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.
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.
Richard Neuhaus over at First Things should read it. His readership would appreciate it and understand its implications, I think.
Send it over to him, BB. I have corresponded with him and found him to be a very gracious man. He has a first rate intellect and I'm sure he'll be intrigued by the ideas in the piece. Even if in the end he doesn't think it's a fit for his magazine, it's worth a shot.
BB I posted something a few years back about Mandelbrot's fractals and a "leak" way, way down at the bottom where, I hypothesized, materiality and immateriality may exchange energies. Sounds a little like what Grandpierre has posited, doesn't it?
Thanks so much for this fantastic article, BB. I have never seen your ideas so clearly and powerfully laid out. Just wonderful stuff.