Forward
What is God? This question can mean many many things. I will take a very basic meaning, that is what does the word “God” mean? Some definitions say something to the effect that “God” is omniscient omnipresent, and omnipotent. God must see everything, exist everywhere, and touch anything. This is the definition I am going to use.
My purpose in this book is to show how this is an accurate description of the actual state of nature. It is my intent to show that what we can understand about the natural state of things can explain “God.”
What is an explanation of “God?” As I touched on in the introduction, most of humanity believes in some supernatural power. An explanation of “God” is an attempt to explain God, that is, to understand why we worship God or what-have-you. I believe that science is starting to figure out ways to understand the Spiritual experience. Quantum Physics, Chaos Theory, current Astronomy, Evolution, all have significant higher-level questions associated with them. If things at the Quantum level are so unpredictable, why are they not as such at our level? What is the meaning of the bible in a world where the explanation of how we got here is proved? On and on. What I have done is combine all these fields into a complete theory as to how it comes together to explain the concept of God most of us have.
Aren’t you just asking to be branded a heretic and burned? I suppose I am. This is defiantly not my intention, though. I wish to further human insight. I want to fulfill my destiny to give unto our knowledge my understanding of things. I don’t want to offend anyone. I may, but I must write this book at all cost to me. It is my calling.
Chapter I
Introduction
For the entirety of the existence of modern man, perhaps even before that, we have worshiped something. It is a basic human trait, to believe in the supernatural. There have been studies showing over 90% of current humans say they believe in something beyond them. It is possible that there is a God and that all humans are simply tuning into an extra-dimensional being. I have a different view. If most humans are tuning into something, that suggests that there is something to be tuned into. However, that something does not necessarily have to be an extra-dimensional being. Perhaps what is being tuned into is something that can be understood and that is of this world and not beyond it. Perhaps we should focus our scientific brains to an explanation of what this thing is. If I have only one thing to give unto this word, it is an understanding that the Powers That Be are something that we should study as a science.
Many will say that I am an outright blasphemous. Yes. I do not discount the faith most humans feel, but I will admit that what I write does disavow many’s view of the God they have faith in. I really don’t mean to hurt people. I simply want to show that maybe the God they have faith in isn’t the God they should have faith in. I explain later in this book how the God-That-Is-Of-This-Universe could be worshiped in a way that is more effective at achieving the goals many have in the pursuit of their faith. I, personally, have experienced many of the things some religious texts attest to. I accept at the core of my being the Golden Rule. I know, through experience, that if one asks the Powers That Be for food, it will be provided. There is nothing in the truly faithful life path that will harm one spiritually. I simply question that the power we see and have faith in is an extra-worldly being that we should bow down to or the natural state of the universe that could be used to our greater effect.
I don’t have all the answers. My training involves reading some, not-graduated-from-college knowledge, and watching PBS religiously. There are gaps in specifics, which the reader will be informed of. There are examples of information that I acquired from NOVA some 20 years ago. As time progresses, this text will grow in completion but, at the writing of this introduction, I cannot attest to the absolute validity of all the scientific ideas being expressed. However, what I use I will explain to the best of my ability given what I know. Anything I do not know as fact, I will make it clear that I do not know it as fact, and I will point out any broad conjecture. As my knowledge and reader input correct aspects of the information contained herein, I will update it.
And now to the work at hand. If you have any feedback or comments, feel free to post them. Drink some coffee, relax, and prepare for something that could let you see, finally, what’s behind this existence.
Chapter II
Epistemology
(Note, this is a paper from a class, and had been just cut and paste here. Thus, the flow into the next chapter may be choppy.)
Science is Justified True Belief
In Richard Feldman’s book, Epistemology, he devotes a chapter to the role of science in Epistemology, chapter 8 (157-176). This chapter intrigued me as a topic for this paper because it is the principle of scientific method that I draw most of my personal philosophy from. After reading the second section of this chapter (166-176), I found that I could elaborate on parts of it to bring forth my own Epistemological thought process. Therefore, what I have done in this paper is expounded on my own philosophical thought, with references to Feldman’s work, and, with the help of the Science is Religion proof, I have made a case that Science is, quintessentially, justified true belief.
On page 166 of Feldman’s work, he considers the Naturalistic Epistemology stance. The first paragraph of the second section on this topic is quoted as:
The first naturalistic charge against The Standard View amounts to the claim that traditional epistemology should be abandoned in favor of the empirical study of human cognition. This is not so much an argument for the conclusion that The Standard View is false as it is an objection to the way philosophers have traditionally defended and discussed that view.
What Feldman is saying is that the Naturalistic Epistemologist believes that Epistemology has outlived its usefulness and that science should be used to answer the questions of “knowing”. Naturalist Epistemology, taken to this extreme, fails to take into account one very important thing. The philosophical thought process of epistemology offers a greater understanding of science from a different way of thinking. Though I agree with the naturalistic assertion that science should be taken into account in epistemological thought, I do not agree that we should stop studying the field.
I do find it imperative, though, to use science as an argument for my knowing something. I allude to this subject in another of my papers, “A Solution to the Problem of the Criterion.” In that paper, I argue that one must accept some bit of knowledge as prima facie in order to solve the problem of the criterion. I contest, in the paper, that visceral touch is something that can be known prima facie. I continue by stating that, if one has the ability to touch something then they can study that object. The way humans have best come to study the world around them is Scientific Method. I go on to accept knowledge of a Scientific Law, prima facie knowledge. This all becomes important later in the paper.
In Feldman’s book, he looks into the question of whether knowledge can be known a priori, that is, without experience. He continues by saying that there are some who would say that, if a priori knowledge were possible, then the Naturalistic view must be incorrect. These people argue that if it is possible to know something without experiencing it, then why require experience to say something is known. If you don’t need to bring science into the mix, why do so? I disagree. In “A Solution to the Problem of the Criterion”, I argue that visceral touch is something that can be known basically and, though I did not elaborate on in this in the previous paper, I believe that visceral touch is a priori knowledge. According to the critics of the Naturalist view cited in Feldman’s book, my acceptance of a priori knowledge makes my Naturalistic leaning invalid.
The problem with this, though, is that I use a priori knowledge only as a way to get to the wealth of previous knowledge that humanity has acquired via a posteriori means, that is, Science. Yes, it is possible to know many things a priori, but why discount the huge amounts of information that humans have found with science, only to say that you don’t have to look outside your a priori universe. If you have a tool at your disposal, I say, use it.
The boon of Science, for me, is that is has led to the solution of most of the philosophic problems that I have encountered. It is also the methodology I have deemed to be quintessentially, justified, true, belief. What I will show, now, is how Science fulfills these criteria.
Science is justified by the very most error-proof method that humans have devised for obtaining truth, that is, the Scientific Method. There is no form of fact-finding is as careful as the process by which a hypothesis becomes a Scientific Law. A fact that Science deems true, via the Scientific Method, I deem to be, unequivocally, true.
Science, as I elaborated on in the preceding paragraph, is true, or again, as close to true as humans have yet to muster. The difficulty in a proof of Science as justified true belief is in the belief portion of that criteria. The way I am going to show Science as something to be believed is in what I call, the Science as a Religion proof.
- It is statistical fact that a vast majority of the human population believes in some sort of faith structure.
- Logically, it would follow that there is something intrinsic in humans that causes humans to look for a religious structure.
- A very good friend of mine once used a term that has imbedded its self into my through process in such a way that I accept it as a statement of truth; “All roads lead to Rome.” What he meant is that all religions are looking for the same power. If one looks at the three primary monotheistic religions, they are all worshipping the same deity. If one looks at eastern religions, one can see that many of the edicts of their religions are the same as western religions. This one aspect of my paper could take another three pages of text. As it stands now, I would like to assert that this is, in fact, true. All religions are looking for the same concept, regardless of what they call it.
- Religion, at its heart, is used to explain the way the world works.
- Science, at its heart, is used to explain the way the world works.
- Therefore, Science is a religion and must be believed as such. The friend I quote above, William Maze, gave to me another wise saying. I must paraphrase, but he said, “Science is just another religion, with the benefit of being true.”
If something can be shown to be true, justified in its process towards truth, and believed to true, that thing can be considered known. Science is such a thing. Therefore, if one wants to be sure that something is truly known, it is too Science that they should look. Science as the backbone of Epistemological thought could be used to answer many questions that are on the minds of seekers of knowledge. Though, throughout the history of the Epistemological school of philosophy, philosophers have deemed that a priori knowledge is the path towards a definitive answer to the question of what is knowledge, it seems to me, illogical to fail to accept a posteriori knowledge because it is generated through experience. I feel that Science is the answer to most philosophical problems. It is also the facts that Epistemology can use to answer any questions brought upon by study into the questions of knowledge. It is imperative to use the tools of Science to answer these questions. A great debate would ensue with the input of Scientific ideals into Epistemological thought process, and the discussion would cause both subjects to raise in intellect and devotion to the discovery of truth.
Chapter III
Metaphysics
With the premise that Science is as close to seeing truth as humanity currently has, I began to think about the ways of the Universe. I was devoutly atheist at the time. In my world, there could not be a God. So I set to proving, through science and reason, that God did not exist.
My biggest difficulty was St. Thomas Aquinas’ proof. In a nutshell, it says that:
- For every cause, there is a reaction.
- Thus, all the reactions in the world must equal the causes.
- However, if this is true, then what was the initial cause to the universe? There must be an initial cause. That cause is God.
For me, it boiled down to, “What came before the big bang?” I could not get past this problem.
In the Big Bang theory, circa 1985 when I first learned about it, there are two possibilities. If there is not enough mass in the Universe, all the matter in it will continue to expand, eventually everything will simply float into nothingness and entropy will destroy all energy. The universe will be floating bits of nothing. In this scenario, a God must exist. What else would spark the Universe into existence? I would have to start praying.
The other theory is that the Universe is closed, that there is enough mass in the Universe to start bringing all mass back together. Theoretically, the mass would coalesce into another point from which another Big Bang might occur. It occurred to me that it was possible, if not likely, that this would keep happening. If it did continue to happen, why would it end. Perhaps the Universe recycles it’s self into infinity, perhaps is has done this, infinitely, in the past. In the Universe expands-contracts-expands-contracts infinitely, then by the definition of infinity, there would never be a beginning or an end of time. Thus, there would not have to be an initial cause to the Universe, because it always was and always will be. To me, this disproved God, by disproving St. Thomas Aquinas.
If you watch the PBS program, “Nova”, you know that the theories explained above have become much more complicated. Given the current scientific insight, my thought process has progressed exponentially. I shall cover that later. At this point, however, suffice it to say that current discoveries have given more weight to the possibility that the Universe is infinite. It really doesn’t matter how it’s infinite, only that it is. If time has no beginning, then there doesn’t have to be someone to start the pendulum swinging.
Infinity is a concept that is nearly impossible to think about. We all remember that Pi is 3.1415… and that the ellipse means that it goes on infinitely. That means, “for ever and ever, right?” Right, so what does that mean? I’ve never been good at math, so I always thought, “Isn’t that close enough?”
When I started thinking about the implications of, “What if the Universe is infinite?”, I went back to the old-standby way of thinking about it.
If an infinite number of monkeys pounded on an infinite number of keyboards for an infinite amount of time, eventually they would create Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” in its entirety.
Probably with the assistance of some good drugs, my mind started exploring. Suddenly, I realized that the old standby expression was lacking. In truth, not only would the monkeys create Hamlet in it’s entirety once, they would create it an infinite number of time. They’d also write “Lear”, “Othello”, and “As You Like It.” Twain’s entire bibliography would be available, with an infinite print run; including a version where the only difference from the original is that Twain is spelled with an “e”. Not a rarity, though. Crumpled bits of paper containing only the characters “a$H”. Proust in exactly perfect reverse spelling. Today’s Wall Street Journal. All an infinite number of times. If there is not beginning to time and no end, and if there is even a small amount of variation in the “iterations” of the Universe, and if the Universe is, in fact, infinite; somewhere, at some time, you were, are, and will be President of the United State of America. An infinite number of times.
Interestingly enough, these thought processes and a personal experience led me to believe that there was a God, after all.
Chapter IV
Spirituality
On a visit to Portland, Oregon, I experienced a profound instance of Déjà Vu. I started speaking in tongues and became possessed by a force that I don’t understand. Needless to say, I couldn’t ignore it.
After I got back to Seattle, WA, I started noticing that for some reason I was now able to see a connective-ness in human interpersonal relations. My spiritual guide and mentor, Will, told me it was, “Synchronicity.”
Synchronicity, to me, is a sensation of prophecy, a feeling about the future. I would notice that Josh showed up and, man, I was really hoping to run into Josh. Or Jennifer showed up with beer right at the moment Mike complains about having to go to the store. These things do happen by coincidence. The difference with synchronicity is that it feels like it should happen, like it was perfectly “on time.” It also provides the sensation of a “spiritual” moment. It had been a spiritual moment that had created my perception of it, so perhaps synchronicity is involved with this new “spiritual” feeling I have.
Experiencing synchronicity made me feel like there was a grand order to the Universe, like someone was keeping time. Damnit, and I had just disproved God. So, where else could I go? Most scientists thought the Universe was open at the time, so I guess I’d better start praying.
Stopping my thought process in mid flight was unlike me, however, so I began to try to figure out what caused synchronicity. I came to a “Nova” program I had seen many year previous, about “Chaos Theory.”
First in my primer of Chaos Theory, I have to talk about “imaginary numbers.”
An imaginary number is like: a1+1=a1 You take a number (a), add 1, and then take the result and substitute it for a1. 2+1=3+1=4+1 etc. Each time you add one, it’s called an iteration.
In this Nova program, it was illustrated that Chaos, a set of imaginary numbers, had order. More on this in the next chapter.
If I’m right it’s like this. Sally know Tom who knows Joe who know Bill who knows Jerry how knows Sharif who knows Han. I chose 7 because of the entire 7 degrees of separation thing, which might be bullshit.
If Sally buys a car from Tom, Tom might pay for a shoe-shine from Joe. Joe could get a cup of coffee, spill it, causing Bill to fall. Jerry, his doctor, misses his appointment with Sharif to buy weapons to use against the Infidel, causing Sharif to call off the hit on Sally by Han. Seemingly unrelated events causing an outcome. Each time Sally walks by the Auto Dealer, she starts an interaction, each of which may save her life. Most don’t. Most iterations would lead to Tom choosing Doug for his shoe shine. My theory is, though, that if one can focus themselves in what I describe as a “Spiritual” way, one can manipulate the way one travels through the world. Sally, be in-tune, decides Tuesday is the best day to buy her car.
Chapter V
Fractals
One of my heroes, Benoit Mandelbrot, took an imaginary number sequence, like the a1+1=a1 (fix typeface) from above, and mapped a graph of it on a computer. The result was a fractal, which we now see in computer games, weather prediction, and posters at malls.
A fractal, really must be seen to be understood. On another PBS program I saw (yes, I love PBS), it was described as the “fingerprint of God.” I will only attempt to describe the visual of the fingerprint of God by saying “intricate.”
A fractal’s properties are easier to put into words. Because they are graphs, one can “zoom” in and out of a fractal. The Mandelbrot set looks to many like a bug. One can “zoom” into the edge of the bug’s head. As you do this, you see a number of geometric shapes until, suddenly, the bug has returned. Not exactly the initial bug, but the pattern more or less repeats its self.
Things with “fractal geometry” are also found everywhere. The dripping of water on a rock creates a fractal. The way the blood vessels in your heart grow is based on fractal geometry. The leaves of a tree. Most non-human things in nature have a fractal on them. Fractals, and the math behind them, also help predict the weather.
One of the commentators on the Nova program about Chaos Theory made now-famous analogy. I’m paraphrasing: “To accurately predict the weather, you’d have to design a machine which was able to take into account the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in Australia.” The speaker called this, “The Butterfly Effect.” Apparently, the title was used in a really bad movie with Jim Carey which I haven’t seen.
The corollary of this is that the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in Australia matters. A small event, a shoe shine, can have huge effects in the grand scheme of things.
Perhaps science can answer these questions. I would like to run an experiment. The Norwegian coastline is a fractal. If one were to take precise measurements at different levels of the coast, would it be possible to generate a fractal of the Norwegian coastline? Could one find that math to generate the shape of the coast? If so, would this tell us about Ice Age progression, because so much of the coast was made by glaciers? If you could generate the mate for Norway, could you keep the math going? What would be where Sweden is? Would that math that made Norway, make Sweden also? Could you expand this further?
If it is possible to predict Sweden from Norway, the great answer is here. If a fractal of one thing can create a fractal of another, that means that part of the information for creating the second fractal is contained in the first. If one can find part of a fractal, one can find an estimate of parts outside the part you have found.
There is nothing in science to date, to my knowledge, that substantiates any of this. It is an experiment to be run. Why would I have any reason to believe it was possible? No. I just want to waste some man-hours.
Honestly, its mostly a hunch. If one were to design a computer program that were able to generate a fractal of the Norwegian coast, one would be designing a set of interactions of a mathematical equation to get to a specific point. The set of interactions of an equation to arrive at Norway should be close to those that arrive at Sweden. The two countries experienced the same Ice Ages, after all. Pure conjecture, though, I’ll admit.
If it happens to be correct, though, fractals are not only the fingerprint of God, they are a map to God.
Allow me to delve back into the realm of conjecture. Let’s say, from Metaphysics, above, that the universe has happened, is happening, and will happen infinitely, it would be possible that not all of these happenings are not exactly the same. Perhaps chaos plays a role in the creation and collapse of our universe. Given what we have found via science, this is a much more likely scenario than the universe happening infinitely in the exact same way.
If each iteration of the universe is slightly different, the system becomes chaotic, and it’s not a stretch to think that the collapse of one universe impacts the expansion of the next, like subsequent ice age’s affect on the Norwegian coast. Thus, the infinite collapsing and recreation of the universe should follow the finding, in Chaos Theory, that seemingly random things have some degree of order. If it is ever possible to map the universe with any degree of precision, it should be possible to predict where we, the universe, are going and have been; a great fractal of space and time.
It is already true that fractal geometry is being used to help explain the current structure of the universe. Perhaps it might someday allow us to map areas of the universe we can’t see. With that knowledge, a prediction of the structure of the universe, it could be said that parts of the universe that we cannot be seen could be “known” to a certain extent. This is similar to a thought experiment that has been run by Philosophers for centuries now, called “mechanical determinism.” What is that esoteric idea? Glad you asked.
Mechanical Determinism
The thought experiment at the basis of mechanical determinism is pretty basic. It asks us whether it is possible for a machine to be so complex that it would be able to correctly model the universe. If it is possible, not feasible, then everything must already be known.
Consider this. I build a computer program that can successfully predict everything in the universe. I focus on Larry, just some guy. The computer program can predict everything that Larry has done, is doing, and will do in the future. Does Larry have free will?
The answer is “no.” If the computer program is able to predict what Larry is going to do, then that thing is already written in the stars. If Larry thinks, “Hey, I’m not going to do this thing because the computer program has predicted it,” then the computer program would have to be able to predict that thought-process, and Larry would still be without free will.
It is hard to imagine a machine of this complexity. However, the question mechanical determinists ask is not how the machine in question would operate, but could the machine exist. Though we cannot create this machine at this point, is it possible that this machine at any time in the future could be built. If you think it is feasible, then you are a mechanical determinist.
My argument is that the machine can be built, the basis of that machine would be imaginary number theory, the output would be a fractal, and, thus, everything is known. However, everything is known only at the level of the predictive capability of fractals. If I am correct, then a machine which perfectly predicts everything in the universe is impossible, but a machine which predicts the general trends of the universe wouldn’t be that hard to build. With Moore’s Law, which states that the number of transistors that a computer can hold will double every two years, my machine isn’t difficult to envision.
If my machine is possible, then all the trends of the universe are known, even though my machine is yet to be built. If the trends of the universe are known, only limited free will exists, and there exists, in the functioning of nature, the ability to know, though only to a certain extant, everything that will happen. I contest that this aspect of nature is akin to omniscience, the knowledge of everything. Ergo, the universe is omniscient.
A Return to God
The definition of God which I use comes from the Merriam-Webster dictionary. It says that a “god” must be omniscient, omnipotent, and everlasting. I have shown, in chapter three, that the universe is everlasting. In the last chapter, I make the case that the universe is partially omniscient. That leaves omnipotence.
The universe is all that there is. Though there could be multiverses (there are, if I’m correct. Read later chapters for more info.), we cannot access any directly information about them, so they are irrelevant to our existence. Since, for all intensive purposes, the universe is everything, then it must have power over everything, since there is nothing outside it (other than other universes.) Though pretty cheesy, that means that the universe is omnipotent. Nothing happens in the universe not caused by the universe.
So, the universe, nature, is omnipotent, omniscient, and everlasting. The universe is God. Actually, I prefer to use the spelling, “god”, lower case, but the principle is the same. Everything people talk about when they talk about “God” exists, if I am right, in the natural realm of things.
That is not to say that everyone who believes in God is delusional, they’re just not seeing it right, as I see it. The study of, and adheres to, the principles of spirituality are just as important in my world-view as they are to the theists of the world. Just don’t expect some unknowable super-being to answer your prayers. Instead, ask the universe for what you need.
Chapter VI
Now, Returning to Synchronicity
Synchronicity is based on chaos, in my view. It is the iterations of interpersonal relations in a finite but expansive canvas that is a city (though it may be possible to experience synchronicity in a less populated setting, I have no experience with this, so, for my purposes, it is the highly populated centers of major cities that I focus my attention.) Synchronicity appears “random” but, is in fact, “chaotic”; exhibiting the same
attributes as other chaotic systems. What that means is that the principles of chaos theory, if I understand them right, apply to humans in group settings. This leads to a testable hypothesis.
If humans wandering around urban environments beget a fractal, then this could be observed. The study is fairly simple. Find, say, 100 people who are willing, for a stipend, to wear a GPS ankle bracelet for a month, record their movements, plug the results into a computer, and overlay the findings. At this point, my lack of specific knowledge of chaos theory becomes evident, seeing as that I don’t know how one would see fractal geometry in a map of human locomotion, but I think that is possible.
If interpersonal reactions are fractal, and thus, chaotic in nature, then the experience of synchronicity can be explained mathematically. Since synchronicity is an aspect of the “spiritual”, that may mean that an aspect of spirituality, a feeling and experience inside the individual, is quantifiably explained. Spirituality, in the form of synchronicity, is part of the natural system.
Chapter VII
The Butterfly Effect
One of the most important aspects of chaos theory is what is called, <find this term and insert it>. Basically, chaotic systems are classic for being really difficult to impossible to predict from initial data. Things get wack, quick.
The phrase, “The butterfly effect,” comes from an early chaos scientist, <cite>, who plugged some number into an early computer, which generated a wave which was the infinity symbol in shape. It looked a bit like a butterfly. The shape, though, began becoming unstable, quickly visually chaotic. The scientist didn’t know what to thing of these unexpected results until he realized that he had rounded the number he put into the computer to six decimal places. The numbers from the seventh decimal place and later were so important, after some time, that it threw the results of the computer model into complete disarray.
In iterative systems, a small change now can cause a large change in the future. <The Scientist> later elucidated the concept, related to the computer experiment, as, <check quote>”Making a prediction in a chaotic system requires so many data points that accurate weather forecasting would need to take into account a butterfly flapping its wings in Australia.” This implies some very important things for the understanding of spiritual phenomena.
In an intellectual paper, the author should not start talking about magic. Of course, this document doesn’t quite live up to that rigor, so I’m free. I would like to ask any remaining skeptics to read just a bit further, and try to have an open mind.
I don’t believe directly in magic. Obviously, one who believes in his work, that the multiverse contains everything there is, doesn’t think asking otherly entities for help, or harm, is possible. However, some experiences of magical things can be explained.
There is only one study that I am aware of that tries to prove a “magical” idea. In the <cite study>, <cite authors>, asked <number> to pray for specific patients undergoing medical procedures. Another group of patients didn’t have special people to pray for them. In a stunning, statistically relevant finding, those who were prayed for didn’t die as often, and may have had less complications. So this is evidence for prayer working. Egads!
In order to try to explain this study, I came to a possible solution. Perhaps, focus by people makes for better (or worse) outcomes, like the expounding effects of the Butterfly Effect. The breath from the prayer moves the air in the room which leaves the window in a different way which blows the cloud a tiny amount south which causes the system to move from its intended path, so the patient doesn’t have to walk into the hospital when it’s raining.
Of course, this is complete conjecture. However, if anyone wanted to try to make magic work, this is a possibility. When a friend of mine is in pain, I always try to tell them that my thoughts are with them. Then I think about them for a bit, sometimes wave my arms about for a while, letting my inner chaos take over, and hope my friend the best. I cannot think of a way this could be tested, except by continuing <study above> work, but it’s my best guess how these perceptions of the spiritual could be natural and explained.