Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Self-Organized Society And The Gospel of Christ



I have written elsewhere about the fundamental principles of self-organized societies (i.e., ordered anarchies) resting on each member's power to follow their own conscience, subject to respecting reciprocal rights of others.  This is easily extended to imagining a self-organized society in which each person adheres to the most moral rules they can perceive, subject to treating fellow members as they themselves would like to be treated under similar circumstances.

In other words, orderly anarchy can be achieved by each member single-heartedly esteeming the highest morality they can perceive that is consistent with loving their neighbors as themselves.  The moral principles of at least one form of anarchy can be equated to the two highest laws articulated by Jesus of Nazareth:  Love Yahweh your God with all your heart, and your neighbor as yourself.  Religion is inescapably involved in this discussion. Is this equation of ideal self-organizing society to the Gospel blasphemous?  If you believe it might be, I beg your forgiveness.  As for me, it is self-evident that self-organizing society based on principled reciprocity in love is a manifestation of the gospel of Christ.  It is consistent with it.  It is not the exclusive manifestation, nor is it a denial of faith in other matters.

It is hard to see how this conclusion could be wrong.  Is not the second rule - love your neighbor as yourself - framed in exactly the same words as used by Jesus of Nazareth?  As he said: "If you love me, you will keep my commandments."  How could those who follow his highest rules be considered as other than his disciples?  The difference is in the first rule - follow your highest lights not Yahweh your God. But could these be different?  If your highest lights lead you astray from your God, then you are not a believer.  You would be breaking the commandment by following what you do not believe.  If you do not believe in God, but agree on the proper moral order of society with those who do, then what really is the difference, in the social sense?  An anarchy that fulfills natural law consistent with reciprocity is also consistent with the Gospel, insofar as social life goes.  

What if all the members of a self-organizing society were atheists or other non-believers, but otherwise followed the greatest two commandments?  Could such a society be Christian?  In a sense, yes, because it is following Christ's highest laws.  As he said, if you love me, keep my commandments.  Such a society might contain a mixture of believers and non-believers, without doctrinal litmus tests beyond the first two commandments.  Those of different faiths would get along peacefully, following natural law with love and passion, and loving each other.  On matters of faith that cannot be scientifically tested or debated, they would be as children, without power to aggressively enforce any doctrine on another.

What about believe in me, and have eternal life?  Or abide in meEat my body and blood? Such words are matters for faith or disbelief, concerning the message and meaning of the Christ, and of life itself.  The words are not debased by being but some of the colorful threads in a social tapestry bound by adoration of objective morality.  Far from it.  It is in such a society that the threads would be free to fulfill their highest destiny on Earth: the unwavering manifestation of transcendent love in a society of equal persons.
* * *

Photo credit to Jonathan "iceninejon" 
https://www.flickr.com/photos/iceninejon/
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Wednesday, July 8, 2015

On The Age Of The Universe and Timeless Eternities



Genesis Story.

Big Bang.

Both accounts are consistent in one thing: universe is of finite age.  There are other creation myths.  I confine myself to Genesis merely because I am most familiar with it, and desire to write a pithy blog post, not a treatise.

Is a belief in a universe of finite age theologically or cosmologically necessary?  Perhaps not.  First the cosmology, then the theology.  With references to my earlier posts on non-eternities and on different types of eternities.  All of this is the work of an amateur.  Read and consider at your own risk.

Entropy and Eternity

If there is some quantity in the universe, for example, entropy, that always increases as time flows, then we can infer that this rule of increase cannot always have been true from time eternal.  This is a consequence of the second law of thermodynamics.  If, for example, entropy has been increasing forever, then the present entropy of the universe must be infinite.  Entropy cannot be infinite, because the universe has order.  Therefore either eternity without Beginning exists and entropy does not always increase with time, or eternity without Beginning does not exist.

If the 2nd Law is not universally true, we may be in a linear or circular non-eternity.  Due to the ultimate impossibility of distinguishing between linear and circular non-eternities, and if we are in one or the other, we cannot know which of these situations we are in.  Another possibility, if the 2nd Law is not universally true, is that we exist in an open-ended linear or spiral eternity. 

If the 2nd Law is universally true, we may be in a one-ended linear eternity with a rather bleak future.  In that case, entropy will continue to increase until it reaches a state in which no further disorder is possible.  A state of maximum disorder is not changeless in one sense, and yet is changeless in another.  Maximum disorder is that state of a system, of which it can safely be assumed that all subsequent change is forever random.  So its state of disorder never changes; it is changeless in one sense by remaining forever random.  Yet is is always changing.   On the other hand, it may be impossible for the universe to obtain perfect (infinite) disorder, even if change never ends, because, having a definite beginning, it can never become infinitely old. Instead, it may be that disorder approaches an asymptotic maximum value of disorder, while change continues to occur.  Change might become progressively less interesting, as the universe ages.  Time itself may slow, but never stop entirely.

However, there is evidence that the second law of thermodynamics is not universally true when gravitational force is dominant.  For example, super massive objects such as black holes are believed to drop in temperature even as they absorb energy.  At large scales, gravity may be the dominant universal force and may cause the second law to be violated.  Therefore, entropy may be reduced continuously by "gravitational maintenance," by episodes of universal contraction, or by some other means.  The point is, we really have no idea what the ultimate fate of our universe will be.  For the same reason, we cannot say the the second law requires that the universe be of finite age.  Perhaps it is infinitely old.

Timeless Eternities
Another possibility is that eternity is, on net, timeless.  Time runs forward in some parts in which entropy always increases, and backwards in other parts in which entropy always decreases.  That is, time has opposite polarities, although in our part we can only experience one polarity.  Wherever a forward-moving part of the universe contacts a backwards-moving part, time collapses to timelessness.  Everything collapses to nothing.  Time as well as space collapses.  Black hole, anyone?

Space may be in essence that which allows time to separate into its constituent opposite polarities.  "Nothing" is spread out into "something" by expansion of space.  Light somehow breaks forth out of nothingness, and expands space.  This is possible without violating conservation principles because positive expansion of space in which entropy can only increase is offset by negative expansion of space in which entropy can only decrease.  On net, nothing is created.  The light itself does not come out of nothing; light can be defined as that which expands space into its opposite polarities, and the capability of a collapsed nothingness to expand can be inherent in the state of nothingness.  The expansion does not need to occur at a particular time; it can be always occurring, as an aspect of nothingness.   In one part of the expanded space, time runs forward, and space is as we  experience it.  In another, corresponding part, time runs backwards and space is turned inside out. These corresponding parts are connected via one or more collapsed singularities of time and space.  Matter condenses from light, and gravity appears in the expanded areas.  Eventually, parts of the expanded space collapse under the influence of gravity caused by the coalescing of mass.  Under this cosmological model, the cosmos is a timeless nothing that is balanced by opposing forces of expansion/light and gravity/mass.  Time exists and flows only where space is expanded, in opposite polarities. Some Canadian physicists are now saying something similar.

Parts of the universe where time is negative may have negative polarities of space, where light condenses not into matter, but into negative matter (not to be confused with anti-matter as understood in particle physics).  The  negative matter exerts a sort of negative gravity.  Because the negative gravity operates within a negative space, the multiplication of negatives results in the negative gravity tending to curve or collapse space, just as gravity tends to collapse space in our positive side of the cosmos.   In such a cosmos, backwards time travel for living things might not be possible without the ability to translate the stuff of life between matter and negative matter while passing through a black hole.  Seems pretty tricky.  But purely speculative; there is no reason to believe that  negative matter is favored in zones where time is negative, other than symmetry.

Even if regular matter predominates where time is negative, whether or not life can survive a backwards flow of time is an open question.  All of our metabolic functions depend on processes in which entropy, on net, increases.  Every known machine constructed on our side of the universe can only operate by increase of entropy.  However, it's hard to rule out the possibility of constructing a machine that tolerates a decrease in universal entropy, in operation.  It might even be a trivial problem.  Machines and organisms operate by offsetting a local decrease in entropy with an increase in entropy external to the machine or organism, thereby satisfying the 2nd law of thermodynamics.  If 2nd law ran backwards, the machine or organism could decrease entropy without having to offset with a greater external increase.  What's the problem?

The greater problem in time travel may be passing through a singularity to get to the other side.  It seems doubtful that information can pass through a singularity, without being destroyed.  If something can exist as anything other than undifferentiated substance while passing through a singularity, we are not talking about a singularity at all.  All collections of information require space to exist, and a singularity by definition is void of space.  There would have to be some other way to get to the other side, if it is possible at all.  Maybe information could be transmitted to the other side through something like quantum entanglement.  Perhaps there is some way to access the 5th dimension and travel to the other side without passing through a singularity.  Perhaps time cannot flow backwards in any space.  Who knows?

Time travel by passing into a time-space of opposite polarity faces a correspondence problem.  If one enters the time-space of opposite polarity at a time and place different from the point of exit, rather destructive dislocations can occur.  To think about such time travel without mind-bending dislocations, it can be assumed that opposite polarities of space-time always correspond perfectly to one another, or that dislocations in time or space do not create any serious problems.  If time travel is possible by entering and re-emerging from a time-space of opposite polarity, logic requires the existence of parallel universes in both polarities.

The rendering above is intended as a conceptualization of a net-timeless eternity.  It is only a rendering with artifacts having nothing intended to do with the concept, unfortunately.  It does illustrate opposite polarities of space connected through a singularity, but fails to show that illustrated regions of opposite polarity are separated by a higher-order dimension.  Curved 4-dimensional manifolds of space-time separated by a 5th dimension and connected through a singularity are difficult to illustrate in two dimensions.  Imagine it if you can.

Theology - Abrahamic
The cosmos gets a brief mention, but the story of genesis is mainly focused on the genesis of humanity, and trying to explain what the hell went wrong.  We can be pretty sure our species has not been around forever, and lived in tribal hunter-gatherer societies before the development of agriculture.  Genesis can be read as expressing beliefs about evolution of human society from its hunter-gatherer origins.  Older specific cosmology, (creation of the cosmos) is not a major part of the story.  Except in the sense that nothing material, even the sun, moon, stars, earth, is eternal.  These things once did not exist, and will one day pass away.  No controversy about that.  So why the controversy about Genesis?  Of course, the controversy is about the nature of the Creator, or the creative force.  That is the point of controversy, but it cannot be resolved scientifically.

Monday, May 25, 2015

Mind Is A Fractal; Heaven and Hell


Your Mind Is A Fractal,
its order increases with each level up.
If mind could define itself in symbols, perfectly,
the symbols would show that no limits exists
to that order increasing forever.
Transcendence is also eternal, then:
the fractal's progression can never stop.
There is no reversal or cessation.

The spirit of Christ, the anointed of the Highest,
is that which, out of love, descends from higher orders,
suffers in darkness below, unrecognized;
teaches truth  without care for itself,
so freeing the damned from Hell,
which once freed, ascend to Heaven.
Ever sacrificed, and ever resurrected in glory,
so Christ permeates all of Heaven.

Heaven is a place, and a process within you:
a place of love and peaceful assurance,
a process of growing faith in one sure hope
that every apple of your eye,
and all that is worthy of love,
will endure for timeless eternity.
As it endures, transforming
all beyond imagination,
and emanating the anointed of the Most High.

Hell is a place, and a process within you:
a place of torment and fear,
a process of increasing despair and growing conviction
that every purpose of your mind and
all the desire of your heart
will perish for timeless eternity,
and is less than nothing.

Choose Heaven in your fractal
enfold the universe in life
and serve life unto death.
Choose Hell in your fractal
enfold the universe in death,
and serve death unto life.
Flee from the difficult choice
until you can hide no more;
Choose you must.

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

On God and Judgment


"Judgment" enables the dichotomy of good and evil, just as "sight" enables the dichotomy of light and darkness.  Without judgment, there is no way to distinguish between good and evil.  Without any way to make a distinction between good and evil, separate categories of good and evil cannot exist.  There can be no dichotomy.

Judgment operates on intentional acts of persons.  If an event is completely unintentional, it cannot be characterized as either good or evil in a moral sense.  That the sun rises every 24 hours is certainly good in a practical sense, but is morally neutral unless one assumes some person (e.g., a god or the only God) causes the sun to rise every day.  All of this is merely definitional; it does not need to be proven. 

Who, or what, determines what is good and what is evil?  A judge applying a moral rule, obviously.  There are basically three types of judges: the natural or self-appointed judge, the judge voluntarily selected by parties to a dispute, and the judge who rules by force.  Each person can judge their own actions and render opinions on the actions of others; these are the very numerous natural judges.  Less frequently, disputes or moral questions arise for which a judge may be sought out by all the persons concerned.  These are the voluntarily selected or free civil judges.  Finally, there are judges that impose their opinions on persons forced to appear before them. Judgments are expressions of a judge's opinion on a law as applied to a set of facts, by definition.  Discernment of good from evil is a matter of a judge's opinion on application of a moral law.

Thus, "moral law" is that rule which defines whether or not an act is good, or evil.  Morality is that which a moral law defines as good.  A moral person is one who does good, even when the result is not self-serving.  An immoral person is one who recognizes a difference between good and evil, but does evil whenever it pleases him, or erroneously believes certain evil actions are good.  An amoral person is one who does not believe that good or evil exist in any objective sense beyond the person's own opinion.  Again, these are merely definitions.

People argue about whether or not good and evil can be objectively determined without presupposing that a transcendent moral reality exists.  Deists may argue that absolute good and evil requires the existence of a transcendent person (i.e., God) who defines what is good, and what is evil.  If we define moral judgments to be opinions, then such judgments can only be experienced by persons; thus, if such a thing as transcendent morality exists, it must do so in the mind of some transcendent being, such as a creator god (God). 

Some atheists argue that morality can just exist by itself, like a law of physics, and can only be discovered by deductive reasoning.  The deist who believes morality is defined by God and the moral atheist who believes in one objective morality discoverable by reason alone are indistinguishable in at least one sense.  They both have faith that something greater than mere personal whim determines what is good and evil.  They disagree about the nature of a transcendent reality that determines morality, and how best to discover it, but not about whether the transcendent reality exists.  The agnostic straddles both of these poles, without claiming knowledge as to the exclusive truth or falsehood of either.  The moral atheist, agnostic and the deist alike are faced with a very difficult problem, however: how to know what objective morality requires in any given situation.  Each will use reason and rhetoric to argue for preferred moral positions, using identical tools such as appeals to authority, citation of widely accepted customs, and logic.

It may be argued that morality underlies those rules of human social behavior that enable human society (or more generally, life) to flourish in a sustainable way.  This is a perfectly reasonable way to think about morality, but only if the stated goal "sustainable flourishing of ___" is accepted as the highest moral priority.  Some arguments for morality based on logic presuppose that a particular social result is desirable, and work backwards to find rules of behavior that maximize the probability of achieving the desired result.  The desired end result is just a matter of opinion, so such arguments lead to a type of amorality.

For example, in one person's opinion, a desirable result might be a very populous, highly technological society progressing towards interstellar travel and extended natural lifespans, with more emphasis on progress than on conservation.  In another person's opinion, the desired end result may be a mostly depopulated planet with a small elite acting to restrain human population growth and maintain the planet as a sort of ecological preserve, with more emphasis on conservation than on progress; and so many different views exist.  Morality in this view is a matter of personal opinion; therefore, morality is subjective and not objective.  One person or group may enforce their moral preferences on others, but there is no objective difference between good and evil.  Morality is merely a useful illusion projected by those having political or personal power, to legitimize power.  This is the amoral viewpoint, and it is a perfectly reasonable one.

Amoral persons must struggle with finding moral purpose in anything, or living with a sense of moral futility.  Some may loath to admit their amorality.  Instead, it may be easier to dress amorality in garments of morality, pretend that only one acceptable outcome exists, and claim as righteousness the enforcement of one's arbitrary moral preferences as objective morality on others.  Sometimes a claim of morality is hypocritically made as propaganda to deceive those who are morally obtuse.  Other times, the belief is adopted willingly by the morally obtuse, as a psychological defense against feelings that their life has no meaning.  By adopting a popular albeit arbitrary preference as a moral purpose, some avoid the discomfort of admitting that there is no such thing as good or evil, and therefore no moral purpose to living.  Philosophically, such persons may be objective moralists led astray by an amoral shepherd.  More often, followers of amoral leaders are people who have never confronted the problem of morality head on and just drift with the current, like a rudderless boat.

People who believe in objective morality face a different problem.  Whether deists or atheists, these people can take comfort in a belief in objective morality.  But they cannot be certain that they know what that objective morality would call for in all circumstances, or any circumstances.  Sometimes, they cannot agree on what morality calls for in very basic, fundamental circumstances.  Such differences are not fatal to beliefs in objective morality, because differences can be explained by human imperfection. On the other hand, many people from many different cultures, traditions, and beliefs do share similar beliefs in many basic moral precepts.  This provides a sort of empirical evidence for objective morality, which many find convincing.  Others may see it as just an example of convergent social evolution.  Even so, if similar moral beliefs are required for long-term survival of diverse human societies, this provides a natural science basis for morality, albeit merely as a collectively-determined factor of social survival.  As it is impossible to know how many diverse moral belief systems can survive in the long term, the natural science position is fundamentally amoral.

Another problem for objective moralists is ultimate judgment.  If morality is objective and absolute, consequences should exist for immoral behavior.  Without any consequences, the existence of morality is a cruel joke.  A few may live with a firm suspicion that morality is merely a cruel joke, but others believe that consequences do exist for the evil doer.   Since there are often too few consequences for evil doers evident in the natural world, some believe that supernatural consequences compensate.  Beliefs in judgment after death compensate for lack of justice in the world.

If one believes in morality and judgment in whatever form such judgment exists, it follows logically that one should do as little evil as possible.  This is the test of faith for believers in objective morality.  If you truly believe in an effective objective morality, are you willing to set aside your natural interests when necessary to remain moral according to your deepest beliefs?  Most can not, but one who truly believes in the existence of judgment would be compelled to.

On the other hand, if ultimate judgment exists, all fall short of perfection and therefore all must suffer some consequences as a result of their own moral imperfection, either naturally or supernaturally.   The prospect of being judged by a law of perfect morality, or by a being of perfect morality, can be terrifying.  Religions deal with this terror in different ways.  For those that believe in endless cycles of reincarnation, judgment is real and terrible, but perhaps not unbearable because no worse in quality than what we experience in the natural world, and redemption is always possible after many cycles of suffering.  For disbelievers in reincarnation, there are basically two alternatives for moral consequences: while alive or after death, or some combination of these.

The  threat of judgment after death is not just a bludgeon of hypocrites; it is an actual, deeply rooted psychological aspect of  a belief in objective morality.  It can be expressed in various ways, but it comes down to the same thing:  a belief that consequences of evil behavior will somehow be repaid to the evil-doer, even after death.  With interest added.  Otherwise, the Creator by permitting evil doers to live out their lives in comfort, and die deaths no less comfortable than those they oppress, would be manifestly unjust.  But how much interest may justly be charged?  And what about the role of virtues such as mercy and forgiveness?

However much is enough, imposition of eternal suffering breaks every possible moral rule, it seems.  It all depends on how "suffering" is defined.  Humans in a sense cause the "suffering" of livestock over countless generations, but the imposition is not (for the most part) gratuitous, and might even benefit the livestock in some respects.  Contrast this to the idea of eternal hell fire.  To the extent hell fire involves imposition of maximal, endless, conscious suffering on lesser beings, it cannot be moral by any conceivable measure.  Any god who metes it out could not be moral by any human measure.  Fire, however, signifies destruction.  Destruction of irredeemably evil beings, or of evil itself, is moral, or else evil is not damnable; i.e., is not evil.   So eternal hell fire understood as an eternal destruction of evil - a destructive force that prevents evil from ever emerging to exercise power over good - is the perfection of morality.

Could a moral God resurrect the damned to face judgment? An ample punishment would be to cause the evil doer to understand with no doubt, before the destruction of the soul for all eternity, that the opportunity for eternal life had been lost.  The moral complaint here is a one-size-fits-all punishment.  The oppressor and slayer of millions receives essentially the same punishment as a mere unrepentant sloth or drunkard (for example).  Because so many die with no hope of eternal life as it is, it might seem gratuitously cruel to resurrect them solely for the purpose of saying "I told you so." There is a difference between dying without hope of eternal life for one's self by natural law, and dying with a firm regret that one could have had eternal life, if only one had done things differently.  It can be questioned whether or nor it is more or less moral to inflict such sure regrets on the damned, if not for the purpose of saving their souls, or some greater good.

How can mere mortals question the morality of God?  That is not the proper question.  The proper question is, how can we test our own beliefs about higher objective morality against our own experience?  All beliefs about untestable, transcendent realities are matters of faith, by necessity.  In matters of faith, we have nothing to go on but accepting that the pattern of our own experience, understood through reason or intuition, will teach or reflect higher patterns.  We will not give a scorpion to our children who ask of us an egg, nor will That Which Is Above fill us who seek truth with falsehoods.  Even the acolyte who insists on blindly following words in a holy book, or the teachings of an exalted teacher, is in reality only following his own interpretation of such supposedly holy words or teachings.  If such an acolyte would ascribe to God a level of cruelty that would surpass the severest discipline or torture imposed by any human, we might sensibly observe that it is the interpretation that is at fault, not the original source.  The deist, like the atheist, must not ignore the light of reason.  Unlike the atheist, a deist may humbly proceed on faith and intuition, where reason alone would lead to amoral or evil places.  But only with the greatest humility, and not contrary to reason.

In the light of humility, questioning hypothetical scenarios such as the judgment of the damned or the eternal torture of hell fire are merely exercises in hubris and vanity.  We cannot know what judgment awaits until we see it unfold.  We deserve the freedom to structure our own lives in consideration of a judgment hereafter, if we so choose.  We are not empowered to judge the eternal fate of our neighbors, whatever their beliefs, and especially not merely on account of their beliefs.  If we would impute to our deity a cruelty surpassing even our own, or any willful arbitrary destruction, then we worship not any God, but evil spirits, the demons of our own consciousness.  Conversely, we cannot presume to understand for what purpose evil exists in our world, or how it will be exorcised.  It is sufficiently demanding for us to recognize our own evil conduct, and repent of it.