< Back Nietzsche and the Book of Genesis David Cowles Sep 21, 2025 “What is Value? Does it exist, is it for real? Or is it something we make up to justify our capricious behavior?” What is Value? Does it exist, is it for real? Or is it something we make up to justify our capricious behavior? After all, we do what we do. Attaching value to what we do just makes us feel better about ourselves, right? But is that so bad? Bad Faith , you bet! Bad Bad , maybe not. The concept of Value has been on the defensive in Euro-American culture ever since dear Nietzsche called it out: “…One belongs to the whole, one is in the whole – there exists nothing which could judge, measure, compare, condemn our being, for that would be to judge, measure, compare, condemn the whole… But nothing exists apart from the whole!” ( Twilight of the Idols ) Value is inherently hierarchical. Values motivate us to act and empower us to evaluate our actions. To do so, values must be on a higher ontological plane than the events they regulate. Nietzsche was an ontological democrat ; he abhorred any sort of hierarchy. Therefore, being intellectually honest to the end, he rejected the concept of Value per se . But did Nietzsche go too far? Is ontological democracy really incompatible with Value? Not necessarily. For example: You don’t get your report card from another student in your class and, if you do, who cares? It has no value! Only a teacher can confer value on a report card and teachers have a hierarchical relationship with their students, right? Well, yes…and no. Teachers and students are coequal partners in a single ecosystem called school . Broadly speaking, “No teachers no pupils/No pupils no teachers!” But within that democratic ecosystem, teachers have a hierarchical relationship with their students. Hierarchy at one level may be resolved as democracy at another. Equality and hierarchy are not necessarily incompatible when they are viewed in the context of process. We can model this with the help of a simple equilateral triangle. Extrinsically, nothing could be more democratic with its equal sides and equal angles. Intrinsically, however, an equilateral triangle can model a dynamic process. Consider: A ↙ ↘ B → C Let A be Valuation, B Proposition, C Realization. Valuation stimulates and regulates the process by which what is proposed comes to be what is real. But the three phases work together to create one, indivisible event. The model of hierarchy within democracy is all around us. An all-volunteer army has a rigidly hierarchical chain of command, but it is in service of a single, ultimately democratic, enterprise: national defense. Multimillionaire athletes willingly place themselves under the authority of middle class managers in pursuit of a loftier goal, e.g. winning a World Series. This event structure and the embedding of hierarchy within democracy were detailed, possibly for the first time, in the opening verses of the Book of Genesis : “Then God said, ‘Let there be light’ and there was light. God saw that the light was good. God then separated the light from the darkness. God called the light ‘day’ and the darkness he called ‘night’. Evening came and morning followed – the first day.” (1: 3-5) This primordial event, creation, is the paradigm for events generally, from Big Bang to present day. According to the text, creation is a process with three distinct phases, as outlined above: Proposition , “Let there be light”; Valuation , “God saw that the light was good”; Realization , “God separated the light from the darkness.” Sidebar : It is important to note that these three phases are logically, not chronologically, sequential. The primordial event (Big Bang) occurred outside of time as will the ‘Ultimate Realization Event’, whatever that turns out to be. According to the Genesis model, Valuation oversees and empowers Proposition and Realization, although the three phases are coequal in the constitution of a single concrete event. Hierarchy exists in the service of higher level democracy. The concept of Value is rehabilitated and ontological democracy is preserved. What does it mean to ‘get real’. Drawing on Gregory Bateson, we can say that ‘realization’ occurs when ‘a difference makes a difference’. The process of creation ‘began’ within the introduction of the potential for difference, i.e. Let there be light . But that potential difference was only realized as actual difference, i.e. an event, once that difference made a difference , i.e. when the light was separated from the dark. Now the potential difference is actual; it has made a difference. It is a permanent part of the fabric of the world. Sidebar : We all yearn to ‘make a difference’; but why? Do we really care that much about the world? Sadly, no. We want to make a difference because It makes us feel real. According to Bateson, that is not an illusion. Making a difference is how you get real. Footprints in the sand, ripples on the pond! Of course, the value of those differences, if any, is another matter entirely. Not all differences are good, but all differences are real. Only now do we have a settled matter of fact, an Event (“evening came and morning followed”), and the birth of Time, the beginning of cosmic history (“the first day”). The first chapter of Genesis is incredibly dense. It condenses 14 billion years, from the Big Bang to the evolution of Homo Sapiens , into just 31 verses. Even so, the author understood that it was not possible to conflate the three phases of the creative process. They are logically disjoint, ontologically incompatible! As Genesis goes on to point out, these three phases structure, not only the primordial event (creation) but every other event as well. Perhaps surprisingly, Nietzsche accepted the logic of Genesis , though he was unable to accept its implications (e.g. Value). Still, to make his system work, he needed to replace the function of Value. In place of evaluation, Nietzsche introduced the somewhat vague concept of Fate. It is fate , not measurement ( aka evaluation), that collapses the wave function. Fate, in Nietzsche’s scheme of ontogenesis, is a so-called hidden variable . It fulfills the function of ‘the implicate order’ in David Bohm’s quantum physics. Unfortunately for Nietzsche, hidden variables have fallen into disrepute since the work of Stephen Bell (1964). But it would be myopic to think that the final word has been spoken on this matter. So far, we have been referring to Creation as the primordial event. But that, of course, is wrong. The primordial is God himself. Happily, in the Christian doctrine of Trinity, we see that the event called ‘God’ shares the same structure (above) as the event called ‘Creation’. Once again, our equilateral triangle may serve a purpose. A ↙ ↘ B → C Understand B as Christ, the only begotten Son of the Father, A ; understand C as the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father ( A ) and the Son ( B ). (Nicene Creed) So we are indebted to Nietzsche’s searing critique of the concept of Value for helping us see the deeper, tri-polar structure of events and for opening new windows into the nature of Trinity and into the ontology of Genesis . Nietzsche declared God ‘dead’ and that declaration helped us see God in new ways and in new places. (Not sure Nietzsche' would be pleased!) *** Quentin Massys’ The Moneylender and His Wife (1514) shows a moneychanger carefully weighing coins while his wife, who had been reading a devotional book, leans in to watch the transaction. The gleaming scales, coins, and rich still-life details emphasize themes of wealth, commerce, and the lure of material gain. Subtle symbols—a mirror reflecting passersby and the neglected prayer book—suggest a moral tension between spiritual devotion and worldly preoccupation. 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.

“My so-called inner world, the ‘I’, contains nothing; it is simple. It admits no change…there is no inner world.” < Back I Seem to be a Membrane David Cowles Apr 15, 2023 “My so-called inner world, the ‘I’, contains nothing; it is simple. It admits no change…there is no inner world.” In the beginning there is I and not-I…and not-not-I. ‘I’ only reveals itself in the context of not-I, and vice versa; like quarks, ‘I’ and ‘not-I’ only occur together, as a pair. Not-not-I only reveals itself in the context of both I and not-I. In the creedal language of Nicaea, we’d say, “Not-not-I proceeds from I and not-I.” In the dialectical language of Marxism, we’d say, “Synthesis proceeds from Thesis and Antithesis.” The ‘I’ aspect of reality never changes; it endures, one and the same, now and forever, throughout the vicissitudes of spacetime experience. This is the famous ‘enduring personal identity’ (‘soul’ in some terminologies) to which we all cling as if to a life raft. On one hand, there is only one ‘I’ which we all share. On the other hand, every ‘I’ reflects a specific not-I and every not-I is unique. Any two I’s are exactly the same…and totally different! (In fact, only things which are totally different can ever be the same. Comparability is the enemy of identity.) ‘I’ never changes; it’s not the sort of thing that changes. It can’t change; it’s simple (Aquinas), it’s inert, a ball bearing (Laplace), a Monad (Leibniz), Aletheia ( Parmenides ): “ …what-is is ungenerated and imperishable…whole, single-limbed, steadfast, and complete, nor was it once, nor will it be, since it is, now, all together, one, continuous…” Not-I changes continually (Heraclitus); it’s the sort of thing that changes. It’s not simple! Every not-I is composed of every not-I, i.e., everything in heaven and earth, Horatio, except of course, ‘I’. Your not-I and my not-I likely share many (most?) elements. What distinguishes ‘yours’ from ‘mine’ is the way the elements are arranged; individuality is mostly a matter of perspective. Our worlds massively overlap, but our perspectives are unique. ‘Not-I’ is Parmenides’ Doxa : “To come to be and to perish, to be and not to be, and to shift place and to exchange bright color.” My situation (not-I) changes, gradually. These changes create the false impression that I am changing - growing-up, growing-out, growing-old - but ‘I’ never changes. Not-I changes gradually; not-not-I turns over the money changers’ tables in the temple. In my younger days, I used to like to visit Las Vegas. Most times, I’d stay at the Bellagio . After a few trips, I learned a secret. The entire casino draws off a common wine inventory. Theoretically, every bottle of wine is available at every restaurant in the casino. Want to pair a 1982 Lafite Rothchild with a bacon cheeseburger? I can make that happen for you! IRL, however, each restaurant in the casino curates its own wine list, drawing exclusively, of course, from the casino’s master inventory. As a result, the wine list at Picasso looks nothing like the wine list at Michael Mina’s . You’d never know that they draw off a common inventory…unless I told you. Oops! The universe works the same way. The master set of overlapping not-I’s constitutes the shared inventory of elements (‘multiplicity’). Each not-I is like a restaurant-specific wine list (‘nexus’); not-not-I (‘event’) is what happens when I order a specific bottle off a particular restaurant’s curated list, taste it and pair it with steak tartar …or foie gras . ‘I’ is universal, not-I is communal, not-not-I is particular . Not-I is the intersection of ‘I’ and not-not-I, the universal and the particular. Every not-not-I is sui generis ; it’s pure novelty. Not-not-I is ‘not-I’, uniquely apprehended, experienced, and appropriated. Not-not-I becomes an element in not-I and is available to all subsequent not-not-I’s. That’s how we communicate: I share my particular ‘not-not-I’ and you share your particular ‘not-not-I’, and we both share through the medium of the common ‘not-I’. We communicate like trees! Trees sink roots into the earth. Through their root systems, Tree A and Tree X exchange fairly complex messages. Subject matter includes weather forecasts, predator alerts, disease prophylaxis, and the ‘just’ allocation of scarce resources (water, minerals, even sunlight). (We have no way to know if trees also talk about philosophical concepts; do trees believe in God?) However, this arboreal communication is never direct; it occurs through the common medium of unicellular fungi that permeate and enrich the soil that separates and links the roots. In the Western philosophical tradition, ontologies habitually fall prey to The Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness (Whitehead). They fracture the ‘I’ and pretend to create a ‘split personality’; they talk of an ‘inner world’ and an ‘outer world’. According to various versions of conventional wisdom, my so-called ‘inner world’ may include my physical body and the cells, tissues and organs that make it up, my thoughts and feelings, my hopes and desires, my plans, my dreams, my dreads, my disappointments, and my disgusts. In fact, none of these things is part of any ‘inner world’. They are all firmly located in the ‘not-I’ on their way to becoming ‘not-not-I’ for me. My so-called inner world, the ‘I’, contains nothing; it’s simple. It admits no change. Conventional wisdom agrees that I am a membrane, but a membrane that separates my so-called inner world ( me ) from my outer world ( not-me ). This ‘inner’ world has even been mapped - by biology (cells, tissues, organs, and organic processes), by chemistry (base pairs, amino acids, RNA), and by psychology (unconscious, pre-conscious, conscious; id, ego, superego). As usual, conventional wisdom contains a grain of truth: I am a membrane! But, no surprise, it misplaces concreteness. I am not the membrane that exists between my body and its environment. We already have a word for that; it’s called ‘skin’. I am the membrane that exists between world…and no world ! I am like Janus, the Two Faced God . ‘I’ can peer in (to my so-called body/mind) or out (to my so-called environment). Either way, it’s always the same ‘I’ that’s doing the peering and always the same ‘not-I’ that is the object of my leering. There is no inner world. I am ‘I’, remember? I am simple, I am incapable of change. Everything else changes. Heraclitus was 99.99% right: Everything flows, except me (and any other ‘I’ that might happen to be ‘eddying’ around with me). The me-membrane is not an inanimate barrier; it’s not even organic tissue. It is not a physical or material reality at all. It’s the principle of reflection, an irreducible aspect of Being per se . ‘I’ reflects the world, ‘I’ projects the world, and the world becomes what I project. The world is the collective ‘not-I’, the s uperimposition of the unique reflections and projections of each ‘I’. The world is my hodological map. It indicates to me the tasks that are to be accomplished and the tools available to me to accomplish them. Space and time are simply measures of ‘priority’ and ‘on handedness’. The world includes my whole body, my whole self - brain, brawn, and blood - and it includes your body, your whole self as well. But it does not include ‘you’. You transcend the world…just as I do. Each of us is the primary substance of our own universe. What I call ‘you’ is the in-breaking of your universe into mine. I know that I am not alone because I know ‘you’ (even if I can’t prove it). In fact, “Naught is all else to me save that thou art.” (St. Dallin re: God) I am the membrane that separates world and no-world…and so are you! David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Return to our Holy Days 2023 Table of Contents, Share Previous Next Do you like what you just read? Subscribe today and receive sneak previews of Aletheia Today Magazine articles before they're published. Plus, you'll receive our quick-read, biweekly blog, Thoughts While Shaving. Subscribe Thanks for subscribing! Click here. Return to Table of Contents, Winter 2023 Issue Return to Table of Contents, Holiday Issue Return to Table of Contents, Halloween Issue Return to Table of Contents, September Issue Return to Table of Contents, Beach Issue Return to Table of Contents, June Issue

< Back Lift Up Your Hearts! Faith Has a Future Regis Martin "More than 50 years ago, Joseph Ratzinger said that the life of the Church would be the outcome of her death, just as Easter Sunday was the outcome of Good Friday." ‘‘Think you, when the Son of Man comes, he will find faith upon the earth?’ (Luke 18:8) If the Lord were to come again — say, in the next half-hour — what would the Church look like to him? Would it resemble the one he founded more than 2,000 years ago? That is, in its basic and essential lineaments, would it still be One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic? How vibrant and convincing a faith would he find moving among the People of God? There are only two possibilities, aren’t there? Either the future will faithfully replicate the past as vouchsafed to us by Christ and his successors, the bishops, or certain adjustments having been made along the way to appease the spirit of the age, the Church will cease to be recognizable, despite the numbers that still nominally belong to her. But even that (have you noticed?) is changing. I mean, institutionally speaking, we are seeing a Church in freefall. Amid the spreading decadence of the West, the demographics are all moving in the opposite direction, in ways many of us had not foreseen even as recently as a generation or so ago. In other words, the march of decline continues unabated — indeed, in most First World places, it has become almost a gallop. Not even the mystique of synodality can arrest the spread. Not everyone back then, however, failed to notice the implosive forces underway. In a series of Christmas radio broadcasts made soon after he was appointed Professor of Dogmatic Theology at the University of Regensburg in 1969, the future Pope Benedict XVI had seen it all coming. The future of the Church, declared then-Father Josef Ratzinger, would not be onward and upward. There would be no parallels to match the usual, predictable ascent found in the corporate world. The Church will fall on hard times, he warned, losing much of her erstwhile power and prestige. “She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning,” he said, and continued: She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminish, so will she lose many of her social privileges. In contrast to an earlier age, she will be seen much more as a voluntary society, entered only by free decision. As a small society, she will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members. What are we to deduce from all this? That institutional extinction is imminent? That despite the promises of Christ, the Church will not finally prevail against the gates of hell? Will that be the judgment of history? That like all the other religious eruptions of the past, from the Assyrians to the Zoroastrians, her time in the sun will soon be done? And so we must just deal with it? Is that the future we are to expect? Along with the sobering recognition that, from the beginning, her pretensions have always been over the top? But hold on a minute. If those are the facts and only delusional people persist in thinking otherwise, why wasn’t that the conclusion to which Father Ratzinger’s analysis drove him? Because he comes down in a very different place. By the strangest of all paradoxes, he believed that the life of the Church would be the outcome of her death, just as Easter Sunday was the outcome of Good Friday. The way up and the way down will turn out to have been the same way. Only thus will the true nature of the Church be seen once more. That in everything that stands athwart her life, in the teeth of all the forces arrayed against her, the Church will find her essence afresh and with full conviction in that which was always at her center: faith in the triune God, in Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, in the presence of the Spirit until the end of the world. The springs of rejuvenating life lie very deep down, far below the findings of science and sociology, where the data are all neatly laid out like Tom Eliot’s “patient etherized upon a table.” We are not to look upon the Church as though reduced to so many numbers set out on a spreadsheet. It is precisely what cannot be seen, nor measured by busy little bean counters, that finally matters. "The Church’s future," said Ratzinger, "will issue from those whose roots are deep, who live from the pure fullness of their faith. It will not issue from those who accommodate themselves merely to the passing moment … nor will it issue from those who take the easier road, who sidestep the passion of faith, declaring false and obsolete, tyrannous and legalistic, all that makes demands upon men, that hurts them and compels them to sacrifice themselves." In a word, renewal will come from the saints, from those on whom the Church has always depended, even as they depend upon her for the grace to perdure. And when the time of trial is over, when the period of sifting ends, about which we haven’t the skill set to fix a date, real power will flow forth from her loins. Because she will then have become, says the future Pope Benedict XVI, “a more spiritualized and simplified Church.” Meanwhile, the denizens of “a totally planned world will find they themselves unspeakably lonely.” If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover her as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret. Seeing all this unfold from the vantage point of more than a half-century ago, knowing the certainty of the coming crisis and fearing the awful scale of the devastation it will bring, he nevertheless ends on a note, not just of realism, but of hope: The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is already dead … but the Church of faith … no longer the dominant social power to the extent that she was recently; but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man’s home, where he will find life and hope beyond death. Originally published on National Catholic Register and republished with permission from the author. Image: Amédée Varin (1818-1883), “Christ Walking on Water” (photo: Public Domain) Regis Martin Regis Martin , S.T.D., is a professor of theology and a faculty associate with the Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio. He podcasts at In Search Of The Still Point and his latest book, Looking for Lazarus: A Preview of the Resurrection , was released in 2021. purpose and devotion. Return to our 2024 Beach Read Previous Next

< Back Uranus Meets Erik Erikson David Cowles Oct 23, 2025 “The uber-pattern of the world is the logo that liberates us, that turns our free will into agency.” No, this is not the title of a Bevis and Butthead episode, nor is it a Wayne’s World retrospective. It is an article about the intriguing astronomical behavior of the ‘7th ice chip from the Sun’, the planet Uranus. Discovered in 1781 with the aid of a telescope, Uranus orbits the Sun once every 84 Earth years. During that ‘year’, the planet passes through all 12 signs of the Zodiac, effectively taking 7 years to transit each ‘house’. Of course, 7 is a prime number (3+4), closely related to its composite number, 12 (3 x 4). In many numerological systems, the #3 is associated with the divine and the #4 with the terrestrial, giving #7 (3 + 4) and #12 (3 x 4) their special significance. The numbers 7 and 12 have outsized importance in various human sub-cultures: The 7 days of creation The 7 day week The 7 sacraments (RCC) The Sabbath (7th day) The Sabbatical (7th year) The Jubilee, the year immediately following the 7th sabbatical year 7 fat years followed by 7 lean The 7 visible bodies in the ancient ‘solar system’ The 7 year itch A ‘natural’ (winner, winner, chicken dinner) in the game of Craps. The 12 signs of the Zodiac The 12 tribes of Israel The 12 apostles The 12 days of Christmas The 12 members of a jury A dozen eggs. The ‘Science of Astrology’ specifically studies the motions of celestial bodies relative to the signs of the Zodiac. It seeks to identify macrocosmic patterns in the behavior of those celestial bodies that harmonize with the microcosmic patterns we encounter in everyday life. The examples listed above span a gamut ranging from the large scale structure of the cosmos to familiar events in the lives of ordinary human beings. There is no claim here that one ‘causes’ the other; in my view, they don’t. As David Hume pointed out 250 years ago, causality is overrated. However, looking at phenomena on multiple scales allows us to use patterns evident on one scale to locate patterns, often less evident, operative on other scales. In this way, the Science of Astrology helps us discover scale-agnostic patterns that can enrich our understanding and appreciation of life’s experiences. In that context, the symmetries exhibited by Uranus’ orbital path help us identify patterns with similar symmetries on other scales. Let’s apply this ancient discovery to contemporary phenomena to see if patterns well identified and understood on one scale can help us identify and understand patterns on other scales. Let’s introduce the Three Wise Guys (Zoroastrian Astrologers from Persia) to Erik Erikson, a 20th century psychologist. We previously pointed out Uranus’ 7 year journeys through each of the 12 signs of the Zodiac. Erikson developed a theory of human development that identified distinct stages ‘scheduled’ to unfold at certain critical junctures over the course of Normal Life Expectancy (NLE). At first glance, the two models have little in common: While 84 years might be a valid approximation of NLE, Erikson’s model consists of just 8 stages, some as short as 18 months, others at least as long as 22 years. Worse still, Erikson’s model human ‘completes’ 5 stages in just 18 years and takes 66 years to complete the last three. Clearly, these models have nothing in common; or do they? What happens if we apply Uranus’ 12 ‘stages’, each lasting approximately 7 years, to Erikson’s theory of stages in human development? We might end up with a revised model of human development based on 12 stages of 7 years each. Would that shed any useful light on actual experience? You bet it would! Such a project would direct us to look for flex points in the development of a human being spaced by reasonably uniform 7 year intervals. Does that help elucidate reality? Let’s take a look: If there is a genuine harmony between these patterns, we’d be looking for flex points in the development of a human being that correspond to the following birthdays: 7th, 14th, 21st, 28th, 35th, 42nd, 49th, 56th, 63rd, 70th, and 77th. Wow! Can anyone fail to see the remarkable co-incidence of these specific birthdays with empirically identified developmental plateaus? Age 7 is the traditional ‘age of reason’ and the age at which immersive, structured ‘education’ often begins. Roman Catholic children are introduced to the Sacraments of Penance and Eucharist and for the first time become subject to the Laws of the Church. It marks the end of infancy. The organism (child) sacrifices some of its neuroplasticity, native curiosity, and unfettered imagination in exchange for certain perceived advantages - the status and ‘privileges’ associated with ‘growing up’. Age 14 marks the end of childhood and the beginning of adolescence. It often corresponds with full sexual maturity and the final development of gender specific organs. A cascade of hormones often leads to reckless and rebellious behavior. Curiosity and creativity endure but they are now more likely channeled toward specific projects. Then comes the much awaited 21 st ! Ah, my first legal bone dry martini. Extra olives, please, to help me cope with the taste! By now I can drive (preferably not after drinking) and I may have completed my formal, or at least my state mandated, education. I can live on my own, I can get a job, I can enter into legally binding contracts, taking on Student Loans and Credit Card debt. I am a taxpayer now, a productive member of society. I have arrived…sort of. In reality, the 21 – 28 stage remains a period of intense development at least in modern cultures. At 21, there is still a lot of play left in life. By 28, I need to have thought seriously about such issues as marriage, children, and career. Now I am 35. Everyone expects me to be settled and on a charted life course. At 35, one may, perhaps, answer for the first time the age old question, “What will you be when you grow up?” You may wish to say, perhaps for the first time, “ This is who I am.” Terrifying! I must open a 401k and take up the game of golf. 42 now…it’s time to take stock: What’s my career (advancement) path? Am I saving enough? Will my kids ‘amount to anything’? Do I still want to be married? By 49, you’d better belong to a posh country club, sport a single digit handicap, and drive a Jaguar (if not a Lamborghini, you Loser!). By now, you should be working on your second marriage. 56, just checking-in. On course? 63, the process of aging begins in earnest. Whether it’s changing a tire or shooting b-ball with the neighborhood kids, you’re not 21 anymore, and now you know it; heck, you’re not even 40! It’s amazing! By the age of 14 most of us realize that we will eventually grow old and die. Yet when the aging process begins to affect us in perceptible ways, we’re always caught completely off-guard. Somehow we fall into the trap of believing we can age without changing. When you’re 7, you anticipate and welcome the changes promised at 14 and 21, but when you’re 63 you have no idea what’s in store for you. 63, 70, and 77 represent somewhat arbitrary breakpoints but the decline they catalogue is all too real. And it’s not a continuous process; you age in chunks. There is an enormous difference between being 63 – 70 and being 77 – 84, a difference most of us are not even slightly ready for. Of course, 77 – 84 is a lot better than what comes next! Using Uranus’ 84 year trek through the Zodiac to reconfigure Erikson’s stages of human development has suggested a pattern which has proven (above) to have significant heuristic value. This is the sense in which Astrology can be called a science and can be applied to enhance our lives and expand our horizons . Yet there is an obvious fallacy here; have you picked up on it yet? Astrological projections are typically linked with the date (and time) of one’s birth. That time is unlikely to coincide with the moment of Uranus’ transit between signs of the Zodiac. Therefore, if the stages of human development were perfectly aligned with Uranus’ itinerary, each of us would have a unique 7 year cycle. Where I am focused on my 7th and 14th birthdays, you might be looking at your 5th and 11th birthdays. Nonsensical! In my defense, I simply point out that patterns do not have to be identical to be instructive. We are only looking for congruence and the progress of Uranus forms a pattern that is congruent with the stages of human development, regardless of any one person’s DOB. The alternative, to approach life’s experiences as if they occurred chaotically would be utterly paralyzing. Free will notwithstanding, my fate would merely be the by-product of the Brownian motion around me. That changes, however, once we start to recognize congruent patterns in our world. Patterns allow us to create tools, to imagine and accomplish projects, and to measure their results. The uber-pattern of the world is the logos that liberates us, that turns our free will into agency. We should search for its reflection in everything we encounter, from a grain of sand to a drop of water, from the roar of a crowd to the smell of a bonfire, from the motion of the solar system to the structure of the cosmos itself. That’s Astrology! And we are grateful to Uranus for the lesson. *** The Copernican World by Andreas Cellarius is a 17th-century celestial illustration that beautifully presents Copernicus's heliocentric model, with the Sun at the center and planets, including Earth, orbiting around it. This work blends scientific innovation with artistic detail, reflecting the shift from geocentric to heliocentric understanding in the history of astronomy. 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 Leading Player of Memories Annie D. Stutley Maybe that’s what Judy Garland meant in “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” when she sang “we’ll have to muddle through somehow?” Growing up, I always looked forward to coming home from church with Grandpa. As we walked up the back steps of our house in Bay St. Louis, Miss., Grandpa would say in his booming voice, “Annie, you were so good in church today that I deserve a milk punch.” Soon the smell of bourbon and nutmeg would fill the porte cochère, the little room off the kitchen where Grandpa would blend his post-religious cordial, pouring out a kid-sized portion for me. I’d pucker my lips to suck up the frothy cap of milk floating on top and relish the simple Sunday ritual. All was well in my world where Grandpas were reassuringly predictable. I have taken to the occasional post Mass sarcasm with my own children. There’s something warm about traditions. We don’t always know quite how they began, but as the world spins around us, they are our constants, beacons of comfort, ready to wrap us in their arms and remind us that all is still well. Most of us have holiday traditions we anticipate as the calendar rolls into December. My cousins in Lake Charles look for a gold pickle hidden in the evergreen of the Christmas tree. My neighbor spends a full Friday from lunch to supper gallivanting through soufflé potatoes and French 75’s with friends in the front room at New Orleans’ famed Galatoire’s Restaurant. When my husband was a child, every holiday season they baked homemade ornaments from clay and painted them. Most of the cutouts were badly altered in the hot oven, creating timeless characters like Sweaty Angel, whose wings were too small and too fat, morphed from the steam. Only copious sweat and divine intervention could allow the aerodynamic Christmas miracle that would get her off the ground. Then there was Black-Eyed Bart, the fear-inducing Santa ornament whose eyes were black as pitch and whose red painted lips dribbled down his chin. My husband recalls the jubilation that would fill his living room when these ornaments were unpacked from ten months of attic hibernation each year – as anticipated as opening presents on Christmas Day. Growing up, my family celebrated two Christmases, one with our nuclear family of seven and another over New Year’s weekend back in Bay St. Louis with Grandma, Grandpa, and all our cousins. The first Christmas was for Santa and his magic. The latter was for the predictable magic: Grandpa’s scavenger hunt clues through the big drafty house leading to our Christmas checks and Pop’s notorious poems on the rest of the presents. My father knew the secret to a healthy sense of self: laugh at yourself first, and the rest will laugh with you, not at you. During second Christmas he exercised this through verse written on the outside of our presents. His poems were supposed to be clues, but more times than not, they only made sense to him. That was the best part – seeing Pop chuckle at his own expense, standing before the twinkling lights of the tree in his red shirt, ready to hand out the next gift, while the receiver of the previous gift scratched their head, trying to connect the words of Pop’s poem to what they’d just unwrapped. There came a time when I began to save all these poems. Something told me that someday, maybe sooner than I feared, the predictability of Christmas poems would be gone and the poem itself would be more valuable than anything Pop bought me. As much as I find comfort in what is expected of rituals and traditions, I’m also energized by the unexpected. There’s promise in the unknown because the future has not been determined. I’ve always had this feeling that something great “is just around the corner.” But my first holiday season after Pop died – the first gift exchange without Pop’s poems, without that glint in his eye, without seeing him laugh at his own buffoonery – I entered Advent with a lump in my throat, paralyzed by the unexpected. Where would the silliness stem from now that our Leading Player had finished his run? Sweaty Angel and Black-Eyed Bart came from my mother-in-law’s annual effort to mix clay and gather everyone around the table for messy memories. My cousins’ pickle hunt is the result of keeping the same date on the calendar every year (Pickle Night), and Pop’s poems only happened because he took the time to make them happen, and because he was exceedingly generous with his sense of self. Eventually, however, it’s not just the tradition itself that’s passed down. It’s the responsibility to creating memories. When a new actor steps into an established role, preceded by a long-running fan favorite, the new actor has to make that role their own. Otherwise, the performance is trite. Nothing breaks the fourth wall like seeing a performer reach. In the same way, when we become the keepers of the keys formerly held by our ancestors, we have to do the best we can with the script we’ve been given. We can’t keep what was entirely, but that doesn’t mean that run has to stop. They set the scene, our parents and. before them, our grandparents, but eventually, it’s our turn. We may not follow through with the same flair, but we keep the story going. We may even spin off toward new traditions, new predictability of the season, building upon the family catalog of memories. Maybe that’s what Judy Garland meant in “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” when she sang “we’ll have to muddle through somehow?” We take what we’ve been given, and we serve the role of the Leading Player (not the traditions), keeping our motivation on what matters most: transporting those in our audience (our siblings, kids, and grandkids) to that timeless, childlike place where the joy of the season is felt most. Somewhere in that first Christmas after Pop died, I realized that the silliness of the season was mine to lose. I was destined for the role of Memory Maker, Leading Player of Christmas, the instant I first laughed at those who came before me. Because long ago in those moments of unhinged joy, kept safe in the catalog of my most treasured memories, my heart bursting with love for Pop, Grandpa, Mama – all my life’s Leading Players, I knew the feeling would last and that when it was my turn, I’d want to keep the laughter going. Because just as Pop knew, laughter is best shared. Annie D. Stutley lives and writes in New Orleans, La. She edits several small publications and contributes to various print and online magazines. Her blog, " That Time You, " was ranked in the Top 100 Blogs by FeedSpot. To read more of her work, go to her website , or follow her at @anniedstutley or Annie D. Stutley-writer on Facebook. Previous Next

React to Aletheia Today the website for believers in God and science. ! Widget Didn’t Load Check your internet and refresh this page. If that doesn’t work, contact us.

< Back Hidden Hope in Spring’s Awakening Donna Bucher Though hidden, life prepares for emergence in spring. In what seems like an overnight arrival, the signs of the hope hidden within spring’s awakening, stun my senses as I walk from the parking lot to my office. Each of the half dozen maple trees boast a myriad of red buds, the large birch tree sports tiny green leaves, and the timid green fingers of daffodils and tulips point upward, as the gay song of busy robins escorts me to the door. Nestled in the heart of spring’s awakening rests an unshaken Hope displayed in creation’s preparatory signs of a new season dawning. Perhaps my tendency of speeding into my days prevents me from noticing spring’s wonder until it emerges in full splendor, but the signs of spring this year captivated me earlier than I remember. Speaking a delightful lesson from the Lord on the hope hidden within spring’s arrival, the awakening of slumbering plants and wildlife remind us of life yet unseen. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1 Life Hidden in the Heart of Spring On a brief walk around my garden, multiple signs of spring greet me in every corner. All of which lay hidden not many days before. Marveling each year at the appearance of tiny buds on barren trees and shrubs, along with little green points emerging from soft soil, spring feels like magic to me. Life shrouded in death slumbers in the womb of winter’s stillness awaiting the whisper of the dawn of spring’s awakening. Though hidden, life prepares for emergence in spring. Held within the life source of trees and shrubs, buds slowly form over winter months, peeking out as sun caresses rough limbs. Root systems of perennials thicken and spread, gathering nourishment from the soil. Bulbs planted, divide and multiply while strengthening and maturing. All remains unseen preparatory work, predicated on the unchangeable hope of the return of spring. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. John 12:24 Not only does creation’s hidden work of life reveal hope, but our own garden planting reveals the inner confidence we harbor of a promised harvest. Many people start seedlings indoors which they then plant outside once the spring weather stabilizes. All with the confident hope of seeds dead in the earth breaking forth in new life at the right time. Our preparation rests in a promised hope of new plants come spring. Yet with the first sprouts, we practically jump for joy seeing this hope realized. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Romans 8:25 The Hidden Hope of Spring Teeming with new life, spring echoes the glorious resurrection theme. After winter’s barrenness and darkness, trees, shrubs and plants prepare for the emergence of new life while robins, sparrows and wrens tirelessly build nests fit for welcoming offspring. As Christ’s body rested in the tomb three days and three nights, death and darkness quenched the hope His followers possessed in the Kingdom and rescue they anticipated. Waiting centuries for the promised Messiah who would free them from persecution, while establishing an everlasting Kingdom of God, they now saw only the death of everything they once believed. Yet what they could not see was Christ wielding death and darkness in the greatest rescue mission of all time. For using death and darkness to defeat death and darkness, His sacrificial death not only cancelled their sin, but secured eternal life for them. (1 Corinthians 15:54-58) The hidden Hope of spring speaks the resurrection story with every appearance of new life from the darkness of earth and womb. The Joy of the empty tomb bursts upon us with each sign of renewed life and vigor throughout creation. Infusing our souls afresh with His promise to make all things new. God’s resurrection hope hidden in the heart of spring invites us into a place of release. The true magnificence of spring’s hope unleashes the restrictions in the places where winter lingers in negativity, grief, fear of the future, or uncertainty. Our Lord has written the promise of Resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime. Martin Luther Spring’s new life reminds us even in the hard places of our lives hope promises new beginnings. As I gaze over my gardens, seeing the dead stalks and dried leaves of last season’s beauty, the resurrection story echoes spring’s anthem — out of death’s remnants rises new life. A new life which lavishly clothes our souls with new growth possibilities, unfolding in the beauty of transformation from apparent death and darkness to the glorious light of spring’s spiritual renewal. As spring’s awakening invites us to leave not only the harsh winter weather, but our own spiritual winters, it also invites us to remember the true hope hidden in our dark seasons. Take a moment this spring and embrace the joy of the resurrection story within the emerging glory of God making all things new. Image: Constable, J. (1821). The Hay Wain [Oil on canvas]. National Gallery, London. Donna is a passionate creative, writer, poet, speaker, retired missionary, CASA volunteer, experienced counselor and hospice and palliative care support personnel. Founder of Serenity in Suffering blog, and author of the Serenity in Suffering newsletter on Substack, where she shares articles, resources and counseling designed to help readers grow personally and find spiritual intimacy with Christ; ultimately finding purpose in the trials they face. Previous Next

< Back Follow the Science “Every event is novel, and no event causes any other event. Every event is free, causa sui, and sui generis. But the universe is also conservative…” David Cowles Remember the Alamo and Follow the Science – words to live by, memes that inspire generations! We love science…and why shouldn’t we? I lived through all the painful and potentially lethal childhood diseases; today we have vaccines. I grew up without the “vast wasteland” (Newton Minow) known as ‘television’, and no video games. Quelle domage! How did I ever survive? When I wanted to know something, I had to travel to something called a ‘library’ and search through its stacks. Then I learned to ‘Ask Google’ to assemble relevant research materials for me. Now I can just wake up my bot, Claude, and he will do my research for me. He’ll even write my report for me if I choose. So follow the science? You bet! There is just one small glitch: not a single proposition in the ‘library of science’ is true! Or false, for that matter. Not one. Take calculus, for example. Without calculus, it is unlikely that any of the technological advances mentioned above would have occurred. The world appears to be continuous along all four dimensions, but it isn’t. This is the nub of the famous paradox proposed by Parmenides’ pal, Zeno of Elea, a mere 2,500 years ago. Calculus can do what Zeno couldn’t; it lets us treat the discontinuous as if it were continuous. It’s not true, of course! Discontinuity is still discontinuity, but calculus allows us to disregard that discontinuity and treat all phenomena as continuous. It’s a bit like geometry. As far as we know, there are no purely Euclidean universes. Yet, the postulates and theorems of Euclidean geometry have revealed much about the substructural order of the phenomenal world. “Something there is that does not love a wall.” (Robert Frost) There are no straight lines! Yet by studying the properties of straight lines, we can learn about that which is not so straight. Euclidean geometry assumes a flat universe in which lines can be straight and angles can be sharp. We don’t live in such a universe, but we can learn about our universe by studying Euclid’s pseudo-verse. Same with calculus! Same with science! Modern science studies with unimaginable depth and precision something that does not exist, i.e., a continuous world. Scientific Method (SM) allows us to probe the world with incredible precision. Anyone who made it through the 5 th grade knows the details of SM by heart: Observe, question, hypothesize, experiment, and interpret. And if you were too cool for school, you know that anyway (without the labels) because you’ve lived…likewise many of your unstuffed animal friends. The fundamental premise of SM is this: If you perform identical actions in an identical environment (e.g., laboratory), you will achieve identical results. SM is ‘AA certified’: the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. So the non-thetic scientific method is a hardwired feature of epistemology in our biosphere. Perhaps it is a product of evolution (physical and/or cultural); it certainly confers ‘advantage’ on those able to use it. But the whole house of cards rests on a normally unnoticed and unstated foundation – the assumption that any event can ever be repeated. In fact, every event is unique. It is a fundamental premise of ontology (Whitehead), the foundation on which all science must be built, that no two events can ever be the same. If they were, they would be one event, not two. ‘Same’ is a mathematical concept (‘equality’), not a physical reality. But there are no identical events, and therefore it is never possible to perform the same actions under the same circumstances. The scientific method is logical and practical, and it yields amazingly useful insights, but its propositions are utterly vacuous, fruits of a forbidden tree. SM is a useful epistemology that rests on an invalid ontology! “This is what a unicorn would look like…if unicorns existed.” Every event is novel, and no event causes any other event. Every event is free, causa sui, and sui generis . But the universe is also conservative….just conservative enough, as it turns out. If it were more conservative, we’d be in permanent gridlock; less conservative, chaos. Consider Events A and B. Let’s assume that B is as similar to A as any event can be to any other event. They are separated by a ‘quantum of difference’ - what Jacques Derrida called ‘ differance ’. Where do we find this ‘B’? Next to A, obviously. Dah! Neat trick! How’dya do it? Spacetime! Not a substructural feature of universe as we had long believed but rather a map of that universe. Spacetime is not the substructure of universe - it is a map, not a blueprint. Every map is the projection of a field according to a map-specific set of rules. One such map is spacetime , drawn so that every ‘B’ is adjacent to its ‘A’, of course. Spacetime is Minecraft on steroids. We assemble virtual blocks to create multidimensional structures, environments, etc. It is this map that makes it possible for the scientific method to ‘work’, even though it rests on a fallacious ontology. So push our science to the max and take advantage of all the gorgeous fruit it produces, but beware: Do not confuse the fruit (phenomena) with the tree (noumenon), do not confuse the map with the territory! 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. Share Previous Next

< Back Block Universe David Cowles Mar 26, 2024 “For you, being is a spectator sport. But in our model the Block Universe evolves over time via a hierarchy of binary choices, so free will and agency are baked in.” The Universe is best represented as a multi-dimensional Block. Every possible value of every potential variable is encoded in that Block. Space and time are not native to this Block, nor is any other ordering principle. The concept of order simply doesn’t apply…yet; think Genesis 1: 2-3: “…The earth was without form or shape, with darkness over the abyss and a mighty wind sweeping over the waters.” What we call ‘the World’ is a cross section of that Block Universe, i.e. a ‘slice’ or a ‘surface’. Every cross-section (measurement) orders the variables in the Block. There are innumerable (perhaps infinitely many) such surfaces. Each slice is a matrix of variables. Each variable has a well-defined relation (not necessarily spatiotemporal) to every other variable on that surface. This ordering logos has been variously defined as causality , magic, logic , providence , et al. Not every possible combination of states constitutes a proper cross section. Determining the minimal requirements that a collection of states must meet to be a proper slice is the province of science. The laws of physics constitute some of those minimal conditions. Think of it like English. 26 letters but not every combination of letters makes a word. Same with the values of variables on a slice of the Block Universe. According to Pierre-Simon Laplace (Classical Determinism), there exists one and only one proper cross section. Once any one variable takes on a defined value (position + momentum), all others take on defined values as well. Once a single variable assumes a specific value, it’s game over…one and done. Everything is hardwired to everything else, deterministically. (Laplace did not know about Heisenberg Uncertainty.) To overcome Heisenberd, Hugh Everett (1957) put Laplace on steroids. If there are many possible universes (slices), why should only one be real? Why shouldn’t every possible universe be real? According to his Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics each unique state (each ‘valued variable’) births a novel World, i.e., a unique cross section of the Block. Richard Feynman effectively modified Everett so that not every value of every variable is uniquely cosmogenic. Rather, all possible slices (value combinations) exist simultaneously but with graded relevance modeled on a probability function. While Everett’s universe is pathologically democratic (all values are created equal), Feynman’s is strictly hierarchical. In computer science, only two values are allowed: 0 and 1, sometimes represented as + or -; but the number of variables (bits) is enormous. According to Laplace, you may have a google of bits but you still have at most 2 possible Worlds (the World and, I suppose, its Anti-World). But according to Everett, ‘every time a bell rings an angel gets its wings’. Oops! Sorry, wrong story. I meant to say, “Every time a variable acquires a value, a new Cosmos is created.” Every data point, every bit, bifurcates the universe. With Feynman’s modification, there is only one World, but that world is the ‘sum of all histories’ i.e. the superposition of all possible worlds. Oddly, his ‘actual World’ is not the same as any of the slices. Even though neither Laplace nor Everett nor Feynman can be debunked mathematically, their models are not entirely satisfying. One is totally rigid and spare; another, wildly chaotic and extravagant; the third more virtual than real. None remotely resembles the World as we experience it. Our World is stable but not sclerotic, dynamic but not disordered, plastic but real. Fortunately, there is a model that accounts for order and novelty and does so economically: A +↙ ↘- x x +↙ ↘- +↙ ↘- x x x +↙ ↘- +↙ ↘- +↙ ↘- x x x x Assume, as above, that each variable has one, but only one, of two values (+ or -). Regardless of whether the value of Alpha is + or -, Beta may be either + or -. The Beta state is not conditioned by the Alpha state. Sounds like Many Worlds …but it isn’t. Assume also that the basic properties of arithmetic apply. Therefore, (+ , –) is equivalent to (– , +). Our first iteration leaves us with just two possible Worlds (Laplace); but our second iteration adds a third option (+, - or -. +). According to this model, as the Universe inflates, it creates additional space to accommodate novelty. Perhaps that is what inflation is, fundamentally. Now this is a World you can live in! A world remarkably like our own in fact. And all you needed was Grade 3 arithmetic to generate it. The ‘Block Universe’ is a favorite of ‘super-determinists’. They imagine that the Block nature of things precludes any role for chance , agency , or horror of horrors, free will . ‘Intellectual Hippies’ prefer ‘Many Worlds’: “Whatever, man!” Oddly, both pre-dispositions lead to the same conclusion: Nihilism . In fact, it turns out that ‘One World’ and ‘Many Worlds’ are functionally identical. In both cases, you live in a world over which you have no influence or control. Living is not something you do; it’s something that’s done to you. For you, being is a spectator sport. But in our model the Block Universe evolves over time via a hierarchy of binary choices, so free will and agency are baked in. Out of Everett’s Many Worlds, I get to choose one to be real for me. Ephesians 2:10: “For we are…created in Christ Jesus for the good works that God has prepared in advance, that we should live in them.” Our absolute freedom comes with an assurance: All roads lead to Rome, or in this case, to the New Jerusalem ( Revelation ), aka the Kingdom of God. As Robert Frost brilliantly expressed, we are not responsible for the destination; our job is to optimize the journey, for ourselves and for our fellow travelers. You’re not a nameless face in the crowd after all; you’re the quarterback of Team You . Which means… I can’t avoid taking responsibility for my life after all. Bummer! 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 Enlightenment! David Cowles “It is often said that victors write history. That is even truer when the war is cultural rather than political.” Whenever history decides to grade itself…beware! ‘Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment’ – see a pattern here? it all sounds so cheery. And why shouldn’t it? Someone turned European History into a ‘self-graded class’, and like any self-respecting fifth grader (think Bart Simpson), History’s given itself an A. What about what went before? What happened between Rome and Renaissance? We’re talking religion before it was ‘fixed’ by Martin Luther, art before it was ‘fixed’ by the introduction of perspective, and the feudal system before it was ‘fixed’ by capitalism and the idea of constitutional government. This year, Sister Martha Mary decided to change again the way students are graded in her class. Instead of students grading themselves, each student is now graded by another member of the class. Guess what? Not an A in sight…but lots of C’s, D’s and, oh so many F’s. Does it surprise you that 10-year-olds are harder on others than they are on themselves? (Guess you never had siblings!) Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment: consider the words carefully! Now what would you call periods of history that were none of those things? Why you’d have to call them ‘Dark Ages,’ obviously. And History has obliged. It is often said that victors write history. That is even truer when the war is cultural rather than political: Our culture is who we are, our politics are what we are. (My apologies to Karl Marx.) In the June 27, 2022, edition of Thoughts While Shaving (TWS), we explored the difference between Faith (who we are) and Belief (what we are) . We are grandchildren of the Enlightenment. Sir Isaac Newton (c. 1700) flipped a switch, et voila, “Fiat Lux” . At that moment, the clouds were swept away and for the first-time humanity was able to see the world ‘as it is,’ without the camouflage of religion: No God, no Spirit, no Soul…this world is Nietzsche’s sand box. If you’re into science and technology, the Enlightenment is your era! It was a period of unparalleled invention and discovery, but also a period of war, tyranny, and myriad atrocities. But I digress. I said earlier that the Enlightenment was a period of invention… Was, not is! The period misnamed ‘Enlightenment’ is mercifully over…though our politicians, generals and terrorist leaders apparently missed the memo. The Enlightenment turned out to be an ouroboros. Like the Vacuum Monster is the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine , it consumed itself. Most often, epochal shifts occur when a ‘better idea’ replaces the current paradigm. That could have happened here…but it didn’t. Revolutionary discoveries in science (1900 – 1930) were a death sentence for the Enlightenment…but gracelessly, it insisted on exhausting every avenue of appeal. And it’s not done yet! Like President Trump, it’s still looking for 12,000 votes in Georgia. Enlightenment’s paradigms of materialism and causality were demolished by the discoveries of Planck, Einstein, and the ‘Quantum Mechanics.’ But instead of ‘exiting stage right’ as scripted, Enlightenment has refused to leave, even though its final scene is long since played out. Unlike the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, the Enlightenment did not “go gentle into that good night;” it raged against the dying of its imaginary light. Enlightenment refused to leave the stage before ‘the fat (sic) lady (Brunhilda)’ sang; and boy did she ever sign! Fittingly, Brunhilda’s final aria in Wagner’s “Ring” also heralded the collapse of a civilization preserved now only in Norse Mythology (The Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda )…and Marvel comics. The demise of the Enlightenment played on two stages. Stage right: Fascism. Stage left: Stalinism. Though mortal enemies on paper, these two ideologies both see the world through the paradigm of mechanization. Human beings are essentially machines and human society is akin to an assembly line: an arrangement of resources designed to maximize the production of goods and services…especially goods. Think nuclear! An atomic bomb can be understood as the self-annihilation of matter. Now think the self-annihilation of Enlightenment: Auschwitz, Buchenwald and the Gulag archipelago. Hitler, Stalin and their ‘gangs’ were determined to make the world safe for mechanization, i.e., the transformation of human beings and their social systems into ‘machines.’ To do so, they needed to rid the world, or at least Europe, of competing ideologies: Judaism (especially Hasidism and Kabala), Catholicism, Orthodoxy, tribalism (allegiance to smaller, more culturally focused groups), and individualism (in philosophy, in art and in lifestyle). Image: Reading of Voltaire 's tragedy of the Orphan of China in the salon of Marie Thérèse Rodet Geoffrin in 1755, by Lemonnier , c. 1812. 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 Next

< Back Imagine! David Cowles “John’s Utopia is a 20th century version of Friedrich Nietzsche’s flat universe.” In 1971 John Lennon, and his co-writer and life partner, Yoko Ono, exhorted us to ‘imagine there’s no heaven’; they assured us that ‘it’s easy if you try’. Ok, I’m imagining, or at least I’m trying to, but…it’s not all that easy. John’s Utopia is a 20 th century version of Friedrich Nietzsche’s flat universe . Listen to what Nietzsche had to say in 1888: “One belongs to the whole, one is in the whole – there exists nothing which could judge, measure, compare, condemn our being, for that would be to judge, measure, compare, condemn the whole…But nothing exists apart from the whole!” — Twilight of the Idols . Note that Nietzsche’s World explicitly lacks values : “There exists nothing which could judge, measure, compare, condemn our being.” In John’s words, there’s “nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too.” One thing you could say both of Nietzsche and of Lennon: They paved paradise and put up a parking lot . Their flat universe represents the hierarchical cosmos of Judeo-Christian tradition, squashed. Of all Western philosophers, Nietzsche’s vision is the most penetrating. He knew only too well that his flat universe would make any Halloween House of Horrors seem like a kiddie ride at Disney World, but that didn’t stop him. Whatever else you might say about Nietzsche, he had the courage of his convictions; he always philosophized in good faith. When Nietzsche pronounced his death sentence on Value (he had already done so on God), he did it with a heavy heart and a twinge of regret. He knew he was destroying a magnificent edifice…and he got no pleasure from it. When John Lennon did the same, he celebrated! Let’s unpack John’s lyrics: Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too. Ok, nobody likes to think about killing or dying . Either way, it’s the ultimate sacrifice. But it may be that there are things you would kill or die for (at least you’d like to think you would), things you value more than you value your own life. By denying that possibility, John turns the world in on itself; it becomes Nietzsche’s ‘whole’. And religion? The function of religion is to identify things that someone might be willing to kill or die for, i.e., to identify values…and then to curate those values. We can’t have any of that, can we? So , no religion too . John’s message in Imagine is the same as Nietzsche’s. Live now, die later. We are our own highest value. This sounds benign enough, but it isn’t: If we have no values beyond ourselves, there is no reason for any of us not to head straight for those tempting Deadly Sins: Pride, Greed, Lust, Envy, Gluttony, Wrath and Sloth. There’s even a combo pack, one of each vice; it’s what all the kids are asking for this year for The Holiday that Used to be Called Xmas , and it’s even on sale this month at Costco. Pick up a pack for me while you’re there. We’re often told that death is one of only two certainties in life. We will all die someday and if we are our own highest value, then our highest value (ourselves) will also cease to exist. But how can a value cease to exist? How can a value cease to be a value? By definition, values are universal, eternal and immutable. They apply, period, even in a Multiverse. Suppose we value Honesty. Ok, not everyone is honest; someone can be honest today and dishonest tomorrow. But even if everyone was dishonest all the time, it would not diminish the Value of Honesty. John & Yoko are taking us down into the Valley of the Shadow of Death (i.e., Nihilism) and at the same time they are depriving us of the Good Shepherd who was supposed to meet us there. How cocky we once were, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are by my side.” In other words, the Good Shepherd and I can handle anything life throws at us. Afraid of the valley? Heck no, I rule that valley! As long as I have my wingman with me, I’m good. The problem is that if there is nothing to kill or die for, then there can’t be anything to live for either. In Lennon’s universe, killing and/or dying can’t be the ultimate expression of value because per se they have no value. We are all going to die someday. In that sense, we are all the same; and we all come to the same end. We are all conceived ex minimis , and our future is a common, unmarked grave. And all that comes in between? According to Shakespeare, it will be “melted into air, into thin air… the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the great globe itself…shall dissolve.” ( The Tempest , Act IV, Scene 1) We live “now (and) at the hour of our death.” We should all be prepared to give that a great Amen at any time. So ‘to be or not to be’ is not on the table. Our common fate is ‘to be and not to be’, and, as Hamlet realized, there’s nothing we can do to escape it. I am because I am writing this article and I am not because I will soon perish. Only values can give our fleeting lives meaning. The sense of purpose, anathema to Nietzsche, was celebrated by Victor Frankl, psychiatrist, philosopher, and Holocaust survivor. He replaced personal happiness as the goal of life with ‘purpose’, dedication to something outside oneself, i.e., dedication to Values. Not John Lennon’s favorite philosopher, I’m guessing. D avid Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com. Previous Next

“Things are the way they are simply because they are the way they are.” < Back Super-Determinism David Cowles Apr 15, 2024 “Things are the way they are simply because they are the way they are.” In Thoughts While Shaving (3/26/2024), we introduced the notion of a Block Universe ( BU ) . According to this model, Universe is best represented as a static block. People used to write about the Block Universe but now we know that there are multiple models of BU . Each of these models has a different look and feel. However, it remains to be seen which of these various ideas, if any, are denotatively distinct. We explored two models of BU : Classical Determinism ( CD , Laplace) and Many Worlds ( MW , Everett). We’ll briefly recap these two models and then explore some other possible Block cosmologies, ultimately focusing on our title topic, Super-Determinism . The principle of Classical Determinism is well known. If we could specify the location and the momentum of every element in the Universe, we could calculate the state of the Universe at any time, past or future. Maybe so…but we can’t do it! Turns out that location and momentum are not entirely independent, so it is never possible to measure both at once without there being a certain amount of ‘fuzziness’ in the data (and fuzzy is fatal when it comes to determinism – I mean, one flap of a butterfly’s wing can throw all our plans and predictions into a cocked hat: no picnic today!) In fact, if we could know location with the precision required for a deterministic calculation, it would come at the expense of any knowledge whatsoever concerning momentum. Fortunately for us, the relationship between location and momentum is not linear. There is a ‘sweet spot’ where we have enough information about location and momentum to make informal, imprecise, predictions re the evolution of affairs. No picnic…but probably no asteroid collision either. Hugh Everett salvaged the picnic. He posited that any event that can happen (even a picnic) does happen…but in its own universe. We no longer need to rely on knowing position and momentum to predict the future: whatever can happen does happen! Predictions can be made with 100% certainty and 100% accuracy. No predicted event has ever failed to materialize…nor will it…ever. Riddle : If a prediction is guaranteed in advance to be correct, is it a ‘prediction’? Many Worlds is irrefutable, but not very useful. It’s really just a device to get around the paradoxes of Quantum Mechanics. The inventory of ‘worlds’ explodes super-exponentially and there is no way to prefer one universe over any other: they’re all just happening! Question : Is ‘everything happening’ the same as ‘nothing happening’? If everything occurs, does anything occur? When do we start saying silly things like, “I know it’s happening but is it really happening?” Laplace or Everett , either way your experience is the same; you live in just one world – because either that’s all there is ( CD ) or, what amounts to the same thing, that’s all there is for you . Your actual trajectory is unique according to either model. No matter what choices you appear to make, which alternatives you seem to choose, Everett-World will still be your world, and therefore phenomenally indistinguishable from Laplace-World . CD and MW describe the same World. In both cases, actuality is singular. CD brings us back to Shakespeare: “To be or not to be.” And to Looney Tunes : “That’s all folks!” One and done. It either is or it is not. If it is, it is what is! Welcome to Hell – but don’t worry, it’s all-inclusive . Many Worlds relieves the boredom of CD … but at a price: chaos! According to MW , there is a universe in which I ordered lasagna and a universe where I ordered fish. Some wedding…lucky me! Well, not really. I only know from fish or pasta – like meat and dairy, I can’t experience both at the same time if I’m keeping a kosher diet; I can’t combine the two. In another universe, somebody ate lasagna, but not me; I only got to taste fish. Rats! Of course, the bifurcation of reality does not stop at wedding menus. Everything you do functions as a node, a bifurcation point…you and every other human being…you and every other living organism…you and each one of the 30 trillion independent cells that make you up…you and… A person could lose count! It’s possible, I suppose, that one of these models ( CD , MW ) might be correct. I’ll concede that there’s probably no way to ‘falsify’ either one, i.e., to prove it wrong. One reason these models can’t be falsified is that they don’t tell us anything very useful. As a result, they fail out of the gate because they don’t account for the world as we actually experience it. Turns out, MW and CD are the same! In both models, what happens just happens. There is no causal contingency. There’s nothing recognizable as agency , and of course, there’s no free will . Wait! According to CD , ‘only one thing happens’; while according to MW , whatever can happen does happen. How can the two models be the same? Thanks to Bill Clinton, we can resolve this paradox: it all depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is. MW applies ‘is’ to all possible pathways; CD applies it to just one actual pathway. On 3/26/2004, I proposed a modification to Everett’s Many Worlds model. Call it ‘Many Worlds Modified’ ( MM ). Suppose ‘the world tree’ ( Yggdrasil ) is convergent as well as divergent. We know from Botany that roots and branches can converge and reconnect; why not divergent ‘world lines’ as well? If we treat the World as a computer simulation, made up entirely of 1’s and 0’s, it is easier to see how two different number streams could settle at a single shared value. According to MM , the inventory of ‘worlds’ grows, but as a linear function of time…a big improvement I think you’ll agree. Speaking of Yggdrasil , according to Norse Mythology 3 norns (Macbeth’s witches) weave the World (Fate) from 3 skeins of yarn. How Trinitarian! MM is consistent with Norse cosmology. The textile, aka the World, accretes arithmetically over time. No stasis , no kaos , just logos . But am I too late to the party? 75 years ago, renowned physicist Richard Feynman created another theoretical framework that offers to bridge CD and MW . Like Everett 25 years later, Feynman takes ‘can happen, does happen’ as his starting point. But he treats ‘does happen’ in terms of mathematical probability rather than physical process. “Does happen” means “ happens with a probability greater than 0 but less than 1”. Simplistically, with Laplace there is never any ‘event’ per se , with Everett there are inconceivably many ‘events’, while with Feynman there is exactly one ‘event’ per region of spacetime. Ah, fresh air! Feynman integrates many virtual (probabilistic) events into one actual (physical) event: the path integral . As with Schrödinger’s puss, at some point the Universe has to declare itself: “Is you is, or is you ain’t, my baby?” That actual, real declaration is a function of the probability of each of the potential, virtual declarations. But that’s only the beginning of Feynman’s genius! He went on to suggest that, while the probabilistic wave function does collapse into the specific actual event that we ‘see’, ALL the virtual pathways that ‘sum’ to that event pass on intact to the future. Such influences are transmitted noumenally, rather than phenomenally, according to Feynman’s model, which he appropriately called Sum Over Histories ( SH ). The result is a world that is ‘loosely causal’ – remarkably like the ‘real world’ of our everyday experience. Even though neither Laplace nor Everett can be debunked mathematically, their models are not very satisfying. One is totally rigid; the other wildly chaotic. One is fixed, the other grows super-exponentially. The problem is that neither remotely resembles the World we experience. Our World is stable but not frozen, dynamic but not chaotic. SH to the rescue! According to SH , all potential pathways influence the world-line noumenally, but the intensity of each influence is in direct proportion to its probability. What we experience, dubiously, as ‘phenomenal causation’ is just a gross approximation of ‘noumenal causation’. SH is much richer than my paltry effort ( MM ). However, it introduces complexities from Quantum Mechanics that are not strictly necessary. MM is like an n-1 dimensional sketch of SH . All of which brings us back, finally, to various schools of so-called Super-Determinism ( SD ). SD duplicates the rigidity of CD but dispenses with the illusion of causation. A secular version of SD states that the Universe just is and is as it is. There’s no time, no space, no causation, no process, no true becoming or perishing. Connections among events are real…but they are not causal. Things are the way they are simply because they are the way they are. Other versions of SD invoke a transcendent agent, e.g. God. The Universe is the way it is because God made it that way…end of! SD comes in a variety of ‘transcendent’ (theocratic) versions as well as the one ‘immanent’ (secular) version outlined above. Theocratic SD often takes the form of God’s Will or Divine Providence or Best of all Possible Worlds (Leibniz). SD , secular or otherwise, is an intellectually honest version of CD . It applies Occam’s Razor Strop to Laplace. ‘Time’ and ‘causation’ are superfluous terms, so SD eliminates them. But then the world where SD applies is removed even farther from the world of everyday experience. ‘It is what it is’ begs the question, “Why? Why is what is, the way it is?” Of course, the theocratic model answers that, “It’s God’s will;” but that just kicks the can down the road. It begs the further question, “ Why is this what God wills?” And presto , we’re back into the world of transcendent values. The Five Books of Moses (Torah), indeed the entire Old Testament (OT), affirm our right, as value driven human beings, to question God’s judgment. We are God’s conscience, his Jiminy Cricket. The Book of Job explicitly asserts ‘the right of disputation’. Job takes God to cosmic court and wins! According to OT, God is powerful and benevolent but ‘morally confused’. Riddle : How is God like my grandmother (as described by her teacher)? He means well but he doesn’t always do well (at least not as we see things). SD , secular or theocratic, needs to address three questions: Why aren’t things better than they are? (The Problem of Evil) Why are things as good as they are? ( The Problem of Good ) Why are things as inefficient as they are? ( The Problem of Waste ) The world we experience seems riddled with Value; arguably (Whitehead), it is only Value. Yet SD is a world without even a category for Value. What is, is – don’t judge, deal! Can such a model shine any light on the world as we experience it? David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Click the cover image to return to Holy Days 2024. Share Previous Next Do you like what you just read? Subscribe today and receive sneak previews of Aletheia Today Magazine articles before they're published. Plus, you'll receive our quick-read, biweekly blog, Thoughts While Shaving. Subscribe Thanks for subscribing! Click here. Return to Table of Contents, Winter 2023 Issue Return to Table of Contents, Holiday Issue Return to Table of Contents, Halloween Issue Return to Table of Contents, September Issue Return to Table of Contents, Beach Issue Return to Table of Contents, June Issue