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Musings on the Singularity?
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I'm not sure exactly what mix, or cocktail of substances, was in my body that night in 2007 I printed out these two pages and made those notes, or
whether the number of hours since I'd slept was closer to 24 than 48. I don't completely know what I was getting at. Don't remember doing these
notes specifically, but I was into some strange "musings" about this type of thing at the time.
I found them in a folder in my desk drawer while looking for blank music manuscript paper.
I found them in a folder in my desk drawer while looking for blank music manuscript paper.
Couldn't have been '___' in 2007. I did my last experiments with that in more like 1997, but this poem was written in 2007. Cannabis was in the mix for sure, just to get that out of the way. I don't smoke it now, but if you walked up to me with a bong... :chuckle: No, in Fall of 2007 I had a rather strange NDE-like experience, and did a thread about it last summer. I won't link it; dig it out of my profile if you want to read it.
I want to talk about what happened after the "contact" was over. They kept saying things like "finish your book" and "until your book is written," and I thought at first they meant a literal book, so all this was part of the research, actually. Still don't remember quite what my state of mind was when I was doing these things, even though by then I was in the mundane dimension; pretty much.
There's more.
(Gosh; just checked the exact date of the poem, and I did at least write that right smack in the middle of my "experience!")
Chapter Three-Science and Singularity
It is nighttime once again, and the stars are out. It is a cool night, and remarkably clear. I have always been fascinated with such issues (though not on the professional astronomer’s level) as the distances to the various stars and between the Earth and other planets, as well as to the sun and moon. Did you know that if there could be a highway built to the moon and sun it would take about six months to drive to the moon and about 250 years to drive to the sun? This is of course allowing for restaurants and motels along the way to stop and sleep. Everyone needs a rest sometimes.
I am not terribly familiar with all the stars and constellations but have a few favorites. Sirius, 8.57 light years away, is my favorite star. It is a binary system and seems to change color as you look at it. Light years are a convenient but to a human incomprehensible way of measuring distance, so when it comes to planning a trip to the Pleiades, 500 light years away, just forget about it and save the trouble. We would just about need to be able to bend space time itself to even think about traveling such distances. I have been out once again smoking my pipe and thinking of such things while looking at the beautiful stars. It has been a while since I have seen them-I have been in the big city too much of late.
In high school and college, I used a mainly scientific and rational approach to understand the universe and nature of life. Religion was for me a way of escaping from this hard reality or at best a provider of moral codes for how people might best live together in peace and harmony. I had several good teachers in high school, but would like to take this opportunity to discuss two science teachers I learned from at The Asheville School, a boarding school for boys in Asheville, NC.
Chase Ambler was a physics teacher. Actually, I took physics from Mr. Sirohi, who was visiting from India, and did not do very well. Mr. Ambler was interesting because though he was a scientist, he was also very superstitious. Actually, there were a lot of contradictions to the man. He was my swim coach in a year in which our school won the 1986 NC private school state championship. We did not practice all that hard but Coach Ambler had some exercises that were very good, apparently. Funny thing is, he would stride up and down the side of the pool while we were swimming chain smoking cigarettes and barking orders. He constantly preached to us of the dangers of smoking-saying that when the doctor had shown him an x-ray of his lungs, they were “black” and he “almost puked.” I say that he was superstitious because of one story that circulated the campus about him. Mr. Ambler was convinced that he was in contact, usually when alone in the science department at night, with the departed and unquiet spirit of a predecessor in the physics chair. He would say he felt this presence looking as it were over his shoulder as he walked the halls.
The teacher who had a more lasting influence over me was Doc Embler, who taught Biology. Doc was a die-hard atheist. I still remember the arguments he had with Christian students (well, I still don’t believe I have a soul!) and his utter recalcitrance. On the other hand, he was a nice guy and even his musical interests went along with mine. I remember him belting out the melody to Hector Berlioz’s “March to the Scaffold” from Symphonie Fantastique at the top of his lungs. I was much better at Biology than Physics and narrowly missed getting a perfect score (and getting my name immortalized on his wall-hung “Order of Aces”) on a test by missing that question about whether the dinosaurs were closer to birds or reptiles.
I went to St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN because they had a good music program. The choir is world famous, and the school itself was started by Norwegian Lutheran immigrants. As a musician, church music itself always seemed to bring me closer to God and a piece such as Haydn’s Die Schopfung or Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus did the trick quite nicely. There is a certain power to this type of music. I was a music theory and composition major with a low level of piano skills, so singing was my main performance medium. I sang tenor, but wanted to sing every part of works like these at once. A piece like “For Unto Us a Child Is Born” from Handel’s The Messiah seems to bubble up from some hidden spring, and never fails to give me chills. I was in the BM (Bachelor of Music) program and didn’t have a lot of time for other classes so the only science class I took was Biology for non-majors. I remember identifying fish and lots of boring lectures.
It is nighttime once again, and the stars are out. It is a cool night, and remarkably clear. I have always been fascinated with such issues (though not on the professional astronomer’s level) as the distances to the various stars and between the Earth and other planets, as well as to the sun and moon. Did you know that if there could be a highway built to the moon and sun it would take about six months to drive to the moon and about 250 years to drive to the sun? This is of course allowing for restaurants and motels along the way to stop and sleep. Everyone needs a rest sometimes.
I am not terribly familiar with all the stars and constellations but have a few favorites. Sirius, 8.57 light years away, is my favorite star. It is a binary system and seems to change color as you look at it. Light years are a convenient but to a human incomprehensible way of measuring distance, so when it comes to planning a trip to the Pleiades, 500 light years away, just forget about it and save the trouble. We would just about need to be able to bend space time itself to even think about traveling such distances. I have been out once again smoking my pipe and thinking of such things while looking at the beautiful stars. It has been a while since I have seen them-I have been in the big city too much of late.
In high school and college, I used a mainly scientific and rational approach to understand the universe and nature of life. Religion was for me a way of escaping from this hard reality or at best a provider of moral codes for how people might best live together in peace and harmony. I had several good teachers in high school, but would like to take this opportunity to discuss two science teachers I learned from at The Asheville School, a boarding school for boys in Asheville, NC.
Chase Ambler was a physics teacher. Actually, I took physics from Mr. Sirohi, who was visiting from India, and did not do very well. Mr. Ambler was interesting because though he was a scientist, he was also very superstitious. Actually, there were a lot of contradictions to the man. He was my swim coach in a year in which our school won the 1986 NC private school state championship. We did not practice all that hard but Coach Ambler had some exercises that were very good, apparently. Funny thing is, he would stride up and down the side of the pool while we were swimming chain smoking cigarettes and barking orders. He constantly preached to us of the dangers of smoking-saying that when the doctor had shown him an x-ray of his lungs, they were “black” and he “almost puked.” I say that he was superstitious because of one story that circulated the campus about him. Mr. Ambler was convinced that he was in contact, usually when alone in the science department at night, with the departed and unquiet spirit of a predecessor in the physics chair. He would say he felt this presence looking as it were over his shoulder as he walked the halls.
The teacher who had a more lasting influence over me was Doc Embler, who taught Biology. Doc was a die-hard atheist. I still remember the arguments he had with Christian students (well, I still don’t believe I have a soul!) and his utter recalcitrance. On the other hand, he was a nice guy and even his musical interests went along with mine. I remember him belting out the melody to Hector Berlioz’s “March to the Scaffold” from Symphonie Fantastique at the top of his lungs. I was much better at Biology than Physics and narrowly missed getting a perfect score (and getting my name immortalized on his wall-hung “Order of Aces”) on a test by missing that question about whether the dinosaurs were closer to birds or reptiles.
I went to St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN because they had a good music program. The choir is world famous, and the school itself was started by Norwegian Lutheran immigrants. As a musician, church music itself always seemed to bring me closer to God and a piece such as Haydn’s Die Schopfung or Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus did the trick quite nicely. There is a certain power to this type of music. I was a music theory and composition major with a low level of piano skills, so singing was my main performance medium. I sang tenor, but wanted to sing every part of works like these at once. A piece like “For Unto Us a Child Is Born” from Handel’s The Messiah seems to bubble up from some hidden spring, and never fails to give me chills. I was in the BM (Bachelor of Music) program and didn’t have a lot of time for other classes so the only science class I took was Biology for non-majors. I remember identifying fish and lots of boring lectures.
edit on 4-6-2013 by godspetrat because: (no reason given)
Though I am now ready to accept the mutual compatibility of religion and science in explaining the world, these disciplines should be kept somewhat
separate in our discussion. This chapter will deal mainly in the science part of the equation but there is also a certain power in the contemplation
of the origin or ultimate fate of the universe or in the nature of time at the singularity that can inspire awe just as surely as can the Torah, New
Testament, or Qur’an. I would like to discuss in a general way the nature of time at the singularity (the point of zero volume but very high mass
before the “big bang”), the ultimate fate of the universe, and the possible cyclical nature thereof.
Physicists are notoriously cagey when discussing the nature of space time before the big bang, avoiding this topic like the mystery of the unexplained that it truly is. But could science and religion really be just different ways of trying to explain the same thing, creation itself? Are we as earth humans really ready to understand this mystery at all? Or will “And God said let there be light, and there was light” do for now? How can each approach account for that most simple of questions, why? That is, how can all come from nothing? And can either system, as we know them on this planet, know for sure? “Singularity” is an actual scientific term. There is a big bang singularity as well as several smaller singularities such as black hole singularities. “The beginning of the universe” will do for the big bang singularity but some buzzwords just sound really cool.
Religion rules more by decree. We all remember the usually misunderstood ideas from the Bible suggesting that we should do things God’s way “or burn” and the many examples of religious intolerance from history such as the Spanish inquisition or the Salem witch trials. Remember Giles Corey, the last victim put to death in the Salem witch trials? His last words were reputed to be “more weight.” He was killed by pressing under stones. Sometimes there seem to be a lot more maybes with religion, and God is a pretty tough concept to define scientifically given our present level of knowledge. Is there such a thing as enlightenment beyond the physical plane, or the possibility of more perfect beings such as angels? Can we truly know God, or for the scientifically recalcitrant, at least some idea of the eternal; shall we say, at least something somewhat better than what one tends to be unable to avoid seeing most every day on home sweet earth? Or at the very least can we at least think about it: because the alternative is not something that any sane creature should want to contemplate. It is the essence of self-negation. Schopenhauer focused on existentialism too much sometimes and I remember that old quote about death meaning no more macaroni-all is nothing, so eat your macaroni. I like Italian food too, but this is just too stark. Uncertainty is important in existence and in science (the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle) but we as humans like to have some idea of our ultimate fate. We exist mainly as creatures in time on earth, and to go into questions such as I will pose in this chapter will require somewhat of an ability to think outside of time, from the universe’s origin to its ultimate fate and beyond this to the nature of time itself.
Just looking at those stars at night helps my mind at least to start thinking along these lines. As the reader knows at this point, I am trained in music, and though the stars themselves are silent (when viewed from earth, that is) they suggest to me the old idea of the music of the spheres. The American Heritage Dictionary defines this as “a perfectly harmonious music, inaudible on the earth, thought by Pythagoras and later classical and medieval philosophers to be produced by the movement of celestial bodies.” This is good enough for me for right now. All celestial bodies are indeed silent from our aural perspective on the earth, but we can well believe that the sun and moon are rather noisy animals, to be sure. Pythagoras was a sixth century BCE mathematician and philosopher and we don’t know much about him other than the music of the spheres theory and the Pythagorean Theorem. There is of course noise in space in terms of sound waves, but these need more than a vacuum to be perceived by humans. If a tree falls in the forest…
Physicists are notoriously cagey when discussing the nature of space time before the big bang, avoiding this topic like the mystery of the unexplained that it truly is. But could science and religion really be just different ways of trying to explain the same thing, creation itself? Are we as earth humans really ready to understand this mystery at all? Or will “And God said let there be light, and there was light” do for now? How can each approach account for that most simple of questions, why? That is, how can all come from nothing? And can either system, as we know them on this planet, know for sure? “Singularity” is an actual scientific term. There is a big bang singularity as well as several smaller singularities such as black hole singularities. “The beginning of the universe” will do for the big bang singularity but some buzzwords just sound really cool.
Religion rules more by decree. We all remember the usually misunderstood ideas from the Bible suggesting that we should do things God’s way “or burn” and the many examples of religious intolerance from history such as the Spanish inquisition or the Salem witch trials. Remember Giles Corey, the last victim put to death in the Salem witch trials? His last words were reputed to be “more weight.” He was killed by pressing under stones. Sometimes there seem to be a lot more maybes with religion, and God is a pretty tough concept to define scientifically given our present level of knowledge. Is there such a thing as enlightenment beyond the physical plane, or the possibility of more perfect beings such as angels? Can we truly know God, or for the scientifically recalcitrant, at least some idea of the eternal; shall we say, at least something somewhat better than what one tends to be unable to avoid seeing most every day on home sweet earth? Or at the very least can we at least think about it: because the alternative is not something that any sane creature should want to contemplate. It is the essence of self-negation. Schopenhauer focused on existentialism too much sometimes and I remember that old quote about death meaning no more macaroni-all is nothing, so eat your macaroni. I like Italian food too, but this is just too stark. Uncertainty is important in existence and in science (the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle) but we as humans like to have some idea of our ultimate fate. We exist mainly as creatures in time on earth, and to go into questions such as I will pose in this chapter will require somewhat of an ability to think outside of time, from the universe’s origin to its ultimate fate and beyond this to the nature of time itself.
Just looking at those stars at night helps my mind at least to start thinking along these lines. As the reader knows at this point, I am trained in music, and though the stars themselves are silent (when viewed from earth, that is) they suggest to me the old idea of the music of the spheres. The American Heritage Dictionary defines this as “a perfectly harmonious music, inaudible on the earth, thought by Pythagoras and later classical and medieval philosophers to be produced by the movement of celestial bodies.” This is good enough for me for right now. All celestial bodies are indeed silent from our aural perspective on the earth, but we can well believe that the sun and moon are rather noisy animals, to be sure. Pythagoras was a sixth century BCE mathematician and philosopher and we don’t know much about him other than the music of the spheres theory and the Pythagorean Theorem. There is of course noise in space in terms of sound waves, but these need more than a vacuum to be perceived by humans. If a tree falls in the forest…
As I explained earlier, I will be dealing mainly in this chapter with the nature of the singularity, which may be here briefly defined in terms of the
big bang as the point of zero volume but relatively high mass (in the case of the big bang theoretically infinite mass) which makes the density
infinite. This is in a sense the “holy grail” of universal physics because it attempts to explain the origin and ultimate fate of the universe
itself. Though religion and spirituality are also among my concerns, the term “singularity” has taken on a very spiritual and indeed holy
connotation to me. Since it is the point at which what we understand of the universe or creation began and we don’t understand what came before (do
you, physicist?) it carries a meaning to my mind which is very close to God. Sure, an advanced physics student or professor will tell you that all
matter originated in the singularity and that the universe of light is expanding outward “infinitely” towards some unseen fate. For all we know,
there might just be a big crunch or big rip someday. Perhaps the universe will decide to eat itself all up and blow itself out of its own ass someday,
pardon the image.
There is also the question of time itself. Is time linear? We like to think it is. It certainly makes living within it easier for mortal beings. Could there be some type of being closer to God or higher in the hierarchies who can bend space time at will? Perhaps they could reverse time itself or suspend it, or reverse a human’s polarities to make time travel possible in some way. Remember the warp drive from Star Trek? I love the show and some of its spin-offs less for the sci fi and more for ideas like this. Also, like The Twilight Zone and other early TV shows it is basically a collection of morality plays. The warp drive in Star Trek is never fully explained. Basically I guess, “warp one” is either light speed or some exponent thereof, such as ten times, as in the earthquake Richter scale. Using a simple matter/antimatter reaction, the upper levels of the warp drive increase the velocity exponentially to make interstellar travel practical. Wouldn’t creatures more advanced than us do better to play with the fabric of space time itself (safely, we hope) so that their ships would be more properly termed timeships than spaceships? Why cover all the space between the stars in Orion’s belt rather than just slip in between space time through a wormhole, preexisting or created by some alien technology?
Even to ask questions such as these boggles the mind, and despite the title of this chapter, I am no scientist, or even theologian. I do, however, like to ask these sorts of questions about the Eternal whether that be God, the Angels, higher beings, the universe, or eternal nature herself. Let us begin by discussing the nature of the big bang and the “grand start of things” in a way that I hope will be more philosophical than scientifically advanced, and not tax my brain, or those of my readers, overmuch.
What really did happen before the big bang? Everything, and nothing, I suppose. On this question the scientist’s answer approaches that of the Taoist. We are like children sometimes here on God’s green earth and want all of the story explained to us before we have reached the end, or even the beginning. The general scientific consensus is that all the matter in the universe was condensed into an area of zero volume at that point. This suggests at least to me that the nature of space time itself was very different and did not even exist in a way that we can easily understand. Let’s get a couple of definitions out of the way. The big bang singularity was described above as the point of zero volume but high mass which makes the density infinite. This is easy to understand when one considers that we are talking about all the matter in the known universe. Black hole singularities are created when very massive stars collapse beyond the “event horizon.” They might be seen as microcosms of the big bang singularity, but in reverse since they deal not with creation but with destruction. We do not know much about the nature of time in either one, but it is safe to assume that time for a mortal being who is sucked into a black hole will definitely stop forever, as will life. Black holes are thought to actually rip the fabric of space time and the laws of Einsteinian gravitation no longer apply.
There is also the question of time itself. Is time linear? We like to think it is. It certainly makes living within it easier for mortal beings. Could there be some type of being closer to God or higher in the hierarchies who can bend space time at will? Perhaps they could reverse time itself or suspend it, or reverse a human’s polarities to make time travel possible in some way. Remember the warp drive from Star Trek? I love the show and some of its spin-offs less for the sci fi and more for ideas like this. Also, like The Twilight Zone and other early TV shows it is basically a collection of morality plays. The warp drive in Star Trek is never fully explained. Basically I guess, “warp one” is either light speed or some exponent thereof, such as ten times, as in the earthquake Richter scale. Using a simple matter/antimatter reaction, the upper levels of the warp drive increase the velocity exponentially to make interstellar travel practical. Wouldn’t creatures more advanced than us do better to play with the fabric of space time itself (safely, we hope) so that their ships would be more properly termed timeships than spaceships? Why cover all the space between the stars in Orion’s belt rather than just slip in between space time through a wormhole, preexisting or created by some alien technology?
Even to ask questions such as these boggles the mind, and despite the title of this chapter, I am no scientist, or even theologian. I do, however, like to ask these sorts of questions about the Eternal whether that be God, the Angels, higher beings, the universe, or eternal nature herself. Let us begin by discussing the nature of the big bang and the “grand start of things” in a way that I hope will be more philosophical than scientifically advanced, and not tax my brain, or those of my readers, overmuch.
What really did happen before the big bang? Everything, and nothing, I suppose. On this question the scientist’s answer approaches that of the Taoist. We are like children sometimes here on God’s green earth and want all of the story explained to us before we have reached the end, or even the beginning. The general scientific consensus is that all the matter in the universe was condensed into an area of zero volume at that point. This suggests at least to me that the nature of space time itself was very different and did not even exist in a way that we can easily understand. Let’s get a couple of definitions out of the way. The big bang singularity was described above as the point of zero volume but high mass which makes the density infinite. This is easy to understand when one considers that we are talking about all the matter in the known universe. Black hole singularities are created when very massive stars collapse beyond the “event horizon.” They might be seen as microcosms of the big bang singularity, but in reverse since they deal not with creation but with destruction. We do not know much about the nature of time in either one, but it is safe to assume that time for a mortal being who is sucked into a black hole will definitely stop forever, as will life. Black holes are thought to actually rip the fabric of space time and the laws of Einsteinian gravitation no longer apply.
Before the big bang, even light was condensed into a small (infinitely small) area of infinite curvature of space time (see Albert Einstein’s
General Theory of Relativity). The universe we perceive even when we look at the stars from earth is sometimes known as the universe of light because
we are seeing in those stars light that escaped at the time of the big bang and is expanding in all directions at approximately 300,000 KPS/S. When we
look at, for example, Sirius, which is 8.57 light years away, we are seeing light that left Sirius 8.57 years ago. When we look through a telescope at
other galaxies, we are looking back in time to galaxies that left the singularity at the formation of matter much earlier than our own. On a more
spiritual and even personal level, the big bang singularity might even be thought of as the mind of God. The Bible itself speaks of God as knowing
“all times and places,” and who but the Creator would even be able to comprehend the physics needed to understand the singularity? The big bang,
to a theologian or physicist, or to either the man of God or man of science in general is creation itself. Light itself cannot escape from the big
bang singularity, or from the black hole singularity, without permission. All times are one in the mind of God, and who but He can give time and light
this permission to expand outward and begin their trek across the universe!
Singularities have at the same time all dimensions and no dimensions. This is pretty much what is meant by infinite curvature. This can also mean that we simply cannot define the dimensions within the singularity. Science, which does very well in a discipline such as Biology or Geology in explaining life within the physical planes of existence on earth, has no meaning there. God exists in many dimensions at once, it seems, and knows them all. If you were God (and are comfortable with the suggestion of hubris) would you want to have to think, even with your infinite mind, of all these dimensions and bits of data at the same time? It seems to me you would want helpers to fill in the gaps and mistakes in all those little pieces of computer code that make up the universe. This is where angels come in. God needs correctors.
Not being a medieval theologian, I don’t feel comfortable speculating on the nature of angels. This has all been done before. It is the idea and not the description that is important to me anyway. I think God’s angels or helpers would certainly be higher up than we are and would know something of the nature of time. God might be busy planning new worlds or doing the really important math, like the CFO or CEO of a major corporation. The universal code might need minor editing from time to time and those corrections might fall to lower levels in the hierarchy. Earth humans can edit their own codes, or at least it seems we should be able to. We don’t always get the best results, I’m afraid. What if the earth were to draw near to cataclysm? We are beginning to look at ways to protect ourselves in the event of a minor threat (which might in some cases be major) such as an asteroid impact. We could blow it up from the earth or push it away somehow to deflect it from a path intersecting with the earth’s. The angels, even if they ride around in timeships rather than fly on golden wings, might help us here if it pleased God for them to do so. Who knows, the cataclysm might even be more horrifying like a black hole or the earth’s destruction in some cosmic error such as a pole shift or galactic collision.
The computers we humans use to help us think faster here in the earthly realms work on binary code. All computer language consists of circuits which are either on or off. I will illustrate this by the symbols (+) and (-) though these would seem to represent positive and negative. Computers do not however think better than humans, only faster. Imagine a computer trying to determine a murderer’s fate using only the language of yes or no! No, it is better for human judges to decide a criminal’s fate. We have minds which allow for lots of maybes. How many people did the murderer kill? What were his reasons? Were they children? I would probably want that one put to death, anyway. Human minds might be illustrated simply by the diagram (+) (-) (N); or yes, no, maybe. N stands for neutral, which can go either way as circumstances dictate. An individual’s own moral sense guides the application of this principle. I will return to this idea in a later chapter. If it were possible to create a computer capable of moral judgments, the code might be closer to ternary than binary.
Singularities have at the same time all dimensions and no dimensions. This is pretty much what is meant by infinite curvature. This can also mean that we simply cannot define the dimensions within the singularity. Science, which does very well in a discipline such as Biology or Geology in explaining life within the physical planes of existence on earth, has no meaning there. God exists in many dimensions at once, it seems, and knows them all. If you were God (and are comfortable with the suggestion of hubris) would you want to have to think, even with your infinite mind, of all these dimensions and bits of data at the same time? It seems to me you would want helpers to fill in the gaps and mistakes in all those little pieces of computer code that make up the universe. This is where angels come in. God needs correctors.
Not being a medieval theologian, I don’t feel comfortable speculating on the nature of angels. This has all been done before. It is the idea and not the description that is important to me anyway. I think God’s angels or helpers would certainly be higher up than we are and would know something of the nature of time. God might be busy planning new worlds or doing the really important math, like the CFO or CEO of a major corporation. The universal code might need minor editing from time to time and those corrections might fall to lower levels in the hierarchy. Earth humans can edit their own codes, or at least it seems we should be able to. We don’t always get the best results, I’m afraid. What if the earth were to draw near to cataclysm? We are beginning to look at ways to protect ourselves in the event of a minor threat (which might in some cases be major) such as an asteroid impact. We could blow it up from the earth or push it away somehow to deflect it from a path intersecting with the earth’s. The angels, even if they ride around in timeships rather than fly on golden wings, might help us here if it pleased God for them to do so. Who knows, the cataclysm might even be more horrifying like a black hole or the earth’s destruction in some cosmic error such as a pole shift or galactic collision.
The computers we humans use to help us think faster here in the earthly realms work on binary code. All computer language consists of circuits which are either on or off. I will illustrate this by the symbols (+) and (-) though these would seem to represent positive and negative. Computers do not however think better than humans, only faster. Imagine a computer trying to determine a murderer’s fate using only the language of yes or no! No, it is better for human judges to decide a criminal’s fate. We have minds which allow for lots of maybes. How many people did the murderer kill? What were his reasons? Were they children? I would probably want that one put to death, anyway. Human minds might be illustrated simply by the diagram (+) (-) (N); or yes, no, maybe. N stands for neutral, which can go either way as circumstances dictate. An individual’s own moral sense guides the application of this principle. I will return to this idea in a later chapter. If it were possible to create a computer capable of moral judgments, the code might be closer to ternary than binary.
In religious terms, God might be seen to have left instructions for moral judgments to the lesser of his sentient creations. I have heard the Bible
referred to by a more fundamentalist type of Christian than I (but a good one) as “basic instructions before leaving earth.” It seems to fit. I
think it can be dangerous to play around too much with the definition of what really constitutes a literal interpretation anyway. The poetry of the
Psalms of David and the teachings of Yeshua are so beautiful that they more than suffice. The Bible even takes us into sci fi sometimes (“wheel
within the middle of a wheel,” see Ezekiel Chapter One) and mythology of course (“There were giants in the earth in those days,” Genesis 6:4).
There are sections about moral judgments as well, such as the two books of Judges and numerous other passages interspersed throughout the entire book.
I try not to think about some of that old Hammurabic stuff too much like the verse I don’t feel like looking up which seems to say that “any woman
wearing a garment made of more than one fiber shall be killed.” I know they were strict sometimes in those days, but I have the feeling there was
some kind of symbolism going on here, or at least I hope this was the case.
So, in conclusion, we as mortal creatures perhaps shouldn’t speculate about the exact nature of the beginnings too much. The big bang singularity happened about fifteen billion years ago, and we are here now on earth trying to make the best of things as we have always done. What I would like to focus on next is the end of the space time we know, that is the collapse of space time or the ultimate destruction of the universe.
There have been many musings among physicists and sci fi writers about this subject, and the event has been given names such as the big rip, big crunch, big freeze or big bounce. It is useful to recall the definition here of the black hole singularity, which is the singularity created by the death of a very massive star. Let me try to explain the big rip first. Try to imagine space time as a piece of pizza dough being spun out into a sphere before being placed in a pan for baking. If one is not careful, a hole might develop near the center usually which will expand outward and destroy your entire culinary creation. You will have to start over and roll out the dough into a ball again and spin it in the air more carefully to achieve that perfect crust. If you make this mistake too often, you might even need to let the dough rest and rise again. Any pizza chef will tell you this is not ideal. The universe and space time itself might be compared to this spinning pizza dough. If the universe continues to expand, and believe me it will, the tension may get too much at some point (this is pure speculation) and cause a rip in the fabric of space time which then might cause a chain reaction destroying the whole “pie.”
I am trying to keep the science on a conceptual level here, for my sake and yours, believe me. I will need to introduce a formula here, however:
So, in conclusion, we as mortal creatures perhaps shouldn’t speculate about the exact nature of the beginnings too much. The big bang singularity happened about fifteen billion years ago, and we are here now on earth trying to make the best of things as we have always done. What I would like to focus on next is the end of the space time we know, that is the collapse of space time or the ultimate destruction of the universe.
There have been many musings among physicists and sci fi writers about this subject, and the event has been given names such as the big rip, big crunch, big freeze or big bounce. It is useful to recall the definition here of the black hole singularity, which is the singularity created by the death of a very massive star. Let me try to explain the big rip first. Try to imagine space time as a piece of pizza dough being spun out into a sphere before being placed in a pan for baking. If one is not careful, a hole might develop near the center usually which will expand outward and destroy your entire culinary creation. You will have to start over and roll out the dough into a ball again and spin it in the air more carefully to achieve that perfect crust. If you make this mistake too often, you might even need to let the dough rest and rise again. Any pizza chef will tell you this is not ideal. The universe and space time itself might be compared to this spinning pizza dough. If the universe continues to expand, and believe me it will, the tension may get too much at some point (this is pure speculation) and cause a rip in the fabric of space time which then might cause a chain reaction destroying the whole “pie.”
I am trying to keep the science on a conceptual level here, for my sake and yours, believe me. I will need to introduce a formula here, however:
Hooke’s Law F=KX
Not too bad, huh? That is Hooke’s law which explains the force exerted by a spring. F is force, K is the spring’s tension, and X is the distance the spring is stretched. Let’s just look at this in terms of the pizza dough example and relate them both to the big rip. In classical quantum mechanics, there is no need to explain what happens when the spring is stretched too far for the molecules themselves to handle. It breaks. The tension has become too much for the equation to explain. If the universe were ever to expand to the point where space time were stretched enough, this same kind of thing could happen to the universe. I explained earlier that the black hole singularity is kind of like the big bang singularity in reverse, that is, it deals with destruction not creation. The big rip or even the spring model may be seen as a resolution of tension, a resolution of the singularity-just as in music dissonances are created and then resolved before the end of a piece.
The universe’s final fate is determined by its density. Dark matter and dark energy, which I will not go into here, make up most of the universe but are called dark for good reason: we don’t know much about them. The density of dark energy increases with time. All material in the universe will eventually disintegrate into elementary particles and radiation, torn asunder by this dark force and shooting apart into eternity. The big rip is not the only scenario for the ultimate fate of the universe. There are many others and none of us can say which is more accurate. The big crunch assumes not a ripping of space time but an expansion of the universe towards some limit (like a stretched rubber band) and a contraction into the original singularity.
The big crunch assumes that the average density of the universe will be enough to stop the ripping of space time and the expansion will stop, leaving room for contraction to begin. As in the more sinister-sounding big rip, no one knows what the results would be. If this scenario is true, the way is left open for a cyclical universe, which could begin and “end” at various points in time as the process repeated itself over the eons.
The big freeze is also known as heat death, or at least this is a similar concept. The universe either expands to a point where the universe is too cold to sustain life or the universe goes into a state of maximum entropy in which all matter and energy is distributed too evenly for living creatures to exist. We know on a smaller scale even with our “primitive” science what has happened on Mars and possibly on the outer planets of our solar system. Mars is rocky, has liquid water in the form of polar ice, and with warmer conditions and some plant life (not to mention an atmosphere) could sustain us. There is no need to mention temperatures or atmospheres on the outer planets-just look them up on the internet. Only the earth out of approximately nine planets in our solar system can support human life, and the planets closer to the sun than Earth are too hot. The big freeze, however, does not really describe a cosmic death. The matter will still be there in a way we could describe, it would just be too cold for us to live and perhaps eventually no new stars would be born either.
The big bounce is simply a rephrasing of big bang taking into account a cyclical model such as the big crunch. It assumes a repeating universal equation in which the big bang is the starting over of a cycle. I just love all of the alliterative titles those boring scientists come up with to name these concepts! It tickles my poetic fancies. One more concept I should mention is the hypothesis of the multiverse. This brings us into dimensional theory and to the possibility of closed and open universes. The British science fiction and horror writer Brian Lumley, in his book Deadspawn (well worth a read but decidedly not for the faint of heart) has an angel speak of this concept as “the universes of light.” Many of his books, Deadspawn included, deal with the idea of parallel universes, in Lumley’s case, a parallel vampire world. This idea, which looks even farther into things than even the Hubble telescope is able to, leads to many complications but it is safe to say that how ever many universes there are, all must have some kind of ultimate fate. The fate of this or any other universe may be entirely in God’s hands and we can only hope to keep our own corner as tidy as possible, I suppose.
Not too bad, huh? That is Hooke’s law which explains the force exerted by a spring. F is force, K is the spring’s tension, and X is the distance the spring is stretched. Let’s just look at this in terms of the pizza dough example and relate them both to the big rip. In classical quantum mechanics, there is no need to explain what happens when the spring is stretched too far for the molecules themselves to handle. It breaks. The tension has become too much for the equation to explain. If the universe were ever to expand to the point where space time were stretched enough, this same kind of thing could happen to the universe. I explained earlier that the black hole singularity is kind of like the big bang singularity in reverse, that is, it deals with destruction not creation. The big rip or even the spring model may be seen as a resolution of tension, a resolution of the singularity-just as in music dissonances are created and then resolved before the end of a piece.
The universe’s final fate is determined by its density. Dark matter and dark energy, which I will not go into here, make up most of the universe but are called dark for good reason: we don’t know much about them. The density of dark energy increases with time. All material in the universe will eventually disintegrate into elementary particles and radiation, torn asunder by this dark force and shooting apart into eternity. The big rip is not the only scenario for the ultimate fate of the universe. There are many others and none of us can say which is more accurate. The big crunch assumes not a ripping of space time but an expansion of the universe towards some limit (like a stretched rubber band) and a contraction into the original singularity.
The big crunch assumes that the average density of the universe will be enough to stop the ripping of space time and the expansion will stop, leaving room for contraction to begin. As in the more sinister-sounding big rip, no one knows what the results would be. If this scenario is true, the way is left open for a cyclical universe, which could begin and “end” at various points in time as the process repeated itself over the eons.
The big freeze is also known as heat death, or at least this is a similar concept. The universe either expands to a point where the universe is too cold to sustain life or the universe goes into a state of maximum entropy in which all matter and energy is distributed too evenly for living creatures to exist. We know on a smaller scale even with our “primitive” science what has happened on Mars and possibly on the outer planets of our solar system. Mars is rocky, has liquid water in the form of polar ice, and with warmer conditions and some plant life (not to mention an atmosphere) could sustain us. There is no need to mention temperatures or atmospheres on the outer planets-just look them up on the internet. Only the earth out of approximately nine planets in our solar system can support human life, and the planets closer to the sun than Earth are too hot. The big freeze, however, does not really describe a cosmic death. The matter will still be there in a way we could describe, it would just be too cold for us to live and perhaps eventually no new stars would be born either.
The big bounce is simply a rephrasing of big bang taking into account a cyclical model such as the big crunch. It assumes a repeating universal equation in which the big bang is the starting over of a cycle. I just love all of the alliterative titles those boring scientists come up with to name these concepts! It tickles my poetic fancies. One more concept I should mention is the hypothesis of the multiverse. This brings us into dimensional theory and to the possibility of closed and open universes. The British science fiction and horror writer Brian Lumley, in his book Deadspawn (well worth a read but decidedly not for the faint of heart) has an angel speak of this concept as “the universes of light.” Many of his books, Deadspawn included, deal with the idea of parallel universes, in Lumley’s case, a parallel vampire world. This idea, which looks even farther into things than even the Hubble telescope is able to, leads to many complications but it is safe to say that how ever many universes there are, all must have some kind of ultimate fate. The fate of this or any other universe may be entirely in God’s hands and we can only hope to keep our own corner as tidy as possible, I suppose.
What would a loving God want us to know or contemplate about the end of time and the universe anyway? Such questions may not be for mankind to ponder
at all. World without end, the earth endureth forever, the Bible reassures us. Or, if the world is destroyed by apocalypse, God has the power to make
it whole and to comfort his people with a new and fresher one, less dusty with the cast off leavings of industrialized society:
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth:
For the first heaven and the first earth were passed away;
And there was no more sea.
And I John saw the new city, new Jerusalem,
Coming down from God out of heaven,
Prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
(Revelation Chapter 21, verses 1 and 2)
Surely this is reassuring when contemplating all this destruction! I do know a little of my science and as has been mentioned before my brother Tyler is a grad student in biology. It’s hard to see how we could live on the earth without the sea, though we are doing a pretty good job of trying to make it devoid of life already. I guess if God can make a new earth he could make us able to live without it-but I will miss my fish and chips, anyway.
We are mortal creatures, mere microcosms within the universe as a whole. We often have trouble thinking beyond our own fates. We hope that death is not the end but a new beginning of something much better, or perhaps worse in the case of child murderers and rapists. Perhaps there is a purgatory of sorts, in which God or his helpers give us a chance to go back and live our lives in reverse time, letting us work out all those little mistakes and foibles that have kept us from being truly fulfilled as human beings before we are ready to move on to higher levels. Maybe the universe is like this as a whole, and goes in a repeating cycle, a single repeating equation, until it is perfect enough in God’s eyes to be allowed to continue on its own at this higher level of perfection. Certainly our own deaths, and the deaths of those we love, are enough for us to contemplate given our limited lifespans and ignorance of the eternal. We can only enjoy our lives and try to make things better for everyone around us and in the world as a whole.
For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child. I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. (1 Corinthians, verses 9-13)
The possible cyclical nature of the universe is a very old idea. It is present in the Hindu Vedas in which space, time, and the multiverses are cyclical and constantly in flux. The concept is also accepted by Buddhist Dharma. Certain Christian thinkers such as Origen Adamantius (c. 185-254) looked into the idea as well. History tells us he was an Egyptian teaching at Alexandria. He was expelled for being ordained without the patriarch’s permission. He moved to Caesarea Maritima and died there by torture during a persecution. He was one of the first important Christian intellectuals. He followed Plato in his ideas about the perfection and immortality of souls and in the hints at a cyclical nature of the universe. The “fabulous preexistence of souls” which are imprisoned within the mortal body and then purified by fire and reunited with God in a later cycle (“the monstrous restoration which follows”) also remind us of Plato, and Origen’s views were declared anathema by the church in the sixth century. Certain physicists are resurrecting the idea of the cyclical universe even now. Paul Steinhardt of Princeton and Neil Turok of Cambridge have recently put forth the concept that there was a time before the big bang. In an article in Science they argue that the universe may be at least a trillion years old. It may well be eternal, and as we have seen the Bible will agree in many respects with that point. When an equilibrium is reached between the expansion of matter and “vacuum energy,” the end of a cycle of growth and collapse is reached and after a trillion years or so the universe begins anew.
What is the religious person of the twenty-first century, not to mention the scientist, to think of this? Certainly we can agree with Origen, Plato, Steinhardt and Turok on one thing: even with our limited understandings of “time, times, and halves of times,” we can more easily accept a cyclical nature to life and to the universe than a finite one. People live and die, but the notion of a universe which simply ends is really hard for anyone, even for God himself, to grasp.
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth:
For the first heaven and the first earth were passed away;
And there was no more sea.
And I John saw the new city, new Jerusalem,
Coming down from God out of heaven,
Prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
(Revelation Chapter 21, verses 1 and 2)
Surely this is reassuring when contemplating all this destruction! I do know a little of my science and as has been mentioned before my brother Tyler is a grad student in biology. It’s hard to see how we could live on the earth without the sea, though we are doing a pretty good job of trying to make it devoid of life already. I guess if God can make a new earth he could make us able to live without it-but I will miss my fish and chips, anyway.
We are mortal creatures, mere microcosms within the universe as a whole. We often have trouble thinking beyond our own fates. We hope that death is not the end but a new beginning of something much better, or perhaps worse in the case of child murderers and rapists. Perhaps there is a purgatory of sorts, in which God or his helpers give us a chance to go back and live our lives in reverse time, letting us work out all those little mistakes and foibles that have kept us from being truly fulfilled as human beings before we are ready to move on to higher levels. Maybe the universe is like this as a whole, and goes in a repeating cycle, a single repeating equation, until it is perfect enough in God’s eyes to be allowed to continue on its own at this higher level of perfection. Certainly our own deaths, and the deaths of those we love, are enough for us to contemplate given our limited lifespans and ignorance of the eternal. We can only enjoy our lives and try to make things better for everyone around us and in the world as a whole.
For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child. I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. (1 Corinthians, verses 9-13)
The possible cyclical nature of the universe is a very old idea. It is present in the Hindu Vedas in which space, time, and the multiverses are cyclical and constantly in flux. The concept is also accepted by Buddhist Dharma. Certain Christian thinkers such as Origen Adamantius (c. 185-254) looked into the idea as well. History tells us he was an Egyptian teaching at Alexandria. He was expelled for being ordained without the patriarch’s permission. He moved to Caesarea Maritima and died there by torture during a persecution. He was one of the first important Christian intellectuals. He followed Plato in his ideas about the perfection and immortality of souls and in the hints at a cyclical nature of the universe. The “fabulous preexistence of souls” which are imprisoned within the mortal body and then purified by fire and reunited with God in a later cycle (“the monstrous restoration which follows”) also remind us of Plato, and Origen’s views were declared anathema by the church in the sixth century. Certain physicists are resurrecting the idea of the cyclical universe even now. Paul Steinhardt of Princeton and Neil Turok of Cambridge have recently put forth the concept that there was a time before the big bang. In an article in Science they argue that the universe may be at least a trillion years old. It may well be eternal, and as we have seen the Bible will agree in many respects with that point. When an equilibrium is reached between the expansion of matter and “vacuum energy,” the end of a cycle of growth and collapse is reached and after a trillion years or so the universe begins anew.
What is the religious person of the twenty-first century, not to mention the scientist, to think of this? Certainly we can agree with Origen, Plato, Steinhardt and Turok on one thing: even with our limited understandings of “time, times, and halves of times,” we can more easily accept a cyclical nature to life and to the universe than a finite one. People live and die, but the notion of a universe which simply ends is really hard for anyone, even for God himself, to grasp.
And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as
never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in
the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And
they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever. But thou, O
Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
(Daniel Chapter 12, verses 1-4)
Many will run to and fro anyway whether the world ends in a final apocalypse or a new beginning, whether “with a bang or with a whimper,” in the words of T.S. Eliot (The Waste Land). The start of any new cosmic cycle will create confusion and disorder. Whether or not these cyclical ideas are new to science or religion, they are not unknown to history. History has long been known to move in gyres. Gyres are repeating general cycles of historical tendencies and types of events that are easily illustrated by looking at empires and the rise and fall of great powers. Earlier in the book of Daniel, there is a perfect illustration of this. In Chapter Seven Daniel uses “beasts” to describe world empires such as Babylon and Persia. For an example relating more to our own time, just compare America’s present state to Rome in her waning years of empire. Both reached a resource crunch, but since the wise historian knows that Rome never really fell, we also don’t know where America’s present problems will take her. Later historians will have to interpret the events as best they can and for all I know, America’s best days may be yet to come.
We as humans like to think of things in cycles anyway. Life and death are a cycle. So are night and day, waking and sleeping, the seasons, and phases of the moon. Everything we do in life involves a cycle of some sort, from economics to the food chain. Digestion is a cycle, but we don’t like to talk about that one in polite society. What goes around comes around, and there is nothing new under the sun! Let us take some time to talk once again about animals lower in the earthly hierarchies than man such as my rats and all the other “creeping things.” All animals (and plants) on earth need nourishment to survive. My rats and mice do just fine on some nuts and grains with a few morsels of human food when I deign to favor them with it. In the wild of course, rodents fall prey to larger animals such as birds of prey and cats and dogs. Humans only seem to be the top predator on this planet until we find ourselves out in nature-we then find that we are not as strong as we suppose.
We all have to eat, and though man can not live by bread alone, this is much too restricted a diet for most of us anyway. Pulse (beans) to eat and water to drink, said Daniel, but that diet would make of many of us proctoseismologists. We can find a better balance than that and generally tend to be omnivores. For many years I was a vegetarian, and my only animal product was cheese. I liked it too much to give it up. Now I eat meat but try to eat it sparingly, and avoid most beef because of the environmental impact. I never condemned any carnivore, because carnivores occur in nature. Matter must be recycled, though humans tend to waste more than the natural world as a whole.
(Daniel Chapter 12, verses 1-4)
Many will run to and fro anyway whether the world ends in a final apocalypse or a new beginning, whether “with a bang or with a whimper,” in the words of T.S. Eliot (The Waste Land). The start of any new cosmic cycle will create confusion and disorder. Whether or not these cyclical ideas are new to science or religion, they are not unknown to history. History has long been known to move in gyres. Gyres are repeating general cycles of historical tendencies and types of events that are easily illustrated by looking at empires and the rise and fall of great powers. Earlier in the book of Daniel, there is a perfect illustration of this. In Chapter Seven Daniel uses “beasts” to describe world empires such as Babylon and Persia. For an example relating more to our own time, just compare America’s present state to Rome in her waning years of empire. Both reached a resource crunch, but since the wise historian knows that Rome never really fell, we also don’t know where America’s present problems will take her. Later historians will have to interpret the events as best they can and for all I know, America’s best days may be yet to come.
We as humans like to think of things in cycles anyway. Life and death are a cycle. So are night and day, waking and sleeping, the seasons, and phases of the moon. Everything we do in life involves a cycle of some sort, from economics to the food chain. Digestion is a cycle, but we don’t like to talk about that one in polite society. What goes around comes around, and there is nothing new under the sun! Let us take some time to talk once again about animals lower in the earthly hierarchies than man such as my rats and all the other “creeping things.” All animals (and plants) on earth need nourishment to survive. My rats and mice do just fine on some nuts and grains with a few morsels of human food when I deign to favor them with it. In the wild of course, rodents fall prey to larger animals such as birds of prey and cats and dogs. Humans only seem to be the top predator on this planet until we find ourselves out in nature-we then find that we are not as strong as we suppose.
We all have to eat, and though man can not live by bread alone, this is much too restricted a diet for most of us anyway. Pulse (beans) to eat and water to drink, said Daniel, but that diet would make of many of us proctoseismologists. We can find a better balance than that and generally tend to be omnivores. For many years I was a vegetarian, and my only animal product was cheese. I liked it too much to give it up. Now I eat meat but try to eat it sparingly, and avoid most beef because of the environmental impact. I never condemned any carnivore, because carnivores occur in nature. Matter must be recycled, though humans tend to waste more than the natural world as a whole.
All of us, from higher mammals to decomposers and even viruses, are out to make a living as best we can. The trouble is, the human population has
exploded since the industrial revolution. The dirty little secret of our success is not our more advanced brain so much as something much more
mundane: the burning of fossil fuels. Look at any graph of human population growth and you will see the pattern of increase starting in the eighteenth
century with coal burning to the burning of oil in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. There is a concept all should be made aware of because it
threatens to end our existence on earth sooner than any cosmic cataclysm could, and that concept is peak oil. There is a lot about this subject on the
internet. Look at dieoff.org or fromthewilderness.com for a primer, though I feel both of these sites may be a little on the alarmist side. The issue
is real, however, and will become more real as we approach the middle of the century. Oil does not only power our vehicles but goes towards making
fertilizer to grow food and other processes necessary to industrialized society such as plastics production. We are a species which almost literally
eats oil, not just hamburgers, and the only higher mammal that consumes such a large amount of this kind of broken down and refined organic material
at all. There will always be oil to pump, but the problem is cost effectiveness. Burning oil of course causes environmental destruction as well, but
there is the economic model of oil consumption to consider as well.
Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations is the seminal work of classical economics. It is also, I feel, outdated in our time because of one very simple miscalculation which could not have been foreseen by its author: the book is the product of the enlightenment and economic thinkers of the time seemed to think of resources as unlimited rather than as finite. Smith also knew of coal burning but not the refinement of oil. The beginning of the book is brilliant with the production line model in genesis of the making of pins by division of labor. Oil is different. We are used to thinking of oil as being produced, but it is not produced but dug or drilled up out of the ground. As we use more and more every year (oil use doesn’t exactly follow the laws of supply and demand) it becomes more expensive to pump. Oil makes the world go ‘round, or at least the industrialized world. Ask yourself what will happen to the stock market when the oil shortfall becomes apparent and, scarier still, why is no one building new refineries right now? These are questions for later, but not much later.
Time is of the essence. Actually, this might be a good time to talk about the nature of time itself. It is all well to talk about the big bang, the ultimate fate of the universe, or the possible cyclical nature of the universe but since “the days of our years are threescore years and ten” (Psalm 90) none of us will probably live to see these things come to pass in our present physical state. What is time, anyway? We never seem to have enough of it, but it is always there, chasing us in every waking moment and leading us on unto our inevitable doom. Earlier in this book, I discussed “staying in the moment” as an important concept in martial arts and in the animal world. I also mentioned the possibility of time travel. Staying in the moment has been discussed adequately for our purposes thus far, but what exactly is this moment in a real physical sense? The moment is more of a philosophical concept as I see it, but in relation to the science discussed in this chapter the moment (perfect moment) might be compared to the singularity itself, or to the mind of God.
In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
(John Chapter One, verses 1-5)
It is a beautiful passage, and I considered it beautiful even when I considered myself an atheist. It illustrates my point nicely as well. To live in oneness with nature and at one with time is to know God; and to be able to live in the moment without reservation is to understand the true nature of time as it relates to existence on the physical plane. What is the nature of time, however, to a physicist?
Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations is the seminal work of classical economics. It is also, I feel, outdated in our time because of one very simple miscalculation which could not have been foreseen by its author: the book is the product of the enlightenment and economic thinkers of the time seemed to think of resources as unlimited rather than as finite. Smith also knew of coal burning but not the refinement of oil. The beginning of the book is brilliant with the production line model in genesis of the making of pins by division of labor. Oil is different. We are used to thinking of oil as being produced, but it is not produced but dug or drilled up out of the ground. As we use more and more every year (oil use doesn’t exactly follow the laws of supply and demand) it becomes more expensive to pump. Oil makes the world go ‘round, or at least the industrialized world. Ask yourself what will happen to the stock market when the oil shortfall becomes apparent and, scarier still, why is no one building new refineries right now? These are questions for later, but not much later.
Time is of the essence. Actually, this might be a good time to talk about the nature of time itself. It is all well to talk about the big bang, the ultimate fate of the universe, or the possible cyclical nature of the universe but since “the days of our years are threescore years and ten” (Psalm 90) none of us will probably live to see these things come to pass in our present physical state. What is time, anyway? We never seem to have enough of it, but it is always there, chasing us in every waking moment and leading us on unto our inevitable doom. Earlier in this book, I discussed “staying in the moment” as an important concept in martial arts and in the animal world. I also mentioned the possibility of time travel. Staying in the moment has been discussed adequately for our purposes thus far, but what exactly is this moment in a real physical sense? The moment is more of a philosophical concept as I see it, but in relation to the science discussed in this chapter the moment (perfect moment) might be compared to the singularity itself, or to the mind of God.
In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
(John Chapter One, verses 1-5)
It is a beautiful passage, and I considered it beautiful even when I considered myself an atheist. It illustrates my point nicely as well. To live in oneness with nature and at one with time is to know God; and to be able to live in the moment without reservation is to understand the true nature of time as it relates to existence on the physical plane. What is the nature of time, however, to a physicist?
The most familiar and simple definition in physics and the geometry of space time is that time itself is the fourth dimension. We are three
dimensional beings existing in and moving through time. The three physical dimensions are length, width and height. Time was first considered as a
fourth dimension in Einstein’s Special and General Theories of Relativity. I prefer not to go into geometric applications of fourth dimensional
theory and these resources are available on the internet to any who are interested: try Henry Manning’s The Fourth Dimension Simply Explained from
the University of Virginia’s E-text Library. It should be enough for anybody. The interpretation of time itself as the fourth dimension is enough
for my purposes here, anyway. It is all well for me to say that the ideal of earthly existence is to be able to live in the moment, but we must also
be able to deal with any other moment when it arises. This brings us to the nature of human consciousness.
Often the human mind is unwilling or unable to take hold of a single moment or to prevent constant “skipping” from one moment to another. For this reason, time often seems to be relative to us. Time is indeed relative in the scientific sense-as faster speeds are reached, time actually goes faster; but to a human traveling at faster speeds, there is no change in the perception of time since the values are so small. Also, on a purely emotional level, we tend to perceive time as going faster when we are well entertained and more slowly when we are bored. I find time passes more slowly when reading Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina than when reading Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings but different people have different tastes regarding literature. We are all more bored in the waiting room at the doctor’s office reading old copies of Reader’s Digest and Time than when watching a good game on TV or enjoying a night out with friends.
Wouldn’t it be good to be able to reverse time, to relive in backwards time those experiences which are most pleasurable while editing out those which have caused us pain? This is one thing I can imagine a higher-dimensional being as being able to do. Imagine you have broken your arm. Using this talent, would one be able to go back in time, erase the moment of injury, and bar all memory or even incidence of the pain from ever having occurred?
And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. And he said unto me, it is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of life freely.
(Revelation Chapter 21, verses 4-6)
It would be good to be able to make all things new, to be young forever, to halt the passage of time. But in the earthly realms, how else can a person grow and become closer to God than by experiencing pain and sadness? The flesh and the mind and soul within must be tempered by the refiner’s fire which is life to test these things for greater possibilities in some future time, or to simply test the individual in the task of living life. When making a sword, the best smiths find the best alloy, test its composition, build a fire that is just right, and fold the metal several times in forging the blade. It must be sharp and strong if it is to cut through the thorns intertwining life’s path.
Often the human mind is unwilling or unable to take hold of a single moment or to prevent constant “skipping” from one moment to another. For this reason, time often seems to be relative to us. Time is indeed relative in the scientific sense-as faster speeds are reached, time actually goes faster; but to a human traveling at faster speeds, there is no change in the perception of time since the values are so small. Also, on a purely emotional level, we tend to perceive time as going faster when we are well entertained and more slowly when we are bored. I find time passes more slowly when reading Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina than when reading Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings but different people have different tastes regarding literature. We are all more bored in the waiting room at the doctor’s office reading old copies of Reader’s Digest and Time than when watching a good game on TV or enjoying a night out with friends.
Wouldn’t it be good to be able to reverse time, to relive in backwards time those experiences which are most pleasurable while editing out those which have caused us pain? This is one thing I can imagine a higher-dimensional being as being able to do. Imagine you have broken your arm. Using this talent, would one be able to go back in time, erase the moment of injury, and bar all memory or even incidence of the pain from ever having occurred?
And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. And he said unto me, it is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of life freely.
(Revelation Chapter 21, verses 4-6)
It would be good to be able to make all things new, to be young forever, to halt the passage of time. But in the earthly realms, how else can a person grow and become closer to God than by experiencing pain and sadness? The flesh and the mind and soul within must be tempered by the refiner’s fire which is life to test these things for greater possibilities in some future time, or to simply test the individual in the task of living life. When making a sword, the best smiths find the best alloy, test its composition, build a fire that is just right, and fold the metal several times in forging the blade. It must be sharp and strong if it is to cut through the thorns intertwining life’s path.
I once defined myself as an atheist, but always I was striving for a more spiritual journey. My interactions with what might seem to be the lowest of
God’s creatures have pointed me to a newer way. Still there is doubt. I am not what would be called a born-again Christian, but Christ has always
been very important to me. Even when I was a doubter, I loved his teachings. He is a scientist in one very important respect: his way of living life
and loving others is the pinnacle of moral philosophy and the truest science of trust in the innate value of one’s own life and in the love of a
just God. Jesus will receive a fuller mention in Chapter Eight, Facets of the Eternal; but for here it will suffice to say that certain of his
parables, sayings, and teachings have an alchemy all their own, and represent perhaps the fullest expression in western thought of how men may best
live together in peace and harmony, with love for all and the highest reverence for the eternal.
Science is still very important to me in itself, though this chapter must have quoted the most Bible verses of any science essay yet written. Science and religion are not incompatible, and I am at the same time a rational and very spiritual person. As we struggle to understand the beautiful world in which we live and to understand how best to love our fellow man, both are needed. Physics can teach us of the inner workings of the universe and of the singularity of the universal equation. Biology teaches us about ourselves as physical beings and also, in its ecological and naturalistic disciplines, how to preserve the beauty of the earth.
When I look out the window into the fading daylight and watch the insects still buzzing around going about the business of survival, I am reminded once again of how big a place this world is, and how small we are upon it. Bufflehead ducks are flying out over the water, startled by some unseen or perceived threat. The day has been overcast and chill, but the late afternoon has seen a rise in temperature that will disappear when the sun goes down. I am reminded of Charlotte and my small apartment where the only wildlife outside was a few small birds and the occasional squirrel. It is indeed beautiful up here in Virginia. The air is still, and there is a singular peace which descends from the calm evening air which barely moves the boughs of the trees. My rat Angus stirs restlessly in his cage hoping that I will take him out to play. Perhaps I will later, for my work is done. All is one in the singularity.
Science is still very important to me in itself, though this chapter must have quoted the most Bible verses of any science essay yet written. Science and religion are not incompatible, and I am at the same time a rational and very spiritual person. As we struggle to understand the beautiful world in which we live and to understand how best to love our fellow man, both are needed. Physics can teach us of the inner workings of the universe and of the singularity of the universal equation. Biology teaches us about ourselves as physical beings and also, in its ecological and naturalistic disciplines, how to preserve the beauty of the earth.
When I look out the window into the fading daylight and watch the insects still buzzing around going about the business of survival, I am reminded once again of how big a place this world is, and how small we are upon it. Bufflehead ducks are flying out over the water, startled by some unseen or perceived threat. The day has been overcast and chill, but the late afternoon has seen a rise in temperature that will disappear when the sun goes down. I am reminded of Charlotte and my small apartment where the only wildlife outside was a few small birds and the occasional squirrel. It is indeed beautiful up here in Virginia. The air is still, and there is a singular peace which descends from the calm evening air which barely moves the boughs of the trees. My rat Angus stirs restlessly in his cage hoping that I will take him out to play. Perhaps I will later, for my work is done. All is one in the singularity.
Um...yeah I agree...I think...
Maybe you could put this in layman's terms...or just really, really shorten it.
I'd like to know what this is all about, but I have ADD, and I was lost about half a paragraph in.
Maybe you could put this in layman's terms...or just really, really shorten it.
I'd like to know what this is all about, but I have ADD, and I was lost about half a paragraph in.
Originally posted by terriblyvexed
Um...yeah I agree...I think...
Maybe you could put this in layman's terms...or just really, really shorten it.
I'd like to know what this is all about, but I have ADD, and I was lost about half a paragraph in.
Doesn't matter. You don't need to read it all! Just some musings of mine that led to a failed book attempt, but I truly believe I had contact with other dimensions at the time.
You see, we are not really here! The brain is the translator but not the source of consciousness. You don't need to read my text-walls; just skim them. Learn to talk to the animals, and they can teach you a lot more than I am trying to teach you in my clumsy way.
Kung Fu, anyone? Internal Shaolin? I can get you past that ADD without the drugs. Concentrate your Chi...
edit on 4-6-2013 by
godspetrat because: (no reason given)
edit on 4-6-2013 by godspetrat because: (no reason given)
Originally posted by godspetrat
Originally posted by terriblyvexed
Um...yeah I agree...I think...
Maybe you could put this in layman's terms...or just really, really shorten it.
I'd like to know what this is all about, but I have ADD, and I was lost about half a paragraph in.
Doesn't matter. You don't need to read it all! Just some musings of mine that led to a failed book attempt, but I truly believe I had contact with other dimensions at the time.
You see, we are not really here! The brain is the translator but not the source of consciousness. You don't need to read my text-walls; just skim them. Learn to talk to the animals, and they can teach you a lot more than I am trying to teach you in my clumsy way.
Kung Fu, anyone? Internal Shaolin? I can get you past that ADD without the drugs, Concentrate your Chi...edit on 4-6-2013 by godspetrat because: (no reason given)
Oh,I see it's a spiritual thread not scientific.
Well there's nothing I can add to this then that would be worth anything to you.
I spent half my childhood practicing my chi, and never could make a kame hame blast...
reply to post by terriblyvexed
I started out learning it by myself, but had to get a master who could teach me what to do with the Chi. Otherwise, you'll just give yourself constipation and irregular heartbeat...
Oh; there is nothing spiritual about Chi and Internal Shaolin. All scientific.
I started out learning it by myself, but had to get a master who could teach me what to do with the Chi. Otherwise, you'll just give yourself constipation and irregular heartbeat...
Oh; there is nothing spiritual about Chi and Internal Shaolin. All scientific.
edit on 4-6-2013 by godspetrat because: (no reason given)
edit on 4-6-2013 by godspetrat because: (no reason given)
You started writing this in September 2007 after sustaining a back injury in your bathroom, right?
Sorry for the one line post...but now it's more than one line.
Sorry for the one line post...but now it's more than one line.
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