< Back What Happens in the Dark? David Cowles Feb 18, 2025 “Everything important that happens, happens in the dark.” We are mesmerized by media. Whether it’s smart phones, tablets, TV or God forbid, newsprint, we can’t take our eyes off the ‘news’. Yet every day we complain, “There’s nothing new.” But somehow our lives keep changing. There’s an explanation for this: Everything important that happens, happens in the dark. A watched pot never boils, a televised revolution never changes things (The Who). Let’s look at just a few concrete examples: ‘God’ invented solar power in 1954 (the date of the first solar panel). In 2023, the world installed more solar panels in one year than had been installed from the invention of the solar cell in 1954 through 2017: 1 year > Σ (1954…2017) For many years alternative energy sources (wind and sun) were controversial. Will they work? If they do, will they make a difference? Do the economics make sense? Will the hardware (turbines and panels) negatively impact the environment? Will Quixotic ‘Giants’ threaten the aesthetics of our landscape? These questions were never entirely answered, at least not to the satisfaction of all parties. But a tipping point was reached, escape velocity was achieved, and our countryside became La Mancha overnight. And we are better for it! Next up : Americans were justly proud of landing a man on the moon in1969. An incredible achievement from a standing start just 10 years earlier. All the more remarkable considering that the onboard computers were less powerful than a 1980’s Commodore or Atari. But nothing breeds contempt like success: “The whole thing was staged in an airplane hangar in Houston, why are we spending money on space when we have hungry people to feed on Earth, who has time for this when there’s a war to stop and civil rights to gain?” Space exploration was in trouble even before the Challenger disaster; after 1986 conversations about ‘space’ were limited to suburban lot sizes and closets. Now, look up! The sky is crowded with satellites launched by dozens of countries and private firms and every few months a new deep space probe takes off. Soon China and the US will be returning ‘men and women’ to the Moon. And no one’s talking about a ‘visit’ anymore; future trips will focus on building a ‘space-base’ and ‘Making the Moon livable (again)’. Next stop, Mars…and soon! Farming, generating water, replenishing Mars’ depleted atmosphere, establishing a New Jamestown colony (if the indigenous Martian life forms will allow it). Where was the global debate? The popular referendum, the democratic consensus? Never happened! An oligarchy of global leaders, not just politicians, ‘decided’ that it was time for humanity to leave the confines of Planet Earth. A more cynical person might ask, “What do they know about the future that we don’t?” Finally AI, the staple of comic books, cartoons, and low budget TV shows. But when 2001 finally arrived, HAL 1000 was nowhere to be found. Traditional approaches to AI development ran up against unexpected practical and theoretical barriers. Plus, despite our fascination with robots, there was broad popular distrust of ‘artificial intelligence’ per se : “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.” Now less than 25 years on, AI is proliferating at a break neck pace. It will certainly transform every aspect of our lives in just the next few years. It is quite possible that AI poses a more serious threat to humanity than either nuclear weapons or climate change, yet it is spreading through the Technosphere like a nasty corona virus. But did we want these changes to begin with? And who decided to take us down this path anyway? Does AI pose an existential threat? You bet…but in my view that’s a risk worth taking. As a species, we are unable to abide status quo ; we are, therefore we search. Eve was bored, even with Paradise; she wanted more, and she risked everything for it. And according to Judeo-Christian theology, we’re still paying the price, and reaping the benefits, of Eve’s curiosity: ‘O happy fault!’ No surprise here. In today’s culture it is impossible to do anything in the open. Democratic political process has frozen solid. In its place, we are now governed by public demonstrations, journalistic sensationalism, and a perpetual cascade of never resolved litigation. Public policy is held hostage by a species of non-violent domestic terrorism. This has nothing to do with ideology or partisan politics. Disruption can come from the right, the left or the technocratic center. It’s just how politics is done now that constitutional processes have broken down. And it’s not just in the US. The same seems to be afoot on every inhabited continent. 21st century Political Science has turned 20th century Physics on its head. According to the laws of Quantum Mechanics, nothing happens unless and until it is observed; according to 21st century Political Science, nothing happens if it is observed. And according to centuries of folk wisdom, ‘a watched pot never boils’. Keep the conversation going. 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. 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< Back Liberty and Virtue David Cowles Jun 25, 2024 “How do Liberty, Justice, and Virtue fit together?” In an earlier TWS, we spoke about Barry Goldwater and we quoted from his iconic acceptance speech to the 1964 Republican Convention: Extremism in the defense of Liberty is no vice… Moderation is the pursuit of Justice is no virtue! Which raises an interesting question: how do Liberty , Justice , and Virtue fit together? We define Virtue as the pursuit of Good, manifested as Value (e.g. Beauty, Truth, Justice). But according to Jean-Paul Sartre, there is only one Value and that’s Freedom ! For Sartre, virtue is what protects and extends freedom; vice is what erodes or restricts it. Is it possible that Goldwater and Sartre disagreed about something? Only everything! Sartre was an atheist, a Marxist, a self-proclaimed Communist, while Goldwater…was not. They disagreed about almost everything…but not this. Virtue is the intentional pursuit of Value (e.g. Beauty, Truth, Justice) and Liberty is a prerequisite for all intentionality and therefore for Virtue. Without freedom of choice, none of our exertions, by themselves, rise to the level of Virtue. In the public forum we are most often concerned with the value of Justice. An actor freely choosing to promote Justice is virtuous. Values are the lures (Whitehead) that motivate events. They are responsible for what we call intentionality . Every ‘novel event’ (all events are novel) seeks what is Good by applying a unique constellation of values to the Actual World. Every event selects, combines, and applies values differently, but there are no events without values motivating them. Goldwater’s proclamation was interpreted as an eye-poke by the party’s so-called ‘liberal wing’. Nelson Rockefeller led a delegate walk-out which effectively doomed Goldwater’s candidacy. He would never fully recover from Rocky’s ‘Cow Palace Putsch’. But what’s interesting here is not so much the vagaries of presidential politics, but the unstated, yet clearly implied, message sent by the peripatetic delegates: Liberty should be defended, and Justice should be pursued - but with moderation. Other values may take precedence. For example, Order, Civility, and Machiavellian Pragmatics. According to this ethic, ‘Liberty and Justice’ are not absolute imperatives; they are merely goals which, all things being equal, we ought to pursue. But in targeting these values, we must balance them against competing values like security, stability, and tranquility. So what’s wrong with that? In the ‘normal course of events’, a free actor compares the Ideal (Value) to the Actual (World). If that actor responds by working to bring the Actual closer to the Ideal, we call that Virtue. To whatever extent Liberty is restricted, Value is camouflaged, and Virtue undermined. Virtue, and the triumph of Value, can only occur in the context of Liberty! In 1964, there were no Patrick Henry’s (“Give me Liberty or give me Death”) in Rocky’s corner. But what’s important here, IMHO, is that important public figures in the US signed off on Rockefeller’s platform. It followed closely on the heels of Better Red than Dead , a European movement advocating unilateral disarmament in lieu of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. For a significant percentage of Americans, ‘domestic tranquility’ now trumped liberty and justice in their hierarchy of values. Scary! Liberty and Justice, along with Beauty and Truth, are Divine Values. They constitute God’s essence. They’re what it’s like to be God. While these values are often compromised in our everyday lives, such compromises can never be ‘justified’. Call them what they are: ‘accommodations contravening the interests of God and humanity’. 1964 saw the public proclamation of a new American anti-ethic. Post WWII, Liberty and Justice were ‘reclassified’ as preferred states rather than absolute imperatives. They are two factors, along with many others, to be considered in the formation of public policy. ‘Liberty & Justice’ (Goldwater ’64) is fine and dandy, but not at the expense of ‘Peace & Prosperity’ (Eisenhower ‘52). Is this ringing any bells? Does it call to mind any other times in the life of the nation when demands for Liberty were considered ‘too extreme’ and true Justice could only be pursued ‘incrementally’? How about the Abolitionist movement of the 1850’s? Or the Civil Rights movement in the 1960’s? Today, we are so obsessed with the vilification of all things ante-bellum that we miss some key points. Pro-slavery politicians weren’t necessarily against either Liberty or Justice per se – far from it! They simply believed that these Values needed to be ‘understood in context’ and that any reform of the status quo should take place ‘gradually’ and ‘organically’…and we need to be sure it’s ‘sustainable’. Where have you heard all this before? True, we cannot reasonably expect total Liberty or perfect Justice prior to the Eschaton. However, that does not relieve us of our responsibility to advocate for those values and to defend them without waiver. There is no Scriptural or Constitutional sanction for compromise. Some band-aids just have to be ripped off! Keep the conversation going. 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Nature, Nurture, or Bacteria David Cowles May 23, 2025 “Without them (bacteria, viruses, fungi, and archaea), we wouldn’t be who we are.” For decades, scientists have debated the issue: Are we who we are because of our Nature (e.g. DNA) or because of our Nurture (e.g. upbringing, life experiences)? Both sides have their points. Now it turns out there’s a third player, a variable that includes none of our DNA and is only very indirectly impacted by our parents’ pedagogical choices: the independent micro-organisms that inhabit our ‘gut’. To whatever extent we buy into this new thesis, we accept the notion that we are Zombies, that our apparently intentional acts are at least influenced, if not controlled, by organisms that are biologically unrelated to us. Our biomes consist of independent organisms that ‘choose’to live symbiotically in our stomachs and intestines. Defendants in criminal cases now have a new defense. In addition to… ➢ “My genes made me do it,” ➢ “My childhood made me do it,” ➢ “Alcohol made me do it (I was overserved),” or ➢ “The devil made me do it,” I can now rely on something new: “My biome made me bad!” This argument may be the most persuasive yet. I have to deal with my genetic inheritance and my childhood traumas in everything I do. I can choose to get drunk…or not, and the court may not believe in the power of Satan. But who can deny compulsion from an independent, outside source? For example, if someone put a gun to my head and said, “Mug this man!” I would probably not be held liable for my actions, assuming the threat to my safety was real and imminent. I am acting under the orders of another and disobeying those orders would put my life in jeopardy. How much more so if the ‘gunman’ consists of trillions of invisible microbes occupying space within my body and continuously exchanging ‘information’ (instructions), i.e. electrical and chemical signals, with that body! As kids we fantasized that we were inert action figures being manipulated by a more advanced race of ‘children’ living in dimensions imperceptible to mere mortals. We were like characters in The Lego Movie , where the choices and actions that seemed so real to Emmet were actually the choices and actions of Finn, a 10 year old boy living in a dimensional reality unknown to our hero. “They directly affect your nervous system, shaping your mood…the trillions of microbial residents in your gut (bacteria, viruses, fungi, and archaea) also communicate with your brain. Without them, we wouldn’t be who we are.” - Manasee Wagh, Popular Mechanics (5/16/2025) This last sentence, seemingly innocuous, has profound philosophical implications. “Without them, we wouldn’t be who we are.” “Who R U?” - Alice in Wonderland . You are not your genes, you are not your life experiences, you are not what you eat (or drink), you are not Lucifer’s lackey…and you are not your biome. Who are you then? According to Buckminster Fuller, you are a verb. According to Alfred North Whitehead, you are process. According to Jean-Paul Sartre, you are neant (nothing). They are all on to something but, bad news, none of them will get you acquitted of first degree murder. We live in a world where we are surrounded by ‘existents’: sugar and spice, snails and tails, terra firma below, firmament above. But we are none of these things, Neti Neti (‘not this, not that’). We are the negation of what is ( neant ), the transformation ( verb ) of what was, the becoming ( process ) of what will be. Since we are nothing that has ever been, is now, or ever will be, we are truly nothing (neant): “My name is Nemo” ( Odyssey , Book 9)… and that’s a good thing. Because I am ‘nothing’, I can be anything. In the context of what I have inherited, I can be whatever I choose to be. (I can’t be a pro basketball player because I inherited a 5’ 9” frame and a pot belly…but I can be anything else!) There are guardrails but within those boundaries I can do and be absolutely anything I want to do or be. My motto is ‘Don’t dream it, be it!’ ( Rocky Horror Picture Show ); but once you are it, realize that you are not it . I am free. More than that, I am ‘freedom’ itself. Freedom is ‘my nature’ and my ‘freedom’ is the total absence of any nature. It is through me (and every other ‘me’) that freedom enters the World. I am the negation ( neant ) of what is, I am the transformation ( verb ) of what was, and I am the becoming ( process ) of what will be. I am who I was at birth (or before), I am who I will be at death (or after), and I am who I was every moment along the way. Like Parmenides’ Aletheia , “…ungenerated and imperishable, whole…complete…all together, one, continuous… ” I am the immobile pivot at the center of a perpetually turning wheel (‘The Great Mandala’). So I am not my DNA, or my life experiences, or my biome. Each of these is important but only as part of the guardrails. They leave my essence, my freedom, unscathed. They are not who I am…because my name is Nemo ! *** Fernand Léger’s The City (1919) is a large, vibrant canvas that captures the dynamism and complexity of urban life just after World War I. Using bold blocks of color, overlapping geometric forms, and fragments of signs and machinery, Léger evokes the rhythm of crowded streets, modern architecture, and industrial growth. The painting celebrates the interconnected energy of a bustling metropolis, where people, technology, and movement form a single, pulsing organism. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back There Must Be Something Before There Can Be Nothing David Cowles Jan 2, 2022 From Aristotle to Whitehead, from Sartre to the 20th century ‘quantum mechanics’, there is a broadly held view that Being at its core is Pure Potential. Potentiality is selectively converted to actuality through the agency of something other than pure potentiality itself. That agency is called ‘Creativity’ by Whitehead, ‘Le Neant’ by Sartre, or ‘Collapse of the Wave Function’ by Schrödinger. In none of these cases, however, does pure potentiality alone determine its own actuality (that would be Determinism and would negate the concept of ‘potentiality’ entirely). Something other than pure potentiality itself must convert what could be to what is. The Apostle John expressed the same idea: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him and without him nothing was made.” (Jn 1: 1 – 5) According to John, “the Word of God’ (Christ) is what converts potentiality to actuality. Everything that is comes to be through that ‘Word’ and without that ‘Word’ nothing comes to be. In final analysis, I think that all the world’s ontologies (philosophical, theological, or scientific) fall into one of these two camps: (A) Some sort of Determinism (where the ‘actual’ is ultimately embedded in what is falsely called the ‘potential’) or (B) some sort of Indeterminism (where potentiality is selectively converted to actuality through an agency that transcends pure potentiality per se). Group A would argue that there must be nothing before there can be something; Group B would reverse it: there must be something before there can be nothing. From Aristotle to Whitehead, from Sartre to the 20th century ‘quantum mechanics’, there is a broadly held view that Being at its core is Pure Potential. Potentiality is selectively converted to actuality through the agency of something other than pure potentiality itself. That agency is called ‘Creativity’ by Whitehead, ‘Le Neant’ by Sartre, or ‘Collapse of the Wave Function’ by Schrödinger. In none of these cases, however, does pure potentiality alone determine its own actuality (that would be Determinism and would negate the concept of ‘potentiality’ entirely). Something other than pure potentiality itself must convert what could be to what is. The Apostle John expressed the same idea: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him and without him nothing was made.” (Jn 1: 1 – 5) According to John, “the Word of God’ (Christ) is what converts potentiality to actuality. Everything that is comes to be through that ‘Word’ and without that ‘Word’ nothing comes to be. In final analysis, I think that all the world’s ontologies (philosophical, theological, or scientific) fall into one of these two camps: (A) Some sort of Determinism (where the ‘actual’ is ultimately embedded in what is falsely called the ‘potential’) or (B) some sort of Indeterminism (where potentiality is selectively converted to actuality through an agency that transcends pure potentiality per se). Group A would argue that there must be nothing before there can be something; Group B would reverse it: there must be something before there can be nothing. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Mirror, Mirror On the Wall David Cowles Aug 27, 2024 “Reflexivity is built into the fabric of the cosmos itself. Universe is its own mirror! Without reflexivity, the cosmos would be inert, mindless, and without meaning.” Consciousness – the Hard Problem, per David Chalmers. What is it? Who has it? How does it work? What’s it ‘like’ to be conscious? Is it the sound of one hand clapping? As we learn more and more about the structure of the human brain and the perceptual capabilities of non-human life forms (organic and otherwise), the long felt need to find a consensus model of consciousness is growing more urgent. There is a tendency for models to grow more complex with each new iteration. Something like that is happening right now in the fields of cosmology, particle physics, and biology. The steady complexification of theory is often, usually in fact, a clue that the theory itself is somehow ‘wrong’. Remember Ptolemy’s geocentric model of the universe? Hello Galileo! Typically, when we build a model, we start by following the architect’s blueprint for the Tower of Babel , one story teetering on top of another…until suddenly the whole edifice collapses like a house of cards. So we welcome the fresh air of heliocentricity, relativity, and quantum mechanics! Perhaps in the case of consciousness we can avoid this painful odyssey. My preferred model for consciousness is a simple mirror, or to be more precise, reflexivity per se . A mirror, as Lewis Carroll taught us ( Through the Lookingglass ), has no intrinsic content. Likewise, while mirrors come in all sizes, shapes and designs, the ‘mirror-part’ is the same in every case. Reflection is reflection and that’s all there is to it. Not that I envision a cosmos full of disembodied shards of silver backed glass floating in space. Rather I suspect that reflexivity is built into the fabric of the cosmos itself. Universe is its own mirror! Reflexivity is characteristic of any non-orientable topology, e.g. a Mobius strip. If, as I suspect, our universe is locally orientable but globally non-orientable (see below), then reflection (mirroring) may be a local manifestation of global reflexivity. The recent discovery of Rondeau Time Crystals (RTC) is relevant here (Moon, et al., Nature Physics , October 14, 2025). An RTC consists of two ordered states ( Alpha & Omega ) separated by a chaotic state ( Delta ). The two ordered states relate deterministically but their topology is non-orientable. The elements in the Omega state are ‘reciprocals’ of those same elements in the Alpha state. The chaotic, intermediary Delta state is where we live and here events appear orientable. All mirrors are identical, but no two mirror images are ever the same. A mirror reflects what is reflected. Likewise, consciousness – a reflector reflecting. Without reflected content, a mirror cannot reflect and so is not a ‘mirror’ at all; it’s just silver backed glass. Without reflexivity, the cosmos would be inert, mindless, and without meaning. Meaning is reference between two distinct classes of phenomena, e.g. a map and a territory, an object and its image, symbol and signified. Object and image, for example, are ‘mutually transcendent’ – that’s a pre-condition for meaning . Even before syntax, language has meaning, e.g. an object and a word that denotes that object ( Namo ). Of course, words can be objects and objects can be words, but not in this context. We are strictly speaking of words as symbols and objects as what words symbolize. In one respect, language is ‘objective’ and therefore part of the world; but in a more important sense, it is ‘symbolic’ and therefore transcends the world. Likewise, consciousness may, or may not, be dependent on certain structures, neural or otherwise, but it is not those structures per se . Again, these ‘structures’ are part of the world that consciousness reflects…and transcends. When we speak of ‘consciousness’, we are not referring to whatever physical structures may support it. In fact, it appears that wildly different physical configurations may support consciousness. This lends further support to the idea that a universal potentiality for consciousness is woven into the fabric of the cosmos itself. How is consciousness like a mirror? A mirror has no intrinsic content. It acquires 100% of its content from what it reflects. Every mirror, in so far as it reflects, is the same. I am conscious and someone in Tibet is conscious. We share few life experiences, but to the extent that we are both conscious, we are identical …not merely congruent. Consciousness is a single phenomenon, manifest in multiple environments and circumstances. No two manifestations of consciousness are the same but consciousness per se is identical everywhere and everywhen. What a mirror actually reflects is light. Without light, a mirror has no content, i.e. no image. When an organism dies, the ‘mirror’ associated with that organism goes dark; it no longer reflects light (an image). It ceases to be a ‘mirror’; therefore it is no longer conscious . Its physical properties no longer support conscious experience. However, this does not necessarily resolve Hamlet’s dilemma: “To die, to sleep; to sleep, perchance to dream – ay, there’s the rub.” In the language of AI, could it be that our dark and imageless reflexivity will yet ‘hallucinate’? (After all, we know that AI ‘hallucinates’; why not ‘NI’ - natural intelligence?) Perhaps, it is still too soon to award the laurel wreath to Horatio! But there is a ‘silver’ lining to all this! Because chaotic Delta is strung between highly ordered Alpha and Omega , Delta inherits its fundamental topology from its boundary conditions. Think of a hammock strung between two trees. Per se , it has no shape but because of the trees it assumes a catenary shape, the only ‘minimal surface’ in nature (other than a plane). It's the natural shape that forms when a rope, chain, or fabric hangs freely between two points. Note that the trees do not cause the hammock to assume the characteristic shape. Nothing about the trees gives the hammock its curve. Rather, it is the natural shape assumed by whatever hangs freely between two terminals. Delta ‘hangs freely’ between Alpha and Omega and therefore it inherits a very specific, and very fortunate, topology. That topology permits islands of spatiotemporal order to form spontaneously (bootstrapping?) in Delta ’s otherwise chaotic medium. In Moon’s terminology, the two end states ‘fine tune’ the intermediary ( Delta ) state without compromising its essentially chaotic nature. These islands of order enable the cosmos to encode information. We live on (actually, in) such an island; we are pure information. Information is a pattern. Alpha and Omega are the pattern of all patterns. A pattern (island) in Delta may resonate (harmonize) with a pattern in Alpha/Omega . In which case that pattern is immediately bilocated, in Alpha/Omega and in Delta . Marcel Proust provides an analog in Remembrance of Things Past . The sensation of cobblestones in France recapitulates a similar sensation felt years earlier in Italy. Immediately, the resonance bilocates Proust in France-now and Italy-then. In an identical manner, when a pattern in our lives ( Delta ) resonates with a pattern in Alpha/Omega , we are bilocated: our temporal existence merges with atemporality ( aka eternity). The Christian doctrine of Incarnation tells of the merger of atemporal divinity with temporal humanity. Rondeau Time Crystals reverse the process: temporality is absorbed in eternity. So for those of us who aspire to eternal life, to leaving a permanent mark in the cosmos, ‘all we have to do’ is create patterns in our own lives that are in harmony with patterns in Alpha/Omega , i.e. in the ‘Garden’ and the ‘Kingdom’, i.e. in God. But how on earth do we do that ? Easy! God is Good . Beauty, Truth, and Justice are good. Therefore, they are found among the patterns in Alpha and Omega ; they are part of God’s essential nature. Therefore, whenever we foster beauty, truth and/or justice, we create a pattern in Delta that resonates in Alpha/Omega , and we assure ourselves at least a modicum of eternal life. Keep the conversation going. 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! 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< Back Descartes David Cowles Oct 29, 2025 “To be conscious is to be aware of being oneself and to be aware of being oneself is to be aware of oneself as a potential object of another’s awareness.” Cogito ergo sum , ‘I think therefore I am’ - possibly the best known meme in all of Western philosophy. Who has not marveled at its simple wisdom? And welcomed the comfort of a stable launching pad for further philosophical speculation? It answers so many questions…especially when you’re in middle school. But like most easy answers, it’s flawed; and like most flaws, the devil is in the language. I think…I am. Simple. But the ‘I’ is deceptive. It suggests that the ‘I’ that thinks is the ‘I’ that is; it isn’t! ‘I think’ describes an action. It discloses an agent, and it makes some sense to call that agent, ‘I’. I mean, what else would you call it? Agency is an ‘I-experience’. We can impute agency to other subjects but the only agency I can ever experience directly is my own; only an ‘I’ thinks and knows that it thinks. The authors of the Book of Job understood this c. 3,000 years ago: “I know that my redeemer lives, and on the last day he will stand upon the earth, and after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes him – I, not another.” (19: 25 – 27) Only first person experience counts, Alfred North Whitehead notwithstanding. This discloses something unexpected about the meaning of ‘I think’. I think only if I am aware that I think. Computers think…but as far as we know they are not aware that they think. This is not the ‘thinking’ Descartes has in mind. The ‘I’ of his cogito is not the ‘I’ that thinks. It is the ‘I’ that knows that it thinks. What Descartes called ‘thinking’ ( cogito ) is more like what we mean by ‘being conscious’. ‘I think’ discloses ‘I’ to Descartes, not because Descartes thinks, but because Descartes knows that he thinks. The Descartes that knows that he thinks is the Descartes that is ( sum ) and that is not the Descartes who merely thinks. Sum (I am) describes a state, not an act. There is no agent so there is no warrant to invoke the ‘I-word’ in this context. A better presentation of the existential reality would have been cogito ergo est (‘I think therefore it is’ or ‘I think therefore something is’). Alternatively, we can retain the ‘I-word’ ( sum ) if we remove it from the cogito : cogitator ergo sum (‘it is thought therefore I am’). That an entity thinks and knows that it thinks means that being has a subject after all and that subject is what I call ‘me’. When I say, “I think,” I am both the stated subject and the implied object of the act. Thinking, as Descartes uses to term, is an inherently recursive process. Being, again per Descartes, is not. Thinking and being are not the same thing…not by a long shot! Bottom line : what is essential is that we scrupulously respect the ontological (not just semantic) distinction between the ‘I’ of cogito and the ‘I’ of sum . But there is more. Being conscious is a process and, like all process, it is trinitarian: (1) I am aware of x (not-me); (2) I am aware that I (me) am aware of x (not-me); (3) since x is and x is not me, I must assume that x may be aware of me as I am of x. I cannot assume that I am ontologically special, much less unique. What goes around may come around! You may say, “I don’t believe that x is aware of me.” Ok, so what? First, I don’t care what you believe; second, I don’t care whether x is aware of you or not. The real nature of x is unimportant. To be conscious is to be aware of being oneself and to be aware of being oneself is to be aware of oneself as potentially the object of another’s awareness. Consciousness does not require the existence of ‘other’ minds; it requires the possibility of ‘other’ minds. It requires me to harbor a model of the ‘other’ inside my model of myself, like an incubus . I cannot be aware of x unless x is distinct from me. Otherwise, x is just part of me and my awareness of it is just an awareness of myself. But if x is distinct from me, then I must concede that it may be a copy, a reflection, of me and that would mean that x could be aware of me. I am aware of x-not-me. I am aware of me being aware of x-not-me. If x is x-not-me then x is ‘me minus me’ (equality, not identity). From the point of view of x, I am x’-not-x. I am ‘x minus x’. The idea that The Other is a fundamental category of ontology goes back to the birth of Western philosophy with Anaximander (6th century BCE). Anaximander apparently (evidence is fragmentary) believed that Being was inherently ‘mutual’ – I come to be by ‘letting’ another come to be. We are all monkeys with our hands stuck inside our own personal bottles. (Apologies to my Simian cousins.) We are only free to become ourselves if we are willing to let go of the prize we’re clutching. Who among us can let go? We can only become by letting another be. It’s counter-intuitive and counter-instinctual but it is the origin of Love and, by extension, of all Virtue. *** Maurits Cornelis Escher — Hand with Reflecting Sphere (1935) Escher’s self-portrait shows him gazing into a polished glass sphere held in his own hand, where the entire room — including himself — curves and folds within its reflection. The image explores the act of perception itself, merging the observer and the observed into a single, infinite loop of awareness. It perfectly captures the Cartesian idea of consciousness reflecting upon itself — the mind as both subject and object in the search for truth. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Time Crystals and the Lord's Prayer David Cowles Jan 18, 2026 “The Lord’s Prayer is structured like a Rondeau Time Crystal.” 1250 words, 6 minute read Plain, ordinary crystals, the Hope Diamond for example, consist of molecules arranged in a fixed pattern that repeats over and over again in space . What if we could do something similar with a pattern in time ? Instead of a structure reproducing itself indefinitely in space, could we identify a process that reproduces itself indefinitely in time? Frank Wilczek theorized the existence of such ‘Time Crystals’ in 2012; in 2016-2017 actual Time Crystals were created in a lab for the first time. In a Time Crystal patterns repeat over time in a regular cycle always returning to the same home position(s), over and over again. It's perpetual motion at the quantum level. But behavior in Wilczek’s Time Crystals is entirely deterministic and this turns out to be a huge limitation on the usefulness of his discovery. For example, the concept is useless for modeling indeterminate behavior, such as random sequence, probability, quantum decoherence, intentional agency, or free will – in other words for anything interesting. Then, j ust ‘yesterday’ (October 14, 2025, Nature Physics ) a team of scientists headed by Leo Joon Il Moon announced the discovery of a new state of matter they’re calling Rondeau Time Crystals ( rondeau for the musical form called a ‘round’). These crystals are characterized by the presence of an indeterminate, chaotic ( Delta ) phase between two perfectly determined bookends ( Alpha & Omega ). Between Alpha and Omega , the Ginnungagap of Norse Mythology, Kaos prevails: “…the earth was without form or shape, with darkness over the abyss and a mighty wind sweeping over the waters.” (Genesis 1: 2) However, this disorder is ‘tunable’, permitting local islands of virtual order to emerge within the chaotic Delta phase and endure for ‘short’ periods, subject always to the inexorable vicissitudes of entropy. We call such islands ‘entities, organisms, events’. The states of perfect order that bookend primordial chaos do not control the timing or the details of the ordered events. However, the Alpha and Omega points do embody certain essential organizing principles that work to ‘fine tune’ what comes in between, creating perhaps a bias toward Being rather than not-Being and therefore a bias toward Beauty, Truth and Justice, the ‘divine values’. The World as we know it is a chaotic state, poised between two states of eternal perfection. Whatever happens in Delta must ultimately unite Omega with Alpha . The Lord’s Prayer (below) enjoys the same fundamental organizing plan as Moon’s Rondeau Crystals . It consists of three stanza, two timeless states of affairs, Alpha and Omega , and one spacetime, entopic, undetermined state, Delta . Let’s dive in: Our father, Who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name! This is the Alpha State. It defines the initial position of the system: immanent father, transcendent God, holy (unique) name. It describes the situation from the first person perspective of the one who prays. At the other end of the process of Being, the Omega State, the ultimate position of the system, is co-incident with the Alpha State but with its orientation reversed: Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven! This is the eschaton; it is God’s response. Essentially, he recognizes our initiatory act and promises to reciprocate by delivering the Kingdom of Heaven. But it is a long way from Galilee, or Gotham, to God’s Kingdom. While the Alpha and Omega states are hard wired, how we get there from here, the Delta state, is entirely undetermined. 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! Jesus emphasizes three aspects of spatiotemporal life that are essential elements of the Alpha Omega Bridge Tunnel: Survival, Reproduction, and Independence. We begin with Survival, our daily bread. We pray, not for untold riches, but that our baseline needs may always be met, i.e. that we may live. But ‘man (sic) does not live by bread alone’, or better stated, ‘human beings do not thrive in isolation’. I thrive only in the context of community and community comes to be only when you and I grant each other ‘reck’ (recognition), i.e. when we forgive each other’s trespasses. We grant reck when we sublimate our own interests to those of another. I ‘make space’ for you and, hopefully you make space for me and so, voila , community! But there’s a catch. The mutual granting of reck may not be transactional or reciprocal; it cannot be tit-for-tat. Each granting of reck must be a spontaneous, voluntary expression of love with no expectation of gain. The opposite of ‘reck’ is ‘trespass’. Instead of making room for you to emerge and grow, I impinge upon you, stunt your growth, and perhaps even abort your arrival. We ask God to overlook, to overcome, to forgive all such trespasses, i.e. all the times I suppress others’ coming to be. “As we forgive those who trespass against us.” God operates in the world through the world. God desires to forgive all sins; when we forgive, we operate in loco Dei . We realize God’s eschatological objective in a concrete context. “But lead us not into temptation.” Human beings cannot reach their full potential unless they are free. In that context, we have to oppose all forms of physical slavery. But such institutions are the tip of the iceberg. In fact, we are all enslaved by something much more powerful than Pharaoh. Every day, we voluntarily indenture ourselves to a menagerie of inanimate objects: sex, drugs, wealth, status, adulation, fame, and power, just to name a few of life’s traps. These become our idols, our gods, our matters of ‘ultimate concern’ ( Tillich ). We are motivated by Good but we are tempted by the semblance of good . Seeking nothing but Good, we settle for what is not-so-good and when we treat the not-so-good as Good, we commit the sin of idolatry, the substitution of the relatively good for the absolutely Good. “But deliver us from evil.” In the Lord’s Prayer, evil assumes three forms: mortality (death itself, nihilism ), selfishness (withholding reck, solipsism ), and misplaced attachment (willful ignorance, idolatry ). Consider the Ten Commandments. Each one prohibits at least one of these forms of evil; each one mandates the preservation of life (#5), the granting of reck (#1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8), and/or the shedding of unprofitable attachments (#6, 9, 10). Jesus was merely explicating what was already hard wired in Torah . Sidebar : We don’t usually think of the Lord’s Prayer as a teaching on the nature of evil (sin) because Jesus was drawing on a much more sophisticated and nuanced understanding than most of us harbor today. We reserve the term ‘evil’ for a select class of wrong doers: drunk drivers, pedophiles, polluters, and internet scammers, e.g. Suffice to say, Jesus and his followers had a much broader view of the role of Evil in the World. ‘Deliver us from evil’ then is a summation of the three previous petitions (re death, selfishness, and attachment). It encapsulates the Delta phase but more than that, it instantiates the Alpha and Omega phases: ‘Thy will/done on earth/as in heaven’. Then Libera nos a malo becomes the meme sown into our flags for the personal and collective crusade against ‘the evil one’. The Lord’s Prayer is structured like a Rondeau Time Crystal . It describes a World with two perfect, eternal, wholly determined phases ( Alpha and Omega ) and one entirely indeterminate phase ( Delta ). In other words, it describes a Time Crystal. *** The main dome of the Pammakaristos Church features a powerful mosaic of Christ Pantokrator , depicted gazing downward while blessing with his right hand and holding a closed Gospel book, symbolizing his authority as ruler of the universe. Created in the early 14th century during the Palaiologan period, the mosaic’s gold background and solemn expression emphasize Christ’s divine presence and theological centrality within the Byzantine worldview. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! 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< Back Purpose, Meaning, Value David Cowles May 15, 2026 “The beautiful…floats imperceptibly above the surface of the painting and underneath the gaze of the connoisseur - in the realm of pattern (logos).” “Does it have any purpose, any meaning, any value?” Isn’t this approximately the first question we ask whenever we encounter anything novel? Notice I say ‘question’, not ‘questions’ – because these three ‘questions’ are actually the same question expressed in different contexts: (1) Can this entity further my projects? Can I put it to some use? Can I find a purpose for it? Techne . (2) If not, does this entity have a message for me? Does it contain information? “The signatures of all things I am here to read.” (Joyce) Gnosis . (3) If not, does the entity have value per se , in its own right, apart from any possible utility? Logos . Unexpectedly, these ‘contexts’ reflect three facets of the Divine Nature, i.e. of the Good, manifest in the World as Beauty ( logos ), Truth ( gnosis ), and Justice ( techne ). Purpose, Meaning, and Value (PMV) are vectors; they point beyond mere materiality. Purpose refers to the techno-sphere, Meaning to the noosphere, Value to the logo-sphere, three layers of Being that template the purely material ( physis ). They are what-is caught in the process of becoming what-is-not. They are what-is transcending itself. PMV refers to an aspect of things that is not immanent in the things themselves: “This painting is beautiful.” Heads nod in unison. But where does that beauty come from? From the eye of the beholder? Or from the physical painting itself? Or from values that transcend the painting, the artist, and the critic? If the beauty lies with the beholder, then it is no more significant than my grandchild liking peppermint stick ice cream: nice to know…but end of! If beauty lies in the painting itself, then it is inseparable from the particular pigments and brush strokes used. But if that is the case, how is it that a second painting with exactly the same range of color and acumen of craft is butt-ugly? The beautiful is grounded in the canvass and appreciated by the connoisseur but it exists in its own realm: it floats imperceptibly above the surface of the painting and underneath the gaze of the connoisseur - in the realm of pattern ( logos , see below). Against all of this, there’s Nietzsche: “One is necessary, one is a piece of fate, 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 ) This 19 th century proto-existentialist recognized that PMV transcends the material world but he denied that anything transcends ‘the whole’ and therefore he denied the possibility of any meaningful valuation. Note : “I like it,” is a valuation of sorts but it is not yet meaningful; it is the semantic equivalent of a sigh. It refers to the painting, and it refers to the critic, but it makes no appeal to the transcendent. However, anything beyond ‘I like it’ or its equivalent invokes values that do not reside either in the critic or in the craft. So, checkmate! PMV is how we ‘judge, measure, compare, condemn’; therefore, they cannot exist in a flat (linear) Universe such as proposed by Nietzsche and implicit in today’s reigning ontological paradigm, Scientific Positivism . Unless, of course, Nietzche is wrong! Much as we admire Nietzsche’s take no prisoners style of philosophizing, few of us live our lives as Nietzscheans. The twin ‘illusions’ of agency and hierarchy are just too strong. I have to choose, coffee or tea, and I can’t reconcile myself to the idea that my choices are random, determined algorithmically, a matter of habit, or a product of fate. Agency sets me apart from the World. Phenotypically, the distinction of not-self from self is our first exposure to the non-linearity of Being. Through me, the World experiences and acts on itself; ego is the vehicle and first fruit of recursion. But Agency (self vs. not-self) is a specific example of the more general phenomenon of hierarchy . Remember Nietzsche, “Nothing exists apart from the whole?” But I do , I am of the whole, but I am also apart from the whole. Philosophers love to split a hair, pick a nit, but there’s no splitting or picking here! Either Being is flat (linear) or it’s hierarchical (recursive). If it’s flat, nothing transcends anything else and PMV is an empty concept. However, if anything has purpose, meaning, or value, then Being per se is non-linear and everything has at least the potential to be useful, informative, or enervating. That potential is what defines an ‘entity’ in a non-linear world. To be is to have the capacity to convey influences. There is a crucial ethical dimension to this. If the World is flat and without transcendent value, then we are free to use (abuse) our environment as we see fit. If those uses are unsustainable or inhumane, so what? We cannot be judged. But on the other hand, if entities have purpose, meaning, or value, they transcend mere materiality and that severely constrains how we may relate to them. Perhaps the most developed ethic in this vein is that of the Eastern European Hasidim . According to this Orthodox Jewish sect, every entity contains a divine spark, a fragment of Shekinah , YHWH’s Presence in the World. Our mission is to release those sparks so that they can reunite, ultimately constituting the ‘Cosmic Messiah’ (as envisioned by Teilhard de Chardin et al.). Here Asian and European philosophies overlap. Anaximander, the grandfather of Greek philosophy, taught that Being itself is the product of two potential or virtual entities granting each other ‘reck’ (respect) and thereby constituting each other as ‘actual entities’ with the potential to convey influences. We fulfill our mission when we treat everything we encounter with that respect, when we grant ‘reck’, when we let everything around us ‘be all that it can be’ (US Army), i.e. when we transform daily living into a sacrament (“The grove needs an altar” – Ezra Pound). Consider also Native American spirituality. It expresses respect and gratitude to the animals and plants that must be hunted and gathered to sustain human life. Bottom line, I may not arbitrarily exploit or co-opt other entities solely to further my projects or satisfy my desires. Instead, I must meet every person, process, or thing on its own terms, using it according to its best purposes, respectfully, though not always deferentially. Upon encountering a new entity, I must not ask what it can do for me; I must first ask what I can do for it (JFK). And it is by treating others with nurturing respect that I release the well-hidden spark within myself. In fact, care of others is care of self because your neighbor is yourself. ( Great Commandment ) By the grace of God, you save yourself by saving others: ‘Forgive us…as we forgive!’ ( Lord’s Prayer ) And who is my neighbor? Well, you are, of course, dear reader, but also the stranger, the sojourner, the refugee, and the outcast. And the coral reef, the bumble bee, the quaking aspen and the wood wide web; Gaia , kosmos , ‘Brother Sun, Sister Moon’. (St. Francis) The Torah may be read as the user’s manual for Planet Earth - 613 ‘DIY hacks’ for dealing ethically, and effectively, with the world of persons, places, and things. I only come to be in the context of you, the other: you individually (reader), you collectively (society), you transcendently (God). The network precedes the nodes. Therefore logos cannot be an emergent property of physis (sorry Muster Mark…Karl). Logos must be substructural. “It from bit.” (Wheeler) You’ve heard of the Higgs Boson, the newly discovered particle that gives matter its mass? Well, it is logos that gives entities purpose, meaning, and value . But if anything has purpose, meaning or value, then everything , every entity, is potentially a signifier and therefore everything we do, however local, however trivial, has cosmic implications. Every thing is in every thing (Anaxagoras Hot Link ) and we are called “to see a world in a grain of sand.” (Blake) If every entity is potentially purposeful, meaningful, or valuable, does the Cosmos as a whole, Being itself, also have significance. Is what’s good for the goslings good for the goose? According to academic logicians (e.g. Bertrand Russell Hot Link ) the answer is ‘no’: no set can be a member of itself, and the set of all entities, the Universal Set (U), is not itself an entity. But this is obviously just a convention. For example, the set of all mathematical objects is itself a mathematical object. Of course, we’re free to define this relationship any way we want but to say that no set can be self-referential seems a bit silly and makes the whole enterprise suspect. On the other hand, not every set is a member of itself. The set of all horses, for example, is not a horse. So which is it? Is the set of all entities (U) an entity in its own right, and therefore its own member, or is it merely an inert, purely conceptual, collection? This is perhaps Cosmology’s most important question. It is a fundamental tenet of this site that concepts, if valid, should apply across all scales. There is not one rule for a quantum and another for a queen; the fundamental structure of the Universe must be scale-agnostic. The so-called Universal Set (U) goes by many names: Cosmos, Universe, World, Being, God. What’s your Ultimate Reality? Regardless of labels, the question is the same: Is Reality, at the level of ultimate generality (U), a real thing or just an idea? To answer this question, we need Gregory Bateson! So many phenomena can be defined by applying his catch-all criterion - a difference that makes a difference. The nexus of all entities is certainly different from any subset of those entities and from the mere multiplicity of the elements themselves. So, different? Check! But is it a difference that makes a difference ? For that, we need to take a step back. What would it mean for the Universal Set (U) to make a difference? It can’t make a difference to something outside itself since by definition there is nothing outside it. So if it makes a difference, it must make a difference to itself and that means it must make a difference to at least one of its members (elements). But if it makes a difference to one member it makes a difference to all members (Principle of Solidarity). Of the world’s major religions, Christianity is perhaps the most explicit in its doctrines surrounding the reality and efficacy of the Universal Set: “In the beginning was the logos and the logos was with God and the logos was God and…the logos become flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1: 1 – 3, 14) Translation : the Universal Set is an actual entity and so it is a member of itself. U є U; Incarnation! So we find ourselves in the position of the residents of Jerusalem c. 500 BCE, hearing the Book of Deuteronomy read out for the first time: “I set before you life and death; therefore, choose life.” (30: 19) I set before you everything ( panta ) and nothing ( nihil ); therefore, choose everything. Either the universe is an unimaginably huge pile of steaming excrement ( nihil )… or it is thoroughly saturated with Purpose, Meaning, and Value ( panta ). And if panta , then U itself is an actual entity that makes a difference in the careers of every other member, every other actual entity. In my view at least, there can be no middle ground. “Mademoiselle, may I take your order? Will you have Panta or Nihil today?” Image is from Jackson Pollock and its called: One: Number 31 Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back What We Want for Our Kids David Cowles Jan 7, 2025 “Who are we to impose our life choices…or, more likely, our life accidents…on anyone else, much less on those we purport to love?” Every parent dreams of having a mini-me. Ok, maybe not every parent…but most. Maybe not a carbon copy…but close. It’s weird because these same parents often aren’t that happy with themselves or with their own lives. Why would they wish the same on someone else? “Misery loves company,” doesn’t seem appropriate when talking about one’s kids! According to American mythology, prior to some unspecified date near the end of the 20th century, every parent wanted their children to be more than they were. If they worked in a mine, they wanted their kids to work in offices. If they rented, they wanted their kids to be homeowners. If they didn’t make the high school football team, they wanted their sons to play in the NFL. So we don’t want our kids to be like us after all? We want them to be more than we were. But we want them to be a better version of ourselves – not the best version of a self they choose for themselves. My grandfather had a great expression: “I’m not the man I used to be…and never was.” That’s what kids are for! They are there to be the person we wanted to be but never were. We want them to be what we were…just better at it! If we measure our lives by what we didn’t earn, we want our kids to be prosperous. If we measure our lives by what we didn’t own, we want our kids to be landed gentry. If we measure our lives by our failures, we want our kids to be superstars. We raise children as if they existed to continue…and complete…our dreams. Whether you want your daughter to be a lawyer because you were, or a Supreme Court justice because you weren’t, you’re still aiming to fashion her life in the image and likeness of your own. How dare we? Yes, I said ‘we’ because I’ve been guilty of this too! Not many heterosexual coal miners want their sons to be drag queens and not many ‘daily communicants’ want their daughters to be exotic dancers. But why not? Who are we to impose our life choices…or, more likely, our life accidents…on anyone else, much less on those we purport to love, especially when they are young, defenseless, and impressionable. With great hindsight, my spouse and I would probably say something like, “We want our kids to be good people, to be kind, etc.” It would be hard not to hope for that. And yet, who are we to impose even those values on them? Shouldn’t we let them find their own way, adopt their own values? Of course we should project our values into the world, always by deed and, when appropriate, by word. That’s what it means to have values. And it’s ok, like Kant, to imagine that some folks, including our children, may witness our lives and voluntarily adopt some of our values for themselves. But if they don’t, do we have any right to be ‘disappointed’? As we shuffle out of the spotlight and into the wings, we may decide that the things we thought very important in midlife are not so important after all. No matter how aggressively we distanced ourselves from our neighbors in our ‘prime’, we may come to realize that we all share a common fate. We face the prospect of aging, and ultimately of death, just as everyone else. We may come to define our lives, less in terms of our public triumphs, and more in terms of private moments spent alone or with another. At the end of the day, it all comes down to one question, “ What’s it all about, Alfie ?” Lest you think I am pretending to have made a discovery, I direct you back to the Book of Job . Here was a man familiar with the vicissitudes of life! Unless you have been on the cover of Forbes , you have not tasted his heights; and I pray to God that none of my readers ever tastes his depths. Yet Job begins his opening soliloquy with a surprising conclusion: No greater calamity can befall someone than to die ‘without knowledge’. Spoiler alert : 40 chapters later, Job attains knowledge, but whether that’s the knowledge he’s been seeking and whether it satisfies him remain open questions. Either way, according to the book’s first commentary, included in the final text as Epilogue , Job resumes the lifestyle of the rich and famous…and once again graces the cover of Forbes ; but I digress. The problem is not what you want for your children; the problem is wanting anything at all. You say, “I want them to be themselves.” They will be! They will be what they will be. But that’s not what you meant, is it? You were talking about some intrinsic ‘self’ that supposedly lies buried in them that they are struggling to discover and express. News flash : There is no such self! And thank God for that! You are free to make yourself whoever you choose to be…and so are your children. Of course, you can’t make yourself be an NBA player, but you can make the most of being 5’ 5” and a total klutz. For better or worse, you will be yourself because you will make yourself the person you become. Who else could you be? Who else could your children be? Celebrate it! 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 Joseph’s Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat David Cowles Nov 6, 2025 “Jacob’s gift of a robe is symbolic of Joseph’s special status in the ancient line of mystical succession.” The Book of Genesis is many, many things. It begins with a Hymn of Creation (1:1 – 2:4) and continues with a Prologue (2:5 - 11:32) reprising various Middle Eastern myths (e.g. the Flood), reinterpreted a millennia later in the light of now fully developed Jewish theology. From there Genesis moves onto the proto history of the Hebrew nation (12:1 – 36:41). These are the stories of the Patriarchs (Abraham, Issac, and Jacob) and they represent a transition from myth to legend. (Think King Arthur.) The final 14 chapters contain the story of Joseph, son of Jacob ( aka Israel). They form a bridge connecting the legendary Patriarchs with the historical Exodus and they introduce another dimension to our narrative: the mystical . Mysticism here refers to a fabric of super-ancient spiritual practices, woven across cultures, irrespective of boundaries, topological or political. It would appear that this wisdom precedes the development of religions per se . Let’s listen in: “Now Israel (Jacob) loved Joseph more than any other of his sons…and he made him a long sleeved robe ( aka a ‘coat of many colors’). When his brothers saw that their father loved Joseph more than any of them, they hated him… (Then) Joseph had a dream and they hated him still more.” Jacob’s gift of a robe is symbolic of more than just parental favoritism. It is a recognition of Joseph’s special status in the ‘ancient line of mystical succession’. In the 1st Book of Kings (19: 17 – 21), Elijah passes the prophetic mantle to Elisha in a very similar ceremony: “ So Elijah…found Elisha son of Shaphat. He was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen, and he himself was driving the twelfth pair. Elijah went up to him and threw his cloak around him. Elisha then left his oxen and ran after Elijah… He took his yoke of oxen and slaughtered them. He burned the plowing equipment to cook the meat and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out to follow Elijah and became his servant.” Interpretive Notes : The coat and cloak are the veil of maya , the woven garment (shroud) covering noumenal reality (Kant), i.e. Aletheia ( Parmenides ). The 12 yoke of oxen are the signs of the Zodiac, signifying the cosmic dimension of mystical initiation, corresponding to Joseph’s welcoming the 12 tribes of Israel (his brothers) to Egypt. The Electro-Magnetic (EM) spectrum (Joseph’s colors ) is an alternate way (vs. signs of the Zodiac/yoke of oxen) of representing entirety, i.e. kosmos . In the spirit of the New Testament Letter of James , both Joseph and Elisha give expression to their faith by ‘feeding the people’ (see below). Jesus picks up on this critical theme by feeding first 5,000 and then 4,000 hungry followers . We are indebted to Kings . It’s only that light that we can confidently interpret Jacob’s ‘anointing’ of Joseph as a sacrament in the Mystical tradition. It is unclear (intentionally so?) whether the bestowal of the robe is an acknowledgement on Jacob’s part that Joseph has a special connection with the divine or whether the gift itself confers new powers on the son. I am reminded of Mary Poppins : “ What I want to know…is this: Are the stars gold paper, or are the gold paper stars?” (Jane Banks) In each case, of course, the answer is both ! The world is maximally recursive. What goes around comes around. IRL, all verbs need to be Middle Voice (vs. Active/Passive). The Jacob stories are nothing if not down to earth. Neither Jacob nor Joseph model what we would call virtue . Joseph is a right Eddie Haskell ( Leave it to Beaver ), a goodie-two-shoes intent on currying his father’s favor by ‘tattling’ on his older brothers. Joseph is only too eager to lord his advantage over his senior siblings. Shamefully, he exploits his spiritual gifts to tease and demean them; his behavior is so egregious that even the doting Jacob is offended: “Must we come and bow low to the ground before you, I and your mother and your brothers?” “His brothers were jealous of him, but his father did not forget.” Like all marks of social distinction, Joseph’s coat inspires jealousy, and even hatred, in those less favored (e.g. his brothers). Any modern day parent could have written this script. Out of 13 siblings, one is ‘the favorite’… and treated as such. What could possibly go wrong? Pity Jacob that he did not have Dr. Spock to advise him! The Hebrew phrase translated as ‘many colors’ in the Septuagint is obscure. That said, much is baked into the traditional panchromatic symbolism. First, of course, there is allusion to the rainbow, bridge to Me Pot o’ Gold , nature’s symbol of harmony and peace, token of YHWH’s covenant with creation. On an even deeper level, the rainbow represents the essence of all Process, i.e. Being per se , described by Alfred North Whitehead as the creative flux of one into many and many into one. The noumenal EM spectrum becomes the phenomenon of white light which in turn refracts to give us that rainbow. As Genesis comes to a close, the Hebrews (descendants of Jacob), the Edomites (descendants of Esau), and the Ishmaelites (descendants of Ishmail) have all carved our successful niches in the Middle East. Our origin story is poised for a happy ending…but of course, human frailty ( aka sin) soon intervenes. Following his angry confrontation with Joseph, Jacob sends his chosen one to accompany his brothers ‘in the field’. Was this intended as punishment? Or was it Jacob’s attempt to toughen up his pampered offspring? Or was it done in the vain hope that sibling rivalry might be resolved? In any event, it was yet another miscalculation by the hapless Jacob; he certainly did not anticipate, much less intend, what happened next: “Seeing him approach from a distance, the brothers immediately conspire to do away with this Lord of Dreams .” Fortunately, Reuben commutes Joseph’s death sentence and instead they arrange for him to be sold into slavery. Soon Joseph is in Egypt where holds a series of administrative posts and earns his Pharoah’s respect and trust: “…The Lord is with Joseph and gives him success in all things.” While managing various offices of state, Joseph continues to interpret dreams. Pharoah dreams of seven fat cows followed by seven lean cows who proceed to devour their more corpulent predecessors. Based on that narrative, Joseph predicts seven years of ‘feast’ followed by seven years of ‘famine’ in Egypt. Pharoah acts on Joseph’s intelligence: he stores surplus during the fat years to cover the needs of the realm during the lean years to follow. As a result of God’s favor and Pharoah’s wisdom, Egypt alone prospers during an historic, region-wide famine, recorded simultaneously throughout the Middle East. The Book of Genesis is many things. It is history, legend, mythology, anthropology and ethics. But going back to the Hymn of Creation , Genesis also has a cosmological dimension. Pharoah’s dream allows the narrator to introduce a theory of time crucial to the later development of Judeo-Christian cosmology. Ask most people how they would describe time and you’re likely to hear a lot about beads on a string, buds on a branch, birds on a wire, Xmas lights on a strand. Why not? It’s a natural way to think of the succession of events that constitute our lives. But it is not the Judeo-Christian way. Genesis uses the story of Jacob’s sojourn into Egypt to propose a radically different way to imagine ‘sequence’. The Future does not follow the Past, it consumes it! A perpetual Present projects what has been into what is coming to be. It’s the Blob of cinematic fame (1958), consuming everything it touches. It confers eternal life, or at least potential immortality, on what is no more substantial than a “mist” (James 4:14), i.e. our mortal lives. We see this model displayed again and again throughout Judeo-Christian scripture and practice: YHWH is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; he is the God of the living , not to the dead. The Patriarchs (above) are consoled knowing that their descendants will be numerous as grains of sand on a beach or as stars in the sky. King David is promised that the Messiah will be from his house . At the Transfiguration, Jesus reveals Moses and Elijah, ‘alive’ in him. Roman Catholics, et al., consume Jesus in Eucharist and are simultaneously ‘uploaded’ into his Mystical Body. The fat cows don’t become lean, nor do the lean cows simply succeed their plumper forebears. Nope! In a stroke that would have made another Josef (i.e. Stalin) blush, the lean cows devour the fatties. Pity the bourgeoisie! Incredibly, you have just entered the Twilight Zone , i.e. the bizzarro world of 20 th century mathematics. Welcome to the non-Archimedean (non-A) universe. Here, all events are either embedded in one another or disjoint . Events B and C are inert quanta until they are uploaded (embedded) into Event A. In A, B and C ‘interfere’ and that interference, X, in turn interacts with and modifies both B and C. Reality is on a perpetual, non-linear loop. B and C do not interact, but they do interfere…in A. Each contributes to A (in the form of X, their interference pattern) and through the intermediation of X, A modifies B and C. In this model, A corresponds to the future, B and C to the past, and X to the present. X is what we call History (or Process). So no, Dorothy, we’re definitely not in Kansas anymore! To find out more about this world where we actually live, check out: What’s the Matter with Archimedes? Archimedes and Christianity But in the meantime, bear one thing in mind: This is the real world. This is how things actually work. Deal with it! *** Diego Velázquez — Joseph’s Tunic (1630) depicts the dramatic moment when Joseph’s brothers present his blood-stained coat to their father, Jacob, leading him to believe Joseph has been killed. Velázquez uses strong chiaroscuro lighting to heighten the emotional intensity, illuminating Jacob’s grief and the brothers’ tense deception. The painting exemplifies Velázquez’s early mastery of psychological realism, conveying profound human emotion through gesture, light, and shadow. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? 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< Back Is It Time for Really New ‘New Math’? David Cowles Jun 3, 2025 “1 + 1 can be more than 2 or less than 2 but it can never equal 2…Jam yesterday (< 2) and jam tomorrow (> 2) but never jam today (= 2).” Remember the ‘old math’ - ‘rithmetic, taught with a (hopefully metaphorical) hickory stick? Meet the ‘new math’ (scourge of Gen Xers) – same as the old math! ( The Who ) Boomers can at least make change, albeit with ‘fear and trembling’, while Xers just shrug and say whatever ! In this article, I hope to demonstrate that the purported differences between new and old math are superficial at best, imaginary at worst, and that neither has any applicability in the Real World. Today’s math, new and old, is based on premises that I contest. Let’s start with something simple: 1 + 1 = 2… not! 1 + 1 can be more than 2 or less than 2 but it can never equal 2. In fact, 2 is the only value for 1 + 1 that we can exclude ab initio . As in Carroll’s Looking-glass World, there’s jam yesterday (< 2) and jam tomorrow (> 2) but never jam today (= 2). Of course, according to the system known as old/new math, 1 + 1 = 2 just because we say so in our best imitation of a 1950’s parent. And we’re perfectly entitled to do just that! And we have built a magnificent intellectual edifice based on it! And that’s A-Okay, as long as we don’t imagine we’ve created anything relevant to anything real. Math (old or new) is Minecraft! So what’s wrong with 1 + 1 = 2? How could any sane person even question it? (Please don’t answer that, at least not until you’ve read what’s coming.) First, ‘one’ is not a number; it’s a way of referring to an atomic entity, i.e. a quantum of the Real World. It’s roughly equivalent to ‘that’ or ‘this’. There’s nothing in the Real World that corresponds to the number one in math. How could there be? There’s no such thing as a being in isolation, not even (trinitarian) God . Think about quarks in a sub-atomic particle. They cannot exist in isolation. “Three quarks for muster mark.” (James Joyce) And even if an isolated unit of being were possible in some real world, which it is not, ‘1’ would still not properly belong in any number system with aspirations to apply to real events. Case in point : an Amazonian tribe, the Piranha , have no math…and they do not have the concept of one . Instead they use demonstrative pronouns and adjectives (like this or that ) to designate real entities. The concept of ‘number’ only applies once two or more atomic entities are considered as a group . We can measure such ‘groups’ by their size, i.e. by the number of elements in each group. So it’s possible to imagine, again ab initio , that a group might have a value of ‘2’ if it groups two atomic entities together. R. Buckminster Fuller was fond of saying, “Universe is plural and at minimum two;” but as we shall see, even ‘2’ is not a stable state. To make our so-called ‘number system’ work, we postulate that a group can have a ‘value’ (size) of 1, or 2, or 0, or even ø, but there are no such groupings of elements in the Real World. Math, old and new, is based on the premise that atomic entities, even if they are totally unrelated, can nonetheless be grouped together without impacting in any way the contribution of each element to the ‘size’ or ‘measure’ of that group. Of course, this is impossible in any real world. Any real process of ‘grouping’ must impact the value of the group’s elements. If it doesn’t, there’s no process and there’s no group. Why? The real world Law of Recursion : Every ‘process’ (by definition) must alter the values of its elements. The definition of a ‘process’ is an act that modifies the values of its constituents. Of course, here is where professional mathematicians will part company with us, and that’s ok, so long as they don’t expect us to believe that their ‘ice cream castles in the air’ have anything to do with the Real World. If ‘grouping’ is real, then it must be a ‘process’ applicable to real elements and it must then alter the values of those elements. Therefore, 1 + 1 could never equal 2. Here we are borrowing a concept from Gregory Bateson and extending it: A ‘difference’ is a difference only if it makes a difference! The process of grouping two elements must impact those elements in some way; otherwise ‘the process is inert’, meaning that the ‘alleged process’ is not an ‘actual process ’ at all. I can fantasize about a grouping of 2 or more entities where the process of grouping has no impact on the elements grouped…but that’s exactly what it is, a fantasy. Once grouped, the elements co-modify one another. So the process of recursion is self perpetuating and interminable. Fortunately, however, the process tends toward a limit. But what limit? When two atomic elements are grouped, they interact until they result in a stable, concrete value, a ‘steady state’. That interaction can take either of two forms: Fission or Fusion. (No, this is not a category in Jeopardy .) In the case of fission , the grouping of two atomic units automatically generates a third: 1, 1, and (1, 1). (In Trinitarian theology, the Holy Spirit ‘proceeds from the Father and the Son’; likewise, (1, 1) proceeds from 1 and 1.) So the minimum quantitative value of a group assembled via the procession of fission is 3. ‘3’ is a fundamental unit of quantity – ‘1’ and ‘2’ are not. But what of groups created by the process of fusion ? If Trinity is a model for ‘grouping by fission’, Quantum Entanglement (John Bell) is the model for‘grouping by fusion’. When the solution of 1 + 1 < 2, 1 and 1 are grouped by fusion. According to Bell’s Theorem of Non-Locality, two independent entities, ‘entangled’ by fusion, have the quantitative value we know as √2. The process of fusion eliminates ‘redundancies’ inherent in the concept of two . The resulting ‘simplest possible quantity’ is neither 1 nor 2 but √2. We can think of such a ‘complex unit’ as akin to ‘heavy hydrogen’, deuterium. While ‘normal’ hydrogen consists of 1 lepton (electron) and 1 hadron (proton) and ‘normal’ helium consists of 2 leptons (electrons) and 2 hadrons (protons), heavy hydrogen consists of 1 lepton and 2 hadrons (proton + neutron). To summarize, ‘one’ does not exist in any real world and ‘two’ is inherently unstable. Any two entities must either collapse into a single, complex entity with a quantitative value of √2 or they must generate a third, resulting in a single entity with a quantitative value of 3. In biology, the 30 Trillion cells that make up your body are all descended from a single cell that merged with another cell and formed a symbiotic relationship (cell + nucleus). The resulting organism is clearly ‘more’ than a single prokaryotic cell but ‘less’ than two completely independent cells. Similarly, in math one entity and another entity merge creating a single entity with a ‘heightened value’. As noted above, in the Real World, all process, including the process of grouping, is recursive. Therefore, there are no linear equations. Mathematics begins with equations that have at least two solutions, e.g. √2x or 3x. Note that we seem to be relying still on ordinary ‘natural’ numbers like 1, 2, and 3 to tell our story. But these, obviously, as just placeholders. To avoid massive confusion, we’ll need two new symbols to represent our two quantitative minima. I suggest Δ for the fundamental unit of fission and ꓦ for the fundamental unit of fusion. We also need symbols to represent the two basic arithmetic processes, fission and fusion, replacing addition and multiplication. Instead of + and * from linear arithmetic, I propose ↗ for fission and ↘ for fusion. And for the inverse operations, currently represented by – and /, I propose ↙ and ↖. Armed with these basic symbols we can now build a new algebra. Note that the familiar identities of linear arithmetic 1 + 0 = 1 and 1 1 = 1 disappear since + and are processes and no process in the Real World leaves its elements unaltered; the result of a process can never be the same as any of its elements (except perhaps in a rare case of accidental coincidence). Counting works quite differently in the new new math. There are two different counting systems depending on whether we’re in fusion or fission mode. In fusion mode, instead of n = 1, 2, 3, 4… we count like this: n = 2^((n-1)/n) < 2. I’m looking forward to playing a game of hide and seek with my great grandchildren (my grandchildren have aged out) and asking the cherubs to count using new new math in fusion mode. Where a muggle-child might begin “1, 2, 3, 4…”, my great grandchildren would say “2^(0), 2^(1/2), 2^(2/3), 2^(3/4)…” In muggle-speak that corresponds (approximately) to “1.0, 1.4, 1.7, 1.8…” Bonus : I’ll never have to worry about being found because in the entire history of the cosmos, they’ll never even get to 2. I think a little frustration can be character building, don’t you? Plus, I can head into the house and make up a pitcher of margaritas, no salt…for me, of course, not for them. (They’re still counting, remember?) But take heart, children. Counting in the fission mode is a bit easier…at first; but it gets progressively harder as we climb the number ladder (rather than slither along the Real Number line). Instead of n = 1, 2, 3, 4, we count “Δ^1, Δ^2, Δ^3, Δ^4…” Again, in muggle speak, we’re talking 0, 0, 3 … 9 … 27 … Wait, there’s already a name for these numbers; they’re called p-adic . Obviously, I am limited by space and by ability to this simple outline of new, new math principles. You, dear reader, are better qualified to expand this sketch into a full algebra and to explore the nooks and crannies of this system and I, for one, look forward to the results. 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 Official Launch of Aletheia Today Magazine David Cowles May 31, 2022 Your exclusive look at the all-new magazine for believers in science and God! Tomorrow, June 1, is a landmark day for Aletheia Today (AT). Tomorrow, we publish Issue #1 of AT Magazine (ATM, Summer 2022). Our first issue includes a total of ten feature length articles spread over four departments: The Great Convergence: Science in the 21st century Philosophy Theology Culture Features contributed by AT staff writers and independent contributors include: Science & the Yellow Submarine Eternity vs. Immortality Jesus meets Mr. Spock In the Tween & Teen section of ATM Issue #1 we have two articles: Vacuum Monster (from Yellow Submarine) Quark Soup Our Education, Evangelization, & Prayer section includes prayers, poems, and short stories written by contributing writers to AT Magazine. We want to engage with you, our readers, in every way possible. We encourage you to send us an email ( editor@aletheiatoday.com ) to leave comments on any of our articles, or to contribute something of your own for publication in a future issue. In order to promote engagement, Issue #1 includes two Reader Challenges . We encourage you to participate in those, as well and share them and any other article and essay that you find interesting with others. Finally, as a loyal reader of “Thoughts While Shaving,” we would like to offer you a chance to begin reading ATM Issue #1 right now , one day ahead of its official publication date! Click here for a peek at our first issue. Let us know what you think. - David Cowles, Editor-in-Chief, Aletheia Today 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.