How to Hack Human History by John Brodix Merryman

Dear John,

Thank you for your essay. Your section on God, and signal and noise, reminded me of something I wrote awhile ago for one of my blogs: http://www.truthabouttheone.com/2010.10.01_arch.html (Noise, Signal and the Existence of God) I hope you will find it interesting, and I invite your comments.

About money. Clearly the debt overhang is screwing with the modern economy. But what is it? It is the wealthy's claim on the rest of us. And as long as we accede to it, we, and they, are screwed.

Money is often confused as being a store of value. While to an individual it may by, (it makes sense for an individual to save,) to a society it has no value. It is useless, and that is its value! (This is why fiat currency is more useful than a currency based on precious metal.) It is just keeping score. Thus, while an individual can save money for the future, it is pointless for a society to do so. (Except perhaps as demand on another society, as eg China and the US. ) It can only save resources, and that by conservation or capitalizing in them ( eg soil preservation, replanting forests, renewable energy, etc.)

The problem (as I think you mention) is the oversupply of (real) capital, which must produce a surplus to maintain itself. This would be OK were humanity to have an infinite planet. It does not. Therefore there is a point where real capital cannot grow at the same rate as financial capital. This is Thomas Piketty's thesis, although, from what I understand, he merely predicts gloom, (the rise of oligarchy, and the descent of the rest of us,) and not doom.

Best of luck,

Charles Gregory St Pierre

Dear John,

Sorry to hear about your loss of your father when you were earlier in life than happens to many. Was your monotheist background Christian or some other? Was your father's the same as yours? We both share something that I have found to be very common among those who either leave or distance themselves from God. It usually happens due to some traumatic or very negative experience. In my case I went to a parochial school that taught about God, but did not actually have the students read the scriptures. As a result I had been told that if I had a need, I should pray to God and he would help me. I assumed that meant he would give me what I asked for. I was only about 9 or 10 years old at that time, so I didn't think to try to read the scriptures by myself. When my parents got separated it was a very traumatic experience to me, so I prayed to God and asked him to bring them back together again. They actually did come back together for about a year during which my youngest brother was born, but then they got divorced, and even though I asked God to bring them together again he didn't do it. This caused me to doubt whether he existed or not. Looking back it seems like it would have been best to go to the scriptures and read them for evidence of God's existence, but that did not come to my mind at that time. Instead I went to science because I had always wanted to know how the world worked and I thought that I could look for evidence of God's existence there. In science it was the time of the steady state universe belief and living cells were considered to be bags containing protoplasm and cytoplasm and some strange unknown life force. If the universe always existed and life was that simple, it seemed that evolution (which was then as is now the popular belief of how all living creatures came into existence) made sense, so I tended to believe it.

As science advanced over the years and it became apparent that the universe had a beginning and was, therefore, created and living creatures were extremely complicated in structure, evolution made much less sense. During that time I gained access to scientific information that was not known by man that explains things like the causes for the various outcomes that are generated by matter particle interactions and explains the specific cause for the specific probability that each outcome will occur as it does, etc. This required that the universe would be structured in certain ways. By that time there had been adequate advancement in particle physics so that when I looked to see if that structure was evident I found that the available observational data supported that structure as existing. I found it interesting that man had completely ignored it.

That brings me to the second thing we share. I have noticed that the age range of 30 to 35 seems to be a period when people either leave or come to God in larger numbers than at other ages, at least in my experience. I was about 33 years old when I decided one night that it would be interesting to read some of the scriptures to see if they made any sense. I opened them to the last book because I had found that the end of a book often gives a good idea of what the book is about. I read the book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ and to my surprise the structure of the universe that I had found to be necessary to explain things was already recorded in the scriptures. Next I started to read them from the beginning and found the same thing in the beginning of the book of Genesis. I could have considered it just a coincidence, but it looked too much like God had slowly prepared me over the years and gave me the information just at the time that the experimental observational data was there to support it and then he led me to open and read the scriptures just at the right time when I had gained and confirmed the information that would allow me to see and understand these things to show me that he exists and has the power and ability to make all these things work together with perfect timing. That plus the fact that the scriptures had been written over 2 thousand years earlier proved to me that they could not have been created by man because at that time man had none of the scientific information to allow anyone to be able to know of these structural details of the universe. Since then as I have read the complete scriptures, I have found much other information about things in this world and our lives in it about which science has only recently found the confirmation of their positive aspects, such as the use of olive oil, which has been recently found to have a good cholesterol balance of HDL to LDL compared to most of the oils that are currently most used by man for food production. Another example is the mention that in the beginning man was given to eat the fruits of tress and their nuts and again recent scientific findings show many benefits of eating these foods, etc. God tells us how we should live our lives in respect to him and others and recent scientific findings have shown that those who follow these ways tend to live longer, healthier, and happier lives than those who don't.

Although all of these things and others make for many confirmations that the scriptures were not created by man because man did not possess the supporting information at the time they were written, what I find most interesting is that in them God tells us why he made the universe and what part we have in his creation. It turns out that God is a Spirit and he is making a body for himself to live in. He made this creation to be the place where he is making his body. It is his body manufacturing plant, so to speak. His body is to fulfill all that he desires of it and is being made to last without end, so it is important to him that it be made to be perfect in all aspects. We have been given by him the ability to choose one of two possible overall choices that determines our place in his creation. We can either chose him in the way that he has provided for us to do in which case we are made to be members or parts of his body or choose someone or something else in which case he uses those who make this choice as part of the machinery he uses to produce his body members. Of course, once his body members have all been made, he will have no more need or use for this creation or the machinery that is part of it that was used to produce that body, so all of his motion that he used to make it will be reclaimed by him and it will thus be destroyed in the process. His body members, on the other hand, will be transferred to a new and better permanent creation and he will eternally live in them there.

Most other religions that I have looked at treat God as an impersonal and usually unintelligent force, as a vindictive dictator for whom man must continually sacrifice, or as a weak and desperate being who created us only so he could become man's servant or slave to give man anything that he desires and expects nothing from man in return. I find these concepts of God unrealistic and based on man's weaknesses and imperfections. Those who believe in a force type of God usually think that man will somehow learn to use that force and that man will essentially then become God. These people actually think of the one who created the universe as something less than a man to be controlled and used by man. Those who think of God as an evil dictator also think of God as if he was just a man and they realize that if a man had the power to create the universe and them, he would surely use that power to mistreat those under him in power. Those who think of God as their servant also desire to Be God themselves. They desire to completely reverse the relationship that God as our creator actually deserves. Only in the Christian scriptures is God shown to be an intelligent being who made this universe and us in it for his own reasonable and rational purpose, but his purpose shows that he loves man enough to create him and take the long period of time with man that is necessary to prepare him to become his perfect eternal body. Although it is not a perfect image because we are not perfect, the closest image that we have to this is the relationship that our spirit has with our own body. Our spirit generates all of our intents or purposes that we desire to fulfill. It will generally not have an intent that would be harmful to our body, but those that will be good for and pleasurable to both our spirit and our body. When our body members have needs they either send out signals to other body parts to directly fulfill them or send them out to our spirit through our soul which generates thoughts that our spirit can understand and then our spirit generates an intent to fulfill that need and sends it to our soul where thoughts are generated that our body members can understand. These thoughts are sent to our body members that can generate that which is necessary to fulfill the needs and those that can transport that which is needed to the member(s) that need it. Those body members then take care of the need. The body members give to each other according to the needs of each part and according to the thoughts sent to them by the soul. The soul sits in the middle as the mediator between the body and the spirit. It translates the messages from the body and sends the result to the spirit and it translates the messages from the spirit and sends them to the body. This is an image in the world that God has given us of our relationship with him. God is the Spirit, Christ Jesus is the mediator between God and man and man is his body. The reason that we are not perfect images of God is that in this world where God is teaching us how we are to behave so that we can all live together without end and not destroy one another and so that our lives can be joyful and fulfilling for all of us and also for God, he gives us examples of what happens when we behave contrary to what he teaches us. We, therefor, have examples like cancer, etc. that show what happens when body members either don't do what they need to do or try to take more than they need for themselves at the expense of other members, etc. He also gives us examples of what it would be like if he were to not love us as he does and instead would treat us badly or destroy us, such as body mutilations and suicide, etc. These examples generally are not pleasant to us, but are necessary in this life so we can see and learn why God asks us to do the things that he does and so we can fully realize just how bad the result would be if we don't do according to his will, since his will is what will work to allow us all to have life and have it more abundantly in continual love for one another without end in the world to come after this world is destroyed. This is just a short summary and there is so much to understand and I would like to keep going, but I don't want to give too much at a time because I have found in my life that if I receive too much all at once, I tend to lose concentration and then miss much of what is given, so I will stop for now. If there are any special questions or things that you need answered let me know and I will try to answer them. I don't claim to know everything myself yet though.

Sincerely,

Paul B.

John,

Not quite what I expected from you, a nice original approach, though I don't think you overdid the 'ruffling of feathers' at all. And I don't recall a single mention of time!

I agree the recent crisis has been a salutary reminder of what 'money' actually is and isn't. I think it was a lesson people wont forget for possibly many months! Are thing, and bankers and politicians, really going to fundamentally change. I fear not. I think we need to look elsewhere for that quantum leap into the 21st century. Then when we HAVE caught up we can do another one! - but I agree, it's whether it's in the right direction that matters.

I did greatly enjoy the read as a lovely change from idealist subject matter and theorising. Needless to say I shall afford it the consummate remuneration contract, but avoiding empty promisory notes.

I hope mine is suitably pitched for you as you were my 'ideal' target audience in making QM causal and understandable. Your comment; "While we progress linearly, nature responds non-linearly." is profound and at it's heart. Few realise the import of the emergent unifying of classic and quantum physics. We've been in an ever deepening theoretical rut for ~100 years. But of course It'll be ignored, again.

There is not one branch of science that won't benefit massively from the ensuing improved understanding of nature and the universe. And ZERO walls and guns! Did you read the new Cyclic evolution paper; applying the same simple mechanism. If not then perhaps after the eye aching essay reading.

Very best wishes. Hold on to your C of G while she bucks.

Peter

John,

Maths!! Who put 'maths' in there?, I assure you it wasn't me! Where did you find that? Mines just the one with pretty pictures.

To explain it in a nutshell; Spin a basketball on your finger. Now, is the middle bit ('equator') moving at the same speed as the bit near your finger?

I think you know it's 'moving' (on it's rotational path) much faster.

Well that's IT! It's fundamental dynamic really is that simple. Because the ball is curved, the change of speed away from your finger in non linear. Then finally, if you look down from the top, whichever way it spins on you finger (say clockwise) look down from the top and its spinning the opposite way.

In that short paragraph the whole of the quantum nonsense and illusion is taken apart, because the findings are what Bell said could NOT be found 'classically'. Can you believe that?! Bohr made the assumption that if you cut the baseball in half then both the bottom AND the top of the half you're left with would spin the same way! (i.e. both clockwise!!) No wonder the whole of physics is divided and theory has been in a 100 year rut.

The problem is Bells theorem is too deeply indoctribedded so if shown to be wrong they all run screaming with hands over ears and eyes. How do we overcome that? What we need is a description that the JM's of this world can understand. We need your help how to achieve that. (I hope you have a basketball!)?

Best wishes

Peter

John,

I see that you too appreciate that we must first ask about the nature of things and not just pose suggestions in a vacuum. It is true that energy and information are related: just consider the Shannon entropy, and the various attempts to correlated gravity to entropy etc, and the connection of information/gravity/thermodynamics in the black hole information paradox. Thermodynamics seems more and more analogous to more and more things, something Prigogine got started with an idea of entropty being more fundamental than a mere derivative of classical ensemble statistics. We can go back to Erwin Schrödinger and "negentropy" (or "syntropy") in his 1944 popular-science book What is Life? But it is all controversial and unclear, not yet a "well developed theory."

Your pinballing around is somewhat like my own . Your speculation about God and the fundamental nature of consciousness reminds me of my own proposal that consciousness (the basic feeling of existence) derives from the fundamentals of existence rather than complex cognitive appreciations. I think you noticed that yourself, implied in your comments (I appreciate your interest.) You wrote:

So if God is in charge, she apparently doesn't want to know everything. Possibly a more reasonable theological proposition is the spiritual absolute would be the essence of awareness and beingness, from which we rise, not an ideal form from which we fell. In a sense, a spiritual energy, rather than the intellectual forms it manifests.

That is very similar to my stating as follows:

...Well, suppose that a mind really works like a computer. That means, all it does is describable in terms of math. If that is so, then its operations don't depend on whether MUH [Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Hypothesis - math abstractions are literally all that exist, there is no "esse" fleshing out some possible model worlds, and not others] is true or not. All your brain could know is the abstractions represented by its computational activity. The same computations happen anyway in either a purely abstract sense, or in a world that is "made of math", as would happen in a special material world. Mathematics is defined and operates only on its own ideals, even though it seems to us to represent "realness" and not just pure form. Hence there would be no way for your brain to detect its substantive existence in a material world that was not just an abstract model world. ...

If we know that we and our world are "really real" and not just mathematical structures, our minds must intimately connect to the ground of being that constitutes the universe. Otherwise, brain processes would not be able to access that fundamental fact and reality - they would operate "above" (perhaps "below" is a better metaphor) that level and not be able to have awareness of it. That means that consciousness and "being" are the same essence, as the great mystics have experienced. Sentio ergo sum - I feel, therefore I am.

(In other words, "the essence of awareness and beingness" are indeed the same and not a dichotomy, and at heart expressed as "spiritual energy" rather than "intellectual forms.")

As for practical proposals, I agree that we need to re assess and reform our monetary system. It's just too precarious and bubble-prone. Money is surely the sociological expression of something which is both data and "work performing" as a dynamic enabler. You have some ideas in that vein worth considering, have you compared notes with Stefan Weckbach and Harlan Swyers?

Dear John,

When you said "one day I just had this great yawning sense that any such essence would be so far beyond any reality I could comprehend, it left me disoriented and I couldn't shake it. I thought you were saying that you thought God was so beyond your comprehension and disconnected from your reality that you felt disconnected or distant from him in your relationship with him and that was somehow different from how you felt before that time. I may have misinterpreted that, however.

You are right I do have some basic boxes that separate some from others, but they are not boxes that I created. They are the boxes that God created. As an example, God has set up the choices we must make and the things we must do to become members of his body and be joined to him to have the close relationship with him where he shows us what he is doing and helps us to do likewise to please him and so we can actively grow in our knowledge of him and what he is doing in this world and why he is doing it that brings us into agreement with him as we more and more see his love and care for us, so we then learn how to love him and others also and have a desire to help others to also get that relationship. God explains these boxes in the scriptures (Holy Bible New Testament). As an example, no one can come to God the Father except by his son Jesus Christ and to be saved (become a member of God's body) it is necessary to receive and believe in Christ (Must believe that The Father sent him into the world to die for us so that we could have our sins forgiven and be reconciled and restored to a good relationship with God and that he did die for us and was buried and later resurrected as a witness to us that God the Father actually sent him and that he has the power to also raise us up and he was then received up to God to dwell with him until his enemies are brought down to earth.) (Must repent from our sins and ask God to forgive them and believe that they are forgiven.) (Must receive him as our Lord and Savior and believe that his words are actually God the Father's words that he gave through his son Jesus Christ.), etc.

God is the one who is the true center of all things because he made all things and existed before all other things. He does, however, tell us about his body, so he does put us in the center of the conversation in some places in the scriptures. I can't claim to be very important among the members of his body. I am sure that many others have been given more important positions in the body than I will likely have. So far it seems that I mostly get the hard cases to deal with, but that may be because I was one of them. If I have a ministry it is to those in the scientific community because of the information that God has given to me in that area, but a large percentage of that community is currently devoted atheists or those who believe that they are God or will somehow evolve to be God, etc. For the most part very few have even understood and accepted any of the scientific information that has been presented, which could result in great advancements for man and these things are very much based on observations that could be checked out. All that is necessary is to develop the math to support it. How much harder would it be to convince those who have committed much of their lives to developing quantum physics based theories and evolution based concepts to explain creation and the development of living creatures, etc. that God exists and made all things. So I am not likely to be one of those who convert thousands to God in a day or anything like that. If I work for many years and only one is saved by all that labor, I would consider it time well spent, however. Of course, I would like to believe that many will see and receive and believe and be saved and also that the scientific principles that are presented will be received and put to use by man in the right way so as to make life better for all those who are still living here in this world. In the long run it is up to God how he uses me in those respects and others, however. I have come to the conclusion that the work that God gives us to do, such as teaching the Gospel to others, is as much if not more for our learning and growth as it is for those who are taught by us. After all, God could certainly do a better job of it himself, if he desired to do so. He often uses our interactions with others to show us things about him and his works. As an example, in my conversation with you I mentioned that my parents were divorced and I also talked about how important it is to God that his body be perfect (lacking nothing), but I didn't tell you that the reason that my parents got divorced was mostly due to money problems. My father worked switching cars for the railroad and made good money at it. Then he got his hand caught between two cars and it had to be cut off. After that he got a job in a cement plant that paid less, but it was still enough for us to get by on. Then he got a finger on his other hand caught in a machine and lost it. After that he could only get a job as a night watchman and could not make enough for us to keep up with our bills. I had never thought of it before, but it all came together to me when I was writing my previous comment to you that God was showing me, by my actually having to live through it, how important even a small loss of a part of the body is. The hand is not the most important part of the body, but it made the difference between a good life and a just getting by life. The loss of that one more finger, which is even a smaller body part made the difference between getting by and suffering from lack of necessary things. I have seen that many times God uses things that happen to us in life to instruct us about him and what he is doing and why he is doing it and what he wants us to do, etc. To me it shows his control over the creation. He allowed things to happen to me when I was young that were not pleasant to me at the time knowing that I would not understand them at that time, so I would go through the whole process of questioning his existence and searching for that answer. Then he showed me both sides of the argument and gave me the information that I needed to make the proper decision. Next he allowed me to read the scriptures and see that information already recorded in his scriptures over two thousand years earlier to finally convince me of his existence. Then he showed me why he created the universe and what my part is in it in the scriptures. One of the things he gives us to do while we are still in this world is to preach the Gospel to others. In the process of that preaching he shows me things that he has done in my life and what they were done for as noted above. All of these things and many more that he has done, show me God's power to work all of these things together over thousands of years and bring them all together at the right times to accomplish reaching out to me to give me knowledge of him and slowly bring me to him as that knowledge worked in me to allow me to see his love for me that he would do all of these things for me. Of course, I have seen these types of things worked in the lives of others also so, I can't claim that God's love is only for me, but is for all that seek him and truly desire to know him enough to take the time to search him out in the scriptures. There are also many things built into the structure of the creation and into each of our lives that also show us many things about him if we take the time to observe them. It shows God's great power in that he can work all of these kinds of things in the lives of each of us to teach us about him and what he has made us for and to demonstrate his love for us. It is true that God knows what we will ask him before we actually ask him, but at the same time he says ask and you shall receive. He desires to have a loving relationship with each of us and coming to him and asking things in prayer to him is just the beginning of that relationship. As that relationship grows and there is a real desire in us to truly know him and to be pleasing to him we begin to ask him to show us what he is doing and when he shows us we begin to act in accordance with what he is doing. The relationship progresses from asking him for things to please us to asking him to use us to please him as our love for him grows. The end result is him and us all working together as one, which is what a spirit and its body are meant to do. This world is the beginning preparation for that end result in the world to come. It will continue in the thousand year reign of Christ later in this world. Then we will be ready for the fullness of that relationship in the world to come. You are right that God does not need to worry about you or any of us for that matter, which to me all the more shows us his love for us in that he does worry and care for each of us even when we rebel or sin against him. He didn't wait for all of us to repent or turn away from sinning before he sent his son into the world to die for us so we could be saved and live. He did that when we were still sinning to show his love and caring for us. You must be extremely intelligent and in complete control of all of your actions to always figure out what you had to do and always do it. I have found that I often don't know what to do in many situations in life and need help to gain that knowledge. This meant that before I knew God I often did the wrong thing. I am not just talking about doing things that are wrong or evil in God's sight, although I sometimes did so, but I am also talking about making choices that resulted in things not giving me the results that I desired even in things that God does not say that what I did was wrong. Of course, before I had read the scriptures I did not even know whether the things that I did were against God's will for me to do or not. It sounds to me like you had some of the same kinds of results. There are a couple of things that I have observed both in myself and also in others concerning things working for us. When God first showed himself to me in the scriptures I went through a time when things did not go very well. I am not sure whether it was meant as a time of trial for me to see if I would continue with him or whether it was Satan tempting me to try to keep me from going to God (That happened to Jesus after he was baptized to begin his ministry), but If one continues with God this time passes. The next problem that I had was that after I had read the scriptures and knew God's will, I tried to do according to his will and not sin. Every time I thought that I had finally overcome sin, though, it seemed that I was tempted in some way and always failed and did the wrong thing. This was very frustrating to me until God gave me understanding of the places in the scriptures that say that God promises to come into me and dwell in me and make me perfect and raise up my mortal body to do his will. I found that the problem was that I had taken that on to do it myself, but it is not something that I can do myself. I have since found that God can do it though so, you are right that when we give up on the idea that we are going to do things and go with the flow of letting God show us what to do and then doing it with him doing it through us, things work much better and life is much easier and more pleasant also.

God has given each of us specific gifts of abilities and ways of looking at the world so, I have come to accept that I am sometimes limited in some ways compared to some others and also some others are sometimes limited compared to me. It is not that one is better than the other it is just that God has different things for each of us to do that, therefore, require different skills than others. I have always desired to know everything as completely as I can (my wife says that I always have to do everything the hard way), so I desire to understand both the network and the nodes. I have found that you really can't separate the nodes from the network because we live in a world of nested networks. The nodes are generally just composed of smaller level networks and the nodes in that smaller level network are usually just still smaller level networks, etc. As an example, in your example the nodes would be you, the horse, and the ground and the network would be the paths and the motions that are transferred from the ground to the horse and then to you over those paths due to the interactions involved. But if you look at one of the nodes, let's say yourself, you find that you are another network composed of nodes of various organs that are connected to each other over the various network paths in your body. If you look at one of those nodes such as your heart, you find that it again is a network of cells that are connected together over their network paths. Again, if you look at a cell which is a node in that network, you find that it is another network composed of nodes of small protein based machines and memory storage devices such as DNA, etc. networked together. There are still lower level networks with the lowest level being composed of basic motions, but I'm sure you get the idea. This hierarchical structure in which subassemblies often perform functions that are abstract to the overall function of the system are signs of an intelligent source of the structure. Man's devices often exhibit this type of structure. I don't ride horses very much, but if I did I would want to feel the motions of the particles in the ground transferred all the way up through all of those networks in the ground to the horse and through all of the networks in the horse to me and then through all of the networks in me to the place in me that gives me the feeling of it. That is when my mind is freed from the bubble when it is all there to see including all those things that can hurt and all of the paths to avoid them.

You are right that some television preacher's version of religion can't save you unless it is also God's version. I wouldn't buy the plastic Jesus. It can't save you and God doesn't like idol worship. It is always best to go to the source to get what you need to be saved and have life and have it more abundantly. I always, therefore, recommend going directly to the scriptures to get the information directly from God. God tells us that comparing ourselves among ourselves is unwise so, if we desire to compare ourselves with someone else it should be with God and compared to God we are all naïve and misinformed. Any small variations between any one of us and another one are, therefore, insignificant and unimportant. He does say though that in the world to come we will know even as we are known, so there is hope. God created evil and made us subject to it in this world so, we would learn just how bad and destructive it is and how dependent we are on him to make us to be able to do good and not evil. This is part of our instruction in this world to make us ready for the world to come. There will be no evil in the world to come because we will have learned to overcome it because God will live in us and we will live in him as one. The concept that there must always be both good and evil primarily comes from some eastern religions and is an error. The concept that when there are two opposite possibilities they must somehow both exist together in balance or shift back and forth between the extremes in cycles is not universally valid. As an example, there is matter and its opposite antimatter, but our world is composed of matter and we don't see it shifting back and forth between being composed of matter and antimatter either. I hope I can be of help to you in some small way in your preparation. As I mentioned above God has already used our conversation to give me an understanding of why I had to go through some unpleasant experiences when I was young. That kind of thing is not uncommon at least to me when sharing things concerning God with others. It is all part of the training experience.

Sincerely,

Paul B.

Hello John,

Thanks for the thoughtful pieces you have dropped me links to. I just wanted you to know I am paying attention and attempting to take in everything offered, but I may not have time for detailed comments if I am in 'receive' mode for long periods of time. Also, there is that thing called life which beckons my participation. A group of about two dozen awaits me now.

I will respond to all the input I can.

All the Best,

Jonathan

Dear John,

Your essay is short but touches a variety of subjects. You have quite a lot of philosophical quotes. I see a lot of attention on energy on your essay, until I hit "energy can be conserved".

I have rated you. I also employ you to read my article on STRIKING A BALANCE BETWEEN TECHNOLOGY AND ECOSYTEM using this direct link http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2020

I anticipate your comment and rating

Wishing you the best in this competition and your future endeavor

Regards

Gbenga

Hi John,

I got to thinking about your essay while practicing to sing "Comfort Ye" from Handel's Messiah (whose lyric is from Isaiah). The language is kind of odd, by modern standards, and what got me thinking was the word iniquity. It's not much used today, but if you trace it back, it relates to inequity and thus to inequality. That is; if you didn't play fair, it was a sin. When you come right down to it; a lot of what is considered sinful or evil, by the old standards, relates to unfairness, cheating someone of their due, and so on.

How different that is from today, where it is almost a badge of honor - in some circles - to be able to say that you cheated someone out of a lot of money, and got rich as a result. These days; it seems that inequity is a way of life, for some people, and that is shrugged off as not even being a personal decision, but rather a simple acknowledgement of the ways of the world. We have always had liars, cheats, and thieves - but our culture did not always exalt such people, or revere them above others.

All the Best,

Jonathan