Omega Mind and the Matrix of the Way Things Are
Toward the Connection of Scientific and Religious Cosmologies
September 12, 2010
Rev. Stephen Herring
I. Introduction.
People have their own narrative, story, or symbolic vocabulary by which they explain life’s big questions.[1] These questions include who we are, where we came from, why we are here, and where our world is heading. Because we are culturally fixed individuals, our answers to these questions are always culturally determined. This paper attempts to move toward a narrative which transcends the limitations of normal American, Christian cultural discourse by looking for common ground between the disciplines of theology, cosmology, philosophy, physics, and mathematics. This is an effort to bridge the perceptual gap between scientific and religious mindsets. It is important to realize at the start that no one will ever compose a universal human religion. This is not an effort to create a universal religion, or a universally accepted religious concept. There will be no one world religion and there will be precious few commonly held religious principles because we human beings do not only live in one world. Religion belongs entirely to the inner personal landscape of the individual. Our religions are part of us. They are the ultimate expression of our social/cultural milieu. I do not doubt that many religious people will find this work misses the mark by not articulating a specific doctrinal narrative. Similarly, I believe that many people of a scientific mindset will find it far too religious for their liking. At best I can hope to irritate everyone equally in an effort to find a common denominator between religious and scientific conversation.
We live in a world fabricated by the webs of entangled desire. We want things, but when we get them we find that they each bring lines of commitment. Nothing is simple. Everything has “strings attached.” These strings wrap us up, but these are the products of our desires. Most of the things we desire create more entanglements. Things need to be taken care of. Our commitments need to be followed through on. One set of strings gets tangled up with another and knots result. Things get complicated. We dream of freedom, yet, for most of us, freedom creates another set of entanglements. We become so wrapped up in it all that our entanglements become something like a cocoon, a comfort zone in which we sleep. We only wake up long enough to grab hold of another commitment, and wrap ourselves up a little deeper.
At the risk of seeming negative, we could also see ourselves like insects drugged into paralysis by a spider’s venom, then slowly wrapped up in the silk of her web. We are so tangled up that we do not know we are tangled up any more. We are so drugged by conflicting desires that we do not even know what freedom is anymore. If anyone were to seriously offer to undo this matrix[2] of entanglements, we would be terrified.
This is our unrealized state. People live more or less automatically within a matrix composed of the parameters of agreed upon reality. All is as it should be until the teeth of some disaster intrude and things fall apart. When disaster strikes, our desire is for things to return to normal as soon as possible. We refocus our desires to rebuild the matrix of reality we enjoyed prior to the intrusion. We desire things to be a certain way and so we construct and maintain all the necessary lines of connection and commitment. As soon as this fabric gets torn, we set about its immediate repair and reconstruction. We simply must keep things the way they are. People who challenge this status quo are usually seen as prophets, madmen, or revolutionaries. They are asked, politely or impolitely to be quiet before they ask any difficult questions about the value systems which hold the matrix together.
This is where we encounter the problem of choice. Choice is both an illusion and a fundamental constant of ultimate reality. Choice is an illusion because, within the fabric of the matrix, choices are more limited than we might think. “Choice is an illusion, created between those with power, and those without.”[3] Choice is a form of discourse where those with power supply resources to those without power. The awarding, or non-awarding of these resources is always highly conditional. We receive the resources of choice or we do not receive them according to specific conditions which are dictated by mutually accepted power structures. We can take a drink or refuse it. We can eat a meal or refuse to eat it. We can enter a room, or refuse to enter. Superficially, this represents a choice. We will follow a course of consequences either way. Viewed in this way, choice is a functional part of an economy of supply and demand. We can buy the goods or not.
There is an illusion operating here because our choices are limited by the resources we have available. We can go to another store, but soon we will realize that there are only so many stores in this matrix. Our choices are completely limited by the availability of our resources. More resources buy more choices, and fewer resources net us fewer choices. This allows us to construct a popular illusion where “it is all about money.”
This is where poverty comes from. Poverty is the absence of choice in economic discourse. Wealth is the proliferation of choice in economic discourse. Both of these are superficial and neither of them represents “choice” in any absolute sense. These are false choices. Neither option results in any real change. We can buy the goods or buy other goods, but we remain in the same matrix of shared reality and shared delusion.
We can define choice in the absolute sense as the freedom to define things differently. Real choice exists when we decide to understand ourselves and our world in a different way. This choice brings us to a point where we can challenge the borders and boundaries of the matrix of the way things are. This choice leads us in a different direction where our whole world is defined differently apart from the standards of the normal world. We become free to adopt a new set of values and priorities. We find the freedom to live a different kind of life in a different kind of world.
When we make this choice, we depart from the main stream economy of competing desires. We enter another world. This other world seems at first to be completely at odds with the one we left. We feel as if we have gone through the looking glass. Small things seem big and big things seem small. Brief events last for ever and eternity flashes by us in an instant. We no longer belong to the old fabric of reality. If we can hold our center for a moment, we will realize that this is not madness. Rather than madness, we may have found a new and enduring form of sanity.
If we make the choice to leave the predominant culture of desire and commitment, we will find ourselves free to explore the fundamental nature of reality itself. This may be the single greatest freedom we have ever found. Once we are free from the world of economic physics, we can enter a world of metaphysics. We find ourselves free to draw near to the “white noise” from which all form originates. Like a child staring closely at the picture on a TV tube, we begin to see between the dots of space-time representation. Reality is not the same if we look too closely. Like examining a photograph under high magnification, the picture looks different when we see between the dots. We see beyond space and time into a world that is completely “other.” This is the cosmic background from which all measurable information originates.[4] Cosmic background is a ubiquitous, equally distributed aspect of space, or the space/time continuum. It is a universally standard field, or medium by which electromagnetic energy is transmissible throughout the known universe.[5]
In outward reality, everything can be described as a series of data sets. Everything that can be perceived can be measured, described, represented, and evaluated. Even something large and complex, like a car, a house, or a boat, can be described as a series of points of data. Everything in the physical world has mass, volume, density, composition, mechanical structure, color, performance characteristics, etc. This allows everything to be represented as some form of information. Seen this way, all things can be represented as digital, mathematical values. All physical reality can be digitized in this way. It can be described in terms of digital information, reduced to a computer screen as a series of zeros and ones. Every chemical element has its place on the periodic table. Every manifestation of energy, right down to the thoughts of our minds is reducible to a data set made up of neuro-chemical impulses and micro-voltages. Everything can be weighed, measured, and combined with everything else so as to form predictable combinations of facts and figures. This is a form of reductionism which has logical limitations. While all intelligible reality can be reduced to numeric data, these data do not comprise either the substance or the essence of the material of which things are composed. The data are mere representations.
Our task here is to ask if it is possible for us to leave the matrix of the way things are within our outer world long enough to perceive the cosmic background from which all of these intelligible data sets originate. Can we return to the Source? Can we meet the Architect? Here we are attempting to peer between the dots, into the quantum level beyond which all boundaries of cause and effect are transcended. We may refer to this as the “transcendental background”[6] from which all information originates.
It is easy to postulate the existence of such a cosmic background. It is much harder to explore the connection between the cosmic background and the world of physical events and circumstances. Some say this is the realm of theology. We form religions to tell us where the information comes from and how it came to be arranged the way it is. Our religions tell us who we are, where we came from, why we are here, and where we are going when our time here expires. As such, they are inevitably shaped according to our desires. We desire power, or the ability to control things as they take shape around us. Religion, especially organized religion fits hand in glove with the economic discourse by which power and control are bought and sold. Thus, religious conversation will always be shaped by our desires. Our religious universe will take shape the way we want it to. If for some reason our religion fails to meet our desires, we will either change it from within or switch religions. This contamination of desire creates an absolute lack of objectivity when examining the basic nature of God or of God created reality. It always ends up being the way we want it to be. We use religion to create our world, then we claim that the whole package is God-given. This in turn creates some form of absolutism which proves difficult or impossible for those outside our religious system to penetrate.[7]
To explore the connection, the portal between the cosmic background and the world of perceptible circumstances we need to use a word-concept. For this purpose, let us suppose that this portal may be represented as Cosmic Mind, or W Mind. The W symbol here signifies the A/W Mind of God, or “Omega Mind.” We will specifically avoid the term “God” because this word brings with it a host of cultural and doctrinal presuppositions which distract us from our efforts to understand a universal transcendental cosmic background. Any specifically doctrinal approach to this problem will limit our perception to a specific cultural-religious milieu. While such limitations might be fruitful within their specific contexts, our efforts here are to ascertain the portal between worlds on the most general level. We seek the cognitive interface between cosmic background and physical reality. We seek the Source from which all the information originates.
One innocent method of understanding the relationship and the difference between the physical world and the cosmic background is by comparing the waking world with the dream world. Within the dream world the normal limitations of physical reality do not apply. We can fly and we can swim through the air. We can compose events and circumstances merely by thinking of them. We can move freely from past to present to future, and back again. We have a physical world where we act out the physical circumstances of our lives within physical limitations, and we have a spiritual, dream world where everything is dreamed and no conventional limitations apply. As conscious beings, most of us live in a balance between sleeping and waking, between the dream world and the waking world of practical reality. We need to spend some time in each place. On the macro-universal level, W Mind may be seen as the power that dreams all things into existence. We believe that the dream reflects the dreamer, and therefore we describe W Mind in accordance with our perceptions of the dream.
In Biblical symbols, the universe is spoken into existence. This creative impulse extends to both “heavens”, and “earth.”[8] It extends to both a spiritual universe and a physical universe. The creative impulse impacts both low density, metaphysical space, and high density, physical space. The dual aspect of the Heaven/Earth, Physical/Metaphysical dichotomy is useful in understanding the nature of reality as expressed by W Mind.[9] The initial Genesis account of creation presents a two-based, binary, or dualistic system where creation begins from the juxtaposition of opposites. Heaven and earth, light and dark, day and night, dry land and water; all combine to form the universe we perceive. This formation of opposites is manifested by the spoken word of W Mind. Much later Cabalistic interpretations extend this binary aspect of the creative process to a four fold concept of a universe based on earth, wind, fire, and water. These four elements are seen as reflections of the nature of God as represented by the Tetragrammaton, YHWH. In this essay we will develop a four fold representation of the perceptible universe made of four deterministic data sets described by genomic code, deterministic chaos, decision based cause and effect, and faith. (See section III.)
Another metaphor to illustrate the concept of W Mind is a movie screen. Perceived reality is the light organized on the screen. W Mind is the screen itself, as well as the projector. Perceptual reality is manifested from the screen itself which is W Mind. W Mind is the white space between the dots which compose perceptual reality.
The world’s religious systems all teach us that we may approach W Mind if we absolve ourselves from attachment to the web-matrix of worldly entanglements. This basic principle has been historically articulated by most of the world’s mystical spiritual systems. Desire keeps us in the here and now. The heavens are opened when earthly desire is transcended. To make this journey we must leave desire behind. This extends to the desire for things to be in accordance with our preconceptions and our expectations. Instead, we must proceed with a simple, completely open mind.
II. Physical Systems Resist the Intrusion of Metaphysical Systems
When we manage for a moment to remove ourselves from the tangled webs of desire and commitment, we can begin to perceive that most observable natural phenomena are manifestations of some level of programming.
Everything we see, touch, measure, and experience belongs to a self organized program which allows reality to replicate itself along fractal nesting patterns of non-linear dynamic chaos.[10] Programming is the key. We can witness this as the biological process of DNA propagation under the direction of the genomic code. We can witness it in geomorphology as forms yield new forms on the earth, and systems always but never quite repeat themselves. According to the dynamic chaos model, natural systems, objects, and events swirl around in a self-organized, self replicating fashion.
These natural systems share two mutually contradictory characteristics. They all seek stability to the greatest extent possible. All systems want to stay the same for as much time as possible. An equal and opposite trend also holds sway. All things will disintegrate and re-form over time. This sets up an ever flowing dance of stability and decay occurring through the flow of time. Once formed, things want to hold onto their form for as long as their pre-programmed decay cycle will allow.
As intelligent, sentient energy systems, we know that we are only temporary. We are mortal. Thus, on a superficial level we tend to idealize and worship what lasts longer than ourselves, be it gold, stone monuments, or a theological concept of eternity/eternal life. On a deeper level though, an observation of natural cycles of energy demonstrates that these cycles themselves are eternal.[11] We may suppose, therefore, that a cyclic nature is an aspect of W Mind.
If we were to be granted a macro-cosmic perception of things we would see a universe/world evolving in bursts of creative self organization and bursts of decay. These would be flashes in the form of coordinated self organizing interconnected chains of cause and effect rippling from past to present to future with the flow of time. Our shared reality slides over an ever changing, yet not changing, intangible membrane known as the present moment of reality.
Reality behaves according to certain predictable laws known as the laws of physics, chemistry, biology, and systems theory. These laws allow created reality to be observed, predicted, and replicated according to accepted patterns. We may call these accepted patterns “normality.”
We define and limit our understanding of reality according to our available instruments of perception. These instruments of perception operate within variable limitations of time and scale. The limitation imposed by time means that the object or system being perceived must move slowly enough for us to tune into it. If something is moving too fast we cannot perceive it until our instruments allow us to get up to speed. Scale means that our object or system is neither too large (macro-irrelevant), nor too small, (micro-irrelevant) for us to perceive. Our shared reality changes though, as our instruments of perception improve. This is the evolutionary path marked for us by the invention of instruments such as the telescope, the microscope, and the linear particle accelerator.
Before continuing along this line of thought we need to take a brief digression to reflect on the nature of human intellect and our collective propensity for exploration. As new instruments of perception are invented, we do not necessarily choose to walk through the resulting doorways of discovery. At various points in our history we face doorways we know will lead us in exciting new directions. Inevitably some people will predict disaster if the door is opened. Others will advocate caution at he bequest of their own agendas. No matter what though, someone will always open the door and walk through it. It is our nature to walk through these doors of discovery.
This having been said, we can proceed to ask a series of “what if” questions. These questions are meant to inform our journey through the door, not to advocate for the door being shut.
What if our universe is not the only one? What if there are others? Are we equipped to construct a paradigmatic structure with which we can evaluate a reality fabric that is fundamentally different from our own? Can we hypothesize, develop probabilities, and construct scenarios around the possibility of our having meaningful interaction with a different dimensional construct of reality? It might help if we are willing to work in an interdisciplinary fashion and use our common experience to build scenarios and learn from them before we walk through that door of discovery.
Holding for a moment our cosmological construct detailed above, we may next observe that throughout human history events have happened which do not fit into our normal paradigmatic structure of universe laws. People see things and feel things that do not belong to normality, to the shared set of natural laws by which we construct our common perceptions of reality. Every time an anomaly occurs, something truly odd, out of kilter, such as an alien encounter, UFO, “angel”, “ghost”, or something else paranormal, we think we see something within a brief moment of instability which does not belong to normal shared reality. It is reasonable to hypothesize that this unusual event might belong to a universe that has for some unknown reason intersected our own for a moment of time. Two worlds have intersected for a moment, and someone has been lucky enough, (or unlucky enough) to witness the resulting anomaly. Is it possible that some sort of worm hole has opened for an instant, either by design or by accident, and that some sort of perceptual anomaly resulted?
If there are other universes and these universes overlap with ours on occasion, resulting in some sort of worm holes, can we extrapolate some crucial bits of information by examining the characteristics of these interactions? To frame this discussion the following transcript from the film Matrix Reloaded is helpful. This conversation takes place takes place when Neo consults the Oracle.
"Neo: But why help us?
The Oracle: We're all here to do what we're all here to do. I'm interested in one thing, Neo, the future. And believe me, I know - the only way to get there is together.
Neo: Are there other programs like you?
The Oracle: Oh, well, not like me. But... Look, see those birds? At some point a program was written to govern them. A program was written to watch over the trees, and the wind, the sunrise, and sunset. There are programs running all over the place. The ones doing their job, doing what they were meant to do, are invisible. You'd never even know they were here. But the other ones, well, we hear about them all the time.
Neo: I've never heard of them.
The Oracle: Of course you have. Every time you've heard someone say they saw a ghost, or an angel. Every story you've ever heard about vampires, werewolves, or aliens is the system assimilating some program that's doing something they're not supposed to be doing.
Neo: Programs hacking programs. Why?
The Oracle: They have their reasons, ...."[12]
If an entity were to enter our universe from someplace else, its manifestation into this level of existence would probably be anomalous and irreproducible. If we examine such events within the realm of human experience and mythology, we can see patterns emerging which may give us important hints about what we might expect if and when we become able to initiate such occurrences.
Anomalous events, when they occur, are brief, irreproducible, and logically unstable. "Logically unstable" is a nice way of saying that these events do not make sense according to normative paradigms for the interpretation of reality. They are totally "other."
The reality set on which we depend must function according to a predictable, rational, repeatable paradigmatic structure. Without such structure things fall apart. Therefore challenges to this normative structure are routinely greeted along a continuum that ranges from hoots of laughter to being totally ignored to being discredited to outright hostility. Intelligently self organized systems must function this way if they are to survive. Like living organisms, an immune response or inflammatory response is necessary if an invading organism is to be repelled and the system is to preserve its integrity.
All self organized programs possess certain vulnerabilities to dissonant entities which may impinge upon them. Some systems are more vulnerable than others and some are more robust and resistant to outside change agents. Taking our model from living organisms, resistance to outside invasion can range from mild irritation to outright anaphylaxis. Sometimes such "allergic" reactions can have disastrous consequences.
Historically, if there has been such a thing as external universes impinging into ours, the most common pathway or portal has been through subjective human thought processes. Somehow at the quantum energy level of human thought, people claim to have been able to penetrate the normal barriers and borders of experience and to step outside the boundaries of normality. Sometimes the results of these excursions are positive and sometimes they are negative. Often they are downright pathological for the person involved. The whole human history of visionary mysticism stands as testimony to this process. Even here certain common patterns emerge. First, those having such experiences are instinctively labeled as not belonging to the local cults of self-reinforcing normality. These people rarely die a natural death. Society excludes them, persecutes them and ignores them. This is because the information they carry often is seen as threatening to the value systems of the status quo.
When this process takes a positive turn, the “organism” made up of the complex behavior patterns of shared reality can be altered in some positive and constructive way. The "body" becomes vaccinated through the intrusion of some small scale invader. For better or for worse this is the pattern illustrated by most of the world's religious history.
The common denominator of these experiences is that they instinctively raise alarms because they are perceived as destabilizing.
It may be that the Universe we inhabit possesses a robust immune system which violently excludes extra-dimensional input. Prophets are never welcome, especially in their own country. Countless supernatural and paranormal events have been documented in human history, but they are irreproducible, unstable in time, of brief duration, leave essentially no physical evidence, and are profoundly disturbing to the social systems in which they occur.
Our point here is to suggest that this repeated set of experiences might exist for a reason. Perhaps there is something within the physical nature of the universe that resists intrusion. This might explain why paranormal experiences are routinely experienced but seldom adequately recorded or otherwise documented. If one looks critically at the sheer numbers of reported paranormal experiences, such as UFO experiences, one wonders why we are not seeing aliens everywhere as in some grade B science fiction movie. An object may appear in the sky, be recorded in a few snapshots, perhaps even on a radar track, but then it is gone, never to return. Even events of longer duration, such as the reported Roswell
Perhaps these experiences are rare and largely ineffectual because the universe possesses an immune system which rigorously resists intrusion. As soon as they happen they are shut down. As soon as a pathway opens, it becomes unstable and is quickly shut again. This might imply that W Mind has difficulty maintaining steady, uninterrupted contact with human kind. Communication between W Mind and us is sporadic, difficult, and frequently misunderstood.[14] When it does occur though, it is socially and historically transformative.
A likely reason for this might be that our universe would become fundamentally unstable if it was to be cross contaminated by the physical laws of an alternate dimension. “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold”[15]
Another key to this puzzle might be found by examining the influence of our collective mythological religious systems. These systems presuppose that there are entities who regularly intrude into our world for brief periods of time in order to accomplish specific agendas. Even so, these experiences are brief and usually not even recognized at the time they happen. Collectively they have the effect of encouraging us to believe that walking through an inter-dimensional doorway once one is created would be de facto a good thing. Our culture abounds with examples of how civilization would supposedly benefit from such extra-dimensional contacts. There is no escaping the cultural values which suppose profound benefits will fall to those who manage to look around outside our universe and survive to tell the story. Might this cultural preconditioning incline us to be less cautious than we should be?
New data sets may themselves be seen as threatening and potentially destabilizing. One need only look at the impact Galileo had on the religious culture of his day to see how destabilizing new information can be.
If our experiences of UFO activity are the result of our being on the receiving end of some sort of dimensional pathway technology, we can see that our culture has been significantly impacted by these intrusions. The cultural repercussions of such events may grossly misrepresent the actual events and the actual significance the events were intended to have. Bizarre and destructive apocalyptic conspiracy theories have been acted out on our cultural stage through events such as Ruby Ridge, Waco , and Oklahoma City
If there is such a thing as "twinning", or near duplication of reality sets between different universes, some worlds may enjoy greater compatibility with others. This means intrusions may be less threatening and potentially less destabilizing in certain instances. This theory fits many of our religious paradigms. The concept of compatibility between universes is expressed in many religions, “on earth as it is in heaven.”[16] This is also part of our collective cultural supposition that one culture could successfully visit another without destabilizing cross contamination. Unfortunately, experiences of cross contamination within human cultures which have interacted with each other such as Europeans and Native Americans do not provide a good precedent.
We may also suppose that some worlds are completely incompatible with each other. This would result in a violently rejected contact attempt, or perhaps even an anaphylactic type allergic reaction. In all likelihood this would be experienced as prompt and violent failure of a "hole making" contact process. However, a serious problem might develop if technology is applied in the future to intentionally widening and stabilizing contact apertures which are fundamentally unstable. The result could be the inadvertent destruction of another world, or the contamination of ours, or both.[17]
The point which must be soberly acknowledged is that none of us knows. If the future allows us to develop technologies which allow contact points between universes to broaden, deepen, and stabilize, it stands to reason that larger amounts of energy and information might cross between universe structures. If this is to be the case it would be wise for us to carefully examine the entire corpus of experiential, religious, and mythological data we possess as to paranormal or supernatural phenomena and the cause-effect scenarios such events have been known to have within our broader culture. Such interdisciplinary investigations may help us better prepare for our inevitable walk through the doorways of the future.
III. W Mind Manifests Reality According to Four General Deterministic Patterns
A stunning new choral arrangement was performed by the New London Chamber Choir on July 13, 2010. In this new piece, scientists and composers have produced a new choral work in which singers sing parts which are based on their own genetic code.[18]
When listening to this work I was stunned by the mystical properties it brought forth. It sounded as if sequences of human life stories were being chanted en masse. When reflecting on this music I came to reflect on the obvious, namely that our physical lives are largely determined by the code within our genes. We can start with the major aspects of our physical being, appearance, stature, etc. and work down to the finer points of our health. Even lifestyle preferences have been shown to possess a possible genetic component.[19]
Our genetic code represents one of four broad deterministic data sets which together will comprise our entire personal universe. These data sets are like a modern day reformulation of the classical Cabbalistic idea of earth, wind, fire, and water. Here they represent a new form of Tetragrammaton, a new way of understanding the nature of W Mind. Our assumption here is that the book always tells us something about its author. The building tells us something about its architect; the dream tells us something about the dreamer. Therefore, this four fold deterministic model may in some way reflect an objective observation as to the nature of W Mind. The data sets which compose our reality are as follows:
1. Genetic code. This set of data determines our physical composition, strengths, weaknesses, preferences, aspects of vulnerability to disease, how we will both develop into adulthood and how we will deteriorate in an aging process.
2. Deterministic Chaos. This set of data determines most, if not all aspects of our external environment, from weather and climate, to social, political, and economic patterns. The entire natural world is composed of interacting dynamic systems which can be described in the language of deterministic chaos.
3. Personal Decision Making. This data set includes all of the cause/effect relationships determined by the choices we make throughout our lives.[20] Freedom of choice is a characteristic of our lives which seems to create a paradox when compared to the determinism of both inheritance and natural cycles. However paradoxical it may be, freedom of choice remains an undeniable primary aspect of our reality.
4. Faith. This data set determines what our personal belief system will be regarding the conditions created by each of the previous data sets.[21] Regardless of our religion or lack of religion, each person, be they atheist, agnostic, or religious fundamentalist; each person interprets the universe around them on the basis of beliefs they hold. These beliefs end up being co-creative because we build our social-cultural world on the basis of our beliefs.
Each of these four areas can be described in numeric/mathematical terms. They can be represented as formulas. The genetic code is a numeric representation of the precise chemistry of our DNA. Deterministic chaotic systems have been shown to correspond to a number of stochastic mathematical models, including fractals and Fibonacci Numbers. Our decision making is often guided by the mathematical constants of probability, and cause/effect relationships can be modelled mathematically. The world of faith is continually impacted by symbolic numbers and number mysticism. On the basis of this observation we can conclude that numeric constants are among the objective attributes of W Mind.
IV. Objective Attributes of W Mind
At this point we can venture to postulate a few possible attributes of W Mind. We can further classify these attributes as being either subjective or objective. The objective attributes are items which have references outside of doctrinal religion, or which are regularly observed by more than one religion. The list of subjective attributes can be quite long as it comprises the catechisms of most of the world’s great religions. For our Purposes here we are most interested in what can be learned by composing a list of attributes of W Mind which is as objective as possible. We wish to avoid the inevitable cultural anthropomorphizing which tends to accompany most theological discourse. Our efforts here are more in keeping with the Universalist and Transcendentalist concept of God as developed in accordance with natural law.
Mathematics has long been known as a universal language. If this is the case, we may postulate that numbers are somehow intrinsic to the nature of the universe. This in turn leads us to the possibility that certain numeric constants might belong to the structure of the cosmic background which begets universe reality. In other words, numbers themselves might belong to W Mind.[22]
In addition to numeric constants being part of W Mind, we can also observe several recent publications in the area of Physics which demonstrate that physical matter is produced by light. This concept of cosmogenic light has been expounded by Ron Bourgoin in addition to others.[23] This allows us to make the supposition that light itself may be an aspect of W Mind[24]
An arbitrary list of objective attributes of W Mind reads as follows. Our choice of language here is important. Following the suggestion of Robert Anton Wilson, statements made about W Mind should be made as suggestions about the way reality seems, not as statements of fact. Therefore we will suggest that W Mind might be or seems to be such and such, rather than stating that W Mind is. After all, even after reading and writing this entire essay, we all remain in ignorance as to what, exactly is means. Though Aristotle promised us an answer, we continue not to know exactly what “to be” means. W Mind might be described by any of the following:
· W Mind might be a form of energy.
· W Mind might be cyclic in nature.
· W Mind might manifests transformative anomalous/paranormal events into the realm of normality.
· W Mind might be omnipresent, ubiquitous, equidistant from any physical area of the perceptible universe.[25]
· W Mind might be expressed, or described by number constants.
· W Mind might be possessed of cosmogenic light. (Bourgoin, et. al.)
· W Mind might be possessed of Reason, Logos, Verbum, “Word”, etc.[26] This statement is the same as the suggestion that the universe is reasonable by nature, or constructed of reasonable laws.[27]
· W Mind might be eternal, ongoing, or infinite in character.
· W Mind might value choice, cause, and effect.
· W Mind seems to exist in perfect imperfection.
· W Mind seems to operate in relationship to us with us in co-creative partnership.
Subjective Attributes of W Mind
· Love
· Justice
· Highest Good (Summum Bonum)
· Righteousness
· Forgiveness
· Compassion and mercy
· Interested in human kind, and the ability to respond to human needs
· Communicates with humanity in many and various ways
· Opposes evil
· Allows evil to exist
· Answers prayer
· Honors covenant (Judaism)
· Seeks atonement (Christianity)
· Honors obedience (Islam)
· Honors purity in personal conduct (Judaism and Islam)
· Works miracles (For the “right” people)
· Usually described by us in symbols related to the male gender
Our list of subjective attributes could be modified according to any set of religious scriptures we may wish to apply to the problem.
It is sufficient here to observe that W Mind seems to be an energy matrix in and of itself which is different from the energy matrix of common shared reality. W Mind seems to be equally distributed throughout the universe, described by number constants, and essentially composed of light. W Mind seems to be reasonable, having created a universe which is knowable and has reason as part of its essence.
W Mind values information because it has created a universe which may be perceived, understood, and represented as pure information.
W Mind has as much difficulty clearly communicating with us as we have difficulty understanding the directions it sends us. The communications W Mind provides to human beings are both ambiguous and socially transformative.
V. Omega Mind and Time
W Mind seems to be eternal, meaning that it seems to experience time differently than we do. Time, in all likelihood, moves slower for W Mind. For some it is sufficient to observe that W Mind, as the creator of infinity, should be itself infinite by nature. If W Mind somehow exists outside, or beyond time, as many religious systems maintain, an understanding of the nature of time will help us to understand W Mind as something separate from this thing we call time. Likewise, we will have a problem saying that W Mind exists outside of time if we do not know exactly what time is. It is of limited value to describe W Mind as the creator of time if we do not understand the nature of time. Unfortunately, we lack a satisfactory definition of time in an absolute sense. An understanding of the nature of time eludes us because the reality of time is indistinguishable from the perception of time. If we were to trade places with a virus, our understanding of the nature of time would be completely different. If time is an entity measured by the movement of a certain planet around a certain star, or measured by the semi-regular contraction of a blood pumping organ, these definitions mean nothing to an organism that knows neither sun nor heart.
VI. Conclusions
If we are to follow the Judeo-Christian presupposition that we are created in the image of W Mind, we will do well to stop fighting with each other over the details and to start looking at our own common ground as creatures of light. If we are indeed creatures of Light, we should start acting that way.
We face an unavoidable paradox when we seek fellowship and communion with W Mind. Most religious and philosophical systems view W Mind as an ideal existing with some degree of separation from the sub-optimal world in which we exist. W Mind is spiritual, while we are physical. W Mind is heavenly, while we belong to the earth. The problem with this construct is that my ideal image of W Mind is complicated by my ideal image of my own existence. I can create a model of “kingdom” and assume that, if it works for me, it must belong to W Mind. Any fundamentalist religious community offers an example of the conflict inherent in this process. We study our scriptures intensely and we reach certain conclusions about what “perfect Islam”, “perfect Judaism”, or “perfect Christianity” would look like as an actual community. We put our ideals into practice and soon we have an earthly expression of kingdom living. Our community might even work for a while. Our spiritual ideals may be attended with miracles, confirmation that we are in fact living in near perfect accordance with W Mind. We ignore the possibility that miracles might be the natural consequence of people living in an environment of concentrated faith, and that the miracles themselves might not necessarily belong to the nature of W Mind. The strange thing about most communities of faith is that they celebrate the miracles performed in their own midst while ignoring the miracles experienced by the heretics down the street.
Any historic examination of these processes reveals that some human imperfection always arises and fouls things up. As hard as we may try, our ideal community will fail to measure up. As hard as we try to keep it together and to keep it focused on its founding spiritual ideals, our community will either change into something else or it will cease to exist.
This brings us back full circle to our original discovery that communion with W Mind is only possible if we separate ourselves from the complications of our own desires. When we state that W Mind exists in perfect imperfection we mean to suggest that W Mind is an ideal and therefore perfect by nature, but that the perfection of W Mind can only be perceived through the profound imperfection of our collective desires. W Mind seems to be a perfect reality imperfectly observed.
Let us suppose for a moment that W Mind exists in a state of absolute perfection, as suggested by most of the world’s scriptures. That state of perfection is altered, polluted, or fallen somehow by the operation of human decision making. The moment we enter the picture we start making decisions which change the whole picture. If we are spiritual beings, we attempt to operate from the perspective of “thy will be done.” Otherwise, we simply do whatever we please to meet our own desires. Meanwhile our world is changing in accordance with the decisions we make every day. Each exercise of free will essentially creates a new world. What if this process is itself part of the substance of W Mind? In other words, W Mind is the creative energy manifested upon the earth by the power of the decisions we make every day. As decision makers we function as co-creators with W Mind. This relationship we share with the matrix of reality continues regardless of the imperfection of our decisions and the negative consequences our actions generate. Our world may seem to be totally messed up, but it might also be that the imperfection of our lives belongs to the perfection of W Mind. All we need to do is to stop struggling long enough to realize that there is no separation. We are and always will be part of the co-creative energy of W Mind.
Is it possible that W Mind exists in something like a template universe? The template universe consists of the original thought energy, the master dream of W Mind. This is the true world of ideals. This is the place where all form originates. We ourselves came into being as an expression of this Template Universe and our mission in life is to return to that state of being. Meanwhile, we make decisions of all types in response to the transient impulses of desire. Each decision creates a spin off universe from the original template. Circumstances continually evolve, generated by the butterfly wings[30] of the small decisions we make. We live in a spin off universe, continually reshaped and recreated by the decisions we and others make every day. This universe evolves according to the syncopated rhythm of the pulses of environmental and circumstantial deterministic chaos. It is all literally new every moment, though determined and limited by the pre-existent boundaries of cause and effect. The universe is continually recreated by chaos and by choice, but it follows the course determined by prior causation.
W Mind exists as source, and destination, beginning, and end, A, and W.[31] It all came from A/W Mind, and it all will return to A/W Mind. As individuals, we may discover that, throughout our lives we never ventured very far from the original thought impulse that created us in the first place. We will end where we began and we will begin yet again, for that is the nature of the life we share.[32] The next time we might make different choices and set a different spin upon the universe we occupy at that time. Nevertheless, we remain who and what we are and our co-creative relationship with A/W Mind remains as close and strong as ever. We always have the option of pausing long enough so that in that moment of Sabbath rest, that seventh note pause, we can let go of our desires long enough to dissolve back into the presence of our Creator. In the flash of a moment we can return to the source, to the original light. Upon returning we can renew our awareness of the fact that A/W Mind belongs to us and that we belong to A/W Mind. We are children of the light and we are the creators of the circumstances we live out. The transcendental background is as close as our willingness to let go of our insistence that things be arranged according to our preference. As soon as we let go and step back just a little, we can see things are already just so. We can see that our past, our present, and our future are all parts of one whole universe system. All that we have done, all that we have been, all we are now, and all we will ever be belongs to A/W Mind like sparks belong to a flame. Even our negative actions and experiences belong to the whole picture. Even our moments of darkness merely offer the shading and shadows needed for definition so that the whole picture comes into focus and we can see who we really are.
[1] Compare the concept of meta-narrative, or “grand narrative” as developed in postmodernism, especially in the work of Jean-François Lyotard.
[2] The word “matrix” here is used with an obvious debt to the films “The Matrix” (1999), “The Matrix Reloaded”, and “Matrix Revolutions” (2003).
[3] Words spoken by the Merovingian in “Matrix Reloaded”, 2003.
[4] A more detailed exposition of these concepts may be found in the essay; “Number Archetypes and “Background” Control Theory Concerning the Fine Structure Constant” by Peter Varlaki, Laszlo Nadai, and Jozsef Bokor, published in Acta Polytechnica Hungarica Vol. 5, No. 2, 2008. Here the authors explore the discourse between C. G. Jung and Wolfgang Pauli regarding the fine structure constant.
[5] Once known as luminiferous Aether, this medium has been renamed and reconceived several times in the development of modern physics. The concept has evolved from ether to an electromagnetic field, to a space-time continuum to a soup of hydrogen plasma and neutrinos.
[6] Ibid, p.80.
[7] When one form of absolutism encounters another form of absolutism, a religious war usually results. This has been our recent experience in the discourse between the Christian west and the Islamic east. If both sides claim that God gave them the right to do what they are doing, there can be no hope of rational dialog until God changes his mind.
[8] See Genesis 1:1.
[9] It is also a founding principle of Taoism, expressed as Yen and Yang.
[10] One cannot make this statement without reference to a few of the more significant works in Chaos Theory. Gleick, James. Chaos, Making a New Science. Penguin Books, 1987. Shaw, Herbert R. Craters, Cosmos, and Chronicles, a New Theory of Earth. Stanford University
[11] See Ecclesiastes 1:6-7. “The wind blows to the south, and goes round to the north; round and round goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again.”
[12] The Matrix Reloaded, screenplay by Andy & Larry Wachowski, April 1999.
[13] See my essay “Scientific Paradigms for the Interpretation of UFOs” published in the August 2009 issue of Infinite Energy.
[14] See Isaiah 6.
[15] “The Second Coming” by William Butler
[16] The Lord’s Prayer, Matt. 6:10
[17] One can examine here the recent popular hysteria posted on the Internet regarding the safety of the Large Hadron Collider.
[18] The new piece, Allele, by Michael Zev Gordon with text by poet Ruth Padel, will be performed by the New London Chamber Choir under the direction of James Weeks.
[19] Note for example the amazing similarities possessed by identical twins separated at birth.
[20] We may note here the profound consequences of even the smallest decisions we make on a daily basis. We have the ability to remake our universe on the basis of the decisions we make.
[21] While we may not control our genomic code, the forces of dynamic chaos swirling around us, or the consequences of our decisions, we are in continual control of the faith systems by which we evaluate these conditions.
[22] Note the perception of numbers held by people who are synesthetically gifted so as to see numbers as shapes or as colors. Daniel Paul Tammet provides an excellent example.
[23] I include here the bibliography of Bourgoin’s recent paper “Fiat Lux” published in the physics server as document number viXra:1007.0007. The references listed here provide the gist of published scientific information on the possibility that physical matter is formed by the energy of light. Bourgoin’s references are as follow:
· Robert Leon Carroll, The Eternity Equation, J.R. Rowell Printing Company, Charleston , South Carolina
· Robert Leon Carroll, The Energy of Physical Creation, Carroll Research Institute, Columbia , South Carolina
· Pamela.roma2.infn.it
· Cynthia Kolb Whitney, “The Neutron: A Challenge for Post-Maxwell Physics”, Hadronic Journal 31, 3, 201-250, 2008.
· Chen Sen nian, “Photon, Charged Particle and Anti-Charged Particle”, Adv. Studies in Theor. Phys. 3, 11, 401-419, 2009.
· Chen Sen nian, “The Formation of Spin in ± Charged Particles and Different Interpretation for the Wave function”, Adv. Studies in Theor. Phys. 4, 12, 565-574, 2010.
· E. Xilouris et al., “Abundant Dust Found in Intergalactic Space”, Astrophysical Journal 651, L107-L110, 2006. (Arxiv:astro-ph/0610027)
· Ron Bourgoin, “Dating the Universe by Intergalactic Dust”, Infinite Energy 15, 90, March-April, 2010.
[24] A convenient connection may be drawn here with I John 1:5 “God is light and in God is no darkness at all.”
[25] W Mind is fully distributed, ubiquitous, omnipresent, in the same way as the various spatial concepts used to describe the cosmic background in physics.
[26] The universe makes sense, therefore W mind must also make sense. See John 1:1, “In the beginning was the word…” This statement by itself belongs more to Gnostic Neo-Platonism more than it belongs to conventional doctrinal Christianity.
[27] See the new book The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, Bantam 2010. Hawking postulates a reasonable universe without requiring a God to make it so.
[28] See Proverbs 8, one of the few places where specifically female imagery is used of the Almighty.
[29] The difficulty remains as to this being a limitation of W mind, or a limitation of our mind.
[30] See Gleick, note #10, for a fuller exposition of the “Butterfly Effect.” The term itself, according to Gleick, was coined by Edward Lorenz in 1963.
[31] See Revelation 1:8 on the image of Alpha and Omega.
[32] This observation is classic Hinduism. All of us travel along the wheel of Samsara, the wheel of life and rebirth. Lest we think this is confined to Hinduism, we can compare James 3:6 which speaks of the “wheel of birth.” Greek ton trocon ths genesews.
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