Frank Z writes, > Don't forget the Compton frequency of the electron. > It is close to the numbers you mention. http://www.angelfire.com/scifi2/zpt/chaptera.html
Nice start to this chapter, Frank. I have taken the liberty of rewording it slightly and adding a few short ;-) comments (after all, this is Sunday, when the merger of science and spirituality are often the strongest "memes" in the local aether, even on the Left Coast) . And surmising that more than a few vortexians may have "inadvertantly" missed their morning sermon, here is your recompense : The idea that an unseen force imparts structure to the material world has been around since antiquity. Some of the earliest references to this idea are found in the Hindu scriptures. These scriptures were originated by the ancient Indus Valley civilization at about 3,000 BC. The concept of the Brahman is described in these scriptures. The Brahman is the hidden power that is latent in all things. This single divinity has dual aspects: two names from the Upanishads are "Atman" or "Universal Spirit," and Brahman, "the Power" ... corresponding, of course, to the Christian "Holy Spirit" and "the Father." Westerners, of course, had to do the East one-better, so we added a third (local) component. This borrowing of ideas is a common theme in both religion and the secular tradition. As a youth, I was an often unwilling subject to a weekly "positive thinking" type of lecture which stressed that we must develop both the "desire" and the "motivation"... really the same idea as Atman and Brahman, but in a more personal format. Later references to this concept were developed in ancient Greece at about 500 BC. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus spoke of the concept of the Logos, which of course is taken up in the Bible as "the Word". In fact the name "Bible" itself is derived from the idea of Heraclitus, not John by-way-of Philos, who borrowed it without much attribution. According to Heraclitus, the Logos is the source of all order, hidden in a deeper reality, a doctrine taken up by Philo, a central figure in Judaism, about 10 AD. To Philo the Logos was the mind of the universe. Modern secularism, on the other hand, has taken the reductionist approach, saying basically that we can find ultimate reality if we can just find the smallest subparticle. But modern secularism is the epitome of "Reductio ad absurdum" in so many ways that is alwasy brings out a humorous vein. Taking reductionism a step further beyond neo-Darwinism, Kurt Vonnegut has proposed through his alter ego, Kilgore Trout, that water is the one and only true God. All biological life is composed predominantly of water, of course, which uses mankind as its most prolific, if not profligate, vehicle to get from here to there. This not-so-facetious example of reductionism-gone-mad, as it invariably does, underscores the major pitfall of depending too greatly on physical reality as demonstrative of metaphysical meaning. Reductionist points of view may serve as limited models which must be orchestrated upwardly into an implicit whole, with hope of pinpointing the synergy that derives. It must be realized that reductionism is an auxiliary tool, not an end in itself, not a competing technique but a complementary one. We want to avoid the situation wherein "greenness disintegrates," as Hofstadter refers to the obsequious pursuit of finer perspective by the reductionist. Consciousness, through a spiritual skeptic's eyes, can be the unanticipated result of an organism having reached a critical mass in the accumulation of neural cells, with the assumption that such accumulation came about only as a result of competitive survival pressures. It is equally justifiable for the mystic to see the accumulation of neural cells as an inevitable consequence of organic chemistry being imperceptively pushed towards a preexistent ideal form, all of those dead-end streets that were not successful being only indicative of one thing: God need not be all-powerful or all-knowing in the kind of time-delineated assessment on which secualrism depends. The universe is so incredibly vast in the present tense and even more overwhelming in its perpetual repetition, that there is plenty of room for both a minimal and awesome presence to coexist - a force that ordains, not in megalomaniacal haste, but in millineal meticulousness, whose most important ally is timelessness. There may be lack of conclusive objective proof for either God or no-God, but there are many platforms for interpretation. If choices had to made on scientific proof alone, one might be aesthetically inclined to accept no-God for reasons of economy. But the aesthetics of economy do not even come close to offsetting personal experience and inner conscience as a determinant. The inner perception of divinity is what Rudolph Otto called the "numinous," or "mysterium tremendum," and is not just a realization, but can be a truthfulness more significant than life itself. This perception often follows from an event that is both non-rational and inexplicable, but so overwhelming that it can mold a lifetime of devotion. The most apt description of personal divine revelation is not just "ecstasy," which sounds quite enticing, but "metanoia" - the ecstasy that radically changes one's life. A recognition of this not uncommon happenstance, which becomes life's metaphysical initiation rite, is described in such mystical terminology as "receiving the Holy Spirit," "shaktipat" (kundalini), or being "born again." Though widely discussed, it is far from a universal encounter, and is often feigned by those who want to be part of a particular group - though it has been consistently asserted by most religions to be universal in its potential realization. Of course there will be an inevitable hostile reaction to all claims of mystical insight or communication, no matter how generally shared. Anything remotely desirable, with elitist connotations, and not subject to scientific scrutiny - and most particularly if requiring the "surrender" of anything so treasured as one's ego - will be adamantly scorned by many cynics. It is not surprising, therefore, that there are absurd attempts by cynic's to categorize personal revelation as being a type of psychotic episode related to the hallucinatory drug experience. The nature of personal revelation is such that objective analysis is not feasible, and it must be taken at face value or ignored, but it abandons all principles of serious inquiry to challenge this awareness with puerile "guilt by association" maneuvering. Those few who have experienced and described both phenomena, the hallucinatory drug experience and transcendental religious awakening, see some small or crude correspondence, and indeed some parallel mental engrams may be involved. But the ultimate paranoia of the psychedelic experience is far from the persistent ecstasy of religious awakening. If widespread personal inclinations point towards God, and science is ambivalent, it is easy to tailor scientific ambivalence to fit needs, and that is what theology should be about. Ambivalence implies that evidence is scattered on both sides of the issue, so by emphasizing the relevant and discounting the inconsequential, science can be made as useful to the theologian as it has been to the agnostic. This is not superficial rationalization in the disparaging sense, for there is a justifiable expectation of utility in ascribing discretionary causation to unknowable events, and this is the pragmatic usefulness from which truth proceeds. Most importantly, if the preponderance of pragmatic consideration favors the idea of spiritual intelligence, even if the empirical evidence is inconclusive, then science should be enlisted to help if it cannot remain silent, which it has adequately demonstrated that it cannot and will not do. The bottom line of the metaphysical equation will always be assessed by utility - the transactional relevance that such beliefs exert on the conduct of individuals and society as a whole. That concludes this Sunday's sermonette. Stay tuned next week, or adjust your spam filter accordingly. Pastor Rod Flash Powerhouse Church of the Presumptuous Assumption of the Blinding Light
