New beginnings

I'd like to start this post with a paper I wrote for my philosophy class, it fills a gap or puzzle I've been trying to put together for about a year.


Science and religion offer explanations interpreting the meaning of life accepted by most people, yet in many cases there is a tendency of bias in favor of one viewpoint over the other. Who is “right”? Is there any way to reconcile their differences? The history of science is closely intertwined with mankind’s unceasing effort towards the lofty goal of discovering truths about our existence. This struggle is humbling for life is short and there is so much to learn—it often leaves me feeling mentally inadequate and unable to find the right words to say. The term ineffable relates to this feeling. It is hard to write on a topic if you don’t know what to say about it. I probably won’t get high marks as it is entirely speculative, but I desired to write on it for about a year now before taking this course.
This paper will compare—and I will expand on— Vedantic writings with other books very similar in nature: on evolution’s relationship to human spirituality. Vedantic texts had a profound influence on the beliefs of many eminent scientists and philosophers, e.g., Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrodinger, Arthur Schopenhauer, and others. The Upanishads and Bhagavad-Gita are the main texts integral in understanding the philosophy of Advaita Vedanta. Deutsch writes, “The central concern of Advaita Vedanta is to establish the oneness of Reality and to lead the human being to a realization of it.” The method of realizing oneness with Reality is established by the individual consciousness itself embodied in the phrase tat tvam asi where, “one begins with individual consciousness (tvam), passes on to universal consciousness (tat), and arrives at the pure consciousness that overcomes the separative reality of both the individual and the universal that constitutes their ground. Tat tvam asi means the affirmation of a common ground, viz., consciousness, to the individual and Brahman. The identity is obtained by stripping away the incompatible or contradictory elements of the “that” and “thou” and thereby arriving at their common elements or basis.” (Deutsch, pg. 49) The Vedantic texts focus on encouraging others to realize the oneness of Reality. Using the expression tat tvam asi the student is taught to associate their tvam, subjective consciousness, and understand its relationship to tat, the universal consciousness, that permanently and wholly envelops their inner being.
For whatever reason we find ourselves “thrown into being,” taking on a myriad of forms as members of Homo sapiens. We assume mammalian bodies as the result of a billion year legacy in the making of evolution on planet Earth. In the vocabulary of Advaita Vedanta, Atman assumes many forms yet its relationship with Brahman is the same throughout, as Brahman remains the common ground of all. The common ground, if I could define it, is essentially spirit. Atman is spirit bounded by time and space but spirit nonetheless and shares this identity with the universal spirit of Brahman.
Life goes on transforming itself as it proceeds from generation to generation. This transformative process was discovered in the 1800s by Charles Darwin and we refer to it today as evolutionary theory. There have been many battles between religious and scientifically inclined folks over the meaning of evolution and oftentimes it is debated that if you believe in one you must disregard the other. I’m not a fan of religious dogma, but I am also not a hardcore atheist. I think evolution is a spiritual process as much as it is a scientific one codified by love. Jesuit Priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said of it, “Love is the most universal, the most tremendous and the most mystical of cosmic forces. Love is the primal and universal psychic energy. Love is a sacred reserve of energy; it is like the blood of spiritual evolution.”
Albert Einstein wrote, “The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms - this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.” It is in this awe of our relationship with Reality we are humbled. In Reality we assume forms given to us by evolution; the process of evolution has a direction and we play an important role in continuing its trajectory. What exactly do I mean by the term ‘evolutionary trajectory’ and how do we contribute to it?
Max Planck, the German physicist, shares a mystical view and outlines the field we will further examine, "Religion and Natural Science are fighting a joint battle in an incessant, never-relaxing crusade against skepticism, against dogmatism and against superstition, and the rallying cry in these crusades has always been, and always will be: On to God!"
Planck’s rallying cry claims the direction in the process of evolution heads toward a concept of “God.” Many people believe God is something you meet after you die: a nebulous character concerned with your actions on Earth, and by His grace allows the seeker entrance into some other-worldly place called heaven, or eternal condemnation. Another view of God, following more along the lines of Planck’s quote, is a character essentially immanent, residing within creation itself, whose objective is to bring himself out of the woodwork with our cooperation. This sounds like a weird and improbable scenario, yet the relationship between science and religion is more charming, and more revealing of his true character: love, as opposed to fear. The evolutionary-themed emergence of God from creation also sounds heretical, but I do not believe this to be the case. In fact this very idea has been developed further by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in his opus The Phenomenon of Man. The concept of evolution seemed blasphemous, but having studied paleontology and Bergon’s Creative Evolution Teilhard began to adopt the scientific view. The evolution of life becomes a comprehensible phenomenon, “It is an anti-entropic process, running counter to the second law of thermodynamics with its degradation of energy and its tendency to uniformity. With the aid of the sun’s energy, biological evolution marches uphill, producing increased variety and higher degrees of organization. It also produces more varied, more intense, and more highly organized mental activity or awareness.” (Chardin, pg. 27) Connecting the idea of the propensity of evolution’s characteristic of increasing order he formulates a “Law of Complexity/Consciousness” to highlight the ability of evolution to produce forms of higher order as time treads onward.
Man is then, “a summary and synthesis of all the preceding levels of organization. Many factors which had been prepared during the long ages coincided in Man, and a ‘critical transformation’ took place: consciousness became reflexive, conscious of itself. This is the birth of Thought, and while it is in continuity with the general advance of consciousness, it also represents a discontinuity and a leap to a totally new kind of being. The new consciousness, aware of the world, aware of itself, aware of itself in the world, immediately organizes the world around itself.” As order embraces this new mode of being we see that evolution itself changes its protocol, “Evolution reaches a critical point in man, after which it becomes psychosocial. It is consciousness itself, or spirit, which is now evolving. Material heredity is replaced by spiritual heredity, the transmission by education of the ‘acquired characteristics’ of culture… We the evolved, now become the evolvers” (Brutreau, pg. 19-20) Notice the comparison to the recurring theme of this paper: the evolution of spiritual heredity. The trajectory of evolution is primarily material until a critical point is reached. Our task now is to continue the trajectory in another direction, Teilhard refers to the emergence of the noosphere or sphere of thought, using our capacity for thinking to extend ourselves into the next “dimension” of awareness as the “Law of Complexity/Consciousness” carries on.
Science then, as the foundation of organized knowledge, is essentially the spiritual underpinning describing the mechanics of and connectedness of Reality. With the advent of the Internet, we find ourselves increasingly connected with one another, increasing our knowledge and evolving new ideas together. “After this critical point has been passed, evolution takes on a new character: it becomes primarily a psychosocial process, based on the cumulative transmission of experience and its results, and working through an organized system of awareness… As a result, new and often wholly unexpected possibilities have been realized… The conditions of advance are these: global unity of mankind’s noetic organization or system of awareness, but a high degree of variety within that unity; love, with goodwill and full co-operation; personal integration and internal harmony; and increasing knowledge.” (Chardin, pg. 27)
The Internet is the latest step in the increasing complexity of Consciousness that facilitates the global unity of mankind’s noetic organization. The Vedantic theme of Brahman is capable of comparison with Teilhard de Chardin’s Jesuit belief system: “It is Christ, Teilhard affirms, who is the principle of Unity which holds the whole universe together. He is the Shepherd who brings together sheep from many folds. He is the physical, or ontological, center of the universe, and He is, in a way, the ‘soul’ of the evolutionary movement, i.e. He is what ultimately animates it.” (Brutreau. Pg. 32) Substitute Brahman for Christ and the meaning is still essentially the same. Brahman, Christ, Allah, etc. are all expressions attempting to describe the ineffable principle of unity. This principle of unity has a spiritual ground, animates the trajectory of evolutionary movement, and shares its nature with every being united within it.
Teilhard’s conception of evolution is very similar to the Vedantic conception of the oneness of Reality. He even adheres to the theme of oneness within the universe. His overall view of spirituality and evolution and its similarities with Vedantic spirituality is fascinating. Teilhard goes so far as to affirm one of the basic Vedantic tenets, “‘that absolute multiplicity never existed.’ If we adhere to what we can actually observe, we are always in the presence of something which exists; some degrees of unification is always present. And as we climb the scale of evolution, the story of creation becomes ‘the story of the struggle in the universe between the unified multiple and the unorganized multitude.’” (Brutreau, pg. 35)
The Internet serves as a focal point in changing the tempo and character of evolution. As material heredity brings about life and increased levels of consciousness through time, we begin to see the glimmerings of a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. With the Internet evolution takes on a new character. The multiplicity is increasingly unified in a new phase or mode of being. The tat is then the self-aware aggregate of tvam: “Possessing ourselves of this key to the pattern of reality, we can now turn our faces to the future and speculate on the even greater affinities and unions that must lie before us. Some kind of superconsciousness is to be expected, we say; something like a community of individual reflections uniting themselves ‘in a single unanimous reflection.’ Multiplicity will, of course, be preserved in this final unity; as each person ‘loses himself’ in the great One, he will actually find in it all the perfections of his own individuality. The ultimate state of the world must be ‘a system whose unity coincides with a paroxysm of harmonized complexity.” (Brutreau, pg. 35) The multiplicity as outlined by Teilhard’s evolutionary conception is so closely related to the Vedantic system. The Vedantists described the oneness of Reality, but were not familiar with Darwin and had no access to the Internet; nevertheless they deeply held to the notion of the unity of Reality. Teilhard de Chardin, living hundreds of years after the Vedantists, also held to the belief of an underlying principle of unity in Reality, but also went further by illuminating the possible direction evolution may be headed.
Returning to Max Planck’s quote on the relationship between Religion and Natural Science and looking at evolution in this light, we might say that “God” is what emerges from the collective consciousness, the united aggregate of tvam, in a global self-aware super consciousness. Evolution is a spiritual process aiming at the fulfillment of Christ’s request, “‘that they all may be one, even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us.’ This source of perfection, then, the union with Divinity which appears so exceptional when seen incarnate in human society, should, by our principle, actually be the universal characteristic (in graduated degrees) of all being… In this view the cosmos is immediately revealed as an evolution toward Divinity.” (Brutreau, pg. 33) This evolution toward Divinity is analogous to Planck’s rallying cry. To illustrate the relationship, Teilhard believes: “Evolution is a tremendous undertaking of the incorporation of physical matter into humanity and of humanity into Christ and therefore into God.” (Brutreau, pg. 33)
This fascinating discussion and its relationship with the meaning behind Planck’s quote is certainly an alternative and less held view of the evolutionary process. Skeptics engender a culture of criticism and are generally suspicious of claims involving God. The scientific method and basic applications of Occam’s razor discourages the introduction of entities multiplied unnecessarily. The speculative nature of this paper is only meant to be a personal project highlighting the relationship between Advaita Vedanta and the writings of and about Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Teilhard had a lot to say about science and religion and did not see the
two as antithetical, but instead supportive of one another. As a Jesuit priest and paleontologist he saw both sides of the aisle had something meaningful to contribute to the story of life. The development of the Internet is a recent phenomenon; Teilhard predicted its emergence using the trajectory of the evolution of life and its relationship with our capacity for thought, calling this thought-activity of humans the noosphere. This ability to think among the human species gave Teilhard the idea that in the future a network of interconnected thinking beings sharing the results and contents of their experience: knowledge, art, music, etc.
Is the information age the beginning of Teilhard’s predicted superconsciousness? The idea that “a community of individual reflections uniting themselves ‘in a single unanimous reflection’” doesn’t seem farfetched as it would have fifty or a hundred years ago. The combination of globalization and changes stemming from the Internet reveal a global noetic organization derived from mankind’s scientific efforts.
If Advaita Vedanta’s relationship to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s writings are judged by their similarity we find that both hold to the notion of the oneness of Reality. Teilhard, living hundreds of years after the Vedantins, expanded on that idea and inferred from the history of evolution the emergence of the Internet. This arising “superconsciousness” from within the noosphere becomes more apparent to me with each passing day but predicting what happens from here is a mystery.


I think it's safe to say I hardly know what my future will be like. We can dream and we can plan all we want. Improve your lot: play the hand you've been dealt. Although my mind still wanders off track at times when I need it most, I try to make decisions using a rough cost-benefit analysis. There isn't much math involved, but the objective I aim for is to redirect my energies and turn something previously harmful into something good. Think of yourself entering a positive feedback loop, where the small daily gains accumulate into something substantial. Find whatever you want to change and go for it. Every day we're evolving with the world and technology around us. I still find it hard to pick the right words to say in a conversation, oftentimes I feel incredibly inadequate, but every new day is an opportunity to prove myself wrong. Here I am at twenty-two with my whole life ahead of me. I'd like to make an imaginary toast coinciding with the arrival of the new year: to new beginnings.

How sweet it is!

http://sites.google.com/a/transfigurism.org/transfigurism-wiki/Home/quotes-1/mormon-quotes-on-transfiguration-and-resurrection

An interesting collection of quotes taken from Scripture I've been considering for a while now,

1 Corinthians 15: 51-55
"Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"

I've been beginning to think the trajectory of evolution of the universe from an "Alpha" point with the Big Bang heading towards a Teilhardian "Omega" point where immortality is, basically, part of God's plan for us. This is hinted at in 1 CORINTHIANS 15:25-28 when, "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death," so that, "God may be all in all."

All this reminds me of what Einstein had to say about religion and him feeling that "everything else seems superfluous" when reading the Bhagavad Gita; I also remember Planck's rallying cry, "Religion and Natural Science are fighting a joint battle in an incessant, never-relaxing crusade against skepticism, against dogmatism and against superstition, and the rallying cry in these crusades has always been, and always will be: On to God!"

Sitting here at my desk, I understand Einstein's feeling that everything else seems superfluous. I'm alive. I was born and somehow I wake up seeing the world through my eyes as this single mind swimming in a fish bowl on Earth with all these other beings, namely, a lot of really wonderful people. I relate to what Bill Hicks learned when he tried psilocybin mushrooms, I took this quote to heart when I tried it, "The heavens parted, God looked down and rained gifts of forgiveness onto my being, healing me on every level, psychically, physically, emotionally. And I realized our true nature is spirit, not body, that we are eternal beings, and God's love is unconditional and there's nothing we can ever do to change that. It is only our illusion that we are separate from God, or that we are alone. In fact the reality is we are one with God and He loves us."

Although the universe is as Woody Allen wrote, "haphazard, morally neutral and unimaginably violent," my connection with reality and all this positivity within me is biased a bit because I grew up in a good enough environment where I didn't have to worry about getting randomly robbed or murdered. Now that I'm older and have been around New York City for a while I realize life isn't always the pretty world I thought it would be. It's realer than that and I feel unprepared, but I'm learning. I listen to a lot of 90s New York hip-hop and try to develop a hustler mentality, and it's funny. Irfan the hustler, you mean the kid who wrote all that fruity poetry growing up? But then again, Nas and Tupac are poets in their own right, "It's getting hard to be someone but it all works out."

Who really knows any of these things for sure? I subscribe to these ideas only because they are more exciting and fruitful in providing me with a reasonable enough explanation for why I'm here and where we're all headed. The singularity hypothesis is so much more interesting to think about with the quotes above and books like Teilhard's Phenomenon of Man. I've been worrying about dying too much in my posts, so much so I feel like I prevent myself from living the way I want to day-to-day. Thinking about Substance as this creative theater makes me feel a lot better knowing that I'm united with it and can contribute to it. How sweet it is to be loved by You!

"And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. 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 the water of life freely. He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son." Revelation 21:3-7

Change is the only constant

I can't hold onto past mistakes and let them bring me further down. I've been here before and know better. Life is funny like that. I saw that you were genuine and I only offered more of the usual. I see that now and instead of going on and on in long winded manner I can only hope you find it in you to forgive me for that. I talked about being different, but didn't really prove it. Stay strong.

Do you ever get the feeling that some people are meant to be miserable? I get that a lot. All these mannerisms, always a bummer, a buzz kill. That's okay though, they're all phantoms. They're all problems only if you think they are. Funny how that works...

Walking around campus
Evening time
Leaves descending
Fading sunshine
A phantasm sublime

Clocks tick
As students click
Their heels and toes
Transmitting flows

Admiring the consolation
Provided beneath a Willow tree
Mirror Lake reflects
Dissolving images back at me
A charming breeze
Sets one at ease

Garnering pen and pad
I write with trust
"The best of all
God is with us"

Love.

“Love is the most universal, the most tremendous and the most mystical of cosmic forces. Love is the primal and universal psychic energy. Love is a sacred reserve of energy; it is like the blood of spiritual evolution.’

“Love is the affinity which links and draws together the elements of the world... Love, in fact, is the agent of universal synthesis.”

“Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.”

-Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

A Student's Evening Hymn:

"I.

Now no more the slanting rays
With the mountain summits dally,
Now no more in crimson blaze
Evening’s fleecy cloudless rally,
Soon shall Night front off the valley
Sweep that bright yet earthly haze,
And the stars most musically
Move in endless rounds of praise.


II.

While the world is growing dim,
And the Sun is slow descending
Past the far horizon’s rim,
Earth's low sky to heaven extending,
Let my feeble earth-notes, blending
With the songs of cherubim,
Through the same expanse ascending,
Thus renew my evening hymn.


III.

Thou that fill’st our waiting eyes
With the food of contemplation,
Setting in thy darkened skies
Signs of infinite creation,
Grant to nightly meditation
What the toilsome day denies—
Teach me in this earthly station
Heavenly Truth to realise.


IV.

Give me wisdom so to use
These brief hours of thoughtful leisure,
That I may no instant lose
In mere meditative pleasure,
But with strictest justice measure
All the ends my life pursues,
Lies to crush and truths to treasure,
Wrong to shun and Right to choose.


V.

Then, when unexpected Sleep,
O’er my long-closed eyelids stealing,
Opens up that lower deep
Where Existence has no feeling,
May sweet Calm, my languor healing,
Lend note strength at dawn to reap
All that Shadows, world-concealing,
For the bold enquirer keep.


VI.

Through the creatures Thou hast made
Show the brightness of Thy glory,
Be eternal Truth displayed
In their substance transitory,
Till green Earth and Ocean hoary,
Massy rock and tender blade
Tell the same unending story—
"We are Truth in Form arrayed."


VII.

When to study I retire,
And from books of ancient sages
Glean fresh sparks of buried fire
Lurking in their ample pages—
While the task my mind engages
Let old words new truths inspire-—
Truths that to all after-ages
Prompt the Thoughts that never tire.


VIII.

Yet if, led by shadows fair
I have uttered words of folly,
Let the kind absorbing air
Stifle every sound unholy.
So when Saints with Angels lowly
Join in heaven’s unceasing prayer,
Mine as certainly, though slowly,
May ascend and mingle there.


IX.

Teach me so Thy works to read
That my faith,—new strength accruing,—
May from world to world proceed,
Wisdom's fruitful search pursuing;
Till, thy truth my mind imbuing,
I proclaim the Eternal Creed,
Oft the glorious theme renewing
God our Lord is God indeed.


X.

Give me love aright to trace
Thine to everything created,
Preaching to a ransomed race
By Thy mercy renovated,
Till with all thy fulness sated
I behold thee face to face
And with Ardour unabated
Sing the glories of thy grace."

James Clerk Maxwell

I've recited these poems to myself many times and every moment spent breathing serves to reinforce their meaning. Each day is a gift.

Thank you. That is all.

On the Universe's Destiny

You know, in the past, I've always been telling myself how awful my writing is but I don't think I've ever changed my methods to do something about it. Most of what's written here amount to doodles of first drafts. If I should have learned anything from Strunk and White it would be: revising is a part of the writing process. I expected gold to come out of my mind every time I touched a keyboard. I'm also aware now that some of the poetry I've jotted in the past is actually kind of sketchy, and others are all right. Reading them back to myself is a funny task. They're so sappy and self-defeating, as if they're portrayals of some barren wasteland, a "desolatopia." The emptiness is there for the sake of being empty, as structural underpinnings of emotional deprivation. My poem "Love is not for me" befuddled me after an audible recitation. It's actually pretty weird, was I suggesting some sort of child abuse left me devoid of emotion? I've always wanted others to read and "discover" this, but damn, that poem is just weird, I doubt it'll be regarded favorably. There's no happy ending, it just stops. I guess happy endings don't always happen in the real world. If anything, I'll consider it Elliott Smith-esque, maybe somebody will like it. That's the point of art, isn't it? No it's not at all comparable to the Shakespeare's, Dryden's, Johnson's of the world, but it's unique, it has its own little flair. It has a certain flavor to it some could relate to. Some products as such are the work of genius, of those who've dedicated their lives, striving to fulfill one niche in the vastness of knowledge, and they're great for that reason. Practice makes perfect, but our constrained animal capacities leave us with so little to show for it, winning in the genetic lottery to have their life work considered "worth preserving" for future generations. I don't consider myself a winner in the genetic lottery, but that doesn't stop one from trying. People are so quick to judge things negatively by treating others' thoughts or creations with vitriolic disdain. "This shit sucks." "Are you retarded?" "This is worthless." Perhaps in terms of money-making, let's say, Hollywood won't accept every script they get, but sometimes it's not about the money; this is the work of an imagination, and as such is a contribution to humanity. Maybe it's a waste of your time, but something new and wonderful has been added to the noosphere of creativity. So what am I trying to say? We are creative beings, and ultimately our purpose here is to express ourselves in one way or another. The creative impulse shouldn't be discouraged or abandoned, especially if some cigar smoking shot-caller says you'll never make it. You're being you is all that matters. In a way, I hope this blog I've been dabbling with is viewed in this light. No, maybe it's not extraordinary, but this is what my attachment to this vast causal nexus produced. It's digital, too: as long as Google doesn't go out of business it'll be here for ... possibly, ever. This is my stamp, my contribution. I also figure it's what I've been determined to write, given the chain of causal connections leading to the determination of my intelligence, past states of mind, self-contempt, and everything else that lies herein. I'm transitioning now to a more positive, contemplative, state of mind and dissociating myself with the emotional-roller-coaster of the past. I'm happy with being me, and it's beautiful. I can now truthfully say I'm "free," although I'm still conditioned per causality. Thomas Henry Huxley put a meaningful emphasis on it in an essay regarding animal automatism, "It is quite true that, to the best of my judgment, the argumentation which applies to brutes [244] holds equally good of men; and, therefore, that all states of consciousness in us, as in them, are immediately caused by molecular changes of the brain-substance. It seems to me that in men, as in brutes, there is no proof that any state of consciousness is the cause of change in the motion of the matter of the organism. If these positions are well based, it follows that our mental conditions are simply the symbols in consciousness of the changes which takes place automatically in the organism; and that, to take an extreme illustration, the feeling we call volition is not the cause of a voluntary act, but the symbol of that state of the brain which is the immediate cause of that act. We are conscious automata, endowed with free will in the only intelligible sense of that much-abused term–inasmuch as in many respects we are able to do as we like–but none the less parts of the great series of causes and effects which, in unbroken continuity, composes that which is, and has been, and shall be–the sum of existence."

When this dawned on me in its fullness it became something of a "permanent effect" that remains with me ever after. Relating to the same feeling, Balzac shares the experience of a Cosmic Sense in a verse, "nous ne sommes que par l'ame[All we are is in the soul]" and in another instance, "Are you certain that your soul has had its full development? Do you breathe in air through every pore of it? Do your eyes see all they can see?"

I wonder how many at this same exact moment share this feeling? I wonder what their families are like, what their conversations consist of. A gentle smile? Pointing out parables to children? Discovering something new in a research facility somewhere? Whenever I drive through or walk in New York City I'm almost speechless. Look at this place. Trying to imagine all of the stories of people that have shared the experience of simply walking over the Brooklyn bridge is mind-blowing. Even at my own home, could there have been Native Americans looking at the same ponds and rivers, the same kinds of animals, and thinking to themselves "what a remarkable spectacle this great Nature is." I try to imagine them running around Sleeping Giant state park by Quinnipiac University; what a miraculous world we happen to find ourselves in. The thought itself motivates me. Due to the conscious experience I found myself growing into, I realized I'd always be dissatisfied without understanding what to make of sense-experience. Most probably have the same goals, but generally settle upon something incomplete. They're still subject to the emotional-roller-coasters, to appeasing carnal desires and what not caught up in the causal web.

The Bhagavad-Gita is a beautiful text for those who are curious, and its setting interpreted allegorically is the battlefield in the soul of every being. Gandhi was deeply influenced by it and praised it thus, "The Gita is the universal mother. She turns away nobody. Her door is wide open to anyone who knocks. A true votary of Gita does not know what disappointment is. He ever dwells in perennial joy and peace that passeth understanding. But that peace and joy come not to skeptic or to him who is proud of his intellect or learning. It is reserved only for the humble in spirit who brings to her worship a fullness of faith and an undivided singleness of mind. There never was a man who worshiped her in that spirit and went disappointed."

Followers of all stripes of religions believe in the revelatory authenticity of their sacred texts for the most part upon circular logic: "It's the Word of God and should be treated as such because it says so in the Book." Devotees of countless religions base their worldview, actions, and lifestyles, on such threadbare evidence. It basically amounts to an adherence to tradition, for the sake of tradition. I've known a few people go from atheism back to Catholicism, or from Judaism to Islam or vice versa, and it's interesting. I understand the traditional component is quite strong in influencing opinion, but out of all the sacred texts the world has produced the strains of thought coming from the East are the most profound it's hard to understand why the West continue on with their ways, besides the fact that it's a historical accident. The religious feeling is an emotional appeal to something greater than oneself, yet everybody has their own take and oftentimes it leads to competing claims about the superior validity of this or that text, followed by argumentation and eventually into wars. For this reason Edward Bellamy turned against the Christian religion since, "the church failed to put the emphasis on religion where it belonged, namely on the translation of the Golden Rule into human relations; that it sang constantly about the glories of Heaven and did not denounce or attempt to correct evil and wickedness here below." But this is, after all, human nature we're talking about: Flawed is our middle name.

Where does this leave us? It's beginning to look like the various faiths of the world have something fundamentally wrong about them. I have a friend who regards any critique of religion as "biased," for they're all somehow equally valid. In the Gita it is written, "Yet soon is withered what small fruit they reap: Those men of little minds, who worship so,Go where they worship, passing with their gods. But Mine come unto me! Blind are the eyes Which deem th' Unmanifested manifest,Not comprehending Me in my true Self! Imperishable, viewless, undeclared,Hidden behind my magic veil of shows" By this logic it might make sense, for example, if God created everything and all religions then they're all valid but think about it in various ways. There's a saying that relates to this, "All paths lead to the one Truth, but many call it by different names." But this doesn't seem to me an adequate solution to the innumerable problems they bear, notwithstanding their desire of Truth. A new paradigm is forming behind knowledge of the inner workings of the world, bearing the banner of science and in many respects reveal contradictions and inconsistencies of the sacred texts billions of people regard dearly. One recent BBC documentary hosted by a Christian on the legacy of Darwin's theory found no problem in reconciling his faith with the theory. It's possible to reconcile just about anything with faith, for one, especially if considered allegorically. Still, some of the claims held by these groups make absolutely no sense, for example, Judgment Day. The End of Times, you say? How long have you been waiting for Jesus to come back? Oh, it'll have to be in 2012 this time? So what do you say when 2013 comes around? In light of the new understanding of the inner workings of the world many of these commonly held beliefs are rightly held to be insubstantial or just plain wrong. If you understand the law of causality and nature of the 13 or so billion year old universe how can you possibly believe the chain of causes and effects will stop anytime soon? It's for reasons like this, among others, that I find traditional religion to be incomplete and incoherent to the point of doubting their validity at all. I find it hard to believe one can reconcile faith and science without some sort of cognitive dissonance between the two. But then again, that's just the way it is. 'Brahman' makes the faith of every being in their deity very steady, you can't deny that. However, these people have interests that affect the decisions another individual can make, for example, homosexuality is against God's Law in the Bible and is therefore illegal and considered "immoral" in depressingly many parts of the world. But, if God created everything then he also created homosexuals, if it really was against God's Law he wouldn't have bothered making animals gay in the first place. But here we are faced with a dilemma, the so called "value voters" show themselves to be as bigots instead. If you really loved your neighbor as yourself, sexual preference needn't matter. But, oh no, this is an ordained and "holy" institution you're going up against. Aldous Huxley's Perennial Philosophy points it out, "The moralists cease to be realistic and commit idolatry inasmuch as they worship, not God, but their own ethical ideals, inasmuch as they treat virtue as an end in itself and not as the necessary condition of the knowledge and love of God--a knowledge and love, without which that virtue will never be made perfect or socially effective... The virtue which is accompanied and perfected by the love and knowledge of God is something quite different from the "righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees," which, for Christ, was among the worst of moral evils. Hardness, fanaticism, uncharitableness, and spiritual pride--these are the ordinary by-products of a course of stoical self improvement by means of personal effort, either unassisted or, if assisted, seconded only by the pseudo-graces which are given when the individual devotes himself to the achievement of an end which is not his true end, when the goal is not God, but merely a magnified projection of his own favorite ideas or moral excellences. The idolatrous worship of ethical values in and for themselves defeats its own object--and defeats it not only because, as Arnold insists, there is a lack of all-round development, but also and above all because even the highest forms of moral idolatry are God-eclipsing and therefore guarantee the idolater against the enlightening and liberating knowledge of Reality."

Is there a solution? I think there is, but it's hard to find. It lies in the Cosmic Sense, and the Sense I'm referring to is hard for anyone to find: Spinoza ended his Ethics (the work itself uses a geometrical outline as proofs but I think the value is not in the proofs and Q.E.D.s themselves but when interpreted 'allegorically' as a means to find the Cosmic Sense) writing, "all noble things are as difficult as they are rare." Einstein, as you probably figured from the rest of my posts, admired the Ethics and hinted at what lies ahead, "The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity."

How are we to think about religion, then? Well, for those who've comprehended the Oneness of Self know the universe to be something deeper and more meaningful than adherence to a set of religious rites. The Bhagavad-Gita teaches that one may find utmost peace of mind as the subject understands itself to be One with and not as something separate from the universe, the cycle of births and deaths along coupled with consciousness keep beings ignorant of their true nature. This ignorance is referred to as the delusion of dualities, wherein minds become tied up in sense-experience(Maya) born of likes and dislikes, so that the mind or ego of an individual rarely allows them to discover their relationship to their surroundings, a relationship transcending personal identity. It's something so close, yet so far away.

Richard Bucke's book "Cosmic Consciousness" is a collection of biographies and writings of people endowed with the so-called Cosmic Sense, and makes some bold inferences, which are yet logical extensions. For the record, I believe this inference is right, and is a valid insight regarding the future due to its logical consistency and also its support by the new understanding of mind provided by science.

I'll first begin with an account of the history of the universe as it relates to the scientific understanding of cosmic evolution (link to Chaisson's cosmic evolution website: http://www.tufts.edu/as/wright_center/cosmic_evolution/docs/splash.html). Causality has a foremost role in the playing out of the history of the universe: from the Big Bang onwards atoms have been in slowly working to bring about the life we find ourselves in today, although it's 2009 we could more accurately place the "current year" of the universe between 13.5 and 14 billion years old. In this vast causal nexus we find ourselves here today as the result of an accumulation of increasing forms of order in the universe. Atoms, the building blocks, assemble themselves into increasingly complex structures, at this point in the cell whose networks of interoperability(various systems required for living: digestion, immune, etc.) have endowed animals with the capacity for thought. In Minsky's "Society of Mind" we come to find that our ability to reason comes through the brain, whose cells can't "think" by themselves, but can by operating together in a great processing network. The causal nexus/sequence has been working since time immemorial up to where we find ourselves today, however, the journey doesn't end here. As increasing forms of order constitute more or less the "operating instructions" behind the machinery of the universe, we see that world history is itself akin to a computer simulation(if you will) playing itself out in front of our eyes, based on natural and statistical laws. I believe the causal sequence ultimately culminates into the technological Singularity, not merely because "I said so," but insofar as I am conscious and able to imagine a future: the design of our brains suggest that intelligence is a characteristic of our being that can be understood by reverse engineering, and with the help of intelligent machines it may indeed even be amplified.

Now, as pertaining to direct quotation from the book, here are a provided few,
"The view he takes is that our descendants will sooner or later, reach, as a race, the condition of cosmic consciousness, just as, long ago, our ancestors passed from simple to self consciousness. He believes that this step in evolution is even now being made, since it is clear to him that men with the faculty in question are becoming more and more common and also that as a race we are approaching nearer and nearer to that stage of the self conscious mind from which the transition to cosmic conscious is effected. He realizes that, granted the necessary heredity, any individual not already beyond the age may enter cosmic consciousness. He knows that intelligent contact with cosmic conscious minds assists self conscious individuals in the ascent to the higher plane. He therefore hopes, by bringing about, or at least facilitating this contact, to aid men and women in making the almost infinitely important step in question." ... "The immediate future of our race, the writer thinks, is indescribably hopeful. There are at the present moment impending over us three revolutions, the least of which would dwarf the ordinary historic upheaval called by that name into the absolute insignificance. They are: (1) The material, economic and social revolution which will depend upon the result from the establishment of aerial navigation. (2) The economic and social revolution which will abolish individual ownership and rid the earth at once of two immense evils--riches and poverty. And (3) The psychical revolution of which there is here question. Either of the first two would (and will) radically change the conditions of, and greatly uplift, human life; but the third will do more for humanity than both of the former, were their importance multiplied by hundreds or even thousands. The three operating(as they will) together will literally create a new heaven and a new earth. Old things will be done away and all will become new." ... "In contact with the flux of cosmic consciousness all religions known and named to-day will be melted down. The human soul will be revolutionized. Religion will absolutely dominate the race. It will not depend on tradition. It will not be believed and disbelieved. It will not be a part of life, belonging to certain hours, times, occasions. It will not be in sacred books nor in the mouths of priests. It will not dwell in churches and meetings and forms and days. Its life will not be in prayers, nor hymns nor discourses. It will not depend on special revelations, on the words of gods who came down to teach, nor on any bible or bibles. It will have no mission to save men from their sins or to secure them entrance to heaven. It will not teach a future immortality nor future glories, for immortality and all glory will exist in the here and now. The evidence of immortality will live in every heart as sight in every eye. Doubt of God and of eternal life will be as impossible as is now doubt of existence; the evidence of each will be the same. Religion will govern every minute of every day of all life. Churches, priests, forms, creeds, prayers, all agents, all intermediaries between the individual man and God will be permanently replaced by direct unmistakable intercourse. Sin will no longer exist nor will salvation be desired. Men will not worry about death or a future, about the kingdom of heaven, about what may come with and after the cessation of the life of the present body. Each soul will feel and know itself to be immortal, will feel and know that the entire universe with all its good and with all its beauty is for it and belongs to it forever." ... "The universal scheme is woven in one piece and is permeable to consciousness or (and especially) to sub-consciousness throughout and in every direction. The universe is a vast, grandiose, terrible, multiform yet uniform evolution." ... "The philosophy of the birth of cosmic consciousness in the individual is very similar to that of the birth of self consciousness. The mind becomes overcrowded (as it were) with concepts and these are constantly becoming larger, more numerous and more and more complex; some day (the conditions being all favorable) the fusion, or what might be called the chemical union, of several of them and of certain moral elements takes place; the result is an intuition and the establishment of the intuitional mind, or, in other words, cosmic consciousness. The scheme by which the mind is built up is uniform from beginning to end: a recept is made of many percepts; a concept of many or several recepts and percepts, and an intuition is made of many concepts, recepts and percepts together with other elements belonging to and drawn from the moral nature. The cosmic vision or the cosmic intuition, from which what may be called the new mind takes its name, is thus seen to be simply the complex and union of all prior thought and experience--just as self consciousness is the complex and union of all thought and experience prior to it."

The above is most likely the best description of what Einstein meant by "cosmic religion," and I believe this is our future and our destiny as human beings. If you noticed, Bucke also threw in a little shot at private property. For what it's worth I also do believe that private property sooner or later will be unnecessary. Most of the political theory I've read leading me to believe this is influenced for the most part by Noam Chomsky's seminar on "Government in the Future," furthermore by the less well-known political writings of John Dewey, Mikhail Bakunin, Bertrand Russell's Proposed Roads to Freedom, Rudolf Rocker's Anarcho-Syndicalism, et al. Some may find this as reason for believing I'm not rational given the current social order of state-capitalism, the success of economic theory, and the influence of popular opinion, e.g. Fukuyama's "End of History". The reason for being skeptical is rational and warranted. However, in envisioning the possibilities of social ordering after the Singularity it appears as the universe heads into this next phase we'll find laws of economic theory won't hold in the future, namely that economics as, "the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses," will not apply anymore. Scarcity as a fundamental economic problem will cease to be as revolutions in nanotechnology will be able to create basically anything, the only constraint being merely having the information (probably just a model of the atomic structure) required to build it. As the causal sequence unfolds in the history of the universe we see a gradually democratizing force becoming more prevalent; after hundreds of thousands of years of tribal warfare, followed by changes brought from the agricultural revolution--wars between cities, as technology keeps building upon itself we find warfare now between states and larger cultural groups like religions, and so on. Given human nature's propensity for violence, we should be careful in bringing about the changes of the Singularity. Hugo de Garis, for example, is predicting a cosmic war in the future as a result. I really hope this isn't the case, but given our track record it's worth considering and preparing for overcoming it, to keep your eyes open if anything goes out of line and make the transition peacefully as it would completely change everybody's living conditions for something unimaginably better.

In the movie Waking Life a professor of chemistry comments on the "telescopic" nature of evolution and hints regarding how the future scenario might work out: "If we're looking at the highlights of human development, you have to look at the evolution of the organism and then at the development of its interaction with the environment. Evolution of the organism will begin with the evolution of life perceived through the hominid coming to the evolution of mankind. Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon man. Now, interestingly, what you're looking at here are three strings: biological, anthropological — development of the cities — and cultural, which is human expression. Now, what you've seen here is the evolution of populations, not so much the evolution of individuals. And in addition, if you look at the time scales that are involved here — two billion years for life, six million years for the hominid, 100,000 years for mankind as we know it — you're beginning to see the telescoping nature of the evolutionary paradigm. And then when you get to agricultural, when you get to scientific revolution and industrial revolution, you're looking at 10,000 years, 400 years, 150 years. You're seeing a further telescoping of this evolutionary time. What that means is that as we go through the new evolution, it's gonna telescope to the point we should be able to see it manifest itself within our lifetime, within this generation. The new evolution stems from information, and it stems from two types of information: digital and analog. The digital is artificial intelligence. The analog results from molecular biology, the cloning of the organism. And you knit the two together with neurobiology. Before on the old evolutionary paradigm, one would die and the other would grow and dominate. But under the new paradigm, they would exist as a mutually supportive, noncompetitive grouping. Okay, independent from the external. And what is interesting here is that evolution now becomes an individually centered process, emanating from the needs and desires of the individual, and not an external process, a passive process where the individual is just at the whim of the collective. So, you produce a neo-human, okay, with a new individuality and a new consciousness. But that's only the beginning of the evolutionary cycle because as the next cycle proceeds, the input is now this new intelligence. As intelligence piles on intelligence, as ability piles on ability, the speed changes. Until what? Until we reach a crescendo in a way could be imagined as an enormous instantaneous fulfillment of human, human and neo-human potential. It could be something totally different. It could be the amplification of the individual, the multiplication of individual existences. Parallel existences now with the individual no longer restricted by time and space. And the manifestations of this neo-human-type evolution, manifestations could be dramatically counter-intuitive. That's the interesting part. The old evolution is cold. It's sterile. It's efficient, okay? And its manifestations of those social adaptations. We're talking about parasitism, dominance, morality, okay? Uh, war, predation, these would be subject to de-emphasis. These will be subject to de-evolution. The new evolutionary paradigm will give us the human traits of truth, of loyalty, of justice, of freedom. These will be the manifestations of the new evolution. And that is what we would hope to see from this. That would be nice." [link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saxX-Z6w3p4]

"The universe doesn't care about us!" you might say. If you understood the bit on telescopic evolution and its relationship to the coldness of "old evolution" you might come to that conclusion, but I think there's more to this Substance or divine Ground of being than that. The universe as a whole acts as a brilliant creator of innumerable forms and richness in the diversity of life. Not only does it create, but it also unifies, given the nature of substance in itself. Diverse forms rich and varied all arise from a single mesh of building blocks. Teilhard de Chardin refers to in Phenomenon of Man of a future point where all is unified by such cosmic consciousness as the Omega point. I think the Oneness of substance in its diversity and unity will provide the foundation of this new cosmic religion.

I've been reading some obscure books lately and I've found what might be a great justification or grounds for everything mentioned above namely, Yale theologian Jonathan Edwards' End of Creation. In an attempt to crown this cosmic religion with a few examples from the book, I hope to illustrate why Bucke believes "Doubt of God" would be impossible in the future. My favorite line of Bucke's reasoning would be as quoted before, "Each soul will feel and know itself to be immortal, will feel and know that the entire universe with all its good and with all its beauty is for it and belongs to it forever." Why go throughout this long-winded process in the first place? Edwards has a few things to say about it, and for what it's worth, although theological arguments aren't popular in general I think this one is different owing to our soon-to-be potential immortality. Therefore, I think Edwards does a good job in arguing his case, and these ideas might even be used to support the "why?" behind cosmic consciousness,
"I now proceed to enquire, how God’s making such things as there his last end is consistent with, his making himself his last end, or, his manifesting an ultimate respect to himself in his acts and works… Therefore I would endeavour to show, with respect to reach of the forementioned things, that God, in making them his end, makes himself his end, so as in all to show a supreme and ultimate respect to himself; and how his infinite love to himself and delight in himself, will naturally cause him to value and delight in these things: or rather, how a value to these things is implied in his love to himself, or value of that infinite fullness of good that is in himself." ... "So if God both esteem, and delight in his own perfections and virtues, he cannot but value and delight in the expressions and genuine effects of them. So that in delighting in the expressions of his perfections, he manifests a delight in his own perfections themselves: or in other words, he manifests a delight in himself; and in making these expressions of his own perfects his end, he makes himself his end." ... "And with respect to the second and third particulars, the matter is no less plain. For he that loves any Being, and has a disposition highly to prize, and greatly to delight in his virtues and perfections, must, from the same disposition, be well-pleased to have his excellencies known, acknowledged, esteemed and prized by others… And this it is fit it should be, if it be fit that he should thus love himself, and prize his own valuable qualities. That is, it is fit that he should take delight in his own excellencies being seen, acknowledged, esteemed and delighted in. This is implied in a love to himself and his own perfections, and in seeking this, and making this his end, he seeks himself, and makes himself his end." ... "Besides, God’s perfections, or his glory, is the object of this knowledge, or the thing known; so that God is glorified in it; as hereby his excellency is seen. As therefore God values himself, as he delights in his own knowledge; he must delight in every thing of that nature: As he delights in his own light, he must delight in the every beam of that light: And as he highly values his own excellency, he must be well pleased in having it manifested, and so glorified." ... "And it is to be considered that the more those divine communications increase in the creature, the more it becomes one with God: For so much the more it is united to God in love, the heart is drawn nearer and nearer to God, and the union with him becomes more firm and close: and at the same time the creature becomes more and more conformed to God. The image is more and more perfect; and so the good that is in the creature comes for ever nearer and nearer to an identity with that which is in God. In the view therefore of God, who has a comprehensive prospect of the increasing union and conformity through eternity, it must be an infinitely strict and perfect nearness, conformity, and oneness. For it will for ever come nearer and nearer to that strictness and perfection of union which there is between the Father and the Son: So that in the eyes of God, who perfectly sees the whole of it, in its infinite progress and increase, it must come to an eminent fulfillment of Christ’s request in John xvii. 21, 21. “That they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, I in thee, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one.” In this view, those elect creatures which must be looked upon as the end of the rest of all the creation, considered with respect to the whole of their eternal duration, and as such made God’s end, must be viewed as being, as it were, one with God. They were respected as brought home to him, united with him, centering most perfectly in him, and as it were swallowed up in him: So that in his respect to them finally coincides and becomes one and the same with respect to himself. .. What has been said, shows that as all things are from God as their first cause and fountain; so all things tend to him, and in their progress come nearer and nearer to him through all eternity: which argues that He, who is their first Cause, is their last End." ... "In God, the love of what is fit and decent or the love of virtue, cannot be a distinct thing from the love of himself. Because the love of God is that wherein all virtue and holiness does primarily and chiefly consists, and God’s own holiness must primarily consist in the love of himself; as was before observed. And if God’s holiness consists in love to himself, then it will imply an approbation of and pleasedness with the esteem and love of him in others. For a Being that loves himself, necessarily loves love to himself. If holiness in God consists chiefly in love to himself, holiness in the creature must chiefly consist in love to him. And if God loves holiness in himself, he must love it in the creature." ... "That God in seeking his glory, therein seeks the good of his creatures. Because the emanation of his glory (which he seeks and delights in, as he delights in himself, and his own eternal glory) implies the communicated excellency and happiness of his creatures; and that in communicating his fullness for them, he does it for himself; because their good, which he seeks, is so much in union and communion with himself. God is their good. Their excellency and happiness is nothing but the emanation and expression of God’s glory: God in seeking their glory and happiness, seeks himself: and in seeking himself, i.e. himself diffused and expressed, (which he delights in, as he delights in his own beauty and fullness) he seeks their glory and happiness." ... "God’s respect to the creature’s good, and his respect to himself, is not a divided respect; but both are united in one, as the happiness of the creature aimed at, is happiness in union with himself. The creature is no further happy with this happiness which God makes his ultimate end, then as he becomes one with God. The more happiness the greater union: when the happiness is perfect, the union is perfect. And as the happiness will be increasing to eternity; the union will become more and more strict and perfect; nearer and more like to that between God the Father, and the Son; who are so united, that their interest is perfectly one. If the happiness of the creature be considered as it will be, in the whole of the creature’s eternal duration, with all the infinity of its proneness, and infinite increase of nearness and union to God; in this view, the creature must be looked upon as united to God in an infinite strictness."

Okay, that's about it. Now, I understand as a matter of principle arguments as such aren't considered to be philosophically or logically or what have you rigorous. But insofar as you consider God as the creator and unifier of all life, the immortality of cosmic consciousness will be enriched by the thought that we all share in the glory of the wisdom behind this creation we find ourselves involved in. If someone tells you God's love is unconditional you could surely deny it by pointing out, for example, then why doesn't he heal the 11 million children infected with the African eyeworm? I think the question is targeted the wrong way, although the "cold" evolution we're working ourselves up through harbors horrible facts of life, they will nevertheless be subject to de-emphasis. Through overcoming the negatives in life, and as we head towards cosmic consciousness, I think these ideas will ultimately converge and provide us with a different, yet reasonably persuasive, way of thinking about religion in the future.

:]

Don't have much to say for this post, but I'll leave you with a spliced English translation of Einstein's poem for Spinoza's Ethics. It's succinct and beautiful, and every time I read it there's this remarkable quality about it; I wander off into my imagination to see them all smiling at me.

How I love this noble man
More than I can say with words.
Still, I fear he remains alone
With his shining halo.

Such a poor small lad
Whom you'll not lead to Freedom
The amor dei leaves him cold
Life drags him around by force.

Loftiness offers him nothing but frost
Reason for him is poor fare
Property and wife and honor and house
That fills him from top to bottom

You'll kindly forgive me
If Münchhausen here comes to mind
Who alone mastered the trick
Of pulling himself out of a swamp by his own pigtail

You think his example would show us
What this doctrine can give humankind
Trust not the comforting façade:
One must be born sublime.


There's also a rarely heard song Bill Hicks wrote I've come to love: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCTOQPLKsYk

You and I have got the moon on our side... :]

Dream a little dream.

I wrote a bunch of stuff on paper today and my blog posts are never really well developed so I might as well spill them out like I always do.

Intelligence: http://www.slate.com/id/2177228/ There won't be any scientific evidence behind any of what I say, since I'm not familiar with advanced statistical analysis and other methods for evaluating my hypotheses--I'll just share ideas.

I mentioned the idea that intelligence is distributed throughout the population following the restrictions of the normal curve. If genes influence intelligence, some ask, why is it Jewish people throughout history have been so well-endowed with it? Brilliance isn't exclusive to them, in any case, as Newton and Darwin are examples. But look at the long list of famous thinkers throughout history that have had so much influence on our world: Einstein, Feynman, Bohr, Spinoza, Wittgenstein, Chomsky, von Neumann, Teller, Oppenheimer, Pauli, Sagan, Proust, and many many others. There might be something to it. It's just something interesting to think about, we'll likely see more in the future.

Edit: Looking at Einstein's Ideas and Opinions, he writes, "The second characteristic trait of Jewish tradition is the high regard in which it holds every form of intellectual aspiration and spiritual effort. I am convinced that this great respect for intellectual striving is solely responsible for the contributions that the Jews have made toward the progress of knowledge, in the broadest sense of the term. In view of their relatively small number and the considerable external obstacles constantly placed in their way on all sides, the extent of those contributions deserves the admiration of all sincere men. I am convinced that this is not due to any special wealth of endowment, but to the fact that the esteem in which intellectual accomplishment is held among the Jews creates an atmosphere particularly favorable to the development of any talents that may exist. At the same time a strong critical spirit prevents blind obeisance to any moral authority." Well said, I'll forfeit on that argument. I think it's of peculiar interest that he considers it a matter of cultural or traditional importance. I know, for one thing, in my community the only thing people are concerned with is telling children growing up, "get married" as soon as possible, finish high school and get yourself a nice piece of land to set up shop. College, or any of that higher level stuff isn't worth your time. That mentality is embedded in their psyche, and I think Einstein's answer is quite right in attributing it to cultural/traditional factors.

Anyway, one person to watch out for is Ray Kurzweil, he's brilliant and I think he's on to something with his books on the Singularity. Most folks gawk at the concept because "the software sucks" or it's a nerd's religion/pipe dream. But those who berate it are missing out on something: imagination. I'm not thinking about the "magic school bus" sort of imagination, but just the ability to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Our conscious experience is the result of the massively parallel processing architecture of our brains, which we've inherited through a thousand million years of evolution. Homo sapiens have been around for about 200,000 years. Think about that. Try to imagine six billion people living, eating, loving, dying, praying, and rewind the video of our evolution, our story, from now to 200,000 years ago. Imagine all of the variables, the people, the lives they've led. Now imagine the constitution of our bodies: how we're all reducible to atomic structures. Consciousness is akin to a computer program, but few realize this. The brain's atomic structures are electrochemical in nature, owing to the fact that animals are defined and reproduce trying to adapt to their environments. Advances in science, especially that of electromechanics have brought us the computer. Atoms are interacting with other atoms in order to create a more efficient means of processing themselves. Just imagine, we'll be able to recreate consciousness artificially instead of relying on our DNA for the job. It's not a nerd's pipe dream, but rather the naturally progressive character of the universe. This silly brain that has served our ancestors quite well(there's almost 7 billion of us, right?) will become obsolete. The brain's information storage and retrieval abilities are not well designed for its efficient utilization because evolution works through indirection. Hence, science is a collaborative effort of specialists in many fields as a single brain is severely constrained in its ability to absorb and recall any extensive amount of information, and always risks deterioration of memories in disuse. Hard drives on the other hand can search through terabytes worth of information and recall them upon request. It appears we're agents in bringing about this change. Atoms can think: A discerning one who realizes this might soon come to say, "I am the universe." When technology advances to the point where intelligence saturates enough matter, will the universe as a whole come to say, "I am the universe"? It's curious.

I agree with Hume and Kant on our inability to ever find objective evidence for God, but it's understandable that, "each man feels, in a manner, the truth of religion within his own breast, and, from a consciousness of his imbecility and misery, rather than from any reasoning, is led to seek protection from that Being, on whom he and all nature is dependent." Although they might like to think of themselves as prophets, Dawkins and Dennett are impulsive with their rationalizing of atheism--especially Dennett who should be familiar with Kant and Hume. Rebelliousness to the dogmatic assertions and certitude of religious faith is one thing, but going on the opposite end on the spectrum of dogmatism isn't the most reasonable course of action. It's like a shock tactic. The point they're making is that religion is a natural phenomenon, which makes sense, but it's unnecessary to go so far as to say that there is no God beyond a reasonable doubt, since it's impossible to prove and isn't an unassailably forceful argument. Religion can be viewed favorably as a foundational cradle uniting communities, safeguarding them until their descendants are ready to sprout and burst free in full realization of their true cosmic nature. In suggesting empiricism logically disproves any foundation for religiousness Dawkins and Dennett treat the issue with a careless levity in ignoring, as you'll read below, "the enormous strength and ineradicability of the metaphysical need of man."

I don't think all forms of religiosity are inherently bad, take for example the profound literature of the Upanishads which, in introducing his World as Will and Representation, Schopenhauer writes of favorably, "If the reader has also received the benefit of the Vedas, the access to which by means of the Upanishads is in my eyes the greatest privilege which this still young century (1818) may claim before all previous centuries, if then the reader, I say, has received his initiation in primeval Indian wisdom, and received it with an open heart, he will be prepared in the very best way for hearing what I have to tell him." In another context he writes, "In the whole world there is no such study so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads. It has been the solace of my life ; it will be the solace of my death." This is coming from a man whom most only characterize as a pessimistic grouch.

Also consider Hume's introductory paragraph in his Natural History of Religion, "As every enquiry, which regards religion, is of the utmost importance, there are two questions in particular, which challenge our attention, to wit, that concerning its foundation in reason, and that concerning its origin in human nature. Happily, the first question, which is the most important, admits of the most obvious, at least, the clearest solution. The whole frame of nature bespeaks an intelligent author; and no rational enquirer can, after serious reflection, suspend his belief a moment with regard to the primary principles of genuine Theism and Religion. But the other question, concerning the origin of religion in human nature, is exposed to some more difficulty..." This acknowledgment, too, coming from the great writer who brought us his wonderful Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.

Schopenhauer points out in a explanatory format similar to Hume's Natural History, "Yet as a rule men have a weakness for putting their trust in those who pretend to supernatural sources of knowledge rather than in their own heads, but if you bear in mind the enormous intellectual inequality between man and man, then the thoughts of one may very well count with another as a revelation...The fundamental, secret and primal piece of astuteness of all priests, everywhere and at all times, whether Brahmin or Mohammedan or Buddhist or Christian, is as follows. They have recognized and grasped the enormous strength and ineradicability of the metaphysical need of man: they then pretend to possess the means of satisfying it, in that the solution to the great enigma has, by extraordinary channels, been directly communicated to them. Once they have persuaded men of the truth of this, they can lead and dominate them to their heart's content. The more prudent rulers enter into an alliance with them: the others are themselves ruled by them. If however, as the rarest of all exceptions, a philosopher comes to the throne, the whole comedy is disrupted in the most unseemly fashion."

Matter's ascendancy by natural selection allows an admirable outlook in understanding our origins and what role religion plays in society. One may accept, as Dawkins and Dennett likely would, Hume's phrasing, "I deny a providence, you say, and supreme governor of the world, who guides the course of events, and punishes the vicious with infamy and disappointment, and rewards the virtuous with honour and success, in all their undertakings. But surely, I deny not the course itself of events, which lies open to every one’s inquiry and examination." So instead one way of thinking about the world is through the concept of an impartial creator, similar to Spinoza's substance, "Let your gods, therefore, O philosophers, be suited to the present appearances of nature: and presume not to alter these appearances by arbitrary suppositions, in order to suit them to the attributes, which you so fondly ascribe to your deities." This 'substance' bears a striking resemblance to the Vedantic conception of 'Brahman', the same thing Schrodinger wrote in My View of the World that, "consciousness is singular, all happenings are played out in one universal consciousness and there is no multiplicity of selves," and further, "This life of yours which you are living is not merely a piece of this entire existence, but in a certain sense the whole; only this whole is not so constituted that it can be surveyed in one single glance. This, as we know, is what the Brahmins express in that sacred, mystic formula which is yet really so simple and so clear; tat tvam asi, this is you. Or, again, in such words as "I am in the east and the west, I am above and below, I am this entire world."

Matter heads ever onward towards an omega point(read Chardin's Phenomenon of Man) as the universe ascends to higher levels of complexity, "The complexification of matter has not only led to higher forms of consciousness, but accordingly to more personalization, of which human beings are the highest attained form in the known universe. They are completely individualized, free centers of operation. It is in this way that man is said to be made in the image of God, who is the highest form of personality. Teilhard expressly stated that in the Omega Point, when the universe becomes One, human persons will not be suppressed, but super-personalized. Personality will be infinitely enriched. This is because the Omega Point unites creation, and the more it unites, the more the universe complexifies and rises in consciousness." From atoms to molecules to cells to animals, life rises in complexity over time, wherefore humanity will increasingly realize that we aren't punished as subjects to despotic deities for the crime of existing; rather, we are all actors in a play, a grandiose story of the atom coming to know itself through itself. We're here for creative love: 'Substance' is a theater for boundless pursuit of imaginative interests, and when I think of what 'God' might be, I think of an arbiter of everything within this realm whose creative capacity is boundless, including but not limited to everything from clever feats of engineering to the splendidness of literature, the goldenness of comedy, the magnificence of music, and so on ad infinitum. "What is made is Mine!"

Equating evolution with atheism will only discourage others from teaching it and keep our relatives in ignorance for longer than need be. There's something to be gained from studying some religious texts like the Upanishads; I admonish Dawkins and Dennett to reconsider their pretentious "super rationality" to profound alternatives so that we may share with our relatives the depth generated in that sensation of meaning and wonder like Einstein maintained with his attachment to Spinoza's God, and his admiration of the perennial wisdom in the Bhagavad Gita.

The ineradicability of man's metaphysical need would be best served this way for future generations: for those coming to understand what to make of "being" this optimal system offers an outlet in assuaging these needs and deriving from it the gift of utmost solace, while being itself consistent with reason. When I think, "Why am I me, trapped in this conscious experience?" I find little support for the notion that the scheme of nature and my place within it is a fluke, a meaningless mishap. I'll conclude the point with a quote from Max Planck's Scientific Autobiography, "No matter where and how far we look, nowhere do we find a contradiction between religion and natural science. On the contrary, we find a complete concordance in the very points of decisive importance. Religion and natural science do not exclude each other, as many contemporaries of ours would believe or fear; they mutually supplement and condition each other. The most immediate proof of the compatibility of religion and natural science, is the historic fact that the very greatest natural scientists of all times--men such as Kepler, Newton, Leibniz--were permeated by a most profound religious attitude. At the dawn of our own era of civilization, the practitioners of natural science were the custodians of religion at the same time. The oldest of all the applied natural sciences, medicine, was in the hands of priests, and in the Middle Ages scientific research was still carried on principally in monasteries. Later, as civilization continued to advance and to branch out, the parting of the ways became always more pronounced, corresponding to the different nature of the tasks and pursuits of religion and those of natural science. For the proper attitude to questions in ethics can no more be gained from a purely rational cognition than can a general Weltanschauung ever replace specific knowledge and ability. But the two roads do not diverge; they run parallel to each other, and they intersect at an endlessly removed common goal. There is no better way to comprehend this properly than to continue one's efforts to obtain a progressively more profound insight into the nature and problems of the natural sciences, on one hand, and of religious faith on the other. It will then appear with ever increasing clarity that even though the methods are different--for science operates predominantly with the intellect, religion predominantly with the sentiment--the significance of the work and the direction of progress are nonetheless absolutely identical. Religion and natural science are fighting a joint battle in an incessant, never relaxing crusade against scepticism and dogmatism, against disbelief and against superstition, and the rallying cry in this crusade has always been, and always will be: "On to God!"

Another problem I have with Dennett(I've been fortunate to meet him when he came to UCONN, and Dawkins at a book signing in NYC, despite all of this they've been a powerful influence in my own thought) is that I think his commitment to that "quagmire of evasion" of compatibilism is unfounded. This has more to do with his devotion to the power of Darwin's theory in explaining changes found in the biological world, and thus hastily attributes the natural progression towards self-consciousness as reason to believe "freedom evolves," without considering the possibility that self-conscious beings are also determined; even though people feel free, their "freedom" amounts to their ability to follow a new set of options exclusively available to self-conscious animals. All events rely on the primacy of causality. It would seem that the ability to discuss the topic of free will would necessarily entail a reason to believe in it, especially regarding arguments of this format: "Look at me! I'm writing this sentence because I'm making myself do it, therefore, I'm free!" However strong this argument appears to be, it took the universe billions of years to get to this point and when you consider the promise our future holds in being billions of times smarter than us one may come to assent that our short transitory nature has already been factored into the equation. “A man can do as he will, but not will as he will.”

Schopenhauer's prize essay on the freedom of the will has many gems of explication, such as, "For, like all objects of experience, the human being is an appearance in time and space, and as the law of causality is a priori valid for all of them and consequently without exception, he also must be subject to it. Thus the pure understanding states it a priori; it is confirmed by the analogy that runs through the whole of nature; and it is testified to by experience every moment, unless we are deceived by the illusion created by the fact that the beings of nature become more complex as they rise in the scale, and their susceptibility is enhanced and refined from the merely mechanical to the chemical, electrical, irritable, sensible, intellectual, and finally rational, such that the nature of the operating causes must also keep pace with this enhanced susceptibility and at each stage must turn out in conformity with the beings on which they are to operate. Therefore the causes also appear less and less palpable and material, so that at last they are no longer visible to the eye, although still within the reach of the understanding, which presupposes them with unshakable confidence, and also discovers them after a proper search. For here the operating causes are enhanced to mere thoughts that wrestle with other thoughts until the most powerful determines the outcome and sets the human being in motion. All this happens with a necessity of causal connection that is just as strict as when purely mechanical causes act against one another in complex conjunction, and the calculated result infallibly enters."

Moreover, "What would become of this world if necessity did not permeate all things and hold them together, but especially if it did not preside over the generation of individuals? A monster, rubbish heap, a caricature without sense and significance - the work of true and utter chance. To wish that some event had not happened is a foolish piece of self-torture, for it is equivalent to wishing something absolutely impossible; it is as irrational as to wish that the sun would rise in the west. Just because all that happens, both great and small, occurs with strict necessity, it is quite futile to reflect on it and to think how trifling and fortuitous were the causes that led to that event, and how very easily they could have been other than they were. For this is an illusion, since they have all occurred with just as strict a necessity and have operated with a force just as perfect as that in consequence of which the sun rises in the east. On the contrary, we should regard the events as they occur with just the same eye with which we read the printed word, well knowing that it was there before we read it."

Finally, "Whoever is shocked by these propositions has something still to learn and something else to unlearn; but then he will recognize they are the most fruitful source of consolation and peace of mind.-- Our deeds are certainly not a first beginning, so that in them nothing really new comes into existence, but by what we do we merely come to know what we are."

I sit here, as an animal limited to the experience of sensuous impressions; inhabiting, pondering, thrown into being without my consultation, living inside what seems to be something analogous to a computer simulation. Everything that I am amounts to an infinitesimal variable in some grand equation. I'm impressed with the entire configuration of the universe. Atoms are like an arbitrary toolbox of lego-like life-creators responsible for everything there is and ever was. Occasionally I think about my "homelands" of Bosnia and Montenegro, the beauty of its landscapes, the wonderful inhabitants, the senses of humor, the love, most notably from the people of Plav, Janja, and Sarajevo. The smell of the air, the nonchalant attitude to life, when all things considered lead one to love their country, one of many on this beautiful planet. If people could see the interconnectedness, the interrelatedness of all life on earth, their pride in nationalism might transcend itself into "internationalism" and they may even find something much more spiritual than any form of dogmatism can offer in viewing life this way. I'm privileged to have come from such sources, where my extended family is close-knit; privileged in being able to say I have many wonderful cousins I've come to know and love; privileged in coming from a clan-like background providing me with a surname I share with hundreds, and moreover to come to know these wonderful people as my closest relatives on the tree of life, sharing with millions characteristically similar south-Slavic surnames; privileged to share a sweetly intonated common language I've only recently begun to appreciate in the musical and poetic arts "my" people (embellished without ethnocentricity) have contributed to this realm.. "balkane moj", "I stari rece tad vidis sada citav svijet zna da postoji grad gdje se kafa zakuha i fildzan ostavlja ako ko naidje, jebi ga to ovdje svako zna, To je raja iz Sarajeva, to ovdje svako zna, raja iz Sarajeva, iz moga Sarajeva"; privileged in attending weddings with 300+ relatives to witness causality tie another knot in the fabric of space and time. I've come to cherish the profundity of this vast system, and in considering our common ancestry the exalted majesty of the story of our very being strikes chords within, overwhelmed by wondrous emotion as in the heartfelt third movement of Brahms' 3rd symphony. I'm decidedly humbled by my externally imposed limitations as a creature of perception--closing my eyes I focus on the fragile beating of my heart, and think to myself, "What a wonderful world."

Assuming I'm still alive 50 years from now I'll have a good laugh at all of this, but if I don't make it I guess everyone else can do it on my behalf--even if it's laughing at me. :p I might not think there's anything waiting for me in the hereafter, but despite it there are genuine reasons for spirituality, Julian Huxley writes in another paragraph in Transhumanism that, "The great men of the past have given us glimpses of what is possible in the way of personality, of intellectual understanding, of spiritual achievement, of artistic creation. But these are scarcely more than Pisgah glimpses. We need to explore and map the whole realm of human possibility, as the realm of physical geography has been explored and mapped. How to create new possibilities for ordinary living? What can be done to bring out the latent capacities of the ordinary man and woman for understanding and enjoyment; to teach people the techniques of achieving spiritual experience (after all, one can acquire the technique of dancing or tennis, so why not of mystical ecstasy or spiritual peace?); to develop native talent and intelligence in the growing child, Instead of frustrating or distorting them? Already we know that painting and thinking, music and mathematics, acting and science can come to mean something very real to quite ordinary average boys and girls —provided only that the fright methods are adopted for bringing out the children’s possibilities. We are beginning to realize that even the most fortunate people are living far below capacity, and that most human beings develop not more than a small fraction of their potential mental and spiritual efficiency. The human race, in fact, is surrounded by a large area of unrealized possibilities, a challenge to the spirit of exploration."

Many atheists laugh at any attempts at forging spirituality, but it is possible and consistent with reason and "rationality"(the word most atheists use for themselves). Perhaps this new spirituality will move away from dogmatism to a refined meditation upon self related to the "primeval Indian wisdom" espoused in the Upanishads by reaching an elevated state of cosmic consciousness, similar to Aldous Huxley's The Perennial Philosophy of a, "metaphysic that recognizes a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds; the psychology that finds in the soul something similar to, or even identical with, divine Reality; the ethic that places man's final end in the knowledge of the immanent and transcendent Ground of all being; the thing is immemorial and universal." This outlook is best expressed in a quote taken from Adi Shankara expounded later in the book, "Talk as much philosophy as you please, worship as many gods as you like, observe all ceremonies, sing devoted praises to any number of divine beings--liberation never comes, even at the end of a hundred aeons, without the realization of the Oneness of Self."

If I may draw an acute resemblance between the realization of the Oneness of Self with Planck's rallying cry it appears to suggest that religious adherents in the future will disperse of their dogmatism and leave it behind as a relic of natural history; maybe an eventual assimilation as the unification of mind is brought about. The next phase in the history of the universe is indescribably hopeful. We still have to put up with a lot of garbage in our day-to-day lives, but it's all part of the adventure. I'm sure hard-headed dogmatists will grind their teeth at this outlook and tear it apart with their insuperable logic but I think they'll be on the wrong side of history from the point of view of a conscious being in the future. How, you say, would I know that? It's just a hunch.

"If the way which, as I have shown, leads hither seem very difficult, it can nevertheless be found. It must indeed be difficult since it is so seldom discovered; for if salvation lay ready to hand and could be discovered without great labour, how could it be possible that it should be neglected almost by everybody? But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare."