< Back The Shmita Year David Cowles Jul 19, 2021 Someone sent me this and it’s so good I had to reproduce it in Thoughts while Shaving: “The beginning of Deuteronomy is filled with promises about taking possession of the land of Canaan. But…remember that our ancestors lost possession of that land and went into exile. The Torah teaches that the way to live long in the land and avoid exile is not by having the strongest army, but by fulfilling the covenant of the Torah. And it tells us that one mitzvah is most important for making this happen: the Sabbatical or Shmita year, when the land rests. Someone sent me this and it’s so good I had to reproduce it in Thoughts while Shaving: “The beginning of Deuteronomy is filled with promises about taking possession of the land of Canaan. But…remember that our ancestors lost possession of that land and went into exile. The Torah teaches that the way to live long in the land and avoid exile is not by having the strongest army, but by fulfilling the covenant of the Torah. And it tells us that one mitzvah is most important for making this happen: the Sabbatical or Shmita year, when the land rests. “The Shmita year is a prescription for living sustainably upon the earth. Not only does the land rest every seventh year, but the year following every seventh Shmita year — the fiftieth year of Jubilee — every family returns to the land it received when the land was first distributed among the Israelite tribes. “That means that in a world where Shmita is observed, poverty can never become permanent, the land is always renewed, and justice becomes the foundation of relations among human beings and between the people and the land. Harmony reigns in a tripartite covenant between God, the people, and the land.” – Rabbi David Seidenberg 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 Matzah of Hope--Passover Part One B.J. Yudelson "This matzah, which we set aside as a symbol of hope for the thousands of women who are anchored to marriages in name only, reminds us that slavery comes in many forms." You may remember that back in the ’70s and ’80s, we added a fourth matzah to the three required for the Seder and called it the Matzah of Hope. It was a symbol of the three million Soviet Jews who had no freedom to be Jews. Some twenty or thirty years later, our united voices had changed the situation. I propose that this year we once again add a fourth matzah to our Seder table and read the following. What do you think? Maybe together we can change the situation for the Agunot, women anchored to men who neither want them as wives nor are willing to free them to lead their own lives. This matzah, which we set aside as a symbol of hope for the thousands of women who are anchored to marriages in name only, reminds us that slavery comes in many forms. Three thousand years ago, Jewish women were forced to see their baby sons die. They themselves were forced to follow the orders of the Egyptian masters to make bricks and perform other onerous tasks. Today, there are women enslaved to unsustainable marriages. The common term for them is “chained” women. But the Hebrew, agunah, comes from the root that means “to anchor.” These women, who have asked for a divorce but are dependent upon their husbands for the “get” that completes the divorce procedure, are anchored in place by men who refuse to comply. Tethered under water, it is as if they are mired in the muck on the bottom. Although the water that swirls about them represents opportunity, freedom, the ability to navigate to new and different Jewish places, they can barely breathe. How tantalizing to be surrounded by freedom yet to be prohibited from leading the free, fulfilling Jewish lives they crave. These women can dream of a new life, of new experiences that await them in a different part of this lake or sea they are trapped in. But they can’t, by themselves, hoist the anchor to change their situations. They need our support: our prayers, our petitions, our demonstrations. They need for us to convince our rabbis to take action, for where there is a rabbinic will, there will be found a rabbinic way to free agunot. As we set aside this matzah in their honor, let us pledge to do more in the coming year to free all agunot from the bondage that weighs particularly heavily as we celebrate freedom this Seder night. This was republished with permission from T he Jewish Pluralist . It is first in the series Four Women’s Collected Essays on the Meaning of Passover . Click here for introduction to the series. This essay was also published on B.J. Yudelson website. Image: Passover Seder, 19th Century B.J. is an explorer who loves both the comfort of the familiar and the challenge of the unknown. As a child growing up in Atlanta, she knew the size and position of every tree in the wooded ravine behind her house as well as the best rocks for crossing the creek at the bottom. When she passes a street repeatedly, she may suddenly turn onto it just to find out where it goes, making the unknown familiar. World religions, her own beloved Judaism, a foreign country, or a local park all bring out the explorer in her. She writes to make sense of the inner landscapes of family and friends, the ins and outs of her community (currently, Rochester, New York), and the beauty of loon-filled lakes. Her writings—published in a variety of literary journals, websites, and anthologies —explore family, Judaism, nature, and overcoming obstacles. She invites you to join her on her adventures. Return to our Holy Days 2023 Table of Contents, Previous Next

< Back A Many-Worlds Interpretation of Social Dynamics David Cowles Sep 29, 2022 “There was more cultural overlap between the Confederate States and the United States in 1860 than there is today between red states and blue.” Recently, I reached out to family and friends for help with a problem. I needed to come up with a story that everyone would be familiar with, that would be accessible to all (regardless of age, education, etc.), offensive to none, not overly juvenile, not overtly religious, and, of course, free of the tinge of any ‘ism’ – racism, sexism, etc. There must be hundreds of such stories, right? I mean, a common library of shared narratives in regular circulation is a major part of what defines a ‘culture.' A popular Roman Catholic hymn includes the refrain, “We come to share our story. We come to break the bread.” A common repertoire of shared narrative, culminating in a communal meal, a widespread engine of identity among social groups. Consider the feast of Passover: the shared story of the Exodus culminates in a meal shared by all members of the community. Now consider the importance of the Passover in fostering Jewish, and later Christian, identity. So, easy-peasy, right? Well, not so fast! The problem turned out to be much more difficult than it might have seemed at first. Although I received many helpful suggestions, I’m still not sure that I have ‘’the one." (I’ve given up on ‘hundreds;' I’ll gladly settle for just one!) At this point, I’m not sure if there even is such a “one." Someone who responded to my SOS (above) called my attention to the difficulty of the assignment and attributed that difficulty to the fact that “broad cultural literacy just doesn’t exist anymore.” Thinking back to when I grew up (in the 1950s), we were all about ‘broad cultural literacy.' We shared narratives: Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Columbus, Washington, Lincoln, etc. Even if these ‘collective experiences’ didn’t resonate with every subcultural group, we ‘shared’ them anyway. They became who we were, whether we were or not! Not so today! Now, even searching for a common identity is considered suspect. Were Kant alive today, he might write, a “Critique of Pure Humanism.” After decades of It’s a Small World after all and We are the world , our world has never been larger, more diverse, or more conflicted. It is popular today to talk about the cultural differences between the antebellum South and the industrial North. But I would submit that there was more cultural overlap between the Confederate States and the United States in 1860 than there is today between the red states and the blue. Our intellectual resources are focused on what distinguishes us, not on what unites us: secular vs. religious, proletarian vs. bourgeoisie, capitalist vs. socialist, black vs. white, male vs. female, young vs. old, native vs. immigrant, etc. What does this mean for the future of our culture? Are we evolving toward ‘one world’ as our commentators have led us to believe, or are we on the cusp of a ‘Many Worlds Interpretation’ of Social Dynamics? 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 Life After Death David Cowles Mar 23, 2023 “Once alive, always alive, but not always alive in time. Life, at least conscious life, is not time bound. You’re in for a penny, you’re in for a pound.” “Do you believe in Life after Death?” “Do you even hear yourself? Life after Death ? After Death? What is death other than the cessation of life? How can life come after it? Death is death. It’s not a nap.” “So you’re a nihilist then?” “Of course not. I don’t believe in ‘Life after Death’ because the concept doesn’t make sense to me, but I do believe in ‘Life after Life’, or better yet, ‘Life beyond Life’.” I’m 75 years old! If only I had a nickel for every time I’ve reenacted this scene… Sometimes I feel as though the world is divided into three camps. The first group, we’ll call them Hummingbirds , believe in Life after Death. The second group, Crows , believe some version of ‘you live, you die, end of’. And me, and maybe you, we’re Sparrows . The problem is with the word ‘death’. It appears to be a quite ordinary common noun . One might even say, a very common, common noun . Just try going a whole day without using it even once in a sentence! ‘Death’ is a common noun that allegedly means either ‘end’ or ‘transition’. It means neither; in fact, it has no meaning at all. Death is a phantom word; it is an example of what Alfred North Whitehead called The Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness . We imagine that something is ‘really real’ when in fact it is only ‘real’ as a concept in our minds. Think of an Old Testament Baal (a Canaanite idol). The hunk of gold certainly exists…but it has no content, no meaning. It’s vacuous. So is ‘death’. The word exists (e.g., in a dictionary) but it has no content…no meaning. We imagine that our minds shape our language. Nothing could be further… It is our language that shapes our minds. This is the origin of idolatry, and it is the origin of the concept of death. “Are you for real? I see dead people (like Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense ); and dead birds (hopefully not Sparrows ) and dead cats and dead mosquitoes and…” Well, you get the picture. Of course! ‘Dead’ is an adjective. It describes an objective state of affairs; it demarcates the boundary between one state of affairs and another. ‘Death’ is something else again. Death is a process and an experience. It is subjective. But it is an experience that no one has ever had, ever will have, or ever could have. Death cannot be experienced because it is literally defined as the absence of experience. Life, at least conscious life, can only ever be one thing, ‘life’. Are you alive? Well, congratulations… or condolences, but either way, you’re stuck with it. When we think of life , we specifically think of various time-bound processes: eating, making, talking, etc. Philosophers talk of organisms as dissipative systems . But time itself, by its entropic nature, is finite; life is not. Conscious life is negentropic ; it is the suspension (or retardation) of finitude. So we have a paradox. Once alive, always alive, but not always alive in time. Life, at least conscious life , is not time bound. You’re in for a penny, you’re in for a pound. Where conscious life ends and organic chemistry begins is not on the menu today (although it is a most delicious dish in its own right). Today, I ask only that you agree with me that ‘conscious life’ exists, that it is a thing . Agreed? Ok then. Unlike the other processes (above) that we routinely associate with life, consciousness is not time-bound. In fact, it is the specific function of consciousness to resist time. Consider Heraclitus’ famous river. It cannot be alive, much less conscious, precisely because it flows . Change is continuous. Therefore, it cannot be conscious. Consciousness is a product of a variation in the flow rate…and rivers just flow. Sidebar : Heraclitus is the real nihilist. His famous ‘ panta rei ’ (Greek for ‘everything flows’) is equivalent to the Latin, ‘nihil est’. Panta rei equates being with flow, which is entropy, the annihilation of being. So being = not-being? This is the basis of an entire philosophy? But I digress. A river is not a thing-in-itself. It is an accident of geography, a gash in the surface of the earth. Its existence, its flow rate, its course – all accidents of nature. It does not resist time; it models time. “Oh time is like a river…nothing but a river.” (Grayson Hugh) That is not to say that the river isn’t teeming with life; it certainly is! Microscopic animals, unicellular plants, fish, and one big freshwater mammal, my flabby, bleached white, Uncle Ned. How about water nymphs? How about pre-biotic eddies from which life as we know it might evolve (and did evolve)? The river teems with life, at least some of it conscious (Ned?), but the river itself is not conscious, not conscious of itself or its world; it just flows. As Proust so brilliantly illustrated in his Remembrance of Things Past , consciousness is the suspension of time, whether in a fleeting moment of self-reflection or in a long lost memory retrieved from early childhood. Consciousness is not time-bound. Certainly, it is dependent on time-bound structures, e.g., a brain, for its origin, but once it occurs, there is no ‘sufficient reason’ for it to cease to be. Once thought, thought! So no, I am most certainly not a nihilist. I just don’t believe in ‘life after death’; I believe instead in life beyond life, i.e., consciousness. ***** Image: Two panels - the despairing "Hell," and "Ascent of the Blessed," featuring a journey through a tunnel towards a brilliant light - from a late 15th century painting by Hieronymus Bosch at the Palazzo Ducale, Venice. 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. 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< Back Introducing the Yellow Sub Studies Department David Cowles Jun 13, 2024 “Congratulations from Aletheia Today to all schools that are incorporating the Yellow Submarine into their curricula.” Finally, and may I say, “50 years too late,” Yellow Sub (YS) Fever is breaking out on college campuses all over the UK and US. At some schools, it’s still just a single course. Others have designated YS as an acceptable multi-disciplinary major. Harvard University has teamed up with the University of Liverpool to offer a bi-coastal educational experience. These two institutions of higher learning have created an entirely new academic department ( Yellow Sub Studies ). Makes sense: After all, John Henry owns both the Boston Red Sox and the Liverpool Football Club; plus rumor has it that the new academic department received significant funding from Sir Paul himself. Harvard just released its Course Catalog for the coming academic year. It lists the courses being offered in the first year by the fledgling YS Studies Department: Yellow Sub & Mythology : This course considers the nature of myth itself. How is mythology different from biography, history, and narrative generally? How does it reflect, and shape, its cultural milieu? Is mythology still necessary, or even possible, in the 20th/21st centuries? What is its role? Are there other modern myths and, if so, how do they compare with YS ? Yellow Sub & Dante : What are the parallels between the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine ( YS ) and Dante’s Divine Comedy ( DC )? How does Liverpool in the 1960s compare with Florence in the 14th century? How are these cultural parallels – and differences – reflected in the two works? ‘Young Fred’, newly minted admiral of the Pepperland ‘fleet’, acts as guide for our musical crew. How does he reprise the roles of Virgil and Beatrice in the Divine Comedy ? What is the role of the guide, more broadly, in the spiritual journey? (Joseph Campbell) What role does ‘twisted topology’ (non-orientability) play in DC and YS ? Do they share a common topology? How does it differ from our standard topological model? Why does it matter? Yellow Sub & The Holy Grail: One of the most bizarre chapters in Western Intellectual History concerns the quest for the Holy Grail. When you set out to find something, it is generally a good Idea to know what you’re looking for. No so the Grail. It seems clear that the Grail has something to do with the Blood of Christ; but what? Is it the blood itself, shed on the cross, and somehow preserved in vitro for more than 1,000 years? Or is it the ‘chalice’ used to collect that blood? Or is it the blood in vivo , i.e. a blood line somehow related to Jesus’ – the Merovingian kings of France, for example? Throughout the Middle Ages, knights regularly set out on quests for the Grail. Arguably the greatest English language poet of the 20th century T.S. Eliot was still searching ( The Wasteland ). How do these quests compare with the Beatles’ in YS ? Finally, the Grail legend reprises Pagan fertility rites. Lacking the Grail, the King is enfeebled and the land laid waste. Does Pepperland incorporate this tradition? Yellow Sub & Physics : The film Is a meditation on 20th century physics, including Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and Non-Locality. Liverpool and Pepperland are separated by a series of ‘branes’, each corresponding to a particular aspect of Cosmos (e.g. time, space, mind). These branes mediate the World in two distinct modalities: Liverpool & Pepperland. The penultimate brane is nothing ! Nothingness, negation, antithesis, neant – the fundamental unrest at the heart of being , the change agent per se . The final brane, the Sea of Green, is dimensionless; it is the ‘twist’ that makes topology non-orientable, i.e., that allows Pepperland and Liverpool to exist on an ontological continuum. They are no longer opposite one another; they are continuations of each other. And what of cosmic censorship? Initially, Pepperland is protected by an inverted fish bowl that prevents two versions of one phenomenon (Sergeant Peppers’ Lonely Hearts Club Band and the Beatles) from existing side-by-side. Ringo breaks the seal by applying ‘a hole in his pocket’ to the outside of the glass dome. What happens next? Yellow Sub & Biology : At one time, primary school Biology was little more than Human Physiology. But gradually, we have absorbed the implications of the Darwinian revolution. For 150 years now, we have been breaking down pre-supposed biological barriers. We understand now (more or less) how complex organisms (like us) evolved from ‘simple’ unicellular animals (and bacteria before that). We understand that we share more than 50% of our DNA with all mammals, many animals, and some plants. Now we are actively exploring the brain/bot interface. Can AI, embedded in a human body, enhance our quality of life? Conversely, can integrating human tissue with a Bot improve AI’s performance? Finally, as we search for life beyond Earth, what sorts of formats might we expect to encounter? What limitations are there, if any? YS presents a number of possible models for synthetic organisms, not all of which are benign. Texts for this course will include Gould’s Wonderful Life and Kurzweil’s The Age of Spiritual Machines . Yellow Sub & Philosophy : The Grandfather Paradox – Even if time travel were possible, you still could not go back to a time before your date of conception…so granddad is safe. (Sea of Time) Time – Does time exist independently of the way we measure it? What is the relationship between the temporal and the eternal? Between past, future, and present? Gestalt – Are Something and Nothing reciprocal parts of a single Gestalt? Figure/Ground = Something/Nothing = Nothing/Something? Is a ‘hole’ something…or nothing? (Sea of Holes) Do they exist absolutely, or only relatively? Ontology – How does the Beatles’ Liverpool/Pepperland dichotomy compare with Parmenides’ dichotomy: Doxa / Aletheia ? AI – What is the difference, if any, between organism and mechanism? (Sea of Monsters) Congratulations from Aletheia Today to all schools that are incorporating the Yellow Submarine into their curricula. This is a great day for higher ed! 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 Big Ideas David Cowles Feb 17, 2022 Homer, the blind poet, and Parmenides, the pre-Socratic philosopher, provided European civilization with its first comprehensive view(s) of the world. Homer gave us the Iliad, an epic poem detailing major events during the Trojan War, and the Odyssey, an epic focused on the experiences, thoughts and values of one man, Odysseus, himself a Trojan warrior. Homer, the blind poet, and Parmenides, the pre-Socratic philosopher, provided European civilization with its first comprehensive view(s) of the world. Homer gave us the Iliad, an epic poem detailing major events during the Trojan War, and the Odyssey, an epic focused on the experiences, thoughts and values of one man, Odysseus, himself a Trojan warrior. Less well known, Parmenides gave us On Nature, also an epic poem, unfortunately now preserved only in fragments. Like Homer, Parmenides divided his opus into two distinct parts: Aletheia (Truth) and Doxa (Appearance). Now Doxa is just what you’d expect: “It has been named all things that mortals have established, trusting them to be true: to come to be and to perish, to be and not to be, to shift place and to exchange bright color.” This is a world we all recognize: a world of discrete objects and events, coming to be and passing away, interacting and exchanging qualities. In other words, a world of appearances. But Aletheia is something else again: “ ‘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…Nor is it divisible since it is all alike…and full of ‘what is’…” Is Aletheia Parmenides’ Iliad and Doxa his Odyssey? Check it out: The Iliad is all about ‘big ideas’: the relationship of the gods to the world, causality, friendship, loyalty, courage. These are not things that can be experienced in themselves; they are structures and values underlying all human experience. In that sense, Homer’s Iliad is a precursor to Parmenides’ Aletheia. The Odyssey, on the other hand, focuses squarely on experience: specifically, the thoughts and feelings of one man (Odysseus), his aspirations, his stratagems, his frustrations, and the choices he makes along the way. As such, Odyssey is precursor to Doxa. Of course, we sample the patterns and values of the Iliad through the experiences of its various characters. It is a story, after all, not an essay! But the narrative is transparent: we can see through the specific events of the day to the elements common to all human experience. Likewise, through the experiences of Odysseus, we confront the Iliad’s ‘big ideas’. But the Odyssey is not transparent; we have to dig through highly individualized experiences to get to the shared structures and values that underpin all experiences. Aletheia : Iliad :: Doxa : Odyssey. The analogy is not perfect (no analogy ever is) but it holds. As I interpret Parmenides, both Doxa and Aletheia are real. But the phenomena of Doxa cannot be accounted for in terms of Doxa alone. The universe must have a complimentary aspect, Aletheia, to make Doxa possible. The Way of Truth is an imperceptible but necessary foundation for what we experience in the Way of Appearance. Simply put, in order for actual entities to come to be and then perish, they must also be eternal. In order for things to change, they must also endure. In order for things to move, they must also be fixed. The phenomena of Doxa are possible only if they are rooted in the noumenon of Aletheia. 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 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.” David Cowles There is scant scriptural evidence to suggest that Jesus thought violence was an acceptable mechanism for social change; he intended his Kingdom to be a Reign of Peace. But violence is not a prerequisite for guerilla war, as we shall soon see. Jesus’ ministry began on a sour note. After fasting for 40 days in the desert, wrestling with his own ego and with The Opponent ’ s (Satan’s) clever temptations, Jesus returned to his hometown, prepared to save the world. Imagine his enthusiasm as he strode into the local synagogue! Jesus’ years of study and prayer had led him to one simple conclusion: Now was the time to inaugurate God’s Kingdom on Earth! He even had tee shirts made: “If not now, when?” Ok, now…but how? Fortunately, Jesus had a revolutionary platform already laid out for him (3,000 years before the Communist Manifesto ); it’s called the Book of Leviticus . Jesus trusted Leviticus; and why not? It was a tightly choreographed reenactment of Leviticus that caused the proletariat of Jericho to rise up…and walls of that great city to tumble down. (Joshua 6: 24) The name ‘Jesus’ is a Hellenized form of ‘Joshua’. Perhaps Jesus saw himself doing in Jerusalem, and who knows, even in Rome, what his namesake had accomplished at Jericho. “You shall count seven weeks of years – seven times seven years – such that the seven weeks of years amounts to forty-nine years…You shall treat this fiftieth year as sacred. You shall proclaim liberty in the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you…In this year of Jubilee, then, each of you shall return to your own property…The land shall not be sold irrevocably; for the land is mine and you are but resident aliens and under my authority.” (Leviticus 25: 10) Every 50 years all productive property (e.g. agricultural land, Marx’s means of production ) is to be redistributed equally among all the ‘citizens’ of Israel. Jubilee is the sign, the pre-condition, and the first stage of the inbreaking of God’s Kingdom. So, Jesus entered his local synagogue and, in front of friends and family, began reading from Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free and to proclaim, ‘a year acceptable to the Lord’ ( aka a Jubilee).” So far so good, but Jesus couldn’t let it sit there. He had to add, cheekily, “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4: 18 - 21) In other words, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me , and I am proclaiming a Jubilee, to begin right here, right now ! Jesus withstood the temptations of Satan, but he could not resist the lure of a short cut . Yup, he was human alright! Why spend 3 years in the wilderness running from the authorities only to end up hanging on a cross? Why not just cut to the chase? What could possibly go wrong? Jesus was among friends, after all. Well, those so-called ‘friends’, neighbors, and fellow worshipers, chased him out of town and nearly threw him off a cliff; that’s what could go wrong! Clearly, the 1st century Galilean Bourgeoisie were no more eager to share their wealth than 21st century One Percenters . Time for Plan B! For the next 3 years, Jesus wandered the highways and byways of Palestine, still calling for Jubilee – the reign of justice and peace – but less directly . The essence of Jubilee is the reversal of the hour glass. Those who have accumulated wealth and enjoyed its fruits must now return their original capital to its original owners. This message can be effectively conveyed via pithy aphorisms (e.g. the Beatitudes) and encrypted parables. Jubilee is a unique concept in the history of social science. It benefits the dispossessed. But not entirely at the expense of the possessors. It’s not a Zero Sum Game! A sparsely regulated economy has allowed the generation and preservation of wealth – all of which its owners are entitled to keep; it’s just necessary to rebalance the game board, going forward. Moses got the idea for Jubilee from a Mutual Funds prospectus: “Past results are no guarantee of future performance.” This is not the Chinese Cultural Revolution, it is not Stalin’s gulags, it is not Pol Pot’s policy of de-urbanization, it is not even the Babylonian Captivity; in short, it is not the persecution of the bourgeoisie that many radicals so eagerly await. It’s not even class war; it’s simply the restoration of primal balance. Jesus never got over his rude treatment at the hands of his neighbors. He realized in an instant that wealth is thicker than water, friendship, or even blood. For the next three years he agitated for social reform, but he no longer overtly called for Jubilee. Instead, he tried to demonstrate to folks what it would be like to live in a re-balanced world: 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. Teaching by doing! According to Torah, the Levitical Program was forged in the Wilderness of Sinai; it served as a sort of Constitution for Israel’s fledgling theocracy. The New Testament recapitulates the Levitical program. We read that Jesus fed 5000 people on 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish (5 + 2 = 7). We need some understanding of Hebrew numerology to appreciate this fully. 7 is a sacred number: 7th day = Sabbath, 7th year = Sabbatical, 7th Sabbatical → Jubilee. In Hebrew numerology, 3 represents the spiritual whole (proto-Trinity), 4 represents the material whole (proto-Earth). Therefore, 3 + 4 (7) or 3 x 4 (12) = the entirety . Jesus seated the 5000 in groups of 50 (the Jubilee number) and when they had finished eating, the “scraps” filled 12 baskets (the 12 tribes of Israel, the 12 signs of the Zodiac, the 12 apostles, 3 x 4). Here’s the math: (5 + 2) = 7 /5,000 = 12. So at one level at least, the Gospels are telling us that a return to the Levitical program could feed the whole world indefinitely…and still produce a surplus. But that doesn’t work for us! We prefer state socialism…or laissez-faire capitalism. Scarcity is the humus of authority after all! But back to Jesus. He’s officially on the run now. He’s effectively banished from his home town. That means he’s cut-off from family and any friends he might have once had. He’s ‘unhoused’ and has no visible means of support. He’s a vagrant and, apparently, a revolutionary. Not a good combo! Just ask any Hippie from the ‘60s. What’s an able bodied, socially outcast, homeless man in his early 30’s to do? Network, of course! Tricky without social media, but Jesus finds this is something he’s good at. In no time, he has recruited 12 men and boys (along with many of their spouses, siblings, and parents). Together they formed a sort of ‘guerilla gang’. They travelled from town to town, offering wisdom, performing good deeds, confronting the elite, challenging norms…and dodging the law. To what can I compare this lot: Robin Hood’s Mary-men , Kerouac’s Dharma Bums , Abbie Hoffman’s Yippies ? According to the Gospel of Mark, Jesus’ band roamed the hills of Galilee, Syria, Southern Lebanon and the East Bank for the better part of 3 years, his retinue alternately swelling to thousands and shrinking down to just the High Command (Peter, James, John & Jesus). Typical of a guerilla leader, or of a 21st century marketer, Jesus ‘popped-up’ suddenly and briefly at spots all over Northern Palestine. Jesus ‘sightings’ abound. First, he is on one side of a lake; next morning, he pops up on the opposite shore. He crisscrosses the Sea of Galilee like Washington crossed the Delaware. One minute he is in a village, next he’s on a mountain. He is alternately running from his supporters…and his opponents. And everywhere he goes, he keeps a low profile and commands those he helps to keep silent; but clearly, we can all feel it, the forces of ‘reaction’ are closing in, the noose is tightening, something will have to give and soon. So Jesus decides it’s time to make his move. Call it his Tet. An offhand remark from, who else, Peter, sets events in motion, “We here have left everything to become your followers.” The troops are growing restless. The enormity of their sacrifice is beginning to sink in. Move now or risk defections. Now! So Jesus channels Shakespeare’s Henry V…and the Book of Job ( Epilogue ): “I tell you this: there is no one who has given up home, brothers or sisters, mother, father, or children, or land, for my sake and for the Gospel, who will not receive in this age 100 times as much – houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and land - and persecutions besides; and in the age to come eternal life.” (Mark 10: 28 – 30) The next line in Mark is among my favorite in all Scripture: “There they were, on the road going up to Jerusalem, Jesus leading the way; the disciples were filled with awe, while those who followed behind were afraid.” (Mark: 10: 32) What a sight this would have been! Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters , out to save the world. Jesus is no fool; he knows what’s what and he makes sure his followers know as well: “We are now going to Jerusalem…the Son of Man will be given up to the chief priests and the doctors of the law; they will condemn him to death and hand him over to the foreign power (Rome). He will be mocked and spat upon, flogged, and killed…” (Mark 10: 33 – 34) Jesus may have been a guerilla warrior, but he was not without resources. Although his message appealed to the dispossessed, he had a cadre of well healed donors and friends among the apparatchiks. His arrival in Jerusalem was well planned – down to secret rooms, spies carrying water jugs, and the 1st century version of a ticker tape parade. Palms & Psalms! Jesus’ 3 year guerrilla campaign in the North had paid off. What happens next is well known. It constitutes Part Two of The Jesus Story ; I will not retell it here. David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Return to Summer 2024 Previous Next

< Back Fernanda Nascimento Contributor Fernanda Nascimento is a Brazilian writer whose work has appeared in Koinesune Magazine. Finding Gold in the Scars

< Back Beatitudes David Cowles “The eight beatitudes are a 'manifesto' for change, a change in the way we understand the world…behave in that world… (and) act toward one another. Hearing Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is a bit like going down a rabbit hole…or passing through a looking glass. Nothing is as it should be, everything is turned around…or upside down…or inside out. The heart of Jesus’ sermon is the so-called Beatitudes . Next to the Lord’s Prayer, these eight aphorisms are probably the best known verses in the entire New Testament. Found in the Gospel of Matthew (5: 3-10), they are short enough to be reproduced here in their entirety: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Like I said, everything is turned upside down. The poor and the persecuted take possession of a kingdom while the meek inherit the land. Those who mourn are the ones comforted. The merciful are they who receive mercy. In our experience, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness and those who work for peace are invariably frustrated. Not so, according to Jesus! Their efforts are rewarded. In fact, they will be called children of God. Those with clean hearts (like Job?) will even see God. In another essay in this issue, we spoke about a linguistic phenomenon called the “ Middle Voice ”. The middle voice is the voice of reciprocity. It replaces, at least in some contexts, the tyranny of the active and passive verb voices. So let’s return to our eight aphorisms and see if they can fairly be described as examples of middle voice consciousness. The eight may be grouped into three families, each family illustrating a certain aspect of the middle voice: First , “the kingdom of heaven” belongs to the “poor in spirit” and those “who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness”. Whether you understand “poor in spirit” as economic poverty or personal humility, this is not a trait often associated with the possession of a kingdom. Rather, wealth, or at least arrogance, is thought to be the gateway to political power. How about the victims of persecution? By definition, these are folks who lack political power. Then there are the meek. They will inherit the land. Not the ambitious, not the workaholic, not the greedy, not the ruthless, but the meek! Power relationships have been reversed. Every few millennia, the earth’s polarity reverses (south becomes north and north, south). Just this year, scientists in China claim to have detected a reversal in the rotation of the earth’s core. Likewise, the Beatitudes! From our perspective, the ‘kingdom of heaven’ is a sort of ‘anti-kingdom’. One is reminded of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-glass, where walking towards something puts you further away from it, while walking away from something brings you closer to it. Second , mercy is shown to those who are merciful. This beatitude builds on the Lord’s Prayer: “forgive us our trespasses.” Today, in the language of the streets, we’d say, “What goes around comes around!” In Eastern spirituality, it’s called ‘karma’. According to middle voice consciousness, whatever you do to or for another is automatically and simultaneously done to or for you. This is not a matter of reward and punishment. It is an unshakable characteristic of middle voice ontology: any activity (e.g. being merciful) is always and immediately bidirectional. “It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.” All action radiates outward toward another and inward toward the self. Those who mourn experience a variation of this. Mourning acknowledges loss and opens us up to experience that loss. It is through being open to the experience of loss that comforting takes place. Another staple of middle voice consciousness: need is the mother of satisfaction. “Give us this day our daily (necessary) bread.” Third , the remaining beatitudes concern our relation to God. Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be satisfied. God hungers and thirsts for righteousness. Our own hunger and thirst conform our minds to the mind of God. God is also the fullness of all things. So to the extent that we conform our minds to God’s, we are hungry, but we are also satisfied. That is why we pray the Psalms: to conform our minds to God’s, to internalize his values. In doing so, we own our hunger and recognize its satisfaction in God. The human ‘heart’ (not the organ) is the seat of love and a window onto God. It is through our love that we connect with God who is Love. A clean heart allows us a clear view of the Divinity. In middle-voice ontology, the relationship between subject and object is no longer mediated by action. Instead, the relationship is primary; actions flow from that relationship – they do not constitute the relationship. To surrender power and status is to purify the heart…and so to see God. Finally, the peacemakers! In relation to the world, God has two primary functions. First, he is the source of the values that stimulate creativity and motivate events. Second, he is Peacemaker-in-Chief; he is the harmony (peace) that guarantees the eternal preservation (salvation/redemption) of those events. To the extent that any of us makes peace in our world, we do the work of God ( opus dei ). But who does the work of God? His children, of course! We carry on his work: “God & Daughters Construction Co., Inc.” As peacemakers, as God’s children, we are extensions of God into the historical world. We build on a foundation of Incarnation, Eucharist, and Pentecost. The ‘mind of God’ is the ultimate example of middle voice consciousness. To the extent that we adopt a middle voiced view of the world we conform our minds to God’s; and to the extent that we conform our minds to God’s, we both see and act in terms of reciprocity. So Jesus’ ministry and the New Testament record of that ministry can be seen as an effort to change the way people view the world…or at least to give folks an alternative. The eight beatitudes are a manifesto for change, a change in the way we understand the world, a change in the way we behave in that world, a change in the way we act toward one another. 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 Spring 2023 Table of Contents Previous Next

“This tiny prayer…is a cyber-wonks dream. The density of information content is out of this world, quite literally!” < Back The Our Father David Cowles Jun 1, 2023 “This tiny prayer…is a cyber-wonks dream. The density of information content is out of this world, quite literally!” 2000 words, 10 minute read Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name! Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven! Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil, Amen! Everyone knows the Lord’s Prayer . The version quoted in the Gospel of Matthew (6: 9-13) is probably the best known 50 words in all Judeo-Christian scripture. Yet when Roman Catholic children first learn this prayer, they don’t call it the “Lord’s Prayer”; they call it the “Our Father” in recognition of the prayer’s personal tone and pastoral focus. Attention is drawn to the compassion of a father rather than to the majesty of a Lord. This tiny prayer is a cyber-wonk’s dream. The density of information is out of this world, quite literally! One way (not the only way) to parse this prayer is as three stanzas of three verses each, followed by a surprise ending! (3 x 3 = 9 + 1 = 10) The first stanza concerns the identity of God and the nature of our relationship with him; the second stanza has an eschatological focus, while the third is concerned with every day social relations. We are all so familiar with this prayer that we may not always notice these sharp thematic breaks. In the first stanza, we learn that God is “our father” – not just the father of the cosmos or of Israel or of Jesus, but the father of everyone, our father – not just “the maker of heaven and earth”! The role of father is very different from the role of creator. As creator , God establishes the conditions necessary for existence per se , including our own existence; he is the ground of our being. But as father , God also enters into a personal relationship with each of us. This is the incredible heuristic power of Judeo-Christianity: God transcends the World and yet he is immanent in each member. Next, we learn that our father is in heaven. Transcendent and therefore eternal, he is not subject to the corruption and death characteristic of the spatiotemporal realm. Finally, we acknowledge that God’s name is holy . In the ancient world, a person’s name was not just ‘her handle.' A name defined the person’s role in society; in God’s case, it defines his role in the universe (which is his ‘society’). This is why Moses ( Exodus 3) was so concerned to learn God’s name. He knew the Israelites would ask and would not follow him until they knew…and knew that he (Moses) knew. Knowing a name was like knowing a password…or a secret handshake or coded door knock. In the language of philosophy, name was ‘essential,' not ‘accidental.' God does not disappoint. He tells Moses that his name is YHWH (“I am who am”). God’s ‘name’ defines him as unique. Obviously, one and only one entity can answer to the name YHWH . Only one being can be Being itself. Some philosophers have gone so far as to assert that Ex. 3:14 is self-evidently true and therefore ‘proves’ the existence of God; but we’ll leave that one alone… at least for now. God’s name is certainly ‘holy’ (or hallowed): it is by definition unique and that makes polytheism an oxymoron. The second stanza of the prayer is eschatological. While the first stanza reveals the ‘primordial’ state of things, this stanza presents the ‘ultimate’ state: God’s kingdom comes, God’s will is done, and the boundary between heaven and earth disappears. As stated in the Book of Revelation , “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” (22:13) Our first stanza identifies God as the ‘Alpha Dog’ while the second stanza confirms that he will be ‘the last man (sic) standing.' But these stanzas provide no hint of how we are to get from Alpha to Omega. Rightly so! The first two stanzas are visions, not a parenting guide, a political platform, not a legislative agenda. We still need GPS, and fortunately, the third stanza provides just that! This stanza is concerned primarily with daily life, the spatiotemporal realm. We have already been introduced to Alpha and Omega; here is where we learn the rest of the alphabet, i.e. everything in-between ( aka the Delta). As ‘father,' God has a care to provide for and protect his ‘children,' and it is very specific: feed me, forgive me, protect me! What child has not uttered these same petitions at one time or another to his own father? And what loving father has not granted these petitions, when appropriate, to the best of his ability? “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?” (Matthew 7: 9-10) In this stanza, we learn that our primordial relationship with God and God’s eschatological vision for the universe are relevant…and not only in the transcendent realm. Here we learn something key: we are co-creators with God, first in the temporal realm, but ultimately in the eternal realm as well (‘on earth as it is in heaven’). We ask God to give us ‘our daily bread’; but here we can step up too. In the spatiotemporal realm we can function as God’s agents by giving ‘bread’ to those in need. Likewise, when we “forgive those who trespass against us," we also do the work of God (mercy). Finally, “Lead us not into temptation” refers to the level of care God has for each of us and that we in turn must have for one another. We have a duty of care, a duty to protect others. Each of us is ‘our sibling’s keeper’… and ‘our neighbor’s keeper’ as well. “And who is my neighbor?” a student of the law asks Jesus. His answer is the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Does it take a village to raise a child? Heck no, it takes a cosmos! And now for what you’ve all been waiting for, the finale! Earlier I promised you a ‘surprise ending’ (remember how The Sixth Sense ended?). Now you’re wondering whether you’ll be let down, once again, by an overhyping author. Will you be disappointed? Yes, probably, you will. But should you be disappointed? By no means! But enough with the suspense; here’s what you’ve been waiting for: “But deliver us from evil. Amen!” First of all, this petition seems redundant; and it is! After all, didn’t we already pray for that when we asked God to provide for us and protect us? But something much deeper is at work here! While neither Jesus nor the Evangelists knew the Second Law of Thermodynamics, they were all keen observers of the natural world. They knew that ‘all things must pass,' and they were familiar with texts like Ecclesiastes : “Vanity of vanities! All things are vanity.” They understood the universality of mortality, they understood change . (After all, 500 years earlier Heraclitus had articulated Ephesian cosmology : Everything flows! Today we understand ‘change’ as ‘entropy’ and we know that every ‘change’ works to increase the overall entropy of the universe. (Entropy is the measure of disorder.) Consider the cosmos: “In the beginning…the earth was without form or shape (maximal disorder)…Then God said ‘Let there be light’ and there was light…God then separated the light from the darkness (order)…Then God said, ‘Let there be a dome in the middle of the waters to separate one body of water from the other’ (order)…the water under the sky was gathered into its basin and dry land appeared (order)…God created mankind in his image…male and female he created them (order).” (Genesis 1) Whether you prefer the model of creation known as ‘Genesis’ or the modern version known as ‘Big Bang,' it is clear that ordering per se is synonymous with the creative act. Big Bang or Fiat Lux , take your pick, entropy is at an all time low . Then, call it Original Sin or Thermodynamics, the entropic process begins. From the instant of cosmogenesis, entropy inexorably increases; order decreases. At some time in the far distant future, the universe will reach or approach a state of maximal entropy; all order will be lost and, effectively at least, the universe will cease to exist. “You cannot count what is not there.” (Ecclesiastes 1: 15b) Order is denotatively synonymous with Being and therefore also with Good. Where then does that leave evil ? If order is good, then entropy (disorder) must be defined as ‘evil’. Entropy is ‘evil’, not in itself but because it erases what is Good, i.e. Being, which is intrinsically good. But that is the reality of our temporal world. We relish the marvelous things we experience as entropy unravels the mysteries of creation for us; but we dread the inevitable consequence: Nothingness. According to Stephen Hawking, no friend of theology, entropy is just another word for time (and vice-versa). Time is the true “destroyer of worlds” ( Bhagavad Gita ). From the perspective of a purely temporal world, death not only terminates our existence…it erases it! The only intellectually honest emotion then is despair. The opposite of faith is not doubt, which is unavoidable, but despair. (Yes, despair also negates hope and love .) Unless …reality also has a transcendent (eternal) aspect. The finale of the Our Father asks God to deliver us from evil. It is the climax of the greatest prayer ever written. We are asking God to free us from the otherwise inevitable ravages of entropy. We, like the Psalmist (Psalm 23), are asking God not to let our existence be erased. We are simply asking for eternal life, that’s all! To be clear, it is not enough for God to provide for us (‘feed’), to treat us mercifully (‘forgives’), and to protect from the whips and snares of the material world (‘lead us not’); we also expect him to grant us eternal life. Cheeky Monkeys! Any self-respecting God would surely smite at us…and feel good about it! But very, very fortunately, our God just happens to be in the eternal life business. “Who’d a thunk it?” ( Hairspray ) “If that’s all you wanted, you should have said so. It would have saved me the trouble of feeding, forgiving and protecting you all these years.” Eternal life is the ultimate gift, the only gift, the ‘pearl of great price,' the difference between being and nothingness (sorry, Sartre). But spoiler alert : we don’t need to pace the floor on Christmas Eve worrying that Santa won’t bring us what we asked for…because it’s already purchased and delivered (and not by Amazon). The incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus delivered us from evil, once and for all. And if we wish, we can re-experience that deliverance every day in the Sacrament of Eucharist. In the ontology of the Our Father, everything that happens in the temporal realm is real; and to the extent that anything temporal can be harmonized with God’s values, everything is preserved eternally. The terrible pall of certain and impending mortality evaporates. But we knew that all along, or should have: “The Lord is my shepherd (father); there is nothing I lack (daily bread) …He guides me along right paths (lead us not into temptation) for the sake of his (holy) name. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death (the temporal world), I will fear no evil (death), for you are with me (deliver us from evil) …I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever (eternal life).” Amen. David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Return to our Summer 2023 Table of Contents Previous Next Share Do you like what you just read? Subscribe today and receive sneak previews of Aletheia Today Magazine articles before they're published. 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< Back Big Crunch, Big Freeze, Big Bang David Cowles Aug 31, 2025 “…The Universe is a perpetual process of autogenesis and auto-annihilation. We are the friction, the turbulence at the interface.” My car isn’t running as it should. She (sic) shakes at high speeds, stalls at traffic lights, and won’t start on wet mornings. I’ll take it to a mechanic I know. He’ll (sic) know what to do. Sure enough, Sid diagnoses the problem, implements a fix, et voila , I’m back in the pink…sort of. No more shaking but starting and stalling are still issues. So I’ll take my car to another shop. Hank fixes the stall, but ‘old Betsy’ still won’t turn over in the rain. So now I’m off to the new shop in town – just opened. I’m introduced to Marge! Who’da thunk it? (I must be living in 2025.) Marge works her magic and now my 1970 Chevy runs like new. No one mechanic had all the answers but by putting their heads together I was able to complete my cross country trip without a hitch. Say ‘Hello’ to the Quantum Mechanics…the best pit crew any driver ever had: Planck, Bohr, Schrödinger, Heisenberg, Everett, Bell, Feynman – it’s a star-studded roster – and that’s just to name a few. If I take something from each - making sure not to let Bell undo Bohr, etc. - I might be able to piece together a coherent and heuristic model of the real world. Let’s give it a go: According to Schrodinger, being is a wave function that describes the probability (P) that an entity (X) will exhibit a discrete value (M) in a specific region of spacetime (R). The wave function fills spacetime and therefore constitutes a field . Spacetime is discrete (Zeno) but it behaves as if it were a continuum down to the Planck metric; therefore, on any realistic scale any defined region will seem ( doxa ) to be continuous. The wave function predicts that X will have a specific value (M) at R with a probability of P. The Sum of the Probabilities of all values of M equals 1. Everyone is someone! Likewise, X is potentially found in any sub-region of spacetime but the probability that X is found within any one sub-region (R) is less than 1. However, the probability (P) that X will be found in R plus the probability that it will be found outside of R does equal 1. If P(R) = .25, P(-R) = .75. Now things get interesting! According to Schrödinger and Feynman, P of M at R evolves deterministically; but according to Everett, ‘probability’ is off the table entirely. All possible M’s occur at every R and each specific M at each specific R corresponds to its own unique Universe. (Hence, Everett’s model is known as the ‘Many Worlds Interpretation’, MWI, of Quantum Mechanics.) According to Everett, the world is continually branching, everywhere, every when, and each branch creates its own distinct universe. Everybody is somebody sometime! The math works…but the metaphysics is unsatisfying. The number (N) of Universes grows exponentially! After just 10 generations of events, N > 1,000. Unimpressed? Ok, 10 generations later (20 total), N > 1,000,000 distinct universes. Dizzying! MWI is best represented as a lattice of nodes (N) with each node assuming one of a finite number (e.g. 2) of possible values. Assume each node (N) has a value (M) of 1 or 0. According to MWI, every N takes on both an M of 1 and an M of 0 (both...and, not either...or) so the Universe itself bifurcates, with one daughter universe including M = 1 and the other including M = 0. So, everything is a wave, a field, a probability function. When the wave function collapses, M becomes 100% probable, i.e. certain, at one particular R. When P=1 at R, X manifests as a particle. Beyond the cosmic horizon, particles are receding from us faster than the speed of light. In that case, those particles should behave like tachyons which we would normally experience as particles traveling backwards in time. In this case, however, since it is space that is expanding faster than c rather than the photon receding faster than c, we experience the tachyonic effects a bit differently. Instead of particles travelling backwards in time, we see the cosmic horizon effectively collapsing on us as a singularity. I am my own black hole. The day will come when the Planck Scale will have been so inflated that the lifetime of the universe will be insufficient for light to span it. Contrary to the Yellow Submarine , reversing the flow of time does not make our watches run backwards. We experience ‘time reversal’ as the contraction of the observable universe. Yes, it is Big Bang run backwards… sort of. While the cosmos itself is expanding, our visible universe is contacting. Celestial objects potentially visible today will no longer be visible tomorrow. Eventually, the observable universe will devolve into a point-like state at or below Planck. We have come to call this state ‘Big Crunch’; but instead of a Hot High Density state, as assumed in previous models, the cosmic temperature approaches 0° K in our model. Phenomenally then, Big Crunch and Big Freeze turn out to be the same thing (ontological isolation @ 0° K) – not a fun state to be in - just viewed from different perspectives. What is experienced locally as Big Crunch is experienced globally as Big Freeze; both are manifestations of a single universal phenomenon, Heat Death. Either way we are talking about an approaching singularity and a temperature of Absolute Zero, the universe’s ‘omega point’. And now, for my final act, the one you’ve all been waiting for, I turn Heat Death into Big Bang! As in the Book of Revelation , Alpha is Omega and vice versa. To quote Queen Mary, “My end is my beginning.” ‘Time’ is an epiphenomenon characteristic of our expanding-contracting Universe. To the extent that time runs ‘forward’, Omega is the Alpha point, but to the extent that time runs ‘backwards’, Alpha is Omega. The state of the Universe at Big Bang, Big Crunch, and Big Freeze is exactly the same. Big Crunch = Big Freeze viewed on opposing spatial scales (spatial), while Big Bang = Heat Death viewed from opposing temporal perspectives. Caveat : The identity of parameters at Big Bang and Heat Death have led some to introduce a concept called, ‘Big Bounce’. There is no bounce , the universe is not perpetually regenerating. There is just one cosmic singularity which can be called Big Bang, Big Freeze, or Big Crunch at the discretion of the speaker. However, this neat model has one drawback: it predicts that everything should be nothing. Inconvenient! But perhaps after all “we are such things as dreams are made of.” ( The Tempest ) According to this model, the Universe is a perpetual process of autogenesis and auto-annihilation. We are the friction, the turbulence at the interface. We are Derrida’s differance , the infinitesimal displacement between coming to be and being. Our model telescopes Penelope’s 3 year process of weaving and unweaving Laertes’ shroud into each and every moment. Space collapses to a Planck ‘point’, time to a Planck ‘instant’. It’s not the cosmic extravaganza we’d imagined…but if the shoes fit, no matter how ugly, we might just have to wear them. *** Piero di Cosimo’s The Destruction of the World by Fire and Water (c. 1524–29) imagines a universe collapsing in elemental fury, much like our own cosmos where Big Bang and Big Crunch are not opposites but two perspectives on the same singularity. 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 Who Invented the Internet “Al Gore claims the honor, but research shows that proof of concept testing began in 802 AD...” David Cowles The history of Europe is, in some sense, the history of the Franks (now the French). We first met this civilization in 8 th grade Latin when, side by side with Julius Caesar, we fought a Gallic War. (Sad to say, most of us suffered more than Caesar.) We encountered the Franks again during the protracted fall of Rome (476 AD). After Rome, the mysterious Merovingian dynasty appeared and took control of the Frankish empire. The Merovingians ruled until they were gradually replaced in the 2 nd half of the 8 th century by the Carolingians. On Christmas Day, 800 AD, the Carolingian king, Charles I (Charlemagne) was crowed Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (the Western Empire having been without an emperor since 476 AD). Charles dreamed of restoring the military, economic, and cultural power of Rome but he lacked one thing: infra-structure. Recall that in the 9 th century there was no radio, no TV, and no printing press. Following the collapse of Rome, there were few good roads, fewer central markets, and almost no literacy outside of the monasteries; but worst of all, in 800 AD there was no internet! What’s an enterprising young emperor to do? Wait 1200 years for Al Gore to invent it? Or… build it himself! That’s exactly what Charles did! Al Gore claims the honor, but research shows that proof of concept testing began in 802 AD, a few years before Gore was born. Charles revived a moribund Merovingian institution (the Missi ) and made it the cornerstone of his imperial rule. It was a brilliant strategy. Charles acknowledged the natural tendency of his empire to fragment along pre-determined fault lines and he used the Missi to turn those faults to his advantage. Missi were ‘sent’. Just as Jesus sent his apostles two-by-two, so Charles sent his Missi in pairs. Except Charles’ Missi were usually bishops and counts, not fishermen and tax collectors. Their brief was thoroughly pragmatic but based on the fundamental belief that Church and State were ‘one and inseparable’, two hypostatic reflections of the Kingdom of God. For a more detailed treatment of various church/state models, visit " Church And State ." According to the Carolingian model, the relationship of Church and State is complementary . Just as the behavior of subatomic particles only makes sense when they are understood both as waves and as particles, so human society only makes sense when it is understood both as Church and as State. Note, we are not talking here about a quantum behaving first as a wave then as a particle (or vice versa). That’s how we perceive things, but it’s not how things are . To understand the behavior of quanta, we need to accept that a quantum is always both wave and particle, not ‘hare today, goon tomorrow’. Accordingly, to understand the behavior of human society, we need to accept that society is always both Church and State. We may only be able to deal with one Gestalt at a time, but we must recognize that both are operating at all the times. In another stroke of genius, Charles made sure that his Missi didn’t quit their day jobs. He took pains not to create a new, insulated, self-perpetuating bureaucracy. Like the ‘citizen legislators’ still governing in a few of our not-so-very-United States, Charles’ counts and bishops were still expected to perform all the duties of their respective stations but now they were also expected to spend a couple of months each year ‘in the district’, carrying the emperor’s water. No doubt, being a Missi was inconvenient at times (months away from home, etc.), but each pair enjoyed power and authority beyond that of any other imperial functionary, save only the emperor himself. As Roman Catholics regard the Pope as the Vicar of Christ, so the Carolingians regarded the Missi as Vicars of the Emperor. Reprising somewhat the role of the Old Testament judges, Charles’ Missi were empowered to right wrongs, adjudicate disputes, and impose the emperor’s will. Short of a rare direct appeal to the emperor himself, there was no way around the judgment of the Missi . The Missi gave the emperor extraordinary power. They were not only his eyes and ears ‘in the neighborhood’ but also his hands and voice. Missi were expected to report back to the emperor at least once a year on the ‘state of the neighborhood’ while communicating the emperor’s will to the ‘neighbors’. Like Charles, we struggle today with the competing values of hierarchy and subsidiarity. We do ourselves a great disservice if we fail to draw on ideas from the past, just because they are ‘past’. Hurry, Charlemagne, a once and future king. 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! Share Previous Next