Ageless in Spirit: Discussions and interests for our times

November 11, 2023

This discussion began with my sharing an article Why is the universe so complex and beautiful? By Adam Becker (https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/11/16/1083141/why-is-the-universe-so-complex-and-beautiful/). This author describes the theory how at the very beginning after the big bang matter and antimatter came suddenly into existence and collided with its opposite counterpart (i.e. electron and positron colliding). These collisions resulted in energy with the annihilation of matter. However, not yet understood there was a slight imbalance leaving over matter without its opposite twin so something remained. The article goes onto describe how the remaining matter such as protons and neutrinos may undergo double beta decay (dissolving into energy) and how researchers are attempting to verify these theories. If these theories pan out our universe’s future may disappear very slowly into space and boring sameness of nothing.

K and Leonard then had this dialogue.

Leonard

More on theories of change. If correct, these theories explains how there is something rather than nothing and how it may all end through proton decay. Leonard

Well, anyone who is looking to explain “it is not clear where the matter came from in the first place” is someone i would not be able to take seriously. Unless he claims to be The Creator of the Universe, or at least one of his Closest Assistants! I mean, how do you explain what came before the Beginning of All of It?

Leonard

Assuming there was a beginning! There may be magic. Our wondering validates that we are. Once our biological processes cease we’re not here wondering. So for us no consciousness and from this perspective there is none so nothing. Leonard

“We’re not here wondering” - and you know that, how? Ok, we need our biological processes in order to have a “we”? I sort of agree, but don’t really know…

Leonard

When my biological processes have ceased and there is no evidence of spirit without consciousness and consciousness has no existence without biological processes of life there is nothing. So consciousness brings something from nothing. Kant antinomies may liven our discussion here. https://neologikonblog.wordpress.com/2019/06/17/5346/ We can not understand how something can come from nothing so the nothing may be conceptualized as god. God can’t be described in the phenomenological world view but in the noumenon so the only descriptions that apply are what god is not since god is outside space and time (the phenomenal) according to Kant. So I’m back to a Bergsonian perspective. To discuss or even experience god I must be conscious! Post script: My definition of god here is the unknowable. So is god the hypothesized singularity of the Big Bang? You see by trying to answer you think of the negative…can’t be that so…,

Ok, i sort of go along with you. Although i can imagine my consciousness not necessarily disappearing after the biological “I” is gone, but merging/expanding into an awareness of more than my physical senses could perceive, maybe without the cognition or self-awareness that “i am because i think”. (So, can ”i” be communicated with?) And yes, yes, yes, if there was a big bang, that would be a definition of god, from nothing, something suddenly is created! — says nothing about god’s intentions, if any! But what hubris is this, to muse about god’s intentions?

Leonard

And your musings are present in the here and minutes before this reply solely due to your biological life and consciousness requiring a functioning brain and body! I DON’T UNDERSTAND HOW YOU READ THAT I KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT GOD’s INTENTIONS? I am a finite vessel who has read and thought about god but I never had any communication from god and I don’t know if there are intentions!

K No, no, not you i- was the one mentioning god’s intentions in doing the Big Bang. We humans pridefully say, “he did it to create us” - but what about the eight-legged geniuses living on Aldebaran?!? Well, *near* Aldebaran

Leonard

   Yes. To me to discuss something from nothing devolves to fantasy and humor. Religion is “the belief in and worship of a superhuman power or powers, especially a God or gods. "ideas about the relationship between science and religion" is a definition from a dictionary. I respect our human attempts at connection to the unfathomable and our attempts to overcome self to appreciate others and love and nurture more than us. If in your religion you pursue this I’m with you. Maybe your rituals that you use are foreign to me or resonate with my being. I do appreciate the art, literature, and culture that has enriched us. Is religion a fantasy? I can’t agree but it is a human creation grafted onto the noumenon. Noumenon as defined by Kant. “The first is that “there exists a God who orders all things in such a way that the attainment of the highest good is possible” (Ibid). It is impossible for such a deity to be an object of experience, according to Kant. It is therefore a noumenon, a thing in itself, as opposed to a phenomenon.” Since god is a thing unto itself is god change? God as change comes from Octavia Butler. I came across her work in her book The Parable of the Sower and here’s a reference to her work (https://vc.bridgew.edu/honors_proj/560/).

   The summary of my interchange with K is satisfying to me. A look into the origin of the universe, some reflections on how we can know anything (Kant, Hume, etc.), the subject of a creator or god and our thoughts and hopes about this subject and Kant’s antinomies.

   Our disagreements or differences of opinion on these topics is pretty mellow. Later the same day Rebecca and I went to see the Scorsese film Killers of the Flower Moon in part based on a book by the same name by David Grann. In Oklahoma the Osage native American inheritors of the oil wealth were being murdered after non native Americans intermarried. The husband of one of the inheritors portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio brought to me the reality that someone can be brutally cold blooded and cruel murdering and poisoning the mother of his children who he “loves” in a macabre fashion while being loyal to others who want to pillage the wealth away from a people they allege to love and respect. This is also the birth of Jay Edgar Hoover’s FBI who bring the ring of murderers to justice.

   That evening at dinner we had a passionate discussion regarding the war against Hamas. The carnage of civilians caught in Gaza and the carnage and harassment of Palestinians in the West Bank brought outrage to my son, shared by all of us, and especially condemnation from him towards our president Biden who has approved material support to the Israeli army and a very dysfunctional Israeli government. This recent article in the New York Times highlights many of these concerns https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/17/opinion/us-military-aid-war-israel.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

So for me the movie about this awful history in Oklahoma and the very complex history and current conflicts in the Middle East brings me back again to the reality of the harm, cruelty, and disregard for human life, liberty, and freedom that we are witness to, we participate in, we support or oppose or are indifferent to, etc.

   War entails mayhem, tactical decisions to harm, kill, destroy, and conquer. So as a solution it belies reason to solve human conflict since its aim is conflict. Yes there are rules of law which are endorsed by the United Nations and has signor nations. These rules usually are not followed by those in conflict (for example, Abu Ghrab https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse and Guantanamo Bay https://www.cfr.org/article/guantanamo-bay-twenty-years-counterterrorism-and-controversy. Conflicts have a history related to ethnic and religious cleansing and genocide, territorial disputes and conquest goals, material and wealth aggrandizement goals, power plays to dominate in politics, etc.

   Zero sum games have been devised to play out towards conflict resolution and research into sharing, altruism, and selfish behavior are revealing how limited and arbitrary we humans can be towards each other. We seem to act in predictable ways in the prison experiments so that the "inmate" becomes more devious and psychopathic and the guards more cruel and criminal. In the punishment experiments we can administer increasingly cruel shocks to subjects without limit. In our justice systems and rules of engagement in war we in the past have attempted to justify torture, water board, and denigration of captives. Our human ability to limit conflict and develop working strategies to peaceful resolution is limited. Just look at our past records of failure and our present catalogue of wars and conflict.

   "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." January 17, 1961 farewell address of President Eisenhower. Since then the influence of weapons manufacturers has grown with strong lobbies and associations with various congressmen and others in government and the media. The National Rifle Association changed into a powerful entity devoted to these interests. Legislative efforts to limit weapons of mass destruction availability to ordinary citizens were defeated by these interest groups and our murder rates and suicide rates related to the increased availability of these weapons is a national disgrace! Just this Sunday's New York Times had a lead article concerning Lake City Army Ammunition Plant manufacturing and distribution of ammunition for AR-15 style weapons wide spread availability to practically anyone (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/11/us/army-ammunition-factory-shootings.html?searchResultPosition=1). For a summary of some of the conflict issues of our times I came across this article in Atlantic Magazine (https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/11/conflicts-around-the-world-peak/676029/).