Some have concluded that now, after centuries of hard and brave effort, the single right path to knowledge is clear: evidence-based theory. "What the [atheist] does...really have now...is a monopoly of legitimate forms of knowledge about the world:...the advantages of having an actual explanation of things and processes...," wrote Adam Gopnick in The New Yorker (2014).
It's said that that this recent development makes the possibility of multiple universes more likely, meaning that everything must happen sometime in one universe or another. Our particular universe may just be one random instance of all that could possibly happen---more confirmation for certain 'hard facts' we're going to have to accept: "nature in itself is morally and aesthetically neutral, neither benevolent nor cruel, neither beautiful nor ugly," as put into words by Catherine Wilson (1995).
Indeed often it seems so, but this seems to me rather a more metaphysical conclusion than a scientific. Many things have been scientifically established; others are not. The body of 'legitimate' knowledge will grow as it will. The God-in-love framework doesn't make any assertions about that. Rather, it recognized the fact that, living, we have to take the risk of trusting what isn't settled yet. The God-in-love framework is offered as a working model to be tested in the living out of it.
There are a number of still very open 'why' questions that this framework addresses:
1.Why any universe(s) at all?
(the desire of God-in-love toward a Beloved other, perhaps one per planet, perhaps one per universe, perhaps only one ever.)
2. Why is this universe so interesting?
(the activity of God-in-love managing the 'explore/exploit temperature' of universe to foster complexity)
3.Why do ideas, math for instance, or poetry, exist?
(the activity of God-in-love managing the 'explore/exploit temperature' of universe to foster complexity)
3.Why do ideas, math for instance, or poetry, exist?
(the creation and exploration of possibility space by God-in-love)
4. Why are hospitality, friendship and exploration good things?
4. Why are hospitality, friendship and exploration good things?
(the attitude of God-in-love toward the Beloved)
5. Why is the future is open and positive?
(love affairs such as between God-in-love and the beloved Other are ever open and evolving)
Questions like these are less physical than metaphysical, so their answers can't be used to explain, for instance, why any accident happened where and when it did. Nor can they be expected to generate testable predictions (like the polarization of the cosmic microwave background). They can, however, without denigrating the methods or findings of science, tell us why it is important that we are alive and, one day, will have lived.
(love affairs such as between God-in-love and the beloved Other are ever open and evolving)
Questions like these are less physical than metaphysical, so their answers can't be used to explain, for instance, why any accident happened where and when it did. Nor can they be expected to generate testable predictions (like the polarization of the cosmic microwave background). They can, however, without denigrating the methods or findings of science, tell us why it is important that we are alive and, one day, will have lived.
We can think of the activity of God-in-love as operating in four ongoing modes which manifest sequentially. The first mode, starting before the beginning, involves creating and formatting raw possibility space in the conceptual realm. The second involves fostering complexity in the physical realm by adjusting the explore/exploit temperature. This is probability space, versus possibility, because the material world is never self-contradictory.
The third phase is one in which God-in-love operates in the 2nd person mode to and through those beings, we among them, open 2nd consciousness. The fourth phase, the world to come, will have its own mode including all the above and something more. Perhaps this fourth phase is manifesting gradually or will do so suddenly. Each of these modes of activity has its own potentiality, energy and power; and we can open and be open to all.
(Formatting possibilities: the floppy disk analogy. Low level formatting prepares the basic medium, in this case, the disk surface.Partitioning makes the device visible to the operating system.High level formatting generates a file system in preparation for the storage of files So, what if a cosmic field consisting of all imaginable, though perhaps not yet imagined ideas, was progressively possibility-formatted, that is, prepared for the retention of realized possibilities, the actual content of those possibilities to be discovered over the course of time. By realization, I mean articulation, as in the form of mathematical equations or poetic insights, as well as physical construction.)
Of course, Adelard and Abelard lived in a twelfth century in certain ways truly benighted and we, in a twenty first century, are, about many things, truly enlightened. One thing we have in common is the fact that human beings and what they create and learn are always standing at the beginning of a journey that is sure to surprise, sure to challenge. The question quest continues.
The third phase is one in which God-in-love operates in the 2nd person mode to and through those beings, we among them, open 2nd consciousness. The fourth phase, the world to come, will have its own mode including all the above and something more. Perhaps this fourth phase is manifesting gradually or will do so suddenly. Each of these modes of activity has its own potentiality, energy and power; and we can open and be open to all.
(Formatting possibilities: the floppy disk analogy. Low level formatting prepares the basic medium, in this case, the disk surface.Partitioning makes the device visible to the operating system.High level formatting generates a file system in preparation for the storage of files So, what if a cosmic field consisting of all imaginable, though perhaps not yet imagined ideas, was progressively possibility-formatted, that is, prepared for the retention of realized possibilities, the actual content of those possibilities to be discovered over the course of time. By realization, I mean articulation, as in the form of mathematical equations or poetic insights, as well as physical construction.)
Of course, Adelard and Abelard lived in a twelfth century in certain ways truly benighted and we, in a twenty first century, are, about many things, truly enlightened. One thing we have in common is the fact that human beings and what they create and learn are always standing at the beginning of a journey that is sure to surprise, sure to challenge. The question quest continues.
No comments:
Post a Comment