Occam’s Razor

Destiny’s Unseen Hands

Cosmic forces are pushing me. Yeah, I know it sounds nuts, but it is true. All I know is that something is out there. It is messing with me, hopefully for the good. I do not know how I know, but somehow I know that I was sent on this journey called life, and I know that I have a mission. While I do not know what my mission is, I can infer much of it. If I stray too far from my apparently programmed path, unseen forces will quickly align me back toward the same path.

And it is not just me. I think that it is all of us. I am starting to question just how much free will I really have. I believe that I was meant to come into this life and tackle certain issues. I do not know if I was meant to actually solve them in this life, but I think I am expected to keep earnestly plugging away at them. The means by which to solve them seem largely elusive, which makes the whole process feel very frustrating. Nor can I fully articulate what the issues are. What I perceive my “issues” to be are I think symptoms of some higher issues whose names I cannot identify. The meaning of my life is like a partially constructed jigsaw puzzle. If I can snap a piece or two into the puzzle then I have a better understanding of what the puzzle in time may reveal.

Here is what I have learned in my own situation. You can run, but you cannot hide from your mission. Whatever “it” is, you must work on it. For example, let us suppose that you are unhappy in your marriage. You subsequently divorce, thinking that your spouse’s behavior was the problem. As a divorcee, you are likely to find that there is some underlying issue related to the marriage that still gnaws at you, and it was not your ex-wife. Rather your ex-wife merely brought to the surface some issues inside yourself so you could grapple with them. Perhaps you will ache in loneliness in a degree commensurate with the misery you experienced in the marriage. Perhaps you will seek out someone who you think has different characteristics, only to find that when you remarry that you are facing the same issues all over again. You may even find yourself ping ponging from one relationship to the next looking for the perfect relationship minus the detritus of the last one. Ultimately, you are likely to find that you have issues, your partner has issues, and sanctuary simply does not exist.

Taking overt actions to address specific symptoms do not necessarily solve these hidden issues and agendas that lie within ourselves. At best, actions that address symptoms act like an aspirin and dull the pain. Sometimes they make things much worse. However, the underlying issue remains. The wound remains open.

The baffling parts are figuring out what the real issues are. If you can articulate the underlying issues then you have the challenge of creating a way to address them. Perhaps with a very good therapist you can in time figure out what your problems truly are. However, that does not necessarily mean that you can solve them. No therapist can inhabit your body. At best, they can view your internal life through a translucent pane of glass. They depend on you to faithfully articulate your feelings. If you are equally baffled then it is unlikely that they will be of much lasting help.

So you may feel like I do: that I am grasping at straws. While the status quo may at times feel very painful, it seems like outside forces want you to inhabit this zone. For it seems that we can only learn our most valuable lessons through pain. Progress, when it is made at all, seems to come from embracing the pain rather than avoiding it. This is difficult for most of us to do because it feels so counterintuitive.

One of my issues is control. I like things ordered and predictable. I do not like surprises. I do not like ambiguity. I like to think my life is in reasonable control. I take satisfaction at the end of the month paying all my bills and seeing my net worth slowly creeping up. I want to extend this control into all aspects of my life. Yet it is ultimately futile. For control is really an illusion. Moreover, I cannot really control anything other than myself. I cannot control my wife, daughter or cat. While I like the illusion of having control over myself, in reality even control over myself is an illusion. For I am not just me. I am many beings and aspects at once. Most of the time the logical side is dominant, but sometimes the emotional side takes control. My brain, like yours, is like a massive parallel processor where multiple threads compete for control over my mind and body. Therefore, I think one of my meta-issue is not control, but learning how to give up control. For me death is so disturbing not necessarily because it means the loss of my self. It is disturbing because it exists in a domain beyond my control yet through which I must pass. Perhaps it is this knowledge that is at the root of religion’s popularity.

On rare occasion a puzzle piece does fall into place. For much of my life I felt intellectually intimidated. While I was above average intellectually, I was no mental giant. I perceived myself as less smart than those around me, particularly many of my siblings. I wanted to have a job that was more intellectually challenging and where I got to work on larger issues that had a broader impact. I had a few brushes with failure that suggested this was my natural state. For example, I lost my job in 1988. A few years earlier, I had tried to take a computer course in college and failed. Working in the information systems field without a related degree made me feel vulnerable. Eventually I determined that I had to work up my courage and succeed by earning a graduate degree. I knew it would have to be done while keeping a full time job, caring for my elementary school daughter and keeping my marriage together. Yet I had to do it to achieve balance within myself.

I eventually achieved my goal, much to my relief. The degree did help me achieve a more rewarding career. However, what it really did was give me some confidence in my own abilities to solve a very difficult personal issue. This particular feeling of angst that had permeated about twenty years of my life wholly disappeared. Nevertheless, clearly many other underlying issues remain to be tackled.

I need to figure out what these remaining issues really are. One thing I do know from much experience: I cannot walk away from them for they will continue to shadow me throughout life unless I somehow resolve them. So although I usually don’t know how to tackle them, I must keep making rather fumbling attempts to do so. If I choose to do nothing, I know that destiny will intervene.

January 15th, 2006 at 04:17pm Posted by Mark | Metaphysics | 3 comments
Tags: Mysticism, Religion

What Spirituality Means to Me

This was the topic of my covenant group meeting last night. It seemed an odd topic to spend ninety minutes or so discussing in a church basement.

Being Unitarian Universalists we all had different ideas of what spirituality meant. Many UUs are spiritually vacant. This is after all a denomination that attracts the unchurched and the left-brain dominant types. A typical UU congregation might be a quarter to half full of atheists, agnostics or people with no particular belief in God. So asking a UU what is spirituality might be like asking someone blind from birth to describe colors.

Nonetheless many UUs are spiritual in their own way. Upon reflection I realized I probably was a spiritual creature, just not in the traditional sense of the world. For me spirituality has almost nothing to do with religion. But for most Americans I suspect it is impossible to not talk about spirituality without mentioning religion.

When I am spiritual I generally feel a sense of utter peace, an absence of worry and contentment. I am intimately plugged in to a larger reality that I can neither name nor describe but which is still absolutely real. The cares of the physical world seem to leave me. I feel not just at peace, but I often feel a subtle or even overt joy. I often feel a sense of wonder, and sometimes I sense the fantastic. I hesitate to call this God. To me it is simply that which is normally not perceived.

I have occasionally had spiritual feelings in churches. But it hasn’t happened in any service that I have ever attended. Yet I have felt moments of it inside cathedrals. Some years ago when I took a group of religious education students to the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception here in Washington DC I felt spiritual. Cathedrals are radically altered spaces designed to skew reality and suggest the supernatural. Their gothic arches, their spires, their stained glass, their darkness, their votive candles, their people whispering their prayers, their polished floors and their intricate statues had the effect of making me feel spiritual. I am sure they are designed that way. There is a certain majesty to a cathedral that is difficult to match elsewhere. It is hard for me to feel the real world when in every direction the effect is surreal, ornate and majestic.

As marvelous as cathedrals are they are not nearly as spiritual to me as nature in her finest. Once or twice a year I arrive home to see a spectacular sunset displayed in all its finery with my house as the foreground. It awes me that such exquisite beauty can be a result of such complete randomness. In my travels the beauty of Hawaii is so far unsurpassed. But I have felt similar feelings in other places I’ve visited. Some examples: the Canyon de Chelley in Arizona and watching a plethora of stars arranged against an obsidian background from the back of a cruise ship far out in the Atlantic. But I have also felt spiritual at certain moments during a long and sustained bike ride, with the wind whistling in my ears and coursing through my nostrils. I feel almost attached to the nature around me.

The most spiritual moment of my life so far came from witnessing my daughter’s birth. She was delivered Caesarian section in a cold operating room and pulled out feet first from my wife’s steaming womb. I was humbled. I was awed. I was scared. I was joyful. I was crying. And I loved her with an intensity I have never felt before or since and we didn’t even know each other.

But was this spiritual or just a wash of emotions? For me her birth brought home to me the miracle of life and reproduction. I hesitate to say I experienced God, but I can say it was brought home to me what an amazing place our universe it.

I find spirituality in strange places sometimes. I find it in my cat, who sits now contentedly on my lap and purrs. He too is a miracle. Through him I realize that other species see and react to the world in their own unique ways. When I pet him I realize that not only does it feel good, but also that we truly love each other. We have a mutually supportive relationship.

I often feel like we are seeing at most .001% of reality. We have senses but they are extremely limiting. We cannot see infrared or ultraviolet rays but they are real enough. Most of us are only dully aware of the other life around us, or how utterly pervasive life is on all levels. My backyard is in many ways a botanical wonder, not because I have a huge and diverse garden but because it is such a complex system of its own. On one level it is just a lawn. But on another level there a thousands of species, plants, insects and animals living back there, all mutually dependent on each other for survival. Occasionally I may roll in the grass. But what a different perspective the universe must be to a centipede crawling through my lawn. I wonder what the grub experiences pushing its way through my soil. I wonder what it must be like to be the blacktop on my driveway when the rain falls on it. To get through life we generally tune out such thoughts and think them nonsensical or pointless.

To some extent I think even the rocks in my soil are alive. I just see them living on vast cosmic timescales. Over millennium they too move. I wonder what it is to be a rock under the ground, and to feel the moisture of the soil and the rain permeate it or move around it. I wonder just what life is anyhow. I think it exists on so many different levels but it is only the prison of our own existence that makes it hard to see.

I feel this connectedness of all things. I think on some level we all do. I feel a universe that is alive and multidimensional across space and time. When this connectedness permeates me as a presence, when I feel in touch with its harmony and vibration that’s when I feel spiritual.

That’s what spirituality means to me.

November 16th, 2004 at 09:21pm Posted by Mark | Metaphysics | no comments
Tags: Religion, Spirituality, Unitarian Universalism

Speculations on the Soul

Regular readers will know metaphysics has been on my brain the last few years. Between reading books on quantum mechanics, pondering mystics and gurus and even watching a funky metaphysical movie I can’t seem to escape it. But I haven’t gone off the deep end. Seeing What the Bleep Do We Know? for example hasn’t had me rushing off to learn more about the Ramtha’s School of Enlightenment. I prefer to make sense of fantastic things in my own murky, mysterious way rather than grab one of those prepackaged solutions off the shelf.

Today you get to go on my little roller coaster ride on the nature of soul, and why I think souls exists. Buckle up.

Ironically these thoughts come from being a programmer. To me trying to understand what software really is is very hard. There is no tangible difference between a CD ROM that is formatted or unformatted. Certainly a formatted CD-ROM with software on it can do some amazing stuff when executed by certain classes of computers and certain operating systems. But a formatted CD-ROM weighs no more nor less than an unformatted CD-ROM. The only thing that can be said about it is that its state was subtly changed. Using laser light a small portion of a track on a CD-ROM changes its properties from translucent to opaque. If an opaque value is read then a value is inferred differently than when it is translucent. A floppy disk works in a similar way, except the magnetic voltage of a spot on the disk determines the associated binary value. Neither the floppy disk nor the CD-ROM is really materially changed after encoding. Only its properties are changed so that when a spot is observed (by a recording head) a value is inferred. It remains the same “stuff”. The amount of matter before and after encoding should be identical, except for a tiny loss of matter resulting from friction imposed by the drive.

Now let’s think about our own brains. Neurologists can tell by looking at the brain of a child compared to an adult that there are fewer neural networks in the brain of a child. No surprise there. A child does not have as much experience written to his brain. A child is like a partially written disk. One might even say that upon birth a child is like a formatted disk with just the operating system on it. Over time and through experience a child’s neural network grows. Experience gets encoded. Paths are created in the brain to facilitate more and better memory recall. It’s like a computer in that it gets more software placed on it.

But software by itself is not meaningful. It is only when it interacts with external data and renders results for humans that it becomes valuable. Similarly a brain that knows the complete works of Shakespeare is not useful in itself. But when this knowledge impacts other people, perhaps through the performance of an actor, it takes on meaning.

Brain size reaches its peak around age four. Brain weight peaks out around age 5 and stays stable until you reach age 20. After age 20 the brain’s mass decreases by about a gram or so a year. Like a floppy disk the brain is clearly not indestructible. Over time neurons die, brain cells are replaced and new pathways are created. We constantly program and reprogram ourselves so that we can work more effectively in our environment. The state of our brain constantly changes, just as your computer’s hard disk constantly changes as you process work with it. Eventually though we get a permanent hard sector error that renders the media unusable and we die.

Is there a difference between your brain and your mind? I would say yes. Your brain is an organ that appears to be the center of control for your body and is the repository of your knowledge base. A computer’s brain consists of its hard disk and memory chips. What is your mind exactly? The mind is essentially the direction of will informed through the senses and through the experience encoded in our brains. The computer’s brain is its central processing unit. This is the thing that takes those binary 1s and 0s and manipulates the external environment. It allows the human to experience the work of the computer. Without the CPU the computer is nothing. The hard disk (brain) has no value by itself. But what is our mind really? There is no real answer. My answer begs the question. The mind is a gestalt: “A physical, biological, psychological, or symbolic configuration or pattern of elements so unified as a whole that its properties cannot be derived from a simple summation of its parts.”

Which brings me at last back to metaphysics and my ponderings from the movie What the Bleep Do We Know? The mind, like software, is really virtual. And yet it seems to exists in some sort of medium. Our brain seems to be more than just a large hard disk because it seems the CPU is in there too. The brain’s CPU though is cranking away and providing a show … but where is it exactly? There is no spot in our brain that we can truly identify as our mind. We know if certain parts of the brain are removed or if it is injured enough that we will die. But there is no specific mind organ or gland unless it is the whole thing: the brain as a complete organ. And that doesn’t answer the question of where the mind is. But the evidence seems to be that the mind is not one spot in the brain. Which means it is either some larger thing, or it is not there at all.

We eat. Matter is broken down and energy is released. The energy from food is used to construct new things, like new blood and brain cells. But what is energy? It is not matter. At its root energy is the capacity to do work. And work is “physical or mental effort or activity directed toward the production or accomplishment of something.” Energy is the means to do that which matter itself cannot do. An apple sitting on a shelf cannot do anything. Something must be alive in order to do work. Matter must be transformed into energy for the accomplishment of something, for some act of work to occur and by inference for something to be alive.

We know from Einstein that E=mc². Consequently matter is converted to energy all the time. The reverse is true too: energy is converted back to matter. I would argue that from the human perspective energy is virtual but matter is real. (It’s not that energy is really unreal, it’s just that we can’t perceive it as real because it is intangible to us. And it is intangible because it doesn’t carry a steady state.) You can measure energy but you can’t really contain it separated from matter. Energy in a battery is contained because of the properties of the battery’s matter. It’s a yin and a yang thing. To possess energy we have to see it in the context of its relationship with matter. Perhaps this is because to us only matter feels real and enduring.

Odd, this is the same as my analogy of the mind to the brain. The mind seems virtual because we can’t touch it but the brain seems real because we know it is there. So to me the mind - our minds - our consciousnesses — are in reality just energy. I think it must be a complex form of energy because we are complex compared to most life.

The laws of thermodynamics tell us that neither matter nor energy can be destroyed, they can only be changed from one form to the other. A log burned in our fireplace is not destroyed; its matter is transformed into heat. E=mc² happens right in our fireplace. So if our mind is virtual and is nothing but pure energy, does it make sense to suggest that when we die our consciousness also dies? I don’t think so. It seems unreasonable and flunks my Occam’s Razor test. Yet that seems to be what a lot of us trained in the Western school of thought truly believe in our gut. If we didn’t then the anticipation of death would not be so universally traumatic. When our bodies die the energy wrapped up in keeping the body growing and maintained is released in the form of heat. And since the body can no longer sustain itself entropy asserts itself fully and our bodies decompose.

It may be that upon death that the energy that makes up our consciousness also changes form too. Or, since superstring theory suggests eleven dimensions, perhaps it just slips into one of these other higher vibrational dimensions that we can infer but not detect. It does this I suspect because it can no longer sustain the relationship with our host body that tethers it to our reality. If I am right we will all find out in time. If I am wrong no one will be able to argue with me about it after the experience of death. But there are enough psychics and mediums out there with decent track records not to be able to dismiss all of them as flakes.

That is why after so many years of pondering while I am still scientifically an agnostic I have a faith. While I do not necessarily believe in God in the classical sense I do believe in soul. I believe I have a soul. I believe that my consciousness is an aspect of my soul - my energy. It is intrinsically bound at present to the matter that contains my body. But upon my death it will be free to move elsewhere and perhaps inhabit some future body.

Time seems to be infinite. Space for all practical purposes is also infinite. I think this life is a breath in a much longer series of lives. And though it sounds corny to this agnostic I think we are all on a much larger spiritual journey. Its nature would take our breath away if we could but comprehend it.

October 22nd, 2004 at 07:58pm Posted by Mark | Best of Occam's Razor, Metaphysics | no comments
Tags: Afterlife, Death, Soul

Review: What the Bleep Do We Know?

The movie What the Bleep Do We Know is hard to describe and even harder to review. Ordinarily one would judge a movie on things like the quality of the acting and direction, not by the content of the material or the number or lack of talking heads in the movie. So this won’t be so much a movie review as it will be a discussion on the merits of the arguments that the movie presents. It’s unusual enough a movie that it merits placement both in my Entertainment and Metaphysics archives. I think I can truthfully say you have never seen a movie like this before. It is in a league of its own.

What the Bleep is part story and part documentary. The thesis of the movie is right out of The Matrix movies: that what we perceive as reality is in fact just a simulation of our consciousness. But before you laugh and jump to your next bookmark please know that the movie is full of talking heads, most of whom are very learned scientists steeped in the science of quantum mechanics. You can’t dismiss them out of hand.

Regular blog readers of mine will know that I’ve been fascinated by what I have been learning about quantum physics. I have read Brian Greene’s book The Fabric of the Cosmos, which is all about the nature of reality. In an earlier entry I even speculated that quantum physics might be coming tantalizingly close to merging physics and metaphysics.

At least these physicists seem to be acknowledging that reality is not what we think it to be. The thesis of the movie is that we control the nature of our reality and experience through the direction of our consciousness. On one level we know this to be true. If we drive our car into a brick wall at 60 miles an hour we will likely end up dead. But the movie is suggesting that much like The Matrix that existence is not real because reality is nothing more than consciousness.

It makes you wonder if all these classically trained physicists have been smoking weed. But I truly think they are on to something. I didn’t find anything in the movie inconsistent with what I learned about quantum mechanics from Greene’s book, and Greene is no flake. That is not to say that their speculations are necessarily true, but the more I learn about quantum physics the more inclined I am to believe in the movie’s central thesis.

Alas though the scriptwriters don’t spend much time explaining quantum physics. After a surface overview they throw you right down the rabbit hole. (They use this term enough that they should at least pay some royalties to the producers of The Matrix movies, or maybe the estate of Lewis Carroll.) Deaf actress Marlene Matlin plays a photographer named Amanda who seems to lead a life that gets quantumly challenged. Reality begins to skew more and more. She seems to perceive the reality of pure consciousness behind our “reality”. The story frequently is inter-cut with snippets from interviews with their quantum mechanic experts. (One lady interviewed though is not a physicist at all, but seems to wear the label psychic.) Along with the story and the interviews is a lot of computer-generated imagery that attempts to depict how what we perceive is real may actually be an illusion. The CGI is good but often goes a little overboard in being cute. Yet it does so in a way that gets the vision of the film across.

Yes, this movie is a mind bender. There are certain people who might as well stay away from the movie. If you are a devout believer in any mainstream religion just stay away. You won’t be happy because a number of those interviewed reject the whole assertion of God as an external entity. The thesis seems to be that we are God and consciousness is our reality. In fact if you are fixed in your opinions about anything you might as well stay away. This movie wants to be taken seriously and you have better things to do with your time and money than have your convictions challenged.

For me their thesis is an idea that has been growing in my mind for many years. For now it is a concept I embrace. I add the caveat “for now” because I am always learning new things. As I learn new things what I believe tends to change. As a computer geek I sometimes ponder machines and the nature of software. Like lots of people I can write software that makes computers do things. But what is software anyhow? It is something completely intangible. It is virtual. It is not real. It is really an expression of an idea encoded so that it can be interpreted by a piece of hardware we call a central processing unit (CPU). If software itself is not tangible yet it can make tangible things like computers do useful work then why cannot our consciousness be just as real and alive yet intangible?

And just what is reality anyhow? This film at worst makes for intriguing speculation and at best makes a solid case that nothing may be real but all of existence may be wholly virtual. And if like me you get into the weeds on quantum mechanics and you learn that things we call solids are vastly empty entities comprised of vibrational strings pulsating at different energy frequencies … that really everything that can be perceived is pure energy … and you ask yourself just what is energy anyhow … then consciousness as the force that directs and shapes energy, which in turn forms matter, which in turn forms the boundaries of what we perceive to be reality … it no longer becomes some madman’s fantasy but something with breathtaking possibilities.

So this is not a movie for Joe Sixpack. This is not a movie for anyone set in his or her ways. This is not a movie for the devout. But this is a movie for people who want to stretch their minds.

This is also not a movie for those expecting stellar acting. I was a bit annoyed at times by Marlene Matlin’s acting (although my wife was impressed by her). I was annoyed by bit characters like the young African American lad who wants Amanda to join her in a game of quantum basketball. The special effects were sometimes overpowering and a bit too cute. But this is a movie about making you think and expand your horizons, not a movie out to win Academy Awards. On this level it succeeds very well.

Finding What the Bleep may not be easy. We found it at the Cinema Arts Theater in Fairfax, Virginia. I suspect the reason it is there at all is because after this review in Salon I sent an email to the theater asking them to show the movie. (I didn’t feel like going all the way into Georgetown to see the movie.) It’s on its second week at this theater and seems to be doing well. Eventually it will be released on DVD with lots of background interviews that should allow me to appreciate the breadth of the ideas presented. For now you will have to depend on a little less than two hours of show time to get your high on metaphysical speculation.

I won’t give this movie a rating. All I can say is that I enjoyed the movie. And if any of this sounds interesting or intriguing to you then you will probably find your time in the theater well spent.

October 2nd, 2004 at 09:21pm Posted by Mark | Metaphysics, The Arts | 7 comments
Tags: Movies

My Aura Revealed!

Rose Rosetree is a nationally known face reader, aura reader and empath. If you asked me a few months ago whether anyone would ever read my aura let alone someone rather well known in the field I would have laughed. And yet a strange set of circumstances resulted in a free aura reading by Rose, which I will share with you in a bit.

Rose is the author of a half dozen books and videos on these topics. She travels the world teaching, lecturing and doing readings for various people. At this moment she is either in Los Angeles or Japan, I’m not sure which. She worked in my aura reading on the plane using a picture on my web site. No we have never met. But it wouldn’t be too hard to meet her since when she isn’t traveling she lives about seven miles away in Sterling, Virginia.

Here is how it happened. My good friend Lisa went to visit a Healing Touch practitioner I was acquainted with. Maureen McCracken used to go to the Unitarian Church I attend. For years once a week she practiced her Healing Touch therapy in the basement of the church. Lots of people at the church swore she worked magic on them even though all she did was move her hands over their bodies, never really touching them. She said Healing Touch let her align their chakras. To learn more about chakras, read the extended entry.

I still don’t know how much of this I believe. As someone trained in the scientific method I am a pretty skeptical person. But as I’ve alluded to elsewhere I am much more inclined to believe in metaphysical stuff today than I ever was. So mainly I try to keep an open mind. But I also keep looking over my shoulder for expected scorn from my peers and siblings. Fortunately I’ve developed a pretty thick hide and I don’t care too much what my peers think anymore.

Anyhow I remembered Maureen’s name, found her web site and sent the link to Lisa. At the time she was going through some heavy stuff and needed her chakras seriously realigned. So she goes to Maureen and is very impressed and keeps going back. Lisa, who can’t pass a bookstore or a library without going into it, was soon reading all about Healing Touch and chakras. She started going to classes that were offered locally. Recently she attended Rose Rosetree’s aura reading seminar.

Rose happened to write a review of George W. Bush’s aura for her newsletter that wasn’t flattering. Lisa forwarded it to me knowing a political junkie like me would like it. So I thought, “Hey, the people at DailyKos will read anything if it confirms their opinions about prominent Republicans.” So I posted this diary entry. Lisa told Rose and Rose seemed to appreciate what I did. Some weeks later she did another aura reading on John Kerry so I posted that one too. Okay I confess I did it somewhat hastily and without making sure I had all the right permissions. I subsequently apologized to Rose and all was forgiven. DailyKos members were amused and I think Rose got some free publicity.

As a result of my diligence and interest Rose offered to read my aura for free. I figured the price was right. What did I have to lose? Then I sort of forgot about it since she spent a couple weeks traveling. And today here it pops into my email box.

How well did she read me? I think it’s a pretty accurate reading. But since most of you don’t know me from Adam, you probably don’t care what my aura revealed. But for friends and family members who are curious, keep reading!

September 7th, 2004 at 10:11pm Posted by Mark | Metaphysics | one comment
Tags: Auras, Rose Rosetree

From Physics to Metaphysics

I read Brian Greene’s book The Fabric of the Cosmos for a number of reasons. First I had at best a hazy idea of Einstein’s special and general theories of relativity. For once really wanted to fully understand them. Second, I had heard about string theory (well, really superstring theory) and the uncertainty principle. I was curious to learn a whole lot more. But perhaps the real reason I read the book was that I was hoping that just maybe (in my own mind at least) I could merge the worlds of physics and metaphysics.

Why not? Physicists are hot to validate the grand unification of relativity (the universe at the macro level) with superstring theory (the universe at the subatomic level). It’s their Holy Grail. I can have mine too. Clearly I am not easily intimidated by daunting philosophical and scientific problems, even though I am neither a scientist nor more than an amateur philosopher. I am likely tilting at windmills but someone has to start.

Through Greene’s book I learned that there likely exist 11 (or possibly just 10) dimensions to the universe. Four dimensions we seem to understand as part of the nature of our reality: space (i.e. length, width and height) and time. It is hard for us to conceive of a reality of more than four dimensions because we cannot directly perceive them. But Greene points out that in order for superstring theory to work mathematically and integrate with Einstein’s theories there must be seven more. He generally refers to these dimensions as “curled up” dimensions that are embedded in the energized superstrings. These superstrings vibrate at certain frequencies and in the process take on properties. Some of these properties we can perceive as matter and some of which we can perceive as energy (light, for instance).

But we also know that there is a lot of energy that surrounds us that we cannot directly perceive. We know that the ether of the electromagnetic spectrum surrounds and permeates us. We cannot perceive any but its visible spectrum. We can infer its presence well enough every time we use our cell phones or listen to the radio. Clearly the universe is far more complex than what we can directly observe.

Now let’s get back to metaphysics. Metaphysics is “The branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, substance and attribute, fact and value.” Metaphysics is largely pure speculation and tries to give order and sense to that which lies just beyond science. Arguably a lot of it is nonsense. Most Westerners would probably say that most religions (except their own), horoscopes, palm reading and the like are nonsense. But if you read enough (and I’ve read quite a bit) there are certain areas of common agreement in the metaphysical world that seem almost scientific in nature. I’ve alluded to some of these in other blog entries. For example near death experiences and the high degree of commonality among these experiences have been well researched by academics like Raymond A. Moody, PhD and MD as well as Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, MD. Many of us, including myself, have experienced deja vu. These experience suggests to me that time itself may be an illusion. There are even scientific studies into the psychics that are damned convincing.

Eastern religions have promoted various planes of existence for the soul for millennium. Perhaps the best established of these is the seven planes of existence from the Hinduism and Buddhism traditions. According to these mystics, each plane of existence has its unique attributes and purpose. For example after death we arise to the astral plane where we hang out again until the Masters can figure out which new body we need to inhabit to learn new important spiritual lessons we haven’t mastered. Eventually we are reincarnated and go back to the earthly plane. Assuming we get our karmic lessons right at some point after death we arise from the astral plane to the mental plane, the home of “masters” and “spirit guides”. Maybe at that level we exist to help others trying to complete their karmic experiences. This level maps quite well to many religions versions of heaven, including Christianity to some extent. Both these levels and the experiences anticipated map well with Moody and Kubler-Ross’s research into near death experiences. They also map well as past life regression research by well established clinical hypnotherapists like Michael Newton. Beyond the mental level are the Buddhic, Nirvana, Para Nirvana and finally the God Head levels.

I find a couple interesting things in this aspect of metaphysics.

First, most describe ascending from one plane to the next as moving to a higher “vibrational level”. This is true regardless of how many levels of consciousness a particular spiritual practitioner or guru seems to be promoting.

Second, at least classically there are seven planes of consciousness described. Superstring theory talks about eleven dimensions. Subtract four that amount to our earthly experience and that leaves seven that should exist. Curiously there are seven levels of consciousness promoted by the Hindu-Buddhist philosophies. Subtract one for the existence we can perceive (or for the 11th dimension which according to Greene may not exist) and we get close to or hit the number of dimensions required to validate superstring theory.

Lastly, Greene talks about how superstrings have various properties including very definite differences in vibrational rates. Maybe it means nothing, but both physicists and metaphysicians seem enamored with vibrations and energy levels. Perhaps some of those “curled up” dimensions that Greene and fellow physicists allude to can be mapped to planes of existence?

No doubt most physicists would be surprised by or laugh at my attempt at a comparison here. And I am sure that magazines like The Skeptical Inquirer have published numerous articles on why such theories are bunk. On the other side of the equation there are many in the metaphysical world, particularly those vested in a particular religious faith who will deny any reality outside of their faith’s.

These are thin threads I am suggesting. But there are some commonalities here that should raise eyebrows on both sides of this divide. Both sides are really rushing toward the same goal. The grand unification theory sought by physicists is but a way station toward understanding the mind of God (if God exists). Similarly, the religious and philosophers among us must at some level require the assurance that all those things they are saying are true can be proven objectively true.

All I’m suggesting is I see some threads that perhaps can stitch these two seemingly dissimilar worlds together. I invite those more learned than me to continue this effort. I think we need to wrap our minds around the true nature of existence. If there are curled up dimensions in subatomic particles that can be inferred this strikes me as a wholly fantastic idea. I find it no more fantastic those eastern religions thousands of years old were talking even then about planes of existence that also cannot be seen. Perhaps both sides are speaking a sort of common lingo. My job may be to put them in touch.

August 12th, 2004 at 02:30pm Posted by Mark | Best of Occam's Razor, Metaphysics | 6 comments
Tags: Brian Greene

A Disturbance in the Astrological Force

I am puzzling over what to make of my astrological natal chart. I have an online friend who has really gotten into astrology. She is so enamored that she is taking classes in it and doing charts for her families and friends.

I come from a family where the scientific method and rational thinking reigns supreme. Consequently over the years I’ve tended to act a bit patronizing toward those into astrology. I see it as a largely harmless amusement but I never put any faith in it. I confess that I usually read my horoscope but not until the end of the day (my wife takes the comic section to work with her). Not surprisingly it rarely correlates with my life. It doesn’t help that two astrologers can put out two completely different horoscopes for the same star sign and the same date. But frankly my life is pretty boring. There’s not much guidance any horoscope can give when my day consists of a trek to the office, holding a few meetings and reading a whole lot of email.

It makes no sense to me that the alignment of planets hundreds of millions of miles away would make any difference to who I am as a person. I remember the day my daughter was born at least a dozen others were also filling out the natal unit at Inova Fairfax Hospital. I can’t believe that all these children are all essentially alike. It doesn’t make any sense.

I notice the zodiac is neatly divided into twelve constellations and that the sun appears to stay in each constellation one month. But when I look at star charts this is not the case. Virgo, for example, is a huge constellation occupying a large portion of the zodiac. From the looks of things the sun hangs around Virgo for more than 30 days. Astronomical charts dividing the sky into constellations were doubtless defined thousands of years after astrology took hold. I have also heard that due to leap years and the Julian to Gregorian calendar shift the sun isn’t where astrologers say it is. Indeed technically there are thirteen signs of the zodiac, since the sun passes through Ophiuchus (the serpent holder) between November 30th and December 17th. (For the real deal, see a this link.)

But anyhow my friend Linda worked on my natal chart. The results caused a disturbance in the force. To wit, I was disturbed by how uncannily accurate the thing was. In comparing the Venn diagram between who I am and my natal chart there was about a ninety percent intersection. Yikes!

I realize that the whole thing is subjective. Astrological natal charts can be read, filtered and interpreted in many ways. But even discounting all of this I was more than a little creeped out by my chart. Does it really matter that the Sun was in Aries at 10:10 AM on the day I was born? Or Jupiter was in opposition to my ascendant (whatever that means)? Or the Sun was sextile to Saturn? I guess anything is possible.

I don’t know a whole lot about astrology. I do know it is a very ancient practice (my friend insists it is a science) about as old as human history. I am sure in the early consciousness of mankind the fact that planets were not locked in the sky had mystical importance to people who didn’t have TV or books to occupy their minds. In their minds why wouldn’t these strange external and far away forces have some sort of godlike influence on our behavior?

So how do I explain my natal chart? I could say it is coincidence. I could say I am the sort to readily believe things that others say or write about me. I could take it I am easily flattered. I could say that astrology may appear to be nonsense but there is some underlying truth to it regardless.

But I do have my own theory. I have no belief that the alignment of the stars or planets controls my destiny. But I often wonder if mankind has some sort of larger evolving consciousness. Just as our brain has its primitive areas such as the brain stem, perhaps there is a primordial area of the larger consciousness of mankind. And that primordial part believed in astrology, so it projects this perspective on the evolving brain of mankind. In other words because there are enough people believing in astrology for so very long, and because it was impressed on us in tangible and intangible ways for many millennium it may leave an impression on us as individuals.

Or perhaps it is just one of these bizarre mysteries that will never be explained. I’ll keep reading my horoscope but taking it with a grain of salt.

March 14th, 2004 at 12:14pm Posted by Mark | Metaphysics | no comments
Tags: Astrology

The Illusion of Time

This article in Thursday’s Washington Post intrigued both my wife and I. It is a synopsis of a conversation between a reporter (Joel Achenbach) and Brian Greene, a theoretical physicist. This physicist, like many in the business, is working hard trying to validate string theory.

Hold on! Before you roll you eyes and click elsewhere this is actually incredibly exciting stuff. Physicists are closer than ever to being able to understand the most fundamental mysteries of life. The implications are mind-boggling.

One of the more controversial theories — which increasingly is being accepted by these theoretical physicists — is that which we call time is just an illusion. A lot of people feel the same way but physicists like Greene say it can be inferred from Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity. Past, present and future are all equally real and timeless. But what is real? It is apparently not what we think, at least according to physicists like Greene. Space is real. Mass and energy are real. Gravity is real. But time is probably just an illusion.

I won’t bother to explain their logic since I am not a theoretical physicist. But the article (while it exists in its free form online) is worthy of reading. Physicists are not snake oil salesmen. They are scientists. They are trained to be skeptical. They are trained to use the scientific method and to work out the mathematical proofs. All the pieces are not in place yet to tie together Einstein’s discoveries on the relationship between matter, energy and time and the subatomic world. But it’s not unreasonable to suggest that sometime during our lifetimes this question may be answered.

So we are going to purchase his book “The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality” this weekend. We will see what we as laymen can glean from such a sharp and insightful mind. But it is interesting how sometimes the scientific world can intersect with the spiritual and metaphysical world. This may be one of those times. In the future these two universes, often perceived to be polar opposites, may turn out to be unified after all too.

In my metaphysical reading I consistently learn that after death we live in what amounts to a timeless state of energy. In that state we can review our life as many times as we want and run it back and forth like a tape recorder. I read about astral planes and astral beings and how after death we move out of the physical plain into the next astral plain and possibly into many more. I have one friend who assures me that she has through meditation already moved into an astral plain or two.

I don’t know how much of this stuff to believe. But I tend to believe it a lot more when I hear respected theoretical physicists make aspects of it look very plausible. Those of you who have browsed through my metaphysics archive will recall an early entry on deja vu. You will recall how creeped out I was by these experiences and how on some level I know they are true. Now perhaps theoretical physicists are agreeing with me that deja vu is what I think it is: some part of my mind is aware of my future in what I perceive to be the present.

If time is an illusion what exactly is a life anyhow? The only thing that works for me is that it is an experience. Perhaps we are all trills. A trill in Star Trek is an intelligent species that lives inside another intelligent “host” species such as a human. Perhaps our individual energy is what we call a soul, and our body is the mechanism for experience. And one aspect of our body is that because of the way it is constructed it has the attribute of perceiving time.

Perhaps one life is like a breath or a heartbeat in a larger life. Perhaps we glean what knowledge and understanding we can from our symbiot (the body) then depart and jump into another world, another body and another experience.

If time does not really exist then perhaps we experience a multitude of lives all at once. Perhaps we are everything and everyone. Perhaps part of me … of us really … is President Bush. Perhaps I am also Bill Clinton. Perhaps I was also Mother Teresa. Perhaps I am the cat on my lap at the moment and he is also me. (Maybe that’s why it feels so nice.) Perhaps we are all one entity. Perhaps I am you reading this, and you are me writing this. Perhaps we truly are just an aspect in the mind of God … which means we are God.

Perhaps we are all the same thing and yet all completely different. Perhaps we truly are Yin and Yang. Perhaps we are modeling infinite diversity in infinite universes and infinite times all in a timeless place we call the now.

I hope it is so. There would be no reason to fear death. Every life would be truly part of a great and much larger adventure. And my ramblings are not complete fantasy. Because with time likely to be an illusion and with Einstein’s Theory of Relativity demonstrating that we are all intrinsically connected and related we are neither dead nor alive. We simply are: different and the same, spawning colors in a gigantic universal kaleidoscope. And it is the relationship of all these colors that is the greater truth and beauty. And it is the relationship and the larger abstract picture that is this thing we call love.

March 12th, 2004 at 08:57pm Posted by Mark | Metaphysics | no comments
Tags: Quantum Physics, Time

My Altered State Experience

I’ve been getting a lot less sleep than normal over the last two weeks. Our daughter Rosie has a substantial part in a local production of the musical Scrooge. This has meant lots of weeknight rehearsals for her ending late. Unfortunately I still had to work, which meant getting her home between 10 and 11 p.m., making sure she took a bath and got all her medicine, putting myself to bed, then getting up at 5 a.m. the following morning. For some people five hours of so of a restless sleep a night is plenty. It’s not enough for me apparently. I’ve felt like a dead man walking a lot recently.

Yesterday though was one of my earned days off. (I get one every two weeks by working an extra hour a day.) I looked forward to having some downtime. Instead of getting up at 5 a.m. though I got up at 6 a.m. Someone had to insure that my indefatigable daughter also got up and shuffled off to school. Terri usually does this but since I was home I felt it was my turn. Once I’m up I can’t usually go back to sleep, but yesterday morning was different. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. So after Rosie was off for her bus and after my wife left for work I slipped under the covers again hoping for sleep but not expecting to get any. To improve the odds (I am very light and sound sensitive) I tightly closed the curtains, put on a pair of night blinders and pulled the covers up over me.

I reached a certain point where I was nearly asleep when I realized I still needed to get up in a couple hours to meet a friend for lunch, and I hadn’t set the alarm. Unable to summon the will to set it I put in a mental wakeup call to myself. And then amazingly I did drift off.

I wasn’t sure how long I was slept. I don’t remember dreaming a thing but my little mental alarm clock went off. It was time to get up, or at least check the clock. I issued instructions to my body to get myself up. I thought I pushed myself up in bed and grabbed my night blinders … but I was not up and I couldn’t see a thing!

What the hell was going on? This was very bizarre and had never happened to me before. I tried again. I told my body “I got to get up RIGHT NOW! Muscles, swing into action!” But nothing happened.

I felt very creeped out at this point. I went through this scenario several times. I felt myself getting up. I felt myself removing my night blinders. But nothing was happening. I was not up at all. I could see nothing.

Now I was not just feeling creepy, I was getting more than a little scared. Just what kind of state was I in? Was I dead? I could see nothing. I could feel nothing. I couldn’t move a muscle. All I knew was I wanted to do something and I couldn’t get my body to respond. I couldn’t even feel my body.

I kept trying over and over again: get up and remove the blinders! After a half dozen attempts or so finally something happened and I was sitting up in bed and really pulling my blinders off. My heart was racing. About ninety minutes had passed. I stumbled into the bathroom.

What the hell had just happened? I still have no idea. My wife says it was just a dream. But it was more than that. At least it felt like it was more than that. I really felt like I was in some sort of altered state.

If this has ever happened to you, please let me know!

December 13th, 2003 at 06:37pm Posted by Mark | Metaphysics | 3 comments
Tags: Cats, Pets

I’m a Karmic Facilitator!

As you may know I teach courses in web page design at Northern Virginia Community College. It’s a part time job I’ve been doing for a few years as a way to keep myself busier and current on my industry. Sad to say as a federal employee I am not supposed to touch much computer code. We are paid to be project managers, or “Contracting Officers Technical Representatives” to use the government term. By this slim thread I seem to be able to hang on to my federal job. This means, for the moment at least, I can’t be contracted out because my work is inherently governmental. Given the Bush Administration’s push to contract out everything, I am not hopeful that this will always be the case.

Anyhow although I am supposed to direct work all day I am still expected to be “up” on all things in the IT (information technology) world. That one can’t be up on IT without actually doing the work doesn’t seem to faze our management. The way things work in government you can easily hold two or more totally conflicting ideas at the same time. It doesn’t work in Dilbert’s world but it’s SOP for the government. So I decided to teach. Partly I do it because it’s enjoyable, partly because I want to keep up on my industry in a meaningful way, and partly because even with 20 years of federal service I don’t believe for a moment that my talents and my job are not expendable. I’ve seen too much evidence to the contrary. I’m hopeful that if I’m downsized this strategy will keep me on my feet, or at least provide sufficient income so I’m not living in a mobile home.

I usually teach on Saturday mornings and teach two classes a year for sums that would amount to less than the minimum wage if I measured how much time I actually spent on the class. I am currently on the cusp of completing the current class on Advanced Web Page Design, and give a final exam tomorrow. The final project was due last Saturday. Naturally a couple students missed the deadline entirely and naturally they want to submit the project late. I could be hard nosed and yes I do penalize late project submissions but it’s the same pattern every semesters. Students have to push the envelope. If I haven’t put the grade in the campus computer they figure there is still wiggle room.

How does all this tie into karma? Karma, as regular readers here know is a force I have come to believe in. It occurred to me yesterday that as a teacher I cause a lot of karmic incidents. Whether it turns out to be good karma or bad karma depends on the student and me. I think I generated some bad karma for my students in the past, and perhaps I am generating more with my last minute students. But a class is literally and metaphorically a test. Can you make a certain benchmark? Do you have the skills and perseverance it takes to pass a class and to get a certain grade? There is not much ambiguity to it. You either master the skills you need to master, like reading, studying and doing the projects, or you don’t. A teacher is certainly a facilitator for mastering these skills but inevitably it comes back to the student. They have to summon up the right stuff inside themselves to get through the course.

Oh and it’s a roller coaster ride for a lot of them. And when it’s a roller coaster ride for them it’s also a roller coaster ride for the teacher. I’ve been accused by my own students of various faults, some likely deserved, some not. I don’t claim to be a perfect teacher. I try to improve my teaching with every class I teach. But inevitably I must make the judgment about what constitutes passing and what doesn’t. It’s never an easy call. My standards are fairly high and I don’t compromise them lightly to spare some students some bad feelings.

Last semester I had a lady who ended up failing the class. She came to every class dutifully. She hung out to the end. She turned in homework that was always wrong and never even came close to being right. I asked to talk with her. I tried to get her on the right course. But she was totally lost. She had barely mastered the keyboard, let alone the complexities of HTML. I had to flunk her. I didn’t like to do it but I had to do it. Maybe she’ll learn a lesson as a result. Maybe she’s not cut out for college or maybe she will summon the will from within to perhaps start at a more elementary course and work her way up.

So I cause a lot of karmic stress in my students’ lives. It’s part of the system but that’s part of what teachers are there for, I guess. The knowledge I impart is certainly an important thing for any student to get when they take a class. But the enduring lesson is whether they have the right stuff to keep focused and move forward despite tendencies toward laziness in many students, despite perhaps having to work a lot of overtime, despite having to juggle a spouse and/or a family. If nothing else my class provides a vehicle for them to figure out where their priorities really lie. Since I end up at the end of the semester with about half the students I started out with (many drop the class, or elect to audit the course and don’t bother to return) it appears that education is pretty far down their list of priorities.

Live and learn. Lesson taught regardless of grade.

May 2nd, 2003 at 11:57am Posted by Mark | Metaphysics | no comments
Tags: Community Colleges, Education