Posted on 02/15/2004 9:02:00 AM PST by betty boop
I'm going offline now for awhile to read and meditate on what you have written!
Your essay speaks with ringing clarity to cosmology, to philosophy, to mathematics, to evolution, to consciousness, to physics and to theology. I see many parallels in Jewish mysticism as well. Truly, I wish this were published!!! But where???
In that regard, it saddens me that this essay is in chat. On the other hand, the subject deserves more than the quick read often given to articles posted on the main forum. Perhaps a careful review here will encourage you to have it published!
Of particular interest to me was the discussion of the part v the whole. My mind raced to many examples like the one you gave, evolution, where the classical approach of piling up the parts doesn't satisfy. Enter mathematics. I agree with you that math belongs in Geisteswissenschaften - because it is math which often brings such part-based theories to their collective knees. The critical density of the universe comes to mind. Moreover, mathematics is mystical in so many ways as described by Tegmark, Penrose, Barrow and many others.
For me, the metaxy is the most fascinating subject of all the fascinating subjects discussed in the essay. Then again, I have never been one to presume the firmament has a location but rather that it is a separation – in this case perhaps the barrier through which the metaxy communes.
The discussion of the singularity from which this universe sprang was also very engaging. Indeed, it is a superposition of all that becomes. By my reading of relevant articles, the scientific materialist cosmology requires that this be so and there was at one time a corresponding concern if information was lost in a black hole. IOW, it cannot be lost if it were all contained in that singularity. But, like you, I suspect this concern arises from a current lack of understanding concerning dimensionality.
I dunno. Do you? I was kinda hoping there wouldn't be one; but that's probably hoping for too much. :^)
I guess you can tell Rawls is not exactly my "cup of tea".... for whatever that's worth!
Thank you so very much for your kind "review," Alamo-Girl! I agree with your suspicion that problems of dimensionality are not well understood, and this may arrest progress in scientific research, at least for a while. But it seems to me you are exactly right: No information can be lost in a Black Hole that was front-loaded into the system on Day One, especially when that information was loaded in, in a hierarchically redundant manner, and is carried by a universal field. Seems to solve that problem!
I cannot believe this piece was moved to Chat. I posted it to Philosophy. I've been working on it intensively for the past four weeks, with copious spillage of blood, sweat, and tears along the way. Plus I researched it six ways to Sunday. This was serious scholarship. I do not consider it a "vanity piece" -- but apparently, someone at FR does. Sigh. Life is not fair. :^)
Chat. B.S.
I will have to reconsider my giving, the next time FR has its quarterly fund drive.
Thank you so much for writing, Alamo-Girl -- and for your kind words and moral support.
I like to say in this temporal world soul/myth to some are not real.
If one ponder our state of existance and the physical body and organism are in a state of constance decay how ever minute!
The Life force only support for certain amount of time!
The comprehention of many is to relate and think in this dimension.
To me many things that is relegated as myth, once had a life force in the temporal world.
I think it is time we come of age and start think of things in multifasted existance under various degrees of universal laws!
Earth is a state of endless rise and fall or cycle of birth and death. Yet other kingdoms Laws operate differently
Many that are eternal have limited progress and the untilmate have progression without end!
To be con't......
I'm pinging betty boop also because we have discussed some current thinking that the universe cycles in this fashion - maturing to point and starting over again -- or alternatively, that the universe both informs and is informed.
I have been pondering both thoughts with regard to temporal dimensionality.
I do believe I have to agree with you there, edwin hubble! Thank you so much for saying so!
Alamo-Girl, the ancient Greek conception of Fate -- the World soul cycling in an out of potency, and men getting dragged willy-nilly along in its train for better or worse -- seems to be implicit in this observation.
Yet from a Christian point of view, the same statement can be read as an affirmation of the "two-way street" that obtains between God and man.
It seems to me that successful communication is always a "two-way street." Failing that, it seems we are left to the Greek conception of Fate to settle our issues for us.
Plato thought the universe was a living being possessing a soul that waxed and waned according to its own natural rhythm or time pulse. If a man got stuck with being alive during a bad patch, then bad luck to him. One must ride the cycle -- which is operating at a timescale that has no correspondence with the human timescale, and in fact uses eons where man might use hours to measure the "passage" of time. Man born at the wrong time gets to be a victim of this ride....
Christianity is ever optimistic, especially as compared with the Greek idea of Fate, which embroils all men for good or ill, regardless of their personal qualities, talents, or efforts.
This is an extraordinarily weird problem for the modern mind to contemplate. But it might do us some good to do try. :^)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.