Paul,

You really are making a genuine and sincere effort to understand my point of view and for that I commend you. Yet the reason you don't fully understand or accept it is part of what I'm trying to explain. Since it doesn't relate to the frame you are working from, it is as though I'm simply speaking another language, or a branch of math you haven't studied.

Consider the concepts of objective versus subjective. Now me sitting here typing, while the coffee is brewing, is my personal subjective experience. While the equation E=mc2 is a largely objective observation. Yet while my situation is specific to my reality, it is very detailed, but the formulation of relativity is very general. It is like a very focused picture of a particular scene, versus a white sheet of paper. Consider this in terms of a camera taking a picture. If you want that detailed picture, you have to specify shutter speed, aperture, focus, lighting, distance, direction, angle, lenses, etc. Otherwise it isn't what you want. For instance, simply leaving the shutter open too long and too much light gets in and you have a white sheet of paper!!! That is because you have too much energy and to much information being carried by that energy onto the surface of your film. So that is the reality of the objective perspective. All that information balances out and so cancels all the detail, while the subjective perspective is fundamentally dependent on the particular frame required.

So now consider this in terms of how a movie is shown, with the projector light shining through the film. You might say my conception of that essential sense of awareness is like the light shining through the film, while you and I and all living creatures are basically images on that film. Now obviously this would be a far more involved and interactive process, with that light/consciousness pushing and motivating all the different life forms according to all the subjective particulars of their different existences. Sometimes these life forms are bumping into each other like they are just material objects in the world and sometimes that life force is flowing through them together, like they are all one being.

A large part of the reason we have trouble sensing this level of reality is that as complex thinking, essentially predatory creatures, is that we associate thought and awareness with concentration and focus. While this process is very effective at distilling preferred signals from the noise and such useful points of observation and value out of all that goes on around us, it also destroys much of the subtle connectivity which is the life force tying everything together. You might say that while the spotlight of our concentration is very good for illuminating what we are looking at, it consequently obscures all the contextual connections which really make sense of it.

Now consider the idea of oneness, versus one, or unity versus unit. When things are connected, they are unified, but when one object is distinct from all its surroundings then it is a unit. The first is a network, while the second is a node. The problem is that we often mistake the two. For instance, the idea of God handed down to us, is that it is a unit. One entity distinct from everything else. So we put it up in heaven, or on a pedestal. Yet when those ancients were first considering the idea, given they were far more organically imbedded in nature, it seems likely the original concept was that everything is connected. That all those various deities and spirits and natural forces and the order seemingly running through it all, were connected in one bigger reality. A network.

Now what happens when you take that sense of connectivity and filter it through several thousand years of human experience, needs, desires, interpretations, etc. Than that it becomes this singular father figure watching over us would be a logical result.

The problem is that different people go through different situations and so emphasize different aspects and interpretations of what they perceive. For instance, the early Jews needed a sense of collective unity to survive and keep together through all the hardships they were enduring, so what had been in the earlier Egyptian conception of wholeness and unity, of the sun shining down, not just as a object in the sky, but a source of light and heat, raising up life, became focused as much more of a tribal deity, watching over this particular band of people and guiding them. By the time Jesus came along, this had hardened into a bureaucratic structure, with little concern for the basic cares and feelings for individuals. So by proposing a rebirth, he was making a very naturalistic argument, since the old pantheistic religions had traditions of year Gods, that died and were reborn. The problem was this didn't exactly fit with the idea of one God and yet some form of cycling had to be included in an understanding of nature. Since Jesus was no more and his movement was persecuted, the promise then became to look tot he future, which for many downtrodden people, is a powerful message and so the image of the Holy Ghost arose as that light shining through and giving hope for a better, stronger, healthier future. So you have the cyclical God encased in a singular entity.

Islam actually proposes a far more defined and universal monotheism and since it was phenomenally politically and socially successful for seven hundred years and largely coasted on that success for the next six hundred years, it is only in the last hundred years in which the down side of such a monolithic belief system came home to roost, as it tries to compete with the technologically advanced and socially flexible west.

So it is not as though those people three thousand years ago were not having brilliant insights, motivated by their self awareness and wonder of the universe opening before them, but what today you have of that perception is a very edited account that bears faint resemblance to the reality in which they lived and much to do with the needs of the many generations which managed to add additional insights, political desires, social needs, etc. to that collection of writings. Now I can understand why you view this source as a guidepost in life, as certainly many people do, but do you think that had you been raised in an Islamic culture, Jewish, or Hindu, or Buddhist, that you would have still gravitated to the Christian explanation of the universe? Now I expect you to consciously believe that you would, but that would mean you would have to ignore all those profound social and cultural ties to whatever society you were a member of and it is those which give a religion its real strength, not just the particular stories it tells and morals it tries to convey. That light shining through the people and life around you, is more important to your health and wellbeing than any words in any book.

So it is not that this spiritual essence is incomprehensible, but that it is profoundly elemental and not that it does not care for us, as we are its expression. It is just not an ideal, which are simply preferential qualities from our point of view. It is like light without any filters, yet we are a filter.

Regards,

John

  • [deleted]

  • Post #142

Dear John,

Thank you for your more detailed description of your beliefs concerning God. I think that you somewhat underestimate me. I just needed adequate information to understand your point of view. This is because I have found that there are many different definitions that are applied to the same words and phrases by different men. If someone says that he believes in God the most prevalent definitions would mean belief in a being that would be worthy to be worshiped or served, generally with the belief that God would at least in some way relate positively in some way back to the person that worships him or at least would be less likely to treat him negatively. Generally a belief that God is only the sum of all the myths that men have made up about God to comfort themselves or to have less fear in times of trouble, etc. would not be considered a belief in God by most people. This belief would generally be considered more a part of atheist religion (belief that there is no true God) as part of its doctrine to explain away why so many people all around the world believe in the existence of God as some form of being.

I can understand that concept because as I mentioned we both have similar backgrounds in some ways. We were both brought up in more or less Christian homes to some degree. I believe yours may have actually been more so than mine because I was brought up in that environment until my parents were divorced when I was about 10 years old. That environment pretty much ended at about that time and was after that mostly a neutral environment without much family influence in either direction. Of course, over time I did discuss the subject with some who believed in God and some who did not believe in him, but I found their arguments lacking on both sides both in detail and in logical reasoning. During those 22 years that I was searching to see if there was adequate evidence to come to a conclusion as to whether God existed or not I was mostly informed by scientific observation, both of my own and that of others. I also saw that there were many different religions both in the past and also in the present that portrayed God in vastly different ways. It became apparent to me that at most only one of these religions could be true and it was possible, of course that none of them were true. At the same time the fact that so many different people believed in God in one way or another as a living being suggested that either man had needs that he could not meet and was falling back on that belief for comfort, etc. or that God really does exist and made man to have a relationship with him, which caused man to try to fill that relationship need that had been built into man's structure with a belief in him even when they could not have the true relationship with him. The fact that a large number of men would have to be in the group that did not have a true relationship with him in order to allow for the creation of all of the false religions and all of their followers meant that the way of obtaining the true relationship with God would have to be restricted by conditions that would exclude most people from obtaining that relationship. The other possibility was that they all were wrong and God did not exist at all. I found that both of these possibilities existed, but I did not have adequate evidence to determine which was true, so I withheld judgment and continued to look for more evidence as to whether God did exist or not. It appears to me that you came to the conclusion that God does not actually exist as an intelligent being who created the world or even as a living being at all. If I am right about that, how did you come to this conclusion? What evidence did you see that convinced you that God does not exist as a real living being? Whether God really does exist as the creator of the world who has chosen to communicate with us to tell us about him, his creation, and our purpose in it in the scriptures or not is the important understanding to gain because if he does, although all of the things that you mention in your reasoning about why each of the gods were believed to be as they were might apply to all of the others, the things recorded in the scriptures are as they are because they actually tell us about how God actually is, how his creation actually works, and what his purpose for us actually is, etc. We should, therefore, first look at the evidence for and against God's existence as a living being who created the world, etc. I have already provided to you some of the evidence that has convinced me that God does exist as a living being as mentioned above, so I will wait for your evidence to the contrary before I go any farther.

I see that you have a real and strong aversion to the concept of top down authority. Did something happen in your life associated with this type of authority to make you believe this way? You did mention that you rebelled in your earlier years. Did that and the results of it have anything to do with the establishment of that belief or was it based more on external observations, etc.? I have found that top down authority is built into the structure of the world and can be a great positive influence when used properly, of course, like most other things it can be used wrongly to create negative results. As an example, when we are born into this world we all experience the top down authority relationship with our parents. Because at birth we are all completely helpless none of us would survive for very long without this relationship. As we grow and begin to be able to interact with the external world, we would not likely survive long without obeying the top down authority commands of our parents to not play in the street and not get into a car with a stranger, etc. Even though we do not yet have an adequate understanding of how the world works to justify it, it is common around the age of 12 to 14 years old to begin to have a strong desire to be free to do what we want to do in the world. At the same time we are driven by hormones as a result of puberty to fulfill desires that can easily result in very detrimental outcomes that can negatively affect our lives for many years to come if allowed to be fulfilled. Although it is not usually appreciated at the time, strong top down authority during this time can be of great value to children in this time of life. Of course, it is best if a positive relationship between the parents and their children has been cultivated during previous years, so that the children have come to respect their parent's guidance and can, therefore, accept it during this time without rebelling against it, thus preventing the negative outcomes that would result from that rebellion. I have found that children in this age group talk about having freedom, but this freedom does not extend to actually having to take care of their own needs, etc. It is usually around the age of 19 to 21 when the children are truly set free to make their way in the world and they find out how much work is involved in it, and they tend to see how much work their parents had to do to take care of them while at the same time trying to keep them from rebellion to prevent them from having to suffer its negative consequences, that they begin to come out of rebelling. This time can sometimes be delayed somewhat by college attendance, etc., however. Top down authority can be very useful in situations that involve very complex structuring because the greater the number and complexity of decisions that need to be made the more difficult it becomes to get bottom up agreement of all involved as to the best decision to make in each circumstance. I do agree with you that top down authority can result in very negative results when used improperly, however. Similar results can also occur when bottom up authority is used improperly (mob rule). These things are tools and all tools can be used for good or evil resulting in the corresponding output results.

I find the use of the concepts of objective verses subjective to be greatly misunderstood by most people. The term objective normally refers to an object or thing as it actually exists in reality while the term subjective means the subject that is generated by the mind such as thoughts and concepts, etc. This would mean that E=mc2 would be subjective in nature because it does not exist as an object in the real world, but is instead an abstract concept made by the mind of man to express a relationship between real objects. Your coffee, keyboard, and fingers would be real world objects and, therefore, would be objective. You could, of course say that you don't actually experience these objects, but only the images of them that are received by your mind from interactions of photons with those objects and then further interaction of the same photons with sensors that are parts of your eyes. You could then say that your mind interprets these interactions and, therefore, you are only seeing subjective information produced by your mind. Looking at it in this way everything would have to be considered subjective to us because we would have no way to directly observe the real world objects. The other way that people sometimes think of objective and subjective is: that which can be obtained by deduction is objective and that which can be obtained by induction is subjective. Induction is usually considered to be less surely known because it is obtained from information obtained from a finite number of observations, so it is always possible that the next observation would prove it to be wrong, while deduction is achieved by a closed loop of logical reasoning from that which is positively known to that which is not presently known to gain an understanding of the unknown. Induction does have the problem mentioned above of lack of certainty. Deduction is harder to understand. You could consider E=mc2 as deductive because all of the elements are defined and their possible interactions are defined according to logical rules that have been made by the person who made the formula. Since a man has created the formula and made all of the rules concerning it, all of the possible outcomes can be known with surety because they are all defined in its structure and the associated rules that describe it. Of course this does not mean that it in any way conforms to reality. The only way that this can be confirmed is by making many observations and subjectively reason that if they all agree with the formula, the formula must be true to reality. The use of subjective reasoning in this proof makes the result uncertain, however, because if another observation had been made it may have not agreed with the previous observations because of some unknown variable that might only come into play under very uncommon circumstances that no one was aware of up to that point. The end result of all of this is that there is always a degree of uncertainty concerning our knowledge of objects that exist in reality except those things that we completely create ourselves in our minds and these things are of very limited use to us if we don't connect them to reality. In the above example, you can positively know all things about the formula E=mc2 as long as you do not try to connect the E with real world energy or the m with real world mass or the c with the real world speed of light, but if you do so, you can never know for sure that the formula is then completely accurate because you can only access this information by subjective observation. Scientists often think that because the formula that they made is objective in nature it is more certain than that which is obtained by observation, but they often don't see that when they connect it to reality it loses that certainty and if it is not connected to reality it is practically useless. As long as you restrict your statements to the outcomes of current observations and all of those observations agree with the statements, both subjective and objective arguments that completely agree with the observations can be considered completely accurate within the scope of the available observational data. Subjective experiences are not always more detailed than objective observations. You could set up a simple subjective observation of a voltage meter's output while you turned a variable resister in a circuit while you were in a dark room to limit the detail of your experience and at the same time you could observe a very complex objective math formula that would contain more detail than the subjective observation.

To me it is not really important by what process man might have come to the conclusion that God was a father figure if god did not really exist because it would not really be true and, therefore, would be irrelevant. On the other hand if God does exist, then he is the way that he is, so man's belief of him as a father figure is only applicable if he really is a father figure in his relationship with us. Even then it is not important because man came to that conclusion, but because he is really a father figure to us by his nature. The real important determination to be made is, therefore, whether God actually exists and if so what is his nature and how does he choose to relate to us.

The argument that Jesus's death and resurrection was derived from year gods makes very little sense because these year gods died each year and were reborn the next year to create a continuous repetitive cycle, but Jesus died only once like the rest of us. He was then resurrected the same year and will never die again. At most this would only be one half of an additional cycle, but he was not reborn to start life all over again, but was raised from the dead fully grown as he was when he died on the cross. He then ascended up to the Father high above the highest heaven with eternal life.

That God has 3 parts (The father, The Son, and the Holy Ghost and these three are one is no great mystery. He made man in his image and man is, therefore, also made of 3 parts (a spirit, a soul, and a body). The spirit generates our intents or purposes for us to accomplish. The soul translates those intents into thoughts that our body can understand and our body carries out the actions in accordance with those thoughts to perform the intents of the spirit.

Some men three thousand years ago may have had some brilliant insights compared to the level of knowledge of most during that time, but many of today's scientific concepts could not have been envisioned by any of them because they had not yet developed the ability to make the equipment that would allow them to make the observations that would allow them to conceive the possible existence of such things as the structure of sub-energy particles, energy photons or matter particles or that they are all composed of basic motions. The observational information that would allow man to understand that all things that we can observe are composed of basic motions has only been available to man for less than 100 years and man has so far mainly ignored that data. The scriptures also contain much more advanced information than these things some of which cannot currently be disclosed to man in this world because it is not yet time for it to be known. Other things such as the existence of multiple fifth vector structural levels can be mentioned, but cannot be given in much detail at this time. I would not be in the position to have obtained all of the information that I currently have if I was not able to look beyond all of man's and other's political and ideological viewpoints and prejudices, etc. both past and present. The social and cultural ties may be what give the false religions their strength to affect the people to get them to believe in those religions, but it is God himself who gives the strength to those who seek him to find and believe in him and his Word. You are right that in the long run it is not the printed book that is most important. It is the light of God in us that gives us to be able to work with him to do his will and to also work with him to bring his light to others. The book gives us the information that allows us to get that relationship with God.

If it is just the result of men and men's works then it is of little value if any value at all. Why would I consider a god composed of men's works of any value to be worshiped when I am also a man and also not worthy to be worshiped. A spiritual essence that is profoundly elemental and not an ideal, but like light without a filter sounds a lot like religions that consider god to just be some unintelligent force that we could learn to control to get it to do what we want it to do like in Star Wars. Such a god would just be a tool that could be used either for good or for evil (the light side or the dark side) and could, therefore, not make man any better or help him to overcome his inherent weaknesses that cause him to do things in such a way as to ultimately destroy himself and possibly the whole planet in the process. It would only be able to magnify man's current condition to accomplish larger scale results that were in line with man's current condition. Those who were evil would still do evil things and ultimately advanced scientific knowledge could allow one such person to do a terrorist act that would destroy everything for man.

This does not even consider any who are more powerful than man (let's say a fourth vector civilization) who would desire to displace man from this planet, etc. Even if some fifth vector civilization that is more powerful than them will protect man from them because they have an interest of gain from relations with man, such a relationship could not be counted on in the long term. The word has it that before they consider man to be ready to be joined to them a seventh vector source will open up the fifth vector to man. The response of those from the fifth vector will be to force advancement control over the minds of those who are not yet ready. They will suffer greatly and even desire to die, but will not be allowed to do so. This will take about 5 months. Only those who are already prepared will escape this suffering (those I call true Christians). In the long run man will only be safe if the one at the top desires to protect him because he can control all of the others. This last part is well beyond man's believability quotient, but others might take note and act in a way so as to be productive and thus be judged favorably and receive positive rather than negative results. If you desire, you can consider this last part as a SYFI moment or maybe future history.

Sincerely,

Paul B.

    Paul,

    You do put an awesome amount of effort into these replies and I certainly wish I had enough time to reply in kind. I do edit much of what I would say, for time considerations.

    Yes, by about a thousand years ago, the cloistered priesthood had determined the trinity stood for the spirit, the soul and the body, but the fact remains that Jesus was attempting to push the reset button on the Jewish God and this was fairly firmly acknowledged at the time. That is why it is called "God the Father and God the Son," not God the Spirit and God the Soul.

    Meanwhile God the Holy Ghost did grew out of a neutering of the female deity and came to stand for hope in the future and the Second Coming/rebirth. As I said, this has all been put through two thousand years of interpretation. As we all well know, when the academics get hold of any idea, it little resembles what was originally meant.

    Personally I have no problem with top down authority. In fact, I worked for my parents, on their farm, until my mid twenties and have mostly worked for various family members since. This is because that makes them point person in an economic world I find very disturbing and am quite willing to accept my role as more of a manager and tactical point person. In fact, I feel it gives me far more emotional freedom then the stresses of being the boss would allow.

    This is because that top down role is still relative to a larger context. As the process of distinction and judgement, intelligence is an essentially navigation function. So, from my perspective, making it some form of theological absolute is contradictory and simply an example of anthropomorphizing God. Good and bad are the biological binary code of attraction to the beneficial and repulsion of the detrimental. What might well be beneficial on the individual level, such as going forth and multiplying, might well be detrimental on the mass scale, as overpopulation destroying the environment.

    Now I do realize making good and bad a cosmic duel between the forces of righteousness and evil provides a wonderful narrative contrast, but personally I don't need stories to appreciate morality.

    As you frame it, it seems your highest ideal imposed on this preferred deity is intelligence, yet intelligence is in fact the tool. Even in the story of Adam, Eve, the snake and the apple, it was understand that knowledge can be a double edged sword.

    Light can be a destructive force, but than so can life itself, as we have all been discussing in this contest. I appreciate the light, but I do know it can burn. My judgement is stay in the middle ground between too much and too little and not chase it like some moth.

    Men can be led with hope, or herded with fear. We need to be able to put both in the larger context and not have the priests herd us around like children.

    Regards,

    John

    Hi John,

    Your essay seemed a bit fragmented. Perhaps it would have benefited from a more specific focus. Adding headings for sections is a method that a lot of people have used for breaking their essays into logical parts.

    That said, you do raise some interesting points about the structure of government and the banking system. These are in need of some reform. I think there is some danger of things crashing down and people resorting to using "walls and guns". Unfortunately, with the invention of military robotics power can be incredibly concentrated, so this collapse of society might even be in the interests of some powers.

    I'm hopeful that there are alternatives that might be adopted before things get too bad. Even though it's not the topic of my essay, I'm interested in making learning and teaching a core ongoing activity everyone in society. This might possibly expand to reform political and economic practices.

    Cheers,

    Toby

      Thanks Toby.

      It is a rather incredibly broad topic, which is why I made the observation that the essay is the abstract. I wanted to coalesce both a basic description of reality and our conscious awareness projected within it, onto a point of focus on the fact that our economic medium of exchange is being used as a massive wealth extraction process by an increasingly parasitic and corrupt banking sector, motivated by our collective desire for notational wealth and this is magnifying our environmental destruction, as well as keeping it short enough for those trying to digest many of these entries. Having been in these contests before, my goal wasn't so much to win as to try to stir up some debate on the topic, for which I've had some minor successes.

      Regards,

      John

      Hi John,

      I just skimmed, fairly thoroughly, your essay (I want to rad certain essay but am running short of time). I'm sorry it took me so long. I really liked it. First I liked the fact that your eschewed an abstract -- this fits in with the general tone of your essay. Also interesting bio.

      Your essay focuses most one the current monetary/financial system and its inherent inequities. I like the analog to a circulatory system and the idea that we are heading for a coronary. My only question is there anything really to be done about the financial system? It seems that humans have made strides in science, medicine, even political systems (you talk about individually run governments, monarchies, giving way to institutional governments which are public trusts). However, (and I may be wrong) even though the forms of the economic institutions have changed over human history they (always?) tend to end with an insane concentration of wealth in a few hands, abuse of this wealth and then some revolution/upheaval. OK this is grossly simplified but still the question is "Has there been any really progress change in economic systems over the course of human history? By the way this is an honest and not a rhetorical questions since history of economics is very far from my field.

      One of the most persistent myths of at least the US economy is the trickle down idea. This "theory" is used to justify the concentration of large amounts of wealth into a few hands. In this regard you may find of interest (or may have already seen) the *banned* TED talk. From the website the description reads:

      "Around a year ago TED banned Nick Hanauer's talk named 'Rich People Don't Create Jobs'. The talk was deemed too 'political' and was never put online. However, after word got out, a large number of people signed a petition and demanded the rights to view it. TED reluctantly published Nick's talk which you are able to view right here:"

      You can find this talk now easily by doing a Google search. In it Hanauer compares trickle down ideas to the old Ptolemaic system of the Universe -- simply wrong.

      You make the statement on page 1. "First and foremost, this situation has to be addressed in a way that can be intellectually comprehended by vast numbers of normally intelligent people," and you mention that lying out such a basic description may irritate "professional interest". Exactly! Whenever some expert gives you some jumbled/jargony explanation whose end is to get you to part with some of your money or resources, you can bet that this is just nonsense hidden by technical sounding language. I've heard (I need to find a reliable source but the story is too good not to repeat) that Wall Street Investment Houses would hire mathematicians and physicists to come up with impenetrable (to someone without a math/physics background) mathematical formulas which they would trot out to their clients to show them that they were a serious science driven firm, when in fact the formulas were useless for anything except for separating the client from their money.

      One minor critic -- you say "because the energy is apparently conserved, but the information surely is not". In physics terms (specifically) black holes which are evaporating via Hawking radiation the question of whether information is conserved or not is hotly debates -- with a slight edge to information being conserved. I know this is not what you meant by information (at least I think it isn't) but BHs are my research area so I couldn't resist putting in a technical criticism :-).

      Anyway best of luck with this contest,

      Doug

        Doug,

        Your questions raise the problem that it really would take a book length exposition to do justice to the various questions being raised, yet much of this would have to be supporting detail to deflect the invariable criticism to any complex argument. Since you do seem far more curious of the issues, than critical of my observations about them, I'll try raising a various salient points and let you process them from your own frame.

        Consider two terms you would run into in any in depth reading of economics; Derivatives and re-hypothecation.

        If you know much about gambling, derivatives amount to a form of parimutual wagering, where one is betting against other betters, rather than the house. So effectively you can have enormous amounts of money gambled on a very minor issue of probability. For instance, millions of dollars being wagered on a horse race, where the purse might only be 5-25 thousand. The difference though, is these bets don't have to be closed after every event, but can be rolled over into another, so the losses don't have to be declared.

        Re-hypothecation basically means the same asset is being used to back multiple securities/loans/etc. Now on its surface, this might seem like outright fraud, but monetary systems have effectively worked this way for centuries, in that there is rarely enough gold/assets in the treasury to back the amount of money in circulation. In fact, prior to the world going off the gold standard, they were often required by law to only have about 25% gold to money in circulation.

        Now with low interest rates, money can be borrowed into existence generally cheaper than the stock market is growing. For instance, if you can borrow money at 2% and the stock market is growing about 5% a year and lots of people are doing this, the rising market absorbs the fresh money being created and the only ones losing are those foolish enough not to be speculating in the market, since it does eventually drive down the value of the money.

        The larger reality is that this process is being driven by the entire society valuing money more than they might more intangible assets, like environmental resources and the stability of societies in other parts of the world, because of the promise of security. It is like a wave. While we might focus on its peak, the real force driving it is hidden under the water.

        The bigger this bubble of notational value gets, the more desperately it needs tangible assets to feed off of and the more amoral it becomes in acquiring them, so the greater the effective suction being applied to the entire economy.

        The reason it requires so much complex math, is not simply to confuse those outside the process, but to maintain enough friction and balancing of obligations within the system, in order to store vastly more notational wealth than the actual economy is capable of producing. As for getting quantum theorists from MIT to do this, versus normal accountants, I do think it should be noted that physicists currently believe that math is foundational to reality and any reasonable mathematical structure must reflect some form of actual reality and so that entire universes must exist to reflect the models they formulate. Yet accountants understand the math as only an abstraction of reality and should they get too imaginative in their formulations, it could well attract legal attention and create enormous personal difficulties. So it is simply logical for the bankers to appeal to the quantum theorists for help in inflating these bubbles.

        Yes, this process has occurred throughout history, but a large part of that is because we naturally edit much of the facts about reality to what is immediately convenient and so it is much easier for most people to think of these notes as a commodity to be traded around, much as any other commodity and thus loose sight of the network of obligations giving them value and making the system function. Then the system of regulation becomes a burden to the process of creating and managing these flows of value and so is bought off and consumed by it. It is like a wave, in that it exponentially increases and then crashes. Like a game of Monopoly, when one person actually owns everything, the game is over and the paper money is re-distributed. In real life, this often involves pitchforks and torches. What goes up, comes back down.

        This is why I'm trying to emphasize that we need to step back and remember these notes are a contract, not a commodity. You no more own those pieces of paper in your pocket, then you own the section of road you happen to be driving on. It behooves those managing this system for people to think they own the money, then people are far less concerned with how integrated it becomes into every function of their lives, while not understanding the power this gives those responsible for managing the value and flow of this money to tax and otherwise control deep social functions.

        If your average Joe Sixpack knew those bills with the picture of a dead president were a form of public utility, that he was only being allowed use of, he and the rest of society would naturally be far more careful how much they would extract value from social relations and the environment, in order to acquire these notes. There are many functions in life, from elder and child care, to local community projects and primary education, which throughout history were normal social effects and didn't require established currencies to occur. In this way, social relations and the environment are stores of value to be preserved and built on, not just resources to be mined, because they arise from organic social contracts that we are born into.

        In the first part of the essay, I did brush over some equally controversial topics. Obviously the one about religion and how spirituality is more logically a bottom up impulse of a primal sense of self, rather than a top down ideal. This would well be a book length topic. For instance, good and bad are the biological binary code of attraction to the beneficial and repulsion of the detrimental, not the rather useful narrative contrast of the cosmic forces of righteousness and evil our stories lead us to believe. Going forth and multiplying is good on the individual level, but bad on the planetary level. Just as what is good for the fox, is bad for the chicken and there is no clear line where the chicken ends and the fox begins.

        This is not to to disparage the top down executive function, as individually it is the conscious state that mediates all our subconscious impulses and collectively it manages the forces within society for the betterment of the group. Yet being able to appreciate it in this relative context and not as an absolute, would allow us to better mediate decisive factors and not have single minded desires and obsessions create more havoc than is normal. In the age of kings, we came to understand the executive function had to be an expression of the better judgement of the people and not just left to the whims of the heir of the prior decision maker. Similarly, our economic medium of money has to serve the interests of the whole society and not just the desires of those tasked with managing it.

        Another topic I get into on physics forums, is that since we experience change as a sequence of events, we think of time as the present moving from past to future and physics further distills this to measures of particular duration, to use in calculations. Yet the actual physical process is that change is creating and dissolving these events, thus it is the events going from future to past. For example, the earth does not travel/flow/exist along a dimension from yesterday to tomorrow, but rather tomorrow becomes yesterday because the earth turns. This point has had me banned from a number of physics sites, since it makes time an effect of action, rather than the dimensional basis for it. Effectively it is much more like temperature, than space. Time is to temperature, what frequency is to amplitude. It's just that we experience temperature as a cumulative effect and overlook the multitude of individual actions(velocities/amplitude) creating it, but with time we experience the individual effect of sequence and overlook the fact there is no universal clock, only the effect of a multitude of changes. In fact a faster clock only burns quicker and so falls into the past faster. Remember that, the next time you are in a hurry.

        Obviously this is another subject which would take a book to examine, but it is reflective of our necessarily episodic, sequential view of reality, which makes us focus on the concept of objects, more than the processes creating them. Thus such tangibles as notational devices seem more real than the processes giving them force.

        I could further develop these subjects, but this should give you something to consider.

        Regards,

        John

        I would also note that is is perfectly reasonable to have a monetary system based on public debt, if the rewards accrue back to the public. As it is, currently the obligations are public, while the rewards are private. This serves to siphon value out of the public and into private hands. The resulting bubble eventually bursts, to the good of no one, if the system of contracts allowing private ownership is destroyed.

        John,

        I see here a perceptive analysis and a sensible if not revolutionary framework of suggestions for improving the world. The way you bring in concepts of the nature of God or ultimate reality, is certainly not same-old futurism. Your idea of the ground of being/godhead being more an "esse" of existence that develops, rather than an infinitely structured superbeing, relates to my own argument about how our minds access and build upon the essential stuff of the world to become conscious and know they are more than just abstractions of mathematics. You have already commented on my own essay but I want to quote the portion of your essay that ties them together well:

        "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."

        The spiritual energy drives the essential overall experience of being alive, which is more than just a collection or product of various individual sensations and thoughts etc. It makes a stage, which helps form a unity out of all that and also gives us the essential drive to care about it. I also argue that this wholeness is required for us to behave in a globally controlled manner, such as when we suddenly stop our actions, then resume them later etc. I argue that a "society of mind", even an efficient one, would not be quite nimble enough to pull this off.

          Well I didn't even remember I already commented here, but that's OK - I made some new points of value.

          Thanks Neil.

          It has been an interesting contest and hopefully the conversations will continue.

          Yes, having grown up and lived on a farm my whole life, I do see the spirit as an elemental sense of awareness and rational thought as how it interacts with a complex reality, rather than arising from that complexity by chance. As such complexity is part of a cycle of expansion and consolidation. So even nimble minds only go and grow as far as circumstance allows. Then the reset button gets pushed again.

          I have to say that I have an inexhaustible supply of trolls, as every time I get a bump up, another comes along to push my score back down. Hopefully I'm actually causing some irritation and they are not just trying to push their own scores up.

          Regards,

          John

          Hi John,

          Nice essay! The good rating I was about to give got an additional point added to it because of your funny abstract and your righteous bio. All the best to you!

          Warmly,

          Aaron

            Thanks Aaron.

            It has been another very interesting contest. I have to say I originally got interested in physics as a way to understand society, so it was a good question for me. I suppose that was one of the points I tried to make in the bio.

            REgards,

            John

            Dear John,

            I can understand the editing. Although my replies can be long they would be much longer if I tried to cover in detail every possible response that I consider to all of the points that you mention. You made this reply shorter than some others, so I will try to do the same to make it easier for you to respond adequately.

            You mention that "but the fact remains that Jesus was attempting to push the reset button on the Jewish God and this was fairly firmly acknowledged at the time. That is why it is called "God the Father and God the Son," not God the Spirit and God the Soul." I was not trying to say that God used the terms God the Spirit and God the Soul in referring to himself. What I was pointing out is that God says that he made man in his image and man is composed of three parts, a spirit a soul and a body and that because man is made in the image of God these three parts are an image or likeness to the three parts of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. As an example, talking about God the Father in the scriptures it says, "God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. This shows that the spirit in man is an image of God the Father who is a Spirit. It also shows that the only way that a man can worship (serve) God the Father is to do it in his spirit. The spirit is the part that generates the intents or purposes to act on. It is the beginning and initiating power that is required to start any purposeful action. This means that to worship God the Father a man's intents or purposes must be the same as God the Father's intents. To put it another way, to worship or serve God the Father, the man must intend to do that which God the Father intends for him to do. There is a joining of the two spirits to accomplish the same actions. There is a certain way for this joining to be accomplished and certain conditions must be met first. These are given in the scriptures. The man's soul takes the intents of the spirit and generates thoughts to carry out those intents. The thoughts are sent to the man's body and the body converts them into actions that accomplish the intents of the man's spirit. The soul is, therefore, the mediator between the man's spirit and his body. In the scriptures, God says that the Son is the only mediator between him and man. The Son, therefore, receives the Father's intents and generates the thoughts that man can understand and sends them to the man. The man then receives those thoughts from the Son and acts in accordance with them to carry out God the Father's intents. The soul in man is, therefore, an image of the Son and the man's body is the image of the Holy Ghost. An image is never as good or complete in all ways as the original source that it is an image of. This means that man cannot be equal to God, but he is formed in a way that is similar and gives us an insight into God's form. I am not concerned with the meanings that men apply to God. My concern is what God says about himself in the scriptures. I believe that God is capable of keeping his promises such as when Jesus said "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall never pass away." I, therefore, believe that God has kept the meanings in his Word intact, so that it has not been changed by men to mean different from what he originally intended it to mean and I can, therefore, trust that it is true. I do, however, understand that you probably do not believe this way because you would have to believe in God as a living being with the power and intent to do these things. If you look at the scriptures as only a work of man, it would not be reasonable from your perspective to believe that anything in it could be sure to be as it is said to be in the scriptures because man does not have the ability to make it so. To me the fact that the scriptures contain so many prophesies that have come to pass and many that are happening now in the present, etc. is another indication that they are not the work of man because man does not have the power to make them happen.

            Again, I can see why you might believe this since you don't believe that there is actually a God who could keep the academics from modifying his message to us, but since the evidence is that there is such a God that concept only applies to the false gods and not the true God. You still have not given me any real evidence that the true God does not exist. You have only given stories or fables based on the assumption that God does not exist other than in the form of fables or as man's imaginary creation. On the other hand, I have already given you some evidence that he does exist.

            I am glad that you are happy with your current situation in life. I to have found it good to give up being the boss, but to me it is to give it up to God because he can always make the right decisions and lead me in the right direction to make things work out for good.

            I cannot see how you consider that the concept that God is intelligent to the degree that he is able to create, control, and maintain the universe to cause it to yield the results that he desires to fulfill his purpose for creating it is in any way looking at God as though he is a mere man, since man is not intelligent enough to do any of these things. You are right that his intelligence is only one property of him of many that he possesses and it does help him to be able to rightly divide and make judgments as necessary to fulfill his will, but I do not consider that to be his only attribute, but it is an important one. Without it he would not have been able to have planned, designed, and determined the best way to create the universe. Of course, I can see why you would not consider it something you would consider important because you have jumped to the conclusion that god is only a collection of myths and stories and has no real abilities. You, therefore, fit your conception of the nature of god to agree with the god that you assume to exist. One problem with the conception of good or bad being what is beneficial or detrimental to the greatest number of people is that it can then be used by the majority to justify mistreating any minority group that they define. As an example, there are currently people in this world who believe that the world population should only be about 300,000,000 people. Using this logic some of these people could justify killing about 6,700,000,000 people because they might say that even though this would mean killing most of the people alive at this time, in the long term future there would be a total of more people who would live than that amount and they would say that the lives of all those future people would be better. Of course, you could bet that the ones that were not killed would be the rich and powerful people who would really be doing it because they would think they would have more as a result of it. It would not really work that way, but greed and the desire for power can easily blind people and cause them to do stupid destructive things. For man to kill is wrong because God reserves the times of a person's birth and death to his determination because he knows the best time for each of us to be born and to die.

            God created both good and evil in order to allow us to be able to have free choice. The choices that are the right ones that work for good are the good ones and the ones that end in bad results are the bad or evil ones. He tells us to make the good ones and not the bad ones, but he allows us to make the bad ones, so we can see and learn how bad they are. This is all part of our training, so we will learn that God leads us in the right direction to go in all things and we can learn to trust him to do so. There are 2 ways to get this understanding. One is to do both evil and good and get the results first hand or you can look at the results of other's actions (the stories) and learn that way. I have found that the most pleasant experience is to do the good and get those results directly and look at the results of others who do evil and learn about those results from the stories or accounts of those others.

            First, God is as he is and I only try to determine how that is by the evidence that I observe about him. I cannot impose any highest ideal on him. His highest ideal is what he makes it to be as the most important part of his being. I mention intelligence here for 2 reasons. First, it is necessary for him to possess great intelligence to have created the universe and the evidence is that he did that. Second, those who don't believe in God's existence as the one who created the universe generally try in one way or another to define away that as being an attribute of God, so they can then say that he could not have done it. You are right that intelligence is an ability that can be used as a tool that in this case God used for the purpose of creating the universe, so he can use it to make a body for himself. I believe that this is a good purpose and that he will accomplish his goal and that it will work for good for him and all who become members of his body. The problem with Adam and Eve is that they desired to have knowledge that they were not at that time prepared to properly use. That is why God commanded them to not access it at that time.

            In a lot of things the middle place or to do things in moderation can be the best course of action, but when it comes to God that is the worst place to be. Jesus says that he would have you to be either hot or cold to him, but if you are lukewarm (in the middle) he will spew (spit) you out of his mouth. He says that those who try to stay in the middle are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. He counsels such to buy of him gold tried in the fire, that they may be rich (this comes from doing right even when you have to suffer to do it), and white raiment (the righteousness of the saints), that they may be clothed, so that the shame of their nakedness does not appear, and anoint their eyes with eye-salve, that they may see (an image of going to and being anointed by Jesus (God's Word to get understanding)). Jesus says that as many as he loves he rebukes and chastens and says to, therefore, be zealous and repent from being lukewarm. He then says that he stands at the door and knocks and if any man hears his voice and opens the door he will come into him and they will sup (share their lives) with each other. He then says that to him that overcomes he will grant to sit with him in his throne even as he also overcame and is set down with his Father in his throne. Although I did not understand that I was this way to God when I was an agnostic and, therefore, in the middle between belief and unbelief, I have since then found that compared to how life can be with God in Christ it was a pretty good description of me at that time. It is evident that God desires to have this relationship with us in that he says that he stands at the door and knocks and is ready to come into the man that hears him and opens the door and desires to sup with him and when the man has overcome his problem of being in the middle he even offers to share his throne with him.

            I agree that it is best to not be herded around by men, but it is good to be one of God's sheep and be herded by him to learn from him to know what is best to do in any situation. You can't get any larger context than God. This comment is still turning out kind of big, but it is still smaller than the last one.

            Sincerely,

            Paul B.