I've been writing about this stuff for a loooooooooooooong time. I pulled everything I could find out of my blog, and surprisingly it was somewhat cohesive. There are basically two points, 1) everything is one, and 2) consciousness is equated with this one.
First of all I'm into the ambiguity of categories, and how they are invented things, and not absolute or a priori. From the blurring of categories, I move to the parallel point of closer scrutiny always yeilding more discreets in a macrocosmic, ad infinutum process, thus implying no absolute micro-categories. This brings me to the nature of reality (it's all one substance, or all one thing), and I get excited about "the one true nature of reality."
I illustrate categorical ambiguity with the cultrural and thought-model dualistic split between 1) the discreet way of approaching things (the categories are discreet), such as science, logic, et, and 2) the non-discreet (one big blob) methodology (spirituality, deconstructionism, etc). Once I resolve (at least I think I do) this dualism by stating that both are concerned with accuracy, this is sort of the final obstacle to the "one true nature of reality."
Then, I talk about how the one true nature of reality = God, in a sort of pantheism (or atheism, depending on how you look at it). I get sidetracked a little bit slamming monotheism in favor of pan/atheism. Finally, I end with a sort of bizarre theory about quantum mechanics, consciousness, one-ness and God. It really does need to be cleaned up a bit -- it's interspersed with illustrative parables, and I repeat myself a few times, but they're paraphrases of what might be a complicated concept.
Finally, I equate the random nature of quantum particle-behavior with consciousness, and state that the consciousness experienced by the individual is really the consciousness of all reality, since reality is all one substance in the first place. Then I suggest that this ultimate consciousness might be "this God person that everyone's talking about."
The writing's not bad, maybe, and it all sort of fits together. Have fun. It's really long.
Here are two objects, two entities, or two concepts -- two things -- very nearly "touching" each other. Let's see what happens when we zoom in on the boundary area.
As is seen in the drawings above, if you keep zooming in on the border states between things, the fuzziness will always be visible. Yes, there are quanta all the way on down (to infinity), but when you examine the boundary between quanta and quanta, you find more quanta. So you see, everything is one, but it isn't that way when you look at it. But the pattern of one continues -- things keep approaching one, the closer you look at the boundary areas. And it never gets there. The universe approaches One, like a calculus limit. Notice that things get more and more spread out, until they are approaching infinitely spread apart. Approaching infinitely small (but never getting to infinitely small), and approaching infinitely far apart (but never getting to infinitely far apart). Both can be expressed as limits that approach "0." In a way, 0 and 1 are the same -- 0 is the ultimate 1.
The Brake Tune-up
I gave a bike a brake tune-up yesterday. I thought it might be a good idea to make sure the wheel was free of irregularities, which may have been responsible for some of the calipers' rubbing against the rim, by tightening and loosening spokes where appropriate. Before I started on this sub-project, it was mentioned that when a repair ticket reads only “brake tune-up”, all a mechanic is to do is adjust the brakes themselves. “Wheel true-ing” is a separate repair ticket-item, and performing it when it's not specified costs the shop money in the form of labor-time. To complicate the issue, it was also mentioned that if a wheel's being “out-of-true” significantly affects the brake calipers' ability to clamp down on a rim evenly, then sure -- a wheel true-ing might be considered part of a brake tune-up.
It's possible that as part of a brake tune-up, wheel true-ing should always be included. But then, the problem becomes: where do you draw the line? When does a mechanic stop repairing interconnected subsystems on a bike? Without some demarcation, a brake tune-up could very easily slip into a complete overhaul, replacing any and all damaged parts and costing the shop quite a bit of money.
The issue here is the interconnectedness of subsystems, and the way capitalism plays with this interconnectedness (not very nicely, as you might imagine).
When one subsystem is sick, repairing it means that other subsystems need to be adjusted as well. The behavior of one subsystem is affected by the behavior of others, and indeed it's impossible to draw a clear line between any two subsystems. For example, the brakes, when properly adjusted, need to fall on a straight wheel rim. If a rear wheel is badly bent, then the attached cogs will rotate unevenly, and chain won't shift properly.
I'm sure there are better examples, but I’m really knew at bike-repair.
In practice, one subsystem might not affect another very much, or even significantly. Theoretically, all that exists is one and we can't alter one “thing” without affecting another “thing”, since the “things” are really all of one universal substance to begin with. However in practice, it's quite possible to eat a container of humus without affecting the orbit of Saturn “significantly.” but it is affected, albeit immeasurably with the precision of our current toolbox. A similar situation exists if we consider a bicycle to be our universe; even though every subsystem is indeed interconnected, one can, for example, adjust the brakes without (measurably) affecting the seat-post.
But theoretically, and to immeasurable precision, there aren't any subsystems on a bicycle -- there's only one bike, which is either functioning well or functioning poorly. Although obviously some subsystems are more interconnected than others, it's impossible to completely reduce poor functioning to a single (or a few) subsystem(s), and it's likewise often difficult to correct a bike that's not working well by actively restricting repairs to that (those) subsystem(s).
The impossibility of repairing a bike by dividing it up into brakes, wheels, tires, rims, chains, etc, and then fixing one element while deliberately ignoring other interconnected parts is a metaphor for the interconnectedness of all being, and the problems the western mind sometimes has comprehending it.
Like a bicycle and all of its subsystems, the universe is interconnected, and it's impossible to alter one thing in it without affecting another thing. Thus, the concept of “thing”, or individual, discreet entities, becomes a bit muddled, or is even necessarily thrown out altogether.
Eastern philosophy tends to do a better job at appreciating and comprehending the one-ness of all existence than does western philosophy. In the west, we have a tendency to divide things up into categories or objects, name these objects, and treat them as isolated entities in order to control them and predict their behavior. This constitutes a sort of outdated, Newtonian view that was prevalent in western science, and has only recently begun to be undermined by ideas and discoveries in quantum mechanics. However, the western mind is still, for the most part, stuck in a Newtonian frame -- it takes philosophy, which largely consists of metaphors drawn from science, a while to catch up.
I should mention again that someone farting in Calcutta doesn't measurably affect someone's shoe-buying decisions in Kansas. It's this insignificance, and the western mind's willingness to draw a line between “significant” and “insignificant” that has made it such a powerful tool.
While the eastern philosophical mind might tend to note the continuum of significance and throw out altogether the possibility of erecting any boundaries and laying down any categories, the western philosophical mind might be too eager to do so. But, in scientific and every-day practice, we can often discard interconnectedness as “not significantly affecting results.”
No one is going to notice if, for example, the pedals on a bike aren't precisely adjusted to compensate for work done on the chain. In fact, adjusting the pedals would put them out-of-wack, because we don't have the ability to detect the chain-adjustment's effect on them, and we certainly don't have the ability to adjust the pedals to the infinitesimal degree necessary to compensate. If we tried to do so, we'd vastly, vastly overcompensate; we're better off just leaving the pedals alone.
This is why science works so well in the face of “everything is one”: in practical terms, it is possible to draw a line between this and that without perceivable effects, even though the concept of “drawing lines between this and that” is, in the purest theoretical sense, by definition impossible.
An Overview of Category/Boundary AmbiguityI like to talk about conceptual boundaries, or ways of dividing up our perceptions so that reality appears to make sense. For instance, where, exactly, does one draw the boundary between fruit and tree? Somewhere on the stem? If so, where on the stem? One can always examine a line of demarcation more closely, and question its placement. The arbitrary nature of distinction applies to any two things: day and night, good and evil, self and other, etc. One might always wonder something like “where do I draw the line between day and night? Is it during twilight? If so, when specifically during twilight?” demarcating a thing into two things always requires some arbitrary decision-making -- the boundaries that we draw are artificial.
If this boundary-drawing is analyzed, it becomes clear that demarcation and division do not exist in any external, a priori way, since they are arbitrarily placed by and within our own minds. If the boundaries don't exist, then everything is one “object.” but we westerners have cognitive analytical structures in place with which we perceive reality, and analytical structures don't deal very well with a great mass of one-ness. So, we have had to invent ways of distinguishing between this and that, even though “this” and “that” didn't really exist in the first place. This, by the way, is why a rational understanding of reality is impossible -- why you can't think your way to enlightenment. Thinking amounts to algorithmic and analytical categorization, which stands in the face of the one nature of reality.
The idea that there are no boundaries, that everything is one, amounts to a working definition of God. God can be seen as the an ultimate category, inside which everything fits; God is the sum of all reality.
And God is everywhere; it's impossible for something to not be God, to not be a part of the whole. When we distinguish between things, between this and that, between what our minds tell us are different facets of reality with their own properties, we are being reductionist, and we are moving away from God. Reductionism, as it is used in the previous sentence, apparently refers to the creation of more categories, not fewer, so the usage seems illogical. However, the one ultimate category that is God can be seen as a single category, or as infinitely many categories; a difference cannot be perceived. The reduction of these infinitely many categories into numerable categories by analytical human minds trying to rationally understand reality is the same thing as the creation of numerable categories from one category. Dualism, or the existence of two fundamental categories, is as close as some are able to come to experiencing reality. The division of being into good and evil, heaven and hell, God and Satan, etc, is ultimately a form of reductionism and is a hindrance to enlightenment. Everything is one.
The word “God” is problematic in this cultural context, of course, because it brings with it images of and associations with Judaism and Christianity. So, a better way to describe “the sum of all reality” might simply be “the sum of all reality.” I’ve heard this thing described as “being” or “enlightenment,” but that word brings association with Buddhist and new-age spiritual traditions. So, you should come up with your own word. Mine is “Kabum” -- don't steal it.
Maybe this “math and science” thing needs a little bit more clarification. Does this represent a big split in world view between “one/infinite categories” and “algorithmic finite categories”? And does this split represent in itself dualism? Which world view is correct? Are they really two different world views, or is this also an illusion?
Fuzzy Logic
“Fuzzy logic” is the introduction of degrees of truth other than “yes” or “no” into a system of logic -- in fact, an infinite number of degrees. This might imply the transfer of the one nature of reality, the infinite nature of reality, into the dualism of computers. There hasn't been a whole lot of public research in practical applications of fuzzy logic beyond washing machines and guidance systems, but it clearly represents an enormous paradigm shift in the way computers think. Once fuzzy logic is widely implemented, this might mean judgment day at the hand of the machines. It will mean things like predicting human behavior can be controlled down to the smallest detail. For instance, fuzzy logic might be used to predict exactly where a criminal will go after he robs a bank. Or something like that; I don't know. But whatever it is, I’m convinced that fuzzy logic will mean a whole new way for computers to think about reality. Computers will become a little bit more real when they're stripped of their dualism. Truly, they'll be thinking machines.
Unless you design all your own hardware and write your own software, there are going to be some things outside of user control. And even if you design your own hardware and write your own software, there will still be some things out of your control, like variables in the physical properties of the matter and energy you're working with on the circuit board, transistors and capacitors (I think, to a small degree, at least). But I guess that doesn't happen very often -- computers and the physical laws of matter and energy are amazingly predictable. Some things in nature really do behave like clockwork. For instance, the decaying of isotopes. Atomic clocks are made, based on this kind of natural clockwork phenomenon, that are more accurate than any other timepiece. I think the electro-mechanical workings of things on the subatomic level in the wires and circuits of a computer behave in a similar way: almost completely predictable. All of the miserable shit in a computer comes from the software -- badly designed software -- and the user. People telling computers what to do in bad ways.
Punk Rock vs. Prog Rock
Here's an analysis I made about punk rock vs. Prog rock, and how it fits into romantic vs. Classical dualism. I went back a few days later and re-read my own post, and I realized that this is something I love to do: lay down categories. I like to divide up reality into discreet bundles, to arrange the great mass of reality into quanta. To try and “make sense” out of things. I think this is fine, and isn't as idiotic and futile a pursuit as I determined with my “Gödel’s incompleteness theorem”-inspired condemnation of all deductive logic as inherently meaningless. My condemnation led me to another conclusion, eventually: the one nature of reality, corresponding to eastern philosophy. Different “things” don't exist -- distinctions made between two subjects are arbitrarily placed by the observer's mind. There are no discreet quanta in anything, except in your head.
Dividing things into arbitrary categories (as I’ve done here in my analysis of music) serves some purpose. It helps us get a familiarity and level of comfort with something, even if we aren't really understanding its true nature. To understand the true nature of something, one must...well, if I could answer that I’d be the new messiah. But it's certainly not through analysis: naming that thing, putting that thing into categories, or describing that thing with additional names and categories.
Dualism confounds the one true nature of reality, just like any other set of categories. Even if it's not right or meaningful, it's fun to analyze the world, just because it generates the illusion of control and exercises our brains.
One could lump Tortoise in with bands like Particle, Lake Trout, or even Phish. I’ve heard this genre referred to as “orgo” (from organic). Hehe.
Lots of jazz/funk influence, extended jams, electronica influence (not so much with Phish), and really tight musicianship.
In a way, these bands have a “progressive” element to them (you mentioned Radiohead). They share a lot of the technical competence and willingness to experiment with early prog bands like yes, king crimson, and rush (and even some of the contemporary prog metal outfits like symphony x and dream theater).
Prog is kind of “anti-punk,” in a sense. Instead of saying “I play for the song, man...I’m not about the guitar solo” and then grimacing while making a lot of noise and smashing instruments, prog rockers celebrate the infinite intellectual potential of harmonic and rhythmic expression (for instance, playing a 24 tone solo against a 21/8 time signature, etc).
There's always been a dichotomy between the purely expressive and the purely intellectual -- the “romantic” and “classical” (to use Robert Pirsig's terms) -- and this comes out in the old ideological and aesthetic clash between punk rock (romantic) and prog rock (classical).
I think the kind of person who would tend to gravitate towards computers and science would be more inclined to fall into the “classical” category.
I think this is where sociology and philosophy intersect: where one starts laying down boundaries normally restricted to things like math and science over social structures, in an attempt to understand them. Theoretical sociology, I guess, like theoretical physics. Maybe that's what philosophy is: theoretical sociology.
Strawberries and Whales
I was just thinking a little bit about deconstructionism, and trying to come up with silly examples. Usually, the lack of the mental boundaries we use to divide up our reality is illustrated with statements like “there's a fine line between insanity and genius” or even “there's a fine line between men and women (consider the intersexed and the transgendered).”
Consider the statement “there's a fine line between strawberries and whales.”
This implies that there is an object, somewhere, that isn't identifiable as either a strawberry or a whale. I'm looking at my mom's acoustic guitar next to me, and wondering “is this object a strawberry or a whale?” what first comes to mind is “neither! It's a guitar.” but this reaction is revealing -- one can similarly imagine the invalidity of any conceptual category. Consider an object that seems to fall clearly into a particular category, such as a strawberry into the category of “fruit.” now, ask “is this object a fruit or a vegetable?” the answer might be “neither! It's a sweet-tasting configuration of atoms (STCA).” or, simply “neither! It's a strawberry.” everything is what it is, essentially; every object has unique properties with which we can relegate it to its own unique category, a set of one.
Even two things as apparently similar as two strawberries don't have to be classified the same way. Perhaps one is larger, redder, sweeter, genetically engineered, or a space-alien pretending to be a strawberry so it can observe our earth's biosphere. In this case, consider the question, “are these two objects strawberries?” the postmodern answer is something like, “no! One is a piece of fruit that is 4cm long, and the other is a piece of fruit that is 3cm long.” deciding whether or not a object belongs in a particular category has infinitely more to do with arbitrary lines of mental demarcation than it does an understanding of the properties on that object. Why not call my mom's guitar a strawberry or a whale? It's made of wood, metal, and ivory, and is about a meter high, but that doesn't cause it not to be a whale or a strawberry, because what a whale or strawberry “is” is open to inquiry.
If the two objects in question were more similar, and our example consisted of the statement “there's a fine line between green tomatoes and red tomatoes,” a tomato with green and red patches on it, and the question “is this object a green tomato or a red tomato”?, then we could still say “neither!,” and follow that up with “it's a tomato with green and red patches.”
Keep your mind on the tomatoes. If the option of creating a new category for “tomatoes with red and green patches” was denied to me, and my only options were either RED or GREEN, then I’d have to make a decision based on closer scrutiny of the properties of the tomato in question. Are there more green or more red patches? If it's equally red and green, then I might check the hardness. Maybe they're equally hard. If things keep going in this direction, I’ll eventually have to abandon induction, measurement and logic, and ask myself “does it seem like more a green or red tomato?” -- I must query my intuition. Eventually, our ability to discern properties is going to break down, and another authority has to be consulted in order to categorize objects, which the western, Anglo-Saxon mind does obsessively.
In the case of the conceptual, archetypal, ideal strawberries and whales and the physically real guitar, if I were forced to classify the guitar as either “strawberry” or “whale,” I would have to examine its properties and determine whether they were more whale-like or more strawberry-like, based on my own notions of what a strawberry and a whale are like. Is the “guitar” a strawberry or a whale? Or, if you prefer, is the guitar a “strawberry” or a “whale”? Either the guitar (the object) or strawberry and whale (the form) might be more real, and less deserving of scare quotes.
I'd say the guitar is a whale, but I’m not sure why -- possibly the shape (a big fat body and a neck that looks something like a tail). There's something to think about as you're drifting off to sleep: is a guitar more like a strawberry or more like a whale?
What is deconstructionism?
"I have no simple and formalizable response to this question. All my essays are attempts to have it out with this formidable question." -- Jacques Derrida
That said, I usually take deconstruction to mean something like realizing that the imaginary borders we erect between things are purely imaginary, and have nothing to do with reality. I wrote an essay in what I think is commendably simple English on deconstruction, if you're interested (also bear in mind that since Derrida invented/discovered it and seems unable to define it, what it “is” is certainly open to interpretation).
The Eight Seasons
Everyone is always upset when it's mid-September and the weather hasn't turned cool yet. It's as if there's some realm-of-ideas, platonic notion of “fall” that we associate with September, October and November. So, when it turns mid-September and it's still hot and muggy, we get upset. On might think a solution to this would be the introduction of more seasons: something to put between summer and fall (“fummer,” or “sall”), so that we could better conceptually deal with hot, sticky Septembers. This might work for a while, but then people would start to examine the boundary between “fummer” and fall, and say to themselves “it's a bit cool for fummer, or a bit hot for fall...this doesn't seem right.” and then, one might propose additional categories. It's easy to see that this process would never end, and that one would be making seasonal categories ad infinitum. But there is another option: to abandon the original four seasons entirely (that is, abandon our ideas of “spring,” “winter,” “fall” and “summer”), and just say “today, it’s hot” or “today, it’s cool.”
Trying to create more categories to explain reality is confounding. The best thing we can do is abandon all categories, and realize that everything is one.
Furthermore, since time doesn't exist (since the universe is deterministic, and the “future” has already “happened”), the concept of “this moment” as opposed to other moments in the “past” or the “future” needs to be rejected. Reality just is.
Accuracy, deconstructionism and Science
Both deconstructionism and science are, in there own ways, concerned with accuracy. does it by rejecting categorical analysis its entirety, looking at things really, really closely comparing them. But both are opposed to making unexamined statements like “all foreigners stupid.” black-or-white, presumptuous, assumptive these unpostmodern (because the deconstructionist is unwilling make a black-or-white statement about anything -- he's convinced of “incredulity metanarratives” unscientific because terms haven't been carefully defined.
By the way, Lyotard's well-known “definition” of deconstructionism is a good one, but it presumes that everything is a metanarrative, if you take the postmodern approach away from its roots in literature and apply it to everything. I'm still not clear on the degree to which deconstructionists assert that reality really does amount to text. It probably varies from po-mo to po-mo. The essential part of Lyotard’s statement is “incredulity,” or the state of being uncertain or tending to engender skepticism. In other words, you can't “believe” everything you “read.” no statement, and no thing, is safe from deconstruction. The way our minds work, logically assigning and compartmentalizing with names and categories, is a poor metaphor for reality.
Deconstruction is the dismantling of categories, of "things." This is just what science does when it takes a closer look.
Science is similarly unwilling and unable to make definitive statements. Any given category or measurement can be multiplied or made more precise, and there is a ready acknowledgement that the method of dividing reality into “this and that” does not in fact constitute “this and that” in and of itself.
Furthermore, neither science nor deconstructionism (as opposed to many scientists or deconstructionists) asserts that it provides a complete portrait of reality.
The Apple is Red
Let's take an assertion: “that apple is red” (really, “apple red”, similarly to the way this assertion would be expressed in many other languages):
We'll do a dialog between pomo and geek, who represent deconstructionism and science, respectively. Let's listen to them discuss this statement:
Pomo: what do you really mean by “red”?
Geek: we should examine “red” more closely and see where we've erected the numerical parameters for the wavelength of “red.” the problem is, color is a continuous spectrum with a continuous rate of change.
Pomo: even if you picked a place for “red” to be, it would be completely arbitrary.
Geek: well, essentially yes.
Pomo: what about “apple”? What's an “apple”?
Geek: an apple is a thing with sufficiently similar properties to other things that we also call apples.
Pomo: what do you mean by “sufficiently”?
Geek: well, I suppose it's a culturally agreed-upon quality, that culture being whatever forum the apple is being discussed or analyzed in.
Pomo: you can't really say “that apple is red.”
Geek: you can say “that apple is red,” but it's not a very precise statement.
Pomo and geek are essentially in agreement: analyses of reality (or metanarratives, if you like) are incredulous at best. Pomo deals with this by abandoning his categories altogether, and geek deals with it by making more and more categories, ad infinitum. But both agree that we have an inherently incomplete picture.
Science (and objectivism) draws sharp delineations between entities, chopping up all that is into categories that can then be named, and relationships between them extrapolated, analyzed, and themselves named. Science is all about discreet digital analyses of things. And it needs to be this way, so that experiments can be controlled and predictions made. It wouldn't be very meaningful if a scientist were to say “oh...I'm not sure where the line between liquid and gas exists, so I’m not going to bother calling anything liquid or gas.” it is the business of science to draw lines between this thing and that thing, thus calling these things into existence in the first place.
The precision that links deconstructionism and objectivism as manifested in science comes from the fact that neither are willing to produce a statement like “it's 10 miles to the shop.” the deconstructionist will reject the terms, figures and boundaries altogether, while the scientist will insist on looking at them more closely until it becomes 10.23 miles, 10.235 miles, 10.2356 miles, etc. Both systems are concerned with accuracy. Science expresses this concern by looking more closely at something and then choosing a fitting stopping point, and deconstructionism expresses this concern by ignoring the system of examination and labeling as inherently flawed, and by exploring other toolboxes for understanding reality.
Resolving the Split
One of my recurring themes is the perceived split between two world-views, often termed science and deconstructionism, western and eastern thought, or what Robert Pirsig refers to as classicism and romanticism. I've been working at reconciling them, off and on, every few entries or so, for the past year or two. My new signifiers for the two paths to understanding are "the discreet approach" and "the continuity approach."
There are as many categories ("this is a book." "this is a plant." "this is a gas." "this is a quark." etc) to describe reality as we choose to make: one, quite a few, uncountably many, infinite -- they're purely an invention, and we can create as many or as few as we'd like.
All that is isn't the universe, but rather space, time, consciousness, energy, matter, dark energy and gravity (I dunno). Matter isn't just matter, but liquid, solid and gas. It isn't just gas, but hydrogen, helium, oxygen, etc. It isn't just oxygen, but electrons, protons, and neutrons.
It isn't just these subatomic particles, but rather various elementary particles I don't know the names of and don't feel like looking up. Some scientists are confident that they've found the most elementary particles, and that the macrocosmic model will simply end there. I don't agree; intuition (I avoid "faith" or "spirituality" here) tells me that the components branch out indefinitely.
The pattern seems to be that the smaller you get, the weirder things get. For instance, quantum physics illuminates all kinds of seemingly illogical assertions, like something being a particle and a wave at the same time. It'd stand to reason that as more elementary components (i.e., "parts of quarks") are discovered, things will get weirder still. Eventually, you find God. I digress.
The discreet approach is a way of looking at things such that everything is analyzed as a discreet entity, with a name, designation, or unwavering description. In the discreet approach, there are many "things," and each is distinct from the other.
The continuity approach states that these boundaries are imaginary, and of no consequence. There aren't any discreet packages or data, substance, thought or energy, since it's everything is all just one "thing."
The discreet approach sometimes isn't given credit for appreciating the arbitrary nature of created categories, but I think it often does. Science can keep dividing perceived entities into more and more categories, but they divide each into only as many as are useful, and keep dividing only as many times as is useful. By "useful" I mean "produces observable results." I’m inclined to believe some scientists note this, and note that categories are created rather than exist a priori.
Categories can be thought of as templates -- ideals to which we set up our understanding of things in the world, and too which we compare objects, to see if they fit onto the template/into the category. The problem is when templates become too firm, or taken as absolute/inflexible. An unchanging, fixed view of the universe is a view sometimes associated with Newtonian, narrow-minded, or bad science. Sometimes, it's associated with science on the whole, but I don't think this is fair or accurate. I just think the people who make this association failed math, and want revenge.
The platonic world view of the existence of templates -- i.e., a realm of ideas -- is contradicted by both science and spirituality as I’m defining them -- "the two components of the world-view split."
The simpleton is concerned with simple and rigid categories -- he likes to tell us what a thing "is" and "is not." something not conforming to a template, and therefore being un-namable, and therefore unable to "Be" anything is met with confusion and frustration, and then crammed into a created category, which our simpleton views as absolute and pre-existing.
Here is the reconciliation of deconstructionism and science, eastern thought and western thought, romanticism and clacissism, intuition and logic, or spirituality and science: both weltanschauungs are aware of the arbitrary nature of categories.
A difference is that science is able to measure its in a consistent and useful way. However, spirituality is concerned with the "big picture" -- while science is at the point of quarks and leptons and is thinking that these are the smallest things get, because it's getting progressively harder to divide any further, spiritualists know intuitively that it just goes on forever.
The key to approaching understanding accurately, scientifically or spiritually, is observing with an open mind and without prejudice, of always taking a closer look, and of always rejecting pre-defined categories in favor of examination of properties, and properties within properties. In order to get a clearer picture, person "x" would look at every "thing," and say "what is this thing unto itself?" person "x" doesn't confidently name that thing, or fit it to a template. If s/he does create it for temporary, useful convenience, s/he realizes the power that naming, words and memory have to create these categories.
The trick to being a good deconstructionist (continuity) or a good scientist (discreet) is to avoid stereotyping, generalizations, categories and templates. These categories are necessarily expressed in language, and this is why deconstructionism is obsessed with "text" -- text is language, and language is naming. Language is incredibly powerful, because it sets up our categories for us, and draws our boundaries between categories.
Who Is This God Person that Everyone's Talking About?
There are two possible meanings of the word “God”: 1. The sum of all reality, the cosmos, all that is, the one true nature of reality. 2. A sentient, extremely powerful entity who is somehow involved in the lives of humankind, or at least who created the “universe,” or at the very least who somehow exists apart from everything else. To keep things straight, let's abandon the word “God” altogether, call #1 “O.T.N.R.” (the one true nature of reality) and #2 “Y.L.B.” (Yahweh-like being). One could pronounce them something like “Oatner” and “Ilb.”
Might there be an Ylb? I don't know. I don't think there is, and it's not intuitively obvious to me that there is, but it's certainly possible. This Ylb would not be an omniscient, omnipotent being (these are meaningless terms), but simply a very powerful being who's existence we can't comprehend, and who can barely comprehend ours -- we'd be like quarks to it. Perhaps it vaguely “knows” something about us (“us” being living chunks of mobile protoplasm -- the Ylb is uninterested in discerning a pot-bellied pig from a human), and has given us some name. Maybe it even “created” us. I'm using so many scare quotes because I’m not sure that our tiny linguistic reality can even begin to describe something like this, except in very abstract terms.
To continue the macrocosmic example and demonstrate the difficulty of knowing Ylb, allow me to point out that we don't know what quarks “are.” We only know they exist in some way -- we can't see them, hear them, smell them, etc. Their existence was inferred because it would mathematically explain some properties of measurable matter and energy. The quark-reality is so paradigmatically different from our own that to try and describe it with language is impossible, and even to do so with mathematics is a chore, requiring armies of professors and graduate students.
Perhaps the existence of an Ylb needs to be described mathematically, like a quark. Even if we became somehow dimly aware of this being, this entity (or entities, or both -- who knows how Ylb's reality works, and if in it the one and the many are different?), this wouldn't mean that we'd found “God,” in the pan-spiritual, pan-theistic sense -- we won't have found Otnr. Ironically, there is far less mystery to Otnr (the sum of all reality) than there is to Ylb (a macrocosmic thing to whom we're no more than quarks). Discovering Ylb would be weird. Discovering Otnr is a moot issue; it's already been done.
If we build a macrocosmic model and imagine ourselves peering at both microscopic and macroscopic worlds which share properties, we can infer that the macrocosm is a bi-direction continuum, and that perhaps our “universe” is the equivalent of a quark in a proton in an atom in a CHON molecule in some creature's toe.
To assume the existence of an Ylb is, I think, not entirely unreasonable. What bothers me is the way people describe a powerful entity, unknowable via current technology, as well as the one true nature of reality, with the word “God.” The Ylb, if it exists, is wondering about “God” too.
Before one talks about “God,” one has to clarify whether one is referring to all that exists or Hebrew science fiction, ca. 2000BCE. Sure, Yahweh might have existed. But if it did, then it was a comparatively very powerful creature from another “dimension,” planet, galaxy, time, etc. But it isn't “God,” the way I used to think of and in fact define “God” (“the sum of all reality” or “the one true nature of reality”), before I abandoned the term altogether for its lack of descriptive usefulness.
I could call myself a pantheist or I could call myself an atheist.
If there is an Ylb, then it has no more control over something as utterly meaningless as “eternal life” than we humans do. The Ylb is part of all reality -- a part of Otnr, just like everything else.
I'm certainly not going to worship an Ylb (or an Otnr, for that matter), nor would a being like that be interested in my worshipping it (physicists don't, I don't think, hopefully in most cases, want quarks to worship them). But I’ll keep my eye out, and let you know if I see an Ylb flying around somewhere.
Otnr, on the other hand, just is. That's all it can do, and all it can be. Ironically, “Yahweh” (the modern pronunciational representation of the tetragrammaton) translates into “I am what I am.” Maybe there was something to that ancient Hebrew science fiction after all.
If there is such a creature who is flying about who created the earth and manking, then that creature is wondering about ultimate reality too -- that creature is searching for God, and it doesn't have any more answers than we do.
When people say “God” they are usually taking the term to mean one of two things: 1. The one true nature of reality, everything that is, the sum of all existence, etc. 2. A very powerful, sentient being that may have created the human race or various other things, and that is undetectable.
If this sentient being exists (it might -- why not? Stranger things have happened), then that sentient being is a very powerful being who created the human race, the earth, etc. But that's all we can infer.If you want to call that powerful being “God,” then you can, but then “God” means “a very powerful being who exists apart from everything else.” There has to be more to the universe than that being, if that being is distinct from the rest of the cosmos. Such a separate entity cannot be “God” in the way “God” is often thought of: as all-knowing and all-powerful. There's more to the universe(s) than this God-creature.
Alternatively, a panthestic, Hindu Brahmin approach is another way to define God -- God is simply everything, the existence of creatures who proclaim “I am the lord thy God” notwithstanding. I've heard this referred to as pantheism (God is the sum of all that exists).
So, even if a creature suddenly revealed itself by writing letters across the sky, I wouldn't be convinced that it's "God," or the ultimate power/creator of everything. These words don't make a lot of sense to me. I would think, “here is a very powerful creature who is writing letters across the sky, and for some reason wants us to defer to it.” but that creature wouldn't be “God,” in the pan-spiritual sense. It couldn't be, because it is an entity apart from everything else.
Furthermore, God as ultimate reality is not “pure good.” the idea ofA dualistic battlefield where good battles evil is an Abraham idea, and not especially meaningful to me, other than as a sort of quaint and primitive fairy tale.
God (ultimate reality) is neither good nor evil -- it just is. Which, incidentally, is how Zen and nihilism tie together. Along with dada, those two form a pretty good model of many of my feelings on spirituality. furthermore, Buddhism talks about suffering. I'm not sureIf one can equate suffering with evil, or how suffering fits into the concept of ultimate reality that transcends the illusive one our perceptions trap us in.
But I’m reasonably certain I don't believe in good or evil. Things just are. If it's a supreme being that's in control of my reality, then that supreme being is apart from everything else -- there's more to the universe than it. So, that being can't be God, in the pan-spiritual sense. A being that has infinite power and knowledge but that is not in itself the sum of all reality doesn't make sense to me. Maybe that's just because I’m a pantheistic wacko.
Yeah, the universe is amazing, and fits together nicely. But why does this imply that something created it? Isn't this just symptomatic of western linear thinking, and western dependence on axiom --> deduction -->Conclusion? Everything just is, and doesn't need to be “explained” or“ understood” -- our tools of logic and language make poor categorical Metaphors for reality. We tend to understand the universe from our own perspective: from the perspective of egoism and self-importance. When our understanding of the universe is expanded, and if then suddenly a conscious entity who has infinite power suddenly makes himself known or apparent, then what makes that entity “God”? I think the central problem is in defining “infinite power,” which is a pretty far-out concept. Does this imply that the creature can do whatever it wants, and that it was a will? Why should there be this strange creature roaming around the cosmos? It seems like an odd, counter-intuitive idea to me.
This empty coke can I see on the floor in front of me is the almighty. If you can't prove that it isn't, then it clearly is.I guess the concept of “God” as it is defined Abrahamically doesn't make sense to me, and that's all I can say about it.
I don't usually like to use the term “God,” because of it's association with Abraham religious tradition, but sometimes I use it anyway as a sort of “reclaiming.” God, for me, is the sum of all reality, or the one true nature of reality. God is everything that is. The Hebrew tetragrammaton YHWH translates as “I am that I am,” so it's likely that the ancient Hebrews had a similar goal to mine: ultimate understanding of the one true nature of reality -- it just IS. The only discernable difference is that, in the Hebrew model, God is seen as separate from all other being, while I see God as being the same thing as all other being (and beings). But, as I’ve just illustrated, the word “God” is semantically conflated and not really very useful. “The universe(s)” might be a better way to say it, “it” being all that exists and, to keep repeating my favorite pet phrase, the one true nature of reality.
This kind of disconnected thinking about God, that he is somehow separate from all other reality is understandable in terms of the desert world-view, 4000 years ago, and explains why God isn't seen as everything, as God is in Shintoism, Hinduism, and Celtic paganism. These religions see God in everything and in all of nature, but in the desert, there was nothing else -- only the ancient Hebrew tribesman and the empty sky. So, he dreams up YHWH, because he couldn’t grasp a fundamental interconnectedness with all being.
And even if God does, I don't find it any more important in my portrait of reality than a new species of jellyfish. I find it far more likely that we've created God in our image than a Yahweh-like-being created us in its image (even though that's certainly possible, but I don't think either you or I would be happy with that concept of “God.”)
The challenge of Christianity, Islam and contemporary Judaism has always been to carve from ancient Abraham tradition a viable view of spirituality -- to somehow take a “petulant psychopathic child of the desert” and carve from it an understanding of the sum of all reality.
In my opinion, it's easier just to start fresh than rely on a world-view that is very culture and time-specific, and that really has terrible problems fitting in with contemporary culture.
But, if the cult of YHWH works for someone in making them a better person, in creating joy in their hearts, and in giving them a metaphor for understanding ultimate reality, then I don't have any problem with the Abraham tradition. If it works for you, great. My problem is with the evangelical Abraham tradition, but that's a whole other can of worms.
From my perspective, the interdependent nature of reality and the invalidity of any ultimate categories is confused with a “creator” and the “Created.”
God (the way words usually making him out to be, the Abraham God, Yahweh, etc) is part of reality -- reality is something greater than him. By the definition of “reality,” God is a part of reality, since God is an Entity, and reality encompasses all entities. Therefore, if God created Reality, then God is not “God” as I think we both are trying to see it/him. To put it simply, here's a falsification: God is a part of reality (reality Includes God). Therefore God could not have created reality, since he Existed before it.
The sentiment that God places the value of humans higher than anything else on the planet has dangerous implications for other living things on the planet and The health of the biosphere itself. If we see ourselves, due in part to the Abraham world-view, as inherently superior to all other life, this leads To our abuse of that life. The other problem is grab-bag, American-style Capitalism, but that belongs in another work.
Free Will, Determinism, and Quantum Mechanics
It's notable how we can blame everything on our parents. whether it's genes or upbringing that's to blame for behavior, fault goes back to them. Of course, they can say the same thing about their parents, their parents of course being responsible for poor parenting. And so on, back through generations, until one reaches the unescapable conclusion that there really isn't any accountability, and that circumstances are thrust upon us.
But no! I've done something with my life! I've worked really hard, and overcome adverse circumstances to build a satisfying existence for myself!
Yeah, because you were endowed with the resources to do so. Not resources like money and support-network, but rather just the way your brain works -- genetic determinism. I've always wanted to have this conversation:
"I haven't had the advantages you've had."
"Yeah? Like what?"
"Proper neural configuration."
But then we have the problem that one can (supposedly) physically change one's "neural configuration" with different cognition and different behavior. Of course, one could argue that whether or not one is able to change this behavior is contigent upon "proper neural configuration" to begin with, but from there we'd have to reason that the universe is utterly deterministic, something i'm not 100% sure about.
It's sort of a silly problem, really, and it's amazing that so many people {including myself) have spent so much time and mental energy on trying to "resolve" the "problem" of free will versus determinism. Some people take relatively new knowledge about elementary particles to be evidence for free will. According to a strictly deterministic viewpoint, everything that happens (including brain activity) is determined by pre-existing conditions in the fundamental properties of matter, including those that make up the brain and its processes. Of course, hardly anything is known about the brain, but it's safe to say it's a piece of reality, composed of the same fundamental buildings blocks as everything else.
These elementary particles have been found to behave non-deterministically -- they jump and bounce around in ways that are inherently impossible to predict, even within perfectly controlled conditions. I don't have the background (or an Acme Home Particle Accelerator -- Home Depot, $69.99), so I'm taking a scientist's word for it. contrary to some estimates, they aren't out to hoodwink us as part of some kind of conspiratorial cabal.
Anyway, the random behavior of quanta tells us that you can't predict anything, and that things can go any which-way at any given moment. So, strict determinism is wrecked. However (here's the rub), how does this translate into free choice? How are neurological processes somehow able to direct this randomness along a particular path, such that "we" are in control of our behavior? It's a frustrating question.
The intuitive answer is "Yeah, obviously we're in control...at any given moment, we can do something completely screwy and unexpected, like suddenly decide to raise your left hand -- try it!." But that "decision" came about via brain activity and neurochemicals, which are of course composed of elementary particles, which of course behave in that random way. The question is: are "we" in control of this randomness? One could no longer call it "randomness" if this were true.
The structure of the brain is a genetically-determined, matter-composed thing. When you come out of the womb, the brain is right there. That's more easily described as a machine of sorts, and it's easier and less offensive to say that "the brain" works the way it does because it was built that way. Things start getting less intuitively true when "mind" is created; when a lifetime of memories and experiences alter the physical brain. But these experiences and remembered events are part of the grand scheme of reality themselves, and their activity had causal agents (regardless of which path those causal agents took, based on the random behavior of quanta).
The behavior of reality isn't predictable, and "anything can happen;" however, this randomness is, indeed, randomness, and has nothing to do with conscious choice or will. A decision takes place because of chemical and electrical activity that has a causal agent which have a causal agent which have a causal agent etc, all of which being governed by the same laws that govern an quark bouncing about unpredictably.
Even if free will is an illusion, then it's still a convincing one -- it seems very much up to me whether or not I pick up a rock lying on the ground, even though this "decision" is just a series of chemical and electrical processes that are governed by physical laws -- the laws of quantum mechanics, ultimately. our minds are locked into this interpretation of reality, since our "consciousness" (whatever that is -- might be important) leads us to believe that we're in the drivers seat. So it might make sense to believe there's such a thing as free will, even though there's not. Of course, whether or not we believe it might be beyond our control.
Quantum mechanics might not support free will; instead, all it might do is substitute "beyond our control" for "is pre-determined." No-one is saying that the future is precisely mapped out -- it's not. It's just that any decisions we make, any will we exercise, is necessarily a part of ("determined by") the one reality, which moves in accordance with the laws of quantum mechanics.
The Buddha says (double-groan) that cause and effect are responsible for a great deal of what one terms one's successes or failures -- outside circumstances. Thich Nhat Hahn echoes this. As far as practical, non-theoretical application goes, we can strike a balance: attribute some things to causality, and some things to autonamous action. Both strict and quantum determinism, while perhaps ultimately true, are irrelevant in considering "what to do next," because a comforting, convincing illusion of free will is still present.
The statement "we can change the structure of our brains" (to, according to one interpretation, alter causality with will) or even "I'm thinking about something" are pretty strange. What is "we"? What is this entity that is apart from our physicality?
Have you ever heard of e-prime? I bet most of you haven't. E-Prime is a revision of the English language that eliminates the verb "to be" as being dogmatic and undescriptive. And true -- that verb most often is used to name, define and categorize, which often isn't terribly descriptive. I think we can take it a step further and devise "E-Double-Prime," which also eliminates the subject/object "I, "we," "us," etc.
assignment (10 points): translate the following into e-double-prime: "I think, therefore I am."
Thought occurs, therefore an entity or entities apart from obvious physicality move(s) through reality.
I'm inclined to think of the "I" in that objectionably sentence to be a way of referring to consciousness. When I'm in a particular mood, I equate consciousness with sort of an ultimate driver's seat -- one great consciousness, that is all being. I derive a sort of "proof" of this from reality being composed of self-directing quanta, this self-direction being another word for consciousness, or in a sense, ultimate free will. Of course, another way to say "ultimate consciousness" is "God." Ultimate consciousness is related to quantum mechanics. Quantum consciousness would resolve free will vs. determinism, since each one of "us" is the reality (the only proper use of "to be"?) that self-directs via quantum randomness. The "god gene" at work.
Quantum Consciousness and God
Everything is made up of one self-directing substance (quanta), and therefore what appears to be our self-direction is synonymous with the universe's (everything's) self-direction. Universal self-direction is synonymous with the demonstrably unpredictable behavior (self-determined behavior) of quanta, since these quanta compose the universe. A conscious (or self-directed) universe is synonymous with a pantheistic God, but this is semantics. Consciousness can be defined as “self-direction” (or vice-versa), but this is also semantics. The definitions are convenient and perhaps evocative, but unnecessary. “Self-directed universe” and “conscious God” are the same thing. Really, the only statement that's necessary is “quanta behave randomly” -- everything else is derived from that. But, in order to illuminate the path, it's necessary to cook up some language.
The universe exists (there is something). The universe is a self-directing substance, according to quantum mechanics. Therefore, the universe is one self-directed thing, or a conscious God.
(quanta behave randomly)
(quanta are self-directing)
(quanta make up everything)
(everything is self-directing)
(self-directing universe)
(conscious universe)*
(the universe is an entity)*
(God)*
* If you don't like any of these starred items, leave one or All of them out, and stop as early as “self-directing universe”. Or, as I said, stop at the first item -- that's all that's really needed.
Quantum mechanics establishes that, at any given point in time, there are an infinite number of possible futures, and that the path of reality along these futures is determined by the random behavior of quanta of time, space, gravity, matter, energy -- the quanta that make up everything that exists.
Let's say I make a conscious decision to pull down my pants in public and sing the French national anthem. This involves thought processes, which are comprised of neuro-chemical activity in the brain. Those thought processes are affected by memory, which is stored in some unknown way, but certainly in a way that isn't magical -- it involves physical structures in the body. All of this electro-chemical activity is made up of matter and energy, which is made up of the same quanta that make up the rest of the universe.
There is a possible future in which the randomly-behaving, or self-determined behavior of, quanta making up your brain tell it to tell you to pull down your pants and sing the French national anthem. There's also a future where this doesn't happen, at least not on that point -- perhaps later in the day. It's my contention that both futures (or any other number but one) don't exist. However, this is I irrelevant, because the existence of one future preceded by random events and the existence of many futures preceded by random events both beg the question “why is this particular future happening?”.
Every thought and decision one has and makes is determined by a perception of the surrounding environment, memories of that perception, the firing of neurons and the chemical activity of neurotransmitters. All of this is real. As a part of reality, it's all governed by the same laws of randomness/self-determined behavior that make up the rest of the universe, which of course includes us.
It's all one substance -- everything is, literally, one. Self-hood is an illusion. “We” don't make decisions. Rather, choice is determined by memory, perception and brain structure, which are in turn determined by the behavior of the elementary particles of which they're composed.
“We”, and our brains, are nothing special. There's nothing about “us” that makes us into discreet entities, and nothing that absolves “us” from the rest of the laws of reality. We aren't magical Gods. We aren't even entities. There is no “we” to begin with; “we”, being composed of it, are necessarily extensions of the universal substance.
Consciousness is another way to refer to self-determination. If I’ve eliminated there being discreet entities in the universe aside from quanta, then what “we” experience as self-determination or consciousness is universal self-determination or consciousness, which everything shares. This universal self-determination is synonymous with the implications of quantum mechanics: that quanta behave in a random (self-determined) way. If their behavior isn't self-determined, then it must be directed by something else, which is by definition composed of quanta. All is self-directing. The apparent randomness of quanta is synonymous with the universal consciousness’s decision-making process, so to speak; with its reality-making. The randomness of events is a manifestation of a sort of divine driver's seat.
So then, “our” will is free. Or, better said, the will is free. Anything can move in any direction at any time, and what we call quantum randomness can just as easily be called self-determination, which in term might be called universal consciousness. Since everything consists of quanta, every “thing” determines its own reality; reality is self-guiding.
Once the term “we” is rejected, the phrase “we create our own realities” starts to make a bit more sense. Reality creates itself. Since we are not a part of everything, but rather are everything, what seems to us like our discreet conscious minds and decision-making processes is actually the universe's quanta bouncing around “randomly” in self-determination -- ultimate, all-encompassing consciousness. God has discovered itself.
God (noun) -- one universal self-directing entity.
Our consciousness is the same as the universe's consciousness, since everything is one. The universe's consciousness is synonymous with what is called the random effects of quantum mechanics, because a reality composed of quanta behaving in non-determined ways is necessarily self-directing, or conscious
There are no fine lines between things, ergo everything is one. The one is composed of quanta, which are self-directing, or conscious. Everything is One, and that One is Alive.