Know Thyself

[dan]

I still worry about atoms, frequently. How can we grant them independence without, thereby, granting them objectivity? It has to do with the very major role that logic plays in their existence, which is a form of panpsychism. It may have something to do with the distinction between genotype and phenotype. The phenotype Is the analog for the 'psychic' aspect of existence. And, when it comes to the alleged evolution, which aspect is truly in the driver's seat? As reductionists, we suppose it must be the genes, but that is only one, rather narrow way to look at the process.
-----------


Bill, of SfA, and I had a convo about the BGF's meeting this Sunday....... Varying Spiritual Responses to "2012" and "The Great Turning". The plan is that we will meet with Sam for lunch, after the SfA meeting, and then go on to the BGF meeting..... a busy day....


Are the Green/New Agers looking for a miracle? Well, if the 2012 event is not supposed to have a miraculous dimension, then what the heck is it supposed to be? They are praying for sustainability, which would be a compromise between the cancer and the chrysalis models of the future. It would be cancer in remission.

But does the 'malignant mutation' not remain? Might it not metastasize at any point, unless there are perpetual totalitarian controls? Not a pretty picture for our otherwise free-spirited, wannabe tree-huggers.

From Marxism to National Socialism to Transhumanism to Deep Ecology, we are seeing the perennial hope for Utopia. This is a hope that is peculiarly endemic to western civilization. If it does not come out of the prophetic tradition, then it must have sprung, fully formed, from Karl's brow, as Athena from Zeus.

What does the prophetic tradition have to do with Utopia? It has everything to do with the idea of Creation. Creation implies purpose.
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Sam and I may be going to a local meeting of atheists...... Sam learned about this through his friend, Richard Vitzthum..... Materialism: An Affirmative History and Definition. It should be fun!

While searching for Richard's book, I came across God and the Folly of Faith: The Incompatibility of Science and Religion, by Victor Stenger, to be published next week. It is a state of the art compendium of the battle for the soul of science. For all its breadth, it is necessarily shallow. It seems clear that Victor is preaching to the choir..... keep the faith, my fellow atheists..... And he is mainly reacting to the recent plethora of books by cosmologists speculating about the possibility of God.
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1:30-------

Now, back to purpose........

A basic premise of the BPWH is the 'physical'/quantitative finitude of the world. The best possible world is necessarily coherent, and so it must be finite in space and time. This is not to imply any qualitative or spiritual finitude, on the part of either the Creator or the creatures.

Surprisingly, or perhaps not, it is theists who often react most negatively to the physical finitude of the BPWH. Clearly, for them, size matters...!! There is a conceptual imbalance between an infinite Creator and a finite Creation. No?

How better to grasp the Omnipotence of the Creator than through the infinite magnitude of the Creation? Ok, and, as if this weren't bad enough already, there is the specter of Gnosticism, raising its ugly head, at the same time.

Of all the heresies threatening the orthodoxy, Gnosticism is the grandaddy. I should have a ready explanation, but alack, alas..... Well, I'll betcha that fear plays a big part. Fear of hubris is not to be taken lightly. But what is behind that fear? Back at OM, I spent some time on the taboo of the Sacred...... now we see, as through a glass darkly, BUT, then,......! Well, thank goodness for our Shades!

But then how do we explain the J-man? Did he not violate that taboo in every possible way? What has science been, however, if not a channeled form of gnosticism? Nature becomes our open book.

It's ok to get familiar with Jesus, but not with spirits. Science upholds this latter taboo, to the hilt! That taboo is the bedrock of materialism. One does not speak of one's encounters, either in polite or in academic company, if there is a difference.

Most pietists/quietists speak of I and Thou, and at GFC everyone is on a first name basis with the Almighty. And the charismatic groups come ever so close to fraternizing with the 'familiars'. But...... there are limits to this familiarity. Our relationship to God is one of surrender. It's not about collegiality. It's not about sitting down and having a beer. How many of us would walk into a bar with our dads, without significant trepidation?

But that's where we're headed, sports fans, right down to the neighborhood bar. Get used to it.

There are the Sacred and the Profane. There are the Raw and the Cooked. We prefer God to be well cooked. We want God on a stick. We want Jesus on a stake. The empty grave is fine..... just make sure it stays that way. Meeting our maker is going to melt our flesh, and every last one of our vanities. Ain't the beer cold?!

Gnosticism is for fools and the foolhardy. Be careful what you wish for. But the BPWH is nothing, if it is not knowable. Is it not the theory of everything? Yes, it is the theory of everything....... hmmm..... well almost..... God's love is just not computable. Nay, it is not comprehendible. Unfathomable. Sorry 'bout that, Gnostics fans. Better luck, next time.
------------


But if I'm such a know it all, why can't I explain atoms, for goodness sake? Those pesky little microcosms......

And maybe that's the only way we're going to understand them, as microcosms.....

Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower -but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.

That must be it. It's just that simple.

Physicists can understand atoms, but only poets and mystics can understand their roots.

To dissect is to kill. Quantum physics is just a shot across the bow of the would-be dissectors. So atoms do have an independent existence? Yes and no.....

Back on the BPW site, there is an entry for "Dream Atom" (#1 on google). Did not Kekule dream of the organic Ouroboros?

It's magic? It is an incarnation.... have no doubt, and almost as magical as the big One. Each incarnation is rooted in the other. There is transubstantiation. To see it otherwise is to be legally 'blonde'.

The alchemists were looking for the holy grail. Kekule found the ouroboros in benzene. What is carbon, if not pure magic? If you don't think so, just ask my buddy, Fred, the discoverer of anthropics.

Are we talking 'panpsychism'? The "Panpsychic catastrophe" (#2 on CM, #1 on OM), a-la Ned Block? What else could it be, pray tell? But whose psyche is it? Tell me that it's not the cosmic Psyche!

Did God have a Carbon fetish? That's the way it seems. But how did he manage to manifest this fetish, quite so much in our faces? He didn't hold back. He poured everything he had, into the BPW. If you put all your eggs in one basket, be sure to watch it carefully. Now, guess what, gnostics fans, you and I are on the redemption team.

But, still, how 'bout them atoms....? How much independence do they need? Do they need freewill? Do we? All we are saved? Where is the 'free-willy' in that? How do they differ from the tree on the Quad? It had plenty of roots, too. If one atom were to go missing, would we miss it? We already covered that, with the radium dial, and, if I recall my physics, that is just one electron that goes 'missing'. How else could we have told the time, in the middle of the night? Just don't lick those brushes.

Evaporation? Where are the roots, pray tell?

Sure, the rainwater roots are everywhere..... on and off the Quad. Anyone for a rain dance? Or.....

All day I've faced a barren waste
Without the taste of water, cool water
Old Dan and I with throats burned dry
And souls that cry for water
Cool, clear, water.....

If H2O didn't cooperate with the Sun, we'd be up a long creek without a paddle. Is photosynthesis more or less of an immaterialist problem than is evaporation? I guess it depends on your POV.

Photosynthesis has very deep roots in organicism, whereas evaporation is just.... out there. By comparison, it seems almost superficial. And so does the radium dial....Who ordered that?

Given the Standard Model, with its finely tuned parameters, the muon and water follow. But those mathematical formulas do not speak to the implementation. "What is it that breathes fire into the equations?"

Who or what?? Ask not for whom the bell tolls....... Or, après vous, Gaston..... The Psychoanalysis of Fire......

As one of the truly unusual and original books anyone would hope to come upon, almost every paragraph (nay, sentence) of the book has the power to change the perspective of an engaged reader. Perspective on, yes, fire, but also on many other things. Prometheus and his "clever disobedience," which leads to a startling formulation "The Prometheus complex is the Oedipus complex of the life of the intellect." The psychoanalysis of rubbing (thus, cleaning) and heat producing in what Bachelard calls the "Novalis complex," which leads to a meditation on the nature of love. Alcohol, the eau-de-feu ("water on fire") working as eau-de-vie by setting one's being on fire instantaneously in the "Hoffmann complex." These are just most obvious themes of the book. Attentive readers will discover much, much more to cherish.

Not too shabby.....

Therein lie the phenomenological roots of fire, and, then, evaporation..... No?

Did we steal the fire.....?

We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and, to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.

I grew up in that shadow of a thousand suns. Sunfish. Therein lies the core story. Don't lick the brush.....

Tell that to the Gush Emunim.



(cont.)

[dan]

So, are atoms objective or subjective.....?

Are you and I objective or subjective? And what about the stone on the path?

Are atoms just logical artifacts of phenomena, or do they have to be posited as basic entities, thereby giving greater scope to materialism? Will there be atoms in heaven? Will there be stones?

Will it rain in heaven? If not metabolism, what will be the source of energy? Peanut butter and jelly? Mana?

I'm not acceding to the view that metabolism represents anything more than a very useful appearance...... an epiphenomenal accounting device. It keeps us down on the farm..... our noses to the grindstone. It's about the necessary coherence of Creation. What about the coherence of heaven? Down here, the apparent objectivity of atoms merely reflects our own egoism, which, in turn, is mostly illusory. We are God, retrodictively chasing his own tail, and just about to grab it, at the Omega.

The conservation of atoms need not differ greatly from the conservation of sand on a beach. Beaches evaporate in storms, and collect elsewhere. Our dreams are only somewhat less conservative. Are there beaches in heaven? Is there heaven? There is a cosmic mind, and that mind has an environment, which may consist mostly of Creation. Heaven may simply be Creation, as experienced by God. Is that focused on the X-event? Ouch.....

Wouldn't God get bored with a finite Creation? Well, heaven is non-temporal. Does that mean it is static? That would be sub-temporal. Can we have a supra-temporality that is not just frenetic or chaotic? Well, whatever it may be, it seems sufficient to keep our ancestors off the farm and out of our hair, bless their hearts.....

God, OTOH, is in our hair. She is kept very busy counting the hairs on our head, as they fall out, daily. That's a whole different perspective, from that of our crazy aunt Millie, rattling around in the attic. As we come to comprehend the coherence of our finite Creation, so do we come to know the mind of God, and he to know ours. It is a mind meld. Would we have it any other way? It is frightening, only in abstraction.

God eats our lunch. She is our lunch, as we are hers. Get used to it.

It may be that coherence is the ultimate source of energy, something like the heat of condensation that fuels the thunderstorm. Creation is a thunderstorm..... a tale full of sound and fury..... We are a van-de-graaff. That is the ouroboros. I've had worse ideas.

Omega >> back to Alpha is the spark-gap, as with Leonardo and Noah.





(cont.)

[sparky]

"And isn't it a bad thing to be deceived about the truth, and a good thing to know what the truth is? For I assume that by knowing the truth you mean knowing things as they really are." Plato

Enjoy reading your posts. Suggest you fill in some of the blanks so it may provoke some comment and you will not talk to yourself quite so much.

“One advantage of talking to yourself is that you know at least somebody's listening.”

[dan]

I keep hoping that folks will point out the blanks.......

[dan]

Knowing thyself is closely related to the philosophical problem of identity, of which personal identity is the most problematic.

Identity has a lot to do with objectivity vs. subjectivity, which, in turn, is closely tied to the problem of materialism vs. immatialism..... Wherein lies the identity of the grain of sand on the beach? And then there is the Identity of Indiscernibles, bringing us back to my BPW buddy, Wilhelm L.

Yes, I share with you the strong intuition that the stone on the path is self-identical, whatever that may mean, and no one is real sure, or not convincingly so. But we tend to agree that the stone on the path is not 'merely' a figment of 'our' imagination, as Samuel Johnson was wont to demonstrate, to his own satisfaction, at least.

Here is the rub...... if we suppose, as with the BPWH, that to be is to relate, then the notion of self-identity appears groundless. If I'm in solitary confinement, do I lose all sense of self? Do I lose my memories? Am I the same person as the young child, with or without any shared unconscious traumas, or other scars, for example?

Speaking of sand on the beach, what about the apocryphal(?) tale of the lost wedding ring returned to the owner in the belly of a fish? It is not ontologically implausible.

I can build a sand castle on the same dreamscape, on two different nights, but I don't suppose that it is the same castle composed of the same grains of sand. Although, the 'same', unusually marked, pebble might appear in both dreams. It's not easy to draw a line in the sand, when it comes to the problem of identity.

What is identity, if it is not in the eye of the beholder(s)? OTOH, if electrons were not (self-?) identical, the Earth would implode into a neutron star, within nanoseconds! This is just the working of the Pauli exclusion principle.

The problem of identity also has to do with the problem of internal relations..... as if there were such things..... Generally, we intuit relations to be external, as in brother and sister. But what about soul sisters, for instance?

And what about souls? I have suggested that there may only be a single soul, in the final analysis, or synthesis, as the case may be. And what about dolphins and insects? Could I reincarnate as a butterfly.... an eagle? Should we doubt that a shaman can, for medicinal purposes, fully incarnate the totem, or group soul, of a Condor? Yes, but not vice-versa, IMHO, and therein lies the rub. I can have a pet rock, but the rock does not have me, generally speaking....!

Will I not meet my grandmother in heaven? Or will she already have been dissolved, so that her soul may be recycled, expeditiously? And, if there is only one soul, then what does it mean for us to be created equal??

She and I exist as the characters in the best creation story ever told. That's what we are now, and what we will be, whenever. Beyond space and time? Where else, pray tell?

And those not so indistinguishable grains of sand? The whole hole in my driveway? Are they created equal? Are they essential? Generally speaking?!

Are they not the notes of the symphony, or, more accurately, the intervals? And where are those notes? How do we perceive them? On the CD? In the cloud on the Internet?

Why must we intuit so many things besides God? Who ordered the crack in my driveway? What is Creation, if not an exercise in planned obsolescence? It is Lila, and it must be self-contained, to be coherent. It must be discernible, on a clear day..... a very clear day! That is D-day. We will be able to count the grains of sand on Omaha beach. You can count on it. And granny will be counting, too!

There are people, allegedly, with eidetic memories who can count the bricks in their childhood home. In the end, which will prove more real...... the memory or the bricks? And where is that memory? In the RNA in your head? For all the marvels of MRI, neuroscientists are strangely agnostic as to memory. Is it ROM or RAM, just as a for instance?




(cont.)

[a99]

You will meet your grandmother and your sister in heaven Dan and I know this with absolute certainty.

[dan]

99,

There are many intelligent folks for whom the thought of meeting anyone in heaven is very far from being plausible. And this number would include many ufologists, I would wager.

I am arguing that this alleged implausibility is largely in the eye of the beholder. We have grown very comfortable with seeing the world through a materialist prism. We forget that there are other ways to see it. The truth of the matter may matter for our survival of the difficult times ahead, unless the ET's want to hand over their power source.

[a99]

I agree with you on that Dan, that "alleged implausibility IS largely in the eye of the beholder". Good point! And no question about it, only some kind of extraordinary intervention of the ET kind is going to save us and our planet. Are they collaborating with our Maker? I sure hope so!

[dan]

99,

Plot spoiler...........

The good guys win! And we are the good guys, and so are the 'ETs', despite all their bad press.

And all we are saved! And what about the bad guys? Well, they never showed up.

The force is with us. We would never have gotten this far, if it weren't. Are the ETs or God or whomever, going to pull the rug out at the last minute? Actually, this is what most folks think. This would be sheer perversity, especially now that we are so far into the home stretch.

We don't deserve to be saved, do we, especially not those folks, over there, and definitely not some of my neighbors? Isn't the Earth supposed to be redeemed, and all the bad parts be washed away, like our sins? It is a powerful image, alright.

Did God love Idi Amin and Pol Pot? Did they not conspire with the bad ETs?

The tribal system had broken down. Only a vacuum was left. Idi may have represented the shortest path between two points..... a path of least resistance. A plan of salvation has been in effect from day one, but it has been muted. Our egos have been behaving more like the alleged atoms, swerving in the dark. This is the larval stage of the spirit. The next phase was programmed, also from the beginning. But the stage had to be set. The curtain is about to rise on the final act. Should we have trepidation? Of course. Hope, too. I may have the least faith of all. I actually think that God needs my help. What a fool I am!

Yes, it does seem like the rug is about to pulled out..... but it's really just the curtain that is about to be raised. Trust me? I wouldn't. I'd trust God..... or the Federation, or the Force, if you prefer.

Too much drama? Well, that all depends, now, doesn't it?



(cont.)

[dan]

Which presents the greatest challenge for the immaterialist..... the desert, the jungle or the city?

Great Sand Dunes National Park? It's a dreamscape to begin with.

The jungle? The problem that Berkeley had with trees was what they did at night, as when, late one night, the Birnam wood came to Dunsiname!

What about the beating of our hearts? What does the idealist do about that? They just keep on ticking, even when we're asleep, although, not always. Breathing, too, right through the night, and we had no clue what it was about, until a couple hundred years ago. Do we have to breathe in heaven? Can we sleep in heaven, or is that what heaven is...... the big Siesta? And what about Wigner's friend? What keeps her ticking? What keeps the dolphins playing? Who ordered them? The roses budding?

Is it the atoms swerving in the dark? What brought them to Dunsiname? Fate? Cauldron bubble......

Look to the panpsychic roots. Look to old faithful. Rose budding. Heart ticking. Where is the line in the dune? Did it blow away, or did we forget it?

Where am I going with this? Around in a circle. It is the hermeneutic circle of ontology. Kinda like the Ouroboros. It is Geoffrey's bootstrap.

The jungle is our bootstrap. Its complexity is infinite. That's quality, not quantity. Quality matters..... size, somewhat less so. 10^10 of us? Well, it's be here or be square^2. How many immaterialists does it take to make a rose bud? How many botanists? How many mathematicians to make a Mandelbrot? We may be about to find out. And who ordered them? And while you're at it, take a look at my other favorite, the E8...... (a close relative of the Monster)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-Gk_Ddhr0M

Yes, Lisi is talking right up our bootstrap alley, is he not?

And, yes, there are connections between the sporadics and the exceptionals. This connection is due to the Leech lattice, which also connects the Monster with Heterotic string theory, etc.....

It seems rather clear that this 'organicity' of mathematics has much to do with anthropics, but I don't know of anyone else who is making something out of these connections. Are we afraid to meet our Maker, at the other end of the MoAPS?


3:40------------

I haven't yet reconciled panpsychism with theism. Theism is mostly top-down, while pantheism is usually supposed to be bottom-up. We must suppose that the cosmic mind has both centric and eccentric aspects, or both centripetal and centrifugal tendencies.

As the Hindus might say...... Brahma breathes in and breathes out.

The out-breath is ruled by Pythagoras and anthropics. The in-breath is the Omega. It is ruled by the MoAPS, culminating in the rapture of the 144 million.

God gives license to us, and we give license to nature, teleologically. We give the world its definition, as stated in Genesis. We do God's busy work and her accounting.

And how about those cities? Who keeps the water and electricity flowing? Michael Bloomberg? The buck has to stop somewhere.

The interest on muni-bonds keeps rising. Who will pay the piper? Cities, like countries, do fail. Garbage does pile up, rather quickly. My sister, Deborah, and her daughter are on a six-week National Geographic trip up the west coast of Africa. The conditions in the cities can be excruciating. People are not dying in the streets, surprisingly, it seems. Foot traffic is horrendous, tourist facilities are nil. There are no services to fail. The VP of Liberia and his entourage of 40, were guests for dinner, aboard the ship.

Sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia are the two regions that have not experienced the dramatic demographic transition of the rest of the world. What will it take? Will the societies collapse even further? Watch Melinda Gates, earlier this month, at TEDxChange.....

humanosphere.kplu.org/2012/04/did-media-ignore-melinda-gates-ted-talk-on-family-planning/


6pm---------

However, it can and should be argued that whatever happens with fertility in these two remaining regions will have very little impact on the global resource crisis. Rising expectations in the developing world are fueling accelerated competition for rapidly dwindling resources. It is here that the MoAPS may prove necessary to avoid a conflagration. This is the prow of our global juggernaut, which will set the pace toward our fateful reckoning. On that prow, it is the Gush Emunim, in its religious/demographic confrontation with Islam/Palestine, that is, quite self-consciously, the bleeding edge of Armageddon. Who is watching? Who has a plan?




(cont.)

[dan]

How do trees compare to bodies, we might wonder, from an ontological perspective....?

The difference is more likely to be of degree, not of kind. Trees and bodies are social constructs, as are UFOs, where the 'society' includes the whole cosmos. Both they and we have 'souls' that are reflected in our DNA and 'memories', etc.

Our identities are very much wrapped up in our families, homes, possessions, professions, etc. Consider the pregnant woman. Where does one body begin and the other end? Is it just a matter of chemistry? Atoms are interchangeable, to the utmost, out of metaphysical necessity. Our bodies, somewhat less so, also by logical necessity. It took a very long time for ego to develop out of tribal mind. We likely have reached the apogee of that trajectory. It was fun while it lasted.

We like to project our egos onto the rest of the world, and even onto atoms. The fit is always somewhat dubious. Trees project onto us, but a bit more subtly. Animism and vitalism abound. That is panpsychism at work. Pantheism makes a great deal of sense, to those of us who are not terminally reductionist. You can take the driver out of the car, but can you take the car out of the driver? Our possessions do tend to get in our blood and in our psyches.

Consider the bat and glove of the professional ballplayer.... How are they not an extension of the psyche?

Our dreams tend to be somewhat more idiosyncratic than our waking experience, but they may also probe depths of the cosmic mind that are not otherwise accessible. Psychedelic drugs may have similar effects. This is why they tend to terrify our thoroughly modern egos. Our identities become much more fluid..... promiscuous, if you will.

The mini paradigm shift of the 60's elicited a strong conservative reaction. Would not the MoAPS tend to elicit a much stronger reaction? A spiritual Armageddon, or a physical one? To avoid the worst of the trauma, we will need the conceptual grounding of a BPWH. We will need a global skull session, before we take to the field.

This is why Disclosure would best not be driven by phenomena. Without a conceptual grounding, it would generate chaos. What then will trigger the conceptual shift? An economic crisis? Postmodernism is paving the way, but intellectual license or licentiousness can only take us so far. From whence will come the coherence? Who or what is going to backstop our putative Chicken Little?




(cont.)

[dan]

I'm feeling relatively comfortable with run of the mill immaterialism, where, given the not unreasonable assumption that our bodies can be rationalized as being immaterial, then so can the rest of the world, without invoking any new principles of ontology.

Where there continues to be some difficulty is with the Alpha and Omega. But I think I made some progress, yesterday afternoon, simply by remembering Owen Barfield, with his original and final 'participations', referring to the Alpha and Omega, respectively. Another way to express this is with the aboriginal and final dreamtimes.

Relying significantly on the metaphor of the dreamtime, the bridging of the Noahic gap, the spark or reboot gap, from the Omega back to the Alpha, becomes manageable, IMHO. Does that make sense, given an understanding of the nomenclature?

Anyway, today is going to be a long day, relative to my usual pace, stretched between Grace & Green, with three affinity groups thrown in, for good measure. In between, Sam and I are having lunch with Bill S, of GFC, who may then join us for the spiritual presentation at the BGF.

But, nowadays, my biggest problem is with D-day. How is that going to work, without Ron in the loop? If there is an MJ12, do they have a plan? Will it involve the SoT and/or CL? I guess we'll all just have to stay tuned.....

.

[sparky]

You have a far better chance of figuring it all out without Ron than with him. Pulling wings off
flies is not conducive to enhancing knowledge.

Now swear to me here before God that you will not deal falsely with me or my children or my descendants. Show to me and the country where you now reside as a foreigner the same kindness I have shown to you.”
Genesis 21:22-24

[dan]

A principal benefit of the ouroboric configuration of the Earth's timeline is that it reduces the singularity of the Alpha and Omega. What would otherwise be the two dangling ends of history can now be quasi-continuously folded back into each other, leaving rather a spark or a reset gap between the two ends.

Reinforcing this quasi-circular continuity is the massive recirculation of the single cosmic/human soul, which you and I are time-sharing with our 10^10 soul mates.

Further reinforcing the O > A continuity are our original and final 'participations' as explicated be Owen Barfield. We are now at the perigee of our sojourn into matter, as we prepare for the MoAPS that will bring us back into immaterialism and, so, our final participation in Creation.

The part of the time-loop that is proximate to A&O is our Dreamtime, where reality is more fluid and more porous. Altered states increasingly demand our attention. Thus is the discontinuity of the A/O gap ameliorated by being spread out in time and being blurred over, if you will. Thus would the anachronisms have ample opportunity to melt into the aboriginal background. I should attempt some elaboration of this 'melting' process. Yes?

What is going on here is my own little attempt to reduce the Creator's burden of creation by placing more of it on us creatures. The time-loop greatly abets the joint effectiveness of the original and final causes, by simply combining them so that they can operate in tandem. Original and final causation may then be intertwined and spread around the entire loop of creation. From the cosmic perspective, everything is happening in the shining cosmic present/Presence. That's where we're all headed. Just follow the light......

It would seem that the above 'melting' process for alleviating anachronisms would still require a lot of skilled labor, a lot of deliberated psychokinesis, a very major repair or reclamation effort, if you will. No?

Hmmm........ Maybe God isn't quite as lazy as I am!

But can't we just let Nature take its 'recourse'? I mean what is Nature good for?!

Then again, I don't want to take away the fun of our Millennium cleanup crew. I'm just looking for a reasonable compromise with Gaia.

Time heals all wounds, especially non-linear time. Why can't Gaia just regrow her skin, the way you and I do? Is that asking too much. Hey, it's kinda like the reverse of liposuction, when it comes to those oil wells, etc!

So I'm sure that we can work out some kind of a deal. Where there's a will, there's a way. You can spare me all the details. In case you hadn't noticed, I'm not really a detail sort or guy.

And, look, we do want to leave a few anachronisms lying around, just to bug the archeologists, and so that our Atlantean contingent can keep the faith. I hope that gives Louise a smile.

Do we want to include any flora or fauna on Noah's time-machine, a-la Jurassic park? Strictly speaking, Noah might not still be entirely necessary, but it is a nice story, and I would hate to have it get lost in the shuffle. IMHO, we already have the best possible Bible (and Koran!), and, trust me, I would be the very last person to mess with success. What a conservative revolutionary I am. Maybe it's my Napoleon complex.
-----------------


12:20------

This evening, Sam and I will mix and mingle with the atheists at Ukazoo books. Are they in for a treat!?

I behaved myself pretty well, yesterday, both at GFC and at BGF...... well, until the end of both sessions, wherein I did let off some steam. I nailed the Bible thumpers with the NASB version of 1 Cor 6:9..... where it lists the 'effeminate' amongst the unrighteous who are destined for Hell. Oh boy, is that a typo or what?

You know what.....? I was sort of under the impression that angels were kinda unisex, and are there not supposed to be a lot of angels in heaven? Other translations, of course, differ. I am not making this a personal research topic, having already nailed the NASB, but 'male prostitute' appears in another version, or so I'm told.

Bill was leading the discussion of sexual morality and Christianity. I very much agree with the general idea that women's liberation in modern times owes a great deal, if not almost everything, to the sanctity of marriage, as underscored especially by Paul.

But...... we then have the issue of fornication. Here I pointed to Onan, bless his heart.

But, no, again, I couldn't resist investigating effeminate...... the Greek word in question, malakoi, has to do with the wearing of soft or fine clothes, such as how God clothes the birds. Does this mean that Hell is for the birds? Is Hell, then, a fashion statement?

All kidding aside, Onan is the premiere fornicator of the Bible. Correct me if I'm wrong...... The sin of Onanism provides the primary Christian case against birth control. Ask Rick Santorum.

And how do we contrast Onan with the other biblical injunction...... 'Woe be unto them that are with child.....'..... see both Luke and Matthew, wrt to the latter days.


Then came the BGF.......

Lore R did acknowledge that I had some input into yesterday's chosen topic of spirituality and the Great Turning of 2012. She showed the video......

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERk-O5BOQRE

Two of the population group had already left in a huff, when they found out that spirituality was the main topic for discussion. I don't recall much of the statements, but the main contribution was from a couple from the Gunpowder Quaker meeting, who were introducing the topic of environmentalism to their meeting. At the very end, I interjected that before we could prescribe a cure, would would first have to make a diagnosis of the ailment.....

Are we experiencing our death throes, or is it our birth pangs? If we don't know that, then we have no basis for action, whatsoever. There was virtually no response.


3pm----------

Now for the atheists........

Butust had a long convo with Sam about tonight's meeting. He points out that what Think Atheists is, is a support group, much more than an advocacy group. The very last thing they have in mind is evangelism.

My main question, then, is why atheism rather than agnosticism? Does atheism make any sense vis a vis agnosticism? Think Madeline Murray, who was from Baltimore, I believe. She was certainly evangelical. She was a militant, almost a jihadist..... burn all bridges.

I truly have no clue, about this question.

A few days ago, I was pointing to the emerging dialog in Europe between the materialists and the christians. They were both paying very close attention to each other.

That dialog had everything to do with Paradise Lost, as in workers' paradise. Everyone wants to know, where do we go from here.

It is only the atheist....

Slavoj Žižek (is a Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic working in the traditions of Hegelianism, Marxism and Lacanian psychoanalysis.)

who refers to the apocalypse. That's what CL is all about.



(cont.)

[dan]

I was much impressed with the atheist meeting last night. In my usual state of desperation, I'm even willing to entertain the possibility of light at the end of that tunnel. If there were any, it would be the first breakthrough for the BPWH, in many a moon. Or ever?

They, there were ten of us, were virtually self-acknowledged to be free-spirits, or, as they would say, free-thinkers. They are not denying any possibility of the supernatural. Excepting Sam's friend, the philosopher, none of them were strict materialists. They would be much more of the existentialist persuasion. There was some discussion of freewill, and the slipperiness of that concept.

This was just their fourth meeting. Some had recently attended the Reason Rally in DC, where Richard Dawkins had spoken, amongst several notables...... the biggest ever such event.

What impressed was the unstated, and perhaps even the unacknowledged, spirituality of these folks. They were passionate, but not militant in their atheism. Open to all possibilities, and not wishing to hide behind the cloak of any religion or of agnosticism.

How might they differ from pantheists, like the many of those at the BGF, and where there are also some acknowledged atheists? I can't express it easily. It was a very different atmosphere. Younger, more upbeat..... sure.... Open to discussing ultimate concerns, without reservation, and with all seriousness.

The proposition I would bring to these folks is the distinct possibility of reinventing religion, in the light of an impending social crisis. Yes, it would be a long shot, but who knows what any of us might be up for......


12:05------------

I've just been alerted to this movie.......

survivingprogress.com/

which some of us may see in DC, this evening. It's based on the 2005 book.....

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Short_History_of_Progress .......

The first chapter, "Gauguin’s Questions", poses the questions that provide a framework for the book. Referring to Paul Gauguin's painting of the same name the questions are: Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?

Sounds familiar..... This special release is part of Earthweek, I believe.

The movie is being carried in selected Landmark theaters. Scorsese is the producer.


4:20-----------

Had lunch with Sam to discuss a strategy wrt TA, especially in light of the above movie, that we'll be seeing in a couple of hours...... reviewed as possibly the best doomsday documentary ever.

Can I make the atheists an offer they can't (hardly) refuse? The offer is to use the present crisis as an opportunity to reinvent religion.

Why the heck would an atheist give any thought to inventing religion......? Wouldn't that be the last thing she would want to do? Would that not be caving into the Big Lie?




(cont.)