and Mercy come into play. The shaping of Delta (Providence) favors the emergence of order , measured by compatibility with God’s will. We can do what is right in our own eyes, confident that if we allow our actions to be guided by Divine Values (e.g. Beauty, Truth, Justice), we will not act in ways that are incompatible with God’s will, knowing that a merciful God redeems every act, no matter how ‘divergent’, as long as it does not conflict irredeemably with his nature. Confirmation of this is found in 4 places in the Book of Judges : “In those days, Israel had no king; everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” (17: 6, 18: 1, 19: 1, 21: 25) When we successfully conform our acts ( Delta ) to God’s values ( Alpha ), our temporal acts resonate with states-of-affairs located in Omega , merging with them to effect co-location so that we may participate in Eternity. Mortality is not an alternative to Eternity ( StarTrek ), it is the deprivation of Eternity. To exist exclusively in the Delta phase, i.e. to be ‘temporal only’, is to be incompletely real. Whatever is fully real is co-located. Eternity trumps mortality. Once an event is eternal, mortality loses all meaning. To be clear : we are not saying that God, or the Universe, is an RTC. Rather, we’re saying that the discovery of RTCs proves that order and freedom can (and do) coexist in a single entity, suggesting that what is transient in Delta can also be eternal in Alpha/Omega . Not bad for a day’s work! *** El Greco — Saint John the Evangelist (c. 1605) presents John as a youthful, inward-looking figure, emphasizing spiritual intensity over historical realism. El Greco’s elongated forms, cool blues, and flickering highlights create an otherworldly presence, suggesting John’s role as visionary and theologian rather than narrative actor. The saint’s upward gaze and symbolic attributes (often associated with revelation and the Eucharistic chalice) reinforce themes of divine inspiration, love, and mystical insight central to John’s writings. 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.